University of Virginia Library

ACT IV

SCENE I

[Interior of Castle Tourbillon.]
FATHER GABRIEL.
I, a poor priest, from you, a potent Prince,
Come craving audience.

LUCIFER.
Welcome, everywhere!
The Earth pertains to all; not more to me
Than any mortal wight whose wisdom spends
The rich unearned inheritance of life.

FATHER GABRIEL.
The Church to kings and offshoots of a king
Gives special homage, special sanctity.
So, Prince! a priest's obeisance still allow.

LUCIFER.
Where is my Princedom? Where my potency?
My Court,—behold it! These ungilded walls,
Or, barer still, the palace of the hills,
Are all my Royalty.

FATHER GABRIEL.
It is not pomp,
Nor ostentatious servitors, though these
Are the legitimate clothing of a king,
But native chrism and self-anointed birth,
Assert the Prince. How will you disendue
The mantle dropped on Majesty from Heaven?

LUCIFER.
By hanging it against the wall and there
Letting time's cobwebs mildew in its folds.
The owner's soon forgot.

FATHER GABRIEL.
And yet there is
One all too regal quality you have used
'Gainst one not even regal.

LUCIFER.
What is that?

FATHER GABRIEL.
You have invaded and usurped my realm,
And with the sceptre you disown have seized
The dearest slice of all my territory.
O, give it back to me! You have so much.
Leave me my little!

LUCIFER.
What have I usurped,
More yours than mine, more mine than any one's,
More any one's than no one's, save it be
Freely by its sole owner, self, be given?

FATHER GABRIEL.
O, you have toppled me down from my high seat,
The pulpit and the altar! from my back
The robe of white authority have stripped,
Discrowning conscience!

LUCIFER.
Conscience wears no crown,
Unless the crown of martyrdom, and reigns
Beyond attainder.

FATHER GABRIEL.
You have tainted it,
Melting the pearl of chastity in wine
Of splendid lust

LUCIFER.
I have been patient, priest,
And patient shall be still. But, patient, hear me.
You hail me Prince. My Principality
I have thrown off as lightly as a cloak
Too sultry for the season. Where is my sceptre?
Where splendour? And where lust? Why, dainty things
Deemed themselves daintier if I deigned to foul them.
Are they within these walls? . . . Yes, She is here,
Your lamb of yesterday, my lamb to-day,
And mine, I trust, for ever! Purity!
Pure is she still, even in the starveling sense
That satisfies the sacristy; in mine,
Pure, pure will she be ever, save you coax
Her conscience back to servitude, and cog
Her waking senses to an unloved touch
With opiate of marriage.

FATHER GABRIEL.
With what spells
Did you induce her here?

LUCIFER.
With spells of Nature;
With incantations of the forest-side,
And simples of the mountain. These black arts
On her were exercised;—but others, none.
The firs and pine-trees were my conjurors,
Waving their arms above her till she fell
Into fond dreaming. Fountains, and the wells
Of downward-dancing rivulets composed
The songful charm that lured her to my will.
Out of its seething foam the cataract
Mixed the strong philtre that enamoured her;
And clear and cloudy opals of the mist
Hung her all round with magic amulets.
For Nature is a wizard; whence it is
That, being the close confederate of love,
She works her operations and intent
On hearts, true, simple, fair, and natural;
While those that think without her aid to taste
The morsels and still fresh delights of love,
Live on with baffled appetite, or, gorged
With lustful gobbets, vomit them forthwith
As soon as swallowed. Spells! What spells I used?
The spell that brings the dewdrop to the rose,
Without the rose's asking; Nature's spells,
Transcending mortal artifice.

FATHER GABRIEL.
You speak
Of Nature tenderly, and well she may
Serve one who loves her well. But why allow
E'en from her hand a gift you cannot own?
A simple shepherdess, a village suckling,—
You, you, the flower and seed of regal loins,
You cannot marry her.

