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The Dynasts
THE DYNASTS
AN EPIC-DRAMA OF THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON, IN THREE PARTS, NINETEEN ACTS,
AND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SCENES
The Time covered by the Action being about ten Years
"And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown
for wars."
PREFACE
The Spectacle here presented in the likeness of a Drama is concerned
with the Great Historical Calamity, or Clash of Peoples, artificially
brought about some hundred years ago.
The choice of such a subject was mainly due to three accidents of
locality. It chanced that the writer was familiar with a part of
England that lay within hail of the watering-place in which King
George the Third had his favourite summer residence during the war
with the first Napoleon, and where he was visited by ministers and
others who bore the weight of English affairs on their more or less
competent shoulders at that stressful time. Secondly, this district,
being also near the coast which had echoed with rumours of invasion in
their intensest form while the descent threatened, was formerly
animated by memories and traditions of the desperate military
preparations for that contingency. Thirdly, the same countryside
happened to include the village which was the birthplace of Nelson's
flag-captain at Trafalgar.
When, as the first published result of these accidents, _The Trumpet
Major_ was printed, more than twenty years ago, I found myself in the
tantalizing position of having touched the fringe of a vast
international tragedy without being able, through limits of plan,
knowledge, and opportunity, to enter further into its events; a
restriction that prevailed for many years. But the slight regard paid
to English influence and action throughout the struggle by those
Continental writers who had dealt imaginatively with Napoleon's
career, seemed always to leave room for a new handling of the theme
which should re-embody the features of this influence in their true
proportion; and accordingly, on a belated day about six years back,
the following drama was outlined, to be taken up now and then at wide
intervals ever since.
It may, I think, claim at least a tolerable fidelity to the facts of
its date as they are give in ordinary records. Whenever any evidence
of the words really spoken or written by the characters in their
various situations was attainable, as close a paraphrase has been
aimed at as was compatible with the form chosen. And in all cases
outside the oral tradition, accessible scenery, and existing relics,
my indebtedness for detail to the abundant pages of the historian, the
biographer, and the journalist, English and Foreign, has been, of
course, continuous.
It was thought proper to introduce, as supernatural spectators of the
terrestrial action, certain impersonated abstractions, or
Intelligences, called Spirits. They are intended to be taken by the
reader for what they may be worth as contrivances of the fancy merely.
Their doctrines are but tentative, and are advanced with little eye to
a systematized philosophy warranted to lift "the burthen of the
mystery" of this unintelligible world. The chief thing hoped for them
is that they and their utterances may have dramatic plausibility
enough to procure for them, in the words of Coleridge, "that willing
suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic
faith." The wide prevalence of the Monistic theory of the Universe
forbade, in this twentieth century, the importation of Divine
personages from any antique Mythology as ready-made sources or
channels of Causation, even in verse, and excluded the celestial
machinery of, say, _Paradise Lost_, as peremptorily as that of the
_Iliad_ or the _Eddas_. And the abandonment of the masculine pronoun
in allusions to the First or Fundamental Energy seemed a necessary and
logical consequence of the long abandonment by thinkers of the
anthropomorphic conception of the same.
These phantasmal Intelligences are divided into groups, of which one
only, that of the Pities, approximates to "the Universal Sympathy of
human nature--the spectator idealized"(1) of the Greek Chorus; it is
impressionable and inconsistent in its views, which sway hither and
thither as wrought on by events. Another group approximates to the
passionless Insight of the Ages. The remainder are eclectically
chosen auxiliaries whose signification may be readily discerned. In
point of literary form, the scheme of contrasted Choruses and other
conventions of this external feature was shaped with a single view to
the modern expression of a modern outlook, and in frank divergence
from classical and other dramatic precedent which ruled the ancient
voicings of ancient themes.
It may hardly be necessary to inform readers that in devising this
chronicle-piece no attempt has been made to create that completely
organic structure of action, and closely-webbed development of
character and motive, which are demanded in a drama strictly self-
contained. A panoramic show like the present is a series of
historical "ordinates" (to use a term in geometry): the subject is
familiar to all; and foreknowledge is assumed to fill in the junctions
required to combine the scenes into an artistic unity. Should the
mental spectator be unwilling or unable to do this, a historical
presentment on an intermittent plan, in which the _dramatis personae_
number some hundreds, exclusive of crowds and armies, becomes in his
individual case unsuitable.
