The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot
Page 54
To solve a son’s problems. Sometimes an outsider,
A friend of the family, can see more clearly.
GOMEZ. Not that I deserve any credit for it.
We can only regard it as a stroke of good fortune
That I came to England at the very moment
When I could be helpful.
MRS. CARGHILL. It’s truly providential!
MONICA. Good-bye Michael. Will you let me write to you?
GOMEZ. Oh, I’m glad you reminded me. Here’s my business card
With the full address. You can always reach him there.
But it takes some days, you know, even by air mail.
MONICA. Take the card, Charles. If I write to you, Michael,
Will you ever answer?
MICHAEL. Oh of course, Monica.
You know I’m not much of a correspondent;
But I’ll send you a card, now and again,
Just to let you know I’m flourishing.
LORD CLAVERTON. Yes, write to Monica.
GOMEZ. Well, good-bye Dick. And good-bye Monica.
Good-bye, Mr…. Hemington.
MONICA. Good-bye Michael.
[Exeunt MICHAEL and GOMEZ]
MRS. CARGHILL. I’m afraid this seems awfully sudden to you, Richard;
It isn’t so sudden. We talked it all over.
But I’ve got a little piece of news of my own:
Next autumn, I’m going out to Australia,
On my doctor’s advice. And on my way back
Señor Gomez has invited me to visit San Marco.
I’m so excited! But what pleases me most
Is that I shall be able to bring you news of Michael.
And now that we’ve found each other again,
We must always keep in touch. But you’d better rest now.
You’re looking rather tired. I’ll run and see them off.
[Exit MRS. CARGHILL]
MONICA. Oh Father, Father, I’m so sorry!
But perhaps, perhaps, Michael may learn his lesson.
I believe he’ll come back. If it’s all a failure
Homesickness, I’m sure, will bring him back to us;
If he prospers, that will give him confidence —
It’s only self-confidence that Michael is lacking.
Oh Father, it’s not you and me he rejects,
But himself, the unhappy self that he’s ashamed of.
I’m sure he loves us.
LORD CLAVERTON. Monica my dear,
What you say comes home to me. I fear for Michael;
Nevertheless, you are right to hope for something better.
And when he comes back, if he does come back,
I know that you and Charles will do what you can
To make him feel that he is not estranged from you.
CHARLES. We will indeed. We shall be ready to welcome him
And give all the aid we can. But it’s both of you together
Make the force to attract him: you and Monica combined.
LORD CLAVERTON. I shall not be here. You heard me say to him
That this might be a final good-bye.
I am sure of it now. Perhaps it is as well.
MONICA. What do you mean, Father? You’ll be here to greet him.
But one thing I’m convinced of: you must leave Badgley Court.
CHARLES. Monica is right. You should leave.
LORD CLAVERTON. This may surprise you: I feel at peace now.
It is the peace that ensues upon contrition
When contrition ensues upon knowledge of the truth.
Why did I always want to dominate my children?
Why did I mark out a narrow path for Michael?
Because I wanted to perpetuate myself in him.
Why did I want to keep you to myself, Monica?
Because I wanted you to give your life to adoring
The man that I pretended to myself that I was,
So that I could believe in my own pretences.
I’ve only just now had the illumination
Of knowing what love is. We all think we know,
But how few of us do! And now I feel happy —
In spite of everything, in defiance of reason,
I have been brushed by the wing of happiness.
And I am happy, Monica, that you have found a man
Whom you can love for the man he really is.
MONICA. Oh Father, I’ve always loved you,
But I love you more since I have come to know you
Here, at Badgley Court. And I love you the more
Because I love Charles.
LORD CLAVERTON. Yes, my dear.
Your love is for the real Charles, not a make-believe,
As was your love for me.
MONICA. But not now, Father!
It’s the real you I love — the man you are,
Not the man I thought you were.
LORD CLAVERTON. And Michael —
I love him, even for rejecting me,
For the me he rejected, I reject also.
I’ve been freed from the self that pretends to be someone;
And in becoming no one, I begin to live.
It is worth while dying, to find out what life is.
And I love you, my daughter, the more truly for knowing
That there is someone you love more than your father —
That you love and are loved. And now that I love Michael,
I think, for the first time — remember, my dear,
I am only a beginner in the practice of loving —
Well, that is something.
