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"LOVE IS AN EVIL THING, AND TURNS CHOICE WORDS AND WISDOM INTO FIRE AND AIR."-SWINBURNE.

432

66

FOR A JUST DEED LOOKS ALWAY EITHER WAY—(SWINBURNE)

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

fold. In the following scene, the details of his execution are witnessed by
Mary Carmichael, seated at a window in Holyrood Palace, and by her
described to Mary Beaton.]

Mary B.
Mary C.

O you see nothing?

Nay, but swarms of men
And talking women gathered in small space,

Flapping their gowns and gaping with fools' eyes:
And a thin ring round one that seems to speak,
Holding his hands out eagerly; no more.

Mary B. Why, I hear more, I hear men shout, The queen.
Mary C. Nay, no cries yet.

Mary B. ་

Mary C.

Mary B.

Mary C.

Ah, they will cry out soon

When she comes forth; they should cry out on her;
I hear their crying in my heart. Nay, sweet,

Do not you hate her? all men, if God please,
Shall hate her one day; yea, one day no doubt
I shall worse hate her.

Pray you, be at peace;

You hurt yourself: she will be merciful;
What, could you see a true man slain for you?

I think I could not; it is not like our hearts

To have such hard sides to them.

Oh, not you,

And I could nowise; there's some blood in her

That does not run to mercy as ours doth:

That fair face and the cursed heart in her
Made keener than a knife for manslaying
Can bear strange things.

Peace, for the people come.

Ah-Murray,* hooded over half his face

With plucked-down hat, few folk about him, eyes
Like a man angered; Darnley† after him,

* The Earl of Murray, half-brother to Mary Queen of Scots.
† Henry Lord Darnley, afterwards married to Queen Mary.

WITH BLAMELESS EYES, AND MERCY IS NO FAULT."-SWINBURNE.

"ONE CHOICE WE HAVE,-TO LIVE, AND DO JUST DEEDS, AND DIE."-ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

"FOR NOT THE DIFFERENCE OF THE SEVERAL FLESH being vile, oR NOBLE, OR BEAUTIFUL, or base,-(SWINBURNE)

PRAISE BE WITH MEN ABROAD; CHASTE LIVES WITH US,

THE DEATH OF CHASTELARD.

433

Holding our Hamilton* above her wrist,

His mouth put near her hair to whisper with

And she laughs softly, looking at his feet.
Mary B. She will not live long; God hath given her

Few days and evil, full of hate and love,

I see well now.

Mary C. Hark, there's their cry- The queen!

Fair life and long, and good days to the queen!
Mary B. Yea, but God knows. I feel such patience here
As I were sure in a brief while to die.

Mary C. She bends, and laughs a little, graciously,

Mary B.

Mary C.

Mary B.

And turns half, talking to I know not whom-
A big man with great shoulders; † ah, the face,
You get his face now-wide and duskish, yea,
The youth burnt out of it. A goodly man,
Thewed mightily and sunburnt to the bone;

Doubtless he was away in banishment,

Or kept some march far off.

Still you see nothing?
Yea, now they bring him forth with a great noise,
The folk all shouting and men thrust about
Each way from him.

Ah, Lord God, bear with me,

Help me to bear a little with my love

For thine own love, or give me some quick death.

Do not come down; I shall get strength again,
Only my breath fails. Looks he sad or blithe?

Not sad I doubt yet.

Mary C.

*

Nay, not sad a whit,

But like a man who, losing gold or lands,

Should lose a heavy sorrow; his face set,

Mary Hamilton, one of the queen's attendants called, from their
Christian names, "The Four Marys."

+ Earl of Bothwell.

HOME-KEEPING DAYS AND HOUSEHOLD REVERENCES."-SWINBURNE.

MAKES PRAISEWORTHY, BUT PURER SPIRIT AND HEART, HIGHER THan these mEANER MOUTHS AND LIMBS."-SWINBURNE.

"WHO HATH GIVEN MAN SPEECH? OR WHO HATH SET THEREIN A THORN FOR PERIL AND A SNARE FOR SIN?

434

Mary B.

Mary C.

WITH CHARMED WORDS AND SONGS HAVE MEN PUT OUT

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

The eyes not curious to the right or left,
And reading in a book, his hands unbound,

With short fleet smiles. The whole place catches
breath,

Looking at him; she seems at point to speak;
Now she lies back, and laughs, with her brows drawn
And her lips drawn too. Now they read his crime-
I see the laughter tightening her chin:

Why do you bend your body and draw breath?
They will not slay him in her sight; I am sure
She will not have him slain.

