LAUD. I take with patience, as my master did, All scoffs permitted from above. King. My Lord, Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words Had wings, but these have talons. QUEEN. And the lion 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. - - - - LAUd. 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.

-

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 loth to think
Some factious slave had tutor'd him.

Kin G.
It partly is,

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 Rumour 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 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.

king.

Dear Henrietta!

- - -

scene iii. Hampden, Pym, Caomwell, and the younger WANE.

in Anippen.
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 :

wANE.

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.

H.A.M. Piden.

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 sun-set, through the distant mist of years
Tinged by departing Ilope, they gleam. Lone regions,
Where power's poor dupes and victims, yet have never
Propitiated the savage fear of kings
with purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew
Is yet unstain'd with tears of those who wake
To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns;
whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo
Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites
Wrest man's free worship from the God who loves,
Towards the worm who envies us his love;
Receive thou young [. } of Paradise,
These exiles from the old and sinful world !
This glorious clime, this firmament whose lights
Dart mitigated influence through the veil
of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green

The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;
This vaporous horizon, whose dim round
ls 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 loathliest 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,
Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the

storm Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood over the [ J thoughts That cannot die, and may not be repelled. - - -

FRAGMENTS FROM AN UNFINISHED DRAMA.

He came like a dream in the dawn of life,
He fled like a shadow before its noon;
He is gone, and my peace is turn'd to strife,
And I wander and wane like the weary moon.
O sweet Echo wake,
And for my sake
Make answer the while my heart shall break

But heart has a music which Echo's lips,
Though tender and true, yet can answer not;
And the shadow that moves in the soul's eclipse
Can return not the kiss by his now forgot;
Sweet lips' he who hath
On my desolate path
Cast the darkness of absence worse than death !

indi An. And if my grief should still be dearer to me Than all the pleasure in the world beside, Why would you lighten it?— l, A DY. I offer only That which I seek, some human sympathy In this mysterious island. the iN DIAN. Oh! my friend, My sister, my beloved! what do I say? My brain is dizzy and I scarce know whether I speak to thee or her. Peace, perturbed heart! I am to thee only as thou to mine, The passing wind which heals the brow at noon, And may strike cold into the breast at night, Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most, Or long soothe could it linger. But you said You also loved. LA dy. Loved Oh, I love. Methinks This word of love is fit for all the world, And that for gentle learts another name Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns. I have loved. th E 1 NdiAN. And thou lovest not? if so Young as thou art, thou canst afford to weep.

Lalor. 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. Ile 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. 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 of we two Have sate together near the river sprints, 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 slowers and moss, While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson* Shower'd on us, and the dove mourn'd in the Piut, Sad prophetess of sorrows not our own. in pian. 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— L.A. in Y.

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 wo: But he was not of them, nor they of him, But as they hid his splendour 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 * And much more need that there should be to 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.

PRINCE ATHANASE, A finaGMENT. PAfrt 1.

There was a youth, who, as with toil and to Had grown quite weak and grey before his time; Nor any could the restless briefs unravel

Which burn'd within him, withering up his o And goading him, like fiends, from land to lan". Not his the load of any secret crime,

For nought of ill his heart could understand, But pity and wild sorrow for the sameNot his the thirst for glory or command,