Chapter XLVIII: Prologue: To Hellas (2)

SEMICHORUS 2: Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn Through many an hostile Anarchy! _990 At length they wept aloud, and cried, 'The Sea! the Sea!' Through exile, persecution, and despair, Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair: _995 But Greece was as a hermit-child, Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built To woman's growth, by dreams so mild, She knew not pain or guilt; And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble _1000 When ye desert the free-- If Greece must be A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, And build themselves again impregnably In a diviner clime, _1005 To Amphionic music on some Cape sublime, Which frowns above the idle foam of Time.

SEMICHORUS 1: Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made; Let the free possess the Paradise they claim; Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed _1010 With our ruin, our resistance, and our name!

SEMICHORUS 2: Our dead shall be the seed of their decay, Our survivors be the shadow of their pride, Our adversity a dream to pass away-- Their dishonour a remembrance to abide! _1015

VOICE WITHOUT: Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends The keys of ocean to the Islamite.-- Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled, And British skill directing Othman might, Thunder-strike rebel victory. Oh, keep holy _1020 This jubilee of unrevenged blood! Kill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape!

SEMICHORUS 1: Darkness has dawned in the East On the noon of time: The death-birds descend to their feast _1025 From the hungry clime. Let Freedom and Peace flee far To a sunnier strand, And follow Love's folding-star To the Evening land! _1030

SEMICHORUS 2: The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset's fire: The weak day is dead, But the night is not born; _1035 And, like loveliness panting with wild desire While it trembles with fear and delight, Hesperus flies from awakening night, And pants in its beauty and speed with light Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. _1040 Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free! Guide us far, far away, To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day Thou art hidden From waves on which weary Noon _1045 Faints in her summer swoon, Between kingless continents sinless as Eden, Around mountains and islands inviolably Pranked on the sapphire sea.

SEMICHORUS 1: Through the sunset of hope, _1050 Like the shapes of a dream. What Paradise islands of glory gleam! Beneath Heaven's cope, Their shadows more clear float by-- The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, _1055 The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe Burst, like morning on dream, or like Heaven on death, Through the walls of our prison; And Greece, which was dead, is arisen!

NOTE: _1057 dream edition 1822; dreams editions 1839.

CHORUS: The world's great age begins anew, _1060 The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. _1065

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep _1070 Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. _1075 A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy _1080 Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time _1085 Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose _1090 Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. _1095

Oh, cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, _1100 Oh, might it die or rest at last!

NOTES: _1068 his edition 1822; its editions 1839. _1072 Argo]Argos edition 1822. _1091-_1093 See Editor's note. _1091 bright editions 1839; wise edition 1829 (ed. Galignani). _1093 unsubdued editions 1839; unwithstood edition 1829 (ed. Galignani).

NOTES.

(1) THE QUENCHLESS ASHES OF MILAN [L. 60].

Milan was the centre of the resistance of the Lombard league against the Austrian tyrant. Frederic Barbarossa burnt the city to the ground, but liberty lived in its ashes, and it rose like an exhalation from its ruin. See Sismondi's "Histoire des Republiques Italiennes", a book which has done much towards awakening the Italians to an imitation of their great ancestors.

(2) THE CHORUS [L. 197].

The popular notions of Christianity are represented in this chorus as true in their relation to the worship they superseded, and that which in all probability they will supersede, without considering their merits in a relation more universal. The first stanza contrasts the immortality of the living and thinking beings which inhabit the planets, and to use a common and inadequate phrase, "clothe themselves in matter", with the transience of the noblest manifestations of the external world.

The concluding verses indicate a progressive state of more or loss exalted existence, according to the degree of perfection which every distinct intelligence may have attained. Let it not be supposed that I mean to dogmatise upon a subject, concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any similar assertions. The received hypothesis of a Being resembling men in the moral attributes of His nature, having called us out of non-existence, and after inflicting on us the misery of the commission of error, should superadd that of the punishment and the privations consequent upon it, still would remain inexplicable and incredible. That there is a true solution of the riddle, and that in our present state that solution is unattainable by us, are propositions which may be regarded as equally certain: meanwhile, as it is the province of the poet to attach himself to those ideas which exalt and ennoble humanity, let him be permitted to have conjectured the condition of that futurity towards which we are all impelled by an inextinguishable thirst for immortality. Until better arguments can be produced than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself must remain the strongest and the only presumption that eternity is the inheritance of every thinking being.

