NELSON [symptoms of death beginning to change his face]
Yes, Hardy; yes; I know it. You must go.—
Here we shall meet no more; since Heaven forfend
That care for me should keep you idle now,
When all the ship demands you. Beatty, too.
Go to the others who lie bleeding there;
Them can you aid. Me you can render none!
My time here is the briefest.—If I live
But long enough I’ll anchor.... But—too late—
My anchoring’s elsewhere ordered!... Kiss me, Hardy:
[HARDY bends over him.]
I’m satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty!
[HARDY brushes his eyes with his hand, and withdraws to go above,
pausing to look back before he finally disappears.]
BEATTY [watching Nelson]
Ah!—Hush around!...
He’s sinking. It is but a trifle now
Of minutes with him. Stand you, please, aside,
And give him air.
[BEATTY, the Chaplain, MAGRATH, the Steward, and attendants
continue to regard NELSON. BEATTY looks at his watch.]
BEATTY
Two hours and fifty minutes since he fell,
And now he’s going.
[They wait. NELSON dies.]
CHAPLAIN
Yes.... He has homed to where
There’s no more sea.
BEATTY
We’ll let the Captain know,
Who will confer with Collingwood at once.
I must now turn to these.
[He goes to another part of the cockpit, a midshipman ascends to
the deck, and the scene overclouds.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
His thread was cut too slowly! When he fell.
And bade his fame farewell,
He might have passed, and shunned his long-drawn pain,
Endured in vain, in vain!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Young Spirits, be not critical of That
Which was before, and shall be after you!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But out of tune the Mode and meritless
That quickens sense in shapes whom, thou hast said,
Necessitation sways! A life there was
Among these self-same frail ones—Sophocles—
Who visioned it too clearly, even while
He dubbed the Will “the gods.” Truly said he,
“Such gross injustice to their own creation
Burdens the time with mournfulness for us,
And for themselves with shame.”[9]—Things mechanized
By coils and pivots set to foreframed codes
Would, in a thorough-sphered melodic rule,
And governance of sweet consistency,
Be cessed no pain, whose burnings would abide
With That Which holds responsibility,
Or inexist.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Yea, yea, yea!
Thus would the Mover pay
The score each puppet owes,
The Reaper reap what his contrivance sows!
Why make Life debtor when it did not buy?
Why wound so keenly Right that it would die?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay, blame not! For what judgment can ye blame?—
In that immense unweeting Mind is shown
One far above forethinking; processive,
Yet superconscious; a Clairvoyancy
That knows not what It knows, yet works therewith.—
The cognizance ye mourn, Life’s doom to feel,
If I report it meetly, came unmeant,
Emerging with blind gropes from impercipience
By listless sequence—luckless, tragic Chance,
In your more human tongue.