Orval, or The Fool of Time And Other Imitations and Paraphrases. By Robert Lytton |
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 | Orval, or The Fool of Time |  |
Scene III.—A lonely place among the mountains.
Orval
(in reflection).
To ashes I have burn'd the wealth of time
Upon the greedy altar of full-cramm'd
Unsatisfied Experience: that grim god
That hath a hundred hands to snatch and seize,
And in them all nothing to give. All kinds
Of knowledge and of passion I have cast
Into the ever hungering fire of one
Intense necessity to feel. All doubts
I have interrogated, all desires dislodged
From sullen slumber in their savage lairs,
And hunted hotly to the death; all hearts
I have ransack'd: and in mine own I find
Only the grave's great nothingness. My will
Can wake in others every sentiment,
Every emotion; but within myself
(Whose soul dwells dark in vast vacuity)
There is not either hope, or fear, or faith,
Or love. I walk through life, as through a desert
Once throng'd with cities, temples, palaces,
Places of sin and pleasure for proud kings,
Whose pride God punisht, pulling down their towers,
Making their places empty, and their land
A nameless solitude. I seem to see
(Since nothing breaks the boundless prospect bare
All round my barren path) . . . to see far off,
Beforehand, and so, unsurprised, encounter
The coming of all possible events.
I have no fear, and no desire have I,
That's not already old, and quite worn out.
I know that blindness on my son must fall.
I know the irreparably rotten frame
And structure of this old society
Wherein I live, whereof I am a part,
Must fall to pieces. All these things I know,
And, knowing them, suffer—even as God rejoices—
In myself only, for myself alone!
Guardian Angel
(passing in the air above).
Love thy neighbour! love thy neighbour
As thou lovest thyself! For others,
Not thine own self only, labour,
Live, and suffer. Help thy brothers:
Heal the hurt: and bind the broken.
So shall pain to thee be token
Of the pardoning power of what
Pain, for others borne, makes ever
Most divine in man's endeavour
To reach God.
Orval.
What voice was that?
Unhappy child! Doom'd, for a father's fault
By a mad mother's wrongs, to darken'd days.—
An endless incompleteness! a half-life
Made up of glorious failures! a flaw'd star
Fill'd with a beauteous sadness of eclipse!
Faint shadow of a fleeting angel, forced
To follow through a rough and thorny world
Feebly, the far, far off celestial flight
Of that wing'd glory, whose bright parentage
Its substanceless and scatter'd radiance owns
Vainly,—earth's weary traveller still, and still
Heaven's fugitive outcast! Most unhappy child!
Most miserable father!
What is yon mighty eagle
That rises yonder from the black ravine
Above the monumental mountains, bright
With sudden sunlight on his splendid wings,
Like Glory from a tomb?
The Eagle.
Hail, Orval! Hail!
Orval.
He spreads his flight toward me. And the loud
Harsh-sounding beat of his enormous vans
Is like the hiss and rush of iron shot
Heard through the smoke of battle.
The Eagle.
With the sword
Of thy forefathers, Orval, shalt thou all
Their ancient glory and power reconquer. Hail!
Orval.
His circling flight a windy whirlpool makes
And wavering darkness on the dismal air
Above my head. Round and around he wheels
On iron wing. My dizzy brain, too, whirls
Round and around. Fast, faster! on the wind
My hair is danced . . . my pulse beats . . . faster! faster!
His keen eye glitters on me, hard and cold,
As the sharp shining of an unsheathed glaive.
It pierces through my brow, and through my brain,
It pierces . . . Ha! at last . . . I comprehend!
The Eagle.
Be bold and cruel. Nothing fear,
Nothing yield. To none give way.
Crimson'd all be thy career
With the blood of trampled prey.
Strong of will, and hard of hand,
Vanquish foes, and friends command:
O'er men's lives thy purpose spread:
Paven be thy path with power,
Piece of perishable clay!
Soon man's longest day is sped:
Soon the living are the dead:
Make immortal life's brief hour,
Be a god: create, destroy,
Subject all things to thy sway!
