Bid me reach forth and pluck Perilous honour from the lion's jaws, And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast On the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something That once has touched thee, and I'll bring it back Though all the hosts of Christendom were there, Inviolate again! ay, more than this, Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield Will I raze out the lilies of your France Which England, that sea-lion of the sea, Hath taken from her!
O dear Beatrice, Drive me not from thy presence! without thee The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead, But, while I look upon thy loveliness, The hours fly like winged Mercuries And leave existence golden.
DUCHESS
I did not think I should be ever loved: do you indeed Love me so much as now you say you do?
GUIDO
Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea, Ask of the roses if they love the rain, Ask of the little lark, that will not sing Till day break, if it loves to see the day:- And yet, these are but empty images, Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire So great that all the waters of the main Can not avail to quench it. Will you not speak?
DUCHESS
I hardly know what I should say to you.
GUIDO
Will you not say you love me?
DUCHESS
Is that my lesson?
Must I say all at once? 'Twere a good lesson If I did love you, sir; but, if I do not, What shall I say then?
GUIDO
If you do not love me, Say, none the less, you do, for on your tongue Falsehood for very shame would turn to truth.
DUCHESS
What if I do not speak at all? They say Lovers are happiest when they are in doubt GUIDO
Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die, Why, let me die for joy and not for doubt.
Oh, tell me may I stay, or must I go?
DUCHESS
I would not have you either stay or go;
For if you stay you steal my love from me, And if you go you take my love away.
Guido, though all the morning stars could sing They could not tell the measure of my love.
I love you, Guido.
GUIDO
[stretching out his hands]
Oh, do not cease at all;
I thought the nightingale sang but at night;
Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips Touch the sweet lips that can such music make.
DUCHESS
To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.
GUIDO
Do you close that against me?
DUCHESS
Alas! my lord, I have it not: the first day that I saw you I let you take my heart away from me;
Unwilling thief, that without meaning it Did break into my fenced treasury And filch my jewel from it! O strange theft, Which made you richer though you knew it not, And left me poorer, and yet glad of it!
GUIDO
[clasping her in his arms]
O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up your head, Let me unlock those little scarlet doors That shut in music, let me dive for coral In your red lips, and I'll bear back a prize Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards In rude Armenia.
DUCHESS
You are my lord, And what I have is yours, and what I have not Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.
[Kisses him.]
GUIDO
Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:
The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf And is afraid to look at the great sun For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes, O daring eyes! are grown so venturous That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you, And surfeit sense with beauty.
DUCHESS
Dear love, I would You could look upon me ever, for your eyes Are polished mirrors, and when I peer Into those mirrors I can see myself, And so I know my image lives in you.
GUIDO
[taking her in his arms]
Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens, And make this hour immortal! [A pause.]
DUCHESS
Sit down here, A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet, That I may run my fingers through your hair, And see your face turn upwards like a flower To meet my kiss.
Have you not sometimes noted, When we unlock some long-disused room With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled, Where never foot of man has come for years, And from the windows take the rusty bar, And fling the broken shutters to the air, And let the bright sun in, how the good sun Turns every grimy particle of dust Into a little thing of dancing gold?
Guido, my heart is that long-empty room, But you have let love in, and with its gold Gilded all life. Do you not think that love Fills up the sum of life?
GUIDO
Ay! without love Life is no better than the unhewn stone Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor Has set the God within it. Without love Life is as silent as the common reeds That through the marshes or by rivers grow, And have no music in them.
DUCHESS
Yet out of these The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe And from them he draws music; so I think Love will bring music out of any life.
Is that not true?
GUIDO
Sweet, women make it true.
There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues, Paul of Verona and the dyer's son, Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice, Has set God's little maid upon the stair, White as her own white lily, and as tall, Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine Because they are mothers merely; yet I think Women are the best artists of the world, For they can take the common lives of men Soiled with the money-getting of our age, And with love make them beautiful.
DUCHESS
Ah, dear, I wish that you and I were very poor;
The poor, who love each other, are so rich.
GUIDO
Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.
DUCHESS
[fingering his collar]
How well this collar lies about your throat.
[LORD MORANZONE looks through the door from the corridor outside.]
GUIDO
Nay, tell me that you love me.
DUCHESS
I remember, That when I was a child in my dear France, Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King Wore such a collar.
GUIDO
Will you not say you love me?
DUCHESS
[smiling]
He was a very royal man, King Francis, Yet he was not royal as you are.
Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?
[Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her.]
Do you not know that I am yours for ever, Body and soul?
[Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of MORANZONE and leaps up.]
Oh, what is that? [MORANZONE disappears.]
GUIDO
What, love?
DUCHESS
Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame Look at us through the doorway.
GUIDO
Nay, 'twas nothing:
