 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
ACT IV.
Scene I.—The Palace of the Empress Matilda at Rouen.
The Empress, Idonea.Empress.
Speak on, my child. Windsor's old oaks once more
While you discoursed of all your merry staghunts
Above me sighed, and kindlier airs than those
Which now I breathe with pain. Speak thou; I listen.
Had I but had such brother! Yours is dead:
Such loss means this, that he—none else—shall walk
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In youth unchanged.
Ido.
Not Time itself could change him!
That light which cheers me still from eyes unseen,
That wild sweet smile around imagined lips,
A moment's breathless, magic visitation,
Which falls upon me like a kiss and flies,
Are brighter not with everlasting youth
Than was his spirit. Mind he seemed, all mind!
In childhood, flower and weed and bird and beast
Nature's fair pageant to the eye of others,
To him were that and more. Old Bertram said
There lurked more insight in his pupil's questions
Than in conclusions of the sage self-styled.
He never had grown old!
Empress.
Boyhood might be
Fair as that girlhood poet-sung, and bright
Besides with action, courage, frank defiance
Conquering all ill, nor touched by maiden fear—
Oftenest its autumn chokes its spring. I trust
Your brother's youth was faithful to his boyhood.
Ido.
Faithful! O madam, how much more than faithful!
Vivacities of young intelligence
Were merged, not lost, in kindlings of a soul
Where Thought and Love seemed one. He trod an earth
The Saviour's; yea, and Mary's. All things shone
Beauteous to him, for God shone clear through all:
His longing was to free the Tomb of Christ
Fighting in Holy Land. Death's early challenge
Pleased him as well! ‘Thank God! that Holy Land
Was dear,’ he said;—‘more dear, more near, is Heaven!’
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(after a long silence).
At twenty years—had my son died at twenty—
The last great day alone can answer that:
I did my best that time: I did it late
To stay that fatal war 'twixt him and Becket
Which inly wastes him like an atrophy—
Thenceforth you were alone.
Ido.
Not that first month:
Near me that time he seemed—a spiritual nearness
Impossible, I think, to flesh and blood:
Terrestrial life returned. 'Twas then I wept.
Empress.
Peace came at last.
Ido.
'Twas in a church, one even:
The choir had closed their books; but still on high
Rolled on the echoes of their last ‘Amen.’
Something within me sobbed, ‘Amen, so be it.’
I wept no more.
Empress.
Nay, nay, the dead have claims:
I love not those who cheat them of their due.
Child, grief is grief.
Ido.
I clasped it as God's gift,
And 'twixt my bosom and my arms it vanished.
Some wound seemed staunched. My body still was weak:
Wintry the woods: yet in my soul the more
God's happy spring made way. Slowly within me
My childhood's wish returned—to live a nun:
I deemed it first presumption; yea temptation;
It changed to hope. Faint was that hope, and like
The greening verge of some young tree in March,
When all its bulk is dark.
Empress.
With such a brother
Either you ne'er had stooped to earthly love,
Or love in you had lacked its earthlier part:
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Ido.
By hindrance helped. I seem to you unwedded:
Yet when the irrevocable vow was breathed
'Twas as a bride I felt—His bride, for Whom
Love grows divine through unreserved Obedience.
My brother too—while we were children both,
In loving, I obeyed him. Some there were
Who mocked me with the name of ‘Little wife.’
I weep him still; yet laugh at mine own tears
Knowing that he I weep is throned in heaven.
Empress.
A more than kingly lot!
Ido.
And yet how great
Is each day's commonest lot when judged aright!
Our convent looks on cottage-sprinkled vales:
Far, far below, now winds the marriage pomp,
The funeral now. O, who could see such things,
Nor help the world with prayer?
Empress.
What see you, child?
Ido.
An Eden, weed-o'ergrown, but still an Eden;
Man's noble life—a fragment, yet how fair!
My father, pilgrim once in southern lands,
Groping 'mid ruins found a statue's foot,
And brought it home. I gazed upon it oft
Until its smiling curves and dimpled grace
Showed me the vanished nymph from foot to brow,
Majestical and sweet. Man's broken life
Shows like that sad, sweet fragment.
Empress.
Life, my child,
In times barbaric is a wilderness:
In cultured times a street, or wrangling mart:
We bear it, for we must. 'Tis best in youth:
The weariness of life perplexes age:
The dust accumulate is worse than anguish:
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(Looks at her long and adds)
O'er you some fifteen years may pass like five:
Die then if you are wise.
Ido.
O madam, madam,
God made man's life: it is a holy thing!
What builds us up that life? The Virtues, first;
That sisterhood divine, brighter than stars,
And diverse more than stars, than gems, than blossoms;
Diverse, yet each so wonderful, so fair:
The Virtues are our life in essence; next,
Those household ties which image ties celestial;
Lastly, life's blessed sorrows. These alone
Rehearse the Man of Sorrows; these alone
Fit us for life with Him.
Empress.
To you man's life
Is prospect, child: to me 'tis retrospect:
They that best know it neither love nor hate:
It hath affections, sorrowful things and sweet:
My share was mine, as daughter and as mother:
It hath its duties, stately taskmasters,
Exacting least in age, when, thanks to God,
At last the unselfish heart is forced upon us
Our time for joy gone by. It hath its cares:
It hath its passions—mine was once ambition;
And, lastly, it hath death.
Ido.
And death is peace.
Empress.
Then death and sleep are things, alas, unlike:
Unpeaceful dreams make my nights terrible—
Pale spectres of past days. Last night I seemed
Once more, as one whom midnight dangers scare,
To rush 'mid blinding snows with frozen feet
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The shout of them that chased me close behind,
The wolf-cry in the woods.
