The Man.
The scourge you send her I will lay
As gently on her as I may.
She has this comfort left her, too:
God is not quite so hard as you!
[Goes.
Brand.
Yes, with that comfort’s carrion-breath
The world still sickens unto death;
Prompt, in its need, with shriek and song
To lubricate the Judge’s tongue.
Of course! The reasonable plan!
For from of old they know their man;—
Since all his works the assurance breathe:
“Yon gray-beard may be haggled with!”

[The Man has met another man on the road; they come back together.

Brand.
A second message!
First Man.
Yes.
Brand.
[To the Second Man.]
Consent!
Second Man.
Nine-tenths of it is now the word.
Brand.
Not all?
Second Man.
Not all.
Brand.
As you have heard:—
Nor priest shall come, nor sacrament.
Second Man.
She begg’d it, bitterly distress’d——
First Man.
Priest, once she bore you on her breast.
Brand.
[Clenching his hands.]
I may not by two measures weigh
My kinsman and my enemy.
Second Man.
Sore is her state and dire her need;
Come, or else send her a God-speed.God-speed.
Brand.
[To First Man.]
Go; tell her still: God’s wine and bread
Must on a spotless board be spread.
[The Men go.
Agnes.
I tremble Brand. You seem a Sword
Swung flaming by a wrathful Lord!
Brand.
[With tears in his voice.]
Does not the world face me no less
With swordless sheath upon its thigh?
Am I not torn and baffled by
Its dull defiant stubbornness?
Agnes.
A hard condition you demand.
Brand.
Dare you impose a lighter?
Agnes.
Lay
That stern demand on whom you may,
And see who, tested so, will stand.
Brand.
Nay, you have reason for that fear.
So base, distorted, barren, sere,
The aspiring soul in men is grown.
’Tis thought a marvel,—by bequest
To give away one’s wealth unknown.
And be anonymously bless’d.
The hero, bid him blot his name,
Content him with the service wrought,
Kings, Kaisers, bid him do the same—
And see how many fields are fought!
The poet, bid him unbeholden
Loose his bright fledglings from the cage,
So that none dream he gave that golden
Plumage, and he that vocal rage;
Try the green bough, or try the bare,
Sacrifice is not anywhere.
Earth has enslaved all earthly things;—
Over Life’s precipices cast,
Each to its mouldering branches clings,
And, if they crumble, clutches fast
With tooth and nail to straws and bast
Agnes.
And, while they helpless, hopeless fall,
You cry: Give nothing or give all!
Brand.
He who would conquer still must fight,
Rise, fallen to the highest height.
[A brief silence: his voice changes.]
And yet, when with that stern demand
Before some living soul I stand,
I seem like one that floats afar
Storm-shatter’d on a broken spar.
With solitary anguish wrung
I’ve bitten this chastising tongue,
And thirsted, as I aim’d the blow,
To clasp the bosom of my foe.
Go, Agnes, watch the sleeping boy.
And sing him into dreams of joy.
An infant’s soul is like the sleep
Of still clear tarns in summer-light.
A mother over it may sweep
And hover, like the bird, whose flight
Is mirror’d in the deepest deep.
Agnes.
What does it mean, Brand? Wheresoe’er
You aim your thought-shafts—they fly there!
Brand.
Oh, nothing. Softly watch the child.
Agnes.
Give me a watchword.
Brand.
Stern?
Agnes.
No, mild.
Brand.
[Clasping her.]
The blameless shall not taste the grave.
Agnes.
[Looking brightly up at him.]
Then one is ours God may not crave!
[Goes into the house.
Brand.
[Looking fixedly before him.]
But if he might? What “Isaac’s Fear”
Once ventured, He may venture here.
[Shakes off the thought.]
No, no, my sacrifice is made,
The calling of my life gainsaid—
Like the Lord’s thunder to go forth
And rouse the sleepers of the earth.
Sacrifice! Liar! there was none!
I miss’d it when my Dream was done,
When Agnes woke me—and follow’d free
To labour in the gloom with me.
[Looks along the road.]
Why tarries still the dying call,
Her word, that she will offer all,
That she has won that which uproots
Sin’s deepest fibres, rankest shoots!
See there——! No, it is but the Mayor,
Well-meaning, brisk, and debonnaire,
Both hands in pockets, round, remiss,
A bracketed parenthesis.
Enter Mayor.
The Mayor.
[Through the garden gate.]
Good-day! Our meetings are but rare,
Perhaps my time is chosen amiss——
Brand.
[Pointing to house.]
Come in.
The Mayor.
Thanks; here I’m quite content.
Should my proposal meet assent,
I’m very sure the upshot of it
Would issue in our common profit.
Brand.
Name your desire.
The Mayor.
Your mother’s state,
I understand, is desperate.
I’m sorry.
