University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

SCENE I.

—The air. Midsummer. Late evening twilight, through which the moon rises, at full.
AFRAEL.
(sol.)
The night, the hour have come! O long, long Moon,
How I have waited for thee to refill
Thy pale dim outline with clear rounded light!
Now thou art full and fervent. And shall not
This pale dim Me, this shadowy nothingness,
This tenuous adumbration of delight,
Be with substantial aspect and real glow
Filled in, like thee, and burn, a perfect sphere?
Can she deny me now, now that the sky
Hath, my ally, her earthly shackles snapped?
No! She will grant that necessary boon,
And then, fair luminary! unlike thee,
I shall nor wax nor wane, but, night and day,
Be full of her! Now farewell, heavenly space!
Farewell, thou vault sublime! Farewell ye stars,
That hold the keys of fixëd harmony,
Ye golden chords of the eternal lyre!
Ye combinations infinite, farewell!
Forget me not! I never will forget ye!
But o'er that new and lesser home which waits
My transformation, watch with constant ray,
Nor me desert, deserter though I be,
And for her gentle sake propitious shine,
For whom I quit ye!

SCENE II.

—Same hour. The tents of Noema.
NOEMA
(sol.)
It seems like yesternight that I sate here,
And saw him first. Same spot, same hour, and see!
The self-same face of Heaven! How beautiful!
How still! How motionless! How dreadly steeped
In deep ambiguous solemnity!
Yet in all else how utterly unlike
That then from now! Oh! I am terrified!
My fences are uprooted, and I stand
Open to every trespass, who was once
By close and thorny borders hedgëd in.
Why did I so ephemeral a bar
Place 'twixt me and his coming? And 'tis sure
That he will come! He never failed me yet.
What, if he did! Oh! I should call for him,
And leave the sky no quiet till he came!
For I must thank him,—him who from the edge
Of my despairing madness snatched me back,
And showed me Irad. O poor sophistry!
How flimsy is thy curtain! For behind
This cold dead screen of gratitude, there hide
The warm and living characters of love,
Which only wait his coming to enact
The part so oft rehearsed! There! it is out!
But come not, all the same! Yet if he came,
What fervour could anneal and weld in one
Spirit and flesh? Impossible! Ay, though
He loved me, flesh, with all a Spirit's force,
I loved him, Spirit, with all my body's strength,
And both should work together! . . . Is that the moon
Whose keen bright edge the blue horizon cleaves?
It is! For see, its golden-curving rim
Soars slowly crescent, and before my heart
Moves on afresh, will shine an unshorn disc.
Halt! halt one moment, O thou gentle moon,
Who carriëst all my fortunes in thy pace,
And leave me time to think!

IRAD.
(from within).
Ho! mother! mother!

NOEMA
(rushing into the tent, and making for his crib).
What is it, Irad? Art thou not asleep?

IRAD.
I was; but I was wakened by a dream.

NOEMA.
Then sleep again, my child, and dream no more.
See, I will sit by thee.

IRAD.
Oh, but such a dream!
I dreamed that I was plucked again aloft
By him who saved me at the Tower, and borne
Swift through the air, but higher much than then;
And when we had got, ever so far from earth,
That then he dropped me, and I fell—fell—fell,—
And still was falling, when I woke and called
To you for help. Well, I will turn and sleep.
But, mother, do you think that he will come
Ever again? For I should like to thank him.
And then, perhaps, he'd lift me up afresh,
And ride me in the air. How I should like it!

NOEMA.
We'll talk of it to-morrow. But now, sleep!
Or thou wilt find thee, when to-morrow comes,
Still wearied with the sports of yesterday.
Kiss me and close thine eyelids!

[Irad kisses his mother, and composes himself to sleep. The moment he slumbers she steals out silently, and returns to the exterior of the tents.

SCENE III.

—In the moonlight.
NOEMA.
Afrael!

AFRAEL.
Yes, I am here, true as yon rounded moon,
Thou didst appoint to register my fate;
And I am come for judgment!

NOEMA.
Oh, 'tis soon!
I never dreamed that Time could fly so fast,
Or reach a point so quickly! Nay, I think,
The moon hath played me false.

AFRAEL.
Played false to thee!
None would do that! But upon me, I swear,
Her craft of late hath foisted many a trick.
A thousand times she nearly filled her horns,
Then from that margin thousand times retired;
Now let a golden flush creep o'er her face,
And, as I gazed upon the rising tide,
Ere it suffused her fully, rolled it back,
And, like this lonely watcher of her whims,
Again was pale and empty! But no more
Will I insist to thee how dull the load
Of waiting's weary interval hath been
To patience all impatient! For 'tis past!
And all I now would pour into thine ears,
Is Love's long-bridled torrent.