In this assumption of a completion of the action by those to whom the
drama is addressed, it is interesting, if unnecessary, to name an
exemplar as old as Aeschylus, whose plays are, as Dr. Verrall reminds
us,(2) scenes from stories taken as known, and would be unintelligible
without supplementary scenes of the imagination.
Readers will readily discern, too, that _The Dynasts_ is intended
simply for mental performance, and not for the stage. Some critics
have averred that to declare a drama(3) as being not for the stage is
to make an announcement whose subject and predicate cancel each other.
The question seems to be an unimportant matter of terminology.
Compositions cast in this shape were, without doubt, originally
written for the stage only, and as a consequence their nomenclature of
"Act," "Scene," and the like, was drawn directly from the vehicle of
representation. But in the course of time such a shape would reveal
itself to be an eminently readable one; moreover, by dispensing with
the theatre altogether, a freedom of treatment was attainable in this
form that was denied where the material possibilities of stagery had
to be rigorously remembered. With the careless mechanicism of human
speech, the technicalities of practical mumming were retained in these
productions when they had ceased to be concerned with the stage at
all.
To say, then, in the present case, that a writing in play-shape is not
to be played, is merely another way of stating that such writing has
been done in a form for which there chances to be no brief definition
save one already in use for works that it superficially but not
entirely resembles.
Whether mental performance alone may not eventually be the fate of all
drama other than that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a kindred
question not without interest. The mind naturally flies to the
triumphs of the Hellenic and Elizabethan theatre in exhibiting scenes
laid "far in the Unapparent," and asks why they should not be
repeated. But the meditative world is older, more invidious, more
nervous, more quizzical, than it once was, and being unhappily
perplexed by--
Riddles of Death Thebes never knew,
may be less ready and less able than Hellas and old England were to
look through the insistent, and often grotesque, substance at the
thing signified.
In respect of such plays of poesy and dream a practicable compromise
may conceivably result, taking the shape of a monotonic delivery of
speeches, with dreamy conventional gestures, something in the manner
traditionally maintained by the old Christmas mummers, the curiously
hypnotizing impressiveness of whose automatic style--that of persons
who spoke by no will of their own--may be remembered by all who ever
experienced it. Gauzes or screens to blur outlines might still
further shut off the actual, as has, indeed, already been done in
exceptional cases. But with this branch of the subject we are not
concerned here.
T.H. September 1903.
CONTENTS.
THE DYNASTS: AN EPIC-DRAMA OF THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON
Preface
PART FIRST
Characters
Fore Scene. The Overworld
Act First:--
Scene I. England. A Ridge in Wessex " II. Paris. Office of
the Minister of Marine " III. London. The Old House of Commons "
IV. The Harbour of Boulogne " V. London. The House of a Lady of
Quality " IV. Milan. The Cathedral
Act Second:--
Scene I. The Dockyard, Gibraltar " II. Off Ferrol " III. The
Camp and Harbour of Boulogne " IV. South Wessex. A Ridge-like
Down near the Coast " V. The Same. Rainbarrows' Beacon, Egdon
Heath
Act Third:--
Scene I. The Chateau at Pont-de-Briques " II. The Frontiers
of Upper Austria and Bavaria " III. Boulogne. The St. Omer Road
Act Fourth:--
Scene I. King George's Watering-place, South Wessex " II.
Before the City of Ulm " III. Ulm. Within the City " IV.
Before Ulm. The Same Day " V. The Same. The Michaelsberg "
VI. London. Spring Gardens
Act Fifth:--
Scene I. Off Cape Trafalgar " II. The Same. The Quarter-deck
of the "Victory" " III. The Same. On Board the "Bucentaure" "
IV. The Same. The Cockpit of the "Victory" " V. London. The
Guildhall " VI. An Inn at Rennes " VII. King George's
Watering-place, South Wessex
Act Sixth:--
Scene I. The Field of Austerlitz. The French Position " II.
The Same. The Russian Position " III. The Same. The French
Position " IV. The Same. The Russian Position " V. The Same.
