University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—The upper air. Deep night. Afrael alone.
AFRAEL.
“Not soon, no, nor for long; I fain would say,
Never! but cannot say it!” . . . How those words
Stop up my ears, and block the aperture
To the suggestions of all other sound!
Organs unheard the thunder, and the wheels
Of the impetuous planets deafly spin
Upon their axes musical, and dumb
The chorus of the stationary stars.
“Not soon, no, nor for long.” How soon? How long?
All soon is late, all long vain longing seems,
Timed by the impatient tick of gaining Love.
For the dead sand let but quick pulses serve,
And fully half Eternity hath run
Through the exhausted passage of my heart,
Since last I looked on her! . . . “I fain would say,
Never! but cannot say it.” Yet it feels
E'en now as though that Never were my doom!
And she by Love enjoined me! O safe chain!
Which he who wears is plighted not to break,
Thou art as light and frail as gossamer,
Yet Fate could forge none tighter! When will it end,
This temporary banishment that seems
More than eternal? I have hovered oft
Around her dwelling when she was not there,
And hung above her tent whenas she slept,
And from the fragrance she exhales in dreams
Returned to ether, empty! [He soars silently higher into the air and poises again.

What an expanse!
Worlds upon worlds, and stars on stars revolve,
Through still-beginning distance. Systems vast
Within yet outer systems spacious move,
And these but inner to yet other rounds,
Themselves but puny circles shut in space!
Yet care I for one only merest mote
Within this shining concave unconvexed,
One speck whereof I ne'er surrender sight,
But still keep plying a short restless wing,
From this last point whence gleams it visible,
To where it round dilates and fills the eye;
Then again back, thence back again once more,
In ceaseless iteration! Other track
Know I not now, nor have I any flight
For all the countless avenues of Heaven. [He descends rapidly once more, nor pauses till he reaches the Earth, where he alights on the topmost storey of the Tower.

What a high perch! This is a wondrous work,
And wondrous they who build it, even if vain.
How big and black it leans against the night,
Sleeping on darkness! 'Tis a giddy height,
Even for one who gazes from the sky
Into the deeps of space; for, there, no top,
Nor bottom, nor between, resists the sense,
But all is absolute; whilst here the eye,
Shrinking to what it looks on, makes compare,
And finds an awful contrast. How deserted,
Silent, and still! No figure flits or moves
'Mong its prodigious balconies; no step
Stirs on the spiral rounds of its huge stairs;
And, coiled within its walls, e'en Echo sleeps!
Why cannot Spirits sleep? O would that I
Could ever and anon in slumber sheathe
This too sharp edge of wakeful appetite,
That cuts the sense so keenly! . . . What was that?
Methought I heard the waving of a wing,
And even felt its sweep! No! it was nought.
No Spirits hie this way. I see the stars,
But from their occupants have strayed remote.
I stand above the things that nightly sleep.
Lo! yonder are her tents! She sleeps within,
And I watch here, no nearer than if hosts
Of roomy constellations rolled between.
She doth not even know that I am here;
Yet her inert unconsciousness hath power
To draw and keep me towards her!

A VOICE.
Afrael!

AFRAEL.
Who calls my name? And what wouldst have with me?

SECOND VOICE.
What wouldst thou have? Thou art a Spirit by birth,
By Spirit still unfed.

AFRAEL.
Who question me?
I hear you speak, but cannot fix your forms.

THIRD VOICE.
We are but Voices; Voices are not seen.
Answer, if thou wouldst find a remedy
To the defect thou wailest thus aloud.

AFRAEL.
I am enamoured of a mortal shape.

FIRST VOICE.
We know it, or we had not questioned thee.
But what with mortal shape hast thou to do?
What wantest thou with her?

AFRAEL.
With her to dwell:
In the high Heavens, or on the lowlier Earth,
But somewhere, anywhere, so not apart
From her who draws me ever!

