 | The Shadow Garden |  |
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THE SHADOW GARDEN
A PHANTASY
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- The Shadow of a Man
- The Shadow of a Woman
- The Soul of a Child
- The Shadow of a Dream
- Elves of the Moonlight
- Elves of the Starlight
- The Wind
- The Fountain
- The Grass
- The Dew
- The Firefly
- The Cricket
- The Moth
- The Beetle
- Various Flowers
- The Rose
- The August Lily
- Sunflower
- Moonflower
- Johnny-jump-up, etc., etc.
APPEARANCES
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SCENE I
A Part of the Garden near the FountainThe Grass:
Two will pass here soon.
Through my prescient roots
Already thrills the touch of shadowy feet.
The Rose:
I feel them coming, and the bud I was,
In sweet anticipation of their eyes,
Is grown full-blown. How long now must we wait?—
Why is the Wind so still? Why comes it not?
The Grass:
It hangs on expectation; fears to breathe
Lest it disturb the beauty of the night,
Or interfere with what our hearts perpend.—
I saw the Firefly but a moment since
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Adown the darkness.—Saw'st thou where it went?
The Rose:
I saw it glimmer towards the dial-stone
Lost in the shadow of the lonely yew,
Where, here and there, it punctuates the dark
With wandering gold, as if it sought for those
Who come not yet.—Listen!—A little flower
Is yawning silkenly here at my feet.
A sleepy-head that nods a velvet night-cap,
A monkey face, half faery and half flower.
Johnny-jump-up:
Odds bodds! What 's that which will not let me sleep?
That keeps a chatter like a windy leaf
On Autumn's topmost bough.—What flower art thou?
The Rose:
Thou little jester of the flowers, keep still!—
Superiors gossip. Keep thy talk for clowns.
Johnny-jump-up:
That 's courtesy. Clowns always are polite,
And you great lords and ladies rarely are.—
I'll talk no more with thy high haughtiness,
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I never knew before that flowers were green.
How emerald-green it is!—How strange!—Heigh-ho!
I am just born: tell me what flower thou art.
The Grass:
I am no flower. Better than any flower,
Or any tree am I; and, more than all,
I am the green thought of the Earth, that cools
The Sun's hot gaze: I am what flesh becomes.
Johnny-jump-up:
Grass!—Oh!—That 's next to being nobody.
Thy voice is as the Wind in restless boughs.—
I'll find a lordlier thing to talk to.—Eh!
Who 's this lank giant with a crown of rays,
Head-heavy with his load of sleeping bees?
A Sunflower!—Well, I am too far away
For any talk with him. I'll go to sleep.
Sunflower:
My drowsy bees, that huddle in my hair,
Are shaken by a voice and stir in sleep:
Their frowsy heads plunged deep in pollened bloom,
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Who called to me?—An insect in the grass?
The Grass:
O lover of the Sun, a flower spoke;
A little impudent flower, that 's gone to sleep;
Impertinent as a child that has its way,
Being spoiled with kindness.—Hearken: from thy height,
Saw'st thou the way the Firefly went?
Sunflower:
I saw.
The Fountain caught its sparkle on its crest;
The dew imprisoned it a moment there
And hung it on a moonflower ere it fell.
The Dew:
I faint with beauty of the night. A star
Went past me and I drank its gleam of gold.
My soul is dazed with loveliness. I die
In dim responses of divinest light,
Reflections of that flame which passed me by.—
I palpitate with silver and with green,
Glimmering the great emotion of my soul.—
I leapt to follow, and I lie amazed
—In whose green arms?—Whose life-restoring arms?
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Mine. Lie thou quiet; closer to me now.
I feel the trembling of thy crystal heart,
Lucent with happiness. Thy starry pulse
Wakes a responsive ecstasy in me.—
Lie closer in my arms.—Love comes this way.
Thou too shalt feel his sadness as have I.
The Dew:
A star went past me. I would follow it.
A star of lambent gold, like dreams I dream
Among the heavy ferns where Elfins dance
When the great Moon, in broad astonishment,
Looks on the stream that shakes its wild-flower-bells.
The Grass:
It went, but will return.—Lie still and dream.
The Rose:
I hear the Wind. It whispers to itself
Of things it knows that we can never know.
Haply it speaks of sorrow; those who come;
The two sad Shadows with the pensive brows,
Who on this night bend o'er my shrinking blooms.
All that I know is that two flowers of mine
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I hear the Fountain talking to the Wind.
Listen: what are the words its pale lips sigh?
The Grass:
Dim protestations that avail it not
Of evanescent things that fade away.
The Rose:
A sound that strikes with panic all my blooms
And sets their petals trembling to their fall.
The Fountain:
Oh, clasp me not so wildly! making stream
The pale foam of my hair against thy face.
Pass on, wild-footed one, and let me sleep.
The grass and flowers await thee.—Once again
Kiss me and go. Unloose thee from my hair;
And when the night is old come thou again
And sleep beside me. Go thy restless way.
The Grass and Flowers are calling. What detains?—
The Wind:
I see two faces in thy shadowy glass;
Two faces of two lovers who are dead.
Thou dost contain them. Paler far are they
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Now a slim ripple trembles them. They pass,
But come again. Th' obliterating wave
Erases them once more.—Didst thou not feel
The sadness and the beauty of the two?—
Beautiful art thou, but far more beautiful
The Shadows that thou showest me; that make
My soul more sad than Winter when it grieves.
The Fountain:
I felt them in my breast but could not see:
My long hair blinded me. They'll come again
When night is old. Long years ago they came,
Two mortals then, and sat upon my marge,
Dropping the ruined roses in my stream
With many a tear, the epilogue of their sighs.
How long ago it is I can not say:
But yon great yew was but a sapling then.
And I remember when they came no more,
And through the Garden how a murmur went
Of death and sorrow which these two concerned.—
Two graves lie yonder deep among the weeds;
And from the weeds at times two Shadows steal:
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Glimmers along the grass. Go; follow it.
The Wind:
I follow the Firefly: soon I will return.
Thy beauty draws me ever; but the dreams,
Reflected of thy face, lead to despair.—
Have done with dreams, and turn to Love and me,
O weaver of wild veils of spray and foam.
Farewell.
The Fountain:
Farewell. Despair is not for me.
Thou followest Shadows: they lead to despair.
The Wind:
Soon I return. A Soul I'll bring to thee.
The Cricket:
Who is it trembles by the rose and makes
A small thin rustle as of dying grass?
The Beetle:
Who passed me, dimmer than the gossamer
That trails its white way 'thwart the waning moon?
Who touched my shards to silence with a sigh?
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Who woke me in the bosom of the rose
With the pale passage of inaudible feet?
The Firefly
(appearing):
I lamp the way of Grief.—Look not on me;
But on these two whom my green lanthorn lights.
[The Shadows of a Man and a Woman appear.
The Rose:
They pause beside me.—Shadows of the night,
What would you here?—Wither me not with grief!
Shadow of the Man:
This is the rose-tree. Hast thou still a rose?
The Rose:
Many a rose has died since you were here,
And many a rose been born. The crimson beats
Still in my veins and manifests itself
In blossoms still, symbols of love and life.
Shadow of the Woman:
Grief hath changed all things. This is too hath changed.
My rose is ashes. What availeth it?
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Thy rose and mine are withered. Let them hang
Upon this bough whence Love once gathered them. ...
Perhaps the force that evermore renews
The beauty of the Earth, old sorceries
Of resurrection rehabilitating
Ruin with life, will make them as they were.
—But no. The bough is dead where once they grew
And a great spider webs it round and round.
Shadow of the Woman:
But here 's a living bough without a thorn;
It may revive them, touching buds just born.
[They place two withered roses upon the blossoming branch.
The Rose:
Pain! pain!—Through crimson of my petalled pulse
I feel the torture of forgotten years,
When Winter smote me into iron and gnashed
His fangs of ice against me, bit me bare.
Again I feel the agony, that takes
The form of thorns, bristling my thornless boughs.—
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Ashes and dust of roses!—Take thy dead
From off the living! Lay them on your hearts.—
Pain! Pain!—O thorns and roses that were mine!
The Grass:
My breast is wet with unaccustomed dew
Salt drops that burn; the bitterness of brine.
The Dew:
My life is mixed with darkness. I am changed.—
Farewell, belovéd: lo, I swoon and die.
The Rose:
My stem is thorny. Let the Wind come now
And strew my blossoms on the sleeping grass.
The Grass:
I sleep not; never. Let thy blossoms fall.
The Wind:
Who called me?
The Grass:
'T was the Rose. It fain would fall
Upon my bosom. Bring thou her to me.
The Wind:
Dead roses, not the living, do I bring.
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All dreams must die, as died our roses here.
Not one sweet dream remains to us—not one.
Ashes of roses and the dust of dreams.—
Haply were we more innocent we, too,
Might resurrect our dream, that died with these,
As wizardry evokes the living form
From dust of beauty. For in these persist,
These ruins of roses, ineradicable things,
Old essences of fragrant dew and fire,
Some moment, unforgetable, recalls,
Building a world of memories that are real
As is the perfume nothing can destroy.—
Crumble thy rose with mine.—Now let the Wind
Sow their dead scent around us.
The Wind:
Be it so.
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SCENE II
A Part of the Garden near a Moon-DialLarkspur:
What are these moth-like creatures, winged with film,
And star- and moon-dust, dancing down the night?
A light glows through them as through globéd rain
A firefly's glimmer, green and silver green.
Candytuft:
Elves of the Star- and Moon-light. Every bud,
That pushes its sweet way into God's air
Within me, leaps at impact of their feet:
And every flow'r 's agog to see them pass,
And breathes a deeper breath of pure perfume.—
Listen! I hear the music of their hearts
Keep time to their wild wings.—Light thrids their limbs
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I swoon with ecstasy.—They touch me now.
Larkspur
(as the Elves appear):
Take care lest joy should kill thee.
Candytuft:
It is grief,
Not joy, that kills. ... See where they come! they come,
Dazing the winds with wonder. Hear them speak.
Elves of the Starlight:
A madder whirl! madder around the Rose!—
Hey, Trip and Trixy, Thistlepuff and Foam,
Mothfeather, Fernseed, Wink and Rippleray,
Wing-tip to tip and toe to twinkling toe,
Trip it and spin it. Make the Flowers grow.—
A thousand buds must break ere dawn of day.
Elves of the Moonlight:
Faster and faster! ... Here 's an humblebee!
Gone dead asleep deep in this hollyhock!—
There 's comfort for you! Hear him how he snores.—
Ho there! what Inn is this? What drink do y' sell?—
A boozing den, forsooth, for lazy bees!—
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Hey ho, thou tippler, drunk with honeydew,
Out, out, thou burly braggart!—Art the host?—
We'll ruin thy business!—Look! he never moves. ...
Here, Batwing, tease him with a whip of web:
Imp-ride him now as Nightmares ride digestion. ...
Well done!—He doth protest?—Out, out with him!
With all the goblin gold that weighs his thighs,
And sack of honey in his shaggy paunch.—
This is no wayside-tavern for fat bees.
Elves of the Starlight:
What rakehell flower's this with swaggering plume!—
A Cockscomb!—Well!—pranked with a butterfly.—
Off with thy finery, thou swashbuckler!
Thy butterfly-order with its bossy gold.—
One would imagine thee a titled prince
Or belted knight, plebeian that thou art!—
Here is the royalty where it belongs,
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This regal Lily with its silken air.
There let it dream.—Here comes a snail our way.
Elves of the Moonlight:
Two snails!—And there slides down a sleepy slug.—
Off, thou Obesity! wouldst gnaw this rose?—
Bring here those gossamers that line and loop
With moon-thin wefts the bugled honeysuckles.
Bridle these vermin with their silvery silk,—
And rein them taut by their astonished horns.
Now prick them with ambition, not unreal,
And let a vision of a feast to be
Grow in their heads of ooze.—Ho, Foxfire, there!
Drag up a mushroom from the glowworm soil,
Yonder among the weeds; and let it be
The set goal for a race between these three.—
Up! stride their slimy backs.—Away! away!—
Who wins now? Spark or Twinkle? Ripple-ray? ...
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Ay; let them feel the metal of your spurs.—
The snail that wins shall have the largest share
O' th' pinkest part o' the plump fungus there.
Elves of the Starlight:
Here is a Moth, as delicate as a dream,
Hovering above this rosebud's heart of flame—
As 'twere a candle where it would be singed.—
What message does it bear?—The creature waves
Its plumy head as if it mocked at us,
And kept its information for the flowers.
The Moth:
Your revels here have scandalised the Garden.
Where Grief goes Folly should be circumspect.
Elves of the Starlight:
Ho! here 's a howdy-do! A thing of down
And flossy white, a sort of butterfly,
That once was but a crawling, obscene worm,
Turned old philosopher to lecture us
On our behaviour! ... Ring it round and round!
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Of fluffy wings and plumes.—We are thy betters;
And when thou dost correct us—be advised.
Lie there now, wretched, till thou gather sense.
Elves of the Moonlight:
Two shadows wander this way. One is fair,
With eyes of dreaming azure, deep as night,
And hair like moonlight on a leaping stream.
And one is dark, with eyes of sadness, soft
As pansies velveted with dreams and dew,
And hair like night upon a sleeping stream.
Elves of the Starlight:
These are the Lovers whom in ancient days
We saw here roaming through the purple dusk.
Misfortune overtook them and the change
For which we have no name. Their Shadows now
Revisit the old places of their love,
Earth-bound by grief and loss of innocence.
Draw near and hearken.
[The Shadows appear.
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Elfins haunt these walks.
The place is most propitious and the time.—
See how they trip it!—There one rides a snail.
And here another teases at a bee.—
In spite of grief my soul could almost smile.—
Elfins! frail spirits of the Stars and Moon,
'T is manifest to me 't is you we see.—
We never knew, or cared, once.—Would we had!—
Our lives had proved less empty; and the joy,
That comes with beautiful belief in everything
That makes for childhood, had then touched us young
And kept us young for ever; young in heart—
The only youth man has. But man believes
In only what he contacts; what he sees;
Not what he feels most. Crass, material touch
And vision are his all. The loveliness,
That ambuscades him in his dreams and thoughts,
Is merely portion of his thoughts and dreams
And counts for nothing that he reckons real;
But is, in fact, less insubstantial than
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That great inhuman world of evidence,
Which doubts and scoffs and steadily grows old
With what it christens wisdom.—Did it know,
The wise are only they who keep their minds
As little children's, innocent of doubt,
Believing all things beautiful are true.
Shadow of the Woman:
This is the Loveliness, uncomprehended,
Imperishable, and full of faery tricks,
Invisible once, that oft we felt here when
Our mortal steps went wandering mid these Flowers.
Impossible creatures of the Stars and Moon,
What do ye here?—What revels do ye hold?
What wonders do ye work? ... In days long gone
I felt you round me, but I could not see.
I did not dream 't was Elfland that bewitched
My heart with dreams and gentled it with love.
Elves of the Starlight:
This Garden is our work-shop, playground too.—
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Danced dreams into your heart.—Here is a bud.—
Watch us at work. A lump of lead, you see,
Transformed to mother-of-pearl.—Our part observe,
Is to bring Loveliness into the world.—
What think you of a child, a minute old,
That prattles wisdom as this infant does.
Moonflower
(that has just been born):
What bliss is this! what sudden, silken joy
Of swift awakening!—Did music give me life?
Kissing my dewy eyelids while I slept,
Saying Be born! ... And who are these? and you?—
Fair presences who touched me into being?—
And why am I? and what am I? and whence?
Elves of the Moonlight:
So apt at questions and a moment born!—
O young inquisitor, we are the Elves.—
The Wind will answer all thy questions, sweet,
And press his angry kisses on thy mouth.
Keep all thy questions for him, fragrant one.—
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But simply do them for the beauty of it.
Thou art thy own sweet reason for thyself,
Being beautiful, and need'st not ask wherefore.—
But why and whence—the wise, instructing Wind
Will answer that, and tell thee marvellous things,
And woo thee with harsh kisses of his mouth,
And fill thee with sad wisdom ere thou die.
For to be wise is to be sad, they say,
And death will come in time, all Flowers know.
Moonflower:
And what is death? What does it mean to die?—
I do not wish to die. Life is too sweet.
Elves of the Starlight:
The never-dying Wind will tell thee that.
Enough now that thou livest. These are dead,—
These two sad Shadows bending o'er a Rose,—
But have a certain life, we know not of,
After they die, or change; for men must die,
And flowers must die; but we—we never die.
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The dreams the world refuses oft to see.—
Facts pass and perish, but the dreams endure.
This is the only immortality.
[Elves pass on.
Shadow of the Man:
Here is the Rose that once we found so sweet.
One bloom is withering and one bloom is blown,
And a frail moth clings to the heart of one.
Shadow of the Woman:
Perhaps it is a dream materialised;
The pale thought of some dead rose come to tell
The living rose the secret of all death.
The Moth:
I am the kiss that twilight gives to night,
That darkness dreams of, lends material form.
I bear white messages from flower to flower
No words may syllable nor any speech.
I messenger between the dusk and dew,
And thrill to life the seed within the bloom.
There is no privacy that shuts me out.
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Fanning frail wings of moonlight 'thwart the moon;
The intimate of dreams that darkness dreams.
Shadow of the Man:
Yea, we are answered. 'T is a symbol only,
This pallid life, that messengers back and forth,
Between the dusk and dawn, among the Flowers.—
All, all is mystery. Questions profit naught.
Result in nothing.—Let us farther seek,
Between the Fountain and the Wind.
Shadow of the Woman:
I see
A Firefly flicker there, beneath the thorns.
Come, let us go. Haply 't will show us soon
Some answer, long deferred, for all this grief;—
Some reason, long withheld of Heaven and God;—
And reunite us in some fairer place
With the sweet soul of that we lost long since,
The Innocence of earth gone with our dreams.—
The light says follow, but 't is far away,
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[They pass on.
The Beetle:
Thank mercy they are gone! Now I can eat
Snapdragon:
There is that Beetle bungling at my ear.
What a voracious beast it is.—Be gone.
The Beetle:
I would but whisper something in thy ear.—
What dost thou think now of those two just gone?
Snapdragon:
That they 're inquisitive of what concerns
Not me or thee. What sickness, eh, is theirs?
Is it the blight, or, haply, the red-spider?
Or something worse than plagues the flowers have,
I wonder. Haply, did they ask of me,
I could inform them of the thing they seek;
For I am gossip of the Gnomes, who dwell
Beneath the rocks there by the mossy wall,
And who, each night, make me their confidant,
In payment for the loan of these my blossoms
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The Beetle:
They are very fine.
I love thy blossoms too. Come, lean them down,
And let me see what colour streaks each crown.
Snapdragon:
Feed not so fiercely. Thou hast torn my blooms.
Thy harsh feet rend my leaves; thy mandibles pierce.
Off, vampire!—Ha!—Didst get a fall?—Lie there.
Be gentler next time. What wind blew thee hither?
The Beetle:
No wind; but that sweet leaf which suppered me
Last eve, and music of our cricket friend,
Who still persists in serenading thee.
Some day some Gnome will steal his fiddlebow,
Or crack the stretched strings of his violin,
And hang him with them from thy windowed leaves
For all thy Flowers to gape at.—Tell me now,
What dost thou give him for that rusty tune?
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Honey of praise and fragrance-dewed applause
Dropped from my golden throat, thou wingéd fang!
The Beetle:
Oh, if thou 'rt angry, as I think thou art,
I will get hence. I know a Flower now
That greets me like a brother. 'T will be glad
To house me for the night. So, fare thee well.
[Passes on.
Snapdragon:
Play up, my Cricket. Snap thy fiddle strings;
I listen with my twenty delicate ears.
The Cricket:
I heard the Elfins but an hour agone
Trip to my music, therefore still I play.—
'T is for no Snapdragon, nor any Flower,
I keep my fiddle tight. My strings are stretched
For better folk than Flowers.—Eh?—Go to!—
Here come my people. Tinkle I must again,
A nimble melody for nimble feet.
[Elves appear.
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Those Shades are gone.—
Would they were gone for ever!
Why bring their troubles here?—They disarrange
Our midnight revels.—Would they slay this Rose?—
Oft have they stood above it whispering,
And every time the Rose let fall a bloom,
A crimson heart-drop.—This will never do.
We must search out their sorrow, and preserve
The gladness of our Garden. Why, look here,
Even our Snapdragon, the jolliest flower
That ever tossed its bonnets to the Wind,
Is melancholy, hangs its heads in grief. ...
Where passed those Shadows, tell us, lovely Rose?
The Rose:
Into the shadow of yon twisted thorn,
Where two dim graves raise low their weedy mounds,
And where the Firefly trims its phantom lamp.
Elves of the Moonlight:
We dare not follow there. We can not dance,
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In clay and darkness.—Come, we will go hence.—
A sorry business hovering round their graves!
Unhappy in their lives and sad in death,
What may deliver them, except themselves,
Or that sweet spirit, Inexperience,
Born of their dreams, but lost before they died?
That would release them, could it now be found,
From their unhappiness.—We can not help.—
Come, let us go away. Our life is joy;
And joy is part of immortality.—
So let us hence and dance till daybreak there
Where the pale Fountain tosses wild its hair.
The Cricket:
And I will follow with my tinkling tune.
Elves could not do without me and—the moon.
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SCENE III
A Part of the Garden near two GravesShadow of a Dream:
I am the Dream of Life that those two lost. ...
