The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell With Introductory Notice and Memoir by John Nichol |
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 | The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell |  |
SCENE XLI.
The Study.Balder, solus, by the window.
Balder.
And once since then it hath been night and day.
Before my open eyes the useless sun
Perfunctory again hath been drawn up
Over yon east. Why I know not, nor care,
For in my soul the season hath not changed. [Pauses.
It must be done. How I have learned so well
That the dread lesson going to and fro
On the bare surface of my beaten brain
Hath trod out its own footsteps. Yet once more
Let me dispose it in the attitude
Of due performance. This most sovereign gift
Of long-sought death should be the last and best
Of all our sweet love-tokens, and bestowed
In the ripe moment and receptive throb
Of her consent, my hint and cue to be
Her own entreaty. Good.
[Pauses.
Before my open eyes the useless sun
Perfunctory again hath been drawn up
Over yon east. Why I know not, nor care,
For in my soul the season hath not changed. [Pauses.
277
That the dread lesson going to and fro
On the bare surface of my beaten brain
Hath trod out its own footsteps. Yet once more
Let me dispose it in the attitude
Of due performance. This most sovereign gift
Of long-sought death should be the last and best
Of all our sweet love-tokens, and bestowed
In the ripe moment and receptive throb
Of her consent, my hint and cue to be
Her own entreaty. Good.
‘That I might die,’
And then I strike.
[Pauses.
—Who struck? Liar, not I!
For in this forehead came the mortal dint
And stunned me! Down from my flayed shoulders thou
Intolerable weight that like a beast
Hast dropt on me out of the mystery
And blackest umbrage. I have enough to bear,
I hurl thee off—aye, tho' thou clawest my life
And rollest into Hell. I have not sinned!
It is no sin! Did she not beg for death?
Is it not blessed to give? And if the gift
Bankrupt the giver—how? You heavens, if I
Am merely poor that she who gave her mite
Was Crœsus' widow!
For in this forehead came the mortal dint
And stunned me! Down from my flayed shoulders thou
Intolerable weight that like a beast
Hast dropt on me out of the mystery
And blackest umbrage. I have enough to bear,
I hurl thee off—aye, tho' thou clawest my life
And rollest into Hell. I have not sinned!
It is no sin! Did she not beg for death?
Is it not blessed to give? And if the gift
Bankrupt the giver—how? You heavens, if I
Am merely poor that she who gave her mite
Was Crœsus' widow!
Did she not pray too?
Have I not heard her at midnight and noon?
And she was righteous, and her righteous prayer
Must needs avail: what is to come must come.
Whether by thunder-bolt, or secret touch
Of plague, or undetermining event
Of irrespective hap, or by the hand
Of love, how guiltier? Beast, I have not sinned!
Off!—Why 'tis well. Thus as with sudden shout
I scare it from me, and these worse within
That like a pack of hungry wolves disperse
A moment into darkness and return
Ravening the more. Vain labour to vain end.
Even let them gorge their full. My pride is carrion
And stinks to be devoured. Hie in you hell-dogs
And split your hides! There is no good in me;
Why cavil in what fashion I shall wear
The necessary evil of an essence
Inexorably bad? If that which lives
In this detested arm had warmed the sap
And swelled the branches of some innocent tree,
A murderer would have plucked it.
Have I not heard her at midnight and noon?
278
Must needs avail: what is to come must come.
Whether by thunder-bolt, or secret touch
Of plague, or undetermining event
Of irrespective hap, or by the hand
Of love, how guiltier? Beast, I have not sinned!
Off!—Why 'tis well. Thus as with sudden shout
I scare it from me, and these worse within
That like a pack of hungry wolves disperse
A moment into darkness and return
Ravening the more. Vain labour to vain end.
Even let them gorge their full. My pride is carrion
And stinks to be devoured. Hie in you hell-dogs
And split your hides! There is no good in me;
Why cavil in what fashion I shall wear
The necessary evil of an essence
Inexorably bad? If that which lives
In this detested arm had warmed the sap
And swelled the branches of some innocent tree,
A murderer would have plucked it.
Do you weep
Ye heavens? Let fall your balmy tears in vain.
Aye, make the grass green that she may not tread;
Let brooks prate idly, fill the empty earth
With wasted flowers. What matter? Have your will
Niggard or good. None evermore shall see
Or hear. My Beautiful, my Beautiful,
Thou art slain! Thou art slain!
God, that I had not been;
That I had perished in my father's veins!
