Page:CromwellHugo.djvu/176

But, courage! this last tempest I'll defy,
And strike a blow to freeze their very blood
With terror! shatter all who still resist!
The people need a king.
Rochester. The people need a king. Now by my faith,
This is, indeed, an ardent royalist.
Cromwell. I'll take them in a net; I'll track them down;
Their feet entangle in an unseen mesh.
I'll blind them, and I'll watch; they'll not escape.
Rochester.At one stroke Cromwell and his family
He doth proscribe.
Cromwell. He doth proscribe. Let them all die!
Rochester. He doth proscribe. Let them all die! What! all?
Oh! mercy for his daughter!
Cromwell [in a melancholy reverie.] Cromwell, say,
What wouldst thou? Is't a throne? Wherefore a throne?
Is thy name Stuart, or Plantagenet,
Or Bourbon? Art thou of that race of men,
Who, from their birth, thanks to their ancestors,
Have viewed the whole world with a master's eye?
What sceptre does not break beneath thy weight,
O fortune-favoured soldier? And what crown
Is made to fit thy amplitude of brow?
Thou, King, the child of chance! Posterity
Would count thy reign 'mongst fortune's accidents!—
Thy family—a dynasty!
Rochester. Thy family—a dynasty! 'Tis plain
He's for the Stuarts!
Cromwell. He's for the Stuarts! King of Parliament!
For stepping-stones the bodies of thy victims!
Is't thus that one ascends a lawful throne?
What! Cromwell, having marched so long and far,