CHRISTOPHE
You work in dreams. Listen, last night, alone,
I had a terror of a dream. I saw the coachman
Drawing his country behind him like a black hearse
On a long, long road where stars were placed like candles,
And in the forest, on both sides, were little people
Born with their feet reversed, those mouse-eared elves
The boloms, and the black coach went on,
On the road to Guinea, it went along the road
On the sea, and the sea was silver, when it reached
The other side, they were all standing there,
Boukmann, and Biassou, and Moise, who shot himself
For discipline and example, and then the coachman
Came down and stroked the horses, then the coach,
And all the transparent shadows turned hard
Or changed into a forest, then the old coachman
Stood there between me, and something white was falling,
First I thought it was feathers, then it was snow.
If you have powers to see, tell ’em what it mean.
(YETTE silent.)
The woman must be punished. Executed. Hang her.
The man is free.
POMPEY
Free? When I was ever free?
Under you all?
CHRISTOPHE
You want to die with her?
(He turns away.)
POMPEY
For me not to die with her, Christophe,
Is the worse punishment that you could give me.
(YETTE coughs.)
YETTE
I have one thing to say. That will be all.
I never know I would ever find something stronger
Than you, Ti-moune. Stronger even than us.
Stronger and older than the love you teach me.
To love the earth. This. Here. The Haitian earth.
(She stamps her foot.)
I am ready when you ready. Au voir, Ti-moune.
CHRISTOPHE
Come on, one of you. Help me into bed.
(He exits.)
YETTE (To the SOLDIER)
Espérez. He love his country more than all of you!
He is the sweat and salt of the earth, this man.
And I prouder of him than if he was a king.
(She shouts.)
Chantez chanson nous, Ti-moune, chantez,
Et prends courage. Chantez-lui fort, Pompey.
Don’t beg them, Pompey. Don’t beg, you not a slave!
(The CHORUS enters, as before. YETTE sings.)
Haiti, Haiti, I shall love you.
I shall join the Haitian earth.
Suns shall set and rise above you,
Sunset death and sunrise birth.
(She climbs out of sight.)
POMPEY, CHORUS, PEASANTS
They cannot take our faith from us,
We, who suffered many things,
All the soldiers, guns, and drummers,
All the emperors and kings.
(A single drumbeat. POMPEY reenters, carrying YETTE’s body wrapped in a shroud. He shows her face.)
POMPEY
I have folded you up, the banner of my life.
Ah, Yette, chérie, I took your body down
To give enterrement in the Haitian earth.
You will turn into grass in a high wind,
You will have no regiments but the waving canes,
You will be a country woman with a basket
Walking down a red road in the high mountains.
(He begins to dig the grave with a pitchfork, digging harder and harder. Fade-out.)
ALSO BY DEREK WALCOTT
POEMS
Selected Poems
The Gulf
Another Life
Sea Grapes
The Star-Apple Kingdom
The Fortunate Traveller
Midsummer
Collected Poems: 1948–1984
The Arkansas Testament
Omeros
The Bounty
Tiepolo’s Hound
PLAYS
Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays
The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!
Remembrance and Pantomime
Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken;
A Branch of the Blue Nile
The Odyssey
ESSAYS
What the Twilight Says
DEREK WALCOTT
THE HAITIAN TRILOGY
Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. His Collected Poems: 1948–1984 was published in 1986; his subsequent works include the book-length poem Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), and, in an edition illustrated with his own paintings, Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), all published by FSG. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Copyright © 2002 by Derek Walcott
All rights reserved
First edition, 2002
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CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the plays by Derek Walcott in this book are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, and are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be obtained in writing from the author’s agent. All inquiries should be addressed to the author’s representative, Howard Rosenstone, Rosenstone/Wender, 38 East 29th Street, New York, New York 10016.
eISBN 9781466880368
First eBook edition: July 2014
The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth Page 25