No More Learning

Come, Robin, Robin,
Come and kiss me now;
Help it can I? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Ringdoves coo again,
All things woo again.
Come behind and kiss me milking the cow!

ELIZABETH. Right honest and red-cheek'd; Robin was violent,
And she was crafty--a sweet violence,
And a sweet craft. I would I were a milkmaid,
To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die,
Then have my simple headstone by the church,
And all things lived and ended honestly.
I could not if I would. I am Harry's daughter:
Gardiner would have my head. They are not sweet,
The violence and the craft that do divide
The world of nature; what is weak must lie;
The lion needs but roar to guard his young;
The lapwing lies, says 'here' when they are there.
Threaten the child; 'I'll scourge you if you did it:'
What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue,
To say 'I did not? ' and my rod's the block.
I never lay my head upon the pillow
But that I think, 'Wilt thou lie there to-morrow? '
How oft the falling axe, that never fell,
Hath shock'd me back into the daylight truth
That it may fall to-day! Those damp, black, dead
Nights in the Tower; dead--with the fear of death
Too dead ev'n for a death-watch!
Toll of a bell,
Stroke of a clock, the scurrying of a rat
Affrighted me, and then delighted me,
For there was life--And there was life in death--
The little murder'd princes, in a pale light,
Rose hand in hand, and whisper'd, 'come away!
The civil wars are gone for evermore:
Thou last of all the Tudors, come away!
With us is peace! ' The last? It was a dream;
I must not dream, not wink, but watch. She has gone,
Maid Marian to her Robin--by and by
Both happy! a fox may filch a hen by night,
And make a morning outcry in the yard;
But there's no Renard here to 'catch her tripping. '
Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish'd
That I were caught, and kill'd away at once
Out of the flutter. The gray rogue, Gardiner,
Went on his knees, and pray'd me to confess
In Wyatt's business, and to cast myself
Upon the good Queen's mercy; ay, when, my Lord?
God save the Queen! My jailor--

_Enter_ SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD.

BEDINGFIELD. One, whose bolts,
That jail you from free life, bar you from death.
There haunt some Papist ruffians hereabout
Would murder you.

ELIZABETH. I thank you heartily, sir,
But I am royal, tho' your prisoner,
And God hath blest or cursed me with a nose--
Your boots are from the horses.