i 
 
 
 King Lears Wife 
 
 ^y Gordon Bottomle-^ 
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 KING LEARS WIFE 
 AND OTHER PLAYS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 GRUACH AND BRITAIN'S DAUGHTER. 
 A VISION OF GIORGIONE. 
 
 And in preparation 
 SELECTED POEMS, 1894-1914.
 
 KING • LEAR'S • WIFE 
 THE-CRIER-BY-NIGHT 
 THE-RIDING-TO-LITH- 
 END^MIDSUMMER-EVE 
 LAODICE-AND-DANAE 
 PLAYS • BY • GORDON 
 BOTTOMLEY 
 
 BOSTON 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 "REMEMBER THE 
 LIFE OF THESE 
 THINGS CONSISTS 
 IN ACTION." 
 
 JOHN marston: 1606.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 The plays here collected were orig-inally published 
 separately at various dates during- the past eighteen 
 years, and are now brought together for the first time. 
 The details of the previous issues, now for the most 
 part out o( print, are appended. 
 
 I. The Crier by Night. (1900.) Published by the 
 
 Unicorn Press, London, 1902. 32 pp. Quarto, 
 boards. 500 copies. 
 
 II. Midsummer Eve. (1901-2.) Printed and pub- 
 
 lished at the Pear Tree Press, South Harting, 
 near Petersfield, 1905, with decorations by James 
 Guthrie, iv + 36 pp. Large post 8vo, boards. 
 120 copies. 
 in. Laodice AND D.VNAii. (1906.) Printed for private 
 circulation, 1909. iv + 26 pp. Royal 8vo, wrap- 
 pers. 150 copies. 
 
 IV. The Riding to Lithend. (1907.) Printed and 
 published at the Pear Tree Press, Flansham near 
 Bognor, 1909, with decorations byjames Guthrie. 
 vi + 40 pp. Foolscap 4to, boards. 120 copies (20 
 of which had an extra plate and were hand- 
 coloured.) 
 
 V. King Lear's Wife. (1911-13.) Published in 
 
 "Georgian Poetry, 1913-1915," pp. i 1047. The 
 Poetry Bookshop, London, 1915- 
 The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, and 
 Laodice and Danae have been reprinted in the 
 United States of America, the first in 1909, the 
 second in two separate forms in 1910, the third 
 in 1916 
 
 VII
 
 TO T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 'T^ H E years covte on, the years go by, 
 J- A nd in my Nojihern valley /, 
 Withdra7vn from life, watch life go by. 
 But I have formed within viy heaii 
 A state that does not thus depart, 
 Richer than life, greater than being, 
 Truer in feeling and in seeing 
 Than out7vard turbulence can kno7v ; 
 Where time is still, like a large, sloiv 
 And lofty bird that moves her 7vings 
 hi far, invisible flutterings 
 To gaze on every part of space 
 Yet poise for ever in one place; 
 Where line and sound, colour and phrase 
 Rebuild in clear, essential Tvays 
 The powers behitid the veil of sense ; 
 While tragic things are made intense 
 By passion brooding on old dread, 
 Till a faint light of beatity shed 
 From night-enfolded agony 
 She7vs in the ways men fail and die 
 The deeps whose l'no7vlcdge never cloys 
 But, striking inward 7vithout voice. 
 Stirs me to tremble and rejoice. 
 
 For twenty years and more than twenty 
 I have found my riches and my plenty 
 In poets dead and poets living, 
 Painters and music-men, all giving. 
 By life shut in creative deeds, 
 Live force and insight to my needs ; 
 And long before I came to stand 
 And hear your voice and touch your hand 
 In that great treasure-house ne7v-known. 
 Where in their tower above the Town 
 The masters o/"The Dial sit, 
 I loved in every word of it
 
 Vour finely tempered verse that told me 
 Of patient power^ and still can hold me 
 By its anthetitic divinafioti 
 Of the right kno7vh'dge of creation, 
 Its grave, still beauty brought tu day 
 Tissue by tis^ie in nature's 7t>ay, 
 Pethl by petal sure to shew 
 />Jiagijiation\f quiet gloiv 
 That burns intenseliest at the core. 
 And through that twenty years and more 
 I hax<e been envious of your reach 
 In spealcing form and plastic speech, 
 Votir double energy of hand 
 That puts two arts at your command 
 While I must be content 7i<ith one 
 And feel true life but half begun ; 
 So that by g-raver as by pen 
 You can create earth, stars, and men, 
 And prove yourself by more than rime 
 A prince of poets in our time. 
 
 For these delights, and the delight 
 
 Of converse in a Surrey night 
 
 After the deep sound had lapsed by 
 
 Of ocean-haunted poetry. 
 
 For counsel a7ui another ::est 
 
 Added to beauty's life-lotig quest 
 
 /, in acknowledgment, would bring 
 
 The homage of an offering; 
 
 And, being too poor to reach the height 
 
 Of my conception or requite 
 
 Your greater giving equally, 
 
 I search in my capacity 
 
 And, by my self-appointed trade. 
 
 Find something I myself have made, 
 
 That here I offer. Let it be 
 
 A token betwixt you and me 
 
 Of admiration and loyalty. 
 
 February 29th, 1916.
 
 PERSONS: 
 
 Lear, King of Britain. 
 
 Hygd, his Oueen. 
 
 GoNERiL, daughter to Lear and Hygd. 
 
 CoRDEiL, daughter to Lear and Hygd. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, waiting-woman to Hygd. 
 
 Merryn, waiting-woman to Hygd. 
 
 A Physician. 
 
 Two Elderly Women.
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 The scene is a bedchamber in a one-storied house. 
 The ivalls consist of a few courses of huge ir- 
 regular boulders roughly squared and filled 
 together; a thatched roof rises steeply from the 
 back wall. In the centre of the back wall is a 
 doorway opening on a garden and covered by 
 two leather curtains; the chamber is partially 
 hung with similar hangings stitched with 
 bright ivools. There is a small windoiv on each 
 side of this door. 
 
 Toward the front a bed stands with its head 
 against the right imill; it has thin leather 
 curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. 
 Farther forward a rich robe and a crown hang 
 on a peg in the same vjall. There is a second 
 door beyond the bed, and beliveen this and the 
 bed's head stands a small table ivith a bronze 
 lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen Hygd, 
 an emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her 
 plenteous black hair, veined with silver, spreads 
 over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, Merryn, 
 middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching 
 her in a chair on the farther side of the bed. 
 The light of early morning fills the room. 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 MANY, many must die who long to live, 
 Yet this one cannot die who longs to die: 
 Even her sleep, come now at last, thwarts death, 
 
 5
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Although sleep lures us all half way to death. . . . 
 
 I could not sit beside her every night 
 
 If I believed that I might suffer so: 
 
 I am sure I am not made to be diseased, 
 
 I feel there is no malady can touch me — 
 
 Save the red cancer, growing where it will. 
 
 Taking her beads from her girdle, she 
 kneels at the foot of the bed. 
 O sweet Saint Cleer, and sweet Saint Elid too, 
 Shield me from rootingcancers and from madness : 
 Shield me from sudden death, worse than two 
 
 death-beds; 
 Let me not lie like this unwanted queen. 
 Yet let my time come not ere I am ready — 
 Grant space enow to relish the watchers' tears 
 And give my clothes away and calm my features 
 And streek my limbs according to my will. 
 Not the hard will of fumbling corpse-washers. 
 She prays silently. 
 
 King Lear, a great, golden-bearded man 
 in the full maturity of life, enters 
 abruptly by the door beyond the bed, 
 followed by the Physician. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Why are you here? Are you here for ever? 
 Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is she? 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 O, Sire, move softly; the Queen sleeps at last. 
 
 Lear, continuing in an undertone. 
 Where is the young Scotswoman? Where is 
 Gormflaith? 
 
 6
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 It is her watch. ... I know; I have marked your 
 
 hours. 
 Did the Queen send her away? Did the Queen 
 Bid you slay near her in lier hate of Gorinflaith? 
 You work upon her yeasting" brain to think 
 That slie 's not safe except when you crouch near 
 
 her 
 To spy with your dropt eyes and soundless 
 
 presence. 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 Sire, midnii^ht should have ended Gormflaith's 
 
 watch, 
 But GormHaith had another kind of will 
 And ended at a godlier hour by slumber, 
 A letter in her hand, the night-lamp out. 
 She loitered in the hall when she should sleep. 
 My duty has two hours ere she returns. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 The Queen should have young women about her 
 
 bed, 
 Fresh cooi-breathed women to lie down at her side 
 And plenish her with vigour; for sick or wasted 
 
 women 
 Can draw a virtue from such abounding presence, 
 When night makes life unwary and looses the 
 
 strings of being. 
 Even by the breath, and most of all by sleep. 
 Her slumber was then no fault: go you and find 
 
 her. 
 
 Physician. 
 
 It is not strange that a bought watcher drowses; 
 
 What is most strange is that the Queen sleeps
 
 KING LEA RS WIFE 
 
 Who would not sleep for all my draughts of sleep 
 In the last days. When did this change appear? 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 We shall not know — it came while Gormflaith 
 
 nodded. 
 When I awoke her and she saw the Oueen 
 Slie could not speak for fear: 
 When the rekindling lamp showed certainly 
 The bed-clothes stirring about our lady's neck, 
 She knew there was no death, she breathed, she 
 
 said 
 She had not slept until her mistress slept 
 And lulled her; but I asked her how her mistress 
 Slept, and her utterance faded. 
 She should be blamed with rods, as I was blamed 
 For slumber, after a day and a night of watching, 
 By the Queen's child-bed, twenty years ago. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 She does what she must do: let her alone. 
 I know her watch is now: get gone and send her. 
 Merryn goes out by the door beyond the 
 bed. 
 Is it a portent now to sleep at night? 
 What change is here? What see you in the Queen? 
 Can you discern how this disease will end? 
 
 Physician. 
 
 Surmise might spring and healing follow yet, 
 If I could find a trouble that could heal ; 
 But these strong inward painsthat keep herebbing 
 Have not their source in perishing flesh. 
 I have seen women creep into their beds 
 And sink with this blind pain because they nursed 
 
 8
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Some bitterness or Ijurdeii in the niiin.! 
 
 That drew the life, sucklin^^s too long at breast. 
 
 Do you know such a cause in this poor hidy? 
 
 Lkar. 
 
 There is no cause. How should there be a cause? 
 
 Physician. 
 
 We cannot die wholly against our wills; 
 
 And in the texture of women I have found 
 
 Harder determination than in men: 
 
 The body grows impatient of enduring, 
 
 The harried mind is from the the body estranged, 
 
 And we consent to go: by the Queen's touch, 
 
 The way she moves — or does not move — in bed, 
 
 The eyes so cold and keen in her white mask, 
 
 I know she has consented. 
 
 The snarling look of a mute wounded hawk. 
 
 That would be let alone, is always hers — 
 
 Yet she was sorely tender: it may be 
 
 Some wound in her affection will not heal. 
 
 We should be careful — the mind can so be hurt 
 
 That nought can make it be unhurt again. 
 
 Where, then, did her affection most persist? 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Old bone-patcher, old digger in men's flesh, 
 Doctors are ever itching to be priests. 
 Meddling in conduct, natures, life's privacies. 
 We have been coupled now for twenty years, 
 And she has never turned from me an hour — 
 She knows a woman's duty and a queen's: 
 Whose, then, can her affection be but mine? 
 How can I hurt her — she is still my queen? 
 If her strong inward pain is a real pain 
 Find me some certain drug to medicine it:
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 When common beings have decayed past help, 
 There must be still some drug for a king to use; 
 For nothing ought to be denied to kings. 
 
 Physician. 
 
 For the mere anguish there is such a potion. 
 
 The gum of warpy juniper shoots is seethed 
 
 With the torn marrow of an adder's spine; 
 
 An unflawed emerald is pashed to dust 
 
 And mingled there; that broth must cool in 
 
 moonlight. 
 I have indeed attempted this already, 
 But the poor emeralds I could extort 
 From wry-mouthed earls' women had no force. 
 In two more dawns it will be late for potions. . . . 
 There are not many emeralds in Britain, 
 And there is none for vividness and strength 
 Like the great stone that hangs upon your breast: 
 If you will waste it for her she shall be holpen. 
 
 Lear, loith rising voice. 
 
 Shatter my emerald? My emerald? My emerald? 
 A High King of Eire gave it to his daughter 
 Who mothered generations of us, the kings of 
 
 Britain ; 
 It has a spiritual influence; its heart 
 Burns when it sees the sun. . . . Shatter my 
 
 emerald ! 
 Only the fungused brain and carious mouth 
 Of senile things could shape such thought. . . . 
 My emerald ! 
 
 Hygd stirs uneasily in her sleep. 
 
 Physician. 
 
 Speak lower, low ; for your good fame, speak low — 
 
 If she should waken thus. . . . 
 
 lO
 
 KING L E A R'S WIFE 
 
 Lkar. There is no wise man 
 
 Believes that medicine is in a jewel. 
 
 It is enough that you have failed with one. 
 
 vSeek you a common stone. I'll not do it. 
 
 Let her eat heartily: she is spent with fasting. 
 
 Let her stand up and walk: she is so still 
 
 Her blood can never nourish her. Come away. 
 
 Physician. 
 
 I must not leave her ere the woman comes — 
 
 Or will some other woman. . . . 
 
 Lear. No, no, no, no; 
 
 The Queen is not herself; she speaks without 
 
 sense; 
 Only Merryn and Gormflaith understand. 
 She is better quiet. Come. . . . 
 
 He urges the Physician roughly away by 
 the shoulder. 
 
 My emerald! 
 He follows the Physician out by the door 
 
 at the back. 
 Queen Hygd awakes at his last noisy 
 words as he disappears. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 I have not slept; I did but close mine eyes 
 A little while — a little while forgetting. . . . 
 Where are you, Merryn? . . . Ah, it is not 
 
 Merryn. . . . 
 Bring me the cup of whey, woman; I thirst. . . . 
 Will you speak to me if I say your name? 
 Will you not listen, Gormflaith? . . . Can you 
 
 hear? 
 I am very thirsty — let me drink. . . . 
 
 II
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Ah, wicked woman, why did I speak to you? 
 
 I will not be your suppliant again. . . . 
 
 Where are you? O, where are you? . . . Where 
 are you? 
 
 SJie tries to raise herself to look about the 
 
 room, but sinks back helplessly. 
 The curtains of the door at the back are 
 parted, and Goneril appears in 
 hunting dress,- — her kirtle caug/it up 
 in her girdle, a light spear over her 
 shoulder — stands there a moment, 
 then enters noiselessly and approaches 
 the bed. She is a girl just turning to 
 womanhood, proud in her poise, sivift 
 and cold, an almost gleaming pre- 
 sence, a virgin huntress. 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Mother, were you calling? 
 
 Have I awakened you? 
 
 They said that you were sleeping. 
 
 Why are you left alone, mother, my dear one? 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Who are you? No, no, no! Stand farther off! 
 You pulse and glow; you are too vital; your 
 
 presence hurts. . . . 
 Freshness of hill-swards, wind and trodden ling, 
 I should have known that Goneril stands here. 
 It is yet dawn, but you have been afoot 
 Afar and long: where could you climb so soon? 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Dearest, I am an evil daughter to you: 
 
 I never thought of you — O, never once — 
 
 12
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Until I heard a moor-bird cry like you. 
 
 I am wicked, rapt in joys of breath and life, 
 
 And I must force myself to think of you. 
 
 I leave you to caretakers' cold g-cntleness; 
 
 But O, I did not think that they dare leave you. 
 
 What woman should be here? 
 
 Hygd. I have forgot. . . . 
 
 I know not. . . . She will be about some duty. 
 I do not matter: my time is done . . . nigh 
 
 done . . . 
 Bought hands can well prepare me for a grave, 
 And all the generations must serve youth. 
 My girls shall live untroubled while they may, 
 And learn happiness once while yet blind men 
 Have injured not their freedom; 
 For women are not meant for happiness. 
 Where have you been, my falcon? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 I dreamt that I was swimming, shoulder up, 
 And drave the bed-clothes spreading to the floor: 
 Coldness awoke me ; through the waning darkness 
 I heard far hounds give shivering aery tongue, 
 Remote, withdrawing, suddenly faint and ndar; 
 I leapt and saw a pack of stretching weasels 
 Hunt a pale coney in a soundless rush, 
 Their elfin and thin yelping pierced my heart 
 As with an unseen beauty long awaited ; 
 Wolf-skin and cloak I buckled over this night- 
 gear, 
 And took my honoured spear from my bed-side 
 Where none but I may touch its purity. 
 And sped as lightly down the dewy bank 
 As any mothy owl that hunts quick mice. 
 
 13
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 They went crying, crying, but I lost them 
 Before I stept, with the first tips of Hght, 
 On Raven Crag near by the Druid Stones ; 
 So I paused there and, stooping, pressed my hand 
 Against the stony bed of the clear stream ; 
 Then entered I the circle and raised up 
 My shining hand in cold stern adoration 
 Even as the first great gleam went up the sky. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Ay, you do well to worship on that height: 
 Life is free to the quick up in the wind. 
 And the wind bares you for a god's descent — 
 For wind is a spirit immediate and aged. 
 And you do well to worship harsh men-gods, 
 God Wind and Those who built his Stones with 
 
 him : 
 All gods are cruel, bitter, and to be bribed. 
 But women-gods are mean and cunning as well. 
 That fierce old virgin, Cornish Merryn, prays 
 To a young woman, yes and even a virgin — 
 The poorest kind of woman — and she says 
 That is to be a Christian: avoid then 
 Her worship most, for men hate such denials, 
 And any woman scorns her unwed daughter. 
 Where sped you from that height? Did Regan 
 
 join you there? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Does Regan worship anywhere at dawn? 
 The sweaty half-clad cook-maids render lard 
 Out in the scullery, after pig-killing. 
 And Regan sidles among their greasy skirts, 
 Smeary and hot as they, for craps to suck. 
 I lost my thoughts before the giant Stones . . . 
 
 14
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 And when anew the earth assembled round me 
 I swung- out on the heath and woke a hare 
 And speared it at a cast and shouldered it, 
 Startled another drinking at a tarn 
 And speared it ere it leapt; so steady and clear 
 Had the god in his fastness made my mind. 
 Then, as I took those dead things in my hands, 
 I felt shame light my face from deep within. 
 And loathing and contempt shake in my bowels, 
 That such unclean coarse blows from me had 
 
 issued 
 To crush delicate things to bloody mash 
 And blemish their fur when I would only kill. 
 My gladness left me; I careered no more 
 Upon the morning; I went down from there 
 With empty hands: 
 
 But under the first trees and without thought 
 I stole on conies at play and stooped at one; 
 I hunted it, I caught it up to me 
 As I outsprang it, and with this thin knife 
 Pierced it from eye to eye; and it was dead, 
 Untorn, unsullied, and with flawless fur. 
 Then my untroubled mind came back to me. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Leap down the glades with a fawn's ignorance; 
 
 Live you your fill of a harsh purity; 
 
 Be wild and calm and lonely while you may. 
 
 These are your nature's joys, and it is human 
 
 Only to recognize our natures' joys 
 
 When we are losing them for ever. 
 
 GoNERiL. But why 
 
 Do you say this to me with a sore heart? 
 
 You arc a queen, and speak from the top of life, 
 
 •5
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 And when you choose to wish for others' joys 
 Those others must have woe. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 The hour comes for you to turn to a man 
 And give yourself with the high heart of youth 
 More lavishly than a queen gives anything. 
 But when a woman gives herself 
 She must give herself for ever and have faith; 
 For woman is a thing of a season of years. 
 She is an early fruit that will not keep, 
 vShe can be drained and as a husk survive 
 To hope for reverence for what has been ; 
 While man renews himself into old age, 
 And gives himself according to his need, 
 And women more unborn than his next child 
 May take him yet with youth 
 And lose him with their potence. 
 
 GOKERIL. 
 
 But women need not wed these men. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 We are good human currency, like gold, 
 For men to pass among them when they choose. 
 A chiliVs hands beat on the outside of the 
 door beyond the bed. 
 
 Cordeil's Voice, a child's voice, outside. 
 Father. . . . Father. . . . Feather. . . . Are you 
 
 here? 
 Merryn, ugly Merryn, let me in. . . . 
 I know my father is here. ... I want him. . . . 
 
 Now. . . . 
 Mother, chide Merryn, she is old and slow. . . . 
 
 i6
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Hygd, softly. 
 
 My little curse. Send her away — away. . . . 
 
 CoRDKiL's Voice. 
 
 Father. . . . O, father, father. ... I want my 
 father. 
 
 GoNERTL, openitig the door a little way. 
 
 Hush; hush — you hurt your mother with your 
 
 voice. 
 You cannot come in, Cordeil ; you must go away : 
 Your father is not here. . . . 
 
 Cordeil's Voice. He must be here: 
 
 He is not in his chamber or the hall, 
 He is not in the stable or with Gormflaith: 
 He promised I should ride with him at dawn 
 And sit before his saddle and hold his hawk, 
 And ride with him and ride to the heron-marsh; 
 He said that he would give me the first heron, 
 And hang the longest feathers in my hair. 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Then you must haste to find him ; 
 
 He may be riding now. ... 
 
 Cordeil's Voice. 
 
 But Gerda said she saw him enter here. 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Indeed, he is not here. . . . 
 
 Cordeil's Voice. Let me look. . . . 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 You are too noisy. Must I make you go'i 
 
 17 c
 
 KING LEA RS WIFE 
 
 Cordeil's Voice. 
 
 Mother, Goneril is unkind to me. 
 
 Hygd, raising herself in bed excitedly , and speak- 
 ing so vehemently that her utterance strangles 
 itself. 
 Go, go, thou evil child, thou ill-comer. 
 
 Goneril, with a sudden strong move- 
 7nent, shuts the resisting door and 
 holds it rigidly. The little hands heat 
 on it madly for a moment, then the 
 child^s voice is heard in a retreating 
 wail. 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Though she is wilful, obeying only the King, 
 
 She is a very little child, mother. 
 
 To be so bitterly thought of. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Because a woman gives herself for ever 
 Cordeil the useless had to be conceived 
 (Like an after-thought that deceives nobody) 
 To keep her father from another woman. 
 And I lie here. 
 
 Goneril, after a silence. 
 Hard and unjust my father has been to me; 
 Yet that has knitted up within my mind 
 A love of coldness and a love of him 
 Who makes me firm, wary, swift and secret. 
 Until I feel if I become a mother 
 I shall at need be cruel to my children, 
 And ever cold, to string their natures harder 
 And make them able to endure men's deeds; 
 But now I wonder if injustice 
 
 i8
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Keeps house with baseness, taught by kinship — 
 I never thought a king could be untrue, 
 I never thought my father was unclean. . . . 
 
 mother, mother, what is it? Is this dying? 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 1 think I am only faint. . . . 
 Give me the cup of whey. . . . 
 
 GoNERiL takes the cup and, supporting 
 Hygd, lets her drink. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 There is too little here. When was it made? 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Yester-eve. . . . Yester-morn. . . . 
 
 GoNERiL. Unhappy mother, 
 
 You have no daughter to take thought for you — 
 No servant's love to shame a daughter with, 
 Though I am shamed — you must have other food. 
 Straightway I bring you meat. . . . 
 
 Hygd. It is no use. . . . 
 
 Plenish the cup for me. . . . Not now, not now, 
 
 But in a while; for I am heavy now. . . . 
 
 Old Wynoc's potions loiter in my veins, 
 
 And tides of heaviness pour over me 
 
 Each time I wake and think. I could sleep now. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Then I shall lull you, as you once lulled me. 
 
 Seating herself on the bed, she sings. 
 The owlets in roof-holes 
 Can sing for themselves; 
 The smallest brown squirrel 
 Both scampers and delves; 
 19
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 But a baby does nothing — 
 
 She never knows how — 
 
 She must hark to her mother 
 
 Who sings to her now. 
 
 Sleep then, ladykin, peeping so; 
 
 Hide your bandies and ley lei lo. 
 
 She bends over Hygd and kisses her; they 
 
 laugh softly together. 
 Lear parts the curtains of the door at the 
 
 back, stands there a moment^ then 
 
 goes away noiselessly. 
 The lish baby otter 
 Is sleeky and streaming, 
 With catching bright fishes, 
 Ere babies learn dreaming; 
 But no wet little otter 
 Is ever so warm 
 As the fleecy-wrapt baby 
 'Twixt me and my arm. 
 Sleep big mousie. . . . 
 
 Hygd, suddenly irritable. 
 
 Be quiet. ... I cannot bear it. 
 
 She turns her head away from Goneril 
 and closes her eyes. 
 
 As Goneril watches her in silence^ 
 GoRMFLAiTH enters by the door be- 
 yond the bed. She is young and tall 
 and fresh-coloured ; her red hair coils 
 and crisps close to her little head, 
 showing its shape. Her movements 
 are soft and unhurried; her manner 
 is quiet and ingratiating and a little 
 too agreeable; she speaks a little too 
 gently. 
 
 20
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 GoNERiL, meeting her near the door and speaking 
 
 in a loiv voice. 
 Why did you leave the Queen? Where have you 
 
 been? 
 Why have you so neglected this grave duty? 
 
 GORMFLAITII. 
 
 This is the instant of my duty, Princess: 
 From midnight until now was Merryn's watch. 
 I thought to lind her here: is she not here? 
 
 H VGD turns to look at the speakers; then, 
 
 turning back, closes her eyes again 
 
 and lies as if asleep. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 I found the Queen alone. I heard her cry your 
 name. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Your anger is not too great, Madam ; I grieve 
 That one so old as Merryn should act thus — 
 So old and trusted and favoured, and so callous. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 The Queen has had no food since yester-night. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Madam, that is too monstrous to conceive: 
 I will seek food — I will prepare it now. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Stay here: and know, if the Queen is left again, 
 You shall be beaten with two rods at once. 
 
 She picks up the cup and goes out by the 
 door beyond t/ie bed. 
 
 21
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH tums the chair a little away 
 from the bed so that she can watch the 
 far door, and^ seating herself ^ draws 
 a letter front her bosom. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, to herself^ reading. 
 
 " Open your window when the moon is dead, 
 
 And I will come again. 
 
 The men say everywhere that you are faithless, 
 
 The women say your face is a false face 
 
 And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, 
 
 Gormflaith. 
 Do not forget your window-latch to-night, 
 For when the moon is dead the house is still." 
 
 Lear again parts the door-curtains at the 
 back^ and, seeing Gormflaith, en- 
 ters. At the first slight rustle of the 
 curtains Gormflaith stealthily slips 
 the letter back i7ito her bosom before 
 turning gradually, a finger to her 
 lips, to see ivho approaches her. 
 
 Lear, leani^ig over the side of her chair. 
 Lady, what do you read? 
 
 Gormflaith. I read a letter, Sire. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 A letter — a letter — what read you in a letter? 
 
 Gormflaith, taking another letter from her girdle. 
 Your words to me — my lonely joy your words. . . . 
 " If you are steady and true as your gaze " — 
 
 22
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Lear, tearing the letter from her, crumpling it, 
 and flinging it to the back of the room. 
 
 Pest! 
 You should not carry a king-'s letters about, 
 Nor hoard a kintr's letters. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH. No, Sire. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Must the King also stand in the presence now? 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, rising. 
 
 Pardon my troubled mind; you have taken my 
 letter from me. 
 
 Lear seats himself and takes Gorm- 
 flaith's hand. 
 
 Gormflaith. 
 
 Wait, wait— I might be seen. The Queen may 
 waken yet. 
 
 Stepping lightly to the bed, she noiselessly 
 slips the curtain on that side as far 
 fonvard as it tvill come. Then she 
 returns to Lear, ivho draws her to 
 him and seats her on his knee. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 You have been long in coming: 
 
 Was Merryn long in finding you? 
 
 Gormflaith, playing with Lear's emerald. 
 
 Did Merryn. . . . 
 Has Merryn been. . . . She loitered long before 
 
 she came. 
 For I was at the women's bathing-place ere 
 
 dawn. . . . 
 
 2.^
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 No jewel in all the land excites me and enthralls 
 Like this strong source of light that lives upon 
 your breast. 
 
 Lear, taking the j eivel-cJiain from his neck and 
 
 slipping it over Gormflaith's head 7vhile she 
 
 sti/l holds the emerald. 
 
 Wear it within your breast to fill the gentle place 
 
 That cherished the poor letter lately torn from you. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Did Merryn at your bidding, then, forsake her 
 Oueen? 
 
 Lear nods. 
 
 You must not, ah, you must not do these master- 
 ful things, 
 
 Even to grasp a precious meeting for us two; 
 
 For the reproach and chiding are so hard to me, 
 
 And even you can never fight the silent women 
 
 In hidden league against me, all this house of 
 women. 
 
 Merryn has left her Queen in unwatched lone- 
 liness. 
 
 And yet your daughter Princess Goneril has said 
 
 (With lips that scarce held back the spittle for my 
 face) 
 
 That if the Queen is left again I shall be whipt. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Children speak of the punishments they know. 
 Her back is now not half so white as yours. 
 And you shall write your will upon it yet. 
 
 Gormflaith. 
 
 Ah, no, my King, my faithful. . Ah, no. . no . . 
 
 24
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 The Princess Goneril is right; she judges me: 
 A sinful woman cannot steadily gaze reply 
 To the cool, bailling looks of virgin untried force. 
 She stands beside that crumbling mother in lier 
 
 hate, 
 And, though we know so well — she and I, O we 
 
 know — 
 That she could love no mother nor partake in 
 
 anguish, 
 Yet she is flouted when the King forsakes her 
 
 dam. 
 She must protect her very llcsh, her tenderer flesh, 
 Although she cannot wince; she's wild in her cold 
 
 brain, 
 And soon I must be made to pay a cruel price 
 For this one gloomy joy in my uncherished life. 
 Envy and greed are watching me aloof 
 (Yes, now none of the women will walk with me). 
 Longing to see me ruined, but she'll do it. . . . 
 It is a lonely thing to love a king. . . . 
 
 She puts her cheek gradually closer and 
 closer to Lkar's clieek as she speaks: 
 at length he kisses her suddenly and 
 'vehemently^ as if he ivoiild grasp her 
 lips 7vith his: she receives it passively, 
 licr head thrown back, her eyes closed. 
 Lear. 
 Goldilocks, when the crown is couching in your 
 
 hair 
 And those two mingled golds brighten each 
 
 other's wonder, 
 You shall produce a son from flesh unused — 
 Virgin I chose you for that, first crops are 
 
 strongest — 
 A tawny fox with your high-stepping action, 
 
 ^5
 
 KING LEARS WIFE 
 
 With your untiring power and glittering eyes, 
 To hold my lands together when I am done, 
 To keep my lands from crumbling into mouthfuls 
 For the short jaws of my three mewling vixens. 
 Hatch for me such a youngster from my seed, 
 And I and he shall rein my hot-breathed wenches 
 To let you grind the edges off their teeth. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, shctkiiig her head sadly. 
 
 Life holds no more than this for me; this is my 
 
 hour. 
 When she is dead I know you'll buy another 
 
 Queen — 
 Giving a county for her, gaining a duchy with 
 
 her — 
 And put me to wet nursing, leashing me with the 
 
 thralls. 
 It will not be unbearable — I've had your love. 
 Master and friend, grant then this hour to me: 
 Never again, maybe, can we two sit 
 At love together, unwatched, unknown of all. 
 In the Queen's chamber, near the Queen's crown 
 And with no conscious Queen to hold it from us: 
 Now let me wear the Queen's true crown on me 
 And snatch a breathless knowledge of the feeling 
 Of what it would have been to sit by you 
 Always and closely, equal and exalted. 
 To be my light when life is dark again. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Girl, by the black stone god, I did not think 
 You had the nature of a chambermaid, 
 Who pries and fumbles in her lady's clothes 
 With her red hands, or on her soily neck 
 Stealthily hangs her lady's jewels or pearls. 
 You shall be tiring-maid to the next queen 
 
 26
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 And try her crown on every day o' your life 
 In secrecy, if that is your desire: 
 If you would be a queen, cleanse yourself quickly 
 Of menial ringcring and servile thought. 
 
 GOU.MFLAITH. 
 
 You need not crown me. Let me put it on 
 As briclly as a gleam of Winter sun. 
 I will not even warm it with my hair. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 You cannot have the nature of a queen 
 If you believe that there are things above you: 
 Crowns make no queens, queens are the cause of 
 crowns. 
 
 GoR.Mi'LAiTH, dipping from his knee. 
 Then I will take owii. Look. 
 
 Slic tip-toes lightly round the front of the 
 bed to where the crown hangs on the 
 •mall. 
 
