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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  In mine esteem, as loveless negligence

  Nor any love’s lack, but such only cause

  As I desire, being just and reasonable,

  Which is the final order he should take

  For his own surety and honour, who alone

  Is my life’s stay for which I only will

  Preserve it, and without which in this world

  My soul desires not but a sudden death.

  Bear therefore to him for testimony of me

  How lowly I submit me to his law

  In sign of homage this that I take off

  Of my head’s ornament, which is the chief

  And guide of other members, as to say

  How being possessed of that as of a spoil

  Which is the principal he needs must have

  The remnant subject to him with heart’s consent.

  And for that heart, that seeing I have left it him

  Long since I have not now in hand to give,

  This stone instead I send him, painted black

  And sown with tears and bones, a sepulchre

  Whereto my heart is likened, being as it

  Carved like a tomb or certain receptacle

  To harbour his commandments in, and hold

  More fast than all his memory and his name

  Therein enclosed as in the ring my hair,

  To come forth never till the grant of death

  Shall let him rear a trophy of my bones,

  As is the ring full of them, set therein

  For sign he has made full conquest of my heart,

  That even the bones must be to him bequeathed

  For memory of his victory and my loss

  That was so sweet to me: tell him but this,

  And say that by the enamelling of black

  He shall discern her steadfastness who sends,

  And by the tears my fears innumerable

  Lest I displease him, and those tears I shed

  For his dear absence and for heart’s disdain

  That I may not in outward shape be his

  As with full strength and heart and spirit I am,

  And with good cause; for were my merit more

  Than hers of all born ever for men’s love

  Found worthiest and most perfect, and as much

  As I desire it might be in his eye,

  Well might I so rest ever, and shall strive

  Still to maintain me in his government

  As worthily as I may. Say, I beseech him

  That is mine only good, in as good part

  To take it at my hand as I at his

  With extreme joy received our marriage bond,

  That till the marriage of our bodies be

  Made publicly shall part not from my breast,

  Which keeps it now in sign of all the bliss

  I can or hope for or desire on earth:

  And that my letter here brake off for dread

  Lest this as much should weary him to read

  As I took joy to write it; therefore, say,

  Here did I set a kiss as on his hand

  With such devotion as I pray to God

  To give him long and blessed life, and me

  That only good of all which I desire

  And only may pretend to in the world,

  His love and his good favour who doth hold

  Alone my life up; and this trust I showed

  To you in whom I know the trust he hath

  As I shall for his sake whose wife I am,

  His humble and obedient lawful wife,

  To whom my heart and body are dedicate

  And shall in no wise unto death be changed

  Nor good nor evil make me go from it.

  So tell him, and despatch.

  Exit Paris.

  What said Lord Mar

  Touching the child’s charge to you?

  MARY BEATON.

  But thus much;

  That he would never let it from his hand

  Save with assent of the three several states,

  And on condition there shall be proclaimed

  Some honest lord and worthy such a charge

  As captain of the castle of Edinburgh,

  Where only may the prince, he says, lie safe

  From them that slew his father.

  QUEEN.

  Ay, so brave?

  There speaks a man of trust, found honourable;

  I had as lief be dead as see such men

  Stand so at point to thwart me: by my life,

  I hold it not a straw’s worth in the scale

  If I must live so shackled. What, and now,

  When my life trembles on the top of fate,

  And all my days hang from this edge of time

  ‘Twixt night and light suspended, whence one hour

  May hurl all hopes down breathless to the pit

  And cast me broken at the mountain’s foot

  Or set me sure and steadfast in the sun,

  To be so crossed of cozening honesties,

  And honours made of craft, and fraudulent faith,

  Would spur a blood more sluggish than my sleep

  And prick a drowsier passion. Well, let be;

  Our time will come to take all these in hand.

  What may doubt deem then I would do with him

  That am his mother? Nay, I know their thought;

  It is their fear and hatred of my lord

  That glares askant on me; and the child’s self,

  I think, as little loves me as he need,

  Knowing in what love I held his father.

  Come, I will yet see, before I take my leave,

  If there be such a nature in our blood

  As can command and change the spiritual springs

  And motions of our thought, advance or check

  The pulse of purpose in the soul that moves

  Our longings and our loathings to their end

  By mere control and force unreasonable

  Of motiveless compulsion; if such blind

  And sensual chances of the stirring veins

  That feed the heart of child or mother may

  Divert and dull the mind’s design, or turn

  The conscience and the current of the will

  From its full course and action. I believe,

  Albeit I would not hurt the life I bare

  Nor shed its blood, it is not possible

  Such love should live between my child and me

  Who know what source he came of more than mine,

  And how that part of me once mixed therewith

  Was sullied thence and shamed in mine own sight,

  That loathes to look upon it, yet must see

  In flesh and blood the record writ and sealed

  As oft as I behold him: and you saw

  He would not lie within mine arm, nor kiss,

  But like a fox-cub scratched and strove, to be

  Free of my hands again.