LUCIFER.
How know you that?
I cannot marry her? Say, would not, rather.
'Tis not her birth nor simpleness that bans
The rites you guard; heraldic blazonries
Are fireworks for the foolish. It is love
Enjoins me still leave Nature to complete
The piece she hath begun. Why interrupt
The slow sure weaving of love's natural bond
With marriage contract, sudden, forcible,
Strong till 'tis strained and snaps? That will I never.
For Marriage is the winding-sheet of love;
And, after it, most mortals in their hearts
Carry a coffin uninterred. Could I
On to the unwritten covenant of love
Append that clogging and unneeded seal,
This simple shepherdess, this village suckling,
This gossamer of the hills, this what you will,
This mine at least, if mine she wills to be,
Should buy your sanction.

FATHER GABRIEL.
Is she then to live
Your uncontracted and precarious toy?

LUCIFER.
My toy, my joy, my happy everything,
My pain perhaps as well, my pulse, my being,
All unto me, as I all unto her,
By lasting choice of unlocked liberty.

FATHER GABRIEL.
But think, sir! think! if she should here abide,
The unconsecrated consort of your roof,
She the crowned flower and lily of all our lilies,
How would that Grace, whose advocate I am,
Be wounded through her nature! I in vain
Should champion Grace to one so natural
As you, alas! But you will pity me,
And, as you are or might have been a king,
Spare my poor kingdom?

LUCIFER.
And surrender mine!
The only one I have, the only one
I care to have, no larger sure than yours,
And just as dear. I, who relinquished throne,
Sceptre, dominion, splendour, majesty,
The ownership of half the solid globe,
And the whole ocean, rather than consent
Love still shall be the altar's acolyte,
Not its own priest and celebrant, to yield
The sword of conscience to a—nay, forgive!
Honest, I can revere your honesty,
But wherefore more? We lose ourselves in words
From the high road of action.

EVE.
(from within).
Lucifer!

LUCIFER.
You hear her voice? Hark to its purity!
Pure as the tinkle of the cattle-bells,
Pure as the mountain air she still doth breathe,
Pure as the snow on topmost Matterhorn,
Though haply not so cold, and O, be sure!
More steadfast if more melting.

EVE.
Lucifer!

LUCIFER.
Farewell. She shuts her book, and seeks my face.
My face must turn to seek her.

[Father Gabriel departs.]

SCENE II

EVE.
Lucifer!

LUCIFER.
Shepherdess!
Your flock is coming; flock of my stray thoughts
And vagrant longings, hudding to your call.
Secure them in your fold!

EVE.
My Prince! My teacher!
I do begin to see with your far eyes,
To feel with your fine touch. But help me more.
To follow every zigzag of your mind
Seems easy, natural. But you must lead;
I do not know the way.

LUCIFER.
Your hand—your mind—
Let me feel both, complete companionship;
And shortly, Eve, nor you nor I will know
Which leads, which follows.

EVE.
I would rather follow.
I have read, and read, all that you bid me read;
And, yes, I understand, in part,—in part.
Now shall we climb the terrace, or the woods?
Which would you like the best?

LUCIFER.
The terrace, child;
First mentioned, therefore foremost in your thoughts.
We have one way, one will.

EVE.
The time seemed long.

LUCIFER.
Nay, be not so impatient. Time will come
When you will chide with Time he did not lag.
Each momentary want that's touched but brings
Us nearer to the moment no one wants;
And every stage accomplishëd by hope
Marks one more milestone to the door of death.

EVE.
And yet I did not waste the time in wishing
Its length would end. I studied till the stroke
Set my heart free. But wherefore do you speak
So frequently of death?

LUCIFER.
Because of life,
Life the sole good and object that we know.
Omit death's certain sharpness, life would lack
The salt that lends it savour; we should live,
Of living unaware. [Count Abdiel comes along the terrace.]

What says Count Abdiel?
Is it not absolute that we prize life,
Because we lose it?

ABDIEL.
Life is a poor play,
With death for anti-climax.

LUCIFER.
Rather say,
A touching tragedy, complete by death;
In action manifold, but still the tale
Closes with awe.

