Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Not though I wink myself asleep, turn blind —

  Which that I will I say not?

  MARY BEATON.

  Nay, not he;

  We had good hope to bring him well aboard,

  Let him slip safe down by the firths to sea,

  Out under Leith by night-setting, and thence

  Take ship for France and serve there out of sight

  In the new wars.

  QUEEN.

  Ay, in the new French wars —

  You wist thereof too, madam, with good leave —

  A goodly bait to catch mine honor with

  And let me wake up with my name bit through.

  I had been much bounden to you twain, methinks,

  But for my knight’s sake and his love’s; by God,

  He shall not die in God’s despite nor mine.

  Call in our chief lords; bid one see to it:

  Ay, and make haste.

  [Exeunt MARY BEATON and MARY CARMICHAEL.]

  Now shall I try their teeth:

  I have done with fear; now nothing but pure love

  And power and pity shall have part in me;

  I will not throw them such a spirit in flesh

  To make their prey on. Though he be mad indeed,

  It is the goodliest madness ever smote

  Upon man’s heart. A kingly knight-in faith,

  Meseems my face can yet make faith in men

  And break their brains with beauty: for a word,

  An eyelid’s twitch, an eye’s turn, tie them fast

  And make their souls cleave to me. God be thanked,

  This air has not yet curdled all the blood

  That went to make me fair. An hour agone,

  I thought I had been forgotten of men’s love

  More than dead women’s faces are forgot

  Of after lovers. All men are not of earth:

  For all the frost of fools and this cold land

  There be some yet catch fever of my face

  And burning for mine eyes’ sake. I did think

  My time was gone when men would dance to death

  As to a music, and lie laughing down

  In the grave and take their funerals for their feasts,

  To get one kiss of me. I have some strength yet,

  Though I lack power on men that lack men’s blood.

  Yea, and God wot I will be merciful;

  For all the foolish hardness round my heart

  That tender women miss of to their praise,

  They shall not say but I had grace to give

  Even for love’s sake. Why, let them take their way:

  What ails it them though I be soft or hard?

  Soft hearts would weep and weep and let men die

  For very mercy and sweet-heartedness;

  I that weep little for my pity’s sake,

  I have the grace to save men. Let fame go —

  I care not much what shall become of fame,

  So I save love and do mine own soul right;

  I’ll have my mercy help me to revenge

  On all the crew of them. How will he look,

  Having my pardon! I shall have sweet thanks

  And love of good men for my mercy’s love —

  Yea, and be quit of these I hate to death,

  With one good deed.

  [Enter the MARIES.]

  MARY BEATON.

  Madam, the lords are here.

  QUEEN.

  Stand you about me, I will speak to them.

  I would the whole world stood up in my face

  And heard what I shall say. Bid them come in.

  [Enter MURRAY, RANDOLPH, MORTON, LINDSAY, and other LORDS.]

  Hear you, fair lords, I have a word to you;

  There is one thing I would fain understand —

  If I be queen or no; for by my life

  Methinks I am growing unqueenly. No man speak?

  Pray you take note, sweet lord ambassador,

  I am no queen: I never was born queen;

  Alack, that one should fool us in this wise!

  Take up my crown, sir, I will none of it

  Till it hath bells on as a fool’s cap hath.

  Nay, who will have it? no man take it up?

  Was there none worthy to be shamed but I?

  Here are enow good faces, good to crown;

  Will you be king, fair brother? or you, my lord?

  Give me a spinner’s curch, a wisp of reed,

  Any mean thing; but, God’s love, no more gold,

  And no more shame: let boys throw dice for it,

  Or cast it to the grooms for tennis-play,

  For I will none.

  MURRAY.

  What would your highness have?

  QUEEN.

  Yea, yea, I said I was no majesty;

  I shall be shortly fallen out of grace.

  What would I have? I would have leave to live;

  Perchance I shall not shortly: nay, for me

  That have no leave to respite other lives

  To keep mine own life were small praise enow.

  MURRAY.

  Your majesty hath power to respite men,

  As we well wot; no man saith otherwise.

  QUEEN.

  What, is this true? ‘t is a thing wonderful —

  So great I cannot be well sure of it.

  Strange that a queen should find such grace as this

  At such lords’ hands as ye be, such great lords:

  I pray you let me get assured again,

  Lest I take jest for truth and shame myself

  And make you mirth: to make your mirth of me,

  God wot it were small pains to you, my lords,

  But much less honor. I may send reprieve —

  With your sweet leaves I may?

  MURRAY.

  Assuredly.

  QUEEN.

  Lo, now, what grace is this I have of you!

  I had a will to respite Chastelard,

  And would not do it for very fear of you:

  Look you, I wist not ye were merciful.

