The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Study.
A Writing-table, with Paper and Pens.
Balder.
Yes, I will bear, forbear, hope, labour, wait,
Yet once again. He who from love of day
Doth end his life in the obscurest hour

262

Of long-lived night flies not from aged Nox
But from unborn Aurora. 'Tis the part
Of wisdom to endure. Whatever clime
Surround, more fair, this sublunary scene,
Howe'er we name those undiscovered Powers
That rule us and do place our weal and woe,
The problem of the wretched is to pass
Not the set circumscription of his known
And ordered ill, but the unsearched confines
Of their supreme disposals. Failing that
All fails; and the poor slave for whom extends
No safe inviolable shore, no last
Red Stygian frontier where the angry hordes
Of hurrying hell must needs stand balked and droop
The unavailing scorpions,—had best bend
To his worst task, nor heat the blood of swift
Inevitable vengeance. Once again—

[Through the open door, Amy is heard.
Amy.

If thou art not, O death, if thou art not,
I am immortal and not born to die,
And time hath no dominion over me.
Is this the secret of my wretched lot,
Is this the secret of a happy world
And all the joy of life that glads not me?

I think I am immortal; I do think
My unrespective being takes to-day
The further woes of an eternal fate.

263

In vain the earth is happy, and in vain,
In vain, a little space above my head
The dread and over-arching destiny
Is calm and fair; I feel from pole to pole,
Nor know the year that doth devour mine heart!
Oh, God! Thou hast not made me for my lot,
I faint in prospect of the shoreless sea!
I cannot stand under the universe!
That it would sink and crush me once for all!

That I were broken as a thing defect,
Wholly rubbed out as of no right to be,
And as a heedless error of the hand
Cancelled for ever from the book of life!
[After a long silence she is heard again.
That I might die and be no more at all,
That I might cease out of the scheme of things,
And all my place be filled up evermore!
I am galled with my destiny; that one
Would take my lot out of my scorched hands,
And all my heritage in heaven and earth.
Oh, God, forget me from thy universe,
Oh, God, I have retired out of my life,
The functions of my soul are dead, and I
Am but a burning hope of not to be!
Oh, God fulfil me; I am but this thirst,
This all-consuming thirst, quench it and me!
[After a long silence she is heard again.

264

My punishment is more than I can bear,
Oh, men, oh, living men, oh, passers by,
No, this was not my sentence, no man yet
For such a fault hath heard so hard a doom!
For a small matter did they shut me in
Upon the eve of war, and on the morn
The tower was taken and the gaoler fled!

My cell is in the dank and hollow ground,
The ruins fell above it; no man knows
Its place; I am forgotten in my land.

I lay my hand upon the creeping thing,
The worm crawls o'er me; the snail harbours up
My limbs. I am as dark and all-forgot
As any stone that never saw the sun
And is and was and will be in the earth.

I hear the sound of life above my head.
The toads leap with it, and the very rock
Shakes with the overgoing; but I know
The fallen ruins lie on heap; my cry
Can never struggle to the day; no man
Will ever seek me.

Hist! they move the stones!
Fast, faster! or I famish! This was not
My sentence! I was not shut in for this!
No man could treat me so! oh, men, oh, men,

265

The tower was taken and the gaoler fled,—
Let me out, let me out! I starve! I starve!

[Listening to this he rises.
Balder.

You great Gods,
Here like a night-mare do I shake you off!

[After a pause.

Poor child,
Come hither, perchance I can help thee. Hear me.

[She comes.

By all her wrongs,
Her unrespited Patience, unreleased
Endeavour, unremembered sighs and tears;
By her unheard poor prayers, her unfulfilled
Long hope, her uncrowned faith, her love unblest,
Her unallayed incomparable sorrow;
By all that hath no worthy place on earth,
All that hath won no summons from the skies,
I swear to set her free!

Amy
(kneeling before him).
To set me free?
Am I to be free? oh to set me free?
It cannot be so. Sir, thou knowest not;
They have forgotten me where I do lie;
The tower was taken and the gaoler fled;
The ruins fell on heap; the many stones
Are o'er me; no man can come near nor tell
The under earth is hollow. Oh to help me,
Oh to come near me, oh to set me free!

[She sinks on the floor weeping.

266

Balder
(musing).

This leprosy
Of murder being fairly out on me
Hath lost its worst disease. The dark excess
That for so many days o'er-loaded all
My swollen veins, strangled each vital service,
And pressing hard the incommoded soul
In its unyielding tenement convulsed
The wholesome work of nature, is expelled.
The crisis of my malady is past
And leaves me sane but hideous. I do stand
Blood-hot from head to heel but cool within.
Blood-wet and steaming blood from every pore
Incarnadine, but retching at those mouths
The red surcharge that killed me. I am calm
And being calm shall better aim the bolt
Forged and flung down amid the thunder-rain
Of Passion. That great rain that did so drown
The present where it fell that all beyond
Looked back upon already seems a world
Before the flood.

I will even let her forth
As a poor bird out of a burning cage.
Nought in the direst caverns of the dark
Untried unknown can be less kind to her
Than I have been. Somewhere, perhaps, in space
There may be better places than this world;
No worse. Yes, I will let thee forth, poor child,
Aye tho' the seven times sacred bars be built

267

Of the twelve holy jewels, and I break
The door that will not open! Amy! Amy!
She sleeps! What! hath the very breath of murder
Such odour of its substance that the air
About me brings her to a doze like Death?
'Tis well! so can I test the untried strength
That seems invincible. How now—how then? [He bends over her.

Now,—These dark tresses that I lift aside
To see the brow they shade, and, in my hand,
Having no sensible motion yet do lie
With something of agreement; nor as things
Wholly inert, but lighter than their weight
With strange and inner help:—then—Nay for if
The hair grow after death? I have read so.
Now a most pallid cheek and leaden lids
Closed lids still livid with her latest pain;
And on the cheek and on the lid two tears.
Then—but they'll scatter morning flowers upon her,
And if some dew-drops fall upon her face
They must needs be as these—no lovelier
No purer, nor less meet to call to mind
The briny taste of human sorrow. Now
A little stirring of the breast—then none.
Now not so much as drives away the fly
Upon her bosom—then——

You Gods, I curse ye!
[After a pause.

268

I did not tremble, therefore I can do't.
[A very long silence, during which she still sleeps at his feet. Clock strikes.

Another hour, and thou that sleepest there
Hast like a rosy Angel that o'erstands
The pale flat corse that is and is not she,
Stood in my eyes and tried me. Am I bent
Grey, weathered, travel-stained? The hidden truth
And secret of that strange geography
We traverse in the journey we call life
I know not; but I know that in this hour
I have inhabited each backward spot
Left long ago, long past and, by my count,
Almost as far behind as Heaven before.
Whenever I did take thee by the hand
With fatal purpose, thou sweet looking up
Didst lead my ignorant steps and charmed eyes
To ome dear olden scene and moment where
I could not kill thee. None seemed far and none
More near than any other. But I turned
Upon the bruisèd body at my feet
And would not see the phantom. Then it sang.
And then I heard thee like a bell i' the air,
Stirring the silver silence circulate
About thee into music; while around
Dreamy upon the wind the floating past
Circled thee shining, as stained clouds about
The watery moon, and all the ancient joy

269

Came forth revolving in the coloured void,
Well-wonted, nor life-weary, but with looks
Terribly sweet, as waiting on thy voice
And only lacking thee to be again.
And I am shaken with grief and my black fate
Shrieks as a night of tempest at my head
And the dream passes like far village chimes
Blown on a rushing twilight full of rain.
I did not tremble; therefore I can do't.
Who if not I? Poor Dove, Poor Dove, I caught thee
In the eagle's talons and did carry thee
Up to the heights I dared nearest the sun
And scorched thee blind! And shall my pinions fail
To hurry thee beyond the temperate bound
Of mortal anguish, or refuse that great
And consummating mercy-stroke that cleaves
The last of vital ether and doth end
Captive and captor in the final blaze
Of solar conflagration! I can do it.
Whether these mortal Dædalean wings
Will bear me living to the central pyre,
The dire event must try. Enough to know
I shall not die till I have seen thee first
In safe destruction; this most exquisite flesh
These tender filaments will have transpired
Invisible in incense filling Heaven
Ere I am ashes.

Oh my Beautiful

270

My Beautiful why wert thou ever mine?
Why didst thou love me? What had I to do
With thee? Oh Eve, oh happy happy Eve,
Why didst thou hear my voice? Was Paradise
Too narrow to content thee? Paradise
That if thou wert immortal would have brought
Some better flower for every sweeter day
Of thy still blest for-ever; nor had asked
More answering care than this—that for the fame
Of her dear handiwork thou shouldst not bend
Thy cheek above her blushing rose nor wear
Her lily in thy breast! What dost thou here?
Have I the hand that pencils the white page
Of snowdrops, or doth hang on the fine ear
Of each unhurt fair blossom morn by morn
Its pendulous jewel; is my manly texture
Soft as the silken slopes of Venus' thigh,
That I should touch thee? Can I give thee food
Celestial? or what vital element
Dissolve in a sweet draught of delicate air
And serve thee? Is my home an amber tent
Of April cloud? Are my black oaken floors
Light-paven levels such as spirits walk
At moon-rise? Can I take an evening mist
And dip it in the west and clothe thy limbs
With gold and purple? Have I zephyr-winds
To wait upon thee, and to snood thine hair
With gossamer? Then wherefore art thou mine?

271

That any immortality of pangs
The damned know not might buy this boon for me,
This only boon—to set thee back again
In thy first best estate! to wrench mine heart-strings
From thy life's web and burn them in deep hell!
What weary Angel exiled from the skies,
Her baby at her breast, with failing strength
Paused at this earth and left thee? Thou wert not
Of us and being grown up shouldst have gone
Back to thine heaven; or having business here
It should have been in some excepted task
Set out and sacred from the common lot.
If there be any still and vesper hour
More pure than all the day, thou shouldst have been
Its tutelar, to lead it in and out,
Versed in the duteous season and each rite
Of welcome and farewell. This changeful earth
Should be to thee a garden where we take
Rare pleasaunce and in happy weather walk
But do not dwell. Thou shouldst have dwelt afar
With everlasting Morning, going forth
With her and from her chaste urn unrebuked
—Dipping thy sinless hand—shouldst sprinkle dews
Or at the side of Spring, her handmaiden
Bearing her violets, what time she comes
Over the hills descending shouldst have passed
Into this valley blessing it and me.
And shouldst have loved me only while the fields

272

Were sown, nor pitied me forlorn, nor heard
My vows, nor faithless to thy Goddess-queen
Forgot thy better duty, but have gone
When she went, singing o'er the southern slopes
Joyous beside her; turning on the height
For my sake and in richer violet-beds
Betraying that thine hand relaxed with thought.
So thou shouldst still have left me and returned
With the pervading year, for ever young,
Till that sad season when thy tearful care
Found not the old man on the wonted hill
Nor by the thorn nor the memorial tree;
And made a time of strange forget-me-nots
And melancholy flowers that love the rain
Setting the fairest banks with saddest blooms
And by a grassy mound in one deep dell
Beating thy breast let fall the store of spring,
So that to other vales the spring came late
Tarrying for thee. And whenceforth thou being given
To sudden sighs and musings didst not keep
Thine old unblamed attendance, and no more
Didst sow thy flowers with free impartial hand,
But, sick with fitful fancies, oft delayed
Oft hasted, till for many hapless years
Spring lost her fame on earth; nay had a weird
And crazy name, because that fall by fall
Thou still remindful didst steal back alone
To trim my grave, and ever and anon

273

After the snows were white didst visit me
Being ill at rest; and lo! in that strange dell
Unseasonable thaws and timeless flowers
And none knew why.

But I have taken thee
And in my coarse and savage ignorance
Put thee to mortal uses. Bent these hands
Which from some flowery chalice should have fed
The early bee, to grind the daily bread
Of household travail, set to vulgar toil
These tender fingers which were made to unfold
The plaited wings of butterfly or know
One violet from another, and this frame
For which if she had found it anywhere
Forsaken Nature of herself had wrought
Peculiar season, left a prey to harsh
Inclement fortunes, torn by winds of woe,
Bit by the frosts of poverty and struck
To the scorched marrow by the burning stroke
I did not feel. Thou art avenged! avenged!
Oh Amy! wilt thou go back to thy fields
Of childhood, and the walls of the old home
That loved thee? Wilt thou wander late at eve,
When all the west is still and black, and pass
Among the dim trunks of remembered trees
Like a returning sunset? Will the flowers
Be fairer there to-morrow, and grey men
Look on the year and praise it with the years

274

Of youth, and all the village that so long
Had drooped for thee, like a revivèd plant
That drinks by dark a subtle sustenance
Which no man seeth, lift the sudden head
That yesterday was low? There wilt thou be
Oread and Naiad, or from many oaks
Whisper thy secret, wander like a sigh
Thro' green woods where we wandered, or persuade
Misfortune from the happy cots we loved,
Or spread by tranquil Night or genial Day
Felt but unseen a necessary health
Within, without, thro' all the charmèd place,
The hearth serener and the happier bed,
The ways auspicious and the waters safe?
No go not there! The very paths are yet
Bare with my footsteps. I shall haunt thee still.
I have distraught thy world, and thy poor skill
Can never recompose it. Night by night
Thou shouldst behold me in the western sky
Dyed with thy blood. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter,
Should be the racking seasons of the day
I killed thee; every custom of mankind
A various form of murder; aye the knife
Upon the unoffending cottage board
Round which the children sit, should rise unheld
And stab thee to the heart.

Rather return
Into this general nature, whereof thou

275

Art not so much a part or element
As the consummate whole in a given space
More visible,—a ripple of the sea.
The whole is happy; sink into the whole.
I think there is no separate tenement
—No, though thou wert an angel far in heaven—
Where thy meek subject soul would dare refuse
Ingress to mine. Better be re-dissolved,
Nor have one atom of thine unconstrained
Free essence so defined as to receive
The local weight of sorrow, nor a sense
So fashioned to contain a human thought
As to remember me!