Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 283
I’m sure
Not worth a tear of yours — and yet you cried
Sometimes, you know, for my mischances.
SIR ARTHUR.
Ay?
So, boy and girl were born for bride and groom,
Were they? There’s nothing now to cry for, then.
ANNE.
Arthur forgets: are love and happiness
Nothing to cry for? Tears, we are told, are signs
Infallible — indispensable — of joy.
FRANK.
Mabel and Redgie, then, must be just now
Unhappy — very unhappy. Can they fill
With us their parts to-morrow in his play?
MABEL.
Yes: I know mine; and Anne knows hers.
ANNE.
And Frank
His. Does he stab you, Redgie, on the stage?
REGINALD.
Yes, as I save him from the shipwreck.
SIR ARTHUR.
Good!
That’s something like a villain.
ANNE.
I’m as bad.
I poison Mabel — out of love for Frank.
SIR ARTHUR.
Heaven help us, what a tragic day or night!
It’s well the drawing-room and the libraries
Are all rigged up ship-shape, with stage and box
Ready, and no such audience to be feared
As might — I don’t say would, though, Reginald —
Hiss you from pit and gallery.
REGINALD.
That they would!
It’s all a theft from Dodsley’s great old plays,
I know you’ll say — thirdrate and secondhand.
The book, you know, you lent me when a boy —
Or else I borrowed and you did not lend.
SIR ARTHUR.
That’s possible, you bad young scamp. I wish
We could have seen it played in the open air,
Boccaccio-like — but that would scarcely suit
With April in Northumberland.
ANNE.
Not quite.
REGINALD.
Come, don’t abuse our climate and revile
The crowning county of England — yes, the best
It must be.
FRANK.
Now he’s off again.
REGINALD.
I’m not.
But I just ask you where you’ll find its like?
Have you and I, then, raced across its moors
Till horse and boy were wellnigh mad with glee
So often, summer and winter, home from school,
And not found that out? Take the streams away,
The country would be sweeter than the south
Anywhere: give the south our streams, would it
Be fit to match our borders? Flower and crag,
Burnside and boulder, heather and whin — you don’t
Dream you can match them south of this? And then,
If all the unwatered country were as flat
As the Eton playing-fields, give it back our burns,
And set them singing through a sad south world,
And try to make them dismal as its fens —
They won’t be! Bright and tawny, full of fun
And storm and sunlight, taking change and chance
With laugh on laugh of triumph — why, you know
How they plunge, pause, chafe, chide across the rocks
And chuckle along the rapids, till they breathe
And rest and pant and build some bright deep bath
For happy boys to dive in, and swim up,
And match the water’s laughter.
SIR ARTHUR.
You at least
Know it, we doubt not. Woodlands too we have,
Have we not, Mabel? beech, oak, aspen, pine,
And Redgie’s old familiar friend, the birch,
With all its blithe lithe bounty of buds and sprays
For hapless boys to wince at, and grow red,
And feel a tingling memory prick their skins —
Sting till their burning blood seems all one blush —
Eh?
REGINALD.
I beg pardon if I bored you. But —
You know there’s nothing like this country. Frank,
Is there?
FRANK.
I never will dispute with you
Anything, Redgie. This is what you call
Being peaceable, is it? firing up like tow
And rattling off like small-shot?
REGINALD.
I can’t help —
Can I?
FRANK.
When you said that at school, my lad,
It didn’t help you much.
MABEL.
Don’t bully him so.
Don’t let them, Redgie.
SIR ARTHUR.
Redgie must be proof
Now against jokes that used to make the boy
Frown, blush, and wince: and well he may be.
ANNE.
Why?
Is Reginald much wiser than he was?
He seems to me the same boy still.
SIR ARTHUR.
He is,
I think; but now the luckiest living.
REGINALD.
Yes.
I’m half afraid one ought not anyhow
To be so happy. None of you, I know,
Our brothers and our sister, think it right.
You cannot. Nor do I.
SIR ARTHUR.
A willow-wreath
For Mabel! Redgie turns her off.
MABEL.
He might,
If she would let him: but he’ll find her grasp
Tenacious as a viper’s. Be resigned,
Redgie: I shall not let you go.
