v<v^<<2<Mv*v<?«!<!«!<3 
 
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 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST
 
 FORTUXATUS THE PESSIMIST 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 ILontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND -NEW YORK 
 1892
 
 4-2. 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 TO 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH
 
 PERSONAGES 
 
 fortunatus 
 
 Adrian 
 
 Franklin . 
 
 Urania 
 
 April 
 
 Abaddon 
 
 An English Duke. 
 His Friend and Secretary. 
 A Yeoman. 
 His Daughter. 
 
 A Forest Foundling. 
 
 A Pedlar. 
 
 Place. 
 The Duke's Castle — Urania's Garden — The Forest. 
 
 Time — To-day.
 
 ACT I 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 [The terrace of the Duke's castle. Fortunatus, with Adrian 
 at his side, and a number of domestics behind. A crowd 
 of Rustics approach.] 
 
 Sir, shall we sing ? 
 
 RUSTIC. 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Ay, let us hear you. 
 Adrian {raising his hand). 
 
 The Ploughmen sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Winter, 
 That blows upon the horn, 
 B 
 
 Now !
 
 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 That makes the branches splinter, 
 
 And threshes out the corn : 
 When chimney-stacks arc shaken, 
 
 And flooded is the ditch, 
 And the gammer salts the bacon, 
 
 And the lasses sit and stitch, 
 Or thread the melted tallow 
 
 To cheer the longsome nights, 
 A?id the ploughland oozeih fallow, 
 
 And the black frost nips and bites ; 
 When we close and bar the shutter, 
 
 As the wet winds wail and sob, 
 And we watch the chestnuts sputter 
 
 A fid crackle on the hob ; 
 When the Yule log lights the rafter, 
 
 And the gossip tells the tale, 
 And the house is filled with laughter, 
 
 And the mugs are filled with ale : 
 
 Three cheers for Winter! 
 
 The Shepherds sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Springtime, 
 
 That makes the pastures strong,
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 
 
 When, blithe upon the wing, Time 
 
 Comes bursting into song: 
 When celandine and ox slip 
 
 Are dotted all about, 
 And the young ones on their frocks slip, 
 
 And sally forth and shout ; 
 J I hen lifted is the wattle, 
 
 And emptied is the shed, 
 And the deiuyfetlocked cattle 
 
 Roam afield for board and bed ; 
 When we ply the rake and harrow, 
 
 And bark the oaken bole, 
 And the lean sow drops her farrow, 
 
 And the broodmare drops her foal ; 
 When the buxom lambs are bleating 
 
 And the aickoo ?iever stops, 
 And the glad swain and his sweeting 
 
 Are cuddling in the copse : 
 
 Three cheers for Springtime ! 
 
 The Mowers sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Summer, 
 
 When posies smell once more,
 
 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 And morrice-man and mummer 
 
 Come dancing to the door : 
 When open stands the case me tit, 
 
 And walls that dripped with snow 
 Are hung from eave to basement 
 
 With roses all a blow ; 
 When grass is scythed and tedded, 
 
 And work is paid-for play, 
 And lad and lass are wedded, 
 
 And tumble in the hay ; 
 When everything increases, 
 
 And mother makes the jams, 
 While we shear the curly fleeces, 
 
 And wean the lusty lambs ; 
 When the youngsters pitch the wicket 
 
 Upon the village green, 
 And the elders watch the cricket, 
 
 And talk of what hath been : 
 
 Three cheers for Summer ! 
 
 The Reapers sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Autumn, 
 When jolly shocks of grain,
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 
 
 And the brawny arms that wrought 'em } 
 
 Ride homeward on the wain ; 
 When the early rime-frost dapples 
 
 The tender woodland leaves, 
 And the juicy ruddled apples 
 
 Are stored behind the eaves ; 
 When unto green hop-garden 
 Pour all the village folk, 
 And the cobnuts swell and harden, 
 
 And the oasts are lit and smoke ; 
 When steams the harvest-suppei 
 With joints of beef and boar, 
 And lower dance with upper 
 Upon the granary floor ; 
 When the yeoman counts his earning, 
 
 And the yokeFs wage is known, 
 And the maiden feels a yearning 
 For a fireside of her own : 
 
 Three cheers for Autumn f 
 
 They All sing. 
 
 Then three cheers, my hearties, 
 And together three times three,
 
 FORTUNATUS act 
 
 For whatsoever your part is, 
 
 Or whoso ye may be, 
 Be yours to spud the thistles, 
 
 To scoop and bank the ditch, 
 To souse and scrape the bristles, 
 
 And to cut up chine and flitch, 
 To peel and twist the withy, 
 
 To tend the lambing ewe, 
 To smite upon the stithy 
 
 And hammer out the shoe ; 
 To find the emmet maggots, 
 
 To stake and tie the hops, 
 Or to stack the hazel faggots 
 
 In spinney and in copse ; 
 To mount the market waggon, 
 
 Or to whistle by the shaft, 
 Now lift the home-brewed flagon, 
 
 And drain a goodly draught : 
 
 With three cheers, my hearties ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 A May-day tune, pitched in no whining key, 
 Nor sung to sorrow. Feeling thus, you do 
 Wisely to rhyme not over-ruefully.
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 
 
 But, be the burden jocund or morose, 
 Singing is drouthy work. Thanks then, and hence 
 To fill your windpipes with more melody, 
 Cool-casked within the cellar. 
 
 [The Rustics depart.] 
 
 There they go, 
 Jostling and joking ; bellied with the ale 
 Brewed on my Birthday, when the Age was young. 
 Birthday or death-day, 'tis all one to them, 
 So it be marked with malt. Bulged out with beer, 
 No devil's date they would not celebrate 
 As vocally as mine. 
 
 [The domestics retire.] 
 
 Ah ! hopeful Adrian, 
 There's more felicity in a tun of ale 
 Than all the Hedonists. Twelve sweltering hours, 
 A sleep upon the settle then and there, 
 A wench to cuddle, and then ale, more ale ; 
 These are the pleasures primitive that make 
 Invention folly, progress slavery, 
 Imposed by some taskmaster out of sight, 
 And our fastidious fineries the mirage 
 Of mortal travel. Shall we go within ?
 
 8 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 [The Duke's library.] 
 
 Adrian (sitting at a table with papers before him). 
 
 To-morrow, then, you leave this fair domain, 
 And journey townward ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Even so it is, 
 Since so it must be. Custom, like the moon, 
 This way and that swayeth the bitter course 
 Of sterile being. You will come with me ? 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Gladly. But there are matters, ere you go, 
 Exacting your attention. These are they. 
 Will you dispatch them now ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Now will be then, 
 Would you but wait. But, since I try your patience,
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 
 
 Scan we these unadministered bequests 
 From deceased yesterdays. Why cannot Time, 
 Ebbing, rake back the litter of its flow, 
 Net leave it stranded ? 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Time's foreshore is ours ; 
 And we, the lords of opportunity, 
 May find a treasure from its unplumbed deep 
 Among the refuse. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Thus you humour me, 
 Mending my mouldy metaphor. So to work. 
 Of work or weariness we have our choice, 
 Mocking alternatives. We prove the one, 
 To find the other better ; bootless both, 
 Save to accelerate or retard the time 
 When neither load nor leisure wearies more. 
 
 ADRIAN 
 
 Now shall we hear the vicar ?
 
 io FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Yes, the Church ; 
 Precedence for the Church. The weakest first, 
 Weakest and most importunate. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 He craves 
 For a new lectern. 
 
 FoRTUNATUS. 
 
 What ! Is the old worn out ? 
 Time makes an end sometimes of uselessness. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 No : stolen from its place. Some virtuoso, 
 Some lover of archaic furniture, 
 Fancied and filched it. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Give him then a new one, 
 The fellow of the old, and none will steal it. 
 Our unoriginal age collects the tools, 
 Spoons, corals, papboats, bellows, thuribles, 
 Of man's inventive childhood. Simple vicar !
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST u 
 
 He is the veriest curio of them all, 
 He, not the lectern ; and he lives and thrives 
 On this strange mania for the obsolete. 
 Give lectern, rood-screen, pulpit, altar-rails, 
 All, anything, he wills. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 The belfry gapes. 
 At the last funeral-dirge the tiles slid down, 
 Albeit they tolled so gingerly. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 The)' would 
 Have tumbled from the timbers, one and all, 
 Had they rung timely music. Christening-bells, 
 And marriage-peals, shaken so wrongfully, 
 Should be reserved for requiems. Then it is 
 We should rejoice, if ever. Must man weep, 
 It should be at the cradle, not the grave. 
 Rebuild the belfry. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Next, the schoolmaster 
 Petitions for another wing. The standards 
 Are crammed to overflowing.
 
 12 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Happy birds, 
 Unhappy urchins, in an age like ours ! 
 Birdnesting's out of fashion. Pothooks cramp 
 The hand that should be limber for the plough 
 And supple for the sickle. I forgot. 
 Lecterns survive, sickles are out of date. 
 Give him two wings — he's sure to need them both, 
 The yokels breed so fast — to teach their brood 
 How fine it is to be a city clerk, 
 Scribe, politician, rogue, philanthropist, 
 While carting muckheaps is a scullion's work, 
 Hedging and ditching feudal servitude, 
 And porridge food for porkers. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 You are asked 
 Will you adjudicate between the hands 
 That work the mines and those that lease them from 
 
 you, 
 Anent the hours of work. Those plead that eight 
 Suffice a day's existence underground.
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST: 13 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Where do they plan to spend the rest, and how ? 
 
 In yawning at the cross-ways, swopping pups, 
 
 Listening to shrill upbraiding from their wives, 
 
 Dazed on a bench or drunk upon the floor, 
 
 As little better for the sun as if 
 
 It never rose again, and all their days 
 
 Lapsed underground ? But, give them what they ask, 
 
 Till they ask more ; then, give them that as well. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 But the leaseholders of your mines aver 
 It will be equal to the royalty 
 They pay to you. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 The royalty foregone 
 Will make it even. Answer yes to all, 
 And leave all thereby discontented still, 
 With satisfaction surfeited. Our hinds, 
 Wiser than our mechanics, willing work 
 From dawn to dark, the changeful seasons through. 
 Unconsciously they copy Nature's pace,
 
 14 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 And tick with Nature's minutes, solemn, slow, 
 Staid as their parlour-clocks. She never stops, 
 Knowing that rest is wearier than fatigue ; 
 And they, who have no knowledge, imitate 
 The instinct they are suckled on. Wise hinds, 
 Wise in the trudging ignorance that asks 
 No question or from life or death, but walks 
 Still at a funeral pace along the road 
 That ends, without a guide-post, at the grave. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Nay, hear them now. The home-farm woodlanders 
 Ask sixpence more a cant, and billhooks shouldered 
 At five on Saturdays. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alas ! poor rustics ! 
 They too have ta'en the virus of the time, 
 And sicken for more leisure to discover 
 The heaviest load of all is life itself, 
 Forgotten, or half felt not, by the backs 
 That bow beneath a faggot. Conscious man 
 Is a poor fretful invalid that turns, 
 First on this side, then that, in hope to find
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 15 
 
 The other easier. Luckless woodlanders ! 
 They too demand more time for consciousness, 
 More leisure to be wretched. Give it them ; 
 'Twere bootless to refuse. More sick we are, 
 The more must we be humoured. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 You remember 
 That 'in the shire there is a vacancy, 
 And each side craves your aid and influence. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then give it to them both, and so increase 
 Their bootless passions still more bootlessly. 
 Of all our feigned affections, there is none 
 So hollow, selfish, and injurious, 
 As what we christen Patriotism. 
 
 ADRIAN {lifting flowers out of a basket). 
 
 Here are roses, 
 With morning dew upon their maiden faces, 
 Fair as the daughters they would fain have sent, 
 Who proffer these instead.
 
 16 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Ay, fairer still, 
 And scarce more fleeting. Adrian, flowers are best. 
 While they are sweet, they are sweet, nothing but 
 
 sweet, 
 And, when they fade, forgetfulness absorbs 
 Their beauty and our worship. Woman wanes 
 Slowly, and still needs incense though the bloom 
 Hath vanished from the altar. 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Here are gifts, 
 More numerous than your years, unscanned, unopened, 
 Though well I ween the givers are, themselves, 
 More often wooed than wooers. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 The which spoils all. 
 There is no quality, how rich soe'er, 
 Bestowed by Fate, but straightway Fate itself 
 Will contradict its exercise and make 
 It void or venomous. The hand that gives 
 Injures the hand that takes. The rich, the great,
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 17 
 
 The mighty, the magnificent, are wooed, 
 
 Not for themselves ; hence are not wooed at all. 
 
 Beauty from faithfulness absents its gaze, 
 
 To keep its eye on splendour. 'Tis a world 
 
 Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price. 
 
 Now, may I go ? 
 
 Adrian (rising). 
 
 Yes ! and the air of heaven 
 Waft to you saner thoughts ! 
 
 [Exit FORTUNATUS. 
 
 adriax (alone). 
 
 Poor Fortunatus ! 
 Poor in his boundless opulence and power. 
 Where got he this disease ? Better not ponder 
 Too deeply on that question, lest I too 
 Should fall a-moaning. Against sickly thought, 
 Action's the prophylactic.
 
 1 8 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 fortunatus {on horseback). 
 
 On then, still on ! Swift motion for awhile 
 
 Dispels despondency ; but, when we pause, 
 
 How quickly, like a phial that contains 
 
 Some nauseous medicine, thought secretes anew 
 
 The sediment of sorrow. Thus, when Man 
 
 Matures to meditation, and his blood 
 
 Slackens to foot-pace, plainly he discerns 
 
 The mockery of being. Look on these woods ! 
 
 Unto the eye of April, April flowers 
 
 Are fair because both lack significance ; 
 
 And April music unto April ears 
 
 Is sweet since meaningless. Thought, final phase 
 
 Of that incorporated force which drives 
 
 Our carnal substance blindly onward, blurs 
 
 Nature's expressionless smooth passive face, 
 
 By making it our mirror, where we see 
 
 Reflected our desires, our dreams, our doubts, 
 
 With death for background; death, lewd grinning 
 
 satyr, 
 Who gloats on, with anticipating eyes,
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 19 
 
 The naked self-complacency of life. 
 
 The unmeditative primrose asks not why 
 
 It blooms then fades, nor doth the bluebell feel 
 
 The pathos of its passing ; but man comes, 
 
 And with unquiet questioning infects 
 
 The woodland with his woe. The impulsive note 
 
 Sung by yon cuckoo conscienceless, when heard 
 
 By human ear, sounds like melodious guilt, 
 
 The mocking Mephistopheles of Love. 
 
 The nightingale that bubbleth 'mong the leaves 
 
 With such sweet insolicitude it asks 
 
 No dullard night to sleep away its song, 
 
 Misread by melancholy man, bewails 
 
 A woe it understands not, thoughtless bird. 
 
 Thus staid reflection's shadow falls athwart 
 
 The cheerful seeming of the Spring, and makes 
 
 May sadder than December. 
 
 [His horse stumbles.] 
 
 Nearly down ! 
 Art tired, good beast ? No, he hath cast a shoe. 
 So far, too, from his stall. 
 
 [A voice is heard singing.] 
 
 0, my lands are broad, and fat, and fair, 
 And fair and fat my beeves :
 
 20 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 From dawn I ride till the day hath died 
 Under my own green leaves. 
 
 But the leaf turns brown, and the mast drops dozen 
 
 From sycamore, oak, and beech ; 
 And the shadows glide by the horse man's side, 
 
 And death is the goal they reach. 
 
 [As he sings the last line, Abaddon emerges from the forest, in 
 the guise of a Pedlar, gaily attired, with a cock's plume in 
 his hat, and carrying a smart pack.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Who may you be ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 I am the Pride of Life. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 The devil you are ! 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 The Devil I am, that's certain, 
 Though you will not believe it, since 'tis true. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What has become of Mephistopheles ?
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 21 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Retired — 'twas time — on an annuity, 
 Invested in a publishing-house that issues 
 Sceptical volumes of philosophy. 
 Not a bad trade, withal not good enough 
 For a brisk age like this, and so I took 
 His business over, paying a percentage 
 Upon my earnings. Lucifer grows old, 
 And does not understand the Modern Spirit ; 
 Now, sir, you see I do. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You are a humourist. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 So would you be, were you the Pride of Life, 
 And not its dupe. I have nothing here for you. 
 Still, look upon my shrewd time-serving things. 
 
 [He opens his pack.] 
 Corsets and laces wherewith burgeoning maids 
 Make themselves buxom of a market-day 
 For reeking hinds : kerchiefs, and collars, and cuffs, 
 With gaudy garters for their dimpled knees,
 
 22 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Dimpled with sitting upon Sunday stiles, 
 
 Or Monday scrubbings. Do they what they will, 
 
 Their thoughts are on my satchel. Lord ! how many, 
 
 As we stand here, are longing for this lace, 
 
 Venetian point — at least I tell 'em so— 
 
 And practise, or permit, some twilight theft, 
 
 To flaunt this flimsy finery. It is worth 
 
 A library of doubt, and makes more converts 
 
 Than all the Encyclopaedists. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But why here, 
 In this remote afforested expanse, 
 With haply now a hamlet, now a farm, 
 Surely too desert to be worth the damning, 
 Bear you your pack? Why not in denizened towns, 
 Where mortals are as thick as trees are here ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Sometimes I visit them, but not for that. 
 Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves, 
 My unpaid partners, and my journeys thither 
 Are taken when my stock-in-trade runs low 
 And needs replenishing. These simpering curls,
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 23 
 
 When duly dangling on a pleated throat, 
 Will move as many sheep's-eyes, many sighs, 
 As the most real ringlets ; and no rose 
 Born of the wind, engendered of the snow, 
 Or blushingly begotten, can provoke 
 Homage more hot than this vermilion 
 Packed in a pouncet-box. 
 
 [He holds up more things.] 
 
 Sachets and scents 
 To render lasses sweet as lavender, 
 When comes the time to lay it 'twixt the sheets 
 And perfume dreaming. 'Tis right pleasant work, 
 They are cogged so easily. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You have books, I see. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Yes, but the newest and the lightest only, 
 Leavened with pictures. Lucifer begged hard 
 I would take over all his stock-in-trade 
 Of sceptical polemics. I refused ; 
 It has grown so monstrous musty.
 
 24 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Have you poems ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 No, poems are too visionary for 
 
 A realistic world, which much prefers 
 
 Cuddling in downright prose. Good Lord ! what stuff ! 
 
 By women mostly, sage for simpletons, 
 
 With rue to follow. 
 
 Pick among my pretty things, 
 Bracelets and betrothal rings, 
 Kerchiefs with embroidered hem, 
 Newest scents to perfume them, 
 Good sto7it hose and supple garters, 
 Flasks of home-made elder-waters, 
 Sovran for a freckled skin ; 
 Drugs to make you plump or thin ; 
 Chemisettes with sleeves and cuffs, 
 Samples of the latest stuffs 
 Out of which to fashion gowns 
 Such as ladies wear in towns ; 
 Combs, and ribbons, and brocades, 
 Merry thoughts for moping maids ;
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 25 
 
 Ear-rings .for your little ears, 
 Everything you want, my dears, 
 Everything except a lover, 
 Who around you soon will hover. 
 So you buy my pretty things, 
 Bracelets and betrothal rings. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But have you nothing for the lads to buy ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Only some men are producers, that's certain. But 
 all women consume, and can no more withstand gay 
 gear than men can resist winsome faces. Have the 
 right bait, and the fish will soon follow. Once the 
 women are on your side, the game 's won. Lucifer 
 knew that, when he was young, and plied Eve with 
 the sweet pulp of an untasted fruit, not Adam with 
 the hard hollow husk of Free Will and Fate. Now 
 he's in his dotage, he argues in the Reviews. 
 Having reasoned so long, he now understands nothing. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But is it fair to fool the fairest fair, 
 
 And make a market of maids' weaknesses ?
 
 26 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Well, I'll tell you a secret ; only mind you bury it 
 in that part of your memory where gratitude resides. 
 Women are not damned : only a few at least, those 
 who mountebank man, and so accompany him, for his 
 worst punishment, to the hell hereafter. Decoy-ducks 
 are not put in the larder. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then, whither do they fare them when they die ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 I would that you could tell me. I have long 
 Been trying to find out, but fruitlessly. 
 
 Haply priso?ied in the air, 
 Earth, or sea, or everywhere. 
 In the violet's steadfast gaze, 
 J Findings of the woodland ways. 
 In the Springtime's songs and scent; 
 And the Summer's blandishment. 
 lurk they in the lisping corn ? 
 Breathe they in the breaking morn 
 Wander with the elusive billow 
 Wave in tresses of the willow
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 27 
 
 Flutter upward with the lark, 
 Drench us in the dewy dark ? 
 Live they in the falling leaves, 
 
 Droning gusts and dripping eaves, 
 Lonely fireside's flickering glow, 
 Twilight dreams of Long-ago, 
 Flash of sails upon the sea, 
 Mirage of felicity ? 
 
 I call that a right cunning song, and I used to sell 
 it by the gross. Now they won't look at it. 
 
 FORTUN'ATUS. 
 
 There never was a time when simplest maid 
 Dimpled her pillow with a wanton dream, 
 Slumbering on such a guileless melody. 
 Tears from the heart, pure tears from purest well, 
 Love's virgin disillusion, chance might flow 
 The faster for that ditty ; but, believe me, 
 There's no damnation in a song like that. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Who can say ? Damnation has many doors ; and 
 the Ivory Gate attracts many whom golden portals
 
 28 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 would alarm, and those of brass disgust. But 'tis a 
 plausible song. I wonder who wrote it. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 One whom I knew in youth, fantastic swain, 
 To whom this passionless panorama, Life, 
 Appeared a throbbing wonder-world. 
 
 ARADDON. 
 
 In flesh 
 Abides he still ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 He werft behind the scene, 
 And scanned the paint and pulleys. Caring not 
 To live as actor or as audience then, 
 He waiteth for the dropping of the curtain. 
 
 A1SADDON. 
 
 A Pessimist? His doom concerns me not. 
 He is damned already. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I have cast a shoe. 
 Know you a farrier in these sylvan wastes 
 Can furnish me another?
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 29 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 No. But stay. 
 Franklin the woodreeve hammers out his own, 
 Vulcan no less than each symbolic god 
 That stands for mortal mastery. There 's nothing 
 In the wide range of man's necessity — 
 Mark you, I say necessity alone — - 
 Not wrought by Franklin and Urania. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Who is Urania ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 She is his daughter, sir ; 
 The pair the very wisest twain on earth. 
 My empire ceases at their rustic gate, 
 Arrested by their wisdom, faithful watch-dog 
 That scares all nether vagabonds, and keeps 
 Their unlocked lives secure from larceny. 
 Sometimes upon their wicket do I lean, 
 What time Urania's roses, damask-red, 
 Flecked with Madonna lilies, are ablow, 
 And wonder why their secret, plain as June, 
 Remains their own.
 
 3 o FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What is their secret, 'sooth ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 That would be telling. Go, and find it out ; 
 Though odds are, you will miss it, like the rest. 
 My trade is not in jeopardy, though they, 
 Could they convert Archbishops to their creed, 
 Would make me bankrupt. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What, then, do they do ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 He tends the kine ; Urania brims the pail. 
 
 Coaxing the udders with her lissom fingers, 
 
 Sweet as the milk they drain. She skims the cream, 
 
 And, with her sleeves tucked up, and white round arms, 
 
 Tipped at the elbow with a rosy bud, 
 
 Makes the churn sing like boulder-baffled stream. 
 
 He threshes out the wheat ; she strains the balm, 
 
 Kneading and baking cottage loaves that smell 
 
 Of every homely virtue. When he rives 
 
 The rough sere remnants of the fallen thorn,
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 
 
 A wimple on her head, and kirtled short, 
 She pegs the snow-white linen in the wind, 
 And, singing back her way into the threshold, 
 Compounds the custard, or with nimble hands 
 Shells the first pods of summer, dainty-white 
 In bleached tucker, modest pinafore, 
 A heavenly earthliness. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How know you this, 
 Prohibited her door ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Forbidden ? No ; 
 Only, still foiled. I enter when I will, 
 But with her florid voice Urania flouts 
 The pick of all my pack. Times, she will buy, 
 But not for show, only for usefulness : 
 And yet her choice hath more of fancy in it, 
 More taste, discrimination, true conceit, 
 Than vanity bestows on simpletons. 
 She hath no littleness, no passions neither, 
 Only majestic motions of the mind, 
 -Steered by a steadfast heart. His daughter, sir,
 
 32 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 His very daughter, daughter of his loins, 
 His love, his wisdom. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Is he very wise ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 He is strong and gentle. Who is that, is all. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You, for the Devil that you boast to be,   
 Seem much in love with comeliness and virtue. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 To know and reverence Good, and yet do evil, 
 Is the infernal penalty of the Past. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 That's true. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 It is, of Devil and man alike. 
 Well, after all, we are brothers. Plague on your 
 
 megrims ! 
 You have half infected me with Pessimism.
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 33 
 
 Even the Devil has his dark hours, though living 
 With power to laugh and injure is merry work. 
 My world's not coming to an. end as yet, 
 While such as you inhabit it, good Duke ! 
 [He shoulders his pack.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You know me, then ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 The Devil is too well-bred, 
 Not to know all the Peerage. Farther on, 
 The track divides to narrow and to broad. 
 The narrow leads you to Urania. 
 Upon that saddle sits the pride of life, 
 Upon that brow, that manhood, and that title. 
 
 I can afford to take a holiday. 
 
 [He lifts his hat.] 
 Life to your Grace, my noble emissary ! 
 She loiters in the garden. Fare you well ! 
 Get a new shoe. 'Tis sure to carry you home, 
 And bring you back again. 
 
 [He plunges into the forest, humming as he does so : ] 
 
 When, with accidental feet, 
 Wickedness and Wisdom meet, 
 
 D
 
 34 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Which of them will win the day ? 
 Here a?id there a tress of gray, 
 Shimmering through the chestnut hair 
 Over temples tight and spare, 
 Shows like virtue, making thus 
 Lingering youth more dangerous. 
 Ribbons, perfumes, and brocades, 
 Satins of all sorts and shades, 
 Buckles of the finest paste, 
 Toys to jingle from the waist, 
 Coral necklace, amber stud, —   
 What are these to flesh and blood, 
 Fusing, with refined pretence, 
 Courtesy, concupiscence, 
 Birth, and bearing, and all that, 
 For a feather in your hat? 
 
 fortunatus (alone). 
 
 A wise and witty vagrant. I forgot me, 
 Following the deep dark windings of his mirth, 
 To pay my footing. 
 
 [Taking out his purse.] 
 
 Even the Devil, they say, 
 Should have his due. What ho !
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 35 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 See here ! 
 
 See here ! 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Ridiculous ! I have lost his trail. 
 It seems as if the forest had a voice. 
 Into the hollow of some pollard hornbeam 
 He hath shrunk, and screens him. 'Tis another prank 
 Whereby he dupes the sadness of existence 
 With spurious foolery . . . What ho ! 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Perhaps he was right. The Devil is an echo 
 Of search unsatisfied.
 
 36 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 SCENE IV 
 
 [Fortunatus reaches the rustic gate of Urania's garden, and 
 dismounts. He hears a voice singing.] 
 
 The young rooks caw in the elm-tree tops ; 
 
 Dip, yajpel, dip from tree to tree : 
 The eggs are warm in the hazel copse, 
 And warm is the lamb that the meek ewe drops ; 
 
 Dip, yaffel, dip frotn tree to tree. 
 
 II 
 
 The bees hang down from the columbine cells ; 
 
 Sing, yaffel, sing from tree to tree : 
 The throat of the nightingale sinks and swells, 
 And the wise fool shake th his cap and bells ; 
 
 Sing, yaffel, sing from tree to tree. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The stiff %v a in creaks 'neath the nodding wheat ; 
 
 Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree. 
 The babe is hushed on its mother's teat, 
 And the acorn drops at your dreaming feet ; 
 
 Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 37 
 
 IV 
 
 The whimpering winds have lost their way ; 
 
 Scream, yajfel, scream from tree to tree. 
 The trunks stand grim and the fields stretch gray, 
 And the year that is dead, is dead for aye. 
 
 Scream, yaffcl, scream from tree to tree. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How sovranly she sings, as though her voice 
 Had taken the ether captive, and the air 
 Lived on the linked enchantment of her tones. 
 Like to a covert nightingale she nests, 
 Continuously carolling unseen, 
 Whileas one halts to hearken. All the place 
 Seems magical with music, and there is 
 A bland and delicate texture in the air, 
 Which the unsounding shuttle of the winds 
 Hath woven into velvet. 
 
 A voice {singing). 
 
 But the rook, and the bee, and the granaried corn, 
 Laugh, yajfel, laugh from tree to tree. 
 
 [Urania appears before him, in the garden walk, as he stands 
 by his horse's head.]
 
 3 8 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 O, pray, sing on ! 
 Like to the afternoon, I paused to listen, 
 Suspended eavesdropper, — praying to be pardoned. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 No need for pardon ; all good things belong 
 To those that find them good, and you repay 
 Your pleasure with your presence. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then your home 
 Belongs to me in fee, for have I never 
 Felt anything so fair. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Conceive it yours, 
 Yet not in fee, for none of us possess 
 More than the lease and usufruct of life, 
 Which is enough ; too many think, too much, 
 Craving for more. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 My horse had cast a shoe, 
 And in the forest met I one who said
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 39 
 
 I haply might replace it by the favour 
 Of those that dwell herein ; a merry fellow, 
 Who entertained me with capricious jests 
 And rhyming raillery. He only needed 
 The cap and bells you sang of silverly, 
 To seem a mummer of the younger days, 
 With just the russet of our mournful time, 
 To sober the old habit of his mirth. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 It must have been Abaddon. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 That is a name 
 Which in the lumber-room of memory fills 
 Some undiscovered place ; by himself christened 
 The Pride of Life. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 A pedlar ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Yes, the same. 
 He moved so blithely 'mong the primroses, 
 The cuckoo's gibe, the wildwood pleasantness,
 
 40 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 And melted into leafage so alert, 
 
 I could have deemed him dryad had his flouts 
 
 Not proved him alien to simplicity. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 My father is afield, but shortly will 
 
 Call the kine home, and then will serve your need. 
 
 The stable lies behind ; give me your horse. 
 
 Regale yourself with flowers till I return ; 
 
 For May hath quickened a hundred into life, 
 
 That yesterday were dreaming. 
 
 [Urania leads his horse away.] 
 
 fortunatus [alone). 
 
 What an equerry ! 
 She placed her hand upon the bridle rein 
 W T ith such a gentle empery, I could 
 Not help depute my duty to her will. 
 Right was the pedlar ; never have I seen 
 That which we know, and that for which we crave, 
 In visible perfection thus annealed : 
 Nature still showing through the enamelled grace 
 That surfaces the woman. But there lurks 
 Deception somewhere to befool the sense
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 41 
 
 For further disillusion. Of all shows 
 
 In this phenomenal fantastic world, 
 
 The slippery, fugitive, elusive stuff 
 
 From which imagination loves to weave 
 
 Its gossamer affections, there is none 
 
 So unsubstantial as a woman's seeming. 
 
 She can deceive, when man deceives no more ; 
 
 A mirage in the desert, desert proved 
 
 By fatuous fancy thousand times bewrayed, 
 
 Life's earliest, latest, longest-lingering cheat ; 
 
 Persistent in Appearance \ when approached, 
 
 A nimbused nothingness. 
 
 [Urania re-enters the garden.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Like you my garden ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 It hath revoked the forfeit of the Fall ; 
 'Tis Paradise regained. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 The early roses, 
 Pinched by pernicious visitings of March, 
 This year will blossom tardily. But crown-imperials
 
 42 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Encouraged by the dry, undripping Spring, 
 Have thrust their tasselled canopies aloft 
 Before their feast is due. Do you not find 
 Nature's unpunctuality retrieves 
 Our too precise forebodings, filling up 
 All disappointing vacancies with gifts 
 Not reckoned in our calendar ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You must 
 Have rare and expert gardeners, to salute 
 Maytime with such a rivalry of flowers. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 My gardener curtsies to you. I am he. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I have seen terraces and trim parterres, 
 Long-winding walks and trellises festooned, 
 With gaudy pleasances, but none like this. 
 What is your secret ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 I have no secret, sir, 
 Save loving be a secret. Skill have I none,
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 43 
 
 Save such as tender observation lends, 
 
 And wage which these irregularly pay 
 
 With most usurious interest, when they smile. 
 
 Here are no curious blooms, but simply those 
 
 With which the homely cottager arrays 
 
 His narrow plot, niched from the roadway side ; 
 
 Sweet-smelling stocks, last year not thrown away, 
 
 With double-rocket, limber columbine, 
 
 Frank rustic oxslips freckled by the sun, 
 
 Not like auriculas with powdered faces, 
 
 Too careful of their seeming. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How they mingle, 
 Lilac with peach-blossom, guelder-roses white 
 With saffron dust of bronze-leafed barbary. 
 Your garden is an orchard, and your herbs, 
 From pansies undistinguishable, share 
 The company of flowers. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Kind Nature loves 
 Concord, not contrast. It is man divides
 
 44 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 With observation too fragmentary, 
 Her universal purpose. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What are these ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 These are day-lilies, ignorant of the night, 
 But making by succession swift amends 
 For their ephemeral sojourn. Have you not 
 A garden of your own ? Will you not sit ? 
 [They sit on a rustic bench.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 A garden have I, but 'tis scarcely mine, 
 
 More than the sceptre to a King belongs 
 
 Who reigns but doth not govern. Mine it were, 
 
 Could wage but make it so. But yours seems yours 
 
 By some inherent tenure. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Is yours large ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Not large to look on.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 45 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 But too large to love, 
 Too large to tend ? Each accidental bloom 
 Is rooted in my heart, lives in my gaze, 
 And for a helpmate hath the nursing hand. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Sometimes in loitering vacancy of mood 
 
 I pick the wilted roses from their stalk, 
 
 Or shrivelled bells of the campanulas. 
 
 For that, my hand may serve. Mefears its touch 
 
 Hath no creation in it, and my heart 
 
 Would prove an arid soil for such fair plants 
 
 As prosper in your moist fresh territory. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 You do not love your garden. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What is love ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 'Tis observation, patience, vigilance, 
 And infinite indulgence. Love is wisdom
 
 46 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 In tender operation ; having no rights, 
 
 But, though a spendthrift, hourly growing richer 
 
 By unusurious giving. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Where learned you that ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 I learned it in my garden, in my home, 
 
 And somewhat in my heart ; experience training 
 
 The shoots of instinct. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Love you but your garden ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Should we not love whate'er is lovable ? 
 Beauty because 'tis beautiful, and sadness 
 Because 'tis sad, and sorrow most of all ? 
 The wrinkled leaves of Autumn are as dear 
 As Spring's predicting blossoms, so the heart 
 Demands no payment for its lavishness. 
 Yet doth my garden teach me Love gets back 
 More than it hath capacity to give.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 47 
 
 Look on it now ! the churlishness of Winter 
 Forgiven and forgotten. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Winter reverts, 
 And the amenable tendrils that absorb 
 Your fondling fingers will return you then 
 Callous oblivion. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Not, if I remember, 
 Remember and await. They will renew 
 Their incense and thanksgiving once again. 
 Love never is lost. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Not lost ! I ne'er have found it. 
 Man, shackled to his shadow, cannot move 
 Without the base companionship of self ; 
 And Love, colossal egotist, would drag 
 The whole world after it, to reach some goal 
 Which with the winning vanishes. Desire 
 Is death in gay disguise, and ravenous nature 
 Feeds on our fond affections when they slacken.
 
 48 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 [A voice is heard singing.] 
 
 If you love me, if you love me, 
 Stay in Heaven, and shine above me, 
 Stooping not to where we cherish 
 Yearnings that but pale and perish ; 
 But make longing fond and fonder 
 For the unreachable Up-yonder. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Surely it is a childish voice that sings, 
 Although the words and melody be born 
 Of mature melancholy ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 It is April, 
 My callow April, canticles aloud, 
 With throat as blithe and ignorant as the lark's, 
 Sad rhymes I sometimes murmur to myself 
 To make me happier. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Who may April be?
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 49 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Gift of the woods, a fosterling of Spring. 
 
 A thrush was singing in a silvery thorn, 
 
 Striving to silence every note but his. 
 
 But over him the fleeting cuckoo called, 
 
 Unchecked and unashamed, and in the thicket, 
 
 Where leaves as yet were sparse, a nightingale 
 
 Fluted aloud, but unobtrusively. 
 
 Primrose and windflower carpeted the ground, 
 
 And, in an open space the woodlanders 
 
 Had lately cleared, lay April all alone, 
 
 A mould of waxen dimples, still unweaned, 
 
 Feeding its fancy with one chubby hand, 
 
 Its blue eyes gazing up at the blue sky, 
 
 And over its unwondering face a look 
 
 Of half-awake half-slumberous content. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Where was its mother ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Nowhere to be found, 
 Though I outcalled the cuckoo : — cuckoo, sooth, 
 
 E
 
 5 o FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 That left this hazard egg within our nest, 
 
 [April comes running up the garden-walk.] 
 Now hatched to what you see. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Urania, a swarm ! a virgin swarm ! 
 
 A swarm of bees upon the midmost bough 
 
 Of grand-dad's favourite apple-tree, Northern Spy ; 
 
 As thick, as thick, as thick as are the blossoms. 
 [ArRlL claps her hands.] 
 A swarm in May, a swarm in May, 
 Is worth a waggon-load of hay. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Nay, curtsey to this courteous gentleman, 
 And tell him who you are. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I am April, sir. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Indeed you are. Then give me April's greeting, 
 Kissing old Winter ere he takes farewell.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 51 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 You are not Winter ; you are more like Summer. 
 Why should you go ? You go because I come. 
 See, I will flit away again, and leave 
 You and my sister-mother to your talk. 
 Grand-dad can take the swarm. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Nay, do not go ; 
 And if you stay, I will petition leave 
 To linger still. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 We pray you. 
 
 FORTUNATUS (to APRIL). 
 
 When I go, 
 I would behind me you were pillioned, 
 Where Care is said to sit. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I will be careful. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 She knows no other meaning of the word. 
 O happy carelessness !
 
 5 2 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Now to the swarm. 
 Fetch you a cloth to spread upon the grass, 
 And pluck the beanstalk that is most in flower, 
 And I will bring the ladder and the hive. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 And don't forget the sugar and the ale. 
 
 fortunatus (alone). 
 I did not think that in this aged world 
 There lingered so much youthful happiness. 
 Is it because these joys themselves are young, 
 That still they please ; while pleasures late conceived 
 Affect us feebly even from their birth ? 
 [Urania and April return.] 
 
 APRIL {to FORTUNATUS). 
 
 Will you not take the swarm ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I know not how. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Urania will teach you.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 53 
 
 [While Urania prepares to take the swarm, April recites.] 
 When the bees begin to swarm, 
 Would you house them well and warm, 
 Make them fill up comb and cell, 
 Daub the hive with hydromel, 
 And around it and betw r een 
 Sweep the blossom of the bean. 
 Smear, and you will need no veil, 
 Face and arms with sweetened ale. 
 Rub fresh elder-leaves along 
 Branches near to where they throng. 
 Poise the hive, ere they begin 
 Flight afresh, then shake them in. 
 [Urania mounts the ladder with the empty hive.] 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 They never sting Urania : I believe 
 
 They'd swarm within the hollow 7 of her hand, 
 
 Or hive within her apron, if she bade them. 
 
 fortunatus {aside). 
 
 She limes them with her sweetness, and they hover 
 Harmless about her head as though she were 
 Queen-Mother of the cluster.
 
 54 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 To her curls 
 Some drowsy stragglers cling. 
 
 fortunatus {aside). 
 
 Deeming them anthers 
 Of honeyed bell-flower swaying in the wind, 
 As sways the branch she leans on. 
 
 urania (descending with the hive, and placing it 
 on the cloth on the grass). 
 
 There ! it is done. 
 The Queen is safe within, and loiterers will 
 Rejoin their comrades ere the evening star 
 Summon the golden drones of crowded heaven 
 To swarm upon the night. Now, April, say 
 Those other lines you know about the bees. 
 
 april (reciting). 
 
 A swarm in May, a swarm in May, 
 Is worth a waggon-load of hay. 
 For then they sip the nectared wine 
 That wells within the columbine,
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 55 
 
 Wake drouthy with the dawn and drink 
 The dewy spices of the pink, 
 Into the tulip's chalice dive 
 To filch its vintage for their hive, 
 And carry hence, as off they flee, 
 The gold-dust of the barbary. 
 Around the foxglove's silent bells 
 Their mid-day music swerves and swells : 
 As the frail-folded leaves unclose, 
 They suck the sweetness of the rose ; 
 Unto the lily-stamens cling 
 With honeyed feet and pollened wing, 
 From fields of swaying clover steal 
 Delicious draught and sugared meal, 
 And mix, from every tasselled tree, 
 The mortar for their masonry. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Where did you learn these seasonable rhymes ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I learned them from Urania — 
 
 [Kissing Urania's hand.] 
 
 Did I not ?
 
 56 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Stay, dear, and entertain this gentleman, 
 
 Till I return ! 
 
 [Urania leaves them.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Do you know many rhymes ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Yes, for Urania says verse sheds the husk 
 And is the core of everything that's good. 
 You also know some poetry by heart, 
 Do you not, sir ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Once on a time I did ; 
 And there is music mastered in the years 
 When I was young as you, that lingers still 
 In intervals of memory. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Say it me. 
 Tell me a tale. May I sit on your knee, 
 Or shall I tire you ?
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 57 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Nay, sweet April maid, 
 
 Perch here. 
 
 [Lifting her on to his knee.] 
 
 Perch there for ever ! Shall the tale 
 Be in verse or prose ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 In verse, of course ; unless 
 You like prose better. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I remember none 
 That is not sad. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Sad songs sometimes are sweet. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Once on a time a goodly knight, 
 
 And a most lovely lady, 
 Roamed hand in hand, as children might, 
 
 In alleys green and shady : 
 There was nothing save themselves in sight, 
 . And June was in its heyday.
 
 5 8 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 When suddenly from out the wood 
 There rushed forth fierce banditti ; 
 
 And, though she wept, and he withstood, 
 They slew him without pity, 
 
 And left her to her drearihood, 
 To wail this woeful ditty. 
 
 "O never when the buds from Spring 
 
 A magic freshness borrow, 
 Make love your lord or joy your king, 
 
 Forgetful of to-morrow, 
 Or you will rue the hour and wring 
 
 Your hands in endless sorrow." 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Is there no more ? It should not end like that. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alas ! sweet ! endless sorrow is the end. 
 Nothing comes after that. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 You make me weep. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 As April should sometimes.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 59 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 But I had rather 
 The knight had slain the bandits and espoused 
 His lady-love for ever. 
 
 fortunatus (absently). 
 
 Think it so, 
 Then so it was ; for mind has mastery 
 Over the past and future. 'Tis the present 
 Embarrasses the fancy. . . . But, forgive me. . . . 
 I know another tale, if not so brief, 
 Yet somewhat happier. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 O, then, tell it me. 
 I love the long ones, when they end in joy. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 There was a King in olden days, 
 With black heart, scowling forehead. 
 
 The mighty trembled at his gaze, 
 And his sceptre was abhorred.
 
 6o FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Alike to burgher and to boor 
 His grasp was hard and greedy : 
 
 He had no pity for the poor, 
 Indulgence for the needy. 
 
 Beside him sate a gentle Queen, 
 
 Compassionate and holy, 
 Who fed the hungry, clad the mean, 
 
 And comforted the lowly. 
 
 Till with hot words he her forbade 
 
 To visit, cheer, or aid them. 
 Then meekly, though her heart was sad, 
 
 She listened, and obeyed them. 
 
 It happed, one day, in hovel rude 
 
 A leper lay a-dying ; 
 And there was none to take him food, 
 
 And none to soothe his sighing. 
 
 Forgetting all, with bread and meat 
 
 She filled a little wallet, 
 And, sallying out into the street, 
 
 Made haste to reach his pallet.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 61 
 
 When lo ! the King, with courtiers girt, 
 
 Came riding through the city. 
 The Queen in terror raised her skirt, 
 
 To screen her work of pity. 
 
 Seeing her shrink and bow her head, 
 
 His brow begun to pucker : 
 " Now show me what it is," he said, 
 
 " You hide below your tucker." 
 
 She spoke not, but uncovered it ; 
 
 And look what it discloses ! 
 Not wheaten loaf and dainty bit, 
 
 But myrtles, pinks, and roses. 
 
 " What gauds are these ? " he fumed and cried, 
 " And wherefore were they hidden ? " 
 
 " I disobeyed you," she replied, 
 " And trembled to be chidden. 
 
 " Food was I taking where, ah me ! 
 
 A lonely leper cowers ; 
 But the Lord Jesus, as you see, 
 
 Hath changed them into flowers."
 
 62 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 The King dismounted from his horse, 
 First smelt pink, rose, and myrtle, 
 
 Then knelt, and, smitten with remorse, 
 Kissed her white hands and kirtle. 
 
 Henceforth he held no sumptuous state 
 
 In courtyard, hall, or stable ; 
 The poor were welcomed at his gate, 
 
 The hungry at his table. 
 
 When died his Queen, and in the tomb 
 Was laid with pomp and wailing, 
 
 Myrtle at once began to bloom, 
 And climb round slab and railing. 
 
 And even when the snow lies white, 
 
 And frosty stars are shining, 
 Clove pinks about her grave are bright, 
 
 And round it roses twining. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 And are the roses blooming there to-day ? 
 How I should like to see them !
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 63 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I am told 
 They clamber there no longer, since men came 
 Who disbelieved the story : so, they died. 
 What faith creates, doubt kills. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 So grand-dad says ; 
 
 And all he says is true. Would you not like 
 
 To see his study, full of learned books ? 
 
 Grand-dad knows everything. 
 
 [They enter, hand-in-hand. Fortunatus scans the book- 
 shelves, fdled with the works of the poets, sages, and 
 historians of all ages.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And does he read them all ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Yes, all, and then 
 Explains them to Urania ; those, I mean, 
 She does not understand without his help ; 
 And some day he will do the same for me. 
 You — you can read them all, for you are a man ?
 
 64 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Once on a time, I understood them better 
 
 Than haply now. . . . {Aside) One's little learning 
 
 rusts 
 With the disuse of life ; whereas this man 
 Has annalists and poets of all time 
 For comrades and familiars of his leisure, 
 Yet girds a leathern apron round his loins 
 To play the farrier to my helplessness. . . . 
 Where is the stable ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I will show it you. 
 
 [On reaching the stable, they find Franklin shoeing the horse, 
 and Urania holding up the horse's hoof.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Nay, you confound me with your useful grace, • 
 And stooping dignity. I pray you, let — me ! 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 See, it is done. Now, April, to the larder ! 
 
 [Urania and April quit them, and Franklin conducts 
 FORTUNATUS back to the garden.]
 
 SCENE IV 
 
 THE PESSIMIST 65 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 There is no office in this needful world 
 But dignifies the doer, if done well ; 
 And she brings dignity to all she does, 
 Lending her mind and hand, whenever wanted. 
 My part shows feebler ; for, although 'twill serve, 
 The shoe is but a makeshift. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Did I stand 
 Stammering my thanks until the day was done, 
 I still should be your debtor. Thank you ! thank 
 
 you ! 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Nay, then repay us with your company, 
 
 And share the meal we take when evening strews 
 
 The quiet of long shadows on the grass, 
 
 And friendly converse satisfies like prayer. 
 
 I will rejoin you shortly. 
 
 FORTUNATUS (al07ie). 
 
 What man is this, 
 "Who unto brawny and bucolic thews, 
 
 F
 
 66 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Rustic complexion, sweating craftsmanship, 
 
 And yokel's occupation, joins a port' 
 
 Of simple elevation, now alas ! 
 
 In court and palace well-nigh moribund ; 
 
 Who does a smithy's work with kingly hands, 
 
 And from the lowliest labour glances up 
 
 With brow of meditation ? Opposites, 
 
 Within this hospitable calm abode, 
 
 By some strange craft are amicably wed, 
 
 And life's rude contradictions reconciled. 
 
 For such a sire to engender such a daughter, 
 
 Congenitally noble, gentle, wise, 
 
 Is within nature's narrow competence. 
 
 But whence came such a stock ? And is it choice, 
 
 Or some felicitous fortuity, 
 
 Planted them here ? 
 
 [Fortunatus remains in meditation till he sees Franklin 
 
 returning.] 
 
 Hither he wends, his work-day garb foregone, 
 Wearing the aspect of that goodliest thing 
 Matured by time, an English gentleman. 
 
 [Franklin leads Fortunatus to a spot in the garden where 
 Urania and April have prepared supper.]
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 67 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 How grateful, when the functions of the day 
 Finish their cheerful course, to sit within 
 The waving curtain of this leafy lime, 
 And eat the bread, and drink the draught, that's 
 earned. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I have earned neither, though you give me both, 
 And come an idle vagrant to your board. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Nay, you have ridden from far, and exercise 
 Is one of leisure's worthiest offices. 
 Do you not find the canopy of heaven 
 And carpet of the ground a richer room, 
 More varied and luxurious to the sense, 
 Than circumscribing wall and stagnant roof? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 In such an hour as this. But rarely is it, 
 In our capricious ether, we can live 
 As free and unconditioned as to-day.
 
 68 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Do you not think we quarrel overmuch 
 With the conditions that we cannot change ? 
 The seasons are not ours to rule, and hence 
 Unto their fitful government the wise 
 Accommodate their senses. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But is will 
 So sure an anaesthetic it can blunt 
 The alertness of the nerves to heat and cold, 
 And make them face mercurial temperature 
 As though it stood for ever at fixed fair ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Will leagued with action, yes. While opulent ease 
 
 Cowers from the sleety hurricane and warms 
 
 Its passive pulses by the velvet hearth, 
 
 See poor laborious lowliness, though clad 
 
 In floating flimsiness and wetly shod, 
 
 But every sinew braced to use, extort 
 
 From steely wind and parsimonious frost 
 
 A comfortable glow and tingling warmth. 
 
 'Tis not the seasons that have changed, but we.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 69 
 
 The poets who of old extolled the Spring 
 Minded no more the blustering sheen of March 
 Than do the windflowers or the primroses. 
 Not overfed, nor overckid, nor drugged 
 To counteract gross surfeiting, they felt 
 Gust, cloud, or shower, as little as the lambs : 
 We fill up crack and cranny, and ensconce 
 In snug alcove our padded limbs, and then 
 Rail at the heavens for using wrongfully 
 Our artificial senses. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You should blame, 
 Not man, but Fate, which stimulates the mind 
 To invent the arts that undermine the body. 
 The dupe and victim of his faculties, 
 Man lies on the soft couch himself hath made, 
 Proud of his enervating power, and christens 
 With the fond name of Progress each new link 
 Enslaving him to matter. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Who shall say 
 If the wind drives the cloud, or cloud the wind?
 
 70 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 But long as man feels consciousness of choice, 
 
 Essential or fantastic, let man choose. 
 
 We feed not on the poisons we discover, 
 
 Nor fall upon the sword our wit hath sharpened. 
 
 Why then should man to matter fall a slave, 
 
 Being first so much its master that it yields 
 
 Its secrets to his seeking, nor reject 
 
 Its less ennobling aid and services ? 
 
 Let man do all things, but remain himself, 
 
 And, 'mid progressive splendour, still maintain 
 
 The lordly rule of simple appetite. 
 
 [Urania beckons to April, and they retire.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Was it by choice or accident you fixed 
 Your home in this delectable retreat ? 
 And, having proved it, are you well content 
 With your aloof and narrow territory ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Life is as large as we ourselves do make it. 
 But little room is needed for the scope 
 Of individual faculty, desire, 
 And practicable duty. If we fill
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 71 
 
 More space than nature hath allotted us, 
 We waste ourselves in tenuous expansion, 
 And all our force but drifts to feebleness. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And are you happy ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yes, if happiness 
 Be to have little, but to want no more, 
 And know, withal, this little is the sum 
 Of all worth having. Work, Love, Nature, Art, 
 From these the sane intelligence constructs 
 The four-walled citadel wherein it dwells 
 Impregnable to Fate. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But not to Death ! 
 Patient besieger who invests us all, 
 And starves all out at length. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yet not to him 
 The fortress is surrendered. It is held 
 By all the wise and brave whose progeny,
 
 72 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Or others by their high example taught, 
 Retain the key of life, and leave death still 
 Encamped without. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Are you then satisfied 
 To bid farewell to Work, Love, Nature, Art, 
 Remitting these to others, while you pass 
 Into the loveless and unnatural ground, 
 Where you will work no more, and storied stone, 
 Is Art's last word to you, you will not hear ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 There was a time I had a feud with Death. 
 The hardest lesson wisdom has to learn 
 Is, having learnt to love and reverence life, 
 To learn serenely to relinquish it. 
 We do not purchase life ; it is a gift, 
 Which we are free to forfeit, when we will, 
 Unto the Unseen Hand that gave it us. 
 The wise, the brave, retain it as a boon 
 Until the Giver himself demands it back. 
 Behold to what a goodly world we come ! 
 For us the spacious bounty of the air,
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 73 
 
 The impregnable pavilion of heaven, 
 
 And silent muster of the disciplined stars. 
 
 For us the sun replenished, and for us 
 
 The punctual patience of the lonely moon ; 
 
 The planetary seasons moving round 
 
 Their stately soundless orbits, fostering life 
 
 In blade, leaf, flower, blossom, and reddening fruit ; 
 
 The mountains motionless, the mobile sea, 
 
 Freshness of dawn and frankincense of eve, 
 
 And vestal hush of meditative night. 
 
 Paupers we come into a world prepared 
 
 As for some regal guest ; prepared, arrayed, 
 
 With temples, shrines, and statues of the gods, 
 
 Cathedrals where unfaltering twilight dwells, 
 
 Subduing souls to sympathy and prayer : 
 
 Lakes, woods, and waterfalls, and cities girt 
 
 With walls majestic circling sumptuous tombs 
 
 Of sceptres superseded, thrones interred, 
 
 Prodigious pageant open to us all. 
 
 And if to greet the superficial sense 
 
 Of each fresh, eager, welcome visitant, 
 
 These splendours are unfolded, think of those, 
 
 More precious, immaterial bequests, 
 
 Left by the mighty ancestors of thought :
 
 74 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Story and song in many a human tongue 
 
 Magnificently sounded, epics pitched 
 
 In high heroic key by bards that tuned 
 
 Their instruments to chariot wheels enlocked, 
 
 Helm-plumes unhorsed, and women wailing round 
 
 The wind-blown smoke of crackling funeral pyres. 
 
 For us, for all, who hither nothing bring 
 
 Save naked insignificance, the choir 
 
 Of archangelic poets have composed 
 
 Their universal music, stately hymn, 
 
 Mellifluous lyric, undulating ode, 
 
 And tragedy tremendous steadying life 
 
 With awful issues. Sages, seers, and saints, 
 
 Sounders of earth and searchers of the sky, 
 
 Heroes and hierophants, have left behind 
 
 The testament of science, wisdom, love. 
 
 Compared with this inheritance, bequeathed 
 
 By all to each, the wisest, worthiest, 
 
 And most improving occupant of life, 
 
 Can leave but little ; while the barren herd, 
 
 Who feed upon the pasture of all time, 
 
 Live sleek, lie soft, lament themselves, and die, 
 
 Are thankless wastrels.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 75 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 From your glowing picture 
 Life's shadows are omitted ; pain and woe, 
 Carnage, disease, man's discontent with man, 
 The instability of love, the blight, 
 The melancholy mildew, swift or slow, 
 That blasts the fairest blossoms of the heart, 
 Pitiful yearning, pitiless denial, 
 Vast vista leading nowhere ! 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 You forget, 
 The moon casts darker shadows than the sun, 
 Having less light. Seen with meridian gaze, 
 The proud exclusive privilege of grief, 
 The sovereignty of sorrow throning man 
 Above the unsentient and the oblivious world, 
 His disappointments, failures, doubts, regrets, 
 Ennoble his mortality, and keep 
 His aspirations humble, tender, quick 
 To understand and sympathise with weakness. 
 Let cloudy sorrow gather as it may, 
 So long as hope, though lowly, doth not set,
 
 76 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Upon the gloomy wrack behold ! there shines 
 The rainbow of man's tears. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alas ! I fear 
 These wise reflections comfort but the wise. 
 The poor, the lowly, who inherit woe, 
 Yet share not time's magnificent bequests, 
 In such a rich dispensary will find 
 Small medicine for their ills. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 The poor, the lowly, 
 Are wiser than our leisured wisdom deems. 
 Allotted tasks and homely wants secrete 
 No pessimistic poison. Life is well 
 Would we leave life alone. 'Tis restless thought, 
 Having no home nor duties definite, 
 Hence free to range and raven where it will, 
 Disturbs weak hearts with vague imaginings. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Go preach this in the highway, and be stoned. 
 
 [Urania and April return, carrying flowers and an empty 
 basket. This they fill with what is left of the meal.]
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST n 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Into the highway Wisdom wanders not, 
 But works within the ample territory 
 Annexed unto its threshold. Each can do 
 But little, but if each would do that little, 
 All would be done. The individual task 
 Is for the individual life enough, 
 And, if performed ungrudgingly, absolves 
 The individual conscience. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 May I ask 
 Where go you with your basket and your flowers ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 There is no lovelier hamlet in the land 
 
 Than that to which they wend. Its antique church, 
 
 Perched on the summit of a grassy hill, 
 
 Looks down on cottage garden, cottage roof, 
 
 Almshouse and school, sawpit, and forge, and inn, 
 
 Picture of rustic plenty, health, and peace. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Yet sickness sometimes lifts the humble latch, 
 And behind woodbined threshold penury lurks,
 
 78 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 And ever do we find some pallid hand 
 Outstretched to hail our coming. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 And we meet 
 No wicked King upon the way to change 
 The food to flowers, and so we carry these 
 To deck the village chancel, entering through 
 Its lowly Door of Humility. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Fare you well, 
 Sweet fosterling of Spring ; and when I come, 
 If come I may, where blithely you abide, 
 May I find April always ! 
 
 [He lifts her up and kisses her, then turns to Urania.] 
 
 Gracious maiden, 
 Who beautify life's burdens, and ennoble 
 Life's lowliest offices, I pray you deign 
 Take my poor homage with my richest thanks. 
 [He mounts his horse, and rides homeward through the forest.] 
 I ! I have no more youth than autumn hath, 
 When time, with useful sickle in his hand, 
 Bends to his homely reaping. Love and I
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 79 
 
 Are all a hot and parching summer apart, 
 And I await the winter. . . . Never again ! 
 Though well I can recall the sweetness of it : 
 The moonlight, and the starlight, and the song 
 Of dewy-throated nightingale — O, I know, 
 Even as the nightingale itself, each note, 
 Each glad, sad, sharp, unsatisfying note, 
 That ripples up the clear ascent of love, 
 But to subside and sink into itself, 
 Silent as bare volcano that no more 
 Surges, yet sleeps not, and still brooding low 
 In its own hollow entrails, slow consumes 
 Itself to ashes. Cheat ! thief ! murderer ! liar ! 
 Thou art the cruellest, bitterest thing in the world, 
 The poisonous honey in the fleshly flower. 
 Yet why not cull the flower itself and leave 
 The poison undistilled ? Thus do the wise. 
 Am I a child, I should do otherwise ? 
 'Tis but a choice of bitters. But she ! But she ? 
 O, she hath morning in her gaze, and noon 
 For garland and for girdle. Is she fixed, 
 Deep-rooted in her garden, hedged round 
 Against the wildwood passion of her kind ? 
 Pluck strongly, and the stalk of prudence snaps.
 
 So FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Savour the sweetness, wear, then fling away. . . . 
 This is the place that nimble vagabond 
 Chose for his vanishing. . . . What ho! 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 The voice 
 
 Sounds like an echo, yet not twin to mine. 
 
 The answering woodland is transmuting it, 
 
 Making it fanciful. 
 
 [He rides on, at a foot's pace, and shortly perceives Abaddon 
 sitting on a stile.] 
 
 Ha ! there you sit, 
 As idle as a dial when the sun 
 
 Sulks in the clouds. Have none, then, smiled on you 
 Since late we parted ? Any one would think 
 It is the very season made for selling. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 And so it is. But, apprehend you not, 
 When misselthrushes flute and maidens quit 
 The pruning of their roses to attend 
 A dulcet duke, I trade by deputy.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST Si 
 
 Hath she not all the heavens in her face, 
 Yet earth in every footstep ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 She is faii- 
 As dewdrops in the morning. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Tell her that, 
 And I will hang my pack upon a tree, 
 And whistle through the greenwood, unconcerned, 
 Your summer pensioner. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And wherefore so ? 
 You would not sell one ribbon more or less, 
 For love-song of my chanting. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Should I not? 
 You are not in the trade, so do not know. 
 All lovers are my partners when they woo : 
 The partnership's dissolved when once they wed, 
 And find that marriage is a bankrupt stock. 
 
 G
 
 82 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 The Pride of Life ! The Pride of Life ! 
 
 Every maid would be a wife, 
 
 For the pretty things Love dangles, 
 
 Kisses, compliments, and bangles, 
 
 On the road in such profusion, 
 
 To the goal of disillusion. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Who spoke of marriage ? 'Tis a musty word. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Keep yourself fresh, lord duke. I see you know. 
 
 Return and woo Urania in her garden, 
 
 When nubile rose and modest mignonette 
 
 Scent the white chamber of a maiden's mind 
 
 With treacherous ecstasy. My duty to you. 
 
 [He leaps from the stile, and vanishes into the wood singing.] 
 
 But again spring music and summer skies, 
 
 Sing, yaffel, sing from tree to tree, 
 
 Will teach the witless and dupe the wise ; 
 
 For love is the sorrow that never dies : 
 
 Sing, yaffel, sing from tree to tree. 
 
 [Fortunatus breaks into a rapid trot, not drawing rein till he 
 reaches his own lands, shortly after sunset. Then, riding 
 slowly, he shortly recites aloud.]
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 83 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 If I again could love, it would be you, 
 Who to my life both fruit and blossom bring, 
 Who make the new seem old, the old seem new, 
 Content my Autumn, and recall my Spring. 
 With you, if any, it were sweet to share 
 The tender-torturing tumults of the heart ; 
 But I the pain of loving cannot bear, 
 Whose bare remembrance makes old wounds to smart. 
 For yours to live with mine, your love must die, 
 Since I am only living with the dead : 
 Therefore, sweet heart, forgive me if that I 
 Lay 071 the pillow of the past my head. 
 Be love celestial lethe, then Above 
 Love me, and you shall learn if I can love. 
 
 Whence came that far-off sonnet, half true, half false, 
 
 Half actual, half fantastic ? Did it issue 
 
 From silent mechanism, inly made 
 
 By the contriving Past ? Let but the Present 
 
 Touch the right stop, and straight the tune is played, 
 
 In scrannel fashion. 'Tis the first — since when ? 
 
 Urania lured that music from the hollow
 
 84 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Of this poor unused instrument. Urania ! 
 
 vowelled name, just linked with consonants, 
 As in the clustered Canterbury-bell 
 
 The threading stalk is smothered by the flowers ! 
 
 SCENE V 
 
 [In Urania's chamber.] 
 
 april {sitting up in her crib). 
 
 Was he not kind and gentle ? How I wish 
 
 1 knew who he is, that I might pray for him, 
 Adding his name to yours and grandpapa's. 
 You love him, do you not ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Love is a word 
 Best kept for home and those high homeless thoughts 
 We meditate but see not. I love you, 
 My dear, near April, Father, and my Garden, 
 The poor, the dead, all that is sad or noble, 
 Famed or afar. Between the two extremes 
 Of close and unattainable there lies 
 A world of liking, sweet, but not of love. 
 He is a stranger.
 
 scene v THE PESSIMIST 85 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 But if he lived with us — 
 I almost think he would, if grand-dad asked him — 
 Then you could love him ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Maybe. Good-night. Sleep sound. 
 
 We'll talk of that to-morrow. 
 
 [She kisses April, who settles herself to sleep, and then walks 
 to the open window and listens to the nightingales.] 
 
 urania (to herself). 
 
 Childhood drowns 
 The fancies of to-day in rippling slumber, 
 Waking to-morrow unto fresh affections. 
 But love, if once matured within the mind, 
 Is love to-day, to-morrow, and for ever. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Read me to sleep, Urania. I am wakeful. 
 
 [Urania takes up a volume that lies on a table by the side of 
 her own bed, opens it, and reads aloud.] 
 
 A summons to my slumbering spirit came. 
 
 Whereat I rose a?id folloived. Then I saw
 
 86 FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Star after star, too numberless to name, 
 In orderly procession onward draw. 
 
 Following the trail of a down- trending moon, 
 They chanted to some unseen Hand that played, 
 
 Quiring withal so sovranly in tune, 
 
 That silence was the only sound they made. 
 
 I fain had into slumber back withdrawn, 
 
 Awed unto dread : when lo ! arresting sight ! 
 
 Rapt in a dream, slow-moving toward the dawn, 
 Past me there swept the coroneted Night. 
 [She sees April has fallen asleep.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Asleep ! how swift she hath been lullabied 
 By that she understands not ! Thus it is. 
 Tis the unknown that soothes and folds us round 
 With its dark curtain. To the known we wake, 
 To find it inefficient. 
 
 [She returns to the open window and again gazes out.] 
 
 " Rapt in a dream, slow-moving toward the dawn." 
 Who wrote that must be noble. But who wrote it ? 
 Again the Unknown, making impossible 
 All known, ignoble love !
 
 scene vi THE PESSIMIST 87 
 
 SCENE VI 
 
 [The DuKE'sJibrary.] 
 
 fortunatus {asleep in a chair, and talking in 
 
 his sleep). 
 
 Why do you visit me to-night, lost sweet, 
 
 With all your golden hair dishevelled to your feet ? 
 
 / never loved you. Like a cloud I passed 
 
 Over your life, an instant overcast, 
 
 Then brilliantly nuptialled. Now you sleep 
 
 Where waves as blue as veins in your white hand 
 
 Make silvery music upon golden sand, 
 
 And seamews 
 
 Dear little saint, chaste and simple, 
 
 Cloistered in a snow-white wimple, 
 
 Guarding your rebellious hair, 
 
 Come you from the Heaven above me, 
 
 Now at last to own you love me ? — 
 
 Loved me all the while, but dared not 
 
 Sanctify the doubts you shared not ; 
 
 Dying of a wish unspoken, 
 
 With a heart — broken — broken — broken.
 
 88 . FORTUNATUS act i 
 
 Love is foolish, Fate is wise : 
 Back to your grave and Paradise ! 
 Or who knows what yet might be ? 
 No ! I have forgotten thee. 
 
 Medusa-Messalina ! dual-christened, 
 
 Yes ! 'twas like that the slim snakes hissed and 
 
 glistened, 
 When thou, accurst of Wisdom, dragged me prone, 
 And made my heart as rocky as thine own. 
 Whence reekest thou, lovely lascivious witch ? — 
 I lust thee not. Back to thy nether pitch ! 
 
 Poor little wilted flower! Wherefore on me 
 Settled the fluttering wing of thy affections ? 
 I froze into myself, but thou would'st follow, 
 Only to find it hollow — hollow — hollow. 
 Yet in that sepulchre thou layest warm, 
 With palpitating heart within a marble arm. 
 Fond foolish fosterling of barren love, 
 A stranger to the last, where hast thou gone ? 
 
 That does not rhyme. I once had the trick. 
 Now I suppose it too has gone — gone with love? 
 Why do not love and gone rhyme ? There is reason
 
 SCENE VI 
 
 THE PESSIMIST 89 
 
 in them, and kinship. Love rhymes with above ; yet 
 they are a universe apart. Love should rhyme with 
 
 Urania ! Urania rhymes with nothing. And 
 
 yet What a misleading thing is verse! Lust 
 
 chimes with trust; ay, but with dust also. That's 
 the proper ending. 
 
 See ! they come ! . . . tripping, trooping, 
 Winged and wanton, swerving, swooping, 
 Singly now, and now together, 
 Waving torch and tender tether : 
 Round me, near me, now retreating, 
 Pupils flashing, bosoms beating, 
 Lissom limbs and languid bodies, 
 Each a momentary goddess ! 
 You^ — and you — and you — the last one 
 Dissipating every past one ! 
 These in velvet, those in cotton, 
 Fancied, fondled, and forgotten : 
 This the fresh, and that the fashion — 
 What a carnival of passion ! 
 
 No ! touch me not ! I loathe your sterile kisses. 
 
 My lips are icicles, that will not melt 
 
 To torrid tempters ; and my veins are bloodless.
 
 go FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST act i 
 
 'Twas you — yes, you ! — and you ! — that drained them 
 
 dry. 
 Away ! there is no charm nor incantation 
 In the foul philtres of lubricity 
 To stir the disillusioned : None of you ! 
 No ! none ! I say ! . . . Urania ! . . . These roses 
 
 [He slowly wakes.] 
 
 Not in her garden ! Yet I deemed I was. 
 
 Whose garden was it, then ? Where am I now ? . . . 
 
 Asleep and dreaming in my chair ! . . . To bed ! 
 
 END OF ACT I
 
 ACT II 
 SCENE I 
 
 [In Franklin's cottage. Urania alone in the kitchen, 
 baking, and shaping the dough into loaves.] 
 
 urania {singing). 
 Now that milch-cows chew the cud, 
 
 Everywhere are roses, roses ; 
 Here a-btow, and there a-bud, 
 
 Here in pairs, and there in posies. 
 Roses from the gable's cliff 
 
 With pale flaky petals strowing 
 All the garden path, as if 
 
 Frolic Summer took to snowing. 
 
 [There is a knock at the outer door.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Enter and welcome. I am too intent
 
 92 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 To greet you at the threshold. Enter, I say. 
 Nor loaf nor oven will wait ; so pass within. 
 [Abaddon enters.] 
 
 urania (going on with her work). 
 The very visitor I wanted. 
 
 abaddon (aside). 
 So! 
 The spell has worked prodigiously. (To Urania) 
 
 Fair lady, 
 I in my pack to-day have gauds so deft, 
 They would make plainness comely, slattern limbs 
 Natty and trim as Venus when she rose 
 Up from her rippling pillow on the sea, 
 Flushed with the rosy daintiness of dawn, 
 With her own mould for corset, and the fringe 
 Of wind-blown lace for flounce and furbelow. 
 
 [He puts his pack on the table, and opens it.] 
 Now, look on this cuirass ! 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Please mind my loaves, 
 [She puts them, one after the other, in the oven.] 
 I'll heed you presently.
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 93 
 
 abaddon (holding up the cuirass). 
 
 See ! they who clasp 
 This firm but frolic jerkin to their waist, 
 Need be no more beholden unto Nature, 
 Who is an artist accidentally, 
 As sooth she was when she imagined You, 
 But far too often works with niggard hand, 
 Or else the plastic matter of the flesh 
 Disposes disproportionately. Now this, 
 This animated breast, compelling buckler — 
 Look on them well ! — appear as if repoussed 
 Upon the very lines of Juno's mould, 
 Its dimpled crevices and swelling curves, 
 A paragon of rounded sensuousness. 
 
 URANIA {turning round, after having put the last 
 loaf in the oven). 
 
 And do they wear that lubricating lie, 
 That fleshless falsehood ! Palpitating maids 
 Puff themselves out with hollow buxomness, 
 To lead some breathless gaby at their heels 
 A scentless paper-chase ! You might as well 
 Stick candles in the sockets of a skull, 
 And swear it lives. Pack up your trumpery.
 
 94 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 I thought you wanted me. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 And so I did ; 
 But for the marketing of honest stuff, 
 To make sweet childhood simpler : something plain, 
 Rustic, and true, yet best of all its sort, 
 Nowise inferior, though the sort be scorned 
 By shoddy splendour. 
 
 [He shows her summer stuffs for gowns.] 
 
 urania {choosing one of them). 
 
 This comports with her, 
 And with her frolic limbs will fall and flow, 
 Her natural drapery. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Nothing for yourself? 
 
 The Duke will come again. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 What duke ?
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 95 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Why, he 
 That cast a shoe and lingered with you while 
 The dial darkened onward, nor bethought 
 To heed the admonition of its shadow. 
 That was Duke Fortunatus. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Was it ? Well ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Should he return, as verily he will, 
 
 Would you not like to look your comeliest ? 
 
 A duke ! a Duke ! 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 His name will not behold me, 
 But he himself; and, should he come again, 
 Like any other accidental guest, 
 Will find me what I am. 
 
 [She folds up the material, and pays for it.] 
 
 Thank you. And now, 
 You to your outer work, and I to mine. 
 Stay, I will fetch a horn of home-brewed ale, 
 To speed you on your way.
 
 96 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 abaddon {alone). 
 
 How good they smell, 
 These household crusts a-baking ! Judged by them, 
 There's not a scent in my distillery, 
 But savours of the polecat. 
 
 [Urania returns with a horn of ale.] 
 
 abaddon {having quaffed it). 
 
 My reverence, lady. 
 
 [He shoulders his pack and departs. Urania gives a look at 
 the loaves in the oven, then examines afresh the stuff 
 she has bought, gets her scissors, and begins cutting it.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 How like her name my fosterling will look, 
 Frocked in this pretty stuff ! Like apple-blossom 
 On tender tree not yet allowed to bear 
 Burden of fruit, its daintiness will show 
 Fair promise of a ripeness yet to be. 
 The strange untimely winter of his mind 
 Melted before the sunniness and song 
 Of her unclouded nature ; and her heart 
 Seemed further to expand with his expansion. 
 I think they loved each other at first sight,
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 97 
 
 So must I make her comely to his gaze, 
 
 To please them both. . . . So he is Duke Fortunatus. 
 
 I mind me of the name. These designations 
 
 Are advertised by every common tongue, 
 
 Which, seeming thus familiar with the far, 
 
 Feign for themselves in turn a false distinction. 
 
 He needs no label to be recognised. 
 
 Urbanity was in his gait and speech, 
 
 By sadness more ennobled. 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 [As Abaddon reaches the garden gate he meets Fortunatus 
 just dismounting.] 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Good morrow to your Grace. A goodly day. 
 Have you so quickly cast another shoe, 
 Here not a summer month ago ? Mefears 
 Your farrier is a fumbler. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Pride of Life ! 
 Be that the name by which you still are known. 
 
 H
 
 c;8 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 It is, where I just come from. But for you 
 
 I have another. Lust of the Flesh, we call it. 
 
 The Pagan Proteus and the Christian Devil 
 
 Are kin, and sooth all Nature's progeny 
 
 Are wonderfully like. Without an alias, 
 
 How could I journey through this thankless world 
 
 That brands me an impostor, and would fain 
 
 Curtail my freedom ? Hence when Vice awhile 
 
 Falls out of fashion, and the chase grows hot, 
 
 I fling away my feathers, and appear 
 
 In Virtue's vestments grave-caparisoned. 
 
 That answers just as well. For mortal states, 
 
 Distorted from their birth, perforce must use 
 
 All things awry, and Virtue's very self, 
 
 Fooled to the perch and apex of perfection 
 
 By my complacency — a trick I have — 
 
 Straight pitches headlong. Now, you are not 
 
 virtuous, 
 So need I practise no disguise with you. 
 Lust of the Flesh — behold me ! She's within, 
 Baking with alabaster arms the loaves 
 Of household continence. She is alone.
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 99 
 
 In ! in ! And Pride of Life ; and Lust of the Flesh, 
 Twin names, godfather your prosperity ! 
 
 [He goes on his way, and Fortunatus leads his horse to the 
 stable. As he does so, he hears Urania singing.] 
 
 Now that milch-cows chew the cud, 
 
 Everywhere are roses, roses ; 
 Here a-bloiv, and there a-bud, 
 
 Here in fairs, and there in posies. 
 Rosesjrom the gable's cliff 
 
 With pale flaky petals strowing 
 All the garden-paths, as if 
 
 Frolic Summer took to snowing. 
 
 Poses crimson, roses white, 
 
 Deadly pale or lively blushing, 
 Both in love with June at sight ; 
 
 So their maiden blood is rushing 
 To and fro in hope to hide 
 
 Tumult it but thus discloses. 
 Bring the Bridegroom to the Bride ! 
 
 Everywhere are roses, roses. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How sweet is unsophisticated song, 
 Heard accidentally ; for then the voice,
 
 IOO 
 
 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 Having no vain collusion with the ear, 
 Sounds innocently true. Sing on ! sing on ! 
 Till there be nothing in the midsummer air 
 Save You, and roses. 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Over your lintel Greeting is engraved, 
 And so I enter. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 All may enter here, 
 Who want its inmates. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And I wanted you, 
 Be the avowal not too frank,— and April : 
 April, that plaything of the primroses, 
 Your blithe unmothered sock-lamb of the Spring, 
 Who crept into my heart that afternoon, 
 And warmed its wintriness. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 She is happy, haying 
 Thinking 'tis she that puts the swathes a-cock,
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 101 
 
 And piles them on the wain ; her grand-dad's shadow, 
 
 As close and as superfluous ; yet, like it, 
 
 Gift of the sun himself. You will find them both 
 
 Out in the meadow to the right, beyond 
 
 The orchard-gate. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Will you not come with me ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 When I have done the work I have to do. 
 
 FORTUNATUS {looking at the stuff she has purchased 
 from ABADDON). 
 
 A woman's work ; right suitable, withal 
 More timely, is it not, for night than noon ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 You know women's hours, I see, our trysts with time, 
 And that the needle points to westering day, 
 And not due south, as now. Yet 'tis not that 
 Which keeps me from the hayfield, but this task, 
 
 [She opens the oven door.] 
 A King once did, and did it slovenly, 
 As I tell April.
 
 io2 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But his thoughts were fixed 
 
 '.->' 
 
 On far-off things. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 The nearest should be farthest 
 For uncrowned mortals ; and these homely pans 
 Forbid me go afield. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What pretty stuff ! 
 
 You bought it from Abaddon ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Instantly, 
 To make a frock for April, and he pressed 
 A thousand things upon me, newly coined 
 To cog the curious. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 He knows human nature. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Then am I neither natural nor human, 
 For I bought nothing.
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 103 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 This stuff proves you both. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Why are you wise enough to reason thus, 
 And yet at heart keep wintry ? Wisdom lends 
 Colour and temperature to every season, 
 Leading the footsteps of subservient time 
 Which way it will. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Unwisely then have I 
 Followed the slow irreparable days, 
 Knowing not where nor whither, till they led 
 My bridle to your porch ; since when, my thoughts 
 Have journeyed here so often, that my feet 
 Were forced at length to bear them company. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Timely you come. I want a messenger 
 To carry to the field the mid-day meal. 
 'Tis near the stroke, and everything is ready, 
 The pasties hot, the cider freshly drawn, — 
 All, save a carrier.
 
 104 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then give me the basket. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 There ! shoulder it like that. And, mind, your 
 
 thoughts 
 Be on the way not truant to your task. 
 That very thoughtlessness the thoughtful scorn 
 In life's meek sumpters, guarantees our loads 
 Securely to their goal. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then will I think 
 Of nothing but the pasties and the cider, 
 Unless it be your coming, when your loaves 
 Turn nut-brown in the baking. 
 
 SCENE IV 
 
 [The hay field.] 
 
 APRIL 
 
 See, grand-dad, see ! 
 Dinner is coming. Who is it that brings it ? 
 [She runs forward to meet Fortunatus.]
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 105 
 
 O, it is you ! I had begun to think 
 You had forgotten grand-dad and Urania. 
 
 fortunatus (putting down the basket, lifting her in 
 his arms, and kissing her). 
 
 And you as well ! moist wilding of the woods, 
 Your absence has been near me all the while. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I am so glad you have come. But let me help. 
 It is too heavy for you to carry alone. 
 
 franklin {approaching them). 
 Welcome, once more ! and welcome none the less 
 For what you bring. You'll share our meal with us ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Gladly, if April's appetite can spare 
 
 A place for yet a third. 
 
 [They take their repast together, under a hedgerow ; at the end 
 of which APRIL runs about, playing, while FORTUNATUS 
 and Franklin remain seated.] 
 
 franklin (taking a volume of '" Horace" from the 
 bottom of the basket). 
 
 The basket was not emptied ; one more dish 
 Lurks at the bottom, scarcely one to tempt
 
 106 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 April's untutored palate, doubtless packed 
 Before Urania knew fair chance had sent 
 Yet more congenial company than this, 
 To round the restful hour with. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Read it me. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Nunc mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor. 
 
 [Closing the book.] 
 Man is the lord, not slave, of circumstance. 
 If the rich past bequeath him only leisure, 
 He to that precious legacy should add 
 The gain of labour ; while if labour be 
 His sole inheritance, he wisely will 
 Buy leisure with its superfluity. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Which have you done ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 The first, — if selfishly, 
 As sometimes I am hazarded to think, 
 Since that the burden I evaded falls 
 On other shoulders.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 107 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Do you then repent you ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 No ; for that burden, burdensome to me, 
 To most men seems the lightest load that life 
 Can lay on mortals, and, if found too heavy, 
 May be laid down, since rank, wealth, idleness, 
 Are accidents not substance of our birth, 
 Mere garments to discard. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And have you found 
 In labour yoked with leisure full content ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yes. But observe, 'tis chosenly I live, 
 
 Not in compulsion ; for when growth once adds 
 
 Reason to instinct, man must understand 
 
 The Universe he lives in and himself, 
 
 Or find in Reason only a fresh load, 
 
 Badly adjusted. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How is he to know ?
 
 ioS FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 I did not speak of Knowledge. There are men, 
 Seem to know all things knowable, withal 
 Understand nothing ; even as though they had 
 Circled the earth and yet conceive it flat. 
 Tis Understanding that defines the march 
 Betwixt the wise and foolish. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 'What is wisdom ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 First to observe What Must Be, and obey it. 
 
 Next to discern What May Be, and to choose 
 
 Rightly among life's possibilities. 
 
 life is an opportunity ; and hence 
 
 It doth behove us never to confound 
 
 The real with the specious, but perceive 
 
 What is of value, what is valueless. 
 
 The rest pertains to Will, which, once convinced, 
 
 Convinced, I mean, with sovran certainty, 
 
 Perforce must follow Wisdom. That is all.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 109 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Yes, that is all. 'Tis little, yet 'tis much, 
 And few possess it. Yet, till seized by all, 
 Seems it not lack of charity to live 
 Content with having it ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Not so ! Remember 
 Obedience to What Must Be. No one man, 
 In the short transit of his single course, 
 Can hope to sway the millions of mankind. 
 But he can mould himself, and haply those 
 Who travel in his orbit, kindred, friends, 
 Unto them radiating wisdom's warmth, 
 Rejoiced to share it with them. Why should you, 
 Because the world is foolish, not be wise ? 
 Not cheerful, should it be perversely sad ? 
 Give winged Perseus shelter, Perseus sent 
 By Pallas' self, and he will not impose 
 The earth upon your shoulders, far too small 
 For that intolerable penal task. 
 Times there have been, and time will be again, 
 When Fancy offers to diseased mankind
 
 no FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 Prompt panaceas, sure phalansteries. 
 
 There are none such ; and faith in them begets 
 
 First disillusion, then despondency, 
 
 With all its pestilent base brood, lame doubt, 
 
 Distrust of greatness, disbelief in good, 
 
 Divorce betwixt the spirit and the flesh, 
 
 Adultery with matter ; — crowning curse, 
 
 Abortion of the pregnant boon of life. 
 
 To pamper self-complacency, and seem 
 
 Yet wearier and more worthless than they are, 
 
 The sufferers give their malady a new name, 
 
 And call it Pessimism. The thing is old. 
 
 Man's follies all are old, old is the cause, 
 
 Old is the remedy. Walk toward the light, 
 
 The shadows fall behind. Yet do not walk, 
 
 Imagining that it never will be night, 
 
 But love alike the darkness and the dawn, 
 
 And in your heart it always will be noon. 
 
 april (running up to franklin). 
 To work ! To work ! O lazy grand-dad ! See, 
 Urania comes. The village clock hath chimed, 
 And leaves you gossiping still. It is not I, 
 This time, that is the truant.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST in 
 
 FRANKLIN (rising). 
 
 Kiss me, sweet, 
 And I shall work the blither. 
 
 APRIL (to FORTUNATUS). 
 
 You will help ? 
 We want as many hands as we can get ; 
 For if you cannot take a swarm of bees, 
 We all can ted the hay. Why, look at me ! 
 
 [They all join in the haymaking, singing as they do so.] 
 
 APRIL sings. 
 When tlie lady smocks have faded, 
 When the lanes are arched and shaded, 
 When the Iambs have tost their fleeces, 
 When the mid-day heat increases, 
 When the keen-eyed kestrel hovers 
 Round the hatching pheasant-covers, 
 When, that now the grass is tedded, 
 Loving lad and lass are wedded, 
 And 7ve stack and thatch the clover, 
 Then the siveet springtime is over, 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Over, over,
 
 H2 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Over, over ; 
 
 ALL. 
 
 Then the sweet springtime is over. 
 
 urania sings. 
 
 When the brooks are brimmed and bawling, 
 When the leaves are fa/ling, f ailing, 
 When the threshing-flail is lifted, 
 When the wheat is bruised and sifted, 
 When the reaper swathes his sickle, 
 When the ciderpresses trickle, 
 When we rake and burn the rubble, 
 When the stripling hunts the stubble, 
 Watching Roy, and whistling Rover, 
 Then the summer days are over, 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Over, over, 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Over, over ; 
 
 ALL. 
 
 Then the summer days are over.
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 113 
 
 FRANKLIN StflgS. 
 
 When the slow team scoops the furrow, 
 
 Dormice sleep and hedgehogs burrow, 
 When the roasting chestnuts sputter, 
 When the house-slut bars the shutter, 
 When the rain-vat fills and freezes, 
 When the swineherd coughs and wheezes, 
 
 And when homeward to the haggard 
 Wind the cattle, lowing, laggard, 
 
 Followed by the drowsy drover. 
 
 Then the autumn days are over, 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Over, over, 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Over, over ; 
 
 ALL. 
 
 Then the autumn days are over. 
 
 FORTUNATUS SingS. 
 
 When the lambing ewes are hurdled, 
 When the cream floats rich and curdled,
 
 ii4 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 When the throstle trills and trebles, 
 When betwixt the shining pebbles 
 And the runnel past them sailing 
 Poise th, motionless, the grayling ; 
 When the primrose-sheeted covers 
 Couches are for dreaming lovers, 
 When the foal and broodmare hinny, 
 And in every cut-down spinney 
 Lady smocks grow mauve and mauver, 
 Then the winter days arc over, 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Over, over, 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Over, over ; 
 
 ALL. 
 
 Then the winter days are over. 
 
 [Franklin, Urania, and Fortunatus spend the afternoon 
 in the hayfield, helping to rake up the hay, and to pile 
 it on the wains. When the last cart is loaded, April, 
 flushed with exercise and excitement, runs up to 
 Fortunatus.]
 
 scene iv THE PESSIMIST 115 
 
 ArRIL 
 
 Now on this last load must we climb and ride, 
 Or 'twill be sure to heat. 
 
 [To FORTUNATUS.] 
 
 You must mount first, 
 And drag me and Urania after you. 
 O yes, Urania ! you must ride, you must, 
 While grand-dad leads the way. 
 
 [Fortunatus climbs to the top of the wain, and helps April 
 and Urania to do the same. The three then sit on 
 the hay, April on Fortunatus's knee, and with her 
 arm round his neck. Franklin walks at the horse's 
 head. The other haymakers cluster round the cart, 
 and, as it moves on to the stack, they all sing.] 
 
 Here's to him that groivs it, 
 
 Drink, lads, drink ! 
 
 That lays it in and mows it, 
 
 Clink, jugs, clink ! 
 
 To him that mows and makes it, 
 
 That scatters it a?id shakes it, 
 
 That turns, and teds, and rakes it, 
 Clink, jugs, clink / 
 
 Notv here's to him that stacks it, 
 
 Drink, lads, drink !
 
 n6 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 That thatches and that tacks it, 
 
 Clink, jugs, clink ! 
 That cuts it out for eating, 
 When March-dropped lambs are bleating, 
 And the slate-blue clouds are sleeting, 
 
 Drink, lads, drink ! 
 
 And here's to thane and yeoman, 
 
 Drink, lads, drink ! 
 
 To horseman and to bowman, 
 
 Clink, jugs, clink ! 
 
 To lofty and to low man, 
 
 Who bears a grudge to no man, 
 
 But flinches from no foeman, 
 
 Drink, lads, drink ! 
 
 SCENE V 
 
 [Urania's garden. Fortunatus is pacing the garden alone. 
 Urania comes out of the house, singing.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Everywhere are roses, roses ! 
 [Seeing Fortunatus, she breaks off her song.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Indeed there are, and roses without thorns,
 
 scene v THE PESSIMIST 117 
 
 Flouting the proverb. You have meshed delight, 
 And hold it captive. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 It is free to go, 
 But, having freedom of its wings, it stays, 
 Or, flitting, swift returns. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Even like me, 
 Who, loving liberty, am loth to leave 
 While you and all your roses are abloom. 
 Tell me their names. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Their names ? They have no name, 
 Save of my christening ; for I lack the craft 
 Of learned catalogues, so that I know them 
 Less by their fame than by their character. 
 This is " Unspoken Love." Eye it, and say 
 If it be sponsored fittingly. To me 
 Its many-folded petals seem to muffle 
 Some secret rapture beating at its heart. 
 Love told is loving tarnished, and this rose 
 Is of its nature unsurrendering.
 
 i iS FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 There's not the faintest blush upon its cheek, 
 And only by its incense could you guess 
 Its dreams are chastely passionate. It is 
 A rose enraptured with a thought unshaped, 
 A longing unconfessed. 
 
 fortunatus {holding out his hand). 
 
 Give me the rose, 
 That I may learn from it to hide my love, 
 Or kiss from it its secret. 
 
 Urania (touching another rose). 
 
 This is called 
 " Felicity of Home " : a round red rose, 
 Open as day, domestic as the night, 
 With never a fancy or a fault to hide ; 
 An unromantic rose, but O so wholesome — 
 Smell it, and say ! — so serviceable-sweet, 
 That when its frail virginity is shed, 
 Embalmed with orris, clove, angelica, 
 Woodruff, and marjoram, it hourly scents 
 And sanctifies a household, keeps it fresh, 
 And shows it orderly.
 
 scene v THE PESSIMIST 119 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 A rose too good 
 To gather for my wearing. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Then there is this, 
 Fantastically clept " The Poet's Dream " : 
 Yet not without some pardon, for it roams, 
 Rambles, and climbs, no pillar, porch, nor wall, 
 Will satisfy its vagrancy ; and should 
 You dare to prune its wanderings, or check 
 Its heavenward necessity, it dies. 
 And so I let it gipsy as it will, 
 Most careless and capricious of the roses, 
 And therefore most desired ; a rose too free 
 To bloom in bondage. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 O wise, wilding, rose ! . . . 
 You are a fairy godmother, and well 
 You moralise your garden. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 'Tis alive ; 
 And is not our morality akin
 
 i2o FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 With character of bird, and beast, and flower, 
 Our simpler forebears, in whose face we see 
 Foreshadowings of man's fuller, graver life ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You have the Secret. We are kindred all, 
 
 From mindless flower to flowering mind, and this, 
 
 Synopsis of the Past. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 And of the Future 
 Blossom and bud, perpetually opening. 
 With Man 'tis always Springtime. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But, with men, 
 Autumn or Winter, mostly. Nay, forgive me. 
 Here in your garden — anywhere with you — 
 It would be always Summer. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Rest you here, 
 Under the tangle of "The Poet's Dream." 
 Father will join you shortly. I must go, 
 And see if April sleeps.
 
 scene v THE PESSIMIST 121 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Abed already ! 
 I had hoped afresh to fold her on my knee 
 And feel again the velvet of her cheek. 
 Can I not see her sleeping ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Not to-day. 
 There is a feverish current in her veins, 
 Begotten of the haying and your presence. 
 She has for you a strange expectancy, 
 A strange remembering ; and your coming back, 
 After a timely absence that had seemed 
 To her imagination endless long, 
 Hath made mid summer simmer in her blood, 
 That will in sleep subside. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Kiss her for me, 
 Just where the slumbering forehead meets the hair. 
 And, sleeps she sound, come back ! come back ! — 
 
 yourself, 
 Sweeter than all your roses ! 
 
 [Urania goes into the house.]
 
 122 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 SCENE VI 
 
 [Franklin and Fortunatus at supper in the garden.] 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Our handmaid lingers ; we must sup without her. 
 Her little one is ailing, and she sits 
 By April's coverlet. She spread the cloth ; 
 'Tis we must eat the meal. 
 
 fortunatus. 
 
 'Tis often thus, 
 In this imperfectly adjusted world. 
 
 franklin. 
 It is for us to adjust it. Man is free 
 To make it odd or even. 
 
 fortunatus. 
 
 Is he free ? 
 An old-world new-world question, never solved. 
 
 franklin. 
 Yet surely it is soluble. Man's Will 
 Is finite like his other faculties,
 
 scene vi THE PESSIMIST 123 
 
 And, like his other faculties, may be 
 Dwarfed or expanded. We are bound, in part, 
 And, where we are bound, submission unto Fate 
 Is wise surrender. But, in part, we are free, 
 And, in that space of liberty, the Will 
 May be enlarged by watchful exercise. 
 No attribute is perfect : why then Will ? 
 Its imperfection is its life, its strength, 
 Keeping it active. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Action ! action ! action ! 
 The orator's receipt is likewise yours ; 
 And I by action have expelled to-day 
 Invaders of the mind's serenity. 
 But would all forms of action thus suffice ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 No, action may be noble or ignoble, 
 And only noble action breeds content, 
 Refreshment, and repose. The noblest is 
 The peasant's and the poet's : loftiest, this ; 
 That, the most even and accessible.
 
 124 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Have poets then refreshment and repose ? 
 Are they content ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Wise poets needs must be ; 
 Feeling most keenly, understanding best, 
 With ampler vision, deeper scrutiny, 
 And fantasy more soaring ; firmer grasp 
 Of this substantial earth, more frequent glimpse 
 Of that Beyond, the lightnings of the mind 
 Open by fitful flashes ; crowning all, 
 The articulate delight of Orphic song, 
 That seems to solve the riddles of the world 
 With musical responses. 
 
 FORTUNATUS 
 
 But, alas ! 
 Poets are few, and poets that are wise 
 Are — well, where are they ? Sleeping in their graves. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Or, haply, in their cradles ; and, meanwhile, 
 To be a peasant, wise or otherwise,
 
 scene vi THE PESSIMIST 125 
 
 Is no ill lot. The uncertain certainty 
 
 Of the recurring seasons gives to Will, 
 
 Action, and hope, unfailing appetite, 
 
 With ample fare to feed on. The last sheep 
 
 Was scarcely shorn, when scythes had to be ground ; 
 
 And almost ere the wheaten sheaves be stacked, 
 
 The hops, as though aware that food and drink 
 
 Are twin, if drink the younger, fill the air 
 
 With hints of homely banquets yet to be. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But leisure, change, and travel, — are not these 
 
 Auxiliaries of wisdom, full as needed 
 
 As work, and will, and Nature's discipline ? 
 
 FRAXKLIN. 
 
 Yes, lest we wax too trite and circular. 
 
 Thrice hath Urania pastured in the vales, 
 
 The cherry-peopled vales, moist, green, and cool, 
 
 Scooped by the rivalry of Alp with Alp, 
 
 And, times uncounted, have we reaped together 
 
 The endless harvest of the golden towns 
 
 That ripen in the sun of Italy ;
 
 126 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 And oftener still we have ploughed our native land 
 With the keen edge of curiosity, 
 Whetted by born affection. But the wise 
 Live anchored mostly, and in wanderings rare 
 Find confirmation of the bliss of home ; 
 And rustic service leaves them ample space 
 For helpful holiday. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But in these lone 
 Sequestered silences of chase and pool, 
 This wildwood realm of antiquated boughs, 
 But tenanted by foxglove and by fern, 
 Wherein you hedge your honeysuckled home, 
 Though Love might brood there aptly, only doves 
 Ponder on constancy, or dappled does, 
 Fair damsels of the forest-glade, disport 
 Their beauty inaccessible and gleam 
 Coy phantoms of possession. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Who shall say ? 
 In intervals of fancy have I deemed 
 That, in a world pure-fashioned by the Will,
 
 scene vi THE PESSIMIST 127 
 
 Love would be each one's secret, known of none 
 
 Save the beloved ; and the wise who are strong, 
 
 Even in this conditioned sphere of sense, 
 
 Nest like the nightingale, which, rarely seen, 
 
 In curtained joy instinctively abides. 
 
 Love is a rustic, almost a recluse, 
 
 A haunter of the gloaming and the dew, 
 
 Lit by the evening star. In arid towns, 
 
 Lust borrows the vocabulary of Love, 
 
 And masquerades romantically till 
 
 Day doffs the domino. Better abide, 
 
 Unloving and unloved, in lonely lanes, 
 
 Yet knowing well what Love is, than consort 
 
 With meretricious mummers. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 See, the moon, 
 Unneeded by the summer night, whose way 
 Is lighted half by lingering yesterday, 
 Half by approaching morrow, glistens through 
 The intercepting leaves. I must away, 
 And carry through the lengthening forest-tracks 
 Remembrance and regret.
 
 I2 8 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 SCENE VII 
 
 [FORTUNATUS is leading his horse to the garden gate. Just ere 
 he reaches it, Urania stands before him in the moonlight. 
 He tethers his horse, and leans with her over the gate.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 The moon will bear you company to-night, 
 And silver with her half-superfluous beams 
 Your sylvan journey. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Would that it were you, 
 Suspended not in Heaven, too like to her, 
 But earthly as myself, who shared my ride 
 Through fantasies of forest. 
 
 [He gazes at her.] 
 
 White, pure white, 
 
 All save the glimmering hair, and that one rose 
 Promoted to your breast ! Sleeps she, then, sound, 
 That you have quit your vigil to console 
 The solitary night ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 She slumbers, husht, 
 The kiss between her forehead and her hair,
 
 scene vii THE PESSIMIST 129 
 
 Remembered as your message, having stilled 
 The ripple of her questions. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Wherefore, then, 
 Roamed you in veiled felicity aloof, 
 Denying us your voice ? Our converse lacked 
 The minor key, too masculine throughout, 
 And therefore inconclusive. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 There are thoughts, 
 Need silence to be listened to, and such 
 Were mine to-night, unfitted to compete 
 With definite debate. 
 
 [Suddenly a nightingale sings overhead.] 
 How late in June 
 Flutes that contiguous nightingale, so soon 
 To flute no more ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alas ! romantic bird ! 
 Now buxom Summer swelters 'mong her swathes, 
 The homely misselthrush will sing you down, 
 And every ditty will be heard save yours. 
 
 K
 
 i 3 o FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Why dwell you on these contrasts, sad in thought, 
 
 And scarce, in language, manifest ? To me, 
 
 The nightingale is jocund as the lark, 
 
 The lark pathetic as the nightingale, 
 
 Both, sweet as sadness, sad as sweetness' self. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I wish that you could make my sadness sweet, 
 As well indeed you might. Within your voice 
 Despondency subsists not, and your thoughts, 
 Mildly imperious as the morning sun, 
 Banish from life its misty mournfulness. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 It is your fancy crowns me. Use it, rather, 
 To lift yourself unto the sovran throne 
 Of cheerful wisdom. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 So I might, if you 
 Would deign to be its consort, or permit 
 Me, lowlier," to be yours. Urania ! 
 I never thought to love again, or lose
 
 scene vii THE PESSIMIST 131 
 
 The sense of loneliness high longings breed, 
 Unshared, unsatisfied, so half forsworn. 
 Absolve me for that faithlessness, now I, 
 Beholding you, return unto my faith, 
 And, humble penitent, confess that Love, 
 Begotten by the mind upon the heart, 
 Not the mere waif of fantasy or sense, 
 Can liberate life's longings, and redeem 
 Material servitude. And yet — and yet — 
 What if the fancy, and the senses too, 
 Enforce their claim, and fervid youth revived 
 By spell of hazel hair, of hazel eyes, 
 Need the old words — "I love you ! — Sweet ! be mine !" — 
 No wonder that I stammer, for my heart 
 Is where my voice should be — the old, old words, 
 The old, old want, yet different from the old, 
 As you from all else differ — highest, best — 
 And, highest, best, most longed-for and most loved ! 
 [He lays his hand on hers.] 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Why did we listen to that nightingale 
 Or I to you ? We cannot answer it, 
 Though it be preternaturally sweet ;
 
 132 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 And I with selfish ears, spell-bound and husht, 
 Have hearkened to your heart, forgetting quite 
 Mine may not set its music unto yours. 
 
 [He withdraws his hand.] 
 Nay, do not take your tenderness away. 
 Listening, I sometimes think that you are he 
 Who found my nature long ago, and holds 
 It captive in his own. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Are you betrothed ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 I am betrothed to him, not he to me. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Knows he your troth ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 No, nor will ever know it, 
 Save some celestial accident reveal 
 Our oneness to each other. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 And shall this, 
 This mirage of the mind, this viewless vision,
 
 scene vii THE PESSIMIST 133 
 
 This covenant uncovcnanted, seal 
 The avenues of choice to living love, 
 Here faltering on your threshold, suing low 
 For leave to cross it ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Sue not, I beseech you ! 
 There is persuasion in your voice, and I 
 Must never be persuaded. O sir, see ! 
 It is not suitable that you should plead 
 To one who still would nothing have to give 
 Had she the giving of it. It is not mine, 
 Or — well, it should be yours. You are sad, but noble, 
 Your nobleness your own, while my poor wisdom 
 Is echoed from my sire. I am not wise ; 
 I am nothing, save, for a moment, the bright cheat 
 Imagination makes me. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 See you him often ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 I see him always ; were it not for him, 
 
 I should see nothing else. He hath become 
 
 A portion of my sight as of my thought.
 
 i 3 4 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 Hark ! how again yon nightingale propels 
 
 Its yearning upward ! 'Tis his voice I hear. 
 
 He wanders in the garden, he abides 
 
 In every rose ; and when the autumn leaves 
 
 Huddle in shallows of my winding walks, 
 
 I think myself his comfort, if he came, 
 
 As come he doth not, to keep winter warm. 
 
 Ofttimes I fancy April is his child, 
 
 No more a woodland waif unparented, 
 
 That I may love and tend her for his sake. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I would that I were he ! 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 I would you were ! 
 But if I falsely welcomed you for him, 
 He would be gone, and you have banished him. 
 How could I love you, then ? . . . Go — go — before— 
 Nay, stay a little while, that I may know 
 You quit me not with feet of bitterness. 
 I should have loved you, had I loved not him. 
 I was so happy : I am hapless now. 
 
 [She withdraws her hand, and half repels him.]
 
 scene vii THE PESSIMIST 135 
 
 There ! Go ! There is no magic in the moon 
 To lighten such a darkness ! 
 
 fortunatus (folding his arms round her, and looking 
 intently mto her face). 
 
 Nay ! attend 1 
 Be this not love, it mimics it so close, 
 I will not take your answer. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 But you must ! 
 I do not love you. 
 
 fortunatus {liberating her). 
 
 Wherefore should you love, 
 In deed or dream, you born but to be loved ? 
 It is a wasteful world, wherein we see 
 The loveliest apparitions suddenly dropped 
 By Time, the gaoler of Eternity, 
 Into the dark deep oubliette of death ; 
 And Time will be oblivious of this hour. 
 But when the elder whitens at your gate, 
 As now it doth, in undiscovered years, 
 And some belated nightingale laments
 
 136 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 The pity of this night . . . 
 
 Remember that I loved you. 
 
 [He kisses her forehead, mounts his horse, then looks back 
 
 a moment.] 
 
 Latest and loveliest of my dreams, farewell ! 
 
 SCENE VIII 
 
 [FORTUNATUS reins in his horse from a gallop, and advances 
 through the forest at a foot's pace.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 "There is no magic in the moon," she said, 
 "To lighten such a darkness." What is dark, 
 What, light? what, life? what, death? save shifting 
 
 shadows, 
 Now come, now gone, with movement meaningless ! 
 " I was so happy : I am hapless now." 
 That change will change afresh, to change again, 
 In sterile oscillation. Thus we pass, 
 With mere monotonous mutability, 
 From cradle unto sepulchre, the van 
 Of other shadows, fleeting as ourselves. 
 Yet the boughs seem more luminous to-night, 
 Because she lives ! Paceth she still the garden,
 
 scene viii THE PESSIMIST 137 
 
 Regretfully remindful ? or recurs 
 
 To him, the unforgotten ? Doth she gaze 
 
 On April's sleep, and her unravelled hair 
 
 Fall in unmurmuring ripples to her feet ? 
 
 Nay, but surmise no more : the truth 's enough ! 
 
 Imagination makes it but more bitter. 
 
 [He again breaks into a gallop, till he reaches a round clear- 
 ing in the forest, where he sees Abaddon sitting on the 
 ground, surrounded by a circle of twenty-four glowworms. 
 A u addon raises his hand deprecatingly, that the silence 
 may not be broken. Shortly he rises to his feet, with an 
 exclamation of impatience.] 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 I never knew that spell to fail before. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What spell, nocturnal wizard ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Sooth, the spell 
 Of male desire and female vanity, 
 The most infallible philtre ever brewed. 
 But you have thrown your vantages away, 
 And handicap my cunning. Why, an oaf 
 That never handled anything more dainty 
 Than the plough's tail, had done the business better.
 
 138 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What business, pray? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Your business, Duke, and mine : 
 Appropriation of as rare a piece 
 Of comeliness and virtue as the world 
 Has seen since Eve found Eden wearisome. 
 The Serpent managed better, though he had 
 No odds like yours. A maiden all recluse, 
 And yet to you accessible ; — to you ! — 
 A sultry summer night, scented and still, 
 Enchanted by the dewy moon, the wail 
 Of a fond faltering nightingale ; — what more 
 Could the most amorous pessimist conceive, 
 To second his seductions? 
 
 fortunatus {springing from his horse, and seizing 
 abaddon by the throat). 
 
 Fool or fiend ! 
 
 Caitiff or conjuror ! Do you dare avow 
 
 You eavesdropped to our colloquy, and lurked, 
 
 A listener at the gate ! 
 
 [Withdrawing his grip.] 
 
 Your windpipe's iron !
 
 scene vin THE PESSIMIST 139 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 You cannot choke the Devil. . . . Beside, good 
 
 Duke, 
 Mingle a little reason with your wrath. 
 How could I now conceivably be here, 
 Circled by these my shining servitors, 
 If I had ambushed by Urania's garden 
 To intercept your secret ? You have fled 
 From the lost battle hotly, for I heard 
 Your horse-hoofs hammering hollow on the sod 
 As I sate here divining. Come ! be fair. 
 We have been partners often, though you gave 
 But little thought to your auxiliary, 
 And many a melting morsel have you owed 
 To the concurrence of the Pride of Life, 
 When Lust of the Flesh unaided must have fed 
 On its own appetite. But now when I 
 Crave, just for once, your potency in turn, 
 You abdicate your eminence, and sue 
 In sentimental syllables as though 
 You were a mendicant and she a queen. 
 Why, a shock-headed yokel of the wain, 
 Concupiscent chawbacon, would have lagged
 
 140 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 Longer than you, seducing maiden pique 
 
 And curiosity to whet themselves 
 
 Upon the edge of waiting. Words — words — words ! 
 
 And with no action suited to the word ! 
 
 Oft thus are women wooed, but never won. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 True love is simple. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Ay, a simpleton, 
 And hence receives a simpleton's reward. 
 I do believe you would have married her ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What reverence offers, that I offered her, 
 Leaving her nature sovran arbiter 
 Anent the ceremonial shows of love. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 And happily she foils, by her refusal, 
 Your courtly homage. We are baffled, both ! 
 I by your simpleness, and you by hers. 
 Enough to vex a saint, do men not say ? 
 Then think how it must irritate the Devil !
 
 scene viii THE PESSIMIST 141 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Whom are you bent to injure ? her, or me ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 To injure ! Nay, you rate yourself too cheap. 
 
 You would have lured her most bewitchingly, 
 
 Had you but longed for her less, and she been lulled 
 
 By the enchantment of the luscious lie, 
 
 Till — well, till fancy flags. But you, an expert 
 
 In evanescent rapture, needs must crave 
 
 Monotony of wedlock, and exchange 
 
 A week of kisses for a life of yawns, 
 
 O Duke, turned dotard ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 You are the Devil indeed ! 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Reproach me not. I am the Pride of Life, 
 And follow my vocation. Where is the man, 
 Doglike submissive when you flout his trade, 
 As mine is flouted by Urania ? 
 Poor devil ! poor duke ! for you are flouted too, 
 And I disdained in lordly company.
 
 142 FORTUNATUS act 11 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What do you with those lanthorns of the ground, 
 Now when the moon monopolises heaven, 
 And every leaf whereon is globed the dew 
 Shines like a little cup of liquid light ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Because her too effulgent beams have paled 
 
 Heaven's dwarfer orbs, and these terrestrial stars, 
 
 Collated by my necromancy, yield 
 
 A kindred revelation. Not alone 
 
 By constellation or the wayward flight 
 
 Of wild goose and of mallard, or the croak 
 
 Of marish frog, or palimpsest of palm, 
 
 But by all correlated shows of life, 
 
 Movement, or law, can patient subtlety 
 
 Construct an alphabet whereby mind may 
 
 Surmise in part the vague significance 
 
 Of enigmatic Nature. . . . Test their power, 
 
 Propounding them some question. If they answer, 
 
 Their mellow phosphorescence comes and goes 
 
 In legible pulsations : they are ranged 
 
 In order alphabetical that rounds 
 
 To Omega from Alpha.
 
 scene viii THE PESSIMIST 143 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Who is he, 
 Urania loves ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 That, will they not disclose, 
 Save that you have some spell to me unknown 
 To intimidate their secret. I have plied 
 With incantations of the earth and air 
 Their steadfast cressets, and they will not wink 
 The faintest intimation. Hold have I none 
 Over the uncarnal motions of the mind, 
 Which, till allied with matter, do not find 
 A lurking-place in casual substances 
 That may betray them. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Ply them again, withal, 
 And bid them answer whom Urania loves. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Now the shunvorm slimes the pai '//, 
 Now the bat leaves belfry lath 
 And about the midgy air 
 Flitters for its midnight fare ;
 
 i 4 4 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 Now within the greasy hut 
 Woodman snores beside his slut, 
 Now the noiseless barn-owl flaps 
 Along rick and hedgerow-gaps, 
 Swerving where the shrewmouse naps ; 
 Now the mouldwarp quits its burrow, 
 Groping up the covered furrow 
 Till the knotted worms are seen 
 Glittering in the moonlight sheen ; 
 Now the flight-jar sits and saws, 
 And the vixen licks her paws, 
 Home-conic from the rifled roost ; 
 Now the mill-stream flows unsluiced ; 
 Now the hedgehog slinks for food 
 For its deaf and purblind brood, 
 Gnaws the viper by the tail, 
 Sucks the egg or sniffs the pail ; 
 Now the weevils cluster thick 
 Neath the puckered agaric ; 
 Every glowworm, light her link, 
 And, as I command you, wink 
 Who it is Urania loves / 
 
 See ! see ! their little cruses fill with fire,
 
 scene vin THE PESSIMIST 145 
 
 And flicker revelation. Read them ! quick ! 
 They answer— FORTUNATUS. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But She hath answered that she doth not love me. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 'Tis likelier that a woman lies than they, 
 
 Or that they ken what she herself ignores. 
 
 Ply them again — now — now that they are trim 
 
 To signify their secrets. . . . Sceptic duke ! 
 
 Let me interrogate their burnished wicks, 
 
 And force from them the undiscovered thoughts 
 
 That haunt the Underworld. Respond anew, 
 
 A\ "ho begat April, Springtime's castaway ? 
 
 Look ! look again ! how every lettered light, 
 
 Like to a coruscating topaz, flows, 
 
 Then ebbs with mystic meaning. Eye them sharp, 
 
 They answer— FORTUNATUS. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Press them then 
 Who was the mother that unmothered her, 
 Abandoned 'mong the bluebells ? 
 
 L
 
 146 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Look ! they swoon, 
 And darken in their sockets, as though you had, 
 By pressing them too close, extinguished them. 
 There ! they are out ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But conjure them again, 
 And make them throb oracularly till 
 That parentage be known. I'll ask no more. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 You might as well interrogate the stars 
 In day's meridian, as enforce their light 
 When once they are sunk and set. 
 
 [He gathers up the glowworms, and scatters them broadcast.] 
 
 Nay, let them keep 
 Their secret news in bank and holly-bush, 
 Till next I summon them. But come, your Grace, 
 We two might puzzle out, without their aid, 
 This mystery of motherhood, so you 
 Will call your past affections to the task. 
 Remember you The Nameless One ?
 
 scene viii THE PESSIMIST 147 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alack ! 
 Plainlier than any ever named or known. 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 Ay, ay, because she left you ; — you more wont 
 To leave than be relinquished. Men remember 
 When they're forgotten ; when remembered, they 
 Themselves forget. But wherefore did she quit you ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Because she sought to reign upon my hearth, 
 And share the sceptre of the marriage-ring, 
 And I denied her ; for in truth she was 
 No blossom of my plucking, but a flower 
 Another had culled and thankless thrown away 
 As children drop their posy once 'tis gathered. 
 Yet half the freshness of the bud still lurked 
 In her unhulled virginity, and since 
 I tenderly disposed her, she conceived 
 There was no abdication I would not 
 Sign for another smile, poor Nameless One !
 
 148 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 True was her tale then ! though they ofttimes lie, 
 Dissembling their own waywardness. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But how 
 
 Heard you her tale ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 She faded in my care. 
 The wriggling worms have got her beauty now, 
 Paying no tax for their propinquity, 
 Yet more familiar with her costly flesh 
 Than any the richest, rarest, of you all. 
 She loved you best, because you were a duke ; 
 And yet she loved you best. That way they love, 
 Just as they love to lie beneath a quilt 
 Of ostentatious softness. Had a Prince 
 But come her way, she would have loved him better. 
 But, since none did so — well, you were her Prince, 
 Until she could not wheedle you withal 
 To label her a Princess. Then she fled, 
 But not alone, projecting to return
 
 scene vni THE PESSIMIST 149 
 
 And cozen you more femininely when 
 
 The hope within her womb smiled on her breast. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What of the child ? 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 It smiled, but never there ! 
 Finding an orphan darkness in the light 
 Its mother gave it, as herself went out. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But what to you was mother, or babe, or 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 The Devil is not ungrateful, and I thus 
 Paid her for many an innocent her lips 
 Had kissed into perdition. By my pack 
 I know not, of the twain, if she or you 
 Have served more fruitfully the Pride of Life 
 And Lust of the Flesh ; and so I took the babe, 
 And, when matured to winsomeness, exposed 
 
 Nay 
 
 1
 
 iSo FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 Its dimples in the primroses where next 
 
 Urania, foresting, was timed to pass. 
 
 [A troop of unbroken colts come galloping through the 
 
 forest, and startle Fortunatus's horse. He goes to 
 
 quieten and secure it. Returning, he finds Abaddon 
 has vanished.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 fortunatus {mounting his horse). 
 
 I'll gallop through the forest, till I find 
 
 This juggling newsman of the night. 
 
 [As he breaks into a gallop, he sees, emerging from an 
 avenue, a hundred yards ahead, but at right angles to 
 that along which he is himself advancing, Abaddon, astride 
 of one of the wild colts, tearing along at full speed, fol- 
 lowed by the whole troop.] 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 What ho ! 
 
 ABADDON. 
 
 What ho ! lord duke ! Come on ! and race the 
 Devil !
 
 scene ix THE PESSIMIST 151 
 
 SCENE IX 
 
 [Urania's garden. URANIA is pacing slowly, in the moonlight ; 
 shortly she is joined by her father.] 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Is April sleeping ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Yes, refreshingly. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Observe you not a likeness in the curves 
 About her mouth and his, though plastic hers, 
 And his arrested by the serious years ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Mere fancy, father ! Rather should I say, 
 Were that not yet more fanciful, that he 
 In voice and lineament re-echoes you. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Your fancy for my fancy ; futile both : 
 
 Though verily I marvelled when to-day 
 
 He trolled our song, and chimed the final strophe
 
 152 FORTUNATUS act n 
 
 Familiarly as we ? I never knew 
 A voice that was not of my kindred chant 
 That local ditty carolled by my nurse, 
 And by me taught to April and to you. 
 Who may he be ? 
 
 URANIA, 
 
 He is Duke Fortunatus 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 That is he not ! . . . Urania, let us sit, 
 
 While I to you disclose what haply you 
 
 Will deem I might have whispered you before. 
 
 Hear first the tale, and, when the tale is told, 
 
 The plea shall follow. ... I am Duke Fortunatus ; 
 
 And thus it seems he must be of my kin. 
 
 Sick in my youth of splendour, but too weak 
 
 To bear its burdens sternly, I resolved 
 
 To shuffle that luxurious fardel off 
 
 To other shoulders, and myself assume, 
 
 Unknown to all, the lowlier tasks that mate 
 
 With Understanding and wise Happiness. 
 
 Perhaps it was a selfish abdication ; 
 
 Withal, a selfishness I cannot rue. 
 
 I vanished, and the world conceived me dead.
 
 scene ix THE PESSIMIST 153 
 
 The dukedom to a distant kinsman passed, 
 
 Who gloried in his trappings, but enjoyed 
 
 His harness briefly ; unto whom, 'twould seem, 
 
 Succeeded he we entertained to-day. 
 
 I to myself sufficiency reserved 
 
 For study and for travel ;— last, for home, 
 
 Here where your mother died and you were born. 
 
 Why did I hug my secret ? Sweet, forgive ! 
 
 But if upon the fantasies of pomp 
 
 Men gaze with clownish awe, men born with thews 
 
 And masculine conceptions, is it strange 
 
 That women, daintier in their nerves and needs, 
 
 Should reverence vulgar opulence, and rank 
 
 That gives to splendour grace and dignity ? 
 
 Nay, have it as you will ; perhaps I wronged you. 
 
 Perhaps I wronged your mother. But I gave, 
 
 Not the poor gauds you might have both regretted 
 
 And blamed me for withholding, but such wealth 
 
 As — nay, 'tis poor — but, rich enough for me, 
 
 And so I hoped, child, rich enough for you. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 'Tis wealth I would not barter for all titles 
 And pomp in the world.
 
 154 FORTUNATUS act ii 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yet now indeed you must ; 
 For I discern how deeply I have wronged him. 
 See ! I have laid upon his life a load 
 'Neath which he staggers ; so must I resume it, 
 Now I can carry it as though 'twere not, 
 And set him free, before it be too late, 
 To learn to walk erect. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 How sad he seems ! 
 So sad, that I myself could almost weep 
 His unsubstantial sorrow. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Find him woe. 
 His sense of happiness will wake when grief 
 Hath half withdrawn her curtain. Well, good-night, 
 And more of this to-morrow. 
 
 SCENE X 
 
 [Midnight. Urania's chamber.] 
 
 april (sleepily). 
 Urania, has he gone ? Ask him to come : 
 I want to say good-night before he goes.
 
 scene x THE PESSIMIST 155 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 He is deep within the forest, long ere this. 
 Hark ! that is midnight strikes. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I am so sorry. 
 When will he come again ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Nay, you must sleep. 
 Lie still, and close your eyes. 
 
 [April drops off again into slumber.] 
 
 Ay, when ? When ? When ! 
 " Latest and loveliest of my dreams, farewell ! " 
 'Twas thus he left me. We are dreamers, both. 
 Yet never farewell to mine ! which neither time 
 Nor the seductions of a visible presence 
 Can banish from my gaze. Had he but sued 
 Before the dedication of my thought 
 To one exclusive longing, it is sure 
 His heart's vibration would have sounded mine, 
 And made harmonious what's discordant now. 
 With what a lonely dignity he breathed 
 His hope, with what sad dignity resigned !
 
 156 FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST act n 
 
 O, I am crimsoned with confusion, when 
 
 I hear again his halting utterance 
 
 Accompany the nightingale, and think 
 
 'Tis he that asked, and I that dared withhold ! 
 
 And yet the consecrated past forbids 
 
 A less unnatural answer. 
 
 [She takes the volume out of which she previously read, and 
 folds it to her heart as she composes herself to sleep.] 
 
 O my love ! 
 Lie in the bosom of my sleep to-night, 
 So I may still be lapped in constancy, 
 And know no other dream but thee, — but thee ! 
 
 END OF ACT II
 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 [Urania's garden.] 
 
 Urania {alone at the gate). 
 
 Would he were here ! though haply, when he comes, 
 
 His presence will be only pitying pain. 
 
 No, now he is my kinsman. That saves all, 
 
 And he with that sweet bond will be content, 
 
 And love be loved in consanguinity. 
 
 Once that delirious dreams from April's sleep 
 
 Are patiently dissolved, how she will joy 
 
 To find he is no stranger. Hark ! . . . But no ! 
 
 We hear that which we listen for, and hope 
 
 Befools like fear. 
 
 [She leans over the gate, reading. As she does so, 
 FORTUNATUS gallops lip.]
 
 158 FORTUNATUS act hi 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How — how — is April ? Take me to her straight. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Forbear, a little while ! for, when she wakes, 
 
 The fever flames afresh, and thought of you, 
 
 So curiously dominant, recurs 
 
 Through her meanderings of speech and song. 
 
 I left her, sleeping, but a moment since, 
 
 To hearken for your hoofs. I little deemed, 
 
 When yesternight I heard them faint and fade 
 
 Into the forest avenues, I should 
 
 So soon again be straining toward their tread. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I should have come unsummoned, though your 
 
 message 
 Quickened my advent. For my midnight ride 
 Through the illuminated woodland brought 
 Pathetic revelation which your ears 
 Must hearken, and your tenderness forgive. 
 I — I — am April's father !
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 159 
 
 Urania [starting back). 
 
 And her mother ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Is where that father oft would fain have been, 
 And, but for April, now too fain would be, 
 Absolved in death. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 You loved her? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 That, I did not ; 
 Or loved her — well, as men too often love, 
 When haplessly they may not love at all, 
 Yet cannot live without love's counterfeit. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 But how could you forsake her, when her life 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Forsake her ? Nay, you wrong me. It was she 
 Who left me, claiming marriage, having no claim 
 Through guile, or guilt, or promises of mine ;
 
 160 FORTUNATUS act hi 
 
 Deeming — last night I newly heard — to prove 
 
 The force of my refusal when she might 
 
 Sue at my heart with April in her arms. 
 
 She died, — a mother ; and Abaddon laid — 
 
 So he avouches — April in the wood, 
 
 With purpose — fair or fiendish, who shall say ? — 
 
 That you should foster her. How came he thus 
 
 To tamper with my fate, I did not learn ; 
 
 For, just as I was probing him for more, 
 
 The moonlight madcap vanished in the chase, 
 
 Astride of one of its unbitted colts, 
 
 And, though on him I pressed with leaning speed, 
 
 In winding of the ways I lost his trail, 
 
 And tell a gaping story, — withal true. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Never did pity tell a sadder tale. 
 
 Peace to the dead ! forgiveness to the living ! 
 
 Forgiveness, and compassion. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Sister mine ! 
 Nay, foster-wife, for April's foster-mother,
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 161 
 
 I have no feud with present or past that knits 
 Our lives so fondly. What is it you read ? 
 
 [He takes the book from her.] 
 
 Where did you get this volume ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 From Abaddon. 
 I bought it from his pack, three summers since, 
 Just as my nature budded to receive 
 Its sunshine and its dew, its wandering winds 
 Of music and of magic, light and shade 
 Of solemn joy and hopeful sorrowing, 
 The poet's message, comforting the sad, 
 Admonishing the happy. From that hour, 
 Its thoughts enrich my poverty, its verse 
 Grafts on my growth a glory not my own. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Know you who wrote it ? 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 If I knew but that, 
 Then — nay, 'tis better that I should not know. 
 
 M
 
 162 FORTUNATUS act hi 
 
 But, if I knew, and if he lived — why, then — 
 But ask me nothing further. What I know, 
 I told last night. Forgive me ! but my heart 
 Irrevocably is to him betrothed 
 Who first unsealed my nature through this book. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 'Twas I that wrote it ! 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Is it true ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 As true 
 As time and as remembrance ! ay, as true, 
 Urania, as your heart, and as my love ! 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 [Three days later.] 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yes, I have pondered deeply, and the last 
 Conclusion of reflection but confirms
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 163 
 
 The first arrest of instinct. It must be. 
 Reluctant shall I quit this narrow plot, 
 Long co-extensive with the world, and leave 
 You and Urania, wedded, to maintain 
 Its shy felicity. Duties there are, 
 Imposed upon the Present by the Past, 
 And not to be foregone. I see that, now ; 
 And them I will discharge, for they are mine, 
 Till time shall come they will in turn be yours. 
 Prepare for them by labour, by disdain 
 Of accidental splendour, by faith, hope, 
 Love, constancy, and joy in simple joys. 
 But, above all, foster Humility. 
 For Pessimism, latest, lewdest birth 
 Of Pride of Life and Lust of the Flesh— 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 How strange ! 
 
 Abaddon arrogated those twin names 
 In many a mocking utterance. 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Then he was 
 
 An honest Devil.
 
 1 64 FORTUNATUS act hi 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 But do you conceive 
 Him other than a pedlar ? 
 
 FRANKLIN. 
 
 Who shall say? 
 Voices there are, and spectres plausible, 
 Fantastic simulations suddenly flashed 
 From the retentive Underworld, and they 
 Who own these not have but imperfect senses. 
 Demon or pedlar, he proclaimed a truth 
 By his self-christening. Therefore, kinsman dear, 
 Before you lead Urania to her hearth, 
 Wend with her meekly to the village Church, 
 And, stooping low, pass through the little door, 
 Door of Humility, that April named, 
 And kneel, as others kneel, the poor, the simple, 
 And celebrate your nuptials even as they. 
 That which we know, tenaciously must be, 
 Tenaciously if meekly, not forsworn. 
 But the Unknown deny not, and revere 
 The circumambient mystery that inspires 
 With kindly curtain our foreshadowing dreams, 
 And, when in individual darkness, seek
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 165 
 
 The light of Universal Piety. 
 
 Is it not plain the experienced Past must be 
 
 Wiser than any Present, and mankind 
 
 Surer than you or I ? My Mother strove, 
 
 With love, with admonition, with reproof, 
 
 To make me humble, and alas ! in vain. 
 
 Life has enforced the lesson. . . . But I keep you. 
 
 Urania beckons from the casement. Go. 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 [Urania's chamber.] 
 URANIA (to APRIL). 
 
 Sweet ! he is here, and wants to talk with you. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Then, now we can take the swarm. A swarm in 
 
 May, a swarm But you have not brought the 
 
 beanstalk, Urania; so grand-dad will have to take 
 it. I don't like that story; it's too sad. But they 
 can sip the honeyed wine. What a dear beautiful 
 Queen ! Poor leper !
 
 1 66 FORTUNATUS act hi 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Thus do the equitable hours avenge 
 
 Our wayward purposes, just as we scan 
 
 Their true-appointed goal ! She does not know me. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Love ! it is he you sent for, he that laid 
 Your cheek against his cheek upon the wain, 
 And told you pretty stories. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 This is not broken meat ; these are myrtles. What 
 a wicked king ! The bees are in your hair, Urania ; 
 and yet I limed the hive with hydromel. When will 
 he come again ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 See ! I am here ; and never to depart. 
 You know me, do you not ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Yes, a most lovely lady. Suppose they were to 
 slay you ? Is my new frock ready, Urania ? Because, 
 you know, he is coming.
 
 scene in THE PESSIMIST 167 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Thus did she wail and wander through the night. 
 
 [Taking April in her arms.] 
 Nay, let me try to lullaby her tongue. 
 Sleep, angel ! sleep ! 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Alas ! there is no ditty, 
 No note nor incantation of despair, 
 Can rock her random musings. . . . Now, you know 
 me ? 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Yes, dear grand-dad. If you love me, stay in 
 Heaven, and shine above me. Now we have housed 
 them snug and warm, have we not ? Urania, read 
 from that pretty book about the stars. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Your book, she means ; the volume that betrothed, 
 With its premonitory spell, my life 
 Insensibly to yours. She loves to hear 
 Verse that she understands not.
 
 1 68 FORTUNATUS THE PESSIMIST act hi 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Is that sure? 
 Haply she apprehends what you who read, 
 And I who wrote, farther from Heaven than she, 
 Miss of its meaning. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 But we must sing it, all together, you know. Shall 
 I begin ? When the ladysmocks have faded. I 
 forget the rest. O, I remember now ! 
 
 Over, over.' 
 Now the April days are over .' 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 See ! now she sleeps. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Only to wake in Heaven ! 
 
 END OF ACT III
 
 ACT IV 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 [Terrace of the Duke's castle. The Duke, with Adrian 
 at his side ; the household standing round, and the 
 dwellers on the estate assembled in front.] 
 
 DUKE (tO ADRIAN). 
 
 Nay, Adrian, be my secretary, now. 
 
 Yet take it not amiss if ofttimes I 
 
 Trespass upon your functions ; for there are 
 
 Duties too personal to be discharged 
 
 By the most capable and kindly vicar. 
 
 Therefore, I pray you, aid me constantly, 
 
 But do not let me abdicate. Myself, 
 
 Since Heaven is pleased to name me for the task, 
 
 Must learn, with eyes and ears not yours but mine, 
 
 The needs of them who, be it kindly said, 
 
 Depend on me, on whom I do depend.
 
 170 FORTUNATUS act iv 
 
 [To the Vicar.] 
 Help me, good Vicar ! I will help you always. 
 [To the Schoolmaster.] 
 
 And you who have these little ones in charge, 
 I pray you, teach them virtue, love of country, 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Graces Three, 
 And Reverence, that " angel of the world." 
 And, so you will permit me, I at times 
 Will lift the schoolhouse latch and second you 
 In loving admonitions. 
 
 [To the Crowd.] 
 
 Comrades all ! 
 Who dwell upon the land that's labelled mine, 
 Though mine it is not more than it is yours, 
 Give me your friendship, own me for your friend, 
 And I will do for you, through good and ill, 
 Whate'er would not undo your manliness, 
 Derange the commonwealth, nor mar the State. 
 
 Now shall we sing ? 
 
 THE RUSTICS. 
 DUKE. 
 
 I pray you.
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 171 
 
 ADRIAN. 
 
 Now ! Begin 
 
 The Ploughmen sing. 
 
 &• 
 
 Three cheers for Winter, 
 
 That blows upon the horn, 
 That makes the branches splinter. 
 
 And threshes out the corn : 
 When chimney-stacks are shaken. 
 
 And flooded is the ditch, 
 And the gammer salts the bacon, 
 
 And the lasses sit and stitch, 
 Or thread the melted tallow 
 
 To cheer the longsome nights, 
 And the ploughland oozeth fallow, 
 
 And the black frost nips and bites ; 
 When we close and bar the shutter, 
 
 As the wet winds wail and sob, 
 And we "watch the chestnuts sputter 
 
 And crackle on the hob : 
 When the Yule log lights the rafter, 
 
 And the gossip tells the tale,
 
 172 FORTUNATUS act iv 
 
 And the house is filled with laughter, 
 And the mugs are filled with ale : 
 
 Three cheers for Winter ! 
 
 The Shepherds sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Springtime, 
 
 That makes the pastures strong, 
 When, blithe upon the wing, Time 
 
 Comes bursting into song : 
 When celandine and oxslip 
 
 Are dotted all about, 
 And the young ones on their frocks slip, 
 
 And sally forth and shout ; 
 When lifted is the wattle, 
 
 And emptied is the shed. 
 And the dewy-fetlocked cattle 
 
 Roam afield for board and bed ; 
 When ive ply the rake and harrow, 
 
 And bark the oaken bole, 
 And the lean sow drops her farrow, 
 
 And the broodmare drops her foal ; 
 When the buxom lambs are bleating 
 And the cuckoo never stops,
 
 i THE PESSIMIST 173 
 
 And the glad swain and his sweeting 
 Are cuddling in the copse : 
 
 Three cheers for Springtime .' 
 
 The Mowers sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Summer, 
 
 Jl "hen posies smell once more, 
 And morrice-man and mummer 
 
 Come dancing to the door: 
 When open stands the casement, 
 
 And walls that dripped with snow 
 Air hung from eave to basement 
 
 With roses all ablow ; 
 When grass is scythed and tedded, 
 
 And work is paid-for play, 
 And lad and lass are wedded, 
 
 And tumble in the hay ; 
 When everything increases, 
 
 And mother makes the jams, 
 While we shear the curly fleeces, 
 
 And wean the lusty lambs ; 
 When tJie youngsters pitch the wicket 
 
 Upon the village green,
 
 174 FORTUNATUS act iv 
 
 And the elders watch the cricket 
 And talk of what hath been : 
 
 Three cheers for Summer ! 
 
 The Reapers sing. 
 
 Three cheers for Autumn, 
 
 When jolly shocks of grain. 
 And the brawny arms that wrought 'em, 
 
 Ride homeward on the wain ; 
 When the early rime-frost daffies 
 
 The tender woodland leaves, 
 And the juicy ruddled afflcs 
 
 Are stored behind the eaves ; 
 When unto green h of -garde ?i 
 
 Pour all the village folk, 
 Atid the cobnuts swell and harden, 
 
 And the oasts are lit and smoke : 
 When steams the harvest-suffer 
 
 With joints of beef and boar, 
 And lower dance with upper 
 
 Upon the granary floor ; 
 When the yeoman counts his earning, 
 
 And the yokel's 7cage is known,
 
 scene i THE PESSIMIST 175 
 
 And the maiden feels a yearning 
 For a fireside of Jier own : 
 
 Three cheers for Autumn ! 
 
 They All sing. 
 
 Theft three cheers, my hearties, 
 
 And together three times three, 
 For whatsoe'er your part is, 
 
 Or whoso ye may be, 
 Be yours to spud the thisties, 
 
 To scoop and bank the ditch, 
 To souse and scrape the bristles, 
 
 And to cut up chine and fitch, 
 To peel and twist the 7vithy, 
 
 To tend the lambing ewe, 
 To smite upon the stithy 
 
 And hammer out the shoe ; 
 To find the emmet maggots, 
 
 To stake and tie the hops, 
 Or to stack the hazel faggots 
 
 In spinney and in copse ; 
 To mount the market waggon, 
 
 Or to whistle by the shaft,
 
 176 FORTUNATUS act iv 
 
 Now lift the home-brewed flagon, 
 And drain a goodly draught : 
 
 With three cheers, my hearties ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 I never heard a saner song than that, 
 
 And its wise wholesomeness may make amends 
 
 For something rude and rustic in its rhythm. 
 
 These old-world ditties that are handed down 
 
 By your ancestral cottages maintain 
 
 The tie of time and fellowship alive. 
 
 I did not know it. You must teach it me. 
 
 Now shall we in, and cheerly feast together? 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 [Urania's garden.] 
 URANIA. 
 
 How quickly, Fortunatus, Love doth learn ! 
 There's not a leaf nor tendril but you know 
 Its nature by affection ; not a plant 
 But you dispose it true and tenderly. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Are they not yours, and were you not my teacher?
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 177 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 They and myself were all I had to give, 
 
 And so improve them yours ! . . . Have we not 
 
 swept 
 The borders and the by-paths now enough ; 
 Dead leaves being part of Autumn's livery, 
 Befitting more her habit than trim suit 
 Of modern liking ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Yes, the Seasons deck 
 Themselves in their appropriate garniture ; 
 Self-conscious Spring betraying its desires 
 In blushing bud and reddening coppices, 
 While married Summer, satisfied with home, 
 Twineth the gadding rose about her brow. 
 Now widowed Autumn, careless of herself, 
 And her discoloured garments loosely flying, 
 Bends all her thought on harvesting the past. 
 Even Winter, tempering age with dignity, 
 Over his shoulder flings an ermine cloak, 
 And calm awaits the End. 
 
 N
 
 178 FORTUNATUS act iv 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 How rightly reasoned, 
 Now you discern Imagination should 
 A reconciler, not a rebel, be, 
 To teach the heart of man to apprehend 
 Nature's vicissitudes, and bear his own, 
 With sympathetic fancy. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Dear Urania ! 
 Next year your garden should be lovelier still, 
 Now you've an under-gardener. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 Next year, alas ! 
 The fairest of our flowers will waken not, 
 And you must help me to conceive it Spring, 
 When April doth not bring its namesake back, 
 To melt the Winter. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 I have kept these blooms 
 To strew where she abides.
 
 scene ii THE PESSIMIST 179 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 And I saved these. 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 Then let us go and sanctify her grave. 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 But, tell me. Is the poem not complete ? 
 
 FORTUNATUS. 
 
 It is ; and I will read it you to-night. 
 
 THE END 
 
 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh
 
 MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALFRED AUSTIN. 
 A New Collected Edition, in six Vols. Crown 8vo. 
 5s. each. 
 
 Vol. I. THE TOWER OF BABEL : A Celestial 
 
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 Vol. II. SAVONAROLA: A Tragedy. 
 
 Vol. III. PRINCE LUCIFER. 
 
 Vol. IV. THE HUMAN TRAGEDY. 
 
 Vol. V. LYRICAL POEMS. 
 
 Vol. VI. NARRATIVE POEMS. 
 
 ENGLISH LYRICS. Edited by Wm. Watson, author 
 of "Wordsworth's Grave." Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
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