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.)
With the smell of the dead man still upon you!
Your dark hair wet from his death-damp forehead!
You are not my Ina, for she is a memory.
A marble chisell'd, in my heart's dark chamber
Set up for ever, and naught can change her;
And you are a stranger, and the gulf between us
Is wide as the plains, and as deep as Pacific.
And now, good night. In your serape folded
Hard by in the light of the pine-knot fire,
Sleep you as sound as you will be welcome;
And on the morrow—now mark me, madam—
When tomorrow comes, why, you will turn you
To the right or left as did Father Abram.
Good night, for ever and for aye, good by;
My bitter is sweet and your truth is a lie.
Ina
(letting go his arm and stepping back.)
Well, then! 'tis over, and 'tis well thus ended;
I am well escaped from my life's devotion.
The waters of bliss are a waste of bitterness;
The day of joy I did join hands over,
As a bow of promise when my years were weary,
And set high up as a brazen serpent
To look upon when I else had fainted
In burning deserts, while you sipp'd ices
And snowy sherbets, and roam'd unfetter'd,
Is a deadly asp in the fruit and flowers
That you in your bitterness now bear to me;
But its fangs unfasten and it glides down from me,
From a Cleopatra of cold white marble.
I have but done what I would do over,
Did I find one worthy of so much devotion;
And, standing here with my clean hands folded
Above a bosom whose crime is courage,
The only regret that my heart discovers
Is that I should do and have dared so greatly
For the love of one who deserved so little.
Nay! say no more, nor attempt to approach me!
This ten feet line lying now between us
Shall never be less while the land has measure.
See! night is forgetting the east in the heavens;
The birds pipe shrill and the beasts howl answer.
