University of Virginia Library

EIGHTH SCENE

Later of the same day. An open space before a Temple situated on an acropolis in Thebes. The gay tumult of a public holiday rises from the city, which lies out in panorama not far below.

The POET and the WOMAN, alone.

The POET
We two in all the world have tears for him! .....
Hark! how they make a public festival
And cry thanksgiving that the God is slain .....
He pauses. The WOMAN is silent. The rumour from the city sounds louder than before.
Yes, they rejoice!—an excellence is lost,
And so their triumph is securely won!
Hark! how they mock with mirth the soul's defeat,
These dreadful, dread majorities of men
Who shout into the air and beat their hands
At pageants, tragedies, and crucifixions;—
Who, when a soul surrenders, sound across
Truth's broken harmonies their rank applause!
The cries of the multitude sound nearer.
Hark! Hark! They come—wreathed, radiant, unashamed!
Their drums sound hither where the mourners sit,
Sanctified, silent in their mystic grief,
About the gravestone of the earth-born God!
And whensoever, from the huddled homes,
The congregations and the courts of men,
One, rising up from where he sat so long
In darkness with the wise men of the world,
Finds God incarnate in his inmost soul,
And feels across the vision of his eyes
The unimagined, strong, seraphic light,
And speaks his mystic message thrilled with song,—
Then will you hear sound out against the man
The world's ironic, base, and vacant voice,—
The tuneless tumult of democracies!
So, when the soul is crushed, defeated, slain,—
O then as now, toward the crystalline
Unmindful heaven's serene immensity,
From all the nameless numbers of the world
Thunder their triumph and their acclamations! .....
A great, gay multitude of men and women, with CREON and AMPHITRYON at their head, appear on their way from the city to the Temple.
Not even here is sanctuary..... Behold!
They come to thank the Gods that God is slain!

CREON, on his way, perceives the POET and pauses.
CREON
Here 's our poetic, pale enthusiast,
Changed from his madness, sobered, let us hope,
And somewhat wiser. Ah, how vain were all
Our hopes and fears! He merely boasted! What?—
Believed his boast, you say?—I grant you! Well,
And what of that? True faith 's the only harm!
For much as Herakles was crazed by dreams,
So in their lives are many men deceived,—
And by their disenchantment much matured!
Thus we discern when excellence is lost
How much is saved,—our hero first of all!
And last, but not, good sir, believe me, least,
We now may pleasantly observe how well
Our sense of humour and our quiet smile
Of irony still vindicate their use,
And prove life's ablest critics after all!

The POET listens with quiet indifference. CREON turns and enters the Temple with AMPHITRYON. The multitude follow. The POET and the WOMAN are left once more alone.
The WOMAN
I will not now believe that all is lost! .....

The POET
Nothing is lost!—for he was not the Light;
He was but one whose strength had momently
Uplifted in his hand the kindled torch
Whereof the spark lives quenchless in the soul.
Fail not in faith because the torch-bearer
Is fallen!—the sacred flame still lives in splendour,
Tho' the lax hand let fall the lamp that made
To our gross sense the glory visible! .....

The WOMAN
I know no light but his, no faith but him.
He held the torch up in my darknesses;
He gave me light where the long path went on;
And where his strength made room, there was my way! .....
Strong and serene as sunrise, I beheld
His advent; and, the little while he tarried,
The common clay I am of life's admixture
Seemed all suffused and interchanged with gold! .....
What shall my life become if he is gone? .....
And what is truth? ..... and why are all the free
Fine faculties of the impassioned mind? .....
And wherefore has the heart such wings of faith,
Such springs of love, such hardihood of hope,
If he is gone?—I will not so believe!
He is still forward, still sublime, still strong! .....