  MORTON.

  Madam —

  QUEEN.

  My lord, you have a word to me?

  Doth it displease you such a man should live?

  MORTON.

  ’T were a mad mercy in your majesty

  To lay no hand upon his second fault

  And let him thrice offend you.

  QUEEN.

  Ay, my lord?

  MORTON.

  It were well done to muffle lewd men’s mouths

  By casting of his head into their laps:

  It were much best.

  QUEEN.

  Yea, truly were it so?

  But if I will not, yet I will not, sir,

  For all the mouths in Scotland. Now, by heaven,

  As I am pleased he shall not die but live,

  So shall ye be. There is no man shall die,

  Except it please me; and no man shall say,

  Except it please me, if I do ill or well.

  Which of you now will set his will to mine?

  Not you, nor you I think, nor none of you,

  Nor no man living that loves living well.

  Let one stand forth and smite me with his hand,

  Wring my crown off and cast it underfoot,

  And he shall get my respite back of me,

  And no man else: he shall bid live or die,

  And no man else; and he shall be my lord,

  And no man else. What, will not one be king?

  Will not one here lay hold upon my state?

  I am queen of you for all things come and gone.

  Nay, my chief lady, and no meaner one,

  The chiefest of my maidens, shall bear this

  And give it to my prisoner for a grace;

  Who shall deny me? who shall do me wrong?

  Bear greeting to the lord of Chastelard,

  And this withal for respite of his life,

 
For by my head he shall die no such way:

  Nay, sweet, no words, but hence and back again.

  [Exit MARY BEATON.]

  Farewell, dear lords; ye have shown grace to me,

  And some time I will thank you as I may;

  Till when think well of me and what is done.

  ACT V.

  CHASTELARD.

  SCENE I.-Before Holyrood. A crowd of people; among them Soldiers, Burgesses, a Preacher, &c.

  1ST CITIZEN.

  They are not out yet. Have you seen the man?

  What manner of man?

  2D CITIZEN.

  Shall he be hanged or no?

  There was a fellow hanged some three days gone

  Wept the whole way: think you this man shall die

  In better sort, now?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Eh, these shawm-players

  That walk before strange women and make songs!

  How should they die well?

  3D CITIZEN.

  Is it sooth men say

  Our dame was wont to kiss him on the face

  In lewd folk’s sight?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Yea, saith one, all day long

  He used to sit and jangle words in rhyme

  To suit with shakes of faint adulterous sound

  Some French lust in men’s ears; she made songs too,

  Soft things to feed sin’s amorous mouth upon —

  Delicate sounds for dancing at in hell.

  4TH CITIZEN.

  Is it priest Black that he shall have by him

  When they do come?

  3D CITIZEN.

  Ah! by God’s leave, not so;

  If the knave show us his peeled onion’s head

  And that damned flagging jowl of his —

  2D CITIZEN.

  Nay, sirs,

  Take heed of words; moreover, please it you,

  This man hath no pope’s part in him.

  3D CITIZEN.

  I say

  That if priest whore’s friend with the lewd thief’s cheek

  Show his foul blinking face to shame all ours,

  It goes back fouler; well, one day hell’s fire

  Will burn him black indeed.

  A WOMAN.

  What kind of man?

  ’T is yet great pity of him if he be

  Goodly enow for this queen’s paramour.

  A French lord overseas? what doth he here,

  With Scotch folk here?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Fair mistress, I think well

  He doth so at some times that I were fain

  To do as well.

  THE WOMAN.

  Nay, then he will not die.

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Why, see you, if one eat a piece of bread

  Baked as it were a certain prophet’s way,

  Not upon coals, now — you shall apprehend —

  If defiled bread be given a man to eat,

  Being thrust into his mouth, why he shall eat,

  And with good hap shall eat; but if now, say,

  One steal this, bread and beastliness and all,

  When scarcely for pure hunger flesh and bone

  Cleave one to other — why, if he steal to eat,

  Be it even the filthiest feeding-though the man

  Be famine-flayed of flesh and skin, I say

  He shall be hanged.

  3D CITIZEN.

  Nay, stolen said you, sir?

  See, God bade eat abominable bread,

  And freely was it eaten — for a sign

  This, for a sign — and doubtless as did God,

  So may the devil; bid one eat freely and live,

  Not for a sign.

  2D CITIZEN.

  Will you think thus of her?

  But wherefore should they get this fellow slain

  If he be clear toward her?

  3D CITIZEN.

  Sir, one must see

  The day comes when a woman sheds her sin

  As a bird moults; and she being shifted so,

  The old mate of her old feather pecks at her

  To get the right bird back; then she being stronger

  Picks out his eyes-eh?

