For fault of other stay. For mine own mind,
I would stand rather on Dumbarton rock
Walled in with Fleming’s spears, than here sit fast
With these six thousand ranged about the walls
That five days’ suns have brought to strengthen me
Since I fled hither in these poor same weeds
That yet for need I wear. Now, by the joy
I had that night to feel my horse beneath
Bound like my heart that through those darkling ways
Shot sunwards to the throne, I do not think
Thus to sit long at wait, who have the hands
Subscribed here of so many loyal lords
To take no thought but of their faith to me
Nor let dissension touch their hearts again
Till I sit crowned as arbitress of all
When the great cause is gained. Each bloodless day
Makes our foes greater; from Dunbar Lord Hume,
Who thence with hand too swift cut off our friends,
Brings now six hundred to my brother’s flag
Who hangs hard by us, and from Edinburgh
Grange leads his hundreds; all the Glasgow folk,
For love of Lennox, with the Lothian carles,
Draw round their regent hither; and God knows
These are no cowards nor men vile esteemed
That stand about him; better is he served
Of them than we of Herries, whose false wit
Works with an open face and a close heart
For other ends than live upon his tongue
And fill with protestation those loud lips
That plead and swear on both sides; he would stand
My counsellor, yet has not craft enough
To draw those enemies hence that watch us here
By tumult raised along the border side
For none to quell but Murray, who was bound
From Glasgow where he lies yet to Dumfries,
But halts to gather head and fall on us
When we set forth; which by my private will
I would not yet, but that my kinsmen yearn
To bid him battle and with victory won
Seize to themselves the kingdom by my hand,
Which they should wield then at their will, and wed
To their next heir’s; so should ye have their seed
For kings of Scotland, who were leagued ere this
With our main foes, and to their hands but late
By composition and confederacy
Would have given up my life to buy their ends
Even with the blood whose kinship in their veins
They thought should make them royal.
ARGYLE.
We must fear
These days that fleet and bring us no more strength
Bring to the regent comfort and good hope
From England of a quiet hand maintained
Upon the borders, and such present peace
As fights against us there upon his side
While he stands fast and gathers friends, who had
But common guard about him when your grace
Fled hither first, yet would not at the news
For dread of our near neighbourhood turn back
With that thin guard to Stirling; and by this
The chiefs of all his part are drawn to him,
Morton and Mar, Semple and Ochiltree,
And they that wrung forth of your royal hand
The writing that subscribed it kingdomless:
All these are armed beneath him.
QUEEN.
These are strong,
Yet are our friends not weaker; twain alone,
You twain with whom I speak, being on my side,
I would not fear to bide the feud of these;
And here are Cassilis, Eglinton, Montrose,
Ross, Crawford, Errol, Fleming, Sutherland,
Herries with Maxwell, Boyd and Oliphant,
And Livingstone, and Beaumont that was sent
To speak for France as with mine uncle’s tongue
Pleading with those my traitors for that life
Which here he finds enfranchised; and all these
As one true heart to me and faithful hand,
In God’s name and their honour’s leagued as friends
Who till mine enemies be cast down will know
Nought save their duty to me, that no strife
Shall rend in sunder, and no privy jar
Rive one from other that stands fast by me.
This have they sworn; and by my trust in them,
I will not doubt with favour or with force
To quell the hardiest heart set opposite.
Have I not sent forth word of amnesty
To every soul in Scotland free save these,
The top and crown of traitors, Morton first,
And Lindsay, from whose hand I took a pledge
To be redeemed with forfeit of his head;
Semple, that writ lewd ballads of my love,
And that good provost whom I swore to give
For one night’s prison given me in his house
A surer gaol for narrower resting-place
Than that wherein I rested not; and last
Balfour, that gave my lord’s trust up and mine?
Upon these five heads fallen will I set foot
When I tread back the stair that mounts my throne;
All others shall find grace; yea, though their hearts
Were set more stark against me and their hands
More dangerous aimed than these; for this God knows,
My heart more honours and shall ever love
A hardy foe more than a coward friend;
And Hume and Grange, mine enemies well approved,
Could love or recompense reknit their faiths
To my forsworn allegiance, in mine eyes
Should stand more clear than unrevolted men
Whose trustless faith is further from my trust
Than from my veins the nearness of their blood.
