Shall they prove comfortable or deadly. Sirs,
I have that to speak and hear that but requires
The Lady Mary’s ear and mine; I pray you,
Take not offence that I crave leave to say
We must for some space lack your company.
MORTON.
My lord, the land that puts her trust in you
Bids us obey, well knowing that love nor fear
Shall bend you from her service.
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
Sir -
MURRAY.
Your will?
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
I am no parcel of the sovereign state
That gives you of its greatness, nor have right
To speak commandingly; yet ere I go
I would desire you by what name I may,
Look on this lady with such equal eyes
As nor the wrath and hate of violent men,
Nor sense of evil done to this land’s peace
By her mischance and evil counsellors,
Nor (what I would not fear to find in you)
Desire of rule with pride of station, may
Divert to do her wrong or glance aside
From the plain roadway of that righteousness
Whose name is also mercy. This at least
Surely by me may be of you required,
That in this house no wrong by word or act,
By deed or threat, may touch her.
MURRAY.
Be assured
No wrong shall ever touch her by my hand;
And be content to know it.
QUEEN.
Madam, these lords
Know that I thought ere this to find of you
A mediatress between me and your son;
I have my hope, and with a humble heart
I take your intercession thankfully.
Exeunt all but the Queen and Murray.
MURRAY.
I would I had another cause to speak
Or you to listen, than this bitter theme
That brings us back together, though for that
I had died a foreign man.
QUEEN.
I thought not, sir,
When we last parted ere the break of spring,
To meet you thus in summer; but these months
Have wrought things stranger on me.
MURRAY.
Say, yourself
Have made of them more strange and perilous use
Than is the fruit they bear. I am not come
To flatter with you; that I seek your death
I think you fear not, yet should surely know
The man that seeks were now more like to speed
Than he that would preserve it. Heaven and earth
As with the tongue of one same law demand
Justice against you; nor can pity breathe
But low and fearful, till the right be weighed
That must in pity’s spite and fear’s be done,
Or this land never thrive. For that right’s sake
And not for hatred or rebellious heart
Do men require that judgment pass on you
And bring forth execution; the broad world
Expects amazedly when we that rule
Shall purge this land of blood, which now looks red
In the world’s eye, and blushing not for shame
Blushes with bloodshed; in men’s general mouths
The name of Scot is as a man’s attaint
Of murderous treason, or as his more vile
That for base heart and fear or hire of gold
With folded hands watches the hands that slay
Grow great in murder; and God’s heavy doom
Shall be removed not from us, nor his wrath,
Well may we fear, shall lighten, till the deed
That reeks as recent yet toward the fair heavens
Be thoroughly cleansed with judgment.
QUEEN.
Must I too
Bleed to make Scotland clean of baser blood
Than this she seeks of mine?
MURRAY.
If you shall die,
Bethink you for what cause, and that sole thought
Shall seal your lips up from all pride of plea
That would put in between your deed and doom
The name of queen to cover you. No age
That lived on earth red-handed without law
Ever let pass in peace and unchastised
Such acts as this that yet in all men’s ears
Rings as a cry unanswered. When your lord
Lay newly murdered, and all tongues of friends
Were loud in prayer to you to save your name
From stain of accusation, and yield up
That head to judgment which the whole world held
Blood-guilty, first with subtle stretch of time
Did you put back the trial, then devise
To make it fruitless save of mockery; next,
I cannot say for shame what shame foregone
Moved you to put upon this loathing land
That great dishonour to behold and bear
The man your lover for its lord, and you,
Queen of all Scots and thrall of one most base,
While yet the ring was from his finger warm
That sealed it first, and on his wedded hand
The young blood of your husband, ere the print
Had cooled of marriage or of murder, you
In the hot circle of his amorous arms
A new-espoused adulteress. Will you say
You were enforced or by false counsels bent
To take him to your bosom? In what eye
Was not the foregone commerce of your loves
As bare as shame? what ear had heard not blown
His name that was your sword and paramour,
Whose hand in yours was now as steel to slay,
Now as a jewel for love to wear, a pledge
Hot from your lips and from your husband’s heart?
Who knew not what should make this man so proud
That none durst speak against him of your friends
But must abide for answer unaware
The peril of the swords that followed him?
