Life Is A Dream | Page 5

me safe
thus far
Safe if not wholly sound--over the rocks
Into the country
where my business lies
Why should not you return the way we came,

The storm all clear'd away, and, leaving me
(Who now shall want
you, though not thank you, less,
Now that our horses gone) this side
the ridge,
Find your way back to dear old home again;

While
I--Come, come!--
What, weeping my poor fellow?

FIFE.
Leave you here
Alone--my Lady--Lord! I mean my Lord--

In a strange country--among savages--
Oh, now I know--you would
be rid 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