Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

God is my witness that this weight of Of nights and days unborn, bring some

power, Which he sets me my earthly task to

wield

Under his law, is my delight and pride
Only because thou lovest that and me.
For a king bears the office of a God
To all the under world; and to his God
Alone he must deliver up his trust,
Unshorn of its permitted attributes.
[It seems] now as the baser elements
Had mutinied against the golden sun
That kindles them to harmony, and
quells

Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million

Strike at the eye that guides them; like

as humours

Of the distempered body that conspire Against the spirit of life throned in the

heart,

And thus become the prey of one another, And last of death

Strafford. That which would be
ambition in a subject

Is duty in a sovereign; for on him,
As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,
Whose safety is its strength. Degree

and form,

[ocr errors]

one chance,

Or war or pestilence or Nature's self,
By some distemperature or terrible sign,
Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves.
Nor let your Majesty

Doubt here the peril of the unseen event.
How did your brother kings, coheritors
In your high interest in the subject earth,
Rise past such troubles to that height of
power

Where now they sit, and awfully serene Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms

Philip the second of Spain, this Lewis of France,

And late the German head of many bodies,

| And every petty lord of Italy, Quelled or by arts or arms.

poorer

Is England

Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her

power

Tamer than they? or shall this island

be

[Girdled] by its inviolable watersTo the world present and the world to

come

And all that makes the age of reasoning Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy?

man

More memorable than a beast's, depend On this that Right should fence itself

inviolably

Not if thou dost as I would have thee do. King. Your words shall be my deeds: You speak the image of my thought. My friend

With power; in which respect the state (If kings can have a friend, I call thee of England

so),

From usurpation by the insolent commons Beyond the large commission which Cries for reform. belongs

Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee Under the great seal of the realm, take with coin this:

The loudest murmurers; feed with jeal- And, for some obvious reasons, let

ousies

Opposing factions,-be thyself of none; And borrow gold of many, for those who lend

Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus

Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay, Till time, and its coming generations

there be

No seal on it, except my kingly word
And honour as I am a gentleman.
Be as thou art within my heart and
mind--

Another self, here and in Ireland:
Do what thou judgest well, take amplest
license,

And stick not even

means.

Hear me, Wentworth.

a wall

at questionable To death, imprisonment, and confisca

tion,

My word is as Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred

Between thee and this world thine Of the offender, add the brand of in

[blocks in formation]

This brood of northern vipers in your Which touches our own profit or our

bosom.

The rabble, instructed no doubt

pride,

Where it indeed were Christian charity By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false To turn the cheek even to the smiter's Argyll

(For the waves never menace heaven until

Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny),

Have in the very temple of the Lord Done outrage to his chosen ministers. They scorn the liturgy of the holy Church,

Refuse to obey her canons, and deny The apostolic power with which the Spirit

Has filled its elect vessels, even from him

Who held the keys with power to loose and bind,

To him who now pleads in this royal presence.

Let ampler powers and new instructions

be

Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.

hand:

And, when our great Redeemer, when our God,

When he who gave, accepted, and retained,

Himself in propitiation of our sins,
Is scorned in his immediate ministry,
With hazard of the inestimable loss
Of all the truth and discipline which is
Salvation to the extremest generation
Of men innumerable, they talk of peace!
Such peace as Canaan found, let Scot-

land now:

For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,

Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command

To his disciples at the passover That each should sell his robe and buy a sword,

Once strip that minister of naked wrath, And it shall never sleep in peace again

Till Scotland bend or break.

King.

bishop,

Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends My Lord Arch- For the worshipped father of our com

mon country,

Do what thou wilt and what thou canst With contributions from the catholics,

[blocks in formation]

If loyal hearts could turn their blood to
gold.

Laud. Both now grow barren: and
I speak it not

As loving parliaments, which, as they
have been

For every petty rate (for we encounter
A desperate opposition inch by inch
In every warehouse and on every farm),
Have swallowed up the gross sum of In the right hand of bold bad mighty

[blocks in formation]

So that, though felt as a most grievous The scourges of the bleeding Church, I

hate.

Upon the land, they stand us in small Methinks they scarcely can deserve our

Scourge

[blocks in formation]

And a forced loan from the refractory city,

[blocks in formation]

Thou perfect, just, and honourable man! Will fill our coffers: and the golden Never shall it be said that Charles of

[blocks in formation]

Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;

Nor will he so much misbecome his
throne

As to impoverish those who most adorn
And best defend it. That you urge,
dear Strafford,
Inclines me rather-

Queen.

ment ?

We must begin first where your Grace
leaves off.

Gold must give power, or――
Laud.
I am not averse
From the assembling of a parliament.
Strong actions and smooth words might
teach them soon

The lesson to obey. And are they not
To a parlia- A bubble fashioned by the monarch's

mouth,

Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt pre- The birth of one light breath? If they

[blocks in formation]

And tears and terror, and the pity of Intend to sail with the next favouring

[blocks in formation]

presenting them bitter physic the last

Lucifer was the first republican.
Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how day of the holidays.

three posts

"In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,

Shall sail round the world, and come back again:

Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull,

Queen. Is the rain over, sirrah?
King.
When it rains

And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to

morrow:

And therefore never smile till you've done crying.

Archy. But 'tis all over now: like

And come back again when the moon the April anger of woman, the gentle

is at full:"

When, in spite of the Church,

They will hear homilies of whatever

length

Or form they please.

sky has wept itself serene.

Queen. What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?

Archy. Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow So please your Majesty in the sky. Let your Majesty look at to sign this order

Cottington.

For their detention.

Archy. If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man?

it, for

"A rainbow in the morning

Is the shepherd's warning;' and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast.

King. The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy;

King. If fear were made for kings, and the shepherd, the wolves for their

the Fool mocks wisely;

But in this case- (writing).

my lord, take the warrant,

Here,

And see it duly executed forthwith.That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished.

[Exeunt all but KING, QUEEN,

and ARCHY.

Archy. Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty with out waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfthnight Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud-who would reduce a verdict of "guilty, death," by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for

|

watchdogs.

Queen. But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.

Archy. Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.-The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops, . . . and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven- like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet.

Queen. Who taught you this trash,

sirrah?

Archy. A torn leaf out of an old

« PredošláPokračovať »