Selected Poems
Page 51
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit. — Away!
We have outstay’d the hour – mount we our clouds!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV
The Hall of Arimanes — Arimanes on his Throne, a Globe of Fire, surrounded by the Spirits.
Hymn of the SPIRITS
Hail to our Master! – Prince of Earth and Air!
Who walks the clouds and waters – in his hand
The sceptre of the elements, which tear
Themselves to chaos at his high command!
5
He breatheth – and a tempest shakes the sea;
He speaketh – and the clouds reply in thunder;
He gazeth – from his glance the sunbeams flee;
He moveth – earthquakes rend the world asunder.
Beneath his footsteps the volcanoes rise;
10
His shadow is the Pestilence; his path
The comets herald through the crackling skies;
And planets turn to ashes at his wrath.
To him War offers daily sacrifice;
To him Death pays his tribute; Life is his,
15
With all its infinite of agonies –
And his the spirit of whatever is!
[Enter the DESTINIES and NEMESIS.]
FIRST DESTINY: Glory to Arimanes! on the earth
His power increaseth – both my sisters did
His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty!
20
SECOND DESTINY: Glory to Arimanes! we who bow
The necks of men, bow down before his throne!
THIRD DESTINY: Glory to Arimanes! we await
His nod!
NEMESIS: Sovereign of Sovereigns! we are thine,
And all that liveth, more or less, is ours,
25
And most things wholly so; still to increase
Our power, increasing thine, demands our care,
And we are vigilant – Thy late commands
Have been fulfil’d to the utmost.
[Enter MANFRED.]
A SPIRIT:What is here?
A mortal! – Thou most rash and fatal wretch,
30
Bow down and worship!
SECOND SPIRIT:I do know the man –
A Magian of great power, and fearful skill!
THIRD SPIRIT: Bow down and worship, slave! –
What, know’st thou not
Thine and our Sovereign? – Tremble, and obey!
ALL THE SPIRITS: Prostrate thyself, and thy condemned clay,
35
Child of the Earth! or dread the worst.
MANFRED:I know it;
And yet ye see I kneel not.
FOURTH SPIRIT:’Twill be taught thee.
MANFRED: ’Tis taught already; — many a night on the earth,
On the bare ground, have I bow’d down my face,
And strew’d my head with ashes; I have known
40
The fulness of humiliation, for
I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt
To my own desolation.
FIFTH SPIRIT:Dost thou dare
Refuse to Arimanes on his throne
What the whole earth accords, beholding not
45
The terror of his Glory? – Crouch! I say.
MANFRED: Bid him bow down to that which is above him,
The overruling Infinite – the Maker
Who made him not for worship – let him kneel,
And we will kneel together.
THE SPIRITS:Crush the worm!
50
Tear him in pieces! –
FIRST DESTINY:Hence! Avaunt! – he’s mine.
Prince of the Powers invisible! This man
Is of no common order, as his port
And presence here denote; his sufferings
Have been of an immortal nature, like
55
Our own; his knowledge, and his powers and will,
As far as is compatible with clay,
Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such
As clay hath seldom borne; his aspirations
Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth,
60
And they have only taught him what we know –
That knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.
This is not all – the passions, attributes
65
Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor being,
Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt,
Have pierced his heart; and in their consequence
Made him a thing, which I, who pity not,
Yet pardon those who pity. He is mine,
70
And thine, it may be – be it so, or not,
No other Spirit in this region hath
A soul like his – or power upon his soul.
NEMESIS: What doth he here then?
FIRST DESTINY:Let him answer that.
MANFRED: Ye know what I have known; and without power
75
I could not be amongst ye: but there are
Powers deeper still beyond – I come in quest
Of such, to answer unto what I seek.
NEMESIS: What would’st thou?
MANFRED: Thou canst not reply to me.
Call up the dead – my question is for them.
80
NEMESIS: Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch
The wishes of this mortal?
ARIMANES:Yea.