Life is power, and power is joy,
Though it be but for a day.
(The Eagle disappears into a clond).
Orval.
Orval
(in reflection).
To ashes I have burn'd the wealth of time
Upon the greedy altar of full-cramm'd
Unsatisfied Experience: that grim god
That hath a hundred hands to snatch and seize,
And in them all nothing to give. All kinds
Of knowledge and of passion I have cast
113
Intense necessity to feel. All doubts
I have interrogated, all desires dislodged
From sullen slumber in their savage lairs,
And hunted hotly to the death; all hearts
I have ransack'd: and in mine own I find
Only the grave's great nothingness. My will
Can wake in others every sentiment,
Every emotion; but within myself
(Whose soul dwells dark in vast vacuity)
There is not either hope, or fear, or faith,
Or love. I walk through life, as through a desert
Once throng'd with cities, temples, palaces,
Places of sin and pleasure for proud kings,
Whose pride God punisht, pulling down their towers,
Making their places empty, and their land
A nameless solitude. I seem to see
(Since nothing breaks the boundless prospect bare
All round my barren path) . . . to see far off,
Beforehand, and so, unsurprised, encounter
The coming of all possible events.
I have no fear, and no desire have I,
That's not already old, and quite worn out.
I know that blindness on my son must fall.
I know the irreparably rotten frame
And structure of this old society
Wherein I live, whereof I am a part,
Must fall to pieces. All these things I know,
And, knowing them, suffer—even as God rejoices—
In myself only, for myself alone!
114
(passing in the air above).
Love thy neighbour! love thy neighbour
As thou lovest thyself! For others,
Not thine own self only, labour,
Live, and suffer. Help thy brothers:
Heal the hurt: and bind the broken.
So shall pain to thee be token
Of the pardoning power of what
Pain, for others borne, makes ever
Most divine in man's endeavour
To reach God.
Orval.
What voice was that?
Unhappy child! Doom'd, for a father's fault
By a mad mother's wrongs, to darken'd days.—
An endless incompleteness! a half-life
Made up of glorious failures! a flaw'd star
Fill'd with a beauteous sadness of eclipse!
Faint shadow of a fleeting angel, forced
To follow through a rough and thorny world
Feebly, the far, far off celestial flight
Of that wing'd glory, whose bright parentage
Its substanceless and scatter'd radiance owns
Vainly,—earth's weary traveller still, and still
Heaven's fugitive outcast! Most unhappy child!
Most miserable father!
No escape
From the revengeful furies! no surcease
Of everlasting punishment! no rest
Anywhere found!
From the revengeful furies! no surcease
Of everlasting punishment! no rest
Anywhere found!
115
That rises yonder from the black ravine
Above the monumental mountains, bright
With sudden sunlight on his splendid wings,
Like Glory from a tomb?
Hail, Orval! Hail!
Orval.
He spreads his flight toward me. And the loud
Harsh-sounding beat of his enormous vans
Is like the hiss and rush of iron shot
Heard through the smoke of battle.
The Eagle.
With the sword
Of thy forefathers, Orval, shalt thou all
Their ancient glory and power reconquer. Hail!
Orval.
His circling flight a windy whirlpool makes
And wavering darkness on the dismal air
Above my head. Round and around he wheels
On iron wing. My dizzy brain, too, whirls
Round and around. Fast, faster! on the wind
My hair is danced . . . my pulse beats . . . faster! faster!
His keen eye glitters on me, hard and cold,
As the sharp shining of an unsheathed glaive.
It pierces through my brow, and through my brain,
It pierces . . . Ha! at last . . . I comprehend!
116
Be bold and cruel. Nothing fear,
Nothing yield. To none give way.
Crimson'd all be thy career
With the blood of trampled prey.
Strong of will, and hard of hand,
Vanquish foes, and friends command:
O'er men's lives thy purpose spread:
Paven be thy path with power,
Piece of perishable clay!
Soon man's longest day is sped:
Soon the living are the dead:
Make immortal life's brief hour,
Be a god: create, destroy,
Subject all things to thy sway!