For many years I have been near to them,
But they—they have not seen me, have forgotten:
My face they know no more, that still is fair
As once they made it, when their love created.
They gave me being and I go the rounds
Of this old Garden, giving expression to
Its inner loveliness.—Long since they died.
But I—I never die. Love lives in me.
What the dim Flowers here were talking of
I whispered to them many years ago.
They never can forget; nor can the Wind
And Fountain there forget. They sigh and sigh
Remembering me, the Dream, they think that died
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But I am always here. They know me not,
Who knew me once so well. To-night, perhaps,
My beauty shall avail.—What say'st thou, Rose?
The Rose:
I saw thee coming and my buds took on
A new expression of young loveliness,
Caught from thy insubstantial form that seems
Arrested moonlight. ... Tell me: is there aught
That may avail in thee, or me, or these,—
These many Flowers of our wilderness,—
The Fountain or the Wind, or Moth, or Elves,
To help these Shadows in their wandering grief?
Shadow of a Dream:
In thee and these is naught. But here in me
Is something that may medicine their pain.
They have forgotten me and one they lost,
The Child, the faery Child, named Innocence,
Born of their souls' revealment long ago.
Through it, and it alone, forgotten long,
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And old unhappiness and griefs of earth
Fall from them like dark raiment; and this place
Shall know their forms no more, gone forth with joy.
The Rose:
The air smells balmy here. What breathes around
Like Spring and Summer meeting in the dew
Beneath the thin new moon?—More spiced than I,
Sweet Flower of the night, tell me thy name.
August Lily:
I have no name, except a general one;
And that, they say, 's plebeian. But, like thee,
I'm of an ancient aristocracy.—
The human Christ bade men regard me; yea,
Consider my loveliness.—I have turned poet;
Music of beautiful words possesses me:
Such high attention, such authority,
And memory of that speech, which masters me,
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And mediatte on beauty evermore,
And all my thoughts are fragrance. ... 'T was a thought,
That came to me to-night, whose myrrhed breath spiced
The air so sweetly, swooning on thy sense.
A mystery whispered it, or something there,
Some presence that I know not, haply Love's,
That sank into my heart like honeydew.
Its revelation fills me still with wonder
Of secret perfume, as it filled me when
God thought us into flowers, and His eyes
Rejoiced in us, and rested on us there
In Eden, and He saw that we were fair.
Therefore it is all Flowers are beautiful,
And sinless as the first-born children of God;
And all we ask is that men give us thought,
And be as we are, sinless and serene,
Dreaming their lives out.
Shadow of a Dream:
Life is but a dream.—
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You took your cue from me. You but repeat.—
Shadow of a Dream:
A dream that 's born again for new delight.—
Spring does not perish; nor the Rose.—Imperishable,
They have immortal life, retaining each
Its own identity within the soul:
Part of the dreams are they that they suggest;
Symbolic thoughts through which our mother, Nature,
Expresses her desires, and aye renews
Her beauty. So there 's no such thing as death.
August Lily:
Thou art elusive as a dream should be.
My cousin here 's impressed.—O gentle Rose,
Why art thou so absorbed upon the grass?
The Rose:
I see my petals dropping, one by one.
I see them lying for the Wind to scatter.
Thou dost not know, hast never pressed a heart,
A human heart, and turned to dust with it.
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Naught know I of the human heart, or grief.
Man comes and goes, I care not whence or whither.
His sorrows touch me not, nor do his joys.—
O Grass, why listenest thou? What dost thou feel?
The Grass:
I feel the dimpled coming of sweet feet.
A Child's Soul weights me with ineffable joy.
The Rose:
What leads it hither?
The Grass:
The Shadow of a Dream.
Sweet Alyssum:
I thrill with beauty, and my flowers take on
A happier whiteness, poignancy of scent.
Mignonette:
Its young approach trembles my roots like rain;
And one by one I feel new buds in me.
The Fountain
(from a distance):
Bring it to me! bring it to me!—I'm fain
To look upon its face I see afar.
Let its pure gaze go down in me and change
My depths as starlight changes. Bring it to me.
40
(approaching):
Yea; I will bring it to thee. Have no fear.
It shall be ours. I'll make it thine and mine.
Poppy:
What is this sweet disturbance, balmed with love
As is my bloom with dew?—What shakes my heart,
Unfolding all my slumber-heavy leaves?
Some dim delirium that anticipates
Unborn desire, that gives me newer life
Before 't is asked? ... In all my opiate pods
I feel imperious perfume, that responds
To some approaching gladness.—What is this
That makes the night more beautiful than it is?
Shadow of a Dream:
A dream it is, and yet it is no dream.
A Soul it is—Soul of a little Child.
Foxglove:
What doth possess me? What enfolds my flowers?
Claims me, compels me? makes my bells one peal
Of delicate pearl, showering the anxious air
41
Marigold:
My amber dazzles into gold, like flame;
And the musked bitterness, that made my bloom
Acrid as sorrow, is grown suddenly sweet,
Touched with the moonlight of a Child's gold head.
Phlox:
Oh, what is this strange beauty over me?
Like some long flower crowned with curling fire,
Yet fairer than the fairest lily that blows,
Epitomising all of purity
And poetry in its immortal face.
The Wind:
Violets and windflowers in its heavenly hair,
Innocence it is who runs among the Flowers.
I'll breathe upon its eyes and make it mine,
And lead it to the Fountain there to play.
Shadow of a Dream:
Would'st thou mislead it?—Nay; this Soul is mine.
Hither I called it. It returns to me.
42
Soul of a Child:
What voices were those that I heard, or dreamed?
'T was as if fragrance spoke. I see but Flowers,
And feel the night Wind in my dewy hair.—
I thought I heard my mother calling me.
The Wind:
Its voice is like remembered melody.
The Rose:
Or like a bud unfolding into flower.
The Wind:
A Flower that shall be mine within the hour.
Soul of a Child:
Mother! O Mother!—Did my mother call?—
Who is it whispers at my ear? and sighs
Sweet promises of something on my eyes?—
The Wind! my playmate Wind, who flings a ball
Of thistledown before me. See it bowl!
Shadow of a Dream:
Wilt thou not see me? Look at me at all?
The Wind:
Come, follow me! come with me, thou sweet Soul.
43
Shadow of a Dream:
It follows the Wind. See where it dances there!
Someway, somehow, it must return to me—
It must return before those Lovers come.—
When will they come?—I dare not seek them out,
And leave the Child to wander with the Wind,
Play on the Fountain's edge that sings to it,
Luring its beauty down,—like some pale Faery
That smiling clasps, and, for its loveliness,
Slays some fair soul that listen'd to its song.—
Oh, that the Elves were here to help me now!
The fair, protecting powers that have in ward
The loveliness and innocence of earth!
[Passes on.
Poppy:
What wings, or winds, are these that bend my head?—
I feel dim feet, like moonbeams, on my hair.
[The Elves appear.
Larkspur:
O languor-laden, lift thy brows and see:
44
Elves of the Moonlight:
Look at that yellow spider on yon Rose.
What a huge web he spins to catch one gnat
Or whining fly! But webs are snares for dew
As well as gnats; his wondrous diagram,
Think you he gat it from his head? or stomach?—
Wherein he carries this material,
The fluid silk, the nimbly running silver,
From which he weaves his lairs.—Old ingenuity,
Come, quit thy mathematics! thy designs!
And leave thy web,—that serves, in some grey way,
The purposes of beauty. ... Come, turn out,
Thou long-shanked spinner!—So!—Thy web remains
For dawn to rope with rain. But thou, be off!
Elves of the Starlight:
What makes the air so anxious here? What holds
With tension as of some large hope at pause,
Some purposed good perpending or per formed?—
45
Moonflower:
A Child,
Who seeks its mother whom it can not find.
The Wind and Fountain lead its soul astray.
The Grass:
I felt its light feet press me and became
Its slave, albeit, as all Elfins know,
I am no servile thing. My heart is brave
With much endurance, and inured to hardship,
And strong with strength of many years of youth.
Elves of the Starlight:
Thou hast a small voice for so brave a thing.
But thou combinest littleness with greatness,
A happy union that has helped thee far
In hiding many a man-made scar of earth.
Courage is thine; nowhere thou fear'st to go.
The Grass:
Speak not to me of courage. Bring the Child.
I long to feel the pressure of its feet,
And of the feet of those for whom it seeks.
Elves of the Moonlight:
What, now, hath more integrity than Grass,
Or reverence of life, or joy in beauty!—
46
That hath designs on yon deep-bosomed Rose.
Out! thou legged gluttony, with thy bristling paunch!
Wouldst gorge on beauty always!—Not tonight!—
Weeds be thy supper in yon place of weeds.
There cram thy pulpy gullet till thou burst.
Elves of the Starlight:
O Flower of the Moon, what didst thou say?—
A Child, a Soul, the Wind hath led astray?—
There stands a shadow near it like a dream.
Moonflower:
The Shadow of a Dream that called it here
I know not why.—'T is very beautiful.
Soul of a Child
(prattling in the distance):
Come, dance with me, thou merry, merry Wind!
Come, take me by the curls and carry me,
And toss me like a puff-ball o'er the Fountain.
The Fountain:
Come here to me and lean along my marge.
Come, let me clasp thee to my foam-cold breast.
47
Not yet; not yet. When I am tired of play.
When I am tired of play. Not yet; not yet.
Elves of the Moonlight:
Here is that spider's mate: come, pluck her forth,
The bloated horror! Let her follow him
Into the weeds and lay her grim snares there.
Luck send the worm and all its feverish hair
Into her clutches. May she eat and die
And so both have an end!—Now let's away.—
Elves of the Starlight:
See! there's a light within that yew-tree coigne,
Set round with thorns. It hovers o'er a grave.
Hither it comes, a Shadow trailing it.
[The SHADOW OF A DREAM appears.
Shadow of a Dream:
Worse than a Will-o'-Wisp, it will not wend
The way that I would have it.—Elfins, you,
Light people of the starbeams and the moon,
Assist me now. Drive ye that lanthorn hither;
That little light which shines so far away.
Elves of the Star- and Moon-light
(as
48
Aye! we will drive it for you.—Follow, follow!
Come, brothers, hunt it from the haunted hollow.
Be it a Gnome or Goblin, Imp or Faery,
It shall come forth and show us.—Now be wary!—
It can't escape us.—Ah! you see!—Surround it.—
Well generaled, Pixies!—Out with it, and hound it!
[Circling the Firefly they chant:
Drive it, drive it!
Let it not escape!—
Keep it to the right or left.—
Drive it in a spider's weft.—
It may take some other shape—
Worm or beetle, moth or eft;
Wriggle in some crack or cleft,
In the goblin earth agape.—
Drive it, drive it!
Let it not escape.
[The Firefly appears surrounded with Elves.
49
Welcome, thou wandering fire!—Thanks to you
My airy ministers of dusk and dew,
Who dance on moonbeams, and who make the rays
Of starlight your pale bridges. Go your ways;
You have performed my bidding; your reward
Shall be to tesselate with flowers this sward,
And see two souls made happy.
Elves of the Star- and Moon light:
Come away!
Our work is done here. Soon the Break of Day
Will flutter on the hills her gown of mist,
And bind her sandals on of amethyst.—
Our work is done. Come, let us go away.
Back of somewhere we feel the Break of Day.
[Elves pass on.
Firefly:
O Shadow with the eyes of Long-ago,
Pointing with violet light the golden gloom,
What wouldst thou with me? I obey thee now.
Shadow of a Dream:
Thou seest the little Child who dances there?—
50
Who wander in the darkness. Thou must know
My purpose is that it and they shall meet:
And from that meeting happiness shall grow.
Firefly
(departing in the direction of the Child):
I go, I go,
Like a will-o'-the-wisp,—
Let the Night-Wind blow
And the Fountain crisp:
From the Night-Wind's lisp
And the Fountain's flow,
I know, I know,
Like a will-o'-the-wisp,
With a glimmer of green and a flicker of gold,
I will lead the Child to the place I'm told.
[The Shadows of the Man and Woman appear.
Shadow of the Man:
Who lured our light away?—Where is it gone?—
I saw it shimmer here a moment since.—
What Shadow grows between us and the Flowers?
51
The Shadow of a Dream that once you knew.
Shadow of the Man:
What Dream is that?—Many have been our Dreams,
But all have died; not one sweet Dream remains.—
But thou—thou hast the lineaments of them all. ...
Mightily thou takest me by the heartstrings here
With old, imperishable longings lost.
Soul of a Child
(in the distance):
Dance, little gleam! I'm tired of Wind and Wave.
And you are lovely as a little star.—
Twinkle again before me. Ah, you know,
I wish you 'd lead me where my mother is.
Mother! (Drawing nearer.)
Mother!—Where can my mother be?
[The Soul of a Child appears following the Firefly.
Shadow of the Woman:
Some Child is lost here in this world of Flowers.
52
Dear, dancing light, to lead me and so far!—
I fear I'm lost now.—See, the Flowers sleep.
The Wind is angry with me and the Fountain
Weeps that I have departed. I am lost,
So says the Wind, and it knows everything.—
Don't leave me now!—'Tis gone.—How still it is!—
Where is my mother?—Mother!—
Shadow of a Dream:
Little Soul,
Here is thy mother and thy father too.
Shadow of the Woman:
It is our Child. She is returned to us.—
O head of gold, where hast thou been so long?
Shadow of the Man:
Thou didst not call for me, O heart of joy!—
Look in my eyes. Know'st thou thy father, Child?
Soul of a Child:
I could not see you, father, for the Flowers.—
And I have found you both?—How good God is!
53
Our Child! our little Joy come back again!
Shadow of the Woman
(impulsively):
Here, take our hands and lead us from this place,
O young-eyed Innocence, whose soul is song.
Long have our hearts been grief-bound, and the night
Contained us and there was no hint of dawn.—
Long have we waited for thy coming, Sweet.
[A Cock crows in the dim distance.
All the Flowers
(as with one voice):
The Dawn! the Dawn!—It is the Dawn! the Dawn!
Shadow of a Dream:
Hold fast its hands. Now look into my eyes:
I am the Dream that long ago you dreamed,
The Dream that never dies; that led it here,
Your long-lost Child, your little Innocence,
Who holds your hands now and will lead you safe
Out of this Garden of the Shadow of Death.
Soul of a Child:
How old this Garden looks! How grey and old!—
54
Wakes on the drowsy ledges of the hills.
Grey, old, and sad; and all the Flowers are changed
To sorrowful lights that stare at me like eyes
And chill me to the heart.—Oh, let us go!—
Hold fast my hands and I will lead the way.
[They pass out of the Garden and beyond.
Shadow of the Man:
The day breaks, see! The darkness fades away.
Soul of a Child:
The darkness fades not: 't is the light that comes.
These are the heights. See, here 's the Edelweiss.
How cold and pure it looks, and so alone!—
Are Flowers ever lonesome, ever sad?
Shadow of the Woman:
All mortal things are sad and Flowers die.—
Sweet Child, thy voice thrills through me like young song.
Look! it is Morning. Mists sweep round us here,
And, oh,—the Garden!—See! the Garden 's gone!
55
Look back no more. Yonder our pathway lies.
The Garden and its Flowers were merely mist,
And have returned to that from which they sprang.—
Look back no more. Morning and Joy are ours.
57
THE HOUSE OF FEAR
A MYSTERY
59
- A Man
- Hate
- Pain
- Lust
- Sin
- Love
- Sorrow
- Hope
- Despair
- Death
- Terror
- Dead Dreams
- Shadow of the Past
- Will-o'-the-Wisp
PRESENCES
Time: A mid-winter night.
61
SCENE I
A vaulted and gloomy room panelled with centuried oak, hung here and there with gaunt portraits of men and women of evil aspect. A Man is discovered seated before a great hearth on which a fire is slowly dying. A sound of wind and wild rain outside the House.The Man:
Phantoms grow thick around me. Dreadful shapes
Materialise like mists that presage storm,
And the wild House grows tenanted with folk
No house of earth hath ever known before—
Spectres, chimeras of incredible things.
Their coming fills the echoing corridors
As dark delirium fills a mind with dreams.
Now 't is the fall of footsteps, now of robes
62
While in the night the House with its dark eaves
Drips ceaselessly as if it wept great tears—
Huge tears, like some stone-giant left to die
'Mid petrifying forests of the Past.
What vague forebodings fill my soul with fear?—
Doom rides upon the gale, and Tempest drives.
The towers of the mansion shake with storm.
It seems the wailings of the houseless host
Of all the dead, that earth and ocean hold,
A far-off cry pursues—It is the hoarse,
Long, bitter challenge of the mindless sea
Calling the world to battle. ... What is that?
What footstep, iron on the resonant oak,
Tramples the night to terror with its stride?—
What now approaches, titan in the gloom,
In elemental armour?—Canst thou speak?—
Thou visored mystery with inscrutable gaze,
Glaring unutterable things of hate and dread,
Why dost thou point thy mailéd hand at me?—
Speak! from thy lips of iron let me hear
The message which thou bearest though it be,
63
My body into marble.
[As he speaks, forms slowly detach themselves from the darkness, approaching and passing awfully in the deepening gloom.
Hate:
Thou know'st me well.
I am that ancient Hate whom thou hast held
Fast in thy heart through all the granite years.
The Man:
So, it is thou. Glare not upon me!—Oh!
Thy eyes are flames that burn me to the bone.—
Who waits behind thee?
Hate:
Old, undying Pain,
Clothed in the bloodred livery of thy House.
His eyes are on thee. Canst thou not endure?
[Passes.
The Man:
The fever of those never-turning eyes
Searches my veins with alternating ice
And fire.—Demon, take thine eyes away!
Thine eyes, that hold the agony of the slain,
And all the torture of forgotten time.
64
Not while thou livest.
The Man:
Down into my heart
With all thy anguish, Bloodhound of the Years,
And lacerate it utterly! ... What shape,
What loathsome thing is that with tumid gaze
That gloats behind thee?
Pain:
Lust; the mother of Woe,
And daughter of Death and Darkness.
[Passes.
Lust:
Look on me.
Turn not thy face away. Thou art my slave.
The Man:
And once I deemed this dreadful monster fair!
O God! O God!—Thou seemest twain.—Or, no!
Breasted like Helen with destruction, lo!
What siren shape is that which towers by thee
With lamia lips and eyes?
Lust:
My sister, Sin.
The Man:
Twin hags of Hell the Pit hath vomited!—
Rather eternal night deep in the grave
Than knowledge of you.—Oh, that now again
I might be free as once I was ere Sin
65
Would I might pour myself upon the storm;
Breast the lit peaks of tempest, condor-like,
The insubstantial Andes of the air,
And pass beyond the tyranny of these
Into the nothingness, that knows no name,
Where all is silence.—What have I to hope,
Shut in this House of Fear with shapes like these!
O God! Again to comrade with the stars!
Companion Beauty there among her flowers!
Clasp hands with Springtime and touch lips with Love!—
I choke with horror here! Invisible hands
Close, fumbling, round my throat.—What curse is this?—
Lust:
The ancient curse. The hands of all thy senses.
The Man:
Off, demons! off!
Sin:
Be still and listen.—There,
Behind a secret door, within a room,
White as the young divinity of Spring,
What woman lies with lilies on her breast?
66
One whom I loved; dead by her own white hand.
Sin:
Sayest thou so?—But first her soul was slain.—
Beautiful her body lies. I slew her soul.
Look now! these faces; pictured women and men,
Dark-peopling these walls of carven oak—
What say their sneering eyes that stare at thee?—
They know; for they were soulless ere they died,
And long to see thee join their company.
The Man:
My soul is still my own. Their souls are lost.
Mine fears thee not though thou art full of fear.
Sin:
Yea; yet thou, too, shalt gladly give thy soul
To me and Lust, who claims thy body's pride.
The Man:
Thou with the eyes of hunger, thou who feed'st
On souls forever and art never filled,
67
Sin:
They satisfy me not. More must I have
To stay my appetite and keep me fair.
The Man:
Unprofitable lips, with kisses worn,
The satiated beast in me forgets;
Ye can not lure me now!—And, barren breasts,
For whose white beauty worlds have gone to war,
No more can you awaken here in me
The old, exhausted fires of desire.
Sin:
Thou dost not know thyself nor all my power.
I know my strength as all dead men have known.
Desire sleeps; it waits my breath to wake:
Among their ashes, embers, shrunk with age,
Shall leap in crimson and consume thy soul.—
Before the burning ardours of my lips
Flames shall spring up where ashes were before.
68
Mother of loathing, back into thy night!
Nothing in me is thine. I am myself;
And the old beast in me died long ago.
Sin:
The lust in thee for her who lies within
Died not with her. While that lives I have power.
The Man:
Passion was slain when Beauty's self was slain:
Therefore my soul can never turn to thee.
Lust:
Leave him to me. My part is to prepare
The banquet of the senses, where my wine
Reddens in beakers of perpetual flame.
Yea; he shall drink again and sit with me
Ringed with the burning eyes of women of Hell.
The Man:
Powerless I seem before you, terrible two!
But there is that in me you know not of,
Or, knowing, disregard: Its name is Love.
Lust:
Thy Love is lost in darkness. Long ago
69
Knew it for Lust and cast it out and died.
The Man:
Yet it was Love. And when it summons me,
The gates of Night shall open and the hosts
Of Dawn rush in and quell the hosts of Hell.
Lust:
My feast, where sit desires of the world,
Is spread; and it, in spite of Heaven and God,
Shall sit with me and banquet with the dead.
