The Island of Statues
THE ISLAND OF STATUES.
An Arcadian Faery Tale—In Two Acts.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
| Naschina, | Shepherdess. |
| Colin, | Shepherd. |
| Thernot, | Shepherd. |
| Almintor, | A Hunter. |
| Antonio, | His Page. |
| Enchantress of the Island. |
And a company of the Sleepers of the Isle.
ACT I.
Scene I.
Enter Thernot with a lute.
Thernot. Maiden, come forth: the woods keep watch for thee;
Within the drowsy blossom hangs the bee;
'Tis morn: thy sheep are wandering down the vale—
'Tis morn: like old men's eyes the stars are pale,
And thro' the odorous air love-dreams are winging—
'Tis morn, and from the dew-drench'd wood I've sped
To welcome thee, Naschina, with sweet singing.
Enter Colin, abstractedly.
Colin. Come forth: the morn is fair; as from the pyre
Of sad Queen Dido shone the lapping fire
Unto the wanderers' ships, or as day fills
The brazen sky, so blaze the daffodils;
As Argive Clytemnestra saw out-burn
The flagrant signal of her lord's return,
Afar, clear-shining on the herald hills,
In vale and dell so blaze the daffodils;
As when upon her cloud-o'er-muffled steep
Œnone saw the fires of Troia leap,
And laugh'd, so, so along the bubbling rills
In lemon-tinted lines, so blaze the daffodils.
Come forth, come forth, my music flows for thee,
A quenchless grieving of love melody.
Thernot. [Sings] Now her sheep all browsing meet
By the singing waters' edge,
Tread and tread their cloven feet
On the ruddy river sedge,
For the dawn the foliage fingereth,
And the waves are leaping white,
She alone, my lady, lingereth
While the world is roll'd in light.
Colin. Shepherd, to mar the morning hast thou come?
Hear me, and, shepherd, hearing me, grow dumb.
[Sings] Where is the owl that lately flew
Flickering under the white moonshine?
She sleeps with owlets two and two,
Sleepily close her round bright eyne;
O'er her nest the lights are blending:
Come thou, come, and to this string—
Though my love-sick heart is rending,
Not a sad note will I sing.
Thernot. I am not dumb: I'd sooner silent wait
Within the fold to hear the creaking gate—
[Sings] The wood and the valley and sea
Awaken, awaken to new-born lustre;
A new day's troop of wasp and bee
Hang on the side of the round grape-cluster;
Blenching on high the dull stars sicken
Morn-bewildered, and the cup
Of the tarn where young waves quicken
Hurls their swooning lustre up.
Colin. I'll silence this dull singer—
[Sings] Oh, more dark thy gleaming hair is
Than the peeping pansy's face,
And thine eyes more bright than faery's,
Dancing in some moony place,
And thy neck's a poisèd lily;
See, I tell thy beauties o'er,
As within a cellar chilly
Some old miser tells his store;
And thy memory I keep,
Till all else is empty chaff,
Till I laugh when others weep,
Weeping when all others laugh.
Thernot. I'll quench his singing with loud song—
[Sings wildly] Come forth, for in a thousand bowers
Blossoms open dewy lips;
Over the lake the water-flowers
Drift and float like silver ships;
Ever ringing, ringing, ringing,
With unfaltering persistence,
Hundred-throated morn is singing,
Joy and love are one existence.
Colin. [Sings] Lone, and wanting thee, I weep;
Love and sorrow, one existence,
Sadness, soul of joy most deep,
Is the burthen and persistence
Of the songs that never sleep.
Love from heaven came of yore
As a token and a sign,
Singing o'er and o'er and o'er
Of his death and change malign.
Thernot. With fiery song I'll drown yon puny voice.
[Sings] Passeth the moon with her sickle of light,
Slowly, slowly fadeth she,
Weary of reaping the barren night
And the desolate shuddering sea.
Colin. [Sings] Loud for thee the morning crieth,
And my soul in waiting dieth,
Ever dieth, dieth, dieth.
Thernot. [Sings] Far the morning vapours shatter,
As the leaves in autumn scatter.
Colin. [Sings] In the heart of the dawn the rivers are singing,
Over them crimson vapours winging.
Thernot. [Sings] All the world is ringing, ringing;
All the world is singing, singing.
Colin. [Sings] Lift my soul from rayless night—
Thernot. [Sings] Stricken all the night is past—
Colin. [Sings] Music of my soul and light—
Thernot. [Sings] Back the shadows creep aghast—
Enter Naschina.
Naschina. Oh, cease your singing! wild and shrill and loud,
On my poor brain your busy tumults crowd.
