Educated men do not know by heart the noble poetry of the language. The voices of American students are hard and cold. There is among us little appreciation of art. The monologue seems to come as a peculiar blessing at this time as a means of educating the imagination and dramatic instinct. It furnishes a course for recitation that obviates the necessity for a stage, avoids the stiltedness of declamation, yet supplies an adequate method of studying the lost art of recitation,—the art that made the Greek what he was.
The monologue will help students in all the arts to overcome tendencies to mechanical practice. There is danger of making all exercises mechanical. Take, for example, the student of song. If he practises scales or songs without thought, or any sense of expressing feeling to others, it is simply a matter of execution. Some of our leading singers express no feeling. Song, to them, is a matter of technical execution,—very beautiful as an exhibition, but not as a revelation of the heart.
A similar condition is found also in other forms of art,—in instrumental music, in painting or drawing. There is a continual tendency to forget that art is the expression of thinking and feeling to another mind; and while there must be very severe training to master technicalities, this is not the end, but the means. The monologue furnishes a simple and adequate method for the mastery of the relations of one mind to another. It is just as necessary in the development of the artist that he should come to feel the laws of the human mind, the laws of his own thinking and feeling, and the character of the suggestion of that feeling, and to recognize the modifications which the presence of another soul makes upon his own, as it is that he should master the technique of his art.
All art is social. It is founded on the relation of human beings to each other; on the character of the soul; on the love of one human being for others, and the desire to reveal to his fellows the impressions that nature, or human character, make upon him. In all artistic practice, of song, of instrumental music, of painting, of drama, there should be in the mind of the artist a perception of the race.
The monologue is especially helpful to dramatic students. They are too apt to despise the monologue, and not appreciate the assistance its mastery could give them. They desire mere rehearsals of plays; they want scenery, properties, accessories, forgetful that the primary elements of dramatic art are found in thought, feeling, and motives and passions. Dramatic art must be based on the revelation of the nature of man; and on the effect of mind upon mind. The monologue enables the dramatic student to study the dramatic element in his own mind, as well as in the relations of one character to another. When he has no interlocutor to listen to or to lead the attention of the audience, or hold it in the appreciation of what he is saying, thinking, and doing, he is thrown back upon his instincts, and must imagine his interlocutor and depend upon himself.
The monologue, however, is important for its own artistic character. It is primarily important because it belongs to dramatic art. It gives insight into human character, embodies the poetry of every-day life, and reveals the mysteries of the human heart, as possibly no other literary form can do. It focuses attention upon human motives independent of “too much story” or literary digression. It interprets human conduct, thinking, feeling, and passion, from a distinct point of view. It suggests the secret of human follies, misconceptions, and perversities, and gives the key to greatness and nobility in character.
Insignificant as the form may seem to one who has never studied it, it is a mirror of human life, and as such can be made a means of criticizing public wrong or folly. It can express a universal feeling, and is one of the finest agents of humor. By its aid Mr. Dooley reflects the weaknesses and foibles of people and parties in such a way as to make a whole nation smile, and even to mould public sentiment. Thus, the amusing and humorous monologues must not be despised. Think of the services humor has rendered in the advance of human civilization! Alas for him who cannot smile at folly, and alas for human art which appeals only to the morbid! The highest function of human art is to awaken pleasure at the sight of the beautiful, and the true. If a man finds pleasure in what is below his ordinary plane of life, he injures himself. If enjoyment leads him in the direction of his ideal, although indirectly, by a portrayal of the comic, the abnormal, or even of low characters, he is benefited, no matter how this benefit is received.
Men delight to teach and to preach, but it is astonishing how little direct teaching and preaching accomplish. On account of the hardness of the heart, the parable, or some other less direct method of teaching, some artistic method, that is, is absolutely necessary. We desire to see a living scene portrayed before us; we must know and judge for ourselves. We must perceive both cause and effect, and then make the application to our own lives.
Art, especially dramatic art, is a necessity of human nature. “Without art,” says William Winter, “each of us would be alone.” Only by art are we brought near together, and chiefly in our art will be found our true advance in civilization. The monologue is a new method, a new avenue of approach from heart to heart.
Dramatic art must have many forms. When no longer truthfully presented by the play, as is often the case; when it has become corrupted into a spectacular show, into something for the eye rather than for the mind; when no longer concerned with the interpretation of character and truth, or when debased to mere money making, then the irrepressible dramatic spirit must evolve a new form. Hence, the origin and the significance of the monologue.
Whether the play can be restored to dramatic dignity or not, the monologue has come to stay. As a parallel, or even as a subordinate phase of dramatic art, it has become a part of literature. It is distinct from the play, and from every other literary form or phase of histrionic expression.
Of all forms of art, the monologue has most direct relation to one character only, a character not posing for his portrait. It portrays and interprets an individual unconsciously revealing himself. It presents some crucial situation of life, and brings one character face to face with another character, the one best calculated to reveal the hidden springs of conduct.
It must not be implied that the monologue is superior to other forms of art. It certainly will supersede no other form of poetry. It is unique, and its peculiar nature may be seen in comparing it with a play.
A monologue may be of any length, from a few lines to that of “The Ring and the Book,” which is really a collection of monologues, the longest poem, next to “Faerie Queene,” in the English language. The subject of the monologue can be infinitely varied. By its aid almost everything can be treated dramatically. It is far more flexible than the formal drama, because the same movement and formality of plot are not required as in the play.
It can be conceived upon any plane,—burlesque, farce, comedy, or tragedy. It can be prose in form, or it may adopt any metre or length of line. It may employ the most commonplace slang, and the dialect of the lowest characters, or it may adopt the highest poetic diction.
A monologue can be presented anywhere, for it demands no stage, no carloads of expensive scenery, no trained troupe of a hundred artists.
It does require, however, an artist, a thoroughly trained artist,—with perfect command of thought, feeling, imagination, and passion, as well as complete control of voice and body. Fully as much as the play, it requires obedience to the laws of art, and demands that the artist be not fettered and trammelled as to his ideal. He is not compelled to repress his finest intuitions, or to soften down his honest conceptions of a character and the place of that character in a scene, for the sake of some “star.”
The monologue is not in danger of being spoiled by some second-class actor in a subordinate part. The artist is free to adopt any means to meet the taste, judgment, and criticism of the audience, and to realize for himself the true nature of art. The monologue is less likely than the play to be degraded into a spectacular exhibition.
The monologue, however, has its dangers. The play has the experience of centuries of criticism, and constant discussion, but to the critics, the monologue is new. It may be well said that no adequate criticism of any interpreter of a monologue has yet been given.
Not only this, but various cheap and chaotic performances have been called monologues, simply for lack of a word. These are often a mere gathering together of comic stories and cheap jokes, and have nothing really in common with the dramatic monologue.
Such perversions, however, are to be expected. The lack of critical discussion, the lack of definition and true appreciation of its possibilities lead naturally to such a confused situation.
The interpreter of the monologue must be a serious student, for he is creating or establishing a new art. If he is careless and superficial, and yields to that universal temptation to exhibition which has been in every age the danger of dramatic art, he will fail, and bring the monologue into consequent contempt. He must study the spirit underlying all great art and take his own work seriously, thinking more of it than of himself.
The monologue has, also, literary limitations. It can never take the place of the play, nor must it lead us to disparage the play. The play has its function and in some form will forever survive. The monologue interprets certain aspects of character which can never be interpreted in any other way; but it can never show as adequately as the play the complexity of human life. It cannot portray movement as well as the play.
The monologue, however, has its own sphere. It can reveal the attitude of one man towards life, towards truth, towards a situation, towards other human beings, more fully than is possible in any other form of art. Its theme is not the same as that of the play. How can a play express the subjective struggles and heroism embodied in “The Last Ride Together?” (p. 205). What form of art could so effectively unmask the arch hypocrite in the “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” (p. 58)? Try to put this theme into a play, or even into a novel, and Browning’s short monologue will show its superiority at once. The monologue can absorb one moment of attention, paint one picture, which, though without the movement of a drama, may yet the more adequately reveal the depths of a character. What an inspiring conception is found in “The Patriot” (p. 3); if expanded into a play, its purpose would be defeated. The tenderness and atmosphere of home in “By the Fireside,” no stage could present.
