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Cornell University Library 
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 Riquet of the tuft:a love drama. 
 
 3 1924 013 441 104 
 
The original of tiiis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3441 1 04 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT: 
 
 ^^ 
 
 A LOVE DRAMA. 
 
 Jf on!tron : 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1880. 
 
 The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved, 
 
LONDON : 
 
 R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor. 
 
 BRRAD STREET HILL, E.C. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 ACT r. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A wide garden looking to the south, -with grassy spaces and many 
 flowers and trees, and beyond it a wood, over which a mountain 
 range is seen. The King's Palace runs the whole length of the 
 garden to the north, and has in front a broad terrace which leads 
 hy steps into the garden. The Palace is on an upland, which 
 falls on the west, through dells and broken ground, to the plain 
 below ; and in the east, the scene is filled with a lake at the head 
 of which is a grove of stone-pines. It is the first day of May. 
 
 A 
 
 Enter with tools Gardener and Robert, his soti. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 CHILL morning, Robert; the frost has touched the 
 leaves. 
 
 B 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 Aye, father, the flowers are sad, but what a sheet of dew is on 
 the lawn. It looks like a silver sea; and listen to the lark, 
 how he soars and sings, he cannot tell all his joy. 
 
 \Prince Riquet appears on the terrace. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 A happy bird, Robert ; I wish Prince Riquet were as 
 happy. See, there he is on the terrace. How slowly he 
 walks, with his hands behind his hump, and his eyes on the 
 ground. Life has been hard to him, for who will marry 
 him ? The kingdom wants an heir, and all the princesses 
 hide their faces when they see him. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 If they would only wait and hear him talk they would forget 
 he was so ugly ; but they run away at once. Is it true, father, 
 that the fairy Gentilla took pity on the Queen in her trouble and 
 gave the little prince the gift of wit and pleasing more than 
 other men ? It would seem so, for we all love him. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 Yes, quite true. I never told you the story, for till quite lately 
 we were not allowed to speak of it. I was in the withdrawing- 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 3 
 
 room with flowers for the Queen's chamber when the fairy came, 
 and I heard all the women wailing over the cradle, and the King 
 pacing to and fro, and now and then the weak cry of the 
 Queen. Suddenly, a hush fell on the house, and I saw the fairy 
 pass swiftly through the room where I was, and I heard her 
 soothe the Queen. Her voice was like the silver lute the Prince 
 plays on at evening by the lake, and her clothes were like the 
 glittering moonshine, and her face was like pity and joy. And 
 when she spoke all the world smiled and grew happy. She took, 
 they told me, the little child in her arms, and touched its eyes 
 and breast, and breathed upon it. " Fear not," she said, and she 
 came with the babe to the Queen's bedside. "I will care for 
 your son. He shall be happy and beautiful when he comes to 
 love and be loved, and he shall be wise and witty even in sorrow, 
 and gay and kind to all, and he shall be able to make the woman 
 who loves him as wise and witty and pleasant as himself." And 
 when she had said that she flitted away. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 I wish I had seen her ; you were lucky, father. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 More lucky than the Prince, for no one can love him in that 
 way, and he does not care for any of the princesses he has seen. 
 I have heard him say that no woman is so beautiful as those he 
 
 B 2 
 
4 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 sees in dreams, and he wanders and dreams all day. There is 
 not a nook in the neighbouring wood that does not know him 
 like a friend. And he is dreaming now as he walks. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 He used to be happier when he was a boy, and his face was 
 always bright. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 Yes, he saw things, even as a babe, we could not see : I think 
 Gentilla opened his eyes. And in his childhood all the little 
 people were his playmates. Then when he grew older his 
 mother gave her life to him, and he loved to be beloved, and 
 friends came round him, and he was so full of beautiful sayings 
 that he surprised them into forgetfulness of his looks. But he is 
 changed of late. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 Good troth, he is. He does not hunt as he used. He never 
 cared for the chase and only went to please the King, but he 
 drew a good bow and couched his boar-spear like a man. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 For all his dwindled body, he's as brave as a lion, and it 
 pleased the King to have him in the forest. But last year, about 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 5 
 
 this time, he changed. Something came over him. I remember 
 the day he came back from the pine grove at the head of the 
 lake with a lost look in his eyes. I met him and said I hoped 
 he was not ill. "Not ill," he said, "but I have seen a spirit," 
 and since that day he has never been the same man. And see, 
 how lonely he looks and sad, 'tis pitiful; you remember the 
 song we used to sing to him when he was a boy — he made 
 us teach it to his nurse — the Flower-Song ? 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 What 1 the song our Court poet made who died so young 1 He 
 loved flowers, and he loved the Prince. He told my mother one 
 day when she pitied the Prince for being so ill-favoured that he 
 thought him beautiful. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 I remember, I remember ; it was a wonder. I heard him say 
 once that to love anything was to make it beautiful. I knew 
 what he meant when I found a cluster of hemlocks growing on 
 your little sister's grave. I used to hate them and cut them 
 down with my spade. Now I'm ready to cry when I see them. 
 We have had no poet since like him. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 It was sad, being so wise, that he died so soon. But sing the 
 
6 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 song, father ; perhaps it will cheer the Prince. The air is clear 
 in the frost, and he will hear us on the terrace, j 
 
 GARDENER (sings). 
 
 Roses in whose scented bed 
 Oberon lays his curly head; 
 Myrtles, whence the plaintive dove 
 Wooes carnations red with love ; 
 Pansies, full of thoughts they tell 
 To the lilies near the well ; 
 Tulips, in whose royal cup 
 Starry dews are gathered up ; — 
 All the flowers in gardens born. 
 Bid my lady-love good morn. 
 
 See, he lifts his head, he is listening. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 He stops in his walk. We sang that song to him for the first 
 time when we carried him fifteen springs ago to the great slope 
 under the trees where from top to bottom the blue hyacinth was 
 like a sky fallen, upon the earth. He clapped his small hands 
 together with joy and said every flower was singing with all its 
 might. And when we had sung, he fell into thoughtfulness 
 and did not speak for a long time. I shouldn't wonder now, if 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 7 
 
 as he listens, he saw that flowery slope, and his friend the poet, 
 his old nurse, and all his childhood's days. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 That is what music does. There is a ballad my mother sings 
 which makes me think of the day I was lost in the wood fifty 
 years ago. I was five years old then, and yet when she sings it I 
 am only five years old and a lost child again. Soft, he begins to 
 walk again. Sing the next verse. 
 
 ROBERT (sings). 
 
 Snowdrops, drooping with the stress 
 Of the winter's barrenness ; 
 Violets, dark as Love's wild eyes 
 Dreaming through his memories ; 
 Daffodils by rivers old, 
 Broom that burns from wold to wold ; 
 Primrose, virgin of the spring, 
 Dim bluebells, and daisy-ring; — 
 All the flowers the fields adorn, 
 Bid my maiden-love good morn. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 See, Robert, we have unearthed him, he is coming down to us. 
 Sing the chorus cheerily, welcome him with it. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Both sing. 
 
 Song has drawn her from her nest; 
 See! she flies to seek my breast! 
 Violets dream within her eyes, 
 And her lips with love are wise ; 
 All her thoughts and feeling fine 
 Are as sweet as eglantine ; 
 Lily-white and tall she goes, 
 On her cheek the thornless rose. — 
 Fairies that in flowers dwell. 
 Make my darlitig love me well. 
 
 Enter Riquet. 
 
 Good morning, men, I thank you for your songj 
 It touched the note of memories that still 
 Wander like children through the fields of youth. 
 How fare your flowers? The morning air strikes keen. 
 And the young buds that swell within their sheath, 
 May get a touch awry — as I have done. 
 Look not so grave; all things are seasoned by 
 Custom and Time, and I have much within 
 That makes me bear a strange outside in peace. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 ■GARDENER. 
 
 We are your happy servants, Sir; our love 
 Is only grave because we see you sad. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Not sad, but full of thought; for thought doth wear 
 
 The circumstance of sorrow, and my life 
 
 Moves in a cloud of dreams that think of dreams. 
 
 And dreams are never gay; but now the light 
 
 Is on the Eastern hills, and it were wrong 
 
 To think of pain upon so bright a morn; 
 
 The sun is going upward in his strength, 
 
 And drinks the dew, and through the fields of heaven 
 
 The wind, like a rejoicing river, streams, 
 
 And on it sail the clouds like stately ships, 
 
 And the wild lark and all the choir of rooks 
 
 Make merry in the sunlight and the wind ; 
 
 The air is young, and loves itself. 
 
 Is it 
 The hedge of eglantine whose odour falls 
 Like music on the sense ? 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 No Sir, the wind 
 Blows from the grove of hawthorn in the dell 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Where the fairy rings are green; it flowered last night 
 To hail the May, and when I passed it by 
 This morn, so thick the showery blossoms were 
 They hid the leaves like snow. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Not thicker than 
 This sward is with the daisies, sown like stars 
 Over the lawns of night. 
 
 Where are the flowers 
 I bade you seek, young violets whose eyes 
 The wind of morning loves? My mother sits 
 In the low Sunlit room that fronts the park, 
 And plays the virginals : you know her use — 
 To marry flowers with music and enlarge 
 The sound with scent and colour. Winter hears, 
 At eve, her voice, but when the Spring unbinds 
 The frozen earth, she sings at morn, and then 
 The thrush might envy her — so pure her notes, 
 But purest when the violets come again 
 To sweeten all the woods. Go, search them out; 
 Upon the mossy bank beneath the oaks. 
 Near to the arbour, where the linnets build. 
 The earth is glad of them. Bring those to me. 
 
RIQUET OF, THE TUFT. 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 Deep in the wood it lies, I know the place : 
 
 Before the lark drops down upon her nest, 
 
 I'll bring them, steeped in balm and morning dew. 
 
 \Exeunt Gardeners. 
 
 RIQUET {alone). 
 
 How well the ancient honour of our house 
 
 Shows in these simple folk. They pity me, 
 
 But in their pity is no stain of scorn. 
 
 My servants love me; and my father's love 
 
 Keeps true ; but the half-anger of a king — 
 
 To whom the gods have given clean limbs and strong- 
 
 With a dwarfed heir, makes rough his tenderness ; 
 
 I hurt his eye. More is my mother's love. 
 
 Who paints my image in her heart of hearts 
 
 And makes it beautiful ; she would not change 
 
 Her crooked son against the straightest prince 
 
 In the whole of faeryland. Great love is mine. 
 
 But I have no content; Gentilla's gift, 
 
 The architect Imagination, builds 
 
 Among the unquiet valleys of my heart 
 
 Gardens and palaces where dimly walks 
 
 The woman whom I have not known but love. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Only in sleep, or in the dream-like hours 
 
 I wander through the woods, I see her move, 
 
 O faery-fair, through cedam alleys high. 
 
 And run to meet her, but when I draw near, 
 
 Her image dies as dies upon the lake 
 
 The image of the stone pine on the point 
 
 When a cloud steals the sun. Shadow of love ! 
 
 Take substance, live, break thy dead silence, speak. 
 
 And tell me who thou art, and what the place 
 
 Thou mak'st a world, that t may make thee mine. 
 
 Fool, fool, to cheat my broken life with words, 
 
 And talk of Heaven while I crawl on earth, 
 
 A crooked scornful mockery of a man ; 
 
 What woman can love me? Misshapen Fate 
 
 Has cursed me with a heart that longs for love. 
 
 Shut in a body that all love abhors. 
 
 Fair soul should have fair form. O misery ! 
 
 Despair and loneliness be mine for ever ! 
 
 Robert is heard singing in the wood. 
 
 Song has drawn her from her nest , 
 See, she Hies to seek my breast ! 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 13 
 
 EIQUET. 
 
 Hark he returns and sings that happy song 
 Of love and hfe. 
 
 ROBERT (still singing. 
 Violets dream within her eyes. 
 And her lips with love are wise. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 O Love, be wise for me, 
 
 Let me be sad no more. Be in me the Spring. 
 
 Awaken hope from sorrowing sleep, and fill 
 
 Her eyes, with sun and shower, until my life 
 
 Burst into joy, as the loud- thrilling lark 
 
 That high in heaven, and lost in light, pours forth 
 
 A song of triumph. • And O — there gleams my dream — 
 
 The long dark avenue of ilex trees. 
 
 And in it, my belovM, pure and white, 
 
 Fluttered around by doves. She turns and smiles; 
 
 Speak, speak, I follow thee to death. 
 
 \He rushes forward. 
 
 Enter Robert. 
 
 My Prince, 
 
 I bring the flowers — but you are strangely moved; 
 
 Your hand is trembling and your eyes are dim. 
 
14 RIQUET O^ THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It is nothing, it will pass ; give me the flowers. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 I think the fairy court kept revel near them, 
 ' They smell so sweetly ; all last night the moon 
 Shone like the sun. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 There was no court last night ; 
 The midnight hour was cold, and when the frost 
 Pinches the earth, the fairy folk keep house. 
 But with the rising of the sun, I saw 
 Gentilla, with a sun-ray in her hand. 
 Healing the bitten flowers; and she has touched 
 These violets, and turned their frost to dew. 
 Where is your father, why are you alone? 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 He met a shepherd who brought pleasant news. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 News ! what news ? Speak. 
 
-RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 15 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 Your Highness knows the glade, 
 Where the footpath among the beeches dips 
 To reach the valley and the red-roofed town ; 
 'Twas there we met the shepherd, and he said 
 The town was full of pleasure ; all the children 
 Cheering in street and square; the market-place 
 Gay with the women prankt in fine array, 
 And smiling like the sun on village inns; 
 While all the men had left their work to give 
 A welcome to the favourite of the town. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Has Lanval then come back, the painter? 
 
 EGBERT. 
 
 Yes; 
 Suddenly this morning there he stood and sang. 
 Close by the fountain in the market-place. 
 Listening it drip, his arm upon its rim, 
 All the full sunlight in his chestnut hair, 
 And singing like a nightingale. They say 
 He has had strange adventures, and he comes 
 To-day to tell them to their Majesties. 
 
r6 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I am glad to see him. Well — ; a well-made man, 
 A gay, quick-minded, feeling gentleman, 
 Who has eyes and uses them.- I will see him ; 
 Robert, good day. {Exit Robert. 
 
 Perhaps he brings my fate. 
 I am of that temper now that ever)rthing 
 Seems fateful to me — Would that I could sleep 1 
 
 [Looking at the violets. 
 They were asleep ; each with its drooping head 
 Nestled in leaves. Why did I spoil their life 
 To give a fleeting pleasure ? No one broke 
 On their sweet solitude as all the world 
 On my impatience — Here is the gardener 
 Full of his tidings. 
 
 Enter Gardener. 
 Prince you will pardon me — 
 
 RIQUET (interrupting). 
 You have seen Sir Lanval, does he come this way? 
 
 GARDENER. 
 
 Seen him. Prince Riquet, no ! I have heard him sing 
 Among the orchard meadows near the town. 
 
HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 17 
 
 A song so rich that even the blackcap hushed 
 Its garrulous delight; and in the wood, 
 Where now he is, climbing from ledge to ledge 
 To reach this place, the thrush and blackbird are 
 Still as a stone — Listen — I hear him mow. 
 
 RIQUET, 
 
 ' Tis well, I'll speak with hira alone ; good day. 
 
 {Exit Gardener. 
 
 Lanval is heard stn^ng below the scene, and Ms voice grorvs 
 gradually louder. RtqueT walks toisfards the edge of the 
 garden where the wooded hill descends to the plain, and listens 
 to the song. 
 
 LANVAL {sings). 
 
 Winter cold is dead and laid 
 In his grave beneath the yew ; 
 March and April, boy and maid. 
 Sleep beneath the mournful dew ; 
 O farewell— for May is here. 
 May, the darling of the year. 
 
 Children, fly to field and grove. 
 
 All the flo-wers are wild with mirth ; 
 
 c 
 
18 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Youths, it is the time when love 
 Makes a garden of the earth : 
 Maids, be kind— for May is here, 
 May, the darling of the year. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Cease, cease, sweet song, to burn and break my heart. 
 
 LANVAL {singing, but nearer). 
 
 Streams are rushing from the hills. 
 Corn and leaves in wind are moving, 
 Clouds are flying. Nature thrills 
 With the rapture of her loving. 
 And her life — O, May is here, 
 May, the darling of the year. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Rapture and love and life — Words, only words ! 
 When shall I clasp, with passion made more deep 
 By years of vain and terrible desire. 
 The living, loving body of my dreams ! 
 Would I were dead, so I could be no more 
 Devoured by fruitless ,fire. — He sings again. 
 
RiQUET OF THE TUFT, ,g 
 
 LANVAL (sitill nearer). 
 
 Jn the morn the larks rehearse, 
 With the happy thrush, the tale 
 Of the joyful universe. 
 And at eve, the nightingale. 
 Tirra-lirra, May is here. 
 May, the darling of the year, 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 That was a nearer strain, I hear his step 
 Brush through the beechen leaves — 
 
 Enter Lanval springing through the fringe of wood. 
 
