Plant for Eternity and death the seed? Your harvest will be nothingness. The work Will not survive the spirit of its former; It will be in vain that you have labour'd; That you have fought the fight with Nature; And to plans of Ruin consecrated A high and royal lifetime. Man is greater Than you thought. The bondage of long slumber He will break; his sacred rights he will reclaim. With Nero and Busiris will he rank The name of Philip, and—that grieves me, for You once were good. KING. How know you that? MAR. [_with warm energy_] You were; Yes, by th' All-Merciful! Yes, I repeat it. Restore to us what you have taken from us. Generous as strong, let human happiness Stream from your horn of plenty, let souls ripen Round you. Restore us what you took from us. Amid a thousand kings become a king. [_He approaches him boldly, fixing on him firm and glowing looks._ Oh, could the eloquence of all the millions, Who participate in this great moment, Hover on my lips, and raise into a flame That gleam that kindles in your eyes! Give up this false idolatry of self, Which makes your brothers nothing! Be to us A pattern of the Everlasting and the True! Never, never, did a mortal hold so much, To use it so divinely. All the kings Of Europe reverence the name of Spain: Go on in front of all the kings of Europe! One movement of your pen, and new-created Is the Earth. Say but, Let there be freedom! [_Throwing himself at his feet._ KING [_surprised, turning his face away, then again towards Posa_]. Singular enthusiast! Yet—rise—I— MAR. Look round and view God's lordly universe: On Freedom it is founded, and how rich Is it with Freedom! He, the great Creator, Has giv'n the very worm its sev'ral dewdrop; Ev'n in the mouldering spaces of Decay, He leaves Free-will the pleasures of a choice. This world of _yours_! how narrow and how poor! The rustling of a leaf alarms the lord Of Christendom. You quake at every virtue; He, not to mar the glorious form of Freedom, Suffers that the hideous hosts of Evil Should run riot in his fair Creation. Him the maker we behold not; calm He veils himself in everlasting laws, Which and not Him the sceptic seeing exclaims, 'Wherefore a God? The World itself is God.' And never did a Christian's adoration So praise him as this sceptic's blasphemy. KING. And such a model you would undertake, On Earth, in my domains to imitate?