Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ CAMBER.
That lust of the evil-speaking tongue which gives
Quick breath to deadly lies, and stings to life
The rottenness of falsehood, when it lives,
Falls dumb, and leaves the lie to bring forth strife.
The liar will say no more—his heart misgives
His knaveship—should he sunder man and wife?
Such, sister, in thy sight, it seems, am I.
Yet shalt thou take, to keep or cast it by,
The truth of shame I would not have thee hear,—
Not might I choose,—but choose I may not.
GUENDOLEN.
Shame
And truth? Shame never toward thine heart came near,
And all thy life hath hung about thy name. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Envenoms so thy tongue toward one that had
No thought less kindly—toward even thee that art
Kindless—than best beseems a kinsman’s part?
MADAN.
Lay not on me thine own foul shame, whose tongue
Would turn my blood to poison, while it stung
Thy brother’s fame to death. I know my sire
As shame knows thee—and better no man knows
Aught.
CAMBER.
Have thy will, then: take thy full desire:
Drink dry the draught of ruin: bid all blows
Welcome: being harsh with friends, be mild with foes,
And give shame thanks for buffets. Yet I thought—
But how should help avail where heart is nought? ”

“ My heart would mock me.
CAMBER.
Such a spirit as mine
Being spiritless—my words heartless—mine acts
Faint shadows of Locrine’s or Albanact’s?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay—not so much—I said not so. Say thou
What thou wouldst have—if aught thou wouldst—with me.
CAMBER.
No man might see thine eyes and lips and brow
Who would not—what he durst not crave of thee.
GUENDOLEN.
Ay, verily? And thy spirit exalts thee now
So high that these thy words fly forth so free,
And fain thine act would follow—flying above
Shame’s reach and fear’s? What gift may this be? Love? ”

“ LOCRINE.
I think thou wouldst not, though thine hands were free.
GUENDOLEN.
These hands, now bound in wedlock fast to thine?
LOCRINE.
Yet were thine heart not then dislinked from mine.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, life nor death, nor love whose child is hate,
May sunder hearts made one but once by fate.
Wrath may come down as fire between them—life
May bid them yearn for death as man for wife—
Grief bid them stoop as son to father—shame
Brand them, and memory turn their pulse to flame—
Or falsehood change their blood to poisoned wine—
Yet all shall rend them not in twain, Locrine. ”

“ Your servant, sire, am I,
Who lived so long your sire’s.
CAMBER.
And how had he
Endured thy silence or sustained thy scorn?
Why must I know not what thou knowest of?
DEBON.
Why?
Hast thou not heard, king, that a true man’s trust
Is king for him of life and death? Locrine
Hath sealed with trust my lips—nay, prince, not mine—
His are they now.
CAMBER.
Thou art wise as he, and just,
And secret. God requite thee! yea, he must,
For man shall never. If my sword here shine
Sunward—God guard that reverend head of thine! ”

“ In concord of sweet colour—and his brow
Shines gentler than my father’s ever: thou,
So seeing, dost well to hold thy sire so dear.
MADAN.
I said not that his love sat yet so near
My heart as thine doth: rather am I thine,
Thou knowest, than his.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay—rather seems Locrine
Thy sire than I thy mother.
MADAN.
Wherefore?
GUENDOLEN.
Boy,
Because of all our sires who fought for Troy
Most like thy father and my lord Locrine,
I think, was Paris.
MADAN.
How may man divine
Thy meaning? Blunt am I, thou knowest, of wit;
And scarce yet man—men tell me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His heart is all toward battle. Was it mine
That put such fire in his? for none that heard
Thy flatteries—nay, I take not back the word—
A flattering lover lives my loving lord—
Could guess thine hand so great with spear or sword.
LOCRINE.
What have I done for thee to mock with praise
And make the boy’s eyes widen? All my days
Are worth not all a week, if war be all,
Of his that loved no bloodless festival—
Thy sire, and sire of slaughters: this was one
Who craved no more of comfort from the sun
But light to lighten him toward battle: I
Love no such life as bids men kill or die. ”

“ Still at thine heart, and scarce thy last keen tear
Dried: yet the gods have left thee comfort here.
GUENDOLEN.
Comfort? In thee, fair cousin—or my son?
LOCRINE.
What hast thou done, Madan, or left undone?
Toward thee and me thy mother’s mood to-day
Seems less than loving.
MADAN.
Sire, I cannot say.
LOCRINE.
Enough: an hour or half an hour is more
Than wrangling words should stuff with barren store.
Comfort may’st thou bring to her, if I may none,
When all her father quickens in her son.
In Cornish warfare if thou win thee praise,
Thine shall men liken to thy grandsire’s days. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shame it were
Beyond all record in the world of shame,
If they that hither bore in heart that fire
Which none save men of heavenly heart may bear
Had left no sign, though Troy were spoiled and sacked,
That heavenly was the seed they saved.
CAMBER.
No sign?
Though nought my fame be,—though no praise of mine
Be worth men’s tongues for word or thought or act—
Shall fame forget my brother Albanact,
Or how those Huns who drank his blood for wine
Poured forth their own for offering to Locrine?
Though all the soundless maze of time were tracked,
No men should man find nobler. ”

