QUEEN

My beloved lord,

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 loath to think
Some factious slave had tutored him.

KING

Oh, no!

He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis
That our minds piece the vacant intervals
Of his wild words with their own fashioning;
As in the imagery of summer clouds,
Or coals of 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.

QUEEN

Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try

These airs from Italy; and, as we pass

The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio

Shall hang the Virgin Mother

With her child, born the King of heaven and earth,
Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see
A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,

484 It partly is, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.
488 of, Rossetti || in, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Stamped 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.

Dear Henrietta!

KING

SCENE III. The Star Chamber. LAUD, JUXON, STRAFFORD, and others, as Judges. PRYNNE, as a Prisoner, and then BASTWICK.

LAUD

Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick; let the clerk

Recite his sentence.

CLERK

"That he pay five thousand

Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded
With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead,
And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle
During the pleasure of the Court."

LAUD

Prisoner,

If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak.

JUXON

If you have aught to plead in mitigation,

Speak.

BASTWICK

Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I

Were an invader of the royal power,
A public scorner of the word of God,
Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious,
Impious in heart and in tyrannic act,
Void of wit, honesty and temperance;
If Satan were my lord, as theirs,
Pattern of all I should avoid to do;
Were I an enemy of my God and King
And of good men, as ye are ; I should merit
Your fearful state and gilt prosperity,

our God

Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall

turn

To cowls and robes of everlasting fire.

But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not
The only earthly favor ye can yield,
Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,
Scorn, mutilation and imprisonment.

Even as my Master did,

Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth,
Or earth be like a shadow in the light

Of Heaven absorbed. Some few tumultuous years
Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes
His will whose will is power.

LAUD

Officer, take the prisoner from the bar,
And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

BASTWICK

While this hand holds a pen

LAUD

Be his hands

JUXON

Stop!

Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can

speak

No terror, would interpret, being dumb,

Heaven's thunder to our harm;

And hands, which now write only their own shame

With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away.

Much more such "

be,

LAUD

mercy" among men would

Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge
Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I
Could suffer what I would inflict.

That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds

Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln,
Were found these scandalous and seditious letters
Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled?

I speak it not as touching this poor person;

But of the office which should make it holy,
Were it as vile as it was ever spotless.

Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes
His Majesty, if I misinterpret not.

Enter BISHOP WILLIAMS guarded

STRAFFORD

'Twere politic and just that Williams taste
The bitter fruit of his connection with

The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop,
Who owed your first promotion to his favor,
Who grew beneath his smile

LAUD

Would therefore beg

The office of his judge from this High Court, -
That it shall seem, even as it is, that I,
In my assumption of this sacred robe,
Have put aside all worldly preference,
All sense of all distinction of all persons,
All thoughts but of the service of the Church. -
Bishop of Lincoln !

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