Arth. A rude and uncurb'd martialist!—and yet
A God-intoxicated man. 'Tis not
A hypocrite, too haggard is his face,
Too deep and harsh his voice. His features wear
No soft, diluted, and conventional smile
Of smirk content; befitting lords, and dukes,
Not men of nature's honoured stamp and wear—
How fervently he spake
Of Milton. Strange, what feeling is abroad!
There is an earnest spirit in these times,
That makes men weep—dull, heavy men, else born
For country sports, to slip into their graves,
When the mild season of their prime had reach'd
Mellow decay, whose very being had died
In the same breeze that bore their churchyard toll,
Without a memory, save in the hearts
Of the next generation, their own heirs,
When they in turn grew old and thought of dying—
Even such men as these now gird themselves
With swords and Bibles, and, nought doubting, rush
Into the world's undying chronicles!
This struggle hath in it a solemn echo
Of the old world, when God was present still
In fiery columns, burning oracles:
Ere earnest faith and new reality
Had grown diluted, fading from the earth
Through feeble ages of a mock existence,
Whose Heaven and Hell were but as outer fables,
That trouble not man's stage-like dream of life.
[Exit into the Inn.]
END OF ACT I.
ACT II.
SCENE I.
[2nd Grooves.]
A large Barn with folding doors. In it a number of Cavaliers drinking at various rude tables. Some women are interspersed among them. Many are playing at dice, &c. Their arms are piled in a corner.
1st Cav. [Sings]
Noll's red nose,
In a bumper here goes
To Beelzebub his own master;
With the pikes at his flank
Of our foremost rank,
And the devil to find him plaster,
Fairfax and Harrison,
On them our malison.
But drink and sing
A health to the KING—
Gentlemen! steady,
Fill, now be ready.
All. He shall have his own again!