As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, No song when the spirit is mute: Like the wind through a ruined cell, That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, To endure what it once possest. The frailty of all things here, For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high; Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come. A DIRGE. ROUGH wind, that moanest loud Wild wind, when sullen cloud Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Wail, for the world's wrong. CHARLES THE FIRST. A FRAGMENT. ACT I. SCENE. I.-The Pageant to celebrate the arrival of the Queen. A PURSUIVANT. PLACE for the Marshal of the Masque ! FIRST SPEAKER. What thinkest thou of this quaint masque, which turns Like morning from the shadow of the night, SECOND SPEAKER. And Hell to Heaven. Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street That sin and wrongs wound as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear. THIRD SPEAKER (a youth.) Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, By God or man ;-'tis like the bright possession 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 Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present When avarice and tyranny, vigilant fear, As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts SECOND SPEAKER. How young art thou in this old age of time! green in this gray world! How think Canst thou not Of change in that low scene, in which thou art e; The day that dawns in fire will die in storms, FIRST SPEAKER. Is the Archbishop. That SECOND SPEAKER. Rather say the Pope. London will be soon his Rome: he walks He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;- Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge. ANOTHER 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. There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry, And others who made base their English breed By vile participation of their honours |