Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 202
QUEEN.
I bade you not be wise; or if I bade,
It was to be obeyed not.
BOTHWELL.
Then indeed
I did obey not, who did foolishly
To do your bidding.
QUEEN.
Mine? did I say, go?
Did I say, love her? did I say, hate me?
As you must hate to love her. Yea, perchance
I said all this; I know not if I said;
But all this have you done; I know that well.
BOTHWELL.
Indeed I have done all this if aught I have,
And loved at all or loathed, save what mine eye
Hath ever loathed or loved since first it saw
That face which taught it faith and made it first
Think scorn to turn and look on change, or see
How hateful in my love’s sight are their eyes
That give love’s light to others.
QUEEN.
Tell her so,
Not me; I care not though you love your wife
So well that all strange women’s eyes and mine
Are hateful to you. O, what heart have I,
That jest and wrangle? but indeed I thought
You should do well to love her not, but wed,
And make you strong and get us friends - but, nay,
God knows I know not what I thought, or why,
When you should wed her: now I think but this,
That if one love not she does well to die,
And if one love she does not well to live.
I pray you, go; not for my love who pray,
But that for love’s sake we thought well to part,
And if we loved not it was well indeed.
Go.
BOTHWELL.
To what end? and whither? whencesoe’er,
I must come back.
QUEEN.
Not to my feet, not mine;
Where should his end be for a married man
To lie down lightly with all care cast off
And sleep more sound than in love’s lap? for sleep
Between the two fair fiery breasts of love
Will rest his head not oft, nor oft shut eyes,
They say, that love’s have looked on.
BOTHWELL.
By that law
Mine eyes must wake for ever.
QUEEN.
Nay, for shame,
Let not the fire in them that feeds on mine
Strike fire upon my cheeks; turn off their heat,
It takes my breath like flame and smothers me.
What, when I bid?
BOTHWELL.
You have bid me do before
What you have chid me doing, but never yet
A thing so past all nature hard, nor now
Shall chide me for obedience.
QUEEN.
Well - ah me! -
I lack the heart to chide; I have borne too much
And haply too much loved. Alas, and now
I am fain too much to show it; but he that made
Made me no liar, nor gave me craft with power
To choose what I might hide at will or show.
I am simple-souled and sudden in my speech,
Too swift and hot of heart to guard my lips
Or else lie lightly: wherefore while I may,
Till my time come to speak of hate or love,
I will be dumb, patient as pity’s self
Gazing from Godward down on things of the earth
And dumb till the time be: would I were God,
Time should be quicker to lend help and hand
To men that wait on him. I will not wait,
Lest I wait over long, no more than need,
By my long love I will not. Were I a man,
I had been by this a free man.
BOTHWELL.
Be content.
If I have any wit of soldiership,
’Tis not far off from this to the iron day
That sets on the edge of battle, the bare blow,
All that we fight or fret for. ’Tis not like
Men will bear long with their own lingering hopes
And hearts immitigable and fiery fears
That burn above dead ashes of thing’s quenched
Hotter for danger, and light men forth to fight,
And from between the breaking ranks of war
The flower must grow of all their fears and hopes,
Hopes of high promise, fears made quick by faith,
Angers, ambitions; which to gather and wear
Must be our toil and garland.
QUEEN.
My heart’s lord,
I put my heart and hands into your hand
To hold and help; do you what thing in the world
Shall seem well to you with them, they content
Live with your love or die. For my one part,
I would I had done with need of forging words
That I might keep truth pure upon my lips.
I am weary of lying, and would not speak word more
To mock my heart with and win faith from men
But for the truth’s sake of my love, which lies
To save the true life in me.
BOTHWELL.
It may be
You shall not long need to dress love in lies;
This plighted plague of yours hath few men friends
To put their bodies between death and his.
OUEEN.
Nay, I think not; and we shall shape us friends
Out of the stuff of their close enmities
Wherewith he walks enwoven and wound about
To the edge and end of peril; yet God knows
If I for all my cause would seek his death,
Whose lips have stained me with report as foul
As seem to mine their kisses that like brands
Sear my shamed face with fire to think on them;
Yet would I rather let him live, would God
Without mine honour or my conscience hurt
Divide from mine his star or bid it set
And on my life lift up that light in heaven
That is my day of the heart, my sun of soul,
To shine till night shut up those loving eyes
That death could turn not from it though the fire
Were quenched at heart that fed them. Nay, no more:
Let me go hence and weep not.