(3) NO HOARY PRIESTS AFTER THAT PATRIARCH [L. 245].

The Greek Patriarch, after haying been compelled to fulminate an anathema against the insurgents, was put to death by the Turks.

Fortunately the Greeks have been taught that they cannot buy security by degradation, and the Turks, though equally cruel, are less cunning than the smooth-faced tyrants of Europe. As to the anathema, his Holiness might as well have thrown his mitre at Mount Athos for any effect that it produced. The chiefs of the Greeks are almost all men of comprehension and enlightened views on religion and politics.

(4) THE FREEDMAN OF A WESTERN POET-CHIEF [L. 563].

A Greek who had been Lord Byron's servant commands the insurgents in Attica. This Greek, Lord Byron informs me, though a poet and an enthusiastic patriot, gave him rather the idea of a timid and unenterprising person. It appears that circumstances make men what they are, and that we all contain the germ of a degree of degradation or of greatness whose connection with our character is determined by events.

(5) THE GREEKS EXPECT A SAVIOUR FROM THE WEST [L. 598].

It is reported that this Messiah had arrived at a seaport near Lacedaemon in an American brig. The association of names and ideas is irresistibly ludicrous, but the prevalence of such a rumour strongly marks the state of popular enthusiasm in Greece.

(6) THE SOUND AS OF THE ASSAULT OF AN IMPERIAL CITY [LL. 814-15].

For the vision of Mahmud of the taking of Constantinople in 1453, see Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", volume 12 page 223.

The manner of the invocation of the spirit of Mahomet the Second will be censured as over subtle. I could easily have made the Jew a regular conjuror, and the Phantom an ordinary ghost. I have preferred to represent the Jew as disclaiming all pretension, or even belief, in supernatural agency, and as tempting Mahmud to that state of mind in which ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensations through the confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and the excess of passion animating the creations of imagination.

It is a sort of natural magic, susceptible of being exercised in a degree by any one who should have made himself master of the secret associations of another's thoughts.

(7) THE CHORUS [L. 1060].

The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of wars, etc., may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign. It will remind the reader 'magno NEC proximus intervallo' of Isaiah and Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil which we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps approaching state of society in which the 'lion shall lie down with the lamb,' and 'omnis feret omnia tellus.' Let these great names be my authority and my excuse.

(8) SATURN AND LOVE THEIR LONG REPOSE SHALL BURST [L. 1090].

Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of innocence and happiness. ALL those WHO FELL, or the Gods of Greece, Asia, and Egypt; the ONE WHO ROSE, or Jesus Christ, at whose appearance the idols of the Pagan World wore amerced of their worship; and the MANY UNSUBDUED, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America, certainly have reigned over the understandings of men in conjunction or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power, who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of the Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well known.

NOTE ON HELLAS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at the beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a signal to Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose to declare the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium to the foot of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty, early in 1821 the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at first their coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a people long enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa threw off the yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful imitation, the people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave the conge to their sovereign, and set up a republic.

Tuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian minister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging their imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, 'I do not know whether these sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall directly have sixty thousand start up.' But, though the Tuscans had no desire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they slumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian revolutions with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was warm in every bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the Neapolitans would offer no fit resistance to the regular German troops, and that the overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act as a decisive blow against all struggles for liberty in Italy.

