 | Brangonar |  |
5
BRANGONAR
A Tragedy
PREFACE.
From his astonishing intellectual and practical capacity, the rapidness of his rise, the grandeur of the historic position he seized, the career of Napoleon offers a high theme for poetic presentation. But the great events whereof he was the originator and the pivot are too near to us to be imaginatively detached from the prosaic realism of history. This detachment is necessary for poetic idealization. Genuine poetic idealization is but a finer setting forth of fact, a more luminous presentment of truth.
For tragedy an historic foundation is the best. As the poet cannot invent history (his counterfeit of it would be soulless and unsubstantial), he must handle reality with poetic imaginativeness, and thus beautify history while interpreting it. Further, to obtain free poetic play history requires to be compressed, fore-shortened, exhibited, as it were, in a panorama of peaks, its spirit reproduced through its supreme moments. A period must be distilled and then reëmbodied in the personages who created it. The flavor
1868.
- Brangonar.
- Jesola, his first wife.
- Elfina, their daughter, seven years old.
- Madura, his second wife.
- Evoya, sister to Brangonar.
- Roso, his brother.
- Zorasi, lover, and then husband of Evoya.
- Lovéro, brother of Jesola, Council of Six.
- Riordo, Council of Six.
- Trifone, Council of Six.
- Carlan, Council of Six.
- Tesafo, Council of Six.
- Catalba, Council of Six.
- Borini.
- Alardo.
- Aide-de-Camp.
- Two Ambassadors.
- Three Ministers Flenipo.
- Lusky, confidential secretary of Brangonar.
- Sesto, a courier.
- Curio, a jester.
- An Assassin.
- Kings, Queens, Grandees, Chamberlains.
- Citizens, Soldiers, Attendants.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
ACT I.
Scene I.
A Street in the Capital.Enter Borini and Zorasi, meeting.
BORINI.
Zorasi! 'Tis yourself! Three years fly fast.
ZORASI.
You never counted days in banishment,
Or you would know, Borini, how time creeps
When soul and body dwell on opposite shores.
BORINI.
With you they 've met again, happier herein
Than many of your friends, for whom the breach
Will last till doomsday.
ZORASI.
That dread term is gone,
When death waited on maniacs, whose hot thirst
10
And in Heaven's face the bad shook their red fists.
Our country smiles once more.
BORINI.
There is some change.
ZORASI.
Some! why, when last I saw her, pale she was
From self-consumption, hacked with foreign steel,
And her whole function threatened with arrest.
Now, ruddily life laugheth in her veins,
And flames her eye toward worsted adversaries.
BORINI.
Aye, Death has moved his court, and now his craft
Plies through the cannoneer 'stead of the headsman.
ZORASI.
You speak as though of man's prosperity
The sharpest foe were death, and foremost actor
On the world's stage, playing the tyrant's part.
Not with rude willful terrors armed is Death:
No tyrant he, but gentle servitor
To Nature, when forth from his viewless couch
She summons him to crop her pendent harvest.
But when confusion mocks the forms of order,
11
The better to impel his ravenous shafts,
And man, grasping God's awful attribute,—
A token this of his enfranchisements,—
From Justice' seat rains death; then general dread
O'ercomes the world, and hearts of iron quail,
Trembling to feel heaven closed above their heads,
And earth given o'er to godless solitude;
For even then 't is not to die men fear,
But 't is to hold their life on mortal sufferance.
[Ordnance shot off at a distance.
What may this be?
BORINI.
The voice of Brangonar,
Who almost weekly to the capital
Sends greeting thus.
ZORASI.
Another victory?
BORINI.
Another and another. 'T is a sound
So common grown, men's ears have ceased to gape.
ZORASI.
Th' astounded world talks but of Brangonar.
Even in that wild corner of the globe
12
Fame is his captive, and, proud of her bonds,
With her unresting trump keeps earth awake
By repetition of his cannon's roar.
BORINI.
Here comes her loudest trumpeter: you'll hear
How he will blow this news into our ears.
ZORASI.
Is 't not Alardo?
BORINI.
Aye, that is his name.
The man,—such as he was,—hath ceased to be.
What 's called Alardo, is of Brangonar
The leg or tongue, or any other part
Whereof great Brangonar may need the service.
He has it here of proper nimbleness,
Dissevered from himself, and thus can send
A kick or kiss by post where'er he list.
ZORASI.
How men do change! I recollect Alardo:
He seemed a man of honorable motions.
BORINI.
Men never change: they merely grow.
13
ALARDO.
Zorasi
Welcome—a hearty welcome.
ZORASI.
Thanks, Alardo.
ALARDO.
Fortune would make amends, choosing to-day
To reinstall you in your forfeit rights.
Borini, you have heard the news?
BORINI.
Not yet.
What prisoners? How many thousands slain?
ALARDO.
Men have no breath to-day to count the means,
The end so busies them with wonderment.
A total rout, millions of tribute, peace,
Three provinces new-gathered in our bounds,
And the first fruit and instant benefaction
Of these our latest, loftiest achievements,
Is the return unto his Capital
Of the achiever and high benefactor,
14
My greetings to you both. Pardon my haste,
I must go share and feed the general joy.
You 're young, Zorasi, and the times are bounteous:
Farewell.
[Exit Alardo.
BORINI.
You look amazed: you are yet green.
You must learn faster, if you 'd overtake
The brazen meaning of the headlong time.
Know where you are, and waste no thought in wonder.
This metal-tongued Alardo has the tune:
Set you your will to his loud pitch, and thrive.
For me, who have no ear for martial din,
I'll go and read the faces of the crowd.
[Exit.
ZORASI,
alone.
Is this my greeting to my long-lost home?
Doubts flood upon my heart and drown its joy.
Is Brangonar a fear-fraught conqueror?
Oh, woe! when dread is leashed to triumph's car.
Is this he whom I 've wrestled with at school?
Whom I 've seen glow at talk of liberty?
Borini is a satirist: belike.
He sees askant. But this glib-tongued Alardo;
His speech is ominous.—Dearest Evoya,
My happy thoughts had blazoned thee in smiles
For this day's meeting. Now my heart is sad
15
Being troubled, the more timely is my coming.
[Exit.
Scene II.
A Room in the House of Riordo.Riordo, Carlan, Tesafo, Catalba.
RIORDO.
Strike we not now, and he 's beyond our reach.
Already is the future darkened by his bulk,
He grows each minute, and his magnitude
Belittles us. Let we the hour go by,
And our hereafter is a hopeless void,
And we, or slavish instruments or naught;
For, stride he one step higher, and he stands
So close begirt he'll baffle all assailment.
And then, farewell to manhood's privilege,
Th' inspiring joys of liberty farewell:
Farewell to generous hope that lavishes
Honors and might to who will boldly mount:
Farewell the shaping thoughts that make the bliss
Of busy man who builds his morrows freely;
For despots snatch each morrow from the heart,
Sternly predestining the daily life,
That men cease bounding towards the coming day,
But draggle in their pre-doomed nothingness.
16
Were it but sure, that having overleapt
His prostrate corpse, we could then repossess
Our lost dominion, 't were not much, to brave
Th' immediate danger of the enterprise.
RIORDO.
Who can be certain even of a day?
Could foresight pierce so keenly into time,
No land would gasp beneath tight tyranny;
For brisk abuses, manifest at birth,
To grossness ne'er could swell; and such as we,
Who now deliberate the dangerous means
To do our country service, would not need
In her behalf to pawn our heads, but spend
Contented lives, through wisdom's vigilance.
We 're born to dangers and uncertainties,
Which only resolution can disarm.
Courage plucks from the future its worst fears,
And turns hard doubts to ductile certainties.
TESAFO.
He being cut off, in these hot times ensues
Fiery contention for th' inheritance,
Wherein courage, that is not backed by strength,
Were a rash friend more perilous than gainful,
Thrusting us on a stormful ocean, where,
17
What are the means to breast the foaming surge
The bloody fall of Brangonar will lift?
RIORDO.
We strike at usurpation, which being down,
Each shall be free to repossess his own.
If still each man must quarrel for his right,
Would you not rather so, than have no rights
To quarrel for? For me, I 'd rather spend
My life in fighting for my rights than live
Berobbed of them a month. We 're near that now.
The wills of many are absorbed in one:
Men are again fast learning how to kneel:
The free in thought are pressed for room to act:
A soldier's sword glitters above our heads.
And we who 've given our treasure and our blood
To have no King, are threatened with a tyrant.
TESAFO.
An enterprise so big with consequence
Would be well pondered. We partake your fears,
And will anon confer with you again.
[Exeunt Tesafo and Catalba.
RIORDO.
Impertinent nobility! How well
18
I'm almost sorry that I broke to him
The hardy project. With what fluency,—
As though the current of his mind upbore them,—
The words, dominion and inheritance,
Rolled from his tongue. These empty people live
On dreams begotten by an ancient surfeit.
They are the cinders of authority:
To hear them, one might think they were its blaze.
For though, so soon as power herself had cleansed,
Drenching with blood, the plague-spots of corruption,
She cast th' incestuous weaklings from her bed,
Yet can they not believe themselves divorced,
But walk as brim with scorn,—such force hath custom
Upon the imaginations of the weak,—
As though they still paced o'er the breasts of men.
CARLAN.
And yet, they'll stoop so low, the despot's foot
Besmears their curvéd backs to reach the throne.
They'll serve a master to be lords themselves,
And sell their freedom to enjoy dominion;
Bearing the yoke, so they may smack the whip.
Mark how these two will soon be noted slaves,
High prominent in Brangonar's new gang.
Out of our fears they fashion hopes.
19
Well, let them:
More sudden than their rise shall be their fall.
[Exeunt.
Scene III.
A Room in the House of Brangonar.Evoya, Zorasi.
ZORASI.
I comprehend too well your current fears.
EVOYA.
I try to think them false, and to persuade me
They are but shadows which the backward time,
So black to all, casts on a woman's heart.
'T is vain: the thoughts I send in quest of hope
Never return, and thus,—like a sieg'd town
Whose desperate foragers are always ta'en,—
Each effort for relief but leaves me weaker.
