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A Hall in the Castle of MANFRED. | |
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MANFRED and HERMAN. | |
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| Man. What is the hour? | |
| Her. It wants but one till sunset, | |
| And promises a lovely twilight. | 5 |
| Man. Say, | |
| Are all things so disposed of in the tower | |
| As I directed? | |
| Her. All, my lord, are ready: | |
| Here is the key and casket. | 10 |
| Man. It is well: | |
| Thou may’st retire. [Exit HERMAN. | |
| Man. (alone). There is a calm upon me— | |
| Inexplicable stillness! which till now | |
| Did not belong to what I knew of life. | 15 |
| If that I did not know philosophy | |
| To be of all our vanities the motliest, | |
| The merest word that ever fool’d the ear | |
| From out the schoolman’s jargon, I should deem | |
| The golden secret, the sought “Kalon,” found, | 20 |
| And seated in my soul. It will not last, | |
| But it is well to have known it, though but once: | |
| It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, | |
| And I within my tablets would note down | |
| That there is such a feeling. Who is there? | 25 |
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Re-enter HERMAN | |
| Her. My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves | |
| To greet your presence. | |
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Enter the ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE | |
| Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred! | 30 |
| Man. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls; | |
| Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those | |
| Who dwell within them. | |
| Abbot. Would it were so, Count!— | |
| But I would fain confer with thee alone. | 35 |
| Man. Herman, retire—What would my reverend guest? | |
| Abbot. Thus, without prelude:—Age and zeal, my office, | |
| And good intent, must plead my privilege; | |
| Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, | |
| May also be my herald. Rumours strange, | 40 |
| And of unholy nature, are abroad, | |
| And busy with thy name; a noble name | |
| For centuries: may he who bears it now | |
| Transmit it unimpair’d! | |
| Man. Proceed, I listen. | 45 |
| Abbot. ’Tis said thou holdest converse with the things | |
| Which are forbidden to the search of man; | |
| That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, | |
| The many evil and unheavenly spirits | |
| Which walk the valley of the shade of death, | 50 |
| Thou communest. I know that with mankind. | |
| Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely | |
| Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude | |
| Is as an anchorite’s, were it but holy. | |
| Man. And what are they who do avouch these things? | 55 |
| Abbot. My pious brethren, the scared peasantry, | |
| Even thy own vassals, who do look on thee | |
| With most unquiet eyes. Thy life’s in peril. | |
| Man. Take it. | |
| Abbot. I come to save, and not destroy. | 60 |
| I would not pry into thy secret soul; | |
| But if these things be sooth, there still is time | |
| For penitence and pity: reconcile thee | |
| With the true church, and through the church to heaven. | |
| Man. I hear thee. This is my reply: whate’er | 65 |
| I may have been, or am, doth rest between | |
| Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal | |
| To be my mediator. Have I sinn’d | |
| Against your ordinances? prove and punish! | |
| Abbot. My son! I did not speak of punishment, | 70 |
| But penitence and pardon; with thyself | |
| The choice of such remains—and for the last, | |
| Our institutions and our strong belief | |
| Have given me power to smooth the path from sin | |
| To higher hope and better thoughts; the first | 75 |
| I leave to heaven,—“Vengeance is mine alone!” | |
| So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness | |
| His servant echoes back the awful word. | |
| Man. Old man! there is no power in holy men, | |
| Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form | 80 |
| Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, | |
| Nor agony, nor, greater than all these, | |
| The innate tortures of that deep despair, | |
| Which is remorse without the fear of hell | |
| But all in all sufficient to itself | 85 |
| Would make a hell of heaven,—can exorcise | |
| From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense | |
| Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge | |
| Upon itself; there is no future pang | |
| Can deal that justice on the self—condemn’d | 90 |
| He deals on his own soul. | |
| Abbot. All this is well; | |
| For this will pass away, and be succeeded | |
| By an auspicious hope, which shall look up | |
| With calm assurance to that blessed place | 95 |
| Which all who seek may win, whatever be | |
| Their earthly errors, so they be atoned: | |
| And the commencement of atonement is | |
| The sense of its necessity.—Say on— | |
| And all our church can teach thee shall be taught; | 100 |
| And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon’d. | |
| Man. When Rome’s sixth emperor was near his last | |
| The victim of a self—inflicted wound, | |
| To shun the torments of a public death | |
| From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier, | 105 |
| With show of loyal pity, would have stanch’d | |
| The gushing throat with his officious robe; | |
| The dying Roman thrust him back, and said— | |
| Some empire still in his expiring glance— | |
| “It is too late—is this fidelity?” | 110 |
| Abbot. And what of this? | |
| Man. I answer with the Roman, | |
| “It is too late!” | |
| Abbot. It never can be so, | |
| To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, | 115 |
| And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope? | |
| ’Tis strange—even those who do despair above, | |
| Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth, | |
| To which frail twig they cling like drowning men. | |
| Man. Ay—father! I have had those earthly visions | 120 |
| And noble aspirations in my youth, | |
| To make my own the mind of other men, | |
| The enlightener of nations; and to rise | |
| I knew not whither—it might be to fall; | |
| But fall, even as the mountain-cataract, | 125 |
| Which, having leapt from its more dazzling height, | |
| Even in the foaming strength of its abyss | |
| (Which casts up misty columns that become | |
| Clouds raining from the reascended skies) | |
| Lies low but mighty still.—But this is past, | 130 |
| My thoughts mistook themselves. | |
| Abbot. And wherefore so? | |
| Man. I could not tame my nature down; for he | |
| Must serve who fain would sway—and soothe, and sue, | |
| And watch all time, and pry into all place, | 135 |
| And be a living lie, who would become | |
| A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such | |
| The mass are; I disdain’d to mingle with | |
| A herd, though to be leader—and of wolves. | |
| The lion is alone, and so am I. | 140 |
| Abbot. And why not live and act with other men? | |
| Man. Because my nature was averse from life; | |
| And yet not cruel; for I would not make, | |
| But find a desolation. Like the wind, | |
| The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom, | 145 |
| Which dwells but in the desert and sweeps o’er | |
| The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast, | |
| And revels o’er their wild and arid waves, | |
| And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, | |
| But being met is deadly,—such hath been | 150 |
| The course of my existence; but there came | |
| Things in my path which are no more. | |
| Abbot. Alas! | |
| I ’gin to fear that thou art past all aid | |
| From me and from my calling; yet so young, | 155 |
| I still would— | |
| Man. Look on me! there is an order | |
| Of mortals on the earth, who do become | |
| Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, | |
| Without the violence of warlike death; | 160 |
| Some perishing of pleasure, some of study, | |
| Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, | |
| Some of disease, and some insanity, | |
| And some of wither’d or of broken hearts; | |
| For this last is a malady which slays | 165 |
| More than are number’d in the lists of Fate, | |
| Taking all shapes and bearing many names. | |
| Look upon me! for even of all these things | |
| Have I partaken; and of all these things, | |
| One were enough; then wonder not that I | 170 |
| Am what I am, but that I ever was, | |
| Or having been, that I am still on earth. | |
| Abbot. Yet, hear me still— | |
| Man. Old man! I do respect | |
| Thine order, and revere thine years; I deem | 175 |
| Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain. | |
| Think me not churlish; I would spare thyself, | |
| Far more than me, in shunning at this time | |
| All further colloquy; and so—farewell. [Exit MANFRED. | |
| Abbot. This should have been a noble creature: he | 180 |
| Hath all the energy which would have made | |
| A goodly frame of glorious elements, | |
| Had they been wisely mingled; as it is, | |
| It is an awful chaos—light and darkness, | |
| And mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts, | 185 |
| Mix’d, and contending without end or order, | |
| All dormant or destructive. He will perish, | |
| And yet he must not; I will try once more, | |
| For such are worth redemption; and my duty | |
| Is to dare all things for a righteous end. | 190 |
| I’ll follow him—but cautiously, though surely. [Exit ABBOT. | |
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