University of Virginia Library


59

KING CHARLES I.

I saw a Royal Form with eye upturn'd,
Rising from furnace of affliction free,
And knew that brow of deep serenity,
Whereon, methought, a crown of glory burn'd,
With a calm smile, as if the death-cry turn'd
On his freed ear to seraph sounds on high!
Still in the guilty place the hideous cry
Bark'd impotent. In quiet hope inurn'd
Was his poor fleshly mantle, but the breath
Of our bad world o'er this unquiet stage
Flouts his blest name, unpardon'd e'en in death.
And thus his holy shade on earth beneath,
Still walks mid evil tongues from age to age,
Bearing the cross, his Master's heritage.
But no unkindly word for evermore
Can reach his rest, or pass th'eternal door.