 | Locrine |  |
Scene I.
—The banks of the Ley.Enter Locrine and Estrild.
LOCRINE.
If thou didst ever love me, love me now.
I am weary at heart of all on earth save thee.
And yet I lie: and yet I lie not. Thou—
Dost thou not think for love's sake scorn of me?
ESTRILD.
As earth of heaven: as morning of the sun.
LOCRINE.
Nay, what thinks evening, whom he leaves undone?
ESTRILD.
Thou madest me queen and woman: though my life
Were taken, these thou couldst not take again,
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Whom, till my tyrant by thy strength were slain
And by thy love my servile shame cast out,
My naked sorrows clothed and girt about
With princelier pride than binds the brows of queens,
Thou sawest of all things least and lowest alive.
What means thy doubt?
LOCRINE.
Fear knows not what it means:
And I was fearful even of clouds that drive
Across the dawn, and die—of all, of nought—
Winds whispering on the darkling ways of thought,
Sunbeams that flash like fire, and hopes like fears
That slay themselves, and live again, and die.
But in mine eyes thy light is, in mine ears
Thy music: I am thine, and more than I,
Being half of thy sweet soul.
ESTRILD.
Woe worth me then!
For one requires thee wholly.
LOCRINE.
Guendolen?
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I said she was the fairer—and I lied not.
LOCRINE.
Thou art the fairest fool alive.
ESTRILD.
But she,
Being wise, exceeds me: yet, so she divide not
Thine heart, my best-beloved of liars, with me,
I care not—nor I will not care. Some part
She hath had, it may be, of thy fond false heart—
Nay, couldst thou choose? but now, though she be fairer,
Let her take all or none: I will not be
Partaker of her perfect sway, nor sharer
With any on earth more dear or less to thee.
Nay, be not wroth: what wilt thou have me say?
That I can love thee less than she can? Nay,
Thou knowest I will not ill to her; but she—
Would she not burn my child and me with fire
To wreak herself, who loved thee once, on thee?
LOCRINE.
Thy fear is darker, child, than her desire.
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I fear not her at all: I would not fear
The one thing fearful to me yet, who here
Sit walled around with waters and with woods
From all things fearful but the fear of change.
LOCRINE.
Fear thou not that: for nothing born eludes
Time; and the joy were sorrowful and strange
That should endure for ever. Yea, I think
Such joy would pray for sorrow's cup to drink,
Such constancy desire an end, for mere
Long weariness of watching. Thou and I
Have all our will of life and loving here,—
A heavenlier heaven on earth: but we shall die,
And if we died not, love we might outlive
As now shall love outlive us.
ESTRILD.
We?
LOCRINE.
Forgive!
ESTRILD.
King! and I held thee more than man!
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God wot,
Thou art more than I—more strong and wise: I know
Thou couldst not live one hour if love were not.
ESTRILD.
And thou?
LOCRINE.
I would not. All the world were woe,
And all the day night, if the love I bear thee
Were plucked out of the life wherein I wear thee
As crown and comfort of its nights and days.
ESTRILD.
Thou liest—for love's sake and for mine—and I
Lie not, who swear by thee whereon I gaze
I hold no truth so hallowed as the lie
Wherewith my love redeems me from the snare
Dark doubt had set to take me.
LOCRINE.
Wilt thou swear
—By what thou wilt soever—by the sun
That sees us—by the light of all these flowers—
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By all that is nor mine nor thine, but ours—
That thou didst ever doubt indeed? or dream
That doubt, whose breath bids love of love misdeem,
Were other than the child of hate and hell,
The liar first-born of falsehood?
ESTRILD.
Nay—I think—
God help me!—hardly. Never? can I tell?
When half our soul and all our senses sink
From dream to dream down deathward, slain with sleep,
How may faith hold assurance fast, or keep
Her power to cast out fear for love's sake?
LOCRINE.
I
Could doubt not thee, waking or sleeping.
