Brand.
Indeed?
Einar.
Divergent paths we follow;
One seeks the height, and one the hollow.
Brand.
But after?
Einar.
True; I turn’d me thence,
To preach for Total Abstinence;
But since that Work for the unwary
Is strewn with perilous temptation,
I chose another occupation,
And travel now as Missionary——
Brand.
Where?
Einar.
To the Caudate-nigger State.
But now, I think, we’ll separate;
My time is precious——
Brand.
Won’t you stay?
You see here’s festival to-day.
Einar.
Thanks, no; the swarthy Heathens wait.—
Farewell.
[Going.
Brand.
And does no memory stir,
Bidding you ask—?
Einar.
Of what?
Brand.
Of her
Who would have grieved at the abyss,
That parts another day from this.
Einar.
I guess your meaning; you refer
To that young female, whose allure
Held me in pleasure’s net secure,
Till Faith’s ablution made me pure.
—Yes, and how is it then with her?
Brand.
Next year I won her for my wife.
Einar.
That’sThat’s unimportant, I prefer
To leave these trivial facts unknown
What’s weighty I desire alone.
Brand.
God richly bless’d our common life
With joy and sorrow: The child pined——
Einar.
That’s unimportant——
Brand.
So it is;
He was but given to be resign’d;
Our eyes one day shall look on his.
But afterwards she also died;
Their graves bloom yonder side by side.
Einar.
That’s unimportant——
Brand.
That likewise?
Einar.
Such things are trifles in my eyes,
How did she die, I want to know?
Brand.
With Hope that yet a Dawn shall glow,
With all her heart’s rich treasure whole.
With Will that never lost control,
With thanks for all that life had lent
And life had taken away, she went.
Einar.
Trumpery figments every one.
Say what the faith she died in was.
Brand.
Unshaken.
Einar.
In what?
Brand.
In God.
Einar.
Alas
Only in Him? She is undone.
Brand.
What say you?
Einar.
Damn’d, to my regret.
Brand.
[Quietly.]
Go, scoundrel!
Einar.
You shall feel as well
The clutches of the Lord of hell;—
For both, eternal torments wait.
Brand.
You, wretch, dare sentence to the Fire!
Yourself late wallow’d in the mire——
Einar.
On me no spot is to be seen;
The tub of Faith hath wash’d me clean;
Each splash has vanish’d, scraped and scored
On Holiness’s washing-board;
In Vigilance’s mangle I
Have wrung my Adam’s-vesture dry;
And shine like snowy surplice fair,
Soap-lather’d with the suds of Prayer!
Brand.
Hold!
Einar.
Hold, yourself! Here’s sulphur fume,
I see the glints of Satan’s horn!
I am Salvation’s good wheat-corn,
And you the shovell’d chaff of Doom.
[Goes.
Brand.
[Looks a while after him; all at once his eyes flash and he breaks out.]
That, that is the man I need!
Now all bonds are burst that bound me;
Now my flag shall wave around me
Though none follow where I lead!
The Mayor.
[Comes hastily in.]
Pray, dear Pastor, hasten, do!
The procession-people stand
Waiting only the command—
Brand.
Let them come then!
The Mayor.
Wanting you!
Pray reflect, and hasten in!
All impatient to begin,
See, the whole mass throng and strain;
Like a torrent after storm
On the Manse they surge and swarm,
Shouting for the Priest. Again,
Hark you, for “the Priest” they shout,
Pray make haste! I much misdoubt,
They may scarcely prove humane!
Brand.
Never will I hide my face
In the crowd that you command;
Let them seek me: here I stand.
The Mayor.
Are you sane?
Brand.
The path you pace
Is too narrow for my tread.
The Mayor.
And ’twill still grow less and less
As the people push ahead.
Zounds! They spurn at rod and check!
Parsons, Dean, and Corporation
Jostled to the brimming beck—!
Quickly, friend, make application
Of the scourge of your persuasion!
Ha, too late, they smash the line;
The procession is a wreck!
The multitude stream in, and break in wild disorder through the procession to the church.
Voices.
Priest!
Others.

[Pointing up to the Church steps, where Brand stands.]