We have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance was alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the peaceful triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion of freedom in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals, as, if it prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the example. Happily the reverse has proved the fact. The countries accustomed to the exercise of the privileges of freemen, to a limited extent, have extended, and are extending, these limits. Freedom and knowledge have now a chance of proceeding hand in hand; and, if it continue thus, we may hope for the durability of both. Then, as I have said--in 1821--Shelley, as well as every other lover of liberty, looked upon the struggles in Spain and Italy as decisive of the destinies of the world, probably for centuries to come. The interest he took in the progress of affairs was intense. When Genoa declared itself free, his hopes were at their highest. Day after day he read the bulletins of the Austrian army, and sought eagerly to gather tokens of its defeat. He heard of the revolt of Genoa with emotions of transport. His whole heart and soul were in the triumph of the cause. We were living at Pisa at that time; and several well-informed Italians, at the head of whom we may place the celebrated Vacca, were accustomed to seek for sympathy in their hopes from Shelley: they did not find such for the despair they too generally experienced, founded on contempt for their southern countrymen.

While the fate of the progress of the Austrian armies then invading Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of "Hellas" is dedicated. Prince Mavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence of his country which filled the hearts of many of his countrymen. He often intimated the possibility of an insurrection in Greece; but we had no idea of its being so near at hand, when, on the 1st of April 1821, he called on Shelley, bringing the proclamation of his cousin, Prince Ypsilanti, and, radiant with exultation and delight, declared that henceforth Greece would be free.

Shelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two odes dictated by the warmest enthusiasm; he felt himself naturally impelled to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that people whose works he regarded with deep admiration, and to adopt the vaticinatory character in prophesying their success. "Hellas" was written in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he overcomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant materials. His prophecies, indeed, came true in their general, not their particular, purport. He did not foresee the death of Lord Londonderry, which was to be the epoch of a change in English politics, particularly as regarded foreign affairs; nor that the navy of his country would fight for instead of against the Greeks, and by the battle of Navarino secure their enfranchisement from the Turks. Almost against reason, as it appeared to him, he resolved to believe that Greece would prove triumphant; and in this spirit, auguring ultimate good, yet grieving over the vicissitudes to be endured in the interval, he composed his drama.

"Hellas" was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:--

'But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea Of thought and its eternity.'

And again, that philosophical truth felicitously imaged forth--

'Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, The foul cubs like their parents are, Their den is in the guilty mind, And Conscience feeds them with despair.'

The conclusion of the last chorus is among the most beautiful of his lyrics. The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind--and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace of tenfold value.

***

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA.

[Published in part (lines 1-69, 100-120) by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; and again, with the notes, in "Poetical Works", 1839. Lines 127-238 were printed by Dr. Garnett under the title of "The Magic Plant" in his "Relics of Shelley", 1862. The whole was edited in its present form from the Boscombe manuscript by Mr. W.M. Rossetti in 1870 ("Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", Moxon, 2 volumes.). 'Written at Pisa during the late winter or early spring of 1822' (Garnett).]

The following fragments are part of a Drama undertaken for the amusement of the individuals who composed our intimate society, but left unfinished. I have preserved a sketch of the story as far as it had been shadowed in the poet's mind.

An Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble nature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal love, for a while returns her passion; but at length, recalling the memory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from the Enchanted Island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes him again go to sea, and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to bring him, by a spirit-brewed tempest, back to her Island. --[MRS. SHELLEY'S NOTE, 1839.]

SCENE.--BEFORE THE CAVERN OF THE INDIAN ENCHANTRESS.

THE ENCHANTRESS COMES FORTH.

ENCHANTRESS: 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 turned to strife, And I wander and wane like the weary moon. O, sweet Echo, wake, _5 And for my sake Make answer the while my heart shall break!

But my 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 _10 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!

NOTE: _8 my omitted 1824.

[THE ENCHANTRESS MAKES HER SPELL: SHE IS ANSWERED BY A SPIRIT.]

SPIRIT: Within the silent centre of the earth _15 My mansion is; where I have lived insphered From the beginning, and around my sleep Have woven all the wondrous imagery Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world; Infinite depths of unknown elements _20 Massed into one impenetrable mask; Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron. And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, _25 And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns In the dark space of interstellar air.

NOTES: _15-_27 Within...air. 1839; omitted 1824. See these lines in "Posthumous Poems", 1824, page 209: "Song of a Spirit". _16 have 1839; omitted 1824, page 209. _25 seas, and waves 1824, page 209; seas, waves 1839.

