 | The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody |  |
183
ACT I
Darkness covers the scene. Faintly discernible, a mountain slope, backed by low cliffs, and beyond these the upper stretches of the mountain. In the cliffs a small cave, and before the mouth of the cave a rude altar or earth. Deukalion and Pyrrha are seated against the cliff; Æolus lies on his face at their feet.Deukalion.
Thou hast slept long.
Pyrrha.
I saw a burning lamp
That passed between the levret and the dove
On Zeus's altar, and a smoke went up.
Deukalion.
Dreams: we are old. The green heart and the sear
He feeds with dreams; having some purpose in it,
Or else His idleness.
Pyrrha.
No lamp was here?
No fire, no light?
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Some fire-sparks in the eyes
Of dull bewildered beasts that came to gaze,
And dully moved again into the mist.
They have forgot their natures, even as we,
And those who tremble yonder on the heights
For fear the ebbing deep should mount again,
Breathing this darkness have forgot ourselves,
Our natures, and the motions of our souls.
Pyrrha.
Was not the Titan here? Seemed as he stood,
Behind him dawn, and in his lifted hand—
Deukalion.
He came, in darkness.
Pyrrha.
What word should he bring?
Deukalion.
I feigned to sleep. I had no heart for speech.
Pyrrha.
What did he, being with us?
Deukalion.
Stood awhile
Watching thy slumber; touched the sleeping head
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Then vanished down the slope: and far below
Pandora sang.
Pyrrha.
Again?—
Deukalion.
I say below
I heard her once, and once upon the peaks.
A little after, thunder tore the sky,
And 't was as if, far off, unearthly steeds
And cloudy chariots plunged across the dark.
Hush fell; and, wailing like a broken bird,
I heard her dropping down from rock to rock.
Then for an endless season sat she here,
Her head between her knees, and all her hair
Spread like a night-pool in the autumn woods.
Pause.
Pyrrha.
Since the loosed raven flew, nor came again,
And since the black wind ceasing cast us here,
How long should the time be?
Deukalion.
A week, a month,
Measureless years, some moments. Time is dead,
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Somewhere abolished in the primal mud,
Caught in the rings of Python, whom at dusk
Of that last day, peering in terror forth
Before we shut the windows of our boat,
We heard hiss from the north and from the south,
And from the east and west, and saw him lay
His circles round the frothy rim of the world;
Or fled above the dark, Time softly there
Laughs through the abyss of radiance with the gods.
Pyrrha.
Think'st thou the gods laugh, now the colored world
They sought to when the spring was on the hills,
And had their stolen loves here, lies snuffed out,
A reeking lamp?
Deukalion.
Also therefore they laugh:
And therefore also do we bow us down
In fear and worship.
Pyrrha.
Aye, so.—What sayest thou?
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I say supernal laughter and smooth days
Fill up Heaven's golden room. For that the earth
Hath her dim sorrow and her shrouded face,
Should the gods grieve?
Pyrrha.
Husband, these breasts are dry
That fed our many sons; that head of thine
Is hoar with majesty of years and rule;
Much have I learned of thee and stored at heart
Concerning gods and men, the elder age
Of golden peace, the silver time between,
When lust and strife began to gnaw the world,
And these wild latter days. In the ark also,
Crouching in darkness, and upon this mount
Of weary darkness, hast thou held a torch
To light my mind to patience of these woes
Through understanding. Yet, behold, O king,
I understand not! Wherefore hath great Zeus,
Thy likeness in the heavens, bound like thee
To shepherd his wide people, sent his floods
To whelm them up, shut from the remnant clans
Sun, moon, and stars; and for a final curse
Drawn from the flints and dry boughs of the pine
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Yea, from the secret places of our frames
Sucked up the fire of passion and of will,
And left us here by the desolate black ebb
To rot and crumble with the crumbling world?
Wherefore is this, O king?
Deukalion.
Thyself hast said.
Pyrrha.
Yet know not.—Heavy of thought! Make me to know.
Deukalion.
Because these latter days are full of pride
And lust and wrangling; because his skies were vexed
With the might of rearing horses, and the wheels
Of chariots, and the young men blowing horns
Against his citadel; because the south
In all its chambers laughed a grievous red
Out of the vineyards of its wantonness;
Because our fitful pulses, when they fell,
Sang grief, division, terror, shame, and loss,
Troubling that harmony which is the breath
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To which they pace their souls, and act with joy
Their several ministries.
Pyrrha.
