Shakespeare. And have I learned it, I? Do I not know That when I left her I left all behind That was my right? See how I live my life— Married nor single, neither bond nor free, My future mortgaged for a roofless home! For though I love I must not say “I love you, Come to my hearth!” A child? I have no child: I hear no voice crying to me o’ nights Out of the frost-bound dark. How can it cry Or smile at me until I give it lips? How can it clutch me till I give it hands? How can it be, until I give it leave? Small sparrow at the window-pane, a’cold, Begging your crumb of life from me, indeed I cannot let you in. Small love, small sweet, Look not so trustfully! You are not mine, Not mine, not anyone’s. Away, unborn! Back to the womb of dreams, and never stir, Never again! How meek the small ghost fades, Reject and fatherless, that might have been My son!
Mrs. Hathaway. Is it possible? Anne knew you best. She said you did not know. Dear son, too soon By two last months, yet by these months too late. After you left her, Hamnet, the boy, was born.
Shakespeare. It is not true!
Mrs. Hathaway. Ah, ah, she knew you best. She said always, weeping she said always You would not listen, though she sent you word; But when the boy was grown she’d send the boy, Then you would listen and come home, come home. But now that web is tattered in its turn By a cold wind, an out-of-season wind, Tearing the silver webs, blacking the leaves And shaking the first blossoms down too soon, Too soon, too soon. He shivered and lay down Among pinched violets and the wrack of spring; But when the sky drew breath and April came, And summer with tanned fingers, beckoning up New flowers from the ground, still our flower drooped: The sunlight hurt his eyes, his bed’s too hot, He drinks and will not eat: since Saturday There’s but one end.
Shakespeare. What end?
Mrs. Hathaway. You’re stubborn as she. She will not bow to it. Yet she sent me hither To bring you home.
Shakespeare. New witch-work!
Mrs. Hathaway. Will you not come?
Shakespeare. I will not.
Mrs. Hathaway. Will you not come? She bade me say That the boy cries for you—