Posthumous Poems/Constance and Frederick
CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK
Fred. Why should it hurt you that he goes to Rome?Now I am glad; I can sit close to you,Feel my hand put away and lost in yours,And the sweet smell of your long knotted hairLaid on my face and mouth; can kiss you tooAnd not be smitten; that is good for me. Con. Poor child, I love you; yea, keep close by meSo am I safe. Ah! yet no woman hereWould pity; keep you closer to me, boy! Fred. Is not this well? now I can touch your sleeve,Count over the thick rings and fair round stonesAbout your neck and forehead, and on mineLay down the soft palm of your smooth long hand;If I were as my father I would reachBoth hands up—so—to bow your head quite down,Pulled by the hair each side, till I could touchThe rows of gracious pearl that part your hair.Then I would kiss you, your lips would move to cry And I would make them quiet; ah! but nowI cannot reach your lips—not so! alas,And then they shiver and curl sideways, see,And your eyes cry too, Con.There—sit gravelier now!Nay, child, you twist my finger in the ring. Fred. I wonder if God means to leave us so?If he forget us, and my father die,How well that were for you! dear mother, thinkHow we would praise him! Con.Child, no words of it,Let us forget him. Come, I'll spoil a tale,With idle remembrance. There was a king onceLived where the trees are great and green, with leavesThe white midwinter keeps alive; there grewAll red fruit and all flowers full of goldIn the broad low grasses: from the poppy-rootCame lilies, and from lily-stems there clombTall roses, with close petals, and the stalkWas heavy gold, solid and smooth, the windWas full of soft rain gathered in the duskThat fell with no clouds near; so this kingGrew past a child. Fred.Taller than I? so tall? Con. Ay, where the sun divides the olive-shade;And on his head——— Rise, here are men, I think.
Enter Massimo and Lucrezia.
Mas. What do these here? Hush! now, Madam, I pray you,Though we put on some outer show of man,Think us no more than beast: What certainty is thereOr in our faces, in our brows' mould, orIn the clear shape and colour of our speech,Sets this word man upon us? We, as you,Are the king's ware, his good necessities;(I'll teach you shortly what this babble means,Fear we not there) good chattels of his useFor one to handle; I beseech you, let notThe outside of our speech condemn us; elseHad we kept mouth shut ever. Con.My fair lord,I know not what ungracious day of mineHath given you tongue against me. Fred.What says he, mother?May I not kill him? tho' he speaks so high,This is no father: I may kill him then? Con. Hush, boy! this insolence has changed you. Sir,I pray you let me understand; you said(I think} and there was a secret in your speechI must unriddle. Lady Lucrezia,What madness hurts our friend? he speaks awryWith a most broken action. Fred.Speak, sir: IStand for my mother. Mas. So you have set him wordsTo work out, to spell over, each as loudAs any threat the mouth makes like a blow?Ay, must his father praise him too? Luc.My lord,It seems that change can make the face of hopeGrey as his own thin hair; I loved you well,Put honour on you, which you seemed to wearWith natural apprehension and keen gracePast blame of any, over praise of me;Now either my hurt sense is sick to death,Or I conceive such meaning in your talkAs makes me faint with shame; I would fain be angry;But shame has left me bare of even willTo seem so angry, and to say this outWith your set eyes so fast upon my faceGrows like shame to me. Mas.Nathless I believeSince you shook hands with shame's last messengerAnd felt her hand's mark hot along your cheek,Some years have made it whiter. Luc.Pardon me!I know not, Madam, what he speaks. Mas.Nor you?I spoke to Tancred's kinswoman, the queen Who wears the blood of holy centuriesIn her fair palms and forehead; their blue curvesRoyally written; nay this boy's soft lipSo red and fair by that imperial sign,By your most gracious warrant; else I'll sayThe name you had was bastarded, and youSome wicked season's error. Luc.Are you mad?See, her mouth trembles, tears drop over it,Her brows move: now, be silent! Mas.Then I'll end!I held this lady so past service, yeaPast man's approval or the keenest feetOf his obedience: You're my kinswoman,And the dear honour that I have of youHath borne some witness; now for her, I'll sayI would forget you, and unclothe my soulOf its strong reverence and opinionThat makes you to me as the music isTo the dead eithern there, as the live smellTo some quick flower midways the lily-row.So I hold you—well, I'd forget all thisTo serve her; that was Lady Constance here,When she was no mere German ornamentscrawled broad with some gold flourishes at topAbove some Austrian document to proveOur lord a liar, some stale letter, saysTo be just fingered by Pope CelestinBefore he tears it, tears her name and all, No witness of that devil's assurance madeBetween our masters, that strong bond that holdsTreason each side—no empress of this mould,But just the lady we had just to serve,Live by or die for—oh, not when she badeBut when God thought she might have need of himTancred's own blood, the king's own very fleshMade for our sakes so beautiful and weakThat we might even help God by serving her—The maiden face more gracious than was needTo keep it perfect-—yea, more love in the lipThan what sufficed us to accredit herAs only Constance, more repose i' the eyesThan had alone constrained her worship out—For certes no man ever wondered muchWhy she wants worship! (to complete her, say)And what were love's work? yea, thus verilyGod wrought her with good cunning; and our partWas to be patient—some day this might end,She might pray God to find us room, suppose—So many as we were, and such poor bloodAs this might wash her floored palace clean—I talk that old way! See how pale she is,Her eyes more narrow, and with shallow lightsFilling them, broken hints of purposes,How pain has worn the golden secret out Some strange grand language wrote upon her face.All this more wasted than a flame that failsOn sick lamp lit at daybreak—more rebuked,Chastened and beaten by the imperious time,Than my words last year spoken! Con.Oh, not so:Not the soul—let the body wear so thinEach feature shows of it by this——— Mas.I saidNo man's change that we are ruled by does much harm,God overlines it, shall not the queen live?But this so new and bitter thing to tasteThat poisons me—this curse that changes her—I saw not ever. Con.This— Mas.That you should turnA woman none of those men pay to findThe costliness of such a golden sinAs loves by hire and loves not—-no such thingWould praise or pity, would despise or hate—A shame familiar on the pander's lip,Smiled out by courtiers from their slippery mouth,Laughed over, chattered over by the pageA groom might spit on—handled, breathed uponBy the spent breath in his mid office wornAs garb and badge of his necessityOn one permitted shoulder, by this king . . .