University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

SCENE I.

—Early morning, a week later than Act I. The sun not yet risen, but red rays shooting upwards from the eastern horizon into a cloudless and sultry sky. The plain of Shinar, from which the first massive storeys of the Tower arise in slowly narrowing spirals. Gangs of male bondsmen ascending and descending, carrying slime and bricks. Groups of women mixing slime.
Aran, Sidon, Eber, Korah, Peleg. Crowd of Freemen.
MALE BONDSMEN.
(chanting).
Faster, faster, ever faster,
Moves our weary-circling labour,
Whilst the close and stern taskmaster
Flogs us on with thong and sabre.
Resting but refreshens sorrow,
Slumber keeps our bondage endless;
Time forgets us, and to-morrow,
Like to-day, beholds us friendless.
Faster—Faster!

CHORUS OF WOMEN.
In anguish and wailing
Our babes see the light,
Drenched with tears unavailing
As cries in the night.
In our wombs we but cherish
A victim, a slave;
Born to suffer, then perish,
And sleep in the grave.

MALE SLAVES
(chanting).
Sweating, straining, panting, bleeding,
Upwards, storey piled on storey,
Climb we still, for lords unheeding
Aught save ease, and gain, and glory.
We are both but dust and leaven;
They, as we, are sad and mortal;
Yet if we did win them Heaven,
They would leave us at the portal,
Bleeding, panting!

CHORUS OF WOMEN.
Pile the bricks, mix the mortar.
The blinder we plod,
Life will seem to us shorter,
Less pitiless, God!
The sooner the levin
Of death will descend,
And the harshness of Heaven
And Earth have an end!

ARAN.
With what a fervent and continuous will
They seem to work, this morn, as though the fire
Of our great undertaking did infect
Even their sluggish and inferior veins.
Such is the virtue of high enterprise!
It drags along with it, as to the goal,
The wheels that bear it thither. Oh, the dupes!
Did ye hear their song? They fain would have us deem
They count upon no harvest for their toils,
And are but sickles blunted in our hands
By act of reaping. But I know them well.
The feeble ever still dissimulate,
And with a cunning feint creep underneath
The blundering thrust of strength. 'Tis their redress;
And spite their tearful threnodies be sure
They in their hearts right hopeful rebels are,
Laying no brick of this stupendous Tower,
But that they think to build our sepulchre,
And their redemption. We must baffle them.
As we to Heaven, so unto us they stand,
And 'twere a sorry issue of our work,
To dethrone God, were we ourselves dethroned.

KORAH.
There spake the tyrant and the slave at once.
What! thou wouldst hack thy gyves off, but to clamp
Their teeth upon another: strain at power,
Only to keep thy fellows powerless,
And from the clutch of the gangmaster's hand
Wrench the keen whip that seams and scores thy flesh,
To flog thy brother with! Oh, villanous!
If this but be the purport of our Tower,
Its vaunted aims thus egotistical,
May swift the rampant lightning smite its top,
And following thunder shake its selfish base,
And bury us beneath it!

ARAN.
Hark to him!
This is the folly we can hear at home,
Babbled by lips of women. There are men
Of such a sickly temper, faith! I trow
That Nature's hand shook when she moulded them,
And from that moment their affections took
Impress unstable and ambiguous.
Why, look you, man! if you have craft to look,
Some one must serve; and to emancipate
All equally, would only render thralls
Of all alike. If we should mend our lot,
Theirs may be mended too; withal, there must
'Twixt us and them be due discrepancy.
The very secret of the sky, we seek
By our assault to learn, is how to rule,
And keep weak spirits in subjection;
And though, when once triumphant, we might be
More merciful than it, our mercy ne'er
Would plan our own effectual overthrow.
Thank Heaven for this at least, it hath not made
All men mere maunderers.

KORAH.
No, nor all men blind.
Thou bidst me look; 'tis thou that canst not see.
The self-same ferment thou dost boast, and which
Excites this insurrection in thy breast,
Pervades the heart of all things. 'Tis the barm
Which saves the stuff of life from turning sad,
Heavy, and wholly indigestible.
Thou art the dreamer, dost thou think to keep
The solace of this yeasty discontent
From the bare hearths of slowly-trudging toil?
'Tis there 'tis most at home; not 'neath the roof
Of purple pomp and roomy luxury:
And couldst thou drive it from the proud man's gate,
'Twould refuge take in hovels of the poor.
But ne'er from either will't be banishëd.
'Tis the one guest that's entertained by all,
The uncomfortable comfort of our lives,
Though welcome ne'er, yet never sent away,
To-morrow's empty balance 'gainst to-day.
It is our common brotherhood that breeds
Common dissatisfaction with our lot;
And common brotherhood should bid us seek
A common remedy, to heal us all.
Ay, build your Tower, and pluck ye down the skies
From their unpitying proud pre-eminence;
But, having purged the Heavens of their pride
Keep not the foul distemper for the Earth!
Oh! I believe the time will come when men
Will be as free and equal as the waves,
That seem to jostle but that never jar,
Which climb and sink together, interfuse,
Grow smooth with meeting, interchange their shapes,
And in each other merge identity.
Blest be the aspirations of the Tower,
Hastening the advent of that day! If not,
A thousand curses on it!

