Locrine - A Tragedy [15]
Could doubt not thee, waking or sleeping.
ESTRILD.
No -
Thou art not mad. How should the sunlit sky
Betray the sun? cast out the sunshine? So
Art thou to me as light to heaven: should light
Die, were not heaven as hell and noon as night?
And wherefore should I hold more dear than life
Death? Could I live, and lack thee? Thou, O king,
Hast lands and lordships--and a royal wife -
And rule of seas that tire the seamew's wing -
And fame as far as fame can travel; I,
What have I save this home wherein to die,
Except thou love me? Nay, nor home were this,
No place to die or live in, were I sure
Thou didst not love me. Swear not by this kiss
That love lives longer--faith may more endure -
Than one poor kiss that passes with the breath
Of lips that gave it life at once and death.
Why shouldst thou swear, and wherefore should I trust?
When day shall drive not night from heaven, and night
Shall chase not day to deathward, then shall dust
Be constant--and the stars endure the sight
Of dawn that shall not slay them.
LOCRINE.
By thine eyes
- Turned stormier now than stars in bare-blown skies
Wherethrough the wind rings menace,--I will swear
Nought: so shall fear, mistrust, and jealous hate
Lie foodless, if not fangless. Thou, so fair
That heaven might change for thee the seal of fate,
How darest thou doubt thy power on souls of men?
ESTRILD.
What vows were those that won thee Guendolen?
LOCRINE.
I sware not so to her. Thou knowest -
ESTRILD.
Not I.
Thou knowest that I know nothing.
LOCRINE.
Nay, I know
That nothing lives under the sweet blue sky
Worth thy sweet heeding, wouldst thou think but so,
Save love--wherewith thou seest thy world fulfilled.
ESTRILD.
Ay,--would I see but with thine eyes.
LOCRINE.
Estrild,
Estrild!
ESTRILD.
No soft reiterance of my name
Can sing my sorrow down that comes and goes
And colours hope with fear and love with shame.
Rose hast thou called me: were I like the rose,
Happier were I than woman: she survives
Not by one hour, like us of longer lives,
The sun she lives in and the love he gives
And takes away: but we, when love grows sere,
Live yet, while trust in love no longer lives,
Nor drink for comfort with the dying year
Death.
LOCRINE.
Wouldst thou drink forgetfulness for wine
To heal thine heart of love toward me?
ESTRILD.
Locrine,
Locrine!
LOCRINE.
Thou wouldst not: do not mock me then,
Saying out of evil heart, in evil jest,
Thy trust is dead to meward.
ESTRILD.
King of men,
Wouldst thou, being only of all men lordliest,
Be lord of women's thoughts and loving fears?
Nay, wert thou less than lord of worlds and years,
Of stars and suns and seasons, couldst thou dream
To take such empire on thee?
LOCRINE.
Nay, not I -
No more than she there playing beside the stream
To slip within a stormier stream and die.
ESTRILD.
She runs too near the brink. Sabrina!
LOCRINE.
See,
Her hands are lily-laden: let them be
A flower-sweet symbol for us.
Enter SABRINA.
SABRINA.
Sire! O sire,
See what fresh flowers--you knew not these before -
The spring has brought, to serve my heart's desire,
Forth of the river's barren bed! no more
Will I rebuke these banks for sterile sloth
When spring restores the woodlands. By my troth,
I hoped not, when you came again, to bring
So large a tribute worth so full a smile.
LOCRINE.
Child! how should I to thee pay tribute?
ESTRILD.
King,
Thou hast not kissed her.
LOCRINE.
Dare my lips defile
Heaven? O my love, in sight of her and thee
I marvel how the sun should look on me
And spare to turn his beams to fire.
ESTRILD.
The child
Hears, and is troubled.
SABRINA.
Did I wrong, to say
'Sire?' but you bade me say so. He is mild,
And will not chide me. Father!
ESTRILD.
Hear'st thou?
LOCRINE.
Yea -
I hear. I would the world beyond our sight
Were dead as worlds forgotten.
ESTRILD.
Wouldst thou fright
Her?
LOCRINE.
Hath all sense forsaken me? Sabrina,