University of Virginia Library

SCENE VIII.

The King's Cabinet.
Enter Ethelstan.
Ethelstan.
How many deaths we die with those we love
Who sink before us!—death of pang severer
Than is our own departure,—oft small pain!
How many living deaths do we endure,
Our friendships, our affections kill'd, in which
We had our best of being!—'Twas the lot
Our little ignorant hands drew when we groped,
Blind embryons, in nature's darkling bosom,
For that sad prize—long life!—That I had died
When I loved nought beyond my mother's breast
And it, not for her sake, but its sweet nourishment!
O Heaven! what misanthropes would make of us,
Kindliness ill-requited!—blood turns gall,
Hearts become spleens, and we grow even to hate
God's fairest image, in its feminine form,
That creature which all earthly goodness seem'd
To breathe in, as a pure and beautiful shrine
For earthly love 's best worship!—Can it be
That this bright shape angelical should prove
A demon's house within?—I am the mariner
On a strange sea, with every storm that blows
Whirling me every way, yet leaving me
The piece of still distraction that I stood,
Not knowing which to move with.—Now, what 's here?

Enter Turketul, Alger, Goderic, and other Chiefs; the Prior and Messenger.
Turketul.
A messenger, who says he bears dread news
To king and kingdom!

Ethelstan.
Whence? from whom?

Messenger.
Her Grace,
The queen presumptive, who, all haste and terror
What may betide her liege, sends word:—The Danes,
Fierce Anlaf at their front, and host on host
At flank and rear—the ever-dangerous Irish—
Cambrians, Cumbrians, led by Edwal, Eogan,—
Northmen by Harald Blue-Tooth's warlike son—
Picts and Orcadians—with his Albin-Scots,
Grey Constantine—the pirate-bands colleagued
Under their Sea-kings by strong hope of spoil—
These piled on others, hundreds of deep-hull'd ships
Whose emptiest weight makes ocean mount the shores,
Disgorge at Humber-mouth, as if the sea
Its multitudinous monsters turn'd to men,
And cast them shoal on shoal upon our Isle!

Ethelstan.
Thank heaven!—this breathes new life in me!—thank heaven!
Chancellor, southward, and bring up my Saxons—
You, Goderic, Alger, thanes, stand the foe here
With your stout countrymen—I will to York
Where my guards lie prompt for this imminence—
Away!—Come soon to conquest!—You, bold Prior,
Be rife with our good men of Beverley
To back these warlike thanes—I know your citizens!
Men made of rock!—So there, my armour, knights!—
Unhappy Edmund! Danes upon the field,
And thou not!—leaving all the joy of battle
To Ethelstan alone!

[Exit.
Prior.
So speeds our thunderbolt!