University of Virginia Library

I.

SCENE—A Franciscan House. St Ebbe's, Oxford. A winter sunrise, 1267.
Roger Bacon sitting at a desk, dressed as a Franciscan friar, barefooted.
[Writes, and then pauses.
[A voice is heard without chanting a Latin hymn.
[Voice is heard singing again.
Enter Joannes, a young Franciscan.
Joan.
How should I be sad,
My father, when our God has given me all
The fulness of His favours? I, who, poor,
Bereaved of father, mother, home, have found
Safe shelter here; and for the city's crowd,
This saintly calm; for ignorance untaught,
Uncared for, all the wondrous thoughts that rise
From opening knowledge; for the ribald scoff
And fierce rough jests, these songs of seraphim,
These prayers by day and night, I must be glad.
But thou, my father, on thy weary brow
Are traced long hours of vigil. Thou hast watched
The seven-starred Wain move onward till it paled,
And wrapt in thought as in a garment, lost
Thy power to count, or eve, or night, or morn.
Yield now to nature, let me tend on thee,
Prepare thy couch, bring furs to cover thee,
And sing thee to thy slumber. I must pay
The debt I owe thee.

Bacon.
Thanks, thou gentle boy;
Thy kindness saddens, as but now thy song
Gave me a moment's cheer. What debt is due
For all the little thou hast learnt of me,
The much that thou hast taught me? Is not life
The brighter for all interchange of thought?
Is it not written, “Freely ye received,
As freely give.” 'Twere better rest than sleep,
To talk with thee of Wisdom, and the paths,
Star-paved, that lead to her high firmament,
And give thee counsel how to know the true,
And shun the counterfeit. Three years have passed
Since first I taught thee. Does thy purpose cleave
As steadfastly as ever? Take account;
Look back upon the ground that thou hast gained,
The world that lies before thee, and decide
If thou hast courage for thy high emprise.
Should thy heart fail thee, or thy spirit faint,
Turn back to lowlier ways. Hast thou the sign
God gives His chosen warriors? As of old,
Their joys and sorrows are not as the rest:
Their fleece is wet when all around is dry;
The dew of heaven is theirs, to cheer and bless,
When others sink upon the arid sand;
Their fleece is dry when all around is wet,
They have their sorrows which the world knows not,
Their conflicts in the midnight loneliness
That others taste not.

Joan.
Yes, my father, yes.
My heart misgives me not. Thy hand has helped
My feeble steps through maze and tangled brake,
And I look back on what, when first I came,
Seemed a far country. All the threefold way
Of Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, I leave
As childish things behind me, and I press
On to the great Quadrivium, where I know
Thy counsels will not fail me. How I fare
In music thou hast heard. Each day from thee
I learn the mystic powers and subtle laws
Of Numbers; and my hand is skilled to trace
The circles and triangles, whence we learn
To measure earth and heaven. When nightfall comes
I watch the stars, and note where Venus shines,
Companion to the moon, or seen at morn,
The herald of the sun. The Pleiads fair,
Arcturus and Orion, these I know,
And on the silver sphere thy hands have framed
Can trace the line which marks the equal day,
And all the cycles upon cycles turned
That cause the changing seasons; and the eclipse,
That frightens others as the scourge of God,
Disturbs me not, who know that earth and sky
One great Workmaster own; nor when at night
The bearded star o'er half the heaven extends
Its trail of misty light, have I looked on
With more than placid wonder. Yet there lies
One world I have not entered, and all this
Is but the outer court and vestibule
Of God's great temple. I would scan and know
The mysteries of my life—the spirit's life—
Whence come my thoughts, and what the primal source
Of all our knowledge, how to judge aright
Amid the strange confusions of our time,
Whence come the truths which subtle skill of art
Builds up into a system. Soon I trust
My progress onward will attain the prize,
And I shall enter on the topmost clime
Of all our knowledge, woo Philosophy,
As bridegroom woos his bride, and passing on
From lower teachers, list to him who speaks
Through all the ages, chief, supreme, the lord
Of many worlds, as he of Macedon,
The pupil of that seer of high renown,
Was lord of many nations. Yes, I crave
To know what he, the Master of the Wise,
Has left as our inheritance; and then,
When human knowledge rounds itself full orbed,
The outward and the inward universe
Mapped out and planned, to search the things of God,
The treasures of His truth which, hid in Christ,
His Church goes on unfolding, age by age,
The counsels of the past eternities,
The vision of the future, all the power,
The love, the wisdom of the Eternal Three:
This were the crown of all.

