University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A Portico.
Yamos, Orooko, &c.
Yamos.
Welcome, Orooko, give me yet thy hand;
Come, be not sad, but make our meeting joyous.
You were to me a loving father once,
And I am still to you a faithful son.

Orooko.
I feel towards you as I always felt,
But here are sights afflicting to my eyes,
Turning the pleasure of this hour to woe.

Yamos.
To me, to all, your re-appearance here,
Is cheerful as the sunbeams after night.

Orooko.
And night it has been, Yamos, since we parted;
A night of dreams, whose phantoms still deceive,
O let me hope that thou wilt 'waken from them.

Yamos.
And yet these gorgeous objects rising round,
The tow'ring city, and these royal ensigns
Of arts and polity, should teach my friend,
All is not fantasy.—The sleep was yours.
Like the sun-loving bird that sleeps in winter,
And wak'ning in the spring, finds Nature new;
Cover'd with blossoms and resounding songs,
You come among us wond'ring at the change.

Orooko.
The arts, the ornaments which you admire,
Are as the speckles and the glittering eye
Of the fell snake, and these increasing sounds,
The stir of labor in your guilty town,
But as the rattle that announces death.

Yamos.
Is there then nothing that can please your eye
In all this new magnificence?

Orooko.
No, nothing.

Yamos.
Would you we should resign the social arts—
The various pleasures industry makes ours,
And sink into barbarity again.

Orooko.
I wish you only to cast off the vices,
Which with these gaudy garments you put on.
The virtues need no robes, they ever move
In healthy vigor, naked like your sires.
But these gay trappings of civilization
Are but the covers of offensive sores.—
As I came sadly to this spacious dwelling,
Two stately edifices met my view;—
One was too great, too lofty as I thought
For any use of man; the other seem'd
Too closely strong, even for the fiercest beasts.
What are they, sir?

Yamos.
One is a temple hallow'd,
Open and free for our religious rites.

Orooko.
What! does the God, the stranger has reveal'd,
Live like a creature local and limited.

Yamos.
The God we worship is the God of Nature,
The spirit of the ocean and the earth!

Orooko.
Then wherefore have you built to him a house,
When the whole universe is full of him?
In light and blossoms, and melodious sounds,
We know his beauty; in the fruits and sleep,
And in the gladness of the blameless breast,
We feel his bounty and enjoy his care;
The skies so vast and inaccessible,
With their infinitude of stars attest
To us his greatness; in the strength of hills,
The deep foundations of the steadfast earth
And the long fetching of his breath in tempests,
We own his mighty power; and when we question
Why we do live and all this world should be,
We recognise his undiscover'd Nature.
Is it to Him that you have built a house?

Yamos.
You will but see our works in your own way;
We have not rear'd the church for his abode,
But as a place in which we may remember
That he exists, and should be there adored.

Orooko.
Does then your knowledge, your civilization,
Tend to make you forget him? Royal Yamos,
Our fathers never dreaded such a chance.
They heard him in the roaring of the waves;
They trembled at his anger in the thunder;
They fear'd the flapping of his wings in storms;
They hail'd his smiling in the dawn of morn;
They felt his kindness in the warmth of day,
And like tired children in their mother's lap,
They trusted to him in the nightly sleep.
O he was every-where and they were with him.
But for what purpose is your other fabric?

Yamos.
It is a prison, an appointed lodge,
For such as wrongful injure one another.

Orooko.
Stop, Yamos, stop. O swift retrace your steps,
To that simplicity that once was yours.
Already lo, your new-found arts require
Inventions to remind you of the God.
Already they have taught you to prepare
Abodes for men, men worse than savage beasts;
If in a few short moons all these are needful,
Think what shall rise when future ages come.
If there are men that must be shut in dungeons,
The bad in time may overtop the good,
And make them to their wicked purposes
Offer themselves in hideous sacrifice.

Yamos.
I will no longer now debate with you.
Come in and see the Queen, and if you can,
Restore her errant love again to me.

[Exeunt.