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diff --git a/10133-h/10133-h.htm b/10133-h/10133-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90781b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/10133-h/10133-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2790 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<title>The Vigil Of Venus And Other Poems</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<style type="text/css"> +body { font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; + background-color: #ffffff;} +a:link {color:#000000} +a:visited {color:#000000} +a:hover {color:#000000} + +</style> +</head> +<!-- Converted to HTML for the Gutenberg Project by Sjaani --> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10133 ***</div> + +<table width="80%" border="0" align="center" cellspacing="10"> + <tr> + <td> + +<h1 align="center">THE VIGIL OF VENUS</h1> +<h2 align="center">AND OTHER POEMS BY</h2> +<h2 align="center">"Q"</h2> +<h3 align="center">First Published, August 22nd, 1912<br /> + Second Edition, 1912</h3> + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> +<p> +<strong>TO MAURICE HEWLETT</strong> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">HEWLETT! as ship to ship</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Let us the ensign dip.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">There may be who despise</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">For dross our merchandise,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Our balladries, our bales</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Of woven tales;</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Yet, Hewlett, the glad gales</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Favonian! And what spray</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Our dolphins toss'd in play,</span><br /> +Full in old Triton's beard, on Iris' shimmering veils!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Scant tho' the freight of gold</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Commercial in our hold,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Pæstum, Eridanus</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Perchance have barter'd us</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">'Bove chrematistic care</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p><a href="#vigilvenus">THE VIGIL OF VENUS</a><br /> +<a href="#pervigilium">PERVIGILIUM VENERIS</a><br /> +<a href="#regent">THE REGENT—A DRAMA IN ONE ACT</a><br /> + +<a href="#poems">POEMS</a><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#exmoor">EXMOOR VERSES</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#vashti">VASHTI'S SONG</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#saturn">SATURN</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#dereliction">DERELICTION</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#folksong">TWO FOLK SONGS</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#soldier">THE SOLDIER</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#marine">THE MARINE</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#maryleslie">MARY LESLIE</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#jenslove">JENIFER'S LOVE</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#twoduets">TWO DUETS</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#statutear">THE STATUES AND THE TEAR</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#nuptial">NUPTIAL NIGHT</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#hesperus">HESPERUS</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#royalvirtue">CHANT ROYAL OF HIGH VIRTUE</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#coronation">CORONATION HYMN</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#truro">THREE MEN OF TRURO</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#almamater">ALMA MATER</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#christmas">CHRISTMAS EVE</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#theroot">THE ROOT</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#violets">TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME A BOX OF VIOLETS</a></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><a href="#children">OF THREE CHILDREN CHOOSING A CHAPLET OF VERSE</a></span><br /> +<a href="#smileyes">EPILOGUE: TO A MOTHER, ON SEEING HER SMILE REPEATED +IN HER DAUGHTER'S EYES</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<a name="vigilvenus"></a><h2>THE VIGIL OF VENUS</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The <i>Pervigilium Veneris</i>—of unknown authorship, but clearly belonging +to the late literature of the Roman Empire—has survived in two MSS., +both preserved at Paris in the <i>Bibliothèque Nationale</i>.</p> + +<p>Of these two MSS. the better written may be assigned (at earliest) to +the close of the seventh century; the other (again at earliest) to the +close of the ninth. Both are corrupt; the work of two illiterate +copyists who—strange to say—were both smatterers enough to betray +their little knowledge by converting <i>Pervigilium</i> into <i>Per Virgilium</i> +(<i>scilicet</i>, "by Virgil"): thus helping us to follow the process of +thought by which the Middle Ages turned Virgil into a wizard. Here and +there the texts become quite silly, separately or in consent; and just +where they agree in the most surprising way—<i>i.e.</i> in the arrangement +of the lines—the conjectural emendator is invited to do his worst by a +note at the head of the older Codex, "Sunt vero versus xxii"—"There are +rightly twenty-two lines."</p> + +<p>This has started much ingenious guess-work. But no really convincing +rearrangement has been achieved as yet; and I have been content to take +the text pretty well as it stands, with a few corrections upon which +most scholars agree. With a poem of "paratactic structure" the best of +us may easily go astray by transposing lines, or blocks of lines, to +correspond with <i>our</i> sequence of thought; and I shall be content if, +following the only texts to which appeal can be made,[1] my translation +be generally intelligible.</p> + +<p>It runs pretty closely, line for line, with the original; because one +may love and emulate classical terseness even while despairing to rival +it. But it does not attempt to be literal; for even were it worth doing, +I doubt if it be possible for anyone in our day to hit precisely the +note intended by an author or heard by a reader in the eighth century. +Men change subtly as nations succeed to nations, religions to religions, +philosophies to philosophies; and it is a property of immortal poetry to +shift its appeal. It does not live by continuing to mean the some thing. +It grows as we grow. We smile, for instance, when some interlocutor in a +dialogue of Plato takes a line from the <i>Iliad</i> and applies it seriously +<i>au pied de la lettre</i>. We can hardly conceive what the great line +conveyed to him; but it may mean something equally serious to us, though +in a different way.</p> + +<p>[1] Facsimiles of the two Codices can be studied in a careful edition of +the <i>Pervigilum</i> by Mr Cecil Clementi, published by Mr B.H. Blackwell of +Oxford, 1911.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<a name="pervigilium"></a><h2>PERVIGILIUM VENERIS</h2> + +<p><i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet</i>.<br /> +Ver novum, ver jam canorurn, vere natus orbis est;<br /> +Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites,<br /> +Et nemus comam resolvit de maritis imbribus.<br /> +Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum 5<br /> +Inplicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo:<br /> +Cras Dione jura dicit fulta sublimi throno.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>To-morrow—What news of to-morrow?<br /> +Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew</i>!<br /> +It is Spring, it is chorussing Spring; 'tis the birthday of Earth, and for you!<br /> +It is Spring; and the Loves and the birds wing together and woo to accord<br /> +Where the bough to the rain has unbraided her locks as a bride to her lord.<br /> +For she walks—she our Lady, our Mistress of Wedlock—the woodlands atween, 5<br /> +And the bride-bed she weaves them, with myrtle enlacing, with curtains of green.<br /> +Look aloft! list the law of Dione, sublime and enthroned in the blue:<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew</i>!</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Tunc liquore de superno spumeo et ponti globo,<br /> +Cærulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos, 10<br /> +Fecit undantem Dionen de maritis imbribus.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quiqiie amavit cras amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus,<br /> +Ipsa surgentes papillas de Favoni spiritu<br /> +Urget in toros tepentes; ipsa roris lucidi 15<br /> +Noctis aura quem relinquit, spargit umentes aquas.<br /> +Et micant lacrimæ trementes de caduco pondere:</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Time was that a rain-cloud begat her, impregning the heave of the deep,<br /> +'Twixt hooves of sea-horses a-scatter, stampeding the dolphins as sheep. 10<br /> +Lo! arose of that bridal Dione, rainbow'd and besprent of its dew!<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew</i>!</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>She, she, with her gem-dripping finger enamels the wreath of the year;<br /> +She, she, when the maid-bud is nubile and swelling winds—whispers anear,<br /> +Disguising her voice in the Zephyr's—"So secret the bed! And thou shy?" 15<br /> +She, she, thro' the hush'd humid Midsummer night draws the dew from on high;<br /> +Dew bright with the tears of its origin, dew with its weight on the bough,</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Gutta præceps orbe parvo sustinet casus suos.<br /> +En, pudorem florulentæ prodiderunt purpuræ:<br /> +Umor ille quern serenis astra rorant noctibus 20<br /> +Mane virgineas papillas solvit umenti peplo.<br /> +Ipsa jussit mane ut udas virgines nubant rosæ;<br /> +Fusa Paphies de cruore deque Amoris osculis<br /> +Deque gemmis deque flammis deque solis purpuris,<br /> +Cras ruborem qui latebat veste tectus ignea 25<br /> +Unico marita nodo non pudebit solvere.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Misdoubting and clinging and trembling—"Now, now must I fall? Is it now?"<br /> +Star-fleck'd on the stem of the brier as it gathers and falters and flows,<br /> +Lo! its trail runs a ripple of fire on the nipple it bids be a rose, 20<br /> +Yet englobes it diaphanous, veil upon veil in a tiffany drawn<br /> +To bedrape the small virginal breasts yet unripe for the spousal of dawn;<br /> +Till the vein'd very vermeil of Venus, till Cupid's incarnadine kiss,<br /> +Till the ray of the ruby, the sunrise, ensanguine the bath of her bliss;<br /> +Till the wimple her bosom uncover, a tissue of fire to the view, 25<br /> +And the zone o'er the wrists of the lover slip down as they reach to undo.<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew</i>!</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Ipsa nymphas diva luco jussit ire myrteo:<br /> +It puer comes puellis. Nee tamen credi potest<br /> +Esse Amorem feriatum, si sagittas vexerit. 30<br /> +Ite, nymphæ, posuit arma, feriatus est Amor;<br /> +Jussus est inermis ire, nudus ire jussus est,<br /> +Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne Iæderet;<br /> +Sed tamen nymphse cavete, quod Cupido pulcher est;<br /> +Est in armis totus idem quando nudus est Amor! 35</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit eras amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Conpari Venus pudore mittit ad te virgines:</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>"Go, maidens," Our Lady commands, "while the myrtle is green in the groves,<br /> +Take the Boy to your escort." "But ah!" cry the maidens, "what trust is in Love's<br /> +Keeping holiday too, while he weareth his archery, tools of his trade?" 30<br /> +"Go! he lays them aside, an apprentice released; ye may wend unafraid.<br /> +See, I bid him disarm, he disarms; mother-naked I bid him to go,<br /> +And he goes mother-naked. What flame can he shoot without arrow or bow?"<br /> +Yet beware ye of Cupid, ye maidens! Beware most of all when he charms<br /> +As a child: for the more he runs naked, the more he's a strong man-at-arms. 35</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!<br /> +"Lady Dian"—Behold how demurely the damsels approach her and sue—</i> +</p> +<p>Una res est quam rogamus: cede, virgo Delia,<br /> +Ut nemus sit incruentum de ferinis stragibus.<br /> +Ipsa vellet ut venires, si deceret virginem: 40<br /> +Jam tribus choros videres feriatos noctibus<br /> +Congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos,<br /> +Floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas:<br /> +Nee Ceres nee Bacchus absunt, nee poetarum Deus;<br /> +De tenente tota nox est pervigilia canticis: 45<br /> +Regnet in silvis Dione; tu recede, Delia.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Hear Venus her only petition! Dear maiden of<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">Delos, depart!</span><br /><br /> +Let the forest be bloodless to-day, unmolested the<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">roe and the hart!</span><br /><br /> +Holy huntress, thyself she would bid be her guest, 40<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">could thy chastity stoop</span><br /><br /> +To approve of our revels, our dances—three<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">nights that we weave in a troop</span><br /><br /> +Arm-in-arm thro' thy sanctu'ries whirling, till faint<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">and dispersed in the grove</span><br /><br /> +We lie with thy lilies for chaplets, thy myrtles for<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">arbours of love:</span><br /><br /> +And Apollo, with Ceres and Bacchus to chorus—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">song, harvest, and wine—</span><br /><br /> +Hymns thee dispossess'd, "'Tis Dione who reigns! 45<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">Let Diana resign!"</span><br /><br /> +O, the wonderful nights of Dione! dark bough,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">with her star shining thro'!</span><br /><br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">loved, love anew!</span></i> +</p> +<p>Jussit Hyblæis tribunal stare diva floribus;<br /> +Præses ipsa jura dicit, adsederunt Gratiæ.<br /> +Hybla, totos funde floras quidquid annus adtulit; 50<br /> +Hybla, florum rumpe vestem quantus Ætnæ campus est.</p> +<p>Ruris hic erunt puellæ, vel puellæ montium,<br /> +Quæque silvas, quæque lucos, quæque fontes incolunt:</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Jussit omnes adsidere mater alitis dei,<br /> +Jussit et nudo puellas nil Amori credere. 55</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.</i><br /> +She has set up her court, has Our Lady, in Hybla,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">and deckt it with blooms:—</span><br /><br /> +With the Graces at hand for assessors Dione dispenses<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">her dooms.</span><br /><br /> +Now burgeon, O Hybla! put forth and abound, till 50<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Proserpina's field,</span><br /><br /> +To the foison thy lap overflowing its laurel of Sicily<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">yield.</span><br /><br /> +Call, assemble the nymphs—hamadryad and dryad—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">the echoes who court</span><br /><br /> +From the rock, who the rushes inhabit, in ripples<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">who swim and disport.</span><br /><br /> +"I admonish you maids—I, his mother, who suckled<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">the scamp ere he flew—</span><br /><br /> +An ye trust to the Boy flying naked, some pestilent 55<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">prank ye shall rue."</span><br /><br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">loved, love anew!</span></i> +</p> +<p>Et rigentibus virentes ducit umbras floribus:<br /> +Cras erit quum primus Æther copulavit nuptias,<br /> +Et pater totum creavit vernis annum nubibus,<br /> +In sinum maritus imber fluxit almæ conjugis, 60<br /> +Unde fetus mixtus omnes aleret magno corpore.