I feel a heat and hurry of the heart
That burns like joy; my blood is light and quick,
And my breath comes triumphantly as his
That has long laboured for a mountainous goal
And sets fast foot on the utmost cliff of all.
If ere the race be run my spirit be glad,
What when it puts the palm of peril on
And breathes clear air and conquers? Nay, I think
The doubt itself and danger are as food
To strengthen and bright wine to quicken me
And lift my heart up higher than my need,
Though that be high upon me.
Re-enter Erskine with Traquair and Standen
Now, my friends,
Ye come unlike to courtiers, come to serve
Me most unlike a queen: shall I think yet
I have some poor part in your memories safe,
And you some care of what I was, and thought
How I fare now? Shall I take up my hope,
That was cast down into the pit of death,
To keep the name God gave me, and the seal
That signs me royal, by your loves and faiths
Recrowned and reinstated? Say but no,
Or say but nought, this hope of mine and heart
Are things as dead as yesterday: my cause
Lies in your lips, to comfort or confound,
As ye see reason. Yet, as power is yours,
So let remembrance in you be for light
To see the face of the time by; so let faith,
Let noble pity and love be part of you,
To make you mindful what a cause it is
That ye must put in judgment, and what life
For fame or shame to you through all time born
Ensues upon your sentence; for ye choose
If ye will match my dangers with your faiths
And help me helpless with your hearts, who lie
By grief and fear made heartless; or lend hand
To make my weakness weaker, and break down
My broken wall of sovereignty; which now
Ye wot were no sore labour.
STANDEN.
Let him die
As heartless toward the grace of God, who hath
No heart in him to give its blood for yours!
TRAQUAIR.
So say we all your servants.
QUEEN.
Did I know it?
Methinks I knew when I bade send for you.
Ye should so say. Ah friends, I had no fear
But I should find me friends in this fierce world,
Or I had died unfriended. Shall I thank you
For being the true men and the kind ye are,
Or take your service thankless, since I thought
Ye could not else, being young and of your kinds,
But needs must be my help? ye have not hearts
To strike but at men weaponed; ye would not
Lay hard hand on a woman weak with child,
A sick sad woman that was no man’s queen
Of all that stood against her; yet her son,
The unborn thing that pleads again with you
As it could plead not with them, this dumb voice,
This sightless life and sinless, was their king’s,
If ever they would let it come to life.
Lo, here their aim was; here the weapons went
That should have stabbed to death the race of kings
And cut their stem down to the root; here, here
The pistol’s mouth that bruised my breast, the hand
That struck athwart my shoulder, found their mark,
Made here their point to shoot at; in my womb
By them the bud of empire should have died
That yet by you may live and yet give thanks
For flower and fruit to them that saved the seed.
STANDEN.
They shall die first.
TRAQUAIR.
Command us what next way
There is to serve you, though the way were fire
We would be through it.
QUEEN.
To-night then at first watch
I purpose with the man’s help - nay, what name
Shall his be now? king, husband, or, God help,
King’s father? - with the man that you called king
As I called husband, to win forth of bonds
By the close covered passage underground
That by strange turns and strait blind working ways
Winds up into the sovereign cemetery
Whose dust is of my fathers; therewithout
Wait you with horse; and when you see us rise
Out of the hollow earth among the dead,
Be ready to receive and bear us thence.
Some two hours’ haste will speed us to Dunbar,
Where friends lie close, and whence with sudden strength
I trust to turn on these good lords again.
Do this for such poor love’s sake as your queen’s,
And if there be thanks worthy in the world,
Them shall she give; not silver, sirs, nor gold,
Nor the coined guerdon that is cast on churls
To coin them into service; but a heart,
If not worth love, yet loving, and a faith
That will die last of all that dies in me
And last of all remembrances foregone
Let your names go. God speed you, and farewell.
Scene II. Ruins of the Abbey of Holyrood
Enter Arthur Erskine, Traquair, and Standen
STANDEN.
It must be time; the moon is sick and slow
That should by this be higher.
ARTHUR ERSKINE.
It is your eye
Whose sight is slow as sickness; for the moon
Is seasonable and full: see where it burns
Between the bare boughs and the broken tombs
Like a white flower whose leaves were fire: the night
Is deep and sharp wherein it hangs, and heaven
Gives not the wind a cloud to carry, nor
Fails one faint star of all that fill their count
To lend our flight its comfort; we shall have
Good time of heaven and earth.
