Give me them again, those hands:

Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs!
Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through!
You cruellest, you dearest in the world,

Let me ! The Queen must grant whate'er I ask
How can I gain you and not ask the Queen?
There she stays waiting for me, here stand you;
Some time or other this was to be asked;

Now is the one time

Let me ask now, Love!

Con.

what I ask, I gain:

Do, and ruin us!

fate

Nor. Let it be now, Love! All my soul breaks forth.
How I do love you! Give my love its way!
A man can have but one life and one death,
One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my
Grant me my heaven now! Let me know you mine,
Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow,
Hold you and have you, and then die away,

If God please, with completion in my soul!

Con. I am not yours then? How content this man!

I am not his who change into himself,

Have passed into his heart and beat its beats,
Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair,
Give all that was of me away to him

So well, that now, my spirit turned his own,
Takes part with him against the woman here,
Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw
As caring that the world be cognizant
How he loves her and how she worships him.
You have this woman, not as yet that world.
Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me
By saving what I cease to care about,

The courtly name and pride of circumstance
The name you 'll pick up and be cumbered with
Just for the poor parade's sake, nothing more;
Just that the world may slip from under you
Just that the world may cry, "So much for him
The man predestined to the heap of crowns:
There goes his chance of winning one, at least!"
Nor. The world!

Con.

You love it! Love me quite as well,

And see if I shall pray for this in vain !

Why must you ponder what it knows or thinks?
Nor. You pray for — what, in vain ?
Con.

Oh my heart's heart,

That is right:

How I do love you, Norbert!
But listen, or I take my hands away!

"let it be now:

you would go now

You say,
And tell the Queen, perhaps six steps from us,

You love me so you do, thank God!

Nor.

you

Thank God!

Con. Yes, Norbert, but fain would tell your love,
And, what succeeds the telling, ask of her
My hand. Now take this rose and look at it,
Listening to me. You are the minister,
The Queen's first favorite, nor without a cause.
To-night completes your wonderful year's-work
(This palace-feast is held to celebrate)
Made memorable by her life's success,
The junction of two crowns, on her sole head,
Her house had only dreamed of anciently:
That this mere dream is grown a stable truth,
To-night's feast makes authentic. Whose the praise?
Whose genius, patience, energy, achieved

What turned the many heads and broke the hearts?
You are the fate, your minute 's in the heaven.

Next comes the Queen's turn. "Name your own reward!
With leave to clench the past, chain the to-come,

Put out an arm and touch and take the sun

And fix it ever full-faced on your earth,
Possess yourself supremely of her life,-
You choose the single thing she will not grant;
Nay, very declaration of which choice

Will turn the scale and neutralize your work:
At best she will forgive you, if she can.

You think I'll let you choose her cousin's hand?
Nor. Wait. First, do you retain your old belief
The Queen is generous,
nay, is just?

Con.

There, there!

you here,

So men make women love them, while they know
No more of women's hearts than . . . look
You that are just and generous beside,
Make it your own case! For example now,

I'll say

kiss you

hold me,

Why? do you know why? I'll instruct you, then -
The kiss, because you have a name at court;
This hand and this, that you may shut in each
A jewel, if you please to pick up such.
That's horrible? Apply it to the Queen
Suppose I am the Queen to whom you speak.
"I was a nameless man; you needed me:
Why did I proffer you my aid? there stood
A certain pretty cousin at your side.

Why did I make such common cause with you?
Access to her had not been easy else.

You give my labor here abundant praise?
'Faith, labor, which she overlooked, grew play.
How shall your gratitude discharge itself?
Give me her hand!'

Nor.

just

And still I urge the same.

generous or no!

said

;

Is the Queen just?
Con. Yes, just. You love a rose; no harm in that:
But was it for the rose's sake or mine
You put it in
bosom? mine, you
your
Then, mine you still must say or else be false.
You told the Queen you served her for herself
If so, to serve her was to serve yourself,
She thinks, for all your unbelieving face!
I know her. In the hall, six steps from us,
One sees the twenty pictures; there's a life
Better than life, and yet no life at all.
Conceive her born in such a magic dome,
Pictures all round her! why, she sees the world,
Can recognize its given things and facts,
The fight of giants or the feast of gods,
Sages in senate, beauties at the bath,

Chases and battles, the whole earth's display,
Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit
And who shall question that she knows them all,
In better semblance than the things outside?
Yet bring into the silent gallery

Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood,
Some lion, with the painted lion there
You think she'll understand composedly?

- Say,

"that's his fellow in the hunting-piece
Yonder, I've turned to praise a hundred times?"
Not so.
Her knowledge of our actual earth,
Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies,
Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal.

The real exists for us outside, not her:

How should it, with that life in these four walls,
That father and that mother, first to last
No father and no mother-friends, a heap,
Lovers, no lack a husband in due time,
And every one of them alike a lie!
Things painted by a Rubens out of nought
Into what kindness, friendship, love should be;
All better, all more grandiose than the life
Only no life; mere cloth and surface-paint,
You feel, while you admire.
Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years
The sole spectator in that gallery,

How should she feel?

You think to bring this warm real struggling love
In to her of a sudden, and suppose

Here's the truth

She 'll keep her state untroubled?
She'll apprehend truth's value at a glance,
Prefer it to the pictured loyalty?

You only have to say,

"So men are made,

For this they act; the thing has many names,
But this the right one: and now, Queen, be just!"
Your life slips back; you lose her at the word:
You do not even for amends gain me.

He will not understand! oh, Norbert, Norbert,
Do you not understand?

Nor.

I am myself

In

The Queen's the Queen,

no picture, but alive

every nerve and every muscle, here

At the palace-window o'er the people's street,
As she in the gallery where the pictures glow:
The good of life is precious to us both.
She cannot love; what do I want with rule?
When first I saw your face a year ago

I knew my life's good, my soul heard one voice "The woman yonder, there's no use of life

But just to obtain her! heap earth's woes in one
And bear them— make a pile of all earth's joys
And spurn them, as they help or help not this;
Only, obtain her!" How was it to be?
I found you were the cousin of the Queen;
I must then serve the Queen to get to you.

No other way. Suppose there had been one,
And I, by saying prayers to some white star
With promise of my body and my soul,
Might gain you, should I pray the star or no?
Instead, there was the Queen to serve!

I served,

Helped, did what other servants failed to do.
Neither she sought nor I declared my end.
Her good is hers, my recompense be mine,
I therefore name you as that recompense.
She dreamed that such a thing could never be?
Let her wake now. She thinks there was more cause
In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty?
Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives
Chasing such shades. Then, I've a fancy too;
I worked because I want you with my soul:
I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now!
Con. Had I not loved you from the very first,
Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus
So wickedly, so wildly, and so well,

You might become impatient. What's conceived
Of us without here, by the folks within?
Where are you now? immersed in cares of state
Where am I now? intent on festal robes
We two, embracing under death's spread hand!
What was this thought for, what that scruple of yours
Which broke the council up? to bring about
One minute's meeting in the corridor!
And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies,
Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs,

Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look, "Does she know? does she not know? saved or lost?" A year of this compression's ecstasy

All goes for nothing! you would give this up
For the old way, the open way, the world's,
His way who beats, and his who sells his wife!
What tempts you? their notorious happiness
Makes you ashamed of ours ? The best you'll gain
Will be the Queen grants all that you require,
Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you
And me at once, and gives us ample leave
To live like our five hundred happy friends.
The world will show us with officious hand
Our chamber-entry, and stand sentinel
Where we so oft have stolen across its traps!
Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet,
And make it duty to be bold and swift,