_Guilf._ (_to Lady J._) Thou standest unmoved; Calm temper sits upon thy beauteous brow; Thy eyes, that flowed so fast for Edward’s loss, Gaze unconcerned upon the ruin round thee, As if thou hadst resolved to brave thy fate And triumph in the midst of desolation. _Lady Jane._ And dost thou think, my Guilford, I can see My father, mother, and e’en thee, my husband, Torn from my side, without a pang of sorrow? How art thou thus unknowing in my heart? Words cannot tell thee what I feel; there is An agonizing softness busy here That tugs the strings, that struggles to get loose, And pour my soul in wailings out before thee. _Guilf._ Give way, and let the gushing torrent come. * * * _Lady J._ Guilford! no. The time for tender thoughts and soft endearments Is fled away and gone; joy has forsaken us; Our hearts have now another part to play; They must be steeled with some uncommon fortitude, That fearless we may tread the paths of horrors, And, in despite of fortune and our foes, E’en in the hour of death be more than conquerors. _Guilf._ O teach me! say, what energy divine Inspires thy softer sex and tender years With such unshaken courage? _Lady J._ Truth and innocence; * * * _Lieut._ My lords, my orders-- _Guilf._ See! we must--must part! _Lady J._ Yet surely we shall meet again. _Guilf._ Fain would I cheer my heart with hopes like these, But my sad thoughts turn ever to the grave, To that last dwelling whither now we haste. _Lady J._ ’Tis true, by those dark paths our journey leads, And through the vale of death we pass to life; But what is there in death to blast our hopes? Behold the universal works of nature, Where life still springs from death. Mark with what hopes upon the furrowed plain The careful ploughman casts the pregnant grain; There hid, as in a grave, awhile it lies, Till the revolving season bids it rise; Then large increase the buried treasures yield, And with full harvest crown the plenteous field. But to return to history. The conduct of Lady Jane in this sudden transition was such as was to be expected from one so humble, gentle, and pious. “She had,” says Bishop Burnet, “a mind wonderfully raised above the world; and at the age wherein others are but imbibing the notions of philosophy, she had attained to the practice of the highest precepts of it; for she was neither lifted up with the hope of a crown, nor cast down when she saw her palace made afterwards her prison; but carried herself with an equal temper of mind in those great inequalities of fortune that so suddenly exalted and depressed her.” In the words of the quaint Fuller, “she made misery itself amiable by her pious and patient behavior; adversity, her night clothes, becoming her, as well as her day dressing, by reason of her pious disposition.”