 | An Unhistorical Pastoral |  |
SCENE I.
—The Sea-Coast.Enter Alardo and Conrad.
Alardo.
Safe, sound, on land, and our own land at last.
How long, Conrad, have we been seafarers?
Conrad.
On our disastrous and untimely cruise,
In early spring we merrily embarked.
The trees are greener now than when we sailed,
More softly breathes the air: my lord, I think
About this time last year our ills began,
A honeymoon on ocean's breast gone by.
If I be right—for judgment here is wide,
Since in escapes from icebergs, pirates, perils
Of krakens, quicksands, bloody cannibals,
Storms merciless, and nights of many days—
The married life of those who wed the deep—
All reckoning was lost—hoar, doting time
Repeats the seasons' epic where our ears
4
One year's discordant interlude between.
Alardo.
Well-tempered discord strengthens: if my son
Be but alive and well, life's music glides
In sweeter, richer cadence for this crash.
If in deep ocean's unrobbed tomb, or white
And all unsepulchred, on some bleak coast
His bones lie withering, discord is the theme
Shall din my hearing to eternity.
Do you remember when the envious wave,
Begrudging me so beautiful a boy,
With swift abduction snatched him from the poop,
And swept him from our ken? Mind you his cry
That pierced the howling storm, nor through that shield
Did with a gentler wound transfix our ears?
Saw you his begging hand finger the air,
Then vanish, lastly visible of him?
Conrad.
'Tis deeply graven in my memory.
Alardo.
Ay, as a moving picture's strong impress;
But I was of it—you, a looker-on.
I watched the sneaking waves, the subtle waves,
The sly, the pitiless, the sinewy waves,
Swarm from the cuttle-sea like suckers lithe,
And steal my son to feed its hungry maw.
Conrad.
Indeed, my lord, not to that tongueless grief
Which seized you then, and held you captive long,
Was I prisoner; but I sorrowed both
For your bereavement and my own past lost.
Alardo.
O, you, too, mourn a son!
Conrad.
In infancy
One was reft from me.
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Blessed then are you
That know him in Elysium; but I
Have no sweet sunshine gleaming through my tears.
I would not have mine dead e'en to gain heaven;
But life may now be hell: on yon rude shores
Near which we drifted when my son was lost,
They say that human fiends cavern to prey
On hunted ships the tinchel-waves drive in,
Torturing the voyagers for ransom; some
Transporting slaves to burning Afric climes:
Each imaged pang impales my inmost heart.
Conrad.
I said my loss was past, yet, in a sort,
I suffer fresh bereavement every day;
And might with uncurbed fancy harrow up,
As you do yours, my fatherly regard,
But that it boots not to imagine ill,
Where equal chance shows good luck may betide.
My child was lost or stolen, drowned or devoured,
I brood not which; but, in most hopeful mood,
Think soon to see him well; more sluggish thoughts
Would joy to find him any how or where:
And so, piecemeal, my hope is back repulsed
To find content in sure news of his death.
Alardo.
Was it a while ago your son was lost?
Conrad.
Full fifteen years; his age, one half that sum.
Alardo.
Fifteen unsevered years may cool me too,
But grief and I are fresh and all uncloyed;
We drain the utmost sadness that we can.
Conrad.
I bore grief just so passionate a love;
But long before you slight her as I do,
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Your quick-found son will give her to your arms.
Alardo.
How did you lose your son, good Conrad, say?
Conrad.
Indeed I cannot. One soul-sickening night
Nowhere was he discovered. Every haunt
Where curious childhood oft had wandered him
Appeared as wistful for his sight as we;
The mourning echoes called with us his name.
He was my only son—Heaven grant he is!
Alardo.
For you conjecture had an airy stretch,
And hope full complement of anchors strong;
My thoughts are hedged, my only grapnel drags.
Your son was lost from vague remembrance; death
Plucked mine with bony grasp from out my eyes.
Seven years you had a son; and twice that term
Has tamed your sorrow's force: my Rupert's eyes
Had viewed a score of summers: by this count
A century should see me bow to fate;
But I'll be traitor till death vindicate
The all-commanding rule of destiny.
Conrad.
Permit me, sir: such is your present thought.—
Holds your intent to travel in disguise
Thence to our court: to hear what rumour goes
Concerning us; toward you what mind is borne;
To note your subjects' state; with parent's care
To mark what merits praise, what needs reproof,
And understand the country's inmost soul?
Alardo.
I purpose so. Our lives, however short,
And full of toil, have time enough for grief.
Yet stay, my lord: here comes one who shall tell
Which is the pleasantest, most peopled way.
7
Of our long ventures in a time so brief.—
Enter Cinthio.
Sea-bred or inland, friend?
Cinthio.
A shepherd, sir.
Conrad.
Where are we, gentle shepherd, by your voice,
And who reigns here?
Cinthio.
In Belmarie, not far
From court, kind stranger, where no courtiers be.
This country's king was lost a year ago:
Yet in a longing hope he is not dead,
The heir-apparent but a regent's power
Decrees to exercise for twice four years.
When that date is expired, if no king come,
The prince intends to fill his father's room.
Alardo.
His father's, say you? [Aside.]
Have I then two sons?
This shepherd dreams.
Cinthio.
Yes; King Alardo, once
Of these broad realms; now, king in heaven, I wot.
Even as earth's bower-maid, Spring, in robes of green
Her naked lady, roused from winter's sleep,
Began to deck, five galleys, new-built all,
With sails of taffeta, and masts of gold,
Pushed from this strand bound on adventures far,
The king, his son, and many a noble knight,
With mariners and fighting-men aboard.