TRAQUAIR.
How shall the steeds
Be shared among us?
ARTHUR ERSKINE.
If she keep her mind,
My English gelding best shall bear the queen,
And him the Naples courser. Hark, they come.
STANDEN.
It was a word said of the wind to hear
What earth or death would answer. These dead stones
Are full of hollow noises though the vault
Give tongue to no man’s footfall; when they come
It will speak louder. Lo how straight that star
Stands over where her face must break from earth
As it hath broken; it was not there before,
But ere she rise is risen. I would not give
The third part of this night between us shared
For all the days that happiest men may live
Though I should die by morning.
TRAQUAIR.
Till she come,
I cannot choose but with my fears take thought,
Though all be after her sweet manner done
And by her wise direction, what strange ways
And what foul peril with so faint a guard
Must of so tender feet be overpast
Ere she win to us.
ARTHUR ERSKINE.
All these with laughing lips
Shall she pass through; the strength and spring of soul
That set her on this danger will sustain
Those feet till all her will and way be won.
Her spirit is to her body as a staff
And her bright fiery heart the traveller’s lamp
That makes a
ll shadow clear as its own light.
Enter from the vaults the Queen and Darnley
QUEEN.
Here come the wind and stars at once on us;
How good is this good air of that full heaven
That drives the fume back of the sepulchres
And blows the grave away! Have no more fear;
These are no dead men.
DARNLEY.
Nay, I fear no dead;
Nothing I fear of quick or dead but God.
Shall I not go before you?
QUEEN.
Not a foot.
See you, my friends, what valiant hearts are here,
My lord’s and mine, who hardly have crept forth,
In God’s fear only, through the charnel-house,
Among the bones and skulls of ancient kings
That thought not shame to stand for stumbling stones
In their poor daughter’s way, whose heart had failed
But that his hardier heart held up her feet
Who even if winds blew did not shrink nor shake
For fear of aught but God. The night is kind,
And these March blasts make merry with the moon
That laughs on our free flight. Where stand your steeds?
ARTHUR ERSKINE.
Madam, hard by in shadow of the stones;
Please you, this way.
QUEEN.
I will to horse with you.
DARNLEY.
No, but with me.
QUEEN.
It is not my good will.
Ride you alone, and safer. Friend, your arm.
Scene III. Murray’s Lodging in Holyrood
Enter Murray, Morton, and Ruthven
MORTON.
There is no present help; the violent speed
Of these fierce days has run our chances down.
It is found certain she comes back to-day;
Soon as their flight drew bridle at Dunbar,
Yet hot from horse, she sends for Bothwell in
With all his border thievery, red-foot knaves,
The hardiest hinds of Liddesdale; next him
His new bride’s brother, Huntley, more in care
To win the land back than revenge the blood
His father lost for treason; after these
Caithness with Athol, and the queen’s chief strengths,
The earl marshal and the archbishop; in few days
Eight thousand swords to wait on that sweet hand
Was worth so little manhood; then Argyle,
Who should have been a sea-wall on our side
Against the foam of all their faction, he,
Struck to the heart with spite and sharp despair
Through proof late made of English faith - as you,
My lord of Murray, felt it when ye twain
Sought help and found false heart there - casts himself
Over upon her side; with him two more
Her last year’s rebels, Rothes and Glencairn,
And pardon sealed for all that rose with them
Who were not of our counsel in this death.
Thus fare we without help or hope of these,
And from the castle here of Edinburgh
The hot Lord Erskine arms in our offence
His mounted guns, making the queen more strong
Than had her flight won first its darkling walls
And for a free camp in the general field
Set up her strength within the fortress here
Which serves her now for outwork, while behind
The whole force raised comes trooping to her hand.
In this deep strait that our own hands have dug
And our own follies channelled, to let in
Storm on our sails and shipwreck on our hopes,
My counsel is that whoso may stand fast
Should here in harbour bide his better day,
And we make land who may not; you, my lord,
As by James Melville she solicits you,
May honourably assure your peace with her,
Being speckless in her sight of this man’s blood;
We that dipped open hand in it must hence,
And watch the way of the wind and set of storm
Till the sea sink again.
