Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 261
MARY BEATON.
Till she die –
I have ever known I shall not till she die.
See you yet aught? if I hear spoken words,
My heart can better bear these pulses, else
Unbearable, that rend it.
BARBARA.
Yea, I see
Stand in mid hall the scaffold, black as death,
And black the block upon it: all around,
Against the throng a guard of halberdiers;
And the axe against the scaffold-rail reclined,
And two men masked on either hand beyond:
And hard behind the block a cushion set,
Black, as the chair behind it.
MARY BEATON.
When I saw
Fallen on a scaffold once a young man’s head,
Such things as these I saw not. Nay, but on:
I knew not that I spake: and toward your ears
Indeed I spake not.
BARBARA.
All those faces change;
She comes more royally than ever yet
Fell foot of man triumphant on this earth,
Imperial more than empire made her, born
Enthroned as queen sat never. Not a line
Stirs of her sovereign feature: like a bride
Brought home she mounts the scaffold; and her eyes
Sweep regal round the cirque beneath, and rest,
Subsiding with a smile. She sits, and they,
The doomsmen earls, beside her; at her left
The sheriff, and the clerk at hand on high,
To read the warrant.
MARY BEATON.
None stands there but knows
What things therein are writ against her: God
Knows what therein is writ not. God forgive
All.
BARBARA.
Not a face there breathes of all the throng
But is more moved than hers to hear this read,
Whose look alone is changed not.
MARY BEATON.
Once I knew
A face that changed not in as dire an hour
More than the queen’s face changes. Hath he not
Ended?
BARBARA.
You cannot hear them speak below:
Come near and hearken; bid not me repeat
All.
MARY BEATON.
I beseech you – for I may not come.
BARBARA.
Now speaks Lord Shrewsbury but a word or twain,
And brieflier yet she answers, and stands up
As though to kneel, and pray.
MARY BEATON.
I too have prayed –
God hear at last her prayers not less than mine,
Which failed not, sure, of hearing.
BARBARA.
Now draws nigh
That heretic priest, and bows himself, and thrice
Strives, as a man that sleeps in pain, to speak,
Stammering: she waves him by, as one whose prayers
She knows may nought avail her: now she kneels,
And the earls rebuke her, and she answers not,
Kneeling. O Christ, whose likeness there engraved
She strikes against her bosom, hear her! Now
That priest lifts up his voice against her prayer,
Praying: and a voice all round goes up with his:
But hers is lift up higher than climbs their cry,
In the great psalms of penitence: and now
She prays aloud in English; for the Pope
Our father, and his church; and for her son,
And for the queen her murderess; and that God
May turn from England yet his wrath away;
And so forgives her enemies; and implores
High intercession of the saints with Christ,
Whom crucified she kisses on his cross,
And crossing now her breast – Ah, heard you not?
Even as thine arms were spread upon the cross,
So make thy grace, O Jesus, wide for me,
Receive me to thy mercy so, and so
Forgive my sins.
MARY BEATON.
So be it, if so God please.
Is she not risen up yet?
BARBARA.
Yea, but mine eyes
Darken: because those deadly twain close masked
Draw nigh as men that crave forgiveness, which
Gently she grants: for now, she said, I hope
You shall end all my troubles. Now meseems
They would put hand upon her as to help,
And disarray her raiment: but she smiles –
Heard you not that? can you nor hear nor speak,
Poor heart, for pain? Truly, she said, my lords,
I never had such chamber-grooms before
As these to wait on me.
MARY BEATON.
An end, an end.
BARBARA.
Now come those twain upon the scaffold up
Whom she preferred before us: and she lays
Her crucifix down, which now the headsman takes
Into his cursed hand, but being rebuked
Puts back for shame that sacred spoil of hers.
And now they lift her veil up from her head
Softly, and softly draw the black robe off,
And all in red as of a funeral flame
She stands up statelier yet before them, tall
And clothed as if with sunset: and she takes
From Elspeth’s hand the crimson sleeves, and draws
Their covering on her arms: and now those twain
Burst out aloud in weeping: and she speaks –
Weep not; I promised for you. Now she kneels;
And Jane binds round a kerchief on her eyes:
And smiling last her heavenliest smile on earth,
She waves a blind hand toward them, with Farewell,
Farewell, to meet again: and they come down
And leave her praying aloud, In thee, O Lord,
I put my trust: and now, that psalm being through,
She lays between the block and her soft neck
Her long white peerless hands up tenderly,
Which now the headsman draws again away,
But softly too: now stir her lips again –
Into thine hands, O Lord, into thine hands,
Lord, I commend my spirit: and now – but now,
Look you, not I, the last upon her.
