W. You came by Caerwys, sir?
T. I came by Caerwys.
W. There Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.
T. Your uncle met the messenger--met me; and this the message: Lord Beuno comes to-night.
W. To-night, sir!
T. Soon, now: therefore Have all things ready in his room.
W. There needs but little doing.
T. Let what there needs be done. Stay! with him one com- panion, His deacon, Dirvan Warm: twice over must the welcome be, But both will share one cell. This was good news, Gwenvrewi.
W. Ah yes!
T. Why, get thee gone then; tell thy mother I want her.
_Exit Winefred._ No man has such a daughter. The fathers of the world Call no such maiden "mine". The deeper grows her dearness And more and more times laces round and round my heart, The more some monstrous hand gropes with clammy fingers there, Tampering with those sweet bines, draws them out, strains them, strains them; Meantime some tongue cries "What, Teryth! what, thou poor fond father!
How when this bloom, this honeysuckle, that rides the air so rich about thee, Is all, all sheared away, thus!" Then I sweat for fear.
Or else a funeral, and yet "tis not a funeral, Some pageant which takes tears and I must foot with feeling that Alive or dead my girl is carried in it, endlessly Goes marching thro" my mind. What sense is this? It has none.
This is too much the father; nay the mother. Fanciful!
I here forbid my thoughts to fool themselves with fears.
_Enter Gwenlo._
Act II.--_Scene, a wood ending in a steep bank over a dry dene, Winefred having been murdered within. Re-enter Caradoc with a b.l.o.o.d.y sword._
C. My heart, where have we been? What have we seen, my mind?
What stroke has Caradoc"s right arm dealt? what done?
Head of a rebel Struck off it has; written upon lovely limbs, In b.l.o.o.d.y letters, lessons of earnest, of revenge; Monuments of my earnest, records of my revenge, On one that went against me whereas I had warned her-- Warned her! well she knew. I warned her of this work.
What work? what harm "s done? There is no harm done, none yet; Perhaps we struck no blow, Gwenvrewi lives perhaps; To makebelieve my mood was--mock. I might think so But here, here is a workman from his day"s task sweats.
Wiped I am sure this was; it seems not well; for still, Still the scarlet swings and dances on the blade.
So be it. Thou steel, thou butcher, I can scour thee, fresh burnish thee, sheathe thee in thy dark lair; these drops Never, never, never in their blue banks again.
The woeful, Cradock, the woeful word! Then what, What have we seen? Her head, sheared from her shoulders, fall, And lapped in shining hair, roll to the bank"s edge; then Down the beetling banks, like water in waterfalls, It stooped and flashed and fell and ran like water away.
Her eyes, oh and her eyes!
In all her beauty, and sunlight to it is a pit, den, darkness, Foam-falling is not fresh to it, rainbow by it not beaming, In all her body, I say, no place was like her eyes, No piece matched those eyes kept most part much cast down But, being lifted, immortal, of immortal brightness.
Several times I saw them, thrice or four times turning; Round and round they came and flashed towards heaven: O there, There they did appeal. Therefore airy vengeances Are afoot; heaven-vault fast purpling portends, and what first lightning Any instant falls means me. And I do not repent; I do not and I will not repent, not repent.
The blame bear who aroused me. What I have done violent I have like a lion done, lionlike done, Honouring an uncontrolled royal wrathful nature, Mantling pa.s.sion in a grandeur, crimson grandeur.
Now be my pride then perfect, all one piece. Henceforth In a wide world of defiance Caradoc lives alone, Loyal to his own soul, laying his own law down, no law nor Lord now curb him for ever. O daring! O deep insight!
What is virtue? Valour; only the heart valiant.
And right? Only resolution; will, his will unwavering Who, like me, knowing his nature to the heart home, nature"s business, Despatches with no flinching. But will flesh, O can flesh Second this fiery strain? Not always; O no no!
We cannot live this life out; sometimes we must weary And in this darksome world what comfort can I find?
