University of Virginia Library

FOURTH EPOCH. MAN AND MAN.

Scene I.—Night. Interior of a subterranean Cellar; filthy, and ill-lighted by a lanthorn swung from the vaulting. Along the walls pistols and cutlasses suspended. On the floor broken wine-flasks and empty barrels strewn about. In the midst, under the lanthorn, a rude table. Thereon a greasy volume open: pens, ink in a broken wine-glass, and a large earthen bowl smeared over the edges with blood. On a sort of altar, a skeleton gorgeously robed and crowned. Tapers burning before it. Between the altar and the table a small high platform, covered with crimson cloth, and canopied in black. On the platform is seated the President of the Secret Society of The Avengers. Before him, at the foot of the platform, a Novice, kneeling, with hands bound, breast bare, and marks of blood upon it. The rest of the Brotherhood is grouped around the Novice.
The President.
And to maintain inviolate secrecy.

The Novice.
I swear. So help me God!

President.
Citizen Novice,
Thy tongue trips. Have a care. There is no God.
We have deposed him. He was in our way,
For, being a tyrant, he made common cause
With the other tyrants. Bring the symbol forth
Of brutish Superstition.

(One of the brethren brings forward a crucifix.)
Novice.
Citizen Atheist, I obey.

President.
Remove it.
He hath saved his throat.

The Brother.
Back to thy tomb, defunct
Divinity!

The President.
To spare not man, nor woman,
Against whose life the edict hath gone forth.

Novice.
I swear.

President.
To execute, without remorse,
Without reluctance, and without delay,
Whatever order shall be given to thee.

Novice.
I swear.

The President.
Upon all persons, old or young,
Or high or low, or great or small, or here
Or elsewhere, nobles, prelates, princes, kings,
Or those that do adhere to the same.

Novice.
I swear.

President.
And to observe the aforesaid laws to the death.

Novice.
I swear.

President.
He hath pass'd the triple ordeal.
Enter his name upon the Books.

A Brother
(writing).
Josiah
Cobble. Eyes grey, small. Hair red. Stature low.
Age four and twenty years. Former condition,
Maker of boots and shoes in the employ
Of the Enemies of Human Freedom. Sworn
A Brother of the Secret Philosophical
And Philanthropical Society
Of the Avengers: sitting in this city
On the First Day of the Second Month o' the Year
One, of the General Emancipation.
Enter'd.

President.
Unbind his hands. Give him the bowl.
Rise, Brother, and embrace thy brethren. Drink.

Chorus of the United Brotherhood.
Press the grapes of the vintage of vengeance. Thine,
Young vintager, now is the vineyard gate.
And drink, Son of Freedom, the blood and the wine:
The wine of the wanton, the blood of the great!
Fallen thy bonds are. Behold, we have burst them.
Laugh! Not on nectar the old gods nurst
The growth of the young gods, who have disperst them:
And stronger than nectar, to quench our thirst,
Is the cup of the curses wherewith we have curst them
By whom we were curst.
Feed on the flesh of the princes of earth.
Let it fatten thee now, as our own fatten'd them.
There be plenty of bones, and of blood no dearth:
And these dishes are garnisht with gold and gem.
Sign'd are the lintels, and sharpen'd the daggers.
The powerless strikes, and the powerful staggers.
The halters are spun.
Judged are the judges: rod-beaten the lictors:
Tried the tribunals: and vanquisht the victors:
The heads are all reckon'd: the headsman is beckon'd:
Our work hath begun.

(A knocking without.)
President.
Back to your places, all of you! Remove
Those weapons. Each man to his work again.
Who knocks?

A Voice Outside.
A friend, and Freedom's Son.

President.
His name?

The Voice.
Lucius Junius.

President.
'Tis the Modern Brutus!
Salute him, Brothers. Open in the name
Of Liberty. Hail to thee, Lucius Junius!

(The Modern Brutus enters.)
Omnes.
Brutus, thy brethren here, in thee, salute
The soul of Rome's best Roman.

Brutus.
Good, friends, good!
I see that you are sharpening your knives
Ready for use. Good, good! Be all prepared.
What art thou making, Brother Citizen?

One of the Brethren.
A hempen rope.

Brutus.
Good! He that 'scapes the steel
Must hang by the cord. And thou?

Another.
I stole this knife
Out of the kitchen of an old Archbishop.
And it has sliced him many an ortolan.
I am giving it a new handle, and an edge.

Brutus.
Good, good! Some throats are easier cut than capons.
And thou?

A Third.
This is the fowling-piece with which
The keeper of my lord shot my boy, Jack,
For having stolen a hare. The man had this
When, last night, I shot him. I took it from him.
It is a keepsake. I am giving it
A new lock.

Brutus.
Good, good! There be other vermin
Than hares that now need thinning. Keep the gun.

President.
But tell us, Brother Citizen, is the day
Fixt yet?

Brutus.
Oh patience, Citizen President!
I want a man of you. Which is the idlest?
Or which the boldest?

President.
There's a novice here
That hath not yet been tried. Wilt thou have him?
He took the oath but even now.

Brutus.
Good, good!
Follow me, Brother Novice.

Novice.
I obey.

Scene II.—Noon. The Revolutionary Camp. Within the Tent of Panurge. Citizens armed, standing sentry. Shouting without.
Panurge
(entering the tent).
(The Modern Brutus enters with the Novice.)

Brutus.
Ay.

Panurge.
Dost thou know Lord Orval?

Novice.
Know him? Yes,
By sight, great Citizen. He once spoke to me.

Panurge.
In truth? what said he?

Novice.
At the Church door once,
Meaning no harm, I brusht him as I pass'd.
He turn'd, and kick'd me, adding, with an oath,
“Out of my way, hound!” I have made a rope
To hang him with. 'Tis ever in my pocket.

Panurge.
To-morrow thou wilt go to him, at daybreak:
And say to him that I intend to see him;
That I will visit him at midnight, tell him,
Alone—in private—without witnesses.

Novice.
Citizen General, how many men
Do you propose to give me?

Panurge.
Not a man.

Novice.
There will be danger. With no escort ...

Panurge.
Man,
Thine escort is Panurge's name. Alone
Thou must approach him.

Novice.
I obey.

Panurge.
And tell him,
For certain, that to-morrow—at midnight—
I shall be with him.

Novice.
And if he should hang me?

Panurge.
Thou wilt have had the honour, then, to perish
A martyr to the People's Cause.

Novice.
Long live
The People's Cause! .. (The devil take 'em all!)

Panurge.
And now good day, good Citizen. Depart.
Forget not.

Novice.
Citizen General, I obey.

(Exit.)
Brutus.
Why these half measures, these delays, Panurge?
Or to what end these midnight meetings with
The People's foes? these parleyings with a man
Like Orval? Had I but thy sanction then
When I besought it, Orval at this hour
Had not been living. And that snare of thine
To catch him flying hath fail'd egregiously.
Flight? he is in the field against us now,
First, foremost, and sole formidable foe!
Panurge, when I vow'd to follow thee,
To admire thee, to obey thee—when I made
Thee master of my mind,—it was because
I then believed thee master of thine own:
A man of keen eye and sure hand: a man
Of one aim, and one blow.

Panurge.
Peace, prattler, peace!

Brutus.
All is in readiness. The arms are forged,
The cannon cast, the powder magazined,
And the battalions drill'd, and the lists drawn.
Our troops wait only for the word to move.
The lightnings and the thunders of our power
Vibrate impatient in thy slack right hand.
Speak the word only, and the thunder falls.

Panurge.
Rash boy! thy hot brain and o'erweening youth
Know not the majesty of restraint. Mistake not
Impulse for power.

Brutus.
Nay, think, Panurge! think!
Already these amazed aristocrats
Terrified, trembling, fly like a tame herd
That scents the unseen lion. Abandoning
To desolation their doom'd palaces,
And paper-palisaded castles all,
They have assembled their unscatter'd strengths
In the firm-mason'd Fastness of St. John.
We with our legions need but flood the land
To overwhelm them in their last retreat.
Our dogs might in a day destroy such rabbits
In such a warren. Give the word.

Panurge.
Not yet.
What need of haste? Their doom is sure. Effete
Both morally and physically, weak
Old toothless lapdogs whelp'd by Luxury,
Nature, the hardy mother of brave men,
Spurns them with loathing from her wholesome lap.
And, whether it be to-morrow or to-day
That we exterminate the litter, boy,
It matters not the weight of a hair. Go to.
I know my hour.

Brutus.
What daunts thee, then?

Panurge.
Nought daunts me.
I am but the Doomsman. Nature is the Judge.

Brutus.
Albeit, when Nature's voice cries to thee “Strike!”
What stays thy laggard hand thus?

Panurge.
Mine own will:
Thy master, Lucius, Junius, Brutus.

Brutus.
Psha!
Thy will? who knows? Thy whim, more like. And I,
Whose hand hath smitten upon their guilty thrones
The consecrated tyrannies of time,
Whose knee was never crook'd to man or God,
Who fear no consequence, and spare no foe,
Am I to follow blindly the blind guidance
Of thy dark brain?

Panurge.
Blindly. It is thine oath.

Brutus.
Thou art betraying us, Panurge!

Panurge.
Tush!
Mistrust is the hobgoblin of weak minds.
For there where ignorance doth a darkness make,
Any old broomstick serves to make a fear.
But have a care. Speak not so loud, young man.
Some of my folk might hear thee.

Brutus.
Of thy folk?
Our folk! We have no spies here. And what then?
My speech is my true heart's ambassador
That scorns disguise, and boldly goes his way
To challenge Falsehood where he finds her. Man,
What if our folk do hear my voice?

Panurge.
(With sudden tenderness).

