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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,
And it were better thou hadst still remained
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 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,
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.

KING

Beloved friend,

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 humors
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,
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
Cries for reform.

Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin
The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies
Opposing factions, be thyself of none;

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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

storms

Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, And late the German head of many bodies,

And every petty lord of Italy,

Is England poorer

Quelled or by arts or arms.
Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power
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.

KING

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 honor 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.

STRAFFORD

I own

No friend but thee, no enemies but thine;
Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.
How weak, how short, is life to pay-

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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 presence.-
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, 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 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
Salvation to the extremest generation
Of men innumerable, they talk of peace!
Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland 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,

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245 arbitrating messengers, Rossetti || messengers of wrath, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

256 ministers, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

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