With the Wild Geese By Emily Lawless: With An Introduction by Stopford A. Brooke |
 |
|
| I. |
| II. |
|
|
ABOVE THE CLIFF
|
|
 | With the Wild Geese |  |
58
ABOVE THE CLIFF
A Monologue
You say, Honorius, that this life they led
Here on the last verge of a worn-out world,
A life of adoration and of prayer,
A life outside of life; a life within
The life to be; a life whose every breath
Was one continuous supplicating cry
To Him who—be He who He may—they loved,
Proclaimed, feared, worshipped; this same life, you say,
Was a mere chasing of delusions; just
A shadow-dance; a harmless dream in short.
Their hope a dream, their faith a dream, their God
A dream perchance; their saints, in any case,
Good groping creatures, dead and gone to dust,
Used up to furbish fifty other lives,
Each one as dear, or little dear to her,
(The mighty, careless mother of us all,)
As theirs, or any other mortal's life.
Here on the last verge of a worn-out world,
A life of adoration and of prayer,
A life outside of life; a life within
The life to be; a life whose every breath
Was one continuous supplicating cry
To Him who—be He who He may—they loved,
Proclaimed, feared, worshipped; this same life, you say,
Was a mere chasing of delusions; just
A shadow-dance; a harmless dream in short.
59
A dream perchance; their saints, in any case,
Good groping creatures, dead and gone to dust,
Used up to furbish fifty other lives,
Each one as dear, or little dear to her,
(The mighty, careless mother of us all,)
As theirs, or any other mortal's life.
Honorius, I am half upon your side,
Seeing that both of us are reared on doubt;
And yet, Honorius,—words are strange—look down,
Can you perceive, far off against the shore,
Where the pale surf just lips the dull green land,
Can you discern a little brownish speck—
A gable end, part of a low brown roof?
Under that low brown roof a woman lies,
And has lain there this five years past or more.
Dying, but very slowly; she may last
Another six months, so her neighbours tell me.
A while since, sitting for a space beside her,
And groping feebly through the forms of speech,
I traversed all the usual platitudes,
Painfully, one by one. Said, She was good;
Said, Patience was a marvellous antidote;
Said, Suffering seemed our common heritage;
And as a last resource, for crowning flatness,
That life was really very, very cruel.
To this she, lifting up her mild grey eyes,
Assented gently. Then as if remorseful,
Or in excuse for one unfairly chidden,
Added in mild apology, “Auch well,
What is it after all, but just a dream?”
Seeing that both of us are reared on doubt;
And yet, Honorius,—words are strange—look down,
Can you perceive, far off against the shore,
Where the pale surf just lips the dull green land,
60
A gable end, part of a low brown roof?
Under that low brown roof a woman lies,
And has lain there this five years past or more.
Dying, but very slowly; she may last
Another six months, so her neighbours tell me.
A while since, sitting for a space beside her,
And groping feebly through the forms of speech,
I traversed all the usual platitudes,
Painfully, one by one. Said, She was good;
Said, Patience was a marvellous antidote;
Said, Suffering seemed our common heritage;
And as a last resource, for crowning flatness,
That life was really very, very cruel.
To this she, lifting up her mild grey eyes,
Assented gently. Then as if remorseful,
61
Added in mild apology, “Auch well,
What is it after all, but just a dream?”
Mark that, Honorius! mark, your very word!
A dream! a dream! she held it all a dream.
But what? Not your dream, nothing less, good friend;
Her dream was now, her certainty to come.
Her waking day lay in the vast Beyond.
She held this poor pretence of yours and mine
At being alive; this thing of walks and talks,
Of sleep, food, play, work, and the rest of it
Not to be reckoned up as life at all,
A thing of nought, and therefore void of blame.
Why blame it, she would say, when all men knew
It had no substance, no reality,
But merely served the purpose of the moment,
And was a sort of mirage of the night,
That night which ushers in the true to-morrow?
A dream! a dream! she held it all a dream.
But what? Not your dream, nothing less, good friend;
Her dream was now, her certainty to come.
Her waking day lay in the vast Beyond.
She held this poor pretence of yours and mine
At being alive; this thing of walks and talks,
Of sleep, food, play, work, and the rest of it
Not to be reckoned up as life at all,
A thing of nought, and therefore void of blame.
62
It had no substance, no reality,
But merely served the purpose of the moment,
And was a sort of mirage of the night,
That night which ushers in the true to-morrow?
Honorius, is she right? or, friend, are you?
Or are you both right? And is all a dream?
This ridge on which we sit; those stones about us;
Yon poor rude chapel, battered by the storms;
Restless Atlantic, and his myriad tribes;
And this great cloud-filled arch which covers all.
Are they, you, me, and all our teeming world
Of ships, and men, and fish, and birds, and towns,
A phantom place, in which dim shadows grope,
And meet, or rather make pretence to meet;
And love, and kiss, and mate, and rear their kind,
And yet are nothing, nothing all the time,
But the mere froth and fury of a dream—
A baseless dream, a sordid dream to boot;
Ugly, and mean, confused, and vain, and dull;
In which a crowd of little air-built mimes,
Hate, clutch, and try to wound their fellow mimes,
And wound themselves instead; and utter cries,
And stretch out phantom arms to phantom skies,
And all the while are nothing? Feverish dreams,
The nerve-built puppets of an aguish night,
A goblin brood, mist-born, and fever-hatched,
Within the void of some prodigious brain?
Or are you both right? And is all a dream?
This ridge on which we sit; those stones about us;
Yon poor rude chapel, battered by the storms;
Restless Atlantic, and his myriad tribes;
And this great cloud-filled arch which covers all.
Are they, you, me, and all our teeming world
63
A phantom place, in which dim shadows grope,
And meet, or rather make pretence to meet;
And love, and kiss, and mate, and rear their kind,
And yet are nothing, nothing all the time,
But the mere froth and fury of a dream—
A baseless dream, a sordid dream to boot;
Ugly, and mean, confused, and vain, and dull;
In which a crowd of little air-built mimes,
Hate, clutch, and try to wound their fellow mimes,
And wound themselves instead; and utter cries,
And stretch out phantom arms to phantom skies,
And all the while are nothing? Feverish dreams,
64
A goblin brood, mist-born, and fever-hatched,
Within the void of some prodigious brain?
No, no, good comrade mine, by all we love;
By all we are, have been, or hope to be,
Let us fling off such juggling with our wits.
Else see, our feet are here upon the brink,
Our ears are filled with this bewildering surge;
If all are phantoms, then this so-called height,
This twice or thrice a hundred feet of cliff,
Is but one phantom more, and should we cross it
We do but act as some despairing sleeper,
Who, sick of dreams, turns wearily in bed.
Give me your hand, old friend, and hold you mine
Firmly in yours. The path at worst is short,
We will not spoil such shortness, by your leave,
With any such mere pitfalls for our brains,
Such half-sprung air-traps. As the wise man said,
Let us at least pretend that you and I
Exist; have substance. Further, that the rest,
These goodly kindly mortals whom we know,
Are in like case. They may be; and if so,
Then are their struggles real. Their pains
Seem true enough, God knows! Real their souls,
Real the God who saves them? He at least
Must know if He be fact or not, or if
Ought be at all. Then when the viewless brink
Is once more reached, by no unfair short-cut,
We may confront that Be or Not to be,
That vast Perhaps, that undeciphered If,
With open eyes, and undiscouraged hearts.
Nay with, who knows? some shadow of that glee,
Fearful, yet not all fearful, with which they,
The first gay bold explorers of our race,
Ignorant mariners, but steadfast souls,
Strode to the beach, unloosed some crazy planks,
And with a brief committal of themselves
To Him who, named or unnamed, still they trusted,
Sailed their frail crafts to find an unknown sea.
By all we are, have been, or hope to be,
Let us fling off such juggling with our wits.
Else see, our feet are here upon the brink,
Our ears are filled with this bewildering surge;
If all are phantoms, then this so-called height,
This twice or thrice a hundred feet of cliff,
Is but one phantom more, and should we cross it
We do but act as some despairing sleeper,
Who, sick of dreams, turns wearily in bed.
65
Firmly in yours. The path at worst is short,
We will not spoil such shortness, by your leave,
With any such mere pitfalls for our brains,
Such half-sprung air-traps. As the wise man said,
Let us at least pretend that you and I
Exist; have substance. Further, that the rest,
These goodly kindly mortals whom we know,
Are in like case. They may be; and if so,
Then are their struggles real. Their pains
Seem true enough, God knows! Real their souls,
Real the God who saves them? He at least
Must know if He be fact or not, or if
Ought be at all. Then when the viewless brink
66
We may confront that Be or Not to be,
That vast Perhaps, that undeciphered If,
With open eyes, and undiscouraged hearts.
Nay with, who knows? some shadow of that glee,
Fearful, yet not all fearful, with which they,
The first gay bold explorers of our race,
Ignorant mariners, but steadfast souls,
Strode to the beach, unloosed some crazy planks,
And with a brief committal of themselves
To Him who, named or unnamed, still they trusted,
Sailed their frail crafts to find an unknown sea.
| With the Wild Geese | |