Ros.
The sick sweet in it
Taints my mouth through. — Could the heat make me sleep!
My feet ache like my head. — Doth this I say
Tire you so hard you cannot answer me?
Const.
Madam, I would my words were wine to drink
That might heal all your better sense and blood;
But some hurts ache in the bone past oil and wine,
And I do think the words I heard of you
Burn you thus hot only with hate of shame.
Ros.
Shame? who said shame? am I so sick of love
That shame can hurt me? there’s no shame in the world
Whose wound would hurt more than too hard a kiss
If love kept by the face of blinking shame
To kill the pain with patience. Am I his wife
That it should fret me to be trod by shame?
Ah child, I know that were my lord at right
And shame stood on this left with eager mouth
For some preparèd scorn — I could but turn
Saying — lo, here this hand to cover me,
Lo, this to plait my hair and warm my lips;
I could well pity thee, dull snake, poor fool,
Faint shame, too feeble to discredit me.
Const.
I would I had never come hither.
Ros.
Are you tired?
But I seem shameful to you, shameworthy,
Contemnable of good women, being so bad,
So bad as I am. Yea, would God, would God,
I had kept my face from this contempt of yours.
Insolent custom would not anger me
So as you do; more clean are you than I,
Sweeter for gathering of the grace of God
To perfume some accomplished work in heaven?
I do not use to scorn, stay pure of hate,
Seeing how myself am scorned unworthily;
But anger here so takes me in the throat
I would speak now for fear it strangle me.
Here, let me feel your hair and hands and face;
I see not flesh is holier than flesh,
Or blood than blood more choicely qualified
That scorn should live between them. Better am I
Than many women; you are not over fair,
Nor delicate with some exceeding good
In the sweet flesh; you have no much tenderer soul
Than love is moulded out of for God’s use
Who wrought our double need; you are not so choice
That in the golden kingdom of your eyes
All coins should melt for service. But I that am
Part of the perfect witness for the world
How good it is; I chosen in God’s eyes
To fill the lean account of under men,
The lank and hunger-bitten ugliness
Of half his people; I who make fair heads
Bow, saying, “though we be in no wise fair
We have touched all beauty with our eyes, we have
Some relish in the hand, and in the lips
Some breath of it,” because they saw me once;
I whose curled hair was as a strong staked net
To take the hunters and the hunt, and bind
Faces and feet and hands; a golden gin
Wherein the tawny-lidded lions fell,
Broken at ankle; I that am yet, ah yet,
And shall be till the worm hath share in me,
Fairer than love or the clean truth of God,
More sweet than sober customs of kind use
That shackle pain and stablish temperance;
I that have roses in my name, and make
All flowers glad to set their colour by;
I that have held a land between twin lips
And turned large England to a little kiss;
God thinks not of me as contemptible,
And that you think me even a smaller thing
Than your own goodness and slight name of good,
Your special, thin, particular repute;
I would some mean could be but clear to me
Not to contemn you.
Const.
Madam, I pray you think
I had no will to whet you to such edge;
I might wish merely to be clear of pain
Such as I have to see you weep — to see
That wasp contempt feed on your coloured rind
Whose kernel is so spiced with change of sweet;
No more, I swear to you by God no more.
Ros.
I will believe you. But speak truly now
As you are fair, I say you are fair too,
Would you be wiser than I was with him?
A king to kiss the maiden from your lips,
Fill you with fire as water fills the sea,
Hands in your hair and eyes against your face —
Ay, more than this, this need not strike at heart,
But say that love had bound you like a dog,
Leashed your loose thoughts to his uncertain feet,
Then would you be much better than such are
As leave their soul upon two alien lips
Like a chance word of talk they use for breath?
O girl, that hast no bitter touch of love,
No more assurance of it than report
Flaunts in the teeth of blame — I bid you know
Love is much wiser than we twain, more strong
Than men who hold the pard by throat and jaw.
Love’s signet-brand stamps through the gold o’the years,
Severs the gross and chastens out the mould.
God has no plague so perilous as love,
And no such honey for the lips of Christ
To purge them clean of gall and sweet for heaven.
It was to fit the naked limbs of love
He wrought and clothed the world with ordinance.
Yea, let no wiser woman hear me say
I think that whoso shall unclothe his soul
Of all soft raiment coloured custom weaves,
And choose before the cushion-work of looms
Stones rough at edge to stab the tender side,
Put honour off and patience and respect
And veils and relics of remote esteem
To turn quite bare into large arms of love,
God loves him better than those bitter fools
Whom ignorance makes clean, and bloodless use
Keeps colder than their dreams.
