rs shook
Their heads when I did ask, and bade me tell you
There is no hope--

_Crom._ [_Motions him to go._] Why comes not Master Milton?

[_Servant crosses behind to L. sees Milton._]

_Ser._ My Lord, he waits without for aid to enter.

[_Exit Servant, L. and re-enters leading MILTON._]

_Crom._ Good Milton, I am sick at heart. Think you the world
Will judge me very harshly?--

_Mil._ Sir, believe
By far the nobler half of England's hearts
Will be yours, when long centuries have nurs'd
The troubles of these frantic times to rest;
The feverish strife, the hate and prejudice
Of these days, soon shall fly, and leave great acts
The landmarks of men's thoughts, who then shall see
In these events that shake the world with awe,
But a great subject, and a base bad king
Interpreted aright.

_Crom._ [_Aside._] My child! my child!
She is dying, and condemns me--[_to Milton_] Thou art wise,
Prudent, and skill'd in learned rhetorick--
Think'st thou 'twere sad to gaze upon the look,
That sudden on the harlot's painted features,
Set in the stale attraction of forc'd smiles,
Darkens so wildly--that, like one amaz'd,
From the crack'd glass she staggers, to her brow
Lifts her wan, jewell'd finger--tries to think?
The wanton provocation of her features
Chang'd all to sickly twilight, blank dismay--
And when thought comes, to see the poor wretch quiver,
Her eyes' fire turn'd to water--those blue eyes,
Where once sweet fancies woven danc'd in fight--
To see the Present, Future, Past, appal her?--
The Spectre of her grown up life arise
Ever between her childhood's innocent dawn,
And the lost thing, herself--to see her choke
Upon her scanty food?--see grim Despair
Clutch her polluted bosom?--see her teeth,
Pearls that have outliv'd their neglected home,
Shine whiter in that ruin?--

_Mil._ 'Twere a sight
To bid the palsied heart of Lewdness grieve,
Youth grow a hermit, Age old vices leave!

_Crom._ Yet hast thou ne'er beheld the thing, I say?--
Thou answerest me not. I know thy life;
'Twas ever pure; still thou art of this world,
And so hast read their living epitaph,
Whose souls being buried in lust's grave, at night
Their mortal frames walk forth--reversing death.
I ask thee, then, dost thou not know the thing
That I have painted?

_Mil._ [_Aside._] Is his mind distraught?
[_Aloud._] I have seen this, and more. What of it?

_Crom._ Thus!
Shall he that caus'd it suffer?

_Mil._ On his Mood
Vampi