_Judith_.
Sufficeth not for us that I have come?-- Let not unseemly things live in my mouth; Yet I would praise thee as thou praisest me, But in a manner that my people use, Things to approach in song they list not speak.
And song, thou knowest, inwrought with chiming strings, Sweetens with sweet delay loving desire: Also thine eyes will feed, and thy heart wonder.-- Balkis was in her marble town, And shadow over the world came down.
Whiteness of walls, towers and piers, That all day dazzled eyes to tears, Turned from being white-golden flame, And like the deep-sea blue became.
Balkis into her garden went; Her spirit was in discontent Like a torch in restless air.
Joylessly she wandered there, And saw her city"s azure white Lying under the great night, Beautiful as the memory Of a worshipping world would be In the mind of a G.o.d, in the hour When he must kill his outward power; And, coming to a pool where trees Grew in double greeneries, Saw herself, as she went by The water, walking beautifully, And saw the stars shine in the glance Of her eyes, and her own fair countenance Pa.s.sing, pale and wonderful, Across the night that filled the pool.
And cruel was the grief that played With the queen"s spirit; and she said: "What do I hear, reigning alone?
For to be unloved is to be alone.
There is no man in all my land Dare my longing understand; The whole folk like a peasant bows Lest its look should meet my brows And be harmed by this beauty of mine.
I burn their brains as I were sign Of G.o.d"s beautiful anger sent To master them with punishment Of beauty that must pour distress On hearts grown dark with ugliness.
But it is I am the punisht one.
Is there no man, is there none, In whom my beauty will but move The l.u.s.t of a delighted love; In whom some spirit of G.o.d so thrives That we may wed our lonely lives?
Is there no man, is there none?"-- She said, "I will go to Solomon."
_Holofernes_.
I shall not bear it: dreamed, it hath made my life Fail almost, like a storm broken in heaven By its internal fire; and now I feel Love like a dreadful G.o.d coming to do His pleasure on me, to tear me with his joy And shred my flesh-wove strength with merciless Utterance through me of inhuman bliss.-- I must have more divinity within me.-- Come to me, slave! [_Calling out to his attendants_.
_Judith_.
Thou callest someone? Alas!
O, where"s my veil?--Cry him to stay awhile!--
_Holofernes_.
Thou troubled with such whimsy!--But "tis no one, A mere s.e.xless thing of mine.
_Judith_.
He is coming!
I threw my veil--where?--I must bow my face Close to the ground, or his eyes will find me out; And--O my lord, hold him back with thy voice!
[_She has knelt down_.
Hold him in doubt to enter a moment, while I loosen my hair into some manner of safety Against his prying.
_Holofernes_.
Slave, dost thou hear me? Come!-- I marvel, room for such a paltering mood Should be within thy mind, now so nearly Deified with the first sense of my love.
[_A Eunuch comes in_.
_Holofernes_.
Wine! The mightiest wine my sutlers have; Wine with the sun"s own grandeur in it, and all The wildness of the earth conceiving Spring From the sun"s golden l.u.s.t: wine for us twain!
And when thou hast brought it, burn anear my bed Storax and ca.s.sia; and let wealth be found To cover my bed with such strife of colour, Crimson and tawny and purple-inspired gold, That eyes beholding it may take therefrom Splendid imagination of the strife Of love with love"s implacable desire.
_Judith (still kneeling)_.
I must lean on thee now, my G.o.d! A weight Of pitiable weakness thou must bear And move as it were thine own strength; tell my heart How not to sicken in abomination, Show me the way to loathe this vile man"s rage, Now close to seize me into the use of his pleasure, With the loathing that is terrible delight.
So that not fainting, but refresht and astonisht And strangely spirited and divinely angry My body may arise out of its pa.s.sion, Out of being enjoyed by this fiend"s flesh.
Then man my arm; then let mine own revenge Utter thy vengeance, Lord, as speech doth meaning; Yea, with hate empower me to say bravely The glittering word that even now thy mind Purposes, G.o.d,--the swift stroke of a falchion!
_Holofernes_.
Woman, beloved, why art thou fixt so long Kneeling and downward crookt, and in thy hair Darkened?--Ah, thy shoulders urging shape Of loveliness into thy hair"s pouring gleam!
_Judith_.
Needs must I pray my Jewish G.o.d for help Against my bridal joys. For I do fear them.
_Holofernes_.
I also: these are the joys that fear doth own.
IV
_At the Gate of Bethulia. On the walls, on either side of the Gate, are citizens watching the a.s.syrian camp;_ OZIAS _also, standing by himself_.
_Ozias_.
When wilt thou cure thyself, spirit of the earth, When wilt thou cure thyself of thy long fever, That so insanely doth ferment in thee?-- "Tis not man only: the whole blood of life Is fever"d with desire. But as the brain, Being lord of the body, is served by blood So well that a hidden canker in the flesh May send, continuous as a usury, Its breeding venom upward, till in the brain It vapour into enormity of dreaming: So man is lord of life upon the earth; And like a hastening blood his nature wells Up out of the beasts below him, they the flesh And he the brain, they serving him with blood; And blood so loaden with brute l.u.s.t of being It steams the conscious leisure of man"s thought With an immense phantasma of desire, An unsubduable dream of unknown pleasure; Which he sends hungering forth into the world, But never satisfied returns to him.
Who hath found beauty? Who hath not desired it?
"Tis but the feverish spirit of earthly life Working deliriously in man, a dream Questing the world that throngs upon man"s mind To find therein an image of herself; And there is nothing answers her entreaty.-- I climb towards death: it is not falling down For me to die, but up the event of the world As up a mighty ridge I climb, and look With lifted vision backward down on life.
So high towards death I am gone, listless I gaze Where on the earth beneath me, into the fires Of that a.s.syrian strength, our siege of fate, Judith, the dream of my desire of beauty, Goes daring forth, to shape herself therein, Seeking to fashion in its turbulence Some deed that will be likeness of herself.
For now I know her purpose: and I know She will be murdered there. Against the world The beauty I have lived in, my loved dream, Goes, wild to master the world; and she will Therefore be murdered. It is nothing now; Wind from the heights of death is on my brow.
_Talk among the other watchers_.
It must be, G.o.d is for us. Such a mind As this of Judith"s could not be, unless G.o.d had spoken it into her. She is His special voice, to tell the a.s.syrians Terrible matters.
Is she G.o.d"s? I think "Tis Holofernes hath her now.
If not, Upon his soldiers he hath lavisht her.
Not he. Now they have known her, his filled senses Never will leave go our wonderful Judith.
Ay, wonderful in Jewry. But there are In Babylon women so beautiful, They make men"s spirits desperate, to know Flesh cannot ever minister enough Delight to ease the craving they are taskt with.
Who talks of Babylon when G.o.d even now Is training her fierce champion, Holofernes, Into the death a woman holds before him?
A woman killing Holofernes!
Ay; Be she abused by him or not, I know G.o.d means to give her marvellous hands to-night.
I know it by my heart so strangely sick With looking out for the first drowsy stir In that huge flaming quiet of the camp.
Now fearfuller qualm than famine eagerly Handles my life and pulls at it,--my faith"s Hunger for being fed with sounds and visions: The firelight mixt with a trooping bustle of shadows, The silence suddenly shouting with surprise, That tells of men astounded out of sleep To find that G.o.d hath dreadfully been among them.
We have mistaken Judith.
Even as now G.o.d is mistaken by your doubting hearts.
She that has dealt with such a pride of spirit In all her ways of life, so that she seemed To feel like shadow, falling on the light Her own mind made, the common thoughts of men; Ay, she that to-day came down into our woe And stood among the griefs that buzz upon us, Like one who is forced aside from a bright journey To stoop in a small-room"d cottage, where loud flies Pester the inmates and the windows darken; This she, this Judith, out of her quiet pride, And out of her guarded purity, to walk Where G.o.d himself from violent wh.o.r.edom could Scarcely preserve her shuddering flesh! and all For our sake, for the lives she hath in scorn, This horrible a.s.syrian risk she ventures.
There should be prayer for that. Let us ask G.o.d To bind the men, whose greed now glares upon her, In some strange feebleness; surely he will; Surely not with woman"s worst injury Her n.o.ble obedience he will reward!
Let us ask G.o.d to bind these men before her.
They are not his to bind: else, were they here?
They are the glorying of Nebuchadnezzar"s Heart of fury against our G.o.d, sent here Like insolent shouting into his holy quiet.
G.o.d could not bind these bragging noises up In Nebuchadnezzar"s heart; it is not his, But made by Babylonian G.o.ds or owned By thrones that hold the heavens over Nineveh.
For all these outland greatnesses, these kings Whose war goes pealing through the world, these towns Infidel and triumphant, reaching forth Armies to hug the world close to their l.u.s.t,-- What are they but the G.o.ds making a scorn Of our G.o.d on the earth? Then how can he Alter these men from wicked delight? or how Keep Judith all untoucht among their hands, When his own quietness he could not keep Unbroken by the G.o.d"s a.s.syrian insult?
But with a thunder he can shatter this Intruding noise, and make his quiet again.