The sacred sceptre, how can I be pure?
Welcome Adversity, lifter up of veils!
Before me, naked as a soul for judgment,
Stands up my sin. ’Tis well! the worst is o’er.
Suffer I must; but I will sin no longer.”
When, in the fifth Act, she approaches the scaffold, she alone is
firm, she alone makes no complaint against the justice of her sentence, but, on the contrary, defends it.
“Bedingfield. Madam,
We fain would linger on the way. Our eyes,
Blind though they be with tears, strain round to catch