I will be strong to-day, if not in hope,
At least in joy; and should be strong in hope,
For thou art here, with whom I 've scarcely dared
To trust a thought that peered into the future.
Methinks I was not wont to be despondent,
And thou being come I will be so no more.
ZORASI.
When I am near to thee I have two strengths.
20
And outface danger in his hottest rage.
And thou, I 've seen thee brave thy brother's mood;
With accents wrought of love and fearlessness
Hushing the billows of his willful wrath.
EVOYA.
The wrath I would again as freely front.
What drew those billows from their haughty height
Was the strong charm of love. That spell is broken:
Poor Brangonar now loves naught but himself.
That 't is that daunts and makes me dread the worst.
We have had scenes: this unto you alone.
The gentle Jesola, his wife, hath wept.
ZORASI.
Her brother, loved Lovéro, how doth he?
EVOYA.
Lovéro hopes too much: his nobleness
Would throw its sunshine in the darkest breast.
But here he is.
Enter Lovéro.
LOVÉRO.
Zorasi! (embraces him)
welcome home!
Most welcome. Much we need our better men,
21
That press them on th' impassioned reeking day,
Those most enheartened with humanity.
Time hath been long in travail with a brood
Of men so fiery new, they make events
Of such far drift, these rouse old History
From a late bed to dress her laggard self
In prodigies.
EVOYA.
A spawn of tainted Time
Are they who late have ruled, or rather, wrecked us.
They undid but to be themselves undone.
LOVÉRO.
They did far more than they undid; and when
They were themselves undone, this was the work
Of what had first by them been done. They taught,—
And 't was a manful lesson,—how to cut
The rot away that had for centuries
Gnawed at a sorrowing Nation's core. Themselves
Grew quickly foul; and then they fell as swift
As they had struck. But first they did a work
That cannot be undone, a mighty work.
Their death gave life. Their death was forwardness,
It was not retrogression.
EVOYA.
Would it had been!
22
The past comes never back. Can you refold
The apple in its blossom? or unbuild
The majesty of manhood's puissant frame,
And shrink it to an infant's littleness?
You can as easily re-live the past
As make your food of mouldiness.
ZORASI.
But still,
Events and men repeat themselves at times.
LOVÉRO.
To those who only read their surfaces
They seem to do so. History,—to Peoples
Within whose blood ripens the finer juice
Whence are distilled life's higher essences,—
Is an unfolding—
Enter abruptly Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Max is come, Lovéro.
I 've bid him speak with you. Let this affair
Be closed. We will not have these petty strokes
Thrust from the bygone to deflect our gait.
The past be done with: 't is not in our reach:
'T is dead. We live, and 'bout us howleth life.
23
We whose far swoop at the great future strikes,
The burnished, fair, the undistainéd future.—
Let this be done at once: he waits to see you.
[Exit Lovéro.
ZORASI.
General, hath exile so deformed my face,
You know it not?
EVOYA.
Brother, this is Zorasi.
BRANGONAR.
Ha! I remember—yes—Captain Zorasi?
You were deported for the affair of Sarnec.
It might have been much worse: you had strong friends.
The Colonel of your regiment—a brave
And loyal soldier—died but yesterday.
Take you his post, and be as true as he.
I know your courage and your skill.—No thanks:
Thanks should be kept for things unmerited.
Evoya, I would have some speech with you.
[Exit Zorasi.
I do not have, Evoya, from my kin
That kindly aidance which should grace the ascent
They all are mounting on my single leap.
Greatness and power and the reluctant gaze
24
At the first swing of genius' flashing sceptre,—
All this is close to their upstretching grasp.
'T is little that I ask. Concert I ask
With my prophetic plans, and furtherance meet,
For them and me, on the steep rifted road
I swiftly build with th' engines of my invention.
Something to me they may be: I to them
Am all. I lift them to the stately heights
Of circumstance, whence they, enfreed, shall wonder
At the lean belt where they now grope unknown.
My dreams are worth more than their noon-day senses.
To you, my chosen sister, I impart
Some of my soaring mind. You can conceive
What they cannot. Help them to see the greatness
That hovers near them. Happy words from you
Will be a light to them.—No answer now.
To-morrow I will speak with you again.
[Kisses her forehead. Exit Evoya.
I must have tools. Most men are dull or false;
And if you win one competent to seize
A nimble onward thought, and drive it home
Through shattering act straight to a sure success,
This ableness undoes his agency:
He plies to make of you a tool for him.
Of my own blood there is not one I can
Entirely trust. This one has too much will;
25
One is too scrupulous; too venal one.
The women all by love are ruled. Evoya
Is most like me; but she hath women's whims.
Her brain is not yet dry of girlish fumes,
Vapors, with the dear self sweet-scented soft,
That in dim incense steep th' unchastened eye.
So long hath boiled within her swollen veins
This passion for Zorasi, 't is herself:
Her blood is all of his one color dyed.
Capable he is, and brave, and resolute;
But troublesome with supersubtleties,
And poor. E'en could I break this foolish bond,
'T were certain loss of her. That were a loss
I ill can bear; for she will serve me if,—
And 't is a burly if,—if I serve her.
I'd serve them all, would they but help me serve them.
If they could bask, but for an hour, with me
In the hot lustre of my noontide hopes!
But no: the big-eyed brood that quickens there
They would not know, they could not even see.
Daily I hug them closer to my soul,—
Which feeds them and by them in turn is fed,—
These secret nurselings in my breeding brain,
Vast progeny of thought, to which my will
Must be the midwife, startling this old world
With a new history.
26
Ha! Sesto! what news?
SESTO
(handing a despatch)
Rulesti has retreated.
BRANGONAR.
In good order?
SESTO.
Unbroken order, without loss.
BRANGONAR.
'T is well.
I looked for this. Sesto, go take your rest.
I'll talk with you anon.
[Exit Sesto.
This is the bane
Of power: its instruments have not its soul.
Retreated! An advance and victory
Lay couched within the circuits of the ground
For one who had the vision to espy them.
He asks more cohorts, and wants wit to wield
Those that he has.
Enter Alardo.
How now? Is the pear ripe?
ALARDO.
And ready to be pluckt. The Council Six
27
Your deposition. This from Tesafo
I 've learnt, who, with his friend Catalba, will
Absent him from the meeting. Can you count
Upon Lovéro?
BRANGONAR.
As on you.
ALARDO.
I doubt him.
It matters not: he is alone. The rest,
Riordo, Carlan, and Trifone, are
Compact against you, and in special pay
They hold two legions sure.
BRANGONAR.
Whose chiefs are mine.
The Council, then, of Six is shrunk to three.
Of this triumvirate Riordo rash
Would be the Cæsar. I could let them rise,
Then bring them down. The wisest way is here
The quickest:—clutch them ere they spring.
[Exeunt.
28
ACT II.
Scene I.
Chamber of the Council of Six.Riordo, Lovéro, Trifone, Carlan.
RIORDO.
Of public men the basest sort are they
Who keep bold places in the general view,
And lack the manly pith to dress their words
As heralds of the heart.
TRIFONE.
But baser still
Are the poor hirelings of occasion, who,
Hanging their judgment on the moment's nod,
Still wait and wait to see where time will strike.
CARLAN.
To which of these belong our absent colleagues?
RIORDO.
One to the one, one to the other sort.
LOVÉRO.
Let us not weigh them in too subtle scales.
29
They cannot cope with our lean nimbleness,
Who are and make the disincumbered now.
RIORDO.
The load of this day's duty is so great
'T were guiltiness to waste more speech on them.
Shall an imperious soldier wrest the State
From its wide orbit's drift, distorting it
To his small option; and shall we, who are
High trustees of the nation, tamely bide,
And let this wicked usurpation range;
Or, wield the holy lordship in our keep,
And strike it to the earth ere it hath hardened?
This is the question we to-day must solve.
CARLAN.
To-day, this very hour; for Brangonar,
Strong in the sinews of ambitious will,
And daily stronger in the selfish love
Of a triumphant soldiery, hath now
His hand upon the hilt, with faithless sword
To carve a despot's brutal diadem.
TRIFONE.
Our function's fullness he hath disallowed,
Hath played the chief where he was subaltern,
30
Spurned our decrees, and from their clean intent
Our orders wrenched with contumacious will,
Sole wielding proud the dues of sovereignty.
RIORDO.
Wherefor with dangerous disobedience' bane—
Defiant of the State's authority—
He stands attainted. Thence, I move he be
To-day deposed. Generals we have as good
And less assumptive.
LOVÉRO.
To depose him now,
In mid career, when on our eager flag
Victory and he are stampt inseparable,
When lustiest foemen shrink before his tread,
And every soldier in our onward host
Feels that the soul of bounding Brangonar
Glows in his own,—this were to paralyze
The Nation's heart. Let us be one with him,
Not dare him with abrupt hostility.
His is a rightful power, as well as ours.
United we might hold the world in awe,
For its great betterment.
CARLAN.
My voice, like yours,
Riordo, is for instant deposition.
31
And mine.
Enter Brangonar.
RIORDO
(confronting him).
How come you here? You are deposed.
BRANGONAR.
You are deposed.
RIORDO.
What ho! Without there! Guards!
Enter three or four soldiers.
BRANGONAR.
Arrest these three, and let them be safe guarded.
LOVÉRO.
Soldiers, hold off!
BRANGONAR.
Who dares withstand my act?
LOVÉRO.
Justice and the dread majesty of law.
But now you stood upon a single height,
Whence none could wrest you, saving one,—yourself.
Unsay that heinous word: 't is not yet act.
If you descend, you fall to rise no more.
32
Soldiers, do you your duty. Take them hence.
[Exeunt the soldiers with the three. Lovéro gazes after them a moment, then walks to the Council-table and seats himself.
BRANGONAR
(approaching him).
Lovéro—Know you what you do, Lovéro?
LOVÉRO.
Know you what you have done? You do not know:
Men see not wrong for inward turbidness.
Were every act to th' actor luminous
With its whole nature, he would feel its being
So in the core of his, that false and bad
Would hideously themselves demonstrate bare,
And the quick soul, with its then insight sure,
Would shun corruptive contacts, as the hand
Its waste from fire, the blood decease from frost.
