My Father's palace gates no more shall open,
I own no more my proud ancestral name,
I have no property even in these weeds,
These coarse and simple weeds I wear; nor will,
Nor passion, nor affection, nor the love
Of kindred touch this earth-estranged heart;
My personal being is absorbed and dead.
Thou think'st it much with cilice, scourge, and fast
To macerate thy all-too pamper'd body,
That thy sere heart is seal'd to woman's love,
That child shall never climb thy knees, nor call thee His father:—on the altar of my God
I've laid a nobler sacrifice, a soul
Conscious it might have compass'd empire. This
I've done; and in no brief and frantic fit
Of youthful lust ungratified-in the hour
Of disappointed pride. A noble born
Of Rome's patrician blood, rich, lettered, versed
In the affairs of men; no monkish dreamer
Hearing Heaven's summons in ecstatic vision.
God spoke within this heart but with the voice
Of stern deliberate duty, and I rose
Resolved to sail the flood, to tread the fire—
That's nought-to quench all natural compunction,
To know nor right nor wrong, nor crime nor virtue,
But as subservient to Rome's cause and Heaven's.
I've school'd my haughty soul to subtlest craft,
I've strung my tender heart to bloodiest havoc,
And stand prepared to wear the martyr's flames
Like nuptial robes;-far worse, to drag to the stake
My friend, the brother of my soul-if thus
I sear the hydra heads of heresy.
Think not thine order, brother, nor thy tenets,
Sublime as that unquestioning devotion
With which God's Seraphim perform his mandates,
Unknown, unnoticed, unobserved. I lay
The volume of this heart, that man ne'er read,
Before thee. Here is hate of heresy,
Deep, desperate as thine own.
And in the secret prayers of my dark chamber,
Like thee I cry, "Holy and True, how long-”
Oh! when will they blaze up and gladden heaven,
The glorious purifying fires, and purge
The land of its pollutions? when the Church
pure and virgin whiteness re-array,
And its true Sons shake off dissembling darkness?
Oh! Gardiner, beware! No lust of vengeance,
No carnal hate, nor hope of worldly triumph,
Must leaven our heroic zeal: God's will
Its sole commission, its sole end God's glory.
We must gird up our souls to this high service,
Alike subdue and bend our pride and passions
To our great scope; with nought too stern or dread
But that we'll on relentless, nought too base
But we will stoop-much is already done-
Enough, I ask no more, would know no more.
I'll stand aloof, and wait in holy hope
In safety reap the harvest
Sown in the sweat of other's brows. 'Tis well,
Thus shall it be, thus best the cause will prosper ;
And, prosper but the cause, my work is done.
QUEEN (dismissing her ladies).
Away-we are not used to order twice;
Nor that cold hateful pomp of fawning faces
Pursues me, nor the true officious love
Of those whose hearts I would not wring, by seeming
The wretch I am so pour thee forth, mine heart,
Pour thy full tide of bitterness; for Queens
Must weep in secret when they weep. I saw it—
'Twas no foul vision-with unblinded eyes
I saw it his fond hands, as once in mine,
Were wreath'd in hers; he gazed upon her face
Even with those fatal eyes, no woman looks at
I know it! ah! too well-nor madly dote.
That eloquence, the self-same burning words
That seize the awe-struck soul, when weakest, thrill'd
Her vainly-deaf averted ears.—Oh, Heaven!
I thank thee that I cursed her not, nor him.
Jane Seymour, like a sister did I deem thee;
But what of that? Thou'rt heaven-ordain'd to visit
Her sins upon the head of her that dared
To love, to wed another's lord. May'st thou
Ne'er know the racking anguish of this hour,
The desolation of this heart! -But thou,
Oh! thou, my crime, my madness! thou on whom
The loftiest woman had been proud to dote,
Had he been master of a straw-roof'd cottage!
Was 't just to awe, to dazzle the young mind,
That deem'd its transport loyal admiration,
Submissive duty all, till it awoke
And found it thrilling, deepest woman's love?
Too late, too early disabused—would Heaven
That I were still abused! Long, long I've felt
Love's bonds fall one by one from thy pall'd heart.
Oh! the fond falsehoods of my credulous soul !
War, policy, religion, all the cares
Of kingdoms, Europe's fate within thy hands,
I pleaded to myself to justify
Thy cold estrangement.
Must sit alone on my cold eminence,
All women's envy, mine own scorn and pity.
And all the sweetness of these virgin lips,
And all the pureness of this virgin bosom,
And all the fondness of this virgin heart,
Forgotten, turn'd to scorn-perchance to loathing.
Heaven! was no way but this, and none but He
To scourge this guilty heart? Thy will be done.
I've still a noble Father, and a Brother,
And, Powers of grace! my Mother-kill her not,
Break not her heart,—for sure 'twill break to hear it.
My child, my child, thou only wilt not feel it:
Thy parent o'er thy face may weep, nor thou
Be sadder for her misery; thou wilt love me
Though thy false father scorn and hate. My Mother-
Oh! ne'er before would I have fled thy presence:
Betray me not, my tear-swoln eyes.
I come to task thy goodness: thou must use
That witching influence none e'er resists;
That, with a sweet and pardonable treason,
Makes the King's Grace thy slave, nor leaves him pow'r To think or speak but at thy pleasure
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