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_ [Enter the Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Shade of the Earth, the Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours, Spirit-messengers and Recording Angels.
Europe has now sunk netherward to its far-off position as in the Fore Scene, and it is beheld again as a prone and emaciated figure of which the Alps form the vertebrae, and the branching mountain-chains the ribs, the Spanish Peninsula shaping the head of the ecorche. The lowlands look like a grey-green garment half-thrown off, and the sea around like a disturbed bed on which the figure lies.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thus doth the Great Foresightless mechanize
In blank entrancement now as evermore
Its ceaseless artistries in Circumstance
Of curious stuff and braid, as just forthshown.
Yet but one flimsy riband of Its web
Have we here watched in weaving--web Enorm,
Whose furthest hem and selvage may extend
To where the roars and plashings of the flames
Of earth-invisible suns swell noisily,
And onwards into ghastly gulfs of sky,
Where hideous presences churn through the dark--
Monsters of magnitude without a shape,
Hanging amid deep wells of nothingness.
Yet seems this vast and singular confection
Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size,
Inutile all--so far as reasonings tell.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Thou arguest still the Inadvertent Mind.--
But, even so, shall blankness be for aye?
Men gained cognition with the flux of time,
And wherefore not the Force informing them,
When far-ranged aions past all fathoming
Shall have swung by, and stand as backward years?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What wouldst have hoped and had the Will to be?--
How wouldst have paeaned It, if what hadst dreamed
Thereof were truth, and all my showings dream?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The Will that fed my hope was far from thine,
One I would thus have hymned eternally:--
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES (aerial music)
To Thee whose eye all Nature owns,
Who hurlest Dynasts from their thrones,(26)
And liftest those of low estate
We sing, with Her men consecrate!
SEMICHORUS II
Yea, Great and Good, Thee, Thee we hail,
Who shak'st the strong, Who shield'st the frail,
Who hadst not shaped such souls as we
If tendermercy lacked in Thee!
SEMICHORUS I
Though times be when the mortal moan
Seems unascending to Thy throne,
Though seers do not as yet explain
Why Suffering sobs to Thee in vain;
SEMICHORUS II
We hold that Thy unscanted scope
Affords a food for final Hope,
That mild-eyed Prescience ponders nigh
Life's loom, to lull it by-and-by.
SEMICHORUS I
Therefore we quire to highest height
The Wellwiller, the kindly Might
That balances the Vast for weal,
That purges as by wounds to heal.
SEMICHORUS II
The systemed suns the skies enscroll
Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll,
Ride radiantly at Thy command,
Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!
SEMICHORUS I
And these pale panting multitudes
Seen surging here, their moils, their moods,
All shall "fulfil their joy" in Thee
In Thee abide eternally!
SEMICHORUS II
Exultant adoration give
The Alone, through Whom all living live,
The Alone, in Whom all dying die,
Whose means the End shall justify! Amen.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
So did we evermore, sublimely sing;
So would we now, despise thy forthshowing!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Something of difference animates your quiring,
O half-convinced Compassionates and fond,
From chords consistent with our spectacle!
You almost charm my long philosophy
Out of my strong-built thought, and bear me back
To when I thanksgave thus. . . . Ay, start not, Shades;
In the Foregone I knew what dreaming was,
And could let raptures rule! But not so now.
Yea, I psalmed thus and thus. . . . But not so now.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS (aerial music)
O Immanence, That reasonest not
In putting forth all things begot,
Thou build'st Thy house in space--for what?
SEMICHORUS II
O loveless, Hateless!--past the sense
Of kindly eyed benevolence,
To what tune danceth this Immense?
SPIRIT IRONIC
For one I cannot answer. But I know
'Tis handsome of our Pities so to sing
The praises of the dreaming, dark, dumb Thing
That turns the handle of this idle show!
As once a Greek asked I would fain ask too,
Who knows if all the Spectacle be true,
Or an illusion of the gods (the Will,
To wit) some hocus-pocus to fulfil?
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS (aerial music)
Last as first the question rings
Of the Will's long travailings;
Why the All-mover,
Why the All-prover
Ever urges on and measure out the chordless chime of Things.(27)
SEMICHORUS II
Heaving dumbly
As we deem,
Moulding numbly
As in dream
Apprehending not how fare the sentient subjects of Its scheme.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES
Nay;--shall not Its blindness break?
Yea, must not Its heart awake,
Promptly tending
To Its mending
In a genial germing purpose, and for loving-kindness sake?
SEMICHORUS II
Should it never
Curb or care
Aught whatever
Those endure
Whom It quickens, let them darkle to extinction swift and sure.
CHORUS
But--a stirring thrills the air
Like to sounds of joyance there
That the rages
Of the ages
Shall be cancelled, and deliverance offered from the darts that were,
Consciousness the Will informing, till It fashion all things fair!
Footnotes:
(26)Transcriber's note: This footnote is an excerpt in Greek from
the "Magnificat" canticle, the Latin character equivalent being
"katheile DYNASTAS apo THrono," or "He has put down the mighty
from their thrones."--D.L.
(27)Hor. _Epis._ i, 12.
[THE END]
Thomas Hardy's play: Dynasts: An Epic Drama Of The War With Napoleon
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