 Lanval, welcome ! 
 How gaily like a bird you hail the May. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 No wonder, 'tis a glorious day ! But you, 
 My Prince, I trust are well, and feel the world 
 Sing in your heart. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I am not well, and song 
 
 Is dead within me. 
 
 c 2 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT, 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 What sorrow's this — 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Nothing j 
 
 A passing mood of pain, too light, too fleeting, 
 To give a friend the burden of it. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Nay, 
 You are changed ; your eyes are worn and deeper set. 
 And darklier coloured, and I see the lines 
 That sleepless longing makes. Hunger of heart 
 Has wasted you ; your cheek is pale, your mouth 
 Trembles with pain that, on expression's verge, 
 Lacks its relief. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 You painters are keen eyed 
 To read the book of the face — but can you see 
 The heart within, storm-wearied, where the rain 
 Falls evermore, and that wild ocean-strand. 
 Where the rich argosies of youth are wrecked. 
 And all our hopes, their goodly crew, lie cold. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Frighting the mind with those unburied eyes 
 That are the hate of solitude. Can art 
 Give shape to that, or cunning colour shew 
 The ghastly sunset, and the ragged drift 
 Of thunder-clouds above it? — 
 
 I am a fool 
 To think that words can help — 
 
 Pray, pardon me : 
 Leave me awhile to bear this passion down 
 Before I see the Queen. She must not read 
 Trouble below my eyelids — Go to her 
 And say I bring her violets that May 
 Has sweetened with her breath — She waits my coming- 
 But she will welcome you, her friend, and mine. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I am sorry. Prince, my musick clashed with you. 
 Too gay, and jarred your mood. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Too gay ! O no ! 
 I have not enough of life. I pray you, laugh. 
 Talk, smile, make merriment, and sing, until 
 This dreary palace be inspirited. 
 
KIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 That suits my humour, ever bright, and now 
 Brighter in May. Prince, we shall meet again. 
 
 [Exit, singing as he goes. 
 Midst of all I come and go, 
 Far more full of joy than they : 
 Through my heart their feelings flow , 
 I myself am always May — 
 How much more, now May is here. 
 May, the darling of the year. 
 
 RIQUET (alone). 
 
 " I myself am always May." 
 O God, the difference in men ! Not May, 
 But storm and rain of March are in my heart. 
 
 {Exit RiQUET. 
 
RTQUET OF THE TUFT. 23 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Room in the Palace. The Queen is sitting alone near the 
 window that looks over the park. A side window with a 
 deep recess opens upon the garden. Instruments and books of 
 music are scattered about. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 HOW fair the morning lies upon the world ! 
 So fair lay hope and love upon my heart 
 When I was young. Ah me, for weary years 
 Sorrow walks gravely through my life, and now 
 My son, in whom I live, is found of Love, 
 But cannot find his love, and he will waste 
 Day after day, until the cruel God 
 Lead him to death, and with him I shall die.^^^ 
 Love does not kill the young. I did not die 
 When all my joy sank like a stone, and the sea 
 Covered it evermore. The soft west wind. 
 Whose breath is the enchantment of desire. 
 Blew yesterday, and its memorial wings. 
 Fanning my heart, brought back the days when I 
 Went with my knight among the dells, of June, 
 
24 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 And knew immortal joy. O morn of life, 
 When first romance befell me, and the woods 
 And blowing hills and river-bank were bathed 
 In passion's warm sunrise, as hand in hand, 
 Forgetting all, we loved; — exulting songs 
 Broke from my lips, but oftentimes I sang 
 Wild airs of sorrow and pain, for then it pleased- 
 So happy were our days — to play with grief, 
 As April with her storms : and one of these 
 Haunts me to-day. In mood and menace gay 
 I sang it then, but the sweet lies of youth 
 Become the bitter truths of after years — 
 I'll sing it now, although I fear to sing, 
 In its wild fatefulness, my Riquet's doom. 
 
 She sings. 
 
 Young Sir Guyon proudly said 
 Love shall never be my fate. 
 ' None can say so but the dead,' 
 Shrieked the witch wife at his gate. 
 
 ' Go and dare my shadowed dell. 
 Love will quell your happy mood, ' 
 Guyon, laughing his farewell. 
 Mode into the faery wood. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 25 
 
 There he met a maiden wild, 
 By a tree she stood alone ; 
 When she looked at him and smiled — 
 At a breath his heart was gone. 
 
 In her arms she twined him fast. 
 And like wax withiti the flame. 
 Melted memory of the past. 
 Soul and body, name and fame. 
 
 Late at night the steed came back, 
 Wher^s our good knight, cried his men ; 
 Far and Tiear they sought his track. 
 But Guyon no one saw again. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My music fails for flowers. Where is my son, 
 Who brings me violets scented with his love, 
 Sweet as his eyes ? When he was born I wept, 
 Until I knew the infant touch that makes 
 Home in a mother's heart ; Oh, I have sorrowed — 
 Yet love is gladness though it sorrow much, 
 And mine for him is deep as midnight skies. 
 I love him for the sadness of his fate. 
 And for his care of me, but most of all 
 
26 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Because he is my very child I love him ; 
 There is no reason any one can give 
 For which I do not love him. Yet my heart 
 Contents no more his heart, and I have seen 
 Pain and its thought upon his face of late, 
 The pain of hopeless fancy, such as I 
 Had long ago— before I knew the King. 
 
 Enter King Riquet. 
 
 What, Constance, no music ? Weary of your virginals, weary 
 of life, it seems. In truth, you have no right to look so woe- 
 begone. It is too fair a day for fancies ; put them by. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My sadness is your fancy ; or if I am sad, it is because I have 
 not seen my son to-day. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Not to see him is nothing to regret. I love the boy, but I 
 do not love his looks. I used to shut my eyes while he 
 talked, because his figure spoilt his wit ; and then-^for he talked 
 well — I pictured him tall as a lance and straight, and with a 
 face a woman could smile on — such as I had when I wooed you, 
 Constance. It was sorrow enough to open my eyes then, when 
 he was gay as well as witty ; it is dreadful now, for he seems 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 27 
 
 more misshapen than ever since he is moon-struck with 
 melancholy. He goes through the con-idors like a ghost in pain, 
 and the arras sways with his sighing. By Oberon, it's a sorry 
 business. No woman will ever care for the boy : I shall never 
 have a grandson, nor the kingdom an heir. The race of Riquet 
 will die out. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I am a woman and I care for him. 
 
 O yes, you are his mother and you cannot help it. But he will 
 not find natural affection in a young princess, and no ugly one 
 will content him. He has impossible dreams — I have heard 
 them in his songs — and they have no substance anywhere. He 
 wants something lovelier than the earth holds, and his very 
 ugliness makes him long for beauty. Were it not for my hunting, 
 and that I sleep well, I think my heart would break with trouble. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I hope then, you hunt to-day ; I know your Majesty slept well. 
 As to Riquet, do not break your heart about him ; Gentilla loves 
 him and will take care of him. 
 
28 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I hope so, but as yet her gift has only been his bane. Had he 
 been dull he might have married long ago. But he has ideas — 
 the worst property a man can have. There was the Princess 
 Margaret — she would have had him because she was proud to 
 be queen of this country. There was the Princess Grisell — she 
 would have had him because she was poor. There was the 
 Princess Matilda — she would have had him because nobody 
 would have her. But they were all ill-favoured, and ,he wouldn't 
 look at them. I shall never have a grandson. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 And I think him right. Better die unmarried than not marry 
 whom you love. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Very true — a woman's truth. I think of the kingdom. But 
 I hear the horns in the courtyard ; that is music a man's heart 
 dances to, and there go the hounds, peal under peal, like the 
 laughter of girls in May. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 'Tis well you have no daughters, else you might smart for the 
 comparison. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 29 
 
 KING. 
 
 I wish I had daughters ; I love daughters. They would hunt 
 with me, and be as gay as the trees and streams. Why not come 
 with me to-day and make me happy ; you were made to enjoy 
 the forest. The Chase is as bright and fresh as my life when I was 
 young, the copses ring with the songs of the birds, all the spring 
 flowers are hung with dew, there is pleasure in the heart of the 
 wood. It is better there than moping here, and the music of the 
 river is worth all your songs. Come, I will take care of you. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I cannot come, my heart is too heavy, and the noise jars me. 
 But I wish you a happy day. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Then I will go and forget -my trouble, and when I come back 
 your humour will be brighter. Have you seen the garden, have 
 you tasted the air ? The sun has melted the light frost, and the 
 scent will lie as thick as the dew j it is a lovely morning \going to 
 the window]. Guess, Constance, who is coming over the garden ! 
 Why, Lanval, our sunny painter ! Shall we see him here, he will 
 amuse me more than the hunt. Autumn and winter have gone 
 since he left us, and he will be full of tales. 
 
30 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Yes, bring him here, but send for Riquet ; I want hini, and you 
 can shut your eyes when he comes lest your heart should break. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Madam, you mock pie unduly : I love my son. 
 
 Enter Servant. 
 
 Lanval, the Court artist, begs that their Majesties will receive 
 him. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Bid him come in. \Enter Lanval. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 You bring the sunlight with you, Lanval ; I give you welcome. 
 
 KING. 
 
 And I. But what is your news, why did you stay away so long ? 
 You look well and brown. What have you painted ? I see you 
 have your books with you. Whom have you seen, have you had 
 any adventures, have you fallen in love at last ? Come, tell the 
 whole tale from the beginning. Let it be long, for I want amuse- 
 ment. The Queen sings and plays all day, and it makes me 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 31 
 
 melancholy ; and Riquet does nothing but mope, and that makes 
 me mad. Begin now ; immediately. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Wait at least till the Prince is here. Your story, Lanval, 
 may brighten his eyes, and you know he loves you well. 
 
 LANVAL'. 
 
 I met the Prince in the garden ; he is coming in, laden 
 with violets. 
 
 Enter Riquet with flowers. 
 
 I bring them, mother, drenched with fairy dew, 
 
 And they will wake your music. I am late, 
 
 But they were deep in the wood. \Aside\ O deeper still 
 
 The sickness that lies close about my heart ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My son, I thank you for your love and flowers, 
 They are both kind to me; give me your hand- 
 Stand close to me, here in this dim recess, 
 Where I can see your face. 
 
32 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Now, Lanval, speak ; 
 I am impatience, tell your tale in verse, 
 And trippingly. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Sire, the fair Titania — 
 
 KING. 
 
 Oh, no preambles, plunge into the story. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 The King shall have his will, but yet I like 
 To play with the beginning of a thing ; 
 A tale without a prologue is a house 
 Without a porch. 
 
 The day was lovely when I left the Court 
 And rode towards the hills; the morning wind 
 Kept company with me, and all the poplars, 
 That bent like corn on either side the way. 
 Made sounds so sweet beneath its sweeping hand 
 That I was gay, and felt within the wind. 
 And one with all the motion of the trees, 
 So that I drove my horse along, and sang 
 With joy at my swift riding — till the noon 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 33 
 
 Clashed from the belfry of the little town 
 
 That lies deep nested 'twixt the mountain's knees ; 
 
 And there I stayed three weeks — three pleasant weeks. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Three weeks ! and pleasant weeks, 'tis very strange. 
 It is a sleepy village ; once, unhorsed, 
 I spent two hours there, and I saw — nothing ! 
 Why did you stay so long? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 f 
 
 I do not know. 
 
 It was my fancy. Yet perhaps I know. 
 For first, there was a pretty water-reach 
 Outside the walls, within an alder grove. 
 Where the hill stream grew quiet, and an island 
 In it, where herons had their nest and fished 
 The stealing river; this I drew — And then, 
 A lovely child lived there, my hostess' daughter. 
 Who sat to me and chatted like a wren 
 When June is over ; then, I dined in the sun, 
 Under the vines ; so I forgot the Court. 
 
 KING. 
 
 That is not courteous, Lanval, and as yet 
 I see no reasons for your long delay. 
 
34 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 They are my reasons, Sire ; shall I give more ? 
 
 There was a dovecote underneath the thatch, 
 
 With doves that changed their colour in the sun ; 
 
 They pleased me, and I stayed. Among the flowers. 
 
 Midst of the garden, was a carven well 
 
 O'er whose cool shaft it pleasured me to lean, 
 
 And see my face a hundred feet below 
 
 In the dark water-glass. Around me laughed 
 
 The merry vintage, and I lingered on, 
 
 Gladdened to see, in vineyards white with sun. 
 
 Boys, maids, deep-stained, bring clusters to the vats, 
 
 And, round the glowing limbs of men whose songs 
 
 Rang joy, the life blood of the earth leap forth, 
 
 Itself rejoicing. That enriched my life. 
 
 Then lazy evening brought grey-bearded sires 
 
 To talk beneath the walnuts, and strong youths 
 
 That wrestled in a ring of laughing girls, 
 
 And, while the red moon shone, I loved to sit 
 
 Under the porch and sketch them, listening whiles 
 
 To the mountain cataracts that filled the air 
 
 With far faint thunder. I had peace of heart 
 
 And joy in all my labour. Do you need 
 
 More reasons ? I was free, and wished to prove 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT 35 
 
 My freedom real ; lastly I was there, 
 And being there, I did not care to move. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I wish the king, nay, I myself, could give 
 As many pleasant reasons when our fancy 
 Beckons to act. 
 
 -KING. 
 
 Speak, Constance, for yourself. 
 I have one reason when I act — my will. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 One's will is not a reason : would it were ! 
 
 KING. 
 
 Make it a reason; it is Lanval's way. \Turns to him. 
 Why, if all pleased you, did you ever leave ? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 The weather changed and with it changed my mind ; 
 And the rain fell and all the welkin roared 
 From east to west with thunder as I rode, 
 Slow climbing up the gorge, and heard below 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The swollen river; like a beast of prey, 
 
 Howl louder than the thunder — and a darkness 
 
 Clutched at my heart. But I crept on and came 
 
 Where the gaunt cliffs had narrowed to a gate, 
 
 Through which I hardly passed, and found a plain 
 
 Full of marsh streams, winged-round by snow-streaked hills 
 
 And lonely as a broken heart. At last 
 
 I touched the summit of the pass, and lo ! 
 
 The west was like a crystal water clear, 
 
 Behind me rolled the storm, and at my feet 
 
 An ancient forest seemed to fill the world. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I wish I had been there. 
 
 KING. 
 
 So do not I — 
 Wet to the bone, lashed by the wind, and cold. 
 I hate the mountain tops. Nothing lives there 
 But the grey vulture and the whistling rat. 
 
 RIQUET, 
 
 O Sir, the loneliness of mountain peaks 
 
 Has its own life — and there are times when cold 
 
 Cannot be felt. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TtJFT. 37 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 They are very few ; I know 
 I hurried downwards, scarcely pausing when 
 The altar of the purple forest flamed 
 Incense and sacrifice before the throne 
 Of the evening sun, and reached the wood and rode 
 Through the soft paths like flying fire, till night 
 Fell starless, and I foiind a hollow where 
 The earth was dry, and wearied out, I slept. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I wish I had been there, amongst the dewS, 
 When the chill morning blew your sleep away. — 
 I would have roused the sleeping wood with horns, 
 And called Aurora from her saffron bed. 
 And blown a stirring welcome to her eyes — 
 'Tis life to think of it. How waked the forest? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 O King, you would have left your throne for joy. 
 The place was filled with beautiful wild things. 
 The routing of a boar awoke me, and I saw 
 The white-tusked patriarch break across the glade. 
 Leading his trotting train of dusky sons ; 
 
38 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 And through the lanes of the tall heath that rose 
 Above my horse's head, a troop of deer 
 Stepped daintily, and all the undergrowth 
 Rustled with life. The speckled snake stole forth 
 To sun his rings, at every step a hare 
 Flashed from its form, and on the sandy ridge. 
 Beside the glade, a thousand rabbits sat. 
 Each at his door and washed his face with dew. 
 Through the pine-tops — for all the wood was pines- 
 Grey, soaring straight, and huge, but spread above 
 In a mighty canopy, the pheasants flew. 
 And hailed the morn, and all the doves replied. 
 
 KING. 
 
 What king is he to whom this chase belongs? 
 I'll make a treaty with him. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 For what end? 
 To slay a harmless world ! Poor piteous things. 
 They love to live, they suffer when they die 
 As much as we. I hate the hunt. 
 
 KING. 
 
 And I 
 Love it because it gives an edge to life. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 39 
 
 We are too weary in this world to rest, 
 Unless we make unrpst. These piteous things, 
 Know not our hunger; when they die, they die 
 Without a thought, and if a mighty king 
 Slay them, their death is noble. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Death is death, 
 Whether a king or clown inflict its pain, 
 As bitter too. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 My Lord, the Prince forgets. 
 That savage beasts, made fierce by hunger's grip. 
 Hunt one another; then, why should not pian. 
 The greater beast, made fierce by pleasure's sting. 
 Hound them to death ? High pleasure is life's aim. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Lanval, you seem to scorn your kindly King; 
 It misbecomes you; say what next you saw. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I stood uncertain, when a water-glint 
 Flashing among the pine-stems led me on, 
 
40 HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 And a few paces brought me to a mere — 
 
 A long dark water silver in the sun, 
 
 Fringed with tall reeds, and round it closed the pines 
 
 Like columned cliffs watching a quiet sea. 
 
 The wave was still, and in its lilied sheet 
 
 The silent darkness of the domfed woods 
 
 Glimmered a clear pale green, while the blue sky 
 
 Shone in mid depth, flecked with white clouds whose edge 
 
 The feet of morning crimsoned. Flocks of birds 
 
 Rose from the reeds, and flying to and fro, 
 
 Hunted their prey, and all the lonely pool 
 
 Rang with their crying. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And had you no pleasure? 
 For all the world was happy in that place. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Yes, I had joy, for -the low sun was warm, 
 And life kept bridal in me, and the pines 
 Gave forth their incense so that all the wood 
 Seemed to pour forth thanksgiving to the morn. 
 But when my enchantment passed I knew too well 
 That I was hungry, and alone, and lost — 
 When suddenly I heard a noise of horns, 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 41 
 
 Baying of dogs, and horse-hoofs on the sward; 
 "It is the hunt," I cried, and as I spoke 
 A boar rushed by me, and a leash of dogs 
 Running like wind, and then a stately man 
 Couching his spear, and seeing him, I knew 
 It was the King, so noble was his look. 
 I leaped to horse and followed in his track ; 
 He slew the boar, and ere his huntsmen came, 
 Serving his. need, I told him all my tale. 
 And ever since I have lived within his Court. 
 