Did not Kipling choose wisely his form of art in portraying the character of Tommy Atkins? Is there any more effective way of making known to the world the character and emotions peculiar to a man when soldier subordinates man?
After even a superficial study of modern poetry, who can fail to realize that the monologue is a distinct form of literature? How vast the range of subjects and emotions expressed, and yet underneath we find a form common to them all. This form has served to unfold the peculiar actions of Mrs. Caudle’s mind and also the sublime convictions of Rabbi Ben Ezra. It gives us the point of view and the feeling, not only of Tommy Atkins, but the high ideals and exalted emotions of Abt Vogler. It has been used to immortalize “Tray,” a “mere instinctive dog,” as well as to express the resolute spirit of Job and the cold, calculating counsel of his friends. It has even imaged the sublimest thoughts and emotions of the Psalms.
Surely a form that has proven itself so adequate, so universal a help to human expression, is worthy of being regarded and carefully studied as one of the permanent modes of embodying human experience.
APPEARANCES
And so you found that poor room dull,
Dark, hardly to your taste, my Dear?
Its features seemed unbeautiful:
But this I know—’twas there, not here,
You plighted troth to me, the word
Which—ask that poor room how it heard!
And this rich room obtains your praise
Unqualified,—so bright, so fair,
So all whereat perfection stays?
Ay, but remember—here, not there,
The other word was spoken! Ask
This rich room how you dropped the mask!
ANDREA DEL SARTO
(CALLED “THE FAULTLESS PAINTER”)
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I’ll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual: and it seems
As if—forgive now—should you let me sit
Here by the window, with your hand in mine,
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
And mine the man’s bared breast she curls inside.
Don’t count the time lost, neither; you must serve
For each of the five pictures we require:
It saves a model. So! keep looking so—
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
—How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—
My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
While she looks—no one’s: very dear, no less.
You smile? why, there’s my picture ready made.
There’s what we painters call our harmony!
A common grayness silvers everything,—
All in a twilight, you and I alike
—You, at the point of your first pride in me
(That’s gone, you know)—but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
There’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
That length of convent-wall across the way
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,
As if I saw alike my work and self
And all that I was born to be and do,
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God’s hand.
How strange now looks the life he makes us lead;
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
This chamber for example—turn your head—
All that’s behind us! You don’t understand
Nor care to understand about my art,
But you can hear at least when people speak:
And that cartoon, the second from the door
—It is the thing, Love! so such things should be—
Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say.
I can do with my pencil what I know,
What I see, what at bottom of my heart
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep—
Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly,
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
Who listened to the Legate’s talk last week;
And just as much they used to say in France.
At any rate ’tis easy, all of it!
No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past:
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive—you don’t know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,—
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter)—so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Tho’ they come back and cannot tell the world.
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
The sudden blood of these men! at a word—
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
Morello’s outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for? All is silver-gray,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
I know both what I want and what might gain,
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
“Had I been two, another and myself,
Our head would have o’erlooked the world!” No doubt.
Yonder’s a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate who died five years ago.
(’Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and thro’ his art—for it gives way;
That arm is wrongly put—and there again—
A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
He means right—that, a child may understand.
Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
But all the play, the insight and the stretch—
Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think—
More than I merit, yes, by many times.
But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler’s pipe, and follows to the snare—
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
“God and the glory! never care for gain.
The present by the future, what is that?
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!”
I might have done it for you. So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
Besides, incentives come from the soul’s self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will’s somewhat—somewhat, too, the power—
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
’Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafael’s daily wear,
In that humane great monarch’s golden look,—
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouth’s good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,—
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
And had you not grown restless ... but I know—
’Tis done and past; ’twas right, my instinct said;
Too live the life grew, golden and not gray:
And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair’s gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
“Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
The Roman’s is the better when you pray,
But still the other’s Virgin was his wife—”
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael ... I have known it all these years....