Near the Windmill of Paleny " VI. Shockerwick House, near Bath "
VII. Paris. A Street leading to the Tuileries " VIII. Putney.
Bowling Green House
PART SECOND
Characters
Act First:--
Scene I. London. Fox's Lodgings, Arlington Street " II. The
Route between London and Paris " III. The Streets of Berlin "
IV. The Field of Jena " V. Berlin. A Room overlooking a Public
Place " VI. The Same " VII. Tilsit and the River Niemen "
VIII. The Same
Act Second:--
Scene I. The Pyrenees and Valleys adjoining " II. Aranjuez,
near Madrid. A Room in the Palace of Godoy, the "Prince of Peace" "
III. London. The Marchioness of Salisbury's " IV. Madrid and its
Environs " V. The Open Sea between the English Coasts and the
Spanish Peninsula " VI. St. Cloud. The Boudoir of Josephine "
VII. Vimiero
Act Third:--
Scene I. Spain. A Road near Astorga " II. The Same " III.
Before Coruna " IV. Coruna. Near the Ramparts " V. Vienna.
A Cafe in the Stephans-Platz
Act Fourth:--
Scene I. A Road out of Vienna " II. The Island of Lobau, with
Wagram beyond " III. The Field of Wagram " IV. The Field of
Talavera " V. The Same " VI. Brighton. The Royal Pavilion "
VII. The Same " VIII. Walcheren
Act Fifth:--
Scene I. Paris. A Ballroom in the House of Cambaceres " II.
Paris. The Tuileries " III. Vienna. A Private Apartment in the
Imperial Palace " IV. London. A Club in St. James's Street "
V. The old West Highway out of Vienna " VI. Courcelles " VII.
Petersburg. The Palace of the Empress-Mother " VIII. Paris. The
Grand Gallery of the Louvre and the Salon-Carre adjoining
Act Fifth:--
Scene I. The Lines of Torres Vedras " II. The Same. Outside
the Lines " III. Paris. The Tuileries " IV. Spain. Albuera "
V. Windsor Castle. A Room in the King's Apartments " VI. London.
Carlton House and the Streets adjoining " VII. The Same. The
Interior of Carlton House
PART THIRD
Characters
Act First:--
Scene I. The Banks of the Niemen, near Kowno " II. The Ford
of Santa Marta, Salamanca " III. The Field of Salamanca " IV.
The Field of Borodino " V. The Same " VI. Moscow " VII.
The Same. Outside the City " VIII. The Same. The Interior of the
Kremlin " IX. The Road from Smolensko into Lithuania " X.
The Bridge of the Beresina " XI. The Open Country between
Smorgoni and Wilna " XII. Paris. The Tuileries
Act Second:--
Scene I. The Plain of Vitoria " II. The Same, from the Puebla
Heights " III. The Same. The Road from the Town " IV. A Fete
at Vauxhall Gardens
Act Third:--
Scene I. Leipzig. Napoleon's Quarters in the Reudnitz Suburb "
II. The Same. The City and the Battlefield " III. The Same, from
the Tower of the Pleissenburg " IV. The Same. At the Thonberg
Windmill " V. The Same. A Street near the Ranstadt Gate "
VI. The Pyrenees. Near the River Nivelle
Act Fourth:--
Scene I. The Upper Rhine " II. Paris. The Tuileries " III.
The Same. The Apartments of the Empress " IV. Fontainebleau. A
Room in the Palace " V. Bayonne. The British Camp " VI. A
Highway in the Outskirts of Avignon " VII. Malmaison. The Empress
Josephine's Bedchamber " VIII. London. The Opera-House
Act Fifth:--
Scene I. Elba. The Quay, Porto Ferrajo " II. Vienna. The
Imperial Palace " III. La Mure, near Grenoble " IV. Schonbrunn
" V. London. The Old House of Commons " VI. Wessex.
Durnover Green, Casterbridge
Act Sixth:--
Scene I. The Belgian Frontier " II. A Ballroom in Brussels "
III. Charleroi. Napoleon's Quarters " IV. A Chamber overlooking a
Main Street in Brussels " V. The Field of Ligny " VI. The
Field of Quatre-Bras " VII. Brussels. The Place Royale " VIII.
The Road to Waterloo
Act Seventh:--
Scene I. The Field of Waterloo " II. The Same. The French
Position " III. Saint Lambert's Chapel Hill " IV. The Field of
Waterloo. The English Position " V. The Same. The Women's Camp
near Mont Saint-Jean " VI. The Same. The French Position "
VII. The Same. The English Position " VIII. The Same. Later "
IX. The Wood of Bossu
After Scene. The Overworld
PART FIRST
CHARACTERS
I. PHANTOM INTELLIGENCES
THE ANCIENT SPIRIT OF THE YEARS/CHORUS OF THE YEARS.
