path: root/72364-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE NAME OF TIME ***





                          IN THE NAME OF TIME

                     OTHER WORKS BY MICHAEL FIELD


        CALLIRRHOE                                       1884
        FAIR ROSAMUND                             1884 & 1897
        THE TRAGIC MARY                                  1890
        UNDERNEATH THE BOUGH                             1893
        THE WORLD AT AUCTION                             1898
        THE RACE OF LEAVES                               1901
        JULIA DOMNA                                      1903
        BORGIA                                           1905
        WILD HONEY                                       1908
        QUEEN MARIAMNE                                   1908
        THE ACCUSER                                      1911
        THE TRAGEDY OF PARDON                            1911
        POEMS OF ADORATION                               1912
        MYSTIC TREES                                     1913
        DEDICATED                                        1914
        DEIRDRE                                          1918

[Illustration]




                                IN THE
                             NAME OF TIME

                                   A
                                TRAGEDY

                                  BY
                                MICHAEL
                                 FIELD


                          THE POETRY BOOKSHOP
                    35 DEVONSHIRE ST. THEOBALDS RD.
                              LONDON W.C.
                                MCMXIX




                         IN THE NAME OF TIME:

                               A TRAGEDY


      “IN THE NAME OF TIME.”--_The Winter’s Tale_, iv, I, _chorus_.

          ἅπανθ᾽ ὁ μακρὸς κἀναρίθμητος χρόνος
          φύει τ᾽ ἄδηλα καὶ φανέντα κρύπτεται:
          κοὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἄελπτον οὐδέν, ἀλλ᾽ ἁλίσκεται
          χὠ δεινὸς ὅρκος χαἰ περισκελεῖς φρένες.

                            _Sophocles--Ajax 646._

      _Quoted from R. C. Trevelyan’s Translation on the Cover._




                                PERSONS


                CHILPERIC     _King of the Franks_.
                CARLOMAN }  { _Sons of Charles Martel,_
                PEPIN    }  { _Consuls and Mayors of the Palace_.
                MARCOMIR      _A Frankish Count_.
                RACHIS        _King of the Lombards_.
                ASTOLPH       _His brother_.
                ZACHARIAS     _The Pope_.
                DAMIANI       _An Italian Bishop_.
                BONIFACE      _A Missionary Saint_.
                GENEVIVA      _Wife to Carloman_.

                _Cardinals, Nobles, Monks, Servants._




                          IN THE NAME OF TIME

                               A TRAGEDY




ACT I.


SCENE: _Paris. A Hall in the Royal Palace._

CARLOMAN _is pacing backward and forward: he pauses by a crucifix set up
at the further end of the hall_.


CARLOMAN.

    _Thou sayest truly that I am--a King_
    He said Who laid His life down on the Cross:
    So will I be, a King. I will possess
    The great reality. I war and govern,
    I can strike hard as Charles the Hammerer;
    Men say I have my father’s qualities,
    And in the brief months of my sovereignty
    The infidel has recognised my blood:
    But this is nothing! Phantom-Emperors
    Have made the throne phantasmal. I have felt
    In Zacharias, the great Pope, a force
    That spreads like spring across the world. No more
    Will I be petty marshal to a crew
    That hack and murder, while the royal faces
    Of wandering martyrs scintillate and thrill.
    There is a glorious Betterness at work
    Amid the highways and the solitudes;
    I would be with it--in obscurity,
    No matter!--with the river as it shapes
    Its cisterns in the hills or where the wind
    First draws its silver volumes to a voice:
    Behind, at the beginning, from within:
    A cry, a pang--what shall respond to it,
    Who help me? I have fiery thoughts of God,
    I would attempt Him. In the wilderness
    Maybe He will unbosom.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.]


SERVANT.

                          The Archbishop
    Of Mentz would see you.


CARLOMAN.

                          Blessèd Boniface!
    He brings me my enfranchisement.

[_As_ BONIFACE _enters the_ SERVANT _withdraws_.]

                                    Great Angel,
    My spirit leaps within me to be born,
    Beholding you.


BONIFACE.

                  My son, the Holy Father
    Receives you joyously.


CARLOMAN.

    [_kissing_ BONIFACE] To go to God
    Living, unscathed, to give Him everything
    One has, to pour one’s soul into His lap,
    To let Him play upon one as the wind,
    To feel His alternations ...!


BONIFACE.

                                  Carloman,
    Your childlike transport shall be surely blessed:
    Yet in the convent there are bitter hours
    Of exile from God’s presence, penances--


CARLOMAN.

    But will they choke my solitude with prayers?


BONIFACE.

    The holy brethren chant in unison
    For hours within the chapel; there is buzz
    About the cloister like a hive of bees.


CARLOMAN.

    There have been hermits! Might I live alone,
    I could breathe unrepiningly the while
    It pleased God to keep silence. I would tame
    Some wistful, kingly beast to roam with me,
    And we would wait His pleasure. Boniface,
    Oh, tell me of His coming! It is plain
    He has been with you--You became His friend?


BONIFACE.

    His servant rather.


CARLOMAN.

                        That I cannot be;
    I am a Knight free-born; I come as those
    Great nobles of the East, and all my service
    Is adoration. You may have some converts,
    Brute-tribes, who give allegiance to His name,
    As those who do not speak the Emperor’s tongue
    May rank his subjects. I am not of these.


BONIFACE.

    Thou speakest truth, my son; there are some souls
    Loved of the Lord as Paul in Araby
    With whom one must not meddle. In good time
    You will exalt the Church; meanwhile your brother
    Who has a tighter grip of circumstance
    Than you--


CARLOMAN.

    He is short-sighted, politic,
    External in his bent. I lead the charge
    In battle, I foresee the combinations
    Of foreign forces; he is good at siege,
    And all the hectoring process of delay.
    He is not like my father. That great fight
    At Tours! I feel the onslaught in my blood;
    It never can run sluggish.


BONIFACE.

                               Had you seen
    King Chilperic’s flower-wreathed waggon in the street!--
    You should have looked a last time on the world
    Ere you renounced it.


CARLOMAN.

                          Scanned the heir of Clovis
    Drawn like a senseless idol in his car!
    You judge unworthily. God bade me come
    Up higher to Him on a battlefield
    Where I was victor. It was in the night--
    I moved about among my sleeping men,
    I heard them shout for triumph in their dreams:
    It was enough!


BONIFACE.

                   Yes, all is vanity;
    The pride of life, its splendour, _vanitas_!


CARLOMAN.

    There is no vanity in life; life utters
    Unsparing truth to us,--there is no line
    Or record in our body of her printing
    That stamps a falsehood. Do not so confound,
    Father, life’s transience and sincerity.
    What makes the show out in the streets so vile
    Is that it blazons forth the lie that youth,
    Kingship and power are ineffectual.
    A show of death where life should radiate
    Is vanity. And if I now fling off
    The honourable titles of my state,
    Consul and Patriarch, it is not because
    I have not nobly borne them; by my sword
    The Church has been defended, and the corn
    That bows in shocks about your monasteries
    Bows down above the battlefields I won.
    You misconceive.


BONIFACE.

                     A sweep of piety
    Beyond my censure! [_half-aside_] Will he thrive at Rome?


CARLOMAN.

    Why should you look so fearful? I have chosen
    The path of life, choosing to be a monk,
    And I have wisely chosen.


BONIFACE.

    Ah, beloved!


CARLOMAN.

    Now I must face my brother. Would he come
    By chance! I dare not crave a conference.
    I am arrested at the lips if ever
    We speak of anything beyond affairs.
    He will not understand--at least to-day,
    When fresh from the procession of that cursed
    Do-nothing Chilperic.


BONIFACE.

                          Set your purpose forth
    At once, and let him freely misconceive:
    You must not cloud for that.


CARLOMAN.

                                 These mighty thoughts,
    Mingled with God, how put them to the shame
    Of the world’s censure! What you call my soul
    Flees as a shy girl that escapes pursuit.


BONIFACE.

    Take your shame meekly. Do not let your eyes
    Grow wild and hostile!

     [BONIFACE, _who has seen_ PEPIN _approaching, withdraws to the back
     of the hall, stands before the Crucifix in mute prayer, and then
     passes out, looking back at the brothers_. PEPIN _is a short, stout
     man, with florid complexion and much vehemence of manner. He wipes
     the perspiration from his face and addresses_ CARLOMAN _without
     looking at him_.]


PEPIN.

                              Woden, what a sight!
    This Chilperic is an idol that the people
    No longer worship as his car rolls on.
    Contempt, indifference! A few more months
    Will rid us of the calf. We pull together
    In right good part, fraternal, taking pride
    Each in the other’s excellence: ere long
    The Pope will pour his oil upon our heads
    To nourish our short curls.


CARLOMAN.

    He has the power
    Of making Kings?


PEPIN.

    Liutbrand the Lombard winced
    Before him and resigned the Exarchite:
    And he who can impoverish may endow.


CARLOMAN.

    [_with a sudden movement_]
    Pepin, we have not looked upon the face
    Of Zacharias: I am bound for Rome.


PEPIN.

    A pilgrimage? Stay where you are! Tut, tut!
    Wait till he seek us. Frankland is his hope
    Against the Lombard: when he seeks us then
    We twain will offer him our dutiful,
    Strong swords, and keep St. Peter’s realm intact;
    While, in return, that gracious influence,
    That something that we lack to give our strength
    Supremacy, shall be poured down on us.


CARLOMAN.

    _Something we lack!_ I dream of a possession--
    Pepin, the world if I became a monk
    Would recognise that I lay down my rights,
    None wrests them from me.


PEPIN.

                              Are you clean gone mad!
    Become a monk, you, Consul, Patriarch!
    Our mother had been Christian scarce a year
    Before your birth, and haply took the priest
    Too much into her privacy. By Thor--


CARLOMAN.

    [_taking him by the throat_]
    No, but by God Incarnate, you shall swear
    You own me son of Christendom’s great guard
    Ere you again draw unimperilled breath!
    I, Carloman, your elder, the first-born
    Of Charles Martel, of my own choice renounce
    My portion in his honours. Own my birthright!


PEPIN.

    Plague take you!


CARLOMAN.

    Own it!


PEPIN.

                             Give a fellow breath,
    Don’t ...
    You have your father’s temper, that’s the test!
    I loved you as a boy and set my teeth
    Against a rare, sweet craziness that takes you
    In certain moods--you need a keeper then:
    You need one now. Hold fast your birthright, man;
    Don’t trust me with temptation. Geneviva
    Will relish this new folly less than I--
    Chuck her beneath the chin and threaten her
    With your design! She is too young a widow
    For me to govern.


CARLOMAN.

    [_apart_] Deaf down to the soul!


PEPIN.

    That flush across your forehead like a scar
    At mention of your wife! Her lovers!--Think
    If you withdrew protection....


CARLOMAN.

                                   Purity,
    In woman the ideal and the dream,
    Has its firm seat amid the altitudes
    Of manhood’s nature--There alone are seats
    Of holy contemplation, sexless thoughts,
    Love that in God finds goal, a loneliness
    That truth, not sympathy, can cure. ’Tis vain
    The hope that woman, made to minister
    To momentary passion, can provide
    Solace and inspiration to her mate.
    She breeds no hope; she cannot offer us
    A clime for our ideals and our dreams,
    Or plant a footstep soft as memory’s
    Across futurity’s unimpressed sands.


PEPIN.

    You speak from fact, I own.
                                But Boniface,
    What does he say?


CARLOMAN.

    He aids me.


PEPIN.

    [_slapping him on the shoulder_] Carloman,
    ’Twould be cold work without you.


CARLOMAN.

    But my son----


PEPIN.

    Nay, nay, no substitute! You are my brother,
    I know the secret how to humour you,
    I weave your projects in our policy,
    And now and then you marshal us the way
    Of an archangel ... but no substitute!


CARLOMAN.

    Yet love him for my sake; give him free training
    In war and letters.


PEPIN.

                        Fie, fie! Geneviva
    Will put you from this project. In the cloister
    What would you see but men who dig and pray?--
    No royal pageants.

     [KING CHILPERIC _is borne in a litter with great pomp. His golden
     hair sweeps over the sides of the litter; his face is nerveless and
     exhausted._]


CARLOMAN.

    [_with an ironic smile_] Such as this. The King!
    Tell him I have transferred the Mayoralty
    To you, and do not taunt me any more.


PEPIN.

    [_to_ CHILPERIC]
    Sire, you are weary, yet we crave the grace
    Of a brief audience.


CHILPERIC.

                         Business! I can brook
    No more of these distractions. Your good brother
    Relieves me of all business. I can hear
    Scarcely the people’s clamour when they shout,
    And I am shy at facing them. To know
    There is a god indifferent to its whims
    Gives the world courage of its natural awe;
    So I expose these curls; that duty done,
    Leave me at ease, an idol in his niche.


PEPIN.

    But, sire, my brother has persuaded me,
    If you consent, to take on me his burthens,
    His duties and his honours; being summoned,
    He holds, by God to a monastic life.


CHILPERIC.

