by Thomas Hardy
Give Collingwood my order. Anchor all!
HARDY [hesitating]
You mean the signal's to be made forthwith?
NELSON
I do!—By God, if but our carpenter
Could rig me up a jury-backbone now,
To last one hour—until the battle's done,
I'd see to it! But here I am—stove in—
Broken—all logged and done for! Done, ay done!
BEATTY [returning from the other wounded]
My lord, I must implore you to lie calm!
You shorten what at best may not be long.
NELSON [exhausted]
I know, I know, good Beatty! Thank you well
Hardy, I was impatient. Now I am still.
Sit here a moment, if you have time to spare?
[BEATTY and others retire, and the two abide in silence, except
for the trampling overhead and the moans from adjoining berths.
NELSON is apparently in less pain, seeming to doze.]
NELSON [suddenly]
What are you thinking, that you speak no word?
HARDY [waking from a short reverie]
Thoughts all confused, my lord:—their needs on deck,
Your own sad state, and your unrivalled past;
Mixed up with flashes of old things afar—
Old childish things at home, down Wessex way.
In the snug village under Blackdon Hill
Where I was born. The tumbling stream, the garden,
The placid look of the grey dial there,
Marking unconsciously this bloody hour,
And the red apples on my father's trees,
Just now full ripe.
NELSON
Ay, thus do little things
Steal into my mind, too. But ah, my heart
Knows not your calm philosophy!—There's one—
Come nearer to me, Hardy.—One of all,
As you well guess, pervades my memory now;
She, and my daughter—I speak freely to you.
'Twas good I made that codicil this morning
That you and Blackwood witnessed. Now she rests
Safe on the nation's honour.... Let her have
My hair, and the small treasured things I owned,
And take care of her, as you care for me!
[HARDY promises.]
NELSON [resuming in a murmur]
Does love die with our frame's decease, I wonder,
Or does it live on ever?...
[A silence. BEATTY approaches.]
HARDY
Now I'll leave,
See if your order's gone, and then return.
NELSON [symptoms of death beginning to change his face]
Yes, Hardy; yes; I know it. You must go.—
Here we shall meet no more; since Heaven forfend
That care for me should keep you idle now,
When all the ship demands you. Beatty, too.
Go to the others who lie bleeding there;
Them can you aid. Me you can render none!
My time here is the briefest.—If I live
But long enough I'll anchor.... But—too late—
My anchoring's elsewhere ordered!... Kiss me, Hardy:
[HARDY bends over him.]
I'm satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty!
[HARDY brushes his eyes with his hand, and withdraws to go above,
pausing to look back before he finally disappears.]
BEATTY [watching Nelson]
Ah!—Hush around!...
He's sinking. It is but a trifle now
Of minutes with him. Stand you, please, aside,
And give him air.
[BEATTY, the Chaplain, MAGRATH, the Steward, and attendants
continue to regard NELSON. BEATTY looks at his watch.]
BEATTY
Two hours and fifty minutes since he fell,
And now he's going.
[They wait. NELSON dies.]
CHAPLAIN
Yes.... He has homed to where
There's no more sea.
BEATTY
We'll let the Captain know,
Who will confer with Collingwood at once.
I must now turn to these.
[He goes to another part of the cockpit, a midshipman ascends to
the deck, and the scene overclouds.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
His thread was cut too slowly! When he fell.
And bade his fame farewell,
He might have passed, and shunned his long-drawn pain,
Endured in vain, in vain!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Young Spirits, be not critical of That
Which was before, and shall be after you!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But out of tune the Mode and meritless
That quickens sense in shapes whom, thou hast said,
Necessitation sways! A life there was
Among these self-same frail ones—Sophocles—
Who visioned it too clearly, even while
He dubbed the Will "the gods." Truly said he,
"Such gross injustice to their own creation
Burdens the time with mournfulness for us,
And for themselves with shame."—Things mechanized
By coils and pivots set to foreframed codes
Would, in a thorough-sphered melodic rule,
And governance of sweet consistency,
Be cessed no pain, whose burnings would abide
With That Which holds responsibility,
Or inexist.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Yea, yea, yea!
Thus would the Mover pay
The score each puppet owes,
The Reaper reap what his contrivance sows!
Why make Life debtor when it did not buy?
Why wound so keenly Right that it would die?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay, blame not! For what judgment can ye blame?—
In that immense unweeting Mind is shown
One far above forethinking; processive,
Yet superconscious; a Clairvoyancy
That knows not what It knows, yet works therewith.—
The cognizance ye mourn, Life's doom to feel,
If I report it meetly, came unmeant,
Emerging with blind gropes from impercipience
By listless sequence—luckless, tragic Chance,
In your more human tongue.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
And hence unneeded
In the economy of Vitality,
Which might have ever kept a sealed cognition
As doth the Will Itself.
CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]
Nay, nay, nay;
Your hasty judgments stay,
Until the topmost cyme
Have crowned the last entablature of Time.
O heap not blame on that in-brooding Will;
O pause, till all things all their days fulfil!
SCENE V
LONDON. THE GUILDHALL
[A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages
as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor's
banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A
cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives
at the door.
FIRST CITIZEN
Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted
to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!
SECOND CITIZEN
Will they bring his poor splintered body home?
FIRST CITIZEN
Yes. They say he's to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul's or
Westminster. We shall see him if he lays in state. It will
make a patriotic spectacle for a fine day.
BOY
How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?
> FIRST CITIZEN
They'll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian
admirals.
BOY
His lady will be handy for that, won't she?
FIRST CITIZEN
Don't ye ask awkward questions.
SECOND CITIZEN
Here's another coming!
FIRST CITIZEN
That's my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he'll say, and wot he'll look!
Mr. Pitt will be here soon.
BOY
I don't like Billy. He killed Uncle John's parrot.
SECOND CITIZEN
How may ye make that out, youngster?
BOY
Mr. Pitt made the war, and the war made us want sailors; and Uncle
John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty
ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that
night—a regular hot one—and Uncle John was carried on board a
man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John's
parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle
John's parrot; see it, sir?
SECOND CITIZEN
You had better have a care of this boy, friend. His brain is too
precious for the common risks of Cheapside. Not but what he might
as well have said Boney killed the parrot when he was about it.
And as for Nelson—who's now sailing shinier seas than ours, if
they've rubbed Her off his slate where he's gone to,—the French
papers say that our loss in him is greater than our gain in ships;
so that logically the victory is theirs. Gad, sir, it's almost
true!
[A hurrahing is heard from Cheapside, and the crowd in that
direction begins to hustle and show excitement.]
FIRST CITIZEN
He's coming, he's coming! Here, let me lift you up, my boy.— Why,
they have taken out the horses, as I am man alive!
SECOND CITIZEN
Pitt for ever!—Why, here's a blade opening and shutting his mouth
like the rest, but never a sound does he raise!
THIRD CITIZEN
I've not too much breath to carry me through my day's work, so I
can't afford to waste it in such luxuries as crying Hurrah to
aristocrats. If ye was ten yards off y'd think I was shouting
as loud as any.
SECOND CITIZEN
It's a very mean practice of ye to husband yourself at such a time,
and gape in dumbshow like a frog in Plaistow Marshes.
THIRD CITIZEN
No, sir; it's economy; a very necessary instinct in these days of
ghastly taxations to pay half the armies in Europe! In short, in
the word of the Ancients, it is scarcely compass-mentas to do
otherwise! Somebody must save something, or the country will be
as bankrupt as Mr. Pitt himself is, by all account; though he
don't look it just now.
[PITT's coach passes, drawn by a troop of running men and boy.
The Prime Minister is seen within, a thin, erect, up-nosed
figure, with a flush of excitement on his usually pale face.
The vehicle reached the doorway to the Guildhall and halts with
a jolt. PITT gets out shakily, and amid cheers enters the
building.]
FOURTH CITIZEN
Quite a triumphal entry. Such is power;
Now worshipped, now accursed! The overthrow
Of all Pitt's European policy
When his hired army and his chosen general
Surrendered them at Ulm a month ago,
Is now forgotten! Ay; this Trafalgar
Will botch up many a ragged old repute,
Make Nelson figure as domestic saint
No less than country's saviour, Pitt exalt
As zenith-star of England's firmament,
And uncurse all the bogglers of her weal
At this adventurous time.
THIRD CITIZEN
Talk of Pitt being ill. He looks hearty as a buck.
FIRST CITIZEN
It's the news—no more. His spirits are up like a rocket for the
moment.
BOY
Is it because Trafalgar is near Portugal that he loves Port wine?
SECOND CITIZEN
Ah, as I said, friend; this boy must go home and be carefully put
to bed!
FIRST CITIZEN
Well, whatever William's faults, it is a triumph for his virtues
to-night!
[PITT having disappeared, the Guildhall doors are closed, and
the crowd slowly disperses, till in the course of an hour the
street shows itself empty and dark, only a few oil lamps burning.
The SCENE OPENS, revealing the interior of the Guildhall, and
the brilliant assembly of City magnates, Lords, and Ministers
seated there, Mr. PITT occupying a chair of honour by the Lord
Mayor. His health has been proposed as that of the Saviour of
England, and drunk with acclamations.]
PITT [standing up after repeated calls]
My lords and gentlemen:—You have toasted me
As one who has saved England and her cause.
I thank you, gentlemen, unfeignedly.
But—no man has saved England, let me say:
England has saved herself, by her exertions:
She will, I trust, save Europe by her example!
[Loud applause, during which he sits down, rises, and sits down
again. The scene then shuts, and the night without has place.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Those words of this man Pitt—his last large words,
As I may prophesy—that ring to-night
In their first mintage to the feasters here,
Will spread with ageing, lodge, and crystallize,
And stand embedded in the English tongue
Till it grow thin, outworn, and cease to be.—
So is't ordained by That Which all ordains;
For words were never winged with apter grace.
Or blent with happier choice of time and place,
To hold the imagination of this strenuous race.
SCENE VI
AN INN AT RENNES
[Night. A sleeping-chamber. Two candles are burning near a bed
in an alcove, and writing-materials are on the table.
The French admiral, VILLENEUVE, partly undressed, is pacing up
and down the room.]
VILLENEUVE
These hauntings have at last nigh proved to me
That this thing must be done. Illustrious foe
And teacher, Nelson: blest and over blest
In thy outgoing at the noon of strife
When glory clasped thee round; while wayward Death
Refused my coaxings for the like-timed call!
Yet I did press where thickest missiles fell,
And both by precept and example showed
Where lay the line of duty, patriotism,
And honour, in that combat of despair.
[He see himself in the glass as he passes.]
Unfortunate Villeneuve!—whom fate has marked
To suffer for too firm a faithfulness.—
An Emperor's chide is a command to die.—
By him accursed, forsaken by my friend,
Awhile stern England's prisoner, then unloosed
Like some poor dolt unworth captivity,
Time serves me now for ceasing. Why not cease?...
When, as Shades whisper in the chasmal night,
"Better, far better, no percipience here."—
O happy lack, that I should have no child
To come into my hideous heritage,
And groan beneath the burden of my name!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
I'll speak. His mood is ripe for such a parle.
[Sending a voice into VILLENEUVE'S ear.]
Thou dost divine the hour!
VILLENEUVE
But those stern Nays,
That heretofore were audible to me
At each unhappy time I strove to pass?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Have been annulled. The Will grants exit freely;
Yea, It says "Now." Therefore make now thy time.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
May his sad sunken soul merge into nought
Meekly and gently as a breeze at eve!
VILLENEUVE
From skies above me and the air around
Those callings which so long have circled me
At last do whisper "Now." Now it shall be!
[He seals a letter, and addresses it to his wife; then takes a
dagger from his accoutrements that are hanging alongside, and,
lying down upon his back on the bed, stabs himself determinedly
in many places, leaving the weapon in the last wound.]
Ungrateful master; generous foes; Farewell!
[VILLENEUVE dies; and the scene darkens.]
SCENE VII
KING GEORGE'S WATERING-PLACE, SOUTH WESSEX
[The interior of the "Old Rooms" Inn. Boatmen and burghers are
sitting on settles round the fire, smoking and drinking.
FIRST BURGHER
So they've brought him home at last, hey? And he's to be solemnized
with a roaring funeral?
FIRST BOATMAN
Yes, thank God.... 'Tis better to lie dry than wet, if canst do it
without stinking on the road gravewards. And they took care that he
shouldn't.
SECOND BOATMAN
'Tis to be at Paul's; so they say that know. And the crew of the
"Victory" have to walk in front, and Captain Hardy is to carry his
stars and garters on a great velvet pincushion.
FIRST BURGHER
Where's the Captain now?
SECOND BOATMAN [nodding in the direction of Captain Hardy's house]
Down at home here biding with his own folk a bit. I zid en walking
with them on the Esplanade yesterday. He looks ten years older than
he did when he went. Ay—he brought the galliant hero home!
SECOND BURGHER
Now how did they bring him home so that he could lie in state
afterwards to the naked eye!
FIRST BOATMAN
Well, as they always do,—in a cask of sperrits.
SECOND BURGHER
Really, now!
FIRST BOATMAN [lowering his voice]
But what happened was this. They were a long time coming, owing to
contrary winds, and the "Victory" being little more than a wreck.