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 | Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge |  |
269
SIXTH SCENE
270
This scene immediately follows the preceding in time. The sun is only just risen.
Thebes. Before the house of HERAKLES.
MEGARA stands upon the threshold of the open door.
271
The golden wings of light beat up the sky;
The stars are set; the dew-fall and the dawn
Are everywhere, quiet as benediction;
The earth's fresh perfumes, like an incense, rise
Into the windless, universal air;
And even the old, blank city ways are still
And flushed like pathways in love's paradise.....
It is morning!—and my lover is not come!
A pause. MEGARA sings.
She waited in the bride-chamber;
Her face was young and clear as light;
Her lips were sensuous and bright;—
The Bridegroom came not unto her.
Her face was young and clear as light;
Her lips were sensuous and bright;—
The Bridegroom came not unto her.
She kept fresh flowers in the room;
Her eyes were spacious as the sea;
And thro' the open casement she
Kept vigil till her Lord should come.
Her eyes were spacious as the sea;
And thro' the open casement she
Kept vigil till her Lord should come.
She saw the stars go up the sky;
The sunlight and the moonlight were
Like crowns and chaplets in her hair;—
She would not break her faith to die.
The sunlight and the moonlight were
272
She would not break her faith to die.
She set a signal in the day;
She set a beacon in the night;
The guarded flame of love burned white
And single in her heart alway.
She set a beacon in the night;
The guarded flame of love burned white
And single in her heart alway.
She waited in the bride-chamber:
Her hair was soft as sleep; her breast
Was tranquil, like a place of rest.....
The Bridegroom came not unto her.
Her hair was soft as sleep; her breast
Was tranquil, like a place of rest.....
The Bridegroom came not unto her.
“His heart,” she said, “is here at home;
His love, I know, abides with me;
And he would choose his bride to be
Prepared and perfect should he come.”
His love, I know, abides with me;
And he would choose his bride to be
Prepared and perfect should he come.”
She waited in the lonely years;
The bride-chamber was all her room;
She dreamed not of another doom;
She had no thought or time for tears.
The bride-chamber was all her room;
She dreamed not of another doom;
She had no thought or time for tears.
And when the Bridegroom came at last
And found his Bride serene and strong,
He said, “Beloved, I tarried long,
But now despair and doubt are passed.”
And found his Bride serene and strong,
He said, “Beloved, I tarried long,
But now despair and doubt are passed.”
273
She said, “I know not what you mean;
I have no part with suffering
Or grief or fear; a better thing
Life cannot be than mine has been!
I have no part with suffering
Or grief or fear; a better thing
Life cannot be than mine has been!
For I have lived with Truth and Love,
And all my life was beautiful
And strong and fortunate and full
And great and good and glad thereof!”
And all my life was beautiful
And strong and fortunate and full
And great and good and glad thereof!”
Friendless he seemed—inimical and strange
And splendid, when his angered strength cast down
The diadem and scorned the pride of kings!
Yet wherefore were his rapture and his rage?
Why was he so tremendous and estranged
And resolute last night against us all?
Where is he now—and when shall he return.....
My heart is like a place of desolation,
And like a lost child in a woful place;
The jealous depths of love are calm no more,
After last night, but shaken and dismayed.....
I would to God he were come home to me!
And splendid, when his angered strength cast down
The diadem and scorned the pride of kings!
Yet wherefore were his rapture and his rage?
Why was he so tremendous and estranged
And resolute last night against us all?
Where is he now—and when shall he return.....
My heart is like a place of desolation,
And like a lost child in a woful place;
The jealous depths of love are calm no more,
After last night, but shaken and dismayed.....
I would to God he were come home to me!
She pauses to gaze about her and then returns slowly into the house. A moment after, HERAKLES appears.
HERAKLES
O bland and tranquil human habitation,
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Where love is life and life is love, where truth
Is very tender and exquisite as song,
And where the meaning of the Mystery
Is simply and ineffably revealed!—
O treasure-house of kind and serious joys,
Hushed, holy house of peace, my house, my home!—
I know not in my heart what nameless fear
Afflicts me as mine eyes behold you now!
Is it perhaps the dread that hence from you
Lies the new promise of the forward way,
And hence the issue, and the sunrise hence?
Yet, in the clear accounting of all things,
I have no guess what voyage of the soul
Could take me hence from you, O tranquil house!—
O mother of my children, O my sons,—
My little sons, so fair and young,—from you!
Is not the best of being here at home?—
The candour and the loveliness of life;
Beauty and innocence of days; and all
The wise, warm, ancient virtues of the heart,
And all the peace of the prodigious soul? .....
O Well-beloved, the whole heart's yield of flowers
Perfumes the quiet chambers where you sleep! .....
My love is with you, and my dearest thought
Is of you, and where you are there am I
In spirit and in love! ..... I will not fear!
This is the loveliest and most bountiful
275
Surely it shall not for the truth's sake pass
Out of the sum of real prosperities!
