Imaginary Conversations and Poems | Page 4

Diana--from the sultry hour
Hither
she fled, nor fear'd she sight or sound.

Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reeds
Drew to these haunts,
whom awe forbade to fly!
Three faithful dogs before him rais'd their
heads,
And watched and wonder'd at that fixèd eye.
Forth sprang his favourite--with her arrow-hand
Too late the goddess
hid what hand may hide,
Of every nymph and every reed complain'd,

And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.
On the prone head and sandal'd feet they flew--
Lo! slender hoofs and
branching horns appear!
The last marr'd voice not e'en the favourite
knew,
But bay'd and fasten'd on the upbraiding deer.
Far be, chaste goddess, far from me and mine
The stream that tempts
thee in the summer noon!
Alas, that vengeance dwells with charms
divine----
_Elizabeth._ Pshaw! give me the paper: I forewarned thee how it
ended--pitifully, pitifully.
_Cecil._ I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the
aforecited poesy hath chosen your Highness; for I have seen painted--I
know not where, but I think no farther off than Putney--the identically
same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs.
So small a matter as a page of poesy shall never stir my choler nor
twitch my purse-string.
_Elizabeth._ I have read in Plinius and Mela of a runlet near Dodona,
which kindled by approximation an unlighted torch, and extinguished a
lighted one. Now, Cecil, I desire no such a jetty to be celebrated as the
decoration of my court: in simpler words, which your gravity may more
easily understand, I would not from the fountain of honour give lustre
to the dull and ignorant, deadening and leaving in its tomb the lamp of
literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign to be remembered: if my
actions were different from what they are, I should as ardently wish it
to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and
propensely stab or suffocate their fame, when God hath commanded

them to stand on high for an example. We call him parricide who
destroys the author of his existence: tell me, what shall we call him
who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey its most faithful
propagator and most firm support? Mark me, I do not speak of that
existence which the proudest must close in a ditch--the narrowest, too,
of ditches and the soonest filled and fouled, and whereunto a pinch of
ratsbane or a poppy-head may bend him; but of that which reposes on
our own good deeds, carefully picked up, skilfully put together, and
decorously laid out for us by another's kind understanding: I speak of
an existence such as no father is author of, or provides for. The parent
gives us few days and sorrowful; the poet, many and glorious: the one
(supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other
best remunerates our virtues.
A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so; but of a truth I do tell thee,
Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot
trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one that even
chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and
dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board; but I may not save
those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion.
This year they and their sovereign dwell together; next year, they and
their beagle. Both have names, but names perishable. The keeper of my
privy seal is an earl: what then? the keeper of my poultry-yard is a
Caesar. In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin
given to him: what is not natively his own falls off and comes to
nothing.
I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a depraved use
of the pen shall have so cramped them as to incapacitate them for the
sword and for the council chamber. If Alexander was the Great, what
was Aristoteles who made him so, and taught him every art and science
he knew, except three--those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of
murdering his bosom friends? Come along: I will bring thee back again
nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights,
and never eke out the substance of a stanza; but Edmund, if perchance I
should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and
prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for the injustice

we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for the mortification
they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set before them. Edmund is
grave and gentle: he complains of fortune, not of Elizabeth; of courts,
not of Cecil. I am resolved--so help me, God!--he shall have