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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Giving me prison and them swift banishment

  Whom I gave honour, and cast the crown away,

  And break the old natural heart of royalty,

  For foul faith’s sake or craft of their miscreed;

  That smote with sword or speech against all state,

  Not through blind heat or stumbling hardihood,

  But hate of holiness and height of mind,

  Hateful to kingly truth, haters of kings;

  Them though I pardon I would not take to trust,

  Nor bind up their loose faith with my belief,

  For all assurances of all men born.

  Besides, I hate him, singly.

  RIZZIO.

  I have said, and say;

  Do you as time will turn it; time turns all.

  QUEEN.

  I do believe there is no man’s estate

  So miserable, so very a helpless thing,

  So trodden under and overborne as mine.

  For first the man that I set up for lord,

  For master of mine and mate of only me,

  Have I perforce put forth of my shamed bed

  And broken on his brows the kingless crown,

  Finding nor head for gold nor hand for steel

  Worth name of king or husband, but the throne

  Lordless, the heart of marriage husbandless,

  Through his foul follies; then in the utter world,

  In the extreme range and race of my whole life

  Through all changed times and places of its change,

  Having one friend, I find a foe of him

  To my true sense and soul and spirit of thought

  That keeps in peace the things of its own peace,

  Secret and surely; in faith, this frets my faith,

  Distunes me into discord with myself,

  That you should counsel me against my soul.

  I pray you do not.

  RIZZIO.

  Nay, I will no more.

  But if you take not Murray again to trust

  At least in short sweet seeming for some while,

  So to subdue him as with his own right hand

  And all chief with him of his creed and crew,

  Then, cleaving to the old counsel, suddenly

  Have him attainted, and being so brought in

  By summons as your traitor, with good speed

  Have off his head; let him not live to turn;

  Choose you sure tongues to doom him, hands to rid,

  And be his slaying his sentence; for the rest,

  Make to you friends Argyle and Chatelherault

  And such more temperate of their faction found

  As may be servants to your pardoning hand

  If they be separable; but anywise

  In pardoning these forgive not half his fault

  With half their pardon; cut no branch of his

  But the root only; strike not but at heart

  When you strike him; he hath done and borne too much

  To live ‘twixt that and this unreconciled,

  Having on this hand his conspiracy,

  On that your proclamation; his head priced,

  His life coursed after with hot hound and horn,

  His wife thrust forth hard on her travailing time

  With body soft from pangs and delicate

  To roam in winter-bound and roofless woods;

  These things not wholly with your grace wiped off

  And washed with favour and fair-faced love away

  Must work within him deadly and desperate.

  QUEEN.

  Now

  I find your counsel in you, no strange tongue,

  But the old stout speech and sure; and this same day

  Will I set hand to it. I have chosen the lords

  That shall attaint in council these men fled

  Of mortal treason; and some two hours hence

  My tongue through their strange lips shall speak him dead

  Who is only my heart’s hated among men.

  I am gay of heart, light as a spring south-wind,

  To feed my soul with his foretasted death.

  You know the reason I have, you know the right

  And he the danger of it, being no fool,

  For fool he is not; I would he were but fool.

  O, I feel dancing motions in my feet,

  And laughter moving merrily at my lips,

  Only to think him dead and hears ed, or hanged -

  That were the better. I could dance down his life,

  Sing my steps through, treading on his dead neck,

  For love of his dead body and cast-out soul.

  He shall talk of me to the worm of hell,

  Prate in death’s ear and with a speechless tongue

  Of my dead doings in days gone out. Sweet lord,

  David, my good friend and my chancellor,

  I thank you for your counsel.

  RIZZIO.

  May it be

  Prosperously mine! but howsoever, I think

  It were not well, when this man is put down,

  Though Lethington be wily or Melville wise,

  To make your stay of any other man.

  QUEEN.

  I would I had no state to need no stay;

  God witness me, I had rather be reborn

  And born a poor mean woman, and live low

  With harmless habit and poor purity

  Down to my dull death-day, a shepherd’s wife,

  Than a queen clothed and crowned with force and fear.

  RIZZIO.

  Are you so weary of crowns, and would not be

  Soon wearier waxen of sheepfolds?

  QUEEN.

  ‘Faith, who knows?

  But I would not be weary, let that be

  Part of my wish. I could be glad and good

  Living so low, with little labours set

  And little sleeps and watches, right and day

  Falling and flowing as small waves in low sea

  From shine to shadow and back, and out and in

  Among the firths and reaches of low life:

  I would I were away and well. No more,

  For dear love talk no more of policy.

