ANGELO.

Deceive thyself no more-I spake of freedom,
For death it is that frees th' encumber'd spirit
From the dark prison of this world; nor she
Nor thou shall ever pass these iron gates,
But to th' appointed stroke of death.

MAGDALENE.

Look, look!

He cannot speak! he chokes, he shivers!-look,
He's dying. Oh! already you have kill'd him.
My Brother, awake!

ANGELO.

My perjuries! my murders! when my soul
Would rise to track the starlight path of hers,
They'll hiss me, howl me down, down down to
blackness,

To horror, now the element of my soul.

ANGELO.

The bell! It sounds for thee, it summons thee,

I hear the trampling feet down the long galleries;
The grating bolts fall back: kneel, kneel-the Church
Will pardon thy wild words-be reconciled.

MARK.

Off!-I will have no share or portion with you.

Oh! youth, whom Heaven hath chosen Think you your crimes and murders, ye, no Priests

For its blind instrument to work the ruin

Of its most deadly enemy, I'm come
To fit thee for thy sacrifice-arise

A Martyr to the glorious cause. I open

The gates of Heaven before thy mounting soul.

MARK.

Devil! no man of God! unmeasured liar!
My soul is sick at thee. Thou hold the keys

Of Heaven, thou bloody wretch forsworn? thou worse,
If worse can be, than mine own perjured self,
I spurn thee, curse thee, execrate thy faith
And thee!

ANGELO.

Of the great God of Truth and Holiness,
Will not out-preach you from the face of earth:
This air at length shall purify itself

From your curst doctrines.

ANGELO.

Saints and holy Angels, Hear not his blasphemies! but thee, my daughter, Will I bestow among some holy Sisters.

MAGDALENE.

With thee, my Brother's Murderer? thee, whose guile
Has tainted his immortal soul with sin!

Sir, I'm a weak and foolish maid; I know not
The nice distinction of your rival creeds;
But this I know-'t is not the faith of Christ,
Of Christ the merciful, the sinless Christ,
To guile an innocent youth to such a sin,
And make a murderer of a heart had paused
To take the meanest insect's life. Oh! Brother,
Dear Brother, I will die with thee; they 'll leave

Weak boy and thankless, whom I've wrought A corner in thy narrow bed where I
To be a sharer in this great design;
May creep and hide my weary head.

Were thine head crown'd, thy body rough with scars
Won in the service of the Church, the joy
And pride of nations waiting on thy footsteps,
I'd trample on thy corpse with merciless heel,
If o'er it lay my way to lift the throne
Of Peter o'er the carnal Lords of earth.

MAGDALENE.

Oh! save him-save him! I have heard thee speak
In language that might melt the stoniest hearts;
I've heard thee pray with such soul-kindling warmth
Beside the bed of our departed Mother,

That iron bonds had burst like flax before thee.
ANGELO.

It stands not in my power; but oh! rash youth,
Go not a rebel to the Church, to meet
The Church's Lord :-kneel, I entreat thee, kneel;
Let me not say I've slain thy soul; confess,
Repent, and be absolved.

MARK.

Avaunt!-away!

Wash thine own soul from thine own sins! kneel thou,
Howl for thy crimes, thy treasons, and thy murders!
And, if Christ give me power to pardon thee,
"Twill more avail thee in thy hour of need
Than all thy formal conjuring absolutions.

Peace, my Sister!
Look you, I'm calm. I've hope-but not of life.
I'll tell thee-hark! I will go forth-I'll stand
Before the public eve-and then and there

I will undo the deadly crime I've done;
Unswear what I have sworn, with such strange oaths
That they perforce shall cancel their rash doom,
And she shall live, and not quite curse my memory.
Though their drums roll, and trumpets blare, I ll
shriek

The audible truth-and I 'll lay me down

And take my quiet death-my quivering tongue
Still murmuring of her slander'd innocence.

And God shall give me grace not to denounce thee;

With her with her-the gracious, good, and chaste, Thou shalt live on, and eat thy heart to see
I'll take my everlasting portion; trust
Thy frustrate malice. Live, and still behold

Even where she trusts; go where she goes- -Oh! no, Man after man, and kingdom after kingdom,

Now all is o'er with those brave gentlemen

Go on, I'll follow thee, They died, I know, Sir, as they lived, right nobly.

With rosy light, fresh flowers, and birds' sweet an-
thems;

But when our grave 's our bed, that instant comes
A morning, not of this world's treacherous light,
But fresh with palms, and musical with angels.
Oh! but a cruel, shameful, public death-
'There's no disease will let the spirit loose
With less keen anguish than the sudden axe!
And for the shame-the sense of that 's within!
I've thoughts brook no communion or with that
Or fear. My death the Lord may make a way
Tadvance his gracious purpose to this land:
There 'll be, will see a delicate timid woman
Lay down her cheerful head upon the block
As on a silken pillow; when they know

"T was Christ that even at that dread hour rebuked
Weak Nature's fears, returning home, they 'll kneel
And seek that power that turns our death to triumph.
Sir, are you ready?-they'll allow me time

To pray even there.-Go forward, Sir, we 'll follow.

