| |
| GOD ye hear not, how shall ye hear me? | |
| Or if your eyes be seal’d to know not her, | |
| If she be fit to live or no, can I | |
| With words unseal them? None so young of you | |
| But hath long life enough to understand | 5 |
| And reason to record what he hath seen | |
| Of hers and of God’s dealings mutually | |
| Since she came in. Then was her spirit made soft, | |
| Her words as oil, and with her amorous face | |
| She caught men’s eyes to turn them where she would, | 10 |
| And with the strong sound of her name of queen | |
| Made their necks bend; that even of God’s own men | |
| There were that bade refuse her not her will, | |
| Deny not her, fair woman and great queen, | |
| Her natural freedom born, to give God praise | 15 |
| What way she would, and pray what prayers; though these | |
| Be as they were, to God abominable | |
| And venomous to men’s souls. So came there back | |
| The cursed thing cast forth of us, and so | |
| Out of her fair face and imperious eyes | 20 |
| Lighten’d the light whereby men walk in hell. | |
| And I that sole stood out and bade not let | |
| The lightning of this curse come down on us | |
| And fly with feet as fire on all winds blown | |
| To burn men’s eyes out that beheld God’s face, | 25 |
| That being long blind but now gat sight, and saw | |
| And prais’d him seeing—I that then spake and said, | |
| Ten thousand men here landed of our foes | |
| Were not so fearful to me on her side | |
| As one mass said in Scotland—that with-stood | 30 |
| The man to his face I lov’d, her father’s son, | |
| Then master’d by the pity of her, and made | |
| Through that good mind not good—who then but I | |
| Was tax’d of wrongful will, and for hard heart | |
| Miscall’d of men? And now, sirs, if her prayer | 35 |
| Were just and reasonable, and unjust I | |
| That bade shut ears against it—if the mass | |
| Hath brought forth innocent fruit, and in this land | |
| Wherein she came to stablish it again | |
| Hath stablish’d peace with honor—if in her | 40 |
| It hath been found no seed of shame, and she | |
| That lov’d and serv’d it seem now in men’s sight | |
| No hateful thing nor fearful—if she stand | |
| Such a queen proven as should prove honorable | |
| The rule of women, and in her that thing | 45 |
| Be shown forth good that was call’d evil of me, | |
| Blest and not curst—then have I sinn’d, and they | |
| That would have cross’d me would have cross’d not God: | |
| Whereof now judge ye. Hath she brought with her | |
| Peace, or a sword? and since her incoming | 50 |
| Hath the land sat in quiet, and the men | |
| Seen rest but for one year? or came not in | |
| Behind her feet, right at her back, and shone | |
| Above her crown’d head as a fierier crown, | |
| Death, and about her as a raiment wrapt | 55 |
| Ruin? and where her foot was ever turn’d | |
| Or her right hand was pointed, hath there fallen | |
| No fire, no cry burst forth of war, no sound | |
| As of a blast blown of an host of men | |
| For summons of destruction? Hath God shown | 60 |
| For sign she had found grace in his sight, and we | |
| For her sake favor, while she hath reign’d on us, | |
| One hour of good, one week of rest, one day? | |
| Or hath he sent not for an opposite sign | |
| Dissensions, wars, rumors of wars, and change, | 65 |
| Flight and return of men, terror with power, | |
| Triumph with trembling? | |
| |
| God is not mock’d; and ye shall surely know | |
| What men were these, and what man he that spake | |
| The things I speak now prophesying, and said | 70 |
| That if ye spare to shed her blood for shame, | |
| For fear or pity of her great name or face, | |
| God shall require of you the innocent blood | |
| Shed for her fair face’ sake, and from your hands | |
| Wring the price forth of her bloodguiltiness. | 75 |
| Nay, for ye know it, nor have I need again | |
| To bring it in your mind if God ere now | |
| Have borne me witness; in that dreary day | |
| When men’s hearts fail’d them for pure grief and fear | |
| To see the tyranny that was, and rule | 80 |
| Of this queen’s mother, where was no light left | |
| But of the fires wherein his servants died, | |
| I bade those lords that clave in heart to God | |
| And were perplex’d with trembling and with tears | |
| Lift up their hearts, and fear not; and they heard | 85 |
| What some now hear no more, the word I spake | |
| Who have been with them, as their own souls know, | |
| In their most extreme danger; Cowper Moor, | |
| Saint Johnston, and the Crags of Edinburgh, | |
| Are recent in my heart; yea, let these know, | 90 |
| That dark and dolorous night wherein all they | |
| With shame and fear were driven forth of this town | |
| Is yet within my mind; and God forbid | |
| That ever I forget it. What, I say, | |
| Was then my exhortation, and what word | 95 |
| Of all God ever promis’d by my mouth | |
| Is fallen in vain, they live to testify | |
| Of whom not one that then was doom’d to death | |
| Is perish’d in that danger; and their foes, | |
| How many of these hath God before their eyes | 100 |
| Plague-stricken with destruction! lo the thanks | |
| They render him, now to betray his cause | |
| Put in their hands to stablish; even that God’s | |
| That kept them all the darkness through to see | |
| Light, and the way that some now see no more, | 105 |
| But are gone after light of the fen’s fire | |
| And walk askant in slippery ways; but ye | |
| Know if God’s hand have ever when I spake | |
| Writ liar upon me, or with adverse proof | |
| Turn’d my free speech to shame; for in my lips | 110 |
| He put a word, and knowledge in my heart, | |
| When I was fast bound of his enemies’ hands | |
| An oarsman on their galleys, and beheld | |
| From off the sea whereon I sat in chains | |
| The walls wherein I knew that I there bound | 115 |
| Should one day witness of him; and this pledge | |
| Hath God redeem’d not? Nay then, in God’s name, | |
| If that false word fell unfulfill’d of mine, | |
| Heed ye not now nor hear me when I say | |
| That for this woman’s sake shall God cut off | 120 |
| The hand that spares her as the hand that shields, | |
| And make their memory who take part with her | |
| As theirs who stood for Baal against the Lord | |
| With Ahab’s daughter; for her reign and end | |
| Shall be like Athaliah’s, as her birth | 125 |
| Was from the womb of Jezebel, that slew | |
| The prophets, and made foul with blood and fire | |
| The same land’s face that now her seed makes foul | |
| With whoredoms and with witchcrafts; yet they say | |
| Peace, where is no peace, while the adulterous blood | 130 |
| Feeds yet with life and sin the murderous heart | |
| That hath brought forth a wonder to the world | |
| And to all time a terror; and this blood | |
| The hands are clean that shed, and they that spare | |
| In God’s just sight spotted as foul as Cain’s. | 135 |
| If then this guilt shall cleave to you or no, | |
| And to your children’s children, for her sake, | |
| Choose ye; for God needs no man that is loth | |
| To serve him, and no word but his own work | |
| To bind and loose their hearts who hear and see | 140 |
| Such things as speak what I lack words to say. | |
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