IRETON. Ay, round the vulgar forms of royalty,
Or dead or quick, the unthinking millions press;
They love the very mummery of their chains,
And graceless walks unsceptred Liberty
To their coarse gaze. 'Twas a bold deed, that death!
HARRISON. A deed we ne'er had had the souls to do,
But for the audible mandates of the Lord.
I did not sleep seven nights before my hand
Signed that red warrant; and e'en now, methinks
Midnight seems darker and more sternly still
Than it was wont to do!
IRETON. A truce with this.
When saw ye last the General?
MARTIN. Scarce an hour
Hath joined the Past, since I did leave him praying.
IRETON. The pious Cromwell!—'Tis a blessed thing
To have a lodge above, and, when the air
Grows dim and rank on earth, to change the scene,
And brace the soul in thoughts that breathe of Heaven.
He bears him bravely then, that virtuous man?
MARTIN. Bravely; but with a graver, soberer mien
Than when we councilled on the deed now done.
IRETON. Yea, when he signed the warrant, dost thou mind
How, with the pen yet wet, he crossed thy face,
My honest Harry! ('twas a scurvy trick!)
And laughed till merry tears coursed down his cheek,
To see thy ruddy hues so streaked with black?
Ha! Ha!—and yet it was a scurvy trick!
And thou didst give him back the boon again,
And both laughed loud, like mad-caps at a school,
When the grim master is not by. I was
The man who, next to Cromwell, planned the act
Which sealed old England's freedom; yet that laugh
Made me look back—and start—and shudder!
MARTIN. Tush!
Thou know'st thy kinsman's merry vein what time
The humor's on him. I'll be sworn, nor he
Nor I thought lightlier of the solemn deed
For that unseemly moment;—'twas the vent
Of an excited pulse; and if our own,
The scaffold we were dooming to the Stuart,
We should have toyed the same.
HARRISON. Why prate ye thus—
Lukewarm and chill of heart? When Barak broke
The hosts of Sisera, after twice ten years
Of bondage, did the sons of Israel weep?
Or did they seek excuses for just mirth?
No; they sang out in honest joy—“Awake!
Captivity is captive! and the stars
Fought from their courses against Sisera.”
Our Sisera is no more—we will rejoice!
IRETON. (aside to Martin) Humor him Harry, or we 'scape not so
This saintly porcupine of homilies
Bristling with all the missiles of quotation:
Provoke him,—and he pricks you with a text.
(aloud) Right, holy comrade, thou hast well rebuked us.
But to return to earth. The General feels,
My Harry, how the eyes of the dumb world
Are fixed on us—how all of England's weal
Weighs on our shoulders, and with serious thought
Inclines him to the study of the HOUR:
For every moment now should womb designs,
And in the air we breathe the thundercloud
Hangs mute:—may Heaven disperse it on our foes!