Bacon.
Ah, boy, thou dream'st
As I have dreamt before thee. Now the way
Seems clear and open, and the mountain-height
Far off is radiant with the rosy dawn.
But ere thou reach it, many a weary day
Thou must toil on, and find the pathway rough,
The woods bewildering, seas of ice and snow
Between thee and the summit. And the path
Thou choosest leads astray. It is not thus
That thou can'st climb to wisdom. Not by books,
The dead traditions of a glorious name,
Such as men give thee, can'st thou converse hold
With that Stageirite. I have scanned his words
In his own speech, clear, definite, and bright
As instruments of steel, and I have owned
The might of that far-reaching intellect,
And said within me, “What this man has done,
I too may do, and from his vantage-ground
Go on and conquer.” But these friars, who teach,
With vile monks' Latin marring all his thoughts,
Who feed on worthless husks and grainless chaff,
As asses browse on thistles, let them be;
Learn not of them, but go to Nature's self,
And question at her shrine oracular,
And wait her answer. Dogmas of the schools,
Thy master's teaching, yea, thy fondest dreams,
That seem to solve the problems of the world,
Test by her mighty voice, the fact that lives
When man's devices perish. I have toiled
Through painful years, and here alone I find
The way that leads to Truth—and now to-day
I set the seal on this my life's long task:
This volume holds the sum of all I deem
Most worthy of preserving, golden dust
From sands and rock collected. This shall be
The witness to the future age, of one
Whom few or none acknowledged in his life;
And one day thou shalt read it, and shalt find
True guidance. Yet I know not, as I speak,
How I may baffle those that watch and spy,
My brothers, in whose dreams the demon comes
And marks me his. In very zeal of faith,
Should these poor parchments come into their hands,
They will condemn, destroy them, and the fire
Feed on them grimly, while they wish, poor souls,
It had the writer also. I must take
My measures to defeat them. One has said,
Christ's Vicar, seated on St Peter's throne,
That he will welcome what I write. To him
I seek to send it; but the way is long,
And friends are few. There needs the strength of limb,
The fearless heart, the mind to measure right
The value of the trust, the golden seed
Of a more golden harvest, ere I find
One fitted for a pilgrimage like that.

Joan.
Hast thou not found him, O my father? Lo,
Though shrinking from mine own infirmity,
Fearless of all besides, myself I give
To do thy bidding. Did I say but now
I sought to pay my debt, and shall I lose
The occasion that has come, I do not say
To pay it, (that were idle,) but to give
My witness that I owe it? Suffer me
To bear the priceless casket; with my life
I answer for its safety. Next my heart,
As on the heart of Aaron lay of old
Urim and Thummim, it shall lie, the Light
And Truth for future ages. None shall tear
The treasure from my keeping. Never child
More safe in mother's arms than that shall be,
Firm in my grasp till death. I will not trust
Another's hands; myself will make my way
To where Christ's Vicar, on St Peter's throne,
Sits girt with subject princes. And my voice
Shall tell him that I bring, not gold or gems,
Rubies or orient emeralds, but one pearl,
Spotless and noble, and that pearl of price,
Thy wisdom, O my father, which thy soul,
Deep diving in the boundless seas of thought,
Hath gained, of many, goodliest.

