University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Chorus.
Ah! what to do, if one should get
A tawny lion for a pet!
Or some volcano as a boon
To play its fireworks like a tune!
O terror of his playful moods!
O horror of its lava floods!
So troubled and amazed were they,
So feared what he might do or say,
That youth fantastical whose wit
With the old Pagan cult was smit,
And stormed, in words that swing and swell,
Like changeful peal of tripping bell,
Against the love that is divine,
And for the love inflamed with wine.
Daily their simple souls were shocked
With fleering scornful words that mocked
At Faith and Unfaith, nothing loth,
At God and Science, lightlying both;
But what the shallow heart believed
Of all it praised, and all it grieved,
Although he did his rating well,
'Twould need a wiser man to tell.
Still Zeus to him was Great and Mighty,
Still reigned the foam-born Aphrodite,
Still bright Apollo's arrows flew,
Still Dian brushed the evening dew,
Still Naiads haunted fount and brook,
And life was like a fairy-book:
Or Odin stern came back again,
And Thor, and noble Balder slain
By Loke's dark counsel, and the Tree.
Great Ygdrassil, of Mystery,
And all the Myths of ancient Night,
Myths of the dawn and growing light,
Myths of the earth, the cloud, the star,
And life and its eternal war.

Scene—Kildrostan Park. Sir Diarmid and Tremain.
Sir Diarmid.
So we give up our cruise, then, after all?
'Tis well; for, as it happens, it would scarce
Have suited me to go. You'll not regret it?

Tremain.
Why should I? 'Twas a sudden fancy struck me,
And just as sudden left.

Sir Diarmid.
No other reason?

Tremain.
What other would you have? Must one have reasons
To knock down fancies with—a club to beat
The vapour off, that passes with a puff?
I choose to have my whims, and let them go
E'en as I list. It is a folly, man,
A superstition of these modern times,
To be in bonds to reason.

Sir Diarmid.
As you like.
But there's a nice breeze tripping on the loch,
Tipping the waves with foam. Have you no fancy
To ride the white steeds in a merry gale?

Tremain.
Nay, that's all past. I hate a boisterous life.
Give me the calm of Tempe, where no wind
Blows on the vine-stocks roughly, and where love
Pants in the sunshine dreamily among
The lotus leaves and asphodels.

Sir Diarmid.
What then?
Are all those pictures of the bounding sea,
And billowy roll of life there, and your skill
With sail and rope and rudder in a storm,
But so much moonshine?

Tremain.
Moonshine! surely no;
But poetry of course. O you dull fellows,
Tied down to facts, you lose the half of life,
Missing its fancied part. I sit and dream
Of lying in a pinnace with my love,
On a pard's skin, or carpet Easterndyed
Of gorgeous colours, with a cloudless sun
Inflaming every sense, as we look down,
And watch the pulsing globe, and tangled arms
Of myriad Medusæ. Then I see
Ideal storms loom darkly, and the waves
Lashed into madness, which I master so
That by the sense of power we relish more
The soft delights of love. But your wet ropes,
And clumsy oars—faugh! they give blisters first,
And then a horny hand; and life is lost,
By so much, when you lose a perfect sense.
'Tis needful for my Art that I should have
Nice touch and taste and smell and sight and hearing,
That through all gates may fine sensations pass
Into my being, and enrich my life.

Sir Diarmid.
Tush! man; you are not so effeminate
As you affect.

Tremain.
I never handled rope,
Nor held a tiller, nor yet mean to do:
A harp, even, blunts the finger-tips. You think
To be effeminate is to be weak:
I hold that manhood only then is perfect,
When it has all a woman's delicate sense,
And absolute refinement, and will answer,
Like the wind-harp, in tremulous response
To every breath of fancy.

Sir Diarmid.
How then shall you
Employ your holiday? Our ways are rough,
Nor do we fear to blunt a sense by use.