<br /> +Ipsa venas atque mentem permeanti spiritu<br /> +Intus occultis gubernat procreatrix viribus,<br /> +Perque coelum, perque terras, perque pontum<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">subditum</span><br /><br /> +Pervium sui tenorem seminali tramite 65</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>She has coax'd her the shade of the hazel to cover<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">the wind-flower's birth.</span><br /><br /> +Since the day the Great Father begat it, descending<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">in streams upon Earth;</span><br /><br /> +When the Seasons were hid in his loins, and the<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Earth lay recumbent, a wife,</span><br /><br /> +To receive in the searching and genital shower the 60<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">soft secret of life.</span><br /><br /> +As the terrible thighs drew it down, and conceived,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">as the embryo ran</span><br /><br /> +Thoro' blood, thoro' brain, and the Mother gave all<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">to the making of man,</span><br /><br /> +She, she, our Dione, directed the seminal current to<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">creep,</span><br /><br /> +Penetrating, possessing, by devious paths all the<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">height, all the deep.</span><br /><br /> +She, of all procreation procuress, the share to the 65<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">furrow laid true;</span> +</p> +<p> +Inbuit, jussitque mundum nosse nascendi vias.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit<br /> +cras amet.</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Ipsa Trojanos nepotes in Latinos transtulit,<br /> +Ipsa Laurentem puellam conjugem nato dedit;<br /> +Moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem; 70<br /> +Romuleas ipsa fecit cum Sabinis nuptias,<br /> +Unde Ramnes et Quirites proque prole posterum<br /> +Romuli matrem crearet et nepotem Cæsarem.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">amet.</span></i> +</p> +<p>She, she, to the womb drave the knowledge, and open'd the ecstasy through.<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Her favour it was fill'd the sail of the Trojan for Latium bound;<br /> +Her favour that won her Aeneas a bride on Laurentian ground,<br /> +And anon from the cloister inveigled the Virgin, the Vestal, to Mars; 70<br /> +As her wit by the wild Sabine rape recreated her Rome for its wars,<br /> +With the Ramnes, Quirites, together ancestrally proud as they drew<br /> +From Romulus down to our Caesar—last, best of that bone, of that thew.<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Rura fecundat voluptas: rura Venerem sentiunt: 75<br /> +Ipse Amor puer Dionse rure natus dicitur.<br /> +Hunc ager, cum parturiret ipsa, suscepit sinu:<br /> +Ipsa florum delicatis educavit osculis.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras,<br /> +amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Ecce jam super genestas explicant tauri latus, 80<br /> +Quisque tutus quo tenetur conjugali foedere:<br /> +Subter umbras cum maritis ecce balantum greges;<br /> +Et canoras non tacere diva jussit alites.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Pleasure planteth a field; it conceives to the passion, 75<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">the pang, of his joy.</span><br /><br /> +In a field was Dione in labour delivered of Cupid the<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Boy;</span><br /><br /> +And the field in its fostering lap from her travail<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">received him: he drew</span><br /><br /> +Mother's milk from the delicate kisses of flowers;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">and he prosper'd and grew--</span><br /><br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">loved, love anew!</span></i> +</p> +<p>Lo! behold ye the bulls, with how lordly a flank 80<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">they besprawl on the broom!--</span><br /><br /> +Yet obey the uxorious yoke, and are tamed to<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Dione her doom.</span><br /><br /> +Or behear ye the sheep, to the husbanding rams<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">how they bleat to the shade!</span><br /><br /> +Or behear ye the birds, at the Goddess' command<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">how they sing unafraid!</span> +</p> +<p> +Jam loquaces ore rauco stagna cycni perstrepunt;<br /> +Adsonat Terei puella subter umbram populi, 85<br /> +Ut putes motus amoris ore dici musico,<br /> +Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro.<br /> +Ilia cantat, nos tacemus. Quando ver venit meum?<br /> +Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam?<br /> +Perdidi Musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit; 90<br /> +Sic Amyclas, cum tacerent, perdidit silentium.<br /> +<i>Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras<br /> +amet</i>.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Be it harsh as the swannery's clamour that shatters the hush of the lake,<br /> +Be it dulcet as where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, 85<br /> +So melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own,<br /> +She plaineth—her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone.<br /> +Hark! Hush! Draw around to the circle ... Ah, loitering Summer! Say when<br /> +For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow again?<br /> +I am old; I am dumb; I have waited to sing till Apollo withdrew— 90<br /> +So Amyclae a moment was mute, and for ever a wilderness grew.<br /> +<i>Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew,</i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>To-morrow!—to-morrow!</i></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<p> +<strong>TO<br /> +CHARLES THURSBY<br /> +THE "ONLIE BEGETTER"</strong> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<a name="regent"></a><h2>THE REGENT</h2> + +<p>A DRAMA IN ONE ACT</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<h2>DRAMATIS PERSONAE</h2> + +<p>CARL'ANTONIO, <i>Duke of Adria</i></p> + +<p>TONINO, <i>his young son</i></p> + +<p>LUCIO; <i>Count of Vallescura, brother to the Duchess</i></p> + +<p>CESARIO, <i>Captain of the Guard</i></p> + +<p>GAMBA, <i>a Fool</i></p> +<br /> + +<p>OTTILIA, <i>Duchess and Regent of Adria</i></p> + +<p>LUCETTA, <i>a Lady-in-Waiting</i></p> + +<p>FULVIA, <i>a Lady of the Court</i></p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Courtiers, Priests, Choristers, Soldiers, Mariners, +Townsfolk, etc.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Scene is the Ducal Palace of Adria, in the N. Adriatic</i></p> + +<p><i>The Date, 1571</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<h2>THE REGENT</h2> + +<p><strong>SCENE</strong>.——<i>A terraced courtyard before the Ducal Palace. +Porch and entrance of Chapel, R. A semicircular +balcony, L., with balustrade and marble seats, and an +opening whence a flight of steps leads down to the +city. The city lies out of sight below the terrace; +from which, between its cypresses and statuary, is +seen a straight stretch of a canal; beyond the canal are +sand-hills and the line of the open sea. Mountains, +L., dip down to the sea and form a curve of the +coast.</i></p> + +<p><i>As the curtain rises, a crowd of town and country +folk is being herded to the back of the terrace by the +Ducal Guard, under Cesario. Within the Chapel, to</i> +<i>the sound of an organ, boys' voices are chanting the +service of the Mass.</i></p> + +<p><i>Cesario, Gamba the Fool, Guards, Populace.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Way there! Give room! The Regent comes from Mass. +Guards, butt them on the toes—way there! give room! +Prick me that laggard's leg-importunate fools!</p> + +<p><i>Guards.</i> Room for the Regent! Room!</p> + +<p>[<i>The sacring bell rings within the Chapel.</i></p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Hark there, the bell!</p> + +<p>[<i>A pause. Men of the crowd take off their caps.</i></p> + +<p>Could ye not leave, this day of all the year, +Your silly suits, petitions, quarrels, pleas? +Could ye not leave, this once in seven years, +Our Lady to come holy-quiet from Mass. +Lean on the wall, and loose her cage-bird heart, +To lift and breast and dance upon the breeze. +Draws home her lord the Duke?</p> + +<p><i>Crowd.</i> Long live the Duke!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> The devil, then! Why darken his approach?</p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Gamba (from the bench where he has been mending his +viol).</i> Because, Captain, 'tis a property knaves +and fools have in common—to stand in their own +light, as 'tis of soldiers to talk bad logic. That +knave, now—he with the red nose and the black +eye—the Duke's colours, loyal man!—you clap +an iron on his leg, and ask him why he is not +down in the city, hanging them out of window! +Go to: you are a soldier!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> And you a Fool, and on your own showing +stand in your own light.</p> + +<p><i>Gamba.</i> Nay, neither in my own light, nor as a +Fool. So should myself stand between the sun +and my shadow; whereas I am not myself—these +seven years have I been but the shadow of a +Fool. Yet one must tune up for the Duke</p> + +<p><i>(Strikes his viol and sings.)</i></p> + +<p>"Bird of the South, my Rondinello----"</p> + +<p>Flat-Flat!</p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Cesario (calling up to watchman on the Chapel roof).</i> Ho there! What news?</p> + +<p><i>A Voice.</i> Captain, no sail!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Where sits +The wind?</p> + +<p><i>Voice.</i> Nor' west, and north a point!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Perchance +They have down'd sail and creep around the flats.</p> + +<p><i>Gamba (tuning his viol).</i> Flats, flats! the straight horizon, and the life +These seven years laid by rule! The curst canal +Drawn level through the drawn-out level sand +And thistle-tufts that stink as soon as pluck'd! +Give me the hot crag and the dancing heat, +Give me the Abruzzi, and the cushioned thyme— +Brooks at my feet, high glittering snows above. +What were thy music, viol, without a ridge?</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>Noise of commotion in the city below.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Cesario</i>. Watchman, what news?</p> + +<p><i>A Voice</i>. Sir, on the sea no sail!</p> + +<p><i>One of the Crowd</i>. But through the town below a horseman spurs— +I think, Count Lucio! Yes—Count Lucio! +He nears, draws rein, dismounts!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario</i>. Sure, he brings news.</p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Gamba</i>. I think he brings word the Duke is sick; +his loyal folk have drunk so much of his +health.</p> + +<p>[<i>A murmur has been growing in the town below. It +breaks into cheers as Count Lucio comes springing +up to the terrace.</i></p> + +<p><i>Enter Lucio.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> News! Where's the Regent? Eh? is Mass not said? +Cesario, news! I rode across the dunes; +A pilot—Nestore—you know the man— +Came panting. Sixteen sail beyond the point! +That's not a galley lost!</p> + +<p><i>Crowd.</i> Long live the Duke!</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Hark to the tocsin! I have carried fire— +Wildfire! Why, where's my sister? I've a mind—</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>He strides towards the door of the Chapel; but +pauses at the sound of chanting within, and +comes back to Cesario.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p>Man, are you mute? I say the town's aflame +Below! But here, up here, you stand and stare +Like prisoners loosed to daylight. Rub your eyes, +Believe!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario (musing).</i> It has been long.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> As tapestry +Pricked out by women's needles; point-device +As saints in fitted haloes. Yet they stab, +Those needles. Oh, the devil take their tongues!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Why, what's the matter?</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> P'st! another lie +Against the Countess Fulvia; and the train +Laid to my sister's ear. Cesario, +My sister is a saint—and yet she married: +Therefore should understand ... Would saints, like cobblers, +Stick but to business in this naughty world! +Ah, well! the Duke comes home.</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> And what of that?</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Release!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Release?</p> + +<p><i>Lucio (mocking a chant within the Chapel).</i> From priests and petticoats +Deliver us, Good Lord!</p> + +<p><i>Gamba (strikes a chord on viol). AMEN!</i></p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Count Lucio, +These seven years agone, when the Duke sailed, +You were a child—a pretty, forward boy; +And I a young lieutenant of the Guard, +Burning to serve abroad. But that day, rather, +I clenched my nails over an inward wound: +For that a something manlier than my years— +Look, bearing, what-not—by the Duke not miss'd, +Condemned me to promotion: I must bide +At home, command the Guard! 'Tis an old hurt, +But scalded on my memory.... Well, they sailed! +And from the terrace here, sick with self-pity, +Wrapped in my wrong, forgetful of devoir, +I watch'd them through a mist—turned with a sob— +Uptore my rooted sight— +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6.25em;">There, there she stood;</span><br /> +Her hand press'd to her girdle, where the babe +Stirred in her body while she gazed—she gazed— +But slowly back controlled her eyes, met mine; +So—with how wan, how small, how brave a smile!— +Reached me her hands to kiss ... +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 8em;">O royal hands!</span><br /> +What burdens since they have borne let Adria tell. +But hear me swear by them, Count Lucio— +Who slights our Regent throws his glove to me.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Why, soothly, she's my sister!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> 'But the court +Is dull? No masques, few banquetings—and prayers +Be long, and youth for pastime leaps the gate?' +Yet if the money husbanded on feasts +Have fed our soldiery against the Turk, +Year after year, and still the State not starved; +Was't not well done? And if, responsible +To God, and lonely, she has leaned on God +Too heavily for our patience, was't not wise?— +And well, though weary?</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> I tell you, she's my sister!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Well, an you will, bridle on that. Lord Lucio, +You named the Countess Fulvia. To my sorrow, +Two hours ago I called on her and laid her +Under arrest.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> The devil! For what?</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> For that +A lady, whose lord keeps summer in the hills +To nurse a gouty foot, should penalize +His dutiful return by shutting doors +And hanging out a ladder made of rope, +Or prove its safety by rehearsing it +Upon a heavier man.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> I'll go to her. +Oh, this is infamous!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Nay, be advised: +No hardship irks the lady, save to sit +At home and feed her sparrows; nor no worse +Annoy than from her balcony to spy +(Should the eye rove) a Switzer of the Guard +At post between her raspberry-canes, to watch +And fright the thrushes from forbidden fruit.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Infamous! infamous!</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Enough, my lord: +The Regent!</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>Doors of the Chapel open. The organ sounds, +with voices of choir chanting the recessional. +The Court enters from Mass, attending the +Regent Ottilia and her son Tonino. She wears +a crown and heavy dalmatic. Her brother +Lucio, controlling himself with an effort, kisses +her hand and conducts her to the marble bench, +which serves for her Chair of State. She bows, +receiving the homage of the crowd; but, after +seating herself, appears for a few moments unconscious +of her surroundings. Then, as her +rosary slips from her fingers and falls heavily +at her feet, she speaks.