The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes

An apartment in the ducal castle.
Isbrand and Siegfried.
Siegfr.
They still wait for you in their council chamber,
And clamorously demand the keys of the treasure,
The stores of arms, lists of the troops you've hired,
Reports of your past acts, and your intentions
Towards the new republic.

Isbr.
They demand!
A phrase politer would have pleased me better.
The puppets, whose heart strings I hold and play
Between my thumb and fingers, this way, that way;
Through whose masks, wrinkled o'er by age and passion,
My voice and spirit hath spoken continually;
Dare now to ape free will? Well done, Prometheus!
Thou'st pitied Punch and given him a soul,
And all his wooden peers. The tools I've used
To chisel an old heap of stony laws,
The abandoned sepulchre of a dead dukedom,
Into the form my spirit loved and longed for;

145

Now that I've perfected her beauteous shape,
And animated it with half my ghost;
Now that I lead her to our bridal bed,
Dare the mean instruments to lay their plea,
Or their demand forsooth, between us? Go;
And tell the fools, (you'll find them pale, and dropping
Cold tears of fear out of their trembling cheek-pores;)
Tell them, for comfort, that I only laughed;
And bid them all to sup with me to-night,
When we will call the cup to counsel.

Siegfr.
Mean you
Openly to assume a kingly power,
Nor rather inch yourself into the throne?
Perhaps—but as you will.

Isbr.

Siegfried, I'm one
That what I will must do, and what I do
Do in the nick of time without delay.
To-morrow is the greatest fool I know,
Excepting those who put their trust in him.
In one word hear, what soon they all shall hear:
A king's a man, and I will be no man
Unless I am a king. Why, where's the difference?
Throne-steps divide us: they're soon climbed perhaps:
I have a bit of FIAT in my soul,
And can myself create my little world.
Had I been born a four-legged child, methinks
I might have found the steps from dog to man,
And crept into his nature. Are there not

146

Those that fall down out of humanity,
Into the story where the four-legged dwell?
But to the conclave with my message quickly:
I've got a deal to do.

[Exit Siegfried.

How I despise
All such mere men of muscle! It was ever
My study to find out a way to godhead,
And on reflection soon I found that first
I was but half created; that a power
Was wanting in my soul to be its soul,
And this was mine to make. Therefore I fashioned
A will above my will, that plays upon it,
As the first soul doth use in men and cattle.
There's lifeless matter; add the power of shaping,
And you've the crystal: add again the organs,
Wherewith to subdue sustenance to the form
And manner of one's self, and you've the plant:
Add power of motion, senses, and so forth,
And you've all kinds of beasts; suppose a pig:
To pig add reason, foresight, and such stuff,
Then you have man. What shall we add to man,
To bring him higher? I begin to think
That's a discovery I soon shall make.
Thus, owing nought to books, but being read
In the odd nature of much fish and fowl,
And cabbages and beasts, I've raised myself,
By this comparative philosophy,
Above your shoulders, my sage gentlemen.

147

Have patience but a little, and keep still,
I'll find means, bye and bye, of flying higher.

[Exit.

University of Virginia Library

Scene I.