Brutus
(with emotion).
Pardon! I forgot myself.
But (earnestly), Chief, I fear not death in any form.
And if my death be necessary, if
My death can help or serve the People's Cause,
Serve only, even, for salutary example,
Speak! I am ready to die.

Panurge.
(An ardent mind!
This man believes and hopes. It is a pity
That such a happy man should ever die.
Earth hath too few of his thrice fortunate kind,
And cannot profitably spare what she
So rarely is possest of.) Boy, think more.
Speak less. Grow older. Live. And in good time
Thou wilt be able to understand ... Delay.
Are the new cartridges distributed?

Brutus.
Yes.

Panurge.
Dost thou know no more of this Lord Orval?

Brutus.
No. Why? In truth, I care to know no more
Than is already known of that bad man.

Panurge.
He hath assembled all his vassals. And they
Are faithful to him. They believe in him.
They follow him, and still look up to him.

Brutus.
A handful of born slaves! It is in us,
Faith's true force is incarnate.

Panurge.
I would see him—
With mine own eyes ... hear him—with mine own ears—
Not thine ... and read the soul of this strange man.
Too proud he is! too proud. Pride must be humbled.
He should be one of Us.

Brutus.
He? One of us?
He, the aristocrat!

Panurge.
No. He, the poet.
You understand not. Leave me.

Brutus.
Am I pardon'd,
Citizen General?

Panurge.
Boy, wert thou not ... But go!
Leave me. Thy life belongs to the Good Cause.
I charge thee keep it safe. Boy, thine own hand
Shall plant the People's Flag upon the towers
And rooftops of the Fastness of St John.
Now leave me.

Brutus
(going).
Truly, he is a great man.
How could I doubt him? Out, base heart!

(Exit).
Panurge
(alone).
Ay, Orval!
It must be with mine own eyes only, and only
In thine own face, that I the riddle read
Writ by the Destinies for thee and me.
Strange, that this man, alone of all the world,
Dares to resist me! What, compared to mine,
Is this man's strength? Nothing, It cannot weigh
A dozen grains of sand i' the scale. Some few
Raw boors, and stupid serfs, that follow yet
The blazoned boast of his affronting flag,
With that blind instinct of fidelity
That's ever in tame creatures. Nothing more.
Why do I wish to see, to hold discourse
With this one man? Hath my own spirit now been
Confronted, for the first time, with its peer?
Perchance its rival? ... I must crush—shall crush him.
But then? ... O thou mysterious Power of Thought,
That in me sittest, weaving webs to catch
The buzzing folly of this brief fly, man!
Easier shalt thou deceive all human kind
Than thine own self. What? Art thou not the thought
Of earth's unthinking millions? the bright soul
O' the brute material multitude? And thou,
Doubtest thou of thyself? What were but crime
In others, is, in thee, completed law,
Power fulfill'd and perfect. Thou hast given
A name to nameless masses of mankind,
A language to dumb droves of beasts of burden,
A soul to soulless human engines,—call'd
Forth out of formless chaos, and created
A whole world's manifest fabric in the form
And image of thyself, and breathed into it
A motion and a light. But thou thyself,
O soul, what art thou? shapeless? doubting? dark?
Uncertain of the goal to which thou goest?
Nay then, I swear it, soul, thou art sublime!

Scene III.—Sunset, which deepens towards the close of the scene. The Forest. Booths, tents, canvas encampments. Torchfires, and wandering lights among the distant trees. A space cleared in the midst, with a rude gallows erected. Men and women dancing round it. Various groups passing over the foreground. Orval and The Novice. Orval advances, holding the Novice by the hand, who follows reluctantly. Orval is enveloped in a long mantle, and wears the Cap of Liberty.
Orval.
Remember!

Novice.
On my life, my lord, I swear it!
I will return you safely—if myself
Do 'scape the perils you have put upon us
By this most desperate venture.

Orval.
Glance of eye,
Or turn of head, and at my foot thou liest,
A bullet in thy scull. Sir, I am arm'd.
And,—mark me!—I am risking my own life,—
Thine hath for me less value than a dog's.

Novice.
Hi! ... You will crush my wrist-bone! Zounds, my lord,
Your hand hath iron claws! How must I serve you?

Orval.
Address me as a comrade—newly come.
What are those—dancing yonder?

Novice.
Round the gallows?
That is the new dance of the Libertines,—
Freedom's bolero.

Orval.
On, then! let us see it.

Chorus
(of men and women, half naked, dancing round the gallows in caps of Liberty).
Bread to eat! bread to eat!
Or we will have heads to gnaw.
We have cook'd the cooks that cook'd the meat,
And so we must eat it raw.
Hourrah!
For, that men should starve while there's flesh to carve,
Is neither logic nor law,
Hourrah!
Kings have had no pity on us:
Dance about the gallows!
Priests have had no pity on us:
Dance! dance, good fellows!
God hath had no pity on us:
Dance about the gallows!
Down, then, with God, and with Priests, and Kings!
Enough, and too much have we had of these things!
Dance, dance, good fellows!

Orval
(to a girl dancing).
Wench, I rejoice to see thee step so brisk.
Thy leg is stockingless,—but, 'faith! 'tis stout,
And jigs it bravely!

The Girl
(dancing).
God a' mercy, man!
This day hath kept us waiting long enough.
All my life long have I wash'd dishes up,
And scour'd floors,—ay, with never a good word,
Never a Thank-ye! Only cuffs and kicks,
And offal, when the dogs had had enough.
Damnation! it is time for me to feed
When I am hungry, sleep when I am tired,
And dance when the whim takes me!

Orval.
Dance, girl! dance!

Novice.
The devil on it, we must budge, my lord,
Or you will be discover'd.

Orval.
If I am,
'Twill be the worse for thee. Come further on.
What have we yonder?

Novice.
By the oak-stump?

Orval.
Ay.

Novice.
That is the Lackeys' Club.

Orval.
Why then, no doubt,
We shall find old acquaintances this way.

Novice
(aside).
Ten thousand ducats to be out o' the wood!
This man is mad!

First Lackey.
Yes, friend: I had the honour
To slit my master's throat last night.

Second Lackey.
Fine fellow!
Your health. I'm looking for my Baron still.

A Valet.
Citizens, pray let us admire ourselves!
Already—long ago—whilst blacking boots,
Even till our backs grew crookèd,—long ago,
Whilst curling wigs, and powdering noble pates,
Even till our own wax'd bald, ... we felt within us
The glorious consciousness of our own rights.
Not vainly, have we stood behind the chairs
Of sage Philosophers, and heard them talk:
Whilst stirring up the chocolate we served them,
They stirr'd in us the philosophic soul!
Not vainly, by the tables of the great
Have we been watchers: secrets, grudged to kings,
Slipp'd out to us. And truly, if we cringed
To carry the bread-basket up and down,
Whilst for the banquet we did count out loaves,
We for the scaffold then were counting heads.
Ay! and if, when we pour'd the wine, we smiled,
It was because the wine began to smell
Already like the blood it was enriching
For us to taste hereafter! Drink, then, all,
Drink, Citizens, with me ... health to our Club!

Chorus of Lackeys.
Health to our Club! and to our President!
For he is a Philosopher. Drink death
To all our Masters! Live Philosophy!
Live Freedom, and the Rights of Man!

The Valet.
My friends,
I thank you,—with emotion, not unworthy
The generous sentiments you have express'd.

Chorus of Lackeys.
Broken! broken are the bonds of servile duty!
Burst at length in man's supreme emancipation!
From the boudoirs, perfumed sweet, of painted Beauty,
From the languid-lighted halls and haunts of Fashion,
From the satin-circled walls and scented ambers
Of the sleek and whisper-swarming antechambers
Of dethronèd Royalty,
And the primly-paced saloons of Art and Science,
We together are come forth to hurl defiance
On the victor-voice of Freedom, freely, under the free sky,
At the doors where courtiers cringe,
Slaves to every creaking hinge,
Creatures to a golden key, and students of a lie!

Semi-chorus.
And the statesman, with his scheme
Of little frauds to cheat the state:

Second Semi-chorus.
And the poet with his theme
Of little flatteries to the great:

First Semi-chorus.
And the soldier, o'er his sword
Ducking to the slave he serves:
And the king, whose kingly word
Shifts each way his terror swerves!

Second Semi-chorus.
And the dainty Dame of Honour
With the badge of shame upon her!

Chorus.
We have seen, and we can tell
All that's hid 'twixt Heaven and Hell!

First Semi-chorus.
What was whisper'd shall be shouted!
What was trusted shall be doubted!
What was honour'd shall be scouted!

Second Semi-chorus.
What was unknown all shall know!
What was high shall then be low.
For such secrets blood must flow.

Chorus.
Ay, such filth to be wash'd clean,
Blood shall flow of King and Queen.
Such strange sickness needs strange cures.
This is our Credo. What is yours?

Orval.
Excellent company! Why these are men
Of rarest information,—full of matter!
What are those voices from the hill, that sound
Like wild beasts howling?

Novice.
'Tis the Butcher's Club.

Chorus of Butchers.
Hatchet and axe
Shall pay no tax
To any king on his throne,
Whilst bones and blood
Are the People's food,
So keep ye the blood and the bone,
Hah ha!
Keep ye the blood and the bone!
We are The Jolly Butchers, we:
Our purple palace the shambles be.
Hither, good fellows, and sing with me,
Merrily, merrily sing;—
Cutting of throats is a rare good trade!
For love, or for money—'tis all one thing.
And it matters not if the knife be laid
To the throat of a calf or a king,
Hah ha!
For a calf will bleed like a king!
We are the children of Strength and Blood:
And we know what blood and strength can do.
It is we that find the People food.
Though the kings provide for the business too.
To every man his due, my friend,
To every man his due!
For the kings we have slaughter'd the calf and ox:
For the People we slaughter the kings.
While there's flesh in the shambles or blood on the blocks,
The Jolly Butcherman sings,
Hah ha!
The Jolly Butcherman sings:
Hatchet and axe
Shall pay no tax
To any king on his throne:
For bones and blood
Are the People's food,
So keep ye the blood and the bone,
Hah ha!
Make much of the blood and the bone!