  2D CITIZEN.

  Like enough to be;

  But if it be — Is not one preaching there

  With certain folk about him?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Yea, the same

  Who preached a month since from Ezekiel

  Concerning these twain-this our queen that is

  And her that was, and is not now so much

  As queen over hell’s worm.

  3D CITIZEN.

  Ay, said he not,

  This was Aholah, the first one of these,

  Called sisters only for a type — being twain,

  Twain Maries, no whit Nazarine? the first

  Bred out of Egypt like the water-worm

  With sides in wet green places baked with slime

  And festered flesh that steams against the sun;

  A plague among all people, and a type

  Set as a flake upon a leper’s fell.

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Yea, said he, and unto her the men went in,

  The men of Pharaoh’s, beautiful with red

  And with red gold, fair foreign-footed men,

  The bountiful fair men, the courteous men,

  The delicate men with delicate feet, that went

  Curling their small beards Agag-fashion, yea

  Pruning their mouths to nibble words behind

  With pecking at God’s skirts-small broken oaths

  Fretted to shreds between most dainty lips,

  And underbreath some praise of Ashtaroth

  Sighed laughingly.

  2D CITIZEN.

  Was he not under guard

  For the good word?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Yea, but now forth again. —

  And of the latter said he — there being two,

  The first Aholah, which interpreted —

  3D CITIZEN.

  But, of this latter?

  1ST CITIZEN.

  Well, of her he said

  How she made letters for Chaldean folk

  And men that came forth of the wilderness

  And all her sister’s chosen men; yea, she

  Kept not her lip from any sin of hers

  But multiplied in whoredoms toward all these

  That hate God mightily; for these, he saith,

  These are the fair French people, and these her kin

  Sought out of England with her love-letters

  To bring them to her kiss of love; and thus

  With a prayer made that God would break such love

  Ended some while; then crying out for strong wrath

  Spake with a great voice after: This is she,

  Yea the lewd woman, yea the same woman

  That gat bruised breasts in Egypt, when strange men

  Swart from great suns, foot-burnt with angry soils

  And strewn with sand of gaunt Chaldean miles,

  Poured all their love upon her: she shall drink

  The Lord’s cup of derision that is filled

  With drunkenness and sorrow, great of sides

  And deep to drink in till the dreg drips out:

  Yea, and herself with the twain shards thereof

  Pluck off her breasts; so said he.

  4TH CITIZEN.

  See that stir —

  Are not they come?

  3D CITIZEN.

  There wants an hour of them.

  Draw near and let us hearken; he will speak

  Surely some word of this.

  2D CITIZEN.

  What saith he now?

  THE PREACHER.

  The mercy of a harlot is a sword;

  And her mouth sharper than a flame of fire.

  SCENE II. — In Prison.

  CHASTELARD.

  So here my time shuts up; and the last light
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br />   Has made the last shade in the world for me.

  The sunbeam that was narrow like a leaf

  Has turned a hand, and the hand stretched to an arm,

  And the arm has reached the dust on the floor, and made

  A maze of motes with paddling fingers. Well,

  I knew now that a man so sure to die

  Could care so little; a bride-night’s lustiness

  Leaps in my veins as light fire under a wind:

  As if I felt a kindling beyond death

  Of some new joys far outside of me yet;

  Sweet sound, sweet smell and touch of things far out

  Sure to come soon. I wonder will death be

  Even all it seems now? or the talk of hell

  And wretched changes of the worn-out soul

  Nailed to decaying flesh, shall that be true?

  Or is this like the forethought of deep sleep

  Felt by a tired man? Sleep were good enough —

  Shall sleep be all? But I shall not forget

  For any sleep this love bound upon me —

  For any sleep or quiet ways of death.

  Ah, in my weary dusty space of sight

  Her face will float with heavy scents of hair

  And fire of subtle amorous eyes, and lips

  More hot than wine, full of sweet wicked words

  Babbled against mine own lips, and long hands

  Spread out, and pale bright throat and pale bright breasts,

  Fit to make all men mad. I do believe

  This fire shall never quite burn out to the ash

  And leave no heat and flame upon my dust

  For witness where a man’s heart was burnt up.

  For all Christ’s work this Venus is not quelled,

  But reddens at the mouth with blood of men,

  Sucking between small teeth the sap o’ the veins,

  Dabbling with death her little tender lips —

  A bitter beauty, poisonous-pearled mouth.

  I am not fit to live but for love’s sake,

  So I were best die shortly. Ah, fair love,

  Fair fearful Venus made of deadly foam,

  I shall escape you somehow with my death —

  Your splendid supple body and mouth on fire

  And Paphian breath that bites the lips with heat.