The Dynasts | Page 9

of a Brain Evolving always that it wots not of; A Brain whose whole connotes the Everywhere, And whose procedure may but be discerned By phantom eyes like ours; the while unguessed Of those it stirs, who (even as ye do) dream Their motions free, their orderings supreme; Each life apart from each, with power to mete Its own day's measures; balanced, self complete; Though they subsist but atoms of the One Labouring through all, divisible from none; But this no further now. Deem yet man's deeds self-done.
GENERAL CHORUS OF INTELLIGENCES (aerial music)
We'll close up Time, as a bird its van, We'll traverse Space, as spirits can, Link pulses severed by leagues and years, Bring cradles into touch with biers; So that the far-off Consequence appear Prompt at the heel of foregone Cause.-- The PRIME, that willed ere wareness was, Whose Brain perchance is Space, whose Thought its laws, Which we as threads and streams discern, We may but muse on, never learn.

END OF THE FORE SCENE

ACT FIRST
SCENE I
ENGLAND. A RIDGE IN WESSEX
[The time is a fine day in March 1805. A highway crosses the ridge, which is near the sea, and the south coast is seen bounding the landscape below, the open Channel extending beyond.]
SPIRITS OF THE YEARS
Hark now, and gather how the martial mood Stirs England's humblest hearts. Anon we'll trace Its heavings in the upper coteries there.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Ay; begin small, and so lead up to the greater. It is a sound dramatic principle. I always aim to follow it in my pestilences, fires, famines, and other comedies. And though, to be sure, I did not in my Lisbon earthquake, I did in my French Terror, and my St. Domingo burlesque.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
THY Lisbon earthquake, THY French Terror. Wait. Thinking thou will'st, thou dost but indicate.
[A stage-coach enters, with passengers outside. Their voices after the foregoing sound small and commonplace, as from another medium.]
FIRST PASSENGER
There seems to be a deal of traffic over Ridgeway, even at this time o' year.
SECOND PASSENGER
Yes. It is because the King and Court are coming down here later on. They wake up this part rarely! . . . See, now, how the Channel and coast open out like a chart. That patch of mist below us is the town we are bound for. There's the Isle of Slingers beyond, like a floating snail. That wide bay on the right is where the "Abergavenny," Captain John Wordsworth, was wrecked last month. One can see half across to France up here.
FIRST PASSENGER
Half across. And then another little half, and then all that's behind--the Corsican mischief!
SECOND PASSENGER
Yes. People who live hereabout--I am a native of these parts--feel the nearness of France more than they do inland.
FIRST PASSENGER
That's why we have seen so many of these marching regiments on the road. This year his grandest attempt upon us is to be made, I reckon.
SECOND PASSENGER
May we be ready!
FIRST PASSENGER
Well, we ought to be. We've had alarms enough, God knows.
[Some companies of infantry are seen ahead, and the coach presently overtakes them.]
SOLDIERS (singing as they walk)
We be the King's men, hale and hearty, Marching to meet one Buonaparty; If he won't sail, lest the wind should blow, We shall have marched for nothing, O! Right fol-lol!
We be the King's men, hale and hearty, Marching to meet one Buonaparty; If he be sea-sick, says "No, no!" We shall have marched for nothing, O! Right fol-lol!
[The soldiers draw aside, and the coach passes on.]
SECOND PASSENGER
Is there truth in it that Bonaparte wrote a letter to the King last month?
FIRST PASSENGER
Yes, sir. A letter in his own hand, in which he expected the King to reply to him in the same manner.
SOLDIERS (continuing, as they are left behind)
We be the King's men, hale and hearty, Marching to meet one Buonaparty; Never mind, mates; we'll be merry, though We may have marched for nothing, O! Right fol-lol!
THIRD PASSENGER
And was Boney's letter friendly?
FIRST PASSENGER
Certainly, sir. He requested peace with the King.
THIRD PASSENGER
And why shouldn't the King reply in the same manner?
FIRST PASSENGER
What! Encourage this man in an act of shameless presumption, and give him the pleasure of considering himself the equal of the King of England--whom he actually calls his brother!
THIRD PASSENGER
He must be taken for what he is, not for what he was; and if he calls King George his brother it doesn't speak badly for his friendliness.
FIRST PASSENGER
Whether or no, the King, rightly enough, did not reply in person, but through Lord Mulgrave our Foreign Minister, to the effect that his Britannic Majesty cannot give a specific answer till he has communicated with the Continental powers.
THIRD PASSENGER
Both the manner and the matter of the reply are British; but a huge mistake.
FIRST PASSENGER
Sir, am I to deem you a friend of Bonaparte, a traitor to your country---
THIRD PASSENGER
Damn my wig, sir,