That some fore-blasting flash had dried me up,
And nature had not known an hour or womb
So cursed as to conceive me!
[He sits silent for two hours by the window.
Ye heavens? Let fall your balmy tears in vain.
Aye, make the grass green that she may not tread;
Let brooks prate idly, fill the empty earth
With wasted flowers. What matter? Have your will
Niggard or good. None evermore shall see
Or hear. My Beautiful, my Beautiful,
Thou art slain! Thou art slain!
279
That I had perished in my father's veins!
That some fore-blasting flash had dried me up,
And nature had not known an hour or womb
So cursed as to conceive me!
Forty times and five,
And every time to each twin beak a meal;
Two meals and but a single fly to each
Fourscore and ten; but I perceive the bird
Feedeth by favour, and the further beak
That hath a forward air and overhangs
The pendant threshold at each dole enjoys
A double bounty. Do both parent birds
Concern in this fond labour? I think both.
They seem alike; but measuring with mine eye
By the small boles and bosses of the nest
I mark that the alternate visitant
Plants its right tiny foot where the left claw
Of the last comer rested, and this so
Not once or twice within the laws of chance,
But in such due succession as bespeaks
Or choice or habit personal. If choice
Then both by differentia, since in birds
The sense of numbers, if such sense exist,
Solely perceptive must of need omit
Numerical relation, and if habit
Both by the hypothesis.
And every time to each twin beak a meal;
Two meals and but a single fly to each
Fourscore and ten; but I perceive the bird
Feedeth by favour, and the further beak
That hath a forward air and overhangs
The pendant threshold at each dole enjoys
A double bounty. Do both parent birds
Concern in this fond labour? I think both.
They seem alike; but measuring with mine eye
By the small boles and bosses of the nest
I mark that the alternate visitant
Plants its right tiny foot where the left claw
Of the last comer rested, and this so
Not once or twice within the laws of chance,
But in such due succession as bespeaks
Or choice or habit personal. If choice
Then both by differentia, since in birds
The sense of numbers, if such sense exist,
Solely perceptive must of need omit
Numerical relation, and if habit
Both by the hypothesis.
280
Oh thou great grief,
That like a lion at the foot of a tree
Dost wait for me—gape thy red jaws! I come!
It must be done. The very day is doomed.
A shut and funeral city hung with black
Is not more different from the daily streets
Than this day from another. As on morn
Of foul and horrid execution
The sullen Tyrant orders from the North
His hideous hordes upon the glowing land
That loved the captive, Winter ere his time
Upon the genial season hath advanced
Sudden with all his Power. Down the moist walls
The long snail slimes; cold things of fen and pool
Come within doors and as a native stone
Do crawl the grisly hearth; and in my soul
This palpable obscurity repeats
The outer darkness, and within, without,
Cosmic and microcosmic, as yon twain
Round answering hemispheres, world answers world.
I cannot see the hills or the mild sky,
Or aught of gentler aspect that beheld
Might yet dissuade me. To mine inward eyes
That might have met unmanned such sweet array
Of sacred opposition, there is now
Nought but the inner mist and through the mist
A path stark clear. Therefore it must be done.
As one who having stared upon the sun,
Turning his eyeballs downward doth bedaub
The blotted world with black, to my hot sight
A moving pall is in the air and when
I think of her it falls upon the face
I could not slay. Therefore it must be done.
Nature herself consenting to the deed
Lets her veil round it, and to me shut in
Of all her universe doth leave alone
The victim and the knife. Therefore, oh God,
It must be done.
[He attempts to rise.
That like a lion at the foot of a tree
Dost wait for me—gape thy red jaws! I come!
It must be done. The very day is doomed.
A shut and funeral city hung with black
Is not more different from the daily streets
Than this day from another. As on morn
Of foul and horrid execution
The sullen Tyrant orders from the North
His hideous hordes upon the glowing land
That loved the captive, Winter ere his time
Upon the genial season hath advanced
Sudden with all his Power. Down the moist walls
The long snail slimes; cold things of fen and pool
Come within doors and as a native stone
Do crawl the grisly hearth; and in my soul
This palpable obscurity repeats
The outer darkness, and within, without,
Cosmic and microcosmic, as yon twain
Round answering hemispheres, world answers world.
I cannot see the hills or the mild sky,
Or aught of gentler aspect that beheld
Might yet dissuade me. To mine inward eyes
That might have met unmanned such sweet array
Of sacred opposition, there is now
Nought but the inner mist and through the mist
A path stark clear. Therefore it must be done.