</i></p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> So slips the chain linking this world with Heaven, +And drops me back to earth: so slips the chain +That hangs my spirit to the Redeemer's cross +Above pollution in the pure swept air +Whereunder frets this hive: so slips the chain— +<i>(She starts up)</i>—God! the dear sound! Was that his anchor dropped? +Speak to the watchman, one! Call to the watch! +What news?</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Aloft! What news?</p> + +<p><i>Voice above.</i> No sail as yet!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Ah, pardon, sirs! My ears are strung to-day, +And play false airs invented by the wind. +Methought a hawse-pipe rattled ...</p> + +<p><i>Gamba (chants to his viol). Shepherds, see— +Lo! What a mariner love hath made me!</i></p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> What chants the Fool?</p> + +<p><i>Gamba.</i> Madonna, 'tis a trifle +Made by a silly poet on wives that stand +All night at windows listening the surf— +<i>Now he comes! Will he come? Alas! no, no!</i></p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Peace, lively! Madam, there is news—brave news! +I'm from the watch-house. There the pilots tell +Of sixteen sail to the southward! Sixteen sail, +And nearing fast!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Praise God! dear Lucio!</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>She has seated herself again. She takes Lucio's +hand and speaks, petting it.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p>What? Glowing with my happiness? That's like you. +But for yourself the hour, too, holds release.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio (between sullenness and shame, with a glance at +Cesario).</i> "Release?"</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> You will forgive? I have great need +To be forgiven: sadly I have been slack +In guardianship, and by so much betrayed +My promise to our mother's passing soul. +Myself in cares immersed, I left the child +Among his toys—and turn to find him man— +But yet so much a boy that boyhood can +<i>(Wistfully)</i> Laugh in his honest eyes? Forgive me, Lucio! +Tell me, whate'er have slackened, there has slipped +No knot of love. To-morrow we'll make sport, +Be playmates and invent new games, and old— +Wreath flowers for crowns—</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>He drags his hand away. She gazes at him +wistfully, and turns to the Captain of the +Guard.</i></p> + +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 7.5em;">Cesario,</span><br /> +What are the suits?</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> They are but three to-day, +Madonna. First, a scoundrel here in irons +For having struck the Guard.</p> + +<p><i>Regent (eying the culprit).</i> His name, I think, +Is Donatello Crocco. Hey? You improve, +Good man. The last time 'twas your wife you basted. +At this rate, in another year or two +You'll bang the Turk. Do you confess the assault?</p> + +<p><i>Prisoner.</i> I do.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Upon a promise we dismiss you. +Your tavern, as it comes into our mind, +Is the 'Three Cups.' So many, and no more, +You'll drink to-day—have we your word? Three cups, +And each a <i>Viva</i> for the Duke's return.</p> + +<p><i>Prisoner.</i> Your Highness, I'll not take it at the price +Of my good manners. I'm a gallant man: +And who in Adria calls. 'Three cheers for the Duke!' +But adds a fourth for the Duchess? Lady, nay; +Grant me that fourth, or back I go to the cells!</p> +<br /> + +<p>[<i>The Regent laughs and nods to the Guard to release +him.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> What next?</p> + +<p><i>An Old Woman (very rapidly).</i> Your Highness will not know me—Zia +Agnese, Giovannucci's wife that was; +And feed a two-three cows, as a widow may, +On the marshes where the grass is salt and sweet +As your Highness knows—and always true to pail +Until this Nicolo—</p> + +<p><i>Nicolo.</i> Lies! lies, your Highness!</p> + +<p><i>Old Woman.</i> Having a quarrel, puts the evil eye +On Serafina. She's my best of cows, +In stall with calf but ten days weaned.</p> + +<p><i>Nicolo.</i> Lies! lies!</p> + +<p><i>Old Woman.</i> I would your Highness saw her! When that thief +Hangs upon Lazarus' bosom, he'll be bidding +A ducat for each drop of milk he's cost me, +To cool his tongue.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Ay—ay, the cow is sick, +I think; and mind me, being country-bred, +Of a cure for such: which is, to buy a comb +And comb the sufferer's tail at feeding-time. +If Zia Agnese do but this, she'll counter +The Evil Eye, and maybe with her own +Detect who thieves her Serafina's hay.</p> + +<p><i>Old Woman.</i> God bless your Highness!</p> + +<p><i>Nicolo.</i> God bless your Highness!</p> + +<p><i>Regent (taking up a fresh suit).</i>Why, what's here? "<i>Costanza, +Wife of Giuseppe Boni, citeth him +And sueth to live separate, for neglect +And divers beatings, as to wit----</i>" H'm, h'm— +<i>Likewise to keep the child Geronimo, +Begotten of his body.</i> You defend +The suit, Giuseppe?</p> + +<p><i>A Young Peasant (shrugs his shoulders).</i> As the woman will! +I'll not deny I beat her.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> But neglect! +How came you to neglect her? Look on her— +The handsome, frowsy slut, that, by appearance, +Hath never washed her body since she wed. +A beating we might pass. But how neglect +To take her by the neck unto the pump +And hold her till her wet and furious face +Were once again worth kissing? Well—well—well! +Neglect is proven. She shall have deserts: +<i>(To a Clerk)</i> But—write, "Defendant keeps his lawful child."</p> + +<p><i>Young Peasant.</i> My lady—</p> + +<p><i>Wife.</i> Nay, my lady—</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Eh? What's this?</p> + +<p><i>Wife.</i> The poor <i>bambino</i>! Nay, 'twas not the suit! +How should Giuseppe, being a fool, a man—</p> + +<p><i>Young Peasant.</i> Aye, aye: that's sense. I love him: still, you see—</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> An if my judgment suit you not, go home, +The pair. <i>(As they are going she calls the woman back.)</i> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Costanza! hath your husband erred</span><br /> +With other woman?</p> + +<p><i>Young Peasant</i>. Never!</p> + +<p><i>Wife</i>. I'll not charge him +With that.</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. But, yes, you may. This man hath held +Another woman to his breast.</p> + +<p><i>Wife</i>. Her name? +That I may tear her eyes!</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Her name's Costanza. +The same Costanza that, with body washed, +With ribbon in her hair, light in her eyes, +Arrayed a cottage to allure his heart. +Go home, poor fools, and find her!... +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Heigh! No others? [<i>Heaves a sigh.</i></span><br /> +Captain, dismiss the Guard. The watch, aloft— +Set him elsewhere. We would not be o'erlooked. +You only, Lucio—you, Lucetta—stay; +You for a while, Cesario.</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 4em;">[<i>Exeunt Courtiers, Guard, Crowd, etc.</i></span><br /> + +<p>Heigh! that's over— +The last Court of the Regent; and the books +Accounts of stewardship, my seven years all, +Closed here for audit. +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Nay, there's one thing more—</span><br /> +Brother, erewhile I spoke you sisterly, +You turned away, and still you bite your lip: +Signs that may short my preface. It concerns +The Countess Fulvia.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio</i>. Ha!</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Go, bring her, Captain.</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 8.75em;">[<i>Exit Cesario</i>.</span><br /> + +<p>List to me, Lucio: listen, brother dear, +First playmate-child, tending whose innocence +Myself learned motherhood. Shall I deny +Youth to be loved and follow after love? +There is a love breaks like a morning beam +On the husht novice kneeling by his arms; +And worse there is, whose kisses strangle love, +Whose feet take hold of hell. My Lucio, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Follow not that!</span> +</p> +<p><i>Lucio</i>. Why, who—who hath maligned +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The Countess?</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i> Not maligned. Lucetta, here—</p> + +<p><i>Lucio</i>. Lucetta! Curse Lucetta and her tongue! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Am I a child, to be nagged by waiting-maids?</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Regent</i>. No, but a man, and shall weigh evidence.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio</i>. But I'll not hear it! If her viper tongue +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Can kill, why kill it must. But send me a man,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And I will smite his mouth—ay, slit his tongue—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">That dares defame the Countess!</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Stay: she comes.</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">[<i>Enter the Countess Fulvia, Cesario attending.</i></span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Madam, the reason wherefore you are summoned</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">No doubt you guess, from a rude earlier call</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Our Captain paid you. Certain practices,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Which you may force me name, are charged upon</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">you</span><br /> +On testimony you may force me call +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And may with freedom question.</span> +</p> +<p><i>Fulvia</i>. I'll not question: +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">No, nor I will not answer.</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Lucio</i>. Then I'll answer!' +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">For me, for all, she is innocent!</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Regent</i>. For you? +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">We'll hope it: but 'for all' 's more wide an oath</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Than you can swear, sir. I'll not bandy you</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Words nor debate. Myself the ladder saw;</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Lucetta, here, the ladder and the man.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><i>What</i> man she will not say. Cesario</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Has tracked his footprint on her garden plots.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Must we say more?</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Fulvia</i>. No need. Her fingering mind +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Is a close cupboard turning all things rancid.</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Lucio</i>. Yea, for such wry-necks all the world's a lawn +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To peek and peer and pounce a sinful worm;</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The fatter, the more luscious.</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Regent. </i> Lucio, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">This woman nought gainsays.</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Fulvia (fiercely).</i> As why should I? +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I'll question not, nor answer. 'Neath your brow</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">My sentence hunches, crawls, like cat to spring.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Pah! there's no prude will match your virtuous wife</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">You'd banish me?</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Regent.</i> I do. Cesario, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">See to it the City gate shuts not to-night.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And she this side.</span> +</p> + + +<p><i>Fulvia (laughs recklessly).</i> To-night? To-night's your own. +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Most modest woman! Duchess, there's a well</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">By the road, some seven miles beyond the town.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">There, 'neath the stars, I'll dip a hand and drink</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To the good Duke's disport. But have a care!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">That cup's not yet to lip.</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent. </i> Captain, remove her. +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Lucio, remain.</span> +</p> + +<p><i>[Exeunt the Countess Fulvia, Cesario following]</i></p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> I'll not remain—When ice +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Sits judge of fire, what justice shall be done?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Sister, there be your books—peruse them. There</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The sea-line--bide you so with back to it.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">While the cold inward heat of cruelty</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Warms what was once your heart, now crusted o'er</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">With duty and slimed with poisonous drip of tongues.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">God help the Duke, if what he left he'd find!</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 11.75em;"><i>[Exit Lucio]</i></span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Is't so, I wonder? Go, Lucetta, fetch +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">My glass, if haply I may tell.</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 11.25em;"><i>[Exit Lucetta.]</i></span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 11.5em;">Is't so?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And have these years enforced, encrusted me</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To something monstrous, neither woman nor man?</span><br /> +My lord, my lord! too heavy was the load +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">You laid! Yet I'll not blame you: for myself</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Ruled the straight path the long account correct</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">As in these books, my ledgers....</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">[<i>While she turns the pages, Gamba the Fool creeps</i></span><i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">in and hoists himself on the balustrade. He</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">tries his viol, and sings</span></i><span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">.</span> +</p> + +<p>SONG: <i>Gamba</i>.</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Bird of the South, my Rondinello—</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Hey? That Song!</p> + +<p><i>Gamba</i>. Hie to me, fly to me, steel-blue mate! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Under my breast-knot flutters thy fellow;</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Here can I rest not, and thou so late.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Home, to me, home!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">'Love, love, I come!'</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">—Dear one, I wait!</span><br /> +<i>Quanno nacesti tu, nacqui pur io: +La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio mio</i>! +You know the song, madonna?</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Ay, fool. Sit +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Here at my feet, sing on.</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Gamba (sings).</i></p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Bird of the South, my Rondinello</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Under thy wing my heart hath lain</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Till the rain falling on last leaves yellow</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Drumm'd to thee, calling southward again.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Home, to me, home!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">'Love, love, I come!'</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Ah, love, the pain!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;"><i>Addio, addio! ed un' altra volt' addio!</i></span><i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio mio!