Indeed! condemned

         By my own conscious insignificance!

         You're sensitive, my lord, and with some cause,

         I own it was not fair to use a weapon

         Against your grace you were unskilled to wield.

         Unskilled!

               'Tis pity I've no leisure now

         To fight this worthy battle fairly out

         But at some other time, we —

                        Prince, we both

         Miscalculate – but still in opposite ways.

         You, for example, overrate your age

         By twenty years, whilst on the other hand,

         I, by as many, underrate it —

                         Well

         And this suggests the thought, how many nights

         Beside this lovely Lusitanian bride —

         Your mother – would the king right gladly give

         To buy an arm like this, to aid his crown.

         Full well he knows, far easier is the task

         To make a monarch than a monarchy;

         Far easier too, to stock the world with kings

         Than frame an empire for a king to rule.

         Most true, Duke Alva, yet —

                        And how much blood,

         Your subjects' dearest blood, must flow in streams

         Before two drops could make a king of you.

         Most true, by heaven! and in two words comprised,

         All that the pride of merit has to urge

         Against the pride of fortune. But the moral —

         Now, Duke Alva!

                 Woe to the nursling babe

         Of royalty that mocks the careful hand

         Which fosters it! How calmly it may sleep

         On the soft cushion of our victories!

         The monarch's crown is bright with sparkling gems,

         But no eye sees the wounds that purchased them.

         This sword has given our laws to distant realms,

         Has blazed before the banner of the cross,

         And in these quarters of the globe has traced

         Ensanguined furrows for the seed of faith.

         God was the judge in heaven, and I on earth.

         God, or the devil – it little matters which;

         Yours was his chosen arm – that stands confessed.

         And now no more of this. Some thoughts there are

         Whereof the memory pains me. I respect

         My father's choice, – my father needs an Alva!

         But that he needs him is not just the point

         I envy in him: a great man you are,

         This may be true, and I well nigh believe it,

         Only I fear your mission is begun

         Some thousand years too soon. Alva, methinks,

         Were just the man to suit the end of time.

         Then when the giant insolence of vice

         Shall have exhausted Heaven's enduring patience,

         And the rich waving harvest of misdeeds

         Stand in full ear, and asks a matchless reaper,

         Then should you fill the post. O God! my paradise!

         My Flanders! But of this I must not think.

         'Tis said you carry with you a full store

         Of sentences of death already signed.

         This shows a prudent foresight! No more need

         To fear your foes' designs, or secret plots:

         Oh, father! ill indeed I've understood thee.

         Calling thee harsh, to save me from a post,

         Where Alva's self alone can fitly shine!

         'Twas an unerring token of your love.

         These words deserve —

                     What!

                        But your birth protects you.

         That calls for blood! Duke, draw your sword!

                                 On whom?

         Draw, or I run you through.

                        Then be it so.

         How! naked swords?

                   Prince Carlos!

                           Pardon, duke!

         Your pardon, sir! Forget, forgive it all!