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153
SCENE II.
The Queen's Apartments in Whitehall Palace. Enter Queen Anne.Queen Anne.
So this is day, a broad, sun-staring day—
And what had it been night? the same, the same.
All time to me is one confuséd mass,
Drowned in a flood of bitter misery.
There is no time to one without a hope:
Hopes are the figures on life's changing dial,
That first betray to us the passing hours,
Ere the great bell may summon us away.
All blank and meaningless is life to me:
I have no future. One eternal present,
Rayless as Lapland winter, wraps my soul;
One ceaseless wrong, affording but one sense
Of cruelest agony, makes up my life,
Stretching from day to day its sole event.
What if the sun arise? what if the lark
Put on the glory of his morning song?
What if the flowers perk up their loaded heads,
And swing their incense down the thirsting gale?
What if the frame of the whole universe
Warm in the glow, and join the matin hymn?
While I remain in this dull lethargy,
There is no morn to me. Eternal One,
Who sent'st that joyous thing, the rising sun,
As if in mockery of my sullen woe,
To show how cheerless is my nighted soul—
O, end this mere existence! Rouse to life
The fire of my consuming energies!
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Ay, though a pang be coupled with each act—
Lest, in this trance, the erring scythe of death
Pass o'er my frame, as o'er the trampled grain,
And nature be defeated! Gracious God,
Are we mere puppets of a rigid fate?
Is all this labyrinth of cunning thought
Bestowed to snare us? Must our exit be
Through that one door which destiny holds wide?
To me alone, of all the human race,
Has the dread secret clearly been revealed?
It seems so; for where'er I bend my eyes
Some ugly phantom bars the hopeless way,
And bids me wait the will of circumstance.
This shall not be! Arise, my drowsing soul!
Gird on thy blazing arms of intellect!
One struggle more to master coming time;
And if thy earthly walls then fall consumed,
We'll scale those heights where conquering time is not!
(Enter Mary Wyatt.)
Mary Wyatt.
A fair good-morning to your majesty!
Queen A.
Welcome, sweet mistress Mary!
Mary W.
Joyful sight!
There is a flush of triumph on your brow,
Such as it wore on Coronation-Day,
Or when the spleenful butcher met his fall.
Queen A.
Speak not of Wolsey.
Mary W.
Have I ruffled you?
Queen A.
O no, O no! to-day my heart is light.
I feel as if another goodly crown
Hung o'er my head.
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Your brother, Rochford, waits.
Since break of day he has been biding here.
Queen A.
Ha! what has happened?
Mary W.
Nothing that I know.
Queen A.
Well, well, admit him. (Exit Mary Wyatt.)
Rochford, at this hour!—
A man of ease; and waited here since dawn!
My heart is failing.—Nonsense! what can come,
Worse than the vision of that weak-brained girl
Locked in the circle of my husband's arms?
(Enter Viscount Rochford.)
Good-morrow, Rochford! You are stirring soon.
Rochford.
One stirs betimes who keeps a sleepless night.
Queen A.
Have you been ill?
Roch.
Indeed I cannot tell.
Perchance a fever brought my waking dreams.
Queen A.
What dreams?
Roch.
I lay half slumbering, half awake,
And ever, as my senses leaned to sleep,
The same wild vision roused me from my rest.
Queen A.
So you came here, before the break of day,
To tell your dreams? I am no soothsayer.
Pshaw! Rochford, this is trifling. You have griefs—
Big, weighty griefs; I see them on your brow.
Roch.
First hear my dream: I swear, no common one,
For you were mingled in it.
Queen A.
Well, say on.
Roch.
I thought that you and I, for years and years,
Had climbed the rundles of a slippery ladder.
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A blazing halo, like a sunset sky,
Shone glorious, and towards it we bent our steps,
Urged by resistless impulse. You were first;
And when I halted, by the labor tired,
Or dizzy at the awful depth beneath,
You cheered me on, and with your nimble feet
Spurned the frail rounds, till sundered 'neath your tread
They fell around me. Woful, woful sight!
Each stick in falling to a ghastly head
Was metamorphosed. Here, Queen Katharine's fell;
There Wolsey's, More's, and Fisher's, spouting blood;
And many a one whose face I could not catch.
These, as they passed me, whispered in my ears
A horrid curse, and grinned, and winked their eyes.—
Queen A.
Good heaven, how awful! Was there more of this?
Roch.
Ay, far more dreadful fancies.
Queen A.
Could there be?
Roch.
Already through the radiant clouds above
Your form was piercing, when our frail support
Shook till I sickened; and aloft I saw
A dreadful shape, in features like the king,
Tugging and straining with his threatening hand
To hurl our ladder to the depths below.
I saw you clutching at the dazzling clouds,
That, unsubstantial, melted in your grasp;
I heard you cry to the unpitying fiend
Who held our lives in his relentless hands;
I saw you turn on me one fearful look,
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Had crowded all pale shapes of agony,
Ere, with spasmodic catching at my breath,
I shot down headlong.—With the fall, I woke.
Queen A.
A fearful dream.
Roch.
A most connected one.
The thing seems now an uttered prophecy,
Whose power shall bend the neck of stubborn time
To do its bidding.
Queen A.
Cheer up, Rochford, cheer!
Some one has told you that his majesty
Looks coldly on me. So has he before,
When I have crossed him in his fiery moods.
To-day, I mean to win him back again.
I must confess I have been negligent,
Not to have closed our matrimonial flaw.
Roch.
Sister, this levity is forced. I know
That your proud soul has suffered keen chagrin;
Nor in hope's sunshine stand you more than I.
Jane Seymour—
Queen A.
Nonsense, man, to place my worth
Against the nothing of so weak a girl!
The king's time lags; his ever-roving eye,
Perchance his appetite, was caught by her:
The eye soon tires, the heart is never full;
The first is hers, the nobler prize is mine.
Hope for the best. If I return to-day
A conquered soldier, from this war of hearts,
I'll give you leave to ease your sorry eyes
O'er my afflictions.
Roch.
Joy be with you, sister!
Your merry mood has stolen my fear away.
[Going.]
Yet what I have heard—
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Nay, what anon you'll hear!
[Exit Rochford.]
O, misery! to play this queenly part
Even to my brother! To be so supreme
That the sweet flood of human sympathy,
In which the beggar's ragged form may lave,
Can never touch me! This is royalty,
To feel for all that have no sense for me:
To have no kindred, no companionship—
The lonely phœnix on her spicy fire.
Alone, alone! Kind heaven, the king remains—
My rightful mate, sole partner of my lot—
And I will win him, though conspiring earth
Turn all its dust to Seymours, and the land
Sprout with such weedy beauties as this girl!
[Exit.]
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