Festus · Scene 20 (2/2) (1/5)
Helen I cannot live away from thee. How can A flower live without its root?
Festus I, too, Must love or die.
Helen But I must have. Attend! I am to say and do just as I please; I may command thee, may I? that I will.
Festus I love to be enslaved. Oh! I would rather Obey thee, beauty! than rule men by millions.
Helen Near, as afar, I will have love the same⁠— With a bright sameness, like this diamond, Which, wherever the light be, shines like bright. And thou shalt say all sorts of pretty things To me; mind, to me only: write love-songs About me, and I will sing them to myself; Perhaps to thee, sometime, as it were now, If I should happen to be very kind.
Festus Sing now!
Helen No!
Festus Tyrant! I will banish thee.
Helen Nay, if to sing and play would please thee, I Would die to music. It was very wrong To say I would deny thee anything; But be not angry with me: for though God Forgave me, I could ne’er forgive myself, If I brought sorrow to thee, could I love?
Festus As thou art empress of my bosom, No!
Helen Nought fear I but an unkind word from thee. Dark death may frighten children, Hell the wretch Who feels that he deserves it; but for me, I know I cannot do nor say aught worthy Of the pure pain a frown of thine can cause, Or a cold, careless look. No! never frown. If I do wrong, forgive me, or I die; And thou wilt then be wretcheder than I;⁠— The unforgiving than the unforgiven.
Festus I do absolve thee, beauty, of all faults, Past, present, or to come.
Helen Well, that will do. What was I saying? I love this instrument, It speaks, it thinks⁠—nay, I could kiss it: look! There are three things I love half killingly;⁠— Thee lastly, and this next, and myself first.
Festus Thou art a silly, tiresome thing, and yet I never weary of thee; but could gaze, Sick with excess and not satiety, Upon thy countenance, with the serious joy With which we eye and eye the unbounded space Which is the visible attribute of God, Who makes all things within Himself; and thus It is the Heaven we hope for, and can find No point from which to take its altitude; For the Infinite, is upwards, and above The highest thing created⁠—upwards aye: So I could, thinking on thy face, believe An infinite expression, heightening still The longer that I thought, and leaving thee, Coming to thee, or being with thee⁠—love!
Helen I am so happy when with thee.
Festus And I. They tell us virtue lies in self-denial. My virtue is indulgence. I was born To gratify myself unboundedly, So that I wronged none else. These arms were given me To clasp the beautiful, and cleave the wave; These limbs to leap and wander where I will; These eyes to look on every thing without Effort; these ears to list my loved one’s voice; These lips to be divinised by her kiss: And every sense, pulse, passion, power, to be Swoln into sunny ripeness.
Helen Virtue is one With nature, or ’tis nothing: it is love.
Festus I come fresh from thee every time we meet, Steeped in the still sweet dew of thy soft beauty, Like earth at day-dawn, lifting up her head Out of her sleep, star-watched, to face the sun⁠— So I, to front the world, on leaving thee. Oh! there is inspiration in thy look; Poesie, prophecy. Come hither, love; The evening air is sweet.
Helen It comes on us Fresher and clearer through these dewy vine-leaves, Fit for the forehead of the young wine-god.
Festus A large, red egg, of light the moon lies like On the dark moor-hill and now, rising slow, Beams on the clear flood, smilingly intent, Like a fair face, which loves to look on itself, Saying;⁠—“There is no wonder that men love me, For I am beautiful!”⁠—as I heard thee.
Helen It was not right to overhear me that.
Festus ’Twas very wrong to do what I could not help; But vanity speaks out.
Helen Well, I don’t mind; I never knew that I was as I am Till others told me.
Festus Now were soon enough.
Helen Ah, nothing comes to us too soon but sorrow.
Festus For all were happiness, if all might live Long, or die soon, enough: for even us.
Helen Dost not remember, when, the other eve, Thy friend the student called, there was a tale Upon thy tongue he interrupted?
Festus Was there?⁠—
Helen A tale out of the poets, about love, And happiness and sorrow, and such things.
Festus But I forget such things when thou art by. Besides, I asked him here again, to-night, Here, at this hour; and he is punctual.
