Locrine - A Tragedy | Page 4

more than breath.
II.
No words may utter love; no sovereign song Speak all it would for
love's sake. Yet would I Fain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrong
Some little part of all my love: but why Should weak and wingless
words be fain to fly? For us the years that live not are not dead: Past
days and present in our hearts are wed: My song can say no more than
love hath said.
III.
Love needs nor song nor speech to say what love Would speak or sing,
were speech and song not weak To bear the sense-belated soul above
And bid the lips of silence breathe and speak. Nor power nor will has
love to find or seek Words indiscoverable, ampler strains of song Than
ever hailed him fair or shewed him strong: And less than these should
do him worse than wrong.
IV.
We who remember not a day wherein We have not loved each
other,--who can see No time, since time bade first our days begin,
Within the sweep of memory's wings, when we Have known not what
each other's love must be, - We are well content to know it, and rest on
this, And call not words to witness that it is. To love aloud is oft to love
amiss.
V.
But if the gracious witness borne of words Take not from speechless
love the secret grace That binds it round with silence, and engirds Its
heart with memories fair as heaven's own face, Let love take courage
for a little space To speak and be rebuked not of the soul, Whose

utterance, ere the unwitting speech be whole, Rebukes itself, and craves
again control.
VI.
A ninefold garland wrought of song-flowers nine Wound each with
each in chance-inwoven accord Here at your feet I lay as on a shrine
Whereof the holiest love that lives is lord. With faint strange hues their
leaves are freaked and scored: The fable-flowering land wherein they
grew Hath dreams for stars, and grey romance for dew: Perchance no
flower thence plucked may flower anew.
VII.
No part have these wan legends in the sun Whose glory lightens Greece
and gleams on Rome. Their elders live: but these--their day is done,
Their records written of the wind in foam Fly down the wind, and
darkness takes them home. What Homer saw, what Virgil dreamed,
was truth, And dies not, being divine: but whence, in sooth, Might
shades that never lived win deathless youth?
VIII.
The fields of fable, by the feet of faith Untrodden, bloom not where
such deep mist drives. Dead fancy's ghost, not living fancy's wraith, Is
now the storied sorrow that survives Faith in the record of these lifeless
lives. Yet Milton's sacred feet have lingered there, His lips have made
august the fabulous air, His hands have touched and left the wild weeds
fair.
IX.
So, in some void and thought-untrammelled hour, Let these find grace,
my sister, in your sight, Whose glance but cast on casual things hath
power To do the sun's work, bidding all be bright With comfort given
of love: for love is light. Were all the world of song made mine to give,
The best were yours of all its flowers that live: Though least of all be
this my gift, forgive.
July 1887.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

LOCRINE, King of Britain. CAMBER, King of Wales, brother to
LOCRINE. MADAN, son to LOCRINE and GUENDOLEN. DEBON,
Lord Chamberlain.

GUENDOLEN, Queen of Britain, cousin and wife to LOCRINE.
ESTRILD, a German princess, widow of the Scythian king HUMBER.
SABRINA, daughter to LOCRINE and ESTRILD.
Scene, BRITAIN.

ACT I.

SCENE I.--Troynovant. A Room in the Palace.

Enter GUENDOLEN and MADAN.
GUENDOLEN.
Child, hast thou looked upon thy grandsire dead?
MADAN.
Ay.
GUENDOLEN.
Then thou sawest our Britain's heart and head Death-stricken. Seemed
not there my sire to thee More great than thine, or all men living? We
Stand shadows of the fathers we survive: Earth bears no more nor sees
such births alive.
MADAN.
Why, he was great of thews--and wise, thou say'st: Yet seems my sire
to me the fairer-faced - The kinglier and the kindlier.
GUENDOLEN.
Yea, his eyes Are liker seas that feel the summering skies 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