Of this armada not a single ship
Has yet returned to us; nor any spar
Of drifting wreckage tells a woeful tale
8
Was hurried in a storm, and, blest by fate,
Snatched from that doom which overwhelmed the rest;
For he was washed ashore and nursed to health
By fisher-folk, whom he has made his friends.
And now he has forsaken courtly state
To live in country freedom for a while;
In Dolorosa's vale he spends the spring.
Alardo.
And what road must we take to reach this place?
[Aside.]
I dare not credit him, or else his tale
Is true of some impostor.
Cinthio.
Onward go,
Until that pine-straight pathway radiates
Two branches from its stem, extending still:
That shooting westward winds a mile or two,
And ends in our royal town; the other way,
Toward sunrise, leads to Dolorosa's vale.
Alardo.
Thy kindness, shepherd, merits some reward;
But now our purses are as lank as we.
Rest you assured of worthy recompense
From me in Dolorosa.
[Goes out.
Conrad.
If my old eyes
Deceive me not, I've seen you, sir, before.
Cinthio.
Maybe, sir; though I, witting, ne'er saw you.
Conrad.
[Aside.]
I'll question him again.—Shepherd, farewell.
[Goes out.
Cinthio.
What lordly wight was this, who, seeming poor,
Would fee a duteous courtesy? He hides
His beams behind a ragged cloud perhaps.
I'll hope to see him in his majesty.
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I came to see you, captain and good friend.
When do you sail?
Sebastian.
When we have made an end
Of lading, and have shipped a proper crew;
Perhaps two days hence. How may this touch you?
Cinthio.
Now you impeach my friendship to speak so;
For I would come, and this full well you know,
To clasp my loved Sebastian on the strand,
And drop a tear upon his parting hand,
And fill his sails with breath of heart-felt prayer
To waft him back, outspeeding swiftest air,
Even while his barque degrades into eclipse
Behind the bulging world, as Phœbe slips,
Slackly and slow, over the ocean's rim,
When stars grow bright, and seas and hills grow dim.
But hark, Sebastian, give me careful heed:
Your often-proffered help I sorely need
To aid me in an enterprise of note.
Sebastian.
They all are yours—myself, my men, my boat.
Cinthio.
Is there, far distant from the sea's highway,
Unwatched by any eye save that of day—
Or if perfection lights unreasoning eyes,
By gentle beasts, and birds of paradise—
A coral isle, old nature's best-loved child
And latest offspring, nursed by waters wild—
Tamed in that nurture—to rare loveliness,
Whose witchery creates a sweet distress;
An islet Venus might have made her home,
Even as, love-mad, she blossomed from the foam;
Where lovers may beneath a bread-fruit tree
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Of birds and waters lulled to slumber deep;
And by like sounds be roused to waking sleep,
To feed upon their couch's canopy,
And watch what may appear with dreamy eye,
Stirring no limb, save for their gentler ease,
For ministry of love, or what they please?
Methinks you told me once of such a gem,
Descried unsought; or is it my own dream?
Sebastian.
In stress of storm I found it: tempest-driven
I took the first port, and I lit on heaven.
Cinthio.
This isle's felicitous, Edenic state
Lacks of perfection, eyes to appreciate;
These are within your office to supply:
What better watchers than Faustine and I?
O, there's the direst need of flying far!
That envious, and most inveterate star
Whose wanton spite is spent in thwarting love
Has chosen us for signal harm; we strove
Against disaster, but are hemmed to this,
Either to fly, or die upon a kiss.
Sebastian.
To die upon a kiss?
Cinthio.
Or kiss and die;
For Faustine is a maid of lineage high;
A foundling, and a vulgar shepherd, I.
Her sire's a lordly wight of sternest mould,
Who guides his life and hers by precepts old.
He trains his child in crude simplicity,
That ignorance may foster modesty;
Gives her free scope—in gardens and parterres,
With dowagers and hoary aunts for feres;
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Of all feminity, her honour's treasure
He will not trust to any common guard,
But in the night, before her door is barred,
He hides—unchristened trick!—that cloudy dress
Wherein by day her sun-bright nakedness
She mercifully veils from mortal eyes,
To hinder, as he trusts, all enterprise,
Such as we purpose with the treacherous aid
Of that twice-suborned spy, my lady's maid;
Which, with your help, we've sworn to amplify,
Or on an everlasting kiss to die.
Sebastian.
Yet wherefore fly to such a far-off isle?
Unbroken time to love, and nature's smile,
With safety unmolested, you may reach
Upon some neighbouring and less dangerous beach.
Cinthio.
We have solaced our souls with hope of bliss
In that far isle; not there, then paradise:
Being bound for heaven, not storms, not rocks can fray us,
Yea, dreadless death more swiftly would convey us.
Sebastian.
Then nothing moves you. Yet, take tent and think:
They need not drown who still stand on the brink;
And let me tell you, if I rightly deem,
These isles are all as fragile as they seem;
Strong as the spider's web, the poor fly's tomb,
Fixed as the rainbow on a crest of foam,
Stable as any luring bright mirage,
Torn into ribbons by the ruthless wind,
Whelmed by the multitudinous waves' wild dash,
Gone like a dream leaving no trace behind.
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If you, my best Sebastian, bear us hence,
We'll prove this doctrine by experience.
Sebastian.
Its truth will be expounded by th'event.
Must all things fit that you may sail to-night?
Cinthio.
Not until after midnight, for our flight
Must be with stealth, and cautious management.
Sebastian.
Love's gentle goddess prosper your intent!
Two hours past night's dark noon I'll meet you here.
Cinthio.
Farewell till then.
Sebastian.
Farewell, and no ill fear.
Of what I said, dissuading, have no care:
Blow high, blow low, we this adventure dare.
[They go out separately.
| An Unhistorical Pastoral | |