CÆSAR
And fill thee full,
Sweet sinless mother. Fear it not. Thou hast
Children more loved of him and thee than me—
Our bright Francesco, born to smile and sway,
And her whose face makes pale the sun in heaven,
Whose eyes outlaugh the splendour of the sea,
Whose hair has all noon’s wonders in its weft,
Whose mouth is God’s and Italy’s one rose,
Lucrezia.
VANNOZZA
Dost thou love them then? My child,
How should not I then love thee?
CÆSAR
God alone
Knows. Was not God—the God of love, who bade
His son be man because he hated man,
And saw him scourged and hanging, and at last
Forgave the sin wherewith he had stamped us, seeing
So fair a full atonement—was not God
Bridesman when Christ’s crowned vicar took to bride
My mother?
VANNOZZA
Speak not thou to me of God.
I have sinned, I have sinned—I would I had died a nun,
Cloistered!
CÆSAR
There too my sire had found thee. Priests
Make way where warriors dare not—save when war
Sets wide the floodgates of the weirs of hell.
And what hast thou to do with sin? Hath he
Whose sin was thine not given thee there and then
God’s actual absolution? Mary lived
God’s virgin, and God’s mother: mine art thou,
Who am Christlike even as thou art virginal.
And if thou love me or love me not God knows,
And God, who made me and my sire and thee,
May take the charge upon him. I am I.
Somewhat I think to do before my day
Pass from me. Did I love thee not at all,
I would not bid thee know it.