University of Virginia Library

III. VOL. III.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

GREEKS.

• Alexander.
• Hephestion, his friend.
• Parmenio, the old General of King Philip.
• Philotas, son of Parmenio.
• Antigonus, afterwards King of Asia Minor.
• Cassander, afterwards King of Macedonia.
• Ptolemy, Historian of the War, afterwards King of Egypt.
• Seleuous, afterwards King of Syria and Asia to the Indus.
• Perdiccas, Generals.
• Craterus, Generals.
• Peucestas, Generals.
• Amyntas, Generals.
• Socrates, Generals.
• Eumenes, Secretary to Alexander.
• Antisthenes, a Rhetorician.
• Phylax, a Physician.
• Soldiers, Messengers, a Page.

EASTERNS.

• Darius, King of Persia.
• Artabazus, Satrap of Persian Province.
• Arsites, Satrap of Persian Province.
• Astar, a Magian.

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• The Jewish High Priest.
• Memnon, a Rhodian commanding the army of Darius.
• A Chaldæan Priest.
• Azelmicus, King of Tyre.
• Hanno, Senator of Tyre.
• Asdrubal, Senator of Tyre.
• Ithocles, Senator of Tyre.
• Hamilcar, Senator of Tyre.
• Calanus, an Indian Brahmin.

WOMEN.

• Sisygambis, mother of Darius.
• The Queen of Persia, wife of Darius.
• Arsinoe, his daughter.
• Amastris, her cousin.

ACT I.

Scene I.—The Shore at Sestos.

Parmenio, Philotas, Cassander, Ptolemy.
Par.
Arrived in time: our transports, there they lie!
Embark the troops! He throws on me the tasks
That need the practised hand. Calas, yon tide
Will try the nerves of your Thessalian steeds,
And point their boding ears.

Phi.
Nicanor, mark!
Sea-born Abydos beckons us with smile
Saucy as Hero's. Death is death, or else
I'd have Leander's luck.

Par.
In this, my sons,
Our visionary prince shows fair ensample:
Glory he woos, not Pleasure.

Ptol.
Glory, or Empire?
For these are twain.

Par.
And which he most affects,
Then when your chronicle is writ and ended
The Athenian dialectic shall resolve.
Old Macedon, by Greeks barbaric styled,
Thank thou thy gods, and, after them, thy snows,
The strong heart still is thine!

Cas.
How those huge galleys
Dash the dark wave to silver! Touching the king—

Par.
What know I of the king? He sits in Persia.

Cas.
I meant our Macedonian.

Par.
Alexander?
Then call him by his name. A babe, I danced him;
A child, before me held him on my horse:
I am too old to orientalize.

Ptol.
He owes you much.

Par.
A realm his father owed me,
And knew it well. The son is reverent too,
But with a difference, sir. In Philip's time
My voice was Delphic on the battle-field:
This young man taps the springs of my experience
As though with water to allay his wine
Of keener inspirations. “Speak thy thought,
Parmenio!” Ere my words are half way out
He nods approval, or he smiles dissent.
Still, there is like him none! I marvelled oft
To see him breast that tempest from the north,
Drowning revolt in the Danubian wave.
The foe in sight, instant he knew their numbers;
If distant, guessed their whereabout—how lay
The intermediate tract—if fordable
The streams—the vales accessible to horse:
'Twas like the craft of beasts remote from man.

Phi.
Father, you ever boast the king reveres you;
I say, he flouts you in the army's face:
You rail; but still he conquers.

Par.
Son, 'tis so;
Young gamesters have their luck.

Phi.
He slights you daily,
And for your sake slights me. Last eve he passed me
(His hand was heavy on Hephestion's shoulder,
The Phalanx saw it, and the Silver Shields),
Vouchsafing me no word.

Scene II.—Troy.

Hephestion, Seleucus, Craterus, Citizens, Priests.
Cra.
He likes not Troy. His gaze, that's onward ever,
Like gaze of one that watches for the dawn,
Is bent to the earth.

Sel.
Far otherwise it beamed
When, in mid channel, lifting high the bowl,
He poured to great Poseidon and the nymphs
Their dues; far other when he flung far forth
Nighing the shore, his spear that shook for gladness,
Rooted in Asia's soil!

Alexander joins them, attended by Hephestion.
Tro. Cit.
Great King of Greeks!
Welcome! Atrides treads once more in Troy!

Alex.
Where is Achilles' fane—mine ancestor's?
I see it not.

Tro. Priest.
No fanes stand here to mortals.

Alex.
Ay, mortal was his sire. His arms, where are they?

2nd Cit.
Ulysses won them by the Greeks' decree.

Alex.
The Greeks! I knew you Phrygian by your garb
And medicated voice. Whose fane is that?

2nd Cit.
'Tis Aphrodite's, sire, that won the prize
On yonder Ida.

Alex.
Ay, your Aphrodite!
She that, the Helena among the gods—
I ever scorned that son of hers, Æneas:
But for his mother's veil around him flung
Tydides' hand had slain him. Troy consumed,
Where fled he?

Tro. Priest.
First to Carthage; next to Rome:
He founded there a State.

Alex.
A fugitive
Then founded what a bandit horde built up:
The twain were aptly yoked. That State shall crumble.
Whose fane is this? 'tis small, but fair.

Tro. Priest.
Athenè's.

Alex.
A man may enter this, and unashamed:
What arms are those that shine from yonder wall?

Tro. Priest.
The arms of Greeks who died at Troy.

Alex.
Remove them!
Into whatever battle-field I ride,
Those arms shall go before me. Where they hang
Suspend the panoply I wear. Athenè,
This night 'tis dedicate to thee.

A Tro. Cit.
Great king!
Behold the boast of Troy! My kindred guard it—
The lyre of Helen's husband!

Alex.
Mark, Hephestion,
The legend-mongers at their work! 'Twas thus
They forged in Macedon that preposterous tale,
Scandalous alike to me and to my mother,
Touching great Zeus. It made the God my sire:
'Twas false! my mother to her lord was true
Till, wronged, she slew him. Juggler, your lyre's a lie!
Show it to girls! I seek Achilles' tomb.
Hephestion, be thou with me. Sirs, farewell.

[Alexander and Hephestion walk on together.

Scene III.—Troy. The Portico of Aphrodite's Temple.

Philotas and Phylax.
Phi.
Banquet at sunset! Yonder priest morose
Has barred those gates, and swears the keys are stolen!
Our revel must be here: we'll have at feast
All wit and wisdom extant in our host;—
I am its Wit, and you, good Leech, its Wisdom!
You know my cooks of old! I pray you, Phylax,
Teach them to make the dish that richliest spiced
The wholesomest likewise! I have wealth and beauty,
My father's greatness, and the army's love:
One thing remains which men like me must fear—
Sickness; a serious sickness.

Phy.
Sage, though young!
Our craft was born to make delights less baneful.

Phi.
You shun delights yourself: I pardon you,
Knowing your sour mood comes from spite, not virtue:
Age should have spite: with scoffs the dry lip quickens:—
We are friends albeit unlike.

Phy.
Unlike in likeness:
We both speak truth: in youth I lived like you:
Age—if it comes—in time will make you acrid;—
If—for the vain like you, have many foes:
I am anatomist; 'neath the flesh that is
Mine eye notes still the skeleton to be
Whose grin diverts me better than youth's smile.
How like you battle-fields?

Phi.
In thought, not much:
But when the trumpets sound their music warms me:
Not less my valour is a reasoning thing:
In the onset fenced am I by huge strong men
Whose fortunes rest on mine. There's Ptolemy!
I call him “Empty head and stately step!”
I'd rather dine upon that man than with him!
Phylax, I think you love me!

Phy.
In my way—
Not with that love which fain would die to save you,
Yet love enough to avenge if slain by wrong.

Phi.
A league!

Phy.
I swear.

Phi.
Good friend, be here at sunset!

Scene IV.—Troy: near the Tomb of Achilles.

Alexander and Hephestion.
Alex.
My master ofttimes, the wise Stagyrite,
Condemn'd the Passions, branded them as a yoke
Which Action's strenuous sons should scorn to bear,
And chiefly praised the Tragic Muse for this,
That, showing these as monsters, she with fire
Of Pity and Terror cleanses the clear soul
Lifted above all passions. This is Troy!
Dreamland ends here.

Heph.
Alas! how small an urn
Suffices for the earth-o' erstriding dust
Which one time shook the world!

Alex.
Must they too shrink,
Simois, and yon Scamander! Children ford
The flood that drown'd Greek warriors! Here the Sphinx
Makes banquet large: her riddle's hard to read.
That Ten Years' War, what fruit thereof remains?
What empire lives, its witness and its crown?
What shall we say? That those were common men
Made large by mists of Time? Or shall we rather
Conclude them real, and our age a fraud;
Determine that in them old Homer saw
Some greatness hidden from the blinded herd;
Foresaw some far result?

Heph.
Sir, from Achilles
Descendeth not Olympias?

Alex.
Ay.

Heph.
Through her
The spirit of the Strong Ones came on you:
I make my answer thus. The Trojan War
Begins its work decreed—in you begins it:
It finds not end in ashes and a song:
The empire you shall found must stand its witness.
But hush! The Tomb is here: the headstone o'er it
Half lost in brambles!

Alex.
(Anointing the pillar on the grave of Achilles).
[After a pause.

[Hephestion crowns the pillar on the grave of Patroclus, and rejoins Alexander.
Alex.
You tarried:—wherefore?

Heph.
For justice's sake, and friendship's. Is there room
For nothing, then, but greatness on the earth?
I crown'd that other tomb.

Alex.
What tomb?

Heph.
It stood
Close by, the loftier;—greater love had raised it;
Patroclus' tomb.

Alex.
'Tis strange I marked it not.

Heph.
These two were friends.

Alex.
Ay; nor in death divided.

Heph.
Therefore, despite that insolent cynic sect,
The gods have care for things on earth.

Alex.
Hephestion!
That which Patroclus to Achilles was
Art thou to me—my nearest and mine inmost.
In them, not lives alone, but fates were join'd:
Patroclus died; Achilles follow'd soon.
But lo, that glare! Abydos glances forth
Through the olive copse far off. A thousand wrinkles
Even now run up Parmenio's wintry brows
Shaping our battle's scheme. It rests not with him;
Yet be it his in fancy!

Scene V.—The Palace at Susa.

The Queen of Persia.
The Queen.
The morn is stiller than the night. How sweetly
The green of yon tall garden-trees o'erlays
Those golden bars of stationary light
That cut the marbles of the palace floor!
How pleasant, too, that fount's monotonous chime,
Wakening the self-same echoes in the courts
They heard in bygone years! May no change come!

[Arsinoe and the other royal children enter.
Ars.
Here is a lily, mother, pluck'd at dawn:
The dews were on it thick; upon the dews
I laid my kiss, because for you 'twas destined:
Now dews and kiss are gone!

The Queen.
The dews lie yet
Bright on your curls; I drop my kiss upon them:
May never rude hand touch my flower! You caught
The Spring asleep, and caged it in your bosom;
I feel its songsters there!

A Younger Child.
Mother! We found
A plant that showed us butterflies for blossoms:
We clapp'd our hands to fright them, but they moved not!

The Queen.
I see no butterflies; but these warm hands
Are more to me. This is your father's birthday.
He has heard ill tidings.

Ars.
Tidings! I remember
Some gardeners told us, but in mockery only,
'Twas said that pirates from an isle far off
Which one time had been liegeful to our Persia,
Wild men who drag their living from sea-waves,
By hunger roused to wrath had flung themselves
In war against mankind. We'll sell our gems,
And bid them purchase bread.

The Queen.
Their king invades us:
From hill to hill our watch-fires flashed the news.

The Younger Child.
How fair that sight must be! May we not see it?

The Queen.
That sight! Ah, child, thou know'st not what it means!
It means the torch laid to the poor man's roof:
The hamlet—older than these Halls—a-flaming!
It means the mother's wail; the shriek of babe
Half mad with fear, yet knowing not the danger!
It means that awful silence of the brave
When hope is past. It means the stream blood-red:
It means the lately disunited lips
Of lovers, blanched with death. It means a life
Made frustrate, and the grey-beard weeping sore
Above the ruined lands his youth reclaimed.
[A pause. She proceeds.
It means God's world become the prey of demons:
It means worst passions lion-like unbound.
Ah me! ah me!

A Lady.
The great, sweet eyes grow wild!
She sees that wreck!

The Queen.
Thank God, this Persian Realm
Though vast, is unaggressive—Persia's king,
Oh how unlike this king of savage hordes!

Ars.
I thought all kings were righteous, kind, paternal!
How old may be his kingdom?

The Queen.
'Tis a realm
Novel, yet proud; made up of rocks and vales,
With here and there a field where corn can grow;
'Tis smaller than our smallest Persian province.

Astar
(entering).
Gone mad at last! They've much to make them mad!
They're mad with false philosophies, and schemes
For building cloudy fabrics, brief as clouds,
Which they style Polities. They're mad, beside,
With orators that rouse to tempest mood
The popular sea wrath-ridden. They're madder yet
With rival altars and with warring gods
More bestial than themselves. Their Greece lay long
Prone in her intertangled, blind republics,
A knot of serpents glistening in the sun:
This day, in Alexander raised too late,
She stands erect—to die.

Ars.
Can nothing save them?

Ast.
In three weeks more, their heads from Susa's walls
Will frown against the sun.

Ars.
Not so! Not so!
'Twere shame to deal with misery thus. We're strong:
The sound must needs compassionate the sick:
The wise protect the weak. Ah me, I babble.

The Queen.
Because your sisters and your head strong brother
Name you their Intercessor, and because
Your little flock salute you Little Mother,
You'd throw your veil above a rebel race,
And hide them from their doom!

Ars.
Plead for them, mother!
Our agèd Sisygambis too shall plead:
Her heart is great.

The Queen.
She walk'd a lioness once;
Butsince her brethren died she's changed: there's in her
A tremor like the tremor in a tree
Which staggers o'er the axe. Three nights, moreover,
She's vision rack'd. She saw a portent wing'd
That storm-like from the West, against the storm,
Made way, and smote the East.

Ast.
The silver altars
Lift, day and night, that ever-living flame
The witness, bodiless, yet visible,
Of Him, that Spirit all-piercing, girdling all things,
All-quickening like the sun, though seal'd from sense
Lest man should see and die. His hand alone
Shines, lightning-like, through error of man's night,
Cleansing base shapes, or else, with happier change
Of dissolution glorious, raising high
And throning in clear skies. Great Persian Realm!
Whose stable basis is the strength of man,
Whose height his hope; within whose sea-like breadth
The storms but wrestle on the lap of calm;
The vigil of whose worship draws to earth
Her peace; whose centuries, misnamed of slumber,
Are fruitfuller to man than cyclic dreams
Of seeming-wakeful nations all whose life
Is lodged in foot and tongne; great Persian Realm!
Let the fly buzz upon thy wall world-wide,
The viper creep unheeded till it reaches

Thy trampling heel!

[An acclaim is heard without.
The Queen.
That sound might wake the dead!
The king returns: his people flock to meet him.

Scene VI.—The Western side of the Granicus.

The Greek army approaches it.
Alexander, Parmenio, and other Generals.
Par.
The crown of courage, boy, is self-restraint
When clamourers goad us. Pitch thy camp. They'll fly:
At dawn we pass the flood unquestion'd.

Alex.
Greeks!
To the water's edge! (To Parmenio.)
The morning sun would daze us:
This hour it spites the foe.

Scene VII.—The Eastern bank of the Granicus.

The Persian Army commanded by Memnon of Rhodes. With him are Spithridates, Satrap of Lydia, Arsites, Satrap of Phrygia, and others.
Mem.
There's the famed Phalanx—by yon river's side—
Place the horse opposite; in them we're strongest:
Arsites, with your Phrygians guard yon bank:
Keep the south marge; nor threat them till they're crossing:
Then welcome them with javelins.

Ars.
I misdoubt
Our Grecian mercenaries.

Mem.
They will fight
If hearten'd by the event, or anger'd. Place them
On yonder rearward hill. The odds are with us.

Scene VIII.—The Western bank of the Granicus.

Alexander and his Generals.
Par.
Come what come may, this battle should be lost!
A chance may save it, or the gods may save it:—
By laws of war this battle should be lost.

Alex.
You're sure of that?

Par.
Here all things are against us;
The stream is swollen with April-melted snows;
The banks are treacherous, the fords infrequent,
And shifting with the eddies. Alexander,
You fight not here with Thracians. Mark yon mount!
Nor Dacian there, nor Mœsian rules the war:
Old Rhodian Memnon sets his teeth, and knots
The tangle of his wiles to lash you homewards:
See him there gather'd on his war-horse staid
That 'mid those trivial prancers knows to stand;
Firm-set he sits, crook-kneed, with hand o'er eyes
That slowly take their survey of the field,
A man that deals with war in the way of business.
Lo, there, he hurls his horsemen forth in squadrons!
Your Phalanx next must cross the flood. What then?
The uneven ground will loose their wedged array
Like a spread hedgehog.

Alex.
Shake our standard forth!
Let sound the trumpets! Send our battle down,
The Macedonian and Pæonian horse,
And infantry light-arm'd, upon the right;
And on the left the Thracian; in the centre
Our moving fortress, fenced with brazen walls,
Our Phalanx inexpugnable. Amyntas,
See it march, slanting, up the river's bed
There where the brighter current marks the shoal:
Already hath it served us. Persia's horse
Forms opposite, beguiled, on broken ground,
That shall not help them. March with shields high held,
For turning of their shafts.

Scene IX.—The Eastern bank of the Granicus.

The Hypaspists, Seleucus, and Cassander.
Cas.
We have left the waves behind; the worst is over!
Their shafts are straws, but these our spears have weight:
Thrust them into their faces! So—'tis well:
Spoil their fine looks, and spite their Asian brides:
Beat out Arabia's unguents from their curls:
Spare not the gem-wrought corselet!

Sel.
Alexander
Cried thus,—“My brave Hypaspists landed once,
The fight is fought, and won!” I heard him speak it!
Have at thee, silken Syrian! Next for thee,
Bactrian or Mede!

Cas.
How long it takes in crossing!
The Phalanx boasts itself a tortoise mail'd:
It moves as slowly.

[He falls, wounded by an arrow.
Sel.
Well charged, Pæonian horse! That charge has saved us!
Good friends, this blood is Persia's more than mine;
Pray gods it enter not my veins and taint them
With cowardice of Persia!

A Soldier.
Hark! it thunders!

[The Persian cavalry comes up, headed by Mithridates, and at the same moment Alexander from the opposite side.]
Alex.
(Striking down Mithridates with his spear.)
Give that to thy great cousin, King Darius!

Rhœ.
(Smiting Alexander on the helmet, which bursts asunder.)
Hail! Philip's son!

Alex.
[Pierces his breast; Spithridates, riding up from behind has just raised his sword above Alexander's head when Cleitus severs his arm with a sword-cut.]

[The Phalanx pushes against the Persian centre, which bends inward. The disorder gradually reaches the extremities of the Persian line, and the Macedonian cavalry breaks through its weaker parts. The left wing, under Parmenio, charges. The whole Persian army falls into rout.]
Alex.
The field is ours! Persia to Parthian changes!
After them, Thracian horse; but not too far!
Drive them some twenty stadia; wheeling then,
Take in the rear those Grecian mercenaries:
At them in front, strong Phalanx! close them round
Northward with your Hypaspists, brave Seleucus!
These are the Greeks that sold their Greece for gold:
Grant others mercy; let no traitor live!
How now, Parmenio? Is it their strategy
That feigns this politic flight?

Par.
Sir, all the gods
Ride in the train of your triumphant fortune,
And hold the gold-cloth o'er your head ablaze;
For your sake they reverse all laws of war:
I said they might.

Eum.
Our horse has lost but sixty:
The victory's cheap.

Alex.
See that those dead be honoured
With kingly obsequies. No man of their kin
Not one, while Greece is Greece, shall stand amerced
With civil tax or toll.

Ptol.
Two thousand prisoners—

Alex.
We'll not forget them. Let them sweat, foot-chained,
In cities both of Macedon and Greece.

Eum.
The body-guard have lost but twenty-five.

Alex.
Write on thy tablets, we decree them statues
In Pella, where my tomb shall stand one day,
My task complete. Lysippus be the sculptor:
We grace the Persian dead with funeral rites:
They fought in their allegiance. Send to Athens
Three hundred suits of armour stripped from these
The stone-cold dead: upon the Acropolis
See they be ranged—in great Athenè's fane—
With this inscription 'neath them: “Alexander,
The son of Philip, when the Persian host
Fell at Granicus, sent to Greece this spoil:
The Grecians holp to take it, save alone
The men of Lacedemon.” Grave it in marble.

Eum.
It shall be so ordain'd.

Alex.
Hephestion, send
Our noblest spoils to Ilium's maiden fane:
Let Ilium bear henceforth a city's title.

Mith.
(the governor of Sardis, arriving).
Sardis submits, laying before her king
The keys of her great treasury.

Alex.
Tell me, sir,
How many factions rage there in your city?

Mith.
Two, mighty king, the nobles and the people:
The nobles rule.

Alex.
Their rule is over-ruled:
We prop the weaker; they shall need us most.
Proclaim to Sardis that all privileges
Ravished from her by Persia, we to her
Revindicate. To Ephesian Artemis,
A goddess friendly still to Macedon,
Whose temple at our birth-hour fell by fire,
We shall be helpful likewise. Ephesus
Herself by penitence shall purge that wrong
Done to my father's statue. Tell those realms
Betwixt the Euxine and Pamphylian seas,
That Grecian galaxy of Lesser Asia,
That Argive choir in eastern exile sad,
That Doric garland on base Persia's brow,
We came not here to crush them, but exalt:
This hand shall lift them to their first estate,
And lodge them 'mid the skiey heights of Greece.
Let it be noised abroad.

Scene X.—Near the Granicus.

Philotas, Antisthenes.
Phi.
To me alone he spake no word of honour:—
Is that Hephestion's malice, or his own?

Ant.
His own. This king is valued past his worth:
I join'd his march to write his deeds, and note
He deigns to touch no book save blind old Homer.
He nothing says that's sage, like Ptolemy,
Or keen of edge like Craterus. I grant him,
Sagacity supreme in observation:
He sees with more than sight: seeing with him,
Is Act and Thought, not sense.

Phi.
'Twas said of old,
“Philip is but Parmenio:” others cried
In Thrace, “What's Alexander but Philotas!”
Yet this is he that scorns me! All save life
I'd peril for revenge.

Ant.
Nor valour here,
Nor learning meets its guerdon. Yet remember
In scheme or act to place Parmenio first;
He's rooted in the popular mind so deep
No storm can shake him. Be it whisper'd still,
“Parmenio frown'd,” “Parmenio disapproved,”
“Parmenio censured much the young man's rashness:”
When Fortune swerves the king shall bear the brunt:
Parmenio fill his throne.

Phi.
I hear of plots.

Ant.
Hear, heed, and hide; but help not. Wait, and win;
Let others run the risk.

Phi.
You'll meet at supper
Phylax, my leech.

ACT II.

Scene I.—A Sea-cliff opposite New Tyre.

Alexander
(alone).
Wings without body! Such—no more—is Commerce
Which rests not upon Empire! Commerce, ruling,
Disperses man's chief forces; commerce ruled
By spirit heroic, yields increase of thoughts
That give a wider base to greatness. Tyre!
How soon thy golden feathers forth shall fly
Upon the storm of War! Lo, where she sits
Upon her rock, wave-girt, and turret-crown'd,
Gazing toward her western daughter, Carthage!—
Tyre of the ships! Phœnicia gave us letters,
Which are to mind as fingers to the hand,
And shape, dividing, Thought's articulate world:—
For Greece she found them, using them not herself;
Men stumble thus on glories not for them,
The rightful appanage of the capable.
The Empire which I found shall tread the earth,
Yet ever it go flying. From its vans
The twin-born beams of Grecian Song and Science
Shall send perpetual dawn. Hephestion, welcome!

Heph.
(joining him).
How long you gaze on yonder beaming sea!
It burns mine eyes like fire.

Alex.
[After a pause.

Heph.
I can see it:
Hard by Canobus stretches, long and thin,
Sharp, like an adder's tongue, a promontory—

Alex.
It guards the region's harbour, one and sole:
Thereon my world's great diadem shall rest:
On Alexandria's quays Greek and Egyptian
Shall join in traffic: through the populous streets
My Phalanx shall return from conquer'd lands;
There shall old Egypt lisp our Grecian tongue
The Phidian hand subdue the hieroglyph;
Athenè share with Isis! Hail, Seleucus!
A cloud is on your countenance.

Sel.
(arriving).
Alexander!
I have fought your battles, and I love you inly
But fawn on no man's follies. What is this?
Shall soldiers sweat and toil like beasts of burthen,
And I their task-master to pare the wage?
Month after month they toil, to make this causeway
'Twixt Ancient Tyre and New; our gallant steeds
That chased so oft the foe—

Alex.
'Tis well: three stadia
The causeway's made. Remains to make the fourth:
That done, we reach the gates of Tyre, and knock.

Sel.
The fourth is thrice the three for time and labour:
We're now in deepening water: from its rock
Yon city walls ascend two hundred palms:
Their arrows gall us: on their towers they raise
Huge furnaces.

Alex.
Seleucus, all is cared for;
Two thousand arms have striven three days and more
In controversy with the centuried pine
On Libanus; in four my towers shall stand
High as their towers, and make them large reply.
Return, my friend. Tell them their king, ere long,
Will lead them into Tyre. (Seleucus departs moodily.)
Mark you, Hephestion,
They're in one tale, Seleucus and the rest:
Seleucus loves me well, nor boasts himself:
Another's gloom it is that clouds his brow:
Parmenio hates this march to Tyre and Egypt:
His mind grows leaner than the threaded sails
Of yonder bark so worn the wind goes through them:
It holds no thought that's new. I count that man
My chief of dangers. 'Tis a desperate game:
I'll have no shrewish counsellor near, to shake
My soldiers' hearts with cavils.

Heph.
Old Parmenio
Is spleenful when he thinks: he's best in action.

Alex.
I, who defer not easily to facts
Which cross my purpose, see them when they're plain:
Those which confront me reason of themselves.
Demosthenes, the wonder-working voice,
In Athens roars against me. Lacedæmon
Pushes her horn, dull Agis, at my sides:
Strong-hearted Thebes remembers. In old time
But one Thersites stood 'mid many kings;
Therein, methinks, great Homer show'd his wit;
Those States are, each, Thersites, windier grown,
And I their monarch one and sole. If Persia
Should join with those, and fire the world behind me,
Advance were hard; retreat impossible.
Therefore I cleave from Persia Tyre and Egypt,
Their ports, their ships, harbours, and mariners;
So shall she turn her face from Greece, and I
Sleep without dream. I told Parmenio this.

Heph.
He answered?

Alex.
Still the old note—“Darius arms:
A year, and all his empire will be on you.”

Heph.
He boasts a million soldiers.

Alex.
Let them come!
A moiety of their numbers fought at Issus.
Let him bring up his empire's total strength:
Be it embattled, we will bring it under.
The enmity I fear is that which lurks
A dull swamp-fever in that people's veins
Which hates its lord because it scorns itself,
And, having striven but half, knows not its limit.
This is the hate which bides its time. A realm
Shall stand confuted in war's argument
Then when its say is said: well silenced, Time
Takes still the conqueror's side.

Heph.
Is there forgiveness
For conquerors?

Alex.
Ay; but for half conquerors, none.
The realms which earlier conquerors won, they stole,
Using for personal ends. What rule all glorious
That primal usurpation counterpoised?
What victories swathed the grub in light? What hand
Beneficent in sternness, or, if soft,
Parental, not seductive, raised on high,
With virtue strengthened, or with knowledge lit
Those kingdoms subjugate? I wrest them back
In the name of honesty and upright dealing,
And give them to mankind. If sword of mine
Had slept in the iron ore for endless ages,
Spurning its call divine, the mocking gods
Bending from heaven had swept with menial besom,
As from fair pavements, dust, those menial kings,
The opprobrium of authentic royalty.
The realms I rule shall love me.

Heph.
Lesser Asia
'Tis true this day is with you.

Alex.
Persia shall be:
But till she does her best, and worst, and fails,
The work I work is temporal. Let her do it!
Then comes my time:—
Strong hand makes empire: hand that heals retains it.
I came not to be Cyrus o'er again;
Another reign begins. Enough: 'tis late:—
How fares that fallen House?

Heph.
As Patience fares
In the extreme of sadness. Sisygambis,
Under the great weight of her ninety years,
Sits heavy, slowly moving tearless eyes
Which seek her son Darius, or, it may be,
Her eighty brothers, slaughtered in one day
Long since by Ochus. She that was the queen
On the queen-mother gazes without speech,
And, pitying that high grief, tempers her own.
The royal children stand, now glad, now pensive,
'Twixt light and shade.

Alex.
I chose for them the best,
Consigning them to you.

Heph.
The palace pile
Of olden Tyre affords them kind repose:
The sea-dirge scarce can pierce its massive walls:
There they have woodland shades for grief to hide in,
And streams to lull the voice of memory.
Those Easterns call such places Paradises,
And much affect them.

Alex.
Seek that aged queen,
Hephestion. When my leisure serves I'll see her.

Scene II.—The Senate House in New Tyre.

Hanno, Hamilcar, Asdrubal, Ithocles, and other Tyrians.
Han.
He says we're merchants, and in merchant wise
We trafficked with him, and equivocated,
First sending him in pomp a golden crown,
Next, when he fain had offered vows to Melkart,
Denying access.

Asd.
Let him pray outside:
He makes no landing here.

Ith.
We're strong enough,
And victuall'd for two years. 'Twixt Greece and Persia
The issue hangs in doubt: if Greece should fail,
Persia shall be beholden much to us,
That kept her foe far from her. If she wins—

Ham.
Ten citizens have dream'd Apollo's statue,
Ta'en 'mid the chiefest spoils when Gela fell,
And now by gift of Carthage ours, stood up
Beside their beds with stormy brow though bright,
And said, “I leave this city.”

Asd.
Close those gates!
Whene'er they're opened such a din comes o'er us
From keels half laid, and blasts from new-forged engines,
I hear not him that speaks.

Ith.
The gates, ye slaves!

A Herald
(entering).
Lords of the Senate, hail!
Great Carthage honours
The queenly womb from which her greatness sprang,
Accepts your terms, the Cypriot port, and trade
In gums Arabian shared on equal terms,

And stands your mate in arms.

[Shouts of applause.
A Senator.
Who speaks of yielding?

2nd Sen.
The gods are with us.

3rd Sen.
Thus my sentence stands—
Bind we with golden chains Apollo's statue
To the altar of great Melkart! Tyre's new guest
Shall love his city. Thus the Ephesians wrought:
And with them bode their god thenceforth in peace.

Scene III.—Sea-shore near Old Tyre.

Alexander, Ptolemy, Hephestion.
Alex.
There's truth on earth still extant. Read that missive:

Ptol.
(reads aloud).
“‘The Hebrew people, subject long to Persia,
Revolt not. Neither war they with the Greek
That wrong'd them not. Their God shall guard His own.’”

Alex.
These men speak plainly; Tyre prevaricated:
These stand at neither side; but Tyre at both:
I somewhat love thee, Hierosolyma!
I'll find a time ere Tyre has met her doom
To look upon that city. Lo, Philotas!
[Philotas approaches.
He has been a-prospering, and his heart is high.

Ptol.
'Tis higher than his head; and that he tosses
As though he supp'd with gods. His thoughts, what are they?
Brain-bubbles from infructuous restlessness:
Alone the slowly-gender'd thought lives long:
The rest I deem of as the buzzing swarm
Teem'd from the mud of Nile.

Phi.
Hail, Alexander!
Damascus sups with Death!

Alex.
It ne'er was strong.

Phi.
Oh, 'tis a mighty city, and a rich!
It stands in meads well-water'd, girt with gardens
That charge the winds with fragrance. Then the captives!
Their ransom shall enrich you with a flood
Beggaring the all-gold Pactolus;—princely ladies
From Issus, and three daughters of King Ochus;
Dead Memnon's widow, and his daughters three.
We've clutch'd, 'mid other spoils, Darius' wardrobe!
If all Old Tyre were turn'd to theatre,
And all our soldiers changed to mimes, the least
Might choose his part, and play it with fit garb!
I'd end this tedious siege with one great drama,
“The tragic comedy of Persia's fall,”
(Myself the extempore Aristophanes)
And homeward speed next morn!

Alex.
The royal treasure?

Phi.
Sir, 'tis a world of ingots and of gems.

Alex.
That means a fleet. The price of Sidon's paid.

Phi.
The treasure's well; but oh, the way we won it!
Upon an intercepted messenger
We found a scroll from him that ruled Damascus,
Proffering submission, friendship, and the gold.
We sent him back—a smile our only answer—
And follow'd to the city. From its gates
A long procession issued streaming forth,
Sleek courtiers, nobles, magistrates, and priests,
Seven thousand beasts of burthen in their midst
Beneath the treasure bent. Old Syphax cried,
“They'll claim reward.” Like lightning, while they near'd us,
As though we took that concourse huge for war,
We hurled on them a squadron of our horse,
With orders not to spare. The sight was merry:
The wonder in their stupid eyes upturn'd
Surpass'd, methought, the terror!

Alex.
[Philotas makes obeisance and retires.

Heph.
I've noted that long since. The man's still young:
Coldness in youth is twice the cold of eld:
Beneath the ashes of a fire burnt out
Some heat may lurk; but from the unfuell'd hearth
And dusk bars of a never-lighted fire
The chillness comes of death. Not Macedon,
'Twas warm Greece taught me that.

Alex.
Beware the man!
Twice, while I rated him, he glanced at you
With sidelong eye. He'll hurt you when he may.

Scene IV.—The Causeway between Old and New Tyre.

Phylax, Antisthenes.
Ant.
Methinks our king grows proud.

Phy.
It is high diet
Turns pack-horse into charger. The o'er-fed gods
Are emulous pampering this youth with triumphs.

Ant.
Let him take Tyre, and then he may be proud;
But if he fails, these fingers shall record it,
“At Tyre it was the Greeks first call'd him proud.”
Our patron loves him not, nor loves Hephestion.

Phy.
Philotas hates the king; but scorns Hephestion:
Our patron's hasty. Time befriends the slow.

Scene V.—The Gardens of the Palace at Old Tyre.

Hephestion, Arsinoe.
Ars.
Hephestion, well return'd! My mother sits
To-day recluse. She bade me show you flowers:
Here is a rose unblown. My mother thinks
God made the world for peace, not war, Hephestion,
Or he had never planted roses in it;
But what think you?

Heph.
Princess, the rose hath thorns:
'Tis sweetness mixed with sharpness: such is war.
I see your cousin walks beneath the palms.

Ars.
Is she not fair?

Heph.
None fairer. Three days since
Passing, she fix'd on us her great blue eyes,
That seem'd to shine through tears.

Ars.
They're tearful ever:
She is an orphan, nursed within our house:
She told you once that we were like two sisters;
But more she loves me far than sisters love.
Amastris reads—her wont—a book all gold:
'Tis full of songs: I fear they're chiefly war-songs.
Were there in all times wars?

Heph.
Princess, there were:
Our Homer sang of battles.

Ars.
Think you not
He sang of battles in his songs' behoof,
Lest, singing only little lays of love,
Strong hearts had scorn'd his music? This I know,
War is not hatred only; for our king,
Hearing of some great deed your king had wrought,
Some deed both just and brave, lifted his hands
And pray'd—“Preserve, Dread Power, this Persian crown!
Yet, if from us thou rend it, let it light
On Alexander's brows!”

Heph.
That was a prayer
Fit for a king!

Ars.
Your king in reverence greets
Our Sisygambis with a “mother's” name:
And yet, methinks, he neither loves nor hates.

Heph.
He loves not many, and himself the least:
His purposes to him are wife and child.
He couch'd on frosty rocks while huddled crowds
Shut out the watch fires. When the summer heat
More late had dried the marrow in our bones,
And now, a spring discover'd, crawling came
A soldier with a water-cup, one moment
He gazed into the eyes of those around,
Then pour'd that water on the sands. Alone
He would not drink it.

Ars.
Ask me not, Hephestion,
To love your king, or wish him what you wish:
That were, in me, disloyal, faithless, false;
I needs must wish him failure. Oh for the time
When all the good shall war on all things evil,
And none upon each other! It shall come!
The Light shall vanquish Dark. Who made mankind
Will tell us, one day, all we need to know.

Heph.
Then why so late?

Ars.
No doubt that man may learn
His need of light, and prize it well when granted;
For thus by question apt, and feign'd delay,
Parent in child quickens the appetite
For knowledge first, and after that rewards it;
And what are years—or ages—to a god?
Then wars shall cease.

Heph.
War is an instinct, princess;
The gods have given it, and the god-like praised:
It lifts us o'er the petty love of life,
The quest for pleasure, and the greed for gold;
It makes a nation's manhood; stifles factions;
Crowns the great head watching the whole night long
For them that sleep. War, like a healthful tempest,
Scatters the infection.

Ars.
Ah, the Greek is hard!
I guess'd it once; I know it now. Last year
I saw a palace fill'd with Grecian statues:
How beautiful they were; but yet how loveless!
Sweetness was theirs, and majesty, and grace;
Yet theirs, methought, a world that knew no pity:
A thing hard-hearted seem'd your Grecian Art.
Our art was rule: Persia held high her head;—
The Power Divine beheld, and brought it low:
What if the heart of Greece should turn to stone?
Shall she escape?

Heph.
I have had my boding thoughts:—
She's great in war.

Ars.
Praise not that murderer, War!
Persia had Empery; Greece hath Art and Science:
Why not content them, each, with what she hath?
Or as a youth in marriage takes a maid,
And of these twain a lovely race is born,
Why should not warring nations wed their gifts
And breed some god-like gain? What hope from war?
What fruit but breaking hearts?

Heph.
That shade comes o'er you
Which veil'd you when we met:—when, Issus won,
The king and I entered a wailing tent
With speed to tell you that your father lived.

Ars.
How gentle seem'd you then! He, too, was gentle:
We knelt to you, misdeeming you the king:
Your king but laugh'd. He lacked not royal face,
Albeit too eager-eyed.

Heph.
The other Greeks,
Of them what say you?

Ars.
They are light and boastful,
Save Ptolemy, upon whose grave, broad brow
Empire might sit: they spurn the earth, not tread it:
Here is the one I like the least. Abide
Till he is gone, Hephestion.

Phi.
(approaching).
Beam and breeze,
Maiden, to you, and these, the inferior flowers,
Are boon alike. Suspecting in that rose
Your beauty's future rival you were wise
To pluck it still unblown. You'll prove as kind
Bestowing it on me.

Ars.
The Royal House
Accords its gifts to those who claim them least:
I pluck'd it for Hephestion.

Phi.
He is happy:
The favourites of a prince are favourites still
With those around him—nobles, courtiers, captives—
Warriors alone, attent on graver cares,
Catch not the lesser whispers of a court:
Rustlings of silk for others, not for them,
Reveal their oracles.

Ars.
Hephestion—

Phi.
Lady,
Your mother, doubtless, would have news of friends
Housed in Damascus: I am lately thence.

Ars.
Her majesty sojourns with the palace:
It may be she will see you.

Phi.
Lady, farewell!
[Aside, departing.
One day Hephestion shall remember this.

Ars.
He's gone:—the day grows still. Hold you, Hephestion,
A favourite 'mid the flowers?

Heph.
Princess, in this
The oft-erring public vote I deem not erring.
You have heard the legend of the Flowers' Debate.
The Rose advanced her claim: “Love's flower am I!
The nightingale loves more my fragrant breast
Than his own feather'd mate.” The Lily next,
“The flower of Purity am I: young maids
Boast me their snowy standard.” At the word,
The Rose put forth her first white bud, and wears
Since then the double crown.

Ars.
I like that legend:
Who made it?

Heph.
I—unless you made it, princess:
My eyes were on you when the thought descended.

Ars.
Hephestion, I have not forgot my promise;
This rose-bud take; 'tis white. Could rose-buds live
As long as grateful thoughts, or were they loved
Their freshness past, 'twould help you to remember
In hours to come, what else you might forget,
Kindness in prison'd days to burthen'd hearts,
Kindness to helpless womanhood, sad old age,
Childhood—or what was childhood till our woes
Had changed young hearts to serious. I must go:
By this time our sweet mother will expect me.
For his sake whom you love, your king, your friend,
Jest not with dangers in the wars before you.

Heph.
Princess, for me this flower will keep its freshness.

Scene VI.—Gate of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Ptolemy, with a squadron of Thessalian Horse, which passes on.
Ptol.
Till he returns, this fig-tree be my shade!
[Alone.
He's right, and yet he's wrong, you kingly builder.
That kingdom which he spake of—one o'er earth—
Would prove a god-like work indeed if built
Upon the good alone within man's breast,
If on its ill, then ill were lord of all,
Since in all lands the ill-workers would be one,
Weakened till now by realms and states at variance.
But what shall sever 'twixt man's good and ill?
Not power, it works with each by turn; not law,
Law deals but with man's actions, not his heart;
Not science, science rules but worlds of thought;
Not art, 'tis a child's warble; not religion,
Men fear the gods, but serve not less their lusts:
The things without us are but casual to us:
The things within us share our human taint.
On something deeper in us than self-love,
He who would lift mankind must build. That something
No child of man has found, or e'er can find:—
Therefore, like isle from sunless waters raised
And fix'd where nothing was, that Power who made us,
Who knows alone our spirit's depths, and sees
Alone the eddies of the restless waters,
Must raise some under realm, all adamant,
There build—if he will build. Shall that be ever?
I know not. He who made the world is strong:
Yet miracle were that passing the dream
Of prophet, priest, or bard. 'Tis still the old round:
Realm wars on realm lest wrong should meet no scourge.
This youth must plan; and pass.

Scene VII.—Interior of the Temple.

The Jewish High Priest, Alexander.
High Priest.
This is that scroll whereof I spake to thee;
That Vision which the exiled prophet saw,
Sitting in Susa, by Choaspes' flood:
“In vision I beheld a Beast two-horn'd;
Westward he push'd, and northward, and to south,
Nor any stood before him, After that,
Another, mightier portent, swifter far
Rush'd from the west, o'er face of all the earth
Which yet he touch'd not, flying upon wings;
He smote against that Beast, and trod him down;
Nor any might deliver. Then, a Voice
There reach'd me from betwixt the river banks:
‘That Beast which thou beheldest is that king,
Lord of the Median and the Persian realms:
He that shall overcome him is the Greek.’”
This is that Vision which our prophet saw.

Alex.
That Voice your prophet heard was Voice of
God—
(after musing)
You will not wed my cause, and save your city?

High Priest.
We may not, and we will not.

Alex.
Yet you know
Mine is the empire?

High Priest.
What is writ is writ.

Alex.
What was that sacrifice you offer'd late?
The like I have not seen.

High Priest.
The shadow 'twas
Of substance onward striding. Ask no more:
We are prophet-people: ours the Hope:
We are God's people, and we stand apart:
The kings of the earth may speed us, or may rend;
Know us they cannot.

Alex.
I too had a vision—
I yield you credence, Priest. I have repented
My first resolve, and fling it from me far:
I tribute none demand, and in your city
Challenge no rule.
Your prophets spake in ancient days of me;
Spake they in earlier days of Persian Cyrus?

High Priest.
By name, before his birth two hundred years:
Hear thou God's Edict. “Cyrus is my shepherd:
I hold his right hand, loosening at his feet
The hearts of Monarchs. I will cut in twain
The bars of iron and the brazen gates.”

Alex.
The Babylonian gates stood wide that night
When back Euphrates shrank.

High Priest
(reading).
“Be dry, ye rivers!
In Babylon the desert beast shall hide;
The dragon couch within her palaces;
The bittern shriek above her shallow pools.”
Young man, hold thou no hand to Babylon,
For God hath judged her, lest thou share her plagues.

Alex.
Hers was the first of Empires, and the worst—
(After a pause.)
The day goes by; lead onward to the gates.
O'er all the earth my empire shall be just,
Godlike my rule.

High Priest.
Young man, beware! God's prophet
Awards thee Persia's crown, but not the world's:
He who wears that should be the Prince of Peace.
Thy portion lies in bounds. Limit and Term
Govern the world. Thou know'st the Voice was God's
That spake. Two ways there are—between them choose.

Alex.
I shall not fail to meditate these twain;
Then make election.

High Priest.
Pardon, royal sir,
A little moment past your choice was made:
'Tis known above; and you one day will know it.
You trust not God: the man you trust will fail you.

Alex.
What man?

High Priest.
Yourself.

Alex.
At least I trust none other.

High Priest.
My message is delivered: Sir, farewell!

[High Priest departs. Ptolemy enters
Alex.
There sits unwonted wonder on your brow,
My Ptolemy!

Ptol.
Sir, all men kneel to you,’
You but to one, and him a man unknown!
When first that long and strange procession reach'd us
I saw an earnest inquest in your eye,
A pallor on your cheek.

Alex.
You err, my friend:
I knelt, but not to one unseen till then.
Three years gone by, three months, and twenty days,
At noon I sat in Macedonian Dium,
(Its witless sons acclaimed me as a god)
Musing the fortunes of this Asian war
Then but decreed. There fell on me a trance
Filled with strange fear. Never save in that trance
Have I known fear.

Ptol.
What saw you in it, sir?

Alex.
Things as they were.

Ptol.
No more?

Alex.
Yea, things beside:
My captains grew ape-visaged, and chattering rush'd
On errands all confused, while down the street,
In the wide Agora, on the temple's steps,
The concourse, shrunk to pigmies, scream'd and strove;—
The tallest like a three years' child. Meanwhile,
There where benignant plains had spread but late,
Heaven-high there hung in the east a mount, firecrown'd,
And ruin-flank'd—a mount which seemed a world
Huger than man's. The pigmies and the apes
Saw it and laughed.

Ptol.
'Twas strange!

Alex.
It was not slumber:
Parmenio and Philotas at my right,
You, Ptolemy, at my left, witnessed and sware
That from my session ta'en till, sunset nigh,
The priesthood issued from the fane of Zeus
I had not ceased from audience and command
Though sterner than my wont. The trance was long,
And, as it deepen'd, darkness closed around:
Then from that darkness like a god this man
Drew near, methought, that mitre on his brow,
That gem-illumined breast-plate on his breast.
He spake,—“Fear nought; the God I serve shall lay
His hand upon thy head, and lead thee on
Triumphant through the danger and the gloom.”
This world is full of wonders, Ptolemy,
Or else it were not world for man, since man
Is marvellous most. Divulge this thing to none,
Nor write it in thine annals of the war.

Scene VIII.—The Causeway between Old Tyre and New Tyre.

Hephestion, Craterus, Seleucus.
Cra.
We've waited for the king, and for a wind:
The wind is ours at last.

Sel.
And in fit time
The king, that's wafted still by fortunate winds.

