The Island of Statues

Colin. Shepherd, to mar the morning hast thou come? Hear me, and, shepherd, hearing me, grow dumb.

[Sings] Where is the owl that lately flew Flickering under the white moonshine? She sleeps with owlets two and two, Sleepily close her round bright eyne; O'er her nest the lights are blending: Come thou, come, and to this string— Though my love-sick heart is rending, Not a sad note will I sing.

Thernot. I am not dumb: I'd sooner silent wait Within the fold to hear the creaking gate—

[Sings] The wood and the valley and sea Awaken, awaken to new-born lustre; A new day's troop of wasp and bee Hang on the side of the round grape-cluster; Blenching on high the dull stars sicken Morn-bewildered, and the cup Of the tarn where young waves quicken Hurls their swooning lustre up.

[Sings] Oh, more dark thy gleaming hair is Than the peeping pansy's face, And thine eyes more bright than faery's, Dancing in some moony place, And thy neck's a poisèd lily; See, I tell thy beauties o'er, As within a cellar chilly Some old miser tells his store; And thy memory I keep, Till all else is empty chaff, Till I laugh when others weep, Weeping when all others laugh.

[Sings wildly] Come forth, for in a thousand bowers Blossoms open dewy lips; Over the lake the water-flowers Drift and float like silver ships; Ever ringing, ringing, ringing, With unfaltering persistence, Hundred-throated morn is singing, Joy and love are one existence.

Colin. [Sings] Lone, and wanting thee, I weep; Love and sorrow, one existence, Sadness, soul of joy most deep, Is the burthen and persistence Of the songs that never sleep. Love from heaven came of yore As a token and a sign, Singing o'er and o'er and o'er Of his death and change malign.

Colin. [Sings] Loud for thee the morning crieth, And my soul in waiting dieth, Ever dieth, dieth, dieth.

Thernot. [Sings] Far the morning vapours shatter, As the leaves in autumn scatter.

Colin. [Sings] In the heart of the dawn the rivers are singing, Over them crimson vapours winging.

Thernot. [Sings] All the world is ringing, ringing; All the world is singing, singing. Colin. [Sings] Lift my soul from rayless night— Thernot. [Sings] Stricken all the night is past— Colin. [Sings] Music of my soul and light— Thernot. [Sings] Back the shadows creep aghast— [They approach one another, while singing, with angry gestures.

Naschina. Oh, cease your singing! wild and shrill and loud, On my poor brain your busy tumults crowd.

Colin. I fain had been the first of singing things To welcome thee, when o'er the owlet's wings And troubled eyes came morning's first-born glow; But yonder thing, yon idle noise, yon crow, Yon shepherd

Naschina. So these brave shepherds both are gone; Courageous miracles!

Enter Almintor and Antonio, talking together. Almintor. The sunlight shone Upon his wings. Thro' yonder green abyss I sent an arrow.

Antonio. And I saw you miss; And far away the heron sails, I wis.

Antonio. [Mimicking him] Most fair of all who graze Their sheep in Arcady, Naschina, hail! Naschina, hail!

Almintor. I'd drive thy woolly sheep, If so I might, along a dewy vale, Where all night long the heavens weep and weep, Dreaming in their soft odour-laden sleep; Where all night long the lonely moon, the white Sad Lady of the deep, pours down her light; And 'mong the stunted ash-trees' drooping rings, All flame-like gushing from the hollow stones, By day and night a lonely fountain sings, And there to its own heart for ever moans.

Almintor. We two, by that pale fount, Unmindful of its woes, would twine a wreath As fair as any that on Ida's mount Long ere an arrow whizzed or sword left sheath The shepherd Paris for Oenone made, Singing of arms and battles some old stave, As lies dark water in a murmurous glade, Dreaming the live-long summer in the shade, Dreaming of flashing flight and of the plumèd wave.

Antonio. Naschina, wherefore are your eyes so bright With tears?

Naschina. I weary of ye. There is none Of all on whom Arcadian suns have shone Sustains his soul in courage or in might. Poor race of leafy Arcady, your love To prove what can ye do? What things above Sheep-guiding, or the bringing some strange bird, Or some small beast most wonderfully furr'd, Or sad sea-shells where little echoes sit? Such quests as these, I trow, need little wit.

Naschina. In sooth, methinks That I myself could shoot a great grey lynx. [Naschina turns to go.