MARY BEATON.
Ha!
He strikes awry: she stirs not. Nay, but now
He strikes aright, and ends it.
BARBARA.
Hark, a cry.
VOICE BELOW.
So perish all found enemies of the queen!
ANOTHER VOICE.
Amen.
MARY BEATON.
I heard that very cry go up
Far off long since to God, who answers here.
CURTAIN
MARINO FALIERO
CONTENTS
DEDICATION.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ACT I.
ACT II.
ACT III.
ACT IV.
ACT V.
MARINO FALIERO
A TRAGEDY
DEDICATION.
TO AURELIO SAFFI.
I.
Year after year has fallen on sleep, till change
Hath seen the fourth part of a century fade,
Since you, a guest to whom the vales were strange
Where Isis whispers to the murmuring shade
Above her face by winds and willows made,
And I, elate at heart with reverence, met.
Change must give place to death ere I forget
The pride that change of years has quenched not yet.
II.
Pride from profoundest humbleness of heart
Born, self-uplift at once and self-subdued,
Glowed, seeing his face whose hand had borne
such part
In so sublime and strange vicissitude
As then filled all faint hearts with hope renewed
To think upon, and triumph; though the time
Were dense and foul with darkness cast from crime
Across the heights that hope was fain to climb.
III.
Hope that had risen, a sun to match the sun
That fills and feeds all Italy with light,
Had set, and left the crowning work undone
That raised up Rome out of the shadow of night:
Yet so to have won the worst, to have fought the fight,
Seemed, as above the grave of hope cast down
Stood faith, and smiled against the whole world’s frown,
A conquest lordlier than the conqueror’s crown.
IV.
To have won the worst that chance could give, and worn
The wreath of adverse fortune as a sign
More bright than binds the brows of victory, borne
Higher than all trophies borne of tyrants shine —
What lordlier gift than this, what more divine,
Can earth or heaven make manifest, and bid
Men’s hearts bow down and honour? Fate lies hid,
But not the work that true men dared and did.
V.
The years have given and taken away since then
More than was then foreseen of hope or fear.
Fallen are the towers of empire: all the men
Whose names made faint the heart of the earth to hear
Are broken as the trust they held so dear
Who put their trust in princes: and the sun
Sees Italy, as he in heaven is, one;
But sees not him who spake, and this was done.
VI.
Not by the wise man’s wit, the strong man’s hand,
By swordsman’s or by statesman’s craft or might,
Sprang life again where life had left the land,
And light where hope nor memory now saw light:
Not first nor most by grace of these was night
Cast out, and darkness driven before the day
Far as a battle-broken host’s array
Flies, and no force that fain would stay it can stay.
VII.
One spirit alone, one soul more strong than fate,
One heart whose heat was as the sundawn’s fire,
Fed first with flame as heaven’s immaculate
Faith, worn and wan and desperate of desire:
And men that felt that sacred breath suspire
Felt by mere speech and presence fugitive
The holy spirit of man made perfect give
Breath to the lips of death, that death might live.
VIII.
Not all as yet is yours, nor all is ours,
That shall, if righteousness and reason be,
Fulfil the trust of time with happier hours
And set their sons who fought for freedom free;
Even theirs whose faith sees, as they may not see,
Your land and ours wax lovelier in the light
Republican, whereby the thrones most bright
Look hoar and wan as eve or black as night.
IX.
Our words and works, our thoughts and songs turn thither,
Toward one great end, as waves that press and roll.
Though waves be spent and ebb like hopes that wither,
These shall subside not ere they find the goal.
We know it, who yet with unforgetful soul
See shine and smile, where none may smite or strive,
Above us, higher than clouds and winds can drive,
The soul beloved beyond all souls alive.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice.
The Duchess, his wife.
Bertuccio Faliero, nephew to the Doge.