RUTHVEN.
Sir, so say I;
You serve not us a whit nor change our chance
By tarrying on our side. Let no man fly
For our deed’s sake but we that made our deed
The witness for us not to be gainsaid
By foe of ours or friend we have on earth.
It was well done; what else was done, and ill,
We must now bear the stroke of, and devise
Some healing mean in season. This is sure,
That faith or friendship shall have no long life
Where friendship is engraffed on breach of faith;
But shame, despite, division, and distrust
Shall eat the heart out of their amity,
And hate unreconcile their heartless hands
Whom envious hope made fast or cunning fear.
This cannot be but nigh: and ye that live
Shall see more sure for this blind hour’s default
And hold more fast and watch more heedfully
The new chance given for this chance cast away.
I shall not see it, how near soe’er; and yet
The day that I shall die in banishment
Is not much nigher than must their doom’s day be
Whose trust is in the triumph of their hour.
Mine is now hard on end; but yours shall last,
I doubt not, till its service be all done
And comfort given our people. Take the Lairds
Grange and Pittarrow with you to the queen;
Ye shall find peace and opportunity
With present welcome as for proffered love;
Make swift agreement with her; this shall be
The surest staff that hope may take in hand.
Farewell.
MURRAY.
I would not say it, if ye not knew
My faith departs not with me from your side
Nor leaves the heart’s bond broken of our loves;
But in this trust, though loth, I take farewell,
To give you welcome ere the year be dead.
RUTHVEN.
Me shall you not, nor see my face again,
Who ere the year die must be dead; mine eyes
Shall see the land no more that gave them light,
But fade among strange faces; yet, if aught
I have served her, I should less be loth to leave
This earth God made my mother.
MURRAY.
Then farewell,
As should his heart who fares in such wise forth
To take death’s hand in exile. I must fare
Ill now or well I know not, but I deem
I have as much as you of banishment
Who bear about me but the thought of yours.
Scene IV. Holyrood
The Queen and Sir James Melville
QUEEN.
Am I come back to be controlled again,
And of men meaner? must I hold my peace
Or set my face to please him? Nay, you see
How much miscounselled is he, strayed how far
From all men’s hope and honour, and to me
How strange and thankless, whom in self-despite
You will me yet to foster: I would live
Rather the thrall of any hind on earth.
MELVILLE.
I would but have your wisdom hide somewhile
The sharpness of your spirit, whose edge of wrath
There is no man but now sees manifest;
As there is none who knows him that hath cause
To love or honour; yet great pity it is
To see what nobler natural mind he had
And the first goodness in him so pu
t out
By cursed counsel of his mother’s kin,
The bastard Douglas, and such ill friends else
As most are unfriends: but this fire in you
Who chose him, being so young, of your own will,
Against the mind of many, for your lord,
Shall rather burn yourself than purge his mood,
And the open passion of your heart and hate
Hearten in him the hate he bears not you
But them that part you from him. Twice, you know,
Or now my tongue were less for love’s sake bold,
Twice hath it pleased your highness charge me speak
When time or need might seem for counsel; then
That thus you charged me, now such need is come,
Forgive that I forget not.
QUEEN.
I might well,
Did you forget, forgive not; but I know
Your love forgot yet never any charge
That faith to me laid on it; though I think
I never bade you counsel me to bear
More than a queen might worthily, nor sought
To be advised against all natural will,
That with mine honour now is joined to speak
And bid me bear no more with him, since both
Take part against my patience. For his hate,
Henceforth shall men more covet it than fear;
My foot is on its head, that even to-day
Shall yield its last poor power of poison up,
And live to no man’s danger till it die.
Enter Darnley and Murray
Welcome, dear brother and my worthy lord,
Who shall this day by your own word be clear
In all men’s eyes that had ill thoughts of you.
Brother, to-day my lord shall purge himself
By present oath before our councillors
Of any part in David’s murdered blood,
And stand as honourable in sight of all
Whose thought so wronged him as in mine he doth
Who ever held him such as they shall now.
MURRAY.
Must he swear this?
DARNLEY.
Who says I shall not swear?
QUEEN.
He has given his faith to swear so much to-day,
And who so shameless or so bold alive
As dare doubt that?
MURRAY.
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 209