NOEMA.
Wait! O wait!
I am not ready, Afrael, for the rush
Of such a swollen current! Dost not see
My banks are broken down, my channels choked,
My bed a desolation, dry, and strewn
With drift, and sand, and naked boulders left
By the rough stream which flowed there once, but now
Hath run out to the ocean?

AFRAEL.
That is why
I now must fill thy shrunk stream up again,
That ne'er was meant to be left parched and bare.
And I will do't with such a gentle course,
And with such even flowing, thou wilt know
Thou art anew being flushed and plenishëd,
Only by seeing old havoc disappear,
And the hard rocks sink slowly out of sight.
Mine shall be waters only, waters sweet
Charged with no rude encumbrance, that with time
Will wear away, unfelt and unperceived,
The obstructions of the past!

NOEMA.
O Afrael!
Be silent for a little while! For I
Cannot resist thy voice!

AFRAEL.
Nor I thine ears,
Thine eyes, thy lipe, thy body, that everything
Which is unutterable Thou! Too late
Thou tell'st me to be silent. I have ta'en
Of the Eternal Heavens eternal leave,
And bidden the stars farewell! Thine am I now,
And never, never, never, can I turn
Back to the Spheres, that I have left for Thee!

NOEMA.
Thou know'st not what thou dost. Think, think once more,
What 'tis to be a Spirit, and what 'twill be
To be encased in flesh! Death, sorrow, pain,
And disenchantment, are familiars
That never quit its side.

AFRAEL.
What, if they be!
All the foul fiends and furies walk by my side,
So I but walk by thine!

NOEMA
Oh! no! no! no!
Look up! Look up! Remember thy abode,
And contemplate those interspersëd orbs,
The golden gleams on yon lake lazulite,
The glittering gems on the all-circling crown
Of Majesty Eternal! Lift thy gaze
Back unto those, not lower it down on me,
Where thou wilt but a crude amalgam find
Of dust and yearning! If a falling star
Ne'er yet touched aught but darkness, how wilt thou
Reach light and life by such a headlong plunge?

AFRAEL.
Nay, but away with these half-arguments!
Didst ever see a star that tried to turn?
I will not back! Though constellations glowed
A thousand times as bright, and boundless space
Yet infinitely more unbounded spread,
I'd leap the one, and blow the other out,
If they did keep me from thee!

NOEMA.
Then, 'tis vain!
Since thou dost range thy Spirit's potency
Upon the side of flesh, flesh needs must win.
I am the victor and the vanquished, too.

AFRAEL.
But, dost thou love me?

NOEMA.
Shall I cease to love,
Who loved thee once, because thou lov'st me thus?
Why, any love, in such a rapturous guise,
Would from the ground lift resolution up,
And leave it nought to stand on!

AFRAEL.
Then, thou art mine!
And in these wings, I call thee to annul,
For the last time I fold thee!

[As his wings encircle her, she throws her arms around him, and they kiss.
NOEMA.
Oh! sweet love!

AFRAEL.
See, they are fading now, and in their place
Fresh definite members come! I feel the rush
As of a thousand torrents through my being,
But torrents at volcanic sources warmed!
And now I burn and shiver all at once!
Canst thou not feel me now, as ne'er before?
For I, as ne'er before, do now feel thee!

NOEMA.
Yes! Thou art waxing human to my touch,
And thee intensely do I see, hear, know,
As though thou wert myself!

AFRAEL.
And so I am!

NOEMA.
Yes, love! thou art! And I? oh! what am I?

AFRAEL.
My own, my own! My deep, my very own!

SCENE IV.

