Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 268
In quittance of my deep devotion shown
At risk and rate of honour and of life
To keep your head unscathed, I should not find
Disgrace for guerdon, or for thanksgiving
Death.
LIONI.
Art thou all made up of words, and hast
No thought that runs not loose upon thy tongue
To tell thee such a warning given as thine
Can die not out within mine ear, and leave
Unwarned of peril, if peril indeed there be,
Venice?
BELTRAMO.
I would but do you service.
LIONI.
Thanks.
A worthy service were it, my worthy friend,
Of me and thee, that thou shouldst bid me crawl
Aside from general ruin of all the state,
And I should grovel at thy beck, and creep
Darkling away from danger. What is this
That under a flickering veil of vehement words
Thou shewest and wilt not shew me?
BELTRAMO.
Death, I say:
Death.
LIONI.
If I knew thee not no coward or cur,
Tonight I should misknow thee. Night and day
Is death not still about us, here and there,
Alive around the ways and hours of life,
That what we think or what we are fain to do
We should not do for death’s sake? How these knaves,
Whose life is service or rebellion, fear
Death! and a child high-born would shame them.
BELTRAMO.
If
Death seem so gracious in a great man’s eye,
Die, my lord: I, too mean to live your friend,
Am not your murderer.
LIONI.
Nay nor any man’s,
If I can stay thine hand betimes. I would not
By force withhold thee, nor by violence wring
What yet thou hast left unspoken forth: but hence
Thou goest not out, and I left ignorant here
What purpose haled thee hither.
BELTRAMO.
Why, to you
Friendship; and haply hate to no man else
Of all now damned alive to darkness.
LIONI.
Good:
The slot is hot: I scent the quarry. So,
Some certain of thy kind are bound and sworn
To do the ignoble and the poor man right
By murderous justice done on us, who wrong
Our fellow-folk with flaunt of wicked wealth
And vex their baseness with nobility?
And with our Doge’s blood and ours ye would
Make ripe that harvest, fill that winepress full,
Which now not fifty years from this, ye know,
Dolcino thought to reap and tread, and bring
Equal and simple rule of right again
Among us called by Christ’s name here on earth —
And how he died remembering, inch from inch
Rent living with red iron, and his bride
Burnt limb from limb before his eyes, thou wouldst
Eschew such end as theirs was?
BELTRAMO.
Twice, my lord,
You have erred: I stand not here to save myself;
Nor stands our lord the Doge in danger yet,
If he that hears me speak love honour.
LIONI.
Nay,
But if this be not wine that swells thy speech,
No less it is than murderous madness. How
May death stretch wing above all heads of ours
And shadow not our master’s? Him, of all
High-born in Venice, should conspiracy
First menace, risen from darkness such as broods
About such hearts as hate us. If thou be
Mad, be not yet thine own self-murderer: think —
For wine it is not that is wild in thee —
What peril even the least of all thy words,
If here thou pause, hath pulled upon thee.
BELTRAMO.
That
Had I cast thought on, here I should not be —
Nor Lioni, nor the noblest born my lord,
Have power or breath to threaten or implore
Me, nor the least in Venice.
LIONI.
Friend, from me
Nor threat nor prayer need any fear or hope
Who feeds on air and sunshine; least of all
Thou: for of all men bred of baser kind,
Could I perchance fear any, thee at least
I could not, having called thee friend: for one
Who doubts or fears or dreams ingratitude,
Or holds for possible disloyalty,
Stands proven in sight of his own secret soul
As possibly, should chance or time prevail,
Disloyal and ungrateful. Such was I,
If man may say so, never: yet meseems
That unreproved of cowardice I may crave
To know, hadst thou been haply less my friend,
How should mine hand have lost the power it hath,
My lips lacked breath to question thee? or how
Should not the Doge, being our lord of lords,
Incarnate and impersonate Venice, bear
Part in our general danger?
BELTRAMO.
Nay, my lord,
I said not that; part shall he bear therein,
God wot, and unendangered. Please you, sir, —
Please it your pride and pure nobility —
To spare your smile and shrug — give so much ease,
This hour, to lip and shoulder — I would say
What, being derided and endured — forborne,
Insulted, and forgiven, — it might not please
Your servant for your scornful sake to say.
You will not ask me, what?
LIONI.
Assuredly,
No.
BELTRAMO.
Speak, then, and be cursed of God and man,
You bid me, who forbear to bid me.