The Man:
I know its strength—the strength of my great Love.
Lust:
What was that strength when first I spake in thee,
And thou wast fain to listen?
The Man:
Never more!
The beast in me is dead! Dost hear? is slain;
Never to rise again with hydra heads.
Love's falchion in its heart, it lies here—see!
Look in my eyes and know. ... What voice was that
Sighing outside the door?—O shades of night,
Why do you tremble?—'T is a voice I know.
70
(outside the door):
Long have I waited here for you to open.
Love am I, lost in darkness.
The Man:
It is Love.
71
SCENE II
A high hall hung entirely with arras, sinisterly depicting battles and tragedies of long-dead kings and queens. Sombre in the light of a solitary cresset suspended before it looms a door. At the far end of the hall a shadowy stair of stone leads downward into impenetrable gloom. From the opposite end of the hall the Man is seen approaching in the direction of the closed door.The Man:
I can not look away. They follow me—
The woven figures with malignant looks,—
And threaten me with spears and painted swords
The spirit of murder seems to animate.
The tapestried walls have eyes that scowl and stare.—
What and who are you, dreadful presences,
72
Once more do you inhabit these wild walls
And reap again the harvest sown of death
In days long gone?—Your shadowy forms of pain
Seem here constrained to suffer and enact
All the old perished crimes that made your Past.
Endlessly up and down, now in, now out,
A ghostly interchange of gestures runs,
And looks of evil menace violence;
While over all, huge in the vaulted gloom,
The populated darkness droops and waves
Wild, tattered banners of an old defeat.—
Why am I here? This hall is full of shapes.—
And yonder stairway leads to vasty crypts,
And dungeoned cellars where no daylight comes,
And where black terrors start from dropsied walls.—
The death-moth ticks behind the tapestry;
And ever above and all around me is
The ceaseless winnowing of unearthly wings;—
73
Once dreamed here, people insubstantially
The hollow night, and make a futile stir
With rags of raiment, beating to be free. ...
[As he speaks, forms gradually evolve themselves out of the darkness before him.
What is yon mist that struggles into form?
That seems to have the features of the One
Whom God cast down from Heaven with his host.
Terror:
I am the Fear that dwells here; who hath slain
The hearts in many. Canst thou look on me,
And say thou dost not tremble?—I am Fear.
The Man:
Thy skeleton hand is on me. Yea, I tremble!
What phantasms rise?—Among them one, a ghost,
Bleeding and blind.
Terror:
Look on her. This is Love.
[Is resolved into darkness.
Love:
Blind was I from my birth. The wounds are Man's.
74
Beautiful and blind, what man hath wounded thee?
Love:
Thy hand and every man's.
The Man:
No hand of mine
Would do this thing and still remain a hand.
[A wailing of wintry winds is heard above rising into a cry as of lamenting hosts.
Love:
The Dreams that died are clamouring in the night.
The Man:
Outside the winter wind and icy sea
Rave to the darkness.
Dead Dreams:
Let us in. We freeze.
Why have you barred us out? Our wings are torn,
And our long hair drips constantly with rain.
Our naked feet are pierced with ancient thorns.
Beauty lies dead within and we would see.
The Man:
Yea, ye shall see, O children of my soul.—
Look! where they come, like ravens to the feast.—
75
Your eyes have that dead water-look of wells
Spiders have spun erasing webs above,
Veiling the living lymph. Your robes are torn
And drip with storm as pines whose rent limbs weep
Dark resinous gum; and penury has pinched
Your forms to snail-shell thinness.
Love:
Never again
Shall you behold the beauty that lies dead,
That gave you being.—Back into the night!—
And thou, who call'dst them hither, now pass on;
Or enter here with me where Beauty lies—
The form of her whose white feet print with May
Ways of the morning: her, whose eyes commune
With the young moon and the first star of eve.
76
Alas! the Beauty that we knew of old!
The Man:
I cannot enter there where Terror stands,
Or seems to stand, with eyeless eyes of night.
Dead Dreams:
Oh, let us in. Oh, let us kiss her feet!—
Love, turn us not away! We are the Dreams,
That Beauty dreamed of thee, that can not die;
But still must beat with ineffectual wings
Around this falling mansion of the soul.
Never before, never before to us,
Love, wast thou cruel. Never before wast cruel.
Love:
Your wails and tattered raiment raven-like,
Would fill the room with madness where she lies,
Where he must kneel, and meet with Him whose name
Means silence.—O dishevelled shades of night,
Back to the storm; and weave your plangent circles
77
Shall you behold the face or kiss the feet,
The beautiful feet, of her who loved you well.
Dead Dreams:
Alas! Alas!—Come, let's away! away!—
Beauty is dead and Love is cruel as Death!—
We can not enter, can not kiss her now!—
Oh, that we too could die as Beauty died!
[Their voices are gradually mingled and become identified with the sound of the tempest without, as they circle fantastically above and disappear trailing away like sorrowful tatters of mist.
The Man:
What face is that, confronting, at the door?
It has the look of one who fears to die.
Its brows are as the brows that mind informs
The mists and clouds with, giving shadowy shape
Of wild transfiguration that regards
Its maker with malignant threatening.—
And now, meseems, it features my own face—
But older, darker, wilder than I know,
With all the horror of approaching death.
78
I am thyself. Thou lookest on thy Self.
The Man:
Strange shape! Thou art like me and yet unlike!—
I feel that thou art shadow, yet thou seemest
Real as this arm of mine that now I clutch.—
There is no glass here. But thou hast a shape;
A shape of fear, calamitous as time,
Full of old battles, shipwrecks and lost wars,
And hapless loves, the hell-hounds of the soul.—
Shadow of the Past:
I am a mirror.—Thou shouldst know me well.
The Man:
And yet naught else is mirrored here beside:
Neither the form of Joy, that 's of the Past,
Nor Beauty that lies dead within yon room;
Only strange fear of something that impends
Forever, and postponed forever; dread,
Inevitable that still awaits me there
In old depopulated darkness.—See!
Thou changest now; thou waverest like thin heat
79
Around thee all is night, and night defines
The blacker outline of thyself that speaks.
Shadow of the Past:
As I pass thou shalt!
[Slowly vanishes, as moisture fades from the surface of a mirror.
Love:
Gazest far too long
On that which profits thee and me no more.
The Man:
In these wild halls what mysteries are at home!
Each corner grows its spectres: here they rise,
Like fungi of the forest, vast, deformed,
And vanish in a moment: there they gaze
From darkness and the arras of the walls
With strange, inhuman eyes.—Now comes a light,
Vaunt-courier of some mystery, or phantom.—
Cadaverous echoes of forgotten dooms
Attend it, veiled, and of colossal stride.
[A Will-o'-the-Wisp appears above the stairs at the far end of the hall. At the same time a subterranean sound of something approaching is heard, inevitable and indescribably old.
80
Raves to continually, like a beast of prey
Questing the cry of the rock-warring sea;
This ghost-house with its cave-like corridors,
And labyrinthine echoes wandering by
Or trailing phantom robes: this House of Fear,
Hung with the crumbling greatness of the Past:
Behind whose worm-bored wainscots shrieks and starves
The gnawing rat: where portraits of the dead,
With eyes of soulless speculation, stare,
As if they saw how Hope had perished; saw
And scorned the secrets of the inner gloom,
Where all Life loves lies dead, mid dust and dreams,
Wrapped in the glory of her golden hair;
This House, this ancient pile, holds nothing more,
After this passes, that my soul shall dread,
Shall shrink to face, feeling that this that comes
Epitomises all the forms of fear.
81
Here will it enter. Enter thou with me.
She who lies dead within has waited long.
The Man:
This Presence that approaches—what is it?
Fain would I meet it and yet fear to meet.—
[A bell is heard, far off, hollowly striking the hour.
'T is midnight.—Hark!—Was that an owlet's scream?—
Now sleeping graveyards whisper ghosts; and tombs
Groan forth their spectres; and in haunted rooms
Death leans and leers into the sick man's dream.
Open the door: I will go in to her.
Love:
The door is open. Enter thou with me.—
Cover thy face lest Beauty make thee blind.
[As the door closes on them the cresset, hung before its entrance, flares, flickers and is suddenly extinguished. At the same time a Will-o'-the-Wisp makes itself
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Will-o'-the-Wisp:
Good! it is dark. A bat could see here now.
Let me and Darkness trip it with my light.
Naught likes me better.—Ho, my gossip, Night,
What sayest thou? Wilt dance a round with me?
Old Flibberty-Jibberty, the Foul Fiend, and Lob
Once at a witches' Sabbath taught it me—
The only dance that 's decent; one that goes
To deadman-music well at revelries
Of Imps and Warlocks when the tempest sings,
Through which each hag comes whirling on her crutch.
—A nightmare caper now! around! around!
Hey! zig-zag up! fantastically! so!—
Ho! ho! Old gammer Night! ho! ho!—What's this!—
Why, there 's no window!—Where 's the window gone?
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How shall I ever flit into the fields?—
The devil take a House like this! with doors
And never a window in its crypts and halls.
It 's like a tomb!—Ho! give me ruins! ay!—
Large outlooks, neighbour to a marsh or fen:
Ruins, with casements wide to bog and brake,
Where any ghost can show his brimstone face
And clank till cockcrow. Where I too can dance
My phosphor flicker for the wayfarer,
Who shudders by, cloak-huddled to his eyes.—
'T is a brave night for leading folks astray!
Hark! how the rain and wind are fighting now!—
Would I were in that oozy ambuscade
Of wood and marish near the ruined church
That cringes mid its graves and whispering grass!—
Ho! ho! ho! ho! There I should be at home,
And with my gipsy-fire devil him,
Old Superstition on his homeward way.—
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Behind the mangy arras?—Ho! ho! ho!—
Come out of there, old Cæsar!—'Tis no rat!—
It hath a horror as of talons in it.—
Whose bony fingers grope the rotting oak?—
Ho there! what thing art thou?
A Voice:
Death.
Will-o'-the-Wisp:
Good friend of mine.
[The Presence of Death, like an intensified darkness, makes itself apparent in the night.
What! hast thou lost thy way in this curst House?
Or dost thou search out some peculiar prey?—
I had forgot;—all 's thine that lived here once.
Ho! ho! old Ribs-and-Jaws, there 's naught for thee
To flesh thy fangs on here.—What! art thou blind?—
Thy empty sockets stare. A pity!—For
My lamp might light thee if thou hadst but eyes:
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Might make discoveries.
Death:
Out! thou vagabond fire!
Thou syllable of flame! I am not blind.—
These holes of night, though seeming eyeless pits,
Belt with a glance the world, and there behold
All things that be and all that are to be,
Whose patrimony is a little mold. ...
There is one here who appertains to me.
Will-o'-the-Wisp:
Thy grey voice rattles in thy empty skull
Thin as a dry seed in a withered pod.—
Go thy dull way of dust and leave me here
To dance with gammer Darkness.
Death:
Fire of Hell,
Come, follow me. I have a place for thee
In my economy. I like thee well.
Thy attitude of pert equality,
Of braggart egotism, but conceals
Thy real endowments.
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So.—I see thou art
The same loose wag thou wast when Hell and Sin
Ushered thee into being. Judgment Day
I'll dance to thy cracked fiddling.—Go thy way.
Death:
Thou wisp of fire, I'll snuff thee out! Thou spark!
Thou wink of arrogant flame, thou speak'st to Death!
Feel'st thou no terror at that name?—Thou imp,
Less than the filth that breathed thee! Look on me!
I have made glory ashes; the estate
Of majesty and greatness, dust and dung.
Will-o'-the-Wisp:
I am, indeed, abundantly impressed.
But I am nothing if not frivolous,
Even with my superiors, such as thou.
All recognise thy greatness. But with me
Familiarity is second nature,
And I have claims upon thee, as thou knowest.
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I will conduct myself more circumspectly,
And with a phosphor-twinkle now and then
Observe the forms, salaams, obeisances,
The deference due to thee, that all observe
When thou hold'st audience in the Courts of Night.
Death:
Thou garrulous glimmer, take thy folly off!
Dance anywhere but here.—I 've work to do.
This is the door on which I now must knock.
Will-o'-the-Wisp:
Knock! and the Fiend knock with thee! Knuckle-Bones!
I go to hang upon the topmost lintel,
To watch thee and Damnation at your business.
Now to thy hangman work. I 'm fixed to see.
[Death knocks solemnly upon the door.
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SCENE III
A room hung entirely with black. The body of a beautiful woman lying upon a bier. A taper burning at her head and feet. The Man is kneeling at her side. On the opposite side of the bier the Presence of Love is perceived, a wavering effulgence as it were of samite whiteness. On either side of the Man stand two shadows, of indistinguishable form.Love:
Two stand beside thee. Wilt thou look on them?
The Man:
Who are these spectres eyed with swords of light?
Love:
Night-born, the ministers of Death and Dreams,
Despair and Sorrow, daughters of Desire.
The Man:
Like some gaunt cedar, that the fire of God
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Tattered with tempests of the ruining world,
With all Night's ravens of dark dreams around thee.—
Why art thou here where Beauty lies in state?
Despair:
I heard the summons of a heart—and came.
Sorrow:
Look on me now: turn not thy gaze away.
The Man:
Thou with the brows of rock and ragged hair
Of tangled cloud, like some lone crag where storm
And all the wild waves of the ocean beat,
What message dost thou bear me and my heart?
I have beheld thee somewhere.—Was it there,
Before the dark beginning of this life,
In some lost star? or in the arid moon?
When Earthquake bellowed on the cosmic peaks
And continents went down in cataclysm,
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And old Oblivion ruled?—Oh, was it there,
In that pre-natal life, that turn'd to stone,
Thou gottest thy marmorean countenance?—
Thou sayest all the woe of all the world
Unto my soul with anguish of thy eyes.
Sorrow:
I am the Sorrow that can never weep;
The heartbreak of the world, that sees its dreams
Perish and pass, and Beauty's self destroyed.
Adam hath known me and the Sons of Adam;
And on the hearts of all the Daughters of Eve
I've trodden and shall tread for evermore.
The Man:
Thou hast the look, the unforgetable gaze,
Of all I've loved and lost.—Stand near to me.
I would not have thee turn thine eyes away.
[A knock is heard upon the door.
Love:
Death knocks. Art thou prepared?
The Man:
I am prepared.—
Why, who would live when all he loved is dead!
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O Death! O welcome Death!—Now may I quit
This House of Fear that God hath shut me in!—
The mystery men call God, who dowers us with
The senses which, with time, make us their slaves.—
What difficulties puts He in our way,
Bidding us master them!—His puppets we,
Who work His will—whatever that may be—
While He, calm-eyed, regards our agonies.—
When we confront Him on that Day of Days,
What will He say?—When terrible face to face,
How shall He answer us and how explain
And justify Himself for all He's done?
Sorrow:
Thy words seem wailings of the mindless sea.
Despair:
Is this His work? she who lies perished here,
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Amid imperial presences of Doom?
The Man:
Yea; even so. But wherefore dost thou ask?
Sorrow:
God had no hand in this.
The Man:
He set a task
Too difficult for Love.
Sorrow:
But not for Sin.
Despair:
'T was Sin who let the hosts of darkness in.
Sorrow:
Bow down! bow down!—What hast thou now to say?
The Man:
Nothing to thee or—God.
Love:
Bend low and pray.
The Man:
O God! O God! would that the night were gone!
Despair:
Thy night shall never go.—What of the dawn,
O watcher of the world within the night!
Death
(outside the door):
I see no promise yet of any light.
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Despair and ancient Sorrow answer me.—
Man questions; darkness answers, and the sea
That separates the silences of Life
Where Doubt and Death stand evermore at strife.
And in Man's soul a voice of centuried wrong
Ululates ever.—Oh, where now the song
That Hope once murmured me, the sweet of word?
Despair:
Hope, too, is dead, and Faith, the golden bird.
Lost, lost forever as thy soul is lost.
The Man:
Then let me die. O, thou, Love's beautiful ghost,
Fling wide the door!
Love:
This was thy punishment.—
Lift up thy face now; see what God hath sent.
The Man:
Who is this? swift on unsupported feet
Drawing æolian music with him? Stars
Helmet his head; and from his hands of light
Effulgent azure pours and irised day.
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And as with Raphael pinions covers me,
Winnowing the night with wonder.—Fair as dawn,
With mystery and marvel, there he stands,
Shimmering like light that lies on rain-weighed ferns
When over emerald hollows rumour runs
Of Morn, rose-lipp'd, who from her brows of day
Brushes the gold cloud of her hair and lets
The azure of ineffable eyes laugh through.
[The Shadows of Despair and Sorrow have dimmed till hardly distinguishable in the halo of brightness that emanates from the Presence of Hope.
Hope:
I am the last on whom thine eyes shall gaze,
As I was first to greet thee into life.—
I am the one who can not die; though slain,
I but arise again, Immortal Hope,
Forever with thee, though thou say, “Hope 's dead.”
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O shape of song and everlasting light,
Again thy eyes, like steadfast stars of morn,
Rest on the moving waters of my soul.
Hope:
Fear not. Be comforted. Peace keep thy soul.
Despair and Grief can touch thee never more.
Before my splendour, lo! their forms are mist
Swept seaward by the great winds of my joy.
The Man:
Let come what will now! thou beside me here,
I dread no more.—
[Death slowly enters through the door Love holds open.
What shape is that?
Hope:
He, to whose countenance all life must come.
Love:
Have courage. Death is swallowed up in me.
The Man:
Light breaks around me and the winds of dawn
Sweep the wild mists of tempest far to sea.
There is no darkness now, but rivered light,
Flowing from out the source of boundless day.
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The woman who lies here crowned with life's thorns,
Beckons me yonder from the daybreak!—there,
Silver and snow, above the infinite blue.
She beckons and the ancient House is rent:
Its towers fall and its foundations sink,
And the great winds of God lift high its dust
And sow it through the night that drives a-sea:
And I am free to run and shout with morn
Upon her hills, one with the Sons of Heaven,
And all the stars! ...
[Death touches him solemnly. He turns and looks smilingly into his face, and then like a child lays himself down, as it were, to sleep.
Hope:
Where now thy House of Fear?
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THE WITCH
A MIRACLE
99
- A Witch, Representing Mortal Sin.
- The Spirit of Evil.
- The Spirit of Good.
- A Woodcutter, Representing Ignorance.
- A little Boy, Representing Innocence.
- A little Girl, Representing innocence.
- Lob, Minister of Evil.
- Hob, Minister of Evil.
- A Demon, in the Form of an Ape, the Witch's Familiar.
- An Owl, Imp.
- A Cock, Imp.
- A Cat, Imp.
REPRESENTATIONS
101
SCENE I
Interior of the Witch's hut. A fire burning on a rude hearth beneath a simmering cauldron over which the Ape is bending. The Cat sits near, watching his every movement; the Cock and Owl glower down from the cobwebbed rafters, that are hung with fantastic paraphernalia gathered from the forest and field, such as skins of snakes, beasts, birds, and dried masses of herbs, pods, gourds and flowers.Ape:
Seven times the cauldron rumbled; seven times more
The brew must bubble and be muttered o'er.—
What of the night, O Imp made like a Cock?
Cock:
The white-eyed moon is up. 'T is twelve o'clock:
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And round the graves the dead-men's-candles flock.
Ape:
'T is time to add the nightshade to the brew.—
How works the Abracadabra that she drew
There on the ceiling o'er thee, Imp and Owl?
Owl:
The letters burn, blood-red; some fair, some foul.
Cat:
Woe to you should the charm fail, be at fault!
Ape:
And to you all.—Time for the Dead-Sea salt.
Cat:
She would transfix us, jail us in the stone,
The hottest torture-place of this her hearth.
Ape:
And there forever we should mew and moan.
Cat:
And whine and whimper, having little mirth.
Ape:
The flame grows fulvous; voices try to speak
In every bubble; scum begins to streak
The glaucous surface of the brew with slime.—
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Cat:
Read! read!—What do you read?—What says the charm?
Ape:
It is not perfect yet. It is not time.
All that I know, it worketh: one draws near.
Owl:
Who? who?
Cock:
He knows not.
Ape:
'T is a form of fear.
Cat:
A moment there two eyes, like red coals, gleamed,
What time the Cock crowed and the Owlet screamed.
Ape:
Look! look!—the embers seem to lose their glow
In deeper crimson entering from below.—
Quick, Imps, come hither! spread abroad your wings,
This side and that, and fan and never miss!—
Each little demon in the fire that springs
Is clamouring for attention.—How they hiss!
Cat:
O demon in an Ape, it is the brew,
The magic broth itself, that laughs at you!
Or tries to speak a bubble-mumbled word.
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'T is true; 't is true!—The sound comes from the pot.
Shrilly it whistles like some vampire-bird.
A red steam rises; blood-red; glowing hot,
Rolling above the brim: a face, a form
It now evolves.—Look at its burning eyes,
And the forked beard, red as the flame that tries
To indicate its mouth.—It lifts its arm.—
Master, 't is thou!
[The Spirit of Evil appears and steps, sardonically smiling, from the cauldron. The Ape flings himself upon his face before him, while the Cat crawls on its belly, whining and mewing, to his feet, and the Cock and the Owl flutter wildly overhead crowing and hooting.
Evil:
And knew ye not 't was I?—
Have you forgot so soon the speech of Hell?
