Among the snowy water-lily buds.

Its shape was such as summer melody

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
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
Of every infant flower and star of moss
And veined leaf in the azure odorous air.
And thus it lay in the Elysian calm

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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,
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-
When darkness rose on the extinguished day
Out of the eastern wilderness.

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CHARLES THE FIRST

[Charles the First was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819 [Medwin, Life, ii. p. 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 the volume.]

Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, Pursuivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students,

Judges, Clerk.

SCENE I.-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.

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
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.

A Youth. Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
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.
If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?
And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw
Unseasonable poison from the flowers

Io now that vanity reigns 1870; now reigns vanity 1824.

5

IO

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20

Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?

Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present
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

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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,

For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First
Rose like the equinoctial sun,

45

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.

From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas
Had been as brazen and as bold as he-
First Citizen.

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:

That

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.

33-7 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.

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!

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

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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
To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer
Lewis of France, -the Palatinate is lost-

85

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.

90

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

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his brother.-In my mind, friend,

And by what means?

The root of all this ill is prelacy.

I would cut up the root.
Third Citizen.

Second Citizen. Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib. 105 Third Citizen. You seem to know the vulnerable place

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 agèd 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.

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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:

125

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.

130

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

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

108 bondage cj. Forman; bondages 1870. air 1870; omitted 1824.

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140

119-23 Even now.

136 A Pur138-40 Rolling...

132 how the 1870; loud 1824.
suivant. Room for the King! 1870; omitted 1824.
depths 1870;

Rolling like painted clouds before the wind:
Some are

Like curved shells, dyed by the azure depths 1824.