the outlaw.
37
With garments all disorder'd, as if with travel,
Pray'd at the porch to gain a quick admittance;
And being denied, produced this dust-soil'd billit.
And bade us, by the love we bore his daughter,
To place it safe within the Duke's own hand.
Duke. [Takes the letter.] My Isabella!
My poor, wretched child, it is thine hand;
Oh! would thou wert with thy old father.
[Reads.] Six thousand marks———
Ah! perchance to endow a convent.
[To Page.] Bid my steward give six thousand marks,
With quick dispatch, unto the messenger.
[Exit Page.
My child, could'st thou not serve thy God as well
In comforting thy lone and aged parent?
My son an outlaw; daughter thus immured,
Within a convent's cold and cheerless walls.
Oh! what are wealth and rank but glittering toys,
Without one child to bid my heart rejoice!
Pray'd at the porch to gain a quick admittance;
And being denied, produced this dust-soil'd billit.
And bade us, by the love we bore his daughter,
To place it safe within the Duke's own hand.
Duke. [Takes the letter.] My Isabella!
My poor, wretched child, it is thine hand;
Oh! would thou wert with thy old father.
[Reads.] Six thousand marks———
Ah! perchance to endow a convent.
[To Page.] Bid my steward give six thousand marks,
With quick dispatch, unto the messenger.
[Exit Page.
My child, could'st thou not serve thy God as well
In comforting thy lone and aged parent?
My son an outlaw; daughter thus immured,
Within a convent's cold and cheerless walls.
Oh! what are wealth and rank but glittering toys,
Without one child to bid my heart rejoice!
