The Fountain of Youth :: :: University of Virginia Library

Third Soldier.
Ay, faith, there's youth in this; and we had better
Enjoy it while we have it. Our small store
Of barrelled sunshine will have trickled dry
For many a day and many a month and year
Before we reach the fountain.

First Soldier.
That it will;
And every single drop of cellared wine
In Christendom as well. The magic Water
Seems ebbing ever further from our eyes
As every month goes by.

Third Soldier.
And yet they say
That the commander thinks success quite certain,
Now that the Indian king has sent the envoys.
This morning they were walking through the camp,
With their great golden armlets.

Second Soldier.
Yes, I saw them;
And they are all old men, which of itself
Is proof sufficient 'gainst the Fount of Youth;
For if the Indians had it in their kingdom,
Would the ambassadors that they have sent us
Have snow upon their heads?

Fourth Soldier.
Ay, so I thought
This very morning, as I saw them pass;
But Pedro says it is because their king
Keeps all the magic water for himself,
And takes good care his subjects shouldn't taste it,
That he alone may always be as young,
And always be as strong.

Second Soldier.
But some assert
That if he's got no wrinkles it's because
He's never twice the same.

Sourth Soldier.
What dost thou mean—
Not twice the same?

Second Soldier.
I mean that he's elected
Only for some few eyars, among the strongest
Of their young warriors, and then yields his place
To one as young; that's why he's never old,
And youth is always seated on the throne.
And if there's any truth in what I'm told,
Atalpa is a title, not a name;
And their young king, instead of having reigned
Six hundred years, has not reigned sixty months.

First Soldier.
If that's the case, the sooner we give up
This wild-goose chase, the better for us all.

Fourth Soldier.
For my part, I am getting every day
Less faith in this strange water.

Third Soldier.
So am I.

Fifth Soldier.
Why, if the Fount of Youth exists on earth,
Would not that God-cursed and eternal Hebrew,
Who ever trudges round and round the world,
Over the graves of those whose birth he saw,
Have found it out by now? His curse compels
The lonely horror of his dusty feet
To measure and re-measure every inch
Of hill and plain, of city and of desert;
And if the Fount of Youth were to be found
He would have drunk the draught.

Third Soldier.
Perhaps he has.

Fifth Soldier.
No, he is old as ever. On the day
Before we sailed from Spain, as I was thinking
About the Fount of Youth and all our hopes,
I met him in the street, just as the Dusk
Was putting Day to bed.

Second Soldier.
What was he like?

Fifth Soldier.
His great white beard, a yard in length and more,
Waved in the wind behind him. In his hand

He held a tall spiked staff on which were notched
The fifteen notches of his centuries.
His Syrian sandals, bound with dusty thongs,
Were made of hide of crocodile, to stand
The wear and tear of his eternal trudging;
His wrinkled gourd, less wrinkled than his face,
The minister of his eternal thirst,
Swung from his girdle, made of one great snake-skin,
With tail in mouth—the symbol of his life.
I barred his way; he started like a sleeper,
And shot a flame from out his sunken sockets.
‘Why stopp'st thou me, Ephemeral?' he asked;
‘Walk to thy grave, and let me go my way,
To make the earth another belt of steps.’
‘Tarry,’ I answered, ‘but to tell me this:
HAst ever lighted, in thy endless journey,
Upon the thing they call the Fount of Youth?’
He paused a moment, while a frown of pain
Convulsed his brow. ‘The Fount of Youth?’ he said
Like one who slowly mutters in a dream;
‘It bubbles up between the feet of Death,
In every land, in every plain and city,
And Death and I have nought that is in common.’
And he passed on and vanished in the twilight.

Fourth Soldier.
Strange, very strange. There's still a little wine
At bottom of the flagon; pass it round.
Can any of you tell me, is it true
That the commander's daughter wears her arm
Since Thursday in a sling?

Third Soldier.
Ay, true as gospel.
At first they said that she had had a fall,

But now they say one of her Indian women
Sprang at he with a knife. They're lithe as panthers,
And just as fell. They say she's pardoned her
And hushed it up.

Fourth Soldier.
Well, anyhow, she's hurt.
Here's her good health; she's been the soldier's friend
All through the expedition. Dost remember
How she took up our cause against Morasquez
The day he tried to cheat us of the salt;
And how she saved Pedrillo from the lashes,
When all was ready waiting?

Second Soldier.
And he's grateful;
He'd give his life to save her little finger.

Fourth Soldier.

Yes, she's the soldiers' friend; we'll drink her health,
And sing in chorus as we end the flagon:

There's Youth in the barrel,
There's youth in the keg;
So thump, as you carol,
Your dry wooden leg;

And think as you tipple
At eighty and more,
That now the old cripple
Has youth as before.

