Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 244
QUEEN.
Ay, here I might,
Were I well weary with my two nights’ sleep
On this hard earth that was my naked bed
Whom it casts out of kingdom; but, my lord,
For thirty leagues and more of ridden ground
And two days’ fare of peasants’ meal and milk
I am not yet nigher but by two days to death,
Nor spent in spirit for weariness or fear
Nor in my body broken, that my need
Should hold me here in bonds, or on your faith
Lay a new charge of danger. Here, you say,
And Beaumont with you, I may bide awhile
The levy of my friends whose rallying force
May gather to me, or in their default
Hence to Dumbarton may I pass by sea
Or forth to France with safer sails, and prove
What faith is there in friendship. Now my mind
Is nowise here to tarry; your true love
Shall not for guerdon of its trust and care
Be tried again with peril, that as well
May be put by for your faith’s sake and mine
So mutually made much of; nor shall they,
Whose wounds run red yet from their regent’s hand
That on this border laid so sore a scourge
As late their blood bore witness, for my sake
Or give their blood again or lose their faith
That should for me be proven, and being found true
Bring them to death should we twice fail, or false
Turn their safe life to shame. This shall not be;
But I, content to make no trial of these,
Will hold them true and leave them unessayed
To live in honour. Friends I yet should have
Whose peace and life lie not in those men’s hands
That would make prey of mine; their faith is firm
And their hearts great as mine own hope in them
Who look toward me from England; all the north
No less desires me than I need their love,
To lift our creed and cause up that lies low,
But wounded not to death. I have their names
Who first I think will meet me face to face
And lay their loyal hands in mine and pledge
Their noble heads for surety; lord and knight
Whose fathers yielded up their lives for faith
Shall fail not now to seek me cast out hence
And gird me fast with all their following round
And stalwart musters of their spearmen raised
To do me service of stout heart and steel
For these lords’ sake that call me lady; names
That bear the whole might of this northern land
Upon their blazon, and the grace and strength
Of their old honour with them to that side
That they shall serve on; first the two great earls,
Then Dacre, Norton, Swinburne, Markinfield,
With all their houses, all the border’s flower
Of ancient faith and fame; had I but these
To rise up when I call and do me right
I were not poorly friended, with no more
Than this for trust to lean on; but I think
To find not such friends only as their name
And cause should make in danger fast to mine,
To link our names in all men’s eyes that read
Of faith in man for ever; even the queen
My sister’s self shall fight upon my side,
Being either found my friend for whom she swore
If I were slain to fill this land with fires,
Or casting off my cause and me stand up
As much their enemy that partake my faith
As mine who lack not friends in all her land
That in this cause cast off will strike at her
For God’s sake on my party. But indeed
I look to find not such a foe of her
As should have heart or wit to fight with me
Though she had will who has not; for her mind
Still moving like a blown and barren sea
Has yet not ever set so far toward storm
Or so much shifted from its natural tide
As to seem safe or prosperous for their sails
Who traffic for my ruin; and I fear
No wind of change that may breathe sharp on me
When once I stand in mine own name to speak
Before her face and England’s. If she will,
By her shall I come back to reign her friend;
If not by her, then by their loves and hands
Who shall put off her sovereignty for mine.
There is not and there needs no better way
Than here lies fair before my feet, which yet
Are not so tired but they may tread it through
To the good end. My heart is higher again
Than ere that field it was, I know not why,
Which sent me hither. You shall write for me
Word to the warden of Carlisle, and say
Your queen seeks covert for her crownless head
With him the first in England; and thereon
Ere he send answer or to-morrow set
Will I pass over.
HERRIES.
I would fain believe
His queen were true of heart, and all your friends
As strong to serve as faithful; yet may she
Have better will than she has power to make,
As it would be, your servant; and the land
Is many-minded, rent with doubt in twain,
And full of fears and factions; you may pass
Even in this hope that now builds up your heart
To find less help at no less need than here
On darker ways and deadlier: yet your will
Shall if it hold be done.
QUEEN.
Despatch, and write;
To stand before the gate of days to be
And beat their doors for entrance is more pain
Than to pass in and look on life or death.
Here will I sleep within your ward to-night,
And then no more in Scotland. Nay, make haste;
I would those hours were past that hold me here.
