The Gardens of a Palace—Moonlight. Lalage and Politian

LALAGE.And dost thou speak of loveTo me, Politian?—dost thou speak of loveTo Lalage?—ah woe—ah woe is me!This mockery is most cruel—most cruel indeed!

POLITIAN.Weep not! oh, sob not thus!—thy bitter tearsWill madden me. Oh mourn not, Lalage—Be comforted! I know—I know it all,And still I speak of love. Look at me, brightest,And beautiful Lalage!—turn here thine eyes!Thou askest me if I could speak of love,Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen.Thou askest me that—and thus I answer thee—Thus on my bended knee I answer thee.Sweet Lalage, I love thee—love thee—love thee;Thro’ good and ill—thro’ weal and woe I love thee.Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.Not on God’s altar, in any time or clime,Burned there a holier fire than burneth nowWithin my spirit for thee. And do I love?Even for thy woes I love thee—even for thy woes—Thy beauty and thy woes.

LALAGE.Alas, proud Earl,Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!How, in thy father’s halls, among the maidensPure and reproachless of thy princely line,Could the dishonoured Lalage abide?Thy wife, and with a tainted memory—My seared and blighted name, how would it tallyWith the ancestral honours of thy house,And with thy glory?

POLITIAN.Speak not to me of glory!I hate—I loathe the name; I do abhorThe unsatisfactory and ideal thing.Art thou not Lalage, and I Politian?Do I not love—art thou not beautiful—What need we more? Ha! glory!—now speak not of it.By all I hold most sacred and most solemn—By all my wishes now—my fears hereafter—By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven—There is no deed I would more glory in,Than in thy cause to scoff at this same gloryAnd trample it under foot. What matters it—What matters it, my fairest, and my best,That we go down unhonoured and forgottenInto the dust—so we descend together.Descend together—and then—and then perchance——

LALAGE.Why dost thou pause, Politian?

POLITIAN.And then perchanceArise together, Lalage, and roamThe starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,And still——

LALAGE.Why dost thou pause, Politian?

POLITIAN.And still together—together.

LALAGE.Now, Earl of Leicester!Thou lovest me, and in my heart of heartsI feel thou lovest me truly.

POLITIAN.Oh, Lalage!And lovest thou me?

LALAGE.Hist! hush! within the gloomOf yonder trees methought a figure pass’d—A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless—Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.I was mistaken—’twas but a giant boughStirred by the autumn wind, Politian!

POLITIAN.My Lalage—my love! why art thou moved?Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience’ self,Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night windIs chilly—and these melancholy boughsThrow over all things a gloom.

LALAGE.Politian!Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the landWith which all tongues are busy—a land new found—Miraculously found by one of Genoa—A thousand leagues within the golden west?A fairy-land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,And mountains, around whose towering summits the windsOf Heaven untrammelled flow—which air to breatheIs Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafterIn days that are to come?

POLITIAN.O, wilt thou—wilt thouFly to that Paradise—my Lalage, wilt thouFly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.And life shall then be mine, for I will liveFor thee, and in thine eyes—and thou shalt beNo more a mourner—but the radiant JoysShall wait upon thee, and the angel HopeAttend thee ever; and I will kneel to theeAnd worship thee, and call thee my beloved,My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,My all;—oh, wilt thou—wilt thou, Lalage,Fly thither with me?

LALAGE.A deed is to be done—Castiglione lives!

POLITIAN.And he shall die!

LALAGEAnd—he—shall—die!——alas!Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?Where am I?—what was it he said?—Politian!Thou art not gone—thou art not gone, Politian!I feel thou art not gone—yet dare not look,Lest I behold thee not; thou couldst not goWith those words upon thy lips—O, speak to me!And let me hear thy voice—one word—one word,To say thou art not gone,—one little sentence,To say how thou dost scorn—how thou dost hateMy womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou art not gone—O speak to me! I knew thou wouldst not go!I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go.Villain, thou art not gone—thou mockest me!And thus I clutch thee—thus!——He is gone, he is gone—Gone—gone. Where am I?——’tis well—’tis very well!So that the blade be keen—the blow be sure,’Tis well, ’tis very well—alas! alas!