Went he not with you where you went, and bade
Men come and go, do this or do not, stand
Or pass as pleased him, ere that day had risen
Which gave the mockery of a ravished bride
To the false violence of his fraudful rape
That hardly she could feign to fear, or hide
The sweetness of the hour when she might yield
That which was his before, and in men’s eyes
Make proof of her subjection? Nay, forbear;
Plead not for shame that force was put on you
To bear that burden and embrace that shame
For which your heart was hungry; foe nor friend
Could choose but see it, and that the food desired
Must be but mortal to you. Think on this,
How you came hither crowned these six years gone
In this same summer month, and with what friends
Girt round about and guarded with what hopes,
And to a land how loving; and these years,
These few brief years, have blown from off your boughs
All blossom of that summer, though nor storm
Nor fire from heaven hath wrecked nor wind laid low
That stately tree that shadowed a glad land,
But now being inly gnawn of worms to death
And made a lurking-place for poisonous things
To breed and fester at its rotten root,
The axe is come against it. None save you
Could have done this, to turn all hearts and hands
That were for love’s sake laid before your feet
To fire and iron whetted and made hot
To war against you. No man lives that know
s
What is your cause, and loathes not; though for craft
Or hope of vantage some that know will seem
To know not, and some eyes be rather blind
Than see what eyeless ignorance in its sleep,
If but it would, must needs take note of; none
Whose mind is maimed not by his own mere will
And made perforce of its own deed perverse
Can read this truth awry. What have you done?
Men might weep for you, yea, beholding it
The eyes of angels melt; no tide of tears
Could wash from hand or soul the sinful sign
That now stands leprous there; albeit God knows
Myself for very pity could be glad
By mine own loss to ransom you, and set
Upon your soul again the seal of peace
And in your hand its empire; but your act
Has plucked out of men’s hearts that fain would keep
The privilege of mercy; God alone
Can lose not that for ever, but retains
For all sins done that cry for judgment here
The property of pity, which in man
Were mere compliance and confederacy
With the sin pardoned; so shall you do best,
Being thus advised, to entertain the hope
Of nothing but God’s mercy, and henceforth
Seek that as chiefest refuge; for in man
There shall no trust deliver you, nor free
Body nor soul from bonds. Weep not for that;
But let your tears be rather as were hers
That wept upon the feet of God, and bought
With that poor price her pardon.
QUEEN.
So should I,
If grief more great may buy it than any of theirs
That had sinned more than I; nay, such have been
And have been pardoned. I have done ill, and given
My name for shame to feed on, put mine honour
Into mine enemies’ keeping, made my fame
A prey and pasture for the teeth of scorn;
I dare not say I wist not by what mean
I should be freed of one that marred my life,
Who could by no mean else be quit of him
Save this blind way of blood; yet men there were
More wise than I, men much less wronged of him,
That led me to it and left me; but indeed
I cite not them to extenuate by strange aid
Mine own rash mind and unadvisedness
That brought forth fruit of death; yet must you know
What counsels led me by the hand, and whence
My wrath was fostered; and how all alone,
How utterly uncomforted, and girt
With how great peril, when the man was slain,
I stood and found not you to counsel me,
And no man else that loved; and in such need
If I did ill to seek to that strong hand
Which had for me done evil, if evil it were
To avenge me of mine enemy, what did they
That by their hands and voices on his side
Put force on me to wed him? yet I say not
I was indeed enforced; I will not mock
With one false plea my penitent heart, nor strive
With words to darken counsel, nor incense
By foolishness your wisdom, to provoke
A judgment heavier than I wait for; nay,
You have not said that bitter thing of me
That I may dare unsay; what most I would,
I must deny not; yet I pray you think,
Even as might God, being just, what cause I had,
What plea to lighten my sore load of sin,
Mismated and miscounselled, and had seen
Of my sad life not wholly nineteen years
When I came hither crowned; as yet would God
Your head, my brother, had endured for mine
That heaviness of honour, and this hand
The weight of Scotland, that being laid in mine
Has fallen and left it maimed, and on my brows
A mark as his whose temples for his crime
Were ringed with molten iron. Take them now,
Though but for pity of me that pray you take,
And bear them better than I did; for me,
Though no plea serve me in the sight of man
Nor grace excuse my fault, I am yet content,
If I may live but so much time in bonds
As may suffice for God to pardon me,
Who shall not long put off to pardon, then
Shut eyes and sleep to death.