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
“Friend, there’s a certain sorry little scrub
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
Who, were he set to plan and execute
As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!”
To Rafael’s!—And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare ... yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
If really there was such a chance so lost,—
Is, whether you’re—not grateful—but more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there’s a star;
Morello’s gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans?
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work’s my ware, and what’s it worth?
I’ll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The gray remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more—the Virgin’s face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousin’s freak. Beside,
What’s better and what’s all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less.
Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
The very wrong to Francis!—it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
And I have laboured somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try!
No doubt, there’s something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel’s reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To cover—the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So—still they overcome
Because there’s still Lucrezia,—as I choose.
Again the Cousin’s whistle! Go, my Love.
MULÉYKEH
If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried “A churl’s!”
Or haply “God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!”
—“Nay,” would a friend exclaim, “he needs nor pity nor scorn
More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking pearls,
—Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead
On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn.
“What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinán?
They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due,
Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old.
‘God gave them, let them go! But never since time began,
Muléykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you,
And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at men’s land and gold!’
“So in the pride of his soul laughs Hóseyn—and right, I say.
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all,
Ever Muléykeh stands first steed at the victor’s staff.
Who started, the owner’s hope, gets shamed and named, that day.
‘Silence,’ or, last but one, is ‘The Cuffed,’ as we use to call
Whom the paddock’s lord thrusts forth.
Right, Hóseyn, I say, to laugh!”
“Boasts he Muléykeh the Pearl?” the stranger replies: “Be sure
On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both
On Duhl the son of Sheybán, who withers away in heart
For envy of Hóseyn’s luck. Such sickness admits no cure.
A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an oath,
‘For the vulgar—flocks and herds! The Pearl is a prize apart.’”
Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybán comes riding to Hóseyn’s tent,
And he casts his saddle down, and enters and “Peace!” bids he.
“You are poor, I know the cause: my plenty shall mend the wrong.
’Tis said of your Pearl—the price of a hundred camels spent
In her purchase were scarce ill paid: such prudence is far from me
Who proffer a thousand. Speak! Long parley may last too long.”
Said Hóseyn “You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed,
Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Múzennem:
There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs the hill.
But I love Muléykeh’s face: her forefront whitens indeed
Like a yellowish wave’s cream-crest. Your camels—go gaze on them!
Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer still.”
A year goes by: lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl.
“You are open-hearted, ay—moist-handed, a very prince.
Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple gift!
My son is pined to death for her beauty: my wife prompts ‘Fool,
Beg for his sake the Pearl! Be God the rewarder, since
God pays debts seven for one: who squanders on Him shows thrift.’”
Said Hóseyn “God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives
That lamp due measure of oil: lamp lighted—hold high, wave wide
Its comfort for others to share! once quench it, what help is left?
The oil of your lamp is your son: I shine while Muléykeh lives.
Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muléykeh died?
It is life against life: what good avails to the life-bereft?”
Another year, and—hist! What craft is it Duhl designs?
He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last time,
But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench
Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines
With the robber—and such is he: Duhl, covetous up to crime,
Must wring from Hóseyn’s grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench.
“He was hunger-bitten, I heard: I tempted with half my store,
And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew?
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one!
He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode: nay, more—
For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two:
I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and son.
“I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never wash
Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then guile,
And now I resort to force. He said we must live or die:
Let him die, then,—let me live! Be bold—but not too rash!
I have found me a peeping-place: breast, bury your breathing while
I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me not, the spy!
“As he said—there lies in peace Hóseyn—how happy! Beside
Stands tethered the Pearl: Thrice winds her headstall about his wrist:
’Tis therefore he sleeps so sound—the moon through the roof reveals.
And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far and wide,
Buhéyseh, her sister born: fleet is she yet ever missed
The winning tail’s fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels.
“No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some thief
Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do.
What then? The Pearl is the Pearl: once mount her we both escape.”
Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl,—so a serpent disturbs no leaf
In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest: clean through,
He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs the rape.
He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as before,
He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the Desert like bolt from bow.