Brand.
That I do not doubt.
The Mayor.
I’m very sorry.
Brand.
Pray, speak out.
The Mayor.
She’s old, however. Welladay,
We are all bound the selfsame way—
And, as I just drove by, occurr’d
The thought that, after all, “to leap
Is just as easy as to creep”:
Moreover, many have averr’d,
That she and you have been imbrued
For years in a domestic feud——
Brand.
Domestic feud?
The Mayor.
She’s out and out
Close-fisted, so they say, you know.
You think it goes too far, no doubt.
A man’s own claims he can’t forego.
She keeps exclusive occupation
Of all that was bequeath’d to you.
Brand.
Exclusive occupation, true.
The Mayor.
A ready cause of irritation
In families. Surmising thence
That you await with resignation
The moment of her going hence,
I hope I may without offence
Speak out, although I quite admit
The time I’ve chosen is unfit.
Brand.
Or now or later, nought I care.
The Mayor.
Well, to the point then, fair and square.
When once your mother’s dead and blest,
In the earth’s bosom laid to rest,
You’re rich!
Brand.
You think so?
The Mayor.
Think? Nay, man,
That’s sure. She’s land in every port,
Far as a telescope can scan.
You’re rich!
Brand.
’Spite the Succession Court?
The Mayor.
[Smiling.]
What of it? That cuts matters short
When many fight for pelf and debt.
Here no man’s interest suffers let.
Brand.
And what if some day, all the same,
Came a coheir to debt and pelf
Crying: “I’m he!” and urged his claim?
The Mayor.
He’d have to be the devil himself!
Just look to me! None else has here
The smallest right to interfere.
I know my business: lean on me!
Well, then; you’ll now be well-to-do,
Rich even; you’ll no longer brook
Life in this God-forsaken nook;
The whole land’s open now to you.
Brand.
Mayor, is not what you want to say,
Pithily put, just: “Go away”?
The Mayor.
Pretty much that. All parties’ good
Were so best answered. If you would
But eye attentively the herd
To whom you minister God’s word,
You’d find you’re no more of a piece
With them than foxes are with geese.
Pray, understand me! You have gifts,
Good where the social field is wide,
But dangerous for folk whose pride
Is to be Lords of rocky rifts
And Freemen of the ravine-side.
Brand.
To a man’s feet his native haunt
Is as unto the tree the root.
If there his labour fill no want
His deeds are doomed, his music mute.
The Mayor.
Success means just: Self-adaptation
To the requirements of the nation.
Brand.
Which from the heights you best o’erlook,
Not from the crag-encompass’d nook.
The Mayor.
That talk is fit for citizens,
Not for poor peasants of the glens.
Brand.
O, still your limitation vain
Between the mountain and the plain!
World-citizens you’d be of right,
While every civic claim you slight;
And think, like dastards, to go free
By whining: “We’re a small folk, we!”
The Mayor.
All has its time, each time its need,
Each age its proper work to do;
We also flung our mite into
The world’s great treasure of bold deed.
True, that’s long since; but, after all,
The mite was not so very small.
Now the land’s dwindled and decay’d,
But our renown still lives in story.
The days of our reported glory
Were when the great King Belë sway’d.
Many a tale is still related
About the brothers Wulf and Thor,
And gallant fellows by the score,
Went harrying to the British shore,
And plunder’d till their heart was sated.
The Southrons shriek’d with quivering lip,
“Lord, help us from these fierce men’s grip,”
And these “fierce men,” beyond all doubt,
Had from our harbours sallied out.
And how these rovers wreak’d their ire,
And dealt out death with sword and fire!
Nay, legend names a lion-hearted
Hero that took the cross; in verity,
It is not mentioned that he started——
Brand.
He left behind a large posterity,
This promise-maker?
The Mayor.
Yes, indeed;
But how came you to——?
Brand.
O, I read
His features clearly in the breed
Of promise-heroes of to-day,
Who take the Cross in just his way.
The Mayor.
Yes, his descendants still remain.
But we were on King Belë’s reign!
So first abroad we battled. Then,
Visited our own countrymen
And kinsmen, with the axe and fire;
Trampled their harvests gaily down,
Scorch’d mansion-wall and village spire,
And wove ourselves the hero’s crown.—
Over the blood thus set a-flowing
There’s been perhaps excessive crowing;
But, after what I’ve said, I may,
I think, without a touch of vanity,
Point backward to the stir we made
In the great Age long since decay’d,
And hold that we indeed have paid
Our little mite of Fire and Fray
Towards the Progress of Humanity.
Brand.
Yet do you not, in fact, eschew
The phrase, “Nobility’s a trust,”—
And drive hoe, plough, and harrow through
King Belë’s patrimonial dust?
The Mayor.
By no means. Only go and mark
Our parish on its gaudy-nights,
Where I with Constable and Clerk,
And Judge, preside as leading lights;
You’ll warrant, when the punch goes round,
King Belë’s memory is sound.
With toasts and clinking cups and song,
In speeches short and speeches long,
We drink his health and sound his fame.
I myself often feel inclined
The spinnings of my brain to wind
In flowery woof about his name,
And edify the local mind.
A little poetry pleases me,
And all our folks, in their degree;
But—moderation everywhere!
In life it never must have share,—
Except at night, when folks have leisure,
Between the hours of seven and ten,
When baths of elevating pleasure
May fit the mood of weary men.
Here’s where we differ, you and we,
That you desire with main and might
At the same time to plough and fight.
Your scheme, as far as I can see,
Is: Life and Faith in unity,—
God’s warfare and potato-dressing
Inseparably coalescing,
As coal, salt, sulphur, fusing fast,
Evolve just gunpowder at last.
Brand.
Somewhat so.
The Mayor.
Here you’ll scheme in vain!
Out in the great world that may stand;—
Go thither with your big demand,
And let us plough our moors and main.
Brand.
Plough first your brag of old renown
Into the main, and plough it down!
The pigmy is not more the man
For being of Goliath’s clan.
The Mayor.
Great memories bear the seed of growth.
Brand.
Yes, memories that to life are bound;
But you, of memory’s empty mound,
Have made a stalking-horse for sloth.
The Mayor.
I said at first, and still I say:—
To leave us were the wisest way.
Your work here cannot come to good,
Nor your ideas be understood.
The little flights to purer air,
The lifting-up which, now and then,
Is doubtless well for working men,
Shall be my unremitting care.
Many agreeable facts declare
My ceaseless energy as mayor,—
Through me the population’s grown
Double, nay, almost three to one,
Since for the district I have bred
Ever new ways of getting fed.
With stubborn nature still at strife
We’ve steam’d ahead: our forward march
Here hew’d a road, there flung an arch—
To lead from——
Brand.
Not from Faith to Life.
The Mayor.
To lead from fjordside to the hill.
Brand.
But not from Doctrine unto Will.
The Mayor.
First of all, get a passage clear
From men to men, from place to place.
There were no two opinions here
On that, until you show’d your face.
Now you’ve made all confusion, dashing
Aurora-flames with lantern light;
With such cross-luminaries flashing,
Who can distinguish wrong from right,
Tell what will mar, and what will mend?
All diverse things you mix and blend,
And into hostile camps divide
Those who should triumph side by side.
Brand.
Here, notwithstanding, I abide.
Man chooses not his labour’s sphere.
Who knows and follows out his call,
Has seen God’s writing on the wall,
In words of fire, “Your place is here!”
The Mayor.
Stay, then, but keep within your borders;
You’re free to purge the folk of crimes,
Vices, and other rifle disorders;
God knows, it’s needed oftentimes!
But don’t make every working-day
A Sabbath, and your flag display,
As if the Almighty were on board
Of every skiff that skims the fjord.
Brand.
To use your counsel, I must change
My soul and all her vision’s range;
But we are called, ourselves to be,
Our own cause bear to victory;
And I will bear it, till the land
Is all illumined where I stand!
The people, your bureaucrat-crew
Have lull’d asleep, shall wake anew;
Too long you’ve cramp’d and caged apart
These remnants of the Mountain heart;
Out of your niggard hunger-cure
They pass dejected, dull, demure:
Their best, their bravest blood you tap,
Scoop out their marrow and their sap,
Pound into splinters every soul,
That should have stood a welded whole;—
But you may live to hear the roar
Of revolution thunder: War!
The Mayor.
War?
Brand.
War!
The Mayor.
Be sure, if you should call
To arms, you’ll be the first to fall.
Brand.
The day will come when we shall know
That triumph’s height is Overthrow.
The Mayor.
Consider, Brand, you have to choose!
Don’t stake your fortune on one card.
Brand.
I do, however!
The Mayor.
If you lose,
Your life’s irreparably marr’d.
All this world’s bounties you possess,
You, a rich Mother’s only heir,
With wife and child to be your care,—
It was a kindly hand, confess,
That dealt your terms of happiness!
Brand.
And what if I should, all the same,
Reject these terms? and must?
The Mayor.
Your game
Is over, if you’ve once unfurl’d
In this last cranny of the world
The standard of your world-wide war.
Turn southward, to yon prosperous shore
Where a man dares lift up his head;
There you may perorate of right
And bid them bleed and bid them fight;
Our bloodshed is the sweat we pour
In daily wringing rocks for bread.
Brand.
Here I remain. My home is here!
And here the battle-flag I’ll rear.
The Mayor.
Think what you lose, if overthrown,
And, chiefly, think of what you quit!
Brand.
Myself I lose, if I submit.