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396 WILLIAM CONGREVE [ACT II
I'll catch it ere it goes, and grasp her shade.
'Tis life! 'tis warm! 'tis shel 'tis she herself!
Nor dead nor shade, but breathing and alive!
It is Almeria, 'tis, it is my wife!
Enter HELI.
Leon. Alas, she stirs not yet, nor lifts her eyes.
He too is fainting.—Help me, help me, stranger,
Whoe'er thou art, and lend thy hand to raise
These bodies.
Heli. Ha! 'tis he! and with Almeria!
O miracle of happiness! O joy
Unhoped for! does Almeria live!
Osm. Where is she?
Let me behold and touch her, and be sure
'Tis she; show me her face, and let me feel
Her lips with mine.—'Tis she, I'm not deceived;
I taste her breath, I warmed her and am warmed.
Look up, Almeria, bless me with thy eyes;
Look on thy love, thy lover, and thy husband.
Aim. I've sworn I'll not wed Garcia; why d'ye force me?
Is this a father?
Osm. Look on thy Alphonso.
Thy father is not here, my love, nor Garcia:
Nor am I what I seem, but thy Alphonso.
Wilt thou not know me? Hast thou then forgot me?
Hast thou thy eyes, yet canst not see Alphonso?
Am I so altered, or art thou so changed,
That seeing my disguise, thou seest not me?
Aim. It is, it is Alphonso! 'tis his face,
His voice! I know him now, I know him all.
O take me to thy arms, and bear me hence,
Back to the bottom of the boundless deep,
To seas beneath, where thou so long hast dwelt.
O how hast thou returned? how hast thou charmed
The wildness of the waves and rocks to this?
That thus relenting, they have given thee back
To earth, to light and life, to love and me.
Osm. Oh I'll not ask, nor answer how, or why
We both have backward trod the paths of fate,
To meet again in life; to know I have thee,
Is knowing more than any circumstance
Or means by which I have thee.