The Adder
NEWBY . You'll not be needing me to-night, I think? —
It is main quiet in a copse these days;
Fall's here and no mistake: do you snuff the mould?
A queer good smell 'tis, when the mould is making,
And the mist comes bitter with it out of the ground,
Good as the brownest beer was ever brewed,
Nay, not to you, though, — you, a Methody man
And sworn off beer and tobacco. Do you get
The worth of them, I wonder, in your chapel?
That Mister Startup, that flash parson of yourn,
Can daze your wits with preaching, and they say
You can deal prayers that smack upon your tongue:
But 'tisn't the same as a black pipe and a good tap.
Why don't you talk? You seem all in a mood.
You'll not be wanting me to-night, Seth?
SETH [ rousing himself ]. No.
A sod or two is all the stack will need;
She's burning gently. But stay here awhile. —
Squire's come home, they say?
NEWBY . Ay: I suppose
He'ld liever die at home.
SETH . As bad as that?
NEWBY . If a man like Squire rummages London town
For wickedness, all the wild spunk in him
Driving him on full hurl, chasing his lust
Mad as a trooper swording in a charge, —
He's bound to shatter. Flesh ain't made for that.
Met him myself to-day. You never saw
A brow with such a fiendish writing on it.
" Hallo, Mud," says he; " Newby, sir," says I;
" What does it feel like to be earth," says he,
" Damn you!" — I don't see why he damned me? Lord!
The brow of the man! When he's in hell, he'll curse
The brindled devil himself for a tame lamb.
SETH . I know, Newby, what's in him. Once, my brow
Was sealed like his. How did he look beside?
NEWBY . Oh, his face as hard as a carving; though, as he talkt,
He foisted on his mouth a kind of twitching,
A kind of smile, that couldn't help but sneer.
But truly I lookt at naught but his hurt brow.
SETH . Hurt! Yes, 'tis hurt indeed.
NEWBY . It made me think.
Of a hound I once saw, that was inwardly scorcht
With swallowed poison, and wrencht hard, — that brow
With lines like two big weals running straight up
Pucker'd on either side; — how comes a man
So signed? Deuce! I should think his forehead aches!
You know how a green leaf put upon the fire
Twists and bends backwards, till you'd think the heat
Tortured it? Well, somehow his brow's like that.
And he scarce gone thirty!
SETH . But he has laboured!
He has wickedly mown the harvest of his life;
Now it's all stubble, and it stabs his feet.
But stubble must be burnt!
NEWBY . Ay, gi'e us a prayer!
One of your clockwork rants.
SETH . [ Taking no notice .] I read the man.
His lusts follow him like tame dogs, diseased
And full of weeping sores; and let him rest
A moment, all the loving pack yelps up,
One or another leaps upon his knee,
Vile mange and all, and nestles at his heart.
Oh, yes, I know. He's tried to gorge his sin,
And yet he cannot dull himself; his brain
Is bitterly tired of being always sin,
But still he must be imagining new evil;
And it all turns to the same small filthy tricks,
The same foul dabbling that he sickens at.
I know it all; my God, don't I know it!
NEWBY . A queasy hunger, eh? See now, you were
A pretty lot yourself, until you turned
Methody; why don't you try your prayers on Squire?
SETH . Hold your noise, old fool.
NEWBY . Well, I'll be crawling.
SETH . No. Stay a bit. I want to ask you 
NEWBY . What?
SETH . O, has he had his milk? [ Pointing to the hut .]
NEWBY . The adder? Why, you gave it him yourself.
'Tis an uneasy worm to-night. He lifts
His neck straight up, and keeps his tongue aquiver;
He looks for something. Worms should be sleepy now.
Why does he wake?
SETH . Pah! What should he look for?
You old men think an adder is a spirit.
NEWBY . We know the woods and understand their folk.
We aren't dazed with grammar. Schools and books
May grind the trade in a man to a Sheffield knife;
But put a scholar in the woods: he'll make
No more of them than a dog would make of a book.
Listen to the air, Seth; look around. You fool!
Will you be wiser than these, my Methody?
Will you be telling me man's master here?
But I'll tell you; this half-light, the fall's quiet,
The harmless timber, — they all bide their time:
They are all sworn together, and against us.
Keep still a minute now, and catch your breath,
And let the hour have you. Can you not feel
The woods crouch like a beast behind your back?
And now look round. Where's the beast gone that croucht?
But we're in the midst of something biding its time.
Don't you know men who fear the woods at night
Worse than a ghost? But was there ever one
Who kept an adder in his hut, the trees
Could have the soul of? Put your heel on the worm,
And in a year the trees will drink you up,
Take the man out of you, as a beech drains
And spoils the earth he stands in.
SETH . Heathen talk.
There's a belief can bless the prowling night,
Send off afraid the old terrors that come
To craze the soul with leering through its windows.
I have the faith. I am secure.
NEWBY . Now, Seth,
See here. You are the man for Mister Startup,
Your brummagem parson, and the Methody lot;
None like you at a prayer. What would they say,
Your ranters, if they heard you kept a snake,
An aged heathen adder, in your hut,
And there's no burner in the country puts
Such faith in the worm.
SETH . Not I: it's naught to me.
NEWBY . Good; then I'm going to kill him. [ He makes for the hut .]
SETH [ springs up and holds him back ]. Stop, you fool!
NEWBY . Ay, so it's naught to you? You might have known
I wouldn't kill him.
SETH . Newby, you'll keep it hid?
NEWBY . Why, the man's twittering. No, your chapel-folks
Shall have no word from me. What do they know?
What can their silly-fangled hymns and prayers
And Startup's teaching tell them of the woods
And the old things our trade comes up against?
SETH . O I'm not one of your pagan-witted burners.
There is a special bond for me.
NEWBY . Ay, so?
Well, let me keep my way. I don't shudder
As if the worm were sliding down my neck
When there's a mention of it.
SETH . Newby, 'tis said,
In foreign lands (it is a horrible thing)
Women in sleep have suckled snakes — they've been
Roused by cold, venomous lips drawing their milk.
It's worse with me. For I am nourishing him,
That viper shut up in the box in yonder,
I'm nourishing him, Newby, with my mind.
NEWBY [ laughing ]. And you the man for a prayer above them all!
Hark!
SETH . What did you hear?
NEWBY . The footing of a man
In the long riding.
SETH . Who'ld be rambling now?
NEWBY . Squire, maybe, roaming the fever off him.
Sounds reach a long way in this quiet air.
But it is time I went, or I'll be missing
The best of the evening at the " Hark to Melody."
SETH . No, no, don't make to go.
NEWBY . What is it then?
SETH [ hastily ]. My girl's come back to me.
NEWBY . Well, what of that?
SETH . 'Twas yesterday she came. My sister's dead,
She'd nowhere else to live. What shall I do,
Newby, what shall I do?
NEWBY . What are you gabbling?
You're a queer father.
SETH . Newby, but it's the Squire!
NEWBY . Frightened of him, are you? Well then, warn her.
SETH [ starting ]. Warn her? No; warning wouldn't do.
NEWBY . Why not?
