University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

—A Public Square. Calmstorm.
Calm.
Help, help, through all the watches of the night,
Amid the arches of the calm, blue day,
In every name, in every tongue, I hear
A cry for help. What answers? and whence is't?
An answer or a mocking, who can say?—
Wide over every land I see—the new earth's sons—
Black engines swing their terrible arms
On every side, as if to beat the rounded globe
Into another shape than that it took from God!—
If these will do men's work, will rush with nostrils fiery,
Upon the sinew-cracking toil, seize and devour
All obstacle from the way, let men be free
And holiday making, in presence of their dark
And gloomy slaves, ever be lords unlabored and erect.
And yet to toil is not to die outright.
In its right aims, and rightly sought, I know,
And rightly served, 't is sacred as the sainted hand,
But work gone to by needy men, in herds, at noon,
Panniered with dull cold meals, homeward at night
To plod with weary steps, dim eyes, lost hours,
Disjointed faculties, doubles a curse
That nature meant!—
Down in the pent and gloomy mine to grope,
To stifle, 'neath the gabled and the sooty roof,
The childhood white and pure, a moment lit,
In the thick reek of cells and prisoned airs,
Cheaply to waste the great, red, mournful heart,
To be a screw, a rack, a hoisting-way,
A camel and a dog, a mere utensil
And a clod, insensible to what it works in,
To what end, unknowing of the beauty lapped
Deep down in every art, in every toil,
Born to grow up by man's caressing hand—
Arms withered in youth, and eyeballs seared
Darker than age, in the huge furnace-blaze:
Oh, better, curbless rush, in swift black speed,—
These horses dreadful of the land and sea,
Over the earth, and be alone, in see,
The children of her hollow-hearted breast,
Masters and ministers, unmenial in their acts.—
I would decree six hours of honest toil
From every faithful citizen—the rest
In sleep, in thought, in airy garden walks,
In the calm pleasures of an unploughed heart,
Where every best thing had its chance to grow;
And over the face of life a spirit should fly,
Whose wings would shake down blessings manifold—
And then—
Enter a Citizen.
Your cheek is pale with news your tongue dares not
Report. Speak! speak!

Cit.
The air still shakes and lives
In the echo of the deed! A stone's throw only hence—
In the thick of the city, 'neath this quick-eyed
Hour of noon, a citizen has struck a citizen
Unto the heart, upon the public way,
And there he gasps in the sun, even now,
A gentle woman only bending over him.
I must speed on to bring the officer.

[Exit Citizen.
Calm.
God save us now! for all affrighted beats
The general heart, by many pulses swifter;
And men, each by himself, steal home to-night,
Earlier by an hour: night by its own darkness
Black, and day with shadows of the brain.
The world seems drawing to its fated end,
And golden order is confounded.
All men fear all, and who is free, who bond
To murderous thoughts, the hour nor season knows:
The link that holds the balanced earth
To heaven, breaks in the sun, and wide away
The orbless world rides to its doom.

Enter another Citizen, passing.
Cit.
A murder, a dreadful, dreadful murder, sir!

[Exit Citizen.
Calm.
O, thou that strikest at a human life,
Think how the spot is blasted, how the street
Where gushed the bloody stream, is dimmed forever
With a ruddy cloud, rising and falling
'Twixt the earth and sun! How every foot is tainted,
And shakes with fear, that stood within
The mortal round! How from the dagger's point,
There spring to life the shapes of hate and fear,
In bosoms numberless, till the glad round earth
Shudders to think of thee, shudders in secret,
And gives back thy bloody act,
Populous to overwhelm thee in thy shame!

Enter in front Umena, Dorcas, meeting.
Umena.
Peace with you, Dorcas! For dark and sad a sight
This day has seen: is there no blood upon
My face, no wildness in mine eye, as one
Who has o'erbent a gasping man?

Dorcas.
Too little, not too much;
Your features paler than their use cut the hushed air,
And make it, chilly, creep about you.
A red and deadly message this whiteness
Doth denote.

Umena.
A little instant since,
I brushed the garments of a man who fell,
In a street westward, nearer to the city's heart,
Struck to the life—

Dorcas.
At noon, at this crowned hour?

Umena.
The clock, near by, spoke out at ‘twelve’
Upon the blow—there was a minute's pause
Between the stroke and the out-going life.
Believe, in tenderness and faith, believe
The sweet peace of Heaven stole down and filled it!

