Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 172
As shall the peace be for us.
Gui.
I take it so;
Maimed be that hand which first shall loosen it,
Even beyond healing.
Co.
Pardon, my fair lord,
I am but old, you strain my wrist too much.
Ch.
Nay, you are worse hurt than they told us, then;
I pray you show me but the coat, I would
Fain see the coat where blood must stick of yours.
Co.
Sir, there it is.
Ch.
Ay, no more red than this?
I thank you; was it this way the slit came?
Yea, so, I see; yea, sideways in the sleeve.
Is that the admiral’s blood indeed? Methinks,
Being issued from so famous veins as yours,
This should be redder. See, well above the wrist;
See, madam; yea, meseems I smell the stain.
Ca.
It is an ill sight.
Co.
I would give better, sir,
Spill the red residue some worthier way,
If you would heed me. Trust not each in all,
Nor sew your faith too thinly to men’s sleeves;
There is a poisonous faith that eats right out
The sober and sweet heart of clean allegiance,
Leaving for witness of all royalty
Merely the baser flesh; beware of that.
Ch.
I will. — Is not this like men’s blood? — I will.
Most like a common fool’s; see you, lord Guise,
Here’s a great soldier has no blood more worth
Than yours or mine. By God, how strange is that,
It makes me marvel. Is your wound near well?
Tush! no more hurt than shall a month see out.
Ca.
You have poor sense of sickness; I fear much
Our friend shall hardly feed on the larger air
This two months hence. You must keep close, dear lord,
Hide from the insolent and eager time;
And we not wrong you by the overstay
Of foolish friendship, thankworthy in this,
That it knows when to cease, what limit made
To measure its observance by. Farewell;
Think not worse of us that we trouble you,
But know we love you even too well to buy
Our further speech with danger of your hurt,
And had we sounder witness of our love
Would better prove it. Sir, God keep you well
And give us joy to see you.
Ch.
Farewell, dear father;
Doubt not but we will lay a present hand
On one that hath so stricken us in you,
And he shall find us sharp. In trust of that
Keep some thought of this poorest friend you have,
As we of you shall. Trouble not yourself.
Nay, have your cloak on; so; God give you help.
Come with me, my lord Guise; fair sir, good night.
Yea, night it is now; God send you good time of it.
[Exeunt, King, Queen-Mother, Guise, &c.
Co.
Good thanks, sir, and farewell. — So: gone, I think?
La R.
Fair words go with them! you have good time indeed;
What holidays of honey have they kept,
What a gold season of sentences to warm by,
Even past all summer! a sweet oil-season,
Kept ripe with periods of late wine to finish it!
Co.
Ay, the taste of them makes a bitter lip, sir.
La R.
Nay, mere feast-honey; did you mark the Guise once,
How his chin twisted and got rough with smiles,
Like a new cloth rained on? How the nose was wried of him,
What widow’s cheeks he had, never well dried yet?
The sweet speech clung in his throat like a kernel swallowed
In sucking cherries.
Co.
You are too loud yet, too splenetive.
La R.
Tush! they are well gone, no fear of them; but verily
I doubt you saw not how like a dog’s his face was,
A dog’s you catch with meat in his teeth; by Christ,
I thought he would have cried or cursed outright,
His mouth so wrought.
Co.
Yea, either had done well.
La R.
A dog that snarls and shivers with back down,
With fearful slaver about his mouth; “weh, weh,
For God’s sake do not beat me, sirs!” eh, Guise? —
With timid foam between his teeth; poor beast, too,
I could be sorry for him.
Co.
Be wise in time, sir,
And save your tears; this Guise has scope to mend,
Get past these matters; I not doubt the queen
Touches them with a finger-point of hers.
La R.
The queen gets kind; she lessens and goes out;
No woman holds a snake at breast so long,
But it must push its head between the plaits
And show across her throat’s gold work. Fair sir,
Cure but your doubt, your blood is whole again
And pain washed out at once; it is the fret of that
Which fevers you so far.
Co.
This is not so.
I pray you mark: their fires are lit next room,
The smoke bites in our eyelids, air turns weak
And body trembles and breath sickens here.