Ido.
That flight from London,
Madam, was yours in sleep.
Empress.
Once more I dreamed:
Once more I fled through false and perjured lands,
Insurgent coasts of rebels vowed to slay me;
I lay within a coffin, on a bier,
With feet close tied. Fierce horsemen galloped past;
At times the traveller or the clown bent o'er me,
And careless said, ‘A corpse.’
Ido.
In such sad seeming
You 'scaped from Bristol.
Empress.
Worse, far worse, remained;
I heard once more the widows' wail at Gloucester;
At Winchester and Worcester once again
Above the crackling of the blazing roofs
I heard the avenging shout that hailed me queen,
And, staying not the bloodshed, shared the sin.
That hour of dream swelled out to centuries;
A year so racked would seem eternity:—
Our penance may prove such.
Ido.
Madam, your strength—
Empress.
A place there is which fits us for that heaven
Where nought unclean can live: else were we hopeless.
How think you of that region?
Ido.
Madam, thus:
That bourne is peace, since therein every will
Is wholly one with His, the Will Supreme;
Is gladness, since deliverance there is sure;
Is sanctity, since punishment alone
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And yet is pain not less.
Empress.
There should be pain;—
Speak on; speak truth; I ne'er had gifts of fancy:
Truth is our stay in life, and more in death.
Ido.
'Tis pain love-born, and healed by love. On earth
Best Christian joy is joy in tribulations:
In that pure realm our grief hath root in joy:
'Tis pain of love that grieves to see not God.
Empress.
Here too sin hides from us God's face; yet here
Feebly we mourn that loss.
Ido.
So deeply here
Man's spirit is infleshed! Two moments are there
Wherein the soul of man beholds its God;
The first at its creation, and the next
The instant after death.
Empress.
It sees its Judge.
Ido.
And, seeing, is self-judged, and sees no longer:—
Yet rests in perfect peace. As some blind child,
Stayed in its mother's bosom, feels its safety,
So in the bosom of the love eterne,
Secure, though sad, it waits the eternal Vision,
The over-bending of that Face divine
Which now—now first—it knows to be its heaven,
That primal thirst of souls at last re-waked,
The creature's yearning for its great Creator.
Empress.
Pray that these pains may help me towards that Vision!
Till these my later years I feared not death:
Death's magnanimity, as death draws nigh,
Subdues that fear. My hope is in the Cross.
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Will send my pain, the eternal love console,
And He who made me prove at last my peace.
I hope so: at my best I think 'tis so.
Farewell! Return at morn; your words, your looks
Have brought me help. Be with me when I die.
Scene II.—Palace of Woodstock.
King Henry, John of Oxford.K. Hen.
All's well; and then all's ill;—who wars on Becket
Hath January posting hard on May,
And night at ten o' the morn. That man regains
Whate'er we snatch: he's dangerous in retreat.
Three times I conquered; first with rotten aid
Of his own bishops in this realm of England;
At Rome through help from you when hope seemed gone;
Lastly at Montmirail. Now comes the change:
Those new-sent envoys bend their brows above me;
Impeach me with bad faith; aver the Censures
Conditionally only were removed;
Remind me of your oaths at Rome!
John of Oxf.
If humbly
Your Highness sues their leave to wear that crown
Bequest of kings who bowed not to the crosier,
The primate wins. So be it!
K. Hen.
Bequest of kings!
There's none of them that dared what I have dared!
They ruled a realm and shared that realm with priests:
I rule an empire; made and rule an empire
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That Frederick's in the East. How bind, how fuse it,
If every bishop reigns, a lesser king,
And every baron? To the dust with such!
My empire is an empire ruled by laws,
Not warring wills; but, mark you, royal laws,
The efflux of one royal will forth flowing
Like rivers through the land!
John of Oxf.
There spake a king!
To speed that great design, I, priest myself,
For many a year, not caring who cried ‘shame,’
Have given you help—that help a priest alone
Sagacious through the labyrinth still to scent
The tortuous trail of priestcraft, could have given.
Sir, at this hour you stand in dangers worse
Thrice than your dangers past. A cry goes up
Not from the poor alone. Your barons, vexed
By scutage tax in place of warlike service,
Fair lands flung wide to judges sent on circuit,
Sharp lawyers prying into privilege,
This day more hate you than they love church-lands:
The Pope grows strong, and with his strength his courage;
While Becket, sager for defeats foregone,
Comes hard on victory's goal.
K. Hen.
A synod, John—
At Clarendon I'll call it three months hence.
John of Oxf.
The bishops will be wary. Synods now
Spawn but disputes; the last was ill-attended.
Old Winton, summoned, answered that the canons
Forbad appeal from greater powers to less:
‘And I,’ he said, ‘now old and grey, have had
That greater summons from my Master, God,
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K. Hen.
Within your eye
I see a counsel glimmering. Speak it, John!
John of Oxf.
Your Highness needs some measure stringent, strong,
Some act to astonish foes, and hearten friends;—
Yet, venturing such, before you imminent
There looms an Interdict.
K. Hen.
And that were ruin.
John of Oxf.
Hear now my counsel! Crown your son, Prince Henry!
The boy will be your puppet-king;—the Pope
Must count him king in act. Work then your will
No Interdict strikes him, or his.
K. Hen.
'Twere hard—
To crown a king is Canterbury's right
By law and usage both.
John of Oxf.
That stands provided!
