Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  And your support—my hut is not far off.

  [Draws him gently off the stage.

  SCENE—A room in the Hostel—MARMADUKE and OSWALD.

  MAR. But for Idonea!—I have cause to think

  That she is innocent.

  OSW. Leave that thought awhile,

  As one of those beliefs, which in their hearts

  Lovers lock up as pearls, though oft no better

  Than feathers clinging to their points of passion.

  This day’s event has laid on me the duty

  Of opening out my story; you must hear it,

  And without further preface.—In my youth,

  Except for that abatement which is paid

  By envy as a tribute to desert,

  I was the pleasure of all hearts, the darling

  Of every tongue—as you are now. You’ve heard

  That I embarked for Syria. On our voyage

  Was hatched among the crew a foul Conspiracy

  Against my honour, in the which our Captain

  Was, I believed, prime Agent. The wind fell;

  We lay becalmed week after week, until

  The water of the vessel was exhausted;

  I felt a double fever in my veins,

  Yet rage suppressed itself;—to a deep stillness

  Did my pride tame my pride;—for many days,

  On a dead sea under a burning sky,

  I brooded o’er my injuries, deserted

  By man and nature;—if a breeze had blown,

  It might have found its way into my heart,

  And I had been—no matter—do you mark me?

  MAR. Quick—to the point—if any untold crime

  Doth haunt your memory.

  OSW. Patience, hear me further!—

  One day in silence did we drift at noon

  By a bare rock, narrow, and white, and bare;

  No food was there, no drink, no grass, no shade,

  No tree, nor jutting eminence, nor form

  Inanimate large as the body of man,

  Nor any living thing whose lot of life

  Might stretch beyond the measure of one moon.

  To dig for water on the spot, the Captain

  Landed with a small troop, myself being one:

  There I reproached him with his treachery.

  Imperious at all times, his temper rose;

  He struck me; and that instant had I killed him,

  And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades

  Rushed in between us: then did I insist

  (All hated him, and I was stung to madness)

  That we should leave him there, alive!—we did so.

  MAR. And he was famished?

  OSW. Naked was the spot;

  Methinks I see it now—how in the sun

  Its stony surface glittered like a shield;

  And in that miserable place we left him,

  Alone but for a swarm of minute creatures

  Not one of which could help him while alive,

  Or mourn him dead.

  MAR. A man by men cast off,

  Left without burial! nay, not dead nor dying,

  But standing, walking, stretching forth his arms,

  In all things like ourselves, but in the agony

  With which he called for mercy; and—even so—

  He was forsaken?

  OSW. There is a power in sounds:

  The cries he uttered might have stopped the boat

  That bore us through the water—

  MAR. You returned

  Upon that dismal hearing—did you not?

  OSW. Some scoffed at him with hellish mockery,

  And laughed so loud it seemed that the smooth sea

  Did from some distant region echo us.

  MAR. We all are of one blood, our veins are filled

  At the same poisonous fountain!

  OSW. ‘Twas an island

  Only by sufferance of the winds and waves,

  Which with their foam could cover it at will.

  I know not how he perished; but the calm,

  The same dead calm, continued many days.

  MAR. But his own crime had brought on him this doom,

  His wickedness prepared it; these expedients

  Are terrible, yet ours is not the fault.

  OSW. The man was famished, and was innocent!

  MAR. Impossible!

  OSW. The man had never wronged me.

  MAR. Banish the thought, crush it, and be at peace.

  His guilt was marked—these things could never be

  Were there not eyes that see, and for good ends,

  Where ours are baffled.

  OSW. I had been deceived.

  MAR. And from that hour the miserable man

  No more was heard of?

  OSW. I had been betrayed.

  MAR. And he found no deliverance!

  OSW. The Crew

  Gave me a hearty welcome; they had laid

  The plot to rid themselves, at any cost,

  Of a tyrannic Master whom they loathed.

  So we pursued our voyage: when we landed,

  The tale was spread abroad; my power at once

  Shrunk from me; plans and schemes, and lofty hopes—

  All vanished. I gave way—do you attend?

  MAR. The Crew deceived you?

  OSW. Nay, command yourself.

  MAR. It is a dismal night—how the wind howls!

  OSW. I hid my head within a Convent, there

  Lay passive as a dormouse in mid-winter.

  That was no life for me—I was o’erthrown,

  But not destroyed.

  MAR. The proofs—you ought to have seen

  The guilt—have touched it—felt it at your heart—

  As I have done.

  OSW. A fresh tide of Crusaders

  Drove by the place of my retreat: three nights

  Did constant meditation dry my blood;

  Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,

  Through words and things, a dim and perilous way;

  And, wheresoe’er I turned me, I beheld

  A slavery compared to which the dungeon

  And clanking chains are perfect liberty.

  You understand me—I was comforted;

  I saw that every possible shape of action

  Might lead to good—I saw it and burst forth

  Thirsting for some of those exploits that fill

  The earth for sure redemption of lost peace.

