A Blot in the ’Scutcheon   
A Tragedy (1843)   
   
Robert Browning

Dramatis Personæ   
   

   
MILDRED TRESHAM
THOROLD, EARL TRESHAM
HENRY, EARL MERTOUN
GUENDOLEN TRESHAM
AUSTIN TRESHAM
GERARD, and other retainers of Lord Tresham
  1   
Time, 17—

Act I   
    
Scene I   
    
    
The Interior of a Lodge in Lord Tresham’s Park. Many Retainers crowded at the window, supposed to command a view of the entrance to his Mansion.
    
GERARD, the Warrener, his back to a table on which are flagons, etc.
    
  First Retainer
AY, do! push, friends, and then you’ll push down me!      
—What for? Does any hear a runner’s foot      
Or a steed’s trample or a coach-wheel’s cry?           5   
Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant?      
But there’s no breeding in a man of you      
Save Gerard yonder: here’s a half-place yet,      
Old Gerard!      
  Gerard.  Save your courtesies, my friend. Here is my place.           10   
  Second Retainer.  Now, Gerard, out with it!      
What makes you sullen, this of all the days      
I’ the year? To-day that young rich bountiful      
Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match      
With our Lord Tresham through the country-side,           15   
Is coming here in utmost bravery      
To ask our master’s sister’s hand?      
  Gerard.                What then?      
  Second Retainer.  What then? Why, you, she speaks to, if she meets      
Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart           20   
The boughs to let her through her forest walks,      
You, always favourite for your no-deserts,      
You’ve heard, these three days, how Earl Mertoun sues      
To lay his heart and house and broad lands too      
At Lady Mildred’s feet: and while we squeeze           25   
Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss      
One congee of the least page in his train,      
You sit ’o one side—“there’s the Earl,” say I—      
“What then?” say you!      
  Third Retainer.                I’ll wager he has let           30   
Both swans he tamed for Lady Mildred swim      
Over the falls and gain the river!      
  Gerard.                Ralph,      
Is not to-morrow my inspecting-day      
For you and for your hawks?           35   
  Fourth Retainer.                Let Gerard be!      
He’s coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock.      
Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look!      
Well done, now—is not this beginning, now,      
To purpose?           40   
  First Retainer.            Our retainers look as fine—      
That’s comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself      
With his white staff! Will not a knave behind      
Prick him upright?      
  Fourth Retainer.  He’s only bowing, fool!           45   
The Earl’s man bent us lower by this much.      
  First Retainer.  That’s comfort. Here’s a very cavalcade!      
  Third Retainer.  I don’t see wherefore Richard, and his troop      
Of silk and silver varlets there, should find      
Their perfumed selves so indispensable           50   
On high days, holidays! Would it so disgrace      
Our family, if I, for instance, stood—      
In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks,      
A leash of greyhounds in my left?—      
  Gerard.                —With Hugh           55   
The logman for supporter, in his right      
The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears!      
  Third Retainer.  Out on you, crab! What next, what next? The Earl!      
  First Retainer.  Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do they match.      
The Earl’s? Alas, that first pair of the six—           60   
They paw the ground—Ah Walter! and that brute      
Just on his haunches by the wheel!      
  Sixth Retainer.                Ay—ay!      
You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear,      
At soups and sauces: what’s a horse to you           65   
D’ye mark that beast they’ve slid into the midst      
So cunningly?—then, Philip, mark this further;      
No leg has he to stand on!      
  First Retainer.                No? that’s comfort.      
  Second Retainer.  Peace, Cook! The Earl descends. Well, Gerard, see           70   
The Earl at least! Come, there’s a proper man,      
I hope! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede,      
Has got a starrier eye.      
  Third Retainer.                His eyes are blue:      
But leave my hawks alone!           75   
  Fourth Retainer.                So young, and yet      
So tall and shapely!      
  Fifth Retainer.  Here’s Lord Tresham’s self!      
There now—there’s what a nobleman should be!      
He’s older, graver, loftier, he’s more like           80   
A House’s head.      
  Second Retainer.  But you’d not have a boy      
—And what’s the Earl beside?—possess too soon      
That stateliness?      
  First Retainer.  Our master takes his hand—           85   
Richard and his white staff are on the move—      
Back fall our people—(tsh!—there’s Timothy      
Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties,      
And Peter’s cursed rosette’s a-coming off!)      
—At last I see our lord’s back and his friend’s;           90   
And the whole beautiful bright company      
Close round them—in they go!  [Jumping down from the window-bench, and making for the table and its jugs.] Good health, long life,      
Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House!      
  Sixth Retainer.  My father drove his father first to court,      
After his marriage-day—ay, did he!           95   
  Second Retainer.                God bless      
Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl!      
Here, Gerard, reach your beaker!      
  Gerard.                Drink, my boys!      
Don’t mind me—all’s not right about me—drink!           100   
  Second Retainer  [aside]. He’s vexed, now, that he let the show escape!      
[To GERARD.]  Remember that the Earl returns this way.      
  Gerard.  That way?      
  Second Retainer.  Just so.      
  Gerard.          Then my way’s here.  [Goes.           105   
  Second Retainer.                Old Gerard      
Will die soon—mind, I said it! He was used      
To care about the pitifullest thing      
That touched the House’s honour, not an eye      
But his could see wherein: and on a cause           110   
Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard      
Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away      
In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong,      
Such point decorous, and such square by rule—      
He knew such niceties, no herald more:           115   
And now—you see his humour: die he will!      
  Second Retainer.  God help him! Who’s for the great servants’ hall      
To hear what’s going on inside! They’d follow      
Lord Tresham into the saloon.      
  Third Retainer.                I!—           120   
  Fourth Retainer.                I!—      
Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door,      
Some hint of how the parley goes inside!      
Prosperity to the great House once more!      
Here’s the last drop!           125   
  First Retainer.                Have at you! Boys, hurrah!

