An Apartment in Hampton Court. The LADY ELIZABETH reading. In an inner chamber are ARTHUR and FLORENCE. Practicable door 2nd E.R.
[ARTHUR is heard singing to a lute in the adjoining chamber.]
SONG
When thy lover, dear, is nigh thee,
Look not on the world around,
In his eyes be thy blue vision,
In his eyes thy vision bound—
For thou'lt find all Heaven, I swear,
By thy gaze reflected there!
In thy ripe lips is his summer,
Autumn in thy braided hair;
Jealous is he of spring's snow-drops
Stolen from thy neck's warm care;
But the winter of his mind
Is when thou, love, art unkind:
In thee rounded, thus, his year,
Joy, doubt, sweet content, and fear.
Eliz. [Throwing down the book.] The black print seems all red—I cannot read!
[Points to the inner room.]
Mine eyes burn so—And they are happy there
Together—'twas my work—and now I wish
That seas convuls'd by tempests were between them;
And an eternal veil of blackness girded
The one from the other—each in separate light,
But still apart! apart! O horror, why
Doth their communion cast such hopeless gloom
Upon me, more than all a father's guilt,
A sovereign's woe?—O daughter of a traitor!
Traitoress! Thou lovest him thy friend doth love,
And—he loves her! ay, that is it, he loves her.
[Laughs hysterically.]
I am a wedded wife. There is no stain
Of guilty wish. I ne'er thought to be his:
No! no! False wretch, thou dost this moment. Hold,
'Tis past!
Oh! would that I were far remov'd,
Not seeing, hearing, knowing all their lore,
Not feeling their young blest affection jar
Through every fibre—thus!
This is the day
The king's fate is decided—If he die
Arthur will hate us, hate my father, me,
The regicide's pale daughter—thus to think
Of the king's life! that was my only prayer
Before; and now it fades on my cold lips,
And startles me to hear it! [MUSIC is heard within.]
O my heart!
It seems as though a thousand daggers' points
Would not suffice to stab it, so it might
Feel some release— [Falls on her knees.]
My God! forsake me not!