LEIGHTON

I was Leighton: what

I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,

And with thy memory look on thy friend's mind, Which is unchanged, and where is written deep The sentence of my judge.

THIRD CITIZEN

Are these the marks with which

Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon

him,

The impious tyrant!

SECOND CITIZEN

It is said besides

That lewd and papist drunkards may profane
The Sabbath with their

And has permitted that most heathenish cus

THIRD CITIZEN

You seem to know the vulnerable place
Of these same crocodiles.

SECOND CITIZEN

Egyptian bondages, sir.

I learned it in

Your worm of Nile

Betrays not with its flattering tears like they;
For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep.
Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodies

As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow
In slime as they in simony and lies

And close lusts of the flesh.

A MARSHALSMAN

Give place, give place!

You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate,
And then attend the Marshal of the Masque
Into the royal presence.

A LAW STUDENT

What thinkest thou

Of this quaint show of ours, my aged friend? Even now we see the redness of the torches Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions [Gasp?] to us on the wind's wave. It comes! And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant, Rouse up the astonished air.

FIRST CITIZEN

I will not think but that our country's wounds May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious,

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?

SECOND CITIZEN

I and thou..

Place, give place!

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,