Classic Poem

SCENE I — A room in the Chateau of the Duke DE V END├öME . D E L IVRY impatiently walking up and down

Enter a G ENTLEMAN of the Duke's household .

Gentleman . My Lord Duke says, if he must see you again,
He will, Sir; but he thought you had left the place.
De Liv. Be pleased to say, Sir, that this once again,
And only once, and for the briefest speech,
And with all thanks, I crave his princely hearing.
Gent. His Excellence, as governor of Lyons,
Has much to hear, and from all sorts of people.
He has been busied two whole days with hearing
Some message from the Sisterhood of Charity.
De Liv. An audience, Sir, most worthy of his rare
And ample spirit. And its mention favours me.
I find myself right courtier, and to men
Of doubtful worth; and fall to adulations
In very fear of being held too stiff,
Pedantic, and a man of formal virtues;
Nay, even of doing wrong to rich desert,
And poor, ill-used high station. This great lord
I know to be a state-intriguer; doubt
His common truth: suspect, though dread to think,
He may have deeply injured her I love;
And yet because great prosperous wrongs perplex
The sense of right, heav'n seeming to ordain them,
Or because anger might risque all, and right
May possibly be his, and woe meantime
Is surely mine, I keep my slavishness
In heart with pitying him for my own doubts,
And so get leave to court him! — Oh ye poets,
Now know I ye may still be true, yet pay
A dole of dinner with the food of gods!
Oh bald and bent old warriors, blush no more
At bending worse, nor at your tattered papers
That know how to fall back in their own folds,
Like joints of beggars' dogs. The wife awaits you,
Armed with the old, pale, patient, mutual smile
At the bad news: nor can ye stoop so low,
As the excuse of your brave hearts is high.

Enter an U SHER .

Usher . My Lord the Duke!

Enter the Duke DE V ENDÔME : and exit U SHER

Duke . Your pleasure once again, Sir.
You will be quick; for words are quick with me.
De Liv. My Lord, I hold your Lordship's time so precious,
I scarcely dare to touch it with excuse,
Nay, thanks; though you must know me full of them.
I come —
Duke . To make no repetitions then,
I trust, Sir. If you do — we end —
De Liv. My Lord
Duke . Hear me — we end our conference. You found
How beyond all amazement 'twould have been,
And the world's laughter, to deprive my house
Of what your boyish zeal was pleased to term
The fortune of this lady. — Hear me out, Sir —
And you found also, that with reference
Ev'n to herself, and what might have been just
To a great nature shorn of a great means,
Turns to a scorn, or at the best, a pity
For one, that — Well, I spare the honest heat
However credulous, mounting to your cheeks.
There's truth in that.
De Liv. Truth, my Lord!
Duke . Aye, Sir, truth.
Meets a young courtier, think you, an old statesman,
And from the latter's eye hoodwinks the difference
'Twixt fair set phrases and a flashing blood?
And so you'd have this lady get a fortune,
If she could, whether she'd have you, or not?
But if she couldn't, why you'd take the lady
With all your soul and your most small resources,
If she would have you? Is that it? Is that truth?
If so, take my advice; think better of it: —
This mixture of romance and court-address,
Of truth of nature and a little lying, —
Aye, for a lady, — gives me a regard for you.
It makes me think, that with some little plucking
Of your green outer leaves, you'd make some day,
A very fair, good, pleasant, tall ambassador.
Come, there are ladies, plenty here, in Lyons,
And more in Paris, willing to take pity
On a young fellow with two earnest eyes.
I'll send you to the court, and make your fortune.
De Liv. My fortune! Oh sweet heavens! 'tis in the hand —
Where art thou, thou poor hand? of her I love.
Duke . Love! And what's love? 'tis time, a brain like yours
Ask'd that; what's Love? a fancy of the blood,
Of vanity, and the prodigious sense
Two people have of one another's merits;
A thing of letters, rhymes, and locks of hair,
Pinched fingers under tables, and sweet eyes;
Smiles, if you flatter; tears, if you offend;
Horrors, if you think well of John or Mary;
All pretty enough, and pastime, while unvexed
With little things called duties, habits, laws;
But when those come! oh, then, no more a fancy,
But the dull fact that it was all a dream;
A waking to the intolerable sense
Two people have of one another's faults;
And a mere wonder and astonishment
How we could be the fools we thought our sires,
And why our sons will run the self-same round. —
Well, Sir, you sigh with a tired brow, as though
Such follies touched not on your case. In brief then,
If case there be, and it be new, what is it?
Be quick and be sincere, you'll find me so.
De Liv. I came to say, my Lord, and beg, but this.
To-morrow I set out on my return
To Paris.
Duke . Walking?
De Liv. Why not?
Duke . Nay, why blush
To say it? I have known poor gentlemen
Of house as ancient step that way as bravely.
De Liv. ( warmly .) My Lord Duke — Pardon me. One half my blush
Is for a noble gentleman, my friend,
Who strained a purse for me, already lamed,
And to such hurt, beyond my least suspicion,
As makes it fit I should have honest feet,
And be his pilgrim till we meet again.
To Paris I return; and there arrived,
Shall once more try, if she I love can give me
Hopes I may one day comfort her. If not,
I join the good side in the Spanish wars;
And should my death shew you I was a man
Who loved so well, that he could not love money,
Perhaps you'll be to this young orphan lady
What my whole life had been, had Heaven so pleased,
Her saviour from the chances of mean wants
As one that is alive, reckon me nothing;
But inasmuch as I may cease to live
Look on my face an instant, and hold out
Your hand to one standing betwixt two worlds,
And say you'll do it.
Duke ( aside ). On my life I think
He 's noble: and if he is! — ( To D E L IV .) Such mortal seal
(Granting, as I will grant, it speaks it earnest)
Might claim all fellowship with mortal hand,
Were all foregone conclusions what it deems them.
Such are they not. Sir, this your noble dream.
I must disperse with a mean, living fact,
A startling, stooping, perhaps shameful fact;
One, that unless its very abasement touch
Some marvellous extreme in the strange round
Of exaltations, leaves your idol low
As an Egyptian's, when he worshipped moles.
This lady, that you talk of with such faith,
Has wandered from her friends, without their warrant;
Strayed through the county, with that wilfulness
That takes its sullen humour for a reason,
And most when it is most unreasonable,
Because the sense of self is then most perfect.
You've met with some such tempers.
De Liv. By herself?
Duke . Disguised, they tell me, as a Sister of Charity.
De Liv. Not alone then. I have seen her.
Duke . How know you that?
De Liv. Where was she, when you heard of her?
Duke . At hand: —
Ev'n here; — here in the neighbourhood of Lyons.
Nay, I have learnt but now, that you may see her
This very day, at vespers, by a convent,
Begging, they tell me, for some lazar-house;
If not a worse, and what one names with shuddering
De Liv. And you can know it, and not rescue her?
Hard-hearted, simple, miserable men! —
Blessings on both their heads, for I see all.
Duke . You'll see her then?
De Liv. See her? I'd haunt the place
Months, till she came, and made it doubly sacred.
Duke . How, if not sacred, boy; but false, and worse;
Pride worse than pulled down; folly, perhaps vice.
De Liv. 'Tis but your vicious and corrupt court soul
Dare think it. And I have done with you the sooner.
'Tis not within the possible pangs of earth,
Or all the ruins of all souls and bodies,
Such a thing should be; and yet I'll tell you, Sir,
That if it could, Love were a god victorious
Ev'n o'er that face of consternation; aye,
And for the face's sake. D'ye think the heavens
Look upon any unhappy face as you do?
Now Love is of the heavens, and bids me scorn you.