 | The Serpent Play |  |
66
ACT IV.
Scene I.
—The Banquet-room in the Castle of CœlisCœlis, Voragine, Volupsa, Vivia.
Within those legend-bearing walls
Whose age the world's great age recals,
Two blushing maids with love elate
By Voragine and Cœlis sate,
All feasting there in high baronial state.
The warrior now has doffed his crest;
No armature is on his breast;
He revels in his well-earned rest.
A feast of love! Some long-gone day
Drawn back into the happy scene
They tell of in such merry way
That much seems left of what has been.
Then startled, all have ceased to speak:
Sounds of sweet music on them break.
A Minstrel at the gate is singing,
The harp rebounds, the wires are ringing
As he, the deep-voiced Troubadour,
Attunes them to the tale of war.
What words he utters well he feels,
And to the warrior his song appeals!
Whose age the world's great age recals,
Two blushing maids with love elate
By Voragine and Cœlis sate,
All feasting there in high baronial state.
The warrior now has doffed his crest;
No armature is on his breast;
He revels in his well-earned rest.
A feast of love! Some long-gone day
Drawn back into the happy scene
They tell of in such merry way
That much seems left of what has been.
Then startled, all have ceased to speak:
Sounds of sweet music on them break.
A Minstrel at the gate is singing,
The harp rebounds, the wires are ringing
As he, the deep-voiced Troubadour,
Attunes them to the tale of war.
67
And to the warrior his song appeals!
‘'Twas at the meeting of the dead
The fallen bade our slaughters cease;
We mourned their blood that we had shed,
We hailed the better day of peace,
And now one boon we ask that Heaven
Hath ever to the wretched given.’
The fallen bade our slaughters cease;
We mourned their blood that we had shed,
We hailed the better day of peace,
And now one boon we ask that Heaven
Hath ever to the wretched given.’
The words were few but many times
O'er varying keys he spread the rhymes.
The warrior was at Vivia's side:
She shed the tears that he must hide,
Sad in the sorrow of the song;
While deep emotions in him throng
At some awakened sense of wrong.
For lands had he to deserts turned,
And herdsmen slain, and many dwellings burned.
Volupsa watches every thought
The Minstrel's words o'er Cœlis brought,
Thinking, in her silent woe,
Her brother's love would from her turn
To Vivia, and that Cœlis yet might spurn
The heart she gave him long ago.
O'er varying keys he spread the rhymes.
The warrior was at Vivia's side:
She shed the tears that he must hide,
Sad in the sorrow of the song;
While deep emotions in him throng
At some awakened sense of wrong.
For lands had he to deserts turned,
And herdsmen slain, and many dwellings burned.
Volupsa watches every thought
The Minstrel's words o'er Cœlis brought,
Thinking, in her silent woe,
Her brother's love would from her turn
To Vivia, and that Cœlis yet might spurn
The heart she gave him long ago.
Now the Minstrel sings again,
And in the same soul-searching strain.
All hasten to the gateway fain to hear
What they may lose not being there.
They gather on the parapet
Where valleys dip and mountains rise
Around a poet's paradise;
Where strangest deeds may happen yet.
O Minstrel! Canst thou prophesy?
Peace is to-day and war is of the past!
But curses every blessing underlie,
And all things bend before a winter's blast.
And in the same soul-searching strain.
All hasten to the gateway fain to hear
What they may lose not being there.
68
Where valleys dip and mountains rise
Around a poet's paradise;
Where strangest deeds may happen yet.
O Minstrel! Canst thou prophesy?
Peace is to-day and war is of the past!
But curses every blessing underlie,
And all things bend before a winter's blast.
Scene II.
—The Gate of Cœlis.Cœlis, Voragine, Volupsa, Vivia, and Hayus, as a Troubadour.
‘Begin once more,’ the warrior says:
‘Not oft such music greets our ears;
Your song hath left this maid in tears.’
With grateful looks the bard obeys.
The warrior lists as through him rings
The growing burden of the verses
Which the grand Troubadour rehearses,
And to the depths of anguish sings.
The warrior knew his arms had spread
Dismay where hosts but live to mourn the dead:
The wife and child together slain;
The bride hair-dragged to slaughter, screaming;
Her prayer unheard, poured out in vain;
Then her young blood in silence streaming.