Tremain.
If I might just go on as now we do,
Bound to no method, held to no set plans,
Floating as fancy wills, or Fate decrees!
Those hills are beautiful in the purple lights
Of evening, glassed upon the quiet loch;
And weird-like are the wavering morning mists,
Tinted with rainbow fragments, like the glories
Which hover in the cloudland of old times;
And pleasant is the swaying of the boat,
And lapping of the waters; and I think
I could write something smacking of the life
Of the young world, while yet the gods were in it,
As I look round and see the fisherwomen
Wade through the surf i' the twilight to the boats,
Each with her husband, or her sweetheart, maybe,
Borne pick-a-back.

Sir Diarmid.
A barbarous custom! I
Have tried to shame the men out of these ways,
And do not wonder that you mock at them.

Tremain.
I do not mock at them. I never felt
More tenderly to any ancient relic
Than to this fond survival. Let it be.
Why drive your modern ploughshare over all
The ways of primitive custom, making them
As flat and commonplace as turnip fields.
Let it alone. It is the antique symbol
Of women's loyalty to love—a link
Uniting us with a more touching life
Of loyal service. Had I but such a Naiad—
Only not quite so freckled and uncombed—
To plash her large limbs in the waves for me!

Sir Diarmid.
Never was such a plea for barbarism
Pleaded before.

Tremain.
And yet as good a one
As you shall find for worshipping a maid,
Until she is a wife to worship you.
Why is it barbarous? Was the Greek a savage,
When the fair princess, with her laughing maidens,
Washed the white linens in the sparkling brook,
And lovers lay upon the grass, and noted
The dainty feet that splashed the shining spray?

Sir Diarmid.
Well, you may well play the lawyer for the nonce,
And draw me out, from murky heathen times,
Precedents of authority to bar
The way of progress. But you'll not persuade me
The custom's not degrading.

Tremain.
Ay, in vain
We hope to master prejudice by reason.—
But how about this Doris you should wed,
And will not, though her acres are so handy?
What ails you at her?

Sir Diarmid.
This; she loves me not,
As shrewdly I suspect; nor love I her,
As certainly I know. And when we speak
Of marriage, that's a point at least.

Tremain.
I know not;
I'm not a marrying man, though all my life
Is love and poetry, which mostly lose
Their glory at the touch o' th' wedding ring.
It is a quakerish thing connubial bliss,
Tame and slow-blooded, dressed in browns and greys,
And with no flash of passion in the eye,
Or flush o' the cheek. Is she not beautiful?

Sir Diarmid.
Truly; yet with a dangerous kind of beauty,
Beauty as of a panther or a snake,
Lustrous and lithe; or so at least she shows
To me who love her not. Her father wedded
In the far East a Hindoo girl, and so
The daughter is not, like our Highland maids,
Ruddy and large with amber in their hair,
But slight and supple, and the sun has dyed
Her cheek with olive. Yet she is most fair.

Tremain.
Ah! now you interest me. 'Tis just the kind
Of beauty that I worship. Helena's
Was dangerous, and the grand Egyptian Queen's
Who conquered the world's conquerors, and the sun
Had softly dusked the snow of cheek and bosom,
That chills our northern women. There's no joy
Without the sense of danger; therefore men
Climb the precipitous mountains with a feeling
Of tingling, perilous gladness: and I hate
Your meek and milky girls that dare not kiss
A burning passion, clinging to your lips.

Sir Diarmid.
Doris is not a Cleopatra, nor
Helen of Troy—she's just a Highland lady
Touched with an Eastern strain. You must not liken her
To your wild-eyed Aspasias.

Tremain.
But you said
Hers was a dangerous beauty, like the serpent's,
And that is what I like above all things.
Serpents twine round you, clasp you in their folds,
And charm you with a gaze that does not flinch;
Firing you as the many-husbanded
Helen was wont to do, till men would lose
The world for one brief rapture of her kiss.

