A DRAMA OF EXILE.
63
This morning as I went forth; and my heart
Hath beat against its petals all the day.
I thought it would be always red and full,
As when I plucked it—Is it?—ye may see!
I cast it down to you that ye may see,
All of you!—count the petals lost of it—
And note the colours fainted! ye may see:
And I am as it is, who yesterday
Grew in the same place. O ye spirits of earth!
I almost, from my miserable heart,
Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart,
Which will not let me, down the slope of death,
Draw any of your pity after me,
Or lie still in the quiet of your looks,
As my flower, there, in mine.
[A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct human voices, spins
around the earth-zodiac; and filling the circle with its
presence, and then wailing off into the east, carries the
flower away with it. Eve falls upon her face. Adam
stands erect.
Adam.So, verily,
The last departs.
Eve.So Memory follows Hope,
And Life both. Love said to me, "Do not die,"
And I replied, "O Love, I will not die.
I exiled and I will not orphan Love."
But now it is no choice of mine to die—
My heart throbs from me.
Adam.Call it straightway back.
Death's consummation crowns completed life,
Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee
For others; if for others, then for thee,—
For thee and me.
[The wind revolves from the east, and round again to the east,
perfumed by the Eden-flower, and full of voices which
sweep out into articulation as they pass.
Let thy soul shake its leaves,
To feel the mystic wind—Hark!
Eve.I hear life.
Hath beat against its petals all the day.
I thought it would be always red and full,
As when I plucked it—Is it?—ye may see!
I cast it down to you that ye may see,
All of you!—count the petals lost of it—
And note the colours fainted! ye may see:
And I am as it is, who yesterday
Grew in the same place. O ye spirits of earth!
I almost, from my miserable heart,
Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart,
Which will not let me, down the slope of death,
Draw any of your pity after me,
Or lie still in the quiet of your looks,
As my flower, there, in mine.
[A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct human voices, spins
around the earth-zodiac; and filling the circle with its
presence, and then wailing off into the east, carries the
flower away with it. Eve falls upon her face. Adam
stands erect.
Adam.So, verily,
The last departs.
Eve.So Memory follows Hope,
And Life both. Love said to me, "Do not die,"
And I replied, "O Love, I will not die.
I exiled and I will not orphan Love."
But now it is no choice of mine to die—
My heart throbs from me.
Adam.Call it straightway back.
Death's consummation crowns completed life,
Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee
For others; if for others, then for thee,—
For thee and me.
[The wind revolves from the east, and round again to the east,
perfumed by the Eden-flower, and full of voices which
sweep out into articulation as they pass.
Let thy soul shake its leaves,
To feel the mystic wind—Hark!
Eve.I hear life.