The symbol-language, and the serpent-sign?—
Needs must ye see me, ay! before ye know!—
Now, by the Pit! earth dulls your wits. I'll swear
105
Than earth and water teach you here!—How else?
You heads of tar and mud! not to divine
'T was I addressed you through the bubbling brew!
Having a message that I would impart
Without appearing.—Blunderheads and blocks,
Who name yourselves my workmen! Imps, forsooth!—
Wittols, who need a flail of sulphur-flame
And whips of fire to sharpen your dull wits.
Ape:
Spare us, O Master! Flay us not with fire!
Our fault it was not.—She, our earthly Mistress,
Neglected to communicate to us
The cipher through whose aid it is we read,
And she interprets all thy messages,
Spoken in symbols and in shadowy runes.
Evil:
The hag said naught to you of one expected?
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Only of something due thee here tonight,
Two lives, she is reluctant to surrender.
Evil:
She grows too difficult of my control
As she grows older. When her years were less
She was more willing to make sacrifice,
And dance the nights out in the arms of Evil.—
Where is she now?—Where doth the hag delay?
Ape:
O Lord of Night, we know not.—Ere the moon
Had topped the hills she mumbled to herself
And went to gather magic in the wood,
Leaving us here to 'tend this brewing charm.
Evil:
Magic, thou slave?—What magic? and for whom?
Ape:
Ingredients for the charm that now we brew.
Evil:
What charm? for what?—Her time is overdue.—
We need no charms here at a sacrifice;
My presence is sufficient. Sorcery
107
At least its dim import escapes my reading.—
An hour ago she should have sacrificed.—
If she have not by cockcrow she is mine.
Ape:
Preparatory to some sacrifice
She said she made this brew; then wove a spell
To bind two lives, demanded as thy due,
Two infant lives, there in the ancient wood.
Evil:
So she comes round again!—Or am I fooled?—
Last year she bungled—let the child escape—
And seemed nowise concerned.—It was the first;
And I was lenient with her; heretofore
Each year, for many years, with promptitude
The sacrifice was made.—I half suspect
She wearies of her bargain, and again
Defaults in payment of the Innocent.—
Woe to her if 't is true, if she should fail.—
Two lives are due me; me, who have prolonged
Her mortal life of sin beyond all men's.
Ape:
Yea, she remembers and will keep her word.
108
Evil:
So stands the bond.—But where doth she delay?
Let her produce the infants!—Where are they?—
Much I suspect her heart is softening.—
Ape:
Lord of eternal Fire, an hour ago
My Mistress sent two Fiends to bring these babes
Her arts had lured into the forest near,
Holding them there, lost, till the demons find.
Evil
(pacing impatiently to and fro):
Long, long, too long, yea, I am made to wait,
Like some vile minion of her own vile hearth!
The warted Witch! the hag of mole and wen!
Would she were here now for my hands to rend!
Ape:
Hark! limping footsteps hobble to the door.
Evil:
'T is she.
[The Witch enters, leaning on a crutch-handled cane; a bag bulging with forest flora on her bended back.
Thou hag! Why hast thou thus delayed?
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(bowing and cringing):
Your Majesty is early—by an hour!—
It was the hour of one, not twelve, your slave
Set for the sacrifice.—My memory 's bad,
But I—he! he!—I made a memorandum;
That is, my Cock there did, who is my clock:
He'll tell you to the second all that 's done
And all to do; no book is more correct.
Evil:
Where are the victims?—What care I for time!
Witch:
They will be here anon. Have thou no fear.
My ministers, old Lob and Hob, good Fiends,
Have them in care, and, long ere this, have found.—
They come anon, he! he!—Ay! they will come.
Evil:
Thou art too sure. Sure wast thou once before.
Beware, lest thy unbounded surety
Lead thee too far—and fail me as before,
A year ago, whenas, at thy connival—
Nay, never shake thy grizzly head, old Witch!—
Thou didst abet it, well I read thy face,
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When, at thy very door, the child escaped.—
Thou didst default then; and I did condone:
On this condition: that two lives be rendered,
This night, this hour to me, and youth extended
Thy wretched body for another year.
Witch:
Those lives are due thee and they shall be thine.
He! he!—I'm honest. I discharge my debts
Even when I hate—Oh! I'm an honest witch!
Evil:
Honest? Ho! ho!—Thou shalt discharge thy contract.
Swear it, or else now forfeit me thy soul!
Witch:
Make me the black beast which thou straddlest
When howls the Witches' Sabbath, and the storm
Flogs the wild hills with rain, and whips of wind
Lash mad the forests over which they drive
On hazel-branch and broom and rags of cloud,
If, at the hour, I make not good my word!
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Well sworn!—I'll ride thee to the next carousal!
What hast thou there?—there, in thy ghastly bag?
Witch:
Simples for sorcery, for charms and spells:
Herbs, roots and fungi, gathered in the moon.
Here 's snakeroot, henbane, and dark hellebore;
Mandrake, that shrieks with madness when 't is dug;
And here is blistering ivy, whose mere touch
Cancers the flesh; and here the crooked root
That oozes blood, when broken, like a wound:
Here 's nightshade, monkshood, purple as putrefaction,
Or as a drunkard's lips in stertorous sleep
Breathing contagion; here is adder's tongue
Reeking beside it, speckled as a snake:
And spathes of arum; fritillaria,
Puffed, streaked, like throats of vipers;—wolfsbane, blue
As apoplexy: tawny toadflax, too,
Jaundiced with yellow as a maid that pines
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Bulbs, herbs of witchcraft, powerful of charm,
Potent for incantation and for rites,
Occult, unholy in the cause of Evil.
[Bowing low.
Evil:
Although thy list is long, still more thou hast:
Enough to summon half of Hell to aid.—
No more delay. What! wouldst thou still evade,
Procrastinate, postpone what should be now?—
Away with this, thy fetich, roots and herbs.—
Consult thy magic, and inform me then
Where are the victims; why thy Fiends delay.
Witch:
They come anon I say.—When I have mixed
This filth-sprung toadstool and its death's-head cup,
This devil's snuff-box, rotted into green
And venomous dust; this fungus from an oak,
On which a man was hanged, a liverous brown,—
113
With many another goblin agaric
And fungoid thing, that Earth like bubbles breathes
And forms from forest offal and decay;
Excrescences and tumours of old soil,
Bloated, exuding forth, pale-pulped with poison:—
When these have simmered thrice, then with this stone,
Ta'en from a serpent's head; and this one, found
Deep in a toad's; and venom from this vial,—
A viper's fang,—dropped in the central turmoil,
Then shalt thou read in the precipitate scum
That streaks the liquid magic (as a slug
Trails its slow slime zig-zag across a leaf's
Decaying green)—strange words and characters,
The wild handwriting of the Three in Hell,
Who rule the world and thee, O Lord of Evil.
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The time is come to read: the oily lines
Hiss out and vanish: slowly there uncoils
A serpent symbol or druidic sign,
And slowly now resolves itself in vapour.—
Witch:
All, all is troubled.
Evil:
Yea; thou canst not read.—
Mumble thy toothless spells.—Thou look'st in vain.
The Three reply not, or thy plans are thwarted.
Witch
(to her Familiar):
My nimble Demon bring me fire; live coals.
Place me a circle here; and in the circle
The Abracadabra of the powerful spell,
Through which the Spirits of the Air are summoned
And made reveal what Earth and Heaven keep hidden.
Through them my divinations shall be cleared,
And I shall know the thing that I would know,
And hear through airy lips report of that
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Ape
(after drawing the circle and cabala as commanded):
Mistress, 't is done.
Witch:
Now hand me here my wand;
And stand thou there and finger on the flame
This sorcerous powder of imperious scent.—
Now, Lord of Night and Evil, we must wait.
Evil:
Wait! wait!—too long now have I waited, Witch!—
Weave thy mad spells, and summon up thy Spirits.
The hour runs out, and thy vile life runs with it.
Witch
(weaving strange figures in the mist of smoke made by the burning powder and muttering to herself as if in incantation):
I weary of my bondage, service to thee,
O spirit of Darkness!—Hatred and disgust
Of what I am and of the works of Hell
Have taken me by the heart, like two wild wolves,
And tear me horribly.—My power is gone:
Lost in the one desire to fail in this,
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I know not whence it came—but come it is:
And, with it, all the old desires, that rode,
Galloping to headlong Hell, escape me now,
As one short year ago they did: deserters,
Abandoning the ranks of Hate for Pity.
Evil
(regarding her suspiciously):
What dost thou mumble, Witch?—'T is like a prayer.—
Wilt thou turn priestess now, or prophetess,
Of Good or Evil?—All thy arts are vain.—
Why, for an instant, I could swear I felt
The presence of antagonistic Good,
Breathing a pure breath through the cloud of sin.—
Thy spells are powerless, and avail no more.
Witch
(without ceasing to wave her wand in the thickening smoke):
These will not fail me. Hear them where they come!—
Their wild wings whip the heavens into storm,
And the scared moon hurries to hide her face.
[Thunder and a noise of winds outside the hut, whose door and windows seem supernaturally shaken.
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SCENE II
A deep and ancient forest. The Fiends, Lob and Hob, habited as mendicant friars, discovered in a moonlit glade.Lob:
I thought I felt them coming, but it seems
I was misled.—Some Power 's at work here, other
Than that we represent. They should have stood
Transfixed, through magic, in this ferny glade.
Now we have searched the forest, and in vain.
Something at moonrise must have interfered.
Hob:
So even we, it seems, can be misled?
Lob:
'T is strange. I never was misled before.—
Once I was certain they were near, and when
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The dim appearance did resolve itself
From moonlight into mist.
Hob:
It is some spell,
More potent than the hag's, that wrys our course.
Her witchcraft should have bound them to this spot
Until we came to lead them there to her.
Her power grows less of late, hast thou observed?—
Last year the child escaped through her; the infant,
Our pains had wheedled to her very door.—
What if it be that she repents her sins
And works against us now instead of with us?
Hob:
Then woe to her, say I!—But have no fear:
Repentance is as far from that lost soul
As we ourselves from Heaven.
Lob:
Where to seek!—
My instinct is at loss; and revelation,
That never failed my purpose heretofore,
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Hob:
Here comes a limping light, an ignis fatuus.
Lob:
Let us accost it. Haply it can tell.—
Thridding these woods 't is certain it hath seen
Those whom we seek; and, being in league with Evil,
Will lead us to the hollow tree or cave
Wherein they slumber.—Ho, thou wandering flame,
Thou Imp of Fire, come here! thy masters call.
Hob:
'T is vanished; ay, gone like a candle-flicker.—
Some power puffed it out.—No; thou 'rt to blame!
Calling it Imp. Thou should'st have spoke it softly.
Lob:
Sensitive as it is fickle, eh?—But see!—
Dolt that thou art, no Jack-o'-Lantern 't was,
But rushlight in a cabin, which the boughs,
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In yon direction—And I now remember,
A Woodcutter dwells near; his window-light
We now behold.
Hob:
No mortal flame was that.
I know a will-o'-the-wisp; I 've seen too many,
Dotting with fire the pastures of the dead.—
'T is gone again, thou seest. No rushlight that.
It turns again, and comes, fantastically,
In our direction.
Lob:
Scissors of a fiend!
Lank legs and arms! thou art grown dull indeed,
Who should be sharp to cut the tangled knot
Of thy bewilderment!—Hast thou ever heard
That wisps had feet that any one could hear?—
Thy light hath boots on. Tell me who approaches
Dangling a lanthorn there?
Hob:
Bladder-head and block!
121
And all whose thoughts run grease, a Woodcutter,
As thou should'st know if fat would let thee see.
Lob:
Hard thinking makes thee lean, fork of a fiend!
But 't is a Woodcutter; and since 't is so
Put on the Priest and doff the Demon, fool.
He may have seen our prey, the chicks we seek:
Haply may house them, even, in his hut.
[Enter a Woodcutter with axe and lanthorn.
Woodcutter:
Methought I heard a calling here. And then
Fierce voices wrangling, so I brought my axe,—
For fear of ruffians,—and a light to guide.
Sounds, ay, that struck confusion in the trees
And set their boughs a-panic.—Ho! hello!
[Catching sight of the Friars.
God keep you, fathers.
Lob
(wincing):
We'll dispense with God.—
122
Two little birdlings out of the same nest,
A boy and girl, blue-eyed and sunny-haired,
Wandering among these sombre woods tonight?—
They went astray, I think, at fall of dusk,
From the near village where the Bellman cried
And O Yesed them by name some hours ago.
We joined the general search;—their guardians we,
Old friends of both their parents,—heavenly folk!—
[Hypocritically clasping his hands and casting his eyes upward.
And priests, who have all innocence in care.
Our inquiries have led us to these woods
Where an old beldam (with a significant look at his companion)
told us she had seen them.
Woodcutter
(scratching his head as if perplexed):
Two such I saw; but with them was a woman;
A tall, bright damsel in a homespun gown,
123
Absorbed upon her face and discourse: haply
Some fairytale she spake them, leading home.
The moonbeams lit their way; I heard their chatter
Make glad the bosky by-paths of the woods,
Like two sweet crickets chirping round a flower.—
This way they went, ay, down this very path.
Hob:
Who could she be?—The babes are ours!—'T is surely
Some wench, some forester's daughter who hath found
And shelters them beneath her thatch of straw.
Lob:
If so, this good man here, no doubt, can tell us,
And will direct us to her dwelling-place.
Woodcutter:
Mine is the only hut in all these woods
For many miles around. I know her not;
But I 've a mind to know her if I may.
Hob:
Thou should st have spoken her whenas she passed.—
124
Her beauty so usurped my sense of seeing
No other sense had I.
Hob
(with sinister laughter, half aside):
The dolt 's in love!
Come; we must search them out. What profits it
To wait on supposition and suggestion?
They lead to naught. Midnight is almost past.
The sands of our agreement run apace.
Lob:
True.—We must on.—This is the path, my man,
Thou saw'st them take?—Then we will follow it.
Woodcutter:
This path, good fathers; but an hour agone.
'T is a straight path and leads into a dell.—
Would'st have my lanthorn to make light your way?
Lob:
Nay, nay; we need no light. But thou wilt need.
[With a significant smile.
Our eyes are used to seeing in the dark.
Our habitation hath few windows in it.
125
And may I ask, what manner of Friars are you?
Hob:
Why, we are of that ancient Brotherhood,—
The largest in the world, and eke most famous,—
The Brotherhood of Erebus; that is
Beelzebub, to speak correctly; close
Affiliated and related with
The good Franciscans and Dominicans.
Woodcutter:
'T is a great satisfaction and a privilege
To speak with fathers of your honorable standing.
Lob
(with a sanctimonious leer):
It is indeed. Thou comprehendest little
Of what it means to thee,—thy heavenly chances.—
After to-night we will be closer friends.
Woodcutter
(profoundly impressed):
Nothing would suit me better. Come to me.
My cabin 's open always to your worships.
And if you find your charge to-night, or find not,
126
And a good meal, and bed for both to lie in.
Hob:
We'll not forget.—But night drives on apace.
We must resume our search and find our charge.
Woodcutter:
Yon is the way—downward into the dell.
Lob:
That sounds familiar—like the path to—what?
Woodcutter
(laughing foolishly and shuddering away):
You spoke that strangely. I grow cold and hot.—
Fathers, good night; and may your search end well.—
The path you mentioned darker is I wot. ...
[Exit Woodcutter muttering to himself.
Hob
(scowling after him):
Dark as thy fool's mind.—Well, let us get on.
Lob:
Listen; I hear a footstep.
Hob.
I, a voice.
A Voice
(very near and approaching from
127
Look, my belovèd, how the wild-flowers stand,
Tiptoe as if in expectation here
Of your sweet passing; gazing all they can
At your fair faces and your starlike eyes.
The moonlight has aroused them with its touch,
And each seems eager to explain itself,
The poetry of its being beautiful,
The inner secret of its happiness
And absolute purity.—My little ones,
Know that the flowers are the dear concern
Of the good Faeries that I told you of
An hour agone when seeking out this dell.
As evidence, behold this hammock swung,
A gossamer web, between these briony stalks
That speaks an Elf's possession.—There 's a blossom,
To please a Faery's fancy, hangs a jewel,
A dew-drop, in her cowslip ear. My! my!
The vanity of these flowers!—And look there—
The carcanet of rain-pearls this wild rose
Hath laced her throat with, like a very queen,
To captivate some butterfly-wingéd Fay.—
128
But what pollutes the air and vitiates,
Charging its purity with pestilence,
As a clear cup with poison?—What are they?
Those night-cowled shapes?—The sons of darkness!—Fiends,
Vested as is Religion, Holiness!—
Through whose habiliments my eyes can pierce
And see their blackened bodies flicker with scars,
Branded in flame, the stigma-marks of Hell.—
Evil, what would you here?—Bar not my way!—
Lob:
Is that a threat? or merely a request?—
She seems an angel walking with two cherubs.
Hob:
Angel or mortal, she must yield to us.
129
Ay!—So we 've found our little loves at last.
[As Hob and Lob speak they approach with blandishing smiles the children and their protectress, who encircles the shoulders of the boy and girl with her arms.
The Boy:
Sister, who are those men?—Are they the priests
Who prayed for father and mother when they died?—
Why did you speak so roughly?—Are they bad?
Young Woman:
Yes, they are evil men.—But do not fear.
The Girl:
How wild they look.—Sister, I am afraid.
Young Woman:
Fear not. They can not harm you. I am here.
[During the conversation the Young Woman has never removed her eyes from the faces of the Fiends, who approach her and the children with conciliatory looks and gestures. During the dialogue that follows, the Woman keeps her gaze steadily fastened on the eyes of Lob and Hob.
130
I am afraid.—See how their eyeballs shine!
The Boy:
Drive them away. Their mouths are like red wounds,
And when they smile their long teeth frighten me.
Lob:
Be not afraid.—We are your friends, sweet lambs.
Hob:
Your guardians and protectors, whom the Church
And Court appointed since your parents died.—
Poor, orphan babes, will you not come with us?
Lob:
Come; we will take you to a lovely home,
Where you can have the prettiest clothes to wear.
Hob:
And dainty things to eat: and many toys:
And everything that childhood's heart desires.
The Girl:
Nice things to wear? and dainty things to eat?
131
Ay, little one, things that all girls adore.
The Boy:
And toys and storybooks and—everything?
Hob:
Ay, little one, all that a boy holds dear.
The Girl:
But you must let our sister come with us;
Our big, new sister, who 's so beautiful.
We could not part with her now.—Could we, brother?
The Boy:
Oh, no! Our sister here must come with us.
[The Young Woman smiles down upon the two children for an instant, and then raises her eyes to the eyes of the Fiends again and speaks with authority.
Young Woman:
No; you shall never leave me; never! never!—
God sent me here and gave you in my charge.
These can not have you.—Get ye behind me, Evil!
Hob
(malignantly, still endeavouring hard to conceal the Fiend under the hood of the
132
God or the Devil, all is one to us!
The babes are ours. Render them up to us,
Or fear our wrath. We are two stalwart men.
Lob
(sinisterly, with suggestive leers):
Why, let her come with us. We'll warrant her
Such entertainment as no maid before
Hath ever had.—'T is a fine company
We'll make thee gossip to, my buxom wench,
Such fellows as ourselves, such pleasant Friars,
And young Nuns too, whose blood is full of flame.—
We'll warm thy veins with something better than talk;
Thy body too, which is, I'll swear, snow-cold,
Judging by that ice-look within thy eyes.
The Girl:
Will you come with us, sister?—Will you come?
The Boy:
Say you will come with us and these good priests.
You, too, will have nice things to eat and wear.
Young Woman:
And are you tempted, sweethearts?—Listen, dears,
133
For those material blessings, as you think,
That in the end turn curses, pass away:
Believe me, these dark beings here that tempt you,
Your untried souls with gewgaws, would betray
Your tenderness to torture, infamy,
And something diabolic.—You are mine;
And mine you shall remain while God permits.
Hob
(fiercely with flashing eyes):
Out of our way, thou Woman!—Out! I say!
Else we will blast thee with the curse of curses.
Lob
(with a threatening gesture):
And rend thee limb from limb and burn to ashes!—
Out of our way! It is the Church that speaks!
Young Woman
(gradually towering and glowing with supernatural glory):
Thou blasphemy!—This only was required,
This arrogance and masquerade of virtue
Most sacerdotal.—Know that I have power
134
These souls are mine!—Lay but a finger on
Their innocent bodies and God's thunderbolts,
That wait my word, the wingéd hounds of Heaven,
Shall hunt you to the fires from which you sprang.
Lob:
Who and what art thou with thy vaunt of God?
Hob:
Some wild girl, whom religion hath made mad.—
But we are tired of folly.—Stand aside.
Unarm the children—
Lob:
Or prepare to perish.
[The Woman gradually becomes transfigured and glorified: her wretched raiment emits a silvery effulgence, burning into flowing white, and her form and features demonstrate her to be one of the elect of Heaven, the Spirit of Good.
Spirit:
These two are mine! my own particular charge.—
135
The bright destruction of His look, that blasts,
Lightens through space at lifting of this hand,
And plunges you in torment.—Hence! Away!
[The Spirit lifts her hand: a flash of lightning and thunder follow. The two Fiends shrink cringing away, covering their dazzled eyes with their arms.
136
SCENE III
Interior of the Witch's hut as in Scene I. Witch, Spirit of Evil, Ape, Imps as before.Evil:
What wilt thou stay perdition with, thou Witch?—
What hast thou in reserve now?—What to plead?
