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Mary Stuart

Год написания книги
2017
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As if by accident; it must not seem
To have been planned, and should you not incline,
You need not speak to her.

ELIZABETH

If I am foolish,
Be yours the fault, not mine. I would not care
To-day to cross your wishes; for to-day
I've grieved you more than all my other subjects.

[Tenderly.

Let it then be your fancy. Leicester, hence
You see the free obsequiousness of love.
Which suffers that which it cannot approve.

[LEICESTER prostrates himself before her, and the curtain falls.

ACT III

SCENE I

In a park. In the foreground trees; in the background a distant prospect.

MARY advances, running from behind the trees.

HANNAH KENNEDY follows slowly.

KENNEDY

You hasten on as if endowed with wings;
I cannot follow you so swiftly; wait.

MARY

Freedom returns! Oh let me enjoy it.
Let me be childish; be thou childish with me.
Freedom invites me! Oh, let me employ it
Skimming with winged step light o'er the lea;
Have I escaped from this mansion of mourning?
Holds me no more the sad dungeon of care?
Let me, with joy and with eagerness burning,
Drink in the free, the celestial air.

KENNEDY

Oh, my dear lady! but a very little
Is your sad gaol extended; you behold not
The wall that shuts us in; these plaited tufts
Of trees hide from your sight the hated object.

MARY

Thanks to these friendly trees, that hide from me
My prison walls, and flatter my illusion!
Happy I now may deem myself, and free;
Why wake me from my dream's so sweet confusion?
The extended vault of heaven around me lies,
Free and unfettered range my wandering eyes
O'er space's vast, immeasurable sea!
From where yon misty mountains rise on high
I can my empire's boundaries explore;
And those light clouds which, steering southwards, fly,
Seek the mild clime of France's genial shore.
Fast fleeting clouds! ye meteors that fly;
Could I but with you sail through the sky!
Tenderly greet the dear land of my youth!
Here I am captive! oppressed by my foes,
No other than you may carry my woes.
Free through the ether your pathway is seen,
Ye own not the power of this tyrant queen.

KENNEDY

Alas! dear lady! You're beside yourself,
This long-lost, long-sought freedom makes you rave.

MARY

Yonder's a fisher returning to his home;
Poor though it be, would he lend me his wherry,
Quick to congenial shores would I ferry.
Spare is his trade, and labor's his doom;
Rich would I freight his vessel with treasure;
Such a draught should be his as he never had seen;
Wealth should he find in his nets without measure,
Would he but rescue a poor captive queen.

KENNEDY

Fond, fruitless wishes! See you not from far
How we are followed by observing spies?
A dismal, barbarous prohibition scares
Each sympathetic being from our path.

MARY

No, gentle Hannah! Trust me, not in vain
My prison gates are opened. This small grace
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