    [_with passing animation_]
    This interests us. After so brief a term
    Of dignity! But I applaud his sense:
    The convent is a place for peace of mind;
    One has no interruption, one may watch
    The gold-fish in the fountain half a day,
    If so one will; and, though the prayers are long,
    One grows accustomed to them as to meals
    And looks for their recurrence.
    [_suspiciously_] But, my Consul,
    With you it cannot be the luxury
    Of doing nothing that attracts. For us
    It is the happy and predestined lot;
    But for an untamed youth whose pleasures still
    Are running in the current of his blood,
    Such choice is of ill-omen.


CARLOMAN.

                                Courage, sire,
    Is constant industry for happiness.
    When I become a monk----


CHILPERIC.

                              Nay, no confession,
    No putting reasons to your Overlord.
    [_to his nobles_]
    You need not shake your spears so stormily,
    We leave you a stout leader for your wars,
    [_to_ CARLOMAN] And you, your liberty. What use of it
    You make is of no moment to the world,
    And does not raise my curiosity,
    Who for myself have found in meat and drink,
    In sleep and long, long abstinence from care
    The pleasure proper to me. Pepin, come!

     [_Exeunt_ CHILPERIC, PEPIN _and the Frankish Nobles_.]


CARLOMAN.

    He has no sight of God, is imbecile
    And dropping into clay. I should not let
    This show dishearten me; but I have suffered
    A vulgar tongue to tell what from my lips
    Alone is truth--that as the hidden spring,
    Restless at touch of the diviner’s rod
    Is dragged through to the surface by his spells,
    I am discovered and borne upward, made
    The answer to some perilous appeal:
    And for my folly I must be dismissed
    By a mere dotard with a passing sigh
    Of envy, who forego the battlefield,
    The Council-chamber, the sweet clang of arms
    For just a pricking wonder at my heart,
    A knowledge I would give to secrecy
    Plunging it headlong in the ear of God.
    Oh for the cloister! I will make escape
    At once, in silence, without taking leave:
    My joy is in the consciousness that Time
    Will never draw me back to any wish
    To any fondness I am flinging off....

     [_Enter_ GENEVIVA.]

    My wife!
            Is Geneviva come to me?


GENEVIVA.

    Now the dull monk has left you. Rouse your head!
    I have been taking thought how best to trim
    My beauty for you. Boniface was slow
    In giving counsel; slowly I took up,
    Handled and dropt my jewels. Of a sudden,
    When Pepin’s voice was heard upon the stair,
    I laid these blossoms in a ruddy knot
    Thus hasty on my bosom. Come to me.
    My lord, you owe me many hours of love,
    So many hours I have been beautiful
    In vain. You do not see me when I sing,
    You miss the marks of music in my face,
    You do not love the hunt, and you have never
    Ridden beside me in the morning light.
    You see me but as now when I am vexed
    And haughty for caresses.


CARLOMAN.

    [_after a pause_] Geneviva,
    You are a Christian?


GENEVIVA.

                            Dear my lord, you speak
    As if I were laid sick.


CARLOMAN.

    You were baptised?


GENEVIVA.

    Assuredly, but the cold font has left
    No chill upon my heart. Think not of that,
    Think of our marriage-day. You leave me lonely
    While Boniface enthralls you.


CARLOMAN.

    [_with hesitation_] Women even
    Have put aside their pomps and vanities ...


GENEVIVA.

    Oh, leave me, you are insupportable!
    You bring me word of kingdoms and of monks,
    And thoughts of things that have not come to pass,
    Or should be quite forgotten. We could spend
    So sweet a moment now, for you are loved,
    My Carloman--What need is there of talk
    Concerning other matters?--loved of me,
    Dreamed of when I am dreaming, when I wake
    Wept for, sighed after. I have never cared
    To listen to the minstrels, for the praise
    My beauty covets most is in your eyes.
    How wild they look and solemn!

     [CARLOMAN _folds her in his arms quietly. Then with great effort
     bends over her and speaks_]


CARLOMAN.

                                   Marcomir
    Is restless for a pilgrimage to Rome.
    I think we shall be starting presently:
    And afterward ... If I am long away ...


GENEVIVA.

    [_breaking from him_]
    Oh, think a little! Can you leave this hair
    So crisp and burnished? When the sun is bright
    Across your shield, it has no livelier flash--
    Confess, it has not? But you come to me
    Stale, weary from your dreams and abstinence,
    And tingle my suspicion.


CARLOMAN.

                             If these dreams
    Were growing all the world to me!--You start,
    You turn away, you will not understand.
    The fear of hurting you has made me keep
    So distant from you lately, and my eyes
    You thought were worn with vigil and with books
    Have burnt with tears at night for many a month
    To think you have not known the tyrant-joy
    That moves a soul to change and severance,
    Except upon the day when for my sake
    You parted from your home: but by the rapture
    That made such tumult in the daughter’s grief
    When she became a bride, your husband now
    Implores your comprehension.
                                  _All thou hast_,
    So the Church teaches, _family and spouse,
    The child thou hast begotten, thine own life
    Thou must abhor, if thou would’st have new days_
    _Of blessing on the Earth._ I feel this law
    Is written in my very heart of hearts,
    There is such haunting freshness deep below
    The sorrow of farewell.


GENEVIVA.

    [_defiantly_] My God is Love--
    The God who made a bower in Paradise,
    Who wedded Eve and Adam, who abode
    In the sweet incense of His Church to bless
    My marriage.
      [CARLOMAN _stretches out his hand to support her_.]
                 Have no fear that I shall fall,
    I cannot swoon while I remember it--
    How in the songful hush a restless hand
    Grew tight about my fingers, and a vow
    Thrilled all the girl in me to womanhood,
    And stung the future lying at my heart
    To joy and frankness. That was years ago ...
      [_She breaks into a bitter laugh_]
    O Carloman, you know not what you do,
    You know not what I am, nor what a blank
    Of mercy there is in you!


CARLOMAN.

                              Were I dead,
    You would not be so violent: in a trance
    Of resignation you would think of me,
    With tears, not gasping laughter.


GENEVIVA.

    [_pacing the room excitedly_] _Pilgrimage!_
    Did you say, pilgrimage? To think of you
    Growing each day more cramped about the mouth,
    More full of resolution in the eyes.
    What shall I do? _Pray for you_--but the dead,
    You have just told me, should be left unmourned,
    Forgotten as last summer’s autumn-leaves.
    [_facing him coldly_] My lord, I am no reliquary-urn;
    There is no widow in me.

    [_with still greater change of manner_] If you leave
    Your Kingdom, there are certain things to do
    Before you start. There is that Gothic King,
    The captive Hermann--you must break his chains.


CARLOMAN.

    Hermann is dead. Count Marcomir reports
    Last night he found him lifeless.


GENEVIVA.

    [_gasping_] Late last night?
    Marcomir!--Take your fingers from my sleeve;
    But summon Marcomir, and if again
    There is intelligence to break to me
    Likely to hurt, give him the charge of it.


CARLOMAN.

    No, Geneviva. I have little speech;
    But when the secret crept into my soul
    I loved you, it was not to Marcomir
    I spoke: and if another secret now
    Is breaking through my nature, do not think
    That he will be the spokesman.
    [_noticing her agitation_] Hermann died
    I think by his own hand; he courted death.
    What can a man prize in captivity?
    [_as_ GENEVIVA _grows more agitated_]
    There! I will speak no more of him. Your maids--
    [_turning to summon her attendants_].


GENEVIVA.

    Weave the great arras. They have no concern
    With me, except in silence to array.
    You thought I cared to gossip with my maids!
    But summon Marcomir.

     [_She looks after_ CARLOMAN, _who walks out, stroking his chin_].

                         To think he dared
    To lean above me with those burning eyes
    Unconscious what they glassed. I did not learn
    From him the magic that was born in me,
    I learnt it when great Hermann passed in chains,
    And he is dead. I promised I would go
    To-day and visit him. How could he die?
      [MARCOMIR _enters_.]
    Why, you are deadly pale!
      [_She recoils, and says in a faint voice_]
                              It is the hour
    Fixed for our visit.


MARCOMIR.

    But the man is dead.


GENEVIVA.

    What does he look like now? Is he so changed
    I must not see him?


MARCOMIR.

                        Death is not a fact
    To touch with simile. What looks he like?
    All men in moonlight mind one of the moon,
    All dead men look like death.


GENEVIVA.

                                  He lies in chains?
    Are the brows restful?


MARCOMIR.

                           Had you been a man
    You would have asked me how he came to die,
    No more!


GENEVIVA.

             I had forgotten ... then he perished
    As Carloman reports?
    [MARCOMIR _turns away_.] You cannot bear
    That I should mourn him?


MARCOMIR.

    [_facing her again_] Oh, a lifetime, if
    It please you! I am going to a place
    Where love is held of little consequence.


GENEVIVA.

    Then you are bound for hell.


MARCOMIR.

    [_between his teeth_] But you are safe!


GENEVIVA.

    Keep me recluse from love, as men from war,
    You spoil my faculties. Where will you go?


MARCOMIR.

    To any coast you have not trod, wherever
    The flowers are different from the flowers you wear,
    To some Italian convent. Geneviva,
    I am not framed to see you minister
    To other men; but when long years are passed,
    It may be in a fresco, I shall find
    Some figure of a lady breaking bread
    To mendicants, and kneel and pray to her
    That she may bless me also: but till then ...
    [_covering his eyes_]
    O God, you shall not tempt me, though I feel
    Just how your hair burns in a fiery wreath
    Above your brow, and how your eyes are soft
    With blue, and deeper blue, as through the hills
    The valley stretches azure to the close.
    You shall not tempt me, though I almost hear
    Your bosom taking record of your breath,
    And I could sit and watch that tide of life
    Rising and falling through the lovely curves,
    Till I was lost in ecstasy.


GENEVIVA.

                                 Oh, hush!
    But then you love me. It was in a fit ...?


MARCOMIR.

    Of devilish malice.


GENEVIVA.

                        In a jealous fit?
    You shall remain.

     [_She goes up to him: he takes her hands in his, kisses them
     coldly, and puts them away._]


MARCOMIR.

                      I did not answer you--
    His face was drawn.


GENEVIVA.

                        And I had given you charge
    Of the great restive soldier.


MARCOMIR.

                                  True, I swerved;
    I have confessed my sin, and now must bear
    The settling of my spirit on the Cross.


GENEVIVA.

    So many favours!


MARCOMIR.

                     But you kissed his brows--
    What need was there of that?


GENEVIVA.

                                 You love me then,
    You love me! Would you murder him again
    If I again should touch him with my breath?


MARCOMIR.

    Again, again.


GENEVIVA.

                  And Carloman complains
    I am indifferent to him!


MARCOMIR.

                             He forgets;
    But, Geneviva, if a thousand years
    Broke over me, when Time had cleared his storms
    I should look up and know your face by heart.


GENEVIVA.

    Then stay, stay, stay with me!
                                   Have you once thought
    Through the long years how it will fare with me--
    Nothing to watch except the sullen waste
    Of my own beauty? Marcomir, I hold
    If there be judgment it shall be required
    Of women what delight their golden hair
    Has yielded--have they put its wealth to use,
    Or suffered it to lie by unenjoyed?
    I rather would die spendthrift, nothing left
    Of my rich heritage, save memory
    Of the wild, passing pleasure it conferred
    Than keep it untransmuted. And you choose
    To take from me the only eyes that care
    To mirror mine! I have so often thought
    That some day I shall drown myself: the water
    Reflects me with desire.


MARCOMIR.

    [_bitterly, as he turns away_] A soul so wide
    In innocence, so regal, on the day
    He wedded, he appointed me your squire!


GENEVIVA.

    [_following him_]
    He keeps you with him, you can read his heart,
    You know what way he travels, when his soul
    Flies homeward. Tell me--’tis the only knowledge
    I crave for in the world--does Carloman
    Still hold me in affection? I beseech,
    Tell me the truth. He loves you----


MARCOMIR.

                                        Yes, he loves,
    He does not use me for his purposes.
    [_perceiving_ PEPIN]
    Not Carloman--his brother on the stair
    Laughs at your light behaviour. So you lose
    One last poor opportunity.

[_Re-enter_ PEPIN.]


PEPIN.

                               Good even.
    Well, my fair sister, you have heard the news,
    Wept [_glancing at_ MARCOMIR]
         and found consolation.
                                But to think
    The son of Charles Martel should be a monk!


GENEVIVA.

    A monk!--a pilgrim?


PEPIN.

    No, a cloistered monk.


MARCOMIR.

    What is his crime?


PEPIN.

                       Oh, no impiety;
    A crazy fit: he must get near to God,
    So puts away all intercourse with man:
    And while I rule he thinks to thrill the world
    With some convulsive movement from his prayers.
    Ha, ha! But you shall queen it as before.


GENEVIVA.

    Go fetch my husband and remain without,
    For he alone can speak to me of this.

    [_Exit_ PEPIN.]

    [_turning to_ MARCOMIR]
    You are a murderer: this act of yours
    Will leave me very lonely.


MARCOMIR.

    I repent.


GENEVIVA.

    There is no sin like that of looking back
    When one has sinned. Whatever one attempts
    It perfected in patience brings reward.
    My Carloman will prosper: his whole heart
    Is gone away from me.
                          Why there he is,
    Passing in zealous talk with Boniface.