You know not what you 've done; for if you did,
Did see th' uncoiling horrors of this act,
Did read its lengthening scroll, ghastly with blood,
Ghastlier with every freedom's quivering death,
With most unholy hopes all apoplexed,
The vision would the temporal senses blast,
Swiftly dismember your incorporate being,
The soul escaping to securer home,
To leave its clay here cold upon the ground.
33
These bubbles of the brain, these emptinesses,
Are transient toys, and have no driving pith.
Blow them if 't be your humor; but alone.
You will not help me: hinder me you shall not.
LOVÉRO.
Can emptiness be emptier than this,
[Rising.
For you to deem that me you can command?
How much you lack for the sublimest part!
How much for the full making of a man!
None other can command my speech, my act.
BRANGONAR.
Beware, beware, Lovéro, how you thwart me.
LOVÉRO.
Go you the way you 've chosen: I go mine.
[Exit.
BRANGONAR.
He is incurable—or I am so.
Men visionary range so high, the thoughts
They chase mount so to vague imaginations,
They cannot stoop to give their words effect
In action. Action needs directness clear,
Marriage 'twixt thought and clean accomplishment.
When thought has not the body for fulfillment,
34
Best purposes grow lame and impotent.
Lovéro ever chases fleeing hopes.
He thinks men better than they e'er will be.
In times like these such men are dangerous;
For passions heated must be bound in moulds,
And not have room to spread and flame at large;
For so, their untamed fiery virtue shoots
To conflagration, that consumes itself,
And choicest building stuff to ashes turns.
He 's true, but has, although he knows it not,
Ambition to be first. If he would serve,
He were for me a peerless instrument.
[Exit.
Scene II.
A Public Square.Enter Alardo and Borini, meeting.
ALARDO.
Well met, Borini. We much want a man—
BORINI.
“We want:” is that the new Imperial style?
ALARDO.
Truth speaks at times through jest: of that anon.
We want a man, clear, keen, and practical,
In whose brain glistens sap from subtle roots,
35
In th' interchange of thought, more than he gives.
BORINI.
Your master—mark I do not flatter him—
Can do great things, but can he make this man?
For else, how will you get your nonpareil?
ALARDO.
We want him for a place of trust and reach,—
And of most gainful opportunities.
And thou art he we need.
BORINI.
You do not jest?
ALARDO.
In graver earnest never did I wield
My right of speech.—Here comes a wary bird:
Now help me snare him. Your sharp wit, Borini—
You'll know on whom henceforth to whet its edge.
Enter Tesafo.
Count Tesafo,—fear not to hear your title,—
Of the old times the best is coming back,—
You know the news?
TESAFO.
The capture of Agost?
36
Flight of the Barcan King. Another peace.
Three moons have scarcely waned since the great Consul
With single hand doth sway our sceptred might.
Already order and prosperity
Do reënjoy their own. Not arms alone
Have thriven: Commerce blithe, Wealth's wakeful nurse,
Ready pacificator, threads again
Her myriad sheltered paths. Men feel once more
Firm ground beneath their tread, wherein to plant
Securely. Tesafo, you have estates
In the rich province of Belmirimar?
TESAFO.
A patch or two. Would they were salable!
ALARDO.
You will be bounden to me, if I bare
An easy way to give them treble worth?
TESAFO.
So deeply you'll become my creditor
Yourself shall be the sounder of the depth.
ALARDO.
This affluent Province needs a Governor,
37
With such a one for its wide ministry,—
A man of head and active competence,—
That region, now decayed, would lift itself
To foremost consequence. Is it not so?
TESAFO.
It might be; aye, it might be.
ALARDO.
What we seek
Is the right man; and him we 've found, the man
For such high post,—high from th' importancy
Of largest functions, higher still from this,
That Governors of these broad Provinces
Will represent the Consul's very self:
They are his viceroys, so to speak. Borini,
Who, guess you, is the sure-eyed Consul's choice?
BORINI.
Presume I will not to divine. But had
His Highness thrown on me the choosing, far
I should not have to look.
ALARDO.
The list is small
Of men fit for these lofty stations. Come,
Give us your choice.
38
My judgment, good Alardo,
Is only that of one weak citizen;
And yet, my ken of men's capacities
Is that whereon I long have plumed myself.
My Governor were Count Tesafo.
TESAFO.
Me! Me!
ALARDO.
Borini, you should be his Highness' aide,
Your judgment jumps so pat with his; for know,
Count Tesafo, that I am duly charged
To offer you this topmost place.
TESAFO.
The Consul
Judges me rightly when he deems, Alardo,
He may trust my fidelity to him.
Favors from him I have already had:
This new one's greatness makes me pause.
ALARDO.
Pause not
Too long. The place needs filling: must be filled.
The Consul comes to-day.
[Distant cannon heard.
Ha! there he is.
39
Within the hour he will be with us. Come,
Borini, we have much to finish. Count,
Our Chief is swift in his resolves. Farewell.
[Exeunt severally.
Scene III.
A Room in the House of Brangonar.Jesola, Evoya.
JESOLA.
Evoya, I within this last long year
Have wept more tears than all my married days.
And daily heavier on my saddened heart
Presses my weight. Colder and shorter grow
His rarer letters.
EVOYA.
Be of better cheer,
Good sister: Brangonar with his big wars
Is all preoccupied.
[Cannon heard nearer.
JESOLA.
Ha! to the stricken foe
That sound is not more fearful than to me.
EVOYA.
To-day it heralds peace. Shall we not hope
That home will now be nearer to his heart?
40
For him there is no peace. For me no more
Can there be peace on earth. To me he 's lost.
As he ascends he seems further from me.
He mounts alone, like the rash venturing madman
Who cleaves the frigid solitary air
In a balloon, to whom earth's men are pigmies.
There lies an icy dread about my heart,—
A dread too terrible for utterance.
[Cannon.
Enter, running, with her fingers in her ears, the daughter of Brangonar and Jesola, a child of about seven years of age, Lovéro following her.
CHILD.
Oh! stop your ears, mamma; there go the guns.
Uncle shuts not his ears, but shakes his head.
JESOLA.
O best Lovéro, glad am I you 're come.
Brother, is it not hard that I to-day,
Alone of all this festive capital,
Must feel dejected?
CHILD.
I do wish papa
Would stay away—he makes mamma so weep.
LOVÉRO.
Dear sister, thine is a sore discipline:
41
A blessing to her husband—is denied thee;
For Brangonar hath not the love to know
What daily heaven on earth may be for man
In the calm home where waits for him a wife.
But thou, dear Jesola, hast still a heaven
In that mild breast where nestles warm thy child.
I sometimes almost think unhappiness
A sickly offspring pale of selfishness.
We make our little selves too much our goal,
Thus tying us to ever-shortening tethers.
If in distress we throw the self o'erboard,
Straight the saved bark of life rights to the breeze.
Enter Brangonar.
[The child runs to her mother and clings to her skirts. Jesola advances timidly, and as he then moves towards her throws herself into his arms. He coldly kisses her forehead, then the same to Evoya.
EVOYA.
Brother, how does my husband?
BRANGONAR.
Well, and better.
Here is a greeting he, the General, sends.
EVOYA.
The General!
42
Aye, for bravery and skill
I did promote him on the field.
EVOYA.
Thanks, thanks!
BRANGONAR.
Lovéro, I thought not to find you here.
LOVÉRO.
Where should I be but near to those I love?
BRANGONAR.
You are not near to me in love.
LOVÉRO.
As near
As you will let me; nearer than you know.
BRANGONAR.
I have one mark whereby to know my friends,—
Their readiness to serve me.
LOVÉRO.
Can the sun
Serve you, if you wall out his daily beams?
Or could the wind outfill your hoisted sail,
43
If I unman me of my inmost impulse,
Quench the deep fountain of my personal force,
Caging its liberal current in a pipe
Mechanical, whose ready cock a child may turn,
I am no more myself, and the first hireling
You meet will stead your wants as well as I.
BRANGONAR.
I am exceptional. Great schemes I have,
Schemes whose accomplishment will maze the world,
Uplift myself, my country and my friends
To heights undreamed of by the common thought.
I have approved myself a chief of men:
The best may serve me and naught derogate
From stoutest manhood. 'T is a false ambition
To exceed one's stature.
LOVÉRO.
I must be myself.
These heights of worldly place are none to me.
He who upstrives to compass them but builds
On Alpine snows; and when th' unceasing life
Of Nature's law does its resistless work,
The lapsing avalanche sweeps him and his
Down to th' abysmal wilderness below.
44
Tread still your misty wastes of sentiment:
My journey carries me through firmer tracts.—
Evoya, I 'd have private speech with you.
[Exeunt Jesola and Lovéro. The child stays by Evoya.
Enter a Courier who gives a despatch to Brangonar, who in turning to the Courier says
Evoya, send this pert she-brat away.
[Evoya starts with angry surprise, then exit with the child. Exit Courier.
Evoya, I would throw into thine ear
A something—something.
[Finding she is gone he stamps on the ground.
Ha! Ransack I will
Streets beggarly, where ragged wretchedness
Peers into offal-heaps for nutriment,
To find me those who 've everything to hope.
These o'erfed sluggards have so much to lose,—
Or deem they have in their dull sordidness,—
They have no stomach for a manful risk.
They still think backward to the gilded Past,
Or drowsy downward on the fatted Now.
The men who, nothing having, nothing fear,
These are my tools, men lean enough to climb.
Your dinner-stuffed respectabilities,
Your sleek time-killing slugs,—I'll none of them.
I'll make gaunt Squalor glare in ecstasy
With sudden opening of his starvéd eyes.
45
LUSKY.
Your brother, Roso, Sir, would speak with you.
BRANGONAR.
Bid him come in.
[Exit Lusky.
I sent for him; and yet
I partly fear to open all my plan.
He is a prey to fitful qualms, writes verses,
Keeps teasing pets in shape of theories.
He loves me; or he did,—for rapid rise
Cools brothers oft and friends. He has a head
That could to me be useful, if it would.
Of all my brothers most a man is he.
Enter Roso.
ROSO.
Welcome once more to home and Capital,
Great brother!
[Embraces Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Great I might be, brother, if—
ROSO.
What doughty if is this, that thrusts itself
Foolhardily on phalanxes of facts?