Present thy case, and advocate thy cause.—
Judgment is passed.—Again thy mantic art
Hath failed thy spells.—The Sylphids of the air,
The Spirits of the elements, whose forms
And countenances are wild wind and cloud,
Murmured and brightened but a moment there,
Then swept away in tumult, streaming by,
Scorning thy summons.—'T is the hour.—Behold,
137
Thy soul to me and unabolished Hell.
Witch
(frantically):
Not yet! not yet!—Some minutes still are left.—
Is it not so, good Cock?
Cock:
Kik—kik—erakee!—
One minute is still left thee, thou old Witch.
Witch
(eagerly):
Thou hearest his report!—One minute 's mine.—
Ere that last minute pass they will be here,
My two sure minions with the price I promised.
Evil:
That speech took thirty seconds; thirty more,
And thou and this shall have an end.
Witch:
I hear—
I feel some one approaching.—It is they!—
Ape
(listening at the door):
I hear a whispering as of two who fear.—
Shall I unbolt the door?
Witch
(to the Spirit of Evil):
What dost thou say?
He! he!—thou seest, my Master, I was right.
My slaves are come, and with them thy desire.—
138
[Aside.
Down in my heart I hope that they have failed.
Evil:
Ay, let them in; what sort of fiends are these,
That stop outside and fear a Witch's hut?
If they have found the flowers thou sent'st them for,
Bid them come in and lay them at my feet.
Ape
(unbolting and peering through a crack of the door):
They crouch outside and seem o'erwhelmed with fear,
Muttering and dazed as if with some bright wonder.
Now they run hitherward as if pursued
Of something still invisible, but strong,
Beyond the power we know, and full of awe.
Evil
(triumphantly to the Witch):
That speaks not for success!—Ay, thou hast lost.
[To the Demon:
Thou seest no children with them, slave?—Speak out.
139
Nothing I see but moonlight and the Fiends,
Who race like shadows of two ragged trees,
Wind-driven, from the forest to the door.
Witch
(with pretended fury):
Well may they fear if they have failed me now.
[She limps to the door and flings it wide. The two Fiends, Lob and Hob, rush in, ragged and wild of look and gesture.
Evil
(laughing sardonically):
Success attends not on such looks as theirs.
Their fearsome gestures, too, confess to failure.
Lob
(falling on his knees before the Spirit of Evil):
An Angel has the little ones in charge!—
Protect us from the lightning of her look!
Hob
(on the heels of Lob and grovelling to the floor):
Lord of the deeps of Hell, an Angel follows,
Driving us on with lightning and with thunder.—
The glory of her countenance none may brave!—
140
(with eager, wild looks, threatening the Fiends with her staff):
Angels?—You Demons!—Angels keep to Heaven
While Devils walk the Earth!—An Angel, say you?—
An Angel!—Then, by all the hope I've lost!
Ye shall go back and fetch her! bring her here,
Her and her charge.—Yea, I would see this Angel!
Evil
(laughing derisively):
Ho! ho!—How well she braves it to the end!—
My lads, my Lob and Hob, shall have good sport,
Shall have their turn with thee now!—Drop thy staff!—
The farce is ended; tragedy begins.—
Look not so darkly, Demons! naught's to fear:
Angel nor Witch, ho! ho!—Immortal tortures
You have endured, and these ye shall bestow
In turn on her.—Look where she grovels now!—
Hast thou a new excuse, eh, to delay?
Or any lie to save thee from these claws?
Witch
(whining and creeping to his feet):
141
Lord of the Courts of Night, have mercy on me!
Evil
(fiercely):
Mercy?—Are Devils ever merciful?
Mercy is not an attribute of Hell.—
Seize her!
[Lob and Hob fling themselves exultantly upon the Witch, who screams and struggles.
Witch:
Where are my Imps?—Hither to me!—
And, Demon, thou!—I still can punish— torture!—
Help, help me now!
Evil:
Their service hath an end.
And they revert to me through forfeiture
Of thy black bond, in which thou now hast failed.
My slaves are they, not thine, and served me here
In serving thee. Evil returns to Evil.
142
I am thy slave; command me as thou wilt.
Glad am I, too, my service here is ended.
[The Ape crouches on the hearth; the Cock and Owl flutter wildly about the smoky rafters, crowing and hooting, while the Cat mews, glaring from a corner at the Arch Fiend who dominates the scene.
Lob:
Tear out her eyes!
Hob:
Her nails are sharp as knives.
Lob:
I have her by the hair. Now bind her arms.
Hob:
Soh.—They are bound.—She spat upon me now,
And where the spittle struck spring ulcerous wounds.
Lob:
Thou poisonous hag!—Thrust live coals in her mouth.
Evil:
Enough! Let be!—Mine is she now to torture.—
What hope is left thee now, woman and witch?
If ever a hope found shelter in thy vileness.
143
I am not utterly evil.—In my heart,—
Scoff not, for still I know I have a heart!—
Though frail of flame and sunken deep in ashes
Of sin and horror, one dim ember burns,
Thy pow'r could not extinguish all these years,—
The love of Innocence; an unquenched passion
For that which I was not, and never could be;
The little remnant of a soul still left me.—
Grant it one wish, one boon before all ends.
Evil:
This remnant of thy soul I too shall have
In the large reckoning that is my due.
Before I grant that mite of good a wish,
If it be mine to grant, all will be mine
Witch:
That part of me, my soul, which I concealed
From thee and from myself, that never was thine,
Can not be thine now.—Listen to me now:
A prisoner of Darkness, gaoled within
This House of Sin custodianed of Evil,
Pity, the sorrowful child of Love, hath lain
144
Even of my own heart, beheld of none.
Often it raised its weary head and sighed
At the dark deeds that Evil in me did.—
Now it stands up, its fetters broken, free
In bright revolt against thee and thy host
Ready to lead rebellion into Hell.
Evil
(with a sneer):
And it can ask for favours still of Evil,
When it is strong and free?—Why, let us hear
The wish thou 'dst have Perdition grant thee now.
I am most curious—haply 't is my love.
Witch:
This is my wish! One minute here to pray!
Grant me but time wherein to say one prayer.
Evil
(violently, spurning her):
Pray would'st thou?—Thou hast cursed God now, how long?—
Thou hast forgotten, eh?—And dost thou hope
That He will hear thee? grant thee absolution?
Long since thy crimes estranged thy soul and Heaven,
And He abandoned thee to me and mine.
145
Yet let me pray; one prayer before I go.—
Then do with this, my soul, whate'er thou wilt.
Evil:
O dedicate to devils, thou art lost.
No power of prayer could save thee now.—Hell, too,
Hath certain rights as well as Heaven, admitted
Of Him who made both Good and Evil.—Come!
The compact stands. And many years ago
Thy soul was signed me for eternity.
Witch:
Not so! not so!—Look! who stands in the door!—
God heard my cry.—No fiend of thine is that.
But an immortal of the heavenly choir.
The Spirit of Good, transfigured as when it appeared to the two Fiends in the forest, shines in the doorway of the hut. A light as of resplendent swords seems to emanate from its form, that raises a commanding arm.
146
She hath repented; therefore she is saved.
Evil
(with indignant vehemence, and astonishment):
Incredible!—The fear of Hell, damnation,
That forced her to cry out, they count for naught
In the economy of His redemption.—What!
And would He rob me of a thing so vile?
Spirit
(with lofty calm):
None is so vile but that God's blood can cleanse.
Back to your penal fires! this soul is mine!
[The Spirit of Evil and his emissaries start back recognising the authority of Supremity invested in the messenger before them. The Witch is left standing alone gazing wonderingly at the presence before her.
Witch:
Could God have heard me, sunken so in sin?
Evil
(sullenly):
Beyond belief it is, yet she is here.
Spirit
(to the Witch):
Pity of Innocence, the child of Love,
147
The yearning in thy heart called out. God heard,
And sent His minister to comfort, claim.
Witch:
A wretch like me? sunken so deep in evil?
Spirit:
Yea, even such as thou, in whom belief
Still keeps a spark alive amid the ashes
Of dark defeat heaped on thy heart's black hearth.—
Thy wish to pray was prayer. God heard that wish,
And answers it through me.—A mite of good
Within a soul outweighs a ton of evil.—
God never overlooks one soul that prays,
Or asks to pray, though utterance be denied.—
Faith never dies in any heart,—not utterly,—
Albeit Sin attempts, in many ways,
To quench, abolish, and exclaims, 'T is gone!
Still, at the last, it demonstrates itself,
In unanticipated time, the hour supreme,
Disproving all the arguments of Hell.—
148
Thou hast attained to thy deliverance.
Witch
(sinking upon her knees):
An Angel speaks.
Spirit:
One of God's messengers.
Evil:
Yet, in the end, Evil will win, I know.
Spirit:
Thou knowest naught: only what God permits.
Evil
(with scorn):
For His own good, perhaps, was I ordained.
Spirit:
Yea, thou hast said it:—Even through thee, all Evil,
Is Good evolved, perfecting His designs.
Evil
(pointing to the kneeling Witch):
And yet he robs me!—Wouldst thou name this justice?
Spirit:
Whate'er God doeth, it is justly done.
His deeds demand no justification.—Lo!
I act, obey; I am not here to argue—
Take thou her body, wrecked house of her soul;
149
As it hath been for years; her soul is mine.
Evil
(violently):
But 't is her soul that I would have to torture
Through endless time;—her soul! allotted me!
Spirit:
Her soul is God's, as are the souls of all,
Evil or good, that emanate from Him.
Evil
(turning with suppressed fury to the Witch):
Woman, thou heardest all that this one said.—
Thy mortal part is mine: thus much He grants.—
It may I tear and torture.—Seize her, Fiends.
[The Witch suddenly collapses as Lob, Hob and the Ape approach to seize her.
Spirit:
The soul that once inhabited there is gone
To its far purification, rehabilitation.
[The Spirit of Good vanishes leaving the Fiends staring questioningly at the Spirit of Evil who looms infuriated.
Evil:
Thwarted again!—Damned as she was, committed
150
Even the physical torture, which must reach
The soul, that shrinks within from that refinement
Of flame which sears the quivering flesh and bone.
[With sarcasm.
Ho! ho!—If this be all His justice, then
I too may hope to rise, eventually,
To the great dignity of being forgiven;
And so invested with authority,
Sit on His left hand, honoured as His Son.
[Turning furiously upon the Imps and Fiends who stand sullenly and furtively regarding him.
Fling down that carrion. Let her carcass burn.
Let fire have its way.—Strew it around.—
To work.—Bring fire.—Let it rage and roar.—
Sow its red seeds about, and let them spring
And blossom crimson to the crimson moon.
[The hut flames up: the Fiends busy themselves here and there. In the midst of all the Spirit of Evil towers with baffled but imposing majesty.
151
By whom my plans for evermore are thwarted:
I bide my time. When it shall come to compt,
Beware of me, thou and thy Angel cohorts!
153
CABESTAING
A TRAGEDY
155
“Cabestaing's adventures and extraordinary end are confirmed by several authorities, not only in ancient printed works, but likewise in manuscripts, and we therefore with greater confidence put forward a story which has not a parallel that we know of in history or fiction since the times of Thyestes.”
Rowbotham's “Troubadours and Courts of Love.”156
- Guillaume de Cabestaing, a Troubadour.
- Raymond, Seigneur of Castel-Roussillon.
- Margherita, Wife of Raymond.
- Robert of Tarascon.
- Agnes, Sister of Margherita and Wife of Robert.
- Aubert, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
- Malamort, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
- Giraud, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
- Ermengard, Lady of Castel-Roussillon.
- Beatrix, Lady of Castel-Roussillon.
- A Page
- Ladies, chevaliers, pages, falconers, attendants, etc.
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
157
ACT I
Scene I
Late afternoon deepening gradually into dusk. A walled and terraced garden of Castel-Roussillon, with statues, a fountain, a dial, urns, and marble-benches. Enter Aubert, Malamort and Giraud returned from hawking: attendants, carrying hawks, hooded, belled and brailed upon their wrists, enter with them and pass out of the garden through a Gothic gate to the right. A stair, centre, stone-urned and balustraded, leads to another entrance, more imposing, towards which the chevaliers advance.Malamort:
A fair day's hawking, chevaliers. My hawk,
158
Aubert.
And mine two hares. A fine gerfalcon that.
No eyrie in the Pyrenees breeds better.
Giraud:
I had no luck. My falcon was an eyas;
And burst her brails and with her jingling
And dangling jesses winged adown the wind
My falconer too clumsily let slip
Her hood, and so I lost a hare and falcon.
Malamort:
Thy usual luck with hawks as well as women.
Something is ever at fault with both.
Aubert:
Not so.
One lady here, I think, he hath in brails.
And not so far away now either.—See!
Here comes the stately Ermengard, whose eyes
Are wells of crystal darkness, glinting ice,
Where men may drown their souls for love.
Giraud:
'T is true.
And with her one, the Lady Beatrix,
Whose gaze is soulful as if she could claim
Kinship with Heaven.—Falcons are they both
159
[Enter, from the gateway above, the Ladies Ermengard and Beatrix, talking and laughing.
Malamort:
Ay: yet shall both find masters. Whistle them
And they will come to call and take the hood
And sit upon thy wrist like any goshawk.
—Ladies, we greet you. We have had good luck.
Aubert:
Ay: here are feathers for your fancy, see.
And fur for caps. Fair luck. Some pretty strikes.—
Three herons and two rabbits.—Like you that?
Ermengard:
By Heaven! they strut like folk who 've done great deeds,
Killed dragons and not rabbits; and what praise—
What say'st thou? shall we praise them, Beatrix?
Beatrix:
Not I, in sooth. I keep my praise for hunters.—
160
I see but one (looking at Aubert)
and he's much like a crane,
Long-shanked, long-nosed.
Aubert:
A heron for thy hunting.
Beatrix:
I hunt not herons, neither hawk for hares.
The noble hart alone is worth the hunting.
Him only would I slay; baying him there
Deep in the antlered forest.—Oh, the joy,
Oh, the wild joy of it!
Malamort:
Come, slay me now.
With thy blue-arrowed eyes. I am thy hart,
Long-bayed, and lean with running from thy shafts.
Ermengard:
Now then, have at thy hart! thou hast him bayed.
Have at him!—Look; he dares thee to the fray.—
Art thou turned hind, and fleest from thy hart?
Beatrix:
Not mine, in sooth: I am for better beasts.
161
Thou meanest better fowl—that singing bird
The Baron Raymond loves.
Malamort:
Ay; Cabestaing.
Giraud:
Troubadour and gentleman-usher to our Lady.
[With a significant smile.
Our Lord is sure of Margherita's love,
Else had he never placed this singing-bird
In her rich cage to sing her heart away.
Beatrix:
I hate him as I hate the songs he sings,
Because they're beautiful and he—is proud,
And neither 's for my asking. Would that I
Were the wild hawk to strike this sparrow down!
Malamort:
Thou art the hawk to strike him. I will wear
Thee, wild one, on my wrist and whistle thee
The way to fly.
Beatrix:
If thou wilt train me to it,
And make the quarry good, then I am thine.
Aubert:
A haggard thou, that stoops to no man's lure.
162
(suddenly illuminated):
Oh! lies the wind in that direction?
Ermengard:
Nay.—
Let Cabestaing but ballade her, by Heaven!
Haggard she were no more, but on his wrist.
Beatrix:
Not I! i' faith!—Perhaps I love another.
[Glancing provocatively at Malamort and Aubert.
Aubert:
Me now or Malamort?
Beatrix:
I speak no names.
Be thou as wise when thou hast come to love.
Ermengard:
Giraud, thou hearest: When Experience speaks
Innocence must listen.—Gossip links our names.—
An thou wouldst have me love thee, let my name
Go free of thine. I am no quarry for
Thy nets and bird-lime. Nay; I still am free.
No man shall cage my wildness, no man tame.
Giraud:
I am a merlin that shall have thee yet,
163
Ermengard:
Rebellious?—ay!—My cause is Liberty.
Malamort:
My quarry lies not that way. It is here.
[Regarding Beatrix.
Giraud:
Alas! I fear my hunting days are over.
Beatrix:
And thou but thirty!—Why, a man 's no man
Until he reaches thirty. Then his arm
Is what it should be: he can face the world
With woman on it. And his mind, that mawked
And moped in love, hath freed itself of webs,
And all the dead dry insects of its youth,
And shows a clean room, where was trash before,
To the one woman who hath learned to love.
Aubert:
No hope for me then!—I am twenty-five.—
My heart is full of—
Malamort
(mockingly):
Songs, like Cabestaing's?
164
(regarding Beatrix smilingly):
Indifference, say—
Toward her fair sex, such as she hath for him,
Our troubadour, Guillaume de Cabestaing.
Beatrix
(flaring up):
Am I a badger that thou hound'st me so
With Cabestaing?
Giraud
(with a subtle smile):
Oh, how she hates him!—Look!
Here comes thy Cabestaing.
Ermengard:
Deep drowned in thought.
[Cabestang appears above and slowly descends the terrace stair sunk in thought. Ermengard, exaggeratedly, continues:
What! is thy Muse insistent?—Worrisome wench!—
She should be punished with neglect.—What now?
Doth she divide thy mind against thy heart,
Intending one thing and thy heart another,
Lining thy brow with care, deep as thy rhymes?—
165
Aubade and chanson? Or, divided now
'Twixt love and war, perplexed which way to turn,
Sits in the lists of Fancy; tournaments,
Where bugled Pasquinades ride cap-a-pie
Before the eyes of Beauty and her Court.
Or where, Love's roses in his hair, Sir Sonnet,
On an adoring knee, in Passion's garden,
Lutes it before the Queen of Loveliness.
Cabestaing
(smiling):
I am no poet to reply to that.
I see I have a rival.—Thou hast asked.—
My Muse is never prompt to make reply
On any occasion. Now she owns defeat,
And bows surrender to superior forces.
The standard of thy question is so high,
I have no metaphors to make reply.
Beatrix:
Still thou canst speak in rhyme. But modesty
Becomes all greatness; most of all a poet.
Ermengard:
I am not answered yet.—Come, tell us now
166
Or Beauty buried?—Why dost blot and blur
The clear, glad writing of thy brow with trouble?
Leave such to jongleurs and to wandering gleemen.
Thou art too young to bother yet with sorrow.
Thou art Love's troubadour, therefore—be glad:
For love means gladness.
Cabestaing
(seriously):
Nay. Thou hast not loved.—
In Provence, as all know, Love holds his Court
Among his Ladies, Knights and Troubadours.
'T was there I learned that Love is oftener sad
Than glad; yea, given up to melancholy.
The Minnesingers of the Rhine, they say,
Triumph in sadness, and they sing of love.
Love is not love unless 't is touched with sadness.
Malamort:
That argues thee in love, for thou art sad.
167
What troubadour was ever not in love?
'T is their existence. Love is Song's own food.
Without it we should perish, and our songs
Die ere we died, for lack of audience.
The world can do without its songs of war
But not without its love-songs.
Giraud:
That is true.—
Dost thou believe it, Lady Ermengard?
Ermengard:
I shall believe it when I am in love.—
'T is but a troubadour fancy. He but speaks
According to his calling. 'T is his business
To be in love, or to pretend it till
He thinks he is. He were no poet else.
Pretension makes in some ways for belief;
And he who still pretends a thing, at last
Comes to believe the thing that he pretends.
Cabestaing:
There spoke the woman that is all pretence,
Pretending she believes what is pretence.
Not in the Courts of Love hast thou been judge.
168
Hadst thou then spoken. Love is no light thing.
Beatrix
(casting up her eyes, mock-tragically):
Deeper than ocean; higher than the stars.
Aubert
(smilingly):
Just deep as is the fountain of thy wit;
Not higher than thy heart.
Beatrix
(caustically):
A fountain, Sir,
Too deep for thee to wade; a heart, too high
For thee to ever reach with love of thine.
Ermengard:
Have done with badinage.
Be serious now.
(Addressing Cabestaing):
We have a message for thee.
Malamort
(pretending disappointment):
Not for us?—
I flattered me, you made such honied buzzings,
That we (with a comprehensive sweep of his hand towards Aubert and Giraud)
here were the flowers, you the bees
That sought us for our nectar.
169
(with laughing scorn):
God forbid!
The nectar you would give hath poison in it:
'T is death to virtue.—No! we are no fools.
Cabestaing
(with brightening aspect):
Whom do you messenger?—My Lord or Lady?
Giraud:
And he can ask that.
Ermengard
(sharply):
Surely he can ask,
And I can answer.—Lady Margherita
Bade Beatrix and me to seek thee out;
Command thee to her presence.
Malamort
(contemptuously):
'T is a ballad,
A song, to sing to-night for her at table,
Beyond a doubt. She hath thought out the subject,
And he shall now elaborate it.
Cabestaing
(calmly):
Ay?—
But what she thinks needs no elaboration:
'T is perfect from beginning—like herself.
Ermengard
(laughingly to Malamort):
A rapier hit, and underneath thy guard.
Beatrix
(sarcastically to Cabestaing):
170
If with thy sword art ready as thy wit,—
Thou need'st not fear whoever draws against thee.
[Cabestaing, Ermengard, and Beatrix pass up the terrace stair and into the castle.
Malamort
(annoyed):
Well spoken. But a fool as lovers go.
She 'd have him near her always—Margherita.