SETH . I dreamt my sister came out of her death
To me last night, and awfully she spoke:
" Seth, the girl's in your keeping now!"
NEWBY . Why not?
Who else should keep her? What's your fear in the girl?
SETH . I'll tell you: 'tis myself I fear in her.
NEWBY . I don't take that.
SETH . Why, in my wickedness
Was her beginning: out of my rebellion
She came!
NEWBY . I suppose she had a mother, though.
SETH . We'll leave her out of this. If there is sin
Sown in the girl, it is all mine; there was
Enough flourishing in my blood to choke
With tares and weeds the innocence of the heart
I forced to live.
NEWBY . Ay, and it is the truth
'Tis hard to make clean earth of twitch-grown soil.
seth . And then to love the girl so much! Do you think.
It can be right to love — one of such birth
So fiercely — O, so terribly to love her?
If lovers have a child, be they right or wrong
In loving, they must give the bairn their hearts.
But mine came into flesh so wickedly
She is a sin! My sin she is! My hate
Of the Lord God, my scorning of His laws,
My mere joy in delighting all my lust!
NEWBY . A child's a child, I think.
SETH . You know nothing.
I was all made of sin when she was born.
But out of the villainous hubbub of my life
The good hands of my sister stole my baby;
Took her away and kept her hid from me,
And I went on in wickedness. My Lord,
I did not want to sin.
I would be sickening at the beastliness
I'd forced my helpless spirit to devour;
And right into my ailing grief would blaze
Lust like a golden trumpet; and like singing
My blood would leap into its joy again;
And I was drabbing again.
NEWBY [ not hiding his disgust ]. And it went on
Till the blood was tired in you?
SETH . It may be. — No,
God forgive you! Heaven remembered me!
NEWBY . The two things happen together, very often.
SETH . The Lord sent down a burning blight upon
My mastery of sin, and like a flame
Undid the briars that were round my ankles,
Crippled the spiny fingers that had hold,
With hookèd thorns driven into my heart,
Upon my life, the wild thickets of sin:
He took me out of the devil's wood, and I
Have never left to serve Him.
NEWBY . And, O Glory,
Startup's right-hand man ever since, Amen!
SETH . Yes, I was saved. But then there was this soul
Mortally wearing flesh and blood of mine,
My girl, my little daughter, — my flesh, Newby!
Ay, and there are those sins of mine! You know,
When the mercy of God whips off the hunt
That is so greedy after a man, they still,
His pack of sins, roam somewhere, empty and hungry. —
My sins are lurking for the flesh they tasted
And liked so well, the flesh that is my daughter.
NEWBY . Then you'd do well to warn her ears against
Their barking, if it's dogs they are, your sins.
SETH . We did better than that. — Dogs? Nought so fierce,
But something sly and quiet and creeping close
Upon the earth and waiting for to sting;
Yet they can only live in that dark wood
Where the fiend has his cave, and all the things
That are unholy crouch away from God:
You must go walking in the wicked ground
Before the poison of sin can strike at you.
When I turned back from wickedness, I and my sister
Were of one mind. This little lass of mine
Should never know, till she were grown and safe,
Where evil lies; for sure must it not be
She could not stray there, if she'd heard nought of it?
Not knowing evil, could she find it out? —
That fearful pride in disobeying God
At least would have no words to madden her! —
My sister reared her, gave her all her schooling;
Her lonely house and the empty moor behind,
No more world than that should the girl have.
We did it to a marvel. 'Twas a risk,
I know; and I do fear it anger'd God.
For see where we are now. God toucht the sleep
Of my good sister, and made it be her death;
And to the clumsy keeping of my hands
Is put this girl, who knows nothing of evil,
Nothing of sins and wiles and temptations!
NEWBY . It's a wonderful sort of girl she is, my word!
What, never heard of Old Horns? You must have been,
You and your sister, wonderly afeared.
What, you a proper sweating Methody man,
And let a girl get past you all untaught
That a holy nose should sniff hell everywhere?
You with the lungs to bawl the sinners down
Upon their knees, and fetch up out of their bellies
" I am a worm, I am a worm, Amen,"
As well as Startup can himself! Why, this
Will stick in my throat like a swallowed stickleback; —
'Tis all as good as the adder! What with him
And with your daughter, you're a rare Methody!
SETH [ jumping up ]. Curse you, jibing fool! Put her again
In the same speech as — as the thing in there,
And I'll deal what your wicked head deserves!
NEWBY . Why, what the devil can there be between
The adder and your daughter?
SETH [ imploring him ]. Don't say it, man!
O, don't put them together! Ah, Lord, stop him!
NEWBY . I'll be bound, this is a strange affair.
So you've not seen your daughter till just now?
SETH . I've seen her; but she never lookt on me.
Yesterday was the first time that I've kist her;
I doubt whether I should have kist her, too.
NEWBY . You're a queer father.
SETH . What else could I do but hide?
I was afraid there might be in my face
Something of evil left; and then the way
I'ld look on her would make her wonder at me. —
How could I look on her and hold away
From thinking on the blood that's in her heart,
And all there is of me sleeping in her?
But I must see her, or the years would drown me.
There was a little orchard near the house,
With a high wall around; but there a place
Where I could hide and watch the girl's young play
Among the grasses, and her dancing round
The lime-washt apple trees. And I was a man
With poison in his brain, to see her go
So joyously and be so glad with skipping!
When the lent-lilies had begun their gold
In the green sod, the little maid would prink
Before them with a lady's courtesies;
Then, petticoats held up, she'd whirl
Madly delighted childish reels.
How could I tell, whether her wanton games,
Her merry tiptoe gait, were not in truth
Vile words prettily spoken?
And now, Newby, is it not perilous?
You'ld best be going among the drinkers now.
NEWBY . Well, I don't envy you your job with her.
But if you'll hear me, tell the lass her feet
Are in the world as on a tight-rope slung
Over the gape and hunger of Hell. At least
That's what you told your chapel-fellows once;
How they'ld grin to hear of your girl's schooling!
SETH . They are old wives' tales! —
Is it a worship I am making of you,
My adder? Worshipping the evil thing?
Ay, but what has a beast to do with evil?
They say a snake goes footless from a curse,
And all this crooked zed upon his back
Is a curse written, could we spell it out,
And 'tis the fiend's own spittle in his mouth.
Wives' tales! And yet the man who laughs at them
May be more fooled than he for whom they're truth;
We can't tell what is going on at all.
I have known dawns when the earth, the trees and grasses,
Seem as they'd drifted here out of strange travel,
And all the creatures like the crew of a ship
Late from seeing marvels, and daring not
To speak of them. What's to be made of that?
And what does my heart make of you, my adder?
Worship! — why not?
Why not worship the evil in this beast
Since, while it has its evil, I am pure? —
That evening, when I knelt in agony
Here, and the Lord relieved me of my sins,
I was like one has suddenly slipt a burden;
And childishly, amazedly, I lookt
To find that bulk of sin: and there, in the box,
Coiled and sleeping, the adder! Then I knew
What God had done for me!
My sins, that could not be destroyed, had past
Into the adder: I was pure as the sun:
There all my evil lay, hid in the adder!