SIDON.
Well said, both.
But well said is not wisdom. Sense and sound
But rarely travel coupled. Life, large life,
Cannot be wrapped in phrases; they are too small.
And when of life ye would neat parcels make,
Just as ye stop one end with reasons, it
Runs out on t'other side. As for yon Tower,
'Tis a tall toy, made for the Gods to play with.
For Gods are many or none. Beyond your God,
Either there dwells another, godlier,
Or, like ourselves, they wrangle and dispute,
And half their blows descend upon our heads;
Whilst from their harmony we suffer more
Even than from their discords. They agree,
Their strifes suspended, to make sport of us,
Treating us much as boys treat cockroaches:
They prick us just to see what we will do.
Shrink, and they prick us more, to know what next.
But case ourselves in mailed indifference,
They fancy us inanimate or dead,
And leave us to our numbness. There's the cure!
'Tis patience makes us level with the Gods,
And baffles their malignity. In vain
The thong is plied on him who will not shrink,
But bites his heart through rather than concede
One cry to cheer the scourger. That is a Tower,
Which needs no building, and is ne'er o'erthrown.

PELEG.
And this is called divine philosophy,
That thinks to outwit God! Patience is well,
But not because man's burdens may not be
Shifted or lightened ever, but that the hand
Which doth impose them is a hand all-wise,
The back that bears them, foolish. Sacrifice,
Prayer, and first fruits, can still propitiate
The Being whom insurrection will not move.
Man's lot is hard, ye say? How do ye know,
It were not harder yet, did ye not proffer
Frankincense and the fragrant steam of flesh,
Entrails and caul of calves, rams without stain,
She-goats, and morn and evening holocaust?
With these we keep the thunder in the skies,
The ocean in its bed, which else would mount,
And roll a final deluge o'er the Earth.
Pile high the Tower; but when its top is crowned,
To Heaven its whorls ascending dedicate,
And Heaven perchance will condescend to lift
Some feathers off your fardels.

EBER.
Worthy priest,
Forgive me if thy words seem little worth.
For whilst among the bowels of the slain
Thou hast been pottering, or devoutly bent
Over the blood of writhing turtle-doves,
I through the silent watches of the night
Have scanned the slow procession of the stars,
In even courses moving; caught the rhythm
Of the melodious planets as they chime,
Each after each, over the measured sky.
And I have marked that in that upper world
There is continuous concord, order firm,
And a most noble discipline. The clouds
Are fitful, seeing they are born of earth;
But beyond our capricious envelope
Abides a steady sphere, serene of will,
And governed by a sovran certainty.
I chide no living heart that strives and soars,
And it may be this pile magnificent
Will yield to Aran all he hopes from it,
And unto those who build it. But, for me,
I watch with joy its scaling spirals rise,
Since by its growing summit I am ta'en
Nearer and nearer to the orbs that are
The alphabet of knowledge, whence I seek
To shape a language that shall speak to all
Of what they need to learn: how to conform
To method that ne'er wavers, and provide
'Gainst swift vicissitudes no human power
Can e'er avert, but still to be foreseen:
So that no second deluge find us bare
Of arks of shelter. Stars will teach us this,
And not libations. Thine is the one void task;
For nought is wholly impotent save prayer.

ARAN.
Right bravely uttered! Faith! I did not think
That an astrologer could be so wise.
Thou hast learned somewhat from thy star-gazing,
And art henceforward welcome to a post
Upon our topmost balcony, to watch
The womanish mutations of the moon.
There, perched 'twixt earth and sky, thou chance mayst catch
Some whispers of the jealous firmament,
And pass them on to us; playing the part
Of daring eavesdropper, under the roof of Heaven!
Thou canst not mar our work, and so mightst aid it.
But not with with Peleg's tactics do I hold,
Nor yet with Sidon's; for in scales of sense,
I find an even balance 'tween the Priest
And the Philosopher, in whom there is
A common emptiness. How say ye, friends?

THE CROWD.
We say with Aran. Long live Aran! long
May solid counsel, kin to his, prevail!

ARAN.
Even so I thought. 'Twere folly, cowardice,
Still with oblations to appease the skies,
And buy off threatening tyranny with bribes,
When grasping grows with giving. 'Twere as apt,
To quench a fire with fuel. But no less
Doth patience seem to me inapposite.
We are not all philosophers; we are men.

THE CROWD.
True, we are men, and not philosophers!
That should make Sidon wince.

ARAN.
And we, being men,
Men, and not worms more than philosophers,
Will not be trodden on by men or Gods.
As for poor Korah's unripe phantasies,
I put it to you, friends! Will ye consent
That slave and free shall ever be confused,
Or that the menial myriads ye behold
Swarming about that goodly scaffolding,
Shall with you share dominion and delight?
Why, next the steer would ask to be unyoked,
And lambs cry “Hold!” when ye would clip their fleece;
The very earth would chide the lordly share,
And fagots claim exemption from the fire;
Children would break the rod, and,—crowning freak!—
Women with men assert equality.

THE CROWD.
Good, good! There's no philosophy can stand
'Gainst logic such as that!

ARAN.
Then we are agreed.
'Tis in the Tower that our salvation hides;
And what we claim from Heaven is comely life,
Comely and pleasant; mastery over Fate,
The government of rain and wind and drouth,
Harvests abounding, honey, and wine, and oil;
Fat flocks, and herds unvisited by pest,
No fever, ache, nor ague, but an Earth
Fixed and serene as Eber's vaunted spheres,
Long jocund days, and nights in rapture steeped,
Submissive wives, children as dense as bloom,
And novel store of luscious concubines.
We ask no more; but these are what we ask.

