Tecumseh - Act 4, Scene 6
SCENE SIXTH. — Moonlight . T HE BANK OF THE D ETROIT R IVER, NEAR THE B ABY MANSION .
Enter C APTAIN R OBINSON .
R OBINSON . I thought to find my brother here — poor boy,
The day's hard labour woos him to his rest.
How sweet the night! how beautiful the place!
Who would not love thee, good old Sandwich town!
Abode of silence and sweet summer dreams —
Let speculation pass, nor progress touch
Thy silvan homes with hard, unhallowed hand!
The light wind whispers, and the air is rich
With vapours which exhale into the night;
And, round me here, this village in the leaves
Darkling doth slumber. How those giant pears
Loom with uplifted and high-ancient heads,
Like forest trees! A hundred years ago
They, like their owner, had their roots in France —
In fruitful Normandy — but here refuse,
Unlike, to multiply, as if their spirits
Grieved in their alien home. The village sleeps,
So should I seek that hospitable roof
Of thine, thou good old loyalist, Baby!
Thy mansion is a shrine, whereto shall come
On pilgrimages, in the distant days,
The strong and generous youths of Canada,
And, musing there in rich imaginings,
Restore the balance and the beaver-pack
To the wide hall; see forms of savagery,
Vanished for ages, and the stately shades
Of great Tecumseh and high-hearted Brock.
So shall they profit, drinking of the past,
And, drinking loyally, enlarge the faith
Which love of country breeds in noble minds.
But now to sleep — good-night unto the world!
Enter I ENA , in distress .
I ENA . Oh, have I eaten of the spirit-plant!
My head swims, and my senses are confused,
And all grows dark around me. Where am I?
Alas! I know naught save of wanderings,
And this poor bosom's weight. What pang is here,
Which all my pressing cannot ease away?
Poor heart! poor heart! Oh, I have travelled far,
And in the forest's brooding place, or where
Night-shrouded surges beat on lonely shores,
Have sickened with my deep, dread, formless fears;
But, never have I felt what now I feel!
Great Spirit, hear me! help me! — this is death!
Enter G ENERAL B ROCK and L EFROY .
B ROCK . You may be right, Lefroy! but, for my part,
I stand by old tradition and the past.
My father's God is wise enough for me,
And wise enough this gray world's wisest men.
L EFROY . I tell you, Brock,
The world is wiser than its wisest men,
And shall outlive the wisdom of its gods,
Made after man's own liking. The crippled throne
No longer shelters the uneasy king,
And outworn sceptres and imperial crowns
Now grow fantastic as an idiot's dream.
These perish with the kingly pastime, war,
And war's blind tool, the monster, Ignorance!
Both hateful in themselves, but this the worst.
One tyrant will remain — one impious fiend
Whose name is Gold — our earliest, latest foe!
Him must the earth destroy, ere man can rise,
Rightly self-made, to his high destiny,
Purged of his grossest faults; humane and kind;
Co-equal with his fellows, and as free.
B ROCK . Lefroy, such thoughts, let loose, would wreck the world.
The kingly function is the soul of state,
The crown the emblem of authority,
And loyalty the symbol of all faith.
Omitting these, man's government decays —
His family falls into revolt and ruin.
But let us drop this bootless argument,
And tell me more of those unrivalled wastes
You and Tecumseh visited.
L EFROY . We left
The silent forest, and, day after day,
Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight
Into the measureless West; uncharted realms,
Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind
Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast,
And rushing tides which never found a shore.
And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist,
Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light,
Into interminable wildernesses,
Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose,
And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee.
The deep-grooved bison-paths like furrows lay,
Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds
Primeval, and still travelled as of yore.
And gloomy valleys opened at our feet —
Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine;
And sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf,
Which through long reaches of the prairie wound,
Then melted slowly into upland vales,
Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills.
B ROCK . What charming solitudes! And life was there!
L EFROY . Yes, life was there! inexplicable life,
Still wasted by inexorable death.
There had the stately stag his battle-field —
Dying for mastery among his hinds.
There vainly sprung the affrighted antelope,
Beset by glittering eyes and hurrying feet.
The dancing grouse, at their insensate sport,
Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox;
The gopher on his little earthwork stood,
With folded arms, unconscious of the fate
That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead;
And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent,
Marked not the silent coiling of the snake.