Alex.
(arriving).
The wind is fair, and all the gods are with us!
Bear up, my Cypriot and Sidonian fleets;
I've bought you with a price! cut well the seas,
And as the sword into the scabbard glides,
So rush into their harbours! The boarding ships,
You're sure they lie beside our mole, Seleucus,
And moor'd by chains, not ropes? Those Tyrian divers
Will cut them else adrift.

Sel.
They tried it thrice,
You baffled them. We're ready, sire.

Heph.
Lo, there!
They drag their prisoners round yon city's walls—
Each after each they bend them to the block;—
They hurl their headless trunks into the flood!

Sel.
Hark to that shout!

Alex.
Our fleets have forced the harbours!
Up with the engines and the storming-parties!
I cross the right-hand galley with Admetus;
You, Cœnus, with Lysander, cross the left.
Forth with the landing-planks and scaling-ladders!
On, on, and up!

[Alexander is the first to mount the walls.
Hamilcar
(from the tower).
Men of Phœnicia,
still the heights are ours.
Hurl on them sleet of fire!

Hanno.
'Tis life or death!

Alex.
(striking him down).
Then take thy death!

Heph.
And take, Hamilcar, thine!

[His sword breaks; he closes with Hamilcar, and flings him from the right-hand tower into the sea. At the same moment Cœnus gains the left-hand tower.
Alex.
'Tis won! They fly!

Scene IX.—The Palace of New Tyre.

The Tyrian King, Azelmicus, Asdrubal, Ithocles, Generals and Senators. The Ambassadors from Carthage.
The King.
I'm old for fight, but young enough to die:
I'll wait them on my throne.

Asd.
Within the vaults
'Neath Melkart's fane, amid our heaps of treasure,
Conceal him with those envoys from the west:
And see they bear the Tyrian crown to Carthage;
Old Tyre has done with it. A ceremony
[Senators bear away the king and ambassadors.
Remains or ere we die.

Ith.
The torch? 'Tis here.
The palace of great Tyre shall house them never.

[The Tyrians are driven in from all sides on the Palace, which bursts into flame. At this moment Alexander arrives.
Asd.
Tyrians, we fight for vengeance, not for life—
Tyre ne'er forewent that solace.

Ith.
Vengeance! Vengeance!

[The battle rages till the whole Tyrian garrison has been cut down.
Alex.
So perish sea-born Tyre that ruled the waters!
She sinks, like yonder sun, in a sea all blood.
At dawn with feast and military honours,
We'll thank the just and promise-keeping gods
Who have led us thus far forth on victory's way.
Seleucus, see the priesthood dedicate
Yonder in Melkart's fane that conquering engine
Which shatter'd first yon wall. Ye sons of Greece!
Your country thanks you: many a song of hers
Will celebrate this deed! A spoil is yours
Well earn'd. Three days we rest: the fourth for Egypt!

ACT III.

Scene I.—The Road to Rhagæ near the Caspian Gates.

Parmenio and Philotas.
Phi.
You are a greater man, sir, than you know,
And bear your honours meekly. Pray you pardon
My sometimes halting reverence.

Par.
Here's a change!
I have warned you oft to bate your perilous pride
Saying, “My son be less.” Your whim is now
To show all humbleness.

Phi.
I should be humble
To one who for his master has a god:
Unseen I heard the king expound his schemes,
Hephestion mildly plausive.

Par.
Schemes! What schemes?

Phi.
Kneel, Hercules, and Dionysus tremble!
Tremble, thou Caucasus that hid'st thy head
In snows eterne! Our great stage-king has sworn
To plant his buskin on thy wintry scalp!

Par.
What seeks the boy?

Phi.
From eastern Caucasus
Two rivers rush, the Indus and the Oxus,
One south, one north. He'd tie them, tail to tail,
Like foxes caught, to test their strength and prowess;
Next, on those heights he seeks some herb to enrich
The Stagyrite's medicine shop: and, lastly, thence
He'd o'er-gaze Scythia, which with proximate place
Is honour'd in the order of his conquests.

Par.
Renounce great Persia for a realm of bears!
I march with him no more!

Phi.
You shall not need:
Besieging Tyre, he sent you to Damascus
To seal up sacred balms, and perfume-phials,
And inventory the wardrobe of Darius.
In Egypt, you had no conspicuous place:
Now, for like cause, the Caspian Gates you pass not,
Ecbatana your charge. Upon his treasure
He bids you sit like an old hen, and hatch it
While he strides on to victory. Snows of age
With what auspicious calm ye crown old heads,
And hearts virile no more!

Par.
The king's a madman:—
The worse for us! Free him from that conceit
That he's a god, the man of men were he:
Since Marathon we have seen none other like him.

Phi.
One-half his victories come but of his blindness,
And noting not the hindrance.

Par.
At Granicus—
But that was chance. At Issus he was greater:
I set small store on Egypt or on Tyre:
Next came Arbela. Half a million foes
Melted like snow. To him Epaminondas
Was as the wingless creature to the wing'd.

Phi.
I grant his greatness were his godship sane!
But note his brow; 'tis Thought's least earthly temple:
Then mark, beneath, that round, not human eye,
Still glowing like a panther's! In his body
No passion dwells; but all his mind is passion,
Wild intellectual appetite and instinct
That works without a law.

Par.
But half you know him.
There is a zigzag lightning in his brain
That flies in random flashes, yet not errs:
His victories seem but chances:—link those chances,
And under them a science you shall find,
Though unauthentic, contraband, illicit,
Yea, contumelious oft to laws of war.
Fortune, that as a mistress smiles on others,
Serves him as duty-bound: her blood is he,
Born in the purple of her royalties.
On me she frown'd long time: these mailèd fists
Smote her on breast and brow for thirty years,
From Athos westward to the Illyrian coasts,
Ere yet she learn'd to love me. He too loves me!
Though jealous of my fame.

Phi.
You dream, good father!
A tent's small fissure and a moonless night
Help'd me to better knowledge. Thus he spake:
“Hephestion, till Arbela's fight I loved him:
I know him now, poor shell of that he was,
For baggage-tendence best.”

Par.
Blunderer and traitor!
He placed me at Arbela, naked of friends,
Amid unnumber'd foes. He lied, and lies!

Phi.
How far to India, father?

Par.
'Tis earth's bound:
Beyond is nothing save the rising sun.

Phi.
'Tis the beginning of his last ambition.
Phœbus Apollo, stand on guard! this youth
Will take a leap into thy flaming chair;
He'll clutch thee by the bright locks never shorn;
Far forth o'er earth he'll cast thee, there to tend
Once more Admetus' herds! I tell you, father,
Three times that night I heard him boast his schemes;
Heard, and not laugh'd. 'Twas Scythia, first; then India.

Par.
I reck not of his injuries to myself;—
But shall a new Cambyses drown in sands
The best and bravest army bred by Greece?
Not so, Parmenio living!

Phi.
Other help
Greece lacks this hour. The camp is full of murmurs;
Vacant of aid.

Par.
Your drift?

Phi.
A word suffices:
Better a man should perish than a people.

Par.
(after a long silence).
The day grows chill.

Phi.
A hundred ways there are—

Par.
Hark! 'Tis the royal trumpet. Son, be patient:
The gods are helpful.

Phi.
Pious hand is his
That helps the helpful gods!

Par.
We've time before us:
Likeliest, a thousand hidden dangers 'scaped,
He'll dash his bark against some mountainous rock,
And vanish in flat seas. And yet, it may be
That growing years will tame him.

Phi.
It were needful:
If ere that time he perish in his cups
One man there lives on whom the whole Greek host
Would fix its gaze.

Par.
His name?

Phi.
'Twas once Parmenio:—
The man from war to war the battle's king;
The man who grudged no soldier drink or victual,
Nor sold his life for nought; the man who now
Holds in his charge an empire's treasure. Well!
If you're sent back, you'll know I fabled not.

Scene II.—At Rhagæ.

Seleucus, Craterus, and Ptolemy.
Sel.
Too late! The hunted stag has ta'en the leap;
His lair is cold.

Cra.
The king will storm at this:
He's quicklier moved than once: I mark him changing:
He wills not opposition to his will.
Since first he breathed this Asian air of kingship
Divinity of kings hath touch'd him much:
First, in his blood it play'd, like other lusts:
It mounted next to fancy's seat; and now,
His eye usurping, purples all his world.
Injury to kings he deems not injury only,
But sacrilege.

Sel.
Craterus, I scorn your words,
I say I scorn them! Ptolemy, our wisest,
In sophist balance never weighs his king,
Nor scans him from the critic's fancied height.

Cra.
A speculative man that knows not men,
A man whose blood flows sweetly through his veins,
Leaving at every point a sleepy pleasure
That needs must overflow to all our race
In vague, complacent kindness. All his thoughts
In orbits as of planets curving go,
And grasp, like them, blank space. Your minds majestic,
Like Ptolemy's, are oft but stately triflers.

Sel.
Has the king faults? So be it! He can afford them.

Scene III.—Rhagæ.

Alexander attended by Parmenio, Hephestion, and other Generals, and surrounded by soldiers.
Alex.
Darius is fled forth. I have chased a shadow:
He'll raise new hosts; and I from realm to realm,
From year to year must hunt him. Lords, three days
Here we make rest perforce. Thus much, Parmenio,
You cost me at Arbela!

Par.
Gods of Greece!
Hear ye this man? My hand it was, my hand,
Raised from the dust your late-crown'd Macedon:
And lo! this day the heir of all this greatness
Upbraids me as a boy!

Alex.
I said, and say it:
Arbela all but won, to prop your squadrons
You call'd me back: Darius made escape:
I saw his chariot sink beneath the hills
Lit by the last gleam of a sun that set;
Let him that dares deny it.

Par.
I deny it!
My best and bravest from my squadrons drain'd,
Me with a trivial force your blindness placed
'Mid countless foes. With less consummate skill
Than mine that hour your whole left wing had perish'd.
In wrath, not fear, I warn'd you of your error:
You saw it, and you made retreat aghast:
Ere you had reach'd us the Thessalian horse
With fortunate charge piercing the Persian ranks
Had given us air to breathe. You spurn'd my counsel,
Or earlier than Arbela's fight began
Had come its glorious ending.

Alex.
Aye! your counsel!
You will'd me to attack the foe by night:
I answer'd that I steal not victory:
The craven craft trips in the cloak that hides it
And falls to the earth. With slender force like mine
The worst defeat were victory incomplete:—
This Persian foe is as a mist that melts,
Re-forms, and swells against me. Oh, your counsels!
I scorn'd them from the first, or foot of mine
Had trod not Persian soil.

Par.
Shade of dead Philip!
Make answer in my name!

Alex.
You counsell'd me
Beside Granicus, not to cross the stream:
At Ephesus—by auguries back'd, and omens
That deepliest dint the craziest brain—you counsell'd
To fight by sea, not land, the Persian fleet
My ships exceeding fourfold, and with theirs
Phœnicia's mated. Issus won, you counsell'd
Naked to leave the Asian coasts, their prey
Their appanage, who, sailing from safe ports
Had raised revolted Greece from north to south
And barr'd me from return.

Par.
This too I counsell'd—
Omit not from that inventory of sins
So diligently register'd, my greatest—
To dash the red torch from a wanton's hand;
Flameless to leave royal Persepolis,
And shame the drunken revel!

Alex.
Hoary dotard!
Darest thou remind me of that sole offence
Which spots my sun-like fame? All-reverend mocker,
At whose false breath dead bones of seeming truth
In blasphemy are flesh'd, of shames thou speakest!
One shame there rests—not merited—not mine—
On me and Greece! I spared to file my tongue
With thy transgression till this hour. Damascus
Madden'd, beholding from her centuried throne
The unutterable, obscene, impious act,
When they whom thou hadst bribed to sell their trust,
A long procession, from her gates advanced,
Their treasure in the midst, unarm'd, unfearing,
Old nobles, women, gown'd defenceless priests,
And thou, the fool-led pupil of that son
Whose boyish babble tunes thy senile drivel,
Perfidiously didst on them launch thy power,
And in their own blood drown.

Par.
It is a lie!
The impeachment is a lie; the man a liar!
That deed I wrought not, and I knew not of it:
In the rear I rode. Captains of Macedon,
Your ears have heard. I brand him for a liar!
Your king has lied, and lies!

Alex.
[After a pause.

Par.
King—for that pride which maddens, and will wreck you,
Demands such lessening titles—I depart.
I too, like you, have mused, and changed my purpose:
That which it was, and is, let no man ask.
This is the ending of a life-long league.
I laid my strong sword by your cradle's side;
I taught you how to walk, and how to run,
To ride, to swim; and when you sought to fly
I bade you to beware.
Could all this thing be painted, patch'd, adjusted,
Reduced to spleen of fancy, proven a dream,
This day from out the starry count of time
Be blotted, cancell'd, buried, and trod out,
I'd not so have it, for my heart is changed.
My head, you say, through age hath lost its cunning;
My heart hath insight still: I see your end:
I'll whisper it to Philip in the shades,
For I shall see him soon.
You shall succeed, and your success be ruin:
You shall achieve a name: in after years
The byeword it shall live of madness crown'd:
By night the dagger, and the spear by day
From you shall glance: snow-wastes and burning sands
To you obsequious, shall but choke the just:
Yet all your greatness shall be changed to bane:
Your virtues shall not walk in Virtue's ways,
But glorify your vices, and the beam
Of your bright mind blacken that mind to madness:
The empire you shall build in cloudy wreck
Shall melt around your deathbed premature,
Which shall not be a warrior's: that first realm,
Your father's work and mine, to dust shall fall;
The Royal House evanish as a wind,
Your mother, and your sisters, sons, and wife,

Alexander's whole family was thus cut off. His wife, Arsinoe, and her sister Drypetis, the wife of Hephestion, were treacherously invited to Babylon, and there murdered by Roxana (the beautiful daughter of the Bactrian, Oxyartes), whom Alexander had married immediately after capturing her and her father during his march through Sogdiana. Roxana herself was put to death by order of Cassander, together with Alexander's son by her, then sixteen years of age, who bore his father's name. Hercules, the son of Alexander by Barsine, was murdered by Polysperchon at the instigation of Cassander. Yet more tragic was the fate of that wonderful woman, Alexander's mother, Olympias. Cassander had never forgotten the persistent enmity of Olympias to his father, Antipater. The day of his triumph came at last. He entered Macedonia, and after various vicissitudes of fortune, Olympias was obliged to take refuge in Pydna, with a large number of royal and noble persons attached to her court. The siege of Pydna was long and terrible; but the horrors of plague and of famine became at last unendurable; Olympias found herself deserted by her army, and Macedonia was in the hands of Cassander. At his instance the kinsmen of those whom Olympias had put to death in her hour of triumph accused her in a general assembly. There were none to plead her cause, and she was condemned to death. The aged queen was equal to the occasion. She clothed herself in her royal robes, and leaning on two of her women, came with a haughty mien to meet the party of soldiers which had been sent to despatch her. They stood before her helpless, overcome by the majesty of her aspect, and the great recollections connected with her name. Cassander then sent her accusers to be her executioners. The end is thus related by the historian Justin: ‘They slew her as she stood, not shrinking from sword, or wounds, nor clamouring aloud in womanly fashion, but meeting her death in a manner becoming her great race, so that in his dying mother Alexander might still be seen. In death she wrapped her person round in her robes, and covered her face with her hair, that nothing might attend her close inconsistent with the royal dignity.’

Struck down successive by a vassal hand
In bloody, base, and ignominious death.
Lords, give ye way. Some blood-drops in my brain
At times make dim mine eyes; but help I need not.
Who's this? Hephestion? Tell my son, Philotas,
That after-musings on this morn's discourse
Have somewhat changed my sentence. Home, they say,
Is best for age. I seek it. Eighty years
I have made my home on horseback. Sirs, farewell.

[Parmenio departs.
Alex.
To business! We have heard of clamours late
From men with homeward cravings. Let them know
That, though their service-time is unexpired,
We grant them to depart, nor that alone,
But praised of him they served. We give the horse
Two thousand talents: to the rest we grant
For every man the tenth part of a talent,
Their pay continuing till they set their feet
On Grecian shores.

Ant.
We're weak without the horsemen.

Alex.
[A shout.

Alex.
So be it! The satrapy of conquer'd Media
On Oxodates we confer, a Mede,
But one by King Darius wrong'd—thence safe;
With him, for military government,
Joining Tlepomenus of Macedon.
The garrison at Ecbatana late left,
And with it three battalions of the Phalanx,
By Cleitus led, will make us soon forget
Those fissures in our ranks. Lords, fare ye well!
On the fourth morn once more we chase Darius:
I have heard that he has traitors in his ranks:
No friends are they of mine.

Scene IV.—The Persian Camp.

Darius lies on the ground, bleeding. A Greek soldier gives him water to drink from his helmet.
Dar.
Sir, you have stain'd, I fear, your scarf. I thank you
For this good office. Kings should have more than thanks
For friendly service. Bessus and his knaves
Have fled before your face.

Sol.
Ye gods! Ye gods!

Dar.
My friends have been my foes; a foe my friend:—
Likewise your king show'd reverence to my mother:
Tell him I stretch'd to him my hand in death.
Persia, farewell!

[Dies. Alexander arrives with Hephestion, Eumenes, and Philotas.
Sol.
Behold the Persian king!

Alex.
(after long silence).
If that reproof had lodged upon thy brow,
Or any sneer had curl'd that quiet lip,
I could have brook'd it better. See, Hephestion,
How humble he doth look, and unupbraiding;
How charitable, peaceful, and content!
What hath he found? An empire he hath lost,
And lo, he smiles in death! Remove that cloak:
Lo, there the wounds through which his life-blood rush'd—
The blood of Cyrus! Traitors foul and fell!
King, he that caused thy death strove yet to save thee:
Me too those sacrilegious daggers struck,
My fame and me, through that deep-trenchèd breast:
I'll slay them on thy grave.

Phi.
'Twas true! Darius
Of Persia's sons was comeliest.

Eum.
Of her daughters
They say his queen was fairest. Issus lost,
How soon she slept in death!

Heph.
Alas, Arsinoe!

Alex.
(removing his own mantle).
Take, crownless monarch, take, insensate clay,
From whom thine empire like a vesture slid,
This mantle immemorial of my house;
Wear it as thou had'st conquer'd Macedon,
Yea, wear it in thy grave.
The king is dead. The royal obsequies
By ancient use are his successor's care:
I'll have his body to his mother borne
With ceremonial of the Persian wont,
With Magian death-dirge, and procession long,
The silver altars moving at his head,
The Sacred Fire ascending; in the rear
Those mystic youths that emblem night and day,
Three hundred, and three score, and five. A sun
For ever rising, o'er the bier shall shine,
Persia's high pledge of immortality.
Thus to the burial-place of eastern kings
Darius shall be borne, and with them sleep.
Why stand ye silent, lords? Battle is battle,
Kings too must die. To Hecatompylus!
Hephestion, move we on. This thing is ill:
But who of men is greater than the Fates?
Less than my empire what is mine I'd give.
To undo this deed. This deed, though not undone,
Another deed shall expiate. Till that hour
I must forget him.

Scene V.—The Southern Shore of the Caspian.

Ptolemy, Seleucus, Craterus, Antigonus, Cassander.
Cra.
Hyrcania's bears are her best citizens;
Their borrow'd coats protect us from her storms
Intolerable else.

Cas.
Her mountains pass'd,
All else looks gentle, even those hurrying waves
Spray-dimm'd and whitening 'neath the hustling gale,
And the vapours Fury-like along them scudding.

Ptol.
I hate not mountains when they keep their distance;
When near, they're vile—crazed Nature's bombast vein,
Or worse, her Delphic vein, suggesting meanings
Which or she cannot or she will not speak,
Yearnings unutterable, at least unutter'd,
Vexatious and disquieting. The edge
Of yonder cliff is like a Memnon's head,
Seen sideways.

Alex.
(arriving with Heph.)
'Tis more like Darius' mother
As once I saw her, gazing on dark skies
An hour and more unmoving.

Heph.
Craterus, mark,
In the purple glens those wandering isles of light!
Down each green vale a tempest sweeps, and bears
A rainbow smoke that cannot make a rainbow,
Still, as the promontory's gate is reach'd,
Blown loose in the misty air!

Sel.
How fresh and biting
The odour from the weeds on yonder shelf,
Sway'd by the brine! No foot of man till now
Printed these sands!

Alex.
What! soldiers turn'd to poets!
Fancy is best when imping action's wings:—
Forth with your fancies, then! Were gods your slaves,
What fortunes would ye choose? Speak one and all!
Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus, and Cassander, cry aloud together—
A kingdom!

Alex.
Why, an empire costs no more!
I'd rather be a hunter on the hills
Than wall'd by one small, limitable kingdom!
The gods you serve have thrift. Note this Hephestion,
Imagination is economist,
And vastest ends move less its appetite
Than small things near and easier of acquest.
Say, next, what kingdoms choose ye?

Ptol.
Give me Egypt;
'Tis much in little with its fruitful Nile.

Sel.
Syria for me: I grant it desert-cumber'd:
Aye, but 'tis ample!

Anti.
Mine be Lesser Asia!
'Tis Greece grown softer—maid to matron changed,
Asperities subdued—a mould benigner,
A grace less saucy, but a richer smile.
The round green mountains are as thrones of gods:
The white fane glances far o'er violet seas:
The sands are golden ore: there wealth and wit
Have made a pleasant sort of random bridal.
I'll build my house on Taurus' slopes that look
To Aphrodite's isle.

Cas.
For me the old land,
Our Macedon and Thrace! The climate's rough;
The hearts are sound.

Alex.
[The rest depart.

Heph.
Sir, Greek is Greek:
The Greek will feast with Persian or with Mede,
Will pray with Syrian, or with Bactrian dance,
But equall'd in the ranks of war he'll march
With Greek alone.

Alex.
'Tis not this Persia only:—
Assyria, Babylonia, Susiana,
Armenia, Media,—this we learn but late!
Greece is to these but as a drop to ocean;
She yields me but a handful of recruits:
I stand confuted by each conquest new,
Soon won, but kept at cost: horizons fresh
Outface me still with kingdom beyond kingdom.
To overrun a world, and then forsake it—
That means but glory: I demand an empire.

Heph.
With time your strength—

Alex.
No friend of mine is Time;
I have to build an empire in few years:
My armies must be Greek at once, and Persian:
Persia that sees in me a conqueror now,
Must find in me her king. How win her love?
The vanquish'd must connive, or victory's self
Digs its own grave in the end. Abuses old
I with far-reaching and vindictive hand
Drag from their pride of place. Barbaric hordes,
With whom the Persian traffick'd, I hunt down
For easing of the poor, that so their tribute
Be paid in steel, not gold. Yet Artabazus,
The faithfullest to Darius while he lived,
To me now faithful for his country's sake,
Still whispers, “Wouldst thou win the Persian's love?
Win first his awe.” Never was Persian yet
Who, empire plain before him, could discern it,
Though proved by gifts, or patent in destructions,
Without the obeisance, pageants, adorations

That stamp the man a God.

[The generals return.
Eum.
(holding up a letter).
From Artabazus.

Alex.
(reading).
“Bessus, but late a traitor fugitive,
More late hath donn'd the Persian diadem,
Assumed the sacred name of Artaxerxes,
And, claiming kinship with the royal house,
Stands up a king. The Bactrians join his hosts.”
So! I foresaw it! Said I not, Hephestion,
He that would rule them through the sense must rule,
Must walk apparell'd in their customed pomps
And rituals of their throne?

Heph.
I fear 'tis true.

Alex.
You fear: I laugh: they're not so all unlike us:
The Greek is proud of self, and, self abated,
Stands gall'd: the Persian's pride is in his king,
And, stinted of his trappings, starves in the cold:
In either country greatness wears the buskin,
Plays now his part, who, being great, appears such,
Now his, the man's that's greater than he seems—
With worm-like scruples, and with bat-like doubts
I have traffick'd all too long.

A Messenger
(entering).
From Greece a missive.

Alex.
(reading).
Antipater writes thus: “Keenwitted Greece
Grudges no triumph that allures you eastward
Imperilling your return. Sparta, but now,
Close-linked with Thrace, at Megalopolis
Launched twenty thousand men. I march'd to meet her:
Our victory bled us badly.”—Battles of flies!
Here's more: “Expect not plentiful recruits;
Revolt has left us few.”

Eum.
Will leave him fewer.

Alex.
I thank thee, Zeus! My path is plain henceforward!
Send edicts, Eumenes, to my eastern realms:
Bid them to lodge their youths, the best and noblest,
Straightway in schools where they shall learn at once
Greek arms, Greek letters. These, their training perfect,
We with our Phalanx will incorporate,
Distinctions, save of merit, knowing none.
Command them that they gird me in three years
With thirty thousand such. Write, and at once.

Scene VI.—The mountains in Aria.

Philotas, Antisthenes the sophist, Phylax the physician.
Phi.
How the cold bites! When sets the sun, Death's hood
Descends on yonder snows. Antisthenes,
You sup with me. O'er twenty leagues in Media
My hunters spread their nets that I might dine
While fish from Persia gamboll'd in my tanks:
Now fare we as we may.

Ant.
I'll trust your luck:
The king, because his soldiers' bread is black,
Devours hard crusts himself.

Phy.
Great Esculapius!
Who sinn'd this time? What drags this idiot hither?

Phi.
You know not! Aristotle, his sage master,
In every science train'd him, one except:
He's come abroad to learn geography!

Ant.
I suffer'd less tracking Egyptian sands
To Ammon's fane—his father's.

Phy.
I feigned sickness
And cheated Ammon! Still I pitch my tent
With those keen heads that see in earth and heaven
The unalarming reign of Matter only,
Midway their flowery haunt unvex'd by gods,
And, peacefuller yet, the innocuous bourn of Nought.
Religions mean but priestcraft.

Ant.
Cobwebs! Rend them!

Phi.
I tell you, no! men must have gods to swear by.

Ant.
Here are three atheists; and the worst are you.

Phy.
Yea, thrice the worst!

Phi.
I stand by law and order;
We cannot live without our “Ho!” and “Ha!”
Religion is a nation's interjection:
Let statesmen look to that!

Phy.
Statesmen may pass:
They have this merit—that they war on priests:
Impartial science loathes them both alike,
Will strangle both—unless they slay each other:
But here, a priest and statesman, roll'd in one,
Grows to a god. Oh, to have heard that whisper
From Ammon's shrine!

Phi.
The king divulged it not:
He's great in silence.

Ant.
There was heard a rumour—
It died by slow degrees, but now revives—
That Zeus, at Ammon served in serpent form,
Is father of this king.

Phy.
A priestly lie!
I have track'd it to its den. The Mænad women,
When spring bewitches earth snow-crusted still
And the last frosts resist yet yield to sunshine,
Partake the madness of that mother old;
Then, raging on the Thyrsus-smitten hills,
O'er Thrace they roam, and hymn their Dionysus,
That god whose altar 'neath the Athenian rock
Sends up its smoke while round it on the stage
The moon-struck chorus dancing hurls its chaunt,
And the Æschylean tragedy, with tales
Of king-bewildering Passion crown'd by Fate,
Freezes men's hearts. Thus raging, fancies black,
Audacities of nature unfulfill'd
Inbreathed through those that would be more than nature,
Earth-fires, that mock the lightning of the heavens,
Assail them. Poison-flowers they suck unscathed,
And from the serpent rive his poison-fangs
Amorous of pain, spleenful not less to inflict it,
Boastful to sport with death! With these Olympias,
In her fierce youth, unwed but marriageable,
Walk'd in her pride, and learn'd their arts: more late
At Samothracia's Mysteries met with Philip,
They loved, and wed. In wedlock's stormy dawn,
At times for sport, at times to flout her lord,
She tamed a snake, and now for crown would wear it,
Now for her zone. The legend thence arose
Of Zeus, a serpent.

Ant.
Each man is a poet
In his own art. Beneath your pestle, Phylax,
A fire-eyed Muse leaps up!

Phy.
I track'd the tale—

Ant.
Which Alexander fathers not, but fosters:
His pride still grows.

Phi.
Meantime his Persian pomps
Sharpen Greek daggers. Thus much Dimnus whispers.

Ant.
Likewise his anger-fits: the royal pages
Taste these the oftenest. Hermolaus, late,
While the king rush'd—they hunted—on a boar,
Flinging a javelin graceless but well aim'd,
Laid the beast dead. The king gave word to scourge him:
This youth has vowed revenge, albeit the wrong
Is little noised. But hush! He comes; say nought;

He needs no whetting.

[Hermolaus joins them.
Phi.
Gentle Hermolaus,
This heinous outrage, dinn'd through camp and court,
Deplored by all, to me is worse than grievous:
I knew your father. Silence friends that prate!
Shames to great houses, bruited once, live long,
In Macedon long; longer in garrulous Greece.
Antisthenes, be true to time, and with you
Bring Hermolaus. Keep me sound, good Phylax!
I swim in glories, pleasures, golden fortunes:
One peccant nerve in all this frame ajar,
What were all these? We've quails—I think—for supper.

Scene VII.—Alexander's Tent on the Jaxartes.

Alexander and Craterus.
Alex.
That's shout the third: whatmoves their rage?

Cra.
Philotas
Should answer that: he's masterful in gibes:
The soldiers say that once, to spite a woman,
He kiss'd a viper's mouth: the viper died.
He's venom-tongued, and mischievous more for this—
He holds his sneers for truths.

Alex.
In Egypt first
I learn'd his malice. For his father's sake
I will'd not his disgrace, and so advanced him:
The man's not won.

Cra.
He scorns your Persian pomps;
Scoffs at that legend of your birth divine:
There are who swear that in the Ammonian fane
You learn'd the secret.

Alex.
This was what I learn'd,
That earth is mine to rule. The legend's little;
Baseless 'tis not, nor now unseasonable.
Whence comes the soul? We know not. What if souls
Heroic, from the great heart of some god
Forth-flashing as a beam from sun or star,
Blend, thus detach'd, with soul-expectant frames
Worthiest such mate, and stamp the demi-god,
While meaner souls float blind down streams Lethean?

Cra.
All men are children of the Power Divine.

Alex.
All men, I grant, win a creative touch
From hand divine. The hand is not the heart!
If heroes issue from the heart of gods
As from the head of Zeus Athenè sprang,
I say they are sons of gods. If here on earth
We grant a father's god-like name to those
Who generate these our earthly bulks, why then
Grudge to our spirits' sire a father's title?
This is that truth which, in its mean disguise,
My soldiers recognize.

Cra.
Philotas saith
'Tis base to kneel before the sceptred hand.

Alex.
Because himself is base. This is the baseness—
To quick or dead, the sceptred or unsceptred,
To yield the meed of worship not deserved:
From them that have deserved it to withhold it
Is theft, and may be sacrilege. Who comes?

[Hephestion and Perdiccas enter hurriedly.
Per.
Dimnus, a known conspirator, and proven—

Alex.
I heard it three hours since.

Heph.
Dimnus is dead:
He sware that, living, they should take him never.

Alex.
I like not that.

Per.
Philotas schemed the plot.

Alex.
I saw Philotas; charged him with his crime.
He knelt; he wept; protested innocence;
Had deem'd the rumour but an empty tale:
I sent him forth absolved.

Per.
This letter cancels
That absolution. Sir, 'tis from Parmenio;
He weighs the plot; approves it; urges caution
Which, wed with valour, breeds alone success:
We found it 'mid the traitor's papers. Read!

Alex.
(after reading).
What is it that you demand?

Per.
This man, Philotas,
By you from dust uplifted to the heights,
This man who might have flown, by preference blind
And native instinct, creeping through base life,
Hath, like the worm that slimes his path, made vile
The paths he crawl'd upon. This man of old
Walk'd with Amyntas, him that, Philip dead,
Schemed for your throne. This man, three days or more—
He not denies it—cognizant of the plot,
Held him in silence till the hour itself
Of butchery decreed. You ask, what claim we?
Sir, this your army claims—the right to live:
This plot is neither plot the first, nor second;
And we are here to warn you that your host
Which oft for wanton risking of his life
Hath censured its great chief, this day condemns him
As one who, set apart and seal'd by gods,
Perils his army, and his empire perils,
Yea, with conspirators himself conspires,
Boy-like to boast great heart.

Alex.
Their fears are vain:
On my last field, grey-headed, I shall die,
Circled by subject kings. What seek my soldiers?

Per.
They make two claims; first, that the great Assembly
Should sift and judge the crime; next, that the award,
Once pass'd, should take effect without appeal.

Alex.
(after musing).
We grant them both demands. Call in those Indians.

Scene VIII.—On the Jaxartes.

Philotas in prison, and Phylax.
Phi.
You've let me blood full oft—cured many a headache:
The king with sharper steel than yours, old friend,
Will cure to-day's. The surfeit long of life
Ceases at set of sun. Can'st cure my heartache?

Phy.
'Tis vengeance you demand?

Phi.
You have read my soul
That, sitting in mine eyes and all ways turning
To watch those dreadful ministers of fate,
Sees something still behind. 'Twould sweeten death!

Phy.
One day I vowed to avenge you.

Phi.
Can I trust you?
They say the mirthful nature does not love:
And yet I think I somewhat loved you, Phylax:
No hypocrite were you. I knew that much.

Phy.
You'd have me kill this king?

Phi.
Not him—Hephestion!
'Tis there he's vulnerable. Be it done
When the Alexandrian star is at its highest.
That too will set.

Phy.
I have pledged my faith.

Phi.
Remember!
An ice-film gathers on my shivering blood.
Oh happy days of youth! They'll laugh at me
A shadow 'mid the shades, as I have laugh'd
At Homer's ghosts bending to victim blood
A sieve-like throat incapable of joy!
Tell me these things are fables. I'd not live
A second time; for life's too dangerous!
We come from nothing; and another nothing,
A hoary Hunger, couchant at Death's gate,
Waits to devour us.

Phy.
(Placing his hand on the heart of Philotas).
Slowly, faintly, slowly :—
The failure's there.

Phi.
Murderers! The law's against them
For if I knew that plot, or if I will'd it,
I spared to join it. Murderers!—lawless murderers!
I tripped an inch at this side Fortune's goal:
Parmenio king, his successor were I.

Phy.
Their plea is equity—the culprit's plea
Then when his law-plea fails.

Phi.
Is that a jibe?
He needs must jeer and gibber!—Vengeance! Vengeance!
Happy the serpent that with death for death
Enriches its last pang! Olympias only
Escaped its tooth. Once more I laugh! Forget not—
I've left you in my will a hundred talents.
Ah, hark! a step—

Scene IX.—A Hill close to the Jaxartes.

Alexander, Hephestion, Eumenes.
Heph.
Beyond that infinite, pale, grassy plain
Rise those white peaks like pyramids o'er sands:
Is this your northern limit?

Alex.
Scythia's horse
Watch still their chance. They are no way barbarous:
I guess them at twelve thousand. Stealthily,
In ever widening gyres they near the bank,
Poor gilded swarmers in their warmthless sun:—
I have baulked their game. Resume we our dispute!
What if the race of gods began with men?
If nature, evermore through strife educing
Stronger from strong, throned on Olympus, first
The heroic-proved of men as demi-gods,
And these through strife worked out the gods that rule?
Concede me this as true, and man's ambition
May kindred claim with gods.

Heph.
Concede it! never.
Greatness, be sure, came never from below:
That thought would drag from heaven itself its greatness:
Rather the gods themselves make manifest
One higher still than they.
Sir, there are whispers, trust me, from beneath—
These should be trampled and not parleyed with:
Esteem such thoughts among them.

Alex.
This, that's great
My thought suggests; an infinite progression.

Heph.
Nay, but a finite mocking infinite
And murdering what it mocks:—the highest term
In such a series but repeats the first
Exaggerating still inherent flaws,
And in a nakeder shape, though vaster scale,
Showing man's nature shamed.

Alex.
The gods have passions,
Not minds alone: in this they are like to men.

Heph.
They act like men who have them:—that proves little:
Our ignorance doubtless misconceives their acts:
'Twas not Apollo's spite that sentenced Marsyas:
Twas no earth-instinct on Endymion smiled:
The self-same acts, in gods, in men, in beasts,
Know difference large. Acts lawful in the man
Are crimes in boys.

Alex.
A race of gods hath fallen:
Then Zeus in turn may fall. I find no thrones
Whereon the gods themselves may sit secure:
I find to man's advance no term or limit;
No certain truth amid contending rites;
No base for Faith.

Heph.
Then man must live by Hope.

Alex.
And whence our hope?

Heph.
From all things good around us,
From all things fair—the brightness of the world,
The glory of its rivers and its seas,
The music in the wandering of its winds,
The magic in the spring-flowers fresh accost,
The gladdening sweetness and pure grace of woman,
The questioning eyes of childhood. With one voice
They preach one hope—that virtue shall be crowned
One day, and Truth be known.

Alex.
The trumpet! Hark!
We Greeks must wrangle on in the battle's mouth!
Six kingdoms have I clutched within two years;
The seventh shall be the greatest.

Ant.
(entering).
Tidings, sire!
The Satrap of Aria yields submission.

[Perdiccas and Craterus enter.
Alex.
The Satrap keeps his office. Craterus, speak:
The Assembly of the Army, hath it judged?

Cra.
The court was faithful to procedure's law,
And, spite the wrathful host that stormed around,
Pronounced not judgment till Philotas, first
Heard in his own defence, but after, tortured,
Had made confession full, his proper guilt,
The crime of Dimnus and of Hermolaus,
His sire's complicity. The traitor pushed
Before its time the plot, though hatched by others,
Lest he who guards your treasure-house far off
Might drop ere all was ripe. The High Tribunal
Proceeded to the award—death to Philotas,
Death to Parmenio, and the rest. The host
Raged in its joy; so oft his pride had galled them;
So often had they gaped on frosty roads
While passed his baggage train. His sister's husband
Raised the first stone.

Alex.
How died he?

Cra.
Ill enough.

Per.
A traitor died this day.

Cra.
A traitor proved.

Alex.
A man whose death was needful died this day;
Likewise a man whose guilt was probable
Well-nigh to certainty—but yet not certain,
Since cowards, tortured, may confess things false.
Philotas or conspired or else connived,
And each of these is capital, or changed
From keen to dullard in a sort that's death
In nature's capital code. I, in his place,
Had ta'en small umbrage at my days abridged:
There lived nor scope nor purpose in his life
Which death could mar.

Cra.
For instant doom they clamoured,
Fearing your leniency—

Alex.
I am not lenient:
When prodigal I have seemed, and lax in pardons,
'Twas with a politic aim. Nor am I cruel:
For needful warning I have shed man's blood,
Full often to the bound extreme of justice,
Seldom beyond. I say not that the bound
In wrath or peril never was transgressed.
It was no will of mine to try this man:
But, judged and sentenced, never had I spared him
Certain thenceforward in my blood to seek,
Likeliest at some high crisis of my empire,
Ablution for his name. Lo, there! They launch
A flag of truce.

Ptol.
(arriving).
The Scythians send us envoys.
With proffer of firm peace. Their terms are these:
North of the river their old hunting-grounds
Remain their own: this granted, they, in turn,
Acknowledge, sire, for yours, the manifold realms
From that wide water to the mountain bound
And limitless beyond to the Indian deep,
Thenceforth your sworn allies.

Alex.
Their terms are just;
Accept them, and engross. Those Indian Heralds—

Ant.
(entering).
That murderer, Satabarzanes, is slain;
And Spitamenes, honouring his own head,
Surrenders Bessus.

Alex.
Let the self-same court
That judged Philotas judge this bloodier traitor;
When sentenced, be he sent to Sysigambis,
The dead king's mother: her award is mine.
Alas for old Parmenio!

Heph.
Bid him live!

Alex.
His guilt is mixed and tangled with that other's:
The father spared, the son had foully died.

Heph.
The time to come—

Alex.
As ignorantly on this,
And in its ignorance as confidently,
Shall pass its judgment as on things beside:
Its plaudits I shall have for things ill done:
Its censure for the needful and the just:
Too much, no doubt, of both.

Heph.
Slay not Parmenio!

Alex.
Shall I for propping of a flag-staff bent
Trouble a half-raised empire's base? Hephestion
Save that I know thee in the battle-field
Except myself the foremost, there are times
When I could deem thee weakling. To your tasks,
Friends, one and all.
[The Generals depart.
Hephestion's cause is stronger than he knows:
Parmenio's death will much offend the army;
Their panic quenched, their loves will back to him:
Yet he must die. He'll hear of his son's death
Ere my best speed could reach Ecbatana:
The troops around him there are as his children,
And, with the imperial treasury at his beck,
Nations will be his friends.
Parmenio's death will much offend the army,
Bound by old memories more to him than me:
New wars will aptliest teach it to forget—
To India then! Thus stands my doubt resolved!
To that through all this tanglement I leant,
Yet knew it not till now.
Yon priest at Hierosolyma forbade it—
'Tis strange how oft that man before me stands—
Spake much of “Term and Limit.” That's for others:
To grasp a world for me is feasible;
To keep a half-world, not.

Scene X.—Susa. The Cypress Cemetery.

Arsinoe, Amastris.
Ama.
Return ere long, my gentle litter-bearers—
How cool this cypress shade! how fair this spot
So soon to be my grave! Chide not, Arsinoe;
I would not die; I would not be unhappy:
I would live blest, and making blest. Ah me!
I think, I think that I was gathering strength
Till came those tidings from Arbela's field
Of my brave brothers dead. Others I loved:
I loved but these in hope.

Ars.
Hope still, my cousin:
Hope more! The day that lifts you from these arms
Will give you back your brothers!

Ama.
I have hope,
Though scarce like yours. Oh for a strong-winged hope,
Swan-like to soar, lighting that dim domain
Eclipsed by death's cold shade! I loved the Songs:
Am I ungrateful if at times I feel
Like one that trusts and has not found?

Ars.
Beloved,
Things greater than the things we loved and found not
One day shall find us. Let me see your book:
'Tis that you read in Tyre's old palace garden—

Ama.
The day we saw him last.

Ars.
Hephestion?

Ama.
Him:
Your eyes grow large.

Ars.
That day you scarce were near us.

Ama.
His love wasfor the child and not the maiden:
I left him with you then and many a time
Before that morning. Cousin, here's a song:
Read it; my eyes grow dim.

Ars.
It is of Cyrus.

Ama.
We'll not read that. Assyrians wept that day
As we weep now: the Babylonian air
Was thick with sobs: above Chaldæa's plain
Like a great wind the orphans' cry rang out:
The bards are less than generous.

Ars.
[Reads.

Ama.
If Love indeed begins upon the heights,
'Twere well he ended there. His starry feet
Would thus their splendour best retain. It may be
Maidens that, loving well, unwedded die,
In this are happier yet than those who find
Love's loveliest human home.

Ars.
I would not wed;
And you have turned from many a suit—scarce gently.

Ama.
Arsinoe! you will wed, who would not wed;
I die, who would not die. Our life's amiss!
I must not say it:—no, our life is gentle:
You'd rather live ill-matched than fail in duty;
I'd rather die than prove to friendship false,
Of love unworthy. Each will have her best.

Ars.
O friend, my earliest friend, my best! how much
I owe to you! how hard had been without you!
In the deep bosom of your boundless love
I breathed a generous and a healing clime:
In all our sorrows you, yourself an orphan,
Out of your poverty for me had wealth,
And pitied me so sweetly that perforce
Self-pity left me, and I smiled through tears.
You only lived in others. The Songs you loved
Served you full well: they clothed your spirit with light:
In them you bathed as in some wood-girt stream
Crystalline ever. I, upon the bank,
But felt the dew upon its breath, the drops
Showered from your hand:—they cooled an aching forehead.

Ama.
Ah! ere we clothe us with that water-light,
We drop the warm, protecting garb of earth!
Who feigned the nymphs feigned them invulnerable
By bitter north-wind, or the hunter's dart.
My mother said the Songs would teach me sorrow—
They taught me sorrow and joy; would leave me weak—
They left me weak and strong. I lived in others;
But you for others lived. Arsinoe,
Should he return you'll lead him to this spot;
You'll give him here this book of songs:—he knew it—
Read him some few—not this, for he is blithesome,
This song as plaintive as the voice of child
Heard lonely from the harvest field afar
When twilight wraps the land. Bordering the scroll
Are golden stars, and little pictured fancies:
Here is the mother-bird that feeds her brood
From her own bleeding breast; and here's a young one
That bends above the on-rushing stream, athirst,
And yet afraid to drink:—the spray is bending:—
Most are the work of others: one was mine,
Ere yet this hand had learned its trick of shaking.
If you should name my name, mark well his face
So bright that day, and note if he remembers.
Say that we spake of him—that I was happy
In life—in death. You'll say not that I loved him.
Give me one kiss. You're welcome, merry maidens,
Albeit so soon returned. Set down my litter.

ACT IV.

Scene I.—Susa, in front of the Palace.

Antigonus, Eumenes, Seleucus, Craterus, Peucestas, Amyntas, Phylax.
Ant.
At Susa once again! Why, this is Greece!
One time it seemed the eastern edge of earth;
Measured by that great space we have tracked, 'tis home.

Eum.
Six years ago we gazed on yonder palace:
In three we conquered Asia's eastern half;
India in three!

Sel.
India! once more I ee it,
Once more I tread its palm-groves and its plains,
I scan the red sun through the sandy mist,
And hear the lion's roar. Our earlier conquests
Were prelude notes—no more.

Amy.
I am late arrived:
Recount the tale.

Sel.
'Twas victory, day by day:
'Twas victory till, the appetite itself
Satiate with triumphs, in our host remained
Nought but the base uxorious homeward craving.
The Indus and Hydaspes we had crossed,
The Hydraotes and the Acecines;
Then, as a gathering tide, or desert flame
That nearer draws, was heard a deepening murmur
And as on banks of Hyphasis we stood
That murmur found a voice. The army sware
To march no farther east. The king but smiled,
And bade them make encampment, and take rest.
Next day, at noon, he flung that strength of words,
Upon them which till then they ne'er withstood,
And, ceasing, looked around with eye ablaze.
Then first I saw a wonder in that face:
He gazed, and passed into his tent alone;
There lonely sat three days. The silence 'twas
Taught him the host's resolve.

Amy.
What held it silent?

Sel.
Fate, or the reverence of remorseful gods
That knew their man. That Indian Seer at last
Made good his way into the royal tent:
What passed none knows. At eve the king gave word:—
Ere long we sailed a-down Hydaspes' flood.

Ant.
Hydaspes never saw a sight like that!
An army on each side, and, in the midst,
Two thousand ships!

Peu.
Forests were felled to build them!
The winds will miss their playmates many an age.
The nations shivered that beheld our coming,
Sibas, Ossadian, Sogdian, Sudracæ;—
The Malli fought the best.

Sel.
The world's great scales
Trembled that day! Our king—I see him still—
By him three friends—a host of foes in front!
'Twas you that saved him!

Peu.
'Twas that Argive shield
In fortunate hour plucked from the Trojan fane.
I held it high: it triumphed!