Scene XIII. The Shore of Solway Firth
The Queen, Mary Beaton, Herries, George Douglas, Page and Attendants
QUEEN.
Is not the tide yet full?
HERRIES.
Come half an hour,
And it will turn; but ere that ebb begin,
Let me once more desire your pardon, though
I plead against your pleasure. Here you stand
Not yet dethroned from royal hope, not yet
Discrowned of your great name, whose natural power
Faith here forgets not, nor man’s loyal love
Leaves off to honour; but gone hence, your name
Is but a stranger’s, subject to men’s laws,
Alien and liable to control and chance
That are the lords of exile, and command
The days and nights of fugitives; your hope
Dies of strange breath or lives between strange lips,
And nor your will nor only God’s beside
Is master of your peace of life, but theirs
Who being the lords of land that harbours you
Give your life leave to endure their empire: what
Can man do to you that a rebel may,
Which fear might deem as bad as banishment?
Not death, not bonds are bitterer than his day
On whom the sun looks forth of a strange sky,
Whose thirst drinks water from strange hands, whose lips
Eat stranger’s bread for hunger; who lies down
In a strange dark and sleeps not, and the light
Makes his eyes weep for their own morning, seen
/> On hills that helped to make him man, and fields
Whose flowers grew round his heart’s root; day like night
Denies him, and the stars and airs of heaven
Are as their eyes and tongues who know him not.
Go not to banishment; the world is great,
But each has but his own land in the world.
There is one bosom that gives each man milk,
One country like one mother: none sleeps well
Who lies between strange breasts; no lips drink life
That seek it from strange fosters. Go not hence;
You shall find no man’s faith or love on earth
Like theirs that here cleave to you.
QUEEN.
I have found
And think to find no hate of men on earth
Like theirs that here beats on me. Hath this earth
Which sent me forth a five-years’ child, and queen
Not even of mine own sorrows, to come back
A widowed girl out of the fair warm sun
Into the grave’s mouth of a dolorous land
And life like death’s own shadow, that began
With three days’ darkness - hath this earth of yours
That made mine enemies, at whose iron breast
They drank the milk of treason - this hard nurse,
Whose rocks and storms have reared no violent thing
So monstrous as men’s angers, whose wild minds
Were fed from hers and fashioned - this that bears
None but such sons as being my friends are weak,
And strong, being most my foes - hath it such grace
As I should cling to, or such virtue found
In some part of its evil as my heart
Should fear, being free, to part from? Have I lived,
Since I came here in shadow and storm, three days
Out of the storm and shadow? Have I seen
Such rest, such hope, such respite from despair,
As thralls and prisoners in strong darkness may
Before the light look on them? Hath there come
One chance on me of comfort, one poor change,
One possible content that was not born
Of hope to break forth of these bonds, or made
Of trust in foreign fortune? Here, I knew,
Could never faith nor love nor comfort breed
While I sat fast in prison; ye, my friends,
The few men and the true men that were mine,
What were ye but what I was, and what help
Hath each love had of other, yours of mine,
Mine of your faith, but change of fight and flight,
Fear and vain hope and ruin? Let me go,
Who have been but grief and danger to my friends;
It may be I shall come with power again
To give back all their losses, and build up
What for my sake was broken.
HERRIES.
Did I know it,
Yet were I loth to bid you part, and find
What there you go to seek; but knowing it not,
My heart sinks in me and my spirit is sick
To think how this fair foot once parted hence
May rest thus light on Scottish ground no more.
QUEEN.
It shall tread heavier when it steps again
On earth which now rejects it; I shall live
To bruise their heads who wounded me at heel,
When I shall set it on their necks. Come, friends,
I think the fisher’s boat hath hoised up sail
That is to bear none but one friend and me:
Here must my true men and their queen take leave,
And each keep thought of other. My fair page,
Before the man’s change darken on your chin
I may come back to ride with you at rein
To a more fortunate field: howe’er that be,
Ride you right on with better hap, and live
As true to one of merrier days than mine
As on that night to Mary once your queen.
Douglas, I have not won a word of you;
What would you do to have me tarry?
GEORGE DOUGLAS.
Die.
QUEEN.
I lack not love it seems then at my last.