Or deem you incomplete that greatness' mould
That is not rounded with a regal crown?
46
If that be your ambition, speak the word.
BRANGONAR.
A Senator yourself, will you befriend
The big decree?
ROSO.
I should absent myself,
And so not traverse it.
BRANGONAR.
That were t' oppose it.
Even the sword, much more the sceptre, needs
A moral force, to give its sweep success.
If they who 're nearest to me keep aloof,
My pile of power will lack due buttresses.
Too much alone I stand already, and,
When higher still I climb, my loneliness
Might turn to infirmity,—or leave the sword
My single instrument of sway.
ROSO.
And that,
Even in your strong hand, might prove a tool
With double edge.
BRANGONAR.
Will no one understand me?
47
Six years, nay, three, gone by. Look where I am.
The viewless strengths have stridden by my side,
And power and change now wait upon my beck.
Great Princes crouch within their palaces:
Peoples uplift them in their naked lairs.
And my career is but begun. Think you
I would be King? I will make Kings. Yourself
I'll make a King.
ROSO.
You ride now on the wind,
And seem to guide it. 'T is a dizzy height,
To sit so steep above your fellow-men,
Yet conscious that the sureness of your seat
Hangs on their million-muscled motion, swung
By the ten thousand potencies of life.
BRANGONAR.
The world aye rocks to men of largest soul.
Danger is a condition of all being.
To be a King! So many Kings are weaklings.
Thou, brother, art a man of strength, of parts
To grace and fortify a lofty Kingship.
ROSO.
Kingship itself is grown an emptiness.
You may rule, King o'er multitudes of men,
But not when the vast crowd itself is ruled
48
Kingship befits less thoughtful, simpler times:
These are too salient with bold mounting brains,
To be a floor for Kingship's bowling game.
Brother, farewell. Advice is insolence.
My judgments and opinions I will give
Whene'er you think them worth your listening to.
[Exit.
BRANGONAR,
alone.
There is a mite of meaning in his words;
But naught to balk me of my vast designs.
Resistance makes them bulge. A crown I need,
A crown Imperial, to precipitate
My impatient aims.—And shall a barren hoop
Enring my brow, and I, who to myself
Can give this badge supreme of sovereignty,
Not leave it to my son?—I have no son.—
An Emperor should wed from an Imperial stock.—
That fruit is not yet ripe.
Enter Lusky.
Lusky, what news?
LUSKY.
The royal Duke, Ugento, Sir, is taken.
BRANGONAR.
Ha!
49
He was found close on our borders.
[Exit Lusky.
BRANGONAR.
Ha!
They seek my life. I will be even with them.
Th' encounter of two regal opposites,
The old and new, freighted alike with fire,
Charged both with th' essence of the Nation's being,
Hot with the pulses of opinion's life,—
From this encounter's shock shall flash a stroke
Will flutter these stale kinglings on their thrones,
Palsy assassination's muffled hand,
And let the doubting, doting oligarchs
Feel what a lightning slumbers in my will.
They will not know me: this shall teach them much.
He seeks my death, this Duke: he finds his own.
50
ACT III.
Scene I.
A Public Square.Enter from opposite sides two Ambassadors.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Baron, well met. I'm on my way to you.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
And I to you. Too fearful for report
Is this black deed.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
A deed the color of him,
The doer, the hideous whelp of revolution.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
An innocent Prince, shot coldly by decree
Of an incarnate demon!
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
And that we,
The spokesmen of anointed Majesties
Must silent bide in sound of such a shot!
The pitying winds, that cry this cruel deed
51
Will paint mute pallor on the nations' cheeks.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
The Senate have proclaimed him Emperor.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Thankt be they for 't. These shallow braggarts' eyes
Are bandaged by their self-conceitedness.
Neither their Master nor his slaves can see—
So introverted is their guilty sight—
That this re-raising of the prostrate throne
Is a far summons to th' ejected line.
And more;—the new Imperial diadem
Is pledge of wider war, of ceaseless war.
Only by sword can a sword-lifted upstart
Be struck from his usurping sovereignty.
Let us go in: we are observed. In this
Vexed city, stones have ears, and pillars eyes.
[Exeunt.
Enter Borini, Tesafo, and Alardo.
TESAFO.
Better have lost two battles than have gained
Such victory over one high harmless man.
This murder's blood so taints th' Imperial air
That millions of the well-disposed will turn
Sickened away. Alardo, that proud post
52
And served him faithfully. I cannot now.
ALARDO.
Count, for your feeling I must honor you,
While I deplore your act. Hold off awhile,
And the necessities of time and place
Will show this bloodshed in another light.
TESAFO.
I could no longer be a zealous agent.
[Exit.
BORINI.
'T is an untimely blow, this execution.
ALARDO.
Th' indenture that it makes Imperial growth
Will swiftly smooth. New epochs must create
New atmospheres, wherein their facts can breathe,—
Thus spake deep Brangonar, not two hours gone.
Kings have decreed thousands of undue deaths,
And no complaining heard. But let a Prince
Be struck, and the wide air, all saturate
With slavishness and regal dominance,
Shrieks, as the very heart of Nature's self
Were touched.
53
Things run so fast I fear a stumble.
ALARDO.
How quick a horse outspeeds the clumsy ox,
Who well might deem his gallop dangerous.
Beneath the drowsy spell of the slow past
All but the youngest of us lie so tranced,
The freer motion of th' unfettered present
To many seems a headlong rapidness.
Here come some citizens. Let's mine their meaning:
They know us not.
Enter several Citizens; among them Curio, a half witted humorist.
CURIO
(to BORINI and ALARDO).
My masters, be you Princes?
ALARDO.
Why do you ask?
CURIO.
If you be Princes, I'll take a shot at you. These be great times. With a flash we turn a Prince into dirt; and then of other dirt we make other Princes.
FIRST CITIZEN.
What say you to our new Emperor, Curio?
54
Catch me saying anything to him. I'll keep out of his way.
ALARDO.
And what say you yourself, citizen?
FIRST CITIZEN.
All I say is, health and long life to him. Anything else that he wants he can give to himself.
SECOND CITIZEN.
For me, I like a Republic better than an Empire.
FIRST CITIZEN.
And I an Empire best; for I want a strong government.
SECOND CITIZEN.
And I want a free government.
CURIO,
to Second Citizen.
You ought to be a woman.
SECOND CITIZEN.
Why a woman?
CURIO.
That you might be the better half of this other. Without freedom there is no lasting strength: without
55
BORINI.
Are you a Senator?
CURIO.
Have I more words than wisdom, more profession than performance, a lean wit and a fat purse? Be you Jack Ketch?
BORINI.
Do I look like him?
CURIO.
You have rather a hang-dog look.
THIRD CITIZEN.
I don't like this changing of labels. I say, stick to the Republic.
CURIO.
You should be an apothecary, by your speech.
THIRD CITIZEN,
huffish at being guessed.
Well: what of that?
CURIO.
Tell me then: how can I stick to a plaister, if the plaister will not stick to me?
56
There comes a courier. Let us go learn the news. News plenty, victuals scarce; that 's the way we thrive.
THIRD CITIZEN,
to CURIO.
Come, Master Loose-tongue; perhaps he brings a salve for your wits.
CURIO.
Your tongue is beyond salve: it needs the knife.
[Exeunt all but Curio.Men be of three classes. First, those that are whole fools; and these make up nine tenths of the world. Second, those that are half fools, like myself; and we make the other tenth. The third class be they that are neither whole fools nor half fools, but are downright wise. They that were here be of the first class: they know not how to speak, nor how to hold their tongues.
O! what a pity that men are not witty,[Sings.
But will be so silly and dull;
For unless one has wit, the devil a bit
Can he get his belly afull.
I could sing a better song once. That was when I was not hungry. Hunger eats into a man's brains. If I can't sing I can prophesy.
When men shall die without disease,And lawyers live without their fees,
57
And dice and cards are buried deep,
When tongues shall be our swords in battle,
And women have grown wise by tattle,
When flatterers shall have lost their meed,
And liars be of no more need,
When children shall not fear a witch,
And when contractors grow not rich,
When honest men shall serve the State,
And grain no more intoxicate,
When Kings are dead and buried all,
And Priests have gone the self same track,
Then shall we get up from the fall,
Adam and Eve will then come back,
Then will the earth be in its prime,
Then shall we have a right good time,
For then the Devil will be quite dead,
And every man be fully fed.
In the mean time I'll go try to get something to eat.
[Exit.
Scene II.
A Room of State in the Palace.Brangonar, as Emperor, in robes, on the throne, crowned, surrounded by the high officers of state,—the Arch-Chancellor, the Arch-Treasurer, the Constable, the High Admiral, the Grand Elector, Grand Equerry, Marshals, etc.
BRANGONAR.
Arch-Chancellor, Arch-Treasurer, and Lords,
Intendants high of this redoubling realm,
58
The throne's stout stay at once and pedestal;
This throne, darting fresh splendor in the eyes
Of neighboring unmasked decrepitudes,
Looms with a seeming suddenness, because
Monarchic might can best maintain a land,
Encompassed round by armed hostilities.
The people's scattered force needs centering,
To meet the strokes of hate-cemented foes.
Of these there are so steeped in dastard fears
They seek, by infamous assassination,
That to achieve which manly war denies them,—
The death of this great People's chief, striking
Not more at mine than at the Nation's heart.
For well they know, the leader's taking off
At this warm juncture, were to loose the hounds
Of civil strife; whence malice, anarchy,
And mutual slaughter; and to them this were
Their single promise of a mastery.
Weighing these motives in its wisdom's scales,
The Senate, earnest, and instinctive with
The People's and the Army's broad desires,
Hath now proclaimed the Empire; and it has
My brow begirt with this Imperial badge,
Beneath whose golden round there throbs no thought
But for our lifted country's lasting weal,
Its glory, grandeur, and prosperity.
59
That lowereth or rageth on the rim
Of our wide borders, have with conquest grown.
My Lord Arch-Treasurer, are you prepared
To keep the army-chests replenished full?
ARCH-TREASURER.
Sire, at your Majesty's command, I have,
With an exacting eye, scanned our long scores,
And find them equal to all warlike needs.