Sel.
Down we sailed
To the ocean flood, and made our vows, and buried
The sacrificial goblet in the wave.
Next, month by month we tracked Gedrosian sands:
The army of Semiramis slept beneath them,
The army of great Cyrus. Thousands died:
The rest pushed on. At last green-girt Carmania
Embowered us in her ever-flowering vales;
And, chapleted with vine, westward we sped,
Till, past all hope, we kenned our fleet and clasped
Old comrades mourned as dead.

Ptol.
We have told our story,
And made an honest boast. Our toils have rest:
Not less the king may find that peace hath dangers
Worse than the worst in war.

Ant.
The gods are with him.

Sel.
The gods of Greece are with him, but not all;
And gods can change, like men.

Ant.
'Tis true! let none
That's pious trust the gods, however friendly,
But, sharp-eyed watch and serve them.

Phy.
O ye gods!
I'll keep a dog to help me at my watch,
Noting your humours! Lords, if danger threaten,
'Tis Persia breeds that danger. Orxines—
There was a Persian, noble, brave, their richest
Satrap of Persis, faithful to our king—
He's dead, and by the king's command, and wherefore?

‘He (Alexander) was strangely disturbed in mind when he came to understand what havock had been made of the tomb of Cyrus, which, as Aristobulus tells us, he found rifled and broken in pieces. This tomb was placed in the Royal Gardens at Pasargadæ, and round it was planted a grove of all kinds of trees: the place also was well watered, and the surface of the earth all round clothed with a beautiful verdure. The basis thereof consisted of one large stone of a quadrangular form. Above was a small edifice with an arched roof of stone, and a door, or entrance, so very narrow that the slenderest man could scarce pass through. Within this edifice was the golden coffin, wherein the body of Cyrus was preserved, as also the bed whose supporters were of massy gold curiously wrought; the covering thereof was of Babylonian tapestry; the carpets underneath of the finest wrought purple. . . . The inscription, which was wrote in the Persian language, was to this purpose: “O mortal, I am Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, founder of the Persian monarchy, and Sovereign of Asia. Grudge me not therefore this monument.”’—Arrian, translated by Rooke, vol. ii. p. 132.

Why, 'twas a cry from bones, from offal, dust!
We passed Pasargadæ upon our march:
We found the tomb of Cyrus sack'd for gold:—
A crime they called it—named it some strange name—
'Twas sacrilege!

Ptol.
Persia is not the danger:
He's vulnerable inly, not without,
Through that fierce will which makes of wrath a madness,
Turns love to doom. Hephestion's brave and wise;
He takes an ample sweep of virtues; still
In valour he's not greater than Seleucus,
Than Craterus in insight: yet the king
Holds him more precious than the total host:
Such love is peril: 'tis to keep two bodies,
Two separate tenements of one frail life,
And obvious each to Fortune's shaft—or Fate's.

Sel.
Phylax, what mean you by those twinkling eyes?
You are bright, yet dark. In you two Demons kiss
With love malign.

Phy.
Your pardon, mighty lord;
I smiled at perils bred from the affections:
I've heard of such ere now, but met them never.

A Messenger
(entering).
The council meets at sunset, lords.

Several Generals.

Make speed!

[They depart.
Phy.
Philotas, you were wiser than I knew!
“'Tis there he's vulnerable.” Hate is insight.

Scene II.—Palace at Susa.

Alexander, Hephestion.
Alex.
The time is come; you stare;—the time decreed;
Of Empire safe henceforth, or lost for ever:
With a fierce joy I clasp this chief of battles
Which dares me in my day of seeming peace.
What think you of my fortunes?

Heph.
More and more
They are like yourself: they wear a royal aspect.

Alex.
False! I am substance; and my fortunes hollow!
To keep that little handful of my Greeks
In girl-proud severance from the conquered world
A dream it was, a dream!

Heph.
You said so early.

Alex.
To dispossess them of that dream-dominion;—
I told you this must be:—Craterus—yourself—
Seleucus—all—conspired in one reply,
“The Greek will rather die.”

Heph.
We knew, and said it.

Alex.
I sought evasions; I deferred the time;
I marched to Scythia, then to India on,
Trusting that mellowing years might work a change.
Prerogatives I linked, yet kept apart,
To native hands conceding civil functions,
Reserving still the warlike for the Greek;
What find I now returning? Faction's fruits:
The cry comes up:—discords, corruptions, slaughters,
The honour of great houses violated,
Their lands laid waste—
These things must end: this missive comes to end them:
Three years ago I pledged my royal word
Asian recruits should stand at one with Greeks;
A month, and thirty thousand join my ranks:
Come weal, come woe, I keep my sacred pledge.

Heph.
All Greece will rise in storm.

Alex.
A storm shall meet it.

Heph.
Till now you have lived for ever in their praise.

Alex.
To breathe applauses is to breathe an air
Defiled by breath of men: I stand, and stood
On the mountain-tops, breathing the breath of gods.
Fear nought: I see my way. Those Asian Empires
Were things mechanic.

Heph.
Greek and Asian equalled,
The Greek supremacy has died at birth.

Alex.
You see but half. Equality, when based
On merit, means supremacy of Greek;
For mind is merit, and the great Greek mind
Supreme in nature's right. Our Greece shall rule
Like elemental gods with nature blent,
Yet not in nature merged.

Heph.
The first inception—

Alex.
I had foreseen it; and I'll have no first:
Three changes I have welded into one.
Thanks to Parmenio's death, the treasure's mine:
It buys an Empire's safety. Half my Greeks
Stagger beneath a load of debt: I'll pay it:
That's change the first. I'll wed the races next:
My bravest and my best—that's change the second—
Shall marry Asian maids, by me so dowered
As Hope had feared to hope. My generals, likewise,
Shall mate the noblest ladies in the land;
Which done, all war henceforth were household war.
At that high marriage-feast mine earlier pledge
Shall stand redeemed. Persian shall rise to Greek:
Ay, but Greek soldiers rise to Asian kings!
That's change the third. I blend these three in one.

Heph.
The gods inspired that scheme! Their help go with it!

Alex.
The gods are with me ever: but the Fates—
Those whom the immortals dread, I too may fear.

Heph.
Touching the gods, I mark in you a change:
At first you honoured much this Persian Faith,
A Faith that soared, and yet went deep, insisting
For ever on the oppugnancy divine
'Twixt Good and Ill, unlike those nymph-like Fancies,
Glad offspring of Hellenic poet-priests,
That, draped in Faith's grave garb, yet loosely zoned,
But glide above the surfaces of things,
And tutor us with smiles. That time is past.
You honour still Egyptian rites and Asian;
Persian no more.

Alex.
The man that founds an Empire
Must measure all things by the needs of Empire:
This Magian Faith will prove refractory:
That truth it claims to hold, and hold alone,
Burns in its eye, and eyes of them that serve it,
A portion of their never-quenchèd Fire:
Its spirit is the spirit of domination:
I'll own no Persian worship.

Heph.
Is this just?
You smile on Persia's court, upon its camp,
Its nobles, and its merchants, and its peasants;
Upon the noblest thing it hath you frown.
Its domination means that Truth should rule,
It seeks no thrones: you find no foe, but make one.

Alex.
'Tis so. I ever make my choice of foes
Not less than friends. I know this Faith must hate me:
Like it there's none: the rest at heart are brothers;
Their priests alike contented to be ruled,
Their rites not hard to reconcile. Moreover,
I know Calanus now: his Faith for me
Holds something Persia's lacks. The Indian Seer
Who scorns both kingly throne and beggar's cloak,
Contemplative unvested 'neath the palms,
Seems than the Magian more abstruse in lore
And seated farther back in lordlier depths
Of world-defying pride.

Heph.
His pride I doubt not:
When first you found him on the banks of Indus
In meditation 'mid his brethren throned,
They to the greeting of a king vouchsafed not
So much as this—the uplifting of their eyes.

Alex.
Not less he joined my march—though on conditions.

Heph.
The Indian's faith may soar as high as heaven:
His pride is narrow as the Cynic's tub.

Alex.
You hate Calanus.

Heph.
What I love is Truth
'Tis great: and therefore humbleness must win it,
Not pride, if won at all.

Alex.
We know but this—
We walk upon a world not knowable
Save in those things which least deserve our knowing.
Yet capable, not less, of task sublime.
My trust is in my work: on that I fling me,
Trampling all questionings down.

Heph.
From realm to realm
You have chased the foe like dreams.

Alex.
I sometimes think
That I am less a person than a power,
Some engine in the right hand of the gods,
Some fateful wheel that, rolling round in darkness,
Knows this—its work; but not that work's far scope.
Hephestion, what is life? My life, since boyhood,
Hath been an agony of means to ends:
An ultimate end I find not. For that cause,
On-reeling in the oppression of a void,
At times I welcome what I once scarce brooked,
The opprobrium of blank sleep—
Enough of this. Discoursing of my plan
I passed unnamed its needfullest part: you guess it:
My marriage must inaugurate the rest,
And yours, with mine: our captains, one and all,
Will shape their course by yours.

Heph.
I understand not.

Alex.
Brothers till now we are not save in love:
Within our children's veins one blood shall flow,
Children of sisters. Now you know my meaning.

Heph.
I hear a music as of gods borne nigh;
See nought.

Alex.
The scheme's not policy alone:
'Tis expiation likewise. Hearken, Hephestion:
Above the body of Darius dead
I vowed to reinstate his Royal House,
My own just rights secured, nor hid my vow,
Sending that holy corse to Sisygambis,
The mother of the murdered, for the tomb.
Of those fair sisters—children then they were—
I chose the younger, destining my crown
For her fair brows. Arsinbe to you
(I named her once, but thought the theme unwelcome)
My fancy gave. I find this may not be:
Old Persia rests on laws immutable:
The eldest daughter of the Royal House
Must share the oldest throne on earth, and chief,
Except her sire's. A marriage less than this
To Persia were a stain, to Greece a weakness.
These things are nought. The maids are good alike:
You'll have the lovelier bride, the nobler I
In Asian heraldry. That setting sun
Dazzles my eyes, or else you're pale, Hephestion,
You that paled never 'mid Gedrosian sands:—
We buried many there. Deny the army
The lists of the dead.

Sel.
(entering).
So please the king, his council—

Alex.
I shall divulge this marriage to the council,
And show this missive from the agèd queen
So lofty, sad, yet grateful. I had forgotten:—
Those spoils that Xerxes filched, those statues twinned
That shine in brass before the palace portals,
Harmodius and Aristogeiton styled,
(I deem them unauthentic, like the merit
Of those seditious boors whose names they boast)
To Athens send, ordaining for their site
Great Theseus' temple. Be it done ere morn.

[Alexander departs, followed by Seleucus.
Heph.
'Twas all but won: 'tis lost, and lost for ever!
To her no loss: she knew not of my love:
I half foresaw, and sent her never message.
'Twas but a child! Ah yes, yet childish eyes
Shining through darkness could illume my dreams,
Star-like could pierce the low-hung battle-cloud,
In victory's hour could wake in me a heart
Tenderly righteous. Palace of Old Tyre!
Dark groves wherein the night-bird sang by day!—
'Twas but a child! Ah yes, yet childish hands
'Mid burning wastes could bind my brow with wreaths
Cold as the northern morn; a childish voice,
Still heard 'mid Lydian measures, could expel
Their venomed softness leaving them but plaintive.
Must all end thus? Oh mockery, mockery, mockery!
Shall one be zealous for my body's health,
Make inquisition of mine alter'd cheek,
Adventure to exalt that fame I laugh at,
The dignities I spurn, my golden fortunes,
Yet, there where only lives my spirit, lay
A hand more callous than his courser's hoof,
And crush that thing he feels not?—Down, base thoughts!
The crisis of his fortunes is upon him:
A perilous crisis; it may be a fatal.
I will not fail him at his utmost need:
His love is with me, though he knew me never—
Ill time were this, ill time for traitor's work!
Her duty's plain: necessity goes with it—
The thing that is must be.

Scene III.

Phylax (alone).
Phy.
Hephestion is daily more hard of access. I
know not how I shall approach him near enough to
wind him in my toils. Ho! sirrah! [to his Page]
know
you any among them that attend on Hephestion?

Page.
Sir, there is among them a youth, Peitho
by name, one with as many humours as a monkey.
Many a time hath he kept the suitors of Hephestion
waiting three hours in the ante-room while we played
at games.

Phy.
Play with him to-morrow, and lose. Give
him these gold pieces. Tell him that thy master hath
heard much of his trustiness, and holds him in
esteem. Bid him come here at his leisure, and play
games with thee.

Scene IV.—Palace at Susa.

Sisygambis, the Magian Astar.
Ast.
Madam, fear nought: she'll know the right and do it:
The maid's no Greek, nimble of spirit but small:
Her mind is spacious, and her heart is strong:
In all things still she sees the thing essential.
Such is the royal nature.

Sis.
For this marriage
The royal in her nature is against it:
She neither loves the Greek nor leans to marriage.
She's younger than her years, tho' when a child
Seemingly older.

Ast.
Madam, in high courage
She's older than her mother at her death,
And less through weakness of her sex dependent.
She will not wreck the realm.

Sis.
She comes: farewell.
[Astar departs. Arsinoe enters, and, after kneeling, sits at the feet of Sisygambis.
O large and lustrous eyes through tears up-gazing,
What find you in these agèd eyes of mine,
Murky and dim, these wan, discrownèd brows,
Worthy such sweet regard? Large eyes, gaze on!
You see dead Persia and her fallen House:
Their monument am I.

Ars.
Mother! my mother!

Sis.
That name you gave me when your mother died:
It reach'd me first from younger lips than yours:
It was not mine to kiss those lips in death:
Another closed those eyes.

Ars.
Mother! my mother!

Sis.
To them that with officious zeal presumed
Whispering of comfort, thus I made reply,
“He died contending for this Persian realm:
Comfort, save that, I spurn.”

Ars.
Though earth were ashes
That comfort still remains. We needs must weep;
We need not fear, methinks, nor hate, nor murmur.

Sis.
The strongest hand of earth let fall the sceptre:
The wide world shuddered like a shrine profaned:
Then from the gulf there rose a voice, “That sceptre
A slender hand shall lift from out the dust.”
The voice was low. I heard it and survived.

Ars.
Whose hand?

Sis.
The hand that lies across my knees:
This missive's heavy with a royal suit:
The Greek king claims that hand.

Ars.
He claim it!—Never!

Sis.
Then from a Persian hand comes Persia's doom:
This bridal had restored her Royal House.

Ars.
It was the Greek king laid it low, my mother.

Sis.
That laid it low, and now that fain would raise it:
The Greeks have given consent.

Ars.
The Greeks consent!
The Greeks! The Greeks dispose of Persia's daughters!
I'd have them nor for arbiters nor subjects!
Of all those Greeks, I know but one, one only,
Not shallow, loud, ignoble and untrue—
Hephestion; him who charmed for us at Tyre
Sadness to peace. Mother, if he has sisters
I think they are hard to win.

Sis.
He weds your sister.

Ars.
Hephestion weds my sister!

Sis.
Woos her and weds her.
You love your sister: does her marriage please you?

Ars.
I know not.

Sis.
Or perhaps displease?

Ars.
I know not.

Sis.
These marriages must be, or both, or neither:
By Persia's law the princess eldest-born
Mustfill earth's proudest throne: that throne is yours—
Unless you spurn it, yours. The king is proud:
The king's one friend will teach you how to win him
And make him father of this fallen realm:
Your sister's husband needs must be your brother.

Ars.
There's sweetness in that thought. Oh mother, mother!

Sis.
Now that your hands are shifted from your face
The pallor's less.

Ars.
Oh mother! Spare to urge me!
Scarce for love's sake, methinks, could I surrender
That maiden life, so holy, calm, and clear:
I cannot wed, not loving.

Sis.
I have done.
The nobly-modest usage of the East
Left marriages to parents. Yours are dead:
And therefore you are free.
This day a pact is broken with a grave:
It was a dead king, not a king that lives,
Who made this marriage: in his death he conquered:
Earth's victor stood above a shape sword-pierced:
A stricken shape he stood, a paler shape;
He saw the royal blood, the blood of Persia,
And lo, the conqueror changed to penitent:
That hour he vowed, suspending his advance,
To chase the murderer's steps from land to land
Thenceforth avenger. This too, this he vowed,
To set thy race, Darius, on thy throne
Partaken, not usurped. The tidings reached me,
Child, with your father's corse.

Ars.
'Tis past! My father!
Forgive this base deserter of thy blood,
Trivial impugner of thy sacred will,
Withstander of thy country's peace and greatness!
My mother, write—write quick—that I consent.

[Arsinoe moves to a window. The Queenmother writes. As her letter is finished Arsinoe returns.
Sis.
You've been a gazer on our Persian heavens:
The stars are in your face. 'Tis sad no more.

Ars.
The tears which I should weep are bright on yours.

Sis.
Age frets at all. Whoe'er had been your husband
It may be I had wept. Persia is saved.

Scene V.—Susa.

Alexander, Calanus.
Alex.
Father, think well of it. Our Faith offends you.

Cal.
'Tis a child's babble: and a child were he
That either loved or loathed it. Wisdom's sons—
None else in things divine have serious part—
Can mark the shadows dance upon the dust,
With brow that knows no change.

Alex.
I am not Greek,
Though king of Greeks. My race belongs to Greece
Of the kingly age alone. Commend you Persia?

Cal.
A priest of Persia bows his head to kings.
One time their Magians, at a king's command,
Linked with their order one who was a Greek,
Themistocles by name. Their wisdom's earthly:
Their Faith is but a law, and not a thought:
They make their God a king, give him a rival,
An Ahriman with Ormuzd still at feud,
Vexing with war the everlasting Rest,
The One Existence in and under all,
For all things else but seem, and are illusions,
The Intelligence unmoved whose thoughts are things,
Who dreams, and worlds are made.

Alex.
Is Egypt nobler?

Cal.
Egypt had wisdom once: her kings have slain it;
With them her priests connived; the guiltier far:
They shared with kings; and government was all.
Egypt is but a kingdom; kingdoms pass:
A race alone survives. Son, what wouldest thou?

Alex.
A single kingdom one o'er all the earth.

Cal.
So much of earth as shall suffice for grave
Is man's, my son—no more. The on-striding foot
No whither tends. The way is up, not onward.
Ten years you have wasted conquering half the world.

Alex.
Ay! Time is needed. There's the pang—none sharper!

Cal.
Eternity alone from Time can free you;
One step can lodge you in her changeless realm:
There from the palm eternal drops no scale:
The ambrosial rose never lets fall a leaf:
The ever-setting sun is never set:—
That realm is Thought. My son, you have won your kingdom:
Spurn it, and live.

Alex.
But half my task is finished.
Once wrought—

Cal.
You'd be a god on earth, and do
What God has left undone. The external world
To the end must be a world of blind confusions,
Some little curbed by little chiefs and kings,
With others who in industries cognate
Partake with these. Be still: the Eternal Patience
Preserves that world the Eternal Thought creates.

Alex.
(after a pause).
How many are your lesser deities?

Cal.
Their number's infinite. Divinity
Had ne'er been plural else. A finite number
Would spawn us idols.

Alex.
They are less than Brahm?

Cal.
Less than his priests, my son, of whom am I.
Men know us not. Of old the patriarch Brahmins
Sat in still groves, their flocks their kingdoms then,
For man was then a Household, not a Realm,
And lived for their Creator, not for things.
When riot filled the earth, and lust, and war,
These from the embraces of the race depraved
Severed their sons. They dwelt apart revered
Even by the vile. What man first was, we are:
We keep our heritage and know not change:

The inferior castes fell from us.

[Craterus enters.
Alex.
I must leave you.

Cal.
I claim your pledge. You're in my debt a pyre.

Alex.
What mean you?

Cal.
King, you sware to speed me home:
My body fails: my spirit's freedom nears me:
The God I serve rejects reluctant guests.
I mount that pyre alive: the finite atom
Rejoins the infinite.

Alex.
A pride there is
That dwarfs the pride of kings. Calanus, live!
Your pupil, not your king, kneels to implore you.

Cal.
I have taught you nought.

Cra.
I see it in his eye:
His will is fix'd.

Alex.
(rising).
I'll have no part in this:
Craterus, subdue that overweening will;
Win him to live:—but still revere my pledge.

[Departs.

Scene VI.—A Terrace of the Queen-mother's Palace at Susa.

Arsinoe, Hephestion.
Ars.
You knew her: that is well.

Heph.
Who knew your mother
Till death shall reverence woman's kind. In her,
Though doubly-dowered, a mother and a queen,
There lived a soft perpetual maidenhood,
An inexperienced trust, timid, yet frank,
Shy, yet through guilelessness forgetting shyness.
She seemed a flower-like creature come to fruit:
She moved among her babes, an elder sister;
Then, wakened by an infant cry or laugh,
Full motherhood returned.

Ars.
Had you but known her
In later days, and in her deeper woe!
It nought embittered her. Flower-like you called her:
She was a flower that sweetened with like breath
The darkness and the day: she turned from none:
Her heart was liberal in accepting comfort
Such as the least might minister. In griefs
She died; but not from grief.

Heph.
It was her death
That changed you first to grave?

Ars.
Not that alone;
The guidance of her orphans fell to me,
And taught me soon my weakness. You, Hephestion,
Have known severer labours, cares more stern;
Have won great battles; captured mighty cities;
You—none but you—could knit those rival chiefs:—
“His weight of duties seemed but weight of wings,”
The king spake thus.

Heph.
His fortunes were the wind
That raised those wings aloft.

Ars.
You owe him much.

Heph.
You think so? Ha!

Ars.
You loved him; and you served him:
What kindness equals this—to accept our aid?
What anguish bitterer than the aid rejected?
He told me of a fame so wide—

Heph.
I spurn it!
To me 'twas ever little: now 'tis nought.

Ars.
You praise him; yet you will not I should praise him:
I praise him ill in truth. The king was kind:
He sent me ofttimes greeting. You sent none:—
“Children,” thus mused I, “seem so soon forgotten.”

Heph.
I see a glare in the sky. What light is that?

Ars.
Our Persian moon, ascending, sends before her
A splendour as of morn.

Heph.
The sun sets red:
The heaped clouds totter round his burning halls
Like inward-tumbling bulwarks of a city
Consumed by flames of war—by earthquake rocked—
Twin dooms!—I would—

Ars.
Hephestion, look not on them:
They fling upon your face a threatening light,
Hiding that face I knew. Beside me stand:
Watch we that moon. The West is like the past;
The East grows bright; the eternal hope is hers.
We stand between these two. Your hand is hot:
Your tasks consume you: pray you to remit them!
My prayer will soon have won a bolder right:
Your king, that knew not of my young ambition,
Has crowned it, as you know.

Heph.
The crown? You sought it!

Ars.
To be your sister was that young ambition—
One to a child so gentle, to a woman
Must needs be gentler, sister of his wife,
And wife of one far less his king than friend:
You'll make me know him, teach me how to serve him,
My censor, yet my brother.

Heph.
Oh my sister!
The ambitions of this world could ne'er be yours:—
The doubt's not there. Arsinoe, are you happy?

Ars.
Is happiness much worth? I am at peace.

Heph.
Youth craves delight.

Ars.
Not always. If in others
We deem the greediness for joy ignoble,
Almost immodest, what were it in me?
I am the daughter of a fallen house:
My father died deserted and betrayed,
Vanquished, discrowned, with none but foes for mourners:
My mother— Oh, Hephestion, it were sin
In me to crave delight!

Heph.
Unceasing vigils,
Unsparing labours, dangers, ay, and worse,
Domestic treasons—these have been the lot
Of him you wed. The immeasurable soul
That in him, sea-like, swells to the light sustains him:—
The afflictions which he feels not for himself,
You needs must feel and fear.

Ars.
Feel them I may:
I know not if I ever feared; I think
I never shall. Fear not for me, Hephestion.
Not wholly sorrows were the sorrows past:
Those that must come will not be wholly sorrows.
Oh, there's a sweetness spread o'er all the earth
Grief's trampling foot makes sweeter! Stormiest clouds
Sweep on in splendour to some heavenly music
By us unheard. Hephestion, I can trust
That Power who will not always keep His secret:
The life He sends must needs, though sad, be great;
The death he sends be timely. Life is peace
To those who live for duty. Purer peace
Will find us after death.

Heph.
The moon is risen:
I see it not, but see you in its light
Like some young warrior, silver-mailed and chaste;
Or liker yet to her, my childhood's wonder,
Great Artemis, as I saw her statue first
Against the broad full moon, while snows high heaped
Ridged her dark wintry porch. Farewell, Arsinoe!
There was a mist that brooded on my spirit:
That mist is raised. To you no ill can come
That virtue will not change to its own essence:
Your life, if long, will prove a glorious life;
If short—you wish it short—revive in glory:
The king will give you of his great, strong heart
What he can spare to woman, and revere
More than he loves. He honoured once your Faith:
Would it were his!

Ars.
I think that will not be.

Heph.
My tasks are heavy now: until this marriage
We meet not oft.

Ars.
See you that grove, Hephestion,
Still dark, yet glistening in the ascended moon?
A grave lies there that covers one you knew.
She was my friend. My heart was held to hers
So oft in watches of the long, sweet night
And couch partaken, that a part thereof
Went down with her into that grave. One day
Beside that spot we spake: she died soon after.
She sent to you a message. We will sit
The eve before this bridal by that grave.
Something I'll tell you of her; but not much;
Show you a book of Persian songs that pleased her;
And haply read you one. Till then farewell.

Scene VII.—Susa. The Gate of the Bridal Pavilion.

A crowd of Greeks and Asiatics.
A Greek Soldier.

2nd Greek Soldier.

A Bactrian.

2nd Greek Soldier.

3rd Greek Soldier.

A Persian Barber.

Barber's Wife.

The Sentinels.

[Generals walk out in procession, wearing crowns, Seleucus and Ptolemy first.
Sel.
A sight for gods! That last libation paid,
Each feaster lifting still his hand, on the sudden
A sunbeam smote along the golden cups,
Till half the chamber flashed from end to end
Like the sun's path o'er sea!

Ptol.
Far things I saw not:
My place was on the dais, near the queen.
The strong eye of the king made inquest ever,
As when, ere fight, it roams the battle-field,
Around the hall. Courteous and kind, though grave,
Hephestion reassured a startled bride,
And on a face, whose smiles with tears were spangled,
Made light at last prevail. She sat at first
Heart-wildered—yet amused; her roe-like eyes
The darker for the paleness of her cheeks
And garland-shaded brows. The feast not over,
Peace came to her through trust in him close by:
Wife-love had made a seven years' growth.

Sel.
Arsinoe?

Ptol.
Nor startled she, nor pensive, glad or sad:
She looked like one who, some deep chasm o'erpassed,
Sits thenceforth safe; who—all things sacrificed—
Within their monumental urn retains them
Securer for that funeral prison cold,
Or else in some far hope.

(A cry, “Way for the king!”)
[Alexander issues forth, attended by Craterus and Asian princes. The Persians kneel as he passes: the Greeks stand.
Alex.
Rejoice, ye men of Maced on and Persia:
Two realms this day are joined as body and soul:—
Craterus, I miss Calanus.

Cra.
Sir, he's dead.
He sent for me last eve, at set of sun,
Demanding swift fulfilment of your pledge,
Or else you were forsworn. Ere rose the day
On whose white brow I wished no shade to fall,
The pyre had reached its height; but he who claimed it
Refused to issue from his cloud of thought
Till noon had come.

Alex.
I marked a smoke at noon,
Susa in sight, upon my homeward way:
Relate the order of your grim proceeding.

Cra.
The rites were his of Indian death when proudest.
First in the death-procession was a horse
Snow-white, of breed Nisæan; next, slave-borne,
The jewelled vases, and the robes, your gifts;
Calanus, in his litter, last, flower-crowned,
With old white head clear shining in the sun,
And chaunting hymns. King-like the man dispersed,
The pyre attained, your gifts among his friends,
And bade them with a cheerful face and strong
Rejoice till night. King-like he clomb the pyre;
In the host's sight he waved his hand—then sank.
The elephants shrilled sharp; the trumpets pealed;
The flames rushed up. We saw that hand no more.

Alex.
He sent me no farewell.

Cra.
Your pardon, sir:
His last was this:—“Commend me to the king:
Tell him we meet once more at Babylon.”

Alex.
Ill day he chose; and spleenful his departure:
A man should lack not manners in his death:
His parting words excuse him: he was mad:
“At Babylon”—he's dead, and ne'er will see it;
Nor I, who live. I ever hated ruins.

Scene VIII.—Opis, on the Tigris.

Large bodies of soldiers assembled before a platform occupied by Alexander's Generals.
1st Soldier.

An Officer.

2nd Soldier.

1st Soldier.

2nd Soldier.

1st Soldier.

A Mede.

Soldiers.
(Striking their daggers through him.)

[A cry, “Push forward; the king has arrived.”]
Alex.
Ye sons of Macedon and Greece, attend:
'Tis rumoured there are still among you debtors:
A debtor is a slave: who serves his king
Must serve in freedom. I discharge those debts.

A Mutineer.
He must not be suffered to speak.

Alex.
You are mostly strong; but some are men in years,
War-wearied and outworn. Would any homeward?
At home they shall not sit abjects in age,
But largess-laden say to those that praise them,
“The ranks wherein our glorying manhood toiled
Are open still to all.”

A Ringleader of the Mutineers.

[Thirteen ringleaders are lifted up on the shoulders of the crowd, and wave standards.

---

118

A cry is raised on all sides. “Send us all home, since you need us no longer. Go to war with none to help you save Zeus, your father!”]
Ptol.
(to Alexander).
They'll turn on you, like hunds upon the huntsman!

[Alexander leaps down among the crowd, followed by his Generals. They seize the thirteen ringleaders, and drag them up the steps of the platform.
Alex.
Speed! To this headless rabble give their heads!
[The Generals fling the heads of the ringleaders among the mutineers.
Stand back! I go alone: let none attend me.

[Alexander takes his stand on a low part of the platform, level with the heads of the crowd.
Alex.
Ye swine-herds, and ye goat-herds, and ye shepherds,
That shamelessly in warlike garb usurped
Cloak your vile clay, my words are not for you;
There stand among you others, soldiers' sons,
Male breasts, o'er-writ with chronicles of wars,
To them I speak. What made you that ye are
The world's wide wonder and the dread of nations?
Your king! What king? Some king that ruled o'er lands
Illimitable, and golden-harvested
From ocean's rim to ocean? Sirs, 'twas one
With petty realm, foe-girt and cleft with treasons,
Dragged up from darkness late and half alive.
From these beginnings I subdued the earth:—
For whom? For you! The increase is yours: for me
Whose forehead sweated and whose eyes kept watch,
Remains the barren crown and power imperial.
I found but seventy talents in my chest:
Full many a soldier with his late-spoused bride
Gat better dower. I found within my ports
A fleet to Persia's but as one to ten;
I sold my royal farms and built me ships;
I found an army lean as winter wolves
On Rodope snow-piled; I changed to bread
My sceptre's gems and fed it. Forth from nothing
I called that empire which this day I rule.
My father left me this—his Name: I took it
And kneaded in the hollows of my hands:
I moulded it to substance, nerved it, boned it;
I breathed through it my spirit to be its life;
Clothed it with vanquished nations, sent it forth
Sworded with justice, wisdom for its helm,
The one just empire of a world made one.
Forget ye, sirs, the things ye saw—the States
Redeemed of Lesser Asia, our own blood,
The States subdued, first Syria, then Phœnicia,
Old Tyre the war-winged tigress of the seas,
And Egypt next? The Pyramids broad-based
Descrying far our advent rocked for fear
Above their buried kings: Assyria bowed:
The realm of Ninus fought upon her knees
Not long: the realm of Cyrus kissed the dust:
From lost Granicus rang the vanquished wail
To Issus: on Arbela's plain it died.
Chaldæa, Persis, Media, Susiana—
We stepped above these corpses in our might
To Parthia, and Hyrcania, Bactriana,
And Scythia's endless waste—
The cry from Paromisus gave response
To Drangiana's dirge: thy doom, Aria,
To wan-faced Acherosia spake her own:
In vain the Indian Caucasus hurled down
From heaven-topped crags her floods to bar my way:
Flood-like we dashed on valleys known till then
To gods, not men, of Greece. Bear witness, ye
Aornos, from thine eagle-baffling crest
Vainly by Hercules himself assailed,
Plucked down by us; and Nysa, Bacchus-built,
When Bacchus trod the East. What hands were those
Which from the grove Nysæan and fissured rocks
Dragged the green ivies? Whose the brows that wore them?
Whose lips upraised the Bacchus-praising hymn?
Whose hands consummated his work—restored
To liberty and laws the god-built city?—
Sirs, the vile end of all is briefly told.
We pierced the precinct of the Rivers Five,
Indus, and other four. The jewelled crowns
Of those dusk sovereigns fell flat before us:
The innumerous armies opened like the wind
That sighs around an arrow, while we passed:
Those moving mountains, the broad elephants,
Went down with all their towers. We reached Hydaspes:
Nations, the horizon blackening, o'er it hung:—
Porus, exult! In ruin thine were true;
While mine, in conquest's hour, upon the banks
Of Hyphasis—What stayed me on my way?
An idiot army in mid victory dumb!
I gave them time; three days: those three days past,
Ye heard a voice, “The gods forbid our march:”
Sirs, 'twas a falsehood! On the Olympian height
That day the immortal concourse crouched for shame:
Their oracles were dead. 'Twas I that spake it!
I was, that hour, the Olympian height twelve-throned
That hid the happy auspice in the cloud,
And this mine oracle; “Of those dumb traitors
Not one shall wash his foot in Ganges' wave.”
I built twelve altars on that margin, each
A temple's height, and fronting eastward—why?
To lift my witness 'gainst you to the gods!
Once more as then I spurn you, slaves! Your place
Is vacant. Time shall judge this base desertion
Which leaves me but the conquered to complete
The circle of my conquests. Gods, it may be,
Shall vouch it holy, men confirm it just;—
Your places in the ranks are yours no more.

[Alexander departs, attended by his Generals.
1st Mutineer.

2nd Mutineer.

3rd Mutineer.

4th Mutineer.

Scene IX.—Ecbatana. The House of Phylax.

Phy.
(to his Page).

Scene X.—Postern of the Great Temple at Ecbatana.

A Soldier
(approaching it).

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Scene XI.—The Great Temple at Ecbatana.

Alexander, his Generals, and the Magnates of his Empire, Greek and Asiatic.
Alex.
I greet you, lords of every race alike
And every nation, joined henceforth in one:
Well meet we in old Media's mother-city,
And fair the omen. Lords, that doubt which dogged
My steps, extinguished with revolt extinguished,
My fortunes touch at last their zenith height
And sail among the stars. The future waits us.
'Tis rumoured that my face is toward the West:
There's time enough for that. Limit and Term
Govern the world. Completion of my work
Here in the orient inchoate needs ten years
Which past will leave me still a man in prime.
India of Ganges yet remains to conquer:
We have still to stud with western colonies
Our eastern realms, to light them with Greek schools,
And link our Indian with our Persian thrones
By politic commerce. Lords, I have given command
To free insulted Tygris from her dykes,
Built up by kings who feared both trade and freedom.
I have sent Nearchus to the Arabian coasts
To burn the pirates' ships and drown their crews:
Indus shall wed Euphrates, devious thence
Shall brim Orontes, and make broad Ilissus.
A word on Greece: Craterus makes speed to her:
Antipater, that ruled in Macedon,
Shall yield him place and here reply to charges
That touch both fame and life. I smiled to hear
That, militant against our Persian pomps,
He wears plain raiment edged with border grey
Alike at banquet and on judgment-throne:
His purple is within! I trust 'tis false
He traffics with the Ætolians: trust 'tis falser
That when, by sentence of the assembled host,
The long time nameless ruler of this city
Who filled of old yon seat—now vacant—died,
He said, “Parmenio false! then who is true?
Parmenio falsely slain! then who is safe?”
These things I nought prejudge. To weightier matters.
We send this day to Greece two great decrees;
The first, amid the Olympian games proclaimed,
Shall spread a general gladness. It remands
All exiled citizens to their ancient homes
Save those convict of sacrilege or murder,
And wins us friends in every Grecian state.
The last demands for me that titular meed
Decorous wont of ceremonial worship,
Which, not alone an offspring of the gods,
But likewise upon mortals well-deserving
Though wanting Death's immortalizing touch,
Confers mankind's award—honours divine.
Lords, ere this council separates — (Turning to Perdiccas)
Where's Hephestion?

Per.
Hephestion, sir, is slightly fever-touched
And keeps his house.

Alex.
Command that Phylax tend him.
Hephestion's much for peace, and willed this day
In speech to praise it: that shall serve to-morrow:
Till then my further purpose I withhold.
This day the Feast of Dionysus rules:
He played me false the night that Cleitus died;
The rights of the Dioscuri that night
Supplanted his: in that no part was mine;
But kings remember benefits alone:—
At Thebes, his chiefest seat, I did him wrong:
I do repent that slaughter Lords, farewell!

Scene XI.—Ecbatana.

Phylax and his Page.
The Page.

Phy.
It is well: depart!
[The Page retires.]

ACT V.

Scene I.—The Road to Babylon.

Ptolemy, Seleucus, Eumenes, and Antigonus.
Ptol.
Wait we the king: he lags not far behind us.
Sirs, be ye wary in your homeward letters;
The Greeks are reverential of the gods:
The fane of Esculapius razed to earth
In vengeance for Hephestion's death, may move them.

Eum.
Ulysses, keenest-witted of man's race,
Made boast, “No Greek with hand so large as mine
Has paid the gods their dues.”

Ant.
The Medes are wroth:
Their mules and horses shorn, they deemed the rite
The obsequious tribute of a royal mourning:
When from their city walls the summit fell
The rite was new: they frowned.

Ptol.
So frowned the Persians,
Their “Quenchless Fire” extinguished.

Sel.
Let them frown!
When that mute tent rolled forth its thunder-peals
I drew my breath. I said, “The king will live.”

Ptol.
There lives no Greek that wept not for Hephestion:
Men say, “The army's strength remains: its youth—
The beauty of the battle—victory's gladness—
These, these are dead.” 'Twas not his words or deeds:
For this they loved him—that the good in each
Flowered in his presence, making fresh the soul.

Sel.
His cavalry shall bear his name for ever:
Henceforth who rules it as his vicar rules,
Armed with his ring. His sister-tended bride
Delights her sad sick-bed with his last words,
“My faithful, true, and honourable wife:”
If any happy lived, and timely died,
It is the man we miss.

Eum.
He, too, died timely—
Phylax—the king struck never wholesomer stroke!
The soldiers grudged him burial; for which cause
The four-legged cynics of his sect interred him.

Sel.
The king draws near: he sees it now, yon city,
The tower; the palace-front; the hanging gardens;
The cliff-like walls unending!

Eum.
A procession!

[A sacerdotal procession advances. At the same time Alexander joins them, attended by Generals.
Chaldœan Priest
(kneeling to Alexander).
Berosus, and the priesthood of Chaldæa
In us, dread sovereign, at your feet—

Alex.
Speak on.

Chaldœan Priest.
Since first that royal face made bright our world,
Since first that royal voice sent forth command
To raise once more the temple of great Belus—
[The other priests cry out:
“At Persia's cost! at hated Persia's cost”—

Chaldœan Priest continues.
High as it stood ere marred by Xerxes' crime,
Our prayer was this, to welcome earth's supreme
To Babylon, his seat. Vain hopes of man!
The omens frown on us.

Alex.
The worse for them!

Chaldœan Priest.
Approach not Babylon, at least, with brow
Dusk from a sunset sky! Make circuit first
Round gate and wall: and enter, face to east!

Alex.
What thinks of omens Ptolemy, our wisest?

Ptol.
Sir, than the sceptics I am sceptic more:
They scoff to boast their wit: I scoff at witlings.
Sir, Reason rules but in her own domain,
Beyond whose lawful bounds, her “Yea” and “Nay”
I hold for equal weights in equal scales
That rest in poise. Of things beyond the sense,
Whereon in part this visible order rests,
As spirits, ghosts, auguries, and mystic warnings
Reason says nought: their sphere and ours are diverse:
We know not if at points they intersect;
If—casual, or by laws—their inmates touch.
Our world's a part, and not a whole: its surface
We pierce at points: the depth remains unknown.
Sir, in these labyrinths there be phrenzies twain,
Unreasoning each, whereof the proudest errs
From Reason's path most far.

Alex.
Reason but walks
Secure in footprints of Experience old,
Whose testimony is diversely reported.

Ptol.
The affirmative experience is strong;
The negative is nought, and breeds us nothing.

Alex.
What help remains where Reason speaks not?

Ptol.
Instinct:
And as material instincts plainlier show
In bird and beast than man, so spiritual instincts
Speak plainlier haply through the popular voice
Than censure of the wise.

Alex.
The people trust them:
To ignore such things they count as ignorance:
And deem themselves more knowing than the great:
To spurn them were to chill the popular heart
In the hour of need. I make the city's circuit,
And enter not till morn—What ho! a herald!
And pale with haste!

Messenger
(arriving).
The river's banks have burst,
The harvest's lost! uncounted herds are drowned,
And eastward of the city all is flood:—
All entrance there is barred.

Alex.
So ends the doubt:
Westward! The shortest road is ever best.

Scene II.—Palace Terrace at Babylon.

Ptolemy, Seleucus, Eumenes, Cassander.
Eum.
You shall do wisely, sir, not angering him:
The king is triply altered since you saw him:
Antipater, your father, should know this:—
He is sad, and stern, and proud.

Cas.
My father's honour
Is sacred as your king's. Year following year,
Olympias, haughtiest of her sex, and subtlest,
Scorning an equal, hating a superior,
Warred on his worth. He deigned her no reply:
He kept his charge, old Macedon, in peace:
Yearly he sent his king recruits, and ever
Held his firm foot upon revolted Greece.
He's strong in truth.

Ptol.
The king can bear all truth;
Yet trusts not truth when braggart. This remember;
Be ceremonious when you see him first:
Hating these pomps, he hates those too that grudge them.

Sel.
Hephestion's death some whit disturbed the king:
The obsequies complete, he brightens daily:
Would you had seen the pyre!

Ptol.
Describe that pyre:
'Twill make him understand the royal sorrow:
It was grief's madness—yet its beauty too.

Sel.
Sir, 'twas a work of nations in a month:
A mile of Babylon's huge wall went down
To fashion forth its base: the cost thereof
Had ten times built the Athenian Parthenon:
'Twas earth's supremest structure, seen, and lost.
Forests down-felled sent forth its colonnades,
Huge pines, that, range o'er range to heaven ascending,
Forgat not yet their friends, the winds, but sighed
As on their native hills. In silver robes
Those far-retiring columns shone, sun-touched,
Tier above tier; the level spaces 'twixt them
Gold-zoned in circling cornices distinct
With sculptured frieze Titanic—giant wars,
The strength upheaved of earth assailing heaven
Kept down by overhanging weight of gods.
Seen 'gainst the blue, were Syren shapes that lured
The seeming mariner to death; with these,
White groups of sea-nymphs weeping round a wreck:
So fine the art, half Asian and half Greek,
That, from their wreathèd conchs and shells unwinding,
The tube-enthrallèd zephyrs breathed around
Such strains as sailors hear on haunted shores:
Far off the song was sweetest, saddest near.

Eum.
To me 'twas marvellous most by night.

Sel.
The stars
Died out: the purple vault deepened to black
Above that lower firmament of lights
Which seemed a heaven more festive, nearer earth
A many-shining city of the gods.
All night the wind increased, till that strange music
Swelled to a dirge so deep that some who heard
Went mad, they say, and died.

Eum.
When midnight came
The king gave word. The omnipresent fire
Leaped to mid-heaven. The packed horizon showed
As though the innumerous glebe had turned to man;
And each face pale as death!

Ptol.
You have seen the site:
'Twill need the gales of many a stormy winter
To clear away those ashes.

Cas.
True: chest-deep
My horse staggered among them. Griefs like these
Tread out our lesser woes. The king would teach us
The transience of man's greatness and his joy:
Now know I why he built of wood not stone:
He built us up a lesson.

Eum.
What? that grief
Is transient likewise?

Cas.
Nay, I meant not that.

Ptol.
He taught a nobler lesson. Has he learned it?

Scene III.—Hall of the Palace of Babylon.

Alexander on his throne surrounded by his Generals. The nobles of Babylon and the neighbouring provinces are ranged round the hall.
Alex.
I have had enough of councils. We'll be brief:
The Grecian embassies shall take precedence
In the order of their temples' dignity,
First Elis, Delphi second, Corinth third.
Whence come the others?

Eum.
Sire, from Carthage one;
She sinned with Tyre: four from Italian States,
The Bruttians, the Lucanians, the Tyrrhenians,
And that new city, Rome.

Alex.
A bandit's den!
Its earliest citizens were robber tribes;
And, faithful to their past, they are leagued this day
With Antium's pirates. Drive them home! One day
They'll know a Grecian heel. To the work in hand.
Princes of long-dejected Babylon
That yearly bent her brow more near the ground,
Rejoice! her days of mourning are gone by.
I had decreed never to see this city,
Chief seat of Earth's first empire and her worst.
What changed that edict? Sirs, the advancing knowledge
That that true Empire shaped and made by me—
That Empire which, the hour Parmenio died,
I vowed, from Scythia marching on to India,
Should know no limit and no term—that Empire
High as the mind of man and wide as earth—
The knowledge that that Empire ne'er can die.
That knowledge mine, I willed to weld in one
The first link and the last in the chain of Empires;
Once here, the spirit of the past came o'er me:
The earliest seat of Empire claimed its right:
The on-flowing tide of power, 'gainst nature's law
At my command rolled back. A conqueror's hand,
Forgetting this, that victory should be just,
Was heavy on your nation, sirs, of old,
Grudged you your great Euphrates, sluiced it hence,
Dried up its city-channel: I restore it.
I have dug for you a harbour: Indian fleets
Therein shall sway their masts with lighter crafts
Freighted from Egypt, and our Grecian Isles
With help of broad canals from Syrian shores
By Grecian science planned, by Asian gold
'Mid deserts excavated. Yestereve
Your eyes beheld a pledge of this high future,
The meeting of two fleets, from India one,
The other, recent from Ægean waves,
Dragged overland to Thapsacus, and thence
Launched on Euphrates' stream. Assyrian lords,
Your Babylon shall sit among her meads
An inland Tyre, secure: your Temple and Tower,
Passing the height of Egypt's pyramids,
Revindicate their state. He nothing erred
Who fixed of old in Babylon the seat
Of eastern Empire. Round her throne shall stand
Persepolis, Susa, and Ecbatana,
Handmaids, not rivals. In the West shall rise
Cities like these. Half-way! twixt East and West
In single majesty supreme o'er all
Shall Alexandria reign.

