* * * * * * * * * *
"Our royal master's murdered!
* * * * * * * * * *
"Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
* * *
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further."
Macbeth.
Not as when some great Captain falls
In battle, where his Country calls,
Beyond the struggling lines
That push his dread designs
To doom, by some stray ball struck dead:
Or, in the last charge, at the head
Of his determined men,
Who must be victors then!
Nor as when sink the civic Great,
The safer pillars of the State,
Whose calm, mature, wise words
Suppress the need of swords—