Helen In truth, then, I despair of hearing it. He keeps his word relentlessly. With not More pride an Indian shows his foeman’s scalp Than he his watch for punctuality.
Festus But tales of love are far more readily Made than remembered.
Helen Tell-tale, make one, then.
Festus Love is the art of hearts and heart of arts. Conjunctive looks and interjectional sighs Are its vocabulary’s greater half. Well then, my story says, there was a pair Of Lovers, once⁠—
Helen Once! nay, how singular!
Festus But where they lived indeed I quite forget;⁠— Say anywhere⁠—say here: their names were⁠—I Forget those, too; say any one’s, say ours.
Helen Most probable, most pertinent, so far!
Festus The lady was, of course, most beautiful, And made her lover do just as she pleased; And consequently, he did very wrong. They met, sang, walked, talked folly, just as all Such couples do, adored each other; thought, Spoke, wrote, dreamed of and for nought on earth Except themselves; and so on.
Helen Pray proceed!⁠—
Festus That’s all;
Helen Oh, no!
Festus Well, thus the tale ends; stay! No, I cannot remember nor invent.
Helen Do think!
Festus I can’t.
Helen Oh then, I don’t like that: ’Tis not in earnest.
Festus Well, in earnest, then. She did but look upon him, and his blood Blushed deeper even from his inmost heart; For at each glance of those sweet eyes a soul Looked forth as from the azure gates of Heaven; She laid her finger on him, and he felt As might a formless mass of marble feel While feature after feature of a god Were being wrought from out of it. She spake, And his love-wildered and idolatrous soul Clung to the airy music of her words, Like a bird on a bough, high swaying in the wind. He looked upon her beauty and forgot, As in a sense of drowning, all things else; And right and wrong seemed one, seemed nothing she Was beauty, and that beauty everything. He looked upon her as the sun on earth: Until, like him, he gazed himself away From Heaven so doing till he even wept⁠— Wept on her bosom as a storm-charged cloud Weeps itself out upon a hill, and cried⁠— I, too, could look on thee until I wept⁠— Blind me with kisses! let me look no longer; Or change the action of thy loveliness, Lest long same-seemingness should send me mad!⁠— Blind me with kisses; I would ruin sight To give its virtue to thy lips, whereon I would die now, or ever live; and she, Soft as a feather-footed cloud on Heaven, While her sad face grew bright like night with stars, Would turn her brow to his and both be happy;⁠— Numbered among the constellations they!⁠— Then as tired wanderer, snow-blinded, sinks And swoons upon the swelling drift, and dies, So on her dazzling bosom would he lay His famished lips, and end their travels there. Oh, happy they! not he would go to Heaven, Not, though he might that moment.
Helen Nor I now.
Festus Helen, my love!
Helen Yes, I am here.
Festus It has Been such a day as that, thou knowest, when first I said I loved thee; that long, sunny day We passed upon the waters⁠—heeding nought, Seeing nought but each other.
Helen I remember. The only wise thing that I ever did⁠— The only good, was to love thee, and therefore I would have no one else as wise as I, Didst thou not say that student would be here?
Festus I think I hear him every minute come.
Helen It is not kind. We should be more alone. There was a time thou wouldst have no one else.
Festus Am I not with thee all day?
Helen Yes, I know; But often and often thou art thinking not Of me.
Festus My good child!⁠—
Helen Well, I know thou lovest me; And so I cannot bear thee to think, speak, Or be with any but me.
Festus Then I will not.
Helen Oh, thou wouldst promise me the clock round. Now, Promise me this⁠—that I shall never die, And I’ll believe thee when I am dead⁠—not till. But let it pass. I am at peace with thee; And pardon thee, and give thee leave to live.
Festus Magnanimous!
Helen When earth, and Heaven, and all Things seem so bright and lovely for our sakes, It is a sin not to be happy. See, The moon is up, it is the dawn of night. Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star⁠— Star of her heart, and heir to all her light, Whereon she looks so proudly mild and calm, As though she were the mother of that star, And knew he was a chief sun in his sphere, But by her side, in the great strife of lights To shine to God, he had filially failed, And hid his arrows and his bow of beams. Mother of stars! the Heavens look up to thee. They shine the brighter but to hide thy waning; They wait and wane for thee to enlarge thy beauty; They give thee all their glory night by night; Their number makes not less thy loneliness Nor loveliness.