Orval.
I like these fellows better. They, at least,
Have grace to leave Philosophy alone,
And spare us that vile cant, that sickens me,
Of Freedom, and Enlightenment, and so forth.
Madam, your Humble Servant!

Novice.
You forget!
Pray call her Citizen, or Freedom's Daughter,
Or else Emancipated Bondswoman.
You will destroy us with your old-world titles.
As you love life, be careful!

The Woman.
Madam, quotha?
What is this fellow? Fy! O thou dost stink
Most villanous strong, methinks, of the old leaven!

Orval.
'Faith! my tongue tripp'd then.

The Woman.
Man, I am as thou.
A woman—free—unfetter'd—independent!
My favours I distribute without stint
To that society whence I derive
The rights I exercise in doing thus.
To all free men, freely, I give my love.
Hark! .... an' thou hadst not such a frosty eye ....
Thou art a sturdy knave .... I like thee well....
Kiss!

Orval.
And, pray, hath this same society
Given thee also, worthiest of women,
These jewels? that gold bracelet? those pearl earrings?
O most exceeding generosity!
O rare, beneficent Society!

The Woman.
This trash? ... and yet 'tis pretty .... truly, pearls
Suit well enough this sort of hair! ... Nay, these
Were given me by my husband—I would say
My enemy—the enemy of Woman—
The enemy of Liberty and Love—
In the old days, ere I enjoy'd my freedom.
Husbands are Man's and Woman's Enemies!

Orval.
(They pass on.)

Novice.
He yonder?
Oh, he is Fortune's soldier. Brave enough!
But yet—a hireling. I do know the man.
The Revolution hath employ'd him thrice
In divers foreign countries. He hath won
Nine battles—taken seven towns ...

The Soldier.
Fools! Though in Freedom ye may be my brothers,
In Genius ye are not my kindred. Go!
My plans are known but by the victories
Which they achieve. Disturb me not. Away!

Orval.
Hark ye! Take my advice. Hang up that fellow.
Hang him to-night. This, trust me, is the stuff
That makes an Aristocracy.

A Weaver.
Too late!
Curses, and maledictions!

Orval.
What is this?

Novice.
No beggar, or he would be better clothed.

Orval.
What dost thou there in the rank ditch, poor wretch?
Why, how now? Look! there is not so much skin
Upon this mummy, sir, as would suffice
To cover the whole compass of thy valour!

Weaver.
Curses, and maledictions! Curse, and curse,
And curse, again, the Merchants of the Earth!

Orval.
This knave is strong in the arithmetic.
Hark, how he adds and multiplies! And yet
Methinks he doth repeat himself too oft.

Weaver.
Accursèd be the Merchants of the Earth!
For they have suck'd the life-blood out of me.
My fairest years—the years when other men
Wander about the free and happy fields,
In blissful hand-in-hand with her they love,
And breathe the blessèd air, and the fresh flowers,
Till they bless God that they are young, and live,
And do enjoy the joyfulness of living,
I evermore was weaving my death-shroud
At their rapacious and remorseless looms;
Coffin'd alive in their damn'd factories!

Orval.
Drink, then, the cup thou clutchest in thy hand.
The wine will yet refresh thee.

Weaver.
Late! too late!
I have no strength to lift it to my lips.
I have crawl'd here to die. Alas! for me
The Day of Freedom dawns too late. I curse
The Merchants of the Earth that do sell silk!
Ay, and the Princes of the Earth that wear it!
I curse the Trader, for he buys men's bodies!
I curse the Courtier, for his glossy coat
Is woven from the fibre of men's lives!
Curses, and maledictions! curses, curs— ....

(He dies.)
Novice.
Pah, what a hideous corpse! It stinks already.

Orval.
Look on this carrion, miserable hound!
Where now be your big-mouthèd promises?
Where be your virtues? your philosophies?
What now? the dust hath claim'd fraternity
With your free brother. Warn the worm away,
Lest he make free with this starved inch of Freedom;
For he is Nature's tyrant; and it seems
He loves a savoury meal. Come, Citizen,
And study here the perfect state of man!
The Emancipation of the Human Race!

Novice
(aside).
Insolent Noble! may thy carcase too
Rot ere 'tis older, and the dogs devour it!
(Aloud).
My lord, we must away! The sun hangs low.
And I am sworn to give account this night
To him that sent me, of my mission.

Orval.
Hold!
I have a fancy to see more of this.
March! march, sir!

A Voice from the Trees.
Son of Freedom, bid good-night
To the old Sun!

Another Voice from the Forest.
Good-night to thee, old tyrant!
I do salute thee with a parting curse.
Long while hast thou our hard taskmaster been.
Long hast thou driven us to labour, forth
From stall and shed,—to sweat, and still to groan;
Thou only smiling from thy golden chair
Up yonder, evermore the same damn'd smile.
To-morrow shalt thou find thy slaves set free.
Now to the devil with thee! off! give place
To the Dark Hour, our friend.

Novice.
Here comes a band
Of peasants. We must draw aside, my lord,
Or we shall be accosted.

Peasants
(passing).
Forwards, friends!
Yonder, among the booths, the girls are dancing.
What fun! d'ye hear the fiddle squeak? up yonder
There's beer and wine, and cakes, and junketing.
And there our friends are roasting for us all
The oxen from the plough! Hourrah! hourrah!

A Girl's Voice from the Crowd.
March! march, old guts! This is a lazy lord.
Kick him up, wooden-shoes! That's right.

Voice of a Noble.
Good friends,
Mercy! I am an old man. Mercy! mercy!

A Man's Voice.
The more sins, then, hast thou to answer, grey-beard!
Yah-ha! Oh, Kate hath got him. Take her off.
There's ne'er a terrier hath a sharper tooth
Than Kate. She'll kill him!

The Noble's Voice.
Friends, if you would hear me!

A Girl's Voice.
Give back my lover's blood, my father's curse!

A Man's Voice.
Give back to me my long days of forced labour!

A Woman's Voice.
Give back my poor boy that was flogg'd to death!

A Man's Voice.
Give back, give back to me my daughter's shame!

Other Voices.
Up with him! By the devil's beard, old sir,
You shall hang high, as suits a gentleman!

The Noble's Voice.
Children, ... why I might be your father! Mercy!
Indeed I never meant you any wrong.
And, if I did you wrong and knew it not,
I do repent me. Look on these grey hairs.
An old man's blood, what can it profit you?
Sins have I, that is sure, to answer for,
But which among you must not say the same?
O let me live! take anything but life,
For that is robbing God, whose gift it is!
And I will give you up my parks, and manors,
My castles, and my summer villas all.
And you shall have my bailiffs, all of them,
To roast, or hang, or anything you please.
If these have done you wrong, I knew it not.

A Man's Voice.
If you talk more, we'll put a pitchfork through you.
Come, hoist him! We shall miss the dancing else.

Chorus of Peasants.
A bluebottle fly of Beëlzebub
Came buzz on the hive of the working bees.
We have clipp'd the wing of this gilded grub,
And we bring him now to rot at his ease.
Their Lordships lordly carcases
Shall be thick as straw on the stubble lands.
When their castles burn like furnaces,
We shall have fuel to warm our hands.
As for us, who are hungry, and poor, and cold,
And weary enough of the long day's work,
We must have fire, food, slumber, and gold,
So up with the torch and the three-prong'd fork!

(They pass on.)
Orval.
I could not mark his features in the crowd,
Nor recognize his voice.

Novice.
No doubt it was
One of your Lordship's noble friends or kinsmen.

Orval.
Whoe'er he was, I care not. I despise him.
For he will die, a coward. Him I scorn,
And thee I loathe. Move on, sir! Here's a path
Should lead us somewhere. Bah! some day, who knows?
We shall make poetry of all this filth.
Come, sirrah! Do you hear me?

(They disappear into the forest).
Scene IV.—Night. Another part of the forest. Moonlight at intervals. In the background, the ruins of a Church, and in the midst of the ruins the Altar of Reason lighted. The ground broken and uneven. The scene frequently obscured. Confused noises in all directions. Orval and the Novice.
Orval.
This fine red foolscap hath been torn to tatters
Down there i' the brushwood. What are those strange fires
Among the ruins?

Novice.
We have lost our way
In the low thickets. As I fancied, this
Must be the heart of the forest. Those red fires
Are from the altars of the New Religion,
Where Amathusius, nightly, at this hour,
Initiates the neophytes.

Orval.
Come on, then,
And let us look at the New Prophet!

Novice.
Softly!
Here every step is on the chance of death.
We are approaching to the sanctuary.
Cover thy face!

Orval.

Novice.
Forty days, and forty nights
Our people toil'd here at the axe and crowbar.
We have destroy'd the last of all the churches.
This was the graveyard.

(Distant songs faintly heard.)
Orval.
Men of the new times,
Your songs delight me not! Before, behind,
Here—there—and everywhere, where'er I gaze,
Dimly I see faint shadows and pale lights,
That pass and wander all among these ruins:
From place to place they float on the night winds:
They hover to and fro, and find no rest,
But, with an ever-wavering motion, mix
Their lifeless ghosts among the living throng
Of men and women yonder. This night's heart
Must have a guilty conscience! Pause we here.

Voices rapidly passing onwards.
First Voice.
Hail, Brothers, in the name of Liberty!
Second Voice.
Hail, Brothers, by the baptism of blood!
Third Voice.
Hail, Brothers, to the Light of Reason, hail!
Fourth Voice.
Haste! haste, or ye will be too late!
The Priests
Of Liberty have all her altars lit.
The Psalm of Liberty is chaunting now.
Haste, Brothers, haste!