—A week later. Sundown. The tents of Afrael and Noema.
NOEMA
(sol.)
Yonder they come; my comely Afrael,
And little Irad ambling at his side,
Linked hand in hand. How kindly doth he lean
His ear to childlike prattle, even as when,
Whilst yet a Spirit, by my earthly voice
He let himself be captured! Oh, but 'tis
A gentle soul, dissembling half its strength,
'Neath the smooth garb of prompt urbanity,
Like to that awful force in nature hid,
Which only shows itself in fruits and flowers!
How strangely, too, Irad seems drawn to him,
Quitting him never. Why, I almost think
The boy as lief would be with him as me,
And loves him even more, were't possible.
For we are one, and who loves him loves both.
Yet were it strange to feel such preference?
When men have gentleness as well as strength,
They are both men and women, and it haps
They answer either purpose. Oh! how fair,
How beautiful he is! ay, fairer e'en
Than when he shimmered, dazzling, on my gaze,
And was but scent and sunshine! How I love him
And he seems happy in this lower lot,
Which he still vows not less nor lower is,
But higher, better, and more spiritual.
Oh! had he not been happy! What a thought!
It almost blotted out the wholesome sun,
Swift as it passed me. Had I worked the spell
Which flesh endows me with, to drag him down,
A free, a happy, lofty, wingëd Spirit,
Into the mire of darksome slavery,
And disillusion's dungeon! Think of it!
Demons of Hell, and Seraphim of Heaven,
Have no such power as women; and the weal
Of this poor Earth hangs on its exercise!

[Irad, leaving Afrael, and outstripping him, comes running to his mother.
IRAD.
See, mother, what a lovely nest I have,
With all its little brood; not fledged as yet,
But daintily feathered almost to their beaks,
And snugly cuddled up within their crib!
I almost wish I were a bird myself;
They look so cosy.

NOEMA.
What a pretty sight!

IRAD.
Yes, but when first we looked at them, they made
Such a commotion! opened yellow nibs,
Fluttered and tumbled 'gainst each other so,
And cheeped, and gaped, and almost asked for food.
I thought they would have spoken! But we poured
Crushed, moistened millet down their hungry crops,
And they are happy now, and lie quite close,
And have forgot their mother.

NOEMA.
Where is she?

IRAD.
Ah! is it not sad? A cruel, greedy snake
Hath made them orphans; otherwise we had
Not ta'en them from their home. For Afrael says
We must be kind to bird, and beast, and tree,
Even as to man!

NOEMA.
Observe him, then, my child!
For, as I love to hear him moralise,
All these unto ourselves are kin and bound
By common veins of sadness and of mirth,
Pain, pleasure, struggle, passive sufferance,
Infirmity, and death! and what they lend
To human services, emotion, thought,
And speculation which maintains us lords
Of them and all things, our affections should
With a compassionate mindfulness repay.
Stamp that on memory, Irad!

IRAD.
So I will.
Even the serpent with its shifty eyes
He lets writhe on unhurt; and when I urge
That it hath been the source of all our woe,
He answers that its woe is worse than ours,
And will not hear the name of enmity!
Things that, of old, at hint of human step,
Started, and straight into the thicket fled,
Come at the sound of his inviting voice,
Sniff at his heels and nibble from his palm,
Or rub against his knees their charmëd ears.
O mother! he is native kindliness,
And all harsh growths are foreign to his heart.

NOEMA.
Be like him then, my child, and take thy hues
And shape from his example!

IRAD.
Now I must go
And seek a leafy eastward-facing nook,
Which I can reach and pry in, for these mites,
And feed them every morning, noon, and eve,
Until, as Afrael says, they feel their wings,
And fly from us to freedom!

NOEMA.
Go, then, child!

[Irad runs off, and as Afrael approaches. Noema goes to meet him. They embrace.

SCENE V.

NOEMA.
Belovëd Afrael!

AFRAEL.
Sweet mortal mine!
How fair, how good, how exquisite is life!
Shall we sit down upon yon wrinkled bole,
And 'neath this palm-tree's courteous canopy,
Watch tired day drop into the arms of night?

[They sit, close together, hand in hand.
NOEMA.
And dost thou verily find this earthly life
Worthy of thy true praise? Art really happy,
And hast thou nothing, Afrael, to regret?

AFRAEL.
Nothing, my all! It is a larger life,
A wider, and a deeper, than to float,
All unconditioned, through unbounded space,
One could nor mould nor alter. For be sure,—
Let lame Tradition stumble as it will,—
No God invented labour as a curse.
It is the best and truest friend we have;
And, take away that prompter, Nature would
Lose half her meaning, and e'en Love forget
The cues and purport of his master part!

NOEMA.
Oh, with what happiness it brims my heart,
To hear thee talk like that! Tell, tell me more!

AFRAEL.
What shall I tell thee? How I worked this day?
For lustily I did! Thou shouldst have seen
The sweat-drops on my templse, dense as dew;
And as I paused an instant just to feel
How thick they were, and brush a space for more,
I thought that they perhaps might match in worth
Even the gems on Night's reposeful brow!
A divine triad, these,—Love, Nature, Work,
Whose oneness meets in Song, which needs them all
To round the parts of spherëd Harmony!

