by Thomas Hardy
Rethrone in Piedmont the Sardinian King,
Make Naples sword-proof, un-French Italy
From shore to shore; and thoroughly guarantee
A settled order to the divers states;
Thus rearing breachless barriers in each realm
Against the thrust of his usurping hand.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
They trow not what is shaping otherwhere
The while they talk this stoutly!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Bid me go
And join them, and all blandly kindle them
By bringing, ere material transit can,
A new surprise!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Yea, for a moment, wouldst.
[The Spirit of Rumour enters the apartment in the form of a
personage of fashion, newly arrived. He advances and addresses
the group.]
SPIRIT
The Treaty moves all tongues to-night.—Ha, well—
So much on paper!
GENTLEMAN
What on land and sea?
You look, old friend, full primed with latest thence.
SPIRIT
Yea, this. The Italy our mighty pact
Delivers from the French and Bonaparte
Makes haste to crown him!—Turning from Boulogne
He speeds toward Milan, there to glory him
In second coronation by the Pope,
And set upon his irrepressible brow
Lombardy's iron crown.
[The Spirit of Rumour mingles with the throng, moves away, and
disappears.]
LADY
Fair Italy,
Alas, alas!
LORD
Yet thereby English folk
Are freed him.—Faith, as ancient people say,
It's an ill wind that blows good luck to none!
MINISTER
Who is your friend that drops so airily
This precious pinch of salt on our raw skin?
GENTLEMAN
Why, Norton. You know Norton well enough?
MINISTER
Nay, 'twas not he. Norton of course I know.
I thought him Stewart for a moment, but—-
LADY
But I well scanned him—'twas Lord Abercorn;
For, said I to myself, "O quaint old beau,
To sleep in black silk sheets so funnily:—
That is, if the town rumour on't be true."
LORD
My wig, ma'am, no! 'Twas a much younger man.
GENTLEMAN
But let me call him! Monstrous silly this,
That don't know my friends!
[They look around. The gentleman goes among the surging and
babbling guests, makes inquiries, and returns with a perplexed
look.]
GENTLEMAN
They tell me, sure,
That he's not here to-night!
MINISTER
I can well swear
It was not Norton.—'Twas some lively buck,
Who chose to put himself in masquerade
And enter for a whim. I'll tell our host.
—Meantime the absurdity of his report
Is more than manifested. How knows he
The plans of Bonaparte by lightning-flight,
Before another man in England knows?
LADY
Something uncanny's in it all, if true.
Good Lord, the thought gives me a sudden sweat,
That fairly makes my linen stick to me!
MINISTER
Ha-ha! 'Tis excellent. But we'll find out
Who this impostor was.
[They disperse, look furtively for the stranger, and speak of
the incident to others of the crowded company.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Now let us vision onward, till we sight
Famed Milan's aisles of marble, sun-alight,
And there behold, unbid, the Coronation-rite.
[The confused tongues of the assembly waste away into distance,
till they are heard but as the babblings of the sea from a
high cliff, the scene becoming small and indistinct therewith.
This passes into silence, and the whole disappears.]
SCENE VI
MILAN. THE CATHEDRAL
[The interior of the building on a sunny May day.
The walls, arched, and columns are draped in silk fringed with
gold. A gilded throne stand in front of the High Altar. A
closely packed assemblage, attired in every variety of rich
fabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]
DUMB SHOW
From a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESS
JOSEPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collect
rainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows.
She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies.
A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR,
consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidents
of institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of the
Empire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings. The Emperor
himself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying the
sceptre. He is followed my ministers and officials of the household.
His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish pallor
overspreads his face.
He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, who
burn incense before him as he proceeds towards the throne. Rolling
notes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What is the creed that these rich rites disclose?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
A local cult, called Christianity,
Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheres
Include, with divers other such, in dim
Pathetical and brief parentheses,
Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned,
The systems of the suns go sweeping on
With all their many-mortaled planet train
In mathematic roll unceasingly.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I did not recognize it here, forsooth;
Though in its early, lovingkindly days
Of gracious purpose it was much to me.
ARCHBISHOP [addressing Bonaparte]
Sire, with that clemency and right goodwill
Which beautify Imperial Majesty,
You deigned acceptance of the homages
That we the clergy and the Milanese
Were proud to offer when your entrance here
Streamed radiance on our ancient capital.
Please, then, to consummate the boon to-day
Beneath this holy roof, so soon to thrill
With solemn strains and lifting harmonies
Befitting such a coronation hour;
And bend a tender fatherly regard
On this assembly, now at one with me
To supplicate the Author of All Good
That He endow your most Imperial person
With every Heavenly gift.
[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on the
throne, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right,
and those of Italy on his left hand. Shouts and triumphal music
accompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Thus are the self-styled servants of the Highest
Constrained by earthly duress to embrace
Mighty imperiousness as it were choice,
And hand the Italian sceptre unto one
Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin,
Professed at first
to flout antiquity,
Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones,
And level dynasts down to journeymen!—
Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track
Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom's child
Makes strange decline, now labours to achieve
The thing it overthrew.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou reasonest ever thuswise—even if
A self-formed force had urged his loud career.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Do not the prelate's accents falter thin,
His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed,
While blessing one whose aim is but to win
The golden seats that other b—-s have warmed?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Soft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled,
Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
Yea; that they feel, and puppetry remain,
Is an owned flaw in her consistency
Men love to dub Dame Nature—that lay-shape
They use to hang phenomena upon—
Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphere
Is girt about by terms inexorable!
SPIRIT SINISTER
The lady's remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as well
hold my tongue as desired. For if my casual scorn, Father Years,
should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reason
in the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday! Small
blame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to her
cloth, as they would say below there.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
O would that I could move It to enchain thee,
And shut thee up a thousand years!—[to cite
A grim terrestrial tale of one thy like]
Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World,
"As they would say below there."
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Would thou couldst!
But move That scoped above percipience, Sire,
It cannot be!
SHADE OF THE EARTH
The spectacle proceeds.
SPIRIT SINISTER
And we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils at
work in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison.
[The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLEON goes to
the front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up the
crown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]
NAPOLEON
'Tis God has given it to me. So be it.
Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.]
[The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLEON reads the Coronation Oath in
a loud voice.]
HERALDS
Give ear! Napoleon, Emperor of the French
And King of Italy, is crowned and throned!
CONGREGATION
Long live the Emperor and King. Huzza!
[Music. The Te Deum.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
That vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayed
In planting on his brow the Lombard crown,
Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts,
And lets confusion loose on Europe's peace
For many an undawned year! From this rash hour
Austria but waits her opportunity
By secret swellings of her armaments
To link her to his foes.—I'll speak to him.
[He throws a whisper into NAPOLEON'S ear.]
Lieutenant Bonaparte,
Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heart
To these unhealthy splendours?—helmet thee
For her thou swar'st-to first, fair Liberty?
NAPOLEON
Who spoke to me?
ARCHBISHOP
Not I, Sire. Not a soul.
NAPOLEON
Dear Josephine, my queen, didst call my name?
JOSEPHINE
I spoke not, Sire.
NAPOLEON
Thou didst not, tender spouse;
I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine.
It was aggressive Fancy, working spells
Upon a mind o'erwrought!
[The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to the
foot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to the
Palace.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Officious sprite,
Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of things
Which some of us have inkled to thee here;
Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor,
Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of Will
And Life's impulsion by Incognizance
I cannot take!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Let me then once again
Show to thy sceptic eye the very streams
And currents of this all-inhering Power,
And bring conclusion to thy unbelief.
[The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned,
and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain which
seems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whose
tissues the personages of the action form portion.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Enough. And yet for very sorriness
I cannot own the weird phantasma real!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Affection ever was illogical.
SPIRIT IRONIC [aside]
How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who only
came into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age!
[The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place
of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric
smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved
alabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps
show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of
Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them,
till clouds cover the panorama.]
ACT SECOND
SCENE I
THE DOCKYARD, GIBRALTAR
[The Rock is seen rising behind the town and the Alameda Gardens,
and the English fleet rides at anchor in the Bay, across which the
Spanish shore from Algeciras to Carnero Point shuts in the West.
Southward over the Strait is the African coast.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Our migratory Proskenion now presents
An outlook on the storied Kalpe Rock,
As preface to the vision of the Fleets
Spanish and French, linked for fell purposings.
RECORDING ANGEL [reciting]
Their motions and manoeuvres, since the fame
Of Bonaparte's enthronment at Milan
Swept swift through Europe's dumbed communities,
Have stretched the English mind to wide surmise.
Many well-based alarms [which strange report
Much aggravates] as to the pondered blow,
Flutter the public pulse; all points in turn—
Malta, Brazil, Wales, Ireland, British Ind—
Being held as feasible for force like theirs,
Of lavish numbers and unrecking aim.
"Where, where is Nelson?" questions every tongue;—
"How views he so unparalleled a scheme?"
Their slow uncertain apprehensions ask.
"When Villeneuve puts to sea with all his force,
What may he not achieve, if swift his course!"
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
I'll call in Nelson, who has stepped ashore
For the
first time these thrice twelvemonths and more,
And with him one whose insight has alone
Pierced the real project of Napoleon.
[Enter NELSON and COLLINGWOOD, who pace up and down.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Note Nelson's worn-out features. Much has he
Suffered from ghoulish ghast anxiety!
NELSON
In short, dear Coll, the letter which you wrote me
Had so much pith that I was fain to see you;
For I am sure that you indeed divine
The true intent and compass of a plot
Which I have spelled in vain.
COLLINGWOOD
I weighed it thus:
Their flight to the Indies being to draw us off,
That and no more, and clear these coasts of us—
The standing obstacle to his device—
He cared not what was done at Martinique,
Or where, provided that the general end
Should not be jeopardized—that is to say,
The full-united squadron's quick return.—
Gravina and Villeneuve, once back to Europe,
Can straight make Ferrol, raise there the blockade,
Then haste to Brest, there to relieve Ganteaume,
And next with four-or five-and fifty sail
Bear down upon our coast as they see fit.—
I read they aim to strike at Ireland still,
As formerly, and as I wrote to you.
NELSON
So far your thoughtful and sagacious words
Have hit the facts. But 'tis no Irish bay
The villains aim to drop their anchors in;
My word for it: they make the Wessex shore,
And this vast squadron handled by Villeneuve
Is meant to cloak the passage of their strength,
Massed on those transports—we being kept elsewhere
By feigning forces.—Good God, Collingwood,
I must be gone! Yet two more days remain
Ere I can get away.—I must be gone!
COLLINGWOOD
Wherever you may go to, my dear lord,
You carry victory with you. Let them launch,
Your name will blow them back, as sou'west gales
The gulls that beat against them from the shore.
NELSON
Good Collingwood, I know you trust in me;
But ships are ships, and do not kindly come
Out of the slow docks of the Admiralty
Like wharfside pigeons when they are whistled for:—
And there's a damned disparity of force,
Which means tough work awhile for you and me!
[The Spirit of the Years whispers to NELSON.]
And I have warnings, warnings, Collingwood,
That my effective hours are shortening here;
Strange warnings now and then, as 'twere within me,