At length we heard a deep and solemn sound —
Erupted moanings of the troubled earth
Trembling beneath innumerable feet.
A growing uproar blending in our ears,
With noise tumultuous as ocean's surge,
Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock,
And ardour of unconquerable herds.
A multitude whose trampling shook the plains,
With discord of harsh sound and rumblings deep,
As if the swift revolving earth had struck,
And from some adamantine peak recoiled,
Jarring. At length we topped a high-browed hill —
The last and loftiest of a file of such —
And, lo! before us lay the tameless stock,
Slow wending to the northward like a cloud!
A multitude in motion, dark and dense —
Far as the eye could reach, and farther still,
In countless myriads stretched for many a league,
B ROCK . You fire me with the picture! What a scene!
L EFROY . Nation on nation was invillaged there,
Skirting the flanks of that imbanded host;
With chieftains of strange speech and port of war,
Who, battle-armed, in weather-brawny bulk,
Roamed fierce and free in huge and wild content.
These gave Tecumseh greetings fair and king,
Knowing the purpose havened in his soul.
And he, too, joined the chase as few men dare;
For I have seen him, leaping from his horse,
Mount a careering bull in foaming flight,
Urge it to fury o'er its burden strange,
Yet cling tenacious, with a grip of steel,
Then, by a knife-plunge, fetch it to its knees
In mid career, and pangs of speedy death.
B ROCK . You rave, Lefroy! or saw this in a dream.
L EFROY . No, no; 'tis true — I saw him do it, Brock!
Then would he seek the old, and with his spoils
Restore them to the bounty of their youth,
Cheering the crippled lodge with plenteous feasts,
And warmth of glossy robes, as soft as down,
Till withered cheeks ran o'er with feeble smiles,
And tongues, long silent, babbled of their prime.
B ROCK . This warrior's fabric is of perfect parts!
A worthy champion of his race — he heaps
Such giant obligations on our heads
As will outweigh repayment. It is late,
And rest must preface war's hot work to-morrow,
Else would I talk till morn. How still the night!
Here Peace has let her silvery tresses down,
And falls asleep beside the lapping wave.
Wilt go with me?
L EFROY . Nay, I shall stay awhile,
B ROCK . You know my quarters and the countersign —
Good-night, Lefroy!
L EFROY . Good-night, good-night, good friend!
Give me the open sleep, whose bed is earth,
With airy ceiling pinned by golden stars,
Or vaultage more confined, plastered with clouds!
Your log-roofed barrack-sleep, 'twixt drum and drum,
Suits men who dream of death, and not of love.
Love cannot die, nor its exhausted life,
Exhaling like a breath into the air,
Blend with the universe again. It lives,
Knit to its soul forever. Iena!
Dead in the forest wild — earth cannot claim
Aught but her own from thee. Sleep on! sleep on!
I ENA . ( Reviving .) What place is this?
L EFROY . Who's there? What voice is that?
I ENA . Where am I now?
L EFROY . I'll follow up that sound!
A desperate hope now ventures in my heart!
I ENA . Help me, kind Spirit!
L EFROY . I could pick that voice
From out a choir of angels! Iena!
'Tis she! 'tis she! Speak to me, Iena —
No earthly power can mar your life again,
For I am here to shield it with my own.
I ENA . Lefroy!
L EFROY . Yes, he!
I ENA . My friends! found, found at last!
L EFROY . Found, found, my love! I swear it on your lips,
And seal love's contract there! Again — again —
Ah, me! all earthly pleasure is a toil
Compared with one long look upon your face.
I ENA . Oh, take me to my friends! A faintness came
Upon me, and no farther could I go.
L EFROY . What spirit led you here?
I ENA . My little bark
Is yonder by the shore — but take me hence!
For I am worn and weak with wandering.
L EFROY . Come with me then.
Enter the P ROPHET , who stalks gloomily over the stage — scowling at I ENA and L EFROY as he passes out .
I ENA . The Prophet! I am lost!
L EFROY . This monster here! But he is powerless now.
Fear him not, Iena! Tecumseh's wrath
Burns 'gainst him still — he dare not do thee hurt.
I ENA . Must I endure for ever this fiend's hate?
He stabbed me with his eye —
L EFROY . Oh, horrible!
