University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

—A street. Calmstorm, Waning.
Wan.
Can you look up, from where we stand, and by
The nearest church-clock, the great brown one, tell me
What time of day it is?

Calm.
I am not time-noter to the city,
But if it indeed a brown church-tower be
We both behold, I think, I think I may—
Upon the one.

Wan.
Upon the one! Exactly:
I was afraid your senses with your judgment
Might have gone, if what I heard was true.

Calm.
You prologue nothing with a grievous face.
Whate'er your ear has heard, your tongue,
Free as the clock to strike, might say without a fear.

Wan.
To speak as you would have me, plainly,
The city teems in every corner of its breadth
With rumors of a dark and dreadful front:
That you esteem the world, as now it goes,
Cheaper than the clipt hair in barbers' shops,
Have spoken evil of the sacred Press,
Are a blasphemer in your common speech,
Calling, in Courts of Justice, upon Heaven
Wantonly, and worst and last of all,
That you denounce the honest magistracy.

Calm.
Having a friendly faith in what I aimed at,
You laughed away those whisperings of the town?

Wan.
I did not, Calmstorm; I thought it rather
Became me to wear a sad and serious look,
'Till you had given me rightful leave to laugh,
By purging from your name such hideous stains.

Calm.
You did?

Wan.
I did.

Calm.
Were there a special God, who by himself,
Sate in His sole Heaven, and kept a count
Through all the endless ages, of broken troths
In man or woman, to Him I'd lift mine eyes
And ask, how He had entered there the name
You bore this morning!

Wan.
Pardon me, Calmstorm, 'till I have told you,
For your own use and special good alone,
A score of writs or near that number,
Issue to-morrow in the State's name,
Or that of many injured people,
Who rouse, 'tis said, at mention of your practices.

Calm.
Are any in the name of injured Waning?

Wan.
You know, you know there could be none, for though
I think you rash, indeed, you have meant well,
And mostly thought well,—so have your accusers.

Calm.
Is it then so?
These men do rise against me, one and all?

Wan.
Desperately.

Calm.
And this must pass unquestioned,
And they go challengeless?

Wan.
I think it must.

Calm.
It shall not pass! Shall the stale politician,
Or pampered magistrate, and the loose
Wielder of a wicked pen, so keep at bay
The keen and gnashing hunger of the world?
Although it rive the very ear of peace,
And crack the charter of the insolent day,
I'll make appeal.
[He moves toward an elevated ground.
Waning attempting to hold him back.]
Upon your perilled life,
Waning, you stay me now!
[Pushes him away.
(Aloud, and toward the distant streets.)
Ye men that bear
The iron load of unavailing toil,
Ye women housed in the obscure despair,
Ye children reared with eyes that drink the light
But to grow dim before the noon has come!
Ye classes, orders, ranks, conditions—all.
Do ye not feel the mountain weight of life
As I do now? When strain the links of life
With the hard pang of much—how much—desired
And little got, look ye not upward then
Into the empty heaven, as with the hope
That it might rain relief? and yet anew,
And day by day, the ever-blinding dust
To which hard labor grinds the fair green earth,
Whirls up aloft. Rain, Rain, the blessed Rain,
With peace, content, and the old Eden-life—
Oh let it fall!

Wan.
You cry aloud in vain.
They're deaf or far away.

Calm.
The earth is dry, and all its fountains dry—
Blest be the shower that falls, and let it fall
At once!
[As certain stragglers give promise of approach, Waning glides away.
Who would have dreamed the trial-hour
Would see him wear this ugly mask of doubt,
And weigh his words in scruples? And yet,
I cannot forget, there was a shadow
Creeping ever before and round about his acts
Foreboding this: He always spoke his farewells
Doubtingly, and shuddered at good-bye
As if he grinned at death. This fear
Lay deeper in his nature than I thought,
And all his powers are fellows of the same
Height and aspect. The Organ-master,
In his blind toil of venomous and underground report,
Is working, it seems, and Darkledge, the Judge,
I cannot doubt, has put the wasting grindstones
Of the Law in motion. Onward through cloud and rack
The white sail bears its way, to sink when Heaven
Withholds its breezes!

[Exit Calmstorm.