69
What is your story, Minstrel?
HAYUS.
I, alone,
Am left of the true bards for ever gone,
Of the old Troubadours descended,
Whose days but not whose songs have ended.
They rise up from the buried time,
And story lives in monuments of rhyme.
Men seldom now the minstrel hear;
Ghost-like he passes o'er his father's track
And for a moment flashes back;
Ere long to wholly disappear.
Cœlis loves the Troubadour,
So human were those deep-set eyes,
That had a troubled look divinely pure;
And kindly thus unto his words replies:
So human were those deep-set eyes,
That had a troubled look divinely pure;
And kindly thus unto his words replies:
‘You can our hearts already read;
There seek your welcome; speak your need:
What is it brings you to the door?’
There seek your welcome; speak your need:
What is it brings you to the door?’
HAYUS.
I will be bold; affairs of state
Have brought me to this noble house;
Our cause I pray all present to espouse!
On this depends my country's fate.
My father was a sacred bard
Whose songs with filial reverence I guard;
70
Rehearsing newer deeds than yet had flown
O'er homes that to each other were unknown,
And well the legend of this house he knew.
My father taught me reverence for your name:
From that high source my inspiration came!
The Serpent was the guardian of your race;
And they who braved his anger rued too soon
The woes that once befel Laocoon!
And many shared that victim's throes;
Not sadder than my own dear country's woes!
So as we spread your fame from place to place,
Of you I ask a boon; to spare
Our land and take its people to your care.
Myself the leader of a strolling band,
Rare actors every one, and nigh at hand,
I seek the favour first, not hard to grant,
That we may act our play on yonder sward;
And if our effort please, be our reward
That mercy wakens to our nobler want!
CŒLIS.
Tell us at once your full desire;
Willing are we to give it heed;
But first shall we your band of actors hire,
Whatever else may be your pressing need.
HAYUS.
It is that Voragine, your chief, revoke
The impost on our hungry soil:
71
And few remain to sweat and toil.
Humble are we, our people are subdued
And seek to thrive in peace, the only lasting good.
VORAGINE.
The little that you ask shall be conceded,
With all the spoils; and more, if more be needed.
‘Then are you not my country's foe,’
The Minstrel said, and to the chief bowed low.
‘Since that all hearts are in our favour stirred,
Let me speak on; speak of your sires whose dust
Here sleeps; of whom are many marvels heard:
And who to legends listens in mistrust?
My fathers to your fathers oft have sung
The weird traditions, true though symbolized,
That to this house for centuries have clung.
Above all wealth are they, above all honours prized!
They bear us back into the infant times,
Of virgin lands on earth, and early climes,
Whence men derived their origin obscure;
Who since into the forest-world have spread
With the traditions of their dead,
Which to these latest days endure.
In a dark hour the whisperer of death
Approached their mother with his glozing breath:
Well they remembered all that mother told
As she wept o'er her Paradise of old.’
The Minstrel said, and to the chief bowed low.
‘Since that all hearts are in our favour stirred,
Let me speak on; speak of your sires whose dust
Here sleeps; of whom are many marvels heard:
And who to legends listens in mistrust?
My fathers to your fathers oft have sung
The weird traditions, true though symbolized,
That to this house for centuries have clung.
Above all wealth are they, above all honours prized!
They bear us back into the infant times,
Of virgin lands on earth, and early climes,
Whence men derived their origin obscure;
Who since into the forest-world have spread
With the traditions of their dead,
Which to these latest days endure.
In a dark hour the whisperer of death
Approached their mother with his glozing breath:
Well they remembered all that mother told
As she wept o'er her Paradise of old.’
72
The Troubadour's devoted eyes
Rest on the prospect that beneath him lies;
Then the inviting heaven they slowly gauge
To catch some well-timed thought of its highteaching page.
‘Yon Soul of All,’ he says, ‘had striven
To plan our being free of pain:
She, the Wise-Worker, strove in vain,
Not limitless her power.
Change would arise and change was but Decay;
The night would feed upon the day,
The day the night devour.
Despite her, Nature must the work rehearse,
Else had She swept away this universe
Whose charm alternates only with its curse.
But love within her still prevailed,
Though by the Serpent ceaselessly assailed,
Who, ever pressing on her rear,
Poisons the love-born offerings of the year.
The bloom of her all-fruitful being
She sheds even to the future's farthest date;
Throughout all time the day foreseeing
When man should lose no more his soul's estate.
Hard was the struggle for our race;
The fierceness of the tiger was its base,
But reason had a growth self-lifting
Above the common nature of mankind:
Through storms within, through trials drifting,
Still the good and evil sifting,
While loftier rose the wondrous mind.
Oft-times it grew to godlike stature
And won such conquests over nature
As in eternal archives ever shine,
And claim for it an origin divine.
But, as in legend still is rife,
The Serpent with the Soul of All at strife
Was lord of death, ensconced in arm-like shape
That clasped within its many circled coil
The soul that would his will escape
And balk him of his richest spoil.
So speak the legends of old times,
That come to us in their heart-clinging rhymes;
That every ear with sweetness sate,
And, once caught up, none dare adulterate.
All these traditions, nobly sung,
To our great troubadours have clung:
And those which breathe the fame and glory
Of this high house rank first in ancient story.
All who dwell here are of Laocoon's line,
A kingly race, priests of a sun-god's shrine:
But they had foes that never slept;
And from the sea two jealous serpents crept,
Entwining sire and sons within their grasp,
And still those suffering souls they seem to clasp.
Who gazed, stood in their presence numb,
The tongues of olden bards were stricken dumb;
But lives the record in that marble rock
Which, thrilled with horror, trembled in the shock,
And, scaling gave to sight the Serpent's skin
And all the direful group that writhed within.
There stood the three in fiery anguish seething,
The knotted Serpents sire and sons enwreathing.’
Rest on the prospect that beneath him lies;
Then the inviting heaven they slowly gauge
To catch some well-timed thought of its highteaching page.
‘Yon Soul of All,’ he says, ‘had striven
To plan our being free of pain:
She, the Wise-Worker, strove in vain,
Not limitless her power.
Change would arise and change was but Decay;
The night would feed upon the day,
The day the night devour.
Despite her, Nature must the work rehearse,
Else had She swept away this universe
Whose charm alternates only with its curse.
But love within her still prevailed,
Though by the Serpent ceaselessly assailed,
Who, ever pressing on her rear,
Poisons the love-born offerings of the year.
The bloom of her all-fruitful being
She sheds even to the future's farthest date;
Throughout all time the day foreseeing
When man should lose no more his soul's estate.
Hard was the struggle for our race;
The fierceness of the tiger was its base,
But reason had a growth self-lifting
Above the common nature of mankind:
Through storms within, through trials drifting,
Still the good and evil sifting,
While loftier rose the wondrous mind.
73
And won such conquests over nature
As in eternal archives ever shine,
And claim for it an origin divine.
But, as in legend still is rife,
The Serpent with the Soul of All at strife
Was lord of death, ensconced in arm-like shape
That clasped within its many circled coil
The soul that would his will escape
And balk him of his richest spoil.
So speak the legends of old times,
That come to us in their heart-clinging rhymes;
That every ear with sweetness sate,
And, once caught up, none dare adulterate.
All these traditions, nobly sung,
To our great troubadours have clung:
And those which breathe the fame and glory
Of this high house rank first in ancient story.
All who dwell here are of Laocoon's line,
A kingly race, priests of a sun-god's shrine:
But they had foes that never slept;
And from the sea two jealous serpents crept,
Entwining sire and sons within their grasp,
And still those suffering souls they seem to clasp.
Who gazed, stood in their presence numb,
The tongues of olden bards were stricken dumb;
But lives the record in that marble rock
Which, thrilled with horror, trembled in the shock,
And, scaling gave to sight the Serpent's skin
And all the direful group that writhed within.
74
The knotted Serpents sire and sons enwreathing.’
The maidens hand in hand have met,
With open mouths and brows firm set;
Yet eager and with frighted stare
They listen, though the tale their senses scare.
With open mouths and brows firm set;
Yet eager and with frighted stare
They listen, though the tale their senses scare.
