The Queen of the Hid Isle :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Queen of the Hid Isle

An Allegoric Poem

Douglas, Evelyn

THE QUEEN OF THE HID ISLE:

Scene III.

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Scene III.

—Interior of Necromancer's Cavern. Globes, Telescopes, Instruments everywhere. In the middle a Tripod and a Ring of Dead Bones and Skulls.
Necro.
Within this sacred halo of dry bones

The Professor prepareth a lecture.

And old worm-fretted skulls of men long dead,
Let none plant footing save whose middle wears
The cincture, and whose back the ermined cape

Of great societies of old magicians,
Or him by some so plumed initiated!
The glamourous ingredients of the spell
Give off a fume upon the candent plate,
Potsherds, and crazy crocks, and halms of straw,
And husks of grain thrice threshed away to nothing
At Athens, Rome, and Alexandria,
Or by stout threshers on the banks of Rhine;
Some remnants of old bricks, that once had part
And portion in a stately edifice,
Raked up by me from dunghills, so divorced
From their true station and significance
At cope or groundsill, or to prop a frieze
Borne high aloft on Caryatid's brows,
And worshipped out of all proportion; sticks,
Old acorn-cups, and pale caducous leaves
Or fever-florid, grubbed up at the roots
Of none but dead or black fire-blasted trees.—
Alas! at dawn some few days past I met
(It seemed as 'twere myself in the old days)

The Professor detecteth a young man in the very act of composing verses.

A young magician gathering herbs. His face,
Over whose white the red of youth distreamed
Brighter than achiote, was shadowed by

Light floating flakes of wild coruscant hair;
And in his arms he bore a fragrant heap,
Sleepful cup-roses and grape-hyacinths,
Bed-straw and lady-smocks, and gemmy buds
Of myrtles, cereous waterlilies, shocks
And loose luxuriant twines of caprifole,
And heavy globe-flowers of the amaranth,
Flamy gold celandines from fenny flats,
And sheaves of yellow flaglike flower-de-luce
Glomes of white guelder roses, clustering balls
Of cowslips, bunches of bright daffodils,
Whole nodding swaths of the corn-marigold,
Red tiger-lilies, purple passion-flowers,
And rigid swordy sheaths of gladioles:
Nor had the youth forgot to mix therewith
Poisonous weeds culled on damp everglades,
Or swampy isles 'twixt bends of diffluent streams,
The enwombèd venom of lurid nightshade blooms
Buried in knotty glumes of adder's grass.
These he bore off and in a brazier burned.
Whereat uprose a sleepy fume of sweets:

The Professor reproveth him.

But I drew nigh and plucked him by the gown,

And said, You make heaven sick with Pagan rites.
Behold these bricks wet from baptismal fonts,
Or from the apsis of old Christian churches—
(Knocking.)
It is the knight Sir Clarimonde. Thrice welcome!

Clarimonde goeth up unto the University and readeth Humane Letters.

Clar.
How foul a stench comes from the stinkpot there!
Are these your rites?

Necro.
Ay, sit you down awhile,
And I will call the dead to talk with you.
Alectryomancy, geomancy too,

The Professor is “nothing if not critical.” To him criticism is superior to the creation of a system.

And ceromancy, and all other forms
Of divination, are but void and null,
Save only glorious necromancy! See
At my hand's wavure how the spectres rise!

The Professor raiseth the ghost of Plato.

1st Spectre.
I dwelt at Athens.—Things you seem to see
Are shadows cast by true existences,
Ideas and archetypes, as images
By sunlight or by starlight seen in water
Are but vague pictures of true beasts and trees;
And all ideas stream from the sun of Good.

Ye are but captives in a spectral cave
Gazeful on shadows, till to lead you forth
Gold-footed comes Eros—

Necro.
Leave out Eros.
He is dangerous and we are sick of him.

[1st Spectre vanishes.
Necro.
He is insulted. Never mind! There's more.

2nd Spectre.
Ideas are foolery. Start from principles.

Of Aristotle.

The pure intuitive mind will give them you
Upon experience (see my Topica).

Necro.
Ay, but we wish some goal of life.

2nd Spectre.
The goal
Is happiness, and happiness abides
In the brain-whirl of true philosophy.

Necro.
You hear, my son?

Clar.
So this is then the queen.
The queen of the Hid Isle is but a headache!

[2nd Spectre vanishes.
3rd Spectre.
I come from Alexandria.—The soul

Of Plotinus.

Is pure before its birth, but, floating down
From the region of fixed stars, contracts a taint
At birth, whereof to rid it is the end

And aim of life. And this can but be done
By purging spirit of the alloy of matter,
Killing the flesh and lifting up the soul
In lofty speculation. I at last
Blushed that I had a body.

Clar.
'Tis the same:
Only the other called it happiness.

[3rd Spectre vanishes.
Necro.
You scared him with that word, for happiness
He counts the only sin. But see the next:
He wears the madman's lean and haggard face.

4th Spectre.
Atoms and void: these make the world and man,

Of Lucretius.

The carolling birds, the fishes of the sea,
The soul, and tranquil orders of the gods;
Wherefore have peace: the soul is but a fume
Of finer, smoother globules than the rest,
Which being scattered, memory's link is snapt,
And sufferings on death's other side not ours.
Divinest Epicurus taught me this.

5th Spectre.
I spin out truths from the cocoons of texts.

Of a Scholastic Philosopher.

I am a silkworm and no spider, I!

6th Spectre.
We will have no ideas. Let us have forms,

Of Bacon.

Which when we know, we may turn stones to gold.
“The end of knowledge is to enrich life
With new inventions.”

Clar.
Then the queen is mine
If I contrive a novel sort of jakes!

7th Spectre.
I think; therefore I am. And God is true;

Of Descartes.

Therefore the world is as I see it—

Clar.
Yes,
But you yourself a spectre.

Necro.
He is gone.

8th Spectre.
God is the one sole substance. All the world

Of Spinoza.

Is but God's raiment. Pious thoughts not true
Are food for man, and to be pious means
To live in charity with all men.

Clar.
Thanks!
That is the best as yet.

Necro.
His life be witness.

9th Spectre.
All truth lies in experience. Self and God

Of Locke.

Are built thereon. No truth is born in us.

10th Spectre.
My spirit makes my world. The world is but

Of Berkeley.

A dream to which I give the colours.

11th Spectre.
Truth!

Of Hume.

There is no truth. Thy soul is but a dream.

12th Spectre.
There is truth. 'Tis but when we stray too far

Of Kant.

We come to cross-roads. What things are themselves
We cannot know. Into the moulds of Sense
And Understanding pour Experience,
And lo, 'tis truth; but soar above thy pitch,
God and the soul in the thin air of Reason
Give double aspects to thee. Yet have faith!
Thought fails, but duty proves there is a God.

13th Spectre.
Stay there! Each step to God with the pure mind,

Of Hegel.

Through the enlarging spheres of all the heavens,
Up the steep Jacob's ladder, is made fast,
So thou hast strength to climb, and wilt confess
That being and not being are the same
In all things saving but the Soul and God,
Of whom they have no meaning. Follow me!

14th Spectre.
The sciences are one great pyramid;

Of Comte.

The top is truth. If you must have a God,
Worship Humanity.

15th Spectre.
Humanity!

Of Mill.

Mere jargon. Love the good of other men.

16th Spectre.
But suffer me to say our own good first.

Of H. Spencer.

Clar.
O God! let me begone out of this place!

He hath enough of Humane Letters, and goeth forth right gladly.

[Rushes out, leaving the Necromancer.