Look, look! Unless my fancy misconceive With twilight--down among the rocks there, Fife--Some human dwelling, surely--
Or think you but a rock torn from the rocks In some convulsion like to-day's, and perch'd Quaintly among them in mock-masonry?
FIFE.
Most likely that, I doubt.
ROS.
No, no--for look!
A square of darkness opening in it--
FIFE.
Oh, I don't half like such openings!--
ROS.
Like the loom Of night from which she spins her outer gloom--FIFE.
Lord, Madam, pray forbear this tragic vein In such a time and place--ROS.
And now again Within that square of darkness, look! a light That feels its way with hesitating pulse, As we do, through the darkness that it drives To blacken into deeper night beyond.
FIFE.
In which could we follow that light's example, As might some English Bardolph with his nose, We might defy the sunset--Hark, a chain!
ROS.
And now a lamp, a lamp! And now the hand That carries it.
FIFE.
Oh, Lord! that dreadful chain!
ROS.
And now the bearer of the lamp; indeed As strange as any in Arabian tale, So giant-like, and terrible, and grand, Spite of the skin he's wrapt in.
FIFE.
Why, 'tis his own:
Oh, 'tis some wild man of the woods; I've heard They build and carry torches--ROS.
Never Ape Bore such a brow before the heavens as that--Chain'd as you say too!--
FIFE.
Oh, that dreadful chain!
ROS.
And now he sets the lamp down by his side, And with one hand clench'd in his tangled hair And with a sigh as if his heart would break--(During this Segismund has entered from the fortress, with a torch.)SEGISMUND.
Once more the storm has roar'd itself away, Splitting the crags of God as it retires;But sparing still what it should only blast, This guilty piece of human handiwork, And all that are within it.Oh, how oft, How oft, within or here abroad, have IWaited, and in the whisper of my heart Pray'd for the slanting hand of heaven to strike The blow myself I dared not, out of fear Of that Hereafter, worse, they say, than here, Plunged headlong in, but, till dismissal waited, To wipe at last all sorrow from men's eyes, And make this heavy dispensation clear.
Thus have I borne till now, and still endure, Crouching in sullen impotence day by day, Till some such out-burst of the elements Like this rouses the sleeping fire within;And standing thus upon the threshold of Another night about to close the door Upon one wretched day to open it On one yet wretcheder because one more;--Once more, you savage heavens, I ask of you--I, looking up to those relentless eyes That, now the greater lamp is gone below, Begin to muster in the listening skies;In all the shining circuits you have gone About this theatre of human woe, What greater sorrow have you gazed upon Than down this narrow chink you witness still;And which, did you yourselves not fore-devise, You registered for others to fulfil!
FIFE.
This is some Laureate at a birthday ode;
No wonder we went rhyming.
ROS.
Hush! And now See, starting to his feet, he strides about Far as his tether'd steps--SEG.
And if the chain You help'd to rivet round me did contract Since guiltless infancy from guilt in act;Of what in aspiration or in thought Guilty, but in resentment of the wrong That wreaks revenge on wrong I never wrought By excommunication from the free Inheritance that all created life, Beside myself, is born to--from the wings That range your own immeasurable blue, Down to the poor, mute, scale-imprison'd things, That yet are free to wander, glide, and pass About that under-sapphire, whereinto Yourselves transfusing you yourselves englass!
ROS.
What mystery is this?
FIFE.
Why, the man's mad:
That's all the mystery.That's why he's chain'd--And why--
SEG.
Nor Nature's guiltless life alone--
But that which lives on blood and rapine; nay, Charter'd with larger liberty to slay Their guiltless kind, the tyrants of the air Soar zenith-upward with their screaming prey, Making pure heaven drop blood upon the stage Of under earth, where lion, wolf, and bear, And they that on their treacherous velvet wear Figure and constellation like your own, With their still living slaughter bound away Over the barriers of the mountain cage, Against which one, blood-guiltless, and endued With aspiration and with aptitude Transcending other creatures, day by day Beats himself mad with unavailing rage!
FIFE.
Why, that must be the meaning of my mule's Rebellion--ROS.
Hush!
SEG.
But then if murder be The law by which not only conscience-blind Creatures, but man too prospers with his kind;Who leaving all his guilty fellows free, Under your fatal auspice and divine Compulsion, leagued in some mysterious ban Against one innocent and helpless man, Abuse their liberty to murder mine:
And sworn to silence, like their masters mute In heaven, and like them twirling through the mask Of darkness, answering to all I ask, Point up to them whose work they execute!
ROS.
Ev'n as I thought, some poor unhappy wretch, By man wrong'd, wretched, unrevenged, as I!
Nay, so much worse than I, as by those chains Clipt of the means of self-revenge on those Who lay on him what they deserve.And I, Who taunted Heaven a little while ago With pouring all its wrath upon my head--Alas! like him who caught the cast-off husk Of what another bragg'd of feeding on, Here's one that from the refuse of my sorrows Could gather all the banquet he desires!
Poor soul, poor soul!
FIFE.
Speak lower--he will hear you.
ROS.
And if he should, what then? Why, if he would, He could not harm me--Nay, and if he could, Methinks I'd venture something of a life I care so little for--SEG.
Who's that? Clotaldo? Who are you, I say, That, venturing in these forbidden rocks, Have lighted on my miserable life, And your own death?
ROS.
You would not hurt me, surely?
SEG.
Not I; but those that, iron as the chain In which they slay me with a lingering death, Will slay you with a sudden--Who are you?
ROS.