THE SPIRIT OF THE PITIES/CHORUS OF THE PITIES.
SPIRITS SINISTER AND IRONIC/CHORUSES OF SINISTER AND IRONIC SPIRITS.
THE SPIRIT OF RUMOUR/CHORUS OF RUMOURS.
THE SHADE OF THE EARTH.
SPIRIT-MESSENGERS.
RECORDING ANGELS.
II. PERSONS (The names in lower case are mute figures.)
MEN
GEORGE THE THIRD. The Duke of Cumberland PITT. FOX. SHERIDAN. WINDHAM.
WHITBREAD. TIERNEY. BATHURST AND FULLER. Lord Chancellor Eldon. EARL
OF MALMESBURY. LORD MULGRAVE. ANOTHER CABINET MINISTER. Lord
Grenville. Viscount Castlereagh. Viscount Sidmouth. ANOTHER NOBLE
LORD. ROSE. Canning. Perceval. Grey. Speaker Abbot. TOMLINE, BISHOP OF
LINCOLN. SIR WALTER FARQUHAR. Count Munster. Other Peers, Ministers,
ex-Ministers, Members of Parliament, and Persons of Quality.
. . . . . . . . . .
NELSON. COLLINGWOOD. HARDY. SECRETARY SCOTT. DR. BEATTY. DR. MAGRATH.
DR. ALEXANDER SCOTT. BURKE, PURSER. Lieutenant Pasco. ANOTHER
LIEUTENANT. POLLARD, A MIDSHIPMAN. Captain Adair. Lieutenants Ram and
Whipple. Other English Naval Officers. Sergeant-Major Secker and
Marines. Staff and other Officers of the English Army. A COMPANY OF
SOLDIERS. Regiments of the English Army and Hanoverian. SAILORS AND
BOATMEN. A MILITIAMAN. Naval Crews.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Lord Mayor and Corporation of London. A GENTLEMAN OF FASHION.
WILTSHIRE, A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN A HORSEMAN. TWO BEACON-WATCHERS.
ENGLISH CITIZENS AND BURGESSES. COACH AND OTHER HIGHWAY PASSENGERS.
MESSENGERS, SERVANTS, AND RUSTICS.
. . . . . . . . . .
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. DARU, NAPOLEON'S WAR SECRETARY. LAURISTON,
AIDE-DE-CAMP. MONGE, A PHILOSOPHER. BERTHIER. MURAT, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF
NAPOLEON. SOULT. NEY. LANNES. Bernadotte. Marmont. Dupont. Oudinot.
Davout. Vandamme. Other French Marshals. A SUB-OFFICER.
. . . . . . . . . .
VILLENEUVE, NAPOLEON'S ADMIRAL. DECRES, MINISTER OF MARINE.
FLAG-CAPTAIN MAGENDIE. LIEUTENANT DAUDIGNON. LIEUTENANT FOURNIER.
Captain Lucas. OTHER FRENCH NAVAL OFFICERS AND PETTY OFFICERS. Seamen
of the French and Spanish Navies. Regiments of the French Army.
COURIERS. HERALDS. Aides, Officials, Pages, etc. ATTENDANTS. French
Citizens.
. . . . . . . . . .
CARDINAL CAPRARA. Priests, Acolytes, and Choristers. Italian Doctors
and Presidents of Institutions. Milanese Citizens.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. THE ARCHDUKE FERDINAND. Prince John of
Lichtenstien. PRINCE SCHWARZENBERG. MACK, AUSTRIAN GENERAL.
JELLACHICH. RIESC. WEIROTHER. ANOTHER AUSTRIAN GENERAL. TWO AUSTRIAN
OFFICERS.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Emperor Alexander. PRINCE KUTUZOF, RUSSIAN FIELD-MARSHAL. COUNT
LANGERON. COUNT BUXHOVDEN. COUNT MILORADOVICH. DOKHTOROF.
. . . . . . . . . .
Giulay, Gottesheim, Klenau, and Prschebiszewsky. Regiments of the
Austrian Army. Regiments of the Russian Army.
WOMEN
Queen Charlotte. English Princesses. Ladies of the English Court. LADY
HESTER STANHOPE. A LADY. Lady Caroline Lamb, Mrs. Damer, and other
English Ladies.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. Princesses and Ladies of Josephine's Court.
Seven Milanese Young Ladies.
. . . . . . . . . .
