University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—Umena and Dorcas. A Country Road, beyond the City.
Dorcas.
Behold in yonder nibbled field, Umena,
A bright young foal as happy as the day,
That when he moves seems to possess the earth,
And, when he stops, to own the air he stands in
In beauty's right. E'en so, so fair and so unbacked
The foal was, which our gracious Saviour rode,
In the old time, over the branching palms
And followed by the people jubilant.

Umena.
O, mightier, Dorcas, in his beauty, far,
Than that other, the pale white horse of Death,
That rides against Him.

Dorcas.
How, when he pricks his ears,
They twinkle in the air, and shake the light off
That it drops like dew upon the ground!

Umena.
Look, Dorcas! toward the East,
[Points to Buildings before them.
A dark gray Sorrow rises—the House
Where harbor Heart-Blight, Grief and the Unknown Care
That 'gainst the glad pulses of the Brain
In hushy darkness moves.

Dorcas.
And yet,
The swallows in the air are free to rove.
In a pure instinct, clear of mortal taint!—
They wind about the Heaven as if it were their own.

Umena.
For Heaven, Dorcas, is careful of their ways.
And, still beyond, where skim their wings e'en now,
The white walls rise that are the free man's grave
Yet while he lives!

[A prison in the distance.
Dorcas.
Keep from those windows far,
All fair, free Things of Nature, lest the wild eyes
That glitter through their bars make you to droop,
E'en as you fly.

Umena.
Farther, yet farther on—
Behold, a dull, obscure, low, dusky shed,
[An asylum.
In the cold shadow of the prison-walls,
Slumbers and cowers in beast-like fear.—
Have you the basket, Dorcas, safely borne?

Dorcas.
Yes, yes—food for the body here I bear,
[Shows the basket.
To raise it from its cold decline; and here's the viol
You bade me bring, to speak unto the ear,
And raise the spirit yet another step
Up toward its bright estate.

Umena.
There is another thing,
Sweeter to taste than is the nectared fruit,
And music more to the weary spirit's ear,
To whisper softly to the low-down soul,
And nourish it sweetly back to what it was
Six thousand happy years ago!

Dorcas.
The Book, the Book I bear,
To cast it forth, our best hope's anchor,
Upon the slimy ooze and troublous state,
Where soon on yonder shore we mean to tread—
But lo,—we've wandered past the gate,
And must go back to find the way.

[Exeunt.
Umena.
[Returning and appearing before the gate.]
I pray
That Calmstorm be not hurt at heart
When he shall learn this act of ours!—He thinks
These wrongs must righted be, not each by each,
But with a general scope, storm-like falling
On the massed vileness, not like the light,
Gently and slow and single-rayed.

Dorcas.
The beauty of this world is bred
In single growths, of flower and leaf and tree:
Each sapling in the woodland knows his right
To his own color, and leans in the air
To the separate murmur of his own fond leaves.

Umena.
Yes, one by one, the children of the dark
Are led into the day.

[Umena, Dorcas, enter at the gate.