Down this darksome world comfort where can I find When "ts light I quenched; its rose, time"s one rich rose, my hand, By her bloom, fast by her fresh, her fleeced bloom, Hideous dashed down, leaving earth a winter withering With no now, no Gwenvrewi. I must miss her most That might have spared her were it but for pa.s.sion-sake. Yes, To hunger and not have, yet hope on for, to storm and strive and Be at every a.s.sault fresh foiled, worse flung, deeper dis- appointed, The turmoil and the torment, it has, I swear, a sweetness, Keeps a kind of joy in it, a zest, an edge, an ecstasy, Next after sweet success. I am not left even this; I all my being have hacked in half with her neck: one part, Reason, selfdisposal, choice of better or worse way, Is corpse now, cannot change; my other self, this soul, Life"s quick, this kind, this keen self-feeling, With dreadful distillation of thoughts sour as blood, Must all day long taste murder. What do now then?
Do? Nay, Deed-bound I am; one deed treads all down here cramps all doing. What do? Not yield, Not hope, not pray; despair; ay, that: brazen despair out, Brave all, and take what comes--as here this rabble is come, Whose bloods I reck no more of, no more rank with hers Than sewers with sacred oils. Mankind, that mobs, comes.
Come!
_Enter a crowd, among them Teryth, Gwenlo, Beuno._
_After Winefred"s raising from the dead and the breaking out of the fountain._
BEUNO. O now while skies are blue, now while seas are salt, While rushy rains shall fall or brooks shall fleet from fountains, While sick men shall cast sighs, of sweet health all despairing.
While blind men"s eyes shall thirst after daylight, draughts of daylight, Or deaf ears shall desire that lipmusic that"s lost upon them, While cripples are, while lepers, dancers in dismal limb- dance, Fallers in dreadful frothpits, waterfearers wild, Stone, palsy, cancer, cough, lung wasting, womb not bearing, Rupture, running sores, what more? in brief, in burden, As long as men are mortal and G.o.d merciful, So long to this sweet spot, this leafy lean-over, This Dry Dene, now no longer dry nor dumb, but moist and musical With the uproll and the downcarol of day and night delivering Water, which keeps thy name, (for not in rock written, But in pale water, frail water, wild rash and reeling water, That will not wear a print, that will not stain a pen, Thy venerable record, virgin, is recorded).
Here to this holy well shall pilgrimages be, And not from purple Wales only nor from elmy England, But from beyond seas, Erin, France and Flanders, every- where, Pilgrims, still pilgrims, more pilgrims, still more poor pilgrims.
What sights shall be when some that swung, wretches, on crutches Their crutches shall cast from them, on heels of air departing, Or they go rich as roseleaves hence that loathsome came hither!
Not now to name even Those dearer, more divine boons whose haven the heart is.
As sure as what is most sure, sure as that spring primroses Shall new-dapple next year, sure as to-morrow morning, Amongst come-back-again things, things with a revival, things with a recovery, Thy name . . .
_59_
WHAT shall I do for the land that bred me, Her homes and fields that folded and fed me?-- Be under her banner and live for her honour: Under her banner I"ll live for her honour.
CHORUS. Under her banner live for her honour.
Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder, But country and flag, the flag I am under-- There is the shilling that finds me willing To follow a banner and fight for honour.
CH. We follow her banner, we fight for her honour.
Call me England"s fame"s fond lover, Her fame to keep, her fame to recover.
Spend me or end me what G.o.d shall send me, But under her banner I live for her honour.
CH. Under her banner we march for her honour.
Where is the field I must play the man on?
O welcome there their steel or cannon.
Immortal beauty is death with duty, If under her banner I fall for her honour.
CH. Under her banner we fall for her honour.
_60_
THE times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone: They waste, they wither worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man"s distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success: All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one-- Work which to see scarce so much as begun Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.
Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal . . .
_61 Cheery Beggar_
BEYOND Magdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called there the Plain, In Summer, in a burst of summertime Following falls and falls of rain, When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime; . . . . . . . .