Come on! Farewell my kingdom, and all hail
Thou superb, plumed, and helmeted renown,
All hail-I would not truck this brilliant day
To rule in Pylos with a Nestor's beard—
Come on!

Enter DE KAIMS and Knights, &c.

De Kaims. Is 't madness or a hunger after death That makes thee thus unarm'd throw taunts at us?Yield, Stephen, or my sword's point dips in

The gloomy current of a traitor's heart.

Stephen. Do it, De Kaims, I will not budge an inch.
De Kaims. Yes, of thy madness thou shalt take the meed.
Stephen. Darest thou?

De Kaims.

How dare, against a man disarm'd? Stephen. What weapons has the lion but himself! Come not near me, De Kaims, for by the price Of all the glory I have won this day,

Being a king, I will not yield alive

Το any

but the second man of the realm, Robert of Glocester.

De Kaims.

Thou shalt vail to me.

Stephen. Shall I, when I have sworn against it, sir?
Thou think'st it brave to take a breathing king,
That, on a court-day bow'd to haughty Maud,
The awed presence-chamber may be bold
To whisper, there's the man who took alive
Stephen-me-prisoner. Certes, De Kaims,
The ambition is a noble one.

And, Stephen, I must compass it.
Stephen.

No, no,

Do not tempt me to throttle you on the gorge,
Or with my gauntlet crush your hollow breast,
Just when your knighthood is grown ripe and full
For lordship.

A Soldier. Is an honest yeoman's spear
Of no use at a need? Take that.

Stephen.

Ah, dastard!

De Kaims. What, you are vulnerable! my prisoner! Stephen. No, not yet. I disclaim it, and demand Death as a sovereign right unto a king

Who 'sdains to yield to any but his peer,

If not in title, yet in noble deeds,

The Earl of Glocester. Stab to the hilt, De Kaims,

For I will never by mean hands be led

From this so famous field. Do you hear! Be quick!
Trumpets. Enter the Earl of CHESTER and Knights.

SCENE IV.-A Presence Chamber. Queen MAUD in a Chair of State, the Earls of GLOCESTER and CHESTER, Lords, Attend

ants.

Maud. Glocester, no more: I will behold that Boulogne:
Set him before me. Not for the poor sake
Of regal pomp and a vain-glorious hour,
As thou with wary speech, yet near enough,
Hast hinted.

Glocester.

Faithful counsel have I given;

If wary, for your Highness' benefit.

Maud. The Heavens forbid that I should not think so,

For by thy valor have I won this realm,

Which by thy wisdom I will ever keep.

To

sage advisers let me ever bend

A meek attentive ear, so that they treat

Of the wide kingdom's rule and government,
Not trenching on our actions personal.

Advised, not school'd, I would be; and henceforth

Spoken to in clear, plain, and open terms,

Not side-ways sermon'd at.

'Tis not for worldly pomp I wish to see The rebel, but as dooming judge to give A sentence something worthy of his guilt.

Glocester. If 't must be so, I'll bring him to your presence. [Exit GLOCESTER.

Maud. A meaner summoner might do as well—

My Lord of Chester, is 't true what I hear
Of Stephen of Boulogne, our prisoner,
That he, as a fit penance for his crimes,

Eats wholesome, sweet, and palatable food

Off Glocester's golden dishes-drinks pure wine,
Lodges soft?

Chester.

More than that, my gracious Queen,
Has anger'd me. The noble Earl, methinks,
Full soldier as he is, and without peer

In counsel, dreams too much among his books.
It may read well, but sure 'tis out of date

To play the Alexander with Darius.

Maud. Truth! I think so. By Heavens it shall not last! Chester. It would amaze your Highness now to mark How Glocester overstrains his courtesy

To that crime-loving rebel, that Boulogne

Maud. That ingrate!

Chester.

For whose vast ingratitude

To our late sovereign lord, your noble sire,
The generous Earl condoles in his mishaps,
And with a sort of lackeying friendliness,
Talks off the mighty frowning from his brow,
Woos him to hold a duet in a smile,

Or, if it please him, play an hour at chess-
Maud. A perjured slave!

Chester.

And for his perjury,
Glocester has fit rewards-nay, I believe,
He sets his bustling household's wits at work
For flatteries to ease this Stephen's hours,
And make a heaven of his purgatory;
Adorning bondage with the pleasant gloss
Of feasts and music, and all idle shows

Of indoor pageantry; while syren whispers,
Predestined for his ear, 'scape as half-check'd
From lips the courtliest and the rubiest,
Of all the realm, admiring of his deeds.
Maud. A frost upon his summer!
Chester.

A queen's nod

Can make his June December. Here he comes.

IN midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool,
There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air,
A faery city, 'neath the potent rule

Of Emperor Elfinan; famed ev'rywhere
For love of mortal women, maidens fair,

Whose lips were solid, whose soft hands were made
Of a fit mould and beauty, ripe and rare,

To pamper his slight wooing, warm, yet staid:
He lov'd girls smooth as shades, but hated a mere shade.

II.

This was a crime forbidden by the law;
And all the priesthood of his city wept,
For ruin and dismay they well foresaw,
If impious prince no bound or limit kept,
And faery Zendervester overstept;

They wept, he sinn'd, and still he would sin on,

They dreamt of sin, and he sinn'd while they slept;

In vain the pulpit thunder'd at the throne,

Caricature was vain, and vain the tart lampoon.

*This Poem was written subject to future amendments and omissions: it was begun without a plan, and without any prescribed laws for the supernatural machinery.-CHARLES BROWN.