BRANGONAR.
And you, my Lord High Admiral, what show
Now make your dock-yards?
HIGH ADMIRAL.
Sire, there are afloat
More ships and better manned than e'er before.
BRANGONAR.
Marshals, I think that you and I may speak
Without misgiving for our armies.
Enter a Chamberlain.
CHAMBERLAIN.
Sire,
The Ambassadors and foreign Ministers
Are on the steps.
60
We'll see them presently.
The scenes close, so as to make an antechamber of the front of the stage. Enter the two Ambassadors and three Ministers, shown in by an attendant in gorgeous livery, who retires.
FIRST MINISTER.
The Brangonarian ante-chamber this.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
Odd place for us, born as we are.
SECOND MINISTER.
Some things
Some men never can fit them to. To wit:
Envoys being mostly old—
THIRD MINISTER.
Of all us five,—
And I myself am oldest of the group,—
Viscount, there is not one this epithet
Becomes.
SECOND MINISTER.
Dear Baron, pardon me. In years
Not one of us is scored with age. For you,
It lies not in hard years to make you old.
But all,—and I myself am youngest here,—
61
We have our habits, wants, and very thoughts,
Our dear beliefs, opinions, prejudices.
Thence oft to us the new is insolence.
THIRD MINISTER.
This surely is a special insolence.
Sir Count (to 1st Amb.)
, if we are kept still longer here,
Like guilty schoolboys waiting to be whipt,
Your speech will cool.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
I am mechanical
On these occasions, making me a pipe
For my chief's sovereign breath to breathe through.
THIRD MINISTER.
We'll wait no further. Spokesman of the corps
I name myself. Forgive th' indignity
Dear Baron: (to 2d Amb.)
You be th' Emperor.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
[Crossing his arms, and striking his hat down on his forehead.
Be brief:
For windy envoys soldiers have no ears.
THIRD MINISTER.
Sire, you 've laid waste our fields, defiled our homes;
62
This fresh Imperial growth of means to waste.
You 've spurned at us; therefore we flatter you.
Part of our territory you 've annexed;
Therefore ourselves we wholly annex to you.
You 've kept no faith with us; therefore we pray
You let us bind ourselves to you again
With tighter bonds, made of your broken vows—
Enter Chamberlain.
CHAMBERLAIN.
Gentlemen, his Majesty awaits you.
The scenes reopen, and show the Emperor and his officers of state as before, who rise as the envoys advance, and bow. The Emperor bows without advancing.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Sire, by command of my liege sovereign,
I bring to your Imperial Majesty
Congratulations and fraternal greetings.
My master trusts that your investiture
With dignities monarchical will be
Another tie of friendship and alliance
'Twixt your Imperial Majesty and him.
My colleagues, Sire, here present, honor me
By making me the spokesman for themselves
And sovereign Kings of full felicitations.
63
Sir Count and Gentlemen, accept my thanks
For the good wishes and congratulations
Wherewith you have just gratified my ears.
Say to your several Courts that my desires
Are now, as they have ever been, for peace.
The populations all need rest, relief.
Wars are the scourges of humanity.
Say to the Emperor, your master, Count,
I would that he would band his strength with mine
For reëstablishment of general peace.
We two, we might command it easily.
[The Emperor bows. The envoys bow, and then retire on one side, the high officials on the other.
BRANGONAR,
alone.
Unless it dureth long, Power's sway is naught.
Authority, that were an annual trust,
To be or ta'en away or reconferred,
Were, by a man feeling within himself
Monarchal might, not worth the holding. Nor
For single lives doth foresight dominate:
Men look unselfishly beyond themselves.
Prevision is of man's prerogatives
That one whereby, with likeliest warranty,
He claims companionship with Godhead's self,
With what creates and forerules wheeling worlds.
64
And this staunch forethought steads the general weal.
But when great monarchs found, resistless found,
New Empires, then stability and strength,—
Whereby so many millions stand erect,—
Hanging upon directness of succession,
What was parental care becomes bold duty,
The good, the very being, of a precious state
Depending on blood-continuity.
My daughter cannot reign: our law forbids.—
The gentle Jesola will grieve; for she
Has ever loved me with her whole pure heart;
And I love her, and the pert prattler too;
But she reminds me daily of my want.
Enter Lusky.
LUSKY.
Your brother, Sire, would see your Majesty.
BRANGONAR.
My brother Roso?
LUSKY.
Aye, your Majesty.
BRANGONAR.
Say, I'm preoccupied.
[Exit Lusky.
What can he want?
Lusky! ho! Lusky!
65
You may give him entrance.
[Exit Lusky.
Shall I to him uncover the divorce?
Enter Roso.
Well, brother, is a crown become more dazzling?
ROSO.
Crowns are to me what they have ever been.
BRANGONAR.
Have you a suit unto your Emperor?
ROSO.
I am not a man of suits.
BRANGONAR.
Your object then?
ROSO.
My object, brother, is a painful one.
BRANGONAR.
Relates it to yourself?
ROSO.
Not to myself
More than to others; most to you.
66
Speak out.
I half divine your drift. 'T is my divorce
That troubles you.
ROSO.
Far more than I can say.
BRANGONAR.
Every condition, brother, hath its core,
Whence only emanate the subtle lines
For its unravelment. The eye that grasps
The vast horizon of a mountain-top
Hath messages from upland, valley, lake,
That nourish valid judgments, whereof he
Is barren who looks from the bounded base.
On such a peak of social eminence
I stand, and thence see pressures, tendencies,
Relations, which men lower down see not.
ROSO.
Your peak is still commanded by a higher,
Whence from an ardent summit issue rays,
Without whose active light your social circuits,
However clear to intellect they seem,
Are in their bent and bearings as confused
As is, to him who waits on Alpine top,
Nature's far-beaming pageantry around,
67
Hath poured into the plain his sparkling wealth.
The soul hath rights against expediency.
Nature will not be outraged unavenged.
BRANGONAR.
Have you a special key to her best secrets?
Nature, forsooth! Nature! And am not I
A child of Nature, aye, a favorite child?
Why shall not I unriddle, too, the sphinx?
ROSO.
Duties there are that hold so much and strike
So deep, to break them sends a mortal pang
Through th' inner being. To break them breaks the breaker.
BRANGONAR.
If you are come to teach me action's law,
You lose your breath.
ROSO.
Brother, some time gone by
You proffered me a crown. I will unclasp
My tight resolves. I will accept and wear,
And loyal wear in fealty to you,
The weightiest crown your wishful hand can clutch,
So you renounce this fateful damned divorce.
68
My strength you gauge by your inthralling lack,
With lame reluctances would'st match my will!
Not more incorporate with the thunder-cloud
Is lightning than is will with act in me.
Right to my aim I drive, swung by the might
Of steadfast choice. Power is born of will
And thought, and by far-sighted watchers nursed.
What I dare do, you dare not think. The glance
And soar and fiery flight, that have rapt me
Up to this high Imperial diadem,
Are mine, and mine alone, and the pale awe
Of nations, their dread wonder, all is mine.
Nor have I yet swept my full orbit's sweep.
And you, you think to slack my swiftness,—send
The volleyed flash back to its cloud.—But, Roso,
Though me you cannot move, you can harm others
Whom I must use. This is no more your place:
Betake you to the neighboring Isle.
ROSO.
Farewell.
[Exit.
BRANGONAR.
This brother should have been a sleek high-priest:
He has, or seems to have, so fixed a faith,
And speaks with such an oily urgency.
69
What news, Alardo?
ALARDO.
Sire, great news. The King
Of Cillia has embarked, flying his Kingdom.
BRANGONAR.
I need it for a Prince of my own blood.
ALARDO.
The King of Barca, Sire, has abdicated.
BRANGONAR.
My eldest brother on that throne I'll seat.
So long as I reign here shall he reign there.
Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
By set of sun we must be launched
With speed upon our eastern track again.
Alardo, ere we go I'd speak with you.
[Exeunt severally Alardo and Lusky.
How deep a quarry is that element
Our days are measured by, which men call time,—
The feeder of all action, of all thought
Silent concomitant, mysterious womb,
Whence leap events, vast unsubstantial film,
Whereof all solid substances are knit
70
With thy omnipotent unseen resource.
So do I prize thee, that, delighted, thou
Dost fan me with thy sightless pinions, swayed
So strenuous round me, men bewildered gape
At our conjunctive deeds.—The fleshly frame
Must have its daily rest; but I begrudge
The moments lost to enterprise and motion.
Not all to motion; for while thought doth pause,
Nearer my distant aim I'm starlit wheeled.
To-morrow's early sun shall find me shot
So far upon my way, my partner, Time,
Will smile to see how I have cheated sleep.
[Exit.
ACT IV.
Scene I.
A Room in the House of the First Ambassador.First Ambassador; to him enter Second Ambassador and Second Minister.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
What news? Disaster on disaster still?
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
Naught else; and when one hopes the worst is come,
Swift falls a new superlative of ill.
71
Our Kings and Queens before this Ace of Swords
Are sorry deuces. But for highest stakes
He plays, and always wins. Satan must be
His viewless partner.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Is the battle lost
That late did hang so throbbing in the air?
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
That and another, still more bloody baleful;
And long ere this he holds the Capital.
SECOND MINISTER.
His legions wipe old boundaries from the maps,
He pressing them as they were bloody sponges,
And all our territories a scribbled slate.
His marches are surprises, his siege a raid.
He portions crowns as they were premium-toys.
His movements are the dates of history.
Enter a courier in haste, who delivers a package to the First Ambassador; then exit.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Now we shall crack the latest secret's nut.
'T is better than official, this dispatch,
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Is confidential with the trustiest tongues.
“A sudden solid peace I sure announce.
[Reads.
The battle-tragedy, whereof we had,
But a week since, the bloody final act,
Ends like a comedy, with marriage-bells.
Judge of their straits. The friendship of the fiend
The Emperor pays for with his daughter's hand.
This maddened scourge, who tracks the whirlwind's pace,
Who makes short days do the whole work of weeks,
Who never waits for man or moon or season,
Will have on th' instant his Imperial bride.
