Epilogue(THE GRAVEYARD OF SPOON RIVER. TWO VOICES ARE HEARD BEHIND A SCREEN DECORATED WITH DIABOLICAL AND ANGELIC FIGURES IN VARIOUS ALLEGORICAL RELATIONS. A FAINT LIGHT SHOWS DIMLY THROUGH THE SCREEN AS IF IT WERE WOVEN OF LEAVES, BRANCHES AND SHADOWS.)FIRST VOICE.A game of checkers?SECOND VOICEWell, I don’t mind.FIRST VOICEI move the Will.SECOND VOICEYou’re playing it blind.FIRST VOICEThen here’s the Soul.SECOND VOICEChecked by the Will.FIRST VOICEEternal Good!SECOND VOICEAnd Eternal Ill.FIRST VOICEI haste for the King row.SECOND VOICESave your breath.FIRST VOICEI was moving Life.SECOND VOICEYou’re checked by Death.FIRST VOICEVery good, here’s Moses.SECOND VOICEAnd here’s the Jew.FIRST VOICEMy next move is Jesus.SECOND VOICESt. Paul for you!FIRST VOICEYes, but St. Peter—SECOND VOICEYou might have foreseen—FIRST VOICEYou’re in the King row—SECOND VOICEWith Constantine!FIRST VOICEI’ll go back to Athens.SECOND VOICEWell, here’s the Persian.FIRST VOICEAll right, the Bible.SECOND VOICEPray now, what version?FIRST VOICEI take up Buddha.SECOND VOICEIt never will work.FIRST VOICEFrom the corner Mahomet.SECOND VOICEI move the Turk.FIRST VOICEThe game is tangled; where are we now?SECOND VOICEYou’re dreaming worlds. I’m in the King row.Move as you will, if I can’t wreck youI’ll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.FIRST VOICEI’m tired. I’ll send for my Son to play.I think he can beat you finally—SECOND VOICEEh?FIRST VOICEI must preside at the stars’ convention.SECOND VOICEVery well, my lord, but I beg to mentionI’ll give this game my direct attention.FIRST VOICEA game indeed! But Truth is my quest.SECOND VOICEBeaten, you walk away with a jest.I strike the table, I scatter the checkers.(A rattle of a falling table and checkers flying over a floor.)Aha! You armies and iron deckers,Races and states in a cataclysm—Now for a day of atheism!(The screen vanishes andBEELZEBUBsteps forward carrying a trumpet, which he blows faintly. ImmediatelyLOKIandYOCARINDRAstart up from the shadows of night.)BEELZEBUBGood evening, Loki!LOKIThe same to you!BEELZEBUBAnd Yogarindra!YOGARINDRAMy greetings, too.LOKIWhence came you, comrade?BEELZEBUBFrom yonder screen.YOGARINDRAAnd what were you doing?BEELZEBUBStirring His spleen.LOKIHow did you do it?BEELZEBUBI made it roughIn a game of checkers.LOKIGood enough!YOGARINDRAI thought I heard the sounds of a battle.BEELZEBUBNo doubt! I made the checkers rattle,Turning the table over and strewingThe bits of wood like an army pursuing.YOGARINDRAI have a game! Let us make a man.LOKIMy net is waiting him, if you can.YOGARINDRAAnd here’s my mirror to fool him with—BEELZEBUBMystery, falsehood, creed and myth.LOKIBut no one can mold him, friend, but you.BEELZEBUBThen to the sport without more ado.YOGARINDRAHurry the work ere it grow to day.BEELZEBUBI set me to it. Where is the clay?(He scrapes the earth with his hands and begins to model.)BEELZEBUBOut of the dust,Out of the slime,A little rust,And a little lime.Muscle and gristle,Mucin, stoneBrayed with a pestle,Fat and bone.Out of the marshes,Out of the vaults,Matter crushesGas and salts.What is this you call a mind,Flitting, drifting, pale and blind,Soul of the swamp that rides the wind?Jack-o’-lantern, here you are!Dream of heaven, pine for a star,Chase your brothers to and fro,Back to the swamp at last you’ll go.Hilloo! Hilloo!THE VALLEYHilloo! Hilloo!(Beelzebub in scraping up the earth turns out a skull.)BEELZEBUBOld one, old one.Now ere I break youCrush you and make youClay for my use,Let me observe you:You were a bold oneFlat at the dome of you,Heavy the base of you,False to the home of you,Strong was the face of you,Strange to all fears.Yet did the hair of youHide what you were.Now to re-nerve you—(He crushes the skull between his hands and mixes it with the clay.)Now you are dust,Limestone and rust.I mold and I stirAnd make you again.THE VALLEYAgain? Again?(In the same mannerBEELZEBUBhas fashioned several figures, standing them against the trees.)LOKINow for the breath of life. As I rememberYou have done right to mold your creatures first,And stand them up.BEELZEBUBFrom gravitationI make the will.YOGARINDRAOut of sensationComes his ill.Out of my mirrorSprings his error.Who was so cruelTo make him the slaveOf me the sorceress, you the knave,And you the plotter to catch his thought,Whatever he did, whatever he sought?With a nature dualOf will and mind,A thing that sees, and a thing that’s blind.Come! to our dance! Something hated himMade us over him, therefore fated him.