You willed to crown the prince when eight year old:
That day the Pope granted a dispensation,
And bade you choose your bishop. Canterbury
Lacked then, 'tis true, a primate. What of that?
A precedent was made;—the rest be mine.
Send me to Rome: the Curia seeks no triumph
The Pope shall learn that, grieved at errors past
You from your greatness have deposed yourself
To fight in Holy Land.
K. Hen.
The Pope consent!
John of Oxf.
He still may count that dispensation binding
For Popes are scrupulous ofttimes to their loss:
If, pressed by Becket, he should call it back
We act at once upon his earlier mandate,
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Unless 'tis publicly, in the face of day
Lodged in the bishops' hands, and thus made binding,
Such mandate they may spurn.
K. Hen.
Which fraud exposed,
Becket will launch his bolt.
John of Oxf.
O never, never
That bolt shall Becket launch—
K. Hen.
I keep him barred
From England's shores. Not less that bolt would scorch them.
John of Oxf.
We have reached the inmost kernel of my scheme.
Some six weeks since—so rumour ran—you stood
All day in stormy conference with your bishops:
At eve a stranger, gliding through the dusk,
Lodged in the royal hand an unsigned letter,
On reading which you smiled.
K. Hen.
Its words were these:
‘Better that Becket stood on England's shores
Than roamed the world at will.’
John of Oxf.
I wrote that letter.
K. Hen.
Craftiest of counsellors, I see your drift!
You mean—a dungeon. Henry crowned, the primate,
Or wrathful, or to win his pupil back,
Will hasten to this land.
John of Oxf.
Your Highness then
Hunting in merry Maine! A dungeon—yes—
Worse than a dungeon would be worse for us—
Sir, have no fear! The ship that veers advances:
We have made our losing tack; the good tack next.
[Queen Eleanor enters with her ladies.
The glory and the grace of female beauty,
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Q. Elea.
(advancing to the king with a parrot on her wrist).
Lo, here my new-taught mocker! Learn like him!
Speak, painted prophet!—‘Thomas is a fool!’
Scene III.—A wood close to the Abbey of St. Colombe, near Sens.
Herbert of Bosham, alone.Her.
Since Nature, God's fair daughter, wreathes at times
The Church's fillet o'er her laughing eyes,
And, masked in livery of her graver sister,
Like her would teach us—learn we of her lore!
What means this flower? Men call it Columbine;
A tassel-toy. Yet, pluck, save one, its purples,
And lo, that remnant left puts on the dove!
Blossom to bird is changed! The meaning's plain:
Weed out your joys; cast off redundancies:
Deflower the pomps and shows of secular life;
Then at their core you reach the wingèd greatness!
The passion-flower itself—
John of Sal.
(arriving).
Hail, ancient friend!
Her.
Far-travelled seer, welcome from all the lands!
How speak they of our primate?
John of Sal.
Much, and ill:
The magnates of the State fear and dislike him;
The magnates of the Church admire yet fear;
With instinct from above the poor are with him.
Her.
'Tis ever thus! In Castle Rockingham,
When like a stag at bay old Anselm stood
The Red King glaring at him in lust of blood,
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The council-hall was as a captured city:
The bishops hung their heads. Then from the crowd
An old grey man stepped forth, and knelt, and said,
‘Father, thy children bid thee have no fear:
The poor man's prayer is strong!’
John of Sal.
Not slacker of help
Pope Urban was to Anselm than, this hour,
His successor to Thomas. Herbert, Herbert!
The Church errs never; but her rulers err:
They lack the earth-wisdom of the secular lords.
Her.
The errors of the rulers of the Church
At times more serve her than their happiest prudence.
'Tis true they cause her trials:—what of that?
God sends her strength proportioned to those trials,
And makes her feel that strength is His alone.
Statesmen do penance here on earth for errors;—
A later, sterner Court shall judge their sins:
The Church wears sackcloth here on earth for sins;
The sinless error hurts her not: it breeds
Her pains of growth—no more.
John of Sal.
That slowness frets me!
Her.
Her slowness means her greatness. Statesmen play
Still the short game, because their time is short,
She that endures, the long one. 'Tis her nature,
Her nature, and God's law, not her design:
She cannot mass her total force in front:
Too manifold is it, and too deeply hidden;
Reserves she hath. Some tyrant's luckless craft
Forth drags them; and, his victory all but won,
He finds his war beginning; near life's end
Finds it once more beginning.
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Henry's craft
Deceives no more. Faith gravitates t'ward Becket;
But men of faith grow rarer.
Her.
God, O God!
How diverse showed those twain when first they warred,
And how that first diversity hath grown
With fleeting of the years! At Montmirail
That truth o'ershone me like a lightning flash!
Not then, as at Northampton, Becket towered
A terror to his foes. By all forsaken
He made no boast of self. In patient sadness
With neck a little bent and forward head,
Six hours he stood beneath that scourge of tongues:
He spake but this; ‘I swear to serve my king,
Saving the honour of the King of kings:
Who swears to more is Pagan and a slave.’
I saw that God had sent his soul that hour
A soul's supremest trial—Dereliction:
The fountains of the mighty deep of woe
Were broken up: the joy of Faith was dead:
Yet Faith itself lived on. 'Mid storm and darkness
He clung to God as limpet to the rock;—
He's greater than he was: the grace of Orders
Makes increase in his spirit.
John of Sal.
It were time
He sued the Pope once more.
Her.
He never sues him,
Though loyalest of his sons. He trusts in God
And broods not much on counsels for the future.
When late I spake of such, he smiled and said
‘There was an hour beside Saint Denys' tomb:
'Twas then you deemed our fortunes touched their highest:
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Issues man's hope, but from the martyr's grave.’