  [Marking MARMADUKE’S countenance.

  Nay, you have had the worst. Ferocity

  Subsided in a moment, like a wind

  That drops down dead out of a sky it vexed.

  And yet I had within me evermore

  A salient spring of energy; I mounted

  From action up to action with a mind

  That never rested—without meat or drink

  Have I lived many days—my sleep was bound

  To purposes of reason—not a dream

  But had a continuity and substance

  That waking life had never power to give.

  MAR. O wretched Human-kind!—Until the mystery

  Of all this world is solved, well may we envy

  The worm, that, underneath a stone whose weight

  Would crush the lion’s paw with mortal anguish,

  Doth lodge, and feed, and coil, and sleep, in safety.

  Fell not the wrath of Heaven upon those traitors?

  OSW. Give not to them a thought. From Palestine

  We marched to Syria: oft I left the Camp,

  When all that multitude of hearts was still,

  And followed on, through woods of gloomy cedar,

  Into deep chasms troubled by roaring streams;

  Or from the top of Lebanon surveyed

  The moonlight desert, and the moonlight sea:

  In these my lonely wanderings I perceived

  What mighty objects do impress their forms

&
nbsp; To elevate our intellectual being;

  And felt, if aught on earth deserves a curse,

  ‘Tis that worst principle of ill which dooms

  A thing so great to perish self-consumed.

  —So much for my remorse!

  MAR. Unhappy Man!

  OSW. When from these forms I turned to contemplate

  The World’s opinions and her usages,

  I seemed a Being who had passed alone

  Into a region of futurity,

  Whose natural element was freedom—

  MAR. Stop—

  I may not, cannot, follow thee.

  OSW. You must.

  I had been nourished by the sickly food

  Of popular applause. I now perceived

  That we are praised, only as men in us

  Do recognise some image of themselves,

  An abject counterpart of what they are,

  Or the empty thing that they would wish to be.

  I felt that merit has no surer test

  Than obloquy; that, if we wish to serve

  The world in substance, not deceive by show,

  We must become obnoxious to its hate,

  Or fear disguised in simulated scorn.

  MAR. I pity, can forgive, you; but those wretches—

  That monstrous perfidy!

  OSW. Keep down your wrath.

  False Shame discarded, spurious Fame despised,

  Twin sisters both of Ignorance, I found

  Life stretched before me smooth as some broad way

  Cleared for a monarch’s progress. Priests might spin

  Their veil, but not for me—’twas in fit place

  Among its kindred cobwebs. I had been,

  And in that dream had left my native land,

  One of Love’s simple bondsmen—the soft chain

  Was off for ever; and the men, from whom

  This liberation came, you would destroy:

  Join me in thanks for their blind services.

  MAR. ‘Tis a strange aching that, when we would curse

  And cannot.—You have betrayed me—I have done—

  I am content—I know that he is guiltless—

  That both are guiltless, without spot or stain,

  Mutually consecrated. Poor old Man!

  And I had heart for this, because thou lovedst

  Her who from very infancy had been

  Light to thy path, warmth to thy blood!—Together

  [Turning to OSWALD.

  We propped his steps, he leaned upon us both.

  OSW. Ay, we are coupled by a chain of adamant;

  Let us be fellow-labourers, then, to enlarge

  Man’s intellectual empire. We subsist

  In slavery; all is slavery; we receive

  Laws, but we ask not whence those laws have come;

  We need an inward sting to goad us on.

  MAR. Have you betrayed me? Speak to that.

  OSW. The mask,

  Which for a season I have stooped to wear,

  Must be cast off.—Know then that I was urged,

  (For other impulse let it pass) was driven,

  To seek for sympathy, because I saw

  In you a mirror of my youthful self;

  I would have made us equal once again,

  But that was a vain hope. You have struck home,

  With a few drops of blood cut short the business;

  Therein for ever you must yield to me.

  But what is done will save you from the blank

  Of living without knowledge that you live:

  Now you are suffering—for the future day,

  ‘Tis his who will command it.—Think of my story—

  Herbert is ‘innocent’.

  MAR. (in a faint voice, and doubtingly).

  You do but echo

  My own wild words?

  OSW. Young Man, the seed must lie

  Hid in the earth, or there can be no harvest;

  ‘Tis Nature’s law. What I have done in darkness

  I will avow before the face of day.

  Herbert ‘is’ innocent.

  MAR. What fiend could prompt

  This action? Innocent!—oh, breaking heart!—

  Alive or dead, I’ll find him. [Exit.

  OSW. Alive—perdition! [Exit.

  SCENE—The inside of a poor Cottage. ELEANOR and IDONEA seated.

  IDON. The storm beats hard—Mercy for poor or rich,

  Whose heads are shelterless in such a night!

  A Voice without. Holla! to bed, good Folks, within!

  ELEA. O save us!

  IDON. What can this mean?

  ELEA. Alas, for my poor husband!—

  We’ll have a counting of our flocks tomorrow;

  The wolf keeps festival these stormy nights:

  Be calm, sweet Lady, they are wassailers

  [The voices die away in the distance.