Ay, creeping danger, were you curst before
Or not, is nothing to me: but now I can
Exult over you, greatly exult! For now
Iniquity you are, iniquity,
And my iniquity!
God has anointed with my wrong your head;
And it is mine, this jagged blasphemy
Scribbled along your back: my sins that weigh
Your body flat, my malice in your eyes;
That flickering tongue has spoken in my heart:
O, do you hiss? Ay, that's my hate of God
Shifted on you, fastened into your mind.
And I do right to worship you, my sins, —
Nay, my salvation! And not I alone,
Adder, am safe by what I see in you!
For while God keeps my sins close shut and bound
In this cold thing, how can they visit her,
My daughter? —
THE GIRL . O, but there's no one here.
NEWBY . Hullo, where's he gone?
He won't be long away. Come, sit you down.
GIRL . I've not been out of doors in the dark before.
What are they doing, all these things? Asleep?
I think they're wide awake, for all their quiet,
Waiting for us to leave them. What will they do,
I wonder, when they have the wood to themselves?
NEWBY . Aren't you the lass that's never heard of the devil?
SETH . Leave her alone, you old limb of the fiend!
Be off, or by the living God, I'll kill you,
Old wickedness! [ Newby slinks off from his rage .
[ To the girl .] What are you doing here?
GIRL . But is there any harm in coming out?
Let me stay with you, father!
SETH [ grim ]. Yes, my girl,
You'll have to stay here now, like it or not.
Under my eyes you're safe.
GIRL . Why, how you quiver!
Tell me, is he a wicked man, that fellow?
SETH . Ay, one of Satan's own. What do you mean
By coming here?
GIRL . I was tired of the house;
And there were thoughts plaguing me like midges.
O, I wish I'd known that was a wicked old man!
SETH [ in fear ]. What? What's behind this?
GIRL . I might have had
Something from him I want. I suppose, father,
You aren't a wicked man?
SETH [ roughly taking her arm ]. Give me your meaning,
And no more foolery.
GIRL . Why, but that's it!
I don't know even what my meaning is.
Have you seen flowers grown in a cellar?
SETH . Well?
GIRL . How can they know there is a sun outside?
Yet the pale leaves they have, show they can tell
They're cheated out of something. So am I!
I'm cheated. There's a brave colour growing somewhere,
And I know naught of it, but that my life
Has been shut off from it, somehow. Father, sins
Are scarlet, are they not?
SETH [ scared ]. Sins? What do you know
Of sins?
GIRL . Why, there again! I know nothing.
I'm like those cellar plants, fooled and cheated.
SETH . Satan has had your ear, girl.
GIRL . [ simply ]. No, father;
No one has told me this; I just feel it.
What is this evil, then?
SETH . Darling, don't ask!
GIRL . Do you not know it either? Listen, then.
Once to our door, on a cold and drenching day,
A halt old tramping beggar-woman came,
Her lean form lapt in a shabby duffel cloak
Tattered with going through the weather, stained
With dirt and wear. But when she turned away
I saw that, on the back of her poor cloak,
Was a great patch of scarlet cloth stitcht on;
And as she limped off through the rain, indeed
That old grey cloak had something fine about it,
She'ld have some pride in wearing it! And then,
I overheard my aunt once muttering,
" Our sins are scarlet!"
Scarlet!
That was a wonderful thing for me to hear!
And all at once I seemed to be wearing life
Like a beggarly cheap cloak: and some know how
To clout their drab stuff with a gaudypatch!
Scarlet!
Why, scarlet is for fire; and look how mild
The green and blue and common brown of earth
Seem when the day ends in a scarlet light!
Scarlet! I think it is a kind of power.
And blood is scarlet! — Do you know what I did?
I took a thorn and scored my arm, and watcht
The blood come beading, loving the colour of it.
But then I cried; for what's the good of blood
So shining scarlet, if life takes nothing from it?
But I had heard my aunt speak of a thing
That can in life be scarlet; and it must be
A thing of power and pride. Why don't I know it?
SETH . O God, is this Thy punishment at last?
Into the hut!
Quick, into it, and stay hid! Do you hear me, girl?
Enough trifling! In there, till I let you out.
SQUIRE . Who's this chap? Burning charcoal, by the smoke.
Is it anyone I know? [ Peering close at Seth .]
Yes: and your name is somewhere in my mind.
SETH . 'Tis Seth, sir.
SQUIRE . I have you! Seth! The shame of the parish, Seth!
Ah, but you've lapsed since then. Indeed, I know
It is not everyone can keep it up:
I'll not reproach you. I suppose you are
Still the reformed lecher? And do you still
Strictly ride your flesh with a martingale?
SETH [ giggling ]. Good even, sir.
Yes, thank you, sir, I'm doing pretty well.
SQUIRE . Let's talk a little: for what you were you are,
However sadly changed, and so we're equals:
Lechery is the one thing makes men equal.
So come, man to man, lecher to lecher,
Let us be honest — no one can overhear —
Let's have it out. Is it worth it, Seth?
Ay, there's the point for both of us. For me,
Is it worth while keeping hard at the game?
And then, for you, quite on the contrary,
Is it worth while to switch yourself from one
Simply to fiddle in another game?
SETH . A game? Ha, ha! That's good, sir! Yes, a game!
SQUIRE . Yes, but I reckon you're no happier
In your new game than I am in my old.
So here's the point: is your religion worth
To you more than my lechery's worth to me?
I'll tell you what I think, Seth.
They're both worth mighty little, mighty little:
They've both the worth of diseases, — no, they're both
A living man's misery about death. —
Well, we can't help ourselves. To every man
His own game; a man's pleasure is his fate.
But I shan't follow you: for in your style
There's this offends me. If there's a thing I hate
It is these travelling menageries:
To see a couple of rusty string-halt geldings
Tugging a square-walled cover'd truck through mud,
And to know that, crampt within that clumsy waggon,
Lumbering, jolting, unlit, airless, — lie
Lions, Sahara lions! — And in you
Once there were lions, Seth, the lions of sin;
Mangy, perhaps, but still — lionish voices.
And now you've shut your sins up in a box —
SETH [ startled ]. A box?
SQUIRE . Yes, in a dirty travelling cage;
You sit on the shafts, and a miserable gelding
You call religion, draws you through the world;
A creaking, groaning pace! And after you
You drag, lockt in a cruel narrow den,
Those sins had such a free life in you once.
Seth, I could never do that! — Something there was
The keeper told me about you. Was it poaching?
No, no;
The jackals are all penned up with the lions.
What was it now? I laughed at it. Ah, yes.
They say you've got your daughter back.
SETH . Who? I?
I have no daughter, sir.
SQUIRE . What, is she dead?
SETH . I mean she does not live with me, you know.
My sister keeps her; a strong-minded woman:
Won't let me see the girl.
SQUIRE . Surely I heard
Your sister is dead.
SETH . O no! There's a mistake!
I saw her Tuesday last — O quite alive.
SQUIRE [ yawning ]. So am I, God be curst. — Seth, I can fee
Your eyes glooming upon me through the darkness.