 Li:ar. ^ 
 
 Come here, mad thing — come back! 
 Your shadow will wake the Queen. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Hush, hush! That angry voice 
 Will surely wake the Queen. 
 
 She lifts the crown from the peg, and re- 
 turns with it. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Go back ; bear back the crown : 
 Hang up the crown again. 
 We are not helpless serfs 
 To think things are forbidden 
 And steal them for our joy. 
 
 27
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Hush! Hush! It is too late; 
 I dare not go again. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Put down the crown : your hands are base hands 
 
 yet. 
 Give it to me: it issues from my hands. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, Seating herself on his knee again^ 
 and crowning herself. 
 
 Let anger keep your eyes steady and bright 
 
 To be my guiding mirror: do not move. 
 
 You have received two queens within your eyes. 
 She laughs clearly, like a bird's sudden 
 song. Hygd awakes and, after an in- 
 stanfs bewilderment, tiu-ns her head 
 toward the sound; finding t/ie bed- 
 curtain dropt, she moves it aside a 
 little with her fingers; she watches 
 Lear and Gormelaith for a short 
 time, then the curtain slips from her 
 weak grasp and she lies motionless. 
 
 Lear, continuing meanwhile. 
 
 Doff it. [GoK'^WLAiTn kisses him.) Enough. {Kiss) 
 
 Unless you do (Kiss) my will (Kiss) 
 I shall (Kiss) I shall {Kiss) I'll have you {Kiss) 
 
 sent (Kiss) to {Kiss) 
 
 GORMFLAITH. Hush. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Come to the garden : you shall hear me there. 
 
 ' 28
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 I dare not leave the Queen. . . . Yes, yes, I come. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 No, you are better here: the guard would see you. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 Not when we reach the pathway near the apple- 
 yard. They rise. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Girl, you are changed : you yield more beauty so. 
 Tliey go out hand in hand by the door- 
 ivay at the back. As they pass the 
 crumpled letter Gormflaith drops 
 her handkerchief on it^ then picks up 
 handkerchief and letter together and 
 thrusts them into her bosom as she 
 passes out. 
 
 Hygd, Jlngering back the bed-curtain again. 
 How have they vanished? What are they doing 
 now? 
 
 Gormflaith, outside^ singing to a quick, chatter- 
 ing tune. 
 If you have a mind to kiss me 
 You shall kiss me in the dark: 
 Yet rehearse, or you might miss me — 
 Make my mouth your noontide mark. . . . 
 
 Gormflaith's voice grotos fainter as the 
 song progresses, until all sound is 
 lost. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Does he remember love-ways used with me? 
 
 ^9
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Shall I never know? Is it too near? 
 
 I'll watch him at his wooing once again, 
 
 Though I peer up at him across my grave-sill. 
 
 She gets out of bed and takes several steps 
 toivard the garden doorivay; she tot- 
 ters and sways, then, tur?img, stum- 
 bles back to the bed for support. 
 
 Limbs, will you die? It is not yet the time. 
 
 I know more discipline: I'll make you go. 
 
 She fumbles along the bed to the head, 
 then, clinging against the wall, 
 drags herself toward the back of the 
 r 00171. 
 
 It is too far. I cannot see the wall. 
 
 I will go ten more steps: only ten more. 
 
 One. Two. Three. Four. Five. 
 
 Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. 
 
 Sundown is soon to-day: it is cold and dark. 
 
 Now ten steps more, and much will have been 
 done. 
 
 One. Two. Three. Four. Ten. 
 
 Eleven. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen. Twenty. 
 
 Twenty-one. Twenty-three. Twenty-eight. 
 Thirty. Thirty-one. 
 
 At last the turn. Thirty-six. Thirty-nine. Forty. 
 
 Now only once again. Two. Three. 
 
 What do the voices say? I hear too many. 
 
 The door: but here there is no garden. . . . Ah! 
 She holds herself up an instant by the 
 door-curtains ; the^i shereels and falls , 
 her body in the room, her head and 
 shoulders beyond the curtains. 
 GoNERiL enters by the door beyond the 
 bed, carrying the filled ctip carefully 
 in both hands. 
 30
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Where are you? What have you done? Speak to 
 me. 
 
 Turning and seeing Hygd, sJie lets the 
 cup fall and leaps to the opeti door by 
 the bed. 
 Merryn, hither, hither. . . . Mother, O mother! 
 She goes to Hygd. Merryn enters. 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 Princess, what has she done? Who has left her? 
 
 She must have been alone. 
 
 GoNERiL. Where is Gormflaith? 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 Mercy o' mercies, everybody asks me 
 
 For Gormflaith, then for Gormflaith, then for 
 
 Gormflaith, 
 And I ask everybody else for her; 
 But she is nowhere, and the King will foam. 
 Send me no more; I am old with running about 
 After a bodiless name. 
 
 GoNERiL. She has been here, 
 
 And she has left the Oueen. This is her deed. 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 Ah, cruel, cruel ! The shame, the pity — 
 
 Goneril. Lift. 
 
 Together they raise Hygd, and carry her 
 to bed. 
 She breathes, but something flitters under her 
 
 flesh : 
 Wynoc the leech must help us now. Go, run, 
 
 31
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Seek him, and come back quickly, and do not 
 
 dare 
 To come without him. 
 
 Merryn. It is useless, lady: 
 
 There 's fever at the cowherd's in the marsh, 
 And Wynoc broods above it twice a day. 
 And I have lately seen him hobble thither. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 I never heard such scornful wickedness 
 As that a king's physician so should choose 
 To watch and even heal base men and poor — 
 And, more than all, when there's a queen a- 
 dying. . . . 
 
 Hygd, recovering consciousness. 
 
 Whence come you, dearest daughter? What have 
 
 I done? 
 Are you a dream? I thought I was alone. 
 Have you been hunting on the Windy Height? 
 Your hands are not thus gentle after hunting. 
 Or have I heard you singing through my sleep? 
 Stay with me now: I have had piercing thoughts 
 Of what the ways of life will do to you 
 To mould and maim you, and I have a power 
 To bring these to expression that I knew not. 
 Why do you wear my crown ? Why do you wear 
 My crown I say? Why do you wear my crown? 
 I am falling, falling! Lift me: hold me up. 
 
 GoNERiL climbs on the bed and supports 
 Hygd against her shoulder. 
 It is the bed that breaks, for still I sink. 
 Grip harder: I am slipping! 
 
 32
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 GoNERiL. Woman, help! 
 
 Merrvn hurries round to the front of the 
 
 bed and supports Hygd on her other 
 
 side. 
 \l\'GD points at the far corner of the room. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 Why is the King's mother standing there? 
 She should not wear her crown before me now. 
 Send her away, she had a savage mind. 
 Will you not hang a shawl across the corner 
 So that she cannot stare at me again? 
 
 With a rending sob she buries her face in 
 Goneril's bosom. 
 Ah, she is coming! Do not let her touch me! 
 Brave splendid daughter, how easily you save me : 
 But soon will Gormflaith come, she stays for ever. 
 O, will she bring my crown to me once more? 
 Yes, Gormflaith, yes. . . . Daughter, pay Gorm- 
 flaith well. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Gormflaith has left you lonely: 
 'Tis Gormflaith who shall pay. 
 
 Hygd. 
 
 No, Gormflaith; Gormflaith. . . . Not my loneli- 
 ness. . . . 
 Everything. . . . Pay Gormflaith. . . . 
 
 Her head falls back over Goneril's 
 shotdder and she dies. 
 
 GoNERiL, laying Hygd doivn in bed again. 
 Send horsemen to the marshes for the leech, 
 
 33 D
 
 KING L E A R'S WIFE 
 
 And let them bind him on a horse's back 
 
 And bring him swiftlier than an old man rides. 
 
 Merrvn. 
 
 This is no leech's work: she 's a dead woman. 
 
 I'd best be finding if the wisdom-women 
 
 Have come from Brita's child-bed to their drinking 
 
 By the cook's fire, for soon she'll be past handling. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 This is not death: death could not be like this. 
 She is quite warm — though nothing moves in her. 
 I did not know death could come all at once: 
 If life is so ill-seated no one is safe. 
 Cannot we leave her like herself awhile? 
 Wait awhile, Merryn. . . . No, no, no; not yet! 
 
 Merryn. 
 
 Child, she is gone and will not come again 
 
 However we cover our faces and pretend 
 
 She will be there if we uncover them. 
 
 I must be hasty, or she'll be as stiff 
 
 As a straw mattress is. 
 
 She hurries out by the door near the bed. 
 
 GoNERiL, throimng the whole length of her body 
 
 along Hygd's body, and embracing it. 
 Come back, come back; the things I have not 
 
 done 
 Beat in upon my brain from every side: 
 1 know not where to put myself to bear them : 
 If 1 could have you now I could act well. 
 My inward life, deeds that you have not known, 
 I burn to tell you in a sudden dread 
 That now your ghost discovers them in me, 
 
 34
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Hearken, mother; between us there's a bond 
 Of flesh and essence closer than love can cause: 
 It cannot be unknit so soon as this, 
 And you must know my touch, 
 And you shall yield a sign. 
 
 Feel, feel this urging throb: I call to you. Come 
 back. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, still croivnecl, enters by the 
 garden doorway. 
 
 GoRjMFLAITH. 
 
 Come back! Help me and shield me! 
 
 She disappears through the curtains. 
 GoNERiL has sprung to her feet at the first 
 
 soimd o/"GoRMFLAiTn's voice. 
 Lear enters by the garden doonvay^ lead- 
 ing GoRMFLAiTH by the hand. 
 
 Lear. What is to do? 
 
 GoNERiL, advanci7ig to meet them with a deep 
 
 obeisance. 
 O, Sir, the Oueen is dead: long live the Oueen. 
 You have been ready with the coronation. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 What do you mean? Young madam, will you 
 mock? 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 But is not she your choice? 
 
 The old Queen thought so, for I found her here, 
 Lipping the prints of her supplanter's feet. 
 Prostrate in homage, on her face, silent. 
 I tremble within to ha\'e seen her fallen down. 
 I must be pardoned if I scorn )Our ways: 
 
 35
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 You cannot know this feeling that I know, 
 
 You are not of her kin or house; but I 
 
 Share blood with her, and, though she grew too 
 
 worn 
 To be your Queen, she was my mother. Sir. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 The Oueen has seen me. 
 
 Lear. She is safe in bed. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Do not speak low: your voice sounds guilty so; 
 And there is no more need — she will not wake. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 She cannot sleep for ever. When she wakes 
 
 I will announce my purpose in the need 
 
 Of Britain for a prince to follow me, 
 
 And tell her that she is to be deposed. . . . 
 
 What have you done? She is not breathing now. 
 
 She breathed here lately. Is she truly dead? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Your graceful consort steals from us too soon : 
 Will you not tell her that she should remain — 
 If she can trust the faith you keep with a queen? 
 She steps to Gormflaith, noho is sidling 
 toimird the garden doonvay, and, 
 taking her hand, leads her to the foot 
 of the bed. 
 Lady, why will you gol The King intends 
 Tliat you shall soon be royal, and thereby 
 Admitted to our breed: then stay with us 
 In this domestic privacy to mourn 
 
 36
 
 KING L E A R'S WIFE 
 
 The grief here fallen on our family. 
 Kneel now; I yield the eldest daughter's place. 
 Why do you fumble in your bosom so? 
 Put your cold hands together; close your eyes, 
 In inward isolation to assemble 
 Your memories of the dead, your prayers for her. 
 She turns to Lear, who has approached 
 the bed and dnrivn back the curtain. 
 Wluit utterance of doom would the king use 
 Upon a watchman in the castle garth 
 Who left his gate and let an enemy in? 
 The watcher by the Queen thus left her station : 
 The sick bruised Queen is dead of that neglect. 
 And what should be the doom on a seducer 
 Who drew that sentinel from his fixt watch? 
 
 Lear. 
 
 She had long been dying, and she would have died 
 Had all her dutiful daughters tended her bed. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Yes, she had long been dying in her heart. 
 She lived to sec you give her crown away; 
 She died to see you fondle a menial: 
 These blows you dealt now, but what elder wounds 
 Received them to such purpose suddenly? 
 What had you caused her to remember most? 
 What things would she be like to babble over 
 In the wild helpless hour when fitful life 
 No more can choose what thoughts it shall en- 
 couracye 
 
 in 
 
 In the tost mind? She has suffered you twice over. 
 Your animal thoughts and hungry powers, this 
 
 day, 
 Until I knew you unkingly and untrue. 
 
 37
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Punishment once taught you daughterly silence; 
 It shall be tried again. . . . What has she said? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 You cannot touch me now I know your nature: 
 Your force upon my mind was only terrible 
 When I believed you a cruel flawless man. 
 Ruler of lands and dreaded judge of men, 
 Now you have done a murder with your mind 
 Can you see any murderer put to death? 
 Can you — 
 
 Lear. What has she said? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 Continue in your joy of punishing evil, 
 
 Your passion of just revenge upon wrong-doers, 
 
 Unkingly and untrue? 
 
 Lear. Enough: what do you know? 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 That which could add a further agony 
 
 To the last agony, the daily poison 
 
 Of her late, withering life; but never word 
 
 Of fairer hours or any lost delight. 
 
 Have you no memory, either, of her youth, 
 
 While she was still to use, spoil, forsake. 
 
 That maims your new contentment with a longing 
 
 For what is gone and will not come again? 
 
 Lear. 
 
 I did not know that she could die to-day. 
 She had a bloodless beauty that cheated me: 
 She was not born for wedlock. She shut me out. 
 
 38
 
 KING L E A R'S WIFE 
 
 She is no colder now. . . . I'll hear no more. 
 You shall be answered afterward for this. 
 Put something over her: get her buried: 
 I will not look on her again. 
 
 He breaks from Goneril and jlings 
 abruptly out by the door near the bed. 
 
 GORMFLAITH. 
 
 My King, you leave me! 
 
 Goneril. Soon we follow him: 
 
 But, ah, poor fragile beauty, you cannot rise 
 While this grave burden weights your drooping 
 head. 
 
 Laying her hand caressingly on Gorm- 
 flaith's neck, she gradully forces 
 her head farther and farther doxvn. 
 You were not nurtured to sustain a crown, 
 Your unanointed parents could not breed 
 The spirit that ten hundred years must ripen. 
 Lo, how you sink and fail. 
 
 Gormelaith. You had best take care, 
 
 For where my neck has bruises yours shall have 
 
 wounds. 
 The King knows of your wolfish snapping at me: 
 He will protect me. 
 
 Goneril. Ay, if he is in time. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH, taking off the crown and holding it 
 
 up blindly toivard Goneril zvith one hand. 
 Take it and let me go\ 
 
 Goneril. Nay, not to me: 
 
 You are the Queen's, to serve her even in death. 
 
 39
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Yield her her own. Approach her: do not fear; 
 
 She will not chide you or forgive you now. 
 
 Go on your knees; the crown still holds you down. 
 
 GoRMFLAiTH s tumbles fonvard on her 
 
 knees and lays the crown on the bed, 
 
 then crouches motionlessly aga inst the 
 
 bedside. 
 
 GoNERiL, taking the croxmi and putting it on the 
 
 dead Queen'' s head. 
 Mother and Queen, to you this holiest circlet 
 Returns, by you renews its purpose and pride; 
 Though it is sullied with a menial warmth. 
 Your august coldness shall rehallow it, 
 And when the young lewd blood that lent it heat 
 Is also cooler we can well forget. 
 
 She steps to Gormflaith. 
 Rise. Come, for here there is no more to do. 
 And let us seek your chamber, if you will, 
 There to confer in greater privacy; 
 For we have now interment to prepare. 
 
 She leads Gormflaith to the door near 
 
 the bed. 
 
 You must walk first, you are still the Queen elect. 
 
 When Gormflaith has passed before her 
 
 GoNERiL unsheathes her hunting 
 
 knife. 
 
 Gormflaith, turning hi the doorway. 
 What will you do? 
 
 GoNERiL, thrusting her forward with the haft of 
 the knife. On. On. On. Go in. 
 
 She folloivs Gormflaith out. 
 After a moment* s interval two elderly 
 40
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 ivomen, one a little younger than the 
 other, enter by the same door: they 
 wear black hoods and shapeless black 
 g07vns 7vith large sleeves that Jlap like 
 the wings of ungainly birds: between 
 them they carry a heavy cauldron of 
 hot water. 
 
 The Younger Woman. 
 
 We were listening-. We were listening. 
 
 The Elder Woman. We were both listening. 
 
 The Younger Woman. 
 Did she struggle? 
 
 The Elder Woman. 
 
 She could not struggle long. 
 They set down the cauldron at the foot of 
 the bed. 
 
 The Elder Woman, curtseying to the Queen's 
 
 body. 
 Saving your presence, Madam, wc are come 
 To make you sweeter than you'll be hereafter, 
 And then be done with you. 
 
 The Younger Woman, curtseying in turn. 
 Three days together, my Lady, y'havc had me 
 
 ducked 
 For easing a foolish maid at the wrong time; 
 But now your breath is stopped and you are 
 
 colder. 
 And you shall be as wet as a drowned cat 
 Ere I have done with you. 
 
 41
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 The Elder Woman, fumbling in the folds of the 
 
 robe that hangs on the wall. 
 Her pocket is empty; Merryn has been here first. 
 Hearken, and then begin : 
 You have not touched a royal corpse before, 
 But I have stretched a king and an old queen, 
 A king's aunt and a king's brother too. 
 Without much boasting of a still-born princess; 
 So that I know, as a priest knows his prayers, 
 All that is written in the chamberlain's book 
 About the handling of exalted corpses, 
 Stripping them and trussing them for the grave: 
 And there it says that the chief corpse-washer 
 Shall take for her own use by sacred right 
 The coverlid, the upper sheet, the mattress 
 Of any bed in which a queen has died. 
 And the last robe of state the body wore ; 
 While humbler helpers may divide among them 
 The under sheet, the pillow, and the bed-gown 
 Stript from the cooling queen. 
 Be thankful, then, and 'praise me every day 
 That I have brought no other women with me 
 To spoil you of your share. 
 
 The Younger Woman. 
 Ah, you have always been a friend to me: 
 Many 's the time I have said I did not know 
 How I could even have lived but for your kindness. 
 The Elder Woman draws down the bed- 
 clothes fro77i the Queen's body, loosens 
 them from the bed, and throivs them 
 on the floor. 
 
 The Elder Woman. 
 
 Pull her feet straight: is your mind wandering? 
 
 42
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 She commences to fold the bedclothes^ 
 singing as she moves about. 
 
 A louse crept out of my lady's shift — 
 
 Ahuinm, Ahumm, Ahee — 
 
 Crying " Oi! Oil We are turned adrift; 
 
 The lady's bosom is cold and stiffed, 
 
 And her arm-pit's cold for me." 
 
 While the Eldkr Woman sitigs, the 
 Younger Woman straightens the 
 Queen's feet and ties them together^ 
 draws thepilloivfrom under her head, 
 gathers her hair in one hand and 
 knots it roughly; then she loosens her 
 n ightgoivn , revealing a jewel hung on 
 a cord round the Queen's neck. 
 
 The Elder Woman, running to the vacant side 
 
 of the bed. 
 What have you there? Give it to me. 
 
 The Younger Woman. It is mine: 
 
 I found it. 
 
 The Elder Woman, seizing the jewel. 
 Leave it. 
 
 The Younger Woman. Let go. 
 
 The Elder Woman. Leave it, I say. 
 
 Will you not? Will you not? An eye for a jewel, 
 then! 
 
 She attacks the face of the Younger 
 Woal\n ivith her disengaged hand. 
 
 The Younger Woman, starting back. 
 
 Oh! 
 
 43
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 The Elder Woman breaks the cord and 
 thrusts the jewel into her pocket. 
 
 The Younger Woman. 
 
 Aie! Aie! Aie! Old thief! You arc always 
 
 thieving! 
 You stole a necklace on your wedding-day: 
 You could not bear a child, you stole your 
 
 daughter: 
 
 You stole a shroud the morn your husband died: 
 
 Last week you stole the Princess Regan's comb . . 
 
 She stumbles into the chair bytlie bed, and, 
 
 throwing her loose sleeves over her 
 
 head, rocks herself and moans. 
 
 The Elder Woman, resiLming her clothes-folding 
 
 and her song. 
 
 " The lady's linen 's no longer neat; " — 
 
 Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee — 
 
 " Her savour is neither warm nor sweet; 
 
 It's close for two in a winding-sheet, 
 
 And lice are too good for worms to eat; 
 
 So here 's no place for me." 
 
 GoNERiL enters by the door near the bed: 
 her knife and the hand that holds it 
 are bloody. She pauses a moment ir- 
 resolutely. 
 
 The Elder Woman. 
 
 Still work for old Hrogneda, little Princess? 
 
 GoNERiL goes straight to the cauldron, 
 passing the iwmen as if they were not 
 there: she kneels and -washes her knife 
 and her hand in it. The women retire 
 to the back of the chamber. 
 44
 
 KING L E A R'S WIFE 
 
 GoNERiL, Speaking to herself. 
 
 The way is easy: and it is to be used. 
 
 How could this need have been conceived slowly? 
 
 In a keen mind it should have leapt and burnt: 
 
 What I have done would have been better done 
 
 When my sad mother lived and could feel joy. 
 
 This striking without thought is better than 
 
 hunting; 
 She showed more terror than an animal, 
 She was more shiftless. . . . 
 A little blood is lightly w^ashed away, 
 A common stain that need not be remembered; 
 And a hot spasm of rightness quickly born 
 Can guide me to kill justly and shall guide. 
 
 Lear enters by the door near the bed. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Goneril, Gormflaith, Gormflaith. . . . Have you 
 seen Gormflaith? 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 I led her to her chamber lately. Sir. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Ay, she is in her chamber. She is there. 
 
 Goneril. 
 
 Have you been there already? Could you not 
 wait? 
 
 Lear. 
 
 Daughter, she is bleeding: she is slain. 
 
 Goneril, rising frow the cauldron with dripping 
 
 hands. 
 Yes, she is slain: I did it with a knife: 
 
 45
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 And in this water is dissolved her blood, 
 
 {Raising her arms and sprinkling the 
 Queen's body) 
 That now I scatter on the Queen of death 
 For signal to her spirit that I can slake 
 Her long corrosion of misery with such balm — 
 Blood for weeping, terror for woe, death for death, 
 A broken body for a broken heart. 
 What will you say against me and my deed? 
 
 Lear. 
 
 That now you cannot save yourself from me. 
 
 While your blind virgin power still stood apart 
 
 In an unused, unviolated life, 
 
 You judged me in my weakness, and because 
 
 I felt you unflawed I could not answer you; 
 
 Rut you have mingled in mortality 
 
 And violently begun the common life 
 
 By fault against your fellows ; and the state, 
 
 liie state of Britain that inheres in me 
 
 Not touched by my humanity or sin, 
 
 Passions or privy acts, shall be as hard 
 
 And savage to you as to a murderess. 
 
 GoNERiL, taking a letter from her girdle. 
 I found a warrant in her favoured bosom, King: 
 She wore this on her heart when you were crown- 
 ing her. 
 
 Lear, opening the letter. 
 But this is not my hand: 
 
 {Looking about him on the floor) 
 Where is the other letter? 
 
 Gonrril. 
 
 Is there another letter? What should it say? 
 
 46
 
 KING LEA R'S WIFE 
 
 Lear. 
 
 There is no other letter if you have none. 
 
 {JReading) 
 '* Open your window when the moon is dead, 
 And I will come again. 
 
 The men say everywhere that you are faithless. . . . 
 And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, 
 
 Gormflaith. . . ." 
 This is not hers: she'd not receive such words. 
 
 GONKRIL. 
 
 Her name stands twice therein : her perfume fills it: 
 My knife went through it ere I found it on her. 
 
 Lear. 
 
 The filth is suitably dead. You are my true 
 daughter. 
 
 GONERIL. 
 
 I do not understand how men can govern, 
 Use craft and exercise the duty of cunning, 
 Anticipate treason, treachery meet with treachery, 
 And yet believe a woman because she looks 
 Straight in their eyes with mournful, trustful 
 
 gaze, 
 And lisps like innocence, all gentleness. 
 Your Gormflaith could not answer a woman's 
 
 eyes. 
 I did not need to read her in a letter; 
 I am not woman yet, but I can feel 
 What untruths are instinctive in my kind. 
 And how some men desire deceit from us. 
 Come; let these washers do what they must do: 
 Or shall your Oueen be wrapped and cofiined 
 
 awry? She goes out by the garden doonvay. 
 
 47
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE 
 
 Lear. 
 
 I thought she had been broken long ago: 
 
 She must be wedded and broken, I cannot do it. 
 
 He follo-ws GoNERiL out. 
 
 The two women return to the bedside. 
 The Elder Woman. 
 Poor, masterful King, he is no easier, 
 Although his tearful wife is gone at last: 
 A wilful girl shall prick and thwart him now. 
 Old gossip, we must hasten ; the Queen is setting. 
 Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes. 
 
 The Younger Woman. 
 
 Find your own pennies: then you can steal them 
 safely. 
 
 The Elder Woman. 
 
 Praise you the gods of Britain, as I do praise 
 
 them. 
 That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, 
 And that I lack your unforgiving mind. 
 Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear 
 And draw away the under sheet for you ; 
 Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire — 
 I never could put damp linen on a corpse. 
 She sings. 
 The louse made off unhappy and wet; — 
 Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee — 
 He 's looking for us, the little pet; 
 So haste, for her chin 's to tie up yet. 
 And let us be gone with what we can get — 
 Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet, 
 Her pocket turned out for me. 
 
 Curtain. 
 48
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 E
 
 TO 
 
 MY DEAR SCRIBE
 
 PERSONS: 
 
 HiALTi, a Northman. 
 Thorgerd, his Wife. 
 Blanid, an Irish Bondmaid. 
 An Old Strange Man.
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Tlie scene is the interior of a cottaf^e near a misty 
 mere and among unseen mountains on a wild 
 night of late Autumn. In the hack wall area 
 door to the left and a long low window in the 
 middle; the latter is shuttered on the outside, 
 and on door and 7vindo7v the wind-driven rain 
 rattles. In the middle of the left-hand wall a 
 door leads into an outhouse ; near it is a loom: 
 toward t/ie front of the right-hand ivall another 
 door leads to a sleeping-chamber ; a settle ex- 
 tends along this wall and in front of it a long 
 table is set. Two rushlights burn on the 
 table. A round hearth is in the middle of the 
 house; its smoke rises into a luffer which 
 hangs from the thatched roof between two 
 beams. The floor is thickly strewmmth rushes. 
 There are several wooden stools about the 
 hearth, on oneofwhichWiALii is sitting mend- 
 ing harness. Thorgkrd is standing near the 
 loom, spinning with a distaff. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 'TT^HE lass is late about; where is she now? 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 Let the lass be. What is the lass to you? 
 
 53
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 She is my lass to handle as I will — 
 My father gave her to me for my own, 
 And so I use her as I use my gear . . . 
 "She will not last " say you? Well, what of that? 
 I know gear must wear out, being well used; 
 Shoes must be trodden under-foot all day. 
 Though in the mire they go and to the mire; 
 The hearth-fire wastes the irons used to tend it: 
 I am the huswife — leave the house to me 
 And buy me new gear when the old is rotten. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 You drive her over hard. In the cold dark, 
 Hours ere the thin late dawn, she was afoot. 
 And she has been afoot each moment since: 
 The butter will not come now without fire. 
 But I was wakened in the frosty night 
 By the slow moaning of her weary churn, 
 And when I rose she stood here without shoes — 
 She said you took them from her ; so I sought. 
 And gave her them again, and lit the fire. 
 She dare not sleep with half your tasks undone. 
 But you slept and your sleep was all her rest; 
 Yet in her land 'tis you would be the thrall. 
 You shut the hens in from the storm all day. 
 But she must trudge with peat-mull in a swill 
 Up from the water-side and down all day . . . 
 
 Thorgerd 
 
 vSparc her and have my firing spoilt? Not I. 
 
 Had it been sodden, how could you light her fires? 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 You drive her over hard. 
 
 54
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Thorgerd. What is it to you? 
 
 Fodder and yoke your neats, see tu your swine, 
 
 Put them to breed, and leave my stock to me. 
 
 If this is over hard, what will it be — 
 
 Last week she still could smile sometimes, so yet 
 
 She smiles too often for my happiness. 
 
 What money did the calves fetch at the fair? 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Where is she now? 
 
 Thorgerd. What money did the calves 
 
 F'etch at the fair last week? 
 
 HiALTi. Where is she now? 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 I spilt the water; she must needs draw more. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 The roof-drip at the door would fill her pails. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 What money did the calves fetch at the fair? 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 You need not ask; you had it all to hoard. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 You kept some back; who bought them? 
 
 HiALTI. He who paid. 
 
 The outside door opens a7id, as the i-ain 
 
 drives in, Blanid enters carrying two 
 
 pails of-iiHiter by a yoke. Her short- 
 
 55
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 sleeved,frayed, hempen smock is drip- 
 pin g-wet; an old cart-strap is buckled 
 about her middle; her ankles are bare, 
 but her feet are covered by shapeless 
 brogues ; her matted hair is cut shorty 
 and she has an iron collar about her 
 neck. She sets doimi her pails ^ and 
 rm'th difficulty shuts and bolts the door 
 against the wind. Then she carries 
 her pails into the outhouse; as she 
 moves about ivithin she is heard to 
 sing to a tired^ monotonous tune. 
 
 Blanid, 
 
 The bird in my heart 's a-calling through a far- 
 fled, tear-grey sea 
 
 To the soft slow hills that cherish dim waters 
 weary for me, 
 
 Where the folk of rath and dun trail homeward 
 silently 
 In the mist of the early night-fall that drips from 
 their hair like rain. 
 
 The bird in my heart's a-flutter, for the bitter 
 
 wind of the sea 
 Shivers with thyme and woodbine as my body 
 
 with memory ; 
 I feel their perfumes ooze in my ears like 
 
 melody — 
 The scent of the mead at the harping I shall 
 
 not hear again. 
 
 The bird in my heart's a-sinking to a hushed vale 
 
 hid in the sea, 
 Where the moonlit dew o'er dead fighters is 
 
 stirred by the feet of the Shee, 
 
 56
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Who are lovely and old as the earth but younger 
 than I can be 
 Who have known the forgetting of dying to a 
 life one lonely pain . . . 
 
 Slie returns from the outhouse. 
 
 THORGKRD. 
 
 Come here; give me your shoes; quickly, I say. 
 Why must you go shod softly? Give me your 
 
 shoes. 
 
 She takes them and puts them on the fire. 
 Is there some joy so deep within you still 
 That I have missed it though 'tis bright for 
 
 singing? 
 It shall not be so long; sing while you can. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 No joy ever sank deep enough for singing; 
 
 Trouble and all the sorrowful ways of men 
 
 Must stir the sad unrest that ends in song. 
 
 Joy seeks but peace and silence and still thought ; 
 
 But those who cannot weep must sing for ease, 
 
 And in the sound forget the thought that smote it. 
 
 THORGKRD. 
 
 I am made glad, hearing your misery; 
 
 Yet all the shapeless, creeping, shivering sounds 
 
 You wail about the house will make me share it. 
 
 Your songs of faery and nameless kings 
 
 And things that never happened long ago 
 
 And an unknown, impossible, shadowy land 
 
 Are useless as the starlight after moonset 
 
 That will not light men homeward from the fair — 
 
 Nay, useless as its melting down thin water: 
 
 If you must sing, sing truth to gut-strong tunes — 
 
 57
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Of Gunnar or of Freya or Andvari, 
 Vineland the Good and the old Western sea. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Things need not happen that they may be true; 
 Although impossible, they may be true — 
 The things that matter happen in the heart. 
 All earthly truth is true but for a time, 
 Whilst ages may be altered by one dream — 
 The things that matter happen in the heart . . . 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 Useless as starlight or the aimless wind. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 The wind is all the souls of those sad dead 
 Who will not stay in Heaven for love of earth ; 
 Hither and thither they surge to find the gate 
 They see and know not on its new, strange side. 
 For they have learned too much to be let back. 
 Ah, some have learned too much before they die. 
 As she crosses the house at the back 
 HiALTi turns and, catching her hands 
 in his, draws her toward him. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Is it too hard, the thought of that lost vale? 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 It is too hard, because I must so love it 
 That were I free I should go there no more. 
 Lest I should hate it. I must always suffer, 
 I only suffer this way rather than that — 
 'Tis the eternal suffering of love 
 Must search me somehow with love's pitilessness 
 To make me know all souls ; what matter how? 
 