NOEMA.
Then I may hug this surety to my breast,
That Work will ne'er dissever thee from Song?

AFRAEL.
Dissever me from Song! Why, love, that were
From thee to be dissevered!

NOEMA.
So it were!
This is the one great truest truth in life,—
And in thy arms I learned it!—only they
Who are potential poets, e'er can know
Love's actual force and dread significance.
The common herd may borrow it, and play
In idle moments with its mysteries,
As children play with books they cannot read,
Only to soil them! But the sacred few,
The Company elect, melodious souls,
Who carry in their ears the Eternal Song,
Alone can ever feel, have ever felt,
The rhythmic rapture of concerted Love!

AFRAEL.
Sad that they cannot! Let us teach them then.
For if all ears were only tuned alike,
How should we then make discord? It were hushed,
And banished to the realms of silent death!

NOEMA.
Can it be taught to those discordant ears
That have survived the falling of the Tower?

AFRAEL.
No! they are broken instruments, that ne'er
Will give forth music, or respond to it,—
The crowd of Nature's failures. It were well
Could that disaster perish with themselves.
But they will raise fresh clangours through their sons,
Fresh discords in their daughters. It is we,
New Adam and new Eve, who must begin
The work afresh, and through our shapely stock
Transmit pure melody.

NOEMA.
And dost thou think
That all our sons will own thy gift of song,
Our daughters, all, my sympathy of ear?

AFRAEL.
Thine, all must have, daughters and sons alike,
Or they are not our children; power to catch,
And love, and prize, the notes of Harmony.
But 'tis enough to hear it; for e'en they
Who seem to make it, make it not at all,
But with a finer apprehension dowered,
Do but repeat the Music they o'erhear,
Which is made otherwhere;—in Heaven perchance,
I' the stars, i' the air; who knows?—but not by man.

NOEMA.
And will all our posterity inherit
The lower apprehension?

AFRAEL.
Yes, love, all!
But heavenly gifts are quickly forfeited,
And some, alas! that delicate bequest
Will squander amongst brutish profligates,
Or, grafting on their own the alien stock
Of Babel's builders, parents be in part
Of a deaf race.

NOEMA.
But will not our strong blood
Assert itself in these, and make them hear?

AFRAEL.
I think it must, sometimes. But this is sure,
That whensoe'er one of the bastard brood
True Music sings or feels, 'twill be that he
Reverts unto his nobler ancestry,
And craving readmission to the home
From which his parents strayed, proclaims himself
Thy child and mine! Why dost thou weep, my love?

NOEMA.
Because my cup of happiness is full,
And overflows in tears!

AFRAEL.
Then let me sing
A little song which rippling came to-day
Adown the vacant channels of my sense,
As I stood gazing at the happy sky,
And listening to the love-birds' dainty note.

NOEMA.
A tender song; and tender be my thanks!
Wilt take them—thus?

[She kisses him fondly.
afrael.
O richest recompense!
Now let us listen to the silence, love!
For it concerts what never mortal voice
Can render into music.

SCENE VI.

—The interior of the tents of Noema and Afrael. Deep night.
AFRAEL.
Then, shall we go?

NOEMA.
Yes, Afrael, if thou wilt.
For there is nothing here I care to keep,
Save thee and Irad! Sadness lags behind,
In whatso places that we leave; and some,
Some few prompt natural drops perhaps will fall,
When from the lintel of past days I turn,
Never to cross it more! 'Twas here I gained
A mother's knowledge, deepest of all lore;
Here I first heard thy questions musical,
And here—here—here,—where now we lie entranced,
I learned Love's awful secret!

AFRAEL.
So it was!
Nor shall I leave it panglessly. But, Noema,
We need another land for our new race,
Remote from this one, old, which, it would seem,
Hath from the ruin of its dismal Tower
Learnt nought but fear. It is unteachable!
For the best tutor still is cheerful Hope,
Who leads us on from day to day, until
The task of Life is mastered.

NOEMA.
Is it true
They speak with divers tongues, and understand
One not the other?

AFRAEL.
'Tis conceivable.
Nought is so unintelligent as fear,
For whilst it speaks with obscure stammering lips,
It comprehends not what is plainly said.
You cannot parley with it. And, besides,
'Tis credible that they who sought to pierce
The Impenetrable Barrier, were rolled back
In dire perplexity upon themselves,
And nothing apprehend. thus will it fare
Ever with their temerity who think
To storm and raze the Unknown. Preposterous Towers,
Absolute wreck, and tongues' confusion,—
Such, through all change of circumstance and time,
Will be their brief and doleful history!

