Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learn'd this when I was a Confessor.
I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.
Lacy. To have been trapped like moles !— Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives: There is no crime from which this man would shrink; He recks not human law; and I have noticed That often when the name of God is uttered, A sudden blankness overspreads his face.
Len. Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built Some uncouth superstition of its own.
Wal. I have seen traces of it.
Len.
A band of Pirates in the Norway seas;
And when the King of Denmark summoned him
To the oath of fealty, I well remember,
'Twas a strange answer that he made; he said,
"I hold of Spirits, and the Sun in heaven."
Lacy. He is no madman.
Wal.
A most subtle doctor
Were that man, who could draw the line that parts
Pride and her daughter, Cruelty, from Madness,
That should be scourged, not pitied. Restless
Minds,
Such Minds as find amid their fellow-men
No heart that loves them, none that they can love,
Will turn perforce and seek for sympathy
In dim relation to imagined Beings.
One of the Band. What if he mean to offer up our Captain
Of our emasculated souls, the tyranny
Of the world's masters, with the musty rules
By which they uphold their craft from age to age:
You have obeyed the only law that sense
Submits to recognise; the immediate law,
From the clear light of circumstances, flashed
Upon an independent Intellect.
Henceforth new prospects open on your path;
Your faculties should grow with the demand;
I still will be your friend, will cleave to you
Through good and evil, obloquy and scorn,
Oft as they dare to follow on your steps.
Mar. I would be left alone.
Osw. (exultingly).
I know your motives !
I am not of the world's presumptuous judges,
Who damn where they can neither see nor feel,
With a hard-hearted ignorance; your struggles
I witness'd, and now hail your victory.
Mar. Spare me awhile that greeting.
Osw.
Are still forthcoming; some which, though they bear It is most strange.
Ill names, can render no ill services,
In recompense for what themselves required.
So meet extremes in this mysterious world,
And opposites thus melt into each other.
Mar. Time, since Man first drew breath, has
never moved
With such a weight upon his wings as now ;
But they will soon be lightened.
Osw.
Ay, look up-
Cast round you your mind's eye, and you will learn
Fortitude is the child of Enterprise :
Great actions move our admiration, chiefly
Murder!--what's in the word!—
I have no cases by me ready made
To fit all deeds. Carry him to the Camp!—
A shallow project ;—you of late have seen
More deeply, taught us that the institutes
Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation
Banished from human intercourse, exist
Only in our relations to the brutes
That make the fields their dwelling. If a snake
Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask
A license to destroy him: our good governors
Hedge in the life of every pest and plague
And never can you know, how much he loved me.
Twice had he been to me a father, twice
Had given me breath, and was I not to be
His daughter, once his daughter? could I withstand
His pleading face, and feel his clasping arms,
And hear his prayer that I would not forsake him
In his old age-
[Hides her face.
Mar. Patience-Heaven grant me patience ----
She weeps, she weeps my brain shall burn for hours
Ere I can shed a tear.
Idon.
I was a woman ;
And, balancing the hopes that are the dearest
To womankind with duty to my Father,
I yielded up those precious hopes, which nought
On earth could else have wrested from me ;-if
[Pointing to the belt on which was suspended
What ails you! [Distractedly.
Mar. The scrip that held his food, and I forgot
Idon.
What mean your words ?
Mar. I know not what I said-all may be well.
Idon. That smile hath life in it!
Mar.
This road is perilous ;
I will attend you to a Hut that stands
Near the wood's edge-rest there to-night, I pray
For me, I have business, as you heard, with Oswald, But will return to you by break of day. [Exeunt.
SCENE, A desolate prospect-a ridge of rocks-a
Chapel on the summit of one-Moon behind the
rocks-night stormy-irregular sound of a bell-
HERBERT enters exhausted.
Her. That Chapel-bell in mercy seemed to guide me,
But now it mocks my steps; its fitful stroke
Can scarcely be the work of human hands.
Hear me, ye Men, upon the cliffs, if such
There be who pray nightly before the Altar.
Oh that I had but strength to reach the place!
My Child-my child-dark-dark-I faint-this
These stifling blasts-God help me!
Though it were tottering over a man's head,
Than a tight case of dungeon walls for shelter
From such rough dealing.
[A moaning voice is heard.
Ha! what sound is that?
Trees creaking in the wind (but none are here)
Send forth such noises and that weary bell!
Surely some evil Spirit abroad to-night
Is ringing it 'twould stop a Saint in prayer,
And that what is it? never was sound so like
A human groan. Ha! what is here? Poor Man-
Murdered! alas! speak-speak, I am your friend :
No answer-hush-lost wretch, he lifts his hand
And lays it to his heart (Kneels to him). I pray
you speak!
This day's event has laid on me the duty
Of opening out my story; you must hear it,
And without further preface.-In my youth,
Except for that abatement which is paid
By envy as a tribute to desert,
I was the pleasure of all hearts, the darling
Of every tongue-as you are now. You've heard
That I embarked for Syria. On our voyage
Was hatched among the crew a foul Conspiracy
Against my honour, in the which our Captain
Was, I believed, prime Agent. The wind fell;
We lay becalmed week after week, until
The water of the vessel was exhausted;
I felt a double fever in my veins,
Yet rage suppressed itself;-to a deep stillness
Did my pride tame my pride ;-for many days,
On a dead sea under a burning sky,
I brooded o'er my injuries, deserted
By man and nature;—if a breeze had blown,
It might have found its way into my heart,
And I had been-no matter-do you mark me?
Mar. Quick-to the point-if any untold crime
Doth haunt your memory.
Osw.
Patience, hear me further!-
One day in silence did we drift at noon
By a bare rock, narrow, and white, and bare;
No food was there, no drink, no grass, no shade,
No tree, nor jutting eminence, nor form
Inanimate large as the body of man,
Nor any living thing whose lot of life
Might stretch beyond the measure of one moon.
To dig for water on the spot, the Captain
Landed with a small troop, myself being one:
There I reproached him with his treachery.
Imperious at all times, his temper rose ;
A stranger has done this, He struck me; and that instant had I killed him,
And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades
Rushed in between us: then did I insist
And in the arms of a stranger I must die.
Eld. Nay, think not so: come, let me raise
you up :
This is a dismal place-well-that is well-
I was too fearful-take me for your guide
And your support-my hut is not far off.
[Draws him gently off the stage.
SCENE, a room in the Hostel-MARMADUKE and
OSWALD.
Mar. But for Idonea !-I have cause to think
That she is innocent.
Osw.
Leave that thought awhile,
As one of those beliefs which in their hearts
Lovers lock up as pearls, though oft no better
Than feathers clinging to their points of passion.
(All hated him, and I was stung to madness)
That we should leave him there, alive!-we did so.
Mar. And he was famished?
Озго.
Naked was the spot ;
Methinks I see it now-how in the sun
Its stony surface glittered like a shield;
And in that miserable place we left him,
Alone but for a swarm of minute creatures
Not one of which could help him while alive,
Or mourn him dead.
Mar.
A man by men cast off,
Left without burial! nay, not dead nor dying,
But standing, walking, stretching forth his arms,
In all things like ourselves, but in the agony
With which he called for mercy; and—even so-
He was forsaken ?
Osw. There is a power in sounds: The cries he uttered might have stopped the boat That bore us through the water
Upon that dismal hearing-did you not?
Osw. Some scoffed at him with hellish mockery, And laughed so loud it seemed that the smooth sea Did from some distant region echo us.
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way;
And, wheresoe'er I turned me, I beheld
A slavery compared to which the dungeon
And clanking chains are perfect liberty.
You understand me--I was comforted;
I saw that every possible shape of action
Might lead to good-I saw it and burst forth
Mar. We all are of one blood, our veins are filled Thirsting for some of those exploits that fill
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.sk/books/content?id=znOaqq89un8C&hl=sk&output=html_text&pg=PA46&img=1&zoom=3&q=doth&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0cXlO4GALyAhuAQPPu90b0_a98ew&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=120,366,426,468)
I had been betrayed.
Mar. And he found no deliverance !
Osw.
Gave me a hearty welcome; they had laid
The plot to rid themselves, at any cost,
Of a tyrannic Master whom they loathed.
So we pursued our voyage: when we landed,
The tale was spread abroad; my power at once
Shrunk from me; plans and schemes, and lofty
hopes-
All vanished. I gave way-do you attend?
Mar. The Crew deceived you?
Osw.
Nay, command yourself.
Mar. It is a dismal night-how the wind howls!
Osw. I hid my head within a Convent, there
Lay passive as a dormouse in mid winter.
That was no life for me--I was o'erthrown,
But not destroyed.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.sk/books/content?id=znOaqq89un8C&hl=sk&output=html_text&pg=PA46&img=1&zoom=3&q=doth&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0cXlO4GALyAhuAQPPu90b0_a98ew&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=115,1226,430,137)
The earth for sure redemption of lost peace.
[Marking MARMADUKE'S countenance.
Nay, you have had the worst. Ferocity
Subsided in a moment, like a wind
That drops down dead out of a sky it vexed.
And yet I had within me evermore
A salient spring of energy; I mounted
From action up to action with a mind
That never rested-without meat or drink
Have I lived many days-my sleep was bound
To
purposes of reason-not a dream
But had a continuity and substance
That waking life had never power to give.
Mar. O wretched Human-kind! - Until the
Of all this world is solved, well may we envy
The worm, that, underneath a stone whose weight
Would crush the lion's paw with mortal anguish,
Doth lodge, and feed, and coil, and sleep, in safety.
Fell not the wrath of Heaven upon those traitors?
Osw. Give not to them a thought. From Palestine
We marched to Syria: oft I left the Camp,
When all that multitude of hearts was still,
And followed on, through woods of gloomy cedar,
Into deep chasms troubled by roaring streams;
Or from the top of Lebanon surveyed
The moonlight desert, and the moonlight sea:
In these my lonely wanderings I perceived
What mighty objects do impress their forms
To elevate our intellectual being;
And felt, if aught on earth deserves a curse,
'Tis that worst principle of ill which dooms
A thing so great to perish self-consumed.
-So much for my remorse!
|