SCENE II.

(The tent of Agrippa.)
Chief Indian Ambassador.
Success has risen with the dawn to-day:
The treaty seems concluded; and the spirits
Who shape the destiny of warlike states
Appear, indeed, to give us their support.

Second Indian Ambassador.
Yes, all seems going well; and Heaven itself
I sgiving us the omens which on earth
Precede its amplest favours. Late last night,
As I was fathoming the depths of sky
To find some sign amid the starry millions,
An unknown constellation, in the shape
Of a great panther, twinkled into sight,
With head erect, victorious.

Chief Ambassador.
Strange: this morning
I, too, beheld the panther, made of cloud.
It lasted but a minute and was gone.

Second Ambassador.
That matters little if it showed itself.

Chief Ambassador.
Now the white virgin, upon whose possession
The saving of our statedepends, is ours:
And the same pact which gives her to our goddess
Secures what we would have our goddess grant—
The invader's quick departure.

Second Ambassador.
Hast thou seen her?
No whiter victim could the mind of man
Conceive in day-dreams or in nightly visions.
White as the white invaders are, she seems
Of some yet whiter race: her pearly skin
Seems not of human texture, but seems made
Of the same white material which composes
The water-lily's petals, or the disc
Of the thin moon at daybreak, when it floats
Most wafery in the sky. As I beheld her
Among her handmaids of our swarthy race,
She seemed some pearl-faced spirit.

Chief Ambassador.
All is strange
And unlike earth among these white-browed warriors.
Hast thou remarked their lightning-spitting weapons?
Would'st thou not like to handle them?

Second Ambassador.
Not I.
As soon take up the thunderbolt itself
When it lies dumb in Heaven's armoury.
Hush! Here's Agrippa.

Enter Agrippa.)
Agrippa.
Well, have you received
The answer of your king? Does he agree?

Chief Ambassador.
His measenger has come and he agrees,
And, as a token of his satisfaction,

Atalpa sends thee over and above
Five of his largest rubies.

Agrippa.
Let me see them.
I have a taste for precious stones, and thank him.
Now let us recapitulate the terms
Of this most secret pact. First, I engage
That you shall have the daughter of our chief.

Chief Ambassador.
She must be given up to us in public
By her own father: this our creed exacts;
Else would she have no value for our goddess.

Agrippa.
Dismiss your fears; she shall be given up
Freely and openly. The glittering bait
With which I mean to lead him to the trap
Is bright enough for that. If you promise
To lay the stipulated ambuscade
Beside some solitary forest pool
Which I will tell him is the Fount of Youth,
I undertake to make him give her up
In presence of his soldiers as its price,
And then to send him thither to his dath.

Second Ambassador
We have a dozen magic springs, but none
That makes men young.

Agrippa.
Oh, any pool will do,
Provided you but kill him at its brink.

Chief Ambassador.
The ambush shall be laid and shall be fatal.

Agrippa.
Then, he once killed, and I once in possession
Of the supreme command, I undertake
To draw away our forces from this land
On payment of three hundred bags of gold,
Each of them of the stipulated weight.

Chief Ambassador.
All this Atalpa understands and swears to.

Agrippa.
Then naught remains to settle, save the details
Of time and place, which we can do to-night,
When I have worked on my commander's mind;
Till then, farewell.

[Exeunt Ambassadors.
Agrippa
(alone).
And so my scheme it prospers,
And everything is marching for the best.
But O, thou wondrous ever-young Atalpa,
Thy heart is young and innocent indeed.
I am an honest pirate and shall keep
Our secret stipulations to the letter;
And in return for thy three hundred bags
Of virgin gold—if all so far goes well—
I shall relieve thee of the white men's presence;
But have I pledged me never to return?
The country which has given me these rubies
Is not a country that one leaves for long,

And thou shalt see me on thy shores again.—
And now to manage that yet greater fool
Who daily counts his wrinkles in the mirror,
And here he is.

(Enter Ponce de Leon.)
Ponce de Leon.
How go negotiations?

Agrippa.
I think I told you, you would not repent
Of having left them wholly in my hands?
Prepare your soul for great and startling news.

Ponce de Leon.
Quick, tell me what it is.

Agrippa.
Prepare your soul
For what your thoughts have played with many a year.

Ponce de Leon.
Keep not my reason dangling on the string
Of thy vague phrases. Tell me what it is.
Have we the Fount of Youth? Quick, quick—oh,
answer!

Agrippa.
The Fount of Youth is yours.