That word was bitter; yet I blame it not,
Who would not have sweet words upon my lips
Nor in mine ears at parting. I should go
And stand not here as on a stage to play
My last part out in Scotland; I have been
Too long a queen too little. By my life,
I know not what should hold me here or turn
My foot back from the boat-side, save the thought
How at Lochleven I last set foot aboard,
And with what hope, and to what end; and now
I pass not out of prison to my friends,
But out of all friends’ help to banishment.
Farewell, Lord Herries.
HERRIES.
God go with my queen,
And bring her back with better friends than I.
QUEEN.
Methinks the sand yet cleaving to my foot
Should not with no more words be shaken off,
Nor this my country from my parting eyes
Pass unsaluted; for who knows what year
May see us greet hereafter? Yet take heed,
Ye that have ears, and hear me; and take note,
Ye that have eyes, and see with what last looks
Mine own take leave of Scotland; seven years since
Did I take leave of my fair land of France,
My joyous mother, mother of my joy,
Weeping; and now with many a woe between
And space of seven years’ darkness, I depart
From this distempered and unnatural earth
That casts me out unmothered, and go forth
On this grey sterile bitter gleaming sea
With neither tears nor laughter, but a heart
That from the softest temper of its blood
Is turned to fire and iron. If I live,
If God pluck not all hope out of my hand,
If aught of all mine prosper, I that go
Shall come back to men’s ruin, as a flame
The wind bears down, that grows against the wind,
And grasps it with great hands, and wins its way,
And wins its will, and triumphs; so shall I
Let loose the fire of all my heart to feed
On these that would have quenched it. I will make
From sea to sea one furnace of the land
Whereon the wind of war shall beat its wings
Till they wax faint with hopeless hope of rest,
And with one rain of men’s rebellious blood
Extinguish the red embers. I will leave
No living soul of their blaspheming faith
Who war with monarchs; God shall see me reign
As he shall reign beside me, and his foes
Lie at my foot with mine; kingdoms and kings
Shall from my heart take spirit, and at my soul
Their souls be kindled to devour for prey
The people that would make its prey of them
And leave God’s altar stripped of sacrament
As all kings’ heads of sovereignty, and make
Bare as their thrones his temples; I will set
Those old things of his holiness on high
That are brought low, and break beneath my feet
These new things of men’s fashion; I will sit
And see tears flow from eyes that saw me weep
And dust and ashes and the shadow of death
Cast from the block beneath the axe that falls
On heads that saw me humbled; I will do it,
Or bow mine own down to no royal end
And give my blood for theirs if God’s will be,
; But come back never as I now go forth
With but the hate of men to track my way
And not the face of any friend alive.
MARY BEATON.
But I will never leave you till you die.
MARY STUART
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
I dedicate this play,
No longer, as the first part of the trilogy
Which it completes was dedicated,
To the greatest exile, but simply
To the greatest man of France:
To the chief of living poets:
To the first dramatist of his age:
To my beloved and revered master
Victor Hugo
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
Mary Stuart.
Mary Beaton.
Queen Elizabeth.
Barbara Mowbray.
Lord Burghley.
Sir Francis Walsingham.
William Davison.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.
Earl of Kent.
Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon.
Sir Christopher Hatton.
Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor.
Popham, Attorney-General.
Egerton, Solicitor-General.
Gawdy, the Queen’s Sergeant.
Sir Amyas Paulet.
Sir Drew Drury.
Sir Thomas Gorges.
Sir William Wade.
Sir Andrew Melville.
Robert Beale, Clerk of the Council.
Curle and Nau, Secretaries to the Queen of Scots.
Gorion, her Apothecary.
Father John Ballard,
Anthony Babington,
Chidiock Tichborne,
John Savage,
Charles Tilney,
Edward Abington,
Thomas Salisbury,
Robert Barnwell,
Conspirators.
Thomas Phillipps, Secretary to Walsingham.
M. De Châteauneuf.
M. De Bellièvre.
Commissioners, Privy Councillors, Sheriffs, Citizens, Officers, and Attendants.
Time – From August 14, 1586, to February 18, 1587.
ACT I
Anthony Babington
Scene I. Babington’s Lodging: A Veiled Picture on the Wall
Enter Babington, Tichborne, Tilney, Abington, Salisbury, and Barnwell.
BABINGTON.