Novice.
It is too late to turn.
We must push onwards now. No help for it!
The vast crowd, swarming all this way, shuts fast
Each outlet in our rear. Pray, pray be cautious!

Orval.
Follow my finger yonder. What is he,
That man, whose form, upon the rolling smoke
Dilated, and by smoky vapours curl'd
Laöcoön-like, looks risen from out the fire?
Red-lit by those infernal flames, his face
Is as a fallen angel's. And his voice,
Blown hoarse this way upon the gusty dark,
Is like a madman's.

Novice.
That is Amathusius,
The inspired Prophet of the Future. Round him
Behold his priests—philosophers, and poets,
Musicians, artists, writers;—at their feet,
The new-made votaries,—naked girls and boys.

Orval.
Ah ha! That is your Aristocracy?
Now show me him that sent thee.

Novice.
Him I see not.
He is not of these.

Amathusius the Prophet.
Daughter of Liberty,
Arise! approach! come to her Prophet's breast!
Come naked! come thou free from shame, and free
From ancient prejudice. Thou, chosen first,
Free Bride of Free Humanity! Deep, deep,
I drink the floated odours of thy hair!
Sweet, sweet! I drain the red love of thy lip!
Daughter of Liberty, upon thy brow
The goddess seals this consecrating kiss!

A Girl.
I fly into thine arms! I pant for thee,
Prophet of Liberty! I love ... I burn!

Another Girl.
Behold! I spread mine arms out on the air
To reach thee, O Beloved! ... I faint—I fall—
I pant with passion at thy feet! I writhe—
I grovel at thy throne! ... I burn! I burn!

Orval.
The poor wretch is, indeed, in a convulsion.

Novice.
Oh, if you wait, you will see more of them.
This happens every night. But hark! ...

The Prophet.
Behold,
I am transfigured, thrill'd, beatified!
Daughter of Liberty, from thine embrace
I gather inspiration. Hearken, all!
I am about to prophesy.

Orval.
The girl
Has fallen on the flint, now, in a fit.
Abominable profanation!

Novice.
Hist!

The Prophet.
Lo now! we twain, my delicate white witch,
We are the breathing symbols of a world
Ennobled, and regenerated. Mark!
Around us are the ruins everywhere
Of a benighted, but abolish'd, Past.
Our foot is on the altar and the shrine
Of a deposed Divinity. Rejoice,
All ye to whom, in us, hath been reveal'd
The bridals of the Better Day! Rejoice!

Chorus of Women.
Blessèd thou among women, O bride
And beloved of the Prophet! Lo, we,
Thy sisters, exult in the pride
Of ourselves consecrated in thee!

The Prophet.
Hark! I proclaim a new world! a new God!
The People's God: the God of Happiness,
Pleasure, and Plenty! The old God of Sorrow
Sinks, with the ruins of a world of tears,
Smit by the Light of Reason, to the abyss!
Blood must wash out the traces of past pain,
And we will dig the earth with graves to hold
The griefs that have been walking to and fro
Upon her surface till they grew too many.
Those that would save the altars of the Past
Shall perish on them. I have prophesied.

Chorus of Men.
Destroy'd are the temples of Pride and Oppression!
And unmorticed the hands from the bodies of those
Who built them of old. We have offer'd Priests' flesh on
Each fane whence the Priest hath bless'd Liberty's foes

Orval.
Mine eagle! O mine eagle! yet fulfil
Thine auguries of old! Mine Eagle, rise!
And of the bones of all these murderers
I will rebuild anew the Church of Christ!

A multitude of Voices.
Liberty, Liberty, and Happiness!
Pleasure, and Love! Hourrah! hourrah!

Chorus of Priests.
Where now
Are the Kings, and the Princes, and Priests,
With their mitres, and sceptres, and ermine,
Who prey'd on the People like beasts?

Chorus of Assassins.
We have made a clear house of the vermin!

First Assassin.
I slew the first king!

Second Assassin.
I the second!

Third Assassin.
I
The third!

The Prophet.
Be ye exalted, in the day
Of exaltation, men of the red hand!
For ye among the chosen have been chosen,
And ye among the saints are sainted most!

Chorus of Assassins.
Through midnight, a midnight band,
Do we walk the troubled land,
With the knife hid in the hand.

The Prophet.
(The Thunder bursts overhead.)

Orval.
(The storm increases.)

The Prophet.
Daughter of Liberty, come forth! Descend!
Now must we march once more our midnight rounds,
To institute Destruction in the House
Of this Old God that by the People's voice
Hath been deposed. Forth! forth! Awake, I say!

The Girl
(awaking).
For thee! .. for thee ... and all mankind ... I burn
With love ... with love!

Orval.
Who is the giant yonder
That bars their progress, with his brawny bulk?
A mere youth, yet a giant! Mark him now.
He is speaking with your Prophet.

Novice.
Hell and devils!
By all that's desperate, 'tis he!

Orval.
'Tis who?

Novice.
The Modern Brutus. And they come this way.
We are both dead men!

Orval.
Thou poor poltroon! hide here
Under my cloak .... But, if thou shakest thus,
I'll strangle thee!

Novice.
For mercy's sake, away!

Orval.
No! I will see this farce out to the end.
What are those women, dancing in the ruins,
Among the smouldering embers, robed like queens?

Novice.
Those yonder? They are Countesses, Princesses,
Great ladies that have left their wedded lords,
And have embraced the New Religion, here.

Orval.
Methinks I could weep now, if this were not
The very scorn of scorn! O women! women,
Whom we have loved, and honour'd, ay! and served,—
Loved with the loyal heart of honest man,
That fears no falsehood where he trusts all truth!
Honour'd on knightly knee, with tender homage,
Half deïfied with holy poesies,
And held unsullied in the secretest shrine
Of things divine within us! .. Served, ah God!
Served with the soldier's sword, the poet's pen,
And all the thousand nameless services
Of silent adoration, that make strong
The better portion of men's days and deeds!
Were ye not mothers, daughters, sisters, wives?
Our mothers, and our daughters, and our sisters?
And we almost have worship'd you as angels!
Why then, ... why then, God bless my Grandmother!
For we will yet be merry.

Novice.
They are firing
The chancel yonder!

Orval.
What, then, do we fight for?
Homes without love, hearths without honour left!
Veronica, thy pure soul is in Heaven.
I am glad of it!

A Voice from Beneath.
Now for an epitaph,
Pious, pathetic, but yet not too long!

Orval.
Peace, mocker! or speak only to my mind.
My heart thou knowest not.

Novice.
They pour this way!
We are dead men. Curse this aristocrat,
For he will be the death of me!

The Prophet
(advancing, and to Orval).
How, Brother?
What art thou, that dost look thus sad and haughty?
Why art thou not, here, in the midst of us?

Novice.
Lost! lost!

Orval.
I am of the Destroyers also.

Prophet.
Whence?

Orval.
From a distant Brotherhood, new come.
I saw your fires far off, and follow'd them.

The Modern Brutus.
Who is thy fellow? wherefore doth he hide
His head, thus, in thy cloak?

Orval.
My younger brother.
A vow is on him, not to show his face
Till he hath murder'd—at the least, a Baron.

Prophet.
And whom hast thou slain, Brother?

Orval.
I was sworn,
Only upon the eve of my departure
From Spain, a member of the Spanish Club.

Modern Brutus.
For whom, then, hast thou destin'd the first blow
Of thy yet unslaked steel and virgin hand?

Orval.
For thee! ...... if thou betrayest us.

Modern Brutus.
Good! good!
Here, Brother, take my dagger.

Orval.
Brother, mine
Will serve the purpose.

Chorus of Assassins.
Live the Modern Brutus!
Live the Assassin of the Spanish Club!

Chorus of Poets.
Little leg to little foot:
And now a little body to 't:
Little face to little feature:
We have made a little creature.

First Semi-chorus.
Next a little claw, to fight with,
And a little tooth, to bite with,
And a little paunch to fit.
Who knows what may come of it?

Second Semi-chorus.
Though the limbs be small and pliant,
They may grow, and make a giant.

First Semi-chorus.
Give it, now, a little tongue;
And a little word to utter.
It will talk when it grows strong.
Hark! the lips begin to mutter.

Second Semi-chorus.
Though the voice be faint and weak,
Earth shall shake when it can speak.

First Semi-Chorus.
Make it little wings, to fly
Over earth and over sky;
Wings shall sprout on either shoulder:
It shall soar when it grows older.

Second Semi-chorus.
Wings of butterfly just now:
Wings of eagle soon will grow.

First Semi-chorus.
Choose we now a little name
To call the little creature by,
And be sure 'tis still the same
When it waxes stout and high.

Chorus.
Nay! no name yet. Let it be
Naked, nameless, wing'd, and free
As the Son of Cytherea
When to Psyche's couch came he:
Felt, not seen,—a young Idea!

Voices in the Distance.
Away! the breeze that's in the trees
Hath warn'd us not to stay.
The dark grows thin. The birds begin.
The dawn's at hand. Away!

Novice.
The night is ending.

Distant Voices.
To the East! the East!

Novice.
The forest will be emptied in an hour.

Orval.
But who come yonder?

Novice.
We shall presently
Distinguish their appearance. They approach us.

Chorus of Philosophers.
From its helpless infancy
In the film-eyed ages, we
Have wean'd the Human Race, my friend:
Nurst the bantling on the knee
Of divine Philosophy;
Taught the child its A,B,C.
And given it a name and a place, my friend.
Now the course o' the world is free,
And we are the first in the race, my friend!