REGINALD.
I am
Resigned. But if God bade one rise to heaven
At once, and sit above the happiest there,
Resigned one might be — possibly: but still
Would not one shrink for shame’s sake? Look at her
And me!
SIR ARTHUR.
I never saw a better match.
MABEL.
I never had so sweet a compliment
Paid me. I shan’t forget it, Arthur.
REGINALD.
What
Possesses all of you to try and turn
The poor amount of head I have, I can’t
Imagine. One might think you had laid a bet
To make a man shed tears by way of thanks
And laugh at him for crying. Frank, — Arthur, — Anne,
You know I know how good it is of you
To wish me joy — and how I thank you: that
You must know.
ANNE.
Surely, Reginald, we do.
Goodwill like ours could hardly miss, I trust,
Of gratitude like yours.
MABEL.
What is it, Anne?
What makes you smile so?
ANNE.
Would you have me frown?
MABEL.
Rather than smile like that: you would not look
So enigmatic.
ANNE.
Let it pass, my dear:
We shall not smile to-morrow, when we play
Tragedy — shall we? Are the properties
Ready — stiletto and poison-flask?
REGINALD.
Ah, there
We are lucky. There’s the old laboratory, made
It seems for our stage purpose, where you know
Sir Edward kept his chemicals and things —
Collections of the uncanniest odds and ends,
Poisons and weapons from all parts of the earth,
Which Arthur lets us choose from.
ANNE.
Are they safe
To play with?
MABEL.
Are we children, Annie? Still
Perhaps you are r
ight: we had better let them be.
SIR ARTHUR.
The daggers are not dangerous — blunt as lead —
That I shall let you youngsters play with.
REGINALD.
Good:
But how about the poison? let us have
A genuine old Venetian flask to fill
With wine and water.
ANNE.
Let me choose it.
MABEL.
You?
Why?
ANNE.
I know more about such things.
MABEL.
About
Poison?
ANNE.
About the loveliest oldworld ware
Fonthill or Strawberry Hill could furnish: I’m
Miss Beckford, or Horatia Walpole.
SIR ARTHUR.
Come
And take your choice of the empty flasks. Don’t choose
A full one by mistake.
ANNE.
I promise not.
[Exeunt
Sir Arthur
and
Anne.
FRANK.
I leave you to consult together, then —
The playwright and his heroine: that’s but fair.
[Exit.
MABEL.
I don’t quite like it, Redgie: I’m afraid
Anne is not happy: I’m afraid.
REGINALD.
My love,
Is any one unhappy in the world?
I can’t just now believe in wretchedness.
MABEL.
But I can. Redgie, do be good — and grave.
I talk to you as if you were grown-up,
You see.
REGINALD.
You do me too much honour.
MABEL.
That
I do, you stupidest of tiresome boys.
Still, you were never ill-natured, were you? Well,
Have you not — boys see nothing — don’t you think
You might have seen, had you but eyes, that Anne
Is not — I don’t say (that would be absurd)
As happy as we are — no one could be that —
But not — not happy at all?
REGINALD.
My darling, no.
What dream is this — what lunacy of love?
MABEL.
Well — I must tell you everything, I see —
I wish I did not and I could not think
Her heart or fancy — call it either — were
More fixed on Frank than ever his on me.
REGINALD.
Eh! Well, why not? If he can come to love
Any one, after thinking once he loved
You — and you would not have it break his heart
Quite, would you? — what could well befall us all
Happier than this? You don’t suppose he can?
To me it seems — you know how hard and strange
It seems to hope or fancy: but God grant
It may be! If old Frank were happy once,
I should not feel I ought not — now and then —
To be so happy always.
MABEL.
But you ought.
How good you are, Redgie!
REGINALD.
O, very good.
I’d like — I want — to see my dearest friends
Happy — without a touch of trouble or pains
For me to take or suffer. Wonderful,
Is it not? saintly — great — heroic?
MABEL.
Well,
I think you may — I think we shall. But don’t
Be boyish — don’t be prompting Frank: you know,
Reginald, what I mean.
REGINALD.
Yes: that he may —
Will, very likely — want a hand like yours
Rather than mine to help him — bring him through —
Give him a lift or shove.