The POET
Alas! Alas! I dare not hope—I saw
The Spirit labouring in him, as life labours
In one who dies too young..... The light was spent;
The voice was still! Alas! I know too well
The secret signs:—how often, in my house
Daily rekindled, daily have I seen
The light dying, dying,—the sacred flame
Burn small into the common day of life!
How often I—I also, silently
And suddenly have seen those walls, that make
The mansion of the Spirit's isolation,
Wear thin as light, and, like a prodigy,
The dayspring of the soul flush thro'!—till all
This mortal man was like a lantern held
Aloft, alight in the vast night of being;
And wayfarers might find their way withal!
I too have lit my candle at the sun,
And made my poems of it till the light failed! .....
Made only poems!—yet more than he shall make,
Who is grown dark as any proud glad man;
Whose light is quenched in passion and fierce deeds;
Whose soul is spent in purchase of this world;
Whose strength is small; whose truth is partisan!
Alas! Alas! there is no room for hope.....

The WOMAN
I will not so believe! They are not dark,
His eyes, where once my sightless eyes discerned
Spacious and grave nativities of light!
He is not, in the dust with other men,
So all inexpiably and weakly fallen
From where he stood, aureoled, invincible! .....

The POET
You love him!

The WOMAN
I? ..... I dared not! Love?—O God!
I had not strength enough nor grace of soul
Nor grandeur in my heart to love him with!
Could I have loved him all might now be well! .....

The POET
Can you imagine of the human heart
Such prodigies?—that love could so avail
The soul once purposed to the ends of truth,
Which fears and palters with the price? ..... Enough!
Let us go hence before the worshippers
Return to vex our grief and solitude.
Let us go hence.

The WOMAN
..... and seek for Herakles!

The POET and the WOMAN depart. A moment later HERAKLES appears, coming up from the city. He pauses by the Temple steps, gazing abroad over the immense prospect.
HERAKLES
I dimly see how far perfection is,
And what the utmost price of truth must be,
And how the strong soul is companionless.....
And I am heart-sick in my hour of weakness!
I have been much and soon and fiercely tried,
And now the process of the pregnant past
Yields to my sense its stern significance!—
I was a tranquil householder, whose house
Of life seemed so securely locked and barred
That at the feast and in the pleasant mansions
How should he fear to find the fatal guest—
The Truth, whose voice sings out the wonder-song
Of life and death adventured to one end;
Whose eyes are clear, whose brows are pale with stars,
Whose nakedness is bright and terrible? .....
Yet, in the rashness of my discontent,
My hands, impatient of the tasks and toys,
Breached the blind walls of life's secure defence
And gave glad welcome to the ambushed foe!
Now am I pressed and overborne, as one
Beleaguered in a ruined citadel;
I am invaded, violated!—all
The doors stand open of my dwelling-place;
My heart is sacked and spoiled without reprieve,
For all may pillage in its treasuries;
The feast no more is spread but Truth is there
To consecrate the wine of human love
And transubstantiate life's daily bread;
And in the mansions I can sleep no more
Because of one crying “It is the Dawn!”—
I was a thrifty husbandman who tilled
With patient labour life's familiar fields,
And gathered in the harvest to his small
And well-approved and insufficient needs;—
But when the narrow bounty of my tillage
No more sufficed to give me nourishment,
Eager of more superb prosperities,
I drove my ploughshare with a reckless hand,
Furrowed the fallow acres of the soul,
And in new soil of strange fertilities
Cast down the good seed of a great ambition!
Now in my soul the ripened harvest stands,
Waiting the sickle,—and my hands must reap
And earn perfection's lordlier livelihood!—
Leaving unsown, unscythed, unharvested,
The humble fruit of human happiness
Which was the substance of my daily bread,
And all my life long made the staff of life.
I was a happy lover, innocent
And candid in the paradise of love;
And love was human and was happiness—
Until I dreamed of the celestial Bride! .....
Then were my heart's inviolate secrecies
Disclosed—and I beheld her fabled face! .....
I saw how young she was and beautiful! .....
I knew her love's ineffable ecstasies! .....
And all the lesser loveliness of earth
Was in my sight no more desirable.
Then, like a bridegroom, heedless on his quest
If the dark way be strange and unexplored
Or if the bridal chamber have no light,
I hastened to my Paramour—I kept
Love's secret assignation with my soul!
Now of that whispered, dark embrace is born,
In the deep womb of thought, a prodigy
Whose strength shall dispossess me of this world! .....