Bacon.
Hast thou heard,
Dear dreamer, of the words that bid us heed
How we cast pearls before the beast unclean?
Those purpled prelates, pampered parasites,
Buffoons, or pedants—thou wilt seem to them
A madman, and thy journey o'er the seas
But a fool's errand. No. The way is long,
And thou art young, and I am loth the world
Should deal with thee too roughly, loth to think
The change and chance of travel may wear off
Thy blameless freshness. Wait awhile. 'Tis best
To carry on the purpose of thy life,
And give thy years to wisdom.

Joan.
Nay, not so;
God watches o'er the wanderer. On his head,
Or sleeping on the sultry wastes of sand,
With lions prowling round him, or on height
Of snow-crowned mountains, when the icy wind
Bears the wolf's howling to the frighted sense,
God's angels come and go, and they will keep
My soul from evil. Trust me, let me go,
For so, my father, (I must tell thee all,)
Thou addest to my debt. My soul has longed
These many months to see that greater world
That lies beyond the limits of our cells.
Fain would I seek the sepulchres of saints,
And kneel where martyrs conquered, fain would hear
The voices of the wise, and kneeling low
Before the teacher whom the general voice
Has owned Seraphic, (so the love of God
Burns in his soul with clear, enduring flame,)
Learn from him all divinest mysteries.
And Rome itself, the wonder of the world,
The mistress of the Empire and the Church,
City of kings and saints—Rome still has been
My waking dream. Deny me not, I pray,
Lest I begin to think thou dost not trust
My courage, or my steadfastness of will.
Hast thou not known me? Have I not obeyed
Thy least command? gone forth at thy behest
At midnight, when the storm was on the hills,
And spectre forms seemed flitting through the air,
To cull thee simples? swum across the flood,
To bear thy letters to thy secret friends,
Thy brothers in the mystery of thine art?
And should I fail thee now? It must not be.
Thou wilt consent, my father.

Bacon.
Dare I choose
Between the two resolves? To say, Go forth,
May risk his life, may mar his innocence;
And should I hear that evil on the way
Befell him, I shall go down to the grave,
As did the patriarch for his best-loved son,
In dust and ashes; yet to say, Hold back,
Renounce the bold and perilous emprise,
May quench the fire which God himself has lit,
And crush it into dulness. And the book,
What then shall come of that? It gathers mould
On some high shelf, unread; or friars, who hate
With all a bigot's hatred, tear its leaves;
Or ruder hands seize on it, as the work
Of an old wizard, whose accursed spells
Have given their children agues, or have sent
The murrain through their flocks. No, let me see
In that clear eye God's augury of good,
In that strong voice God's oracle of might;
And as one said of old, the prophet boy,
To Israel's pontiff, “Here am I, O Lord,
For Thou didst call me,” and at last the priest
Knew that it was of God, so I may know
That here is one true servant of the Truth,
Elect before the world to do His will,
And minister to Wisdom. Were it not
A selfish fear to keep him here with me,
That I may share his gentle ministries,
And find one soul like-minded with mine own?
I, too, am offering up a sacrifice
On that high altar. Go, then, boy, go forth;
God's blessing on thee, and His angels guard
Thy soul from evil. Once they kept their watch
O'er him who journeyed to Ecbatana,
And that bright vision of the archangel's love
Will not be far from thee. I will not fail
To watch and pray; and far as human words
Can help thee on thy way, thou shalt not miss
For highest words of honour. I will write
To that high Pontiff at whose feet I lay
The long-stored treasures of the mine of thought,
And tell him of thy noble zeal, thy love
For knowledge, worthiest mistress, and for me,
Thy most unworthy master. Fare thee well;
If thou must go, 'twere best thou tarry not;
Our brothers here are lynx-eyed.

Joan.
On my knees
I thank thee, father, bless thee; and I start
This very hour, across the frozen snow,
And track the river's windings. As I go,
My heart will sing for joy, more blithe and glad
Than when thou heard'st me in the morning's prime.

[Exit, and is heard singing:
And again,