University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

Cumlongan Wood.
Sir Marmaduke Maxwell and Mary Douglas.
Sir Marmaduke.
Thou art free, stripling—use thy feet—fly fast,
The chasers' swords may yet o'ertake us both.
When thou dost fold thy flocks, and pray, Oh! pray
For one, whom woe and ruin hold in chace;
Who wears the griefs of eighty at eighteen;
Upon whose bud the canker-dew has dropt;
Whose friends, love, kindred, are cold, faithless, dead:
O! weeping youth, pray not for me; for God
Has left me, and to pray for me might bring
My fate upon thee too. Away, I pray thee.

Mary Douglas.
The wretched love the wretched; I love thee
Too well to sunder thus. I will go with thee;
Friends, kindred, all, are all estranged, or dead;
An evil star has risen upon my name,
On which no morn will rise.

Sir Marmaduke.
Thou art too soft
I' the eye—too meek of speech—and thou dost start
For the falling of the forest leaf, and quakest
As the thrush does for the hawk. Who lives with me
Must have eyes firmer than remorseless steel,
And shake grim danger's gory hand, nor start
For the feather of his bonnet.

Mary Douglas.
O! I shall learn.
I'll sit and watch thee in thy sleep, and bring
Thee clustering nuts; take thee where purest springs
Spout crystal forth; rob the brown honey bees
Of half their summer's gathering, and dig too
The roots of cornick; I will snare for thee
The leaping hares—the nimble fawns shall stay
The coming of mine arrow. We will live
Like two wild pigeons in the wood, where men
May see us, but not harm us. Take me, take me.

Sir M.
Come, then, my soft petitioner, thou plead'st
Too tenderly for me. And thy voice, too,
Has caught the echo of the sweetest tongue
That ever blest man's ear. Where is thy home?
That little sun-burnt hand has never prest
Aught harder than white curd.

Mary Douglas.
I served a lady:
And all my time flew past in penning her
Soft letters to her love; in making verses
Riddling, and keen and quaint; in bleaching white
Her lily fingers 'mong the morning dew;
In touching for her ear some tender string;
And I was gifted with a voice that made
Her lover's ballads melting. She would lay
Her tresses back from her dark eyes, and say,
Sing it again.

Sir Marmaduke.
Thou wert a happy servant.
And did thy gentle mistress love this youth,
As royally as thou paint'st?

Mary Douglas.
O! yes, she loved him,
For I have heard her laughing in her sleep,
And saying, O! my love, come back, come back;
Indeed thou 'rt worth one kiss.

Sir Marmaduke.
And did her love
Know that she dearly loved him? Did he keep
Acquaintance with the nightly stars, and watch
Beneath her window for one glance of her,
To glad him a whole winter?

Mary Douglas.
Aye! he talk'd much
To her about the horn'd moon, and clear stars;
How colds were bad for coughs, and pangs at heart:
And she made him sack posset, and he sung
Songs he said he made himself, and I believe him,
For they were rife of braes and birks, and burns,
And lips made of twin cherries, tresses loop'd
Like the curling hyacinth. Now in my bosom
Have I the last song which this sighing youth
Framed for my mistress. It doth tenderly
Touch present love: there future sadness is
Shadow'd with melting sweetness.—

Sir Marmaduke.
This small hand—
This little trembling lily hand is soft,
And like my Mary's. O! my love—my love,
Look up! 'tis thou thyself! now blessed be
The spot thou stand'st on, and let men this hour
For ever reverence—heaven is busy in it.

Mary D.
O! let us fly! the hand of heaven, my love,
And thine, have wrought most wond'rously for me.

Sir M.
And wilt thou trust thy gentle self with me?

Mary Douglas.
Who can withhold me from thee—I had sworn
To seek thee through the world—to ask each hind
That held the plough, if he had seen my love;
Then seek thee through the sea—to ask each ship
That pass'd me by, if it had met my love;—
My journey had a perilous outset, but
A passing pleasant end. Thine enemy came:
I pass'd a fearful and a trembling hour.—

Sir M.
I know—I heard it all—O I have wrong'd thee much;
So come with me, my beautiful, my best;
True friends are near: the hour of vengeance, too,
Is not far distant. Come, my fair one, come.

(Exeunt.)