Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (675 page)

The tongue of his good cause in Africa,

So gives us furtherance in our pilgrimage

For service hoped, as well as service done

In that great feat of which I am the eye,

And my three hundred Gypsies the best arm.

More, I am charged by other noble Moors

With messages of weight to Telemsan.

Ha, your eye flashes. Are you glad ?

FEDALMA.

Yes, glad

That men are forced to honor a Zincalo.

ZARCA.

O, fighting for dear life men choose their swords

For cutting only, not for ornament.

What naught but Nature gives, man takes perforce

Where she bestows it, though in vilest place.

Can he compress invention out of pride,

Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail

Towards great discoveries with a pedigree ?

Sick men ask cures, and Nature serves not hers

Daintily as a feast. A blacksmith once

Founded a dynasty, and raised on high

The leathern apron over armies spread

Between the mountains like a lake of steel.

FEDALMA (bitterly).

To be contemned, then, is fair augury.

That pledge of future good at least is ours.

ZARCA.

Let men contemn us : ‘t is such blind contempt

That leaves the winged broods to thrive in warmth

Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms

So we shall thrive, — still darkly shall draw force

Into a new and multitudinous life

That likeness fashions to community,

Mother divine of customs, faith and laws.

‘T is ripeness, ‘t is fame’s zenith that kills hope.

Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come

Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds.

FEDALMA.

And our wild Zincali ? Under their poor husk

Can you discern such seed ? You said our band

Was the best arm of some hard enterprise ;

They give out sparks of virtue, then, and show

There’s metal in their earth ?

ZARCA.

Ay, metal fine

In my brave Gypsies. Not the lithest Moor

Has lither limbs for scaling, keener eye

To mark the meaning of the furthest speck

That tells of change ; and they are disciplined

By faith in me, to such obedience

As needs no spy. My scalers and my scouts

Are to the Moorish force they’re leagued withal

As bow-string to the bow ; while I their chief

Command the enterprise and guide the will

Of Moorish captains, as the pilot guides

With eye-instructed hand the passive helm.

For high device is still the highest force,

And he who holds the secret of the wheel

May make the rivers do what work he would.

With thoughts impalpable we clutch men’s souls,

Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly

Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind.

Tell me what’s mirrored in the tiger’s hearty

I’ll rule that too.

FEDALMA (wrought to a glow of admiration).

O my imperial father !

‘T is where there breathes a mighty soul like yours

That men’s content is of good augury.

ZARCA (seizing both FEDALMA’S hands, and looking at her searchingly).

And you, my daughter, are you not the child

Of the The Zincalo ? Does not his great hope

Thrill in your veins like shouts of victory ?

‘T is a vile life that like a garden pool

Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves ;

That has no ear save for the tickling lute

Set to small measures, — deaf to all the beats

Of that large music rolling o’er the world :

A miserable, petty, low-roofed life,

That knows the mighty orbits of the skies

Through naught save light or dark in its own cabin.

The very brutes will feel the force of kind

And move together, gathering a new soul, —

The soul of multitudes. Say now, my child,

You will not falter, not look back and long

For unfledged ease in some soft alien nest.

The crane with outspread wing that heads the file

Pauses not, feels no backward impulses :

Behind it summer was, and is no more ;

Before it lies the summer it will reach

Or fall in mid-ocean. And you no less

Must feel the force sublime of growing life.

New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings ;

The widening vision is imperious

As higher members bursting the worm’s sheath.

You cannot grovel in the worm’s delights :

You must take winged pleasures, winged pains.

Are you not steadfast? Will you live or die

For aught below your royal heritage ?

To him who holds the flickering brief torch

That lights a beacon for the perishing,

Aught else is crime. Are you a false Zincala ?

FEDALMA.

Father, my soul is weak, the mist of tears

Still rises to my eyes, and hides the goal

Which to your undimmed sight is clear and changeless.

But if I cannot plant resolve on hope

It will stand firm on certainty of woe.

I choose the ill that is most like to end

With my poor being. Hopes have precarious life.

They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off

In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.

But faithfulness can feed on suffering,

And knows no disappointment. Trust in me !

If it were needed, this poor trembling hand

Should grasp the torch, — strive not to let it fall

Though, it were burning down close to my flesh,

No beacon lighted yet : through the damp dark

I should still hear the cry of gasping swimmers.

Father, I will be true !

ZARCA.

I trust that word.

And, for your sadness, — you are young, — the bruise

Will leave no mark. The worst of miseries

Is when a nature framed for noblest things

Condemns itself in youth to petty joys,

And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life

Gasping from out the shallows. You are saved

From such poor doubleness. The life we choose

Breathes high, and sees a full-arched firmament.

Our deeds shall speak like rock-hewn messages,

Teaching great purpose to the distant time.

Now I must hasten back. I shall but speak

To Nadar of the order he must keep

In setting watch and victualling. The stars

And the young moon must see me at my post.

Nay, rest you here. Farewell, my younger self, —

Strong-hearted daughter ! Shall I live in you

When the earth covers me?

FEDALMA.

My father, death

Should give your will divineness, make it strong

With the beseechings of a mighty soul

That left its work unfinished. Kiss me now :

(They embrace, and she adds tremulously as they part)

And when you see fair hair, be pitiful.

(Exit ZARCA.)

(FEDALMA seats herself on the bank, leans her headforward, and covers

her face with her drapery. While she is seated thus, HINDA comes from the

bank, with a branch of musk roses in her hand. Seeing FEDALMA with head

bent and covered, she pauses, and begins to move on tiptoe.)

HINDA.

Our Queen ! Can she be crying ? There she sits

As I did every day when my dog Saad

Sickened and yelled, and seemed to yell so loud

After we’d buried him, I oped his grave.

(She comes forward on tiptoe, kneels at FEDALMA’S feet, and embraces

them. FEDALMA uncovers her head.)

FEDALMA.

Hinda ! what is it ?

HINDA.

Queen, a branch of roses, —

So sweet, you’ll love to smell them. ‘T was the last.

I climbed the bank to get it before Tralla,

And slipped and scratched my arm. But I don’t mind.

You love the roses, — so do I. I wish