Not faction, when it shook thy regal seat,

Not senates, insolently loud,

Those echoes of a thoughtless crowd,

Not foreign or domestic treachery,

Could warp thy soul to their unjust decree.

So much thy foes thy manly mind mistook,

Who judged it by the mildness of thy look;

Like a well-tempered sword, it bent at will,

But kept the native toughness of the steel.

XI.