SECOND VOICE.
Know'st thou not,
She in the Heavens, a mortal, cannot dwell,
Though with audacious pinions thou hast once
That child of dust obtruded on the sky?
She is on Earth: on Earth she must abide.

AFRAEL.
Then let me thither drop, to abide there too!
The Heavens have lost their savour, and the light
Of the interminable ether seems
But darkness more apparent. She is my sun;
And all is tenebrous where she is not.

THIRD VOICE.
Saner than thou, she knoweth that no Spirit
Can be her consort; that a ban as dim,
But indestructible, as that which holds
Darkness and light, silence and sound, apart,
Keeps thee and her asunder. Ye cannot blend,
Whilst thou immortal, mortal she, remains.

AFRAEL.
Then let me doff this immortality,
Which is but immortality of want,
And be a mortal, wanting only her,
But crowning want with winning!

FIRST VOICE.
Thou art aware,
For she herself hath told thee, what it is
To be a mortal. Thou wouldst surely die.

AFRAEL.
I fain would die, an I must live like this.
Can that be deemed a forfeit, if I gain,
Which I should count a prize, if I must lose?
Better to live and die, than not to live:
And this is vacancy; this is not life!

SECOND VOICE.
Bethink thee yet again!

AFRAEL.
Oh! I have thought
Till thinking is a weariness. If ye
Have power to clip these useless wings, and fix
My limber essence to some mortal type,
Exert it now!

THIRD VOICE.
We have no power; for we
Are Voices only. Force resides elsewhere,
Where thou must seek it.

AFRAEL.
Where? Quick, tell me where!

FIRST VOICE.
The force thou seekest for, is lodged on Earth.
There only wilt thou find it.

AFRAEL.
I have been there,
But thence returned with only a vague want,
A penetrating hunger, a desire
That droops for lack of kindred nourishment,
That droops but dies not.

SECOND VOICE.
Ask thy mortal love.
She can assist thee.

AFRAEL.
How?

THIRD VOICE
By mortal Love!
She can endue thee with consuming flesh,
And burn thy wings to ashes. Tell her that,
And see if she will aid thee.

AFRAEL.
What! If she
But once consents to help me rend the film
Which floats between us, I shall then assume
A mortal semblance, and, with flesh equipped,
Be armed to live, her life's companion?

FIRST VOICE.
So!

SECOND VOICE.
Even so!

THIRD VOICE.
Ay, even so it is!

AFRAEL.
And when may I demand this certain boon? [A pause.

The Voices answer not. Are ye then gone,
Ye misty messengers? Speak once again,
If to assure me that I heard ye right;
That ye were Voices verily, and not
Mere echoes of soliloquising love!
Where hide ye, unseen sounds? No answer comes,
And even silence hath absorbed them now!
Yet were they oral then, nor did I thrust
My thought into their speech. My thought! I ne'er
Could conjure such a craft as they project.
But I conceive it now, and, as I live,
They bade me go to Noema and pluck,
Where I did catch contagion, there my cure.
O sweet enchantress! When wilt work the spell?
For I am sick with thy disease, and fret
To drink thy drastic medicine!

A VOICE.
Afrael!

AFRAEL.
O what a melancholy Voice was that!
Distinct from any of the trinity
That hailed me first. Sad Voice! why dost thou call,
Or why at least respond not?

ANOTHER VOICE.
Afrael!

AFRAEL.
Another wailing tongue! What ails the air,
That it is charged with sadness, and my name
Seems the one sigh that lifts its weariness?
O that the curtain of the night would split,
And show the morning! For I then should fly,
To her who hath no torments in her tongue,
From these distressful weepings of the wind.

MANY VOICES
O Afrael! Afrael! wilt thou leave us, Afrael!

AFRAEL.
Be still, ye droning sycophants of woe!
Ye servile specious mourners! or float up
To yonder ether fanciful, that is
Like to yourselves, pale and impalpable.
Thus do I quit you!

[He lifts his wings, and, leaving the Tower, wends his way through the air.