University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

The Queen's Apartments in the Palace. Queen Anne and Mary Wyatt.
Queen Anne.
No audience, said you?

Mary Wyatt.
None, your highness, none.

Queen A.
But are you sure his majesty refused
To read my letter?

Mary W.
Very sure; or whence
The new-sprung insolence of every groom?
They passed me by, for nigh a weary hour,
Without observance. When at length I spoke,
Demanding audience in your highness' name,
They almost thrust me from the ante-room,
With taunts and sneers. One knave, a malpert page,
By you presented to his majesty,
Said, with his arms akimbo, in a style
That mimicked the king's bearing, “Mistress Mary,
When we desire to know of blubbering spells,
At your sad corner of our merry house,
We'll come to seek them;—till that time, adieu!”
At this his fellows grinned, like tickled apes,
And winked, and leered at me; till I, abashed—
More that such things were human, than for fear
Of any shame their insults might provoke—
Came sadly here, my mission unachieved.

Queen A.
I blame you not: I trusted in your zeal.
Knowing its failure set all hope aside
Save that which harbors in myself. Must I
Again go begging for his chary love,
After the public shame he put me to?
Must I go whimpering like a stricken cur—
I who am wronged, and should demand redress—
And pray, in mercy to my feebleness,
This blow may be the last? Degrading thought!
Were I the housewife of his lowest clown,
Caned to obedience by a drunkard's hand,
My woman's heart has in it pride enough
To burst ere bear this last humility.

Mary W.
If pity move him—

Queen A.
Pity! there 's a shame,
More fearful in its furious rebuke,
That follows threatening on the heels of wrong—
An earthly hell in which the conscience writhes,
And lashes round its fiery barrier,
Till suffering purify the tortured soul;—
This he must feel, ere meek-eyed Pity's hand
Will ope the silver gates of penitence,
And through forgiveness show the way to peace.

Mary W.
O, may he feel it!

Queen A.
Feel it! he is human.

Mary W.
Yes; but before some heavier injury
Make pity useless.

Queen A.
Pray, speak plainly, girl!
I see your heart is full with mystery.
What new misfortune is about to fall?

Mary W.
None, as I hope.

Queen A.
Nay, this is churlishness:
You have some secret that may profit me.
If I am ignorant of coming ills,
How shall I guard me with expedients
Against their wrath? The man by death assailed
Is last to know the danger he is in.
I make no doubt, but half the palace lackeys
Have drawn a surer presage of my fate,
From buzzing rumor, could more truly tell
What will befall me for a year to come,
Than I, with my own lot to outward seeming
Within my grasp, could compass by design.
So hangs our fate upon the breath of all,
That oft a rumor shapes the destiny
Of feeble wills.

Mary W.
'T would but fatigue your ears,
Not profit you, to hear the thousand woes
That fools predict upon your majesty:
But there 's much comfort in the croak of folly.

Queen A.
O, merely thus? naught in particular?
Well, let them rail; the gale is adverse now,
I must expect this dash of saucy spray
Full in my face: anon the wind will change;
Then they'll come tripping to my very heels,
Sparkling with joy, and glad to decorate
My rearward path.

Mary W.
Heaven guard your cheerful mind!

Queen A.
Actions begun in cheerfulness display
The merry herald that foreruns success.
The smile that lights an earnest countenance
Seems as a gleam from some vast mental fire
That burns within, and ever flashes out,
Like tropic lightning on a summer night;
Harmless, indeed, yet hinting of a power
That, moved to wrath, might shake the seated earth
To sulk at sorrow dulls the edge of will,
And half unfits us for prosperity;
Much more for danger, where each faculty
That gives us sway is needed at its full.

Mary W.
When took your highness to philosophy?

Queen A.
Ha! you malicious elf! When heavy griefs
First leaguered my poor heart, through it I found
A path to wander from perplexing fears
That lost in speculation dismal self.
Sorrow makes many a deep philosopher.

Mary W.
Great minds may carry a great load unbowed.
Ah, me! it brings me to my woman's part,
To hear these strains of sweet philosophy
Rise from her injured spirit. (Aside, weeping.)
Sure the God
Who suffers mischief to afflict you thus,
Gives you the strength to bear it.

Queen A.
Doubtless, doubtless.

(Enter Thomas Wyatt.)
Mary W.
My brother, please you.

[Retires.]
Queen A.
Ah! good master Wyatt,
What news abroad? Why do you shake your head?
Why wear that funeral face? It seems to me
That all my friends would plunder me of grief.
Came you alone? Where are my other friends?

Wyatt.
Gone with the summer flies. The day is dark;
And they that erewhile revelled in your light,
Now sluggish hide in close obscurity,
And prophesy of falling weather soon.

Queen A.
But Rochford? he is true in sun or shade.

Wyatt.
Ay, by my soul! And know you not?

Queen A.
Not I.

Wyatt.
Indeed?—That I should bear the intelligence!

Queen A.
These dread inductions to ill-omened news,
Pitch swift imagination far below
The heaviest fact. Out with it, tender sir!
What ever saw you like a fear in me?