(They join hands and dance.)LOKIPassion, reason, custom, ruels,Creeds of the churches, lore of the schools,Taint in the blood and strength of soul.Flesh too weak for the will’s control;Poverty, riches, pride of birth,Wailing, laughter, over the earth.Here I have you caught again.Enter my web, ye sons of men.YOGARINDRALook in my mirror! Isn’t it real?What do you think now, what do you feel?Here is treasure of gold heaped up;Here is wine in the festal cup.Tendrils blossoming, turned to whips,Love with her breasts and scarlet lips.Breathe in their nostrils.BEELZEBUBFalsehood’s breath,Out of nothingness into death.Out of the mold, out of the rocks,Wonder, mockery, paradox!Soaring spirit, groveling flesh,Bait the trap, and spread the mesh.Give him hunger, lure him with truth,Give him the iris hopes of Youth.Starve him, shame him, fling him down,Whirled in the vortex of the town.Break him, age him, till he curseThe idiot face of the universe.Over and over we mix the clay,—What was dust is alive to-day.THE THREEThus is the hell-born tangle woundSwiftly, swiftly round and round.BEELZEBUB(Waving his trumpet.)You live! Away!ONE OF THE FIGURESHow strange and new!I am I, and another, too.ANOTHER FIGUREI was a sun-dew’s leaf, but nowWhat is this longing?—ANOTHER FIGUREEarth belowI was a seedling magnet-tippedDrawn down earth—ANOTHER FIGUREAnd I was grippedElectrons in a granite stone,Now I think.ANOTHER FIGUREOh, how alone!ANOTHER FIGUREMy lips to thine. Through thee I findSomething alone by love divined!BEELZEBUBBegone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends;Let s give a play.(He waves his trumpet.)To yonder green rooms go.(The figures disappear.)YOGARINDRAOh, yes, a play! That’s very well, I think,But who will be the audience? I must throwIllusion over all.LOKIAnd I must shiftThe scenery, and tangle up the plot.BEELZEBUBWell, so you shall! Our audience shall comeFrom yonder graves.(He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights.BEELZEBUBstands before the curtain.)BEELZEBUB(A terrific blast of the trumpet.)Who-o-o-o-o-o!(Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.)A VOICEGabriel! Gabriel!MANY VOICESThe Judgment day!BEELZEBUBBe quiet, if you pleaseAt least until the stars fall and the moon.MANY VOICESSave us! Save us!(Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and restores order.)BEELZEBUBLadies and gentlemen, your kind attentionTo my interpretation of the scene.I rise to give your fancy comprehension,And analyze the parts of the machine.My mood is such that I would not deceive you,Though still a liar and the father of it,From judgment’s frailty I would retrieve you,Though falsehood is my art and though I love it.Down in the habitations whence I rise,The roots of human sorrow boundless spread.Long have I watched them draw the strength that liesIn clay made richer by the rotting dead.Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk,Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime;And here a growth that sprawls across the walk,Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime.The ruddy apple with a core of corkSprings from a root which in a hollow dangles,Not skillful husbandry nor laborious workCan save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles.Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flowerBut that those insects multiply and grow,Which make it food, and in the very hourIn which the veined leaves and blossoms blow?Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing,Turn crooked branches covered o’er with scale?Why does the tree whose youth was not assuringProsper and bear while all its fellows fail?I under earth see much. I know the soil.I know where mold is heavy and where thin.I see the stones that thwart the plowman’s toil,The crooked roots of what the priests call sin.I know all secrets, even to the core,What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel;It cannot change howe’er the field’s worked o’er.Man’s what he is and that’s the devil’s moral.So with the souls of the ensuing dramaThey sprang from certain seed in certain earth.Behold them in the devil’s cyclorama,Shown in their proper light for all they’re worth.Now to my task: I’ll give an exhibitionOf mixing the ingredients of spirit.(He waves his hand.)Come, crucible, perform your magic mission,Come, recreative fire, and hover near it!I’ll make a soul, or show how one is made.(He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.)This is the woman you shall see anon!(A red flame appears.)This hectic flame makes all the world afraid:It was a soldier’s scourge which ate the bone.His daughter bore the lady of the action.And died at thirty-nine of scrofula.She was a creature of a sweet attraction,Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw.(A purple flame appears.)Lo! this denotes aristocratic strainsBack in the centuries of France’s glory.(A blue flame appears.)And this the will that pulls against the chainsHer father strove until his hair was hoary.Sorrow and failure made his nature cold.He never loved the child whose woe is shown,And hence her passion for the things which goldBrings in this world of pride, and brings alone.The human heart that’s famished from its birthTurns to the grosser treasures, that is plain.Thus aspiration fallen fills the earthWith jungle growths of bitterness and pain.Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine!Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud.False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o’ sin.A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed.Now if she meet a man—suppose our hero,With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix,As if she were her Borgia to his Nero,’Twill look like one of Satan’s little tricks!However, it must be. The world’s great gardenIs not all mine. I only sow the tares.Wheat should be made immune, or else the WardenShould stop their coming in the world’s affairs.But to our hero! Long ere he was bornI knew what would repel him and attract.Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn,I can prognosticate before the fact.(A yellow flame appears.)This is a grandsire’s treason in an orchardAgainst a maid whose nature with his mated.(Lurid flames appear.)And this his memory distrait and tortured,Which marked the child with hate because she hated.Our heroine’s grand dame was that maid’s own cousin—But never this our man and woman knew.The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen,Then wed a gentleman upright and true.And thus our hero had a double nature:One half of him was bad, the other good.The devil must exhaust his nomenclatureTo make this puzzle rightly understood.But when our hero and our heroine metThey were at once attracted, the repulsionWas hidden under Passion, with her netWhich must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion.The virus coursing in the soldier’s blood,The orchard’s ghost, the unknown kinship ’twixt them,Our hero’s mother’s lovers round them stood,Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them.This twain pledge vows and marry, that’s the play.And then the tragic features rise and deepen.He is a tender husband. When awayThe serpents from the orchard slyly creep in.Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal,Picks fruit of knowledge—leaves the tree of life.Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal,Soon she forgets her duty as a wife.You know the rest, so far as that’s concerned,She met exposure and her husband slew her.He lost his reason, for the love she spurned.He prized her as his own—how slight he knew her.(He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.)Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows—He could not tell his story—he is dumb.Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows,I call it suffering and martyrdom.The judge with pointed finger says, “You killed her.”Well, so he did—but here’s the explanation;He could not give it. I, the drama-builder,Show you the various truths and their relation.(He waves his wand.)Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending,They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn.Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending—The author calls the play “Laocoon.”A VOICEOnly an earth dream.ANOTHER VOICEWith which we are done.A flash of a cometUpon the earth stream.ANOTHER VOICEA dream twrice removed,A spectral confusionOf earth’s dread illusion.A FAR VOICEThese are the ghostsFrom the desolate coasts.Would you go to them?Only pursue them.Whatever enshrined isWithin you is you.In a place where no wind is,Out of the damps,Be ye as lamps.Flame-like aspire,To me alone true,The Life and the Fire.(BEELZEBUB, LOKIandYOGARINDRAvanish. The phantasmagoria fades out. Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.)FIRST VOICEThe springtime is come, the winter departed.She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted.The sun is returning,We are done with alarms,Earth lifts her face burning,Held close in his arms.The sun is an eagleWho broods o’er his young,The earth is his nurslingIn whom he has flungThe life-flame in seed,In blossom desire,Till fire become life,And life become fire.SECOND VOICEI slip and I vanish,I baffle your eye;I dive and I climb,I change and I fly.You have me, you lose me,Who have me too well,Now find me and use me—I am here in a cell.THIRD VOICEYou are there in a cell?Oh, now for a rodWith which to divine you—SECOND VOICENay, child, I am God.FOURTH VOICEWhen the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under the hill,In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign,The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying “Fulfill!Awaken roots under cover of soil—it is Spring again.”Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voicesCall to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams.And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that rejoicesIn the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams.I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river.Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep.Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever?Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.THE SUNOver the soundless depths of space for a hundred million milesSpeeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire.Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles,I but a luminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire.What is my universe that obeys me—myself compelled to obeyA power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end?And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life and day,Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend.A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of nightWere hung before creation’s flame, that shone through the weave of the cloth,Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward for light,For each is drawn in its course to what?—as the candle draws the moth.THE MILKY WAYOrbits unending,Life never ending,Power without end.A VOICEWouldst thou be lord,Not peace but a sword.Not heart’s desire—Ever aspire.Worship thy power,Conquer thy hour,Sleep not but strive,So shalt thou live.INFINITE DEPTHSInfinite Law,Infinite Life.
(THE GRAVEYARD OF SPOON RIVER. TWO VOICES ARE HEARD BEHIND A SCREEN DECORATED WITH DIABOLICAL AND ANGELIC FIGURES IN VARIOUS ALLEGORICAL RELATIONS. A FAINT LIGHT SHOWS DIMLY THROUGH THE SCREEN AS IF IT WERE WOVEN OF LEAVES, BRANCHES AND SHADOWS.)
FIRST VOICE.A game of checkers?
SECOND VOICEWell, I don’t mind.
FIRST VOICEI move the Will.
SECOND VOICEYou’re playing it blind.
FIRST VOICEThen here’s the Soul.
SECOND VOICEChecked by the Will.
FIRST VOICEEternal Good!
SECOND VOICEAnd Eternal Ill.
FIRST VOICEI haste for the King row.
SECOND VOICESave your breath.
FIRST VOICEI was moving Life.
SECOND VOICEYou’re checked by Death.
FIRST VOICEVery good, here’s Moses.
SECOND VOICEAnd here’s the Jew.
FIRST VOICEMy next move is Jesus.
SECOND VOICESt. Paul for you!
FIRST VOICEYes, but St. Peter—
SECOND VOICEYou might have foreseen—
FIRST VOICEYou’re in the King row—
SECOND VOICEWith Constantine!
FIRST VOICEI’ll go back to Athens.
SECOND VOICEWell, here’s the Persian.
FIRST VOICEAll right, the Bible.
SECOND VOICEPray now, what version?
FIRST VOICEI take up Buddha.
SECOND VOICEIt never will work.
FIRST VOICEFrom the corner Mahomet.
SECOND VOICEI move the Turk.
FIRST VOICEThe game is tangled; where are we now?
SECOND VOICEYou’re dreaming worlds. I’m in the King row.Move as you will, if I can’t wreck youI’ll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.
FIRST VOICEI’m tired. I’ll send for my Son to play.I think he can beat you finally—
SECOND VOICEEh?
FIRST VOICEI must preside at the stars’ convention.
SECOND VOICEVery well, my lord, but I beg to mentionI’ll give this game my direct attention.
FIRST VOICEA game indeed! But Truth is my quest.
SECOND VOICEBeaten, you walk away with a jest.I strike the table, I scatter the checkers.(A rattle of a falling table and checkers flying over a floor.)Aha! You armies and iron deckers,Races and states in a cataclysm—Now for a day of atheism!
(The screen vanishes andBEELZEBUBsteps forward carrying a trumpet, which he blows faintly. ImmediatelyLOKIandYOCARINDRAstart up from the shadows of night.)
BEELZEBUBGood evening, Loki!
LOKIThe same to you!
BEELZEBUBAnd Yogarindra!
YOGARINDRAMy greetings, too.
LOKIWhence came you, comrade?
BEELZEBUBFrom yonder screen.
YOGARINDRAAnd what were you doing?
BEELZEBUBStirring His spleen.
LOKIHow did you do it?
BEELZEBUBI made it roughIn a game of checkers.
LOKIGood enough!
YOGARINDRAI thought I heard the sounds of a battle.
BEELZEBUBNo doubt! I made the checkers rattle,Turning the table over and strewingThe bits of wood like an army pursuing.
YOGARINDRAI have a game! Let us make a man.
LOKIMy net is waiting him, if you can.
YOGARINDRAAnd here’s my mirror to fool him with—
BEELZEBUBMystery, falsehood, creed and myth.
LOKIBut no one can mold him, friend, but you.
BEELZEBUBThen to the sport without more ado.
YOGARINDRAHurry the work ere it grow to day.
BEELZEBUBI set me to it. Where is the clay?(He scrapes the earth with his hands and begins to model.)
BEELZEBUBOut of the dust,Out of the slime,A little rust,And a little lime.Muscle and gristle,Mucin, stoneBrayed with a pestle,Fat and bone.Out of the marshes,Out of the vaults,Matter crushesGas and salts.What is this you call a mind,Flitting, drifting, pale and blind,Soul of the swamp that rides the wind?Jack-o’-lantern, here you are!Dream of heaven, pine for a star,Chase your brothers to and fro,Back to the swamp at last you’ll go.Hilloo! Hilloo!
THE VALLEYHilloo! Hilloo!(Beelzebub in scraping up the earth turns out a skull.)
BEELZEBUBOld one, old one.Now ere I break youCrush you and make youClay for my use,Let me observe you:You were a bold oneFlat at the dome of you,Heavy the base of you,False to the home of you,Strong was the face of you,Strange to all fears.Yet did the hair of youHide what you were.Now to re-nerve you—
(He crushes the skull between his hands and mixes it with the clay.)
Now you are dust,Limestone and rust.I mold and I stirAnd make you again.
THE VALLEYAgain? Again?
(In the same mannerBEELZEBUBhas fashioned several figures, standing them against the trees.)
LOKINow for the breath of life. As I rememberYou have done right to mold your creatures first,And stand them up.
BEELZEBUBFrom gravitationI make the will.
YOGARINDRAOut of sensationComes his ill.Out of my mirrorSprings his error.Who was so cruelTo make him the slaveOf me the sorceress, you the knave,And you the plotter to catch his thought,Whatever he did, whatever he sought?With a nature dualOf will and mind,A thing that sees, and a thing that’s blind.Come! to our dance! Something hated himMade us over him, therefore fated him.
(They join hands and dance.)
LOKIPassion, reason, custom, ruels,Creeds of the churches, lore of the schools,Taint in the blood and strength of soul.Flesh too weak for the will’s control;Poverty, riches, pride of birth,Wailing, laughter, over the earth.Here I have you caught again.Enter my web, ye sons of men.
YOGARINDRALook in my mirror! Isn’t it real?What do you think now, what do you feel?Here is treasure of gold heaped up;Here is wine in the festal cup.Tendrils blossoming, turned to whips,Love with her breasts and scarlet lips.Breathe in their nostrils.
BEELZEBUBFalsehood’s breath,Out of nothingness into death.Out of the mold, out of the rocks,Wonder, mockery, paradox!Soaring spirit, groveling flesh,Bait the trap, and spread the mesh.Give him hunger, lure him with truth,Give him the iris hopes of Youth.Starve him, shame him, fling him down,Whirled in the vortex of the town.Break him, age him, till he curseThe idiot face of the universe.Over and over we mix the clay,—What was dust is alive to-day.
THE THREEThus is the hell-born tangle woundSwiftly, swiftly round and round.
BEELZEBUB(Waving his trumpet.)You live! Away!
ONE OF THE FIGURESHow strange and new!I am I, and another, too.
ANOTHER FIGUREI was a sun-dew’s leaf, but nowWhat is this longing?—
ANOTHER FIGUREEarth belowI was a seedling magnet-tippedDrawn down earth—
ANOTHER FIGUREAnd I was grippedElectrons in a granite stone,Now I think.
ANOTHER FIGUREOh, how alone!
ANOTHER FIGUREMy lips to thine. Through thee I findSomething alone by love divined!
BEELZEBUBBegone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends;Let s give a play.
(He waves his trumpet.)
To yonder green rooms go.
(The figures disappear.)
YOGARINDRAOh, yes, a play! That’s very well, I think,But who will be the audience? I must throwIllusion over all.
LOKIAnd I must shiftThe scenery, and tangle up the plot.
BEELZEBUBWell, so you shall! Our audience shall comeFrom yonder graves.
(He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights.BEELZEBUBstands before the curtain.)
BEELZEBUB(A terrific blast of the trumpet.)Who-o-o-o-o-o!
(Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.)
A VOICEGabriel! Gabriel!
MANY VOICESThe Judgment day!
BEELZEBUBBe quiet, if you pleaseAt least until the stars fall and the moon.
MANY VOICESSave us! Save us!
(Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and restores order.)
BEELZEBUBLadies and gentlemen, your kind attentionTo my interpretation of the scene.I rise to give your fancy comprehension,And analyze the parts of the machine.My mood is such that I would not deceive you,Though still a liar and the father of it,From judgment’s frailty I would retrieve you,Though falsehood is my art and though I love it.Down in the habitations whence I rise,The roots of human sorrow boundless spread.Long have I watched them draw the strength that liesIn clay made richer by the rotting dead.Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk,Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime;And here a growth that sprawls across the walk,Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime.The ruddy apple with a core of corkSprings from a root which in a hollow dangles,Not skillful husbandry nor laborious workCan save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles.Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flowerBut that those insects multiply and grow,Which make it food, and in the very hourIn which the veined leaves and blossoms blow?Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing,Turn crooked branches covered o’er with scale?Why does the tree whose youth was not assuringProsper and bear while all its fellows fail?I under earth see much. I know the soil.I know where mold is heavy and where thin.I see the stones that thwart the plowman’s toil,The crooked roots of what the priests call sin.I know all secrets, even to the core,What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel;It cannot change howe’er the field’s worked o’er.Man’s what he is and that’s the devil’s moral.So with the souls of the ensuing dramaThey sprang from certain seed in certain earth.Behold them in the devil’s cyclorama,Shown in their proper light for all they’re worth.Now to my task: I’ll give an exhibitionOf mixing the ingredients of spirit.
(He waves his hand.)
Come, crucible, perform your magic mission,Come, recreative fire, and hover near it!I’ll make a soul, or show how one is made.
(He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.)
This is the woman you shall see anon!
(A red flame appears.)
This hectic flame makes all the world afraid:It was a soldier’s scourge which ate the bone.His daughter bore the lady of the action.And died at thirty-nine of scrofula.She was a creature of a sweet attraction,Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw.
(A purple flame appears.)
Lo! this denotes aristocratic strainsBack in the centuries of France’s glory.
(A blue flame appears.)