What, you, the leaky pipkin that has lost,
Through flaws, the burning liquor trusted to you,
You will be pitying me, a vessel sound
And perfect, that has never lost a drop
Of the bright wrathful wine I am charged to carry?
What's this thin vinegar that is in you now,
The cracks of you caulked with charitable clay,
That makes you dare be proud above me, — me
Brimmed with the ancient vintage I have kept
Faithfully mellowing, till I am soaked through
With the power of it, with the scarlet fire of it?
A girl! A young girl! —
My Satan, you begin to weary me.
The skill's too noticeable; you would catch me
Easier, if you fumbled a few tricks. —
— Well, who are you this time?
GIRL . I am his daughter.
SQUIRE . Aha! Let's have a look at you.
Seth, Seth,
Would you have kept this from me? She's the sort
One dreams of. But it always comes to this:
Religion takes all comradeship from a man.
His daughter, are you? Then I hope you are
The daughter of his wickedness; — that should make you
Full of sin as a hive is full of honey.
GIRL . I cannot say, sir; for I don't know at all
What sin may be. But I know well there is
Something sealed up within me, — in my heart,
I think; and it is troubling for its freedom.
SQUIRE . Very likely; and I should say will still
Go on kicking and bothering in your heart
Unless you help it out. Then, you will find,
The grub will hatch into that notable fly —
Naughtiness!
GIRL . You speak kindly; will you not help me?
If you saw the Morecambe tide chase a lame man,
You on a horse, would you not give him help?
I am a kind of cripple; and I loathe
The plight I'm in. Lift me out of it!
Do let me coax you. Tell me about sin! —
For I will get to know.
SQUIRE . Are you a fool,
Or making a fool of me?
GIRL . It's I've been fooled.
SQUIRE . Seth, you don't seem to be amused at this.
GIRL . I heard you say the word; scarlet, you said;
There is something in you that you feel like scarlet.
Is that not sin? So tell me what sin is.
SQUIRE . No, no , no, no! Satan, it will not do.
The show runs far too smoothly, — far too like
What my desires expect. Somehow, at last
Mere skill becomes disgusting. Even a cook
Who gives me always everything I want
Turns out an odious person. So, my dear,
You come so apt, just as my hunger woke,
And are so thoroughly spiced with what I want,
That I — will bid you a good night.
GIRL . O, sir,
You will not learn me this?
SQUIRE . Why, no, not now;
But I dare say the mood will change: we'll try
Some day, if we can find out what sin is.
GIRL [ dancing round the stack ]:
O life of mine, I shall love you yet:
We shall be changed, my life and I.
Dancing will no more be a game
Played to pretend we're hearing a tune.
There will be singing of tunes enough,
To make us dance when we know it not:
They'll be living within us, the tunes,
Water of brooks in spring for happiness,
Scarlet fire for power and pride.
SETH [ seizing her by the arm as she passes him ]:
Do you see that stack?
GIRL [ breathless ]. It's only a pile of wood.
SETH . Ay, in the dark, that's what it seems; but listen!
Within it there's a heart, a smouldering heart, —
Fire is smothered there.
GIRL . And smothered in me.
SETH . And I will keep it so! For look, if I
Broke through the sheathing turf and thatch of boughs,
And left it open, the hidden fire would come
Fiercely darting out on us, turning the whole
Stack, and the whole of the woods, to bellowing flame,
No one could quench.
GIRL [ breaking away ]. And I shall be alive,
Alive in the manner of scarlet and golden flame.
SETH [ gripping her again ]:
Listen, — my father, climbing on a stack
Like this one, to be tending it, trod through
The turf and branches, and the fire caught him
And charred him to the knees. Girl, there are hearts;
Unsafe as heaps of dried wood, and within
Mined by eating fires. And I, your father,
Worse than my father fared; for into the hot
Heart of my heart I broke, and I was caught,
The whole of me, in the blazing rage of hell.
And as my heart is, so is yours; a thing
To choke and stifle; or, once set it free,
The flaming of your heart will seize you and
Everlastingly burn you.
GIRL . This is talk
I can make nothing of. Who would refuse
A splendid thing? I know there is a power
Can make my life seem as if it were scarlet.
And it is like to fire, you say. Why, then,
That is the splendour I have dreamt about;
What should I do refusing it? What gain
Choking it down, but the old dull want I have?
SETH . Watch now, while I kick a hole in the stack.
Do you mark the glowing danger, the red lust
Biding within? See, all the dark's ashamed
That such hot mischief lights it up. A sod
Plugs the hole now; but had I left it open,
The stack were gone in a ravage of wild flame.
You've lookt into your heart now: are you not feared?
GIRL . I say, I can make nothing of this. My heart?
Is my heart stored with such a glowing light?
And I must be afraid of it? I will not!
But if this power is in me, it shall burn
To freedom, yes, and fill me with the burning.
SETH . O girl of mine, if you knew how I loved you!
Promise me now, you won't go near the Squire.
GIRL . Why not?
SETH . Darling, believe me! O, he would
Treat you fiendishly, — God, and laugh to do it!
GIRL . Father, let's have this out. What right have you
To cheat me of a knowledge all folks have?
Is it for sin that my heart so desires?
SETH . It cannot be that; no, it cannot be that.
GIRL . So then what harm in finding what sin is?
SETH . Yes, it is sin you want! But stifle it.
GIRL . And why? And why? You cannot show me that.
I tell you I mean to find this out!
SETH [ letting her go and standing bemused ]:
What do I, fighting with the evil heart
She has from me? If God has any mercy
He'll fight it down in her now, once and for ever. —
You'ld know what sin is? Well, I can tell you.
GIRL . You can, father?
SETH . The very spirit of sin
I can show you; for I have it with me.
Show it you? You can handle it, play with it.
GIRL . Where have you got it?
SETH . Here, in the midst of us.
GIRL . 'Tis something I can touch?
SETH . Come you and try.
Bend down. Do you see? — It is in here I keep it.
Undo the sneck of the lid, put in your hands,
And grope, search it thoroughly.
GIRL . In this box?
SETH [ over her ]. Lord, I perceive you will not let my sins
Go past her. There is no escape for her
But through my torments; but, O God, my sins
Will come too strong upon her; and already
Her blind heart fills with longing for my evil.
Give her the whole of it now, O Lord my God!
Satisfy all her longing at once; and let
The evil which her hands discover, Lord,
Be death!
GIRL . Ah, it is wet, — no, but how cold!
O, I am bitten, father. There is some anger
Hid in your box. And it has bitten me.
SETH . Show me. Let's have some light.
Ay, on the wrist.
Both fangs right on a vein. They must have sunk
Up to the gums in her flesh.
GIRL . Shall I suck the bite?
SETH [ seizing her arm ]. No need: sit down by me, and keep you quiet.
How does your arm feel?
GIRL . Strangely: very numb
And as if'twere swoln.
SETH . Cold?
GIRL . Icy: is it all right?
SETH . All right, darling.
GIRL [ struggling a little ]. Why must you hold my arm?
SETH . 'Tis better so. Bide you still awhile. —
Very soon it will be in the heart of her.
