Lady Car. Then, for 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, To end this way. Lady Car. Straf. Lean - lean on me! My King! Oh, had he trusted me - his friend of friends! Lady Car. It opens on the river: our good boat Is moored below; our friends are there. Straf. Only with something ominous and dark, 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 be, Her sacrifice this friend, this Wentworth here— I render up my charge (be witness, God!) 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 I never loved but one man David not More Jonathan! Even thus, I love him now: 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. Pym. If England shall declare such will to me What? England that you help, become through you Our children some of us have children, Pym – Some who, without that, still must ever wear A darkened brow, an over-serious look, What if I curse you? Send a strong curse forth O speak, but speak! To sleep with, --hardly moaning in his dreams, Gets off with half a heart eaten away! child? - to Him? 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 : With ravage of six long sad hundred years. Appears A story I could body forth so well And leaving you to say the rest for him. Your setters-forth of unexampled themes, Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick, Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace; What else should tempt them back to taste our air My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man Brother by breathing brother; thou art set, 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, |