 | The Duke of Mercia |  |
5
INTRODUCTORY SCENES.
The Sea-shore. A boat approaches the land; from which descend Sweyn, Canute, Gothmund, Turkill, Anlaffe, &c. &c.ANLAFFE.
The Saints be praised! we're on dry land again.
GOTHMUND.
Ay, and have bid the tempest brave defiance.
Welcome unto these famous shores of Cornwall;
Welcome, my liege!
CANUTE.
It bears a winning aspect;
This deep and sunny bay, round whose broad bosom
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As if they loved the element that woos
Their rugged feet with all its crowding billows.
How sportively they toss their foaming tresses,—
And on their bright cheeks give a quick reflection
To all that look upon them! But, my liege,
My royal father, you look pensively
On that which stirs up thus my youthful blood.
Is your grace well?
SWEYN.
Ay, my brave son, yet sad;
Sad, and without a cause. Those raging seas
Have left a heaviness upon my eyes,
A weight upon my heart.
ANLAFFE.
Fling it off, thus—
As I throw out my arms to thee, fair England,—
Thou glorious land of hope!
CANUTE.
See, every bough
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The green fields, in this glow of setting sun,
Smile with a present promise; the blue mountains
Look through the calm serenity of air
With eyes of hope upon us;—ay, these sounds
Of winds and waters breathe a stirring music,
As the swell of a trumpet on a battle field;
Or, in their milder mood, like the sweet close
Of virgin-voices singing holy hymns.
SWEYN.
Now, to my ears, it hath a fall of sadness,
Most melancholy, full of mournful omens;
And greets our raven-banner with a note
As boding as the emblem.
CANUTE.
Sir, you do wrest
All nature from her true intent. Indeed
You are not well. Vainly our sails have been
Fill'd with the strong gales of our swelling fortune
If now you droop.
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My lord, look cheerily.
We Northmen soon are thaw'd in this soft climate.
Sweet smells the moist breath of this bloomy bank,
Born amid odours.
SWEYN.
Sirs, I wish you joy
Of your young spirits, that can quit grave thoughts
As the grub casts its scale off in the sun,
And wings the air a butterfly, and lives
On light and flowers. I have the eyes of age,
And have learn'd wisdom from unwelcome masters,
Drawn prescience from the lessons of the past,
And judgment from most sorrowful experience.
There is a shadow now before my eyes
Ye cannot see; there is a voice upon
These subtle winds, a tongue amid these trees,
Ye hear not: ay, an awful presence dwells
Among us now, ye feel not; but I feel it.
It has been thus before, and evil days
Have follow'd after.
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Soft, my lord, here comes
A courier, and in haste; and, as I think,
By his pale face, a messenger of evil.
Enter Courier.
SWEYN.
Said I not true, my lords? Well, sir, you bring
News from our friends; ill news, I fear. I pray you,
Speak; are we timely landed? speak, sir, I pray.
COURIER
(kneeling).
Alas! a choking grief ties up my tongue.
Timeless, yet timely art thou come, King Sweyn.
Timeless to save, yet timely to avenge.
Death, bloody death, hath been before.
SWEYN.
My son,
Let me sit down upon this bank: a sickly
Faintness hath ta'en me suddenly, and makes
My limbs weak. Speak!—my daughter?
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Sir, she lives.
SWEYN.
Just Heaven, I thank thee!
COURIER.
Still Gunilda lives;
But lives to pray for death. Her wandering feet
Journey close after me, scarce knowing whither.
But she would seek her father's neck with tears,
And rend her widow'd hair out in his arms,
And beat her childless bosom at his feet.
SWEYN.
Dread words are these thou speak'st! How has this been?
COURIER.
Oh, sir, the Saxon sword has been well blooded!
And cruel Edric—
CANUTE.
Where is my sister? Say!
COURIER.
I left her in a dark glade of the woods
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As a meet place, she said, for broken hearts.
Old, ivied oaks, mossy with age, and grey
With the unwholesome lichen, shut out the sun
From the long wiry grass, dock-weed, and hemlock,
That droop beneath.
SWEYN.
I'm somewhat now revived
Lead to my daughter.
CANUTE.
And, as we journey onward,
Explain at large thy most disastrous tidings.
[Exeunt.
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LADY.
Sweet madam, speak! Oh, for the love of Heaven!
Let me but hear that blessed voice again.
She will not answer me! she hears me not!
What can I do? No help near,—not a creature,—
No human thing to comfort us. Great God!
What if her brain should madden? Dear, dear lady!
The night is growing chill; we have no shelter.
Look up,—how dark the clouds are! Pray arise!
Let's leave these gloomy caverns of arch'd boughs;
The lightsome fields will make you better. Come,—
It is no place for living things.
GUNILDA.
My children!
Oh, my poor little ones! my husband!
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Nay,
For mercy's sake, compose your mind. I hear
The tramp of horsemen hitherward. Alas!
How desolate we are!
Enter Sweyn, Canute, and suite.
LADY.
Kind Heaven be praised!
I have not pray'd in vain.
