 | Smith |  |
231
ACT II
SCENE.—An arbour in Graham's orchard. Enter Smith, Hallowes, and Graham.Graham.
Now, rest you here; I've business in the house:
And when I come I'll bring my daughter. Ha!
[To Hallowes.]
She lives on poetry; you'll soon be friends;
[To Smith.]
While you and I and Brown will talk again
Of London. What!—you called it—let me see—
The running sore, the ringworm of the earth.
Good, very good.
[Goes out.
Hallowes.
You'll make excuse for me.
Smith.
Why are you so reluctant to remain?
Hallowes.
You do not see the meaning of the knight.
We trespass in his wood: he meets us; storms,
And plays his gamekeeper. Our witty talk
Changes his character, and—we are here:
But mark, on trial; else, not his arbour,
But his drawing-room.
Smith.
He brings his daughter, though.
Hallowes.
True; but you see our humour was so broad.
Smith.
Therefore he does not take us to his house?
Suppose it so, is he the less a man?
Why, it's a powerful thing to do.
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Indeed!
Snobbish, say I.
Smith.
Away, man! Use that word!
A poet, too! Oh, I could rail at it!
Snob! It's a modern word; and so is cad:
None use them but deservers of them. Faugh;
So bitterly I hate them, into sense
My spleen spins slovenly. We all are men.
Doomsday of nicknames! I behold it dawn.
An inky cloud, with thick corrosive stench,
Blots out the heavens, and like a palimpsest
Shows name on name in smoking characters,
A leprous scroll, too filthy to o'er-read:
Beneath them, branded deep athwart the cloud
In letters huge from which the light scales off,
The most inhuman, most ungodly word,
Sinner. But lo! the rotten-fuming signs
Smoulder and writhe, and run like mercury,
Flooding the cloud, which belches into flame
And shrivels up beyond the bounds of space!
A rose-dipped pencil washes suddenly
A blush along the east, whereon appears
In molten gold, Man, Woman; and I know
That we are all one race, and these nicknames,
Phantasmal charnel-lights of self-contempt.
Hallowes.
You know I have not always strength of wing
To soar like you right to God's point of view.
Pardon the word. Now, you must let me go.
Smith.
You give no cause: poetic mood won't do.
I see a mental sickness in your eye:
What is it, Hallowes?
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Why, my money's done:
And day by day from London packets come—
Dramas and poems, essays and reviews,
Returned with thanks, returned with thanks.
Smith.
Just so.
Ten pounds I have: take half: when this is spent
Then we return with thanks to London town.
You have your ticket?
Hallowes.
Oh, yes!
Smith.
Cheer up, then!
We have a fortnight yet. Sit down and talk
Of comfortable things. We'll meditate
Upon return-tickets for a while:
How beautifully suited to our need,
Spendthrifts like us! Devise some praise for them.
Hallowes.
O let me go! I have my note-book here.
I'll climb to Merlin-top and write all night
Under the moon or till you follow me.
Smith.
Away then, since you must! Good luck, good rhymes!
Hallowes goes out. Enter Magdalen without seeing Smith.
[Aside.]
These plaited coils of hair, the golden lid
Of the rich casket where her live thoughts lie:
Her cheek is tinged with sunset? Has she eyes?
Her body sways: the crimson-blazoned west
Like organ-music surges through her blood.
My seeming aimless visit to the North—
The time—the circumstance!—I yield myself!
This is the woman whom my soul will love.
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Lady.
[Magdalen wheels round.
Her eyes are living sapphires!
Magdalen.
What!
Smith.
I love you.
Magdalen.
Sir!
Smith.
I love you, lady.
Magdalen
[about to go].
Sir!
Smith.
Lady, stay.
My body and my soul assembled here,
At war till now, are wedded by your glance:
You make that man which chaos was before:
And this is love. I dreaded love: I knew
It should with such a pang lay hold of me.
I am not mad although I tremble thus:
It is the inspiration of my love.
Fly not, repulse me not, and do not fear:
I would tear up my body with my hands,
And hide you in my heart did evil threat:
I am as tame to you as wild things are
To those that cherish them. Be confident,
For I shall guard my dreams from harming you
As faithfully as time his vigil keeps.
Magdalen.
I do not fear.
Smith.
Speak louder, speak again.
Like rose-leaves that enrich the greedy earth
The tremulous whispering bedews my heart.
Speak, speak!
Magdalen.
Who are you, sir?
Smith.
A mellow voice,
235
Golden and searching as a sunny wine.
It bore a question: Who am I? A man.
Magdalen
[aside].
I think so too.—What do you want with me?
Smith.
Our language is too worn, too much abused,
Jaded and over-spurred, wind-broken, lame,—
The hackneyed roadster every bagman mounts.
I cannot tell you what I want with you,
Unless you understand the depth of this:
I want for you heroic happiness.
Magdalen.
How might I win this happiness?
Smith.
Be mine:
I am the enemy of all the world:
Dare it with me: be mine.
Magdalen.
I know you not.
I am engaged to one I do not love;
My father swears that I must marry him:
It is a common misery, so stale
That I contemned it: and I know you not:
But I have courage. Let me think a while.
Smith.
Think my thought; be impatient as I am;
Obey your nature, not authority:
Because the world, enchanted by the sun,
The moon, the stars, with charms of time and space,
Of seasons, tides, of darkness and of light,
Weaves new enchantment everlastingly,
Whirled in a double spell of day and year,
A self-deluded sorcerer, winding round,
Close to its smothered heart, coil after coil
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Some, Cytherean belts; some, chains; and some,
Noisome and terrible as hooded snakes.
Magdalen.
What do you mean? what spells? what sorcery?
Smith.
The hydra-headed creeds; the sciences,
That deem the thing is known when it is named;
And literature, thought's palace-prison fair;
Philosophy, the grand inquisitor
That racks ideas and is fooled with lies;
Society, the mud wherein we stand
Up to the eyes, whence if I drag you forth,
Saving your soul and mine, there shall ascend
A poisonous blast that may o'ertake our lives.
Magdalen.
I feel a meaning in your eloquence;
I see my poor thoughts made celestial
Like faded women Jove hung in the sky.
Obey my nature, sir? How shall I know
The voice of nature from the thousand cries,
That clamour in my head like piteous birds,
Filling the air about a lonely isle
With ringing terror when the hunter comes.
Smith.
Shut out the storm and heed the still, small voice.
Magdalen.
Have pity. Yet I think the woman's dream
Is given me—the strong deliverer
To pluck her from the dragon's jaws unharmed.
What can I say? Rest still your eyes on mine,
And I shall dare to speak. I love you, sir;
And I have loved you since I was a girl—
You, only you. Good-bye. Oh, in my life—
237
I met the living image of my dream,
And was found worthy to be loved! Good-bye.
I seem to see my daughter at my knees,
Listening with violet eyes of heaven-wide awe,
The virgin story I shall utter once
To her, only to her.
Smith.
And so, you go
To hell.
Magdalen.
Ay, even so: my father's word
Is plighted to this man, and so is mine.
Perhaps, that I may know this is no dream—
Sir, will you kiss me?
[He folds her in his arms and kisses her.
Smith.
You are faint, my love.
Magdalen.
Oh, have pity, sir!
Smith.
I will have pity.
[Goes out carrying her. Then enter Brown. He goes out after them, and re-enters running as the curtain falls.
| Smith | |