ABDIEL.
Prince, when I write a play,
You shall be critic. As for life you praise,
It opens feebly, and the interest flags
Long ere the close.

LUCIFER.
Nay, but perform it well,
'Twill serve to please,—audience and actor both.

ABDIEL.
'Tis all rehearsal. Just as we know our part,
'Tis taken from us, and some novice thumbs
The rôle we have mastered. . . . But your dialogue
Demands my exit. With your pleasure, Prince.

[Abdiel descends the mountain.]
EVE.
He is your friend, and yet I do not like him.
He leaves a bitter meaning in the air
Whene'er he goes.

LUCIFER.
In softly swelling youth,
He was not handled tenderly enough;
And as the part we bruise matures the first,
His heart was gone before his head was ripe.
That sort of man we should commiserate,
Not reprehend o'ermuch. To see aright,
The head and heart must focus on the point,
While he discerns but singly, so amiss.

EVE.
Should see, like you! Life, even death itself,
Takes a serener aspect from your voice,
And, while I listen, I am helped to feel
That—that—nay, help me!—I am lame of speech—
What is it I would say?

LUCIFER.
That life is good?

EVE.
Yes; and to feel that life is good, not ill,
Seems to have made me other than I was;
As in that sudden season when the kine
Quit long confinement within wintry fold
For summer pastures;—something like to that.
For I was taught by Father Gabriel
To look on life as Alpine climbers do
The mountain they ascend; a Heaven at top,
But, as I clomb, crevasses all the way,
Hidden and cruel pitfalls. So I lived,
Alarmed at being alive. Now, now, in life
I find a friend, who feared an enemy.
This is the change that changes all the rest.

LUCIFER.
How quick you apprehend! 'Tis true, then, true,
You find life good?

EVE.
It seems so good,—with you.
Without you haply 'twere not good at all.
Nay—nay—I tremble lest that it should then
Be worse than heretofore.

LUCIFER.
Dear tender heart!
That fain would look but only where I point.
Yet life is good, in every circumstance.
Fling open all the windows of your being,
And let the universal air invade
And winnow the stifling chambers of the past.
For if we firmly grasp that life is good,
It then becomes imperative to live,
Live freely, fearlessly.

EVE.
Then show me how.
For like a willing leaf upon a stream,
I follow all the currents of your talk,
Now here, now there, but faithful everywhere.

LUCIFER.
Commend your speech, not mine; for you are born
Of Nature, and it is from her, I note,
You sucked your utterance. 'Tis her alphabet
That shapes your words, and serves you to express
Thoughts that would else be dumb. The flocks, the streams,
The mountains and their hazard pathways, lend you
Materials for speech.

EVE.
Because I know them.

LUCIFER.
You know them, for you feel them.

EVE.
But my speech
Must sound so rude and simple to your ears.

LUCIFER.
Not simpler than the cataracts, not more rude
Than the spontaneous whisperings of the wind
'Mong ripening wheat-stems. Most speech is unreal,
And foreign to the purposes of thought;
Unreal, those who utter it. But you
Have from the infant-teacher, Nature, learnt
Your tongue, and so have nothing to unlearn.

EVE.
But, O, how much to learn!

LUCIFER.
Then learn it quick!
There is another tutor unto whom,
When Nature hath her rudiments instilled,
She passes on her pupil. Grounded well
In elements of Nature, man is ripe
With an intelligent longing to imbibe
The logic and the poetry of Love.
For Love hath this distinction, it combines
Necessity with freedom, use with joy.
Not all the iron fetters tyrants forge
Are half so binding as love's liberty;
Nor narrowest housewife bends with readier knees
Unto domestic office. Lowliest task
And loftiest aspiration are the poles
On which the perfect sphere of love revolves.
You follow with assent?

EVE.
As doth the moon,
Which you have told me borrows from the sun
Her paler light. Whate'er you say sounds true,
Because you say it. This at least I know,
That no domestic office were too mean,
No task too low, for me to do for you.
O, if you were a shepherd, not a Prince,
How warm should be your hut, how bright your crook,
How brimming hot the cauldron on your hearth,
How snowy white your pillow! I would sing,
Sing through my work, until I heard your voice,
And your returning presence was my song.
If this be love, then I am full of it.
I know no more.