Sir, I do know this danger to the heart,
To the shape and bone of it, the mouth and eyes,
The place and time, season and consequence;
By God’s head, sir, now, this mere now, this day,
The peril ripens like a wound o’ the flesh
That gathers poison; and we sleepy things
Let crawl up to our feet the heats that will
Turn fire to burn.
La R.
Your wisdom is too loud:
Doth it fear truly some court-card, some trick
That throws out honour?
Co.
Yea; for note me this,
These men so wholly hate us and so well
It would be honey to their lips, I think,
To have our death for the familiar word
They chatter between mass-time and the bed
Wet with wine, scented with a harlot’s hair,
They lie so smooth in. When one hates like that,
So many of them, each a hand and mouth
To stab and lie and pray and poison with,
The bloodsmell quickens in the head, the scent
Feels gross upon the trail, and the steam turns
Thicker i’ the noses of the crew; right soon
Shall their feet smoke in the red pasturing-place
And tongues lap hot; such cannot eat mere grass
Nor will drink water.
La R.
Are we stalled for them?
Are we their sheep? have we no steel? dumb sheep?
Co.
No steel; the most of us have watered blood,
Their nerves are threads of silk, their talk such cries
As babies babble through the suckling milk,
Put them by these.
La R.
I have a way to help;
A damsel of the queen-mother’s loves me
More than her mistress; she has eyes to kiss
That can see well; I’ll get us help of her.
Co.
Tell her no word.
La R.
Yea, many words, I think.
Co.
No word, sir, none.
La R.
This riddle sticks, my lord.
Co.
To say we stand in fea
r is perilous prate;
To kneel for help would maim us in the feet,
So could we neither stand in time nor fly,
Being caught both ways. Do not you speak with her.
La R.
I’ll make help somehow yet; Yolande is good
And would not hurt us; a fair mouth too small
To let lies in and learn broad tricks of speech;
I’ll get help, surely. Does not your wound hurt?
Co.
Not much; I pray you draw my cloak across;
So; the air chafes.
La R.
Go in and rest some while;
Your blood is hot even to the fingers.
Co.
True;
I shall sleep ill. Come in with me, fair lord.
[Exeunt.
ACT II.
Scene I.
The Louvre.
Enter King and Denise.
Denise.
Nay, I shall know it.
Ch.
Tush! you trouble me.
Den.
O ay, I trouble you, my love’s a thorn
To prick the patience of your flesh away
And maim your silenced periods of whole sleep.
I will unlearn that love; yea, presently.
Ch.
What need I tell you?
Den.
Trouble not your lip;
I have no ear to carry the large news
That you shut up inside. Nay, go; nay, go;
It is mere pain, not love, that makes me dull;
Count not on love; be not assured of me;
Trust not a corner of the dangerous air
With some lean alms of speech; I may deceive you,
I may wear wicked colour in the soul
When the cheek keeps up red. Perchance I lie.
Ch.
Thou art the prettiest wonder of God’s craft;
I think thy mother made thee out of milk,
Thy talk is such a maiden yet. Stay there —
Are hands too costly for my fingering? ha?
Den.
Now I could kill you here between the eyes,
Plant the steel’s bare chill where I set my mouth,
Or prick you somewhere under the left side;
Why, thou man’s face of cunning, thou live doubt,
Thou mere suspicion walking with man’s feet!
Yea, I could search thy veins about with steel
Till in no corner of thy crannied blood
Were left to run red witness of a man,
No breath to test thee kinglier than dead flesh,
Sooner than lose this face to touch, this hair
To twist new curls in; yea, prove me verily,
Sift passion pure to the blind edge of pain,
And see if I will — yet what need, what need?
Kiss me! there now, am I no queen for you?
Here, take my fingers to mould flat in yours
That would mould iron flat — eh, would not they?
Ch.
Ay, true, Denise, by God they can turn steel,
That’s truth now — turn it like a bit of paste
Paddled each way — that’s just short truth.
Den.
Well, now,
That I do pray you put some trust on me
For love’s fair merit and faith’s noble sake,
What holds your lips so fast? I should look proud,
Grave in the mouth, with wise accomplice eyes,
A piece of your great craft. Make place for me;
I pray you, place.
Ch.
This counsel is more grave
Than death’s lean face; best your ear touch it not.
Den.
