Selected Poems (88 page)

35

Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,

With a pervading vision. – Beautiful!

How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,

40

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make

A conflict of its elements, and breathe

The breath of degradation and of pride,

Contending with low wants and lofty will,

45

Till our mortality predominates,

And men are – what they name not to themselves,

And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,

[
The Shepherd’s pipe in the distance is heard.
]

The natural music of the mountain reed —

For here the patriarchal days are not

50

A pastoral fable – pipes in the liberal air,

Mix’d with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;

My soul would drink those echoes. – Oh, that I were

The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,

55

A bodiless enjoyment – born and dying

With the blest tone which made me!

[
Enter from below a
CHAMOIS HUNTER
.]

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:Even so

This way the chamois leapt: her nimble feet

Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce

Repay my break-neck travail. – What is here?

60

Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach’d

A height which none even of our mountaineers,

Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb

Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air

Proud as a free-born peasant’s, at this distance –

65

I will approach him nearer.

MANFRED
[
not perceiving the other
]: To be thus –

Grey-hair’d with anguish, like these blasted pines,

Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,

A blighted trunk upon a cursed root,

Which but supplies a feeling to decay –

70

And to be thus, eternally but thus,

Having been otherwise! Now furrow’d o’er

With wrinkles, plough’d by moments, not by years

And hours – all tortured into ages – hours

Which I outlive! – Ye toppling crags of ice!

75

Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down

In mountainous o’erwhelming, come and crush me!

I hear ye momently above, beneath,

Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass,

And only fall on things that still would live;

80

On the young flourishing forest, or the hut

And hamlet of the harmless villager.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: The mists begin to rise from up the valley;

I’ll warn him to descend, or he may chance

To lose at once his way and life together.

85

MANFRED
: The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds

Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,

Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,

Whose every wave breaks on a living shore,

Heap’d with the damn’d like pebbles. – I am giddy.

90

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: I must approach him cautiously; if near,

A sudden step will startle him, and he

Seems tottering already.

MANFRED
:Mountains have fallen,

Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock

Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up

95

The ripe green valleys with destruction’s splinters;

Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,

Which crush’d the waters into mist, and made

Their fountains find another channel – thus,

Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg –

100

Why stood I not beneath it?

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:Friend! have a care,

Your next step may be fatal! — for the love

Of him who made you, stand not on that brink!

MANFRED
[
not hearing him
]: Such would have been for me a fitting tomb;

My bones had then been quiet in their depth;

105

They had not then been strewn upon the rocks

For the wind’s pastime – as thus – thus they shall be –

In this one plunge. – Farewell, ye opening heavens!

Look not upon me thus reproachfully -

Ye were not meant for me – Earth! take these atoms!

[ As
MANFRED
is in act to spring from the cliff, the
CHAMOIS HUNTER
seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.
]

110

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Hold, madman! — though aweary of thy life,

Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood –

Away with me — I will not quit my hold.

MANFRED
: I am most sick at heart – nay, grasp me not –

I am all feebleness – the mountains whirl

115

Spinning around me — I grow blind — What art thou?

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: I’ll answer that anon. — Away with me —

The clouds grow thicker — there – now lean on me –

Place your foot here – here, take this staff, and cling

A moment to that shrub – now give me your hand,

120

And hold fast by my girdle – softly – well –

The Chalet will be gain’d within an hour –

Come on, we’ll quickly find a surer footing,

And something like a pathway, which the torrent

Hath wash’d since winter. – Come, ’tis bravely done –

125

You should have been a hunter. – Follow me.

[
As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.
]

Act II

SCENE I

A
Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps.

[
MANFRED
and the
CHAMOIS HUNTER
.]

CHAMOIS HUNTER:
No, no – yet pause – thou must not yet go forth:

Thy mind and body are alike unfit

To trust each other; for some hours, at least;

When thou art better I will be thy guide –

5

But whither?

MANFRED
:It imports not: I do know

My route full well, and need no further guidance.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage –

One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags

Look o’er the lower valleys — which of these

10

May call thee lord? I only know their portals;

My way of life leads me but rarely down

To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls,

Carousing with the vassals; but the paths,

Which step from out our mountains to their doors,

15

I know from childhood – which of these is thine?

MANFRED
: No matter.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Well, sir, pardon me the question,

And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine;

Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day

’T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now

20

Let it do thus for thine – Come, pledge me fairly.