Exit.
BOTHWELL.
Fire, in faith,
Enough to light him down the way of the worm
And leave me warmer. She went suddenly;
Doth she doubt yet? I think by God’s light no -
I hold her over fast by body and soul,
Flesh holds not spirit closer. Now what way
To shift him over the edge and end of life
She laughs and talks of, yet keep fast my foot
On the strait verge of smooth-worn stony things
That we stand still or slide on? ’Tis a shoal
Whereon the goodliest galleon of man’s hope
That had no burning beacon such as mine
Lit of her love to steer by, could not choose
But run to wreck.
Re-enter Mary Beaton
MARY BEATON.
Pray you, my lord, a word.
If you know aught of any new thing here
You will not be about the court to-night;
If not, of my good will I counsel you,
Make hence in speed and secret, and have hope
Till the next day lighten your days to come.
BOTHWELL.
I had rather the close moon and stars anight
Lit me to love-bed: what warm game is here
That I must keep mine hand out?
MARY BEATON.
Such a game
As you shall win and play not, or my wit
Is fallen in sickness from me. Sir, you know
I am your friend, I have your hap at heart,
Glad of your good and in your crosses crossed;
I pray you trust me, and be close and wise,
For love of your own luck.
BOTHWELL.
Tell me one thing;
What hand herein shall Master David hold?
MARY BEATON.
I think he will not hold the like alive.
Exeunt.
Scene II. The High Street
Burgesses and People
FIRST CITIZEN.
Was it not shown long since when she came in
If God were glad of her? Two days and nights
Ere she brought strife among us, and again
Two nights and days when first we saw her face,
We saw not once by day the sun’s in heaven,
The moon’s by night, or any space of stars,
But thick sick mist corrupting the moist air
With drench of darkness, so that scarce at noon
Might man spy man a bow-shot’s length away;
And in man’s memory on that day of the year
Was never a more dolorous face of heaven
Seen so to scowl on summer, as to speak
What comfort should come with her to this land;
But then were most eyes blind.
SECOND CITIZEN.
These five years since
Has God filled full of signs that they might see,
And sent his plagues to open them; and most
This year or twain what portents of his hand
Have writ us down in heaven and trembling earth
For fearful flatterers and for faithless friends
Whose fear and friendship have no part in him,
Who knows not or can read not? famine, frost,
Storms of stars crossing, and strange fires in the air,
Have these no tongues to chide with?
THIRD CITIZEN.
Why, at first
A man that was no seer might see what end
Should come on us that saw the mass come in
And held our hand when man by man fell off
And heart by heart was cooled of all its heat
By sprinkled holy-water of the court
In five days’ space, tempering the fervent edge
That had been fieriest on God’s side; Lord James,
Whose heart should weep now for it, or burn again
With shame to think how he made strong their hands
Who have cast him out among the banished lords
That lack their life in England, kept himself
The chapel-door, that none who loved God’s law
Might slay the idolatrous and whorish priest
In his mid sin; and after mass was said
Lord Robert and Lord John of Coldingham,
Who then had put not off our cause, but sat
With faithful men as fellows at God’s board,
Conveyed him to his chamber: there began
The curse that yet constrains us, and must fall
On more than these; of whom ye know this John
Is now before the face o’ the fire of God,
And ere he died in desperate penitence,
Men say, sent warning to his sister queen
To turn her feet from those unquiet ways
Wherein they tread behind the Pope’s to hell.
FIRST CITIZEN.
His life was like his brother’s of St. Cross,
As foul as need or friar’s or abbot’s be
That had no shameful part in a king’s race,
And made such end as he that lives may make,
Whose bastard blood is proud yet, and insults
As might a prince’s or a priest’s indeed,
Being truly neither, yet with either name
Signed as in scorn; these are our lords, whose lust
Breaks down men’s doors to fetch their daughters forth,
Even as his townsmen vexed the doors of Lot
Till God sent on them fire, who spares but these
For our shame’s sake, because we spare, being men,
And let our hands hang swordless, and the wrath
Faint in our hearts, that though God send none down
Should be made fire to make a fire of them.