</span><br /> +(Pause).</i> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">A foolish rustic thing the shepherd wives</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">In our Abruzzi croon by winter fires,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Of their husbands in the plains.</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Gamba!</p> + +<p><i>Gamba</i>. Madonna?</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. I'd make thee my confessor. Mindest thou, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">By Villalago, where from Sanno's lake</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The stream, our Tasso, hurls it down the glen?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">One noon, with Lucio—ever in those days</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">With Lucio—on a rock within the spray,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I wove a ferny garland, while the boy</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Roamed, but returned in triumph, having trapped</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">A bee in a bell-flower—held it to my ear,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Laughing, dissembling that he feared to loose</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The hairy thief. So laughed we—and were still,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">As deep in Vallescura wound a horn,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And up the pathway 'neath the dappling bough</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Came riding—flecked with sunshine, man and horse,—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">My lord, my lover; and that song, that song</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Upon his lips....</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Voice of Watchman</i>. Sail ho! a sail! a sail!</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>[Murmur of populace below. It grows and swells to</i></span><i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">a roar as enter hurriedly courtiers, guards, and</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">others: Cesario; Lucetta with mirror.</span></i><span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">]</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta</i>. My lady! O my lady!—</p> + +<p><i>Cesario</i>. See, they near! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Galley on galley—look, there, by the point!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. O, could my heart keep tally with the surge +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">That here comes crowding!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta</i>. Joy, my lady! Joy!</p> + +<p><i>All</i>. Joy! Joy, my lady!</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>[They press flowers on her. A pause, while they</i></span><i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">watch. On the canal the galleys come into</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">sight. They near: and as the oars rise and</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">fall, the rowers' chorus is borne from the distance.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It is the Rondinello song</span></i><br /> + +<p><i>Chorus in Distance. La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio mio!</i></p> + +<p><i>Regent</i>. Thanks, my good, good friends! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And deem it not discourteous if alone</span><br /> +I'd tune my heart to bliss. +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 7em;">My glass, Lucetta!</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>[Takes mirror.]</i></span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Some thoughts there are—some thoughts----</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Courtiers</i>. God save you, madam!</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>[They go out, leaving the Regent alone.</i>]</span><br /> + +<p><i>Regent (she loosens the clasp of her robe).</i> Some thoughts +—some thoughts— +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 5em;">Fall from me, envious robe!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Rest there, my crown—thou more than leaden ache!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Ah!—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">God! What a mountain drops! I float—I am lifted</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Like thistledown on nothing. Back, my crown—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Weight me to earth! Nay, nay, thy rim shall bite</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">No more upon this forehead ... Where's my glass?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">O mirror, mirror, hath it bit so deep?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">My love is coming, hark! O, say not grey,</span><br /> +Sweet mirror! Tell, what time to cure it now? +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And he so near, so near!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 5em;">How shall I meet him?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Why how but as the river leaps to sea,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Steel to its magnet, child to mother's arms?</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">[<i>She catches up flowers from the baskets left by the</i></span><i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">courtiers, and decks herself mildly.</span></i><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Flowers for my hair, flowers at the breast! Sweet flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">He'll crush you 'gainst his corslet. He has arms</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Like bands of iron for clasping, has my love.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">He'll hurt, he'll hurt ... But oh, sweet flowers, to lie</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And feel you helpless while he grips and bruises</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Your weak protesting breasts! You'll die in bliss,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Panting your fragrance out.--</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6em;">Wh'st! Hush, poor fool!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I have unlearned love's very alphabet.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Men like us coy, demure ... Then I'll coquet</span><br /> +And play Madam Disdain—but not to-day. +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To-morrow I'll be shrewish, shy, perverse,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Exacting, cold--all April in my moods:</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">We'll walk the forest, and I'll slip from him,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Hide me like Dryad 'mid the oaks, and mark</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">His hot dark face pursuing; or I'll couch</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">In covert green, and hold my breath to hear</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">His blundering foot go by; then up I'll leap,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And run—and he'll run after. O this lightness!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I'll draw him like a fairy, dance and double—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Yet not so fast but he shall overtake</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">At length, and catch me panting. O, I charge you,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Wake not my love beneath the forest bough</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Where we lie dreaming!</span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;"><i>[Fanfare of trumpets in the distance.]</i></span><br /> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 5.25em;">Trumpets, hark! and drums!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">They have landed! From the quay they march!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Flowers! flowers!</span><br /> +They are near ... I see him!... Carlo! lord and love! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">He looks—waves—O 'tis he! O foolish heart!—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I had feared he'd ta'en a wound.</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6.75em;">What is't they shout?</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Eh? 'Victory!'—yes, yes. He's browner, thinner;</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And the dear eyes, how gaunt!... Yes</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">'Victory!'</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">'Victory!' ... lord, and love!,..</span> +</p> + +<p><i>[The shouts of acclamation are heard now close +under the terrace. Spears and banners are +seen trooping past. Beside herself, she throws +flowers to them, laughing, weeping the while. +Then, running to the Chapel door, she +prostrates herself before the image of the +Virgin that crowns its archway.]</i></p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 9em;">O Mary, Mother!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Thou, in whose breast all women's thoughts have moved,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">All woman's passions heaved. Lo! I adore!</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Sweet Mother, hold my hands, rejoice with me:</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">My bridegroom cometh!</span><br /> + +<p>[<i>During this invocation the Countess Fulvia has +crept in, a stiletto in her hand. She leans +over the Regent and stabs her twice in the +breast.]</i></p> + +<p><i>Fulvia.</i> Then with that!—and that! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Go meet him!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i> (<i>turns, looks up, and falls on her face</i>). +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Oh! I am slain!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Fulvia.</i> And I am worse! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">But there's my flower, my red flower, on your breast.—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Go, meet your lord and show it!</span> +</p> + +<p>[<i>She passes down the steps as Lucetta runs in.]</i></p> + +<p><i>Lucetta.</i> Madam! Madam! +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The Duke is at the gate—Madam!—</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Christ! she is murdered! Murder! Murder!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Fie, +Lucetta! peace! What word to greet the Duke +For his home-coming! Lift me ... Quick, my robe— +My Crown! Call no one. O, but hasten!</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta</i> (<i>helpless, wringing her hands</i>). Madam!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> I need your strength, and must I steady you? +Lucetta, years ago you disarrayed me +Upon my bridal night. I would you'd whisper +The rogueries your tongue invented then. +I have few moments, girl ... I'd have them wanton. +Make jest this mantle hides the maid I was. +I'll have no priest, no doctor—Fetch Tonino! +I must present his son— +[<i>Lucetta runs out.</i> +All's acted quick: +Bride-bed, conception, birth--and death! But he +Shall sum it in one moment death not takes ... +What noise of trumpets!... Is the wound not covered?</p> + +<p>[<i>She wraps herself carefully in her mantle as the +courtiers pour in. The child Tonino runs to +her and stands by her side. Lucio, Cesario, +all the Court, group themselves round her as +the Duke enters. He rushes in eagerly; but +she sets her teeth on her anguish, and receives +him with a low reverence.</i></p> + +<p>Welcome my lord!</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Ottilia!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Good my lord, +Welcome! This day is bright restores you to +Your loyal Duchy.</p> + +<p>Duke (<i>impatient</i>). Wife! Ottilia!</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i> (<i>she lifts a hand to keep him at distance</i>). +There must be forms, my lord—some forms! Cesario, +Render the Duke his sceptre. As bar to socket, +When the gate closes on a town secure, +So locks this rod back to his manly clutch— +Cry all, 'Long live the Duke!'</p> + +<p><i>All.</i> Long live the Duke!</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Wife, make an end with forms!</p> + +<p><i>Lucio</i> (<i>to Cesario</i>). And so say I! +A man would think my sister had no blood +In her body.</p> + +<p><i>Cesario</i> (<i>watching the Regent</i>). Peace, man: something +there's amiss.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Yet here is he that sceptre shall inherit. +Lucetta, lead his first-born to the Duke. +His first-born!—Nay but look on him how straight +Of limb, how set and shoulder-square, tho' slender! +He'll sit a horse, in time, and toss a lance +Even with his father.</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> There's my blessing, boy! +But stand aside. Look in my face, Ottilia— +Hearken me, all! One thing these seven years +My life hath lacked, which wanting, all your cannon, +Your banners, <i>vivas</i>, bells that rock the roofs, +Throng'd windows, craning faces—all—all—all +Were phantasms, were noise.—</p> + +<p><i>Lucio</i> (<i>exclaims</i>). Why look, here's blood! +Here, on the boy's hand!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Ay! a scratch, no worse, +Here, when I pinned my robe.</p> + +<p><i>Duke</i> (<i>continuing</i>). Nay, friends, this moment +My Duchy her dear hand restores to me +To me's a dream. More buoyant would I tread +Dumb street, deserted square, climb ruin'd wall, +Where in a heap beneath a broken flag +Lay Adria.— +So that amid the ruins stood my love +And stretched her hands so faintly—stretched her hands +So faintly. See! She's mine! She lifts them—</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i> (<i>totters and falls into his arms with a tired, happy +laugh, which ends in a cry as his arms enfold her</i>). Ah!</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 11.25em;">[<i>She faints.</i></span> +</p> + +<p><i>Duke</i>. (<i>after a moment, releasing her a little</i>). What's +here? Ottilia!</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta.</i> My mistress swoons!</p> + +<p><i>A Courtier.</i> 'Tis happiness—</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Fetch water!</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Nay this blood— +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Came of no scratch!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta.</i> Loosen her bodice—</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Blood? +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Why blood? Where's blood?</span> +</p> + +<p>(<i>Stares as the mantle is imclasped and falls open</i>). +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 9.25em;">Ah, my God!</span> +</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta.</i> Murder! murder! +The Countess Fulvia—</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Speak!</p> + +<p><i>Lucetta.</i> There—while she knelt— +Stabbed her, and fled.</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Which way?</p> + +<p>[<i>Lucetta points to the stairs. He dashes off in +pursuit.</i></p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> All-seeing God! +Where were thine eyes, or else thy justice? Dead? +O, never dead!</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Ay, Duke, push God aside, +As I push thee. I have the better right: +I killed her—I. O never pass, sweet soul, +Till thou hast drunk a shudder of this wretch, +Thy brother, playmate, murderer!</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Wine! bring wine—</p> + +<p><i>Regent</i> (<i>as the wine is brought and revives her</i>). +Flower, he will crush thee—but the bliss, the bliss! +I swim in bliss. What ... Lucio? Where's my lord? +Dear, bring him: he was here awhile and held me. +Say he must hold, or the light air will lift +And bear me quite away.</p> + +<p>[<i>Re-enter Cesario. In one hand he carries his +sword, in the other a dagger.</i></p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Cesario! +What! Is that devil escaped? To think—to think +I drank her kisses!—What? Where is she?</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Dead. +I raised the cry: the people pointed after; +Ran with me, ravening. Just this side the bridge +She heard our howl and turned—drew back the dagger +Red with our lady's blood, then drove it home +Clean to her own black heart.