Ponce de Leon
(aside).
O God in heaven,
This is too sudden! Kill me not with joy,
but help me to dissimulate emotion.

Agrippa.
The Indian king consents to let you reach
The Fountain of your dreams, with a small escort,
Provided you will bind yourself by all
That is most holy in your own religion
To leave the land at once with all your forces
As soon as you have tasted of the water.

Ponce de Leon.
My soul is drunk and dazzled: round about it
There seems to be too great a light for thought.
Yet I msut think and force my wild ideas,
Which press upon each other and impede
Each other's march, to keep their proper order.
The joy is like a blow, and it has stunned me.
I pray thee now to leave me for a little.
I fain would be alone for some few minutes
Until my staggered soul can walk again.

[Exit Agrippa.
Ponce de Leon
(alone).

Is it of any use to try and think?
I have the Fount—I have the Fount of Youth!
That is the only thought that I can shape.
Is it a thought? It seems more like a feeling—
A sort of brightness, terrible within me.
I have the Fount—I have the Fount of Youth.
My hand is on the object of my life.
O ever rosy God! O smooth-brow'd Spirit!
Swift Wearer of the sandals of the Dawn,
Have I at last attained thee?—art thou mine?
How long I have pursued thee, night and day,
Upon the silent river of the years!
For ever seeming to have clutched at last

Thy dazzling shape, and made thee mine for ever,
While Time's resistless current year by year
Increased the space between us,—and at last
At last! at last! as by a sudden bound,
I hold thee in my grasp—and it is time.

(He draws a little mirror from his pocket and looks at himself in it.)

Look at these wrinkles—look at this long line
Along my cheek, and this deep and starry crow's foot
Beneath the eye—these furrows on my forehead.
Oh, how I laugh at all these wrinkles now!
The rosy finger-tip of glorious Youth
Will wipe them out to-morrow. And these flakes
Of snow upon my brow and in my beard,
To-morrow's sun will melt them all for ever.
To-day my brow is still the shrivelled parchment
On which the Cares inscribe their words of woe;
To-morrow it will be the virgin tablet
Where Love will write his softest words in kisses.
The prize is won, I have the Fount of Youth!
The goal is reached, the dream is dream no more!
Come, one and all, ye rosy-pinioned spirits,
Who do the errands of the smooth-browed god,
And hover round about me as ye hovered
Around old Æson when Medea's art
Convoked you from the mansions of the sunrise
To make him young and let him drain life's cup.

(Enter Spirits of Youth , who circle round about him.)

100

Chorus of Spirits of Youth.

One day, when the world was younger,
To the Argonaut feast we flew,
Where sated their god-like hunger
A demigod wondrous crew.
And god-like were boast and laughter
At the board of the half-divine;
And the songs that they sang thereafter
Of love and the golden wine.

But one in the feast's gay middle,
Like an owl in the noontide glare,
As dumb as a waiting riddle
Stood lone with his blear-eyed stare:
For Æson the king was hoary;
Like Lethe his blood's slow pace;
He hearkened nor song nor story,
And knew not his own son's face.

Like a tree that is bare and hollow
While the others are green all round,
Nor buds when returns the swallow,
He stood in his frost hard bound.
Like a sleeper whom none can waken,
Or the phantom of times long dead,
He sat through the mirth unshaken,
Nor lifted his snow-crowned head.

Then Medea, the great dread seeker
Of herbs that are feared, she swore
That Æson should lift life's beaker
And drink of youth's wine once more;

101

And she called on the night to give her
The plants that renew lfie's sap,
Where the moon lit a spell-bound river,
As many as filled her lap;

And she poured in his veins their juices,
And watched how, by magical art,
They reconquered for life's young uses
His limbs, till they reached his heart;
And how, like a frost-numb creature,
Unfreezing at Spring's strong call,
Each shrivelled and time-nipped feature
Was freed from the ice-liek thrall.

His skin that was creased and deadened
Grew smooth as the new blood came,
And betrayed it as soft it reddened,
As an ivory screen shows flame;
While his locks that were wan as mosses
On a tree that is ages old
Were converted by youth's bright glosses
Into hyacinth bells of gold.

His eyes than the dew were duller
Which never the sun o'ercrept;
But in them, as dew takes colour
The spark of the sunrise leapt.
With myrtle and rose they crowned him,
And placed in his hand life's cup,
While we circled unseen all round him
And lifted its foam high up.

As much as was done for Æson,
As much shall be done for thee,
If thou drown but thy heart, thy reason,
in the glittering waves that free.

102

In a day shall be healed and mended
The life work of Care's sharp tooth;
And the dream of a lifetime ended
In eddies of god-like youth.

