GUENDOLEN.
And sight of Madan on his throne?
MADAN.
What ailed thy wits, mother, to send for me?
GUENDOLEN.
Yet shalt thou not go back.
MADAN.
Why, what should I
Do here, where vengeance has not heart to be
And wrath dies out in weeping? Let it die—
And let me go.
GUENDOLEN.
I did not bid thee spare.
MADAN.
Speak then, and bid me smite.
GUENDOLEN.
Thy father?
MADAN.
Ay—
If thus it please my mother.
GUENDOLEN.
Dost thou dare
This?
MADAN.
Nay, I lust not after empire so
That for mine own hand I should haply care
To take this deed upon it: but the blow,
Thou sayest, that speeds my father forth of life,
Speeds too my mother forth of living woe
That till he dies may die not. If his wife
Set in his son’s right hand the sword to slay—
No poison brewed of hell, no treasonous knife—
The sword that walks and shines and smites by day,
Not on his hand who takes the sword shall cleave
The blood that clings on hers who gives it.
GUENDOLEN.
Yea—
So be it. What levies wilt thou raise, to heave
Thy father from his seat?
MADAN.
Let that be nought
Of all thy care: do thou but trust—believe
Thy son’s right hand no feebler than thy thought,
If that be strong to smite—and thou shalt see
Vengeance.
GUENDOLEN.
I will. But were thy musters brought
Whence now thou art come to cheer me, this should be
A sign for us of comfort.
MADAN.
Dost thou fear
Signs?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, child, nay—thou art harsh as heaven
to me—
I would but have of thee a word of cheer.
MADAN.
I am weak in words: my tongue can match not
thine,
Mother.
Voices within] The king!
GUENDOLEN.
Hearst thou?
Voices within.] The king!
MADAN.
I hear.
Enter Locrine.
LOCRINE.
How fares my queen?
GUENDOLEN.
Well. And this child of mine—
How he may fare concerns not thee to know?
LOCRINE.
Why, well I see my boy fares well.
GUENDOLEN.
Locrine,
Thou art welcome as the sun to fields of snow.
LOCRINE.
But hardly would they hail the sun whose
face
Dissolves them deathward. Was thy meaning so?
GUENDOLEN.
Make answer for me, Madan.
LOCRINE.
In thy place?
The boy’s is not beside thee.
GUENDOLEN.
Speak, I say.
MADAN.
God guard my lord and father with his grace!
LOCRINE.
Well prayed, my child.
GUENDOLEN.
Children—who can but pray—
Pray better, if my sense not err, than we.
The God whom all the gods of heaven obey
Should hear them rather, seeing—as gods may see—
How pure of purpose is their perfect prayer.
LOCRINE.
I think not else—the better then for
me.
But ours—what manner of child is this? the hair
Buds flowerwise round his darkening lips and chin,
This hand’s young hardening palm knows how to bear
The sword-hilt’s poise that late I laid therein—
Ha? doth not it?
GUENDOLEN.
Thine enemies know that well.
MADAN.
I make no boast of battles that have been;
But, so God help me, days unborn shall tell
What manner of heart my father gave me.
LOCRINE.
Good.
I doubt thee not.
GUENDOLEN.
In Cornwall they that fell
So found it, that of all their large-limbed brood
No bulk is left to brave thee.
LOCRINE.
Yea, I know
Our son hath given the wolf our foes for food
And won him worthy praise from friend or foe;
And heartier praise and trustier thanks from none,
Boy, than thy father pays thee.
GUENDOLEN.
Wouldst thou show
Thy love, thy thanks, thy fatherhood in one,
Thy perfect honour—yea, thy right to stand
Crowned, and lift up thine eyes against the sun
As one so pure in heart, so clean of hand,
So loyal and so royal, none might cast
A word against thee burning like a brand,
A sound that withers honour, and makes fast
The bondage of a recreant soul to shame—
Thou shouldst, or ever an hour be overpast,
Slay him.
LOCRINE.
