University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

NOEMA.
Belovëd Afrael!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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