Take comfort: he who on the battle-field
Never misjudges, in the cabinet
Loses his vision. One great blunder was
His cold divorce: this marriage is a greater.
His weak foundations he would hereby brace:
He loosens them. He knows not how to walk:
He ever runs. He started at full speed,
And now he dares not stop. Time he outstrips;
And as he can no more retrace his steps,—
And would not if he could,—he spends his breath.
It needs no seer to tell where next will fall
His stroke. I know, and so do you. Farewell.”
The courser's virtue of celerity,
Taught us by Brangonar, with eagle's rate
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Covers a host of sins; not all of his.
The higher tools, here in his Capital,
Are tactile more and more to others' touch.
That instinct of the older rats is marvelous.
SECOND MINISTER.
That we, whose wishes father such a hope,
Turn doubtful incidents to expectations,
This is our desperate part. But that to them,
Who 're launched with him in his taut-tackled ship,
There come just now fears or uncertain thoughts,
Now when with sunlit sail he drives right on,
His foeless banner flaunting in the gale,—
This passes my belief.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Besides the cold,
And the hard skeptical,—who have no faith
In aught that 's new, though palpable and bare
It work effects before the very sense,—
Some faithful heads there are, so even poised
They sway not to the tremors of the time,
But calmly read the living history,
Which we so noisily are making here,
As if it lay long silent in the books;
And read so shrewdly, they precalculate
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Moreover, changes oft are felt ere seen:
Men snuff, they know not whence, big revolutions.
When great catastrophes draw on, and ere
Their portents gloom above th' horizon's verge,
The circumambient air is sometimes shook
As with th' inaudible wail of painéd spirits.
SECOND AMBASSADOR.
Before a week be flown, swift Brangonar,
Wafted by fabled griffins, will alight
Upon his palace-steps, to spur his laggards;
For such to him his nimblest servants are.
We all have business 'gainst his coming, Count;
And so I take my leave.
SECOND MINISTER.
Adieu.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Adieu, adieu.
[Exeunt.
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Scene II.
Headquarters of Brangonar, in a Palace near the Capital of the Donibian Empire.Brangonar. On one side, Borini, at a desk; Lusky on the other.
BRANGONAR.
Lusky, write to the Chief of Engineers that the bridge at Toro be built at once. 'T is a want of two fertile provinces. The road between Amstel and Werpen moves too lazily: say it must be finished in four months from to-day.—Borini, prepare an order for one million pieces extra, to be paid the Head of Marine Construction for hastening the harbor of Burgo. This great work lags behind our needs. Prepare another of two hundred thousand pieces for the Director of Arts, and tell him that when I return to the Capital I wish to find that this sum has been already in great part well expended. Say nothing of the time of my coming. Because canals are for slow transportation, they need not therefore be slow in digging. The great one in the South must be hurried. Write this, Lusky, to the Superintendent. The Master of Ecclesiastical Architecture is as backward with the new cathedral as if he were building his own tomb. Send him, Borini, a sharp note to spur his tardiness. Despatch
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The Church has one supreme and single head,—
The truest type of robust sovereignty,—
A central might, stupendous, paramount,
From whence, as from a towering sole Mount Blanc,
To all the plains flow streams of government.
What men most need is sinewy governing:
The densest multitudes are weak, unled.
Without strong men no peoples ere were strong:
They are the grounded natural Majesties,
By genius sanctified to highest place,
To whom men friendly bow a thankful head,
Feeling the heart replenished from their throb.
They lift the many into history:
They bind the ages into sequence wise,
Illuming with their thought the dim traditions.
Order doth flow from law, and law from might.
Order is welfare, and disorder wreck.
Disorder did I find and order founded;
And 't is my mission to outspread its rule
To the gross bounds of civilization's reach.
I am a fountain of authority.
These Kinglings, whom I topple, are the shams
That fade and perish in a quickening breath.
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The dagger you have wrested from his hand
Gleams in his eye. Who, what art thou, who dar'st
Single attempt a deed to shake the world?
Or art confederate with greater ones?
Hast not a hireling's look.
ASSASSIN.
No hireling I.
BRANGONAR.
What was thy aim?
ASSASSIN.
To slay thee.
BRANGONAR.
Wherefore? How
Have I wronged thee?
ASSASSIN.
Me and the groaning world
Of men who would be free.
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Before I came
Were you then free?
ASSASSIN.
Not free, we were less far
From freedom than since these gross brutal wars
You love so much you wage them ceaselessly.
When mind and genius and a despot's will
Meet in one man, all men within his reach
Must be his slaves. Such monster's appetite
Daily allays itself on human rights.
All wills must flow to swell the flood of his,
All pulses beat to fire the throb of his.
BRANGONAR.
Thou hast a will would be more bloated yet.
Who made thee judge of me?
ASSASSIN.
Myself: my manhood.
BRANGONAR.
Dost not repent thy crime?
ASSASSIN.
'T was not committed.
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You 've given, and every one a bloody stab?
BRANGONAR.
Worst villainy hath subtleties to veil
Its hideousness from the self-cheated self.
ASSASSIN.
I am no villain. Never was I false,
Nor ever wrought to lose a fellow-man;
Nor robbed my neighbors to provide my house;
Nor slept upon a fraudful thought, and waked
To act it—
BRANGONAR.
Take him hence to execution:
It is a dangerous egotist. Away!
[Exeunt, with assassin.
Captain, if he repent him, spare his life.
Enter an attendant.
ATTENDANT.
Two Chamberlains, your Majesty, ask audience.
BRANGONAR.
Admit them.
[Exit attendant.
I grow weary of inaction.
I must be on my westward route to-night.
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FIRST CHAMBERLAIN.
Your Majesty, our Kingly masters crave
An audience of you, Sire, to-morrow noon,
Ere they depart.
BRANGONAR.
Say to their Majesties,
I shall be glad to give them audience here.
[Exeunt Chamberlains.
And gladder be to miss their tedious talk;
For nothing more just now have they to give.
These Kings are bores; unwitting formalists.
No projects, schemes, desires, to breed large hopes,—
Such as should fortify a kingly breast,—
Stir in these spent hereditary brains.
Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
Borini, has he gone?
LUSKY.
Aye, Sire.
BRANGONAR.
Have all things ready for our start at ten.
[Exeunt severally.
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Scene III.
A Public Square in the Capital.LOVÉRO,
alone.
His bulk doth shadow half the thoughtful world.
We draw our breath from a perpetual chill,
An Arctic winter of uphoarded shade.
The many gaze in shallow wonderment
And palsied admiration; for to most,
These gross effects, these havoc-howling marches,
These plunder-snuffing swoops, this blasting glare,
Are signs of proudest power,—because they set
The senses in a blaze, and captivate
The coarser aspirations of the heart.
A seed, love-born within the spirit's core,
A germ impregnate with constructive thought,
Is silent freighted with a surer might,
With richer consequence, with livelier weal,
To hoping, panting, sad humanity,—
Easing the pathway for hereafter's tread,—
Than the piled glories of a selfish soldier,
Pompous with the resounding blazoned blare
Of hundred tear-dewed victories. The soul
Will not be satisfied, will ceaseless claim
Assuréd dues. Where will this end? for end
It must; and sooner than th' unthinking think.
His very halfness swells his present size;
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Distressful clamoring for its deep arrears.
Enter Riordo and Carlan.
RIORDO.
This man, Lovéro, is now grown so big,
Mortals can hardly see him at one look.
CARLAN.
Had he been pricked when he began to swell
He had not filled this fearful stature's mould.
LOVÉRO.
None had the strength to check him,—save himself;
And he, weak man, could not so use his strength.
[Cannon at a distance.
RIORDO.
I hate the braggart bellow of these guns.
Each boom 's the welding of another link
In our poor country's chain.
CARLAN.
These are to tell
The thirsty crowd that, had they but the wine,
They might drink welcome to their Empress new.
Besides her fresh Imperial Altitude,
A half a score of Kings infest the town,
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Our Palaces have not the rooms to house
This outswol'n spawn of bastard yesterday,
This mildew on the Nation's trunk,
Slimed from the reeky rankness of the time.
RIORDO.
Lovéro, pardon me, that to your face
I utter speech that sounds like purposed praise;
But you are honored as no other is.
And therefore I would have, at your first leisure,
Some conference with you.
LOVÉRO.
Name the day.
RIORDO.
To-morrow.
[Exeunt Riordo and Carlan.
LOVÉRO.
The wish to rule events is blasphemy;
And blasphemy is ever impotence.
He who would rule must feel that he is ruled.
Above us aye is law, God's law of right.
Whose will to this denies obedience deep
Is slave of a small self; and on that will
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A King, he rules not, though he seem to rule.
This is the curse of Brangonar: his will
Is one-eyed; thence, a will but half empowered.—
We ripen, slowly, slowly; but we ripen.
[Exit.
Scene IV.
A Street in the same.Enter on one side several citizens; on the other, Curio.
CURIO
(to First Citizen).
Do you know why there are more cardinal sins than deadly virtues?
FIRST CITIZEN.
You mean deadly sins and cardinal virtues, friend Curio.
CURIO.
No matter: Cardinals are the chief of sinners, and to be virtuous in these days is deadly. A man can't live unless he can lie and steal.—But what was I talking about?—Oh, the Kings, the Kings! The town is so full of Kings, the Sun is bashful about shining, lest he be outshone. These be such great times, I should n't wonder to see the Sun put out. He has been making our eyes blink and our skins sweat long enough. Down with him, say I; let 's have a Sol of a new pattern. The new Kings—there are ten of them, counting the she ones. No, that was n't the number;
85
FIRST CITIZEN.
Have you seen any of them, Curio?
CURIO.
No; but I saw the hind wheels of the carriage of one of them as he turned a corner; and my eyes have seen clearer ever since.
FIRST CITIZEN.
But, Curio, you 've seen the new Empress.
CURIO.
What do you take me for? I know my place; I should n't dare look at her. Besides, I never yet saw the old Empress,—I beg her pardon, the first Empress. First come, first served.
SECOND CITIZEN.
Curio, go early to-morrow to the Palace, and you'll see this family of Kings. The Emperor has convoked them all to a grand session, and you can get sight of them as they go in. I have bribed one of the lackeys
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[Exeunt citizens.