  MARY BEATON.

  I see no need

  In heaven or earth why you should love him.

  QUEEN.

  No?

  They say such law there is to enforce such love

  On either part; I know not: but I think

  Love should but flower from seed of love, and this

  Was but a tare sown timeless and in hate;

  Yet so much am I mother in my mind

  That, be it for love or loathing, from my heart,

  When I perforce commend him to that care

  Which will not yield him naturally to mine,

  Fain would I parting know if soon or late

  Mine eyes shall turn upon that face again

  Which out of me was moulded, and take note,

  When each on each looks equal-eyed, and sees

  His crown a shadow that makes mine a shade,

  What king must this be and what queen shall I.

  Scene VIII. Dunbar. A Room in the Castle

  Maitland and Sir Jam
es Melville

  MELVILLE.

  What, have you seen them since we came from horse?

  How looks she now?

  MAITLAND.

  Disquieted and strange;

  And he so hot and high of mood, I think

  We have no safeguard from him but in her;

  And Huntley that at Stirling spake with me

  Of this their counsel, and must now suspect

  It was by me discovered to the lords,

  Will turn perforce his fear of Bothwell’s wrath

  Into a sword to strike as straight as he

  Even at my life, it may be; which her grace

  Shall easilier from fear of them redeem

  Than her own fame from evidence of men,

  That seeing her prisoner see too if she came

  By force or no, and led by heart or hand,

  To bonds indeed or freedom.

  MELVILLE.

  Nay, myself

  Was warned of him that rode in charge of me,

  The Laird here of Blackadder, how his lord

  Was of our lady’s counsel; and but now

  As they rode in I heard him swear, and laugh,

  Who would soe’er or would not, in their spite,

  Yea, though herself she would not with her will,

  Yet should the queen perforce now wed with him.

  MAITLAND.

  The deed has flushed his brain and blood like wine;

  He is wroth and merry at once, as a man mad.

  There will no good come of it.

  MELVILLE.

  Surely, sir,

  Of such loose crafts there cannot: all this land

  Will cry more loud upon her than on him

  If she be known consenting.

  MAITLAND.

  If she be!

  How shall not all ears know it on earth that hear?

  But two miles out of Edinburgh at noon,

  Accompanied of all her guard and us,

  She, meeting in mid road at Almond Bridge

  The unthought-on Bothwell at his horsetroop’s head,

  Who with twelve men lays hand upon her rein,

  Yields herself to him for fear our blood be spilt,

  Or theirs or ours, for tenderness of heart

  Submits her to his violent masterdom,

  Forbids our swords, ties up all hands with words,

  And doglike follows hither at his hand

  For pure surprise and suddenness of fear

  That plucks the heart out of resistance; then,

  Riding beneath the south wall of the town,

  On show of summons to the castle sent

  For help of us enforced thus of our foes,

  We get but fire of guns charged full of sound

  With hay stuffed in for powder; and God knows

  Balfour knew naught of this, the governor,

  Who was forewarned not first of their design,

  How by no means to cross but further it

  With forecast of his office; nay, all this

  Was undevised and on the sudden wrought

  To take her by swift stroke of simple hand;

  And so astonied were we all, and so

  The castellan, and most of all the queen.

  Why, though the world be drunk with faith in lies

  Shall God make this too gospel? From this day

  Shall she begin her ruin; with rent heart

  I see the ways wherethrough her life shall lie,

  And to what end; for never henceforth more

  Shall she get good or comfort of men’s love,

  Nor power nor honour that a queen should have,

  Nor hap nor hope renewed in all her days.

  She has killed herself to take her kingdom off

  And give into strange keeping.

  Enter the Queen, Bothwell, and Huntley

  BOTHWELL.

  Here he stands;

  This was the knave that was to baffle me;

  He shall die here.

  HUNTLEY.

  I will not lose the part

  My sword should have in him: this hour and hand

  Shall cut off craft and danger. Stand, and die.

  MAITLAND.

  Is it the queen’s will that pursues my life?

  Then let it strike, and end.

  QUEEN.