Thou art mad.
GUENDOLEN.
What, is not then thy name
Locrine? and hath this boy done ill to thee?
Hath he not won him for thy love’s sake fame?
Hath he not served thee loyally? is he
So much thy son, so little son of mine,
That men might call him traitor? May they see
The brand across his brow that reddens thine?
How shouldst thou dare—how dream—to let him live?
Is he not loyal? art not thou Locrine?
What less than death for guerdon shouldst thou give
My son who hath done thee service? Me thou hast
given—
Who hast found me truer than falsehood can forgive—
Shame for my guerdon: yea, my heart is riven
With shame that once I loved thee.
LOCRINE.
Guendolen,
A woman’s wrath should rest not unforgiven
Save of the slightest of the sons of men:
And no such slight and shameful thing am I
As would not yield thee pardon.
GUENDOLEN.
Slay me then.
LOCRINE.
Thee, or thy son? but now thou bad’st him die.
GUENDOLEN.
Thou liest: I bade thee slay him.
LOCRINE.
Art thou mad
Indeed?
GUENDOLEN.
O liar, is all the world a lie?
I bade thee, knowing thee what thou art—I bade
My lord and king and traitor slay my son—
A heartless hand that lacks the power it had
Smite one whose stroke shall leave it strengthless—one
Whose loyal loathing of his shame in thee
Shall cast it out of eyeshot of the sun.
LOCRINE.
Thou bad’st me slay him that he might—he, slay me?
GUENDOLEN.
Thou hast said—and yet thou hast lied not.
LOCRINE.
Hell’s own hate
Brought never forth such fruit as thine.
GUENDOLEN.
But he
Is the issue of thy love and mine, by fate
Made one to no good issue. Didst thou trust
That grief should give to men disconsolate
Comfort, and treason bring forth truth, and dust
Blossom? What love, what reverence, what regard,
Shouldst thou desire, if God or man be just,
Of this thy son, or me more evil-starred,
Whom scorn salutes his mother?
LOCRINE.
How should scorn
Draw near thee, girt about with power for guard,
Power and good fame? unless reproach be born
Of these thy violent vanities of mood
That fight against thine honour.
GUENDOLEN.
Dost thou mourn
For that? Too careful art thou for my good,
Too tender and too true to me and mine,
For shame to make my heart or thine his food
Or scorn lay hold upon my fame or thine.
Art thou not pure as honour’s perfect heart—
Not treason-cankered like my lord Locrine,
Whose likeness shows thee fairer than thou art
And falser than thy loving care of me
Would bid my faith believe thee?
LOCRINE.
What strange part
Is this that changing passion plays in thee?
Know’st thou me not?
GUENDOLEN.
Yea—witness heaven and hell,
And all the lights that lighten earth and sea,
And all that wrings my heart, I know thee well.
How should I love and hate and know thee not?
LOCRINE.
Thy voice is as the sound of dead love’s knell.
GUENDOLEN.
Long since my heart has tolled it—and
forgot
All save the cause that bade the death-bell sound
And cease and bring forth silence.
LOCRINE.
Is thy lot
Less fair and royal, girt with power and crowned,—
Than might fulfil the loftiest heart’s desire?
GUENDOLEN.
Not air but fire it is that rings me
round—
Thy voice makes all my brain a wheel of fire.
Man, what have I to do with pride of power?
Such pride perchance it was that moved my sire
To bid me wed—woe worth the woful hour!—
His brother’s son, the brother’s born above
Him as above me thou, the crown and flower
Of Britain, gentler-hearted than the dove
And mightier than the sunward eagle’s wing:
But nought moved me save one thing only—love.
LOCRINE.
I know it.
GUENDOLEN.
Thou knowest? but this thou knowest not,
king,
How near of kin are bitter love and hate—
Nor which of these may be the deadlier thing.
LOCRINE.
What wouldst thou?
GUENDOLEN.
Death. Would God my heart were great!
Then would I slay myself.
