University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Enter Osric with British Lords and Officers.
Osric.
Princes of Denmark, hail!—I will not ask,
Wherefore your warlike visitation—No—
The mighty never want a cause for quarrel.
I hold me to this question—do ye vouch
The message of your herald?

Ivar.
Yes.

Osric.
Repeat it.

Ivar.
If Heaven shall bless our champion's arm with conquest,
The gift of fair Northumbria's scepter, then,
Is left at our dispose—If Denmark fall,
We swear to abdicate your throne for ever,
And leave your land in peace.

Osric.
We do accept you—but with this addition,
That they whose champion falls this day in battle,
That instant quit the field.

Ivar.
Agreed.

Osric.
Then let us march without the lists, and there
Affirm the compact with our mutual sanction.
Heralds, prepare the field—call in the champions,
And hold them ready, at the trumpet's sound,
To fix a nation's fate.

[Exeunt.
Enter Westmorland.
West.
If death should be no more than so—to loose
The care-stretch'd rack of thought—to sink at once
In sweet oblivion—'tis the hope—the Heaven,
That Guilt sighs after!—Close these eyes—but shut
Their living telescope—and all is darkness!—
Let death but shut the world from every sense,
The soul—what then of her?—when the hearing,
Sight, touch, and taste, her wonted ministers
Of light, of knowledge, and of action, perish;
What is it then that wins yon distant worlds,
And takes the rounds of varying nature in?—
The eye?—O no—'tis dark amid the noon,
Till the bright soul, its animating guest,
Look from the lids, and waken to perception.
It is the soul that sees, then—and this eye
Is but her glass occasional, to view
This outward world, perhaps not obvious else:
But let her forth from this her prison house,
She springs upon new worlds, whose light is life,
To which the sun is darkness!—Then existence
Is sure—but whether, or for bliss or woe?—
Be it—Heaven's will is best—and bounty wide,
Where there is least to merit.