. . . . . . .

When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear,

And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping

As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts

Waken to worship Him who giveth joys

With His own gift.

SECOND CITIZEN.

How young art thou in this old age of time!

How green in this gray world? Canst thou discern

The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint

Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art

Not a spectator but an actor? or

Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?

The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,

Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done, –

Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found

My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still

Be journeying on in this inclement air.

Wrap thy old cloak about thy back;

Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road,

Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust,

For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First

Rose like the equinoctial sun, ...

By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil

Darting his altered influence he has gained

This height of noon – from which he must decline

Amid the darkness of conflicting storms,

To dank extinction and to latest night

There goes

The apostate Strafford; he whose titles whispered aphorisms

From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas

Had been as brazen and as bold as he –

FIRST CITIZEN.

That

Is the Archbishop.

SECOND CITIZEN.

Rather say the Pope:

London will be soon his Rome: he walks

As if he trod upon the heads of men:

He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold; –

Beside him moves the Babylonian woman

Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,

Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,

Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

THIRD CITIZEN lifting up his eyes.

Good Lord! rain it down upon him! ...

Amid her ladies walks the papist queen,

As if her nice feet scorned our English earth.

The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be

A dog if I might tear her with my teeth!

There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,

Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,

And others who make base their English breed

By vile participation of their honours

With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates.

When lawyers masque 'tis time for honest men

To strip the vizor from their purposes.

A seasonable time for masquers this!

When Englishmen and Protestants should sit dust on their dishonoured heads,

To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt

For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven and foreign overthrow.

The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort

Have been abandoned by their faithless allies

To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer

Lewis of France, – the Palatinate is lost –

 

Enter Leighton (who has been branded in the face) and Bastwick.

 

Canst thou be – art thou –?

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 custom

Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths

On May-day.

A man who thus twice crucifies his God

May well his brother. – In my mind, friend,

The root of all this ill is prelacy.

I would cut up the root.

THIRD CITIZEN.

And by what means?

SECOND CITIZEN.

Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib.

THIRD CITIZEN.

You seem to know the vulnerable place

Of these same crocodiles.

SECOND CITIZEN.

I learnt it in

Egyptian bondage, sir. 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,

Though wicked counsels now pervert his will:

These once cast off –

SECOND CITIZEN.

As adders cast their skins

And keep their venom, so kings often change;

Councils 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!

A MARSHALSMAN.

Give place

To the Marshal of the Masque!

A PURSUIVANT.

Room for the King!

THE YOUTH.

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

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,

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 –

A MARSHALSMAN.

Place, give place!

 

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,

Though Justice guides the stroke.

Accept my hearty thanks.

QUEEN.

And gentlemen,

Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant

Rose on me like the figures of past years,

Treading their still path back to infancy,

More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer

The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept

To think I was in Paris, where these shows

Are well devised – such as I was ere yet

My young heart shared a portion of the burthen,

The careful weight, of this great monarchy.

There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure

And that which it regards, no clamour lifts

Its proud interposition.

In Paris ribald censurers dare not move

Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;

And his smile

Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do

If ... Take my heart's thanks: add them, gentlemen,

To those good words which, were he King of France,

My royal lord would turn to golden deeds.

ST. JOHN.

Madam, the love of Englishmen can make

The lightest favour of their lawful king

Outweigh a despot's.