 58
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 O, I am but a troubled dream of God's, 
 And even His will can alter not His dreams; 
 Yea, He is dreaming me a little while — 
 I must be dreamed out to the hardest end. 
 Returning then to be unknown in Him ; 
 I shall be Him again when He awakes. 
 Ah, God, awake, and so forget me soon. 
 
 Thorgkrd, siviiigin^ her aside by the collar on 
 
 her neck. 
 Set on the water for the porridge; go. 
 
 Blanid goes into the outhouse; Thor- 
 gkrd continues to Hialti. 
 Why must you hold her hands and hold her eyes? 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Under each dark grey lash a long tear slid. 
 Like rain in a wild rose's shadowy curve 
 Bowed in the wind about the morning twilight. 
 
 Thorgkrd. 
 
 Have done; I know; you left the fair at noon 
 
 To reach the copse just at the young moon's 
 
 setting — 
 I could not find her till i' the night-hid copse 
 A woman's voice sobbed " If he would but 
 
 come . . ." 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 It is not true; you know it is not true. 
 
 Let her alone; you know that I must love you. 
 
 And if she loves me she will know it too 
 
 And hurt herself far more than you can hurt her. 
 
 59
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 I hear you say it: and afterward? . . . Perhaps 
 
 My Httle shears are sharp as any knife. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 You would not kill her? 
 
 Thorgerd, When have I grown kind-hearted? 
 She lays her hand on his shoulder and, 
 leaning her mouth to his ear, speaks 
 ill a low, distinct voice. 
 Slit nose and lip and where 's her beauty then? 
 
 He starts from his stool. 
 Nay, are my kinsfolk as far off as hers? 
 
 He turns a7vay as Blanid enters with an 
 iron pot which she hangs from a hook 
 over the fire, and a pitcher of milk 
 which she sets on the table. 
 Thorgerd takes the pot from the fire. 
 Here 's too much water; it will never boil, 
 And if it did the mess would be too thin. 
 
 She pours ivater from the pot upon the 
 floor, then hangs the pot over the fire 
 again. 
 Set out the bowls, and finger not their lips. 
 
 Blanid goes again to the outhouse, and, 
 
 returning, sets three bowls with spoons 
 
 on the table, and a far of meal by the 
 
 hearth. 
 
 Though porridge needs meal you shall not think 
 
 for me ; 
 Do nought until I bid you — once. The grain. 
 
 Blanid goes yet again to the outhouse 
 and returns 7vith a bag of grain. 
 60
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 You know what grain is for; why do you stand? 
 Your feet are mine. Down to the quern. Get down. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 There's meal in plenty for to-morrow. 
 
 Thorgerd, laying doimi her distaff to make 
 
 porridge. Ay, 
 
 But is there meal in plenty for next month? 
 You may be dead then; therefore you must toil, 
 That I may need to do no aching tasks 
 Until my man can buy another drudge 
 From the next herd; for so we shall forget you. 
 
 Blanid, kneeling by the quern between the ivindoiv 
 and the door, and commencing to grind grain. 
 You hate me far too subtly to forget me ; 
 There is not enough kindness in your heart 
 To let you thus forego your joy of hate. 
 Then, too, despite the accident of death, 
 I cannot ^o from here against my will. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 You shall not die ere I have done with you; 
 And death shall only come by suffering 
 Until you are too feeble even to suffer. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 The sound of death is ever in mine ears, 
 
 Monotonous as the night's infinity 
 
 Wherein I was once born where salt winds sweep 
 
 The wailing of the waters of the West. 
 
 I die, but you can ne'er have done with me. 
 
 Thorgerd, the porridge being made. 
 Come, drudge, lift off the pot and fill the bowls. 
 
 6i
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Blanid, having filled two bowls. 
 The pot is empty. 
 
 Thorgerd. But the bowls are full. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Now give the lass some supper; fill her bowl. 
 
 Thorgerd, pouring milk over the porridge. 
 
 There 's but enough for two; I'll make no more. 
 
 Here, take the pot and scrape it at the quern. 
 
 HiALTi and Thorgerd draiv stools to the 
 table; Blamd carries the pot to the 
 outhouse and returns to the quern; 
 supper proceeds in silence for a few 
 moments., then Hialti rises and 
 offers his bowl to Blanid. 
 
 Hialti. 
 
 Share with me, lass; I need no more to-night. 
 
 Before Blanid can taste the porridge 
 Thorgerd strikes the bowl from her 
 hand. 
 
 Hialti, indignantly., as he reaches to Thorgerd's 
 
 bowl. 
 She shall have yours; ^o you and make us 
 more . . . 
 
 He is interrupted by a distant availing 
 which is heard through the storm. 
 
 The Voice. 
 
 Obey! Obey! Ohohey! 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Master, I hear one calling in the night. 
 
 62
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 HiALTi, in a subdued voice. 
 
 It is the wind across the chimney-slates. 
 
 The Voice. 
 Ohey! Ohohey! 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Master, a man is callin^^ in the night. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 An owl, storm-beaten, drowns down the long 
 mere. 
 
 The Voice, sounding nearer on a gust ofivind. 
 Ohohey! Ohohey! 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Master, one lost is helpless in the night. 
 
 Thorgerd, gently and imth an eager smile. 
 Ay, lass, good lass; go^ lass, and seek for him — 
 Maybe he sinks amid the marshy reeds; 
 Bring him to warmth and supper and a bed. 
 I'll shut the door; the light will only daze you. 
 
 HiALTi, leaping to the door in front of Blanid, 
 
 and setting his back to it. 
 No, no; back, girl, get back. {To Thorgerd.) 
 
 You murderess. 
 You know it is the Crier of the Ford, 
 Who wakens when the clashing waters rise 
 And the thick night is choked with level rain. 
 He is not seen ; he was not born ; he gathers 
 His bodiless being from the treacherous tarn. 
 His aged crying gropes about the storm 
 
 63
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 To snare the spent wayfarer to the ford, 
 
 Or draw some pitiful helper to the ford, 
 
 And drown them where the unknown water swirls 
 
 And strangle them with long brown water-weed: 
 
 He seeks their souls for his old soul to feed on, 
 
 Because it has no body to nourish it. 
 
 Thorgerd, hastily yet sullenly. 
 How should.! know? 
 
 She grips Blanid's shoulder and hurries 
 her to the outhouse. 
 
 Get in with you to your straw. 
 
 She thrusts lier into the outhouse and shuts 
 
 the door upon her; then she turns to 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Fool, now I know you love her behind your heart. 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 I have no mind to waste a half-spent thrall 
 To prove I love you; and to buy another 
 Would need more money than eight red-polled 
 stirks. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 Choose between her and me; if you take her, 
 
 I take the land. 
 
 HiALTI. I love you overmuch 
 
 To set you equally against a thrall. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 What, do I touch you when I touch your fields? 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 To-morrow I must drive the sold ewes home 
 And lead more bedding from the bracken-fell 
 
 '64
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 If the storm clears— it is well stacked and dry; 
 So we must be a-stirring by lantern-light, 
 Since now you will not have the lass go with me 
 To milk, but go yourself although three cows 
 Will not let down their milk to you at all, 
 You drag their teats so: waking-time comes 
 
 soon — 
 Best get to bed. 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 And leave you to go to your straw's wench? 
 
 HiALTi, taking a rushlight in his hand. 
 Here are enough of your unfaithful words; 
 I'll alter this to-morrow. 
 
 Thorgerd. Ay, to-morrow. 
 
 HiALTi enters the sleeping-chamber; after 
 watching the door close upon /ii?ji, 
 Thorgerd, her hands clenched and 
 her arms rigid, stoiftly steps half ivay 
 toward the outhouse; then, suddenly 
 relaxing into a pause and smiling 
 with tight lips as she shakes her head 
 slightly and sharply, she turns to the 
 table again, doffs her coif and dra^vs 
 her hair down, blows out the remain- 
 ing rushlight, and follows Hialti 
 into the sleeping-chamber. 
 Henceforth the cottage is only lit by the 
 ever-dying fire. A long, empty silence 
 ensues, broken only by the tumult of 
 the storm and the tinkle of the sinking 
 embers. 
 
 65 F
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Then the outhouse door opens slowly and 
 from it Blanid steps listeningly 
 across the house, in front of the hearth, 
 to thedoorofthe sleeping-chamber , re- 
 maining there for a little time toith 
 her ear against the door-boards; then 
 she returns noiselessly across the 
 house, behind the hearth, pausing 
 near the house door. 
 
 Blanid, in a hushed voice. 
 
 If day were only darkness melting down 
 
 From darkness into darkness like this rain, 
 
 Lost ere 'tis known, then I might always sleep 
 
 And sleep and dream I was a queen once more — 
 
 She does not know I was a jewelled queen, 
 
 For so I spoil her of new heights of joy 
 
 In which she might for haughtiness fondle me. 
 
 O, I would sleep in that old Crier's arms. 
 
 Enduring silence harder than all else, 
 
 A mote shut into one cold, kneaded eyelid 
 
 Of the dead mere; and dream into the wind. 
 
 And cling to stars lest I should slip through space ; 
 
 And dream I am the body of him I love, 
 
 Who yields me only kindness, never love — 
 
 O me, that misery of hopeless kindness. 
 
 But I'll not die and leave him to her lips; 
 
 Though I can never have him she shall not; 
 
 For I can use this body worn to a soul 
 
 To barter with that Crier of hidden things 
 
 That, if he tangles him in his chill hair, 
 
 Then I will follow and follow and follow and 
 
 follow. 
 Past where the imaged stars ebb past their light 
 And turn to water under the dark world. 
 
 66
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 She ^oes out into the storm, leaving tJie 
 door open behind her. Presently she 
 is heard singing to a chant-like^ ever- 
 falling melody. 
 I stand in the sick night, whose hid shape is my 
 own shape, 
 As dazed life in the flickering hearts of old men ; 
 I think like a lean heron with bald head and frayed 
 nape 
 Motionlessly moulting in a flat pool of a grey 
 
 fen, 
 Whose sleep-blinked horny eyes know it can 
 ne'er moult again. 
 
 My age-long cry droops in the hoar unseen stars 
 that shake 
 
 Until their discordant rays make darkness in- 
 side the sky; 
 My bare cry shivers along the slimy rushes of the 
 drowned lake — 
 
 Weariful waters, do you hear a soul's hair ting- 
 ling your veiled feet nigh? 
 
 I stand outside my keen body, yearning into 
 you as I cry. 
 
 HiALTi, ivithin. 
 
 Is that the lass sobbing a song in sleep? 
 
 Thorgerd, within. 
 
 The wind, the wind, and so as much as she. 
 
 Blanid, still out of doors, singing. 
 
 Old father of many waters, can you feel my soul 
 
 touching yours? 
 I know that to greet your calling leaves me no 
 
 more any yea or nay; 
 
 67
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Yet I too am of kin with lost woods and sedgy 
 shores, 
 So come secret as your black wind and take the 
 
 dark core of my heart away, 
 Ere you beget me on death to be still-born to 
 an unlit day. 
 Obey! Obey! Ohohey! 
 
 The Voice. Ohohey! Obey! 
 
 HiALTi, xmthin. 
 
 Is there a woman's voice inside the wind? 
 
 Thorgerd, within. 
 
 . . . the unclean Crier croaking . . . cover your 
 ears . . . 
 
 Blanid re-enters the house hurriedly; 
 she shuts and holts the door^ hardly 
 knoimng what she does; she falls on 
 her knees with her back to the door, 
 breathing quickly and hard, and 
 swaying backnmrd and forward, her 
 face hid in her hands. 
 Again and again a terrible blast of wind 
 strains at the unyielding door. 
 
 The Voice, close at hand. 
 
 Open, open; I cannot open; open. 
 
 I cannot come to you unless you open. 
 
 Blanid, tnuttering behind her hands. 
 
 I will not go ... I can do nothing else . . . 
 
 It shall not enter ... O, it is in my heart . . . 
 
 She totters fearfully to the door, after many 
 hesita7it backward glances, and opens 
 68
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 it sloivlyand as if she had never kncnvn 
 how to open it. She reels against the 
 roalL and stands there motionlessty, 
 clutching it with fiat hands and out- 
 spread arms, as a stooping figure 
 swathed in a raifi-colouredj rain- 
 soaked cloak and deep hood enters. 
 Wisps of ivhite hair fi utter in the 
 mouth of the hood, and one fiicker of 
 the fire-light shows in its depths a soft, 
 shrunken, beardless face with an 
 almost lipless, sunken mouth. 
 
 This Old Strange Man, speaking always in a 
 
 low, even, mournful voice. 
 A spirit calling in an old, old tongue 
 Forgotten in lost graves in lonesome places; 
 A spirit huddled in an old, old heart 
 Like a blind crone crouched o'er a long-dead fire ; 
 A spirit shrinking in the old, old hills. 
 Dreading to step down water or hollow night : 
 Some seek me dreaming one last hope of joy ; 
 Some have been made too wise by too much 
 
 joy 
 And seek me longing for deeper misery, 
 Knowing that joy is weary in unending. 
 Changeless and one and easy in low perfection, 
 While misery has as many shapes as evil 
 That all must learn, and is made new for ever 
 By fear of pain desired for love of passion ; 
 But feel, O you who call me through the night, 
 I bring you neither joy nor misery 
 But only rest so slow and sad and sodden 
 You will not know of it — you shall only rest 
 And lose your soul in my soul evermore. 
 
 09
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Sounds of heavy breathing are heard from 
 the sleeping-chainher during liis speak- 
 ing. He is continually reaching to 
 Blanid with his muffled^ unseen 
 handsy but she holds them from her as 
 continually. 
 
 Blanid, always in a7i eager ^ suppressed voice. 
 I have known joy — I know not what it was, 
 Mead-fumes that filled me cooling to one drop; 
 I have known misery — a self-numbed sting 
 That showed me but another joy to lose; 
 These were too small, I will have only rest. 
 And lose my soul in your soul evermore. 
 But if I die into your drooping limbs 
 I must be mingled there with him I love; 
 You may not reach him by your hoary crying. 
 But raise some human wail for help and light 
 And he will come and I must follow him 
 Past where the imaged moon shakes like a soul 
 Pausing in death between two unknown worlds. 
 
 The Old Man. 
 
 A sign, a plighting, and I do your will. 
 
 Blanid, winding her arms about his arms from 
 one side, so that he cannot touch her, and bury- 
 ing her face in his hood. 
 
 Kisses. 'Hast drained my soul's blood in each 
 kiss. 
 
 The Old Man. 
 
 I ^o, I go; make me not come again, 
 For I am in you, you must melt to me 
 Past where the imaged dark shuts bending lovers' 
 Close, unseen-imaged faces within life . . . 
 
 70
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Keeping his face turned toward Blanid, 
 he recedes to the door^ -where he ceases 
 to be seen in the wind that scurries 
 past. 
 
 The Voice, immediately and far away. 
 
 Help; help; the marsh-lights 'wilder us! Aligiit! 
 Blanid shuts t/ie door. The fire has now 
 sunk so low tJuit as she crosses the 
 house she is only visible in the half- 
 dark as a dim shape. She pauses by 
 the hearth. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Nay, but I touch toward my joy at last, 
 
 And Christ and all His Saints go out like candles 
 
 When mass issaid and the priest's cup iswiped . . . 
 
 The Voice. 
 
 The water laps our waists! Help, help! A light! 
 
 Blanid, running to the sleeping-chamber door. 
 Master, I hear a calling . . . 
 
 After an interval she strikes the door, 
 crying loudly. 
 
 Master! Master! 
 
 HiALTi, within. 
 
 Has the flood washed into the shippon? 
 
 Blanid. Nay; 
 
 There is a pitiful shrieking in the dark. 
 
 HiALTi, xoithin. 
 
 It is the Crier; break sleep no more for that. 
 
 ■/I
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Thorgerd, within. 
 
 The ox-goad shall reward you when dawn 
 
 comes . . . 
 Wake us once more and you shall waken often, 
 Ay, very often, until you dread to sleep . . . 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 I heard that trailing cry like maddened fir-boughs ; 
 
 Now I hear words — is there a woman's wail? 
 
 Thorgerd, imthin. 
 
 A woman? Let her drown. 
 
 HiALTi, imthin. I come. I come. 
 
 Reach down the lantern and light it, light it, 
 light it. 
 
 Standing on a stool, Blanid lifts a lantern 
 from a nail in one of the beams and, 
 carrying it to the hearth, kneels there 
 and seeks to light it with an ember. 
 
 Thorgerd, within. 
 
 You shall not ^o\ it is a lie of hers; 
 
 You shall not ^o . . . 
 
 A brief struggle in the sleeping-chamber is 
 heard. 
 
 HiALTi, within. So; stand you from the door. 
 Get donned; make up the fire; have water boiling; 
 And send the wench to lie in your warm form 
 Ready to cherish what stiffening thing I bring. 
 
 Blanid, to herself, lighting the lantern and smiling 
 
 m isch ievo usly . 
 Yea, I shall cherish a stiffening thing for her. 
 
 72
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Lantern, you are as dim as a little soul, 
 
 Yet the least soul can light a man to Heaven, 
 
 And you might lead him home; but I am like 
 
 God, 
 Who makes souls from His aches — I will not 
 
 ache, 
 You shall not have a soul, I suck it back. 
 
 She extinguishes the light. H i alti hurries 
 in half-dressed, 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Canst find a rope? 
 
 Blanid, pointing. Behind the settle there. 
 
 To herself. 
 'Tis a good rope and has two rotten strands; 
 'Twas meant to make good tinder ow the morrow. 
 
 Thk Voice. 
 
 Help; help! A light! Come for the woman's 
 sake! 
 
 HiALTi, holding out his hand for the lantern. 
 Hearken and haste; give me the lantern — now! 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Master, it will not light . . . 
 
 HiALTi. Will the storm pause? 
 
 The Voice. 
 
 Ohohey! Ohohey! 
 
 HiALTI. 
 
 Will that dark Crier linger? I must go.
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 She catches his outstretched hand and 
 kisses it ere, snatching it away, he 
 flings the house door wide open and 
 dashes outside. Soon the sound of 
 his footsteps is lost in the storm. 
 
 Blanid, relighting the lantern and starting tip. 
 Master, Master, the light! 
 
 Pausing and sending the lantern crash- 
 ing on the hearth zvith both hands. 
 He shall not have it! 
 She stands with her hands gripping her 
 breasts, leaning forward toward the 
 open door; he? breathlessness is all 
 that is heard; she stretches her arms 
 to the night. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 I feel as if my long, long hands could reach 
 
 Down to the water's heart to pluck him from it. 
 
 The Voice. 
 
 Will no one ever come? 
 
 HiALTi, out of doors. I come; I am nigh. 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Ay, he is nigh; but soon he will be far. 
 
 I dare not thus fall through the world for him. 
 
 O, I shall hear him ... do not let me hear him . . . 
 
 She throws lierself on her face on the floor 
 
 and, covering her head with the 
 
 stretmi rushes and clasping her hands 
 
 over them, lies there moaning. 
 
 74
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 HiALTi, far off, shouting ever more madly. 
 Thorgerd, Thorgerd . . . your hands . . . the 
 
 world slips past me ... 
 Save . . . under . . . under . . . under . . . 
 
 Aa — h . . . 
 
 The shouting ceases suddenly at its height. 
 
 Blanid, muffled and choking. 
 
 Her name . . . her name . . . why did he not 
 
 think my name? . . . 
 But she has lost him, and I kissed his hand . . . 
 
 Thorgerd, rushing from the sleeping-chamber in 
 
 her night-gear. 
 Where is the wench?. . Makehaste — another light: 
 I heard him dying. O, this prater's breath 
 Will blow his life out . . . Kindle a light and 
 
 come . . . 
 
 Th?: Voice. 
 
 Obey! Ohohey! Obey! 
 
 Blanid. 
 
 Nay! Nay! Nay! I dare not, I dare not . . . 
 
 That Crier will drown me too . . . 
 
 Thorgerd. That is nought to me; 
 
 Get to your feet . . . What, shall I seek a way 
 To supple you? 
 
 Blanid. O, do not hurt me again . . . 
 
 He dies ... it is my deed ... I dare not come . . . 
 
 Thorgerd. 
 
 You are too mean to stir bis life one thought; 
 
 It was the Crafty Crier — I heard that wail . . . 
 
 75
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 The fire is now wholly out^ so that the 
 cottage is absolutely dark and nothing 
 is visible. 
 
 The Voice, near at hand, 
 Ohohey! Obey! 
 
 Thorgerd, fiercely. 
 
 Where are you? . . . O, the Crier is heaving 
 o'er . . . 
 
 A gust of wind and rain is heard to s%veep 
 into the cottage through the open door- 
 way, shifting the rustling floor-rushes 
 as though feet touched them. The 
 Old Strange Man has entered. 
 
 Blanid, being heard to start to her feet. 
 There is another breathing in the bouse . . . 
 He is here . . . this darkness is not black enough, 
 The darkness at Hgbt's core alonecould bide me. . . 
 Grope for my hand — hold fast and take me 
 home . . . 
 
 She is heard to sink to the floor again. 
 
 The Old Strange Man. 
 
 Sister of that old race dead in the hills, 
 
 Why will you make me come to you once more? 
 
 You know you must go down a long withdrawing 
 
 To reach the unlit places of your heart. 
 
 Which are the night within my unknown eyes 
 
 Beyond all stars; so let me touch you once. 
 
 Blanid is heard to drag her prostrate body 
 through the rushes toward Thorgerd. 
 Blanid. 
 
 Mistress, I am your thrall; you will keep your 
 own . . . 
 
 76
 
 THE CRIKR BY NIGHT 
 
 I clasp your feet, I kiss your clutching feet, 
 I lick your feet all over with my tongue, 
 I will tell you somewhat that will yield avengeance 
 For you to work; so do not let me go . . . 
 
 The Old Man. 
 
 I see you, you white terror with shaking flanks, 
 Straining to feel me with your hard-shut eyes, 
 But now I need you not; not yet; not yet. 
 Your man is drowned and this is it who bargained 
 Its death for his; will you not give it to me? 
 
 Thorgkrd, laughing. 
 
 I am glad he is dead; now I may only love him, 
 
 And know no more that last distress of stooping 
 
 So far from me as this at my feet must be. 
 
 No vengeancing could pay for thoughts of her: 
 
 I will not know that such can be in life. 
 
 So I will neither yield nor succour her. 
 
 She speaks no more, nor moves. 
 
 The Old Man. 
 
 Give it to me; it is mine, give it to me; 
 
 I cannot take it while it touches you. 
 
 A silence. 
 Blanid. 
 
 I have slain him and I fear to go to him . . . 
 Put out my eyes, and rope me with the dogs — 
 Nay, strangle me to-morrow ; but save me now. 
 
 The Old Man, his voice growing fainter and 
 
 fainter. 
 Ah, come, you daughter of an ancient earth. 
 Come down among the folk your heart can know. 
 You darling of the past, you long-dead queen. 
 Your aged soul is strange among these men, 
 
 77
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 As strange as it would be in Paradise; 
 But once I knew you ere you were begot, 
 And in the unchanging silence of my heart 
 There waits a star for you to finish it. 
 
 A si/ence. 
 You little trembler of a dew-drop dawn, 
 You are as old as water that makes new dew; 
 And when the dew falls it runs down to peace. 
 The end of sorrow is in sorrow's heart 
 With those who loved and knew the unknown end 
 Of mothering you a thousand years ago. 
 Come, then, from her who shapes new pangs for 
 
 you, 
 And rest and rest and rest for evermore. 
 
 A silence. 
 One day you will awake and call to me; 
 And I shall listen for the doubting cry 
 Until the stars have worn the sky too thin. 
 And I am drowned within the light beyond . . . 
 His voice is lost in the gradual "mail of a 
 gust of wind; then it is heard ontside 
 and afar. 
 Obey! 
 
 Blanid, speaking at longer and longer intervals. 
 O, you have saved me from such evil things 
 As writhed like tangled tree-roots outside space 
 Ere God made Himself from them; and for this 
 My Virgin shall reach down from God's two knees 
 Whereon She sits, and kiss you for Her own. 
 My body was yours; now you have saved my soul 
 My soul is utterly yours to serve in living. 
 To clothe your soul and be your very heart 
 In love and soft, unconscious giving of life. 
 Mother, I have done evil — punish me; 
 
 78
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Because we loved him, love me and punish me: 
 I have sinned, I have parted lovers — be cruel to me 
 And cleanse mc that I may keep near you two . . . 
 Think in how many ways you can torture me; 
 Let me rake up the fire and heat an iron 
 For you to have your will upon my body — 
 One thigh is yet unseared . . . Will you not 
 
 speak? . . . 
 I love him, I tell you ... I love him, I love him, 
 
 I love him . . . 
 I kissed his hand; do you hear? I kissed his 
 
 hand — 
 Our Hialti's hand . . . I'll make you hurt me yet. 
 Cold anger is shuddering down your tense thighs ; 
 Feel, this is your foot upon my upturned face, 
 I lift it across my eyes, wide-open eyes — 
 Bear down and crush them full of eternal night . . . 
 Speak to me now . . . O, will you never speak? 
 You thrust me down into that Crier's bosom ; 
 For in your heart you make me be unborn 
 Within a lonely place you never heard of, 
 Yet if I loose your feet he will return 
 And I must follow and follow and follow and 
 
 follow 
 Past where my imaged thoughts repeat the world, 
 Till shattered waters break the imaged dream . . . 
 You saved me once; will you undo that great- 
 ness? . . . 
 We are the tears that God wipes from His eyes: 
 Lone thoughts will thrust me forth — save me 
 
 from them ... 
 Ah, but my lonely love can succour me: 
 Think, if I drown, 'tis to my Hialti's arms. 
 To cast you from his heart for ever more; 
 He will not even know you are forgotten . . . 
 
 79
 
 THE CRIER BY NIGHT 
 
 Sister Thorgerd 
 
 Thorgerd draws in a long breath so 
 sharply that it sounds to stab her re- 
 peatedly. 
 
 Ay, you will hate me as you used to do — 
 
 Will you not hate me as you used to do? 
 
 I was so happy when you still could hate me . . . 
 
 I fear it, but you make me ^o . . . Speak once . . . 
 After a long silefice Blanid is heard to 
 rise and go slowly to the door. 
 
 Blanid. 
 Ohey! Ohey! 
 
 The Voice, outside. Ohohey! 
 
 With a laugh of abandonment Blanid is 
 heard to run into the night; there is 
 a brief silence ; then one far-off , long 
 shriek is heard from her. 
 
 The Voice. 
 Ohey! Ohohey! 
 
 In the cottage Thorgerd is heard to fall 
 
 heavily to the floor. 
 The curtain descends on silence and dark- 
 ness. 
 
 80
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Si
 
 10 EDWARD THOMAS 
 
 T J ERE in the North ive speak of you, 
 IJ. And dream {and 7uish the dream were true) 
 That when the evening has grown late 
 You will appear outside our gate — 
 As though some Gipsy-Scholar yet 
 Sottghf this far place that men forget; 
 Or some tall hero still unknown, 
 Out of the Mahinogion, 
 Were seen at nightfall looking in, 
 Passing mysteriously to %vin 
 His earlier earth, his ancient mind. 
 Where man ivas true and life more kind 
 Lived with the mountains and the trees 
 A nd other steadfast presences, 
 Where large and simple passions gave 
 The insight and the peace we crave. 
 And he no more had nigh forgot 
 The old high battles he had fought. 
 
 Ah, pause to-night outside uxir gale 
 And enter ere it is too late 
 To see the garden^ s deep on deep 
 A nd talk a little ere we sleep. 
 
 When you were here a year ago 
 I told you of a glorioles woe. 
 The ancient zvoe of Gunnar dead 
 And its proud train of men long sped, 
 Fit brothers to your noble thoughts ; 
 Then, as their shouts and Gunnar'' s shouts 
 Went down once more undyingly 
 And the fierce saga was put by, 
 I told you of my old desire 
 To light again that bygone fire. 
 To body Hallgerd's ruinous 
 Great hair and wrangling mouth for us, 
 
 82
 
 And hear her voice deny again 
 That hair to Gunnar in his pain. 
 
 Because your heart could understand 
 The hopes of their primeval land, 
 The hearts of dim heroic forms 
 Made clear by tenderness and storms, 
 You caught my gloiv and urged me on; 
 So 7107V the tale is once more done 
 I turn to you, I bring my play. 
 Longing, O friend, to hear you say 
 I have not d-cvarfed those olden things 
 Nor tarnisht by my furbishings. 
 
 I bring my play, I turn to you 
 And 7vish it might to-night be true 
 That you 7Vould seek this old small house 
 TTvixt laurel boughs and apple boughs ; 
 Then I 7vould give it, bravely manned. 
 To you, and with my play my hand. 
 
 30 June igo8. 
 
 I. M. 
 
 2ND Lieut. Philip Edward Thomas 
 
 244tli Sicf^e Buttery, Royal Garrison Artillery ; 
 
 killed at a forward observation post in the 
 
 battle of Arras, on Easter Mondiiy, 
 
 April 9th, 1917. 
 
 83
 
 PERSONS: 
 
 GUNNAR HaMUNDSSON. 
 
 Hallgerd Longcoat, his wife. 
 
 Rannveig, his mother. 
 
 Oddny, Astrid, and Steinvor, Hallgerd's 
 
 house-women. 
 Ormild, a woman thrall. 
 
 Biartey, Jofrid, and Gudfinn, beggar-women. 
 GizuR the White, Mord Valgardsson, Thor- 
 
 GRIM THE EaSTERLING, ThORBRAND ThOR- 
 
 LEIKSSON and AsBRANDhisbrother, Aunund, 
 Thorgeh^ and Hroald, riders. 
 Many other Riders and voices of Riders. 
 
 In Iceland, a.d. 990. 
 
 84
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 The scene is the hall of Gunnm's house at Lithend 
 in SoiitJi Iceland. The portion slie^mi is set on 
 the stage diagonally, so that to the right one 
 end is seen •while, from the rear corner of this, 
 one side runs down almost to the left front. 
 
 The side 7vall is lozv and wainscotted imth 
 canned panelling on ivhich hang weapons, 
 shields, and coats of mail. In one place a panel 
 slid aside she7vs a shut bed. 
 
 In front of the panelling are two long benches 
 with a canned high-seat between them. Across 
 the end of the hall are similar panellings and 
 the seats, with corresponding tables, of the 
 women's dais; behind these and in the gable 
 wall is a high narror'O door ivith a rounded top, 
 
 A timber roof slopes dozvn to the side wall 
 and is npJield by cross-beams and two rozvs oj 
 tall pillars which make a rather narrow nave 
 of the centre of the hall. One of these ro7vs runs 
 parallel to the side wall, the pair of pillars 
 before the high-seat being carved and ended 
 with images; of the other row only two pillars 
 are visible at the extreme right. 
 
 Within this nave is the space for the hearths; 
 but the only hearth visible is the one near the 
 ivomens dais. In the roof above it there is a 
 louvre: the fi re glows and no smoke rises. Th e 
 hall is lit every7vhere bv the firelight. 
 
 «5 '
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 The rafters over the iwmen^s dais carry a 
 floor at the level of the side walls, forming an 
 open loft which is reached by a ivide ladder 
 fixed against the wall: a bed is seen in this 
 loft. Low in the roof at intervals are shuttered 
 casements, one being above the loft: all the 
 slw Iters are closed. 
 
 Near the fire a large shaggy liound is sleep- 
 ing; and Ormild, in the undyedwoolleii dress 
 of a thrall, is combing wool. 
 
 Oddn Y stands spinning at the jar side; near 
 her AsTRiD and Steinvor sit stitching a robe 
 7vhich hangs between them. 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 NIGHT is a Winter long: and evening falls. 
 Night, nightand Winter and the heavy snow 
 Burden our eyes, intrude upon our dreams, 
 And make of loneliness an earthly place. 
 
 Ormild. 
 
 This bragging land of freedom that enthralls me 
 
 Is still the fastness of a secret kiner 
 
 Who treads the dark like snow, of old king vSleep. 
 
 He works with night, he has stolen death's tool 
 
 frost 
 That makes the breaking wave forget to fall. 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 Best mind thy comb-pot and forget our king 
 Before the Longcoat helps at thy awaking. . . . 
 I like not this forsaken quiet house. 
 The house-men out at harvest in the Isles 
 Never return. Perhaps they went but now, 
 Yet I am sore with fearing and expecting 
 
 86
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Because they do not come. They will not come. 
 
 I like not this forsaken quiet house, 
 
 This late last harvest, and night creeping in. 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 I like not dwelling in an outlaw's house. 
 Snow shall be heavier upon some eyes 
 Than you can tell of— ay, and unseen earth 
 Shall keep that snow from tilling those poor eyes. 
 This void house is more void by brooding things 
 That do not happen than by absent men. 
 Sometimes when I awaken in the night 
 My throbbing ears are mocking me with rumours 
 Of crackling beams, beams falling, and loud 
 flames. 
 
