Part 3
[She follows GORMFLAITH out. After a moment's interval two elderly women, one a little younger than the other, enter by the same door: they wear black hoods and shapeless black gowns with large sleeves that flap like the wings of ungainly birds: between them they carry a heavy cauldron of hot water.]
The Younger Woman:
We were listening. We were listening.
The Elder Woman:
We were both listening.
The Younger Woman:
Did she struggle?
The Elder Woman:
She could not struggle long.
[They set down the cauldron at the foot of the bed.]
The Elder Woman (curtseying to the Queen's body):
Saving your presence, Madam, we are come To make you sweeter than you'll be hereafter, And then be done with you.
The Younger Woman (curtseying in turn):
Three days together, my Lady, y'have had me ducked For easing a foolish maid at the wrong time; But now your breath is stopped and you are colder, And you shall be as wet as a drowned rat Ere I have done with you.
The Elder Woman (fumbling in the folds of the robe that hangs on the wall):
Her pocket is empty; Merryn has been here first. Hearken, and then begin: You have not touched a royal corpse before, But I have stretched a king and an old queen, A king's aunt and a king's brother too, Without much boasting of a still-born princess; So that I know, as a priest knows his prayers, All that is written in the chamberlain's book About the handling of exalted corpses, Stripping them and trussing them for the grave: And there it says that the chief corpse-washer Shall take for her own use by sacred right The coverlid, the upper sheet, the mattress Of any bed in which a queen has died, And the last robe of state the body wore; While humbler helpers may divide among them The under sheet, the pillow, and the bed-gown Stript from the cooling queen. Be thankful, then, and praise me every day That I have brought no other women with me To spoil you of your share.
The Younger Woman:
Ah, you have always been a friend to me: Many's the time I have said I did not know How I could even have lived but for your kindness.
[The ELDER WOMAN draws down the bedclothes from the Queen's body, loosens them from the bed, and throws them on the floor.]
The Elder Woman:
Pull her feet straight: is your mind wandering?
[She commences to fold the bedclothes, singing as she moves about.]
A louse crept out of my lady's shift-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- Crying "Oi! Oi! We are turned adrift; The lady's bosom is cold and stiffed, And her arm-pit's cold for me."
[While the ELDER WOMAN sings, the YOUNGER WOMAN straightens the Queen's feet and ties them together, draws the pillow from under her head, gathers her hair in one hand and knots it roughly; then she loosens her nightgown, revealing a jewel hung on a cord round the Queen's neck.]
The Elder Woman (running to the vacant side of the bed):
What have you there? Give it to me.
The Younger Woman:
It is mine: I found it.
The Elder Woman:
Leave it.
The Younger Woman:
Let go.
The Elder Woman:
Leave it, I say. Will you not? Will you not? An eye for a jewel, then!
[She attacks the face of the YOUNGER WOMAN with her disengaged hand.]
The Younger Woman (starting back):
Oh!
[The ELDER WOMAN breaks the cord and thrusts the jewel into her pocket.]
The Younger Woman:
Aie! Aie! Aie! Old thief! You are always thieving! You stole a necklace on your wedding day: You could not bear a child, you stole your daughter: You stole a shroud the morn your husband died: Last week you stole the Princess Regan's comb ...
[She stumbles into the chair by the bed, and, throwing her loose sleeves over her head, rocks herself and moans.]
The Elder Woman (resuming her clothes-folding and her song):
"The lady's linen's no longer neat;"-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- "Her savour is neither warm nor sweet; It's close for two in a winding sheet, And lice are too good for worms to eat; So here's no place for me."
[GONERIL enters by the door near the bed: her knife and the hand that holds it are bloody. She pauses a moment irresolutely.]
The Elder Woman:
Still work for old Hrogneda, little Princess?
[GONERIL goes straight to the cauldron, passing the women as if they were not there: she kneels and washes her knife and her hand in it. The women retire to the back of the chamber.]
Goneril (speaking to herself):
The way is easy: and it is to be used. How could this need have been conceived slowly? In a keen mind it should have leapt and burnt: What I have done would have been better done When my sad mother lived and could feel joy. This striking without thought is better than hunting; She showed more terror than an animal, She was more shiftless ... A little blood is lightly washed away, A common stain that need not be remembered; And a hot spasm of rightness quickly born Can guide me to kill justly and shall guide.
[LEAR enters by the door near the bed.]
Lear:
Goneril, Gormflaith, Gormflaith ... Have you seen Gormflaith?
Goneril:
I led her to her chamber lately, Sir.
Lear:
Ay, she is in her chamber. She is there.
Goneril:
Have you been there already? Could you not wait?
Lear:
Daughter, she is bleeding: she is slain.
Goneril (rising from the cauldron with dripping hands):
Yes, she is slain: I did it with a knife: And in this water is dissolved her blood,
(Raising her arms and sprinkling the Queen's body)
That now I scatter on the Queen of death For signal to her spirit that I can slake Her long corrosion of misery with such balm-- Blood for weeping, terror for woe, death for death, A broken body for a broken heart. What will you say against me and my deed?
Lear:
That now you cannot save yourself from me. While your blind virgin power still stood apart In an unused, unviolated life, You judged me in my weakness, and because I felt you unflawed I could not answer you; But you have mingled in mortality And violently begun the common life By fault against your fellows; and the state, The state of Britain that inheres in me Not touched by my humanity or sin, Passions or privy acts, shall be as hard And savage to you as to a murderess.
Goneril (taking a letter from her girdle):
I found a warrant in her favoured bosom, King: She wore this on her heart when you were crowning her.
Lear:
But this is not my hand:
(Looking about him on the floor)
Where is the other letter?
Goneril:
Is there another letter? What should it say?
Lear:
There is no other letter if you have none. (Reading) "Open your window when the moon is dead, And I will come again. The men say everywhere that you are faithless ... And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith." ... This is not hers: she'd not receive such words.
Goneril:
Her name stands twice therein: her perfume fills it: My knife went through it ere I found it on her.
Lear:
The filth is suitably dead. You are my true daughter.
Goneril:
I do not understand how men can govern, Use craft and exercise the duty of cunning, Anticipate treason, treachery meet with treachery, And yet believe a woman because she looks Straight in their eyes with mournful, trustful gaze, And lisps like innocence, all gentleness. Your Gormflaith could not answer a woman's eyes. I did not need to read her in a letter; I am not woman yet, but I can feel What untruths are instinctive in my kind, And how some men desire deceit from us. Come; let these washers do what they must do: Or shall your Queen be wrapped and coffined awry?
[She goes out by the garden doorway.]
Lear:
I thought she had been broken long ago: She must be wedded and broken, I cannot do it.
[He follows GONERIL out. The two women return to the bedside.]
The Elder Woman:
Poor, masterful King, he is no easier, Although his tearful wife is gone at last: A wilful girl shall prick and thwart him now. Old gossip, we must hasten; the Queen is setting. Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes.
The Younger Woman:
Find your own pennies: then you can steal them safely.
The Elder Woman:
Praise you the gods of Britain, as I do praise them, That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, And that I lack your unforgiving mind. Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear And draw away the under sheet for you; Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire-- I never could put damp linen on a corpse.
[She sings.]
The louse made off unhappy and wet;-- Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee-- He's looking for us, the little pet; So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet, And let us be gone with what we can get-- Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet, Her pocket turned out for me.
CURTAIN.
[Footnote 1: Copyright by Gordon Bottomley, 1915, in the United States of America.]
* * * * *
RUPERT BROOKE
TIARE TAHITI
Mamua, when our laughter ends, And hearts and bodies, brown as white, Are dust about the doors of friends, Or scent ablowing down the night, Then, oh! then, the wise agree, Comes our immortality. Mamua, there waits a land Hard for us to understand. Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure are one, And Taû, and the ungainly wise. There the Eternals are, and there The Good, the Lovely, and the True, And Types, whose earthly copies were The foolish broken things we knew; There is the Face, whose ghosts we are; The real, the never-setting Star; And the Flower, of which we love Faint and fading shadows here; Never a tear, but only Grief; Dance, but not the limbs that move; Songs in Song shall disappear; Instead of lovers, Love shall be; For hearts, Immutability; And there, on the Ideal Reef, Thunders the Everlasting Sea!
And my laughter, and my pain, Shall home to the Eternal Brain; And all lovely things, they say, Meet in Loveliness again; Miri's laugh, Teìpo's feet, And the hands of Matua, Stars and sunlight there shall meet, Coral's hues and rainbows there, And Teilra's braided hair; And with the starred 'tiare's' white, And white birds in the dark ravine, And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night, And jewels, and evening's after-green, And dawns of pearl and gold and red, Mamua, your lovelier head! And there'll no more be one who dreams Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff, Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems, All time-entangled human love. And you'll no longer swing and sway Divinely down the scented shade, Where feet to Ambulation fade, And moons are lost in endless Day. How shall we wind these wreaths of ours, Where there are neither heads nor flowers? Oh, Heaven's Heaven!--but we'll be missing The palms, and sunlight, and the south; And there's an end, I think, of kissing, When our mouths are one with Mouth ...
'Taû here', Mamua, Crown the hair, and come away! Hear the calling of the moon, And the whispering scents that stray About the idle warm lagoon. Hasten, hand in human hand, Down the dark, the flowered way, Along the whiteness of the sand, And in the water's soft caress, Wash the mind of foolishness, Mamua, until the day. Spend the glittering moonlight there Pursuing down the soundless deep Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair, Or floating lazy, half-asleep. Dive and double and follow after, Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call, With lips that fade, and human laughter, And faces individual, Well this side of Paradise! ... There's little comfort in the wise.
THE GREAT LOVER
I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and still content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life. Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far, My night shall be remembered for a star That outshone all the suns of all men's days. Shall I not crown them with immortal praise Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see The inenarrable godhead of delight? Love is a flame;--we have beaconed the world's night. A city:--and we have built it, these and I. An emperor:--we have taught the world to die. So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence, And the high cause of Love's magnificence, And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames, And set them as a banner, that men may know, To dare the generations, burn, and blow Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming ...
These I have loved: White plates and cups, clean-gleaming, Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food; Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood; And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers; And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours, Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon; Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen Unpassioned beauty of a great machine; The benison of hot water; furs to touch; The good smell of old clothes; and other such-- The comfortable smell of friendly fingers, Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers About dead leaves and last year's ferns ... Dear names, And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames; Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring; Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing; Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain, Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train; Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home; And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould; Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new; And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;-- All these have been my loves. And these shall pass, Whatever passes not, in the great hour, Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power To hold them with me through the gate of Death. They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath, Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust And sacramented covenant to the dust. --Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake, And give what's left of love again, and make New friends, now strangers... But the best I've known, Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown About the winds of the world, and fades from brains Of living men, and dies. Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again This one last gift I give: that after men Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed, Praise you, 'All these were lovely'; say, 'He loved.'
BEAUTY AND BEAUTY
When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After--after--
Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth's still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, And memory-soft the air, Bosoming, folding glints of light, And shreds of shadowy laughter; Not the tears that fill the years After--after--
HEAVEN
Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat'ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity. We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto mud!--Death eddies near-- Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish.
CLOUDS
Down the blue night the unending columns press In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, As who would pray good for the world, but know Their benediction empty as they bless.
They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth.
SONNET
(Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research)
Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run Down some close-covered by-way of the air, Some low sweet alley between wind and wind, Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there
Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.
THE SOLDIER
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
* * * * *
WILLIAM H. DAVIES
THUNDERSTORMS
My mind has thunderstorms, That brood for heavy hours: Until they rain me words, My thoughts are drooping flowers And sulking, silent birds.
Yet come, dark thunderstorms, And brood your heavy hours; For when you rain me words My thoughts are dancing flowers And joyful singing birds.
THE MIND'S LIBERTY
The mind, with its own eyes and ears, May for these others have no care; No matter where this body is, The mind is free to go elsewhere. My mind can be a sailor, when This body's still confined to land; And turn these mortals into trees, That walk in Fleet Street or the Strand.
So, when I'm passing Charing Cross, Where porters work both night and day, I ofttimes hear sweet Malpas Brook, That flows thrice fifty miles away. And when I'm passing near St Paul's, I see, beyond the dome and crowd, Twm Barlum, that green pap in Gwent, With its dark nipple in a cloud.
THE MOON
Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul, Oh thou fair Moon, so close and bright; Thy beauty makes me like the child That cries aloud to own thy light: The little child that lifts each arm To press thee to her bosom warm.
Though there are birds that sing this night With thy white beams across their throats, Let my deep silence speak for me More than for them their sweetest notes: Who worships thee till music fails, Is greater than thy nightingales.
WHEN ON A SUMMER'S MORN
When on a summer's morn I wake, And open my two eyes, Out to the clear, born-singing rills My bird-like spirit flies,
To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush, Or any bird in song; And common leaves that hum all day, Without a throat or tongue.
And when Time strikes the hour for sleep, Back in my room alone, My heart has many a sweet bird's song-- And one that's all my own.
A GREAT TIME
Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad, Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow-- A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord, How rich and great the times are now! Know, all ye sheep And cows, that keep On staring that I stand so long In grass that's wet from heavy rain-- A rainbow and a cuckoo's song May never come together again; May never come This side the tomb.
THE HAWK
Thou dost not fly, thou art not perched, The air is all around: What is it that can keep thee set, From falling to the ground? The concentration of thy mind Supports thee in the air; As thou dost watch the small young birds, With such a deadly care.
My mind has such a hawk as thou, It is an evil mood; It comes when there's no cause for grief, And on my joys doth brood. Then do I see my life in parts; The earth receives my bones, The common air absorbs my mind-- It knows not flowers from stones.
SWEET STAY-AT-HOME
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content, Thou knowest of no strange continent: Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep A gentle motion with the deep; Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas, Where scent comes forth in every breeze. Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow For miles, as far as eyes can go; Thou hast not seen a summer's night When maids could sew by a worm's light; Nor the North Sea in spring send out Bright hues that like birds flit about In solid cages of white ice-- Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place. Thou hast not seen black fingers pick White cotton when the bloom is thick, Nor heard black throats in harmony; Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie Flat on the earth, that once did rise To hide proud kings from common eyes. Thou hast not seen plains full of bloom Where green things had such little room They pleased the eye like fairer flowers-- Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours. Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place, Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face; For thou hast made more homely stuff Nurture thy gentle self enough; I love thee for a heart that's kind-- Not for the knowledge in thy mind.
A FLEETING PASSION