THE CROWD.
Nought beyond these. And if we them obtain,
Aran's blest name shall through the ages live!

ARAN.
Then let us urge them faster! Each, my friends,
Each to his post, and expedite the hour
When the usurping Deity shall hear
Our thunder at His gates, and His high throne
Fall with a clash to the abyss of Hell!

CHORUS OF WOMEN.
(chanting).

SCENE II.

—The tents of Aran. Same morning and hour as in Scene I. The topmost circles of the Tower visible in the distance, with Ararat beyond. Noema. Irad.
IRAD.
Nay, mother, let me go! I see the Tower
Rising and rising higher and higher each day;
And every morn I wake, I can descry
More and still more of its great head. What harm
To see it near, more than to see it far?

NOEMA.
I would thou couldst not see it, far or near.
It is a cursëd thing, and some dread morn
Or angry night will topple down and be
For its projectors grave and monument.
What, Irad, if thou stood'st beneath it then?

IRAD.
I am not frightened, mother.

NOEMA.
Would thou wert!
But in the breast of each male whelp that breathes,
There lurks a devilish audacity,
Which stamps on Earth, and brandishes its pride
Full 'gainst the face of Heaven. Oh, I think,
Not Adam surely, but fell Lucifer,
Was the first father of the race, and left
His rebel poison in the womb of Eve,
To taint all later sons. In vain our meek
And trembling dispositions do conceive,
Foster, and suckle them. Our daughters take
The impress of their mothers; but our boys,
Since cast in the superb Archangel's die,
Consort with terror!

IRAD.
Then, I may go, mother.

NOEMA.
No, Irad, no; indeed thou mayst not go.
Think, darling, think, though thou mayst know no fear,
Thou leav'st a mother's fluttering heart at home,
Startled by every breeze, lest it should bring
Destruction on thy pretty head, and leave
Me worse than widowed!

IRAD.
Then I will not go.
Nay, weep not, mother. I will sail my boat
Upon the shallows by the river's brink,
Returning to thee shortly.

NOEMA.
Bless thee, child!
For if thou hast the male ferocity,
Thou hast the true male gentleness no less.
Thus should it be. The noblest men still are
Tough as the bole, but tender as the leaves;
And whilst the strangling hurricane in vain
Writhes round their trunk, one little tearful cloud
Or kissing zephyr stirs their foliage.
Go to the river, then; but, Irad, heed
Thou still dost keep the shallows.

IRAD.
O yes, mother!

SCENE III.

NOEMA.
How glad I am to be alone! It irked
Even to hear Irad's sweet babble purl
In endless ripples round me. I am alone,
Alone, as long I wished. Yet do I wish
Wholly to be alone? I cannot say it.
Oh! where is He, that shadow of myself,
Which I project, or as I sit or move,
And, shadow like, is still before, behind,
But never quite beside me! Yesterday,
Leagued with to-morrow, kills the day that is,
And hearts subsist on memory and hope.
Was it a dream? Hath he forgotten me?
Or have the envious Heavens sucked him up,
And clipped his too erratic pinions?
Was it a dream, only a dream? O no!
I saw his fair celestial properties,
Heard his articulate distinctive voice,
And felt his warm and aromatic wings
Swaying above me as he breathed farewell.
Was that a dream, then all the world's a dream,
Yon upstart spirals wreaths of rising mist,
The mountains flimsy as the atmosphere,
The sun himself an ignus-fatuus,
And all our senses only visionary.
No, 'twas no dream; it is the waking seems so!
Oh! shall I never gaze upon him more,
And must the sweetness of that single hour
Be long life's lasting bitterness? I feel
No wish to name him now; only to hide
The tumults he has bred! O, I do think
That when we lock a secret in our breast,
True to its task, that soft recess assumes
The casket's hardness! O how hard mine feels!
Hark!

A VOICE SINGING.
Over the realms of balsam and of myrrh,
I have flown, I have flown,
And endless deserts plumed with snow and fir,
All alone, all alone,
Seeing if other on the Earth there were,
Like my own, like my own!

NOEMA.
Oh! 'tis his voice! I could distinguish it,
Were all the Heavens singing at a time.
'Tis in the air, and yet I cannot see him.

VOICE SINGING

AFRAEL.
Yes, it is thou, and I have hit my nest
At the first swoop! Dost not remember me?

NOEMA.
Remember? No! For memory implies
Power to forget; and from my constant mind
Ne'er for one moment hath thine image passed.
But why art thou invisible? I hear
Thy silvery notes, but fail to find the spot
Where thou hang'st poising.

AFRAEL.
I am on the ground,
Not in the air, and full in front of thee.
'T must be the daylight dazzles thee, and that
Spirits resemble sunshine, and the form
Thou in the gloaming plainly didst discern,
Thou now confoundest with the garish day.
But look! look! here,—here where I bend o'er thee!

NOEMA.
(shading her eyes).
Ha! I can guess thee now, and, as I gaze,
Do from the ambient sunshine round thee off,
And recognise thy seeming. But, how bright,
How wondrous bright thou art, and whilst the air
Shimmers unstably, thou serenely shin'st!
Else were there no distinction twixt the twain,
And thou wert wholly hidden from mine eyes.
But whence hast come so early in the hours?

