Though wicked counsels now pervert his will.
These once cast off

SECOND CITIZEN

As adders cast their skins

And keep their venom, so kings often change;
Counsels and counsellors hang on one another,
Hiding the loathsome . .

Like the base patchwork of a leper's rags.

THE YOUTH

Oh, still those dissonant thoughts! - List how the

music

Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches
Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided
Like waves before an admiral's prow!

How glorious! See those thronging chariots Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind, Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths

133 how the, Rossetti || loud, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

140-141:

some are

Like curved shells, dyed by the azure depths.

Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon; And some like cars in which the Romans climbed (Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread) The Capitolian! See how gloriously

The mettled horses in the torchlight stir

Their gallant riders, while they check their pride,
Like shapes of some diviner element

Than English air, and beings nobler than
The envious and admiring multitude.

SECOND CITIZEN

Ay, there they are

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 her cold, hard bosom. Here is health
Followed 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 jades, carted with dung,

171 jades, Rossetti || shapes, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentment, and bring up the rear
Of painted pomp with misery!

THE YOUTH

'Tis but

The anti-masque, and serves as discords do
In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers
If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw;

Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself
Without the touch of sorrow?

Place, give place!

SECOND CITIZEN

I and thou.

A MARSHALSMAN

SCENE II. A Chamber in Whitehall.

Enter the KING, QUEEN, LAUD, LORD STRAFFORD, LORD COTTINGTON, and other Lords; ARCHY; also ST. JOHN, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

KING

Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept

This token of your service; your gay masque
Was performed gallantly. And it shows well
When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]
With the sharp thorns that deck the English

crown.

A gentle heart enjoys what it confers,
Even as it suffers that which it inflicts,

Though Justice guides the stroke.

Accept my hearty thanks.

QUEEN

And, gentlemen,

Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant

Rose on me like the figures of past years,
Treading their still path back to infancy,
More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer
The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept
To think I was in Paris, where these shows
Are well devised such as I was ere yet
My young heart shared a portion of the burden,
The careful weight, of this great monarchy.

There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure
And that which it regards, no clamor lifts

Its proud interposition.

In Paris ribald censurers dare not move

Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;

And his smile

Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do
If... Take my heart's thanks; add them, gentle-

men

To those good words which, were he King of

France,

My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.

ST. JOHN

Madam, the love of Englishmen can make
The lightest favor of their lawful king

17 My young heart shared with

the task, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Outweigh a despot's. We humbly take our leaves, Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

[Exeunt ST. JOHN and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

KING

My Lord Archbishop.

Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes?
Methinks it is too saucy for this presence.

ARCHY

Yes, pray your Grace look for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations; and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there.

STRAFFORD

A rod in pickle for the Fool's back!

ARCHY

Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for Fool sees .