Jealous of every moment he 's away.—
Raymond is blind, or so wrapped up in love,—
In her, who holds him utterly, that he
Can see no farther than her mouth and eyes,
That say and look the love they have not for him.—
This fellow left her but a second ago,
And on the heels of his departure, lo,
Treads her command that he straightway return.
Aubert:
What think you now our Lady wants with him?
'T is something very urgent—some great favour.
171
She'd give, or take?—What say'st thou Malamort?
Malamort:
A rose, perhaps. I saw he wore a rose.
Giraud:
Or maybe 't was a word. A happy rhyme.
Aubert:
A word that rhymes with bliss or, say, with dove.
Malamort
(sneeringly):
Or with the new-moon, like her eyebrow; or
With eve's first stars, like her romantic eyes;
Or with the rossignols, whose throats are sweet
As her sweet throat: Any or all of these,—
Metaphors no Poet would disdain to use.
[A bugle is heard outside the gates of the castle.
Aubert:
Visitors?—'T is good. The bugle-note was strange.
I know Lord Raymond's. This was none of his
Giraud:
God grant that Ladies, kindlier than our two,
Be of their train. I care not who they are.
172
Let 's to the mews and watch the falcons feed
Until our Lord returns.—We might suggest
Some better prey now to the falconer
To make the young hawks fiercer. Thine, Giraud,
Thy eyas needs such, with its unimped wings.
Aubert:
The heart of Lady Beatrix would serve.
No fiercer morsel in the world I know.
Malamort:
Or Cabestaing's now.
Giraud:
His would never do.
'T would gentle them too much.
Aubert:
It would conform
Their natures to its own and make them sing,
Changing our peregrines to nightingales.
Malamort
(disgustedly):
Bah! nightingales! Women are caught with them.
[They pass into the castle by way of the balustraded stair. As they disappear, enter, from opposite side of stage, Raymond of Roussillon, Robert of Tarascon, his wife, Agnes, and several
173
Robert:
Already I feel rested, though arrived
A moment since. The air breathes appetite.—
Without a stop we rode all day.—I count not
That half hour at the vilest inn I know,
Five leagues from here, where Hunger was our host,
And the four winds of Heaven were all he served us.—
The wine—by God!—the wine he tendered us
Was iron and acid, worse than vinegar.
Raymond
(darkly):
That inn is bad. I have a mind to burn it,
And hang its keeper.
Robert
(smilingly):
He deserves it. Ay.
'T were better though to choke him with his brew;
Poison him with his wine. By God! 't were just.
174
(with a grim smile):
I will think on it. I have heard complaints.—
[Brightening, with a more cordial manner, but still morosely:
'T is good to have you here with us again.—
How like you now the prospect?
Agnes
(with a glance around):
Beautiful.
Thou shouldst be happy, Raymond, with thy wife
And these surroundings.
Raymond:
Happiness, my sister,
Is of the mind, not of environment.
A peasant in his hut is happier,
With but his wench and brats and naught to eat,
Than is the Lord of Castel-Roussillon.
Robert
(astonished; then sympathisingly):
What curse is on thee?—True; thou hast no son
To occupy ambitions of thy age.—
Thou shouldst have married earlier. Margherita
Is younger now than Agnes.—It is strange
175
Agnes
(explainingly):
One son and two fair daughters, as thou knowest.—
But, Robert, thou art but a blunderer
At consolation.—If 't is lack of children
That grieves Lord Raymond—
Raymond
(peevishly):
How can I explain?—
It is not lack of children overclouds me.—
Though children compensate for many ills.—
'T is something back here; burns me; in my brain,—
Or in my heart;—a sullen, wolfish passion,
Glowering and snarling in its labyrinth,
Like some old, wounded beast within its cave
Brooding on vengeance nursed for one unknown.
Robert
(with emphatic conviction):
Thy conscience, man, needs cleansing. To the priest.—
Or, if thou wilt, enter the new crusades,
And wash thy conscience clear in heathen blood.
176
And the wild hurl of arms in Christian battle
To make a man forget an ancient wrong.
Raymond
(gloomily):
No wrong or sin is mine. I know not what
This basilisk is. But for some three months now
A gloom hath dogged me with the feet of doom:
An old foreboding of approaching ill.—
I am no young man.
Agnes
(with a conciliatory smile):
Dost imply by that
Thy wife is young?—Is that a cause for gloom?
Thy Margherita married thee for love.
Thou art not old to her: nor art thou old.
No man is old at forty-five!—Good Saints!—
Look at my Robert there—past fifty years!—
He is not old as hearts go; but is younger,
Ay, stronger too than the young fools that fancy
Grey hairs and wrinkles make for what is old.
177
(despondently):
Younger than I by many happy years.
Robert:
I have seen life, 't is true, and have been happy.
Thou too hast seen some happy years, I know.
Thou art cast down now for no certain reason.—
I have grown stout on happiness, thou seest.
My wife and children make me comfortable.
Comfort it is that counts for happiness.
Raymond:
I am provided for in many ways.
I have some comfort here, as thou canst see:
A beautiful wife; some friends; a troubadour—
[Brightening suddenly.
Guillaume de Cabestaing.—To-night shalt hear him.
Robert
(dubiously):
I care not much for troubadours. They sing
The devil into women.—None of them
Has ever crossed my drawbridge.—But, perhaps,—
Returning to this settled melancholy,—
178
Of camp or court.—Why not don spur for Paris?—
Life should not be all abstinence: excess
Should not possess it, either, utterly:
Observe the happy middle course, say I,
And time will ne'er prove tedious.
Raymond:
That is true.—
The crusades, as thou sayest, now might aid.
There might I find employment for my sword,
And fling this mood aside as now this cloak.
[Removing at the same time his cloak from his shoulders and flinging it over his arm.
Meanwhile I wait and brood; and from myself
Attempt escape in knightly exercises,
The chase or tournament.—Be kind now: tell me,
If in thy journey hither anything,
Rumoured or ascertained, thou heardst or saw'st
Of moment: prospect of some savage thing,
Be it a beast or man, to hunt: or anywhere
Report of any tournament, where I,—
179
From my own self in the fierce rush of strife.
Robert:
No tournament I know of: but a beast,
One worthy of thy metal, is reported:
A wild-boar of the Pyrenees, that spreads
Destruction 'mid the peasantry. Our way
Was marked with bloody mile-stones of its havoc
In fearful tales each peasant had to tell.
Agnes:
My heart was in my eyes and ears the while
We passed the forest where the monster lairs,
Some three leagues to the north.—Thank Heaven we 're here!
Robert:
And so say I.—A good meal now, by God!
Will top me with content.—As for thy cook,
Thy old Pierre,—I know there is no better
In all Provence.—Good cheer, good cheer, my Lord,
Will end thy melancholy. Dost not eat enough.
Trust me to know.
180
Pierre and Cabestaing,—
They are two artists I depend upon:
One feeds the physical, one the mental, man.
I eat enough, good Robert, have no fear,
But music helps me more than any food:
It is a great physician for the soul.
Robert:
A doctor, Raymond, I could do without.
Song is not necessary to my stomach—
But good food is.—Deliver me from fasting!—
Agnes
(mischievously):
Thou wilt grow lean with eating. Look at him!—
Raymond, he cannot mount his horse for fat
Without a groom to help him. And he puffs,
Between complaints of how his body tires,
If he but walk between his mews and kennels.
Feed him on music while we are with you;
There is no better diet now for love,
And he 's in love. Feed him on song, say I.
Raymond
(responding to her spirit):
There is no telling where he would end then—
As bow, perhaps, to some stringed instrument
That sighs of love continually.—Well,
181
Robert
(phlegmatically):
God send me still a healthy appetite!—
As for the rest—I care not.—Where 's thy wife?
Raymond:
Shall we go in and greet her and my friends?—
She will be entertained to know you 're here.
Robert
(as they ascend the terrace stair towards the entrance):
Cast off thy gloom, man. We will find a way
To make thee happy yet.
Raymond
(despondently):
I do not know.
The black disease, I fear, hath gone too far.
[They pass into the castle.
182
Scene II
Dusk. The garden as before. Enter Lady Margherita from the terrace above. She seats herself on a stone bench at the foot of the stair, and loses herself in thought.Margherita:
I must confess or perish with denying
This in my heart which still refutes denial.
How many months now hath it tortured me?—
The time seems limitless to love that waits
Fruition; but to me where sweet its fruit
Ripened long months ago,—when first we met,—
The tree of promise ages with restraint
And dies of drought, its golden fruit upon it.
Had I not loved the troubadour in him
When first we met, my heart, without a word,
183
The man, so gentle, gallant, so superior.—
Now he must know—must know. This long delay
Must have an end in understanding. He,
In some way, by a look or word, must learn
What I have hid here in my heart so long.
All hesitancy must be put aside;
Passion must speak, the eloquent of tongue,
And what men name immodesty when woman
Confesses love to him who has not asked.—
The distance that the world of men has placed
Between his heart and mine has kept him silent.
The world of Love obliterates that distance,
And face to face now shall our spirits speak.
Long have I seen the love that waits on me
Homing within his eyes: and all his songs,
Between the lines, cry heartbreak things to me.—
Queens have revealed themselves to those they loved,
However low their station, and been happy.—
184
That man holds noble, though a beggar born.—
Modesty, till now, has held me. It must go.—
I bade him write a poem. Such an one
As he would fashion for his heart's own mate,
And bring it here and read it me at dusk.
[A lute is heard approaching through the shrubbery of the upper terrace, to the left of the castle entrance.
He comes.—My heart, oh, let him hear and heed!—
Be eloquent, my soul, and let confession
Look from the casements of thine eyes, and speak
The heart's consent love hath no words to say.
[Cabestaing enters above, strumming a lute. Seeing the Lady Margherita seated on the lower terrace, he comes swiftly down the terrace stair, seizes both her hands impetuously in his and kisses
185
What ministers of beauty walk with thee?
Surprise and Passion and pale Inspiration.—
Would that one thought of me were of their train!
Cabestaing:
Without that thought of thee they could not be,
Lady, by whom I live. There is no song,
Sung or unsung, of mine that draws not music
From thy high loveliness.
Margherita:
Thou art a poet:
Needs must thou speak thus when a Countess asks.
What says thy heart now?—Put thy art aside
And let the man speak. I would hear thy heart.
Cabestaing:
The artist is a portion of his art,
And what it speaks inevitably is part
Of what the man is.
Margherita:
Then convince me now.—
Hast thou a song in which the man 's submerged?
186
Of that within the soul, naught can deny,
The truth, eternal, which shall win belief?
Cabestaing:
The song thou bad'st me write I have with me.
Margherita:
Then let me hear it. Take thy lute and sing.
[Cabestaing seats himself at her side and,
striking a few preliminary chords, he
sings:
There was no wind to kiss awake
The rosebuds in the wildrose brake;
And yet I heard a whisper go
Above the roses bending low,
A voice that sighed as summer sighs:
“Come! open wide your dewy eyes,
And look on me for joy's own sake:
I am the Love that never dies,
The Love for her that never dies,
The Love she will not stoop to take.”
The rosebuds in the wildrose brake;
And yet I heard a whisper go
Above the roses bending low,
A voice that sighed as summer sighs:
“Come! open wide your dewy eyes,
And look on me for joy's own sake:
I am the Love that never dies,
The Love for her that never dies,
The Love she will not stoop to take.”
In all the world there was no word,
Yet deep within my soul there stirred
A music which, in wondrous way,
Breathed ecstasy that, night and day,
Sang, like some godlike comforter:
“Come! open wide thy heart; aver
The Love there singing; Love, the bird,
Whose wings are fain to fly to her,
Whose ardent wings would fly to her,
Who never yet hath seen or heard.”
Yet deep within my soul there stirred
187
Breathed ecstasy that, night and day,
Sang, like some godlike comforter:
“Come! open wide thy heart; aver
The Love there singing; Love, the bird,
Whose wings are fain to fly to her,
Whose ardent wings would fly to her,
Who never yet hath seen or heard.”
Margherita:
There is no passion in thy song: no throb
Of revelation that reveals.—Removed,
Remote, and unconvincing.—Oh, that thou
Couldst speak as I would have thee! As my heart
Makes eloquent with ecstasy my soul,
That urges to possession—Oh, that I
Should tell thee this!—But 't was thy song that prompted.
Thy song—thou might'st have sung to any Lady:
Me, Beatrix, or Ermengard. It lacks
Distinction, point. If thou wouldst win for aye
The heart of any woman, then put fire
188
The voice of Love should rise insistent; flame
With fierce compulsion; and its music burn.
I know this, for I love, and would be loved.
Cabestaing:
Ah, not by me! not by thy troubadour?
Margherita:
And wherefore not by him, my troubadour?
Look in mine eyes, thy hand upon thy heart,
And tell me what thou readest in mine eyes. ...
My soul has called thee wearily, night and day,
But thine hath never heard, being enthralled
With other fancies, bloodless, of thy mind.
Cabestaing:
I read thy secret many moons ago,
But curbed the longing here within my heart,
The deep response of passion to possess.
I would not let my tongue speak as my heart
Prompted and, frequently, almost compelled.
Lord Raymond towered, like despair, between
The gateway of thy loveliness and me.
Oh, could I fling his benefactions by,
189
A man like other men, and with the right
To claim the one thing that, above all others,
My soul desires, this rose of Paradise,
That I would wear for ever on my heart;
Then could I sing as thou wouldst have me sing,
And say the words that halt now on my lips
For adequate utterance, and cry to Fate,—
“Do what thou wilt with me! do what thou wilt!
I have the one desire of my soul,
And nothing more can matter in the world!”
Margherita:
At last! at last!—Long have I yearned to hear
Words like these words: and read within thy face
Corroboration of their poetry.
This is the mightiest chanson thou hast sung.
Yet greater shalt thou sing: for Love shall charge
Thy words with moment such as none hath known,
Till every thought becomes a testament
190
How long hast loved me?
[His lute has fallen by his side. Both her hands are in his, and they gaze into each other's eyes.
Cabestaing:
From the very day
I met thee here at Roussillon, and Raymond
Made me thy gentleman-usher, and thou smil'dst
Upon my lute's endeavours in thy praise.
Not gradual was its growth, my rose of Love:
Sudden 't was there, full blown and breathing fire,
With all the rapture of existence in it.
Then in my soul were opened springs of light;
The fountain of my being ran with beauty,
Drawn from the inspiration of my love.
Why, ev'n my words took on the attributes,
It seemed, of my desire; and when I sang
Before my Lord and thee, surely, I thought,
I have betrayed myself; 't is manifest
To all how high my love is, how 't is she,
The unattainable.—At last attained.
[They kiss passionately.
191
We 've had this moment that can never die. ...
Margherita:
Thou wilt sing many songs in praise of Love,
But none so poignant with eternity
As this one instant.—See; the stars and moon,
The fountain and the marble and the flowers
Have taken on a loveliness not of earth.
The rossignol hath taken fire of love
From our wild words and kisses, and pours forth
A strain more passionate than it ever poured.—
Older than all we dream is Love; and yet,
'T is young and fresh as this dew-heavy rose.—
[Plucking a rose.
Take it and wear it on thy heart of hearts:
It is the badge of my possession, love,
And marks thee mine as I am thine.
Cabestaing:
This kiss
Shall seal our love. (Kissing her, and plucking a rose and placing it in her hair.)
This rose be pledge to thee
192
Burn as he never burned before. What light
Of majesty is round me! Bright of hair
And eyes and lips I feel it touch me now,
Possessing and compelling. Night is filled
With cosmic music, archangelic song,
And on its tide our souls, inseparably,
Are swept beyond the stars of circumstance.
Margherita:
Come with me now. We must not linger here.
I shall be missed. Perhaps these trees have eyes,
These flowers ears, they look and listen so.
In Hall they are at table. Raymond fumes
When I'm away.—He hath been moody of late.—
No one must speak of seeing us together.—
We must be careful.—He must never know—
Oh, God! must never know!—The beast, that sleeps,
Would put forth claws to rend thee, rend and tear.
[Possessed as it were with a dread of some approaching calamity she leans staring
193
Raymond must never know! must never know!
Cabestaing
(rising with a determined gesture):
For thy sake he must not; but not for mine.
I care not for myself if he should know.
I am a man, too, and I long to stand,
Bare sword to sword, before this man of men,
And wrest possession from him at a stroke.
I would proclaim it with exultant tongue
Were it not for thy honour, thy high name.
I am Lord Raymond's equal now. My soul
Stands loftier in the sight of Love and God,
Seigneured of thee, thy love, whose kiss but now
Has accoladed me thy knight of knights;
And badged me with nobility above
That of a king.—Wild words! wild words are mine.
And, as thou sayest, Raymond must not know.—
I'll guard my eyes and tongue.
194
Oh, suzerain
And overlord of all my heart's demesne,
Thou stirr'st my soul as nothing has before.
One kiss, and yet again, before we part.—
See, where the moon climbs o'er the donjon-tower!
Cabestaing:
Moon of my world of dreams, my moon of women!
Into the donjon of a soul thou shinest
Upon a prisoner there—Love, thou sett'st free. ...
[She passes up the terrace stair, while he remains below by the stone bench. She turns at the head of the stair for one parting look, then disappears swiftly into the castle. He remains, his eyes fixed on the entrance where she disappeared. Slow curtain.
195
ACT II
Scene I
Night. A great Hall in Castel-Roussillon, hung with armour and weapons of war and the chase. A huge stone fireplace, in which the fire has died out, centre, at back of Hall. On either side of it a lofty entrance, Gothic in character, supporting on their lintels of stone the carven arms of the Barons of Roussillon. To the left an embayed casement opening upon a small balcony of stone overlooking the mountain precipice which forms a portion of the foundation of the castle. Torches in sconces of iron light the Hall. A carven table of massy oak in the centre is spread as for a banquet. Raymond of Roussillon, Robert of Tarascon, Aubert, Malamort, and Giraud and Agnes, the wife of Robert of196
Raymond:
Why are we thus kept waiting?
Margherita:
Grant me pardon.
The twilight and the full moon and the mountains,
The roses and the nightingales, the garden,
Set me to dreaming. I forgot the hour.
This is my poor excuse. Will it suffice?—
I did not dream it was so late.
[Seats herself beside Raymond. Attendants bring in and set upon the table various dishes. All are served. Margherita puts a pleading hand on Raymond's arm.
Am I forgiven?
Raymond
(unmollified; sullenly):
Here are arrived thy sister and her husband
Upon their way to Tarascon: they stay
The night with us. Thou wast not here to greet them.
197
(hastily, in fear of a marital outburst):
I shall forgive her if her sister will.
Agnes
(pleasantly smiling):
I know the garden; it is wrapped in spells.—
Witchcraft, whose name is Springtime, held my sister:
It wove old sorceries of the moon and flowers,
And the wild music of the rossignols.—
Raymond, thou must forgive her.—Say thou wilt.
Raymond
(sombrely):
Too much she muses mid the nightingales.
Malamort
(laughing lightly):
There is one nightingale that sings there whom
Our Ladies all have given their fancy to.
My Lord, he holds their fickle hearts in fee.
Raymond
(with grim humour):
A nightingale? I'll have his tongue. They say
Their tongues were much desired by the Cæsars.—
Their hearts, I think, were better eating, eh?
What say'st thou, Robert, to a dish of them?
A golden platter served with golden music?
198
(soberly):
I am for solid meat. No nightingales' hearts
Would stay my appetite. As for the music—
It would disturb digestion; hag-ride sleep.—
Only the horns of war or of the hunt
Can hold me with their charm.
Margherita
(to Raymond with a rebuking smile):
Oh, thou art cruel.
Speak not so brutally of things that sing.—
The nightingales and full moon kept me long,
'T is true, but here is our own rossignol
To sing thee into humour.
[As Cabestaing enters.
Agnes
(to Margherita, aside):
If he would,
I 'd have him write a song for my own lute;
One full of fire of youth, as is his face.
Margherita
(aside):
Many of such he has; I'll ask one for thee.
Malamort
(aside to Beatrix):
Here comes the only nightingale she loves.
Beatrix
(caustically):
Oh! dost thou envy him?
Raymond
(with rough enthusiasm):
Our Cabestaing?—
199
[As Cabestaing comes into the line of his vision; Raymond not having raised his eyes or turned his head at the entrance of the troubadour or the remark of Margherita, being absorbed as it were with his own thoughts and the wine before him.
Robert, all Provence and the Courts of Love
Envy our dear possession. Hast thou heard
The chanson he composed in praise of Beauty?—
Bring wine. And when our Cabestaing hath drunken
Then let him sing.
[A goblet of wine is brought by a page.
Robert
(patronisingly):
Thou hast no equal, eh?
The Ladies, so I hear, make much of thee.
Cabestaing
(deliberately drinking and returning the goblet to the page):
Not of the man but of his song, my Lord
Robert
(unimpressed by the carelessness of the reply):
The singer only, eh?—I heard a song,—
200
Of some mad jongleur. Eh?—He said t' was thine—
And written to some Lady—not so far—
Agnes
(with smiling but hurried interruption):
As we are from the moon!—The song 's a song,
And being a good song is to be commended.
I would I had inspired it myself.
Robert
(with stolid astonishment):
How canst thou say it?—'T is as full of fire
As Ætna is of flame. (Addressing himself to Cabestaing):
Now were it Agnes,
To whom thou sang'st in such consuming rhymes,
I'd bleed thee for a fever.
Raymond
(laughing loudly):
By God and Mary!