SWEYN
(embracing GUNILDA, who remains unmoved).
My sweetest daughter—
Gunilda! look on your old father; hear me;—
I come to thee weigh'd down by age and sorrow,
Yet strong enough to share thine too. Look on me—
Oh God! all sense has fled.
CANUTE.
Let me speak, father.
My sister—my Gunilda—dost not feel
Thy brother's faithful arm around thy waist?—
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And her eye gleams with visionary wildness.
See what a sad smile gathers on her lip—
Her dream is now of heaven, her children's home.
Such, 'twere scarce mercy to disturb.
SWEYN.
Not so:
Oh, let not madness feed on that sweet heart!
Those features, now so pale and passionless,
That dim eye, fix'd in awful calmness thus,
Portend tempestuous sallies yet. Arouse her,
Or she is lost for ever.
CANUTE.
Dearest sister!
Look on the grey hairs of thy father!—see him,
An old man weeping as a child; a soldier
Even like a woman grieving. Is't not strange
A father thus should meet his living child?
'Tis thus we mourn the dead.
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The dead—the dead?
Ay, all that live must die,—what matter when?
If soon, then happy!—Who art thou—and thou?
SWEYN.
Gunilda!
GUNILDA.
Hark!—that voice!—hark!—Oh my father!
I know thee now: and thee, sweet brother. Give me
Your hands: let us be gone from this,—these glooms
Disturb me. See! these old oaks, how they toss
Their arms up, in appeal from earth to heaven!
And hark! their groans!—and then the sighing winds
Like the lone voice of sorrow o'er a tomb!
CANUTE.
It is, in truth, a melancholy haunt.
We will depart.
GUNILDA.
No! now methinks 'tis wholesome
To commune here with melancholy thoughts.
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And drunken Laughter reels 'mid gaping graves;
But Wisdom has her seat, with Sadness, here.
Yet, who shall brave despair? Oh, sir! this earth
Is sick with horrors!—the black midnight air
Hath hung its pall above such deeds! Blood,—blood
Doth smear the cheek of morning, and the sun
Sinks on a bloody pillow. Men! I tell ye
Murder is grown familiar, carnage a game
A daily, wholesale game, which you all play at.
Why, 'tis the common pastime of these kings
To make wives widows, and poor mothers childless.
Ay, stamp on earth; 'tis hollow: nought but the shell
Of a vast, crumbling charnel.
SWEYN.
Would I were laid there!
Thy misery makes me wish to die with thee.
GUNILDA.
Father, why are you grieved?—I do not grieve you,
Do I, sweet father?—Talk you of dying with me?
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Is one of toil, delay not; we must have room
To pillow my fair infants on this bosom:
They'll sleep on nought less soft. [She shrieks.]
Where are they now?
If but the wind blew chill, then would they shudder—
If you look'd grave upon them, they grew pale—
If touch'd too roughly on the cheek, they wept—
And now—now—Father! brother! I beheld them
Shrieking and clinging to their father's breast,
Kissing his white and gasping lips—his eyes
In their last dying spasm—that still saw
The butchery they shared with him. I saw them
Writhing beneath their daggers—ay, and heard
The stabbings—here—here in my brain! Poor babes!
They cast them out, when dead, to the cold moon,
And freezing night-winds—and I live. You weep,
And pity me that I do live. Sit down,
And I will tell you stories of my children.
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Here do I kneel beside thee, and invoke
Thy thunders and thy lightnings, and thy tempests,
Upon their savage heads, god of my fathers!
Canute, my son, kneel down with me, and swear
Hate that ne'er sleeps, vengeance insatiable!
CANUTE.
May this right hand shrivel in timeless age,
If it forgets its vengeance! So may I thrive
Hereafter, as I satisfy this wrong!
Hear, Ethelred of England!—hear, false Edric!
On you and all your lineage I vow
The hate that knows not mercy!
[During these speeches Gunilda has knelt beside them.
GOTHMUND.
Silently
She ratifies the curse: the gloomy passion
Creeps, like the shadow of death, across her features.
How awful is this silent imprecation,
Whose import is but guess'd at in the glare
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In the dread smile that curls the livid lips;
In the clench'd, quivering hands, and feeble frame
With powerless anguish heaving.
SWEYN.
She grows paler.
Oh, lift her up, my lords, and softly bear her
To present aid.
GOTHMUND.
That hope were vain: she is dying.
Crowd not around—give air.
LADY.
Nay, hold her hands.
This sudden flush and struggle will be her last.
Her limbs subside—her cheeks grow darkly pale—
She breathes not—her heart's broken!
CANUTE
(stooping over the body).
Thus, Gunilda,
I kiss thee for the last time—my poor sister!
Yet shalt thou be avenged—amply avenged!
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And lay her with her children. Come, my father;
Lean on me—you are faint. Nay, steel your heart
With thoughts of our full vengeance! So, you revive.
Forward, my lords; to death or victory!
And be our cry—“Revenge!—Gunilda's wrongs!”
[Exeunt.
| The Duke of Mercia | |