aid:
SICINIUS VELUTUS, thou hadst reason.
Under COMINIUS! Who's COMINIUS now?
The adolescent Emperor, or his cool
Complacent Chancellor? COMINIUS!
Unseasoned youth, or untried middle-age,
A shouting boy, or a sleek-spoken elder,
Hot stripling, cool supplanter!
I serve not
"Under COMINIUS," nay!--yet since he stands
There, where I made firm footing amidst chaos,
Stands in smug comfort where we Titans struggled--
MOLTKE, and I, and the great Emperor,--
Struggled for vantage, which he owes to us;--
Since he stands there, and I in shadow sit,
Silenced and chidden, I half _feel_ I serve,
Whom he would bid to second. Second _him_,
In that Imperial Policy whose vast
And soaring shape, like air-launched eagle, seemed
To fill the sky, and shadow half the world?
As well the Eagle's self might be expected
To second the small jay!
My shadow, mine?
Yes, but distorted by the skew-cast ray
Of a far lesser sun than lit the noon
Of my meridian glory. So I spurn
The shrunken simulacrum!
And they shriek,
Shout censure at me, the cur-crowd who crouched,
Ere that a woman's hate and a boy's pride
Smote me, the new Abimelech, so sore;
They'd hush me, like a garrulous greybeard, chaired
At the hearth-corner out of harm; they'd hush
My voice--the valorous vermin! What say they?
"_That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud_;
_Loves not the common people!_" Humph! I stand
As MARCIUS would not, in the market-place,
And show my wounds to the people. Is _that_ pride?
I stooped to--_her!_--let me not think of that;
'T would poison paradise!--but is _that_ pride?
The Roman pride was stiff and taciturn,
And I,--they tell me, I "will still be talking,"
And no MENENIUS is by to say
In charity of the modern MARCIUS,
"_Consider this:--he has been bred i'the wars_
_Since he could draw a sword, and is ill-school'd_
_In bolted language: meal and bran together_
_He throws without distinction_."
Well, well, well
"_I would he had continued to his country_
_As he began; and not unknit, himself,_
_The noble knot he made_." So they'll whine out
The smug SICINIUSES. But what I wonder
If once again the Volscians make new head!
Who, "like an eagle in a dovecote," then
Will flutter them and discipline AUFIDIUS?
An eagle! Shall I spurn m