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> God pardon her! +I would what blood of mine clung to the blade +Might mix with hers and sweeten it for mercy.</p> + +<p><i>Lucio.</i> Will you forgive her? Then forgive not me!</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> Dear Lucio!—You'll not pluck away your hand +This time? Hush! Where's Cesario?... Friend, farewell. +Where lies the body?</p> + +<p><i>Cesario.</i> Sooth, madonna, I flung it +To the river's will, to roll it down to sea +Or cast on muddy bar, for dogs to gnaw.</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i> The river? Ah! How strong the river rolls! +Hold me, my lord—</p> + +<p><i>Duke.</i> Love, love, I hold you</p> + +<p><i>Regent.</i>—Ay! +The child, too—You will hold the child?... +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">This roar</span><br /> +Deafens but will not drown us.</p> + +<p>[<i>Within the Chapel the choir is chanting a dirge. +Gamba goes and closes the door on the sound: +then creeps to the foot of the couch. The +dying woman gently motions aside the cross +a priest is holding to her, and looks up at her +husband.</i></p> + +<p>[<i>Below the terrace a voice is heard singing the +Rondinello song.</i></p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Look! beyond</span><br /> +Be waters where no galley moves with oar, +So wide, so waveless,—and, between the woods, +Meadows—O land me there!... Hark, my lord's voice +Singing in Vallescura! Soft my, love, +I am so tired—so tired! Love, let me play! +[<i>Dies.</i></p> + +<p>[<i>The Courtiers lift the body in silence and bear it +to the Chapel, the Duke and his train following. +The doors close on them. On the stage are +left only Cesario, standing by the balustrade; +and Gamba, who has seated himself with his +viol and touches it, as still the voice sings +below—</i></p> + +<p>Addio, Addio! ed un'altra volt'addio! +La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio mio!</p> + +<p>[<i>On the last note a string of the viol cracks, and with +a cry the Fool flings himself, heart-broken, on +the empty couch. Cesario steps forward and +stands over him, touching his shoulder gently.</i></p> + +<p><strong>CURTAIN</strong>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><a name="poems"></a></div> + <h2 align="center">POEMS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<a name="exmoor"></a><h2>EXMOOR VERSES</h2> + +<a name="vashti"></a><p><strong>I. VASHTI'S SONG</strong></p> +<br /> + +<p>Over the rim of the Moor,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And under the starry sky,</span><br /><br /> +Two men came to my door<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And rested them thereby.</span> +</p> +<p> +Beneath the bough and the star,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">In a whispering foreign tongue,</span><br /><br /> +They talked of a land afar<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And the merry days so young!</span> +</p> +<p> +Beneath the dawn and the bough<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">I heard them arise and go:</span><br /><br /> +And my heart it is aching now<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For the more it will never know.</span> +</p> +<p> +Why did they two depart<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Before I could understand?</span><br /><br /> +Where lies that land, O my heart?<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">—O my heart, where lies that land?</span> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="saturn"></a><h2>II. SATURN</h2> +<p>From my farm, from hèr farm<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Furtively we came.</span><br /><br /> +In either home a hearth was warm:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">We nursed a hungrier flame.</span> +</p> +<p> +Our feet were foul with mire,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Our faces blind with mist;</span><br /><br /> +But all the night was naked fire<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">About us where we kiss'd.</span> +</p> +<p> +To her farm, to my farm,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Loathing we returned;</span><br /><br /> +Pale beneath a gallow's arm<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The planet Saturn burned.</span> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="dereliction"></a><h2>III. DERELICTION</h2> +<p>O'er the tears that we shed, dear<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The bitter vines twist,</span><br /><br /> +And the hawk and the red deer<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">They keep where we kiss'd:</span><br /><br /> +All broken lies the shieling<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That sheltered from rain,</span><br /><br /> +With a star to pierce the ceiling,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And the dawn an empty pane.</span> +</p> +<p> +Thro' the mist, up the moorway,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Fade hunters and pack;</span><br /><br /> +From the ridge to thy doorway<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Happy voices float back ...</span><br /><br /> +O, between the threads o' mist, love,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Reach your hands from the house.</span><br /><br /> +Only mind that we kiss'd, love,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And forget the broken vows!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="folksong"></a><h2>TWO FOLK SONGS</h2><br /> +<br /> +<a name="soldier"></a><p>I. THE SOLDIER</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>(<i>Roumanian</i>)</p> +<p><i>When winter trees bestrew the path,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Still to the twig a leaf or twain</span><br /><br /> +Will cling and weep, not Winter's wrath,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But that foreknown forlorner pain—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To fall when green leaves come again.</span></i> +</p> +<p>I watch'd him sleep by the furrow—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The first that fell in the fight.</span><br /><br /> +His grave they would dig to-morrow:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The battle called them to-night.</span> +</p> +<p> +They bore him aside to the trees, there,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">By his undigg'd grave content</span><br /><br /> +To lie on his back at ease there,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And hark how the battle went.</span> +</p> +<p> +The battle went by the village,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And back through the night were borne</span><br /><br /> +Far cries of murder and pillage,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With smoke from the standing corn.</span> +</p> +<p> +But when they came on the morrow,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">They talk'd not over their task,</span><br /><br /> +As he listen'd there by the furrow;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For the dead mouth could not ask—</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>How went the battle, my brothers?</i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But that he will never know:</span><br /><br /> +For his mouth the red earth smothers<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">As they shoulder their spades and go.</span> +</p> +<p> +Yet he cannot sleep thereunder,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But ever must toss and turn.</span><br /><br /> +<i>How went the battle, I wonder?</i><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">—And that he will never learn!</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>When winter trees bestrew the path,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Still to the twig a leaf or twain</span><br /><br /> +Will cling and weep, not Winter's wrath,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But that foreknown, forlorner pain—</span><br /><br /> +To fall when green leaves come again!</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="marine"></a><h2>II. THE MARINE</h2><br /> +<br /> +<p>(<i>Poitevin</i>)</p> +<p>The bold Marine comes back from war,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +The bold Marine comes back from war,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +With a raggety coat and a worn-out shoe.<br /> +"Now, poor Marine, say, whence come you,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind?"</span> +</p> +<p> +I travel back from the war, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +I travel back from the war, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +For a glass of wine and a bowl of whey,<br /> +'Tis I will sing you a ballad gay,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind.</span> +</p> +<p> +The bold Marine he sips his whey,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +He sips and he sings his ballad gay,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +But the dame she turns toward the wall,<br /> +To wipe her tears that fall and fall,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind.</span> +</p> +<p> +What aileth you at my song, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind?</span><br /><br /> +I hope that I sing no wrong, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind?</span> +</p> +<p> +Or grieves it you a beggar should dine<br /> +On a bowl of whey and the good white wine,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind?</span> +</p> +<p> +It ails me not at your ballad gay,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +It ails me not for the wine and whey,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span> +</p> +<p> +But it ails me sore for the voice and eyes<br /> +Of a good man long in Paradise.—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Ah, so kind!</span> +</p> +<p> +You have fair children five, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +You have fair children five, madame,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span> +</p> +<p> +Your good man left you children three;<br /> +Whence came these twain for company,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind?</span> +</p> +<p> +"A letter came from the war, Marine,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +A letter came from the war, Marine,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +A while I wept for the good man dead,<br /> +But another good man in a while I wed,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind."</span> +</p> +<p> +The bold Marine he drained his glass,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind:</span><br /><br /> +The bold Marine he drained his glass,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">So kind.</span><br /><br /> +He said not a word, though the tears they flowed,<br /> +But back to his regiment took the road,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">All so kind.</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="maryleslie"></a><h2>MARY LESLIE</h2> +<p><i>Before Vittoria, June</i> 20, 1813</p> +<p>O Mary Leslie, blithe and shrill<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The bugles blew for Spain:</span><br /><br /> +And you below the Castle Hill<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Stood in the crowd your lane.</span><br /><br /> +Then hearts were wild to watch us pass,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Yet laith to let us go!</span><br /><br /> +While mine said, "Fare-ye-well, my lass!"<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And yours, "God keep my Jo!"</span> +</p> +<p> +Here by the bivouac fire, above<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">These fields of savage play,</span><br /><br /> +I'll lift my love to meet thy love<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Twa thousand miles away,</span> +</p> +<p> +Where yonder, yonder by the stars,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Nightlong there rins a burn,</span><br /><br /> +And maids with lovers at the wars<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">May list their wraiths' return.</span> +</p> +<p> +More careless yet my spirit grows<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of fame, more sick of blood:</span><br /><br /> +But I can think of Badajoz,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And yet that God is good.</span><br /><br /> +Beyond the siege, beyond the stour,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Beyond the sack of towns,</span><br /><br /> +I reach to pluck ae lily-floo'r<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Where leaders press for crowns.</span> +</p> +<p> +O Mary! lily! bow'd and wet<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With mair than mornin's rain!</span><br /><br /> +The bugles up the Lawnmarket<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Shall sound us home again.</span> +</p> +<p> +Then fare-ye-well, these foreign lands,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And be damn'd their bitter drouth.</span><br /><br /> +With your dear face between my hands<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And the cup held to my mouth,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6.75em;">My love,</span><br /><br /> +It's clean cup to my mouth!</p> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="jenslove"></a><h2>JENIFER'S LOVE</h2> +<p>Small is my secret--let it pass—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Small in your life the share I had,</span><br /><br /> +Who sat beside you in the class,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Awed by the bright superior lad:</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Whom yet with hot and eager face</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">I prompted when he missed his place.</span> +</p> +<p> +For you the call came swift and soon:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But sometimes in your holidays</span><br /><br /> +You meet me trudging home at noon<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To dinner through the dusty ways,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And recognized, and with a nod</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Passed on, but never guessed—thank God!</span> +</p> +<p> +Truly our ways were separate.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">I bent myself to hoe and drill,</span> +</p> +<p> +Yea, with an honest man to mate,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Fulfilling God Almighty's will;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And bore him children. But my prayers</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Were yours—and, only after, theirs.</span> +</p> +<p> +While you—still loftier, more remote,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">You sprang from stair to stair of fame,</span><br /><br /> +And you've a riband on your coat,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And you've a title to your name;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">But have you yet a star to shine</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Above your bed, as I o'er mine?</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="twoduets"></a><h2>TWO DUETS</h2> +<p><i>From "Arion," an unpublished Masque</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<p>I</p> +<p><i>He.</i> Aglai-a! Aglai-a!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Sweet, awaken and be glad.</span><br /><br /> +<i>She.</i> Who is this that calls Aglaia?<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Is it thou, my dearest lad?</span><br /><br /> +<i>He.</i> 'Tis Arion, 'tis Arion,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Who calls thee from sleep—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">From slumber who bids thee</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To follow and number</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">His kids and his sheep.</span><br /><br /> +<i>She.</i> Nay, leave to entreat me!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">If mother should spy on</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Us twain, she would beat me.</span><br /><br /> +<i>He.</i> Then come, my love, come!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">And hide with Arion</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Where green woods are dumb!</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>She.</i> Ar-i-on! Ar-i-on!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Closer, list! I am afraid!