Sir Diarmid.
I spoke too loosely: you misconstrue me,
So fancying her.

Tremain.
There's nothing else against her,
Except that dangerous beauty, which is only
The prejudice of people commonplace.
I like to play with adders. I had one
I loved once as you love your dog, and had
Subtler communion with it, richer thoughts
From its uprearings, and its wondrous eyes
Than you shall get from any noisy hound
With its rough shows of liking.

Sir Diarmid.
Well, I'd rather
My dog should jump on me, and wheel about
Barking for joy, than have an adder twine
Slow folds about me. But tastes differ.

Tremain.
Ay,
They differ; yet there is a worse and better,
For taste is the true test of character:
The crown of culture is a perfect taste,
Which lacking, men are blind and cannot see
The higher wisdom. 'Tis the want of it
That floods the world with stale stupidities,
And hangs a vulgar arras round the mind
Of misbegotten fallacies. Tastes differ!
And so do faiths and policies, but yet
Their differences are not indifferent.

Sir Diarmid.
You need not rave about it, man. I used
A common phrase, as one does current coin,
Not caring to ring copper half-pennies
Upon the counter.

Tremain.
Oh, yet I take leave
To doubt the taste that shrinks from such a girl
As you describe your Doris: that is all.
The kind of woman, bred of Christian cult,
Whom you call womanly, to me is watery—
A ghost, a mist that chills you with its touch.
How changed from the grand creature Nature made
For joy, and music, and the giddy dance,
And glorious passion! There's a story of
Pelagia, leader of the mimes at Antioch
On the Orontes; how she came one day
Up from the silvern baths with her fair troop
Of girls, all glowing with the flush of life,
And bounding with light mirth, and lures of love,
Like the young hinds, what time the year reveals
The antlered stag freed from the down of his horns;
And as she came, arrayed in purple skirt
Of Tyrian, golden bracelets on her wrists,
And tinkling anklets, and the flash of gems
Upon her bosom, on her brow of flowers—
Lo! then an anchorite, dried up, and baked
With dirt of some dim cave where he had burrowed
With bats and owls, looked wistfully on her,
And craftily assailed her with regrets
That she brought not her beauty and her joy—
Another Magdalene!—to serve his Lord:
Wherewith being touched, she turns a penitent,
And comes next day, and lays aside her robes
Of splendour, and her bright and joyous ways
So winsome, and in squalid garb arrayed
Of sackcloth, visits graves and lazar houses,
Pale as lily—a shadow called a saint.
What think you now of such a work as that
To pleasure Heaven with? While the old gods lived
A woman was the glory of our glad
And fruitful earth. But now you make of her—

Sir Diarmid.
I prithee, peace, man. If I did not know
This is but spinning moonshine for the love
Of phantasy, and framing paradox
To seem original, I could be wroth
With such trash-speaking. Interrupt me not.
What, if your leader of the mimes had been
A chaste pure maiden, daughter of a home
Where mother-love enfolded her in customs
As sweet as lavender, and that she met
Some gay apostle of the flesh, and as
His penitent, became—what you have known?
The world is bad enough, and false enough
Without such gloss to prove its darkness light.
The devil is up to that; and does not need
That you should make fine clothes for him to wear
When he goes masking. Let this stuff alone;
Or weave it into verses, if you will,
For fools to read, although I used to think—
But that was in my youth's fond innocence—
That poetry should stir the best in us,
And give fit utterance also to our best
In rhythmic music.

Tremain.
That was not your thought:
'Twas but an echo you and others tossed
From mouth to mouth, and thought that you had thought.

Sir Diarmid.
Echo or living voice, the thought is true;
God gives us song to make usnobler men
And purer women.

Tremain.
Nay, for art is not
The slave of virtue, turning songs to sermons;
But it is free, and is its own excuse,
And finds its purpose in its exercise.

Sir Diarmid.
What do you mean?

