The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 93

[EXEUNT ALL BUT KING, QUEEN, AND ARCHY.]

ARCHY: Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud--who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by composition--all impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. _397

QUEEN: Is the rain over, sirrah?

KING: When it rains And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to-morrow: And therefore never smile till you've done crying. _400

ARCHY: But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene.

QUEEN: What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?

ARCHY: Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for

'A rainbow in the morning _407 Is the shepherd's warning;'

and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. _411

KING: The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs.

QUEEN: But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.

ARCHY: Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.--The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven--like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. _424

QUEEN: Who taught you this trash, sirrah?

ARCHY: A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.--But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the Tower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower-- But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered.

KING: Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience. _435

ARCHY: Then conscience is a fool.--I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death.

QUEEN: Archy is shrewd and bitter.

ARCHY: Like the season, _440 So blow the winds.--But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the gra.s.s and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre?

KING: Vane's wits perhaps. _445

ARCHY: Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carca.s.s of a dead a.s.s, some rotten rags, and broken dishes--the wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this a.s.s. _451

QUEEN: Enough, enough! Go desire Lady Jane She place my lute, together with the music Mari received last week from Italy, In my boudoir, and--

[EXIT ARCHY.]

KING: I'll go in.

NOTE: _254-_455 For by...I'll go in 1870; omitted 1824.

QUEEN: MY beloved lord, _455 Have you not noted that the Fool of late Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears?

What can it mean? I should be loth to think Some factious slave had tutored him.

KING: Oh, no! _460 He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis That our minds piece the vacant intervals Of his wild words with their own fashioning,-- As in the imagery of summer clouds, Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find _465 The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind. _470

NOTES: _460, _461 Oh...pupil 1870; omitted 1824.

_461 Partly 'tis 1870; It partly is 1824.

_465 of 1870; in 1824.

QUEEN: Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts.

Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pa.s.s The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hang--the Virgin Mother _475 With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vand.y.k.e ever made, _480 A pattern to the unborn age of thee, Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that _485 The cares we waste upon our heavy crown Would make it light and glorious as a wreath Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

NOTE: _473-_477 and, as...salvation 1870; omitted 1824.

KING: Dear Henrietta!

SCENE 3: THE STAR CHAMBER.

LAUD, JUXON, STRAFFORD, AND OTHERS, AS JUDGES.

PRYNNE AS A PRISONER, AND THEN BASTWICK.

LAUD: Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence.

CLERK: 'That he pay five thousand Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle _5 During the pleasure of the Court.'

LAUD: Prisoner, If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak.

JUXON: If you have aught to plead in mitigation, Speak.

BASTWICK: Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I _10 Were an invader of the royal power A public scorner of the word of G.o.d, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superst.i.tious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; _15 If Satan were my lord, as theirs,--our G.o.d Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my G.o.d and King And of good men, as ye are;--I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, _20 Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire.

But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,-- _25 Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment.

even as my Master did, Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light Of Heaven absorbed--some few tumultuous years _30 Will pa.s.s, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power.

NOTE: _27-_32 even...power printed as a fragment, Garnett, 1862; inserted here conjecturally, Rossetti, 1870.

LAUD: Officer, take the prisoner from the bar, And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

BASTWICK: While this hand holds a pen--

LAUD: Be his hands--

JUXON: Stop! _35 Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak No terror, would interpret, being dumb, Heaven's thunder to our harm;...

And hands, which now write only their own shame, With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. _40

LAUD: Much more such 'mercy' among men would be, Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I Could suffer what I would inflict.

[EXIT BASTWICK GUARDED.]

Bring up The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.-- [TO STRATFORD.]

Know you not _45 That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln, Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled?

I speak it not as touching this poor person; _50 But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless.

Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not.