LOCRINE.
I dare not fear
That heaven hath marked for thee no fairer fate.
GUENDOLEN.
Ay! wilt thou slay me then—and slay me here?
LOCRINE.
Mock not thy wrath and me. No hair of
thine
Would I—thou knowest it—hurt; nor vex thine ear
With answering wrath more vain than fumes of wine.
I have wronged and yet not wronged thee. Whence or when
Strange whispers rose that turned thy heart from mine
I would not know for shame’s sake, Guendolen,
And honour’s that I bear thee.
GUENDOLEN.
Didst thou deem
I would outlive with thee the scorn of men,
A slave enthroned beside a traitor? Seem
These eyes and lips and hands of mine a slave’s
Uplift for mercy toward thee? Such a dream
Sets realms on fire, and turns their fields to graves.
LOCRINE.
No dream is mine that does thee less than
right:
Albeit thy words be wild as warring waves,
I know thee higher of heart than shame could smite
And queenlier than thy queenship.
GUENDOLEN.
Dost the know
What day records to day and night to night—
How he whose wrath was rained as hail or snow
On Troy’s adulterous towers, when treacherous flame
Devoured them, and our fathers’ roofs lay low,
And all their praise was turned to fire and shame—
All-righteous God, who herds the stars of heaven
As sheep within his sheepfold—God, whose name
Compels the wandering clouds to service, given
As surely as even the sun’s is—loves or hates
Treason? He loved our sires: were they forgiven?
Their walls upreared of gods, their sevenfold gates,
Might these keep out his justice? What art thou
To make thy will more strong and sure than fate’s?
Thy fate am I, that falls upon thee now.
Wilt thou not slay me yet—and slay thy son?
So shall thy fate change, and unbend the brow
That now looks mortal on thee.
LOCRINE.
What is done
Lies now past help or pleading: nor would I
Plead with thee, knowing that love henceforth is none
Nor trust between us till the day we die.
Yet, if thy name be woman,—if thine heart
Be not burnt up with fire of hell, and lie
Not wounded even to death—albeit we part,
Let there not be between us war, but peace,
Though love may be not.
GUENDOLEN.
Peace? The man thou art
Craves—and shame bids not breath within him cease—
Craves of the woman that thou knowest I am
Peace? Ay, take hands at parting, and release
Each heart, each hand, each other: shall the lamb,
The lamb-like woman, born to cower and bleed,
Withstand his will whose choice may save or damn
Her days and nights, her word and thought and deed—
Take heart to outdare her lord the lion? How
Should this be—if the lion’s imperial seed
Life not against his sire as brave a brow
As frowns upon his mother?—Peace be then
Between us: none may stand before thee now:
No son of thine keep faith with Guendolen.
MADAN.
I have held my peace perforce, it seems, too
long,
Being slower of speech than sons of meaner men.
But seeing my sire hath done my mother wrong,
My hand is hers to serve against my sire.
GUENDOLEN.
And God shall make thine hand against him strong.
LOCRINE.
Ay: when the hearthstead flames, the roof takes fire.
GUENDOLEN.
Woe worth his hand who set the hearth on flame!
LOCRINE.
Curse not our fathers; though thy fierce
desire
Drive thine own son against his father, shame
Should rein thy tongue from speech too shameless.
GUENDOLEN.
Ay!
And thou, my holy-hearted lord,—the same
Whose hand was laid in mine and bound to lie
There fast for ever if faith be found on earth—
If truth be true, and shame not wholly die—
Hast thou not made thy mockery and thy mirth,
Thy laughter and thy scorn, of shame? But we,
Thy wife by wedlock, and thy son by birth,
Who have no part in spirit and soul with thee,
Will bear no part in kingdom nor in life
With one who hath put to shame his child and me.
Thy true-born son, and I that was thy wife,
Will see thee dead or perish. Call thy men
About thee; bid them gird their loins for strife
More dire than theirs who storm the wild wolf’s den;
For if thou dare not slay us here today
Thou art dead.
