Anne. What does the Queen say?
Henslowe. Winks and lets her be, A fashion out of fashion—gipsy-black Among the ladies with their bracken hair, (The Queen, you know, is red!)
Shakespeare. A vixen, eh?
Henslowe. Treason, my son!
Anne. God made us anyway and coloured us!
Shakespeare. And is he less the artist if at will He strings a black pearl, hangs between the camps Of day and day the banner of His dark? Or that He leaves, when with His autumn breath He fans the bonfire of the woods, a pine Unkindled?
Henslowe. True; and such a black is she Among the golden women.
Shakespeare. I see your pine, Your branching solitude, your evening tree, With high, untroubled head, that meets the eye As lips meet unseen kisses in the night— A perfumed dusk, a canopy of dreams And chapel of ease, a harp for summer airs To tremble in—
Anne. Barren the ground beneath, No flowers, no grass, the needles lying thick, Spent arrows—
Shakespeare. Yes, she knows—we know how women Can prick a man to death with needle stabs.