The lamps which, half-extinguish'd in their haste,
Gleam'd few and faint o'er the abandon'd feast,
Show'd as it were within the vaulted room
A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom
Had pass'd out of men's minds into the air.
Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,
Friends and relations of the dead, and he,
A loveless man, accepted torpidly
The consolation that he wanted not,-
Awe in the place of grief within him wrought.
Their whispers made the solemn silence seem
More still-some wept, [
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Some melted into tears without a sob,
And some with hearts that might be heard to throb
Leant on the table, and at intervals
Shudder'd to hear through the deserted halls
And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came
Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame
Of every torch and taper as it swept
From out the chamber where the women kept;-
Their tears fell on the dear companion cold
Of pleasures now departed; then was knoll'd
The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,
And findrig death their penitent had shrived,
Return'd like ravens from a corpse whereon
A vulture has just feasted to the bone.
And then the mourning women came.—
What thinkest thou of this quaint masque, which turns
Like morning from the shadow of the night,
The night to day, and London to a place
Of peace and joy?
And they seem hours, since in this populous street
I trod on grass made green by summer's rain,
For the red plague kept state within that palace
Where now reigns vanity-in nine years more
The roots will be refresh'd with civil blood;
And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven
That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan's cry,
The patience of the great Avenger's ear.
THIRD SPEAKER (a youth).
Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden
By God or man;-'tis like the bright procession
Of skiey visions in a solemn dream
From which men wake as from a paradise,
And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers
Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?
O, kill these bitter thoughts, which make the present Dark as the future!
CHARLES THE FIRST.
A FRAGMENT.
London will be soon his Rome: he walks
As if he trod upon the heads of men.
He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;-
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman
Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is join'd in sin,
Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge
ANOTHER CITIZEN (lifting up his eyes).
Good Lord! rain it down upon him. [ ]
Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,
As if her nice feet scorn'd our English earth.
The Pageant to [celebrate] the arrival of the Queen. There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,
PLACE, for the Marshal of the Masque!
Lord Essex, and Lord-Keeper Coventry,
And others who make base their English breed By vile participation of their honors
Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows.
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin,-unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to its cold hard bosom. Here is health
Follow'd by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold
At once the sign and the thing signified-
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling shapes, carted with dung,
I crave permission of your Majesty
To order that this insolent fellow be
Chastised he mocks the sacred character,
Scoffs at the stake, and—
What, my Archy!
He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,
Yet with a quaint and graceful license-Prithee
For this once do not as Prynne would, were he
Primate of England.
He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot,
Hung in his gilded prison from the window
Of a queen's bower over the public way,
Blasphemes with a bird's mind:-his words, like arrows
Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit,
Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.
Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence
Ten minutes in the rain: be it your penance
To bring news how the world goes there. Poor Archy!
He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of this wreck of ours.
I take with patience, as my master did, All scoffs permitted from above.
My lord, Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words Had wings, but these have talons.
That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord,
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Arm'd to strike dead the spirit of the time.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou had still remain'd
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer!
And opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,
And be that temper'd 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,
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 worshipp'd state.
* And if this suffice not,
Unleash the sword and fire, that 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 messengers of wrath,
Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong,
Should be let loose against innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields,
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride,
Where indeed it were Christian charity
To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand:
And when our great Redeemer, when our God
Is scorn'd in his immediate ministers,
They talk of peace:
Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now.
Have you not noted that the fool of late
Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words
Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears?
What can it mean? I should be loth to think
Some factious slave had tutor'd him.
That our minds piece the vacant intervals
Of his wild words with their own fashioning;
As in the imagery of summer clouds,
Or coals in the winter fire, idlers find
The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts:
And partly, that the terrors of the time
Are sown by wandering Rumor in all spirits;
And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind.
Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts;
Come, I will sing to you; let us go try
These airs from Italy,-and you shall see
A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,
Stamp'd on the heart by never-erring love;
Liker than any Vandyke ever made,
A pattern to the unborn age of thee,
Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy
A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,
Did I not think that after we were dead
Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that
The cares we waste upon our heavy crown
Would make it light and glorious as a wreath
Of heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.