</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>He.</i> Whisper, then, thy love Arion,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">From thy window, lily maid.</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>She.</i> Yet Aglaia, yet Aglaia<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Hath heard them debate</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Of wooing repenting—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">"Who trust to undoing,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Lament them too late."</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>He.</i> Nay, nay, when I woo thee,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Thy mother might spy on</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">All harm I shall do thee.</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>She.</i> I come, then—I come!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">To follow Arion</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Where green woods be dumb.</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="song"></a><h2>SONG</h2> +<p><span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Sparrow of Love, so sharp to peck,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Arrow of Love—I bare my neck</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Down to the bosom. See, no fleck</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Of blood! I have never a wound; I go</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Forth to the greenwood. Yet, heigh-ho!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">What 'neath my girdle flutters so?</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">'Tis not a bird, and yet hath wings,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">'Tis not an arrow, yet it stings;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">While in the wound it nests and sings—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 7.75em;">Heigh-ho!</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>He.</i> Of Arion, of Arion<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">That wound thou shalt learn;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">What nothings 'tis made of,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">And soft pretty soothings</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">In shade of the fern.</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>She.</i> When maids have a mind to,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Man's word they rely on,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Old warning are blind to--</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">I come, then—I come</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">To walk with Arion</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Where green woods are dumb!</span> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 7em;">II</span> +<br /> +</p><p><i>He.</i> Dear my love, and O my love,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">And O my love so lately!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Did we wander yonder grove</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">And sit awhile sedately?</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">For either you did there conclude</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">To do at length as I did,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Or passion's fashion's turn'd a prude,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">And troth's an oath derided.</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>She.</i> Yea, my love—and nay, my love—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">And ask me not to tell, love,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">While I delay'd an idle day</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">What 'twixt us there befell, love.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Yet either I did sit beside</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">And do at length as you did,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Or my delight is lightly by</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">An idle lie deluded!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="statutear"></a><h2>THE STATUES AND THE TEAR</h2> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">All night a fountain pleads,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Telling her beads,</span><br /><br /> +Her tinkling beads monotonous 'neath the moon;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And where she springs atween,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Two statues lean—</span><br /><br /> +Two Kings, their marble beards with moonlight<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">strewn.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Till hate had frozen speech,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Each hated each,</span><br /><br /> +Hated and died, and went unto his place:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">And still inveterate</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">They lean and hate</span><br /><br /> +With glare of stone implacable, face to face.<br /> +<br /> +One, who bade set them here<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">In stone austere,</span><br /><br /> +To both was dear, and did not guess at all:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Yet with her new-wed lord</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Walking the sward</span><br /><br /> +Paused, and for two dead friends a tear let fall.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">She turn'd and went her way.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Yet in the spray</span><br /><br /> +The shining tear attempts, but cannot lie.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Night-long the fountain drips,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">But even slips</span><br /><br /> +Untold that one bead of her rosary:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">While they, who know it would</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Lie if it could,</span><br /><br /> +Lean on and hate, watching it, eye to eye.</p> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<a name="nuptial"></a><h2>NUPTIAL NIGHT</h2> +<p>Hush! and again the chatter of the starling<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Athwart the lawn!</span><br /><br /> +Lean your head close and closer. O my darling!—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">It is the dawn.</span><br /><br /> +Dawn in the dusk of her dream,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Dream in the hush of her bosom, unclose!</span><br /><br /> +Bathed in the eye-bright beam,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Blush to her cheek, be a blossom, a rose!</span> +</p> +<p> +Go, nuptial night! the floor of Ocean tressing<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">With moon and star;</span><br /><br /> +With benediction go and breathe thy blessing<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">On coasts afar.</span> +</p> +<p> +Hark! the theorbos thrum<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">O'er the arch'd wave that in white smother booms</span><br /><br /> +"Mother of Mystery, come!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Fain for thee wait other brides, other grooms!"</span> +</p> +<p> +Go, nuptial night, my breast of hers bereaving!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Yet, O, tread soft!</span><br /><br /> +Grow day, blithe day, the mountain shoulder heaving<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">More gold aloft!</span><br /><br /> +Gold, rose, bird of the dawn,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">All to her balcony gather unseen—</span><br /><br /> +Thrill through the curtain drawn,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Bless her, bedeck her, and bathe her, my Queen!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="hesperus"></a><h2>HESPERUS</h2> +<p>Down in the street the last late hansoms go<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Still westward, but with backward eyes of red</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">The harlot shuffles to her lonely bed;</span><br /><br /> +The tall policeman pauses but to throw<br /> +A flash into the empty portico;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Then he too passes, and his lonely tread</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Links all the long-drawn gas-lights on a thread</span><br /><br /> +And ties them to one planet swinging low.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">O'er Helen's bosom in the trancèd west—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">To watch the hours heave by upon her breast</span><br /><br /> +And at her parted lip for dreams attend:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deem'd.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="royalvirtue"></a><h2>CHANT ROYAL OF HIGH VIRTUE</h2> +<p>Who lives in suit of armour pent<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And hides himself behind a wall,</span><br /><br /> +For him is not the great event,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The garland nor the Capitol.</span><br /><br /> +And is God's guerdon less than they?<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Nay, moral man, I tell thee Nay:</span><br /><br /> +Nor shall the flaming forts be won<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">By sneaking negatives alone,</span><br /><br /> +By Lenten fast or Ramazàn;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But by the challenge proudly thrown--</span><br /><br /> +<i>Virtue is that becrowns a Man!</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<p>God, in His Palace resident<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of Bliss, beheld our sinful ball,</span><br /><br /> +And charged His own Son innocent<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Us to redeem from Adam's fall.</span> +</p> +<p> +"Yet must it be that men Thee slay."<br /> +"Yea, tho' it must, must I obey,"<br /> +Said Christ; and came, His royal Son,<br /> +To die, and dying to atone<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For harlot, thief, and publican.</span><br /><br /> +Read on that rood He died upon--<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Virtue is that becrowns a Man!</i></span> +</p> +<p> +Beneath that rood where He was bent<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">I saw the world's great captains all</span><br /><br /> +Pass riding home from tournament<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Adown the road from Roncesvalles—</span><br /><br /> +Lord Charlemagne, in one array<br /> +Lords Caesar, Cyrus, Attila,<br /> +Lord Alisaundre of Macedon ...<br /> +With flame on lance and habergeon<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">They passed, and to the rataplan</span><br /><br /> +Of drums gave salutation—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>"Virtue is that becrowns a Man!"</i></span><br /><br /> +Had tall Achilles lounged in tent<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For aye, and Xanthus neigh'd in stall,</span><br /><br /> +The towers of Troy had ne'er been shent,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor stay'd the dance in Priam's hall.</span><br /><br /> +Bend o'er thy book till thou be grey,<br /> +Read, mark, perpend, digest, survey,<br /> +Instruct thee deep as Solomon,<br /> +One only chapter thou canst con,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">One lesson learn, one sentence scan,</span><br /><br /> +One title and one colophon—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Virtue is that becrowns a Man!</i></span> +</p> +<p> +High Virtue's best is eloquent<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With spur and not with martingall:</span><br /><br /> +Swear not to her thou'rt continent:<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">BE COURTEOUS, BRAVE, AND LIBERAL.</span><br /><br /> +God fashion'd thee of chosen clay<br /> +For service, nor did ever say,<br /> +"Deny thee this," "Abstain from yon,"<br /> +But to inure thee, thew and bone.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To be confirmèd of the clan</span><br /><br /> +That made immortal Marathon—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>Virtue is that becrowns a Man!</i></span> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">ENVOY</span> +<br /> +</p><p>Young Knight, the lists are set to-day!<br /> +Hereafter shall be time to pray<br /> +In sepulture, with hands of stone.<br /> +Ride, then! outride the bugle blown!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And gaily dinging down the van,</span><br /><br /> +Charge with a cheer—<i>"Set on! Set on!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Virtue is that becrowns a Man!"</span></i> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="coronation"></a><h2>CORONATION HYMN</h2> +<p><span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;"><i>Tune</i>--Luther's Chorale</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">"Ein' feste burg ist unser Gott"</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 5em;">I</span> +</p> +<p> +Of old our City hath renown.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of God are her foundations,</span><br /><br /> +Wherein this day a King we crown<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Elate among the nations.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Acknowledge, then, thou King—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">And you, ye people, sing—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">What deeds His arm hath wrought:</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Yea, let their tale be taught</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">To endless generations.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 5.25em;">II</span> +</p> +<p> +So long, so far, Jehovah guides<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">His people's path attending,</span><br /><br /> +By pastures green and water-sides<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Toward His hill ascending;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Whence they beneath the stars</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Shall view their ancient wars,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Their perils, far removed.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">O might of mercy proved!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">O love past comprehending!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6.75em;">III</span> +</p> +<p> +He was that God, for man which spake<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">From Sinai forth in thunder;</span><br /><br /> +He was that Love, for man which brake<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The dreadful grave asunder.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Lord over every lord,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">His consecrating word</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">An earthly prince awaits;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Lift then your heads, ye gates!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2em;">Your King comes riding under.</span> +</p> +<p> +IV</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Be ye lift up, ye deathless doors;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Let wave your banners o'er Him!</span><br /><br /> +Exult, ye streets; be strewn, ye floors,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With palm, with bay, before Him!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">With transport fetch Him in,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Ye ransom'd folk from sin—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Your Lord, return'd to bless!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">O kneeling king, confess—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">O subject men, adore Him!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="truro"></a><h2>THREE MEN OF TRURO</h2><br /> +<br /> +<p>I</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>E. W. B.