I am not bitter-hearted, nor take pride
To keep the record of wrongs done to me
For privy hate to gnaw upon, and fret
Till all its wrath be wroken; I desire
Not blood so much of them that seek mine own
As victory on them, who being but subdued
For me may live or die my subjects: this
I care not if I win with liberal words
Or weapons of my friends, for love or fear,
Or by their own dissensions that may spring
And blossom to my profit; and I hold
Nor fear nor grief grievous nor terrible
That might buy victory to me, for whose sake
Peril and pain seem pleasant, and all else
That men thirst after as I thirst for this,
Wealth, honour, pleasure, all things weighed therewith
Seem to my soul contemptible and vile.
Nor would I reign that I might take revenge,
But rather be revenged that I might reign.
For to live conquered and put on defeat,
To sit with humbled head and bear base life,
Endure the hours to mock me, and the days
To take and give me as a bondslave up
For night by night to tread on - while death lives
And may be found or man lay hold on him,
I will not have this to my life, but die.
I know not what is life that outlives hope,
But I will never; when my power were past,
My kingdom gone, my trust brought down, my will
Frustrate, I would not live one heartless hour
To think what death were gentlest; none so sharp
But should be softer to my bosom found
Than that which felt it strike.
HUNTLEY.
You speak as ever
Your own high
soul and speech; no spirit on earth
Was ever seen more kinglike than lifts up
With yours our hearts to serve you for its sake
As these have served that here would speak with you,
Enter Beaton and Mary Beaton
To whom our loves yield place.
Exeunt Argyle and Huntley.
QUEEN.
My chance were ill
If to no better love your loves gave way
Than that which makes us friends. - You are come betimes,
If you come ready now to ride; here lie
The letters you must bear: the cardinal’s this,
Mine uncle’s of Lorraine, to whose kind hand
Did I commend the first news of my flight
Sent from Lord Seyton’s while our horses breathed;
By this shall he receive my mind writ large
And turn his own to help me. Look you say
Even as I write, you left me in such mind
As he would know me, for all past faults done
Bent but to seek of God and of the world
Pardon; as knowing that none but only God
Has brought me out of bonds, and inly fixed
In perfect purpose for his mercy shown
To show a thankful and a constant heart,
As simple woman or as queen of Scots,
In life and death fast cleaving to his Church,
As I would have him that shall read believe
My life to come shall only from his lips
Take shape and likeness, by their breath alone
Still swayed and steered; to whom you know I look
For reconciling words that may subdue
To natural pity of my labouring cause
The queen that was my mother and her son
My brother king that in my husband’s seat
Sits lineal in succession. Say too this,
That without help I may not hold mine own,
And therefore shall he stand the more my friend
And do the kindlier the more haste he makes
With all good speed to raise and to despatch
A levy of a thousand harquebusmen
To fill the want up of my ranks, that yet
Look leaner than mine enemies’. This for France;
And this to the English queen delivering say,
I look being free now for that help of hers
That in my last year’s bonds not once or twice
I had by word of promise, and not doubt
This year to have indeed: which if I may,
When from her hand I take my crown again,
I shall thenceforth look for no other friend
And try no further faith. This private word
In London to the ambassador of Spain
Fail not to bear, that being set round with spies
I may not write; but he shall tell his king
The charges that men cast on me are false,
And theirs the guilt that held me in their bonds
Who stand in spirit firm to one faith with him
From whom I look for counsel. I well think
My sister’s love shall but desire to hold
A mean betwixt our parties, and pronounce
On each side judgment, as by right and might
‘Twixt mine and me the imperial mediatress,
Commanding peace, controlling war, that must
Determine this dark time and make alone
An end of doubt and danger; which perchance
May come before her answer. Haste, and thrive.
Exit Beaton.