AFRAEL.
Straight from my star, the star of dark and dawn!
I met a lark, going up to heaven, and shaking
Dew from his feet and music from his wings,
And I did ask him of thee. At the which,
He shrilled out such a volume of sweet sound,
It filled the azure-vaulted firmament,
And set the stars a-ringing. Then I knew
He from the heaven below, where thou dost dwell,
Had plumed his flight; and through the air I slid,
Adown the path by which he had ascended.
Oh! he hath proved to me a trusty guide,
And happy be his song amid the clouds!

NOEMA.
My blessing, too, go with that messenger!
For I did think never to see thee more;
But, like a bird that on the topmost spray
Of some dark solitary tree alights,
Only to shake it with its song, then leave,
That thou hadst perched an instant on my life,
To make it lonely ever afterward!

AFRAEL.
How couldst think that, when still my wings kept warm
The sense of that brief tenancy, and yearned
To close once more on their delicious perch?
O that I were a nightingale, that I
Might hide within the scented coppice nigh
The curtain of the chamber where thou keep'st,
And with my song accompany thy dreams!
Might be that summer visitant that hangs
Its cradle under hospitable eaves,
And so abide 'neath the same roof as thou!
Be that, be anything but what I am,
Since what I am keeps me so far from thee!

NOEMA.
Why then didst bridle thy return so long,
And with delay torture expectancy?

AFRAEL.
Now must I slip my secret from its leash.
When in the dwindling twilight of that eve
Consumed in happy intercourse, I sailed
Back to my native ether, I conceived
A pang at parting never felt before,
Parting from whence I might; for novelty
Hath ever been, and is, the Spirit's joy.
But from the hour when I my pinions fledged
To quit thee, novelty had lost its charm.
There was no sun in heaven, no room in space,
No freshness in infinity, nought new
In all the illimitable realms of air.
Then had I swept to thee direct, when lo!
A strange surmise arrested my descent.
What if it were the quality of Earth
To tame the pulse of Spirits, and compel
Him who hath once its narrow bounds essayed,
Still to return, and if it was not thou,
But the mere planet's self, which had subdued
The once discursive temper of my flight?
Swift through the intervening air I shot,
And on the Earth alighted, but not here.
Mountains magnificent, and inland seas
Blue as thine orbs and deep, smooth as thy brow,
Forests of trunks stupendous, sweeping heaven
With dark audacious tops, snow-fed cascades
Taking anon the whiteness of their birth,
Then flashing into silver; oceans vast
With endless manes uplifted, foam-lashed strands,
Sweet-watered valleys, cool, and ever green,
Darkling ravines o'er-pent by crags that faced
And frowned against each other; waving meads
By asphodel and amaranth o'errun,
Stirred into music by the soughing breeze;
Lands of wide ribless snow and strident winds,
And howled at by the hungry hurricanes;
Realms of rank heat, and then of scorching cold,
And middle zones of genial compromise
Betwixt these fierce extremes;—o'er these, o'er all,
O'er many more I sailed with curious wing,
Skimming the uneven globe, its heights, its depths,
And all myself to it surrendering,
That it might make me subject, had it power.
Then to the heaven of heavens I backward soared,—
Seven times the sun having withdrawn his light,
The while I journeyed o'er the earth,—and there
Myself replenished with celestial food.

NOEMA.
But in thy travel didst encounter none
Like unto us? no man, no woman,—

AFRAEL.
None,
Though life abounded. In the deep-troughed waves,
Grim monsters rolled and belched. By river-banks
Mountainous creatures basked, their bulging backs
Cracked by the sun. In jungles choked with growth
And knotted stems, prowled gloomy-visaged beasts,
Savage though beautiful, and, as I passed,
Snapped at my wings; others, as meek as fair,
But coy as cloudlets 'fore a noonday sun,
Halted and glanced, then twinkling, disappeared
In leafy coverts; many-plumaged birds,
Dove-like and gentle, piping to themselves,
Amidst a world of sportive butterflies.
But nowhere found I trace of aught like thee,
Or those thou callest thine, though all seemed fit
To be their dwelling: only mute expanse
Of hills, and woods, and wastes, and grievous seas
Moaning around unpeopled continents!

NOEMA.
O would that Aran had been here, to hark
Thy wondrous tale, and therefrom learn what home,
What Heaven, we have to master, and desist
From vain aggression 'gainst the foreign sky!
Say, didst thou mark the egregious edifice
Which yonder looms upon the horizon big,
And with still growingly aggressive gaze
Threatens the placid firmament?

AFRAEL.
I did,
And should this very morn have paused and scanned
Its bulk, which hourly more stupendous grows,
Whilst tree, and plain, and mountain keep the same,
But that my pinions swift refused to swerve
In direct flight towards thee. What may it be?

NOEMA.
An engine of presumption reared by man
To wreck his God; a ladder by whose rungs
Would climbing mortals the Immortal reach,
And hurl Him to its base; Tower from whose top
Earth is to spring and find itself in Heaven!

AFRAEL.
That were a splendid and a central aim,
Could it but hit its mark! But 'twill fly wide;
There's so much room to miss. But why this rage?
Why doth not Earth content Earth's denizens,
Or eyes that see, grudge the Invisible
Its shroud of darkness?

