"The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair."— Genesis vi. 2.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
The Seeker after Truth
His Wife
His Mother
Chorus
SCENE I
The wife and the mother spinning
THE WIFE ( sings )
Love, it is dark among your roses,
The face of the moon is turned away,
The nightingale is silent and lonely;
Lean from your window a little way!—
Lean but a little way towards me,
Out of the window where jasmines twine,
Open the lattice, softly, slowly,
Till the light of your eyes shall gladden mine.
Love, it is dark among your roses;
And how, since the nightingales are fled,
Can I tell your heart how my heart is lowly,
To touch the ground where your sandals tread?
This is your garden; these your flowers;
These stars have seen you; these dews have known;
And now your eyes and your smile you give me—
Give me your love, and be all mine own!
THE MOTHER
Sing that again, the music soothes my ear.
THE WIFE
My husband made it for me ere we wed,
And sang it in my garden; I arose
And leaned down to him, and my fingers gave
To all his kisses. Ah! those days were sweet.
THE MOTHER
Not sweet now?
THE WIFE
I am happy in his love
And thank God for it, nay, propitiate
With vows and offering; I fear a wrath
Called down on too great happiness; I fear—
I know not what—Oh, I possess a gift
So rare and precious, that, like men who go
Laden with rubies, I am grown suspect
Of all the earth and heaven, feel the stars
Peer covetously on me. Every hour
That he is from my side a cloud of woe
Settles upon me like a swarm of bees.
Ah, is it possible that we can sin
In happiness, against a jealous God?
THE MOTHER
Nay, nay, these foolish thoughts! your wits are strayed
With too much brooding: let me bind afresh
The knot of scarlet lilies in your hair;
They fade already, for the sun is high
Towards the noon: Ah, child, what waits for you
But love, and yet more love, and happiness,
And children of delight, and in old age
Respect of all the peoples, and at last
Death in his arms and burial in peace?
Still do you tremble, what is it you fear?
THE WIFE
Can you not feel a something in the air,
A warning, or a presence, or the weight
Of some unguessed-at horror, that, like dust
Impalpable and deadly, clings and kills?
There is some terror—'tis my heart that speaks
And warns me—ah! would God indeed, your son,
(My love and husband) had another father
Than that celestial being. This it is
That puts eternal sadness on his brow,
And shade within his eyes I cannot lift,
Even with kisses; 'tis the angel nature
That makes him sit spell-woven in a trance,
Chin in his hand, and eyes on vacancy,
And lips all bare of love, the while his soul
Struggles against the bonds of finity.
THE MOTHER
Ah, how you love him!
THE WIFE
More because of it,
This kingdom infinite I cannot know
Though loving him.
THE MOTHER
Alas! so did I love.
THE WIFE
Tell me of love.
THE MOTHER
Belovéd, what should I tell
That his lips have not taught you?
THE WIFE
Tell of yours;
So that I may compare your flowers with mine,
Your doubts and times of joy, and how arose
The sudden and sweet passion in your heart;
Did the world burst forth, like a flower from bud,
All suddenly in beauty, when you met?
THE MOTHER
Ah, how your words have wakened memory,
And bitter-sweet, like love itself, it is.
THE WIFE
The first time that you met?
THE MOTHER
Ah, that first time!
It was a night of gods, a night of love.
The earth was still beneath a summer sky
So thickly sown with stars, that it appeared
A vase of ebon in a silver shroud;
No breath there stirred, the hot air seemed to hang
In heavy folds, like silken tapestry,
Clinging, caressing; all the birds were still,
No nightingale with her ecstatic pain
Transfixed the silence; earth was dead asleep,
Sunk in a scented languor; every flower
Steamed all its odour forth, as it would pour
Its soul before the mystery of love.
And I into the night had stolen forth,
Oppressed, with pain or joy, I knew not which,
Knew only that the blood throughout my veins
Did run like liquid fire, head to foot
I tingled with sensation, all my hair
Stirred, as with separate life within itself;
And as I plucked the flowers and wove them in,
Purple and waxen, languorously sweet,
They seemed anticipation of a touch
Should make each thread of hair become a bird,
Fluttering with outstretched wings. From off my breast
I flung my garment back; the soft air wooed
Like sleepy lips ere love is yet awake.
Then, as I lingered in the dusky depths,
All flower-shadowed, blacker than the night,
Blacker than shadows cast by palace walls
Upon a moonlit night, there, in that web
Of close-knit darkness, suddenly there came
The wonder unto me, the god, my love—
Within mine ears there was a silver silence,
And in my heart a golden burst of song,
The darkness burned around me, with a light
Born from the other worlds, and there he stood,
Radiant, godlike, purple were his wings
And splashed with fire, purply-black his hair
And crowned with stars for flowers; in his eyes
My soul sank into passion and was drowned.
CHORUS
Oh, what a pair of birds,
Hidden among the leaves!
He a god and she a maid,
Deathless lips on mortal laid;
(Nothing death retrieves.)
There a son of God
And child of mortal seed
Met and kissed as love with love;
Oh the leaves were thick above,
No stars saw the deed.
No stars, but the eye of God?
Ah, perchance He saw
How a god to mortal prayed
And the fatal compact made
'Gainst eternal law.
Veiled and still the night.
So, a fount of tears
Springs at first unseen, unguessed,
Till at last the flood confessed
Gushes down the years.
Son of a son of God
And the daughter of men too frail!
Union of the nature's twain?
Only sorrow and want and pain,
Striving without avail;
Desire for wings of a god
Tied to the will of a man;
Memory of a boundless space,
(Where stars and spheres their dance enlace)
With the threescore human span
Hung like a bridge, in the gulf
Of God's eternity.
Oh a mind to know and a heart to crave
Beyond the horizon of the grave
To the bounds of infinity!
Yet ever Fate compels
This infinite desire
To match with cramped and finite brain;
And all of heaven earth may gain
Is smoke, where should be fire.
SCENE II
THE SEEKER
The air is heavy, all the winds are still
So that my own breath hangs about my head
Like incense o'er an altar. Now the earth
Lies in a swoon, and all the flowers droop
Weighting their stems, ranged in their brazen pots
Without the house: the very petals lie
Like languid limbs relaxed; this crimson rose
Looks as if blood-steeped, almost to my sense
Smells of the same, the lilies are like death.
There is a taint of sickness in the air
Through all the noonday light—like fever chill
In fever burning,—and the sky is brass;
The very tinkle of the fountain spray
Is dead and tuneless, even the fresh springs
Have lost their freshness, run from off my hands
In drops of lead, and all my spirit seems
Weighed and confined with fetters of decay.
Because I have loved beauty more than most
And striven to pluck out the heart of it;
Because I have such sense of lovely things
That I can pour my soul in thankfulness
Before a leaf God makes to grow aright,
A unit of perfection; 'tis ordained
Because I love most still I most must lack
Love's satisfaction, quietude of soul—
Still must I find such void disparity
Between the false and true, and yet they grow
Together, intermingled; true is false
Itself, by sometime seeming, who shall find
The point where false and true are reconciled?
The very flower that we stoop to smell
Grows from a dunghill, look but in its roots,
And what obscene and hideous blind life
Goes teeming; sickened then we shrink aback
From rose's velvet petals. So the soul
Holds best and meanest in a common cup.
Yet must there be a law in things that are
Seemingly lawless, purify the sight
And truth must surely then be visible,
Disparity made clear; the eye of God
Sees good in everything, thereto I strive,
To see with God's own vision, be more clear
In speech, than God, to asking human hearts.
Then is the tangle straightened, and the world
Lies in perspective, as before me lie,
Traced through the shimmering heat, the palaces,
Towers and temples, gardens and granaries,
Of this fair City, melting far away
Into the sunlight-flooded hills at last.
Yet must I sit here for a little while,
Where many columns make a heavy gloom,
And with the trickle from the water-jars
Of unfresh water, cheat myself awhile
With thought of evening freshness. Oh my soul
Is wearier than my body with the toil,
It aches with length of watching. I have strained
My spiritual eyes to catch a glimpse of dawn
And nothing seen but blackness. Let me rest
As rest the quiet dead from doubt and toil;
Like silver feathers from the wings of God
Sleep fans my senses——
[ He sleeps.
THE CHORUS
Sleep, and forget, forget the aching toil,
The disappointments, and the long delays,
The watches of the night-time and the morn,
The lonely hours, unrewarded days;
Sleep, and forget.
In death we all are equal, great and small
Brought to the common level of the dust;
There is no glory that survives the years,
Nay, nay, alike we shall be as we must;
Sleep and forget.
In sleep we are omnipotent as gods,
Beyond our furthest wish we can attain,
Unfettered by the chain of circumstance;
Sleep then; or waking, turn and pray again
A little more to sleep and to forget.
SCENE III
Enter the MOTHER to the WIFE
THE MOTHER
Ah me, your fears have settled on my heart;
I fear the very day, there is a strange
Portentous look o'er all the earth, my hand
Stretched in the sunlight seems to throw no shade
As if the natural laws had all stood still—
I breathe as in a nightmare, breath oppressed;
I start at every sound, but fear no sound
So much as stillness, which descends on us
Like a great mantle choking out our hearts.
THE WIFE
Give me your hand, what is it makes you fear
And shiver like plane trees before the rain?
THE MOTHER
As I lay in the shadow of the court
During the noonday fierceness, watched the rays
Chequered between the lattice window work,
And listened to the fountain in the grove
Of orange trees go singing to itself—
Behold, all suddenly before me stood
My lover-god, the angel ever dear,
And radiant as that first night years ago,
There stood he; where the marble touched his feet
It glowed translucent like a sunlit gem,
The perfume of his hair had made me swoon
Had not his eyes compelled me. Grave he looked,
Where gravity in such a beauteous thing
Could find occasion, and his voice was low
And troubled, warning me. "Let not your son
Tempt God too far, He will not brook affront
Though son of mine should dare it; be assured
The secret of this riddle universe
Shall ne'er be known on earth, man was not made
For too much knowledge, mankind ceases then
When man too much aspires. Speak to him
Lest he should bring destruction on your head
And on the world." Thus spoke he, nothing more,
And ere my eyes could hold him he was gone.
THE WIFE
Ah, let us go in to my husband then
And warn him quickly.
THE MOTHER
I have warned, alas!
And he has heard with the unheeding smile
One gives to children's prattle. "Now at last
The hours bear fruit, and shall I hold my hand,"
He answered, "for your vision? I have waited,
Now is the time when hope is justified;
Truth dawns, not even God Himself can stand
Between the light and me and shadow it."
THE WIFE
Ah God! ah God! to whom shall be appeal?
THE MOTHER
Look where he comes.
THE WIFE
With what an air fulfilled.
Enter the SEEKER AFTER TRUTH, inspired
THE SEEKER
Now do I stand upon the very brink
Of my desire; as a soul released
And purified by passing through the rays
Of white Eternity, I view the world.
Now am I all at peace; the heart that yearns
In bitter loneliness through midnight hours
Yet cannot voice its longing, brain that weaves
Its subtle web around the central thought
Yet never can absorb it; and this form,
The visible pride of body, all complete
Are one in union; the body knows
Its uses and its worths and has no fear,
The heart no more is empty, I have found
Eternal love to fill it, and no more
Gropes the blind brain for the Great Definite.
Away from me, my people, lest the sight
Of loving faces blunt the senses keen,
Hovering on the pain of a new birth.
THE MOTHER
My son, my son, it is not well to tempt
The thunders of Jehovah; He who placed
Man on this earth, and gave him such a form
And such a nature never did intend
The form or nature to be changed.
THE SEEKER
Enough,
Is it not parcel of the nobleness
Of His conception thus to place us here
Low in the scale; that we, by effort's worth,
May reach to Him and equal Him at last?
THE MOTHER
Oh man was born for failure, not success,
To strive and strive, and evermore to fail,
And failing still strive ever; therein lies
The nobleness that equals him to God
Though linked to insufficient means for God.
Why will you hope to change appointed fate?
While still in man the sad twi-nature dwells,
Godhead and manhood, still as dark and light
The eternal war goes on. It is our lot,
Accept it, spare us last catastrophe.
THE WIFE
Alas! alas! you see he marks you not,
His eyes are fixed on distance, and his lips
Move to the cadence of a song or prayer,
I know not which; and ever and anon,
His forehead, vivid with the teeming brain,
Rests in his hollow hand. He marks you not;
No more than raindrops plashing on a roof,
Whereto perhaps one listens for a space
And says "It raineth"—then again to sleep.
THE MOTHER
Speak you to him, if he may hear his wife!
THE WIFE
Ah me, my lord, what is it I can say
That will excuse the saying? Words are few
When hearts are fullest. On my wedding night—
Do you remember?—you did take my hand,
(As I take yours now) lay your lips on it,
(See, here I lay my lips) and all the love
Your heart would fain express and tongue could not
I read in eyes and kisses, being well skilled
In love's translation.
THE SEEKER
Who is this that speaks?
Your words come through my musing, like the call
Of quails across the desert, troubling me
With a strange stirring of the peaceful heart.
THE WIFE
It was my soul and not my words that called.
THE SEEKER
My hand is wet with tears.
THE WIFE
They are my prayers.
THE SEEKER
Why do you weep when all the world should be
Poised on the outspread wings of happiness?
Ah! just a little moment loose your hold,
While strips my soul for last and fiercest struggle
That gives us victory.
THE WIFE
Nay cease, ah cease.
Why must you venture to the wrath of God
For a mere idle fancy? Is not love,
My love, and youth and joy enough for you?
Roses are beautiful to bind one's brow,
Why must one grasp at stars? Ah, if my tears,
Barren as dew that falls upon the sand,
Cannot incline you to forgetfulness
Of all save love, you are inexorable,
You love me not.
THE SEEKER
I make an end of tears.
THE WIFE
Nay, rather tears enough to drown the world
THE MOTHER
Again, he lapses in his trance.
THE WIFE
Ah me,
I can no more, we wait on God's event.
THE SEEKER
There have been summer nights so exquisite
The soul in me did pant with pain,
And with its efforts vain
To grasp the beauty of the infinite;
When 'twixt my senses and the silent stars
The world of forms was purged away,
And all creation lay
Intense, eternal, without bounds or bars;
And all my yearning soul
Reached up to, strove for, failed to grasp that Whole.
Ye who have felt the ache
Of visible beauty burning through your brain,
And vainly tried to break
Through forms of beauty, Beauty to attain;
Ye who have felt the weight
Of much desire in a little space;
God in your narrow brain, and in the face
Of mortals the large lineaments of Fate;
Ye who have felt the pang,
Even in love's most full communion
Of the soul's loneliness, which may not hang
For all its love, another soul upon;
Draw near, draw near to me now, ye who long
Above the common things,
For truth approaches us on flaming wings
And all life's tangle shall be straightened now,
And right shall rise triumphant over wrong,
And nought be great or little, weak or strong,
But all Creation share in knowledge vast
As in design; with neither first nor last.
A moment let the waiting heart be dumb,
Last silence ere the revelation come—
The truth! the truth!
[ He is struck dead.
THE MOTHER
Alas! the Wrath of God
Flashing upon us from the angry skies,
Ah woe! this is destruction.
THE WIFE
Let it be,
Since low he lies, struck by a meteor,
With truth upon his lips.
THE MOTHER
No meteor that;
His father, my god-lover, struck him down.
THE WIFE
Since end must be what matter how it come?
Here will I sit, his head upon my breast,
Where it has lain in sleep, my arms about
His kingly body, sit, and wait the end,
Mocking at God.
THE CHORUS
Alas! alas! alas!
The skies are torn, the heavens crash,
From pole to pole in terror rending,
Mountains against mountains dash,
The blinding lightnings blaze and flash,
And are shaken the foundations
Of the earth, for earth is ending.
Black the air and black the waters,
Lifeless the life-giving sun;
Woe upon earth's sons and daughters,
For the Wrath is now begun.
Ah, too late you clamour wildly,
Earth is blind, and earth is dumb,
You by earth and earth by you
Child and mother are undone;
Let your cry to God ascend,
For from God the terrors come.
Now the father is destroyer
And the mother is the grave,
Woe is us for God forsakes us
And 'tis God alone can save.
Oh, a union of destruction
Sons of God and nature's daughters,
Seed of terror, seed of evil,
Nurtured for the hungry waters.
Is there help now? Oh beseeching,
Raise for help impotent hands.
While the frenzied winds are roaring,
Hound-like loosened from their bands,
And the waters' tumult reaching
To the stars, where quiet stands
God contemplative. Destruction,
'Tis the uttermost destruction he demands!
Now the waters are uprising
And the mountain summits bend,
Headlong all the turrets hurling,
Towers and temples now descend;
All in black confusion whirling
Earth and heaven rocking blend,
In the waters wildly swirling
To annihilation's end.
Alas! alas! alas!
Neither foothold, hand-hold, safety
For the body nor the soul.
Cracks the earth, the heavens rend,
And the waters of despair consuming roll.