John of Sal.
Herbert, the fault is yours—your fault—your folly!
One day you'll wreck us. Yes, the fault is yours!
Should Thomas catch from you—
Her.
No word from me
Hath Thomas heard to fire the martyr's zeal.
John of Sal.
Ever you praise man's life; yet ever muse
How, innocently, man may soonest leave it:
All which the juncture needeth you ignore.
Herbert, see that which is !—you gaze for aye
On pictures in the air.
Her.
Which they see not
Who, dazzled, watch that merriest house on fire
A world in dotage hastening to its doom.
John of Sal.
Am I a worldling?
Her.
Nay, but half, good John;
Worldling with heavenward aim.
John of Sal.
Herbert, you know
As little of the world as of the flesh—
Of each not more, I ween, than of the Devil:
Let the world be.
Her.
Things are there he knows best
Who knows them only slightly, and at distance.
Well, well, the world is fair—this day at least;—
Ay, and the life of man is worth the living!
So deem that bannered choir of youths and maids:
O how the heart springs forth on wings to meet them!
Glad hearts sing there! And yet they'll only learn
In heaven how fair a thing was earthly life!
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(pass near singing).
Hark, the Spring! She calls!
With a thousand voices
'Mid the echoing forest-halls
One great heart rejoices!
With a thousand voices
'Mid the echoing forest-halls
One great heart rejoices!
Hills where young lambs bound
Whiten o'er with daisies:
Flag-flowers light the lower ground
Where the old steer grazes.
Whiten o'er with daisies:
Flag-flowers light the lower ground
Where the old steer grazes.
Meadows laugh, flower-gay;
Every breeze that passes
Waves the seed-cloud's gleaming grey
O'er the greener grasses.
Every breeze that passes
Waves the seed-cloud's gleaming grey
O'er the greener grasses.
O thou Spring! be strong,
Exquisite new-comer!
And the onset baffle long
Of advancing Summer!
Exquisite new-comer!
And the onset baffle long
Of advancing Summer!
John of Sal.
Herbert, farewell! Within I seek the primate:
New treasons rise, which to forestall, the Pope
Sends mandates to my Lords of York and London:
The Swearer saw him late—that means a storm.
[John of Salisbury departs.
Her.
(alone).
John has great virtues—not the chief, like Becket's,
Since worldly men can understand them half—
Yet great ones since they take no stain from praise.
How kind is Providence! To one like me,
Strengthless, a Christian fabler more than Christian,
Flatteries of men, reverence from hostile kings,
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Had proved a flower-decked pitfall. For that cause
Such things pass by our sort.
Scene IV.—The Abbey of St. Colombe.
Becket, alone.Bec.
Each day more clearly, like two mighty peaks
Of one veiled mountain, shine two truths before me:
My hope is not from England—that I learned
Deserted at Northampton: not from Rome—
Deserted when those legates, later missioned,
Cancelled my two years' work, and from me hurled
A penitent realm, returning. Not from France—
Deserted by her king. That hour, methinks,
I stood within Death's porch. That hour, it may be,
Some inmost ill, my soul's chief Tempter, died.
Twice was the victory from my hand down dashed
When all but won.
Immeasurably Rome helps me—needs she must—
Simply by being—merely by existence;
Help me by act she cannot. She doth well:
To invoke her now were base. But thou, my country,
The on-rolling centuries, whose fateful hands
Shall bind the purple or the death-robe round thee,
Engrain their deep-dyed tissue here, and now!
Thy son I am not less than Christian bishop:
Thy martyr, if God wills it, I would die.
[Llewellen enters.
A legate's powers are mine as yet: I use them.
These be the Papal mandates. Place them, friend,
Within their hands—the hands of York and London;
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Your labour else is vain.
Llew.
It shall be done.
[Departs.
Bec.
There should have been no need to send those missives—
I must not think it. Once I was unjust.
The Pope sits throned upon the Church's tower;
Sees all: I fight below: my time is short,
And in it much to expiate. I must act.
(After a pause)
I strove for justice, and my Mother's honour;
For these at first. Now know I that God's Truth
Is linked with these as closely as body and soul.
Scene V.—Abbey of St. Colombe.
Archbishop of Sens, Herbert of Bosham.Arch. of Sens.
Herbert! your legate must be told these rumours:
I trust he'll soon return. Your king is sudden:
The tidings of his march and victory reach us
Like runners matched. That slender, sinewy frame,
That ardent eye, that swift on-striding step,
Yet graceful as a tiger's, foot descending
Silent but sure on the predestinate spot—
From signs like these looks forth the inward man.
Expect grave news ere long. 'Twill task the legate;
Yea, though his greatness patent is to all,
'Twill task it sore.
Her.
So best! 'Twill task to crown it!
My lord, fear naught: I knew him in old days:
I saw that greatness hid, though thick its veil,
In every gesture of his soul and body.
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Not when he cried, ‘I spurn your Customs new,’
But when he said, ‘I sinned, and sin no more.’
Nor ends it there: all this was prologue merely:
As o'er the petty pomps of earthly pride
Rises the heroic greatness, so in grade
Loftier, the saintly springs o'er that to heaven,
A Tree of Life whose leaves shall heal sick lands.
I shall not die till Thomas is a Saint;
And then we'll die together. Lo, he comes!
[Becket enters.
Arch. of Sens.
My lord, you have heard those rumours: they are grave.
Bec.
Your Grace is gloomier than your wont, and show
Less than yourself therein. My lord, that bishop
Who crowns, in scorn of great Augustine's right,
An English king, stands excommunicate.
