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Lady Car. Then, for
Straf.

my sake!

Even for your sweet sake,

To bequeath a stain?

wake, King! Bid him escape!

I stay.

Hol. For their sake!

Straf.

Leave me! Girl, humor me and let me die!

Lady Car. Bid him escape

Straf. True, I will go! Die, and forsake the King? I'll not draw back from the last service.

Lady Car. Strafford !

Straf.

And, after all, what is disgrace to me?

Let us come, child! That it should end this way,
Lead then! but I feel strangely: it was not

To end this way.

Lady Car.

Straf.

Lean - lean on me!

My King!

Oh, had he trusted me - his friend of friends!
Lady Car. I can support him, Hollis !
Straf.
This gate I dreamed of it, this very gate.

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Lady Car. It opens on the river: our good boat Is moored below; our friends are there.

Straf.

Only with something ominous and dark,
Fatal, inevitable.

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The same:

Straf. Not by this gate! I feel what will be there! I dreamed of it, I tell you: touch it not!

Lady Car. To save the King,

Strafford, to save the King! [AS STRAFFORD opens the door, PYм is discovered with HAMPDEN, VANE, etc. STRAFFORD falls back; PYм follows slowly and confronts him.

Pym. Have I done well? Speak, England! Whose sole sake

I still have labored for, with disregard

To my own heart, — for whom my youth was made
Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up

be,

Her sacrifice this friend, this Wentworth here—
Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may
And whom, for his forsaking England's cause,
I hunted by all means (trusting that she
Would sanctify all means) even to the block
Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel
No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour
I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I
Would never leave him: I do leave him now.

I render up my charge (be witness, God!)
To England who imposed it. I have done
Her bidding poorly, wrongly, it may be,
With ill effects- for I am weak, a man:

Still, I have done my best, my human best, Not faltering for a moment. It is done. yes, I will say

And this said, if I

say

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I never loved but one man David not

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More Jonathan! Even thus, I love him now:
And look for my chief portion in that world
Where great hearts led astray are turned again,
(Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon:
My mission over, I shall not live long,)
Ay, here I know I talk I dare and must,
Of England, and her great reward, as all
I look for there; but in my inmost heart,
Believe, I think of stealing quite away
To walk once more with Wentworth
my youth's friend
Purged from all error, gloriously renewed,
And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed . .
This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase
Too hot. A thin mist is it blood? enwraps
The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be!

Straf. I have loved England too; we'll meet then, Pym; As well die now! Youth is the only time

To think and to decide on a great course:

Manhood with action follows; but 't is dreary

To have to alter our whole life in age

The time past, the strength gone! As well die now.
When we meet, Pym, I'd be set right not now!
Best die. Then if there's any fault, it too
Dies, smothered up. Poor gray old little Laud
May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church,
In some blind corner. And there's no one left.
I trust the King now wholly to you, Pym!
And yet, I know not: I shall not be there :
Friends fail - if he have any. And he's weak,
And loves the Queen, and . . . Oh, my fate is nothing -
Nothing! But not that awful head - not that!

Pym. If England shall declare such will to me
Straf. Pym, you help England! I, that am to die,
What I must see! 't is here all here! My God,
Let me but gasp out, in one word of fire,
How thou wilt plague him, satiating hell!

What? England that you help, become through you
A green and putrefying charnel, left

Our children

some of us have children, Pym –

Some who, without that, still must ever wear

A darkened brow, an over-serious look,
And never properly be young! No word?

What if I curse you? Send a strong curse forth
Clothed from my heart, lapped round with horror till
She's fit with her white face to walk the world
Scaring kind natures from your cause and you
Then to sit down with you at the board-head,
The gathering for prayer
. . . Creep up, and quietly follow each one home,
You, you, you, be a nestling care for each

O speak, but speak!

To sleep with, --hardly moaning in his dreams,
She gnaws so quietly, till, lo he starts,

Gets off with half a heart eaten away!
Oh shall you 'scape with less if she's my
You will not say a word—to me

child?

- to Him?

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Pym. If England shall declare such will to me Straf. No, not for England now, not for Heaven now, See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to you! There, I will thank you for the death, my friend! This is the meeting: let me love you well!

Pym. England, I am thine own! Dost thou exact That service? I obey thee to the end.

Straf. O God, I shall die first- I shall die first!

SORDELLO

1840

TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON.

DEAR FRIEND: Let the next poem be introduced by your name, therefore remembered along with one of the deepest of my affections, and so repay all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than they really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with care for a man or book such would be surmounted, and without it what avails the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into what the many might instead of what the few must like; but after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day think so; and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I trust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours,

LONDON, June 9, 1863.

R. B.

BOOK THE FIRST.

WHO will, may hear Sordello's story told :
His story? Who believes me shall behold
The man, pursue his fortunes to the end,
Like me for as the friendless-people's friend
Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din
And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin
Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out
Sordello, compassed murkily about

With ravage of six long sad hundred years.
Only believe me. Ye believe?

Appears
Verona... Never, I should warn you first,
Of my own choice had this, if not the worst
Yet not the best expedient, served to tell

A story I could body forth so well
By making speak, myself kept out of view,
The very man as he was wont to do,

And leaving you to say the rest for him.
Since, though I might be proud to see the dim
Abysmal past divide its hateful surge,
Letting of all men this one man emerge
Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,
I should delight in watching first to last
His progress as you watch it, not a whit
More in the secret than yourselves who sit
Fresh-chapleted to listen.
But it seems

Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,
Makers of quite new men, producing them,
Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem
The wearer's quality; or take their stand,
Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand,
Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends,
Summoned together from the world's four ends,
Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell,
To hear the story I propose to tell.

Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick,
Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick,
And shaming her; 't is not for fate to choose
Silence or song because she can refuse
Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache
Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake:
I have experienced something of her spite;
But there's a realm wherein she has no right
And I have many lovers. Say, but few

Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view
The host I muster! Many a lighted face

Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace;

What else should tempt them back to taste our air
Except to see how their successors fare?

My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man
Striving to look as living as he can,

Brother by breathing brother; thou art set,
Clear-witted critic, by . . . but I'll not fret

A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean ye elect

The living in good earnest

Chiefly for love

suppose not I reject

Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep,
Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep,
To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,

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