Semiramis and Other Plays Part 73

Vir. You have been out! O, save yourself for the great things ... now I am going out of your way. Don't let my death be as vain as my life. Let that count for something, Edgar.

O, promise me you will live for your genius' sake, you will be true to your heavenly gift! Kneel by me and promise!

Poe. I ... promise.

Vir. Dear husband ... I.... (faints)

Mrs. C. O, she is gone!

Poe. No! She faints! My beautiful idol! O, some wine! Heaven and earth for some wine!

Mrs. C. She looks at us! My daughter!

Poe. O, do not try to speak! Let your beautiful eyes do all the talking!

Mrs. C. She looks toward the fire. She would have you go, Edgar, and try to keep warm. Come, dear. (Poe kisses Virginia gently, and goes to fireside, looking back adoringly) Do not look at her, and she will sleep again.

Poe. Ah, G.o.d! It will take more than sleep to help her. And I can give her nothing--nothing!

Mrs. C. Don't, Edgar! Remember your terrible illness--how you worked for her when fever was burning your brain--until your pen fell from your hand.

Poe. I brought her to this land of ice and snow!

Mrs. C. No. Destiny brought her. We lost our home. Your work was here--and she would not stay behind you.

Poe. A _man_ would have saved her!

Mrs. C. O, my boy, do not take this burden on your soul! For once spare yourself!

Poe. I can not even give her food!

Mrs. C. (Restraining him) My son, she sleeps.

Poe. Yes ... sleep ... let me not rob her of that too! Be quiet ... just be quiet ... while she dies. (Seats himself with strange calmness) Come, mother, let us be cheerful. Take this chair. Let us be rational. Let us think. Death is strange only because we do not think enough. G.o.d must breathe. Life is the exhalation, death the inhalation of deity. He breathes out, and the Universe flames forth with all her wings--her suns and cl.u.s.ters of suns--down to her mote-like earth, the b.u.t.terfly of s.p.a.ce, trimmed with its gaudy seasons, and nouris.h.i.+ng on its back the parasitical ephemeran, Man!

Mrs. C. My love--

Poe. Be calm, mother. Be calm. Then the great inbreathing begins. The creative warmth no longer goes out. The parasites vanish first, then the worlds on which they ride, and last the mighty suns,--all sink into the still, potential unity, and await the recurrent breath which may bear another universe, unlike our own, where the animate may control the inanimate, the organic triumph over the inorganic,--(rising) ay, man himself may dominate nature, control the relentless ecliptic, and say to the ages of ice and fire 'Ye shall not tread on me!'

Mrs. C. Edgar!

Poe. I beg your pardon. We must be calm. (Resumes his seat) But G.o.d will not stop breathing (with bitter sarcasm) though your daughter--and my wife--is dying. (Mrs. Clemm weeps.

He turns to the window) Do you know that elephants once nibbled boughs out there where the snow is falling? They ran a mighty race--and died--but no tears were shed. In the records of the cosmos, if man is written down at all, I think he will be designated as the 'weeping animal.'

Mrs. C. Are you human?

Poe. I regret that I belong to that feeble and limited variety of creation, but with the next self-diffusion of the concentrated Infinite I may be the Sun himself!

Mrs. C. O, my mother-heart!

Poe. Think a little more and you will forget it. The heart makes the being there on the bed your daughter--my wife--but the mind makes her a part of the divine force which has chosen her shape for its visible flower. The heart is wrung by the falling of the bloom, for it is endeared to that only, but the mind rejoices in its reunited divinity. Come.... (Moves a step toward the bed) I can look on her now ... and be quiet. Sweet rose, I can watch your petals fall. But they fall early ... they fall early ... blasted in the May. Not by the divine breath drawing you home, but by my mortal, shattering hand! I promised you sun and dew.... I have given you frost and shadows. O G.o.d! O G.o.d! let me _not_ think! Keep me a little, weeping child!

Mrs. C. Dear son, cast out this bitterness. Only your love and devotion have kept her alive so long.

Poe. No! I touched her like a wing of doom, and she fell blasted! (She tries to soothe him) No, no! Call devils from h.e.l.l to curse me!

(A knock at the door. Mrs. Clemm opens it and a basket is delivered to her. Poe, deep in agony, does not notice. She takes things from the basket)

Mrs. C. O, Edgar! Wine, and soft blankets!

(He looks up, and rushes across to her)

Poe. Wine! wine! O, spirit that bendest from pitying clouds, a mortal thanks thee! Quick, mother, these drops of strength will give her back to us!

Mrs. C. She sleeps, my son, which is ease more precious than these drops can give.

Poe. (Taking bottle) Give it to me!

Mrs. C. Edgar, Edgar, do not wake her!

Poe. Lenore, Lenore, out of thy dream, though 't were the fairest ever blown to mortal from Elysium! This will put thee to such smiles that dreams--

Mrs. C. Be quiet, for G.o.d's sake!

Poe. Quiet! 'Tis a word for clods and stones! You'd hold me from her when my hand brings life? (Rushes to cupboard and gets a gla.s.s which he fills)

Mrs. C. Just a little, Edgar. Too much would--

Poe. She shall drink it all, by Heaven! I will save her!

(Mrs. Clemm sinks to a chair, helpless and sobbing. A knock at the door which neither hears. Enter Helen. As Poe turns to approach the bed he faces her, stares, and lets the gla.s.s drop s.h.i.+vering)

Poe. You!

Hel. I, Edgar. You see I can remember my friends--and I've come to scold you for not--letting me know--

Poe. It was you who sent--

Hel. Some blankets soft as summer clouds for the most beautiful lady in the world? And wine delicate enough for a fairy's throat? I knew you would not have it else. (Turns to Mrs.

Clemm) You do not know me, but--

Mrs. C. (Taking her hand) I know you are a good woman reaching a hand to me in my sorrow.

Hel. (Embracing her) No ... my arms!

(Poe goes to bed and kneels by Virginia. Speaks softly to her, then rises and brings a little wine)

Poe. Just a drop, dear,--a b.u.t.terfly's portion.

(Virginia drinks)