Why then so long
Do these flat slugs, that once were statured men,
Cling to the oozy earth-rind He would cleanse
For some new perfect race? Why, when thou heard'st
Prometheus whisper thee his fearful news
That evening by the farm-gate, did'st thou grant
No sleep to slave or free, till from the hills
The mighty pines were dragged, the hull-beams laid,
The roof-tree raised, the doors and windows set,
And through the muttering thunder all thy house
Led in to safety? When the holy fire,
Brought by thine own hands from the hearth, went out,
Why did'st thou bare thy white head to the storm
To fetch another brand, and, finding none,
Come forth with lamentation? Why were seen,
Through all thy mountain kingdom, runners stripped,
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Thou answerest not; but leaning darkly down
Over the head of little Æolus,
Fingerest a tarnished lock from out the dust!
Speak, father! Through this numbing gloom, this death,
This veil of years, thy silence pierceth me.
Deukalion.
I try to feel again the thing I felt,
But cannot, so the sinews of my soul
Are loosened. Yet 't was for this radiant head
That all was done defiantly toward God.
His father Hellen and our other sons
Were wandering, or had poured their lifeblood out
In obscure battle. This alone was left,
This little flower of Greece, for whom I dreamed
Kingdoms and glories, plaudits, trophies, palms,
And sound of deathless lyres across the world.
For his sake, fumbling in the gloom I built
This altar, and have groped about the rocks
For live thing worthy sacrifice; have lain
In bush and hollow till some dreaming bird
Or sleep-besotted beast fell to my hands,
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Upon the smokeless altar.
Pyrrha.
Once He heard,
Thou knowest.
Deukalion.
I know. We will not think thereon!
Pyrrha.
The unwrought shapes, the unmoulded attitudes!
The tongues of earth, the stony craving eyes!
Deukalion.
Unto the husband was the wife's desire
No longer, nor the husband's to the wife.
The young maid lay undreamed on by the boy.
The little life that was, was sinking fast
Or sunk beyond recall. God's doubtful voice
Out of the wind of the oak was fair to hear,
Seeming to promise store of goodly men,
And women vessels for the flowing life
To enter and be spilled not. There was hope.
Prometheus said not nay. Beside the verge
Of the spent flood did we not see him stoop,
Kneading the clay in with the roilèd foam,
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Then cry upon his work, and scattering it
Rise up in haste and wrath? Yet here was hope!
Pyrrha.
Yea, as I flung the clods, and stooped and flung,
I dared not look behind, for hope; and thou,
Stooping and flinging the allotted stones,
Seemed clothed in prime of years, foreseeing earth
With a big breed replenished; till on a sudden
Terribly out of the gloom the Titan cried;
Then we, ceasing, beheld, and fled in fear.
Deukalion.
Would they might sit as now, removed apart,
Brooding upon the ground; nor come again
With vague slow motion up the shrouded slope,
Filling the mist with formless utterance,
As craving to be born! My men of stone
In dreams appal me with their lifted hands
Of threat and supplication, and by thee
Stand the earth-women pleading.
Pyrrha.
Ere I slept
I was anhungered. Searching for sweet roots
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Unto a brackish water cupped and held
From that same sea whereof the gurge but then
Lessened its roar far down the craggèd dark.
There by the pool they sat, with faces lift
And brows of harsh attention; in their midst
Pandora bowed, and sang a doubtful song,
Its meaning faint or none, but mingled up
Of all that nests and housekeeps in the heart,
Or puts out in lone passion toward the vast
And cannot choose but go.
Deukalion.
In mockery sent,
In mercy be she taken, or on the hills
Drinking this darkness, wither and be changed
To such as we are!
Pyrrha.
Thinkest thou that Zeus
In anger made her thus?
Deukalion.
'T will be so. When she came
Our minds were dim and fearful.
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Very dim,
And blurred with fearful dream; but—By the boat
We crouched, and hearkened if the water still
Drew downward, or was crawling up again
To seize us unaware; the mist was full
Of beasts and men in wretched fellowship;
Then suddenly a breath like morning blew;
I saw as 't were a shadowy sun and moon
Go up the blinded sky; far off yet near
I heard Prometheus speaking, and her voice
In low and happy answer.
Deukalion.
He would catch
The hurlèd thunder-bolt, and forge from it
A reaper's hook; the vials of white wrath
He spills to make a wine-cup for a feast;
Curses he knows not from the gifts of love;
And in the shadow of this death, even here,
As low as from her pitch of pride earth's fallen,
He will be plotting that whereby to climb
And lift us high above the peaks of God
One dizzy instant, ere we fall indeed
And he with us forever!
195
Sings, below.
