From that time her life was overshadowed by the sadness of her father's death, her own isolation, and her increasing feebleness of health. She seems to have been a singularly winning and intelligent girl, and she hence found or inspired affection in several of the guardians successively appointed to take charge of her. But if she had not been thus marked by beauty of nature, our indignant disgust would hardly be less at the brutal treatment inflicted by the Puritan-Independent authorities upon this child:--at the refusal of her prayer to be sent to her elder sister Mary, in Holland; at the captivity in Carisbrook; at the isolation in which she was left to die.--Yet it is not she who most merits pity! In this poem, written before the plan of the book had been formed, I find that some slight deviation from the best authorities has been made. Elizabeth's young brother Henry, Duke of Gloster, shared her prison: and although her own physician, Mayerne, had been dismissed, yet some medical attendance was supplied.--Henry Vaughan has described the patience of the young sufferer in two lovely lines: Thou didst not murmur, nor revile, And drank'st thy wormwood with a smile. --_Olor Iscanus_; 1651. THE WRECK OF THE ADMIRAL _A TALE OF PRINCE RUPERT_ September 30: 1651 Seventy league from Terceira they lay In the mid Atlantic straining; And inch upon inch as she settles they know The leak on the Admiral gaining. Below them 'tis death rushes greedily in; But their signal unheeded is waving, For the shouts by their billow-toss'd consort unheard Are lost in the tempest's wild raving. For Maurice in vain o'er the bulwark leant forth, While Rupert to rescue was crying; And the voice of farewell on his face is flung back With the scud on the billow-top flying! But no time was for tears, save for duty no thought, When brother is parting from brother; For Rupert the brave and his high-hearted crew, They must die, as they lived, by each other. Unregarded the boat, for none care from their post To steal off while the Prince is beside them, All, all, side by side with his comrades to share Till the death-plunge at last shall divide them. Ah, sharp in his bosom meanwhile is the smart, He alone for his king is contending! And the brightness and blaze of his youth in its prime Must here in mid-waves have their ending! --The seas they break over, the seas they press in From fo'csle to binnacle streaming; And a ripple runs over the Admiral's deck, With blue cold witch-fire gleaming. O then in a noble rebellion they rise; They may die, but the Prince shall o'erlive them! With a loving rough force to the boat he is thrust, And he must be saved and forgive them! Now their flame-pikes they lift, the last signal for life, Flaring wild in the wild rack above them:-- And each breast has one prayer for the Mercy on high, And one for the far-off who love them.