LOCRINE.
Thou knowest I dare not, Guendolen,
Dare what the ravenous beasts whose life is prey
Dream not of doing, though drunk with bloodshed.
GUENDOLEN.
No:
Thou art gentle, and beasts are honest: no such way
Lies open toward thy fearful foot: not so
Shalt thou find surety from these foes of thine.
Woe worth thee therefore! yea, a sevenfold woe
Shall God through us rain down on thee, Locrine.
Hadst thou the heart God hath not given thee—then
Our blood might run before thy feet like wine
And wash thy way toward sin in sight of men
Smooth, soft, and safe. But if thou shed it not—
If Madan live to look on Guendolen
Living—I wot not what shall be—I wot
What shall not—thou shalt have no joy to live
More than have they for whom God’s wrath grows hot.
LOCRINE.
God’s grace is no such gift as thou canst
give,
Queen, or withhold. Farewell.
GUENDOLEN.
I dare not say
Farewell.
LOCRINE.
And why?
GUENDOLEN.
Thou hast not said—Forgive.
LOCRINE.
I say it—I have said. Thou wilt not hear me?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay.
[Exeunt.
ACT V.
Scene I.—Fields near the Severn.
Enter on one side Locrine and his army: on the
other
side Guendolen, Madan, and their army.
LOCRINE.
Stand fast, and sound a parley.
MADAN.
Halt: it seems
They would have rather speech than strokes of us.
LOCRINE.
This light of dawn is like an evil
dream’s
That comes and goes and is not. Yea, and thus
Our hope on both sides wavering dares allow
No light but fire to bid us die or live.
—Son, and my wife that was, my rebels now,
That here we stand with death to take or give
I call the sun of heaven, God’s likeness wrought
On darkness, whence all spirits breathe and shine,
To witness, is no work of will or thought
Conceived or bred in brain or heart of mine.
Ye have levied wars against me, and compelled
My will unwilling and my power withheld
To strike the stroke I would not, when I might.
Will ye not yet take thought, and spare these men
Whom else the blind and burning fire of fight
Must feed upon for pasture? Guendolen,
Had I not left thee queen in Troynovant,
Though wife no more of mine, in all this land
No hand had risen, no eye had glared askant,
Against me: thine is each man’s heart and hand
That burns and strikes in all this battle raised
To serve and slake thy vengeance. With my son
I plead not, seeing his praise in arms dispraised
For ever, and his deeds of truth undone
By patricidal treason. But with thee
Peace would I have, if peace again may be
Between us. Blood by wrath unnatural shed
Or spent in civic battle burns the land
Whereon it falls like fire, and brands as red
The conqueror’s forehead as the warrior’s hand.
I pray thee, spare this people: reign in peace
With separate honours in a several state:
As love that was hath ceased, let hatred cease:
Let not our personal cause be made the fate
That damns to death men innocent, and turns
The joy of life to darkness. Thine alone
Is all this war: to slake the flame that burns
Thus high should crown thee royal, and enthrone
Thy praise in all men’s memories. If thou wilt,
Peace let there be: if not, be thine the guilt.
GUENDOLEN.
Mine? Hear it, heaven,—and men,
bear witness! Mine
The treachery that hath rent our realm in twain—
Mine, mine the adulterous treason. Not Locrine,
Not he, found loyal to my love in vain,
Hath brought the civic sword and fire of strife
On British fields and homesteads, clothed with joy,
Crowned with content and comfort: I, his wife,
Have brought on Troynovant the fires of Troy.
He lifts his head before the sun of heaven
And swears it—lies, and lives. Is God’s bright
sword
Broken, wherewith the gates of Troy—the seven
Strong gates that gods who built them held in ward—
Were broken even as wattled reeds with fire?
Son, by what name shall honour call thy sire?
MADAN.
