Which, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb,

Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had found
At last a spirit meet to be the womb

From which it might leap forth to bless mankind,—

Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all

The hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest years,

And waiting but one ray of sunlight more

To blossom fully.

But whence came that ray?

We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought
Rather to name our high successes so.

Only the instincts of great souls are Fate,
And have predestined sway: all other things,
Except by leave of us, could never be.
For Destiny is but the breath of God

Still moving in us, the last fragment left
Of our unfallen nature, waking oft

Within our thought, to beckon us beyond
The narrow circle of the seen and known,
And always tending to a noble end,

As all things must that overrule the soul,

And for a space unseat the helmsman, Will.

The fate of England and of freedom once
Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man:
One step of his, and the great dial-hand,
That marks the destined progress of the world

In the eternal round from wisdom on

To higher wisdom, had been made to pause

A hundred years. That step he did not take,-
He knew not why, nor we, but only God,-
And lived to make his simple oaken chair
More terrible and grandly beautiful,

More full of majesty, than any throne,
Before or after, of a British king.

Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged men, Looking to where a little craft lay moored, Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames, Which weltered by in muddy listlessness.

Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought Had trampled out all softness from their brows, And ploughed rough furrows there before their time,

For other crop than such as homebred Peace

Sows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth.

Care, not of self, but of the common weal,

Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead A look of patient power and iron will,

And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint
Of the plain weapons girded at their sides.
The younger had an aspect of command,
Not such as trickles down, a slender stream,
In the shrunk channel of a great descent,
But such as lies entowered in heart and head,
And an arm prompt to do the 'hests of both.
His was a brow where gold were out of place,
And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown,
(Though he despised such,) were it only made
Of iron, or some serviceable stuff

That would have matched his sinewy, brown face.
The elder, although such he hardly seemed,

(Care makes so little of some five short years,) Had a clear, honest face, whose rough-hewn strength Was mildened by the scholar's wiser heart

To sober courage, such as best befits

The unsullied temper of a well-taught mind,

Yet so remained that one could plainly guess
The hushed volcano smouldering underneath.
He spoke the other, hearing, kept his gaze
Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky.

"O, CROMWELL, we are fallen on evil times!
There was a day when England had wide room
For honest men as well as foolish kings;
But now the uneasy stomach of the time

Turns squeamish at them both. Therefore let us
Seek out that savage clime where men as yet
Are free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide,
Her languid canvass drooping for the wind;

Give us but that, and what need we to fear
This Order of the Council? The free waves

Will not say, No, to please a wayward king,
Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck:
All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord

Will watch as kindly o'er the Exodus
Of us his servants now, as in old time.

We have no cloud or fire, and haply we

May not pass dry-shod through the ocean-stream;

But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand."
So spake he, and meantime the other stood
With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air,
As if upon the sky's blue wall he saw
Some mystic sentence, written by a hand,
Such as of old did awe the Assyrian king,
Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast.

“ HAMPDEN! a moment since, my purpose was

To fly with thee, for I will call it flight,

But something in me bids me not to go;
And I am one, thou knowest, who, unmoved
By what the weak deem omens, yet give heed
And reverence due to whatsoe'er my soul
Whispers of warning to the inner ear.
Moreover, as I know that God brings round
His purposes in ways undreamed by us,

And makes the wicked but his instruments
To hasten on their swift and sudden fall,
I see the beauty of his providence

In the King's order: blind, he will not let