Festus Heaven’s beauty grows on us; And when the elder worlds have ta’en their seats, Come the divine ones, gathering one by one, And family by family, with still And holy air, into the house of God⁠— The house of light He hath builded for Himself, And worship Him in silence and in sadness, Immortal and immovable. And there, Night after night, they meet to worship God. For us this witness of the worlds is given, That we may add ourselves to their great glory, And worship with them. They are there for lights To light us on our way through Heaven to God; And we, too, have the power of light in us. Ye stars, how bright ye shine, to night; mayhap Ye are the resurrection of the worlds⁠— Glorified globes of light! Shall ours be like ye? Nay, but it is! this wild, dark earth of ours, Whose face is furrowed like a losing gamester’s, Is shining round, and bright, and smooth in air, Millions of miles off. Not a single path Of thought I tread, but that it leads to God. And when her time is out, and earth again Hath travailed with the divine dust of man, Then the world’s womb shall open, and her sons Be born again, all glorified immortals. And she, their mother, purified by fire, Shall sit her down in Heaven, a bride of God, And handmaid of the Everbeing One. Our earth is learning all accomplishments To fit her for her bridehood.
Helen He is here.
Festus Welcome.
Student I thought the night was beautiful, But find the in-door scene still lovelier.
Helen Ah! all is beautiful where beauty is.
Student Night hath made many bards; she is so lovely. For it is beauty maketh poesie, As from the dancing eye comes tears of light. Night bath made many bards; she is so lovely. And they have praised her to her starry face So long, that she hath blushed and left them, often. When first and last we met, we talked on studies; Poetry only I confess is mine, And is the only thing I think or read of:⁠— Feeding my soul upon the soft, and sweet, And delicate imaginings of song; For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light Of nature and of beauty; they love light.
Festus Bat poetry is not confined to books. For the creative spirit which thou seekest Is in thee, and about thee; yea, it hath God’s everywhereness.
Student Truly. It was for this I sought to know thy thoughts, and hear the course Thou wouldst lay out for one who longs to win A name among the nations.
Festus First of all, Care not about the name, but bind thyself, Body and soul, to nature, hiddenly. Lo, the great march of stars from earth to earth, Through Heaven. The earth speaks inwardly alone. Let no man know thy business, save some friend⁠— A man of mind, above the run of men; For it is with, all men and with all things. The bard must have a kind, courageous heart, And natural chivalry to aid the weak. He must believe the best of everything; Love all below, and worship all above. All animals are living hieroglyphs. The dashing dog, and stealthy-stepping cat, Hawk, bull, and all that breathe, mean something more To the true eye than their shapes show; for all Were made in love, and made to be beloved. Thus must he think as to earth’s lower life, Who seeks to win the world to thought and love, As doth the bard, whose habit is all kindness To every thing.
Helen I love to hear of such. Could we but think with the intensity We love with, we might do great things, I think.
Festus Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life But needs it and may learn; eye-reasoning man, And spirit unassisted, unobscured.
Student Go on, I pray. I came to be informed. Thou knowest my ambition, and I joy To feel thou feedest it with purest food.
Festus I cannot tell thee all I feel; and know But little save myself, and am not ashamed To say, that I have studied my own life, And know it is like to a tear-blistered letter, Which holdeth fruit and proof of deeper feeling Than the poor pen can utter, or the eye Discover; and that often my heart’s thoughts Will rise and shake my breast as madmen shake The stanchions of their dungeons, and howl out.
Helen But thou wast telling us of poesie, And the kind nature-hearted bards.
Festus I was. I knew one once⁠—he was a friend of mine; I knew him well; his mind, habits, and works, Taste, temper, temperament, and every thing; Yet with as kind a heart as ever beat, He was no sooner made than marred. Though young, He wrote amid the ruins of his heart; They were his throne and theme;⁠—like some lone king, Who tells the story of the land he lost, And how he lost it.
Student Tell us more of him.
Helen Nay, but it saddens thee.