  Let France and faith and envy and England be,

  And kingdom go and people; I had rather rest

  Quiet for all my simple space of life,

  With few friends’ loves closing my life-days in

  And few things known and grace of humble ways -

  A loving little life of sweet small works.

  Good faith, I was not made for other life;

  Nay, do you think it? I will not hear thereof;

  Let me hear music rather, as simple a song,

  If you have any, as these low thoughts of mine,

  Some lowly and old-world song of quiet men.

  RIZZIO.

  Then is the time for love-songs when the lip

  Has no more leave to counsel; even so be it;

  I will sing simply, and no more counsel you.

  QUEEN.

  Be not unfriends; I have made you wroth indeed,

  Unknowing, and pray you even for my no fault

  Forgive and give me music; I am athirst

  For sweet-tongued pardon only.

  RIZZIO.

  If this be harsh,

  The pardon be for fault enforced of mine.

  Love with shut wings, a little ungrown love,

  A blind lost love, alit on my shut heart,

  As on an unblown rose an unfledged dove;

  Feeble the flight as yet, feeble the flower.

  And I said, show me if sleep or love thou art,

  Or death or sorrow or some obscurer power;

  Show me thyself, if thou be some such power,

  If thou be god or spirit, sorrow or love,

  That I may praise thee for the thing thou art.

  And saying, I felt my soul a sudden flower

  Full-fledged of petals, and thereon a dov
e

  Sitting full-feathered, singing at my heart.

  Yet the song’s burden heavier on my heart

  Than a man’s burden laid on a child’s power.

  Surely most bitter of all sweet things thou art,

  And sweetest thou of all things bitter, love;

  And if a poppy or if a rose thy flower

  We know not, nor if thou be kite or dove.

  But nightingale is none nor any dove

  That sings so long nor is so hot of heart

  For love of sorrow or sorrow of any love;

  Nor all thy pain hath any or all thy power,

  Nor any knows thee if bird or god thou art,

  Or whether a thorn to think thee or whether a flower.

  But surely will I hold thee a glorious flower,

  And thy tongue surely sweeter than the dove

  Muttering in mid leaves from a fervent heart

  Something divine of some exceeding love,

  If thou being god out of a great god’s power

  Wilt make me also the glad thing thou art.

  Will no man’s mercy show me where thou art,

  That I may bring thee of all my fruit and flower,

  That with loud lips and with a molten heart

  I may sing all thy praises, till the dove

  That I desire to have within my power

  Fly at thy bidding to my bosom, love?

  Clothed as with power of pinions, O my heart,

  Fly like a dove, and seek one sovereign flower,

  Whose thrall thou art, and sing for love of love.

  QUEEN.

  It sings too southerly for this harsh north;

  This were a song for summer-sleeping ears,

  One to move dancing measures in men’s feet

  Red-shod with reek o’ the vintage. Who went there?

  What, hear you not?

  MARY SEYTON.

  My lord of Bothwell’s foot:

  His tread rings iron, as to battle-ward.

  QUEEN.

  Not his, it was not. See if it be indeed.

  ’Twas a good song. Something he had with me -

  I thank you for your song - I know not what.

  Let him come in. Sir, be with us to-night -

  I knew it was late indeed - at supper-time.

  RIZZIO.

  Madam, till night I take my loyal leave.

  God give you good of all things.

  Exit.

  QUEEN.

  Doth he mock me?

  I care not neither; I know not. Stay with us.

  Enter Bothwell

  Good morrow, sir; we bade you, did we not?

  Be with us after noon; ’tis not noon near,

  And you are truer than your own word; and that,

  ’Tis a true man’s and trusty.

  BOTHWELL.

  True it should be,

  Madam, if truth be true, and I your thrall

  And truth’s for your sake.

  QUEEN.

  I would know of you -

  I know not what - something there was to know.

  I would you were not warden - as in truth

  I think to unmake you - of the marches there.

  ’Tis a fierce office. You have a royal sword,

  At least a knightly; I would not see it hacked rough

  In brawling border dangers.

  BOTHWELL.

  Anywhere

  Hand, hilt, and edge are yours, to turn and take,

  Use or throw by, you know it.

  QUEEN.

  I know it indeed.

  I have not many hearts with me, and hold

  Precious the hearts I have and the good hands.

  Ladies, we have somewhat with our servant here

  That needs no counsel and no ear of yours,

  So gives you leave.

  Exeunt Maries.

  I know not why they are gone;

  I have nothing with you secret.

  BOTHWELL.

  Yea, one thing;

  You cannot help it; your face and speech and look

  Are secret with me in my secret heart.

  QUEEN.

  I know not that; I would I did know that.