I deem these rumours idle things. The Pope
To bar all danger, issued letters thrice,
First from Anagni, from the Lateran next,
And last from Alba, to our English bishops:
I saw no need for such.
Arch. of Sens.
A whisper stirs
That instruments consenting to that deed,
The sigil of the Fisherman appended,
Were forged by John of Oxford. Others say
He won the Pope's consent long since by fraud;
His fraud exposed, that sanction was withdrawn;
But to those instruments consent withdrawing
The English ports are closed.
Bec.
My lord, fear naught!
Remember Montmirail! There stood I sole
The good French king—nay, Rome itself against me:
More late the Roman envoys saw the snare:
The King of France—I sought him out at Sens:
With head bent low in heaviness he sat:
I deemed myself once more an exiled man:
One moment, and he knelt before my feet;
‘You, you alone,’ he cried, ‘that day had eyes;
Blind were we all;—except that youthful prince,
You have not a friend in England.’
(To Llewellen, entering)
Remember Montmirail! There stood I sole
The good French king—nay, Rome itself against me:
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The King of France—I sought him out at Sens:
The account given by Canon Morris of the interview between Becket and the two kings at Montmirail includes much that is characteristic: ‘Before the conference began, St. Thomas was surrounded by his friends, who, almost unanimously, tried to induce him to make his submission to King Henry absolutely, adding no condition or clause, and leaving all the matter in dispute to the king's generosity. . . . Herbert of Bosham managed to thrust himself in amongst the crowd of great people to whisper a warning to the saint that, if he omitted the clause “saving God's honour” now, he would be sure afterwards to repent it as bitterly as he had done the omission of the former clause in England. There was not time for him to answer by more than a look when they were in the presence of the kings.’ Henry addressed Louis. ‘This speech produced a great effect. Some people called out, “The king humbles himself enough.” The archbishop was silent for a while, when Louis said, in a way which delighted the friends of the King of England, “My Lord Archbishop, do you want to be more than a saint? or better than Peter? Why do you doubt? Peace is at hand.” . . . The majority even of his own followers were led away by the current feeling, and were jealous of losing the restoration to their homes, which had seemed just within their grasp. As they were riding away after the conference the horse of one of them, named Henry de Hoctune, who was riding just before the Archbishop, stumbled, on which the rider called out, loud enough for the saint to hear, “Go on, saving the honour of God, and of holy Church, and of my Order.” Here again the Archbishop, much as he was pained, did not speak.’ The poor never forsook him. ‘As they went, people asked who it was that was going by; and when they heard that it was the Archbishop of Canterbury, they pointed him out to one another, saying “That is the Archbishop who yesterday would not deny God or neglect His honour for the sake of the kings.” Soon after all was changed. King Louis discovered that Henry had deceived him; and one of the Papal envoys, Bernard of Grammont, said to Herbert, “I would rather have my foot cut off than that your lord the Archbishop should have made peace at that conference, as I and all the others advised him.”’
With head bent low in heaviness he sat:
I deemed myself once more an exiled man:
One moment, and he knelt before my feet;
‘You, you alone,’ he cried, ‘that day had eyes;
Blind were we all;—except that youthful prince,
You have not a friend in England.’
Ha, good scout!
How sped you on your way?
How sped you on your way?
Llew.
My errand failed.
Bec.
No fault of yours, good friend!
Llew.
By night I landed,
And sped to London in a beggar's garb:
Day after day, in banquet hall and church,
I strove to reach my Lords of York and London;
They knew the danger near and stood on guard:
At last I sought my Lord of London's house:
Slowly the bishop crossed the court in prayer,
And, reading, cast at times a sidelong glance:
I knelt me down, and raised the Papal missive:
He deemed it some petition; softly took it;—
Ere long he learned the truth.
Bec.
But not in public?
Llew.
The humbleness in his regard grew sour;
Yet wroth he seemed not: ‘From the Pope—a mandate!
Knowing the parchment forged, I read it not:
The Pope's authentic mandate is with us.’
He spake, and tossed it from him, and passed by.
In rushed the prince with mummers, and I 'scaped;
Else had my lot been hard.
Bec.
What next befell?
Llew.
At morn the king was knighted by his father,
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Bec.
By whom?
Llew.
By one
Who little liked his office, Roger of York.
Bec.
His time will come. That coronation oath
At least bears witness 'gainst the ‘Royal Customs;’
The prince made oath to guard the Church's freedom—
Pray God he guard it better than his sire!
Llew.
That sentence from his oath was razed: the bishops
Who crowned him sware to keep the Royal Customs!
Bec.
(rising suddenly).
The mask is off! Thank God, 'tis off for ever!
(After a pause)
No more of that. Proceed! The prince was crowned.
Llew.
The rest was naught but jubilee and triumph,
Wine-fountains, pealing bells, the bonfires' glare,
The tournament, and charging of the steeds
In the ordered lists. High up, o'er-canopied
By cloth of gold, refulgent sat the queen;
Her ladies round her in a silken haze
Like the moon's halo round the moon, when night
On hills of Wales—
Her.
Let be your hills of Wales;
The feast? You saw it?
Llew.
Ay, in minstrel's garb:
The tables groaned with gold: I scorned the pageant!
The Norman pirates and the Saxon boors
Sat round and fed: I hated them alike
The rival races, one in sin. Alone
We Britons tread our native soil.
Her.
Both kings
Were present?
274
There a merry chance befell:
King Henry stood behind his son, and served.