MURRAY.
I had thought to-night
To speak no more with you, but let that hope
Which only in God’s name I gave you bear
What fruit it might with prayer and watching; yet
Take comfort, and assure yourself of life,
And, if it may be, honour; one of these
I may take on me to redeem, and one
So as I may will I preserve from death
Dealt of men’s tongues that murder it; but you,
Keep these things in your heart; that if you raise
Within this realm a faction, or devise
To break these bonds, I shall not keep an hour
This power I have to save you; nor shall keep,
If France or England be by word of yours
Stirred up to strike at our frail peace; nor yet
If you shall cleave to him that should for shame
As from this land be cast out from your heart;
But if toward God your faults be faithfully
In good men’s sight acknowledged, and that life
You led with your false lord and all sins past
Loathed and lamented, and in days to be
The living purpose in you manifest
Of a more modest habit and a life
More nobly fashioned - if the slaughter done
On your dead husband seem of you abhorred
And those ill days misliked wherein your fame
Drank mortal poison from his murderer’s hand -
If this be seen, and that your mind lives clear
From counsel of revenge upon those lords
Who sought your reformation, nor with hope
Nor dangerous forethought of device to be
Renews itself to do them some day wrong;
Then may you now sit safe, and unreproved
Expect an end of bondage; for at large
You cannot think to live yet, who in time
May haply by repentance be restored
And for your prison somewhile here endured
Find yet your throne again, and sit renewed
More royal than men wist who saw the ship
Put in from France that bore you.
QUEEN.
O my friend,
O brother, found now father to me too,
Who have raised and rebegotten me from death,
By how much less I thank you for my life
Think so much more for honour I give thanks
That you raise up the hope in me to have
Which was nigh dead for shame. O, let me hold
Embracing him.
My comfort in mine arms, and with dumb lips
Kiss you my thanks; I looked for less than this,
But yet for comfort of you. One thing more,
Having so much, will I require, and cease -
Even for my son’s sake and mine own to lay
The charge upon you of this regency
Which none might bear so noble, nor bring back
Her peace again to Scotland, as I know
Your hand shall bring; and had I known betimes
I had not started from its curb aside
Nor set against its strength in no good hour
The feebleness of mine: but if your heart
Be
large enough to let forgiveness in
Of my wrongs done and days of wanton will,
Take this charge too, to keep for me the forts
Of all that was my kingdom; I would have
Nothing of mine lie now not in your hand;
Keep too my jewels; all I had of worth,
What help without you should I have of it,
What profit or what surety? let your heart
Cast her not out who prays you of your grace
Take these in trust and me.
MURRAY.
I may not these,
But you that put yourself into my trust
I will not fail.
QUEEN.
Nay, you shall keep them too.
MURRAY.
I would not put my hand forth uncompelled
To take for life and death the burden up
That burns as fire and bows the back that bears
As with an iron load; and certainly
He that shall take this kingdom on his hand
I think shall live not long; nor pride nor hope
But very love and strong necessity
Could only bow me down to obey their will
Who should enforce on mine the task to bear
This grievous office, that if Scotland bid
I for her sake must bear till I may die.
But if I be not bidden, for no love
Or fear or lust of kingdom will I seek
The labour and the grief of that great charge
That I may live and feel not.
QUEEN.
By my lips,
That have no royal right to speak for her
Now, think that yet she bids you, seeing none else
To undo mine evil done on her, and heal
The wounds mine enemies and myself have made
In her sweet peace: she hath no stay but you;
Whom other should she seek to? and for me
Again I dare not urge you, but my heart
Is turned into a prayer that pleads with yours
To lend its weakness comfort of your strength
By taking off its fears; these that break mine
Can bow not yours: O, take from me that weight
Which were to you but sport and ornament,
The natural honour of a hand so strong
And spirit elect of all men’s souls alive
To do a work imperial.
MURRAY.
If not else,
But by me only may this land find peace,
By me then shall it; for your private charge,
Impute not to me for default of love
That I beseech you lay no more on me
Than public need enforces; in my trust
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 239