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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Call once upon us; not this gift or this,

  Or what best likes us or were gladliest given

  Or might most honourably be parted with

  For our more credit on her best behalf,

  Doth she we serve, this land that made us men,

  Require of all her children; but demands

  Of our great duty toward her full deserts

  Even all we have of honour or of life,

  Of breath or fame to give her. What were I

  Or what were you, being mean or nobly born,

  Yet moulded both of one land’s natural womb

  And fashioned out of England, to deny

  What gift she crave soever, choose and grudge

  What grace we list to give or what withhold,

  Refuse and reckon with her when she bids

  Yield up forsooth not life but fame to come,

  A good man’s praise or gentleman’s repute,

  Or lineal pride of children, and the light

  Of loyalty remembered? which of these

  Were worth our mother’s death, or shame that might

  Fall for one hour on England? She must live

  And keep in all men’s sight her honour fast

  Though all we die dishonoured; and myself

  Know not nor seek of men’s report to know

  If what I do to serve her till I die

  Be honourable or shameful, and its end

  Good in men’s eyes or evil; but for God,

  I find not why the name or fear of him

  Herein should make me swerve or start aside

  Through faint heart’s falsehood as a broken bow

  Snapped in his hand that bent it, ere the shaft

  Find out his enemies’ heart, and I that end

  Whereto I am sped for service even of him

  Who put this office on us.

  PAULET.

  Truly, sir,

  I lack the wordy wit to match with yours,

  Who speak no more than soldier; this I know,

  I am sick in spirit and heart to have in hand

  Such work or such device of yours as yet

  For fear and conscience of what worst may come

  I dare not well bear through.

  PHILLIPPS.

  Why, so last month

  You writ my master word and me to boot

  I had set you down a course for many things

  You durst not put in execution, nor

  Consign the packet to this lady’s hand

  That was returned from mine, seeing all was well,

  And you should hold yourself most wretched man

  If by your mean or order there should spring

  Suspicion ‘twixt the several messengers

  Whose hands unwitting each of other ply

  The same close trade for the same golden end,

  While either holds his mate a faithful fool

  And all their souls, baseborn or gently bred,

  Are coined and stamped and minted for our use

  And current in our service; I thereon

  To assuage your doubt and fortify your fear

  Was posted hither, where by craft and pains

  The web is wound up of our enterprise

  And in our hands we hold her very heart

  As fast as all this while we held impawned

  The faith of Barnes that stood for Gifford here

  To take what letters for his mistress came

  From southward through the ambassador of France

  And bear them to the brewer, your honest man,

  Who wist no further of his fellowship

  Than he of Gifford’s, being as simple knaves

  As knavish each in his simplicity,

  And either serviceable alike, to shift

  Between my master’s hands and yours and mine

  Her letters writ and answered to and fro;

  And all these faiths as weathertight and safe

  As was the box that held those letters close

  At bottom of the barrel, to give up

  The charge there sealed and ciphered, and receive

  A charge as great in peril and in price

  To yield again, when they drew off the beer

  That weekly served this lady’s household whom

  We have drained as dry of secrets drugged with death

  As ever they this vessel, and return

  To her own lips the dregs she brewed or we

  For her to drink have tempered. What of this

  Should seem so strange now to you, or distaste

  So much the daintier palate of your thoughts,

  That I should need reiterate you by word

  The work of us o’erpast, or fill your ear

  With long foregone recital, that at last

  Your soul may start not or your sense recoil

  To know what end we are come to, or what hope

  We took in hand to cut this peril off

  By what close mean soe’er and what foul hands

  Unwashed of treason, which it yet mislikes

  Your knightly palm to touch or close with, seeing

  The grime of gold is baser than of blood

  That barks their filthy fingers? yet with these

  Must you cross hands and grapple, or let fall

  The trust you took to treasure.

  PAULET.

  Sir, I will,

  Even till the queen take back that gave it; yet

  Will not join hands with these, nor take on mine

  The taint of their contagion; knowing no cause

  That should confound or couple my good name

  With theirs more hateful than the reek of hell.

  You had these knaveries and these knaves in charge,

  Not I that knew not how to handle them

  Nor whom to choose for chief of treasons, him

  That in mine ignorant eye, unused to read

  The shameful scripture of such faces, bare

  Graved on his smooth and simple cheek and brow

  No token of a traitor; yet this boy,

  This milk-mouthed weanling with his maiden chin,

  This soft-lipped knave, late suckled as on blood

  And nursed of poisonous nipples, have you not

  Found false or feared by this, whom first you found

  A trustier thief and worthier of his wage

  Than I, poor man, had wit to find him? I,

  That trust no changelings of the church of hell,

  No babes reared priestlike at the paps of Rome,

  Who have left the old harlot’s deadly dugs drawn dry,

  I lacked the craft to rate this knave of price,

  Your smock-faced Gifford, at his worth aright,

  Which now comes short of promise.