As one who having stared upon the sun,
281
The blotted world with black, to my hot sight
A moving pall is in the air and when
I think of her it falls upon the face
I could not slay. Therefore it must be done.
Nature herself consenting to the deed
Lets her veil round it, and to me shut in
Of all her universe doth leave alone
The victim and the knife. Therefore, oh God,
It must be done.
I will arise. Rare moment!
The slow will hath not reached the idle thews,
Yet, being dispatched, the irrevocable deed
Is now in act, and I that have not moved
Already am felonious. What! is this
A dream, that the strong cause o'ershoots the effect
And passes with its message the untouched
Dull functions it should stir? At length I stand.
What! am I chained? Have I trunk-hose of lead?
The door—the door—my limbs do help the ground
Sucking me in. The threshold is not yet.
I labour against the stedfastness o' the air,
Which bars my breast, and, as two walls of ice
Falling together with mine head between,
Enlocks me. Hands, hands, nothing but hands—Ah!
Is it so horrible that very nothing
Conceives to stay it? Off! I will be free.
Darkness at noon! Aye, aye, the flood swells fast.
This lightning——
[Sinks in a swoon.
The slow will hath not reached the idle thews,
Yet, being dispatched, the irrevocable deed
Is now in act, and I that have not moved
Already am felonious. What! is this
A dream, that the strong cause o'ershoots the effect
And passes with its message the untouched
Dull functions it should stir? At length I stand.
What! am I chained? Have I trunk-hose of lead?
The door—the door—my limbs do help the ground
Sucking me in. The threshold is not yet.
I labour against the stedfastness o' the air,
Which bars my breast, and, as two walls of ice
Falling together with mine head between,
Enlocks me. Hands, hands, nothing but hands—Ah!
Is it so horrible that very nothing
Conceives to stay it? Off! I will be free.
Darkness at noon! Aye, aye, the flood swells fast.
282
[After lying long he rccovers and sits up.
A swoon? So best. Zero once past is past,
And the uncounted scale beneath hath not
A credible extreme. I am a man
Who with the very gate of death shuts out
Each earthly work behind him, and, with all
His human powers in one, comes back to do
A single office. By this strait I leave
The womb of failing nature, and am born
Invincible; safer perhaps to know
The range of chance, and stronger to have felt
The worst of mortal weakness. Weakness? Bah!
I turned the sword of manhood in my hand
And with mine eye I tried it, and on edge
The broad attempered steel went out of sight.
A true Damascus blade!
[Clock strikes.
And the uncounted scale beneath hath not
A credible extreme. I am a man
Who with the very gate of death shuts out
Each earthly work behind him, and, with all
His human powers in one, comes back to do
A single office. By this strait I leave
The womb of failing nature, and am born
Invincible; safer perhaps to know
The range of chance, and stronger to have felt
The worst of mortal weakness. Weakness? Bah!
I turned the sword of manhood in my hand
And with mine eye I tried it, and on edge
The broad attempered steel went out of sight.
A true Damascus blade!
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven. Never trembling wretch that hears
The form of Justice, strained at the approach
Of that one final word that holds his fate,
As I for that last stroke.
I well remember that at eight o'clock
We, far asunder, kept a tryst in Heaven
Night after night for years. At that sweet hour,
She had a prayer she used to say for me,
And ever since I think the very time
Repeats it. I have need of prayers to-night,
And I do think the evening air so oft
Ensweetened with her deprecating breath
Will then be gracious for her.
Five, six, seven. Never trembling wretch that hears
The form of Justice, strained at the approach
Of that one final word that holds his fate,
As I for that last stroke.
I well remember that at eight o'clock
We, far asunder, kept a tryst in Heaven
Night after night for years. At that sweet hour,
She had a prayer she used to say for me,
And ever since I think the very time
Repeats it. I have need of prayers to-night,
283
Ensweetened with her deprecating breath
Will then be gracious for her.
I'll not haste
Nor to the moment of the deed abate
One jot that smooths the doing.
[Going to the window.
Nor to the moment of the deed abate
One jot that smooths the doing.
Brittle world!
Thou hast another hour ere I do break thee.
For she shall live until the clock strikes eight.
Oh heavy, heavy curfew!
Thou hast another hour ere I do break thee.
For she shall live until the clock strikes eight.
Oh heavy, heavy curfew!
| The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell | |