To bring news how the world goes there.
He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of the wreck of ours.
I take with patience, as my Master did,
All scoffs permitted from above.
Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words Had wings, but these have talons.
That wears them must be tamed.
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Armed to strike dead the spirit of the time,
Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve, 129
And it were better thou hadst still remained
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer ;
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,
And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,
And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels, 140
Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle
In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream Out of our worshipped state.
God is my witness that this weight of 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, 160 And last of death. . . .
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,
And all that makes the age of reasoning man
More memorable than a beast's, depend on
this-
That Right should fence itself inviolably
With power; in which respect the state of
England
From usurpation by the insolent commons 170
Cries for reform.
Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin
The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies
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
Of nights and days unborn, bring some 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
Philip the second of Spain, this Lewis of
And late the German head of many bodies,
And every petty lord of Italy,
Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her
Tamer than they? or shall this island be―
[Girdled] by its inviolable waters-
To the world present and the world to come
Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy ?
Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.
Your words shall be my deeds:
You speak the image of my thought. My friend
(If kings can have a friend, I call thee so),
Beyond the large commission which belongs
Under the great seal of the realm, take this :
And, for some obvious reasons, let 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 at questionable means.
Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall
Between thee and this world thine enemy-
That hates thee, for thou lovest me.
No friend but thee, no enemies but thine:
Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.
How weak, how short, is life to pay . .
Your Majesty has ever interposed,
In lenity towards your native soil,
Between the heavy vengeance of the Church And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming
This brood of northern vipers in your bosom. The rabble, instructed no doubt
By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false 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 pre
Let ampler powers and new instructions. be
Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.
To death, imprisonment, and confiscation,
Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred
Of the offender, add the brand of infamy,
Add mutilation: and if this suffice not,
Unleash the sword and fire, and in their thirst
They may lick up that scum of schismatics.
I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring
What we possess, still prate of christian peace,
As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers
Which play the part of God 'twixt right and
wrong
Should be let loose against the innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields,
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride,
Where it indeed were christian charity
To turn the cheek even to the smiter's 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
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