Let us but meet again, and I shall send
His curst soul out of this accursed world!
Enter C APTAIN R OBINSON .
R OBINSON . I thought to find my brother here — poor boy,
The day's hard labour woos him to his rest.
How sweet the night! how beautiful the place!
Who would not love thee, good old Sandwich town!
Abode of silence and sweet summer dreams —
Let speculation pass, nor progress touch
Thy silvan homes with hard, unhallowed hand!
The light wind whispers, and the air is rich
With vapours which exhale into the night;
And, round me here, this village in the leaves
Darkling doth slumber. How those giant pears
Loom with uplifted and high-ancient heads,
Like forest trees! A hundred years ago
They, like their owner, had their roots in France —
In fruitful Normandy — but here refuse,
Unlike, to multiply, as if their spirits
Grieved in their alien home. The village sleeps,
So should I seek that hospitable roof
Of thine, thou good old loyalist, Baby!
Thy mansion is a shrine, whereto shall come
On pilgrimages, in the distant days,
The strong and generous youths of Canada,
And, musing there in rich imaginings,
Restore the balance and the beaver-pack
To the wide hall; see forms of savagery,
Vanished for ages, and the stately shades
Of great Tecumseh and high-hearted Brock.
So shall they profit, drinking of the past,
And, drinking loyally, enlarge the faith
Which love of country breeds in noble minds.
But now to sleep — good-night unto the world!
Enter I ENA , in distress .
I ENA . Oh, have I eaten of the spirit-plant!
My head swims, and my senses are confused,
And all grows dark around me. Where am I?
Alas! I know naught save of wanderings,
And this poor bosom's weight. What pang is here,
Which all my pressing cannot ease away?
Poor heart! poor heart! Oh, I have travelled far,
And in the forest's brooding place, or where
Night-shrouded surges beat on lonely shores,
Have sickened with my deep, dread, formless fears;
But, never have I felt what now I feel!
Great Spirit, hear me! help me! — this is death!
Enter G ENERAL B ROCK and L EFROY .
B ROCK . You may be right, Lefroy! but, for my part,
I stand by old tradition and the past.
My father's God is wise enough for me,
And wise enough this gray world's wisest men.
L EFROY . I tell you, Brock,
The world is wiser than its wisest men,
And shall outlive the wisdom of its gods,
Made after man's own liking. The crippled throne
No longer shelters the uneasy king,
And outworn sceptres and imperial crowns
Now grow fantastic as an idiot's dream.
These perish with the kingly pastime, war,
And war's blind tool, the monster, Ignorance!
Both hateful in themselves, but this the worst.
One tyrant will remain — one impious fiend
Whose name is Gold — our earliest, latest foe!
Him must the earth destroy, ere man can rise,
Rightly self-made, to his high destiny,
Purged of his grossest faults; humane and kind;
Co-equal with his fellows, and as free.
B ROCK . Lefroy, such thoughts, let loose, would wreck the world.
The kingly function is the soul of state,
The crown the emblem of authority,
And loyalty the symbol of all faith.
Omitting these, man's government decays —
His family falls into revolt and ruin.
But let us drop this bootless argument,
And tell me more of those unrivalled wastes
You and Tecumseh visited.
L EFROY . We left
The silent forest, and, day after day,
Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight
Into the measureless West; uncharted realms,
Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind
Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast,
And rushing tides which never found a shore.
And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist,
Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light,
Into interminable wildernesses,
Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose,
And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee.
The deep-grooved bison-paths like furrows lay,
Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds
Primeval, and still travelled as of yore.
And gloomy valleys opened at our feet —
Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine;
And sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf,
Which through long reaches of the prairie wound,
Then melted slowly into upland vales,
Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills.
B ROCK . What charming solitudes! And life was there!
L EFROY . Yes, life was there! inexplicable life,
Still wasted by inexorable death.
There had the stately stag his battle-field —
Dying for mastery among his hinds.
There vainly sprung the affrighted antelope,
Beset by glittering eyes and hurrying feet.
The dancing grouse, at their insensate sport,
Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox;
The gopher on his little earthwork stood,
With folded arms, unconscious of the fate
That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead;
And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent,
Marked not the silent coiling of the snake.