THIRD CITIZEN.
These fools and foul that with them draw the king
To shame and riotous insolence which turns
Past hope and love to loathing - these, though vile,
Have in them less of poison than men’s tongues
Who for the queen’s love boast in what brief while
They will pluck down God and plant Antichrist,
And pull out Knox by the ears: thus Bothwell did,
And yet stands higher than any head save his
Who in disdain of danger fills his hands
As full of gold as are his faithless lips
Of lies and bloody counsels, and requires
No less than part in all their forfeit lands
That live in exile, so to turn his name
From loon to lord, from stranger into Scot,
And next the Pope’s exalt it: while this king
Sets all his heart to fleshly foolishness,
The beastlike body that eats up the soul
As a bird snared and eaten: and in fear
Of God and Rimmon, with a supple soul,
Crooks his lithe knee for craft and bows his back
In either’s house, yet seeks no prophet’s leave,
Nor hears his saying that God shall spew the like
Out of his mouth.
SECOND CITIZEN.
Yet this good grows in him,
That he has fallen in anger with the queen
For her knave’s sake that was his closest friend,
Chief craftsman and main builder of the match;
Yea, half his heart, brother and bedfellow,
Sworn secret on his side.
THIRD CITIZEN.
There are who think
They have changed beds in very and shameful deed,
And halved more than their own hearts.
FIRST CITIZEN.
He came here
On the Pope’s party, against our kindly lords,
Against the duke, our first more natural head,
Against the good will of all godliness;
And hath he now cast their cords from him? nay,
This is the stormy sickness of ill blood
Swelling the veins of sin in violent youth
That makes them wrangle, but at home and heart,
Whatever strife there seem of hands abroad,
They are single-minded in the hate of God.
Did he not break forth into bitterness,
Being warned by Knox of youth and empty heart,
Yea, rail aloud as one made mad with wine?
Did he not lay devices with this knave
That now ye say defiles him in his wife
To rid the noble Murray from their way
That they might ride with hotter spurs for hell?
SECOND CITIZEN.
God hath set strife betwixt them that their feet
Should not be long time out of their own snares.
Here be the men we look for comfort from,
Men that have God’s mark sharp upon the soul;
Stout Ochiltree, and our main stay John Knox.
Enter John Knox and Ochiltree
OCHILTREE.
Have you yet hope that for his people’s sake
God will leave off to harden her hard heart,
That you will yet plead with her?
JOHN KNOX.
Nay, I know not;
But what I may by word or witness borne,
That will I do, being bidden: yet indeed
I think not to bring down her height of mind
By counsel or admonishment. Her soul
Is as a flame of fire, insatiable,
And subtle as thin water; with her craft
Is passion mingled so inseparably
That each gets strength from other, her swift wit
By passion being enkindled and made hot,
And by her wit her keen and passionate heart
So tempered that it burn itself not out,
Consuming to no end. Never, I think,
Hath God brought up against the people of God
To try their force or feebleness of faith
A foe than this more dangerous, nor of mood
More resolute against him.
OCHILTREE.
So long since
You prophesied of her when new come in:
What then avails it that you counsel her
To be not this born danger that she is,
But friends with God she hates and with his folk
She would root out and ruin?
JOHN KNOX.
Yet this time
I am not bidden of him to cast her off;
I will speak once; for here even in our eyes
His enemies grow great and cast off shame.
We are haled up out of hell to heaven, and now
They would fain pluck us backward by the skirt.
And these men call me bitter-tongued and hard
Who am not bitter; but their work and they
Who gather garlands from the red pit-side
To make foul fragrance in adulterous hair,
And lift white hands to hide the fires of God,
Their sweetness and their whiteness shall he turn
Bitter and black. I have no hate of her,
That I should spare; I will not spare to strive
That the strong God may spare her, and not man.
OCHILTREE.
Yea, both, so be we have our lost lords home,
And the Pope’s back-bowed changeling clean cast out
And of a knave made carrion.
JOHN KNOX.
For your first,
It grows as fruit out of your second wish;
Come but the day that looks in his dead face,
And these that hate him as he hates all good
Shall have their friends home and their honour high
Which the continuance of his life keeps low.
OCHILTREE.
Surely, for that, my hand or any’s else
Were hot enough to help him to his end.