‘The serpents crept through every land,
In one all-tempting purpose clanned:
In forest stretched across from bole to bole
Waiting their prey, the wandering soul,
Were they below the lofty branches slung,
And there in emerald dyes and ruby lustre hung,
Green where the summer boughs were green,
Red where the tangled creepers tinged the autumnal scene.
Then could I tell you, ne'er to be forgot,
How the great lords, your sires, were led
By the arch-serpent to this pleasant spot,
Where o'er the gateway still he rears his head,
The mystic symbol of a form
That winds its will about the darting storm.
But these old legends reach so high,
They burn into the page of prophecy,
Where none can loose the fiery letters,
Bound and clasped in iron fetters,
Till, on the dreaded day foredoomed,
They burst in flame and are, with all, consumed.
In one all-tempting purpose clanned:
In forest stretched across from bole to bole
Waiting their prey, the wandering soul,
Were they below the lofty branches slung,
And there in emerald dyes and ruby lustre hung,
Green where the summer boughs were green,
Red where the tangled creepers tinged the autumnal scene.
Then could I tell you, ne'er to be forgot,
How the great lords, your sires, were led
By the arch-serpent to this pleasant spot,
Where o'er the gateway still he rears his head,
The mystic symbol of a form
That winds its will about the darting storm.
But these old legends reach so high,
They burn into the page of prophecy,
Where none can loose the fiery letters,
Bound and clasped in iron fetters,
Till, on the dreaded day foredoomed,
They burst in flame and are, with all, consumed.
75
Scene III.
—The Chamber of Volupsa.Volupsa, alone.
Though now the Minstrel's tones are hushed,
His sweep of feeling is unstayed:
The torrent from that bosom rushed,
As there he trembled, self-dismayed,
And poured his rage down every ear;—
Dire threats the spirit's channel tracking
He held all listeners in fear,
As in a fiery ring that burned
Round all, while on themselves they turned,
As with a serpent-sting their bosoms racking.
And speedily Volupsa fled;
Her rest was in her brother's hall;
There her afflicted heart she read,
Bodings of evil only to recal.
She had the patient gift that dwells
On thought as deeply as on deeds,
And now her heart the meaning tells
Of all that on its quiet feeds.
She looks not forward only, but within
Where ills that are to be so oft begin.
Those records, now, that many deem
The vapid verse of false tradition,
Haunt her as some unusual dream
That glares on her through bars of superstition.
What dare she think? Is he indeed a bard,
Whose songs so on her spirit jarred,
Or but a man of mysteries?
Yet goodness glistened in his eyes!
What semblance sees she, be it dim,
Between the wily Snake and him?
Doth one within the other lurk,
That both such power o'er Cœlis work,
Trailing through bliss his phrenzied aspiration,
While spirits tune some choral hymn,
With stolen notes of seraphim,
And hold his soul in fascination?
She dares not think and but pours forth a prayer,
That God may take her to his care.
His sweep of feeling is unstayed:
The torrent from that bosom rushed,
As there he trembled, self-dismayed,
And poured his rage down every ear;—
Dire threats the spirit's channel tracking
He held all listeners in fear,
As in a fiery ring that burned
Round all, while on themselves they turned,
As with a serpent-sting their bosoms racking.
And speedily Volupsa fled;
Her rest was in her brother's hall;
There her afflicted heart she read,
Bodings of evil only to recal.
She had the patient gift that dwells
On thought as deeply as on deeds,
And now her heart the meaning tells
Of all that on its quiet feeds.
She looks not forward only, but within
Where ills that are to be so oft begin.
Those records, now, that many deem
The vapid verse of false tradition,
Haunt her as some unusual dream
That glares on her through bars of superstition.
76
Whose songs so on her spirit jarred,
Or but a man of mysteries?
Yet goodness glistened in his eyes!
What semblance sees she, be it dim,
Between the wily Snake and him?
Doth one within the other lurk,
That both such power o'er Cœlis work,
Trailing through bliss his phrenzied aspiration,
While spirits tune some choral hymn,
With stolen notes of seraphim,
And hold his soul in fascination?
She dares not think and but pours forth a prayer,
That God may take her to his care.
‘O help of the helpless! who ever art nigh;
The Shepherd on whom in our need we rely,
In whose light are the tears of the wretched made dry;
Look down on this heart, thy poor suppliant behold;
For her sake the loved Lamb to thy bosom enfold!’
The Shepherd on whom in our need we rely,
In whose light are the tears of the wretched made dry;
Look down on this heart, thy poor suppliant behold;
For her sake the loved Lamb to thy bosom enfold!’
77
Scene IV.
—Terrace at the Gate of Cœlis.Voragine, Vivia.
Vivia as one benumbed was lost in awe,
When Voragine her terror saw:
He said that legends well he loved,
But not a soldier it behoved
To put his trust in what a minstrel sings;
That faith with him was but in passing things.
Cœlis and the Troubadour
Pass down the slope, the valley to explore,
Where they may commune on the play,
And fix the morrow for the gala-day.
Vivia not long remains in dread
While her fond hand the warrior keeps
In his, as if already wed;
And there it softly rests as when she sleeps.
VORAGINE
Will not you, sweetest, kindly muse
On my last words? this were not life
Should you my loving heart refuse!
VIVIA.
But I am young to be a wife!
78
Not young the bridal veil to wear!
VIVIA.
I feel that you are brave and kind;
Then something crosses o'er my mind
And makes me pant with sudden fear.
VORAGINE.
Yes, you are young, but were you older
Your timid heart would not be bolder.
VIVIA.
I have so many things to learn;
At school we only write and read:
It will take long my mind to turn
To all a soldier's wife must need.
VORAGINE.
All he can ask for, you possess;
A gentle heart, a ready thought:
What gifts a soldier's life to bless!
The rest is all by instinct caught.
VIVIA.
Dear Cousin, you will wait at least
Till she knows household duties better?
79
Then what confusion would beset her!
When the splendid guests assemble
About you, and your praises sound,
Her cheeks would burn, her feet would tremble
As she were sinking through the ground.
VORAGINE.
Not when a diamond shower has clung
In radiant drops about her neck,
And pearls as thick as hailstones flung
Upon her hair her head shall deck?
VIVIA.
Easy it is for you to bask
In glory, won by you in fight:
It is for me a trying task
To lift my eyelids in your light.
VORAGINE.
Yet when you risk those swaying eyes
And turn their look of love on me,
A voice within my heart replies,
Such bliss on earth can never be!
VIVIA.
Am I so loved? or am I made
The philtre but to work the spell,
80
Into a child, a graceless girl!
VORAGINE.
The gifts and honours that the throne
Confers, may every soldier know:
Your heart is one, the only one,
No monarch can on him bestow.
VIVIA.
Once did I care to see you great
Till love for you has turned my head;
But we another year must wait;
You know that I am young to wed!
VORAGINE.
You soon to woman's prime will reach,
Even as the bud its growth extends;
You then will ask with bolder speech
When this long term of spring-tide ends.
VIVIA.
Tell it to no one for a year!
Our friends would laugh though I should weep:
'Twere long their raillery to bear:
It is a secret you can keep?
81
You trust it to your faithful slave
Who will your hourly wish obey:
Who would not such a service crave
Awaiting the propitious day!
Scene V.
—The Paradise of Cœlis.Cœlis, Hayus.
Along the plain, where seem to grow
Tree-shadows, feeding on the grass below,
Cœlis and Hayus wander, brooding still
O'er serpent-myths and man's mysterious will.
The floods are gone, the brooks are shallow;
Fields of lilies white and yellow,
That blossomed on the waters' surf,
Have dropped their refuse on the turf.
Spring presses upwards through the grass
That now by sprouting blades is thickened;
Crisp stems a wealth of flowers amass
'Mid drooping leaves by winter sickened.
‘Here,’ then said Cœlis, ‘act your pleasant play,
And let the morrow be a gala-day.’
HAYUS.
It shall be such a day as few
Can through a life-time see again.
82
When shepherds ruled as rich a plain.
CŒLIS.
Volupsa loved a pastoral:
May this her early joys recal.
Then Vivia it must needs enrapture:
When her young eyes with pleasure glow
They might a hundred lovers capture.
HAYUS.
The villagers,—
CŒLIS.
Let all attend the show.
A pastoral is the prelude, then,
What follows?
HAYUS.
Rustic games, when armèd men
Come stealthily as fain to join
Our feast, but would our flocks purloin;
And while they drive away the cattle
Sound their bugles as for battle.