CHORUS OF RESPONDENTS
from within the Temple
We fear Thee and we know Thee not! .....
We know but this, when all is said:
That life is false and forfeited,
And love foregone and truth forgot
To serve Thee whom we dare not trust;
While, vexed with very sore distress,
We go nowhither in the trampled dust
Of life, companioned yet companionless.....
Yet still we serve Thee—as we must!—
Serve Thee and suffer and atone
And daily fear Thee and confess
The Kingdom and the Glory and the Power
Are only Thine—not ours but Thine alone!
For we are meek in spirit,
And live like creatures of the transient hour
Who dare not strive and suffer to inherit
The birthright of the soul,—who dare not be
Perfect as Thou art and, as Thou art, free!
No hopes may tempt us; and for us in vain,
Globed like a golden lamp suffused in rain,
The candid, living fruit upon the tree
Of knowledge, and the prime, pressed grapes of love
Which brim with sacred wine life's earthen bowl,
Ripen in sun-steeped orchards of the soul! .....
We are incurious, pious and afraid
And have no care thereof,
So the small price of all we lose is paid.
Therefore, as Thou art just,
Give and forgive!—
Forgive our trespasses, and as we humbly live,
Give us our daily bread!
By Thy small mercies we confirm our trust:
And since so much is forfeit that perchance
Man might reclaim as his inheritance,
Scant not to our desire
The mess of pottage that we ask instead!
But, in abundant measure,
Give us the trifle of our hire,—
The pride, the fame, the kingships and the gold,
The paltry profit and the hasty pleasure,
For which, to further and fulfil
The dark stern process of Thy secret will,
The soul, the truth, the strength of man are sold!

HERAKLES
Pathos—humility—surrender—fear!—
Starved, sterile, satisfied, supremely sad
Human vociferation and appeal!—
O frightened children, crying in the dark!—
Be well assured this hour of lamentation,
Of weakness and despair shall pass away!
Unconquerable is the strength within me—soon,
Soon to revive!—and spares not, neither counts
The cost! ..... O I begin to be afraid
Of what I am!—for if I live at all,
I must reclaim the Birthright and redeem
The Spirit and the Truth from servitude!
Servitude?—then, the labours?—and Eurystheus?—
No, by the Gods, it is not to be borne!
And in the very thought of that abasement
Lies only madness and a black despair! .....

The voice of the POET from below
How shall we learn to bear what must be borne?
How shall the heart not break when love is lost?
How shall life earn enough to pay the cost
Of all the tears, the solitude, the scorn?
How shall we not be utterly forlorn
When they deny us whom we cherished most?
When all life was becomes a dreadful ghost,
How, from such pangs of death, is life reborn?—
How shall we live at all? ..... Thou canst not say,
O Heart, whose voice is lamentation! Where,
Where are the nobler virtues that repay,
When all is gone that gave us most delight?
When shall the soul, from what supernal height,
Witness the truth and save us from despair?

Before the voice of the POET is still, a very old blind man, lead by a shepherd boy, appears coming up from below. At the same moment CREON and AMPHITRYON, followed by the multitude of worshippers, appear upon the Temple steps.
The OLD MAN
Is there a man who hears me? If there be,
Let him, as one who loves the Delphic God,
Straitly direct my steps—

CREON
Teiresias!

TEIRESIAS
Surely I know the accents of the King.....

CREON
Servant of Loxias, wherefore art thou come?
Thou, in whose sightless eyes the God has fixed
The fearful vision of all future things,
Speak, if thy words concern the fate of Thebes!

TEIRESIAS
Creon, I come not in the public cause.
Yet, I beseech you, guide me, that the will
Of God may be accomplished; and direct
My steps, that I may speak, as God commands,
His words to Herakles.

HERAKLES
To Herakles?—
What is your message? Speak!—for be assured
If God is I will know His will with me!

TEIRESIAS
You are that Herakles?—O wretched man!

HERAKLES
Wretched? .....