LUCIFER.
My sweet, true shepherdess!
Nay, an you will, I will be shepherd too,
And clip the July fleeces for your hands
To spindle me a jacket.

EVE.
No, not that.
But since you are no shepherd, and I cannot
Comfort your coming with some savoury broth,
Or clothe you with my distaff, then I must
That new and lofty service undertake
You bend and offer me. For I am sure
That I would crawl upon the knees of love,
I who lack wings, wherever you would bid me.

LUCIFER.
Wings will you never lack; and do not doubt
Our love will yet, as swallows ofttimes do,
Have commerce in the air!

[The bell in the tower strikes slowly thrice.]
EVE.
So soon to part!

LUCIFER.
Then stay!

EVE.
No, I will go; for if I stayed
I still should want to stay. Eternity
Would never in its farthest chime bring round
The stroke of the reminding hour when I
Should from your voice be willing to depart.
But to obey you hath a sweetness in it
That honeys o'er the sting of separation.
But tell me ere I go—see, I am going—
Am I a little nearer to the height
To which you beckon?

LUCIFER.
O higher far than I, by something got
From somewhere, where no man hath ever been.
Lend me your instinct, and sublimest reason
Were beggared in the effort to repay you!

[He kisses her on the forehead.]
EVE.
Into my heart could but your wisdom sink,
We never need be parted.

LUCIFER.
Lovely student!
When steals the shadow of the Matterhorn
On to the Weisshorn, we again shall meet.

EVE.
I, just a little wiser.

[Eve leaves him.]
LUCIFER.
(alone).
Sweet! How sweet!
She minds me of a tardy spring that crowds
The primrose and anemone together;
For childlike candour lingers in her gaze,
Though there already mantles to her cheek
The white and pink of maiden consciousness.
Yet must I wait, nor let impatience tread
On the close skirt of reverence. 'Twere ill
To pry too closely on a brooding love,
Or it might leave its nest, and its warm hopes
Never be fledged. Wait! wait! Yet it was just
That I who have with incandescent mind
Burnt up the tares and rubbish of the time,
Should find the strain of this fresh flower to grace
My exile with a garden.

[Abdiel comes along the terrace.]

SCENE III

ABDIEL.
I am come
To crave your leave, Prince, to depart me hence.

LUCIFER.
Nay, say not “crave.” You are as free as I.
If I have valued your fidelity,
It was not as a forfeit, but a gift.
But 'tis a quality of blood to weary
Of life devoid of action. Here, is nothing
Save ripening contemplation, that slow fruit
We never gather.

ABDIEL.
No, it is not that.
The comedy of human nature needs
No city apparatus; and in sooth
Not the dimensions of the stage, nor yet
The trappings of the audience, make the play.
There's action everywhere. One village lass,
Skittish in blood, helped by two liquorish swains,
Is dramaturge enough. Nay, less will do,
If hazard be obsequious. You yourself
Act without cost the prettiest pastoral,
Which possibly the great scene-shifter, Fate,
Will follow with a tragedy.

LUCIFER.
Then stay,
And witness the performance to the end.
For never think, Count, I so jealous am
Of perfect happiness, I cannot brook
That you should look on it.

ABDIEL.
Too near the lights,
One misses the illusion. I would stand
A trifle farther off, but only stretch
The tether of my exile just so far,
You, when you will, can draw me back again.

LUCIFER.
Where may that be?

ABDIEL.
Down in the village, yonder!

LUCIFER.
The village! You? A pretty villager.
A sybarite asleep on hempen sheets;
Lucullus with some garlic for his supper.
What is your humour, now?

ABDIEL.
The one you have taught me.
You bring the village to the castle; I
The castle to the village carry down.
Where lies the difference? The sand will run
As glibly through the hour-glass every jot,
Whichever way you set it; and, meseems,
My topsy-turvy is as just as yours.

