Ther Who First Bore You. O Yes! A Chid Of Heavenly Birth! But Yet It Was Born Too On Earth. Keep Your New Birth For That Far Day When In The Grave Your Bones You Lay, All With Your Kindred And Connection, In Hopes Of Happy Resurrection. But How Meantime To Live Is Fit, Ask Common Sense; And What Says It? Submit, Submit! Scene Vi. On A Bridge. Di. 'Tis Gone, The Fierce Inordinate Desire, The Burning Thirst For Action-Utterly; Gone, Like A Ship That Passes In The Night On The High Seas: Gone, Yet Will Come Again Gone, Yet Expresses Something That Exists. Is It A Thing Ordained, Then? Is It A Clue For My Life'S Conduct? Is It A Law For Me That Opportunity Shall Breed Distrust, Not Passing Until That Pass? Chance And Resolve, Like Two Loose Comets Wandering Wide In Space, Crossing Each Other'S Orbits Time On Time, Meet Never. Void Indifference And Doubt Let Through The Present Boon, Which Ne'er Turns Back To Await The After Sure-Arriving Wish. How Shall I Then Explain It To Myself, That In Blank Thought My Purpose Lives? The Uncharged Cannon Mocking Still The Spark When Come, Which Ere Come It Had Loudly Claimed. Am I To Let It Be So Still? For Truly The Need Exists, I Know; The Wish But Sleeps (Sleeps, And Anon Will Wake And Cry For Food); And To Put By These Unreturning Gifts, Because The Feeling Is Not With Me Now, Seems Folly More Than Merest Babyhood'S. But Must I Then Do Violence To Myself, And Push On Nature, Force Desire (That's Ill), Because Of Knowledge? Which Is Great, But Works By Rules Of Large Exception; To Tell Which Nought Is More Fallible Than Mere Caprice. What Need For Action Yet? I Am Happy Now, I Feel No Lack What Cause Is There For Haste? Am I Not Happy I Is Not That Enough? Depart! Sp. O Yes! You Thought You Had Escaped, No Doubt, This Worldly Fiend That Follows You About, This Compound Of Convention And Impiety, This Mongrel Of Uncleanness And Propriety. What Else Were Bad Enough? But, Let Me Say, I Too Have My Grandes Mani'res In My Way; Could Speak High Sentiment As Well As You, And Out-Blank-Verse You Without Much Ado; Have My Religion Also In My Kind, For Dreaming Unfit, Because Not Designed. What! You Know Not That I Too Can Be Serious, Can Speak Big Words, And Use The Tone Imperious; Can Speak, Not Honiedly, Of Love And Beauty, But Sternly Of A Something Much Like Duty. Oh, Do You Look Surprised? Were Never Told, Perhaps, That All That Glitters Is Not Gold. The Devil Oft The Holy Scripture Uses, But God Can Act The Devil When He Chooses. Farewell! But, Verbum Sapienti Satis I Do Not Make This Revelation Gratis. Farewell: Beware! Di. Ill Spirits Can Quote Holy Books I Knew; What Will They Not Say? What Not Dare To Do? Sp. Beware, Beware! Di. What, Loitering Still? Still, O Foul Spirit, There? Go Hence, I Tell Thee, Go! I Will Beware. (Alone). It Must Be Then. I Feel It In My Soul; The Iron Enters, Sundering Flesh And Bone, And Sharper Than The Two-Edged Sword Of God. I Come Into Deep Waters Help, Oh Help! The Floods Run Over Me. Therefore, Farewell! A Long And Last Farewell, Ye Pious Sweet Simplicities Of Life, Good Books, Good Friends, And Holy Moods, And All That Lent Rough Life Sweet Sunday-Seeming Rests, Making Earth Heaven Like. Welcome, Wicked World, The Hardening Heart, The Calculating Brain Narrowing Its Doors To Thought, The Lying Lips, The Calm-Dissembling Eyes; The Greedy Flesh, The World, The Devil Welcome, Welcome, Welcome! Sp. (From Within). This Stern Necessity Of Things On Every Side Our Being Rings; Our Sallying Eager Actions Fall Vainly Against That Iron Wall. Where Once Her Finger Points The Way, The Wise Thinks Only To Obey; Take Life As She Has Ordered It, And Come What May Of It, Submit, Submit, Submit! Who Take Implicitly Her Will, For These