Now, what say you? shall fortune stand our friend
But long enough to seem worth hope or fear,
Or fall too soon from us for hope to help
Or fear to hurt more than an hour of chance
Might make and unmake? This were now my day
To try the soothsaying of men’s second sight
Who read beyond the writing of the hour
And utter things unborn; now would I know,
And yet I would not, how my life shall move
And toward what end for ever; which to know
Should help me not to suffer, nor undo
One jot that must be done or borne of me,
Nor take one grain away. I would not know it;
For one thing haply might that knowledge do,
Or one thing undo - to bring down the heart
Wherewith I now expect it. We shall know,
When we shall suffer, what God’s hour will bring;
If filled with wrath full from his heavy hand,
Or gently laid upon us. I do think,
If he were wroth with aught once done of me,
That anger should be now fulfilled, and this
His hour of comfort; for he should not stand,
For his wrath’s sake with me, mine enemies’ friend,
Who are more than mine his enemies. Never yet
Did I desire to know of God or man
What was designed me of them; nor will now
For fear desire the knowledge. What I may,
That will I foil of all men’s enmities,
And what I may of hope and good success
Take, and praise God. Yet thus much would I know,
If in your sight, who have seen my whole life run
One stream with yours since either had its spring,
My chance to come look foul or fair again
By this day’s light and likelihood.
MARY BEATON.
In sooth,
No soothsayer am I, yet so far a seer,
That I can see but this of you and me,
We shall not part alive.
QUEEN.
Dost thou mean well?
Thou hast been constant ever at my hand
And closest when the worst part of my fate
Came closest to me; firm as faith or love
Hast thou stood by my peril and my pain,
And still where I found these there found I thee,
And where I found thee these were not far off.
When I was proud and blithe (men said) of heart,
And life looked smooth and loving in mine eyes,
Thou wouldst be sad and cold as autumn winds,
Thy face discomfortable, and strange thy speech,
Thy service joyless; but when times grew hard,
And there was wind and fire in the clear heaven,
Then wast thou near; thy service and thy speech
Were glad and ready; in thine eyes thy soul
Seemed to sit fixed at watch as one that waits
And knows and is content with what shall be.
Nor can I tell now if thy sight should put
More faith in me or fear, to trust or doubt
The chance forefigured in thee; for thou art
As ‘twere my fortune, faithful as man’s fate,
Inevitable; I cannot read the roll
That I might deem were hidden in thy hand
Writ with my days to be, nor from thine eyes
Take light to know; for fortune too is blind
As man that knows not of her, and thyself,
That art as ‘twere a type to me and sign
Incognizable, art no more wise than I
To say what I should hope or fear to learn,
Or why from thee.
MARY BEATON.
This one thing I know well
That hope nor fear need think to feed upon,
That I should part from you alive, or you
Take from me living mine assurance yet
To look upon you while you live, and trace
To the grave’s edge your printed feet with mine.
QUEEN.
Wilt thou die too?
MARY BEATON.
Should I so far so long
Follow my queen’s face to forsake at last
And lose my name for constancy? or you
Wh
ose eyes alive have slain so many men
Want when death shuts them one to die of you
Dying, who had so many loving lives
To go before you living?
QUEEN.
Thou dost laugh
Always, to speak of death; and at this time
God wot it should beseem us best to smile
If we must think upon him. I and thou
Have so much in us of a single heart
That we can smile to hear of that or see
Which sickens and makes bleed faint hearts for fear;
And well now shall it stand us both in stead
To make ours hard against all chance, and walk
Between our friends and foes indifferently
As who may think to see them one day shift
From hate to love and love again to hate
As time with peaceable or warlike hand
Shall carve and shape them; and to go thus forth
And make an end shall neither at my need
Deject me nor uplift in spirit, who pass
Not gladly nor yet lothly to the field
That these my present friends have in my name
Set for the trial of my death or life.
Thou knowest long since God gave me cause to say
I saw the world was not that joyous thing
Which men would make it, nor the happiest they
That lived the longest in it; so I thought
That year the mightiest of my kinsmen fell
Slain by strong treason; and these five years gone
Have lightened not so much my life to me
That I should love it more or more should loathe
That end which love or loathing, faith or fear,
Can put not back nor forward by a day.
Exeunt.
Scene IX. Langside
Murray, Morton, Hume, Lindsay, Ochiltree, Sir William Douglas, Kirkaldy, and
their Forces
MURRAY.
They cannot pass our place of vantage here
To choose them out a likelier. Let our lines
Lie close on either side the hollow strait
Flanked as the hill slopes by those cottage walls,
While here the head of our main force stands fast
With wings flung each way forth: that narrow street
Shall take them snared and naked.
SIR W. DOUGLAS.
I beseech you,
If you suspect no taint or part in me
Of treason in our kin, that I may have
The first of this day’s danger.
MURRAY.
No man here
Of all whose hearts are armed for Scotland hath
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 242
