Rosamund | Page 7

each, and each by right of sin Prostitute? All the life I have lived or loved Hath been, if snows or seas or wellsprings be, Pure as the spirit of love toward heaven is--chaste As children's eyes or mothers'. Though I sinned As yet my soul hath sinned not, Albovine Must bear, if God abhor unrighteousness, The weight of penance heaviest laid on sin, Shame. Not on me may shame be set, though hell Take hold upon me dying. I would the deed Were done, the wreak of wrath were wroken, and I Dead.
Enter ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou sick at heart to see me?
ROSAMUND.
No.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art sweet and wise as ever God hath made Woman. I would not turn thine heart from me Or set thy spirit against the sense of mine For more than Rome's old empire.
ROSAMUND.
That, albeit Thou wouldst, be sure thou canst not. God nor man Could wake within me toward my lord the king A new strange love or loathing. Fear not this.
ALBOVINE.
From thee can I fear nothing. Now I know How high thy heart is, and how true to me.
ROSAMUND.
Thou knowest it now.
ALBOVINE.
I know not if I should Repent me, or repent not, that I tried A heart so high so sorely--proved so true.
ROSAMUND.
Do not repent. I would not have thee now Repent.
ALBOVINE.
By Christ, if God forbade it not, I would have said within mine own fool's heart, Of all vile things that fool the soul of man The vilest and the priestliest hath to name Repentance. Could it blot one hour's work out, A wise thing and a manful thing it were, And profit were it none for priests to preach. This will I tell thee: what last night befell Rejoices not but irks me.
ROSAMUND.
Let it not Rejoice nor irk thee. Vex thou not thy soul With any thought thereon, if none may bid thee Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of heart.
ALBOVINE.
I will not. Queen and wife, hell durst not say I do not love thee.
ROSAMUND.
Heaven has heard--and I.
ALBOVINE.
Forget then all this foolishness, and pray God may forget it.
ROSAMUND.
God forgets as I. [Exit ALBOVINE. And had repentance helped him? Shall I think It might have molten in my burning heart The thrice-retempered iron of resolve? Yet well it is to know that penitence Lies further from that frozen heart of his Than mercy from the tiger's. Ay, God knows, I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down Before me: now I do but hate. I am not Abased as wholly, so supremely shamed, As though I had wedded one as hard as he Who yet might think to soften down with words What hardly might be cleansed with tears of blood, The monumental memory graven on steel That burns the naked spirit of sense within me Like the ardent sting of keen-edged ice, which makes The naked flesh feel fire upon it.
Enter ALMACHILDES.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen, I come to crave a word of thee.
ROSAMUND.
I hear.
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest I love thy noble Hildegard: And rather would I give my soul to burn Than wrong in thought her flawless maidenhood. And now she hath told me what I dare not think Truth. And I dare not think her lips may lie.
ROSAMUND.
I have heard. And what is this to me? She hath not Said--hath not told thee, nor wouldst thou believe - That I have breathed a lie upon her lips Or taught them shamelessness by lesson?
ALMACHILDES.
No. But she came forth from thee to me--from thee - And spake with quivering mouth and quailing eyes And face whose fire turned ashen, and again Rekindling from that ashen agony Flamed, what no heart could think to hear her speak, Mine least of all, who love her.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
ALMACHILDES.
Not she, I know it as sure as night is known from day And surelier than I know mine own soul's truth, Spake what she spake in broken bursts of breath Out of her own heart and its love for me.
ROSAMUND.
Didst thou so answer her?
ALMACHILDES.
I might not well Answer at all.
ROSAMUND.
Poor maid, she hath loved amiss. Belike she thought to find in thee a man's Love.
ALMACHILDES.
That she hath found; nought meaner than a man's; No wolfish lust of ravenous insolence To soil and spoil her of her noblest name.
ROSAMUND.
I do not ask thee what she said. I know.
ALMACHILDES.
I knew thou didst.
ROSAMUND.
To make your bridal sure She bade thee make thy bride of her to-night.
ALMACHILDES.
She bade me as a slave might bid the scourge Fall.
ROSAMUND.
Such a scourge no slave might shrink from; nay, No free-born woman, Almachildes.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen, I crave thy queenly mercy though I say My maid, my bride that will be, shrank, and showed In all the rosebright anguish of her face A shuddering shame that wrung my heart. And thou Hast surely set thereon that seal of shame. I know it as thou dost.
ROSAMUND.
Ay, and