ESTRILD.
No—
Thou art not mad. How should the sunlit sky
Betray the sun? cast out the sunshine? So
Art thou to me as light to heaven: should light
Die, were not heaven as hell and noon as night?
And wherefore should I hold more dear than life
Death? Could I live, and lack thee? Thou, O king,
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And rule of seas that tire the seamew's wing—
And fame as far as fame can travel; I,
What have I save this home wherein to die,
Except thou love me? Nay, nor home were this,
No place to die or live in, were I sure
Thou didst not love me. Swear not by this kiss
That love lives longer—faith may more endure—
Than one poor kiss that passes with the breath
Of lips that gave it life at once and death.
Why shouldst thou swear, and wherefore should I trust?
When day shall drive not night from heaven, and night
Shall chase not day to deathward, then shall dust
Be constant—and the stars endure the sight
Of dawn that shall not slay them.
LOCRINE.
By thine eyes
—Turned stormier now than stars in bare-blown skies
Wherethrough the wind rings menace,—I will swear
Nought: so shall fear, mistrust, and jealous hate
Lie foodless, if not fangless. Thou, so fair
That heaven might change for thee the seal of fate,
How darest thou doubt thy power on souls of men?
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What vows were those that won thee Guendolen?
LOCRINE.
I sware not so to her. Thou knowest—
ESTRILD.
Not I.
Thou knowest that I know nothing.
LOCRINE.
Nay, I know
That nothing lives under the sweet blue sky
Worth thy sweet heeding, wouldst thou think but so,
Save love—wherewith thou seest thy world fulfilled.
ESTRILD.
Ay,—would I see but with thine eyes.
LOCRINE.
Estrild,
Estrild!
ESTRILD.
No soft reiterance of my name
Can sing my sorrow down that comes and goes
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Rose hast thou called me: were I like the rose,
Happier were I than woman: she survives
Not by one hour, like us of longer lives,
The sun she lives in and the love he gives
And takes away: but we, when love grows sere,
Live yet, while trust in love no longer lives,
Nor drink for comfort with the dying year
Death.
LOCRINE.
Wouldst thou drink forgetfulness for wine
To heal thine heart of love toward me?
ESTRILD.
Locrine,
Locrine!
LOCRINE.
Thou wouldst not: do not mock me then,
Saying out of evil heart, in evil jest,
Thy trust is dead to meward.
ESTRILD.
King of men,
Wouldst thou, being only of all men lordliest,
Be lord of women's thoughts and loving fears?
Nay, wert thou less than lord of worlds and years,
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To take such empire on thee?
LOCRINE.
Nay, not I—
No more than she there playing beside the stream
To slip within a stormier stream and die.
ESTRILD.
She runs too near the brink. Sabrina!
LOCRINE.
See,
Her hands are lily-laden: let them be
A flower-sweet symbol for us.
Enter Sabrina.
SABRINA.
Sire! O sire,
See what fresh flowers—you knew not these before—
The spring has brought, to serve my heart's desire,
Forth of the river's barren bed! no more
Will I rebuke these banks for sterile sloth
When spring restores the woodlands. By my troth,
I hoped not, when you came again, to bring
So large a tribute worth so full a smile.
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Child! how should I to thee pay tribute?
ESTRILD.
King,
Thou hast not kissed her.
LOCRINE.
Dare my lips defile
Heaven? O my love, in sight of her and thee
I marvel how the sun should look on me
And spare to turn his beams to fire.
ESTRILD.
The child
Hears, and is troubled.
SABRINA.
Did I wrong, to say
‘Sire’? but you bade me say so. He is mild,
And will not chide me. Father!
ESTRILD.
Hear'st thou?
LOCRINE.
Yea—
I hear. I would the world beyond our sight
Were dead as worlds forgotten.
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Wouldst thou fright
Her?
LOCRINE.
Hath all sense forsaken me? Sabrine,
Thou dost not fear me?