Act I   
    
Scene II   
    
    
A Saloon in the Mansion
    
Enter LORD TRESHAM, LORD MERTOUN, AUSTIN, and GUENDOLEN
    
  Tresham.  I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more,      
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name      
—Noble among the noblest in itself,           5   
Yet taking in your person, fame avers,      
New price and lustre,—(as that gem you wear,      
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts,      
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord,      
Seems to re-kindle at the core)—your name           10   
Would win you welcome!—      
  Mertoun.                Thanks!      
    Tresham.                —But add to that,      
The worthiness and grace and dignity      
Of your proposal for uniting both           15   
Our Houses even closer than respect      
Unites them now—add these, and you must grant      
One favour more, nor that the least,—to think      
The welcome I should give;—’tis given! My lord,      
My only brother, Austin: he’s the king’s.           20   
Our cousin, Lady Guendolen—betrothed      
To Austin: all are yours.      
  Mertoun.                I thank you—less      
For the expressed commendings which your seal,      
And only that, authenticates—forbids           25   
My putting from me … to my heart I take      
Your praise … but praise less claims my gratitude,      
Than the indulgent insight it implies      
Of what must needs be uppermost with one      
Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask,           30   
In weighed and measured unimpassioned words,      
A gift, which, if as calmly ’tis denied,      
He must withdraw, content upon his cheek,      
Despair within his soul. That I dare ask      
Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence           35   
That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham,      
I love your sister—as you’d have one love      
That lady … oh more, more I love her! Wealth,      
Rank, all the world thinks me, they’re yours, you know,      
To hold or part with, at your choice—but grant           40   
My true self, me without a rood of land,      
A piece of gold, a name of yesterday,      
Grant me that lady, and you … Death or life?      
  Guendolen  [apart to AUSTIN]. Why, this is loving, Austin!      
  Austin.  He’s so young!           45   
  Guendolen.  Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise      
He never had obtained an entrance here,      
Were all this fear and trembling needed.      
  Austin.                Hush!      
He reddens.           50   
  Guendolen.  Mark him, Austin; that’s true love!      
Ours must begin again.      
  Tresham.                We’ll sit, my lord.      
Ever with best desert goes diffidence.      
I may speak plainly nor be misconceived           55   
That I am wholly satisfied with you      
On this occasion, when a falcon’s eye      
Were dull compared with mine to search out faults,      
Is somewhat. Mildred’s hand is hers to give      
Or to refuse.           60   
  Mertoun.              But you, you grant my suit?      
I have your word if hers?      
  Tresham.                My best of words      
If hers encourage you. I trust it will.      
Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?           65   
  Mertoun.  I … I … our two demesnes, remember, touch,      
I have been used to wander carelessly      
After my stricken game: the heron roused      
Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing      
Thro’ thicks and glades a mile in yours,—or else           70   
Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight      
And lured me after her from tree to tree,      
I marked not whither. I have come upon      
The lady’s wondrous beauty unaware,      
And—and then … I have seen her.           75   
  Guendolen  [aside to AUSTIN]. Note that mode      
Of faltering out that, when a lady passed,      
He, having eyes, did see her! You had said—      
“On such a day I scanned her, head to foot;      
Observed a red, where red should not have been,           80   
Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough      
Upon the whole.” Let such irreverent talk      
Be lessoned for the future!      
  Tresham.                What’s to say      
May be said briefly. She has never known           85   
A mother’s care; I stand for father too.      
Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems—      
You cannot know the good and tender heart,      
Its girl’s trust and its woman’s constancy,      
How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind,           90   
How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free      
As light where friends are—how imbued with lore      
The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet      
The … one might know I talked of Mildred—thus      
We brothers talk!           95   
  Mertoun.                I thank you.      
  Tresham.                In a word,      
Control’s not for this lady; but her wish      
To please me outstrips in its subtlety      
My power of being pleased: herself creates           100   
The want she means to satisfy. My heart      
Prefers your suit to her as ’twere its own.      
Can I say more?      
  Mertoun.                No more—thanks, thanks—no more!      
  Tresham.  This matter then discussed…           105   
  Mertoun.                —We’ll waste no breath      
On aught less precious. I’m beneath the roof      
Which holds her: while I thought of that, my speech      
To you would wander—as it must not do,      
Since as you favour me I stand or fall.           110   
I pray you suffer that I take my leave!      
  Tresham.  With less regret ’tis suffered, that again      
We meet, I hope, so shortly.      
  Mertoun.                We? again?—      
Ah yes, forgive me—when shall … you will crown           115   
Your goodness by forthwith apprising me      
When … if … the lady will appoint a day      
For me to wait on you—and her.      
  Tresham.                So soon      
As I am made acquainted with her thoughts           120   
On your proposal—howsoe’er they lean—      
A messenger shall bring you the result.      
  Mertoun.  You cannot bind me more to you, my lord.      
Farewell till we renew … I trust, renew      
A converse ne’er to disunite again.           125   
  Tresham.  So may it prove!      
  Mertoun.                You, lady, you, sir, take      
My humble salutation!      
  Guendolen and Austin.                Thanks!      
  Tresham.                Within there!  [Servants enter. TRESHAM conducts MERTOUN to the door. Meantime AUSTIN remarks,                Well,           130   
Here I have an advantage of the Earl,      
Confess now! I’d not think that all was safe      
Because my lady’s brother stood my friend!      
Why, he makes sure of her—“do you say yes—      
She’ll not say, no,”—what comes it to beside?           135   
I should have prayed the brother, “speak this speech,      
For Heaven’s sake urge this on her—put in this—      
Forget not, as you’d save me, t’other thing,—      
Then set down what she says, and how she looks,      
And if she smiles, and” (in an under breath)           140   
“Only let her accept me, and do you      
And all the world refuse me, if you dare!”      
  Guendolen.  That way you’d take, friend Austin? What a shame      
I was your cousin, tamely from the first      
Your bride, and all this fervour’s run to waste!           145   
Do you know you speak sensibly to-day?      
The Earl’s a fool.      
  Austin.                Here’s Thorold. Tell him so!      
  Tresham  [returning]. Now, voices, voices! ’St! the lady’s first!      
How seems he?—seems he not … come, faith give fraud           150   
The mercy-stroke whenever they engage!      
Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl?      
A name! a blazon! if you knew their worth,      
As you will never! come—the Earl?      
  Guendolen.                He’s young.           155   
  Tresham.  What’s she? an infant save in heart and brain.      
Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark! And you…      
Austin, how old is she?      
  Guendolen.                There’s tact for you!      
I meant that being young was good excuse           160   
If one should tax him…      
  Tresham.                Well?      
  Guendolen.                —With lacking wit.      
  Tresham.  He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please you?      
  Guendolen.  In standing straighter than the steward’s rod           165   
And making you the tiresomest harangue,      
Instead of slipping over to my side      
And softly whispering in my ear, “Sweet lady,      
Your cousin there will do me detriment      
He little dreams of: he’s absorbed, I see,           170   
In my old name and fame—be sure he’ll leave      
My Mildred, when his best account of me      
Is ended, in full confidence I wear      
My grandsire’s periwig down either cheek.      
I’m lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes”…           175   
  Tresham …”To give a best of best accounts, yourself,      
Of me and my demerits.” You are right!      
He should have said what now I say for him.      
Yon golden creature, will you help us all?      
Here’s Austin means to vouch for much, but you           180   
—You are … what Austin only knows! Come up,      
All three of us: she’s in the library      
No doubt, for the day’s wearing fast. Precede!      
  Guendolen.  Austin, how we must—!      
  Tresham.                Must what? Must speak truth,           185   
Malignant tongue? Detect one fault in him!      
I challenge you!      
  Guendolen.                Witchcraft’s a fault in him,      
For you’re bewitched.      
  Tresham.                What’s urgent we obtain           190   
Is, that she soon receive him—say, to-morrow—      
Next day at furthest.      
  Guendolen.                Ne’er instruct me!      
  Tresham.                Come!      
—He’s out of your good graces, since forsooth,           195   
He stood not as he’d carry us by storm      
With his perfections! You’re for the composed      
Manly assured becoming confidence!      
—Get her to say, “to-morrow,” and I’ll give you…      
I’ll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled           200   
With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come!

Act I   
    
Scene III   
    
    
MILDRED’S Chamber. A Painted Window overlooks the Park.
    
MILDRED and GUENDOLEN
    
  Guendolen.  Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left      
Our talkers in the library, and climbed      
The wearisome ascent to this your bower           5   
In company with you,—I have not dared…      
Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you      
Lord Mertoun’s pedigree before the flood,      
Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell      
—Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most           10   
Firm-rooted heresy—your suitor’s eyes,      
He would maintain, were grey instead of blue—      
I think I brought him to contrition!—Well,      
I have not done such things, (all to deserve      
A minute’s quiet cousin’s talk with you,)           15   
To be dismissed so coolly.      
  Mildred.                Guendolen!      
What have I done? what could suggest…      
  Guendolen.                There, there!      
Do I not comprehend you’d be alone           20   
To throw those testimonies in a heap,      
Thorold’s enlargings, Austin’s brevities,      
With that poor silly heartless Guendolen’s      
Ill-time misplaced attempted smartnesses—      
And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you           25   
Nearly a whole night’s labour. Ask and have!      
Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes?      
Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table      
The Conqueror dined on when he landed first,      
Lord Mertoun’s ancestor was bidden take—           30   
The bow-hand or the arrow-hand’s great meed?      
Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes!      
  Mildred.                My brother—      
Did he … you said that he received him well?      
  Guendolen.  If I said only “well” I said not much.           35   
Oh, stay—which brother?      
  Mildred.                Thorold! who—who else?      
  Guendolen.  Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half,—      
Nay, hear me out—with us he’s even gentler      
Than we are with our birds. Of this great House           40   
The least retainer that e’er caught his glance      
Would die for him, real dying—no mere talk:      
And in the world, the court, if men would cite      
The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold’s name      
Rises of its clear nature to their lips.           45   
But he should take men’s homage, trust in it,      
And care no more about what drew it down.      
He has desert, and that, acknowledgment;      
Is he content?      
  Mildred.                You wrong him, Guendolen.           50   
  Guendolen.  He’s proud, confess; so proud with brooding o’er      
The light of his interminable line,      
An ancestry with men all paladins,      
And women all…      
  Mildred.                Dear Guendolen, ’tis late!           55   
When yonder purple pane the climbing moon      
Pierces, I know ’tis midnight.      
  Guendolen.                Well, that Thorold      
Should rise up from such musings, and receive      
One come audaciously to graft himself           60   
Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw,      
No slightest spot in such an one…      
  Mildred.                Who finds      
A spot in Mertoun?      
  Guendolen.                Not your brother; therefore,           65   
Not the whole world.      
  Mildred.                I am weary, Guendolen,      
Bear with me!      
  Guendolen.              I am foolish.      
  Mildred.                Oh no, kind!           70   
But I would rest.      
  Guendolen.                Good night and rest to you!      
I said how gracefully his mantle lay      
Beneath the rings of his light hair?      
  Mildred.                Brown hair.           75   
  Guendolen.  Brown? why, it is brown: how could you know that?      
  Mildred.  How? did not you—Oh, Austin ’twas, declared      
His hair was light, not brown—my head!—and look,      
The moon-beam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet,      
Good night!           80   
  Guendolen.  Forgive me—sleep the soundlier for me!  [Going, she turns suddenly.      
                Mildred!      
Perdition! all’s discovered! Thorold finds      
—That the Earl’s greatest of all grandmothers      
Was grander daughter still—to that fair dame           85   
Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance!  [Goes.      
  Mildred.  Is she—can she be really gone at last?      
My heart! I shall not reach the window. Needs      
Must I have sinned much, so to suffer.  [She lifts the small lamp which is suspended before the Virgin’s image in the window, and places it by the purple pane.      
                There!  [She returns to the seat in front.           90   
Mildred and Mertoun! Mildred, with consent      
Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun’s bride!      
Too late! ’Tis sweet to think of, sweeter still      
To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up      
The curse of the beginning; but I know           95   
It comes too late: ’twill sweetest be of all      
To dream my soul away and die upon.  [A noise without.      
The voice! Oh why, why glided sin the snake      
Into the paradise Heaven meant us both?  [The window opens softly. A low voice sings.      
There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than purest;           100   
And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest:      
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre      
Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wildgrape cluster,      
Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble      
Then her voice’s music … call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble!  [A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window.           105   
And this woman says, “My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,      
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark’s heart’s outbreak tuneless,      
If you loved me not!” And I who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her,      
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her—  [He enters, approaches her seat, and bends over her.      
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,           110   
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!  [The EARL throws off his slouched hat and long cloak.      
My very heart sings, so I sing. Beloved!      
  Mildred.  Sit, Henry—do not take my hand!      
  Mertoun.                ’Tis mine.      
The meeting that appalled us both so much           115   
Is ended.      
  Mildred.          What begins now?      
  Mertoun.                Happiness      
Such as the world contains not.      
  Mildred.                That is it.           120   
Our happiness would, as you say, exceed      
The whole world’s best of blisses: we—do we      
Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine      
Long since, Beloved, has grown used to hear,      
Like a death-knell, so much regarded once,           125   
And so familiar now; this will not be!      
  Mertoun.  Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother’s face?      
Compelled myself—if not to speak untruth,      
Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside      
The truth, as—what had e’er prevailed on me           130   
Save you to venture? Have I gained at last      
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams,      
And waking thoughts’ sole parrehension too?      
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break      
On the strange unrest of our night, confused           135   
With rain and stormy flaw—and will you see      
No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops      
On each live spray, no vapour steaming up,      
And no expressless glory in the East?      
When I am by you, to be ever by you,           140   
When I have won you and may worship you,      
Oh, Mildred, can you say “this will not be”?      
  Mildred.  sin has surprised us, so will punishment.      
  Mertoun.  No—me alone, who sinned alone!      
  Mildred.                The night           145   
You likened our past life to—was it storm      
Throughout to you then, Henry?      
  Mertoun.                Of your life      
I spoke—what am I, what my life, to waste      
A thought about when you are by me?—you           150   
It was, I said my folly called the storm      
And pulled the night upon. ’Twas day with me—      
Perpetual dawn with me.      
  Mildred.                Come what, come will,      
You have been happy: take my hand!           155   
  Mertoun  [after a pause].                How good      
Your brother is! I figured him a cold—      
Shall I say, haughty man?      
  Mildred.                They told me all.      
I know all.           160   
  Mertoun.  It will soon be over.      
  Mildred.                Over?      
Oh, what is over? what must I live through      
And say, “’tis over”? Is our meeting over?      
Have I received in presence of them all           165   
The partner of my guilty love—with brow      
Trying to seem a maiden’s brow—with lips      
Which make believe that when they strive to form      
Replies to you and tremble as they strive,      
It is the nearest ever they approached           170   
A stranger’s … Henry, yours that stranger’s … lip—      
With cheek that looks a virgin’s, and that is…      
Ah God, some prodigy of thine will stop      
This planned piece of deliberate wickedness      
In its birth even! some fierce leprous spot           175   
Will mar the brow’s dissimulating! I      
Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart,      
But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story,      
The love, the shame, and the despair—with them      
Round me aghast as round some cursed fount           180   
That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I’ll not      
… Henry, you do not wish that I should draw      
This vengeance down? I’ll not affect a grace      
That’s gone from me—gone once, and gone for ever!      
  Mertoun.  Mildred, my honour is your own. I’ll share           185   
Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself.      
A word informs your brother I retract      
This morning’s offer; time will yet bring forth      
Some better way of saving both of us.      
  Mildred.  I’ll meet their faces, Henry!           190   
  Mertoun.                When? to-morrow!      
Get done with it!      
  Mildred.                Oh, Henry, not to-morrow!      
Next day! I never shall prepare my words      
And looks and gestures sooner.—How you must           195   
Despise me!      
  Mertoun.  Mildred, break it if you choose,      
A heart the love of you uplifted—still      
Uplifts, thro’ this protracted agony,      
To heaven! but Mildred, answer me,—first pace           200   
The chamber with me—once again—now, say      
Calmly the part, the … what it is of me      
You see contempt (for you did say contempt)      
—Contempt for you in! I would pluck it off      
And cast if from me!—but no—no, you’ll not           205   
Repeat that?—will you, Mildred, repeat that?      
  Mildred.  Dear Henry!      
  Mertoun.            I was scarce a boy—e’en now      
What am I more? And you were infantine      
When first I met you; why, your hair fell loose           210   
On either side! My fool’s-cheek reddens now      
Only in the recalling how it burned      
That morn to see the shape of many a dream      
—You know we boys are prodigal of charms      
To her we dream of—I had heard of one,           215   
Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her,      
Might speak to her, might live and die her own,      
Who knew? I spoke. Oh, Mildred, feel you not      
That now, while I remember every glance      
Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test           220   
And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride,      
Resolved the treasure of a first and last      
Heart’s love shall have been bartered at its worth,      
—That now I think upon your purity.      
And utter ignorance of guilt—your own           225   
Or other’s guilt—the girlish undisguised      
Delight at a strange novel prize—(I talk      
A silly language, but interpret, you!)      
If I, with fancy at its full, and reason      
Scarce in its germ, enjoyed you secrecy,           230   
If you had pity on my passion, pity      
On my protested sickness of the soul      
To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch      
Your eyelids and the eyes beneath—if you      
Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts—           235   
If I grew mad at last with enterprise      
And must behold my beauty in her bower      
Or perish—(I was ignorant of even      
My own desires—what then were you?) if sorrow—      
Sin—if the end came—must I now renounce           240   
My reason, blind myself to light, say truth      
Is false and lie to God and my own soul?      
Contempt were all of this!      
  Mildred.                Do you believe…      
Or, Henry, I’ll not wrong you—you believe           245   
That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o’er      
The past. We’ll love on; you will love me still.      
  Mertoun.  Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove      
Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast—      
Shall my heart’s warmth not nurse thee into strength?           250   
Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee?      
Bloom o’er my crest, my fight-mark and device!      
Mildred, I love you and you love me.      
  Mildred.                Go!      
Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night.           255   
  Mertoun.  This is not our last meeting?      
  Mildred.                One night more.      
  Mertoun.  And then—think, then!      
  Mildred.                Then, no sweet courtship-days,      
No dawning consciousness of love for us,           260   
No strange and palpitating births of sense      
From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes,      
Reserves and confidences: morning’s over!      
  Mertoun.  How else should love’s perfected noontide follow?      
All the dawn promised shall the day perform.           265   
  Mildred.  So may it be! but—      
                You are cautious, Love?      
Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls?      
  Mertoun.  Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting’s fixed      
To-morrow night?           270   
  Mildred.                Farewell! stay, Henry … wherefore?      
His foot is on the yew-tree bough; the turf      
Receives him: now the moonlight as he runs      
Embraces him—but he must go—is gone.      
Ah, once again he turns—thanks, thanks, my Love!           275   
He’s gone. Oh, I’ll believe him every word!      
I was so young, I loved him so, I had      
No mother, God forgot me, and I fell.      
There may be pardon yet: all’s doubt beyond!      
Surely the bitterness of death is past.           280

Act II   
    
    
The Library.
    
Enter Lord Tresham, hastily
    
  Tresham.  This way! In, Gerard, quick!  [As GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.      
                Now speak! or, wait—      
I’ll bid you speak directly.  [Seats himself.                Now repeat           5   
Firmly and circumstantially the tale      
You just now told me; it eludes me; either      
I did not listen, or the half is gone      
Away from me. How long have you lived here?      
Here in my house, your father kept our woods           10   
Before you?      
  Gerard.            —As his father did, my lord.      
I have been eating, sixty years almost,      
Your bread.      
  Tresham.  Yes, yes. You ever were of all           15   
The servants in my father’s house, I know,      
The trusted one. You’ll speak the truth.      
  Gerard.                I’ll speak      
God’s truth. Night after night…      
  Tresham.                Since when?           20   
  Gerard.                At least      
A month—each midnight has some man access      
To Lady Mildred’s chamber.      
  Tresham.                Tush, “access”—      
No wide words like “access” to me!           25   
  Gerard.                He runs      
Along the woodside, crosses to the South,      
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue…      
  Tresham.  The last great yew-tree?      
  Gerard.                You might stand upon           30   
The main boughs like a platform. Then he…      
  Tresham.                Quick!      
  Gerard.  Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top,      
—I cannot see distinctly, but he throws,      
I think—for this I do not vouch—a line           35   
That reaches to the lady’s casement—      
  Tresham.                —Which      
He enters not! Gerard, some wretched fool      
Dares pry into my sister’s privacy!      
When such are young, it seems a precious thing           40   
To have approached,—to merely have approached,      
Got sight of the abode of her they set      
Their frantic thoughts upon. He does not enter?      
Gerard?      
  Gerard.  There is a lamp that’s full i’ the midst,           45   
Under a red square in the painted glass      
Of Lady Mildred’s…      
  Tresham.                Leave that name out! Well?      
That lamp?      
  Gerard.  Is moved at midnight higher up           50   
To one pane—a small dark—blue pane; he waits      
For that among the boughs: at sight of that,      
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,      
Open the lady’s casement, enter there…      
  Tresham.  —And stay?           55   
  Gerard.            An hour, two hours.      
  Tresham.                And this you saw      
Once?—twice?—quick!      
  Gerard.                Twenty times.      
  Tresham.                And what brings you           60   
Under the yew-trees?      
  Gerard.                The first night I left      
My range so far, to track the stranger stag      
That broke the pale, I saw the man.      
  Tresham.                Yet sent           65   
No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?      
  Gerard.                But      
He came, my lord, the first time he was seen,      
In a great moonlight, light as any day,      
From Lady Mildred’s chamber.           70   
  Tresham  [after a pause].                You have no cause      
—Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?      
  Gerard.  Oh, my lord, only once—let me this once      
Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted      
All this, I’ve groaned as if a fiery net           75   
Plucked me this way and that—fire if I turned      
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire      
If down I flung myself and strove to die.      
The lady could not have been seven years old      
When I was trusted to conduct her safe           80   
Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn      
I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand      
Within a month. She ever had a smile      
To greet me with—she … if it could undo      
What’s done, to lop each limb from off this trunk…           85   
All that is foolish talk, not fit for you—      
I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt      
For Heaven’s compelling. But when I was fixed      
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food      
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too,           90   
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts      
What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed      
Either I must confess to you or die:      
Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm      
That crawls, to have betrayed my lady.           95   
  Tresham.                No—      
No, Gerard!      
  Gerard.            Let me go!      
  Tresham.                A man, you say:      
What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?           100   
  Gerard.  A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak      
Warps his whole form; even his face is hid;      
But I should judge him young: no hind, be sure!      
  Tresham.  Why?      
  Gerard.      He is ever armed: his sword projects           105   
Beneath the cloak.      
  Tresham.                Gerard,—I will not say      
No word, no breath of this!      
  Gerard.                Thanks, thanks, my lord!  [Goes.      
  Tresham  [paces the room. After a pause]. Oh, thoughts absurd!—as with some monstrous fact           110   
Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give      
Merciful God that made the sun and stars,      
The waters and the green delights of earth,      
The lie! I apprehend the monstrous fact—      
Yet know the maker of all worlds is good,           115   
And yield my reason up, inadequate      
To reconcile what yet I do behold—      
Blasting my sense! There’s cheerful day outside:      
This is my library, and this the chair      
My father used to sit in carelessly           120   
After his soldier-fashion, while I stood      
Between his knees to question him: and here      
Gerard our grey retainer,—as he says,      
Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age,—      
Has told a story—I am to believe!           125   
That Mildred … oh, no, no! both tales are true,      
Her pure cheek’s story and the forester’s!      
Would she, or could she, err—much less, confound      
All guilts of treachery, of craft, of … Heaven      
Keep me within its hand!—I will sit here           130   
Until thought settle and I see my course.      
Avert, oh God, only this woe from me!  [As he sinks his head between his arms on the table, GUENDOLEN’S voice is heard at the door.      
Lord Tresham!  [She knocks.]  Is Lord Tresham there?  [TRESHAM, hastily turning, pulls down the first book above him and opens it.      
  Tresham.                Come in!  [She enters.      
Ha, Guendolen!—good morning.           135   
  Guendolen.                Nothing more?      
  Tresham.  What should I say more?      
  Guendolen.  Pleasant question! more?      
This more. Did I besiege poor Mildred’s brain      
Last night till close on morning with “the Earl,”           140   
“The Earl”—whose worth did I asseverate      
Till I am very fain to hope that … Thorold,      
What is all this? You are not well!      
  Tresham.                Who, I?      
You laugh at me.           145   
  Guendolen.                Has what I’m fain to hope,      
Arrived then? Does that huge tome show some blot      
In the Earl’s ’scutcheon come no longer back      
Than Arthur’s time?      
  Tresham.                When left you Mildred’s chamber?           150   
  Guendolen.  Oh, late enough, I told you! The main thing      
To ask is, how I left her chamber,—sure,      
Content yourself, she’ll grant this paragon      
Of Earls no such ungracious…      
  Tresham.                Send her here!           155   
  Guendolen.  Thorold?      
  Tresham.          I mean—acquaint her, Guendolen,      
—But mildly!      
  Guendolen.              Mildly?      
  Tresham.                Ah, you guessed aright!           160   
I am not well: there is no hiding it.      
But tell her I would see her at her leisure—      
That is, at once! here in the library!      
The passage in that old Italian book      
We hunted for so long is found, say, found—           165   
And if I let it slip again … you see,      
That she must come—and instantly!      
  Guendolen.                I’ll die      
Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed      
Some blot i’ the ’scutcheon!           170   
  Tresham.                Go! or, Guendolen,      
Be you at call,—with Austin, if you choose,—      
In the adjoining gallery! There, go!  [GUENDOLEN goes.      
Another lesson to me! You might bid      
A child disguise his heart’s sore, and conduct           175   
Some sly investigation point by point      
With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch      
The inquisitorial cleverness some praise.      
If you had told me yesterday, “There’s one      
You needs must circumvent and practise with,           180   
Entrap by policies, if you would worm      
The truth out: and that one is—Mildred!” There,      
There—reasoning is thrown away on it!      
Prove she’s unchaste … why, you may after prove      
That she’s a poisoner, traitress, what you will!           185   
Where I can comprehend nought, nought’s to say,      
Or do, or think. Force on me but the first      
Abomination,—then outpour all plagues,      
And I shall ne’er make count of them.      
    
Enter MILDRED
        190   
  Mildred.                What book      
Is it I wanted, Thorold? Guendolen      
Thought you were pale; you are not pale. That book?      
That’s Latin surely.      
  Tresham.                Mildred, here’s a line,           195   
(Don’t lean on me: I’ll English it for you)      
“Love conquers all things.” What love conquers them?      
What love should you esteem—best love?      
  Mildred.                True love.      
  Tresham.  I mean, and should have said, whose love is best           200   
Of all that love or that profess to love?      
  Mildred.  The list’s so long: there’s father’s, mother’s, husband’s…      
  Tresham.  Mildred, I do believe a brother’s love      
For a sole sister must exceed them all.      
For see now, only see! there’s no alloy           205   
Of earth that creeps into the perfect’st gold      
Of other loves—no gratitude to claim;      
You never gave her life, not even aught      
That keeps life—never tended her, instructed,      
Enriched her—so, your love can claim no right           210   
O’er her save pure love’s claim: that’s what I call      
Freedom from earthliness. You’ll never hope      
To be such friends, for instance, she and you,      
As when you hunted cowslips in the woods,      
Or played together in the meadow hay.           215   
Oh yes—with age, respect comes, and your worth      
Is felt, there’s growing sympathy of tastes,      
There’s ripened friendship, there’s confirmed esteem:      
—Much head these make against the newcomer!      
The startling apparition, the strange youth—           220   
Whom one half-hour’s conversing with, or, say,      
Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change      
This Ovid ever sang about) your soul      
… Her soul, that is,—the sister’s soul! With her      
’Twas winter yesterday; now, all is warmth,           225   
The green leaf’s springing and the turtle’s voice,      
“Arise and come away!” Come whither?—far      
Enough from the esteem, respect, and all      
The brother’s somewhat insignificant      
Array of rights! All which he knows before,           230   
Has calculated on so long ago!      
I think such love, (apart from yours and mine,)      
Contented with its little term of life,      
Intending to retire betimes, aware      
How soon the background must be placed for it,           235   
—I think, am sure, a brother’s love exceeds      
All the world’s love in its unworldliness.      
  Mildred.  What is this for?      
  Tresham.                This, Mildred, is it for!      
Or, no, I cannot go to it so soon!           240   
That’s one of many points my haste left out—      
Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight film      
Between the being tied to you by birth,      
And you, until those slender threads compose      
A web that shrouds her daily life of hopes           245   
And fears and fancies, all her life, from yours:      
So close you live and yet so far apart!      
And must I rend this web, tear up, break down      
The sweet and palpitating mystery      
That makes her sacred? You—for you I mean,           250   
Shall I speak, shall I not speak?      
  Mildred.                Speak!      
  Tresham.                I will!      
Is there a story men could—any man      
Could tell of you, you would conceal from me?           255   
I’ll never think there’s falsehood on that lip.      
Say “There is no such story men could tell,”      
And I’ll believe you, though I disbelieve      
The world—the world of better men than I,      
And women such as I suppose you. Speak!           260   
[After a pause.] Not speak? Explain then! Clear it up then! Move      
Some of the miserable weight away      
That presses lower than the grave. Not speak?      
Some of the dead weight, Mildred! Ah, if I      
Could bring myself to plainly make their charge           265   
Against you! Must I, Mildred! Silent still?      
[After a pause.] Is there a gallant that has night by night      
Admittance to your chamber?      
    [After a pause.] Then, his name!      
Till now, I only had a thought for you:           270   
But now,—his name!      
  Mildred.  Thorold, do you devise      
Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit      
There be! ’Tis nought to say that I’ll endure      
And bless you,—that my spirit yearns to purge           275   
Her stains off in the fierce renewing fire:      
But do not plunge me into other guilt!      
Oh, guilt enough! I cannot tell his name.      
  Tresham.  Then judge yourself! How should I act? Pronounce!      
  Mildred.  Oh, Thorold, you must never tempt me thus!           280   
To die here in this chamber by that sword      
Would seem like punishment: so should I glide,      
Like an arch-cheat, into extremest bliss!      
’Twere easily arranged for me: but you—      
What would become of you?           285   
  Tresham.                And what will now      
Become of me? I’ll hide your shame and mine      
From every eye; the dead must heave their hearts      
Under the marble of our chapel-floor;      
They cannot rise and blast you. You may wed           290   
Your paramour above our mother’s tomb;      
Our mother cannot move from ’neath your foot.      
We too will somehow wear this one day out:      
But with to-morrow hastens here—the Earl!      
The youth without suspicion. Face can come           295   
From Heaven and heart from … whence proceed such hearts?      
I have dispatched last night at your command      
A missive bidding him present himself      
To-morrow—here—thus much is said; the rest      
Is understood as if ’twere written down—           300   
“His suit finds favor in your eyes.” Now dictate      
This morning’s letter that shall countermand      
Last night’s—do dictate that!      
  Mildred.                But, Thorold—if      
I will receive him as I said?           305   
  Tresham.                The Earl?      
  Mildred.  I will receive him.      
  Tresham  [starting up].                Ho there! Guendolen!      
    
GUENDOLEN and AUSTIN enter
And, Austin, you are welcome, too! Look there!           310   
The woman there!      
  Austin and Guendolen.                How? Mildred?      
  Tresham.                Mildred once!      
Now the receiver night by night, when sleep      
Blesses the inmates of her father’s house,           315   
—I say, the soft sly wanton that receives      
Her guilt’s accomplice ’neath this roof which holds      
You, Guendolen, you, Austin, and has held      
A thousand Treshams—never one like her!      
No lighter of the signal-lamp her quick           320   
Foul breath near quenches in hot eagerness      
To mix with breath as foul! no loosener      
O’ the lattice, practised in the stealthy tread,      
The low voice and the noiseless come-and-go!      
Not one composer of the bacchant’s mien           325   
Into—what you thought Mildred’s, in a word!      
Know her!      
  Guendolen.  Oh, Mildred, look to me, at least!      
Thorold—she’s dead, I’d say, but that she stands      
Rigid as stone and whiter!           330   
  Tresham.                You have heard…      
  Guendolen.  Too much! You must proceed no further.      
  Mildred.  Yes—      
Proceed! All’s truth. Go from me!      
  Tresham.                All is truth,           335   
She tells you! Well, you know, or ought to know,      
All this I would forgive in her. I’d con      
Each precept the harsh world enjoins, I’d take      
Our ancestors’ stern verdicts one by one,      
I’d bind myself before them to exact           340   
The prescribed vengeance—and one word of hers,      
The sight of her, the bare least memory      
Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart’s pride      
Above all prides, my all in all so long,      
Would scatter every trace of my resolve.           345   
What were it silently to waste away      
And see her waste away from this day forth,      
Two scathed things with leisure to repent,      
And grow acquainted with the grave, and die      
Tired out if not at peace, and be forgotten?           350   
It were not so impossible to bear.      
But this—that, fresh from last night’s pledge renewed      
Of love with the successful gallant there,      
She calmly bids me help her to entice,      
Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth           355   
Who thinks her all that’s chaste and good and pure,      
—Invites me to betray him … who so fit      
As honour’s self to cover shame’s arch-deed?      
—That she’ll receive Lord Mertoun—(her own phrase)—      
This, who could bear? Why, you have heard of thieves,           360   
Stabbers, the earth’s disgrace, who yet have laughed,      
“Talk not to me of torture—I’ll betray      
No comrade I’ve pledged faith to!”—you have heard      
Of wretched women—all but Mildreds—tied      
By wild illicit ties to losels vile           365   
You’d tempt them to forsake; and they’ll reply      
“Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I find      
In him, why should I leave him then, for gold,      
Repute or friends?”—and you have felt your heart      
Respond to such poor outcasts of the world           370   
As to so many friends; bad as you please,      
You’ve felt they were God’s men and women still,      
So, not to be disowned by you. But she      
That stands there, calmly gives her lover up      
As means to wed the Earl that she may hide           375   
Their intercourse the surelier: and, for this,      
I curse her to her face before you all.      
Shame hunt her from the earth! Then Heaven do right      
To both! It hears me now—shall judge her then!  [As MILDRED faints and falls, TRESHAM, rushes out.      
  Austin.  Stay, Tresham, we’ll accompany you!           380   
  Guendolen.                We?      
What, and leave Mildred? We? Why, where’s my place      
But by her side, and where yours but by mine?      
Mildred—one word! Only look at me, then!      
  Austin.  No, Guendolen! I echo Thorold’s voice.           385   
She is unworthy to behold…      
  Guendolen.                Us two?      
If you spoke on reflection, and if I      
Approved your speech—if you (to put the thing      
At lowest) you the soldier, bound to make           390   
The king’s cause yours and fight for it, and throw      
Regard to others of its right or wrong,      
—If with a death—white woman you can help,      
Let alone sister, let alone a Mildred,      
You left her—or if I, her cousin, friend           395   
This morning, playfellow but yesterday,      
Who said, or thought at least a thousand times,      
“I’d serve you if I could,” should now face round      
And say, “Ah, that’s to only signify      
I’d serve you while you’re fit to serve yourself:           400   
So long as fifty eyes await the turn      
Of yours to forestall its yet half-formed wish,      
I’ll proffer my assistance you’ll not need—      
When every tongue is praising you, I’ll join      
The praisers’ chorus—when you’re hemmed about           405   
With lives between you and detraction—lives      
To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye,      
Rough hand should violate the sacred ring      
Their worship throws about you,—then indeed,      
Who’ll stand up for you stout as I?” If so           410   
We said, and so we did,—not Mildred there      
Would be unworthy to behold us both,      
But we should be unworthy, both of us.      
To be beheld by—by—your meanest dog,      
Which, if that sword were broken in your face           415   
Before a crowd, that badge torn off your breast,      
And you cast out with hooting and contempt,      
—Would push his way thro’ all the hooters, gain      
Your side, go off with you and all your shame      
To the next ditch you choose to die in! Austin,           420   
Do you love me? Here’s Austin, Mildred,—here’s      
Your brother says he does not believe half—      
No, nor half that—of all he heard! He says,      
Look up and take his hand!      
  Austin.                Look up and take           425   
My hand, dear Mildred!      
  Mildred.                I—I was so young!      
Beside, I loved him, Thorold—and I had      
No mother; God forgot me: so, I fell.      
  Guendolen.  Mildred!           430   
  Mildred.          Require no further! Did I dream      
That I could palliate what is done? All’s true.      
Now, punish me! A woman takes my hand?      
Let go my hand! You do not know, I see.      
I thought that Thorold told you.           435   
  Guendolen.                What is this?      
Where start you to?      
  Mildred.                Oh, Austin, loosen me!      
You heard the whole of it—your eyes were worse,      
In their surprise, than Thorold’s! Oh, unless           440   
You stay to execute his sentence, loose      
My hand! Has Thorold gone, and are you here?      
  Guendolen.  Here, Mildred, we two friends of yours will wait.      
Your bidding; be you silent, sleep or muse!      
Only, when you shall want your bidding done,           445   
How can we do it if we are not by?      
Here’s Austin waiting patiently your will!      
One spirit to command, and one to love      
And to believe in it and do its best,      
Poor as that is, to help it—why, the world           450   
Has been won many a time, its length and breadth,      
By just such a beginning!      
  Mildred.                I believe      
If once I threw my arms about your neck      
And sunk my head upon your breast, that I           455   
Should weep again.      
  Guendolen.                Let go her hand now, Austin!      
Wait for me. Pace the gallery and think      
On the world’s seemings and realities,      
Until I call you.  [AUSTIN goes.           460   
  Mildred.                No—I cannot weep.      
No more tears from this brain—sleep—no tears!      
O Guendolen, I love you!      
  Guendolen.                Yes: and “love”      
Is a short word that says so very much!           465   
It says that you confide in me.      
  Mildred.                Confide!      
  Guendolen.  Your lover’s name, then! I’ve so much to learn,      
Ere I can work in your behalf!      
  Mildred.                My friend,           470   
You know I cannot tell his name.      
  Guendolen.                At least      
He is your lover? and you love him too?      
  Mildred.  Ah, do you ask me that,—but I am fallen      
So low!           475   
  Guendolen.  You love him still, then?      
  Mildred.                My sole prop      
Against the guilt that crushes me! I say,      
Each night ere I lie down, “I was so young—      
I had no mother, and I loved him so!”           480   
And then God seems indulgent, and I dare      
Trust him my soul in sleep.      
  Guendolen.                How could you let us      
E’en talk to you about Lord Mertoun then?      
  Mildred.  There is a cloud around me.           485   
  Guendolen.                But you said      
You would receive his suit in spite of this?      
  Mildred.  I say there is a cloud…      
  Guendolen.                No cloud to me!      
Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same!           490   
  Mildred.  What maddest fancy…      
  Guendolen  [calling aloud]. Austin! (spare your pains—      
When I have got a truth, that truth I keep)—      
  Mildred.  By all you love, sweet Guendolen, forbear!      
Have I confided in you…           495   
  Guendolen.                Just for this!      
Austin!—Oh, not to guess it at the first!      
But I did guess it—that is, I divined,      
Felt by an instinct how it was: why else      
Should I pronounce you free from all that heap           500   
Of sins which had been irredeemable?      
I felt they were not yours—what other way      
Than this, not yours? The secret’s wholly mine!      
  Mildred.  If you would see me die before his face…      
  Guendolen.  I’d hold my peace! And if the Earl returns           505   
To-night?      
  Mildred.          Ah Heaven, he’s lost!      
  Guendolen.                I thought so. Austin!      
    
Enter AUSTIN
Oh, where have you been hiding?           510   
  Austin.                Thorold’s gone,      
I know not how, across the meadow-land.      
I watched him till I lost him in the skirts      
O’ the beech-wood.      
  Guendolen.                Gone? All thwarts us.           515   
  Mildred.                Thorold too?      
  Guendolen.  I have thought. First lead this Mildred to her room.      
Go on the other side; and then we’ll seek      
Your brother: and I’ll tell you, by the way,      
The greatest comfort in the world. You said           520   
There was a clue to all. Remember, Sweet,      
He said there was a clue! I hold it. Come!

Act III   
    
Scene I   
    
    
The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED’S Window. A light seen through a central red pane.
    
Enter TRESHAM through the trees
    
  Tresham.  Again here! But I cannot lose myself.      
The heath—the orchard—I have traversed glades      
And dells and bosky paths which used to lead           5   
Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering      
My boy’s adventurous step. And now they tend      
Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade      
Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide,      
And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts           10   
Again my step; the very river put      
Its arm about me and conducted me      
To this detested spot. Why then, I’ll shun      
Their will no longer: do your will with me!      
Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme           15   
Of happiness, and to behold it razed,      
Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes      
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.      
But I … to hope that from a line like ours      
No horrid prodigy like this would spring,           20   
Were just as though I hoped that from these old      
Confederates against the sovereign day,      
Children of older and yet older sires,      
Whose living coral berries dropped, as now      
On me, on many a baron’s surcoat once,           25   
On many a beauty’s whimple—would proceed      
No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root,      
Hither and thither its strange snaky arms.      
Why came I here? What must I do?  [A bell strikes.] A bell?      
Midnight! and ’tis at midnight … Ah, I catch           30   
—Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now,      
And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.  [He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN cloaked as before.      
  Mertoun.  Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat      
Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock      
I’ the chapel struck as I was pushing through           35   
The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise      
My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past!      
So much the more delicious task to watch      
Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn,      
All traces of the rough forbidden path           40   
My rash love lured her to! Each day must see      
Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed:      
Then there will be surprises, unforeseen      
Delights in store. I’ll not regret the past.  [The light is placed above in the purple pane.      
And see, my signal rises, Mildred’s star!           45   
I never saw it lovelier than now      
It rises for the last time. If it sets,      
’Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn.  [As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests his arm.  Unhand me—peasant, by your grasp! Here’s gold.      
“Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I’d pluck      
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath           50   
The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace.      
  Tresham.  Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!      
Out of the shadow!      
  Mertoun.                I am armed, fool!      
  Tresham.                Yes,           55   
Or no? You’ll come into the light, or no?      
My hand is on your throat—refuse!—      
  Mertoun.                That voice!      
Where have I heard … no—that was mild and slow.      
I’ll come with you.  [They advance.           60   
  Tresham.                You’re armed: that’s well. Declare      
Your name: who are you?      
  Mertoun.                (Tresham!—she is lost!)      
  Tresham.  Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself      
Exactly as, in curious dreams I’ve had           65   
How felons, this wild earth is full of, look      
When they’re detected, still your kind has looked!      
The bravo holds an assured countenance,      
The thief is voluble and plausible,      
But silently the slave of lust has crouched           70   
When I have fancied it before a man.      
Your name!      
  Mertoun.            I do conjure Lord Tresham—ay,      
Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail—      
That he for his own sake forbear to ask           75   
My name! As heaven’s above, his future weal      
Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!      
I read your white inexorable face.      
Know me, Lord Tresham!  [He throws off his disguises.      
  Tresham.                Mertoun!  [After a pause.] Draw now!           80   
  Mertoun.                Hear me      
But speak first!      
  Tresham.                Not one least word on your life!      
Be sure that I will strangle in your throat      
The least word that informs me how you live           85   
And yet seem what you seem! No doubt ’twas you      
Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin.      
We should join hands in frantic sympathy      
If you once taught me the unteachable,      
Explained how you can live so and so lie.           90   
With God’s help I retain, despite my sense,      
The old belief—a life like yours is still      
Impossible. Now draw!      
  Mertoun.                Not for my sake,      
Do I entreat a hearing—for your sake,           95   
And most, for her sake!      
  Tresham.                Ha, ha, what should I      
Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself,      
How must one rouse his ire? A blow?—that’s pride      
No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not?           100   
Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits      
Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?      
  Mertoun.  ’Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge!      
Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!  [He draws and, after a few passes, falls.      
  Tresham.  You are not hurt?           105   
  Mertoun.                You’ll hear me now!      
  Tresham.                But rise!      
  Mertoun.  Ah, Tresham, say I not “you’ll hear me now!”      
And what procures a man the right to speak      
In his defence before his fellow man,           110   
But—I suppose—the thought that presently      
He may have leave to speak before his God      
His whole defence?      
  Tresham.                Not hurt? It cannot be!      
You made no effort to resist me. Where           115   
Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned      
My thrusts? Hurt where?      
  Mertoun.  My lord—      
  Tresham.          How young he is!      
  Mertoun.  Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet           120   
I have entangled other lives with mine.      
Do let me speak, and do believe my speech!      
That when I die before you presently,—      
  Tresham.  Can you stay here till I return with help?      
  Mertoun.  Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy           125   
I did you grievous wrong and knew it not—      
Upon my honour, knew it not! Once known,      
I could not find what seemed a better way      
To right you than I took: my life—you feel      
How less than nothing were the giving you           130   
The life you’ve taken! But I thought my way      
The better—only for your sake and hers:      
And as you have decided otherwise,      
Would I had an infinity of lives      
To offer you! Now say—instruct me—think!           135   
Can you, from the brief minutes I have left,      
Eke out my reparation? Oh think—think!      
For I must wring a partial—dare I say,      
Forgiveness from you, ere I die?      
  Tresham.                I do           140   
Forgive you.      
  Mertoun.  Wait and ponder that great word!      
Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope      
To speak to you of—Mildred!      
  Tresham.                Mertoun, haste           145   
And anger have undone us. ’Tis not you      
Should tell me for a novelty you’re young,      
Thoughtless, unable to recall the past.      
Be but your pardon ample as my own!      
  Mertoun.  Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop           150   
Of blood or two, should bring all this about!      
Why, ’twas my very fear of you, my love      
Of you—(what passion like a boy’s for one      
Like you?)—that ruined me! I dreamed of you—      
You, all accomplished, courted everywhere,           155   
The scholar and the gentleman. I burned      
To knit myself to you: but I was young,      
And your surpassing reputation kept me      
So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love?      
With less of love, my glorious yesterday           160   
Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks,      
Had taken place perchance six months ago.      
Even now, how happy we had been! And yet      
I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!      
Let me look up into your face; I feel           165   
’Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.      
Where? where?  [As he endeavours to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp.              Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?      
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life      
That’s bleeding fast away! I’ll live—must live,      
There, if you’ll only turn me I shall live           170   
And save her! Tresham—oh, had you but heard!      
Had you but heard! What right was yours to set      
The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine,      
And then say, as we perish, “Had I thought,      
All had gone otherwise”? We’ve sinned and die;           175   
Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you’ll die,      
And God will judge you.      
  Tresham.                Yes, be satisfied!      
That process is begun.      
  Mertoun.                And she sits there           180   
Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her—      
You, not another—say, I saw him die      
As he breathed this, “I love her”—you don’t know      
What those three small words mean! Say, loving her      
Lowers me down the bloody slope to death           185   
With memories … I speak to her, not you,      
Who had no pity, will have no remorse,      
Perchance intend her … Die along with me,      
Dear Mildred! ’tis so easy, and you’ll ’scape      
So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,           190   
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds      
Done to you?—heartless men shall have my heart,      
And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,      
Aware, perhaps, of every blow—oh God!—      
Upon those lips—yet of no power to tear           195   
The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave      
Their honourable world to them! For God      
We’re good enough, though the world casts us out.  [A whistle is heard.      
  Tresham.  Ho, Gerard!      
    
Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights
        200   
            No one speak! You see what’s done!      
I cannot bear another voice.      
  Mertoun.                There’s light—      
Light all about me, and I move to it.      
Tresham, did I not tell you—did you not           205   
Just promise to deliver words of mine      
To Mildred?      
  Tresham.  I will bear those words to her.      
  Mertoun.  Now?      
  Tresham.      Now. Lift you the body, and leave me           210   
The head.  [As they have half raised MERTOUN, he turns suddenly.      
  Mertoun.  I knew they turned me: turn me not from her!      
There! stay you! there!  [Dies.      
  Guendolen  [after a pause]. Austin, remain you here      
With Thorold until Gerard comes with help:           215   
Then lead him to his chamber. I must go      
To Mildred.      
  Tresham.  Guendolen, I hear each word      
You utter. Did you hear him bid me give      
His message? Did you hear my promise? I,           220   
And only I, see Mildred.      
  Guendolen.                She will die.      
  Tresham.  Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope      
She’ll die. What ground have you to think she’ll die?      
Why, Austin’s with you!           225   
  Austin.                Had we but arrived      
Before you fought!      
  Tresham.                There was no fight at all.      
He let me slaughter him—the boy! I’ll trust      
The body there to you and Gerard—thus!           230   
Now bear him on before me.      
  Austin.                Whither bear him?      
  Tresham.  Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next,      
We shall be friends.  [They bear out the body of MERTOUN.      
                Will she die, Guendolen?           235   
  Guendolen.  Where are you taking me?      
  Tresham.                He fell just here.      
Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life      
—You who have nought to do with Mertoun’s fate,      
Now you have seen his breast upon the turf,           240   
Shall you e’er walk this way if you can help?      
When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm      
Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade      
Be ever on the meadow and the waste—      
Another kind of shade than when the night           245   
Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up?      
But will you ever so forget his breast      
As carelessly to cross this bloody turf      
Under the black yew avenue? That’s well!      
You turn your head: and I then?—           250   
  Guendolen.                What is done      
Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold,      
Bear up against this burden: more remains      
To set the neck to!      
  Tresham.                Dear and ancient trees           255   
My fathers planted, and I loved so well!      
What have I done that, like some fabled crime      
Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus      
Her miserable dance amidst you all?      
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone           260   
With all your tops a vast antiphony,      
Demanding and responding in God’s praise!      
Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell—farewell!      
 

   
Act III   
    
Scene II   
    
    
MILDRED’S Chamber.
    
MILDRED alone.
    
