EGIL What’s that—a dream? Is it a mist that steals Between the eyelids, filling them with shap Begot of its own vapour,—shadows? lies? If so, which shapes are dreams—your forms, or those, Those even now that beheld me, where I crouched Among the crater’s hoar crusts, numb with cold, Yet writhing in the brassy flames, that eat And crawled into my vitals? Mine? No, no! That was not I, that nameless thing, not I! Say “No.”
ARFI It was the wolf. You fell asleep, Wearied, and dreamed of him.
EGIL If that be sleep, Then let me sleep no more. O friends, sweet friends, You that have weaned and reared me from this thing, Promise I nevermore may droop mine eyes But you will prod them open.
THORDIS You forget How you have grown. Soon you will be once more— But oh! how milder, mightier, than before— Egil, the hunter.
EGIL Till then, Egil the hunted! O Thordis, could I meet—as many a time I’ve met within the forest, face to face, My quarry, and destroyed it—could I so Confront this inward beast and grapple him To the death-struggle,—ha! but with a dream! A spectral wolf, that lurks ever in the dusk And tangled thickets of my brain and will, A wraith invulnerable, that makes his lair In my bosom, that, when I would strike, I lacerate myself, draw life—myself The beast, the bait, the hunter and the hunted!
THORDIS Nay, you are still the hunter, he the quarry, Only to track him hath grown harder, for He hath grown duskier as your mind hath dawned, And can no more take shape, as he was wont, In tangible horror to the eyes of all. Yet we will track him—you and I.
EGIL But how?
THORDIS With flaming torches we will set ablaze His ancient wilderness, till through the gap Of sundering boughs the quiet stars shall mock him, Naked and overwhelmed.
EGIL But where? What boughs? What fire?
THORDIS [Taking up, among the instruments, a reed-pipe.] The way is wild; this pipe shall lead us. Play, Arfi!