Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!
Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
Hel. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
916 Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.-
Before the time I did Lysander see,
seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
O then, what graces in my love do dwell, that he hath turn'd a heaven into hell! Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: to-morrow night when Phoebe doth behold her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
(a time that lovers' flights doth still conceal),
through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
.Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet;
there my Lysander and myself shall meet:
and thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes,
to seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
and good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
from lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.
THE PRINCESS' PLEA FOR TANNHAÜSER
R shall I call you men? or beasts? who seem no nobler than the bloodhound and the wolf, which scorn to prey upon their proper kind. Christians I will not call you. O, dull hearts and hard! have ye no pity for yourselves? for man no pity? man whose common cause is shamed and saddened by the stain that falls upon a noble nature. You blind hands, thrust out so fast to smite a fallen friend! Did ye not all conspire, whilst yet he stood the stateliest soul among you, to set forth and fix him in the foremost ranks of men?
Against high Heaven hath this man sinned, or you?
O, if it be against high Heaven, to Heaven
remit the compt! lest, from the armoury
of the Eternal justice ye pluck down,
heedless, that bolt the Highest yet withholds
from this low-fallen head,-how fallen! how low!
yet not so fall'n, not so low fall'n, but what
Divine redemption, reaching everywhere,
may reach at last even to this wretchedness,
and, out of late repentance, raise it up
with pardon into peace.
918 THE SPIRIT of sweet HUMAN LOVE Descending
IN VISION ON THE SLUMBERS OF THE WANDERING
POET
there came, a dream of hopes that never yet
had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
heard in the calm of thought: its music long,
like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
his inmost sense suspended in its web
of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
and lofty hopes of divine liberty,
thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
himself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
a permeating fire: wild numbers then
she raised, with voice stifled with tremulous sobs
subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands
were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
strange symphony, and in her branching veins
the eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
the pauses of her music, and her breath
tumultuously accorded with those fits
of intermitted song.
919 ULYSSES PLEADING HIS CLAIM TO THE ARMS
UT give me leave to offer to your memory
another service, and reduce your thoughts
to Aulis, when our army shipp'd, and big
with our desires for Troy, for want of wind
were lock'd in the Eubœan bay at anchor;
when the oracle consulted gave no hope
of the least breath of heaven or gentle gale
to be expected, till Diana's anger
were first appeas'd by Iphigenia's blood;—
I melt with the remembrance, and I could
accuse my faith, but that the public interest
and all your honours armed me to persuade
nature against the stream of her own happiness ;-
there stands the tear-drowned father, Agamemnon:
ask his vex'd soul, (and let me beg his pardon,)
how I did work upon his murmuring heart,
divided 'twixt a father and his country,
to give his child up to the bleeding altar;
whose drops, too precious to enrich the earth,
the goddess (hid within a cloud) drank up,
and snatch'd her soul; whose brighter substance made
one of the fairest stars that deck yon canopy.
920 Had Ajax been employ'd to have wrought Atrides, when he was angry with the gods, to have given his only pledge, his loved Iphigenia,
up to the fatal knife, our Grecian fleet
had by this time been rotten in the bay,
and we, by a dishonourable return,
been wounded in our fames to after ages.
The deity appeared with virgin sacrifice,
the winds put on fresh wings, and we arrived
swift as our wishes to affrighted Troy:
where, after their first battle, they no more
drew forth their army, which engag'd us to
nine horrid winters' expectation.
It would be tedious to relate, how active
my counsels were during this nine years' siege,
when Ajax, (only good at knocks and wrestlings,)
was of no use; the bold design I carried;
my care of our defences and approaches,
encouraging the soldier, wearied
and worn away with empty expectations;
how I did apt provisions, arms and hearts,
to fight withal; I shall not here enforce,
when you, whose just commands I still obeyed,
are conscious of my pious undertakings.
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM-RICHARD DUKE
OF GLOUCESTER-CATESBY
NOW, then, it is your fault, that you resign the supreme seat, the throne majestical,
the sceptred office of your ancestors,
your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
the lineal glory of your royal house,
to the corruption of a blemish'd stock:
whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
which here we waken to our country's good,
the noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
her face defac'd with scars of infamy,
her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
and almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf
of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.
Which to recure, we heartily solicit
your gracious self to take on you the charge
and kingly government of this your land:
not as protector, steward, substitute,
or lowly factor for another's gain:
but as successively, from blood to blood,
your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
your very worshipful and loving friends,
and by their vehement instigation,
in this just suit came I to move your grace.
922 Glo. I cannot tell, if to depart in silence,
or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
best fitteth my degree, or your condition:
if, not to answer, you might haply think,
tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
to bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
which fondly you would here impose on me;
if to reprove you for this suit of yours,
so season'd with your faithful love to me,
then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first;
and, then in speaking, not to incur the last,—
definitively thus answer you.
Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
and that my path were even to the crown,
as the ripe revenue and due of birth;
yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
so mighty, and so many my defects,
that I would rather hide me from my greatness, being a bark to brook no mighty sea,—
than in my greatness covet to be hid,
and in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
923 Buc. Do, good my lord, take to your royal self this proffered benefit of dignity.
Glo. Alas, why would you heap those cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty :-
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
Buc. If you refuse it, as in love and zeal,
loath to depose the child, your brother's son;
as well we know your tenderness of heart,
and gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
which we have noted in you to your kindred,
and equally, indeed, to all estates,
yet know, whe'r you accept our suit or no, your brother's son shall never reign our king ; but we will plant some other in the throne, to the disgrace and downfall of your house. And, in this resolution, here we leave you; come, citizens, we will entreat no more. Cate. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit; if you deny them, all the land will rue it. Glo. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Well, call them again; I am not made of stone, but penetrable to your kind entreaties.
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