Uprose a shape[T] with dark bright eye; It spoke--and at the word The Dreamer breathed an angry sigh; And starting--clutch'd his sword; An instinct bade him hate and fear That unknown shape--as if a foe were near-- For, mighty in that mien of thoughtful youth, Spoke Fraud's most deadly foe--a soul on fire with Truth; A soul without one stain Save England's hallowing tears;--the sad and starry Vane. There enter'd on that conclave high A solitary Man! And rustling through the conclave high A troubled murmur ran; A moment more--loud riot all-- With pike and morion gleam'd the startled hall: And there, where, since the primal date Of Freedom's glorious morn, The eternal People solemn sate, The People's Champion spat his ribald scorn! Dark moral to all ages!--Blent in one The broken fasces and the shatter'd throne; The deed that damns immortally is done; And FORCE, the Cain of Nations-reigns alone! The veil is rent--the crafty soul lies bare! "Behold," the Demon cried, "the _Future_ Cromwell, there! Art thou content, on earth the Greatest thou, APOSTATE AND USURPER?"--From his rest The Dreamer started with a heaving breast, The better angels of the human heart Not dumb to his,--The Hell-Born laugh'd aloud, And o'er the Evil Vision rush'd the cloud! [A] Talma. [B] Certainly the sculptor of the Farnese Hercules well conceived that ideal character of the demi-god, which makes Aristotle (Prob. 30) class the grand Personification of Labour amongst the Melancholy. It is the union of mournful repose with colossal power, which gives so profound a moral sentiment to that masterpiece of art. [C] "Aus den Saiten, wie aus ihren Himmeln, Neugebor'ne Seraphim."--_Schiller._ [D] Libitina, the Venus who presided over funerals. [E] Mary Stuart--"the soft Medusa" is an expression strikingly applied to her in her own day. [F] See the correspondence maintained by Francis Bacon and Robert Cecil (the sons of Elizabeth's most faithful friends) with the Scottish court, during the Queen's last illness. [G] "It was after labouring for nearly three weeks under a morbid melancholy, which brought on a stupor not unmixed with some indications of a disordered fancy, that the Queen expired."--_Aikin's translation of a Latin letter (author unknown) to Edmund Lambert._