Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (680 page)

His full-formed self, as the impregnant sap

Of years successive frames the full-branched tree, —

Was present in one whole ; and that great trust

His deed had broken turned reproach on him

From faces of all witnesses who heard

His uttered pledges ; saw him take high place

Centring reliance ; use rich privilege

That bound him like a victim-nourished god

To bless ; assume the Cross and take his knightly oath

Mature, deliberate : faces human all,

And some divine as well as human : His

Who hung supreme, the suffering Man divine

Above the altar ; Hers, the Mother pure

Whose glance informed his masculine tenderness

With deepest reverence ; the Archangel armed,

Trampling man’s enemy : all heroic forms

That fill the world of faith with voices, hearts,

And high companionship, to Silva now

Made but one inward and insistent world

With faces of his peers, with court and hall

And deference, and reverent vassalage

And filial pieties, — one current strong,

The warmly mingled life-blood of his mind,

Sustaining him even when he idly played

With rules, beliefs, charges, and ceremonies

As arbitrary fooling. Such revenge

Is wrought by the long travail of mankind

On him who scorns it, and would shape his life

Without obedience.

But his warrior’s pride

Would take no wounds save on the breast. He faced

The fatal crowd : ‘“I never shall repent !

If I have sinned my sin was made for me

By men’s perverseness. There’s no blameless life

Save for the passionless, no sanctities

But have the selfsame roof and props with crime,

Or have their roots close interlaced with vileness.

If I had loved her less, been more a craven,

I had kept my place and had the easy praise

Of a true Spanish noble. But I loved,

And, loving, dared, — not Death the warrior

But Infamy that binds and strips and holds

The brand and lash. I have dared all for her.

She was my good, — what other men call heaven.

And for the sake of it bear penances ;

Nay, some of old were baited, tortured, flayed

To win their heaven. Heaven was their good,

She, mine. And I have braved for her all fires

Certain or threatened ; for I go away

Beyond the reach of expiation, — far away

From sacramental blessing. Does God bless

No outlaw ? Shut his absolution fast

In human breath ? Is there no God for me

Save Him whose cross I have forsaken ? — Well,

I am forever exiled, — but with her.

She is dragged out into the wilderness ;

I, with my love, will be her providence.

I have a right to choose my good or ill,

A right to damn myself ! The ill is mine

I never will repent !”....

Thus Silva, inwardly debating, all his ear

Turned into audience of a twofold mind ;

For even in tumult full-fraught consciousness

Had plenteous being for a Self aloof

That gazed and listened, like a soul in dreams

Weaving the wondrous tale it marvels at.

But oft the conflict slackened, oft strong Love

With tidal. Energy returning laid

All other restlessness : Fedalma came

And with her visionary presence brought

What seemed a waking in the warm spring morn.

He still was pacing on the stony earth

Under the deepening night ; the fresh-lit fires

Were flickering on dark forms and eyes that met

His forward and his backward tread; but she,

She was within him, making his whole self

Mere Correspondence with her image : sense,

In all its deep recesses where it keeps

The mystic stores of ecstasy, was transformed

To memory that killed the hour, like wine.

Then Silva said : “ She, by herself, is life.

What was joy before I loved her, — what

Shall Heaven lure us with, love being lost ?” —

For he was young.

But now around the fires

The Gypsy band felt freer ; Juan’s song

Was no more there, nor Juan’s friendly ways

For links of amity ‘twixt their wild mood

And this strange brother, this pale Spanish duke,

Who with their Gypsy badge upon his breast

Took readier place within their alien hearts

As a marked captive, who would fain escape.

And Nadar, who commanded them, had known

The prison in Bedmar. So now, in talk

Foreign to Spanish ears, they said their minds,

Discussed their chief’s intent, the lot marked out

For this new brother. Would he wed their queen ?

And some denied, saying their queen would wed

A true Zincalo Duke, — one who would join

Their bands in Telemsan. But others thought

Young Hassan was to wed her ; said their chief

Would never trust this noble of Castile,

Who in his very swearing was forsworn.

And then one fell to chanting, in wild notes

Recurrent like the moan of outshut winds,

The adjuration they were wont to use

To any Spaniard who would join their tribe :

Words of plain Spanish, lately stirred anew

And ready at new impulse. Soon the rest,

Drawn to the stream of sound, made unison

Higher and lower, till the tidal sweep

Seemed to assail the Duke and close him round

With force demonic. All debate till now

Had wrestled with the urgence of that oath

Already broken ; now the newer oath

Thrust its loud presence on him. He stood still,

Close baited by loud-barking thoughts, — fierce hounds

Of that Supreme, the irreversible Past.

The ZINCALI sing.

Brother, hear and take the curse,

Curse of soul’s and body’s throes,

If you hate not all our foes,

Cling not fast to all our woes,

Turn a false Zincalo !

May you be accurst

By hunger and by thirst,

By spiked pangs

Starvation’s fangs

Clutching you alone

When none but peering vultures hear your moan.

Curst by burning hands,

Curst by aching brow,

When on sea-wide sands

Fever lays you low ;

By the maddened brain

When the running water glistens,

And the deaf ear listens, listens,

Prisonedfire within the vein,

On the tongue and on the lip

Not a sip

From the earth or skies ;

Hot the desert lies

Pressed into your anguish,

Narrowing earth and narrowing sky

Into lonely, misery.

Lonely may you languish

Through the day and through the night,

Hate the darkness, hate the light,

Pray and find no ear,

Feel no brother near,

Till on death you cry,

Death who passes by,

And anew you groan,

Scaring the vultures all to leave you living lone :

Curst by soul’s and body’s throes

If you love the dark men’s foes,

Cling not fast to all the dark men’s woes,

Turn a false Zincalo !

Swear to hate the cruel cross,

The silver cross !

Glittering, laughing at the blood

Shed below it in a flood

When it glitters over Moorish porches ;

Laughing at the scent of flesh

When it glitters where the fagot scorches,

Burning life’s mysterious mesh :

Blood of wandering Israel,

Blood of wandering Ismael,

Blood, the drink of Christian scorn,

Blood of wanderers, sons of morn.

Where the life of men began :