Part 2 (2/2)

If so it is you think, you may as well Give over thinking. We are done with ermine.

What I fear most is not the mult.i.tude, But those who are to loop it with a string That has one end in France and one end here.

I'm not so fortified with observation That I could swear that more than half a score Among us who see lightning see that ruin Is not the work of thunder. Since the world Was ordered, there was never a long pause For caution between doing and undoing.

BURR

Go on, sir; my attention is a trap Set for the catching of all compliments To Monticello, and all else abroad That has a name or an ident.i.ty.

HAMILTON

I leave to you the names -- there are too many; Yet one there is to sift and hold apart, As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer That is not always clouded, or too late.

But I was near and young, and had the reins To play with while he manned a team so raw That only G.o.d knows where the end had been Of all that riding without Was.h.i.+ngton.

There was a nation in the man who pa.s.sed us, If there was not a world. I may have driven Since then some restive horses, and alone, And through a splas.h.i.+ng of abundant mud; But he who made the dust that sets you on To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry, And in a measure safe.

BURR

Here's a new tune From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once, And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle?

I have forgotten what my father said When I was born, but there's a rustling of it Among my memories, and it makes a noise About as loud as all that I have held And fondled heretofore of your same caution.

But that's affairs, not feelings. If our friends Guessed half we say of them, our enemies Would itch in our friends' jackets. Howsoever, The world is of a sudden on its head, And all are spilled -- unless you cling alone With Was.h.i.+ngton. Ask Adams about that.

HAMILTON

We'll not ask Adams about anything.

We fish for lizards when we choose to ask For what we know already is not coming, And we must eat the answer. Where's the use Of asking when this man says everything, With all his tongues of silence?

BURR

I dare say.

I dare say, but I won't. One of those tongues I'll borrow for the nonce. He'll never miss it.

We mean his Western Majesty, King George.

HAMILTON

I mean the man who rode by on his horse.

I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence If I should say this planet may have done A deal of weary whirling when at last, If ever, Time shall aggregate again A majesty like his that has no name.

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