_With his face downward_; This was the dying request of some high-minded Spaniard of old, unwilling, even in the grave, as it were, to look on the misfortunes of his country. _O'erstrode the bounds_; 'After every allowance has been made,' says Hallam, speaking of the Long Parliament from a date so early as August, 1641, 'he must bring very heated passions to the records of those times, who does not perceive in the conduct of that body a series of glaring violations, not only of positive and constitutional, but of those higher principles which are paramount to all immediate policy': (_Const. Hist_. ch. ix). _The axe_; A clear and impartial sketch of Stafford's trial will be found in Ranke (B. viii): who deals dispassionately and historically with an event much obscured by declamation in popular narratives. Even in Hallam's hand the balance seems here to waver a little. _Heroes both_;--_Each his side_; See _Appendix_ B. A CHURCHYARD IN OXFORDSHIRE September: 1643 Sweet air and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, massy-green; Bird-haunted nooks between, Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand, An English-Eastern band:-- While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the grass Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pass:-- In this still precinct of the happy dead, The sanctuary of silence,--Blessed they! I cried, who 'neath the gray Peace of God's house, each in his mounded bed Sleep safe, nor reck how the great world runs on; Peasant with noble here alike unknown. Unknown, unnamed beneath one turf they sleep, Beneath one sky, one heaven-uplifted sign Of love assured, divine: While o'er each mound the quiet mosses creep, The silent dew-pearls weep: --Fit haven-home for thee, O gentlest heart Of Falkland! all unmeet to find thy part In those tempestuous times of canker'd hate When Wisdom's finest touch, and, by her side, Forbearance generous-eyed To fix the delicate balance of the State Were needed;--King or Nation, which should hold Supreme supremacy o'er the kingdoms old. --God's heroes, who? . . . Not most, or likeliest, he Whom iron will cramps to one narrow road, Driving him like a goad Till all his heart decrees seem God's decree; That worst hypocrisy When self cheats self, and conscience at the wheel Herself is steer'd by passion's blindfold zeal; A nether-world archangel! Through whose eyes Flame the red mandates of remorseless might; A gloom of lurid light That holds no commerce with the crystal skies; Like those rank fires that o'er the fen-land flee, Or on the mast-head sign the wrath to be.