Cromwell

SYNOPSIS     Introduction - The mountains and the sea the cradles of Freedom contrasted with the birth-place of Cromwell His childhood and youth The germs of his future character probably formed during his life of inaction Cromwell at the moment of his intended embarkation Retrospect of his past life and profligate youth    Temptations held out by the prospect of a life of rest in America How far such rest was allowable Vision of his future life Different persons represented in it Charles the First Cromwell himself His victories and maritime glory Pym Strafford Laud Hampden Falkland Milton    Charles the First Cromwell on his death-bed His character Dispersion of the vision Conclusion.     Schrecklich ist es, deiner Wahrheit     Sterbliches Gefss zu seyn.     - V Schiller,     High fate is theirs, ye sleepless waves, whose ear     Learns Freedoms lesson from your voice of fear;     Whose spellbound sense from childhoods hour hath known     Familiar meanings in your mystic tone:     Sounds of deep import-voices that beguile     Age of its tears and childhood of its smile,     To yearn with speechless impulse to the free     And gladsome greetings of the buoyant sea!     High fate is theirs, who where the silent sky     Stoops to the soaring mountains, live and die;     Who scale the cloud-capt height, or sink to rest     In the deep stillness of its sheltring breast;     Around whose feet the exulting waves have sung,     The eternal hills their giant shadows flung.     No wonders nursd thy childhood; not for thee     Did the waves chant their song of liberty!     Thine was no mountain home, where Freedoms form     Abides enthrond amid the mist and storm,     And whispers to the listening winds, that swell     With solemn cadence round her citadel!     These had no sound for thee: that cold calm eye     Lit with no rapture as the storm swept by,     To mark with shiverd crest the reeling wave     Hide his torn head beneath his sunless cave;     Or hear, mid circling crags, the impatient cry     Of the pent winds, that scream in agony!     Yet all high sounds that mountain children hear     Flashd from thy soul upon thine inward ear;     All Freedoms mystic language storms that roar     By hill or wave, the mountain or the shore,     All these had stirrd thy spirit, and thine eye     In common sights read secret sympathy;     Till all bright thoughts that hills or waves can yield,     Deckd the dull waste, and the familiar field;     Or wondrous sounds from tranquil skies were borne     Far oer the glistening sheets of windy corn:     Skies that unbound by clasp of mountain chain,     Slope stately down, and melt into the plain;     Sounds such as erst the lone wayfaring man     Caught, as he journeyed, from the lips of Pan;     Or that mysterious cry, that smote with fear,     Like sounds from other worlds, the Spartans ear.     While oer the dusty plain, the murmurous throng     Of Heavens embattled myriads swept along.     Say not such dreams are idle: for the man     Still toils to perfect what the child began;     And thoughts, that were but outlines, time engraves     Deep on his life; and childhoods baby waves,     Made rough with care, become the changeful sea,     Stemmd by the strength of manhood fearlessly;     And fleeting thoughts, that on the lonely wild     Swept oer the fancy of that heedless child,     Perchance had quickend with a living truth     The cold dull soil of his unfruitful youth;     Till, with his daily life, a life, that threw     Its shadows oer the future, flowerd and grew,     With common cares unmingling, and apart,     Haunting the shrouded chambers of his heart;     Till life, unstirrd by action, life became     Threaded and lightend by a track of flame;     An inward light, that, with its streaming ray,     On the dark current of his changeless day     Bound all his being with a silver chain     Like a swift river through a silent plain!     High thoughts were his, when by the gleaming flood,     With heart new strung, and stern resolve, he stood;     Where rode the tall dark ships, whose loosend sail     All idly flutterd in the eastern gale;     High thoughts were his;but Memorys glance the while     Fell on the cherishd past with tearful smile;     And peaceful joys and gentler thoughts swept by,     Like summer lightnings oer a darkend sky.     The peace of childhood, and the thoughts that roam,     Like loving shadows, round that childhoods home;     Joys that had come and vanishd, half unknown,     Then slowly brightend, as the days had flown;     Years that were sweet or sad, becalmd or tossd     On lifes wild waves the living and the lost.     Youth staind with follies: and the thoughts of ill     Crushd, as they rose, by manhoods sterner will.     Repentant prayers, that had been strong to save;     And the first sorrow, which is childhoods grave!     All shapes that haunt remembrance soft and fair,     Like a green land at sunset, all were there!     Eyes that he knew, old faces, unforgot,     Gazd sadly down on his unrestful lot,     And Memorys calm clear voice, and mournful eye,     Chilld every buoyant hope that floated by;     Like frozen winds on southern vales that blow     From a far land the children of the snow     Oer flowering plain and blossomd meadow fling     The cold dull shadow of their icy wing.     Then Fancys roving visions, bold and free,     A moment dispossessd reality.     All airy hopes that idle hearts can frame,     Like dreams between two sorrows, went and came:     Fond hearts that fain would clothe the unwelcome truth     Of toilsome manhood in the dreams of youth,     To bend in rapture at some idle throne,     Some lifeless soulless phantom of their own;     Some shadowy vision of a tranquil life,     Of joys unclouded, years unstirrd by strife;     Of sleep unshadowd by a dream of woe;     Of many a lawny hill, and streams with silver flow;     Of giant mountains by the western main,     The sunless forest, and the sea-like plain;     Those lingering hopes of coward hearts, that still     Would play the traitor to the steadfast will,     One moments space, perchance, might charm his eye     From the stern future, and the years gong by.     