Const.
It may be true,
I know not; only to stay maiden-souled
Seems worthier to me.
Ros.
Doth it so? Ah you
That tie the spirit closer to the flesh
To keep both sweet, it seems again to me
You kill the gracious secret of it, and mar
The wholesome heaven with scent of ruined things
That breed mere flies for issue. Ay, and love
That makes the daily flesh an altar-cup
To carry tears and rarest blood within
And touch pained lips with feast of sacrament —
So sweet it is, God made it sweet! Poor words,
Dull words, I have compassion on them, girl,
Their babble falls so far this side of love
Significance faints in them. This I know,
When first I had his arms across my head
And had his mouth upon my heated hair
And his sharp kisses mixed into my blood,
I hung athirst between his hands, and said
Sweet, and so sweet! for both mine eyes were weak,
Possessed with rigorous prophecy of tears
To drench the lids past sleeping, and both lips
Stark as twain rims of a sweet cup drunk out.
Const.
My first word serves me here; this may be true.
Ros.
Say this, you have a tender woman’s face,
Do you love children? does it touch your blood
To see God’s word finished in a child’s face
For us to touch and handle? seems it sweet
To have such things in the world to hold and kiss?
Const.
Yea, surely.
Ros.
Yea? then be most sure of this,
Love doth so well surpass and foil the sense
That makes us pleasure out of children seen,
That I being severed from the lips of mine
Feel never insufficient sight, or loss
Of the sweet natural aim or use in eyes
Because they are not; but for only this;
That seldom in grave passages of time
Such gracious red possesses the full day
As leaves me light to look into his face
Who made me children.
Const.
Doth he love you as well?
Then two such loves were never wrought in flesh
Since the sun moved.
Ros.
Ah girl, you fail fair truth;
He doth love me, would let me take his name
To soil, his face to set my feet upon;
But love is no such new device we need
Boast over that. Nay, are you dull indeed?
All stories are so lined and sewn with love,
Ravel that gold and broidered thread in them,
You rend across the mid and very seam.
Yea, I am found the woman in all tales,
The face caught always in the story’s face;
I Helen, holding Paris by the lips,
Smote Hector through the head; I Cressida
So kissed men’s mouths that they went sick or mad,
Stung right at brain with me; I Guenevere
Made my queen’s eyes so precious and my hair
Delicate with such gold in its soft ways
And my mouth honied so for Launcelot,
Out of good things he chose his golden soul
To be the pearlwork of my treasuring hands,
And so our love foiled God; I that was these
And am no sweeter now than Rosamond
With most full heart and mirth give my lord up
Body’s due breath and soul’s forefashioned peace
To pay love with; what should I do but this
That am so loved? Ay, you might catch me here
Saying his French wife smites my love across
With soft strange lips; yea, I know too she may
Pluck skirts of afterthought, kiss pity’s feet,
Marry remembrance with a broken ring;
No time so famished, no such idle place
As spares her room next his; a wife, his wife —
If I be no king’s wife, prithee what need
That she should steal the word to dress her name
That suits my name as well? take love, take all;
What shall keep hunger from the word of wife?
What praise, if reputation wear thin shoes,
Shall keep the rain from honoured women’s feet?
Wife, wife — I get no music out of wife;
I see no reason between me and wife
But what breath mars with making; yea, poor fool,
She gets the harsh bran of my corn to eat.
Const.
Men call the queen an adder underfoot,
Dangerous obedience in the trodden head;
I pray you heed your feet in walking here.
Ros.
Fear is a cushion for the feet of love,
Painted with colours for his ease-taking;
Sweet red, and white with wasted blood, and blue
Most flower-like, and the summer-spousèd green
And sea-betrothed soft purple and burnt black.
All coloured forms of fear, omen and change,
Sick prophecy and rumours lame at heel,
Anticipations and astrologies,
Perilous inscription and recorded note,
All these are covered in the skirt of love
And when he shakes it these are tumbled forth,
Beaten and blown i’the dusty face of the air.
Were she ten queens and every queen his wife,
I could not find out fear. Where shame is hid
I can but guess when patience leaves me sick;
But where the lank bat fear is huddled in
Doth no conjecture smell.
Const.
