Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled? I speak it not as touching this poor person; 50 Enter BISHOP WILLIAMS guarded. STRAFFORD. "Twere politic and just that Williams taste The bitter fruit of his connexion with The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop, Who owed your first promotion to his favour, Who grew beneath his smile LAUD. Would therefore beg 61 The office of his judge from this High Court,- WILLIAMS. Peace, proud hierarch! I know my sentence, and I own it just. Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve, In stretching to the utmost * SCENE IV. HAMPDEN, PYM, CROMWELL, his Daughter, and young SIR HARry Vane. HAMPDEN. England, farewell! thou who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave! As pawn for that inheritance of freedom VANE. The vanes sit steady Upon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke, Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. Mark too that flock of fleecy-winged clouds IO HAMPDEN. Hail, fleet herald Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide Beyond the webs of that swoln spider . . Of atheist priests! And thou 20 Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic, Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, Where power's poor dupes and victims yet have never Propitiated the savage fear of kings With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; 30 Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo To the poor worm who envies us his love! of Paradise, These exiles from the old and sinful world! Dart mitigated influence through their veil green The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth; Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul 41 That owns no master; while the loathliest ward Of this wide prison, England, is a nest Of cradling peace built on the mountain tops,To which the eagle spirits of the free, 51 Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die And cannot be repelled. Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time, They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop Through palaces and temples thunderproof. SCENE V. ARCHY. I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and court the tears shed on its old roots (?), as the [wind?] plays the song of "A widow bird sate mourning Upon a wintry bough." (Sings) Heigho! the lark and the owl! One flies the morning, and one lulls the night : Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, Sings like the fool through darkness and light. "A widow bird sate mourning for her love IO Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound." THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.1 SWIFT as a spirit hastening to his task Of darkness fell from the awakened EarthThe smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth Of light, the Ocean's orison arose, To which the birds tempered their matin lay. All flowers in field or forest which unclose Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear The form and character of mortal mould, Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear 1 It was on this poem that Shelley was engaged at the time of his death. See vol. i, pages lx and lxi. -ED. |