  ’Tis yet not twelve days since I saw you wed

  To my dear friend, and with what eye you know

  Who would not, for all love that I might make

  And suit to you, give ear to me and be

  In mine own chapel at the holy mass

  Made one with her; for all the feast we kept,

  No jewel of mine bequeathed your wife might buy

  Consent of you to take her wedded hand

  After the church-rite of her faith and mine;

  And how much love went with your policy

  I cannot tell; yet was my will content

  That you should wed her name and house, to bring

  The race of Gordon on our side again,

  And have its ruin rebuilded and its might

  Restored to do us service; so you said,

  And so I thought I knew your mind to stand;

  Being so fast bound to me, I need not doubt

  She could but hold you by the hand, and I

  That had you by the heart need grudge not that,

  While time gave order, and expediency

  Required of us allowance; but in faith

  I know not whether there be faith or no

  Save in my heart wherein I know too sure

  How little wisdom is to trust in man.

  So comes it, as you see, for all my show,

  I am ill at heart and tired.

  BOTHWELL.

  ’Tis your own blame.

  QUEEN.

  Yea, now, what would you have me? I am yours to do it:

  But you say nothing; yet you say too much.

  My blame it is, my weary waste of breath,

  My wretched hours and empty bloodless life,

  My sleepy vigils and my starting sleeps,

  All by my fault - if it be fault to be

  More than all men loving, all women true,

  To hunger with the foodless heart of grief

  And wither with the tearless thirst of eyes,

  To wander in weak thought through unsown fields

  Past unreaped sheaves of vision; to be blind,

  Weak, sick and lame of spirit and poor of soul,

  And to live loveless for love’s bitter sake

  And have to food loathing, and shame for drink,

  And see no cease or breach in my long life

  Where these might end or die; my fault it is,

  And I will kill my fault: for I that loved

  Will live to love no living thing again.

  BOTHWELL.

  As you will, then.

  QUEEN.

  Nay, do not tread on me;

  I am lying a worm out of your way, and you

  Turn back to bruise me. I am stricken sore enough;

  Do not worse wound me; I am hurt to the heart.

  You change and shift quicker than all good things,

  That all change quickly: I am fast, and cannot change.

  If you do hold me so, fast in your heart,

  You should not surely mock me.

  BOTHWELL.

  I mock you not.

  You are looser and lighter-tempered than the wind,

  And say I mock you: ’tis you mock yourself,

  And much more me that wot not of your mind,

  What would you have and would not.

  QUEEN.

  Nothing, I,

  Nothing but peace, and shall not. By my faith,

  I think no man ever loved woman well.

  You laugh and thrust your lips up, but ’tis truth,

  This that I think, not your light lewd man’s thought,

  But in my meaning it is bitter true.

  By heaven, I have no heart for any on earth,

  Any man else, nor any matter of man’s,

  But love of one man
; nay, and never had.

  BOTHWELL.

  I do believe it, by myself I do,

  Who am even the self-same natured; so I know it.

  QUEEN.

  What heart have you to hurt me? I am no fool

  To hate you for your heat of natural heart.

  I know you have loved and love not all alike,

  But somewhat all; I hate you not for that.

  When have I made words of it? sought out times

  To wrangle with you? crossed you with myself?

  What have I said, what done, by saying or deed

  To vex you for my love’s sake? and have been

  For my part faithful beyond reach of faith,

  Kingdomless queen and wife unhusbanded,

  Till in you reigning I might reign and rest.

  I have kept my body, yea from wedded bed,

  And kept mine hand, yea from my sceptre’s weight,

  That you might have me and my kingdom whole;

  What have these done to take you, what to keep,

  Worth one day’s doing of mine yet? Ah, you know,

  For all the shape and show of things without,

  For all the marriage and the bodily bond

  And fleshly figure of community,

  I have loved no man, man never hath had me whole,

  I am virgin toward you: O my love, love, love,

  This that is not yours in me I abhor,

  I pray God for your sake it may be false,

  Foolish and foul: I would not have it man,

  Not manlike, and not mine, it shall not be,

  Being none of love’s, and rootless in my soul,

  Not growing of my spirit but my blood;

  I hate myself till it be born.

  BOTHWELL.

  Ay, sweet,

  You talk now loud of love, but ten days since

  Was I not bid love well your friend, and be

  True husband to her? what sweet-tongued preacher then

  Taught me how faith should best be kept by change

  Of passionate fear and pleasure and bright pain

  And all their strange sharp sweet solicitudes

  For such good gifts as wisdom gives and takes

  From hand to married hand of them that wed?

  Whose counsel was this wisdom? whose command

  This that set sorrow and silence as one seal

  On the shut lips or foolishness and love?