LUCIFER.
A cynic jest. Yet mark the difference.
Love lifts the village to the castle. What
May level you with yokels?

ABDIEL.
Love, again.
For one may love, though lacking theories
To glorify one's hunger. I have a tooth,
Well, like another; like yourself, dear Prince;
And, like yourself, my appetite selects
A mountain morsel.

LUCIFER.
Choice I must approve,
Since patterned on my own. What like is she?
I fain would see the fair simplicity
Makes Abdiel forget to be a critic.

ABDIEL.
Sure one may love and criticise as well.
Perfection is in fragments; piece them all,
And make a monster. She is well enough;
A fitting portrait for a mountain frame,
No city picture.

LUCIFER.
Bring her to the castle.
Think you I am not satisfied to have
My share of life? There is enough for all.
Felicity is infinite, and grows
Richer by spending.

ABDIEL.
Spoken like yourself,
And pity, so magnanimous a Prince
Should reign not, while the world's conspicuous thrones
Are ballasted with churls. Yet even you
Would not in your dominions house me here,
If I were at your frontier line to halt,
And crave to cross it.

LUCIFER.
Wherefore not? Come, test me.

ABDIEL.
What if I married her?

LUCIFER.
No fear of that.

ABDIEL.
In truth I shall.

LUCIFER.
She does not love you then,
And therefore makes a barter of the bond.

ABDIEL.
Nay, since you think no ill of those who give
Nor take precaution lest the gift thus given
Ruin the giver, I can throw away
The thing I wanted, wanted and have gained.
'Tis I propose the bond. You wonder why.
My practice 'gainst your theory, generous Prince;
My humble jest 'gainst your high sentiment;
Time must assay them. I may serve you still,
An exile from your exile.

LUCIFER.
Have your whim.
But true it is you part us: not in grudge;
Nay, as two friends who sever to explore
Some doubtful region, with the firm intent
To meet again.

[Abdiel descends the mountain.]
LUCIFER.
(alone).
'Tis better so; for thus
The problem stands propounded: fettered love
Against a love unfettered, Heaven against Earth.
'Tis not the scene nor yet the audience
That makes the play; there, Abdiel is right.
For any human hearts on any stage,
How mean, or tame, or circumscribed soe'er,
With their affections can compose a knot
The end unravels. We will play it out.
But for these cynic nuptials in the vale,
The action were imperfect. Now, 'twill move
To its fulfilment, full and manifest.
The kingdom I abandoned was too vast
For this our fine experiment. The hills
Fence a commodious narrowness for the test,
Excluding nothing needful. Hackneyed world,
Go thy trite road, so the free mind may make
A pathway of its own, and top the heights
Where habit comes not!

SCENE IV

[The Church and Churchyard in the Village.]
ADAM.
[Digging a grave, and singing as he does so.]
The crab, the bullace, and the sloe,
They burgeon in the Spring;
And when the west wind melts the snow,
The redstarts build and sing.
But Death's at work in rind and root,
And loves the green buds best;
And when the pairing music's mute,
He spares the empty nest.
Death! Death!
Death is master of lord and down.
Close the coffin, and hammer it down.

ABDIEL.
[Entering the churchyard.]
Who may it be for whom you dig this grave?

ADAM.
'Tis more than I can tell you, sir, as yet,
Having no robe of prophecy. Death knows,
If you could ask him. I have served him well
This many a year. But he's a silent master,
And keeps his secrets to himself.

ABDIEL.
But why
Scoop you a grave, if none yet wanteth it?

ADAM.
It will be wanted surely. Mine is a trade
That's never out of fashion. Other products
Wait upon whim or accident. Drought defrauds
The mower's hook, but Death's scythe findeth swathes
All the year round; his harvest never fails.
Spring nips the young, and winter takes the old,
And many a summer maid is cankering fruit
For an autumnal coffin.

ABDIEL.
You would seem
To relish your vocation.