Her Vassal Chances Still Bring Store Of Joys, Successes, Pleasures; But Whoso Ponders, Weighs, And Measures, She Calls Her Torturers Up To Goad With Spur And Scourges On The Road; He Does At Last With Pain Whate'Er He Spurned At First. Of Such, Beware, Beware, Beware! Di. O God, O God! The Great Floods Of The Soul Flow Over Me! I Come Into Deep Waters Where No Ground Is! Sp. Don't Be The Least Afraid; There'S Not The Slightest Reason For Alarm; I Only Meant By A Perhaps Rough Shake To Rouse You From A Dreamy, Unhealthy Sleep. Up, Then Up, And Be Going: The Large World, The Throng'D Life Waits Us. Come, My Pretty Boy, You Have Been Making Mows To The Blank Sky Quite Long Enough For Good. We'll Put You Up Into The Higher Form. 'Tis Time You Learn The Second Reverence, For Things Around. Up, Then, And Go Amongst Them; Don't Be Timid; Look At Them Quietly A Bit; By And By Respect Will Come, And Healthy Appetite. So Let Us Go. How Now! Not Yet Awake? Oh, You Will Sleep Yet, Will You! Oh, You Shirk, You Try And Slink Away! You Cannot, Eh? Nay Now, What Folly'S This? Why Will You Fool Yourself? Why Will You Walk About Thus With Your Eyes Shut? Treating For Facts The Self-Made Hues That Flash On Tight-Pressed Pupils, Which You Know Are Not Facts. To Use The Undistorted Light Of The Sun Is Not A Crime; To Look Straight Out Upon The Big Plain Things That Stare One In The Face Does Not Contaminate; To See Pollutes Not What One Must Feel If One Won't See, What Is, And Will Be Too, Howe'Er We Blink, And Must One Way Or Other Make Itself Observed. Free Walking'S Better Than Being Led About; And What Will The Blind Man Do, I Wonder, If Some One Should Cut The String Of His Dog? Just Think! What Could You Do, If I Should Go Away? Oh, You Have Paths Of Your Own Before You, Have You? What Shall It Take To? Literature, No Doubt? Novels, Reviews? Or Poems! If You Please! The Strong Fresh Gale Of Life Will Feel, No Doubt, The Influx Of Your Mouthful Of Soft Air. Well, Make The Most Of That Small Stock Of Knowledge You've Condescended To Receive From Me; That's Your Best Chance. Oh, You Despise That! Oh, Prate Then Of Passions You Have Known In Dreams, Of Huge Experience Gathered By The Eye; Be Large Of Aspiration, Pure In Hope, Sweet In Fond Longings, But In All Things Vague; Breathe Out Your Dreamy Scepticism, Relieved By Snatches Of Old Songs. People Will Like That, Doubtless. Or Will You Write About Philosophy For A Waste Far-Off Maybe Overlooking The Fruitful Is Close By, Live In Metaphysic, With Transcendental Logic Fill Your Stomach, Schematize Joy, Effigiate Meat And Drink; Or, Let Me See, A Mighty Work, A Volume, The Complemental Of The Inferior Kant, The Critic Of Pure Practice, Based Upon The Antinomies Of The Moral Sense: For, Look You, We Cannot Act Without Assuming X, And At The Same Time Y, Its Contradictory; Ergo, To Act. People Will Buy That, Doubtless. Or You'll Perhaps Teach Youth (I Do Not Question Some Downward Turn You May Find, Some Evasion Of The Broad Highway'S Glaring White Ascent); Teach Youth, In A Small Way, That Is, Always, So As To Have Much Time Left You For Yourself; This You Can't Sacrifice, Your Leisure'S Precious. Heartily You Will Not Take To Anything; Whatever Happen, Don't I See You Still, Living No Life At All? Even As Now An O'Ergrown Baby, Sucking At The Dugs Of Instinct, Dry Long Since. Come, Come, You Are Old Enough For Spoon-Meat Surely. Will You Go On Thus Until Death End You? If Indeed It Does. For What It Does, None Knows. Yet As For You, You'll Hardly Have The Courage To Die Outright; You'll Somehow Halve Even It. Methinks I See You, Through Everlasting Limbos Of Void Time, Twirling And Twiddling Ineffectively, And Indeterminately Swaying For Ever. Come, Come, Spoon-Meat At Any Rate. Well, Well, I Will Not Persecute You More, My Friend. Only Do Think, As I Observed Before, What Can You Do, If I Should Go Away? Di. Is The Hour Here, Then? Is The Minute Come The Irreprievable Instant Of Stern Time? O For A Few, Few Grains In The Running Glass, Or For Some Power To Hold Them! O For A Few Of All That Went So Wastefully Before! It Must Be Then, E'En Now. Sp. (From Within). It Must, It Must. 