“ Hewn off ere hanging. Wolves or men are we,
That thou shouldst question this?
GUENDOLEN.
Not wolves, but men,
Surely: for beasts are loyal.
LOCRINE.
Guendolen,
What irks thee?
GUENDOLEN.
Nought save grief and love; Locrine,
A grievous love, a loving grief is mine.
Here stands my husband: there my father lies:
I know not if there live in either’s eyes
More love, more life of comfort. This our son
Loves me: but is there else left living one
That loves me back as I love?
LOCRINE.
Nay, but how
Has this wild question fired thine heart? ”

“ Out of that treasonous trance, were fain to slake
With all my blood the fire of shame wherein
My soul should burn me living in my sin.
GUENDOLEN.
Thy soul? Yea, there—how knowest thou, boy, so well?—
The fire is lit that feeds the fires of hell.
Mine is aflame this long time now—but thine—
O, how shall God forgive thee this, Locrine,
That thou, for shame of these thy treasons done,
Hast rent the soul in sunder of thy son?
MADAN.
My heart is whole yet, though thy speech be fire
Whose flame lays hold upon it. Hath my sire
Wronged thee? ”

“ 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? ”

“ Free as the words that bid his stricken brow
Burn and bow down to hear them.
LOCRINE.
Hast not thou
Held counsel—played the talebearer whose tales
Bear plague abroad and poison, knowing not how—
Not with my wife nor brother?
DEBON.
Nought avails
Falsehood: and truth it is, the king of Wales
So plied me, sir, with force of craft and threat—
LOCRINE.
That thou, whose faith swerves never, flags nor fails
Nor falters, being as stars are loyal, yet
Wast found as those that fall from heaven, forget
Their station, shoot and shudder down to death
Deep as the pit of hell? ”

“ 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? ”

“ LOCRINE.
I had need be hence today.
ESTRILD.
Go.
SABRINA.
But I bid thee tarry; what am I
That thou shouldst heed not what I bid thee?
LOCRINE.
Queen
And empress more imperious and more high
And regent royaller than time hath seen
And mightier mistress of thy sire and thrall:
Yet must I go. But ere the next moon fall
Again will I grow happy.
ESTRILD.
Who can say?
LOCRINE.
So much can I—except the stars combine
Unseasonably to stay me.
ESTRILD.
Let them stay
The tides, the seasons rather. Love! Locrine! ”

“ 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? ”

“ Keep thine own,
And let the loud fierce knaves thy brethren quelled
Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne,
Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone,
No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart,
No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art.
A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath,
Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust,
Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death
And wreck three realms to sate his rancorous lust
With ruin of them who have weighed and found him dust. ”

“ Am I Scythian born, or Greek,
That I should take thy bloodshed on my hand?
DEBON.
Nay—if thou seest me soul to soul, and showest
Mercy—
CAMBER.
Thou think’st I would have slain thee? Speak.
DEBON.
Nay, then I will, for love of all this land:
Lest, if suspicion bring forth strife, and fear
Hatred, its face be withered with a curse;
Lest the eyeless doubt of unseen ill be worse
Than very truth of evil. Thou shalt hear
Such truth as falling in a base man’s ear
Should bring forth evil indeed in hearts perverse ”

“ LOCRINE.
Yea. So cheer thee now.
DEBON.
Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers?
Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou,
And will not damn me with forgiveness. How
Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me?
God’s thunder were less fearful than the brow
That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee.
Thy friend—thou said’st—thy friend. Strange friends are we. ”

“ His heart, thy father’s very heart is thine—
O, well beseems it, meet it is, Locrine,
That liar and traitor and changeling he should be
Who, though I bare him, was begot by thee.
MADAN.
How have I lied, mother? Was this the lie,
That thou didst call my father coward, and I
Heard?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay—I did but liken him with one
Not all unlike him; thou, my child, his son,
Art more unlike thy father.
MADAN.
Was not then,
Of all our fathers, all recorded men,
The man whose name, thou sayest, is like his name—
Paris—a sign in all men’s mouths of shame? ”

“ 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? ”

“ Of grief inexpiable and insatiate shame
Her spirit in all men’s judgment.
LOCRINE.
But the prince—
My brother, whom thou knowest by proof, not fame,
A coward whose heart is all a flickering flame
That fain would burn and dares not—whence had he
The poison that he gave her? Speak: this came
By chance—mishap—most haplessly for thee
Who hadst my heart in thine, and madest of me
No more than might for folly’s sake or fear’s
Be bared for even such eyes as his to see? ”