City- and Towns-women. Country-women. A MILITIAMAN'S WIFE. A
STREET-WOMAN. Ship-women. Servants.
FORE SCENE
THE OVERWORLD
[Enter the Ancient Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit and
Chorus of the Pities, the Shade of the Earth, the Spirits Sinister and
Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours, Spirit- Messengers, and Recording
Angels.]
SHADE OF THE EARTH
What of the Immanent Will and Its designs?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
It works unconsciously, as heretofore, Eternal artistries in
Circumstance, Whose patterns, wrought by rapt aesthetic rote, Seem in
themselves Its single listless aim, And not their consequence.
CHORUS OF THE PITIES (aerial music)
Still thus? Still thus? Ever unconscious! An automatic sense
Unweeting why or whence? Be, then, the inevitable, as of old, Although
that SO it be we dare not hold!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Hold what ye list, fond believing Sprites, You cannot swerve the
pulsion of the Byss, Which thinking on, yet weighing not Its thought,
Unchecks Its clock-like laws.
SPIRIT SINISTER (aside)
Good, as before. My little engines, then, will still have play.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Why doth It so and so, and ever so, This viewless, voiceless Turner of
the Wheel?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
As one sad story runs, It lends Its heed To other worlds, being
wearied out with this; Wherefore Its mindlessness of earthly woes.
Some, too, have told at whiles that rightfully Its warefulness, Its
care, this planet lost When in her early growth and crudity By bad mad
acts of severance men contrived, Working such nescience by their own
device.-- Yea, so it stands in certain chronicles, Though not in mine.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Meet is it, none the less, To bear in thought that though Its
consciousness May be estranged, engrossed afar, or sealed, Sublunar
shocks may wake Its watch anon?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay. In the Foretime, even to the germ of Being, Nothing appears of
shape to indicate That cognizance has marshalled things terrene, Or
will (such is my thinking) in my span. Rather they show that, like a
knitter drowsed, Whose fingers play in skilled unmindfulness, The Will
has woven with an absent heed Since life first was; and ever will so
weave.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Hence we've rare dramas going--more so since It wove Its web in the
Ajaccian womb!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Well, no more this on what no mind can mete. Our scope is but to
register and watch By means of this great gift accorded us-- The free
trajection of our entities.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
On things terrene, then, I would say that though The human news
wherewith the Rumours stirred us May please thy temper, Years, 'twere
better far Such deeds were nulled, and this strange man's career Wound
up, as making inharmonious jars In her creation whose meek wraith we
know. The more that he, turned man of mere traditions, Now profits
naught. For the large potencies Instilled into his idiosyncrasy-- To
throne fair Liberty in Privilege' room-- Are taking taint, and sink to
common plots For his own gain.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
And who, then, Cordial One, Wouldst substitute for this Intractable?
CHORUS OF THE EARTH
We would establish those of kindlier build, In fair Compassions
skilled, Men of deep art in life-development; Watchers and warders of
thy varied lands, Men surfeited of laying heavy hands, Upon the
innocent, The mild, the fragile, the obscure content Among the myriads
of thy family. Those, too, who love the true, the excellent, And make
their daily moves a melody.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
They may come, will they. I am not averse. Yet know I am but the
ineffectual Shade Of her the Travailler, herself a thrall To It; in
all her labourings curbed and kinged!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Shall such be mooted now? Already change Hath played strange pranks
since first I brooded here. But old Laws operate yet; and phase and
phase Of men's dynastic and imperial moils Shape on accustomed lines.
Though, as for me, I care not thy shape, or what they be.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
You seem to have small sense of mercy, Sire?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Mercy I view, not urge;--nor more than mark What designate your titles
Good and Ill. 'Tis not in me to feel with, or against, These
flesh-hinged mannikins Its hand upwinds To click-clack off Its
preadjusted laws; But only through my centuries to behold Their
aspects, and their movements, and their mould.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
They are shapes that bleed, mere mannikins or no, And each has parcel
in the total Will.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Which overrides them as a whole its parts In other entities.
SPIRIT SINISTER (aside)
Limbs of Itself: Each one a jot of It in quaint disguise? I'll fear
all men henceforward!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Go to. Let this terrestrial tragedy--
SPIRIT IRONIC
Nay, Comedy--
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Let this earth-tragedy Whereof we spake, afford a spectacle Forthwith
conned closelier than your custom is.--
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
How does it stand? (To a Recording Angel) Open and chant the page
Thou'st lately writ, that sums these happenings, In brief reminder of
their instant points Slighted by us amid our converse here.