 KING. 
 
 It seems to have been pleasant, for you stayed 
 Far longer than I wished. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 O Sire, I found 
 My perfect beauty there, I could not leave. 
 
 RIQUET (excitedly). 
 
 Was she a woman lovely as the dawn 
 
 On summer mornings, whom to see is Love? 
 
 Then I have seen her. 
 
42 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 KING. 
 
 When ? the boy is mad ! 
 No woman but your mother has been here, 
 And she is more like evening than the dawn. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Truth is not always courteous, Sir, nor wise. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Constance, I love the evening like the dawn ; 
 The wisdom of my life has been to love you. 
 And love is courteous. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 No, not always — Yet 
 I have found peace with you — but the tale waits. 
 
 To see the Princess was to see a woman. 
 And not the dawn : to watch her was to know 
 Beauty itself, and perfect beauty kindles 
 Not love, but worship — so I laid my art, 
 Its power, myself, before her rosy feet. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 43 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Who was this paragon ? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 The King's daughter. 
 Two daughters called him father — one this girl, 
 The home of beauty ; but the other plain, 
 The home of wit. I saw her once, but then 
 I ceased to see her ; had she had the wit 
 Of all the world, and all the wisdom hived 
 By foolish sages, I had never cared 
 To speak again to her. Yet all the Court 
 Hung on her words and left her sister by. 
 They told me she was dull, a lifeless stock, 
 A stupid, silent, thoughtless, thriftless thing ! 
 What did I care ! I needed not her speech ; 
 A lovely woman is not made to talk with, 
 Nor yet to talk. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 For what then is she made? 
 This is the very insolence of art ! 
 
44 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 You cannot see. No insolence belongs 
 
 To worship of the beautiful, and I 
 
 Saw in the Princess — Beauty, not a woman. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Describe her, let us see her with your eyes. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Great Nature made her in a sunny hour 
 
 To teach the world the joy of loveliness ; 
 
 Callista was her name, most beautiful. 
 
 Her eyes were music, and her changing cheek 
 
 Shamed the wild rose in June, and all the winds 
 
 Gave it, enthralled with love, their kiss ; her mouth, 
 
 Curved like the bow of Oberon, oped within 
 
 On a gate of fairy pearl ; her eloquent lips. 
 
 Ruddy and sweet as apples in October, 
 
 Invited taste, though none might dare to try; 
 
 From her low brow and stately head her hair 
 
 Flowed in a ripple, paused at her ear, then fell 
 
 A glorious golden torrent to her feet, 
 
 And on her throat and veiled bosom glowed . 
 
 A sunshine which they seemed themselves to make. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 45 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Could any woman be as fair as that ? 
 
 RiQUET (aside). 
 My dream, my dream ! 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 O Madam, she was more; 
 Tall, and enchanting heaven, she moved as if 
 She were the dwelling of the unchartered wind, 
 And in her the fine Spirit of grace took life; 
 The harmony that Nature only knows 
 When she does best, and Art delights to make, 
 Murmured through her like sea-sound through a shell. 
 I loved her beauty. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Did you love herself? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Oh no ! his talk has not the note of love ; 
 It dwells on beauty not on beauty's life; 
 He knows the shell but not the fruit ; be sure 
 It is the artist not the lover speaks. 
 
46 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RiQUET {aside). 
 
 My mother has keen insight, else I were 
 Jealous to break my heart ; in every word 
 He paints my vision. 
 
 Madam, I should know 
 From point to point the Princess, for I made 
 Her breathing image. The room in which we sat, 
 Where a deer-hunt ran riot round the walls 
 Done by the patient needle, opened on 
 A flower-inwoven meadow in whose midst 
 One pine rose sentinel, while all around 
 The silent forest dreamed. There hour by hour 
 I painted quietly until my heart 
 Was by her beauty rapt to perfect love 
 Of life, and of my art, of all the world. 
 
 RIQUET 
 
 Where is that portrait ? Instant give it me. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Prince, Riquet ! 
 
JilQUET OF THE TUFT. 47 
 
 RiQUET {searching tJie books). 
 
 Is it here, or here, O speak ! 
 Have you no voice, no pity? See, I tremble 
 Like a lost child. O how my choking heart 
 Beats in my throat. I cannot stand, the room 
 Fades round me — oh — 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 He faints ! Riquet, Riquet, 
 Awake, shake off this passion, be a man ! 
 
 KING. 
 
 It is the full of the moon, my son is mad. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Call you this madness — were you never mad 
 In this way when you loved me long ago ? 
 Had you not been as mad, I should despise 
 The memory of that time. Have you forgotten — 
 Can you not read the ancient trace of love ? 
 If passionate love be madness, then indeed 
 Riquet is mad, but if it be the last, 
 The only touch of heaven left on earth, 
 
48 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Then he is wiser far than you or I, 
 Who have lost it now. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Not dimly I recall, 
 Constance, that golden time ; but when my -heart 
 Was hottest, then I did not faint, but rushed 
 Straight to your arms. This sickness is not love. 
 But feebleness of soul. His wits have made 
 His body weaker by their working, and in turn, 
 The body taking vengeance, slays the wits. 
 Gentilla gave but could not keep his brains. 
 
 \He draws near Riquet and looks at him. 
 So sinks the last hope of the kingdom's heir : 
 Poor, fated boy, your life has been too hard. 
 
 RIQUET {recovering). 
 
 My father, I am well, this fit will pass ; 
 
 You make too much of nothing strange to one 
 
 Whose soul keeps company more delicate 
 
 Than you can dream of. Could you have borne long years 
 
 Of pain and hopelessness and woman's scorn 
 
 As I have done? But I had glorious dreams. 
 
 Living in which I half forgot the fate 
 
 That earns your common pity. For my wits, 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 49 
 
 They shame the eagle's eye ; were they less keen 
 I should have had less pain. O I have been 
 Much worn of late with brooding thought, and sleep 
 Nightly forgets me. I had wished for death 
 Were not hope kind, and had I not some youth. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Is this my Son? Prince, you forget yourself. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 No Sire, I stand upon the giddy edge 
 
 Of a world of love. One thought devours all thought, 
 
 One love all love. Lanval, you seem amazed, 
 
 But all my life is bound up in the span 
 
 Of one short answer. I must see that picture. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I have it not, I gave it to the King ; 
 He had done me kindness. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Untoward kindness, 
 Miserable gift ! There is no rest, no help. 
 And no forgetfulness. 
 
so RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Prince, I can prove 
 Whether she be the lady of your dreams j 
 For in the wintertide when all the woods 
 Were hushed with snow, so deep we could not ride, 
 And the frost nipped the bone, she used to sit, 
 Tending the flying labour of the loom. 
 Among her maidens in a turret chamber, 
 Large, shadow-haunted, roofed with painted beams. 
 With seats around the deep-set hearth, where blazed 
 Huge tangled roots of pine, a mighty fire. 
 It was my wont to go there when the sun 
 Sank crimson o'er the frosty woods, and sent 
 Its last rays through the lattice to illume 
 Her gracious figure. She never spake a word, 
 But sometimes on the ruddy west she looked, 
 And sighed, and in her eyes dim longing dawned. 
 And her whole body listened — 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It was then 
 That you, enchanted, drew her. Give me the sketch, 
 Give it to me. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 51 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Yes, often at that hour. 
 But, once, I caught her image perfectly. 
 Silent that eve we sat, for one had told 
 An old pathetic story of true love. 
 Till the edge of dark — when the great pile of logs 
 Suddenly fell, and the bright blaze leaped forth 
 And lit the Princess' face, and as I looked, 
 It seemed a fire leaped to life in her. 
 She stirred, a low faint smile dawned on her lips. 
 And broke to sudden sunshine, and she rose, 
 A silver pillar in the dusky room. 
 And beckoned with her hand, and cried aloud, 
 "Come ere I die!" and as she spoke she seemed 
 Dipped in celestial light. Brief as the flash 
 That lights a cloud, and shows its folds, and dies, 
 Love, rushing through, her beauty like a fountain, 
 rilled it and made it tenfold fair; her maids 
 Rose round her like a flock of doves a hawk 
 Has startled, fluttering question and reply ; 
 But she, as she had dreamt a foolish dream. 
 Brushed with her hand her brow and took again 
 The shuttle she had dropt, and all the light 
 Fled from her eyes ; but I was quick, and ere 
 That ecstasy had gone, I seized its image. 
 
52 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Here in this book of studies of her face, 
 
 Here, done with lightning brush, it is, most like. 
 
 RIQUET (seizing the book, looks at the sketch) 
 
 Found, found! 'Come ere I diel' I heard that cry 
 
 One winter evening by the lake. It came 
 
 Across the water, faint upon the wind; 
 
 Weary it seemed with distance, low, but clear ; 
 
 It was her longing that found out my heart. 
 
 O'er woods and mountain pass she summons me; 
 
 I come, Callista ! O the firm fixed earth 
 
 And infinite heaven are a burning fire, 
 
 And I within the flame am borne by joy. 
 
 Whose car outstrips desire. How beautiful 
 
 Is all the world ! ' Come ere I die ! ' I come. 
 
 Kiss me, my Mother; Father, fare you well. 
 
 YRusJtes out. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Gone in a whirlwind ! I would gladly know 
 What means this passion. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Sire, I partly guess. 
 And the Queen seems to know. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 53 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 A year gone by, 
 Riquet beheld one evening in the woods 
 The vision of a woman heavenly fair; 
 And since, in dreams by night, and oft by day. 
 But oftenest at eve, he has seen her pass 
 Before him and then vanish. With the dream 
 He is love-seized, and hopelessness of passion 
 Has worn him with its frenzy. Now it seems 
 In Lanval's princess he has found his pearl. — 
 A frost is at my heart — I fear he is gone. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Not with my book, I hope ; Madam, I trust 
 That you will take it from him; all my work 
 During the coming summer lies within it. 
 
 KING. 
 
 He is not gone, his passion dies in dreams. 
 
 I'll gage my swiftest hound we find him now 
 
 Revolving like a moon upon the terrace 
 
 And dangling from his hand the book. 
 
 [Enter Servant hastily. 
 
 Speak fool. 
 What means this haste? 
 
54 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 SERVANT. 
 
 Your Majesty, the Prince, 
 Passing me by this instant in the court, 
 And mounted on his Arab, called me forth. 
 " Commend me to their Majesties," he said ; 
 "Say if they need me they will find me near 
 The princess that they wot of. Tell Lanval 
 His book shall be my treasure till we meet." 
 With that he gave his horse the spur, and flashed 
 Over the drawbridge, and before I knew 
 One half he said, the Prince had made himself 
 A flying shadow on the mountain road. 
 
 KING. 
 
 My wager's lost, but I am glad of it; 
 
 I did not think the boy had so much fire. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 And I am sorry; I could wish the Prince 
 Had less of fire ; he has burnt up my book. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 O Lanval, find my son. I am alone 
 
 When he's not here. Go, seek him at the Court 
 
RIQ.UET OF THE TUFT. 55 
 
 You left so lately. You will see with joy 
 Your gloved Princess, regain your book, and gain 
 A mother's gratitude. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Do better still : 
 Be our ambassador, and ask the king, 
 Whose is that forest, if he will receive 
 Me and the Queen as guests. Take with you gifts 
 And courteous letters, and send messengers 
 To bring us answer. Ere the summer die 
 We shall be with you. Constance, is it well? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Happily said! Sir Lanval, you will go? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 To-morrow, Madam; for this one short day 
 Permit me to repose. [Aside]. I am much bored 
 With all these freaks of love ; I have lost my book ; 
 Go ! I must go to find my work again. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Ill wind it is that blows to no one good; 
 Riquet is lost, but I shall hunt that wood. 
 
 [Scene doses. 
 
S6 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 ACT II. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Ilex grove near the Palace of Callista, on the outskirts of the 
 pine wood. A long alley of ilex trees leads from the forest to the 
 gardens of the palace. 
 
 RiQUET and Woodman enter from the forest. 
 
 T 
 
 WOODMAN. 
 
 HIS, sir, is the place. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 There's for your pains. Farewell, 
 Watch over my good horse; I have left it safe, 
 At the tower in the clearing. When I return 
 You shall not lose by me. 
 
 WOODMAN. 
 
 Your servant, Sir, 
 I'll do your bidding carefully. 
 
 \Exit Woodman. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 57 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 He is gone — 
 And I am here alone — glad, very glad. 
 The pine wood is behind me, and the stream, 
 That flowing black and slow among the weeds. 
 And yellow iris, gloomed for awhile my heart. 
 'Twas a strange day. This forest is a world 
 Within itself, but I felt less its soul 
 Than my own thoughts that filled it; in each glade, 
 Hidden by walls of scented heath, I seemed 
 To find Callista ; all my heart was full 
 Of her, and musick, so I wrote this song: — 
 
 Song. 
 
 All the world is sick and cold, 
 
 Till I find Callista! s eyes ; 
 Life is dead, and youth is old, 
 
 Truth and beauty are but lies, 
 If she love me not — O see, 
 Through dim ways she comes to ine ; 
 Comes to me. 
 
 O'er her bosom lie enfurled 
 Spells that only love can breaks 
 
S8 HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 For their breaking waits the world : 
 O most beautiful, awake. 
 Wake to love me, come, press fast 
 Thy sweet lips to viine at last ; 
 
 Mine at last. 
 
 Would God 'twere true. This is the ilex grove 
 
 I have seen in dreams — the very, very place, 
 
 And this the alley where the woodman said, 
 
 Callista walks so often, and alone. 
 
 I'll wait, and venture all, my love, my life, 
 
 On the bolder chance. The straightest man in the world. 
 
 Nay Oberon, his wings instinct with love, 
 
 Flying above the tumbling sea by night 
 
 To kiss Titania in her Indian cave. 
 
 Could not have sped more quickly to his end 
 
 Than I since yesternoon. I am' all changed ; 
 
 And I shall win my day. I love the world, 
 
 And all that meet me love me for my love. 
 
 The women and the children in the village, 
 
 Seeing my heart's wild rapture on my face. 
 
 Were kindly with me, and the forest folk 
 
 Who gather the pine kernels made me rest 
 
 Last night around their fire in the glade. 
 
 And we were joyous ; no one seemed to see. 
 
RIQUJST OF THE TUFT. 59 
 
 So much the Spirit of love within me wrought, 
 How I was made; and as I rode alone, 
 Nature, my mother, held me to her breast, 
 And I was glad, immeasurably glad. 
 The clouds told me theii' secrets, and the streams 
 Talked with me as I passed; in every leaf 
 There was a song, and in all flowers Love 
 Whispered, and smiled on me. 
 
 My heart still sings, 
 And while I wait, I'll sing. 
 
 He sings. 
 
 O lofig ago, when Faery land 
 Arose new born, King Oberon 
 Walked pensive on the yellow strand. 
 And wearied, for he lived alone. 
 
 ' Why have I none, he said, to love ? ' — 
 When soft a wind began to fleet 
 Across the moonlit sea, and drove 
 A lonely shallop to his feet. 
 
 Of pearl, and rubies red, and gold. 
 That shell was made, and in it lay 
 
6o RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Tiiania fast asleep, and rolled 
 In roses, and in flowers of May. 
 
 He waked her with a loving kiss. 
 Her arms around him softly clung ;. 
 And none can ever tell the bliss, 
 These had when Faery-land was young. 
 
 That song was made for me. She comes not yet. 
 
 How dim the grove is, old and stilL This vault 
 
 Of leaves is sunproof, but the radiant light 
 
 Steals through from leaf to leaf, and makes more rich 
 
 The wonder of the darkness blue and warm, 
 
 That fills it like a spirit. Underneath, 
 
 Among the last year's rustling leaves abide 
 
 The gracious children of the cyclamen; 
 
 While the black tangle of the arching boughs 
 
 Seems woven by enchantment, and makes deeper 
 
 Love's sorcery in my heart, and hark, how clear, 
 
 Sad Philomel, whose sorrow hates the sun. 
 
 Sings in this night of leaves her amorous song, 
 
 Too mournful for my heart. 
 
 My song I made 
 When I awokej in hope and in the morning bathed. 
 Was better, truer far. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 61 
 
 He sings. 
 
 Woods are lovely in the Spring, 
 Roses in the Autumn's dew, 
 Summer's clouds upon the wing. 
 Winter, white upon the yew — 
 
 But my sweethearts rosy lips 
 
 All this beauty do eclipse. 
 
 Every one that sees her face 
 
 Sees the heavenly citadel. 
 
 How shall I attain her grace, 
 
 Who all mortal doth excel 1 
 
 How shall I my treasure woo 1 
 Birds and woodland, tell me true. 
 
 'Love her' — -from the lilac hush 
 Rang the challenge of the starling; 
 'Faint heart' — whistled loud the thrush, 
 'Why have you not hissed your darling 1 
 
 Loving is a simple art; 
 
 Clasp her to your beating heart'. 
 
 The air grows sweeter, 
 And a soft whisper runs from tree to tree, 
 
62 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The flowers lift their heads, and the earth breathes like one 
 Who sleeps with Love. 
 
