gher
principles which are paramount to all immediate policy': (_Const. Hist_.
ch. ix).

_The axe_; A clear and impartial sketch of Stafford's trial will be found
in Ranke (B. viii): who deals dispassionately and historically with an
event much obscured by declamation in popular narratives. Even in
Hallam's hand the balance seems here to waver a little.

_Heroes both_;--_Each his side_; See _Appendix_ B.

A CHURCHYARD IN OXFORDSHIRE

September: 1643

Sweet air and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand
Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, massy-green;
Bird-haunted nooks between,
Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand,
An English-Eastern band:--
While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the grass
Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pass:--
In this still precinct of the happy dead,
The sanctuary of silence,--Blessed they!
I cried, who 'neath the gray
Peace of God's house, each in his mounded bed
Sleep safe, nor reck how the great world runs on;
Peasant with noble here alike unknown.

Unknown, unnamed beneath one turf they sleep,
Beneath one sky, one heaven-uplifted sign
Of love assured, divine:
While o'er each mound the quiet mosses creep,
The silent dew-pearls weep:
--Fit haven-home for thee, O gentlest heart
Of Falkland! all unmeet to find thy part
In those tempestuous times of canker'd hate
When Wisdom's finest touch, and, by her side,
Forbearance generous-eyed
To fix the delicate balance of the State
Were needed;--King or Nation, which should hold
Supreme supremacy o'er the kingdoms old.

--God's heroes, who? . . . Not most, or likeliest, he
Whom iron will cramps to one narrow road,
Driving him like a goad
Till all his heart decrees seem God's decree;
That worst hypocrisy
When self cheats self, and conscience at the wheel
Herself is steer'd by passion's blindfold zeal;
A nether-world archangel! Through whose eyes
Flame the red mandates of remorseless might;
A gloom of lurid light
That holds no commerce with the crystal skies;
Like those rank fires that o'er the fen-land flee,
Or on the mast-head sign the wrath to be.

As o'er that ancient weird Arlesian plain
Where Zeus hail'd boulder-stones on the giant crew,
And changed to stone, or slew,
No bud may burgeon in Spring's gracious rain,
No blade of grass or grain:
--So bare, so scourged, a prey to chaos cast
The wisest despot leaves his realm at last!
Though for the land he toil'd with iron will,
Earnest to reach persuasion's goal through powe