Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/387

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OTHO THE GREAT.
371

Upon my marriage-day, and scandalize
My joys with such opprobrious surprise?
Wife! Why dost linger on that syllable.
As if it were some demon's name pronounced
To summon harmful lightning, and make yawn
The sleepy thunder? Hast no sense of fear?
No ounce of man in thy mortality?
Tremble! for, at my nod, the sharpen'd axe
Will make thy bold tongue quiver to the roots,
Those gray lids wink, and thou not know it, monk!

Ethelbert. O, poor deceived Prince! I pity thee!
Great Otho! I claim justice—

Ludolph.Thou shalt have't!
Thine arms from forth a pulpit of hot fire
Shall sprawl distracted! O that that dull cowl
Were some most sensitive portion of thy life,
That I might give it to my hounds to tear!
Thy girdle some fine zealous-pained nerve
To girth my saddle! And those devil's beads
Each one a life, that I might, every day,
Crush one with Vulcan's hammer!

Otho.Peace, my son;
You far outstrip my spleen in this affair.
Let us be calm, and hear the abbot's plea
For this intrusion.

Ludolph.I am silent, sire.

Otho. Conrad, see all depart not wanted here.
[Exeunt Knights, Ladies, &c.  
Ludolph be calm. Ethelbert, peace awhile.
This mystery demands an audience
Of a just judge, and that will Otho be.

Ludolph. Why has he time to breathe another word?