[Acclamation from all sides: “It is the voice of a god,” during which Cassander enters the hall. He approaches the king, but without making the customary “Adoration.”
Alex.
Who's he that enters like the forest beast
Irreverent, and unshamed? Remove the man.
[Cassander is forcibly removed.
The rest is brief. My purpose was—men knew it—
To spend ten years consolidating in peace
The eastern world. That purpose I discard:
I trust the years no more: presuming death
Strikes down the loftiest as the lowliest head,
Rendering no count. I seek the West at once.
West joined to East, and raised by subjugation,
Since to be wisely ruled alone is freedom,
Shall leave my work complete. Two mighty armies
Divide the triumph. Southward one shall coast
The midland sea through Egypt to Cyrene
And on through Lybia to the Atlantic deep;
Northward the other, from Illyria's shore
To far Iberia's verge. From you I need
Fully fifty thousand soldiers in three months:
Your bravest. To subdue the West, and mould it,
Demands three years: for these the queen is regent,
Not more among my captains to rebate
Envy's fell tooth, than in requital just
Of royal gifts which I revere in her,
Enough. Call in those Grecian embassies.
[First enter the Envoys from the Greeks assembled at the Olympic games: the eldest speaks—
King, and our lord, the Greeks with reverence true,
Though not without misgiving, heard that edict
But lately from Ecbatana sent to them,
Remanding to their homes all Grecian exiles—

Alex.
Does Greece accept that ordinance?

Envoys
(with hesitation).
Greece accepts.
[Next, ambassadors from all the Greek States enter, habited like heralds deputed with offerings to temples. They advance to Alexander with golden crowns, and kneeling, lay them at his feet. The eldest speaks—
To Alexander, Philip's conquering son,
The States of Greece concede, unanimous,
Honours divine, and hail him as a god.

Scene IV.—Hanging Gardens at Babylon.

Ptolemy, the Magian, Astar.
Ast.
War with the West! Your king has changed his purpose.

Ptol.
Sharp grief hath changed it. Grief, that should be gentle,
To him is storm. Fiercely it bears him on
Through Action's angriest skies.

Ast.
The king is strong:
His eye is bright and keen, but glad no more:
That iron Will still clutches its Hephestion.

Ptol.
The tyranny of love outlives its use.
He loves Hephestion as of old. Not less
His friend's benigner power—he's false to that:
Hephestion was for peace: the royal mind
Broods but on wars.

Ast.
His household life is past:
His Persian wife, the sweetest of all ladies,
And lordliest-souled, attends her widowed sister
Far off. He'd have it so.

Ptol.
He destined first
Ten years to moulding of the East—

Ast.
Ten years!
These insect tribes beat quick their filmy wings,
Live quickly, quickly die! Great Persia spent
A hundred years knitting her realm in one:
The spirit of Cyrus in her kings lived on:
Cold airs from Median hills strengthened their arm:
Our Magian sages—we too are from Media—
Ordered alike religion and the state:
Our nobles then were frugal, just, severe;
They never shunned a foe, nor feared a truth:
We conquered Asia's western half, and Egypt:
Her idols knew it. But for Marathon—

Ptol.
I thought you of a temper more sedate:
With us philosophy laughs passion down.

Ast.
Sir, truth that lives not militant on earth
Traffics with falsehood in complicity,
More false than she, as sinning against light.
Our Faith was warlike while a heart was in it:
So long we conquered. But a vanquished race
Finds this revenge, its direst, and its last:—
With poison of its vices it infects
In time its conqueror's blood. 'Twas so with us:
The lands we vanquished mixed our light with night:
Then temples first confined our boundless worship;
Then first with Oromasdes Zeus had part;
Then first was weakness deemed a kingdom's wisdom,
Promiscuous tolerance her maternal love;—
I say they lied! 'Tis not a mother's arms
That open are at all times, and to all!

Ptol.
Themes speculative these that end in heats:
Our king, you see, moves on.

Ast.
Moves on! you err!
I say his course is retrograde, not onward.
This city's Babylon!

Ptol.
What then?

Ast.
The seat
Of earth's first empire:—sordid 'twas, and base:
Its gods were idols viler far than Egypt's,
For hers concealed a meaning. Our great Xerxes
Brought low the boastings of their brick-built tower
Your king rebuilds it, fawns on Babylon,
Would renovate a demon-haunted ruin:
I have heard him laud Semiramis herself:—
He heir of Cyrus!

Ptol.
Persian, have a care!
You need our king.

Ast.
Greek! I have ne'er denied it:
Ah, would I might! A realm's not wholly fallen
Till this, the last dishonour, it has reached,
To need its conqueror. This marriage blends us:
I, that abhorred it, worked against it never;
These hands were pressed upon that contract's seal.
The effect? Look forth from those o'erhanging gardens!
Far down, a priest-procession winds in pomp;
Who are they? Magians? Greeks? Not so! Chaldæans!
They hymn your king!

Ptol.
He loves not slaves: o'er earth
He wills to build one Greece.

Ast.
He builds meanwhile
The tomb of all the greatness earth can know,
Gold-smeared without; within a heap of bones.
“He wills to build one Greece!” Her kingdom's Thought:
Greece must do penance ere she wins that kingdom,
He drowns his Greece with gold: slays her with honours:
He breeds a Greece to undo the work of Greece:
He'll leave on earth nor honest ignorance,
Nor knowledge just. He'll raise a pigmy race
To mock dead Titans. From the highway dust
He'll quicken with corruption's base conception
Sophists in swarm. The locust-cloud will spread,
And leave the world a waste.

Ptol.
Your augury's ill:
The mind of Greece—

Ast.
The heart of Greece is rotten!
That soil, whence intellect's root in darkness springs:
'Twas false to heaven; and now, malicious grown,
Is false to nature. At their feasts I've heard them,
Defend worse sin with dialectic leprous!
I raised my head at last, and answered thus—
Nations have vanished 'neath a conqueror's tread;
Nations have perished, worn by civil strife;
Nations have withered, famine-plagued: but Greece,
The beautiful, the wise, the once heroic,
Shall die in prime a suicide, nor leave,
Amerced of household ties by fleshly shames,
A child to inearth the corpse.

An Attendant
(entering).
Sirs, be ye prompt!
The royal barge approaches,

Ast.
(to Ptolemy).
Join him thou!
Philosopher of Greece, your lord lacks tendance!

Scene V.—The Lake of Pallacopas, near Babylon.

Alexander in the Royal Barge, attended by Artabazus, Seleucus, Antigonus, Peucestas, and others.
Alex.
Ten thousand men at break of day, Peucestas!
The spot is there! we'll cut through yonder rock:
O'er-pround Euphrates there shall find a channel—
To work ere noon!

Peu.
It shall be ordered, sir.

Sel.
A mystery of sadness girds this region:
Those trackless wastes, half water and half land,
Those low-hung, hueless clouds above them streaming,
The piping of the willow-bending wind,
Upon the horizon far yon city-wall—
Some curse is on this spot!

Alex.
Misrule's that curse:
In ignorant kindness noxious as in hate:
The country drowned, the city drained of waters—
Old Xerxes did his work! Look well around:
We need a fortress next, wherein to entrench
The warders of our strait. I see a crag:
Steer to its base.

Art.
A tomb it is of kings.

Alex.
Those slaves whom late we passed knee-deep in water
With bloodshot eyes half blinded by the glare
And light thin frames, were not of stock Chaldæan:
Whence came they?

Art.
Sire, from Hierosolyma:
The Assyrian razed their city, burned their Temple,
To exile dragged them—greybeards, women, babes:
In fifty years the Assyrian's empire fell:
Cyrus, the Persian, loved that Hebrew people
And loosed them from their bonds. Some few remained:
Their progeny are those you marked but now.

Alex.
A vision rose before me as I watched them:
I too have stood in Hierosolyma:
My will was fixed to look on it once more:
Chance, or some humour, on my way from Egypt—
Near it I marched—made hindrance, and I passed.

Art.
Sir, you have shown much kindness to that people:
A race that scarce can live, yet never dies:
They are always ill at ease. Their ancient Law
Forbade their task—rebuilding Belus' temple:—
'Tis six leagues off, yet there it rises plain:
Your clemency vouchsafed a licit toil:
They deepen yonder channel.

Alex.
Better thus:
The Persians scorn the Assyrians, they, the Hebrews:
Between the rival races, and their gods,
I hold the balance just. What strain is that?
The Persian and the Babylonian barges
Since morn have followed mine with hymn, or chaunt:
This has a different note.

Alex.
That song's a dirge, with notes of anger in it:
I hate the grief that nothing is save grief.

Art.
Sire, these are maidens of that Hebrew race.

Sel.
They have passed the osier banks. Once more that strain!

Alex.
That race can boast a history. Search its annals!

Sel.
Our Grecian songs, for all their grace and light,
Measured with such were as a wind-tossed tress
Matched with yon sailing rack.

Art.
A galley comes—
Those Babylonian braggarts make their revel.

Alex.
The ages pass, like winds;
The old wrong remains, rooted like tombs and moves not:
All may be done through Time; yet Time does nought.
Let kings look well to that. We have reached our goal.
Is that a tomb?

Art.
The Assyrian monarchs, sir,
Squandered their lives in banquets, yet desired
A solitary precinct for their graves:
They reverenced Death:—the Greeks but deck and mock it.
Those dusky crypts that pierce the sedge-girt rock,
Are sepulchres of kings.

[As Alexander turns, a gust blows his Causia into the water. The diadem that girdled it remains suspended on the reeds at the base of the tomb. A sailor plunges into the lake, and swims to the tomb, but, in his desire to keep the royal diadem dry, inadvertently sets it on his head. Thus crowned he re-enters the royal barge.
A Sailor.
The omen's ill!

2nd Sailor.
The omen's black as night!

Sel.
(drawing his sword).
I'll drown it in his blood!

Alex.
Give him a talent
In guerdon for his bath and his good will,
And, when we land, the scourge, to teach him manners.
Omens! That priest Chaldæan spake of such:
Passing this morn his city-gates, I laughed:
I wore a cope of lead three months:—to-day
I am stronger than at Tyre!

Sel.
May it please you, sir,
The wind hath changed: we need three hours, or more,
To reach the city.

Alex.
Mark that spot: 'tis there
I build my fortress. Now to Babylon: haste!
Drops fall apace: yon circlets on the mere
Denote them heavy. Hark, a distant thunder!
The heat is changed to cold. Our Artabazus
Is old for summer drenchings.

Art.
Twenty years
Press down my seventy. Sire, I should have passed
Long since, yet may outlive the three years' child.

Scene VI.—A Street in Babylon.

Amyntas and Socrates.
Amy.
The royal throne was on the dais set:
The generals' seats were ranged at either side:
The Persian guard kept watch around the hall,
Waiting earth's Master. Sudden, in the midst
A Nubian stood—the meanest of his race;
A moment more, and on that regal seat
The ill-featured shadow sat. They dared not touch him:
The throne makes holy all that rests thereon:
They beat their breasts with wailing long and loud.
The king arrived. Still sat that slave all calm
With smile like that on idol faces vast
Throned 'mid Egyptian sands.

Soc.
They stoned him, doubtless?

Amy.
The king forbade it. On the rack that slave
Confessed no crime: confederates he had none;
Was conscious of no purpose. Like a shaft
Some inspiration from on high had pierced him;
He pushed his spade into Euphrates' slime,
He pushed his way into the royal palace,
And round him stared, enthroned. The king said little:
He took his place, and bade them hold debate.
Now know you why, forth-issuing, men were pale;
Why, here and there, in groups or pairs they whispered;
Why hung that storm upon Seleucus' brow.
Never hath royal throne endured this wrong
That changed not owner soon. The king will die.

Soc.
A rush of citizens. Hark! Hark! they come!

Citizens
(hurrying past).
The king is sick, they say! To the palace on! On!

Scene VII.—The Palace at Babylon. Ante-room of the Royal Apartment.

Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Eumenes, Peucestas, Perdiccas, various Priests, and the Magian, Astar.
Ptol.
Sirs, know the truth: this sickness is to death:
The king must die.

Greek Priest.
This thing I feared since first
I marked him drifting from his native gods
To alien—yea, to Belus.

Per.
Gods, sir priest,
Grudge not each others' gains. To gods of Greece
Each morn he offered duteous sacrifice,
In sickness or in health. To foreign gods
He was observant more, since gods less known
Are formidable more than customed gods,
Like-minded with ourselves. In this he erred—
When certain Brahmins roused their king to war,
Of that high race he crucified full six
To awe the rest. That hour I feared! that hour
No priest protested!

Ant.
Yea, and at Sangala,
The city his already, he smote and slew
Ten thousand warriors. I would give this head
That deed had never been!

Sel.
Idiots! be mute!—
This thing he did; that thing he left undone;
Was born in such a year; in such was married;
Why, lords, men speak as if our king were dead
And they the embalmers, or the grave-diggers!
He's sick. The tempest drenched him. Shall a shower
Wash out the one great glory from the earth?
We hid his sickness first: the secret's known:
Since then, the world's gone mad.

Chaldœan Priest.
The strength of prayer
Is his, and shall be. We Chaldæan priests
Nor incense stint, nor victim.

Greek Priest.
Not a throne
Brightens Olympus but our prayer hath beat it!

Egyptian Priest.
Serapis knows if we have prayed or not,
He in whose image all the metals blend
As all divinities are one in essence;
Serapis knows.

Sel.
I see a Magian there:
He stands, and speaks not: let the Magian speak.

Ast.
Sir, since the quenching of their Sacred Fire
The Magian race stands silent. Be it so.

A Royal Page
(entering).
The king has sent for Ptolemy.

Scene VIII.—Alexander's Chamber.

Alexander, Ptolemy.
Alex.
We're stayed in the midst.

Ptol.
Sire, may the mighty gods—

Alex.
I'm hindered of my own: my march is hindered!
That march was ordered for the third day hence:
This bends it to the fifth.

Ptol.
Too quickly pass—

Alex.
Thus much the malice of o'erweening gods,
Or else their negligence, can fret our course!
I'm maimed, and tamed, and shamed: but mind can act
When the outward act is barred. Six audiences
I have given. The chief of my Thessalian horse
Had failed to impress his blacksmiths. Nehordates
Had sent no corn to Opis.

Ptol.
Sire, your eyes
Are blood—all blood. Where is it you feel the pain?

Alex.
I have wrestled oft with pain, and flung it ever:
Save for that fire in brain, and heart, and hand,
I am well enough. My strength as yet is whole.
To work! You need the map. Despatch, this even,
Heraclides to the Caspian, there to build
A fleet for exploration: let him search
If thence a passage lead not to the Euxine:
That found, a six weeks' march were spared, and more,
'Twixt Hellespont and Indus.

Ptol.
One hour, my king,
But one, give rest to that—

Alex.
Recall Nearchus!
Command that he forbear those Arab pirates:
Bid him through help of theirs—an army with him—
Circle all Afric, reach the Atlantic Pillars:
Thence, eastward curving on the midland sea,
He'll meet, near Carthage, or that coast Italic,
Our westward-marching host. You're staring, sir!

Ptol.
All shall be done.

Alex.
Ere sunset send to Egypt:
We need a road to coast her sea. Her sands
Are fire that blasts my eyes.

Ptol.
The brain o'er heated
Recalls Gedrosia's waste.

Alex.
My brain's not touched:
I watch it: if there rise beyond its verge
A cloud, the slenderest, of bewildered thought,
You'll learn it thus—I close my lips for ever.

Ptol.
Your thoughts are strong, my king, distinct, and plain.

Alex.
A light of conflagration makes them plain:
'Tis sent me from a pyre.

Ptol.
Immortal gods!
Grant to this sufferer the balm of sleep!

Alex.
Sleep! Can you guard me 'gainst ill dreams in slumber?
I'll tell you one. I died; and lay in death
A century 'mid those dead Assyrian kings
In their old tomb by yonder stagnant lake.
Then came a trumpet-blast that might have waked,
Methought, a sleeping world. It woke not them.
I could not rise: I could not join the battle:
Yet I saw all.

Ptol.
What saw you, sire?

Alex.
Twelve tents,
Each with my standard. On twelve hills they stood
Which either on their foreheads blazoned wore,
Or from my spirit's instinct took, great names,
Cithæron, Hæmus, Taurus, Libanus,
Parapomisus, and huge Caucasus,
With other five, and Athos in the midst.
Then from my royal tents on those twelve hills,
Mailed in mine arms, twelve Alexanders crowned
With all their armies rushed into a plain
Which quaked for fear, and dashed across twelve floods,
Euphrates, Issus, Tigris, Indus, Oxus,
And others with great names. They met — those Twelve—
And, meeting, swelled in stature to the skies,
And grappled, breast to breast, and fought, and died
Save four that, bleeding, each on other stared,
And leaned upon their swords. As thus they stood,
Slow from that western heaven which domes the accursed—
Rome's bandit brood—there moved a cloud night-black,
Which, onward-gathering, mastered all the East,
And o'er it rained a rain of fire. The earth
Split, and the rivers twelve in darkness sank;
The twelve great mountains crumbled to the plain;
The bones of those twelve armies ceased from sight:
Then from the sun that died, and dying moon,
And stars death-sentenced, fell great drops of blood
Large as their spheres, till all the earth was blood;
And o'er that blood-sea rang a female cry,
“The Royal House is dead.”

Ptol.
My king, my friend—

Alex.
Phylax is dust. You cannot bid him tend me!

Ptol.
Olympias, prescient, sent you, sire, from Greece
But late its wisest leech. How oft you've said,
“A mother's prayers are hard to be withstood!”

Alex.
I loved her in the old days: nor years, nor wars
Disturbed that image. But a greater love
In its great anguish tramples out all others.
Impostors are they all—those heart-affections:
They're dupes that make us dupes—
There's not on earth a confidence unflawed:
I think he kept from me at Tyre a secret
Touching that princess. I from him concealed
That warning strange at Hierosolyma,
Whereof, it may be, my contempt more late
When, old Parmenio doomed, I marched to India,
Bore me ill fruit. Betwixt that warning strange
And this, my sickness, was there aught in common?

Ptol.
It may be, sire, there was,

Alex.
Ere yet that darkness
Hurled by injurious and malignant Fates
Against this unsubverted head, had found me—
The Fates that hustle heroes out of life;
The Fates that hustled gods into the abyss;
The unobsequious Fates that mock all things—
In diligent musings at Ecbatana
I thus resolved; to see once more that priest:
Then came that death—
And in the gloomy raptures of just wrath
That mood went by. I marched to Babylon:
Then came the end. Who sings?

Ptol.
Poor Hebrew slaves;
They weed the palace court.

Alex.
That song's amiss.

Ptol.
Sire, for your army's sake,
Which, like a wounded warrior, moans in sleep,
Your Empire's sake, that, immature and weak,
Is threatened in its cradle—

Alex.
'Tis so: 'tis so:
It lacks completion; and the years, the months,
The hours, like ravening wolves that hunt a stag,
Come up upon my haunches. Six o' the clock
On the fifth morn! At noon we cross Euphrates:
That hour you'll learn my plans:
I'll cast this sickness from me, like the rags
Flung from some lazar-house! Whose step is that?

Ptol.
Sire, there is none.

Alex.
Let not Seleucus near me!
Those onsets of his blundering, blind devotion,
So unlike his that perished—

Ptol.
Sire, none comes.

Alex.
Be strong! What shall be must. Shake not: bend nearer!
I have a secret; one for thee alone:
'Twas not the mists from that morass disastrous,
Nor death of him that died, nor adverse gods,
Nor the Fates themselves; 'twas something mightier yet,
And secreter in the great night, that slew me.
[Seleucus enters.
Welcome, Seleucus!

Sel.
Sire, I come unbidden:
This Ptolemy—has Greece but one who loves you?

Alex.
[Seleucus departs reluctantly.

[As Ptolemy is departing.
Ptol.
Macedonian Pella?
Old ties are strong. You said, when leaving Greece,
“Pella, not Athens, if I die.”

Alex.
Not Pella.

Ptol.
This Babylon, where he you loved lies dead?

Alex.
'Mid sands Egyptian—by the Ammonian grove—
In my great Father's fane.

Scene IX.—Ecbatana.

Arsinoe
(On a balcony of Drypetris' Palace).

A Lady
(entering).
Madam, but now
Your sister woke, and gently breathed your name,
But slept ere I could answer.

Ars.

The Lady
(re-entering).
Madam, she wakes.

Scene X.—The Palace of Babylon.

In the centre of the council hall is a pallet on which Alexander lies. The royal pages kneel at each side. Around, or in groups at the entrance, stand Eumenes, Cassander, Ptolemy, Amyntas, Socrates, Peucestas, Perdiccas, Seleucus, and other Generals.
Ptol.
It is a six days' journey: ere the noon
That young, pale queen in far Ecbatana's palace
Will break our seal, and read.

Soc.
(near the gate of the hall).
The day draws near:
The scared, wan dawn blends in yon cave of death
With the red torch-light.

Amy.
Eight brief days ago
That was a hall of council whence the world
Waited her sentence. I could deem its air
Was thick with phantom shapes. Is all hope lost?

Soc.
At midnight hope surceased. The fever sank;
With it his strength. He bade them bear him hither:
He speaks not since.

Amy.
In yon black palace lies
The agèd queen! from window on to window
The lights pass quick. There's sorrow there. 'Tis cold!

Soc.
You shake.

Amy.
They woke me sudden with the news.

Ant.
(entering).
The Persian has his trouble as the Greek.
Old Sisygambis sinks from hour to hour:
She came from Susa hither, vexed by dreams,
Found the king sick; foodless she sits since then
Upon the palace floor. Dread gifts, men say,
Of prophecy are hers. A funeral veil
O'erhangs her glittering eyes and plaited forehead:
Her Magians stand around: the royal children
Kneel at her feet.

Soc.
In great Serapis' temple
Four generals watched from early night to morn,
Hoping some intimation from the god:
Nor oracle nor vision was vouchsafed.
At last Seleucus, kneeling at the shrine,
Besought, “Shall the sick king, a suppliant, lay him
Beneath the healing shadow of this fane?”
'Twas answered, “Where he lies, there let him bide.”

Amy.
That meant, that here abiding, he shall live.

Ant.
It meant, that death is better than to live.

Ptol.
(near the pallet).
Seleucus, you were with him?

Sel.
Half the night
My tears bedewed his hand.

Ptol.
Knew he things round him?

Sel.
He knew them well; and knew of things beyond.
Long time he watched, or seemed to watch, the passions
Of some great fight that makes a world or mars,
And saw all lost. “Parmenio fought against me:
'Twas death's cold river gave him back his youth,”
He muttered. Next he spake as to some priest:
And seemed to grasp his wrist, and reasoned with him—
I caught no word—two hours with lips foam-flecked,
As one who proudly pleads, yet pleads for life;
Then ceased, and slept.

Eum.
Keep silence at the gates!

Ant.
(drawing near).
The soldiers will to see him.

Ptol.
Let it be:
'Tis now too late for aught to work him ill.

[The soldiers stream in, circling successively the royal pallet, till the whole hall is thronged.
Sel.
The soldiers' friend! He hears their stifled moaning:
His eye is following them; he fain would stretch
His hand toward them!

Eum.
Speak to him, Ptolemy!

Ptol.
Sire, it is come! the king is king in death:
Speak the king's ordinance. Who shall wear his crown?

Alex.

The worthiest head.

[A long silence.
Ptol.
Once more his lips are moving:
Perdiccas, you are keen of ear: bend low—
Bend to his lips.

Eum.
His fingers move: he slides
The royal ring into Perdiccas' hand.

Ptol.
Hear you no words?

Per.
I think he said, “Patroclus.”

Ptol.
Once more?

Per.
He said, “Achilles followed soon.”

Ptol.
Bend down once more.

Per.
He spake it plain: I heard it;
“Patroclus died: Achilles followed soon.”

Sel.
And died in saying it. 'Tis past. He's gone!

Ptol.
The greatest spirit that ever trod this earth
Has passed from earth. He, swifter than the morn
O'er-rushed the globe. Expectant centuries
Condensed themselves into a few brief years
To work his will; and all the buried ages
Summed their old wealth, to enrich, for man's behoof,
With virtuous wisdom one Olympian mind
Which, grappling all things — needing not experience—
Yet scorned no diligence, the weapons shaped,
Itself, that hewed its way, nor left to others
The pettiest of those cares that, small themselves,
Are rivets which make whole the mail of greatness.
The world hath had its conquerors: one alone
Conquered for weal of them who bowed beneath him,
And in the vanquished found his firmest friends
And passionatest mourners.
The world hath had its kings: but one alone
To whom a kingdom meant a radiant fabric,
No tyrant's dungeon-keep, no merchant's mart,
But all intelligential, so combining
All interests, aspirations, efforts, aims,
That man's great mind, therein made one o'er earth,
Might show all knowledge in its boundless glass,
As the sea shows the sun. Rough Macedon,
Boast; yet be just! Thou wert this wonder's nurse:
A mightier was his mother. Earth, take back
Thy chief of sons! Henceforth his tomb art thou.

Sel.
Lords, he is gone who made us what we are;
And we, remanded to our nothingness,
Have that, not words, to offer him for praise.
There stand among us some that watched his boyhood;
They have had their wish; he lived his life. The gods,
Feared they the next step of their earthly rival,
Who pressed so near their thrones? Your pardon, lords!
He's dead who should this day have praised the dead,
Happiest in this, he died before his friend.
Lords, we have lived in festival till now,
And knew it not. The approaching woes, they best
Shall measure greatness gone. The men who 'scape,
Building new fortunes on the wreck-strewn shore,
Shall to their children speak in life's sad eve
Of him who made its morning. Let them tell
His deeds but half, or no man will believe them:
It may be they will scarce themselves believe,
Deeming the past a dream. That hour, their tears
Down-streaming unashamed like tears in sleep
Will better their poor words: who hear shall cry.
Pale with strong faith, “There lived an Alexander.”

[A passage opens in the crowd, and Astar stands up beside the body of Alexander.
Ast.
Conquerors of Persia, now yourselves death-conquered,
Another royal corse makes dumb the world.
The mother of Darius, Sisygambis,
As o'er the horizon's verge the rising sun
Lifted its Persia-worshipped forehead, dropped
Her brow discrowned down on the dust, and died.

Ptol.
Empire o'er empire topples: Persia first
Above her, she that vanquished Persia—Greece.

ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ENGLISH.

• Henry Plantagenet, King of England.
• Prince Henry, son of Henry II.
• Richard de Luci, Chief Justiciary of England.
• Earl of Leicester.
• Earl of Cornwall.
• De Broc, an apostate monk become knight.
• Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
• John of Salisbury, priest and friend of Becket.
• Herbert of Bosham, priest and friend of Becket.
• Alexander Llewellen, a Welshman, his cross-bearer.
• William Fitz-Stephen, a retainer of Becket.
• Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, and Bishop of Winchester.
• Roger de Pont l'Evêque, Archbishop of York.
• Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, and afterwards of London.
• John of Oxford, a priest and Secretary of Henry II.
• Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Richard Brito, Hugh de Moreville, knights in the King's household.
• Edward Grim, a Cambridge clerk.
• The Prior of Merton.

FRENCH.

• Louis, King of France.
• The Archbishop of Rouen
• The Archbishop of Sens.
• The Bishop of Lisieux.
• Guarine, Abbot of Pontigny.

---

170

ITALIAN.

• Pope Alexander III.
• Cardinal William of Pavia.
• Cardinal Otho.

WOMEN.

• The Empress Matilda, mother of Henry II.
• Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry II.
• Idonea de Lisle, a nun.
• Monks, Courtiers, Soldiers, Minstrels, Attendants, etc.

ACT I.

Scene I.—The Western Entrance to Westminster Abbey.

Leicester and Cornwall, John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham. Beyond is a crowd waiting outside the Abbey, within which the monks of St. Augustine's at Canterbury have just made election of Thomas à Becket to the Primacy.
Her.
Augustine's chair! The greatest that which England
Can yield her greatest—save a happy death.
Thomas can stand the trial. Praise to God!
The man I love stands honoured.

John of Sal.
England's honoured!
Thomas is English wholly—Saxon half;
A scion of that ancient, healthful stock
Which fell on Hastings' field; first English-born
Who for five reigns hath swayed Augustine's staff.
King Harold, have thy joy!

Leic.
Our king is wise;
King Henry, of that name the first, espoused
A daughter of the Saxon line, Matilda,
That English blood with Norman mixed thenceforth
Might comfort English hearts. King Henry's grandson
Walks in his grandsire's steps.

Corn.
With better luck,
Pray God! than Beauclerk's—the Investitures;—
Anselm, the primate, fought that battle hard,
Stretching from exile a lean, threatening arm,
And won it more than half. At Bec he lies,
Or England ne'er had slept. I think he sleeps not;
I think that in his grave the stern old monk,
Who looked so meek and mild, keeps vigil still,
Muttering of simony and sins of princes.
The king did well to choose a citizen's son:
'Tis that which makes this brutish city loud;
Yet safer far had been a humbler choice—
Becket hath Norman blood.

Leic.
What matters that?
Norman and Saxon daily blend in England:
The king is neither. Sir, he's Angevine:
His faithfullest subjects we; not less we know him
Of alien race, an alien emperor
Who counts our England one 'mid subject realms,
And seldom sees her face. Remember, Cornwall,
That, when that earlier Henry sware, new-crowned,
To grant this land once more the laws of Alfred,
Not Saxon churl alone desired the boon,
But Norman knight no less. Forget not this:
Matilda—how unlike her empress-daughter!—
Was saint with either race, and won her lord
To hold his parliaments. The king and she
Walked side by side when Alfred's bones were moved
From Newminster to Hyde.

Corn.
'Tis true; this Becket
Shares not the scandal of that foreign brood
Which swarms through all the realm's great offices;
Preys on our lands. A Norman was his sire;
Some say his mother was an Asian princess,
Who loved that father chained in Holy Land,
Loosed him, and with him fled.

Leic.
Likelier I deem it
She cut her flaxen Saxon tresses short,
And followed him to Syria, garbed a page,
With cross upon her shoulder, and a heart
Made strong by maiden love.

John of Sal.
Brave legends both!
They mean that Becket's great. Whate'er hath greatness
Kindles some glittering legend round its way
Through the gross ether of the popular mind.
Becket's a man!

Corn.
A merchant's son—not noble!

John of Sal.
Patriarch is he of nobles, not their son—
The nobles 'mid the shepherds of Christ's flock:
Let that suffice.

Leic.
Whate'er his race, 'twas merit
Raised Becket's head. But three months chancellor,
He scourged those boors of Flanders from the realm;
Shook down the bandits' towers above the builders:
So plainly his desert shone forth, that Envy
Bit her own tongue reviling him. Great knights
Flocked to his standard; sons of nobles stood
His pages in the splendour of his halls.
His ways were royal: when he crossed the seas
To vindicate 'gainst France our England's name,
Six ships of his own building with him sailed,
And sixteen hundred warriors ate his bread;
The chivalry of Aquitaine and Anjou,
Of Scotland, Brittany, yea, England's self,
Stared at the steel-mailed cleric.

Her.
Sir, a deacon—
A deacon only, not a priest.

Leic.
Once more
I see that French knight, Engelramme de Trie,
Upon the red field rolling—

[Gilbert Foliot, attended by John of Oxford, issues from the Abbey.
Corn.
Hush! here's Gilbert—
I hate that sallow face and inward eye—
And, with him, John of Oxford, courtier-priest,
That, round and ready, slips and slides through all things,
And ever upward works. Leicester, come hence!
To Rouen next: we'll bring the king the tidings.

[Cornwall and Leicester depart.
Gil.
A cure miraculous, John, the king has worked;
Touches a soldier, and a bishop rises!
The hand that cures the evil gives the staff!

John of Oxf.
My lord, the staff is given; the evil, long,
Transferred not cured, shall plague the heart of England.

Gil.
I note in yonder man a strength resistless;
A strength for ill. In washing of the dirt
From off the Church, he'll wash the Church to nothing.
I preached against her sins: there were who said
I bit them hard; he'll rend away the rags
With shreds of flesh adhering. Next, he'll loose
The spiritual body from the secular clutch;—
Let princes look to that.

John of Oxf.
Becket lacks patience;
Victory half won, he'll dash himself to death.

Gil.
There's in him strength to wrest from death itself
Victory stone-cold. I go: abide and watch!

[Gilbert passes on.
1st Man-at-arms.

2nd Man-at-arms.

1st Man-at-arms.

2nd Man-at-arms.
[They pass on.

Scene II.—A House in London.

Becket, Herbert of Bosham.
Bec.
A heavy weight, good Herbert, and a sudden!

Her.
My lord, it came from heaven; what need we more?
Who sent the weight will send the strength. That bard
Whose Trojan legend was the old world's Bible
Clothed his best Greek with armour from the gods,
And o'er the field it bore him like a wind.
What meant that armour? Duty! O my lord,
The airy gauds that deck us, these depress us:
The divine burthen and the weight from God
Uplift us and sustain.

Bec.
Herbert! my Herbert!
High visions, mine in youth, upbraid me now:
I dreamed of sanctities redeemed from shame;
Abuses crushed; all sacred offices
Reserved for spotless hands. Again I see them;
I see God's realm so bright each English home
Sharing that glory basks amid its peace;
I see the clear flame on the poor man's hearth
From God's own altar lit; the angelic childhood;
The chaste, strong youth; the reverence of white hairs:—
'Tis this Religion means. O Herbert! Herbert!
We must secure her this! Her rights, the lowest
Shall in my hand be safe. I will not suffer
The pettiest stone in castle, grange, or mill,
The humblest clod of English earth, one time
A fief of my great mother, Canterbury,
To rest a caitiff's booty. Herbert, Herbert,
Had I foreseen, with what a vigilant care
Had I built up my soul! The fall from greatness
Had tried me less severely. Many a time
I said, ‘From follies of these courts and camps
Reverse will scourge me homeward to my God;
He'll ne'er forego me till I grow to Christian!’
Lo! greatness comes, not judgment.

Her.
It may be
That God hath sent you both in one. Fear nought!
At Paris first, and after at Bologna,
You learned the Church's lore.

Bec.
I can be this,
The watch-dog keeping safe his master's door
Though knowing but little of the stores within:
I'll do my best to learn. Give we, each day,
Six hours to sacred studies! Ah! you smile;
You note once more the boaster. Friend, 'tis true,
Our penitence itself doth need repentance;
Our humbleness hath in it blots of pride.
Hark to that truant's song! We celibates
Are strangely captured by this love of children
Nature's revenge—say, rather, compensation.
The king will take him hence: God's will be done!
I lose my pupil, and become your pupil;
A humble one; no more.
High saint of God, or doctor of the Church,
'Twere late for that; yet something still remains:
I ever wished to live an honest man,
Honest to all, and most to Christ, my Master.
Help me to be His servant true!

Her.
I promise.

Bec.
Henceforth I cast all worldly pomps aside:
The king must find some worthier chancellor:
It irks me thus to slight his gifts; yet John
Who journeys with the prince must bear to France
This realm's Great Seal.

Her.
Bid John to teach his charge,
He'll need it when a king, humility.
When first I saw the prince 'twas on his birthday:
Songs rang, and banners waved: the child was glad
And tossed his head in triumph. Thus I warned him:
‘Child, walk less proudly! He who fashioned man
Fashioned yon worm; and when the man lies dead
The worm consumes his flesh!’ ‘My flesh,’ he cried
With flashing eyes, ‘My flesh—the King of England's!—
I'd treat them thus! ’and thrice on the green turf
Down stamped his little crimson boot. He comes!

How clear his voice!

[Prince Henry enters.
Bec.
The swallow, little prince,
Can twitter though he sings not: so can you
That, like the swallow, with you waft the spring,

P. Hen.
Better his twitter than the organ's growl:
Vespers are done; that's well!

Bec.
They say, my child,
Those Canterbury monks have made me primate;
I little like the charge.

P. Hen.
Why take it then?
I spurned this day a shoe though wrought in pearl,
Because it galled me; ay, and left some red
Upon the maker's cheek! The chancellor's gown
Was gayer thrice than that. You have changed for worse!

Bec.
High place hath many foes.

P. Hen.
When father dies
I shall be king: that day I'll find and slay them!

Bec.
Child, love you not your father?

P. Hen.
Lo! you frown
I love my father, but I love you better:
Not oft he speaks to me, nor then with smiles:
He knows no pretty tales of birds and beasts;
He never lays his hand upon my head;
Hard are his questions; ere the answer comes
He sits in thought, or leaves me.

Bec.
Little prince,
It may be when the cloud is on his brow
His thought is for his son! Know you not, Henry,
A father's heart is with his babes? For them
He toils all day; for them keeps watch by night;
Risks oft his soul itself. See you this letter?
It bids me send you home. We part at sunrise.

P. Hen.
I will not go! I'll stay with you in London!—
Hark, hark, the light hoofs dancing in the court:
Long-maned, large-eyed, a white star on his front:
They said he was so gentle I could ride him:
I answered I would ride him mild or wild.

Father, farewell!

[Rushes out followed by Herbert.
Bec.
Farewell, light heart! Man's life
Loses its speciousness: remains but Duty.
(After a long pause)
Herbert, and John—how wise is each; how true!
How few have friends like these: yet something tells me
That neither will be near me when I die.

Scene III.—Palace at Rouen.

King Henry, Queen Eleanor, the Bishop of Lisieux, Cornwall, Reginald Fitz-Urse, Courtiers, Minstrels, Attendants.
K. Hen.
Three victories in three realms had pleased me less!
This day my ten years' purpose stands fulfilled:
Those monks have given consent! Thomas Archbishop—
That hand which holds the seal wielding the staff,—
The feud of Crown and Church past for ever.
My chancellor made primate, Henry of Blois
Shall bend from his stiff back!

Q. Elea.
Have joy, good husband!
The gift of faith is yours!

K. Hen.
You trust in none;
I, trusting few, trust Thomas; I have proved him.
Those sins my youth had not the grace to shun
At least it scorned to vindicate. Who chid them?
Nor knight, nor bishop; he and he alone!
You slight your one true friend.

Q. Elea.
Hear that, fair ladies!
A spouse unfaithfuller—

K. Hen.
Henceforth I rule!
None shares with me my realm. My Lord of Lisieux,
Should not a king be king?

Lis.
May it please your Highness,
'Tis known I never walked with them that err
From duty to their king. Yet kings, forgive me,
Armed with that twofold power your Highness boasts,
Shall need a sage's prudence.

K. Hen.
Have no fear!
That twofold sway my own, the world shall wonder
Less at its greatness than the temperance meek
Wherewith I wield its functions.

Lis.
Sire, 'tis thus
Your Church shall serve you best. The garden dial
No doubt is appanage of the garden's lord;
Yet he who wills to plant it at incline
And he who scans it by the torch he carries
Know not the hour o' the day.

K. Hen.
My kingdom's bishops
Shall keep full power to mulct ill clerks; and Rome,
Albeit reduced, retain her vantage-place—
The loftiest tassel on the Church's cap.

Q. Elea.
What cap is that? In Guienne some would answer,
‘A fool's cap on a palsy-stricken head— —’
O, 'tis a beauteous and a beaming land!
I ever hated Paris! There that monk,
Bernard, held sway; but in my sunny South,
Strong as the North in arms and wiser thrice,
'Twas banquet still, and song. ‘Mysteries’ and ‘plays’
Alternate graced our halls. Gay Troubadours!
Amid our ‘Courts of Love’ I judged the prize—
They sware my song was best!

K. Hen.
Rise, Southern sea,
And drown for aye that sun-burnt land of ‘Oc!’
An oak-wood of the North were worth it all!
Your Troubadours have but one song among them,
And that's the grasshopper's! Their garrulous land
Scorns kings as much as priests! Your grandfather
In spleen forsook it, lived in Spain, cave-roofed,
The knightly armour hid by hermit weeds,
And, worn by penance, died.

Q. Elea.
A priestly legend!
He revelled to the last and died in sleep:
Heaven grant us all such end! I tell you, Henry,
My land's a land of mind yet more than mirth:
There are who whisper there that marriage vows,
Like vows monastic, mean but cleric gain;—
Poor Petronilla! Rodolf loved her well:
What marred that love? A dotard Pope, preferring
To theirs the claim of Rodolf's beldam wife
Espoused in ignorant youth!

K. Hen.
You fought their fight;
And thirteen hundred boors were burnt, they say,
In Vitry's church, when Vitry fell.

Q. Elea.
Which error
We cancelled fighting in the Holy Land.
O, what a clime! What flowers, what fruits, what odours!
What stars, clear-imaged in those Asian streams
Whose coldest ripple wafts an amorous tune:
That land hath but one blot—Jerusalem!
A city like a nightmare, legend-choked;
Black den of Saints!

K. Hen.
Your ‘Amazons’ and you,
Whose quaint apparel wonder-struck the world,
Ended, ere long, I think, that high crusade.

Q. Elea.
When captains shape their march to please a lady,
The shame is theirs, not hers. 'Twas frolic all,
And so in frolic died.

K. Hen.
A frolic! woman!
My earliest dream was of some great crusade;
That work shall yet be mine, my last, my chief:
Ay, but I'll build my empire first! That done,
My brave and loyal sons shall share my toils,
Or guard my realms at home.

Q. Elea.
How chill 'tis grown!
Swift Southern springs, that with a flame of flowers
In one day light the earth, how unlike you
This tardy Norman May! See those poor monkeys!
Despite their coats of scarlet and of gold
They shake from ear to tail. Fitz-Urse, some music!

Fitz-Urse.
Madam, there stands a Trouvère!

Q. Elea.
Let him sing.
Minstrel, what poems make you?

Trou.
Please your Highness,
The proud old pagan poets made their songs;
We Trouvères find, not make them, deeming earth
God's poem, beauty-stored.

Q. Elea.
Then find me one.

(Trouvère
sings.)

Q. Elea.
That's psalm, not song! Sing me some love-song old,
Of Grecian gods and nymphs.

Trou.
On Grecian hills
Traditionary melodies survive
Pagan, yet touched in part by tenderer feeling:
I know one—‘Phœbus and the Doe.’

Q. Elea.
Sing that.

(Trouvère
sings.)

Q. Elea.
A love-song that! An icicle it is
Added to winter! Phœbus was a fool
Else had he captured Daphne ere she rooted;
Your doe a fool to weep for gladness past.
What says King Henry?

De Tracy
(entering).
May it please your Highness,
Four priests are come, sent by my lord the primate,
With letters and a casket.

K. Hen.
Bid them enter.
Thomas has sent some offering!

[John of Salisbury enters, followed by three abbots.
Q. Elea.
(to one of her ladies).
Lo, their saint!
Large fame is his, and long I craved to see him:
Princely he is, but lacks the princely pride;
Rather some prince's phantom, gaunt and wan;
Methinks that moon which maddens him looks through him!
Saint he is none! his countenance is not humble.

[John of Salisbury presents a letter to the king.
K. Hen.
The casket first! Belike a crown im perial!

Q. Elea.
Not so! A diamond necklace; and for me!

[She tears open the casket, out of which rolls the Great Seal of England.
John of Sal.
This missive, sovereign liege, humbly sets forth
Those forceful, yet unwelcome counter-duties,
The exigence whereof compelled my lord—

K. Hen.
[He tears up the letter, and flings it on the fire.
[He tramples on the Great Seal.

John of Sal.
May it please your Highness—

K. Hen.
Hence, lest I strike thee and thy fellows dead!
O sharp-toothed worm! this heart it was that nursed thee;
Lo, thou hast gnawed thy passage to the day!
Base churl, thou show'st at last thine English breed
And king-defying fierceness. Vengeance! Vengeance!
'Twas with a smile he said our love was past:
He'll find my hate begun. Cornwall! Fitz-Urse!
This night to England: stay the consecration!
Say that my will is changed.

Scene IV.—London; House of the Chief Justiciary.

Richard de Luci, Cornwall.
Corn.
It was untoward, my lord, though done in duty:
The king is much in wrath.

De Luci.
His choice made wroth
Augustine's monks: they love no seculars,
Yet, hating Roger more, and Gilbert more,
Though jealous for a right so oft impugned
Elected Thomas. Thomas sought not greatness:
But late I stood beside him and the king
At Falaise, in a window which o'erlooks
The pleasant Norman plains: the king turned sharp,
And caught him by the arm, and spake, ‘Get hence!
Old Theobald is dead: fill thou his seat:’
The chancellor smiled, and, lifting his gay sleeve,
Replied, ‘A saintly man your Highness seats
Upon Augustine's chair;’ then added, sad,
‘Forbid it, heaven! One month, and love, long tried,
Would change to new-born hatred: royal needs
Prey on Church rights!’ On me King Henry looked—
‘Richard, if on my bier I lay, stone-cold,
Say, wouldst thou throne my son?’ I answered ‘Yea;’
Then he, ‘Thus throne my friend at Canterbury!’

Corn.
The king is changed. 'Tis true he loved this Becket;
But more he trusted Becket's love for him
And for his royal pupil, young Prince Henry.
My lord, King Stephen, pressed by rivals, bowed
The sceptre to the crosier. Not so Henry!
He, in the purple born, from his great mother
The Empress Maude, inherited by right
Both Normandy and Maine, and from his sire
Touraine and Anjou. Next, with Eleanor
He wedded Poitou, Limousin, Auvergne
Saintonge, and Perigord, and Angoumois
And Guienne's vine-clad plains. King Stephen died:
England was his, and with it Europe's coasts
From Scottish shores to mountains of Navarre:
Shall this man be the beadsman of the Pope?
Creedsman suffices!

De Broc
(entering abruptly).
God preserve your lordship!

De Luci.
Sir, you are welcome. Becket for the primate—

Corn.
So, so! you fetch me back: I had slipped my tether:
The king will have his Royal Customs rule,
Not Saxon laws, priest-hatched. His chancellor primate
He deemed his right secure; that dream is past:
Becket is chancellor no more.

De Luci.
That's ill!
I ever marked an inner man in Thomas
That stirred within the outer. Such men burst
Their bond or soon or late.

Corn.
The king misdoubts him,
And, till his will be signified, forbids
The consecration rite.

De Luci.
The election's made;
And, being made in form, no law annuls it.

De Broc.
Then take him like a dog and hang him up!
That done, I find just reason.

De Luci.
Sir, you stand
In presence of this realm's Justiciary,
Who knows alike to vindicate old laws
And pluck from fraud its mask of loyal zeal.
You came unbidden; waste not time on us
If tasks are yours elsewhere.

De Broc.
One task is mine—
To slay the man I hate; and I will slay him!

[Departs.
De Luci.
The air grows healthier now De Broc has left us:
That man's a forest-beast no art can tame.
Three times my hand with iron mace of law
Hath spurned him to his den. His history doubtless
You know not, late returned from Aquitaine.
In youth his bad heart was a nest of adders,
Envenomed purposes and blind at war:
A monk, on false pretence he broke his vows,
And roamed a-preying on the race of man.
Idonea next he met—

Corn.
Idonea?

De Luci.
Her—
The sweetest blossom lit by English skies,
The tenderest of de Lisle's old stem. He met her,
And loved her with the malice of that love
Whose instinct is a craving less to enjoy
Than kill the saintly grace it yet admires;
Likewise the upstart loved her wealthy lands.
A prince had vainly woed her! From her childhood
The orphan in her brother lived; he died:
Like some young widow moonlight-pale, three years,
Daily she decked his grave.

Corn.
He could not win her?

De Luci.
She lived a royal ward. De Broc with bribes
Won certain near the king, Fitz-Urse, De Tracy,
To speed his wooing of the virgin-heiress.
Large nets he spread. Once, well-night trapped, she sought
The friend of her dead mother, Becket's sister,
His dearest upon earth. That great man's name
Since then protects Idonea; for which cause,
Poisoned beside by sin's insane suspicions,
De Broc has vowed revenge. Enough of this:
The king chose ill in Thomas.

Corn.
Whom would you choose?

De Luci.
Not York! no worldly bishop! Poor sick world,
Methinks thy leech, the Church, hath caught thy fever!

Corn.
There's Gilbert!

De Luci.
Fanatic of old, and late
With courtier over-slimed. Sleekness like his
Sophisticates, not lulls, the fight before us,
Makes slippery too the athlete's wrestling-floor.
I note in every country at this hour
A warfare 'twixt the men of mind and might,
The crosier and the sword; these two are kingdoms
In every kingdom front to front opposed,
Yet needing each the other.

Corn.
Up, good sword,
And strike the crosier down!

De Luci.
Cornwall, that cry
Hath in it more of courtier than of statesman:
The crosier down, justice were driven from earth
And chaos come again.

Corn.
Winton last week
Ordained a serf of mine! That serf is free!
Grant us the presentations at the least!
Shear we the shepherds; shear who will the sheep.
Sir, we attend the king at heavy charge:
Nobles must live! I say the Church is proud;
Clamours for freedom.

De Luci.
I was ne'er of those
Who deem church freedom but a maniac's knife
Threatening that maniac's throat. Be hers her freedom:
Let kings reduce her pride. King Stephen's brother,
Henry of Winton, loves both Church and State,
Plots not with bishops, fawns not upon kings,
But higher sits than either, seeking nought.
Legate he was; hath stood too near to popes
And monarchs both, to find a god in either:
Whichever wrongs the other he withstands:
I love that bishop well; if rich, he's bounteous;
Rides with a prince's retinue;—what then?
The people love him better for his pride,
Birth's honest pride, how different from the pride
Of upstart intellect, or of spiritual spleen!
Compared with these 'tis innocent; 'tis child-like;
'Tis but a loftier terrace whence to bend
More humbly to the humble.

Corn.
Winton primate,
All had gone well!

De Luci.
Save to the scaffold's height
King Henry ne'er had raised King Stephen's brother.

Scene V.—The Western Entrance to the Cathedral of Canterbury.

A multitude of clerics and others stand around watching the advance of Becket, preceded by a procession of nobles, abbots, and bishops. John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham converse alone.
John of Sal.
Since came to him this greatness he is sad;
He fears the election was not wholly free.

Her.
He fears far more than that.
When Canterbury's towers looked on us first
O'er the great woodlands, thus he spake: ‘Last night
By me there stood a Venerable Form
And gave me talents ten;’ then added low,
‘See that thou sift my faults with flail and fan:
I count thee traitor else.’ I made my vow
That hour. It shall be kept.

John of Sal.
They pass the gate:
Thomas walks last, and by his side the prince,
Holding his hand full fast. That child well loves him;
A word 'gainst Becket, and his face heaven-bright
Clouds with his father's frown!

A French Priest
(addressing an English Priest).
What twain are those that entered late and stand
Within the western portals? Name him first,
That tall ascetic form with presence kingly,
Kingly in kingships of some spiritual sphere,
And fearless port self-stayed, and dominant eye?

English Priest.
That's John of Salisbury, Becket's counsellor chief,
Wisest, men say, in England.

French Priest.
Who is he
Close by, that gazes through those portals, he
With countenance vision-dazed, low stature, form
Slight as a maid's and modest? Such a one
Could he but slip unmarked through gates of heaven,
Might undetected walk 'mid virgin choirs
'Twixt Agatha and Agnes.

English Priest.
That is Herbert,
Becket's chief friend. But lo, my lord himself!

[The procession advances to the high altar, before which sits Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winton. The monks of St. Augustine's Monastery stand in a semicircle around him. The bishops take their seats in two rows below him, in front of the altar; the abbots sit, and the nobles stand behind them.
Leic.
(apart to De Luci).
My lord of Winton consecrates the primate;
The king will like not that.

De Luci.
It shall bestead him.
My lord of York made claim, and Hereford,
And some Welsh bishop, oldest in the land,
Who butts against Pelagius in his dreams
And thinks him living yet. I spake with Winton:
Becket he loves—except when others praise him;—
And this day will in grave discourse exhort
To walk in modesty of virtue, taming
Man's pride of flesh, and please our lord the king.

The B. of Roch.
(addressing the Bishop of Winton).
Most reverend lord, through me the Church presents,
For consecration to a bishop's order,
The archiepiscopal degree, and throne
Primatial of the total realm of England,
Thomas, a presbyter of life approved.

Henry of Win.
Was this election free?

Prior of St. Aug.
My lord, 'twas free.

Henry of Win.
It resteth with the bishops of the province
To ratify the election, or annul.
What sentence make my lords?

Gil.
My lord, our voices
Unanimous approve—the loudest mine.

Henry of Win.
My lords, this work, we trust, is work of God;
Not less, where things of heaven commix with earthly,
A creeping wariness perforce hath place
'Mid duties more sublime. This hour mine eye
Rests on a youth who to the heart of England
That most in innocency seeth God,
Presenteth ever comfort of her hope
And to this Church good auspice. Here he stands
To answer for his father. Royal sir,
This man, elect to Canterbury's chair,
Hath long time lived the realm's high chancellor;
Dispensed her offices; held in his hand
Her treasury's golden key. A man so trusted
Hath enemies. For that cause we demand
That Thomas to the Church be given absolved
From every claim foregone, just or unjust,
Derived from functions past; henceforth for aye
A free man, with a spirit's freedom ranging
Among the things of God.

P. Hen.
My Lord of Winton,
And you, my lords, England's great prelacy
In apostolic synod this day met,
Though young, I stand commissioned by my sire,
And, acting in his name, and by his will,
Concede that just demand.

Henry of Win.
Son, read the oath.

Becket
(reads the oath of a bishop aloud, and ends).
May God so help me, and His holy Gospels!

Henry of Win.
Son, it behoves a bishop of Christ's Church
To make confession of her faith and morals:
Believest thou one God in Persons Three,
The Incarnation of the Second Person,
And, through His death, redemption?

Bec.
I believe.

Henry of Win.
Wilt thou bear witness to the sacred Scriptures
And sage traditions of past times?

Bec.
I will.

Henry of Win.
Wilt thou to Peter, and that kingly line
Long-linked with his, which wields the keys of heaven,
Be liegeful and of constant heart?

Bec.
I will.

Henry of Win.
Wilt thou in chastity and lowness live,
With spirit averse to worldly greed?

Bec.
I will.

Henry of Win.
Wilt thou be gracious to the poor of Christ?

Bec.
I will.

Henry of Win.
God give thee increase of thy faith,
And good resolve, to blessedness eternal!

[The assistant bishops conduct Becket to a side chapel. After a short time they lead him back, wearing sandals, the pectoral cross, the stole, tunicle, dalmatic, and maniple. Passing the altar of St. Benedict, he kneels and prays. The Litanies are then sung, the bishops and other assistants kneeling, while Becket lies on his face before the high altar. The Litanies ended, he kneels while the assistant bishops, solemnly opening the Book of the Gospels, rest it upon his neck and shoulders. After this they lay their hands on his head, saying, ‘Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,’ while the Veni Creator Spiritus is sung. The Bishop of Winton then, first slowly making the sign of the cross over Becket's head, anoints it with the holy chrism, while two choirs, one at the high altar, and one in the chapel of St. Benedict, sing alternately the verses of the Antiphon, Sicut unguentum in capite.
Henry of Win.
Eternal King, and Kingly Priest on high,
Whose virtue makes the worlds for ever young,
Send forth upon the head of this Thy priest
Thy heavenly grace. In stillness let it creep
Down to the utmost parts invisible
Of spirit and of soul. Sustain in him
True faith, true love. Make beautiful his feet
And wingèd on Thy mountain-tops, forth speeding
Thy herald with Thy Gospel for mankind:
Be his to preach it, not by craft of men
But demonstration of Thy Spirit divine,
In word and work. Grant him in right and might
To wield Thy keys; and what he binds on earth
Bind Thou in heaven. Thy blessing send on them
That bless him, and Thy ban on them that curse:
Let him not put the evil for the good,
Darkness for light. Fear he the face of none.
Be Thou his strength, that mightily he rule
Thy Church in this Thy realm, and save Thy people.

[The Bishop of Winton then blesses the pastoral staff and the ring, and delivers them to Becket, as well as the Book of the Gospels, closed, and finally gives him the kiss of peace, which last the assistant bishops likewise reverently bestow.
De Luci
(apart to Leicester).
My lord will preach. Draw near!

Leic.
Some eight years since
Our coronation feast at Westminster
Showed us a pomp more rich. That day the prelates
In divers-coloured silks so shone that still,
Move where they might past gloomiest arch or aisle,
They wove a varying rainbow such as braids
The dark skirts of a cloud.

De Luci.
And cloud and storm
That lovely light portended. 'Twas the queen
Who changed our graver splendours of the West
That day to plumage of the Eastern Church:
She loves the loud and bright. The Grecian rites
In that schismatic seat of Constantine
Had charmed her wild and wandering eye.

Leic.
Lo there!

Henry of Win.
(placing the mitre on Becket's head).
The helmet of salvation gird the head
Of God's high warrior! from its horns forth shine
The glories twinned of either Testament!
Auspicious beam they as from Moses' face
That light of God. Be they His people's strength,
And terrible to those who hate the truth.

Her.
(to John of Salisbury, still near the western entrance).
I catch no word.

John of Sal.
The man who takes his stand
Hard by a torrent hears no sound beside:
Beyond that gate a torrent people streams—

Her.
Streams like the world, and all its blind confusions;
Within, behold the vision of God's peace!
Between these twain we stand.

John of Sal.
The rite's complete:
The primate kneels for blessing.

Her.
Ha! What means it?
A Consecrator blesses from his chair;
And none is loyal more to forms than Winton.
Why stands he thus with hands to heaven upheld,
His white head shining like a sun new-risen
Through wintry mist dim seen?

John of Sal.
At last he speaks!

Her.
Not loud:—and yet we hear him, oh how clearly!

Henry of Win.
This day the Spirit Prophetic on me falls,
Nor rests with me to speak or to forbear.
My will it was to preach of peace, and lo!
I see in heaven a sword;—
Son, take God's blessing in a choice of woes:
Betwixt an earthly and a heavenly king,
Elect of God, this day election make!

Her.
See, see! The primate clasps his hands, and lifts them—
Heavenward he looks!

John of Sal.
He speaks.

Bec.
My choice is made.

[There is a pause. The assistant bishops then lead Becket to the archiepiscopal throne, the two choirs singing the Te Deum in alternate verses.

ACT II.

Scene I.—The Castle of Northampton.

King Henry, Queen Eleanor, Richard de Luci, Cornwall, Fitz-Urse, the Bishop of Lisieux, Leicester.
K. Hen.
If e'er I truly loved a man 'twas that man;
Nor any loved me better. Many a time,
In years gone by, I marked him on me bend
An eye that, up and down, took measure full—
Sole man was he that looked me full in face—
Of my hid soul, yet ended with a smile,
As though, beyond the ill, it kenned some good
I knew not of myself.
The greater crime that knowing me he mocks me!
A thousand times that man hath heard me swear
That alien none or priest shall share my kingdom.
I'll wear it like the armour on my back;
I'll wield it as a man wields his own members;
I'll walk, its living soul!

De Luci.
Thomas is honest.

K. Hen.
He has me there: the crafty and the keen,
These I outrun.

De Luci.
And not, I think, ambitious.

K. Hen.
He was ambitious till the height was gained:
No step remaining for his climbing foot,
He kneels him down a saint!

Fitz-Urse.
A saint is Becket
That makes his feast with sinners. What a race!
There's one at Exeter that, charged with crime,
Dropped poison in the accuser's cup.

Corn.
And Gilbert
Who scorns to hide the failings of his cloth
Reports some priest at Winchester well known,
Who, leagued with robbers, left his church-door wide:—
They stole the chalice.

Q. Elea.
These be Becket's clients,
Secure from civil courts! Who loves the sin
Will screen the sinner.

K. Hen.
Ay, good queen; you hate him!
Your tongue is sharp against him many a year;
Sharpest, men whisper, since that May long past,
When, young in face, and chancellor not bishop,
He with the pageant of his greatness filled
The broad eye of the world; and certain ladies
Whose gamesome graces lit your court made vow
One night to put his gravity to proof,
And found that they had stained their fame, not his,
Their glamour and their glitter still to him
But gleam of swarming gnats! That night your spy
Found him on bare boards sleeping:

Q. Elea.
John of Oxford
Reports your favourite's gratitude. At feast
He descants on your Highness thus—‘This puppet,
Who sans my aid at Rome in Stephen's time
Had lacked his realm, and twice since then had lost it,
This feather dancing on a nation's crown,
This bubble winking on the Church's cup,
Presumes himself my king!’ How answers Henry?
'Tis thus—‘The violet of humility
Not oft 'mid regal virtues finds a place:
In the heath garland of Plantagenet
Be mine to wear it first!’

John of Oxf.
(entering with a profound obeisance).
May it please your Highness,
A noisy challenge soon will beat your gates:
Southward ten miles from this the primate halts;
There learned he that the royal grooms had filled
That mansion pre-ordained to house his greatness
By providence of his friends;—incensed, he rides
To Canterbury at morn.

K. Hen.
Pernicious upstart!
Whom, groping in the dirt, this hand upraised
And lodged on high to be my shame and plague;
Vile hypocrite wearing religion's mask
And signing with his cross rebellion's way;
To Canterbury let him! He shall wake,
His pride's debauch exhaled, in heavier bonds
Than Odo wore the Conqueror's prelate brother.—
Speak out thy thought, good John!

John of Oxf.
Please it your Highness,
If I might counsel, give the fool his way.
Throughout all England, save alone this city,
Mailed by your peers and splendid with your court,
That man's a king; a pope at Canterbury:
Once here, he's in your power.

K. Hen.
There's much in that.

John of Oxf.
Yield him his house; a street, if he demands it:
A thunder-shower ere long shall drench his plumes:
Methinks I see his knights and chaplains flying—

Q. Eleanor.
Let them not fly to me! No skirt of mine
Shall fence the pigmies!

John of Oxf.
For the Royal Customs,
Name not their name at first: that blow comes last:
I glance at this to guard you from his wiles.
He swears that with a triple fraud his feet
Were snared that day when, sore against his will,
At Clarendon he bowed before them. First—

K. Hen.
Be brief, good John!

John of Oxf.
Tax first, my lord, the primate
With unparticipated crimes; his only;
His special forfeit, his unshared offence;
Then shall his bishops leave him. One thing more:
See that he 'scape not! nail him to this isle!
If once he stand on Christendom's broad ground
With feet unchained, the might of Christendom
Will rise into his arm. Who wields that might
Hurls the three-bolted thunder from the clouds
And rules the orb of earth.

De Tracy
(entering).
My liege, two priests,
Sent by my lord the primate.

K. Hen.
[Herbert of Bosham and Llewellen enter.
[He turns away. Herbert and Llewellen bow low and depart.

Nobles and Courtiers.
Our swords shall guard it! Henry and our right!

K. Hen.
My Lord Justiciary alone is silent.

De Luci.
My liege, the Royal Customs were our theme:
I deem the royal claim doubtful in part;
More doubtful yet this claim to presentations:
The law must solve that knot. The law declared,
Nor swayed by spiritual threat or civil
I will enforce that law.

K. Hen.
My lords, farewell!
[All depart, except John of Oxford.
Come hither, John! I know it now: alone
He rules his realm whose hand, unquestioned, turns
That inmost, central wheel which turns all others.
Lisieux himself this day was mine but half—
Henceforth all bishops must be my creation.

John of Oxf.
A nomination from the royal lips
Meets but a coy resistance.

K. Hen.
That's sophistic:
The power that's indirect is incomplete.
Those monks who ratified my choice of Becket,
Had you been named, not he, had spurned my choice.
We want new laws. The king must make his prelates;
The chapters—say their delegates rather—met
Not in their minsters but his royal chapel,
Must ratify his choice.

John of Oxf.
That time will come;
But they the deed who fear not, fear the shame
And will not sin i' the sun. Leave all to me.
Break, where you can, the courage of those bishops;
Divide them, each from each; keep vacant long
The sees. At last your stiffest will consent
To that which haply, urged this day, might shake
Its gloss from Lisieux's silk. When comes that hour
Your Highness shall not miss it.

K. Hen.
Look to that!

[King Henry departs.
John of Oxf.
(alone).
Yes, yes! 'Tis I must look to that, and all things:
The rest but talk: what's done is done by me!
What marvel? Blind they are, these kings and nobles;
While those who see—the cleric race—are mad,
And differ but in manner of their madness.
First, there's the Church's champion, like this Becket,
Who wins from her small thanks; he might have had
My aid; he spurned it. Comes the prelate next
Who softly struts, a spiritual king,
In miniver and gold like Winton's Henry;
Then he that, all too proud for pomps extern,
Grows thin with feeding on his self-conceit
And sours with glances at his neighbour's gain;
He who out-fasts the Church's fasts; out-watches
Her vigils; never coveted her thrones
Till wholesomer men possessed them. Gilbert, Gilbert!
A saint wert thou! What hindered thee from running?
Let Satan answer that! The king is mine;
That flame-eyed queen he hates will drive him on
With none to guide him. I am scarce ambitious;
But I was born beneath a politic star,
Was trained to walk in labyrinthine ways,
And needs must use my natural faculties.
The game!—'tis that I love! O Gilbert, Gilbert!
Save that that faith ascetic once thy boast,
Though dead by day, yet, spectre of itself,
Still leans by night a nightmare o'er thy bed,
How fair a game were thine!

Scene II.—Northampton; Becket's House.

Becket sitting on a low bed in his pontificals. A large number of bishops enter.
1st Bishop.
Most reverend father, primate of all England,
We grieve to learn your Grace is ill—

Bec.
That's past;
Brother, time presses: 'tis to-day the feast
Of good King Edward's relics late translated;
I pray you to be plain.

2nd Bishop.
My lord, we bishops
Are fed on common food, breathe common air;
Rumours we hear which reach not that high clime
Wherein your Grace abides. Beware, my lord,
For as a cliff eternal sits this king;
In vain the billows beat its base.

Bec.
The Church
Was once the rock; nations the waves. Who next?

3rd Bishop.
My lord, our duty is to speak the truth:
Destruction stands against us, face to face:
The king has sworn to vindicate—nay more,
To change henceforth to laws, his Royal Customs.

Bec.
'Tis so.

4th Bishop.
His barons and his knights are with him:
He, like the Conqueror, lifts an iron hand;
They, like an iron breast-plate on his breast,
Have vowed them to the vengeance of his will.

Bec.
'Tis so.

5th Bishop.
My lord, the last were I to flee
This fight: not less the wrestler needs firm ground;
The giant set on quicksands, or on ice,
Becomes the pigmy's laughter, Peter's rock
Was once the strength of each true churchman's battle:
What find we now? A Pope, and anti-pope;
The Emperor with the last; and with the first
England and France. No Pope will war on England;
A sager Henry fights old Beauclerk's wars;—
Beware lest you should rouse a bloodier Rufus.

Bec.
My lords, have you said all? Now, hear me speak.
I might be large to tell you, courtier prelates,
That if the Conqueror's was an iron hand
Not less 'twas just. Oftenest it used aright
Its power usurped. It decked no idiot brow
With casual mitre; neither lodged in grasp
That, ague-shaken, scarce could clutch its bribe,
The sceptres of the shepherds of Christ's flock.
I might remind you that, if Rufus lived
A bestial life, he died the death of beasts;
That Henry Beauclerk met that day in Anselm
A keener head than his and heavier hand
Albeit a gentler; that his ten years' war
Ended in this—Investitures disowned,
Church discipline restored, Christ's poor protected.
O happy sage! in battles of this world
The cloistral shades of Bec were with him still,
Its holy anthems ever in his ears;
And when the craven prelates round his throne,
Summoned for counsel, counsel dared not give,
Silent they hung their heads; they babbled not
Plain treason, or veiled threat.

Gil.
My lord, your pardon!
We dare not leave the sacred charge of souls
To strive in worldly conflicts.

Bec.

[The bishops bow low and depart.

Scene III.—A Street in Northampton.

John of Oxford, Fitz-Urse.
Fitz-Urse.
They baited him two days: he's out of breath,
Not out of heart.

John of Oxf.
His mitred brethren first
Quaked for themselves. 'Twas brave to watch them later
When charge on charge was hurled on him alone
And no word uttered which impugned their order;
To mark them whispering first; then glancing round,
Like woodland creatures peering from their holes
When storms are gone. Ere long they basked and swelled
Like birds on late-drenched branches, sunshine-gilt,
And cleared their throats for song.

Fitz-Urse.
The king observed them:
He said, ‘They nought had grudged it had my voice
Vouchsafed them John of Oxford for their primate;
Ay, or yourself, Fitz-Urse!’

John of Oxf.
That's you, not Henry!
The storm they feared rolls back. At noon this day
We reach the Royal Customs.

Scene IV.—The Great Hall of Northampton Castle.

The nobles are ranged along both sides. At the upper end is the royal throne, beyond which are the king's apartments. At the lower end are seated the bishops and abbots. Becket approaches, attended, and wearing the sacred vestments, under the black

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habit of a canon regular. Entering, he takes the cross from his cross-bearer, and seats himself at the lower end of the hall, Herbert and Fitz-Stephen sitting at his feet.
Courtier
(to Gilbert of London).
Lo, where your primate enters, cross in hand,
As though to chase a host of fiends malignant!

Gil.
The man was born a fool, and fool will die:
At dawn this day he said Saint Stephen's mass,
‘Sederunt principes,’ invoking next
Saint Edward, king and saint.

Henry of Win.
(to Roger of York).
The primate's face
Hath in it light, yet storm. The crisis comes:
This day he'll shake the world.

[The king enters, and takes his seat on the throne.
K. Hen.
What means yon cross?
Am I a Pagan, that the Holy Sign
Must guard a vassal of my throne against me?

Bec.
It guards the faith of Christ; and well He knows
Whose eyes adorable pierce flesh and spirit
The cross of Christ was never needfuller yet
Than in this hall, and now.

[The king leaves his throne suddenly, and returns to his apartments, followed by the bishops, except Winton.
Cour.
What's this? My lords, I say that in your midst
There sits a traitor proven!

Baron.
A manifest traitor!

[Shouts of ‘Treason!’ fill the hall; the tramp of armed men is heard in the court and the

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passages adjoining the hall, and men in armour are seen at the doors.
Fitz-Steph.
(in a low voice to Becket).
Father, have ready in your hand the Sentence:
The storm will break upon you.

Royal Marshal.
Silence, sir!

[Herbert raises his eyes on Becket, and then tùrns them to the crucifix at the end of the hall, on which Becket at once fixes his own.
Baron
(entering, addressing Becket).
My lord, the king demands if you acknowledge
That sentence of the court on Friday last
Which charged upon your head those moneys lodged
While you were chancellor, in the Chancery,
And claimed them at your hands?

Bec.
You have reached your goal,
Sir, by well-meted stages. Thursday last
Mine enemies, seeking pretence to slay me,
Placed at one side the question of the Customs
And urged but personal pleas. First, John the Marshal—
He, not long since, had sued me for a farm
In mine own court; next, to the king's appealing,
Plucked from his vest a book of ribald songs,
On that, and not the Gospels, making oath.
Sirs, was this law or mockery of all law?
Not less your parliament, as you know, amerced me;
And I submitted. Next they brought in charge
The one time rents of Berkhampstead and Eye:
I spent them on those castles' just repairs
As all men knew;—not less the parliament
Fined me three hundred pounds; and I submitted,
My Lord of Gloucester for that sum my bail.
The king demanded next a thousand marks,
A loan long past: he knows I spent that gold
And thrice as much, mine own, upon his wars.
Then came his last demand—revenues stored
In Chancery long since and rents of abbeys,
Full thirty thousand marks. That claim set forth,
My Lord of Winton raised those aged hands
Which poured on me the unction, and appealed;
‘Ho! ye that saw and heard, witness this day!
His see was given to him absolved, and free
From all pretence of obligations past,
By lips of the king's son!’ My lords, that hour
My knights fell from me, and my clerics fled;
And of my bishops one now near me cried,
‘Would thou wert Thomas only, not archbishop!’
But with me God remained.

Baron.
My lord, your answer!

Bec.
Sir, in good time: I make my answer thus.
I pay no more false debts. Lords, to my king
I stand by nature bound, bound by my homage,
Bound by my oath, and bound not less by love:
I know his virtues and his princely heart;
Remember well his benefits of old:
My king I honour—honouring more my God.
My lords, they lie who brand mine honest fame
With fealty halved; with doubly-linked allegiance
He serves his king who serves him for God's sake;
But who serves thus must serve his God o'er all.
I served him thus, and serve.

Corn.
You serve the king
Who stirred these wars? Who spurned the Royal Customs?

Bec.
The Customs, ay, the Customs! We have reached
At last—'twas time—the inmost of this plot
Till now so deftly veiled and ambushed; ‘Customs!’
O specious word, how plausibly abused!
In Catholic ears that word is venerable,
To Catholic souls custom is law itself,
Law that its own foot hears not, dumbly treading
A holy path smoothed by traditions old.
I war not, sirs, on ways traditionary;
The Church of Christ herself is a tradition;
Ay, but 'tis God's tradition, not of men!
Sir, these your Customs are God's Laws reversed,
Traditions making void the Word of God,
Old innovations from the first withstood,
The rights of Holy Church, the poor man's portion,
Sold, and for nought, to aliens. Customs! Customs!
Custom was that which to the lord o' the soil
Yielded the virgin one day wedded! Customs!
A century they have lived; but he ne'er lived
The man that knew their number or their scope,
Where found, by whom begotten, or how named:
Like malefactors, long they hid in holes;
They walked in mystery like the noontide pest;
In the air they danced; they hung on breath of princes,
Largest when princes' lives were most unclean,
And visible most when rankest was the mist.
Sirs, I defy your Customs; they are nought;—
I turn from them to our old English laws,
The Confessor's, and those who went before him,
The charters old, and sacred oaths of kings:
I clasp the Tables twain of Sinai;
On them I lay my palms, my breast, my forehead,
And on the altars dyed by martyrs' blood,
Making to God appeal.

Leic.
(to Cornwall).
My lord, return we;
This matter takes a range beyond our powers:
Behoves us bear the king his Grace's answer.

[They depart.
Bec.
Why sits he not among us? Lo, his throne!
This cross should be its stay. I know the king:
Saints of his stock this hour in heaven befriend him!
But with man's spirit at times a tempter strives
That never loved Christ's cross!

Baron.
Stigand, proud priest,
Was such as you; like his will be your doom!

[The bishops return from the king's apartments with signs of terror.
Roger of York.
Hence! lest we see the proud man's doom. Attendance!

Gil.
(to Becket).
My lord, your pardon! You have placed your bishops
This day between the hammer and the anvil;
At Clarendon your Grace received the Customs;
This day you spurn them.

Bec.
You have heard, my lords,
That partial truth which most envenoms falsehood.
May shame deserved by my sin's expiation!
At Clarendon I sinned—thus much all know;
Few know the limit of that sin, and fewer
The threefold fraud that meshed me in that sin
From which, like weeping Peter, I arose,
To fall, I trust, no more. My lords, that day
There came to me two Templars from the king,
Who sware his Highness inwardly was racked
That, snared by flatterers, he had made demands
Which, for his honour's sake, he could not cancel,
Yet which, if yielded but in phrase by us,
Should vex the Church no further. I refused.
Came next the papal envoy from Aumone,
With word the Pope, moved by the troublous time,
Willed my submission to the royal will.
This was the second fraud; remains the third.
My lords, the Customs named till then were few;
In evil hour I yielded—pledged the Church,
Alas! to what I knew not. On the instant
The king commanded, ‘Write ye down these Laws:’
And soon, too soon, a parchment pre-ordained
Upon our table lay, a scroll inscribed
With usages sixteen, whereof most part
Were shamefuller than the worst discussed till then.
My lords, too late I read that scroll: I spurned it;
I sware by Him who made the heavens and earth
That never seal of mine should touch that bond,
Not mine, but juggle-changed. My lords, that eve
A truthful servant and a fearless one
Who bears my cross—and taught me too to bear one—
Llewellen is his name, remembered be it!
Probed me and proved with sharp and searching words,
And as the sun my sin before me stood.
My lords, for forty days I kept my fast,
And held me from the offering of the mass,
And sat in sackcloth; till the pope sent word,
‘Arise; be strong, and walk.’ And I arose,
And hither came; and here confession make
That till the cleansèd leper once again
Takes, voluntary, back his leprosy,
I with those Royal Customs stain no more
My soul which Christ hath washed.

[The barons return from the king, and advance to Becket, who retains his seat; at their head Cornwall and Leicester.
Corn.
My lord, the king commands that on the instant
You render up accounts of moneys lodged
Whilst you were chancellor, in the Chancery;
If not, attend your sentence!

Bec.
Son and earl,
Hear first your father, and the king's. How well
I loved that king, how faithfully I served him,
Is known to you and all. You said, I think,
The king had sent you hither with a sentence;—
Son, by a sentence from the King of Kings,
By virtue of mine office, and that power
It gives me through the laws of Christendom,
I bar you from the uttering of that sentence,
And seal your lips with silence.

Corn.
Speak it thou,
My Lord of Leicester.

Leic.
Nay, my lord, not I.
I dare not touch a priest. The hand, moreover,
Which clasps yon cross, in battle saved my life.

Corn.
(about to return to the king).
Your Grace will here abide—

Bec.
Am I a bondsman?

Corn.
Saint Lazarus! no, my lord.

Bec.
My son, attend!
By how much man's imperishable soul
Exceeds in worth his body, by so much
Beseems you to obey the King of Heaven
Above all earthly lords. Nor law, nor reason,
Nor human precedent, nor faith divine,
Endures that children should condemn their sire.
Wherefore this judgment of a king that errs
I from me cast, and, under God, appeal
To Peter's chair and him who sits thereon,
Placing beneath his shield my life, mine honour,
And Canterbury's church. My fellow-bishops,
This day the vassals not of God but man,
You too I summon to that high award;
And thus, protected by the Holy See,
I hence depart.

[Becket rises, and, still bearing his cross, moves toward the gates.
De Broc
(from the gates).
He flies! cut down the traitor!

Bec.
(looking back).
Caitiff and coward! How well thou know'st this hand
Is knightly now no more!

[He departs; the barons and courtiers standing still, and none daring to arrest him.

Scene V.—Castle of Northampton.

The King, John of Oxford.
K. Hen.
The lion's loose! I see it in your eye!

John of Oxf.
Sire, he is 'scaped. Last evening was his triumph:
The people, as he issued hence, knelt down,
Craving his blessing. In St. Andrew's convent
He chaunted nones, and vespers first; then dined,
Ranging the poor, the halt, the lame, the dumb,
Around his board in place of friends who fled.
When night descended, he took sanctuary
In the great church:—they strewed his rushy couch
Behind the altar, and with stinted rite
Sang compline low in reverence of his sleep
After his fight with beasts at Ephesus.
Reach he but France, from every turf he treads
A knight full-armed shall leap, and rage against you.

K. Hen.
Guard all the ports! each castle, fort, and village:
Who favours his escape shall die the death!

ACT III.

Scene I.—Castle of Compiègne.

Louis, King of France, John of Salisbury, Llewellen.
K. Louis.
No need of pleading, sirs: I know the man:
I met him first breasting the tides of war,
And more admired, than joyed to see his banner
That still made way when others tacked and veered
On that large-labouring sea. In peace I found him
A loyal man, and honest, lofty-souled,
And resolute in his purpose. Never father
So loved, methought, a son, as he his king,
Who brave, but erring, plays this day a part
Not knightly, and not Christian. Sirs, he's hot,
And notes, methinks, but half of that great word,
‘Be wroth, yet sin not.’ Send me here your primate!
France loves the noble foe.

John of Sal.
May it please your Highness,
The primate stands resolved to light no flame
Betwixt two kings now happily at one:
He lacks not therefore grateful heart to France,
That great old land which shall not cease from greatness
While faithful to its God. He hastes to Sens.

K. Louis.
I love the man or distant or close by,
Knowing him injured, and esteeming just.
Tell him no girl-lip in my France hath ever
Trembled more sweetly ere it owned the truth,
Than this old heart for joy when came the news
He trod our shores secure.

Scene II.—The Palace at Sens.

Pope Alexander III. in consistory with the cardinals. Becket, Herbert of Bosham, and other English priests. The Abbot of Pontigny.
Bec.
Most holy father, vicar of our Lord,
And ye the princely senate of the Church,
I have too long your patience taxed: I deemed
That, kings impugning, I was bound in honour
To impugn my proper sin at Clarendon,
And justice do to him who did me wrong.
His ‘Royal Customs,’ new compared with her
Whose years are from of old, have precedents
Which show but late their teeth. Abuse was borne
When tyrants played the kitten, not the tiger.
To make exception law, concede of right
Whate'er old time, enforced or heedless, suffered,
This were to wrest the past by fraudulent gloss
As heretics wrest Scripture.

The Pope.
Justly reasoned—
The Church might trust the king that served the Church
Like Charlemagne: Antiochus, or Herod
Shall have his right;—not more!

Bec.
I grant this also:
O'er-ripe corruption breeds foretold disease:
Church wealth abounds; it brought the hireling first;
It brings the spoiler now.

Card. Will.
My lord archbishop,
Though young in the episcopate, is wise;—
‘Where lies the carcase, there the eagles flock:’
Noting that truth, his Grace would share Church lands
With nobles and with kings.

Bec.
My lord, not so!
In troubled days like these, if bandit barons
Fierce from the cup, rode forth o'er waste and wild
All unconfronted by the Church's barons
Like them large-landed, and with knights in train,
The landless priest should keep not his own skin.
We must not yield to wrong.

Card. Will.
I understand not:
My lord the archbishop late at Clarendon
Connived, he said—

The Pope.
Brother, forbear that theme!
The primate made the Christian expiation
In sackcloth and in ashes forty days.

Her.
My lord went later to a second council:
Of that he hath not spoken;—bid him speak.

The Pope.
What council?

Bec.
At Northampton it was held:
There, fooled no longer, I denounced those Customs
Whereof last eve I laid the list new-writ
For judgment at your footstool.

The Pope.
I have read them.
Six might be borne, though bad: the rest are impious;
Servile to kings, seditious 'gainst the Church:
Well skilled they all lead up to one—the worst—
They bar appeal to this most Holy See,
My glory which I yield not to another,
The safety of the meanest of Christ's flock.
That great appeal removed, by secular hands
The arteries of the Church were knotted up,
Yea, and to fragments torn that sacred body
Whose life is in the whole. For this cause, God
Diffused among realms one single Church,
That unity might be its life's true pledge,
A thing too vast to be engorged by any.
That Church enslaved, what next? The Faith must vanish!
For on the Church's witness rests the truth,
And if that Church be stifled in the embrace
Of any fleshly realm—engulfed—absorbed—
Who shall receive her words?

Card. Will.
Yea verily,
From the whale's belly when the prophet speaks
Who hears is quick of ear.

The Pope.
The realm thus sinning
Ere long shall be partaker with the worm;
The blind-worm is its sister, and corruption
Its mother, and the dust its winding-sheet;
For power, earth-born, shall back once more to earth.
O witless kingdoms! scorn ye then that kingdom,
Forth from whose womb ye issued—still your stay,
The sole not born from mortal lust or pride;
The kingdom of one God in Persons Three;
The kingdom of the creed and of the prayer;
The kingdom of commandments just and wise;
The kingdom of the three great Virtues winged
Which gaze on heaven; the eight Beatitudes
Which walk the earth disguised, sowing God's joy;
The Sacraments, those seven great gates of God
Betwixt the worlds of spirit and flesh;—the kingdom
Wherein God's angels wait upon His poor,
And all men share one good! Enough of this
My son, what saith your England to these Customs?

Bec.
I deem the people sound: gravely they love
Their ancient laws and immemorial freedom.
The nobles, save the noblest, back the king:
Their faith is flawless; but too lax their manners
To love a righteous law.

The Pope.
How stand your clergy?

Bec.
The poor are true, the rich are panic-stricken:
We have corruptions: I had hoped ere long
To have pruned the worst away:—they grow and flourish:
My sin has found me out!

The Pope.
Your sin? What sin?

Bec.
The king, who willed that I should be archbishop,
Was urgent with the Canterbury monks:
They raised no plaint; yet some denied their freedom:
More late I too had doubts. To break my staff
In danger's hour had been a coward's part:
The danger's past; this hour I lodge that staff
In the strong hand of Peter's successor;
Be his to make decision.

[The cardinals converse among themselves.
Card. Will.
Holy Father,
Methinks the island prelate judges well,
Yea, and with prudence of the lands most seasoned:
He speaks more sagely than King Henry's envoy
Whose Latin raised, last eve, a passing smile.
King Henry's wrath once lulled—

The Pope.
It shall not be!
The Church gives honour—this the world should know—
To those who honour her. This English primate
Who chides himself for lacking angel's heart,
Witnessed a man's heart in the Church's war;
She shall not fail him. Fit he is for rule:
His valour proved it, and his meekness proved it,
Bearing from one that served him just rebuke
As Peter bare from Paul, and, since his time,
Popes many in this chair from humblest teachers.
Brother, resume your charge, and reign once more
Where reigned of old Augustine. For this fight,
Which shall not prove a flying season's sport,
All qualities are yours, save one—discretion.
Your life was long a life of courts, and camps,
And splendours of this world: at Pontigny,
A holier seat, find rest. Its reverend abbot
Will give you welcome.

Abbot of Pon.
Happy house is ours,
Welcoming a confessor!

Bec.
The fast monastic,
The ascetic garb, and labour in the fields
Teach me humility!

The Pope.
You shall not miss it;
Your sacred habit be it mine to send:
It shall be honest serge.

Scene III.—The Palace at Rouen.

Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Richard Brito, Hugh de Moreville, courtiers and ladies.
Fitz-Urse.
As good as dead!

De Tracy.
The three-days'-strangled dog
But fouls the air: his bark is heard no more.

Brito.
At Sens the Sacred College frowned upon him;
The Pope disfrocked him; forth he fled by night
To mate him with the antipope: to-day
He lies in dungeon bound.

Lady.
Some swear he's mad;
I think he's wedded.

De More.
No; though secularised;—
He keeps a Flemish farm.

Fitz-Urse
(to De Broc, entering).
What news from home?
Some three weeks since you won the king's permission
To drive that traitor's kin from England's shores.

De Broc.
I bide my time. When winter snows fall fast

That vermin brood shall face it.

[Departs.
Courtier.
Month by month
His hate grows stronger.

Fitz-Urse.
Ay, there's cause for that.

Cour.
The ravished Church lands and the heiress 'scaped?

Fitz-Urse.
And cause beside. On some pretence of law
De Broc drave forth Idonea from the house
Of Becket's sister, Becket three months primate:
The maid took sanctuary in Canterbury.
Instant they sued her as a royal ward;
Judgment against her went. The day had come,
And round the minster knights and nobles watched:
The chimes rang out at noon: then from the gate
Becket walked forth, the maiden by his side;—
Ay, but her garb conventual showed the nun!
They frowned, but dared no more. The king was wroth,
And yet in part amused. De Broc rushed in
With face storm-black. Henry burst forth in laughter;
The infection spread—we laughed till heaven's broad vault
Laughed back to hear us. Well, De Broc's my friend:—
There's reason good that hate in him should prosper.

Scene IV.—A room in the Abbey of Pontigny.

Becket, Herbert of Bosham, Llewellen, abbot and monks.
Bec.
Praise be to God, and praise to her, His daughter,
This abbey chaste and kind of Pontigny,
That washed the wanderer's weary feet, and found
A country for the exile! Reverend abbot,
I longed for this immersed in secular cares,
I longed for this throned on Augustine's seat,
A still retreat for penitence and prayer,
A quiet cell for books and meditation:
These things are mine.

Abbot.
My lord, your holy joy
To us is both a kindling and a warning:
Our life is hard; you teach us hardest life
Should be the sweetest. Heavenly is our hope;
Your joy reminds us heaven is round us ever,
Had we but faith to feel it. O my lord!
God grant that custom harden not in you
That sense to-day so tender; for, the edge
Of spiritual sensibilities made blunt,
Our spiritual world becomes a leaf frost-curled;
Not all the songs of angel hosts can charm us;
We starve 'mid manna showers.

Bec.
I have put aside
The canon law, and study lore dogmatic:
It better feeds the soul. I see once more
Paris, that holy city!

Abbot.
Once 'twas holy.

Bec.
My mother, when I went to Paris first,
A slender scholar bound on quest of learning,
Girdling my gown collegiate, wept full sore;
Then laid on me this hest;—both early and late
To love Christ's Mother and the poor of Christ,
That so her prayer in heaven and theirs on earth
Beside me moving as I walked its streets,
Might shield me from its sins.

Abbot.
Men say your mother
Loved the poor well, and still on festivals,
Laying her growing babe in counter-scale,
Heaped up an equal weight of clothes and food,
Which unto them she gave.

Bec.
She trained my sister
To live an angel on the earth. Lo, there!
The red morn widens through the falling snows,
And the storm rocks your towers! What then? The spring
Once more will come and wake that earliest flower
Whose white is purer for its rim of green;
The thrush will sing again.

Her.
Your sycamore,
Large-leaved, once more will roof you as you read
Those psalms that shook the Solomonian Temple,
The Apostolic letters which made glad
The young and foe-girt churches of the Lord,
And, dearer yet, the Gospels whose warm lips
Still kiss the Saviour's footsteps as He moves
O'er earth.

Bec.
And learn at last to be a Christian!

Monk
(entering).
The Holy Father
Has sent that promised habit to his Grace,
Likewise these letters.

Llew.
By Saint David, good!
The hood is filled with snow! The Pope knows well
Some heads are hot!

Bec.
I kiss this habit's edge;—
Herbert, what say the letters?

Her.
(reading).
‘At one blow
King Henry confiscates the primate's goods,
Farms, manors, castles, rents.’

Bec.
Now God be praised!

Her.
(reading).
‘His name is blotted from the service-books;
Lastly, his friends are banished, kith and kin,
The old, the young, the cleric and the lay,
Widows and babes in arms, four hundred all;
His sister, sickness-worn; the nun Idonea;—
This day they plough the bleak, snow-blinded sea,
Oath-bound to bear their wail beneath the gates
Of him their exile's cause, so named.’

Monk.
Hark! hark!

Another Monk
(rushing in).
A famished English host is wailing round us!
They beat the gates; they swarm into the courts;
They bear with them a woman three hours dead,
Demand my lord the primate.

Scene V.—Palace of the Empress Matilda at Rouen.

The Empress, John of Oxford.
John of Oxf.
Chiefly for pride his enemies arraign him:
Great madam, pride not always is a vice:
His pride is pride a son may well be proud of:
He says, ‘The daughter of earth's wisest king
Was greatest when she put her greatness off;
Is greater now, ruling through this strong arm,
Than if, as once, she from her standard shook
Dominion on the winds.’

Empress.
King Henry's daughter
Should know some policy. I have lived, and reigned,
Done much, borne much, and in these later years
Much striven to win that docile heart which makes
Affliction's fruit, experience, profitable.
My end, they say, draws near. My son well knows it,
And yet he comes not nigh.

John of Oxf.
His Highness grieves
He walked not by your counsel touching Becket,
Who, changed from better promise, plots and schemes
Made blind by lust of power, and greed beside
Of gold which perisheth.

Empress.
It may be so:
Much that I know of Thomas I mislike;
But what I know I know through men that hate him.
Such knowledge I distrust.

Chamberlain
(entering).
May it please your Highness,
A priest from Pontigny.

[John of Salisbury enters, accompanied by a veiled nun.
Empress.
You are come, I think,
Sir, from that abbey where the primate late
Of England, lives recluse?

John of Sal.
Illustrious lady,
The primate hath not ceased to be the primate.
In Oxford, madam, that religious seat
When learning, tested, mounts the grades of merit,
Men say it graduates. Virtue, like learning,
Boasts its degrees of merit, tried and proved:
Its university is wide as earth:
My lord the primate hath proceeded exile;—
The next degree, who knows?

Empress.
I honour, sir,
Your frank, yet grave accost: I honour, too,
What under that I note, a loving zeal
For him you call your friend. Scant friends to me
Your primates and your prelates proved in England:
My father king, they made their oath to me:
My father dead, they crowned revolted Stephen:
And though the usurper's brother, Henry of Winton,
More late my champion proved—that arm of might
Which waved my banner o'er the English realm—
He wrung from me concessions first; and, last,
Condoned his brother's crime and re-enthroned him.

John of Sal.
Madam, that time erroneous, and unblest—

Empress.
Back to our theme. I never loved your primate:
I deemed him for my son a dangerous friend,
Albeit an honest one. His elevation
I strenuously withstood. I saw in Thomas
One that, installed in Canterbury's chair,
Might shake a younger throne. I would your primate
Had let the Royal Customs be, and warred
Against the ill customs of the Church. 'Tis shame
To ordain a clerk in name that lacks a cure,
Whom idleness must needs ensnare in crime;
Scandal—and worse—to screen an erring clerk,
More fearing clamour than the cancer slow
Of inly-wasting sin. Scandal it is
When seven rich benefices load one priest,
Likeliest his soul's damnation.

John of Sal.
Scandals indeed!
And no true friend to Thomas is the man
Who palliates such abuses. For this cause,
Reluctantly he grasped Augustine's staff
Therewith to smite them down. Madam, the men
Who brand them most are those who breed the scandals:
The primate warred on such. The king, to shield them,
Invoked the Royal Customs.

Empress.
Some are old.

John of Sal.
Old by the Norman reckoning, not the Saxon.

Empress.
Sir, sir, I know that cry: my throne it cost me!
Penitent London, with the prodigal's zeal
Had spread to me its arms; rebellion's head
Lay bruised beneath my feet; one common joy
Beamed from the fronts of cleric, noble, serf:
Sir, 'mid this new-born zeal a shout arose—
‘The laws of good King Edward, not the Norman!’
I spurned that cry, and scarce escaped with life;—
Return we to those Customs. Some are old.

John of Sal.
Madam, at heart all sin is old as Cain.
What profit, lady, on the Judgment Day,
If kings that erred can say, ‘By lineal right
That sin to me hereditary came,
And I entailed it on my latest heir!’
Save—save your son!

Empress.
The king advised not with me.
How many are those Customs you condemn?

John of Sal.
Madam, sixteen are registered. Lo! one:
‘We suffer not appeal to Peter's chair.’
Madam, Christ said to Peter, ‘Strengthen thou
Thy brethren:’ later, ‘Feed My sheep and lambs.’
Shall England's Church, Augustine's child and Rome's,
Be sundered from his aid?

Empress.
Now, God forbid!

John of Sal.
The next: ‘No bishop shall depart the realm
Without the king's consent.’ Such laws in force,
Church councils are no more.

Empress.
That Custom's novel!

John of Sal.
The next: ‘No baron holding from the Crown,
Whate'er his crime, shall feel the Church's censure
Without the king's approval.’ Madam, Christ
Gave to the Church His keys, and bade her use them,
That virgin thus her precinct might remain,
Her feast unstained. The great exempt, the mean,
Must share their license.

Empress.
Sir, that Custom's old,
Yet should be rarely used, nor shield the sinner:
The Church is mistress of her sacraments;
Else were God's temple to a tavern changed,
Or den of thieves.

John of Sal.
The next: ‘When bishoprics
Are vacant, till the king hath willed the election,
Their rents remain with him.’

John of Oxf.
(rising).
May it please your Highness,
Humbly I take my leave.

Empress.
Sir, fare you well!
[John of Oxford departs.
These Customs are in part of recent date;
In part are ancient, and throughout are strained:
My son has erred, enrolling them as laws;
Not thus my father wrought—has erred besides
Requiring from the bishops pledge to keep them:
We kept, till now, rule and exception both;
They housed together in uneasy friendship:
Your primate errs, I think, in nobler sort:
Let him endure the earlier of those Customs,
So they remain unwrit.

John of Sal.
Madam, your words
Are truth and peace.

Empress.
I ever loved truth well;
Alas, not peace! Yet gladly, ere I die
Would I have portion with the peace-makers.

John of Sal.
Madam, speak then those words of peace once more,
But to your son.

Empress.
He listens not to me.

John of Sal.
There is one listening region in his heart:
It hears a whisper low. He loves his children:
There touch him! There I touched him—not in vain.
The Primate had renounced the chancellor's place;
The king's wrath burned: two days I strove to slake it,
The Great Seal lying on the ground before him:
None dared to lift it. Thus I spake at last:
‘Pride is the sin of kings: that pride infects
Their babes; drags down on them their parents’ penance.
Your grand-sire had a son—but one—Prince William:
He from his sire had caught the haughty heart,
And oft in childhood sware, “When I am king
These English boors, harnessed like ox or ass,
Shall cleave the ‘Norman's glebe!’” He ne'er was king!
God's sea-waves o'er him closed.’ While thus I spake
The prince ran by; his father's eye pursued him—
That hour his heart was changed.

Empress.
My son has left me.
Sir, there are sorrows greater than my sire's
Then when he wept his son: Henry's will live,
And to his father be as mine to me.
I must not more detain you, sir. Commend me
Unto my lord the primate.

John of Sal.
Royal lady,
This youthful nun—Idonea is her name,
And something of her history may have reached you—
Is missioned with a message to your ear:
The maid is true: may God protect your Highness!

[John of Salisbury bows low, and departs.
Empress.
[Idonea lifts her veil.

Ido.
I have lost my parents.

Empress.
And recently, I think?

Ido.
My second mother
Expired but few weeks since. She was of those
Exiled of late—the primate's widowed sister;—
In the great storm she died.

Empress.
That churl De Broc
Outstepped his warrant.

Ido.
'Mid celestial choirs
One note is added to her song on earth—
The sweetest! I have heard it in my dreams,
And walked the long day after as on air.
Not now she sings alone the peace of heaven,
The bliss of saints; she sings their joy not less
Who share on earth the Saviour's crown of thorns.
What other joy like that of sacrifice?
Without it love were nought! In death she lay
A lovely shape that seemed to smile in sleep,
And placid as the snowy fields around.
Her brother raised this crucifix from her breast
And bade me bear it to you. ‘Let her wear it
In death,’ he said, ‘and it will bring her peace;
And, wearing it, let her win back her son,
Who walks in ways of death.’

Empress.
Flatterers, not friends,
Are now my son's advisers. I could wish
That late-born hatred 'twixt him and the primate
Changed to old love.

Ido.
O lady, deem it not!
The primate hate your son! How many a time
Have I not heard him praise the king's high heart;
His wit at years when others chase their follies;
His prescient thought; his knowledge won from all,
Drawn in with every breath; his wind-like swiftness,
Now here, now there; persistence iron-nerved,
Pliant at need, but with resilience still
Back-springing to a purpose of that height
Which makes ambition virtue. Shake from him
But two fierce passions which convulse his spirit—
Anger was one, he did not name the other—
No prince there reigns like him.

Empress.
The heart of Thomas
Was ever large; that know I well.

Ido.
Full oft
I have heard him cast the royal horposcope:
‘Let him be England's king, a child of England!
If all the world beside were his for realm
The solid centre's there; his home be England!
Let him sun out its virtues with his love;
Strike off its bonds; unite its rival races;
Restore old usages; replant the poor
In those huge forests now the hunter's spoil;
Be loved at English hearths, from those fair cliffs
England's white girdle, to her mountain thrones;
His name be honoured in her fields and farms,
And minsters gathering, as the parent bird
Gathers its young, the growing cities round them,
Honoured by all her brave, industrious sons,
So Christian-like in manners and in mind,
So grave in deeds, and yet so merry-hearted,
And in their plainness kind.’

Empress.
My son's ambition
Hath wider scope than England. Pass that by:
Who hopes so much for him must love him truly.
I hope; but fear. In Thomas he had found
At least an honest friend, and fearless friend,
A counsellor by private aims untainted.

Ido.
A mother's counsel—

Empress.
He revered it once:
That queen of his hath slain his reverence;
That woman with five realms and fifty devils,
Who witched him to her love. She loved him never;
And with her strident voice and angry eyes
Scared from her soon his heart. A faithfuller husband
Had been obsequious less. A wife! a wife!
You on whose brow virginity is throned
Are liker to a wife than Eleanor!
In that obdurate will, and lawless humour,
And shallow heart, despite all marriage bonds
Wifehood's true spirit had been impossible
Even had she loved him well! A married mistress
Let such be called. Prop me this pillow, child,
And put from you that wildered, frightened look.
My father—him I loved the most on earth;—
If wars I moved, if these thin fingers clutched
The sceptre all too tight, 'twas for this cause,
Because his hand had held it!

Ido.
Gracious lady—

Empress.
Come near, and lay your lily cheek near mine,
But touch not mine, or yours will catch its fever.
Fix now your eyes on yonder winding Seine,
Seen 'twixt the crowded city towers. Mark there
How yon unladen barks run down the river:—
So lightly issues forth our youth's emprise
Full-sailed to shores unknown. Mark next how slowly
Those barges cargo-burthened mount the stream
With painful toil, and oars that keep not time:—
Thus—youth gone by—fortunes fulfilled oppress us;
The tide against us works.
O what a beaming shape was he in boyhood!
The sun declines, methinks. Where lodge you, child?

Ido.
I know not, madam.

Empress.
Rest in yonder convent:
I built it, and they love me. Ere you sleep
Give me a prayer. Our faith remains; our prayer
Grows cold with age—at least the prayer of princes.
Maid, I have heard your name; seen you ere now,
But know not where. The Pope hath sent me missives,
Praying mine intercession with my son;—
He hath it; but in limits. Child, farewell!

[Idonea kneels, kisses the Empress' hand, and withdraws.

Scene VI.—The Abbey of Pontigny.

Becket, John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham.
Bec.
Still, by my soul, I think he may be honest:—
The fraudulent are the weak; the king, we know,
Is strong alike in body and in mind.

John of Sal.
But not, alas! in spirit. ‘Strength to bring forth.’
The lack of faith is oftenest lack of strength,
Of spiritual strength; lack, too, of spiritual courage:
Worldlings are all too craven to believe.
This king lacks faith, and knows not that he lacks it;
At times he's superstitious; never godly:
Seeing he sees not, and in blindness thus
Tramples his good. His youth had soaring aims—

Bec.
Still unfulfilled. We must have patience with him!
God gives to man his threescore years and ten,
Then patient stands to see if in those years
His snail-paced creature makes one hour's advance.
I counted patience once man's humblest virtue;
I grow to deem of it as marvellous most
Of all God's attributes. Return to Henry!
His forefathers, like him, when wroth, were mad:
His empire's vaster far than theirs; his pride
Proportionately entempested. I think it—
I hope it, honest error.

Her.
The spirit of Bernard
Hangs on this pure and hallowed air. Your brow
Was furrowed once; to-day it wears no frown:
His Holiness did well to send you hither.

Bec.
Leisure and peace, and communings with God
Above the glebe new-turned, when fresh and sweet
Rises earth's breath, and in the thicket near
The unimpatient bird-song, evening-lulled,
Is soberer than at dawn, must help, I think,
Attuned by daily offices divine,
And faces calm wherein the chaunt lives on
When psalms are o'er—must help to soften hearts
How hard soe'er, and softening them, to brighten.
Here learn we that, except through sin of man,
There's evil none on earth—not pain, not scorn,
Not death! Were Christ her law this earth were heaven.
Lo there! How well they name this stream ‘Serene!’
Serene it wanders from the chestnut forests,
Serene it whispers through yon orchard bowers,
Serene it slides along the convent walls:
It counts the hours;—mark, as the sun descends,
How those gold lime-stems burn within its mirror
In colonnade that scorns imperial halls!
This spot is surely holier than men know;
I think some saint died here!

John of Sal.
Yet here, even here,
The battle of all ages lies before us!

Bec.
Well know I that, my friend. This eve I mused
On war, with heart at peace.

Her.
Beneath yon beech
You read a book—

Bec.
Saint Anselm's. Holy souls
This book hath holier made; for me, a sinner,
It serves a humbler part. My lot is war:
But close beside me scoffs a voice malign,
‘Thy youth vain-glorious sought the tented field
From haughty stomach or from angry spleen;
So now; for nought thou rend'st the world asunder.’
In doubt I stand: then comes to me this book,
And saith, ‘Thy cause is Anselm's: who was he?
This was no brawler, and no voice of war:
This was a soul that in the cloistral shade
Had reached the sixth fair decade of his life,
O'erstepped the threshold of the eternal Sabbath;
This was a virgin spirit, one to whom
Man's praise seemed blot and blame; an infant spirit
Whose meekness nothing earthly could perturb;
An angel spirit that, with feet on earth,
Saw still God's face in heaven—
Certes he sought no battles; yet he found them;
Long agonies of conflict in old age,
An exiled man, or fronting hostile kings.’
The tempter leaves me; and my strength returns;—
But lo, Guarine, our abbot!

John of Sal.
Slow his step:—

Bec.
I had forgotten; but I know it all:
The king has sworn, unless they drive me hence,
To war on each Cistercian house in England.
Solve we this good man's doubt.

The Abbot
(joining them).
Alas, my lord—

Bec.
My kind and generous friend, we part tomorrow!
God wills it thus, not any earthly king:
We have had our rest. It nerves us for that toil
Which summons us once more.

The Abbot.
Pavia's bishop
And Citeaux's abbot fear—

Bec.
Draw near me, friend:
The morn your predecessor left this abbey,
Lifted, reluctant, to the pastoral charge,
I at Saint Stephen's altar said my mass;
And, offering my thanksgiving there— But no!
When next at Lyons, ask my lord archbishop;
He stood behind a pillar, and heard all.
Brother, farewell. God guard this temple well!
His Spirit be its light till Christ shall come
To judge the world: and if through Satan's fraud,
The wrath of kings, the madness of the people,
It suffer wrong, may He with His own hand
Once more uplift it to a tenfold glory
Which shall not fail or fade. Once more, farewell.

[All depart, except Herbert.
Her.
(alone).
Ten talents lodged in that large honest hand
The night before his consecration morn;
And then that Bleeding Hand closed down above them;
And, last, the inquest of those Eyes divine
Cleansing his soul! Our Thomas has not hid
Those talents ten in napkin, or in earth:
Therefore the red rose of that palm nail-pierced
Grows larger daily on his own. That's well!
Peter and Paul shall press that hand in heaven.
How oft he says, ‘My youth had much to expiate.’
How few or make or will the expiation!
It comes to him in measure without stint:
His place in heaven shall be among the crowned,
Not them that break her glebe.

Scene VII.—A bay window in the Palace at Le Mans.

King Henry, John of Oxford.
K. Hen.
I am ill at ease, good John. Some fate malignant
Drags still my fortunes from their starry way
And drowns them in the mist. His kinsfolk's exile
Blackened my name with Christendom's abhorrence;
The traitor's self, cast forth from Pontigny,
Stands stronger than before.
Of all my foes this man alone, this Becket,
Hath marred and dwarfed me in my own esteem;
And for that cause I hate him—and will hate.
It may be I was rash. My mother thinks so,
A politic head that never loved the priests:
She warns me to revolt not 'gainst the Church
Lest God should rouse my sons, in turn revolted,
One day to plague their sire.

John of Oxf.
May it please you, sir,
Sickness, a superstitious thing, and death,
Whose coming shadow casts a ghostly semblance
On commonest shapes, perturb her mind, else strong.
Likewise she listens to that nun Idonea.

K. Hen.
My barons in this battle with the Church
Serve me with soul divided. Becket's eye
Went through them at Northampton. Becket's legate:—
Ere long the man will hurl a Censure forth:
My bishops weep and wail to me to spare them
Nor dash them broken 'gainst the canon law:
The Emperor wanes; his antipope wastes daily:
The Pope is waxing, and he knows his power.
I have lit my camp-fires on a frozen flood;—
Methinks, the ice wears thin.

John of Oxf.
Retreat is none.

K. Hen.
I have resolved to send an embassy
To Rome. What say you?

John of Oxf.
Who shall be its head?
His Grace of York, or Gilbert?

K. Hen.
Gilbert! Gilbert!
Gilbert's a knave that slips between two stools:
His youth had soarings: if for each tenth step
He took in sanctity, or seemed to take,
He could have ta'en but one in honest dealing,
The man had reached a sort of crazy saintship:
For greatness of this world courage he lacks.
Nor York, nor Gilbert! Guess again.

John of Oxf.
I cannot.

K. Hen.
You are my choice. Make strong this embassy:
Save weakness every fault is pardonable:
Within this paper are your orders writ:
Concession—ay, but making definite still
Those lines which keep our citadel intact,
The essence and the pith of all I strove for.
Be this your chart.

John of Oxf.
Sire, if it please your Highness,
This battle, though a hard one, shall be gained,
Two things conditioned—freedom and a purse.
Cramp not my movements: definite rules and limits
I never loved. This day the skilfullest hand
In tracing such should weave but nets to snare
Your royal purpose, or a rope to choke it.
The serpent's finer wisdom helps us oft
No more than plain simplicity of doves;
The fox's vulgarer craft serves then our need.
Leave terms to me; but grant me wide credentials:
The Pope will claim both pledge and oath; I give them;
Their import others can decide more late
Wiselier than I; your Grace hath wits scholastic:
With such the royal conscience shall consult,
The Censures first recalled.

K. Hen.
I see it, John.

Your counsel's deep.

[A horn is heard.
John of Oxf.
The prince returned from chase!

[Prince Henry rides up with attendants bearing a dead stag, and stops under the window.
P. Hen.
Father, against your will or with your will,
This stag, my first, finds way to my old master.

[Gallops on.
K. Hen.
He's gone! 'Tis for that boy my soul I peril!

Scene VIII.—Vezelay.

Becket, John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, Abbot of Pontigny.
Bec.
My patience less hath served him than disserved:
He stands upon the imminent verge of schism,
Transacts, conspires, with that revolted prelate
Who, with the Emperor and his antipope,
Stands third in Satan's court. Lo, here his letter
This hour arrived in cypher from Cologne!

[He reads.
John of Sal.
(reading it).
‘Pope Alexander, and his cardinals false,
Who prop that traitor Thomas, from this hour
Shall boast mine aid no more.’ What say ye, sirs?

Her.
A legate's powers are yours.

Bec.
I heeded seldom
My personal wrongs; but thus to trade with sin,
In huckstering sort to barter Christian honour,
Or simulate the crime he dares not act—
I say 'tis foul, 'tis foul!

Her.
At Clarendon
A second council meets. The bishops there
Must swear—so wills their lord—to eschew henceforth
All laws not royal, all appeals to Rome:
Our English Church shall stand with bleeding flank
From Christendom down-cloven.

Bec.
(rising).
One time in me
Passions of earth commixed with zeal divine:
That time should now be past. At Pontigny
Two years I kept my vigil and my fast;
In reverence delved the dark breast of the earth
From which we came, to which we shall return:
My vanities, I trust, are dead.

Abbot.
They are.

Bec.
Then action's time is come. At Soissons late
I watched three nights before three saintly shrines,
Praying for strength. It comes to me this hour.
England no more shall lie a corse: a spirit
Shall lift once more that head blasphemers spurn;
To that dried arm the flesh shall come as flesh
Pure in the child. No more the wail shall rise
From vacant minsters, abbeys sold like farms,
Deserted village churches, Christian babes
Amerced of Christian food. Bring forth the parchments!
From him the crowned transgressor to the least
The Censure falls on all.

Arch. of Sens
(entering).
Your Grace has heard it?—
The English king lies sick.

Bec.
Lies sick—alas!
I war not on the sick.

John of Sal.
The king excepted,
The Censure's naught. The heart of England burns,
And waits that stroke which, troubling not allegiance
In civil things, keeps pure the things of God:
A frost will fall upon that fiery heart,
The chiefest culprit spared.

Bec.
Let fall what may,
I strike not him that's down. My lord archbishop,
You come in time to hear the unrighteous banned
For crimes reiterate and denounced long since.
We sever from the Church the Church's foes,
Henceforth to plot outside her. John of Oxford,
Richard of Ilchester, Thomas Fitz-Bernard,
Joceline of Salisbury bishop, Hugh St. Clare,
De Luci, yokemate in the guilt of others,
Joceline of Ballol, and, of baser sort,
Bandit, not knight, De Broc, one time a monk.
Sirs, write ye down the sentence: be it hung
On all the city gates through France and England;
From all the altars be it sounded forth
With tapers flung to the earth.

Scene IX.—A street in Southampton.

The Bishop of London, the Bishop of Salisbury.
B. of Sal.
Becket's awake!
A storm and in our teeth!—
Let us give blow for blow!

Gil.
My lord, we dare not!
That Censure, like a dragon's tongue in the dust,
Hath sucked us insects up! The best is cowed:
Who swaggered three weeks since, to-day walks softly
As one that mourns his mother. Bend we must;
I fling me at his feet.

B. of Sal.
Ill-favoured Fortune
Leaves us no choice. Wait we for better winds.

Scene X.—Abbey of St. Colombe, near Sens.

Becket, Archbishop of Sens, Herbert of Bosham.
Arch. of Sens.
Your king was fierce against you once, my lord;
At last his winter turns to spring.

Bec.
He changes:
His mind's conclusion varies with the times:
We have a better augury: his heart
Is good, and only on the good in man
The better can be built. The king, when crowned
At Gloucester, laid his crown upon the altar,
And vowed no more to wear it. Late when sick,
Deeming death near he chose for burial-place
No sepulchre of kings, but some poor church
Where slept a saint of God.

Her.
Meantime o'er England
The breath of God hath blown. The Royal Customs
Find not this hour an adulating tongue.
The bishops, vassals late of servile fear,
Through holier fear have burst that baser bond
And rush across the sea to pledge new faith.
Here comes a friend from Rome;—How stand we there?
If well, then all is well.

John of Sal.
(entering).
My lord, ill news!
The royal Swearer swore his way through all;
Let John of Oxford bear that name for ever!
The cardinals stared, the Holy Father doubted;
His doubts were vain; once more the Swearer swore,
Alternative was none save hollow peace
Or war without a foe.

Bec.
What swore this Swearer?

John of Sal.
He swore that compact with the antipope
Against King Henry charged was false as hell:
One youthful cardinal called him ‘Valiant Swearer;’
The rest sat statue-still.

Bec.
What swore he next?

John of Sal.
He swore the king should grant the Pope's demands
How vast soe'er, the Pope appointing legates
To adjudicate our cause. His brother envoys
Banned him as traitor: but they railed in English,
And so he took no harm.

Bec.
The Pope replied,
‘Long since, and unsolicited by man,
My legate I appointed; he hath judged;
Remains but this—to enforce a righteous sentence.’
Replied not thus the Pope?

John of Sal.
Alas, not so!

Bec.
Have they no names? those arbiters—those legates?

John of Sal.
The Cardinal William and the Cardinal Otho.

Bec.
The first, mine enemy declared; the last,
A doubtful friend. Victory in victory's hour,
Dries up, like Jonah's gourd!
This new commission supersedes the old.
How stands the Censure?

John of Sal.
Men in peril of death
Until their case is sifted are absolved.

Bec.
All Wales aflame once more, who walks not perilled?—
The Censure's censured, and my name is made
A laughter to the world.

John of Sal.
This pact is secret;
In name your powers remain.

[An Attendant enters with a letter for Becket.
Bec.
From Rouen's bishop.
(Reads)
‘“Trust not in princes,” wear they mitre or crown!
King Henry maddens with his Roman triumph;
He boasts the names of those who clutched his gold
Extols the Pope; to England hastes; reports
Your office cancelled. ’Write, good Herbert, write—

The freedom of speech used by Becket was as great as that tolerated by him. It is thus that he wrote to his envoy at Rome on the appointment of the two legates whose commission virtually suspended his own legatine authority. The translation is that given in Mr. Hurrell Froude's valuable history of Becket's struggle, p. 242: ‘If this be true, then without doubt his lordship the Pope has suffocated and strangled, not only our own person, but himself and every ecclesiastic of both kingdoms; yea, both Churches together, the Gallican and the English. For what will not the kings of the earth dare against the clergy, under cover of this most wretched precedent? And on what can the Church of Rome rely, when it thus deserts and leaves destitute the persons who are making a stand in its cause, and contending for it even unto death.’ In a similar tone is his letter ‘To all the Cardinals’ written on the same occasion. (Ibid. 248-250.)

‘Smooth speeches are not for the wretched, nor guarded words for the bitter in soul. May my bitter thoughts be pardoned, my wretchedness indulged. It is our belief, most holy fathers, that you stand in high places, as God's delegates, to put aside injustice, to cut off presumption, to relieve the sorrowing priesthood, and stop the way against its persecutors; to assist the oppressed and punish the oppressors. . . . Trust then to me, my beloved lords, . . . resume your strength, gird yourselves with the Word of the Most High as with a sword. . . . This is the Royal way, this is the way that leadeth to life, this is the way that you must walk in if ye would follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ and the footsteps of His apostles whose vicars ye are. It is not by craft, it is not by wise schemes that the Church is to be governed, but by justice and by Truth.’

This remarkable freedom of speech neither implied nor was supposed to imply the slightest want of reverence on the part of Becket to the Holy See. Pope. Alexander received it as meekly as Becket himself had received the friendly reproof of his faithful cross-bearer, Llewellen.

There's one at least in Rome whom I can trust,
One near the Pope—in my name write, and thus:
‘Once more Barabbas is released; once more—
No, no; not thus:’ I should not have forgotten;
His realm is Christendom's unmeasured orb,
That which it is, and that which it shall be;
To him earth's kingdoms are but provinces,
Revolted some, within his Master's kingdom.
He must be patient, lest, in raising one,
He spurn its neighbour, tottering. Woe is me!
I am an islander with narrow heart,
And England-rooted eyes. I see my country,
Her laws made null by modern usages,
Her Scriptures by traditions slain of men,
Her poor down-trampled 'neath a bestial hoof;
Yea, scandals worse than these—subverted virtue;
Honour, long-outraged, ceasing from its shame;
The salt o' the earth daily its savour losing,
Self-sentenced to be trodden down by men.
Write thus—they'll guess but little how my heart
Beneath the words lies bleeding—‘Holy Father!
The endurance and the hopes of years are lost;
Henceforth what malefactor fears Church censures?
Who rises o'er the fear of worldly censors?
Sequestrated are seven fair English sees,
Abbeys untold.’ Men bid me to be patient!
Tell them that time makes patience sin; the years
Work for the foe, not us.

An Attendant
(entering).
Two cardinal legates,
But late commissioned from the Holy See,
Desire my lord the primate.

[Cardinal William of Pavia and Cardinal Otho enter.
Card. Otho.
Please it your Grace,
In northward progress to King Henry's court
We make delay, zealous once more to see you
And learn your Grace's judgment of this time.

Bec.
My lords, your Eminences both are welcome.

John of Salisbury
(to the Archbishop of Sens.
Was ever change like that? But now his face
Was as a tempest's heart; 'tis now a heaven
Incapable of cloud.

Arch.
The princely nature,
The oppression past, regains its native calm
As by some natural law.

Card. Otho.
My lord archbishop,
A mutinous world uplifts this day its front
Against Christ's Vicar! Save this France and England,
I know not kingdom sound. The antipope,
Propped by the emperor—

Bec.
Name him not! That puppet,
Like frailer favourites of the Imperial fancy,
Shall have his day and pass.

Card. Will.
My lord archbishop,
We, uninspired, and shaped of common clay,
Can judge the present by the past alone,
And deem the Church sore set. Your English king,
Faithful till now, at last—we know it—wavers,
Nay makes his bargain with the antipope:
He was your pupil, through your wisdom wise;
He was your playmate, mirthful at your jest:
Your minstrel, ever singing of your praise;
From height to height he raised you. If he looked
For grateful love, a credulous hope is venial:
He says that you have raised two realms against him,
Flanders, and France.

Bec.
Your Eminence may hear
From sources surer than that insect swarm
Which buzzes round the tingling ears of greatness,
From Louis, King of France, that from the first
I counselled him to peace. Lord cardinal,
My sin is this: to stand a living man
Where welcomer were a corpse—
I, not his flatterers, love my king and serve him
Speaking that truth which not to speak to kings,
Who seldom hear it, is the crown of treason;
Traitors are they, not I.

Card. Will.
The king complains
That you reject as new his Royal Customs.

Bec.
I bid him to reject that vice of kings
Which strangles earliest laws by modern Customs:
My lord, that vice is pride; that pride is royal,
But not the royallest royalty—not the lasting;
I bid him but to fling from him that vice,
And reign a great, sane king.

Card. Will.
A text there is
That ‘we are nothing better than our sires:’
Why not, my lord, in general terms engage
That what past prelates to their kings conceded
Therein you'll stint him not? In days like these,
The royal hand a-dipping in your dish,
Some plausible pretence—

Bec.
I ever scorned
Your plausible pretence. My lord, that water
Wherein of old the unjust judge washed his hands
Then when the Just before him stood condemned
With crown of mockery and a reed His sceptre,
Is extant still on this our earth, and streams
Perennial from that fountain-head accursed
By him that day infected, through all lands,
The bath of service which would serve two masters,
The font where specious virtue finds again
Her sin original, and to Christ's foe
Is unctuously baptized. Barbaric I—
Child of the northern forest, not of plains
In balms and oil redundant. I long since
Have known this thing and scorned it.

Card. Will.
Lord archbishop,
That freedom which the Pope from you permits
I need not grudge. In turn I too speak plainly:
My lord, through you the Church is ill at ease,
All Christendom perturbed. Resign, my lord!
Taranto, Southern Italy's chief see,
A northern saint its founder, lacks a shepherd,
And spreads to you her arms.

Bec.
Lord cardinal,
The chair of Peter in its own good time
Shall judge these Royal Customs. When that Voice,
At times commixed with baser sounds, sends forth
Authentic and oracular o'er the earth
Its great award, there lives not who shall bend
A humbler forehead to that hest than I.
If that award should free from servile yoke
My country and her Church, then sit who will
In Saint Augustine's chair. If that award
Should throne the ill use, Augustine's chair dishonour,
I ask no see in Italy or France,
By Seine, or Tiber, or the Tyrrhene wave;
I claim a hermit's cell 'mid England's woods,
Or where her wave-worn rocks are desolate most,
Therein to sing my penitential psalms,
Poor vespers of a life ill-spent. Till then
I flee not from my post.

Card. Otho.
My lord archbishop,
We honour your great heart and manly speech,
And bid your Grace farewell.

[The cardinals depart, attended by all except John of Salisbury.
Bec.
(after long musing).
Is no one near?

John of Sal.
My lord, I stand beside you.

Bec.
In yonder cloudless heaven the sun still shines;
The birds sing still; the peasant breaks the clod;
Not less a change hath fallen upon the earth—
Fear naught!

John of Sal.
I trust that all may yet go well.

Bec.
I looked for trials—ay, but not from him:—
The good French king will be the next to leave me.
(After a pause)
All shall go well—but in another sort
Than I had hoped till now. My vow is made.

ACT IV.

Scene I.—The Palace of the Empress Matilda at Rouen.

The Empress, Idonea.
Empress.
Speak on, my child. Windsor's old oaks once more
While you discoursed of all your merry staghunts
Above me sighed, and kindlier airs than those
Which now I breathe with pain. Speak thou; I listen.
Had I but had such brother! Yours is dead:
Such loss means this, that he—none else—shall walk
Beside you still, when all save him are grey,
In youth unchanged.

Ido.
Not Time itself could change him!
That light which cheers me still from eyes unseen,
That wild sweet smile around imagined lips,
A moment's breathless, magic visitation,
Which falls upon me like a kiss and flies,
Are brighter not with everlasting youth
Than was his spirit. Mind he seemed, all mind!
In childhood, flower and weed and bird and beast
Nature's fair pageant to the eye of others,
To him were that and more. Old Bertram said
There lurked more insight in his pupil's questions
Than in conclusions of the sage self-styled.
He never had grown old!

Empress.
Boyhood might be
Fair as that girlhood poet-sung, and bright
Besides with action, courage, frank defiance
Conquering all ill, nor touched by maiden fear—
Oftenest its autumn chokes its spring. I trust
Your brother's youth was faithful to his boyhood.

Ido.
Faithful! O madam, how much more than faithful!
Vivacities of young intelligence
Were merged, not lost, in kindlings of a soul
Where Thought and Love seemed one. He trod an earth
The Saviour's; yea, and Mary's. All things shone
Beauteous to him, for God shone clear through all:
His longing was to free the Tomb of Christ
Fighting in Holy Land. Death's early challenge
Pleased him as well! ‘Thank God! that Holy Land
Was dear,’ he said;—‘more dear, more near, is Heaven!’

Empress
(after a long silence).
At twenty years—had my son died at twenty—
The last great day alone can answer that:
I did my best that time: I did it late
To stay that fatal war 'twixt him and Becket
Which inly wastes him like an atrophy—
Thenceforth you were alone.

Ido.
Not that first month:
Near me that time he seemed—a spiritual nearness
Impossible, I think, to flesh and blood:
Terrestrial life returned. 'Twas then I wept.

Empress.
Peace came at last.

Ido.
'Twas in a church, one even:
The choir had closed their books; but still on high
Rolled on the echoes of their last ‘Amen.’
Something within me sobbed, ‘Amen, so be it.’
I wept no more.

Empress.
Nay, nay, the dead have claims:
I love not those who cheat them of their due.
Child, grief is grief.

Ido.
I clasped it as God's gift,
And 'twixt my bosom and my arms it vanished.
Some wound seemed staunched. My body still was weak:
Wintry the woods: yet in my soul the more
God's happy spring made way. Slowly within me
My childhood's wish returned—to live a nun:
I deemed it first presumption; yea temptation;
It changed to hope. Faint was that hope, and like
The greening verge of some young tree in March,
When all its bulk is dark.

Empress.
With such a brother
Either you ne'er had stooped to earthly love,
Or love in you had lacked its earthlier part:
You hoped to be a nun: at last hope conquered.

Ido.
By hindrance helped. I seem to you unwedded:
Yet when the irrevocable vow was breathed
'Twas as a bride I felt—His bride, for Whom
Love grows divine through unreserved Obedience.
My brother too—while we were children both,
In loving, I obeyed him. Some there were
Who mocked me with the name of ‘Little wife.’
I weep him still; yet laugh at mine own tears
Knowing that he I weep is throned in heaven.

Empress.
A more than kingly lot!

Ido.
And yet how great
Is each day's commonest lot when judged aright!
Our convent looks on cottage-sprinkled vales:
Far, far below, now winds the marriage pomp,
The funeral now. O, who could see such things,
Nor help the world with prayer?

Empress.
What see you, child?

Ido.
An Eden, weed-o'ergrown, but still an Eden;
Man's noble life—a fragment, yet how fair!
My father, pilgrim once in southern lands,
Groping 'mid ruins found a statue's foot,
And brought it home. I gazed upon it oft
Until its smiling curves and dimpled grace
Showed me the vanished nymph from foot to brow,
Majestical and sweet. Man's broken life
Shows like that sad, sweet fragment.

Empress.
Life, my child,
In times barbaric is a wilderness:
In cultured times a street, or wrangling mart:
We bear it, for we must. 'Tis best in youth:
The weariness of life perplexes age:
The dust accumulate is worse than anguish:
We know not where the stain, but feel all stain.

(Looks at her long and adds)
O'er you some fifteen years may pass like five:
Die then if you are wise.
Ido.
O madam, madam,
God made man's life: it is a holy thing!
What builds us up that life? The Virtues, first;
That sisterhood divine, brighter than stars,
And diverse more than stars, than gems, than blossoms;
Diverse, yet each so wonderful, so fair:
The Virtues are our life in essence; next,
Those household ties which image ties celestial;
Lastly, life's blessed sorrows. These alone
Rehearse the Man of Sorrows; these alone
Fit us for life with Him.

Empress.
To you man's life
Is prospect, child: to me 'tis retrospect:
They that best know it neither love nor hate:
It hath affections, sorrowful things and sweet:
My share was mine, as daughter and as mother:
It hath its duties, stately taskmasters,
Exacting least in age, when, thanks to God,
At last the unselfish heart is forced upon us
Our time for joy gone by. It hath its cares:
It hath its passions—mine was once ambition;
And, lastly, it hath death.

Ido.
And death is peace.

Empress.
Then death and sleep are things, alas, unlike:
Unpeaceful dreams make my nights terrible—
Pale spectres of past days. Last night I seemed
Once more, as one whom midnight dangers scare,
To rush 'mid blinding snows with frozen feet
O'er the rough windings of an ice-bound river,
The shout of them that chased me close behind,
The wolf-cry in the woods.

Ido.
That flight from London,
Madam, was yours in sleep.

Empress.
Once more I dreamed:
Once more I fled through false and perjured lands,
Insurgent coasts of rebels vowed to slay me;
I lay within a coffin, on a bier,
With feet close tied. Fierce horsemen galloped past;
At times the traveller or the clown bent o'er me,
And careless said, ‘A corpse.’

Ido.
In such sad seeming
You 'scaped from Bristol.

Empress.
Worse, far worse, remained;
I heard once more the widows' wail at Gloucester;
At Winchester and Worcester once again
Above the crackling of the blazing roofs
I heard the avenging shout that hailed me queen,
And, staying not the bloodshed, shared the sin.
That hour of dream swelled out to centuries;
A year so racked would seem eternity:—
Our penance may prove such.

Ido.
Madam, your strength—

Empress.
A place there is which fits us for that heaven
Where nought unclean can live: else were we hopeless.
How think you of that region?

Ido.
Madam, thus:
That bourne is peace, since therein every will
Is wholly one with His, the Will Supreme;
Is gladness, since deliverance there is sure;
Is sanctity, since punishment alone
Of sin remains—sin's every wish extinct—
And yet is pain not less.

Empress.
There should be pain;—
Speak on; speak truth; I ne'er had gifts of fancy:
Truth is our stay in life, and more in death.

Ido.
'Tis pain love-born, and healed by love. On earth
Best Christian joy is joy in tribulations:
In that pure realm our grief hath root in joy:
'Tis pain of love that grieves to see not God.

Empress.
Here too sin hides from us God's face; yet here
Feebly we mourn that loss.

Ido.
So deeply here
Man's spirit is infleshed! Two moments are there
Wherein the soul of man beholds its God;
The first at its creation, and the next
The instant after death.

Empress.
It sees its Judge.

Ido.
And, seeing, is self-judged, and sees no longer:—

Readers of the higher poetry will hardly need to be reminded of a passage in Cardinal Newman's ‘Dream of Gerontius,’ by which, or by Saint Catherine of Genoa's beautiful Treatise on Purgatory, this line was probably suggested.

Yet rests in perfect peace. As some blind child,
Stayed in its mother's bosom, feels its safety,
So in the bosom of the love eterne,
Secure, though sad, it waits the eternal Vision,
The over-bending of that Face divine
Which now—now first—it knows to be its heaven,
That primal thirst of souls at last re-waked,
The creature's yearning for its great Creator.

Empress.
Pray that these pains may help me towards that Vision!
Till these my later years I feared not death:
Death's magnanimity, as death draws nigh,
Subdues that fear. My hope is in the Cross.
Whate'er before me lies, the eternal justice
Will send my pain, the eternal love console,
And He who made me prove at last my peace.
I hope so: at my best I think 'tis so.
Farewell! Return at morn; your words, your looks
Have brought me help. Be with me when I die.

Scene II.—Palace of Woodstock.

King Henry, John of Oxford.
K. Hen.
All's well; and then all's ill;—who wars on Becket
Hath January posting hard on May,
And night at ten o' the morn. That man regains
Whate'er we snatch: he's dangerous in retreat.
Three times I conquered; first with rotten aid
Of his own bishops in this realm of England;
At Rome through help from you when hope seemed gone;
Lastly at Montmirail. Now comes the change:
Those new-sent envoys bend their brows above me;
Impeach me with bad faith; aver the Censures
Conditionally only were removed;
Remind me of your oaths at Rome!

John of Oxf.
If humbly
Your Highness sues their leave to wear that crown
Bequest of kings who bowed not to the crosier,
The primate wins. So be it!

K. Hen.
Bequest of kings!
There's none of them that dared what I have dared!
They ruled a realm and shared that realm with priests:
I rule an empire; made and rule an empire
Which in the West shall one day pass in girth
That Frederick's in the East. How bind, how fuse it,
If every bishop reigns, a lesser king,
And every baron? To the dust with such!
My empire is an empire ruled by laws,
Not warring wills; but, mark you, royal laws,
The efflux of one royal will forth flowing
Like rivers through the land!

John of Oxf.
There spake a king!
To speed that great design, I, priest myself,
For many a year, not caring who cried ‘shame,’
Have given you help—that help a priest alone
Sagacious through the labyrinth still to scent
The tortuous trail of priestcraft, could have given.
Sir, at this hour you stand in dangers worse
Thrice than your dangers past. A cry goes up
Not from the poor alone. Your barons, vexed
By scutage tax in place of warlike service,
Fair lands flung wide to judges sent on circuit,
Sharp lawyers prying into privilege,
This day more hate you than they love church-lands:
The Pope grows strong, and with his strength his courage;
While Becket, sager for defeats foregone,
Comes hard on victory's goal.

K. Hen.
A synod, John—
At Clarendon I'll call it three months hence.

John of Oxf.
The bishops will be wary. Synods now
Spawn but disputes; the last was ill-attended.
Old Winton, summoned, answered that the canons
Forbad appeal from greater powers to less:
‘And I,’ he said, ‘now old and grey, have had
That greater summons from my Master, God,
Whose judgment I await.’

K. Hen.
Within your eye
I see a counsel glimmering. Speak it, John!

John of Oxf.
Your Highness needs some measure stringent, strong,
Some act to astonish foes, and hearten friends;—
Yet, venturing such, before you imminent
There looms an Interdict.

K. Hen.
And that were ruin.

John of Oxf.
Hear now my counsel! Crown your son, Prince Henry!
The boy will be your puppet-king;—the Pope
Must count him king in act. Work then your will
No Interdict strikes him, or his.

K. Hen.
'Twere hard—
To crown a king is Canterbury's right
By law and usage both.

John of Oxf.
That stands provided!
You willed to crown the prince when eight year old:
That day the Pope granted a dispensation,
And bade you choose your bishop. Canterbury
Lacked then, 'tis true, a primate. What of that?
A precedent was made;—the rest be mine.
Send me to Rome: the Curia seeks no triumph
The Pope shall learn that, grieved at errors past
You from your greatness have deposed yourself
To fight in Holy Land.

K. Hen.
The Pope consent!

John of Oxf.
He still may count that dispensation binding
For Popes are scrupulous ofttimes to their loss:
If, pressed by Becket, he should call it back
We act at once upon his earlier mandate,
And brand as forged all later. Should he send one
Unless 'tis publicly, in the face of day
Lodged in the bishops' hands, and thus made binding,
Such mandate they may spurn.

K. Hen.
Which fraud exposed,
Becket will launch his bolt.

John of Oxf.
O never, never
That bolt shall Becket launch—

K. Hen.
I keep him barred
From England's shores. Not less that bolt would scorch them.

John of Oxf.
We have reached the inmost kernel of my scheme.
Some six weeks since—so rumour ran—you stood
All day in stormy conference with your bishops:
At eve a stranger, gliding through the dusk,
Lodged in the royal hand an unsigned letter,
On reading which you smiled.

K. Hen.
Its words were these:
‘Better that Becket stood on England's shores
Than roamed the world at will.’

John of Oxf.
I wrote that letter.

K. Hen.
Craftiest of counsellors, I see your drift!
You mean—a dungeon. Henry crowned, the primate,
Or wrathful, or to win his pupil back,
Will hasten to this land.

John of Oxf.
Your Highness then
Hunting in merry Maine! A dungeon—yes—
Worse than a dungeon would be worse for us—
Sir, have no fear! The ship that veers advances:
We have made our losing tack; the good tack next.
[Queen Eleanor enters with her ladies.
The glory and the grace of female beauty,
Consummate, and mature, and crowned a Queen!

Q. Elea.
(advancing to the king with a parrot on her wrist).
Lo, here my new-taught mocker! Learn like him!
Speak, painted prophet!—‘Thomas is a fool!’

Scene III.—A wood close to the Abbey of St. Colombe, near Sens.

Herbert of Bosham, alone.
Her.
Since Nature, God's fair daughter, wreathes at times
The Church's fillet o'er her laughing eyes,
And, masked in livery of her graver sister,
Like her would teach us—learn we of her lore!
What means this flower? Men call it Columbine;
A tassel-toy. Yet, pluck, save one, its purples,
And lo, that remnant left puts on the dove!
Blossom to bird is changed! The meaning's plain:
Weed out your joys; cast off redundancies:
Deflower the pomps and shows of secular life;
Then at their core you reach the wingèd greatness!
The passion-flower itself—

John of Sal.
(arriving).
Hail, ancient friend!

Her.
Far-travelled seer, welcome from all the lands!
How speak they of our primate?

John of Sal.
Much, and ill:
The magnates of the State fear and dislike him;
The magnates of the Church admire yet fear;
With instinct from above the poor are with him.

Her.
'Tis ever thus! In Castle Rockingham,
When like a stag at bay old Anselm stood
The Red King glaring at him in lust of blood,
What help was his from prelate or from peer?
The council-hall was as a captured city:
The bishops hung their heads. Then from the crowd
An old grey man stepped forth, and knelt, and said,
‘Father, thy children bid thee have no fear:
The poor man's prayer is strong!’

John of Sal.
Not slacker of help
Pope Urban was to Anselm than, this hour,
His successor to Thomas. Herbert, Herbert!
The Church errs never; but her rulers err:
They lack the earth-wisdom of the secular lords.

Her.
The errors of the rulers of the Church
At times more serve her than their happiest prudence.
'Tis true they cause her trials:—what of that?
God sends her strength proportioned to those trials,
And makes her feel that strength is His alone.
Statesmen do penance here on earth for errors;—
A later, sterner Court shall judge their sins:
The Church wears sackcloth here on earth for sins;
The sinless error hurts her not: it breeds
Her pains of growth—no more.

John of Sal.
That slowness frets me!

Her.
Her slowness means her greatness. Statesmen play
Still the short game, because their time is short,
She that endures, the long one. 'Tis her nature,
Her nature, and God's law, not her design:
She cannot mass her total force in front:
Too manifold is it, and too deeply hidden;
Reserves she hath. Some tyrant's luckless craft
Forth drags them; and, his victory all but won,
He finds his war beginning; near life's end
Finds it once more beginning.

John of Sal.
Henry's craft
Deceives no more. Faith gravitates t'ward Becket;
But men of faith grow rarer.

Her.
God, O God!
How diverse showed those twain when first they warred,
And how that first diversity hath grown
With fleeting of the years! At Montmirail
That truth o'ershone me like a lightning flash!
Not then, as at Northampton, Becket towered
A terror to his foes. By all forsaken
He made no boast of self. In patient sadness
With neck a little bent and forward head,
Six hours he stood beneath that scourge of tongues:
He spake but this; ‘I swear to serve my king,
Saving the honour of the King of kings:
Who swears to more is Pagan and a slave.’
I saw that God had sent his soul that hour
A soul's supremest trial—Dereliction:
The fountains of the mighty deep of woe
Were broken up: the joy of Faith was dead:
Yet Faith itself lived on. 'Mid storm and darkness
He clung to God as limpet to the rock;—
He's greater than he was: the grace of Orders
Makes increase in his spirit.

John of Sal.
It were time
He sued the Pope once more.

Her.
He never sues him,
Though loyalest of his sons. He trusts in God
And broods not much on counsels for the future.
When late I spake of such, he smiled and said
‘There was an hour beside Saint Denys' tomb:
'Twas then you deemed our fortunes touched their highest:
It is not, friend, from thrones of kings or popes
Issues man's hope, but from the martyr's grave.’

John of Sal.
Herbert, the fault is yours—your fault—your folly!
One day you'll wreck us. Yes, the fault is yours!
Should Thomas catch from you—

Her.
No word from me
Hath Thomas heard to fire the martyr's zeal.

John of Sal.
Ever you praise man's life; yet ever muse
How, innocently, man may soonest leave it:
All which the juncture needeth you ignore.
Herbert, see that which is !—you gaze for aye
On pictures in the air.

Her.
Which they see not
Who, dazzled, watch that merriest house on fire
A world in dotage hastening to its doom.

John of Sal.
Am I a worldling?

Her.
Nay, but half, good John;
Worldling with heavenward aim.

John of Sal.
Herbert, you know
As little of the world as of the flesh—
Of each not more, I ween, than of the Devil:
Let the world be.

Her.
Things are there he knows best
Who knows them only slightly, and at distance.
Well, well, the world is fair—this day at least;—
Ay, and the life of man is worth the living!
So deem that bannered choir of youths and maids:
O how the heart springs forth on wings to meet them!
Glad hearts sing there! And yet they'll only learn
In heaven how fair a thing was earthly life!

Peasants
(pass near singing).

