by George Moore
Poor desecrated head!
Poor lily hands! steeped in the mire of shame,
Poor heart! whose love ran lame.
Thou hast no lover now, Why have they gone
And left thee here alone?
Is there not one of all the hundreds who
Once kissed thee thro’ and thro’
In the deep silence of the summer night
In rapture and delight,
Whose memory a little gold might crave
And give to thee a grave,
Afar from city’s roar, amid tall trees
In nearing of the seas, —
Whose sighing voices whispered in thine ear
In childhood’s happy year,
When thou wast dreaming dreams in the high grass,
Watching for ships to pass
And fade beneath the long horizon line,
Taking each for a sign?
The legends say that ’twas in woman first
Love’s lips grew dry with thirst,
And held to man the poisoned apple Lust,
Whose core is burning dust
That fills the well-springs of the heart, and dries
Their sources to arise
No more, and slake the dry Sahara plain
Of passion and pale pain.
Or do the legends lie, and was it man
Whose fleshly wings did fan
Those scorching winds whose fiery flame-like breath
Pursue the soul to death?
It matters nought, the imminent end is one
To harlot and to nun,
Virtue and vice conceived in one womb
Sleep in the self-same tomb.
The head of Lust was coined from thy face,
And bought in market place
Plain passion, and strange sins without a name
E’en in the lists of shame;
And thou wast hated, trodden underfoot.
With gibe and laugh and hoot,
And loved and kissed with wild delirious kiss,
Till Death took thee in his
Breast, laying thee asleep afar from love
Or any scorn thereof,
Equal to all. For dust is e’er the same
And free from taint of shame.
A wondrous race is thine. Since time began,
Since love to lust first ran,
And plighted faith was broken and cast down
As an unkingdomed crown,
And Vice took seat upon the world’s high throne
To reign and rule alone,
And Virtue as his queen was placed beside
To serve him for a bride,
Hast thou been knelt to and with tears adored,
And bought with gold and sword.
The grave takes thee, another of thy race
Soon fills the vacant place,
As rose replaces rose upon the tree
As sweet each to the bee.
So to the furthest end of history
The self-same thing shall be,
For lust is love, and love is king o’er kings
And master of earthly things.
I gaze upon thy face now changed in death
In fear and awe-held breath,
And ponder if this clay-built tenement
Be of divine intent;
If for it God has not conceived a soul
And made a perfect whole
To live transfigured through all change and time
Immutable, sublime;
Or if ’tis nothing but an instant part
Of this world’s mighty heart,
Wandering thro’ space in every shape and form,
Like changing cloud in storm;
Either may be! two roads to left and right,
Unknown, both lost in night.
GINEVRA.
SCENE — A bridge in the city of Verona.
TIME — NEARLY midnight.
ANTONIO. If every man had on his brow engraved
The sorrow he had known, what mockery
Would pity be! Life’s pleasures are but few,
Life’s griefs are many, and their end the same.
Yet sometimes in the silent solitude
Sorrow doth seem most like a comforter;
Her very pain is sweet, her very tears
Like oil assuage and calm life’s weary waves.
How wonderfully sweet the midnight hour!
How silent and mysteriously still
A city seems by night! Now all is hushed
Beneath the spell of sleep. The heavens lit
Buried in deep repose. The river flows
Serenely on in silent stateliness;
With all its sad and secret histories
Hidden within a time-unwrinkled breast:
It passes like a dream whose skirt we strive
To seize when waking’s nigh eluding us.
How like it is to life! It comes and goes,
Changing, yet e’er the same. The domes and temples
Lie quivering in its breathless atmosphere.
And are erased by every passing cloud
And every wandering air, like dreams by dreams.
’Tis strange that all must die. If some bright spirit,
Pausing on its aerial way, would tell
To listening ears why rainbows gleam not ever;
Why wind and cloud and fairest flowers must die;
Why all things come and go mysteriously.
Then we should know; the highway would be lit
With light that darkens sun and moon and star,
And we might drink of joy and call life pleasure.
The earth would give no longer thorns to tread,
And sorrow no more bitter tears to weep.
Man, Lord of things, encrowned in wisdom of years,
Would sit supreme, God over gods dethroned.
(Enter ORISINO.)
ORISINO. Heigh ho! Antonio, as usual,
Dreaming some faint sick dream.
ANTONIO. — What, is it thou?
ORISINO. Yes, it is I who wake thee from thy dreams;
And yet, methinks, withal thou art most carnal,
And lovest well the pleasures of the flesh.
Yea, I will warrant that a lady is
The cause of all this moonlight meditation.
ANTONIO. It may be that thou hast divined it rightly.
ORISINO. Well! love is fair and very beautiful.