Life is power, and power is joy,
Though it be but for a day.
(The Eagle disappears into a clond).
Orval.
I thank thee well, bird of the boundless air,
Lord of the summits, rider of the storm!
Hail to thee from these heaven-insulting hills
Whose bare and blasted pinnacles have been
Sole witnesses of our wild colloquy!
Whate'er thou art—true messenger, or false—
Prophet or tempter—boding harbinger
Of evil, or high augury of good,
Hail to thee, Glory's solitary herald!
And, O thou mighty Genius of the Past,
Hear my heart's invocation! If from earth
Thou beest, with the departed ages, gone
Into the bosom of invisible God,
Yet come thou back! come to my call! return,
Inspire my soul with thy strong solemn breath,
Prompt my heart, guide my dedicated hand,
And fashion into formidable deeds
The fiery thoughts that in me rise!
(Setting his foot on a worm.)Lord of the summits, rider of the storm!
Hail to thee from these heaven-insulting hills
Whose bare and blasted pinnacles have been
Sole witnesses of our wild colloquy!
Whate'er thou art—true messenger, or false—
Prophet or tempter—boding harbinger
Of evil, or high augury of good,
Hail to thee, Glory's solitary herald!
And, O thou mighty Genius of the Past,
Hear my heart's invocation! If from earth
117
Into the bosom of invisible God,
Yet come thou back! come to my call! return,
Inspire my soul with thy strong solemn breath,
Prompt my heart, guide my dedicated hand,
And fashion into formidable deeds
The fiery thoughts that in me rise!
Die, reptile!
Nature thy lost life lacks not. The eyed air
Sees not—earth hears not—and the winds of heaven
Take hence no record of the fugitive pang
Of thy minute extinction. In the abyss
Of imminent confused calamity
Which I behold, beginning, at my feet,
To gape for men, thousands—like thee—shall perish,
Leaving behind them neither name, nor fame,
Nor glory, nor regret. Not one of those
Reckless innumerable clouds, that roll
Through heaven's remorseless emptiness, will pause
To weep celestial drops of pity down
On hosts of earth's unnoticeable sons
Whom time is to oblivion hastening now.
And I myself? . . Before me dim, and drear,
And lurid,—hewn through the time-harden'd mass
Of mortal misery,—I begin to see,
As by the light of battle-fires, my own
Predestined pathway to a bloody grave.
Nature thy lost life lacks not. The eyed air
Sees not—earth hears not—and the winds of heaven
Take hence no record of the fugitive pang
Of thy minute extinction. In the abyss
Of imminent confused calamity
Which I behold, beginning, at my feet,
To gape for men, thousands—like thee—shall perish,
Leaving behind them neither name, nor fame,
Nor glory, nor regret. Not one of those
Reckless innumerable clouds, that roll
Through heaven's remorseless emptiness, will pause
To weep celestial drops of pity down
On hosts of earth's unnoticeable sons
Whom time is to oblivion hastening now.
And I myself? . . Before me dim, and drear,
And lurid,—hewn through the time-harden'd mass
Of mortal misery,—I begin to see,
As by the light of battle-fires, my own
Predestined pathway to a bloody grave.
O thou blue heaven, that girdlest in cold peace
This groaning earth! Behold, her weary womb
Travails, tormented with the endless birth
Of endless woes: yet is thine infinite calm
Untroubled by her infinite agony!
O Nature! pitiless mother! I go forth
Upon a perilous journey. But at length
I am about to live the life of man—
The natural life, of man! For I go forth
To fight my brothers. Sound thy trumpet, Time,
And bid me to the battle. My spirit is arm'd.
This groaning earth! Behold, her weary womb
118
Of endless woes: yet is thine infinite calm
Untroubled by her infinite agony!
O Nature! pitiless mother! I go forth
Upon a perilous journey. But at length
I am about to live the life of man—
The natural life, of man! For I go forth
To fight my brothers. Sound thy trumpet, Time,
And bid me to the battle. My spirit is arm'd.
| Orval, or The Fool of Time | |