MAR. For you, however, this is unimportant; It but makes you separate, peculiar; 'Tis the price you pay for being a god. And frightful were it if you failed in this! If for the desolated good of millions, You the Desolator should gain—nothing! If the very freedom you have blighted And kill'd were that alone which could exalt Yourself!—Sire, pardon me, I must not stay: The matter makes me rash: my heart is full, Too strong the charm of looking on the one Of living men to whom I might unfold it. [_The Count de Lerma enters, and whispers a few words to the King. The latter beckons to him to withdraw, and continues sitting in his former posture._ KING [_to the Marquis, after Lerma is gone_]. Speak on! MAR. [_after a pause_] I feel, Sire, all the worth— KING. Speak on! Y' had something more to say. MAR. Not long since, Sire, I chanced to pass through Flanders and Brabant. So many rich and flourishing provinces; A great, a mighty people, and still more, An honest people!—And this people's Father! That, thought I, must be divine: so thinking, I stumbled on a heap of human bones. [_He pauses; his eyes rest on the King, who endeavours to return his glance, but with an air of embarrassment is forced to look upon the ground._ You are in the right, you _must_ proceed so. That you _could_ do, what you saw you _must_ do, Fills me with a shuddering admiration. Pity that the victim welt'ring in its blood Should speak so feeble an eulogium On the spirit of the priest! That mere men, Not beings of a calmer essence, write The annals of the world! Serener ages Will displace the age of Philip; these will bring A milder wisdom; the subject's good will then Be reconcil'd to th' prince's greatness; The thrifty State will learn to prize its children, And necessity no more will be inhuman. KING. And when, think you, would those blessed ages Have come round, had I recoil'd before The curse of this? Behold my Spain! Here blooms The subject's good, in never-clouded peace: _Such_ peace will I bestow on Flanders. MAR. Peace of a churchyard! And you hope to end What you have entered on? Hope to withstand The timeful change of Christendom; to stop The universal Spring that shall make young The countenance o' th' Earth? _You_ purpose, single In all Europe, alone, to fling yourself Against the wheel of Destiny that rolls For ever its appointed course; to clutch Its spokes with mortal arm? You may not, Sire! Already thousands have forsook your kingdoms, Escaping glad though poor: the citizen You lost for conscience' sake, he was your noblest. With mother's arms Elizabeth receives The fugitives, and rich by foreign skill, In fertile strength her England blooms. Forsaken Of its toilsome people, lies Grenada Desolate; and Europe sees with glad surprise Its enemy faint with self-inflicted wounds. [_The King seems moved: the Marquis observes it, and advances some steps nearer._