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>Archbishop of Canterbury: sometime the First Bishop<br /> +of Truro. October</i> 1896</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">The Church's outpost on a neck of land—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.25em;">By ebb of faith the foremost left the last—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">Dull, starved of hope, we watched the driven sand</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.25em;">Blown through the hour-glass, covering our past,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Counting no hours to our relief—no hail</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Across the hills, and on the sea no sail!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.25em;">Sick of monotonous days we lost account,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">In fitful dreams remembering days of old</span><br /><br /> +And nights—th' erect Archangel on the Mount<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">With sword that drank the dawn; the Vase of Gold</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">The moving Grail athwart the starry fields</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Where all the heavenly spearmen clashed their</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 4.75em;">shields.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">In dereliction by the deafening shore</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">We sought no more aloft, but sunk our eyes,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Probing the sea for food, the earth for ore.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Ah, yet had one good soldier of the skies</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">Burst through the wrack reporting news of them,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">How had we run and kissed his garment's hem!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Nay, but he came! Nay, but he stood and cried,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Panting with joy and the fierce fervent race,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">"Arm, arm! for Christ returns!"—and all our pride,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Our ancient pride, answered that eager face:</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">"Repair His battlements!—Your Christ is near!"</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">And, half in dream, we raised the soldiers' cheer.</span> +<br /> +<br /> +Far, as we flung that challenge, fled the ghosts—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Back, as we built, the obscene foe withdrew—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">High to the song of hammers sang the hosts</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Of Heaven—and lo! the daystar, and a new</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">Dawn with its chalice and its wind as wine;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">And youth was hope, and life once more divine!</span></p><hr style="width: 45%;" /><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Day, and hot noon, and now the evening glow,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">And 'neath our scaffolding the city spread</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Twilit, with rain-wash'd roofs, and—hark!—below,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">One late bell tolling. "Dead? Our Captain dead?"</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">Nay, here with us he fronts the westering sun</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.5em;">With shaded eyes and counts the wide fields won.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">Aloft with us! And while another stone</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.25em;">Swings to its socket, haste with trowel and hod!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">Win the old smile a moment ere, alone,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.25em;">Soars the great soul to bear report to God.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Night falls; but thou, dear Captain, from thy star</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3.75em;">Look down, behold how bravely goes the war!</span> +<br /> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<h2>II</h2><br /> +<br /> +<p>A. B. D.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>Canon Residentiary and Precentor of Truro<br /> +December</i> 1903<br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Many had builded, and, the building done,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Through our adornèd gates with din</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Came Prince and Priest, with pipe and clarion</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Leading the right God in.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Yet, had the perfect temple quickened then</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">And whispered us between our song,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>"Give God the praise. To whom of living men</i></span><i><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Shall next our thanks belong?"</span></i><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Then had the few, the very few, that wist</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">His Atlantean labour, swerved</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Their eyes to seek, and in the triumph missed,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">The man that most deserved.</span> +<br /> +<br /> +He only of us was incorporate<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">In all that fabric; stone by stone</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Had built his life in her, had made his fate</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">And her perfection one;</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Given all he had; and now—when all was given—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Far spent, within a private shade,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Heard the loud organ pealing praise to Heaven,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">And learned why man is made.—</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">To break his strength, yet always to be brave;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">To preach, and act, the Crucified ...</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Sweep by, O Prince and Prelate, up the nave,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">And fill it with your pride!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Better than ye what made th' old temples great,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">Because he loved, he understood;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.25em;">Indignant that his darling, less in state,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.75em;">Should lack a martyr's blood.</span> +</p> +<p> +She hath it now. O mason, strip away<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Her scaffolding, the flower disclose!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Lay by the tools with his o'er-wearied clay—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">But She shall bloom unto its Judgment Day,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">His ever-living Rose!</span> +<br /> +</p><p>III</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>C. W. S.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p><i>The Fourth Bishop of Truro<br /> +May</i> 1912</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Prince of courtesy defeated,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Heir of hope untimely cheated,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Throned awhile he sat, and, seated,</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Saw his Cornish round him gather;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">"Teach us how to live, good Father!"</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">How to die he taught us rather:</span> +<br /> +<br /> +Heard the startling trumpet sound him,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Smiled upon the feast around him,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Rose, and wrapp'd his coat, and bound him</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">When beyond the awful surges,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Bathed in dawn on Syrian verges,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">God! thy star, thy Cross emerges.</span> +</p> +<p> +<i>And so sing we all to it—</i></p><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Crux, in coelo lux superna,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Sis in carnis hac taberna</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Mihi pedibus lucerna:</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Quo vexillum dux cohortis</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Sistet, super flumen Mortis,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Te, flammantibus in portis!</span> +<br /> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="almamater"></a><h2>ALMA MATER</h2> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Know you her secret none can utter?</i></span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Still by the gateway flits the gown;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Faces of stone look down.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Faces of stone, and stonier faces—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Some from library windows wan</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Peer and turn to their books anon.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Hence, my Muse, from the green oases</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Gather the tent, begone!</span> +<br /> +<br /> +Nay, should she by the pavement linger<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Under the rooms where once she played,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Who from the feast would rise to fling her</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">One poor <i>sou</i> for her serenade?</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">One short laugh for the antic finger</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Thrumming a lute-string frayed?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Once, my dear—but the world was young then—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Magdalen elms and Trinity limes—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Eight good men in the good old times—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Careless we, and the chorus flung then</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Under St Mary's chimes!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Reins lay loose and the ways led random—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">"Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem),</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em:</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Having that artless knack.</span> +</p> +<p> +Come, old limmer, the times grow colder;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Only the wind by the chapel wall!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Dead leaves drift on the lute ... So, fold her</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Under the faded shawl.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Never we wince, though none deplore us,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">We who go reaping that we sowed;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Cities at cock-crow wake before us—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Hey, for the lilt of the London road!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">One look back, and a rousing chorus!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Never a palinode!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Still on her spire the pigeons hover;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Still by her gateway haunts the gown.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Ah! but her secret? You, young lover,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Drumming her old ones forth from town,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Know you the secret none discover?</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Tell it—when <i>you</i> go down.</span> +</p> +<p> +Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Lean to her whispers never so nigh;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Yet if at last not less her lover</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">You in your hansom leave the High;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 2.5em;">Down from her towers a ray shall hover—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">Touch you, a passer-by!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="christmas"></a><h2>CHRISTMAS EVE</h2> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Friend, old friend in the Manse by the fireside sitting,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Hour by hour while the grey ash drips from the log;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">You with a book on your knee, your wife with her knitting,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Silent both, and between you, silent, the dog.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Silent here in the south sit I; and, leaning,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">One sits watching the fire, with chin upon hand;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Gazes deep in its heart—but ah! its meaning</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Rather I read in the shadows and understand.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Dear, kind she is; and daily dearer, kinder,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Love shuts the door on the lamp and our two selves:</span> +<br /> +<br /> + +Not my stirring awakened the flame that behind her<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Lit up a face in the leathern dusk of the shelves.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Veterans are my books, with tarnished gilding:</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Yet there is one gives back to the winter grate</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Gold of a sunset flooding a college building,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Gold of an hour I waited—as now I wait—</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">For a light step on the stair, a girl's low laughter,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Rustle of silk, shy knuckles tapping the oak,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Dinner and mirth upsetting my rooms and, after,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Music, waltz upon waltz, till the June day broke.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Where is her laughter now? Old tarnished covers—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">You that reflect her with fresh young face unchanged—</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Tell that we met, that we parted, not as lovers;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Time, chance, brought us together, and these estranged.</span><br /><br /> +Loyal were we to the mood of the moment granted,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Bruised not its bloom, but danced on the wave of its joy;</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Passion—wisdom—fell back like a fence enchanted,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Ringing a floor for us both—whole Heaven for the boy!</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Where is she now? Regretted not, though departed,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Blessings attend and follow her all her days!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">—Look to your hound: he dreams of the hares he started,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Whines, and awakes, and stretches his limbs to the blaze.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Far old friend in the Manse, by the green ash peeling</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Flake by flake from the heat in the Yule log's core,</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Look past the woman you love. On wall and ceiling</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Climbs not a trellis of roses—and ghosts—of yore?</span> +<br /> +<br /> + +Thoughts, thoughts! Whistle them back like hounds returning—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Mark how her needles pause at a sound upstairs.