Part 24

Lo! this denotes aristocratic strains Back in the centuries of France’s glory.

(A blue flame appears.)

And this the will that pulls against the chains Her father strove until his hair was hoary. Sorrow and failure made his nature cold. He never loved the child whose woe is shown, And hence her passion for the things which gold Brings in this world of pride, and brings alone. The human heart that’s famished from its birth Turns to the grosser treasures, that is plain. Thus aspiration fallen fills the earth With jungle growths of bitterness and pain. Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine! Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud. False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o’ sin. A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed. Now if she meet a man—suppose our hero, With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix, As if she were her Borgia to his Nero, ’Twill look like one of Satan’s little tricks! However, it must be. The world’s great garden Is not all mine. I only sow the tares. Wheat should be made immune, or else the Warden Should stop their coming in the world’s affairs. But to our hero! Long ere he was born I knew what would repel him and attract. Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn, I can prognosticate before the fact.

(A yellow flame appears.)

This is a grandsire’s treason in an orchard Against a maid whose nature with his mated.

(Lurid flames appear.)

And this his memory distrait and tortured, Which marked the child with hate because she hated. Our heroine’s grand dame was that maid’s own cousin— But never this our man and woman knew. The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen, Then wed a gentleman upright and true. And thus our hero had a double nature: One half of him was bad, the other good. The devil must exhaust his nomenclature To make this puzzle rightly understood. But when our hero and our heroine met They were at once attracted, the repulsion Was hidden under Passion, with her net Which must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion. The virus coursing in the soldier’s blood, The orchard’s ghost, the unknown kinship ’twixt them, Our hero’s mother’s lovers round them stood, Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them. This twain pledge vows and marry, that’s the play. And then the tragic features rise and deepen. He is a tender husband. When away The serpents from the orchard slyly creep in. Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal, Picks fruit of knowledge—leaves the tree of life. Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal, Soon she forgets her duty as a wife. You know the rest, so far as that’s concerned, She met exposure and her husband slew her. He lost his reason, for the love she spurned. He prized her as his own—how slight he knew her. (He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.) Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows— He could not tell his story—he is dumb. Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows, I call it suffering and martyrdom. The judge with pointed finger says, “You killed her.” Well, so he did—but here’s the explanation; He could not give it. I, the drama-builder, Show you the various truths and their relation. (He waves his wand.) Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending, They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn. Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending— The author calls the play “Laocoon.”

A VOICE Only an earth dream.

ANOTHER VOICE With which we are done. A flash of a comet Upon the earth stream.

ANOTHER VOICE A dream twrice removed, A spectral confusion Of earth’s dread illusion.

A FAR VOICE These are the ghosts From the desolate coasts. Would you go to them? Only pursue them. Whatever enshrined is Within you is you. In a place where no wind is, Out of the damps, Be ye as lamps. Flame-like aspire, To me alone true, The Life and the Fire.

(BEELZEBUB, LOKI and YOGARINDRA vanish. The phantasmagoria fades out. Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.)

FIRST VOICE The springtime is come, the winter departed. She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted. The sun is returning, We are done with alarms, Earth lifts her face burning, Held close in his arms. The sun is an eagle Who broods o’er his young, The earth is his nursling In whom he has flung The life-flame in seed, In blossom desire, Till fire become life, And life become fire.

SECOND VOICE I slip and I vanish, I baffle your eye; I dive and I climb, I change and I fly. You have me, you lose me, Who have me too well, Now find me and use me— I am here in a cell.

THIRD VOICE You are there in a cell? Oh, now for a rod With which to divine you—

SECOND VOICE Nay, child, I am God.

FOURTH VOICE When the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under the hill, In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign, The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying “Fulfill! Awaken roots under cover of soil—it is Spring again.” Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voices Call to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams. And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that rejoices In the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams. I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river. Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep. Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever? Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.

THE SUN Over the soundless depths of space for a hundred million miles Speeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire. Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles, I but a luminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire. What is my universe that obeys me—myself compelled to obey A power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end? And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life and day, Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend. A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of night Were hung before creation’s flame, that shone through the weave of the cloth, Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward for light, For each is drawn in its course to what?—as the candle draws the moth.

THE MILKY WAY Orbits unending, Life never ending, Power without end.

A VOICE Wouldst thou be lord, Not peace but a sword. Not heart’s desire— Ever aspire. Worship thy power, Conquer thy hour, Sleep not but strive, So shalt thou live.

INFINITE DEPTHS Infinite Law, Infinite Life.