[A good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate's fate, leads, in a mysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle. She is accompanied by a Youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place between them on their arrival at the Isle. [MRS. SHELLEY'S NOTE, 1839.]]

ANOTHER SCENE.

INDIAN YOUTH AND LADY.

INDIAN: And, if my grief should still be dearer to me Than all the pleasures in the world beside, Why would you lighten it?--

NOTE: _29 pleasures]pleasure 1824.

LADY: I offer only _30 That which I seek, some human sympathy In this mysterious island.

INDIAN: 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.

LADY: Peace, perturbed heart! _35 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.

INDIAN: But you said _40 You also loved?

NOTE: _32-_41 Assigned to INDIAN, 1824.

LADY: Loved! Oh, I love. Methinks This word of love is fit for all the world, And that for gentle hearts another name Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns. I have loved.

INDIAN: And thou lovest not? if so, _45 Young as thou art thou canst afford to weep.

LADY: 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 _50 To ring the knell of youth. He 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 touched, _55 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. _60 Alas! Why must I think how oft we two Have sate together near the river springs, Under the green pavilion which the willow Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain, Strewn, by the nurslings that linger there, _65 Over that islet paved with flowers and moss, While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine, Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own? The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, _70 And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn; And on a wintry bough the widowed bird, Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves, Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow. I, left like her, and leaving one like her, _75 Alike abandoned and abandoning (Oh! unlike her in this!) the gentlest youth, Whose love had made my sorrows dear to him, Even as my sorrow made his love to me!

NOTE: _71 spray Rossetti 1870, Woodberry; Spring Forman, Dowden.

INDIAN: One curse of Nature stamps in the same mould _80 The features of the wretched; and they are As like as violet to violet, When memory, the ghost, their odours keeps Mid the cold relics of abandoned joy.-- Proceed.

LADY: He was a simple innocent boy. _85 I loved him well, but not as he desired; Yet even thus he was content to be:-- A short content, for I was--

INDIAN [ASIDE]: God of Heaven! From such an islet, such a river-spring--! I dare not ask her if there stood upon it _90 A pleasure-dome surmounted by a crescent, With steps to the blue water. [ALOUD.] It may be That Nature masks in life several copies Of the same lot, so that the sufferers May feel another's sorrow as their own, _95 And find in friendship what they lost in love. That cannot be: yet it is strange that we, From the same scene, by the same path to this Realm of abandonment-- But speak! your breath-- Your breath is like soft music, your words are _100 The echoes of a voice which on my heart Sleeps like a melody of early days. But as you said--

LADY: He was so awful, yet So beautiful in mystery and terror, Calming me as the loveliness of heaven _105 Soothes the unquiet sea:--and yet not so, For he seemed stormy, and would often seem A quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds; For such his thoughts, and even his actions were; But he was not of them, nor they of him, _110 But as they hid his splendour from the earth. Some said he was a man of blood and peril, And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips. More need was there I should be innocent, More need that I should be most true and kind, _115 And much more need that there should be found one 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 followed him.

INDIAN: Such a one _120 Is he who was the winter of my peace. But, fairest stranger, when didst thou depart From the far hills where rise the springs of India? How didst thou pass the intervening sea?

LADY: If I be sure I am not dreaming now, _125 I should not doubt to say it was a dream. Methought a star came down from heaven, And rested mid the plants of India, Which I had given a shelter from the frost Within my chamber. There the meteor lay, _130 Panting forth light among the leaves and flowers, As if it lived, and was outworn with speed; Or that it loved, and passion made the pulse Of its bright life throb like an anxious heart, Till it diffused itself; and all the chamber _135 And walls seemed melted into emerald fire That burned not; in the midst of which appeared A spirit like a child, and laughed aloud A thrilling peal of such sweet merriment As made the blood tingle in my warm feet: _140 Then bent over a vase, and murmuring Low, unintelligible melodies, Placed something in the mould like melon-seeds, And slowly faded, and in place of it A soft hand issued from the veil of fire, _145 Holding a cup like a magnolia flower, And poured upon the earth within the vase The element with which it overflowed, Brighter than morning light, and purer than The water of the springs of Himalah. _150

NOTE: _120-_126 Such...dream 1839; omitted 1824.