'Tis Common Sense! And Human Wit Can Claim No Higher Name Than It. Submit, Submit! Necessity! And Who Shall Dare Bring To Her Feet Excuse Or Prayer? Beware, Beware! We Must, We Must. Howe'Er We Turn, And Pause And Tremble Howe'Er We Shrink, Deceive, Dissemble Whate'Er Our Doubting, Grief, Disgust, The Hand Is On Us, And We Must, We Must, We Must. 'Tis Common Sense, And Human Wit Can Find No Better Name Than It. Submit, Submit! Scene Vii. At Torcello. Dipsychus Alone. Di. I Had A Vision; Was It In My Sleep? And If It Were, What Then? But Sleep Or Wake, I Saw A Great Light Open O'Er My Head; And Sleep Or Wake, Uplifted To That Light, Out Of That Light Proceeding Heard A Voice Uttering High Words, Which, Whether Sleep Or Wake, In Me Were Fixed, And In Me Must Abide. When The Enemy Is Near Thee, Call On Us! In Our Hands We Will Upbear Thee, He Shall Neither Scathe Nor Scare Thee, He Shall Fly Thee, And Shall Fear Thee. Call On Us! Call When All Good Friends Have Left Thee, Of All Good Sights And Sounds Bereft Thee; Call When Hope And Heart Are Sinking, And The Brain Is Sick With Thinking, Help, O Help! Call, And Following Close Behind Thee There Shall Haste, And There Shall Find Thee, Help, Sure Help. When The Panic Comes Upon Thee, When Necessity Seems On Thee, Hope And Choice Have All Foregone Thee, Fate And Force Are Closing O'Er Thee, And But One Way Stands Before Thee Call On Us O, And If Thou Dost Not Call, Be But Faithful, That Is All. Go Right On, And Close Behind Thee There Shall Follow Still And Find Thee, Help, Sure Help. Scene Viii. In The Piazza. Di. Not For Thy Service, Thou Imperious Fiend Not To Do Thy Work, Or The Like Of Thine; Not To Please Thee, O Base And Fallen Spirit! But One Most High, Most True, Whom Without Thee It Seems I Cannot. O The Misery That One Must Truck And Pactise With The World To Gain The 'Vantage-Ground To Assail It From; To Set Upon The Giant One Must First, O Perfidy! Have Eat The Giant'S Bread. If I Submit, It Is But To Gain Time And Arms And Stature: 'Tis But To Lie Safe Until The Hour Strike To Arise And Slay; 'Tis The Old Story Of The Adder'S Brood Feeding And Nestling Till The Fangs Be Grown. Were It Not Nobler Done, Then, To Act Fair, To Accept The Service With The Wages, Do Frankly The Devil'S Work For The Devil'S Pay? O, But Another My Allegiance Holds Inalienably His. How Much Soe'Er I Might Submit, It Must Be To Rebel. Submit Then Sullenly, That's No Dishonour. Yet I Could Deem It Better Too To Starve And Die Untraitored. O, Who Sent Me, Though? Sent Me, And To Do Something O Hard Master' To Do A Treachery. But Indeed 'Tis Done; I Have Already Taken Of The Pay And Curst The Payer; Take I Must, Curse Too. Alas! The Little Strength That I Possess Derives, I Think, Of Him. So Still It Is, The Timid Child That Clung Unto Her Skirts, A Boy, Will Slight His Mother, And, Grown A Man, His Father Too. There'S Scripture Too For That! Do We Owe Fathers Nothing Mothers Nought? Is Filial Duty Folly? Yet He Says, 'He That Loves Father, Mother, More Than Me;' Yea, And 'The Man His Parents Shall Desert,' The Ordinance Says, 'And Cleave Unto His Wife.' O Man, Behold Thy Wife, The Hard Naked World; Adam, Accept Thy Eve. So Still It Is, The Tree Exhausts The Soil; Creepers Kill It, Their Insects Them: The Lever Finds Its Fulcrum On What