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">Time for bed, and to leave the log's heart burning!</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">Give ye good-night, but first thank God in your prayers!</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="theroot"></a><h2>THE ROOT</h2> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Deep, Love, yea, very deep.</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">And in the dark exiled,</span><br /><br /> +I have no sense of light but still to creep<br /> +And know the breast, but not the eyes. Thy child<br /> +Saw ne'er his mother near, nor if she smiled;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">But only feels her weep.</span><br /><br /> +<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">Yet clouds and branches green</span><br /><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">There be aloft, somewhere,</span><br /><br /> +And winds, and angel birds that build between,<br /> +As I believe—and I will not despair;<br /> +For faith is evidence of things not seen.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Love! if I could be there!</span> +<br /> +<br /> + +I will be patient, dear.<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">Perchance some part of me</span><br /><br /> +Puts forth aloft and feels the rushing year<br /> +And shades the bird, and is that happy tree<br /> +Then were it strength to serve and not appear,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.5em;">And bliss, though blind, to be.</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<a name="violets"></a><h2>TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME A BOX OF VIOLETS</h2> +<p>Nay, more than violets<br /> +These thoughts of thine, friend!<br /> +Rather thy reedy brook—<br /> +Taw's tributary—<br /> +At midnight murmuring,<br /> +Descried them, the delicate<br /> +Dark-eyed goddesses,<br /> +There by his cressy bed<br /> +Dissolved and dreaming<br /> +Dreams that distilled into dew<br /> +All the purple of night,<br /> +All the shine of a planet.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Whereat he whispered;<br /> +And they arising—</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Of day's forget-me-nots<br /> +The duskier sisters—<br /> +Descended, relinquished<br /> +The orchard, the trout-pool,<br /> +Torridge and Tamar,<br /> +The Druid circles,<br /> +Sheepfolds of Dartmoor,<br /> +Granite and sandstone;<br /> +By Roughtor, Dozmare,<br /> +Down the vale of the Fowey<br /> +Moving in silence,<br /> +Brushing the nightshade<br /> +By bridges cyclopean,<br /> +By Trevenna, Treverbyn,<br /> +Lawharne and Largin,<br /> +By Glynn, Lanhydrock,<br /> +Restormel, Lostwithiel,<br /> +Dark wood, dim water, dreaming town;<br /> +Down the vale of the Fowey<br /> +To the tidal water<br /> +Washing the feet<br /> +Of fair St Winnow—<br /> +Each, in her exile<br /> +Musing the message,<br /> +Passed, as the starlit<br /> +Shadow of Ruth from the land of the Moabite.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>So they came,<br /> +Valley-born, valley-nurtured—<br /> +Came to the tideway<br /> +The jetties, the anchorage,<br /> +The salt wind piping,<br /> +Snoring in Equinox,<br /> +By ships at anchor,<br /> +By quays tormented,<br /> +Storm-bitten streets;<br /> +Came to the Haven<br /> +Crying, "Ah, shelter us,<br /> +The strayed ambassadors,<br /> +Love's lost legation<br /> +On a comfortless coast!"</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Nay, but a little sleep,<br /> +A little folding<br /> +Of petals to the lull<br /> +Of quiet rainfalls—<br /> +Here in my garden,<br /> +In angle sheltered<br /> +From north and east wind—<br /> +Softly shall recreate<br /> +The courage of charity,<br /> +Henceforth not to me only<br /> +Breathing the message.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Clean-breath'd Sirens!<br /> +Hencefore the mariner<br /> +Here in the fairway<br /> +Fetching—foul of keel,<br /> +Long-stray but fortunate—<br /> +Out of the fogs, the vast<br /> +Atlantic solitudes.<br /> +Shall, by the hawser-pin<br /> +Waiting the signal<br /> +<i>Leave—go—anchor!</i><br /> +Scent the familiar,<br /> +The unforgettable<br /> +Fragrance of home;<br /> +So in a long breath<br /> +Bless us unknowing:<br /> +Bless them, the violets,<br /> +Bless me, the gardener,<br /> +Bless thee, the giver.</p> + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + + +<a name="children"></a><h2>OF THREE CHILDREN</h2><br /> + +<p>OF THREE CHILDREN CHOOSING<br /> +A CHAPLET OF VERSE</p> +<p>You and I and Burd so blithe—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Burd so blithe, and you, and I—</span><br /><br /> +The Mower he would whet his scythe<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Before the dew was dry.</span> +</p> +<p> +And he woke soon, but we woke soon<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And drew the nursery blind,</span><br /><br /> +All wondering at the waning moon<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With the small June roses twined:</span><br /><br /> +Low in her cradle swung the moon<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With an elfin dawn behind.</span> +</p> +<p> +In whispers, while our elders slept,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">We knelt and said our prayers,</span><br /><br /> +And dress'd us and on tiptoe crept<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Adown the creaking stairs.</span> +</p> +<p> +The world's possessors lay abed,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And all the world was ours—</span><br /><br /> +"Nay, nay, but hark! the Mower's tread!<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And we must save the flowers!"</span> +</p> +<p> +The Mower knew not rest nor haste—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That old unweary man:</span><br /><br /> +But we were young. We paused and raced<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And gather'd while we ran.</span> +</p> +<p> +O youth is careless, youth is fleet,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With heart and wing of bird!</span><br /><br /> +The lark flew up beneath our feet,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To his copse the pheasant whirr'd;</span> +</p> +<p> +The cattle from their darkling lairs<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Heaved up and stretch'd themselves;</span><br /><br /> +Almost they trod at unawares<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Upon the busy elves</span> +</p> +<p> +That dropp'd their spools of gossamer,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To dangle and to dry,</span><br /><br /> +And scurried home to the hollow fir<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Where the white owl winks an eye.</span> +</p> +<p> +Nor you, nor I, nor Burd so blithe<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Had driven them in this haste;</span><br /><br /> +But the old, old man, so lean and lithe,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That afar behind us paced;</span><br /><br /> +So lean and lithe, with shoulder'd scythe,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And a whetstone at his waist.</span> +</p> +<p> +Within the gate, in a grassy round<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Whence they had earliest flown,</span><br /><br /> +He upside-down'd his scythe, and ground<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Its edge with careful hone.</span><br /><br /> +But we heeded not, if we heard, the sound,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For the world was ours alone;</span><br /><br /> +The world was ours!—and with a bound<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The conquering Sun upshone!</span> +</p> +<p> +And while as from his level ray<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">We stood our eyes to screen.</span><br /><br /> +The world was not as yesterday<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Our homelier world had been—</span><br /><br /> +So grey and golden-green it lay<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">All in his quiet sheen,</span><br /><br /> +That wove the gold into the grey,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The grey into the green.</span><br /><br /> +Sure never hand of Puck, nor wand<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of Mab the fairies' queen,</span><br /><br /> +Nor prince nor peer of fairyland<br /> +Had power to weave that wide riband<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of the grey, the gold, the green.</span> +</p> +<p> +But the Gods of Greece had been before<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And walked our meads along,</span><br /><br /> +The great authentic Gods of yore<br /> +That haunt the earth from shore to shore<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Trailing their robes of song.</span> +</p> +<p> +And where a sandall'd foot had brush'd,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And where a scarfed hem,</span><br /><br /> +The flowers awoke from sleep and rush'd<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Like children after them.</span> +</p> +<p> +Pell-mell they poured by vale and stream,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">By lawn and steepy brae—</span><br /><br /> +"O children, children! while you dream,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Your flowers run all away!"</span> +</p> +<p> +But afar and abed and sleepily<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The children heard us call;</span><br /><br /> +And Burd so blithe and you and I<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Must be gatherers for all.</span> +</p> +<p> +The meadow-sweet beside the hedge,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The dog-rose and the vetch,</span><br /><br /> +The sworded iris 'mid the sedge,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The mallow by the ditch—</span> +</p> +<p> +With these, and by the wimpling burn,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Where the midges danced in reels,</span><br /><br /> +With the watermint and the lady fern<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">We brimm'd out wicker creels:</span> +</p> +<p> +Till, all so heavily they weigh'd,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">On a bank we flung us down,</span><br /><br /> +Shook out our treasures 'neath the shade<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And wove this Triple Crown.</span> +</p> +<p> +Flower after flower—for some there were<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The noonday heats had dried,</span><br /><br /> +And some were dear yet could not bear<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">A lovelier cheek beside,</span><br /><br /> +And some were perfect past compare—<br /> +Ah, darlings! what a world of care<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It cost us to decide!</span> +</p> +<p> +Natheless we sang in sweet accord,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Each bending o'er her brede—</span><br /><br /> +"O there be flowers in Oxenford,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And flowers be north of Tweed,</span><br /><br /> +And flowers there be on earthly sward<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That owe no mortal seed!"</span> +</p> +<p> +And these, the brightest that we wove,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Were Innocence and Truth,</span><br /><br /> +And holy Peace and angel Love,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Glad Hope and gentle Ruth.</span><br /><br /> +Ah, bind them fast with triple twine<br /> +Of Memory, the wild woodbine<br /> +That still, being human, stays divine,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And alone is age's youth!...</span> +</p> +<p> +But hark! but look! the warning rook<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Wings home in level flight;</span><br /><br /> +The children tired with play and book<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Have kiss'd and call'd Good-night!</span> +</p> +<p> +Ah, sisters, look! What fields be these<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That lie so sad and shorn?</span><br /><br /> +What hand has cut our coppices,<br /> +And thro' the trimm'd, the ruin'd, trees<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Lets wail a wind forlorn?</span> +</p> +<p> +'Tis Time, 'tis Time has done this crime<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And laid our meadows waste—</span><br /><br /> +The bent unwearied tyrant Time,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That knows nor rest nor haste.</span> +</p> +<p> +Yet courage, children; homeward bring<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Your hearts, your garlands high;</span><br /><br /> +For we have dared to do a thing<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That shall his worst defy.</span> +</p> +<p> +We cannot nail the dial's hand;<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">We cannot bind the sun</span><br /><br /> +By Gibeon to stay and stand,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Or the moon o'er Ajalon;</span> +</p> +<p> +We cannot blunt th' abhorred shears,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor shift the skeins of Fate,</span><br /><br /> +Nor say unto the posting years<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">"Ye shall not desolate."</span> +</p> +<p> +We cannot cage the lion's rage,<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor teach the turtle-dove</span><br /><br /> +Beside what well his moan to tell<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Or to haunt one only grove;</span><br /><br /> +But the lion's brood will range for food<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">As the fledged bird will rove.</span> +</p> +<p> +And east and west we three may wend—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Yet we a wreath have wound</span><br /><br /> +For us shall wind withouten end<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The wide, wide world around:</span> +</p> +<p> +Be it east or west, and ne'er so far,<br /> +In east or west shall peep no star,<br /> +No blossom break from ground,<br /> +But minds us of the wreath we wove<br /> +Of innocence and holy love<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That in the meads we found,</span><br /><br /> +And handsell'd from the Mower's scythe,<br /> +And bound with memory's living withe—<br /> +You and I and Burd so blithe—<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Three maidens on a mound:</span><br /><br /> +And all of happiness was ours<br /> +Shall find remembrance 'mid the flowers,<br /> +Shall take revival from the flowers<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And by the flowers be crown'd.</span> +<br /> +</p><hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<br /> +<h2>EPILOGUE</h2><br /> +<br /> +<a name="smileyes"></a><p>TO A MOTHER, ON SEEING HER SMILE REPEATED<br /> +IN HER DAUGHTER'S EYES</p> +<p>A thousand songs I might have made<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Of You, and only You;</span><br /><br /> +A thousand thousand tongues of fire<br /> +That trembled down a golden wire<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To lamp the night with stars, to braid</span><br /><br /> +The morning bough with dew.</p><br /> +<br /> +<p>Within the greenwood girl and boy<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Had loiter'd to their lure,</span><br /><br /> +And men in cities closed their books<br /> +To dream of Spring and running brooks<br /> +And all that ever was of joy<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">For manhood to abjure.</span> +</p> +<p> +And I'd have made them strong, so strong<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Outlasting towers and towns—</span><br /><br /> +Millennial shepherds 'neath the thorn<br /> +Had piped them to a world reborn,<br /> +And danced Delight the dale along<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And up the daisied downs.</span> +</p> +<p> +A thousand songs I might have made...<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But you required them not;</span><br /><br /> +Content to reign your little while<br /> +Ere, abdicating with a smile,<br /> +You pass'd into a shade, a shade<br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Immortal—and forgot!</span> +</p> +</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10133 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |