Louis— (Turning quickly.)
Father!
Abbot—What should I say? "Your eye sees false"?
If they think rue will keep the devils off,
To kill their thought would bring the devils back
And leave them fleeing Hell, not seeking God;
A different thing though Benedict knows it not.
They are not ready for the larger life,
And in a day I cannot make them so.
They cannot take my light. Shall I take theirs,
Their little light, and leave them in the dark?
Take from their hearts the glory and the hope?
How do I know what God means by this thing?
If they should ask me I must drop my eyes
And say: "He hides to-morrow from to-day,"
Which is no answer, Louis, and I know it.
What can I do? No, I must seem to lie:
While I am serving God, seem to serve Hell;
Pray to the Giver of Light, "Thy will be done,"
And then give darkness! Oh, for some power,
Some angel, Louis, that should come from heaven
And free us from these bonds of policy!
That we must hide our light like secret parts
As though each shining ray were snake of Hell!
Oh, that some god would step down on the peaks
And make us throw our thought out on the dark,
As fields their seeds, leaving the god of growth
To separate and slay and bring to sheaf!
How I would lay this cope and this aside,
And with my face upon the mountains run,
Aye, run to meet the bright thing coming down,
And cry, "Hail, hail, hail, hail, thou blessed one!"
(Shaking with emotion, his voice husky.)
I cannot be a man!
Louis— But, Father, that—
Abbot—Accursed bondage harder than the Nile!
Louis—That prophesy that Oswald brings, may it
Not mean this very thing, that by his fall
And this bright rumor that the angels saved him,
A summer cloud that seems to rain down gold,
May it not be that by this very gold
Your tower of light shall rise upon this rock
And save the North from darkness? May it not?
Abbot—But who will save us from our policy,
From playing hide and seek with God's bright son,
From the necessity of withholding truth
From those to whom the vital thing belongs,
Who do not even hunger for it more,
Who live and die about a taper's flame,
Calling it star, and sun, salvation, God—
And here all round us—Louis, look, the dawn!
Louis—The quality of all light is the same.
Abbot—Quality, Louis, is not quantity.
The myriad spheres of dew leave the fields dark.
The midnight luster on the swamp is light,
Enough to guide the wild thing paddling there.
The willow leaves give light unto the moth.
The stars that fill us with the life to come
Leave darkness in the prowling tiger's eye,
And rise and set upon its curve of ball.
God made the day for higher things than these.
Some light is not enough for something more
Than moth and water-rat and prowling maws
That find their food in flesh. With what design
Lit God the radiant pages? For what purpose
Hung he the planet Plato in the sky
With kindred constellations of pure thought,
If I, a mortal man, can lift my hand
And leave a shadow in the valley there?
It fills my life with meaning to know this,
That God hath ordered so our spiritual world
That every bright thing needs my will to shine,
As it needs His to reach the shining state.
Think of such confidence of God in man!
And I betray it. (He walks about thoughtfully.)