SHAKESPEARE. I know. And knowing I will live my dark days out And wait for His own evening to give light. And though I may not fill the mouth I love, Yet will I sow and reap and bind my sheaves, Glean, garner, mill my corn, and bake, and cast My bread upon the waters of the age. This will I do for love’s sake, lest God’s eyes, That are the Judgment, ask her man of her One day, and she be shamed--as I am shamed Ever, in my heart, by a voice witnessing Against me that I knew not love.
PAGE [_entering with lights_]. The Queen, sir, Has sent you candles, now the sun is down, That you may see to work.
SHAKESPEARE. I thank the Queen. Tell her the work goes well!
Act one, scene one, Oliver’s house. It _shall_ go well. I have A strength that comes I know not whence. It _shall_ Go well. And then I’ll give the Roman tale I heard at school--a tale of men, not women: That easies all. But Antony goes on To Egypt and a gipsy: leaves his pale wife At home to scald her eyes out. Mary--Mary-- Will you not let me be? It _shall_ go well. And after Antony some Twelfth Night trick To please our gods and give my pregnancy Its needed peace. How many months for Denmark? And then? A whole man laughs, and so will I. Oh, Smile behind the thunder, teach me laughter, And save my soul!-- The knock-about fat man, try him again! He’ll take a month or less--candles are cheap, Cheaper than sleep these dreaming nights. That done, I’ll sink another shaft in Holinshed-- Marlowe, your diamonds! your diamonds! The king and his three daughters--he’s been shaped Already. True! But rough-cut only. Wait! Give me that giant cluster in my hand To cut anew, in its own midnight set, It shall outshine Orion! Afterwards, A fairy tale maybe, and after that-- And after that--and after--after? God! The years before me! And no Mary! Mary--
ANNE’S VOICE. --stares from the page you toil upon, thus, thus, In a glass of tears--
SHAKESPEARE. They scald, they blind my view, No comfort anywhere.
ANNE’S VOICE. But when you’re old, For work too old, or pity, love or hate, For anything but peace, and in your hand Lies the crowned life victorious at last--
SHAKESPEARE. Like the crowned Indian fruit, the voyage home Rots while it gilds, not worth the tasting--