Mine holds yet out,
Seeing the queen is reconciled: their son
Ties peace between both hands; she will do much
To move him from his care set over you.
Ros.
I care not; let her bind him heel to head,
So she may keep him, clip and kiss him so.
For me, I will go in; no doubt he shall
Be here to-night; I were best sleep till then
And have the sweet of sleep about my face
To touch his senses with; for he shall come,
I have no doubt of him but he shall come.
Kiss me yet, sweet, I would not anger you.
[Exit.
Const.
Yea, I taste through this way of yours; so fair
Her sin may serve as well as holy ways,
Shall not it so? Let the queen make some tale,
A silk clue taken in the king’s spur’s gold,
No fear lest I be taken; and what harm
To catch her feet i’the dragnets of her sin
That is so full of words, eats wicked bread,
Shares portion with shame’s large and common cups,
Feeds at lewd tables, girds loose garments on?
For all this brave breath wasted out of heart,
I doubt this frets her; verily I think
Some such pain only makes her gibe at me —
Fair fool, with her soft shameful mouth! at least
I keep clean hands to do God’s offices
And serve him with my noose upon her neck.
[Exit.
II. The Palace at Shene.
Queen Eleanor and Robert de Bouchard
.
Queen Eleanor.
Yea, true for such; but he and I were old
Already, though men say his hair keeps black,
Ay, black-bright hair, touched deep as poppies’ black
They cover up in scarlet; that’s my lord;
Sweet colour, with a thought of black at heart.
Some flowers, they say, if one pluck deep enough,
Bleed as you gather.
Bouch.
That means love, I think;
You gather it and there’s the blood at root.
Qu. El.
How much, my Bouchard? let your beard alone;
You could well strike me, I believe at heart;
God help me that am troubled with you so!
Feel both hands now; the blood’s alive there, beats
And flutters in the fingers and the palms.
Bouch.
True, hot enough; what will you do? the king
Comes back to take farewell and hold his way
With some thin train that gathers Londonwards;
Thence ere he take ship shall my lord make way
Among the westward alder-meadows, thrust
Between soft Godstow poplars and warm grass
Right into Woodstock and pleached rose-places;
Shall the queen follow lest he lack a face
For welcome, and sweet words to kiss i’the lip?
I would go with you lest some harm should fall.
Qu. El.
No need, for would God let them hurt me? Well,
I would fain see the rose grow, Robert.
Bouch.
Being fair,
A woman is worth pains to see.
Qu. El.
Being fair.
&
nbsp; Sweet stature hath she and fair eyes, men say;
I am but black, with hair that keeps the braid,
And my face hurt and bitten of the sun
Past medicine of all waters; so his tooth
Bites hard in France, and strikes the brown grape hot,
Makes the wine leap, no skin-room spares for white, —
I know well now; the woman has that white,
His water-weed, his golden girl-flower
With lank sapped stem and green rind moist at core.
Ay, gold! but no crown’s gold to all this hair,
That’s hard, my Robert.
Bouch.
See how men will lie;
They call you hard, this people, sour to bite;
Now I will trust your sweetness, do but say
You will not touch her if I get you through.
Qu. El.
I will not hurt her, Bouchard; for God’s love,
Help me; I swear by God I will not hurt,
I will not — Ah, sweet Robert, bear me through,
Do not make smiles and never move your mouth:
When we ride back I will do anything,
Wear man’s dress, take your horse to water — yea,
Kiss clean your feet of any travelling dust —
Yea, what your page has never done I will
For mere love, Robert, for pure love of you;
Nay, if I meant to stab or poison her,
You might so chide me, Bouchard, bid me back,
Not now! I will not hurt her; there again.
Kiss me! I love you as a man loves God!
Be sorry for me!
Bouch.
Ah well, well; no doubt
But my Lord wrought me with a tender hand,
Spoiled half a man in making; there, sit, sit.
I felt your teeth come through that bitter kiss.
Sit now and talk; it is my service, madam,
A man’s good service merely, nothing else,
To ride for you, to ride with you — not more.
Qu. El.
I have some help yet of this Bouchard, then?
See now, sir, you are knight and gentleman;
I pray you that your service fail not here.
For wears a man rich office and rich name
Nearer than wife about him? so the king
Wears me; and so I bid you serve him, sir.
I bid you? rather I take prayer to me
And catch your faith with prayer; right meek I am,
Chide with me, Bouchard, if I be not meek;
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 184