It is main quiet in a copse these days;
Fall's here and no mistake: do you snuff the mould?
A queer good smell 'tis, when the mould is making,
And the mist comes bitter with it out of the ground,
Good as the brownest beer was ever brewed,
Nay, not to you, though, — you, a Methody man
And sworn off beer and tobacco. Do you get
The worth of them, I wonder, in your chapel?
That Mister Startup, that flash parson of yourn,
Can daze your wits with preaching, and they say
You can deal prayers that smack upon your tongue:
But 'tisn't the same as a black pipe and a good tap.
Why don't you talk? You seem all in a mood.
You'll not be wanting me to-night, Seth?
SETH [ rousing himself ]. No.
A sod or two is all the stack will need;
She's burning gently. But stay here awhile. —
Squire's come home, they say?
NEWBY . Ay: I suppose
He'ld liever die at home.
SETH . As bad as that?
NEWBY . If a man like Squire rummages London town
For wickedness, all the wild spunk in him
Driving him on full hurl, chasing his lust
Mad as a trooper swording in a charge, —
He's bound to shatter. Flesh ain't made for that.
Met him myself to-day. You never saw
A brow with such a fiendish writing on it.
" Hallo, Mud," says he; " Newby, sir," says I;
" What does it feel like to be earth," says he,
" Damn you!" — I don't see why he damned me? Lord!
The brow of the man! When he's in hell, he'll curse
The brindled devil himself for a tame lamb.
SETH . I know, Newby, what's in him. Once, my brow
Was sealed like his. How did he look beside?
NEWBY . Oh, his face as hard as a carving; though, as he talkt,
He foisted on his mouth a kind of twitching,
A kind of smile, that couldn't help but sneer.
But truly I lookt at naught but his hurt brow.
SETH . Hurt! Yes, 'tis hurt indeed.
NEWBY . It made me think.
Of a hound I once saw, that was inwardly scorcht
With swallowed poison, and wrencht hard, — that brow
With lines like two big weals running straight up
Pucker'd on either side; — how comes a man
So signed? Deuce! I should think his forehead aches!
You know how a green leaf put upon the fire
Twists and bends backwards, till you'd think the heat
Tortured it? Well, somehow his brow's like that.
And he scarce gone thirty!
SETH . But he has laboured!
He has wickedly mown the harvest of his life;
Now it's all stubble, and it stabs his feet.
But stubble must be burnt!
NEWBY . Ay, gi'e us a prayer!
One of your clockwork rants.
SETH . [ Taking no notice .] I read the man.
His lusts follow him like tame dogs, diseased
And full of weeping sores; and let him rest
A moment, all the loving pack yelps up,
One or another leaps upon his knee,
Vile mange and all, and nestles at his heart.
Oh, yes, I know. He's tried to gorge his sin,
And yet he cannot dull himself; his brain
Is bitterly tired of being always sin,
But still he must be imagining new evil;
And it all turns to the same small filthy tricks,
The same foul dabbling that he sickens at.
I know it all; my God, don't I know it!
NEWBY . A queasy hunger, eh? See now, you were
A pretty lot yourself, until you turned
Methody; why don't you try your prayers on Squire?
SETH . Hold your noise, old fool.
NEWBY . Well, I'll be crawling.
SETH . No. Stay a bit. I want to ask you 
NEWBY . What?
SETH . O, has he had his milk? [ Pointing to the hut .]
NEWBY . The adder? Why, you gave it him yourself.
'Tis an uneasy worm to-night. He lifts
His neck straight up, and keeps his tongue aquiver;
He looks for something. Worms should be sleepy now.
Why does he wake?
SETH . Pah! What should he look for?
You old men think an adder is a spirit.
NEWBY . We know the woods and understand their folk.
We aren't dazed with grammar. Schools and books
May grind the trade in a man to a Sheffield knife;
But put a scholar in the woods: he'll make
No more of them than a dog would make of a book.
Listen to the air, Seth; look around. You fool!
Will you be wiser than these, my Methody?
Will you be telling me man's master here?
But I'll tell you; this half-light, the fall's quiet,
The harmless timber, — they all bide their time:
They are all sworn together, and against us.
Keep still a minute now, and catch your breath,
And let the hour have you. Can you not feel
The woods crouch like a beast behind your back?
And now look round. Where's the beast gone that croucht?
But we're in the midst of something biding its time.
Don't you know men who fear the woods at night
Worse than a ghost? But was there ever one
Who kept an adder in his hut, the trees
Could have the soul of? Put your heel on the worm,
And in a year the trees will drink you up,
Take the man out of you, as a beech drains
And spoils the earth he stands in.
SETH . Heathen talk.
There's a belief can bless the prowling night,
Send off afraid the old terrors that come
To craze the soul with leering through its windows.
I have the faith. I am secure.
NEWBY . Now, Seth,
See here. You are the man for Mister Startup,
Your brummagem parson, and the Methody lot;
None like you at a prayer. What would they say,
Your ranters, if they heard you kept a snake,
An aged heathen adder, in your hut,
And there's no burner in the country puts
Such faith in the worm.
SETH . Not I: it's naught to me.
NEWBY . Good; then I'm going to kill him. [ He makes for the hut .]
SETH [ springs up and holds him back ]. Stop, you fool!
NEWBY . Ay, so it's naught to you? You might have known
I wouldn't kill him.
SETH . Newby, you'll keep it hid?
NEWBY . Why, the man's twittering. No, your chapel-folks
Shall have no word from me. What do they know?
What can their silly-fangled hymns and prayers
And Startup's teaching tell them of the woods
And the old things our trade comes up against?
SETH . O I'm not one of your pagan-witted burners.
There is a special bond for me.
NEWBY . Ay, so?
Well, let me keep my way. I don't shudder
As if the worm were sliding down my neck
When there's a mention of it.
SETH . Newby, 'tis said,
In foreign lands (it is a horrible thing)
Women in sleep have suckled snakes — they've been
Roused by cold, venomous lips drawing their milk.
It's worse with me. For I am nourishing him,
That viper shut up in the box in yonder,
I'm nourishing him, Newby, with my mind.
NEWBY [ laughing ]. And you the man for a prayer above them all!
Hark!
SETH . What did you hear?
NEWBY . The footing of a man
In the long riding.
SETH . Who'ld be rambling now?
NEWBY . Squire, maybe, roaming the fever off him.
Sounds reach a long way in this quiet air.
But it is time I went, or I'll be missing
The best of the evening at the " Hark to Melody."
SETH . No, no, don't make to go.
NEWBY . What is it then?
SETH [ hastily ]. My girl's come back to me.
NEWBY . Well, what of that?
SETH . 'Twas yesterday she came. My sister's dead,
She'd nowhere else to live. What shall I do,
Newby, what shall I do?
NEWBY . What are you gabbling?
You're a queer father.
SETH . Newby, but it's the Squire!
NEWBY . Frightened of him, are you? Well then, warn her.
SETH [ starting ]. Warn her? No; warning wouldn't do.
NEWBY . Why not?
SETH . I dreamt my sister came out of her death
To me last night, and awfully she spoke:
" Seth, the girl's in your keeping now!"
NEWBY . Why not?
Who else should keep her? What's your fear in the girl?
SETH . I'll tell you: 'tis myself I fear in her.
NEWBY . I don't take that.
SETH . Why, in my wickedness
Was her beginning: out of my rebellion
She came!
NEWBY . I suppose she had a mother, though.
SETH . We'll leave her out of this. If there is sin
Sown in the girl, it is all mine; there was
Enough flourishing in my blood to choke
With tares and weeds the innocence of the heart
I forced to live.
NEWBY . Ay, and it is the truth
'Tis hard to make clean earth of twitch-grown soil.
seth . And then to love the girl so much! Do you think.
It can be right to love — one of such birth
So fiercely — O, so terribly to love her?
If lovers have a child, be they right or wrong
In loving, they must give the bairn their hearts.
But mine came into flesh so wickedly
She is a sin! My sin she is! My hate
Of the Lord God, my scorning of His laws,
My mere joy in delighting all my lust!
NEWBY . A child's a child, I think.
SETH . You know nothing.
I was all made of sin when she was born.
But out of the villainous hubbub of my life
The good hands of my sister stole my baby;
Took her away and kept her hid from me,
And I went on in wickedness. My Lord,
I did not want to sin.
I would be sickening at the beastliness
I'd forced my helpless spirit to devour;
And right into my ailing grief would blaze
Lust like a golden trumpet; and like singing
My blood would leap into its joy again;
And I was drabbing again.
NEWBY [ not hiding his disgust ]. And it went on
Till the blood was tired in you?
SETH . It may be. — No,
God forgive you! Heaven remembered me!
NEWBY . The two things happen together, very often.
SETH . The Lord sent down a burning blight upon
My mastery of sin, and like a flame
Undid the briars that were round my ankles,
Crippled the spiny fingers that had hold,
With hookèd thorns driven into my heart,
Upon my life, the wild thickets of sin:
He took me out of the devil's wood, and I
Have never left to serve Him.
NEWBY . And, O Glory,
Startup's right-hand man ever since, Amen!
SETH . Yes, I was saved. But then there was this soul
Mortally wearing flesh and blood of mine,
My girl, my little daughter, — my flesh, Newby!
Ay, and there are those sins of mine! You know,
When the mercy of God whips off the hunt
That is so greedy after a man, they still,
His pack of sins, roam somewhere, empty and hungry. —
My sins are lurking for the flesh they tasted
And liked so well, the flesh that is my daughter.
NEWBY . Then you'd do well to warn her ears against
Their barking, if it's dogs they are, your sins.
SETH . We did better than that. — Dogs? Nought so fierce,
But something sly and quiet and creeping close
Upon the earth and waiting for to sting;
Yet they can only live in that dark wood
Where the fiend has his cave, and all the things
That are unholy crouch away from God:
You must go walking in the wicked ground
Before the poison of sin can strike at you.
When I turned back from wickedness, I and my sister
Were of one mind. This little lass of mine
Should never know, till she were grown and safe,
Where evil lies; for sure must it not be
She could not stray there, if she'd heard nought of it?
Not knowing evil, could she find it out? —
That fearful pride in disobeying God
At least would have no words to madden her! —
My sister reared her, gave her all her schooling;
Her lonely house and the empty moor behind,
No more world than that should the girl have.
We did it to a marvel. 'Twas a risk,
I know; and I do fear it anger'd God.
For see where we are now. God toucht the sleep
Of my good sister, and made it be her death;
And to the clumsy keeping of my hands
Is put this girl, who knows nothing of evil,
Nothing of sins and wiles and temptations!
NEWBY . It's a wonderful sort of girl she is, my word!
What, never heard of Old Horns? You must have been,
You and your sister, wonderly afeared.
What, you a proper sweating Methody man,
And let a girl get past you all untaught
That a holy nose should sniff hell everywhere?
You with the lungs to bawl the sinners down
Upon their knees, and fetch up out of their bellies
" I am a worm, I am a worm, Amen,"
As well as Startup can himself! Why, this
Will stick in my throat like a swallowed stickleback; —
'Tis all as good as the adder! What with him
And with your daughter, you're a rare Methody!
SETH [ jumping up ]. Curse you, jibing fool! Put her again
In the same speech as — as the thing in there,
And I'll deal what your wicked head deserves!
NEWBY . Why, what the devil can there be between
The adder and your daughter?
SETH [ imploring him ]. Don't say it, man!
O, don't put them together! Ah, Lord, stop him!
NEWBY . I'll be bound, this is a strange affair.
So you've not seen your daughter till just now?
SETH . I've seen her; but she never lookt on me.
Yesterday was the first time that I've kist her;
I doubt whether I should have kist her, too.
NEWBY . You're a queer father.
SETH . What else could I do but hide?
I was afraid there might be in my face
Something of evil left; and then the way
I'ld look on her would make her wonder at me. —
How could I look on her and hold away
From thinking on the blood that's in her heart,
And all there is of me sleeping in her?
But I must see her, or the years would drown me.
There was a little orchard near the house,
With a high wall around; but there a place
Where I could hide and watch the girl's young play
Among the grasses, and her dancing round
The lime-washt apple trees. And I was a man
With poison in his brain, to see her go
So joyously and be so glad with skipping!
When the lent-lilies had begun their gold
In the green sod, the little maid would prink
Before them with a lady's courtesies;
Then, petticoats held up, she'd whirl
Madly delighted childish reels.
How could I tell, whether her wanton games,
Her merry tiptoe gait, were not in truth
Vile words prettily spoken?
And now, Newby, is it not perilous?
You'ld best be going among the drinkers now.
NEWBY . Well, I don't envy you your job with her.
But if you'll hear me, tell the lass her feet
Are in the world as on a tight-rope slung
Over the gape and hunger of Hell. At least
That's what you told your chapel-fellows once;
How they'ld grin to hear of your girl's schooling!
SETH . They are old wives' tales! —
Is it a worship I am making of you,
My adder? Worshipping the evil thing?
Ay, but what has a beast to do with evil?
They say a snake goes footless from a curse,
And all this crooked zed upon his back
Is a curse written, could we spell it out,
And 'tis the fiend's own spittle in his mouth.
Wives' tales! And yet the man who laughs at them
May be more fooled than he for whom they're truth;
We can't tell what is going on at all.
I have known dawns when the earth, the trees and grasses,
Seem as they'd drifted here out of strange travel,
And all the creatures like the crew of a ship
Late from seeing marvels, and daring not
To speak of them. What's to be made of that?
And what does my heart make of you, my adder?
Worship! — why not?
Why not worship the evil in this beast
Since, while it has its evil, I am pure? —
That evening, when I knelt in agony
Here, and the Lord relieved me of my sins,
I was like one has suddenly slipt a burden;
And childishly, amazedly, I lookt
To find that bulk of sin: and there, in the box,
Coiled and sleeping, the adder! Then I knew
What God had done for me!
My sins, that could not be destroyed, had past
Into the adder: I was pure as the sun:
There all my evil lay, hid in the adder!