Ponce de Leon.
Yes, and the day has come; and we shall feast
As Jason and his demi-gods ne'er feasted,
And we shall lift life's golden cup yet higher
Than even the rejuvenated Æson.
Oh, we will lift it higher than we did
Upon the gayest day of adolescence,
In the expansion of mere natural youth
Which feels old age fast treading on its heels,
And plant our foot upon the neck of Death
Crowned with acanthus and with dewy roses.
We shall defy the cares and woes of earth,
And like a god who pants with boundless life,
Drink to the rising sun.

(Re-enter Agrippa . As he comes in, the Spirits of Youth take flight.)
Agrippa.
There is one other item in the treaty
Which I, perhaps, had better tell you now:
As you must pass to reach the Fount of Youth
By many of his shrines and of his temples,
The Indian king insists upon a hostage,
Whom he will keep as long as you be there,
that no offence be offered to his gods.

Ponce de Leon.
What hostage has he fixed upon?

103

Agrippa.
Your daughter.

Ponce de Leon.
My daughter? Never, never, he must take
Some other person.

Agrippa.
He will take no other.

Ponce de Leon.
What! place my daughter in Atalpa's hands,
Entrust her beauty to his ever-young
And ever-burning passions?

Agrippa.
If you stickle,
He breaks the pact. Farewell the Fount of Youth.

Ponce de Leon.
It cannot be that he will take no other.
What! place her in Atalpa's hands for days—
Perhaps for weeks—along! The only white?
Among the priesthood of his blood-stained gods?
Lost in the frightful cities of the Indians?

Agrippa.
Atalpa is inexorable; choose
'Twixt this conditon and the Fount of Youth.

Ponce de Leon.
Oh, thou must shake his purpose.

Agrippa.
Dost thou think
That I who am her lover, her betrothed,

104

To whom she is more dear than breath of life,
Have left one word untried?—although in truth
I think there is no peril, for Atalpa
Is bound by his self-interest to respect her.
He'll take no other hostage. Now I leave you.
You have until to-night to think it out:
And I meantime, if you will wait a little
Here in this tent, will send you one whose counsel
Will help your soul to come to a decision.

[Exit Agrippa.
Ponce de Leon
(alone).
O God, O God! Why dost thou dazzle me
With the effulgence of my life's great triumph,
And then remove the common light of Heaven?
Rosita as the hostage of Atalpa—
The only white among a million Indians,
Who never yet have seen a living white;
The single head round which their waves of hatred
May close at any moment? Who can tell
That one or other of their frightful gods
Will not all of a sudden feel a taste
For young white flesh? He said she was to serve
As guarantee that no offence be offered
To any of their deities or temples:
Why, any of the soldiers of my escort
May give in his imprudence such offence,
Or I myself by some mere careless gesture
May rouse the wrath of their suspicious priests,
And then her life is forfeit. O God! God!
It is too frightful, and I cannot do it.
It would be better to reject the treaty
And try and reach the Fount of Youth by force.

105

How can I place her life in such a peril,
And build success upon my own child's death?

(Enter Spirits of Age, who circle round about him)

Chorus of Spirits of Age.

He wavers, his purpose is shaken,
Though fortune has come to his aid;
We hold him, the fortress is taken,
If the draught of the fount be delayed.

So ply the invisible chisel
That works on the stone of the brow,
And drive in the locks as they grizzle
The little invisible plough.

And whiten him quicker and sprinkle
With the little invisible sieve,
The snow that on furrow and wrinkle,
Unmelted by summer, shall live.

And blow on his hand till it trembles
As trembles a tremulous tree,
And with fetters that palsy assembles
Encumber his foot and his knee.

And sit on his back and his shoulder,
And weight with invisible weight;
And bend them as older and older
He shuffles along to his fate.

And deaden his thought and his feeling
No less than his hearing and sight;
And thicken the mist that is stealing
Around him as darkens the night.

106

And though for a little he lingers,
And trusts to the powers that save,
With silent, invisible fingers
Enlace him, and pull to the grave.

Ponce de Leon.
How cold I feel! how numb my heart has grown,
As if Old Age had crept across my soul
In these few minutes, making it so dull
That now the very wish for Youth seems dead
Within my breast, which pants and throbs no more.
How quietly ebbs the tide of exultation!
Five minutes back it thundered at the flow
Victoriously advancing: now I feel
The heavy waters of the soul are sluggish
As lifeless Dead Sea brine. Five minutes back
My conquering hand was on the mighty prize,
About to clutch it; and my fear for her
Has stricken it with palsy. Who comes here?

