Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 280
Than clothed them round long since and blessed them there
With less benignant blessing, set less fast
For seal on spirit and sense, than time has cast
For all time on the dead and deathless past.
II.
Beneath the trellised flowers the flowers that shine
And lighten all the lustrous length of way
From terrace up to terrace bear me sign
And keep me record how no word could say
What perfect pleasure of how pure a day
A child’s remembrance or a child’s delight
Drank deep in dreams of, or in present sight
Exulted as the sunrise in its might.
III.
The shadowed lawns, the shadowing pines, the ways
That wind and wander through a world of flowers,
The radiant orchard where the glad sun’s gaze
Dwells, and makes most of all his happiest hours,
The field that laughs beneath the cliff that towers,
The splendour of the slumber that enthralls
With sunbright peace the world within their walls,
Are symbols yet of years that love recalls.
IV.
But scarce the sovereign symbol of the sea,
That clasps about the loveliest land alive
With loveliness more wonderful, may be
Fit sign to show what radiant dreams survive
Of suns that set not with the years that drive
Like mists before the blast of dawn, but still
Through clouds and gusts of change that chafe and chill
Lift up the light that mocks their wrathful will.
V.
A light unshaken of the wind of time
That laughs upon the thunder and the threat
Of years that thicken and of clouds that climb
To put the stars out that they see not set,
And bid sweet memory’s rapturous faith forget.
But not the lightning shafts of change can slay
The life of light that dies not with the day,
The glad live past that cannot pass away.
VI.
The many-coloured joys of dawn and noon
That lit with love a child’s life and a boy’s,
And kept a man’s in concord and in tune
With lifelong music of memorial joys
Where thought held life and dream in equipoise,
Even now make child and boy and man seem one,
And days that dawned beneath the last year’s sun
As days that even ere childhood died were done.
VII.
The sun to sport in and the cliffs to scale,
The sea to clasp and wrestle with, till breath
For rapture more than weariness would fail,
All-golden gifts of dawn, whose record saith
That time nor change may turn their life to death,
Live not in loving thought alone, though there
The life they live be lovelier than they were
When clothed in present light and actual air.
VIII.
Sun, moon, and stars behold the land and sea
No less than ever lovely, bright as hope
Could hover, or as happiness can be:
Fair as of old the lawns to sunward slope,
The fields to seaward slant and close and ope:
But where of old from strong and sleepless wells
The exulting fountains fed their shapely shells,
Where light once dwelt in water, dust now dwells.
IX.
The springs of earth may slacken, and the sun
Find no more laughing lustre to relume
Where once the sunlight and the spring seemed one;
But not on heart or soul may time or doom
Cast aught of drought or lower with aught of gloom
If past and future, hope and memory, be
Ringed round about with love, fast bound and free,
As all the world is girdled with the sea.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Sir Francis Dilston.
Sir Arthur Clavering.
Frank Dilston, son to Sir Francis.
Reginald Clavering, cousin to Sir Arthur.
Anne Dilston twin-sister and coheiresse, formerly ward of Sir Francis.
Mabel Dilston twin-sister and coheiresse, formerly ward of Sir Francis.
Scene, Clavering Hall, Northumberland.
Time, 1816.
ACT I.
Scene I. — A morning room.
Anne and Mabel.
ANNE.
April again, and not a word of war.
Last year, and not a year ago, it was
That we sat wondering when good news would come.
MABEL.
And had not heard or learnt in lesson-books
If such a place there was as Waterloo.
And never dreamed that —
ANNE.
Well?
MABEL.
That it would be
So soon for ever such a name for us
As Blenheim or Trafalgar.
ANNE.
No. For us?
We don’t remember Blenheim — and we had
No cousin wounded at Trafalgar. Still,
If Redgie had been old enough to serve —
MABEL.
I wish he had chosen the navy.
ANNE.
And come home
Unhurt?
MABEL.
No; I forgot. Of course he might
Have died like Nelson — and gone home with him.
ANNE.
Home? Reginald’s not quite so tired of life,
I fancy, though he frets at being kept in,
As to look up — outside this world — for home.
MABEL.
No.
ANNE.
Will you tell me — but you will not — me,
Even —
MABEL.
What? Anything I can I will.
ANNE.
Perhaps you cannot — what he said to you
Yesterday?
MABEL.
When?
ANNE.
You will not now, I know.
MABEL.
Where?
ANNE.
When and where? If you must needs be told,
At nine last evening in the library.
MABEL.
Nothing — but what I meant to tell you.
ANNE.
Yes?
You meant to tell me that he said, my dear,
What?
MABEL.
Anne!
ANNE.
You thought I knew?
MABEL.
I thought I must
Have said it without speaking.
ANNE.
Reginald!
And so you really mean to love the boy
You played with, rode with, climbed with, laughed at, made
Your tempter — and your scapegoat — when you chose
To ride forbidden horses, and break bounds
On days forbidden? Love! Of course you like —
And then how can you love him?
MABEL.
Is dislike
Mother of love? Then you — to judge by signs —
Must love Frank Dilston dearly.
ANNE.
So I might,
If — if I did not hate him.
MABEL.
Then you do.
I’m glad. I always liked him.
ANNE.
What has he
Done, that a woman — or a girl — should like
Him?
MABEL.
Need a man — or boy — do anything
More than be true and bright and kind and brave
And try to make you like him?
ANNE.
That spoils all.
He should not try.
MABEL.
I’ll tell him not to try.
Enter
Reginald Clavering
and
FrankDilston.
ANNE.
Redgie! You’ve not been riding?
REGINALD.
Have I, Frank?
FRANK.
You’d have me tell a lie to get you off?
ANNE.
You stupid pair of schoolboys! Really, Frank,
You should not let him.
FRANK.
I
can’t lick him, Anne;
We two — or you alone — might manage.
ANNE.
Why,
The grooms must know he should not mount a horse
Yet.
REGINALD.
Would you have me never ride again
Because last year I got a fall?
ANNE.
Appeal
To Mabel.
REGINALD.
She was always hard on me.
MABEL.
Always.
ANNE.
You mean that I encouraged you
To risk your neck when we were girl and boy?
Make him sit down, Frank.
REGINALD.
There. And now we’ll talk
Of something — not of nothing.
ANNE.
Of your play?
REGINALD.
That’s ready. How about your stage?
ANNE.
But is it
Indeed?
REGINALD.
It’s just one little act, you know —
Enough for four and not too much, I hope,
To get by heart in half a pair of days.
ANNE.
In one day? No: I am slow at learning verse —
Even if my part were shorter than the rest.
REGINALD.
It is.
ANNE.
Ah! Thank you.
FRANK.
Mabel’s I have read.
It’s longer.
MABEL.
As the whole affair is short,
It cannot be much longer. You should rest,
Redgie. Come out and feed the pheasants, Anne.
[Exeunt
Anne
and
Mabel.
REGINALD.
How like old times it is, when we came back
From Eton! You remember, Frank, we played
— What was it? — once.
FRANK.
‘What was it?’ There’s no such play.
There’s ‘What you will’: perhaps we played ‘Twelfth Night’
In frocks and jackets. Might we now not play
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’?
REGINALD.
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’:
I know, because I played Lysander — you
Demetrius.
FRANK.
How the female parts were cast
You don’t remember?
REGINALD.
Helena was Anne,
I think, and Hermia Mabel.
FRANK.
Change the names.
REGINALD.
Ah, yes. All friends from more than twelve miles round
Came in to our Yuletide gathering through the snows.
How quick and bright Anne’s acting was! you two
Bore off the palms all round: Mabel and I
Were somewhere short of nowhere.
FRANK.
Will you now
Retaliate? She and you were plotting this,
Must we suppose, last evening?
REGINALD.
She and I,
Frank? We should make but poor conspirators.
FRANK.
I hope so, and I think so. Seriously,
May not I ask — ?
REGINALD.
If she and I are friends?
Surely a man may ask and answer that,
If — as you do — he knows it. If you mean
More — I would hardly tell a brother this,
Who had not been so close a friend of mine
Always, and had no right to ask me this —
No.
FRANK.
Then she does not think — she has no cause —
She cannot think you love her?
REGINALD.
Can I tell?
But this I can tell — she shall never come
To think or dream I do, and vex herself,
By any base and foolish fault of mine.
FRANK.
But if she loves you, Redgie?
REGINALD.
No, my boy.
She does not. Come, we need not talk of that.
I think mock-modesty a mincing lie —
The dirtiest form of self-conceit that is,
Quite, and in either sense the vainest. You
She may not love just yet — but me, I know,
She never will. I ought to say ‘Thank God,’
Being poor, and knowing myself unworthy her
— A younger son’s son, with a closed career
Should peace prove now as stable as it looks —
If I on my side loved her as I should
And if I knew she would be, as I fear —
No, hope she will, happier with you than me.
I can’t do that, quite; if I could, and did,
I should be just a little less unfit
To dream that she could love me — which I don’t.
FRANK.
You don’t mean that you want me —
REGINALD.
I do mean
I want her to be happy: as for you,
If I don’t want you to be miserable
It only shows I am not quite a cur.
FRANK.
You never were: but if you meant me well,
What made you go campaigning and come back
A hero?
REGINALD.
Six months’ service! Don’t you be
A fool — or flatterer.
FRANK.
Still, you have (worse luck!)
Such heavy odds — a wound, and Waterloo!
REGINALD.
If I — or you — had lost an eye or arm,
That wouldn’t make us Nelsons.
FRANK.
Something like.
REGINALD.
Well, you can do that in the hunting-field.
FRANK.
I wish I had you in the playing-fields
Again.
REGINALD.
We can’t just settle it with fists.
But, if you asked me, as of course you don’t
And won’t, what she and I were talking of
Last evening, I could tell you — and I will.
I asked her if she thought it possible
That two such baby friends and playfellows
As she and Anne had been with you and me
Could, when grown up, be serious lovers.
FRANK.
Well —
Was that not making love to her? And what
Did she say?
REGINALD.
Hardly. No. Certainly not.
FRANK.
And then?
REGINALD.
The bell rang, and we went to dress
For dinner.
FRANK.
What did she say — if she did —
To make you ask her that?
REGINALD.
Something she did —
At least, I thought so — like a fool. And now
We’ll talk no more about it. Mind you, Frank,
I didn’t — could I possibly? — forget
That just because I love her — more than you
I won’t say — she must never dream I do
If I can help it.
FRANK.
Then, in heaven’s name, why
Say what you say you did?
REGINALD.
Don’t fre
t yourself.
No harm was meant or done. But if she does
Love you — if you can win her — as I think
(There!) — you’re the happiest fellow ever born.
FRANK.
And you’re the best, Redgie. By Jove! she ought
To love you, if she knew how you love her.
REGINALD.
And that, please God, she never will. When you
And she are married, if you tell her so,
You’ll play the traitor, not to me but her —
Make her unhappy for the minute. Don’t.
She would be sorrier than I’m worth, you know,
To think of any sorrow not her own
And given by her unconsciously. She had
Always the sweetest heart a girl could have.
‘Sweet heart’! she might have been the first girl born
Whose lover ever called her by the name.
FRANK.
Redgie, I don’t know what to say to you.
REGINALD.
Say nothing. Talk about our play.
FRANK.
Your play!
We are like to play, it seems, without a stage,
Another, and a sadder.
REGINALD.
Don’t be sure.
My play is highly tragic. Italy,
Steel, poison, shipwreck —
FRANK.
One you made at school,
Is it? I know what those were.
REGINALD.
Wait and see.