Rosamund | Page 7

woman since the light of love Lit them alive together. Let us be.
ROSAMUND.
I will not. Mine are both by God's own gift. I will not cast it from me.
Ye may live Hereafter happy: never now shall I.
HILDEGARD.
Have mercy. Nay, I cannot do it. And thou, Albeit thine heart be hot
with hate as hell, Couldst say not, nor fold round with fairer speech,
Those foul three words the Egyptian woman said Who tempted and
could tempt not Joseph.
ROSAMUND.
No. He would not hearken. Joseph loved not her More than thine
Almachildes me. But thou Shalt. Now no more may I debate with thee.
Go.
HILDEGARD.
God requite thee!
ROSAMUND.
That shall he and I, Not thou, make proof of. If I plead with him, I

crave of God but wrong's requital. Go.
[Exit HILDEGARD.
And yet, God help me! Can I do it? God's will May no man thwart, or
leave his righteousness Baffled. I would not say, 'My will be done,'
Were God's will not for righteousness as mine, If right be righteous,
wrong be wrong, must be. How else may God work wrong's requital? I
Must be or none may be his minister. And yet what righteousness is his
to cast Athwart my way toward right this wrong to me, A sin against
the soul and honour? Why Must this vile word of YET cross all my
thought Always, a drifting doom or doubt that still Strikes up and floats
against my purpose? God, Help me to know it! This weapon chosen of
me, This Almachildes, were his face not fair, Were not his fame
bright--were his aspect foul, His name dishonourable, his line through
life A loathing and a spitting-stock for scorn, Could I do this? Am I
then even as they Who queened it once in Rome's abhorrent face An
empress each, and each by right of sin Prostitute? All the life I have
lived or loved Hath been, if snows or seas or wellsprings be, Pure as the
spirit of love toward heaven is--chaste As children's eyes or mothers'.
Though I sinned As yet my soul hath sinned not, Albovine Must bear,
if God abhor unrighteousness, The weight of penance heaviest laid on
sin, Shame. Not on me may shame be set, though hell Take hold upon
me dying. I would the deed Were done, the wreak of wrath were
wroken, and I Dead.
Enter ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou sick at heart to see me?
ROSAMUND.
No.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art sweet and wise as ever God hath made Woman. I would not
turn thine heart from me Or set thy spirit against the sense of mine For
more than Rome's old empire.
ROSAMUND.
That, albeit Thou wouldst, be sure thou canst not. God nor man Could
wake within me toward my lord the king A new strange love or
loathing. Fear not this.
ALBOVINE.

From thee can I fear nothing. Now I know How high thy heart is, and
how true to me.
ROSAMUND.
Thou knowest it now.
ALBOVINE.
I know not if I should Repent me, or repent not, that I tried A heart so
high so sorely--proved so true.
ROSAMUND.
Do not repent. I would not have thee now Repent.
ALBOVINE.
By Christ, if God forbade it not, I would have said within mine own
fool's heart, Of all vile things that fool the soul of man The vilest and
the priestliest hath to name Repentance. Could it blot one hour's work
out, A wise thing and a manful thing it were, And profit were it none
for priests to preach. This will I tell thee: what last night befell Rejoices
not but irks me.
ROSAMUND.
Let it not Rejoice nor irk thee. Vex thou not thy soul With any thought
thereon, if none may bid thee Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of
heart.
ALBOVINE.
I will not. Queen and wife, hell durst not say I do not love thee.
ROSAMUND.
Heaven has heard--and I.
ALBOVINE.
Forget then all this foolishness, and pray God may forget it.
ROSAMUND.
God forgets as I. [Exit ALBOVINE. And had repentance helped him?
Shall I think It might have molten in my burning heart The
thrice-retempered iron of resolve? Yet well it is to know that penitence
Lies further from that frozen heart of his Than mercy from the tiger's.
Ay, God knows, I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down
Before me: now I do but hate. I am not Abased as wholly, so supremely
shamed, As though I had wedded one as hard as he Who yet might
think to soften down with words What hardly might be cleansed with
tears of blood, The monumental memory graven on steel That burns the
naked spirit of sense within