NOEMA.
Ah! because 'tis Earth,
And what we see, and see not, are confused
In a perpetual twilight! Dost not know
The melancholy story of our race?

AFRAEL.
No; but would learn, if thou wilt tell it me.

NOEMA.
There was a Garden planted with delights,
And nightly fed by never-failing dews,
Which rains nor visited, nor drouth, and where
All the concordant seasons reigned at once.
Spring never shed her blossoms, and the fruit
Of Autumn hung eternal on the bough;
Whilst Winter tempered with its sprightly breath
Summer's too luscious languor. 'Twas a world
Whose atmosphere was fragrance and the sound
Of waters falling from replenished founts,
Eden so-called, a paradise untilled.
And in its midst, its sovran lords, there roamed
A man and woman, parent of us all,
Though not like us degenerate, but he
Comely as thou, she far more fair than I.

AFRAEL.
O would that thou and I had been that pair,
And were it still!

NOEMA.
Nay, hearken ere thou speak,
Nor be the sport of that temerity
Which rushes onward to a goal unseen,
From a fair starting-point! Happy they were,
As thou too fondly deem'st we too should be,
So circumstanced: not happy to the end.
For in the Garden one strange Tree there bloomed,
One only, of the which they might not eat,—
For God forbade,—the Tree whose fruit conferred
Knowledge of Good and Evil. But they ate.
Straightway the veil of innocence was rent,
And in each other's rankling minds they saw
The base-born brood of Self; greedy desire,
Grudges, and petulance, and secret aims,
Anger, remorse, reciprocal reproach,
And they who hitherto had been but one,
Were two henceforth!

AFRAEL.
Was there no remedy?

NOEMA.
'Tis said there was. There stood another tree,
The tree of Life, of which had they but plucked,—
Such is the tale obscure tradition tells,—
They might have lived for ever, and so balked
The doom which fell upon them, doom of death.
But ere that dismal fault could be repaired,
God drove them from the Garden, and its gates
Guarding with sword of flaming cherubim,
Propelled them to the wilderness, where toil
Is each one's heritage, and tares, and thorns,
Emblems of direr griefs, mix with the corn
Raised by the sweat and furrows of the brow.

AFRAEL.
But is toil pain? What is't but energy,
The same delicious hurricane of will
That sends me scudding in and out the stars,
Bore me around thy deep-indented globe,
And brings me to thy feet? Such toil is rapture!

NOEMA.
Yes, for such toil hath pleasure for its end,
Not profit, and involves none other's pain;
Whereas all mortal energy may fail,
And in succeeding must some mortal hurt.
Toil like to ours means jarring interests,
And is as though in the unfrontiered air
The wingëd tenants of thy star should clash,
Because their rival pinions strove to beat
The self-same pathway.

AFRAEL.
That we never do.
For Spirits, when they meet, oft lightning make,
But never, thunder.

NOEMA.
So! That tells me why
On summer nights I see the flashes play
About the horizon, though the skies be clear,
And all the stars lustrous and imminent.
Would it were so with us! But we, alas!
Circling in narrow rounds, for ever cross
Each other's track, then push for mastery.
For man hath still a double war to wage,
War against Nature, and thence war with man.
One brings the body ache and age, and one,
Bequeathes the heart disgust, despondency,
And hatred of that Self for which, despite
That very hate, we still are forced to strive.

AFRAEL.
'Tis a strange tale, this that thou tell'st to me.
Yet doth it sound like truth, if I surmise
Rightly its import. What might be the fruit,
The seed of so much bane, or wherefore He,
Who put it in their way, forbade its use,
Outsoars conjecture; for to us no less,
Beyond is still the portal of Beyond,
And Cause is lost in links of Consequence.
This much, withal, seems plain: thy ancestors,
Touching a tree forbidden them, exchanged
Forthwith a prosperous will for needy want,
And in the place of careless appetites
Which found immediate banquet, there arose
Necessity for labour, forethought, greed,
And fears anent the Future. Thence I see
How Self was first begotten,—dismal Self,
Which pines within the dungeon that it builds,
Deeming therein is sole security.
But is there no escape from Self, no rift
In the chill cloud Self's self doth generate,
Through which Unself shines visible beyond?

NOEMA.
O yes, there is! though it be transitory.
Amid this bare flat desert of our lives,
Through whose deep sands with staggering feet we plod,
Its heat, its drouth, its length, its weariness,
With still the same horizon, lo! sometimes
A green oasis shimmers. Oft it proves
Only a mirage, and the saddened heart,
Whose credulous pulse had quickened at the cheat,
Back to its old monotony subsides,
And beats the minutes idly. Oh! but when
It is no mirage, no distressful lie,
But an umbrageous moist reality,
Cool leaves and freshly bubbling spring, then, then,
The desert is forgotten, life and death,
And all the loathsome loads betwixt the twain
We bear, poor wretched sumpters! Then we halt,
Unpack each other's fardels, bending see
Each other's face reflected in the wave,
Drink from the self-same fount, and make our couch
Under the self-same starlit canopy!

AFRAEL.
And what is this oasis?

NOEMA.
It is Love.

AFRAEL.
And what is Love?