 AsTRiD, pointing to the iveapons by the high-seat. 
 The bill that Gunnar won in a far sea-fight 
 Sings inwardly when battle impends; as a harp 
 Replies to the wind thus answers it to fierceness. 
 So tense its nature is and the spell of its welding; 
 Then trust ye well that while the bill is silent 
 No danger thickens, for Gunnar dies not singly. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 But womenare let forth freewhenmengo burning? 
 
 Oddny, 
 
 Fire is a hurrying thing, and fire by night 
 
 Can see its way better than men see theirs. 
 
 AsTRin. 
 
 The land will not be nobler or more holpen 
 If Gunnar burns and we go forth unsinged. 
 Why will he break the atonement that was set? 
 That wise old Njal who has the second sight 
 
 «7
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Foretold his death if he should slay twice over 
 In the same kin or break the atonement set: 
 Yet has he done these things and will not care. 
 Kolskegg, who kept his back in famous fights, 
 Sailed long ago and far away from us 
 Because that doom is on him for the slayings; 
 Yet Gunnar bides although that doom is on him 
 And he is outlawed by defiance of doom. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Gunnar has seen his death: he is spoken for. 
 
 He would not sail because, when he rode down 
 
 Unto the ship, his horse stumbled and threw him. 
 
 His face toward the Lithe and his own fields. 
 
 Olaf the Peacock bade him be with him 
 
 In his new mighty house so carven and bright, 
 
 And leave this house to Rannveig and his sons: 
 
 He said that would be well, yet never goes. 
 
 Is he not thinking death would ride with him? 
 
 Did not Njal offer to send his sons, 
 
 Skarphedin ugly and brave and Hauskuld with 
 
 him, 
 To hold this house with Gunnar, who refused 
 
 them 
 vSaying he would not lead young men to death? 
 I tell you Gunnar is done. . . . His fetch is out. 
 
 Oddxy. 
 
 Nay, he 's been topmost in so many fights 
 
 That he believes he shall fight on untouched. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 He rides to motes and Things before his foes. 
 He has sent his sons harvesting in the Isles. 
 He takes deliberate heed of death — to meet it, 
 
 88
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Like those whom Odin needs. He is fey, I tell 
 
 you — 
 And if we are past the foolish ardour of girls 
 For heroisms and profitless loftiness 
 We shall get gone when bedtime clears the house. 
 'Tis much to have to be a hero's wife, 
 And I shall wonder if Hallgerd cares about it: 
 Yet she may kindle to it ere my heart quickens. 
 I tell you, w^omen, we have no duty here: 
 Let us get gone to-night while there is time. 
 And find new harbouring ere the laggard dawn, 
 For death is making narrow^ing passages 
 About this hushed and terrifying house. 
 
 Rannveig,«7z old ivimpled woman, enters 
 
 as if from a door at the unseen end of 
 
 the hall. 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 He is so great and manly, our master Gunnar, 
 There are not many ready to meet his weapons: 
 And so there may not be much need of weapons. 
 He is so noble and clear, so swift and tender. 
 So much of Iceland's fame in foreign places. 
 That too many love him, too many honour him 
 To let him die, lest the most gleaming glory 
 Of our grey country should be there put out. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 My son has enemies, girl, enemies, 
 Who will not lose the joy of hurting him. 
 This little land is no more than a lair 
 That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, 
 And no man will refuse the rapture of killing 
 When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. 
 So long as any one perceives he knows 
 
 89
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 A bare place for a weapon on my son 
 His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. 
 Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life 
 Because a woman is made so evil fair, 
 Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts. 
 I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still, 
 For then will Kolskegg never more turn home. . . . 
 If Gunnar would but sail three years would pass; 
 Only three years of banishment said the doom — 
 So few, so few, for I can last ten years 
 With this unshrunken body and steady heart. 
 
 {To Ormild) 
 Have I sat down in comfort by the fire 
 And waited to be told the thing I knew? 
 Have any men come home to the young women, 
 Thinking old women do not need to hear. 
 That you can play at being a bower-maid 
 In a long gown although no beasts are foddered? 
 Up, lass, and get thy coats about thy knees, 
 For we must cleanse the byre and heap the midden 
 Before the master knows — or he will go, 
 And there is peril for him in every darkness. 
 
 Ormild, tucking up her skirfs. 
 
 Then are we out of peril in the darkness? 
 
 We should do better to nail up the doors 
 
 Each night and all night longand sleepthrough it. 
 
 Giving the cattle meat and straw by day. 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 Ay, and the hungry cattle should sing us to sleep. 
 The others laugli. Ormild^^o^j- out to the 
 left; Rann\'Eig is folloiving her, but 
 pauses at the sound of a voice. 
 90
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHE ND 
 
 Hallgerd, beyond the door of the ivotnen's dais. 
 Dead men have told me I was better than fair, 
 And for my face welcomed the danger of me: 
 Then am I spent? 
 
 She enters angrily, looking hackitmrd 
 through the doonvay. 
 
 Must I shut fast my doors 
 And hide myself? Must I wear up the rags 
 Of mortal perished beauty and be old? 
 Or is there power left upon my mouth 
 Like colour, and lilting of ruin in my eyes? 
 Am I still rare enough to be your mate? 
 Then why must I shame at feasts and bear myself 
 In shy ungainly ways, made flushed and conscious 
 By squat numl) gestures of my shapeless head — 
 Ay, and its wagging shadow — clouted up. 
 Twice tangled with a bundle of hot hair. 
 Like a thick cot-wife's in the settling time? 
 There arc few women in the Quarter now 
 Who do not wear a shapely fine-webbed coit 
 Stitched by dark Irish girls in Athcliath 
 With golden flies and pearls and glinting things: 
 Even my daughter lets her big locks show, 
 Show and half show, from a hood gentle and close 
 That spans her little head like her husband's hand. 
 
 GuNNAR, entering by the same door. 
 I like you when you bear your head so high; 
 Lift but your heart as high, you could get crowned 
 And rule a kingdom of impossible things. 
 You would have moon and sun to shine together, 
 Snow-flakes to knit for apples on bare boughs. 
 Yea, love to thrive upon the terms of hate. 
 If I had fared abroad I should have found 
 In many countries many marvels for you — 
 
 9'
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Though not more comeliness in peopled Rome- 
 
 borg 
 And not more haughtiness in Mickligarth 
 Nor craftiness in all the isles of the world, 
 And only golden coifs in Athcliath: 
 Yet you were ardent that I should not sail, 
 And when I could not sail you laughed out loud 
 And kissed me home. . . . 
 
 Hallgerd, 7vho has been biting her nails. 
 And then . . . and doubtless . . . and strangely . . . 
 And not more thriftiness in Berirthorsknoll 
 Where Njal saves old soft sackcloth for his wife. 
 O, I must sit with peasants and aged women, 
 And keep my head wrapped modestly and seemly ; 
 
 She turns to Rannveig. 
 I must be humble — as one who lives on others. 
 She snatches off her immple^ slipping her 
 gold circlet as she does so, and loosens 
 her hair. 
 Unless I may be hooded delicately 
 And use the adornment noble women use 
 I'll mock you with my flown young widowhood, 
 Letting my hair go loose past either cheek 
 In two bright clouds and drop beyond my bosom. 
 Turning the waving ends under my girdle 
 As young glad widows do, and as I did 
 Ere ever you saw me — ay, and when you found 
 
 me 
 And met me as a king meets a queen 
 In the undying light of a summer night 
 With burning robes and glances — stirring the 
 heart with scarlet. 
 
 SJie lacks the long ends of her hair under 
 her girdle. 
 92
 
 THE RIDING TO L 1 T H K NM:) 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 You have cast the head-ring of the nobly nurtured, 
 
 Being eager for a bold uncovered head. 
 
 You are conversant with a widow's fancies. . . . 
 
 Ay, you are ready with your widowhood: 
 
 Two men have had you, chilled their bosoms with 
 
 you, 
 And trusted that they held a precious thing — 
 Yet your mean passionate wastefulness poured out 
 Their lives for joy of seeing something done with. 
 Cannot you wait this time? 'Twill not be long. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 I am a hazardous desirable thing, 
 
 A warm unsounded peril, a flashing mischief, 
 
 A divine malice, a disquieting voice: 
 
 Thus I was shapen, and it is my pride 
 
 To nourish all the fires that mingled me. 
 
 I am not long moved, I do not mar my face. 
 
 Though men have sunk in me as in a quicksand. 
 
 Well, death is terrible. Was I not worth it? 
 
 Does not the light change on me as I breathe? 
 
 Could I not take the hearts of generations. 
 
 Walking among their dreams? O, 1 have might, 
 
 Although it drives me too and is not my own 
 
 deed. . . . 
 And Gunnar is great, or he had died long since. 
 It is my joy that Gunnar stays with me : 
 Indeed the offence is theirs who hunted him, 
 His banishment is not just; his wrongs increase, 
 His honour and his following shall increase 
 If he is steadfast for his blamelessness. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Law is not justice, but the sacrifice 
 
 93
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Of singular virtues to the dull world's ease of 
 
 mind ; 
 It measures men by the most vicious men; 
 It is a bargaining with vanities, 
 Lest too much right should make men hate each 
 
 other 
 And hasten the last battle of all the nations. 
 Gunnar should have kept the atonement set, 
 For then those men would turn to other quarrels. 
 
 Gunnar. 
 
 I know not why it is I must be fighting. 
 
 For ever fighting, when the slaying of men 
 
 Is a more weary and aimless thing to me 
 
 Than most men think it . . . and most women too. 
 
 There is a woman here who grieves she loves me, 
 
 And she too must be fighting me for ever 
 
 With her dim ravenous unsated mind. . . . 
 
 Ay, Hallgerd, there 's that in her which desires 
 
 Men to fight on for ever because she lives : 
 
 When she took form she did it like a hunger 
 
 To nibble earth's lip away until the sea 
 
 Poured down the darkness. Why then should I 
 
 sail 
 Upon a voyage that can end but here? 
 She means that I shall fight until I die: 
 Why must she be put off by whittled years, 
 When none can die until his time has come? 
 
 He turns to the hound by tJie fire. 
 Samm, drowsy friend, dost scent a prey in dreams? 
 Shake off thy shag of sleep and get to thy watch : 
 'Tis time to be our eyes till the next light. 
 Out, out to the yard, good Samm. 
 
 He goes to the lefty followed by the hound. 
 In the meantime Hallgerd has 
 
 94
 
 THE RIDING TO LriHEND 
 
 seated herself in the high-seat near 
 the se^ving-'ivonien , turning herself 
 away and tugging at a strand oj her 
 hairy the end of which she bites. 
 
 Rannveig, intercepting him. 
 
 Nay, let me take him. 
 It is not safe — there may be men who hide. . . . 
 Hallgerd, look up; call Gunnar to you there: 
 
 Hallgkrd is motionless. 
 Lad, she beckons. I say you shall not come. 
 
 Gunnar, laughing. 
 
 Fierce woman, teach me to be brave in age. 
 
 And let us see if it is safe for you. 
 
 He leads Rannveig oiU, his Jiand on her 
 shoidder; the hound goes with them. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Mistress, my heart is big with mutinies 
 
 For your proud sake: does not your heart mount 
 
 up? 
 He is an outlaw now and could not hold you 
 If you should choose to leave him. Is it not law? 
 Is it not law that you could loose this marriage — 
 Nay, that he loosed it shamefully years ago 
 By a hard blow that bruised your innocent cheek, 
 Dishonouring you to lesser women and chiefs? 
 See, it burns up again at the stroke of thought. 
 Come, leave him, mistress; we will go with you. 
 There is no woman in the country now 
 Whose name can kindle men as yours can do — 
 Ay, many would pile for you the silks he grudges ; 
 And if you did withdraw your potent presence 
 Fire would not spare this house so reverently. 
 
 95
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Am I a wandering flame that sears and passes? 
 
 We must bide here, good vSteinvor, and be quiet. 
 
 Without a man a woman cannot rule, 
 
 Nor kill without a knife; and where 's the man 
 
 That I shall put before this goodly Gunnar? 
 
 I will not be made less by a less man. 
 
 There is no man so great as my man Gunnar: 
 
 I have set men at him to show forth his might; 
 
 I have planned thefts and breakings of his word 
 
 When my pent heart grew sore with fermentation 
 
 Of malice too long undone, yet could not stir him. 
 
 O, I will make a battle of the Thing, 
 
 Where men vow holy peace, to magnify him. 
 
 Is it not rare to sit and wait o' nights, 
 
 Knowing that murderousness may even now 
 
 Be coming down outside like second darkness 
 
 Because my man is greater? 
 
 Steinvor, shuddering. Is it not rare. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 That blow upon the face 
 
 So long ago is best not spoken of. 
 
 I drave a thrall to steal and burn at Otkell's 
 
 Who would not sell to us in famine time 
 
 But denied Gunnar as if he were suppliant: 
 
 Then at our feast when men rode from the Thing 
 
 I spread the stolen food and Gunnar knew. 
 
 He smote me upon the face . . . indeed he smote 
 
 me. . . . 
 O, Gunnar smote me and had shame of me 
 And said he'd not partake with any thief; 
 Although I stole to injure his despiser . . . 
 But if he had abandoned me as well 
 
 96
 
 THK RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 'Tis I who should have been unmated now; 
 For many men would soon have judged me thief 
 And shut me from this land imtil I died — 
 And then 1 should have lost him. . . . Yet he 
 smote me. . . . 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 He kept you his — yes, and maybe saved you 
 From a debasement that could madden or kill, 
 For women thieves ere now have felt a knife 
 Severing ear or nose. And yet the feud 
 You sowed with Otkell's house shall murder 
 
 Gunnar. 
 Otkell was slain: then Gunnar's enviers, 
 Who could not crush him under his own horse 
 At the big horse-fight, stirred up Otkell's son 
 To avenge his father; for should he be slain 
 Two in one stock would prove old Njal's fore- 
 telling, 
 And Gunnar's place be emptied either way 
 For those high helpless men who cannot fill it. 
 O, mistress, you have hurt us all in this: 
 You have cut off your strength, you have maimed 
 
 vourself. 
 You are losing powerand worship and men's trust. 
 When Gunnar dies no other man dare take you. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 You gather poison in your mouth for me. 
 
 A high-born woman may handle what she fancies 
 
 Without being ear-pruned like a pilfering beggar. 
 
 Look to your ears if )'ou touch ought of mine: 
 
 Ay, you shall join the mumping sisterhood 
 
 And tramp and learn your difference from me. 
 
 She turns from AsTRiD. 
 Steinvor, I have remembered the great veil, 
 
 97 JJ
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 The woven cloud, the tissue of gold and garlands, 
 That Gunnar took from some outlandish ship 
 And deemed a thingfrom Greekland or from Hind : 
 Fetch it from the ambry in the bower. 
 
 Stein\'OK goes out by the dais door. 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 Mistress, indeed you are a cherished woman. 
 That veil is worth a lifetime's weight of coifs: 
 I have heard a queen offered her daughter for it, 
 But Gunnar said it should come home and wait — 
 And then gave it to you. The half of Iceland 
 Tells fabulous legends of a fabulous thing. 
 Yet never saw it: I know they never saw it. 
 For ere it reached the ambry I came on it 
 Tumbled in the loft with ragged kirtles. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 What, are you there again? Let Gunnar alone. 
 Steinvor enters with the veil folded. 
 Hallgerd takes it with one hand 
 and shakes it into a heap. 
 This is the cloth. He brought it out at night, 
 In the first hour that we were left together, 
 And begged of me to wear it at high feasts 
 And more outshine all women of my time: 
 He shaped it to my head with my gold circlet. 
 Saying my hair smouldered like Rhine-fire 
 
 through. 
 He let it fall about my neck and fall 
 About my shoulders, mingle with my skirts 
 And billow in the draught along the floor. 
 
 She rises and holds the veil behind her head. 
 I know I dazzled as if I entered in 
 And walked upon a windy sunset and drank it, 
 
 98
 
 THE RIDING TO LIT H END 
 
 Yet must I stammer at such strange uncouth- 
 
 ness 
 And tear it from me, tangling my arms in it — 
 I could not so befool myself and seem 
 A laughable bundle in each woman's eyes, 
 Wearing such things as no one ever wore, 
 Useless ... no head-cloth . . . too unlike my 
 
 fellows. 
 Yet he turns miser for a tiny coif. 
 It would cut into many golden coifs 
 And dim some women in their Irish clouts — 
 But no; I'll shape and stitch it into shifts, 
 Smirch it like linen, patch it with rags, to watch 
 His silent anger when he sees my answer. 
 Give me thy shears, girl Oddny. 
 
 Oddny. You'll not part it? 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 I'll shorten it. 
 
 Oddny. I have no shears with me. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 No matter; I can start it with my teeth 
 And tear it down the folds. So. vSo. So. So. 
 Here 's a fine shift for summer: and another. 
 I'll find my shears and chop out waists and neck- 
 holes. 
 Ay, Gunnar, Gunnar! 
 
 S/ie t/ifoivs the tisxttc on tJic s^roiind, and 
 goes out by tJie dais door. 
 
 Oddny, lifting one of the pieces. 
 
 O me! A wonder has vanished. 
 99
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 What is a wonder less? She has done finely, 
 Setting her worth above dead marvels and 
 shows. . . . 
 
 Tlie deep menacing baying of the liound is 
 heard near at hand. A woman's cry 
 folloivs it. 
 They come, they come ! Let us flee by the bower ! 
 Starting up ^ slie stumbles in the tissue and 
 sinks upon it. The others rise. 
 You are leaving me — will you not wait for me — 
 Take, take me with you. . . . 
 
 Mingled cries of women are heard. 
 
 GuNNAR, outside. Samm, it is well: be still. 
 
 Women, be quiet; loose me; get from my feet, 
 Or I will set the hound to wipe me clear. , . . 
 
 Steinv^or, recovering herself. 
 
 Women are sent to spy. 
 
 The sound of a door being opened is heard. 
 GuNNAR enters from the left^ followed 
 by three beggar-women ^ Biartey, 
 JoFRiD, and GuDFiNN. They hobble 
 and limp, and are swathed in shape- 
 less nameless rags which trail about 
 their feet; VtiAKT^Y's left sleeve is torn 
 completely away, leaving her arm bare 
 and mud-smeared \ the others' skirts 
 are torn, and Jofrid's gown at the 
 neck; Gudfinn wears a felt hood 
 buttoned under her chin, the others' 
 faces are almost hid in falling tangles 
 of grey hair. Their faces are shrivelled 
 and 7veather-beaten, and Biartey's 
 
 I GO
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 mouth is distorted by two front teeth 
 that project like tusks. 
 
 GuNNAR. Get in to the light. 
 
 Yea, has he mouthed ye? . . . What men send 
 
 ye here? 
 Who are ye? Whence come ye? Whatdoyeseelc? 
 I think no mother ever suckled you : 
 You must have dragged your roots up in waste 
 
 places 
 One foot at once, or heaved a shoulder up — 
 
 BiARTEY, interrupting him. 
 
 Out of the bosoms of cairns and standing stones. 
 I am Biartey: she is Jofrid: she is Gudfinn: 
 We are lone women known to no man now. 
 We are not sent: we come. 
 
 GuNNAR. Well, you come. 
 
 You appear by night, rising under my eyes 
 
 Like marshy breath or shadows on the wall ; 
 
 Yet the hound scented you like any evil 
 
 That feels upon the night for a way out. 
 
 And do you, then, indeed wend alone? 
 
 Came you from the West or the sky-covering 
 
 North, 
 Yet saw no thin steel moving in the dark? 
 
 Biartey. 
 
 Not West, not North : we slept upon the East, 
 
 Arising in the East where no men dwell. 
 
 We have abided in the mountain places. 
 
 Chanted our woes among the black rocks crouch- 
 
 Gudfinn /omj" her in a sing-soiig utter- 
 ance. 
 
 lOl
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 From the East, from the East we drove and the 
 
 wind waved us, 
 Over the heaths, over the barren ashes. 
 We are old, our eyes are old, and the light hurtsus, 
 We have skins on our eyes that part alone to the 
 
 star-light. 
 We stumble about the night, the rocks tremble 
 Beneath our trembling feet ; black sky thickens. 
 Breaks into clots, and lets the moon upon us. 
 
 ]oFRiD joins her voice to the voices of the 
 other two. 
 Far from the men who fear us, men who stone us, 
 Hiding, hiding, flying whene'er they slumber. 
 High on the crags we pause, over the moon-gulfs ; 
 Black clouds fall and leave us up in the moon- 
 depths 
 Where wind flaps our hair and cloaks like fin- 
 webs, 
 Ay, and our sleeves that toss with our arms and 
 
 the cadence 
 Of quavering crying among the threatening 
 
 echoes. 
 Then we spread our cloaks and leap down the 
 
 rock-stairs. 
 Sweeping the heaths with our skirts, greying the 
 
 dew-bloom. 
 Until we feel a pool on the wide dew stretches 
 Stilled by the moon or ruffling like breast-feathers. 
 And, with grey sleeves cheating the sleepy herons, 
 Squat among them, pillow us there and sleep. 
 But in the harder wastes we stand upright, 
 Like splintered rain-worn boulders set to the wind 
 In old confederacy, and rest and sleep. 
 
 Hallgerd's women are huddled together 
 and clasping each other. 
 1 02
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 What can these women be who sleep like horses, 
 vStanding up in the darkness. . . . What will they 
 do. . . . 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 Ye wail like ravens and have no human thoughts. 
 What do yc seek? What will ye here with us? 
 
 BiARTKY, as all three co7ver suddenly. 
 
 Succour upon this terrible journeying. 
 
 We have a message for a man in the West, 
 
 Sent by an old man sitting in the East. 
 
 We are spent, our feet are moving wounds, our 
 
 bodies 
 Dream of themselves and seem to trail behind us 
 Because we went unfed down in the mountains. 
 Feed us and shelter us beneath your roof, 
 And put us over the Markfleet, over the channels. 
 We are weak old women : we are beseeching you. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 You may bide here this night, but on the morrow 
 You shall go over, for tramping shameless women 
 Carry too many tales from stead to stead — 
 And sometimes heavier gear than breath and lies. 
 These women will tell the mistress all I grant you ; 
 Get to the fire until she shall return. 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 Thou art a merciful man and we shall thank thee. 
 
 GuNNAR goes out again to the left. 
 
 The old women approach the young ones 
 gradually. 
 Little ones, do not doubt us. Could we hurt you? 
 Because we are ugly must we be bewitched?
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Nay, but bewitch us. 
 
 BiARTEY. Not in a litten house: 
 
 Not ere the hour when night turns on itself 
 And shakes the silence: not while ye wake to- 
 gether. 
 Sweet voice, tell us, was that verily Gunnar? 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Arrh — do not touch me, unclean flyer-by-night: 
 Have ye birds' feet to match such bat-webbed 
 fingers? 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 I am only a cowed curst woman who walks with 
 
 death ; 
 I will crouch here. Tell us, was it Gunnar? 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 Yea, Gunnar surely. Is he not big enough 
 
 To fit the songs about him? 
 
 BiARTEY. He is a man. 
 
 Why will his manhood urge him to be dead? 
 We walk about the whole old land at night, 
 We enter many dales and many halls: 
 And everywhere is talk of Gunnar's greatness, 
 His slayings and his fate outside the law. 
 The last ship has not gone: why will he tarry? 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 He chose a ship, but men who rode with him 
 Say that his horse threw him upon the shore. 
 His face toward the Lithe and his own fields; 
 
 104
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 As he arose he trembled at what he gazed on 
 (Although those men saw nothing pass or meet 
 
 them) 
 And said. . . . What said he, girls? 
 
 AsTRiD. " Fair is the Lithe: 
 
 So fair I never thought it was so fair. 
 Its corn is white, its meadows green after mowing. 
 1 will ride home again and never leave it." 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 'Tis an unlikely tale: he never said it. 
 
 No one could mind such things in such an hour. 
 
 Plainly he saw his fetch come down the sands, 
 
 And knew he need not seek another country 
 
 And take that with him to walk upon the deck 
 
 In nierht and storm. 
 
 't>* 
 
 GuDFiNN. He he he! No man speaks thus. 
 
 JOFRID. 
 
 No man, no man : he must be doomed somewhere. 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 Doomed and fey, my sisters. . . . We are too old, 
 Yet I'd not marvel if we outlasted him. 
 Sisters, that is a fair fierce girl who spins. . . . 
 My fair fierce girl, you could fight — but can you 
 
 ride? 
 Would you not shout to be riding in a storm? 
 Ah . . . h, girls learnt riding well when I was a 
 
 girl, 
 Andfoam rides on the breakers as I was taught. . . . 
 My fair fierce girl, tell me your noble name. 
 
 105
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 My name is Oddny. 
 
 BiARTEY. Oddny, when you are old 
 
 Would you not be proud to be no man's purse- 
 string, 
 But wild and wanderingand friends with the earth? 
 Wander with us and learn to be old yet living. 
 We'd win fine food with you to beg for us. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Despised, cast out, unclean, and loose men's 
 night-bird. 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 When I am old I shall be some man's friend, 
 
 And hold him when the darkness comes. . . . 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 And mumble by the fire and blink. . . . 
 Good Oddny, let me spin for you awhile. 
 That Gunnar's house may profit by his guesting: 
 Come, trust me with your distaff. . . . 
 
 Oddny. Are there spells 
 
 Wrought on a distaff? 
 
 Steinvor. Only by the Norns, 
 
 And they'll not sit with human folk to-night. 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 Then you may spin all night for what I care; 
 But let the yarn run clean from knots and snarls, 
 Or I shall have the blame when you are gone. 
 
 BiARTEY, taking the distaff. 
 Trust well the aged knowledge of my hands ; 
 
 1 06
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Thin and thin do I spin, and the thread draws 
 
 finer. 
 
 She sings as she spins. 
 
 They go by three, 
 And the moon shivers; 
 The tired waves flee, 
 The hidden rivers 
 Also flee. 
 
 I take three strands ; 
 There is one for her. 
 One for my hands. 
 And one to stir 
 For another's hands. 
 
 I twine them thinner. 
 The dead wool doubts; 
 The outer is inner, 
 The core slips out. . . . 
 Hallgerd re-enters by the dais door, 
 holding a pair of shears. 
 
 Hallgkrd. 
 
 What are these women, Oddny? Who let them in? 
 
 BiARTEY, who spins through all that follows. 
 Lady, the man of fame who is your man 
 Gave us his peace to-night, and that of his house. 
 We are blown beggars tramping about the land, 
 Denied a home for our evil and vagrant hearts; 
 We sought this shelter when the first dew soaked 
 
 us, 
 And should have perished by the giant hound 
 But Gunnar fought it with his eyes and saved us. 
 That is a strange hound, with a man's mind in it. 
 
 id;
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgerd, seating herself in the high-seat. 
 It is an Irish hound, from that strange soil 
 Where men by day walk with unearthly eyes 
 And cross the veils of the air, and are not men 
 But fierce abstractions eating their own hearts 
 Impatiently and seeing too much to be joyful. . . . 
 If Gunnar welcomed ye, ye may remain. 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 She is a fair free lady, is she not? 
 But that was to be looked for in a high one 
 Who counts among her fathers the bright Sigurd, 
 The bane of Fafnir the Worm, the end of the god- 
 kings; 
 Among her mothers Brynhild, the lass of Odin, 
 The maddener of swords, the night-clouds' rider. 
 She haskept sweet that father's loreof bird-speech. 
 She wears that mother's power to cheat a god. 
 Sisters, she does well to be proud . . . 
 
 JOFRID AND GUDFINN. Ay, well . . . 
 
 Hallgerd, shaping the tissue with her shears. 
 
 I need no witch to tell I am of rare seed. 
 
 Nor measure my pride nor praise it. Do I not 
 
 know? 
 Old women, ye are welcomed: sit with us, 
 And while we stitch tell us what gossip runs — 
 But if strife might be warmed by spreading it. 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 Lady, we are hungered ; we were lost 
 All night among the mountains of the East ; 
 Clouds of the cliffs come down my eyes again. . . . 
 I pray you let some thrall bring us to food. 
 
 1 08
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgkrd. 
 
 Ye get nought here. The supper is long over; 
 The women shall not let ye know the food-house, 
 Or ye'll be thieving in the night. Ye are idle, 
 Ye suck a man's house bare and seek another. 
 'Tis bed-time; get to sleep — that stills much 
 hunger. 
 
 BlARTEY. 
 
 Now it is easy to be seeing what spoils you. 
 You were not grasping or ought but over warm 
 WhenSigmund,Gunnar's kinsman, guested here. 
 You followed him, you were too kind with him. 
 You lavished Gunnar's treasure and gear on him 
 To draw him on, and did not call that thieving. 
 Ay, vSigmund took your feuds on him and died 
 As Gunnar shall. Men have much harm by you. 
 
 Hallgkrd. 
 
 Now have I gashed the golden cloth awry: 
 
 'Tis ended — a ruin of clouts — the worth of the 
 
 gift- 
 Bridal dish-clouts — nay, a bundle of flame. 
 I'll burn it to a breath of its old queen's ashes: 
 Fire, O fire, drink up . . . 
 
 S/ie //if'070s tlie shreds of the veil on the 
 glo-ivmg embers: they waft to ashes 
 7vith a brief high flare. She goes to 
 
 JOFRID. 
 
 There 's one oi you 
 That holds her head in a bird's sideways fashion : 
 I know that reach o' the chin. . . . What's under 
 thy hair? — 
 
 She fixes ]o¥R\u rvith her h>/ee, and lifts 
 her hair. 
 
 109
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Pfui, 'tis not hair, but sopped and rotting moss — 
 A thief, a thief indeed. . . . And twice a thief. . . . 
 She has no ears. Keep thy hooked fingers still 
 While thou art here, for if I miss a mouthful 
 Thou shalt miss all thy nose. Get up, get up; 
 I'll lodge ye with the mares. . . . 
 
 JoFRiD, starting up. Three men, three men. 
 
 Three men have wived you, and for all you gave 
 
 them 
 Paid with three blows upon a cheek once kissed — 
 To every man a blow — and the last blow 
 All the land knows was won by thieving food. . . . 
 Yea, Gunnar is ended by the theft and the thief. 
 Is it not told that when you first grew tall, 
 A false rare girl, Hrut your own kinsman said 
 " I know not whence thief's eyes entered our 
 
 blood." 
 You have more ears, yet are you not my sister? 
 Our evil vagrant heart is deeper in you. 
 
 Hallgerd, snatching the distaff from Biartey. 
 
 Out and be gone, be gone. Lie with the moun- 
 tains, 
 
 Smotheramong the thunder; stale dew mould you. 
 
 Outstrip the hound, or he shall so embrace 
 you. . . . 
 
 Biartey. 
 
 Now is all done ... all done . . . and all your 
 
 deed! 
 She broke the thread, and it shall not join again. 
 Spindle, spindle, the coiling weft shall dwindle; 
 Leap on the fire and burn, for all is done . . . 
 
 She casts the spindle upon the Jire, and 
 stretches her hands toward it. 
 
 I lO
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgerd, attacking them with the distafj. 
 Into the night. . . . Dissolve. . . . 
 
 BiARTKY, as the three ntsh toward the door. 
 
 Sisters, away: 
 Leave the woman to her smouldering" beauty, 
 Leave the fire that 's kinder than the woman, 
 Leave the roof-tree ere it falls. It falls. 
 
 GuDFiNNyo/V/j-Zf^r. Each time Hallgerd 
 flags they turn as they chanty and 
 point at her. 
 We shall cry no more in the high rock-places, 
 We are gone from the night, the winds and the 
 
 clouds are empty: 
 Soon the man in the West shall receive our 
 message. 
 
 Jofrid's voice joins the other voices. 
 Men reject us, yet their house is unstable. . . . 
 The slayers' hands are warm — the sound of their 
 
 riding 
 Reached us down the ages, ever approaching. 
 
 Hallgerd, at the same time^ her voice high over 
 
 theirs. 
 Pack, ye rag-heaps — or I'll unravel you. 
 
 The Three, continuously. 
 
 House that spurns us, woe shall come upon you: 
 
 Death shall hollow you. Now we curse the 
 
 woman — 
 
 May all the woes smite her till she can feel them. 
 
 Shall we not roost in her bower vet? Woe ! Woe ! 
 
 The distaff breaks^ and Hallgerd drives 
 
 tJiem out with her hands. Their voices 
 
 continue for a moment outside^ dying 
 
 away. 
 
 1 1 1
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Call to the owl-friends .... Woe! Woe! Woe! 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 Whence came these mounds of dread to haunt 
 
 the night? 
 It doubles this disquiet to have them near us. 
 
 Oddny. 
 
 They must be witches — and it was my distaff — 
 
 Will fire eat through me .... 
 
 Steinvor. Or the Norns themselves. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Or bad old women used to govern by fear. 
 
 To bed, to bed — we are all up too late. 
 
 Steinvor, as she turns imth Astrid and Oddny 
 
 to the da'i's. 
 If beds are made for sleep we might sit long. 
 
 They go out by tJie dais door. 
 
 GuNNAR, as he enters hastily from the left. 
 Where are those women? There's some secret in 
 
 them : 
 I have heard such others crying down to them. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 They turned foul-mouthed, they beckoned evil 
 
 toward us — 
 I drove them forth a breath ago. 
 
 Gunnar. Forth? Whence? 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 By the great door: they cried about the night. 
 
 RANNVEiG/o//o?a9 Gunnar in. 
 
 I 12
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 Nay, but I entered there and passed them not. 
 Mother, where are the women? 
 
 Rannvp:ig. I saw none come. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 They have not come, they have gone. 
 
 Rannveig. I crossed the yard, 
 
 Hearing a noise, but a big bird dropped past. 
 Beating my eyes; and then the yard was clear. 
 The deep baying of the hound is heard 
 again. 
 
 Gunnar. 
 
 They must be spies: yonder is news of them. 
 The wise hound knew them, and knewthem again. 
 The baying is succeeded by one wild Iioivl. 
 
 Nay, nay ! 
 Men treat thee sorely, Samm my fosterling: 
 Even by death thou warnest — but it is meant 
 That our two deaths will not be far apart. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Think you that men are yonder? 
 
 Gunnar. Men are yonder. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 My son, my son, get on the rattling war-woof, 
 The old grey shift of Odin, the hide of steel. 
 Handle the snake with edges, the fang of the 
 rings. 
 
 Gunnar, going to the weapons by the high-seat. 
 There are not enough moments to get under 
 That heavy fleece: an iron hat must serve . . . 
 
 113 1
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 O brave! O brave! — he'll dare them with no 
 shield. 
 
 GuNNAR, lifting down the great bill from the wall. 
 Let me but reach this haft, I shall get hold 
 Of steel enough to fence me all about. 
 
 He shakes the bill above his head: a deep 
 
 res on a?it h u m m ing folloivs . 
 The dais door is throimi open, and Oddny, 
 AsTRiD, and Steinvor stream 
 through in their night-clothes. 
 
 Steinvor. The bill! 
 
 Oddny. The bill is singing! 
 
 AsTRiD The bill sings! 
 
 GuNNAR, shaking the bill again. 
 Ay, brain-biter, waken . . . Awake and whisper 
 Out of the throat of dread thy one brief burden. 
 Blind art thou, and thy kiss will do no choosing: 
 Worn art thou to a hair's grey edge, a nothing 
 That slips through all it finds, seeking more 
 
 nothing. 
 There is a time, brain-biter, a time that comes 
 When there shall be much quietness for thee: 
 Men will be still about thee. I shall know. 
 It is not yet: the wind shall hiss at thee first. 
 Ahui! Leap up, brain-biter; sing again. 
 Sing! Singthy verse of anger and feel my hands. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Stand thou, my Gunnar, in the porch to meet them, 
 And the great door shall keep thy back for thee. 
 
 114
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 I had a brother there. Brother, where are you. . . . 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Nay, nay. Get thou, my Gunnar, to the loft, 
 Stand at the casement, watch them how they come. 
 Arrows maybe could drop on them from there. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 'Tis good: the woman's cunning for once is 
 faithful. 
 
 Gunnar, turning again to the weapons. 
 
 'Tis good, for now I hear a foot that stumbles 
 
 Along the stable-roof against the hall. 
 
 My bow — where is my bow? Here with its 
 
 arrows. . . . 
 Go in again, you women on the dais, 
 And listen at the casement of the bower 
 For men who cross the yard, and for their words. 
 
 ASTRID. 
 
 O, Gunnar, we shall serve you. 
 
 AsTRiD, Oddny, and Steinvor go out 
 by the dais door. 
 
 Rannveig. Hallgerd, come; 
 
 We must shut fast the door, bar the great door. 
 Or they'll be in on us and murder him. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Not I : I'd rather set the door wide open 
 And watch my Gunnar kindling at the peril. 
 Keeping them back — shaming men for ever 
 Who could not enter at a gaping door. 
 
 115
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Bar the great door, I say, or I will bar it — 
 Door of the house you rule. . . . Son, son, 
 command it. 
 
 GuNNAR, as he asce7ids to the loft. 
 
 O, spendthrift fire, do you waft up again? 
 
 Hallgerd, what riot of ruinous chance will sate 
 
 you? . . . 
 Let the door stand, my mother: it is her way. 
 
 He looks out of the casement. 
 Here 's a red kirtle on the lower roof. 
 
 He thrusts with the hill through the case- 
 inent. 
 
 A Man's Voice, /^rq^. Is Gunnar within? 
 
 Thorgrim the Easterling's Voice, near the 
 casement. 
 
 Find that out for yourselves: 
 I am only sure his bill is yet within. 
 
 A ?wise of falling is heard. 
 
 Gunnar. 
 
 The Easterling from Sandgil might be dying — 
 He has gone down the roof, yet no feet helped him. 
 A shouting of many men is heard: Gun- 
 nar starts back from the casement as 
 several arrows fly in. 
 Now there are black flies biting before a storm. 
 I see men gathering beneath the cart-shed: 
 Gizur the White and Geir the priest are there, 
 And a lean whispering shape that should be Mord. 
 I have a sting for some one — 
 
 He looses an arrow: a distant cry follows. 
 
 ii6 
 
 Valgard's voice.
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 A shaft of theirs is lying on the roof: 
 
 I'll send it back, for if it should take root 
 
 A hurt from their own spent and worthless weapon 
 
 Would put a scorn upon their tale for ever. 
 
 He leans out for the ai-row. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Do not, my son : rouse them not up again 
 When they are slackening in their attack. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Shoot, shoot it out, and I'll come up to mock them. 
 
 GuNNAR, loosing the arrmv. 
 
 Hoia! Swerve down upon them, little hawk. 
 
 A shout follows. 
 Now they run all together round one man : 
 Now they murmur. . . . 
 
 A Voice. Close in, lift bows again : 
 
 He has no shafts, for this is one of ours. 
 
 Arroxvs fly in at the casement. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 Wife, here is something in my arm at last: 
 The head is twisted — I must cut it clear. 
 
 Steinx'OR throws open the dais door and 
 rushes through zvi'th a high shriek. 
 
 Steinvor. 
 
 Woman, let us out — help us out — 
 
 The burning comes — they are calling out for fire. 
 She shrieks again. Oudny and Astrid, 
 7vho have come behind her, muffle her 
 head in a kirtle and lift her.
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 AsTRiD, turning as they bear her out. 
 
 Fire suffuses only her cloudy brain: 
 
 The flare she walks in is on the other side 
 
 Of her shot eyes. We heard a passionate voice, 
 
 A shrill unwomanish voice that must be Mord, 
 
 With ''Let us burn him — burn him house and 
 
 all." 
 And then a grave and trembling voice replied 
 " Although my life hung on it, it shall not be." 
 Again the cunning fanatic voice went on 
 " I say the house must burn above his head." 
 And the unlifted voice " Why wilt thou speak 
 Of Avhat none wishes: it shall never be." 
 
 AsTRiD and Oddny disappear with 
 Steinvor. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 To fight with honest men is worth much friend- 
 ship: 
 I'll strive with them again. 
 
 He lifts his bow and loosens arrojvs at in- 
 tervals while Hallgerd and Rann- 
 VEiG speak. 
 
 Hallgerd, in an undertone to Rannveig, looking 
 
 out 7neanwhile to the left. 
 
 Mother, come here — 
 Come here and hearken. Is there not a foot, 
 A stealthy step, a fumbling on the latch 
 Of the great door? They come, they come, old 
 
 mother: 
 Are you not blithe and thirsty, knowing they come 
 And cannot be held back? Watch and be secret, 
 To feel things pass that cannot be undone. 
 
 ii8
 
 THE RIDING TO LIT H END 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 It is the latch. Cry out, cry out for Gunnar, 
 And brin^ him from the loft. 
 
 Hallgerd. O, never: 
 
 For then they'd swarm upon him from the roof. 
 Leave him up there and he can bay both armies, 
 While the whole dance goes merrily before us 
 And we can warm our hearts at such a flare. 
 
 Rannveig, turning both -ways^ while Hallgerd 
 
 watches her gleefully. 
 Gunnar, my son, my son! What shall I do. . . . 
 Ormild enters from the left, -white and 
 xvith her hand to her side, and walk ing 
 as if she is sick. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Bah — here 's a bleached assault. . . . 
 
 Rannveig. O, lonesome thing. 
 
 To be forgot and left in such a night. 
 
 What is there now — are terrors surging still? 
 
 Ormild. 
 
 I know not what has gone: when the men came 
 I hid in the far cowhouse. I think I swooned . . . 
 And then I followed the shadow. Who is dead? 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Go to the bower: the women will care for you. 
 
 Ormild totters up the hall from pillar to 
 pillar. 
 
 Astrid, entering by the dais door. 
 Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed 
 them 
 
 119
 
 l^HE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Over the carven ends of the beams outside: 
 They bear on them, they tighten them with levers, 
 And soon they'll tear the high roof off the hall. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 Get back and bolt the women into the bower. 
 
 AsTRiD takes Ormild, who has just 
 reached her, and goes out with her by 
 the dais door, which closes after them. 
 
 Hallgerd, go in: I shall be here thereafter. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 I will not stir. Your mother had best go in. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 How shall I stir? 
 
 Voices, outside and gathering volume. 
 
 Ai . , . Ai . . . Reach harder . . . Ai . . . 
 
 Gunnar. 
 
 Stand clear, stand clear — it moves. 
 
 The Voices. It moves . . . Ai, ai . . . 
 
 _ The whole roof slides down rumblingly, 
 disappearing with a crash behind 
 the wall of the house. All is dark 
 above. Fine snow sifts down now and 
 then to the end of the play. 
 
 Gunnar, handling his bow. 
 
 The wind has changed: 'tis coming on to snow. 
 
 The harvesters will hurry in to-morrow. 
 
 Thorbrand Thorleiksson appears 
 above the wall-top a little past Gun- 
 nar, and, reaching noiselessly with a 
 sword, cuts Gunnar's bowstring. 
 1 20
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 GuNNAR, dropping the bow and seizing his bill. 
 Ay, Thorbrand, is it thou? That 's a rare blade, 
 To shear through hemp and gut. . . . Let your 
 
 wife have it 
 For snipping needle-yarn ; or try it again. 
 
 Thorbrand, raising his szvord. 
 I must be getting back ere the snow thickens: 
 So here 's my message to the end — or farther. 
 Gunnar, this night it is time to start your journey 
 And get you out of Iceland. . . . 
 
 Gunnar, thrusting at Thorbrand with the bill. 
 
 I think it is: 
 So you shall go before me in the dark. 
 Wait for me when you find a quiet shelter. 
 
 Thorbrand sinks backward from the 
 wall and is heard to fall farther. 
 Immediately Asbrand Thorleiks- 
 SON starts up in his place. 
 
 Asbrand, striking repeatedly with a s-word. 
 O, down, down, down ! 
 
 Gunnar, parrying the blows with the bill. 
 
 Ay, Asbrand, thou as well? 
 Thy brother Thorbrand was up here but now: 
 He has gone back the other way, maybe — 
 Be hasty, or you'll not come up with him. 
 
 He thrusts with the bill : Asbrand lifts 
 a shield before the blow. 
 Here 's the first shield that I have seen to-night. 
 The bill pierces the shield: Asbrand dis- 
 appears and is heard to fall. Gunnar 
 tarns from the casement. 
 
 121
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Hallgerd, my harp that had but one long string, 
 But one low song, but one brief wingy flight, 
 Is voiceless, for my bowstring is cut off. 
 Sever two locks of hair for my sake now, 
 Spoil those bright coils of power, give me your 
 
 hair. 
 And with my mother twist those locks together 
 Into a bowstring for me. Fierce small head. 
 Thy stinging tresses shall scourge men forth by 
 
 me. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Does ought lie on it? 
 
 GuNNAR. Nought but my life lies on it ; 
 
 For they will never dare to close on me 
 If I can keep my bow bended and singing. 
 
 Hallgerd, tossing back her hair. 
 Then now I call to your mind that bygone blow 
 You gave my face; and never a whit do I care 
 If you hold out a long time or a short. 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 Every man who has trod a war-ship's deck, 
 And borne a weapon of pride, has a proud heart 
 And asks not twice for any little thing. 
 Hallgerd, I'll ask no more from you, no more. 
 
 Rannveig, tearing off her immple. 
 
 She will not mar her honour of widowhood. 
 
 O, widows' manes are priceless. . . . Off, mean 
 
 wimple — 
 I am a finished widow, why do you hide me? 
 Son, son who knew my bosom before hers, 
 
 122
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Look down and curse for an unreverend thing 
 An old bald woman who is no use at last. 
 These bleachy threads, these tufts of death's first 
 
 combing, 
 And loosening heart-strings twisted up together 
 Would not make half a bowstring. Son, forgive 
 
 me. . . . 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 A grasping woman's gold upon her head 
 Is made for hoarding, like all other gold: 
 A spendthrift woman's gold upon her head 
 Is made for spending on herself. Let be — 
 She goes her heart's w^ay, and I go to earth. 
 
 Aunund's liead rises above the wall near 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 What, are you there? 
 
 AuNUND. Yes, Gunnar, we are here. 
 
 GuNNAR, thrusting imth the bill. 
 Then bide you there. 
 
 Aunund's headsinks: Thorgeir's rises 
 in the same place. 
 
 How many heads have you? 
 
 Thorgeir. 
 
 But half as many as the feet we grow on. 
 
 Gunnar. 
 
 And I've not yet used u^^ {thrusting again) ^.W my 
 hands. 
 
 As he thrnsts another lunn rises a little 
 farther back, and leaps past him into 
 the loft. Others follo\t\ and Gunnar 
 123
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 is soon surrounded by many armed 
 7nen, so that only the rising and fall- 
 ing of his bill is seen. 
 The threshing-floor is full. . . . Up, up, brain- 
 biter! 
 We work too late to-night — up, open the husks. 
 O, smite and pulse 
 On their anvil heads: 
 The smithy is full. 
 There are shoes to be made 
 For the hoofs of the steeds 
 Of the Valkyr girls. . . . 
 
 First Man. 
 
 Hack through the shaft. . . . 
 
 Second Man. 
 
 Receive the blade 
 
 In the breast of a shield. 
 
 And wrench it round. . . . 
 
 GUNNAR. 
 
 For the hoofs of the steeds 
 Of the Valkyr girls 
 Who race up the night 
 To be first at our feast, 
 First in the play 
 With immortal spears 
 In deadly holes. . . . 
 
 Third Man. 
 
 Try at his back. . . . 
 
 Many Voices, shouting in confusion. 
 Have him down, . . . Heels on the bill. . . . Ahui, 
 ahui. . . . The bill does not rise. 
 
 124
 
 THE RIDING TO LrFHEND 
 
 Hroald, 'mith the breaking voice of a young man^ 
 
 high over all. 
 Father ... It is my blow ... It is I who kill 
 him. . . . 
 
 The crowd parts, suddenly silent, shoiving 
 
 GuwsAR fallen. 
 Rannvkig covers her face with her hands. 
 
 Hallgerd, laughing as she leans forward and 
 
 holds her breasts in her hands. 
 O, clear sweet laughter of my heart, flow out! 
 It is so mighty and beautiful and blithe 
 To watch a man dying — to hover and watch. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Cease: are you not immortal in shame already? 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Heroes, what deeds ye compass, what great 
 
 deeds — 
 One man has held ye from an open door: 
 Heroes, heroes, are ye undefeated? 
 
 GizUR, an old white-bearded man^to the other riders. 
 We have laid low to earth a mighty chief: 
 We have laboured harder than on greater deeds, 
 And maybe won remembrance by the deeds 
 Of Gunnar when no deed of ours should live; 
 For this defence of his shall outlast kingdoms 
 And jrather him fame till there are no more men. 
 
 &' 
 
 MORD. 
 
 Come down and splinter those old birds his gods 
 That perch upon the carven high-seat pillars; 
 Wreck every place his shadow fell upon. 
 Rive out his gear, drive off his forfeit beasts. 
 
 125
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Second Man. 
 It shall not be. 
 
 Many Men. Never. 
 
 GizuR. We'll never do it: 
 
 Let no man lift a blade or finger a clout- 
 Is not this Gunnar, Gunnar, whom we have slain? 
 Home, home, before the dawn shows all our 
 deed. 
 
 The riders go down quickly over the wall- 
 top^ and disappear. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Now I shall close his nostrils and his eyes, 
 
 And thereby take his blood-feud into my hands. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 If you do stir I'll choke you with your hair. 
 
 I will not let your murderous mind be near him 
 
 When he no more can choose and does not know. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 His wife I was, and yet he never judged me: 
 He did not set your motherhood between us. 
 Let me alone — I stand here for my sons. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 The wolf, the carrion bird, and the fair woman 
 Hurry upon a corpse, as if they think 
 That all is left for them the grey gods need not. 
 She hvines her hands in Hallgerd' s hair 
 and draws her down to the floor. 
 O, I will comb your hair with bones and thumbs, 
 Array these locks in my right widow's way, 
 
 126
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 And deck you like the bed-mate of the dead. 
 Lie down upon the earth as Gunnar lies, 
 Or I can never match him in your looks 
 And whiten you and make your heart as cold. 
 
 Hallgerd. 
 
 Mother, what will you do? Unloose me now — 
 
 Your eyes would not look so at me alone. 
 
 Raxnveig. 
 
 Be still, my daughter . . . 
 
 Hallgerd. And then? 
 
 Rannveig. Ah, do not fear— 
 
 I see a peril nigh and all its blitheness. 
 
 Order your limbs— stretch out your length of 
 
 beauty. 
 Let down your hands and close those deepening 
 
 eyes, 
 Or you can never stiffen as you should. 
 A murdered man should have a murdered wife 
 When all his fate is treasured in her mouth. 
 This wifely hair-pin will be sharp enough. 
 
 Hallgerd, starting upas Rannveig half loosens 
 
 her to take a hair-pin from her own head. 
 She is mad, mad . . . O, the bower is barred — 
 Hallgerd, come out, let mountains cover you . . . 
 
 S/ie rushes out to the left. 
 
 Rannveig, following her. 
 
 The night take you indeed . . . 
 
 127
 
 THE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 GizuR enters from the left. 
 GizuR. Ay, drive her out; 
 
 For no man's house was ever better by her. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Is an old woman's life desired as well? 
 
 GiZUR. 
 
 We ask that you will grant us earth hereby 
 Of Gunnar's earth, for two men dead to-night 
 To lie beneath a cairn that we shall raise. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Only for two? Take it: ask more of me. 
 
 I wish the measure were for all of you. 
 
 GiZUR. 
 
 Your words must be forgiven you, old mother, 
 For none has had a greater loss than yours. 
 Why would he set himself against us all . . . 
 
 He goes out. 
 
 Rannveig. 
 
 Gunnar, my son, we are alone again. 
 
 She goes up the liall^ mounts to the loft, 
 and stoops beside him. 
 O, they have hurt you . . . but that is forgot. 
 Boy, it is bedtime; though I am too changed, 
 And cannot lift you up and lay you in. 
 You shall go warm to bed — I'll put you there. 
 There is no comfort in my breast to-night: 
 But close your eyes beneath my fingers' touch. 
 Slip your feet down, and let me smooth your 
 hands; 
 
 128
 
 IHE RIDING TO LITHEND 
 
 Then sleep and sleep. Ay, all the world 's asleep ; 
 But some will waken. She rises. 
 
 You had a rare toy when you were awake — 
 I'll wipe it with my hair . . . Nay, keep it so, 
 The colour on it now has gladdened you. 
 It shall lie near you. 
 
 S/ie raises the bill: liie deep hum follows. 
 No; it remembers liim. 
 And other men shall fall by it through Gunnar: 
 The bill, the bill is singing . . . The bill sings! 
 
 She kisses the 7veapon, then shitkes it on 
 hiirh. 
 
 Curtain. 
 
 129 K
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE
 
 TO CLINTON BALMER 
 AND THE DEAR MEMORY OF 
 JAMES HAMILTON HAY 
 FOR THE SUMMER OF igOO 
 AT CARTMEL 
 
 /N the lost Valley all is still 
 To-day : upon the stony hill 
 The heat of the late afternoon 
 Settles in coppery haze : and sooti 
 A voice not known to me ivill call 
 Silent ohedient coivs to stall, 
 In the same immemorial C7y 
 From century to century 
 Changing hut by the utteriiig voice. 
 And in a 7vhile a little noise 
 {Hou ! Hon !)far off near Ne7vton Head 
 Will tell that at another stead 
 The broTising cattle pause and turn 
 Umvilling heads to seem to learn 
 That which they hno7V, and move in train 
 Now viilking-time has come again. 
 
 In Well Kno7ve garden now, I know. 
 Where the pale larkspur used to groiv 
 In the far nook, a sound is heard 
 {If any is there to hear save bird 
 A 7td field-mouse in the stra7ubcrries 
 Stirring like a local breeze — 
 Here, there— the lo7v leaves souiidlessly) ; 
 A glistening slender 7vasp-like fiy 
 Is using 7vill and 7i'ing to stand 
 Up07i the air as though it spanned 
 A chasm with trembling outstretched arms. 
 And in the silence of heat-stilled ^arms 
 132
 
 Anil hi'nl-7hu'h'a loood that seems to shake 
 Dim dolled lea ves yet does not break 
 By sigh or rustle the Jmsh so dear 
 Its tiny sting of sound sings clear. 
 
 Oft have I heard that elfin horn 
 
 Sound suddenly, as cohii'eb torn 
 
 Must sound in startled elfin ears 
 
 Pricked and 071 edge icith elfin fears ; 
 
 And as I up'cuard watched those spare 
 
 T^vin shreds of silver like slit air, 
 
 Beating and shining, straight and tense. 
 
 Simulating impotence 
 
 Of motion, enviously I thought 
 
 " Had my half useless fiesh beefi caught. 
 
 Upborn, and for all limit bound 
 
 Betiveen such gossamers of sound. 
 
 Not thus, not thus ivoiild 1 deny 
 
 Mv spiriCs reach and endlessly 
 
 Use all conception and aft force 
 
 To limit my short vital course. 
 
 Had I such zvings of urgent light 
 
 Insistent not alone on height 
 
 But stretched for sxveep ami latitude 
 
 I would not evade /light, I zcould 
 
 Employ my heat and power and sense 
 
 In realising difference. 
 
 Ami see my worhVs variety, 
 
 Restricted but by energy.'" 
 
 But Well Know e garden only shines 
 In memory now, and its dear signs 
 Only persist and gleam again 
 In a shut chamber of my brain : 
 While in a distant place I brood 
 Upon lost things, and in a mood 
 Of longing and remembrance feel 
 TTie wisdom of that i in mobile
 
 And senseless mote, and think " Were I 
 
 Carnate in a slim glisteiiinir fly, 
 
 I in'ould Jlasli hack upon that fair 
 
 Laurel-walled rood, then drop in air 
 
 Till no translucent nerve should stir 
 
 From strained precision, nor wing should zvhir 
 
 But to maintain one changeless height. 
 
 Nor move nor waver from that sight ; 
 
 And think the years have 7iot gone by 
 
 When James and Clinton harboured nigh 
 
 And, worki7ig in another art 
 
 Than mine, yet peopled for my heart 
 
 The Valley with the very core 
 
 Of vital beauty for evermore — 
 
 So that when the air is still 
 
 I hear below the meadow-rill 
 
 Clinton singing softlier still 
 
 Entranced by his own moving brush 
 
 A mong the stream-side bracken and rush — 
 
 Or James repeats with his long hand 
 
 The distant line of hills that stand 
 
 Between the Valley and the lake 
 
 Afidyet seem lovelier for his sake. " 
 
 How many generations past 
 
 Should I be dead had I been cast 
 
 In that small rapid shape of light? 
 
 Though wings may stand, years move in flight ; 
 
 And, while I dream, T know, I know 
 
 That it is tiseless I should go 
 
 To Well Knoive garden again to see 
 
 Things that cannot return to me — 
 
 fames dead and Clinton gone away, 
 
 And one whose name I cannot say 
 
 Who built in Cyclopean sound 
 
 Other magic heights around 
 
 That little place, theti turned apatt. 
 
 Untrue to friendship and to art.
 
 A man of nuthins^— vanished Ihintrs, 
 Dead friends, dead hopes, that must remain 
 In a shut ehamber of my brain ; 
 While only Clinton far avay 
 Will in these verses and this play 
 See that country of our youth 
 A nd our dead friend and our old troth 
 Of friendship fixed in amber lii^ht, 
 A timeless hour that holds no nii^ht. 
 
 Summer 1 921— Sprint^ 1922. 
 
 135
 
 PERSONS 
 
 Nan 
 
 Bet 
 
 Ursel 
 
 Maudlin 
 
 Lib 
 
 RopER, a Carter. 
 
 Mease, a Cowherd. 
 
 ■ Kitchen and Dairy Girls. 
 
 136
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 The scene is the interior of an old bam on a knoll, 
 a long time ago. At the back the barn's doors 
 are opened iindely ; outside, a road rises slightly 
 from left to right in front of the barn; beyond 
 this the knoll sinks softly yet swiftly to a great 
 meadow, and thence to a wide rich valley of 
 more meadows and ever more meadows with 
 ancient large cherry and crab and sloe and 
 bullace and damsontrees in their hedges idience 
 the white and pink thorn-blossom clots are not 
 quite gone, and of pastures shaded by tall clus- 
 tering trees. Afar the valley ceases in low, 
 densely wooded hills. 
 
 A late June twilight is deepening; a faint 
 moist heat-haze hides nothing, only distin- 
 guishing the planes of the distant trees "with a 
 cloudy delicacy. There is no wind, nor any 
 movement; one blackbird sings somewhere for 
 a little while, then it ceases and there is no 
 sound in the fields. 
 
 The whole prospect is of a solitary , fruitfully 
 overgroivn valley shut in from everyivhere. 
 
 Within the barn, to the left, is a high hay- 
 mo2v with a ladder leaning against it; much 
 hay has been tumbled at its foot in forking from 
 the carts. To the right is a space of Jloor where 
 the corn is lobe heaped in the ending of summer :
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 as yet ^ however, it is empty ^ save for a wooden 
 plough, a homely rough ivooden roller, wooden 
 harrows, an uptilted, pleasantly shaped cart 
 whence the hay-shelvings have not yet been 
 removed. In the far corner of the bare avails of 
 undressed stone at this side is an open door 
 leading into a mistal. Presently a cow is heard 
 moaning sickly beyond this door. 
 
 The bam is still more dim than the land, so 
 that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that 
 is known of the far-off roof Nearing footfalls 
 are heard in the road, and a woman's singing 
 grows clearer. 
 
 HOU, Hou," went the neatherd moaning 
 Down along by the pasture's side; 
 He turned the cows at the midden-yard loaning, 
 
 The loitering cows in the brown owl-tide: 
 Pale rose the last one, munching, droning, 
 With wet grass stains on her udder and hide. 
 
 My lantern's rings to the low balks floated 
 As Whitey's tail shook the mistal-sneck; 
 When I laid my cheek to her belly spotted 
 
 I felt her honey-strong breath i' my neck. 
 For she turns her head does the curd-dark throated 
 To watch my mouth start her teats with a peck. 
 Nan, Bet and Ursel ascend the road to 
 the left and enter the barn as Nan 
 ceases singing. 
 They are white-hooded, clumsily shod, 
 goimiless; in the right hand Nan 
 carries a willow frail, the others stone- 
 ware greybeards ; each holds several 
 hay -rakes on her left shoulder. 
 138
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Uksel. 
 
 September, O, September's in the song — 
 I will not have September in my heart, 
 The ending of so much deliciousness. 
 The year's sad luscious over-ripening. 
 Yet here 's the haysel done with : how it hurt 
 To rake behind the last dim cart; and now 
 My soul creeps in me like the low pale night- 
 mist 
 To know that in a moment past this moment 
 We shall not hear it slowly any more 
 Down in the lane where, wisping the close trees, 
 It follows us like a mournful sound of change. 
 Although the Summer is but newly kindled, 
 Tiptoe I over-reach the joy of it 
 (Ah, little perfect weeks of fruitfulness) 
 Because I tremble lest it be slipping past me 
 Before my eagerness will let me feel it. 
 Must joy for me be ever in things gone? . . . 
 
 Nan, as they set doivn their burdens to lean the 
 rakes against tlie wally idiere four flails are 
 hung, on the left of the door. 
 Nay, there is comfort in the rainy nights, 
 The long moist twilights of the cider time 
 When girls hold fitful talk sat in the press-spot 
 Among the hid sweet apple heaps that gleam 
 In firelight to a humming out of doors 
 Of soddening water oozing down the soil; 
 And there is comfort too at Candlemas 
 From looking through the casement in the dark, 
 The last thing ere you chafe your toes in bed, 
 On the crisp quiet of the woods and fields, 
 Wondering if 'tis snow or all the moonlight. 
 Peering so anxiously along the wall 
 
 139
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 That shades still ewes and whiter first-dropped 
 
 lambs. ... 
 Ay, but I'm tired, lasses, tired now 
 Because the haysel's over and 'twas fair 
 And the land's savour wears me with delight. 
 I'm for indoors and resting — and, beside, 
 I'm fainest of my supper o' baking days. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Let all times slip to haste the barley week. 
 For then our nearest dancing-time will ripen . . . 
 But I'm for bed to get me doffed and stripped 
 To pick muchgrass seed from my smock and coats. 
 
 Ursel. 
 
 Listen, Bet; no cool sheets are yours to-night. 
 
 The milk-eyed goodies with grey loose-skinned 
 
 throats. 
 Who maunder of rarer girlhoods none can prove, 
 Tell that at midnight on Midsummer-Eves 
 They waked in some lone shade far from all 
 
 sleepers 
 To feel which should be wedded within the year; 
 For the year's unknown husbands' images 
 Come then like swoons from some where . . . ay, 
 
 from some where. . . . 
 Thoughts shaping for their women's heedless 
 
 souls. 
 And if a maid will watch she sees her own 
 And knows her own, seeing her own alone. 
 Peering unseen as breath is in June nights. 
 Surely such dainties filled no cow-slow eyes; 
 But Nan and I mean watching and have bid 
 Maudlin at Grassgarth, Lib at Appletoft 
 Under our breath, and hither they steal this eve. 
 
 140
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 We knew we must not tell you ere the hour, 
 Or . . . or . . . too many hinds might creep to be 
 Their own drowsed leering loutish prophecies. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Am I so old or wistful to be ringed 
 That I must feign to be content with one? 
 Where is this moon-swayed peeping, then, to be. 
 This blest eavesdropping on a mood of fate? 
 
 Nan. 
 
 Here in the barn, where we may crouch un- 
 
 thought-of 
 By moon-estranged eyes in gradual darkness. 
 And lest we startle at o'er-expected footfalls 
 Or with night-carried voices rouse the farm, 
 Maudlin and Lib will warn us by dove-cooings — 
 Sometimes I hear a cooing up warm nights 
 From dove pairs far too wise to be asleep. 
 But mistress bides awake for no such music. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Dove-cooing Lib will be a thing to brood on — 
 I'll miss nought here, although you count me 
 least. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 All works with us; for at the forenoon drinking 
 
 I heard dame Stir-Wench mutter "These kesh- 
 
 pithed lasses 
 Shall sleep no longer thrce-a-bed beneath 
 The dark damp closeness of the garret thatch, 
 That nigh their heads leans low upon the floor. 
 Until this heat is past; or they will grow 
 Yet more slob-cheeked and sodden and dough- 
 limbed — 
 
 141
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 I never saw maids look more like green sickness." 
 And then she bade Giles carry our gear and bed- 
 ding 
 Into the empty meal-webbed granary. 
 Nought could have fallen better; now we have 
 No moaning ladder's and open doors' groped 
 
 passing, 
 No stocking feet need pad the dairy flags; 
 Only a silverly weathered latchless board 
 Keeps out the bats that flap toward pale shapes, 
 And waits to let us into the large night 
 Throughout the holiest of the mothering year. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 She said green sickness but she meant green 
 
 apples. 
 The codlin tree that e'er each moonset stretches 
 A creeping spider-shadow on the gable 
 Fills out its fruit weeks earlier this year. 
 And the one bough with apples onion-roped 
 Is one the mended ladder will not reach ; 
 It is weight-arched against our garret window, 
 So that the curled leaves finger on the panes 
 When midnight winds are sturdy enough to lift it; 
 Mam Pantry knows and fears bare orchard-shelves 
 And herds us to an outhouse. Girls, those apples 
 Will all be basketed before their time, 
 Ere threshing heaps the granary once more 
 And sharp nights make her yield our loft again 
 Because she finds us cuddled on its threshold. 
 