What sweeter than a tender lily girl,
Who clings to you in devout simplicity,
Like ivy to the oak!
ANTONIO. — It may be so;
But I aver your girls do weary me.
I long for that more spiritual essence
Of soul-predestined love, that, like a star,
Flames burning bright and unconsumably,
Shedding a light and radiance through the deep
And middle night of soul despondency.
And though a distance limitless doth now
Divide me from my soul conceived soul,
Yet I, without sign-manual of love,
Or God, or any human precedent,
Did blindly and unreasoningly adore.
ORISINO. Thy brain is sick with dream and fantasy.
Hast thou, then, met this shadow of thy soul?
ANTONIO. If I were e’er to speak my secret mind,
In bitter loathing thou would’st turn from me.
ORISINO. Thou knowest well I never judged thee harshly; —
Since we were boys ’twas I that did excuse thee
When others blamed. Nay! speak, Antonio.
ANTONIO. I tell thee, if I speak, that thou wilt hate,
Ay, even full as much as thou dost love.
ORISINO. It grieves me sore to hear thee speak so.
ANTONIO. — Yes,
’Tis as I say; but speak of other things.
ORISINO. Nay, nay, Antonio; ’tis twenty years
Since, on my or on thy
dear mother’s knee,
(I know not which, for they were loving friends,
As we have been, and were inseparable) —
We first did enter into friendship’s bonds.
ANTONIO. I know thou lovest me, thou art my friend;
But there are things that some see black as night,
Yet others think as bright and pure as day.
I tremble at my love. The human heart,
Like brooks and wells, has many flowers that bloom
Beneath the lucid wave. These flowers ever
Turn their eyes towards the sun, and seek to pierce
The green gloom of the silent atmosphere;
They struggle hard, and when at length their roots
Give way, released they rise to the topmost wave,
And gaze upon the long-imagined sun;
But, like a tame bird in an unknown land,
They find no kinship, only enmity.
The killing insect and the gnawing worm
Soon seize the fragrant blossom, and deflower
Its loveliness.
ORISINO. If love’s attainment be
So cast, why seek predestined bitterness?
ANTONIO. Because ’tis better far to see the sun
And die, than live purblind eternally.
ORISINO. Trust me, Antonio; my counsel will
Help thee, perhaps.
ANTONIO. — Ask me no more, but list.
Long I lay in the shadow of my thought,
Where all was shrouded ‘neath the inky veil
Of storm-closed clouds of doubt and misery;
My soul raged like a midnight sea, that writhes
A wounded thing beneath the lashing scourge
Of wind and rain. The storm lulled suddenly,
And a green patch of sky between the clouds
Shone like a burning emerald; green glancing
Shadows played o’er the sea’s marmoreal breast,
And, midway ‘tween the sea-line and the sky,
A plenilune of love hung motionless;
And myriad stars of joy and hope shone bright
Within the deep unfathomably. It was
My own fair sister, who stood signal-wise,
Lighting the beaconed wintry wilderness
That I called life. The first snow-drop that peeps
From earthly nest, and gazes tremblingly
Upon the bare, bleak world, is not more dear
To mother Spring than this sweet child to me;
But custom’s bitter mouth had cursed the love
That might ‘tween brother and a sister grow.
ORISINO (aside). Have I gone mad, or do I hear aright?
My brain reels round; I feel a dizzy sickness
Seize hold on me; a something glues my lips
And clings, and eats into my very bones.
I am like one in loathsome charnel pit
Where things are veiled in pestilential haze.
Pah! What a nauseous hell-born infamy!
My hand would stab him in the very mouth,
Would pluck forth by the roots that fetid weed,
His tongue, and cast it to the dogs. But no,
The dogs would vomit sick with loathing hate.
No mouth could hold a thing so poisonous
Except his own.
And this is whom I loved. What scorpion
Lay in my breast!. But I will listen yet
Tho’ his words sting me unto bitter death.
ANTONIO. Our father first encouraged our sweet love,
But when at length the whole truth dawned on him,
He tried by threats and prayers to wean us from
What he did blindly term unholy passion;
But finding then, too late, it was most useless
To separate two hearts that love had joined,
He prisoned her within a convent wall.
ORISINO. Most merciful God! my cup of bitterness
Indeed is full, aye filled to overflowing:
To know the girl that I thought pure and chaste,
So black, so false, and full of infamy,
The girl I loved with a great unuttered love.
(Searches for dagger.)
Hot now, the guard comes by. It must be done
Most silently and secretly.
(Soldiers pass singing.)
Fill high the stoup of wine; fill high,
And drink to our sweethearts dear;
We laugh and sing but never sigh,
Unless in a lady’s ear.
(Chorus.)
A soldier’s life, a soldier’s life, —
A soldier’s life for me;
In every town we have a wife,
In every city three.
ANTONIO. What noise those roistering fellows make;
[one’s speech
Is drowned in utterance.
This very night
I meet her in the convent cemetery.
Love lends her wings to pass the gate and wall,
And she will fly with me to some far land,
Where none will ever know the double love
That binds us two.
What thinkest thou? My plan,
Does it not seem to thee most feasible?
The strangeness of my love bewilders thee;
The prejudice of years and teaching blinds.
Sweetness can ne’er be wrong. Nay, thou wilt help
And aid me. Why those passion-pale bent brows?
ORISINO. I prithee, pardon. Th’ wildness of thy words,
The darkness of the night, a hundred things,
Unnerve my thoughts.
(Aside.) I’ll let him meet her there,
And then, before her very eyes, this steel
Shall kiss his foul black heart, and send his soul
To writhe in darkness of tempestuous fire.
Then, long sweet years of undiminished love,
And prayers and hopes will I lay round her feet;
And, if from this most baneful lust I wean
Her once bright pure ethereal soul, my life
Will have attained its furthest end.
SCENE II.
An old ruinons cemetery, ivy-grown walls, dilapidated, tombs and gravestones,
(Enter ANTONIO and ORISINO.)
ANTONIO. NO sound disturbs the night. Wild clouds like hounds
A weary moon do chase thro’ starless fields
Of wintry sky. The wandering wind doth sigh,
As might a spectre lady sorrowing
Around the nuptial bed of her beloved.
The yews and cypresses, the waving grass,
Seem instinct with the grave. How painfully
Those whitening willows swing their mystic branches
On every passing air. Do they not seem
To whisper to the mist-wrought phantom forms
That rise from out the wormy earth, and float
Folding themselves into a hundred shapes,
Divided by the wind. The tomb-cast shadows
Steal weirdly to and fro winding across
The cemetery. How pallid is the light
Of the cold smitten moon! Here all is death,
And images of death. This silent earth
Holds men and maids who loved; holds sin and crime,
Strange hates and bitter wretchedness. O Earth!
Thou mother of us all, I kiss thy face,
I brush my cheek amid thy grass and leaves.
Thou art the final end; thou askest nought,
Thy mute lips question not; thou givest peace
To harlot and to nun, to atheist
And priest, alike, a sweet eternal peace.
ORISINO. Methinks the scene is not the cheerfullest.
You do but dream. The place oppresses me,
This gravestone’s opportune, let us sit here.
Some minutes yet must pass before the hour
Doth strike, that day from night divides. But hark! —<
br />
What is that awful penetrating sound?
It fills the mind with fearful trembling.
(Chorus of Nuns.)
From out of the deep sea of time, we arise,
Whose depths are unstirred by the pulse of the years,
Whose waters are waveless, unbittered with tears;
Where all is a sleep without ears, without eyes;
We arise, we awake, on the stroke of the hour
When virginal love blooms into an infinite flower.
From out of the deep sea of time, we awake,
Where sleep has no current, nor tide to upcast
The tall foundered wrecks of the pale dead past;
Where the stars of the future ne’er tremble and break;
We arise, we awake, for the dawning is near,
And is whitening the surge of the hours that pour out the year.
(Voices from above.)
Our passions sustain us, and move
To the motion of instinct desire;
With the rhythmical anguish of love,
And the heaving of tremulous fire.
(Voices from below.)
The thirst unassuaged yet unsloken
Will be drowned in the fiercest delight;
And love will be rent and be broken,
And kissed out of feeling or sight.
(A Voice.)
Our virtue resisted
The passion, that twisted
The sense in its coils, till our senses were withered and sere.
(Another Voice.)
Now all that love’s passion
Can mould, or can fashion,
We will know, we will taste, this night of the hundredth year.
(Voices from above.)
We nestle, like nestling of doves,
We hover on shadowing wings,
O’er the eyes and the lips of loves
Dreaming unreachable things.
(A Voice.)
No love will be rootless, —
No joy will be fruitless,
All things will be sweet, and passion the thing the most dear.
(Voices from below.)
The shuddering of eyelids and lips;
The trembling of senses that die;
The spirit too weary, that trips
And falls like the breath in a sigh.
(Chorus of Nuns and Virgins.)
Laid low by the gods in the deep,
In the deep below vision or dream,
Where the worm her vigil doth keep
Together with the soul supreme;
On the threshold of Adenn, we seem
To gaze down a vista of light,
To float on a magical stream,
In the sight
Of delight
That is seen like agleam through the night.
We have wandered
A hundred
Dim weary years on the bound,
On the limits of heaven and earth, awaiting the
[trumpet to sound.
Unmingled with passion for leaven,