  PHILLIPPS.

  O, not he;

  Let not your knighthood for a slippery word

  So much misdoubt his knaveship; here from France,

  On hint of our suspicion in his ear

  Half jestingly recorded, that his hand

  Were set against us in one politic track

  With his old yoke-fellows in craft and creed,

  Betraying not them to us but ourselves to them,

  My Gilbert writes me with such heat of hand

  Such piteous protestation of his faith

  So stuffed and swoln with burly-bellied oaths

  And God and Christ confound him if he lie

  And Jesus save him as he speaks mere truth,

  My gracious godly priestling, that yourself

  Must sure be moved to take his truth on trust

  Or stand for him approved an atheist.

  PAULET.

  Well,

  That you find stuff of laughter in such gear

  And mirth to make out of the godless mouth

  Of such a twice-turned villain, for my part

  I take in token of your certain trust,

  And make therewith mine own assurance sure
,

  To see betimes an end of all such craft

  As takes the faith forsworn of loud-tongued liars

  And blasphemies of brothel-breathing knaves

  To build its hope or break its jest upon;

  And so commend you to your charge, and take

  Mine own on me less gladly; for by this

  She should be girt to ride, as the old saw saith,

  Out of God’s blessing into the warm sun

  And out of the warm sun into the pit

  That men have dug before her, as herself

  Had dug for England else a deeper grave

  To hide our hope for ever: yet I would

  This day and all that hang on it were done.

  Exeunt.

  Scene III. Before Tixall Park

  Mary Stuart, Mary Beaton, Paulet, Curle, Nau, and Attendants.

  MARY STUART.

  If I should never more back steed alive

  But now had ridden hither this fair day

  The last road ever I must ride on earth,

  Yet would I praise it, saying of all days gone

  And all roads ridden in sight of stars and sun

  Since first I sprang to saddle, here at last

  I had found no joyless end. These ways are smooth,

  And all this land’s face merry; yet I find

  The ways even therefore not so good to ride,

  And all the land’s face therefore less worth love,

  Being smoother for a palfrey’s maiden pace

  And merrier than our moors for outlook; nay,

  I lie to say so; there the wind and sun

  Make madder mirth by midsummer, and fill

  With broader breath and lustier length of light

  The heartier hours that clothe for even and dawn

  Our bosom-belted billowy-blossoming hills

  Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea

  For miles of heaving heather. Ye should mock

  My banished praise of Scotland; and in faith

  I praised it but to prick you on to praise

  Of your own goodly land; though field and wood

  Be parked and parcelled to the sky’s edge out,

  And this green Stafford moorland smooth and strait

  That we but now rode over, and by ours

  Look pale for lack of large live mountain bloom

  Wind-buffeted with morning, it should be

  Worth praise of men whose lineal honour lives

  In keeping here of history: but meseems

  I have heard, Sir Amyas, of your liberal west

  As of a land more affluent-souled than this

  And fruitful-hearted as the south-wind; here

  I find a fair-faced change of temperate clime

  From that bald hill-brow in a broad bare plain

  Where winter laid us both his prisoners late

  Fast by the feet at Tutbury; but men say

  Your birthright in this land is fallen more fair

  In goodlier ground of heritage: perchance,

  Grief to be now barred thence by mean of me,

  Who less than you can help it or myself,

  Makes you ride sad and sullen.

  PAULET.

  Madam, no;

  I pray you lay not to my wilful charge

  The blame or burden of discourtesy

  That but the time should bear which lays on me

  This weight of thoughts untimely.

  MARY STUART.

  Nay, fair sir,

  If I, that have no cause in life to seem

  Glad of my sad life more than prisoners may,

  Take comfort yet of sunshine, he methinks

  That holds in ward my days and nights might well

  Take no less pleasure of this broad blithe air

  Than his poor charge that too much troubles him.

  What, are we nigh the chase?

  PAULET.

  Even hard at hand.

  MARY STUART.

  Can I not see between the glittering leaves

  Gleam the dun hides and flash the startled horns

  That we must charge and scatter? Were I queen

  And had a crown to wager on my hand,

  Sir, I would set it on the chance to-day

  To shoot a flight beyond you.

  PAULET.

  Verily,

  The hazard were too heavy for my skill:

  I would not hold your wager.

  MARY STUART.

  No! and why?

  PAULET.