MANFRED
: Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim!

Will it then never — never sink in the earth?

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.

MANFRED
: I say ’tis blood – my blood! the pure warm stream

25

Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours

When we were in our youth, and had one heart,

And loved each other as we should not love,

And this was shed: but still it rises up,

Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven,

30

Where thou art not – and I shall never be.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,

Which makes thee people vacancy, whate’er

Thy dread and sufferance be, there’s comfort yet —

The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience —

35

MANFRED
: Patience and patience! Hence – that word was made

For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey;

Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine, —

I am not of thine order.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:Thanks to heaven!

I would not be of thine for the free fame

40

Of William Tell; but whatsoe’er thine ill,

It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.

MANFRED
: Do I not bear it? – Look on me – I live.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: This is convulsion, and no healthful life.

MANFRED
: I tell thee, man! I have lived many years,

45

Many long years, but they are nothing now

To those which I must number: ages – ages –

Space and eternity – and consciousness,

With the fierce thirst of death – and still unslaked!

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age

50

Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far.

MANFRED
: Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?

It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine

Have made my days and nights imperishable,

Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,

55

Innumerable atoms; and one desert,

Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,

But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,

Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: Alas! he’s mad — but yet I must not leave him.

60

MANFRED
: I would I were – for then the things I see

Would be but a distemper’d dream.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:What is it

That thou dost see, or think thou look’st upon?

MANFRED
: Myself, and thee – a peasant of the Alps –

Thy humble virtues, hospitable home,

65

And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free;

Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;

Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils,

By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes

Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave,

70

With cross and garland over its green turf,

And thy grandchildren’s love for epitaph;

This do I see – and then I look within –

It matters not – my soul was scorch’d already!

CHAMOIS HUNTER
: And would’st thou then exchange thy lot for mine?

75

MANFRED
: No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange

My lot with living being: I can bear –

However wretchedly, ’tis still to bear —

In life what others could not brook to dream,

But perish in their slumber.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:And with this –

80

This cautious feeling for another’s pain,

Canst thou be black with evil? – say not so.

Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak’d revenge

Upon his enemies?

MANFRED
:Oh! no, no, no!

My injuries came down on those who loved me –

85

On those whom I best loved: I never quell’d

An enemy, save in my just defence –

My wrongs were all on those I should have cherished

But my embrace was fatal.

CHAMOIS HUNTER
:Heaven give thee rest!

And penitence restore thee to thyself;

90

My prayers shall be for thee.

MANFRED
:I need them not,

But can endure thy pity. I depart –

’Tis time – farewell! – Here’s gold, and thanks for thee –

No words – it is thy due. – Follow me not –

I know my path — the mountain peril’s past:

95

And once again, I charge thee, follow not!

[
Exit
MANFRED
.]

SCENE II

A lower Valley in the Alps. – A Cataract.

[
Enter
MANFRED
.]

It is not noon – the sunbow’s rays
¹
still arch

The torrent with the many hues of heaven,

And roll the sheeted silver’s waving column

O’er the crag’s headlong perpendicular,

5

And fling its lines of foaming light along,

And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tail,

The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,

As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes

But mine now drink this sight of loveliness;

10

I should be sole in this sweet solitude,

And with the Spirit of the place divide

The homage of these waters. – I will call her.

[
MANFRED
takes some of the water into the palm of his hand, and flings it into the air, muttering the adjuration. After a pause, the
WITCH OF THE ALPS
rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.
]

Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light,

And dazzling eyes of glory in whose form

15

The charms of earth’s least mortal daughters grow

To an unearthly stature, in an essence

Of purer elements; while the hues of youth, –

Carnation’d like a sleeping infant’s cheek,

Rock’d by the beating of her mother’s heart,

20

Or the rose tints, which summer’s twilight leaves

Upon the lofty glacier’s virgin snow,

The blush of earth embracing with her heaven, –

Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame

The beauties of the sunbow which bends o’er thee.

25Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow,

Wherein is glass’d serenity of soul,

Which of itself shows immortality,

I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son

Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit

30

At times to commune with them – if that he

Avail him of his spells – to call thee thus,

And gaze on thee a moment.

WITCH
: Son of Earth!

I know thee, and the powers which give thee power;

I know thee for a man of many thoughts,

35

And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,

Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.

I have expected this – what would’st thou with me?

MANFRED
: To look upon thy beauty – nothing further.