 \Callista is seen entering the avenue. 
 She comes, she comes, my own, 
 My very vision; white from head to foot. 
 Beneath the enchanted trees, moving like light 
 Down the long alley, pure and pale and still, 
 Her pacing like a deer, her eyes cast down ; 
 Taking no heed of life, deaf to the song 
 Nature sings round her, to its beauty blind : 
 A folded rose, a fountain sealed, a world 
 Waiting the dawn. 
 
 And I shall give her life ! 
 I tremble like a willow in the wind : 
 Is it with joy or fear, or both in one? 
 Hush, leaping heart, take courage, should you not 
 Thrill into tenfold life to meet your queen? 
 I'll stand apart and watch. Lie there, my songj 
 It may be she will see thee, read and wonder 
 Who is it that so loves her. Then I will speak. 
 
 \RiQUET retires among the trees. 
 
 Enter Callista. 
 
 The wood is warm and dark, and all the birds 
 Are hushed except the nightingale ; my heart 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 63 
 
 Seems like an open grave : in all the world 
 There is no voice, no hand, to welcome me. 
 I am weary of my life. 
 
 \Seeing the paper] What is this thing ? 
 
 [Reads] " To Callista ! " 
 
 Why, that is I. Who writes to poor Callista? 
 
 [She reads the song. 
 'Tis a dull song; it calls me beautiful — 
 A witless beauty for whom no one cares. 
 
 RIQUET (aside). 
 I have, my love, the wit to care for you. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I have none left to speak to, could I speak. 
 
 My father, sister, maidens, all have left me, 
 
 Even that painter. No one loves me, none. 
 
 It is a cruel world, and I in it 
 
 Most beautiful, but most, O most unhappy ! [ Weeps. 
 
 RIQUET (coming forward). 
 
 Princess, divine Callista, do not weep. 
 The earth is beautiful for you, and heaven 
 Smiles when it sees you ; all men worship you, 
 All women love you. 
 
64 RIQ.UET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Pray, sir, who are you? 
 More than the jester's freedom marks your words. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I am Prince Riquet and Callista's slave. 
 
 Through one slow year my dreams had shaped you forth, 
 
 Nof knowing if you breathed to enrich the world ; 
 
 But yestermorn I saw your heavenly face 
 
 In Lanval's book, and when I knew you lived. 
 
 Fire seized my heart — and from my father's house, 
 
 And o'er the mountain pass, as swift as thought, 
 
 And through the woods my passion bore me on, 
 
 More tireless than the swallow's southern flight. 
 
 Constant as song within the skylark's heart. 
 
 And desolate without you as the night 
 
 On wastes of mountain snow. 
 
 Give me some love ; 
 Love me a little, love me all in all. 
 Do you not hear the silence of the woods? 
 They listen for your answer. Answer me. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 You seem a prince ; your voice and manner speak 
 Of gentle birth, but you are much unlike 
 
JilQUET OF THE TUFT. 6.5 
 
 The princes that I know. A prince should be 
 As handsome as the day : I cannot love 
 A man whom nature has made so awry. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Could you but love me, we might find a cure 
 For Nature's fault; and beauty is not all 
 Love needs to kindle or to keep its fire. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 that is true ; for I am fair, and yet 
 
 1 win no love, I am too dull to live ; 
 
 I think, but all my thoughts escape my will ; 
 Sorrow and joy I only seem to touch 
 Ere they are gone; and when I strive to speak, 
 The words die on my lips: I'd gladly be 
 Like my dark sister, even like to you, 
 Could I be wise. My beauty is base dross ; 
 I scorn it, hate it, and would yield it all 
 To have one grain of master-making wit. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 O blame not beauty, it makes glad the world. 
 Kings, warriors, statesmen, artists, patriots. 
 
66 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The peasant of the waste, mechanic churls, 
 
 Nature and all her haunting spirits, all heav'n. 
 
 All faeryland, and even the great Gods, 
 
 Have loved and worshipped it : there is no power 
 
 Its star does not command; its empire is 
 
 By right divine, its worship duty. You 
 
 Have beauty, and by it you rule the world. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I have no empire. Of my little world 
 Wit is the master, for my sister rules 
 My father, all the courtiers, and myself; 
 Nay, even the princes turn from me to her 
 To hear her wisdom ; were she not to me 
 Kindness itself, I'd hate her heart for that. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 All princes are not fools. I, who have wit, 
 Find myself threefold wise in loving you. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Can you love dulness? That is strange, for I 
 Could not love you, although your eyes are deep. 
 And like my sister's, quick with light. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 67 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 If wit 
 Were mine to give you, what would you give to me? 
 
 CALHSTA. 
 
 Give ! All I have to give. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Yourself? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Myself ! 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Yes ; would you marry me ? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Not for the world. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Think not so quickly : by a fairy grace 
 I can give wit and wisdom where I love, 
 And I love you. Give me your hand, and I 
 Shall be the lord of joy ; and you, Wit's queen, 
 Shall have the kingdom that a woman loves — 
 
 F 
 
68 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The worship of mankind, life gay and full 
 And changeful as an ocean, and a heart 
 So tuned to beauty that your joy in life, 
 Filling your being, shall make all men love you. 
 
 CALLTSTA. 
 
 I should be happy then. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Be happy then. 
 Take but a tithe of all that I can give ; 
 
 \He waves his hand. 
 Do you not feel the birth of thought — the first 
 Faint dawn of life and power and change and love ? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Strange, strange — the silent fountains of my heart 
 
 Move in their slumber, and the gates of my brain 
 
 Begin unfold their leaves. O Sir, fulfil 
 
 This gladness, make me know my life, give me 
 
 Myself. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 [Aside] O Galatea ! [Aloud] I'll give you all. — 
 New life a thousand fold more beautiful 
 Sleeps in your heart; speak but a little word. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 69 
 
 And it will waken like the earth at morning. 
 
 Love, flowing through my will into your being, 
 
 Has wrought this wonder, and your soul has passed 
 
 From death to dreams; but there's no tongue can tell 
 
 What joy, what power, what glory shall be yours 
 
 When I have bid Imagination like 
 
 A god who goes to make afresh a world 
 
 Enter your heart, winged and alit with life, 
 
 Armed with transfiguring powers. He waits your promise, 
 
 Waits at the gates of being. 
 
 Say — I am yours ; 
 And this pale dawn shall brighten into day. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Had I but wit I should love life ; I fear 
 
 The love of life would like you less, not more. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 No, Princess, then you might be wise enough 
 To love my heart. Try, use my gift for a year ; 
 Then be my wife. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I will not have your gift. 
 
 [Horns heard, and the hunt is seen passing 
 in the distance. 
 
70 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Look to the huiir ; 
 
 See how the courtiers crowd around your sister 
 
 To hear her pleasant speech. Think how their praise 
 
 Would bend round you when wit and beauty joined 
 
 Had made you queen. Thought cannot paint the power 
 
 Your lightest word would have. 
 
 Callista {who has followed the hunt with longing 
 
 eyes, turning impetuously to Riquet). 
 
 I will take it. 
 I will marry you. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Give me your hand, Princess. 
 Thought, wit and wisdom, feeling, fancy, all 
 Imagination's world, I give to you. 
 [Aside] Her eyes light up already, and her mouth 
 Trembles with coming thought. O how the blood 
 Flies to and fro upon her cheek and tells 
 The change and dawn of her heart — She opens like 
 A rose in the sun. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Oh — what is this? The clouds 
 Lift off my mind as I have seen the mists 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 71 
 
 Rise in warm autumn noons and leave the pines : 
 
 And rushing like streams new swollen with mountain rains, 
 
 Thoughts, fancies, dreams, and joys, and love, and hope, 
 
 The knowledge and the passions of the world. 
 
 And the glow and power and life of womanhood. 
 
 Pour in full flood into my empty soul; 
 
 And to my lips words come as thick as elves 
 
 Dancing in utter joy upon the meadows 
 
 When summer moonlight shines. O wonderful ! 
 
 Prince Riquet, I am grateful. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Callista — 
 Gladness is mine since you are glad. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 How rich 
 In beauty is the world ! This wood wherein 
 I wandered without sense and soul is full 
 Of voices sweeter than Titania's eyes; 
 The breath of the soft leaves and flowers is like 
 A child's kiss on my lips ; a river of youth 
 Streams through my heart. The very air is love. 
 I have awakened from an ugly dream 
 Into a world of joy ! 
 
72 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 [Aside] She marks me not ; 
 Not even sees me. In her new-bom life, 
 That like a fountain springs to meet the sun, 
 I do not live; already all's forgotten. 
 [Aloud] Of all the love you give the virorld, give me 
 A little ere I go. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I will recall 
 With pleasure that I met you, when you go. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Not memory nor gratitude I ask, 
 But love, from you. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 It must not be. Prince Riquet. 
 Your very gift has made your suit in vain; 
 And were it not that I am far too glad 
 To be so changed, I should regret your fate. 
 It is so strange and sad by giving love 
 To kill your chance of love — 
 
RJQUET OF THE TUFT. 73 
 
 Here in my heart. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I have your promise, 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Yes, yes ; I promised when 
 I knew not what life was : a change of being 
 Dissolves the promises that other life 
 Made for itself; and now, new-born, I throw 
 All the old dream and all it said away. 
 With kindness I will meet you, but with love 
 Not while I live. You cannot force a pledge. 
 Made in a moment of despair and pain. 
 Into a lifelong burden. Be chivalrous. 
 And set me free. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Kindness from you I hate, 
 Freedom for you is death to me: I love, 
 And love seeks life, not death. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Nay, worse than death 
 To live with me and love me while I felt 
 No love, but anger deepening to distaste. 
 
74 EIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Give me my promise back, and I will be 
 Your friend for ever. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Then give back my soul. 
 Through me you think, and feel, and see the world, 
 Through me receive all beauty, know all truth, 
 Through me you live and love, and you will charm 
 All men through me. I have created you. 
 And yet you leave me. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Do you repent your gift ? 
 If not, you claim too much. A woman takes. 
 But in her taking she does so much honour, 
 A man should ask no more: if he need more. 
 He makes a second gift, and all his gifts 
 Ask no reward but only leave to love. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 The wit I gave you. Princess, you have used 
 Against the giver ; perhaps the second gift 
 Your careless avarice needs is that of love. 
 
JilQUET OF THE TUFT. 75 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I know not love; I do not wish to love. 
 
 I wish to rule, to use my new-found powers, 
 
 To play with life and men, to wander free 
 
 And drink enjoyment, to find changing food 
 
 In every moment for my new desires. 
 
 And rapture in my life. There is no end 
 
 To all I wish, and hope, and long for — none. 
 
 I have no room for love ; it seems a dream. 
 
 Be pitiful, Prince Riquet, set me free. 
 
 Or if you will not, I will free myself. 
 
 I am a child, and not a woman now, 
 
 Only just born, a child within a woman, 
 
 A woman who sees all things like a child. 
 
 Who longs to play in the sunshine and not think. 
 
 Who wishes to be liked, but not to love. 
 
 Who cannot love as you desire love, 
 
 But who resents a chain : undo the chain. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 To bind a woman is to make her cruel. 
 
 And — you have pleaded well ; yet you are mine ; 
 
 I will not loose the bond. 
 
76 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 O far less kind 
 Than suits with gentle birth ! Are you a prince, 
 And claim as right what you should woo as grace ? 
 Then, Prince, farewell. You might have set me free, 
 And then I might have loved you — but not now. 
 \Half aside\ O joyful days to come ! I think of love ! 
 I who have power, and every power untried ! 
 I'll prove them all. My world is at my feet, 
 Like a new land that from the mountain's edge 
 Bursts on the traveller's eye. Before I rest, 
 I'll conquer it to its remotest bound. 
 And be its queen. What will these wooers say, 
 And what my sister? I can stay no longer. 
 \Aloud\ Good-bye, Prince Riquet, do not look so sad ; 
 There is no sadness in the world at all. 
 
 \Exit Callista. 
 
 RIQUET (alone). 
 
 What a wild wonder is a woman's will ! 
 Impulse commands it, hope, and faith, and love; 
 But conscience never, truth and justice never. 
 Who could enchain it, could bind fast the sun, 
 And whirling earth, and make the flying wind 
 
EIQUET OF THE TUFT. 77 
 
 A prisoner, and lay a sudden hand 
 Upon the lightning's arrow. 
 
 She is gone ; — 
 Heartless, ungrateful, false — and I am left, 
 Love's wandering exile, beaten with chill sorrows, 
 Alone, the dwelling of despair ; and yet 
 Hope, over all, a dove against the storm. 
 Unwearied seeks its home; she shall be mine. 
 For the next year she lives and breathes by me, 
 Her very soul is mine. 
 
 She said — Farewell, 
 Farewell for ever. No — for ever mine. 
 
 Scene closes. 
 
78 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Circular Glade in the Pine Wood. It is late evening 
 of the same day. 
 
 Enter Riquet. 
 
 I AM vext at heart and weary to the death. 
 For wandering midst the thoughts of ruined love, 
 Among the mazes of this sorrowful wood, 
 Where I am so forgotten, I have lost 
 The path I did not care to find. 
 
 Slow climbs, 
 White as a ghost, o'er cloudy stairs, the moon, 
 Drowning the stars in light ; as slowly climbs 
 Sorrow's cold moon within my heart, and pours 
 Pain on my life. If thought would set me free, 
 Here would I rest, for now the shepherd's lamp 
 Has sunk below the west; and the heavy night 
 Droops her dusk eyelids o'er this drowsy glade. 
 The meadow is at peace ; and circling round, 
 The dark-browed pines watch o'er its secret, and 
 Pity and welcome me ; and soft the grass, 
 Where, in the midst, and like a beating heart. 
 
HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 79 
 
 The rejoicing fountain urges up its wave, 
 And flows, a stream of music, through the fern 
 Singing itself to sleep. Would I could hear 
 My mother's voice ! Passion of sorrow makes 
 A man a child. What use ! my grievous wound 
 None but the giver of the wound can cure. 
 Sleep, visit me, hush the wild storm within. 
 Give me some hope in dreams. 
 
 O, broken truth 1 
 Lost love, and life made ruin like a path 
 Breached by the mountain floods ! 
 {Takes out her picture.) This is her image — 
 I cannot see a lie in this sweet face j 
 And yet she smiled and lied and went away. 
 False, O Callista, false ! 
 
 Enter Gentilla behind, who touches him with her wand. 
 
 Sleep, my child, sleep. 
 \RiQUET sinks on the grass near the fountain, 
 and the fairy bends over him. 
 
 His face is worn with pain, and yet his grief 
 And passion have so wrought it that it wins 
 Some of his mother's beauty. She was young 
 When first I loved her ; the quick-footed wind. 
 That leads the choir of many-coloured clouds 
 
So RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 To dance their morrice in the fields of heaven, 
 Was not more joyful. Oft in summer nights 
 We roved the woods, waking the flowers from sleep. 
 Then sat beside the moonlight streamlet, where 
 I told her tales of Faery while the dark 
 Thrilled with the nightingale. 
 
 RIQUET (dreaming). 
 
 Callista, speak, 
 Give me your hand. 
 
 GENTILLA. 
 
 Rest, rest, unquiet heart. 
 Forget her for a time. Your mother loved. 
 Like you, too well, and when the knight who won 
 Her passionate youth, died, smitten by the boar. 
 Her childhood died, and after bitter days 
 She found dim comfort in the warlike love 
 The King laid at her feet. I loved her still. 
 Though she had mortal sorrow ; and her son. 
 Sleeping so sadly here, is dear to me. 
 
 RIQUET {crying out in his dream). 
 
 Gone, gone ! Undo this dreadful silence : who 
 Waits in the chamber? Bring me lights. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 GENTILLA. 
 
 O hush, 
 Poor, foolish boy; take from my spell deep sleep. 
 And learn within its softly spinning sphere 
 That when another year dissolves the curse 
 Cast round your birth, and sweet Callista speaks 
 The word that makes you beautiful as Spring, 
 When in the woods he wakens like a fire, 
 She will so love you that a single hour 
 Of that immeasurable life of passion 
 Will drown your past in joy. 
 
 How like a child, 
 Tired of sorrow, at last he dreamless sleeps. 
 It is a healthy slumber; with earth's soft pulse 
 The sleeper's pulse is going, and the woods 
 Whisper around him peace. The hour has come 
 To comfort him and take him to my world 
 Of faery stillness, where his heart shall be 
 The palace of expectant joy ; and day by day 
 Sweet dreams, like wild-eyed dawns, shall make his hope 
 For ever young — dreams such as now I bring 
 To sing his grief to slumber. I will call 
 My soft-winged creatures of the elements. 
 Who live within my life. Come, come, my elves, 
 
 G 
 
82 RIQUET OF THE TV FT. 
 
 Where in cool shade and water you delay, 
 Flying the sunlight; come, the moon is high. 
 And in this glade my favourite weary lies. — 
 I hear the wind their fanning plumes awaken : 
 The dark wood seems 'on fire. — 
 
 O welcome, elves. 
 
 Enter three bands of Fairies. 
 
 FIRST BAND. 
 
 Mistress, from the moors and mountains 
 At thy bidding, we are here. 
 
 SECOND BAND. 
 
 We have heard thee from the fountains 
 And the streams, and reedy mere. 
 
 THIRD BAND. 
 
 Woodland dwellers, we have fled 
 From our soft and honied bed. 
 
