Nay, these are tears That gather toward thine eyelids now. Thou hast broken Silence—if now thy speech die down unspoken, Thou dost me wrong indeed—but more than mine The wrong thou dost thyself is.

GUENDOLEN.

GUENDOLEN.

And Locrine— Were not thy sire wronged likewise of me?

MADAN.

MADAN.

Yea.

GUENDOLEN.

GUENDOLEN.

Yet—I may choose yet—nothing will I say More.

MADAN.

MADAN.

Choose, and have thy choice; it galls not me.

GUENDOLEN.

GUENDOLEN.

Son, son! thy speech is bitterer than the sea.

MADAN.

MADAN.

Yet, were the gulfs of hell not bitterer, thine Might match thy son’s, who hast called my sire—Locrine— Thy lord, and lord of all this land—the king Whose name is bright and sweet as earth in spring, Whose love is mixed with Britain’s very life As heaven with earth at sunrise—thou, his wife, Hast called him—and the poison of the word Set not thy tongue on fire—I lived and heard— Coward.

GUENDOLEN.

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