NOEMA.
Oh! Love is what it is!
Like nothing else in all the universe,
So is there nought it can be likened to.
To those who know it, patent, but to those
Who ne'er have known it, indescribable.
Go tell me what the tree feels, when in spring
The sweet insidious sap begins to stir
About its roots, flushes its stagnant rind,
And through the gnarled and gouty trunk transmits
The genial shock, till every limb and branch
Thrills to the spray-tips: what the mountain stream,
When glittering April uncongeals its bed,
And sends it dancing downwards to the vale,
Singing the songs of wayward liberty:
Or what the Night must feel, when the deep dark,
Which is but secret seeing, veils the Earth,
And the bared breast of hushed Heaven throbs with stars!
Tell me all these, and I will tell thee then
What the distinctions and delights of Love.
'Tis a fifth season, a sixth sense, a light,
A warmth beyond the cunning of the sun;
Another element; fire, water, air,
Nor burn, nor quench, nor feed it, for it lives
Steeped in its self-provided atmosphere!

AFRAEL.
Thou mak'st me feel like liberated stream,
Like the warmed trunk, like to the trancëd night,
Whilst I stay listening to thine eloquence;
And all the spheres of all the firmament
Seem to lack something now! Still, how doth Love
Baffle that self, which clearly I discern
Is Earth's essential bane?

NOEMA.
O, because 'tis
A transcendental egotism, Love,—
Which deifies a dearer self, and makes
The heart a shrine, pure for the sake of it;
Upon whose altar Self by self is slain,
And adoration crowned by sacrifice.
Love dwelleth in the tents of the beloved,
Though countless leagues of pasture intervene.
Its thoughts, its wants, are otherwhere; time, space,
And all conventions are its enemies.
It sickens for one only voice; the note
Of viol, flute, and hollowed instrument,
Untuned by that, remain unmusical.
One hand alone hath the electric touch,
And by the lightnings of no other eye
Is the world's darkness sundered! Such is Love;
And they whose stagnant spirits have been stirred
Once by its subterranean current, know
That Love is all, and all beside is nought,
Emptiness, and the ticking of the brain!

AFRAEL.
Why, then, I love thee! For that spreading dome
Of boundless blue, which round the universe
Nor endeth nor beginneth, and whose orbs
Are countless as its uncontainëd leagues,
Within whose inexhaustible expanse,
Which knoweth no Without, my pinions range
As unconditioned as itself, and find
Endless pursuit, endless variety,—
Since in that tender twilight I alit
Upon this new-found sphere, and felt my wings
Ruffled with unknown rapture,—hath but seemed
Infinite void, infinite weariness,
And purposeless distraction! Here alone,
Here in the palm-trees' shade, this spot of Earth,
To which by mortal chances thou art fixed,
Do I now find fulness and amplitude.
There is no pleasant pathway through the stars,
Save towards this bourne it bends; no journeying,
Which doth not tire before it doth begin,
Unless it doth propose thee for its end.
Thou fill'st for me the spacious universe,
And art its centre, and circumference too!
Say, is this love?

NOEMA.
'Tis strangely like to it!
Nor, wert thou mortal, could I doubt but thou
Hadst by its air-borne seed been fertilised.
But mortal love, though mortals' benison,
Would to immortals surely be but bane;
Since that which adds to poor humanity,
Would but subtract from thee. Nay, think of it!
Love, that can lift us half-way to the spheres,
Must, if thou couldst subserve its influence,
Lure thee half-way below them. Thou art a Spirit;
And Love, for all its potent witchery,
Inextricably tangled in the flesh,
Could not strike root in thee. O, man is gross,
And even his finest motions sensibly
From the affections of the body start,
Or feebly flag towards it as their goal!
Earth being but earth, Love, heaven in part, can bring
Terrestrial darkness some celestial light.
But if the wholly heavenly should essay
To feed on earthy blackness, why, it would
By the foul fog swift be extinguishëd!

AFRAEL.
There is a mystery here, sweet mortal voice!
Which, as it seems to my intelligence,
Thou dost not rightly rede. If there be points
Where Heaven and Earth may meet, and that point Love,
Why cannot Love therefrom a circle spread
That may contain them both? And thou didst say
That Love is but a transitory gleam.
Yet surely when two mortals have entrapped
That welcome sunshine in their dungeoned lives,
They do not let it go, but love till death
Nor perishes nor pales?

NOEMA.
Alack! it does.
That is the deepest tragedy of all,
When Love immortal dies! When two fair beings,
Who were the morning in each other's eyes,
Fade into irrecoverable night,
And hear each other through the darkness call,
But never find each other's faces more!

AFRAEL.
And doth it end like that? How pitiful!
Life sure must mark an antedated death,
At such a fell conclusion. But I glean
Flesh is the edge of that catastrophe,
And rash Love topples over! I were safe
'Gainst such a precipice, for Spirit walks
Along the crest of all things, undismayed,
Nor ever dizzied by sheer eminence.
My love for thee,—for let me call it love,
If only that the word sounds strangely sweet,—
Would be as long-enduring as myself,
Who cannot end.

NOEMA.
Would it indeed be so?
For to be loved by Spirit, and for ever,—
Oh! what could woman dream of more than that?
And 'twere from sensuous homage so estranged,
One could not grudge the other, nor the high
Upon the distant low wreak any slight.

AFRAEL.
Then let me love!