Along the earth and up the sky
The Fowler spreads his net:
O soul, what pinions wild and shy
Are on thy shoulders set?
What wings of longing undeterred
Are native to thee, spirit bird?
Pyrrha.
Hearken, is 't not
Her song again? Far down among the vales
Did'st hear it? Faint and far, but—Hearken still!
Pandora.
Sings.
What sky is thine behind the sky,
For refuge and for ecstasy?
Of all thy heavens of clear delight
Why is each heaven twain,
O soul! that when the lure is cast
Before thy heedless flight,
And thou art snared and taken fast
Within one sky of light,
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And from thy circling in the other sky the lyric laughters rain!
Deukalion.
Through the gorge there—a shadow—Pyrrha, look!
Over the torrent bed and up the slope
Something comes on, in stature more than man,
And swifter.
Pyrrha.
O swift-comer, it is thou!
None other, thou, wind-ranger, bringer-in!
Child, be awake! Prometheus!
Prometheus.
Entering, lifts Pyrrha.
Do not so;
These hands come poor; these feet bring nothing back.
Pyrrha.
Thy hands come filled with thee, thy feet from thence
Have brought thee hither; it is gifts enough.
Deukalion.
Is there no hope?
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Speak! speak! Through this dark cloud
The eyes of Zeus's eagle cannot pierce
Or any listener heed. Have we a hope?
Prometheus.
From earth and all this lower realm of air
The fire is gone.
Pyrrha.
Thy searchings!—Giveth ease
If but to hear thy voice.
Prometheus.
Seats himself beside the cliff.
I clambered down
Old earthquake-cloven rifts and monstrous chasms
Where long ago the stripling Titans peered
At play and dared not venture,—found me out
Flint-stones so buried in disastrous rock
I thought the Darkener sure had passed them by;
But not a spark lived in them. Past the walls
Rhipean, and the Arimaspian caves,
I sought the far hyperborean day,
But not a banner of their rustling light
Flapped through the sagging sky, nor did the Fates
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By Indian Nysa and the Edonian fount
Of Hæmus long I lurked, in hope to find
Young Dionysus as he raced along
And wrest his pine-torch from him, or to snare
Some god-distracted dancing ægipan,
And from his garland crush a wine of fire
To light the passion of the world again
And fill man's veins with music; but there went
A voice of sighing through the ghostly woods,
And up the mountain pastures in the mist
Desolate creatures sorrowed for the god.
Across the quenched Ægean, where of old
The shining islands sang their stasimon,
Forever chorusing great hymns of light
Round Delos, through the driving dark I steered
To seek Hephæstos on his Lemnian mount;
But found him not. His porches were o'erthrown,
His altar out, and round his faded peak
The toilèd Cyclops, bowing huge and dim,
Uncouthly mourned. ...
He starts up, and gazes toward the mountain-top.
Soon will the smouldering life
Cease even to smoulder! I must forth again.
But where? But where?
Pause.
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Where suppliants still must go,
But with the act of suppliance, and the mind.
Not stiff and rebel brows, not daring deeds
Be of availment, but to clasp the knees
And touch the beard of Zeus. Within his house
Still lives the sacred fire. 'T is there to have,
If one by sacrifice and rites full-brought
Could find the way.
Prometheus.
Laughs.
'T is there to have; thou sayst!
One thistledown of fortune to the good
And 't had been ravished thence, an hour ago,
To better uses!
Deukalion.
'T was but so long since
The thunder spake. Across the vault of heaven
Plunged down the shadowy furnishment of war.
Pyrrha.
Thou'rt wounded! Lo, this arm hangs helpless by!—
O, rash and overbold! Thou—thou hast dared—
The hermæ holding vigil at Heaven's bound
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Of perished gods, beside the inmost hearth,
Have spoken of thee, that the soul of Zeus
Hath shook with dreams of evil to his house!
Deukalion.
How might'st thou pass the terror of his ward,
Tread his serenest citadel, and come
Not thunder-blasted hither, with slight wound?
Prometheus.
Flings himself again upon the ground.
When each great cycle of Olympian years
Rounds to its end, there comes upon the gods
Mysterious compulsion. As a gem
Borne from a lighted chamber into dusk,
Heaven of its splendor disarrays itself,
Hushes its dyes, and all the whispering sphere
Hangs like a moon of change. Knowing not why,
Nor unto what, each brooding deity
Wends to the sacred old Uranian field,
Where bloom old flowers, which, in the morn of time,
Forgotten gods did garland for their hair,
To celebrate some long-forgotten joy
That then did pierce the heart of the young world.