Blood-letting is not for my troubadour.—
His art 's his art. And only in a song,
Chanson or ballad or the high aubade,
Doth burn his passion. He is winter-cold
At heart, I hear. Why, I could tell thee tales
201
And damsels, too, who would be in his fancy.
I never saw him look at any woman,
Significantly, save above his lute,
And only as accompaniment to his song.—
Is it not so, my troubadour?
Cabestaing:
My Lord,
I know not how to answer you. I love,
Whene'er I sing of love. Each maid I see
Hath some perfection, excellence of wit,
Or form, or face, that takes me by the heart
Compelling for the moment. Love, my Lord,
Is necessary to the poet's art:
And he, to sing so men will hark his song
And hold it true, must be in love alway:
It matters not with whom, or one or many:
Love is the first requirement of a poet.
Malamort
(with a courteous sneer):
Reason and thought are only secondary.
Robert
(unimpressed):
Thou plead'st thy cause quite badly—for the Ladies;—
Or the one Lady whom thy heart holds dear.
One must there be to hold thy singing true.
[Turning to Raymond.
202
Raymond
(with humour):
There is an old saw that I heard somewhere
That says too many are better than none at all.
Robert:
But 't is against all reason. Look you now—
Agnes
(interrupting him):
Enough! Too much thou hast already said.
Thou hast confused him.—See, his face is pale.
Let him love whom he will. Thou dost not stint
Thyself in loving other women than me.
Let him love whom he will; and if he love
Well as he sings—his mistress hath my envy.
Raymond:
'T is rightly said. All men must have their loves,
And women too. 'T is only justice. So!
The battle 's ended. Turning to Cabestaing):
Let thy music now
Be balm to all our wounds. Sing us thy song,
The cause of this discussion.
203
(anxiously):
Yea; is it new?
Cabestaing:
'T is nothing. You will smile at it, I fear.
It hath no height of passion and no depth.
'T is the mere froth of feeling from the sea
Of song beneath the surface of my love.
(He addresses a page):
Boy, fetch me here my lute.
Robert:
As Captains wear their swords
So shouldst thou wear thy lute. 'T is thy great weapon
To mow down hearts of women. (Laughing.)
Cabestaing
(coldly):
My lute 's my lute;
My sword, as thou canst see, is like to thine.
I am a chevalier, Sir, and a poet.
Raymond:
He speaks the truth, his sire was noble as mine.
Robert:
Then I 've no more to say. Here comes thy lute.
[The page returns with his lute which he hands to him. Cabestaing seats himself so as to face the Lady Margherita. As he sings he gazes steadily into her eyes.
204
What shall I send thee,
What shall I tell thee,
That shall unbend thee,
That shall compel thee?
What shall I tell thee,
That shall unbend thee,
That shall compel thee?
Love, that shall fold thee,
So naught can sever:
Truth, that shall hold thee
Ever and ever.—
So naught can sever:
Truth, that shall hold thee
Ever and ever.—
What shall I do then
So thou 'lt not grieve me,
Keeping thee true then,
Never wilt leave me?
So thou 'lt not grieve me,
Keeping thee true then,
Never wilt leave me?
I'll lay before thee,
There in thy bower,
Aye to adore thee,
My heart, like a flower.
There in thy bower,
Aye to adore thee,
My heart, like a flower.
Margherita
(rising in agitation):
Well hast thou sung. Thy song is worth a heart;
The heart of any woman.
205
'T is full of fire.
A song to win a woman.
Robert:
Ay; perhaps
Win two or three.
Margherita
(standing, uncertain what to say or do):
I am right weary.
Agnes:
Well;
We will retire: I am weary too.
We rode all day, Fatigue was of our train
From morning.
Robert
(significantly):
Raymond, I would speak with thee
On private matters. There is much to say.—
And, as thou knowest, we depart at dawn.
Raymond
(good-humouredly):
Business should wait till pleasure have an end,
And should, in brief, be brief, whatever it is.
But as our wives are fearful of offending,
And will not leave without us (he speaks with irony),
being weary,
There's nothing left us but to be excused.
[Rising, he proceeds to Cabestaing who rises as do all the others. Raymond lets
206
By Mary! thou shalt sing for us again.
Such songs as thine are heard once in a lifetime.
Be careful of thy lute as of thy heart.
Cabestaing
(smiling softly, and gazing steadily before him):
Both heart and lute are sound, my Lord, and safe.
[Raymond and Robert leave with attendants by doorway left.
Margherita
(imperiously):
Come, Cabestaing, attend us to our rooms.
Cabestaing:
I am thy servant. (Aside)
Dost thou think me bold?
Margherita
(aside):
Come to the window with the balcony,
That looks upon the upper terrace: there
I will await thee. (Aloud)
Agnes, shall we go?
Agnes
(who has been conversing with the others):
The Ladies, Ermengard and Beatrix
Have talked my weariness away.
Beatrix
(laughing):
Not I.
207
[Margherita, Agnes, and Cabestaing go out through doorway to the right.
Beatrix
(eagerly, as soon as the door has closed upon them):
Didst mark his eyes?
Ermengard:
Canst ask?—They were two stars
Shaping the destiny of two who love.
Malamort:
They were two tarns whereover tempest drives,
And in whose deeps enchantment sleeps for ever.
Aubert:
And hers were wild lights on the mountain heights,
Whose fires proclaim rebellion. They are lost.
Giraud:
His eyes looked into hers as no man's look
Into a woman's whom he doth not love.
Ermengard:
Sir Matter-of-Fact! thou putt'st it in blunt words.—
He looked at her, therefore she needs must look,
208
Beatrix
(scornfully):
She could not help it?—
No more could I.
Ermengard
(sharply):
His eyes were not for thee,
Nor any woman, except the one he loves.
Malamort
(provokingly):
Into her eyes he poured his soul in music.
Beatrix
(in a rage):
Her eyes! his eyes!—The Devil take their eyes!—
Why, I'll turn jongleur just to sing of eyes.—
His eyes! her eyes!—God send them both a squint!
Ermengard:
Now thou art angry:
Beatrix:
Nay. A little weary.
Aubert:
Wilt come into the garden with me?
Beatrix:
No!
I care not for the nightingale and moon.
Ermengard
(to Aubert):
I'll go with thee if our wise friend, Giraud,
Will make our company three.
Giraud
(hesitating):
I am not wanted;
209
I'll go where I am asked. Bid you goodnight.
[Ermengard, Aubert, and Giraud go out.
Malamort
(confidently):
The loveliest woman, worthiest of his song,
Is she into whose eyes I'm looking now.
Beatrix
(incredulously; laughing scornfully):
Rank flattery!—Thy speech is full of words
That poison women's souls. I am no fool.
Malamort:
I know what beauty is.
Beatrix
(sarcastically):
A connoisseur?
Malamort:
I'll prove my point by a comparison:
Now take thy mouth and Margherita's mouth:—
The Cupid-bow perfection of thy lips,
The rosebud redness—hath hers aught of these?
Her hand now: true, 't is long, and white and shapely;
But plumpness, smallness, take my heart by storm—
210
[Takes her hand which she yields reluctantly.
Not cold like Margherita's. And thy cheek—
Thou hast a dimple there: a darling pit-fall
To catch men's hearts in. A sweet trap for kisses.
[Kisses her deliberately. She disengages herself swiftly, starting back with pretended fury.
Beatrix:
Why didst thou that?—Had I a dagger now
I'd mark upon thy evil face the beast
That is thy soul, so never woman more
Would look on thee and be beguiled.
Malamort
(coolly):
I love thee.
I love thee. Dost thou doubt it? Look at me.
I am no troubadour to sing thy praise,
Or curve my eyebrows at thee o'er a lute.
I am a man, a knight, a chevalier,
Who loves thee better than he loves his life.
211
(yieldingly):
Rhymers are not for me, but warriors are.—
When thou hast fought a battle for me, then
Come to me and demand—what I can give.
Malamort:
Bid me to battle now. I fain would fight.
Beatrix
(impetuously):
I hate this Cabestaing. I'd have him die.—
He had my love once—thou should'st know it.
Malamort
(slowly, gazing steadily at her):
Yea.
I knew of it. He cast thy love aside.
Beatrix
(fiercely):
Like a great gentleman.—The wretched pauper!
I was not good enough for him.—I hate him!
Hate him! Oh, God in Heaven, how I hate him now!—
[Lowering her voice and speaking with malignancy.
Look thou!—Go to the Baron: tell him all
Thou knowest; all, and more thou dost not know,
Of what is seen and said of Cabestaing
And Margherita.—Leave no thing unsaid.
212
Notorious, in his castle. Look such things
As shall imply more than the words thou say'st.
Put poison in his heart's security.
Thou are a trusted servant; 't will be easy.
When thou hast done this, and thy words bear fruit,
Then come to me and ask—whatever thou wilt.
Malamort
(with conviction):
By God! thou lov'st this Cabestaing!
Beatrix
(with intensity):
I hate him.
And he must die, so that my soul have peace.
Malamort
(taking her by the arms and looking steadily into her eyes):
Thou 'lt keep thy word?
Beatrix
(unflinchingly):
I never break my word.
[Malamort goes out left, facing towards Beatrix, who stands a moment as if transfixed in thought and then goes out slowly through door to right.
213
Scene II
The same as the preceding. Only the table has been removed from centre and the chairs arranged differently, showing skins of various wild beasts here and there about the floor. Enter Raymond and Robert of Tarascon.Raymond
(angrily):
Thou art her sister's husband. Wherefore now
Thou sayest such things to me at such a time
Escapes my understanding.
Robert:
Thy eyes are seeled,
Like some wild haggard's in thy mews. My Lord,
Thy troubadour needs watching. As I said,
The weather-vane o' his heart points Margherita,
As did his eyes and song a moment ago. ...
There was direction and a fire in them
Most unmistakable.
214
I drank my wine,
And thought my thoughts. What cared I where he looked!—
I mark not every glance cast at my wife.—
God's blood! I should be busy.—Cabestaing
I 'd trust as men trust children—as my son.
There is no harm in him; he is a poet:
Why, Margherita loves me; would not lift
Her eyes to his except in innocence.
I know them both; they are a pair of children.
Robert
(bitterly):
A pair of children! Child thou art to say so!—
Thou knowest nothing of the hearts of men—
Or women. Bah! the thing is evident.
Look to it ere thou lose thy Margherita.—
I trust no troubadour with any woman.
Raymond:
Blind fool I may be; but, by God and Mary!
Suspicion never harboured in my heart
Of any smile, or glance, between these two.
Thou mak'st me think now.—But why wake a snake
To gnaw me here?
Robert:
I would not have thee whispered
215
Would guard the good name of thy House, whereto
My honour appertains. I like not scandal.
Raymond:
Where could he look but at her? All men look
At Margherita. Nay; 't was courtesy:
I say 't was courtesy.—But I'll look to 't
As thou advisest; and, if true, God help,
Assoil him and the woman I call wife!—
Your words have waked a devil in my heart,
This heart on which she oft hath lain and dreamed.
Robert:
No troubadour do I trust. Seduction leers
From all their songs at every maid and woman.
[Enter Malamort smiling sinisterly.
Here comes Sir Malamort. His face portends
Some news of moment.
Raymond:
How now, Malamort?
What means thy smile? What evil lies behind it?—
Thou stealest in like Midnight with a dagger.
216
Malamort
(mysteriously):
A song-bird in the garden.
That is to say, a man beneath a window:
A sighing lover with a tinkling lute.
Robert
(with a quizzical smile at Raymond):
Not thy good troubadour, my Lord?
Malamort
(darkly):
Perhaps.
Raymond
(with suppressed fury):
Whose window? Speak!—And who was at the window?
Malamort
(with assumed perplexity):
I can not say, my Lord. So many windows
Look out upon that terrace.
Raymond
(with concentrated purpose):
Was it one
That's balconied? a casement railed with stone,
That faces towards the terrace with the fountain?
Malamort
(without hesitation):
The same, my Lord. And from the balcony
A lady leaned. A scarf concealed her face.—
217
Took on a new effulgence from her breast.
I seemed to hear the beating of her heart,—
And feel the ardor of her passionate eyes.
Robert
(with emphasised interest):
Was it the Lady Agnes? Like as not!—
She has a scarf of silk.—Her window 's railed,
And overlooks the fountain. By my sword!—
She too hath hankerings for these nightingales!
'T is in the blood of women.
Raymond
(with absolute conviction):
Tarascon,
'T was not thy Agnes but my Margherita.—
Blind have I been! Oh, what a purblind fool!—
If this be true, I'll act; and instantly.
Robert
(in a conciliatory tone):
Yea; swiftly. Send the fellow off to-night.—
As I have said, I would not have them round me,
These makers of bad rhymes. For, look you, women
Are three fourths fool at any and all times;
218
Farewell discretion!—kiss the rest good-bye,
A poet is bell-wether to their natures,
That flock to follow, like a lot of sheep,—
Be it to pasture or a precipice,
Whene'er he tinkles.—Would their heads were one,—
I mean the poets',—so one blow might end them!
Raymond
(to Malamort):
Under the balcony?—And didst thou hear
The words they said?
Malamort:
My Lord, I was not near.
I heard a lute, a sigh. The bird took fright
Whenas he saw me coming. Disappeared,—
Like a great cockchafer a foot disturbs,—
Among the roses underneath the wall.
The Lady glimmered moth-like and was gone.
Raymond
(black with rage):
Thy eyes must to the doctor! what, by Heaven!
Sent thee to me then with thy devil's smile?—
Thou slay'st my soul with thy dark words and hints
219
Proof must I have! yea, proof!—These eyes must see!
These ears must hear! visible and audible proof!—
Come with me. Come; I'll search the walks and garden.
If he be there, innocent or guilty, he
Shall give account to this (touching his sword)
my good Toledo!
Robert
(with satisfaction as they turn to go out):
Thou hast been blind. How couldst thou be so fooled?
Make good use of thine eyes now. It is night,
And in the night are many hiding places.
[Raymond, Robert, and Malamort pass out right. After an interval enter on the left Margherita and Agnes.
Agnes
(fearfully):
He loves thee. Oh, I saw; and others saw.
And thou, thou lovest him. I saw that too.
Oh, be thou careful of this!—Men are beasts
220
No serpent spawned of Hell is fiercer. Trust me!
I am thy sister, let me counsel thee.—
Contrive some good excuse and send this singer,
Before it is too late and Raymond knows,
To Avignon, or Paris; anywhere.
Margherita
(calmly):
I could not live without him: would not live.
Existence lies for me in him alone.—
Thou canst not understand—thou dost not know!—
His life is mine as mine is his.—No, no!
Thou wouldst not have me separate soul and body?
He is my soul. I can not part from him.
Agnes:
If this be so, God help you both!
Margherita:
Amen!—
He loves me.—Countess that I am, and wife
Of Raymond, Lord of Roussillon, I 'd cast
Nobility aside, as one casts gauds,
And follow Cabestaing through all the world,
And be his glee-girl, live the vagabond life
221
Life hath naught greater than his love to give.
Agnes:
I never loved like that. Propriety
With stately steps, trailing a stiff brocade,
Hath ever kept my house; yet she shall shield
Thee and thy lover when there comes the need.
No man, except my husband, have I loved,
Or dreamed of loving. Though some have besieged
My heart with vows, its stalwart battlements
They never won above. (Meditatively):
I will not say
A troubadour tongue, like that of Cabestaing's,
Might not win o'er its fortress if it tried,
So full of irresistible assault
Are all his songs—and song is sweet to me.
Margherita:
All that I am is his. I feel no shame
When in his arms, his kisses on my lips.
I know I sin. My soul, perhaps, is lost.
But Heaven hath naught of happiness to give
Greater than this. If punishment must come
Hereafter, I, at least, a little while
222
Agnes:
May Heaven be thine!—
But dost thou have no dread of what may come
Of this too evident passion?
Margherita:
My one fear
Is for his safety. His.—What harm may come
To me I care not. Never think of it.
Agnes:
But thou shouldst think of it. Just now he stood
Openly within the moonlight, on the terrace,
Beneath thy balcony that neighbours mine.
I heard his words.—Therefore I came to thee,
And brought thee hither, for, scarce had he gone,
When shadows searched the place with weapons drawn.
Thy husband and another, I divine.—
Had they come sooner, caught thy song-bird there,
Sighing to thee, such strains of passionate love,
I shudder now to think what had befallen.
223
(surprised and agitated):
Raymond out there?—I deemed him closeted
With thy good Robert, on some weighty matter.
I would breathe easier were my husband gone.—
Canst thou contrive some plan to take him hence,
But for a day?—better for three days, though.
I would have one day free of fear to think,
To dream some plan out with the one I love.
Agnes
(thoughtfully):
I can devise no way.—There is a boar,
So runs report among the peasantry,—
We heard it but to-day when riding hither,—
A wild boar, that has harried half the hills,
And filled the roads with terror. An excuse
To bid him to the hunting.
Margherita
(musingly):
That may do.—
Thou say'st the boar is savage?
Agnes:
As the hills.
And tusked like Satan.—Why, 't is said six men,
224
Margherita
(with resolution):
'T would do.—
Six men? and Raymond's one, and hunts alone.—
What if the monster took him by surprise?
Agnes:
Why speak'st thou thus? Why starest thou at naught?—
He would not need confessor then!—but thou—
Thou surely wouldst.—Come; leave dark thoughts like these,
That lead to dreadful cellars of the soul.—
I must retire.—Thou wilt not still remain?
Margherita
(abstractedly):
I'll follow soon. I would remain awhile.
I but await the coming here of Raymond;
I would consult with him about this boar—
It must be slain, abolished.—
[Agnes gazes at her sadly and retires.
Huge and wild.—
Now could I play upon his pride and courage
So he would hunt this monster without hounds,
225
The beast is more than any one man's match,
Though that man, Raymond, Lord of Roussillon;
Then might there be an end to all this fear,
That, like a dagger, threatens everywhere,
Pointed from every corner at my heart,
And Cabestaing's—
[Cabestaing enters silently.
Cabestaing:
A spirit spoke my name!—
Oh, it is thou! (embracing her)
and lost in meditation!
I thought the castle slept; all had retired.
Margherita:
My happiness, importunate as a page,
Kept knocking at my heart's door, and I rose.—
Only we two and our deep love awake.—
What led thy wild heart here at such an hour?
Cabestaing:
I wandered restless till a vision called,
That had thy voice, and to this Hall I came
To sing a new song to the spirit of beauty,
And the imagined presence of my love,—
226
Attendant on my fancy.
Margherita:
I am glad.
I have not heard thy voice, it seems, for days.
Albeit but an hour ago thou stood'st
Speaking beneath my balcony.—Take care.—
The garden hath assassins, so I hear,
Who watch my windows; watch with daggers drawn.
Cabestaing
(smiling):
I saw them. I was hidden where the yews
Cast a deep shadow on a world of roses.
I should have faced them—with my sword? or lute?—
[Laughing.
Which, dost thou think?—It was not brave of me.
But there I lay. And they passed through the postern,
Searching the mews and kennels I suppose.—
I waited their return. They did not come.
But while I waited petals of the rose
Rained on my hair and eyes: a nightingale
227
And sang its song of triumph. 'T was a sign
That Love had me in ward. Naught now could harm me,
Or thee, belovéd. So I set my thought
To the wild music of the nightingale,
And made a song for thee. I have it here;
[Striking his brow with the palm of his hand.
And came to try it in the silent Hall—
And find an audience.
Margherita
(gazing at him with fascinated eyes):
Meaning Love and me.
Yea, we be fain to hear how this same bird
Inspired thy soul.
Cabestaing
(taking both her hands in his and kissing them):
I have no memory
For all the songs I make to thee. No book
Would hold them. They are like the birds that sing
And fly and sing again. Ever within me is
The throbbing of their happiness, like wings;
And all their words are music made of thee.
They utter all that moonlight says to flowers,
That fragrance syllables to dusk and dew,
228
Such things as find expression in the soul,
Impossible to language, say in words.
Inadequate is speech when Love would speak
Praise of its object, of the one beloved.
Therefore the song I made there can portray
A moiety only of the thing I felt.
Authentic words should flow. Each stop should be
A heart-beat set to music.
Margherita
(rapturously):
Let me judge.—
A little would I learn of what is writ
In flame within the great book of thy heart.
[While they have been speaking the torches in the sconces have gradually died down or expired, until the great Hall is almost lost in shadow, save for the light of the moon that streams through the arches of the balconied casement overbrowing the precipice. Margherita seats herself on a carven chair in the moonlight. Cabestaing, lute in hand, reclines on a wolf-skin at her feet. As he sings, accompanying
229
Cabestaing
(sings):
Lo, as I wandered one day,
Wandered forlorn;
There in the thorns of my way,
White as a cluster of May,
Love, with a face like the morn,
Laughed and was born.
Wandered forlorn;
There in the thorns of my way,
White as a cluster of May,
Love, with a face like the morn,
Laughed and was born.
Swift to her side were my feet,
Swift to her side;
Sweet were her kisses and sweet,
Heart unto heart, was the beat,
Rapture of passion that cried,
“Love will abide.”
Swift to her side;
Sweet were her kisses and sweet,
Heart unto heart, was the beat,
Rapture of passion that cried,
“Love will abide.”
Margherita
(starting up, utterly bewildered, as she perceives Raymond):
Thy song has other audience than I.
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Cabestaing
(concealing his confusion under a stately demeanour):
Not wrongly, let us hope, though he have cause—
Seeing the setting we have given our piece:
Moonlight and shadow and an empty Hall.