And this the will that pulls against the chainsHer father strove until his hair was hoary.Sorrow and failure made his nature cold.He never loved the child whose woe is shown,And hence her passion for the things which goldBrings in this world of pride, and brings alone.The human heart that’s famished from its birthTurns to the grosser treasures, that is plain.Thus aspiration fallen fills the earthWith jungle growths of bitterness and pain.Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine!Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud.False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o’ sin.A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed.Now if she meet a man—suppose our hero,With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix,As if she were her Borgia to his Nero,’Twill look like one of Satan’s little tricks!However, it must be. The world’s great gardenIs not all mine. I only sow the tares.Wheat should be made immune, or else the WardenShould stop their coming in the world’s affairs.But to our hero! Long ere he was bornI knew what would repel him and attract.Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn,I can prognosticate before the fact.
(A yellow flame appears.)
This is a grandsire’s treason in an orchardAgainst a maid whose nature with his mated.
(Lurid flames appear.)
And this his memory distrait and tortured,Which marked the child with hate because she hated.Our heroine’s grand dame was that maid’s own cousin—But never this our man and woman knew.The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen,Then wed a gentleman upright and true.And thus our hero had a double nature:One half of him was bad, the other good.The devil must exhaust his nomenclatureTo make this puzzle rightly understood.But when our hero and our heroine metThey were at once attracted, the repulsionWas hidden under Passion, with her netWhich must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion.The virus coursing in the soldier’s blood,The orchard’s ghost, the unknown kinship ’twixt them,Our hero’s mother’s lovers round them stood,Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them.This twain pledge vows and marry, that’s the play.And then the tragic features rise and deepen.He is a tender husband. When awayThe serpents from the orchard slyly creep in.Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal,Picks fruit of knowledge—leaves the tree of life.Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal,Soon she forgets her duty as a wife.You know the rest, so far as that’s concerned,She met exposure and her husband slew her.He lost his reason, for the love she spurned.He prized her as his own—how slight he knew her.(He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.)Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows—He could not tell his story—he is dumb.Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows,I call it suffering and martyrdom.The judge with pointed finger says, “You killed her.”Well, so he did—but here’s the explanation;He could not give it. I, the drama-builder,Show you the various truths and their relation.(He waves his wand.)Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending,They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn.Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending—The author calls the play “Laocoon.”
A VOICEOnly an earth dream.
ANOTHER VOICEWith which we are done.A flash of a cometUpon the earth stream.
ANOTHER VOICEA dream twrice removed,A spectral confusionOf earth’s dread illusion.
A FAR VOICEThese are the ghostsFrom the desolate coasts.Would you go to them?Only pursue them.Whatever enshrined isWithin you is you.In a place where no wind is,Out of the damps,Be ye as lamps.Flame-like aspire,To me alone true,The Life and the Fire.
(BEELZEBUB, LOKIandYOGARINDRAvanish. The phantasmagoria fades out. Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.)
FIRST VOICEThe springtime is come, the winter departed.She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted.The sun is returning,We are done with alarms,Earth lifts her face burning,Held close in his arms.The sun is an eagleWho broods o’er his young,The earth is his nurslingIn whom he has flungThe life-flame in seed,In blossom desire,Till fire become life,And life become fire.
SECOND VOICEI slip and I vanish,I baffle your eye;I dive and I climb,I change and I fly.You have me, you lose me,Who have me too well,Now find me and use me—I am here in a cell.
THIRD VOICEYou are there in a cell?Oh, now for a rodWith which to divine you—
SECOND VOICENay, child, I am God.
FOURTH VOICEWhen the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under the hill,In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign,The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying “Fulfill!Awaken roots under cover of soil—it is Spring again.”Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voicesCall to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams.And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that rejoicesIn the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams.I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river.Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep.Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever?Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.
THE SUNOver the soundless depths of space for a hundred million milesSpeeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire.Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles,I but a luminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire.What is my universe that obeys me—myself compelled to obeyA power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end?And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life and day,Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend.A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of nightWere hung before creation’s flame, that shone through the weave of the cloth,Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward for light,For each is drawn in its course to what?—as the candle draws the moth.
THE MILKY WAYOrbits unending,Life never ending,Power without end.
A VOICEWouldst thou be lord,Not peace but a sword.Not heart’s desire—Ever aspire.Worship thy power,Conquer thy hour,Sleep not but strive,So shalt thou live.
INFINITE DEPTHSInfinite Law,Infinite Life.