Nay then I will not; for I would not pluck
So rough a knowledge on. I am a child,
A show, a bauble kissed and laughed across;
You lay your face over my head and laugh,
Your slow laugh underbreath runs in my hair.
Talk me of love, now; there I understand,
Catch comprehension at the skirt of love,
Steal alms of it. Yet I would put love off
And rather make the time hard cover to me
Than miss trust utterly. But let that lie;
Therein walks danger with both eyes awake,
Therefore no more. Tell me not anything.
Ch.
Thou shalt have all.
Den.
Must I put violence
To war upon my words? Have they said wrong?
I was resolved not to distemper you.
Ch.
Nay, I shall try your trust. Sit by me, so;
Lay your hands thus. By God how fair you are,
It does amaze me; surely God felt glad
The day he finished making you. Eh sweet,
You have the eyes men choose to paint, you know;
And just that soft turn in the little throat
And bluish colour in the lower lid
They make saints with.
Den.
True. A grave thing to hear.
Ch.
See yet, this matter you do fret me with
Seems no whit necessary, nor hath such weight,
Nor half the cost and value of a hair,
Poised with some perfect little wrath of yours
In fret of brows or lifting of the lip.
Indeed you are too precious for man’s use,
Being past so far his extreme point of price,
His flawed and curious estimation,
As throws out all repute of words.
Den.
I would
My face were writhen like a witch! Make forth.
Ch.
Why, many a business feeds on blood i’ the world,
And there goes many a knave to make a saint —
Den.
I shall be angry. Sir, I am no fool,
But you do treat me as a dog might fare
Coming too near the fire.
Ch.
Nay, keep dry lids;
I would not lose you for three days, to have
My place assured next God’s. But see you now,
This gracious town with its smooth ways and walls
And men all mine in all of theirs —
Den.
I see.
Ch.
This France I have in fee as sure as God
Hath me and you — if this should fall to loss,
Were it no pity?
Den.
Yea, sir, it were much.
Ch.
Or now, this gold that makes me up a king,
This apprehensive note and mark of time,
This token’d kingdom, this well-tested worth,
Wherein my brows exult and are begirt
With the brave sum and sense of kingliness,
To have this melted from a narrow head
Or broken on the bare disfeatured brows,
And marred i’ the very figure and fair place
Where it looked nobly — were this no shame to us?
Den.
Yea, this were piteous likewise.
Ch.
Think on it.
For I would have you pitiful as tears,
Would have you fill with pity as the moon
With perfect round of seasonable gold
Fills her starved sides at point of the yellow month;
For if you leave some foolish part, some break,
Some idle piece or angle of yourself,
Not filled with wise and fearful pity up,
Then shame to hear the means of mine effect
Shall change you stone for good.
Den.
I apprehend.
Ch.
For I, by God, when I turn thought on it,
Do feel a heavy trembling in my sense,
An alteration and a full disease
As perilous things did jar in me and mak
e
Contention in my blood.
Den.
Nay, but speak more;
Speak forth. Good love, if I should flatter you —
Ch.
You see how hard and to what sharp revolt
The labour of the barren times is grown
Not in France merely, but in either land
That feels the sea’s salt insolence on it;
The womb is split and shaken everywhere
That earth gets life of; and the taint therein
Doth like a venomous drug incite and sting
The sore unhealed rebellion in its house
To extreme working. Now to supplant this evil
Doth ask more evil; men kiss not snakes to death,
Nor have we heard of bodies plagued to ache
Made whole with eating honey. It is most good
That we should see how God doth physic time
Even to the quick and the afflictive blood
With stripes as keen as iron in the flesh.
Therefore — That is, you have to apprehend
I mean no evil, but a righteous help;
I hate blood, too; indeed I love it not
More than a girl does. Therefore it is hard.
Take note of me, I tell you it is hard.
Den.
I see. Make on.
Ch.
It was to bring all right —
And these men break God’s smooth endurance up,
And he must hate them; and I love him so,
I and all friends, my mother here and all,
It hurts us, doth us wrong, puts pain on us,
When God forbears his cause to quit himself,
And gives no sign aside.
Den.
I may well think
These are your Huguenots that you do loathe;
You will do right upon them, will you not?
Ch.
Ay, right, I will do right, nothing but right.
You are my absolute mistress and my choice,