‘Give thanks, young prince,’ my Lord of York brake forth,
‘For ne'er till now—’ ‘Is it strange,’ the boy replied,
If by an earl's son a king's son is served?’
The great hall roared with laughter; high o'er all
His father's voice!
Bec.
How like my youthful pupil!
God bless the child! I am glad he wears the crown!
God grant him grace!
Arch. of Sens.
Grave tidings these, my lord!
Bec.
My lord, you take me back from morn to night.
The coronation's naught; we are hurt elsewhere.
That Oath to keep the Church in liberty,
That baptism vow of England Christian made,
That bridal pledge of England wed to Christ,
That sister link 'twixt her and Christendom,
Whose holy kingdoms weep henceforth her fall;
That oath, that vow, that pledge, that link all-blessèd,
The birthright of the nations ere their birth,
The talisman which 'mid their youthful struggles
Charmed them from fate and saved them from themselves;
Which still for suffering weakness found defence
In the great conscience of Humanity
Impersonate in God's Church and armed and missioned;—
Lo, where that Oath is dashed aside, cast off
Unceremoniously as a shifted robe
Or banquet-trencher changed, or rotted bandage
Foul from a wound and flung into the filth!
This thing no comment bears: too grave it is
For wrath or further speech. I go to England.
275
Scene VI.—A house in Freitval.
Leicester, Cornwall.Leic.
This meeting of the primate and the kings
Must bring the end. Our king shall make or mar
In measure as the course he takes to-morrow
Be true or false.
Corn.
For years I have not seen
Such health on Henry's brow. That coronation
Which raised the boy to monarch, changed not less
His father to a boy.
Leic.
Cornwall! that deed
Was worse than questionable. Triumphant acts
Consummated at last and on the sudden,
Yea though of sin compact, with omens black,
Are not alone achievement but deliverance
And fire the heart like wine—
A load's removed; and, like a ship upspringing
Then when the o'er-blown mast is hacked away,
The spirit regains its port erect and rushes,
Though maimed, before the storm. Conscience expelled,
Conscience long labouring, and at last expelled,
Is next in strength to conscience crowned a king:—
Which strength this day is Henry's?
Corn.
Which? I care not!
Enough that strength he hath.
Leic.
Strength to waste strength:
He hath sold his great ambitions for a dream!
He might have conquered Scotland ere this hour:
We battle still 'mid marches bleak of Wales
Whose war-cries scare our sleeping babes. There's Ireland!
276
Three years ago, Dermod, her woman-stealer,
Knelt to our king. His hands were full of Becket:
He might have conquered Ireland in six months;
Conquered and raised; or else with continent heart
Trampled Ambition's letch and left her bloodless.
He found a baser path: he farmed his feud
To bandit barons: bade them cross the sea
And ravin where they listed.
Corn.
Wary and wise!
These barons soon will sorely need his aid:
Then comes his time!
Leic.
Cornwall! They'll win and keep;
Now cut a prince's throat; now wed a princess:
Our king is vowed and sworn to Law and Order:
They'll brook no law that stands betwixt their greed
And serfs, their prey. Fitz-Stephen laughed of late
While Dermod danced o'er true men foully slain;
They'll laugh more loud when Outlawry not Law,
And clans war-mad, secure to them their lands
Sans need of aid from England. I discern
A deep'ning cancer bred from Ireland's heart
Yet hollowing England's breast.
Corn.
Those Letters Patent,
'Tis true, gave licence large. I scarcely guess—
Leic.
'Twas granted half in hope, and half in fear:
This Becket-war offends the greater nobles:
He dare not trust them: Chester—Arundel—
Frown when they name him: Oxford calls him upstart.
Barons that starve and disaffected priests,
On such alone securely he relies.
His Customs! What were we, princes of England,
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Casual concessions filched or bought, if tried
In hostile courts, and not before our peers?
Better be collared with the old Saxon ring;
Wear name of Serf and Thrall!
Corn.
In that we holp him:
Northampton's castle—
Leic.
Sir, we have our penance!
Young Harry's crowned! In guerdon of our help
We are ruled by babes! Good father-king, beware
You light a fire that soon will reach your roof!
From this beginning wars on wars shall rise.
The prince is proud; will scorn to reign, a puppet;
Discord will spread: first sons against their sire,
Brother 'gainst brother next will dash in frenzy:
The inveterate habit, hate, will prey within;
The wound, skinned o'er, break out again in blood
A river rushing on from reign to reign,
Till on the far, predestinate field at last
Plantagenet's great race makes shameful end
While some large-fisted boor or blear-eyed knave
Steals the dishonoured crown. If any Fury
Hates Henry's house, she fixed on it her eye
Then when this strife began.
Corn.
I hate this Becket;—
He is the Church's champion.
Leic.
Friend, you err:
I thought with you; but years have taught me better:
Becket was fanatic never though once proud:
Salisbury's old bishop says ‘he's dangerous,
Yet dangerous not as tortuous, but as simple
And passionate for the honour of his charge:
The State, not Church, that charge, he had not failed
278
Corn.
I serve the king;
My thought ends there.
Leic.
Cornwall, I also serve him;—
Would I had served him with less servile service:
Our course hath scarce been knightly, nay, scarce Christian:
Our service hath disserved him to his shame.
Scene VII.—The ‘Traitor's Meadow’ near Freitval.
Llewellen, Fitz-Stephen.Llew.
These princes and these prelates keep not time:
Each fears to come the first.
Fitz-Ste.
Lo, there our king:
The French king not. That ‘kiss of peace,’ withheld
From Becket, moves his spleen. 'Mid Henry's train
I see that beast, Fitz-Urse.
