body and soul!
Right many a morn and night I have prayed and mused
How I could bring them to a better way.
So much of me you surely know, my friends,
And will not hurt me in my weakness here! [He trembles.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The tears that lie about this plightful scene
Of heavy travail in a suffering soul,
Mocked with the forms and feints of royalty
While scarified by briery Circumstance,
Might drive Compassion past her patiency
To hold that some mean, monstrous ironist
Had built this mistimed fabric of the Spheres
To watch the throbbings of its captive lives,
[The which may Truth forfend], and not thy said
Unmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Mild one, be not touched with human fate.
Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state:
No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!

HALFORD

We have come to do your Majesty no harm.
Here's Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like,
And this is Dr. Baillie. We arrive
But to inquire and gather how you are,
Thereon to let the Privy Council know,
And give assurances for you people's good.

[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]

KING

Ah--what does that band play for here to-day?
She has been dead and I so short a time!...
Her little hands are hardly cold as yet;
But they can show such cruel indecency
As to let trumpets play!

HALFORD

They guess not, sir,
That you can hear them, or their chords would cease.
Their boisterous music fetches back to me
That, of our errands to your Majesty,
One was congratulation most sincere
Upon this glorious victory you have won.
The news is just in port; the band booms out
To celebrate it, and to honour you.

KING

A victory? I? Pray where?

HALFORD

Indeed so, sir:
Hard by Albuera--far in harried Spain--
Yes, sir; you have achieved a victory
Of dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!

KING

He says I have won a battle? But I thought
I was a poor afflicted captive here,
In darkness lingering out my lonely days,
Beset with terror of these myrmidons
That suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!--
No aims left to me but to quicken death
To quicklier please my son!--And yet he says
That I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn!
When will the