See yonder!
Others again.
Give the sign!
The Dean.
[Jostled in the throng.]
Mayor, Mayor, control them, pray!
The Mayor.
All my words are thrown away!
The Schoolmaster.
[To Brand.]
Speak to them, and cast a gleam
On their spirits’ troubled stream!
What you summon’d us to see,
Was it Feast or foolery?
Brand.
O, there stirs a current, then,
In these stagnant waters.—Men,
At the crossway stand ye: choose!
Wholly ye must will to lose
The old vesture of your lust,
Utterly anew be clad,
Ere our Temple from the dust
Rises, as it shall and must!
Officials.
He is raving!
Clergy.
He is mad!
Brand.
Yes, I was so, when I thought
Ye in some sense also wrought
For the God who hateth Lies!
When I dream’d that I could lure
To your hearts His Spirit pure
By a feat of compromise.
Small the Church was; logic thence
Palter’d to the inference:
Twice the size—that cannot fail;
Fivefold,—that must needs prevail!
O, I saw not that the call
Was for Nothing or else All.
Down that easy way I reel’d,
But to-day the Lord has spoken,
In this very hour has peal’d
Overhead the awful blast
Of His Judgment-trump at last,—
And I listen’d, in the wind
Of my anguish, baffled, broken,—
Even as David, having sinn’d—;
Now all hesitation dies.
Men! The Devil is compromise!
The Multitude.
[With growing excitement.]
Down with them that quench’d our light
Sapp’d the marrow of our might!
Brand.
In your souls the demon dwells
That has bound you with his spells.
You have put your powers at mart,
You have cleft yourselves in twain;
Discord therefore numbs your brain,
Petrifies your hollow heart.
To the Church to-day what drew you?
But the show, the show—nought else!—
Roll of organ, clash of bells,—
And to feel the tingle through you
Of a speaking-furnace dart,
As it lisps and lilts and prattles,
As it rolls and roars and rattles,
By the strictest rules of Art!
The Dean.
[To himself.]
The Mayor’s chatter, he must mean.
The Mayor.
[Likewise.]
That’s the twaddle of the Dean!
Brand.
Nothing but the altar-glow
Of the Festival you know.
Get you home then to your sloth,
Get you home to toil and stress,
Soul as well as body clothe
In its common work-day dress,—
And the Bible slumber sound
Till the next Saint’s day comes round.
O, it was not to this end
That the Offering-cup I drain’d!
I the Greater Church ordain’d,
That its shadow might descend,
Not alone on Faith and Creed
But on everything in life
That by God’s leave lives indeed;—
On our daily strain and strife,
Midnight weeping, evening rest,
Youth’s impetuous delight,
All that harbours of good right,
Mean or precious, in the breast.
Yonder foss’s hidden thunder,
And the beck that sparkles under,
And the bellow of wild weather,
And the murmurous ocean’s tongue
Should have melted, soul-possess’d,
With the organ’s roll together,
And the gather’d people’s song.
Sweep this lying Labour hence!
Mighty only in pretence!
Stricken inly with decay
On its consecration day,—
Symbol of your impotence.
All the germs of soul you aim
By divided toil to maim;
For the week’s six days ye drag
To the deepest deep God’s flag,
For one only of the seven,
Let it flutter forth to heaven!
Voices from the Throng.
Lead us, lead us! Tempest lowers!
Lead us, and the day is ours!
The Dean.
Do not hear him! Nought he knows
Of the Faith a Christian owes!
Brand.
Ay, thou nam’st the flaw whereby
Both the throng, and thou and I,
Are beset! To souls alone
Faith is possible,—show me one!
Show me one that his best treasure
Has not inly flung to waste
In his fumbling, or his haste!
First, the reeling plunge for pleasure
To the tabor’s juggling strain
Till the zest of pleasure’s slain;
Then, soul-ruins, charr’d and stark,
Turn to dance before the Ark!
When the cup’s last liquor slips
Through the brain-worn cripple’s lips,
Ho! ’tis time to pray and mend,
Sure of pardon in the end.
First God’s image you outwear,
Live the beast within you bare,
Then to Mercy cry your needs,
Seeking God—as invalids!
So, His Kingdom’s overthrown.
What should He with souls effete
Grovelling at His mercy-seat?
Said He not that then alone
When your lifeblood pulses tense,
Through all veins of soul and sense,
Ye His kingdom shall inherit?
Children ye must be to share it;
No man hobbles through its gate.
Come then, ye whose cheek is rife
With the bloom of childhood yet
To the greater Church of Life!
The Mayor.
Open it then!
The Multitude.
[Crying out as in anguish.]
No! Not this!
Brand.
It has neither mark nor bound,
But its floor the green earth is,
Mead and mountain, sea and sound;
And the overarching sky
Is its only canopy.
There shall all thy work be wrought
As an anthem for God’s ear,
There thy week-day toil be sought
With no sacrilege to fear.
There the World be like a tree
Folded in its shielding bark;
Faith and Action blended be.
There shall daily labour fuse
With right Teaching and right Use,
Daily drudgery be one
With star-flights beyond the sun,
One with Yule-tide revelry
And the Dance before the Ark.

