With leave to clinch the past, chain the to-come,
Put out an arm and touch and take the sun
And fix it ever full-faced on your earth,
Possess yourself supremely of her life,-
You choose the single thing she will not grant;
Nay, very declaration of which choice
Will turn the scale and neutralize your work:
At best she will forgive you, if she can.

You think I'll let you choose-her cousin's hand?
Nor. Wait. First, do you retain your old belief
The Queen is generous,-nay, is just?

Con.
There, there,
So men make women love them, while they know
No more of women's hearts than . . . look you here,
You that are just and generous beside,

Make it your own case! For example now,
I'll say-I let you kiss me, hold my hands-

Why? do you know why? I'll instruct you, then-
The kiss, because you have a name at court,
This hand and this, that you may shut in each
A jewel, if you please to pick up such.
That's horrible? Apply it to the Queen—
Suppose I am the Queen to whom you speak.

I was a nameless man; you needed me:
Why did I proffer you my aid? there stood
A certain pretty cousin at your side.

Why did I make such common cause with you?
Access to her had not been easy else.

You give my labors here abundant praise?
'Faith, labor, which she overlooked, grew play.
How shall your gratitude discharge itself?
Give me her hand!"

Nor.

And still I urge the same.

Is the Queen just ? just-generous or no!

Con. Yes, just. You love a rose; no harm in that :

But was it for the rose's sake or mine

You put it in your bosom? mine, you said--
Then, mine you still must say or else be false.
You told the Queen you served her for herself;
If so, to serve her was to serve yourself,
She thinks, for all your unbelieving face!
I know her. In the hall, six steps from us,
One sees the twenty pictures; there's a life
Better than life, and yet no life at all.
Conceive her born in such a magic dome,
Pictures all round'her! why, she sees the world,
Can recognize its given things and facts,

The fight of giants or the feast of gods,
Sages in senate, beauties at the bath,

Chases and battles, the whole earth's display,

Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit-
And who shall question that she knows them all,
In better semblance than the things outside?

Yet bring into the silent gallery

Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood,
Some lion, with the painted lion there-
You think she'll understand composedly?
-Say, "That's his fellow in the hunting-piece

Yonder, I've turned to praise a hundred times"?
Not so.
Her knowledge of our actual earth,
Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies,
Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal.

The real exists for us outside, not her:

How should it, with that life in these four walls,
That father and that mother, first to last
No father and no mother-friends, a heap,
Lovers, no lack-a husband in due time,
And every one of them alike a lie!

Things painted by a Rubens out of naught
Into what kindness, friendship, love should be;
All better, all more grandiose than life,

Only no life; mere cloth and surface-paint,

You feel, while you admire. How should she feel? Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years

The sole spectator in that gallery,

You think to bring this warm real struggling love
In to her of a sudden, and suppose

She'll keep her state untroubled? Here's the truth:
She'll apprehend truth's value at a glance,
Prefer it to the pictured loyalty?

66

You only have to say So men are made,

For this they act; the thing has many names,
But this the right one: and now, Queen, be just!”
Your life slips back; you lose her at the word:
You do not even for amends gain me.

He will not understand! O Norbert, Norbert !
Do you not understand?

Nor.

The Queen's the Queen. I am myself—no picture, but alive

In every nerve and every muscle, here

At the palace-window o'er the people's street,
As she in the gallery where the pictures glow:
The good of life is precious to us both.
She cannot love; what do I want with rule?
When first I saw your face a year ago

I knew my life's good, my soul heard one voice-
The woman yonder, there's no use of life

46

But just to obtain her! heap earth's woes in one
And bear them-make a pile of all earth's joys
And spurn them, as they help or help not this;
Only, obtain her!"-how was it to be?

I found you were the cousin of the Queen;
I must then serve the Queen to get to you.
No other way. Suppose there had been one,
And I, by saying prayers to some white star
With promise of my body and my soul,
Might gain you,-should I pray the star or no?
Instead, there was the Queen to serve! I served,
Helped, did what other servants failed to do.
Neither she sought nor I declared my end.
Her good is hers, my recompense be mine,

I therefore name you as that recompense.

She dreamed that such a thing could never be?

Let her wake now. She thinks there was more cause
In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty?
Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives
Chasing such shades. Then, I've a fancy too;
I worked because I want you with my soul :

I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now!
Con. Had I not loved you from the very first,
Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus
So wickedly, so wildly, and so well,

You might become impatient. What's conceived
Of us without here, by the folks within?

Where are you now? immersed in cares of state.
Where am I now ?-intent on festal robes-

We two, embracing under death's spread hand!
What was this thought for, what that scruple of yours
Which broke the council up?-to bring about
One minute's meeting in the corridor!

And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies,
Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs,

Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look,
"Does she know? does she not know? saved or lost?"
A year of this compression's ecstasy

All

goes for nothing! you would give this up

For the old way, the open way, the world's,
His way who beats, and his who sells his wife!
What tempts you?—their notorious happiness,

That you are ashamed of ours? The best you'll gain
Will be the Queen grants all that you require,
Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you
And me at once, and gives us ample leave
To live like our five hundred happy friends.
The world will show us with officious hand
Our chamber-entry and stand sentinel,
Where we so oft have stolen across its traps!
Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet,
And make it duty to be bold and swift,
Which long ago was nature. Have it so!
We never hawked by rights till flung from fist?
Oh, the man's thought! no woman's such a fool.

Nor. Yes, the man's thought and my thought, which is more

One made to love you, let the world take note!
Have I done worthy work? be love's the praise,
Though hampered by restrictions, barred against
By set forms, blinded by forced secrecies!

Set free my love, and see what love can do
Shown in my life-what work will spring from that!
The world is used to have its business done

On other grounds, find great effects produced

:

For power's sake, fame's sake, motives in men's mouth.
So, good but let my low ground shame their high!
Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true!
And love's the truth of mine. Time prove the rest!
I choose to wear you stamped all over me,
Your name upon my forehead and my breast,
You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge,
That men may see, all over, you in me—

That pale loves may die out of their pretense