Life Is A Dream | Page 6

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 upon the stage
Of
under earth, where lion, wolf, and bear,
And they that on their
treacherous velvet wear
Figure and constellation like your own,


With their still living slaughter bound away
Over the barriers of the

mountain cage,
Against which one, blood-guiltless, and endued

With aspiration and with aptitude
Transcending other creatures, day
by day
Beats himself mad with unavailing rage!
FIFE.
Why, that must be the meaning of my mule's
Rebellion--
ROS.
Hush!
SEG.
But then if murder be
The law by which not only
conscience-blind
Creatures, but man too prospers with his kind;

Who leaving all his guilty fellows free,
Under your fatal auspice and
divine
Compulsion, leagued in some mysterious ban
Against one
innocent and helpless man,
Abuse their liberty to murder mine:
And
sworn to silence, like their masters mute
In heaven, and like them
twirling through the mask
Of darkness, answering to all I ask,
Point
up to them whose work they execute!
ROS.
Ev'n as I thought, some poor unhappy wretch,
By man
wrong'd, wretched, unrevenged, as I!
Nay, so much worse than I, as
by those chains
Clipt of the means of self-revenge on those
Who
lay on him what they deserve. And I,
Who taunted Heaven a little
while ago
With pouring all its wrath upon my head--
Alas! like him
who caught the cast-off husk
Of what another bragg'd of feeding on,

Here's one that from the refuse of my sorrows
Could gather all the
banquet he desires!
Poor soul, poor soul!
FIFE.
Speak lower--he will hear you.
ROS.
And if he should, what then? Why, if he would,
He could not
harm me--Nay, and if he could,
Methinks I'd venture something of a
life
I care so little for--
SEG.
Who's that? Clotaldo? Who are you, I say,
That, venturing in
these forbidden rocks,

Have lighted on my miserable life,
And your
own death?

ROS.
You would not hurt me, surely?
SEG.
Not I; but those that, iron as the chain
In which they slay me
with a lingering death,
Will slay you with a sudden--Who are you?
ROS.
A stranger from across the mountain there,
Who, having lost
his way in this strange land
And coming night, drew hither to what
seem'd
A human dwelling hidden in these rocks,
And where the
voice of human sorrow soon
Told him it was so.
SEG.
Ay? But nearer--nearer--
That by this smoky supplement of
day
But for a moment I may see who speaks
So pitifully sweet.
FIFE.
Take care! take care!
ROS.
Alas, poor man, that I, myself so helpless,
Could better help
you than by barren pity,
And my poor presence--
SEG.
Oh, might that be all!
But that--a few poor moments--and,
alas!
The very bliss of having, and the dread
Of losing, under such a
penalty
As every moment's having runs more near,
Stifles the very
utterance and resource
They cry for quickest; till from sheer despair

Of holding thee, methinks myself would tear
To pieces--
FIFE.
There, his word's enough for it.
SEG.
Oh, think, if you who move about at will,
And live in sweet
communion with your kind,
After an hour lost in these lonely rocks

Hunger and thirst after some human voice
To drink, and human face
to feed upon;
What must one do where all is mute, or harsh,
And
ev'n the naked face of cruelty
Were better than the mask it works
beneath?--
Across the mountain then! Across the mountain!
What if
the next world which they tell one of
Be only next across the
mountain then,
Though I must never see it till I die,
And you one of
its angels?

ROS.
Alas; alas!
No angel! And the face you think so fair,
'Tis
but the dismal frame-work of these rocks
That makes it seem so; and
the world I come from--
Alas, alas, too many faces there
Are but
fair vizors to black hearts below,
Or only serve to bring the wearer
woe!
But to yourself--If haply the redress
That I am here upon may
help to yours.
I heard you tax the heavens with ordering,
And men
for executing, what, alas!
I now behold. But why, and who they are

Who do, and you who suffer--
SEG. (pointing upwards).
Ask of them,
Whom, as to-night, I have
so often ask'd,
And ask'd in vain.
ROS.
But surely, surely--
SEG.
Hark!
The trumpet of the watch to shut us in.
Oh, should
they find you!--Quick! Behind the rocks!
To-morrow--if to-morrow--
ROS. (flinging her sword toward him).
Take my sword!
(Rosaura and Fife hide in the rocks; Enter Clotaldo)
CLOTALDO.
These stormy days you like to see the last of
Are but
ill opiates, Segismund, I think,
For night to follow: and to-night you
seem
More than your wont disorder'd. What! A sword?
Within
there!