HAMPDEN, PYM, CROMWELL, and the younger VANE.
England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave!
I held what I inherited in thee,
As pawn for that inheritance of freedom
Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile :-
How can I call thee England, or my country?
Does the wind hold?
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 Sailing athwart St. Margaret's.
Hail, fleet herald
Of tempest! that wild pilot who shall guide
Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,
Beyond the shot of tyranny! And thou,
Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic,
Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm,
Bright as the path to a beloved home,
O light us to the isles of th' evening land!
Like floating Edens, cradled in the glimmer
Of sunset, through the distant mist of years
Tinged by departing Hope, they gleam. Lone regions,
Where power's poor dupes and victims, yet have
The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;
This vaporous horizon, whose dim round
Is bastion'd by the circumfluous sea,
Repelling invasion from the sacred towers,
Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate,
A low dark roof, a damp and narrow vault:
The mighty universe becomes a cell
Too narrow for the soul that owns no master.
While the lotheliest spot
Of this wide prison, England, is a nest
Of cradled peace built on the mountain-tops,
To which the eagle-spirits of the free,
Oh! would that I could claim exemption
From all the bitterness of that sweet name!
I loved, I love, and when I love no more,
Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair
To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,
The embodied vision of the brightest dream,
Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;
The shadow of his presence made my world
A paradise. All familiar things he touch'd,
All common words he spoke, became to me
Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.
Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest;
He came, and went, and left me what I am.
Alas! Why must I think how oft we two
Have sate together near the river springs,
Under the green pavilion which the willow
Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,
Strewn by the nurslings that linger there,
Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,
While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson
Shower'd on us, and the dove mourn'd in the pine,
Sad prophetess of sorrows not our own.
Your breath is like soft music, your words are
The echoes of a voice which on my heart
Sleeps like a melody of early days.
But as you said-
He was so awful, yet
So beautiful in mystery and terror,
Calming me as the loveliness of heaven
Soothes the unquiet sea :-and yet not so,
For he seem'd stormy, and would often seem
A quenchless sun mask'd in portentous clouds;
For such his thoughts, and even his actions were;
But he was not of them, nor they of him,
But as they hid his splendor from the earth.
Some said he was a man of blood and peril,
And steep'd in bitter infamy to the lips.
More need was there I should be innocent,
More need that I should be most true and kind,
And much more need that there should be found one
To share remorse, and scorn and solitude,
And all the ills that wait on those who do
The tasks of ruin in the world of life.
He fled, and I have follow'd him.
February, 1822.
THERE was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor
any could the restless griefs unravel
Which burn'd within him, withering up his prime,
Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world And goading him, like fiends, from land to land.
And thou lovest not? if so, Young as thou art, thou canst afford to weep.
Not his the load of any secret crime,
For naught of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same;-
Not his the thirst for glory or command,
What he dared do or think, though men might start, On souls like his, which own'd no higher law He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes;
Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,
And to his many friends-all loved him well-
Whate'er he knew or felt, he would impart,
If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurn'd nor hated: though with fell
And mortal hate their thousand voices rose, They past like aimless arrows from his earNor did his heart or mind its portal close
To those or them, or any whom life's sphere May comprehend within its wide array. What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?
He knew not. Though his life, day after day, Was failing like an unreplenish'd stream, Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay,
Than love; love calm, stedfast, invincible
By mortal fear or supernatural awe;
And others,-""Tis the shadow of a dream
Which the veil'd eye of memory never saw,
"But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream Through shatter'd mines and caverns underground Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam
"Of joy may rise, but it is quench'd and drown'd In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure. Soon its exhausted waters will have found
"A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure, O Athanese-in one so good and great, Evil or tumult cannot long endure."
So spake they: idly of another's state Babbling vain words and fond philosophy; This was their consolation; such debate
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