Up starts our plundered man: from his breast though the heart be ripped,
Yet his mind has the mastery: behold, in a minute more,
He is out and off and away on Buhéyseh, whose worth we know!
And Hóseyn—his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride,
And Buhéyseh does her part,—they gain—they are gaining fast
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Dárraj to cross and quit,
And to reach the ridge El-Sabán,—no safety till that be spied!
And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length off at last,
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit.
She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange and queer:
Buhéyseh is mad with hope—beat sister she shall and must
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank.
She is near now, nose by tail—they are neck by croup—joy! fear!
What folly makes Hóseyn shout “Dog Duhl, Damned son of the Dust,
Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl’s left flank!”
And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived
Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey,
And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for evermore.
And Hóseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved,
Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may:
Then he turned Buhéyseh’s neck slow homeward, weeping sore.
And lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground
Weeping: and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád
In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief;
And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound
His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad!
And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief.
And they jeered him, one and all: “Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope!
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune’s spite?
To have simply held the tongue were a task for a boy or girl,
And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope,
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!”—
“And the beaten in speed!” wept Hóseyn: “You never have loved my Pearl.”
COUNT GISMOND[2]
AIX IN PROVENCE
Christ God who savest man, save most of men Count Gismond who saved me! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, chose time and place and company to suit it; when he struck at length my honor, ’twas with all his strength. And doubtlessly ere he could draw all points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw few half so happy as I seemed, while being dressed in queen’s array to give our tourney prize away. I thought they loved me, did me grace to please themselves; ’twas all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face; if showing mine so caused to bleed my cousins’ hearts, they should have dropped a word, and straight the play had stopped. They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen by virtue of her brow and breast; not needing to be crowned, I mean, as I do. E’en when I was dressed, had either of them spoke, instead of glancing sideways with still head! But no: they let me laugh, and sing my birthday song quite through, adjust the last rose in my garland, fling a last look on the mirror, trust my arms to each an arm of theirs, and so descend the castle-stairs—and come out on the morning troop of merry friends who kissed my cheek, and called me queen, and made me stoop under the canopy—(a streak that pierced it, of the outside sun, powdered with gold its gloom’s soft dun)—and they could let me take my state and foolish throne amid applause of all come there to celebrate my queen’s-day—Oh I think the cause of much was, they forgot no crowd makes up for parents in their shroud! However that be, all eyes were bent upon me, when my cousins cast theirs down; ’twas time I should present the victor’s crown, but ... there, ’twill last no long time ... the old mist again blinds me as then it did. How vain! See! Gismond’s at the gate, in talk with his two boys: I can proceed. Well, at that moment, who should stalk forth boldly—to my face, indeed—but Gauthier? and he thundered “Stay!” and all stayed. “Bring no crowns, I say! bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet about her! Let her shun the chaste, or lay herself before their feet! Shall she, whose body I embraced a night long, queen it in the day? For honour’s sake no crowns, I say!” I? What I answered? As I live I never fancied such a thing as answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring some monstrous torture-engine’s whole strength on it? No more says the soul. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew that I was saved. I never met his face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; who would spend a minute’s mistrust on the end? He strode to Gauthier, in his throat gave him the lie, then struck his mouth with one back-handed blow that wrote in blood men’s verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, and damned, and truth stood up instead. This glads me most, that I enjoyed the heart of the joy, with my content in watching Gismond unalloyed by any doubt of the event: God took that on him—I was bid watch Gismond for my part: I did. Did I not watch him while he let his armourer just brace his greaves, rivet his hauberk, on the fret the while! His foot ... my memory leaves no least stamp out, nor how anon he pulled his ringing gauntlets on. And e’en before the trumpet’s sound was finished, prone lay the false knight, prone as his lie, upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight o’ the sword, but open-breasted drove, cleaving till out the truth he clove. Which done, he dragged him to my feet and said “Here die, but end thy breath in full confession, lest thou fleet from my first, to God’s second death! Say, hast thou lied?” And, “I have lied to God and her,” he said, and died. Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked—What safe my heart holds, though no word could I repeat now, if I tasked my powers forever, to a third dear even as you are. Pass the rest until I sank upon his breast. Over my head his arm he flung against the world; and scarce I felt his sword (that dripped by me and swung) a little shifted in its belt: for he began to say the while how South our home lay many a mile. So, ’mid the shouting multitude we two walked forth to never more return. My cousins have pursued their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier’s dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace! Our elder boy has got the clear great brow; tho’ when his brother’s black full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel back? I was just telling Adela how many birds it struck since May.
