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 s.p.a.ce'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 sh.o.r.e.

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 sh.o.r.es 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 Is harbinger of greater happiness.

No! I mistake not; 'tis the active hand Of love to which I owe this kind indulgence.

I recognize in this the mighty arm Of Leicester. They will by degrees expand My prison; will accustom me, through small, To greater liberty, until at last I shall behold the face of him whose hand Will dash my fetters off, and that forever.

KENNEDY.

Oh, my dear queen! I cannot reconcile These contradictions. 'Twas but yesterday That they announced your death, and all at once, To-day, you have such liberty. Their chains Are also loosed, as I have oft been told, Whom everlasting liberty awaits.

[Hunting horns at a distance.

MARY.

Hear'st then the bugle, so blithely resounding?

Hear'st thou its echoes through wood and through plain?

Oh, might I now, on my nimble steed bounding, Join with the jocund, the frolicsome train.

[Hunting horns again heard.

Again! Oh, this sad and this pleasing remembrance!

These are the sounds which, so sprightly and clear, Oft, when with music the hounds and the horn So cheerfully welcomed the break of the morn, On the heaths of the Highlands delighted my ear.

SCENE II.

Enter PAULET.

PAULET.

Well, have I acted right at last, my lady?

Do I for once, at least, deserve your thanks?

MARY.

How! Do I owe this favor, sir, to you?

PAULET.

Why not to me? I visited the court, And gave the queen your letter.

MARY.

Did you give it?

In very truth did you deliver it?

And is this freedom which I now enjoy The happy consequence?

PAULET (significantly).

Nor that alone; Prepare yourself to see a greater still.

MARY.