First Semi-chorus.
Like a long-delay'd sunrise
That all at length, and all at once,
Leaps among the cloven chasms
Of the Dawn, in sudden spasms
Of inextinguishable laughter,
Till all the wonder over-runs
The riven East with red surprise,
And every cloud that roof'd the skies
Burns like a blazing rafter,

Second Semi-chorus.
Even so, though sunken long
In gulfs of darkness, down among
The old benighted centuries,
To our invocation wakes
The Light of Truth with a heart of fire,
Eagle plumes and sanguine eyes;
And with a sudden splendour takes
Earth and skies, to so comprise
A whole world's long desire!

First Semi-chorus.
Like a trumpet sounding on
Men to die at Marathon,
Like the clash of sword on shield,
Triumphing the trampled field,
Clash'd on purple plains Platæan,
Hark! from hill to hill, the pæan
Of the People's Liberty!
Comrade of the conquering cause,
Whom the gust of combat draws
Out of darken'd lands, on high
Lo! the light of larger laws
Flooding all Futurity!

Second Semi-chorus.
Pilgrim from the land of night,
Superstition's home for ages,
Thou, lured hither by the light
Pour'd by us upon the pages
Of the ancient Book of Life,
Thou shalt open with a knife
What was sealèd from the sight
Of the schools and of the sages.

Distant Voices.
Hark hark! the watch-dogs bark!
The east is growing grey.
The red cock is crowing, hark!
Comrades, come away!

An Assassin.
Hail to thee, comrade! hark! ... I drink thy health
In this old skull of an old Saint. Good-night!

(He throws the skull to Orval, and passes.)
Chorus of Assassins.
The arrow flieth in the noon.
The sickness walks below the moon,
And so walk we.

Semi-chorus.
Brother follow! through the hollow
Night thy comrades call to thee!

Second Semi-chorus.
Hist! hist! The moon's in a mist.
There is a ghost walking over the lea.
Well I wist what he hides in his fist,
For he mutters and talks
To himself as he walks,
But he doth not wish that the world should see.

First Semi-chorus.
Over wood and over water,
Hark! I hear the howlet's daughter
(He hath daughters three!)
Call her sisters, “Come and slaughter
The rats in the hollow tree.
We may do as we list, for the moon's in a mist,
And nobody now can see.”

Second Semi-chorus.
When the night had kill'd the day,
I did hear the lion say
To the leopard ... “Come away,
Brother leopard! here is prey.”

First Semi-chorus.
I have seen the Destroyer,—the Angel
That beareth the final evangel,
Descending with blood on his wings,
To purchase of priests and of kings
The earth for a burial-ground,
To bury the Old Dead God.
He survey'd it, and measured it round
And across with his measuring rod.

Chorus.
As the dog-fish through the dark
Of his dismal world doth sail,
Never swerving from his mark,
Where he tracketh a sick whale;
Even so, do we go
Up and down, and to and fro
By a road without a name,
With a meaning and an aim,
And a hate that shall not fail.
Following still, and still pursuing,
Over regions red with ruin,
Evermore some kings undoing,
Speed we on our trail!

Distant Voices.
The wan stars sink beneath the brink
Where the cold-tided day
Whitens night's shore, and still flows o'er
Faint, but how fast! Away!

First Dancing Girl.
Kill for me, Brother, Prince Lois!

Second Dancing Girl.
And kill for me, Brother, Duke John!

First Dancing Girl.
Go to, thou, with thy noise!
Let the old one be first made away with!

Dancing Children.
Goodman knave! we have broken our toys.
Bring us the head of a noble to play with,
Or the crown of a king ... what fun!

Chorus of Artists.
Here's a new temple to build, my friend,
The People's new Faith,—to enshrine it:
And we, the men of the modern guild, my friend,
We are the folks to design it.

First Artist.
Gothic is out of date.

Second Artist.
And nobody cares for Byzàntine.

Chorus.
No! Let it be something great,
Stately, and elephantine!
Builded strong shall be every column,
Of twelve dead kings in a circle solemn:
And the capitals shall be bossy and full,
Each boss made out of a noble's skull.
And the gory locks shall drip evermore
Rare tracery red of the richest gore!
Art is immortal,—'tis true, my friend!
But meanwhile, sometimes her servants starve.
Now we have found something new, my friend,
Better than marble to cut and carve.

(They pass).
Distant Voices.
The night is passing: the dawn is at hand.
Hasten away, o'er the wasted land!

Novice.
Away, my lord, away! the ground is clear.
We may escape unnoticed.

Orval.

Voice from Below.
A little God-Almighty!

Orval.
Who spoke then?

Novice.
Nay, not I. Let us away.

Orval.
Well! if it be not mine,—the nobler part,
To heal and to regenerate,—be it mine,
What yet remains,—to crush, and to subdue!
Ay! when the lion dies, why let the bees
Build houses and make honey in his carcase.
The lion lives, though; and his heart in me
Is beating yet! O, swift, mine eagle, swift
And fierce thy flight be!

Novice.
Dawn is breaking yonder.
And I shall die of ague in these dews.

Orval.
Let us descend, then. Put me on my way,
And I will free thee, when we reach the valley.

Novice.
Where wilt thou drag me, through this boiling mist?
Halt! I can go no further.

Orval.
(The dawn becomes faintly visible. A pale light creeps over the scene, and the mists begin to rise and move.)

Novice.
I see not anything but the raw mists:
Hear nothing but the tumbling stone that falls
From precipice to precipice beneath us.
Come! or we shall be founder'd in the fog!

Spirits passing in the Mist.
Mourn for the Dead Christ, mourn!
Where have they buried our Lord?
In the heart of the mad world's scorn?

Orval.
Ah God, for my horse, and my sword!
I will hew Thee a cross out of every tree,
To crucify them that have crucified Thee!

The Spirits
(passing).
By the shrines, among the tombs,
Was our blissful twilight dwelling.
Through the glories and the glooms,
Did our bosoms bear the swelling
Silver psalm, and the sonorous
Anthem's solemn-chanted chorus,
And the organ's deep Amen,
From the golden pipes out-welling
Music to the hearts of men.
Whither shall we seek new dwelling,
Sisters?

Spirits of the Bells.
Ah, there is no telling!
All the world is changed since then.
From the swallow-swarmèd steeple,
From our homes in happy bells,
To the hearts of faithful people
Over fields, and floods, and fells,
Did our white wings, music-haunted,
Bear sweet invocations, chaunted
By the silver Sabbath chimes;
And in lonely forests daunted
Savage creatures from their crimes.
Now our homes are ruin'd wholly:
Now our haunts are no more holy:
And we wander, sadly, slowly,
Tenants of the troubled times.

Spirits of the Casements.
We, that lived among the gleaming
Garments of the sworded Saints,
In a rose and amber glory;
We, that sail'd the purple-streaming
Pageant, which the sunset paints
With a martyr's mighty story
On the calm Cathedral floor,
Underneath the flaming casement,
When the day is downward stealing:—

Spirits of the Dome.
We, that hung and hover'd o'er
Angels smiling sweet amazement
From the golden-misted ceiling,
In the glowing dome above;—

Spirits of the Aisles.
We, that shifted soft surprises
Of still light, where sinks or rises,
Through the palely-pillar'd grove
Shade of morning or of even;—

Choral Spirits.
Now upon the winds of heaven
Lurid-lighted with red levin,
Hither, hither, dimly driven,
Down the darkness do we move.

(The sun rises.)
Orval.
Ah, the sun rises! in whose golden beam
Their forms are melted from my sight. And now
They fade away across the pine-tree tops!

Novice.
There is the valley. Yonder lies your road.

Orval.
(Throws a purse, with the Cap of Liberty, to the Novice.)

Novice.
I have your Lordship's word
Pledged to his safety, who shall visit you
To-night. But ...

Orval.
Tush! away! We gentlemen
Break not our promise ... Jesu, and my sword!

Voices
(answering from the valley).
Maria, and our swords! Long live our lord!

Orval.
(He descends the valley.)

Scene V.—Early morning. Valley and Woodland in the domain of Orval.
Orval.
Through the deep quietness of these old woods
I walk unwelcomed. The offended flowers
Look on me, like the faces of lost friends.
Yet there is nothing I have won from life,
Nor anything I yet may hope to win,
That's worth to me what in the winning it
I have flung away—the friendship of such things!

The Voice of Muriel
(singing from the heart of the wood).
The ivy hangs and the violet blows
Above and beneath in the bright June weather.
I breathe the breath of the bramble rose,
And I and the sweet birds sing together.

Orval.
O all that's left my of lost youth! How like
The music of the dirge of my dead heart
Sounds thy glad matin song to these sad ears!

The Voice of Muriel
(singing).
Sing, happy bird, and rebuke the world
For its foolish cares and its empty deeds,
And its gods of clay and of gold, whose curl'd
Hot incense Tophet with darkness feeds.

Orval.
Blind! and I pitied, who now envy him!

The Voice of Muriel.
Mine eyes are shut: but my heart is not.
And my spirit feels what your eyes see merely,
The mighty mirth of our mother Earth,
When the glory of God on her face shines clearly.

Orval.
Poor flower, thou know'st not thou art perishing!
O you inexorable unjust Powers
That mock us with your seeming leave to choose
The paths on which you thrust us headlong, why,
Why have you ever whirl'd my life away
From all love's holding-places?

The Guardian Angel
(above).
Foolish child!
Chide not the nursing hand that stole away,
To save for Love, the toys Love else had broken.

Orval.
What hath Love been to me? The Impossible.
And still for ever, The Impossible!
What was it that my vain youth loved? a dream,
A phantom, ever beckoning me away
To deserts, where it left me lone ...

The Voice.
The Past.

Orval.
And now, life's journey well nigh o'er; when, tired,
I can scarce further fare, and fain would rest,
What's left for love to linger on? a child:
A life for ever beyond mine ...

The Voice.
The Future.

Orval.
What, then, am I?