(Enter Indian Sorceress.)
Indian Sorceress.
I am Othoxa, priestess of dark spirits,
And saturated charmer of curst snakes.
Agrippa sends me to impart such knowledge
As lies within my cobra-bitten breast
About the Spring of Youth. Thou needst not fear
This lazy rattlesnake; it has just spent
Its venom on my arm.

Ponce de Leon.
The Spring of Youth?
Ah, yes, I recollect; thou wast to come
To tell me of the road.—How far to reach it?

107

Indian Sorceress.
It lies in the great forests of the centre,
A twelve days' march from this, if speed be used,
In depths which man avoids, and where at most
Some wounded panther laps its healing wave.
None know the path except Atalpa's mutes,
Of whom one will be given thee as a guide.
They bear the shape and semblance of great youth,
But they are ages old: their tongues were cut
Six centuries ago, lest they should tell
The secret of the Fount. They and the king
Alone have ever tasted of its water.

Ponce de Leon.
What aspect has the Fountain?

Indian Sorceress.
There is nought
By which it could be told from any other.
It looks a simple, natural forest spring,
Save only this, that if you scan it closer,
Its depths are paved with pebbles of pure gold.
Where it wells up it is of little size—
A rippling diamond nestling in the moss;
Beyond it forms a pool with floating flowers,
And changes into emerald dark and deep.

Ponce de Leon.
How hath it got its virtue?

Indian Sorceress.
Some affirm
That it by chance has trickled through the caverns
In which the cunning subterranean powers

108

Prepare the germs of life and saps of Nature
For sunlight to mature; and others say
That the great panting god of generation,
The flame-tongued Atapootaa, passing by,
Cooled his dark limbs one morning in its ripples,
And gave it its virility for ever.

Ponce de Leon.
How many draughts must he who asks for youth
Take of this spring?

Indian Sorceress.
A single draught sufficeth,
If taken from the fountain head, to change
The most infirm and wrinkled tottering age
To manhood's fairest strength; though it is wise,
From time to time, as centuries go by,
To take the draught anew. But I will give thee
A small example of its potency:
This little phial contains a single drop
Of brightness from the Spring of Youth, diluted
With common water.

Ponce de Leon
(trying to snatch the phial out of her hands).
Give it!—let me drink it!

Indian Sorceress
(brandishing the rattlesnake round her head).
Back, back, rash man! This one diluted drop,
If drunk in violence in the teeth of heaven,
Would strike thee into everlasting dotage,
Not everlasting youth. Now wait and listen:
Hast thou perchance a dry and long dead flower?

109

Ponce de Leon.
I have a small dead rose here in this locket—
One of the roses that the mourners laid
Upon my mother's breast the day she died
Some forty years ago. You scarce can tell
What flower it was, it is so old and black—
Changed almost into dust.

Indian Sorceress.
Yes, this will do.
Now pour some water in this bowl and place
The crumbling relic in it, and observe
What happens when the phial's drop is added.
Now look! now look!—see how the dead rose quivers
See how its petals open one by one,
Grow soft and living, heal where they were injured,
And take the colour of the clouds at dawn.
Keep thy eyes fixed, and in another minute
'Twill be the rose of forty years ago,
As dewy as on the day that it was laid
Upon thy mother's breast.

Ponce de Leon.
A wondrous sight!
O dazzling transmutation!

Indian Sorceress.
If one drop
Can work this miracle upon a rose,
Think what a cupful from the spring will do
For him who quaffs. Now for to-day farewell.
Before thou startest we shall meet again,
For it is I who am to take thy daughter

110

To the great temple-city where Atalpa,
Lord of the panthers, rules in endless youth,
And place her as a hostage in his hands.
This rose is thine.

[Exit Indian Sorceress.
Ponce de Leon
(alone).
O wondrous transformation!
O most resistless and most glorious proof
That ever dazzled human eyes! What doubts,
What hesitations or compunctious instincts,
Could stand against a miracle like this?
A minute back, this sunrise-tinted flower,
Whose dewy breath delights the passing breeze,
Was crumbling dust—the wreck of former years.
Look at it now! in all its new-born beauty:
How soft, how sweet, how infinitely lovely—
The loveliest my hand has ever held!
O God of Youth, Aurora-pinioned Spirit!
Forgive thy devotee if, for one moment,
He wavered on the pathway of thy shrine.
Have I not ever offered up, O Youth,
Whatever thou hast claimed? The sleep of night,
Repose, health, friendship, country, home and fortune;
And shall an instinct of paternal love
Arrest me on the threshold of thy altar?
This wondrous and rejuvenated rose,
Which dazzles and intoxicates my soul,
Is dearer to my heart than fifty daughters.
This is the true Rosita; and I kiss her
As never human brow or human lips.