The Tower of Babel A Poetical Drama: By Alfred Austin |
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| IV. | SCENE IV. |
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 | The Tower of Babel |  |
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.
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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,
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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
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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,
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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
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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,
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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,
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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.
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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!
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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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!
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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
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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,
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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.
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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!
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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—
| The Tower of Babel | |