Olive Tilford Dargan

“ Vasil. Then I will. O, it is glorious to dream and know why! To sing and know to whom the song belongs!
Soph. My boy, make your country your goddess, not a woman.
Vasil. My country! What is it? The thing that raised a knout above my shoulders?
Soph. My dear Vasil——
Vasil. Adrian is right. I must find that which is not country, nor home, nor people,—the eternal in the hour.
Soph. But Adrian cares for country, home, people.
Vasil. No. He cares only for the soul. These other things are shadow boundaries in the mind that vanish when the soul looks on them. Here, I'll show you how little he cares. ”

“ May his age climb as the hills, always nearer the sky!
So Siu
Indeed, you would be sitting alone in a cloud of sighs, not fast wedded to the bringer of dawn, Yu Tai Shun, if Prince Ching had not won his way to your brothers, the mighty princes, Wong Li and Wong Sen.
Wong Fe
I kiss his honorable dust! He shall live with my ancestors! And Makuro, the young Japanese, I shall love him too, for he is most dear to Yu Tai Shun. Do they still sit in the orchard?
So Siu
They have not moved, nor paused in their talking. Do you not hear? Like bees that cannot choose their flower. ”

“ Or bounteous heart that knows not woe,
Put on the robe of sighs, and fain
Would hold in love's surmise a neighbour's pain.
Ah, I have wronged thee, sprite!
So tender now thy song in flight,
So sweet its lingerings are,
It seems the liquid memory
Of time when thou didst try
Thy gleaning wing through human years,
[11] And met, ay, knew the sigh
Of men who pray, the tears
That hide the woman's star,
The brave ascending fire
That is youth's beacon and too soon his pyre,—
Yea, all our striving, bateless and unseeing,
That builds each day our Heaven new. ”

“ O, for your own dear life, Semiramis,
Let Ninus know not I am Artavan!
Sem. He dare not touch me, for the army ’s mine!
(Goes into Ninus’ chamber)
Sol. My love!
Art. ’Tis welcome and farewell, my Sola!
Sol. O, she will save thee!
Art. Teach me not to hope.
(A band of dancing maidens enter, left, and sing a bridal chorus before the doors of Ninus’ chamber)
Love and Beauty now are one,
No more wandering away! Love ’s the sky to Beauty’s sun,
From him she can not stray. And he is bright by her fair light or none!
Love and Beauty dreaming lie,
Who shall say it is not meet? ”

“ Speak, Ardia.
Ard. In Suli castle where I was betrothed
To Bertrand, just one sun agone—but one—
He spent the night with me.
Vig. She lies!
Ard. Say now
If Banissat, or any lord save Bertrand,
Will make me wife.
Bion. Must I believe you?
Ban. No.
A woman's trick.
Ard. There's proof. Ask whom you will
Of Oswald's train—the lords who saw me cast
From Suli's door, too vile for word or touch.
Ask any trooper, jesting by the way,
And hear my name made foul. The army rings
With it. Ask any gossip of the tents——
Ban. O, stop her tongue! It thunders on me! All
The air is storm! ”

“ Poe. Sister! Thank Heaven she is not my sister! Aunt, Virginia must be my wife!
Mrs. C. (Bewildered) Are you mad, Edgar?
Poe. No. Sane at last. I have been mad until now. I have drunk loneliness and death. Here I breathe, grateful, glad as a flower! My breast swells and falls as a bird’s throat with happy song! O, aunt, help me to accept this fair new life—the only real life! Do not drive me back to gloom and the devils! Give me your Virginia!
Mrs. C. A child, Edgar! A child!
Poe. To you—only to you. She has her full dower of beauty—womanhood’s portion. ”

“ Now, Aratea, the song of praise! Which of the gods is he most like?
Ara. Like none of them. Jove is long-bearded, Neptune has forgot to walk, Mercury is boyish, Apollo like a woman, and Mars so heavy-footed he would stumble mocking the grace of Aristocles!
Nau. 'Tis plain a curious eye will never take you to Olympus, since you've seen the Athenian.
Ara. I own I have a sudden comfort from this gentle sage.
Nau. What is it?
[220]
Ara. You know my Dion has one only fault.
Nau. O, all but perfect man!
Ara. He is so true that he is stern as truth. ”

“ Slowly the boughs disappear and the leaves reach out
Like the drowning hands of children,
Till a grey blur quivers cold
Where the green grace drank of the sun.
So now, as I gaze, the morrows
Creep weaving and winding their mist
Round the beauty of her who sings.
They hide the soft rings of her hair,
Dear as a child's curling fingers;
They shut out the trembling sun of eyes
That are deep as a bending mother's;
And her bridal body is scarfed with their chill.
For old and old is the story;
Over and over I listen to murmurs
That are always the same in these towns that sleep ”