I shall leave you for a while.
This is your first visit to us at Badgley Court,
Charles, and not at all what you were expecting.
I am sorry you have had to see so much of persons
And situations not very agreeable.
You two ought to have a little time together.
I leave Monica to you. Look after her, Charles,
Now and always. I shall take a stroll.
MONICA. At this time of day? You’ll not go far, will you?
You know you’re not allowed to stop out late
At this season. It’s chilly at dusk.
LORD CLAVERTON. Yes, it’s chilly at dusk. But I’ll be warm enough.
I shall not go far.
[Exit CLAVERTON]
CHARLES. He’s a very different man from the man he used to be.
It’s as if he had passed through some door unseen by us
And had turned and was looking back at us
With a glance of farewell.
MONICA. I can’t understand his going for a walk.
CHARLES. He wanted to leave us alone together!
MONICA. Yes, he wanted to leave us alone together.
And yet, Charles, though we’ve been alone to-day
Only a few minutes, I’ve felt all the time …
CHARLES. I know what you’re going to say!
We were alone together, in some mysterious fashion,
Even with Michael, and despite those people,
Because somehow we’d begun to belong together,
And that awareness …
MONICA. Was a shield protecting both of us …
CHARLES. So that now we are conscious of a new person
Who is you and me together.
Oh my dear,
I love you to the limits of speech, and beyond.
It’s strange that words are so inadequate.
Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath,
So the lover must struggle for words.
MONICA. I’ve loved you from the beginning of the world.
Before you and I were born, the love was always there
That brought us together.
Oh Father, Father!
I could speak to you now.
CHARLES. Let me go and find him.
MONICA. We will go to him together. He is close at hand.
Though he has gone t
oo far to return to us.
He is under the beech tree. It is quiet and cold there.
In becoming no one, he has become himself.
He is only my father now, and Michael’s.
And I am happy. Isn’t it strange, Charles,
To be happy at this moment?
CHARLES. It is not at all strange.
The dead has poured out a blessing on the living.
MONICA. Age and decrepitude can have no terrors for me,
Loss and vicissitude cannot appal me,
Not even death can dismay or amaze me
Fixed in the certainty of love unchanging.
I feel utterly secure
In you; I am a part of you. Now take me to my father.
CURTAIN
The Cast of the First Production
at the
Edinburgh Festival
August 25–August 30 1958
Monica Claverton-Ferry ANNA MASSEY
Charles Hemington RICHARD GALE
Lambert GEOFFREY KERR
Lord Claverton PAUL ROGERS
Federico Gomez WILLIAM SQUIRE
Mrs. Piggott DOROTHEA PHILLIPS
Mrs. Carghill EILEEN PEEL
Michael Claverton-Ferry ALEC MCCOWEN
Presented by HENRY SHEREK
Directed by E. MARTIN BROWNE
Settings designed by HUTCHINSON SCOTT
POEMS WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH
A Fable for Feasters
In England, long before that royal Mormon
King Henry VIII found out that monks were quacks,
And took their lands and money from the poor men,
And brought their abbeys tumbling at their backs,
There was a village founded by some Norman
Who levied on all travelers his tax;
Nearby this hamlet was a monastery
Inhabited by a band of friars merry.
They were possessors of rich lands and wide,
An orchard, and a vineyard, and a dairy;
Whenever some old villainous baron died,
He added to their hoards — a deed which ne’er he
Had done before — their fortune multiplied,
As if they had been kept by a kind fairy.
Alas! no fairy visited their host,
Oh, no; much worse than that, they had a ghost.
Some wicked and heretical old sinner
Perhaps, who had been walled up for his crimes;
At any rate, he sometimes came to dinner,
Whene’er the monks were having merry times.
He stole the fatter cows and left the thinner
To furnish all the milk — upset the chimes,
And once he sat the prior on the steeple,
To the astonishment of all the people.
When Christmas time was near the Abbot vowed
They’d eat their meal from ghosts and phantoms free,
The fiend must stay at home — no ghosts allowed
At this exclusive feast. From over sea
He purchased at his own expense a crowd
Of relics from a Spanish saint — said he:
‘If ghosts come uninvited, then, of course,
I’ll be compelled to keep them off by force.’
He drencht the gown he wore with holy water,
The turkeys, capons, boars, they were to eat,
He even soakt the uncomplaining porter
Who stood outside the door from head to feet.
To make a rather lengthy story shorter,
He left no wise precaution incomplete;
He doused the room in which they were to dine,
And watered everything except the wine.
So when all preparations had been made,
The jovial epicures sat down to table.
The menus of that time I am afraid
I don’t know much about — as well’s I’m able
I’ll go through the account: They made a raid
On every bird and beast in Æsop’s fable
To fill out their repast, and pies and puddings,
And jellies, pasties, cakes among the good things.
A mighty peacock standing on both legs
With difficulty kept from toppling over,
Next came a viand made of turtle eggs,
And after that a great pie made of plover,
And flagons which perhaps held several kegs
Of ale, and cheese which they kept under cover.
Last, a boar’s head, which to bring in took four pages,
His mouth an apple held, his skull held sausages.
Over their Christmas wassail the monks dozed,
A fine old drink, though now gone out of use —
His feet upon the table superposed
Each wisht he had not eaten so much goose.
The Abbot with proposing every toast
Had drank more than he ought t’ have of grape juice.
The lights began to burn distinctly blue,
As in ghost stories lights most always do.
The doors, though barred and bolted most securely,
Gave way — my statement nobody can doubt,
Who knows the well known fact, as you do surely —
That ghosts are fellows whom you can’t keep out;
It is a thing to be lamented sorely
Such slippery folk should be allowed about.
For often they drop in at awkward moments,
As everybody’ll know who reads this romance.
The Abbot sat as pasted to his chair,
His eye became the size of any dollar,
The ghost then took him roughly by the hair
And bade him come with him, in accents hollow.
The friars could do nought but gape and stare,
The spirit pulled him rudely by the collar,
And before any one could say ‘O jiminy!’
The pair had vanisht swiftly up the chimney.
Naturally every one searcht everywhere,
But not a shred of Bishop could be found,
The monks, when anyone questioned, would declare
St. Peter’d snatcht to heaven their lord renowned,
Though the wicked said (such rascals are not rare)
That the Abbot’s course lay nearer underground;
But the church straightway put to his name the handle
Of Saint, thereby rebuking all such scandal.
But after this the monks grew most devout,
And lived on milk and breakfast food entirely;
Each morn from four to five one took a knout
And flogged his mates ’till they grew good and friarly.
Spirits from that time forth they did without,
And lived the admiration of the shire. We
Got the veracious record of these doings
From an old manuscript found in the ruins.
[A Lyric]
If Time and Space, as Sages say‚
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.
The flowers I gave thee when the dew
Was trembling on the vine,
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
To suck the eglantine.
So let us haste to pluck anew
Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though our days of love be few
Yet let them be divine.
Song
If space and time, as sages say,
Are things that cannot be,
The fly that lives a single day
Has lived as long as we.
But let us live while yet we may,
While love and life are free,
For time is time, and runs away,
Though sages disagree.
The flowers I sent
thee when the dew
Was trembling on the vine
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
To suck the eglantine.
But let us haste to pluck anew
Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though the flowers of life be few
Yet let them be divine.
[At Graduation 1905]
I
Standing upon the shore of all we know
We linger for a moment doubtfully,
Then with a song upon our lips, sail we
Across the harbor bar — no chart to show
No light to warn of rocks which lie below,
But let us yet put forth courageously.
II
As colonists embarking from the strand
To seek their fortunes on some foreign shore
Well know they lose what time shall not restore,
And when they leave they fully understand
That though again they see their fatherland
They there shall be as citizens no more.
III
We go; as lightning-winged clouds that fly
After a summer tempest, when some haste
North, South, and Eastward o’er the water’s waste‚
Some to the western limits of the sky
Which the sun stains with many a splendid dye,
Until their passing may no more be traced.
IV
Although the path be tortuous and slow,
Although it bristle with a thousand fears,
To hopeful eye of youth it still appears
A lane by which the rose and hawthorn grow.
We hope it may be; would that we might know!
Would we might look into the future years.
V
Great duties call — the twentieth century
More grandly dowered than those which came before,
Summons — who knows what time may hold in store‚
Or what great deeds the distant years may see,
What conquest over pain and misery‚
What heroes greater than were e’er of yore!
VI
But if this century is to be more great
Than those before, her sons must make her so,
And we are of her sons, and we must go