ADAM.
'Tis secure,
Since men are safe to die. Change changes not
That last of all our changes. Thus I sleep
Certain of occupation; never less,
And sometimes more. It is a steady trade
Even at the worst of times; and whiles there be,
Thanks to distemper, sickness, accident,
Death doth a roaring business. Never fear
That I with leisurely unordered graves
Shall overstock the market. Why, sir, you,
Who walk Eternity as though your road
Were long as it, or I who oftentimes,
Intent on carving others' sepulchres,
In their mortality forget my own,
Or, look you there! yon fair unheeding thing,
That nubile blossom blowing hitherward,
May need one ere to-morrow.

ABDIEL.
Sooth there is
No controverting “may-be.” But the wise
With the uncertain certainty of death
Make no appointment.

[Abdiel enters the Church. Elspeth skirts the churchyard, in order to avoid Adam, who goes on digging the grave and singing.]
[Elspeth enters the Church.]
ABDIEL.
You need not tell him all.

ELSPETH.
I must; or else
Damnation on my soul would heavier press,
And Hell be hotter still. Confession scours
Both stain and penalty. Wait here for me.
You will not leave me?

[She goes into the Confessional.]
ABDIEL.
(alone).
If it comforts her,
'Twill injure no one. Yet how strange she should
Into the ear of male austerity
Confide the bubbles of her dancing blood.
If the revolt were awful as the tongue
Of scandal labels it, she could not do it,
Nor he, prescribing penance for the sin,
Absolve the culprit. 'Twixt the deed and doer
This wise tribunal, scorned by Lucifer,
Makes just distinction; and the foul offence,
Branded as foul lest it should multiply,
Leaves the offender clean.
[Father Gabriel enters the Church from the Sacristy.]
Your servant, father.

FATHER GABRIEL.
Say son, not servant; it is I who serve
All who serve God. Have you then come to pray?

ABDIEL.
Yes, to beseech you, father, if you will,
To rivet me in bonds of matrimony
With one the fairest now of all your flock,
Since Eve hath strayed from it.

FATHER GABRIEL.
You touch my wound,
But help to heal it, and shall mend the gap
Of my poor broken fence. Yet she will come,
Come back she will; it is not possible,
Though she may leave her fleece upon the thorns,
She should not hear the Shepherd in the night,
And bleat repentance. Come, my son, and kneel,
And I straightway instruction will impart
To your converted longings.

ABDIEL.
Not so quick!
I want a wife, and not a theory
Pat to explain the unexplainable.
Life is a labyrinth whereof the thread
Is held by Death; 'tis he will let me out
When the time comes. Meanwhile the maze is well,
With love for a companion.

FATHER GABRIEL.
But the Church
Mates not the faithful with the heretic.
Nay, were you Caesar of the pagan globe,
And she you woo a lowlier virgin still
Than any in my village, faith professed
In dogmas to the Church by God revealed,
And seeking of her sacraments, must be
The portal of humility wherethrough
You stoop to sacred marriage.

ABDIEL.
Go in there;
A penitent awaits you. Then come forth,
And answer me again.

[Father Gabriel enters the Confessional.]
ABDIEL.
(alone).
How lulled in peace!
These mountain chapels seem like havens reached
After a round of storms. Inventive man
Discovers medicine for all miseries.
These whitewashed walls, these thoughtful images,
These pots of gaudy posies, are in sooth
A garden and infirmary. Hurt souls
Here find, with ready dressing for their wounds,
A couch to lie on. Shallow Lucifer!
To quarrel with the comfort of the world,
Because it lodges in the heart and brain,
And not outside them, seen and tangible.
If we assume a sky, why not as well
A Heaven beyond it? Both are only space,
Filled with man's longings; to dishearten these
Were to make space but ponderous emptiness.
Man needs some leaven for his daily life,
That else were sad to heaviness, some barm
By whose fermenting may his fancy rise
Beyond the level of confining fact;
And for the lightening of simple souls
There's no such yeast as faith. What though the prayers
Of weeping crones and genuflecting swains
Reach to no ear, they are not therefore lost,
But, like a fountain, vivify the air,
And, falling back again, refresh their source,
No drop, no motion, and no music wasted.

