University of Virginia Library

BITS FROM INA, A DRAMA

Scene I.

A Hacienda near Tezcuco, Mexico. Young Don Carlos alone looking out on the moonlit mountain.
Don Carlos.

Ina, approaching.
Ina.
“I have come, dear Don Carlos, to say you farewell,
I shall wed with Don Castro at dawn of tomorrow,
And be all his own—firm, honest and faithful.
I have promised this thing; that I will keep my promise
You who do know me care never to question.
I have mastered myself to say this thing to you;
Hear me: be strong, then, and say adieu bravely;
The world is his own who will brave its bleak hours.
Dare, then, to confront the cold days in their column;
As they march down upon you, stand, hew them to pieces,
One after another, as you would a fierce foeman,
Till not one abideth between two true bosoms.”

[Don Carlos, with a laugh of scorn, flies from the veranda, mounts horse, and disappears.]
Ina
(looking out into the night, after a long silence).
How doleful the night hawk screams in the heavens,
How dismally gibbers the gray coyote!
Afar to the south now the turbulent thunder,
Mine equal, my brother, my soul's one companion,
Talks low in his sleep like a giant deep troubled;
Talks fierce in accord with my own stormy spirit.

Scene II.

Sunset on a spur of Mount Hood. Lamonte contemplates the scene.
Lamonte.

Don Carlos ascends the mountain, gesticulating and talking to himself.
Don Carlos.

Lamonte.
What waif is this cast here upon my shore,
From seas of subtle and most selfish men?

Don Carlos.
Of subtle and most selfish men!—ah, that's the term!
And if you be but earnest in your spleen,
And other sex across man's shoulders lash,
I'll stand beside you on this crag and howl
And hurl my clenched fists down upon their heads,
Till I am hoarse as yonder cataract.

Lamonte.
Why, no, my friend, I'll not consent to that.
No true man yet has ever woman cursed.
And I—I do not hate my fellow man,
For man by nature bears within himself
Nobility that makes him half a god;
But as in somewise he hath made himself,
His universal thirst for gold and pomp,
And purchased fleeting fame and bubble honors,
Forgetting good, so mocking helpless age,
And rushing roughshod o'er lowly merit,
I hold him but a sorry worm indeed;
And so have turn'd me quietly aside
To know the majesty of peaceful woods.

Don Carlos
(as if alone).
The fabled font of youth led many fools,
Zealous in its pursuit, to hapless death;
And yet this thirst for fame, this hot ambition,
This soft-toned syren-tongue, enchanting Fame,
Doth lead me headlong on to equal folly,
Like to a wild bird charm'd by shining coils
And swift mesmeric glance of deadly snake:
I would not break the charm, but win a world
Or die with curses blistering my lips.

Lamonte.
Give up ambition, petty pride—
By pride the angels fell.

Don Carlos.
By pride they reached a place from whence to fall.

Lamonte.
You startle me! I am unused to hear
Men talk these fierce and bitter thoughts; and yet
In closed recesses of my soul was once
A dark and gloomy chamber where they dwelt.
Give up ambition—yea, crush such thoughts
As you would crush from hearth a scorpion brood;
For, mark me well, they'll get the mastery,
And drive you on to death—or worse, across
A thousand ruin'd homes and broken hearts.

Don Carlos.
Give up ambition! Oh, rather than to die
And glide a lonely, nameless, shivering ghost
Down time's dark tide of utter nothingness,
I'd write a name in blood and orphans' tears.
The temple-burner wiser was than kings.

Lamonte.
And would you dare the curse of man and—

Don Carlos.
Dare the curse of man!
I'd dare the fearful curse of God!
I'd build a pyramid of whitest skulls,
And step therefrom unto the spotted moon,
And thence to stars, and thence to central suns.
Then with one grand and mighty leap would land
Unhinder'd on the shining shore of heaven,
And, sword in hand, unbared and unabash'd,
Would stand bold forth in presence of the God
Of gods, and on the jewel'd inner side
The walls of heaven, carve with keen Damascus steel
And, highest up, a grand and titled name
That time nor tide could touch or tarnish ever.

Lamonte.

Don Carlos.
Why, truly now, this fierce and broken land,
Seen through your eyes, assumes a fairer shape.
Lead up, for you are nearer God than I.

Scene III.

Ina, in black, alone. Midnight.
Ina.

Scene IV.

