University of Virginia Library

SCENE XXVII.

The Study.
Balder, solus.
Balder.
And is this your device, you Heavens,
When ye would have the music of our groans?
The feeble lamentations of such pale
Hereditary anguish as is born
To pangs, and with the dread entail receives
Inheritance of patience, the dull howl
With which accustomed guilt receives his stripe
In skin that thickens to the lash, each ill
That carries with the wrong the slow redress
Cries not for you; the lax and languid strings,
Which Nature, careful of herself, doth loose
To save her heart, cannot ring out such sounds
As startle pleasure in your sated ears.
They should be giants who make sport for gods!
As we enjoy we suffer; legends tell
That Eden is the utter wilderness,
And the archangel's stature did become
The measure of the fiend. Therefore, ye eld
And sager gods, whose reeking Vulture once
Did gorge your youthful vengeance on the rock
In Crete, ye have grown wise, and no more
Subtract the needful vitals that may throb
A lustier pang, nor bleed the bull ye bait.
Prometheus, keep thine heart! There is no trick
Of Hell's contrivance that can plague thee so,
Nor with as subtle mastery dispense
Such dire infliction! Even the rude skill
Of mortal cruelty hath learned to breed
The gladiator to die hard; and they
Who roast the human feast upon the shore
Do supple him with kindness. What nice nerve
Thrills the best pleasure twangs the sorest pain;
The sense that faints with bliss will faint with woe:
And he who dieth of a rose is damned
Upon the thorn. Therefore, ye jubilant gods,
Pamper the victim, fill his veins with joy,
Build him of soft endurance, tender and strong
As a flayed lion; finish each stern power
To such an exquisite final that it ends
A plumèd feeling; let delicatesse
Weave his thin cuticle, and mesh him in;
Be his most sensitive structure the extreme
That meets and makes a whole with matchless strength—
Even as the dread Apocalyptic beasts
Were full of eyes. Thews of asbestos, ribs
Of adamant, wound in so fine a thread
Of life produced and ambient that he stands
The heroic total of great opposites;
Firm as a tower in any wind that blows,
And trembling to a fragrance in the wind!
Then on some human pyre whose dainty frame,
As 'twere of frankincense and gums of Ind,
His vital heat might warm into decay,
Stretch him out, like the prophet on the dead,
Limb upon fateful limb, and bind him down
With the strong bonds of love, and rivet fast
What everlasting anguish could not break!
And fire the pile! and let your ready flames
Wrap the incumbent health and scorch the strength
They not consume! unguarded, unsuspect,
Naked, and toiled, not as a hero falls,
Nor in the wont of battle to receive
His fate, and, by contending, half subdue;
But bound and prone, expatiate with nice art
To the invenient horror, oped and spread
To the elective lust of keener flame,
Lifting with incommunicable throes
The inevitable torment, leaping high
In vain and higher, every desperate strain
Stirring new fires that burn a loftier bound
That fans worse anguish and more wild despair
For ever self-renewed, let him plunge, gods,
And cheer Olympus!