Our Captain
Has ever saved his troops fatigue and tempest:
These men are rude in habit, and the lashing
Of mountain-storms familiar. O my lad,
We are not now in Italy.
JUANITO.
Ah, would we were!
Señor Agapito, we have one breath:
Our lives are for his use. What are your tidings?
AGAPITO.
His every hope miscarries—everywhere
Hostility, abandon or suspicion:
The Pope has drawn his treasure from the banks,
Dried up the fountain of his polity,
The means of gathering troops, the hope of calling
His ancient captains to his side.
JUANITO.
O Señor,
That letter from the King of France, withdrawing
All revenues and honour from our lord,
Joining his Dukedom and his French domains
To Dauphiné and Berry, as they were
Before the royal gift—did you consider ...
Yes, but I see you did ... his look that day?
It was a face of hell; and ever since
His eyes throw flame out.
AGAPITO.
Think! He has engrossed
The world’s resources from his earliest years,
Marshal, as San Michele, of God’s hosts,
And born Vicegerent.... Think! He now has nothing
But his invincible, rejected sword.
A pauper, and a hireling to his brother—
This Navarrais, this kinglet—yet with sweep,
A great glance on a little verge, he conquers
These rebels of Viana and their chief
Louis de Beaumont, that the petty realm
Being consolidate and set between
His foes of France and Spain, he may have option
To hold o’er each the sword of Damocles.
The brain that wrought at Sinigaglia once
Works still among barbarians. But his lips,
Like famished wolf-fangs, and his thwarted youth,
His darkened joy in freedom!—I have wept ...
Go in, go in!