Benintende, Grand Chancellor.
Ser Michele Steno.
Ser Niccolò Lioni.
The Admiral of the Arsenal.
Filippo Calendaro.
Bertuccio Israello.
Beltramo, a follower of Lioni’s.
Lords, Ladies, Senators, Officers, Guards, and Attendants.
ACT I.
Scene I.
— The balcony of the ducal palace overlooking the Piazza San Marco.
Marino Faliero and the Duchess, seated: Lords, Ladies, and Attendants behind: among them Ser Michele Steno and Ser Niccolò Lioni.
FALIERO.
The sun fights hard against us ere he die.
Canst thou see westward?
DUCHESS.
Not the huntsmen yet.
FALIERO.
Nay, nor the bull, belike: but ere they come
There should be stirring in the crowd far off:
Some wind should wake these waters, and some wave
Swell toward us from the sunset: but the square
Seems breathless as the very sea to left
That sleeps and thinks it summer. Thou shalt know
Full soon if love and liking toward mine own
Have made mine old eyes blind or wrecked the wits
That once were mine for judgment.
DUCHESS.
Nay, my lord,
I doubt not — nor did ever —
FALIERO.
Nay, my love,
But thou didst never trust: I say, my son,
My brother’s born, made mine by verier love
Than every father bears his own, shall find
For manfulness and speed and noble skill
No master and no match of all his mates
In all the goodliest flower of lordliest youth
That lightens all this city. Dost thou think
The day’s chase shall not leave him spirit and strength
To dance thy merriest maidens down to-night
Even till the first bell ring the banquet in?
Nay, we shall find him as thy sire and I
Were fifty years or sixty since, when life
As glad and gallant spurred our light strong limbs
As quickens now these young men’s toward the chase
That knits their thews for battle.
DUCHESS.
How the sun
Burns, now so near the mountains! even at noon
It smote not sorer.
FALIERO.
Old men set not so.
A goodly grace it were to close up life
And seal the record fast of perfect days
If we might save one hour of strength and youth
To reap and be requickened ere we die
With royal repossession of the past
For sixty sovereign heartbeats pulsed of time,
And with one last full purple throb let life
Pass, and leave death’s face glowing: yet perchance
It should but seem the harder so to die.
This is no festal fancy: but thy brow
Is graver than the time is. Art thou not
Weary?
DUCHESS.
Not yet: nay, surely, no.
FALIERO.
Thy smile
Is brighter than thy voice.
DUCHESS.
My heart may be
More light than rings my tongue, since neither knows
A cause to teach it sadness.
STENO.
Did you mark
That?
[Aside to the lady next him.
LADY.
What? no, nothing, I.
STENO.
She knows no cause:
What cause of sadness may so fair a face
Know, mated with so blithe a bridegroom’s? Nay,
If fourscore years can pleasure not a wife,
There is no cheer nor comfort in white hairs,
No solace in man’s dotage.
LADY.
Hush!
STENO.
And Fie!
The woman that cries Hush bids kiss: I learnt
So much of her that taught me kissing.
LADY.
Then
A foolish tutoress taught a graceless knave
Folly.
STENO.
That cries on vengeance: should my lip
Retaliate, would you cry not louder?
LADY.
Peace!
STENO.
What if I choose not peace but war?
LADY.
My lord,
You wrong this presence and yourself, and me
Most, and with least respect, of all.
STENO.
Respect!
Nay, I revere you more than mine own heart,
Which rests your servile chattel: for myself,
I know not aught worth reverence in me, save
Love, — love of one too sweet and hard, that wears
A flower in face, at heart a stone, and turns
My face to tears, my heart to fire, and laughs
As loud for scorn as men for mirth who look
To see the duke’s brave nephew bring him back
For gift and trophied treasure of the chase
A broad bull’s pair of — tributes.
LIONI.
Hark you, sir:
Speak lower: and speak not here at all.
STENO.
St. Mark!
Art thou my tutor?
LIONI.
Ay — to whip thee dumb,
Or strike thy folly dead at once. Be still,
For shame’s sake — not for honour’s would I bid
Thee.
STENO.
While this lady’s eyes regard us, dumb
I will be: but hereafter —
LIONI.
Be but now