“ This crown—no more. (Takes crown from Khosrove’s hand) You pause. Stand not, my son.
Thy vengeance waits. Do what thou wilt with her,
We ’ll question not.
(Khosrove strikes off the chains of Semiramis)
Khos. Go free to Nineveh.
(Husak stands in amazed silence, then understands and burns with speechless anger. At last he speaks slowly with intense wrath)
Hus. All madmen in my kingdom die! Bind him!
(Guards bind Khosrove)
Sem. Die? No! O, sir, you would not slay your son?
Hus. This loathsome thing is not my flesh!
Sem. Thy son!
Hus. We have no son. Armenia has no heir. ”

“ Wong Fe
They listen for the boat that will stop at the foot of the orchard. Why do they go? Old friends should not be so brief in greeting. Could they not stay one night?
Shun
No—no. (Sits down.) They must go.
Wong Fe (laying her hand on his shoulder)
What voice dost thou hear, and wilt not answer?
Shun
Nothing—nothing.
Wong Fe
You will not long be deaf between the beating of our two hearts. You will hear and go. That is why I long for the death-fairy to come in my hour of happiness. You have joined with strong men to lift a heavy yoke from the world. ”

“ Wilt fare with me, brave Helen? Wilt tread the nadir gloom and golden paths of suns? Canst gaze with me into the fearful, grey infinitude—
Hel. That grey infinitude is yet the circle of your being. The mind can not leave itself. You are always in your own country. Why should you fear?
Poe. The mind that can not leave itself knows nothing. Not the ‘I am’ but ‘Thou art’ is God. O, there is a realm of which imagination is but a shadow—where the mind is burnt away in His vision’s fire, and thought becomes celestial angel of itself! ”

“ BALLAD
When I with Death have gone on quest,
And grief is mellowed in your breast;
When you do nothing fret
If jest come gently in with tea,
And Purr is stroked for want of me;
When thought robust bestirs your mind,
And with a candid start you find
The world must move
To living love
And you forthright on travel set;
I do not ask you strive to keep
Awake the woe that winks for sleep,
Or swell the lessening tear;
I do not ask; dear to me still
May be the eyes regret would fill;
[32] And, sooth, in vain I'd Nature sue
To go a little out for you ”

“ You love me, Aratea.
Ara. Fare you well.
Aris. [Against the curtains] First say thou lovest me!
Dost thou not hear
A voice at night when calm Eirene leads
Sleep to all eyes but thine?
Ara. Have mercy, sir!
Aris. What leap of soul or dream of sense hast thou
That is not sweeter for you hold me dear?
When Theia's daughter, priestess gray, unhoods
Her morning face, and all her clouds of rose
With flying petals light the waking world,
Does not your ecstasy swim on the flood
Of my remembered eyes, and their delight
Re-jewel beauty's diadem?
Ara. I beg——
Aris. ”

“ Or wert all hers who made gray Corinth young,
The love that feeds behind a sheltered door
Must be unroofed and take its bread of stars
Ere it may answer to its holy name.
The heart must build no walls——
Ard. I build them not,
But find them risen about me. You are here,
Guardful and best, fending my eyes,—there stands
My Biondel,—there Vigard brave,—and there....
Char. And there, my daughter?
Ard. Hark! 'Tis Vairdelan's voice!
[Singing heard below]
O fires that build upon the sea Till wave and foam of ye are part, And burn in mated ecstasy, Ye build again within my heart. ”

“ Why do you speak of death, Wong Fe?
Wong Fe
Because I am so happy. The sages say that we can have no fairer fortune than to die in our happiest moment.
Shun
Do not speak of death. The word blisters the air, though your lips be as two drops of June rain.
Wong Fe
But how sweet to die when I am fairest in your eyes! Every year, at this time, you would walk down the peach-flower lanes and recall the glow of my cheek. Oh, Heaven, let me not be a faded wife in the blooming time of the year! ”

“ My dear Edgar! You will be my son—Virginia’s brother!
Poe. (Lifting his face smiling) I will be happy! No more of that solitude lighted only by the eyes of ghouls! Here I have come into the light. I have found the sun. I see what my work should be—what Art is. She is beauty and joy. Her light should fall on life like morning on the hills. The clouds of passion and agony should never darken her face. O, I can paint her now ready for the embrace of the soul!
Mrs. C. I can not see things with your rapturous eyes, Edgar, but I know that your work will be noble, and I love you. ”

“ Now, woman, learn that Husak—ay, Husak, the Fierce, can pity fallen glory!
Stand forth, my son! Look, captive, on this prince!
A man not made to sue to less than gods!
Make him thy husband-king, and from his hands
Receive thy purple and remount thy throne!
(All are astonished. Khosrove shrinks back in shame, which Semiramis misunderstands)
Sem. Methinks this lover makes no ardent suit,
King Husak! ”

“ I look through the leaf-blowzed window,
And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,
Sees life sitting hopeful within.
She is young, but a woman, round-breasted,
Waiting the peril of Eve;
And she makes the shadows about her sweet
As the glooms that play in a pine-wood.
She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are) ,
And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notes
Like a hidden brook in a forest
Seeking and seeking the sun.
I have watched a young tree on the edge of a wood
When the mist is weaving and drifting. ”