John of Sal.
Herbert, farewell! Within I seek the primate:
New treasons rise, which to forestall, the Pope
Sends mandates to my Lords of York and London:
The Swearer saw him late—that means a storm.

[John of Salisbury departs.
Her.
(alone).
John has great virtues—not the chief, like Becket's,
Since worldly men can understand them half—
Yet great ones since they take no stain from praise.
How kind is Providence! To one like me,
Strengthless, a Christian fabler more than Christian,
Flatteries of men, reverence from hostile kings,
And all the sleek lubricities of Fortune,
Had proved a flower-decked pitfall. For that cause
Such things pass by our sort.

Scene IV.—The Abbey of St. Colombe.

Becket, alone.
Bec.
Each day more clearly, like two mighty peaks
Of one veiled mountain, shine two truths before me:
My hope is not from England—that I learned
Deserted at Northampton: not from Rome—
Deserted when those legates, later missioned,
Cancelled my two years' work, and from me hurled
A penitent realm, returning. Not from France—
Deserted by her king. That hour, methinks,
I stood within Death's porch. That hour, it may be,
Some inmost ill, my soul's chief Tempter, died.
Twice was the victory from my hand down dashed
When all but won.
Immeasurably Rome helps me—needs she must—
Simply by being—merely by existence;
Help me by act she cannot. She doth well:
To invoke her now were base. But thou, my country,
The on-rolling centuries, whose fateful hands
Shall bind the purple or the death-robe round thee,
Engrain their deep-dyed tissue here, and now!
Thy son I am not less than Christian bishop:
Thy martyr, if God wills it, I would die.
[Llewellen enters.
A legate's powers are mine as yet: I use them.
These be the Papal mandates. Place them, friend,
Within their hands—the hands of York and London;
But when the eyes of men are on them set:
Your labour else is vain.

Llew.

It shall be done.

[Departs.
Bec.
There should have been no need to send those missives—
I must not think it. Once I was unjust.
The Pope sits throned upon the Church's tower;
Sees all: I fight below: my time is short,
And in it much to expiate. I must act.
(After a pause)
I strove for justice, and my Mother's honour;
For these at first. Now know I that God's Truth
Is linked with these as closely as body and soul.

Scene V.—Abbey of St. Colombe.

Archbishop of Sens, Herbert of Bosham.
Arch. of Sens.
Herbert! your legate must be told these rumours:
I trust he'll soon return. Your king is sudden:
The tidings of his march and victory reach us
Like runners matched. That slender, sinewy frame,
That ardent eye, that swift on-striding step,
Yet graceful as a tiger's, foot descending
Silent but sure on the predestinate spot—
From signs like these looks forth the inward man.
Expect grave news ere long. 'Twill task the legate;
Yea, though his greatness patent is to all,
'Twill task it sore.

Her.
So best! 'Twill task to crown it!
My lord, fear naught: I knew him in old days:
I saw that greatness hid, though thick its veil,
In every gesture of his soul and body.
'Twas at Northampton first it rose to height,
Not when he cried, ‘I spurn your Customs new,’
But when he said, ‘I sinned, and sin no more.’
Nor ends it there: all this was prologue merely:
As o'er the petty pomps of earthly pride
Rises the heroic greatness, so in grade
Loftier, the saintly springs o'er that to heaven,
A Tree of Life whose leaves shall heal sick lands.
I shall not die till Thomas is a Saint;
And then we'll die together. Lo, he comes!

[Becket enters.
Arch. of Sens.
My lord, you have heard those rumours: they are grave.

Bec.
Your Grace is gloomier than your wont, and show
Less than yourself therein. My lord, that bishop
Who crowns, in scorn of great Augustine's right,
An English king, stands excommunicate.
I deem these rumours idle things. The Pope
To bar all danger, issued letters thrice,
First from Anagni, from the Lateran next,
And last from Alba, to our English bishops:
I saw no need for such.

Arch. of Sens.
A whisper stirs
That instruments consenting to that deed,
The sigil of the Fisherman appended,
Were forged by John of Oxford. Others say
He won the Pope's consent long since by fraud;
His fraud exposed, that sanction was withdrawn;
But to those instruments consent withdrawing
The English ports are closed.

Bec.
(To Llewellen, entering)

Llew.
My errand failed.

Bec.
No fault of yours, good friend!

Llew.
By night I landed,
And sped to London in a beggar's garb:
Day after day, in banquet hall and church,
I strove to reach my Lords of York and London;
They knew the danger near and stood on guard:
At last I sought my Lord of London's house:
Slowly the bishop crossed the court in prayer,
And, reading, cast at times a sidelong glance:
I knelt me down, and raised the Papal missive:
He deemed it some petition; softly took it;—
Ere long he learned the truth.

Bec.
But not in public?

Llew.
The humbleness in his regard grew sour;
Yet wroth he seemed not: ‘From the Pope—a mandate!
Knowing the parchment forged, I read it not:
The Pope's authentic mandate is with us.’
He spake, and tossed it from him, and passed by.
In rushed the prince with mummers, and I 'scaped;
Else had my lot been hard.

Bec.
What next befell?

Llew.
At morn the king was knighted by his father,
And crowned at stroke of noon.

Bec.
By whom?

Llew.
By one
Who little liked his office, Roger of York.

Bec.
His time will come. That coronation oath
At least bears witness 'gainst the ‘Royal Customs;’
The prince made oath to guard the Church's freedom—
Pray God he guard it better than his sire!

Llew.
That sentence from his oath was razed: the bishops
Who crowned him sware to keep the Royal Customs!

Bec.
(rising suddenly).
The mask is off! Thank God, 'tis off for ever!
(After a pause)
No more of that. Proceed! The prince was crowned.

Llew.
The rest was naught but jubilee and triumph,
Wine-fountains, pealing bells, the bonfires' glare,
The tournament, and charging of the steeds
In the ordered lists. High up, o'er-canopied
By cloth of gold, refulgent sat the queen;
Her ladies round her in a silken haze
Like the moon's halo round the moon, when night
On hills of Wales—

Her.
Let be your hills of Wales;
The feast? You saw it?

Llew.
Ay, in minstrel's garb:
The tables groaned with gold: I scorned the pageant!
The Norman pirates and the Saxon boors
Sat round and fed: I hated them alike
The rival races, one in sin. Alone
We Britons tread our native soil.

Her.
Both kings
Were present?

Llew.
There a merry chance befell:
King Henry stood behind his son, and served.
‘Give thanks, young prince,’ my Lord of York brake forth,
‘For ne'er till now—’ ‘Is it strange,’ the boy replied,
If by an earl's son a king's son is served?’
The great hall roared with laughter; high o'er all
His father's voice!

Bec.
How like my youthful pupil!
God bless the child! I am glad he wears the crown!
God grant him grace!

Arch. of Sens.
Grave tidings these, my lord!

Bec.
My lord, you take me back from morn to night.
The coronation's naught; we are hurt elsewhere.
That Oath to keep the Church in liberty,
That baptism vow of England Christian made,
That bridal pledge of England wed to Christ,
That sister link 'twixt her and Christendom,
Whose holy kingdoms weep henceforth her fall;
That oath, that vow, that pledge, that link all-blessèd,
The birthright of the nations ere their birth,
The talisman which 'mid their youthful struggles
Charmed them from fate and saved them from themselves;
Which still for suffering weakness found defence
In the great conscience of Humanity
Impersonate in God's Church and armed and missioned;—
Lo, where that Oath is dashed aside, cast off
Unceremoniously as a shifted robe
Or banquet-trencher changed, or rotted bandage
Foul from a wound and flung into the filth!
This thing no comment bears: too grave it is
For wrath or further speech. I go to England.

Scene VI.—A house in Freitval.

Leicester, Cornwall.
Leic.
This meeting of the primate and the kings
Must bring the end. Our king shall make or mar
In measure as the course he takes to-morrow
Be true or false.

Corn.
For years I have not seen
Such health on Henry's brow. That coronation
Which raised the boy to monarch, changed not less
His father to a boy.

Leic.
Cornwall! that deed
Was worse than questionable. Triumphant acts
Consummated at last and on the sudden,
Yea though of sin compact, with omens black,
Are not alone achievement but deliverance
And fire the heart like wine—
A load's removed; and, like a ship upspringing
Then when the o'er-blown mast is hacked away,
The spirit regains its port erect and rushes,
Though maimed, before the storm. Conscience expelled,
Conscience long labouring, and at last expelled,
Is next in strength to conscience crowned a king:—
Which strength this day is Henry's?

Corn.
Which? I care not!
Enough that strength he hath.

Leic.
Strength to waste strength:
He hath sold his great ambitions for a dream!
He might have conquered Scotland ere this hour:
We battle still 'mid marches bleak of Wales
Whose war-cries scare our sleeping babes. There's Ireland!
He scarce was crowned when Adrian blessed that suit:
Three years ago, Dermod, her woman-stealer,
Knelt to our king. His hands were full of Becket:
He might have conquered Ireland in six months;
Conquered and raised; or else with continent heart
Trampled Ambition's letch and left her bloodless.
He found a baser path: he farmed his feud
To bandit barons: bade them cross the sea
And ravin where they listed.

Corn.
Wary and wise!
These barons soon will sorely need his aid:
Then comes his time!

Leic.
Cornwall! They'll win and keep;
Now cut a prince's throat; now wed a princess:
Our king is vowed and sworn to Law and Order:
They'll brook no law that stands betwixt their greed
And serfs, their prey. Fitz-Stephen laughed of late
While Dermod danced o'er true men foully slain;
They'll laugh more loud when Outlawry not Law,
And clans war-mad, secure to them their lands
Sans need of aid from England. I discern
A deep'ning cancer bred from Ireland's heart
Yet hollowing England's breast.

Corn.
Those Letters Patent,
'Tis true, gave licence large. I scarcely guess—

Leic.
'Twas granted half in hope, and half in fear:
This Becket-war offends the greater nobles:
He dare not trust them: Chester—Arundel—
Frown when they name him: Oxford calls him upstart.
Barons that starve and disaffected priests,
On such alone securely he relies.
His Customs! What were we, princes of England,
If pledged to recognize as law and right
Casual concessions filched or bought, if tried
In hostile courts, and not before our peers?
Better be collared with the old Saxon ring;
Wear name of Serf and Thrall!

Corn.
In that we holp him:
Northampton's castle—

Leic.
Sir, we have our penance!
Young Harry's crowned! In guerdon of our help
We are ruled by babes! Good father-king, beware
You light a fire that soon will reach your roof!
From this beginning wars on wars shall rise.
The prince is proud; will scorn to reign, a puppet;
Discord will spread: first sons against their sire,
Brother 'gainst brother next will dash in frenzy:
The inveterate habit, hate, will prey within;
The wound, skinned o'er, break out again in blood
A river rushing on from reign to reign,
Till on the far, predestinate field at last
Plantagenet's great race makes shameful end
While some large-fisted boor or blear-eyed knave
Steals the dishonoured crown. If any Fury
Hates Henry's house, she fixed on it her eye
Then when this strife began.

Corn.
I hate this Becket;—
He is the Church's champion.

Leic.
Friend, you err:
I thought with you; but years have taught me better:
Becket was fanatic never though once proud:
Salisbury's old bishop says ‘he's dangerous,
Yet dangerous not as tortuous, but as simple
And passionate for the honour of his charge:
The State, not Church, that charge, he had not failed
To vindicate her right.’

Corn.
I serve the king;
My thought ends there.

Leic.
Cornwall, I also serve him;—
Would I had served him with less servile service:
Our course hath scarce been knightly, nay, scarce Christian:
Our service hath disserved him to his shame.

Scene VII.—The ‘Traitor's Meadow’ near Freitval.

Llewellen, Fitz-Stephen.
Llew.
These princes and these prelates keep not time:
Each fears to come the first.

Fitz-Ste.
Lo, there our king:
The French king not. That ‘kiss of peace,’ withheld
From Becket, moves his spleen. 'Mid Henry's train
I see that beast, Fitz-Urse.

Llew.
Right opposite
Rides Becket; at his left Earl Theobald,
And Sens' Archbishop at his right.

Fitz-Ste.
The king
Makes speed to meet him, with uncovered head:
And lo, with what a zeal he grasps his hand!
Now they embrace. Was that the kiss of peace?

Llew.
Not so:—the king's horse swerved. Beasts have true instincts.

K. Hen.
The unhappy, sour, and anger-venomed time,
By craft of others clouded and confused,
Hath drifted past us; and once more shines out
The sky of earlier days. Papal ambitions
Drave in betwixt us, Thomas!

Bec.
Sire, my king,
Those cloudy days at times had better gleams;
Their summer promise, like a witch's gold,
Still left me poorer.

K. Hen.
Nay, not promises!
Forward I ever was to speak my hopes;
Slow to pledge grace.

Bec.
Beneath Montmartre you pledged it:
The French king heard you and my Lord of Sens
And many a French and English knight beside.
I prayed for restitution of those lands
From Canterbury torn. It pleased your Highness
To grant that prayer; yet till this hour that pledge
Lies void as bankrupt's bond.

K. Hen.
This must be looked to.

Bec.
I made another and a weightier suit:
Those benefices dowered for God's high worship
And temporal service of the poor of Christ,
By sacrilegious barons clutched and sold
To trencher priests the Church's scourge and scandal,
For these I made demand. It pleased your Highness
To pledge your word that rapine should surcease:
Sire, for two little months the plague was stayed;
Then burst it forth anew.

K. Hen.
They hid it from me.

Bec.
The vacant abbeys, widowed bishoprics
Glut still the royal coffers.

K. Hen.
Some, I think,
Have gained true shepherds late: the rest shall win them.
I made delay fearing lest rash elections
Might vex the Church's peace.

Bec.
To me and mine
Return was promised to our native land
Where rest the bones of them who went before us:
Your coasts are closed against us; and my friends—
Of hunger many, more of grief have died
In alien lands, and sleep in nameless graves.

K. Hen.
Now by the Saints of Anjou and of Maine,
England to you is open as this hand,
And hath been since that coronation-day
Which made your pupil king.

Bec.
Your Highness touches
Our latest wrong. The see of Canterbury
Hath privilege sole to crown our English kings:
My Lord of York usurped that dignity
Crowning your son.

K. Hen.
The Conqueror's self was crowned
By York's Archbishop, not by holy Stigand
Primate that day. My grandfather was crowned
By Hereford's bishop.

Bec.
Stigand had not won
From Rome the pallium, and the see was vacant:
Hereford's bishop served in Anselm's place,
An exile then for God. Anselm, returned,
Re-crowned the ill-crowned king.

K. Hen.
By Anjou's Saints,
Your bishops snared me. Let them pay the forfeit!

Bec.
My Lords of York and London are suspended:
May it please your Highness plainly to declare
If you confirm that sentence?

K. Hen.
I confirm it!
'Tis three times ratified. I tell you, Thomas,
I'll have the old times again. The princess scorned
Unction not yours: ere long your hands shall crown her,
Your hands re-crown my son.

Bec.
Alas! the grief
To win all rights, all but the best, the dearest!
You make no mention of the—

K. Hen.
Name them not!
This day is festal: bring no cloud upon it!

Bec.
O would that I had never heard them named,
Ne'er seen them blazoned—

K. Hen.
Thomas, on English shores
All wrongs shall be made right.

Bec.
A morn there was—
Your Highness then had scarce been three months king—
When, in a window of your Woodstock palace—
The birds were singing 'mid the bowers below—
We read some history of pagan days;
It pierced your heart: you started up: you cried,
‘Thrice better were these pagans than your saints!
They loved their native land! They set their eyes
On one small city, small but yet their mother,
And died in its defence!’

K. Hen.
Again I say it!

Bec.
I answered thus; ‘They knew the State alone:
They played at dim rehearsals, yet were true
To truth then man's. They gazed with tearful eyes
Not on their city only, but that rock,
Its marble mother which above it soared
Crowned with that city's fortress and its fanes:
Beyond their gods lived on the “God Unknown:”
Above base mart and popular shout survived
The majesty of law.’

K. Hen.
'Tis true. Thus spake you.

Bec.
But added this:—‘Our God is not unknown:
In omnipresent majesty among us
His Church sits high upon her rock tower-crowned,
Fortress of Law divine and Truth Revealed,
Enthroned o'er every city, realm, and people!
Had we the man-heart of the men of old,
With what a spirit of might invincible
For her should we not die!’

K. Hen.
With tears you spake it.

Bec.
Then judge me justly, O my king, my friend,
Casting far from you, like a sundered chain,
A thought abhorred, an ignominy down-trodden,
The oppression of dead error. Say, shall I,
A Christian bishop, and a subject sworn,
Be pagan more than pagan, doubly false—
False to a heavenly kingdom throned o'er earth,
False to an earthly kingdom raised to heaven,
And ministering there high on the mount of God
'Mid those handmaiden daughters of a King
The kingdoms and the nations of this world,
Who gird the Queen gold-vested? Pagans, sire,
Lived not, though dark, in Babylonian blindness:
The laws of that fair city which they loved
Subjecting each man, raised him and illumed.
We too are citizens of no mean City:
Her laws look forth on us from rite and creed:
In her we venerate Man's Race Redeemed,
Which—cleansed from bestial, and ill spirits expelled—
In unity looks down on us, God's Church,
The Bride of Christ beside the great King throned,
Yea by His sceptre stayed. My king, my friend!
I have done to you no wrong! My many sins
Lay otherwhere. Tenfold their compt would rise
If, sane myself, I pandered to your madness.

K. Hen.
Thomas, you lack what only might convert me:
Could you be England's King, her primate I,
Your part I too would play!

Bec.
And O how nobly
And unlike me in fashion you would play it!
How petty my discourse hath been till now:
Sir, see these things as you will one day see them!
Two lots God places in the hand of each:
We choose; and oft we choose the lot least loved.
Least, though the headlong moment's whim or passion
Yields it a moment's crown:
The youth who slays life's hope in random pleasures
Knows not that deep within his heart—far deeper
Than all base cravings—those affections live
Which sanctified his father's home. Years pass:
Sad memories haunt the old man in his house,
Sad shadows strike the never-lighted hearth,
Sad echoes shake the child-untrodden floors:
A great cry issues from his famished heart—
‘I spurned the lot I loved.’

K. Hen.
My youth is past:
It had its errors; yet within my house
Are voices young and sweet.

Bec.
God keep them such!
Far better silence and the lonely halls
Than war-cries round the hearth. God guard your children!
If you have risen against the Church, your mother,
God guard them from revolt against their sire!
I spake not, sir, of errors in your youth:
A parable was mine.
The soul's revolt is deadlier than the body's:
Sir, that revolt is pride. In time, beware!
That God who shapes us all to glorious end
Proffered to you a glory beyond glory:
Your heart's chief yearning was a new Crusade:
Spurn not true greatness for a phantom greatness!
Your flatterers are your danger: them you trust:
You fear the Church: to her you owe your all:
From her you gat your crown.

K. Hen.
That word is true:
The Church and Theobald, and you not less,
Propped me at need. What then? A king perforce
Reveres the ancient ways.

Bec.
O never in you
Was tender reverence for the ancient ways!
Another mind is yours, a different will,
An adverse aim;—that aim I deem not base:
There's greatness in it; but your means are ruthless.
You love your children; there's your sum of love;
Yours are the passions which torment our clay,
The intellect and the courage which exalt it,
The clear conception of a state and empire—
Yet seen but from below. To raise that state
You crush all ancient wont, all rights and heights:
Your kingdom you would level to a plain
O'erlooked by one hill only, and, thereon
The royal tent.

K. Hen.
God made my heart ambitious.

Bec.
Then be ambitious with a high ambition!
You scorn the lofty daring. Lions nigh,
You hunt the forest vermin.

K. Hen.
Thomas, Thomas!
We kings should tender more our country's peace
Than any personal greatness.

Bec.
Royal sir,
Play not the sophist with yourself or God:
You, you alone have marred your country's peace,
Sapping her faith! Faith is a nation's safety.
Remember, sir, the ‘Battle of the Standard!’
The Scotch king, David, harried all the North:
No king against him marched: 'twas mitred Thurlston:
The freemen of the people round him flocked:
High in a chariot central 'mid that host
Hung the great banners of four English Saints—
Not Saints, Lord King, of Anjou or of Maine—
Cuthbert of Durham, John of Beverley,
Wilfred of Ripon, Peter named of York:
The cry of Albin swept the world before it!
Alone that chariot with its banners stood:
Back fell the astonished clans, and Carlisle's towers
Heard their last wail.

K. Hen.
Barbaric days, my friend!
Turn we to nearer themes. You deem me false,
I know, to friendship old. Impute that fault
To friendship's self. I looked to you for help:
I found my friend my foe.

Bec.
I ne'er deceived you:
I taught you from the first the Church's rights,
Therein through zeal offending your great mother
Who sleeps in God, and moving oft your spleen;
Taught you that nations were not ravening beasts,
Each with its separate spoil and will unquestioned,
But sisters in the bond of Christendom:
I told you pagan nations knew two laws,
Domestic—civil; Christian nations three,
Domestic, civil, apostolical;
Man, that begins a family, through grace
Dilating to the family of Christ,
His utmost limit, and his nature's crown;—
Three spheres engird man's life: I said that none
Might wrong the lesser, none affront the greater:
You knew my heart; from first to last you knew it:
You thought the world would change it; for which cause
You willed me primate.

K. Hen.
Ay, and curse that madness!
I spurn alike your parables and sermons:
I rule my land alone! No more of this!
(After a pause)
The tempest swept athwart me;—it is past.
Thomas, we're friends. Ere long we meet in England:
There you shall have your fill of rights restored:
There, 'mid your frowning foes, the kiss of peace,
That knightly and that kingly pledge of love
Which whoso violates thenceforth is base,
Shall seal our meeting. Louis more than once
Besought me to concede it. What remains
Claim from my son.

Bec.
Sire, ere a king's permission
Had made between a bishop and his see
Plain way once more, your coasts still armed against me
As citizens guard their house by night from thieves,
My course was taken and announced:—return
Once more to my great change.

K. Hen.
A festive nation
Shall meet you landing there.

Bec.
The first, De Broc!
He graces, ten long years, Saltwood, my manor,
And swears that ere this throat has swallowed down
Two English loaves, his knife shall wind around it!
Your pardon, sire; your wandering eye denotes
Your thoughts elsewhere.

K. Hen.
I sought a man I trust:
Would I could send my Lords of Sens and Rouen
To adorn your glad return! I need them both:
Not less a worthy guide shall grace your way,
My friend—a scholar noted—John of Oxford.

Bec.
I know him; and I trust him not. Whoe'er
Your Highness wills is free to share my journey.
I see what I foresaw, and see the end.

K. Hen.
Farewell, my lord: we meet ere long in England!

Bec.
Farewell! I think we shall not meet in England,
And therefore bless you, sire, in France, and now.

K. Hen.
Not meet?

Bec.
I go to England, sire, to die.

K. Hen.
Am I a traitor, Thomas?

Bec.
(after a pause).
Sire, not so.

ACT V.

Scene I.—Gilors.

John of Oxford, and a priest.
John of Oxf.
This to my Lord of London. Make good haste!
Ride day and night! This to my Lord of York:
From every town and hamlet send the tidings
That peace is made, and Becket reconciled,
The Pope contented well, the realm of France
Unanimous in joy.

Priest.
It shall be done.

John of Oxf.
Return at once. All letters for the king
Bring straight to me: I am his secretary.
The journey's costly: take my purse. Good speed!

Scene II.—Wytsand, on the Coast of Boulogne.

Becket, John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, attendants.
Bec.
(standing apart from the rest).
I have tried all ways beside: remains but this.
(After a long pause)
The night comes swiftly like a hunted man
Who cloaks his sin; the sea grows black beneath it;
There's not a crest that thunders on these sands
But sounds some seaman's knell.
The wan spume racing o'er the death-hued waters
This way and that way writhes a bickering lip:
As many winds as waves o'er-rush the deep,
Warring like fiends whose life is hate. Alas!
For him, the ship-boy on the drowning deck!
He never knew the weariness of life,
The sickness of the heart, the sin, the sorrow—
Not thus I hoped to face my native land.
What means this sinking strange? Till now my worst
Was when I saw my sister in her shroud.
Death, when it comes, will not be dread as this:
Death is the least of that which lies before me.
This is mine hour of darkness, and ill powers
Usurp upon my manlier faculties,
Which in the void within me faint and fail,
Like stones that loosen in some high-built arch
Then when the keystone crumbles—
I cannot stamp my foot upon the earth:
Where art thou, Power Divine, my hope till now?
To what obscure and unimagined bourne
Beyond the infinitudes of measureless distance
Hast thou withdrawn thyself? This, this remains;
Seeing no more God's glory on my path
To tread it still as blindfold innocence
Walks 'twixt the burning shares.

John of Sal.
(joining Becket).
Beware, my lord! I know King Henry's eye:
Go not to England. He would have you there,
The man who drave you thence.

Bec.
Our ends are diverse;
Not less my way may lie with his.

John of Sal.
How far?

Bec.
It may be to my church of Canterbury;
It may be to the northern transept there;
It may be to that site I honoured ever,
The altar of Saint Benedict. Thus far
Our paths may blend—then part.

John of Sal.
Go not to England!
I mingled with the sailors of yon ship:
Their captain signed to me: then, with both hands
Laid on my shoulders, and wide, staring eyes,
Thus whispered:—‘Lost! undone! Seek ye your deaths?
All men may land in England—none return.’

Bec.
Behold, I give you warning in good time
Lest anger one day pass the bounds of truth:
King Henry never schemed to shed my blood
Dungeons low-vaulted, and a lifelong chain;—
That was the royal dream. Return, my friend.
[John of Salisbury departs.
Thank God, that cloud above my spirit lightens!
Danger, when near, hath still a trumpet's sound:
It may be that I have not lived in vain;
Let me stand once within the young king's presence,
Yea though the traitors should besiege him round,
Close as the birds yon rock—

Arch. of Sens
(arriving).
My lord, God save you!

Bec.
One kind act more; you come to say fare-well.
My brother, and my lord, four years rush back
And choke my heart! We are both too old for weeping:
I am a shade that fleets. May centuries bless
That house so long my home!

Arch.
The see of Sens
Has had you for her guest; our fair cathedral
And yours are sisters: be the omen blest!
Perhaps in future ages men may say,
‘Thomas of Canterbury, Sens' poor William—
These men, so far apart in gifts of grace,
Were one in mutual love.’

Bec.
My lord, in heaven
Not earth alone, that love shall be remembered.
Bear back my homage to your good French king,
That great and joyous Christian gentleman,
Who keeps his youth in age. Firmly he walks
The royal road—faith, hope, and charity,
To throne more royal and a lordlier kingdom.
Pray him to live with Henry from this hour
In peace.

Arch.
The king will ask of your intent.

Bec.
Tell him we play at heads. God rules o'er all.
Farewell!

Arch.
Good friend, and gracious lord, farewell!

[The Archbishop of Sens departs, attended.
Her. of Bos.
(arriving).
As good to go to heaven by sea as land!
Sail we, my lord, this evening?

Bec.
Herbert, Herbert!
Before thou hast trod in England forty days
All that thou hast right gladly wouldst thou give
To stand where now we stand. What sable shape
Is that which sits on yonder rock, alone,
Nor heeds the wild sea-spray?

Her.
My lord, Idonea;
She too makes way to England, and desires
Humbly your Grace's audience.

Bec.
Lead her hither.
[Herbert departs.
Herbert and John—both gone—how few are like them!
They helped me on rough ways. In Herbert still,
So holy and so infant-like his soul,
I found a mountain-spring of Christian love
Upbursting through the rock of fixed resolve,
A spring of healing strength; in John, a mind
That, keener than diplomatists of kings,
Was crafty only 'gainst the wiles of craft,
And, stored with this world's wisdom, scorned to use it
Except for heavenly aims.
The end draws nigh. Nor John nor Herbert sees it.
[His attendants approach with Idonea.
Earth's tenderest spirit and bravest! Welcome, child!
Soft plant in bitter blast! Adieu, my friends;
This maid hath tidings for my private ear.
[The attendants depart.
My message reached you then, my child, at Rouen?
But what is this? Is that the countenance turned
So long to yon dark West?

Ido.
Love reigns o'er all!—
My father, who but you should hear the tale?
I had forsaken that fair Norman home
To seek my English convent, and those shores
Denied me long. The first night of my journey
There came to me a vision. All alone
I roamed, methought, some forest lion-thronged
And dinned all night by breakers of great seas,
Booming far off. In fear I raised my head:
T'ward me there moved two Forms, female in garb,
In stature and in aspect more than human;
The loftier wore a veil.

Bec.
You knew the other?

Ido.
The Empress! In that face, so sad of old,
Was sadness more unlike that former sadness
Than earthly joy could seem. Within it, lived
A peace to earth unknown, and, with that peace,
The hope serene of one whose heaven is sure.
She placed within my hand a shining robe,
And spake:—‘For him whom most thou lov'st on earth:’—
It was a shroud.

Bec.
A shroud?

Ido.
And other none
Than that which, 'mid the snows of Pontigny,
Enswathed your sister, as in death she lay
Amid the waxlight sheen. It bore that cross
I traced in sanguine silk before the burial.
This is, my lord, men say, your day of triumph,
Christ's foes subjected and His rights restored;
Doubtless long years of greatness lie before you:
Perhaps for that cause she, an Empress once,
Knowing that triumph is our chief of dangers,
Sent you that holy warning.

Bec.
I accept it.
Spake not that other?

Ido.
Suddenly a glory
Forth burst that lit huge trunk and gloomiest cave:
That queenlier Presence had upraised her veil.

Bec.
You knew her face?

Ido.
And learned what man shall be
When risen to incorrupt. It was your sister!

Bec.
Great God! I guessed it.

Ido.
In her hand she held
A crown whose radiance quenched the heavenly signs;
The star-crown of the elect who bore the Cross.
With act benign she placed it in my hand,
And spake:—‘For him thou lov'st the most on earth.’
It was her being spake—her total being—
Body and spirit, not her lips alone.
I heard: I saw. That vision by degrees
Ceased from before me;—long the light remained:
A cloudless sun was rising, pale and dim,
In that great glory lost.

Bec.
My daughter, tell me—

Ido.
This storm is nothing; nor a world in storm!
The rage of nations, and the wrath of kings!
God sits above the roaring water-floods:
He in our petty tumults hath His peace,
And we our peace in His. Man's life is good;
Death better far.

Bec.
Was this a dream or vision?

Ido.
A vision and from God. The man who dreams
Makes question none if dream it be or real:
But when he wakes, well knows he that he dreams not:
Thus knew I that I dreamed not.

Bec.
Dream and vision
Are both God's heralds oft—

Ido.
To make us strong
In duteous tasks, not lull the soul, or soften.
That vision past, tenfold in me there burned
The craving once again to tread our England,
Where fiercest is the battle for the Faith.
Thither this night I sail.

Bec.
In three days I.
Ere then a perilous task must be discharged:
The Pope hath passed the sentence of suspension
On two schismatic bishops, London and York.
See you these parchments with the leaded seals?
They must be lodged within the offenders' hands—
Chiefly the hands of York—and lodged moreover
While witnesses are by. Llewellen failed
But late with missives charged of milder sort:
If this time he succeeds, and yet is captured,
Send tidings in his place.

Ido.
Llewellen's known;
Was late in England; all your friends are known.
Those prelates both are now, I think, in London:
On Sunday morning this poor hand of mine
Shall lodge that sentence, ay, and hold it fast,
Within the hand of York.

Bec.
The danger's great:
The habit of a nun might lull suspicion:
Not less, the deed accomplished—

Ido.
Can they find
Dungeon so deep that God will not be there,
And those twain memories which beside me move,
My soul's defence, a mother's and a brother's?
Or death? One fears to live, for life is sin:
One fears not death. Your sister 'mid the snows
Upon this bosom died: she feared not death;
While breath remained she thanked her God, and praised Him.
The Empress on this bosom died; death near,
She was most humbly sad, most sweetly fearful;
But, closer as it drew, her hope rose high,
And all was peace at last.

Bec.
Then go, my child.
You claim a great prize—meet it is you find it.
May He who made, protect you! May His saints,
Fair-flowering and full-fruited in His beam,
Sustain you with their prayers; His angel host
In puissance waft you to your earthly bourne,
In splendour to your heavenly. Earth, I think,
Hath many a destined work for that small hand;—
Sigh not as yet for heaven!

Ido.
I will not, father:
I wait His time.

Bec.
The wind has changed to south:
The sea grows smoother, and a crimson light
Shines on the sobbing sands. Beyond the cliff
The sun sets red. This is the mandate, child;
Farewell, and pray for me!

[Idonea kneels, kisses his hand, and departs.
Her.
(returning with the rest).
Bad rumours thicken—

Bec.
In three days hence I tread my native shores.

Llew.
With what intent?

Bec.
To stamp this foot of mine
Upon the bosom of a waiting grave,
And wake a slumbering realm.

Llew.
May it please your Grace—

Bec.
My friends, seven years of exile are enough:
If into that fair church I served of old
I may not entrance make, a living man,
Let them who loved me o'er its threshold lift
And lay my body dead.

Scene III.—Sea-shore at Dover.

The Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London and of Salisbury.
Gil.
The boors at Sandwich as his ship drew near
Noting the great cross archiepiscopal,
Met him breast high in the waves.

Joce. of Sal.
The women hailed him
The orphan's father, and the widow's judge:
From Sandwich to the gates of Canterbury
The concourse, as he passed them, knelt, and sang
‘Blessed the man who cometh in God's name!’

Gil.
De Broc and our retainers, as he landed,
Drew near, their armour hidden 'neath their vests,
Protesting with fierce brows against our wrong:
Becket thus answered: ‘With your king's consent—
Two hundred men together heard him speak it—
The Pope suspends those bishops for their sin.’
If Henry yields, all's lost.

Roger.
The king's consent!
'Twas he who bade us crown the prince his son!

Gil.
The game is played, and lost. The cards were with us—
A king magnanimous, and an angry queen
Foe of our foe; an emperor whose sword
Warred on the crosier; and an antipope;
The barons with us, and the people cowed.
These things were for us; what was there against us?
One man—one man alone; not trained in schools;
No canonist; with scant ascetic fame;
A man once worldly warred on by the world:
My lords, this man, subduing his own heats,
And learning how to wait, hath to himself
Well-nigh subdued the realm. No course remains
This day, except to yield.

Joce.
We had these helps;
But policy had none.

Roger.
My lord, we had one:
A day ere Becket landed all was marred.
I at Saint Paul's had sung that morn the mass:
The king was standing with his courtiers round him;
Then drew to me a nun in black, and knelt:
She raised, in humble sort, a scroll. I took it.
She closed my hand in both of hers, and cried,
‘A mandate from the Pope with his command
To read the same aloud.’ The papal seal—
The Fisherman's—witnessed that scroll authentic:
Perforce I read it. 'Twas my own suspension!

Joce.
The nun?

Roger.
Through folly of the king she 'scaped:
The boy but laughed; then sent her to her convent,
Therein to plot and pray.

Joce.
Her name?

Be Broc
(who has just ridden up).
Idonea!
The accursèd veil hid not the hand! I knew it.
I knew it, and remembered well that day
When, as she passed me, by the primate's side
Issuing from Canterbury's sanctuary,
I said, ‘That small white hand shall dig his grave!’
From John of Oxford this! he landed late
At Sandwich with the traitor.

Roger.
Sir, I thank you.
(Reads)
‘The king has given consent to those suspensions,
And stands impledged to fill the vacant sees.
Wring, from this darkness, dawn! At once—unbidden—
In over-measure crown his six years' suit.
Send him six canons from each vacant see:
Let these elect the bishop he shall choose,
In his own chapel, yea, in his own presence;
The royal heart will then be wholly yours:
Make speed across the seas.’

Gil.
At once—we must:
I much misdoubt this youthful king.

De Broc.
Attend:
Where'er the traitor moves I hem him round
With horsemen fierce and free. Without a guard
He dares not move. Now mark! A guard's an army!
A larger army is that rabble-rout
Which dogs his steps. Scare the young king with rumours;
Wake up his spleen; tell him the primate's sworn
To abase a prince ill crowned.

Gil.
The prince, thus warned,
When Becket reaches London must repel him.
His heart will sink; the people's zeal will slack,
And wild tales rush abroad.

De Broc.
The self-same rumours
Shall fire the father-king.

Roger.
A sager counsel—

De Broc.
Sage heads and keen of England, and of France
That think ye see so far, I tell you this,
Within the hollow heart of all your sageness
A blind worm works! Farewell! Ere long you'll cry,
‘The strong hand of De Broc was worth us all.’

[He gallops away. The rest, except Gilbert of London, walk rapidly towards the harbour.
Gil.
(alone).
Somewhere—I know not when—I know not how—
I took, methinks, one step—one little step—
A hair's breadth only from the righteous way.
Where will this end? I know not. This I know,
A man there is I hate; his name is Becket.

Scene IV.—The Great Hall of the Palace of Bur, near Bayeux.

In parts of the hall tables are spread; in other parts the guests converse. At the higher end stand two thrones, on one of which Queen Eleanor sits. Cornwall, Leicester, the Bishop of Lisieux, De Tracy, De Moreville, Brito, courtiers, ladies, guests, and minstrels.
Q. Elea.
Be merry, lords; we keep our birthday feast:
Share ye the royal joy!

Cours.
God save the Queen!

Corn.
(to Leicester).
Five weeks that splendour strengthened on his brow;
Revolted feudatories made submission;
Flanders and France were leagued with him in love:
Then once again that inward grief returned;
New nightmares vexed his bed.

Q. Elea.
Set forth a dance!

Leic.
(to Cornwall).
Sir, the heart hardening maketh soft the brain:
He is not what he was. Of old, when wrath
Hurled forth its fiercest flame, his mind not less
Rushed up keen-edged within it and above it
A spear's length higher;—higher rose his will:
To-day his angers drag aside his purpose
Which oftenest finds its end in accident:
He hath done his own soul wrong.

Corn.
Greatness goes from him.

[The king enters with John of Oxford; they converse apart in a window.
John of Oxf.
He's hot, the goal in sight; his native airs
Dissolve that frosty caution exile taught him:
He said, ‘My lords of Rouen and of Sens
Save for that king had brought me home in honour:’
He plots; but plots not war. Leicester, I note,
Whispers: his zeal takes cold.

K. Hen.
What meant those letters?

John of Oxf.
His knave that blabbed his secret knew not that:
One was for Scotland's king, and four, he thought,
For princes rebel late in Wales; the rest
For earls in England malcontent.

K. Hen.
He dares not.

John of Oxf.
Doubtless he dares not; and that popular zeal
Which hailed him landing, was but madness old:
He plays a deeper game than treason.

K. Hen.
Ha!

John of Oxf.
The realm invaded, or those earls in arms,
He blows the Church's trumpet,—marches to London;
Commends himself deliverer of the king;
Recovers straight his pupil's childish love,
Or mildly, else, inthralls him.

Q. Elea.
Flavel, sing!
I dance no more.

Lis.
(to Leicester).
Her Highness is not pleased:
The man she hates hath triumphed. Year by year
She urged his Highness 'gainst my lord the primate;
Of late she whets him with more complicate craft:
She knows that all she likes the king dislikes,
And feigns a laughing, new-born zeal for Becket,
To sting the royal wrath.

K. Hen.
(to John of Oxford).
He never should have trod those English shores.

John of Oxf.
As freeman, never;—said I not as much?
The young king's council should have found those letters;
And dealt him traitor's doom. Please it your Highness,
'Tis not too late. My Lord Justiciary
Stands by the council's side.

K. Hen.
I dare not, John;
His death, though death by chance, would wrong my heart—
Imprisonment itself requires pretext.
There are that watch us: mingle with the crowd.

[John of Oxford departs.
Q. Elea.
[The king approaches and sits on a chair not far from the queen's throne.

K. Hen.
Our queen is mirthful.

Q. Elea.
When Becket rose, a man was England's king:
Finding such charge too onerous for such manhood
He slipped his burthen, and a boy sits throned;
Wears a straw crown. Becket is king in substance;
Why not in name? Though secular kings—when saints—
Have spurned that siren, Power, he need not fear her:
Yon bird grows sleek on weeds poison to us,
So doth mine earlier favourite Punchinello,
And Becket, meekly wearing crowns of earth,
Shall merit heaven's the more.

K. Hen.
Our queen goes mad!

Q. Elea.
My southern realm remains. That sunnier half
Outweighs the whole;—and yet not thus you deemed,
Husband, that time when, Stephen dead, you sued
Your wife's good aid. I made you King of England!
My strong Provencal fleet o'erawed that day
Your English barons; barred them from allies:
That hour the work was mine; the jest was yours:
You thought it laughter-worth. My turn comes next!
Ye that have goblets, brim them! Mark this cup:
It flames with Albi's wine.

[Queen Eleanor rises and stands on the highest step of the throne with a golden cup in her right hand.
Leic.
(to Lisieux).
Behold her, Lisieux!
That smile is baleful as a winter beam
Streaking some coast wreck-gorged;—her hair and eyes
Send forth a glare half sunshine and half lightning—

Q. Elea.
A health, my lords! the London merchant's son,
Once England's primate—henceforth King of England!

K. Hen.
(leaping to his feet and half drawing his sword).
Woman, be silent!

Fitz-Urse
(entering).
May it please your Highness,
My lords of York, London, and Salisbury
Are come from England, charged with news not good:
My lord of London, worn, and somewhat faint,
Rests by the gate.

K. Hen.
Command them to the presence.

[The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Salisbury enter, followed by Gilbert of London, low bent and leaning on John of Oxford.

Scene V.—The porch of Canterbury Cathedral.

Herbert of Bosham, John of Salisbury; near them attendants, waiting the arrival of Becket.
Her.
Here stood we on his consecration feast:
The long years dragged: to-day they seem but weeks,
A dove-flight of white weeks through vernal air.

John of Sal.
Herbert, you jar me with your ceaseless triumphs
And hope 'gainst hope. You are like a gold leaf dropped
From groves immortal of the Church triumphant
To mock the rough wave of our Church in storm:
I pray you, chafe at times! The floods are out!
I say the floods are out! This way and that
They come a-sweeping.

Her.
Wheresoe'er they sweep
The eye of God pursues them, and controls:
That which they are to Him, that only are they:
The rest is pictured storm.

John of Sal.
How sped your journey?

Her.
From first to last De Broc with wrong assailed us;
But on us, like a passionate south wind, blew
The greetings of the loyal and the just.
We rode two days. London's old tower in sight,
We met the citizens; for miles forth streamed they
To meet their citizen—for so they hailed him.
The poor came first; then merchants and their wives;
Next, clad in gold, the mayor and aldermen;
And, lastly, priests intoning Benedictus
Scarce heard amid the pealing of the bells.
On London Bridge the houses at each side
That topped with their quaint gables every arch,
Hung tapestries forth, their roofs o'erswarmed with gazers;
The ships were purpled o'er with flags that waving
Painted the crystal bosom of the Thames—
More swayed by popular ecstasies, it seemed,
Than shiftings of the wind.

John of Sal.
How looked our Thomas?

Her.
Passing, he gave the blessing with still smile.
One time he laughed: 'twas when a crazy beldam
Cried from the crowd, ‘Beware the knife, archbishop!’
Sighed once—'twas when he passed his parents' door
Flower-garlanded; the gayest in Cheapside.

John of Sal.
Where lodged he?

Her.
At my Lord of Winton's palace.
At eve he paced the gardens, by his side
Saint Albans' abbot, Simon. I was near:
I marked him draw the right hand of the abbot
Within his robe;—then heard, ‘My friend, my friend,
Things are not what they seem!’

John of Sal.
Saw he his pupil?

Her.
At ten next morning Joceline of Louvaine
Sent by that pupil rudely sought the primate:
The boy-king bade him back to Canterbury!
‘Shall I not barely see the royal face?’
Thus answered he—no more. If ever grief
Cast shadow on man's face, I saw it then.
He sat till noon had struck; then bade to horse.

John of Sal.
Your homeward way was hardest?

Her.
Hardest thrice;
The news had gone abroad, and many shunned us;
Aggression hourly wore a fiercer front;
More contumelious brows were on us bent:
Here lay the bridge a ruin; shafts assailed us;
The dyke was cut; the road in water drowned:
We heard, one time, the spleenful horn of knaves
That hunted in his Grace's woods: as yet
They dared no more. The Council sought De Luci:
The strong man thus made answer to their suit;
‘I am this kingdom's High Justiciary,
And not your faction's hangman. Four years since
I deemed the Legate wrought 'gainst England's laws,
And acted on that thought. The Legate banned me:

Richard de Luci ‘founded the Abbey of Lesnes in Kent, in honour of the martyr [Becket], and became a canon there after his resignation’ (Professor Stubbs's ‘Constitutional History,’ vol. i. p. 469).

I deemed his censures dealt “errante clave”
And put them from my mind. Now ye wrong him:
I run not with your pack.’

John of Sal.
Brave man and true!
How few know friend from foe! Now hear my tale:
Go where I might, except among the poor,
'Twas all one massed conspiracy of error,
Close-woven, and labyrinthed, millions in one;
Conspiracy, and yet unconscious half;
For, though, far down, there worked one plastic mind,
The surface seemed fortuitous concurrence,
One man the hook supplying, one the eye,
Here the false maxim, there the fact suborned,
This the mad hope, and that the grudge forgotten.
The lawyer wrote the falsehood in the dust
Of mouldering scrolls; with sighs the Court-priest owned it;
The minstrel tossed it gaily from his strings;
The witling lisped it, and the soldier mouthed it.
These lies are thick as dust in March—

Her.
Which galls us,
Yet clothes the expectant harvest fields with gold.

John of Sal.
(After a pause)

Her.
That dust, good John,
Is more illusive than my dreams and visions
So oft your sport. Our hope is otherwhere.
The primate bade that old man house at home
A white head, England's pride. Hark, hark, a hymn!
Saint Stephen's feast comes soon. The good choir-master
Rehearses some sweet anthem in his praise.
There's not a saint in heaven dearer to Thomas!

A man in a mask
(coming up rapidly).
A troop of horse makes way through the south gate:
Richard de Humet sent them—he who left
The king at Bayeux late.

A man
(disguised as a cripple, detaching himself from the crowd and joining them).
Flee while ye may!—the primate helped me once:
Unless he 'scape to-night, he sees not Tuesday.

[Rejoins the revellers.
[Becket approaches at the head of a procession.
Her.
Lo, the procession comes!

John of Sal.
The primate walks
As one that died, and rose, and dies no more.

Her.
I note in him one strength the world detects not:
The Church for others hath seven sacraments;
For him she keeps an eighth—the poor of Christ!
Lo there! As often as he gives them alms
He lay on them his hands.

John of Sal.
As one that loves them?

Her.
As one that, touching them, draws strength from God;
Wins more than he bestows. He stops; he stands;—
The exile gazes on his church again:
He kneels with arms outstretched, like holy Andrew
When venerating from afar his cross!
[As Becket enters the cathedral Herbert goes up to him.
Now die if thus God wills! I never spake
That word before. In thee Christ's Church hath conquered.
Now die whene'er God wills. We die together.

