ACT FIFTH.

A year and a half later. The new Church stands complete, and adorned for consecration. The river runs close beside it. A misty morning, early.

The Sexton is busy hanging garlands outside the Church; shortly after comes the Schoolmaster.

The Schoolmaster.
At work already?
The Sexton.
None too soon.
Lend me a hand; I must festoon
The path, to keep the march in trim.
The Schoolmaster.
Before the Manse I see ascending
Something that rears a rounded rim—
The Sexton.
Ay, surely, surely!
The Schoolmaster.
What is pending?
The Sexton.
Why, it is what they call a shield
With Parson’s name in a gold field.field.
The Schoolmaster.
To-day the valley’s in high feather.
From far and wide they’re flocking hither,
The fjord with sails is all agleam.
The Sexton.
Yes; they’ve awaken’d from their dream.
In the late Pastor’s day, no breast
With bitterness and strife was cumber’d,
Each slumber’d as his neighbour slumber’d,
—I’m not quite certain which is best.
The Schoolmaster.
Life, Sexton, life!
The Sexton.
Yet you and I
Pass this “life” unregarding by;
How comes it?
The Schoolmaster.
Why, before, the folk
Slumber’d, and nowise toil’d, as we did;
We fell asleep when they awoke,
Because we were no longer needed.
The Sexton.
But yet you said that life was best?
The Schoolmaster.
By Dean and deacon that’s profess’d.
And I too say so, like the rest,—
Provided, mind, the “life” in view
Is that of the great Residue.
But we two serve another law
Than that which holds the mass in awe;
Set by the State to guard and guide,—
Look, we must stand against the tide,
Cherish the Church and Education,
And keep aloof from agitation.
Briefly, in nothing take a side.
The Sexton.
But Parson’s in it, heart and soul.
The Schoolmaster.
And just in that forgets his rôle.
His own superiors, well I know,
Look with displeasure on his action,
And, dared they but offend his faction,
Had thrown him over long ago.
But he is fine; he smells a rat;
He’s got a recipe for that.
He builds the Church. Here you may glue
All eyes up, if you will but do.
What’s done none has a thought to spare for;
The doing of it’s all they care for.
So they who follow, and we who lead,
All equally are men of deed.
The Sexton.
Well, you have sat in the great Thing,
And ought to know the Land and Folk;
But one who travell’d through the glen
A little after we awoke
Said, we’d been sleeping folks till then,
But, having waked,—were promising.
The Schoolmaster.
Yes; we’re a promising folk, of course,—
And mighty promises we’re giving,—
So fast we stride, we’ll soon be living
Elucidations of their force.
The Sexton.
One thing I’ve ponder’d many a day;
You’ve studied,—what do folks intend
By that same “People’s Promise,” pray?
The Schoolmaster.
A People’s Promise, my good friend?
That were a long investigation;
But ’tis a thing that is pursued
By force of sheer anticipation;
A grand Idea they must make good
In future, be it understood.
The Sexton.
Thanks; I see that at any rate;
But there’s another point I’d fain
Beg of you briefly to explain.
The Schoolmaster.
Speak freely.
The Sexton.
Tell me, at what date
Comes, what is call’d the future?
The Schoolmaster.
Why,
It never does come!
The Sexton.
Never!Never!
The Schoolmaster.
No,
And only follows Nature so.
For when it comes, you see, ’tis grown
The Present, and the Future’s flown.
The Sexton.
Why, yes, to that there’s no reply;
That logic one must needs accept.
But—when then is the promise kept?
The Schoolmaster.
A Promise is a future-dated
Pact, as I have already stated;
’Tis kept in Future.
The Sexton.
That is clear.
When will the Future, though, be here!
The Schoolmaster.
[Aside.]
You blessed Sexton!
[Aloud.]
Worthy friend,
Must I the argument recall?
The Future cannot come at all,
Because its coming is its end.
The Sexton
Thank you.
The Schoolmaster.
In all conceptions lies
Something that looks like artifice,
But yet is quite direct and plain,—
That is to say, for any brain
Able to reckon up to ten.
To make a promise means, at last,
To break it, spite of best intent;
Truth to one’s word has always pass’d
For hard; but you may just as well
Prove it purely impossible,—
If you’ve an eye for argument.—
There, let this Promise-question be!
Come tell me——!
The Sexton.
Hist!
The Schoolmaster.
What is it?
The Sexton.
Hark!Hark!
The Schoolmaster.
I hear the organ play!
The Sexton.
’Tis he.
The Schoolmaster.
The Pastor?
The Sexton.
Even so.
The Schoolmaster.
Save the mark
But he is out betimes!
The Sexton.
I guess
He stirr’d no pillow yesternight.
The Schoolmaster.
What do you say?
The Sexton.
All is not right.
He’s felt the pang of loneliness
Since first his widowhood began.
He hides his sorrow all he can;
But, whiles, it may not be controll’d;
His heart’s a jar that will not hold,
And overflows by base and brim;—
So then he plays. ’Tis like a wild
Weeping for buried wife and child.
The Schoolmaster.
It is as if they talk’d with him——
The Sexton.
As if one suffered, one consoled——
The Schoolmaster.
H’m—if one dared to be affected!
The Sexton.
Ah,—if one did not serve the State
The Schoolmaster.
Ah,—if one bore no leaden weight
Of forms that have to be respected
The Sexton.
Ah,—if one dared toss tape and seal
And ledger to the deuce for ever!
The Schoolmaster.
And leave off striving to be clever;
And, Sexton, if one dared to feel!
The Sexton.
No one is near,—let’s feel, my friend!
The Schoolmaster.
We cannot fitly condescend
To smirch ourselves in human slime.
Let no man, says the Parson, dare
To be two things at the same time;
And, with the best will, no one can
Be an official and a man;
Our part in all things is, to swear
By our great exemplar—the Mayor.
The Sexton.
Why just by him?
The Schoolmaster.
Do you recall
The fire that wreck’d his house, and yet
The deeds were rescued, one and all?
The Sexton.
It was an evening——
The Schoolmaster.
Wild and wet,
And like ten toiling men toiled he;
But indoors stood the Devil in glee
Guffawing, and his wife shriek’d out:
“O save your soul, sweet husband! See,
Satan will have you!” Then a shout
Rang backward through the surging vapours:
“My soul may go to hell for me;
Just lend a hand to save the papers!”
Look, that’s a Mayor—without, within!
From top to toe, from core to skin;
He’ll win his way, I’m certain, yonder,
Where his life’s toil shall have its price.
The Sexton.
And where may that be?
The Schoolmaster.
Where, I wonder,
But in the good Mayors’ Paradise.
The Sexton.
My learned friend!
The Schoolmaster.
What now?
The Sexton.
A token
Of our fermenting age I hear,
Methinks, in every word you’ve spoken;
For that it does ferment is clear.
Witness the reverence all refuse
To old-established Wont and Use.
The Schoolmaster.
What moulders, in the mould’s its doom,
What rots must nourish what is fresh;
Their vitals canker and consume,
Let them cough up the imposthume,
Or to the grave with their dead flesh!
There’s ferment, yes; past fear or hope,
That’s plain without a telescope.
The day our ancient Church lay low,
Everything with it seem’d to go
Wherein our life struck root and found
Its home-soil and its native-ground.
The Sexton.
Then on the throng a stillness came.
“Down with it! Down with it!” they cried
At first; but soon that clamour died,
And many felt their ears a-flame,
And stole shy glances of distrust.
When the ancestral House of Prayer
Was to be levell’d—then and there,—
By hands unhallow’d, in the dust.
The Schoolmaster.
But countless bonds, they fancied, knit
Them ever to the ghost of it,
So long as yonder Palace lack’d
The final seal of consecration;
And so in anguish’d expectation
They watch’d it growing into fact,
And blinked before the glorious End,
When the old tatter should descend
And the new colours flaunt the gale.
But ever as the spire upclomb
They grew more silent and more pale,
And now,—well, now the End is come.
The Sexton.
Look at the throng. Both young and old
Swarm hither.
The Schoolmaster.
And by thousands told.—
How still they are!
The Sexton.
And yet they moan,
Like sea fore-feeling tempest’s fret.
The Schoolmaster.
It is the People’s hearts that groan,
As if, with piercing doubts beset,
The great new age they did forebode,
Or were in solemn sessions met
To nominate another God.
Where, where’s the priest,—I stifle here.
Would heaven that I could disappear!
The Sexton.
I too, I too!
The Schoolmaster.
In hours like this
No man well knows how deep he is.
Each depth a deeper depth revealing,
We will, then will not, and then doubt——
The Sexton.
My friend!
The Schoolmaster.
My friend!
The Sexton.
H’m!
The Schoolmaster.
Speak it out!
The Sexton.
I think, in very truth, we’re feeling!
The Schoolmaster.
Feeling? Not I!
The Sexton.
Nor I, take warning!
A single witness I defy!
The Schoolmaster.
We’re men, not school-girls, you and I.
My youngsters wait for me. Good-morning.
[Goes.
The Sexton.
Just now I’d visions like a fool:
Now I’m again collected, cool,
And close as clasps! To work I’ll press!
Here’s no more scope for hand or tool,
And Satan’s couch is idleness.
[Goes out at the other side.

The organ, which during what precedes has been heard in an undertone, suddenly peals forth, and ends with a discordant shriek. Shortly afterwards Brand comes out.

Brand.
No, I vainly, vainly seek
To unlock the heart of sound;
All the song becomes a shriek.
Walls and arches, vault and ground,
Seem to stoop and crowd and throng,
Seem to clasp with iron force,
Seem to close around the song,
As the coffin round the corse!
Vain my effort, vain my suit,
All the organ’s music’s mute,
Fain a prayer I would have spoken,
But my lifted voice fell broken,—
Like the muffled moan it fell
Of a riven and rusted bell.
’Twas as if the Lord were seated
In the chancel, and beheld,
And in wrath, while I entreated,
All my piteous prayer repell’d!—
Great shall be the House of God;
In my confidence I swore it;
Fearless, smote and wreck’d and tore it,
Swept it level with the sod.
Now the finish’d work stands fast.
As the people throng before it,
Still they cry: “How vast! how vast!”
Is it they see true or I,
Who no vastness can descry?
Is it great? The thing I will’d,
Is it in this House fulfill’d?
Can the rushing fire of passion
That begot it, here be still’d?
Was the Temple of this fashion
That I dream’d should overspan
All the misery of Man?
Ah, had Agnes stay’d with me,
Not thus vainly had I striven!
Small things greatly she could see,
From doubt’s anguish set me free,
Clasp together Earth and Heaven
Like the green roof of the tree.
[He observes the preparations for the festival.]
All with wreaths and banners hung;
Children practising their song;
So the Manse they surge and throng,—
Festal greetings they would bring me;—
Yonder gleams my name in gold!—
Give me light, O God, or fling me
Fathom-deep beneath this mould!
In an hour begins the Feast
Every thought and every tongue
Will be ringing with “the priest”priest”
All their thoughts I can discern;
All their words I feel them burn;
All their praise, on elf-wings sped,
Rives me like an icy blast!
Oh, to be enfolded fast
In oblivion, hide my head
In a wild beast’s hole at last!
The Mayor.

[Enters in full uniform, radiant with satisfaction, and greets him.]

Here is the great day come at last,
The Sabbath to the toiling six;
Now we can strike our sail, and fix
Our Sunday pennon to the mast,
Glide softly with the gliding flood
And find that all is very good.
Bravo!—great, noble man, whose fame
Will soon be far and wide related.
Bravo!—I’m moved, yet all the same
Most inexpressibly elated!
But you appear——?
Brand.
I’m suffocated.suffocated.
The Mayor.
Pooh, a mere momentary whim!
Preach you now, till it roars again!—
Fill the folks’ bushel to the brim.
Not one his wonder can contain,
The resonance is so full and plain.
Brand.
Indeed?
The Mayor.
The Dean himself is warm
In admiration and delight.
And then, what elegance of form,
And what a grandeur, what a height
In every part——
Brand.
You’ve noted this?
The Mayor.
What noted?
Brand.
It seems great to you?
The Mayor.
Why, it not only seems, but is,
No matter what the point of view.
Brand.
It is great? Really? That is true—?
The Mayor.
Great?—yes, God bless me,—and to spare—
For folks so far to North. Elsewhere
They’ve higher standards, I’m aware.aware.
But among us who captive dwell
Amid drear wastes and barren mounds,
On the scant verge of fjord and fell,
Its greatness ’mazes and confounds.
Brand.
Yes, that is so, and all we do
Is,—change an old lie for a new.
The Mayor.
What?
Brand.
We have lured their hearts away
From the time-honour’d gloom and mould
To soaring spire and open day.
“How venerable!” they cried of old.
“How vast!” in chorus now they roar—
“The like was never seen before!”
The Mayor.