The Voice.
The Present.

Orval.
Mystic Voice,
That dost mine inmost questionings answer thus,
Yet further answer, What art thou?

The Voice.
The hour,
Orval, is not far off when thou shalt know.

Scene VI.—Night. The Tent of Panurge.
Panurge.
Wait me by the witch elm. And if thou hear
A pistol-shot, fired from the Castle, bring
Thy fellows to the rescue. Otherwise
Wait me till dawn.

Modern Brutus.
O head of all our hopes!
Once more I do conjure thee .....

Panurge.
Tush!

Brutus.
Yet think—
'Tis an aristocrat—the worst of all,
And the most desperate. Thou goest alone.
He, in the centre of his strength, is arm'd.

Panurge.
Go to! Go to! This Old Nobility
Breaks not its word of honour.

Brutus.
But ...

Panurge.
The Prince
Of Darkness hath his commendable points,
His courtesies, and his punctilios.
We all must trust the Devil himself sometimes.
Farewell till dawn. Ho! lights without there!
Watch.

(Exit.)
Scene VII.—Night. Manorial Hall in the Castle of Orval. Arms, blazons, and family portraits along the walls. In the foreground a marble table lighted by a brazen lamp. On the table a chart outspread, and beside the chart a sword and pistols, richly jewelled. In the background a smaller table, carved and gilded; the coverlet splendidly embroidered. Thereon a silver wine flagon and goblets. One side of the scene is closed by a carved screenwork, through which is the entrance to the hall, an open archway hung with tapestried curtains. On the other side a vast hearth, surmountea by an antique clock. Orval is seated at the table studying the chart. He looks up as the hand of the dial points to midnight.
Orval.
Midnight! It was, methinks, at this same hour,
Upon the eve of battle and of death,
That the last Brutus, if the tale be true,
Beheld his Evil Genius. I await
A like encounter, haply a like fate;
Who, ere that unreturning traveller, Time,
Add to lost hours this night's now neighbour'd noon,
Here in my fathers' hall must, face to face,
Behold a being of no fathers' born;
A man without a birthplace or a name,
An apparition from the immense abyss
Of nothingness arisen (who knows?) to be
Perchance the father of an age not mine;
If I, lone champion of the kingly past,
Whose ghostly armies are the dead and gone,
Whose battle-cry is a world's epitaph,
Now fail to hurl this human portent back
Into the blackness of the bottomless pit,
From whence it issues. I? Ay, there's the point
Where stealthy thought creeps in to steal the heart
Of hardiest enterprise. What is my blood
To consecrate? Or is it yet so well
Worth saving from the slough wherein it sinks,
This marrowless and miserable frame
Of things, that styles itself Society?
The unkingly tenancy of kingly thrones,
The coalesced and concrete egotisms
Of Class, the unintelligence of Power,
The Church's great uncharity, and all
The organized hypocrisy of things!
Can man's wit cheat, against such desperate odds,
Nature's remorseless wisdom? Am I not
Leading a self-surrender'd host to fight
For an already-abdicated cause?
It may be. I devote myself to death
For that which haply cannot live. So be it!
Why, this is as I will. This is my strength,
This the respect that saves my self-respect.
For what I do, I do because I must,
With manly made-up mind, foursquare to fate,
Possessing perfectly what is mine own,
The deed; and careless of what is not mine,
Fate's dealing with it after it is done.
To calculate the gain or loss of it,
That would spoil all. What's failure? or success?
Nothing. They have no value in themselves.
They are base counters. What gives worth to them
Is just the so much of a man's own self
As he can stake upon them. Any man
May be a martyr to whatever cause
Can pay the price of martyrs' crowns. But he
That's martyr to his faith in martyrdom,
And gives himself to death, because he deems
To die for any cause is, in itself,
A nobler thing than any cause men die for,
That man hath surely won the perfect palm,
And I will win it! Were it possible
To contemplate success as being made
The measure of the value of the act
And its prescribed repayment, I might pause.
For who that champions any human hope
Through life's inhuman battle could accept,
Here in the witness of Eternal God,
Unscared, the dread responsibility
Of being answerable for success?
But loyalty to failure is at least
Absolved from shame, whatever be the event.
Souls of my dead forefathers, me, an arm'd
Lone watcher by your knightly tombs, inspire
With that undaunted scorn of doubt that once
I' the wondrous ages whence, with duteous rites,
My spirit invokes ye, did inspire yourselves
To those high deeds whereof I am the heir!
Last of the lion-hearts whose lordly life
Once fill'd those hollow images of men
With helmèd heads from yonder wall down bent
Above my own,—sole guardian of the hearth
Which your renown makes honourable yet,
Sole resolute remnant of your race and mine,
Fallen upon times that are not ours,—behold
In me whatever now remains on earth
To represent your virtues and your faults!
(Clock strikes.)
Be nigh me now! I am prepared.

Master Andrew
(entering.)
My lord,
The man that was expected is arrived.

Orval.
Admit him.

Panurge
(entering).
'Give good even to your lordship!
(Exit Master Andrew.)
'Faith, I am ill at ceremonious turns
Of language,—phrases, titles!

(Throws down his cap and mantle; and, gazing round him, eyes impatiently the arms and portraits on the walls.)
Orval.
Sir, be seated!
I thank you for the faith you have reposed
In the reputed honour of this roof;
And thus, after the fashion of my fathers,
I pledge my guest.

(Goes to the table in the background; pours wine; and offers a goblet to Panurge.)
Panurge
(taking the goblet mechanically; his eye still fixed on the armorial bearings, &c.)
Humph! ha! .... If I mistake not,
Yon daub of red and blue along the wall
Is, in the language of the dead and buried,
Call'd an escutcheon. 'Tis a kind of painting
Will soon be out of fashion.

Orval.
Sir, all fashions.
That go come back again. What seems the newest
Is but the oldest, which, when it returns,
Is least remember'd: God having been pleased
To economize the invention of mankind.

Panurge.
There spoke the son o' the Old Nobility!
I know the man .... opinionated, proud,
Arrogant, supercilious, nice in speech,
Reckless in deed, self-confident: whose thoughts
Are brazen gods the braggart Vanity,
That makes them, worships: and the man himself,
Her proselyte, prays to them never more
Than when no soldier in the field, no coin
Is left him in the coffer. Desperate men
Are ever frantic in their trust in God,
Not finding in themselves what can be trusted.
Their fears are fathers to their faiths.

Orval.
All force
Begins in fear; else fear were purposeless:
The force of forethrift in the fear of want,
The force of honour in the fear of shame.
But who fears God of all men least fears man.
Belief is nourisht at the mother breast
Of Providence: the beggar Unbelief
Lives on the alms of Fortune.

Panurge.
Show me, then,
But so much only as the nether spark
Of that fire-barbèd bolt which is to fall,
Blasting the rabble and republican heads
Of our stark-naked unbelieving host;
Or but a feather of the wings of one
Of all those harness'd angels that are pledged,
Upon the invocation of your priests,
To smite our revolutionary ranks
And raise the siege about your harass'd halls.
Bid the bolt fall, or bid the angel smite:
And if, by fast or prayer, cross sign'd, hymn sung,
Or any other pious conjuring,
Thou canst compel them to perform the task
Assign'd them by the priesthood of thy faith,
Be that faith mine, Lord Orval!

Orval.
Friend, methinks
Thy humour lacks originality.
So old is Atheism, and so stale
That creed's vocabulary, I confess
That I had hoped speech newer from the man
Of the new epoch.

Panurge.
Tut! all speech is trash
That takes transmitted value from the man
That speaks it, as from what to speak it moves him
He takes his own. Be what I represent,
Not how I represent it, thy concern.
My creed and its vocabulary both,
If old, are also new, as nature. Cries
Of half a world's intolerable wrong,
The wail of unrequited toil, the moan
Of martyr'd patience, the tumultuous shout
For knowledge from long-pining Ignorance pour'd,
The howl of human hunger, and the shriek
Of irrepressible protest, power no more
Can stifle in the angry heart of man,
—Demanding recognition of a race
In prejudice imprison'd, dogg'd by doubt,
By fear tormented, and by custom bound
To bestial habitudes; .. all these, light lord,
Are but the broken scatter'd utterances
Of that indignant Truth whose creed I preach,
Whose hand I arm, and whose retributive
Dominion trumpet-tongued I have proclaim'd
Above the annihilation of thine own!
This is the faith of millions that in me
Hath found a voice. As for myself, the sole
Divinity that I acknowledge now
Is the all-procreant intellect that rules
This restless brain; whose power, whate'er it be,
Suffices to give meat to starving mouths,
And hope to stricken hearts. Canst thou aver
The God thou worshipest hath ever been
As helpful to His worshippers?

Orval.
The God
My sires before me worshipt, with the faith
Which they bequeathed unspotted to their son,
I worship still. And He, that gave to them
Power and glory in their days of pride,
To me hath given, in mine hour of trial,
Patience to bear, and courage to withstand.

Panurge.
Nay, then, but I will swear thee, by the book
Of thy good deeds, thou dost a devil serve.
Leave we, however, these absurd disputes
Unto the theologians; if, in truth,
There be yet theologians to dispute them.
To business, noble sir!

Orval.
Speak. I am dumb
To learn the cause and object of this most
Unsought and unintelligible honour.
Citizen God, I wait thine oracle.

Panurge
(musingly).
Ay. Wherefore am I here ... thou askest.

Orval.
I?
Nay, sir, I did not question you.

Panurge.
Proud host,
I question then myself: and to myself
Make answer: first, because I wisht to know thee
As man may know man, and to judge of thee
As man may judge of man.

Orval.
Licet videre
Virgilium ... an interest, Virgil shared,
Doubtless, with each Numidian lion last
Arrived in Rome ...

