And never a flower at the close, Over and gone with the roses, Not over and gone with the rose. True, one rose will outblossom the rest, one rose in a bower. I speak after my fancies, for I am a Troubadour, you know, and won the violet at Toulouse; but my voice is harsh here, not in tune, a nightingale out of season; for marriage, rose or no rose, has killed the golden violet. BECKET. Madam, you do ill to scorn wedded love. ELEANOR. So I do. Louis of France loved me, and I dreamed that I loved Louis of France: and I loved Henry of England, and Henry of England dreamed that he loved me; but the marriage-garland withers even with the putting on, the bright link rusts with the breath of the first after-marriage kiss, the harvest moon is the ripening of the harvest, and the honeymoon is the gall of love; he dies of his honeymoon. I could pity this poor world myself that it is no better ordered. HENRY. Dead is he, my Queen? What, altogether? Let me swear nay to that by this cross on thy neck. God's eyes! what a lovely cross! what jewels! ELEANOR. Doth it please you? Take it and wear it on that hard heart of yours-- there. [_Gives it to him_. HENRY (_puts it on_). On this left breast before so hard a heart, To hide the scar left by thy Parthian dart. ELEANOR. Has my simple song set you jingling? Nay, if I took and translated that hard heart into our Provençal facilities, I could so play about it with the rhyme-- HENRY. That the heart were lost in the rhyme and the matter in the metre. May we not pray you, Madam, to spare us the hardness of your facility? ELEANOR. The wells of Castaly are not wasted upon the desert. We did but jest. HENRY. There's no jest on the brows of Herbert there. What is it, Herbert? _Enter_ HERBERT OF BOSHAM. HERBERT. My liege, the good Archbishop is no more. HENRY. Peace to his soul! HERBERT. I left him with peace on his face--that sweet other-world smile, which will be reflected in the spiritual body among the angels. But he longed much to see your Grace and the Chancellor ere he past, and his last words were a commendation of Thomas Becket to your Grace as his successor in the archbishoprick. HENRY. Ha, Becket! thou rememberest our talk! BECKET. My heart is full of tears--I have no answer. HENRY. Well, well, old men must die, or the world would grow mouldy, would only breed the past again. Come to me to-morrow. Thou hast but to hold out thy hand. Meanwhile the revenues are mine. A-hawking, a-hawking! If I sit, I grow fat. [_Leaps over the table, and exit_. BECKET. He did prefer me to the chancellorship, Believing I should ever aid the Church-- But have I done it? He commends me now From out his grave to this archbishoprick. HERBERT. A dead man's dying wish should be of weight.