How long shall I and all these mail-clad men
Stand and give ear, or gape and catch at flies,
While ye wage warring words that wound not? When
Have I been found of you so wordy-wise
That thou or he should call to counsel one
So slow of speech and wit as thou and he,
Who know my hand no sluggard, know your son?
Till speech be clothed in iron, bid not me
Speak.
LOCRINE.
Yet he speaks not ill.
GUENDOLEN.
Did I not know
Mine honour perfect as thy shame, Locrine,
Now might I say, and turn to pride my woe,
Mine only were this boy, and none of thine.
But what thou mayest I may not. Where are they
Who ride not with their lord and sire today?
Thy secret Scythian and your changeling child,
Where hide they now their heads that lurk not hidden
There where thy treason deemed them safe, and smiled?
When arms were levied, and thy servants bidden
About thee to withstand the doom of men
Whose loyal angers flamed upon our side
Against thee, from thy smooth-skinned she-wolf’s den
Her whelp and she sought covert unespied,
But not from thee far off. Thou hast born them hither
For refuge in this west that stands for thee
Against our cause, whose very name should wither
The hearts of them that hate it. Where is she?
Hath she not heart to keep thy side? or thou,
Dost thou think shame to stand beside her now
And bid her look upon thy son and wife?
Nay, she should ride at thy right hand and laugh
To see so fair a lordly field of strife
Shine for her sake, whose lips thy love bids quaff
For pledge of trustless troth the blood of men.
LOCRINE.
Should I not put her in thine hand to slay?
Hell hath laid hold upon thee, Guendolen,
And turned thine heart to hell-fire. Be thy prey
Thyself, the wolfish huntress: and the blood
Rest on thine head that here shall now be spilt.
GUENDOLEN.
Let it run broader than this water’s
flood
Swells after storm, it shall not cleanse thy guilt.
Give now the word of charge; and God do right
Between us in the fiery courts of fight.
[Exeunt.
Scene II.—The banks of the Severn.
Enter Estrild and Sabrina.
SABRINA.
When will my father come again?
ESTRILD.
God knows,
Sweet.
SABRINA.
Hast thou seen how wide this water
flows—
How smooth it swells and shines from brim to brim,
How fair, how full? Nay, then thine eyes are dim.
Thou dost not weep for fear lest evil men
Or that more evil woman—Guendolen
Didst thou not call her yesternight by name?—
Should put my father’s might in arms to shame?
What is she so to levy shameful strife
Against my sire and thee?
ESTRILD.
His wife! his wife!
SABRINA.
Why, that art thou.
ESTRILD.
Woe worth me!
SABRINA.
Nay, woe worth
Her wickedness! How may the heavens and earth
Endure her?
ESTRILD.
Heaven is fire, and earth a sword,
Against us.
SABRINA.
May the wife withstand her lord
And war upon him? Nay, no wife is she—
And no true mother thou to mock at me.
ESTRILD.
Yea, no true wife or mother, child, am I.
Yet, child, thou shouldst not say it—and bid me die.
SABRINA.
I bid thee live and laugh at wicked foes
Even as my sire and I do. What! ‘God
knows,’
Thou sayest, and yet art fearful? Is he not
Righteous, that we should fear to take the lot
Forth of his hand that deals it? And my sire,
Kind as the sun in heaven, and strong as fire,
Hath he not God upon his side and ours,
Even all the gods and stars and all their powers?
ESTRILD.
I know not. Fate at sight of thee should
break
His covenant—doom grow gentle for thy sake.
SABRINA.
Wherefore?
ESTRILD.
Because thou knowest not wherefore.
Child,
My days were darkened, and the ways were wild
Wherethrough my dark doom led me toward this end,
Ere I beheld thy sire, my lord, my friend,
My king, my stay, my saviour. Let thine hand
Lie still in mine. Thou canst not understand,
Yet would I tell thee somewhat. Ere I knew
If aught of evil or good were false or true,
If aught of life were worth our hope or fear,
There fell on me the fate that sets us here.
For in my father’s kingdom oversea—
SABRINA.