Ay, creeping danger, were you curst before
Or not, is nothing to me: but now I can
Exult over you, greatly exult! For now
Iniquity you are, iniquity,
And my iniquity!
God has anointed with my wrong your head;
And it is mine, this jagged blasphemy
Scribbled along your back: my sins that weigh
Your body flat, my malice in your eyes;
That flickering tongue has spoken in my heart:
O, do you hiss? Ay, that's my hate of God
Shifted on you, fastened into your mind.
And I do right to worship you, my sins, —
Nay, my salvation! And not I alone,
Adder, am safe by what I see in you!
For while God keeps my sins close shut and bound
In this cold thing, how can they visit her,
My daughter? —
THE GIRL . O, but there's no one here.
NEWBY . Hullo, where's he gone?
He won't be long away. Come, sit you down.
GIRL . I've not been out of doors in the dark before.
What are they doing, all these things? Asleep?
I think they're wide awake, for all their quiet,
Waiting for us to leave them. What will they do,
I wonder, when they have the wood to themselves?
NEWBY . Aren't you the lass that's never heard of the devil?
SETH . Leave her alone, you old limb of the fiend!
Be off, or by the living God, I'll kill you,
Old wickedness! [ Newby slinks off from his rage .
[ To the girl .] What are you doing here?
GIRL . But is there any harm in coming out?
Let me stay with you, father!
SETH [ grim ]. Yes, my girl,
You'll have to stay here now, like it or not.
Under my eyes you're safe.
GIRL . Why, how you quiver!
Tell me, is he a wicked man, that fellow?
SETH . Ay, one of Satan's own. What do you mean
By coming here?
GIRL . I was tired of the house;
And there were thoughts plaguing me like midges.
O, I wish I'd known that was a wicked old man!
SETH [ in fear ]. What? What's behind this?
GIRL . I might have had
Something from him I want. I suppose, father,
You aren't a wicked man?
SETH [ roughly taking her arm ]. Give me your meaning,
And no more foolery.
GIRL . Why, but that's it!
I don't know even what my meaning is.
Have you seen flowers grown in a cellar?
SETH . Well?
GIRL . How can they know there is a sun outside?
Yet the pale leaves they have, show they can tell
They're cheated out of something. So am I!
I'm cheated. There's a brave colour growing somewhere,
And I know naught of it, but that my life
Has been shut off from it, somehow. Father, sins
Are scarlet, are they not?
SETH [ scared ]. Sins? What do you know
Of sins?
GIRL . Why, there again! I know nothing.
I'm like those cellar plants, fooled and cheated.
SETH . Satan has had your ear, girl.
GIRL . [ simply ]. No, father;
No one has told me this; I just feel it.
What is this evil, then?
SETH . Darling, don't ask!
GIRL . Do you not know it either? Listen, then.
Once to our door, on a cold and drenching day,
A halt old tramping beggar-woman came,
Her lean form lapt in a shabby duffel cloak
Tattered with going through the weather, stained
With dirt and wear. But when she turned away
I saw that, on the back of her poor cloak,
Was a great patch of scarlet cloth stitcht on;
And as she limped off through the rain, indeed
That old grey cloak had something fine about it,
She'ld have some pride in wearing it! And then,
I overheard my aunt once muttering,
" Our sins are scarlet!"
Scarlet!
That was a wonderful thing for me to hear!
And all at once I seemed to be wearing life
Like a beggarly cheap cloak: and some know how
To clout their drab stuff with a gaudypatch!
Scarlet!
Why, scarlet is for fire; and look how mild
The green and blue and common brown of earth
Seem when the day ends in a scarlet light!
Scarlet! I think it is a kind of power.
And blood is scarlet! — Do you know what I did?
I took a thorn and scored my arm, and watcht
The blood come beading, loving the colour of it.
But then I cried; for what's the good of blood
So shining scarlet, if life takes nothing from it?
But I had heard my aunt speak of a thing
That can in life be scarlet; and it must be
A thing of power and pride. Why don't I know it?
SETH . O God, is this Thy punishment at last?
Into the hut!
Quick, into it, and stay hid! Do you hear me, girl?
Enough trifling! In there, till I let you out.
SQUIRE . Who's this chap? Burning charcoal, by the smoke.
Is it anyone I know? [ Peering close at Seth .]
Yes: and your name is somewhere in my mind.
SETH . 'Tis Seth, sir.
SQUIRE . I have you! Seth! The shame of the parish, Seth!
Ah, but you've lapsed since then. Indeed, I know
It is not everyone can keep it up:
I'll not reproach you. I suppose you are
Still the reformed lecher? And do you still
Strictly ride your flesh with a martingale?
SETH [ giggling ]. Good even, sir.
Yes, thank you, sir, I'm doing pretty well.
SQUIRE . Let's talk a little: for what you were you are,
However sadly changed, and so we're equals:
Lechery is the one thing makes men equal.
So come, man to man, lecher to lecher,
Let us be honest — no one can overhear —
Let's have it out. Is it worth it, Seth?
Ay, there's the point for both of us. For me,
Is it worth while keeping hard at the game?
And then, for you, quite on the contrary,
Is it worth while to switch yourself from one
Simply to fiddle in another game?
SETH . A game? Ha, ha! That's good, sir! Yes, a game!
SQUIRE . Yes, but I reckon you're no happier
In your new game than I am in my old.
So here's the point: is your religion worth
To you more than my lechery's worth to me?
I'll tell you what I think, Seth.
They're both worth mighty little, mighty little:
They've both the worth of diseases, — no, they're both
A living man's misery about death. —
Well, we can't help ourselves. To every man
His own game; a man's pleasure is his fate.
But I shan't follow you: for in your style
There's this offends me. If there's a thing I hate
It is these travelling menageries:
To see a couple of rusty string-halt geldings
Tugging a square-walled cover'd truck through mud,
And to know that, crampt within that clumsy waggon,
Lumbering, jolting, unlit, airless, — lie
Lions, Sahara lions! — And in you
Once there were lions, Seth, the lions of sin;
Mangy, perhaps, but still — lionish voices.
And now you've shut your sins up in a box —
SETH [ startled ]. A box?
SQUIRE . Yes, in a dirty travelling cage;
You sit on the shafts, and a miserable gelding
You call religion, draws you through the world;
A creaking, groaning pace! And after you
You drag, lockt in a cruel narrow den,
Those sins had such a free life in you once.
Seth, I could never do that! — Something there was
The keeper told me about you. Was it poaching?
No, no;
The jackals are all penned up with the lions.
What was it now? I laughed at it. Ah, yes.
They say you've got your daughter back.
SETH . Who? I?
I have no daughter, sir.
SQUIRE . What, is she dead?
SETH . I mean she does not live with me, you know.
My sister keeps her; a strong-minded woman:
Won't let me see the girl.
SQUIRE . Surely I heard
Your sister is dead.
SETH . O no! There's a mistake!
I saw her Tuesday last — O quite alive.
SQUIRE [ yawning ]. So am I, God be curst. — Seth, I can fee
Your eyes glooming upon me through the darkness.