 Ursel. 
 
 Mam Patch- Waist counts more eggs than four — 
 
 she knows 
 Spring wenches' whifts let loose to sniff the night ; 
 
 142
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 So straightway to the granary Mease she sped 
 To oil the lock and drive a staple in. 
 Small is our chance of watching now. . . . 
 
 Nan. Ouick-Pattens 
 
 Even ere she rounded must have been a likely, 
 A very likely maid for her to know 
 Ourscapemell moods howe'er weprimour mouths. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Mease for two kisses left the staple loose. 
 
 Ursel, laughing ivith Nan. 
 
 Ay, Bet 's the market woman, to be sure. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Mouths, even as eyes, were made to earn our wills. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 But how came Bet near Mease up in the corn-spot? 
 And if she knows the need o' the staple loose 
 Why will she care to watch with us to-night? 
 
 Bet. 
 
 To learn which one it is, Nanikin sly. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 Had it been Mease he'd not have chaffered 
 
 kisses. . . . 
 You know more now than you will learn to-night, 
 You will wed more than all we see to-night — 
 We shall win nought beyond a secret spice 
 Of unclipt gossip in a tasty hour. . . . 
 
 A loitering dull sound is heard of cart- 
 ivheels andhorse-hooves out in the lane.
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Ursel. 
 
 Hush, Nan — here come the lads. . . . 
 
 They lift their burdens^ and stand aside 
 for the cart to enter the ham; hut as 
 it comes in sight it passes along the 
 road from the left to the right. It is 
 piled 2v it ha roped load of hay ; Roger 
 «;z^ Mease, in long smocks and flap- 
 ping hats, knee-breeches and ribbed 
 stockings, accompany it, KoGERlead- 
 ing the horse. Mease holding to the 
 shelvings behiiid with one hand and 
 with the other slanting several hay- 
 forks and a scythe against his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Ursel, continuing. What, Roger, Mease . . . 
 Why bring you not the cart and top the mow, 
 To feel in each Hmb's ebb hay harvest's spent? 
 
 Roger, halting. 
 
 As we trailed up from Pear-tree Dale past Sheep- 
 mires 
 Under a thick dew-breath we seemed to steal 
 As 'tween chill bed-clothes in December nights; 
 Into the load it soaked two fingers' length. 
 So now we needs must throw it off and spread it 
 To wait to-morrow's sun out in the yard 
 Ere it is ripe to top the sweating stack. 
 
 Mease. 
 
 Moreover, we are wetter than the crop; 
 Wherefore be homing, russet-apple-faces. 
 To take our smocks and dry them off while we 
 Drink the mulled cider you are going to make. 
 
 144
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Roger and Mv..\sk go fonvard with the 
 hofse and cart up the road to the right. 
 
 Urskl. 
 
 Come, maids, we'd best get in ere mistress seeks 
 
 us — 
 Beside, the longer we do loiter here 
 The longer sluili we hold the house from sleep; 
 There's bowl and bucket rinsing to be done, 
 And supper to set out if we would eat it. 
 Be neither meek nor eager in your toil, 
 Or Mother Dish-Clout in our gust will read 
 Some deed afoot; we'll wrangle sluggishly 
 Until she drives us off to bed unwashed. 
 Then, though we hear the lock shoot and her steps 
 Sink down the out-stair as she dips the key 
 Down the long pocket of her petticoat, 
 \^o nought but cast your shoes — there 's but one 
 
 wall 
 Between her chamber and the granary — 
 Lie dim along the bed, and never whisper; 
 But, when we hear her bed-stocks creak and know 
 Her ears are well tied up beneath her night-cap. 
 Out slip Bet's staple and ourselves as well. 
 Seek the pale hollyhocks across the garden 
 (They glimmer a little in all Summer darkness), 
 And touch behind the hive-house shadow- 
 hung. . . . 
 
 Nan. 
 
 And in the barn make happiness till dawn. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Dare we lie still, inside the dark, and wait 
 In such suppression for such unknown diings? 
 
 H5 L
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 As Bet speaks they leave the barn to the 
 right; Nan resumes her song faintly 
 and more faintly . 
 Nan. 
 
 Dusked seemed the eve as the cows trod in 
 
 Under the roof-drip each to her staUing ; 
 
 Full udders crusht shagged thighs between 
 
 Were warm to my hands in the chill air's palling; 
 
 And through thewind's driftingof leaves yet green 
 
 " Hou, hou," neared the neatherd's calling. . . . 
 
 The song ceases in the distance. 
 
 Roger turns into the ham ivith Mease's bundle 
 of hay- forks, and lays them in the empty cart 
 as he sings. 
 I get no sleep in lambing nights, 
 My woman gets no sleep; 
 
 We fold the ewes if we sniff a thaw, 
 And when they yean as we crouch i' their 
 straw 
 She takes the lambs by our horn-fogged lights 
 While I do handle the sheep. 
 
 Footsteps are heard within the neat-house. 
 
 Roger, calling through the neat-house door. 
 Is the sick beast grown easier by now? 
 
 Mease, entering from the neat-lioiise. 
 
 Poor Dapple-Back, milk fever's bad on her. 
 
 'Twas her first calf and though 'twas smoothly 
 
 dropped 
 She could not gather, but heaped a shapeless flank 
 Like a maid swooning; when the farrier came 
 "She'll die, she'll die," he said. ''She'll not," 
 
 said I : 
 But nothing served at first — her slackened fell 
 
 146
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Dried hard and never any sweat would stir, 
 The udder turned a dull and shivering white; 
 Yet now her ears twitch up to f^reet my voice, 
 The hide-hair moistens and the udder shrinks. 
 There'll be no need to wake with her to-night — 
 I'll not unwrap her till an hour ere dawn. 
 Come through and look at her as we wend in. . . . 
 When you got up the cider for the meadows 
 Was there a butt still left? 
 
 Roger, as they jo^o into the mistal together. 
 
 Surely there was; 
 
 But the girls say she'll make it wait till harvest. 
 
 I never hired to any stead before 
 
 Where last year's cider trickled into June. . . . 
 All is soundless again save for the cow's 
 tnoaning. The twilight deepens no 
 farther, and presently its dead gold 
 brozvnness becomes cooler in tone; the 
 mist, which had dee?? merged in the 
 nightfall's dimness, imperceptibly he- 
 comes appa rent aga in , being suffused 
 by an oozing of sih^eriness through the 
 pervading brownness; moon-rise is 
 evident, although the moon is hidden 
 by the permeating mist ivhich it fills. 
 Perhaps a crying of bats is heard, 
 but this is not certain. An otvl cries 
 some7vhere — probably fro)n one of the 
 gable-holes, for it sounds both inside 
 and outside at once ; after m a nv ten- 
 tative Tu-ivhits it laujiches a full 
 Tu-whoo and swings out far and loxv 
 across the valley: a chirping of frogs 
 begins in the nearest ditches. 
 
 H7
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 A closer sound stills all these, being evi- 
 dently that of a ivonian's voice feign- 
 ing dove-notes; it ceases, light cautious 
 liurried steps are heard; it sounds 
 again, Maudlin slips round the door 
 corner to the left and enters the barn. 
 She is w/iite-capped, her goxmi skirt 
 is bundled about her ivaist, her 
 bodice sleeves are turned back beyond 
 her elbows. 
 
 Maudlin. 
 
 Nan . . . Ursel . . . Nan . . . Lib . . . Appletoft 
 
 Lib, hast come? 
 There 's no one here — I wish they might forget 
 And sleep, and let me feel a little lonely. 
 I need much loneliness wherein to suckle 
 The sadness that alone can bring content: 
 I am too burdened by long laughing days, 
 And as I wavered through this solemn vapour 
 Of the worn earth, the comfort-smelling earth. 
 Where unexpected trees rose wearily 
 And sank again like ashen-bosomed sighs, 
 I felt a new, delighting mournfulness 
 I'hat made me know where I am sensitive 
 To the deep things of life; even the late May- 
 bloom, 
 That stays the tiringSpring in this strangevalley, 
 Loses its too self-conscious hope to-night — 
 The pink would fain be white, and the spent white 
 Still foer and sink to the moon and make an end. 
 I must be much alone in sorrowful nights. 
 I should have ease if Summer would but go, 
 Its green-lit glory fail ; I am so eager 
 For overgrown too-mellowness loth to pass, 
 
 148
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 For dripping- trees o'er soft decaying grass, 
 Bare orchards and shorn meadows and stripped 
 
 gardens, 
 Brown cloudy woods that drooping mists make 
 
 taller 
 About washed fields and muffled hills, subduing 
 All to a low^ remote romance and charm . . . 
 Yet soon with other maids I may behold 
 A change thatcomes to snirp these buds in me. . . . 
 She lays herself on her back among the tum- 
 bled hay; soon she sings in a lo7v voice. 
 Fetch the porridge pot hither to me, 
 The porridge pot and the dairy key, 
 And bring me a clout to wind my hair 
 Or the swarming bees will tangle there: 
 They drip from the hive in the orchard long, 
 And coil the green-cherried boughs among 
 As they follow the tanking tune I ring 
 Under the cherry leaves' shivering . . . 
 They settle, they knit — come Ailce with the 
 
 skep — 
 Step along, Misty head — Smearycap, step — 
 Steady it while I draw the bough 
 Warily down and shake it . . . Now. . . . 
 
 After a little silence she resumes. 
 The maids went down to dip in the pool 
 When the mirrored moon had cooled the water; 
 But they never told the farmer's daughter. 
 For they knew she would tell her mother, the 
 
 fool. 
 That the girls were out 
 And awaking the w^ater, 
 With never a clout 
 Though the night was cool. 
 
 She hums the latter melody a little while. 
 149
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Without premonition Ursel, Nan and 
 Bet enter singly and noiselessly from 
 the rights each holding a hand of 
 the o?ie before her. They are hood- 
 less^ white-capped^ and barelegged 
 now. 
 
 Ursel, in a low voice. 
 
 I bade them hide until we came. . . . Lib . . . 
 Maudlin. . . . 
 
 Maudlin, sitting up. 
 
 Lib is not here: there's no one nigh at all; 
 
 And in the lanes nought moves but squirrel 
 
 whifts. 
 Save that long gazing into the green darkness 
 Seems to show boles half stirred by creeping light 
 Amid the darker dark of trees impending. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Was it not Libwhowasdew-drenched last harvest, 
 
 Hid in a wheat stook till she fell asleep? 
 
 Nan, as they all seat themselves by Maudlin. 
 Could any watch you as you slipped away? 
 
 Maudlin. 
 
 Our lambs and three fat beasts must take the road 
 
 Ere dawn to reach the morrow's far-off fair; 
 
 So I said I would sleep along the settle 
 
 And set the hinds their drinking ere they trudge. 
 
 None smelt me, but I must start home by 
 
 three. . . . 
 What is the moaning through that little door? 
 
 Ursel, in alarm. 
 
 I had forgot the beast ; will Mease sleep with her? 
 
 150
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Nan. 
 
 When I came in to milk soon after seven 
 
 He said the deathly loosening was pinched 
 
 And we should keep her without more sitting 
 
 up. . . . 
 Yet — the other cows pushed in and nosed her 
 As cows will do to helpless dying things. . . . 
 
 To Maudlin, 
 A heifer has milk fever. 
 
 Maudlin, rising easterly. Let me look — 
 
 I have not touched milk fever once, nor seen it; 
 
 I want to know what sense it can be like, 
 
 I am made to know with what sick thought it 
 
 takes them, 
 To watch it wane and learn to handle it. 
 Ah, let me feel her. Nan, dear Nannie. . . . 
 
 Nan. Nay. 
 
 The neat-house door is open on her stall 
 And hints the pool out in the yard beyond 
 Dreaming a dew-dull wash of unborn moonlight 
 In darkness sinkingly close as a bat's coat, 
 And the large stillness of her weary eyes 
 Might image that . . . although we should not 
 see her. . . . 
 
 Maudlin. 
 
 I know, I know. . . . But we can shut our eyes — 
 Nay, fear would lift them — let us enter blindfold; 
 My fingers know just what they ought to do. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Nay, she might die ... I saw a cow die once: 
 She tried to turn her head across her shoulder 
 
 I SI
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 And looked at me as if twas all my doing, 
 
 Then laid it down again with a straight throat , . . 
 
 I fear for that old wrong I never did. . . , 
 
 A deep-vowed 2vomanu heard making loiv 
 dove-sounds. 
 
 Comes Lib. . . . 
 
 They rise to meet the ?iew co?7?er, but draw 
 back half in laughter, half in uneasy 
 ainazement as she appears to the left. 
 She is stockifiged and shod, but her 
 topmost apparel is nightgown and 
 nightcap. 
 
 Bet, continuing. 
 
 Lib . . . Lib ... is she asleep or dead? 
 
 Lib, entering the barn. 
 
 Do I not seem the shadow of a husband? 
 
 Am I too late? I could not choose my coming: 
 
 'Tis churning day to-morrow, and nought would 
 
 serve 
 The old one but that we must scald the churn 
 And wipe the cream-pots' lips and set them nigh 
 Before we slept — she was so cross because 
 One cow had broken, one cast before its time. 
 Some hens had laid away, farmer had blamed her 
 For standing over us to make us strip 
 The cows too hard ; so she was queer with us. 
 That kept us late from bed, and when at last 
 Our fallen skirts were cooling on the floor 
 I had to lay me down beside Ruth 
 Until she slept; for Candle-Face tells tales — 
 'Twas she who lost us the low garden-chamber 
 Where hang the dry sweet herbs, and earned 
 
 instead 
 
 152
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 One with a lattice up against the stars, 
 By peaching- of my chimbering through the case- 
 ment 
 'Mid dropping phmis that night I went some- 
 where ; 
 Rut when I heard her wet mouth on the pillow 
 I left her, stuffed my coats within my arin 
 And out along the landing. As I neared 
 The old one's chamber-door a warped board 
 
 chirped, 
 My limbs went loose and motionless with fear; 
 On I slid again and down the stairs, 
 And in the kitchen found I had no raiment. 
 I dared not grope for it nor make a light; 
 So two unmendcd stockings on the settle. 
 My shoes upon the hearth, were all 1 had: 
 But in the warm night it was comforting 
 To feel myself half indistinguishable 
 F"rom the grey, stirless oats I stood among, 
 Or the evasive gleams and thinner places 
 Of mist-lit woodlands, or from slim birch boles; 
 And when a woman met me by the brook 
 I was so pale and slow she ran from me. 
 
 The others laugh as they lead her to 
 crouch witJi them in the Juiy. 
 Why is there moaning through that little door? 
 
 Nan. 
 
 A heifer has milk fever. There is a silence. 
 
 Lib, in a lo7v voice. Women have that. . . . 
 
 Why are we thankful for a deal of trouble? . . . 
 My sister Jen was pleased and proud with herself; 
 And when her second obedience came to her 
 She was well eased — but goody Slippy-Stockings, 
 
 153
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Who went for wisdom-dame, bore the hot jug 
 Too brimmed when it was time to draw the 
 
 milk. . . . 
 They had to dry the milk, and it, being eager, 
 Went the wrong way and oozed into her head : 
 The little one died so soon. She lay there 
 Sooing the oldest milking-croon of all — 
 
 " Baby calf-lips nuzzle not nigh you, 
 
 'Tis my fingers firm that try you 
 Knowingly; 
 
 Patch-Eye, Teaty, I'll not wry you, 
 
 Let your warm milk down to me. ..." 
 Then she would wear her wedding gown all night, 
 And in the orchard we could hear her sing 
 Mall, go, gather a Posy — Lasses turn Grey — 
 Wander, Wonder — and, Peg was clouting her 
 
 Nightcaps ; 
 She sank heavily to uneasy stillness, 
 Then mooed a baby-noise; till, the fourth dawn. 
 She hollowed her arms gently across her body, 
 "Cold, cold," she said, and then "Cover us 
 
 up "... 
 And she grew colder. . . . 
 
 Maudlin. Much strangeness comes in it: 
 
 I've wondered what there is in me to gather 
 So secretly, why life can leak such whiteness, 
 And if we feel it change, and how in it 
 We sow hid things that never were in us — 
 Can it be that our thoughts go into it. 
 And all we feel and see must alter it 
 From white to white that seems but white to us? 
 I knew a woman and her daughter once 
 Who went together. . . . The young one's died; 
 she cried, 
 
 154
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 O she did cry, until the mother said 
 
 "Here, lass, have mine; I know, and you shall 
 
 know." 
 Girls, she did that quite calmly: ere he would take, 
 Mab had to cover his eyes with a warm cloth. 
 And even o' nights to wear her mother's clothes. 
 'Tis grave to suckle across the brood like that — 
 It threads the mind. . . . 
 
 Bet. Mothering, mothering, mothering — 
 
 Cannot we find our lives except that way? 
 
 The moon seems to be high over the mist 
 1107V, for there is tight evciynvhere out- 
 side; so that, 011 peering into the night, 
 it is with surprise all is found obscure 
 and not easily definable or detachable 
 amid the faint daze of light that feigns 
 to illumine the valley. The immen 
 have become only black shapes upon 
 the square I ill en patch 7vhich is the 
 door^vay surrounded by the blackness 
 of the barn. A dog ho7vls somezvhere 
 far away. 
 
 Lib. 
 
 That dog sounds from some low-set roadside farm ; 
 
 What does it hear? 'Thei-e is a short silence. 
 
 Maudlin. Women, what does it see? 
 
 They say dogs howl when someone's fetch goes 
 by. 
 
 Lib. 
 
 Mayhap it is the husband-shapes a-coming. 
 
 155
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Nan. 
 
 We shall see nought but what is in our thoughts. 
 Yet I'd be very fain to see my man. . . . 
 When Gib at Hornbeam-Shallows lost his wife 
 He had to hire a wench for the first time 
 And at next Martimas hiring came to me 
 And offered me four pounds for the half year, 
 Saying he'd give me his wife's milking coats 
 To make it up, ay, and her two best shawls. 
 One darned across the neck-place, one loom-new; 
 I told him I would liefer have her shoes — 
 That frightened him so well he stammered off. 
 But Sib had heard ; she drew him with her eyes. 
 And said she'd go for three pounds and the shawls 
 If he would let her use a gown sometimes. 
 Then at each hiring she stayed on for less. 
 Till in the third year's end he wedded her; 
 And so she's gotten shawls and shoes as well. 
 I missed a savoury chance, for he is old 
 And childless; both stock and land are his: 
 Ay, if I had gone quietly to him 
 Ere now I might have had him for myself. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 I should not wait three years for any man. . . . 
 When Sib would hire a lass Gib said his other 
 Had done without for seven and thirty years. 
 And he had ringed her but to save her wage: 
 At first he sent the hind to milk for her, 
 But stopped him soon, saying that men's hands 
 Made cow-teats horny; then at Whitsun hiring 
 He let him go, grutching it was waste 
 With such a goodly woman in the yard ; 
 So now she has to herd and fork and winnow, 
 To drive the cart and take a side of thatch. . . . 
 
 156
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Gib says young wives are better worth their fodder 
 Than worn ones. Trulyshchas a gown sometimes, 
 For she goes ever in an old woman's wear — 
 He says the other's gear will last her days. 
 Nan must surely see more than that to-night. 
 
 Lib. 
 
 Ah, but Sib knows him: he does so fondle her; 
 He lets her hair down every eve to spread it 
 And feel the pleasure of the comb's sleek goings, 
 Bidding her " Stand over" as when a cow 
 Rubs up against the boust at milking-time ; 
 While, when they gleaned their harvest lields by 
 
 moonlight 
 To stint the widows, he would bend down as she 
 Bobbed up a mouth all blackberry-stains to kiss. . . 
 Before she is fit for kitchen toil again 
 He will so wonder how she has grown the mis- 
 tress. ... Bet laughs. 
 
 U K s li L , sh ivering. 
 
 Hush, \Xo not lauyh; it creeps up in the roof, 
 And drips on us again like the thick water 
 Through the black pulpy thatch-leak in Novem- 
 ber. . . . 
 That laugh sounded as lonely as one Hail. . . . 
 
 There is a silence. 
 
 Maudlin. 
 
 The heifer ceased to moan a moment past — 
 
 It seems as if it holds its breath to listen. . . . 
 
 There is a long silence. 
 
 Bkt. 
 
 I need to speak, but what I have forgotten. . . . 
 
 157
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Ursel. 
 
 Lass, do not make us speak, or we may miss it. . . . 
 
 Maudlin. 
 
 O, do not speak to us, or we may miss it. . . . 
 
 Lib. 
 
 We could not hear you for this listening. . . . 
 
 Nan. 
 
 I look so deeply that I cannot see . . . 
 
 1 cannot listen for it for listening. . . . 
 
 There is a long silence which pulses slowly 
 with half-caught heavy breaths and 
 slight restless rustlings of the hay in 
 which the iwmen seem motionless. 
 
 Bet. 
 
 Do I feel something? Do we feel something 
 growing? . . . 
 
 Quiet steps are heard to shift the lane's 
 pebbles. The women look sharply at 
 each other, start soundlessly to their 
 feet and lean toward the door; they 
 move forward half eagerly, yet each 
 seeks to put the others before her, so 
 that as they near the door N an poises 
 unwillingly foremost; when the light 
 catches their faces they seem about to 
 laugh. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 Nay, I'll not meet it — perhaps it is not mine . . . 
 I will not know aforetime to despoil 
 The gradual joy of waking to a man — 
 I will not lose one feeling of dear change, 
 
 158
 
 MIDSUMMER EV E 
 
 Or slur it by being conscious of the next. . . . 
 
 Yet even then love should be marvellous 
 
 As the surprise of secret lights expected . . . 
 
 O, if I meet some one I do not want. . . . 
 
 Come, maids, join hands and let us go together — 
 
 Still, we might make too sure. . . . 
 
 When Nan is across the threshold the 
 others huddle back. The steps come 
 nearer. In the road beyond Nan a 
 imman appears quietly from the left; 
 so far as it is possible to see, her 
 features and array are the counter- 
 part of Nan's. 
 
 Nan, continuing. Hey, here 's a woman . . . 
 
 Lib, did you tell the slatterns at Cherry-Close 
 
 mill? 
 Nay, 'tis some rag-bag sleeper under hedges. . . . 
 
 Bet, in an undertone ofivonder. 
 Why are their coats alike? 
 
 Nan, turning her head and calling. 
 
 Ursel, Ursel, 
 She 's from the farm — our granary has been 
 
 searched ; 
 For see, she wears my old plum petticoat — 
 Come, let us strip her and pen her in a sty . . . 
 But ... I have on my old plum petticoat . . . 
 And how can she come from the farm when she 
 
 goes to the farm? . . . 
 
 Lib, hastily and beloiv her breath. 
 Fetches and wraiths . . . fetches and wraiths . ... 
 fetches and wraiths . . . Peering about her. 
 Is there no way from here? 
 
 159
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 Maudlin, under her breath. 
 
 My mother's grandmam 
 Saw her own fetch a week before she died. . . . 
 
 Bet, in a low tone. 
 
 Come through the neat-house ere we too see 
 
 ours — 
 Ursel, come . . . come. . . . 
 
 Ursel, in a hushed voice. 
 
 If all your days are used 
 Your fetch can meet you at the neat-house door — 
 Ah, stay, for Nan will need us when . . . that 
 
 goes. 
 
 Bet, Lib, and MwjUhi'N hurry and croivd 
 into t/ie 77iistal imheedingly . Mean- 
 while tJie ■woman has passed from left 
 to right along the roady turning always 
 to Nan and holding out her arms to 
 her. 
 
 Nan, leaning out toimird her imth her hands pressed 
 
 over her lieart. 
 Her unapparent features make me feel 
 How others must feel my face. . . . The droop of 
 
 her skirt 
 Is creeping on my hips. ... I have watched my 
 
 feet 
 Draw sideways so. . . . Her shadow is long like 
 
 mine 
 About the bosom ... I wish I could touch her 
 
 hair — 
 I know so well the tingle and smell of my hair . . . 
 Is this a fetch? 
 
 She reaches forward as if she would follow ^ 
 1 60
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 until she is in the middle of the road; 
 the -woman passes from sight to the 
 right. Nan's body loosens; she turns 
 confusedly to the barn and sees Ur- 
 siiVs face pale in the shade. 
 
 Nan, continuing. O, Ursly, where have I gone? 
 
 I have lost myself, for I was here but now . . . 
 
 She remembers and shakes. 
 
 Dear soul, what did you see? 
 
 Ursel, taking her in her arms. 
 
 I saw what you saw. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 Was it my fetch? 
 
 Ursel. I think it was a fetch. 
 
 Nan, numbly. 
 
 I must be going to die. ... I cannot feel so . . . 
 There 's nought I want to do when I am dead . . . 
 She is silent a moment^ then seems 
 startled into sobbing. 
 O, Ursel, Ursel, I cannot let me die. . . . 
 
 Ursel. 
 
 Folk say a fetch is seen at its departing 
 
 From a cold house whence it shall lead a soul ; 
 
 But this comes like a child-birth closing in, 
 
 And so perchance it does but signify 
 
 The consciousness of death that breaks in all. 
 
 We stand outside the process of the earth 
 
 And watch it as immortals; and consider 
 
 Death, which we think a deeply moving thing 
 
 (Observing eagerly its tine emotions, 
 
 i6i M
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 The impressive strangeness of its mean romance, 
 Its strong-tanged character and accidents, 
 And all the keen new chances it affords 
 For sympathy and for imagination), 
 But think not to connect it with ourselves— 
 So sure we are all 's possible to us. 
 Then a near comprehension that is love 
 Of trees or sheep, songs or some man or woman, 
 Shakes us one day and nothing is the same. 
 Because we grow aware that we must leave 
 The very joy that lights ourselves for us 
 And shows where we may greaten for its sake. 
 'Tis life's beginning; we perceive the earth 
 And go down into it and nestle to it 
 Defeatedly before its larger thought: 
 Numbly we measure ourselves by all we see, 
 We feel uneasily yet willingly 
 Each thing that happens may happen to us too, 
 And we are cheated by each grief unsuffered — 
 Yea, ever we interrogate decay 
 To know our own duration ; we must touch 
 Each lovesome thing lest it or we should fade. 
 Until the searching quiver of contact reaches 
 And makes us conscious where we can be love- 
 some; 
 We find ourselves in others and thus learn 
 How others are in us, and so we creep 
 To large experiences we could not think — 
 Effectual perfection of ripe life ; 
 The earth and all the darling ways of it 
 Are ours by love, for all that we must leave 
 Comes into us and makes us live it swiftly 
 Lest we should miss some thing. So that one love 
 Insists that every love in earth shall feed it. 
 To keep it from the unsafety of ignorance 
 
 162
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 And let our brief days yield their sweetness up. 
 Such is the consciousness of death — ah, such 
 Must be made yours; mayhap this is the way. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 The consciousness of death. . . . Though that be 
 
 all, 
 It is too much: even if this fetch abides 
 Unnumbered years ere I see it depart, 
 Yet all is made unsure and I may sink 
 Before I have felt half I need to feel. 
 I must make every passion in myself. 
 Have each emotion of my wilful sowinje;" — 
 The pain of sap, the pain of bud and bloom, 
 Of hard green fruit sun-bruised to thick gold juice, 
 The pain of the sharp kernel in the pulp 
 (Transmuter of sweet to inmost bitterness), 
 The pain of orderly corruption too— 
 Of the withdrawing sap, of the sick falling 
 Into long grass beneath the rain-soaked boughs, 
 Of gentle decomposing for small roots; 
 So that if death 's the end. the true completion, 
 I could believe myself fulfilled and ripe, 
 A sufferer of the topmost joy and grief. 
 And past the need of any eternity . . . 
 O, I desire old age, because old age 
 Has more capacity, more ways of joy. . . . 
 
 Her sobs hide her 7Vords. Urskl leads 
 her to the hay and seats her among it 
 again and herself by her, putting her 
 arms about her and draioing her head 
 do7vn upon her bosom. 
 
 Urskl. 
 
 Old age must sit and wait as we must wait . . . 
 
 163
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 We can grow old so quickly in our souls . . . 
 One utters a love-call and no answer comes, 
 One suffers motherhood within one's heart 
 Of cold unconscious children who can render 
 A tolerance of affection more remote 
 Than strait denial; and such maternity 
 Waits not for any bearing through the body — 
 When love has come maternity must follow, 
 And if the body may not be made fruitful 
 The spirit chooses its own fruitfulness: 
 All that we miss is happening in others, 
 Others are feeling all we yearn to feel. 
 And if we will not let ourselves forget 
 How love has wrung us we pass through it with 
 
 them. . . . 
 Ah, wonder, joy, of contact that enlarges 
 Our bodies' possibilities and times, 
 And gathers life for us to nourish. . . . 
 
 A stifled cry from Bet is heard from the 
 neat-house. 
 
 Bet. Aa — h. . . . 
 
 Nan, sinking back faintly in Ursel's arms. 
 Does ... it return and . . . call? . . . 
 
 Ursel. Hush, 'tis Bet's voice. . . . 
 
 Ajter a brief interval filled ivith slight 
 
 soundsy Bet appears in the neat-house 
 
 dooTway; she peeps before her until 
 
 she sees the two women in the hay. 
 
 Bet, in a lo7v eager tone. 
 Ursel, Ursel. . . . 
 
 Ursel rises and goes toivard her. 
 The cow has died ... in the dark. . . . 
 164
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 When I returned but now by the yard door 
 I missed the boust and groped into her stall — 
 And did not know until I heaved and spread 
 Up a flat softness that went sick beneath me 
 With long stiffshakin<T-s, while her unearned wind 
 Broke far within, then slid against my cheek . . . 
 I could have borne it if she had been cold; 
 But she was nearly cold, so that I felt 
 A thread-thin warmth I could not stay nor make. . . 
 
 Nan, approaching Bkt swiftly from behind and 
 
 grasping her shoulder. 
 Is the cow dead? 
 
 Bet, shrinking from her touch. 
 
 Nannie, the cow is dead. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 I milked her last of all, and now my fetch 
 
 Has milked her too; will . . . it . . . take all from 
 
 me 
 I own through love? 
 {To Bet.) Why did you shrink from me? 
 
 Bet. 
 
 I did not shrink from you; what need is there? 
 
 Nan holds oat her arms to her; again she 
 draws away from Nan. 
 Nannie, I cannot help it ... I cannot help it. . . . 
 There 's more than this world in you, and I know 
 
 not 
 What you might do to me past your own will : 
 You have seen your fetch and are not one of us, 
 For we know not your being's dim half-con- 
 ditions . . . 
 And maybe if you touch ought that has life 
 
 165 ^
 
 .MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 You make it that your fetch can take it too — 
 So died the heifer. ... Or maybe your least touch 
 Draws life from others to win you a few hours; 
 Or you are of the dead, and call folk to them 
 Through sympathy of the senses' understand- 
 ing. . . . 
 Poor Nannie . . . O, poor Nannie . . . O, poor 
 Nannie. . . . 
 
 Slie sobs loudly y stooping to wipe her eyes 
 with her petticoat-hem. 
 
 Ursel, while seeking to still her. 
 Let us turn home to bed: we shall not sleep; 
 But once we're stripped we can relax our bodies, 
 Lying past thought for misery till insight 
 Returns again and brings us the proportion 
 Of all . . . and us. . . . 
 
 Nan. I shall bide here till dawn 
 
 To see if ... I return and go out . . . out . . . 
 {To Bet.) 
 
 Have you left Lib and Maudlin hiding some- 
 where; 
 
 Or do they home by now? 
 
 Bet, overcoming her tears gradually. 
 
 We fled from here 
 When . . . when . . . and reached the neat-yard 
 
 ere we knew; 
 We climbed the knoll and passed behind the barn ; 
 Then through the corn land, dew-wet to our hearts, 
 We beat the thick rye down that choked our feet 
 Amid its shaggy sighing stilly weight, 
 Until the cottages at Damson-Closes 
 Hung o'er us like a dark broody-winged hen — 
 
 166
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 We shunned the watcher's light where the old 
 
 woman 
 Waits for her death, and dripped into the lane 
 Soft as cast shadows. ... Ever all feared to speak : 
 Yet I went with the others through lost fields, 
 Straining to see the thing we prayed to miss, 
 Because I knew I dared not near the homestead ; 
 Until I felt that neither should I dare 
 A more remote returning by myself — 
 When, loitering unnoticed by those trances, 
 I sought even you rather than be alone. 
 
