A to Z Classics - Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Best Navigation) (A to Z Classics)

Laugh for pure merriment, except one woman,

That was at night time, in the public streets.

Poor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore

The mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her;

No, death were better.

[ Enter Guido behind unobserved; the Duchess flings herself down before a picture of the Madonna .]

O Mary mother, with your sweet pale face

Bending between the little angel heads

·53· That hover round you, have you no help for me?

Mother of God, have you no help for me?

guido

I can endure no longer.

This is my love, and I will speak to her.

Lady, am I a stranger to your prayers?

duchess [ rising ]

None but the wretched needs my prayers, my lord.

guido

Then must I need them, lady.

duchess

How is that?

Does not the Duke show thee sufficient honour?

guido

Your Grace, I lack no favours from the Duke,

Whom my soul loathes as I loathe wickedness,

But come to proffer on my bended knees,

My loyal service to thee unto death.

duchess

Alas! I am so fallen in estate

I can but give thee a poor meed of thanks.

·54· guido [ seizing her hand ]

Hast thou no love to give me?

[ The Duchess starts, and Guido falls at her feet .]

O dear saint,

If I have been too daring, pardon me!

Thy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame,

And, when my reverent lips touch thy white hand,

Each little nerve with such wild passion thrills

That there is nothing which I would not do

To gain thy love. [ Leaps up .]

Bid me reach forth and pluck

Perilous honour from the lion’s jaws,

And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast

On the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War

A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something

That once has touched thee, and I’ll bring it back

Though all the hosts of Christendom were there,

Inviolate again! ay, more than this,

Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs

Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield

Will I raze out the lilies of your France

·55· Which England, that sea-lion of the sea,

Hath taken from her!

O dear Beatrice,

Drive me not from thy presence! without thee

The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead,

But, while I look upon thy loveliness,

The hours fly like winged Mercuries

And leave existence golden.

duchess

I did not think

I should be ever loved: do you indeed

Love me so much as now you say you do?

guido

Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea,

Ask of the roses if they love the rain,

Ask of the little lark, that will not sing

Till day break, if it loves to see the day:—

And yet, these are but empty images,

Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire

So great that all the waters of the main

Can not avail to quench it. Will you not speak?

duchess

I hardly know what I should say to you.

·56· guido

Will you not say you love me?

duchess

Is that my lesson?

Must I say all at once? ’Twere a good lesson

If I did love you, sir; but, if I do not,

What shall I say then?

guido

If you do not love me,

Say, none the less, you do, for on your tongue

Falsehood for very shame would turn to truth.

duchess

What if I do not speak at all? They say

Lovers are happiest when they are in doubt.

guido

Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die,

Why, let me die for joy and not for doubt.

Oh, tell me may I stay, or must I go?

duchess

I would not have you either stay or go;

For if you stay you steal my love from me,

And if you go you take my love away.

·57· Guido, though all the morning stars could sing

They could not tell the measure of my love.

I love you, Guido.

guido [ stretching out his hands ]

Oh, do not cease at all;

I thought the nightingale sang but at night;

Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips

Touch the sweet lips that can such music make.

duchess

To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.

guido

Do you close that against me?

duchess

Alas! my lord,

I have it not: the first day that I saw you

I let you take my heart away from me;

Unwilling thief, that without meaning it

Did break into my fenced treasury

And filch my jewel from it! O strange theft,

Which made you richer though you knew it not,

And left me poorer, and yet glad of it!

guido [ clasping her in his arms ]

O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up your head,

·58· Let me unlock those little scarlet doors

That shut in music, let me dive for coral

In your red lips, and I’ll bear back a prize

Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards

In rude Armenia.

duchess

You are my lord,

And what I have is yours, and what I have not

Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal

Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.

[ Kisses him .]

guido

Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:

The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf

And is afraid to look at the great sun

For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,

O daring eyes! are grown so venturous

That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,

And surfeit sense with beauty.

duchess

Dear love, I would

You could look upon me ever, for your eyes

Are polished mirrors, and when I peer

·59· Into those mirrors I can see myself,

And so I know my image lives in you.

guido [ taking her in his arms ]

Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens,

And make this hour immortal! [ A pause .]

duchess

Sit down here,

A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet,

That I may run my fingers through your hair,

And see your face turn upwards like a flower

To meet my kiss.

Have you not sometimes noted,

When we unlock some long-disuséd room

With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,

Where never foot of man has come for years,

And from the windows take the rusty bar,

And fling the broken shutters to the air,

And let the bright sun in, how the good sun

Turns every grimy particle of dust

Into a little thing of dancing gold?

Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,

But you have let love in, and with its gold

·60· Gilded all life. Do you not think that love

Fills up the sum of life?

guido

Ay! without love

Life is no better than the unhewn stone

Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor

Has set the God within it. Without love

Life is as silent as the common reeds

That through the marshes or by rivers grow,

And have no music in them.

duchess

Yet out of these

The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe

And from them he draws music; so I think

Love will bring music out of any life.

Is that not true?

guido

Sweet, women make it true.

There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,

Paul of Verona and the dyer’s son,

Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,

Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,

·61· White as her own white lily, and as tall,

Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine

Because they are mothers merely; yet I think

Women are the best artists of the world,

For they can take the common lives of men

Soiled with the money-getting of our age,

And with love make them beautiful.

duchess

Ah, dear,

I wish that you and I were very poor;