University of Virginia Library

Scene IV

—The Garden of Kirk o' Fields; night, with moon and stars. The Queen and Margaret Carwood.
Queen
Out to the stars, to the keen, midnight air,
To cold, to purity! Margaret, my girl,
These are gay, tuneful worlds above our head;
One cannot hear their voices, 'tis too far,
But they are singing blithe. This pretty group
Of sisters in a knot, just seven—and Mars,
That burns so at the heart! Ye festal heavens,
I would be with you in your revelry.

Margaret
Lady, to me the stars are fixed and silent;
I do not judge your way.

Queen
They reel and spin,
Attract and spread repulsion.

Margaret
Recollect
To-morrow night you spend at Holyrood,
Howe'er the king constrain you.

Queen

Enter to the back, unseen, Bothwell and Paris
Margaret
Hush, lady, it is shame to face the heaven,
Singing of love.

Queen
It breaks the loneliness.
Enchanting music! Suddenly it jarred.
I was beside my husband.

Margaret
Such a sigh!
Can it be good to marry?

Queen
Excellent,
You backward girl!
(Perceiving Paris)
Jesu, how black a sight!
Comes Paris as a masquer from my lord?
Sooty as hell! How now, Sir Demon? we
Would hold discourse with you.
Exit Paris
He is ashamed,
And slinks into the shade. What is it, dear?
Some triumph for your wedding, some device,
And mocking entertainment? There has been
Much whispering of late about the stairs.

Margaret
Fie, fie, it frightens.

Bothwell
(Apart)
Does she rouse me up
To batten on her beauty? The response
To that frank singing toward the clouds is here.
She shall caress me. I will trouble her,
Until she fade and famish in desire.

Queen

(Passing with Margaret)
Bothwell
(Apart)
It is all art and demonology;
While fresh from out hell's smithy, for her sake
I bid the devils colour my design,
She wraps heaven's cloak about her, and becomes
The firmer in her blameless sovereignty
As she more guiltily incites. I hate her,
And curse this slovenly and raw intent,
This floundering pause, when free audacity
Would bring our lips to meeting in a trice.
Pass by, my lady Lucifer! Again,
The amorous, icy voice!

Queen
(Re-passing)
La langue chanteresse
De vostre nom aimé . . .

Margaret
Madam, you draw
Too near the windows.

Queen
With a wifely chaunt,
A soft, assailing ode? Give me my freedom,
My fancies for an hour. Who looks on us?
Earl, you are closely wrapped.

Bothwell
(To Margaret)
Your bridegroom, lass,
Were jealous did he find you thus entwined.
Give place; I would be private with the queen.

Exit Margaret Carwood
Queen
(Faintly)
It is the stars . . . .

Bothwell
Right, right; 'Tis destiny,
Plotting above our heads. You note that sign?

Queen
A flaming comet?

Bothwell
The round crystal yonder
Dropt from her sphere.

Queen
Astronomy and science
Upon your tongue, my lord?

Bothwell
If you have learning,
Your liegeman boasts some magic.

Queen
(Apart)
Is he drunk?
Nay, or he would not move me to this tremor,
And sense of the chill dew.—A lamp above
Is being shifted; I must hasten in.
Conduct me. . . . Is this rudeness that you stand?
Some memory folds you? Perhaps at Hermitage
You have seen all these stars in a great sky,
Like a dark moorland heaving overhead,
That not a roof or tower has civilised.

Bothwell

Queen
Ah, the gray grasses and the sudden bogs,
The wind that is a lonely trumpeter,
Blowing in triumph over loneliness!
Believe me that I envy your abode
Among the dales and breezes.

Bothwell
When you came
To Hermitage . . . .

Queen
I could not stay my horse;
We felt the pressure of our liberty
In maddening speed.

Bothwell
For swifter entertainment
Take ship on northern seas. By God, my life
Has had its share of rough distress and danger
Since first I went an exile from your realm:
Prison, and storm, and enemies.

Queen
At last
Your sovereign's love and trust.

Bothwell
Your hand as pledge.
(Apart)
Her flesh is beryl in the moonshine.