CURIO.
Sights, sights! See, see! always gazing, staring; as if a man could fill his belly through his eyes. If I pass a jeweller's shop I always shut mine when I'm hungry.—Here comes the stuff Kings are made of. Royal Arms should have a dead leg and a dead arm for supporters, with a death's-head for crest.
Enter a number of mutilated soldiers, with legs and arms off, on crutches, with bandaged heads. They hobble across the stage.Ha! my brave fellows; going to see your children?
FIRST SOLDIER.
Do you mock us?
CURIO.
I mock! I live in a glass house myself. I call Kings your children; for, but for such as you, there were no Kings.
SECOND SOLDIER.
I would they thought so.
CURIO.
And they will when they get wisdom.
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When will that be?
CURIO.
When boys shall learn without teachers, and women shall break their looking-glasses.
SECOND SOLDIER.
Good-by, friend. It is pension day, and a short road is a long way to us.
CURIO.
Were I one of your children you should have carriages.
[Exeunt soldiers.Here comes a man I like to meet: he always throws into my poor heart something that makes it feel warmer.
Enter Lovéro.
LOVÉRO.
Good-morrow, Curio: how do you this many a day?
CURIO.
As well, Sir, as a man can do who has nothing to do.
LOVÉRO.
You speak there more wisdom than will come from the mouth of any King to-day.
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Kings' mouths, like the mouth of a cracked bottle, take in more than they give out. Tell me, Sir, when are the people to have enough to eat?
LOVÉRO.
When every man shall get out of him all the work there is in him, and no man shall rob his neighbor.
CURIO.
Then I shall starve; for I can't work, I can't work,
try as much as I will
(sadly).
LOVÉRO.
Not more is asked than is given, good Curio. You do your best, and harm no one; you shall not want.
CURIO.
Shall I not, shall I not? Then I'll be merry the rest of my life. Now let 's go see the Kings and the new Empress.
[Exeunt.
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Scene V.
A Room of State in the Palace, with throne, and two or three degrees of steps about the throne.Enter, in regal robes and crowned, in procession, headed by the Emperor Brangonar and the new Empress, three brothers of the Emperor, one brother-in-law, two sisters, and two sisters-in-law; Chamberlains following. The procession passes round the stage, music playing a grand slow march; then the Emperor and Empress take their seats on the throne, the eight other crowned royalties taking theirs on either side, on the graduated steps.
BRANGONAR.
Powers, Dominations, Royalties, of sway
Replete with present puissance, not infirm
With impositions from th' exacting past,
Your Kingly sceptres can be tightly held
Only by close engrafture to their stem,
And due allegiance from yourselves to me,
Your necessary head, your liege elect,
By achievements sure in council and in field
Your Leader, through the princely law of might.
For ye by envies, fears, ambitions stern
Are circumvested, and by deadly hate,
Planted in baffled breasts by the rank sting
Of flying power, through dotage forfeited.
This ambient enmity you can disarm,
If you are wise and wary, and will be
Symmetrical to an adjusted whole.
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Of your new peoples, whilst th' unborrowed force,
That set you on these swift-subjected thrones,
Grows hourly greater: and when the vast schemes,
That lie already accomplished in my brain,
Shall burst in act, so broad will be that force,
We to the world may bid defiance full.
To be itself, power must be a unity.
Its foremost agents are high deputies,
Supreme dispensers of the loftiest trust,
Enthroned executors of sovereign right.
Strength, life itself, are hung on order's rule,
And order issues from a central will.
Brothers and sisters royal, great comates
In the vast wielding of th' Imperial realm,
Prime regal feudatories in the reign
Of a new dynasty, with brotherly
And with monarchic greetings I salute you.—
The banquet now awaits us. Go ye in:
I follow presently.
[The Emperor rises; then all rise and file out to the sound of a livelier music, led by the Empress.
Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
Lusky,
Is Sesto not yet come?
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Ha! here he is.
I read bad tidings in your face: what is 't?
SESTO.
Manessa, Sire, is routed.
BRANGONAR.
Routed? Routed?
SESTO.
I left him, Sire, in swift, confused retreat.
BRANGONAR.
At Arbo surely he can make a stand.
SESTO.
'T was this side Arbo that I parted from him.
Enter in haste, Alardo.
BRANGONAR.
What means this tell-tale pallor in your cheeks?
ALARDO.
I am ashamed to speak the news I bring.
Sire, your fleet, joined with that of Barca—
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Well!
ALARDO.
Is shattered, Sire, hardly a ship escaped.
BRANGONAR.
Why, man, call back the color to your face.
Knew I not how to meet disaster's shock,
I had been long since crushed. This is bad news;
But in a month I'll make it be forgotten.
Keep secret, both of you, to-day these tidings.
[Exeunt Alardo and Sesto.
If aught could baffle my proportioned plans,
It were these Islanders. Where'er can float
A ship there gleams their flag. The pathful sea,
The globe-enclasping ocean is their own.—
This is a blow—but I can break its force.
[Exit.
ACT V.
Scene I.
In the background soldiers are struggling through deep snow. Behind them, men and horses lie dead.Enter Brangonar, covered with snow.
BRANGONAR.
The elements have joined mine enemies,
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To work me harm, snow, fire, and frost, and wind
Have made them friends, and have outflanked my host.
Men I can master; but untimely cold,
The freezing of the air a month too soon!
To break my spell must Nature break her law?—
My star—has that gone out? fallen from the zenith?
My star, like all that is, owes fealty
To Chance. For Chance o'errules this floundering world.
Shine out then, Star: with fulsome radiancy
Do homage to the fitful god. My turn
Will come again, when still a mightier shake
He smiling shall have giv'n his dreadful urn.
“Life is a flimsy dream, soon to be over”:
Thus in my youth dejection spake through me.
I 've lived it since, and feel that to the strong—
And never felt I this more than to-day—
Life is a nightmare, that so hems all function,
So pinions will and motion, that our aims
We clutch at dreamily. Ourselves, our tools,
Their falseness or their dullness, circumstance,
Delay, so press upon activity,
Healthiest conceptions often at their birth
Are strangled. Here I'm hindered by my means,
Their peevish poorness. Haste is now my need;
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My populous fields, my swarming towns call out,
Wild-clamoring through the thousand-throated voice
Of legions new, afire to be enranked.
I come, I come, young giants, and the foe
Again shall reel before our onset's storm.
Women! quicken your joyful duty's rate:
Breed me fresh soldiers faster, faster, faster.
[Exit.
Scene II.
A Street in the Capital.Enter a number of Citizens from opposite sides.
FIRST CITIZEN,
eagerly.
The latest news—have you the latest?
SECOND CITIZEN.
The enemy yields. Our soldiers fight like lions famished. Brangonar leads them in person. This is the latest news, just brought in from the western gate by the wounded. Our great Emperor's star mounts again.
FIRST CITIZEN.
His star has been a comet to the people, shedding perpetual war upon their homes.
THIRD CITIZEN.
The wars we had before his coming: the victories since.
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And glory and a national grandeur we never had before.
FIRST CITIZEN.
And now we are to have national humiliation.
THIRD CITIZEN.
Which some of ourselves would help to deepen.
Shouts outside, then enter a young Soldier, his arm in a sling.
SOLDIER.
Victory! Victory! Their columns are broken. The Emperor is on his way to the Palace. The enemy gather in force beyond the eastern gate. This afternoon or to-morrow, he will strike them there and shatter them.
SECOND CITIZEN.
But are you sure he can do it?
SOLDIER.
Do it! What can't he do?
Exeunt.
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Scene III.
A Room in the Palace.Enter Brangonar, from the battle-field.
BRANGONAR.
One more such rout, and firm I stand; so firm,
Their utmost war will wreck themselves on me.
About the eastern gate they muster strong.
'T is my last throw. Now help me, sovereign Chance,
And I'll help thee; and skill and Chance conjoined
Dictate decrees to very Fate himself.
What if I fall?—A world falls crashing with me:
The world that I have reared holds by my will.
Have I then laid no deep foundation piles,
To live beyond my life?—Ha! it strikes deep,
That question. Principles, ideas, these are
Th' essential. Mimicries of th' unsubstantial
Are these regalities, this flimsy pomp,
These Imperialities. Too much I 've made
My strength the servant of my weaknesses.
Upon myself and for myself I 've built;
And so, out of myself I have no stay.
Myself! myself! naught but myself; and now
Myself doth taunt me, and flee from myself
I cannot. In the far dim fastnesses
Of my lone being I find but me, but me.—
Am I awaked from a transcendent dream?
97
Are power, allegiance, majesty, fulfillment,
And million-voiced acclaims no more for me?
But for the hates that bark and hiss around
I were alone.—What is to me this hate?
Men hate the good:—but many, many love them.
And some love me: too few, too few. Not so:
My soldiers love me—they are not a few.
My soldiers, my dear comrades; they are mine,
And I am theirs, and we together are
A force colossal, swift, resistless strong.
Aye wait they for me, and, my presence felt,
Their eyes flash victory.—But I am faint:
First a brief sudden sleep, my sure resource;
And then, back to my panting legions.
[He lies down and sleeps.
Enter a troop of women, all in black, some old, some middle-aged, some young, some with infants in their arms. With low, solemn voice they wail, “Give me back my husband—give me back my son—give me back my father—give me back my child—give me back my friend.” Brangonar shrieks and starts up.
Lusky! Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
I 've had a dreadful dream.
Methought I passed the gaping gates of hell.
All was one gloom immense, save spots of blood
That twinkled 'bout me. Then I heard, methought,
98
From in myself. In agony I shrieked.
And my shriek waked me.
LUSKY.
Sire, no ghosts were they,
But fleshly women here around you. Hark!
The women renew their wail,—“Give them back, give them back, from death, from death: they are dead, they are dead; and we are alone, alone!” Brangonar turns slowly round and looks at them.
BRANGONAR.
Hell-hags! breeders of demons in my brain!
Your wail infernal gendered its own hell
On me, witching with lies my slumbered sense.
Hence! What to mine are passionate women-pains?
I wail the death of ripening hopes, of plans
Earth-clasping, of Dominions, Empires, Powers.
Away, ye triflers! Go, find better use
For your thin breath than darting stings at me.