Dorcas.
For your sake, Umena, I will and must:
'T was in the garden at that very hour I was alone,
Tending the dewy musk-rose in her pride,
And counting, free, the crimson flecks of light
Under the yet unvanished dew, and when
Upon the ear the clanging summons struck,
There rose into the air, over the quarter
Of the west, a shape that drizzled blood
Upon the city's spires; up as it rose,
At each fresh flight it changed its baser form,
Cast swift away its earthy 'parelling,
And took a bright new robe, as for a feast;
And as it neared the blue and holy heaven,
It raised its arms in deep request, as if
Against its murderer then scudding in escape,
Along the earth below; over the wall
Afar, I saw the shadowy fugitive.

Umena.
'T was more a pleading for his own sad soul,
Sent up in haste O, let us hope he entered in!

Dorcas.
He did, he did! these eyes beheld him—
Beheld the happy light, from far beyond,
Over his new and shining shoulders flow,
A glory in his half-averted face,
Wonder and bliss subdued, and lost within
The inconceivable fire!

Umena.
Awake, you saw it,
Dorcas, or in a dream?

Dorcas.
Awake as is the river yonder—
The great, blue, shining, and triumphant stream,
Whose ever-present eye, watches the city
In its every street, and house, and spire,
In the sun's glimpses and the moon's,
Forever looking in!

Umena.
If on the instant thus, the murdered spirit
May ascend, who knows but he may plead
For him that sent it—who, in the dark of earth,
Lingers and frets upon his hapless act.

Dorcas.
Black must his shadow lie upon the earth,
While flies the other, shining, up to Heaven.

Umena.
O, let us seek Calmstorm; if he has known
Of this, it will new-rack his much-vexed soul,
And make him comfortless as nights of storm.

Enter First Citizen.
First Cit.
Heaven lets go its hold upon this dull,
Low-swinging sphere, and all 's at odds with God!

Calm.
[Advances.]
Why stand you, with your mouth agape,
As with a sense of pain? your whole aspect
Blighted, in memory of some dreadful thing.

First Cit.
Bring succor if you can, and speak for peace!

Calm.
Why halt you in this terrible revolt of silence,
'Gainst that which should be said if you would live?

First Cit.
There is an island near the city, sir,—
You know it, as do all who by its white walls sail,—
Where men, no longer men, in brutish sloth,
Or chattering talk, or gaping vacancy,
Wallow, and rougher grow than shaggy dogs,
Or the rough north wind, that in at the door
Of their sad pinfold, looks oftenest
Of all the winds, their rugged visitor:
Here lie the wanderers of mankind, the laggards
Who have fallen in the great march of men,
In kennels, lanes, or on the blustery square,
Trampled, forgot, and overborne by all.
You shiver as you stand within
The circle of their soulless eyes, and feel
That God, their Maker, has withdrawn himself,
And left them imageless of Him.

Calm.
Oh, God—that first forsook their tyrants,
Whosoe'er they be, thou smitest this heart
Beyond its power to bear. Lead me
To the pillar at the wall.

[They lead him asid
Umena.
O, blessed Christ!
It rather must be borne or ere it can be
Bettered.

[Aside.
Calm.
[Awakening.]
Almighty Master! strike through these hearts
That think thy realm is masterless, a fear
That with their blood shall live, and through
Each organ and each power creep, colder than death!
At night upon their eyelids move, in throngs
Of boding shapes, and let the day be night,
Blacker by reason of its angry light!

Umena.
How far is it, know you, to this island, sir?

First Cit.
To the ferry and the river that bears
You to it, three miles from where we stand.

[Exeunt, Umena, Dorcas.
Calm.
At whose door is it that sits,
This cross-legged and accursed sin?

First Cit.
The dull, deaf, stone-blind magistracy
Of this streeted city, is the spirit
That walks, in darkness, 'gainst the soul's peace
Of these poor men.

Calm.
Another mighty wheel of many, that crush
What they should lift from out the miry way.
I'll think of this—I'll think of this—watch thou
And learn all that thou canst that seals it.

First Cit.
A hundred souls wait, darkly, till your thought
Has taken shape—swiftness be in your brain!

[Exit First Citizen.
Calm.
Is this the globe I stand on? This mankind?
Or is 't a red dream of devils furious?
I recollect, when first I grew to be a man,
'T was said, an angel o'er the city passed
For many nights, and trumpets blowing, gave
City and citied to a stony doom—
Those wailing trumpets still I hear, and still
In dread lie down each night, and wake at morn,
To wonder at the living face of things,
Unshattered through the trials of the dark!

[Exit.