The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems | Page 7

from a rude earlier call
Our Captain paid you. Certain practices,

Which you may force me name, are charged upon
you
On testimony you may force me call
And may with freedom question.
Fulvia. I'll not question:
No, nor I will not answer.
Lucio. Then I'll answer!'
For me, for all, she is innocent!
Regent. For you?
We'll hope it: but 'for all' 's more wide an oath
Than you can swear,

sir. I'll not bandy you
Words nor debate. Myself the ladder saw;

Lucetta, here, the ladder and the man.
What man she will not say.
Cesario
Has tracked his footprint on her garden plots.
Must we say
more?
Fulvia. No need. Her fingering mind
Is a close cupboard turning all things rancid.
Lucio. Yea, for such wry-necks all the world's a lawn
To peek and peer and pounce a sinful worm;
The fatter, the more
luscious.
Regent. Lucio,
This woman nought gainsays.
_Fulvia (fiercely)._ As why should I?
I'll question not, nor answer. 'Neath your brow
My sentence hunches,
crawls, like cat to spring.
Pah! there's no prude will match your
virtuous wife
You'd banish me?
Regent. I do. Cesario,
See to it the City gate shuts not to-night.
And she this side.
_Fulvia (laughs recklessly)._ To-night? To-night's your own.
Most modest woman! Duchess, there's a well
By the road, some
seven miles beyond the town.
There, 'neath the stars, I'll dip a hand
and drink
To the good Duke's disport. But have a care!
That cup's
not yet to lip.
Regent. Captain, remove her.

Lucio, remain.
_[Exeunt the Countess Fulvia, Cesario following]_
Lucio. I'll not remain--When ice
Sits judge of fire, what justice shall be done?
Sister, there be your
books--peruse them. There
The sea-line--bide you so with back to it.

While the cold inward heat of cruelty
Warms what was once your
heart, now crusted o'er
With duty and slimed with poisonous drip of
tongues.
God help the Duke, if what he left he'd find!
_[Exit Lucio]_
Regent. Is't so, I wonder? Go, Lucetta, fetch
My glass, if haply I may tell.
_[Exit Lucetta.]_
Is't so?
And have these years enforced, encrusted me
To something
monstrous, neither woman nor man?
My lord, my lord! too heavy
was the load
You laid! Yet I'll not blame you: for myself
Ruled the straight path
the long account correct
As in these books, my ledgers....
[_While she turns the pages, Gamba the Fool creeps
in and hoists
himself on the balustrade. He
tries his viol, and sings_.
SONG: Gamba.
Bird of the South, my Rondinello--
Regent. Hey? That Song!
Gamba. Hie to me, fly to me, steel-blue mate!

Under my breast-knot flutters thy fellow;
Here can I rest not, and
thou so late.
Home, to me, home!
'Love, love, I come!'
--Dear one,
I wait!
_Quanno nacesti tu, nacqui pur io:
La lundananza tua, 'l
desiderio mio_!
You know the song, madonna?
Regent. Ay, fool. Sit
Here at my feet, sing on.
_Gamba (sings)._
Bird of the South, my Rondinello
Under thy wing my heart hath lain

Till the rain falling on last leaves yellow
Drumm'd to thee, calling
southward again.
Home, to me, home!
'Love, love, I come!'
Ah, love, the pain!

_Addio, addio! ed un' altra volt' addio!
La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio
mio!
(Pause)._
A foolish rustic thing the shepherd wives
In our Abruzzi croon by
winter fires,
Of their husbands in the plains.
Regent. Gamba!
Gamba. Madonna?
Regent. I'd make thee my confessor. Mindest thou,
By Villalago, where from Sanno's lake
The stream, our Tasso, hurls it
down the glen?
One noon, with Lucio--ever in those days
With
Lucio--on a rock within the spray,
I wove a ferny garland, while the
boy
Roamed, but returned in triumph, having trapped
A bee in a
bell-flower--held it to my ear,
Laughing, dissembling that he feared
to loose
The hairy thief. So laughed we--and were still,
As deep in
Vallescura wound a horn,
And up the pathway 'neath the dappling
bough
Came riding--flecked with sunshine, man and horse,--
My

lord, my lover; and that song, that song
Upon his lips....
Voice of Watchman. Sail ho! a sail! a sail!
_[Murmur of populace below. It grows and swells to
a roar as enter
hurriedly courtiers, guards, and
others: Cesario; Lucetta with
mirror._]
Lucetta. My lady! O my lady!--
Cesario. See, they near!
Galley on galley--look, there, by the point!
Regent. O, could my heart keep tally with the surge
That here comes crowding!
Lucetta. Joy, my lady! Joy!
All. Joy! Joy, my lady!
_[They press flowers on her. A pause, while they
watch. On the canal
the galleys come into
sight. They near: and as the oars rise and
fall,
the rowers' chorus is borne from the distance.
It is the Rondinello
song_
Chorus in Distance. La lundananza tua, 'l desiderio mio!
Regent. Thanks, my good, good friends!
And deem it not discourteous if alone
I'd tune my heart to bliss.
My glass, Lucetta!
_[Takes mirror.]_
Some thoughts there are--some thoughts----

Courtiers. God save you, madam!
_[They go out, leaving the Regent alone._]
_Regent (she loosens the clasp of her robe)._ Some thoughts --some
thoughts--
Fall from me, envious robe!
Rest there, my crown--thou more than
leaden ache!
Ah!--
God! What a mountain drops! I