INDIAN: You waked not?

LADY: Not until my dream became Like a child's legend on the tideless sand. Which the first foam erases half, and half Leaves legible. At length I rose, and went, Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought _155 To set new cuttings in the empty urns, And when I came to that beside the lattice, I saw two little dark-green leaves Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then I half-remembered my forgotten dream. _160 And day by day, green as a gourd in June, The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew What plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed Like emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded With azure mail and streaks of woven silver; _165 And all the sheaths that folded the dark buds Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel, Until the golden eye of the bright flower, Through the dark lashes of those veined lids, ...disencumbered of their silent sleep, _170 Gazed like a star into the morning light. Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw The pulses With which the purple velvet flower was fed To overflow, and like a poet's heart _175 Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment, Changed half the light to fragrance. It soon fell, And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit Left all its treasured beauty. Day by day I nursed the plant, and on the double flute _180 Played to it on the sunny winter days Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain On silent leaves, and sang those words in which Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings; And I would send tales of forgotten love _185 Late into the lone night, and sing wild songs Of maids deserted in the olden time, And weep like a soft cloud in April's bosom Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant, So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come, _190 And crept abroad into the moonlight air, And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon, The sun averted less his oblique beam.

INDIAN: And the plant died not in the frost?

LADY: It grew; And went out of the lattice which I left _195 Half open for it, trailing its quaint spires Along the garden and across the lawn, And down the slope of moss and through the tufts Of wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o'ergrown With simple lichens, and old hoary stones, _200 On to the margin of the glassy pool, Even to a nook of unblown violets And lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn, Under a pine with ivy overgrown. And theme its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard _205 Under the shadows; but when Spring indeed Came to unswathe her infants, and the lilies Peeped from their bright green masks to wonder at This shape of autumn couched in their recess, Then it dilated, and it grew until _210 One half lay floating on the fountain wave, Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies, Kept time Among the snowy water-lily buds. Its shape was such as summer melody _215 Of the south wind in spicy vales might give To some light cloud bound from the golden dawn To fairy isles of evening, and it seemed In hue and form that it had been a mirror Of all the hues and forms around it and _220 Upon it pictured by the sunny beams Which, from the bright vibrations of the pool, Were thrown upon the rafters and the roof Of boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stems Of the dark sylvan temple, and reflections _225 Of every infant flower and star of moss And veined leaf in the azure odorous air. And thus it lay in the Elysian calm Of its own beauty, floating on the line Which, like a film in purest space, divided _230 The heaven beneath the water from the heaven Above the clouds; and every day I went Watching its growth and wondering; And as the day grew hot, methought I saw A glassy vapour dancing on the pool, _235 And on it little quaint and filmy shapes. With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall, Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments.

...

O friend, sleep was a veil uplift from Heaven-- As if Heaven dawned upon the world of dream-- _240 When darkness rose on the extinguished day Out of the eastern wilderness.

INDIAN: I too Have found a moment's paradise in sleep Half compensate a hell of waking sorrow.

***

CHARLES THE FIRST.

["Charles the First" was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819 [Medwin, "Life", 2 page 62], resumed in January, and finally laid aside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the "Posthumous Poems", 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of some 530 lines), by Mr. W.M. Rossetti, 1870. Further particulars are given in the Editor's Notes at the end of Volume 3.]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

KING CHARLES I. QUEEN HENRIETTA. LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD. LORD COTTINGTON. LORD WESTON. LORD COVENTRY. WILLIAMS, BISHOP OF LINCOLN. SECRETARY LYTTELTON. JUXON. ST. JOHN. ARCHY, THE COURT FOOL. HAMPDEN. PYM. CROMWELL. CROMWELL'S DAUGHTER. SIR HARRY VANE THE YOUNGER. LEIGHTON. BASTWICK. PRYNNE. GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT, CITIZENS, PURSUIVANTS, MARSHALSMEN, LAW STUDENTS, JUDGES, CLERK.

