University of Virginia Library

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
Hath cloven to the core, thou rear'st thy form,
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,
And all I loved was swallowed up in night;
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!
And prayer and toil and tears can help no more!
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,
Crowned with her youth and beauty, like a bloom,
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.

The Man:
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.
Sword-like he glitters; bright, illumined, vast;
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.”

The Man:
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.
And Beauty, who I dreamed was dead, behold,
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?