Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 237
And the hours that hum like fire-flies on the hills
As they burn out and die, and the bowed heaven,
And the small clouds that swim and swoon i’ the sun,
And the small flowers. Now should I keep these things
But as sweet matter for my thoughts in French,
To set them in a sonnet; here at home
I read too plain in our own tongue my doom,
To see them not, and love them. Pardon me;
I would have none weep for me but my foes,
And then not tears. Be not more discontent
Than I to think that you could deem of me
As of one thankless; who were thankless found,
Not knowing that by no will or work of yours
I sit suppressed thus from the sun; ’tis mine,
My fault that smites me; and my masters’ will,
Not mine or yours it is, that for my fault
Devised this penance; which on me wrought out
May fall again on them.
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
Madam, alas,
I came on no such errand to your grace
As lacked more words to make it sad than those
It was to speak; and these have I put back
Too long and idly. Here are now at gate
Three messengers sent from the parliament
To speak with you.
QUEEN.
With us to speak? you know,
Nor chamberlain nor herald have we here
To marshal men before us. Let them come,
Whom all our kingdom left could keep not out
From this high presence-chamber. Stay; I would not
Be stricken unaware, nor find in you
That which I thought not; it were out of kind,
Unwomanlike, to give me to their hands
Who came to slay me, knowing not why they came;
Is it for that?
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
God’s grace forbid it! nay -
QUEEN.
I ask if they bring warrant for my death?
I have seen such things and heard, since leaves bloomed last,
That this were no such marvellous thing to hear
But if this be, before I speak with them,
I will know first.
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
Let not your highness dread -
QUEEN.
I do not bid you put me out of dread.
Have you not heard, and hear? The queen desires
To know of her born subject till she die
And keeper of her prison, if these men
Be come to slay her.
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
They come to bid your grace -
QUEEN.
Bid my grace do their bidding? that is like:
That I should do it were unlike. I must live,
I see, this some while yet. What men are these?
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
The first, Sir Robert Melville; then the lords
Ruthven and Lindsay.
QUEEN.
Bid my first friend in,
While one friend may be bidden; he, I think,
Can come but friendlike.
Exit Lady Lochleven.
What should these desire?
One head of theirs I swore last month to have,
That then beheld me, some day, if that hand
Whereon I swore should take not first my life.
And one the son of him that being nigh dead
Rose from his grave’s edge to pluck down alive
A murdered man before him - what should he
Bring less than murder, being his father’s son,
In such a hand as his that stabbed my friend?
MARY BEATON.
Perchance they come to take your crown, not life.
QUEEN.
What, my name too? but till I yield it them,
They have but half the royal thing they hold,
The state they ravish; and they shall not have
My name but with my life; while that sits fast,
As in my will it sits, I am queen, and they
My servants yet that fear to take my life;
For so thou seest they fear; and I did ill,
That in first sight of present-seeming death
Made offer to resign into their hands
What here is mine of empire: I shall live,
And being no queen I live not.
Enter Sir Robert Melville
Welcome, sir;
I have found since ever times grew strange with me
Good friends of your good brother and yourself,
And think to find. What errand have you here?
SIR R. MELVILLE.
Let not your majesty cast off the thought
Which calls me friend, though I be first to bear
An evil errand. ’Tis the council’s mind
That you shall live, and in their hand the proofs
Shall die that plead against you -
QUEEN.
Is this ill?
I know not well what proof that man could show
Would prove men honest that make war on faith,
Show treason trusty, bleach rebellion white,
Bid liars look loyal; and much less I know
What proof might speak against me from their lips
Whose breath may kill and quicken evidence,
Or what good change of mind rebuke the lie
That lived upon them; but that I must live,
And of their proofs unspotted, sounds not worse
Than if a friend had come to bear me word
That I must die belied.
SIR R. MELVILLE.
Upon these terms
Are they content for you to live in ward;
That you yield up as with free hand the crown
And right of kingdom to your son, who straight
At Stirling shall receive it from their hands;
Else shall your grace be put to trial, and bear
The doom ensuing, with what of mortal weight
May hang upon that sentence.
QUEEN.