201
At one another, waiting till She comes,
Mnemosyne, mother of thought and tears,
Remembrancer, and bringer out of death
Burden of longing and sweet-fruited song.
Then toward the upper windows of the stars,
The roof and dome of things, the place supreme
Of speculation inward on the frame
Of life create, and outward on the abyss
That moans and welters in the wind of love,
She leadeth up their shining theory,
And there they stand and wonder on the time
When they were not and when they shall not be.
This was my moment; for I knew 't was near,
And laired away among the steep-up crags
That bastion and shore-fast his pearl of power,
His white acropolis. Soft as light I passed
The perilous gates that are acquainted forth,
The walls of starry safety and alarm,
The pillars and the awful roofs of song,
The stairs and colonnades whose marble work
Is spirit, and the joinings spirit also,—
And from the well-brink of his central court
Dipped vital fire of fire, flooding my vase,
Glutting it arm-deep in the keen element.
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Down the green slide of the sea, till—Fool, O fool!
'T was in my hands! 'T was next my bosom! Fierce
Sang the bright essence past my scorching cheek,
Blown up and backward as I dropped and skimmed
The glacier-drifts, cataracts, wild moraines,
And walls of frightful plunge. Upon the shore
Of this our night-bound wretched earth I paused,
Lifted on high the triumph of my hands,
And flung back words and laughter. As I dropped,
The dogs of thunder chased me at the heels,
A white tongue shook against me in the dark,
And lo, my vase was rended in my hands,
And all the precious substance that it held
Spread, faded, and was gone,—was quenched, was gone!
Pause.
Deukalion.
In a low voice.
We cannot thank thee, though thy love be love.
Great is thy heart; we cannot praise thy deed.
Prometheus.
It was not therefore done!
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For our poor praise,
For our poor love and praise; albeit now
The shouting of thy loud blood drowneth all!
Deukalion.
After a long silence.
Prometheus, thou hast thought to be our friend,
Our blood-kin, our indweller; hast indued
Vesture of our mortality and pain,—
Wherefore if not for pride, for fiercest pride?
Thou hast found out wild pathways for our treading,
Whispered us Nature's secrets, given to our hand
The spirit of fire and all its restless works,
Yea, blown aflame our all too eager blood
Till earth went red and reeling like a torch
When Dionysus calls under the moon.
Look round thee, O storm-sower, what we reap
Now in the season's fullness! Is it good?
Pride was thy lesson, and earth learned so well
That she is fallen more low than she was high.
Prometheus.
And shall be higher than that height she was,
By all this depth she has fallen!
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In that day
Let Chronos lift his old abolished head
From mid Lethean mallows, and dim-tongued
Call to thy shadowy brothers where they dream,
And leading up his faint forgetful host,
Rive the great diadem from Zeus's brow.
Then may thy stormy will at last be thine;
But as for now, even for thy earth's dear sake,
Be humble, O be humble! Bind thy hair
With willow, and put on the iron ring,
That so, by walking fearfully at last,
We bend Heaven from its anger. Else shall man
Suffer such woes as now we muse not of,
And thou such punishment as quails the heart
To think on.
Prometheus.
Either now with violent hand
We snatch salvation home, or here we sit
Till Python, hissing softly up the dark,
Dizzy our lapsèd souls, and headlong down
We drop into his jaws, which from the first—
See, the boy wakes!
205
Waking.
Give me to eat and drink.
Pyrrha.
Water and roots I hoarded in the cave.
I will go fetch them forth.
She goes into the cave.
Deukalion.
Was 't well with thee
In slumber, child?
Æolus.
I know not. I did sleep.
Pyrrha.
Coming out.
The roots are gnawed, and the sweet water spilled.
Be patient, Æolus, I will seek thee more.
Deukalion.
Stay; let me fetch them rather. Thou wilt fall,
Or meet some fear. The sluggish serpents lie
And will not move, though trodden, save to sting.
Pyrrha.
Thou knowest not where the roots are still to find.
206
Rising painfully.
Together then. Ah, me! Where is thy hand?
Pyrrha.
Here, father. No, this way!
They go slowly out, feeling along the cliff.
Prometheus.
Poor poisoned flower,
Poor droop-head, down again!
Stoops over Æolus.
Woe for the house,
Woe for the vineyard, woe for the orchard croft,
The oil-tree and the place of standing corn!
Woe for the ships of venture! Woe on Him
Who sows and will not gather; shame and woe
Who sendeth forth and when the message comes
Makes deaf and strange!
He sinks down beside the cliff.