BY THE FIRESIDE
How well I know what I mean to do when the long dark autumn evenings come: and where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? with the music of all thy voices, dumb in life’s November too! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, o’er a great wise book, as beseemeth age; while the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, and I turn the page, and I turn the page, not verse now, only prose! Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, “There he is at it, deep in Greek: now then, or never, out we slip to cut from the hazels by the creek a mainmast for our ship!” I shall be at it indeed, my friends! Greek puts already on either side such a branch-work forth as soon extends to a vista opening far and wide, and I pass out where it ends. The outside-frame, like your hazel-trees—but the inside-archway widens fast, and a rarer sort succeeds to these, and we slope to Italy at last and youth, by green degrees. I follow wherever I am led, knowing so well the leader’s hand: oh woman-country, wooed not wed, loved all the more by earth’s male-lands, laid to their hearts instead! Look at the ruined chapel again half-way up in the Alpine gorge! Is that a tower, I point you plain, or is it a mill, or an iron-forge breaks solitude in vain? A turn, and we stand in the heart of things; the woods are round us, heaped and dim; from slab to slab how it slips and springs, the thread of water single and slim, thro’ the ravage some torrent brings! Does it feed the little lake below? That speck of white just on its marge is Pella; see, in the evening-glow, how sharp the silver spear-heads charge when Alp meets heaven in snow! On our other side is the straight-up rock; and a path is kept ’twixt the gorge and it by boulder-stones where lichens mock the marks on a moth, and small ferns fit their teeth to the polished block. Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, and thorny balls, each three in one, the chestnuts throw on our path in showers! for the drop of the woodland fruit’s begun, these early November hours, that crimson the creeper’s leaf across like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, o’er a shield else gold from rim to boss, and lay it for show on the fairy-cupped elf-needled mat of moss, by the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged last evening—nay, in to-day’s first dew yon sudden coral nipple bulged, where a freaked fawn-colored flaky crew of toadstools peep indulged. And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge that takes the turn to a range beyond, is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge, where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond danced over by the midge. The chapel and bridge are of stone alike, blackish-gray and mostly wet; cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke. See here again, how the lichens fret and the roots of the ivy strike! Poor little place, where its one priest comes on a festa-day, if he comes at all, to the dozen folk from their scattered homes, gathered within that precinct small by the dozen ways one roams—to drop from the charcoal-burners’ huts, or climb from the hemp-dressers’ low shed, leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread their gear on the rock’s bare juts. It has some pretension too, this front, with its bit of fresco half-moon-wise set over the porch, Art’s early wont: ’tis John in the Desert, I surmise, but has borne the weather’s brunt—not from the fault of the builder, though, for a pent-house properly projects where three carved beams make a certain show, dating—good thought of our architect’s—’five, six, nine, he lets you know. And all day long a bird sings there, and a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times; the place is silent and aware; it has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, but that is its own affair. My perfect wife, my Leonor, oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too, Whom else could I dare look backward for, with whom besides should I dare pursue the path gray heads abhor? For it leads to a crag’s sheer edge with them; youth, flowery all the way, there stops—not they; age threatens and they contemn, till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, one inch from life’s safe hem! With me, youth led ... I will speak now, no longer watch you as you sit reading by firelight, that great brow and the spirit-small hand propping it, mutely, my heart knows how—when, if I think but deep enough, you are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme; and you, too, find without rebuff response your soul seeks many a time, piercing its fine flesh-stuff. My own, confirm me! If I tread this path back, is it not in pride to think how little I dreamed it led to an age so blest that, by its side, youth seems the waste instead? My own, see where the years conduct! At first, ’twas something our two souls should mix as mists do; each is sucked in each now: on, the new stream rolls, whatever rocks obstruct. Think, when our one soul understands the great Word which makes all things new, when earth breaks up and heaven expands, how will the change strike me and you in the house not made with hands? Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, your heart anticipate my heart, you must be just before, in fine, see and make me see, for your part, new depths of the divine! But who could have expected this when we two drew together first just for the obvious human bliss to satisfy life’s daily thirst with a thing men seldom miss? Come back with me to the first of all, let us lean and love it over again, let us now forget and now recall, break the rosary in a pearly rain, and gather what we let fall! What did I say?—that a small bird sings all day long, save when a brown pair of hawks from the wood float with wide wings strained to a bell: ’gainst noon-day glare you count the streaks and rings. But at afternoon or almost eve ’tis better; then the silence grows to that degree, you half believe it must get rid of what it knows, its bosom does so heave. Hither we walked then, side by side, arm in arm and cheek to cheek, and still I questioned or replied, while my heart, convulsed to really speak, lay choking in its pride. Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, and pity and praise the chapel sweet, and care about the fresco’s loss, and wish for our souls a like retreat, and wonder at the moss. Stoop and kneel on the settle under, look through the window’s grated square: nothing to see! For fear of plunder, the cross is down and the altar bare, as if thieves don’t fear thunder. We stoop and look in through the grate, see the little porch and rustic door, read duly the dead builder’s date; then cross the bridge that we crossed before, take the path again—but wait! Oh moment one and infinite! the water slips o’er stock and stone; the West is tender, hardly bright: how gray at once is the evening grown—one star, its chrysolite! We two stood there with never a third, but each by each, as each knew well: the sights we saw and the sounds we heard, the lights and the shades made up a spell till the trouble grew and stirred. Oh, the little more, and how much it is! and the little less, and what worlds away! How a sound shall quicken content to bliss, or a breath suspend the blood’s best play, and life be a proof of this! Had she willed it, still had stood the screen so slight, so sure, ’twixt my love and her: I could fix her face with a guard between, and find her soul as when friends confer, friends—lovers that might have been. For my heart had a touch of the woodland time, wanting to sleep now over its best. Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, but bring to the last leaf no such test! “Hold the last fact!” runs the rhyme. For a chance to make your little much, to gain a lover and lose a friend, venture the tree and a myriad such, when nothing you mar but the year can mend: but a last leaf—fear to touch! Yet should it unfasten itself and fall eddying down till it find your face at some slight wind—best chance of all! be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place you trembled to forestall! Worth how well, those dark gray eyes, that hair so dark and dear, how worth that a man should strive and agonize, and taste a veriest hell on earth for the hope of such a prize! You might have turned and tried a man, set him a space to weary and wear, and prove which suited more your plan, his best of hope or his worst despair, yet end as he began. But you spared me this, like the heart you are, and filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, they are one and one, with a shadowy third; one near one is too far. A moment after, and hands unseen were hanging the night around us fast; but we knew that a bar was broken between life and life: we were mixed at last in spite of the mortal screen. The forests had done it; there they stood; we caught for a moment the powers at play: they had mingled us so, for once and good, their work was done—we might go or stay, they relapsed to their ancient mood. How the world is made for each of us! how all we perceive and know in it tends to some moment’s product thus, when a soul declares itself—to wit, by its fruit, the thing it does! Be hate that fruit or love that fruit, it forwards the general deed of man: and each of the Many helps to recruit the life of the race by a general plan; each living his own, to boot. I am named and known by that moment’s feat; there took my station and degree; so grew my own small life complete, as nature obtained her best of me—one born to love you, sweet! And to watch you sink by the fireside now back again, as you mutely sit musing by firelight, that great brow and the spirit-small hand propping it, yonder, my heart knows how! So, earth has gained by one man the more, and the gain of earth must be heaven’s gain too; and the whole is well worth thinking o’er when autumn comes: which I mean to do one day, as I said before.