TEIRESIAS
Most wretched of the sons of men
Is he who breaks the bonds of human fate
And dares the soul's transcendent destiny!
He shall, alone of all men, nevermore
Rest and arise refreshed from rest; rejoice,
Love, live, and have his happy human being,
As a man may, in life's familiar place
Where sleep is sweet and toil repaid and tears
Consoled and man's imperfect nature soothed
And satisfied, man's unambitious mind
Content, man's insufficient heart fulfilled! .....
For all his life is lost to save his life;
And all he loved is sacrificed and slain
To make love pure and perfect in his heart!—
Until at last, released from servitude
By long, incredible labours and the strength
That sleeps not, neither spares, the soul is left
Naked with knowledge, where the lapse of time
Leaves its eternity unhazarded,
Solitary in a waste and desert place,—
Where once the friendly cities rose in towers,
And, rich with harvests, hills and pleasant gardens,
The humble paradise of human life
Prospered and heard no tidings of the soul! .....

HERAKLES
O breaking heart!—Is there no hope at all
Of any tolerable issue? .....

TEIRESIAS
Peace!
Hear me, for I declare the words of God!—
I stood upon the mountain, and the voice
Of God spoke in my soul, saying: “It dawns! .....
My light dawns in the soul of Herakles! .....
Faint and afar his eyes have seen the Light;
His heart receives the gracious and divine
Nativity, and radiant is his mind
With rapture, and he hails the light with joy!
He feels a splendour in his strength; he sees
Burn with clear flame the torch of his resolve;
The door of his deliverance stands wide
Asunder in the vista of his vision;
His hope is on the way; his faith is full;
His winged ambition soars into the sun! .....”

HERAKLES
So, in the Dawn of Light, it was with me! .....

TEIRESIAS
The voice of God spoke in my soul, saying:
“Man is not saved because he sees the truth:
He must be true before his task is done!
Dawn crimsons on the mountain crest of thought,
While still inert, disfranchised, unredeemed,
The substance and the self of human being
Lie far below in that sepulchral night,
Wherein, like spectres moving in a trance,
Like candles briefly kindled and consumed,
The countless unambitious multitudes
Of mortal men exist at all adventure,
Timid and credulous of what they seem,
Fostered or blasted by the winds of chance.
Therefore, tho' Herakles has seen the Light,
The long captivities of ignorance
And pain and force and fear constrain his soul:
He has not even reckoned with the price,
Nor counted with the cost of liberty;
He has not learned how much the flame consumes
Which purifies,—how much the light dissolves
Which shows the truth,—how much perfection is,
To all imperfect, happy, human things,
Ruin and desolation! .....”

HERAKLES
Desolation.....
Ruin..... And then, redemption? .....

TEIRESIAS
Hear the voice
Of God!—it cries out in my spirit, saying,
“More light! More light! More truth for Herakles!—
Light to dissolve, perfection to destroy,
Truth to lay waste and ruin and make smooth,
Make straight and smooth the pathway of the soul! .....
Haste!—lest the saviour and the soul be lost,
Man's birthright forfeit, and the soul's supreme
Ambition bartered for a little thing!
Haste!—and exhort the man enslaved to wear
No more the chains of his captivity!
There is no virtue he shall not forego
Who fears and palters with the price of truth;
There is no excellence or liberation
He shall not earn who dares to undergo
The mighty labours and the sacrifice
Which win the soul's way out of servitude!”

HERAKLES
Where is the God who bade your steps come hither,
Your voice speak out the doom of Herakles?
Where is the God?—unless within the soul
Of man divinity resides unborn.....
Why do you seek to cheat me with a phrase
And thwart my understanding with a name?
It is your voice I hear and yours alone!—
Blind, wretched Soothsayer—where is the God?

TEIRESIAS
Bear with him, Loxias, for his agony
Is more than mortal grief!

HERAKLES
Where is the God?
Where is the God?—if God there be at all!

CREON
Haply at Delphi, in his sacred house.

TEIRESIAS
God dwells wherever He is well received
And welcome in the life and soul of man.

HERAKLES
Delphi? ..... At Delphi I will seek the God!
And if He is, and man may find him out,
There will I meet him face to face at last! .....