LIONI.
I but bid thee now no longer hold me here
Awake and vexed with vehement speech wherein
If aught be honest nought is clear enough
To speak thee sound of wits: and didst thou so,
Of God and man forgiveness might I win
If I should bid God curse thee, and my men
Lead forth or thrust thee from my gates. Were this
For me — the word still twittering on thy tongue —
Death?
BELTRAMO.
Yea, my lord: and death for all your kin.
LIONI.
By Christ, but this is fiery wine indeed
That speaks in thee so steadfast. Wouldst thou not
Sleep?
BELTRAMO.
Soon and sound enough will you, my lord,
Sleep, if my speech be slighted, that I speak
Out of true heart and thankfulness.
LIONI.
And where,
When thus by night red riot runs and reels
And murder rides out revelling, where shall be
The keepers of our state? where, first of all,
The Doge?
BELTRAMO.
They that keep our state so well
That only force can purge it — they shall be
Where sheep and oxen, fowl and fish are found,
When some great feast is toward and guests come in —
Dead on a heap: and he, their lord and ours —
Where think you, sir?
LIONI.
Nay, man, God knows, not I:
First be it or last of all the sacrifice,
Where the old man falls, there lies a brave man slain —
Head, hand, and heart of Venice.
BELTRAMO.
He shall be
Where when a fight is won the general stands
Red-footed and red-handed and brow-bound
With bays that drip down blood.
LIONI.
Your captain?
BELTRAMO.
Ay.
Believe me not, and perish.
LIONI.
I am more like
To live, and see thee whipped or hanged, and not
Believe thee.
BELTRAMO.
Choose: I have given you, sir, the chance
That none but one of all your kind is given:
Cast from your hand your luck and life, you die,
Self-slaughtered: on your head, not mine, the charge
Lies of your bloodshed.
LIONI.
Man, if this be truth,
The sun may reel from heaven, and darkness rise
For dawn upon the world.
BELTRAMO.
I cannot tell.
They say such things have been, sir.
LIONI.
Nay, but none
Like this: Faliero captain of thy crew?
Thine?
BELTRAMO.
Ay, my lord, we are despicable — and he
A man despised as we are, and most of all,
Being highest in place; more grievous and more gross
Is thence his wrong, and keener thence the shame
That gnaws his heart away with fangs of fire.
LIONI.
And he, to be revenged of us, — of them
Who spared a hound the halter, not the scourge —
Hath leagued himself, thou sayest, with knaves by night
To wash the ways with slaughter — set a knife
To the open throat of sleep — break trust, slay faith,
Strike through the heart of honour? stab the law,
Set for his mother a snare to strangle her,
Work miracles of murder? change a name
That now rings out a clarion in men’s ears
For one that hisses like a snake, and means
Treason?
BELTRAMO.
Sir, were it but for his behoof,
To feed his own lusts fat with gold and blood,
Gird his own brows with empire, steal, stab, lie,
And reign, abhorred and abject, over swine
That once were men, but changed their heart and head
To grovel, snout and groin, in slavery — then
Shame were it indeed, and shameful change, for him,
Being man, to shed man’s innocent blood, break faith,
And spit at God, and triumph, and be damned
More deep than Cain with Judas, and his grave
For guerdon take the spittle and the spurns
Of all true men for ever: but the lord
Who leads us forth of bondage, though he lead
Through this red sea, struck no more loyal stroke
With heart more single or hand more honest once
Off Istria, nor at Zara.
LIONI.
Once? ay, twice,
Our lord was found our saviour; now, if this
Be monstrous truth thou tell’st me, he, grown hoar
With glorious years and works, would leave his name
A traitor’s, red and foul for ever. Nay,
But if this be no drunken dream or lie
No plea can cleanse him of the murderous taint
That reeks from names abominable of man
As manslayers of their brethren.
BELTRAMO.
Sir, if Cain
Be smitten again of Abel ere he die,
Shall Abel stand attainted on this charge
As fratricide or traitor?
LIONI.
Why, my friend,
I lack the lawyer’s wit and tongue to prate
As advocate against thee: this is all
I can, to assure myself and heaven and thee
That this destruction thou wouldst bid me shun
Shall ere it fall on us be stayed. Reply
Not now, nor here: for hence thou goest not out
Till I tonight have communed with the lords
Nasoni and Cornaro, who shall make
Sharp inquisition of thy news and thee
Here, ere the council meet, and lay strict hand
On all found part of this conspiracy
Or like to dip red hands in danger, when
Strange darkness rides in the air, and strange design
Makes hot men’s hearts with hope of evil. Thou
Shalt rest unhurt; but we will know of thee
All needful for prevention.