To work, as best ye can. Your friends have died,
And so shall you. To all death cometh once.
You cannot say I gave to any man
A second death. God ever gives the first,
The one, the only one: all die by him:
To-day, to-morrow, yesterday—it boots not.
[Women retire.
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Nature's strong need, divine ubiquity.
Swift Death cleanseth the earth, nourisheth life.
Birth and Death keep the world aye poised in health;
And were Death to relax his certain spring,
Great Birth would quickly fill our globe with worms,
Man the chief crawler on the wormy pile.—
Lusky, send me Borini.—Lusky!
LUSKY.
Sire—
BRANGONAR.
Borini, I would speak to him, at once.
LUSKY.
Borini, Sire—is gone.
BRANGONAR.
Gone! whither? whither?
To th' enemy? to th' enemy?
LUSKY.
Aye, Sire.
BRANGONAR.
'T is like him, Lusky; like him. Call Alardo.—
Lusky, Lusky, Alardo has not gone—
Not to our foes?
100
He has, Sire.
BRANGONAR.
He, Alardo!
He whom I lifted, trusted, loved, enriched;
The first to leave me in my extremity!
Who trusts him now will trust a various knave.
A vice corrosive is Ingratitude:
It eats the bloom from every virtue's front.
The man, apt to a base forgetfulness,
Is stripped for any brand of infamy.
Say to the Empress, I would speak with her.—
Dost thou not hear? The Empress, the Empress.
[He goes to Lusky, who has sunk into a seat weeping, and puts his hand on Lusky's shoulder.
The Empress, Lusky.
[Lusky weeps more bitterly.
Whither? where? Speak, speak!
LUSKY.
Gone to her father, Sire.
BRANGONAR.
Gone to her father!
O Time, stand still, that all mankind may pause
To castigate this act. Gone to her father!
How rich the heart in novelties of ill.
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This one was wanting. Gone, gone to her father!
Had cynic knave told this a month ago,
I 'd had him whipt for slander on the sex.—
Lusky, go bid the Countess bring my son.—
My son, my son, Lusky; I 'd see my son
Before I go.—What—Lusky—What—no, no—
LUSKY.
Gone, gone.
BRANGONAR.
They 'd dare! Is Brangonar alive?
Or was he slain in the last fight this morning?
No—no—it cannot be—it cannot be.
Go bring my son, good Lusky.
LUSKY.
Sire, the Empress—
BRANGONAR.
To hell the Empress: bring my boy, my boy.
LUSKY.
She took him with her, Sire.
BRANGONAR.
My poor, poor boy!
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O Devil! Devil!—Bear ye this, ye Heavens?
Did you look coldly on while this was doing?—
At last I know what 't is to suffer. Oh!
[He sinks on a sofa.
Is there a man on earth who hates me so,
He would not weep to see me thus? Oh! Oh!—
I am not worth the slaying now. My life,
That was so full, so great, is shrunk to nothing.
Poor Brangonar! Thou art a ship dismasted,
Tossed rudderless upon th' inhuman storm.—
But, see! thy flag still flies! One rope there is
Still stiff enough to hold it. Ha! it flies!
It streams, and the strong wind delights to meet
A strip yet stronger than itself. It flies—
See how it flames!—Give me my swiftest horse.
Away—away.
[Exit.
Scene IV.
A Public Square in the Capital.Lovéro, Riordo, Carlan, and a tumultuous crowd of citizens, some shouting, “Down with all Emperors!” some, “Down with our enemies!”—“Up with the red flag!”—“Up with the white flag!”—“Drive out the invaders!”
CARLAN.
We 've been invaded long enough. Who are
Our enemies? That 's the question. Are they not
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Should cry so loud against iniquity
That men would rise, and in their rightful wrath
Sweep these usurping tyrants from the soil?
RIORDO.
Aye, my dear countrymen; freedom to speak
Freedom to print, freedom to meet, all these,—
Which, mingled, make the blood of hardy manhood,
And robbed of which men cannot be but slaves,—
All these we know not of so long, our wills
Have basely ceased to value and to want them;
For Tyranny hath no more deadly bane
Than this, that it by use defiles the will.
Oppression's wormwood we have chewed so long,
We 've lost the flavor of sweet liberty.
The foreigner holds out a lifting hand:
No thanks to him. Once freed of native yoke,
The stranger we can rid us of at ease.
LOVÉRO.
My countrymen, which way we turn we 're weak.
A strength we yet may make of duty's beck.
Shorn of his might forever is the man
Whose single will has been our daily law.
A year ago a despot, he to-day,
Henceforth, dependent is upon ourselves.
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The sources of our public life and health;
That such a centring ever sounds the doom
Of freedom, drawing to one lung or few
The breath that should free circulate through all,
And, drained of which, each and the general whole
Languish in an unmanly servitude,—
All this is true, and more; and we have paid,
And long must pay, due penalties severe
For our submissiveness to tyranny.
Tyrant can Brangonar no longer be;
But we may be crushed, brayed by foreign heels.
But yesterday, and he and we were twain,—
Division fatal to all healthful polity;—
Now, he and we are one—or both are lost.
Loved countrymen, never until to-day
Did I feel scabbard flap upon my thigh,
And never till to-day did I uphold
Great Brangonar. Now, loyalty to him
Is loyalty to country and ourselves.
Before high Heaven and you I draw my sword,—
The first I ever drew,—and call on you
To follow me. I go to spend my blood,
My life, against our country's rageful foes,
To guard our hearths from desecration's tread.
Come on! all ye who hold your children dear,
Your wives, your mothers, and your sacred homes.
[Exit, the crowd rushing after him with shouts.
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Well, let them go: it is too late, too late.
Defection has the tyrant's force so sapped,
He can't make head against their swelling swarms.
CARLAN.
First down with him; then come what will or can.
[Exeunt.
Scene V.
At the Eastern Gate. Alarums, Excusions.Enter Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Self-slaughter is no refuge for the great.
Cæsar could not have slain himself: he was
Too large a man. Such willful death he left
To a foiled Brutus, and the like of him.
Death seemed just now to shun me; for he struck,
Close by my side, the old and young; but me
He grazed not even with his fiery shaft.
His aim I neither courted nor avoided.
I have not sought the desperado's end.
Despair I know not, what so be my state.
I 've striven to shape events, nor striven in vain:
If they bend not, no more do I to them.
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They cannot shake. The structure I have reared,
This gorgeous Empire, that lies low e'en now,
Razed quickly to the ground, as if there were,—
Shot from the limits of the heaving earth,—
A score tornados, black, concentric, swift,
All seeking one attractive centre,—me.
But me they touch not; nor can coarse oblivion,
With sultry breath, breathe dimness on my name.
Come what come will this day, I am a might
In History, a power, a theme immense,
A towering shaft deep founded in men's thoughts.—
Enter in haste an Aide-de-Camp.
AIDE-DE-CAMP.
Sire, we 're o'erpowered by numbers. All is lost.
Fly, Sire, fly: they'll be on us—here they are.
Fly, Sire, fly.
[Brangonar stands unmoved as the enemy, from the back of the stage, make towards him. A shout is heard from the side behind Brangonar, and, just as the assailants are about to seize him, enter Lovéro with soldiers who drive them back.
BRANGONAR.
Ha! Lovéro! You, Lovéro!
But for your coming I had now been taken.
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Your cause and mine are one again to-day.
BRANGONAR.
Give me your hand.—Till now I have not known you.
It had been better had I known you better.
LOVÉRO.
Fly, fly from this: we cannot hold this post.
[The enemy return and make at Brangonar, when Lovéro throws himself before him just in time to save him, and is himself struck down. His men rush to his side as he falls, and drive out the assailants.
BRANGONAR.
Lovéro! Lovéro!
LOVÉRO.
Too late—too late: fly—fly.
[Dies.
[The aide-de-camp seizes Brangonar, and with help of the soldiers, hurries him off, and then returns.
AIDE-DE-CAMP,
to the soldiers.
Take up your Captain's body. Nobler soul
Never took flight to heaven.
[Soldiers take up the body and bear it off.
This is a day!
A day marked in the annals of mankind
With exclamations from all future tongues.
[Exit.
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Scene VI.
A Room in the Palace.LUSKY,
alone.
I start to hear the echoes of my tread,
I who, morn, noon, and night, used to be sieged
By beggars, great and little, proud or meek.
The Palace is as empty as a street
Just swept by grape-shot: not a moving sound.
All smiling, flattering, cringing faces gone.
Misfortune melts the worldling's frigid hold,
And is upon th' adherents of the fallen
Active as beams of equinoctial sun
When first they strike the frosted foliage grown
From a calm snow-fall in an April night.
And such a master! Greater now to me
He seems than ever yet; so calm and clear.—
Where is he now? The last report was good;
But in a battle's hour minutes are months.
Perhaps—perhaps he 's slain—or taken captive!
A prisoner! he a prisoner!—Ha! here he is.
Enter Brangonar, pale and weak.
Sire, Sire! you 're wounded?
BRANGONAR.
No: not in the body.
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Came up and rescued me. I had been slain—
Their swords were at my breast—when he rushed in,
Thrust him upon the enemy's attack,
And took the strokes were meant for me. That was
A great, great death, a great, great deed. The man
Who does a deed so great himself is great.
I have not known Lovéro: would I had.
None of us see so far as we believe.
We are but journeymen, the best of us,
When most we think us masters. God is master.
And oft when we are disobeyed the most,
He is the most obeyed.—Should I have been,
Could I have been other than what I am?
What think you? You have known me, Lusky.
LUSKY.
Sire,
I cannot think you other than you are.
BRANGONAR.
Lusky—Lusky—come nearer, nearer, Lusky—
Jesola—Jesola—
LUSKY
Sire, she 's in the Palace.
110
BRANGONAR.
Is she? Is she?
[He rises from the sofa. Jesola comes forward and throws herself into his arms. Brangonar sinks on the sofa between Jesola and his child, Lusky kneeling beside them. —A file of officers and soldiers in red coats appear at the back of the stage, and then, opening in the middle, the scene opens behind them, and far off on the sea a man-of-war is seen; and the curtain drops.
THE END.
| Brangonar | |