ION; A TRAGEDY. 15 



Low at thy feet, and kneeling here receive 

 Forgiveness ; do not crush me with more love 

 Than lies in the word " pardon." 

 Ion . And that word 



I will not speak ; what have I to forgive ? 

 A devious fancy, and a muscle raised 

 Obedient to its impulse ! Dost thou think 

 The tracings of a thousand kindnesses, 

 Which taught me all I guess'd of brotherhood, 

 Are in the rashness of a moment lost ? 

 Phocion. I cannot look upon thee ; let me go, 



And lose myself in darkness. 



Ion. Nay, old playmate, 



We part not thus the duties of my state 

 Will shortly end our fellowship ; but spend 

 A few sweet minutes with me. Dost remember 

 How in a night like this we climb'd yon walls, 

 Two vagrant urchins, and with tremulous joy 

 Skimm'd through these statue-border' d walks that gleam'd 

 In bright succession ? Let us tread them now ; 

 And think we are but older by a day, 

 And that the pleasant walk of yesternight 

 We are to-night retracing. Come, my friend! 

 What, drooping yet ! thou wert not wont to seem 

 So stubborn cheerily, my Phocion come ! [Exeunt. 



The last act of the play, especially in the parting interview with 

 Clemanthe, exhibits very finely and boldly the calm but mighty 

 struggle of the gentler and more tender emotions of his nature with 

 his stern and unalterable resolution of self-sacrifice. This solemn 

 moment arrives : Ion is led to his throne by the priest ; and after 

 issuing a few orders to certain individuals, thus addresses the assem- 

 bled nation : 



Ion. Prithee no more, Argives ! I have a boon 

 To crave of you ; whene'er I shall rejoin 

 In death the father from whose heart in life 

 Stern fate divided me, think gently of him ! 

 For ye who saw him in his full-blown pride 

 Knew little of affections crushed within, 

 And wrongs which frenzied him ; yet never more 

 Let the great interests of the state depend 

 Upon the thousand chances that may sway 

 A piece of human frailty ! Swear to me 

 That ye will seek hereafter in yourselves 

 The means of sovereign rule : our narrow space, 

 So happy in its confines, so compact, 

 Needs not the magic of a single name 

 Which wider regions may require to draw 

 Their interests into one ; but, circled thus, 

 Like a bless'd family by simple laws, 

 May tenderly be governed ; all degrees 

 Moulded together as a single form 

 Of nymph-like loveliness, which finest chorda 

 Of sympathy pervading shall suffuse 

 In times of quiet with one bloom, and fill 

 With one resistless impulse, if the hosts 

 Of foreign power should threaten. Swear to me 

 That ye will do this ! 



Afecton. Wherefore ask this now? 



Thou shalt live long," 



