456 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA The ENCHANTREss makes her spell: she I speak to thee or her. is answered by a Spirit. Lady. Peace, perturbed heart! Spirit. Within the silent centre of I am to thee only as thou to mine, the earth The passing wind which heals the brow My mansion is; where I have lived at noon, insphered And may strike cold into the breast at From the beginning, and around my sleep night, Have woven all the wondrous imagery Yet cannot linger where it soothes the Of this dim spot, which mortals call the most, world; Or long soothe could it linger. Infinite depths of unknown elements Indian. But you said Massed into one impenetrable mask; You also loved ? Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins Lady. Loved! Oh, I love. Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron. Methinks And as a veil in which I walk through This word of love is fit for all the world, Heaven And that for gentle hearts another name I have wrought mountains, seas, and Would speak of gentler thoughts than waves, and clouds, the world owns. And lastly light, whose interfusion I have loved. dawns Indian. And thou lovest In the dark space of interstellar air. not? if so Young as thou art thou canst afford to A good Spirit, who watches over the weep. Pirate's fate, leads, in a mysterious man Laddy. Oh! would that I could claiin ner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle; and has also led thither a Youth, From all the bitterness of that sweet exemption who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place between I loved, I love, and when I love no them on their arrival at the Isle, where they meet, but without distinct mutual Let joys and grief perish, and leave recognition. despair To ring the knell of youth. He stood [ANOTHER SCENE] INDIAN YOUTH and LADY. The embodied vision of the brightest dream, Indian. And, if my grief should still Which like a dawn heralds the day of be dearer to me life; Than all the pleasures in the world The shadow of his presence made my beside, world Why would you lighten it ? A paradise. All familiar things he Lady. I offer only touched, That which I seek, some human sym. All common words he spoke, became pathy to me In this mysterious island. Like forms and sounds of a diviner Indian, Oh! my friend, world. My sister, my beloved !-- What do I He was as is the sun in his fierce youth, As terrible and lovely as a tempest ; My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know He came, and went, and left me what name. more beside me, whether say? I am. a river Alas! Why must I think how oft we From such an islet, such two spring- -! Have sate together near the river springs, I dare not ask her if there stood upon Under the green pavilion which the it willow A pleasure - dome surmounted by a Spreads on the floor of the unbroken crescent, fountain, With steps to the blue water. (Aloud.] Strewn by the nurslings that linger It may be there, That Nature masks in life several copies Over that islet paved with flowers and of the same lot, so that the sufferers moss, May feel another's sorrow as their own, While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes And find in friendship what they lost in of crimson snow, love. Showered on us, and the dove mourned | That cannot be: yet it is strange that in the pine, we, Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own? From the same scene, by the same path The crane returned to her unfrozen to this But And the false cuckoo bade the Spring speak! your breathgood morn; Your breath is like soft music, your And on a wintry bough the widowed words are bird, The echoes of a voice which on my Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves, heart Renewed the vigils of a sleepless Sleeps like a melody of early days. But as you said I, lest like her, and leaving one like Lady. He was so awful, yet her, So beautiful in mystery and terror, Alike abandoned and abandoning Calming me as the loveliness of heaven (Oh! unlike her in this !) the gentlest Soothes the unquiet sea :-and yet not youth, So, Whose love had made my sorrows dear For he seemed stormy, and would often to him, Even as my sorrow made his love to A quenchless sun masked in portentous me! clouds; Indian, One curse of Nature stamps For such his thoughts, and even his in the same mould actions were ; The features of the wretched; and they But he was not of them, nor they of him, As like as violet to violet, But as they hid his splendour from the When memory, the ghost, their odours earth. keeps Some said he was a man of blood and 'Mid the cold relics of abandoned joy. peril, Proceed. And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips. Lady. He was a simple inno- More need was there I should be innocent boy. cent, I loved him well, but not as he desired; More need that I should be most true Yet even thus he was content to be : and kind, A short content, for I was-- And much more need that there should Indian ( A side). God of heaven! be found one sorrow. seem are 458 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA do To share remorse and scorn and soli- Brighter than morning light, and purer tude, than And all the ills that wait on those who The water of the springs of Himalah. Indian. You waked not? The tasks of ruin in the world of life. Lady. Not until my dream He fled, and I have followed him. became Indian. Such a one Like a child's legend on the tideless Is he who was the winter of my peace. sand, But, fairest stranger, when didst thou Which the first foam erases half, and half depart Leaves legible. At length I rose, and From the far hills where rise the springs went, of India, Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, How didst thou pass the intervening sea ? and thought Lady. If I be sure I am not dream. To set new cuttings in the empty urns, ing now, And when I came to that beside the I should not doubt to say it was a dream. lattice, Methought a starcame down from heaven, I saw two little dark-green leaves And rested 'mid the plants of India, Listing the light mould at their birth, Which I had given a shelter from the and then frost I half-remembered my forgotten dream. Within my chamber. There the meteor And day by day, green as a gourd in lay, June, Panting forth light among the leaves The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no and flowers, one knew As if it lived, and was outworn with What plant it was; its stem and tendrils speed; Or that it loved, and passion made the Like emerald snakes, mottled and pulse diamonded Of its bright life throb like an anxious With azure mail and streaks of woven heart, silver; Till it diffused itself, and all the chamber And all the sheaths that folded the dark And walls seemed melted into emerald buds fire Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel, That burned not; in the midst of which Until the golden eye of the bright flower, appeared Through the dark lashes of those veined A spirit like a child, and laughed aloud lids, A thrilling peal of such sweet merriment Disencumbered of their silent sleep, As made the blood tingle in my warm Gazed like a star into the morning light. feet: Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw Then bent over a vase, and murmuring The pulses Low, unintelligible melodies, With which the purple velvet flower was Placed something in the mould like melon seeds, To overflow, and like a poet's heart And slowly faded, and in place of it Changing bright sancy to sweet sentiment, A soft hand issued from the veil of fire, Changed half the light to fragrance. It Holding a cup like a magnolia flower, soon fell, And poured upon the earth within the And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit Lest all its treasured beauty. Day by The element with which it overflowed, day seemed fed vase I nursed the plant, and on the double Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike symflute pathies, Played to it on the sunny winter days Kept time Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain Among the snowy water-lily buds. On silent leaves, and sang those words Its shape was such as summer melody in which Of the south wind in spicy vales might Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping give strings; To some light cloud bound from the And I would send tales of forgotten love golden dawn Late into the lone night, and sing wild To fairy isles of evening, and it seemed songs In hue and form that it had been a mirror Of maids deserted in the olden time, Of all the hues and forms around it and And weep like a soft cloud in April's Upon it pictured by the sunny beams bosom Which, from the bright vibrations of the Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant, pool, So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring Were thrown upon the rafters and the was come, roof And crept abroad into the moonlight air, Of boughs and leaves, and on the pillared And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by stems noon, Of the dark sylvan teniple, and reflections The sun averted less his oblique beam. Of every infant flower and star of moss Indian, And the plant died not in And veined leaf in the azure odorous air. the frost? And thus it lay in the Elysian calm Lady. It grew; Of its own beauty, floating on the line And went out of the lattice which I left Which, like a film in purest space, Hall open for it, trailing its quaint spires divided Along the garden and across the lawn, The heaven beneath the water from the And down the slope of moss and through heaven the tusts Above the clouds; and every day I went Of wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees Watching its growth and wondering ; o'ergrown And as the day grew hot, methought I With simple lichens, and old hoary stones, On to the margin of the glassy pool, A glassy vapour dancing on the pool, Even to a nook of unblown violets And on it little quaint and filmy shapes, And lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn, With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and Under a pine with ivy overgrown. fall, And there its fruit lay like a sleeping Like clouds of gnats with perfect linea lizard Under the shadows; but when Spring indeed O friend, sleep was a veil uplift from Came to unswathe her infants, and the heaven lilies As if heaven dawned upon the world of Peeped from their bright green masks dreamto wonder at When darkness rose on the extinguished This shape of autumn couched in their day Out of the eastern wilderness. Then it dilated, and Indian. I too One half lay floating on the fountain Have found a moment's paradise in sleep Ilalf compensate a hell of waking sorrow. saw ments. recess, grew until wave, That sin and wrongs wound as an CHARLES THE FIRST orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear. DRAMATIS PERSONA A Youth. Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden procession Of skiey visions in a solemn dream From which men wake as from a para- dise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil ? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, der Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make suivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students, Judges, Clerk. the present Dark as the future ! When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear, A Pursuivant. Place, for the Marshal And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping of the Mask ! As on Hell's threshold ; and all gentle First Citizen. What thinkest thou thoughts of this quaint mask which turns, Waken to worship Him who giveth joys Like morning from the shadow of the With his own gist. night, Second Citizen. How young art thou The night to day, and London to a in this old age of time ! place How green in this gray world! Canst or peace and joy ? thou discern Second Citizen. And IIell to The signs of seasons, yet perceive no Heaven. hint Eight years are gone, Of change in that stage-scene in which And they seem hours, since in this thou art populous street Not a spectator but an actor? or I trod on grass made green by summer's Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]? rain, The day that dawns in fire will die in For the red plague kept state within storms, that palace Even though the noon be calm. My Where now reigns vanity. In nine years travel's done,- Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have The roots will be refreshed with civil found blood; My inn of lasting rest; but thou must And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven still more |