SCENE 1: THE MASQUE OF THE INNS OF COURT.

A PURSUIVANT: Place, for the Marshal of the Masque!

FIRST CITIZEN: What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns, Like morning from the shadow of the night, The night to day, and London to a place Of peace and joy?

SECOND CITIZEN: And Hell to Heaven. _5 Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street I trod on grass made green by summer's rain, For the red plague kept state within that palace Where now that vanity reigns. In nine years more _10 The roots will be refreshed with civil blood; And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear.

NOTE: _10 now that vanity reigns 1870; now reigns vanity 1824.

A YOUTH: Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, _15 Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden By God or man;--'tis like the bright procession Of skiey visions in a solemn dream From which men wake as from a Paradise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. _20 If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present _25 Dark as the future!--

...

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 _30 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 _35 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 _40 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, _45 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 _50 Amid the darkness of conflicting storms, To dank extinction and to latest night... There goes The apostate Strafford; he whose titles whispered aphorisms _55 From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas Had been as brazen and as bold as he--

NOTES:
_33-_37 Canst...enginery 1870;
Canst thou not think
Of change in that low scene, in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor?... 1824.
_43-_57 Wrap...bold as he 1870; omitted 1824.

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: _60 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. _65

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! _70 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. _75 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 _80 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 _85 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?

NOTE: _73 make 1824; made 1839.

LEIGHTON: I WAS Leighton: what I AM thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes, And with thy memory look on thy friend's mind, _90 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 _95 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. _100 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. _105

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. _110 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.

NOTE: _78-_114 A seasonable...of the flesh 1870; omitted 1824. _108 bondage cj. Forman; bondages 1870.

A MARSHALSMAN: Give place, give place! You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate, _115 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 _120 [Gasp?] to us on the wind's wave. It comes! And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant, Rouse up the astonished air.

NOTE: _119-_123 Even now...air 1870; omitted 1824.

FIRST CITIZEN: I will not think but that our country's wounds May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious, _125 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 _130 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!

NOTE: _132 how the 1870; loud 1824.

A MARSHALSMAN: Give place _135 To the Marshal of the Masque!

A PURSUIVANT: Room for the King!

NOTE: _136 A Pursuivant: Room for the King! 1870; omitted 1824.

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 _140 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 _145 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.

NOTE: _138-40 Rolling...depths 1870; Rolling like painted clouds before the wind Some are Like curved shells, dyed by the azure depths 1824.

SECOND CITIZEN: Ay, there they are-- _150 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. _155 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 _160 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. _165 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, _170 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!

NOTES: _162 her 1870; its 1824. _170 jades 1870; shapes 1824. _173 presentment 1870; presentiment 1824.

THE YOUTH: 'Tis but The anti-masque, and serves as discords do _175 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! _180

NOTE: _179, _180 I...place! 1870; omitted 1824.

SCENE 2: A CHAMBER IN WHITEHALL. ENTER THE KING, QUEEN, LAUD, LORD STRAFTORD, 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. _5 A gentle heart enjoys what it confers, Even as it suffers that which it inflicts, Though Justice guides the stroke. Accept my hearty thanks.

NOTE: _3-9 And...thanks 1870; omitted 1824.

QUEEN: And gentlemen, Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant _10 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 _15 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 _20 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 _25 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 _30 Outweigh a despot's.--We humbly take our leaves, Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

[EXEUNT ST. JOHN AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT.]

KING: My Lord Archbishop, Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes? Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. _35

ARCHY: Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there. _48

STRAFFORD: A rod in pickle for the Fool's back!

ARCHY: Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees--

STRAFFORD: Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this. _53

ARCHY: When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them. _65

NOTE: _64 pinched marked as doubtful by Rossetti. 1870; Forman, Dowden; penned Woodberry.

[ENTER SECRETARY LYTTELTON, WITH PAPERS.]

