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 hair
Laid on my face and mouth; can kiss you too
And not be smitten; that is good for me.
Con. Poor child, I love you; yea, keep close by me
So am I safe. Ah! yet no woman here
Would 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 stones
About your neck and forehead, and on mine
Lay down the soft palm of your smooth long hand;
If I were as my father I would reach
Both hands up—so—to bow your head quite down,
Pulled by the hair each side, till I could touch
The 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 now
I 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, think
How 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 once
Lived where the trees are great and green, with leaves
The white midwinter keeps alive; there grew
All red fruit and all flowers full of gold
In the broad low grasses: from the poppy-root
Came lilies, and from lily-stems there clomb
Tall roses, with close petals, and the stalk
Was heavy gold, solid and smooth, the wind
Was full of soft rain gathered in the dusk
That fell with no clouds near; so this king
Grew 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.
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 hair
Laid on my face and mouth; can kiss you too
And not be smitten; that is good for me.
Con. Poor child, I love you; yea, keep close by me
So am I safe. Ah! yet no woman here
Would 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 stones
About your neck and forehead, and on mine
Lay down the soft palm of your smooth long hand;
If I were as my father I would reach
Both hands up—so—to bow your head quite down,
Pulled by the hair each side, till I could touch
The 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 now
I 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, think
How 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 once
Lived where the trees are great and green, with leaves
The white midwinter keeps alive; there grew
All red fruit and all flowers full of gold
In the broad low grasses: from the poppy-root
Came lilies, and from lily-stems there clomb
Tall roses, with close petals, and the stalk
Was heavy gold, solid and smooth, the wind
Was full of soft rain gathered in the dusk
That fell with no clouds near; so this king
Grew 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 there
Or in our faces, in our brows' mould, or
In 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 use
For one to handle; I beseech you, let not
The outside of our speech condemn us; else
Had we kept mouth shut ever.
Con.My fair lord,
I know not what ungracious day of mine
Hath 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 speech
I must unriddle. Lady Lucrezia,
What madness hurts our friend? he speaks awry
With a most broken action.
Fred.Speak, sir: I
Stand for my mother.
Mas. So you have set him words
To work out, to spell over, each as loud
As 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 hope
Grey as his own thin hair; I loved you well,
Put honour on you, which you seemed to wear
With natural apprehension and keen grace
Past blame of any, over praise of me;
Now either my hurt sense is sick to death,
Or I conceive such meaning in your talk
As makes me faint with shame; I would fain be angry;
But shame has left me bare of even will
To seem so angry, and to say this out
With your set eyes so fast upon my face
Grows like shame to me.
Mas.Nathless I believe
Since you shook hands with shame's last messenger
And 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 centuries
In her fair palms and forehead; their blue curves
Royally written; nay this boy's soft lip
So red and fair by that imperial sign,
By your most gracious warrant; else I'll say
The name you had was bastarded, and you
Some 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, yea
Past man's approval or the keenest feet
Of his obedience: You're my kinswoman,
And the dear honour that I have of you
Hath borne some witness; now for her, I'll say
I would forget you, and unclothe my soul
Of its strong reverence and opinion
That makes you to me as the music is
To the dead eithern there, as the live smell
To some quick flower midways the lily-row.
So I hold you—well, I'd forget all this
To serve her; that was Lady Constance here,
When she was no mere German ornament
scrawled broad with some gold flourishes at top
Above some Austrian document to prove
Our lord a liar, some stale letter, says
To be just fingered by Pope Celestin
Before he tears it, tears her name and all,
No witness of that devil's assurance made
Between our masters, that strong bond that holds
Treason 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 bade
But when God thought she might have need of him
Tancred's own blood, the king's own very flesh
Made for our sakes so beautiful and weak
That we might even help God by serving her—
The maiden face more gracious than was need
To keep it perfect-—yea, more love in the lip
Than what sufficed us to accredit her
As only Constance, more repose i' the eyes
Than had alone constrained her worship out—
For certes no man ever wondered much
Why she wants worship! (to complete her, say)
And what were love's work? yea, thus verily
God wrought her with good cunning; and our part
Was 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 blood
As this might wash her floored palace clean—
I talk that old way! See how pale she is,
Her eyes more narrow, and with shallow lights
Filling 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 fails
On 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 thin
Each feature shows of it by this———
Mas.I said
No 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 taste
That poisons me—this curse that changes her—
I saw not ever.