O Mother Clymene,
What of the song-thrush and the morning star,
The moon deep-hung with increase down the dawn,
The wet fields brightening fast, the hour thy pangs
Came on thee for my sake? What of the earth
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—Hears not! 'T was long ago.
His head falls upon his knees.
One deep, deep hour!
To drop ten thousand fathoms softly down
Below the lowest heaving of life's sea,
Till memory, sentience, will, are all annulled,
And the wild eyes of the must-be-answered Sphinx,
Couchant at dusk upon the spirit's moor,
Blocking at noon the highway of the soul,
At morn and night a spectre in her gates,—
For once, for one deep hour—
He lifts his head slowly, and peers into the darkness.
Say who ye are
That fill the night with deeper heaviness!
Break up your strangling circle and come out.
More, more, and wretcheder! A spirit pass
Into some old and unachievèd world,
A storm-fall in some wood of rooted souls!
But O, what spirit-piercing flower of life
Blooms from the wasteful heap?
From among the crouching figures of the Stone Men and Earth Women, Pandora's voice is heard.
208
Sings.
Of wounds and sore defeat
I made my battle stay;
Wingèd sandals for my feet
I wove of my delay;
Of weariness and fear,
I made my shouting spear;
Of loss, and doubt, and dread,
And swift oncoming doom
I made a helmet for my head
And a floating plume.
From the shutting mist of death,
From the failure of the breath,
I made a battle-horn to blow
Across the vales of overthrow.
O hearken, love, the battle-horn!
The triumph clear, the silver scorn!
O hearken where the echoes bring,
Down the grey disastrous morn,
Laughter and rallying!
Prometheus.
Thou! Is it thou?
209
Comes from among the recumbent figures, holding something aloft.
Where is Prometheus?
Prometheus.
I am I, thou knowest.
Pandora.
I had a gift for him. Where is he gone?
Prometheus.
Give me thy gift. 'T will bring Prometheus back
To the high home and fortress of his soul,
Where thou and he made gladness.
She gives him a fennel stalk.
What is this?
Pandora.
A hollow reed. I found it on the hills.
Prometheus.
Such used the mothers in the upland farms
Fetch unpolluted fire in, once a year,
To light their hearths anew; such would the girls
Crown with fir-cone and smilax when they heard
210
And whisperings of anguish dimmed their blood.
Pandora.
Such had Prometheus, were he here again,
Wreathed for his listening earth; such had he filled
With unpolluted fire, and kindled new
The hearth-cheer of the world.
Prometheus.
Earth, sea, and air,
The caverned clouds, the chambers of the storm,
Yea, the thrice perilous alps and crags of Heaven
Have watched the robber lurk, and laughed at him!
Do not thou mock him too!
Pandora.
Him I will mock
Who, being thirsty, climbs not to the spring,
But meanly drinks at rillet and low pool,
And thirsteth still the more.
Prometheus.
The spring? The spring?
He hesitates, then starts up with a wild gesture.
I could have done it once! I could have done it!
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Coming nearer.
Stranger!
Prometheus.
Hush, look! They rise at me again!
The Stone Men.
When earth did heave as the sea, at the lifting up of the hills,
One said, “Ye shall wake and be; fear not, ye shall have your wills.”
We waited patient and dumb; and ere we thought to have heard,
One said to us, “Stay!” and “Come!”—a dim and a mumbled word.
Mortise us into the wall again, or lift us up that we look therefrom!
The Earth Women.
The night, the rain, and the dew from of old had lain with us,
The suns and winds were our lovers too, and our husbands bounteous:
But lo, we were sick at heart when we leaned from the towers of the pine,
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O tell us of them that hew the tree, bring us to them that drink the wine!
They disappear.
Prometheus.
Only a moment did they strain their brows
In weary question at me, ere they turned
And melted down into the blotting dark!
He starts slowly down the slope.
Pandora.
They go to find Prometheus.
Prometheus.
Of these stones
To build my rumoring city, basèd deep
On elemental silence; in this earth
To plant my cool vine and my shady tree
Whose roots shall feed upon the central fire!
He turns to Pandora.
Love!
Pandora.
Where thou goest, I am; there, even now
I stand and cry thee to me.
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Starts again down the slope.
Yea, I come,
I come; to find somewhere through the piled gloom
A mountain path to unimagined day,
Build all this anger into walls of war
Not dreamed of, dung and fatten with this death
New fields of pleasant life, and make them teem
Strange corn, miraculous wine!
Pandora.
Watching him disappear.
Prometheus, lord!
| The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody | |