Ennerdale Bridge

And Other Poems

‘I know whom I am serving; nor do I mistake the man for the master.’
— George Tyrrell.

To F. J. Fielden

Friend, broken in another’s fall and sore
Distressed by that which euphrasy nor rue
Nor any herb Earth’s borders ever grew
Shall purge from out thy visual tablets more,
Faint not: but of thy patience gone before
Hold fast the proving; there are those, not few,
Who from thy steadfast faith and labour true
The failing valour of their strife restore.

I come with flowers to crown a comrade’s grave,
But in my loss I know the living’s claim:
In eager love which triumphs o’er all shame
Of paltry answer to the gifts they gave,
I pay my brothers tribute. But I crave
To bind up first with friendship’s wreath thy name.

Preface

I am sorry these poems are, most of them, so subjective. But their composition has fallen in years when I have written very little verse, and that little under circumstances which almost forced it into one mould. The title-poem is the reason for this publication. It is a tribute to a man who helped many, and me most of all.

My last volume bewildered such reviewers as noticed it, by its mixture of religious and secular verses. Most of them, while putting the latter by, spoke gently of the former; it is to be supposed that they were right in their preference. One or two, however, expressed an opinion directly opposite. For the benefit of these misguided but kindly creatures, if they are still treading their primrose way, I have included a handful of secular verses.

I have only to add that, in the case of the names of Bengali plants and places and men, the vowels are nearly always longer than they would be in English. In Rabi the a is an included vowel and should be pronounced as a fairly long o. ‘The Ghosts’ Tragedy’ supplies a balance of objective matter. There is more than one English version of the story; the best-known is in Lord Redesdale’s Tales of Old Japan.’* That book came into my hands after my drama was written; but the outline of the included mask, ‘The Robe of Feathers,’ was taken by me from that book, and I wish to make this acknowledgement.

Ennerdale Bridge

A monody for the author’s friend George Lowther, drowned in Floutern Tarn, July 3O, 1913.

‘Though from the mount of music absent long,
I sought again the shadowed caves where burn
The undying lamps of God and altars hoar,
And in this darkness of my soul return
To set these hills of Time o’er which I stride,
Through all their yokes and stretching ridges wide,
With funeral torch aflame
And echoing with the praise of one loved name.’

So spake I, journeying that deep cloud amid,
To One, a mountain-wanderer where I went,
Who through the blackness showed
O’er crag and broken rill and tumbling road
And of my travail learned the sad intent.
‘Ill deed,’ quoth He, ‘that thou, a slave, shouldst thus
Attempt the uncouth paths precipitous,
By me, thy Lord, unbid!
Now from thy perilous music pause, and seek
A safer way; myself will be thy guide.
Expect in patience sun that shall arise
And comfort of clear skies.
I know thee all too weak
To furnish from thy sorrow and thy pride
A fitting threne for that heroic soul
That has outrun thee, pacing to the goal.’

Now, as the windy breath
Blows freshly through a shining heaven again
And drives afar of death
And loss the thoughts that pain,
I take a lyre aware to whom belongs
No less than unto me its least of songs
And dedicate to that dead lord what skill
Sleeps in my fingers still,
Perchance, ere on my day the dusk descend
And He that sent me forth shall make an end,
Knowing my spirit eager for the night
Wherethrough she must towards His presence fight,
My last of music. Therefor let me bring
Words worthy of my sorrow and a strain
Despising myth and glozing fable vain!
No cunning chant of shepherds that bewail
Their comrade in Sicilian valleys dead
Shall of my grief be veil
Or mock with idle blossoms, lightly shed,
The earth beneath whose turf lies deathly pale
The face that shone with love and joy to God
So oft, when to its side my footsteps trod.

O sleeper in the mountains loved so well,
Beloved of thee, nor less of me thy friend!
Chill rain and driving storm shall o’er thy grave
Blow bitter and the feathered flakes descend;
The hills with heath shall be one purple wave
When autumn suns shall on those summits glow,
And sky and tinted fell
Of their rich glory largely shall bestow.
Ay me! while seasons sweep
Above our mother holding to her breast
Her dearest child asleep,
While raves above the changing year’s unrest
God’s season-winds that rouse
To life and hue all other things that drowse,
Dost thou remember? Day by day we went
By sliding scree, o’er knotty ling and bent,
And our libations gave
To many a fountain-queen and on her wave
Shook down from raspberry-canes the blossoms pale,
Dear sleeper by the brook of Ennerdale!
I see thee standing yet!
Where rowan draws its careful screen across
Gaunt boulders, cushioned with the shining moss.
And falls, a wood-nymph’s height or more, the stream
Thou watchest on the sundew, while with shout
I swim and toss the golden drops about.
I see the mountains flame
With eve that like a conflagration came,
And through the shifting gleam
Of Crummock that rejoicing chant once more
Springs over flowing wave and plashing oar,
Till fancy in those clouds that march and burn
Her quire of fervent angels* might discern.
Can this from memory fail,
Dear sleeper by the brook of Ennerdale?
Ah! let thy body there
Drowse under the blind earth and leaves that fade,
But of thy spirit hear me make one prayer,
Long since amid Hellenic sorrow made:

‘Thou, if to Lethe’s brink
Thou comest, of that wave refuse to drink!
Even for my sake refrain,
For she that knows the love that knits us twain,
Pale Queen of ghosts, will grant this boon, to dwell
Mindful of me amid the asphodel.’

So pray I, nor forget
The high resolve with which my song began;
But unawares my brooding sorrow ran
On ancient grief and saw behind the guise
Of fabling tale the stricken human eyes.
So let me dally yet
With gracious memories and amass like flowers
The dreams of vanished hours,
Or spent in London’s streets, or by the side
Of Tadwick, where our spirits earliest played,
Or in some Epping slade,
Or where that Abbey awes the whispering fen
Of Crowland and the haunted winds blow wide,
Or where, with loitering, Nen
Laves Oundle and the loosestrife, tall in pride.
Those hours are mine, nor Time, that takes away
All else, on these a filching hand can lay.

II

The sun sinks and the west
Is dim with night, that brings to me no rest
Where in my eastern world I brood apart.
Here with thy songs alone
I sit and listen to the voice I knew;
My genial spirits flag, the clouds descend;
My music must in shadows make an end
And dark the path my sorrow must pursue.
Remembering what thou wast, my crying heart
Grows cold and falters from her path unknown.
Through thee it was I rose
To such poor height as now I call my own;
Through thee were overthrown
Old fears and passed a valley of my foes.
With thee my comrade gone,
How shall I battle on?
How, lacking thee, to my far goal attain?
Half of my race is run;
Youth’s day is finished, nor does any stain
Of its dead beauty in my skies remain.
Thou wast its setting sun,
And all the simple pleasure that I had
In sky and stream, in meadows glory-clad,
With thee is vanished; that memorial stone
Of Ennerdale hides not thyself alone.
Brother, if under English air again
I watch the apple-orchards break in snow
Or hearken, where the carrier-winds waft over
Warm earth the breath of honeysuckle and clover,
The nightingales their passionate music make,
Where in white waxen row
The orchis-tapers glimmer through the brake,
Seeing me standing mute, remembering thee,
Dead brother, in that beauty come to me!
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ obtain
That thou mayst run physician to my pain!
Let not that earth and air to me be dumb!
I care not how thou comest, so thou come!
For I am waiting here
Sole, while the weeks slip by and day gives place
To day, night follows night with even pace.
I wait the summons clear
Wherewith shall dawn again, where sad I stand,
A day of His right hand,
When I shall rise and join me to the throng
Who to the King’s Venite move along
And through my being know
The lust of life again, the ancient glow
Which battle turned to laughter, grief to song.
Now eve by eve I fare
Afar from folk; the forest shuts me round;
Little for me the racing parrots care,
The partridge runs in scorn
At ease among the clumps of saviour’s thorn.*
Dusk deepens; in the brake
Are stirrings and a rustling wind beats low;
The dry-tongued sals to whispering life awake;
The jackal slouches past; the shadows grow;
And I am waiting still, for here, it seems,
I might behold the face that rules my dreams,
Might see my comrade through this covert stride
And bring those eyes of laughter to my side.
Friend, when this sorrow fell,
A hundred times a day to bed and chair
I looked, half-hopeful of thee seated there;
All dazed in spirit through the hours I passed.
Still under that sad spell
I move, and scarcely of this grief am sure,
But dream that in a while the light may break
And as from painful sleep I shall awake.
Ah! wherefor so cast down, my soul? Endure,
Take heart and triumph!
By thy faith thou hast
Saved many, falter not thyself at last!
Nor mar thy fate sublime
By selfish sorrows that perplex the dead!
Be mindful how thy valour shall bestead
The souls that must hereafter walk in Time!
Think of thy case as with those brethren great,
The Seed of Zeus, whereof his course the one
Ran in the shadows of this transient sun
Yet had a deathless fellow to his mate.
His spirit that in Time with thine had place
And walked with thee Earth’s meadows for a space,
Has from thy vision perished; some vast need
Unguessed has drawn him far from human heed.
It pleased the Master of all souls to call
Back to His presence this one soul of all,
Yet somewhere now, though from thy ken, he hears
His comrade’s voice still sounding in his ears,
And from thy love he grows
Even in those fields in strength against new foes,
And in this earthly friendship grandly rears
A brow invincible, and waxes, more
Than in angelic loves, conquestador.
Wherefor, thou too uplift
A braver face against the rushing drift
Of fears that in thy sorrow’s mood wax bold!
Be glad and from afar the prize behold!
A witness-compassed course hast thou to run,
And he who now to heavenly tasks doth bend
Heroic energies, that labour done,
Will eagerly thy dim-lit way attend.
Remember nights the jungle hemmed thee round,
When through the sal-leaves swept a murmuring sound
Which stirred the fragrant tassels of the thorn,
While faint and pale the moon
Hung low, for setting soon,
Whereby thou knew’st the dark far-spent and morn
Elsewhere preparing. Lo now, in thy sky
Time’s moon is passing, drift and shadow fly!
Ah! in what heaven all golden buds the rose
Whose petals over thee shall wide unclose?
Within what skies is gathering the red strength
Of dawn that shall pavilion thee at length?
And there shall come a Voice
Which even now perchance in light commands
Some other star rejoice
And seraphs close with trump and lifted song
Some other planet’s tale of finished wrong
And deep redemption wrought with wounded hands.
That Voice, O soul, await,
As on Himala’s slopes the pines wait, dumb
And tense in darkness till their master come
Who will together shake
Their tops and of their travail music make.
With not less patience thou,
Remembering with what eyes upon thee now
Thou strivest, on thy course with courage speed;
Nor chide the hours that make that coming late;
For dawn, that Voice, thy race’s finish, all
Will in a moment fall:
But set with eager heed
Exultant face to thy far-glimmering goal
And friend that waits to welcome thee, my soul!

September—October, 1913.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

To W. G. Rushbrooke

I walked from Nainital to Ranikhet.
Prosaic fact! but yet
Observe, the winding roadway ran amid
The giant heart of Himalayan hills.
Here beetling heights are hid
With bearded ilex, rhododendron covers,
And here Sylvanus spills
Cascades of silver, every flashing sheet
A nymph with falling tresses to her feet,
A nymph begirt with stalwart oaks for lovers.
Ben Nevis’ height or more I gave away
By stumbling paths stone-strewn;
The fervid eye of noon
Was on me then, but ere the journey’s close
Above a whale-backed mountain’s rim arose
A golden halo, next the leaping moon
Assumed the vacant heaven. I limped footsore
By roads with clustered forest dark no more
Nor bright with frond and snowy jasmine-spray.
Deep-audible, a rushing brook below,
Far down, my steps companioned with his flow
And put in mind of thee, whose very name
Is potent (so the earnest Muse avers)
To strike a pulse of summer through the song.
A fact! for but the mention once sufficed,
When Winter ruled and other brooks were iced.
Being made to him the Children’s Angel knows,*
To call before ‘that old man eloquent’
Glad vision of a brook with flowering bent,
A dance of waters in a forest-close,
A rout of maidens knit in laughing game
With hands rush-laden.
Now, Muse, brisk along!
Acquaint the sahib* how scent of climbing firs
Informed the pilgrim he must shortly get
To pine-wrapt Ranikhet.
Tell Rushbrooke I am here, and that the Snows,
Long-backboned Trisul, Nandadevi, et
Hoc genus omne (he can learn their height
From any atlas good) are well in sight.
But, chief of all, O Muse,
Remember!—nay, forgetting this, return
No more to me, but be upon thy head
The petals of Oblivion’s poppies shed!
Remember! tell my friend
How much beyond their power these rimes intend;
With what a flame, could I my thought infuse,
These crabbed words would burn.
Tell Rushbrooke this; and add, my dreams at whiles
Are by those apprehensive, kindly eyes
Disturbed with dim surmise
Of secret suffering, suffering masked with smiles.
Say that I love those tolerant eyes which saw,
Beneath the folly of word and thought which blot
My best of deeds, the will consenting not,
The spirit loyal to a sterner law,
And, seeing this, forgave
His weakness to the aye-rebellious slave.
Say this; but, having said thine all, confess
Thine all, though tricked in braver style, were less
Than his desert ‘who so doth love my Muse
And unto me doth such religion use.’

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

To Rabindranath Tagore

Now Posh* is o’er, the month of Magh* comes in
That opens mango-flowers;
And you must leave your bowers
Beneath whose roof we conversed, you and I,
While the grave pomp of golden hours went by.
You said you would; come then, a breathing-space
Let me ward off the uninitiate din,
The mob that holds your hunted soul in chase.
Rabi, I’ll not deny
You’ve got some decent timber at Bolpur:
The chatim-grove where the Maharshi sat;
Light-plumaged nim; and gloss-leaved pomegranàt
That hangs (from whence his arrows’ barbèd heat*)
Its crimson torches round the Love-god’s seat.
There’s siris too; and that sal-skirted walk
(Can I forget?) where we two paced in talk
That evening when the cable’s mighty news*
Flashed under seas, and I of western folk
First took your hand and for our Europe spoke
(Whence greatly Fate I praise
That with so bright a garland crowned my days
And honoured so the Muse
That of our alien homage it befell
A poet was the speaker; Fate did well.)
But hear, and fall to lure
Of groves that shame Bolpur!
Yes, truly! I have siris, tamarind, screen
Of bel and babla, pipal’s dancing green.
A banian by my window grows, I swear,
That is of all your vaunted trees the match.
Its hands of cunning catch
The careless winds in cages dark, and lift
Huge arms, for worship spread
And packed with berries red,
Ripe fruit, our sacrificial Mother’s gift
Unto the Sun whose love has made her fair.
Then no day longer, friend,
Suffer this month of mango-flowers go by!
Think shame to let the globèd moon so oft
On bootless inquest send
Her shining slaves, to carry this reply
Wearily back aloft,
That they have searched the trees from side to side,
Have through the whispering bamboo-copses hied,
Each corner of the lotused tank have tried,
Have wandered through the banian’s umbrage wide,
And Rabi is not there!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Sun’s Darlings

There is a spot, dim-seen behind our trees,
Where for a space, ere sunny hours are told,
Whoever goes goes garmented in gold;
And I, to take my ease,
Ofttimes, my book flung idly on my knees,
That transitory company behold,
Yea, much have mused and marvelled as they went
In sun-brave pilgrimage magnificent.
By largesse of that generous ample air
Enwrapped with light beyond an angel’s dream,
The beggar moves; nor king, if king were there,
More glorious than his meanest hind would gleam.
No eyes but mine behold this daily show,
The folk, the clinging glow,
The ruddy stems of that majestic road.
I watch my fellows go,
Priest, labourer, child, the coolie with his load,
All, man or woman, playing lad or maid,
In one obliterating pomp arrayed.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Light in Light

The thoughts that were the spring of all my life,
The hopes that were auxiliar to the strife,
Blind with industrious folly, I never knew;
But deemed that otherwhere
The fountains rose whereby my life ran fair,
And in the fervid sky
Discerned the governant eye
Which on my deeds compelling influence threw.

Vain spirit, all too weak
To hearken, where a thousand martyrs speak!
For all thy busy thought, too slow to guess
What trumpet-tongued the heavens confess,
What shines on every sunlit wing,
In candid lily’s pencilling,
And in the scarlet forehead of the rose
Burns, like a lamp amid league-stretching snows!
Become the witness’ slave,
I missed the message which the witness gave,
Nor read that blazoned vesture; pointing hands
I saw, which testified to braver lands
And from light’s realm afar
Led to the night where shone my regnant star,
Yet followed not, because—the chief of blame!—
So pilgrim once, grown tame
To Beauty’s lure, Thought fluttered pinion-lame.
Ah! not till all things failed,
Saw I what gentle pulse through all prevailed,
The magic lapse of light from purer air
Pervasive of the noontide’s treacherous glare!
Nor was it till the darkness fell
I knew the stars that guided me so well!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Defiance

Lord, if Thy love would place
All shadows that there be my path about,
And set before Thy face
Thick darkness as a cloud to shut Thee out,
Thou couldst not. Not Thyself the gracious past
Canst blot, for all the power Thou art and hast.
Recall from Earth’s deep breast that breaks in flowers
The forespent sunlight and accepted showers,
Forbid the sunset’s red memorial sheen
And afterglory where the day has been,
But, having given Thyself, that gift, be sure,
Must through all pangs endure.
Earth in her bosom keeps
The storèd light of ages; even so
Thy marvellous kindness and compassion glow
Within me. Touched, to flame the vision leaps,
And in the gleaming mist amazed I stand,
A bloom of silver lilies at my hand.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Summons

Thy trump hath sounded twice.
Speak and be heard, O Master of the Dead,
For whose unvisioned realms the fathers fare
And I myself prepare!
Thy hands are on my head,
Thy seal and sanguine sign is on my brow!
O speak! For if not now
Thou callest from the stir and giddy dance
Of changing face and shifting circumstance,
Clear word vouchsafe. Thy trump hath sounded twice.
Listening I am, and listening must remain
Till the tremendous summons peal again,
Beyond all doubt, the voice that must suffice,
And with quick-coming breath and soul afire
I seek the vast adventure I desire.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Outlaw

Lord, after Calvary,
Thy Spirit, walking trackless silence, first
Came to the plot accurst
Where blood-bespattered lay
The broken corse of him that did betray.
Come, Spirit dear, again,
Unto an earth most desolate and torn,
Rockribbed, quickset with desert stub and thorn,
Where, by his own hand slain,
Lies my dead youth, that traitor was to Thee!
With that imperial pity in Thy face
Forgive the guilt of this mad justice stern!
Stand by the dead, and turn
Towards the wilderness! Oh let Thy word,
A pulsing music in Abaddon heard,
A gentle sudden sound in that stark place,
A rustling breath among the sharp-lipped leaves,
A tingling cry which rock from rock receives,
Startle the fleeing soul in desperate race,
That even amid that headlong flight will halt,
Hearken, and fall to Love’s far-off assault,
Trembling will hesitate, then on its track
With fear and evermastering joy run back,
Last, in Thy fellowship of spirits to be
Nearest and humblest through Eternity.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Visit

I stood with chalk in hand, at point to trace
Hard meanings on the board,
When suddenly His face
Shone in,—abstracted, sad, as though He sought
Within that frequence something, finding nought
Of all He hoped for, marking there alone
One long a slave unprofitable known.

Dear disappointed Presence, come again!
For though, with vision foiled and failing brain,
I falter from the gracious duty set,
I could be faithful, did that Face remain,
I could remember, didst not Thou forget.
And, Soul, be swift and eager, that, when next
The room grows calm beneath thy gazing Lord,
Those eyes may rest, with no misgiving vexed,
Well-pleased upon thee where thou dost fulfil
With gleaming chalk and ignorant lips His will!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Lepers’ Hymn

I heard the lepers singing as I went
Towards the jungle; gleamed ahead the line
Sharp-green of sal-trees; silent earth gave sign
Of rain to fall; no less my soul, long dry,
Catching from lips of pain that thankful cry,
Grew ’ware of showers and, rapt to nobler mood,
To graver musings turned and thoughts which blent,
Diverse, to one consent
(For who, so blest, would dare division make
Of lesser from the greater gratitude?),
As thus: the Word
Was made flesh; and this eve the drought will break
In torrents; rice to-morrow will be springing;
And God to-day has heard
The lepers singing.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Cana

The wine ran out, the bearer’s warning glance
Answered the bride’s inquiring countenance.
To Mary’s heart there came
Sorrow lest envious tongues the feast profane,
And scalding tears of shame
Fill up and stain
Another woman’s eyes, to bear the blame
Of poverty that from its lavished store
Showed naked now and could provide no more.
One word that mother spake,
Enough—behold the sleeping virtue wake
Within the Son! Behold those pots arow
And brimmed with ruddy glow!
Hear the Feastmaster’s voice, rejoiced, amazed,
In generous chiding towards the bridegroom raised:
‘Men give the good wine first, then why hast thou
Kept the best wine till now?’

Even thus, even thus indeed,
Thou dost prevent our need,
Quickening, by looks divine,
Life’s simple pleasures to a richer shine.
Yet more than this transfigured water, Lord,
Thy presence at the board.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Sundown

I see Thee standing when the day is gone
As though Thou hadst a gold crown on;
And from Thy side
Pours forth the tide
Which ere the world’s foundation ran
For uncreated man.
E’en so, in Patmos pent for Thy loved Name,
Thy servant, when the tossing seas became
The sun’s deep-stained grave,
Beheld Thee with Thy foot on that red wave,
Shedding to other worlds than this we see
Through that far sky Thine ageless agony.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Secret Writing

Lord Jesus, Thou didst stoop and write in dust,
When those who deemed not of the depths that lay
Within Thy heart of passionate love alway
Drew one that trembled through their public places,
Thronged round with hostile faces.
Lord, Thou didst write in dust;
Amazèd at men’s hearts too hard to care
Aught for that anguish bleeding, stript, and bare,
A woman shrinking there
Before the marvellous pity of Thy face,
Didst stoop and write in dust what shall be read
When Heaven and Earth before the trump have fled.

Lord, I would make one prayer,—
I having faith that Thou wilt stoop again
And write upon my dust of sin and pain
That men shall read when what I am is blown
Through the dark hours by homeless winds that moan?
E’en that perchance; Thou know’st. But now I pray
For this my fading day;
That even on me, being dust, Thy hand would trace
What those whose daily tasks with mine are knit
(Wayfaring men and folk of little wit)
May read, and know their Lord hath stooped and writ.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

G. L. Feather

In sleep I saw (if that were sleep indeed
Wherein my spirit lay as in a tent,
Fulfilled of things by God’s deep favour meant
For pain’s assuage and solace of my need)
A friend from whom most sweetly did proceed
Converse and memory of the days that, blent,
Were his and mine, ere to that Lord he went
Of whom even when with me he took grave heed.

Life’s early scholar, ripened in brief space,
He left our duller souls. But why speak so,
He listening? Watching Friend, whose calm eyes glow
Beside me, now that I have seen thy face,
When by the throne thou stand’st let our Lord know
I count this thing of His surpassing grace.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Cricket-Pitch

To choose a pitch we walk.
How beautiful beneath the drowsy skies
Of falling eve the quiet landscape lies,
And in this gracious air
The white roofs of the Lepers’ Home how fair!
I gaze, we talk.
What say’st thou, friend? Mine eyes
Unearthly glory fills, nor is there found
Within mine ear a way for human sound.
Some unseen power hath touched all things, and now
All ghost am I, and thou.
This mortal scene dissolves, nor can I see
If comrades still we tread eternity,
But in what meadows dim with light I stride
I marvel, and whose voice is at my side.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Travelling Waters

Lo, as a mighty river, plunging still
Towards the ocean, father of his rest,
Doth oft-times feel within his surging breast
Deep waters from afar, that for a space
He pauses, in the joys of that embrace
Forgetful of his quest—
So I at whiles, before the climbing swell
From that profound wherein I haste to dwell,
In God forgetting God, with stabbing thrill,
Whenas those waves my deepening channel fill,
Rejoice through all my soul’s increasing river
With leaping shock and strong ecstatic quiver,
Knowing what waters from that home forerun,
The Father’s greeting to the travelling son.
Thereafter, when the ebb flows seaward back,
The tension falls, the tight-held currents slack;
By changing banks that ever fade to view,
I take my firm exultant march anew.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Reveller

‘Tell to the King that one waiteth would speak.’
‘Fresh from what folly done? Flushed is thy cheek!’
‘Ay, with the bitter blast on His face beat
When to His death He passed frail through the heat!’

‘Deep hast thou drunk thy fill!’
‘Late did I dine.
Water the Giver’s will ruddied to wine.
“Come I Where I am,” said He, seeing my fear,
“There must My servant be.” Did’st thou not hear?

Lo, on my feet I bear dust of His ways!’
‘Ay, but thy shining hair?’
‘Glimmer of bays.
I was His minstrel, friend. Did I not right,
Going at banquet-end crowned into night?’

‘This is no laurel-bough!’
‘Hath laurel thorn?’
‘Scarlet on scarlet brow, berries adorn!
What is thy garland, tell!’
‘Holly, perchance;
Red with the drops that fell red from a lance!’

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Eden-Voices

All ye who strive to gain
The peace which nowise will with such remain
Whose clutching fingers hold
The mart’s appraisèd gold,
Draw hither! lo! what paradise is spread,
Whose glades all purple blossom to the tread
Of One within whose face
All comforts have their place!
Fond seekers, halt and hear
What echoing musics clear
Through wind-awakening boughs
Stride to your fleeing spirits with strong arouse!
Look back! and through these branches starred discover
The beauty of your Lover,
And know this forest thronged with eyes awake
Long centuries for your sake.
No longer let it you distress
To leave the jostling crowd,
The chaffering market loud,
For home within so fair a wilderness.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Drunkard

Times are there when a gleam
Athwart my vision strikes, I stagger blind
In pastures where upon my mother’s breast
Light like an exhalation lies at rest,
Where, in replace of flowers,
For carpet underneath my feet is spread
And hung for canopy above my head
Intoxicating bloom of mist and dream,
Strange buds upon the many-branchèd hours,
Strange turf upon the sacred bones I tread!
Then on my maddened mind
A splendour comes too great for song or cry;
My body is a house of power, and I
A cage for deity, a tent whereby
God’s purpose in the world an hour may dwell.
Then, not to be o’erthrown,
A strength is mine wherewith my being heaves,
That all the secret of my silence spell,
For that within is known
Even as the wind’s invisible presence, shown
Among a bush by trembling of the leaves.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Symbols of Eternity

I

All in a meadow beautified with flowers
I saw a mother playing with her children.
Rose then a mist which overswept their pleasure;
Vanished the meadow, the mother, and the flowers;
Only the children were calling from the cloud.
Earth was the mother, and Time was the meadow,
Men were the children and marvellous their mirth.

II

Who is this I see, sitting by what stream,
Glowing like a heaven calm with sunset-gleam?
Laughing—nay, he frowns—while he holds a glass
O’er whose shining front swift reflections pass?

Easily may all guess my riddle clear.
Noise of many worlds in that stream I hear;
Earth the mirror is, Time the looks that fly
O’er the changing face of him that sits thereby.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Suppliants

Very still and calm are the trees;
Not a breeze
Breaks upon the breast of the air.
O Earth, my Mother Earth, spreading out
Thy lotus-petals sweet in a face
Of rejoicing worship! See, in thy prayer
I, thy son, claim a place!
What thou seekest let our Lord bring about!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

September

Through this drizzling veil scarcely I behold
Trees and shining grass, sky of spreading gold;
Gusts that shift the vapour hardly for a space
Show me dawn that conquers, dawn that grows in grace.

Through another rain dimly strikes a view.—
Field all full of folk; some are souls I knew;
All in light they walk; I with straining eyes
Watch unfolding fast dawn in other skies.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Wind in the Pipal*

There’s a wind amid the pipal when the other trees are still,
There’s a wind amid the pipal, that whispers of God’s will;
When the sun is spent and falling, of the things that day has seen
Goes up to God a rumour from its twinkling tongues of green.

I marvel as I muse upon the sorrow day has known,
From the convict in the prison to the king upon the throne,
At the gladness and the beauty, as they turn towards the light,
Of the leaves that lisp and chatter in the wind that springs ere night.

And I wonder when for me the fervid day grows chill and dark
If the pain will change and vanish and my spirit only mark
A dancing wind of gladness through her utmost leaflet stir,
As she whispers to her Father and her Father bends to her.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Mountain Meadows

Wandering among the meadows of a mount,
Beneath whose foot a streamlet drew by fount
And blowing sluice the silver rush of rain,
Where oak-tree towered and bee-beloved plane
And many a gracious brotherhood about
Its rustling branches to the wind spread out.—
Deep in a dell I came, whose either coast
Of wondrous blossoms bore a waving host,
And saw set forth in every starry face
The valley’s mystic joy and sheltered grace,
Not to be trod by any man save Heaven
Has for a guide the Children’s Angel given.
Awestruck I paused; but after, taking heart,
Did with delighted step those ranks dispart
Breast-high that bloomed and, in rich chalice blent,
Their odorous life did at my lips present.
Now from afar I marked amid that field
I knew not what, ’mong ranked buds concealed,
Tall Easter-lilies, wands in shining ring
Like mighty warriors that defend a king.
Thereto I ran, but oh! what great amaze
Beat on my spirit when I stood at gaze,
And found, with multitudes of flowers beset,
A Cross! Erect where waxen petals met
In one obliterating glory, bright
With woven gleams and interchange of light,
It shone and made the sacred silence glad,
Ablaze with that victorious grief it had.
I culled the blooms, rejoiced to bear them thence
For mortal distribution and dispense,
That all might glory and with face aglow
Exult in God who set His thoughts in snow
And with His sweetest beauty neighboured thus
His holy pains and passion marvellous.
But turning, in that garland silver-fair
I marked, not seen before, a brightness rare
As rubies; seeking whence the wonder came,
I saw about the Cross a lip of flame,
Deep-ruddy, flowers with weeping eyes that stood
And hid the dreadful stains upon the Rood,
Yet not without His blood thereon that bled
Had touched their loyal vassalage with red.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

For the Chief Musician

Lord, Thou hast given the birds their throat of praise
And given the field its fervent merriment,
Whence I, a humble dweller in Thy tent,
Rejoice to hear the numerous consent
Wherewith throughout this ordered universe
All things Thy laud rehearse.
Since Thou art seeking music and dost make
The very desert into songs awake,
Startling Thy sons amid unwonted ways,
Make me Thy music also; let the waste
Thrill to Thy Jubilate, and make haste
To send from each confusèd rock and stone
Wild pulsing answer and melodious tone.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Field of Blood

They in whose sorrow, Stranger, thou art king
Were slaughtered here for thee and, stern of praise,
In fire did their Quis Separabit raise,
Even to the Love that slew them; these were they
Who knew from grisly death the flower must spring
Of immortality, nor paled in dread,
But, like the phoenix, in their burning bed
Sank down and slept this tedious life away.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

St. Trophimus

St. Trophimus, from toil and travel past,
By land and sea, to Arles arrived at last,
Arrived, since robbers on the way bereft,
Helpless, and poor, and almost naked left,
Hearing a voice which hade him as he prayed
‘No further fare! Here let thy steps be stayed,’
Straightway before him planted in the sod
The comrade of his path, his olive-rod,
Which branched and budded, fruited overhead,
Refreshment for the saint and shelter spread.
Here halting then, with his own hands a fane
Of pleachèd willow, pliant ash, and plane,
He built, and spake through heathen thorps abroad
The dear evangel of his martyred Lord;
By prayerful word and sweet compulsion mild
Gathered a church within that pagan wild,
Converts to Christ baptized and in the Name
Laid to their rest—and hence the Vision came.

Beyond the borders of the town a fold
There was, wherein the heathen from of old
Had laid their dead in earth, whereby the spot
‘Elysian Meadow’ for a title got.
Now some there were among the Christian folk
With blinded heart and zealous folly spoke,
Raised fierce dispute about their sainted dead,
Forbidding that the selfsame turf be spread
O’er those who in their pagan darkness died
And bones of those whom Christ had sanctified.
Whereat, with this and that one’s clamour vexed
And inwardly with gnawing doubts perplexed,
The saint and bishop of their souls one night
Poured forth in prayer the burthen of his plight,
Then fell to musing, till the body slept,
While into dreams his mind its tenor kept.
Him thought some power beyond all powers he knew
Into the outer air and darkness drew,
And thence by strange and firm propulsion sped
Towards the acre of unsacred dead.
No further—for a hand upon him laid,
Invisible, his feet from ingress stayed,
The while a voice in that calm air rang out:
‘Too foul to cross this threshold, halt without.
Behold in silence. With returning light,
Make known thy wondrous vision of the night.’

Trembling he stood; but with the joy he saw
Dropped to his knees, and in exceeding awe
Gazed at a marvel far beyond all grace
Of reverence native to that mortal place.
The silent hour, the moon’s white lustre spread
Above those habitations of the dead,
The monumental pomp of pagan dust,
The cross rough-hewn that spake the Christian trust,
These seeing yet he saw not, over all
Such mightier presence kept his eyes in thrall,
A Kneeling Figure lifting piercèd hands Once made for all eternal deodands,
A Face reed-stricken, jagg’d with ruddy thorn,
Amid the worlds forsaken and forlorn,
Emmanuel, here in mercy manifest
With agonizing eyes, as once distrest
Within the olive garden, in new pain
Making Gethsemane for these again,
An alien stead of folk that never heard
In life of martyred God the marvellous word,
Whom none the less, though hills and heavens depart,
No power could sever from that bleeding Heart,
Nor erring thought nor life unconsecrate
From this all-claiming kindness separate,
Nor death, that could amerce from all beside,
Hold from the hands that sought and sanctified.

The Saint beheld; but even as he gazed
The Vision vanished—still the moonlight glazed
The swelling turf, the quiet clouds still made
A dappled interwork of light and shade.
Fearstruck he knelt. The moon waxed pale aloft,
Soon voices rose and winds with whisper soft,
And, while the dawn grew red amid far skies,
Like one to whom a God has given eyes
Awoke amazedly the trancèd man.
Before him was the Field Elysian,
The tombs and heaving barrows. Home he went
With looks estranged and visage earthward bent,
Astonied at the height, all thought above,
And depth of that all-seeking, stricken Love
Whereof all love in heaven and earth is named,
Whose vast omnipotence of anguish claimed
Whatever lived or breathed with human breath,
Even in the dust and obsequies of death.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Poet’s Dream

(From the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore)

Mother,* my sun had set. ‘Come, Child,’ you said;
You drew me to your heart and on my head
With kisses put an everlasting light.
About my breast, of thorns and blossoms plight
A garland hung, Song’s guerdon; in my heart
Its pangs burnt deep. Your own hand plucked apart
The barbs and cleansed of dust and did bedeck
With that rekindled loveliness my neck.
You welcomed me, your son, to endless years.

Rising, I ope my heavy eyes of tears,
I wake, I see—and all a dream appears!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

January

Through Essex woodlands blow
The wintry winds again;
Strange gleams are on the drifted snow
And in the drifting rain.
Keen on the frost-bright holly
The sunbeam strikes forlorn,
But underneath far other skies
I watch another morn.

I wait for dawn that soon
Will flush the mango-trees;
Hangs like a ghost the glimmering moon;
The world is on her knees.
Now in His eastern garden
Bursts from His tomb Life’s God,
And in this resurrection-light
My spirit walks abroad.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Jharia

Red rosebush aquiver,
The wealth thou dost lift,
When autumn blasts shiver,
Shed petals must drift.
Yet now, while thou wavest
With branches unthinned,
Rejoice with thy bravest
And laugh to the wind.
Be glad, and draw down
Heaven’s beauty for crown,
And fashion from earth
Red buds for God’s mirth.
Of thy thanks the rich story
From deep heart deliver,
And a garland of glory
Hold up to the Giver.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

A Grave at Lucknow*

Through scream of shell and bullet’s hiss, the roar
Of Death that couched, a panther at their door,
She heard Thy voice; the ceaseless sap and mine
Disturbed not, since by deeper ways divine
Thy kindness sought her. Lord, this child of Thine
Thy face of steadfast love beheld, amid
The clouds of rushing battle-smoke that hid;
Beheld and knew, nor feared the leaping flame
Against her as she came,
But, pushing with frail fearless soul aside
Hell militant and furious, that denied
All access and with thronging clamour drowned
Her voice upraised in outcry confident,
Disdainfully athwart all wrong she went.
She sought Thy face and, seeking early, found.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The New Year

Red berries on the banyan!
And in the pipal-tree
The sickle of a silver moon
Most beautiful to see!

Red berries on the holly!
And in the apple-leaves
A waxen gleam of mistletoe,
A ruffling stir, a silver glow,
White beard and sickle’s glint which show
A Druid ghost of long ago
That gathers in his sheaves!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Groves of Memory

Far in the heights of Himalay,
The wood-gods thrust into my face a spray
Of cherry-blossom; rose a wind which shook
The petals in a crimson scattering rain
About me; at my feet the abyss fell steep
To India’s breast, a thousand fathoms deep.
Straightway a wider vast
To Fancy’s bridge became a slender brook
O’er which with ease my springing spirit passed.
On English hills again a child I strayed,
Where gentler winds among green branches played
And the hid gods flung down their dawn-tinged snow
Upon their fervent worshipper below.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Bankura

The light fails; yonder mango-tope imbars
All further vision, and there spreads, how soon!
O’erhead a heaven that bears an alien moon,
A night that carries unfamiliar stars.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Cawnpur

Here valour marched, ’neath blazing suns, to save
My country’s honour from a treacherous grave.
A spear’s length deep the millet grows to-day,
And in the ripening tops green parrots sway.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Mango-Blossom

So sweet the mango-flower that we regret
Its passing. Can the fruit be sweeter yet?

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Morning Buds

I that am fain of flowers
Have gathered one flower to-day,
For Margaret over the meadows
Ran like a leaf at play.
She gave me a toss of her fingers.
Laughed, and she danced away.
I that am fain of flowers
Have gathered a flower to-day.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Breath of Autumn

Breath of autumn, shaking down
From the nim its leaflets brown,
Change thy task for office such
As attends the spring-wind’s touch.
Scatter showers and blossoms soft;
Move my spirit’s boughs among;
Here are gracious clouds aloft,
Shining buds and bells of song.
Be a robber, strip the sprays;
Surely one thy theft will praise!
Here is Kate with outspread skirt,
Who, before a flower can fall
Soiled amid the dust and dirt,
From that shame will save them all.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Haldi Pakhi*

Golden bird! golden bird!
Shouting in the jack-boughs!
All the glossy leaves are stirred,
Light is on the black boughs.
Golden bird! golden bird!
When your voice is calling,
Deep within my heart are heard
Mountain waters falling.
Scatter rains and yellow drift,
Fades the stormy weather;
Harebells shake, and campions lift
White hoods o’er the heather;
Frail and sweet a music floats
Through the winds that whistle
Round a score of piping throats
Poised upon the thistle.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Sunday Morning

Little kat-biral,*
Running up this sal
With a cheeky frisking
And a brown tail whisking!
If this straight-limbed tree,
As it well might be,
Main or mizzen were
Of some seafaring sir,
And to ship-bells’ chime
If such their masts did climb
(Muse, you druv me to that rime,
When I’d no intention
Bells or chimes to mention),
Then, in all this world
Of flags to winds unfurled,
Would not be than your
Sprightly self, I’m sure,
Little kat-biral,
Worthier admiral!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Phalgun*

Now is the month when mango-bloom is out,
When winds by breath proclaim
The covert whence they came,*
Deep-fragrant bowers that hide the kokil’s’* shout.
Against the brown of distant sal displayed,
See palas,* by his crimson breast displayed,
And simul,* o’er the miles by lifted pride
Of hands with scarlet blossom crammed descried,
Staining the mid-way heaven with rubied rim
That makes dawn-glories dim!

Lo, when the Muse would mourn
What milder joys our English days adorn,
Remembering how, where snows were late adrift,
The delicate windflowers dance in tremulous shift,
Gold daffodils, as God’s keen breath respires,
Crown Earth’s young head with pentecostal fires,
While primroses, that are the spirit’s corn,
Yield harvest wherewith souls that lack for bread
In woodland ways are fed—
What alien pomp the Powers that grieve her case
Have scattered in this place!
And, wanting poppies, on her sorrows shed
In other sort oblivion’s blossoms red!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

The Pillars

I saw the sun
Flame over ultimate Afric, and the night
Gather about Gibraltar’s frowning might.
Blazed each receding height
Grim, Atlantean, like the pyre whereby
Jove’s stricken child resumed his native sky,
When, flushing Oeta’s vales, the ruddy light
Drove back the dusk begun.
Earth, sea, and heaven in conflagration blent,
As when the War-Goth’s* ashes by the wave
Were laid in dust and fire set on the grave
That was to be a dead God’s monument.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

F. B.

She dwells within the temple of my heart,
A little priestess; her remembered face
A silence makes in that dishallowed place,
A silence whence a nobler song shall start.
The walls that sin’s fierce anger rent apart
Lo! vines she planted bind and interlace,
A shelter making and a chequered space,
By shadow and sunshine woven with gracious art.

Dear child, if you inhabit still this fane,
I think it will become God’s home again;
The Dove will brood within the shattered shrine;
There will be altar both and mercyseat;
And in the place a little child made sweet
Heaven’s peace upon a kneeling man will shine.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Revels

Boughs and goodly garlanding
Front the peering front of Spring,
And maidens in the meadows met
Bear away the violet.

Laugh, fair girls; the cowslip blooms
Pull, and strip the blazing brooms!
Nor think it shame of other prize,
Rifling hands and rifling eyes!

Let your pealing pleasure rouse
Echo from her starry boughs;
Nor heed if envious Folly rate
Hours so sweetly dedicate.

For your eager hands possess
Other harvest than you guess,
And eve shall tell how nobly spent
Was your morning innocent.

When to every flower and face
Night shall bring transfiguring grace.
Each a branchèd palm shall bear
And a stainless lily wear.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Love on the Hills

The feathery-fingered fir-trees grow
Down to the rippling water-edge;
From far away the breezes blow
Through rustling reed and mace and sedge,
While in the morning dew the meads
Stand prodigal of fairest weeds.

The winds in every needled path
Stray echoes of my mood have caught;
There is no flower of all but hath
An inkling of my inner thought,
From whence yon sympathetic rose
So richly on thy bosom glows.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

In Praise of Peterborough

Golden fruit and blossoms red,
And a home at Medehamsted!
Towerèd Medehamsted, of all
Thronèd queen and principal,
Queen of fen and billowing lowland,
Sawtre, Yaxley, Stamford, Crowland!
Where the weltered sun each eve
Miles of waving meadows’ heave
Gilds, and his upturned glows
On the wondrous minster throws;
Gifts with transitory gold
Vanished kings, and abbots old,
That in their nichèd sconces seem
Living lamps that pray and dream.
Peter’s shrine, to Hereward
Erst that gave the knightly sword,
Still to things that flit and flee
Harbour safe and hostelry!
When these eyes beheld thee last
In shimmering noons that quickly passed,
Pigeons circled, swallows flew,
Thrushes built within the yew,
Yea, the sparrow found a nest
Underneath thy sunlit crest,
Tiny lives a shelter gained
In thy borders crevice-veined,
Where snapdragon and featherfew
And golden-freckled wallflower grew!

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Evening

Here, in my quiet toil apart,
My verse remembers still
The passions of my former heart,
My fierce tempestuous will.
I put my ragged duster by,
I lay the worn chalk down,
I do not hear the jackal’s cry,
The tomtoms of the town.
The perished years long shadows cast,
And on my spirit’s wall
Rich hues by music’s power amassed
And eager figures fall.
Then, in the tranquil words I write
A wind of memory makes
Such stir as in our Indian night
May ruffle sleeping lakes.
So in their moat at Mandalay
The lotus-blossoms dream
Of queens and emperors far away
And Time’s fast-running stream.
Dark fires along their castled banks
Beneath the wan moon burn;
With pomp of drum and marshalled ranks
The exiled years return.
From Irawadi’s depths the ghosts
Of buried glories glide,
And o’er the drowsing plain long hosts
Of vanished warriors stride,
Till even through Amarapura* blows
A stirring breath, where sit
The Buddhas in eternal doze
While bat-winged centuries flit.

̻O;  ̻O;  ̻O;

Rampur Road

I, loving life though fain of death,
Among these ancient meadows walk,
Where Beauty has the wind for breath
And flowering eyes on every stalk.

A halcyon there with flashing wing
Dips, and beneath the bridge is lost;
With body bent in rapid spring,
A mongoose then the roadway crossed.

My shadow prone, as in the grave
One day must lie this body strong,
The beauty of a breaking wave,
Amid the grass the wind’s low song,

To me a spiritual music are,
Whereto I seek, with quivering lips
And heart that loves its goal afar,
The Shining Sea, the Waiting Ships.

The Ghosts’ Tragedy

Dramatis Personae.

Hotta, Baron of Sakura.
Lady Hotta, his Wife.
Ikeura, a Samurai Attendant on Hotta.
Female Attendants on Lady Hotta.
 Hatsuse
 Momiji
 Ume
 Take
Physician.
Male Retainers and Attendants of Hotta.
Sogoro, Headman of Kodzu Village.
Tsuta, his Wife.
Children of Sogoro and Tsuta.
 Sohei
 Gennosuke
 Kihachi
 Sannosuke
Kozen, Sogoro’s uncle, a Buddhist priest.
Headmen of villages in Sakura district.
 Rokurobei
 Chuzo
Officials, executioners, &c.

Scene: Sakura and Kodzu Villages and Yedo.

Act I

Kodzu Village. Sogoro’s House. Sogoro and Tsuta.

Sogoro.
He cannot live out this evening. When the children come from school, they must go out again.

Tsuta.
I will see that there is no noise. Husband! (Sogoro turns round.) There is talk of our people going to Yedo. Is it true?

Sogoro.
How can I say? You know I have not been to their meeting.

Tsuta.
You can tell me what people are thinking.

Sogoro.
It is little matter what they think. I do not know what they have decided.

Tsuta.
Then you will not tell me?

Sogoro.
I have nothing to tell. The children are coming.

Enter Sohei and Gennosuke.

Gennosuke.
Mother, mother, give me something to eat.

Tsuta.
Hush! Grandfather is very ill.

Gennosuke.
Oh! (with a long breath). But I was hungry.

Tsuta.
I know that, darling. I have got something for you. (Gives them cakes.) Now go and play. Father has important business, and you must not return before dark. Sohei!

[ Gennosuke goes out. ]

Sohei.
Yes, mother. Mother!

Tsuta.
What, dear?

Sohei.
Our teacher was telling us of the tricks that foxes play. I think grandfather’s illness has been caused by a fox. I will tell you how you can cure it. If you were to get the heart of a black fox——

Tsuta.
Very likely, dear. Tell me this afterwards. You must go and play now. Your two youngest brothers are down by the ricefield. Sohei, listen to me, dear. I want you to look after them and keep them quiet. And, while you are playing, don’t let any of the boys come near here.

Sohei.
Why, mother, is grandfather going to die? (Bursts into tears.)

Tsuta.
No, no, Sohei. That is—— But go away now, that’s a good boy. (Sohei goes out.) Husband, you are thinking of more than father’s illness.

Sogoro.
Perhaps I am, wife. Have we not much to think of?

Tsuta.
Oh, husband! (Goes over to him.) I‘m so afraid.

Sogoro.
Of what?

Tsuta.
I cannot tell. But there was a pedlar and his wife came here this morning——

Sogoro.
Never mind what rogues and silly women say. Why, you are crying, dear!

Tsuta.
No, I am not. Yes. That is—— Of course I am crying. You are silent all day, thinking, and will not trust your wife.

Sogoro.
Darling, why should I vex you with my imaginations? You have your own fears.

Tsuta.
If there is going to be trouble, let me share it.

Sogoro.
No one sooner. But indeed, indeed, I have nothing to tell you. (Knocking at the door.) There are the other headmen.

Tsuta.
Before I let them in, will you tell me?

Sogoro.
Not a word more.

(Tsuta goes over to door, and admits Koren, Rokurobei, Chuzo. They sit down and talk quietly. Tsuta goes out.)

Rokurobei.
You were not at our meeting.

Sogoro.
Father is dying. I must watch by him. Just now he is dozing.

Rokurobei.
Well, do you want to hear what happened? First of all, we went, some twenty of us, to our lord’s castle. There we fared as you might expect. The steward and his companions treated us with the vilest insolence. By the Gods! I will not bear it. (Starts up angrily.)

Chuzo.
Control yourself, Rokurobei. You had better let me speak for you. We went there, Sogoro, and Master Sugiyama received us with mock politeness. He told us, if we had any grievance, to present a petition through the office. He knows we have done that again and again, and no notice is taken. So we shouted out, ‘Yes, we know, we know. But you shall hear us, you shall hear us.’ He said, ‘I do hear you, my good people, and smell you as well. So please keep your mouths shut. Let one speak at a time.’ Then some called for you, but you were not there, so Rokurobei spoke.

Rokurobei.
I told him we were starving, that the land-tax was doubled, that everything was taxed, even the bamboo for our coffins. He grinned in his impudent fashion, and asked, ‘And why, pray?’ Then your uncle Kozen shouted, ‘For your own greed and bellies, that is why.’

Kozen.
I couldn’t help it, Rokurobei. It made me so mad to see that scoundrel’s calmness, and all those apes with him tittering together.

Rokurobei.
I know. But it was unwise. You are a priest, and it is not for me to reprove you. Still, one should control oneself at such times. Well, I said, ‘We were told that the money was to be used for draining the lake. The lake hasn’t been touched. The taxes continue. We cannot pay, we will not pay. Hundreds of families have left the district. Our late lord gave us schools and temples, and repaired the roads and bridges. Our present lord we have never seen since he came into the inheritance, and we hear of ceaseless luxury and extravagance at his palace in Yedo.’ I tell you, I was screaming with rage.

Sogoro.
What did he say to all this?

Rokurobei.
Why, they talked and sniggered together awhile.

Chuzo.
Heima, who is said to have some pity, seemed to be pleading for us. I heard him say it had been a very bad rice-harvest. ‘If they see us living idly on what is wrung from their starvation, they are bound to resent it,’ he said.

Kozen.
Those were his very words. I heard them.

Chuzo.
And Sugiyama told him scornfully that he always made the mistake of putting himself in our position and asking, ‘How should I feel under these circumstances?’ ‘But they don’t feel it as you would,’ he said. ‘They have never been used to comfort, and as long as they realize that these things are not for them, they do not mind missing them.’

Sogoro.
He is philosopher as well as scoundrel, then! How did you manage to hear all this?

Rokurobei.
We were quite close, and they were open enough in their insolence. That Tanaka looked over us and laughed, and said, ‘They have no weapons.’ The steward laughed back, and said, ‘Thanks, Tanaka.’ We were not very many, and they had the bowmen posted. While they were talking together, some one—I think it was you, Kozen——

Kozen.
No, no.

Rokurobei.
I thought it was. Well, some one shouted, ‘We will go to Yedo.’ Sugiyama smiled and spoke back. He was laughing all the time he spoke. Kozen broke out with a great curse——

Kozen.
I do curse him, I will curse him. He is a devilish scoundrel.

Sogoro.
Uncle, your brother will be waked.

Kozen.
It is hard to be quiet, thinking of such a scoundrel. Go on, Rokurobei.

Rokurobei.
This is what he said: ‘I have listened to all your folly, and now I am going to speak. These taxes are by your lord’s express order, and if you dare to resist or complain you shall pay for it. After all, what business of yours is it how the money is spent? That is your lord’s concern. It is he that protects you, that prays for you, that punishes evildoers. Whilst the people labour, the lord thinks for their welfare. Your former lord ruined you with indulgence. He treated you as if you were samurai, and you have come to regard yourselves as such. Now get out before I am angry.’ Then we all yelled, ‘We shall go to Yedo, we will see our lord himself.’

Sogoro.
What did he say to that?

Rokurobei.
Grinned like a demon. ‘Go by all means,’ he answered. ‘I am well aware that there is no limit to the folly of such folk as you. But my daughter has charge of our lady’s household, and the gatekeepers are in my pay. I don’t think you are in any great danger of getting a hearing there.’ Then he drove us out, and we went to the Hill of Masakada Yama. We sent out runners and gathered all the people there—all except you, Sogoro—and we held a meeting.

Sogoro.
And decided?

All Three.
That we would all go to Yedo.

Rokurobei.
And we are going.

Sogoro.
When?

Rokurobei.
In three days.

Sogoro.
Why not to-day?

All.
To-day! How can we go to-day? Why to-day?

Sogoro.
Only that if we must be guilty of utter folly, we may as well get it over.

All.
Folly!

Sogoro.
Certainly. You will go armed, I suppose? A mad rabble filling the streets round our lord’s mansion. Then the Shogun will send soldiers and massacre us. Have we not sorrows enough? What need of this, Rokurobei? Was this your counsel?

Rokurobei (sullenly). It was the counsel of all of us. (Blazing up.) You are a worthless fellow, Sogoro. You know our case is desperate, you know how people trust you. Yet you slink away from our meeting, and you mock at what we decide to do. May the Gods blast all traitors and cowards!

Sogoro.
Amen, Rokurobei. But at least they will not blast Sogoro of Kodzu.

Rokurobei.
I say you are a coward. We will let the people know how worthless you are. You are afraid of our oppressors. Our villages are starving. You are a headman, and it doesn’t touch you. But I say a headman should feel for his people.

Kozen.
So my nephew does, no doubt, no doubt. You are too hasty. Let him speak.

Rokurobei.
If your noble old father knew of this, he would curse you on his deathbed. I will tell him. He shall know how his son is betraying us.

(Rises and goes towards the inner room.)

Sogoro (very sternly).
Come back. (Then with great gentleness.) Rokurobei, have I ever failed you before?

Rokurobei (sullenly).
I don’t know. No, you haven’t.

Sogoro.
As to suffering with my people, why is my father dying? I win tell you. When the heavy rain ruined the rice-crop and our villages were starving, he would not let me put a new roof on this house. The money was spent otherwise, and the damp has taken his life.

Kozen.
True, true; all true.

Sogoro.
I shall not fail my people. But for all of us to go to Yedo is begging for disaster. Nor dare I leave our wives alone so near the castle.

Rokurobei.
But what is to be done? We are desperate.

Sogoro.
We headmen—and Kozen, since he is our priest—will go to Yedo and see how things really are. The people must trust us.

Chuzo.
That is better. I said so, but the people were too excited to reason. But remember, we cannot pay our taxes. How will you save us?

Sogoro.
Oh, Chuzo, how can I say? Perhaps there is only one path. Heaven will point it plainly if I must tread it.

Chuzo.
If you must tread it. What path is that, Sogoro?

(Tsuta comes in and hears these words.)

Sogoro.
I cannot tell you. All is a mist before me. But I will save our children, even if the old must perish.

Rokurobei.
Sogoro!

Sogoro.
What, friend?

Rokurobei.
I spoke wickedly just now. I was——

Sogoro.
Thinking me a coward and traitor, you spoke well. My heart thanked you for it.

Rokurobei.
Old comrade, we are——

Sogoro.
Boys at school, Rokurobei.

Rokurobei.
Even so, then. Let us speak with your father. He was always a lover of his folk, and you are his son. Let us take the dying hero’s blessing.

Sogoro.
Never doubt that he has blessed you already. Will you see him? No, I will wait here. Go in, comrades. (Points to the room.)

Chuzo.
Kozen, you are his brother. Go in first and see if he is still sleeping.

(Kozen goes in. There is a cry and he comes out again.)

Kozen.
Did you know this, nephew?

Sogoro.
Yes.

Kozen.
His father is dead.

Rokurobei and Chuzo.
You knew this?

Sogoro.
He stood behind you as you cursed me, Rokurobei, and forbade me when I would have spoken bitter words. He spread his hands over us with pity and went.

Tsuta (with a cry).
He is dead, and you, my husband, are going to death. What is to happen to your children?

Sogoro.
The Gods will be their fathers.

Kozen.
What talk of dying is this? Why should my nephew die?

Sogoro.
No reason, uncle. A woman’s fears.

Rokurobei.
If one, then all will die.

Tsuta.
You think to deceive me. But I have read your breast, husband. It was a bitter day that I wedded you.

Kozen.
Be silent, child.

Rokurobei.
Bring your father’s body here, Sogoro. In that martyr’s presence let us vow. He will stand by us.

(The body is brought. They kneel, Tsuta weeping. Sohei comes in; he kneels also.)

Sogoro.
Will you speak, uncle?

Kozen.
You must be priest now, nephew.

Sogoro.
This should rather call for vengeance than for prayers, if I listened to my heart. We are by the corpse of a man that gave himself for his folk. He was murdered, as men and women are being daily. In this presence there is no vow too vast, no promise too holy, for us to take upon our lips. Let us dread lest we fail in resolve where he triumphed in performance. If there is one of us who would draw back, let him do so quickly, ere it be too late.

Tsuta.
O Gods, vengeance! What have such as we to do with vengeance who can scarcely get food?

Sogoro.
Little indeed, wife. Now let him speak that finds words, for I have none. This was the man mv lips called father.

Kozen.
We can vow in silence. It were best so.

Sogoro.
With joined hands and silence, then. That we will free our folk

Rokurobei.
Though our lives go for it.

Sogoro.
Much more. That if we die with our purpose unfulfilled, we will labour to this end even after our bodies have fallen from us.

(They vow in silence.)

ACT II

Scene I.—Yedo. The gates of Hotta’s mansion. Rokurobei, Chuzo, Sogoro, Kozen.

Enter Officer.

Officer.
Home, you insolent fools. Your lord has heard of the impudence with which you thrust yourselves into his mansion, and the news maddens him. He vows that unless you come to your senses within an hour, he will give the headsman some work.

[ Exit laughing. Enter Ikeura. ]

Rokurobei.
Is this our answer?

Ikeura.
Come, come, friends, you must fancy you have some enormous grievance to behave in this way. I am sorry for you, but I warn you that you are playing with danger. Go home again. Be sensible. When we accept them patiently, even great griefs become easy; and this of yours is no big matter. The Gods regard with approval that man who endures his lot without complaint.

Chuzo.
Sir, you look kind. (They prostrate themselves, except Sogoro.) Believe me, men would not risk their lives, their homes, their children, in this fashion, unless for wrongs intolerable.

Ikeura.
Is it not something about a tax?

Chuzo.
A tax by which we perish and our land becomes daily desolate. A tax which has done the work of a pestilence or a foreign army. If our lord once understood, he would save us. Sir, take our petition to him and earn a poor folk’s thanks.

Ikeura.
You touch me, father. But I tell you you are acting unwisely. Will you let me advise you what to do?

Chuzo and Rokurobei (eagerly).
Yes, tell us what to do.

Ikeura.
Go home, and trust that this trouble will cease naturally. Our lord will himself probably remove the tax when his present expenses, which are very heavy, are over. If this doesn’t happen, come, put up with your troubles with silent courage such as we expect from men. Resign yourselves to what cannot be helped. Remember of what stock you come, how brave, how famous! You cannot imagine our warrior ancestors making all this fuss about a tax! What they thought about was glory, was conquest, was their country’s honour and greatness. They were men! And pray, too; that will give you the patience you need.

[ Exit. ]

Sogoro.
Yes, pray, pray, comrades! There’s nothing like prayer in a time of trouble. When the lamb sees the wolf coming, the first thing he should do is to pray.

Chuzo.
Prayer is a good thing, no doubt.

Sogoro.
O Chuzo, Chuzo, don’t you think the Gods despise such cringing fools as we show ourselves? If I were a God for a dozen hours——

Kozen.
Nephew, keep off blasphemy!

Sogoro.
All right, uncle. But the Gods won’t pay much heed to the prayers of men who can save themselves. Nor should I, if I were a God.

Chuzo.
Save ourselves? How?

Sogoro.
If a stream is foul and you want to drink, what do you do? Go up the mountains and seek the well-head. Let us do so. Push past these flunkeys and seek——

Chuzo.
But we can t get at our lord except through them.

Sogoro.
Nor through them, it appears. Never heed our lord; appeal to the Shogun.

Rokurobei.
The Shogun!

Chuzo.
Crucifixion! Beyond doubt. Crucifixion!

Sogoro.
Why, yes. But think, friends. Death will come, and sufficiently terribly. But, when the heart calls out, who is there that would not lightly put from him thought of peril? Only there is one thing we may fear, lest we pay such a price and yet fail.

Kozen.
How?

Sogoro.
Even as the poet speaks:

‘lest our transfixèd spirits
Proceed in pain, leaving wife, children, home,
This gracious earth, its running streams, and sky
Sun-glorious, sacred with enthroned Gods,
All this for bitter death, nor gain our end.’

Rokurobei.
But how can we reach the Shogun?

Sogoro.
With boldness and helping Gods. In seven days it will be full moon, and he goes in procession to his ancestors’ shrines at Uyeno. If a man concealed himself beneath the bridge over the brook, he could spring out and thrust our petition into his palanquin.

Chuzo.
Excellent! Never have I boasted in my age before, but now my years become my privilege. Endless renown, fame for ever, are mine. Farewell, friends.

Rokurobei.
What do you mean, Chuzo?

Chuzo.
It is right that the eldest adventure first and give a dried-out life for the people. I shall present the petition.

Rokurobei.
You will not. As headman of the largest village, I claim the office.

Chuzo.
You claim it vainly. How can I thank you enough, Sogoro, seeing that you have devised a path which wins me eternal merit? Friends, I go rejoicing to my honourable pain.

Rokurobei.
I am leader and spokesman of our group.

Kozen.
The place belongs to neither of you, but to him who first saw the way to freedom. The work is Sogoro’s.

Chuzo.
Kozen——

Kozen.
The Gods would have it thus.

Sogoro.
Indeed they would, or they would not have revealed their plan to me. So, comrades, you may get home, where your wives and children long for you. Leave me awhile.

Rokurobei.
We are going to the inn.

Sogoro.
I will follow; and we will drink a cup of farewell together.

[ Exeunt all except Sogoro. ]

Was there then no way,
No other way but this, Blest Powers above,
But that your bounty, ere it reached my folk,
Must rive my bursting heart? Cold lie the hills,
Whence, white with whirling flakes, the frozen wind
Beats on my body. Swift upon me strides,
A chilling presence and of bleaker breath,
The winter of my fate. At home they sit,
Their gracious mother and my joyful babes.
They ply her now with questioning. Wherefor stays
Their father from their fireside? Will he come?
And with what gifts? And she who, thronèd still
In her first beauty, sits in Memory’s shrine.
My noble wife, with smiling speech that hides
The knocking terror of her heart, puts by
The innocent words that pain her. Gods, what grief
Will drown those gentle eyes to see me bound
Upon the crucifixion pillar! What dread
The o’erfraught spirit crack! What fearful sight
Possess till death and fill the visual place
Of my dear sons! Perchance they slay her too!
I must not think of it! My striving heart
Cries out against my purpose. Heart, be still!
So loud a rebel! Craven heart, be brave!
Hast thou not sworn, not vowed? Then hold thy course
Against a thousand fears.
But, Sacred Powers,
By whom this woful resolution came!
Uphold the spirit too weak to bear a greatness
As this so painful! Brace the quivering purpose
From what it yet will stand to! Hear me speak.
’Tis yours to give me strength.

Scene II.—Yedo; Hotta’s mansion.

There is a stage made up to represent the sea-shore near Fujiyama; a clump of pine-trees in the foreground. Hotta, Lady Hotta, Ikeura and other attendants.

Enter on the stage a fisherman.

Fisherman.
Fair blows the wind, the waters ripple fair,
A gracious breath of spring is on the air,
The rains have ceased, and the cherry shakes
The heart of April forth in snowy flakes.
Hoar Fuji’s top and silver brooks that run
Amid our meadows thence are bright in sun.
Now in rich mirth our smiling harbour-gods
Have broke their sceptres stiff for lily-rods,
And on the glassy waves, devoid of fear,
I’ll drive my bark. Heavens, keep your beauties clear,
Unstained of threatening cloud!
What trove is here,
Deep-dazzling more than dawn on Fuji’s crest?
There flies no bird that fashions such a nest!
I’ll have it down. (Shakes pine-tree and a sky-spirit’s robe of feathers falls.)
Gods! what amazement fills
My gazing soul, what dreaming vision thrills
Of woven hues, all varied loveliness!
A Robe of Feathers, sure no mortal’s dress!
What man did ever such a wonder find?
This is the sky-garb of the fairy kind,
Now my possession, and, till years shall end,
It shall from age to age to sons descend,
For ceaseless marvel. On what magic strand
Did fisher’s net draw such a catch to land?
Shall my name perish? I’ll not sail to-day.
Some vast good waits me.
Breath of rose this way,
Blest wind against my brows with fragrance beating,
O flocking scents, O blossoms downward fleeting
From pine that never rained such buds before,
O wondrous, glorious Being!

(Hatsuse, disguised as a sky-spirit, appears.)

Spirit.
Sir, restore
My robe, the cunning beauty of my wings!

Fisherman.
Who, having found, would yield such golden things?
Not I, i’ faith.

Spirit.
A sky-queen’s ornament,
Rash man, wilt ravish?

Fisherman.
Seeing chance has sent
So rich a prize my way.

Spirit.
O impious deed! Shall mortal clutch defile a spirit’s weed? (Weeps.)

Fisherman.
More impious, mistress, finding such a splendour
Unparalleled, for weeping to surrender!

Spirit.
Oh! none but children of the earth possess
Hearts steeled against a spirit’s dread distress!
Ye waters sunshine-leaping, making blind
The gazer’s vision! Wave-o’er-topping wind
That crumplest up the silver fan o’ the bay!
I fall from out your fellowship to-day.
Wild geese and snow-winged ocean-birds, your flight.
So joyous once, is sorrow in my sight!
Ye soar where I may never come again.
My radiant sisters from their singing train
Must lack their fairest! From the mountain quire
Is stilled the passion of a voice whose fire
In hearkening breasts made answering song to blaze.
The winds at will may range the heavenly ways,
The tides have ebb and flow; I, I alone
Am exiled from the freedom I have known
And earth-bound by a churl!

Fisherman.
I do repent,
Bright child, the theft and rapture that I meant.
The robe is yours.

Spirit.
Kind fisher!

Fisherman.
But I claim
A ransom, Shining Glory.

Spirit.
Speak its name.

Fisherman.
Celestial music and a nimble round
Of dancing such as amid Gods is found.

Spirit.
With all my heart. But I must first put on
My sky-garb.

Fisherman.
Ay, and out of ken be gone,
Without thy word’s redemption! Verily, I am not fooled so.

Spirit.
Shame, thrice shame on thee!
What! shall a wind-queen and heaven-harboured sprite
Prove fickle from her faith and promise plight?

Fisherman.
Nay, pardon such surmise! thy feathers take.

(Gives robe.)

Spirit.
I thank thee, and will fashion for thy sake
Such bliss as shall thy ravished mind fulfil
And through a thousand births be native still
Within thy being. First I don my robe,
Then all my sisters round me in a globe
I call.

(She sounds music. Eleven spirits, robed as she, attend her.)

Fair sisters, for this mortal’s grace,
Because he ran to my distressful case
Nor let my prayer for succour rise in vain,
I bid your presence. Music’s silver rain
About him scatter; knit our skills, and show
What measures in our skyey halls we know.

(Music. They all dance.)

Hotta.
That’s my brave lady!

Lady Hotta.
She dances well indeed. So do they all, sir.

Ikeura.
In this mask the dance is all, the words nothing.

Hotta.
I like it best so. This will open my pageant excellently; see that they practise it well against my Lord Katsura’s coming. What else have you?

Ikeura.
Wrestlers from Kyoto, a band of Korean singers, yet another mask——

Hotta.
Let the night fly. We must see these, for there must be nothing wanting a week hence. I will myself train the singers.

Ikeura.
Sir, for the coming of these singers there has been great expense.

Hotta.
What! you are for ever speaking of money! Are the taxes paid? Not enough? Then double them. For heaven’s sake, do not let me be put to shame.

Ikeura.
Alas! I must speak of this matter. The thing is so petty that it is unworthy of your notice, yet I mention it. Have you not heard of the folk that are waiting daily at your doors, begging for audience with you, groaning about these taxes? We cannot drive them away.

Hotta.
Cannot drive them away! What a fool you are! Am I to have them disgracing my name in the public street, and my own servants cannot protect me?

Ikeura.
They complain bitterly.

Hotta.
Complain, complain! Of course they do. Aren’t these folk always complaining?

Ikeura.
They have some injustice, sir.

Hotta.
Injustice! Who are you to talk so to me? Am I to leave matters of state and council affairs for a pack of peasants? I loathe their paltry grievances and will not be troubled with them. For the Gods’ sake, do not let me hear another whisper of them. Since their impudence has reached such a pitch, terrify them home. By heaven, but I will put some of their heads on poles!

Ikeura.
Sir——

Hotta.
Not another sentence. Come; is that poet you mentioned coming to see me?

Ikeura.
He will wait upon you to-morrow.

Hotta.
I am glad. He shall find me the best patron in Yedo. Ikeura, I am proud of that fame.

Ikeura.
Indeed, sir, but they all own you the king of patrons.

Hotta.
And so I will remain. I love to have these men about me, who will lift my mind away from petty thoughts and even cares of state. After a day’s thinking for my country’s welfare, let me see some noble spectacle, with music falling round me, or talk with some poet or one who can interchange thoughts with me. Now, we will see those wrestlers.

Scene III.—Kodzu village. Sogoro’s house. Tsuta and Sogoro’s children.

Gennosuke.
Mother!

Tsuta.
Put some more wood on the fire, child. And stop playing with it.

Gennosuke.
Mother, what is father doing?

Tsuta.
He is doing his duty, dear, and helping our people, as a headman should do.

Gennosuke.
That is what I told the boys to-day, when they asked me where he was. I told them he was doing most important business for our village, and very likely was seeing the Shogun himself. Is it not so, mother?

Tsuta.
O child, child!

Sohei.
But he is doing important business, mother?

Tsuta.
Yes, dear, most important. See if that was a knock.

Sohei (at the door).
No, mother.

Tsuta.
What a cold wind! Shut the door, dear.

Sohei.
Mother! mother!

Tsuta.
What is it, Sohei? Do come in.

Sohei.
It has been snowing again, and the ground is white. And I can see the shadow of a cross on the snow.

Tsuta.
Child, come in. Come in and be quiet.

Sohei.
Yes, mother. Mother, the hills have all got white caps on. And the lake has been frozen for two days. Look, Gennosuke! I can see the moon through those pine-trees where we caught the squirrel. Mother!

(They come in.)

Tsuta.
What is it, dear?

Sohei.
You are not listening to me, mother.

Tsuta.
Yes, I am, dear. What is it you wish to say?

Sohei.
Is it very painful to die on the cross?

Tsuta.
Sohei, why do you ask these questions?

Sohei.
Because I heard to-day that some Christians had been crucified at Kyoto. Is it right to crucify Christians, mother?

Tsuta.
Yes, dear. They are very wicked people, and do not love their country.

Gennosuke.
Mother, why should Sohei see a cross on the snow?

Tsuta.
Children, it is getting colder. You must get to bed. Now go at once. Gennosuke, why are you going to the door?

Gennosuke.
To see if I can see the cross, mother.

Tsuta.
Come back at once. You can see a cross another time.

Gennosuke.
Why, mother, you are crying.

Tsuta.
No, I am not. Now all of you get to bed.

Sohei.
Yes, mother. Mother!

Tsuta.
What is it now, Sohei?

Sohei.
You are troubled, mother, are you not?

Tsuta.
I am not very well, dear. Now go to bed and leave me alone.

Sohei.
Good-night, mother. I will see Kihachi and Sannosuke to bed.

Tsuta.
Thank you, dear. You are a good boy, and a great comfort to me, Sohei. Good-night.

(Exeunt all except Tsuta. She sits in meditation. Presently a knock, and Sogoro enters.)

Tsuta.
Husband! Oh, why have you been so long away from us? The other headmen have returned, but you have left us without news or message. This was not well done. Indeed, it was wrong of you.

Sogoro.
Darling, I dared not write, for the ways are beset with spies. I found they were watching for me at the ferry. But now I have come, swiftly and secretly, by a road they did not think of, and disguised.

Tsuta.
I knew you were coming to-night. Just now, after I had got the children to bed, I thought there was a stranger in the room. I asked him where he came from, and he said from Kyoto, where some friends of his had been dying. He said he came in with my little child just now. And he told me that you were coming, and were well. I must have been dreaming. Sohei was talking about some Christians being crucified at Kyoto, and other stuff like that, and I suppose it was still running in my head. Your coming in woke me. I am glad you are back again.

Sogoro.
Wife, I know not how to speak. This is a farewell visit. I must die.

Tsuta.
I know it, I know it. But not by the cross, dear, not by the cross! Anything but that.

Sogoro.
Alas!

Tsuta.
Husband, do not say it.

Sogoro.
My heart, do you not see you are breaking me? Do you know what you speak?

Tsuta.
Husband, forgive me. Yes. Forget my words. Tell me all. I can bear it.

Sogoro.
I am to give our petition to the Shogun. So will our people be free. And for myself——

Tsuta.
The crucifixion pillar!

Sogoro.
And endless honour.

Tsuta.
And endless honour. But the children of my husband are left desolate. Oh, husband! (Bursts out weeping.)

Sogoro.
Think, dearest. They will find fathers wherever my deed is known.

Tsuta.
But never a father to take your place.

Sogoro.
Oh, wife! Do you think I do not know all this? But see, dear. Take this paper. (Gives paper.)

Tsuta.
What is it, husband?

Sogoro.
That which takes that title from me. A bill of divorce.

Tsuta.
What!

Sogoro.
It will make you safe, darling, should their hatred wish to slay you with me for my fault. You can claim that you are not my wife. Why, what are you doing?

Tsuta.
Tearing it to pieces. Husband, do you think that I have one thought so base as to wish to keep life, when you are going in sorrow to death? I know that you cannot die lacking my love with you. Was it right, in this your hour of extreme pain and honour, to drive me from you? Husband, I did. not think you would have done this. (Weeping.)

Sogoro.
My starry playfellow!

Tsuta.
Husband, promise me you will never treat me so again. If you will not promise me this, I will not let you die.

Sogoro.
Do not say anything more. I cannot bear it. I have been a fool. (They are silent.) Darling, you have no idea how easy death now is, with such a love with me. And yet you have made dying harder also, little one. You have wedded my peril and my shame.

Tsuta.
Let us not think of that, husband.

Sogoro.
No. Let us see our children. To-night I must leave them and never see them as a free man again. Let their last memory of me be a happy one. Call them in.

(Whispering is heard outside, and the children burst in.)

Children.
Father, father, why did you come in the dark? Oh, father! What have you brought us? We knew you had come, didn’t we, Sohei? Did you hear Sohei and me whispering behind the door?

Sogoro.
I heard you. You shall know what I have brought you later, dears. Sohei, would you rather hear your father praised or blamed?

Sohei.
Why, who has been blaming you, father?

Sogoro.
I hope no one has, my son.

Sohei.
I should think not, father. I have always heard you praised, and I always love to hear you praised. And I shall always hear you praised.

Sogoro.
Then, dear, you will be very patient when I leave you again. You will know that I am going to the Shogun himself, to see him for our people. And you will comfort your mother and keep your brothers at rest till I return.

Sohei.
Yes, father. But oh, father! I fear some dreadful thing is going to happen to you. And I cannot help crying.

Sogoro.
Why do you fear that, Sohei?

Sohei.
See, mother is crying too. She has been crying all the evening.

Tsuta.
I haven’t, Sohei!

Sohei.
Yes, she has, father. Father, you are not coming back.

Sogoro.
I shall certainly come back, dear. Do not cry. See, your younger brothers will cry. And you must comfort your mother till I return.

Sohei.
Yes, father, I will. But you will try to come back, won’t you?

Sogoro.
Of course, my son. And you must all be brave. Now we will drink a farewell cup of sakè together, and pray to the Gods to be with me and to grant me success.

Tsuta.
Here is sake on the altar, offered to our Guardian an hour ago for your safety.

Sogoro.
Nothing could do better. It is already sacred. It is the colour of blood!

Tsuta.
The fire has made it go red. You are holding it where the light catches it.

Sogoro.
Well, let us kneel. Come, we will all drink it and pray.

(They kneel.)

ACT III

Scene I.—Yedo. Hotta’s mansion. Hotta and Ikeura.

Hotta.
Not one of you could speak, though they gathered daily at my gates, and disgraced me before the city!

Ikeura.
Sir, your orders were strict that we should never let the grievances of these people reach you. You said that you loathed their petty troubles beyond measure, and, if you ruffled your mind with them, could not attend to matters of state.

Hotta.
Nor could I. A man in my position should be protected from these maddening trifles. I have given my best to the state, and this is my reward!

Ikeura.
Sir, these people belonged to you first, before your high duties came to you.

Hotta.
What is the use of stewards and officers, if they cannot keep my estate quiet?

Ikeura.
Indeed, it was your steward’s instructions to us, if these men came, to keep them from audience and pack them home to Sakura, to get fair hearing there. But, as a matter of fact, I did mention the matter to you.

Hotta.
Daily in front of the house, and all the city saw them! All, all, I say! My downfall is hawked about the bazaars, and every child, every beggar knows it. My father’s name was honourable; for generations we Hottas have been respected, and now our reputation comes to ruin with me and we become infamous. Our power is gone, our immemorial influence withdrawn from the Imperial Council where my father was chief adviser. I inherited his glory, I have served the state freely, I never sought selfish ends, and I am disgraced and ruined; ruined, I tell you, all by this scoundrel Sogoro!

Ikeura.
You cannot say that. Never would Sogoro have done this if your servants had not been knaves.

Hotta.
Oh silence! I say, silence! If you had only spoken before now—or had the sense to speak when I was at leisure—I should have been saved this shame. What a creature you are! It is your place to stand between your lord and vexation, to sweep paltry troubles from his greatness, yet you let inconceivable ruin rush in to his face!

Ikeura.
Sir, sir, remember——

Hotta.
Only too much. Say nothing more, but get to Sakura with my decision. (Enter Messenger.) Scoundrel, who are you? How dare you thrust in unannounced?

Messenger.
Mine is a master whose word cannot wait. Your servants have fled.

Hotta.
Speak, and go.

Messenger.
His Highness the Shogun commands that you be at once present in your place at the Council.

Hotta.
Get out, fool! Out of my sight! Never show your face again to me, or I will slash it from ear to ear.

[ Exit Messenger. ]

Plague strike you all! I have made up my mind. Listen, then tell those village fools. First, as for that paltry tax which turned their brains, it is remitted. Gods! that such a thing should drag our ancient greatness to its knees! That scoundrel Sogoro! Hear his doom, which you have guessed already. He who brings public infamy on his lord must die.

Ikeura.
That is so, but——

Hotta.
Silence! Die he shall, and should if all the Gods flung themselves at my feet for his life; and by crucifixion. Oh, it is too little, too little! Let the spears be white-hot before they plunge them in his blood. With him the detested partner of his crimes, his wife, shall perish on the pillar . . . and put his children’s heads on poles. I will root out the whole stock, I will banish them from this sun, drive them shrieking to Hell. As for those fools who came with him, they shall lose every rag they own, their land, their cattle, everything but their lives, and leave Sakura for ever. I swear this——

Ikeura.
Stop! Sogoro perhaps deserves his dreadful sentence, for his deed was abominable, but not his wife, who knew nothing of his purpose. Sir, will you murder his children? For pity, do not make such a decision irrevocable. See, in descent I am as great as you, though in a lower position, yet I kneel for these. (Kneels.)

Hotta.
You have said enough. Begone. I would not show mercy to a dog that had taken one meal in his house, if I knew of it. Their veins run poison. I will finish the young wolves with sire and bitch. Send them to Sakura. See that this sentence is carried out on the second day from now, at the Hour of the Snake. Not a word! If I swerve from this doom by a letter’s stroke, let all the plagues of all the Gods fall on me! Let leprosy strike inward, eating pangs and clawing tumours feed on my brain, my blood breed cancers! Let fiends cram the air with horror, let soul and mind and body give way. After death let me be named with loathing and shudders of contempt.

Ikeura.
Be sure that you will. This is devilish.

Hotta.
Get to Sakura. I will not hear you.

Scene II.—Sakura: the execution-ground. A vast crowd, mourning and murmuring. Sogoro, Tsuta, bound to the pillars, their children, bound also, standing by. Kozen, officers, executioners, &c.

Sogoro.
Pray for us, friends. Forget our sorrows, since they come too late for remedy, but ask all Gods to strengthen us. Pride for a people saved by our sacrifice upholds us, and this love of yours our dying thought treasures.

Crowd.
We are praying. Curse on your murderers!

Officer.
Finish, there. Take your tools and end them. Be speedy.

Kozen.
Sir, let me speak one last word to my nephew.

Officer.
Not one, old man. Aside; the time for speech is past.

Kozen.
If you have mercy, but one word.

Officer.
What! will you push in here? (Strikes him.)

Crowd.
Sacrilege! He has struck our priest.

Sogoro.
Oh make haste, make haste! Bring your spears and finish.

Tsuta.
For pity thrust home to my heart! Let me not see my children slaughtered.

Crowd.
Kill them. Why do you draw out their sorrow?

Tsuta.
Kill me. Spare me the sight of my dear ones’ butchery. Let me die sane, not maddened with their dying screams.

Kozen.
Why do you not kill her?

Officer.
They may not. The law’s majestic custom is that the less guilty perish first, with a more lingering pain for the really criminal. The children must first die.

Tsuta.
Slavish devil! You bind my innocent children before my eyes and now would shed their blood! Not content with breaking my body, you dabble your murderous hands in my heart! The Gods press your savagery home, the Gods requite the monstrous wrong you do me! Not one shall escape their raining fury! When they come with flaming whips upon this deed, you shall pray vainly, as I do now. Oh, if a curse, winged now, a mother’s curse in her time of anguish, have any power, you shall howl!

Sogoro.
Howl for evermore! Well spoken, wife. My own life you might take and I would make no question nor murmur, because I know that it is forfeit to your barbarous law. But these, my harmless children! Oh, if there be any Gods! Masters of our land, spirits ancestral, ghosts heroic, deities most loving, just, merciful to men, seeing that once you knew our sorrows! Hear me! Let not our pain pass unavenged! By your love, so foully wronged, by your slaughtered justice, I entreat you! By every attribute you possess that is good and kind my dying hands catch hold of your skirts and call down your fury. Let not your ministries, though they come to all, attend upon the author of this deed! Sweep your rain-clouds far from his corn. When you move upon our fields to do them good, go by him. Strike him in death’s hour, shut off your mercies from him, permit him not a moment’s respite from the mastering haunt of our fierce sorrow! Darken his path, close down the windows of his spirit, bury him with the horror of my presence. By my life which I give so freely for my people, I claim the work of being your minister, of scourging this devil. Hotta’s house shall fall. Men of Sakura, not a soul within its threshold shall know a moment’s peace henceforward. In their midst my avenging spirit shall dwell and thrust them on to madness. Wife, now our work begins, and if I live a thousand lives they shall all be dedicated to whip the guilt of this child-murderer. Hear me, Gods!

Kozen.
A blessed prayer, a blessed prayer. Amen. Devils, devils all!

[ Exit madly. ]

Sogoro.
What! you are bringing the spears after all and will slay me first! Do so, and after death you shall see my head sway toward the castle. Why, you are afraid! (Laughs.) You shall hear me laugh again if you visit our Lord Hotta.

(Crowd breaks into wild execrations.)

Scene III.—Yedo. Hotta’s mansion. Hotta and Ikeura.

Hotta.
Have the messengers come? Call them in.

[ Exit Ikeura. ]

Fool, to be so disquieted by a doze! I will hear their story and forget the matter.

(Re-enter Ikeura, with Messengers.)

You have come from Sakura? Tell me, was execution done as I ordered upon the condemned?

Officer.
It was, sir.

Hotta.
At the Hour of the Snake?

Officer.
Precisely then.

Hotta.
How did they bear themselves in death?

Officer.
Bravely; they perished calmly, as though they accounted pain no ill, but fronted it as simply as they faced the kissing wind.

Hotta (with mad fury).
Monstrous liar! How dare you fool me thus? You lie, and deserve no less than they suffered. They cursed my name and shouted me to the Gods as a devil who had weighed to their slight fault a pain out of all proportion. Do not mock a tortured presence in this fashion. Speak and admit the truth. You see, I know all.

Officer.
First, sir, may I ask how these thoughts have come to you?

Hotta.
Listen; then speak only truth.

Alas! how shall I tell you? This mournful yesterday, clad in this weeping black I waited till they had died. Our sacred voices publish that the frown of the Gods rests upon him who takes a brother’s life, though his cause and justice’s are one. That very hour, the Hour of the Snake, deep darkness fell on me, and the waft of countless tongues, clamorous with horror and with hatred of me, beat upon my shuddering ear. Shouts of lamentation and of bitter anger rose, my name mingled with curses. Over all I saw Sogoro’s eyes red like a demon’s and I knew he was cursing me. I awakened, and I knew that the event had been correspondent to my vision.

Officer.
Only too well have the Gods revealed the whole to you. Even as your dream proclaimed it, it happened. Alas!

Hotta (starting up).
What is that you bring with you? What, you do not see? Look, look, man, those bloodshot eyes and features glaring hatred! They are lifting their dripping hands in evidence against me! You see them! Hold them away there, keep them from me. What, what! See!

Officer.
Would that my eyes were blasted!

Hotta.
It is gone; ’twas nothing. (Collapses and is silent.)

Friends, go, and do not speak a word of this. You see I am unwell. Though they died justly, yet my heart is too pitiful and creates their sufferings afresh.

It is nothing. How vain were their threats! I laugh to remember them. (Laughs. The laugh is echoed.)

Did you hear that? What was it?

Officer.
These walls are old, sir, and always echo.

Hotta.
I forgot that. (Laughs again.)

At death our clayey part dissolves quickly and becomes incorporated with the gross earth and the lifeless sods. The spirit flies away, beyond these temporal bounds, to the great waste. I have loved philosophy all my days, and it has brought me firmly to this belief. Then, you see, no means remains for either hate or affection, and it is our mind that creates the forms that terrify us. As for the lately condemned, they have paid for their crime. The law is justified, their sins are finished with, their spirits, as was right, dismissed in pain. I now go to the Council, to report what has happened. So let me leave you. I beg you to think no more of anything that has happened here. I have explained it all, and you see that it was nothing, absolutely nothing.

All.
Nothing, indeed, sir, nothing. (Echo: ‘Nothing.’)

Scene IV.—Yedo. Hotta’s mansion. The corridors. Ladies meeting.

Ume.
Is it true Ayame saw them?

Momiji.
Beyond doubt. They laughed as they pointed to their bleeding sides and then to our lady’s chamber. I know all, for she told me when she came to. She fell senseless as they brushed past her and entered our mistress’ room.

Ume.
Whom saw she? Did she see clearly? Please tell us.

Momiji.
All were there—Sogoro with his face set in hatred, and Tsuta, and the four children. Yes, and the priest who, you know, drowned himself after the execution. It was his prayer that gave their curse power. Certainly, all say, he was a man of exceptional holiness. He was there. But, most horrible of all, the children went headless, for they carried their heads in their hands.

(Screams from within. Enter Take hurriedly.)

Tell us, Take, is our mistress worse? Oh, what has happened?

Take.
She is distracted. She screams and covers her face and will not look about her. She says, if there are such sights in the world, it is well for those who are blind. Then she laughs, to think of a blind world. And they laugh too. Always they stand by her bed. Hatsuse has seen them. They opened the door when she came in, and she fainted. I have heard them laugh. I must not stay now. Gods, I have heard them laugh!

[ Exit Take. ]

Ume.
A maidservant saw one of them yesterday, a figure mocking and smiling with its bloodstained face. ’Twas a woman, she said. They say ’twas but a bunch of clothing when she pointed at it. But she swooned, and her screams on coming to disturbed our mistress. She is worse this morning.

Enter Ikeura.

Ikeura.
Ladies, you had best withdraw from nigh this chamber. It is thronged with ghosts that are waiting round one that they know must shortly become a ghost. ’Tis for all the world as vultures watching about a body! Your mistress is dying.

All.
Dying?

Ikeura.
She has miscarried, and her physician says she cannot live out this evening. What a wind is rising! We have sorrow on sorrow. Our lord has lost his seat on the Council, and is disgraced for ever. Ladies, I entreat you not to stay here.

(Screams from within.)

She has opened her eyes and seen them again. Oh, leave this place!

Momiji.
Sir, why does our lord keep Hatsuse about our mistress? You know, it was her father the steward who wrought all this trouble.

Ikeura.
Our lady dare not be parted from her; she has come to trust no other. Also, our lord believes her not in any way of like character to her father.

Momiji.
Yet surely it is her presence that keeps this dreadful visitation here.

Ikeura.
I think it very likely.

(Screams from within.)

I must find our lord, and tell him our mistress is dying. Would to Heaven another had this errand! For night and day he sees them bleeding on the pillar. And to shut his eyes but drives the vision inward.

(Screams from within.) [ Exit Ikeura. ]

Scene V.—Yedo. Hotta’s mansion. A Chamber. Lady Hotta in bed, Hatsuse, and a physician.

Lady Hotta.
Hear me plead again with you. As you are woman, I beseech you to have pity on me who am woman. I have suffered all that you have suffered. Will you not leave me?

Physician.
Madam, quiet yourself. There are none such here as you think. Dear lady, do not fancy it.

Lady Hotta.
Oh, but there are. You are a fool, man. See this wrist. Whence came these scars? Tell me that.

Physician.
There are no scars, madam. You but imagine.

Lady Hotta.
Oh, you are a fool, a fool, a fool. How could burning hands touch, and not leave a scar? Night and day they have stood beside my bed. Have they not, Hatsuse? Hatsuse sees them, for her father was steward. Tell him what you see, Hatsuse.

(Hatsuse screams.)

Physician.
Madam, drink this.

Lady Hotta.
What is it?

Physician.
A cooling syrup for the blood. ’Twill give you sleep.

Lady Hotta.
Yes, and in dreams I cannot shut my eyes. I daresay. I’ll have none of it. I will not sleep.

(Sits up in bed.) Do not show me those palms again. The blood on them is old! Ten days old! Ha! ha! You used to make me afraid, but I shall laugh at you soon. It is old, woman; old, old, old, I tell you. Tell me, when did you die?

(Laughs. Pause. Then she screams.) I. pray you, torment me no longer. Nay, if you will not go, yet for pity send that child from the room. I cannot endure to see him with that head in his hands. Where should a sweet child’s head be but upon his shoulders? Be merciful, and send him away. Have you not tormented me enough, for you have robbed my own womb? My child! My child I I shall never see you! Never, never! You are dead in your mother! Oh, my son, my son, my son! (Falls back.) Take him away! See, the blood drips on the bed! (Screams and dies.)

Enter Hotta.

Hotta.
Will you not let her alone? Is it not enough that you show yourselves every hour and every minute and every division of a minute to me, but you must torment her too? You have slain her! She is gone! You shall die, woman. Die, I say, for all you show those bleeding hands. Never lift that withered face to me for pity! Murderess!

(Slays Hatsuse.) And you, too, shaven-crown! Yes, they have told me what you did at their death. Priest though you are, you have consorted with these.

(Slays physician. Laughter fills the chamber and the rafters shake.)