University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

A By-street in London. Knots of vagabonds occasionally cross the scene. Enter Viscount Rochford and Thomas Wyatt.
Rochford.
Here is, indeed, a walk to take a friend,
Good master Poet! Pray what place is this?
Are we in London or in Tartarus?
For, by my life, the visions we have passed
Seemed fit induction to the place of shades.

Wyatt.
No, Heaven be praised, we are in “Safety.” sir;
So call the thieves this well of girding walls.
Here is a place as innocent of rule
As the dun sands of savage Araby.
Here pilferers divide their filchéd rags,
And bolder robbers share their golden spoils;
Here crime is native, natural, unabashed,
Walking abroad in easy confidence;
Here treason stalks, the dreaded ghost of courts,
Whetting his knife, and mixing deadly bowls.
From yonder porch, I heard a hoarse-voiced Jew
Harangue a crowd of frowning murderers,
Cursing the king, the state, the holy church,
Until he choked with mere malignity.
On yonder steps, I saw a quiet wretch
Coolly thrust in an ell or so of steel
Between his brother's ribs.—There they both walk,
The Jew and murderer. No law is here,
Save what the dwellers make, and that is shifting.
I oft have thought the watchful eye of God
Upon this place ne'er rested; or that hell
Had raised so black a smoke of densest sin,
That the All-Beautiful, appalled, shrank back
From its fierce ugliness. I tell you, friend,
When the great treason, which shall surely come
To burst in shards law-bound society,
Gives the first shudder, ere it grinds to dust
Thrones, ranks, and fortunes, and most cunning laws—
When the great temple of our social state
Staggers, and throbs, and totters back to chaos—
Let men look here, here in this fiery mass
Of agéd crime and primal ignorance,
For the hot heart of all the mystery!—
Here, on this howling sea, let fall the scourge,
Or pour the oil of mercy!

Roch.
Pour the oil,—
In God's name, pour the blessed oil! The scourge,
Bloody and fierce, has fallen for ages past
Upon the foreward crests within its reach;
Yet made no more impression on the mass
Than Persia's whips upon the Hellespont.

Wyatt.
'T was not to harrow up your heart with crime—
Though, haply, such amazement is not lost—
I brought you hither. 'T was to stand beyond
The utmost pale and influence of the Court,
Where men interpret a malignant mind
From every look the changing features wear;
Find danger in the meeting of two friends;
Rank treason in devices of our arms;
Open rebellion to their gracious king,
Should we but furbish our time-rusted blades.
Now, Rochford, listen.

Roch.
Heavens! you frighten me.

Wyatt.
No, I but caution you. My tale, though sad,
May rest on fears as thin as summer clouds.

Roch.
Why, that is cheering.

Wyatt.
'T is not for yourself,
But for her sacred majesty, the queen,
I have these vague misgivings.

Roch.
What, the queen!
Pshaw! Wyatt, was there ever woman blessed
As she is? Courted and bepraised by all,
Sharing no empty title in the crown,
No mere producer of a royal brood;
But by the force of her own intellect,
To all effects, an equal with the king.
Why, man, just now she stands at zenith height,
Flooding our land with peerless majesty,
The gaze and wonder of all Christendom.
The great reformer, Anne, preördained
By Heaven to work its solemn purposes!—
Poh! this is idle; we are wasting time;
Your fears, indeed, were thin as summer clouds.

Wyatt.
Ah! know you not, when the rejoicing sun
Has reached its mid-day station in the sky,
At that same time its mournful fall begins?

Roch.
Sir Poet, I confess me figure-beaten:
Now croak away.

Wyatt.
What I shall tell,
My sister Mary told to me alone.
She says, of late her majesty remains,
Hour after hour, with dull and vacant eyes,
Picking the fringe around her garment's hem.
Anon, big tears, like slow-paced mourners, come
Forth from the darkened mansion of her grief,
As if they followed at hope's funeral.
If they arouse her from this lethargy,
She looks bewildered, asks the time of day,
Appears surprised at lateness of the hour,
Gives more commands than she has several hairs;
Talking, meanwhile, at such a rattling pace,
In bitter sneers and heartless gayety,
That not an ear can gather her discourse;
And then again, all suddenly, she falls
Into her former state of revery.

Roch.
Good sir, you startle me. You 're sure of this?
For 't is the dreamy torpor of the brain
That oft foreshadows madness.

Wyatt.
Very sure;
But 't is not madness. Listen, till the end.
One day my sister entered suddenly,
But unperceived, the chamber of her highness.
Scarce had she crossed the threshold ere she saw,
Rolled in a heap and crammed into a corner,
The person of the queen. She stood amazed,
Not daring to approach; and saw such grief,
So absolute, so past all earthly bounds,
So fiercely raging to pain's topmost pitch,
That she shrank quivering to the ante-room.
But there her ears made pictures to her eyes:
Anon, she heard her clawing at the floor,
Sobbing and wailing like a soul possessed:
Then into one long, piercing, hellish scream
Of hideous laughter broke her aching soul.
At that my sister fled, with echoing laugh,
And knew no more till from a lengthened swoon
Her maids awoke her.

Roch.
This is past belief.
Without a doubt, the queen or she is mad.

Wyatt.
My sister says, the king and queen ne'er meet;
That notes unnumbered of her majesty's
He has returned unopened. More, 't is noised,
The king and Seymour's daughter oft of late
Have been observed together; that the foes,
Once secret, but now open, of the queen,
Stand in high favor with his majesty,
And share his private counsels.

Roch.
Gracious Heaven!
If this be certain, there is more in it
Than I dare utter. Have I been bewitched,
That I remained o'er-confident so long?
Now you have mentioned it, a thousand things
Which I have seen, but shuffled by unweighed,
Rise to confirm the gloomiest belief.
My cold receptions, Suffolk's insolence,
Arundel's vaporings, Norfolk's tart replies,
My sudden dearth of courtly sycophants,
And Wyatt's warming friendship. Noble man,
Through all my life I never aided you—

Wyatt.
Because I never asked it. Pshaw! George Boleyn,
Were we not playfellows 'neath Blickling's oaks,
Where first my muse essayed her feeble lisp?
Did you not praise and wonder at my rhymes,
And cheer my heart with kindred sympathy?
Have we not written sonnets and rondeaux,
In kindly rivalry, to Anne's eyes?
Did you not always swear my songs the best,
Ere half were read, and force fair Anne's hand
To place the laurel on my victor brow?
Can I forget you? Can I cease to see,
In England's queen, our little playfellow?
Forgive me, Rochford; this is not a time
To babble of our childhood. You are hemmed
With scores of bold and ruthless enemies;
And, God forgive him! the worst foe of all
Is the first man in England's wide domain!

Roch.
What shall be done?

Wyatt.
Fly to her majesty;
Drain to the dregs her secret cause of grief;
Learn all her fears, the blackest of her fears,
Nor care to know her dimmest gleam of hope.
Armed for the worst, we gain a double strength—
The power to conquer at the last extreme,
And chance that such extreme may ne'er arrive.
I will not slumber. What the brain of man
Can summon from its viewless armory,
Shall be arrayed to battle for her right.
I'll see you safe beyond this wretched place,
And then we part, but not without a hope.

[Exeunt.]