[Becket looks at him fixedly, and passes on.

Scene VI.—A Street in Canterbury.

Citizens.
1st Cit.
We are trapped and fooled. Death to the plotters! Haste!

2nd Cit.
And which be they?

1st Cit.
Who knows?

3rd Cit.
A saint is Thomas!
None questions that our primate is a saint;
We'd fight for him and gladly, were he sound:
But sanctity, some think, hath crazed his brain;—
He comes not forth, as once.

4th Cit.
A knight from London
Saw all, and wept to tell it. Nine long hours
The primate, girt with French and Flemish hordes,
Besieged the young king's gates. Richard de Luci
Past hope arriving, quenched the flames just lit:
The rebels fled by night.

2nd Cit.
The father-king
Will rage at this.

4th Cit.
He'll rage that two months since,
When Thomas wept before the royal feet,
He suffered his return. Good John of Oxford
Pledged faith that hour for Canterbury's sons,
Whom as his own he loves.

1st Cit.
Who told you that?

4th Cit.
The same old knight, kinsman of John of Oxford;
And John, he said, saw all.

An old Knight
(riding up).
God save you, sirs!
Conspirators are ye fat and well-liking!
Which lies the loudest?

Several Cits.
Nay, sir, true men we.

Old Knight.
Sirs, ye are Saxons; Saxons speak no truth;
Else, wherefore hid they long like thieves in caverns
To keep their treasons warm? What beast are you
That with your foul hand stain my horse's neck
Which shone like glass?—Let none deceive you, friends!
They'll leave you later to the royal wrath
Which, roused by wrong, burned late three towns in Maine.
Beware of full-fed priests and haughty bishops!
The Conqueror sent you bishops staid and sage,
Most part from Normandy. They spake not English;
So vexed you not with sermons. What, my friends,
A man may go to heaven, yet hear not sermons!
That chime's my dinner bell! God save you, sirs,
And purge your primate's pride! A saint I deem him;
No doubt there's healing latent in his bones;
De Broc hath sworn to boil the proud flesh off them
To make the relics sooner serviceable.
Be wary, sirs; the knife is at your throat!

[Rides away.

Scene VII.—A room in the Archiepiscopal Palace at Canterbury.

The Prior of Merton, Llewellen.
Llew.
Three bishops had arrived the day before me
At Bayeux while the king and queen held feast:
They instanced with such art the primate's rage,
Compassionated so well the kingdom's wrongs,
Some drew their swords; the king looked round and cried,
‘Your counsel, lords?’ They answered, ‘We are priests:
Your captains and your peers shall best advise you.’
Leicester spake first;—'twas parable, not counsel.
Malvoisin next—a babbler. Bohun thus:
‘I know not what can deal with knaves revolted
But wicker-rope or sword.’ Then with dropped eyes,
Gilbert of London, rising, both his hands
Clasped on his breast, spake softly thus: ‘My lords,
Behoves us in this crisis to be meek
Lest we too much inflame the primate's zeal,
Who, like a king, an army at his back,
In vengeance sweeps from shore to shore of England
To abase a king ill-crowned.’

Prior.
What answered Henry?

Llew.
There fell on him that frenzy of his race
Which threats the world with doom. I know not all—
The men that saw it saw as in a trance
And what they saw divulge not save in part.
The fire-cloud of that wrath burned out at last:
The Ill Spirits left him. On the rush-strewn floor
There sat he glaring maniac-like, the straws
Now kneading and now gnawing. That too passed:
The king was standing in their midst: his eye
Slowly he turned from each to each; then spake
With pointed finger, and with serpent hiss:
‘Slaves, slaves, not barons hath my kingdom bred,
Slaves that in silence stand, and eye their king
Mocked by a low-born knave!’

Prior.
None answered? Ha!

Llew.
No man. From that mute hall four knights forth strode—
Fitz-Urse, De Tracy, Moreville, Richard Brito.
At twelve last night they entered Saltwood gates:
De Broc attended them.

Prior.
The end draws nigh.

Scene VIII.—A room in the Archiepiscopal Palace at Canterbury.

John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham.
Her.
At Pontigny—the day before he left it—
Within the chapel of the protomartyr,
His mass, the earliest in that church, just said,
He knelt in prayer. The words were:—‘Thomas, Thomas!’
‘Who art Thou, Lord?’ he answered. Then the voice,
‘Thomas, I am thy Brother, and thy Lord:
My Church shall in thy blood be glorified,
And thou in Me.’

John of Sal.
That voice was but his thought!

Her.
The abbot then of Pontigny, just chosen
Lyon's archbishop, came to say farewell:
He stood behind a pillar and heard all.
From him I learned it. Thomas kept it secret.
Thank God! What comes to him shall come to us:—
There's naught to fear.

John of Sal.
Herbert, I love my friend;
But 'twas his triumph, not his death, I looked for:
For him I scarce should fear to die; and yet
I love not death. Ere comes that hour, there's much
To learn, to read, to do, and to repent.
—The solid earth shivers as ship in storm:
The ground is earthquake-shaken: shadows vast
Far flung, and whence we know not, o'er it sweep:
Fiercely the lightnings glare—

Her.
Meantime God's Church
Nor hastes, nor halts, nor frets, nor is amazed.

John of Sal.
What doth she then?

Her.
A smile upon her lips,
She stands with eyes close fixed upon her Lord,
Nay, on His sacred vestment's lowest hem,
To see where next He moves.

John of Sal.
Herbert, I wronged you:
A mystic, feeding on faith's inmost lore—
A dreamer, scanning mysteries in flowers—
I guessed not of your strength.

Scene IX.—Archiepiscopal Palace at Canterbury.

Edward Grim, Llewellen, monks.
1st Monk.
Saint Stephen's festival! Another Christmas!
Easter's our sunrise; Pentecost is noon:
But Christmas is the aurora, pure and white;
God's feast it is of innocence and snow,
The Maid and Babe, angels and simple shepherds;
'Tis Mary's week in winter, sweet as May:—

Llew.
What stranger's yon?

2nd Monk.
They call him Edward Grim;
Poor scholar late at Cambridge: long he yearned
To see the primate.

Llew.
Ill he timed his visit:
None wants him here.

Grim
(in a low voice to a monk).
Proceed, my friend, I pray you.

3rd Monk
(to Grim).
On Christmas night he sang the midnight mass—
Our Benedictine rite. At noon he preached,
‘Peace upon earth,’ his text. ‘We have not here
Abiding city, but we look for one;’
Thus he began: ‘Is this at war with peace?
Nay, this alone is peace: bereft of all things,
Then most our God is ours; and God is peace.’
Next spake he of the saints of Canterbury:
‘Ye have a Martyr likewise, Saint Elphege,
And God may give you, friends, ere long another.’
On all sides sobs burst forth, and wail was heard,
‘Father, desert us not;’—one little moment
With them he wept; and then in strength resumed:
Like some great anthem was that sermon's close,
The whole church glowing with seraphic joy.

4th Monk.
The man is changed.

3rd Monk.
Seldom he speaks; his smile
Is like that smile upon a dead man's face,
A mystery of sweetness.

Llew.
Lo, he comes!

Bec.
(entering with Herbert).
Herbert, my friend beloved, depart this night;
Consign these letters to the good French king:
And you, my chaplain, Richard, speed to Norwich;
In my name bid its bishop to absolve
All who in ignorance erred.

Her.
No power shall move me!
My lord, once only pardon disobedience!
We two have shared great dangers: let us share,
If so God wills, the last!

Bec.
I have had from you,
Herbert, great love! I claim this hour a greater:
Shake not my heart with any earthly passion:
More late we say farewell. Bertram, next morn
Seek out that aged priest we met at Wortham,
That kind old man who serves another's charge:
This deed confers upon him Penshurst's church;
Let it be his ere noon. My brave Llewellen,
To Rome, and bear these letters to the Pope!
That bitter word you spake at Clarendon
To him one moment Satan's blinded thrall,
Saved him when all but lost. Except for you
I had up-towered this day in Europe's face
Robed in the total greatness of my country—
Within, a soul undone! At dawn we keep
The feast of him who, sole of the apostles,
Died not for Christ. Perchance he loved Him most!
Perchance, so great a thing is love, that death,
The martyr's death, could add not to its greatness.
The Church boasts next her Holy Innocents,
Martyrs through grace, though not their own intention:
What saint makes beautiful the third day hence?

A Monk.
It lacks as yet its crown.

Bec.
We give it then
To Saint Elphege, martyr of Canterbury
Then when the Dane devastated the land:
His anthem I must hear once more. Farewell!
[He moves away, but stops for a moment before a window.
How fair, how still, that snowy world! The earth
Lies like a white rose under eyes of God—
May it send up a sweetness!

Scene X.—Canterbury Cathedral—the north transept.

John of Salisbury and a monk.
Monk.
Within his chamber we had sung our nocturns:
The office finished, for an hour or more
He stood beside the casement open flung
Despite the flying flakes. I heard him murmur,
‘They deck one day with gems the martyr's shrine—
Tears, tears fall seldom on a churchman's grave:
Is that a loss? Ah me!’ Again I heard him:
‘Herbert, my tenderest friend, and John, my wisest,
Both, both for me have lost their earthly all:
These must live on, bereft.’ More late he asked
If Sandwich might be reached ere break of day:
We answered, ‘Yea—two hours ere dawn.’ Once more
He stood forth-gazing through the winter night;
Then spake aloud, ‘Whate'er God hath in store,
Thomas will wait it patient in his church:
He leaves that church no more.’

John of Sal.
The last chance lost!

Monk.
At yonder altar of Saint Benedict
He said his mass; then in the chapter-house
Conversed with two old monks of things divine:
Next for his confessor he sent, and made
Confession with his humble wont, but briefly;
Last, sat with us an hour, and held discourse
Full gladsomely. I never marked till then
How joyous was his eye. An old monk cried,
‘Thank God, my lord, you make good cheer!’ He answered,
‘Who goeth to his Master should be glad.’

John of Sal.
His Master! Ay, his Master! Still as such
He thought of God; he loved Him;—in himself
Saw nothing great or wise—simply a servant.
Ere yet his earliest troubles had begun
I heard him say, ‘A bishop should protect
That holy thing, God's Church, to him committed,
Not only from the world but from himself,
Loving, not hers, but her, with reverent love,
A servant's love that, gazing, fears to touch her:
As Mary in the guardian Patriarch's house
Such should she be in his.’

Monk.
We little knew him!
We chose him; but with scanty love or trust.

John of Sal.
He hated rapine; warred on sacrilege—
Trod down abuses; then an outcast lived,
Outcast and exile. Had he reigned ten years
His name had been for aye ‘the Great Reformer.’
—Peace, peace! O God, we make our tale of him
As men that praise the dead!

Monk.
We who have stalls are summoned. Lo, they come.

[The monks of St. Augustine's enter the Cathedral; they advance to the chapel of the Chapter, joined by John of Salisbury and all the other Benedictines, and immediately begin vespers. During the singing of the psalms, a cry bursts out in the streets, accompanied by a rush of soldiers against the southern gates. The monks continue the sacred rite. A few minutes later a procession enters from the cloister, Becket walking last, preceded by his cross-bearer. Having reached a spot in the north transept, midway between the altar of the Blessed Virgin and that of St. Benedict, he stands still.
Bec.
Those who are monks must take their place at vespers:
Make haste, and join the Chapter. Ye are late.

[His attendants obey him; none remaining with Becket except the Prior of Merton, Fitz-Stephen, and Edward Grim. A few monks stand close within the western gates of the Cathedral. A rush of feet is heard outside, and cries of ‘Open the gates—save us!’
Monk.
Keep barred the gates—the soldiers once among us—

Fitz-Ste.
(coming up).
The primate bids you fling the portals wide:
He says a church must not be made a castle:
‘Let all my people in.’

[Fitz-Stephen returns. The gates are opened; a terrified crowd rushes in; solidiers pursue them; but on entering the Cathedral are overawed and kneel. Vespers proceed.
Bec.
A martyr's anthem!

Fitz-Ste.
Yea; our great Elphege.

Bec.
Thank God! I wished to hear his praise once more.

Prior.
The church grows dark as night.

Fitz-Ste.
A deed more dark—

[The soldiers rise from their knees and stand round the gates.
Prior.
My lord archbishop, seek the sanctuary!

Bec.
My place is here;—farewell, my friends!

Prior.
In the cloister
I hear an armed tread: a postern's there;
Not many know it. Who be those four knights,
In sable mailed and fiercely onward striding
With vizors down?

[Fitz-Urse, De Tracy, Brito, and De Moreville enter.
Fitz-Ste.
I know their guide—him only:
De Broc it is—De Broc!

Bec.
Seek out, my friends,
That chapel where they sing—ye cannot see it—
Their rite completed, bid them chaunt Te Deum.

[The Prior and Fitz-Stephen depart; the poor scholar, Edward Grim, alone remains with Becket. The four knights arrive, but at first do not see the primate, who is screened by a pillar.
Fitz-Urse.
Where is the traitor?

Bec.
(advancing, and standing opposite the altar of St. Benedict).
Here I stand; no traitor,
But priest of God, and primate of this land.

Fitz-Urse
(after looking at him long).
God help thee, priest! At once absolve those bishops!

Bec.
The Church of God suspends them for their sin;
The king approved that sentence; thrice approved:
Two hundred heard him: you were of their number.

Fitz-Urse.
Never.

Bec.
I saw you, and God saw you there.

Fitz-Urse.
Remove those censures.

Bec.
You have had your answer.
Reginald, Reginald! Alas! light man,
That giv'st thine all for naught! If yet thou canst,
Repent and live!

Fitz-Urse.
He threatens—lo, he threatens!
Our lives he threatens, and reviles the king!
He'll place the realm beneath an interdict;—
Traitor! thine hour is come!

[He draws his sword, the rest close around Becket.
Bec.
Ye that would slay the shepherd, spare the sheep!
If not, I bind you with the Church's sentence:
That which ye do, do here.

Fitz-Urse.
In death itself
This man must dominate! Strike him down and slay him!

Bec.
(crossing his hands over his breast, and bending forward).
My spirit I commend to God Most High,
The prayers of Mary mother of my Lord,
And those two martyrs of the Church of God,
Saints Denys and Elphege.

[William de Tracy draws his sword, and aims a blow at Becket. Edward Grim intercepts it with his arm, which is nearly severed. The sword descends, notwithstanding, on the head of Becket.
Bec.
I yield Thee thanks, my Maker and my God!
Receive my soul.

[He falls forward on his knees. The second blow is struck by Fitz-Urse, and the third by Brito.
Bec.
For the great name of Jesus, and that Church
Cleansed by His saving blood, with joy I die.

[He falls forward on his face and dies.
De More.
O black and dreadful day! Earth reels beneath us!

Fitz-Urse.
The traitor's dead! He'll rise no more: rush forth!
And ever make your cry, ‘King's men are we!’

[They rush forth waving their swords and shouting ‘King's men!’

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ODE TO THE DAFFODIL.

A FAREWELL.

SONG.

A PICTURE OF HERODIAS' DAUGHTER BY LUINI.

VANITY.

CHAUCER.

SPENSER.

ODE, WRITTEN BESIDE THE LAGO VARESE.

ODE.

THE GOLDEN MEAN.

LINES COMPOSED NEAR SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI, ON ALL SOULS' DAY, 1856.

SONNETS.

1.

At times I lift mine eyes unto ‘the Hills
Whence my salvation cometh’—ay, and higher—
And, the mind kindling with the heart's desire,
Mount to that realm nor blight nor shadow chills:
With concourse of bright forms that region thrills:
I see the Lost One midmost in the choir:
From heaven to heaven, on wings that ne'er can tire,
I soar; and God Himself my spirit fills.
If that high rapture lasted need were none
For aid beside, nor any meaner light,
Nothing henceforth to seek, and nought to shun:—
But my soul staggers at its noonday height
And, stretching forth blind hands, a shape undone,
Drops back into the gulfs of mortal night.

2.

Then learn I that the Fancy's saintliest flight
Gives or a fleeting, or a false relief;
And fold my hands and say, ‘Let grief be grief,
Let winter winter be, and blight be blight!’
O Thou all-wise, all-just, and infinite!
Whate'er the good we clasped, the least, the chief,
Was Thine, not ours, and held by us in fief;
Thy Will consummate in my will's despite!
‘Blessèd the Dead:’ and they, they too, are blest
Who, dead to earth, in full submission find,
Buried in God's high Will, their Maker's rest:
Kneeling, the blood-drops from the Saviour's feet,
Their brows affusing, makes their Passion sweet;
And in His sepulchre they sleep enshrined.

3.

Alone, among thy books, once more I sit;
No sound there stirs except the flapping fire:
Strange shadows of old times about me flit
As sinks the midnight lamp or flickers higher:
I see thee pace the room: with eye thought-lit
Back, back, thou com'st once more to my desire:
Low-toned thou read'st once more the verse new-writ,
Too deep, too pure for worldlings to admire.
That brow all honour, that all-gracious hand,
That cordial smile, and clear voice musical,
That noble bearing, mien of high command,
Yet void of pride—to-night I have them all.
Ah, phantoms vain of thought! The Christmas air
Is white with flying flakes. Where art thou—where?

4.

To-night upon thy roof the snows are lying;
The Christmas snows lie heavy on thy trees:
A dying dirge that soothes the year in dying
Swells from thy woodlands on the midnight breeze.
Our loss is ancient: many a heart is sighing
This night, a late one, or by slow degrees
Healssome old wound, to God's high grace replying:—
A time there was when thou wert like to these.
Where art thou? In what unimagined sphere
Liv'st thou, sojourner, or no transient guest?
By whom companioned? Access hath she near,
In life thy nearest, and beloved the best?
What memory hast thou of thy loved ones here?
Hangs the great Vision o'er thy place of rest?

5.

‘Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to prayer!’
The answer man can yield not ye bestow:
Your answer is a little Infant bare
Wafted to earth on night-winds whispering low.
Blow him to Bethlehem, airs angelic, blow!
There doth the Mother-maid his couch prepare:
His harbour is her bosom! Drop him there
Soft as a snow-flake on a bank of snow.
Sole Hope of man! Sole Hope for us, for Thee!
‘To us a Prince is given: a Child is born!’—
Thou sang'st of Bethlehem, and of Calvary,
The Maid Immaculate, and the twisted Thorn.
Where'er thou art, not far, not far is He
Whose banner whitens in yon Christmas morn!

ON REVISITING A SPOT BY THE ROTHA, NEAR AMBLESIDE.

Oct 17, 1862.

6.

I walked in dream. Alone the bright Boy stood
Half imaged in the waters round his feet:
His line had just been cast into the flood,
Then first; his glance leaped forth the spoil to meet!
The gold-brown curls about him waved, and sweet
The blithesome smile of parted lips; the blood
Flushing the fresh cheek like a rose whose hood
With night-dews glittering, airs of morning greet.
Ah me! Since there he stood full sixty years,
Snow-laden, on their wintry pinions frore
Have sailed beyond the limit of our spheres,
And like that fleeting pageant are no more—
That Boy my Father was! the autumnal day
He led me to that spot his hair was grey.

A FRAGMENT.

Like two smooth waves that o'er a foamless ocean
On slide in sequence past a grassy lea,
Made beautiful by sunrise and with motion
Serener than unmoved tranquillity,
Or like two gusts that toward one bowery shore
Successive sweep in fragrance, then go by,
Were those two Sisters. They who wept of yore
This day partake their happy rest on high,
Happier—how much—in heaven for each poor earthly sigh.

I. WRITTEN AT VEVEY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1856.

II. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, OCTOBER 19, 1856.

III. WRITTEN IN ISCHIA, FEBRUARY 1, 1859.

IV. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, 1864.

TO A BIBLE.

She read thee to the last, beloved Book!
Her wasted fingers 'mid thy pages strayed;
Upon thy promises her heart was stayed;
Upon thy letters lingered her last look
Ere life and love those gentlest eyes forsook:
Upon thy gracious words she daily fed;
And by thy light her faltering feet were led
When loneliness her inmost being shook.
O Friend, O Saviour, O sustaining Word,
Whose conquering feet the Spirit-land have trod,
Be near her where she is, Incarnate Lord!
In the mysterious silence of the tomb
Where righteous spirits wait their final doom,
Forsake her not, O Omnipresent God!

SPRING.

STANZAS.

CHARITY.

Though all the world reject thee, yet will I
Fold thee, with all thine errors, in my heart,
And cherish even thy weakness! Who can say
That he is free from sin; or that to him
Belongs to speak the judgments of the Lord,
To vindicate the majesty of Heaven?
Behold the Master! prostrate at His feet,
Shuddering with penitential agony,
Magdalen! O those mild forgiving eyes,
Mercy and pity blossoming in Love!
O lips full founts of pardon and of blessing!
Shall I, a sinner, scorn a sinner, or
Less love my brother seeing he is weak?
Shall not my heart yearn to his helplessness
Like the fond mother's to her idiot boy?
O cruel mockery, to call that love
Which the world's frown can wither! Hypocrite!
False friend! Base selfish man! fearing to lift
Thy soilèd fellow from the dust! From thee
The love of friends, the sympathy of kind
Recoil like broken waves from a bare cliff,
Waves that from far seas come with noiseless step
Slow stealing to some lonely ocean isle;—
With what tumultuous joy and fearless trust
They fling themselves upon its blackened breast,
And wind their arms of foam around its feet,
Seeking a home; but finding none, return
With slow, sad ripple, and reproachful murmur.
No! No! True Charity scorns not the love
Even of the guiltiest, but treasures up
The precious gift within its heart of hearts,
Freely returning love where wanted most,
Like flowers that from the generous air imbibe
The essences of life, and give them forth
Again in odours. Spirit of Love Divine
That filledst with tenderness the reverent eyes
Of Mary as she gazed upon her Babe,
Soften our stony nature; make us know
How much we need to be forgiven; build up
True Charity on humbleness of heart.

ODE.

THE ASCENT OF THE APPENNINES.

A MOTHER'S SONG.

A GIRL'S SONG.

A SONG OF AGE.

A CHRISTIAN MAID.

A CHRISTIAN POETESS.

ADELAIDE PROCTOR.

She stooped o'er earth's poor brink, light as a breeze
That bathes, enraptured, in clear morning seas,
And round her, like that wandering Minstrel, sent
Twofold delight—music with freshness blent:
Ere long in night her snowy wings she furled,
Waiting the sunrise of a happier world,
And God's New Song. O Spirit crystalline,
What lips shall better waft it on than thine?

IN MEMORY OF EDWIN, EARL OF DUNRAVEN.

EPITAPH.

Great Love, death-humbled, yields awhile to earth
Its Bright One, waiting there the immortal birth:
Rich Love, made poor, can trust one Hope alone,
Its best, its holiest, to the cold grave-stone:
Eternal Easter of that Hope, be born!
The pure make perfect; comfort the forlorn.

AN EPITAPH WITHOUT A NAME.

I had a Name. A wreath of woven air,
A wreath of Letters blended, none knew why,
Floated, a vocal phantom, here and there,
For one brief season, like the dragon-fly
That flecks the noontide beam,
Flickering o'er downward, forest-darkened stream.
What word those Letters shaped I tell you not:
Wherefore should such this maiden marble blot?
Faint echo, last and least, of foolish Fame,
I am a Soul; nor care to have a Name.

EPITAPH.

From Youth's soft haunt she passed to Love's fair nest;—
Thence on to larger Love and heavenlier rest:
Four years their sunshine, two their shadows lent
To enrich a heart with either lot content.
Pray well, pure Spirit! and some sad grace accord
To him once more thy suppliant; once thy lord.

AGE.

Old age! The sound is harsh, and grates:
Yet Life's a semblance, not a Truth:
Time binds an hourly changing mask
On Souls in changeless light that bask—
Younger we grow when near the gates
Of everlasting Youth!

GENIUS AND SANCTITY.

“How high he soars!” Few say it when the flight
Is highest. Saints escape the vulgar sight.

DEATH.

Why shrink from Death? In ancient days, we know,
The slave was raised to freedom by a blow:—
Man's prison-house, not man, the hand of Death lays low.

FEBRUARY.

THE MATERIALIST'S RELIGION;

OR, PESSIMISM'S ‘DOWNWARD WAY.’

SONG.

THE FLOWER OF THE TREE.

EPIGRAMS.

ON A GREAT PLAGIARIST.

THE TRUE HARP.

Soul of the Bard! stand up, like thy harp's majestical pillar!
Heart of the Bard, like its arch in reverence bow thee and bend!
Mind of the Bard, like its strings be manifold, changeful, responsive:
This is the harp God smites, the harp, man's master and friend!

SELF-LOVE.

Light-winged Loves! they come; they flee:
If we were dead they'd never miss us:
Self-Love! with thee is Constancy—
Thine eyes to one were true, Narcissus!

THE SERIOUS ‘VIVE LA BAGATELLE.’

TO A FORMALIST.

On paper ruled Nature your virtues writ—
Why not erase the lines? Ah scant of wit!

SONNETS.

I. WORDSWORTH. COMPOSED AT RYDAL.—1.

The last great man by manlier times bequeathed
To these our noisy and self-boasting days
In this green valley rested, trod these ways,
With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed:
True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed
With wild-flowers only, singing Nature's praise;
But Nature turned, and crowned him with her bays,
And said, ‘Be thou my Laureate.’ Wisdom sheathed
In song love-humble; contemplations high,
That built like larks their nests upon the ground;
Insight and vision; sympathies profound
That spanned the total of humanity;
These were the gifts which God poured forth at large
On men through him; and he was faithful to his charge.

II. WORDSWORTH, ON VISITING THE DUDDON. —2.

So long as Duddon 'twixt his cloud-girt walls
Thridding the woody chambers of the hills
Warbles from vaulted grot and pebbled halls
Welcome or farewell to the meadow rills;
So long as linnets pipe glad madrigals
Near that brown nook the labourer whistling tills,
Or the late-reddening apple forms and falls
'Mid dewy brakes the autumnal redbreast thrills,
So long, last poet of the great old race,
Shall thy broad song through England's bosom roll,
A river singing anthems in its place,
And be to later England as a soul.
Glory to Him Who made thee, and increase,
To them that hear thy word, of love and peace!

III. WORDSWORTH, ON VISITING THE DUDDON.—3.

When first that precinct sacrosanct I trod
Autumn was there, but Autumn just begun;
Fronting the portals of a sinking sun
The queen of quietude in vapour stood,
Her sceptre o'er the dimly-crimsoned wood
Resting in light. The year's great work was done;
Summer had vanished, and repinings none
Troubled the pulse of thoughtful gratitude.
Wordsworth! the autumn of our English song
Art thou: 'twas thine our vesper psalms to sing:
Chaucer sang matins; sweet his note and strong;
His singing-robe the green, white garb of Spring:
Thou like the dying year art rightly stoled;
Pontific purple and dark harvest gold.

IV. SELF-DECEPTION.

Like mist it tracks us wheresoe'er we go,
Like air bends with us ever as we bend;
And, as the shades at noontide darkest grow,
At times with Virtue's growth its snares ascend:
Weakness with wisdom skilled it is to blend,
Breed baser life from buried sins laid low,
Make void our world of God and good, yet lend
The spirit's waste a paradisal glow.
O happy children simple even in wiles!
And ye of single eye, thrice happy Poor!
Practised self-love, that cheat which slays with smiles,
Weaves not for you the inevitable lure.
Men live a lie: specious their latest breath:
Welcome, delusion-slayer, truthful Death!

V. POETIC RESERVE.

Not willingly the Muses sing of love:
But, ere their Songs disperse o'er man's domain,
Through the dark chambers of the poet's brain
They pass, and passing take the stamp thereof:
And, as the wind that sweeps the linden grove
Wafts far its odour, so that sphere-born Strain
Learns from its mortal mould to mourn and plain,
Though the strong Muses sit like Gods above.
True poetry is doubly-dowered—a brightness
Lit from above yet fuelled from below;
A moon that rolls through heaven in vestal whiteness,
Yet, earthward stooping, wears an earthly glow.
Mysteries the Muse would hide the Bards reveal:
They love to wound: her mission is to heal.

VI. ON A GREAT FUNERAL.

No more than this? The chief of nations bears
Her chief of sons to his last resting-place:
Through the still city, sad and slow of pace
The sable pageant streams: and as it nears
That dome, to-day a vault funereal, tears
Run down the grey-haired veteran's wintry face;
Deep organs sob; and flags their front abase;
And the snapt wand the rite complete declares.
—Soul, that before thy Judge dost stand this day,
Disrobed of strength and puissance, pomp and power;
O Soul defrauded at thine extreme hour
Of man's sole help from man, and latest stay,
Swells there for thee no prayer from all that host?
Is this blank burial but a Nation's boast?

VII.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.—1.

On reading his ‘Vita Nuova’ of Dante, March 28, 1860.

Norton! I would that oft in years to come
The destined bard of that brave land of thine
Sole-seated 'neath the tempest-roughened pine,
In boyhood's spring when genius first doth plume
Her wing, 'mid forest scents and insects' hum
And murmurs from the far sea crystalline
May smell this blossom from the Tuscan vine,
May hear this voice from antique Christendom;
For thus from love and purity and might
Shall he receive his armour, and forth fare
Champion elect in song, that country's knight
Who early burst the chain weak nations bear
Weeping. 'Mid trumpet-blasts and standards torn
To manhood, with loud cries, thy land was born!

VIII. TO THE SAME.—2. June 12, 1861.

‘To manhood with loud cries thy land was born’—
Was born! is born! Her trumpets peal this hour
The authentic voice of Nationhood and Power!
The iron in her soul indignant worn
This day she tramples down. Her lips have sworn
To lift the dusky race in chains that cower;
And if once more the tempests round her lour
Her smile goes through them like the smile of morn!
Great Realm! The men that in thy sunnier day
Looked on thee dubious or with brow averse,
Now thou hast put the evil thing away,
Our sin and thine, Time's dread transmitted curse,
Send up their prayers to prop that lifted hand
Which gives to God a liberated Land!

IX.
THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE.—1.

The Principle. February 20, 1865.

Sword! ere the sheath that hid thy light so long
That splendour quench, go thou like lightning forth,
High Bride of Justice, not of South or North,
And raise, as now the weak, and quell the strong!
Advance, till from the black man's hearth the song
Rises to God, and by the black man's hearth
Humanity hath leave in godly mirth
To sit, forgetful of her ancient wrong.
Then rest for ever; for to work like thine
While the world lasts no other can succeed
Equal, or second. Hang in heaven, a Sign,
But stoop no more to earth or earthly need,
Nor ever leave thy starry home august,
Vassal of vulgar wars, and prone Ambition's lust.

X.
THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE.—2.

PRINCIPLE A POWER; OR, LOGIC IN HISTORY, FEBRUARY 21, 1865.

Lo! as an eagle battling through a cloud
That from his neck all night the vapour flings,
And ploughs the dark, till downward from his wings
Sunrise, long waited, smites some shipwrecked crowd
Beneath a blind sea-cavern bent and bowed;—
Thus through the storm of Men, the night of Things,
That Principle to which the issue clings
Makes fateful way, and spurns at last its shroud.
There were that saw it with a sceptic ken:
There were that saw it not through hate or pride:
But, conquering and to conquer, on it came,
No tool of man but making tools of men,
Till Nations shook beneath its advent wide,
And they that loosed the Portent rued the same.

XI. THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

A century of sunrises hath bowed
Its fulgent forehead 'neath the ocean-floor
Since first upon the West's astonished shore,
Like some huge Alp, forth struggling through the cloud,
A new-born nation stood, to Freedom vowed:
Within that time how many an Empire hoar
And young Republic, flushed with wealth and war,
Alike have changed the ermine for the shroud!
O ‘sprung from earth's first blood,’ O tempest-nursed,
For thee what Fates? I know not. This I know,
The Soul's great freedom, gift, of gifts the first,
Thou first on man in fulness didst bestow;
Hunted elsewhere, God's Church with thee found rest:
Thy future's Hope is she—that queenly Guest.

XII. ROBERT ISAAC WILBERFORCE.

‘No way but this.’ There where the pleasant shade
Dropped from the ledges of the Alban hill
Creeps to the vast Campagna and is still,
The mightier shadow reached him! Prayer was made:
But he to God his tribute just had paid,
And earned his rest. The deep recalled the rill:
A long life's labour with a perfect will
He on the altar of the Church had laid.
Child of the old English Learning sage and pure,
Authentic, manly, grave, without pretence,
From this poor stage of changeful time and sense
Released, sleep well, of thy reward secure:
Beside the Apostles' threshold thou dost lie,
Waiting, well-pleased, thy great eternity.

XIII. ‘LE RÉCIT D'UNE SŒUR.’—1.

Whence is the music? minstrel see we none;
Yet soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge,
Roll forward, now subside, anon emerge,
Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun,
Those beatific harmonies sweep on!
O'er earth they sweep from heaven's remotest verge
Triumphant hymeneal, hymn, and dirge,
Blending in everlasting unison.
Whence is the music? Stranger! these were they
That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved:
These were true lovers, for in God they loved:
With God, these Spirits rest in endless day,
Yet still for Love's behoof, on wings outspread
Float on o'er earth, betwixt the Angels and the Dead!

XIV. ‘LE RÉCIT D'UNE SŒUR.’—2.

ALEXANDRINE.

Between two graves, a sister's grave and one
Wherein the husband of her youth was laid,
In countenance half a Spirit, half a Nun,
She stood: a breeze that branch of jasmine swayed
In her slight hand upholden: ‘Peace!’ she said:—
A smile all gold to meet the sinking sun
Came forth: the pale, worn face transfigured shone
Sun-like beneath the sorrowing widow-braid.
She raised that branch, away her tears to wipe—
‘How happy seemed our life twelve years ago!
I weep him still, but gaily weep at last!
Like some sweet day-dream looks that earthly past:
Of genuine joy the pledge it was, the type:
Now, now alone the joy itself I know!’

XV. A WINTER NIGHT IN THE WOODS.

When first the Spring her glimmering chaplets wove
This way and that way 'mid the boughs high hung,
We watched the hourly work, while thrushes sung
A song that shook with joy their bowered alcove:
Summer came next: she roofed with green the grove,
And deepening shades to flower-sweet alleys clung:
Then last—one dirge from many a golden tongue—
The chiding leaves with chiding Autumn strove.
These were but Nature's preludes. Last is first!
Winter, uplifting high both flail and fan,
With the great forests dealt as Death with man;
And therefore through their desolate roofs hath burst
This splendour veiled no more by earthly bars;
Infinite heaven, and the fire-breathing stars!

XVI. POLAND AND RUSSIA.—1.

When, fixed in righteous wrath, a Nation's eye
Torments some crowned Tormentor with just hate,
Nor threat nor flattery may that gaze abate:
Unshriven the unatoning years go by:
For, as that starry Archer in the sky
Unbends not his bright bow, though early and late
The Siren sings, and folly weds with fate,
Even so that sure though silent Destiny
Which keeps fire-vigil in God's judgment-heaven
Upon the countenance of the Doomed looks forth
Consentient with a Nation's gaze on earth:
To those twinned Powers a single gaze is given:
The earthly Fate reveals the Fate on high—
A Brazen Serpent raised, that says not, ‘live,’ but ‘die!’

XVII. POLAND AND RUSSIA.—2.

The Strong One with the Weak One reasons thus:
‘Through sin of thine our eagle wings are clipt:
Through frost of thine our summer branch is nipt:
Thy wounds accuse: thy rags are mutinous:
The nations note thine aspect dolorous
Like some starved shape that cowers in charnel crypt,
Or landscape in eclipse perpetual dipt,
And, ignorant, cavil, not at thee but us!’
Then answer makes that worn voice, stern and slow:
‘Am I a dog the scourger's hand that licks,
And fattens? Blind reproof but spurns the pricks.
That which I am thou mad'st me! long ago
My face thou grav'dst to be a face of woe,
Fixed as the fixed face of a Crucifix.’

XVIII. GALATEA AND URANIA; OR, ART AND FAITH.

‘Dread Venerable Goddess, whom I fear,
Gaze not upon me from thy starry height!
I fear thy levelled shafts of ruthless light,
Thine unfamiliar radiance and severe:
Thy sceptre bends not! stern, defined, and clear
Thy Laws: thy face intolerantly bright:
Thine is the empire of the Ruled and Right:
Never hadst thou a part in smile or tear!
I love the curving of the wind-arched billow;
The dying flute tone, sweeter for its dying:
To me less dear the Pine tree than the Willow,
The mountain than the shadows o'er it flying.’
Thus Galatea sang, whilst o'er the waters
Urania leant; and cowered 'mid Ocean's foam-white daughters.

XIX. COMMON LIFE.

Onward between two mountain warders lies
The field that man must till. Upon the right,
Church-thronged, with summit hid by its own height,
Swells the vast range of the Theologies:
Upon the left the hills of Science rise
Lustrous but cold: nor flower is there, nor blight:
Between those ranges twain through shade and light
Winds the low vale wherein the meek and wise
Repose. The knowledge that excludes not doubt
Is there; the arts that beautify man's life:
There rings the choral psalm, the civic shout,
The genial revel, and the manly strife:
There by the bridal rose the cypress waves:
And theretheall-blest sunshine softest falls on graves.

XX. TO KEATS.

Peace, peace, or mourn the living! Ye but hold
A shadow to your bosoms. He hath quaffed
Glory and Death in one immortal draught;
Surely among the undying men of old
Numbered art thou, great Heart; in heaven enrolled
Among the eternal Splendours that rain forth
Love, light, and peace on our unquiet earth,
O latest radiance of the starry fold.
Below, thou liv'st, a consecrated name;
Above, with naked feet unscorched and hair
Unsinged thou walkest through that fierce white fire
Which mantles like a robe of golden air
Homer and Shakespeare, and the burning choir,
Rejoicing in the fullness of thy fame.

XXI. MODERN DESPONDENCY.

Soft land, and gracious as some nectarous fruit
In whose warm bosom Autumn's heart is glad,
Thou hadst of old thy bards, whose lyre and lute
Well praised thy joyous woodlands blossom-clad:
Thou hadst thy blithesome days! If ours be sad,
May thy blue bays and orchards never mute
That sadness charm—slay causeless sorrow's root—
Loveless self-will, the pride that maketh mad!
Wed, blameless nature, wed with grace divine
Once more, like sweet harps blent with sweeter voices,
Thy powers: then sing, till child and man rejoices
Betwixt those ‘Double Seas’ of England! Shine,
Sun of past years! Disperse those modern glooms
At least from golden Devon's Tors and Coombes!

XXII. PONTEFRACT CASTLE; OR, TREASON'S TWOFOLD BEQUEST.

Wind-wasted castle without crown of towers!
Dread dungeon keep, watching the dying day!
A crownless king, great Edward's grandson, lay
Wasting in thee, and counting prisoned hours:
A century passed: the Faith's embattled Powers
Thus far advanced; here stood, a stag at bay:
The eighth Henry trembled in his blood-stained bowers;—
Thou saw'st that ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ decay!
Two Woes thou saw'st; the fall of England's Crown,
That drowned in blood her old Nobility;
Then, baser plague, the old Temples trampled down
By Despots new! Twice-doomed! the fount in thee
I mark of that Red Sea which rolls between
England that is, and England that hath been!

XXIII. INDUSTRY.

Virtue defamed for sordid, rough, and coarse,
Unworthy of the glimpses of the moon,
Praise of the clown alone whose heavy shoon
Kneads the moist clay, nor spares the pure stream's source,
In thee how strong is grace! how fair is force!
How generous art thou, and to man how boon!
Not thine the boastful plain with carnage strewn,
Nor chambers, wassail-shamed, where late Remorse
Sits, the last guest! From ocean on to ocean,
From citied shore to hills far-forested,
The increase of earth is thine, in rest or motion;
The crown is thine on every Sage's head;
The ship, the scythe, the rainbow among flowers:
Thine too the song of girls exulting 'mid their bowers.

XXIV. TO THE MOST FAIR.

Fair, noble, young! Of thee I thought to sing,
(If so Love willed, and the ever-virgin Muse
Who cannot grace accord unless Love choose,
Were pleased from Love's first bath, Castalia's Spring,
One flower or sparkling drop on me to fling)
For ofttimes thus some clan barbaric strews
Their earth and wood, the little island's dues,
Before his feet whom conquest made its king:
So dreamed I, when, a mourner sad and stern,
The Muses' Mother fixed on me her eyes—
Memory—nor slow their meaning to discern
Like a child stung I dropped the forfeit prize:
Some holier hand from out the immortal river
The destined reed must draw, and hymn thy praise for ever!

XXV. IN MEMORY OF THE LATE SIR JOHN SIMEON.—1.

Feast of the Purification, 1873.

This day we keep our Candlemas in snow:
Wan is the sky; a bitter wind and drear
Wrinkles the bosom of yon blackening mere:
Of these I reck not, but of thee, and O!
Of that bright Roman morn, so long ago,
When, children new of her, that Church more dear
To liegeful hearts with each injurious year,
We watched the famed Procession circling slow.
Once more I see it wind with lights upholden
On through the Sistine, on and far away:
Once more I mark beneath its radiance golden
Thy forehead shine, and, with it kindling, say,
‘Rehearsals dim were those, O friend: this hour
Surely God's light it is that on thee rests in power!’

XXVI. IN MEMORY OF THE LATE SIR JOHN SIMEON.—2.

Again we met. We trod the fields and farms
Of that fair isle, thy happy English home;
We gazed upon blue sea, and snowy foam
Clipt in the jutting headland's woody arms:
The year had reached the fulness of her charms:
The Church's year, from strength to strength increased,
Its zenith held, that great Assumption feast
Whose sun with annual joy the whole earth warms.
That day how swiftly rushed from thy full heart
Hope's glorying flood! How high thy fancy soared,
Kenning, though far, once more thine England's crest
A light to Christendom's old heaven restored!
‘In a large room’ thy heart its home had found:
The land we trod that day to thee was holy ground.

XXVII. IN MEMORY OF THE LATE SIR JOHN SIMEON.—3.

The world external knew thee but in part:
It saw and honoured what was least in thee;
The loyal trust, the inborn courtesy;
The ways so winning, yet so pure from art;
The cordial reverence, keen to all desert,
All save thine own; the accost so frank and free;
The public zeal that toiled, but not for fee,
And shunned alike base praise and hireling's mart:
These things men saw; but deeper far than these
The under-current of thy soul worked on
Unvexed by surface-ripple, beam, or breeze,
And unbeheld its way to ocean won:
Life of thy life was still that Christian Faith
The sophist scorns. It failed thee not in death.

XXVIII. THE POETRY OF THE FUTURE.

Go forth, fair Book! Go, countenanced like that Man
Upon whose brow all Eden's light was stayed;
Beauteous as Truth, go forth to cheer and aid,
Breathing of greatness ours ere sin began;
With angel-wing from eyes earth-wearied fan
Convention's mist; revive great hopes that fade;
Bid nature rule where reigned but masquerade;
Bear witness to that joy divine which ran
Down to creation's heart, while, bending o'er it,
The great Creator saw that all was good,
That mightier joy, when, dying to restore it,
He rose Who washed it in His conquering Blood:
Go forth, a seer in minstrel raiment clad;
Say to the meek, ‘Be strong;’ the pure, ‘Be glad!’

XXIX. THE RUINS OF EMANIA, NEAR ARMAGH.

Why seek ye thus the living 'mid the dead?
Beneath that mound, within yon circle wide,
Emania's palace, festive as a bride
For centuries six, had found its wormy bed
When here Saint Patrick raised his royal head
And round him gazed. Perhaps the Apostle sighed
Even then, to note the fall of mortal pride:
Full fourteen hundred years since then have fled!
Then, too, old Ulster's hundred kings were clay;
Then, too, the Red Branch warriors slept forlorn;
Autumn, perhaps as now a pilgrim grey,
Counted her red beads on the berried thorn,
Making her rounds; while from the daisied sod
The undiscountenanced lark upsoared, and praised her God.

XXX. DUNLUCE CASTLE, COUNTY OF ANTRIM.

O! of the fallen, most fallen, yet of the proud
Proudest; sole-seated on thy tower-girt rock;
Breasting for ever reboant ocean's shock;
With blind sea-caves for ever dinned and loud;
Now sunset-gilt; now wrapt in vapoury shroud
Till distant ships—so well thy bastions mock
Primeval nature's style in joint and block—
Misdeem her ramparts, round thee bent and bowed,
For thine, and on her walls, men say, have hurled
The red artillery store designed for thee:
Thy wars are done! Henceforth perpetually
Thou restest, like some judged, impassive world
Whose sons, their probatory period past,
Have left that planet void amid the vast.

XXXI. HORN HEAD, COUNTY OF DONEGAL.

Sister of Earth, her sister eldest-born,
Huge world of waters, how unlike are ye!
Thy thoughts are not as her thoughts: unto thee
Her pastoral fancies are as things to scorn:
Thy heart is still with that old hoary morn
When on the formless deep, the procreant sea,
God moved alone: of that Infinity,
Thy portion then, thou art not wholly shorn.
Scant love hast thou for dells where every leaf
Boasts its own life, and every brook its song;
Thy massive floods down stream from reef to reef
With one wide pressure; thy worn cliffs along
The one insatiate Hunger moans and raves,
Hollowing its sunless crypts and sanguine caves.

XXXII. FOUNTAINS ABBEY.

The hand of Time is heavy; yet how soft
Its touch can be, yon mouldering chancel knows!
The ruin too can ‘blossom like the rose;’
Nor e'er from orchard bower, or garth, or croft,
More sweetly sang the linnet than aloft
She sings from that green tower! The sunset glows
Behind it; and yon stream that, darkling, flows
From arch to arch, reflects it oft and oft,
Humbly consenting 'mid the gloom to smile
And take what pensive gladness may befall:
Rejoice thou, too, O venerable Pile,
With loftier heart answering a holier call:
Like those, thy buried saints, make strong thy trust,
Waiting the Resurrection of the Just.

XXXIII. ON READING AN UNTRUE CHARGE.

Beautiful Land! They said, ‘He loves thee not!’
But in a churchyard 'mid thy meadows lie
The bones of no disloyal ancestry
To whom in me disloyal were the thought
Which wronged thee. For my youth thy Shakspeare wrought;
For me thy minsters raised their towers on high;
Thou gav'st me friends whose memory cannot die:—
I love thee, and for that cause left unsought
Thy praise. Thy ruined cloisters, forests green,
Thy moors where still the branching wild deer roves,
Dear haunts of mine by sun and moon have been
From Cumbrian peaks to Devon's laughing coves.
They love thee less, fair Land, who ne'er had heart
To take, for truth's sake, 'gainst thyself thy part.

ON VISITING A HAUNT OF COLERIDGE'S.

LINES TO AN OLD LARCH-TREE AT CURRAGH CHASE.

AUTUMNAL ODE.

DEDICATED TO MY SISTER.