And you shall see

A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,

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.

KING.

Dear Henrietta!

 

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, – our God

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,

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 favour 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.

LAUD.

Much more such »mercy« among men would be,

Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge

Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I

Could suffer what I would inflict.

 

Exit Bastwick guarded.

 

Bring up

The Lord Bishop of Lincoln. –

 

To Strafford.

 

Know you not

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 favour,

Who grew beneath his smile –

LAUD.

Would therefore bag

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

. . . . . . .

 

Scene IV.

Hampden, Pym, Cromwell, his Daughter, and young Sir Harry Vane.

 

HAMPDEN.

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?

VANE.

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.

HAMPDEN.

Hail, fleet herald

Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide

Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,

Beyond the shot of tyranny,

Beyond the webs of that swoln spider ...

Beyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?]

Of atheist priests! 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,

Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land!

Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer

Of sunset, through the distant mist of years

Touched by departing hope, 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 unstained 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,

To the poor 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 their veil

Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green

The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;

This vaporous horizon, whose dim round

Is bastioned 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 wall.

The boundless universe

Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul

That owns no master; while the loathliest ward

Of this wide prison, England, is a nest

Of cradling 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 on thoughts that cannot die

And cannot be repelled.

Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time,

They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop

Through palaces and temples thunderproof.

 

Scene V.

ARCHY. I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of

 

»A widow bird sate mourning

Upon a wintry bough.«

 

[Sings]

 

Heigho! the lark and the owl!

One flies the morning, and one lulls the night: –

Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,

Sings like the fool through darkness and light.

 

»A widow bird sate mourning for her love

Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

 

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.«

 

.