BELTRAMO.
Christ our Lord
Knows —
LIONI.
That nor threat nor rack shall wring from thee
One word beyond thy will: so be it: I think
All we could win or wish of thee shall need
Nor force nor menace, promise, price, nor prayer,
To press forth easily as a grape gives wine.
Thou art tender-souled and honest, thankful, true,
A gentle knave and worthy: what is said
Unsay thou canst not, nor undo the deed
Done when thy footfall smote my threshold. So,
Be patient: this alone thou lackest: wait
And keep close lips till I come back.
BELTRAMO.
My lord —
LIONI.
My lord and thine is God, who led thee here
To save the world this ill, that day should be
And not this city — that the sun should rise
And see not Venice. How, by whom or whence,
Thou knewest of this — what part thou shouldst have played
On this full stage of death, had no remorse
With timely pity toward me pricked thine heart —
I ask thee not: to them that I bring back,
Not me, shalt thou make answer. I would lay
No force upon thee more than needs: but here
Fast under guard abiding till they come
Safe shalt thou rest as Venice now through thee.
[Exeunt.
Scene II.
— The balcony of the ducal palace.
Faliero
and
Bertuccio.
FALIERO.
Dawn — is it yet not dawn? Thine eyes, being young,
Are dazed with timeless waking; mine, that looked,
Ere thine saw birth, on battle, yet have strength
To outwatch the vigil of a boy’s, and tell
Sunrise from set of stars or moonfall. See!
Light — is not light there?
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, if time speak true,
It lacks an hour to sunrise: holier lights
Are these that hold procession through the square
With chants of penitence to churchward, timed
To match the death of darkness.
FALIERO.
Didst thou think
God haply was not with us, that thy smile
Should mock their chant or me? Nay, thee he sends
This token in his witness: I desired
None: but if God be no unrighteous God,
And hold us fatherlike in keeping, here
Might man believe a comfortable sign
Sent as with sacred and superb acclaim
To match the death indeed of darkness, left
Too long upon the waters. Dawn shall be,
Thou sayest, an hour from hence: I know not: if,
By death of mine and thine and all we love,
Dawn verily in an hour might rise, and rest
As once on Rome, an agelong daylight — boy,
Wouldst thou, having thy fair long life to give,
Thy fair long life that should be, spare or shrink
Or grudge or groan to cast it from thine hand
As might a child a pebble, more than I
To give my thin-spun days and nights of life
Left, which I stake and smile at?
BERTUCCIO.
No, my lord:
If God know aught of man or man know aught,
God knows I know I would not.
FALIERO.
Yea, and I
Know it: God love thee as I love, my boy,
For this we know of thee. And this do thou
Know likewise, and hold fast: that if today
Dawn rise not, but the darkness drift us down,
And leave our hopes as wrecks and waifs despised
Of men that walk by daylight, not with us
Shall faith decline from earth or justice end,
Or freedom, which if dead should bid them die,
Rot, though the works and very names of us,
And all the fruit we looked for, nipped of winds
And gnawn of worms, and all the stem that bore,
And all the root, wax rotten. Here shall be
Freedom, or never in this time-weary world
Justice; nor ever shall the sunrise know
A sight to match the morning, nor the sea
Hear from the sound of living souls on earth,
Free as her foam, and righteous as her tides,
Just, equal, awless, perfect, even as she,
A word to match her music. If we fail,
We are even but we — I, thou, and these our friends
That rise or fall beside us: if we thrive,
Not I and thou and they triumph — not we
Prosper — but that which if we live or die
Alike and absolute, unhurt and whole,
Endures, being proven of our mortalities
Immortal — yea, being shown by sign of loss
And token of subdued infirmity,
And ruin, and all insistence of defeat,
And laughing lips and trampling heels of men
That smile and stamp above us buried, shown
Triumphant. Righteousness alone hath right
For love of all found loveliest, freedom, truth,
Faith, reason, hope, and honour, to require
Life at our hands: and if on sand or stone
Or if on fruitful ground the life we give
Fall, shed with all our heart and full free will,