KING [LOOKING OVER THE PAPERS]: These stiff Scots His Grace of Canterbury must take order To force under the Church's yoke.--You, Wentworth, Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy, _70 To what in me were wanting.--My Lord Weston, Look that those merchants draw not without loss Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation For violation of our royal forests, _75 Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost Farthing exact from those who claim exemption From knighthood: that which once was a reward Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects _80 May know how majesty can wear at will The rugged mood.--My Lord of Coventry, Lay my command upon the Courts below That bail be not accepted for the prisoners Under the warrant of the Star Chamber. _85 The people shall not find the stubbornness Of Parliament a cheap or easy method Of dealing with their rightful sovereign: And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry, We will find time and place for fit rebuke.-- _90 My Lord of Canterbury.

NOTE: _22-90 In Paris...rebuke 1870; omitted 1824.

ARCHY: The fool is here.

LAUD: I crave permission of your Majesty To order that this insolent fellow be Chastised: he mocks the sacred character, Scoffs at the state, and--

NOTE: _95 state 1870; stake 1824.

KING: What, my Archy? _95 He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears, Yet with a quaint and graceful licence--Prithee For this once do not as Prynne would, were he Primate of England. With your Grace's leave, He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot _100 Hung in his gilded prison from the window Of a queen's bower over the public way, Blasphemes with a bird's mind:--his words, like arrows Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit, Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.-- _105 [TO ARCHY.] Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance To bring news how the world goes there. [EXIT ARCHY.] Poor Archy! He weaves about himself a world of mirth Out of the wreck of ours. _110

NOTES: _99 With your Grace's leave 1870; omitted 1824. _106-_110 Go...ours spoken by THE QUEEN, 1824.

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, _115 I see the new-born courage in your eye Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time, Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast. Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve, And it were better thou hadst still remained _120 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, _125 And be that tempered 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, _130 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 worshipped state.

NOTES: _116 your 1824; thine 1870. _118 Which...beast 1870; omitted 1824.

KING: Beloved friend, God is my witness that this weight of power, _135 Which He sets me my earthly task to wield Under His law, is my delight and pride Only because thou lovest that and me. For a king bears the office of a God To all the under world; and to his God _140 Alone he must deliver up his trust, Unshorn of its permitted attributes. [It seems] now as the baser elements Had mutinied against the golden sun That kindles them to harmony, and quells _145 Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours Of the distempered body that conspire Against the spirit of life throned in the heart,-- And thus become the prey of one another, _150 And last of death--

STRAFFORD: That which would be ambition in a subject Is duty in a sovereign; for on him, As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life, Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form, _155 And all that makes the age of reasoning man More memorable than a beast's, depend on this-- That Right should fence itself inviolably With Power; in which respect the state of England From usurpation by the insolent commons _160 Cries for reform. Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies Opposing factions,--be thyself of none; And borrow gold of many, for those who lend _165 Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay, Till time, and its coming generations Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,

...

Or war or pestilence or Nature's self,-- _170 By some distemperature or terrible sign, Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves. Nor let your Majesty Doubt here the peril of the unseen event. How did your brother Kings, coheritors _175 In your high interest in the subject earth, Rise past such troubles to that height of power Where now they sit, and awfully serene Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, _180 And late the German head of many bodies, And every petty lord of Italy, Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power Tamer than they? or shall this island be-- _185 [Girdled] by its inviolable waters-- To the world present and the world to come Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy? Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.

KING: Your words shall be my deeds: _190 You speak the image of my thought. My friend (If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so), Beyond the large commission which [belongs] Under the great seal of the realm, take this: And, for some obvious reasons, let there be _195 No seal on it, except my kingly word And honour as I am a gentleman. Be--as thou art within my heart and mind-- Another self, here and in Ireland: Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, _200 And stick not even at questionable means. Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall Between thee and this world thine enemy-- That hates thee, for thou lovest me.

STRAFFORD: I own No friend but thee, no enemies but thine: _205 Thy lightest thought is my eternal law. How weak, how short, is life to pay--

KING: Peace, peace. Thou ow'st me nothing yet. [TO LAUD.] My lord, what say Those papers?