A wood by a rivulet on a spur of Mount Hood, overlooking the Columbia. Lamonte and Don Carlos, on their way to the camp, are reposing under the shadow of the forest. Some deer are observed descending to the brook, and Don Carlos seizes his rifle.
Lamonte.
Nay, nay, my friend, strike not from your covert,
Strike like a serpent in the grass well hidden?
What, steal into their homes, and, when they, thirsting,
And all unsuspecting, come down in couples
And dip brown muzzles in the mossy brink,
Then shoot them down without chance to fly—
The only means that God has given them,
Poor, unarm'd mutes, to baffle man's cunning?
Ah, now I see you had not thought of this!
The hare is fleet, and is most quick at sound,
His coat is changed with the changing fields;
Yon deer turn brown when the leaves turn brown;
The dog has teeth, the cat has talons,
A man has craft and sinewy arms:
All things that live have some means of defense
All, all—save only fair lovely woman.

Don Carlos.
Nay, she has her tongue; is armed to the teeth.

Lamonte.
Thou Timon, what can 'scape your bitterness?
But for this sweet content of Nature here,
Upon whose breast we now recline and rest,
Why, you might lift your voice and rail at her!

Don Carlos.
Oh, I am out of patience with your faith!
What! She content and peaceful, uncomplaining?
I've seen her fretted like a lion caged,
Chafe like a peevish woman cross'd and churl'd,
Tramping and champing like a whelpless bear;
Have seen her weep till earth was wet with tears,
Then turn all smiles—a jade that won her point?
Have seen her tear the hoary hair of ocean,
While he, himself full half a world, would moan
And roll and toss his clumsy hands all day
To earth like some great helpless babe,
Rude-rock'd and cradled by an unkind nurse,
Then stain her snowy hem with salt-sea tears;
And when the peaceful, mellow moon came forth,
To walk and meditate among the blooms
That make so blest the upper purple fields,
This wroth dyspeptic sea ran after her
With all his soul, as if to pour himself,
All sick and helpless, in her snowy lap.
Content! Oh, she has cracked the ribs of earth
And made her shake poor trembling man from off
Her back, e'en as a grizzly shakes the hounds;
She has upheaved her rocky spine against
The flowing robes of the eternal God.

Lamonte.
There once was one of nature like to this:
He stood a barehead boy upon a cliff
Pine-crown'd, that hung high o'er a bleak north sea
His long hair stream'd and flashed like yellow silk,
His sea-blue eyes lay deep and still as lakes
O'erhung by mountains, arch'd in virgin snow;
And far astray, and friendless and alone,
A tropic bird blown through the north frost wind,
He stood above the sea in the cold white moon,
His thin face lifted to the flashing stars.
He talk'd familiarly and face to face
With the eternal God, in solemn night,
Confronting Him with free and flippant air
As one confronts a merchant o'er his counter,
And in vehement blasphemy did say:
“God, put aside this world—show me another!
God, this world's but a cheat—hand down another!
I will not buy—not have it as a gift.
Put this aside and hand me down another—
Another, and another, still another,
Till I have tried the fairest world that hangs
Upon the walls and broad dome of your shop.
For I am proud of soul and regal born,
And will not have a cheap and cheating world.”

Don Carlos.
The noble youth! So God gave him another?

Lamonte.
A bear, as in old time, came from the woods
And tare him there upon that storm-swept cliff—
A grim and grizzed bear, like unto hunger,
A tall ship sail'd adown the sea next morn,
And, standing with his glass upon the prow,
The captain saw a vulture on a cliff,
Gorging, and pecking, stretching his long neck
Bracing his raven plumes against the wind,
Fretting the tempest with his sable feathers.

A Young Poet ascends the mountain and approaches.
Don Carlos.
Ho! ho! whom have we here? Talk of the devil,
And he's at hand. Say, who are you, and whence?

Poet.
I am a poet, and dwell down by the sea.

Don Carlos.
A poet! a poet, forsooth! A hungry fool!
Would you know what it means to be a poet now?
It is to want a friend, to want a home,
A country, money,—ay, to want a meal.
It is not wise to be a poet now,
For, oh, the world it has so modest grown
It will not praise a poet to his face,
But waits till he is dead some hundred years,
Then uprears marbles cold and stupid as itself.

[Poet rises to go.]
Don Carlos.
Why, what's the haste? You'll reach there soon enough.

Poet.
Reach where?

Don Carlos.
The inn to which all earthly roads do tend:
The “neat apartments furnish'd—see within”;
The “furnish'd rooms for quiet, single gentlemen”;
The narrow six-by-two where you will lie
With cold blue nose up-pointing to the grass,
Labell'd and box'd, and ready all for shipment.

Poet
(loosening hair and letting fall a mantle.)
Ah me! my Don Carlos, look kindly upon me!
With my hand on your arm and my dark brow lifted
Full level to yours, do you not now know me?
'Tis I, your Ina, whom you loved by the ocean,
In the warm-spiced winds from the far Cathay.

Don Carlos
(bitterly.)

Ina
(letting go his arm and stepping back.)