The Duchess of Padua Part 34

Oh, thank G.o.d for that!

GUIDO

So I can live; life never seemed so sweet As at this moment.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Do not tarry, Guido, There is my cloak: the horse is at the bridge, The second bridge below the ferry house: Why do you tarry? Can your ears not hear This dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke Robs one brief minute from your boyish life.

Go quickly.

GUIDO

Ay! he will come soon enough.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Who?

GUIDO

[calmly]

Why, the headsman.

d.u.c.h.eSS

No, no.

GUIDO

Only he Can bring me out of Padua.

d.u.c.h.eSS

You dare not!

You dare not burden my o'erburdened soul With two dead men! I think one is enough.

For when I stand before G.o.d, face to face, I would not have you, with a scarlet thread Around your white throat, coming up behind To say I did it.

GUIDO

Madam, I wait.

d.u.c.h.eSS

No, no, you cannot: you do not understand, I have less power in Padua to-night Than any common woman; they will kill you.

I saw the scaffold as I crossed the square, Already the low rabble throng about it With fearful jests, and horrid merriment, As though it were a morris-dancer's platform, And not Death's sable throne. O Guido, Guido, You must escape!

GUIDO

Madam, I tarry here.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Guido, you shall not: it would be a thing So terrible that the amazed stars Would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon Be in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun Refuse to s.h.i.+ne upon the unjust earth Which saw thee die.

GUIDO

Be sure I shall not stir.

d.u.c.h.eSS

[wringing her hands]

Is one sin not enough, but must it breed A second sin more horrible again Than was the one that bare it? O G.o.d, G.o.d, Seal up sin's teeming womb, and make it barren, I will not have more blood upon my hand Than I have now.

GUIDO

[seizing her hand]

What! am I fallen so low That I may not have leave to die for you?

d.u.c.h.eSS

[tearing her hand away]

Die for me?--no, my life is a vile thing, Thrown to the miry highways of this world; You shall not die for me, you shall not, Guido; I am a guilty woman.

GUIDO

Guilty?--let those Who know what a thing temptation is, Let those who have not walked as we have done, In the red fire of pa.s.sion, those whose lives Are dull and colourless, in a word let those, If any such there be, who have not loved, Cast stones against you. As for me -

d.u.c.h.eSS

Alas!

GUIDO

[falling at her feet]

You are my lady, and you are my love!

O hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face Made for the luring and the love of man!

Incarnate image of pure loveliness!

Wors.h.i.+pping thee I do forget the past, Wors.h.i.+pping thee my soul comes close to thine, Wors.h.i.+pping thee I seem to be a G.o.d, And though they give my body to the block, Yet is my love eternal!

[d.u.c.h.eSS puts her hands over her face: GUIDO draws them down.]

Sweet, lift up The trailing curtains that overhang your eyes That I may look into those eyes, and tell you I love you, never more than now when Death Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice, I love you: have you no word left to say?

Oh, I can bear the executioner, But not this silence: will you not say you love me?

Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting, But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh, you are cruel, And do not love me.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Alas! I have no right For I have stained the innocent hands of love With spilt-out blood: there is blood on the ground; I set it there.

GUIDO