I feel, sire—all the worth——
KING.
Proceed; you had
Yet more to say to me.
MARQUIS.
Your majesty,
I lately passed through Flanders and Brabant,
So many rich and blooming provinces,
Filled with a valiant, great, and honest people.
To be the father of a race like this
I thought must be divine indeed; and then
I stumbled on a heap of burnt men's bones.
[He stops, he fixes a penetrating look on the KING,
who endeavors to return his glance; but he looks on
the ground, embarrassed and confused.
True, you are forced to act so; but that you
Could dare fulfil your task—this fills my soul
With shuddering horror! Oh, 'tis pity that
The victim, weltering in his blood, must cease
To chant the praises of his sacrificer!
And that mere men—not beings loftier far—
Should write the history of the world. But soon
A milder age will follow that of Philip,
An age of truer wisdom; hand in hand,
The subjects' welfare and the sovereign's greatness
Will walk in union. Then the careful state
Will spare her children, and necessity
No longer glory to be thus inhuman.
KING.
When, think you, would that blessed age arrive,
If I had shrunk before the curse of this?
Behold my Spain, see here the burgher's good
Blooms in eternal and unclouded peace.
A peace like this will I bestow on Flanders.
MARQUIS (hastily).
The churchyard's peace! And do you hope to end
What you have now begun? Say, do you hope
To check the ripening change of Christendom,
The universal spring, that shall renew
The earth's fair form? Would you alone, in Europe,
Fling yourself down before the rapid wheel
Of destiny, which rolls its ceaseless course,
And seize its spokes with human arm. Vain thought!
Already thousands have your kingdom fled
In joyful poverty: the honest burgher
For his faith exiled, was your noblest subject!
See! with a mother's arms, Elizabeth
Welcomes the fugitives, and Britain blooms
In rich luxuriance, from our country's arts.
Bereft of the new Christian's industry,
Granada lies forsaken, and all Europe
Exulting, sees his foe oppressed with wounds,
By its own hands inflicted!
[The KING is moved; the MARQUIS observes it,
and advances a step nearer.
You would plant
For all eternity, and yet the seeds
You sow around you are the seeds of death!
This hopeless task, with nature's laws at strife,
Will ne'er survive the spirit of its founder.
You labor for ingratitude; in vain,
With nature you engage in desperate struggle—
In vain you waste your high and royal life
In projects of destruction. Man is greater
Than you esteem him. He will burst the chains
Of a long slumber, and reclaim once more
His just and hallowed rights. With Nero's name,
And fell Busiris', will he couple yours;
And—ah! you once deserved a better fate.
KING.
How know you that?