[Father Gabriel and Elspeth come out of the Confessional. Elspeth goes to the altar-rails, kneels, and prays.]
FATHER GABRIEL.
(to COUNT ABDIEL).
Alas! that you may restitution make,
You needs must keep the very thing you stole,
And Heaven annex its sanction to the theft.
Yet do not prize it less because 'twas filched
Too soon, too easily, but reverence her
Who reverenced you too deeply to withhold
The secret of her nature. I will join
My prayer to hers your reparation may
Reap grace for its reward, and, with grace, faith.

[Father Gabriel withdraws to the Sacristy. Elspeth comes down the Church.]
ELSPETH.
It is forgiven; and you will call me wife?

ABDIEL.
Others will call you that; it is for them
You need fresh christening. I will call you mine,
And any name is good enough for love.

ELSPETH.
May I see Eve sometimes, despite the stain
To which she clings?

ABDIEL.
See her as often, child,
As she will welcome you. But ponder this:
You now reproach each other, and her Prince,
Throned on his altitude of bondless love,
Will hold you worthless for the very knot
Which, in your eyes, secures your worthiness.

[They pass into the churchyard.]
ELSPETH.
You will not tire of me?

ABDIEL.
Who tires of Spring?

ELSPETH.
Ah! time will come when I shall autumn be,
Without its loveliness.

ABDIEL.
Why, then, my days
Will be mid-winter, and your ripened store
Will comfort both.

[They pass on. Adam sings, finishing the grave.]

SCENE V

[Prince Lucifer and Eve walking, hand in hand, up the mountain-side.]
EVE.
I feel so sad.

LUCIFER.
Do you regret the valley?

EVE.
No, but I seem unequal to the heights,
Save when I hold your hand.

LUCIFER.
Then hold it always;
For then to me it feels that high and low,
Mountain and vale, are only one, and make
Completion of each other.

EVE.
Would that I
Could reconcile all opposites, like to you!
Teach me the secret.

LUCIFER.
It is learnt, not taught,
And 'tis in our own journeyings we discern
Life's contradictions but adjust the weight
The heart has got to bear, which else were galled
Were all the load one side. See! Daylight is
Indebted to the darkness that 'tis day,
Spring unto winter that we hail it spring;
And all things live upon their opposite,
Whose death would kill them.

EVE.
As I live on you,
Light-Bearer to my darkness! Yet 'tis sad
To think that men—that men!—live, throbbing men,
Not faggots nor mere panniers of a pack,
Should balance thus each other by their feuds
Concerning God, Heaven, truth, and right itself.
'Twas peace, if peace of ignorance, to fancy
There is one truth for all.

LUCIFER.
Sweet! would you like
To close your books?

EVE.
No, for to close them would
Be closing one approach to you. And then
This fruit of knowledge has a bitter sweetness
That gives me taste for more. If but your voice,
Not the dumb page, did always tutor me.
Then 'twould be sweetness only, yet not cloy.
Oft when my head says “yes,” my heart says “no,”
Save you be near. Then head and heart alike
Catch but one sound and echo one assent.

LUCIFER.
Count Abdiel has left us.

EVE.
When? For long?

LUCIFER.
As long as the experiment provides
Sport for his cynic humour. He has gone
Down to the valley, seeking wedlock's chain:
Chain he will carry loosely. Can you guess
Who she may be, the victim of his mood?

EVE.
It must be Elspeth. But you do not doubt
He will be good to her?

LUCIFER.
He will not kill her;
At least not all at once, nor wittingly;
He will not beat her;—O be sure of that.
Nor will he starve her of material food,
Nor leave her naked to the wind and snow.
She will have meat and raiment, roof and fire,
And all things proper to the dignity
Of her they call Count Abdiel's lawful wife.
But if she love him and he love her not,
Alas! poor penitent! her days will be
Hungry, and cold, and homeless, and her nights
More solitary than is sleep. Good? good! What good
Is goodness unto love that craves for love
And nauseates other food? All best is bad
To love the epicure, unless the meat
Be seasoned by himself.

