470 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM. Heaven-sweet Evangel, ever-living word, | But he would not; far liever led my friend Who whilom spakest to the South in About the soft Mediterranean shores, Hereafter thou, fulfilling Pentecost, Yet art thou thine own witness that thou Not peace, a sword, a fire. What did he say, My frighted Wiclif-preacher whom I crost gates: The king was on them suddenly with a host. Why there? they came to hear their preacher. Then Come cried on Cobham, on the good Lord Ay, for they love me! but the king-nor voice Nor finger raised against him-took and hang'd, Took, hang'd and burnt-how manythirty-nine Call'd it rebellion-hang'd, poor friends, And burn'd alive as heretics! for your Labels-to take the king along with him- Back to the pure and universal church, In his throne's title make him feel so frail, Runs in the rut, a coward to the Priest. Burnt-good Sir Roger Acton, my dear friend! Burnt too, my faithful preacher, Beverley ! Lord give thou power to thy two wit nesses ! Lest the false faith make merry over Two-nay but thirty-nine have risen and Him, who should bear the sword That shook our sides-at Pardoners, Sum- And nunneries, when the wild hour and the wine Had set the wits aflame. Harry of Monmouth, Or Amurath of the East? Better to sink Thy comrade-than to persecute the Lord, Burnt, burnt! and while this mitred Dooms our unlicensed preacher to the The mitre-sanction'd harlot draws his clerks Into the suburb-their hard celibacy, Sanctuary granted Who finds the Saviour in his mother's tongue. The Gospel, the Priest's pearl, flung down to swine The swine, lay-men, lay-women, who will come, God willing, to outlearn the filthy friar. Good counsel of good friends, but shrive myself, No, not to an Apostle." "Heresy." (My friend is long in coming.) "Pilgrimages?" "Drink, bagpipes, revelling, devil's-dances, vice. The poor man's money gone to fat the friar. Who reads of begging saints in Scripture?" Heresy' (Hath he been here-not found me-gone again? Have I mislearnt our place of meeting?) "Bread Bread left after the blessing?" how they stared, That was their main test-question-glared at me! "He veil'd Himself in flesh, and now He veils His flesh in bread, body and bread together." Then rose the howl of ail the cassock'ḍ wolves, "No bread, no bread. God's body!" Archbishop, Bishop, Priors, Canons, Friars, bell-ringers, Parish-clerks "No bread, no bread!"-"Authority of the Church, Power of the keys!"-Then I, God help me, I So mock'd, so spurn'd, so baited two whole days I lost myself and fell from evenness, And rail'd at all the Popes, that ever since Sylvester shed the venom of worldwealth Into the church, had only prov'n themselves Poisoners, murderers. Well-God pardon all Me, them, and all the world-yea, that proud Priest, That mock-mcek mouth of utter Anti christ, That traitor to King Richard and the truth, Who rose and doom'd me to the fire. Amen! Nay, I can burn, so that the Lord of life Be by me in my death. These three! the fourth Was like the son of God. Not burnt were they. On them the smell of burning had not past. That was a miracle to convert the king. These Pharisees, this Caiaphas-Arundel What miracle could turn? He here again, He thwarting their traditions of Himself, He would be found a heretic to Himself, And doom'd to burn alive. Nay, but my friend. disguised, Thou art so well | No bread. My friends await me yonderv I knew thee not. Hast thou brought I have not broken bread for fifty hours. For holding there was bread where bread was none Lead on then. Up the mountain? Is it far? Not far. Climb first and reach me down I am not like to die for iack of bread, COLUMBUS. CHAINS, my good lord: in your raised Of the Ocean-of the Indies-Admirals brows I read Some wonder at our chamber ornaments. We brought this iron from our isles of gold. we Our title, which we never mean to yield, Does the king know you deign to visit The vast occasion of our stronger lifeEighteen long years of waste, seven in your Spain, him Whom once he rose from off his throne to Before his people, like his brother king? crowd. Lost, showing courts and kings a truth Will suck in with his milk hereafter-carth Were you at Salamanca ? No. flat: Some cited old Lactantins: could it be The great Augustine wrote that none Within the zone of heat; so might there. be Two Adams, two mankinds, and that was clean Against God's word: thus was I beaten back, And chiefly to my sorrow by the Church, Once more to France or England; but our Recali'd me, for at last their Highnesscs All glory to the all-blessed Trinity, Not even by one hair's-breadth of heresy,, I am handled worse than had I been a I have accomplish'd what I came to do. groans. The great flame-banner borne by Teneriffe, The compass, like an old friend false at last In our most need, appall'd them, and the wind Still westward, and the weedy seas-at length The landbird, and the branch with berries on it, The carven staff-and last the light, the light On Guanahani! but I changed the name; San Salvador I call'd it; and the light Grew as I gazed, and brought out a broad sky Of dawning over-not those alien palms, The marvel of that fair new nature-not That Indian isle, but our most ancient East Moriah with Jerusalem; and I saw The glory of the Lord flash up, and beat Thro' all the homely town from jasper, sapphire. Chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, Chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, Jacinth, and amethyst-and those twelve gates, Pearl-and I woke, and thought-deathI shall die I am written in the Lamb's own Book of Life Moor, And breach'd the belting wall of Cambalu, And given the Great Khan's palaces to the Moor, Or clutch'd the sacred crown of Prester John, And cast it to the Moor: but had I brought From Solomon's now-recover'd Ophir all The gold that Solomon's navies carried Would that have gilded me? Blue blood honie, of Spain, Tho' quartering your own royal arms of Spain, I have not blue blood and black blood of Spain, The noble and the convict of Castile, Howl'd me from Hispaniola; for you know The flies at home, that ever swarm about And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down Truth in the distance-these out-buzz'd Set thee in light till time shall be no more? Is it I who have deceived thee or the world? Endure thou hast done so well for men, that men Cry out against thee: was it otherwise And more than once in days Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice, "Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand, Fear not." And I shall hear his voice again I know that he has led me all my life, Still for all that, my lord, The first discoverer starves-his followers, all Flower into fortune-our world's wayand I, Without a roof that I can call mine own, With scarce a coin to buy a meal withal, And seeing what a door for scoundrel |