     [CARLOMAN _and_ BONIFACE _cross from right to left at the back of
     the hall_. GENEVIVA _intercepts them_.]

    Farewell!


CARLOMAN.

    [_arrested_] O Geneviva!


GENEVIVA.

                             Not my name,
    Never my name again. Say, holy father--
    They take new titles who renounce the world?


CARLOMAN.

    [_with flushing eagerness_]
    Then you too will renounce it? oh, the joy!
    There is a strange new passion in your eyes.
    Speak to me ... but you cannot! I could take
    No leave of you in your fierce, worldly mood;
    Now all is changed.


GENEVIVA.

                        Yes, all. How long ago
    It seems since we were married!


CARLOMAN.

                                    Think the day
    Is yet to come, the joy is all before.
    [_taking her face between his hands_]
    O Boniface, this is no temptress’ face!
    God has been with her, and she starts as I
    Free in the great endeavour.


BONIFACE.

                                Do you choose,
    Lady, a mere retreat among the nuns,
    Or, like your husband, do you break all ties
    That bind you to the earth?


GENEVIVA.

                                They all are broken:
    Except ... oh, I forgot! I have a son.


CARLOMAN.

    [_nervously_]
    Pepin will guard him.


GENEVIVA.

                          Are you dreaming still?
    Fool, fool! I tell you Pepin shall decide
    What robes I wear, and haply suffer me
    Sometimes at entertainments to look on,
    And see young Charlemagne praised. But for my child
    He shall remain with me.
      [_Re-enter_ PEPIN] All is confirmed.
    I shall not quit the world. How easily
    A man is duped with God upon the brain!
    I shall continue in my womanhood,
    Giving, receiving pleasure.
                                I have heard
    So much and suddenly; for Marcomir
    Is to become a monk.
    [_to_ CARLOMAN] Give him no welcome.
    He takes the cowl a penitent; he is not,
    Like you, a white-souled wayfarer.
    [_to_ PEPIN] How strange
    That we must pair together, you and I;
    I know so little of your tastes and now
    I must be often in your company.


MARCOMIR.

    My lord, speak to her.


PEPIN.

                           Come, an end to this!
    Brother, if you are wise you will not leave
    This woman in the world. Convents are made
    To tame the pride of such and keep them cool.


CARLOMAN.

    O Geneviva, for my sake, and yet....
    Not so, beloved.

     [_He turns away and covers his face._]


GENEVIVA.

                     Marcomir, farewell!
    You will be monks together. When my husband
    Forgets me, you must bring me to his thoughts
    Recall that day we hunted and you fell;
    I stayed to tend you; but the whole live day
    My voice rang through the woods for Carloman
    Until I wearied you; he was not found;
    But you remember how I cried for him.


MARCOMIR.

    Consul, have pity on her. I am free,
    But she has need of love.


GENEVIVA.

                             O insolence!--
    The virginal chill heart!--No intercession!
    [_to_ CARLOMAN]
    Our marriage is dissolved. How great a stranger
    You have become to me! I should grow mad
    To breathe by you another single hour.
    [_to_ BONIFACE]
    And you, old man, who stand with such meek eyes,
    Though you have robbed me of my name of wife,
    And made my boy an orphan--go your way!
    I cannot curse you, but I prophesy:
    Dishonour motherhood, plant virgin homes,
    Give to religion the sole charge of love,
    And you will rear up lust of such an ice
    As Death himself will shiver at.
    [_to_ PEPIN] Lead on!
    Now there is hope you may become a King,
    There should be some high festival to keep
    To-night in everlasting memory.
    Lead me away.


PEPIN.

                  Brother, in all--good luck!
    And may the Convent’s fare be angels’ food.
    Your wife’s tears soon will dry.

     [_Exeunt_ PEPIN _and_ GENEVIVA.]


CARLOMAN.

                                     The thing to do
    Is simply just the sole thing to be done.
    There should have been no tears, no taking leave;
    A freeman can do anything he will.


MARCOMIR.

    Take me along with you.


CARLOMAN.

                            Ah where--to God?
    Why would you come with me?


MARCOMIR.

                                You must not ask.
    Some rival slain in haste--the ebbing back
    Of hatred that has left the face exposed
    Of a dead foe I spared not. I have struck
    On something in my nature that is foul,
    That goes on breeding in me, that will taint
    My fellows: I must purify my heart
    With lonely fasting and continual prayers.
    My hope is all in Time: though Time defaces
    So much of what is fair, it dims the spots:
    I who am just a murderer to myself,
    Who close my eyes upon a sleeping guilt
    And waking, answer to the bloody name,
    Have some faint courage that a transformation
    Will come ...


CARLOMAN.

                  Oh, do not put your trust in Time;
    Put on at once _forever_ leap to God!
    Have done with age and death and faltering friends,
    Assailing circumstance, the change of front
    That one is always meeting in oneself,
    The plans, the vacillations--let them go!
    And you will put on immortality
    As simply as a vesture.


MARCOMIR.

                            And you think
    Of starting--when?


CARLOMAN.

    Now: we are on the road.




ACT II


SCENE: _An audience-chamber in the old Lateran Palace, Rome._


[_Enter_ ZACHARIAS _and_ DAMIANI.]


DAMIANI.

    And so the Lombard yielded ...?


ZACHARIAS.

    Not to me,
    But to my God. Each man of woman born
    Is fashioned in God’s outer image: few
    Are so compact of Him they feel His strength
    Within their body as a force that pushes
    Its way and dissipates the hollow crowd
    Of godless men; but from my youth I prayed
    I might be like Him in my inward parts
    As in my form of dust: and there was nothing
    That stood against me. It was simple joy
    To meet the opposition of my foes,
    To meet triumphant wickedness, to meet
    The deadliest torpor; for they had an end
    As night and mist are ended by the sun.


DAMIANI.

    You act on a dread thought.


ZACHARIAS.

    The thought conceived,
    Life has no terrors. It is emptiness
    Alone that makes us timid and inert:
    Fill up the void, we go from strength to strength
    In our possession. When I worship God,
    The pyx upon the altar where He dwells
    Has not a closer hold on Him than I.


DAMIANI.

    No wonder that men fear you in their hearts,
    And yield when you approach them!


ZACHARIAS.

    But you questioned
    About my recent journey to the hills,
    That I might save Perugia from the craft
    Of Rachis, the vile Lombard King. I went
    And faced him ... all his treachery gave way,
    The town was mine again; and more than this,
    All his ambition vanished--at my feet
    He promised to renounce the world itself,--
    Like Carloman, the Consul of the Franks,
    Who left his wife, his honours and his home
    To dwell on Mount Soracte.


DAMIANI.

                                Carloman--
    His fame spreads every day.


ZACHARIAS.

                                 I felt a warmth
    Myself to see the man, and when he came
    A welcome rushed out from my soul, such life
    Tempered the resolution of his face.
    God dwelt in him--yet fitfully it seemed,
    A fever in his blood, not constant health,
    Unalterable habit, as with those
    To whom God is the same now, yesterday,
    And always. As I blessed him I became
    Disquieted--his long hands were never still.
    He needed discipline, such changeless hours
    As make the spirit stable. Now he seeks
    Another meeting, so this letter says,
    To ask me some petition for himself,
    And for his friend.


DAMIANI.

                        He leaves a noble brother,
    Religious and undaunted, in his place,
    Pepin the Mayor.


ZACHARIAS.

                     On whom I build my trust.
    I would that Rachis left upon his throne
    A brother who could stand by Carloman’s:
    But Astolph has a rebel’s countenance,
    The only eyes that never bent to mine.
    He looked upon me as a robber might
    Who saw in God’s own altar but a setting
    To jewels that he coveted. And when
    Rachis knelt down and vowed to leave the world,
    And there was silence in the Lombard host,
    I heard a ringing laugh, and Astolph shook
    His yellow hair with joy. I never saw
    So mad a gesture--God will strike him down!

     [_Enter a_ CARDINAL.]


CARDINAL.

    The Lombard King would see you.


ZACHARIAS

                                    Lead him in,
    We will receive our penitent. [_Exit_ CARDINAL.]
                                  This Rachis
    Shall make your Convent famous: Mount Casino
    Shall have its royal monk.


DAMIANI.

    A gracious thought.

     [_Enter_ RACHIS _with two_ CARDINALS.]


ZACHARIAS.

    Welcome! You come to Rome to take your vow.


RACHIS.

    I come to ask your counsel first. My father,
    I have no trust in Astolph, he is stubborn,
    Heretical, and will bewitch my people
    From all allegiance to your holy throne.
    I speak of certain danger.


ZACHARIAS.

    Ah!


RACHIS.

                                   I love you,
    I love the peaceful service of the cell,
    And each affection tears me bitterly:
    Yet for the sake of keeping my wild hordes
    Your servants, I am willing to renounce
    The pleasure of the cloister, if your wisdom
    Absolve me from my promise and restore me
    To Kingship over Astolph.

     [_He watches_ ZACHARIAS _with the utmost anxiety_.]


ZACHARIAS.

                              What you plead
    Is politic ... but, stay, I rob the Church
    Of glory if I think of what is safe;
    God can protect His own--the fiercer battle,
    The heavenlier triumph. He received your oath,
    Not I.


RACHIS.

           You are His Pope, you can remit ...
    And you would rule in peace.


ZACHARIAS.

                                 How dare you tempt
    The Lord your God, upon whose earthly throne
    I sit? Get from me! One short month ago
    You were yourself blaspheming in the land,
    A heretic like Astolph and a slave
    To your own lust. Begone! The convent walls
    Alone can save you. If you drop away
    There is no limit to the punishment
    God deals to such backslider; you become
    Perjured for all eternity.


RACHIS.

                               Alas,
    Is there no service that will soften God,
    Except the cloister?


ZACHARIAS.

                         Fool and hypocrite,
    There is no way to Him except the path
    A man’s best moment finds, and you are lost
    If you regret your vow--to break from it
    Is utterly impossible: a star
    Can no more leave the music of its course
    Than any mortal break his word to God.
    Your soul is bound for ever.

     [_Enter_ CARLOMAN _and_ MARCOMIR _with another Cardinal_.]

                                 Dearest son,
    I greet you with God’s blessing,
    [_to_ MARCOMIR] And on you
    Confer the same. How prospers Carloman?


CARLOMAN.

    Oh, well, dear father.


ZACHARIAS.

                           He who keeps his knees
    Is Rachis, King of Lombardy. He takes
    Like you the fearful vow to be a monk.


RACHIS.

    [_to_ CARLOMAN] Protect me, help me, holy Carloman;
    Let me return with you. I am distracted ...
    A perjured man God will destroy in hate.


CARLOMAN.

    Come with me, come ... but not to make confession,
    To tabulate your crimes; come to the cloister,
    To solitude, the simple light of God.
    You must not dream, because your wickedness
    Has waked you to disgust, that you are called.
    The trouble is not betwixt God and sin;
    Sin does not shut God out, it is the lantern
    Flashing across the dark void of the world--
    Most penetrative pulses; use the flare
    For such poor revelation as it yields.
    But this new life ... you must arise and go
    Toward it as disencumbered as of old
    Abraham went up to Ur, all his possessions
    Kept for him in a mystery out of sight.
    To dream of them is faith, and to forget
    All one has touched and handled, loved or wrought
    Of sin or righteousness, the perfect sign
    The new man is begotten.


RACHIS.

                             Pray for me,
    If you are in God’s favour. Teach me how
    To win a better throne than I have lost,
    Safe from my brother, a perpetual seat
    High in the heavens.


CARLOMAN.

    [_with a ringing laugh_] If that is your ambition,
    Oh then, how clear it is that you are damned,
    Wherever you may lodge!


RACHIS.

                            Ha--terrible!
    You must not curse me; as the meanest slave
    I am content to cringe ...


CARLOMAN.

                               And heaven detests
    A beggar’s whining. God is made for Kings,
    Who need no favours, come to Him for nothing
    Except Himself.


RACHIS.

                    But does that satisfy?
    You who have borne the Convent many months--


ZACHARIAS.

    Yes, you can now bear witness to this poor
    Mistrusting wretch that you have no regrets.
    Speak out your true experience.


CARLOMAN.

    [_catching his breath_] I am sad.
    [_to_ ZACHARIAS] I cannot speak with this petitioner
    Trembling beside me: give him judgment first,
    And then hear my complaint.


ZACHARIAS.

    [_sternly_] No: let him hear--
    What have you against God?


CARLOMAN.

    I have not found Him.


ZACHARIAS.

    You fast? You have been diligent in prayer?


CARLOMAN.

    [_more excitedly_] I cannot pray--scarcely at Angelus--
    The Sun so flares and changes ... in the cold
    East clouds there is such witness to His strength
    Ere he lay him down: the life, the passion
    Arrest me and I weep.


ZACHARIAS.

    You _cannot pray_!
    But in the cloister....


CARLOMAN.

    Oh, those other prayers
    That I am set, I say them when I must,
    I sing within the chapel, dig and plant.
    And eat my portion; then there comes an hour,
    For which my heart has saved itself all day,
    When I can be alone--sole preparation
    The spirit makes when she would be with God--
    I turn from Time’s small dues of speech and habit
    To serve Eternity, the joy is coming
    That has no moment: and a noise is made,
    A monk approaches me, and I am summoned
    To visitors who seek me as a marvel
    To gaze upon. O father, when they look
    I reel with shame.


ZACHARIAS.

                       What would you? Such example
    As yours confounds the foolish.


CARLOMAN.

                                    Grant my prayer--
    Our prayers, for Marcomir’s are joined to mine--
    That we may leave Soracte and retire
    To some far convent hidden in the hills.


ZACHARIAS.

    Wisely you ask the natural medicine
    Your state requires.
                         Good prior Damiani,
    The brothers Carloman and Marcomir
    Together with King Rachis join your rule.
    Let them obey you, leading tranquil lives.
    [_apart to_ DAMIANI]
    Firm discipline!


RACHIS.

    [_from the ground_] O holy pontiff, grant
    That I may change with Carloman--Soracte
    For me, if you are merciful.


ZACHARIAS.

                                 Not so.
    This zealous son of ours has felt the poison
    Of worldly visits trouble him.


MARCOMIR.

    [_sharply_] Sin needs
    A tomb in which to die.


RACHIS.

    Fool! I am lost!

     [_He throws himself again on the ground in despair._]


CARLOMAN.

    We thank you, father, for we bound our hearts
    And brains and bodies with the fearful oath
    To live in God, and the great Tempter--Time--
    Has thwarted us persistently with bondage
    Of interruption. Claims and trifles hinder
    Our worship of what passes not away;
    [_vehemently_]
    And I am chafed, my father.


ZACHARIAS.

                                There is something
    Terribly painful in your eyes--pray much,
    And think but seldom.

     [_Enter another Cardinal._]


CARDINAL.

                          Saintly Boniface
    Comes from the Frankish Court.

     [_He ushers_ BONIFACE _in_.]


ZACHARIAS.

                                   A triple blessing
    On this most reverend head. You come from Pepin
    Or Chilperic? Here is Carloman.


BONIFACE.

                                     Beloved,
    Why have you left Soracte?


CARLOMAN.

                               Visitors
    Wasted my leisure: I became a sight,
    Like some caged animal.


ZACHARIAS.

                            He leaves to-day
    For Mount Casino.


BONIFACE.

    [_to_ CARLOMAN] You are happy?


CARLOMAN.

                                    Yes ...
    Oh, no, not happy; it is different:
    Not as you feel when you have won the goal,
    But as you feel when racing.


BONIFACE.

                                 Do you care
    To ask no news of Pepin or ... of ...?


CARLOMAN.

    No. [_he turns away._]


ZACHARIAS.

    What is your mission, good Archbishop?


BONIFACE.

                                           Pepin
    Sends me to ask your blessing and to pray
    That you would place upon his head the crown
    That Chilperic seems to wear, but which, in truth,
    He, Pepin, owns unworn!


ZACHARIAS.

                            We have considered
    This matter on our knees before our God,
    And questioned what the power He lodged with us
    Might in such case attempt: we have been taught
    A glorious lesson--that as Samuel made
    And unmade Kings, because God ruled in him,
    So we can put away the _fainéant_,
    Disgraceful Chilperic, and proclaim as King
    Pepin, our doughty servant.


CARLOMAN.

    [_starting_] Pepin--King!
    [_turning aside again_]
    Why should this news so knock to enter--why?
    It seems to make me open a shut door:
    I see the Rhone, I see my father’s roof,
    The gay French faces!--Pepin, King!


BONIFACE.

                                        I hear
    Your will with joy. It is a deadly peril
    To France that she is governed by a man
    No better than an image, golden-haired
    But lifeless as a stone. The very people
    Laugh at the word, _a King_. But all will change
    When Pepin’s bulk of character extends
    The meaning of his office.


CARLOMAN.

                               Pepin, King!
    O Marcomir, you have heard it?


MARCOMIR.

                                   Yes, I heard ...
    No matter! He has ruled so long, the title
    Will fall on him as new years follow old.


ZACHARIAS.

    [_to_ BONIFACE.]
    We bid you see he is proclaimed; ourself
    Have hope to crown him when occasion brings
    Either the Frank to us or us to him.
    Although he want our oil, we give him grace
    To exercise all sovereignty, immuring
    Chilperic within the cloister where he dwells.


CARLOMAN.

    [_suddenly to_ ZACHARIAS.]
    Oh, you can act for God, and I must pray;
    There is a distance from Him in my life
    Since I can only pray: while there is nearness
    Between your life and His creative _Be_!


ZACHARIAS.

    [_astonished_] My son, what do you mean?


BONIFACE.

    O Carloman!


CARLOMAN.

    Pardon. I spoke aloud a scudding thought
    That filled my head one moment. So divine
    It is to act God’s Counsel.


ZACHARIAS.

                                We can serve Him
    Only if stable, for the life of life
    Is calm as the untroubled sea and changeless.
    Go, follow Damiani, dearest son!


BONIFACE

    Peace be to you, belovèd Carloman.
    My prayers, though often offered on the earth
    Of heathen lands, are yours at morn and night.
    I never can forget you.


CARLOMAN.

                            Pepin, King!--
    O Boniface, I think you said farewell.
    You journey far and far; you see strange faces,
    And woods where idols live in solitude,
    Hamlets and forges, feasts, the glare of arms,
    And great unpeopled plains so full of wind
    It seems the owner, while the little trees
    And grass are slaves: and thus you wander on
    God’s messenger ... Ha, ha! The little trees
    And grass!... Good-bye!


BONIFACE.

    My child--


CARLOMAN.

    [_gently_] Yes, Boniface?


BONIFACE.

    Nothing. I can but bless you. Go, _in peace_.

     [_As_ CARLOMAN _moves away_, MARCOMIR _bends forward_.]


MARCOMIR.

    Is the Queen well?


BONIFACE.

    Ask not; he has not asked.




ACT III


SCENE: _The Garden and Cloisters of Monte Casino._


MARCOMIR.

    [_striking himself with a stone_]
    What tides of rapture spring at every stroke!
    Have mercy, God! Such agony of pleasure
    I felt when _she_ came near. Oh, can it be
    I have not yet inflicted utter pain?
    Is there some chaste and vigorous suffering
    Beyond the shameful wiles, with which the lash
    Unnerves me? Pain, more pain!

     [_He strikes himself without pity; then, seeing_ DAMIANI _enter the
     court, he hurriedly drops the shard_.]


DAMIANI.

                                  Your hand is bleeding.
    I see!--Although I took away your silex
    You yet have braved my will.


MARCOMIR.

    I need the rod.


DAMIANI.

    You need obedience. Flog yourself again,
    You will be locked in prison like your friend.


MARCOMIR.

    [_in a low voice_]
    He has no guilt.


DAMIANI.

                     No guilt! You have not heard
    I caught him flushed with triumph at the news
    That Astolph in defiance of the Pope
    Is laying siege to Rome. Good Rachis wept
    As well he might, but Carloman blasphemed
    _Would I were with your brother!_ and for this
    I had him shut in darkness fourteen days.
    The term is over, and to change your sullen,
    Ascetic mood--it is a festival--
    You shall restore your friend to liberty.
    You err through over-discipline, a fault,
    But one that brings us honour; stubbornness
    Like his disgraces the whole brotherhood.
    Admonish him! If he is quite subdued
    He shall be suffered to resume his rank
    Among his fellows: for yourself, remember
    Humility is satisfied with penance
    The Church inflicts. No private luxury!
    Do not offend again.

    [_Exit._]


MARCOMIR.

                         Not use the rod!
    Not use it when I feel incitements rapid
    As points of fire awake me to the knowledge
    That all my flesh is burning! Every flint
    Becomes a new temptation. How confess
    To _him_ I love his wife, and guiltily!
    O Geneviva, do the swans still crowd
    Round you to feed them? Are you mistress still
    In the old palace? Can there be a doubt?
    If Pepin dare insult you--O this frock,
    This girdle, not a sword belt! And your husband
    Who brought you to such peril with his dreams,
    Let the light wake him!

     [MARCOMIR _unlocks the prison-door, flings it open and draws back
     behind the trellis of vines_.]


CARLOMAN.

                            What has struck my eyes?
    Is it the air, the sun, an open door?
    Oh, it is dark with brightness, and half-blinds,
    So rushing in! I would have been with God
    When the light broke in answer to His cry;
    I would have seen it pushing its broad leaves
    Through Chaos as it travelled!--


MARCOMIR.

    [_advancing_] I am come
    To give you freedom.


CARLOMAN.

    [_seizing his hand like a boy_]
                         Are the throstles fledged
    I left within the orchard?


MARCOMIR.

                               They are gone ...
    Besides, we must not wander--recollect!


CARLOMAN.

    I do; I was a goatherd on those hills
    Before my punishment [_pointing to the prison_].
    How sad you look! Come with me; I will show you
    The flock of goats leaping from crag to crag--
    And have you ever drunk their milk? It foams;
    Its thousand little bubbles seem themselves
    Full of an airy life, and in the smack
    Of the warm draught something exhilarates
    And carries one along. Come to the hills!


MARCOMIR.

    Dear Carloman--


CARLOMAN.

                    These cloisters are so dull
    Where you sit brooding morn and eve; beyond
    One sees the clouds laying their restless fingers
    Across the scaurs.


MARCOMIR.

                       But is that meditation,
    And does one so find peace?


CARLOMAN.

                                The dew is there
    In the green hollows; when I see those steeped
    And shining fields, my heart fills to the brim,
    And, though I yearn, my yearning satisfies.
    Come with me: fast as I attain, with you
    I share the secret.


MARCOMIR.

                        But you strike me dumb.
    You have forgotten, we are bound by vows,
    By our obedience.


CARLOMAN.

                      Are we bound by hopes,
    By yesterday’s lost hopes?


MARCOMIR.

    But promises--


CARLOMAN.

    I promised to be God’s, ah yes, I promised,
    As two on earth agree to be together
    For evermore, vowed lovers. Is the marriage
    In the companionship or in the vow?
    Why, Geneviva is still vowed my wife.


MARCOMIR.

    But we must keep our troth.


CARLOMAN.

                                We must escape
    From anything that is become a bond,
    No matter who has forged the chain,--ourselves,
    An enemy, a friend: and this escape,
    This readjustment is the penitence,
    The sole that I will practise.
    [_looking more narrowly at_ MARCOMIR] But your eyes
    Are witheringly remorseful. One would say
    That you had been some sunshines in the dark,
    You, and not I. Open your heart to me.


MARCOMIR.

    I hate you.


CARLOMAN.

    Hate me, why? For heresy?


MARCOMIR.

    No, for your blindness: think what you have done,
    Think of ... at least, think of your only child
    Mewed within convent walls.


CARLOMAN.

    There is escape.


MARCOMIR.

    What, for a child?


CARLOMAN.

    [_clenching his hand_] _Per Baccho_, but my son
    Shall never wear a tonsure.


MARCOMIR.

                                Time will prove!
    You stand so free and noble in the light
    Yet it is you who brought me to despair.
    One cannot be a fool, one of God’s fools,
    Unconscious of the ill in others’ hearts,
    And not breed deadly mischief.


CARLOMAN.

                                   I entreated
    You would not come with me.


MARCOMIR.

                                You drew me on;
    You cannot help it, you make life so royal
    Men follow you and think they will be Kings,
    And then--


CARLOMAN.

    What ails you?


MARCOMIR.

                              Have you watched the lepers?
    Waiting outside the churches to be blest?--
    They pray, they linger, they receive their God,
    And yet depart uncleansed.
                               Do not continue
    To question me, but listen. Bend your eyes
    Full on me! I have never told the Prior,
    I cannot; and I would not breathe it now
    But for her sake. The lady Geneviva
    Is spotless; but my thoughts have been defiled.
    I love her, I have never won her love,
    Must never strive to win it. It is hell
    To think of her.


CARLOMAN.

    You never won her love?


MARCOMIR.

    Never.


CARLOMAN.

           She had so many favourites,
    Poor boy! and you were thwarted.


MARCOMIR.

                                     But her bond,
    My deep disloyalty!


CARLOMAN.

    No more of this--


MARCOMIR.

    If I were in the world, it is to her
    I should return.


CARLOMAN.

                     The doors are strongly barred:
    There is no other hindrance.


MARCOMIR.

                                 They are come
    The brethren and the prior: you must kneel
    And then be reinstated. I forgot.

     [_Enter_ DAMIANI _and a number of monks_.]


DAMIANI.

    Brother, we have great joy in your release,
    And hasten to embrace you. Own your fault
    Submissively, then rise and take your place
    In our rejoicing band.


CARLOMAN.

    I will not kneel.


DAMIANI.

    Respect your vow.


CARLOMAN.

                      But there is no such thing--
    A vow! as well respect the case that sheathes
    The chrysalis, when the live creature stirs!
    We make these fetters for ourselves, and then
    We grow and burst them. It is clear no man
    Can so forecast the changes of his course
    That he can promise _so I will remain,
    Such, and no other_. Words like these are straws
    The current plays with as it moves along.


DAMIANI.

    My brethren, do not listen; he is mad.


CARLOMAN.

    No, you are mad; you cannot see that Time
    Is God’s own movement, all that He can do
    Between the day a man is born and dies.
    Listen a little: is there one of you
    Who looks upon the sunlight and the buds
    That moss the vines in March, and does not feel
    _Now I am living with these changeful things;
    The instant is so golden for us all,
    And this is life?_ Think what the vines would be
    If they were glued forever, and one month
    Gave them a law--the richness that would cease,
    The flower, the shade, the ripening. We are men,
    With fourscore years for season, and we alter
    So exquisitely often on our way
    To harvest and the end. It must be so.


DAMIANI.

    Is this what darkness and strict punishment
    Have wrought in the corruption of your mind?


CARLOMAN.

    I lay as seeds lie in the prison-house,
    Dying and living--living evermore,
    Pushed by a spark of time to join the hours,
    To go along with them.


A MONK.

                           But, brother, this
    Is overwhelming.


MARCOMIR.

    Sin, can that be dropped?


CARLOMAN.

    Never, there is no need. Life seizes all
    Its own vile refuse, hurries it along
    To something different; religion makes
    The master-change, turning our black to white;
    But so, as from earth’s foulness, the stem drains
    Corruption upward, and the cleanly flower
    Waves like a flame at last.


MARCOMIR.

                                O Carloman,
    My brother, I am saved!

     [_The monks press round_ CARLOMAN _tumultuously_.]


CARLOMAN.

                            But all of you
    Be saved, and on the instant! Yes, the prior,
    You all of you, do not believe me mad.
    It is your misery, I think, that more,
    More than the urgent torment of my soul
    Has brought me to the truth, the healing truth
    That we must give our natures to the air,
    To light and liberty, suppressing nothing,
    Freeing each passion: we have slaves within,
    So many slaves, and I have learnt that saints
    Have dungeons that they dare not look into,
    The horror is so deadly. Force the locks,
    Let the fierce captives ravage. Better far
    Murder and rapine in the city-streets,
    Than lust and hatred’s unfulfilled desires!
    Be saved; strike free into the world--come out!
    Oh, you can do it--I have spoken truth,
    I see that by your faces.


OLD MONK.

    [_touching_ DAMIANI’S _shoulder_] Surely, prior,
    We must arrest this traitor.


DAMIANI.

    [_in a whisper_] Half the brethren
    Are in the chapel: I will bring them down
    In mass on these insurgent novices.
    [_aloud_] Children, I leave you: wrestle with temptation;
    I now can only aid you with my prayers.
    When you have heard him through, decide; and either
    Lead him in chains to me; or if his lies
    Prevail with you, then put me in your prisons,
    And let the devil rule.
    [_to_ CARLOMAN] Now do your worst
    With your blaspheming tongue.

    [_Exit._]


OLD MONK.

                                  We should be fools
    To listen to him--it is mutiny;
    And there are walled-up dungeons.


CARLOMAN.

                                      No, the hills
    For all, if all are reckless; it is just
    The one that fears who is the traitor-foe
    Imperilling brave men.


1st MONK.

    But how break free?


CARLOMAN.

    How? All of us march with a single mind
    Making a strong procession from the gates.


2nd MONK.

    The Church has soldiers: whither could we go
    Unarmed and with an angry multitude ...


1st MONK.

    Whither?


3rd MONK.

             Besides we are not of one mind
    Now he stops preaching; it was like a spell.


4th MONK.

    The heretic!


OLD MONK.

                 Tush! ’Tis the kind of frenzy
    That seizes every novice. Carloman,
    Will you not hear my voice?


CARLOMAN.

                                No, good old monk,
    God’s servants must not listen but to Him.
    You have grown comfortable as the years
    Rolled on,--no matter. What the novice suffers,
    What every novice suffers, speak of that.


OLD MONK.

    I have forgotten it.


CARLOMAN.

                         You can forget
    What you have suffered; then ’tis waste of time
    To listen to you. What we suffer once
    In youth--in childhood and our secret youth,
    We suffer to our grave.
    [_turning to another monk_] Have you forgotten?


1st MONK.

    No, but the pain is numb, so long ago
    My parents spoilt my life to have their will;
    I must endure the best they could conceive,
    And save their souls.


CARLOMAN.

                         If you should lose your own!
    A curse on parents! The one truth that led me
    To seek the cloister was my certitude
    A man’s existence lodges in himself
    And is not owned by kindred.


OLD MONK.

                                 Gently, brother,
    You had your way, and made yourself a monk;
    Now you are all for change--so is the world
    For bitter change.


1st MONK.

                       My mistress has been married,
    And would but laugh at me.


OLD MONK.

                               Time works such wonders
    If we will give him time to work them in.


1ST MONK.

    It is too late.


CARLOMAN.

                    A maxim for the dead.
    It never is too late for any seeing,
    For any recognition we are wrong.
    It is a man’s despair, not his confession
    Proves him contemptible. _Too late_, you say,
    _Too late_--but there are countries where ’tis spring
    And harvest many times within the year.
    Besides, we must not tarry in a place
    The moments do not wash with dew; we wither,
    Death has his secret will with us. Believe!
    Act on the instant.


OLD MONK.

                        The high gates are barred,
    And yonder is the Prior.

     [DAMIANI, _with_ RACHIS _and a large troop of monks, is seen coming
     from the Chapel_.]


CARLOMAN.

                             The gates are strong;
    But you and I and all of us can pass
    Through them in simple triumph if we will--
    With one consent.
                      Why, they are opening now!
    How gloriously! Armed riders!

     [_Enter_ ASTOLPH _with a band of Lombard soldiers_.]


MONKS.

                                  Miracle!
    A sign from God.


CARLOMAN.

                     Not one of you shall come.
    What, flocking to my side because a door
    Turns on its hinges--shame!


ASTOLPH.

    Where’s Carloman?


DAMIANI.

    [_advancing_] Who asks?


ASTOLPH.

    The King of Lombardy.
                          Give place!


CARLOMAN.

    My saviour!


ASTOLPH.

    Are you Carloman the Frank?
    I like you--yes, your face is eloquent.
    You do not keep your eyes upon the ground,
    Like this dear relative.


CARLOMAN.

    [_staring fixedly at_ ASTOLPH] You glitter so,
    You glitter like the golden Vines, your hair
    Is gold, your armour full of spokes and rays.


ASTOLPH.

    And you are muffled in a sackcloth-bag;
    The contrast strikes you.
    [_to_ DAMIANI] Lunatic?


DAMIANI.

                                       And worse--
    A rebel, an apostate, noble prince,
    For whom I bring these manacles.


ASTOLPH.

                                     And I
    An extra horse; for, lunatic or sane,
    I must have speech with----

    [_turning to_ CARLOMAN _with a laugh_]

                                Do you know your name?
    We who are kings and soldiers know it well,
    And Christendom remembers. Ah, I see!
    You are not happy, so they call you mad.


RACHIS.

    Have you no word for me? I am a King,
    A King discrowned--and more, you have my crown.
    Are you grown sick of it?


ASTOLPH.

                              My dear old Rachis,
    Do not look covetous! I am not come
    To take you from your prayers.


RACHIS.

                                   You think you triumph,
    But when you roll your thirsty tongue in hell,
    And see me in the peace of Abraham’s bosom,
    Watching your pain--


ASTOLPH.

                         To every dog his day!
    [_with a shudder_]
    Ah, then--meanwhile there is a blowing wind,
    And all the world to ravish ... Carloman,
    We are the brothers now ... [_to_ DAMIANI] Yes, I and this
      [RACHIS _sneaks off, hissing curses_.]
    Fraternal soul, your madman.


DAMIANI.

                                 Do you need
    An interview?


ASTOLPH.

                  I take it, thank you. Glance
    A moment at my soldiers--and retire.

    [_They all withdraw._]

    Come to the well, where we can sit and talk,
    And I can have a draught.

     [_He looses his helmet and dips it in the well._ CARLOMAN _puts
     both hands round it as soon as it is full of water_.]


CARLOMAN.

                              Wait! [_drinking_] Cool and strong!
    That prison-stuff was stagnant. Sunshine’s warmth,
    The cool of water, how they both refresh!
    [_looking up with a smile_]
    Now, brilliant one, your business?


ASTOLPH.

                                       Will you leave
    The Monastery?


CARLOMAN.

    At once.


ASTOLPH.

                            You have no terror?
    You will not creep back, conscience in your nerves?


CARLOMAN.

    Let me but pass the door.


ASTOLPH.

    [_laughing_] You see it swings.
    I left it open.


CARLOMAN.

    Then we start at once.


ASTOLPH.

    [_checking him_]
    No, stay a little. Are you still the friend
    Of Zacharias?


CARLOMAN.

    He is great.


ASTOLPH.

                               No doubt--
    And most sagacious, for he seeks your brother
    To win him with the bribe of sacred oil
    As vassal and ally against myself.
    I started here from Rome the hour I heard
    That Zacharias had crept out by night
    To travel northward and defeat my hopes.
    You must arrive before him! I am come
    Sure, from report, that you will help my cause,
    You, who have been a ruler. I contend
    No supernatural power should have control
    Of lands and cities, troops and civil rights,
    Matters distinct from God, as from the world
    The service he requires. Life is so easy
    If we will keep it human--quarrel, murder,
    And then make friends: we have so short a time
    To sin together ... but this hate deferred,
    These pestilential menaces!--


CARLOMAN.

                                  The Pope
    Shall never injure France!


ASTOLPH.

                               It lies with you
    To break the threatened treaty. You have owned
    Power over Pepin?


CARLOMAN.

                      Yes; tho’ tardily,
    He followed all my counsels.


ASTOLPH.

                                 Ride, and stop
    This treaty. If you ride you will forestall
    The Pontiff’s slower march; and I meantime
    Will press the siege of Rome ... you must not mind
    The ache of stiffened muscles.


CARLOMAN.

                                   Hills and plains
    And trees--the olives, cypresses and vines;
    Then France with nuts and poplars! But you keep me
    In one great palpitation.


ASTOLPH.

                              Zacharias,
    Besetting me from north and southward, crushes
    My strongest forces. What a splendid thing
    For the old man to travel in the heat
    So far to work my ruin!


CARLOMAN.

                            But the world
    Is for the young, my Astolph.


ASTOLPH.

                                  Carloman,
    I love you. Why, I feel a lad, eighteen,
    When looking on you. Come, we two must kiss;
    We may not burn together, flame in flame,
    Again--so we must kiss.


CARLOMAN.

                            My blessed one,
    Would I could cleave to you! You give me freedom,
    A gift so rarely thought of.


ASTOLPH.

    [_calling a monk_] Fetch the Prior,
    The brethren, now--this instant. We must start.


CARLOMAN.

    Grant me beside the freedom for myself
    Salvation for another.


ASTOLPH.

                           What, a monk
    Still half of you! Such trouble for men’s souls--
    But have your wish. Once on the battlefield,
    Men will become your prey. This solid jaw
    Means grip you will not loose. O Carloman,
    If I can circumvent the Pope, and then
    Stretch him a bleeding quarry at my feet--


CARLOMAN.

    What, Zacharias!
                     But I plead for France;
    Popes must not meddle with her.


ASTOLPH.

    [_as the_ PRIOR _and Monks re-enter_] I require
    The services of Carloman: another
    Whom he will choose attends him.


DAMIANI.

                                     Impious wretch,
    You steal from God His servants!

     [ASTOLPH _laughs and moves up the courtyard to summon his men_:
     DAMIANI _and_ RACHIS _talk to each other; the monks listen in a
     scared group_.]


CARLOMAN.

    [_drawing_ MARCOMIR _to the front_] Marcomir,
    Come from this graveyard.


MARCOMIR.

                              No, I must not come,
    I dare not; she is yours.


CARLOMAN.

                              Is mine? You wrong her--
    Not yours nor mine. Earth’s wisdom will begin
    When all relationships are put away,
    With their dull pack of duties, and we look
    Curious, benignant, with a great compassion
    Into each other’s lives.


MARCOMIR.

                             It is not so
    I look; I have a lust to gratify,
    A lust for very shame I loathe to mix
    With Geneviva’s image.


CARLOMAN.

                           Faugh! because
    You think that I possess her! Cursèd bonds,
    Cursed law that makes this riot in the heart!
    Come forth; all will be gentle out of doors.
    Gird up your habit.


MARCOMIR.

    She?--


CARLOMAN.

                               Is but herself,
    O Marcomir, we tarry--and the leaves
    Are tossing through the air--

     [ASTOLPH _throws his scarlet riding-cloak over_ CARLOMAN, _who
     seizes_ MARCOMIR _with an impetuous movement and draws him toward
     the horses that champ at the gate_.]




ACT IV


SCENE: _The Hall of the Frankish Palace. Early morning; the remains of a
banquet on the table, drinking-cups, wine bottles, faded leaves._

[_A_ SERVANT _is wiping away the stains of wine from the floor_.]


SERVANT.

    It is a cheerful thing to make all clean
    When one is brisk and cool: this early air
    Before the sun gets up is fit for men
    To breathe when they are working.
                                      Spot on spot!
    A stranger to the revel of last night
    Would take it there had been a massacre
    To daub the floor so thickly.

     [_Enter another_ SERVANT.]


2ND SERVANT.

                                  What a strew
    Of glass and muddy wine-drops! Come up close
    And listen. There’s a curious monk outside
    Who asks to see the King--almost a beggar,
    And yet a red embroidered riding-cloak
    Flaunts round his ragged sackcloth; while his voice
    Has such a wanton ring we need not trouble
    Lest he should take the scandal of this room
    Too much to heart. The jolly soul can pipe!

     [_A voice is heard richly humming._]

    _Wine is for drinking,
    Glasses for chinking--
    Fellowship, pleasure,
    Of the full cup:
    Lift it up, lift it up!
    And let us be gay and be friends without measure._


1ST SERVANT.

    A monk indeed! Why we must drink again!
    A minstrel!


2ND SERVANT.

    And his comrade took the horses
    As he had been a squire.


1ST SERVANT.

    Oh, but the song!
    I never heard another one like this.


2ND SERVANT.

    Man, they are all the same: but then he sings it
    As if he had just learnt that grapes have juice,
    That makes it sound so well. You’re pouring wine?


1ST SERVANT.

    Yes, he must drink for that. Ho, there again!
    Have you not caught the line?

     [_They join in as the voice sings_]

    _These are the treasure
    Of the full cup;
    Lift it up, lift it up!
    And let us be gay and be friends without measure._
    Ha, ha!


2ND SERVANT.

    Come in!

     [_Enter_ CARLOMAN.]

                     You praise deep drinking--you ...
    For shame! A churchman! But ...
                                    How thin!


1ST SERVANT.

    What eyes!


CARLOMAN.

    Shall I have long to wait? Is Pepin ill,
    Or is he grown luxurious? I would say
    That I remember how your King is famed
    For industry. He does not lie abed?


1ST SERVANT.

    No, father.


CARLOMAN.

                Call me brother if you will.
    Why do you choke with laughter? I am ready
    To laugh with you, to laugh to very tears
    At what I am and have been. Do not hide
    A thing so good and bright as laughter--Eh?


2ND SERVANT.

    Mad! It were best to leave him to himself.

    [_They draw back._]


CARLOMAN.

    [_Looking round the room_]
    Throw the door wide open. Here we need
    Fresh air even more than water. How the wine
    Cries from the ground--shut in with walls, and cast
    Below men’s feet, a slough where animals
    Might wallow, and so sour! Let in the breeze.
    Let in the dawn outside there!


1ST SERVANT.

    [_propping the door_] After all
    He is abstemious and sad at sin.
    Look how profoundly sad!


2ND SERVANT.

                             Such twins of temper
    Are frequent with the crazy. Now he drops
    His mantle, have you ever seen such limbs--
    A very scare-crow’s!


1ST SERVANT.

    But a kindly smile.


2ND SERVANT.

    He touches things and lifts them up and down
    Just like an idiot. We must warn the King.

    [_Exeunt._]


CARLOMAN.

    A feast, how nasty! Dabbled vine-leaves, vessels
    Broken to shivers, the inspiring juice
    Black on the boards--a feast! Can happiness
    Leave refuse such as this? It visits slaves,
    And then its track is loathsome. Ah, the air
    Has entered like a wedge, keen, reaching me
    Through all the mustiness ... and now I breathe!
    The door is not enough, the windows too ...
    [_opening one_]
    There! How it enters!
                            [_turning toward another window_]
                          In this room I lived;
    It is not altered? No, the fireplace, east;
    My chair in front, and hers ... but they are crowned
    At present; and my name upon that bench.
    It is more terrible than nightmare--this
    Besieging of one’s life by chairs and walls
    And memories. Ah yes, the walls, the walls,
    They do the mischief; and this reek of age
    From every corner sickens worse than stale
    Imprisoned fumes of wine. More air!

     [_He throws wide all the windows: then leans out of the last. While
     his back is turned_, GENEVIVA _staggers drowsily in, reels to the
     board, tries to drink, then flings herself against the throne
     sleeping_.]

                                        O Earth,
    How beautiful to think I travelled on
    And on, yet rode against no wall, so freely
    The outworks of your sky gave up their space.
    My brain is tired with interest: what men do
    Or speak enthrals me, I who often paced
    This room as blind to anything alive
    As if a child unborn.

     [_Impulsively beginning to pace._]

                          And yet, my God,
    How great a Captain thou wilt have in me
    If this bond-King, this Pepin can be freed;
    If I can do this thing, while Astolph batters
    The very gates of Rome.

     [_pausing at sight of_ GENEVIVA.]

                            But who is this
    Strange, beautiful, wild woman?
                                    Oh, how delicious
    Her arms, her bosom! Through the sodden hair,
    Trailing the ground, what glitter, and how clean
    This naked shoulder lies against the floor.
    Why, this is Sleep itself!

     [_He comes close._]

                               O Geneviva,
    So you too have learnt freedom, and are grown
    How marvellous in beauty!--Marcomir!--

     [MARCOMIR _stands at the door_.]

    He must not see her drunken and so flushed;
    He shall not.
    [_moving quickly to the door_.]

                  I am looking every moment
    For Pepin; do not enter.

    [MARCOMIR _turns and goes out_.]

                             Oh, my shame,
    If she should open her gray eyes on me,
    And find me frocked and tonsured ... for the sun
    Strikes sheer across her face.

     [_He bends over her; she wakes, looks up, laughs in his face, and
     then speaks._]


GENEVIVA.

                                   So young a guardian!
    Most holy father, but I am not dead;
    Do not bring rosemary, or sprinkle me
    With holy drops.
    [_rubbing her eyes_] They call this morning sleep
    A beauty sleep. You must not stare so hard.


CARLOMAN.

    But do not laugh.


GENEVIVA.

                      I must; you are a monk
    Shame-faced and awkward. [_rising_] Have you travelled far?


CARLOMAN.

    I came on embassy: the Lombard King ...


GENEVIVA.

    These kings and princes! But whoever rules
    Young men must have their pleasure. You and I--
    Shall we not drink together?

     [_She pours wine into a goblet--he drinks_]

                                 God, what thirst!
    Now you must rest awhile.


CARLOMAN.

    Who are you, lady?


GENEVIVA.

    So should a novice lisp. I am a woman.


CARLOMAN.

    Glorious!


GENEVIVA.

    And _you_? [_she laughs._]


CARLOMAN.

                         Oh, do not jest with me;
    You bring a devil to the paradise
    It is to gaze on you. I am escaped
    From convent-walls, the wrong, the bitterness!


GENEVIVA.

    These monks are cruel, cruel, and I shudder
    At their embrace; yet if I have a joy
    It is to bring their manhood back to them.
    Ha, ha! To see them look the murderer’s guilt
    After a moment’s pleasure in my arms.
    You shall not slip me.


CARLOMAN.

                           I have left the convent
    A novice, as you say. But who are you
    So terrible in pity that you touch
    My hand and draw me to you, though my habit
    And shaven hair insult you worse, more grossly
    Than the most wanton bearing you have met
    In any other man? I am ashamed
    That you should see me thus.


GENEVIVA.

                                 My dearest lovers
    Forsook me to be monks. You are as one
    That comes to bring me tidings of the dead,
    The holy dead who have no evil thoughts
    Or trouble from temptation.
    [_She laughs bitterly_] For their sakes
    You are beloved.


CARLOMAN.

                     Then put away all speech:
    When love draws on me put it by as scholars
    Their task when night falls thick upon the page.
    Bend over me and kiss me. Do not laugh--
    I love you.


GENEVIVA.

    Did you ever love before?


CARLOMAN.

    _Never._


GENEVIVA.

             Then I must tell you who I am:
    A harlot ... in my palace--Do not wince!

     [_she looks at him doubtfully_]

    I had a husband counted me a temptress
    And fled: I laugh now to remember it.
    I loved once; he I loved became a monk,
    And therefore I make sport of holy men.
    I would not scoff at you, not tempt you even.
    You have deep, burning eyes.


CARLOMAN.

                                 He was a monk?
    His name, who fled you? Would you have your pleasure
    With me, his name!


GENEVIVA.

    [_to herself, shaking her head_]
                       _He_ had oblivious eyes!
    [_vindictively_]
    My lover’s name was Marcomir.


CARLOMAN.

                                  The monk
    Who journeys with me on this embassy
    Is Marcomir. If you are amorous still
    Of him ...


GENEVIVA.

               Not now--no more. I am afraid ...
    Who are you? You are surely of my race,
    Have known me in my youth. A flushing shame
    Breaks on me--


CARLOMAN.

                   And to find you are beloved
    Moves you?


GENEVIVA.

               Not that! I hear it every day.
    It is too stale a story. Could I love----


CARLOMAN.

     [_Observing_ MARCOMIR _passing and re-passing the windows_]

    How dare he watch us! But I recollect
    You told me he had been your paramour.


GENEVIVA.

    You come ... he comes, I mean, from Mount Soracte--
    Then ... yes, I will have speech with him.


CARLOMAN.

    [_bitterly_] Oh, gossip,
    The convent’s gossip. I can furnish that.
    If you desire him carnally, I yield;
    But if ...


GENEVIVA.

    He knows so much of long ago.


CARLOMAN.

    [_impulsively_]
    Then he shall speak.


GENEVIVA.

                         Not now; you must not call!
    Not now; for he remembers--


CARLOMAN.

                                Ay, the harlot
    Was once a girl, the monk was once a man.
    If you would speak of life
    Before it was apprenticed to these trades--
    Of life and youth, virginity and love,
    My ear will be as ripe for your confession
    As his. We all remember; but our wisdom
    Is to forget: our powers of penitence
    Must be enfranchised, sin itself set free,
    No clog or fetter on us!


GENEVIVA.

                             Carloman,
    My husband!


CARLOMAN.

                Your free lover. Oh, I burn,
    Burn toward your beauty! How can you forgive
    The years I simply owned you!


GENEVIVA.

                                  Am I sweet,
    So sweet to you--these lips so many men
    Have kissed, this body.... But you bid me speak
    Of life and youth, virginity and love,
    And by a miracle I can. We two
    Can argue of such matters.

    [_As_ MARCOMIR _passes she calls_] Marcomir!

     [_She restrains_ CARLOMAN _and goes to the door_.]

    No, _I_ must summon him.

     [MARCOMIR _enters_.]

                             Were we not happy,
    Those days we sat together quite alone
    Praising and talking of him? We adored,
    We each adored him, but we had no part
    In that lone heart of his. Now all is changed
    He loves me--


MARCOMIR.

    Lady Geneviva!


GENEVIVA.

                                 No--
    The harlot, loves the harlot. You can tell me
    So much of him. What, with him every day!--
    All through the golden summer and no rain,
    All through the autumn and its violence!
    Did he fall sick of fever?


MARCOMIR.

                               I have known
    So little of the seasons. Day and night
    I prayed that God would keep you chaste. No prayer
    Of mine was ever answered.


CARLOMAN.

    [_to_ MARCOMIR] Dare you pray
    That this should be or that? The only prayer
    That is not futile in impiety
    Is like a plunge beneath a river’s flow
    To feel the strength and pureness of the life
    That courses through the world.


GENEVIVA.

                                    Ah, yes, to bathe,
    And then to rise up clean.
    [_to_ MARCOMIR] The very moment
    He spoke of youth, virginity and love
    I prayed: I am alive. O Marcomir,
    And there are other words of fellowship,
    Of joy and youth-time. Let us hold him dear
    Because he has delivered us; together
    Let us give thanks, give courage each to each
    Unenvious; let us talk of him once more,
    Though with a difference--I will not use
    Your comradeship profanely as I did,
    To set you up against him in caprice,
    Then leave you wild and empty. He has much
    To pardon; you have more.


MARCOMIR.

    No, no!


CARLOMAN.

                                      Ah, no--
    Not pardon. Where’s the need? We mortal men
    Are brought to riot, brought to abstinence
    That we may grow on either ready soil
    The mustard-seed of pleasure, that is filled
    With wings and sunny leaves. As time goes by
    We shall have true relations each with each,
    And with clean hearts receive the usufruct
    Of what is best, and growing better still
    In every soul among us.
    [_leading her up to_ MARCOMIR]
                            Geneviva,
    His kiss will free your penitence, and teach you
    He never could regret the past, because
    It made to-day.


MARCOMIR.

    [_kissing her_] Now, and beyond, beyond
    Your friend--and lover.
                            I have prayed, like you,
    The difficult is possible as once.
    O life, O Geneviva, I were doomed
    Indeed, if I should dare to rob myself
    Of all the joy it is to be with you;
    That were to die forever. What, reject
    The gift you have for me, because for him
    You have a different gift! But take my passion,
    As I shall learn to take your friendship--each
    Accepting what the other has to give,
    All will be well between us.

     [_Enter_ PEPIN.]


PEPIN.

                                 Holy brothers,
    At last I join you. Come, this is unseemly ...
    A pleasant dame--but not within my palace
    Shall you be tempted to forsake your vows.
    [_to_ GENEVIVA.]
    Go, get your lovers on the highway; here
    You bring disgrace.
    (_to_ CARLOMAN _in a low voice_) A courtesan.


CARLOMAN.

    My wife.


PEPIN.

    Thor! are you crazy?


CARLOMAN.

                         And I trusted you,
    I left her in your charge. Where is my child?


PEPIN.

    Dead in the cloister half a year ago ...
    That was no fault of mine. As for your wife--


CARLOMAN.

    [_to_ MARCOMIR] Take Lady Geneviva to her rooms,
    Her rooms within the palace.
    [_to_ GENEVIVA, _as she goes from him_] So our boy
    Is dead! Can you forgive me?

     [_He shudders and bows his head. Exeunt_ MARCOMIR _and_ GENEVIVA.]


PEPIN.

                                 On my oath,
    I could not be her keeper, Carloman.


CARLOMAN.

    No, that is no man’s office. Of herself
    She was what she has been, and each of us
    Should say no word against her to our shame,
    Nor any word to one another more
    Than what we just have said. These fearful things
    Should be within a fosse below all speech;
    While we live sound above them and forget.
    I come to you....


PEPIN.

                      The same, magnanimous,
    My brother, as of old.
    [_laying his hand on_ CARLOMAN’S _shoulder_]
                           What bones!


CARLOMAN.

                                       Ah, yes.
    I have not flesh as full of life as yours;
    Why, your mere touch can warm one like the sun.


PEPIN.

    Six years ago! You come as if the dead
    Could rise and make a visit.


CARLOMAN.

    [_gasping_] Pepin, hush!
    I have been dead, and yet I am no ghost;
    You strike me through with anguish.


PEPIN.

                                        But you suffer
    Unnecessary pain. I give you welcome
    With all my heart; yet you yourself must know
    Your presence in the place where once you ruled
    Is--well, unlooked for.


CARLOMAN.

    [_vehemently_] Brother, I can prove
    I am no spectre, outcast from the fortunes
    Of breathing men,--that I too have a part
    Once more in worldly business. I am come....


PEPIN.

    [_close to him_]
    What are you come for?


CARLOMAN.

                            I am come to live,
    To share again your counsels.


PEPIN.

                                  You are come
    For _what_?


CARLOMAN.

                Once more to think of France, and act
    As you and I determine.


PEPIN.

                            Willingly
    I hear advice; but now the throne is mine
    Decision rests with me and not with you,
    Who have been shut away from everything
    But prayers and convent-policy. Forgive,
    We are no longer equals--you a Saint,
    I a mere statesman. But you have not said
    One word about the cloister.


CARLOMAN.

                                 Do we waste
    Much talk on vaults, we men who are alive?


PEPIN.

    And yet you chose it!


CARLOMAN.

    Now I choose again.


PEPIN.

    You cannot. Are you mad? Who sent you here?


CARLOMAN.

    Astolph the Lombard.


PEPIN.

                         Humph! What prelate gave
    Authority to him? He could not use
    Your services by force.


CARLOMAN.

                            I left the convent
    At his request alone, in opposition
    To bishop Damiani. I am free!
    I proved it, acting freely.


PEPIN.

    Whew!--this Astolph ...?


CARLOMAN.

    Would save you from alliance with the Pope,
    Alliance with a foreign tyranny,
    Opposed to human life and thwarting it.
    Astolph is on your borders, and a King
    Is more your natural fellow than this Pope,
    Who seizes on the natural power of Kings,
    Confusing his tiara with their crowns.
    I speak the truth, for Zacharias travels
    In haste to put his yoke on France and you.
    Before he can arrive ...


PEPIN.

    The Pope is here.


CARLOMAN.

    Impossible!


PEPIN.

    He reached us yesterday.


CARLOMAN.

    Pepin, you are in league with him?


PEPIN.

    I am.


CARLOMAN.

    As you are wise and manly, break your promise;
    It injures France, the freedom-loving plains
    The aweless stock we come of. Will you give
    The future of your people to a priest,
    You who profess the tonsure round my head
    Disables for a crown?


PEPIN.

                          I, break my treaty,
    And ruin my whole scheme!


CARLOMAN.

                              The Pope is gray,
    And Astolph young and sound in force as you.
    Which is the deadlier foe?


PEPIN.

                               The Pope and I
    Are age and youth together. Carloman,
    I love you still; you take me at the heart
    Now that your face is glowing: I must speak,
    For either you are mad, or have forgotten
    How deeds are judged here in the actual world.
    You are a monk, a runaway, and worse--
    A heretic blasphemer, one who tempts
    Both to rebellion and to perjury,
    Yourself as disobedient as forsworn.
    You must go back and bear your punishment
    Without the least delay; for you are lost
    If Zacharias find you here.


CARLOMAN.

    Go back!
             Go back!


PEPIN.

    You are a danger to yourself
    Remaining, and a danger to my throne.
    All I have said is true. Have you not broken
    Your vow?


CARLOMAN.

    I have.


PEPIN.

    And are you not a rebel?


CARLOMAN.

    I am, I am, because I am alive--
    And not a slave who sleeps through Time, unable
    To share its agitation. What, go back!
    You might as well dismiss me to the womb
    From which I was delivered.


PEPIN.

                                Of yourself
    You left the world.


CARLOMAN.

    [_trembling_] O Pepin, the same mother,
    Gave us our lives, and we had worked and thought
    And breathed in common till I went away--


PEPIN.

    We cannot any more. Why will you fix
    A look so obstinate and hot?
    By heaven, you are a fool. I cannot change
    Myself, nor you, nor what has come to pass
    I soon shall hate you, wish that you were dead.


CARLOMAN.

    How horrible! I never will go back;
    But I can live without my brother’s love,
    For ties are not existence.


PEPIN.

                                Will you raise
    Divisions in my kingdom?


CARLOMAN.

    I must live.

     [_Enter_ POPE ZACHARIAS, BONIFACE _and a number of Churchmen and
     nobles_.]


PEPIN.

    [_to_ ZACHARIAS.]

    There stands my brother and your enemy.


ZACHARIAS.

    Who?--Carloman? You wrong him. But what mission
    Has brought him to the palace?


PEPIN.

                                   He has left
    His convent, and is here to plead the cause
    Of Astolph, the arch-heretic.


ZACHARIAS.

                                  My son,
    Defend yourself.


CARLOMAN.

    [_putting his hands over his brow as if in confusion_]

                     But I can never say
    What he could comprehend. How strange to feel
    So slow, as if I walked without the light,
    Deep in a valley.
    [BONIFACE _touches him_] Ah!


BONIFACE.

                                 You do not listen!
    Beloved, the Pope is speaking.


CARLOMAN.

    [_to_ BONIFACE] But you know
    What drove you forth to wander foreign lands,
    With joy in every limb and faculty:
    _That_ drove me from the convent.


BONIFACE.

                                      As a monk
    I left the English cloister, with a blessing
    From him who ruled me. Is it as a monk,
    Oh, is it--that we see you in our midst?


CARLOMAN.

    No, no, enfranchised!
    [_suddenly standing forth_] Hear me! The _I am_
    Has sent me to you and has given me power
    To rend your idols, for you have not known
    The God I worship. He is just _to-day_--
    Not dreaming of the future,--in itself,
    Breath after breath divine! Oh, He becomes!
    He cannot be of yesterday, for youth
    Could not then walk beside Him, and the young
    Must walk with God: and He is most alive
    Wherever life is of each living thing.
    To-morrow and to-morrow--those to-days
    Of unborn generations; the _I am_
    To none of them a memory or a hope,
    To each the thirst, the wine-cup and the wine,
    The craving, the satiety--my God!
    O Holy Father, you who sway the world
    Through Him, must not deny Him.


ZACHARIAS.

                                    I deny!
    God does not alter; you have changed to Him
    Who is Eternal.


CARLOMAN.

                    Yes, in change, and free
    As we are free who move within His life,
    And shape ourselves by what is moulding Earth
    And men and ages. In my cell I lost
    The motion of His presence. I was dead.


ZACHARIAS.

    No, you are dead to what you dare blaspheme,
    To what the cloister holds, if any place
    Can hold it, the immutability
    Of God’s inherent nature, while without
    His words are trying men by chance and change
    And manifold desires. You left His works
    Behind, you chose Himself: your oath was taken
    To His deep heart; and now you would forswear
    That oath, you cannot. No one who blasphemes
    The light of God shall see the light of day:
    For him the darkness and for him the grave.
    I am no more your father, but your judge,
    Who represents the God you have disowned,
    Insulted and forgotten. He requites--
    And you shall answer to the uttermost.


CARLOMAN.

    I can.


ZACHARIAS.

           You still persist in carnal thoughts,
    Confounding Deity with things that pass?


CARLOMAN.

    God is the Movement, if He is the Life
    Of all--I live in Him.


ZACHARIAS.

                           You left the convent
    Against command?


CARLOMAN.

    Against command of men.


ZACHARIAS.

    And leagued with Astolph?


CARLOMAN.

    In fast brotherhood.


ZACHARIAS.

    You hear his full confession. O apostate
    In vain, weep at your sentence.


PEPIN.

                                    Holy Father,
    I pray you send him back, but spare his life--
    Spare him, if I have power with you.


ZACHARIAS.

                                         His doom
    Is but his choice made permanent on earth.
    [_to_ CARLOMAN] O fallen from blessedness of will, become
    The friend of heretics, the false of word
    To everlasting Truth, you are condemned
    Life-long to be a prisoner in your cell,
    Life-long to watch the scourge and crucifix.
    You chose them, as the God whom you abjure
    Chose them, _forever_; you have lapsed and they
    Become tormentors, till they force contrition
    At last and save you.


CARLOMAN.

    [_with a low, panting moan_] Prison!


ZACHARIAS.

                                         At Vienne,
    There till you die the prison you have made
    Of an eternal vow shall compass you.


CARLOMAN.

    Think what it is--by God Himself, remember
    What you would do to me. The very dead
    Rise ... Everything must have escape to live,
    And I shall still be living.

     [_He throws both arms over his face, then suddenly removing them,
     makes a frenzied movement closer to the Pope._]

                                 Let me die
    Here, now! It is most impious, horrible
    To bury me, full to the lips with life.
    Sharpness-of-death, give _that_, but not to feel
    The prison walls close on an energy
    Beating its claim to worlds.


ZACHARIAS.

                                 What I have spoken
    Is and remains irrevocable.


BONIFACE.

    [_gently to_ CARLOMAN] Yield,--
    Yield to a God Who compasses you round
    With love so strong it binds you.


CARLOMAN.

                                      And is hell--
    But I reject such love.
                            O Pepin, listen!
    I see so far! Your pact with Rome undoes
    Long centuries, and yields your country up
    To spiritless restriction, and a future
    Entombed alive, as mine will be, in night.
    Simply renounce your promise, bid your soldiers
    Seize the old man who numbs us. You and I
    Could set to music that would never end
    The forces of our people.


PEPIN.

                              You are crazy
    Or worse, and I disown you.
    [_to_ ZACHARIAS] On his head
    Let fall what curse you will.


ZACHARIAS.

                                  Then he shall see
    The sacred pact between us re-confirmed.
    [_to Monks_]
    Fetch Chilperic! [_Exeunt Monks._]
                     And meanwhile bring fetters in
    To bind this renegade.

     [_moving up to the royal board that crosses the hall at the further
     end_]

    The treaty--sign!

     [PEPIN _and his nobles follow_ ZACHARIAS: _Attendants bring in
     fetters_. CARLOMAN _submits mechanically to be bound, staring at_
     PEPIN, _who affixes his signature to the treaty_.]

     [BONIFACE _goes round to_ CARLOMAN.]


BONIFACE.

    Son, you do well to take your shame so meekly,
    And bear in patience.


CARLOMAN.

    [_sharply_] Have they bound me then?
    Look, Boniface! And Pepin is a slave.
    Nothing remains now in the world. That treaty,
    That pact!

     [CHILPERIC _is taken before_ ZACHARIAS _and_ PEPIN; _they appear to
     address him, to consult with each other: then a monk advances and
     cuts off_ CHILPERIC’S _long hair, while he weeps bitterly_.
     GENEVIVA _and_ MARCOMIR _re-enter hurriedly as if they had heard
     bad news and see_ CARLOMAN _bound_.]


GENEVIVA.

    Be true to him.


MARCOMIR.

    I will.


GENEVIVA.

                                       Then share
    His prison--say you left his monastery,
    Step forth and save him from his loneliness,
    My Marcomir, his friend. This is the moment;
    And, as you love him, speak.


MARCOMIR.

    [_drawing his cowl closer_] No! Once before
    I went along with him: I went to hell.
    Renew that pain and foulness for his sake,
    Because I love him----?


GENEVIVA.

                            Then because I love,
    If nothing else will urge you--_for my sake_,
    Only for mine.


MARCOMIR.

                   And would you be a harlot
    Again, for him?


GENEVIVA.

    Hush, never!


MARCOMIR.

                                 No, we two
    Should understand each other, for we dare not
    Become what we have been. For my own sake
    I will not leave the world.


GENEVIVA.

                                He watches us ...
    O agony! And he is turned away,
    And casts me off for ever. Go to him--
    I cannot; for he sees me as I am,
    The glory dropt away.
    [MARCOMIR _makes a forward movement_]
                          You shall not go!
    What do I say? I should not have the strength,
    Not all alone. Stay with me! It is plain
    What I must do to win him, and so hard--
    It smiles so in the stream. Oh, hush! Look there!
    That is worse dying. How they pass before him,
    There, standing in his chains.
                                   And Pepin looks
    And hurries on, but all _his_ gaze is fixed
    On Chilperic’s shorn head.
                               See, how they pass!
    Now Zacharias--
                    And he curses him:
    The earth is trembling.


CARLOMAN.

    [_making a movement as if to curse_ ZACHARIAS]

                            But I have no God
    To curse you with. I cannot do you harm.
    I have no God, no friend, no glowing hate:
    You all will pass before me in procession
    Day after day as shadows.


ZACHARIAS.

    To his cell!




ACT V


SCENE: _The Prison at Vienne_.

     [CARLOMAN _lying on a plank bed_.]


CARLOMAN.

    Though Time has played me false--it is not that:
    It is the fading colours in my soul,
    And all the brilliant darkness through that chink;
    It is--

     [_The door opens and a_ WARDER _enters_.]

            O Warder, put the food away;
    But come and chat with me.


WARDER.

                               I have instructions
    I must not speak a word.


CARLOMAN.

                             Is that the sentence?
    Sit down.


WARDER.

              But I must see you drink this wine.
    The Pope, King Pepin too--they all are anxious
    Your life should be preserved.


CARLOMAN.

                                   Sit down and drink.
    Now you will chat with me!


WARDER.

    [_drinking, and speaking always in an undertone_]

                               How do you feel?
    Here’s to your health.


CARLOMAN.

                           Why, that is like a prayer--
    Warmed by your voice. They who would shut men up,
    And bar them from their fellows’ kindly voices,
    God cripple every motion of their soul!
    So I am here for ever.
                           Take that bread:
    I like to see you eat. Now talk again.


WARDER.

    But you will eat some too?


CARLOMAN.

                               No, my good jailer,
    You shall not forge that chain. You know I’m dying;
    Bring me my food and eat it here and talk,
    Then you will stay a little longer. Tell me,
    How is it with the sky to-day, the winds
    And the flowers crying after them? O God!

     [_He buries his face in his hand._]


WARDER.

    Sir, it’s a south wind.


CARLOMAN.

                            Do the birds fly high?
    I watched them in great circles as I travelled--


WARDER.

    I have not noticed them.


CARLOMAN.

                             In wheeling flocks
    They mounted ...
                     Have you nothing more to say?
    It must be early morning in the world
    Where all is changing.


WARDER.

                           Ah, you’d know the time;
    Most prisoners get confused.


CARLOMAN.

                                 No night nor day;
    God promised them forever--morn and eve,
    The gathering of the shadows, the decline,
    The darkness with no footfall: then the day
    And all things reappearing. That’s for all--
    Most for the prisoners, if you’d have them gentle.
    Throw down this shutter!


WARDER.

    [_shaking his head_] That is just the point--
    In prison you get thwarted every way;
    You won’t ask that to-morrow.

     [_He rises, shakes the crumbs from his lap, sets the half-empty
     wine-bottle on a ledge within_ CARLOMAN’S _reach and goes out_.]


CARLOMAN.

    Is he gone?

     [CARLOMAN _drags himself up and props himself by the wall with his
     ear against it_.]

    I hear the river rushing past the walls,
    Rushing and rushing, and through all my dreams
    I labour to keep pace with it: awake,
    I give myself to rest. It comforts me,
    To hear the bounding current pass along,
    To think of the far travel of the drops,
    Crisping the tiny waves. Away, away!
    It is great peace to follow: to pursue
    Is misery.
               And if I kneel down here,
    I can just catch the glitter of the sun
    A-tumble down the stream....

     [_He crouches and looks through the chinks._]

     [_Enter_ ZACHARIAS _and two_ MONKS.]


ZACHARIAS.

    Where is he?


MONK.

                                              There,
    Peering between the loosened stones.


CARLOMAN.

    [_turning_] The Pope!
    Leave me in peace. You promised me seclusion.
    I told you I would be alone with God.
    Leave me!


ZACHARIAS.

              But you are shut up with the devil!
    Deep as you lie, you dare not make pretence
    That you have found your God.


CARLOMAN.

    [_laughing nervously_] The seeker lost
    More than the thing to find. Leave me alone--
    You break the thread, you break it!
                                        O the stream,
    It flows and flows, and there are waterfalls
    Somewhere, great, heaving torrents ...


ZACHARIAS.

    [_bending over him_] To Vienne
    Pilate, they say, was banished--here to die.


CARLOMAN.

    What, Pilate!


ZACHARIAS.

    Do you tremble at the name?


CARLOMAN.

    O God, he saw the light and knew it not,
    He had worse memories than Iscariot had
    Misusing his great office. He had power,
    Power to avert even Calvary ... and yet
    We owe salvation to him.
    [_lifting himself up from the ground_] Can it be
    My blunder, my effacement shall prevail?
    [_to_ ZACHARIAS] So he was banished and came here to die--
    As you have banished me; it is enough;
    In chains and soon to die. There, hear them rattle;
    Now you have done your part.


ZACHARIAS.

                                 Not till you yield,
    Not till I see you suffer. [_aside_] Are hell’s rings
    Of fire prepared in vain for him?--Repent!


CARLOMAN.

    Leave me!


ZACHARIAS.

              No sinner has withstood me yet.
    You shall repent.


CARLOMAN.

                      But I am strong as you:
    I will not.


ZACHARIAS.

                Oh, you must, for God’s own sake,
    His Majesty--He cannot strive and fail;
    His heart is set on you and He must have you,
    If but to bind in hell. Repent the past,
    Repent, repent!


CARLOMAN.

                    Not anything--the whole
    Strange journey and its perils that have brought me
    Here to the brink of Death: and all will come
    And touch that wonder, all will enter in,
    And rest and be revived. Why should one trouble?
    Death comes to all, you cannot banish him,
    And Death has all we seek for!


ZACHARIAS.

                                   These are words
    For men the Church has blessed: but if you die
    Without the holy Sacraments, unshriven,
    And unabsolved, you will be flung away
    To yonder stream, shroudless and like a dog.
    Thus heretics are judged.


CARLOMAN.

    [_excitedly_] Be borne along,
    Borne with the current. Is that possible?
    Borne _dead_--well, each man takes his full desert--
    Mine ... is it possible? And further on
    Past towns and cities ... then at last the sea.


ZACHARIAS.

    Vain hope! You are God’s prisoner. No escape,
    No waves to hide you and no help of man;
    For prayer itself like hope is quenched before
    The everlasting Prison-house. Farewell!

     [_Exit with the_ MONKS.]


CARLOMAN.

    Ha! ha! He shuts the door--so blank a sound!
    And now the river comes about my brain,
    And now the music foams incessantly,
    The music of my funeral. Enough
    For me that I shall lie against the heart
    Of that on-pouring volume ...
                                  I am left
    By every creature I have breathed beside--
    They do not want me. God--He least of all!
    He has a King to crown.
    All’s well, all are provided for.... My brother
    Is in my place; my friend will take my wife.
    How Geneviva shuddered at my chains
    And clung to her old paramour! So easy
    The world’s wounds are to heal. A little time,
    Ten years, a year--and all is found defeat
    In any life, all turned to ridicule.

     [_Enter_ MARCOMIR _in lay dress_.]


MARCOMIR.

    I have great news for you.


CARLOMAN.

                               But I am dying!
    And now if all the doors were open wide
    I should not move to pass through any one.
    You cannot bring great news; I know it all,
    All that must come now: I can alter nothing.
    Rome will be succoured.


MARCOMIR.

                            Yes, the siege is raised,
    And Astolph in retreat. I am not come
    To talk of politics.


CARLOMAN.

                         Of private matters?
    My Astolph, Lombardy ...


MARCOMIR.

                             To say farewell,
    To bless you. I am here as from the King;
    I showed the monks a parchment with the seal
    You used when you were ruler: it was found
    Among _her_ jewels ...


CARLOMAN.

                           Ah, I see, a gift.
    So you too play the King. My signet yours,
    Ay, and all else that ever bore my name.
    Keep it.


MARCOMIR.

    But Carloman--


CARLOMAN.

                            I cannot wait
    To hear; I have so very little time
    To speak in and such hatred; hate that burns
    My heart through to the core. You, all of you,
    So glad that I am sunk here; Geneviva
    Moving no step to me; and that great Pope,
    I gave my soul to in a wondering love,
    Vexed that he cannot tame me, not desiring
    My help, my pardon. You must hear it all--
    I am not in despair: I have a treasure,
    A burthen at my heart--where it belongs
    I do not know. I have tried many names,
    Tried God’s ... You see me dying, that may be;
    But not till I have cast my burthen down
    Can I be certain of my journey’s end.
    How very still your face is! Are you dreaming,
    You look so happy? And that scarlet cloak--
    Where is your habit?


MARCOMIR.

                         I have cast it off
    Forever; all my oaths are pushed aside,
    With all my penitence, by something holy,
    And the world seems new-born about me now;
    I live as in a kind of bliss,--such joy,
    Such fresh, warm sorrow.


CARLOMAN.

                             Geneviva--yes
    I know she loves you. Wait till I am dead.


MARCOMIR.

    O Carloman, I dare not break my news,
    Not yet, you are not worthy. Do you hear
    How the Rhone sings outside?


CARLOMAN.

                                 Beyond these shutters--
    The light, the lightning music!


MARCOMIR.

                                    So life sweeps
    Down through my blood; at last I have its secret.


CARLOMAN.

    Go, dash yourself into the Rhone and die!
    There is no secret hid in life--illusion,
    That is the great discovery.


MARCOMIR.

                                 O listen!
    I am left poor and lonely in the world,
    So poor, so lonely, not a soul that needs,
    That ever can have need of me! Unloved
    And undesired, with just the sun to hail,
    The spring to welcome till I die, no more.
    And yet--
    If they should thrust me in a prison-cell
    I should sing on in rapture.


CARLOMAN.

                                 _Undesired!_
    She desires no one ... but you dote on her,
    And that will set you singing.


MARCOMIR.

                                   On my lips
    Already there is savour of rich song.
    That is the joy I spoke of. Oh, to spread
    The fame of my dead lady through the lands,
    To sing of Geneviva!


CARLOMAN.

                         She is dead?
    Come closer. Chafe my hands--


MARCOMIR.

                                  They mocked at her:
    “If the Monk-King should ask now for his wife,
    And we presented him the prostitute,
    Would he not feel the ribaldry!” She stood
    Quite silent, and the ashen lines turned black
    On cheek and forehead; and they mocked her more:
    “The harlot and the monk!” Then suddenly
    A young, wild, girlish glory crossed her face,
    She grasped me by the hand--but how we went
    Through the hot streets I know not.
                                        On the bridge
    She turned to me--“Tell Carloman his wife
    Is dead”--and looking down, I saw her stretched
    Across the buoyant waters: from my sight
    Sucked under by the current ’neath the bridge,
    She did not rise.


CARLOMAN.

    [_triumphantly_] And Marcomir, they promise
    To cast my body to the river there,
    And let it sweep along.


MARCOMIR.

                            But I shall sing
    Of life and youth, virginity and love.
    You leave me in the world; O Carloman,
    You leave me here delivered.


CARLOMAN.

                                 We shall meet;
    And yet such life wells up in me I fear
    Lest I should not be dying. Geneviva!
    [_turning to_ MARCOMIR]
    And you will sing to me?

    [_He lies back, wrapt in ecstasy._]


MARCOMIR.

                             To you, to all.
    A tax is laid upon my very heart
    To sing the sweeping music of the Rhone,
    That rushes through my ears, that chants of her,
    Of all you have delivered. In its depths
    You will be buried, but the very burthen
    You die to utter, far away in France
    Will be caught up; Love will be free, and life
    Free to make change as childhood.
                                      Someone comes--
    Hush, very softly, do not be afraid.

     [BONIFACE _enters and steals up to_ CARLOMAN.]


BONIFACE.

    Beloved--


CARLOMAN.

    [_putting his hand on the lips of_ BONIFACE]
    No more! Dear voice, end with that word:
    _Beloved_ is not a prelude, it is all
    A dying man can bear.


BONIFACE.

    [_blessing him_] All that I go
    To publish to the folk in heathen lands.
    Tho’ very often it means martyrdom
    To listen to my story, I am blest
    Proclaiming it.


CARLOMAN.

    [_opening his eyes wide and raising himself_]

                    O Boniface, before
    I saw you as an angel.
                           Is that wine
    Still on the stony ledge?

     [MARCOMIR _brings the wine-bottle_]

                              Now let us drink,
    Drink all of us.
    [_to_ BONIFACE] Go to your heathen lands
    With that great lay of love.
                                 This is a poet,
    And he too has a burthen, but more sad--
    Men love so fitfully. I for myself
    Drink deep to life here in my prison-cell.
    I had a song ... O Marcomir, the words--
    Why do you stumble? Once again the cup!

    _Fellowship, pleasure
    These are the treasure_--

    So I believe, so in the name of Time ...

     [_He sinks back and dies._]




    Printed in England by
    The Westminster Press, Harrow Road
    London



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE NAME OF TIME ***