Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Death of Jack Cade
By Robert Taylor Conrad (1810–1858)S
B
To ask why thus you fright his peaceful realm
With wild rebellion?
A
Are ye so deaf that England’s shrieks ye hear not?
So blind, ye see not her wan brow sweat blood?
B
The greatness which is born in anarchy,
And thrown aloft in tumult, cannot last.
It mounts, like rocks hurled skywards by volcanoes,
Flashes a guilty moment, and falls back
In the red earthquake’s bosom.
A
Go back unto the court, and preach it, where
Fraud laughs at faith, and force at right, and where
Success is sainted if it come from hell!
I leave your royal toys to idiot kings;
And seek the right—the right!
B
We promise mercy.
A
You’ve scourged, and chained, and mocked us; made God’s earth
A dungeon, and a living grave; and now,
When we are free,—our swords in our right hands,
Our tyrants shivering at our feet—ye prate
Of promised mercy. Hark ye! if you yield not,
The wolf shall howl in your spoiled palaces!
Better were England made a wild, than be
The home of bondmen!
B
We would have peace, if not too dearly bought.
A
We know no word like peace!
B
And, to appease the commons, shall be tried.
A
Give him, or—we will take him!—We can do it;
And, gentle sirs, ye know it!
B
[To attendant.] Bring from the tower Lord Say!
A
B
A
The hour has come!
B
A
B
A
B
A
Henceforward shall be free!
A
The people from all tyrannous exactions,
Taxes, and aids, to feed a rotten court.
B
A
Your name, my Lord Archbishop.
B
A
Make the chart sacred.
B
A
B
My secretary stamp this charter with
The great seal of the realm.
A
With him and haste! That hope! that hope!—And when
’Tis done, shout the glad tidings to our host;
And bid their hearts and voices tell the heavens,
That they are slaves no more![Exit M
Now do I almost love thee, for this hour!
Why bridegroom ne’er met bride with such a joy
As I meet thee!
S
A
I cannot spare a hair of that proud head—
A drop of that foul heart. All, all is mine!
S
A
Gentle and joyous. Fierce! You see I laugh!
[Sternly.]Thou hadst a bondman once—his name was Cade,
A white-haired man?
S
A
That harmless man was flayed. And thou stoodst by,
And saw the red whip pierce his quivering flesh,
Until it fell, piecemeal, into the blood
That gathered at his feet! You murdered him!
S
A
A pale boy, struck you down, and spurned you—spurned you,
And he, too, was your bond!
S
A
Passed darkly o’er him! But thy victim’s widow—
Ha! doth her name appall thee? Thine the arm—
Coward! that smote her! Thou it was that gave
Her wasted form to the fierce flames! thou! thou!
Thought’st thou not of her boy? The poor Jack Cade
Is now the avenger! Mortimer no more—
Behold me—Cade the bondman!
S
A
Poor Cade, the bondman, worshipped as a prince!
Poor Cade, the bondman, giving laws to princes!
But no! Cade is no bondman! England’s sun
Sees not a slave; and her glad breeze floats by,
And bears no groans save those of her oppressors.
Now for thy doom. The scourge that slew my father
Shall, from thy shrinking flesh, lap up the blood
That gushes at its greeting, till thy frame
Is ragged from the lash. Then to the stake!
My father’s torture and my mother’s death!
S
Nor die alone! I have a weapon still.
[Tauntingly.]How fareth Mariamne?
A
Shall move me not.
S
A
S
And dainty warders had she in the castle.
Her mingled shrieks and laughter liked me not.
I sent her to the dungeon.
A
S
A
S
On you she called, in mingled shrieks and prayers.
To calm her, we withheld both food and drink,
Till nature sank within her.
A
S
And—
A
S
The hangman’s whip.
A
Die, dog, and rot!
S
My steel was venomed and its point is fate.
That e’er its gates let forth! Oh, Mariamne!
The smoke that palled my brain
Flies from life’s deadening embers now away,
And leaves me but the ashes. Ha! my Aylmere!
M
Is not this death? Our boy, they tore me from him:
Buried they him?
A
’Tis I—’tis Aylmere holds thee, Mariamne!
M
Dead! dead![Weeps.]
Is Atlas’ burthen on me? Say struck home!
The charter—is it come?
L
A
Say hath slain all! I come, my Mariamne!
L
A
The bondman is avenged, and England free!