The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats
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horrid towers,
I wait for you with horses. Choose your fate.
Farewell.
Auranthe.
Albert, you jest; I’m sure you must.
You, an ambitious Soldier! I, a Queen,
One who could say, Here, rule these Provinces!
Take tribute from those cities for thyself!
Empty these armouries, these treasuries,
Muster thy warlike thousands at a nod !
Go! conquer Italy!
Albert.
Auranthe, you have made
The whole world chaff to me. Your doom is fix’d.
Auranthe.
Out, villain! dastard!
Albert.
Look there to the door!
Who is it?
Auranthe.
Conrad, traitor!
Albert.
Let him in.
Enter CONRAD.
Do not affect amazement, hypocrite,
At seeing me in this chamber.
Conrad.
Auranthe?
Albert.
Talk not with eyes, but speak your curses out
Against me, who would sooner crush and grind
A brace of toads, than league with them to oppress
An innocent lady, gull an Emperor,
More generous to me than autumn’s sun
To ripening harvests.
Auranthe.
No more insult, sir!
Albert.
Aye, clutch your scabbard; but, for prudence sake,
Draw not the sword; ’twould make an uproar, Duke,
You would not hear the end of. At nightfall
Your lady sister, if I guess aright,
Will leave this busy castle. You had best
Take farewell too of worldly vanities.
Conrad.
Vassal!
Albert.
Tomorrow, when the Emperor sends
For loving Conrad, see you fawn on him.
Good even !
Auranthe.
You’ll be seen!
Albert.
See the coast clear then.
Auranthe (as he goes). Remorseless Albert! Cruel,
cruel wretch!
[She lets him out.
Conrad.
So, we must lick the dust?
Auranthe.
I follow him.
Conrad.
How? Where? The plan of your escape?
Auranthe.
He waits
For me with horses by the forest-side,
Northward.
Conrad.
Good, good! he dies. You go, say you?
Auranthe.
Perforce.
Conrad.
Be speedy, darkness! Till that comes,
Fiends keep you company!
[Exit.
Auranthe.
And you! And you!
And all men! Vanish!
[Retires to an inner Apartment.
Scene II
An Apartment in the Castle.
Enter LUDOLPH and Page.
Page.
Still very sick, my Lord; but now I went
Knowing my duty to so good a Prince;
And there her women in a mournful throng
Stood in the passage whispering: if any
Mov’d ’twas with careful steps and hush’d as death;
They bid me stop.
Ludolph.
Good fellow, once again
Make soft enquiry; prythee be not stay’d
By any hindrance, but with gentlest force
Break through her weeping servants, till thou com’st
E’en to her chamber door, and there, fair boy,
If with thy mother’s milk thou hast suck’d in
Any diviner eloquence ; woo her ears
With plaints for me more tender than the voice
Of dying Echo, echoed.
Page.
Kindest master!
To know thee sad thus, will unloose my tongue
In mournful syllables. Let but my words reach
Her ears and she shall take them coupled with
Moans from my heart and sighs not counterfeit.
May I speed better!
[Exit Page.
Ludolph.
Auranthe! My Life!
Long have I lov’d thee, yet till now not lov’d:
Remembering, as I do, hard-hearted times
When I had heard even of thy death perhaps,
And thoughtless, suffered to pass alone
Into Elysium! now I follow thee
A substance or a shadow, wheresoe’er
Thou leadest me, whether thy white feet press,
With pleasant weight, the amorous-aching earth,
Or thro’ the air thou pioneerest me,
A shade! Yet sadly I predestinate!
O unbenignest Love, why wilt thou let
Darkness steal out upon the sleepy world
So wearily; as if night’s chariot wheels
Were clog’d in some thick cloud. O, changeful Love,
Let not her steeds with drowsy-footed pace
Pass the high stars, before sweet embassage
Comes from the pillow ‘d beauty of that fair
Completion of all delicate nature’s wit.
Pout her faint lips anew with rubious health
And with thine infant fingers lift the fringe
Of her sick eyelids ; that those eyes may glow
With wooing light upon me, ere the Morn
Peers with disrelish, grey, barren, and cold.
Enter GERSA and Courtiers.