Thou wast not born in Britain?
ESTRILD.
Woe is me,
No: happier hap had mine perchance been then.
SABRINA.
And was not I? Are these all stranger men?
ESTRILD.
Ay, wast thou, child—a Briton born: God
give
Thy name the grace on British tongues to live!
SABRINA.
Is that so good a gift of God’s—to
die
And leave a name alive in memory? I
Would rather live this river’s life, and be
Held of no less or more account than he.
Lo, how he lives and laughs! and hath no name,
Thou sayest—or one forgotten even of fame
That lives on poor men’s lips and falters down
To nothing. But thy father? and his crown?
Did he less hate the coil of it than mine,
Or love thee less—nay, then he were not thine—
Than he, my sire, loves me?
ESTRILD.
And wilt thou hear
All? Child, my child, love born of love, more dear
Than very love was ever! Hearken then.
This plague, this fire, that hunts us—Guendolen—
Was wedded to thy sire ere I and he
Cast ever eyes on either. Woe is me!
Thou canst not dream, sweet, what my soul would say
And not affright thee.
SABRINA.
Thou affright me? Nay,
Mock not. This evil woman—when he knew
Thee, this my sweet good mother, wise and true—
He cast from him and hated.
ESTRILD.
Yea—and now
For that shall haply he and I and thou
Die.
SABRINA.
What is death? I never saw his face
That I should fear it.
ESTRILD.
Whether grief or grace
Or curse or blessing breathe from it, and give
Aught worse or better than the life we live,
I know no more than thou knowest; perchance,
Less. When we sleep, they say, or fall in trance,
We die awhile. Well spake thine innocent breath—
I think there is no death but fear of death.
SABRINA.
Did I say this? but that was long ago—
Months. Now I know not—yet I think I know—
Whether I fear or fear not it. Hard by
Men fight even now—they strike and kill and die
Red-handed; nay, we hear the roar and see
The lightning of the battle: can it be
That what no soul of all these brave men fears
Should sound so fearful save in foolish ears?
But all this while I know not where it lay,
Thy father’s kingdom.
ESTRILD.
Far from here away
It lies beyond the wide waste water’s bound
That clasps with bitter waves this sweet land round.
Thou hast seen the great sea never, nor canst dream
How fairer far than earth’s most lordly stream
It rolls its royal waters here and there,
Most glorious born of all things anywhere,
Most fateful and most godlike; fit to make
Men love life better for the sweet sight’s sake
And less fear death if death for them should be
Shrined in the sacred splendours of the sea
As God in heaven’s mid mystery. Night and day
Forth of my tower-girt homestead would I stray
To gaze thereon as thou upon the bright
Soft river whence thy soul took less delight
Than mine of the outer sea, albeit I know
How great thy joy was of it. Now—for so
The high gods willed it should be—once at morn
Strange men there landing bore me thence forlorn
Across the wan wild waters in their bark,
I wist not where, through change of light and dark,
Till their fierce lord, the son of spoil and strife,
Made me by forceful marriage-rites his wife.
Then sailed they toward the white and flower-sweet strand
Whose free folk follow on thy father’s hand,
And warred against him, slaying his brother: and he
Hurled all their force back hurtling toward the sea,
And slew my lord their king; but me he gave
Grace, and received not as a wandering slave,
But one whom seeing he loved for pity: why
Should else a sad strange woman such as I
Find in his fair sight favour? and for me
He built the bower wherein I bare him thee,
And whence but now he hath brought us westward, here
To abide the extreme of utmost hope or fear.
And come what end may ever, death or life,
I live or die, if truth be truth, his wife;
And none but I and thou, though day wax dim,
Though night grow strong, hath any part in him.
SABRINA.
What should we fear, then? whence might any
Fall on us?
ESTRILD.
Ah! Ah me! God answers here.
Enter Locrine, wounded.
LOCRINE.
