King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve Part 24

Only for two? Take it: ask more of me.

I wish the measure were for all of you.

GIZUR.

Your words must be forgiven you, old mother, For none has had a greater loss than yours.

Why would he set himself against us all....

_He goes out._

RANNVEIG.

Gunnar, my son, we are alone again.

_She goes up the hall, mounts to the loft and stoops beside him._

O, they have hurt you ... but that is forgot.

Boy, it is bedtime; though I am too changed, And cannot lift you up and lay you in, You shall go warm to bed--I'll put you there.

There is no comfort in my breast to-night: But close your eyes beneath my fingers' touch, Slip your feet down, and let me smooth your hands; Then sleep and sleep. Ay, all the world's asleep; But some will waken. _She rises._ You had a rare toy when you were awake-- I'll wipe it with my hair ... Nay, keep it so, The colour on it now has gladdened you.

It shall lie near you.

_She raises the bill: the deep hum follows._ No; it remembers him, And other men shall fall by it through Gunnar: The bill, the bill is singing.... The bill sings!

_She kisses the weapon, then shakes it on high._

CURTAIN.

MIDSUMMER EVE

_TO CLINTON BALMER AND THE DEAR MEMORY OF JAMES HAMILTON HAY FOR THE SUMMER OF 1900 AT CARTMEL_

_IN the lost Valley all is still To-day: upon the stony hill The heat of the late afternoon Settles in coppery haze: and soon A voice not known to me will call Silent obedient cows to stall, In the same immemorial cry From century to century Changing but by the uttering voice.

And in a while a little noise (Hou! Hou!) far off near Newton Head Will tell that at another stead The browsing cattle pause and turn Unwilling heads to seem to learn That which they know, and move in train Now milking-time has come again.

In Well Knowe garden now, I know, Where the pale larkspur used to grow In the far nook, a sound is heard (If any is there to hear save bird And field-mouse in the strawberries Stirring like a local breeze-- Here, there--the low leaves soundlessly); A glistening slender wasp-like fly Is using will and wing to stand Upon the air as though it spanned A chasm with trembling outstretched arms, And in the silence of heat-stilled farms And heat-veiled wood that seems to shake Dim clotted leaves yet does not break By sigh or rustle the hush so dear Its tiny sting of sound sings clear._

_Oft have I heard that elfin horn Sound suddenly, as cobweb torn Must sound in startled elfin ears p.r.i.c.ked and on edge with elfin fears; And as I upward watched those spare Twin shreds of silver like slit air, Beating and s.h.i.+ning, straight and tense, Simulating impotence Of motion, enviously I thought "Had my half useless flesh been caught, Upborn, and for all limit bound Between such gossamers of sound, Not thus, not thus would I deny My spirit's reach and endlessly Use all conception and all force To limit my short vital course.

Had I such wings of urgent light Insistent not alone on height But stretched for sweep and lat.i.tude I would not evade flight, I would Employ my heat and power and sense In realising difference, And see my world's variety, Restricted but by energy."_

_But Well Knowe garden only s.h.i.+nes In memory now, and its dear signs Only persist and gleam again In a shut chamber of my brain: While in a distant place I brood Upon lost things, and in a mood Of longing and remembrance feel The wisdom of that immobile And senseless mote, and think "Were I Carnate in a slim glistening fly, I would flash back upon that fair Laurel-walled rood, then drop in air Till no translucent nerve should stir From strained precision, nor wing should whir But to maintain one changeless height, Nor move nor waver from that sight; And think the years have not gone by When James and Clinton harboured nigh And, working in another art Than mine, yet peopled for my heart The Valley with the very core Of vital beauty for evermore-- So that when the air is still I hear below the meadow-rill Clinton singing softlier still Entranced by his own moving brush Among the stream-side bracken and rush-- Or James repeats with his long hand The distant line of hills that stand Between the Valley and the lake And yet seem lovelier for his sake."_

_How many generations past Should I be dead had I been cast In that small rapid shape of light?

Though wings may stand, years move in flight; And, while I dream, I know, I know That it is useless I should go To Well Knowe garden again to see Things that cannot return to me-- James dead and Clinton gone away, And one whose name I cannot say Who built in Cyclopean sound Other magic heights around That little place, then turned apart, Untrue to friends.h.i.+p and to art, A man of nothing--vanished things, Dead friends, dead hopes, that must remain In a shut chamber of my brain; While only Clinton far away Will in these verses and this play See that country of our youth And our dead friend and our old troth Of friends.h.i.+p fixed in amber light, A timeless hour that holds no night._

Summer 1921--Spring 1922.

PERSONS:

NAN } BET } URSEL } Kitchen and Dairy Girls.

MAUDLIN } LIB } ROGER, a Carter.

MEASE, a Cowherd.

MIDSUMMER EVE

_The scene is the interior of an old barn on a knoll, a long time ago.

At the back the barn's doors are opened widely; outside, a road rises slightly from left to right in front of the barn; beyond this the knoll sinks softly yet swiftly to a great meadow, and thence to a wide rich valley of more meadows and ever more meadows with ancient large cherry and crab and sloe and bullace and damson trees in their hedges whence the white and pink thorn-blossom clots are not quite gone, and of pastures shaded by tall cl.u.s.tering trees. Afar the valley ceases in low, densely wooded hills._

_A late June twilight is deepening; a faint moist heat-haze hides nothing, only distinguis.h.i.+ng the planes of the distant trees with a cloudy delicacy. There is no wind, nor any movement; one blackbird sings somewhere for a little while, then it ceases and there is no sound in the fields._

_The whole prospect is of a solitary, fruitfully overgrown valley shut in from everywhere._

_Within the barn, to the left, is a high hay-mow with a ladder leaning against it; much hay has been tumbled at its foot in forking from the carts. To the right is a s.p.a.ce of floor where the corn is to be heaped in the ending of summer: as yet, however, it is empty, save for a wooden plough, a homely rough wooden roller, wooden harrows, an uptilted, pleasantly shaped cart whence the hay-shelvings have not yet been removed. In the far corner of the bare walls of undressed stone at this side is an open door leading into a mistal. Presently a cow is heard moaning sickly beyond this door._

_The barn is still more dim than the land, so that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that is known of the far-off roof. Nearing footfalls are heard in the road, and a woman's singing grows clearer._

"HOU, Hou," went the neatherd moaning Down along by the pasture's side; He turned the cows at the midden-yard loaning, The loitering cows in the brown owl-tide: Pale rose the last one, munching, droning, With wet gra.s.s stains on her udder and hide.

My lantern's rings to the low balks floated As Whitey's tail shook the mistal-sneck; When I laid my cheek to her belly spotted I felt her honey-strong breath i' my neck, For she turns her head does the curd-dark throated To watch my mouth start her teats with a peck.

_NAN, BET and URSEL ascend the road to the left and enter the barn as NAN ceases singing._

_They are white-hooded, clumsily shod, gownless; in the right hand NAN carries a willow frail, the others stoneware greybeards; each holds several hay-rakes on her left shoulder._

URSEL.

September, O, September's in the song-- I will not have September in my heart, The ending of so much deliciousness, The year's sad luscious over-ripening.

Yet here's the haysel done with: how it hurt To rake behind the last dim cart; and now My soul creeps in me like the low pale night-mist To know that in a moment past this moment We shall not hear it slowly any more Down in the lane where, wisping the close trees, It follows us like a mournful sound of change.

Although the Summer is but newly kindled, Tiptoe I over-reach the joy of it (Ah, little perfect weeks of fruitfulness) Because I tremble lest it be slipping past me Before my eagerness will let me feel it.

Must joy for me be ever in things gone?...

NAN, _as they set down their burdens to lean the rakes against the wall, where four flails are hung, on the left of the door._ Nay, there is comfort in the rainy nights, The long moist twilights of the cider time When girls hold fitful talk sat in the press-spot Among the hid sweet apple heaps that gleam In firelight to a humming out of doors Of soddening water oozing down the soil; And there is comfort too at Candlemas From looking through the cas.e.m.e.nt in the dark, The last thing ere you chafe your toes in bed, On the crisp quiet of the woods and fields, Wondering if 'tis snow or all the moonlight, Peering so anxiously along the wall That shades still ewes and whiter first-dropped lambs....

Ay, but I'm tired, la.s.ses, tired now Because the haysel's over and 'twas fair And the land's savour wears me with delight.

I'm for indoors and resting--and, beside, I'm fainest of my supper o' baking days.

BET.

Let all times slip to haste the barley week, For then our nearest dancing-time will ripen ...

But I'm for bed to get me doffed and stripped To pick much gra.s.s seed from my smock and coats.

URSEL.

Listen, Bet; no cool sheets are yours to-night.

The milk-eyed goodies with grey loose-skinned throats, Who maunder of rarer girlhoods none can prove, Tell that at midnight on Midsummer-Eves They waked in some lone shade far from all sleepers To feel which should be wedded within the year; For the year's unknown husbands' images Come then like swoons from some where ... ay, from some where....

Thoughts shaping for their women's heedless souls, And if a maid will watch she sees her own And knows her own, seeing her own alone, Peering unseen as breath is in June nights.

Surely such dainties rilled no cow-slow eyes; But Nan and I mean watching and have bid Maudlin at Gra.s.sgarth, Lib at Appletoft Under our breath, and hither they steal this eve.