Elizabeth and Mary Stuart
Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller
Elizabeth and Mary Stuart
Mary
WOE to you, when in time to come, the world
Shall draw the robe of honor from your deeds.
With which thy arch-hypocrisy hath veiled
The raging flames of lawless, secret lust!
Virtue was not your portion from your mother;
Well knew we what it was which brought the head
Of Anne Boleyn to the sacred block.
* * * * Farewell,
Lamb-hearted resignation, passive patience!
Fly to thy native heaven; burst at length
Thy bond, come forward from thy dreary cave
In all thy fury, long-suppressed rancour!
And thou who to the anger’d basilisk
Impart’st the murderous glance, O, arm my tongue
With poisoned darts! * * *
* * * A bastard soil
Profanes the English throne. The gen’rous Britons
Are cheated by a juggler, whose whole figure
Is false and painted, heart as well as face.
If right prevailed, you would now in the dust
Before me lie, for I’m your rightful monarch.
“Schiller’s” Mary Stuart. W. Kaulbach, Artist
From the book: Character sketches of romance, fiction and the drama by Rev. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, 1892. A revised American edition of the readers handbook. Edited by Marion Harland. Free eBook, Amazon
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