University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Raymond—Hope.
RAYMOND
To this place
You have been wont to lead me. Let us sit,
And try if such familiar atmosphere
Can wake the heart of that forgotten man
Whom I once was.

[He sits down.
HOPE
Nay love, forget him still;
I'd grudge you profitable pain, and you
Whose education has been only pain
Can need no sobering touch. Take with both hands
The riches of your joy!

[She sits down on the bank beneath him.
RAYMOND
Were you thus low
Before?

HOPE
Ay, so my shoulder for your hand
Was ready when you rose.

RAYMOND
Good Hope! Good helper!
Were I blind now, I'd prize your ready love
A thousand times more dearly than I did.
I never fathomed it.

HOPE
Not on such terms
Would I be loved. If you could hate me now
I would not buy your heart at such a price
Though I should die without it.

RAYMOND
I am sure
You would not. Selfless and serene, you walk
Among the passions; 'tis the privilege
Of serving others, that your proper pangs
Remain unfelt.

HOPE
A better privilege
Is mine to-day; the joy of your new life;
Less yours, I think, than mine, and wholly mine
Because I know it safely yours. Look round!
Is this the very landscape that you dreamed
When my words painted it?

RAYMOND
I cannot tell.

HOPE
Have you forgotten?

RAYMOND
Yes, I have forgotten.
O child, there are no landscapes on my soul!
My foot is on the threshold of the world,
An army of innumerable hopes,
Till now held fiercely back—baffled, starved, crushed—
Are rushing through the land as conquerors,
With every citadel unlocked before them,
And all the happy pastures free for them,
And all the festive maidens bringing gifts.
Not here, not now, not thus, I crown myself;
No dreamer I, to dawdle through the woods,
No creeping sage to scan the grains of sand
Or count the useless threads upon a flower:
I must go forth among the minds, and rule
By force and courage in that grander realm;
My labour and my triumph are with men.

HOPE
You seem a Prince from some old fairy tale
Kept among shepherds, coming up at last
To take his true inheritance and reign.
I hunger for your glory. Well I knew
In that near Past which seems so very far
How strong the captive spirit was; but then
I dared not dream of coming liberty,
As by a death-bed any thought of health
Is shunned as an intolerable pang;
Now, that which could not be conceived, is come,
'Twill be familiar in a week. You talk
Of ruling men—you will behold and know
How much of evil and of grief there is
Wrought among men, which men can take away,
And you will be a soldier in the host
Whose leaders are invisible. I too
Can help, if you will teach me; keeping bright
Your armour which the common air may rust
By service of my prayers, tending your wounds
(Though I would have you scatheless), watching you,
Revering, and remembering all the while
Shadows that do but make the light more plain.
Was ever woman in the world so blest? [While she is speaking Avice passes slowly across the lawn behind them. Raymond's attention is instantly drawn away, and he follows her with his eyes.

Have you a place for me?

RAYMOND
(absently)
True—so you said.

HOPE
How, love?

RAYMOND
Nay, pardon me, I meant—I will—
Your words are lovely as yourself, and true
As I would have them. I forgot a book
In yonder thicket where I walked alone
Before you joined me; I must fetch it in
Lest the dew spoil it.

[Exit Raymond.
HOPE
What a churl am I
If my unnatural sovereignty which rose
Out of his helplessness, being now reduced
To its due limits, I grow sensitive;
I hate myself for thinking of myself—
I'll make my heart more strong. It is the strain
Of these past anxious days that changes me,
The shock of joy—I know not why I weep.

[Exit Hope.