“ Adrian Lavrov, this is your call to war. If you respond, his life is well lost.
Adr. War? [Staggers up] Yes. And I will use the strongest of earthly weapons, the arms of peace. The powers that upbuild are as invincible as the universe. By them it stands. Only by their toleration do the forces of destruction live. Toleration? Only by the support of the powers of peace do the powers that destroy exist. Is not the army of the Czar fed by us, clothed by us, paid by us? And if we refuse to give, must it not beg of us? If he who works not shall not eat, what is the doom of the destroyer? ”

“ And weary spirit turns from waste to waste,
Know lips that he may touch and touching kiss
The fallow world to harvest. Thus, and thus!
[Hudibrand, forgotten by the lovers, has fought through another moment of agony, and advances, taking hold of Hernda]
Hud. Are you my daughter?
Her. I am, but I've known hours
When shame, a cleansing fire, searched through my blood
For any drop that owned you father.
Hud. In!
Go in! [To Chartrien] And you—I'll rid the earth of you,
And take its thanks! [Staggers with a return of pain]
Her. [Her arms about him] O, father, let us help! ”

“ The growing light reveals an orchard of old apple-trees near at hand in full bloom, with petals falling, and hills and mountains lifting and towering upward higher and higher into the blue distance. A path leads from the orchard up the near hills and toward the heights. The music has grown louder, and is sweet and tender, interspersed with bird notes. A number of children, girls and boys, come out and sing and dance under the blossoms of the apple-trees. ”

“ Edgar, for love’s sake hear me!
Poe. Speak loud if you would drown the winds!
Hel. Listen!
Poe. (Turning upon her) If my body bled at your feet you would stoop to me, but when my spirit lies in flames you cry ‘Don’t writhe! Don’t be a spectacle!’
Hel. (Putting her hands on his shoulders and speaking steadily) The spirit does not murmur. Only the body cries.
Poe. (Calming) Forgive me, Helen!
Hel. Yes, love. (Draws him to couch and sits by him soothingly) ... O, your forehead is on fire.
Poe. No wonder, when I have just come out of hell.... Keep your cool hand over my eyes.... ”

“ Dweller among leaves, and shining twilight boughs
That fold cool arms about thine altar place,
What joyous race
Of gods dost serve with such unfaltering vows?
Weave me a time-fringed tale
Of slumbering, haunted trees,
And star-sweet fragrances
No day defiled;
Of bowering nights innumerable,
And nestling hours breath-nigh a dryad's heart
That sleeping yet was wild
With dream-beat that thou mad'st a part
Of thy dawn-fluting; ay, and keep'st it still,
Striving so late these godless woods to fill
With undefeated strain,
And in one hour build the old world again. ”

“ Do you not know me, Vigard?
Vig. Nay,
I knew a Vairdelan—you are not he.
Bion. If Oswald means no harm to Charilus,
Let him pass on. Jerusalem awaits
His savage sword.
Char. My son, that Oswald thus
Compels me to him is to me but proof
That hearts may greet above long years of hate.
In this I see Love beckoning Man across
The wastrel lands of war to fields unwet
With blood, to days——
Vig. Unhearted cowards then!
Praise Allah, we yet live where rapiers thresh
The fields of men and leave the bravest standing!
Is 't not the Prophet's word that Paradise
Lies 'neath the shade of swords? ”

“ The power of Cordiaz is in my whip,
And back of that is iron Hudibrand!
Kill me to-night, to-morrow you shall die,
Each dog of you,—you know it!
[Men come in with fibre]
Throw the stuff
Against the hut. There, pile it up. More, more!
Now, Coquriez, the gentle, you've refused
To ruffle your fond dove,—here's sweeter work,
And for no hand but yours. Put her within,
Then fire the hut. [Utter silence]
What terror's on you, beasts?
Coq. In God's name, sir, you dare not!
Meg. In the name
Of all who know how power is kept, I dare! ”

“ Poe. Canst call it that? I hear nothing that comes not from the stars. ’T is Israfel! The angel whose lute is his own heart!
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than his might swell
From my lyre within the sky!
Some day we shall live there, Helen, and then I will sing to thee!
Hel. But now—my love—you must rest—you must sleep.
Poe. Sleep! Nothing sleeps but mortality!
Hel. And you are mortal, Edgar.
Poe. I! Nay, thy love has given me kinship with the deities! Sleep? ”

“ Her eyes an angel's were, if angels' can
Be thousand times more fair than dream can tell;
Unfalling tears they held, yet so could please
They might have hermits made forget their knees
And kings find out they had them, such their spell.
[98] Above her forehead hovered close a star,
Like spirit guard, whose ever-changing ray
Was fed with fires of sacrifice that are
Love's life,—the offerings earth lovers lay
Upon her shrine, and as they pale or glow
She smiles or droops as this true star doth show,—
Or dim or bright as serve we or betray. ”