 Nan, rigidly, her head having been long averted 
 
 to the barn's doorway. 
 I hear my feet. 
 
 Ursel, in alarm. Nan, do not go. . . . 
 
 Nan. I m^ist. 
 
 Bet, imldly. 
 
 Again. . . . Wherever shall I go alone? . . . 
 
 She tugs her cap-strings loose and her cap 
 over her eyes; she breathes so deeply 
 that her trembling is heard by her 
 breath as she fumbles her itmy into 
 the mistal. The quiet steps are heard 
 again; as Nan approaches the thres- 
 hold the ivoman reappears to the right 
 and passes down the lane to the left, 
 ahvays holding out her arms to Nan, 
 whose arms hang tensely at her sides 
 while her fingers twitch at her petti- 
 coat as she holds back and back from 
 meeting the embrace. Ursel tries to 
 go to Nan, but she cannot trail her 
 167
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE 
 
 feet after her nor draw down her hands 
 that cover her face. 
 
 Nan. 
 
 How have I parted? . . . Where am I in deed? . . . 
 
 What of me is unseen? Go. . . . 
 
 71ie woman having disappeared to the left, 
 still opening her arms to Nan, Nan 
 turjis and totters to the door's edge on 
 that side; thence she feels her way 
 supportedly along the door, hut when 
 she comes to its end she slides to her 
 knees; after moving a little farther so, 
 she sinks forward on her face and 
 crawls blindly toward Ursel's feet. 
 At the fall Ursel's hands drop; she 
 reaches to Nan, kneels by her, feels 
 her heart and hands, holds her own 
 hand before Nan's month and nos- 
 trils; then with one swift movement 
 she loosens her own raiment nearly to 
 her waist, and, lying against Nan, 
 clasps her in her arms and gathers 
 her into her bosom. 
 
 Ursel. Nan. . . . O, Nan. . . . 
 
 The two lie quite still; the stirred dust 
 settles on them slowly and greyly in 
 the moonlight. 
 
 Curtain. 
 
 1 68
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE
 
 ' And, O, perchance it is the fairest lot 
 At once to be a queen and he forgot; 
 For queens are oft remembered by the 7veighed 
 
 Wild dusly peacock-flashing sins they played, 
 But queens clean-hearted leave us and grozv less, 
 Lost in the common light of righteousness :' 
 
 From KING RENE'S HONEYMOON: A 
 MASQUE, Scene vii. 
 
 170
 
 TO B. J. FLETCHER 
 
 OA\ I RE Ben Fletcher, oft I bless 
 Your rotund Jacobean name; 
 If the i^reaf cre'w could still express 
 Their hearts in their dim place of Fame y 
 As once at Globe or Mermaid-ales, 
 With love your liking they nould greet 
 For country things and queens' mad tales 
 And lines "ivith soundi7igfeet. 
 
 But in this troublous Jie7uer time 
 Suchfellou's have not filled your days, 
 So it is left for me to chime 
 These quieter verses of your praise : 
 For a fair theme I need 7iot strive 
 IVhile manhood kno7vs as boyhood knew 
 The joys of art, the joys of life, 
 I have received from you. 
 
 What days could ever be so long 
 
 As those our pristine Summers poised 
 
 O'er a charmed 7<alley isled amo7ig 
 
 Their bright slow-breaking tides unnoised? 
 
 Then Dials were new and came to stir 
 
 A passionate thirst within the eyes; 
 
 Each dawn 7vas a discoverer 
 
 Of poets unearthly wise. 
 
 First-comer of my friends, the years 
 Behold much friendship fade and set; 
 The shrunken world imparts its fears. 
 Most men their early power forget. 
 But art stays true for us, aiid we 
 In it are steadfast: for a sign 
 Its wonder joins us changelessly 
 Voter name stands here with mine. 
 
 Marcli 8th, 1909. 
 
 171
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 Antiochus Theos, one of the Hellenic Kings of the East 
 of the line of Seleucus, reigned in Antioch. He had espoused 
 Laodice his kinswoman, according to the usage of his race ; 
 but after many years he put her from him, and took to wife 
 Berenice, daughter and sister of Ptolemys of Egypt, for 
 reasons of state. 
 
 Laodice withdrew to Ephesus and kept court there : long 
 affection, resurgent, sent Antiochus thither to join her. 
 Shortly afterward he died at Ephesus in Laodice's care. 
 
 Berenice and Laodice then warred, each to gain the 
 kingdom for her child: the infant son of Berenice dis- 
 appeared, and eventually Seleucus U., the son of Laodice, 
 held the throne of Antiochus. 
 
 In the course of their wars Laodice retired from Ephesus 
 on finding that Sophron, the governor of the city, secretly 
 tralTicked with the party of Berenice. While she sat in 
 some adjacent city Sophron unsuspiciously rejoined her 
 counsels ; she immediately devised his death, but he, being 
 warned by his old love Danae, the Ljueen's favourite, saved 
 himself by flight. 
 
 PERSONS: 
 
 Laodice, a Oueen of the Seleucid House in Asia. 
 Danae, Mysta, Rhodogune, Barsine, and 
 
 other Waiting-Women. 
 Three Women-Musicians. 
 Sophron, Seleucid Governor of Ephesus. 
 
 Ill Smyrna. B.C. 246. 
 
 172
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Behind the curtain a 7vo man sings to the accom- 
 paniment of a harp and a bell. 
 
 I WILL sing of the women who have borne 
 rule, 
 The severe, the swift, the beautiful ; 
 I will praise their loftiness of mind 
 That made them too wise to be true or kind; 
 I will sing of their calm injustice loved 
 For the pride it fed and the power it proved. 
 
 Once in Egypt a girl was queen 
 
 Ashamed that her womanhood should be seen; 
 
 She wore a beard, she called herself king. 
 
 She was uneasy with governing; 
 
 She believed a king was greater than she. 
 
 So she found a king and his mastery. 
 
 In Smyrna sits a queen to-night 
 
 Who does not shine by another's light; 
 
 She has laid her husband on time's dust-heap, 
 
 But for that she holds not her title cheap; 
 
 New radiance comes on woman by her, 
 
 New force in woman is seen to stir. 
 
 She has taken the land and the sea trom men ; 
 She has shewn men the power of their source 
 aeain. . . . 
 
 '73
 
 LAO DICE AND DANAE 
 
 The curtain rises. 
 
 A lofty chamber of iJiingled Hellenic afid Asiatic 
 architecture is seen. The 7valls are of black 
 stone: on the right a portal toward the front of 
 the stage is concealed by a curtain embroidered 
 with parrots and Babylonian branch-work: 
 high and toivard the back is a double window^ 
 with open cedar lattices^ of an inner room: 
 high in the opposed wall is a short arcade with 
 a projecting gallery. An open colonnade ex- 
 tends across the rear wall at two-thirds of its 
 height; its pillars support the roof: the plat- 
 form of this colonnade is accessible by an open 
 stair recessed in the wall. 
 
 Queen 'Laot>ice reclines on a great divan set toward 
 the left centre of the chamber. The musicians 
 whose singing and playing have just ceased 
 kneel on a I^ersian carpel before her: between 
 them and the portal stands a tall brazier whence 
 a wavering heat rises. A golden evening sky 
 is visible through the colonnade^ tvhere Danae 
 leans against a pillar. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 BE silent now; I let you sing too much. 
 I am awaiting now too many things 
 To bear this fret of waiting till you end 
 And I can think again. Be quietly gone. 
 
 The women go out. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 You bade them sing to make one moment brief. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 What are you watching like a larger cat, 
 
 174
 
 LAO DICE AND DANAE 
 
 Sweetheart, little heart, noiseless and alert? 
 You shall not watch me like a prim wise cat. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 I watch a girl sway slightly, near the tide. 
 As if rehearsing dance-steps in her heart; 
 She hangs lit snakes of sea-weed down her bosom ; 
 She takes a letter from her bunchv hair. . . . 
 
 She /ai/o-/is and leans over, holding the 
 pUlar. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Find me a ship, ships; dark ones, strange ones. 
 I must have ships, so find them, little heart; 
 And, more than all, a ship of Antioch. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 How tiny a girl looks under these deep rocks. . . . 
 
 Laodice yaitms. 
 Madam, I have searched well; yet until now 
 No deep-sea ship has passed the promontory; 
 Now a great ship with tawny sails comes on, 
 An ocean-threatening centaur for its prow. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 That is from Ephesus, not Antioch. . . . 
 I purge one thought thereby and make repay- 
 ment. 
 I am taken with an inward shivering: 
 Perhaps I am cold with night — come down and 
 warm me. 
 
 Danae descends and reclines byl^xoTtiCE. 
 Haughty and passive and obedient, 
 May not my queen's bosom receive your head? 
 When I worked empery in Ephesus 
 That Sophron, governor — did he not love you? 
 
 '75
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Danae 
 
 He said he did. 
 
 Laodice. And you? 
 
 Danae. I said he did. 
 
 Thereon he made too sure of me too soon: 
 It is unwise to let men be too sure, 
 And for that reason I hung up my silks 
 On a swart Nabataan, having smeared her 
 With my rare private unguent, and concealed 
 
 her 
 In his choice corner — where she bit his lip, 
 Then let her laughing teeth take light of moon. 
 There was no more of Sophron afterward. . . . 
 Although I looked at him almost penitently. . . . 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 No more? Was there no more, my little one? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Ah, yes. . . . When he would never look at me 
 
 I felt I could not live outside his arms. 
 
 I went to him at night in a slave's skirt, 
 
 And by humiliating actions soothed 
 
 His wincing mind, until he stooped to me. 
 
 I had him soon. And then I tired of him. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 And then, indeed, there was no more at all? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 I have not seen him since. We left that city. 
 You have my faith. You know I am all yours. 
 
 176
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 That is quite well. He has no years for you; 
 He is found treasonous, and must be undone. 
 O, he goes out. . . . Dear, I am very cold. 
 Is it because my heart is cold? Men say it. 
 
 DANAii. 
 
 Your heart is warm to me. 
 
 Laodice. What do men say? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 They say you fled to Sardis and to Smyrna 
 Because you poisoned him at Ephesus 
 And heard his feet when a room echoed. 
 
 Laodice. Him ? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Antiochus the God, your king- and spouse. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Why do they so consider me the cause? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 You hold the physician Smerdis in more favour. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 And did I poison him, my Danae? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Dear lady, surely. 
 
 Laodice. Surely. ... It is sure. 
 
 Was I not made the Sister, natural wife? 
 
 177 N
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Did he not change me for a daughter of Egypt 
 
 Robed with a satrapy, crowned by an isle? 
 
 She laved her body daily in Nile water, 
 
 Which can make fruitful even stones and virgins; 
 
 Itsoonbroughtforththe mud's accustomed spawn, 
 
 A valuable heir of all the lands. 
 
 How could she keep him? Needing me he 
 
 turned : 
 Was it not best for him to die still needing me 
 And leave the amount of kingdoms to my boy. 
 The climbing vine of gold up vShushan's front, 
 The cedar palaces of Ecbatana, 
 Though Berenice sits in Antioch 
 Safe with her suckling, in her suckling's name? 
 Winds, bring to me a ship from Antioch. 
 Since that dread night when Mysta stept not down 
 With all you speechless ones to disarray me. 
 Have you not dreamed that I did poison her? 
 Her love is more than yours, for she had crept 
 To Antioch to sell herself in bondage 
 Where Berenice buys, that she may nurse 
 The child for Berenice — and for me. 
 While uncle Egypt plucks my crown for it. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Which fingers mixed the poison? See, I kiss 
 
 them, 
 Trust them ever to do their will with me. 
 There is no poison in a poppy-seed; 
 The seedling draws its venom from the earth — 
 'Tis the earth's natural need for such event. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Ay, but the disposition is in the seed; 
 I poison by a motion of the heart. 
 
 178
 
 L A O D I C E AND D A N A E 
 
 RiioDOGUNE, a Partliian waiting-woman^ 
 enters. 
 
 RlIODOGUNE. 
 
 Madam, the governor of Ephesus 
 
 Comes newly from the harbour to your will. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Sophron! 
 
 Laodice. Lie still. A silence, 
 
 Rhodogune. Madam, must I go down? 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Bid this I'^phesian governor to me. 
 
 RlIODOGUNE goes out. Laodice lays a 
 hand on Danae's heart. 
 
 It is now twilight. Sophron enters. 
 
 Sophron. 
 
 Queen, am I swift enough to your commanding? 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I am ever rich in your discerning service. 
 
 Why came you by the sea? 
 
 She sees that SovHRoyi'sga:::e is fixed on 
 Danae, 2vho docs nut look at hi in. 
 
 Girl, stand behind me. 
 Danae obeys. 
 Why came you by the sea? 
 
 Sophron. Lady . . . the sea? . . . 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Does not the way by land still tit mine urgence? 
 
 '79
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 SOPHRON. 
 
 Your safety's urgence made it seem most good 
 To search the straits for masts of Ptolemy. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Ha. . . . Yes. . . . And did you speak with any 
 such? 
 
 Danae looks at SoPHRON and shakes her 
 head. 
 
 SOPHKON. 
 
 The seas were void of ahen keels to-night. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Are there Egyptians seen in Ephesus? 
 
 SoPHRON. 
 
 None since the aged men who mummied the 
 king. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Tell me the common talk of Egypt's plan ; 
 
 And what device to handle Ptolemy 
 
 Is in your friendly mind. 
 
 SOPHRON. 
 
 There 's but a common fear of Egypt's secret. 
 We cannot meet him yet unless the cities, 
 Yes, all these cities of men, take hands with us. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Must I keep house in Smyrna still, my man? 
 
 Play queen in a corner harmlessly? 
 
 SoPHRON. Madam, 
 
 The coast is safer here than at Ephesus, 
 Retreat on Sardis safer and more ready. 
 
 1 80
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I more withdrawn apart from my main kingdom, 
 Bafifled from drainage of the unended East. 
 I have required you here because a word, 
 Perhaps a word malicious, has crept here: 
 It has been said that some Ephesian men 
 Have bartered for my town with Ptolemy — 
 Do you know any of these? Do they live? 
 
 SOPHRON. 
 
 There are none known : such could not sell past 
 me. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 They use my palace: examine those about you. 
 
 SOIMIRON. 
 
 There is no need: Ik now them to be clean. 
 
 Danae airaiu shakes her head, but more 
 eagerly. 
 
 Laodice, turning her head and looking up at 
 
 Danae suddenly. 
 Why do you tremble, girl? There's nought to 
 fear. 
 
 As she begins to speak Danae's hair is 
 shaken loose; a rose falls from it 
 and breaks on Laodice's shoulder. 
 Laodici-: laughs and plays with the 
 petals, continuing 7cithout pause. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Do you drop me a sleepy kiss, maiden, my rare 
 
 one? 
 But, O, you have so tumbled your hair to cull it — 
 Come hither, kneel, and I will bind it up. 
 
 i8i
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Danae, obeying. 
 
 Lady, I coiled it carelessly. . . . Indeed 
 
 Such ministration is my precious pardon. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Silk, silky silk so delicious to finger. . . . 
 
 Rose I held; ruby-glows; then dark hair in my 
 
 hands. . . . 
 Nay, I am hot ; I burn ; stay there and fan me. . . . 
 Dear, do not cease at all. 
 
 To SOPHRON. 
 
 Well, my captain? 
 
 SOPHRON. 
 
 You shall have men's minds searched in Ephesus. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I like your mind. Also, I have considered 
 You must shut up your port, let out no ship; 
 Then Ptolemy shall be more sure each night 
 That he has wiped the seas . . . till you slip out. 
 
 Soph RON, in stupefaction. 
 Slip . . . out? 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Ay, Sophron, fall on him. 
 
 SoPHRON, eagerly. Yes, yes: 
 
 These things shall be, and you shall not complain. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Nay, go not now; be my great guest this night. 
 The tide will take you not until more day. 
 And in the dawn, white hour of clearest thought, 
 
 T82
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 I need more counsel from you for my deeds. 
 
 She claps her hands : B arsine, a Persian^ 
 enters. 
 Let this strong captain be well feasted now 
 In winy webs of my embroidering — 
 Or — no — a purple suits his temper best; 
 And send a slave to him for him to rule. 
 
 SOPHRON. 
 
 Graciousness, yours: let me but stay my seamen. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Haretas the Pisidian shall go down 
 
 Into the place of ships, but not my guest: 
 
 Entrust your ring to this, and she will bear it. 
 
 Barsine and Sopwko^ go out . Laodice 
 nods to herself. 
 I saw his ring : it was a new green scarab. 
 
 Danae ceases fanning without Laodice 
 heeding. 
 
 RiiODOGUNE, outside. 
 
 She-dog, come back and you shall have butwhips. 
 A dirty woman runs in, bearing a bundle 
 with in her ragged robe; R h o dog u n e 
 follows her. 
 
 Laodice, slowly. 
 
 I have not need of rinds and lees to-night; 
 
 Come, take these out and burn them. 
 
 The Woman. Ay, come. 
 
 Laodice, starting up. 
 
 Mysta, Mysta, my joy! What have you there? 
 
 1 8.-.
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 The thing a mother called Antiochus? 
 
 To Rhodogune. 
 Do you not know your fellow and my hand? 
 
 Rhodogune retires. 
 
 Mysta. 
 
 I was the handmaid of a displaced queen ; 
 I am dry nurse to the undoubted queen, 
 Come back merely to boast and make display 
 How lusty a baby grows in careful hands, 
 How noble I to carry a living king. 
 
 Laodice, leaping to her. 
 
 Unwind, dishevel, give it up to me. 
 
 Clapping her hands. 
 
 Let there be lights above: I must see closely. 
 
 If I embrace you I shall touch it too. 
 
 A woman hangs a lamp from long chains 
 over the gallery on the left^ then with- 
 draivs. After a moment she passes 
 along the colonnade from left to right 
 and disappears. A moment later she 
 leans from the latticed windows on 
 the right to light t%m lamps suspended 
 from the roof to a point immediately 
 beloiv her. The lights are such that^ 
 when the timlight has gone, the figures 
 of the persons are more definite than 
 their features, and tJie upper part of 
 the cha?nber is almost unlit. In the 
 meantifue Mysta has continued. 
 
 Mysta. 
 
 Nay, we are but harbour-drift from Antioch : 
 Come, take us out and burn us. 
 
 184
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. Aha, Mysta. 
 
 Mysta. 
 
 Touch not my hair; 'tis foul from many ships. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I have ached by watching ships that were not 
 
 yours. 
 Were you in Sophron's vessel? Did he know? 
 
 Mysta. 
 
 She did not trust me soon to tend her child, 
 
 Returning oft like the uneasy cat: 
 
 When I had slipt these rags on it and me 
 
 I herded with night-women by the shore. 
 
 Ere there, I passed a rift in palaces, 
 
 Moment of empty street and Berenice 
 
 Marching with hunger in her bright fixed eyes. 
 
 Champing her golden chain — one hand on it 
 
 Tugged her mouth downward — one hand smote 
 
 a spear 
 Upon the stones as she stepped on and on 
 Toward the house of Ca^neus your known friend. 
 They spied the harbour; I must leave by land; 
 Then was some tale of fishers, trading sloops: 
 Sophron knows not the thief like a fierce mother 
 Whose hard feet last left ship at Ephesus — 
 Where Ptolemy is looked for eagerly. 
 
 As she speaks Laodice has draxvn a 
 scarf from her shoulders, hvisted it 
 and stramed it in her hands; it tears 
 and she throrvs it doivn. 
 Mysta Jiolds out the child to her. 
 'Twas warm and quiet so long. Let it live. 
 
 i«5
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice, taking the child and scanning it. 
 Let me read here: 
 
 This is the mould, wrongly retouched and spent — 
 It is his child and yet I have not known it. . . . 
 
 Clasping it closely to her. 
 I am the changeless mother of this race, 
 And this a younger seed. By the opened womb 
 I have decided being: and I decide. 
 Much Asia has been spanned to leave it here, 
 More Asia will be narrowed by her searchers; 
 Mysta might die next time. It must die. 
 I reached my hand and took it to make sure 
 My order and number of children still were true. 
 I have looked on it — its purport is completed. 
 
 Mysta. 
 
 It could be hid for ever: let it live. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Mysta shall need my ritual bath and wardrobe; 
 
 Serve me by delicate sleep. Mysta must go. 
 
 She kisses Mysta and leads her to the 
 portal. Mysi A. goes out passively. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Danae, pile me cushions and hollow them — 
 There in the shadowed seat beyond the breeze. 
 No; larger cushions with no rough gold in 
 
 stitchings. 
 One softer for his head — now hold it there 
 Till I can kneel and lay him in the dimmest, 
 For he may sleep a little yet. Ay, so. . . . 
 I had well-nigh forgotten to appoint 
 Sophron a chamber. 
 
 1 86
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Danae. Madam, I will go. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 You speak too loudly. Madam, you will remain: 
 I need you to cast gums upon the censer 
 To make me drowsy — I must sleep some mo- 
 ments. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Storax alone, or juniper? 
 
 Laodice. O, storax. 
 
 Danae goes to a recess in the wall near 
 the portal, and takes out a painted 
 bowl. She pours grains from it slowly 
 upon the brazier; brief cloudy flames 
 illumine her face. 
 
 Did the Silk-People shape that bowl? 
 
 Danae. Maybe. . . . 
 
 I could burn up the world like this to-night, 
 To make an end of conflicts and of burdens. 
 
 As Laodice claps her hands Barsine 
 hurries in breathlessly. 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 Queen, Queen. . . . 
 
 Laodice, watching Danai-'. 
 
 Make ready fragrantly and freshly 
 Chamber for Sophron next to that of wSmerdis. 
 Then send Smerdis with knives and drugs to me. 
 Dana ii opens her mouth as if to speak — 
 the fames fall as she holds the bowl 
 poised mot ion lessly. 
 187
 
 LAODI CE AND DANAE 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 Sophron— none can find him ; he has gone. 
 
 Danae lets the contents of the howl slide 
 into the brazier ', a shaft of flame 
 flares high, she averts her face. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Ho, are we dropping roses all the time? 
 
 Men ; bring me men and torches and sharp 
 
 spears — 
 A boat to cut the Centaur's rudder-ropes— 
 I will go down and take him back . . . Hui . . . 
 She szveeps out followed by Barsine. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 O, Sophron, out by the land! Nay, he knows 
 
 more — 
 And she, and she; watch-towers divide this earth. 
 Horses go here; and he may save a ship. 
 
 She draws aside the curtain to look beyond. 
 
 May women's skirts impede you, ravening queen. 
 
 She ascends siviftly to the colonnade: a 
 
 starry night shows her form dimly. 
 
 Fishers' small lights, be drenched— you show too 
 
 much 
 At height of settling gulls above the water . . . 
 Ah ... h, nothing, nothing. Something will 
 
 not happen. 
 And let this life go on again. Nothing. 
 Yet ... yet ... the air is beating on my temples 
 As though a rabble murmured beyond hearing. 
 
 Rhodogune enters. 
 
 Rhodogune. 
 Danae, are you here? 
 
 1 88
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 Danae. I am here. 
 
 RlIODOGUNi:. 
 
 Where is the Oueen? 
 
 DaiNAE. Nearuig the shore by now. 
 
 RnODOGUNE. 
 
 I have a drunken woman with nine snakes 
 That follow her as freshets a drowned body, 
 Then lift wise sibilant heads in guardian swaying ; 
 Her lair could well be traced by emptied streets. 
 She is too drunk to speak, but sings the better 
 A praise of poisonous snakes and the fools of wine. 
 While in the night they circle and streak for 
 
 answer 
 Likewine-cups' linesof light, black rubies'gleams. 
 Shall I not bring her for the Queen to use. 
 Who loves delights like dangers come too near? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Put her away in a safe place till morning — 
 The Queen is smouldering again to-night, 
 And, 7f she sees your epileptic mummer. 
 Will make us tie her up with her own serpents. . . . 
 Babble no more to me— I must be watching. 
 
 Rhodogune. 
 
 You are not the Queen, although the Queen's 
 
 plaything; 
 Deign not your high commandments unto us. 
 
 She goes out. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Sophron, your bare grand neck's a taw^iy pillar 
 
 189
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 To lean a cheek against in burning noons ; 
 Your careless eyes look deeplier than you know; 
 You must be kept in life. . . . Down there, down 
 
 there 
 Is something darker, swifter than the sea. . . . 
 An unseen smoky glare is mirrored now. . . . 
 That was his boat: he is gone. . . . Sophron, 
 
 Sophron ! 
 The sea is suddenly empty — and all places. 
 I have given him to mine enemies. She'll not 
 
 kill him. 
 Now I must waken and repent my dreams: 
 Ay, Sophron, get you gone — I am whole again; 
 I am the Queen's — and O, farewell, farewell. 
 
 She descends the stair slowly. 
 I am the Queen's indeed. Is she yet mine? 
 Ditizele — 
 
 A Voice, from within the cedar lattice. 
 Who is it calls me? 
 
 Danae. Danae. 
 
 The Voice. Yes? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 The queen has spoilt my rose — throw me a young 
 one. 
 
 A rosebud falls front the lattice: Danae 
 sets it in her hair. 
 Thanks, dear. . . . She has put up my hair awry — 
 It will remind her she put up my hair. 
 
 She shakes down her hair and knots it 
 again y holding the rose-stalk in her 
 month until she can replace it. 
 These Asiatic nights ruin the hair, 
 
 190
 
 L A O D I C K AND D A N A H 
 
 Their humid heat puts out its inner lights — 
 Mine waves with gleams no more than manes of 
 
 Iran . . . 
 Now she has left the shore — now she will set 
 Her feet upon the stairs like setting of teeth, . . . 
 The child cries a little once: Danae goes 
 to it. 
 O, baby, the old silence of palaces 
 Is settling on you steadily. Your crying 
 Is shut within — and shall be farther enclosed. 
 One light small cry shows all so much too quiet. 
 
 Laodice, toJio has entered noiselessly and come 
 
 close beliind Danai-;. 
 Ay, do you consort with mine enemies? 
 
 Danae, wailing. 
 
 Ah . . . Ah ... I sickened with the secret thing, 
 
 The too faint sound that crept about my neck. 
 
 Laodice, slipping an arm about her. 
 
 Nay, Rose-Locks, calm thy heart; I did but tease 
 
 Thy mothering this lost child, kings' waif and 
 
 surplus. 
 Rare nurses his : the next will be the last : 
 Some treachery will ever draw toward him. 
 Rest you again upon the Persian couch, 
 And I will sit with you and comfort you. 
 
 Leading her to the divan. 
 Do not forget the cherishing of a queen: 
 I could not catch your Sophron for you, child. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 )t want him : lu 
 
 191 
 
 I did not want him: he is better gone.
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Yet such delight to lead him to your arms: 
 
 You said you looked at him almost penitently. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Madam, you mock me; I have passed from him. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Yes, yes ; but rapture, for your mind severe, 
 
 Lies in the nearness of wise and powerful men — 
 
 As once for famous high Leontion, 
 
 That philosophic courtesan your mother. 
 
 Let be; but tell me of his quietest scheme. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 I know him not: I never knew his mind. 
 
 Severalivomcn appear dimly at the latticed 
 windoivs and the gallery. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Ah, well ... I am tired, and it is your dear turn 
 To open your arms. Hold me and I will nestle, 
 Will murmur for you to hear along your neck. 
 What shall we do to-morrow, Danae? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Fair mistress, I can dance for you to-morrow. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Yes, but my dainty cannot dance all day — 
 
 She must have long, long quiet for her thoughts. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Then shall I wing the bright and silken birds 
 About the border of your Persian mantle? 
 
 192
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 How should I do without you so many hours? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Your Parthian has a witch of snakes for you — 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I can charm snakes and even pith their fangs. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 This is a rare one and, if she is drunken, 
 Does uncouth things deUcious to the senses. 
 Steep in her wine the herb that makes insane — 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 The herb. . . . ? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 The viscous plant that grows i' your chamber 
 Strange longer serpents shall be swiftly snared 
 And mixt untamed with hers, for you to read 
 Her gaping and ridiculous tragedy 
 As the cold perils sober her to pallor. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 It is not novel: with a secret call 
 
 I have turned snakes upon such things before. 
 
 I am learned and I need some graver pang — 
 
 Something as unsuspected as to tell you 
 
 That I had poisoned you three hours ago, 
 
 And see you disbelieve — begin to believe. 
 
 DANAii. 
 
 But you did not. 
 
 193 o
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. There is the disbelief. 
 
 A pause. 
 If I had done so I should here avouch 
 I could not do it — then await a sign. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Ah, I am yours. . . . You have not doomed me yet. 
 Queen with the wells of night for human eyes, 
 Let us descend upon the sea to-morrow. 
 Rule your own kingdom by your cedarn barge: 
 We will recline together, hushed as here — 
 Save for the waters' converse just beneath, 
 Permeant as my pulse veiled by your cheek. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 I am uneasy now and should disturb you — 
 
 And thence your restlessness would chafe me 
 
 more. 
 I must make sure that you will lie quite still: 
 May I so still you? Then you shall to sea. 
 We'll sail about the limit of the lands 
 Until you reach the river of Babylon. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 So much in one rapt day? 
 
 The days of life can never compass that. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Not in a day, but in a day and night : 
 Conceive the night, my Danae, the night — 
 It is the natural state of being and space, 
 Briefly interrupted by casual suns. 
 Much unknown empires are attained in night — 
 Perhaps not Babylon, yet far enough. 
 One night can be a very proper length. 
 
 194
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Danae. 
 
 You mean that I am poisoned after all. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Indeed, my Danae, it is not so. 
 
 In this barbaric land, this bright harsh dye-pot, 
 
 Peopled by camels and cynocephali 
 
 And hairy men of soiled uncertain hue, 
 
 O, do you not remember nights of Athens 
 
 Built well about with marbles and clear skies, 
 
 Wherein your mother and such noble women 
 
 Conversed with poets and heroes in lit groves, 
 
 And life subtled? Have you not longed for them? 
 
 I am sending you to such a farther country, 
 
 Away from this shrunk mummy of live earth. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Madam, I know you not — when must I leave you? 
 
 Laodice, clapping her hands. 
 
 It is the hour, and you shall launch to-night. 
 
 Women, women, come hither every woman. 
 
 The faces disappear from the upper 
 zvindows: eleven iwmen appear on 
 the colonnade y some from each side, 
 and descend the stair rapidly. 
 Get to your knees about us — both knees. 
 Stand up, my Danae, be overbearing. 
 Women, w^hen any woman has a kingdom 
 And is a regnant being, does it not suit 
 That in the disposition of her state 
 Women should figure her and power afar? 
 This kingdom I control has thrones of cities. 
 So many that I, when I would sit therein, 
 Must cast my shadow there : and chief of these 
 
 195
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Is Babylon the nest of bygone things. 
 'Tis to that Babylon I now appoint 
 My bosom's clasp, my Danae, for satrap ; 
 She shall oppress among dead queens and gods, 
 Keep house where sheer dominion walks, com- 
 mand 
 Enamelled palaces with copper roofs. 
 Pillars with gardens for their pediments — 
 Staircase for Anakim in Babylon: 
 And when ye are as dear to me as she 
 Ye shall advance upon such larger ways. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 O, what is this you do? I am lost in it. 
 
 A Woman. 
 
 But how? The duplicate queen holds Babylon. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 It shall be mine again ere Danae's advent. . . . 
 
 Danae, sister of pearls, do I displease you? 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Tell out your purpose, though I wreck by it. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Could higher estate persuade such disbelief? 
 Barsine, now disburden of its store 
 The old brass coffer in my inner house — 
 The gems, the flower-striped silks, the mousse- 
 lines 
 Worn by such royal girls of Babylon ; 
 So rare a satrap as we do devise 
 Must be as Babylonish as her earth. 
 
 Barsine goes out. 
 196
 
 LAO DICE AND DANAE 
 
 Put out your hand, young princess, dip your hand 
 Among these herded common indiscretions. 
 And gratefully they'll mouth it. Nay, I'll lead you. 
 
 ShXOND Woman. 
 
 Madam, remember me when you are mighty. 
 
 Third Woman. 
 
 And, O, forget not me. 
 
 Laodick. 
 
 Arise, you humbled ones, jealous too long; 
 Take off her Greekish marks of my poor service, 
 Make ready her precious body to be tangled 
 In clotted skeins of her affiliate province. 
 
 The -women strip Danae of all but her 
 under-robe. 
 
 friend, I do reproach you, for your gay heart 
 Has surely turned from me too easily 
 
 When something in you fades and alters so . . . 
 
 1 have done this — my cherished, still keepmine. . . 
 
 Barsine enters^ her arms heaped itnth 
 robes: Laodice Jmgers them. 
 These are your pretties. Greeks know not how to 
 
 use 
 Layers of denial — you Persian, can you say? 
 
 Barsine, attiring Danae in the neio garments. 
 These silken trousers tied above the knees, 
 Yet falling to the feet, are first. 
 
 Laodice. Ay, so. 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 And now this inner gown shrinks close. 
 
 197
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice. Ay, so. 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 Then this brocady robe with fan-flung train 
 
 And widening muffling sleeves. 
 
 Laodice, holding up a sleeve. Can it be so? 
 Pure Greeks conceive not slavery of sleeves. 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 The pointed citron shoes. 
 
 Laodice. Not even sandals? 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 There needs a shawl like gardens for a girdle, 
 
 But none was hoarded. 
 
 Laodice. Put your own on her. 
 
 Give me the jewels: I wish to play with the 
 jewels. 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 In the horn sphere: press on the metal hands. 
 The strings of golden tears and yellow stones 
 Hang hidy in the hair. I will unbind 
 Your lady's locks and shew you. 
 
 Laodice. Keep off: I must unloose them. 
 
 It is my custom. 
 
 Danae, m a low voice. O, what are you doing? 
 
 Barsine. 
 
 Round to the temples, so: this drops upon the 
 brow . . . 
 
 198
 
 LAO DICE AND DANAE 
 
 That breast of gold — pierced roses, diamond 
 
 dew — 
 Curves on the head, no heavier than your hand . . . 
 Coils chinie upon the ankles — the East walks 
 
 slowly. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 We come to the necklace. 
 
 Barsinp:. Yes, but it is lacking, 
 
 Laodicf:, /o the Second Woman. 
 
 You white-faced marvel, body of straight lines, 
 
 Give me your necklace dropt inside your chiton. 
 
 Second Woman. 
 
 O, do you see it? I cannot let it go — 
 It was my sister's, and she is dead since. . . . 
 Ah . . h . . . 
 
 Laodice, snatcJiiuf; the neckhice roughly. 
 'Tis well for you it did not strangle you 
 When caught: but ye are all so envious yet. 
 There, Danae, my hands shall finish you. 
 A painted wonder this I have created — 
 I am no better than the rest before it. 
 And I will do my homage, knees and lips. 
 
 Danae, faintly. 
 
 What is the end, ah me! 
 
 Laodice. But in true Asia 
 
 Great ladies must live veiled; they are too choice 
 For foreign casual sight. 
 
 Barsine, veiling Danae. This is the veil. 
 
 199
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Laodice, peeping behind the veil. 
 Bound so beneath the eyes? Show sHpper-tips? 
 Indeed you are ended, Danae, and shall part. 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! Fare delicately ! Fare 
 
 swiftly ! 
 Will you go down by Ephesus, my rose; 
 Or all the sea? 
 
 First Woman. Not Babylon by sea! 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 If not to Babylon, yet far enough. 
 
 Tie up these arms and bind these feet together ; 
 
 Bear to the columns and cast her forth to sea, 
 
 Where she shall be my satrap of the darkness. 
 
 She has been dying many moments now, 
 
 She shall have burial as one who ceases 
 
 In a strange ship, unfriended on the deeps. 
 
 The women laugh. 
 
 First Woman. 
 
 Joy — but wherewith, O Light? 
 
 Laodice. Your sandal-thongs: 
 
 You are good enough to obey me on bare feet. 
 
 Several of the women hastily untie their 
 sandals. 
 
 Fourth Woman, kneeling to bind DANAE's/eeA 
 Forget not me to heel, my mighty lady. 
 
 Various Women, clustering about Danae and 
 
 seizing her. 
 Come on, come on to Babylon, dread Madam. . . . 
 Up and down to Babylon, cold Highness. . . . 
 I'll be her coiffing slave and tend her head. . . . 
 
 200
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 I'll be her nurse and hold her in my breast. . . . 
 More humbly 1 will take her feet in mine. . . . 
 What honour to be trusted with such life — 
 A priceless load. . . . Ah, do not let it fall. . . . 
 
 Danae, to Laodice. 
 
 Yet I have served you well. 
 
 Laodice. Yea, very well. 
 
 Whereto did Sophron flee? 
 
 Danae. I do not know. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Tell me why Sophron fled, and what he knew. 
 
 A pause. 
 Tell even where your thoughts are following him. 
 
 A pause. 
 Even at what point of my research in him 
 Your heart lifted, and i will keep you back. 
 
 A pause. 
 Then are you both completed and concluded. 
 Knot elbows too, and lift her to the columns. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Yet I have loved you. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 You are not mine: this earth shall not contain 
 
 you. 
 I could unmake the stars to ensure darkness. 
 To cheat me of the places that have known you. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Must I go out? 
 
 201
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Then pay me for my spent devotion first. 
 
 Let not these spittly weeds close in and choke 
 
 me; 
 Undrape these silk and Asiatic jeers; 
 Let me go loose, and I will go indeed 
 As far as your desire — serving you yet. 
 
 Laodice, severing' Danae's bonds xvith her dagger^ 
 then rending aivay her veil and upper gar- 
 ments. 
 
 Your rigid mortal bonds, . . . 
 
 Your isolating veil, . , . 
 
 Your scarf of earthly flowers, . . . 
 
 Your robe that once was royal, . . . 
 
 Your chill, worn-out simarre. 
 
 Slide as the world slides. . . . 
 
 Put off your useless shoes 
 
 To enter a holy place. . . . 
 
 Get to your high estate. 
 
 Danae, standing in her under-garment. 
 Gather your jewels. 
 
 Laodice. You trifle to gain moments. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Give me one kiss. 
 
 Laodice. You have not time. These wait. 
 
 Indicating the surrounding women. 
 
 Danae. 
 
 Your house shall be the firmer by your sentence. 
 She takes t/ie sleeping child in her arms, 
 and mounts the stair quickly. 
 202
 
 L A O D I C E AND D A N A E 
 
 S i: V i<: R /\ L Wo m i-: n . 
 
 The child; she has the cliikl. 
 
 Laodice. Yes. And then? 
 
 D/VNAii, pausing by a column. 
 
 The common run of men make small account 
 
 Of hii^li religion; and they are very right. 
 
 I saved my lover, and I now receive 
 
 This recognition from the Powers who still 
 
 Dispose of us: Laodice killed hers, 
 
 And she is held deserving of all that honour. 
 
 Laodick, pointing at the Fourth Woman. 
 Thrust her down, you. 
 
 Danae disappears while the Fourth 
 Woman stealthily mounts the stair. 
 Laodick has thromn herself on the 
 divan, ivit/i her back to the colonnade. 
 To-morrow will be soon. 
 To-morrow I will sit with men in council, 
 And muster men to leaguer Ephesus. 
 These fretting hens, these women, burden me — 
 I know their eyes too well; let them keep hid. 
 To-morrow I will walk upon the harbour. 
 And board my ships and see them manned and 
 
 ready — 
 No, no, I will not step toward the sea. . . . 
 
 Several Women, as Laodice speaks. 
 
 Ai ! Ai ! Is she down? Not yet. . . . 
 I cannot see. . . . No one can see. 
 
 Second Woman, sobbing in the corner near the 
 stair. My necklace 
 
 Save my dear gems! 
 
 203
 
 LAODICE AND DANAE 
 
 Fourth Woman, /row the colonnade. 
 
 She is not here. She falls. 
 
 Laodice. 
 
 Is that hoarse dashing how the surge receives 
 her? 
 
 Fourth Woman. 
 
 It is the old recession of the waves; 
 
 The rocks are bare. No movement could be seen ; 
 
 No pallor could emerge. There is no sound. 
 
 Laodice, in a dull voice. 
 
 She was as false as all the rest of you ; 
 
 But she was brave. Remember that she died; 
 
 Be cowards still, and so be false and safe. 
 
 She had a lulling hand. . . . Put me to sleep. 
 
 Rhodogune goes toward her. 
 
 Curtain. 
 
 204
 
 APPENDICES
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 " KING LEAR'S WIFE " was performed for the first 
 time on 25 September 191 5 at the Birming-ham Reper- 
 tory Theatre, with the following- cast: 
 
 Lear , 
 
 Hygd 
 
 Goneril 
 
 Cordeil 
 Merry n 
 Gormflaith 
 Physician 
 
 Two Elderly Women . 
 
 Mr. E. Ion Swinley. 
 
 Miss Cathleen Orford. 
 
 Miss Marg-aret Chatwin. 
 
 Miss Betty Pinchard. 
 
 Miss Dorothy Taylor. 
 
 Miss Mary Merrall. 
 
 Mr. Ivor Barnard. 
 fMiss Betty Pinchard. 
 \Miss Maud Gill. 
 
 Costumes and decoration desig^ned by Mr. Barry 
 V. Jackson. 
 
 Production by Mr. John Drinkwater. 
 
 In the course of the production the song- of the 
 Elder Woman, toward the close of the play, was fitted 
 with so appropriate a melody, by a fortunate modi- 
 fication of a folk-tune, that it seems well to continue 
 the connexion by printings the arrang-ement here. 
 
 207
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 V 
 
 :^^a^ 
 
 E:^=s 
 
 Rather quickly. 
 
 P-^P- 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^=^: 
 
 q^-qs^^S: 
 
 :i=:^St 
 
 :^: 
 
 g 
 
 The louse made off un - hap-py and wet — A - 
 
 humm, A-liumm, A - hee — He's look-ing for us, the 
 
 '-■^^ 
 
 
 ^ ^ N I 
 
 ^^^^S^L^E^^i^E^feE^E^E^; 
 
 lit-tle pet; So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet, And 
 B C 
 
 ^ J J J ^- 
 
 V-^-J-4i- 
 
 :S=^i.=^ 
 
 i^-=^-=^ -X -X^V:i=i- 
 
 ^=itl: 
 
 let us be gone with what we can get — Her ring for thee, her 
 
 :^: 
 
 ^-■^■=^- 
 
 :^: 
 
 gown for Bet, Her pock - et turned out for 
 
 # * Coda. ^ 
 
 This represents the extension of the melody used 
 for the final stanza of the song: it can be adapted to 
 the forms of the first and second stanzas by the omis- 
 sion of the sections A-C and B-C respectively. The 
 Coda is intended for use with the final stanza only. 
 
 208
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 First performed in London on ig May igi6 at His 
 Majesty's Theatre, under the direction of Miss Viola 
 Tree. 
 
 Mr. Murray Carrington. 
 
 Lady Tree. 
 
 Miss Viola Tree. 
 
 Miss Odette Goimbault. 
 
 Miss Julia James. 
 
 Miss Beatrice Wilson. 
 
 Mr. H. A. Saintsbury. 
 fMiss Ada King-. 
 I^Miss Bertha Fordyce. 
 
 Play produced byMr. JohnDrinkwater, and mounted 
 hy Mr. Purcell Jones: music by Mr. Ivor Novello. 
 
 Lear . 
 
 Hy^'d . 
 
 Goneril 
 
 Cordeil 
 
 Gormilaith 
 
 Merry n 
 
 Physician 
 
 Two Elderly Wo 
 
 nen 
 
 SONGS 
 For the London performance of '* King Lear's Wife." 
 
 I (p. 43) 
 Mother, it is my wedding morn. 
 Come, bring the linen fine, 
 And wash my face w ith milk so warm 
 Drawn from the young white kine. 
 The blackbird in the apple-tree 
 Was waking ere the day ; 
 But I was ready sooner than he, 
 For I watched the night away. 
 
 II (p. 44) 
 The Queen has gone to bed 
 In the middle of the day; 
 But what about her bedfellow? 
 No one dares to say. 
 
 She cannot sleep at night : 
 She does not care to try ; 
 The darkness makes her restless, 
 And nobody knows why. 
 
 209 P
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 III (p. 48) 
 
 O, merry, merry will my heart be 
 When I can sit me down and rest : 
 It you would live to make old bones 
 Keep your knees off the kitchen-stones, 
 And go like a lady, warmly drest. 
 
 210
 
 APPENDIX R 
 
 "THE CRIER BY NIGHT" was first performed by 
 Mr. Stuart Walker's Portmanteau Theatre Company 
 in Wyoniini^, U.S.A., in September ujiT), and in New 
 York at the Princess Theatre on i8 December 1916, 
 with the following' cast : 
 
 Hialti . . . Mr. McKay Morris. 
 
 Thorgerd . . . Miss Judith Lowry. 
 
 BlaniVl . . . Miss Florence Buckton. 
 
 An Old, Strange Man Mr. Edgar Stehli. 
 
 Play produced by Mr. Stuart Walker and mounted 
 by Mr. W. J. Zimmerer. 
 
 21 1
 
 SOME PRESS OPIMONS OF 
 
 KING LEAR'S WIFE and other plays. 
 1920. 4to. With binding design by Charles 
 Ricketts. Pp.209, i5-f.net. {Out of print.) 
 A special edition of 50 copies signed by the 
 author, in white and gold binding. 31.9. 6rf. 
 net. {Out of print.) 
 
 Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie (Lecturer in Poetry at the 
 Llniversity of Liverpool) in T/ic Liverpool Daily 
 Post and Mcrniry. 
 
 This volume has been long overdue. It was the great good 
 fortune of " Georgian Poetry " that it was permitted to give 
 this remarl<able tragedy of "'King Lear's Wife " to tlie world, 
 and thus to have the privilege of pioneering Mr. l^otlomiey's 
 reputation among those who are unable to do much experi- 
 mental reading. It was obviously not only a dramatic poem 
 but an actable plav; so actable, indeed, that it had the extra- 
 ordinary fortune of being acted ; and what was perhaps even 
 more remarkable of a poetic play nowadays, it showed itself 
 capable of being acted precisely and entirely as it had been 
 written, the technique of the poet contriving to be, with ri 
 completeness not to be paralleled anywhere to-day except in 
 Italy, simultaneously the technique of the playwright. 
 
 The otiier plays co'ntained in this volume are still to be staged. 
 They would certainly be not less effective than "King Lear's 
 Wife" . . . the cunning elaboration of supernaturaiism in "The 
 Crier by Night " and "The Riding to Lithend," its combination 
 in the former with the elemental humanities, in the latter with 
 vivid characterand strangely heroic passion ; the deft lucidityof 
 " Laodice and Danae," which might serve as a type of tlramatic 
 suspense passing at the exact moment into inevitable catas- 
 trophe: these things, one would think, should be eminentl}' 
 practical politics for the theatre. Ifany manager wants plays
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 n which exciting action is at the same time profound signifi- 
 cance, here they are. 
 
 However, we are only able to speculate on this aspect of 
 Mr. Bottomley's work. But we can console ourselves by simply 
 reading the plays as poetry. ... In the days when theurgy was 
 still an honourable profession, Apollonius of Tyana said 
 " Knowing what people say is nothing; I know what people 
 don't say." That might be put as motto for such poetry as 
 Mr. Bottomley writes. It is the art of exhibiting realities. 
 What people don't say is what they really are; and they don't 
 say it because they can't get hold of it. But he can, and he can 
 make them say it . . . they speak and act as unconstrainedly 
 as the folk of the ever3^day world ; yet every word and every 
 gesture is a flashing revelation of spiritual destiny. And not only 
 men and women, but nature also: tarns and mountains, winds 
 and the night, trees and stars — of these, too, Mr. Bottomley 
 " knows what they don't say." 
 
 To the technical beauty of Mr. Bottomley's poetry I have not 
 alluded. It is extraordinary ; but, as in all great poetry, it is 
 no more than the sign that the reality of things is being 
 successfully exhibited. 
 
 Mr. John Drinkwater in "The Nature of Drama" 
 (" Prose Papers": London, Elkin Mathews, 1917, 
 p. 220). 
 
 I do say that the capital power of the commercialised theatre 
 in England to-day is so great that it has been able to impose 
 its standard on nearly all the people who are habitually in con- 
 tact with its merchandise ... so that one piece of catchpenny 
 insincerity after another is extolled by what passes for expert 
 opinion as a valuable contribution to the great art of the 
 dramatist, while a piece of work like Mr. Gordon Bottomley's 
 " King Lear's Wife," which . . . is for vigour of imagination, 
 poetic eagerness, and dramatic passion not to be excelled by 
 anything that has been put on to the English stage since the 
 Elizabethans, is met with a clamour of ignorance ... in most 
 cases (1915-16) we find no standard whatever being brought to 
 the judgment of an original work of art other than a spurious 
 morality. 
 
 Solomon Eagle in The Outlook. 
 
 The various societies which desire to regenerate the theatre 
 talk a good deal about the poetic drama of the future, but 
 they do not seem to take much trouble to find it. . . . Of 
 Mr. Gordon Bottomley's fine plays only one, to the best of my 
 
 214
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 knowledge, has yet been produced in this coiintn'. . . . There 
 is certainly the possibility of a great play in their author, and 
 one at least of them is better than any play in verse which has 
 been staged for many years, and is likely to live longer than 
 most of the so-called masterpieces of our time. If "Midsummer 
 Eve" had been by Claude), or "The Riding to Lithend " by 
 some German (a most unlikely supposition) all the coteries 
 would have been talking about them years ago. . . . 
 
 " Midsummer Eve " is original, and the work of a poet. . . . 
 There is fine meditative poetry in it, poetry, moreover, not 
 grafted or glued on to its main structure, but growing out of 
 the dialogue naturally, in an inevitable manner. ..." Laodice 
 and Danae " is equally good reading, and it is dramatic. But 
 none of these pla^•s is equal to the two latest, " The Riding to 
 Lithend" and " King Lear's Wife." ... 
 
 Enough has been written about the grimness of "King Lear's 
 Wife," the fine bursts of poetry in it, and the remarkable 
 character of Goneril. ..." The Riding to Lithend" is, up to 
 the present, the best of Mr. Bottomley's plays; and its superi- 
 ority is a superioritv which, I think, would be still moreevident 
 on the stage than it is in print. ... It comes straight out of an 
 old tale ; the characters are recreated and enriched. . . . The 
 diction is, as a rule, perfect in its propriety and often striking in 
 its beauty. And, above all, Gunnar is a hero, his fight a heroic 
 fight, his courage, his generosity, his humanity (a few sentences 
 to wife and hound are wonderfullj- chosen), and even his 
 weaknesses are such as to move the heart. His fall is like the 
 fall of all noble and fighting things; the sense of defeat comes 
 with it, but above that a feeling of exultation. On the stage the 
 end, I fancy, would be profoundly moving, and the fight excit- 
 ing to a degree, though there is no obvious rhodomontade 
 about it. 
 
 Mr. John Freeman in The Bookman. 
 
 This comel)- volume at last makes public what has been too 
 long a fugitive and cloistered pleasure. . . . These five plays 
 show the author in the most powerful exercise of his faculties. 
 Imagination here is free and moves with growing ease, music 
 enlarges like a splendid wind through the verse ; and the 
 common reproach of mere "poetic plays" has been avoided in 
 these, where character and action develope as surely as music 
 itself. Gordon Bottomley has remembered that his plays can 
 have no life except in the activity of his characters. . . . Fine 
 careless raptures alone will not produce a play like " The 
 Rilling to Lithend" . . . you may quote almost any lines from 
 this tierce Icelantlic play and find tiiat what you are reading is
 
 SOME PRESSOPINIONS 
 
 vital and essential to the expression of character and action. 
 And in this poetry, too . . . the beautiful images flow in and 
 out with the ease of light on water; the rhythms have the 
 natural movement of thought, and the secret discipline of 
 masculine habit. "King Lear's Wife"' will be familiar to many 
 readers, but to others it will come with the delicious shock of 
 a new creation. . . . The new play is a beam of light crossing 
 the darkness of the old. Few passages of modern verse reach 
 the beaut}- of Goneril's hunting-narration; and it is no isolated 
 beauty. 
 
 Mr. William Rose Ben^t in The Literary Review of 
 the New York Evening Post. 
 
 "The Crier by Night" is one of the most powerful and eerie 
 poetic dramas of the supernatural that have been written in 
 the last two decades. To me the best-known translations of 
 Maeterlinck pale beside it. . . . I hold "The Riding to Lithend" 
 his greatest achievement. To me it is like a piece of gorgeous 
 tapestry blurred by wood-smoke and sea-mist and hung on a 
 granite wall. The dramatic structure is knit as compact as a 
 rock. Across the shimmering imagery of the diction blows a 
 chill and foreboding wind of the spirit. . . . The verse is nobly 
 distinguished. " King Lear's Wife " is also a notable piece of 
 work. ... It possesses convincing reality. . . . Again the 
 dramatic structure satisfies completely. " Midsummer Eve " is 
 packed with fragrant beauty . . . that creeps around the 
 heart. . . . The atmosphere is the important thing about this 
 play and is unforgettable. " Laodice and Danae " is more usual 
 (for Bottomley, for very few other writers), but it is the 
 work of a sure dramatic craftsman with an enthralling tale to 
 tell. . . . There is a splendid artistic austerity about his work 
 . . . yet mixed with this there is an entirely full-blooded love 
 of the earth, a delight in intensely human detail. . . . He has 
 indeed displayed many gifts imperishably bright. His name 
 should stand high in the roster of modern English verse. 
 
 The Morning Post. 
 
 The rare beauty and distinction o{ these works have been un- 
 grudgingly acclaimed by many critics, but they have hitherto 
 lacked that wider recognition for which they are indubitably 
 destined. . . . But now the bringing of them together in 
 one volume permits us all to appraise the quality of what is the 
 most significant accomplishment of our Georgians. It is impos- 
 sible to be impervious to the strength and beauty, knit together, 
 of these dramas. . . . Criticism may note with admiration the 
 
 2l6
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 unerring skill of dramatic structure ; with delight the mastery 
 of laiijfiiajfo, which constrains the simplest words to the g-reatest 
 needs; with wonder the reading- of the human heart. . . . The 
 man who can handle character and emotion with such mastery 
 both of language and imagination is indeed a poet. . . . 
 In Mr. Rotlomley the Georgian era has found an authentic 
 voice — a veritable intei'preter. 
 
 The Times Literary Supplement. 
 
 We must honour the devoted writers who keep alive the 
 desire for the poetic drama, and none more than Air. Gordon 
 Bottomley. ... He is a poet and justifies his use of poetic 
 speech ; he is eloquent, incisive, has a blank verse of his own 
 which he writes with increasing mastery. . . . In " The Riding 
 to Lithend" he rises with his story. . . . the death of Gunnar 
 is well done ; you read it breathlessly, for he makes it the tleatli 
 of Gunnar indeed; and even the slayers feel I lie greatness of 
 it. Mr. Hottomley, in a more fortunate age, might, we think, 
 have been a dramatic poet like Fletcher; he has Fletcher's 
 eloquence though not his fun, . . . but not, of course, P'letcher's 
 familiarity with ihe stage. ... If he had been bred in the 
 theatre, he might, we think, have had Fletcher's real and 
 delightful success. 
 
 John O' London's Weekly. 
 
 The cumulative effect of a re-reading of Mr. Bottomley's 
 work is to convince one that he is a real poet who can write 
 real drama. In the matter of construction these plays approach 
 perfection; the building up is masterly, and the verse is full ^>i 
 variety and imagination. . . . The finest as drama is " King 
 Lear's Wife," though for sheer beauty and spiritual significance 
 I should be inclined to place "Midsummer Eve" first. Only 
 one of these plays has been acted in England. If we had a live 
 stage they would all be acted. 
 
 The Neii) Statesman. 
 
 Mr. Gordon Bottomley's play^i are good art. There are 
 moments in " King Lear's Wife" when he approaches great- 
 ness. ... It contains passages of very rare force, and the 
 dramatic power . . . is of a very high quality. In this \^\■A\ 
 and in " "I'he Crier by Xight " he recalls to us not the late 
 Elizabethans so much as that strange uneasy genius Thomas 
 Lovell Beddoes. . . . He is a purer poet, dramatically, than 
 was Beddoes, and his song has a clearer richer c|uality, more 
 
 217
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 imaginative, thoug-h not quite so fantastic ; but he resembles 
 Beddoes in his stern saddened preoccupations with the passing 
 of mortals. Few plays have a greater unity of atmosphere or 
 a more boding one than has "The Riding to Lithend." In all 
 the plaj's, however, one finds a real poet who is also a real 
 dramatist; there is little of decoration in any of the plays, and 
 nothing of that windy seasonal rhetoric which is so common in 
 some poetic plays. 
 
 I. B. in The Manchester Gtiardian. 
 
 It is an excellent thing that these plays, the earliest of which 
 was published twenty years ago, should have been brought 
 together and given a new lease of public life. . . . It is indeed 
 ijuite extraordinary that, with so much publishing of poetrj' 
 during the last few years, work of such high distinction should 
 have remained under cover. Mr. Gordon Bottomley's art of 
 tragedy, as well as his craftsmanship in verse, can be seen 
 ripening through this series until it comes to a rich maturity in 
 " King Lear's Wife." Here . . . austerity and compassion are 
 compounded, and so create the tragic atmosphere in which 
 small words are big with infinite meaning and hints develope 
 the power of hammer-blows. ... It is the best of the group, 
 and it is significant, ais showing the inherent union between 
 nialtcr and form, that when the poet writes his best play he 
 also writes his best verse. . . . He is admirably master of 
 himself and of his medium. 
 
 Tlic Spectator. 
 
 Neither in the setting of the scene of " King Lear's Wife," 
 the conduct of the story, or its embellishment and illustration, 
 is there a wasted word. . . . But amid the abundance of this 
 most rich, most ample of little plays, there is surely nothing — 
 nothing, we mean, that can be detached from its setting — that 
 surpasses Goneril's two speeches to her mother. . . . Whether 
 Mr. Gordon Bottomley — though calling his creations by their 
 Shakespearean names in his heart — would not have done better 
 to call his monarch Cole or Cadwallader in print is a question 
 with which controversy will probably long be busy. It is a play 
 which would not be spoiled if, in a pet, he had called the pro- 
 tagonists Smith, Jones, and Robinson. We recommend this 
 test, by the way, to those who are called upon to pronounce 
 judgment upon the poetic drama. There is more in it than 
 meets the eve. 
 
 2l8
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 The London Mercury. 
 
 It is some years since the public was surprised to learn that 
 Mr. C.orilon Bottoinley iiad written a prelude to " King' Lear," 
 which not only offered some solution of the problems o'l that 
 work, but was also in itself a play of considerable beauty, 
 oritfinality, and power. This piece now serves for the title of a 
 volume of collected plays. . . . It was effective and moving on 
 the statue, and it makes its effect, thoug-h perhaps a different 
 one, when it is read in the study. . . . An extract will serve to 
 illustrate the flexible, elastic, and individual versification. \Ve 
 should do wrong^, however, if we were to give the impression 
 that his plays are only for the study, valuable for such passages, 
 and lacking in the iKirder bones of dramatic merit. The action 
 is not an excuse for decorative poetry, but is the immediate and 
 all-important thing. . . . These are the creations of a dramatist 
 who has no need of descriptive decoration to conceal the weak- 
 ness of his prime conceptions. 
 
 The Nation. 
 
 The wave or poetic drama has now ebbed, and this form is 
 practised very little to-day, lyrical and experimental verse 
 having almost entirely supplanted it. Mr. Hottomley's plays 
 are the only ones which, with the going-out of the tide, have 
 managed to escape its " long withdrawing roar " and retain a 
 place on the shore. . . . Without any doubt they expi-ess a 
 sing-ular power of mysterious evocation. . . . They are not at 
 alT vague and inchoate— on the contrary, these towering 
 shadows are remarkably and firmly differentiated. . . . We find 
 "The Crier by Xight "and " TheRidingto Lithend " — especi- 
 ally the former — the most darkl}' and magically impressive of 
 all the plays. . . . An image in the former positively makes 
 you jmnp as Donne makes you jump with his imagery. . . . 
 But perhaps his most striking achievement is the way he can 
 make these shapes of an intensely brooding . . . imagination 
 speak out in taut, muscular, even gruffly vivid language. He 
 has avoided, and very properly avoided, the tenuous chantings, 
 efTeminate imagery, and listless monochrome of the Celtic dram.i. 
 Mr. Bottomley's plays, in fact, are peculiar and esoteric, but 
 they undoubtedly achieve a strong success in their own 
 character. 
 
 The Athenceinn. 
 
 Mr. Gordon Hottomley is one of the few writers of poetical 
 plays whom it is necessary to take very seriously : his blemishes 
 
 219
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 are minor and few in number; his poetical qualities very much 
 outweijj^h his defects. He is at his best in expressing- subtle 
 states of mind, and in formulating- g-eneralizations. His real 
 distinction lies in his dramatic power. His characters have 
 solidity and life . . . the)' are not mere symbols, but human 
 beings. His plays are marked by the economy of construction 
 of stag-e plaj's. It is significant to note that Mr. Bottomley's 
 pieces are excellent in proportion as they are actable. 
 
 The Saturday Westminster Gazette . 
 
 Of their kind, Mr. Bottomley's plays are remarkably good. 
 They have atmosphere and action ; they are exquisitely 
 wroug-ht ; they are moving- and dramatic. They will surely be 
 among the most delightful discoveries of future generations ; 
 and if by the beg-inning of the twent}--first centurj' our successors 
 have contrived to establish a national or folk theatre, it is fairly 
 safe to prophesy that three at least of them will find a place in 
 its repertory. 
 
 The Observer. 
 
 Since the issue of "The Crier by Night " in 1902, Mr. Bottom- 
 ley has worked with a sincerity and devotion which are more 
 commendable than the more frequent essays of less conscientious 
 artists. We remember one considerable and beautifull}' pro- 
 duced bookof miscellaneous verse, " The Gate of Smaragdus," 
 and liiere have been other plays issued semi-privately, until the 
 publication of " King- Lear's Wife " gave him a wider public, 
 and reminded younger readers of his very definite and dig-nified 
 talent. . . . If as a tour de force ^ the latter is the greatest, we 
 still prefer, for sheer poetic beauty, for propriety of phrase and 
 for directness of action, the earlier " Riding to Lithend." Hall- 
 gerd is an exceptionally fine creation, and she is given to speak 
 passages of rare force and beauty. This play, too, has a fierce 
 dramatic quality. 
 
 Mr. R. Ellis Roberts in The Daily News. 
 
 Mr. Bottomley's plays have all one merit without which 
 poetical drama is a thing indefensible. There is always in them 
 a definite iiote of necessity. . . . Not only does Mr. Bottomley 
 choose subjects which make his decision to write in verse seem 
 natural and right, he writes blank verse of a dignity and worth 
 which responds at once to the needs of natural, and the con- 
 vention of poetic, speech. His poetry is in the full English 
 tradition; he enjoys his vocabulary with that careful, inventive 
 jo)- which is the privilege of all who are sensitive to the individual 
 
 220
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 word. He can use rhetoric; but he rarely allows himself to be 
 drawn away into men? hectic luxury of lantruaj^e. The best of 
 his plays is', I lliink, " The Ridiiij,-^ to I.itlieiid," a reiiderinj^ of 
 the old life of Iceland, which really represents for us the 
 passionate, hasty life of the old Sag-as, while it is free from 
 the pedantry which spoils so many efforts to reproduce Scandi- 
 navian heroics. Hallg-erd is a ijenuinc piece of dramatic 
 creation. "Midsummer Eve," with its quiet, wiiul-bknvii pathos, 
 is equally notable; and the quality of its verse shows Mr. 
 Bottomley's talent at its highest and simplest. 
 
 The Actor. 
 
 In these plays, the public is reminded of Mr. Gordon Bottom- 
 ley's almost unique power, as among his contemporaries, of 
 presenting the sinister, the grim, the tragic, or the merely 
 weird, in a poetic garment of power and beauty . . . in dramatic 
 force and verse charm. 
 
 The Journal of Commerce^ Chicag-o, U.S.A. 
 
 These plays are put into a format and style of book that 
 honour the contents, and when you know the contents of this 
 remarkable dramatic poetry that is praise indeed. They hold 
 you strangely. . . . The dialogue is skilfully modulated, it is a 
 veritable song-speech, illuminated by luminous pauses, by the 
 speaking silences that can invest, if rightly used, the static with- 
 so much more dramatic feeling than the more obviously 
 emotional action. The plays are impressive even in the reading 
 of them, then how much more effective they would be if acted 
 and declaimed — but in a manner worthy of their high art. 
 
 221
 
 LONDON : CHARLES WHITTINGHA.M AND GRIGGS (hKINTERS), LTD. 
 CHISWICK FKESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
 
 /: 
 
 up SOUTHFRN RFGIONAL LIBRARY FACILir,' 
 
 nil iiiiiUlllliliJII ilil Hi III! 11 III 
 AA 000 601332 o