One moments space might waft him far away     To western shores the death-place of the day     Might paint the calm, sweet peace the rest of home,     Far oer the pathless waste of labouring foam     Peace, that recalld his childish hours anew,     More calm, more deep, than childhood ever knew!     Green happy places like a flowery lea     Between the barren mountains and the stormy sea.     O pleasant rest, if once the race were run!     O happy slumber, if the day were done!     Dreams that were sweet at eve, at morn were sin;     With cares to conquer, and a goal to win!     His were no tranquil years no languid sleep     No life of dreams no home beyond the deep     No softening ray no visions false and wild     No glittering hopes on lifes grey distance smiled     Like isles of sunlight on a mountains brow,     Lit by a wandering gleam, we know not how,     Far on the dim horizon, when the sky     With glooming clouds broods dark and heavily.     Then his eye slumberd. and the chain was broke     That bound his spirit, and his heart awoke;     Then like a kingly river swift and strong,     The future rolld its gathering tides along!     The shout of onset and the shriek of fear     Smote, like the rush of waters, on his ear;     And his eye kindled with the kindling fray,     The surging battle and the maild array!     All wondrous deeds the coming days should see,     And the long Vision of the years to be.     Pale phantom hosts, like shadows, faint and far,     Councils, and armies, and the pomp of war!     And one swayd all, who wore a kingly crown,     Until another rose and smote him down:     A form that towerd above his brother men;     A form he knew but it was shrouded then!     With stern, slow steps unseen yet still the same,     By leaguerd tower and tented field it came;     By Nasebys hill, oer Marstons heathy waste,     By Worcesters field the warrior-vision passd!     From their deep base, thy beetling cliffs, Dunbar,     Rang, as he trode them, with the voice of war!     The soldier kindled at his words of fire;     The statesman quaild before his glance of ire!     Worn was his brow with cares no thought could scan,     His step was loftier than the steps of man;     And the winds told his glory, and the wave     Sonorous witness to his empire gave!     What forms are these, that with complaining sound,     And slow, reluctant steps are gathering round?     Forms that with him shall tread lifes changing stage,     Cross his lone path, or share his pilgrimage.     There, as he gazed, a wondrous band they came,     Pyms look of hate, and Straffords glance of flame.     There Laud, with noiseless steps and glittering eye,     In priestly garb, a frail old man. Went by;     His drooping head bowed meekly on his breast;     His hands were folded, like a saint at rest!     There Hampden bent him oer his saddle bow,     And deaths cold dews bedimmd his earnest brow;     Still turnd to watch the battle still forgot     Himself, his sufferings, in his countrys lot!     There Falkland eyed the strife that would not cease,     Shook back his tangled locks. and murmurd Peace!     With feet that spurnd the ground, lo! Milton there     Stood like a statue; and his face was fair     Fair beyond human beauty; and his eye,     That knew not earth, soard upwards to the sky!     He, too, was there it was the princely boy,     The child-companion of his childish joy!     But oh! how changd those deathlike features wore     Childhoods bright glance, and sunny smile no more!     That brow so sad, so pale, so full of care     What trace of careless childhood lingerd there?     What spring of youth in that majestic mien,     So sadly calm, so kingly, so serene?     No all was changd the monarch wept alone,     Between a ruind church and shatterd throne!     Friendless and hopeless like a lonely tree,     On some bare headland, straining mournfully,     That all night long its weary moan doth make     To the vexd waters of a mountain lake!     Still, as he gazd, the phantoms mournful glance     Shook the deep slumber of his deathlike trance;     Like some forgotten strain that haunts us still,     That calm eye followd, turn him where he will;     Till the pale monarch, and the long array,     Passd, like a morning mist, in tears away!     Then all his dream was troubled, and his soul     Thrilld with a dread no slumber could control;     On that dark form his eyes had gazd before,     Nor known it then;but it was veild no more!     In broad clear light the ghastly vision shone,     That form was his, those features were his own!     The night of terrors, and the day of care,     The years of toil, all, all were written there!     Sad faces watchd around him, and his breath     Came faint and feeble in the embrace of death.     The gathering tempest, with its voice of fear,     His latest loftiest music, smote his ear!     That day of boundless hope and promise high,     That day that haild his triumphs, saw him die!     Then from those whitening lips, as death drew near,     The imprisoning chains fell off, and all was clear     Like lowering clouds, that at the close of day,     Bathd in a blaze of sunset, melt away;     And with its clear calm tones, that dying prayer     Cheerd all the failing hearts that sorrowd there!     A life whose ways no human thought could scan;     A life that was not as the life of man;     A life that wrote its purpose with a sword,     Moulding itself in action, not in word!     Rent with tumultuous thoughts, whose conflict rung     Deep thro his soul, and chokd his faltering tongue;     A heart that reckd not of the countless dead     That strewd the blood-staind path where Empire led;     A daring hand, that shrunk not to fulfil     The thought that spurrd it; and a dauntless will,     Bold actions parent; and a piercing ken     Through the dark chambers of the hearts of men,     To read each thought, and teach that master-mind     The fears and hopes and passions of mankind;     All these were thine Oh thought of fear! and thou     Stretchd on that bed of death, art nothing now.     Then all his vision faded, and his soul     Sprang from its sleep! and lo, the waters roll     Once more beneath him; and the fluttering sail,     Where the dark ships rode proudly, wood the gale;     And the wind murmurd round him, and he stood     Once more alone beside the gleaming flood.