A LIFE-DRAMA.
SCENE I.—An Antique Room: Midnight.
Walter,
Reading from a paper on which he has been writing.
As a wild maiden, with love-drinking eyes,
Sees in sweet dreams a beaming Youth of Glory,
And wakes to weep, and ever after, sighs
For that bright vision till her hair is hoary;
Ev'n so, alas! is my life's-passion story.
For Poesy my heart and pulses beat,
For Poesy my blood runs red and fleet,
As Aaron's serpent the Egyptians' swallow'd,
One passion eats the rest. My soul is follow'd
By strong ambition to out-roll a lay,
Whose melody will haunt the world for aye,
Charming it onward on its golden way.
[Tears the paper and paces the room with disordered steps.
Oh, that my heart were quiet as a grave
Asleep in moonlight!
For, as a torrid sunset boils with gold
Up to the zenith, fierce within my soul
A passion burns from basement to the cope.
Poesy! Poesy! I'd give to thee,
As passionately, my rich-laden years,
My bubble pleasures, and my awful joys,
As Hero gave her trembling sighs to find
Delicious death on wet Leander's lip.
Bare, bald, and tawdry, as a fingered moth,
Is my poor life, but with one smile thou canst
Clothe me with kingdoms. Wilt thou smile on me?
Wilt bid me die for thee? O fair and cold!
As well may some wild maiden waste her love
Upon the calm front of a marble Jove.
I cannot draw regard of thy great eyes.
I love thee, Poesy! Thou art a rock,
I, a weak wave, would break on thee and die.
There is a deadlier pang than that which beads
With chilly death-drops the o'er-tortured brow,
When one has a big heart and feeble hands,—
A heart to hew his name out upon time
As on a rock, then in immortalness
To stand on time as on a pedestal;
When hearts beat to this tune, and hands are weak,
We find our aspirations quenched in tears,
The tears of impotence, and self-contempt
That loathsome weed, up-springing in the heart,
Like nightshade 'mong the ruins of a shrine;
I am so cursed, and wear within my soul
A pang as fierce as Dives' drowsed with wine,
Lipping his leman in luxurious dreams;
Waked by a fiend in hell!——
'T is not for me, ye Heavens! 't is not for me
To fling a Poem, like a comet, out,
Far-splendouring the sleepy realms of night.
I cannot give men glimpses so divine,
As when, upon a racking night, the wind
Draws the pale curtains of the vapoury clouds,
And shows those wonderful, mysterious voids,
Throbbing with stars like pulses.—Naught for me
But to creep quietly into my grave;
Or calm and tame the swelling of my heart
With this foul lie, painted as sweet as truth.
That "great and small, weakness and strength, are naught,
That each thing being equal in its sphere,
The May-night glow-worm with its emerald lamp,
Is worthy as the mighty moon that drowns
Continents in her white and silent light."
This—this were easy to believe, were I
The planet that doth nightly wash the earth's
Fair sides with moonlight; not the shining worm.
But as I am—beaten, and foiled, and shamed,
The arrow of my soul which I have shot
To bring down Fame, dissolved like shaft of mist—
This painted falsehood, this most damned lie,
Freezes me like a fiendish human face,
With all its features gathered in a sneer.
Oh, let me rend this breathing tent of flesh;
Uncoop the soul—fool, fool, 't were still the same,
'T is the deep soul that's touch'd, it bears the wound;
And memory doth stick in 't like a knife,
Keeping it wide for ever.[A long pause.
I am fain
To feed upon the beauty of the moon!
[Opens the casement.
Sorrowful moon! seeming so drowned in woe,
A queen, whom some grand battle-day has left
Unkingdomed and a widow, while the stars,
Thy handmaidens, are standing back in awe,
Gazing in silence on thy mighty grief!
All men have loved thee for thy beauty, moon!
Adam has turned from Eve's fair face to thine,
And drunk thy beauty with his serene eyes.
Anthony once, when seated with his queen,
Worth all the East, a moment gazed at thee:
She struck him on the cheek with jealous hand,
And chiding said,—"Now, by my Egypt's gods,
That pale and squeamish beauty of the night
Has had thine eyes too long; thine eyes are mine!
Alack! there's sorrow in my Anthony's face!
Dost think of Rome? I'll make thee, with a kiss,
Richer than Cæsar! Come, I'll crown thy lips."
[Another pause.
How tenderly the moon doth fill the night!
Not like the passion that doth fill my soul;
It burns within me like an Indian sun.
A star is trembling on the horizon's verge,
That star shall grow and broaden on the night,
Until it hangs divine and beautiful
In the proud zenith—
Might I so broaden on the skies of fame!
O Fame! Fame! Fame! next grandest word to God!
I seek the look of Fame! Poor fool—so tries
Some lonely wanderer 'mong the desert sands
By shouts to gain the notice of the Sphynx,
Staring right on with calm eternal eyes.
SCENE II.
A Forest. Walter sleeping beneath a tree.
Enter Lady with a fawn.