Sir, methought
This word of doom for shame’s sake now was dead
Even in their mouths that first it soiled, and made
Even shamelessness astonished; not again
We thought to hear of judgment, we that are,
While yet we are anything, and yet must be,
The voice which deals, and not the ear which takes,
Judgment. God gave man might to murder me,
Who made me woman, weaker than a man,
But God gave no man right, I think, to judge,
Who made me royal. Come then, I will die;
I did not think to live. Must I die here?
SIR R. MELVILLE.
Madam, my errand -
QUEEN.
Ay, sir, is received
Here in my heart; I thank you; but you know
I had no hope before; yet sounds it strange
That should not sound, to die at such men’s hands,
A queen, and at my years. Forgive me, sir;
Me it not comforts to discomfort you,
Who are yet my friend - as much as man on earth -
If any, you - that come to bid me die.
SIR R. MELVILLE.
Be not cast down so deep: I have an errand
From the English queen, your friend, and here ensheathed
By my sword’s secret side, for your fair hand
A letter writ from her ambassador
Praying you subscribe what thing my comrades will,
Since nought whereto your writing was compelled
Can hang hereafter on you as a chain
When but for this bond written you stand free.
QUEEN.
Ay, I know that: how speaks Elizabeth?
SIR R. MELVILLE.
She bids you at all times account of her
/> As a sure friend and helpful; has, I know,
Indeed no mind to fail you.
QUEEN.
This your comfort
Is no small comfort to me; I had rather
Be bounden to her than any prince alive.
Is it her counsel then that I subscribe
My traitors’ writing? I will do it. But, sir,
Of those that sit in state in Edinburgh
Which was it chose you for my comforter?
I know my lord of Morton would send none;
It was the secretary?
SIR R. MELVILLE.
Madam, the same.
QUEEN.
Did I not well then, think you, when I cast
This body of mine between him and the swords
That would have hewn his body? I did think
He was my friend. Bid now mine enemies in,
And I will sign what sort of shame they will,
And rid them hence.
Enter Lindsay and the younger Ruthven
’Tis five weeks gone, my lord,
To Lindsay.
Since last we looked on you; for you, fair sir,
To Ruthven.
A year I think and four good months are sped
Since at that father’s back whose name you bear
I saw your face dashed red with blood. My lords,
Ye come to treat with us ambassadors
Sent from our subjects; and we cannot choose,
Being held of them in bonds from whom ye come,
But give you leave to speak.
LINDSAY.
Thus, briefly, madam.
If you will live to die no death by doom,
This threefold bond of contract that we bring
Requires your hand; wherein of your free will
First must you yield the crown of Scotland up
To your child’s hand; then by this second deed
The place and name of regent through this realm
To the earl of Murray shall you here assign,
Or, if he list not take this coil in hand,
Then to the council; last, this deed empowers
The lords of Mar and Morton with myself
To set the crown upon the young king’s head.
These shall you sign.
QUEEN.
These I shall sign, or die.
But hear you, sirs; when hither you brought these,
Burned not your hearts within you by the way
Thinking how she that should subscribe was born
King James’s daughter? that this shameful hand,
Fit to sustain nor sword nor staff o’ the realm,
Hath the blood in it of those years of kings
That tamed the neck and drove with spurs the sides
Of this beast people that now casts off me?
Ay, this that is to sign, no hand but this
Throbs with their sole inheritance of life
Who held with bit and bridle this bound land
And made it pace beneath them. What are ye
That I should tell you so, whose fathers fought
Beneath my fathers? Where my grandsire fell
And all this land about him, were there none
That bore on Flodden, sirs, such names as yours,
And shamed them not? Heard no men past of lords
That for the king’s crown gave their crown of life
For death to harry? Did these grieve or grudge
To be built up into that bloody wall
That could not fence the king? Were no dead found
Of that huge cirque wherein my grandsire lay
But of poor men and commons? Yea, my lords,
I think the sires that bred you had not heart
As men have writ of them, but sent to fight
For them their vassals visored with their crests,
And these did well, and died, and left your sires
That hid their heads for ever and lived long
The name and false name of their deeds and death.