It Then O'Erthrows; The Homely Spade In Labour'S Hand Unscrupulously Seeks Its First Momentum On The Very Clod Which Next Will Be Upturned. It Seems A Law. And Am Not I, Though I But Ill Recall My Happier Age, A Kidnapped Child Of Heaven, Whom These Uncircumcised Philistines Have By Foul Play Shorn, Blinded, Maimed, And Kept For What More Glorious Than To Make Them Sport? Wait, Then, Wait, O My Soul! Grow, Grow, Ye Locks! Then Perish They, And If Need Is, I Too. Sp. (Aside). A Truly Admirable Proceeding! Could There Be Finer Special Pleading When Scruples Would Be Interceding? There'S No Occasion I Should Stay; He Is Working Out, His Own Queer Way. The Sum I Set Him; And This Day Will Bring It, Neither Less Nor Bigger, Exact To My Predestined Figure. Scene Ix. In The Public Garden. Di. Twenty-One Past Twenty-Five Coming On; One-Third Of Life Departed, Nothing Done. Out Of The Mammon Of Unrighteousness That We Make Friends, The Scripture Is Express, My Spirit, Come, We Will Agree; Content, You'll Take A Moiety. Sp. A Moiety, Ye Gods, He, He! Di. Three-Quarters Then? O Griping Beast! Leave Me A Decimal At Least. Sp. Oh, One Of Ten! To Infect The Nine And Make The Devil A One Be Mine! Oh, One! To Jib All Day, God Wot, When All The Rest Would Go Full Trot! One Very Little One, Eh? To Doubt With, Just To Pause, Think, And Look About With? In Course! You Counted On No Less You Thought It Likely I'D Say Yes! Di. Be It Then Thus Since That It Must, It Seems. Welcome, O World, Henceforth; And Farewell Dreams Yet Know, Mephisto, Know, Nor You Nor I Can In This Matter Either Sell Or Buy; For The Fee Simple Of This Trifling Lot To You Or Me, Trust Me, Pertaineth Not. I Can But Render What Is Of My Will, And Behind It Somewhat Remaineth Still. O, Your Sole Chance Was In The Childish Mind Whose Darkness Dreamed That Vows Like This Could Bind; Thinking All Lost, It Made All Lost, And Brought In Fact The Ruin Which Had Been But Thought. Thank Heaven (Or You) That's Past These Many Years, And We Have Knowledge Wiser Than Our Fears. So Your Poor Bargain Take, My Man, And Make The Best Of It You Can. Sp. With Reservations! Oh, How Treasonable! When I Had Let You Off So Reasonable. However, I Don't Fear; Be It So! Brutus Is Honourable, I Know; So Mindful Of The Dues Of Others, So Thoughtful For His Poor Dear Brothers, So Scrupulous, Considerate, Kind He Wouldn'T Leave The Devil Behind If He Assured Him He Had Claims For His Good Company To Hell-Flames! No Matter, No Matter, The Bargain'S Made; And I For My Part Will Not Be Afraid. With Reservations! Oh! Ho, Ho! But Time, My Friend, Has Yet To Show Which Of Us Two Will Closest Fit The Proverb Of The Biter Bit. Di. Tell Me Thy Name, Now It Is Over. Sp. Oh! Why, Mephistophiles, You Know At Least You've Lately Called Me So. Belial It Was Some Days Ago. But Take Your Pick; I've Got A Score Never A Royal Baby More. For A Brass Plate Upon A Door What Think You Of Cosmocrator? Di. ???? ????????????? ??? ?????? ??????. And That You Are Indeed, I Do Not Doubt You. Sp. Ephesians, Aint It? Near The End You Dropt A Word To Spare Your Friend. What Follows, Too, In Application Would Be Absurd Exaggeration. Di. The Power Of This World! Hateful Unto God. Sp. Cosmarchon'S Shorter, But Sounds Odd: One Wouldn'T Like, Even If A True Devil, To Be Taken For A Vulgar Jew Devil. Di. Yet In All These Things We 'Tis Scripture Too Are More Than Conquerors, Even Over You. Sp. Come, Come, Don't Maunder Any Longer. Time Tests The Weaker And The Stronger; And We, Without Procrastination, Must Set, You Know, To Our Vocation. O Goodness! Won't You Find It Pleasant To Own The Positive And Present; To See Yourself Like People Round, And Feel Your Feet Upon The Ground! (Exeunt.) End Of Dipsychus.