Naschina. Here, where men know the gracious woodland joys, Joy's brother, Fear, dwells ever in each breast— Joy's brother, Fear, lurks in each leafy way. I weary of your songs and hunter's toys. To prove his love a knight with lance in rest Will circle round the world upon a quest, Until afar appear the gleaming dragon-scales: From morn the twain until the evening pales Will struggle. Or he'll seek enchanter old, Who sits in lonely splendour, mail'd in gold, And they will war, 'mid wondrous elfin-sights: Such may I love. The shuddering forest lights Of green Arcadia do not hide, I trow, Such men, such hearts. But, uncouth hunter, thou Know'st naught of this. [She goes.

Antonio. And whither, uncouth hunter? Why so fast? So! 'mid the willow-glade you pause at last.

Almintor. Here is the place, the cliff-encircled wood; Here grow that shy, retiring sisterhood, The pale anemones. We've sought all day, And found.

Almintor. For what is glad? For, look you, sad's the murmur of the bees, Yon wind goes sadly, and the grass and trees Reply like moaning of imprisoned elf: The whole world's sadly talking to itself. The waves in yonder lake where points my hand Beat out their lives lamenting o'er the sand; The birds that nestle in the leaves are sad, Poor sad wood-rhapsodists.

Antonio. Yon eager lark, that fills with song the whole Of this wide vale, embosomed in the air, Is sorrow in his song, or any care? Doth not yon bird, yon quivering bird, rejoice?

Antonio. Have done this phrasing, and say why, in sooth, Almintor, thou hast grown so full of ruth, And wherefore have we come?

Almintor. Over the willows sere Out of the air.

Almintor. When the sun goes down Over the crown of the willows brown. Oh, boy, I'm bound on a most fearful quest; For so she willed—thou heard'st? Upon the breast Of yonder lake, from whose green banks alway The poplars gaze across the waters grey, And nod to one another, lies a green, Small island, where the full soft sheen Of evening and glad silence dwelleth aye, For there the great Enchantress lives.

Antonio. And there Groweth the goblin flower of joy, her care, By many sought, and 'tis a forest tale, How they who seek are ever doomed to fail. Some say that all who touch the island lone Are changed for ever into moon-white stone.

Almintor. I'll bring that flower to her, and so may earn Her love: to her who wears that bloom comes truth, And elvish wisdom, and long years of youth Beyond a mortal's years. I wait the song That calls.

Almintor. It comes along The wind at evening when the sun goes down Over the crown of the willows brown. See, yonder sinks the sun, yonder a shade Goes flickering in reverberated light. There! There! Dost thou not see?

Antonio. I see the night, Deep-eyed, slow-footing down the empty glade.

A Voice [sings.] From the shadowy hollow Arise thou and follow!

Antonio. 'Tis thus they ever seem, As some dead maiden's singing in a dream.

And I sang round the tree, As I sing now to thee: From the green shaded hollow Arise, worm, and follow!

Antonio. I, too, will follow for this evil-starred one's sake Unto the dolorous border of the fairy lake. [Goes.

First Voice. See! oh, see! the dew-drowned bunches Of the monk's-hood how they shake, Nodding by the flickering lake, There where yonder squirrel crunches Acorns green, with eyes awake.

Second Voice. I followed him from my green lair, But wide awake his two eyes were.

First Voice. Oh, learnèd is each monk's-hood's mind, And full of wisdom is each bloom, As, clothed in ceremonial gloom, They hear the story of the wind, That dieth slow with sunsick doom.

Second Voice. The south breeze now in dying fears Tells all his sinning in their ears.

A Voice. Fickle the guiding his arrow shall find! Some goblin, my servant, on wings that are fleet, That nestles alone in the whistling wind, Go pilot the course of his arrow's deceit!

Almintor. 'Tis here the arrow fell: the breezes laughed Around the feathery tip. Unto the shaft This blossom is most near. Statue! Oh, thou Whose beard a moonlight river is, whose brow Is stone: old sleeper! this same afternoon O'er much I've talked: I shall be silent soon, If wrong my choice, as silent as thou art. Oh! gracious Pan, take now thy servant's part. He was our ancient god. If I speak low, And not too clear, how will the new god know But that I called on him?

A Voice. Sleeping lord of archery, No more a-roving shalt thou see The panther with her yellow hide, Of the forests all the pride, Or her ever burning eyes, When she in a cavern lies, Watching o'er her awful young, Where their sinewy might is strung In the never-lifting dark. No! Thou standest still and stark, That of old wert moving ever, But a mother panther never O'er her young so eagerly Did her lonely watching take As I my watching lest you wake, Sleeping lord of archery.

Naschina. I, as a shepherd dressed, will seek and seek Until I find him. What a weary week, My pretty child, since he has gone, oh say Once more how on that miserable day He passed across the lake.

Antonio. When we two came From the wood's ways, then, like a silver flame, We saw the dolorous lake; and then thy name He carved on trees, and with a sun-dry weed He wrote it on the sands (the owls may read And ponder it if they will); then near at hand The boat's prow grated on the shallow sand, And loudly twice the living wings flapt wide, And, leaping to their feet, far Echoes cried, Each other answering. Then between each wing He sat, and then I heard the white lake sing, Curving beneath the prow; as some wild drake Half lit, so flapt the wings across the lake— Alas! I make you sadder, shepherdess.

Naschina. Look you, so very strait The barred woodpecker's mansion is and deep, No other bird may enter in.

Naschina. Late— Aye, very lately, sorrow came to weep Within mine heart; and naught but sorrow now Can enter there.

Antonio. See! See! above yon brow Of hill two shepherds come.

Colin. Is 't the only way? Oh, see, Yon is the hunter's, Sir Almintor's, page; Let him between us judge, for he can gauge And measure out the ways of chivalry.

Thernot. Sir Page, Almintor's friend, and therefore learned In all such things, pray let thine ears be turned, And hear, and judge.

Colin. This thing we ask: must we two fight?―Judge thou. Each came one morn, with welcoming of song, Unto her door; for this, where nod the long And shoreward waves, we nigh have fought; waves bring The brown weed burden, so the sword brings fear To us.

Thernot. Oh wise art thou in such a thing, Being Almintor's page. Now judge you here. We love Naschina both.

Antonio. It is the shepherd Guarimond, who loveth well In the deep centres of the secret woods Old miser hoards of grief to tell and tell: Young Guarimond he tells them o'er and o'er, To see them drowned by those vast solitudes, With their unhuman sorrows.

Naschina. Cease! no more! Thou hast an over-nimble tongue.

Colin. Thy grief, What is it, friend?

Antonio. He lost i' the woods the chief And only sheep he loved of all the troop.

Colin. More grief is mine. No man shall ever stoop Beneath the weight of greater grief than I; I like you, and, in sooth I know not why. Now, judge, must shepherd Thernot there and I For this thing fight—we love one maid?

Naschina. Oh, I know her well—a lame, Dull-witted thing, with face red squirrel-brown.

Colin. 'Tis clear that you have seen her not. The crown Is not more fair and joyous than she is Of beams a-flicker on yon lonely fir, Nor faeries in the honey-heart of June astir. By bosky June I swear, and by the bee, her minister.

Naschina. There is no way but that ye fight I wis, If her ye love.

Naschina. Tell me, Antonio, might They get them swords, and both or either fall?

Antonio. No, no; when that shall be, then men may call Down to their feet the stars that shine alone, Each one at gaze for aye upon his whirling throne. [They go.

Antonio. The air is still above, and still each leaf, But loud the grasshopper that sits beneath.

Naschina. And, boy, saw you, when through the forest we Two came, his name and mine on many a tree Carved; here, beyond the lake's slow-muffled tread, In sand his name and mine I've also read.

Antonio. Yonder's the isle in search whereof we came; The white waves wrap it in a sheet of flame, And yonder huddling blackness draweth nigh— The faery ship that swims athwart the sky.

Naschina. Antonio, if I return no more, Then bid them raise my statue on the shore; Here where the round waves come, here let them build, Here, facing to the lake, and no name gild; A white, dumb thing of tears, here let it stand, Between the lonely forest and the sand.

Naschina. And when the summer's deep, then to this spot The Arcadians bring, and bid the stone be raised As I am standing now—as though I gazed, One hand brow-shading, far across the night, And one arm pointing thus, in marble white. And once a-year let the Arcadians come, And 'neath it sit, and of the woven sum Of human sorrow let them moralize; And let them tell sad histories, till their eyes All swim with tears.

Antonio. The faery boat's at hand; You must be gone; the rolling grains of sand Are 'neath its prow, and crushing shells.

Antonio. To yonder isle, where never sail was furled, From whose green banks no living thing may rove, And see again the happy woodland light, Naschina's gone, drawn by a thirst of love, And that was strange; but this is many a world More wonderful!

Antonio. O night Of wonders! eve of prodigies!

Second Voice. The cloak I weave of sorrow. Oh, lovely to see in all men's sight Shall be the cloak of sorrow, In all men's sight.

Fourth Voice. A boat I build for sorrow. O swift on the seas all day and night Saileth the rover sorrow, All day and night.

Enchantress. They are the flowers' guardian sprights; With streaming hair as wandering lights They passed a-tip-toe everywhere, And never heard of grief or care Until this morn. As adder's back The sky was banded o'er with wrack. They were sitting round a pool, At their feet the waves in rings Gently shook their moth-like wings; For there came an air-breath cool From the ever-moving pinions Of the happy flower minions. But a sudden melancholy Filled them as they sat together; Now their songs are mournful wholly As they go with drooping feather.

Naschina. O, Lady, thou whose vestiture of green Is rolled as verdant smoke! O thou whose face Is worn as though with fire. Oh, goblin queen, Lead me, I pray thee, to the statued place!

Enchantress. I'd kill her if she were. Nay, do not fear! With you I am all gentleness; in truth, There's little I'd refuse thee, dearest youth.

Naschina. It is my whim! bid some attendant sprite Of thine cry over wold and water white, That one shall die, unless one die for her. 'Tis but to see if anything will stir For such a call. Let the wild word be cried As though she whom you fear had crossed the wide Swift lake.

Enchantress. A very little thing that is, And shall be done, if you will deign to kiss My lips, fair youth.

Enchantress [sitting down by Naschina]. Fair shepherd, as we wandered hither, My words were all: 'Here no loves wane and wither, Where dream-fed passion is and peace encloses, Where revel of fox-glove is and revel of roses.' My words were all: 'O whither, whither, whither Wilt roam away from this rich island rest? I bid thee stay, renouncing thy mad quest.' But thou wouldst not, for then thou wert unblest And stony-hearted; now thou hast grown kind, And thou wilt stay. All thought of what they find In the far world will vanish from thy mind, Till thou rememberest only how the sea Has fenced us round for all eternity. But why art thou so silent? Did'st thou hear I laughed?

Enchantress. From thee I snatched it; e'en the fay that trips At morn, and with her feet each cobweb rends, Laughs not. It dwells alone on mortal lips: Thou'lt teach me laughing, and I'll teach thee peace, Here where laburnum hangs her golden fleece; For peace and laughter have been seldom friends. But, for a boy, how long thine hair has grown! Long citron coils that hang around thee, blown In shadowy dimness. To be fair as thee I'd give my faery fleetness, though I be Far fleeter than the million-footed sea.

A Voice. By wood antique, by wave and waste, Where cypress is and oozy pine, Did I on quivering pinions haste, And all was quiet round me spread, As quiet as the clay-cold dead. I cried the thing you bade me cry. An owl, who in an alder tree Had hooted for an hundred years, Up-raised his voice, and hooted me. E'en though his wings were plumeless stumps, And all his veins had near run dry, Forth from the hollow alder trunk He hooted as I wandered by. And so with wolf, and boar, and steer. And one alone of all would hark, A man who by a dead man stood. A star-lit rapier, half blood-dark, Was broken in his quivering hand. As blossoms, when the winds of March Hold festival across the land, He shrank before my voice, and stood Low bowed and dumb upon the sand. A foolish word thou gavest me! For each within himself hath all The world, within his folded heart, His temple and his banquet hall; And who will throw his mansion down Thus for another's bugle call!

Enchantress. But why this whim of thine? A strange unrest, As alien as a cuckoo in a robin's nest, Is in thy face, and lips together pressed; And why so silent? I would have thee speak. Soon wilt thou smile, for here the winds are weak As moths with broken wings, and as we sit The heavens all star-throbbing are a-lit.

Enchantress. Let me gaze on thee At arm's length, thus till dumb eternity Has rolled away the stars and dried the sea I could gaze, gaze upon thine eyes' clear grey; Gaze on till ragged time himself decay. Ah! you are weeping; here should all grief cease.

Enchantress. Those grey eyes of thine Have they ne'er seen the eyes of lynx or kine, Or aught remote; or hast thou never heard Mid bubbling leaves a wandering song-rapt bird Going the forest through, with flutings weak; Or hast thou never seen, with visage meek, A hoary hunter leaning on his bow, To watch thee pass? Yet deeper than men know These are at peace.

A Voice. Sad lady, cease! I rose, I rose From the dim wood's foundation— I rose, I rose Where in white exultation The long lily blows, And the wan wave that lingers From flood-time encloses With infantine fingers The roots of the roses. Thence have I come winging; I there had been keeping A mouse from his sleeping, With shouting and singing.

Enchantress. How sped thy quest? This prelude we'll not hear it. I' faith thou ever wast a wordy spirit!

The Voice. A wriggling thing on the white lake moved, As the canker-worm on a milk-white rose; And down I came as a falcon swoops When his sinewy wings together close. I lit by the thing, 'twas a shepherd-boy, Who, swimming, sought the island lone; Within his clenchéd teeth a sword. I heard the deathful monotone, The water-serpent sings his heart Before a death. O'er wave and bank I cried the words you bid me cry. The shepherd raised his arms and sank, His rueful spirit fluttered by.

Naschina [aside]. I must bestir myself. Both dead for me! Both dead!—No time to think.

[Aloud.] I am she, That shepherdess; arise, and bring to me, In silence, that famed flower of wizardry, For I am mightier now by far than thee, And faded now is all thy wondrous art. [The Enchantress points to a cleft in a rock. Naschina. I see within a cloven rock dispart A scarlet bloom. Why raisest thou, pale one, Oh famous dying minion of the sun, Thy flickering hand? What mean the lights that rise As light of triumph in thy goblin eyes— In thy wan face?

Enchantress. Hear thou, O daughter of the days, Behold the loving loveless flower of lone ways, Well nigh immortal in this charméd clime, Thou shalt outlive thine amorous happy time, And dead as are the lovers of old rime Shall be the hunter-lover of thy youth. Yet ever more, through all thy days of ruth, Shall grow thy beauty and thy dreamless truth, As an hurt leopard fills with ceaseless moan, And aimless wanderings the woodlands lone, Thy soul shall be, though pitiless and bright It is, yet shall it fail thee day and night Beneath the burthen of the infinite, In those far years, O daughter of the days. And when thou hast these things for many ages felt, The red squirrel shall rear her young where thou hast dwelt— Ah, woe is me! I go from sun and shade, And the joy of the streams where long-limbed herons wade; And never any more the wide-eyed bands Of the pied panther-kittens from my hands Shall feed. I shall not in the evenings hear Again the woodland laughter, and the clear Wild cries, grown sweet with lulls and lingerings long. I fade, and shall not see the mornings wake, A-fluttering the painted populace of lake And sedgy stream, and in each babbling brake And hollow lulling the young winds with song. I dream!—I cannot die!—No! no! I hurl away these all unfaery fears. Have I not seen a thousand seasons ebb and flow The tide of stars? Have I not seen a thousand years The summers fling their scents? Ah, subtile and slow, The warmth of life is chilling, and the shadows grow More dark beneath the poplars, where yon owl Lies torn and rotting. The fierce kestrel birds Slew thee, poor sibyl: comrades thou and I; For, ah, our lives were but two starry words Shouted a moment 'tween the earth and sky. Oh death is horrible! and foul, foul, foul!

Naschina. I know not of the things you speak. But what Of him on yonder brazen-gated spot, By thee spell-bound?

Voices [sing]. A man has a hope for heaven, But soulless a faery dies, As a leaf that is old, and withered, and cold, When the wintry vapours rise.

Soon shall our wings be stilled, And our laughter over and done: So let us dance where the yellow lance Of the barley shoots in the sun.

Almintor. I slept, 'twas sultry, and scarce circling shook The falling hawthorn bloom. By mere and brook The otters dreaming lay.

Naschina. Aye! Behold the hapless sleepers standing by. I will dissolve away the faeries' guile; So be thou still, dear heart, a little while!

Old warrior, wake! for soft as a bee sips, The faery blossom lies upon thy lips.

The Sleeper. With hungry heart Doth still the Wanderer rove? With all his ships I saw him from sad Dido's shores depart, Enamoured of the waves' impetuous lips.

Naschina. Those twain are dust. Wake! Light as a bee sips The faery blossom lies upon thy lips; Seafarer, wake!

The Sleeper. A rover I, who come from where men's ears Love storm; and stained with mist the new moons flare. Doth still the Man whom each stern rover fears, The austere Arthur, rule from Uther's chair?

Naschina. He is long dead. Wake! soft as a bee sips The goblin flower lieth on thy lips.

The Sleeper. As here I came I saw god Pan. He played An oaten pipe unto a listening fawn, Whose insolent eyes unused to tears would weep. Doth he still dwell within the woody shade, And rule the shadows of the eve and dawn?

Naschina. Nay, he is gone. Wake! wake! as a bee sips The faery blossom broods upon thy lips. Sleeper, awake!

Naschina. Unnumbered The years of goblin sleep.

The Sleeper. Ah! while I slumbered, How have the years in Troia flown away? Are still the Achaians' tented chiefs at bay? Where rise the walls majestical above The plain, a little fair-haired maid I love.

First Sleeper. Youth, here will we abide, and be thou king Of this lake-nurtured isle!

Naschina. Let thy king be Yon archer, he who hath the halcyon's wing As flaming minstrel-word upon his crest.

Naschina. O, my Almintor, noble was thy quest; Yea, noble and most knightly hath it been.