How should their sons else, how should ye, being born,
If born ye be, not bastards, of those lords
Who gat this lying glory to be called
Loyal, and in the reek of a false field
To fall so for my fathers - how, I say,
Dare sons of such come hither, how stand here,
From off the daughter’s head of all those kings
To pluck the crown that on my fathers’ heads
Ye say they died to save? I will not sign;
No, let some Flodden sword dip in my blood;
Here I sit fast, and die. Good friend that was,
To Sir R. Melville.
Tell my great sister that you saw my hand
Strive and leave off to sign; I had no skill
To shape false letters.
RUTHVEN.
Madam, no man here
But knows by heart the height of your stout words
And strength of speech or sweetness; all this breath
Can blow not back the storm yourself raised up
Whose tempest shakes the kingdom from your hand,
And not men’s hate. You have been loved of men;
All faith of heart, all honour possible,
While man might give, men gave you. Now, those deeds
Which none against your will enforced you do
Have set that spirit against you in men’s minds
That till you die (as then your memory may)
Nor your fair beauty nor your fiery heart
Can lay with spells asleep.
SIR R. MELVILLE aside.
I pray you, madam,
Think on mine errand.
QUEEN.
Wherefore should I sign?
If I be queen that so unqueen myself,
What shall it profit me to give my foes
This one thing mine that hallows me, this name,
This royal shadow? If I be no queen,
Let me bleed here; as being uncrowned I know
That I shall die of all your promises.
LINDSAY.
We came not, madam, to put force on you,
And save your life by violence; but take note,
Laying his hand on her arm.
As in this hand your own is fast, and hath
No power till mine give back its power again
To strive or sign, so fast are you in ward
For life or death of them that bid you live
And be no queen, or die.
QUEEN.
I thank you, sir,
That of your love and courtesy have set
This knightly sign upon my woman’s flesh
For proof if I be queen or no, that bear
Such writing on my body of men’s hands
To seal mine abdication. Sirs, read here;
What need I sign again? here may men see
If she be queen of Scotland on whose arm
Are writ such scriptures as I wist not yet
Men’s eyes might read on any woman born.
Yet will I write, being free, to assure myself
This is my hand indeed that wears the sign
Which proves it vassal to the stronger. Sirs,
Take back your papers; and albeit, my lord,
The conquest you have made of me henceforth
Lift up your heart with pride, I pray you yet
Boast not yourself on women overmuch,
Lest being their conqueror called and praised for that
Men call you too their tyrant. Once and twice
Have we grasped hands; the third time they shall cross
Must leave one cold for ever. Nay, I pray,
Who may command not surely, yet I pray,
Speak not, but go; ye have that ye came for; go,
And make your vaunt to have found so meek a thing
As would yield all, and thank you.
Exeunt Lindsay, Ruthven, and Sir R. Melville.
/>
Hast thou read
Of sick men healed with baths of children’s blood?
I must be healed of this my plague of shame,
This sickness of disgrace they leave with me,
Bathing in theirs my body.
MARY BEATON.
In such streams
You have washed your hands already.
QUEEN.
What, in war?
Ay, there I have seen blood shed for me, and yet
Wept not nor trembled; if my heart shrink now,
It is for angry pity of myself
That I should look on shame.
MARY BEATON.
What shame, my queen?
QUEEN.
Thy queen? why, this, that I, queen once of Scots,
Am no more now than thine. Call back the lords;
I will unsign their writing, and here die;
It were the easier end.
MARY BEATON.
It is your will -
Forgive me, madam - on this cause again
To grapple with Lord Lindsay?
QUEEN.
True, not yet;
Thou thought’st to make me mad, remembering that;
But it hath made me whole. My wits are sound,
Remembering I must live. When I have slept,
Say I would gladly see the kindlier face
Again of our dear hostess with her son
To put those angry eyes out of my sight
That lightened late upon me; say, being sad,
And (if thou wilt) being frighted, I must find
The comfortable charities of friends
More precious to me. ’Tis but truth, I am fain,
Being tired, to sleep an hour: mine eyes are hot;
Where tears will come not, fire there breeds instead,
Thou knowest, to burn them through. Let me lie down;
I will expect their comforts in an hour.
Exeunt.
Scene III. Holyrood
Maitland and Sir Nicholas Throgmorton
THROGMORTON.
Why would your council give no ear to me
Ere they rode hence so hot to crown their prince?
Why hear not first one word?