University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

In the background soldiers are struggling through deep snow. Behind them, men and horses lie dead.
Enter Brangonar, covered with snow.
BRANGONAR.
The elements have joined mine enemies,
And ceaseless wage a more contentious war.
To work me harm, snow, fire, and frost, and wind
Have made them friends, and have outflanked my host.
Men I can master; but untimely cold,
The freezing of the air a month too soon!
To break my spell must Nature break her law?—
My star—has that gone out? fallen from the zenith?
My star, like all that is, owes fealty
To Chance. For Chance o'errules this floundering world.
Shine out then, Star: with fulsome radiancy
Do homage to the fitful god. My turn
Will come again, when still a mightier shake
He smiling shall have giv'n his dreadful urn.
“Life is a flimsy dream, soon to be over”:
Thus in my youth dejection spake through me.
I 've lived it since, and feel that to the strong—
And never felt I this more than to-day—
Life is a nightmare, that so hems all function,
So pinions will and motion, that our aims
We clutch at dreamily. Ourselves, our tools,
Their falseness or their dullness, circumstance,
Delay, so press upon activity,
Healthiest conceptions often at their birth
Are strangled. Here I'm hindered by my means,
Their peevish poorness. Haste is now my need;
And I must chafe in leaden lumbering lateness.
My populous fields, my swarming towns call out,
Wild-clamoring through the thousand-throated voice
Of legions new, afire to be enranked.
I come, I come, young giants, and the foe
Again shall reel before our onset's storm.
Women! quicken your joyful duty's rate:
Breed me fresh soldiers faster, faster, faster.

[Exit.