MABEL.
Leave well alone.
That’s all I mean.
REGINALD.
You always did know best,
And always will: I shall be always right
Now that my going or doing or saying depends
On you. It’s well you are what you are: you might,
If you were evil-minded, make a man
Run from his post — betray or yield his flag —
Duck down his head and scuttle.
MABEL.
Not a man
Like you.
REGINALD.
Let no man boast himself; does not
The Bible say — something like that?
MABEL.
Perhaps.
But then you don’t, and never did, you know —
Not even about this play of yours. Come in:
The windy darkness creeps and leaps by fits
Up westward: clouds, and neither stars nor sun,
And just the ghost of a lost moon gone blind
And helpless. If we are to play at all,
I must rehearse my part again to-night.
[Exeunt.
ACT IV.
Scene I. — A stage representing a garden by the sea.
Song
(from within).
Love and Sorrow met in May
Crowned with rue and hawthorn-spray,
And Sorrow smiled.
Scarce a bird of all the spring
Durst between them pass and sing,
And scarce a child.
Love put forth his hand to take
Sorrow’s wreath for sorrow’s sake,
Her crown of rue.
Sorrow cast before her down
Even for love’s sake Love’s own crown,
Crowned with dew.
Winter breathed again, and spring
Cowered and shrank with wounded wing
Down out of sight.
May, with all her loves laid low,
Saw no flowers but flowers of snow
That mocked her flight.
Love rose up with crownless head
Smiling down on springtime dead,
On wintry May.
Sorrow, like a cloud that flies,
Like a cloud in clearing skies,
Passed away.
Enter
Alvise.
ALVISE.
This way she went: the nightingales that heard
Fell silent, and the loud-mouthed salt sea-wind
Took honey on his lips from hers, and breathed
The new-born breath of roses. Not a weed
That shivers on the storm-shaped lines of shore
But felt a fragrance in it, and put on
The likeness of a lily.
Enter
Galasso.
GALASSO.
Thou art here.
God will not let thee hide thyself too close
For hate and him to find thee. Draw: the light
Is good enough to die by.
ALVISE.
Thou hast found him
That would have first found thee. Set thou thy sword
To mine, its edge is not so fain to bite
As is my soul to slay thee.
[They draw.
Enter
Beatrice
and
Francesca.
BEATRICE.
What is this?
What serpent have ye trod on?
ALVISE.
Didst thou bid me
Draw, seeing far off the surety for thy life
That women’s tongues should bring thee?
BEATRICE.
Speak not to him.
Speak to me — me, Alvise.
ALVISE.
Sweet, be still.
Galassi, shall I smite thee on the lips
That dare not answer with a lie to mine
And know they cannot, if they speak, but lie?
GALASSO.
Thou knowest I dare not in Beatrice’s sight
Strik
e thee to hell — nor threaten thee.
ALVISE.
I know
Thou liest. She stands between thy grave and thee,
As thou between the sun and hell.
FRANCESCA.
My lord,
Forbear him.
GALASSO.
I am not thy lord; who made me
Master or lord of thine? Not God should say,
Save with his tongue of thunder, and be heard
(If hearing die not in a dead man’s ear),
‘Forbear him.’
ALVISE.
Nay, Beatrice, bid not me
Forbear: he will not let me bid him live.
GALASSO.
Thou shalt not find a tongue some half-hour hence
To pray with to my sword for time to pray
And die not damned.
FRANCESCA.
Sir, speak not blasphemy.
Death’s wings beat round about us day and night:
Their wind is in our faces now. I pray you,
Take heed.
GALASSO.
Of what? of God, or thee? Not I.
But let Beatrice bend to me —
ALVISE.
To thee?
Bend? Nay, Beatrice, bind me not in chains,
Who would not play thy traitor: give my sword
What God gives all the waves and birds of the air,
Freedom.
BEATRICE.
He gives it not to slay.
ALVISE.
He shall.
Are the waves bloodless or the vultures bland?
Loose me, love: leave me: let me go.
BEATRICE.
Thou shalt not
Put off for me before my face thy nature,
Thy natural name of man, to mock with murder
The murderous waves and beasts of ravin. Slay me,