Emblems of Love

by Lascelles Abercrombie

Vashti.
I will not hear thee.
Wouldst thou go on before me, and say, Look,
This is the woman which I told you of,
You kings; does she not, as I said, stir up
Quaking desire through all your muscles? Look,
And thank the King for showing you his lust!—
I will not hear thee.

Poet.
Dost thou not know, my Queen,
That, when I taught thee songs, thou taughtest me
The divine secret, Beauty? My small tunes
Were games to thee; but now I am he who knows
How man may walk upon Eternity
Wearing the world as a god wears his power,
The world upon him as a burning garment;
For I am he whose spirit knoweth beauty,—
And thou art the knowledge, Queen! Therefore thou must
Come with me to the kings of all the nations;
For the whole earth must know of thee. These kings,
Though it be but a lightning-moment struck
Upon the darkness of their ignorant hearts,
Must know what I know; that there is a beauty,
Only in thee shown forth in bodily sign,
Which can of life make such triumphant glee,
The force of the world seems but man's spirit utter'd.

Vashti.
And what am I to know?—This must, no doubt,
Content me, that we are as wine, and men
By us have senses drunk against his toil
Of knowing himself, for all his boasting mind,
Caught by the quiet purpose of the world,
Burnt up by it at last, like something fallen
In molten iron streaming. But I know
Not drunken may man's soul master his world;
And I now make for woman a new mood,
Wherein she will not bear to know herself
A heady drug for man.—I will not come.

Poet.
I, who have brought thy insult on the King,
Will scarce escape his judgment. But not this
My pleading. Seest thou not how wonderfully
The mean affairs of living fill with gleam,
Like pools of water lying in the sun,
Because above men's minds renown of thee,
The certain knowledge of beauty, now presides?
It must not be that thou, for a whim of scorn,
Wilt let thyself be made unseen, unheard of.
Beauty is known in thee; but, without thee,
It is a rumour buzzing hardly heard.
And without beauty men are scurrying ants,
Rapid in endless purpose unenjoyed;
Or newts in holes under the banks of ponds,
Feeding and breeding without sound or light.
For the one thing that is the god in man
Is a delight that admirably knows
Itself delighted; and it is but beauty.
And thou art beauty known.

Vashti.
Truly, I say,
I know not how to bear it; that for you
To feel yourselves, though in the depth of the world,
Dizzy, and thence as if elate on high,
We women are devised like drunkenness.
And what are we to make of ourselves here,
When in the joy of us you think the world
No more than your spirits crying out for joy?
Is this your love, to dream a god of man,
And women to keep as wine to make you dream?—
Now, back! or the eunuchs handle thee.

[He goes.

Vashti.
You will not hear of me after this night,
And thus I say farewell. It may be, far
In time not yet appointed, our life's spirit
Will know its fate, through all the thickets of grief,
As simply and as gladly as one's eyes
Greet the blue weather shining behind trees.
Yea, and I think there will be more than this:
Is not the world a terrible thing, a vision
Of fierce divinity that cares not for us?
Do we not seem immortal good desire,
Mortally wronged by capture in swift being
Made of a world that holds us firm for ever?
And yet is it not beautiful, the world?
How read you that? How is our wrong delightful?
Thus it is: Spirit finding the world fair,
Is spirit in dim perception of its own
Radiant desire piercing the worldly shadow.
But what is dim will become glorious clear:
All in a splendour will the Spirit at last
Stand in the world, for all will be naught else
But Spirit's own perfect knowledge of itself;
Yea, this dark mighty seeming of the world
Is but the Spirit's own power unsubdued;
And as the unruled vigours of thought in sleep
Crowd on the brain, and become dream therein;
So the strange outer forces of man's spirit
Are the appearing world. But all at last,
Subdued, becomes self-knowing ecstasy,
The whole world brightens into Spirit's desire.
This is for Spirit to be lord of life;
And man, with foolish hope looking for this,
Takes the ravishing drunkenness he hath
From us, for knowledge of the Spirit's power.
But it will come by love. It will be twain
Who go together to this height of mastery
Over the world, governing it as song
Is govern'd by the heart of him who sings;
But never one by means of one shall reach it:
Not man alone, nor woman alone, but each
Enabling each, together, twain in one.

[The KING'S MESSENGER comes in.

Messenger.
I speak to the rebellious woman Vashti.
Thou art no more a Queen; thou hast no place
In the King's house, nor in the life of men:
Thus art thou judged. Go forth now; let the night
Befriend thee, for no other friend thou hast,
For the day shall reveal thee to men's eyes,
And they, obedient to the King, will hate thee.
Therefore be gone: and as the beasts have homes
In the wild ground, have thy home from henceforth.

Vashti. Gives the King reason for this judgment?