University of Virginia Library

III.

At Woodstock.
King Henry and Rosamond, seated.
Rosamond.

K. Hen.
There's no sick show in you.
Sing still, and I will sit against your feet
And see the singing measure in your throat
Moved evenly; the headband leaves your hair
Space to lie soft outside.

Ros.
Stoop then and touch
That I may bind it on your hands; I would
Fain have such hands to use so royally.
As you are king, sir, tell me without shame
Doth not your queen share praise with you, show best
In all crowned ways even as you do? I have heard
Men praise the state in her and the great shape;
Yet pray you, though you find her sweet enow,
Praise her not over-measure; yet speak truth;
But so I would not have you make her praise
The proper pleasure of your lips, the speech
Found best in them; yet do not scant her so
That I may see you tender of my pain,
Sparing to gall my wits with laud of her.

K. Hen.
O sweet, what sting is this she makes in you?
A Frenchwoman, black-haired and with grey lips
And fingers like a hawk's cut claw that nips
One's wrist to carry—is this so great a thing
As should wring wet out of your lids?

Ros.
I know
That for my sake you pinch her praises in,
Starve her of right; do not so fearfully;
I shall best love you if you praise her, seeing
I would not have you marry a worse face,
Say, than mine even; therefore be liberal,
Praise her to the full, till you shall see that I
Fall sick upon your words, bid them be pitiful
And bruise not me.

K. Hen.
I will not praise her to you.
Show me a little golden good of yours,
But some soft piece of gracious habit grown
Common with you, quite new with me and sweet.
It is the smell of roses where you come
That makes my sense faint now; you taste of it,
Walk with it always.

Ros.
Hark, the rain begins,
Slips like a bird that feels among shut leaves;
One—two; it catches in the rose-branches
Like a word caught. Now, as I shut your eyes,
Show me what sight gets first between the lids,
So covered in to make false witness true.
Speak, and speak faith.

K. Hen.
I think this first; here once
The hard noon being too strong a weight for us,
We lay against the edges of slant leaves
Facing the grass, our bodies touching them,
Cooled from the sun, and drank cold wine; you had
A straight gown flaked with gold i'the undersleeves;
And in your throat I caught the quick faint red
Drunk down, that ran and stained it out of white,
A long warm thread not coloured like a vein
But wine-coloured; this was a joy to see.
O little throat so tender to show red,
Would you not wear my lips as well, be kissed
To a soft mark if one but touched you so?
I will not touch; only to feel you fast,
Lie down and take your feet inside both hands,
Untie your hair to blind both eyes across—
Yea, there sweet, kiss me now.

Ros.
Do but stoop yet
And I will put my fingers where the hair
Is mixed upon the great crown's wearing-place;
Sir, do you think I must fall old indeed
First of us two? look how between my wrists
Even about the purplest beat of them
This lean scant flesh goes in. I am grown past love;
The breath aches each way in my sobbing sides
When I would sing, and tears climb up my throat
In bitter breaks like swellings of round fruit
From the rind inwards, and my pulses go
Like fits of singing when the head gives way
And leaves pure nought to stammer in spoilt lips,
Even for this and my sad patience here
Built up and blinded in with growing green,
Use me not with your eyes untenderly,
But though I tire you, make you sigh at me,
Say no blame overloud; I have flowers only
And foolish ways to get me through the day,
And songs of yours to piece with weeping words
And famish and forget. Pray you go now,
I am the abuse of your compassion.

K. Hen.
I am gone presently; but for this space
Give me poor leave to love you with mine eyes
And feasted expectation of shut lips.
God help! your hair burns me to see like gold
Burnt to pure heat; your colour seen turns in me
To pain and plague upon the temple-vein
That aches as if the sun's heat snapt the blood
In hot mid measure; I could cry on you
Like a maid weeping-wise, you are so fair
It hurts me in the head, makes the life sick
Here in my hands, that one may see how beats
Feverous blue upon my finger-tips.
Touch me now gently; I am as he that saith
In the great song sick words and sorrowful
Of love's hard sweet and hunger of harsh hours;
Your beauty makes me blind and hot, I am
Stabbed in the brows with it.

Ros.
Yea, God be good,
Am I fair yet? but say that I am fair,
Make me assured, praise me quite perfectly
Lest I doubt God may love me something less
And his hot fear so nip me in the cheek
That I burn through. Nay, but go hence; I would
Even lose the sweet I love, that I may lose
The fear of losing it.

K. Hen.
I am gone quickly.
You know my life is made a pain to me
With angry work, harsh hands upon my life
That finger in the torn sad sides of it
For the old thorn; touch but my face and feel
How all is thwarted with thick networking
Where your lips found it smooth, clung soft; there, now,
You take some bruise and gall of mine clear out
With a cool kissing mouth.

Ros.
I had a will
To make some chafing matter with your pride
And laugh at last; ay, also to be eased
Of some small wrath at your harsh tarriance;
But you put sadness softly in my lips
With your marred speech. Look, the rain slackens yet.

K. Hen.
I will go now that both our hearts are sweet
And lips most peaceable; so shall we sleep
Till the next honey please them, with a touch
Soft in our mouths; sing once and I am gone.

Ros.