Forth, and fear not:

...

I was just praying to myself—one word,
A prayer I have to say for her to God. . . .
Now he looks her side;
Something he says, if one could hear thus far:
She leans out, lengthening her throat to hear,
And her eyes shining.

Ah, I had no hope.—

Mary B.

Let it end quickly.

Mary C.

Now his eyes are wide

FOR IN THE WORD HIS LIFE IS AND HIS BREATH, AND IN THE WORD HIS DEATH."-ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

Mary B.

And his smile great; and like another smile
The blood fills all his face. Her cheek and neck

Work fast and hard;
He looks so merrily.

she must have pardoned him,

Now he comes forth

Out of that ring of people and kneels down;
Ah, how the helve and edge of the great axe
Turn in the sunlight as the man shifts hands-
It must be for a show: because she sits
And hardly moves her head this way—I see
Her chin and lifted lips. Now she stands up,

Puts out her hand, and they fall muttering;—
Ah!

It is done now?

WILD EVIL, AND THE FIRE OF TYRANNIES."-SWINBURNE.

"FOR SILENCE AFTER GRIEVOUS THINGS IS GOOD, AND REVERENCE, AND THE FEAR THAT MAKES MEN WHOLE,

LOVE THOU THE LAW, AND CLEAVE TO THINGS ORDAINED."-SWINBURNE.

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Do not look out.

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For Heaven's love, stay there;

Nay, he is dead by this;

But gather up yourself from off the floor;

Will she die too? I shut mine eyes and heard

Sweet, do not beat your face upon the ground,
Nay, he is dead and slain.

I knew he would be slain.

What, slain indeed?

Ay, through the neck:

I knew one must be smitten through the neck

To die so quick if one were stabbed to the heart,
He would die slower.

Will you behold him dead?

Mary B. Yea: must a dead man not be looked upon
That living one was fain of?—give me way.
Lo you, what sort of hair this fellow had;
The doomsman gathers it into his hand
To grasp the head by for all men to see.

[From "Chastelard: a Tragedy," act v., scene 3.]

AND SHAME, AND RIGHTEOUS GOVERNANCE OF BLOOD, AND LORDSHIP OF THE SOUL."-ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

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66 THINGS GAINED ARE GONE, BUT GREAT THINGS DONE ENDURE."-IBID.

426

"I MARVEL NOT, O SUN! THAT UNTO THEE

JOHN STERLING.

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead, anon

My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on

Through all futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

[From Southey's "Miscellaneous Poems."]

AND POUR HIS PRAYERS OF MINGLED AWE AND LOVE; FOR LIKE A GOD THOU ART, AND ON THY WAY

OF GLORY SHEDDEST, WITH BENIGNANT RAY, BEAUTY, AND LIFE, AND JOYAUNCE FROM ABOVE."-SOUTHEY.

John Sterling.

[JOHN STERLING, says an able critic,* must have been a man of genius, as he certainly was of the greatest promise. His friends remember him as a marvellous talker; and his gentle disposition endeared him to all who knew him. The writings which he published in his life-time, and those which have been given to the world since, indicate rather what the author might have done, with good health and a settled purpose, than the finished compositions of a writer in full vigour of understanding, enjoying tranquillity of mind and body. Sterling possessed neither. He was delicate from his boyhood, and for many years of his life wholly occupied in eluding the resolute pursuit of disease and death. He was born in Kaimes Castle, in the Isle of Bute, on the 20th of July 1806; received his preliminary education at various private schools, and completed it at the Universities of Glasgow (1821-23) and Cambridge (1824-27). At the latter, his tutor was Julius Hare, afterwards Archdeacon of Lewes, who, in his memoir of Sterling, does justice to his great mental gifts, his generous nature, and noble aspirations. Op leaving Cambridge, he began to contribute to The Athenæum; and his papers are characterized by Carlyle as "crude, imperfect, yet singularly beautiful and attractive." In 1830 he was married; but a few weeks after was seized with a dangerous pulmonary illness, and, accompanied by his wife, repaired in quest of health to the West Indian island of St. Vincent, where his mother had some property. He returned to England in 1834; took orders; became curate of Hurstmonceaux in Sussex; dissatisfied with himself, and ill in

* Essays from The Times, Second Series.

IN ADORATION MAN SHOULD BOW THE KNEE,

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