"Art thou content—of these the greatest Thou,
Hero and Patriot?" murmur'd then the Fiend.
The unsleeping Dreamer answer'd, "Tempter, nay,
My soul stands breathless on the mountain's brow
And looks beyond!" Again swift darkness screen'd
The solemn Chieftain and the fierce array,
And armèd Glory pass'd, like happier Peace, away.
VI.
He look'd again, and saw
A chamber with funereal sables hung,
Wherein there lay a ghastly, headless thing
That once had been a king—
And by the corpse a living man, whose doom,
Had both been left to Nature's gradual law,
Were riper for the garner-house of gloom.[R]
Rudely beside the gory clay were flung
The Norman sceptre and the Saxon crown;[S]
So, after some imperial Tragedy
August alike with sorrow and renown,
We smile to see the gauds that moved our awe,
Purple and orb, in dusty lumber lie,—
Alas, what thousands, on the stage of Time,
Envied the baubles, and revered the Mine!
Placed by the trunk—with long and whitening hair
By dark-red gouts besprent, the sever'd head
Up to the Gazer's musing eyes, the while,
Look'd with its livid brow and stony smile.
On that sad scene, his gaze the Dreamer fed,
Familiar both the Living and the Dead;
Terror, and hate, and strife concluded there,
Calm in his six-feet realm the monarch lay;
And by the warning victim's mangled clay
The Phantom-Cromwell smiled,—and bending down
With shadowy fingers toy'd about the shadowy crown.
"Art thou content at last?—a Greater thou
Than one to whom the loftiest bent the knee.
First in thy fierce Republic of the Free,
Avenger and Deliverer?"
"Fiend," replied
The Dreamer, "who shall palter with the tide?—
Deliverer! Pilots who the vessel save
Leave not the helm while winds are on the wave.
The Future is the Haven of the Now!"
"True," quoth the Fiend—Again the darkness spread,
And night gave back to air the Doomsman and the Dead!
VII.
"See," cried the Fiend;—he views
A lofty Senate stern with many a form
Not unfamiliar to the earlier strife;
Knit were the brows—and passion flush'd the hues,
And all were hush'd!—that, hush which is in life
As in the air, prophetic of a storm.
Uprose a shape[T] with dark bright eye;
It spoke—and at the word
The Dreamer breathed an angry sigh;
And starting—clutch'd his sword;
An instinct bade him hate and fear
That unknown shape—as if a foe were near—
For, mighty in that mien of thoughtful youth,
Spoke Fraud's most deadly foe—a soul on fire with Truth;
A soul without one stain
Save England's hallowing tears;—the sad and starry Vane.
There enter'd on that conclave high
A solitary Man!
And rustling through the conclave high
A troubled murmur ran;
A moment more—loud riot all—
With pike and morion gleam'd the startled hall:
And there, where, since the primal date
Of Freedom's glorious morn,
The eternal People solemn sate,
The People's Champion spat his ribald scorn!
Dark moral to all ages!—Blent in one
The broken fasces and the shatter'd throne;
The deed that damns immortally is done;
And Force, the Cain of Nations-reigns alone!
The veil is rent—the crafty soul lies bare!
"Behold," the Demon cried, "the Future Cromwell, there!
Art thou content, on earth the Greatest thou,
Apostate and Usurper?"—From his rest
The Dreamer started with a heaving breast,
The better angels of the human heart
Not dumb to his,—The Hell-Born laugh'd aloud,
And o'er the Evil Vision rush'd the cloud!
FOOTNOTES
[A] Talma.