What, you, the leaky pipkin that has lost,
Through flaws, the burning liquor trusted to you,
You will be pitying me, a vessel sound
And perfect, that has never lost a drop
Of the bright wrathful wine I am charged to carry?
What's this thin vinegar that is in you now,
The cracks of you caulked with charitable clay,
That makes you dare be proud above me, — me
Brimmed with the ancient vintage I have kept
Faithfully mellowing, till I am soaked through
With the power of it, with the scarlet fire of it?
A girl! A young girl! —
My Satan, you begin to weary me.
The skill's too noticeable; you would catch me
Easier, if you fumbled a few tricks. —
— Well, who are you this time?
GIRL . I am his daughter.
SQUIRE . Aha! Let's have a look at you.
Seth, Seth,
Would you have kept this from me? She's the sort
One dreams of. But it always comes to this:
Religion takes all comradeship from a man.
His daughter, are you? Then I hope you are
The daughter of his wickedness; — that should make you
Full of sin as a hive is full of honey.
GIRL . I cannot say, sir; for I don't know at all
What sin may be. But I know well there is
Something sealed up within me, — in my heart,
I think; and it is troubling for its freedom.
SQUIRE . Very likely; and I should say will still
Go on kicking and bothering in your heart
Unless you help it out. Then, you will find,
The grub will hatch into that notable fly —
Naughtiness!
GIRL . You speak kindly; will you not help me?
If you saw the Morecambe tide chase a lame man,
You on a horse, would you not give him help?
I am a kind of cripple; and I loathe
The plight I'm in. Lift me out of it!
Do let me coax you. Tell me about sin! —
For I will get to know.
SQUIRE . Are you a fool,
Or making a fool of me?
GIRL . It's I've been fooled.
SQUIRE . Seth, you don't seem to be amused at this.
GIRL . I heard you say the word; scarlet, you said;
There is something in you that you feel like scarlet.
Is that not sin? So tell me what sin is.
SQUIRE . No, no , no, no! Satan, it will not do.
The show runs far too smoothly, — far too like
What my desires expect. Somehow, at last
Mere skill becomes disgusting. Even a cook
Who gives me always everything I want
Turns out an odious person. So, my dear,
You come so apt, just as my hunger woke,
And are so thoroughly spiced with what I want,
That I — will bid you a good night.
GIRL . O, sir,
You will not learn me this?
SQUIRE . Why, no, not now;
But I dare say the mood will change: we'll try
Some day, if we can find out what sin is.
GIRL [ dancing round the stack ]:
O life of mine, I shall love you yet:
We shall be changed, my life and I.
Dancing will no more be a game
Played to pretend we're hearing a tune.
There will be singing of tunes enough,
To make us dance when we know it not:
They'll be living within us, the tunes,
Water of brooks in spring for happiness,
Scarlet fire for power and pride.
SETH [ seizing her by the arm as she passes him ]:
Do you see that stack?
GIRL [ breathless ]. It's only a pile of wood.
SETH . Ay, in the dark, that's what it seems; but listen!
Within it there's a heart, a smouldering heart, —
Fire is smothered there.
GIRL . And smothered in me.
SETH . And I will keep it so! For look, if I
Broke through the sheathing turf and thatch of boughs,
And left it open, the hidden fire would come
Fiercely darting out on us, turning the whole
Stack, and the whole of the woods, to bellowing flame,
No one could quench.
GIRL [ breaking away ]. And I shall be alive,
Alive in the manner of scarlet and golden flame.
SETH [ gripping her again ]:
Listen, — my father, climbing on a stack
Like this one, to be tending it, trod through
The turf and branches, and the fire caught him
And charred him to the knees. Girl, there are hearts;
Unsafe as heaps of dried wood, and within
Mined by eating fires. And I, your father,
Worse than my father fared; for into the hot
Heart of my heart I broke, and I was caught,
The whole of me, in the blazing rage of hell.
And as my heart is, so is yours; a thing
To choke and stifle; or, once set it free,
The flaming of your heart will seize you and
Everlastingly burn you.
GIRL . This is talk
I can make nothing of. Who would refuse
A splendid thing? I know there is a power
Can make my life seem as if it were scarlet.
And it is like to fire, you say. Why, then,
That is the splendour I have dreamt about;
What should I do refusing it? What gain
Choking it down, but the old dull want I have?
SETH . Watch now, while I kick a hole in the stack.
Do you mark the glowing danger, the red lust
Biding within? See, all the dark's ashamed
That such hot mischief lights it up. A sod
Plugs the hole now; but had I left it open,
The stack were gone in a ravage of wild flame.
You've lookt into your heart now: are you not feared?
GIRL . I say, I can make nothing of this. My heart?
Is my heart stored with such a glowing light?
And I must be afraid of it? I will not!
But if this power is in me, it shall burn
To freedom, yes, and fill me with the burning.
SETH . O girl of mine, if you knew how I loved you!
Promise me now, you won't go near the Squire.
GIRL . Why not?
SETH . Darling, believe me! O, he would
Treat you fiendishly, — God, and laugh to do it!
GIRL . Father, let's have this out. What right have you
To cheat me of a knowledge all folks have?
Is it for sin that my heart so desires?
SETH . It cannot be that; no, it cannot be that.
GIRL . So then what harm in finding what sin is?
SETH . Yes, it is sin you want! But stifle it.
GIRL . And why? And why? You cannot show me that.
I tell you I mean to find this out!
SETH [ letting her go and standing bemused ]:
What do I, fighting with the evil heart
She has from me? If God has any mercy
He'll fight it down in her now, once and for ever. —
You'ld know what sin is? Well, I can tell you.
GIRL . You can, father?
SETH . The very spirit of sin
I can show you; for I have it with me.
Show it you? You can handle it, play with it.
GIRL . Where have you got it?
SETH . Here, in the midst of us.
GIRL . 'Tis something I can touch?
SETH . Come you and try.
Bend down. Do you see? — It is in here I keep it.
Undo the sneck of the lid, put in your hands,
And grope, search it thoroughly.
GIRL . In this box?
SETH [ over her ]. Lord, I perceive you will not let my sins
Go past her. There is no escape for her
But through my torments; but, O God, my sins
Will come too strong upon her; and already
Her blind heart fills with longing for my evil.
Give her the whole of it now, O Lord my God!
Satisfy all her longing at once; and let
The evil which her hands discover, Lord,
Be death!
GIRL . Ah, it is wet, — no, but how cold!
O, I am bitten, father. There is some anger
Hid in your box. And it has bitten me.
SETH . Show me. Let's have some light.
Ay, on the wrist.
Both fangs right on a vein. They must have sunk
Up to the gums in her flesh.
GIRL . Shall I suck the bite?
SETH [ seizing her arm ]. No need: sit down by me, and keep you quiet.
How does your arm feel?
GIRL . Strangely: very numb
And as if'twere swoln.
SETH . Cold?
GIRL . Icy: is it all right?
SETH . All right, darling.
GIRL [ struggling a little ]. Why must you hold my arm?
SETH . 'Tis better so. Bide you still awhile. —
Very soon it will be in the heart of her.
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