Panurge.
In the next place, because
I wisht to save thee (do not frown, Lord Orval!)
As man would save man, if he could.

Orval.
Save me?
For thy first wish I thank thee. For the second
My thanks I needs must keep, sir, for my God,
And my good sword.

Panurge.
Thy sword? thy God? words, names,
Nothings! But hearken. Multitudes of mouths
Shriek for thy blood. Strong hands, gaunt arms, are stretcht
To seize thee. What is thy defence? A few
Handfuls of men, ill arm'd, ill fed, a few
Handfuls of earth—scant room for tall men's graves.
Where is thine ordnance? where thy foundries,—stores
Of siege? thy muniments of war? Where, most
Of all, the valour of thy followers—troops
They are not? Where the manliness in whose
Behalf thou dost thy manhood sacrifice?
Come, come! I talk, my lord, to no blind fool,
No blundering blockhead. Were I in thy place,
I know what it were best that I should do.

Orval.
Sir! ... I am patient.

Panurge.
Well, then ... hark! Were I
Lord Orval, I would say to this man here,
This man that had a whim—a trick o' the heart,
A start of nature—call it what you will—
To so think of me, that he came by night
Out of my foeman's camp, companionless,
With no guard but his faith in my good word,
To save my life ... this man who offers me,
In the frank name of Friend, a title won
From something nobler than the gewgaws daub'd
On yonder garish wall .. a title, man,
Refused to thousands that revere him, even
As God, and follow him as Destiny,
—Were I the man that you, Lord Orval, seem,
And you the friend I speak of—I to him
Would say “Alliance between thee and me!
Mine army I disband, my lordship keep,
Lands, manors, seignories, and titles all,
Upon the faith of his full-plighted word,
Who fearless trusted to my own his life.”
Thine age, Lord Orval?

Orval.
Whatsoever age
Hath grace of God to be the least like yours, sir.
Inquisitor, what is mine age to thee?

Panurge.
Methinks, if nothing but the timely frost
Of life's eventual winter should in thee
Obstruct the springs of nature, they have yet,
Ere they shoot o'er the fall, some fifteen years
Through which to flow. For life in men like thee
Flows fast, and soon flows out. Thou should'st be young.
On that pale face passion, not time, hath prey'd,
And thy frame, firmly mason'd in the form
Of noblest manhood, might defy decay
For yet another half of human life
Stretcht to the longest, if the life that frets
Its fiery channels through those violent veins
Were of more sluggish element.
(He muses.)
So be it!
Be one gap golden in the iron rule
Of the inexorable Necessity,
One head exempted from the curse of all!
What harm in that? No! live, Lord Orval! live
The last of all the nobles of this land!
Keep thy broad fields and thine ancestral halls,
Thy bright excepted title keep. To us
Surrender but the drivellers, dotards, dolts
Of that doom'd class thou canst not save. Stand off,
Or at my side stand safe. Leave room and way
For the arm'd Justice of the Revolution,
Whose victims, they: whose pontiffs I and thou,
Co-Cæsars, partners in the purple robe
Of more than Roman power. To thee I pour
This first libation!

(Drinks.)
Orval.
Grant me patience, Heaven!
Sir, I have listen'd. Are we at the end?
Each word that, in the pictured presences
Of my dead fathers, you have dared to speak
To me their son, has been an insult. Well,
I have listen'd. Have you more to add? But no,
By Heaven, Citizen General, forbear!
Patience is human, and must end at last.
Inflict no more upon my knowledge that
You stand here safe, sir, in my knightly word,
And under the asylum of my roof.

Panurge.
Thy roof! thy word! O Pride, thou hast many names!
What? with the old and tatter'd rags long dropt
From the broad banner of Humanity,
Think'st thou to patch and purfle and trick out
The naked Vanity that still goes bare?
Tinsel! still tinsel! and still shame behind!
Man, man, there's life in that fast-swelling vein,
Warm life in that flusht brow and flashing eye.
And yet I tell thee all this vigorous life
Thou hast coupled to a corpse. Go to! To me
Names are but nothings. Dost thou think I wince?
No, for thou canst not look me in the face
And swear, by the oath of a gentleman, that thou
And thine deserve not death: and, after death,—
Oblivion!

Orval.
Ha! And thou and thine, what else
Have ye deserved?

Panurge.
Life! Victory! Hearken why.
There's but one law of things immutable,
Invincible. 'Tis that which doth compel
The world to pass out of one phase of life
Into another, and so ever on.
And by this law already thou and thine
Have been condemn'd, as old, weak, overfull,
To pass away, and so make room for us
That be young, strong, and hungry. Strive no more
With fate. Væ victis! Yield; for we must have.

Orval.
Ah, boaster! sole of mortal men, to thee
Hath Destiny her hidden mind reveal'd?
That thou should'st menace me with victory?
Thou man of clay, thou creature of a chance!
Not less than all that are of woman born
Mark for the first ball in the battle-hour,
Or the first stroke of any sabre slasht
At hazard through the cannon's smoky breath!

Panurge.
Do not deceive thyself, Lord Orval. Me
Fate, my wise mother, head and foot, hath dipt
In the invulnerable lake. Along
The paths I tread Chance walks not. Mortal foes
I scorn. Nor sword can strike, nor bullet pierce
Me that am mail'd in Nature's iron, until
My being shall have ceased to be to thine
A dread Necessity. When from my path
Hath perisht all obstruction, wheresoe'er
That path may lead me matters not. My work
Will have been done. But hark! Time mocks at us.
(Clock strikes.)
Man, I must leave thee to thy fate. One word!
If thou be weary of thine own life, still
Thou hast a son. Save him.

Orval.
The safety, sir,
Of that pure soul is in God's keeping. Here,
On earth, the son's place is beside the sire.

(Buries his face in his hands.)
Panurge.
Ay, meditate! For meditation is
Fit neighbour to the grave.

Orval.
Away, wild fool!
Thou knowest not what passes here,—nor canst!
Sir, if in your low nature there be depths
I fathom not, there yet are heights in mine
You cannot scale. Keep thou thy world. Leave mine
To me.

Panurge.
My world? I have none. I keep nothing.
Slave of one thought, and bondsman to one form!
With every impulse of my will I make,
And, having made, destroy a hundred worlds.
Nor can thy fancy image, even in dream,
My mind's unfrontier'd realm.

Orval.
Abortion born
Of Nature in decline! thy boasted sense
Is barren to conceive what is the strength
Of those whose noble fixity of faith
O'er fortune's fleeting sands is founded firm
Under the present in the solid past.
Look yonder on the images of those
Whose life in me is living. Scan their forms,
Their faces mark! On every noble brow
The selfsame blood is eloquent: the same
High thought shines clear from every kingly eye.
That blood in me yet flows, and in my heart
That thought, the patriarchal heritage
Of honour'd lives, is resolute. But thou,
Man of the day that hath no yesterday,
Where is thy native land? thy homestead where?
Thy wandering tent is every evening pitcht
Upon the ruins of thy neighbour's hearth,
Thy march is every morn to rapine new.
But home of thine thou hast not, wheresoe'er
Men honour yet the memory of their sires.

Panurge.
Honour their memory by all means! Well
Have I been studying all this while, my lord,
The list of your illustrious ancestors.
See if I have not... “mark'd their faces, scann'd
Their forms” exactly! This grave Councillor
Grill'd Jews and roasted witches to the taste
Of priestly palates,—the approved head-cook
And caterer to that cannibal, the Church.
Well, I admire the beard of him, and praise
The barber's skill that trimm'd it. This one here
Was a King's Chancellor, and had in charge
The Great Seal, and sign manual. They served him,
Upon occasion, to forge documents,
Falsify acts and deeds, buy judges, rob
The public treasure, and appropriate
The private property of lesser men.
Yonder fine fellow, with the soft black eyes,
White ruffles, and smooth chin, only seduced
The wives and daughters of his friends. But here
Comes next a Patriot who proudly wears
The Golden Fleece, which paid the services
Of his sword's hiring by the Spanish King.
That noble lady in the stainless silks,
With swanlike throat, and stately brow serene,
She was her footman's mistress. This one here,
With such a glory of gold curls, and such
Unstinted revelation of rich charms,
Was a king's concubine. Behold, my lord,
The spotless fountains of your lineage fair
And noble! But the Judgment Day draws nigh.
And O be sure that we ignoble men,
Whose mean task is to ply the rope and axe,
Shall not forget these most illustrious lords,
Nor yet their worthy offspring.

Orval.
Slanderer!
Son of our serfs, thou liest in thy throat!
Had not my noble fathers shelter'd thine,
Thou hadst not stood before me to blaspheme
Their honest names. And when, from out the herd
Of animal brutes they had for ages been,
Thy base begetters did at last begin
To emerge into humanity, it was
Our fathers that for thine built churches, schools,
And taught them human duties. Wretch! thy curse,
Shatter'd, from off their ancient glory falls
As once of old in fragments fell the brand
Of the black Painim from the stainless shield
Of Christendom's pure Knighthood. Thee and thine,
Do I not know ye? Sir, I have visited
Your rabble camp. I know you all. Your mad
Philosophers, your atheistic priests,
Your consecrated murderers, horrible
And sexless harlots ... under every mask
Of your abominable devil's dance
Last night, sir, I detected and I scorn'd
The face of every worn-out villany
And wither'd vice of the old world, smear'd o'er
With the coarse barbarous war-paint of the new.
I heard your new songs, and I recognized
In all the same old burden, “Blood and gold!”
“Rapine and wrong!” But you, sir, you yourself
I saw not. Why? Because you did not deign,
And rightly did not deign, sir, to descend
From where the folly of your worshippers
Above their heads, on your dishonest throne,
Hath raised you, back to your low native place
In the rank filth and ordure at their feet.
Because you, in your secret soul, despised
The dupes of your imposture. What remains?
But if one spark of man yet in thee burns,
Look on my face, Panurge,—'tis the face
Of one whom thou canst neither dupe nor daunt,
And not less thoroughly despise thyself
Than those whom thou despisest.