RECORDING ANGEL (from a book, in recitative)
Now mellow-eyed Peace is made captive, And Vengeance is chartered To
deal forth its dooms on the Peoples With sword and with spear.
Men's musings are busy with forecasts Of muster and battle, And
visions of shock and disaster Rise red on the year.
The easternmost ruler sits wistful, And tense he to midward; The King
to the west mans his borders In front and in rear.
While one they eye, flushed from his crowning, Ranks legions around
him To shake the enisled neighbour nation And close her career!
SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS (aerial music)
O woven-winged squadrons of Toulon And fellows of Rochefort, Wait,
wait for a wind, and draw westward Ere Nelson be near!
For he reads not your force, or your freightage Of warriors
fell-handed, Or when they will join for the onset, Or whither they
steer!
SEMICHORUS II
O Nelson, so zealous a watcher Through months-long of cruizing, Thy
foes may elide thee a moment, Put forth, and get clear;
And rendezvous westerly straightway With Spain's aiding navies, And
hasten to head violation Of Albion's frontier!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Methinks too much assurance thrills your note On secrets in my locker,
gentle sprites; But it may serve.--Our thought being now reflexed To
forces operant on this English isle, Behoves it us to enter scene by
scene, And watch the spectacle of Europe's moves In her embroil, as
they were self-ordained According to the naive and liberal creed Of
our great-hearted young Compassionates, Forgetting the Prime Mover of
the gear, As puppet-watchers him who pulls the strings.-- You'll mark
the twitchings of this Bonaparte As he with other figures foots his
reel, Until he twitch him into his lonely grave: Also regard the frail
ones that his flings Have made gyrate like animalcula In tepid
pools.--Hence to the precinct, then, And count as framework to the
stagery Yon architraves of sunbeam-smitten cloud.-- So may ye judge
Earth's jackaclocks to be No fugled by one Will, but function-free.
[The nether sky opens, and Europe is disclosed as a prone and
emaciated figure, the Alps shaping like a backbone, and the branching
mountain-chains like ribs, the peninsular plateau of Spain forming a
head. Broad and lengthy lowlands stretch from the north of France
across Russia like a grey-green garment hemmed by the Ural mountains
and the glistening Arctic Ocean.
The point of view then sinks downwards through space, and draws near
to the surface of the perturbed countries, where the peoples,
distressed by events which they did not cause, are seen writhing,
crawling, heaving, and vibrating in their various cities and
nationalities.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to the Spirit of the Pities)
As key-scene to the whole, I first lay bare The Will-webs of thy
fearful questioning; For know that of my antique privileges This gift
to visualize the Mode is one (Though by exhaustive strain and effort
only). See, then, and learn, ere my power pass again.
[A new and penetrating light descends on the spectacle, enduring men
and things with a seeming transparency, and exhibiting as one organism
the anatomy of life and movement in all humanity and vitalized matter
included in the display.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Amid this scene of bodies substantive Strange waves I sight like winds
grown visible, Which bear men's forms on their innumerous coils,
Twining and serpenting round and through. Also retracting threads like
gossamers-- Except in being irresistible-- Which complicate with some,
and balance all.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
These are the Prime Volitions,--fibrils, veins, Will-tissues, nerves,
and pulses of the Cause, That heave throughout the Earth's
compositure. Their sum is like the lobule of a Brain Evolving always
that it wots not of; A Brain whose whole connotes the Everywhere, And
whose procedure may but be discerned By phantom eyes like ours; the
while unguessed Of those it stirs, who (even as ye do) dream Their
motions free, their orderings supreme; Each life apart from each, with
power to mete Its own day's measures; balanced, self complete; Though
they subsist but atoms of the One Labouring through all, divisible
from none; But this no further now. Deem yet man's deeds self-done.
GENERAL CHORUS OF INTELLIGENCES (aerial music)
We'll close up Time, as a bird its van, We'll traverse Space, as
spirits can, Link pulses severed by leagues and years, Bring cradles
into touch with biers; So that the far-off Consequence appear Prompt
at the heel of foregone Cause.-- The PRIME, that willed ere wareness
was, Whose Brain perchance is Space, whose Thought its laws, Which we
as threads and streams discern, We may but muse on, never learn.
END OF THE FORE SCENE