 Swiftly speak, thy pleasure tell; 
 Ere the nightingale repeat 
 
FIQUET OF TUB TUFT. 83 
 
 In the dell her sorrow sweet, 
 We will do it, quick and well. 
 
 GENTILLA. 
 
 See where Prince Riquet lies, sleeping for grief. 
 Of old you loved him : cheer him with your dance, 
 Weave through his brain a web of peace and joy, 
 Tell him his fate in music, soothe his heart. 
 
 The Fairies dance round Riquet, singing. 
 
 Prince, the months will quickly flow 
 Through their zones of gloom and glow ; 
 
 You are young, and well may bear 
 Lovis sweet longing for a year. 
 In the summer you shall lie, 
 Hidden from all mortal eye. 
 In our elfin castle where 
 Sorrow never is, or care ; 
 All the autumn you shall dwell 
 In Titania's Orient dell. 
 Nourishing your love apart ; 
 
 Winter shall not touch your heart 
 
 With sharp cold, for you shall be 
 
 With the Princes of the sea 
 
 G 2 
 
84 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 In warm islands ; and in spring 
 When with love the world doth ring, 
 We will bring you to this glade, 
 Where of old the fairies made 
 Underground, a palace gay. 
 Then upon the fated day 
 We will draw Callista here ; 
 She shall list with pretty fear 
 ^ Neath the earth the marriage noise- 
 Blowing horns and marching boys. 
 Maidens chatting while arraying, 
 Servants running, tables laying. 
 Dishes clinking, wine outpouring, 
 Calling cooks, and fires roaring. 
 She will ask, ' Why, what is this 2 ' 
 And the little folk shall say, 
 ' ^Tis Prince Riqiiet's marriage day 
 And Callista is his bliss.' 
 Then appear and you shall gain 
 All you hoped for long in vain. 
 
 GENTILLA. 
 
 O sweetly sung ! Away, and meet me where 
 The ancient oak-wood stays the hastening stream, 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 85 
 
 And reddens round the moonlit glade where now 
 Titania leads the dance. \They vanish. 
 
 Awaken ! Prince, 
 Follow me quickly, wake to hope and love. 
 
 \Exit Gentilla . 
 
 RIQUET (awaking). 
 
 Stay heavenly vision, speak, and tell me more. 
 
 Where am I — -It is night — yet they were here : 
 
 And they have sung sweet hope into my heart 
 
 To courage patience. I will abide this year. 
 
 For now my heart is warm, the breast of night 
 
 Glows with my love, and driving fast through heaven, 
 
 Girt by the Spirits of the rising wind — 
 
 Callista is the goddess who conducts 
 
 The full-orbed chariot of the cloud-flecked moon 
 
 Through stars that chant her beauty. 
 
 LANVAL (shouting in the wood). 
 
 Hillo— Ho ! 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 What voice breaks on the silence of my love, 
 And shocks the night? 
 
86 RJQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 LANVAL (finfering the glaie). 
 
 At last ! an open space- 
 How glad I am to scape the gloomy wood I 
 Could I but find some wandering peasant here, 
 I might sleep sound to-night, and lo, my wish 
 Answered at once, for near the fountain's edge 
 A man lies sleeping. 
 
 RiQUET {rising). 
 
 Lanval, as I live- 
 Welcome ! A friend's face is a rose in May. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Is't you, my Prince, strayed like myself, alone? 
 At this cold hour the rose is closed, and I 
 Am shrunk with the spring-frost, but why I find 
 Prince Riquet here, who underneath the moon 
 Courts chilly sleep, makes me as lost in wonder 
 As I have been within this pathless wood — 
 Where is the palace, for I die for sleep? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I cannot tell. I too have lost my way-^ 
 It may be, lost my love. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 87 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Have you not seen 
 Callista in the grove of which I told you? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Yes, I have seen her, and have loved her more 
 Than frost-bound prudence wilted. I gave her all, 
 In reckless trust that she would give me love. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 What did she say ? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 She laughed, and fled away, 
 To use my gift, she said, and left me sorrow. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 'Tis pitiful. It was not wise, my Prince, 
 To give away a world you could not hold 
 When it was given. 'Twas folly to give all. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Where have you been, and thinking what dull thoughts. 
 To talk the doleful jargon of the world 
 
88 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Of wisdom and of folly ? Wisdom is 
 In giving all ; the love that cannot give 
 All, foolishly, is folly. 
 
 I am glad 
 You had a heart so great; but I am grieved, 
 Vext like a child that she has won her soul ; 
 For it will trouble all her beauty, as 
 A well, outbreaking underneath, disturbs 
 The sleeping summer of a lonely lake, 
 That imaged all its shores and woods, and made 
 Their images more soft and fair, but now 
 Rippled by inward life reflects no more. 
 She had the rest of Sculpture, — yet she moved. 
 Joy and surprise it was to watch her changes ; 
 For every change seemed a new statue wrought 
 By a great artist in his greatest hour. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 You did not think this treason on the day 
 
 Of which you told me, when love touched her, and 
 
 She rose in ecstacy. O see, your eyes 
 
 Flash to remember it. Not death, but life 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 89 
 
 Makes Beauty ; new life makes beauty greater — 
 As loveliness unloved is like the rose 
 Without the dew and sunshine. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Does she love ? 
 I thought she ran away from love, 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Alas! 
 She loves not, but she shall. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 What is she now ? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 She has gained wit but with it a hard heart. 
 
 LANVAL, 
 
 Whether her heart be hard as Atlas' top, 
 
 Or softer than the honey which Hymettus 
 
 Gives to his bees, I do not care ; within 
 
 Her matchless beauty I entrance myself; 
 
 You in your love. Her beauty, is that changed ? 
 
90 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 She is fair, yet not so fair, changed the wrong way. 
 
 Life ripples through her like a stream in the sun. 
 
 As sparkling and as cold ; within her eyes 
 
 A restless Fancy moves ; her scornful lips 
 
 Redden with epigram, not love ; no touch 
 
 Of passion gives her wings to reach 
 
 That world where life is lost, and found, and crowned. 
 
 fatal gift ! 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 No, not to you ! You'll find 
 New matter in her. Go, paint her in unrest. 
 She is so changed, she will disturb in you 
 Part of your nature that now sleeps, and set 
 Its powers into war with peaceful art ; 
 But she will force you out of painting thoughts 
 To paint quick things ; so you will gain by loss ; 
 And when her heart awakes, you will rejoice. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 1 do not understand. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. ' 91 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 There is no need. 
 All that you seem to lose will come again 
 When once she loves. It is the charm of love 
 That its last, wildest rapture in the heart, 
 Contented, lapses to the quiet of joy, 
 And then from that, to uttermost repose 
 In which desire sleeps. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 You are wiser, Prince, 
 Than I have thought you. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It is no wonder; 
 Ere this I only loved, now I have seen 
 The woman that I love. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 But I love none, 
 And I am starved and cold; and love may be 
 To others meat and fire ; for me, I want 
 Not woman's smiles, but food and heat and sleep : 
 And could you tell me, Prince, where I might find them 
 
92 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 I would make bold to leave you with the moon : — 
 They say she once had sympathy with love. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Go straight before you where Orion shines 
 
 Over the pines. It may be you will find 
 
 Callista's place of rest. Guard her from ill ; 
 
 Bid her remember : I will keep my pledge — 
 
 Twelve months shall make her mine — Meantime I go, 
 
 Borne in the viewless chariot of the dawn, 
 
 Far to the Western Isles. Speak to my mother ; 
 
 Tell her the sorrow of our parting hour 
 
 Shall be o'erwhelmed in joy, that I am glad, 
 
 Nay more, in hope triumphant, and that safe 
 
 Lodged with Gentilla for a quiet year, 
 
 I shall remember her with constant love. 
 
 \Exit RlQUET. 
 LANVAL. 
 
 He is much changed. I would that I could love ; 
 It shifts the poles of life ; but with it storm 
 Blows high, and work needs peace. A double love 
 Divides the house of life until it fall ; 
 I'll care for art alone — 
 
 O I forget. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 93 
 
 My book, the goal and beacon of my haste, 
 Is with the Prince — \Running and shouting. 
 
 Prince Riquet, ho ! In vain — 
 The forest drowns my voice, the rushing wind 
 Has borne him on its wings away, and I 
 Find nothing but the grass whereon he lay 
 Couched like a hare. Sweet was the place he chose, 
 Close by the lucent stream that running sings 
 Its lyric to the moon. Her light falls soft 
 Upon the embroidered fern and tangled flowers, 
 And shines among the mossy stones that fret 
 The wandering brook. What is't that glimmers there 
 Where the Prince slept ? It seems a silver star 
 Fallen from the horn of the moon. Is't possible? — 
 It is indeed, my very, very book. 
 And its illumined clasp that smiles to find me 
 Lost in this wood. Be welcome to my hand. 
 Dear truant, strayed and found. 
 
 {He takes up the book) 
 'Tis strange he left it 
 If he loved. Yet, he who has seen his love 
 With passionate eyes needs not her image then, 
 So fine an artist is Love's memory — 
 Thus runs their talk. 
 
 The night grows cold, the trees' 
 
94 jRIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Shiver and darken, and the dawn is nigh. 
 The Western Isles ! so said the Prince ; it is 
 A weary journey. I am bone-tired and starved ; 
 The Western Isles I seek are food and sleep. 
 There gleams Orion and there lies my way. 
 
 \Exit Lanval. 
 The scene doses. 
 
w 
 
 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 95 
 
 ACT III. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Palace of Callista. The Garden. 
 
 A year has passed by since the last scene. 
 
 Enter Two Ladies of the Court. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 HERE do you come from? 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 From the studio. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 And I too : I did not see you, but then I sat behind a screen 
 and laughed till I was weary. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 No wonder, so did I. I should not like to be a Prince. 
 
96 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Nor I ; when Callista is by. Did you ever hear the like ? 
 She plays with her suitors as a juggler with oranges. No sooner 
 does one of them think that he rests in her hand than he flies into 
 the air. He gone, she takes the other and flings him up. To 
 and fro they fly, now visiting hope in her hand, then touching 
 despair in the air, but only at home in the dull amazement of mid 
 passage. They cannot die for love, they have no time to die. 
 It is pleasant to see men so terribly befooled. 
 
 SKCOND LADY. 
 
 I like her for it. Had she favoured one and flouted the rest, 
 I shouldn't have liked it so well. But she cared for none, and 
 spared none, and they deserved their buffeting. She has wreaked 
 the wrongs of all our sex, and for that I love her. And then who 
 can be jealous of her ? At least not I. What of you ? 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Not I. She is too beautiful to compare with. They say no 
 fairy is jealous of Titania. And most of the Princes were clothed 
 with folly, and shod with dulness, and capped with vanity. Who 
 cared whether they cared or not for Callista ! There was Prince 
 Florizel who was in love with his figure, and Prince Candy who 
 worshipped his own sentiment, and Prince Verduret who talked 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 97 
 
 of his dogs, and the two brothers that played the wind and the 
 rain in love and blustered and wept by turns, and Prince Almanzor 
 whom fate and his father made a fool, and a hundred others. 
 They came as thick as bears to a honey nest, but they went away 
 empty and stung. Only two are left now, and they are stupid. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 But some were brave young men, and worth a woman's eye. 
 I found one, and so did you. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Oh yes ! that they were. It is CaUista's doing that we are 
 all married. She drove them by her coldness and mockery to 
 find comfort in us ; and so mauled and wounded did they come 
 that they were ready to take our scoffing for tenderness and our 
 coldness for love. We had choice enough. She has been a 
 blessing to the Court, for her scorn has made more marriages 
 in a year than love in ten, and a blessing to wives, for all our 
 husbands are tame. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 -Even Graciosa, her sister, was wed : how strange that was. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 I was away then, tell me about it. 
 
98 RTQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 YoTi know she married Prince Charming, the most beautiful 
 Prince in the world. It was her wit and her sweet way of think- 
 ing that enthralled him. His brain went like a snail's, hers flew 
 like the eagle. If he thought of a matter he lost his way in 
 it, and then she found it for him, and this amazed him into 
 adoration. He didn't care for Callista, nor she for him; they 
 were both so beautiful that they put one another out. But she 
 stung him till he was unhappy, and then he wished to be loved 
 and comforted. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 In short, plainness and kindness were better than beauty and 
 scorn. And perhaps, he had enough of beauty in himself, and 
 ugliness had its charm for him — when it was fine-spirited. Had 
 Narcissus met an ugly woman who could talk like Graciosa he 
 would not have died of self-love. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Just so ; and he wooed Graciosa, and she loved him for his 
 beauty, and then for his humility, and then for his worship ; for 
 his love began in reverence and ended in passion. Dull as the 
 man was, he had the wit to love. I never saw any one look 
 happier on his wedding day, " Dear, you shall rule the 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 99 
 
 kingdom," I heard him say as they stood in the deep window- 
 where the jasmine climbs the wall. "Nay," she answered, 
 "let me rule-:you, and then I shall rule the kingdom, and I 
 rule by loving. My kingdom is here," and she laid her head on 
 his breast. She looked pretty then — I could not get away nor 
 yet help seeing them — so I watched them through the leaves. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 What did he say ? 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Nothing, but he put his hand on her hair — you remember it — 
 soft, dark as a thunder-cloud, her one beauty — and he kissed her, 
 and then drew up his head proudly, not of himself but of her, 
 and his infinite love made him both wise and bright. When a 
 man has the wit to be proud of a woman, he is no longer 
 witless. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 But Callista ; how did she like it, was she jealous ? 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Not a bit ! She was delighted. She liked Prince Charming 
 when he no longer wanted to marry her, and she always loved her 
 sister. It was pretty to see her bid them good-bye. " Farewell 
 darling," she said to Graciosa, " you are not as beautiful as I 
 am, but you are ten times more charming. What will you be 
 
 H 2 
 
loo RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 now you are married to Charming?" — and she gave her 
 hand over her sister's shoulder to the Prince. And then Graciosa 
 whispered to her, and Callista told me what she said when we 
 talked next day in the pleached alley — " I was ugly, but he and 
 I loved, and now he thinks me beautiful, and I know he is wise. 
 You are beautiful, and when you love you will be wise." 
 " Am I not wise now? " said Callista. " No, dear, only witty and 
 clever, not wise. Wisdom is love's gift." "Then I won't be 
 wise for a while,'' Callista answered — and if not loving be not 
 being wise, she has kept her word — -there is not a touch, not 
 one sign of love about her. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 No, and so much the better. The Court is as gay as a wood 
 in spring v.'hen all the birds and beasts are making holiday. 
 What dances, and hunts, and parties in the forest ! What 
 masques and mummings at night ! What feasts for this and 
 for that ! But I begin to be tired. See ! the huntsmen and 
 the dogs are coming through the gate. That horn was cheerily 
 blown. It is King Riquet's note, let us go and see them off; 
 they will start in half an hour. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 No, stay here quietly. I am weary of that King. It is 
 nearly a year since he came to fill the Court with noise, and 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. loi 
 
 he won't go while there's a stag in the chase or a heron in 
 the pools. And his wife, she wearies me also. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Too much sentiment; living in flowers and music and the 
 past, and always in mourning. Why did they marry, why 
 come together at all? They are matched like two dissonant 
 bells in a tower. Were I married so, I would unmariy. I 
 believe the only thing they ever agreed on was in coming here, 
 and I don't know why they came. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 No one knows but Lanval, now that our King is dead. It 
 is whispered that their son, Prince Riquet, is deformed, and 
 was in love with Callista. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Lanval let fall one day, in a reckless humour, that Callista 
 owed her wit to the Prince, on a promise she would marry 
 him. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 No, no, she met a fairy in the ilex grove who pitied her 
 and changed her. 
 
jiz RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 I heard it was a man, a misshapen man. You remember 
 the day she went out as silent and dull as she had been 
 since a child ? 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Yes, this day last year. One is not likely to forget it. She 
 went out like a diamond set in lead; her beauty made htr 
 dulness seem more dull. She came back, a living diamond, 
 scattering diamonds at every word and look and smile. . Her 
 father, the whole Court were struck dumb. No wonder ; she 
 talked like a loosened river. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Well, that very day, Prince Charming, hunting in the forest, 
 met a wild-eyed dwarf who would give him no answer when 
 he asked which way the stag had gone. I know Prince 
 Riquet is a dwarf, and there are some who say the fairies love 
 him, and that he has strange wit, and a strange power of giving 
 it. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Did Callista ever speak of it ? 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 103 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Never. She is silent as death about that day. When King 
 Riquet spoke once of his son — she said — " Who is he ? " When 
 her father asked her where she got her wit — "She found it," 
 she answered, "in the ilex grove." When I questioned her 
 about it — she answered — " Be glad I have it, as I am, and ask 
 no questions.'' Anyway she has forgotten all about its be- 
 ginning ; her wit is second nature now. Even when her father 
 died, nine months ago, she did not mourn for long. Her 
 joyous life could not contain itself in the prison of grief 
 Her sorrow was true, but it was short ; she wept bitterly, but 
 she dried her tears as eagerly. I long to get to the bottom of 
 the secret ; I wish Lanval would tell me ; — Listen, I hear 
 his voice. 
 
 Lanval, singing outside the scene. 
 
 When a woman is most curst, 
 Then the world is at its worst. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 That is pleasant news ! he does not seem happy. Here 
 he comes, looking as black as night. I'd ask him my ques- 
 tion if I dared, but he is so changed of late I scarcely know 
 him. How gay he was, but now — 
 
 [Enter Lanval. 
 