Con.This—
Mas.That you should turn
A woman none of those men pay to find
The costliness of such a golden sin
As loves by hire and loves not—-no such thing
Would 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 page
A groom might spit on—handled, breathed upon
By the spent breath in his mid office worn
As garb and badge of his necessity
On one permitted shoulder, by this king . . .
Though we put on some outer show of man,
Think us no more than beast: What certainty is there
Or in our faces, in our brows' mould, or
In 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 use
For one to handle; I beseech you, let not
The outside of our speech condemn us; else
Had we kept mouth shut ever.
Con.My fair lord,
I know not what ungracious day of mine
Hath 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 speech
I must unriddle. Lady Lucrezia,
What madness hurts our friend? he speaks awry
With a most broken action.
Fred.Speak, sir: I
Stand for my mother.
Mas. So you have set him words
To work out, to spell over, each as loud
As 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 hope
Grey as his own thin hair; I loved you well,
Put honour on you, which you seemed to wear
With natural apprehension and keen grace
Past blame of any, over praise of me;
Now either my hurt sense is sick to death,
Or I conceive such meaning in your talk
As makes me faint with shame; I would fain be angry;
But shame has left me bare of even will
To seem so angry, and to say this out
With your set eyes so fast upon my face
Grows like shame to me.
Mas.Nathless I believe
Since you shook hands with shame's last messenger
And 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 centuries
In her fair palms and forehead; their blue curves
Royally written; nay this boy's soft lip
So red and fair by that imperial sign,
By your most gracious warrant; else I'll say
The name you had was bastarded, and you
Some 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, yea
Past man's approval or the keenest feet
Of his obedience: You're my kinswoman,
And the dear honour that I have of you
Hath borne some witness; now for her, I'll say
I would forget you, and unclothe my soul
Of its strong reverence and opinion
That makes you to me as the music is
To the dead eithern there, as the live smell
To some quick flower midways the lily-row.
So I hold you—well, I'd forget all this
To serve her; that was Lady Constance here,
When she was no mere German ornament
scrawled broad with some gold flourishes at top
Above some Austrian document to prove
Our lord a liar, some stale letter, says
To be just fingered by Pope Celestin
Before he tears it, tears her name and all,
No witness of that devil's assurance made
Between our masters, that strong bond that holds
Treason 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 bade
But when God thought she might have need of him
Tancred's own blood, the king's own very flesh
Made for our sakes so beautiful and weak
That we might even help God by serving her—
The maiden face more gracious than was need
To keep it perfect-—yea, more love in the lip
Than what sufficed us to accredit her
As only Constance, more repose i' the eyes
Than had alone constrained her worship out—
For certes no man ever wondered much
Why she wants worship! (to complete her, say)
And what were love's work? yea, thus verily
God wrought her with good cunning; and our part
Was 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 blood
As this might wash her floored palace clean—
I talk that old way! See how pale she is,
Her eyes more narrow, and with shallow lights
Filling 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 fails
On 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 thin
Each feature shows of it by this———
Mas.I said
No 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 taste
That poisons me—this curse that changes her—
I saw not ever.
Con.This—
Mas.That you should turn
A woman none of those men pay to find
The costliness of such a golden sin
As loves by hire and loves not—-no such thing
Would 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 page
A groom might spit on—handled, breathed upon
By the spent breath in his mid office worn
As garb and badge of his necessity
On one permitted shoulder, by this king . . .