University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—Night of the same day. Interior of the chief tent of Aran. Noema, Irad asleep.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
Why should I tell him more? When last I raised
The veil behind which lies my sanctuary
Of inner life, he barely deigned to look,
But bade me share my superstitious realm
With Spirit consorts,—fit companions!
Why should this superciliousness wound,
When 'tis the low that at the lofty strikes,
And they who soar be ruffled in their flight
By them who grovel? 'Tis the feeble side
Of that in mortals which alone is strong,
To keep them feeble still: that sense of shame,
Which dreads to let the unfamiliar look
Upon our naked selves familiarly,
Even when noble in our nakedness.
Thus when to Aran's misconceiving mind
I bare my heavenly secret, 'twere as though
I unto stranger gaze should bare myself,
And violate my instinct's modesty.
O no! I cannot speak of it again!
Yet secrecy, like woodmite when it gnaws
A fruit upon the side that's next the tree,
Though marring not rotundity and bloom,
Eats out the heart withal. Secretiveness
Is self's most subtle poison, and demands
The antidote of trust. I'll trust my husband.
I hear him coming.
[Aran enters through a curtain in the tent.
Must thou go to-night?

ARAN.
There is no must where a firm will presides,
And ordered Forethought, with its crown on top
And active sceptre in its hand, drives back
The rabble urgings of Necessity.
Must is a fiction of the Gods to fool
Their mortal serfs with; a device for slaves,
Children, and women, and the sicklier sort.
But to the man whose mettle centuries
Of cowardly compliance have not quelled,
Must is a wrongful overt enemy,
Who must with overt rights be combated;
Compelled to quit this usurped soil, and leave
A native field for resolution.
I go not to the Tower, because I must,
But, as my words have pushed it through the clouds,
Because I will. Will shall be sovran here,
Will of the knitted front and tameless eyes,
Whilst blind Necessity may reign in Heaven.

NOEMA.
Count it not sure, my lord, that Heaven is blind,
Or that this higher will which unto us,
Who cannot change it, seems necessity,
Is not deliberate option of the wise;
Which to resist is but to coax defeat
To come and crush us. Oh! mistrust thy Tower,
Which, at its top, will fall as short of Heaven,
As all we win falls short of all we want.
Listen, one moment: Let me ask the Spirit,
With whom that twilight eve I did converse,
As straight I told thee, and whose pinions range
Over illimitable leagues of wind,
What distance may divorce the Heavens from Earth,
And what long links man's energy must forge
To marry them once more.

ARAN.
A Spirit, forsooth!
Thou meditatest strange alliances.
Ask of the kestrel how the stare should fly
To balk him when he swoops; go ask the waves
How the jerked bark should foil their turbulence;
Or from the irate wrack and puckered clouds,
How best the thunder-threatened oak should wrap
His fluttering foliage round his agëd head,
To meet the lightning harmless! When the wolf
No more shall raven 'mid the scuttling flock,
But bear a crook and gently shepherd them;
When stiff rime feeds the flowers like liquid dew,
Or floods shall excavate the torrent's bed
And fence its banks lest that they overflow,—
Then shall the aborigines of air
Cease to conspire against this solid Earth,
And serve as Heaven's astute auxiliaries.
Could they affect to join their ranks to ours,
They were but traitors in the camp, and thou
Wert but a traitor too, wert not a dupe,
To harbour such a sly ambassador.

NOEMA.
O, thou dost wrong him! He is frank as light,
Clear as the morning, candid as the noon,
And never impious subterfuge could lurk
'Neath such transparent pinions. He would do
All that I asked him, all that thou shouldst ask,
Would run my messages from stage to stage
Of the unsurveyed air, and bring thee count
And exact measure of thy enterprise.

ARAN.
A most obliging Spirit! Use him then
If thou canst make him serviceable. But,
Forgive me if I check intelligence
Fetched from a source suspect. For from the hour
When the intrepid Lucifer was flung,
Since by misgiving Seraphim forsook,
Over Heaven's battlements, no Spirit, 'twould seem,
Hath dared to brew rebellion in the sky,
Or seek allies in man. They live content
To serve celestial spleen and wreak us hurt;
To be the messengers of poisons, plagues,
Blights, mildews, frosts, droughts, famines, hurricanes,
But never once have lent a fanning wing
To mortal aspiration. Help from Spirits!
Why call them Spirits? Spirits spiritless!
When man's encouraging voice at length is heard
Resounding 'mong the stars, and all abreast
We storm God's last intrenchments, then perchance
Will insurrection flame along the Spheres,
And their subservient denizens demand
To fight beneath our flag. But until then,
To hope for succour from their half-fledged wings,
Were as though one should look for tiger's teeth
Within the palate of the squealing hare;
And Spirits' mission, spite their specious name,
Will be to harry men and hoodwink women.

NOEMA.
O Aran! thou art harsh, incredulous.
The Spirit that hath deigned to touch our home
Is of a gentle and considerate mould,
And would—nay, hear me!—prosper me and mine.
May I not therefore—

ARAN.
Thou mayst what thou wilt,
So thou dost move no counsels 'gainst the Tower.
That would I never brook. [Goes over to Irad's crib and bends over.

Sleep sound, my boy,
Sleep sound and grow to manhood! Would thou hadst
Already put on thy virility,
And couldst thy masculine ambition lend
To swell thy father's purpose! I would wait,
But that my resolution might drop off
Whilst thine was ripening. Thine the harvest be,
So that the seed and sickle fall to me.

[Exit Aran.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
'Gainst male self-will there is no argument
That is not overborne. He would not listen.
A man knows all before a woman speaks.
Who argues with his shadow? It must follow,
Draw he which way he will. Yet Spirits listen;
And mine submits to me as meek an ear
As though I were a Spirit, he but flesh.
Is it that spirit hearkens to the flesh
Easier than flesh to spirit? That is a thought
Rips up the womb of darkness, and delivers
A ray of struggling light. Yet I to him
Could hearken whilst the glass of time ran out
From day to night, then from night back again,
Nor ever think to fret the even stream
Of his discourse; and I am merest flesh.
'Twere too presumptuous to hope otherwise.
So darkness sucks that glimmer back again,
And leaves us in obscurity. Sleep, child!
Sleep, as he bade thee, soundly; nor awake
To learn how inharmonious is man's heart,
And how its discords grow with added strings!
He wished thee manhood: could he wish thee worse?
Rather would I that curly intancy
Should still around thy unridged temples smile;
And no anxiety thy course disturb,
That could not straight an ample refuge find
In the fond shallows of thy mother's breast!
Alas! how soon thou wilt for ever turn
Upon that haven a forgetful keel,
And on the open billows of the world
Too proudly trust to thine own puffed-out sails!
Oh! may the waves not get thee under them!
For what might she who bare thee and would die
To give thee life a second time, do more
Than stand upon the shore and watch thee sink?