I04 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Good day, Sir Lanval. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Good ! It is drear and dull, 
 A hateful world. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Drear ! dull ! The sun is bright. 
 The world is tuned to love, not hate, the sky 
 Sleeps in the quiet of sweet air, the starlings 
 Chat in the lilacs, and the martins dip 
 Their dusk wings in the pond in utter joy : 
 There's not a living thing which does not try 
 To make the beauty of the day more beautiful. 
 Look at the insects, how they flash in colour 
 From shade to radiance ; harken the birds 
 How even in warm noon they sing ; and see. 
 How proudly, like a ruffling ship ot snow, 
 The swan sails through the sunlight. High and gay 
 Leaps the bright fountain, trees and flowers and grass 
 Give and receive delight — What is this humour? 
 Why so out of tune? 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 105 
 
 ■ LANVAL. 
 
 At dawn I thought with you. 
 The choir of birds awakened me ; I saw 
 Phoebus rise ardent and his sea-washed steeds 
 Rush upwards, snorting gold, and then my heart 
 Glowed in me like the god; but now my mood 
 Is soured and changed ; I hate the day ; the sky 
 Is dead, and the sun hard, the busy birds 
 Trouble the humming air, and trees and flowers 
 Are too self-pleased. Their temper is not mine. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 O, fortunately! Else Dame Nature were 
 
 In evil case. I think you have wrought to-day 
 
 At your great picture of the Princess ? 
 
 LANVAL (angrily). 
 
 No! 
 She came this morning, but she brought her troop ; 
 They talked like sparrows in the village street 
 Over a heap of straw, and she talked with them 
 As if she liked their chirping, flashing forth 
 Into a hail of epigrams, and laughed, 
 Until I hated her and them. My pencil 
 
io6 HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Dropped — so did my spirits ; Then she said 
 ' Not in the vein, Sir Lanval ! Can it be 
 That Art is as capricious as myself? 
 I thought the only mistress that you loved 
 Was always faithful. Shall I sit no longer ? ' 
 Madam, I said, you have not sat at all. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Oh ! That was roughly said, but you are freed 
 From courtesy by genius. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I was once 
 All courtesy, but I am wrenched awry 
 By fools, and by caprice. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 That's very clear. 
 I would not have your temper. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Had you heard 
 The universal silence when I said 
 
EIQUET OF THE TUFT. 107 
 
 Those angry words, and then the chattering noise 
 Of those bedizened monkeys, snarling blame. 
 You would have scorned their miserable lives. 
 What madness brought me here? A close sick air; 
 It stifles me. What artist breathes in courts? 
 I hate them all. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 We too were there, we heard 
 Callista mock the world, but tired with laughter 
 Left ere the sitting closed, and did not hear 
 This pleasant thing. What said the Princess, she 
 Knows you and loves you. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Aye, she understood, 
 And glancing at those popinjays and me. 
 And softly smiling to herself, well pleased 
 To stir their folly and my humour, said 
 'To lose your temper is to lose your art. 
 You cannot paint to-day '---and then she stooped, 
 Picked up my pencil in her gracious way. 
 Nodded good-bye and cried — ' Come, we will go 
 And seek the sunshine on the garden lawns. 
 
io8 JRIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 I cannot rest' — and then I heard her murmur 
 Low to herself — ' I. lose, then, find again 
 My will, myself, without a cause. Some joy 
 Hangs in the future like an unseen star, 
 And troubles me with gladness. In my heart 
 Floats a dim promise.' Then she left me there 
 Twirling my pencil. 
 
 SECOND LADV. 
 
 That was strangely said : 
 What did she mean ? It is not like herself 
 To live in expectation or desire ; 
 The present is her world. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I do not care. 
 I only know that she disturbs my life. 
 Flashes around me like a summer storm 
 Of mingled sunshine hail and lightning, and 
 Makes mad my day with freaks. She will not sit 
 Through a whole morning, but breaks off in the midst 
 When I am happiest, when my brush and heart 
 Work most together ; and she will not wear 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 109 
 
 Twice the same dress, but dresses with her moods 
 And these change like the outline of a cloud 
 In a fitful wind. On sunny days no prayer 
 Can keep her patient. ' It is too fair,' she cries, 
 ' Too sweet in the woods, to linger here 
 A slave to art.' On shadowy days it is 
 Too gloomy in the studio, and she rides 
 With the rough King whose blustering admiration 
 Amuses her : on stormy days she sighs 
 To hear the oce'an thunder of the storm 
 Roll, roaring like a wave, athwart the pines. 
 She always finds excuse. Sometimes my cap 
 Displeasures her fine taste, sometimes rny blouse 
 Does not become me, and the other day 
 My noisy footfall jarred the dreamy peace 
 She said she needed. When, indignant, I 
 Showed her my slippers, shod with silence, brought 
 From silken Samarcand — found out, she laughed,. 
 And said ' it was no matter : she was weary 
 And everything was wrong.' The glinting light 
 On dancing water varies not so fast ; 
 And every ray she flings, is barbed, and stings : 
 She loves to worry men. Riquet once said. 
 That love would quiet her ; I would she loved. 
 But most I wish — O would to Heaven she were 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Dull, changeless, ignorant and mute again, 
 Then she was perfect. Hark, I hear her laugh 
 Ring through the garden, and the hateful sound 
 Darkens the sun in the sky. I cannot stay, 
 I will hide in the wood. 
 
 \Exit Lanval 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Did you hear that phrase 
 Which in his passion he let slip about 
 Callista and Prince Riquet ? It falls in 
 With my conjecture. 
 
 But see, Callista comes, 
 Followed by all her maids and those two fools, 
 The mincing Princes, and with her the old King 
 Bowing and smiling, while she walks as if 
 The world were hers ; and yet her pride is made 
 Virtue by loveliness. How beautiful. 
 How flashing fair she is; her face is Light, 
 The very Life of Nature thrills her body; 
 The sunbeams break about her and the doves 
 Fly round her head. Mark how she chafes the King. 
 
RIQUET Oh THE TUFT. i 
 
 Enter King Riquet, Callista, and Pkinces. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Your Majesty says well — To hunt the stag 
 
 Is wiser than to hunt a woman : she, 
 
 When she stands at bay, wounds, slays, and conquers; 
 
 But the poor stag is slain. That, gracious Sire, 
 
 You have not said. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 Whene'er in youth I ran 
 After a maiden, then I overtook her, 
 Before she stood at bay. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Then she wished it — 
 It was her will, not you, that overtook her. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 Fair Princess, had you lived when I was young. 
 And swifter than a forest fire, I would 
 Have overtaken you. 
 
RJQVET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Many have tried it; 
 Princes in shoals, and you were once a Prince. 
 Perhaps you were overwhelming — and at least 
 The boar, and stag and heron know your prowess. — 
 
 I hear the huntsman's horn, the noon-day sport 
 Waits for your presence, and I wish you — well — 
 More fortunate in slaughter than I think 
 You were in love. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 Too sharply said. Princess. 
 Could I but dip my spear point in your wit, 
 Its touch were death. Till then, I'll take with me 
 The memory of your bright eyes to the wood 
 To hunt my quarry by. \Exit King. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE. 
 
 Not in the woods, 
 Shine your deep eyes, Callista, but in heaven 
 Like autumn stars. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 The stars are of the night, 
 
HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 113 
 
 And I am of the day; decay creeps on 
 When autumn comes, and I am rich as Spring 
 With youth and life ; — your compliment is cold. 
 
 My heart is not. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE. 
 
 CALHSTA. 
 
 Had ye(u a heart, your wit 
 Would make new words — these are the worn-out coin 
 Of facile love, soiled by a thousand wooers; 
 The village hind should be ashamed to use them, 
 Much more a Prince. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 He should have said you were 
 The silver shining moon, whose presence makes 
 Gladness among the clouds, and we the clouds 
 That worship you. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 The moon is too like me. 
 And never knows her mind; nor do I love 
 
H4 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Clouds near jmy path, though every cloud were drest 
 In a Prince's livery. Were I the moon, 
 I would not shine on you. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 Then be my sun. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Then I should wither you, a flower too frail 
 
 To bear fierce light. 
 
 [Aside.] Yet could I care for them, 
 
 I would be star, moon, sun — O were I to love, 
 
 I'd be my lover's watchful lamp, and find 
 
 In that a sweet content. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Do you mark that? 
 'Tis a strange touch of softness in her ways, 
 Unknown before. 
 
 Princess, you speak like love 
 When it begins to move — 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 115 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 As if I were 
 One with the spirit that shakes the woods before 
 Young Spring comes rushing with his winds to wake 
 Flowers, streams, and fields to weave the dance of life. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 Then turn on me the tender light that grows 
 To beauty in your eyes. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE. 
 
 No, make it mine ; 
 I am the eldest suitor to your hand. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Alas, whene'er I look upon a Prince 
 It seems to vanish. Royalty, I think. 
 Kills love. Could you be counsellors, grave men 
 Weighted with politic care ; or soldiers scarred 
 With the sharp claws of war who had led hosts 
 To the roaring breach; or had you wrought with art 
 Poems or pictures such as Lanval makes, 
 Whom your dull pride despises, then I might 
 
 1 2 
 
ii6 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Have felt some motions of dim love for you. 
 
 But you are only Princes, neat and courtly, 
 
 Drest like the sunset cloud, and your fine tongues 
 
 Filed to thin compliment, Princes only — 
 
 And I have seen so many — Pardon me, 
 
 I cannot talk to-day. Where is Lanval ? 
 
 He might amuse me. 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Madam, he flung away 
 When he heard you coming — To the wood — he said- 
 But he is in the pleasaunce, by the pool. 
 Feeding the carp. They do not talk, he says, 
 And in the clear green element they move 
 Like thoughts within his brain. His morning's work 
 Had ruffled him : I never saw worse temper. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 No wonder ! I am like a rose to-day 
 The south wind baffles, beaten to and fro 
 From recklessness to languor ; failing with 
 Desires that flit like dreams, dim tender thoughts 
 That master me — until I beat them back. 
 Angry within. I do not know myself. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 117 
 
 Bring me the sunbright wool my father found 
 Among the tents in Araby; spread it 
 Beneath the o'ershadowing lime-tree where I made 
 The fountain cleave the grass, and there at last 
 I may find restj a weary heart loves well 
 Nature's wild water song. 
 
 Soft, who comes hither? 
 The mournful Queen, who seems would speak with me. 
 Withdraw, I pray you. 
 
 Enter Queen Riquet. Callista speaks. 
 
 Madam, I am glad 
 The sun and sweet air have prevailed on you. — 
 Is not the garden fair? The King pursues 
 The chase he loves, I heard the deep mouthed dogs 
 Not half an hour ago startle the woods; 
 But, ere he went, he stayed to interchange 
 A warlike compliment or two with me. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 The evening is far dearer to my mood 
 
 Than this white noon ; but morning marries best 
 
 With your life-giving beauty. From my window 
 
 I saw you like a comet with your train 
 
 Of shining vapours. 
 
ii8 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 True ; and fitly said ! 
 Vapours they are and vapourous is their talk, 
 And like frost fogs they cling. O Madam, I 
 Have suffered much from Princes : I have been 
 Shot at, beleaguered by a host of fools, 
 Wearied to death by vain attacks, too strong 
 For capture, but too worn-out for defence. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 That suffering may be borne; at least, 'tis life. 
 You should be gayer. Beauty, wit and youth 
 Make your life threefold sunshine, and your days 
 Blossom with roses. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 But I cannot love 
 These ghosts of men, and I am troubled sore 
 By my impatient heart that now desires 
 To love a little. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Would that I were young. 
 
RIQ.UET OF THE TUFT. 119 
 
 And had your trouble tenfold. Impatient ! 
 
 True sorrow has but one grey child, 'tis patience. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Yet I have pain, heigh ho ! my life is tired. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 So sighs, so sings the Zephyr that has played 
 With its own reckless will among the flowers, 
 And wearies of them. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Well, is that not pain ? 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 No, it is pleasure hungering for fresh food, 
 
 A restless gadfly eager in its quest. 
 
 You give, but have no pain. True pain is quiet, 
 
 A dark lagoon kept clear by a great stream. 
 
 Within whose grave is drowned, deep as the night 
 
 The once so peopled country of dead love. 
 
I2P RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 That should be pitiful ; but I whom Love 
 Has never injured, do not know its pain. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Love brings the patience that can sound the depths 
 Of the pain it makes. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 That patience is not mine. 
 My ship of life sails on the gleaming seas. 
 I hate the dull lagoons. Why should I look 
 Into dark pain? 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Because you make its power 
 To slay the conscience. O it would be well 
 Could you but see yourself— a thoughtless woman. 
 Who finds a pleasure in the pain she gives 
 If but she feel her power, 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 That is untrue. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 121 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 To seeming, not to fact. Lightly you fling 
 
 Your promise, then, the end being won, your mood 
 
 Changes, and laughs away the pledge, and claims 
 
 Change as a sacred right. There's nothing right, 
 
 Or wrong, but in your will; and Will in you 
 
 Is slave to passing impulse. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 O Madam, 
 I may be wayward, 'tis a woman's right: 
 But I have not done this. It is not you 
 That speak so bitterly, but some strange sorrow 
 That in you poisons justice. \The Queen walks aside.'] 
 
 Stay, why leave me. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 [Aside] I'll touch her heart to the quick, if heart she have. 
 
 She shall remember how she struck my son. 
 
 [Aloud] Sorrow ? O aye ! But you — What pain has touched you 
 
 For one short hour ? Its slightest sting made life 
 
 A bed of thorns; its visit was incredible. 
 
 And did it linger, careless of your wonder, 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Then followed swiftly the impatient rage 
 
 Of baffled will— or if another's pain 
 
 Pressed on your joy, or hurt your ease, or claimed. 
 
 When you were cold, a word of help — you flung 
 
 The importunate away, although he gave you 
 
 Your very soul. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Ask your heart. 
 Ask heartlessness — Ask my son — 
 
 O Callista, 
 Men fight with chance when they contend with women. 
 When we are young, we know not what we do, 
 Nof what the wounds we make — Had I not been 
 So early wrought by love to hopeless sorrow, 
 Myself had been indifferent through joy, 
 And broken lives like you. 
 
 But why, uncourteous, 
 Speak to you thus? 
 
RJQUET OF THE TUFT. 123 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Nay, Madam, I can bear it, 
 And it seems truly said. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 If I could think 
 You meant that word — But no, I will not speak, 
 Save but to say farewell. See, I have letters here 
 That call me home. To-morrow I must leave 
 This courteous dwelling where you've kindly spun 
 The threaded days I've lived too much in sorrow. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Ill news 1 Dear Madam, stay. I am, perhaps. 
 Too gay for your grief; or has observance failed, 
 In any point neglectful? Trust me, I 
 Have loved and reverenced you. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE {rusMng tn). 
 
 O bright Princess, 
 We hope you'll hear our song. It tells of you. 
 Flying like Dian through the woods, and horns 
 Blowing around you in the morning air, 
 
124 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Dew on your silver feet, your glorious face 
 Lit with the ardour of the chase, while high 
 Your white arm holds the bow, and all the wood 
 Rings with the shiver of its loosened string; 
 And the stag leaps in the air, and falls down, dead, 
 Pierced through its beating heart. 
 
 CALLiSTA {to the Queen), 
 
 Madam, pardon 
 This princelike rudeness; couched in words that make 
 Endurance faint. 
 
 YShe turns to the Princes] I will not hear your song. 
 And were I Dian, you should meet the fate 
 Actseon met. Unlawfully he dared 
 To see divine delight, and you have dared 
 To steal upon the goddess Poesy, 
 And rob her of her chaplet. Songs are made 
 By poets, not by princes; seek a poet. 
 Ask him to write your song and I will hear it. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 Callisla ! 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 125 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Callista ! Love alone, fair Sir, 
 From me, and not from you, permits that name. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 Then Princess, be true woman, and more kind. 
 When first we knew you, like a sparkling stream 
 Your manner flowed, but now it foams and glooms 
 A mountain torrent. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 [Aside] Would it could sweep them off 
 
 To their dull native sea. [Aloud] I cannot help it. 
 
 It is full noontide, gentlemen. The sun. 
 
 And you, have made me languid. Let me rest. 
 
 Here by the fountain, and meantime compose. 
 
 Since it delights you, songs of faded love 
 
 Upon the flowing of my manners, which 
 
 It wonders me you praise, for in good truth 
 
 I am very weary — not of you, but of 
 
 This dull, dim world. [Exit Callista. 
 
126 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE. 
 
 I think she mocks too much; 
 We waste our time upon a heart as hard 
 As the diamond in her ear. 
 
 SECOND PRINCE. 
 
 If you will break 
 This wooing, so will I, and suddenly 
 Leave her alone without one sighing suitor 
 To whisper her of love. Proud as she is, 
 She will not like that solitude. , We are 
 The last of a hundred wooers who were drawn 
 To her great beauty, and driven to flight at last 
 By her quick-stabbing tongue. 
 
 FIRST PRINCE. 
 
 We will take leave 
 Of the King to-morrow, and bestow our hand 
 On gentler women in another land. 
 
 \Exeunt Princes. 
 
 Queen Riquet alone. Afterwards Lanval. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 The year has gone to-day; O I ha.ve kept 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 127 
 
 Religious count of every hour, and dropt 
 Each Uke a tear upon Time's rosary, 
 Heavy with hope and fear. I waked at dawn. 
 And I have watched since then with eye and ear 
 As strained as the wild sentinel's that looks 
 Forth from the hunger-ravaged town for help — 
 Restless as he, and wandering from despair 
 To piteous hope. Fly quickly, laggard steeds. 
 That linger in the sky, and bring the eve ' 
 That haply brings my son, my only son. 
 Great Mother Earth, so kind to life and death. 
 Make smooth his path to me, pour roses on it, 
 And dusk violets : pity my motherhood. 
 Give me back my son. In vain, in vain I cry ! 
 The dreadful fate that rules our little day 
 Smiles when it strikes ; cruel is life, more cruel 
 Love ! Where art thou, my son ? So far, so silent, 
 Cold, dead, or dead to me; for weary years 
 Lost in the Faeryland. I have not sung 
 Since last I saw him : my very throat was choked 
 With lonely tears ; and then, the song I sang 
 Foretold ill, wrought by love. But singing now 
 Comes, rushing whence I know not to my lips ; 
 An air Gentilla taught me once, and I 
 Sang to the words he made I loved so well. 
 
128 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Of twain who, parted, met in joy at last 
 After great sorrow. I will sing it now. 
 And the gods grant it ominous of joy. 
 
 Song. 
 
 They loved when Summer's leaves were green, 
 They parted when the Autumn died ; 
 
 But both were true to what had been, 
 Through many a weary winter-tide. 
 
 The tidings came that he was dead. 
 
 And round her Heaven and Earth did swim . 
 '/ 7vill not die, she gently said, 
 
 Lest I should not remember him.' 
 
 She lived, and love within her bore 
 
 So noble and so sweet a sway, 
 That still her cheek and bosom wore 
 
 The fulness and the bloom of May. 
 
 And he, made captive by the Moor, 
 For five long years so kept the truth 
 
 Of love's imagination pure. 
 He never lost the grace of yOuth. 
 
RIQUET OF Tim TUFT. 129 
 
 They met : ' T/ie years are but a dream, 
 We are unchanged^ they softly sung, — 
 
 And the woods answered, and the stream — 
 'Love keeps its faithful ever young.' 
 
 LANVAL (entering). 
 
 Madam, I heard a voice that oft has soothed 
 My petulance with sweetness, and I dared' 
 To break upon your solitude. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I am glad 
 To see you, Lanval, for you know my grief. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Each heart, my Queen, has its own secret sorrow 
 With which no stranger meddles; I have mine. 
 I would I knew its cause, could find and grasp 
 The thing itself. But I have lived so sunk 
 In dreams, so deep in shadowland, that when 
 I touch on truth, I seem within a mist. 
 The world I imaged out of Nature was 
 The world I loved, not Nature; and the Beauty, 
 Of which Callista is the imperfect shadow, 
 
 K 
 
I30 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Was my reality. Woman herself, 
 
 And all the fancy men call love, were clouds. 
 
 And so were all the passions of mankind. 
 
 And all their aims — clouds that passed o'er my sky, 
 
 Shadows my own soul cast upon the world, 
 
 Inventions like the figures of my art. 
 
 But now, I have lost that old ideal life. 
 
 Nor have I found the other. Woe is me ! 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 You have lost your sunny temper. It may be 
 
 That love at last has seized you. Has Callista 
 
 Made inroad on your heart? You bear some marks 
 
 Of the love-frittered man ; — an unrested face. 
 
 An eye that looks within, a trembling lip, 
 
 An air, among a crowd, as if you had been 
 
 Left desolate; and yet you wear them not 
 
 As the true lover wears them; they are touched 
 
 With a quaint irony and amused self-wonder. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Madam, my fancy like a humming-bird. 
 Flutters around the flower called Callista. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 131 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 No more than that! Then you are not love-wrought, 
 Only prepared to love. 
 
 I cannot teU, 
 I never seem to realise my mood. 
 But this I know that she has driven my life 
 Out of its joy and calm. She flurried me, 
 Played to and fro before me like a leopard, 
 Until I liked the play; and I have been 
 The ball she sported with, till the quick way 
 She tossed me pleased me; then, I wrought her face 
 Upon the canvas with such ardent study, 
 Joy, and imagination, that my heart 
 Thrilled to her beauty as Olympus thrills 
 When Apollo sings in heaven. I am troubled — 
 Touched, it may be, with Cupid's wandering arrow. 
 You know what love is — tell me, is this love ? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 No, wandering Fancy. The true lover knows 
 The instant that he loves; that burning god 
 
 K 2 
 
132 JilQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Brings with him his own knowledge. Yet you might 
 By labour on these thoughts arrive at last 
 To love Callista. Do not love her, she 
 Is bound to Kiquet — O my son, my son ! 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Madam, be patient; the great Gods are kind, 
 And pity motherhood. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I have no patience : 
 I am weary waiting. I have borne my pain 
 Till its suspense has worn me like a garment 
 Thick-fretten by the moth. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Think not so deeply. 
 Behind a tyrant thought lies madness couched, 
 Waiting its hour to spring. Think of the pain, 
 Beyond yourself, that fills the heart of the world, 
 And you will bring a medicine to your own, 
 Unloose the knot of madness in it, and 
 Enable Hope. Give me some help ; I am 
 Confused with fancy. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 133 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Is there no woman here 
 Whom you could love, whose gracious hand might lead 
 Your wayward spirit home ? A quiet love, 
 Made strong by custom, passion at peace, would deepen 
 The colour and glow of life. Too much your art 
 Has thought, too little felt. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 It may be true. — 
 There is one here who often has observed me. 
 Done me much kindness, and if eyes speak truth. 
 Desires my love. A face that sleeps and dreams, 
 But flashes into beauty when I come; 
 And all her ways most like the brook that runs 
 Athwart the beech grove near our palace, o'er 
 Its pebbly bed, heard, in the pause of the wind, 
 ' A low sweet voice of welcome to surprise 
 The traveller to tender thought. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Then seek her. 
 And swiftly do your wooing. When a man 
 Shows that he loves, all women hate delay. 
 
134 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I'll speak at once. Words fix the half-shaped thought 
 Into the thing, and when I say I love — 
 Then, I shall love, and know it, and my life 
 Glide out of dreams. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Yes I and return with me 
 To-morrow, home. You loved my son : I need 
 Some one to speak of him and comfort me. 
 If Riquet be not here to-night, he is dead. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 The Prince will come : I'll stake Callista's picture 
 
 Against the village sign-board that to-day 
 
 You meet him well and happy. Had you seen 
 
 His radiant face when he took leave of me, 
 
 You would have known no death could touch his life, 
 
 And no defeat his love. He will — 
 
 But why 
 Stand you so rapt as if you heard in the air 
 Titania singing? 
 
 QUEEl*. 
 
 Hark, hear you nothing? 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 135 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Only the rustling limes. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I hear a music 
 That when a girl I sang among the woods 
 With bright Gentilla — that old fairy song] 
 You heard me singing when you came to me. 
 
 joyful omen ! 'Tis Gentilla's voice 
 Telling of comfort. I shall see my child. 
 Riquet is near. 
 
 Make haste to win your love. 
 It will delight the Prince to find you captive. 
 
 \Exit Queen. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Delight him ! yes, but me ! And yet I am drawn 
 Most strangely to it, and I see her face 
 Light up with joy, and joy is loveliness— 
 And lovelier perhaps, oneself its cause. — 
 
 1 thought 'twas difficult, but now I find 
 To love is easy if one has a mind. 
 
 \Exit Lanval. 
 
136 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Glade and Fountain, as in Act II. Scene II. Fairies are 
 heard singing, and when the sang is over, Callista speaks 
 behind the Scene. 
 
 Fairy Sofig. 
 
 pROM the palace and lawn bring her soft as a fawn. 
 
 And as swift, through the ilex grove; 
 By the stream, through the dell, lead her steps by the spell 
 
 That King Oberon made for his love ; 
 Till her heart and her head with its magic be fed. — 
 
 Flowers of the Spring, enchant her along, 
 
 O follow, Callista, follow our song. 
 
 She has heard, and her feet with the music are fleet. 
 
 Though none of our words be known ; 
 She has passed o'er tJie stream in a wonder and dream, 
 
 To the glade where he waits her alone. 
 And her eyes are on fire with the glow of desire. — 
 
 Wind of the Fines, the enchantment prolong, 
 
 O follow, Callista, follow our song. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 137 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 How close the trees stand here; they grow as thick 
 As thoughts in my soul — 
 
 This way the music was, 
 Here is the light and air ! 
 \She enters the Scene.\ O beautiful I 
 
 This silent cirque of grass where loneliness 
 Sits throned by the stream, and hears, with veiled eyes 
 The silver-sliding water chafe the flowers 
 That chide it in return. 
 
 [^She comes' up to the fountain.^ I have stolen away. 
 Alone, from their dull love, and fancy-wrought, 
 Have wandered here by airy singing led. — 
 I do not know this grove. How quietly 
 Its meadow rests, rejoicing in deep peace. 
 The sunlight is so gentle, it must love 
 This little lonely dwelUng-place of Nature ; 
 And all around, afar, the dark-plumed pines 
 Murmur, and soft repeat from grove to grove 
 Tlie stories of the wind. 
 
 'Tis a strange place. 
 How like a living thing aware of me, 
 It looks on my face ! And surely I have seen 
 
138 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 This fountain in forgotten dreams, and heard it 
 Whisper my name — The glade sees, hears, and speaks ! 
 
 Fairies are heard singing. 
 
 Sisters, sweep around, around, 
 She has reached the fated ground ; 
 Weave about her heart the spell 
 Of Lovis eternal miracle. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Music again, a song that speaks of love ! 
 
 How is't with me to-day ? My heart beats fast ; 
 
 A soft enchantment steals through me like dew 
 
 In summer through a rose. This place is full 
 
 Of human tenderness : one who loved much 
 
 Has left the longing spirit of his love 
 
 Among these trees and rocks, and the stream's voice 
 
 Whispers his secret. Would that he were here ! 
 
 For he had passion, and I, wearied out 
 
 With faded wooing, am ready to give love. 
 
 Were I but greatly loved. I will sit here 
 
 In the hushed afternoon, and sing the song 
 
 That Graciosa sang the night before 
 
 She gave herself away. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 139 
 
 Song. 
 
 Deep falls the dark, I cannot sleep, mine eyes 
 
 Are filled with night : 
 Tell me, my maidens, in the eastern skies. 
 
 Is there no lights 
 Cry to the moon to sink her lingering horn 
 In the dim seas, and let the day be born 
 
 When Love and I, 
 
 All ecstacy, 
 Shall see him coming through the gates of morn. 
 
 Bid him bring rosemary that ever keeps 
 
 Remembrance true: 
 And myrdes gathered where warm Venus sleeps 
 
 In fragrant dew ; ■ 
 And marigolds that wed the burning sun, 
 And dose to tell desire the day is done , 
 
 And full-blown roses, 
 
 Passioris pastes. 
 To deck the room where we shall be at one. 
 
 Scatter the flowers, uplift the hymn, he comes ; 
 
 O Paradise! 
 Before him sound the pipes and merry drums, 
 
 And in his eyes 
 
140 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The morning breaks, and elfin qtieens above 
 Stoop to his smile, and hear, like me, the dove 
 
 Brood in his voice 
 
 And sing — ^Rejoice, 
 Come forth, my bride ' — ' / come, I come, my Love.' 
 
 How gloriously she sang it! Even I 
 Felt my blood thrill; and as I sing it now 
 All that I am, and the far woodland world 
 Glows with unwonted fire. 
 
 \Noise underground. 
 Why, what is this? 
 A festal noise; the earth shakes, and I hear 
 A crowd of voices, and the hurried steps 
 Of servants, clanging cymbals, and sweet flutes 
 That ring, and dulcimers, and now the swell 
 Of singing drawing near. What are the words? 
 
 Singing heard underground. 
 
 ''Tis Prince Riquef s marriage day 
 And. Callista is his bliss. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Callista ! Riquet ! who dares join those names ? 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 141 
 
 RiQUET comes from behind the willow splendidly dressed. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Princess, I. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 You ! — Sir Prince, it is ill done 
 To lure me here, and had I known the music 
 Led me to you — 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Unchanged in beauty — and 
 Unchanged in heart. It matters not; the hour 
 Has come when you will love me, and the year 
 Brought to my patience, joy. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 It is not joy ! 
 Nought but impatience stings me to recall 
 An hour I plunged into forgetfulness. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It is an hour I lived by— night and day 
 
142 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 In visions that bade Faerylatid be dull, 
 I saw you, like incarnate Love, step forth 
 Into this woodland chapel, crying — I come — 
 To keep my word. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 It should not be, I said. 
 It shall not be. It was not chivalrous then 
 To take me by surprise; it is not wise 
 To surprise me now, alone, in this wild glade, 
 With sudden talk of marriage. I wed one. 
 Who tore the promise that he forces on me 
 Out of my girlish misery, who took 
 The vantage of my dullness — nature's fault, 
 Not mine — -to win the galling pledge he knew 
 I should, being wise, abhor! — You push me. Prince, 
 Beyond my courtesy — but, take the truth. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 A sad truth, were it true. But Faeryland, 
 Nay, Love has doomed you mine. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 You think that Love 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 143 
 
 Is wooed and won by a spell! Great Jove himself 
 Cannot command it; 'tis as proud and free 
 As that wild eagle from the mountain crag 
 That soars in the cloud. 
 
 O shame ! a man should call 
 No foreign help to win a woman's heart; 
 Nor shall you change my will against your love, 
 Deep-rooted as these pines. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And so is mine — 
 Rooted in love, and though your stormy eyes 
 Flash, lightning through rain, upon, me, and your voice 
 Make thunder of its music — I will claim 
 That long-lost promise. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Prince, your wit is cold ; 
 A woman's memory lies in her desire. 
 I have no care for you, and I deny 
 Your right to memory when I forget. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Could I forget — there are no rights in love. 
 
144 JRIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 It knows no reason, and it lives beyond 
 
 Duties, and forms of courtesy, and law. 
 
 All the world's rules are dead while I stand here, 
 
 In this lone glade still haunted by my passion, 
 
 Where, driven from you by fierce despair that day. 
 
 And near this rock round which the wave is looped, 
 
 As all my hfe round you, I cast myself, 
 
 Tom with wild pain, and my hot tears fell fast, 
 
 Swelling the stream. Most bitter was the hour — 
 
 And yet so full of love that half the joy 
 
 Of the whole world was not so rich in life 
 
 As that heart-rending sorrow. Here I drew 
 
 Your picture from my breast, kissed it, held it 
 
 Close to my heart, and cried — ' My love, my love ! 
 
 Found only to be lost' — ^'twas here I stretched 
 
 My arms into the cold and empty air. 
 
 Crying your name to the unpitying trees. 
 
 And the chill moon, chill as your heart, and heard 
 
 Only the lonely ripple of the stream 
 
 Bid me be desolate ; until at last, 
 
 When in my jealous and reproachful passion 
 
 I falsely called you false, a faery sleep 
 
 Veiled me from sorrow, and I dreamt and knew 
 
 Within my dreams you should be mine at last ; — 
 
 And mine you shall be. Love will make you mine. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 145 
 
 CALLiSTA (aside). 
 
 Would he were not so frightful, for the man 
 Speaks well. This is true passion, and its note 
 Is music in my ear. 
 
 [Aloud] Prince, when I wed, 
 
 I hope the man may have a tongue as sweet, 
 And eyes and love as ardent as your own. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 There is none shall have you, none, but I. You know 
 
 Nothing of Love's great power, nor how he sits 
 
 Like a young orator upon my lips. 
 
 And flames a magic fire in my eyes, 
 
 And if you willed it, soon would flow a stream 
 
 Of beauty through me, shaping the shapeless. 
 
 Making the ugly fair. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Would that were true ! 
 Then I would keep my word. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Then make it true. 
 
146 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Do you disdain my ways, my voice, my eyes ; 
 Or is it only this deformed shape, 
 The streaming tuft of hair, my stature bent 
 Into a bow? My self, my love, my soul, 
 Are they detested ? Were I tall, and shaped 
 As clean as he to whom you gave your sister. 
 And young with beauty as Apollo's eyes, 
 When first he struck the shell — then could you love 
 me ? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 A maiden may not hastily say yes. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 To wait a tedious year is not to haste. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I have not waited, Prince, I have forgotten. 
 My promise, you, all things, but that I lived. 
 And loved my life. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 You could not quite forget. 
 
RIQ.UET OF THE TUFT. 147 
 
 Unbidden memories of my love that day, 
 The scene itself, my pleading, and your word, 
 Fled o'er your heart like swallows on the wing, 
 And dipped into its lake and ruffled it. 
 Hour after hour. You scorned them, but they lived. 
 And midst the crowd of soft and shallow men. 
 Whose wooing had no heat, you thought at times 
 Of the dim grove of ilex where you heard 
 Words woven through with fire — O could you love 
 The soul by which I speak, awhile forget 
 My shapeless form, one tender word of yours 
 Would change my body as I changed your mind. 
 This is the secret that Gentilla told me 
 In that far faery world where I have been. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Is it truly so? — I like your company: 
 And I might love you well, perhaps, if I 
 Could see you changed a little. 
 
 RIQUET, 
 
 Wish it then, 
 Let the air hear it, and the spell will work. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Then I should pledge myself. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Not more than I 
 Think you were pledged before. Yet stay, take back 
 Your promise ; take it, be as free as air 
 On mountain-tops; and when you have changed me, 
 
 choose. 
 Or leave my love, but wait no longer now : 
 When Love is at the door, O let him in. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Then with my heart I wish you half as fair 
 As I have found your soul — 
 
 \A mist rises from the stream and shrouds 
 
 RlQUET. 
 
 Where is he gone? 
 Prince, Prince, come back to me. What ! is my voice 
 Dull in your ears ? Riquet ! Come ere I die. 
 O I have lost the truest heart in the world. 
 
 \The mist gradually lifts, attd Riquet 
 appears a young and noble knight. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 149 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Do not start back, nor press your heavenly hand 
 Over your eyes. It is I ; Riquet, your love. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 My sight dazzles. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And mine, my eyes are blind 
 With love; speak to me, lest I die of hope. 
 
 CALLISTA (drawing near). 
 I cannot speak. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 But your eyes speak. 
 
 CAI.LIST 
 
 Do they? 
 Then answer them. 
 
ISO RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 O here, here in my arms ; — ■ 
 Close, close to my heart; look at me, smile on me. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 All my life long ! — And are you truly Riquet ? 
 I think that I have loved you from the first. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 What ! when you banished me ? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Ask me no more ; 
 What matters that dull time, or what I was 
 So long ago. I love you now, and since 
 My head was on your breast, eternity 
 Has come and gone. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And I forget the pain 
 Of the fretted years, when from your eyes' deep wells 
 I see Love rise, and in his hand the rose 
 Of perfect joy. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 151 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Do you see only love ? 
 This little pool, where underneath the rock 
 The water sleeps, holds not more faithfully 
 Your living beauty than my eyes and heart. 
 Look, cling to me, and look. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 O happy change 
 That makes me worthier you ! How fair your face 
 Smiles in the azure vault of heaven that shines 
 Deep in this water-world. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Look, look no more 
 Upon the unanswering water — -look at me ; 
 Into the depths of my dark eyes where love 
 Quickens the colour into speech, until 
 The image of your beauty mirrored there. 
 At home within me and for ever mine. 
 Leap into ardent life. Youth on your lips 
 Sings like a god, and Love's sweet-flowered thoughts 
 Inspire your face, and make your kiss a world 
 
152 RIQVET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Of unimagined joy : and your bright head, 
 
 Set on its mighty shoulders like a city 
 
 In sunlight on a hill, is worthy lord 
 
 Of limbs so wrought and stature so divine 
 
 You seem a king of men, all armed to conquer 
 
 The willing world, as you have conquered me. 
 
 These you might see, — but not the enchanting light 
 
 In which you stand, the light of my first love. 
 
 The glory and the rapture and the hope. 
 
 That make your presence passion and life and peace.- 
 
 Why do you change, why grow so ghostly pale ? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It is the passionate rush of joy : all life 
 Streams like a sea to my heart, and fills its wells 
 O'erfraught at last : kiss me, and it will stream 
 Back to my lips, seeking its home. O think, 
 How lonely and how poor my life, and now 
 How richly lodged ; think, I have never known 
 Till now what love might be. I cried for it 
 In the night of life : its light was never mine. 
 I dreamed its joy, but all my dreams are dull 
 To the impassioned truth. Do I grow pale ? 
 It is no wonder; I have never seen 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 15: 
 
 A woman look on me with love, and now, — 
 You love me. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I am glad you never loved, 
 Glad that no woman loved you. You are mine, 
 Mine wholly. There is no past in your thoughts. 
 No image shadowing mine, no room in your heart 
 Where memories are stored, locked up from me. 
 No hateful touches of a bygone world, 
 To mingle with my love. Alone I fill 
 Your life, and I will keep it mine alone — 
 Nay, I will clasp you in the very grave. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Your words glow, and your eyes. O how I love you ! 
 
 How beautiful you are within my heart ! — 
 
 Were I to die, the very flowers above 
 
 My dust would breathe of you. But I shall live — 
 
 Live folded in imperishable joy. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Well spoke my sister I should not be wise 
 Until I loved. There is more wisdom shrined 
 
IS4 RIQ.UET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 In one deep longing of my heart for you, 
 Than in the wit of the whole world. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And I, 
 By love made wise before, am wiser now 
 By the joy of love. Hark, hear you not the rushing 
 Of Love's immortal spirit through the world ? 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I hear, I hear — 
 
 As the earth at sunrise, so my hfe is changed. 
 
 Why is the whole world new? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 The passionate heart 
 Makes all things new ; Love sees a thousand things 
 Knowledge is blind to ; look upon this glade, 
 Your eyes have only seen it, not your heart ; 
 Look now and tell me what you see. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I see 
 The beauty of the trees and stream. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 155 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 No more ? 
 
 Look through the spirit of your love. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 O stay ; — 
 I see the living Beauty of the world ' 
 
 Moving, a forming Spirit, through earth and air, 
 And kindling love; and all the quick-winged fays 
 That do the Spirit's bidding ; some attend 
 On the thin blades of grass, and lift the heads 
 Of flowers o'ercharged with dew; and others flit 
 Round the huge pillars of the high-branched pines 
 And keep their armour gleaming — beautiful Love 
 Tending on knightly Strength — and soft the murmur 
 Of multitudinous delight that fills 
 The fragrant palaces above. O music 
 Ripples through wood and wave — I hear the laughter. 
 Sweet as joybells, of the fine spirits that live 
 Sphered in the sailing bubbles of the stream ! 
 And every cloud that the strong driver, Wind, 
 Urges athwart the sky, glows with the wings 
 Of an elfin host : the sunlight is their food. 
 Which as they fly they drink. The world I thought 
 
iS6 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Dead in its beauty, trembles like a woman 
 With the deep life of joy and thought and love.— 
 But tell me, Riquet, for men say you know. 
 Why in the sunshine I can see the elves — 
 I thought the night was theirs. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 The greater spirits 
 Are children of the moonlight. These are not 
 Titania's fairies, but the living things 
 Which are the thoughts and loves of Nature. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Then, 
 We are of their joyful company ; they seem 
 To live by one another's love, and so do we. 
 It is a wondrous world, but all its wonder 
 Is nothing to the marvel of warm love 
 Filling my heart. Oh, I am happy now 
 That I am beautiful ! Tell me I am fair. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Fair as immortal Beauty when she sprang 
 Out of sea-foam and fire. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 157 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 Hush ! what is that ? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Nothing. The forest is as still as death. 
 
 {They listen. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 I hear the tumult of the hunt draw near, 
 Men shouting, clamouring dogs, and sounding horns, — 
 The stag is driven to bay. They will come here; 
 I would we were alone. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 And so do I ; 
 But it is happier to meet them thus. 
 In the sweet air and open heaven, than housed 
 In the Palace hall. Nor need we- hope in vain 
 For quiet hours, since in the golden land 
 Where we and Love are wandering now, we are 
 Always alone ; none sit beside its streams, 
 Nor tread its forest paths, but you and I ; 
 And its wild sanctuary where our passion meets 
 And marries, is not of this world at all. 
 
158 jRIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 How well you speak, but still I want my will. 
 Shall we like lapwings fly and nest ourselves 
 In mossy quietude ? I know a dell 
 Sunk in the wood's heart like my heart in yours. 
 All starred with lonely violet and primrose, 
 Where we can talk till evening. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 No, our fate 
 Holds to this glade. It is our bridal day. 
 And in the fairy palace underground, 
 Gentilla waits us soon. 
 
 The music hushed 
 While we were speaking now breaks out again ; — 
 Listen, it is the marriage march of Oberon ; 
 Music triumphant as the sun when night 
 Flies dizzy down the western steep : tramp, tramp. 
 How gloriously it goes ; from every side 
 It brings us friends. That shout to the north proclaims 
 The stag is dead, and from the south I hear 
 Footsteps and singing. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 159 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 That is Lanval's voice ! 
 I know the air, it is a song he learnt 
 From an old gardener; so at least he said. 
 
 Lanval {singing in the distance). 
 
 Lily tvhite and tall she goes, 
 On her cheek the thornless rose. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 It is my childhood's song, I love it well ; 
 I heard it on the day I knew you lived, 
 And saw your picture; you shall come and see 
 Those gardeners ; both have loved me long. Alas ! 
 You cannot know the poet whose sweet thought 
 Made me this song, but you shall see his grave, 
 Under the aspen, near the bubbling brook 
 That feeds our shadowy lake, and plant with me 
 A flower on his breast — They come, the glade 
 Is circled with their voices ; here's the King, 
 My Father — draw back. 
 
 The hunt breaks into the glade. 
 
i6o RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 Ouf ! a pushing wood ; 
 And what a pretty place, and prettier made 
 By handsome people. Why, it is Callista. 
 Who is it with her? He's a stately presence; 
 Some wooer, doubtless, and if looks win girls. 
 Likely enough to win. Would Heaven I had 
 As tall a son ! 
 
 RIQUET (coming forward). 
 
 My Father. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Who is it 
 That calls me Father? I have no son that stands 
 Thus, like a King. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 ~- Yet it is I, Riquet, 
 
 Your son, straight as your spear. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 A sorry jest ! 
 I am old, but yet I have not lost the will 
 
JilQUET OF THE TUFT. i6i 
 
 To take the saucy blood from boys who play 
 With a father's sorrow. 
 
 CALLISTA, 
 
 Sire, it is your son, 
 Prince Riquet, whom I love. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 You too. Princess, 
 I have played with you and jested, as old age 
 May with a pretty maid, but this light talk 
 Suits not with courtesy, and my poor son 
 Is dear to me. 
 
 [Zr<? turns to Riquet and speaks aside to him.'] 
 
 Sir, we will talk together. 
 Ere evening fall, and here. I'll bring this sword, 
 I won at your age in a cause for kings. 
 Slaying a dragon brood. Were you my son, 
 You would know the blade. 
 
 RlyUET. 
 
 I have kissed it often 
 
 M 
 
i62 EI QUE T OF THE TUFT. 
 
 In the old hall ; there's not a knightly deed 
 Done with it in the wars the tale of which 
 I could not tell : Father, put it by. I am 
 Indeed your very son. Love and Gentilla 
 Have wrought this wonder. Welcome Callista, 
 Kiss her, your daughter. Sir, I am drowned in joy. 
 Speak, Father, speak, say you are glad : I know 
 You love me well. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 It cannot be; too long 
 I have hoped in vain, you cannot be my son. 
 
 K.IQUET. 
 
 Blind to good fortune, keen to see the ill. 
 What can convince you ? Look into my eyes . 
 You ought to know my voice, and see this ring, 
 You placed upon my hand that stormy day 
 I drew my bow and slew the boar whose tusk 
 Rushed its white lightning near your fallen head; 
 And saved your Ufe, like the poor mouse the lion. 
 
 KING RIQUET {throwing his arms round Rjquet). 
 Riquet !— My son ;— Tall, handsome, and in love ! 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 163 
 
 Glad ! I am wild with joy — Bring in the stag ; 
 We will divide it here, blow loud the horns, 
 And sound the hallali ! Bridegroom and bride 
 Are matched hke sun and shade. 
 
 \He turns to Callista] Fairest of foes, 
 A Father claims his kiss. 
 
 Laivval is heard singing without the glade. 
 
 Fairies that in flowers dwell 
 Make my darling love me well. 
 
 KING RIQUET. 
 
 Who sings in the wood ? 
 
 Lanval enters the glade. 
 
 Your painter, King. A goodly company 
 Comes after me. 
 
 Enter Queen, Ladies, and the rest. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Where are you, Riquet.? 
 I cannot see. Where are you, my deai" son? 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Here, Mother, in your arms ; I went away- 
 Forgive me, I am happy. 
 
 QUEEN RIQUET. 
 
 Kiss me, my son : 
 Kiss me as oft I kissed you when you hung 
 Upon my heart, a little child, and stretched 
 Your hand to touch my cheek, and infinite love 
 Comforted me. I weep, but I am glad; — 
 Have we not dreamt that we were sorrowful? 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I have forsworn dreams. Turn, dearest Mother, thank 
 And bless Callista. See, she stands beside you. — 
 
 love her for my sake. 
 
 QUEEN (speaking to Callista). 
 
 I had lost my son. 
 And he is found again. I love you, daughter. 
 
 1 am twice blessed, I have another child. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 165 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 My mother! Oh, I am happy as the dawn 
 That shone when Love arose upon the world. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Father, how came you here? We heard the hunt, 
 But thought you would not find us in this nook. 
 
 KING. 
 
 You hoped we should not find you, boy ! We came. 
 Without our will. How is your mother here. 
 And Lanval too, and all this bridal crowd ? 
 Our fairies are at work. The stag brought us. 
 We roused a monster, dusk, with mighty horns. 
 Whose shoulders dashed the underwood aside 
 As a broad ship the sea; he slew three dogs, 
 And turning stood at bay close to this glade, 
 Where the swift brook has worn away the clay, 
 And made a cave beneath the outgrasping roots 
 Of a vast pine. I, leaping forward, drew 
 My knife across his throat, when, through the shouts, 
 A strange, wild melody grew in the air. 
 That seemed to each of us, for so I heard, 
 
t66 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 The song he sang when first he loved, so sweet 
 That we forgot the hunt, and followed where 
 It lured us on enchanted, till at last, 
 Pushing the branches by, we found this place. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 This is Gentilla's doing. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 So it is; 
 She brought us here. I, wandering with this lady, 
 Now my affianced inspiration. 
 
 KING. 
 
 What! 
 Lanval and love, the sword and 'the scabbard joined. 
 
 Even so my King ; the falcon that in heaven 
 Was free as the wind it stooped on, is at last 
 Brought to the lure. See, Sire, is she not worth 
 A painter's eye? 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 167 
 
 KING. 
 
 Our Court will be the brighter 
 For this bright lady; but how came you here; 
 Was song your guide? 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 We stood beside the pool. 
 Where the great chestnut shades it, talking as 
 Those talk who first know love's content. Suddenly, 
 We heard the Queen cry in the ilex grove, 
 And a sweet music, which we following, saw. 
 Floating before her under the dark trees. 
 The fairy of our house that beckoned us. 
 It was Gentilla. Through mazy paths we went. 
 These ladies with us, while I sang, and lo, 
 Upon the edge of this green glade, our guide 
 Vanished, and then his mother heard the voice 
 Of her lost son. She knew the voice, but joy 
 Stole all her strength; we waited, and I sang 
 Two words the Prince remembers. So we came. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 Yes, I remembered, did I not, Callista? 
 
1 68 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Fairies that in flowers dwell 
 Make my darliiig love me well— 
 
 In the old garden we shall sing it yet, 
 
 With joy, not longing. No need of fairies now 
 
 To make my darling love me. 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 No, in truth ! 
 For you, my Lord, said right. 
 
 CALLISTA. 
 
 What did he say? 
 
 He said your beauty would excel itself 
 
 When once you loved. It has won quiet, and 
 
 Mingled with quiet, glow and life. 
 
 \Turning to Riquet\ My Prince, 
 
 You have no friend whose joy is more than mine. 
 
 RIQUET. 
 
 I know it, Lanval, you have always loved me. 
 My Father did not know me. 
 
RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 169 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 I was more wise. 
 I knew those soft gray eyes where sleeps a fire. 
 Look at the Queen, her beauty has returned. 
 She seems a girl, and on her rested face 
 Happiness broods, — in all my work I know 
 Nothing more beautiful than joy — but see, 
 The King draws near to her. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Constance, my dear wife, 
 You had more faith than I. I do repent. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My husband, I've forgotten all the past. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Not all ! Not the long faithful love of years ! 
 Forget the grief that wearied me too much. 
 Forget the blustering weather of my mood, 
 But let my home be still within your heart. 
 Whose air and light still breathe the sweet wild times 
 When first I loved you. I have suffered too ; 
 
170 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 Although I tiied to dull the edge of pain 
 In hunting and in war. Sorrow too much 
 Has parted us ; let joy unite us now. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I knew you suffered; yet you will forgive 
 Grief's tyranny in me. Our world is new, 
 And you and I are happy as the day. 
 The past is buried deep, and all my songs 
 Shall tell of joy, and you shall hunt the woods 
 With Riquet and Callista — 
 
 And ere long 
 Dandle their children on our knees and play 
 With the kingdom's heir. He will be handsome. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Yes, they are beautiful. Like sunshine, Love 
 Illumines them : the fountain where apart 
 They stand and talk, has not a fresher song 
 Nor are its waters purer than their hearts — 
 But we forget the rest, and Lanval too, 
 To whom we owe so much. 
 
HIQUET OF THE TUFT. 171 
 
 Lanval, come hither; 
 So you have done the deed : is this the Lady ? 
 «> 
 
 LANVAL. 
 
 Yes, though beset with fears. I think my life 
 Is crystallized already. Whether that 
 Bodes good or ill to work I do not know — 
 But see — There is Gentilla — King, my Prince, 
 Callista, Gentles all, bid hail the fairy. 
 
 Gentilla enters, strikes the earth with her wand. 
 It opens and discloses a ^great hall, filled with 
 musicians, servants, (^c, and laid out for the 
 marriage feast. Joyous music. 
 
 GENTILLA. 
 
 All is over; I have kept 
 
 The word I gave when Riquet slept. 
 
 Take Callista for your wife; [To Hiquet] 
 
 Love her, guard her as your life. 
 
 Honour Riquet ; on this ground [To Call/staj 
 
 Is no truer lover found. 
 
 He has made you wise, and you 
 
 Have made him beautiful in view , 
 
172 RIQUET OF THE TUFT. 
 
 But love did. both — therefore above 
 All other things — hold fast to love. 
 And keep it gay, for life is short. 
 Sound trumpets, make the lovers sport. 
 
 \Gentilla leads the way into the hall. They 
 all follotv Iter ■while the trumpets are 
 sounding, and the curtain falls.'] 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : i;. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, TRINTERS.