The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 192

Great men are meteors that consume themselves To light the earth. This is my burnt-out hour.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-s.h.i.+ne Was in the glory of the Dresden days, When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe Bent at thy footstool.

NAPOLEON

Saving always England's-- Rightly dost say "well-nigh."--Not England's,--she Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat, And made herself the means of mangling me!

SPIRIT IRONIC

Yea, the dull peoples and the Dynasts both, Those counter-castes not oft adjustable, Interests antagonistic, proud and poor, Have for the nonce been bonded by a wish To overthrow thee.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Peace. His loaded heart Bears weight enough for one bruised, blistered while!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Worthless these kneadings of thy narrow thought, Napoleon; gone thy opportunity!

Such men as thou, who wade across the world To make an epoch, bless, confuse, appal, Are in the elemental ages' chart Like meanest insects on obscurest leaves, But incidents and grooves of Earth's unfolding; Or as the brazen rod that stirs the fire Because it must.

[The moon sinks, and darkness blots out NAPOLEON and the scene.]

AFTER SCENE

THE OVERWORLD

[Enter the Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Shade of the Earth, the Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours, Spirit-messengers and Recording Angels.

Europe has now sunk netherward to its far-off position as in the Fore Scene, and it is beheld again as a p.r.o.ne and emaciated figure of which the Alps form the vertebrae, and the branching mountain- chains the ribs, the Spanish Peninsula shaping the head of the ecorche. The lowlands look like a grey-green garment half-thrown off, and the sea around like a disturbed bed on which the figure lies.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thus doth the Great Foresightless mechanize In blank entrancement now as evermore Its ceaseless artistries in Circ.u.mstance Of curious stuff and braid, as just forthshown.

Yet but one flimsy riband of Its web Have we here watched in weaving--web Enorm, Whose furthest hem and selvage may extend To where the roars and plas.h.i.+ngs of the flames Of earth-invisible suns swell noisily, And onwards into ghastly gulfs of sky, Where hideous presences churn through the dark-- Monsters of magnitude without a shape, Hanging amid deep wells of nothingness.

Yet seems this vast and singular confection Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size, Inutile all--so far as reasonings tell.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Thou arguest still the Inadvertent Mind.-- But, even so, shall blankness be for aye?

Men gained cognition with the flux of time, And wherefore not the Force informing them, When far-ranged aions past all fathoming Shall have swung by, and stand as backward years?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

What wouldst have hoped and had the Will to be?-- How wouldst have paeaned It, if what hadst dreamed Thereof were truth, and all my showings dream?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The Will that fed my hope was far from thine, One I would thus have hymned eternally:--

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

To Thee whose eye all Nature owns, Who hurlest Dynasts from their thrones,[26]

And liftest those of low estate We sing, with Her men consecrate!

SEMICHORUS II

Yea, Great and Good, Thee, Thee we hail, Who shak'st the strong, Who s.h.i.+eld'st the frail, Who hadst not shaped such souls as we If tendermercy lacked in Thee!

SEMICHORUS I

Though times be when the mortal moan Seems unascending to Thy throne, Though seers do not as yet explain Why Suffering sobs to Thee in vain;

SEMICHORUS II

We hold that Thy unscanted scope Affords a food for final Hope, That mild-eyed Prescience ponders nigh Life's loom, to lull it by-and-by.

SEMICHORUS I

Therefore we quire to highest height The Wellwiller, the kindly Might That balances the Vast for weal, That purges as by wounds to heal.

SEMICHORUS II

The systemed suns the skies enscroll Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll, Ride radiantly at Thy command, Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!

SEMICHORUS I