Rather my loved ones and my love shall share,
Always with me and to whatever end,
The days and ways of the enfranchised soul!
A moment's pause. Then he calls:
Megara!
MEGARA appears in the doorway.
MEGARA
Herakles!—at last! at last!
She runs forward to greet him.
My love—my dear, dear love—at last come home!
HERAKLES
Is not my whole heart always here at home?
MEGARA
O welcome, welcome!—As it was with me
When I first loved you, so it is to-day!
You come to me as after many days,
After long, anxious, heart-sick days of doubt.....
My heart was like a house of mourning: now
There is rejoicing and the sound of song,
The light of festival!—The Well-beloved
Returns at last, the Bridegroom is at hand!
276
O come into my arms! I seem to feel
Beat in your breast the strong and simple heart,
The faithful and inveterate heart of life,
Which animates with the bright blood of being
The diverse fruit of earth's vast pregnancies! .....
They embrace. A slight pause.
Where are my sons?
MEGARA
They hardly wake from sleep.
One called you in the night, speaking your name.
HERAKLES
My children! ..... And my Love! O Megara,
Say that you love me always to the end!
MEGARA
I love you to whatever end may come,
Ever and always and without reprieve!
HERAKLES
Then, and in silence, hear me to the last.
I know how little truth is speakable;
And I shall hardly find, for all my pains,
Language sufficient to express the soul;—
Yet it may be your love shall understand!—
Last night you saw me and you heard me speak.
277
The crown!—for even last night I was assured
That in the compass of the soul's ambition,
In the resources of man's utmost strength,
In the dim, secret treasure-house of thought,
There were perfections more supreme, desires
More absolute, achievements more divine,
Than any that the world is witness of! .....
Then did I blindly wreak my inmost will,
And had no understanding of my deeds.
But in the dawn,—O, in the morning,—then
I found the very truth, as in a vision!—
The light!—and I was plainly justified,
And perfectly; for this is truth's first lesson,
And easiest, and least of price,—that all
Business and pleasure and preferment, fame
And government and grandeurs of this world
Are but the toys with which the mind of man
Beguiles the leisures of its infancy.
Who knows the mind's austere maturities,
The heart's full-grown intensities;—who sees
The treasures of the Spirit, fabulous
Beyond imagination;—I believe
Naught else, to him, is profitable at all—
No triumphs, glories, kingdoms, amplitudes
Of fortune, pleasures, majesties, dominions!
I am but newly waked into the light;
My way begins,—my way, my hope, my hazard.
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And in myself a promise more supreme
And an inheritance more bountiful
Than thought can understand or faith believe! .....
Self-mastered to some purpose more than mine,
In the first morning, with the soul's first-fruits
I come to you!—O brave wise heart of love,
Surely you shall not fear to share with me
The best, hereafter, and the best alone:
Love, labour, and the fierce incertitudes! .....
MEGARA
Hardly I guess the meaning of your words.
And well it may be that in spite of all
I shall not understand even at last.....
Yet take me—keep me—lead me to your light!
My sons and you and I,—we are one life,
One love, one being,—naught shall make us twain!
HERAKLES
I also know not what my words may mean.....
I know not what the price of truth may be,
Or what the cost of man's perfection is
To man, or how the soul is satisfied.
I know but this: that ever and evermore
I shall not rest! ..... O it may come to pass
That if you love me you shall die of it—
As who shall not before the Journey's end?
279
And even it well may be, for all I know,
That only in exceeding bitter sorrow
Are we so slain and sacrificed and saved!—
That all with heavy labour and cruel cost
The soul must reap in life's neglected fields
The living bread, and in untended vineyards
Press from ripe fruit the consecrated wine,
Which are its livelihood. Who knows how hard
The truth's divine imperatives shall prove?
Courage, strong heart! Be sure there is no more
That must be done than man at best can do!
And if you find yourself, as well you may,
Best in the strong sublimity of love,—
O then come with me to the perfect end! .....
MEGARA
What have I else in all my life to do?—
Your spirit is my strength, your heart my refuge!
HERAKLES
Megara! ..... O it may be we shall win,
And come into the heritage! At least
We shall go on in the fair-way till death,
Serious and stedfast and supremely one!
The SONS OF HERAKLES appear in the doorway of the house.
280
..... In the fair-way till death!
HERAKLES
My Love!
He perceives his children, who issue from the doorway.
My sons!
HERAKLES tenderly embraces the children.
A MESSENGER appears.
The MESSENGER
Herakles!—Lord!—The envoys of Eurystheus,
Sovereign of Argos, stand before the King—
HERAKLES
Why are you come to me?
The MESSENGER
They will not speak
Their master's message save alone to you.
Therefore the summons of the King is sent
To bid you straightway to the Agora.
HERAKLES
The Agora! ..... Liberty is beyond! .....
Thro' and beyond my path of freedom leads.
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Come, Well-beloved—let us go down together.
For they must take farewell of the rank world
Who walk their own ways into Paradise! .....
End of the Sixth Scene.
| Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge | |