Life Is A Dream | Page 5

of me?For fear my stumbling speech--
ROS.?Oh, no, no, no!--?I want you with me for a thousand sakes?To which that is as nothing--I myself?More apt to let the secret out myself?Without your help at all--Come, come, cheer up!?And if you sing again, 'Come weal, come woe,'?Let it be that; for we will never part?Until you give the signal.
FIFE.?'Tis a bargain.
ROS.?Now to begin, then. 'Follow, follow me,?'You fairy elves that be.'
FIFE.?Ay, and go on--?Something of 'following darkness like a dream,'?For that we're after.
ROS.?No, after the sun;?Trying to catch hold of his glittering skirts?That hang upon the mountain as he goes.
FIFE.?Ah, he's himself past catching--as you spoke?He heard what you were saying, and--just so--?Like some scared water-bird,?As we say in my country, /dove/ below.
ROS.?Well, we must follow him as best we may.?Poland is no great country, and, as rich?In men and means, will but few acres spare?To lie beneath her barrier mountains bare.?We cannot, I believe, be very far?From mankind or their dwellings.
FIFE.?Send it so!?And well provided for man, woman, and beast.?No, not for beast. Ah, but my heart begins?To yearn for her--
ROS.?Keep close, and keep your feet?From serving you as hers did.
FIFE.?As for beasts,?If in default of other entertainment,?We should provide them with ourselves to eat--?Bears, lions, wolves--
ROS.?Oh, never fear.
FIFE.?Or else,?Default of other beasts, beastlier men,?Cannibals, Anthropophagi, bare Poles?Who never knew a tailor but by taste.
ROS.?Look, look! Unless my fancy misconceive?With twilight--down among the rocks there, Fife--?Some human dwelling, surely--?Or think you but a rock torn from the rocks?In some convulsion like to-day's, and perch'd?Quaintly among them in mock-masonry?
FIFE.?Most likely that, I doubt.
ROS.?No, no--for look!?A square of darkness opening in it--
FIFE.?Oh, I don't half like such openings!--
ROS.?Like the loom?Of night from which she spins her outer gloom--
FIFE.?Lord, Madam, pray forbear this tragic vein?In such a time and place--
ROS.?And now again?Within that square of darkness, look! a light?That feels its way with hesitating pulse,?As we do, through the darkness that it drives?To blacken into deeper night beyond.
FIFE.?In which could we follow that light's example,?As might some English Bardolph with his nose,?We might defy the sunset--Hark, a chain!
ROS.?And now a lamp, a lamp! And now the hand?That carries it.
FIFE.?Oh, Lord! that dreadful chain!
ROS.?And now the bearer of the lamp; indeed?As strange as any in Arabian tale,?So giant-like, and terrible, and grand,?Spite of the skin he's wrapt in.
FIFE.?Why, 'tis his own:?Oh, 'tis some wild man of the woods; I've heard?They build and carry torches--
ROS.?Never Ape?Bore such a brow before the heavens as that--?Chain'd as you say too!--
FIFE.?Oh, that dreadful chain!
ROS.?And now he sets the lamp down by his side,?And with one hand clench'd in his tangled hair?And with a sigh as if his heart would break--
(During this Segismund has entered from the fortress, with a torch.)
SEGISMUND.?Once more the storm has roar'd itself away,?Splitting the crags of God as it retires;?But sparing still what it should only blast,?This guilty piece of human handiwork,?And all that are within it. Oh, how oft,?How oft, within or here abroad, have I?Waited, and in the whisper of my heart?Pray'd for the slanting hand of heaven to strike?The blow myself I dared not, out of fear?Of that Hereafter, worse, they say, than here,?Plunged headlong in, but, till dismissal waited,?To wipe at last all sorrow from men's eyes,?And make this heavy dispensation clear.?Thus have I borne till now, and still endure,?Crouching in sullen impotence day by day,?Till some such out-burst of the elements?Like this rouses the sleeping fire within;?And standing thus upon the threshold of?Another night about to close the door?Upon one wretched day to open it?On one yet wretcheder because one more;--?Once more, you savage heavens, I ask of you--?I, looking up to those relentless eyes?That, now the greater lamp is gone below,?Begin to muster in the listening skies;?In all the shining circuits you have gone?About this theatre of human woe,?What greater sorrow have you gazed upon?Than down this narrow chink you witness still;?And which, did you yourselves not fore-devise,?You registered for others to fulfil!
FIFE.?This is some Laureate at a birthday ode;?No wonder we went rhyming.
ROS.?Hush! And now?See, starting to his feet, he strides about?Far as his tether'd steps--
SEG.?And if the chain?You help'd to rivet round me did contract?Since guiltless infancy from guilt in act;?Of what in aspiration or in thought?Guilty, but in resentment of the wrong?That wreaks revenge on wrong I never wrought?By excommunication from the free?Inheritance that all created life,?Beside myself, is born to--from the wings?That range your own immeasurable blue,?Down to the poor, mute, scale-imprison'd things,?That yet are free to wander, glide, and pass?About that under-sapphire, whereinto?Yourselves transfusing you yourselves englass!
ROS.?What mystery is this?
FIFE.?Why, the man's mad:?That's all the mystery. That's why he's chain'd--?And why--
SEG.?Nor Nature's guiltless life alone--?But that which lives on blood and rapine; nay,?Charter'd with larger liberty to slay?Their guiltless kind, the tyrants of the air?Soar zenith-upward with their screaming prey,?Making pure heaven drop blood