Raymond
(grimly, striding forward and standing lowering before them):
Thou art an artist in more ways than one.
Methinks thou sing'st too often and too well.
Cabestaing
(haughtily):
Being the troubadour of Roussillon,
I could not be a miser of my art
Or sing less well, my Lord.
Raymond
(smiling fiercely):
Thou art too prompt
With haughty answers. Praise has made thee proud,
And evermore thy fustian struts in velvet
Fingering a sword. Strip from it now its mask
Of courtier speech, and tell me in plain words
To whom this song was written.
Cabestaing
(pale with suppressed emotion):
If my Lady
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Margherita
(hastily interrupting, having recovered herself completely):
Plain words, my Lord?—Here is no barrister
To tell thee plainly what thy wife can tell:
The song is for my sister, Agnes. She
Requested it of Cabestaing through me
To-night, at table: 't is a simple love-song,
A ballad for her lute, that she loves well,
As surely thou dost know who often here,
And there at Tarascon, hast heard her play.
Why, many a troubadour has made her rhymes;
These are the first that Cabestaing hath made.
Raymond
(harshly):
If these be made for her, I'll say no more.
Her husband shall correct them. (Smiling grimly, he goes to the door, left, and calls loudly):
Ho! a page!
[Enter a page and attendants with torches with which they replenish the sconces.
Go thou and bid the Lord of Tarascon
And Lady Agnes hither. If retired,
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The matter now in hand brooks no delay.
[Page bows and goes out followed by attendants.
If it be true he made this song for her,
Why does he sing it thee? And here, when sleep
Woos every eyelid in these towers? Ay, here,
In darkness and alone?
Margherita
(rapidly, in scornful explanation):
He'd have me hear it,
Ere Agnes heard, for fear of any flaws.
My ear is quick for such, or so he thinks.
And for the place and time—What other place
Within the castle is more public?—Here
Upon its various duties at all hours
Attendance goes. Thou camest even as I,
Or Cabestaing, or any person else.
As for the darkness, why, we quenched no torch.
'T is darker in the rose-walks of the garden.—
Ah, hadst thou found him singing to me there,
Wilt not confess Suspicion then had sprung
Snake-headed in thy heart, even more than now,
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Yet in the garden, often, as thou knowest,
This man has sung to me, 't is true, thou by,
At later hours than this.—By God in Heaven!
Thou wouldst not have me have him to my chamber
To sing it me?
Raymond
(gazing steadily at her with suspicious eyes):
Thou hast a lawyer's wit.
Well may it serve thee when there comes a time.
[Turning to Cabestaing
Thou singest often in the garden, eh?
Beneath a certain balcony and window.
Cabestaing
(with quiet candour):
Yea; in the garden often do I sing.
There is a bench of marble 'neath a window,
That hath a balcony, if I remember,
On which I sit and muse and sing. It looks
Upon the fountain from the upper terrace.
The prospect has endeared itself to me:
'T is quiet and most perfect.
Raymond
(with sarcastic rage):
Quiet and perfect?—Ay!
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Who hearkens to thy singing.—I have heard.
[Enter Robert and Agnes preceded by the page, who retires.
Robert:
What means thy message, Roussillon!—Art ill?—
God's life! I was retired! Why have me up!—
Raymond
(with irony):
I had thee out of bed to hear a song.
Robert
(with ludicrous astonishment):
What! art thou crazy?—Song?—The man is mad.—
Mad! mad! completely. So these troubadours
Have crazed thy mind at last?
Agnes:
What does this mean?
Raymond
(with dark directness):
I am not mad, though you might deem me so
By what appears to you unreasonable.
My action seems preposterous I know,
But you will understand when I explain.—
This, as you know, is Cabestaing; and this,
[With a sweeping gesture
Countess of Roussillon, the Lady Margherita.
I find them here, when all the castle sleeps,
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For thy true wife, Lord Robert. (With a sneer):
Wouldst thou hear
The song that panged the darkness here awhile
Before I summoned you? For true effect
The torches should be quenched; the two alone.
Robert
(with amazement):
A love-song to my wife?—I'll have his heart!
Raymond
(interfering as Robert makes a movement towards Cabestaing):
Thou hast no sword. (Laughing bitterly):
'T is, haply, in thy chamber.—
Let Agnes speak.—What hast thou then to say?
My wife hath told me thou didst order a song
Of Cabestaing, to sing upon a lute.
Agnes
(somewhat bewildered but grasping the situation. Naïvely to Cabestaing):
Oh, thou hast written it? 'T was kind of thee.
When I have heard it I am sure to love—
Robert
(violently):
The song or singer?—
Speak more plainly, madame.
Agnes
(with asperity):
The song, my Lord.—What else? (Turning smilingly to
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Thou'lt write it out
And with the music give it me to-morrow?
We ride betimes. Lie not too late abed.
I'll learn it while we travel. Robert here
Shall praise it—though he is a crusty critic.
Robert:
When aught of his wins praise of mine may Deafness
Make fast the portals of my ears and Dumbness
Tie up my tongue.
Cabestaing
(imperturbably to Agnes):
I'll have the music ready,
And give it in thy hand at break of day.
Robert
(with disgust to Raymond):
And thou didst have us out of bed for this!
Raymond
(significantly):
If, as thy wife has said, the song was writ
At her request, I have no more to say
To thee or her. I beg your good indulgence.
You may retire. Robert, look to thy wife.
Robert:
She shall not hoodwink me. Have thou no fear.
Come, madame, we'll to bed.
Agnes
(taking the hands of Margherita
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'T was good of thee. (Then whispering asidebefore she and Robert go):
I did the best I knew. Oh, have a care.
[Agnes and Robert go out.
Margherita
(fiercely to Raymond):
Art satisfied?
Raymond:
Perplexed, not satisfied.
Suspicion holds me still. That song, 't is certain,
Was never written for thy sister Agnes,
Albeit she took it; acting well her part.
I'll have no intrigues here (with imperative intensity):
I'd have thee travel,
Sir Cabestaing. The air of Roussillon
Breeds pestilence for poets. Take thy steed,
Thy lute, and thy apparel and ride forth,
At daybreak, with Lord Robert if thou will,
Or if he will permit thee. Never again
Let me behold thy face. Thy songs work sickness
Among my household. Plagues should be destroyed.
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(with emotion):
You leave me naught to say. Appearances
Debauch your judgment. I have no defence.
After these years, through which Affection went
Glad side by side with you and me, unheard
You send me forth. Oh, bitterly you wrong
Your excellent Lady here, yourself, and me,
With vile suspicions.—May they ride away
With me at dawn.—God send you comfort, Sir.—
To thee, my Lady, I will say farewell.
[Bows low to Raymond and Margherita and goes out.
Raymond:
My jealousy go with him!—Tell me now,
Did I not well to rid me of a doubt?
A green suspicion that was gnawing here?—
When he is gone then will I live again.
Margherita
(wildly):
This will I say: Thou hast cast out delight,
Poetry and music for a childish whim!
These ride away with him to-morrow's dawn—
But not thy old Suspicion; that remains.
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And in this House, where harmony dwelt before,
Contention, Hell's own hag, shall make her home.
Raymond:
Thy words are wild. Thou speakest as one speaks
Who loses great possessions—Is it true,
The large estate of all thou lov'st is wrack,
And Desolation in the House of Song
Sits wailing to the moon?—Woman, take care,
Lest, with this thing, thou damn thy soul and—mine.
Margherita:
Thou puttedst happiness away from us
When thou didst cast out Song. Thou let'st in wrongs
Old as the heart is, and their hate distils
Poison through all thy veins. There is no cure.
[She goes out looking darkly.
Raymond:
I would not cast her off: but I would slay
Deliberately, as men slay beasts of prey,
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'T is well he rides away to-morrow morn.—
Once he was in my heart; ay; as a son;
Since I had raised him up from poverty.
Though born a beggar, noble is his blood:
His sire, a spendthrift, squandered his estate,
And left his young son beggared. It was I
Who took him in and made a chevalier.—
He rhymed and twittered even as a page.
I sent him then to the high Courts of Love
At Arles and Avignon, where he was learned
In love as well as song—to my regret now.
When he returned he found my Margherita,
The fairest flower in France, transplanted here,
Won, after many battles and despairs,
From many suitors in the Lists of Love,
By me, Count Raymond, scarred with wars and years.
I could not help contrasting his fresh looks
With my grey beard. And then he had a voice,
Gentle yet manly that appealed to women.—
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Their liking was so swift—to my regret now.—
Their minds were mated. Hers and mine were not.
I knew it from the first.—They oft would sit,—
And strange! that I should never once suspect!—
Upon the terrace with myself and others,
Discoursing on the sonnet or the tenzon,
Sirvente or sixtine and what else, God knows!
A learnéd disquisition upon nothing,
Filled full of metaphors of euphuism—
Mere nonsense!—But in time, when I had made,—
Because he had my admiration,—(fool!—
Oh, twenty times the fool that I have been!)—
And Margherita asked it—(I was blind!)—
Made him her gentleman-usher, even then
I could not see the wrong I 'd done myself.
But others saw it. Many a hint I spurned.
But something I must see. I saw—blind fool!—
She was his inspiration, as they said.
And when a woman 's that—it means she loves,
242
The truth is said at last.—I see it all.—
Blind have I been to open evidence,
And wake too late for my heart's happiness.
She loves him; ay, she loves him. It is death
For me to think on it. Why, even now
They may be kissing in the garden there.—
Oh, that I 'd slain them here!—'T is farewell now—
Farewell forever to my mind's old peace!—
[Solemnly.
This is the last night they shall meet on earth.—
And if in some dark alley of the flowers
Out there, within the garden, they be parting,
[Drawing his poniard
This asp shall find them and its fang strike home.
[He has been slowly approaching door to the right while speaking. As he says the last words, with poniard drawn, he swiftly passes out, the door closing after him. Quick Curtain.
243
ACT III
Scene I
Midnight. A part of Castel-Roussillon showing a terrace beneath à balconied window on whose railing of stone the Lady Margherita leans speaking to Cabestaing, booted, spurred, and cloaked for travel.Cabestaing:
I must be gone now. Soon it will be dawn.
Dawn! and the new life far away from thee.—
God grant me strength now, double strength to do,
To wrest from Fate the happiness we demand.
I will be brave; and be thou, sweet, the same.
Shed no more tears.—Look where the star of promise,
Bright in the east, climbs upward heralding dawn.—
The night is old. I must be far ere morn.
244
Thou wilt return not later than a sennight.
I will find means of ingress. In some way
I will contrive it. Love, when lovers will,
Can overbear all obstacles. The days
Will pass on iron feet until the night
When thou art here again.—Farewell, my troubadour.
I kiss thy mouth and eyes. Farewell again.
Cabestaing:
My heart is as a lute beneath thy eyes,
Responding each emotion of thy soul.
Removed from thee, dejection shall untune
Its chords and all its golden music fail.
I would not leave thee yet! But I must go.
I fear some harm may come to thee tomorrow,
And I would be here as thy true protector.—
'T is cockcrow.—Hark!—Oh grief that I must go!
Margherita:
Harm would come to thee by remaining here.
No greater grief than that could happen me.—
245
Cabestaing:
My songs, like prayers, shall ascend for thee,
And reach the shrine of Him who hath in care
The hearts of lovers.—I will write to thee.
God guard thee always.
Margherita:
And be kind to thee.—
Farewell again.
Cabestaing:
Farewell, my Margherita.
[Margherita retires slowly from the balcony. Cabestaing wraps his cloak about him and remains a moment watching the window where she disappeared. Then reluctantly turns to retrace his way through the garden when from behind a clump of roses steps the Baron of Roussillon.
Raymond
(hoarsely):
Dogs should be killed like dogs! (Plunges a poniard into the breast of Cabestaing.)
Thou didst not know a snake
Lay listening mid the roses, and would strike.
246
(as he falls):
This is thy way then!—Oh, thou vile assassin!
Raymond
(with a snarl-like smile):
What? didst thou think that, sword to duelling sword,
I would seek satisfaction of a dog?—
Oh, no! my vengeance would be swift and sure
As is the lightning.—But thou liv'st too long!
[Stabs him again.
Cabestaing
(as by a supreme effort rising and leaning on one arm):
Warm from her arms I go to meet my God,
Her kisses on my lips!—To slay thy peace—
Let—that—thought—stab—thy—soul!—
[Dies.
Raymond:
Her kisses?—yea!—
May they turn fire to burn thee there in Hell!—
Thou liest still at last thy last song sung!—
Go! sing thy wild songs there, now, with thy fellows
Among the devils of Hell! (Spurns the body with his foot.)
Sing, carrion, sing!—
247
To whom thou strung'st thy lute-strings,—when it learns
Its bard's hot heart is cold!
[Kneels and listens at Cabestaing's breast.
Yea; it is hushed.
I thought it would be singing—but 't is still.—
So full of song thy heart was, songs of love,
I feared that such a little thing as this,
A sliver of steel, could never still it.—So!—
[Rising and gazing down upon the body as he sheathes his poniard.
It sings no more, no more!—Where are they now
Those soaring strains? that mounting spirit of song?
That fluttered like a lark and nightingale
Around the yearning heaven of her soul ...
O thou once-singing heart that sang her well,
Thou shalt lie near her! closer to her breast
Than ever heart before.—I will be kind!—
To both of you be kind!—But she must never
248
Her balcony views this spot.—I 've work to do. ...
[Exit dragging the body of Cabestaing.
249
Scene II
Late Morning. The Banqueting Hall as in Act Second, Scene First. Margherita, Beatrix, Ermengard, Malamort, Aubert, and Giraud at table. Attendants and pages waiting.Beatrix:
My Lord lies late.
Margherita:
He was an early riser,
So says Sir Malamort, who saw him ride
Forth from the castle, saddled for the chase.
Ermengard:
Haply he goes to hunt the boar I hear
Hath wasted half the County.
Malamort:
Nay: he hunts no boar.
It is a hart he hunts: a mighty stag
That haunts the forests round of Roussillon.
Margherita:
We will be served. He may not come till eve.
[Pages and attendants bring in various dishes.
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(to Beatrix):
As for the boar thou spokest of just now—
Would that our Lord would have the boarhounds out.
We have grown stale here for amusement.
Beatrix
(laughing):
Why,
Thou 'rt gallant to us Ladies!—Hunt thy boar;
I'll hawk for herons—or for hares like thee.
Giraud
(with enthusiasm):
A boar-hunt, Ladies! nothing could be better.
Margherita
(with decision):
Raymond shall have the honor of its slaying!
He hath grown strange of late; and I will wager
He hunts this monster without men or dogs.
Ermengard:
'T were death to any man.
Margherita:
But not to Raymond.
I'll wager that he hunt the beast alone,
And bring its head back to adorn our Hall.
Malamort:
I take thy wager, Lady Margherita.
A hundred ducats.
Aubert:
I will add to that
A hundred more.
251
And not to be alone
Out of this Danaë shower, whose gold shall make
A god of Raymond, I will wage a hundred.
Margherita:
Three hundred ducats then. The wager stands.
[Enter Raymond, pale, and cloaked and booted as if just returned from the hunt. All rise as he enters.
Raymond:
Be seated.
[They seat themselves again while Raymond remains standing.
Margherita
(looking at him intently):
Thou art tired and disturbed.—
But, that aside, we have a wager here,
These Chevaliers and I.
Raymond
(mechanically):
A wager?—Well:
Take care lest thou shouldst lose it.
Margherita
(laughing incredulously):
Nay; not I.
I know my Lord too well.—'T is of a boar,
A devastating beast which thou shalt hunt,—
[With slow, deep-measured emphasis.
Alone, with neither men nor dogs to aid thee.
252
'T is a huge monster, Roussillon, that holds
The neighbouring peasantry in terror. Ay!
A child it hath devoured, and hath slain
Six stalwart men, they say, who went to slay it.
Malamort
(laughing):
And countless dogs its mighty tusks have ripped
Sending them howling to the Heaven of Dogs.
Raymond
(who has remained darkly silent):
Ay? is it so?—And thou hast wagered now
That I shall hunt, unmanned, undogged, this beast
That hath slain several men and many dogs?
[He stares steadily into the eyes of Margherita and slowly seats himself without removing his gaze from her face.
Margherita
(sneering):
Thou wilt not hunt it, and I lose my wager!
I see thou wilt not, for thy face is pale—
[Scornfully
With fear.—I lose my wager, Chevaliers.
Raymond
(smiling darkly):
Nay; nay; not yet. When monsters make me fear
253
Sans men, sans dogs; and, if thou ask it, too,
Sans arms and horse—But, I will hunt this boar.
Margherita
(eagerly):
Thy dagger must thou have, for thou must bring
Its huge head to us, as a proof 't is slain.
Raymond:
This poniard then (touching the dagger at his girdle)
shall do the bloody work—
Or shall it be a spear?
Margherita:
Either, I care not.
Dagger or spear, it matters not to me.
Beatrix
(aside to Ermengard):
She sends him forth to certain death, by Heaven!
Ermengard
(aside):
He knows it. But what purpose lies behind?
Beatrix
(aside):
Canst thou not see 't is Cabestaing?
Raymond
(hearing Cabestaing's name; solemnly):
He rose
Betimes, like any lark, our troubadour,
And bade me bid you all a long adieu.
254
Or so I think—to seek his fortune there
With other troubadours at the Court of Love.
Lord Robert and his Lady left with him.
He will beguile their way, I have no doubt,
And breach the fortress of my Lady's heart,
Ere they arrive, with chanson or a sonnet.—
But are you served?—
Margherita:
We are, my Lord.
Raymond:
'T is well.—
I have a dainty for thee. 'T is prepared.
Let it be served.
[Motioning a page who retires.
Margherita:
Is 't fish or fowl, my Lord?
Raymond:
'T is neither fowl nor fish; but most sweet flesh.
It is a heart—of which thou art right fond.
Margherita
(smiling):
Yea, I am fond of hearts. Let it be served.
[A heart on a golden platter is brought in by the page and placed before Margherita.
Raymond:
This is a delicate morsel. Good Pierre,
255
According to a recipe I had
Of that stout epicure, my brother Robert.
Margherita:
'T is served in state; on gold; and must be royal.
Raymond
(significantly):
Ay; royal was it when it throbbed with life.
Margherita:
A stag's, perhaps.—A stag's, thou hast just slain?
Raymond:
A noble stag's. The heart of a great stag I slew this morning.
[Margherita tastes of the heart. Raymond never removes his eyes from her face. Then perceiving that, under the intensity of his gaze, she hesitates:
Yea; wilt thou not eat?—
There is no heart like this in the whole world.
Margherita
(a look of fear gradually coming into her face):
The heart! (shuddering)
—its savour is most strange! most sweet!—
I never tasted flesh like this before.—
I can not, can not!—
(recoiling from Raymond's
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Why dost thou glare so
With thy fierce eyes?— (terror in her voice):
Tell me, what thing was this,
Whose heart thou 'dst have me eat?
Raymond
(producing the head of Cabestaing from beneath his hunting-cloak here he has held it concealed during all this time):
This was the stag,
Whose heart was served thee now.—Wilt thou refuse it?
Malamort
(starting up from the table with the others):
'T is Cabestaing! The head of Cabestaing!
[Cries of Cabestaing! throughout the Hall, which quickly empties itself of guests indiscriminately mingled with pages and attendants. Margherita sits staring at the head which Raymond has placed on the table immediately facing her. Then, rising like an automaton, with her eyes fixed upon the ghastly countenance of Cabestaing, she speaks in a voice that seems to come from
257
Margherita:
The heart of him I love?—Of Cabestaing?—
Oh, no, no, no!—It is some horrible jest!—
No man that lives could do a thing like this!—
A demon's deed like this!— (maddening at his silence and the intensity of his gaze):
Say thou hast jested!—
Say it, thou fiend!—Say that this heart,
Which thou hast served here, is not his!—It is
Some fawn's!—some animal's of the woods!—a dog's!—
Raymond
(mercilessly):
A dog's!—Ay! 't was a dog's!—A dog that fawned
And licked my hand and looked with lecherous eyes
Upon my wife, who loved the hound too well!—
The dead dog Cabestaing's!—
Margherita
(tottering; with closed eyes; her voice almost inarticulate with horror and anguish):
O God! O God!—
258
Is Cabestaing's! the heart—my God!—was his!—
[Opening her eyes, that seek Raymond's face.
Never was crime like this before!—I see
The demon in his eyes that did this deed,
Exultingly, as devils torture souls.—
O God! O God!— (blazing into fury):
Unutterable beast!
Since this is true (speaking low and with strained intensity):
that I have eaten of
The heart of love and song,—know now—for fear
That I may ever lose the taste of flesh
So sweet, so poignant sweet—as long as life
Homes in this wretched body that I loathe,
No other food shall pass these lips.—May God
Have mercy on my soul!—
Raymond
(infuriated):
Magnificent harlot!—
Not to thy God, but Hell, commend thy soul!
Go meet thy lover there!—This steel, (drawing his dagger)
that drank
The life of Cabestaing, thirsts now for thine.
259
When here I found you, hungering face to face.
[He approaches her slowly from the end of the table. She retreats, facing towards him, till she reaches the casement opening on the stone balcony at the farther end of the Hall that overlooks the bastioned precipice of the castle's foundations.
Margherita:
Clean of thy touch my soul shall meet his soul!
[Leaps into the abyss.
Raymond:
That way was best.—Now I will hunt my boar!
Curtain
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