Queen
Yonder
There is a plot beneath the ash-tree, both
The ground and tree are whitened: there I'll tarry,
And hear of some adventure on the moor
Or sea-wave that befell you. I am caught
With longing for romance and vagrancy,
My nurse's cares have been so close and long.
I would I were a gipsy-queen to-night,
And from the brushwood looked upon the stars,
A rover such as they. I love to breathe
The ominous delight of these late hours;
With you they are familiar. . . . To my mind
You ever seemed the hero of some book
Of long-lost chivalry. Perchance I vex you;
My mood is wild, but careful of offence.
Pardon my dream.

Bothwell
Speak on, speak on!

Queen
Well, listen!
I thought I was to listen, but it seems
My frowardness is wordy. As to dwellings:
Crichton and Bothwell, Hermitage, Dunbar!
The very names might well seduce to deeds
Of formidable import; then, for change,
Your journeys through the foam,—your loyal service
Against outlandish brigands. . . . Is your wrist,
Fierce Elliot broke, recovered?

Bothwell
Merely tender
When I most need its sinews.

Queen
Still to babble—
Now of yourself: you have a gait and face
On which your occupations and your courage
Are faithfully imprinted; I have seen
A rock, thus obstinate, respond to weather,
Its force and circumstance identified,
Tho' opposites.

Bothwell
Say more.

Queen
When I have proved you
A knight, an old-world champion by my praises,
A man, while courts lack manhood?

Bothwell
This free evening
Is worth all years of my unfriended course.
My queen.

Queen
You crush my hand. . . . This starry sky
Becomes almost unreal in the intense
Stillness as I look up—the liquid spaces
Between the stars, the liquid, twinkling stars!
Let us go in. Those heights are tremulous,
Faint to my eyes. It must be weariness,
Or over-draughts of the full tide of air
That flows up with the shadows.

Bothwell
As I live
You shall not leave me yet, you cannot leave,
Enchanted by dark things.

Queen
(Apart)
He speaks the truth.
An irritation dances in my frame
That not a single woman of my troop
Should rescue me, and yet these long-drawn moments,
So quenchless and impossible, are sweet
As wonders when they happen. (Aloud)
You must talk;
It is your turn, sir knight,—some rash adventure,
Swift peril!

Bothwell
When I fled your anger last,
My ship drove in on Lindisfarne. . . . To-night
I have no memory; a fire of joy
Casts smoke across old doings. Look at me,
Not with those anxious, distant, queenly glances,
Coming and going like the shooting stars;
Give me the common, chestnut-coloured eyes
You bend on Melvil, full of confidence,
Serene and fearless. If you are beset
By hypocrites and traitors, so am I;
Misjudged, ill-favoured. Speak in this clear air;
Speak to me—you were better.

Queen
More than once
I have been forced to banish you. Ah, then
It seems to me you had more happiness
Than now I set you midmost of these false,
Insurgent subjects. If I could escape,
If I might leave my kingdom!

Bothwell
That great fortress
You gave me, that impregnable Dunbar,
Shall yield before I suffer you again
To put the sea betwixt us.

Queen
'Twas my mother . . . .

Bothwell
Made me the guardian of your unworn crown;
Shall I not shield it now this golden hair
Twines up and down the gems? It is this head,
This living head I love.

Re-enter Margaret Carwood
Margaret
Madam, your husband
Complains he is deserted, and with bitter
Persistence craves your company.

Bothwell
The queen
Is worn with watching and has need of air;
I will replace her.
Exit Margaret Carwood
Though I am no poet,
I joy to leave you compassed by the stars,
Lone on the grass that shines. Breathe freely, setting
The reckless chansons to some border-tune.
I will be faithful in my vigilance,
Till the night-watch.

Queen
When I return. My lord,
I were content upon an ocean-vessel
To be adrift wherever fate might carry,
Or whither Pleiads guided. Fare you well!
(They part)
A mad farewell!

Bothwell
(Singing at a distance)
Amour n'a point de loy.

Exit
Queen