NOEMA.
How can I hinder thee,
An thou dost love? Love asks not leave to blow,
More than the wind which rises in the night,
And comes we know not whence, nor will abate,
Though chance it ruffle our serenity
More than we would. Love is as free as light,
And will shine still, though we put shutters up
To bar it out. There's no extinguishing
Love's sturdy flame by puff of human breath,
Blow we or hot or cold. Neglect, disdain,
Anger, chicane, misuse, indifference,
Weary not out Love's longanimity;
And all the wiles of doubling waywardness
Foil not Love's keen pursuit! Who shall say nay
When Love says yes, or contradiction give
To its importunate affirmative?
Itself unto itself is sovran stay,
Nor needs it smiling countenance to find,
In its own heart, hope and encouragement.

AFRAEL.
Then 'neath my wings will I enfold my love,
And bear it with me to the firmament,
And through the envious constellations sail
With my new treasure for companion!
But wilt not thou thyself, source of this love,
Lend thy divine attractions to my flight,
And let me cleave for thee with feathery plumes
The all too dense and opaque envelope
That wraps thy earthly habitation round,
And buoy thee up through heavenly distances,
Whose distance ne'er will lessen, since its goal,
A canopy of ether that is hung
Over our heads, will with our soaring soar?
Oh! say me yes, and come with me this night,
When to thy seeming all the stars will wake,
Though sleep ne'er comes to their unwearied orbs!

NOEMA.
Dost mean that I should quit the kindred ground,
And with thee journey through the alien air?
I, all of flesh compounded, should be borne
Upon the supersensuous elements,
And this my carnal weight be lifted up
Along with thee, lightsome and volatile?

AFRAEL.
Yes, that is what I ask thee.

NOEMA.
Then, indeed,
Thou dost me love! for love alone could shape
A dream so airy and fantastical.
We are gross clay, I tell thee,—loaded, clogged,
For ever striving to sink lower yet
If lowest Earth would let us; and thy wings,
Which are but shadows to thy will, and sweep,
Straight at its bidding, each imagined curve,
Would fail to wrench this body cumbersome
One foot from off its cradle and its grave.

AFRAEL.
Wilt let me once my Spirit's force essay
On thy fair matter, when the winds are still,
And the down-hanging curtains of the night
Are diapered with stars? this night, this night,
The one that's nearest!

NOEMA.
Thou hast a Spirit's choice,
And drawest a prize where all the rest were blank.
A woman's nights are mostly servitude,
But this one lifts the yoke. There will be held
A mid-nocturnal parley at the Tower,
And I shall watch alone, whilst Irad floats
With dreamy sails o'er sleep's soft-heaving sea.
Come, then, to-night!

AFRAEL.
Yes, I to-night will come.
But may meanwhile the love, which here I lay
Soft on thy breast, like water-lily sink
Into the depths that give it sustenance!
[Afrael ascends into the air, singing.

NOEMA
(sol.)
What a surpassing gift of song thou hast!
And when thou scal'st such heights of harmony,
I cannot choose but love thee! Love thee? No!
But let myself be loved. That's different,
And may not be escaped. Who blames the shore,
Because the sea woos it perpetually,
Or chides the modest stationary flowers,
Because the vagrant self-indulgent bees
Steal luscious mead from their defenceless lips?
And even to love a Spirit were no more,
Surely, than just to love the atmosphere,
The glitter of the morning, or the strain
Of joyous bird deep-hidden in a brake;
While to be loved by Spirit, were to have
A suitor less familiar than the wind,
Who kisses brow and cheek, and asks no leave.
Still, Love, for all our reasoning, retains
Such arguments to swift confound our words,
That they who know him best, know likewise this,
To name him is to tremble. . . . Oh! I trust,
He will not come to-night!

SCENE IV.

—Eber and Irad approach. Irad runs forward to his mother.
IRAD.
See! mother! mother!
See what a ship Eber has made for me!
The keel is carved from cedar-wood, the prow
Is beaked and curled, the hull is hollowed out,
And holds a cargo of the richest dates,
We plucked together. From the canes that grow,—
You know them, mother,—on the Euphrates' banks,
He cut these great tall masts, and from their leaves,
Hauled from the water, shaped their flapping sails.
The cordage is of palm-pith, and the crew
Moulded from river-slime. They are at work,
Tug at the ropes, feel at the helm, and sit
Among the shrouds like living mariners.
Is it not wonderful?

NOEMA.
A splendid toy.
How kind of Eber! Have you thanked him for it?

IRAD.
O yes! But 'tis no toy. How foolish, mother!
It is a real, real ship, with force to skim
What Eber calls the ocean. Oh! I wish
That there were water here, and I could show you
What a grand giant of a ship it is,
And how it butts the wave, when dragged along!

NOEMA.
Where is the trough on which thou sail'st thy boats?

IRAD.
The trough! What, mother, are you thinking of?
'Tis well enough for little paper skiffs,
Such as thou mak'st for me. But Eber says
The river's self is yet too small to bear
A huge live vessel. Oh! that I could see
This ocean, and upon it sail my boats,
And ride on the rough waves along with them!
[Eber comes up.
I have been showing mother my rare ship.
O Eber, thank you, thank you! But I want
To launch it on the ocean. Mother thinks
A trough will serve for monsters like to this.
When will you show me the broad ocean, Eber?

NOEMA.
Welcome, good Eber! and a mother's thanks
That thou hast so much kindliness to waste
Upon her child.

IRAD.
When will you take me, Eber?