Our shepherds with their crooks pursue;
Brief is the struggle, made in vain;
That day not many do recal; for few
Escape and many a maid and youth is slain.
CŒLIS.
How ends the play?
83
All for the best,
Though still borne on by passion, deep and strong.
I cannot now describe the rest;—
All nobly meet the cruel wrong.
Strange seems this answer when you deign to ask
A player how shall end his mimic task;
But ever has it been our fashion
To yield the climax up to human passion.
Our actors are so gifted that a plot,
Against the impulse of the hour, would fail,
And, as the fury raged, would be forgot:
For genius must o'er all our acts prevail.
How true to nature this! In many wars
Have served the thoughtful troubadours,
To find in battle's mighty crash
No soldier waits the last command:
Swift inspirations o'er him flash,
And lift his arm and guide his hand.
So is it with our mimic play:
How that may end can no man say.
When once our actors realize their part
The living impulse, only, rules o'er art,
And in their conflicts, soul to Soul,
The first strong act moves onward through the whole.
And well is the spectator pleased:
To guess the plot in vain he tries:
His wonder never is appeased
Till comes the startling end in all its grand surprise.
84
And now the heart of Hayus torn
By secret pangs beyond itself is borne
Into new anguish, stricken at the thought
That on a friend must vengeance soon be wrought.
Too soon for penitence, too late;
It cannot bargain 'gainst the rush of fate.
They part, the avenger in the valley stays
Watching, unseen, with ever-deepening gaze
The youth who now ascends the steep and prays.
Scene VI.
—Hill-side in the Paradise of Cœlis.Cœlis,
alone.
‘On thy darkness, O Sun! fell the Deity's gaze
And his true image stayed evermore on thy face,
The Soul of thy seasons, the warmth and the light,
To rule this new world that had hung in thy night.
It summoned the forests to feed on its rays:
The flowers it revealed that new-parcelled its blaze
Into yellow thy first, into red thy last hue,
Into heaven's holy curtain the fathomless blue.
O proud Sun! how thou holdest the virtue divine
That self-shining was left o'er thy empire to shine!
'Twas the first day of thought; but ere eyes had discerned
'Twas not He in thine orb, but His likeness that burned,—
85
We adored thee; to godhead impervious the rays,
That had called up our souls from the passionless night
Soon to learn in their wonder thy might was His might.
We prayed to the forests those beam-germs had sown,
To the Serpent around the huge trunks that had grown
And who guarded the trees wherein wisdom was hidden:
We asked how they spread, how their leaves were secured;
How their flowers and their fruits to the earth were assured,
Though to man's infant soul was such knowledge forbidden.
As His fire when he gazed on thee filled thee with fire
So His likeness sustains our one hope, our desire.
We seek it in Her who still lives in that glance;
Towards Her, its effulgence, our spirits advance;
We seek it in Her to whom rapture belongs:
Who thought after thought the universe throngs.
He is gone; on His way grow the infinite spheres,
And again, save afar, no more he appears,
Ever spreading his glory.’
Now the shallow twilight closes,
And the Soul-seeker, lone, ascends
His mountain slope where he reposes
Watching the sunset till it ends.
86
And rested flaming, never dying out,
Are piled in heaps discordant and sublime,
The wrecks of day hurled on the molten spires
And burning slow, like mortuary fires;
The yellow floods their reddened rocks o'erflowing,
The orb 'mid wasted embers glowing,
And purple storms behind it blowing
A chaos down the gulph of time.
CŒLIS.
‘Spirit of all! My dark winter revive
With thy touch, and restore it to beautiful spring!
To Thee, to thy love, a soul-offering I bring
That where thou inhabitest only can live.’
The last rays melt on the hill-side,
And in them he is glorified.
The white fruit-flowers absorb their hue
As they dissolve to rosy blue,
All in their holy incense dyeing,
While he impurpled on the slope is lying.
The Troubadour alone within the vale
Still watches the Soul-seeker on the height
Changing with nature; pale when she is pale,
Then in her many tints celestial bright.
He sees and lifts his arms up high in air,
His face turned skyward as he muttereth
The secret words of an intense despair
That lies beyond the common pale of death.
| The Serpent Play | |