A silence.
Blanid.
I have slain him and I fear to go to him ...
Put out my eyes, and rope me with the dogs—
Nay, strangle me to-morrow; but save me now.
The Old Man, his voice growing fainter and fainter.
Ah, come, you daughter of an ancient earth,
Come down among the folk your heart can know,
You darling of the past, you long-dead queen.
Your aged soul is strange among these men,
As strange as it would be in Paradise;
But once I knew you ere you were begot,
And in the unchanging silence of my heart
There waits a star for you to finish it.
A silence.
You little trembler of a dew-drop dawn,
You are as old as water that makes new dew;
And when the dew falls it runs down to peace.
The end of sorrow is in sorrow's heart
With those who loved and knew the unknown end
Of mothering you a thousand years ago.
Come, then, from her who shapes new pangs for you,
And rest and rest and rest for evermore.
A silence.
One day you will awake and call to me;
And I shall listen for the doubting cry
Until the stars have worn the sky too thin,
And I am drowned within the light beyond....
His voice is lost in the gradual wail of a gust of wind; then it is heard outside and afar.
Ohey!
Blanid, speaking at longer and longer intervals.
O, you have saved me from such evil things
As writhed like tangled tree-roots outside space
Ere God made Himself from them; and for this
My Virgin shall reach down from God's two knees
Whereon She sits, and kiss you for Her own.
My body was yours; now you have saved my soul
My soul is utterly yours to serve in living,
To clothe your soul and be your very heart
In love and soft, unconscious giving of life.
Mother, I have done evil—punish me;
Because we loved him, love me and punish me:
I have sinned, I have parted lovers—be cruel to me
And cleanse me that I may keep near you two...
Think in how many ways you can torture me;
Let me rake up the fire and heat an iron
For you to have your will upon my body—
One thigh is yet unseared ... Will you not speak? ...
I love him, I tell you ... I love him, I love him, I love him ...
I kissed his hand; do you hear? I kissed his hand—
Our Hialti's hand ... I'll make you hurt me yet,
Cold anger is shuddering down your tense thighs;
Feel, this is your foot upon my upturned face,
I lift it across my eyes, wide-open eyes—
Bear down and crush them full of eternal night ...
Speak to me now ... O, will you never speak?
You thrust me down into that Crier's bosom;
For in your heart you make me be unborn
Within a lonely place you never heard of,
Yet if I loose your feet he will return
And I must follow and follow and follow and follow
Past where my imaged thoughts repeat the world,
Till shattered waters break the imaged dream ...
You saved me once; will you undo that greatness?...
We are the tears that God wipes from His eyes:
Lone thoughts will thrust me forth—save me from them ...
Ah, but my lonely love can succour me:
Think, if I drown, 'tis to my Hialti's arms,
To cast you from his heart for ever more;
He will not even know you are forgotten ...
Sister ... Thorgerd....
Thorgerd draws in a long breath so sharply that it sounds to stab her repeatedly.
Ay, you will hate me as you used to do—
Will you not hate me as you used to do?
I was so happy when you still could hate me....
I fear it, but you make me go.... Speak once....