NOEMA.
Hast thou no sure conception how the Tower
Was overthrown? Whether a frolic troop
Of Seraphim invisible rode by,
And with the points of their light-poisëd spears
Tilted, and down it went? Or lightnings real,
With thunder in reserve, successive launched
By Heaven's almighty Captain, smote its front,
And routed its pretenders?

AFRAEL.
Who shall say?
I saw no armoured Seraphim, nor heard
Thunders unparalleled or lightnings strange,
But only complete sickness of the air,
Clouds vomiting fire, and with deep rumblings vexed,
To which the Earth responded; and the Tower
Collapsed in their commotion. It may be
That one of Nature's mindless accidents
The ruin wrought; or that the Unseen Power
Made that loud music with man's folly chime,
And with a fixed coincidence rebuked
His weak extravagance. We cannot know.
E'en in that star whose denizen I was
Ere Earth's more blest inhabitant I turned,
God's face was all as dim as seems it here.
How were it otherwise? Let finite feet
With straining breath and clamorous tongue pursue,
With faster feet Infinity recedes,
And we drop ever more behind the view,
Which ere we started it, was very close;
Ay, if we do not frighten it away,
By prying if 'tis there, still keeps a seat
In every human breast!

NOEMA.
And must we be
Content with that?

AFRAEL.
My love, I think we must.

NOEMA.
And when we die?

AFRAEL.
Ah! then we shall know more,
Or else of this vexation be quite cured
That still we know so little! It is strange
Thy sires bethought them never, that Death may
Be but the falling of a wave, enlarged
By rising of another,—half the same!
Dost think that thou and I can all go out,
Or Love's prized household gods but serve to swell
The lumber of Oblivion? If 'tmust be,
At least we ne'er need know it, and 'twere wise,
With a resigned humility to hope
That Death's dark door, upon the other side,
Upon a more than living brightness looks.

NOEMA.
Here is a mystery in the heart of life,
We scarce could do without. Take it away,
The sun would shine but once, to shine no more.
The pathos of the winter wolds would pass,
From April's tears the glamour would be fled,
The smoke and smell of autumn's smouldering woods,
When summer's fire is out, no more would be
The soul of luscious sadness, and the face
Of this fair world, blank and expressionless!

AFRAEL.
Then let us go where it is fairest far,
And most its various aspect is expressed;
To the Land I told thee of, which 'witched my gaze
When I, a Spirit, this void globe surveyed,
And which we now must people with our race.
Into the largest of all inland seas
Earth's 'dented shores enclose, it jutteth out,
A long and lovely promontory lulled
By the soft murmurs of the soothing wave.
Vigilant mountains from its smiling vales
And slopes of hanging beauty fence the snows
The jealous North despatches, and adown
Its mild meandering length, soft-soaring crests
Catch the bright rays of the round-travelling sun,
East where he rises, westwards when he sets,
And pour them down into its laughing plains.
All Shinar's wealth is there; the sweet-pithed date,
Cedars, and pines, and many a waving grass,
And fields of dimpling corn, no sickle touched.
But other growths I saw which sprout not here;
Gardens of golden fruit that had not robbed
The glistering foliage of rich-scented bloom,
And tapering bunches of thick-clustering beads,
Which seemed to lock the sunshine in their veins,
Drooping from lissom, leafy-hidden stems,
Carelessly swung from happy bough to bough.
Let us go there, and make it with our blood
The land of Love, as 'tis of loveliness,
Art, Poesy, and Thought; all that can flow
From human minds wedded to human hearts!

NOEMA.
Yes! With to-morrow's dawn then let us go,
And take this wisdom with us: Though the Earth
May not ascend to Heaven, by Tower or aught
Of man's devising, Heaven descends to Earth
For those who will receive it. We have it here,
Here in each other's arms, where Spirit and flesh
Have recognised their kinship. Love is nought
But shadow or mere carcass, save it blend
The breath of both:—a name, a nothingness,
Or wholly self and bestial!

AFRAEL.
There it is!
Spirit is not extinguished by the flesh,
Nor flesh repelled by Spirit. One is flame,
The other fuel; both are requisite
For Love's most sacred fire. That is a truth,
A Being well might abdicate the skies,
To learn and teach!

NOEMA.
And thou hast taught it me.

AFRAEL.
Then, Noema, good night! Sound be thy sleep!

NOEMA.
And sweet thine, Afrael! My love, good night!