Not such as trickles down, a slender stream,
In the shrunk channel of a great descent,
But such as lies entowered in heart and head,
And an arm prompt to do the ’hests of both. 
His was a brow where gold were out of place,
And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown
(Though he despised such), were it only made
Of iron, or some serviceable stuff
That would have matched his brownly rugged face 71
The elder, although such he hardly seemed
(Care makes so little of some five short years),
Had a clear, honest face, whose rough-hewn strength
Was mildened by the scholar’s wiser heart
To sober courage, such as best befits
The unsullied temper of a well-taught mind,
Yet so remained that one could plainly guess
The hushed volcano smouldering underneath. 
He spoke:  the other, hearing, kept his gaze 80
Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky.

’O Cromwell we are fallen on evil times! 
There was a day when England had a wide room
For honest men as well as foolish kings: 
But now the uneasy stomach of the time
Turns squeamish at them both.  Therefore let us
Seek out that savage clime, where men as yet
Are free:  there sleeps the vessel on the tide,
Her languid canvas drooping for the wind;
Give us but that, and what need we to fear 90
This Order of the Council?  The free waves
Will not say No to please a wayward king,
Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck: 
All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord
Will watch us kindly o’er the exodus
Of us his servants now, as in old time. 
We have no cloud or fire, and haply we
May not pass dry-shod through the ocean-stream;
But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand.’ 
So spake he, and meantime the other stood 100
With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air. 
As if upon the sky’s blue wall he saw
Some mystic sentence, written by a hand,
Such as of old made pale the Assyrian king,
Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast.

’Hampden! a moment since, my purpose was
To fly with thee,—­for I will call it flight,
Nor flatter it with any smoother name,—­
But something in me bids me not to go;
And I am one, thou knowest, who, unmoved 110
By what the weak deem omens, yet give heed
And reverence due to whatsoe’er my soul
Whispers of warning to the inner ear. 
Moreover, as I know that God brings round
His purposes in ways undreamed by us,
And makes the wicked but his instruments
To hasten their own swift and sudden fall,
I see the beauty of his providence
In the King’s order:  blind, he will not let
His doom part from him, but must bid it stay 120
As ’t were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp
He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. 
Why should we fly?  Nay, why not rather stay
And rear again our Zion’s crumbled walls,