(He seats himself, under the arms of his Family.)
Panurge
(musingly).
True. My world
Is not yet in the actual developed.
'Tis but the rough sketch of the future time.
An infant giant ... must be nurst and taught:
It grows apace—will grow up in good time
From cubhood into manhood. It hath need
Of nourishment—care—and it may be, too,
No gentle discipline. But mark me, Orval,
The time shall come when this brute world of mine
Will thoroughly acquire the consciousness
Of its existence as a fact in time
Indisputable: when it will cry out
“I am!” and then in all the universe
Of Nature shall no other voice be left
To answer “I am too.”

Orval.
Well, sir? and then?

Panurge.
And then, Lord Orval, from the life in me
This night incarnate shall a race arise,
Such as the teeming earth has never yet
Rear'd from her fruitful bosom. Men as gods,
Knowing both good and evil: masters they
Both of themselves and of their home, this globe;
Which globe itself shall be to them one vast
Palace of Pleasure, by the Spirits of Art
And Science rear'd into the golden light
Of the glad time, a happy fabric fair
In the wide-porchèd doors of whose serene
Dominion shall the elements of earth
And heaven await the bidding of their lords!

Orval.
Thou liest, impostor! and thy strain'd voice fails
To hit the pitch of inspiration. Slave
Of Reason, she thou servest hath scaled up
The springs of prophecy and oracle.

Panurge.
Man, interrupt me not! Millions of hearts
Have hunger'd for this prophecy, vouchsafed
To thee alone. I tell thee, in that time,
Mankind shall commune with a god—a god
Unlike to thine—incapable of death—
Wrench'd from the bosom of the vast unknown
By the strong toil and trouble infinite
Of centuries of unappeased desire.
From his long hiding-place in heaven at last
Torn down and welcomed to this world of theirs
By his stout human children, in the day
When man shall have attain'd the age at which
Knowledge of Truth is man's inheritance.
Then shall Humanity both save itself
And save its God.

Orval.
Blasphemer, centuries
Have flow'd already from the fount of time,
Since when the God, of whom thou feelest now
The inevitable necessity, revealed
Himself to those who, of his earthly sons,
Have eyes to see, or ears to hear. And ere
Thy birth was to the service of his foes
Permitted, by that God Humanity
Hath—even from thee—been saved.

Panurge.
A brave god! Count
The nigh two thousand years of human pain
And degradation irremediable
Since—

Orval.
On the summit of the seven hills,
In the strong heart of sempiternal Rome,
Over the lost dominion of the Cæsars,
Above the ruin'd remnants of a power
More powerful than thine,—girt by fall'n gods
Nobler than those thou worshipest—fall'n gods
That dared not lift up from the dust of time
Their hopeless heads, to gaze upon the feet
Of their excruciated Conqueror—there,
Once—in the morning of my life—I saw
That Cross, and Him that hung thereon, with arms
Outstretcht to east and west in the embrace
Of infinite benediction!

Panurge.
(Strikes the armour.)

Orval
(in great agitation).
Tempter! Son
Of the old Serpent! .. But no. These are dreams.
The first man perish'd in the wilderness
Among the brutes: and their lost Paradise
Men may not now recapture.

Panurge.
(Ha? have I hit
At last the weak spot in Pride's buckler! Fool
Not to have seen this sooner? He is troubled.
Have I, by a mere blunder, toucht at last,
The sensitive nerve of poesy—the chord
That sounds in golden unison with hope
To the man's inmost heart? Victoria!)

Orval.
I too have dream'd ... Ah, if my blood, even yet,
Could purchase .. if my head ... man, you should have it!
But no, the days are past. It is too late.

Panurge.
Listen! We cannot put back time. The dead
Their dead must bury. Think! A leech forbids
His patient to take any exercise:
Warns him that movement may to life be fatal.
The patient disobeys, and walks a mile.
What think you of that leech, if, to repair
The mischief done, he make his patient walk
The whole mile back? The People's sick, my lord,
Your friends forbade it stir. But it does stir:
Moves forward somehow. And its doctors now,
Who had forbidden it to move at all,
Insist upon its moving back again.
Is motion backward less injurious
Than motion forward?

Orval.
Grant your simile.
Forward .. to what?

Panurge.
Ay, there's the point to which
I sought to bring this talk. When two wise men
Discuss dispassionately such a point
They cannot fail to agree upon it.

Orval.
Well?

Panurge.
I take it there's no grounded difference
Between, what on the surface seem opposed,
Our real opinions.

Orval.
Sir, proceed.

Panurge.
I will.
The point. What kind of Government is best?
Government by the best.

Orval.
But who are they?

Panurge.
The real aristoi: the most capable
Of governing: the wise men: I and thou.

Orval.
And, sir, if you and I be knaves, being wise,
What power is it likely we shall leave
To that most dangerous class—the honest men?

Panurge.
If all start fair, the power a man attains
Is proof of his capacity for power.
And never in the history of mankind
Was such a field for power as I have clear'd.
Think! is it nothing to have swept away
Parliament, Church, and Aristocracy?
All's even now. And o'er the level waste
What rises but supreme necessity
For the superior mind and stronger hand?
For men must still be govern'd.

Orval.
You grant that?

Panurge.
Of course. And govern'd by the best, I say.

Orval.
So the old obsolete, much abused device
Of Aristocracy has yet some part
To play in the new system?

Panurge.
Yes, renew'd
Itself, though, in the person of its new
And better representatives.

Orval.
Of course.
But what becomes then of Equality?

Panurge.
Think not that I suppose any one man
Is worth as much as any other man.
No fool am I. The wise and noble-minded
Are worth more than the ignorant and base.
Equality means equal start for all;
Not equal prizes for the swift and slow.
The true great men should get the true great power.

Orval.
Yes. But great men, sir, are a kind of fruit
That does not grow on every common tree.
God grants them to us rarely. When they come,
They come to power in their own great way,
Do what we will, by nature's force in them;
And when they come not, there's no kind of care
Or forcing culture can from sapless stocks
Make such fruits grow. Sir, no philosophy,
If nature makes but little men, can turn
Those little men to great men—'tis to save
The little men from being slaves and tools
Not to true great men, but untrue great rogues,
Which little men for great men oft mistake,
That the Philosophy of Government
Should be applied. Science? what need of that,
To know a giant when he strides in view?
Or move on swiftly, mounted on his back?
Or trample monsters vanquisht by his club?
But if the race of giants be extinct,
As travellers tell, till giants grow again,
Let Science help us to make seven-league boots,
And clubs mechanical that, fitly plied,
May in a dwarf's hand deal a giant's blow,
Skill eking out the thrift of force. This Church,
This Parliament, this Aristocracy,
Contrivances which Science had devised
To do the business of society,
You have abolish'd . . . what! in the wild wish
That some great man, who has not yet appear'd,
Should, when he comes, if he should ever come,
Find round him ample room in which to try
His hand at renovating ruin? Sir,
Call you this prospect progress? You put back
The world, not forward; leaving all to Chance,
The blind brute-headed, unintelligent god,
Placed on his old barbarian throne again.
Sir, better to my thinking, a bad King
Check'd by a not much better Parliament,
A loose Nobility, and a lazy Church,
Than such an absolute Chaos as you make,
With no more hopeful prospect in reserve
Than ultimate Order in that worst of shapes,
A single-handed Despotism, crown'd
And robed i' the name of wrong'd Democracy.

Panurge.
Not Despotism, if the canvass'd choice
Of the free Many crown the chosen One.

Orval.
Whom having crown'd, if the free Many then
Should, being human, haply change its mind,
Repent its choice, and wish the chosen One
A chosen Other, shall this most free Many
Be free to uncrown, as 'twas free to crown?
Is the free Many free to change as choose?
If so, then where is your stability?
If only free to give, but, having given,
Not free to take again its gift abused,
Where is your liberty?

Panurge.
We cannot quite
Leave time out of the account. Men must improve
Ere things can be improved. But one wise man,
Wielding the power which many thousand fools
May in a lucky moment be induced
To delegate to him on their behalf,
Can in a year improve things, more than they
Can in a century improve themselves.
I say, Make way for the strong men.

Orval.
And I,
Leave room, sir, for the weak. They have God's leave
To live as well as we. Alas, Panurge,
Do we not strangely seem to have changed parts?
For you, my Citizen Guest, have all this while
Been speaking for Aristocratic Rights;
For Popular Privileges, I. 'Tis there
The hopelessness, the misery of it all!
Ages,—perchance a hundred years ago—
That might have then been possible, which now
Our fates forbid, and we made common cause
Who now must be no common foes. Too late!
We can no longer understand each other,
Never forgive each other for the past.
The hour hath struck for both: and both must fight,
And one must fall. Nature and time, in strange
Conspiracy, have made us enemies
Beyond all reconcilement. Now farewell,
My Citizen Guest. 'Tis time that we should part.
My vassals shall conduct thee to thy friends.

Panurge.
Farewell, Lord Orval! Till we meet once more
On the storm'd ramparts. Then, when thou hast left
Nor ball nor powder . . .

Orval.
We will then cross swords, sir.
Ho, Herman! Andrew!

(Enter Andrew and Herman.)
Panurge.
Madman! Be it so.
I am sad. I would have saved thee. Thou and I
Are eagles of one feather. But the bolt
Of heaven hath on thine eirie fall'n. Behold,
In yonder purple Oriel, while we speak,
The sun is rising. To the sun I soar.
Adieu!

Orval.
(Exit Panurge, escorted by Andrew and Herman. Orval remains lost in thought: then with a heavy sigh,)