ANNE. Stay with me longer! Wait till Whitsuntide, Till June, till summer comes, and if, when you see Your own son, still you’ll leave us, why, go then! But sure, you will not go. SHAKESPEARE. Summer? Why summer? It should be spring, not summer-- ANNE. I’ll not bear These questions, like coarse fingers, prying out My secrets. SHAKESPEARE. Secrets? ANNE. Secrets? I? I’ve none-- I never meant--I know not why the word Came to me, “secret.” Yet you’re all secret thoughts And plans you do not share. Why should not I Be secret, if I choose? But see, I’ll tell you All, all--some other time--were there indeed A thing to tell-- SHAKESPEARE. When will the child be born? ANNE. If it were--June? My mother said to-day It might be June--July--This woman’s talk Is not for you-- SHAKESPEARE. July? ANNE. Oh, I must laugh Because you look and look--don’t look at me! June! May! I swear it’s May! I said the spring, And May is still the girlhood of the year. SHAKESPEARE. July! A round year since you came to me! Then--when you came to me, in haste, afraid, All tears, and clung to me, and white-lipped swore You had no friend but Avon if I failed you, It was a lie? ANNE. Don’t look at me! SHAKESPEARE. No need? You forced me with a lie? ANNE. Now there is--now! SHAKESPEARE. You locked me in this prison with a lie? ANNE. I loved you. SHAKESPEARE. And you lied to me-- ANNE. To hold you. I couldn’t lose you. I was mad with pain. SHAKESPEARE. Are you so weak, So candle-wavering, that a gust of pain Could snuff out honour? ANNE. ’Ware this hurricane Of pain! The deserts heed it not, nor rocks, Nor the perpetual sea; but oh, the fields Where barley grows and small beasts hide, they fear-- And haggard woods that feel its violent hand Entangled in their hair and wrestling, shriek Crashing to ruin. What shall their pensioners Do now, the rustling mice, the anemones, The whisking squirrels, ivies, nightingales, The hermit bee whose summer goods were stored In a south bank? How shall the small things stand Against the tempest, against the cruel sun That stares them, homeless, out of countenance, Through the day’s heats?