Two dramatic poems by Menella Bute Smedley

AVICE
Cease!

RAYMOND
I cannot cease to love,
Nor you to credit what you knew before;
Silence avails us not. You know the truth
And will not hear me tell it. I, who doubt
Yet hope, would die to hear you say the words.
Are you not mine? Confess it!

AVICE
(turning away)
Think on Hope.

RAYMOND
You should have named her sooner, ere you wove
The toils I cannot break.

AVICE
Not I! not I
I did not dream of this—I lie—I knew it!
O vile, vile, vile!

RAYMOND
You shall not scorn yourself,
No tongue shall touch the honour of my queen.

AVICE
(assuming a haughty air)
You are too hasty, sir. Sir, you mistake;
I love you not.

[She turns to go; he catches her hands and detains her.
RAYMOND
Look in my face and say it!

(A pause.)
AVICE
(gradually yielding)
I—love—you.

[Hides her face.
RAYMOND
Triumph! Say it twenty times
And twenty times again; it shall be fresh
As the first touch of light before the dawn,
Or the first prick of colour in the bud,
Or the first glance of wonder, which revealed
There was an Avice for me in the world.
For me! For me!

AVICE
I do perceive my heart
Was yours before I knew it.

RAYMOND
It was made
Only to beat for me. Do you now know it,
Or must I teach you how to love me more
By showing all the things I'll do for you?
You shall be such a queen as knights of old
Contended for, making their glory hers;
What fame I win shall be your coronal,
And your least impulse, ere you give it words
Shall be fulfilled, because my heart forestalled it.
Your meanest day shall be a festival,
And wayside babes shall whisper where you pass
There goes the fairest woman in the world
With him who won her.

AVICE
Will it cease again
This music of my dreams? Will the dawn come
And bring the bitter silence, which so oft
Has mocked my listening heart?

RAYMOND
So you reveal
An unsuspected world, to make it mine
With the first glimpse.

AVICE
I have betrayed myself
More than I should. Be kind and let me go!
You must forget what I with shame remember;
I knew not what I said.

RAYMOND
For that, your speech
Is all the sweeter.

AVICE
O, we do but snatch
One moment from the cruel coming grasp
Which gathers up our lives. It is in vain!
You are not free to love me.

RAYMOND
I were then
A slave indeed. I am but one who slept
While some light hand wove webs of gossamer
About him; say that in that sleep he died
The gossamer had seemed as strong as steel;
But lo! he wakes, and all is brushed away
With his first motion into life.

AVICE
Alas!
I hear you, but I cannot understand.

RAYMOND
Trust me, I am not cruel. She shall be
The sister of our hearts, no less, no more;
There is no passion in her gentle soul,
A little wonder, and a little pain,
(Which I would spare her if 'twere possible)
Will mark our easy severance, till she takes
That natural and familiar sisterhood
Which is her sole reality of love;
For all beyond, we blundered; now we know
The truth, 'twere sin to mask it. In a month
Her tranquil happiness shall mirror ours
In its own crystal silence.

AVICE
May it prove so!
But I am full of fears. What is your purpose?

RAYMOND
To wed you.

AVICE
Aye, but how to part from her?

RAYMOND
Devise the manner with your sharper wit,
I do but grasp the fact.

AVICE
Thus then I take
The moment's swift suggestion. Vernon loves her
With such a needy patience as besets
A climber's walk for many a weary mile,
And takes, content, a halfpenny at last,
Wrung, but not given.

RAYMOND
So! I'm sorry for him.

AVICE
Nay, nay, he shall achieve his recompense.

RAYMOND
If that be all our ground for confidence
We had best teach ourselves to say goodbye;
Think of some better way.

AVICE
You have not heard me.
A jealous heart sees with a hundred eyes
And he divines you truly, that your love
Shrinks far below that heaven-encompassed height
Whereon he sets her claims. I can so move him
That he shall warn her like a trusty friend,
Not craving any guerdon for himself
Which might awake her doubt, but generously,
Knowing the fact, braving the present pang
To bar worse issues; so the work begun
Grows of itself—the crack that lets in truth
Fills all the house with light.

RAYMOND
The plan is good.
So—Vernon loves her,—and mistrusts my love.

AVICE
Why do you ponder it?

RAYMOND
An hour ago
He put me through my questions. I profess

With that weak appetite for sympathy
Which sometimes pricks the strongest, I was near
To showing him my heart.

AVICE
I pray you, hide it.
He must not think you have a thought for me.

RAYMOND
There seems a mighty riddle in this man!
Must I believe he has a double heart,
One face to watch for Hope, and one for you,
Both bringing me to judgment?

AVICE
You are angry.

RAYMOND
Faith, not at all: I am inquisitive,
I wait instruction. Wherefore screen our love
So carefully from Vernon? Will it choke him
If he but breathe't in passing?

AVICE
For my sake!

RAYMOND
So! For your sake! I wait instruction still.

AVICE
You are not kind; you should perceive, untold,
Since I am yours, all ills that threaten me;
I am not as a daughter in this house,
Not shielded, not encouraged, not the theme
Of sweet interpretations, which reflect
Light on my darkest shadows—I must stand
On only my poor self. If, ere you claim me,
One faint suspicion touch me, I am lost;
I die to think of it.

RAYMOND
But if a breath
Should pass you roughly, causing but a blush,
I toss our paltry cautions to the wind
And snatch you to my heart! Now, are you safe?

AVICE
O, thus for ever! (She starts away from him.)
Hush! I hear a step!
'Tis Vernon—leave me!

RAYMOND
Nay, I'll stand my ground.
I think I am a man, and not a mist
To be brushed off that he may see more clearly.

AVICE
O, if you love me, leave me!

RAYMOND
Thus adjured
I cannot choose. But I have learnt to-day
That our suspense is deadly, and must cease.

[Exit Raymond.
Avice
(alone).
O, if I come but safely to the light
I will abide in it for ever! Truth
Shall be my daily garment; 'twas not I
Who set this tree of life beyond my grasp
Which I can only reach by stratagem;
I hate the means, but die without the fruit.

University of Virginia Library

Scene III.