NOEMA.
Tax Eber now no more with thy demands,
But with thy silence pay thy gratitude.
Take thy ship, Irad, thy magnificent ship,
And find it storage 'mong thy dwarfer boats.

IRAD.
But see the name Eber has burnt on it!
The Tower! The Tower! My ship is called The Tower!
Why, everybody loves the Tower but mother,
But chiding, darling mother.
[He throws his arms round Noema and kisses her.
Now I go,
To find my ship a good dry landing-place.
Again, I thank you, Eber,—thank you, thank you!

[Exit.
NOEMA.
I wish thou hadst not called his toy The Tower.
I hate the name.

EBER.
Hate! What is there to hate?
It is a toy like Irad's: bigger truly,
As are its builders; but a toy at which
The Gods but smile, even as we smile at his!

NOEMA.
Why dost thou speak of Gods? There is one God,
Tradition tells, one only, one in Heaven.

EBER.
Tradition is a senile counsellor,
With memory half gone. The same old tales
She loves to mumble, and distort afresh.
She is a toothless crone, whose jumbling wit
Ranges through gossip, dreams, fears, tattered scraps
Of musty prophecy, report, surmise,
And quick-grown rumour, which when pierced, betrays,
Like to a specious spurious agaric,
But smoke and stench inside. Tradition chokes
Discovery's highway, nor can single truth
Elbow its road through fable's dense-packed crowd.
Gods there may be, or God; 'tis yet to prove.
Perchance we ne'er shall prove it. But 'tis well
To clinch this on the mind,—that oft there hides
A treasure-trove in e'en old women's tales,
Though, like a rubbish-heap, they scarcely tempt
A nice hand to disturb them.

NOEMA.
I am a woman;
And likely we are all,—old, young, and those
Nor young nor old,—to wisdom foolishness.
Yet, may be, we have ever and anon
Glimpses of things too coy to let the wise
Upon their delicate proportions stare.
But tell me, what is doing at the Tower;
If Aran wields authority as sure
As when he first affirmed it?

EBER.
More, far more.
Rebellion stooped to pick up brands this morn,
But quick he snatched them from its half-raised arm,
And smote its back with its own instruments.
Oh! it was rare to see the front with which
He frowned down Korah, and the flashing eyes
Before whose scorching fire e'en Peleg shrank,
Lest it should blister him! For though I rate
Their Tower but as a ladder whence I may,
Deciphering, read Heaven's starry hieroglyphs,
Male courage in the male breast echo wakes,
And like an instant hurricane that straight
Tears out the heart o' the forest with its teeth,
He carried all before him. Long live Aran!
Long live our liberation! loudly rang
Up all the massive whorls of the huge Tower,
That seemed to shake with shouting.

NOEMA.
And the end?

EBER.
I am nor prophet nor priest; and he who scans
The certain skies, learns to be diffident
Of what is all uncertain. But of late
Have I marked strange conjunctions which if read
With due intelligence, to portents point:
Convulsion in the top and bottom worlds,
With trouble in their middle atmospheres;
Quakes, tremors, tempests, tides irregular,
All order topsy-turvy, ordered yet
By supereminent Order which defies
The reach of calculation short as mine.

NOEMA.
But hast thou not warned Aran of all this?

EBER.
Warned Aran! 'Twere as sane to warn the wave
'Twill 'gainst the shore but pound itself to spray,
Warn the fierce-grinning tiger, ere it springs,
'Twill only leap upon the hunter's spear,
As Aran warn with message from the skies.
Doth he not listen to thy homely voice,
The cracking universe would find him deaf.
But pardon me if in my quick retort
I had forgotten who thou art, and who,
He whom I seem to slight. I do not slight him.
His road towards Heaven and mine are different,
And I should tack and trim where he sails slap
In the gale's brunt. But 'tis a fearless heart.
And fearlessness, accounted much by men,
Sums conquest over women. Fare thee well!

[Exit.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
But why should we be conquered? Why not won
With patient arts of gentle mastery?
We are crushed easily; that's sure enough.
But is it well or wise, manly or just,
To plant the heel of domination down
With such an emphasis on things so soft?
For we are less than they, more subtle, weak,
Unstable, more the straws of accident;
And only that perverseness, which is part
Of our infirmity, would claim a place
Of equal sway beside them. Like control
Begets a like responsibility;
And Heaven forbid that we should ever be
Responsible against the storms, the cuffs,
And rude surprises of the world, that would
Swift whelm us utterly! We need a shicld,
But shield which, rough upon the foeful side,
Wears yet a smooth concavity, nor galls
The following breast, it has to save from hurt.
If fearlessness were all, why then one might
As well go couple with the hugging bear,
Lie with the pard and suckle his hot cubs,
Be littered with the lion, kiss the wolf,
Or feel the scratching of the tiger's claws
Upon one's back in amorous savagery!
O gentle-touching Spirit! thou dost not crush,
Nor make me feel my inequality,
Though betwixt thee and me extends the space
That lies 'twixt Earth and Heaven! I to thee
Could live subservient ever, and look up
Theeward, as fondly as at some one star,
Seen through blue rifts of fleecy-scudding clouds!
Yet in thy star remain, nor answer me
With the fulfilment of my timid wants,
Which, if they saw the long-feigned goal too near,
Would turn and run affrighted, to regain
The safe confinement of their starting-place.
Such contradiction fights in woman's veins!
He must not come to-night!