The Scaffold.

QUEEN.

My fellow subjects, I am here to die!

The law hath judged me-to the law I bow.

Or proudly, humbly I entreat forgiveness.
-No, Sir, I'll wear no bandage o'er mine eyes,
For they can look on death, and will not shrink.
Beseech you, Sirs, with modesty unrobe me,
And let my women have the decent charge
Of my poor body.
Now, God bless the King,
And make his Gospel shine throughout the land!

NOTES.

Note 1.

From the Carthusian's decimated house.

THE execution of the Prior and several of the

Brethren of the Carthusian Monastery for denying the King's Supremacy, was amongst the most barbarous transactions of this period, the chief guilt of which must be attributed to the unrelenting disposition of the King.

Note 2.

In that proud Prelate's heart a noble chord

I touch'd, now harp we on a baser string.

All writers agree in the unprincipled and unnatural character of the Countess of Rochford, who suffered at a subsequent period for being accessary to the

He that doth know all hearts, before whose throne,
Ere ye have reach'd your homes, I shall stand trem-criminal conduct of Queen Catharine Howard.

bling

God knows I've lived as pure and chaste as snow
New fallen from heaven; yet do not ye, my friends,
Presumptuous judge anew my dangerous cause,
Lest ye blaspheme against the wonted goodness
Of the King's Grace-most merciful and gentle
I've ever known him, and if e'er betray'd
From his kind nature, by most cogent reasons.
Adore the hidden secrets of his justice

As ye would Heaven's. Beseech you, my good friends,
If in my plenitude of power I've done

Not all the good I might, ye pardon me :

If there be here to whom I've spoken harshly

Note 3.

Shall I find justice, Sir?

The singular conduct and language of Anne when she was arrested is strictly historical. See BURNET'S History of the Reformation.

Note 4.
The Letter.

This is little more than a versification of the cetebrated letter; the authenticity of which Mr. Els ap

pears to have established.

364

The Martyr of Antioch;

A DRAMATIC POEM.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS poem is founded on the following part of the History of Saint Margaret. She was the daughter of a heathen priest, and beloved by Olybius, the Prefect of the East, who wished to marry her. The rest of the legend I have thought myself at liberty to discard, and to fill up the outline as my own imagination suggested. Gibbon has so well condensed all the information which remains to us from Strabo, Chrysostorn, Sozomen, and the writings of Julian the Apostate, relative to Antioch, the Temple and sacred grove of Daphne, that the reader will be able to comprehend from his florid, and too glowing description, most of the allusions to these subjects contained in the poem. The passage occurs in his twenty-third chapter.

MARGARITA, daughter of Callias.
Maidens of Antioch.

SCENE.-Antioch in the reign of the Emperor Probus.

The martyrologists have dwelt almost exclusively on the outward and bodily sufferings of the early Christians. They have described with almost anatomical precision the various methods of torture. The consequence has been, the neglect of their writings; in perusing which a mind of the least sensibility shrinks with such loathing and abhorrence from the tedious detail of suffering, as to become insensible to the calm resignation, the simple devotion, the exulting hope of the sufferer. But these writers have rarely and briefly noticed the internal and mental agonies to which the same circumstances inevitably The Front of the Temple of Apollo, in the Daphne

THE MARTYR OF ANTIOCH.

SCENE.

near Antioch,

LIAS, Priests.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS.

exposed the converts. The surrender of life, when it appeared most highly gifted with the blessings of Providence; the literal abandonment of this world, OLYBIUS, MACER, Romans, Citizens of Antioch, CALwhen all its pleasures, its riches, and its glories were in their power; the violent severing of those ties, which the gentle spirit of Christianity had the more endeared; the self-denial, not of the ungodly lusts, but of the most innocent affections; that last and most awful conflict, when "brother delivered brother unto death, and the father the child," when "a man's foes were those of his own household,"-it was from such

trials, not those of the fire and the stake alone, that the meek religion of Christ came forth triumphant. In such a situation it has been my object to represent the mind of a young and tender female; and I have opposed to Christianity the most beautiful and the most natural of Heathen superstitions-the worship of the Sun. The reader, it is to be hoped, will recollect that although the following poem is in most part a work of imagination, there were multitudes who really laid down their lives for the faith of Christ, under circumstances equally appalling and afflictive; for that faith, to the truth or falsehood of which they had demonstrative evidence in their power and in their possession.

LORD of the golden day!
That hold'st thy fiery way,

Out-dazzling from the heavens each waning star;

And

What time Aurora fair

With loose dew-dropping hair, the swift Hours have yoked thy radiant car,

Thou mountest Heaven's blue steep,

And the universal sleep

From the wide world withdraws its misty veil;
The silent cities wake,

Th' encamped armies shake
Their unfurl'd banners in the freshening gale

And

The basking earth displays
Her green breast in the blaze;
all the Gods upon Olympus' head,

In haughty joy behold

The trampling coursers bold

Obey thy sovereign reign with stately tread.