Llew.
Right opposite
Rides Becket; at his left Earl Theobald,
And Sens' Archbishop at his right.
Fitz-Ste.
The king
Makes speed to meet him, with uncovered head:
And lo, with what a zeal he grasps his hand!
Now they embrace. Was that the kiss of peace?
Llew.
Not so:—the king's horse swerved. Beasts have true instincts.
K. Hen.
The unhappy, sour, and anger-venomed time,
By craft of others clouded and confused,
Hath drifted past us; and once more shines out
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Drave in betwixt us, Thomas!
Bec.
Sire, my king,
Those cloudy days at times had better gleams;
Their summer promise, like a witch's gold,
Still left me poorer.
K. Hen.
Nay, not promises!
Forward I ever was to speak my hopes;
Slow to pledge grace.
Bec.
Beneath Montmartre you pledged it:
The French king heard you and my Lord of Sens
And many a French and English knight beside.
I prayed for restitution of those lands
From Canterbury torn. It pleased your Highness
To grant that prayer; yet till this hour that pledge
Lies void as bankrupt's bond.
K. Hen.
This must be looked to.
Bec.
I made another and a weightier suit:
Those benefices dowered for God's high worship
And temporal service of the poor of Christ,
By sacrilegious barons clutched and sold
To trencher priests the Church's scourge and scandal,
For these I made demand. It pleased your Highness
To pledge your word that rapine should surcease:
Sire, for two little months the plague was stayed;
Then burst it forth anew.
K. Hen.
They hid it from me.
Bec.
The vacant abbeys, widowed bishoprics
Glut still the royal coffers.
K. Hen.
Some, I think,
Have gained true shepherds late: the rest shall win them.
I made delay fearing lest rash elections
280
Bec.
To me and mine
Return was promised to our native land
Where rest the bones of them who went before us:
Your coasts are closed against us; and my friends—
Of hunger many, more of grief have died
In alien lands, and sleep in nameless graves.
K. Hen.
Now by the Saints of Anjou and of Maine,
England to you is open as this hand,
And hath been since that coronation-day
Which made your pupil king.
Bec.
Your Highness touches
Our latest wrong. The see of Canterbury
Hath privilege sole to crown our English kings:
My Lord of York usurped that dignity
Crowning your son.
K. Hen.
The Conqueror's self was crowned
By York's Archbishop, not by holy Stigand
Primate that day. My grandfather was crowned
By Hereford's bishop.
Bec.
Stigand had not won
From Rome the pallium, and the see was vacant:
Hereford's bishop served in Anselm's place,
An exile then for God. Anselm, returned,
Re-crowned the ill-crowned king.
K. Hen.
By Anjou's Saints,
Your bishops snared me. Let them pay the forfeit!
Bec.
My Lords of York and London are suspended:
May it please your Highness plainly to declare
If you confirm that sentence?
K. Hen.
I confirm it!
'Tis three times ratified. I tell you, Thomas,
I'll have the old times again. The princess scorned
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Your hands re-crown my son.
Bec.
Alas! the grief
To win all rights, all but the best, the dearest!
You make no mention of the—
K. Hen.
Name them not!
This day is festal: bring no cloud upon it!
Bec.
O would that I had never heard them named,
Ne'er seen them blazoned—
K. Hen.
Thomas, on English shores
All wrongs shall be made right.
Bec.
A morn there was—
Your Highness then had scarce been three months king—
When, in a window of your Woodstock palace—
The birds were singing 'mid the bowers below—
We read some history of pagan days;
It pierced your heart: you started up: you cried,
‘Thrice better were these pagans than your saints!
They loved their native land! They set their eyes
On one small city, small but yet their mother,
And died in its defence!’
K. Hen.
Again I say it!
Bec.
I answered thus; ‘They knew the State alone:
They played at dim rehearsals, yet were true
To truth then man's. They gazed with tearful eyes
Not on their city only, but that rock,
Its marble mother which above it soared
Crowned with that city's fortress and its fanes:
Beyond their gods lived on the “God Unknown:”
Above base mart and popular shout survived
The majesty of law.’
282
'Tis true. Thus spake you.
Bec.
But added this:—‘Our God is not unknown:
In omnipresent majesty among us
His Church sits high upon her rock tower-crowned,
Fortress of Law divine and Truth Revealed,
Enthroned o'er every city, realm, and people!
Had we the man-heart of the men of old,
With what a spirit of might invincible
For her should we not die!’
K. Hen.
With tears you spake it.
Bec.
Then judge me justly, O my king, my friend,
Casting far from you, like a sundered chain,
A thought abhorred, an ignominy down-trodden,
The oppression of dead error. Say, shall I,
A Christian bishop, and a subject sworn,
Be pagan more than pagan, doubly false—
False to a heavenly kingdom throned o'er earth,
False to an earthly kingdom raised to heaven,
And ministering there high on the mount of God
'Mid those handmaiden daughters of a King
The kingdoms and the nations of this world,
Who gird the Queen gold-vested? Pagans, sire,
Lived not, though dark, in Babylonian blindness:
The laws of that fair city which they loved
Subjecting each man, raised him and illumed.
We too are citizens of no mean City:
Her laws look forth on us from rite and creed:
In her we venerate Man's Race Redeemed,
Which—cleansed from bestial, and ill spirits expelled—
In unity looks down on us, God's Church,
The Bride of Christ beside the great King throned,
Yea by His sceptre stayed. My king, my friend!
I have done to you no wrong! My many sins
283
If, sane myself, I pandered to your madness.