NEMESIS:Whom would’st thou Uncharnel?
MANFRED: One without a tomb — call up Astarte.
NEMESIS
Shadow! or Spirit!
85
Whatever thou art,
Which still doth inherit
The whole or a part
Of the form of thy birth,
Of the mould of thy clay,
90
Which return’d to the earth,
Re-appear to the day!
Bear what thou borest,
The heart and the form,
And the aspect thou worest
95
Redeem from the worm.
Appear! – Appear! – Appear!
Who sent thee there requires thee here!
[ The Phantom of ASTARTE rises and stands in the midst.]
MANFRED: Can this be death? there’s bloom upon her cheek;
But now I see it is no living hue,
100
But a strange hectic – like the unnatural red
Which Autumn plants upon the perish’d leaf.
It is the same! Oh, God! that I should dread
To look upon the same — Astarte! — No,
I cannot speak to her – but bid her speak –
105
Forgive me or condemn me.
NEMESIS
By the power which hath broken
The grace which enthrall’d thee,
Speak to him who hath spoken,
Or those who have call’d thee!
110
MANFRED:She is silent,
And in that silence I am more than answer’d.
NEMESIS: My power extends no further. Prince of air!
It rests with thee alone – command her voice.
ARIMANES: Spirit – obey this sceptre!
NEMESIS:Silent still!
115
She is not of our order, but belongs
To the other powers. Mortal! thy quest is vain,
And we are baffled also.
MANFRED:Hear me, hear me –
Astarte! my beloved! speak to me:
I have so much endured – so much endure –
120
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other,
though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
125
Say that thou loath’st me not – that I do bear
This punishment for both – that thou wilt be
One of the blessed – and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence — in a life
130
Which makes me shrink from immortality –
A future like the past. I cannot rest.
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art – and what I am;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
135
The voice which was my music – Speak to me!
For I have call’d on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush’d boughs,
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name,
140
Which answer’d me – many things answer’d me –
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all.
Yet speak to me! I have outwatch’d the stars,
And gazed o’er heaven in vain in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wander’d o’er the earth,
145
And never found thy likeness — Speak to me!
Look on the fiends around – they feel for me!
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone –
Speak to me! though it be in wrath; – but say –
I reck not what – but let me hear thee once –
150
This once – once more!
PHANTOM OF ASTARTE: Manfred!
MANFRED: Say on, say on –
I live but in the sound — it is thy voice!
PHANTOM: Manfred! Tomorrow ends thine earthly ills. Farewell!
MANFRED: Yet one word more – am I forgiven?
PHANTOM: Farewell!
MANFRED:Say, shall we meet again?
155
PHANTOM:Farewell!
MANFRED: One word for mercy! Say, thou lovest me.
PHANTOM: Manfred!
[The Spirit of ASTARTE disappears.]
NEMESIS:She’s gone, and will not be recall’d;
Her words will be fulfill’d. Return to the earth.
A SPIRIT: He is convulsed – This is to be a mortal
160
And seek the things beyond mortality.
ANOTHER SPIRIT: Yet, see, he mastereth himself, and makes
His torture tributary to his will.
Had he been one of us, he would have made
An awful spirit.
NEMESIS:Hast thou further question
165
Of our great sovereign, or his worshippers?
MANFRED: None.
NEMESIS: Then for a time farewell.
MANFRED:We meet then –
Where? On the earth?
NEMESIS: That will be seen hereafter.
MANFRED: Even as thou wilt: and for the grace accorded
I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well!
[Exit MANFRED.]
[Scene closes]
Act III
SCENE I
A Hall in the Castle of Manfred.
[MANFRED and HERMAN.]
MANFRED: What is the hour?
HERMAN:It wants but one till sunset,
And promises a lovely twilight.
MANFRED:Say,
Are all things so disposed of in the tower
As I directed?
HERMAN:All, my lord, are ready:
5
Here is the key and casket.
MANFRED:It is well:
Thou may’st retire.
[Exit HERMAN.]
There is a calm upon me –
Inexplicable stillness! which till now
Did not belong to what I knew of life.
If that I did not know philosophy
10
To be of all our vanities the motliest,
The merest word that ever fool’d the ear
From out the schoolman’s jargon, I should deem
The golden secret, the sought ‘Kalon,’ found,
And seated in my soul. It will not last,
15
But it is well to have known it, though but once:
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense,
And I within my tablets would note down
That there is such a feeling. Who is there?
[Re-enter HERMAN.]
HERMAN: My lord, the abbot of St Maurice craves
20
To greet your presence.
[Enter the ABBOT OF ST MAURICE.]
ABBOT:Peace be with Count Manfred!
MANFRED: Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls;
Thy presence honours them and blesseth those
Who dwell within them.
ABBOT:Would it were so Count!–
But I would fain confer with thee alone.
25
MANFRED: Herman, retire. – What would my reverend guest?
ABBOT: Thus, without prelude: – Age and zeal, my office,
And good intent, must plead my privilege;
Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood,
May also be my herald. Rumours strange,
30
And of unholy nature, are abroad,
And busy with thy name; a noble name
For centuries: may he who bears it now
Transmit it unimpair’d!
MANFRED:Proceed – I listen.
ABBOT: ’Tis said thou holdest converse with the things
35
Which are forbidden to the search of man
That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,
The many evil and unheavenly spirits
Which walk the valley of the shade of death,
Thou communest. I know that with mankind,
40
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude
Is as an anchorite’s, were it but holy.
MANFRED: And what are they who do avouch these things?
ABBOT: My pious brethren - the scared peasantry -
45
Even thy own vassals – who do look on thee
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life’s in peril.
MANFRED: Take it.
ABBOT: I come to save, and not destroy –
I would not pry into thy secret soul;
But if these things be sooth, there still is time
50
For penitence and pity: reconcile thee
With the true church, and through the church to heaven.
MANFRED: I hear thee. This is my reply: whate’er
I may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself. – I shall not choose a mortal
55
To be my mediator. Have I sinn’d
Against your ordinances? prove and punish!
ABBOT: My son! I did not speak of punishment,
But penitence and pardon; – with thyself
The choice of such remains – and for the last,
60
Our institutions and our strong belief
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin —
To higher hope and better thoughts; the first
I leave to heaven, – ‘Vengeance is mine alone!’
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness
65
His servant echoes back the awful word.
MANFRED: Old man! there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer — nor purifying form
Of penitence – nor outward look – nor fast –
Nor agony – nor, greater than all these,
70
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But all in all
sufficient to itself
Would make a hell of heaven — can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense
75
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn’d
He deals on his own soul.
ABBOT:All this is well;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
80
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
And the commencement of atonement is
85
The sense of its necessity. — Say on —
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon’d.
MANFRED: When Rome’s sixth emperor was near his last,
The victim of a self-inflicted wound,
90
To shun the torments of a public death
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have stanch’d
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back, and said –
95
Some empire still in his expiring glance,
‘It is too late – is this fidelity?’
ABBOT: And what of this?
MANFRED: I answer with the Roman –
‘It is too late!’
ABBOT:It never can be so,
To reconcile thyself with thy own soul,
100
And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope?
‘Tis strange – even those who do despair above,
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth,
To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.
MANFRED: Ay – father! I have had those earthly visions
105
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men;
The enlightener of nations; and to rise
I knew not whither – it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
110
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss,
(Which casts up misty columns that become
Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies,)
Lies low but mighty still. – But this is past,
115
My thoughts mistook themselves.
ABBOT:And wherefore so?
MANFRED: I could not tame my nature down; for he
Must serve who fain would sway – and soothe – and sue –
And watch all time — and pry into all place —
And be a living lie – who would become
120
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such
The mass are; I disdain’d to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader – and of wolves.
The lion is alone, and so am I.