Tremain.
This. Picturing truly all
Ideals—good or evil, as you call them—
Art doth fulfil her office, but comes short
Of her vocation when she aims at aught
But perfect form and colour and harmony.

Sir Diarmid.
Enough: I did not count on getting such
Art-lectures from you. Keep them for the freshmen.

Tremain.
You make a pedant and a pedagogue
Of that which is the sovranest thing in nature,
The freest and the gayest. Out upon
The tyranny of small moralities,
Shop-keeping ethics, Pharisee respects!
As if high Art must minister to them,
Like a fair tablemaid who must not speak,
But let them prose and prose! I hate it all.
For evil and good, yea sense and nonsense, Art,
Soaring above them in her own bright realm,
Yet lifts them up, and blends them in her charm
Of light and music and divinest vision.
But you are still in bonds to commonplace,
And cannot bear this yet.

Sir Diarmid.
Nor ever shall,
Nor ever wish to. One might land in Bedlam
For less conceit of wisdom.

Tremain.
By the way,
There's one thing more I wish to know. Last night,
Or rather in the gloaming, as you have it,
Upon the heights, beside the waterfall
That wavers like a tremulous white veil
Of bridal lace to hide the moss-clad rock,
I had a vision of beauty.

Sir Diarmid.
Oh, belike
The purple glow was on the hills.

Tremain.
Nay, but
A maiden passed me tall and beautiful,
Robed all in black. Her step was like a queen's,
Pallas-Athene had no statelier mien,
Broad-browed, large-eyed, and with the confidence
Of strength and courage in her. Who is she?

Sir Diarmid.
How should I know? No matter.

Tremain.
Girls like that
Can't walk about the shore incognito:
You surely know her; think of it again.
I did but pass some pretty compliment—
Thrown at her, to be picked up if she chose,
Not spoken to her—an impromptu verse
That sprang up to my lips at such a vision
Of might and beauty delicately mixed,
When she, just pausing, gave me such a look,
As if she could have tossed me o'er the crag
Into the pool, then leisurely swept on.
Who is she? All the fisher folk would say
Was, “It will be Miss Ina.”

Sir Diarmid.
Ay, that was
Ever her favourite walk. Now, if you chance
To meet her there again, best let her pass
Without impromptu verses. You might find
They breed unpleasant consequences.

Tremain.
But
Who is she?

Sir Diarmid.
Well; no matter: my kinswoman.
Her father was our pastor, lately dead—
No more of her. When shall we visit Doris?
She's far more to your taste.

Tremain.
Oh, when you will.
But that dark-robed Pallas-Athene your
Kinswoman, said you?

Sir Diarmid.
Surely you would not
Intrude upon the sacredness of sorrow
Like hers.

Tremain.
The parson's daughter—

Sir Diarmid.
Sir, I tell you
She shall not be molested.

Tremain.
So: I see
Why Doris' beauty is so dangerous.
Pallas-Athene, broad-browed, shining-eyed,
That is your style, is't?

[Exit.
Sir Diarmid.
Pshaw! why should I care
For that fool's babble? for a fool he is
With all his genius, which is but a trick
Of stringing words together musically.
How could I ever bring him to the home
Of pious, pure-souled women. Yet he'll serve
My purpose, if he only take to Doris,
And she to him—she is not over-nice.
But is it fair that I should plot and scheme
To save myself from a detested fate
By luring her into as dark a snare?
Nay, but I only bring these two together,
And by the mutual attraction of
Their kindred natures let them coalesce,
If so they will—and surely so they will:
Only the time is short. Yet such folk jump
Into their loves; and if it so befell,
My path were clear, and all should yet be well.

Chorus.
O cunning schemer!
O idle dreamer!
With crafty head,
And heart elate,
Spinning a thread
To baffle Fate!
Twirl the spindle ever so fast,
Let the thread be ever so fine,
Fate will rend thy web at last,
Fruitless labour surely thine.
Sore against thee are the odds
Wrestling with the immortal gods.