K. Hen.
Thomas, you lack what only might convert me:
Could you be England's King, her primate I,
Your part I too would play!
Bec.
And O how nobly
And unlike me in fashion you would play it!
How petty my discourse hath been till now:
Sir, see these things as you will one day see them!
Two lots God places in the hand of each:
We choose; and oft we choose the lot least loved.
Least, though the headlong moment's whim or passion
Yields it a moment's crown:
The youth who slays life's hope in random pleasures
Knows not that deep within his heart—far deeper
Than all base cravings—those affections live
Which sanctified his father's home. Years pass:
Sad memories haunt the old man in his house,
Sad shadows strike the never-lighted hearth,
Sad echoes shake the child-untrodden floors:
A great cry issues from his famished heart—
‘I spurned the lot I loved.’
K. Hen.
My youth is past:
It had its errors; yet within my house
Are voices young and sweet.
Bec.
God keep them such!
Far better silence and the lonely halls
Than war-cries round the hearth. God guard your children!
If you have risen against the Church, your mother,
God guard them from revolt against their sire!
I spake not, sir, of errors in your youth:
284
The soul's revolt is deadlier than the body's:
Sir, that revolt is pride. In time, beware!
That God who shapes us all to glorious end
Proffered to you a glory beyond glory:
Your heart's chief yearning was a new Crusade:
Spurn not true greatness for a phantom greatness!
Your flatterers are your danger: them you trust:
You fear the Church: to her you owe your all:
From her you gat your crown.
K. Hen.
That word is true:
The Church and Theobald, and you not less,
Propped me at need. What then? A king perforce
Reveres the ancient ways.
Bec.
O never in you
Was tender reverence for the ancient ways!
Another mind is yours, a different will,
An adverse aim;—that aim I deem not base:
There's greatness in it; but your means are ruthless.
You love your children; there's your sum of love;
Yours are the passions which torment our clay,
The intellect and the courage which exalt it,
The clear conception of a state and empire—
Yet seen but from below. To raise that state
You crush all ancient wont, all rights and heights:
Your kingdom you would level to a plain
O'erlooked by one hill only, and, thereon
The royal tent.
K. Hen.
God made my heart ambitious.
Bec.
Then be ambitious with a high ambition!
You scorn the lofty daring. Lions nigh,
You hunt the forest vermin.
K. Hen.
Thomas, Thomas!
285
Than any personal greatness.
Bec.
Royal sir,
Play not the sophist with yourself or God:
You, you alone have marred your country's peace,
Sapping her faith! Faith is a nation's safety.
Remember, sir, the ‘Battle of the Standard!’
The Scotch king, David, harried all the North:
No king against him marched: 'twas mitred Thurlston:
The freemen of the people round him flocked:
High in a chariot central 'mid that host
Hung the great banners of four English Saints—
Not Saints, Lord King, of Anjou or of Maine—
Cuthbert of Durham, John of Beverley,
Wilfred of Ripon, Peter named of York:
The cry of Albin swept the world before it!
Alone that chariot with its banners stood:
Back fell the astonished clans, and Carlisle's towers
Heard their last wail.
K. Hen.
Barbaric days, my friend!
Turn we to nearer themes. You deem me false,
I know, to friendship old. Impute that fault
To friendship's self. I looked to you for help:
I found my friend my foe.
Bec.
I ne'er deceived you:
I taught you from the first the Church's rights,
Therein through zeal offending your great mother
Who sleeps in God, and moving oft your spleen;
Taught you that nations were not ravening beasts,
Each with its separate spoil and will unquestioned,
But sisters in the bond of Christendom:
I told you pagan nations knew two laws,
Domestic—civil; Christian nations three,
286
Man, that begins a family, through grace
Dilating to the family of Christ,
His utmost limit, and his nature's crown;—
Three spheres engird man's life: I said that none
Might wrong the lesser, none affront the greater:
You knew my heart; from first to last you knew it:
You thought the world would change it; for which cause
You willed me primate.
K. Hen.
Ay, and curse that madness!
I spurn alike your parables and sermons:
I rule my land alone! No more of this!
(After a pause)
The tempest swept athwart me;—it is past.
Thomas, we're friends. Ere long we meet in England:
There you shall have your fill of rights restored:
There, 'mid your frowning foes, the kiss of peace,
That knightly and that kingly pledge of love
Which whoso violates thenceforth is base,
Shall seal our meeting. Louis more than once
Besought me to concede it. What remains
Claim from my son.
Bec.
Sire, ere a king's permission
Had made between a bishop and his see
Plain way once more, your coasts still armed against me
As citizens guard their house by night from thieves,
My course was taken and announced:—return
Once more to my great change.
K. Hen.
A festive nation
Shall meet you landing there.
Bec.
The first, De Broc!
287
And swears that ere this throat has swallowed down
Two English loaves, his knife shall wind around it!
Your pardon, sire; your wandering eye denotes
Your thoughts elsewhere.
K. Hen.
I sought a man I trust:
Would I could send my Lords of Sens and Rouen
To adorn your glad return! I need them both:
Not less a worthy guide shall grace your way,
My friend—a scholar noted—John of Oxford.
Bec.
I know him; and I trust him not. Whoe'er
Your Highness wills is free to share my journey.
I see what I foresaw, and see the end.
K. Hen.
Farewell, my lord: we meet ere long in England!
Bec.
Farewell! I think we shall not meet in England,
And therefore bless you, sire, in France, and now.
K. Hen.
Not meet?
Bec.
I go to England, sire, to die.
K. Hen.
Am I a traitor, Thomas?
Bec.
(after a pause).
Sire, not so.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |