University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

—Night of the same day. Interior of the chief tent of Aran. Noema, Irad asleep.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
Why should I tell him more? When last I raised
The veil behind which lies my sanctuary
Of inner life, he barely deigned to look,
But bade me share my superstitious realm
With Spirit consorts,—fit companions!
Why should this superciliousness wound,
When 'tis the low that at the lofty strikes,
And they who soar be ruffled in their flight
By them who grovel? 'Tis the feeble side
Of that in mortals which alone is strong,
To keep them feeble still: that sense of shame,
Which dreads to let the unfamiliar look
Upon our naked selves familiarly,
Even when noble in our nakedness.
Thus when to Aran's misconceiving mind
I bare my heavenly secret, 'twere as though
I unto stranger gaze should bare myself,
And violate my instinct's modesty.
O no! I cannot speak of it again!
Yet secrecy, like woodmite when it gnaws
A fruit upon the side that's next the tree,
Though marring not rotundity and bloom,
Eats out the heart withal. Secretiveness
Is self's most subtle poison, and demands
The antidote of trust. I'll trust my husband.
I hear him coming.
[Aran enters through a curtain in the tent.
Must thou go to-night?

ARAN.
There is no must where a firm will presides,
And ordered Forethought, with its crown on top
And active sceptre in its hand, drives back
The rabble urgings of Necessity.
Must is a fiction of the Gods to fool
Their mortal serfs with; a device for slaves,
Children, and women, and the sicklier sort.
But to the man whose mettle centuries
Of cowardly compliance have not quelled,
Must is a wrongful overt enemy,
Who must with overt rights be combated;
Compelled to quit this usurped soil, and leave
A native field for resolution.
I go not to the Tower, because I must,
But, as my words have pushed it through the clouds,
Because I will. Will shall be sovran here,
Will of the knitted front and tameless eyes,
Whilst blind Necessity may reign in Heaven.

NOEMA.
Count it not sure, my lord, that Heaven is blind,
Or that this higher will which unto us,
Who cannot change it, seems necessity,
Is not deliberate option of the wise;
Which to resist is but to coax defeat
To come and crush us. Oh! mistrust thy Tower,
Which, at its top, will fall as short of Heaven,
As all we win falls short of all we want.
Listen, one moment: Let me ask the Spirit,
With whom that twilight eve I did converse,
As straight I told thee, and whose pinions range
Over illimitable leagues of wind,
What distance may divorce the Heavens from Earth,
And what long links man's energy must forge
To marry them once more.

ARAN.
A Spirit, forsooth!
Thou meditatest strange alliances.
Ask of the kestrel how the stare should fly
To balk him when he swoops; go ask the waves
How the jerked bark should foil their turbulence;
Or from the irate wrack and puckered clouds,
How best the thunder-threatened oak should wrap
His fluttering foliage round his agëd head,
To meet the lightning harmless! When the wolf
No more shall raven 'mid the scuttling flock,
But bear a crook and gently shepherd them;
When stiff rime feeds the flowers like liquid dew,
Or floods shall excavate the torrent's bed
And fence its banks lest that they overflow,—
Then shall the aborigines of air
Cease to conspire against this solid Earth,
And serve as Heaven's astute auxiliaries.
Could they affect to join their ranks to ours,
They were but traitors in the camp, and thou
Wert but a traitor too, wert not a dupe,
To harbour such a sly ambassador.

NOEMA.
O, thou dost wrong him! He is frank as light,
Clear as the morning, candid as the noon,
And never impious subterfuge could lurk
'Neath such transparent pinions. He would do
All that I asked him, all that thou shouldst ask,
Would run my messages from stage to stage
Of the unsurveyed air, and bring thee count
And exact measure of thy enterprise.

ARAN.
A most obliging Spirit! Use him then
If thou canst make him serviceable. But,
Forgive me if I check intelligence
Fetched from a source suspect. For from the hour
When the intrepid Lucifer was flung,
Since by misgiving Seraphim forsook,
Over Heaven's battlements, no Spirit, 'twould seem,
Hath dared to brew rebellion in the sky,
Or seek allies in man. They live content
To serve celestial spleen and wreak us hurt;
To be the messengers of poisons, plagues,
Blights, mildews, frosts, droughts, famines, hurricanes,
But never once have lent a fanning wing
To mortal aspiration. Help from Spirits!
Why call them Spirits? Spirits spiritless!
When man's encouraging voice at length is heard
Resounding 'mong the stars, and all abreast
We storm God's last intrenchments, then perchance
Will insurrection flame along the Spheres,
And their subservient denizens demand
To fight beneath our flag. But until then,
To hope for succour from their half-fledged wings,
Were as though one should look for tiger's teeth
Within the palate of the squealing hare;
And Spirits' mission, spite their specious name,
Will be to harry men and hoodwink women.

NOEMA.
O Aran! thou art harsh, incredulous.
The Spirit that hath deigned to touch our home
Is of a gentle and considerate mould,
And would—nay, hear me!—prosper me and mine.
May I not therefore—

ARAN.
Thou mayst what thou wilt,
So thou dost move no counsels 'gainst the Tower.
That would I never brook. [Goes over to Irad's crib and bends over.

Sleep sound, my boy,
Sleep sound and grow to manhood! Would thou hadst
Already put on thy virility,
And couldst thy masculine ambition lend
To swell thy father's purpose! I would wait,
But that my resolution might drop off
Whilst thine was ripening. Thine the harvest be,
So that the seed and sickle fall to me.

[Exit Aran.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
'Gainst male self-will there is no argument
That is not overborne. He would not listen.
A man knows all before a woman speaks.
Who argues with his shadow? It must follow,
Draw he which way he will. Yet Spirits listen;
And mine submits to me as meek an ear
As though I were a Spirit, he but flesh.
Is it that spirit hearkens to the flesh
Easier than flesh to spirit? That is a thought
Rips up the womb of darkness, and delivers
A ray of struggling light. Yet I to him
Could hearken whilst the glass of time ran out
From day to night, then from night back again,
Nor ever think to fret the even stream
Of his discourse; and I am merest flesh.
'Twere too presumptuous to hope otherwise.
So darkness sucks that glimmer back again,
And leaves us in obscurity. Sleep, child!
Sleep, as he bade thee, soundly; nor awake
To learn how inharmonious is man's heart,
And how its discords grow with added strings!
He wished thee manhood: could he wish thee worse?
Rather would I that curly intancy
Should still around thy unridged temples smile;
And no anxiety thy course disturb,
That could not straight an ample refuge find
In the fond shallows of thy mother's breast!
Alas! how soon thou wilt for ever turn
Upon that haven a forgetful keel,
And on the open billows of the world
Too proudly trust to thine own puffed-out sails!
Oh! may the waves not get thee under them!
For what might she who bare thee and would die
To give thee life a second time, do more
Than stand upon the shore and watch thee sink?

SCENE II.

—Same night. The Moon. Afrael standing on the edge of an extinct volcano.
AFRAEL.
(sol.
Meseems as though this nighest stage to earth,
This uninhabited and jagged ball,
Were unto Earth a travelling tributary.
For 'twixt yon living planet which is now
To my fixed passion chiefest point in space,
And this one, dead, whereon I halt and bide
The hour to bid me sweep to my sweet tryst,
The distance never widens nor yet wanes.
Yes, we are following, following, through the night,
Silently sailing in this azure sea,
Whose waves are all around, yet never whelm,
Along the track swayed by that pilot world.
Yet what a wreck this skyey bark appears!
Empty of spirits, empty of all life,
Pastureless, streamless, voiceless, tenantless;
No sound, no movement; silent as deep thought;
Bare or of trunk or herb; even no noise
Of falling waters or of flitting wing:
No growth and nought to grow in,—only bare rock,
Cavernous, rugged, huge, precipitous,
Rolled out in slippery unadvancing waves,
Volcanic writhings rigid now in death!
Is this the end of all fidelity
Unto the earthly? Oh! avaunt the thought!
Withal I ne'er have seen a sphere so scarred,
So faced with desolation, so extinct,
So shorn of comfort. Yet it follows still!
Perchance it is its fate to follow still,
Its punishment! Nay, rather let me think,
It is its supreme bliss, its one reward,
That doth outweigh all other penalties.
O melancholy wanderer! I would be
Charred even as thou, extinguished, desolate,
With nought but rock and ashes at my core,
Sooner than once surrender that last right
Still to pursue and worship from afar!
Move on! Move on! ye constellations calm,
That tell the watches of the night, and bring
Swiftly the hour I may indulge my love,
And leap the frontier of my banishment!
For æons unrecorded that mine eyes
Have watched yon marshalled vault, I ne'er have known you
Hasten or slacken in your solemn march;
But now to-night ye seem to me to lag
And fall into the rear of Time, whose rhythm
Is marked but by my own impatient heart!

SCENE III.

—Same hour. The tents of Aran. Noema, without, in the moonlight.
NOEMA.
If he came now I should be ta'en unarmed:
And in this mystic hour of midmost night,
My heart would prove a traitor to my heart,
And help him seize its sleeping citadel.
He must not come! O no! he must not come.
'Tis different in the gaze of barefaced day.
The earthy then is round us, clear and nigh,
And we are rudely minded of ourselves,
Our mundane substance, mortal accidents,
And the subservient company of ills
That wait upon our actions. Then we see
In a too faithful mirror what we are,
And sadly doff night's fanciful array.
Then this repulsive gaoler, this coarse flesh,
Which on our aspirations keepeth ward,
Mockingly warns us not to dare too far
Beyond the precincts of our prison-house.
But dark confers a treacherous liberty,
And, stealing earthly semblance from the earth,
Gives unto things and shapes terrestrial
A heavenly complexion. Why, look now!
See, the cowled night seems rapt in mental prayer
Before the dim shrine of eternity!
There moveth nothing mortal in the air,
Nor on the ground; but, 'twixt the dewy grass
And spangled vault, absolute ecstasy!
It is the hour when, finding reason foiled,
Love presses home his final arguments,
And touches his conclusion. O sweet Night!
Thou art the very atmosphere of love,
And every star proclaims thee amorous!
'Twere too much for a mortal, came he now!
Detain him in the sky, ye twinkling orbs,
That must have power to charm, lest that I should
Be in his bright propinquity consumed!
But hark! What sings? There is no other voice
Of such unclouded music. It is he!
And Fate hath had no pity on my fears.

AFRAEL.
(singing).

NOEMA.
It was in music that he took farewell,
In music he returns. But when he showed
'Gainst the blue background of the shining morn,
His outline shone but as a ridge of cloud,
Flecked by a rising but still hidden moon.
Now burns he brighter than the brightest star,
And makes illumination in the air.
Oh! he is beautiful beyond the range
Even of clear imagination's eye,
And Fancy, in creative madness, ne'er
Projected such a vision!

SCENE IV.

AFRAEL.
Hail! beloved!

NOEMA.
Hail! gracious Spirit! But I pray thee, come
No nearer than thou art, but deign allow
For the infirmity of mortal gaze.
My sight is almost blinded even now,
And nearer brightness would but leave me dark.

AFRAEL.
Thou too meek mortal! Brightness near to thee
Were only brighter still, and thou the source
And very pivot of its radiance.
Fear not! Thou must my nature closer prove,
And with my aspect grow familiar.
They will not hurt thee. Spirit cannot hurt,
Though it at first may dazzle. Oh! I thought
The hours would never pass, and that the night,
Climbing the upward steep of dark had paused,
And lost herself in sudden drowsiness.
Now on the very topmost point she stands,
Surveying mute her wide dominions,
And I, attentive to the time, am here.

NOEMA.
Yes, thou art punctual as the sun himself.
But love was ne'er a laggard.

AFRAEL.
Then thou own'st
In my desires the quality of love.

NOEMA.
Ah! Love needs stamping none from any mint,
But bears his superscription on his face,
And the bright coinage of thy words would pass
In any mart where lovers merchandise.

AFRAEL.
Then let me drop a plummet in thy heart,
And sound thy soul's affections! If I cull
Nothing but sand-drift and the salt sea-weed,
And all the briny litter of the deep,
Then shall I know my empty-handedness.
But if I to the smiling surface come
With pearls and shells and coralled fantasies,
And all the far-down treasures it doth hide,
Oh! then the sky will crown my enterprise,
And dub me happiest diver! Tell me once,
Once with those eyes that seem the lamps of truth,
And with those lips that are its oracle,
Thou lovest me!

NOEMA.
How may I, mortal, love
Thee, an immortal Spirit? Yet if to yearn
To dwell in the soft shadow of thy wings,
To live in the strange music of thy voice,
And to be bathed in the celestial light
Thy presence radiates, indication be
Of the heart's fever, how shall I deny
That I do love thee? Love is sick alway
For one sole nurse to lullaby its pain,
Taking its medicine from no other hand:
And thou alone canst feed the want of thee.
But how? It is the Spirit that I love,
Though Spirit have I none to love thee with.
Look! I love that to which I may not soar,
Thou lovest that to which thou canst not stoop.
Could mortal with immortal ever blend,
I needs had answered otherwise. But all
Is contradiction here, and reason gives
No hint to instinct in perplexity.

AFRAEL.
Say that thou lov'st me, and I care not how;
Nor should we let straightforward feeling lose
Itself in tortuous reason's labyrinth.
Surely there is no sophistry in love,
But 'tis ingenuous in its arguments.
Come, let us for the empyrean start,
Now, now while still the rarely-buoyant breath
Of thy avowal will inflate our flight,
And the moon lends her lamp to point the track.

NOEMA.
This is the sheer insanity of love,
To think, because 'twere sweet to do't, thou couldst
Lift me, thus deeply anchored in the flesh,
And drive me through that unresisting sea
Where only unsubstantial Spirits sail.

AFRAEL.
Then see the power of love's insanity!
Lo! from this petty port of earth we break,
And through the shoreless ocean of the air,
Where continent is none, and starry isles
Are all that dot its blue immensity,
Sailless we sail!

NOEMA.
Oh! we have quit the ground,
And stand on air! Fear flushes all my veins.
Thou art too rash. I own thy wondrous power;
But be content with its brief exercise,
And render me to earth while yet 'tis time;
And, dropping prudence in the other scale,
Balance thine over-fond temerity!

AFRAEL.
O my most lightsome burden! what dost fear?
Dost thou not feel, even as I, that 'tis
Our even wings of love that bear us on?
See! not a plume of my own pinion moves,
But in its downy crevices thy head,
Thy golden-tressëd head, recumbent rests.
Dread nothing, thou fair load! I feel thy weight
No more than thou feel'st mine.

NOEMA.
But oh! how fast
The earth recedes from us! I just can see
The glittering roofs of home which dearer grow
As grow they dimmer, and the convex tops
Of the tall palm-trees gleam like drops of dew,
Drinking the moonlight. Now can I nought descry
But the bold stem of the defiant Tower,
Which seems to follow. What, if Irad woke!
My beautiful Irad! if he came to harm!
When, when shall we return?

AFRAEL.
Almost as soon
As the moon takes to clear herself from cloud,
When first she rises in a dappled sky,
Contending with obstruction.

NOEMA.
Why, we seem
To be upon a level with her light,
And like as though she raced us through the air.
How large and luminous she seems!

AFRAEL.
We are
As far from Earth as she is, and from her
But half such journey. Even as we speak,
Behold! she drops below us.

NOEMA.
Ay, and seems
From us to move as whilom did the Earth,
Whilst we appear self-poised and motionless.

AFRAEL.
'Tis an illusion of thy earthly sense,
Thou canst not quite shake off. She moves, but we
Move yet more quickly.

NOEMA.
Smaller now she wanes,
Shining no larger than when seen from Earth,
And look! there is a planet under us,
Twinkling like Saturn, and about as far
Beneath, as he above on winter nights.
What may it be?

AFRAEL.
That is the Earth, we have left.

NOEMA.
The Earth! Why, 'tis as bright as any star!

AFRAEL.
Because it is a star, and all the stars
Have this much earthly in their government,
They are the mirrors, not the face of light;
Reflecting the great aspect of the sun,
Which, in himself too bright to look upon,
Would else through trackless space shine on unglassed.

NOEMA.
But is Earth hung in space?

AFRAEL.
Through space it moves,
Since that in space is nothing stationary.
For motion, mastering all things, sets them free,
That else would rot in sluggish servitude.

NOEMA
Do stars in aught besides resemble Earth?

AFRAEL.
There is no star like to another star;
Nor doth the faintest-twinkling asteroid
Find anywhere its twin. Infinite change
Through infinite succession sways the air.

NOEMA.
And hast thou seen them all?

AFRAEL.
Seen all the stars?
No! nor shall ever see them. Some there be
That I have followed, followed, followed still,
And still, still followed, till my wings waxed faint,
But never overtook. Others there are,
Towards which I have strained my flight for days, for nights,
And days again succeeding, faster far
Than we have journeyed hither, and their light
Ne'er grew one glimmer brighter to my gaze,
Their radius one span broader. Nor do I doubt
That beyond these, yet other planets glow,
Whose distance unattainable compared
With other, further constellations still,
Is nearness' self. Why, look around thee now!
Skies that were late thy canopy, are spread
A glittering carpet far beneath thy feet;
And stars which gleamed like crowns beyond thy reach,
Now like a jewelled girdle hem thee round!
Yet, some bright orbs thou still must recognise,
Nightly familiar to thine earthly ken,
Which are as deeply buried in the blue
High overhanging firmament, as when
We lightly bounded from that carnal ball,
We now can see no more.

NOEMA.
How wonderful!
But I begin to faint in this thin air,
And to my dim disordered gaze the stars
Grow giddy, and the constellations swim.
The planets circle wildly, and the sky
Pales to a misty shroud, which, closing in
With ever-dwindling hollow, stifles me.
Ah! I can fetch no breath!

AFRAEL.
Then let me draw
Thy fair face upwards, till thy shining hair
Falls over thee and me, indifferently,
And, on this shoulder rested, thy warm cheek
Finds a forgetful pillow, where thou mayst
Live by my lips and feed thy breath with mine!
There! Dost not breathe anew?

NOEMA.
O yes! with breath
Freer and fuller than I e'er have drawn,
And infinitely sweeter! Lo! the stars
Resume their stern serenity and keep
Their high appointed places, and the sky
Once more recedes, and blue, blue grows the vault,
And clear the vision of eternal space.

AFRAEL.
And art thou happy? Tell me thou art happy.

NOEMA.
It is no mortal rapture that I feel,
But a strange undercurrent of delight,
Which flows I know not whitherward. But hark!
Surely I heard ethereal music dying
On the attendant air?

AFRAEL.
Thou hast an ear
Quickly attuned to heavenly cadences.
Yes! they are singing in yon nearest stars,
We scud past now.

NOEMA.
Oh! let us halt and list,
An't be not too presumptuous to o'erhear
Celestial concords.

AFRAEL.
Listen then! They sing.

FIRST STAR.
I am the star of the Mystic Number,
Breathing the sacred sign
On the brow and the breast of them that slumber,
Lost in a dream divine;
But when they awake, I their souls forsake,
And my spell remaineth mine.

SECOND STAR.
I am the star of the Past and Future,
I am the Present's star,
And the weft and the woof without seam or suture
Of Time I cross and bar,
Endlessly spinning the Never-Beginning,
And linking the Near and Far.

THIRD STAR.
I am the Star of the Unforbidden,
I am the Absolute Star,
And, since Ever, with gleaming crest have ridden
Afront the unswerving car,
That noiselessly rolls unto unguessed goals
Against winds that were and are!

NOEMA.
What sweet seraphic melodies! albeit
Through the dull cover of my fleshly sense
The tenuous drift of spiritual song
Scarce penetrates.

AFRAEL.
Nor wholly e'en to me!
For music is not meant to speak like speech,
But, like to gleams of sunshine now we see,
Now lose, discerned is but at intervals;
Whose silences withal by finer ears
Are clearly apprehended. Music is
An under-aspect of the Universe,
A faint expression, quickly ebbed away
Into itself, beyond life's boundaries.

NOEMA.
Doth every constellation chant like these?

AFRAEL.
Not all the stars alone, but all things sing.
The smallest mote that flickers in the sun,
Still as it shines keeps humming to itself,
Lending no less than the loud-spinning Spheres
Distinctive but agreeing voice to aid
The universal concert. Not the winds,
These shrilly-throated choristers whose strain
Floats on the deep-toned cloudland's thunder-fugues,
Not the aggressive waves that roar and rise
Above the feeble trebles of the air,
Though they be heard more plainly, swell the choir,
Ruled by the unseen wand of Nature, more
Than Time harmonic, than melodious Space,
Rhythmical numbers, shapes symphonious,
Darkness, and distance, light, proximity,
An endless diapason! All is song.
And if the music of one part could cease,
The whole would perish with it, and were then
One silent undistinguishable void.
But say, art happy still, here in these heights,
Thou late didst pusillanimously deem
Even by love were inaccessible?

NOEMA.
Happy? That word too weighted is with flesh
To speak the floating exultation felt
In this rare region, and my fancy dreams
I feel what thou must feel when scudding smooth,
Alone, in these thy native latitudes;
That, as I soar, I liker grow to thee,
Till, all unconscious of the cumbrous load
Which is my very consciousness below,
I seem to be of carnal rind disrobed,
And not so much a tenant of the sky
As a mere skyey shape or phantasy,
Shifting with every current of the air,
And owing all sensation unto it.
Say do I limn thy life, and dost thou feel
Like this, when thine imponderable form,
By me unhampered, buoyantly ascends
Unto those heights, to which these heights are depths?

AFRAEL.
Thou hast described it rarely, but not told
How the affections of thy frame are stirred
Towards him who brought thee hither. Lov'st me more,
Or lov'st me less, now that we sail serene
Through unconditioned ether, and respire
The breath that feeds the brightly-throbbing stars?

NOEMA.
More, measurelessly more! for there below
I did not, dared not, love thee! I was cramped
By the chill shackles of forbidding fear,
By the injunctions of distrustful sense,
And much which thou, a Spirit, wot'st not of.
Here am I free to let my longings range
Up all the heights of spiritual space,
Where, as it seems to my unfettered pulse,
There only rules the Infinite and thou,
Which are as one, whom I, their subject, serve.
But thou, thou dost not tell me of thy love,
As when we clung to Earth. Is it that here,
Here in this rarefied and subtle realm,
Whilst love of mortal for immortal burns
To a befitting spire of purity,
That of immortal for a mortal finds
No proper medium, and hence all goes out?

AFRAEL.
O no! not all; nor could the very top
Of highest Heaven that flame so rarefy,
That it should issue in a vaporous void.
Yet, will I own, that strange volcanic want,
Which hotly in the nether world convulsed
My being, still kept subsiding as we soared,
Till, in this final zenith of our quest,
My love is more like memory than hope,
Like stalled content than roaming appetite.

NOEMA.
Ah! then I fear that thou dost love me less
Than once thou didst. Oh! let us back to Earth!

AFRAEL.
Swift, an thou wilt. See, even now we drop,
And as we sink, down,—down,—a rain of stars
Seems to be falling too, in golden showers.
But when we reach the Earth, wilt love no more,
And wilt afresh, hide up this heaving breast,
Fearlessly bared under the firmament?

NOEMA.
Earth will demand its forfeit doubtlessly
For such a daring trespass, since the skies
Seem to begrudge us perfect happiness.
Thou from thy sapphire element must swoop
And taste the grey dull atmosphere of Earth,
Ere through thy wings the thrill of mortal love
Can make itself a channel; whilst that I
Need to be lifted to inhuman heights,
Before the vile integument falls off
Which there betrays my lowly lineage,
And I surrender my essential self
To lofty sympathies. O Fate perverse!
Thus never are we balanced, but the scales
Of Spirit and sense alternate sink and rise,
And one but helps the other out of reach!

AFRAEL.
Is there no even region of the air
In which Love's dual bliss may trembling hang,
Yet never lose its equilibrium?
Lo! comes the moon, the furrowed moon, in sight,
And as we near Earth's care-worn tributary,
Again the strange tumultuous trouble 'gins
To ripple 'mong my pinions, and I grow
More intimately conscious thou art there,
There with each warmly undulating tress,
There with thy temples smooth, there with thine eyes
Thy faintly parted lips, thy dimpled throat,
And all thy solid shapely attributes.

NOEMA.
Oh speak not thus! for I too 'gin to grow
Too much aware of my gross quality,
To own this lumpish body, and thy words
But hammer deeper in my ringing brain
The penetrating knowledge.

AFRAEL.
Shall we then
Ascend once more towards the cerulean dome,
Beneath whose never-reached but nearer vault
This misty trouble of the flesh would seem
To be dispelled? Say yes but with thine eyes,
And up we soar, swifter than now we sink,
Into the lap of unimagined zones,
There to be lulled in free beatitude!
Say quickly, quickly! for behold! the moon
No longer is below us, and the sheen
Of her straight light strikes on thy pallid face.

NOEMA.
No! hasten we adown! and ne'er again
Must I, poor earthly mendicant, invade
The rich celestial palace of the sky.
Tell me, O tell me, we are descending still.

AFRAEL.
Swift as a Spirit ever can descend.
See, sails the moon above us now, and look!
We dip into a silvery cloud, which speaks
That we have crossed the frontier that divides
The hazeless Heavens from Earth's outlying mists.

NOEMA.
Then let us part at this clear boundary
Betwixt our hostile homes; thee to thy sky,
Thy happy sky, me to sad Earth repair!
Thou that hast had the witchery to uplift
This sordid burden to resplendent spheres,
Enough of heavenly cunning sure dost own
To drop me gently down, through what remains
Of intervening void, to dullard Earth,
Whilst that thou, shaken loose of this brute clod,
Wingest thy way in joyful solitude
Through undetermined spaces, me forgot
Amid the rapturous singing of the stars!

AFRAEL.
Forgotten, thou! Not till the stars forget
To change their watches at the appointed hour:
Not till the sun, to suck into himself
The froward comet's trail disorderly,
And feed upon its fire: not till the moon,
To journey, patient, by the side of Earth,
Lest this should miss the trackway in the night;
No, nor e'en then! for though moon, sun, and stars
Should, in despite, grow revolutionary,
My steady light of love for thee would keep
A never-changing orbit, and return
Unto thyself, the point it started from!
Nor will I quit thee here, even though thou shouldst
Float down to Earth as safe as gossamer;
But I, who was thy convoy to the skies,
Will pilot thee until thou reach the port
Whence we embarked on our sweet enterprise.
Behold! that haven glimmers into ken,
And fast we drift towards it.

NOEMA.
Ha! the Earth!
Art sure thou still hast power to buoy me up?
I feel so heavy, and so like to sink.

AFRAEL.
Smooth down the ruffled plumes of foolish fear!
For though thou somewhat heavier hang'st than when
We remote ether ranged, and though it seems
As if the Earth were tugging at thy feet,
My lightness lighter grows as we descend,
And through the denser volume of the air
I drop with effort.

NOEMA.
Ah! there blabs the truth!
I help to drag thee down.

AFRAEL
Nay, say not that!
Thou only dost for me near Earth what I
Essayed erewhile to do for thee near Heaven,
And thus acquit'st thy debt. Look! there is the Tower
Splitting the night!

NOEMA.
Then, are we very near.
How impotent and feeble now it seems!
Why, were the Earth piled all on end, it would
Scarce make a visible finger-post to Heaven.
And oh! I see the snow-white tents of home
Smooth in the moonlight, and the palm-trees tall,
Those never-changing sentinels, that stand
Mute at the portals. Heed lest we alight
On their broad tops. . . . I dizzy grow once more,
And—and—

SCENE V.

—The Earth. The tents of Aran.
AFRAEL.
Behold! in safety thou hast lit.

NOEMA.
Yes! 'tis the solid ground on which we stand.
Thanks, O most dexterous Spirit! for nor air,
Nor earth, hath ever seen so true a guide.
But spare me now, nor me ungracious deem,
If straight I haste to see how Irad sleeps.

AFRAEL.
So thou return, I would not wish thee nay.

[Noema enters the chief tent, and hurries to the spot where she left Irad sleeping.
NOEMA.
My boy! my boy! Art safe within thy crib,
Or have the dark divinities of air
Pilfered my earthly treasure, to amerce
My unpermitted trespass on their fields?
No! there he lies, all coiled into himself,
A heap of rosy sleep; one chubby hand
Dimpling the pillow, while his unkempt curls
Over the delicate sinless temples stray,
And a warm moisture dews his round, soft cheeks.
Oh! thou art fairer to thy mother's eye
Than brightest constellation, and her choice
Would be to sit enslaved to thy small wants,
Rather than sweep the skies from end to end
Upon the pinions of sublime desire!

[She snatches him up, and kisses him tenderly.
IRAD.
(waking).
What is it, mother?

NOEMA.
Nothing, my sweet boy,
Save that I love thee, and did yearn to fold
Thy form within my arms! Now, sleep again,
And the light wings of unseen angels be
Thy curtain, and their hymns thy lullaby!

[Exit from the tent, and returns to the open air.
AFRAEL.
I wager thou didst find him fast asleep:
We have been gone so shortly.

NOEMA.
Yes, he slept.

AFRAEL.
His name I know, for I have heard thee say it,
But even now am ignorant of thine,
Though thee I know so throughly. Tell it me.

NOEMA.
They call me Noema.

AFRAEL.
What a sweet name!
Liquid as dew, and fanciful as light!
Dear Noema!

NOEMA.
Are Spirits signified
By sounding appellations, like ourselves?

AFRAEL.
I in my star as Afrael am known.

NOEMA.
Then to thy star, O Afrael, return,
For we must part!

AFRAEL.
And when to meet again?

NOEMA.
When Heaven and Earth shall meet, but not before!

AFRAEL.
They have met now, for they have met in thee.

NOEMA.
Only because thy phantasy projects
Thyself in me, no otherwise.

AFRAEL.
Not so.
It is not thou, in sooth, whom I would mend
By any flimsy attribute of mine,
But I who would this shadowy framework fill
With thy substantial shape. O Noema!
I feel a want I never felt before,—
A want to be like thee! to own thy form,
Thy flesh, thy strange, resisting properties.
For now I cannot touch thee as I would;
And as I strain to fold my wings around
Thy body beautiful, I fail to clutch
Its definite perfections, and they seem
Still to escape, whilst my own being thrills
With purposeless strong motions, like a wind
That blows, and blows, with nought to blow against!

NOEMA.
Why dost talk thus? For language so intense
Doubles my fearsome doubts. Thou art a Spirit,
But seem'st to have caught contagion from the flesh;
And I can only bid thee swift return
Up to yon pure and passionless domicile,
That is to thee and thine indigenous,
And leave this squalid tenement, this me,
To its degraded inmates, whose defect
It is to grovel on their native ground,
Nor feed on aught beyond!

AFRAEL.
Why, thou didst feed
With a most eager appetite on air,
As though it were thy natural provender!
Hast thou forgot so soon what lofty joy
Thy lightened senses took in upper worlds?
Look! I will talk no more to thee of Earth,
Nor of the new affections it hath bred
Within my bosom, but my constant speech,
Like to myself, shall to the skies revert,
So thou again be my companion.
Come with me now, or come when next thou wilt,
But yield me this assurance, that henceforth
My heavenly tent of blue, no winds uproot,
Shall be thy residence, or that at least
Thou there wilt choose thy home, and make below
But rare and hasty sojourn, borne by me
Backwards and forwards, but with me alway!

NOEMA.
How fatuous is love! Dost deem, since once
'Twas granted us together safe to scale,
Then plunge from, the sheer precipice of Heaven,
That I, poor worm, for ever could discard
This crawling coat and prone defect of flesh,
And fledged with lightness, flit from star to star,
Or, an I might, that their invaded fires
Would not resent my wings, and I should drop,
A shrivelled nauseous cinder, back to Earth?
Already like a dream the memory floats
Of that outrageous journey, and I shudder,
Thinking of such a venture safe surpassed.

AFRAEL.
Make it once more with me, then wilt thou know
It is no dream, and nought to shudder at.

NOEMA.
O no! no! no! In gardens of the air
I an exotic were, and quick should pine
For the moist soil of Earth! My roots are here,
And, moved, my leaves were withered soon in Heaven.
But never could I make thee understand,
Though I exhausted all the craft of speech,
And left unused no last hyperbole,
How literal, tame, yet tyrannous are the links
Which tie me to the ground, and these, nor love,
Nor virtue any, e'er could overcome.
I will not name them; I should talk a tongue
To Spirits happily unknown. One bond,
One will I indicate, which, though it stood
Singly, would hold me fast. Thou canst not guess
Maternity's sweet servitude, nor know
How tightly mothers hug their self-wrought chains.
Here, 'fore thy wings, I fling myself, and crave
Thy pity, and thy pardon!

AFRAEL.
Nay, rise, rise!
Thou must not kneel to me! 'Twere to invert
All order, instinct, honour, decency.

NOEMA.
Then hear me thus erect, yet humbled quite!
It were a wasteful exercise of words
To praise thee, or to thank. Thou art too high
For me to extol, too kindly to repay.
But count me not to comeliness all blind,
Nor unto gentle deeds insensible,
Cold, calculating, stony, all that's base,
If I from thee and heavenly glimpses turn,
To clutch the cradle where my Irad sleeps.
Thou hast been good to me, too good, too kind,
Too condescending; but, O glorious Spirit!
I could not leave him e'en to lodge with thee!
Were there no other hindrance, this one bar
Would stand betwixt complete communion.
And 'mid the splendid vastness of the skies,
Charmed by thy voice, charmed by the planets' song,
And my dwarf nature magnified by thine,
My ears would listen for his little shout,
My lips grow drouthy for his April kiss,
And all my heart feel empty, because drained
Of the sweet freshening waters which he struck
Straight from this arid desert rock, when first
I felt him struggling feebly in my womb!
Leave me! nay, leave me! and return to Heaven!

AFRAEL.
Return to Heaven! That were impossible,
Save thou come too! Thou hast unheavened the Heavens.
And better pluck the sun from his high throne,
Than leave that empty which awaits thy light!
But dost thou, then, love Irad;—him alone?

NOEMA.
I said not so.

AFRAEL.
But thou dost love him more
Than—all; than anything?

NOEMA.
Nay, press me not!
Enough! I could not leave him.

AFRAEL.
Let him come.
Thou him canst bear, and I will bear you both.
For he would love to ride upon the air,
Gambol among the soft unhurtful clouds,
And make his playmates of the wandering winds,
As childish and unpurposed as himself.
Let me interrogate his will, and know
Would he not gladly bear us company.

NOEMA.
O, thou art mad! Love ever warped the brain,
And did the stoutest judgment safe distort.

AFRAEL.
Because Love is the only one thing straight,
And seeks its course direct; twisting and snapping
The shifty thoughts that block its honest path.
Let drop this hesitation to the ground!
Rid of its cumbrous folds, thou wilt ascend,
Easier than erst, up to thy proper home.

NOEMA.
I do not hesitate: I am resolved.

AFRAEL.
Resolved to banish me! to make my wings
But exiles in their native territory,
And in the very air where I was fledged,
Doom me to roam a stranger!

NOEMA.
Even so,
If so it even must be. Now, farewell!
The Night begins to waver in her sleep,
And dream uneasily; she soon will wake.
Didst thou not hear a shiver in the trees?
'Twas an outriding skirmisher of Morn,
That scared them, and has now hied back to bid
Day's glittering legions bodily to advance.

AFRAEL.
O no! that was a sentry of the Night
Pacing his rounds. Dark yet has nought to fear,
But from its covert frowns impregnable.
Drive me away not yet!

NOEMA.
I must! I must!
For though the night held out, it would not shield
My fears 'gainst other, dreader enemies.
The parley at the Tower must now be closed,
And Aran even now be on his way.

AFRAEL.
May I not linger till he comes?

NOEMA.
O no!
No! For that were— Indeed thou must not stay!
I see a something moving through the gloom.
It will be he. Didst thou not hear a step?

AFRAEL.
Nor hear nor see I aught, but only thee.
When first I was thy guest, thou bad'st me bide
Till Aran's coming. Why may I not bide now?

NOEMA.
Oh! then 'twas different. But—but—rend me not
With these excruciating probes! but go!
Go, as thou lov'st me!

AFRAEL.
Ah! then, go I must,
Since thou dost turn my weapons 'gainst myself,
And love confound'st with love's own arguments.
O unfair shaft! But when may I return?

NOEMA.
Not soon; no, nor for long: I fain would say,
Never! but cannot say it! Go, go now!
I hear his footstep: I am sure 'tis he!
I must go in, and leave thee.

AFRAEL.
Then, farewell!
[He folds his wings widely around her.
Farewell, but not for ever!

[He unfolds his wings, ascends into the air, gazing back, but silent, and disappears.
NOEMA
(sol.)
Gone! He is gone!
And I it was that sent him! O, come back!
Come back, and fold me in thy plumes once more,
And kiss me, not at one particular point,
But, as it seemed, with all thy wings at once!
'Tis well he cannot hear me. 'Chance, he doth,
And that the faithless dark unto the night
Betrays my madness. It were better hushed!
I will go in. How giddy I do feel!
Those wings! Those wings! . . . This is the way, I think,
And this . . . what an embrace! . . . this, this the spot
Where Irad—Irad. . . . Come to me, my boy!

[She swoons against the crib where Irad soundly sleeps.

SCENE VI.

—Noema still lying senseless against Irad's crib. Irad asleep. Enter Aran.
ARAN.
(rousing Noema.
What ails thee, Noema? Why liest thou here?
Why not abed and sleeping?

NOEMA
(slowly opening her eyes).
Afrael! . . .
Ha! Aran!

ARAN.
Yes: whom else wouldst thou expect?

NOEMA.
None, surely. But I was not yet awake.
I must have fallen asleep.
[Rises from the ground.
What can I get thee?

ARAN.
Nothing.

NOEMA.
And how didst prosper at the Tower?

ARAN.
Rarely! 'spite Korah's ill-knit prophecies,
And Peleg's knock-kneed fears! Rarely, to-night!
I baffled them still better than this morn.
And ere another week of bondage crawls
To its tame end, will our determined point
Confront the haughty firmament, eye to eye,
And with Earth's menace equal Heaven's disdain.
Yet Peleg plots to balk me still, and finds
In Korah an accomplice. Dreamers both,
And slaves to the Unseen! 'Tis action wins,
And common wants, led by uncommon will.

NOEMA.
Betwixt the seen and the Unseen who shall draw
Infallible distinction? Couldst behold
What I this night beheld, thou wouldst no more
Tether thy reason to some narrow plot,
But give it scope to range through fenceless space,
With Fancy for its consort.

ARAN.
What didst see?

NOEMA.
I saw the Heavens and all the world of air
And festive Midnight's burnished cressets swung,
Invisibly, and in their motion free,
From the deep azure ceiling of the sky.
And I heard the planets sing, and watched the Earth
Dwindle in distance to a doubtful speck,
Then dwarfed beyond the cunning of the eye
To say 'twas anywhere.

ARAN.
I doubt thee not,
For thou wert ever of a dreaming mind,
Nor, when I caught thee prone by Irad's crib,
That thou such flimsy visions didst conceive.
But what of that? Sure now thou art awake,
And seest the Unseen was not seen at all.
How wouldst thou help our unfantastic work?
For somnolency's fumes yet never baked
One solid brick, nor slumber's filmy stuff
Provide the stable slime to set it with.

NOEMA.
'Twas in no dream that I the Heavens beheld,
But with the open eyes which on the look.
Whilst thou didst hold convention at the Tower,
I through ethereal strata piercing soared,
And proved, with my own sense, that did each course
Of thy presumptuous masonry annul
A league, and not a span, thou still wouldst strain
More idly at the sky than doth yon child,
A-tiptoe, towards some tantalising toy,
By thee at arm's-length held above thy head.

ARAN.
Spread thyself now one foot above the ground,
And stay there twenty seconds!

NOEMA.
Oh! I could not.
Earth lets not earth unaided quit its side;
'Tis too exacting. Spirit it was that loosed
My inert matter from the ground, and bore
This burden upwards; the same comely Spirit,
Who came unto our tents one twilight eve,
And twice has come again.

ARAN.
And ever comes
When there is none but thou to testify.
Conclusive witness, truly! Like enough,
He is a bubble of thy frothy brain,
Blown through the pipe of fancy. But if not,
And that some specious vagabond of air
Have with his idle wings and subtle talk
Seduced thine ear, and cozened all thy sense,
Why, dost not see, e'en blindworm as thou art,
That such a tricksy conjuror could cheat
Thy wildered credence so, thou hot wouldst swear
Thou hadst been round the Universe, while sooth
Thou hadst but shut thine eyes and opened them?
Tush! 'tis too childish. . . . Why, if Irad, there,
Babbled such folly, thou wouldst purge him straight,
Or whip him into soundness. Get thee to bed,
And sleep thyself—back into sanity!

[Exit.
NOEMA
(sol.)
Back into sanity! Am I insane?
Sometimes it nigh would seem so. For the hold
Which this conjunction with the gross maintains
Upon my lighter essence, bids me doubt
The wisdom of all longings to escape.
Do sane birds beat the bars of their small cage?
Do they not rather nibble the trim seed,
And drink the punctual water set for them,
Singing, for payment, taught if curtailed song?
Ay, it is madness, to aspire beyond
The unyielding limits of our quality;
And sanity, which turns the homely spit,
Trudges its narrow round contentedly,
And sups with satisfaction! Sane I am not,
Or life's recurring service would suffice.
Were it not well to touch the rest in all,
Touching them in so much? I have a body,
Sight, hearing, sense, members, and appetites,
Needs, aches, fatigues, pleasures, infirmities,
Twin unto theirs? Why then not twin all round?
Because I am insane, and they are not.
Is that the reason? Irad has a toy,
He sometimes plays with, where he jerks a ball,
Away from him it seems, but ere the string
Which holds it snaps, swift pulls it back again,
And lo! it drops into a hollow cup
That fits it most exactly! So this Something,
Which would into Infinity fly off,
To spin unfettered, Something trifles with,
But to draw back into a petty scoop!
Yet am I so insane, as but to dream
The deepest and most solid thoughts that dig
Into me their foundation? Did I dream
That I surveyed the Heavens? O no! no!
For dreams may be recalled, but never yet
Were dreams felt after waking; and I feel
The tingling sense of those enfolding wings
Even more than when they closely wrapped me round,
And shook me to convulsive consciousness.
O sweet insanity! take all that's sane,
And leave me nought but madness!

[She again sinks into a swoon.