Wyatt.
Lodged in the Tower.

Queen A.
A prisoner! on what charge?

Wyatt.
A charge as common now as larceny,—
High treason.

Queen A.
Treason! who is loyal, then?
O! what a shallow matter for arrest!
Poor Rochford!—This is strange.—How bears he it?

Wyatt.
As innocence e'er bears calamity,—
Suffering in body, but content at heart.

Queen A.
I'll to the king. Are not my wrongs enough,
But that my foes must vex my kindred too?
For Rochford's sake, I'll quell my stubborn pride,
And ask the justice I deny myself.

Wyatt.
Ah! would you might! See you yon sentinel
Who counts his steps along the corridor?
That knave has orders from his majesty,
On no account to let your highness pass.

Queen A.
Good sir, what augurs this? I feel it here—
Here at my heart—a quaking like the step
Of some advancing doom. 'T is terrible,
To be environed by an enemy
Whose very aims are hidden. Give me light!
O, Wyatt, show me but my coward foes,
Though they are numberless as Egypt's plagues—
Let me but see the weapons in their hands,
Though they can daunt the angry Thunderer,
And I'll confront them! But to be assailed
By arrows that seem raining from the clouds—
To see my tribe, like Niobe's, cut down,
Nor know what time my breast may be transfixed—
To feel myself the cause of all this woe,
Without the chance of offering stroke for stroke,
Is next to madness!

Wyatt.
All I know is this,—
Lord Rochford, Norris, Brereton, and Weston,
As the most noted followers of your highness,
Have been arrested, charged with secret treason.
In what particulars their guilt consists,
Even wakeful rumor has not been informed;
Nor are the prisoners wiser than the world.
That popinjay, Mark Smeaton, too, has had
Some private hearings in the council-room,
After a tampering which he underwent
At Suffolk's house.

Queen A.
No more of him;—he 's harmless.
All these brave hearts to suffer for my sake!
O! deadly cowards! to remove these props,
Whose sturdy valor might have long upheld
Even the structure of a tottering cause!

Wyatt.
Whatever scheme your enemies have formed,
Is now converted to a state affair:
Your highness therefore must expect a blow,
Not from lords Suffolk, Norfolk, and their friends,
But from the Council.

Queen A.
Let them only come!
My heart is aching to begin the fray:
I vow, the conquered shall not fight again!
What of the king?

Wyatt.
His majesty is silent,
Gloomy and sad, and given to muttering;
Flying at pleasures with an eagerness
That crushes out the dainty soul of joy:
As one a cup of rich, untasted wine
Might crack with furious bacchanalian haste,
And spill its fruity treasures.

Queen A.
So I thought:
His love is wrestling with an agony,
By fancied justice thrust upon his mind.
When through this fire of malice I have passed—
Whose purifying ordeal he allows,
Only to prove the temper of my heart—
Look, Wyatt, look to see my enemies,
Drossy with crime, hurled headlong in the flame,
To show the baseness of their earthy souls!
Kings should be just.

Wyatt.
Ay, should be just.

Queen A.
How now?
Would you arraign his royal qualities,
Because my foes have led his mind astray
With seeming justice? Ah! be careful, sir,
Not to malign him, in your zeal for me!

Wyatt.
She hugs her ruin. (Aside.)
Mistress Seymour says—

Queen A.
Out, wizard, out! Dare you to summon up
The horrid phantom that pursues my steps,
And ever shadowy flits before my eyes,
Veiling the sun, and deepening deepest night?
O! Wyatt, Wyatt, would you mock me too?
O! would you rend the feeble barrier
That hides my anguish from the gaping world,
And show me in my naked wretchedness,
Without a rag of pride to cover me,
For prying fools to carp on? Cruel leech,
To probe this wound, even though my tortured heart
Might work salvation out of agony!
Begone, begone!

Wyatt.
I meant not—

Queen A.
I forgive you.
Go, go, in mercy! If you love my health,
Never again recall that fearful name!
[Exit Wyatt.]
'T is hard, 't is hard!—but it must be endured.
O! vanished peace, that with my girlish hours
Shook hands and parted, as they proudly strode
Down the dark paths of untried womanhood—
Return, return! Ah! couldst thou bring again
Those pleasant days, when at the source of life
My spirit sat, and heard, with nature's tones,
The blended music of a higher life
Mix and flow on in one grand harmony;
When every sense, content with what it felt,
Longed not for action, never-ending action,
That once embraced makes us its slaves till death.
Death, death! There is more sweetness in that name
Than I e'er knew of. Does thy pallid hand
Unite the two extremes of human life,
Linking our earliest with our latest days,
In one unbroken circle? Art thou she,
The meek-faced peace of childhood, changed in name,
But undistinguished in thy quality,
Come from afar to lead us back again
From where we started? Ah! I know not now,
Nor can I till I pass, beyond recall,
The narrow lintel of the voiceless grave.—
O God! O God! I am weary of the day!

[Scene closes.]