At length we heard a deep and solemn sound —
Erupted moanings of the troubled earth
Trembling beneath innumerable feet.
A growing uproar blending in our ears,
With noise tumultuous as ocean's surge,
Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock,
And ardour of unconquerable herds.
A multitude whose trampling shook the plains,
With discord of harsh sound and rumblings deep,
As if the swift revolving earth had struck,
And from some adamantine peak recoiled,
Jarring. At length we topped a high-browed hill —
The last and loftiest of a file of such —
And, lo! before us lay the tameless stock,
Slow wending to the northward like a cloud!
A multitude in motion, dark and dense —
Far as the eye could reach, and farther still,
In countless myriads stretched for many a league,
B ROCK . You fire me with the picture! What a scene!
L EFROY . Nation on nation was invillaged there,
Skirting the flanks of that imbanded host;
With chieftains of strange speech and port of war,
Who, battle-armed, in weather-brawny bulk,
Roamed fierce and free in huge and wild content.
These gave Tecumseh greetings fair and king,
Knowing the purpose havened in his soul.
And he, too, joined the chase as few men dare;
For I have seen him, leaping from his horse,
Mount a careering bull in foaming flight,
Urge it to fury o'er its burden strange,
Yet cling tenacious, with a grip of steel,
Then, by a knife-plunge, fetch it to its knees
In mid career, and pangs of speedy death.
B ROCK . You rave, Lefroy! or saw this in a dream.
L EFROY . No, no; 'tis true — I saw him do it, Brock!
Then would he seek the old, and with his spoils
Restore them to the bounty of their youth,
Cheering the crippled lodge with plenteous feasts,
And warmth of glossy robes, as soft as down,
Till withered cheeks ran o'er with feeble smiles,
And tongues, long silent, babbled of their prime.
B ROCK . This warrior's fabric is of perfect parts!
A worthy champion of his race — he heaps
Such giant obligations on our heads
As will outweigh repayment. It is late,
And rest must preface war's hot work to-morrow,
Else would I talk till morn. How still the night!
Here Peace has let her silvery tresses down,
And falls asleep beside the lapping wave.
Wilt go with me?
L EFROY . Nay, I shall stay awhile,
B ROCK . You know my quarters and the countersign —
Good-night, Lefroy!
L EFROY . Good-night, good-night, good friend!
Give me the open sleep, whose bed is earth,
With airy ceiling pinned by golden stars,
Or vaultage more confined, plastered with clouds!
Your log-roofed barrack-sleep, 'twixt drum and drum,
Suits men who dream of death, and not of love.
Love cannot die, nor its exhausted life,
Exhaling like a breath into the air,
Blend with the universe again. It lives,
Knit to its soul forever. Iena!
Dead in the forest wild — earth cannot claim
Aught but her own from thee. Sleep on! sleep on!
I ENA . ( Reviving .) What place is this?
L EFROY . Who's there? What voice is that?
I ENA . Where am I now?
L EFROY . I'll follow up that sound!
A desperate hope now ventures in my heart!
I ENA . Help me, kind Spirit!
L EFROY . I could pick that voice
From out a choir of angels! Iena!
'Tis she! 'tis she! Speak to me, Iena —
No earthly power can mar your life again,
For I am here to shield it with my own.
I ENA . Lefroy!
L EFROY . Yes, he!
I ENA . My friends! found, found at last!
L EFROY . Found, found, my love! I swear it on your lips,
And seal love's contract there! Again — again —
Ah, me! all earthly pleasure is a toil
Compared with one long look upon your face.
I ENA . Oh, take me to my friends! A faintness came
Upon me, and no farther could I go.
L EFROY . What spirit led you here?
I ENA . My little bark
Is yonder by the shore — but take me hence!
For I am worn and weak with wandering.
L EFROY . Come with me then.
Enter the P ROPHET , who stalks gloomily over the stage — scowling at I ENA and L EFROY as he passes out .
I ENA . The Prophet! I am lost!
L EFROY . This monster here! But he is powerless now.
Fear him not, Iena! Tecumseh's wrath
Burns 'gainst him still — he dare not do thee hurt.
I ENA . Must I endure for ever this fiend's hate?
He stabbed me with his eye —
L EFROY . Oh, horrible!
Let us but meet again, and I shall send
His curst soul out of this accursed world!
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