SHAKESPEARE. I know. And knowing I will live my dark days out And wait for His own evening to give light. And though I may not fill the mouth I love, Yet will I sow and reap and bind my sheaves, Glean, garner, mill my corn, and bake, and cast My bread upon the waters of the age. This will I do for love’s sake, lest God’s eyes, That are the Judgment, ask her man of her One day, and she be shamed--as I am shamed Ever, in my heart, by a voice witnessing Against me that I knew not love. PAGE [_entering with lights_]. The Queen, sir, Has sent you candles, now the sun is down, That you may see to work. SHAKESPEARE. I thank the Queen. Tell her the work goes well! _He sits down at the table._ Act one, scene one, Oliver’s house. It _shall_ go well. I have A strength that comes I know not whence. It _shall_ Go well. And then I’ll give the Roman tale I heard at school--a tale of men, not women: That easies all. But Antony goes on To Egypt and a gipsy: leaves his pale wife At home to scald her eyes out. Mary--Mary-- Will you not let me be? It _shall_ go well. And after Antony some Twelfth Night trick To please our gods and give my pregnancy Its needed peace. How many months for Denmark? And then? A whole man laughs, and so will I. Oh, Smile behind the thunder, teach me laughter, And save my soul!-- The knock-about fat man, try him again! He’ll take a month or less--candles are cheap, Cheaper than sleep these dreaming nights. That done, I’ll sink another shaft in Holinshed-- Marlowe, your diamonds! your diamonds! The king and his three daughters--he’s been shaped Already. True! But rough-cut only. Wait! Give me that giant cluster in my hand To cut anew, in its own midnight set, It shall outshine Orion! Afterwards, A fairy tale maybe, and after that-- And after that--and after--after? God! The years before me! And no Mary! Mary-- ANNE’S VOICE. When her lost face-- SHAKESPEARE. It shall, it shall go well. ANNE’S VOICE. --stares from the page you toil upon, thus, thus, In a glass of tears--