King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 14

Your man is drowned and this is it who bargained Its death for his; will you not give it to me?

THORGERD, _laughing._ I am glad he is dead; now I may only love him, And know no more that last distress of stooping So far from me as this at my feet must be.

No vengeancing could pay for thoughts of her: I will not know that such can be in life, So I will neither yield nor succour her.

_She speaks no more, nor moves._

THE OLD MAN.

Give it to me; it is mine, give it to me; I cannot take it while it touches you.

_A silence._

BLANID.

I have slain him and I fear to go to him ...

Put out my eyes, and rope me with the dogs-- Nay, strangle me to-morrow; but save me now.

THE OLD MAN, _his voice growing fainter and fainter._ Ah, come, you daughter of an ancient earth, Come down among the folk your heart can know, You darling of the past, you long-dead queen.

Your aged soul is strange among these men, As strange as it would be in Paradise; But once I knew you ere you were begot, And in the unchanging silence of my heart There waits a star for you to finish it.

_A silence._

You little trembler of a dew-drop dawn, You are as old as water that makes new dew; And when the dew falls it runs down to peace.

The end of sorrow is in sorrow's heart With those who loved and knew the unknown end Of mothering you a thousand years ago.

Come, then, from her who shapes new pangs for you, And rest and rest and rest for evermore.

_A silence._

One day you will awake and call to me; And I shall listen for the doubting cry Until the stars have worn the sky too thin, And I am drowned within the light beyond....

_His voice is lost in the gradual wail of a gust of wind; then it is heard outside and afar._

Ohey!

BLANID, _speaking at longer and longer intervals._ O, you have saved me from such evil things As writhed like tangled tree-roots outside s.p.a.ce Ere G.o.d made Himself from them; and for this My Virgin shall reach down from G.o.d's two knees Whereon She sits, and kiss you for Her own.

My body was yours; now you have saved my soul My soul is utterly yours to serve in living, To clothe your soul and be your very heart In love and soft, unconscious giving of life.

Mother, I have done evil--punish me; Because we loved him, love me and punish me: I have sinned, I have parted lovers--be cruel to me And cleanse me that I may keep near you two...

Think in how many ways you can torture me; Let me rake up the fire and heat an iron For you to have your will upon my body-- One thigh is yet unseared ... Will you not speak? ...

I love him, I tell you ... I love him, I love him, I love him ...

I kissed his hand; do you hear? I kissed his hand-- Our Hialti's hand ... I'll make you hurt me yet, Cold anger is shuddering down your tense thighs; Feel, this is your foot upon my upturned face, I lift it across my eyes, wide-open eyes-- Bear down and crush them full of eternal night ...

Speak to me now ... O, will you never speak?

You thrust me down into that Crier's bosom; For in your heart you make me be unborn Within a lonely place you never heard of, Yet if I loose your feet he will return And I must follow and follow and follow and follow Past where my imaged thoughts repeat the world, Till shattered waters break the imaged dream ...

You saved me once; will you undo that greatness?...

We are the tears that G.o.d wipes from His eyes: Lone thoughts will thrust me forth--save me from them ...

Ah, but my lonely love can succour me: Think, if I drown, 'tis to my Hialti's arms, To cast you from his heart for ever more; He will not even know you are forgotten ...

Sister ... Thorgerd....

_THORGERD draws in a long breath so sharply that it sounds to stab her repeatedly._

Ay, you will hate me as you used to do-- Will you not hate me as you used to do?

I was so happy when you still could hate me....

I fear it, but you make me go.... Speak once....

_After a long silence BLANID is heard to rise and go slowly to the door._

BLANID Ohey! Ohey!

THE VOICE, _outside._ Ohohey!

_With a laugh of abandonment BLANID is heard to run into the night; there is a brief silence; then one far-off, long shriek is heard from her._

THE VOICE.

Ohey! Ohohey!

_In the cottage THORGERD is heard to fall heavily to the floor._

_The curtain descends on silence and darkness._

THE RIDING TO LITHEND

_TO EDWARD THOMAS_

_HERE in the North we speak of you, And dream (and wish the dream were true) That when the evening has grown late You will appear outside our gate-- As though some Gipsy-Scholar yet Sought this far place that men forget; Or some tall hero still unknown, Out of the Mabinogion, Were seen at nightfall looking in, Pa.s.sing mysteriously to win His earlier earth, his ancient mind, Where man was true and life more kind Lived with the mountains and the trees And other steadfast presences, Where large and simple pa.s.sions gave The insight and the peace we crave, And he no more had nigh forgot The old high battles he had fought._

_Ah, pause to-night outside our gate And enter ere it is too late To see the garden's deep on deep And talk a little ere we sleep._

_When you were here a year ago I told you of a glorious woe, The ancient woe of Gunnar dead And its proud train of men long sped, Fit brothers to your n.o.ble thoughts; Then, as their shouts and Gunnar's shouts Went down once more undyingly And the fierce saga was put by, I told you of my old desire To light again that bygone fire, To body Hallgerd's ruinous Great hair and wrangling mouth for us, And hear her voice deny again That hair to Gunnar in his pain._

_Because your heart could understand The hopes of their primeval land, The hearts of dim heroic forms Made clear by tenderness and storms, You caught my glow and urged me on; So now the tale is once more done I turn to you, I bring my play, Longing, O friend, to hear you say I have not dwarfed those olden things Nor tarnisht by my furbis.h.i.+ngs._

_I bring my play, I turn to you And wish it might to-night be true That you would seek this old small house Twixt laurel boughs and apple boughs; Then I would give it, bravely manned, To you, and with my play my hand._

30 JUNE 1908.

I. M.

2ND LIEUT. PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS

244th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery; killed at a forward observation post in the battle of Arras, on Easter Monday, April 9th, 1917.

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