  Returning from their Feast—my heart beats so—

  A noise at midnight does ‘so’ frighten me.

  IDON. Hush! [Listening.

  ELEA. They are gone. On such a night my husband,

  Dragged from his bed, was cast into a dungeon,

  Where, hid from me, he counted many years,

  A criminal in no one’s eyes but theirs—

  Not even in theirs—whose brutal violence

  So dealt with him.

  IDON. I have a noble Friend

  First among youths of knightly breeding, One

  Who lives but to protect the weak or injured.

  There again! [Listening.

  ELEA. ‘Tis my husband’s foot. Good Eldred

  Has a kind heart; but his imprisonment

  Has made him fearful, and he’ll never be

  The man he was.

  IDON. I will retire;—good night!

  [She goes within.

  Enter ELDRED (hides a bundle).

  ELD. Not yet in bed, Eleanor!—there

  are stains in that frock which must be

  washed out.

  ELEA. What has befallen you?

  ELD. I am belated, and you must know

  the cause—(speaking low) that is the blood

  of an unhappy Man.

  ELEA. Oh! we are undone for ever.

  ELD. Heaven forbid that I should lift my

  hand against any man. Eleanor, I have

  shed tears to-night, and it comforts me to

  think of it.

  ELEA. Where, where is he?

  ELD. I have done him no harm, but—

  it will be forgiven me; it would not have

  been so once.

  ELEA. You have not ‘buried’ anything?

  You are no richer than when you left me?

  ELD. Be at peace; I am innocent.

  ELEA. Then God be thanked—

  [A short pause; she falls upon his neck.

  ELD. To-night I met with an old Man

  lying stretched upon the ground—a sad

  spectacle: I raised him up with a hope

  that we might shelter and restore him.

  ELEA. (as if ready to run). Where is he?

  You were not able to bring him ‘all’ the way

  with you; let us return, I can help you.

  [ELDRED shakes his head.

  ELD. He did not seem to wish for life:

  as I was struggling on, by the light of the

  moon I saw the stains of blood upon my

  clothes—he waved his hand, as if it were

  all useless; and I let him sink again to the

  ground.

  ELEA. Oh that I had been by your

  side!

  ELD. I tell you his hands and his body

  were cold—how could I disturb his last

  moments? he strove to turn from me as if

  he wished to settle into sleep.

  ELEA. But, for the stains of blood—

  ELD. He must have fallen, I fancy, for

  his head was cut; but I think his mala
dy

  was cold and hunger.

  ELEA. Oh, Eldred, I shall never be able

  to look up at this roof in storm or fair but

  I shall tremble.

  ELD. Is it not enough that my ill stars

  have kept me abroad to-night till this hour?

  I come home, and this is my comfort!

  ELEA. But did he say nothing which

  might have set you at ease?

  ELD. I thought he grasped my hand

  while he was muttering something about

  his Child—his Daughter—(starting as if he

  heard a noise). What is that?

  ELEA. Eldred, you are a father.

  ELD. God knows what was in my heart,

  and will not curse my son for my sake.

  ELEA. But you prayed by him? you

  waited the hour of his release?

  ELD. The night was wasting fast; I have

  no friend; I am spited by the world—his

  wound terrified me—if I had brought him

  along with me, and he had died in my

  arms!—I am sure I heard something

  breathing—and this chair!

  ELEA. Oh, Eldred, you will die alone.

  You will have nobody to close your eyes—

  no hand to grasp your dying hand—I shall

  be in my grave. A curse will attend us

  all.

  ELD. Have you forgot your own troubles

  when I was in the dungeon?

  ELEA. And you left him alive?

  ELD. Alive!—the damps of death were

  upon him—he could not have survived an

  hour.

  ELEA. In the cold, cold night.

  ELD. (in a savage tone). Ay, and his head

  was bare; I suppose you would have had

  me lend my bonnet to cover it.—You will

  never rest till I am brought to a felon’s end.

  ELEA. Is there nothing to be done? cannot we go to the Convent?

  ELD. Ay, and say at once that I murdered

  him!

  ELEA. Eldred, I know that ours is the

  only house upon the Waste; let us take

  heart; this Man may be rich; and could

  he be saved by our means, his gratitude

  may reward us.

  ELD. ‘Tis all in vain.

  ELEA. But let us make the attempt. This

  old Man may have a wife, and he may have

  children—let us return to the spot; we may

  restore him, and his eyes may yet open upon

  those that love him.

  ELD. He will never open them more;

  even when he spoke to me, he kept them

  firmly sealed as if he had been blind.

  IDON. (rushing out). It is, it is, my Father—

  ELD. We are betrayed (looking at IDONEA).

  ELEA. His Daughter!—God have mercy!

  (turning to IDONEA).

  IDON. (sinking down). Oh! lift me up and carry me to the place.

  You are safe; the whole world shall not harm you.