  For fear to come a bowshot short of you

  On the left hand, unluckily.

  MARY STUART.

  My friend,

  Our keeper’s wit-shaft is too keen for ours

  To match its edge with pointless iron. – Sir,

  Your tongue shoots further than my hand or eye

  With sense or aim can follow. – Gilbert Curle,

  Your heart yet halts behind this cry of hounds,

  Hunting your own deer’s trail at home, who lies

  Now close in covert till her bearing-time

  Be full to bring forth kindly fruit of kind

  To love that yet lacks issue; and in sooth

  I blame you not to bid all sport go by

  For one white doe’s sake travailing, who myself

  Think long till I may take within mine arm

  The soft fawn suckling that is yeaned not yet

  But is to make her mother. We must hold

  A goodly christening feast with prisoner’s cheer

  And mirth enow for such a tender thing

  As will not weep more to be born in bonds

  Than babes born out of gaoler’s ward, nor grudge

  To find no friend more fortunate than I

  Nor happier hand to welcome it, nor name

  More prosperous than poor mine to wear, if God

  Shall send the new-made mother’s breast, for love

  Of us that love his mother’s maidenhood,

  A maid to be my namechild, and in all

  Save love to them that love her, by God’s grace,

  Most unlike me; for whose unborn sweet sake

  Pray you meantime be merry. – ‘Faith, methinks

  Here be more huntsmen out afield to-day

  And merrier than my guardian. Sir, look up;

  What think you of these riders? – All my friends,

  Make on to meet them.

  PAULET.

  There shall need no haste;

  They ride not slack or lamely.

  MARY STUART.

  Now, fair sir,

  What say you to my chance on wager? here

  I think to outshoot your archery. – By my life,

  That too must fail if hope now fail me; these

  That ride so far off yet, being come, shall bring

  Death or deliverance. Prithee, speak but once;

  Aside to Mary Beaton.

  Say, these are they we looked for; say, thou too

  Hadst hope to meet them; say, they should be here,

  And I did well to look for them; O God!

  Say but I was not mad to hope; see there;

  Speak, or I die.

  MARY BEATON.

  Nay, not before they come.

  MARY STUART.

  Dost thou not hear my heart? it speaks so loud

  I can hear nothing of them. Yet I will not

  Fail in mine enemy’s sight. This is mine hour

  That was to be for triumph; God, I pray,

  Stretch not its length out longer!

  MARY BEATON.

  It is past.

  Enter Sir Thomas Gorges, Sir William Wade, and Soldiers.

  MARY STUART.

  What man is this that stands across our way?

  GORGES.

  One that hath warrant, madam, from the queen

  To arrest your French and English secretary

  And for more surety see yourself removed

  To present ward at Ti
xall here hard by,

  As in this paper stands of her subscribed.

  Lay hands on them.

  MARY STUART.

  Was this your riddle’s word?

  To Paulet.

  You have shot beyond me indeed, and shot to death

  Your honour with my life. – Draw, sirs, and stand;

  Ye have swords yet left to strike with once, and die

  By these our foes are girt with. Some good friend –

  I should have one yet left of you – take heart

  And slay me here. For God’s love, draw; they have not

  So large a vantage of us we must needs

  Bear back one foot from peril. Give not way;

  Ye shall but die more shamefully than here

  Who can but here die fighting. What, no man?

  Must I find never at my need alive

  A man with heart to help me? O, my God,

  Let me die now and foil them! Paulet, you,

  Most knightly liar and traitor, was not this

  Part of your charge, to play my hangman too,

  Who have played so well my doomsman, and betrayed

  So honourably my trust, so bravely set

  A snare so loyal to make sure for death

  So poor a foolish woman? Sir, or you

  That have this gallant office, great as his,

  To do the deadliest errand and most vile

  That even your mistress ever laid on man

  And sent her basest knave to bear and slay,

  You are likewise of her chivalry, and should not

  Shrink to fulfil your title; being a knight,

  For her dear sake that made you, lose not heart

  To strike for her one worthy stroke, that may

  Rid me defenceless of the loathed long life

  She gapes for like a bloodhound. Nay, I find

  A face beside you that should bear for me

  Not life inscribed upon it; two years since

  I read therein at Sheffield what good will

  She bare toward me that sent to treat withal

  So mean a man and shameless, by his tongue

  To smite mine honour on the face, and turn

  My name of queen to servant; by his hand

  So let her turn my life’s name now to death,

  Which I would take more thankfully than shame

  To plead and thus prevail not.

  PAULET.

  Madam, no,

  With us you may not in such suit prevail

  Nor we by words or wrath of yours be moved

  To turn their edge back on you, nor remit