  Mildred.  He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed      
Resourceless in prosperity,—you thought      
Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet           5   
Did they so gather up their diffused strength      
At her first menace, that they bade her strike,      
And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn.      
Oh, ’tis not so with me! The first woe fell,      
And the rest fall upon it, not on me:           10   
Else should I bear that Henry comes not?—fails      
Just this first night out of so many nights?      
Loving is done with. Were he sitting now,      
As so few hours since, on that seat, we’d love      
No more—contrive no thousand happy ways           15   
To hide love from the loveless, any more.      
I think I might have urged some little point      
In my defence, to Thorold; he was breathless      
For the least hint of a defence: but no,      
The first shame over, all that would might fall.           20   
No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think      
The morn’s deed o’er and o’er. I must have crept      
Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost      
Her lover—oh, I dare not look upon      
Such woe! I crouch away from it! ’Tis she,           25   
Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world      
Forsakes me: only Henry’s left me—left?      
When I have lost him, for he does not come,      
And I sit stupidly … Oh Heaven, break up      
This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,           30   
By any means or any messenger!      
  Tresham  [without]. Mildred!      
  Mildred.          Come in! Heaven hears me!  [Enter TRESHAM.]      
                You? alone?      
Oh, no more cursing!           35   
  Tresham.                Mildred, I must sit.      
There—you sit!      
  Mildred.                Say it, Thorold—do not look      
The curse! deliver all you come to say!      
What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought           40   
Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!      
  Tresham.                My thought?      
  Mildred.  All of it!      
  Tresham.            How we waded years-ago—      
After those water-lilies, till the plash,           45   
I know not how, surprised us; and you dared      
Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood      
Laughing and crying until Gerard came—      
Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too,      
For once more reaching the relinquished prize!           50   
How idle thoughts are, some men’s, dying men’s!      
Mildred,—      
  Mildred.  You call me kindlier by my name      
Than even yesterday: what is in that?      
  Tresham.  It weighs so much upon my mind that I           55   
This morning took an office not my own!      
I might … of course, I must be glad or grieved,      
Content or not, at every little thing      
That touches you. I may with a wrung heart      
Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more:           60   
Will you forgive me?      
  Mildred.                Thorold? do you mock?      
Oh no … and yet you bid me … say that word!      
  Tresham.  Forgive me, Mildred!.—are you silent, Sweet?      
  Mildred  [starting up]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night?           65   
Are you, too, silent?  [Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is empty.      
                Ah, this speaks for you!      
You’ve murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed!      
What is it I must pardon? This and all?      
Well, I do pardon you—I think I do.           70   
Thorold, how very wretched you must be!      
  Tresham.  He bade me tell you…      
  Mildred.                What I do forbid      
Your utterance of! So much that you may tell      
And will not—how you murdered him … but, no!           75   
You’ll tell me that he loved me, never more      
Than bleeding out his life there: must I say      
“Indeed,” to that? Enough! I pardon you.      
  Tresham.  You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes:      
Of this last deed Another’s judge: whose doom           80   
I wait in doubt, despondency and fear.      
  Mildred.  Oh, true! There’s nought for me to pardon! True!      
You loose my soul of all its cares at once.      
Death makes me sure of him for ever! You      
Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them,           85   
And take my answer—not in words, but reading      
Himself the heart I had to read him late,      
Which death…      
  Tresham.                Death? You are dying too? Well said      
Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you’d die:           90   
But she was sure of it.      
  Mildred.                Tell Guendolen      
I loved her, and tell Austin…      
  Tresham.                Him you loved:      
And me?           95   
  Mildred.  Ah, Thorold! Was’t not rashly done      
To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope      
And love of me—whom you loved too, and yet      
Suffered to sit here waiting his approach      
While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly           100   
You let him speak his poor confused boy’s-speech      
—Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath      
And respite me!—you let him try to give      
The story of our love and ignorance,      
And the brief madness and the long despair—           105   
You let him plead all this, because your code      
Of honour bids you hear before you strike:      
But at the end, as he looked up for life      
Into your eyes—you struck him down!      
  Tresham.                No! No!           110   
Had I but heard him—had I let him speak      
Half the truth—less—had I looked long on him      
I had desisted! Why, as he lay there,      
The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all      
The story ere he told it: I saw through           115   
The troubled surface of his crime and yours      
A depth of purity immovable,      
Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest      
Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath;      
I would not glance: my punishment’s at hand.           120   
There, Mildred, is the truth! and you—say on—      
You curse me?      
  Mildred.              As I dare approach that Heaven      
Which has not bade a living thing despair,      
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,           125   
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it      
Desist and be forgiven,—I—forgive not,      
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!  [Falls on his neck.      
There! Do not think too much upon the past!      
The cloud that’s broke was all the same a cloud           130   
While it stood up between my friend and you;      
You hurt him ’neath its shadow: but is that      
So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know;      
I may dispose of it: I give it you!      
It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!  [Dies.           135   
  Tresham.  I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad      
In thy full gladness!      
  Guendolen  [without]. Mildred! Tresham!  [Entering with AUSTIN.] Thorold,      
I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons!      
That’s well.           140   
  Tresham.  Oh, better far than that!      
  Guendolen.                She’s dead!      
Let me unlock her arms!      
  Tresham.                She threw them thus      
About my neck, and blessed me, and then died:           145   
You’ll let them stay now, Guendolen!      
  Austin.                Leave her      
And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?      
  Guendolen.                White      
As she, and whiter! Austin! quick—this side!           150   
  Austin.  A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth;      
Both lips, where they’re not bitten through, are black:      
Speak, dearest Thorold!      
  Tresham.  Something does weigh down      
My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall           155   
But for you, Austin, I believe!—there, there,      
’Twill pass away soon!—ah,—I had forgotten:      
I am dying.      
  Guendolen.  Thorold—Thorold—why was this?      
  Tresham.  I said, just as I drank the poison off,           160   
The earth would be no longer earth to me,      
The life out of all life was gone from me.      
There are blind ways provided, the fore-done      
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world      
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile           165   
By the conspicuous portal: I am through—      
Just through!      
  Guendolen.  Don’t leave him, Austin! Death is close.      
  Tresham.  Already Mildred’s face is peacefuller!      
I see you, Austin—feel you; here’s my hand,           170   
Put yours in it—you, Guendolen, yours too!      
You’re lord and lady now—you’re Treshams; name      
And frame are yours: you hold our ’scutcheon up.      
Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood      
Must wash one blot away: the first blot came           175   
And the first blood came. To the vain world’s eye      
All’s gules again: no care to the vain world,      
From whence the red was drawn!      
  Austin.  No blot shall come!      
  Tresham.  I said that: yet it did come. Should it come,           180   
Vengeance is God’s, not man’s. Remember me!  [Dies.      
  Guendolen  [letting fall the pulseless arm]. Ah, Thorold, we can but—remember you!

The Pied Piper Of Hamelin
A Child's Story
(Written for, and inscribed to W. M. the Younger)


I

Hamelin town's in Brunswick,                                                °1
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on either side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

II

  Rats!                                                                      10
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats.
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats.
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.                                         20

III

At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation, shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease!
Rouse up, sirs! give your brains a racking                                   30
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

IV

An hour they sat in council;
At length the Mayor broke silence:
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell,
I wish I were a mile hence!
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain--
I'm sure my poor head aches again,                                           40
I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!"
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?"
(With the Corporation as he sat,
Looking little, though wondrous fat;
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,
Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous                                   50
For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous)
"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"

V

"Come in!"--the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,                                       60
With light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: "It's as my great grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,
Had walked his way from his painted tombstone!"

VI

He advanced to the council-table:                                            70
And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper."
(And here they noticed round his neck                                        80
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of self-same cheque:
And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,°                                               °89
Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;                                    90
I eased in Asia the Nizam°                                                  °91
Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats:
And as for what your brain bewilders,
If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?"
"One? fifty thousand!"--was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

VII

Into the street the Piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept                                              100
In his quiet pipe the while:
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered:
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.                               110
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
  Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives--
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,                                    120
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished!
--Save one, who, stout as Julius Cæsar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he, the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary:
Which was: "At the first shrill notes of the pipe,
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider press's gripe;                                                 130
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out, 'Oh, rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!'                                       140
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
Already staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce an inch before me,
Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!'
--I found the Weser rolling o'er me."

VIII

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles,
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,                                       150
And leave in our town, not even a trace
Of the rats!"--when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a, "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"

IX

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation, too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret,° Moselle,° Vin-de-Grave,° Hock°;                              °158
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish°.                                 °160
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
"Beside," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink,
"Our business was done at the river's brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what's dead can't come to life, I think.
So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But as for the guilders, what we spoke                                      170
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"

X

The Piper's face fell, and he cried,
"No trifling! I can't wait! Beside,
I've promised to visit by dinner-time
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,
For having left, in the Caliph's° kitchen,                                 °179
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor:                                         180
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe after another fashion."

XI

"How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook
Being worse treated than a cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst!
Blow your pipe there till you burst!"                                       190

XII

Once more he stept into the street,
  And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
  And ere he blew three notes (such sweet,
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning
  Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling;
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,                         200
Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farm-yard, when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls.
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

XIII

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood.
Unable to move a step, or cry                                               210
To the children merrily skipping by,
--Could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the piper's back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosom beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters,
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However, he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,                                 220
And after him the children pressed:
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop."
When lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced, and the children followed,
And when all were in, to the very last,                                     230
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,--
"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me.
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land.                                   240
Joining the town, and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new:
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer.
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings;
And just as I became assured,
My lame foot would be speedily cured,                                       250
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before.
And never hear of that country more!"

XIV

Alas, alas for Hamelin!
  There came into many a burgher's pate
  A text which says that Heaven's gate
  Opes to the rich at as easy a rate
As the needle's eye takes a camel in!                                       260
The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
  Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,
  And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor,
And Piper and dancers were gone forever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
  Should think their records dated duly                                     270
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
  "And so long after what happened here
  On the twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six;"
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat,
They called it the Pied Piper's Street--
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour.                                 280
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
  To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
  They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great church window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away.
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there's a tribe                                        290
Of alien people who ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don't understand.

XV

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers                                         300
Of scores out with all men--especially pipers!
And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!

Tray


Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards!
                   Quoth Bard the first:
"Sir Olaf,° the good knight, did don                                         °3
His helm, and eke his habergeon ..."
Sir Olaf and his bard----!

"That sin-scathed brow"° (quoth Bard the second),                            °6
"That eye wide ope as tho' Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep, beneath
Which precipice smiled tempting Death ..."
You too without your host have reckoned!                                     10

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)
"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
And fell into the stream. 'Dismay!
Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!                                      20

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There's yet
Another child to save? All right!

"'How strange we saw no other fall!
It's instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he's a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder--
Strong current, that against the wall!                                       30

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
--What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!
Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--
Till somebody, prerogatived
With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.                                       40

"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be,
Purchase that animal for me!
By vivisection, at expense
Of half-an-hour and eighteen pence,
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"