Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,
Thy way is long to the sun and the south;
But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire,
16 Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,
From tawny body and sweet small mouth
Feed the heart of the night with fire.
I the nightingale all spring through,
O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,
All spring through till the spring be done, Clothed with the light of the night on the dew, Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow, Take flight and follow and find the sun.
Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,
Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,
How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?
28 For where thou fliest I shall not follow,
Till life forget and death remember,
Till thou remember and I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,
I know not how thou hast heart to sing. Hast thou the heart? is it all past over? Thy lord the summer is good to follow,
And fair the feet of thy lover the spring: 86 But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,
My heart in me is a molten ember
And over my head the waves have met. 40 But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow, Could I forget or thou remember,
Couldst thou remember and I forget.
O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,
The heart's division divideth us.
Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;
But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow
To the place of the slaying of Itylus,
The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,
I pray thee sing not a little space.
Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?
52 The woven web that was plain to follow,
The small slain body, the flowerlike face,
Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!
The hands that cling and the feet that follow,
The voice of the child's blood crying yet
Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget.
(Mary, about to embark for England, takes leave of her remaining friends on the shore of Solway Firth.
The QUEEN, MARY BEATON, HERRIES, George dougLAS, Page and Attendants.
Queen. Is not the tide yet full?
Herries.
And it will turn; but ere that
Let me once more desire your
I plead against your pleasure.
Come half an hour.
ebb begin,
pardon, though
Here you stand
Not yet dethroned from royal hope, not yet
Discrowned of your great name, whose natural power
Faith here forgets not, nor man's loyal love
Leaves off to honour; but gone hence, your name
Is but a stranger's, subject to men's laws,
10 Alien and liable to control and chance
That are the lords of exile, and command
The days and nights of fugitives; your hope
Dies of strange breath or lives between strange lips,
And nor your will nor only God's beside
Is master of your peace of life, but theirs
Who being the lords of land that harbours you
Give your life leave to endure their empire: what
Can man do to you that a rebel may,
Which fear might deem as bad as banishment?
20 Not death, not bonds are bitterer than his day
On whom the sun looks forth of a strange sky,
Whose thirst drinks water from strange hands, whose lips
Eat stranger's bread for hunger; who lies down
In a strange dark and sleeps not, and the light
26 Makes his eyes weep for their own morning, seen
On hills that helped to make him man, and fields
Whose flowers grew round his heart's root; day like night Denies him, and the stars and airs of heaven Are as their eyes and tongues who know him not. 80 Go not to banishment; the world is great,
But each has but his own land in the world.
There is one bosom that gives each man milk,
One country like one mother: none sleeps well
Who lies between strange breasts: no lips drink life
86 That seek it from strange fosters. Go not hence;
You shall find no man's faith or love on earth
Like theirs that here cleave to you.
And think to find no hate of men
Like theirs that here beats on me. Hath this earth
40 Which sent me forth a five-years' child, and queen
Not even of mine own sorrows, to come back
A widowed girl out of the fair warm sun
Into the grave's mouth of a dolorous land
And life like death's own shadow, that began
46 With three days' darkness hath this earth of yours
That made mine enemies, at whose iron breast
They drank the milk of treason
Whose rocks and storms have reared no violent thing
So monstrous as men's angers, whose wild minds
50 Were fed from hers and fashioned this that bears None but such sons as being my friends are weak, hath it such grace
And strong, being most my foes
As I should cling to, or such virtue found
In some part of its evil as my heart
55 Should fear, being free, to part from? Have I lived,
Since I came here in shadow and storm, three days
Out of the storm and shadow? Have I seen
Such rest, such hope, such respite from despair,
As thralls and prisoners in strong darkness may
co Before the light look on them? Hath there come
One chance on me of comfort, one poor change,
One possible content that was not born
Of hope to break forth of these bonds, or made
Of trust in foreign fortune? Here, I knew,
65 Could never faith nor love nor comfort breed
While I sat fast in prison; ye, my friends,
The few men and the true men that were mine,
What were ye but what I was, and what help
Hath each love had of other, yours of mine,
70 Mine of your faith, but change of fight and flight,
Fear and vain hope and ruin? Let me go,
Who have been but grief and danger to my friends:
It may be I shall come with power again
To give back all their losses, and build up
75 What for my sake was broken.
Herries.
Yet were I loth to bid you part, and find
What there you go to seek; but knowing it not,
My heart sinks in me and my spirit is sick
To think how this fair foot once parted hence
80 May rest thus light on Scottish ground no more.
Queen. It shall tread heavier when it steps again
On earth which now rejects it; I shall live
To bruise their heads who wounded me at heel,
When I shall set it on their necks. Come, friends.
85 I think the fisher's boat hath hoised up sail
That is to bear none but one friend and me:
Here must my true men and their queen take leave,
And each keep thought of other. My fair page,
Before the man's change darken on your chin
90 I may come back to ride with you at rein
To a more fortunate field: howe'er that be,
Ride you right on with better hap, and live
As true to one of merrier days than mine
As on that night to Mary, once your queen.
95 Douglas, I have not won a word of you;
What would you do to have me tarry?
Queen. I lack not love it seems then at my last. That word was bitter; yet I blame it not,
Who would not have sweet words upon my lips
Herrig-Förster, British Authors.
100 Nor in mine ears at parting. I should go
And stand not here as on a stage to play
My last part out in Scotland; I have been
Too long a queen too little. By my life,
I know not what should hold me here or turn
105 My foot back from the boat-side, save the thought
How at Lochleven I last set foot aboard,
And with what hope, and to what end; and now
I pass not out of prison to my friends,
But out of all friends' help to banishment.
110 Farewell, Lord Herries.
And bring her back with better friends than I.
Queen. Methinks the sand yet cleaving to my foot
Should not with no more words be shaken off,
Nor this my country from my parting eyes.
115 Pass unsaluted; for who knows what year
May see us greet hereafter? Yet take heed,
Ye that have ears, and hear me; and take note,
Ye that have eyes, and see with what last looks
Mine own take leave of Scotland; seven years since
120 Did I take leave of my fair land of France,
My joyous mother, mother of my joy,
Weeping; and now with many a woe between
And space of seven years' darkness, I depart
From this distempered and unnatural earth
125 That casts me out unmothered, and go forth
On this grey sterile bitter gleaming sea
With neither tears nor laughter, but a heart
That from the softest temper of its blood
Is turned to fire and iron. If I live,
130 If God pluck not all hope out of my hand,
If aught of all mine prosper, I that go
Shall come back to men's ruin, as a flame
The wind bears down, that grows against the wind,
And grasps it with great hands, and wins its way,
135 And wins its will, and triumphs; so shall I Let loose the fire of all my heart to feed
On these that would have quenched it. I will make From sea to sea one furnace of the land Whereon the wind of war shall beat its wings 140 Till they wax faint with hopeless hope of rest, And with one rain of men's rebellious blood Extinguish the red embers. I will leave No living soul of their blaspheming faith Who war with monarchs; God shall see me reign 145 As he shall reign beside me, and his foes Lie at my foot with mine; kingdoms and kings Shall from my heart take spirit, and at my soul
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