Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (624 page)

Uttered with reverent playfulness. The lads

And younger men all called her mother, aunt.,

Or granny, with their pet diminutives,

And bade their lasses and their brides behave

Eight well to one who snrely made a link

Twixt faulty folk and God by loving both :

Not one but counted service done by her,

Asking no pay save just her daily bread.

At feasts and weddings, when they passed in groups

Along the vale, and the good country wine,

Being vocal in them, made them quire along

In quaintly mingled mirth and piety,

They fain must jest and play some friendly trick

On three old maids ; but when the moment came

Always they bated breath and made their sport

Gentle as feather-stroke, that Agatha

Might like the waking for the love it showed.

Their song made happy music ‘mid the hills,

For nature tuned their race to harmony,

And poet Hans, the tailor, wrote, them songs

That grew from out their life, as crocuses

Grow in the meadow’s moistness. ‘T was his song

They oft sang, wending homeward from a feast, —

The song I give you. It brings in, you see,

Their gentle jesting with the three old maids.

Midnight by the chapel bell !

Homeward, homeward all, farewell !

I with you, and you with me,

Miles are short with company.

Heart of Mary, bless the way,

Keep us all by night and day !

Moon and stars at feast with night

Now have drunk their fill of light.

Home they hurry, making time

Trot apace, like merry rhyme.

Heart of Mary, mystic rose,

Send us all a sweet repose !

Swiftly through wood down hill,

Run till you can hear the mill.

Toni’s ghost is wandering now,

Shaped just like a snow-white cow.

Heart of Mary, morning star,

Ward off danger, near or far !

Toni’s wagon with its load

Fell and crushed him on the road

‘Twixt these pine-trees. Never fear !

Give a neighbor’s ghost good cheer.

Holy Babe, our God and Brother,

Bind us fast to one another !

Hark ! The mill is at its work,

Now we pass beyond the murk,

To the hollow, where the moon

Makes her silvery afternoon.

Good Saint Joseph, faithful spouse,

Help us all to keep our vows !

Here the three old maidens dwell,

Agatha and Kate and Nell ;

See, the moon shines on the thatch,

We will go and shake the latch.

Heart of Mary, cup of joy,

Give us mirth without alloy !

Hush, ‘t is here, no noise, sing low,

Rap with gentle knuckles — so !

Like the little tapping birds

On the door : then sing good words.

Meek Saint Anna, old and fair,

Hallow all the snow-white hair !

Little maidens old, sweet dreams !

Sleep one sleep till morning beams.

Mothers ye, who help us all,

Quick at hand, if ill befall.

Holy Gabriel, lily-laden,

Bless the aged mother maiden !

Forward mount the broad hillside

Swift as soldiers when they ride.

See the two towers how they peep,

Round-capped giants, o’er the steep.

Heart of Mary, by thy sorrow,

Keep us upright through the morrow !

Now they rise quite suddenly,

Like a man from bended knee,

Now Saint Margen is in sight,

Here the roads branch off — good night !

Heart of Mary, by thy grace,

Give us with the saints a place !

THE END

ARMGAR
T

SCENE I.

A Salon lit with lamps and ornamented with green plants. An open piano, with many scattered

sheets of music. Bronze busts of Beethoven and Gluck on pillars opposite each other. A small table

spread with supper. To FRAULEIN WALPURGA, who advances with a slight lameness of gait from

an adjoining room, enters GRAF DORNBURG at the opposite door in a travelling dress.

GRAF.

Good morning, Fraulein!

WALPURGA.

What, so soon returned?

I feared your mission kept you still at Prague.

GRAF.

But now arrived! You see my travelling dress.

I hurried from the panting, roaring steam

Like any courier of embassy

Who hides the fiends of war within his bag.

WALPURGA.

You know that Armgart sings to-night?

GRAF.

Has sung!

‘T is close on half-past nine. The Orpheus

Lasts not so long. Her spirits — were they high?

Was Leo confident?

WALPURGA.

He only feared

Some tameness at beginning. Let the house

Once ring, he said, with plaudits, she is safe.

GRAF.

And Armgart?

WALPURGA.

She was stiller than her wont.

But once, at some such trivial word of mine,

As that the highest prize might yet be won

By her who took the second she was roused.

“For me,” she said, “I triumph or I fail.

I never strove for any second prize.”

GRAF.

Poor human-hearted singing-bird! She bears

Caesar’s ambition in her delicate breast,

And nought to still it with but quivering song!

WALPURGA.

I had not for the world been there to-night:

Unreasonable dread oft chills me more

Than any reasonable hope can warm.

GRAF.

You have a rare affection for your cousin;

As tender as a sister’s.

WALPURGA.

Nay, I fear

My love is little more than what I felt

For happy stories when I was a child.

She fills my life that would be empty else,

And lifts my nought to value by her side.

GRAF.

She is reason good enough, or seems to be,

Why all were born whose being ministers

To her completeness. Is it most her voice

Subdues us? or her instinct exquisite,

Informing each old strain with some new grace

Which takes our sense like any natural good?

Or most her spiritual energy

That sweeps us in the current of ner song?

WALPURGA.

I know not. Losing either, we should lose

That whole we call our Armgart. For herself,

She often wonders what her life had been

Without that voice for channel to her soul.

She says, it must have leaped through all her limbs —

Made her a M^nad — made her snatch a brand

And fire some forest, that her rage might mount

In crashing roaring flames through half a land,

Leaving her still and patient for a while.

“ Poor wretch!” she says, of any murderess —

“ The world was cruel, and she could not sing:

I carry my revenges in my throat;

I love in singing, and am loved again.”

GRAF.

Mere mood! I cannot yet believe it more.

Too much ambition has unwomaned her;

But only for a while. Her nature hides

One half its treasures by its very wealth,

Taxing the hours to show it.

WALPURGA.

Hark ! she comes.

(Enter LEO with a wreath in his hand, holding the door open for ARMGART, who wears a furred

mantle and hood. She is followed by her maid, carrying an armful of bouquets. )

LEO.

Place for the queen of song!

GRAF (advancing toward ARMGART, who throws off her hood and mantle, and shows a star of

brilliants in her hair.)

A triumph, then.

You will not be a niggard of your joy

And chide the eagerness that came to share it.

ARMGART.

0
            
kind! you hastened your return for me.

1
            
would you had been there to hear me sing!

Walpurga, kiss me: never tremble more

Lest Armgart’s wings should fail her. She has found

This night the region where her rapture breathes —

Pouring her passion on the air made live

With human heart-throbs. Tell them, Leo, tell them

How I outsang your hope and made you cry

Because Gluck could not hear me. That was folly!

He sang, not listened: every linked note

Was his immortal pulse that stirred in mine,

And all my gladness is but part of him.

Give me the wreath.

(She crowns the bust of GLUCK.)

LEO (sardonically) .

Ay, ay, but mark you this:

It was not part of him — that trill you made

In spite of me and reason!

ARMGART.

You were wrong —

Dear Leo, you were wrong: the house was held

As if a storm were listening with delight

And hushed its thunder.

LEO.

Will you ask the house

To teach you singing? Quit your Orpheus, then,

And sing in farces grown to operas,

Where all the prurience of the full-fed mob

Is tickled with melodic impudence:

Jerk forth burlesque bravuras, square your arms

Akimbo with a tavern wench’s grace,

And set the splendid compass of your voice

To lyric jigs. Go to! I thought you meant

To be an artist — lift your audience

To see your vision, not trick forth a show

To please the grossest taste of grossest numbers.

ARMGART (taking up LEO’S hand and kissing it).

Pardon, good Leo, I am penitent.

I will do penance: sing a hundred trills

Into a deep-dug grave, then burying them

As one did Midas’ secret, rid myself

Of naughty exultation. Oh I trilled

At nature’s prompting, like the nightingales.

Go scold them, dearest Leo.

LEO.

I stop my ears.

Nature in Gluck inspiring Orpheus,

Has done with nightingales. Are bird-beaks lips?

GRAF.

Truce to rebukes! Tell us — who were not there —

The double drama: how the expectant house

Took the first notes.

WALPURGA (turning from her occupation of decking the room with the flowers).

Yes, tell us all, dear Armgart.

Did you feel tremors? Leo, how did she look?

Was there a cheer to greet her?

LEO.

Not a sound.

She walked like Orpheus in his solitude,

And seemed to see nought but what no man saw.

‘T was famous. Not the Schroeder-Devrient

Had done it better. But your blessed public

Had never any judgment in cold blood —

Thinks all perhaps were better otherwise,

Till rapture brings a reason.

ARMGART (scornfully).

I knew that!

The women whispered, “Not a pretty face!”

The men, “Well, well, a goodly length of limb;

She bears the chiton.” — It were all the same

Were I the Virgin Mother and my stage

The opening heavens at the Judgment-day:

Gossips would peep, jog elbows, rate the price

Of such a woman in the social mart.

What were the drama of the world to them,

Unless they felt the hell-prong?

LEO.

Peace, now, peace!

I hate my phrases to be smothered o’er

With sauce of paraphrase, my sober tune