MARY SEYTON.
Come, no news of her;
For God's love talk still rather of our queen.
MARY BEATON.
God give us grace then to speak well of her.
You did right joyfully in our masque last night'
I saw you when the queen lost breath (her head
Bent back, her chin and lips catching the air—
A goodly thing to see her) how you smiled
Across her head, between your lips-no doubt
You had great joy, sir. Did you not take note
Once how one lock fell? that was good to see.
CHASTELARD.
Yea, good enough to live for.
MARY BEATON.
Nay, but sweet
Enough to die. When she broke off the dance,
Turning round short and soft-I never saw
Such supple ways of walking as she has.
CHASTLELARD.
Why do you praise her gracious looks to me?
MARY BEATON.
Sir, for mere sport: but tell me even for love
How much you love her.
CHASTELARD.
I know not: it may be
If I had set mine eyes to find that out,
I should not know it. She hath fair eyes: may be
I love her for sweet eyes or brows or hair,
For the smooth temples, where God touching her
Made blue with sweeter veins the flower-sweet white
Or for the tender turning of her wrist,
Or marriage of the eyelid with the cheek;
I cannot tell; or flush of lifting throat,
I know not if the color get a name
This side of heaven-no man knows; or her mouth,
A flower's lip with a snake's lip, stinging sweet,
And sweet to sting with: face that one would see
And then fall blind and die with sight of it
Held fast between the eyelids-oh, all these
And all her body and the soul to that,
The speech and shape and hand and foot and heart
That I would die of-yea, her name that turns
My face to fire being written-I know no whit
How much I love them.
MARY BEATON.
Nor how she loves you back?
CHASTELARD.
I know her ways of loving, all of them:
A sweet soft way the first is; afterward
It burns and bites like fire; the end of that,
Charred dust, and eyelids bitten through with smoke.
MARY BEATON.
What has she done for you to gird at her?