EVE.
And do you fear
He will desert her?

LUCIFER.
If desertion need
Abstraction of the body, presence, speech,
Perchance he will be faithful: who can say?
But there is worse abandonment than that:
The solitary fear, the unshared hope,
The loneliness of anguish. These decree
Unregistered divorce. The double board,
The double bed, may leave life single still.
Only the chemistry of love can make
Two atoms one.

EVE.
Then both, 'twould seem, must love.

LUCIFER.
They must, and equally; or else, more close
That contact be, more strong repugnancy.
Circles that more than touch must intersect,
Is an old truth; and true it is of all,
Save those who love. Then, then they interfuse
Into another and a perfect sphere.

EVE.
How can you fuse with me? Is't sure you do,
Or but inhale the incense of my love
As something fragrant?

LUCIFER.
Were that so, I should
Myself but be an altar, cold and deaf,
Decked with the flowers of your idolatry;
A god indeed, the worst of all the gods,
Devouring my own worshipper. Alas!
Such gods abound. I am not one of them.

EVE.
O surely not! I did not fear you were.
But your loving me seems strange, unnatural.

LUCIFER.
'Tis nature lets me love you; artifice
Had stood between us.

EVE.
Have you loved, before?

LUCIFER.
There are so many counterfeits of love,
One knows them only by assaying them.

EVE.
Then might not this too be a counterfeit?

LUCIFER.
Nay, 'tis true coinage, dear. For Time who robs
Mortality of much, withal secretes
For age some recompense, though not in full.
Just as the owl comes out when sweet birds roost,
So wisdom, moping substitute for song,
Haunts the grave twilight of departed youth.

EVE.
But you,—but you, are wise and young as well,
Sage as the owl, yet soaring as the lark,
My Prince!

LUCIFER.
I am, as long as you do think it.
But wiser, surely, by past counterfeits,
I now love's true from spurious effigy
At touch distinguish. Question not too much
Of all that was which makes me all I am.
Woman loves best the first time, man the last.
Her love is blossom, but his love is fruit.
Most times, alas! blossom with blossom mates,
For young and fair by fair and young is drawn,
And both are blown away upon the wind,
Dainty as spring and as ephemeral.
But love that through all seasons is to last,
Must paragon that happy tree which keeps
The mellow fruit among the glistening leaves
Till comes the bloom to join it. Blossom mine,
Content you with my ripeness!

EVE.
O speak on!
There is a freshness in your words mature,
That makes conviction instinct, instinct trust.

LUCIFER.
Then let conviction, trust, and instinct be
The tributary streams to loitering love,
To urge its currents onward till they flow,
Lost in the sea of self-oblivion.
Sweet! love me to the uttermost of love,
Nor halt, to freeze mid-way!

THE WEISSHORN.

EVE.
O if we could be
Like to the high inviolate stars that keep
Aloof from contact, and for ever shine
As young and virginal as on the night
When first they dawned on space!

LUCIFER.
But, sweet, you know
That there are double stars whose motion is
To circle round each other, round and round.

EVE.
Yet do not even these some distance keep,
Lest they should perish of propinquity?
What if it be that love must, starlike, live
On faithful separation!

LUCIFER.
Chilly creed!
Chilly as night itself, which lends no warmth
Though all the stars be shining. See them now,
Burnished battalions of the disciplined sky,
All to their post, all at their silent watch,
To hold the rear of yesterday until
To-morrow bring its reinforcements up
To rout the darkness! . . . You are silent, sweet.

EVE.
True love is silent, like to a fixed star,
And only gazes. Nay, look down, not up!
You will not find me there. I am not cold;
Or if I seem so now, it only is
The snow that comes to take the snow away.
See, it is gone—gone—gone!

LUCIFER.
Come to my heart!
And if there be a nearer place than that,
Come there!

THE MATTERHORN.

THE WEISSHORN.

THE MATTERHORN.