_3rd Woman_.
What glory can her wondrous eyes behold?
_4th Woman_.
Seemeth her flesh to glow! and her throat pants As one who feels a G.o.d within her, come Out of his heaven to enjoy her.
_2nd Woman_.
Ay, Now it is true, the Queen is beautiful; She could, so looking, enrage love in one Whose blood a hundred years had frozen dry.
_1st Woman_.
Ah, but I fear thee, Queen: this dreadful mood Will break the pleasantness of friendship thou Hast kept for me, as a ship in a gale is broken.
_Vashti_.
Ay, very like: and the event will rouse Such work in the water where your comfort sails, More than my fortune will to pieces blow; You too I think will get some perilous tossing From what proves my destruction.
_2nd Woman_.
And, so knowing, For mere insane delight in violent things, Wilt thou awake in the fickle mood of men Again that ancient ignominy which once, Till beauty freed them, loaded the souls of women?
_3rd Woman_.
Truly, long time will work what now thou doest.
_Vashti_.
I know not rightly what I here begin; No more than one, who stands in midst of wind On a tall mountain, knows what breaking down The earth must have ere the wind"s speed is done, And it hath drawn out of the drenched soil The clinging vapours, and made bright the air.
_2nd Woman_.
But we"ll not have thee disobedient.
The King"s mind is a summer over us; Thou with a storm wilt fill him, and the hail That shatters thee will leave us bruised and weeping.
_Vashti_.
Be sulky in his arms: the weather soon Will pleasantly favour thee again.
_4th Woman_.
No, no; Not because from our heaven of man"s mind Thou wilt bring down on us a rain of scorn, But because thou art wicked, thou must go And tell the King the wine was rash in thee.
_Vashti_.
I must!
_3rd Woman_.
Thou must indeed: words such as thine Never were impudent in men"s ears before.
_2nd Woman_.
We will not have thee disobedient.
_1st Woman_.
Here comes another: gentle words, my Queen, Let him take from thee now, and swiftly follow Contrite, and let the beauty of thy grief Bend pleading against the King"s furious eyes.
[_The_ POET _comes in, and kneels_.
_Poet_.
I will not ask thee what strange anger sent That blaze of proud contempt in the King"s face: But ere the voice of the King seals up thy life In an unalterable judgment, I Am granted now to come as his last message: And, as I will, to speak. Here then I am Not as commanding, but on my knees beseeching, And for myself beseeching.
_Vashti_.
What hast thou To do with this? and wherefore wert thou chosen?
_Poet_.
I was to praise the splendour of the King; And I made thee his splendour; and the King, Knowing my truth, would have thee brought, to break All the pride of his under-kings, already Desperate with his riches, and now seeing What marvellous fortune also hath his love, How marvellously delighted.
_Vashti_.
Get thee back: And tell the King "tis time his judgment fell.
_Poet_.
Not till thou hearest me.
_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 l.u.s.t!-- 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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_.