  I charge you, hold;

  I will not foully twice be forced of men

  To stand and stain mine eyes with sight of blood

  Shed of a friend, and guiltless. Hold, I say.

  BOTHWELL.

  Stand by, for I will slay him.

  QUEEN.

  Slay me then,

  For I will fling my body on their points

  Before your swords shall find him; hark you, sir,

  To Huntley.

  Whose father died my traitor in my sight,

  If one hair perish of my servant’s head,

  You that had back your lands and goods but now

  Again shall lose them with your forfeit life

  For boot of this man’s blood.

  BOTHWELL.

  Woman, give way.

  QUEEN.

  Give all your swords way toward me; let me bleed

  Ere this my friend that has been true to me:

  I swear he shall not.

  MAITLAND.

  Madam, for God’s love,

  Come you not in their peril; I am armed,

  If both not run upon me.

  BOTHWELL.

  Fool, I say,

  Give place, or I shall know not what I do;

  Make me not mad.

  QUEEN.

  I cannot fear you yet.

  Will you strike now?

  BOTHWELL.

  I should but do you right.

  Why thrust you in between me and this man

  Whom your heart knows for traitor, and whose tongue

  Crossed and betrayed our counsel to the lords?

  Had he his will, we should not stand to-day

  Here heart to heart, but you in ward of them,

  And I divided from you.

  QUEEN.

  My sweet lord,

  Let not your wrath confound my happiness;

  Stain not my fair and fortunate hour with blood

  Shed of a good man who shall serve us yet.

  It shall more help to have him live our friend

  Than fiftyfold slain of our enemies.

  BOTHWELL.

  Have your will’s way: he cannot cross us now;

  I care not if he live.

  MAITLAND.

  I am bounden to you

  For so much grace.

  QUEEN.

  Vex not his mood again.

  To-morrow shall all friends be reconciled;

  To-night rest here in surety.

  BOTHWELL.

  Be it so.

  Exeunt.

  Scene IX. The same

  The Queen, Bothwell, and the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s

  QUEEN.

  What counsel, father? if their league be made

  So soon and strong at Stirling, we had need

  Surely by this be fast in Edinburgh;

  We have sent thither freely as our friends

  Lord Huntley and James Melville, who were here

  As in our ward, not prisoners; every day

  Here lingering makes our enemies bitterer-tongued

  And our strange state more hazardous; myself

  More taxed for willing bondage, or my lord

  For violence done upon me.

  ARCHBISHOP.

  In my mind,

  There is no mean of policy now but speed

  Nor surety but short counsel and stout heart.

  The lords at Stirling, while you put off time,

  Athol and Mar, and Morton with Argyle,

  Are sworn to crown the prince, and of his name

  Make to their cause a standard, if you cleave

  Still to my lord here, from whose violent
hand

  With your own leave they fain would pluck you forth

  And keep your honour hurtless; but they see

  You will have no deliverance at their hands

  From him who, as they say, doth boast himself.

  If he may get your child once in his ward,

  To warrant him for ever in good time

  From all revenging of his father’s death.

  Nay, it is bruited of them all about

  How you at parting would have given the boy

  An apple poisoned, which he put away,

  And dogs that ate it after swelled and died.

  BOTHWELL.

  The devil is in their lips; had I free way,

  Fire should seal up and sear them.

  ARCHBISHOP.

  So they talk;

  The very children’s tongues are hot on you,

  And in their plays your shadowy action staged

  And phantoms raised of your presented deed;

  Boys that in Stirling streets had made their game

  To act again the slaying of Darnley, so

  Were rapt with passion of the pastime feigned

  They wellnigh slew the player that took on him

  Your part, my lord, as murderer, and came off

  Half hanged indeed and breathless; this I hear,

  And more much weightier daily from that part

  Pointing the same way on you; sure it is,

  From France and England messengers desire

  To have the prince delivered to their charge

  As to be fostered for his surety’s sake

  Of one or other, safelier so bestowed

  In foreign harbourage of a stranger court

  Than at the rough breast of his natural land;

  Such offer comes there of Elizabeth

  To those unquiet lords, but other aid

  They must of her not look for to their part

  Who stand against their sovereign. Now, since these

  Are dangers evident, and every day

  Puts more in them of dangerous, best it were,

  I think, to meet them warlike, point to point,

  Your hands and powers made one, and multiplied

  By mutual force and faith; or you must part

  And each lose other, and yet be neither saved,

  Or presently with one sole face confront

  The many-mouthed new menace of the time,

  With divers heads deformed of enmities

  That roar and ravin in the night of state