[A stormy agitation passes over the multitude; some retire; most press close about Brand.

A Thousand Voices.
Light is kindled in the dark;—
Life and serving God’s the same!
The Dean.
Woe on us! He wins them—hark!
Mayor, sexton, beadle, clerk!
The Mayor.
[Aside.]
Do not scream so, o’ God’s name!
With a bull who wants a bout?
Let him roar his ravin out!
Brand.
[To the multitude.]
Hence—away! God is afar!
Cannot be where such men are!
Fair His kingdom is and free!

[Locks the church-door and takes the keys in his hand.]

Here I will be priest no more.
I revoke my gift;—from me
No man shall receive the key
Of the yet unopen’d door!
[Throws the keys into the river.]
Wilt thou in, thou slave of clay,—
Through the crypt-hole worm thy way;
Lithe thy back is, creep and ply;
From that charnel let thy sigh
Roam the earth with venom’d breath,
Like the flagging gasp of death!
The Mayor.
[Aside with relief.]
Ha, his hope of knighthood’s dim!
The Dean.
[Similarly.]
Well; no bishopric for him!
Brand.
Come thou, young man—fresh and free—
Let a life-breeze lighten thee
From this dim vault’s clinging dust.
Conquer with me! For thou must
One day waken, one day rise,
Nobly break with compromise;—
Up, and fly the evil days,
Fly the maze of middle ways,
Strike the foeman full and fair,
Battle to the death declare!
The Mayor.
Hold! I’ll read the Riot Act!
Brand.
Read! With you I break my pact.
The Multitude.
Show the way, and we will follow!
Brand.
Over frozen height and hollow,
Over all the land we’ll fare,
Loose each soul-destroying snare
That this people holds in fee,
Lift and lighten, and set free,
Blot the vestige of the beast,
Each a Man and each a Priest,
Stamp anew the outworn brand,
Make a Temple of the land.

[The multitude, including the Sexton and Schoolmaster, throng around him. Brand is lifted on to their shoulders.

Many Voices.
’Tis a great Time! Visions fair
Dazzle through the noontide glare.

[The great mass of the assemblage streams away up the valley; a few remain.

The Dean.
[To the departing crowd.]
O, ye blinded ones, what would you?
Lo! behind his seeming sooth
Satan scheming to delude you!
The Mayor.
Ho there! Turn! Folks born to track
Safe home-waters still and smooth!
Stop!—ye go to ruin and wrack!—
(Dogs! And not a word comes back!)
The Dean.
Think of household and of home!
Voices from the Multitude.
To a greater Home we come!
The Mayor.
Think of meadow-plot and field;
Think of teeming stall and fold!
Voices.
Heavenly dews did manna yield
When the chosen starved of old!
The Dean.
Hark! your women cry in chorus!chorus!
Voices.
[In the distance.]
Ours they are not if they quail!
The Dean.
“Father’s gone!” your children wail.
The whole Multitude.
Be against us, or be for us!
The Dean.
[Gazes a while with folded hands after them; then dejectedly.]
By his faithless flock deserted
Stands the old shepherd, heavy-hearted,
Plunder’d to the very skin!
The Mayor.
[Shaking his fist at Brand.]
His the scandal; his the sin!
But we’ll shortly win the fight!
The Dean.
[Almost breaking down.]
Win? Of all our people cheated?—
The Mayor.
Ay, but we are not defeated,
If I know my lambs aright!
[Follows them.
The Dean.
Whither will he, in heaven’s name?
As I live, he’s after them!
Ha, my drooping courage rises,
I will also do and dare,—
Make assaults and capture prizes!
Bring my steed;—that is, prepare
A safe, steady mountain mare!
[They go.

By the highest farms in the valley. The land rises in the background, and passes into great barren mountains. Rain.

Brand, followed by the multitude—men, women, and children,—comes up the slopes.

Brand.
Look onward! Triumph flies ahead!
Your homes are hidden in the deep,
And over it, from steep to steep,
The storm his cloudy tent has spread.
Forget the pit of sloth ye trod,
Fly free aloft, ye sons of God!
A Man.
Wait; my old father is dead beaten.
Another.
Since yesterday I’ve nothing eaten——
Several.
Ay, still our hunger, slake our thirst!
Brand.
On, on, across the mountain first!