SABRINA.
No. But when your eyes
Wax red and dark, with flaughts of fire between,
I fear them—or they fright me.
LOCRINE.
Wert thou wise,
They would not. Never have I looked on thee
So.
SABRINA.
Nay—I fear not what might fall on me.
Here laughs my father—here my mother smiles—
Here smiles and laughs the water—what should I
Fear?
LOCRINE.
Nought more fearful than the water's wiles—
Which whoso fears not ere he fear shall die.
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Die? and is death no less an ill than dread?
I had liefer die than be nor quick nor dead.
I think there is no death but fear of death.
LOCRINE.
Of death or life or anything but love
What knowest thou?
SABRINA.
Less than these, my mother saith—
Less than the flowers that seeing all heaven above
Fade and wax hoar or darken, lose their trust
And leave their joy and let their glories rust
And die for fear ere winter wound them: we
Live no less glad of snowtime than of spring:
It cannot change my father's face for me
Nor turn from mine away my mother's. King
They call thee: hath thy kingship made thee less
In height of heart than we are?
LOCRINE.
No, and yes.
Here sits my heart at height of hers and thine,
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Sing higher than sings my spirit: I am here Locrine,
Whom no sound vexes here of swords or words,
No cloud of thought or thunder: were my life
Crowned but as lord and sire of child and wife,
Throned but as prince of woodland, bank and bower,
My joys were then imperial, and my state
Firm as a star, that now is as a flower.
SABRINA.
Thou shouldst not then—if joy grow here so great—
Part from us.
LOCRINE.
No: for joy grows elsewhere scant.
SABRINA.
I would fain see the towers of Troynovant.
LOCRINE.
God keep thine eyes fulfilled with sweeter sights,
And this one from them ever!
SABRINA.
Why? Men say
Thine halls are full of guests, princes and knights,
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Why are we thence alone, and alway?
ESTRILD.
Peace,
Child: let thy babble change its note, or cease
Here; is thy sire not wiser—by God's grace—
Than I or thou?
LOCRINE.
Wouldst thou too see fulfilled
The fear whose shadow fallen on joy's fair face
Strikes it more sad than sorrow's own? Estrild,
Wast thou then happier ere this wildwood shrine
Hid thee from homage, left thee but Locrine
For worshipper less worthy grace of thee
Than those thy sometime suppliants?
ESTRILD.
Nay; my lord
Takes too much thought—if tongues ring true—for me.
LOCRINE.
Such tongues ring falser than a broken chord
Whose jar distunes the music.
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Wilt thou stay
But three nights here?
LOCRINE.
I had need be hence today.
ESTRILD.
Go.
SABRINA.
But I bid thee tarry; what am I
That thou shouldst heed not what I bid thee?
LOCRINE.
Queen
And empress more imperious and more high
And regent royaller than time hath seen
And mightier mistress of thy sire and thrall:
Yet must I go. But ere the next moon fall
Again will I grow happy.
ESTRILD.
Who can say?
LOCRINE.
So much can I—except the stars combine
Unseasonably to stay me.
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Let them stay
The tides, the seasons rather. Love! Locrine!
I never parted from thee, nor shall part,
Save with a fire more keen than fire at heart:
But now the pang that wrings me, soul and sense,
And turns fair day to darkness deep as hell,
Warns me, the word that seals thy parting hence—
‘Farewell’—shall bid us never more fare well.
SABRINA.
Lo! she too bids thee tarry; dost thou not
Hear?
LOCRINE.
Might I choose, small need were hers, God wot,
Or thine, to bid me tarry. When I come
Again—
SABRINA.
Thou shalt not see me: I will hide
From sight of such a sire—or bow down dumb
Before him—strong and hard as he in pride—
And so thou shalt not hear me.
LOCRINE.
Who can tell?
So now say I.
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God keep my lord!
LOCRINE.
Farewell.
[Exeunt.
| Locrine | |