Colin. I fain had been the first of singing things
To welcome thee, when o'er the owlet's wings
And troubled eyes came morning's first-born glow;
But yonder thing, yon idle noise, yon crow,
Yon shepherd
Thernot.Came your spirit to beguile
With singing sweet as e'er round lake-lulled isle
Sing summer waves. But yonder shepherd vile,
All clamour-clothed
Colin.Was 't clamour when I sung,
Whom men have named Arcadia's sweetest tongue.
A horn! some troop of robbers winding goes
Along the wood with subtle tread and bended bows.
Fly!
Thernot. Fly!
Naschina. So these brave shepherds both are gone;
Courageous miracles!
Enter Almintor and Antonio, talking together.
Almintor.The sunlight shone
Upon his wings. Thro' yonder green abyss
I sent an arrow.
Antonio.And I saw you miss;
And far away the heron sails, I wis.
Almintor. Nay, nay, I miss'd him not; his days
Of flight are done.
Most fair of all who graze
Their sheep in Arcady, Naschina, hail!
Naschina, hail!
Antonio. [Mimicking him] Most fair of all who graze
Their sheep in Arcady, Naschina, hail!
Naschina, hail!
Almintor.I'd drive thy woolly sheep,
If so I might, along a dewy vale,
Where all night long the heavens weep and weep,
Dreaming in their soft odour-laden sleep;
Where all night long the lonely moon, the white
Sad Lady of the deep, pours down her light;
And 'mong the stunted ash-trees' drooping rings,
All flame-like gushing from the hollow stones,
By day and night a lonely fountain sings,
And there to its own heart for ever moans.
Naschina. I'd be alone.
Almintor.We two, by that pale fount,
Unmindful of its woes, would twine a wreath
As fair as any that on Ida's mount
Long ere an arrow whizzed or sword left sheath
The shepherd Paris for Oenone made,
Singing of arms and battles some old stave,
As lies dark water in a murmurous glade,
Dreaming the live-long summer in the shade,
Dreaming of flashing flight and of the plumèd wave.
Antonio. Naschina, wherefore are your eyes so bright
With tears?
Naschina. I weary of ye. There is none
Of all on whom Arcadian suns have shone
Sustains his soul in courage or in might.
Poor race of leafy Arcady, your love
To prove what can ye do? What things above
Sheep-guiding, or the bringing some strange bird,
Or some small beast most wonderfully furr'd,
Or sad sea-shells where little echoes sit?
Such quests as these, I trow, need little wit.
Antonio. And the great grey lynx's skin!
Naschina.In sooth, methinks
That I myself could shoot a great grey lynx.
Almintor.Oh stay, Naschina, stay!
Naschina. Here, where men know the gracious woodland joys,
Joy's brother, Fear, dwells ever in each breast—
Joy's brother, Fear, lurks in each leafy way.
I weary of your songs and hunter's toys.
To prove his love a knight with lance in rest
Will circle round the world upon a quest,
Until afar appear the gleaming dragon-scales:
From morn the twain until the evening pales
Will struggle. Or he'll seek enchanter old,
Who sits in lonely splendour, mail'd in gold,
And they will war, 'mid wondrous elfin-sights:
Such may I love. The shuddering forest lights
Of green Arcadia do not hide, I trow,
Such men, such hearts. But, uncouth hunter, thou
Know'st naught of this.
Antonio.And, uncouth hunter, now
Almintor. Ay, boy.
Antonio.Let's see if that same heron's dead.
Scene II.
Sundown.—A remote forest valley.
Enter Almintor, followed by Antonio.
Antonio. And whither, uncouth hunter? Why so fast?
So! 'mid the willow-glade you pause at last.
Almintor. Here is the place, the cliff-encircled wood;
Here grow that shy, retiring sisterhood,
The pale anemones. We've sought all day,
And found.
Antonio.'Tis well!—another mile of way
I could not go.
Almintor.Let's talk, and let's be sad,
Here in the shade.
Antonio.Why? Why?
Almintor.For what is glad?
For, look you, sad's the murmur of the bees,
Yon wind goes sadly, and the grass and trees
Reply like moaning of imprisoned elf:
The whole world's sadly talking to itself.
The waves in yonder lake where points my hand
Beat out their lives lamenting o'er the sand;
The birds that nestle in the leaves are sad,
Poor sad wood-rhapsodists.
Antonio.Not so: they're glad.
Almintor. All rhapsody hath sorrow for its soul.
Antonio. Yon eager lark, that fills with song the whole
Of this wide vale, embosomed in the air,
Is sorrow in his song, or any care?
Doth not yon bird, yon quivering bird, rejoice?
Almintor. I hear the whole sky's sorrow in one voice.
Antonio. Nay, nay, Almintor, yonder song is glad.
Almintor. 'Tis beautiful, and therefore it is sad.
Antonio. Have done this phrasing, and say why, in sooth,
Almintor, thou hast grown so full of ruth,
And wherefore have we come?
Almintor.A song to hear.
Antonio. But whence, and when?
Almintor.Over the willows sere
Out of the air.
Antonio.And when?
Almintor.When the sun goes down
Over the crown of the willows brown.
Oh, boy, I'm bound on a most fearful quest;
For so she willed—thou heard'st? Upon the breast
Of yonder lake, from whose green banks alway
The poplars gaze across the waters grey,
And nod to one another, lies a green,
Small island, where the full soft sheen
Of evening and glad silence dwelleth aye,
For there the great Enchantress lives.
Antonio.And there
Groweth the goblin flower of joy, her care,
By many sought, and 'tis a forest tale,
How they who seek are ever doomed to fail.
Some say that all who touch the island lone
Are changed for ever into moon-white stone.
Almintor. That flower I seek.
Antonio.Thou never wilt return.
Almintor. I'll bring that flower to her, and so may earn
Her love: to her who wears that bloom comes truth,
And elvish wisdom, and long years of youth
Beyond a mortal's years. I wait the song
That calls.
Antonio.O evil starred!
Almintor.It comes along
The wind at evening when the sun goes down
Over the crown of the willows brown.
See, yonder sinks the sun, yonder a shade
Goes flickering in reverberated light.
There! There! Dost thou not see?
Antonio.I see the night,
Deep-eyed, slow-footing down the empty glade.
A Voice [sings.] From the shadowy hollow
Arise thou and follow!
Almintor. Sad faery tones.
Antonio.'Tis thus they ever seem,
As some dead maiden's singing in a dream.
Voice.When the tree was o'er-appled
For mother Eve's winning
I was at her sinning.
O'er the grass light-endappled
I wandered and trod,
O'er the green Eden-sod;
And I sang round the tree
As I sing now to thee:
Arise from the hollow,
And follow, and follow!
Away in the green paradise,
As I wandered unseen,
(How glad was her mien!),
I saw her as you now arise;
Before her I trod
O'er the green Eden-sod,
And I sang round the tree,
As I sing now to thee:
From the shadowy hollow
Come follow! Come follow!
[The Voice sings, dying away.]
And I sang round the tree,
As I sing now to thee:
From the green shaded hollow
Arise, worm, and follow!
Antonio. I, too, will follow for this evil-starred one's sake
Unto the dolorous border of the fairy lake.
Scene III.
The Birth of Night.—The Island.—Far into the distance reach shadowy ways, burdened with the faery flowers. Knee-deep amongst them stand the immovable figures of those who have failed in their quest.
First Voice. See! oh, see! the dew-drowned bunches
Of the monk's-hood how they shake,
Nodding by the flickering lake,
There where yonder squirrel crunches
Acorns green, with eyes awake.
Second Voice. I followed him from my green lair,
But wide awake his two eyes were.
First Voice. Oh, learnèd is each monk's-hood's mind,
And full of wisdom is each bloom,
As, clothed in ceremonial gloom,
They hear the story of the wind,
That dieth slow with sunsick doom.
Second Voice. The south breeze now in dying fears
Tells all his sinning in their ears.
First Voice. He says 'twas he, and 'twas no other,
Blew my crimson cap away
O'er the lake this very day.
Hark! he's dead—my drowsy brother,
And has not heard Absolvo te.
First Voice. Peace, peace, the earth's a-quake. I hear
Some barbarous, un-faery thing draw near.
Enter Almintor.
Almintor. The evening gleams are green and gold and red
Along the lake. The crane has homeward fled.
And flowers around in clustering thousands are,
Each shining clear as some unbaffled star;
The skies more dim, though burning like a shield,
Above these men whose mouths were sealed
Long years ago, and unto stone congealed.
And, oh! the wonder of the thing! each came
When low the sun sank down in clotted flame
Beyond the lake, whose smallest wave was burdened
With rolling fire, beyond the high trees turbaned
With clinging mist, each star-fought wanderer came
As I, to choose beneath day's dying flame;
And they are all now stone, as I shall be,
Unless some pitying god shall succour me
In this my choice.
Some god might help; if so
Mayhap 'twere better that aside I throw
All choice, and give to chance for guiding chance
Some cast of die, or let some arrow glance
For guiding of the gods. The sacred bloom
To seek not hopeless have I crossed the gloom,
With that song leading where harmonic woods
Nourish the panthers in dim solitudes;
Vast greenness, where eternal Rumour dwells,
And hath her home by many-folded dells.
I passed by many caves of dripping stone,
And heard each unseen Echo on her throne,
Lone regent of the woods, deep muttering,
And then new murmurs came new uttering
In song, from goblin waters swaying white,
Mocking with patient laughter all the night
Of those vast woods; and then I saw the boat,
Living, wide wingèd, on the waters float.
Strange draperies did all the sides adorn,
And the waves bowed before it like mown corn,
The wingèd wonder of all Faery Land.
It bore me softly where the shallow sand
Binds, as within a girdle or a ring,
The lake-embosomed isle. Nay, this my quest
Shall not so hopeless prove: some god may rest
Upon the wind, and guide mine arrow's course.
From yonder pinnacle above the lake.
I'll send mine arrow, now my one resource;
The nighest blossom where it falls I'll take.
A Voice. Fickle the guiding his arrow shall find!
Some goblin, my servant, on wings that are fleet,
That nestles alone in the whistling wind,
Go pilot the course of his arrow's deceit!
Almintor. 'Tis here the arrow fell: the breezes laughed
Around the feathery tip. Unto the shaft
This blossom is most near. Statue! Oh, thou
Whose beard a moonlight river is, whose brow
Is stone: old sleeper! this same afternoon
O'er much I've talked: I shall be silent soon,
If wrong my choice, as silent as thou art.
Oh! gracious Pan, take now thy servant's part.
He was our ancient god. If I speak low,
And not too clear, how will the new god know
But that I called on him?
A Voice.Sleeping lord of archery,
No more a-roving shalt thou see
The panther with her yellow hide,
Of the forests all the pride,
Or her ever burning eyes,
When she in a cavern lies,
Watching o'er her awful young,
Where their sinewy might is strung
In the never-lifting dark.
No! Thou standest still and stark,
That of old wert moving ever,
But a mother panther never
O'er her young so eagerly
Did her lonely watching take
As I my watching lest you wake,
Sleeping lord of archery.
ACT II.
Scene I.
The wood in the early evening.
Enter Antonio and Naschina.
Naschina. I, as a shepherd dressed, will seek and seek
Until I find him. What a weary week,
My pretty child, since he has gone, oh say
Once more how on that miserable day
He passed across the lake.
Antonio.When we two came
From the wood's ways, then, like a silver flame,
We saw the dolorous lake; and then thy name
He carved on trees, and with a sun-dry weed
He wrote it on the sands (the owls may read
And ponder it if they will); then near at hand
The boat's prow grated on the shallow sand,
And loudly twice the living wings flapt wide,
And, leaping to their feet, far Echoes cried,
Each other answering. Then between each wing
He sat, and then I heard the white lake sing,
Curving beneath the prow; as some wild drake
Half lit, so flapt the wings across the lake—
Alas! I make you sadder, shepherdess.
Naschina. Nay, grief in feeding on old grief grows less.
Antonio. Grief needs much feeding then. Of him I swear
We've talked and talked, and not a whit more rare
Your weeping fits!
Naschina.Look you, so very strait
The barred woodpecker's mansion is and deep,
No other bird may enter in.
Antonio.Well?
Naschina.Late—
Aye, very lately, sorrow came to weep
Within mine heart; and naught but sorrow now
Can enter there.
Antonio.See! See! above yon brow
Of hill two shepherds come.
Naschina.Farewell! I'll don
My shepherd garments, and return anon.
Enter Colin and Thernot.
Thernot. Two men who love one maid have ample cause
Of war. Of yore, two shepherds, where we pause,
Fought once for self-same reason on the hem
Of the wide woods.
Colin.And the deep earth gathered them.
Thernot. We must get swords.
Colin.Is 't the only way? Oh, see,
Yon is the hunter's, Sir Almintor's, page;
Let him between us judge, for he can gauge
And measure out the ways of chivalry.
Thernot. Sir Page, Almintor's friend, and therefore learned
In all such things, pray let thine ears be turned,
And hear, and judge.
Antonio.My popinjay, what now?
Colin. This thing we ask: must we two fight?―Judge thou.
Each came one morn, with welcoming of song,
Unto her door; for this, where nod the long
And shoreward waves, we nigh have fought; waves bring
The brown weed burden, so the sword brings fear
To us.
Thernot.Oh wise art thou in such a thing,
Being Almintor's page. Now judge you here.
We love Naschina both.
Antonio.Whom loves she best?
Colin. She cares no whit for either, but has blest
Almintor with her love.
Enter Naschina, disguised as a shepherd boy.
Colin.Who art thou?—speak,
As the sea's furrows on a sea-tost shell,
Sad histories are lettered on thy cheek.
Antonio. It is the shepherd Guarimond, who loveth well
In the deep centres of the secret woods
Old miser hoards of grief to tell and tell:
Young Guarimond he tells them o'er and o'er,
To see them drowned by those vast solitudes,
With their unhuman sorrows.
Naschina.Cease! no more!
Thou hast an over-nimble tongue.
Colin.Thy grief,
What is it, friend?
Antonio.He lost i' the woods the chief
And only sheep he loved of all the troop.
Colin. More grief is mine. No man shall ever stoop
Beneath the weight of greater grief than I;
I like you, and, in sooth I know not why.
Now, judge, must shepherd Thernot there and I
For this thing fight—we love one maid?
Naschina.Her name?
Colin. Naschina.
Naschina.Oh, I know her well—a lame,
Dull-witted thing, with face red squirrel-brown.
Antonio. A long, brown grasshopper of maids!
Naschina.Peace, sir!
Colin. 'Tis clear that you have seen her not. The crown
Is not more fair and joyous than she is
Of beams a-flicker on yon lonely fir,
Nor faeries in the honey-heart of June astir.
By bosky June I swear, and by the bee, her minister.
Naschina. There is no way but that ye fight I wis,
If her ye love.
Thernot.Aye, Colin, we must fight.
Colin. Aye, fight we must.
Naschina.Tell me, Antonio, might
They get them swords, and both or either fall?
Antonio. No, no; when that shall be, then men may call
Down to their feet the stars that shine alone,
Each one at gaze for aye upon his whirling throne.
Scene II.
A remote part of the forest.—Through black and twisted trees the lake is shining under the red evening sky.
Enter Naschina, as a shepherd-boy, and Antonio.
Antonio. Behold, how like a swarm of fiery bees
The light is dancing o'er the knotted trees,
In busy flakes; re-shining from the lake,
Through this night-vested place the red beams break.
Naschina. From the deep earth unto the lurid sky
All things are quiet in the eve's wide eye.
Antonio. The air is still above, and still each leaf,
But loud the grasshopper that sits beneath.
Naschina. And, boy, saw you, when through the forest we
Two came, his name and mine on many a tree
Carved; here, beyond the lake's slow-muffled tread,
In sand his name and mine I've also read.
Antonio. Yonder's the isle in search whereof we came;
The white waves wrap it in a sheet of flame,
And yonder huddling blackness draweth nigh—
The faery ship that swims athwart the sky.
Naschina. Antonio, if I return no more,
Then bid them raise my statue on the shore;
Here where the round waves come, here let them build,
Here, facing to the lake, and no name gild;
A white, dumb thing of tears, here let it stand,
Between the lonely forest and the sand.
Antonio. The boat draws near and near. You heed me not!
Naschina. And when the summer's deep, then to this spot
The Arcadians bring, and bid the stone be raised
As I am standing now—as though I gazed,
One hand brow-shading, far across the night,
And one arm pointing thus, in marble white.
And once a-year let the Arcadians come,
And 'neath it sit, and of the woven sum
Of human sorrow let them moralize;
And let them tell sad histories, till their eyes
All swim with tears.
Antonio.The faery boat's at hand;
You must be gone; the rolling grains of sand
Are 'neath its prow, and crushing shells.
Re-enter Antonio.
Antonio. I would have gone also; but far away
The faery thing flew with her o'er the gray
Slow waters, and the boat and maiden sink
Away from me where mists of evening drink
To ease their world-old thirst along the brink
Of sword-blue waves of calm; while o'er head blink
The mobs of stars in gold and green and blue,
Piercing the quivering waters through and through,
The ageless sentinels who hold their watch
O'er grief. The world drinks sorrow from the beams
And penetration of their eyes.
Where yonder blotch
Of lilac o'er the pulsing water gleams,
Once more those shepherds come. Mayhap some mirth
I'll have. Oh, absent one, 'tis not for dearth
Of grief. And if they say, 'Antonio laughed,'
Say then,—'A popinjay before grief's shaft
Pierced through, chattering from habit in the sun,
Till his last wretchedness was o'er and done.'
A Voice from among the trees. Antonio!
Enter Colin and Thernot.
Thernot.We have resolved to fight.
Antonio. To yonder isle, where never sail was furled,
From whose green banks no living thing may rove,
And see again the happy woodland light,
Naschina's gone, drawn by a thirst of love,
And that was strange; but this is many a world
More wonderful!
Thernot.And we have swords.
Antonio.O night
Of wonders! eve of prodigies!
Colin.Draw! draw!
Antonio (aside). He'll snap his sword.
Thernot.Raised is the lion's paw.
Antonio. Cease! Thernot's wounded, cease! They will not heed.
Fierce thrust! A tardy blossom had the seed,
But heavy fruit. How swift the argument
Of those steel tongues! Crash, swords! Well thrust! Well bent
Aside!—
The wild horns told Almintor's end,
And of Naschina's now they tell—rend! rend!
Oh, heart! Her dirge! With rushing arms the waves
Cast on the sound, on, on. This night of graves,
The spinning stars—the toiling sea—whirl round
My sinking brain!—Cease!—Cease! Heard ye yon sound?
The dirge of her ye love. Cease!—Cease!
Scene III.
First Voice. What do you weave so fair and bright?
Second Voice. The cloak I weave of sorrow.
Oh, lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of sorrow,
In all men's sight.
Third Voice. What do you build with sails for flight?
Fourth Voice. A boat I build for sorrow.
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover sorrow,
All day and night.
Fifth Voice. What do you weave with wool so white?
Sixth Voice. The sandals these of sorrow.
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In each man's ears of sorrow,
Sudden and light.
Naschina. What are the voices that in flowery ways
Have clothed their tongues with song of songless days?
Enchantress. They are the flowers' guardian sprights;
With streaming hair as wandering lights
They passed a-tip-toe everywhere,
And never heard of grief or care
Until this morn. As adder's back
The sky was banded o'er with wrack.
They were sitting round a pool,
At their feet the waves in rings
Gently shook their moth-like wings;
For there came an air-breath cool
From the ever-moving pinions
Of the happy flower minions.
But a sudden melancholy
Filled them as they sat together;
Now their songs are mournful wholly
As they go with drooping feather.
Naschina. O, Lady, thou whose vestiture of green
Is rolled as verdant smoke! O thou whose face
Is worn as though with fire. Oh, goblin queen,
Lead me, I pray thee, to the statued place!
Enchantress. Fair youth, along a wandering way
I've led thee here, and as a wheel
We turned around the place alway,
Lest on thine heart the stony seal
As on those other hearts were laid.
Behold the brazen-gated glade!
Naschina. O let me pass! the spells from off the heart
Of my sad hunter-friend will all depart
If on his lips the enchanted flower be laid;
O let me pass!
Enchantress.That flower none
Who seek may find, save only one,
A shepherdess long years foretold;
And even she shall never hold
The flower, save some thing be found
To die for her in air or ground.
And none there is; if such there were,
E'en then, before her shepherd hair
Had felt the island breeze, my lore
Had driven her forth, for ever more
To wander by the bubbling shore.
Laughter-lipped, but for her brain
A guerdon of deep-rooted pain,
And in her eyes a lightless stare,
For if severed from the root
The enchanted flower were,
From my wizard island lair,
And the happy wingéd day,
I, as music that grows mute,
On a girl's forgotten lute,
Pass away
Naschina. Your eyes are all a-flash. She is not here.
Enchantress. I'd kill her if she were. Nay, do not fear!
With you I am all gentleness; in truth,
There's little I'd refuse thee, dearest youth.
Naschina. It is my whim! bid some attendant sprite
Of thine cry over wold and water white,
That one shall die, unless one die for her.
'Tis but to see if anything will stir
For such a call. Let the wild word be cried
As though she whom you fear had crossed the wide
Swift lake.
Enchantress. A very little thing that is,
And shall be done, if you will deign to kiss
My lips, fair youth.
Naschina.It shall be as you ask.
Enchantress. Forth! forth! O spirits, ye have heard your task!
Voices. We are gone!
Enchantress [sitting down by Naschina].
Fair shepherd, as we wandered hither,
My words were all: 'Here no loves wane and wither,
Where dream-fed passion is and peace encloses,
Where revel of fox-glove is and revel of roses.'
My words were all: 'O whither, whither, whither
Wilt roam away from this rich island rest?
I bid thee stay, renouncing thy mad quest.'
But thou wouldst not, for then thou wert unblest
And stony-hearted; now thou hast grown kind,
And thou wilt stay. All thought of what they find
In the far world will vanish from thy mind,
Till thou rememberest only how the sea
Has fenced us round for all eternity.
But why art thou so silent? Did'st thou hear
I laughed?
Naschina.And why is that a thing so dear?
Enchantress. From thee I snatched it; e'en the fay that trips
At morn, and with her feet each cobweb rends,
Laughs not. It dwells alone on mortal lips:
Thou'lt teach me laughing, and I'll teach thee peace,
Here where laburnum hangs her golden fleece;
For peace and laughter have been seldom friends.
But, for a boy, how long thine hair has grown!
Long citron coils that hang around thee, blown
In shadowy dimness. To be fair as thee
I'd give my faery fleetness, though I be
Far fleeter than the million-footed sea.
A Voice.By wood antique, by wave and waste,
Where cypress is and oozy pine,
Did I on quivering pinions haste,
And all was quiet round me spread,
As quiet as the clay-cold dead.
I cried the thing you bade me cry.
An owl, who in an alder tree
Had hooted for an hundred years,
Up-raised his voice, and hooted me.
E'en though his wings were plumeless stumps,
And all his veins had near run dry,
Forth from the hollow alder trunk
He hooted as I wandered by.
And so with wolf, and boar, and steer.
And one alone of all would hark,
A man who by a dead man stood.
A star-lit rapier, half blood-dark,
Was broken in his quivering hand.
As blossoms, when the winds of March
Hold festival across the land,
He shrank before my voice, and stood
Low bowed and dumb upon the sand.
A foolish word thou gavest me!
For each within himself hath all
The world, within his folded heart,
His temple and his banquet hall;
And who will throw his mansion down
Thus for another's bugle call!
Enchantress. But why this whim of thine? A strange unrest,
As alien as a cuckoo in a robin's nest,
Is in thy face, and lips together pressed;
And why so silent? I would have thee speak.
Soon wilt thou smile, for here the winds are weak
As moths with broken wings, and as we sit
The heavens all star-throbbing are a-lit.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Let me gaze on thee
At arm's length, thus till dumb eternity
Has rolled away the stars and dried the sea
I could gaze, gaze upon thine eyes' clear grey;
Gaze on till ragged time himself decay.
Ah! you are weeping; here should all grief cease.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Youth, I am at peace.
Naschina. But art thou happy?
Enchantress.Those grey eyes of thine
Have they ne'er seen the eyes of lynx or kine,
Or aught remote; or hast thou never heard
Mid bubbling leaves a wandering song-rapt bird
Going the forest through, with flutings weak;
Or hast thou never seen, with visage meek,
A hoary hunter leaning on his bow,
To watch thee pass? Yet deeper than men know
These are at peace.
A Voice.Sad lady, cease!
I rose, I rose
From the dim wood's foundation—
I rose, I rose
Where in white exultation
The long lily blows,
And the wan wave that lingers
From flood-time encloses
With infantine fingers
The roots of the roses.
Thence have I come winging;
I there had been keeping
A mouse from his sleeping,
With shouting and singing.
The Voice. A wriggling thing on the white lake moved,
As the canker-worm on a milk-white rose;
And down I came as a falcon swoops
When his sinewy wings together close.
I lit by the thing, 'twas a shepherd-boy,
Who, swimming, sought the island lone;
Within his clenchéd teeth a sword.
I heard the deathful monotone,
The water-serpent sings his heart
Before a death. O'er wave and bank
I cried the words you bid me cry.
The shepherd raised his arms and sank,
His rueful spirit fluttered by.
Naschina [aside]. I must bestir myself. Both dead for me!
Both dead!—No time to think.
[Aloud.]I am she,
That shepherdess; arise, and bring to me,
In silence, that famed flower of wizardry,
For I am mightier now by far than thee,
And faded now is all thy wondrous art.
Naschina. I see within a cloven rock dispart
A scarlet bloom. Why raisest thou, pale one,
Oh famous dying minion of the sun,
Thy flickering hand? What mean the lights that rise
As light of triumph in thy goblin eyes—
In thy wan face?
Enchantress. Hear thou, O daughter of the days,
Behold the loving loveless flower of lone ways,
Well nigh immortal in this charméd clime,
Thou shalt outlive thine amorous happy time,
And dead as are the lovers of old rime
Shall be the hunter-lover of thy youth.
Yet ever more, through all thy days of ruth,
Shall grow thy beauty and thy dreamless truth,
As an hurt leopard fills with ceaseless moan,
And aimless wanderings the woodlands lone,
Thy soul shall be, though pitiless and bright
It is, yet shall it fail thee day and night
Beneath the burthen of the infinite,
In those far years, O daughter of the days.
And when thou hast these things for many ages felt,
The red squirrel shall rear her young where thou hast dwelt—
Ah, woe is me! I go from sun and shade,
And the joy of the streams where long-limbed herons wade;
And never any more the wide-eyed bands
Of the pied panther-kittens from my hands
Shall feed. I shall not in the evenings hear
Again the woodland laughter, and the clear
Wild cries, grown sweet with lulls and lingerings long.
I fade, and shall not see the mornings wake,
A-fluttering the painted populace of lake
And sedgy stream, and in each babbling brake
And hollow lulling the young winds with song.
I dream!—I cannot die!—No! no!
I hurl away these all unfaery fears.
Have I not seen a thousand seasons ebb and flow
The tide of stars? Have I not seen a thousand years
The summers fling their scents? Ah, subtile and slow,
The warmth of life is chilling, and the shadows grow
More dark beneath the poplars, where yon owl
Lies torn and rotting. The fierce kestrel birds
Slew thee, poor sibyl: comrades thou and I;
For, ah, our lives were but two starry words
Shouted a moment 'tween the earth and sky.
Oh death is horrible! and foul, foul, foul!
Naschina. I know not of the things you speak. But what
Of him on yonder brazen-gated spot,
By thee spell-bound?
Enchantress.Thou shalt know more:
Meeting long hence the phantom herdsman, king
Of the dread woods; along their russet floor
His sleuth-hounds follow every faery thing.
Before I am too weak, fierce mortal, let me fly,
And crouch in some far stillness of the isle, and die.
Voices [sing]. A man has a hope for heaven,
But soulless a faery dies,
As a leaf that is old, and withered, and cold,
When the wintry vapours rise.
Soon shall our wings be stilled,
And our laughter over and done:
So let us dance where the yellow lance
Of the barley shoots in the sun.
So let us dance on the fringéd waves,
And shout at the wisest owls
In their downy caps, and startle the naps
Of the dreaming water-fowls,
And fight for the black sloe-berries,
For soulless a faery dies,
As a leaf that is old, and withered, and cold,
When the wintry vapours rise.
Re-enter Naschina.
Naschina. I plucked her backwards by her dress of green.
To question her—oh no, I did not fear,
Because St. Joseph's image hangeth here
Upon my necklace. But the goblin queen
Faded and vanished, nothing now is seen,
Saving a green frog dead upon the grass.
As figures moving mirrored in a glass,
The singing shepherds, too, have passed away.
O Arcady, O Arcady, this day
A deal of evil and of change hath crossed
Thy peace. Ah, now I'll wake these sleepers, lost
And woe-begone. For them no evil day!
To Almintor. O wake! wake! wake! for soft as a bee sips
The faery flower lies upon thy lips.
Almintor. I slept, 'twas sultry, and scarce circling shook
The falling hawthorn bloom. By mere and brook
The otters dreaming lay.
Naschina.Aye!
Behold the hapless sleepers standing by.
I will dissolve away the faeries' guile;
So be thou still, dear heart, a little while!
(To the Second Sleeper.)
Old warrior, wake! for soft as a bee sips,
The faery blossom lies upon thy lips.
Sleeper. Have I slept long?
Naschina.Long years.
The Sleeper.With hungry heart
Doth still the Wanderer rove? With all his ships
I saw him from sad Dido's shores depart,
Enamoured of the waves' impetuous lips.
Naschina. Those twain are dust. Wake! Light as a bee sips
The faery blossom lies upon thy lips;
Seafarer, wake!
Third Sleeper.Was my sleep long?
Naschina.Long years.
The Sleeper. A rover I, who come from where men's ears
Love storm; and stained with mist the new moons flare.
Doth still the Man whom each stern rover fears,
The austere Arthur, rule from Uther's chair?
Naschina. He is long dead.
Wake! soft as a bee sips
The goblin flower lieth on thy lips.
Fourth Sleeper. Was my sleep long, oh, youth?
Naschina.Long, long and deep.
The Sleeper. As here I came I saw god Pan. He played
An oaten pipe unto a listening fawn,
Whose insolent eyes unused to tears would weep.
Doth he still dwell within the woody shade,
And rule the shadows of the eve and dawn?
Naschina. Nay, he is gone. Wake! wake! as a bee sips
The faery blossom broods upon thy lips.
Sleeper, awake!
Fifth Sleeper.How long my sleep?
Naschina.Unnumbered
The years of goblin sleep.
The Sleeper.Ah! while I slumbered,
How have the years in Troia flown away?
Are still the Achaians' tented chiefs at bay?
Where rise the walls majestical above
The plain, a little fair-haired maid I love.
The Sleepers all together. She is long ages dust.
The Sleeper.Ah, woe is me!
First Sleeper. Youth, here will we abide, and be thou king
Of this lake-nurtured isle!
Naschina.Let thy king be
Yon archer, he who hath the halcyon's wing
As flaming minstrel-word upon his crest.
All the Sleepers. Clear-browed Arcadian, thou shalt be our king!
Naschina. O, my Almintor, noble was thy quest;
Yea, noble and most knightly hath it been.
All the Sleepers. Clear-browed Arcadian, thou shalt be our king!
Almintor. Until we die within the charmed ring
Of these star-shuddering skies, you are the queen.
The End.