Amelia appears alone, talking to herself.
A. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs and
silent walks! it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul,
wrapt in deep mediating, pours forth its prayer. Here I wander upon
the stage of mortality, since the world hath turned against me.
Those whom I believed to be my friends, alas! are now my enemies,
planting thorns in all my paths, poisoning all my pleasures,
and turning the past to pain. What a lingering catalogue of sighs
and tears lies just before me, crowding my aching bosom with
the fleeting dream of humanity, which must shortly terminate.
And to what purpose will all this bustle of life, these agitations
and emotions of the heart have conduced, if it leave behind it
nothing of utility, if it leave no traces of improvement? Can it
be that I am deceived in my conclusions? No, I see that I have
nothing to hope for, but everything for fear, which tends to drive
me from the walks of time.
Oh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,
To lash the surge and bluster in the skies,
May the west its furious rage display,
Toss me with storms in the watery way.
(Enter Gracia.)
G. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter of opulence,
of wisdom and philosophy, that thus complaineth? It cannot be you
are the child of misfortune, speaking of the monuments of former ages,
which were allotted not for the reflection of the distressed,
but for the fearless and bold.
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