Praised be the gods who have brought me
safe—to die
Beside thee. Nay, but kneel not—rise, and fly
Ere death take hold on thee too. Bid the child
Kiss me. The ways all round are wide and wild—
Ye may win safe away. They deemed me dead—
My last friends left—who saw me fallen, and fled
No shame is theirs—they fought to the end. But ye,
Fly: not your love can keep my life in me—
Not even the sight and sense of you so near.
SABRINA.
How can we fly, father?
ESTRILD.
She would not fear—
Thy very child is she—no heart less high
Than thine sustains her—and we will not fly.
LOCRINE.
So shall their work be perfect. Yea, I
know
Our fate is fallen upon us, and its woe.
Yet have we lacked not gladness—and this end
Is not so hard. We have had sweet life to friend,
And find not death our enemy. All men born
Die, and but few find evening one with morn
As I do, seeing the sun of all my life
Lighten my death in sight of child and wife.
I would not live again to lose that kiss,
And die some death not half so sweet as this.
[Dies.
ESTRILD.
Thou thought’st to cleave in twain my
life and
To cast my hand away in death, Locrine?
See now if death have drawn thee far from me!
[Stabs herself.
SABRINA.
Thou diest, and hast not slain me, mother?
ESTRILD.
Thee?
Forgive me, child! and so may they forgive.
[Dies.
SABRINA.
O mother, canst thou die and bid me live?
Enter Guendolen, Madan, and Soldiers.
GUENDOLEN.
Dead? Ah! my traitor with his harlot
fled
Hellward?
MADAN.
Their child is left thee.
GUENDOLEN.
She! not dead?
SABRINA.
Thou hast slain my mother and sire—thou
hast slain thy lord—
Strike now, and slay me.
GUENDOLEN.
Smite her with thy sword.
MADAN.
I know not if I dare. I dare not.
GUENDOLEN.
Shame
Consume thee!—Thou—what call they, girl, thy name?
Daughter of Estrild,—daughter of Locrine,—
Daughter of death and darkness!
SABRINA.
Yet not thine.
Darkness and death are come on us, and thou,
Whose servants are they: heaven behind thee now
Stands, and withholds the thunder: yet on me
He gives thee not, who helps and comforts thee,
Power for one hour of darkness. Ere thine hand
Can put forth power to slay me where I stand
Safe shall I sleep as these that here lie slain.
GUENDOLEN.
She dares not—though the heart in her be
fain,
The flesh draws back for fear. She dares not.
SABRINA.
See!
I change no more of warring words with thee
O father, O my mother, here am I:
They hurt me not who can but bid me die.
[She leaps into the river.
GUENDOLEN.
Save her! God pardon me!
MADAN.
The water whirls
Down out of sight her tender face, and hurls
Her soft light limbs to deathward. God forgive—
Thee, sayest thou, mother? Wouldst thou bid her live?
GUENDOLEN.
What have we done?
MADAN.
The work we came to do.
That God, thou said’st, should stand for judge of you
Whose judgment smote with mortal fire and sword
Troy, for such cause as bade thee slay thy lord.
Now, as between his fathers and their foes
The lord of gods dealt judgment, winged with woes
And girt about with ruin, hath he sent
On these destruction.
GUENDOLEN.
Yea.
MADAN.
Art thou content?
GUENDOLEN.
The gods are wise who lead us—now to
smite,
And now to spare: we dwell but in their sigh
And work but what their will is. What hath been
Is past. But these, that once were king and queen,
The sun, that feeds on death, shall not consume
Naked. Not I would sunder tomb from tomb
Of these twain foes of mine, in death made one—
I, that when darkness hides me from the sun
Shall sleep alone, with none to rest by me.
But thou—this one time more I look on thee—
Fair face, brave hand, weak heart that wast not mine—
Sleep sound—and God be good to thee, Locrine.
I was not. She was fair as heaven in spring
Whom thou didst love indeed. Sleep, queen and king,
Forgiven; and if—God knows—being dead, ye live,
And keep remembrance yet of me—forgive.
[Exeunt.