Speaker 1: Dimer by C. S. Lewis, nine Knights. I hung upon
Speaker 1: the tree, wounded with the spear, as an offering to
Speaker 1: odin myself, sacrificed to myself, haavemal canto one, you stranger,
Speaker 1: Long before your glance can light upon these words, time
Speaker 1: will have washed away the moment when I first took
Speaker 1: penn to write, with all my road before me. Yet
Speaker 1: to day here, if at all, we meet the unfashioned clay,
Speaker 1: ready to both our hands, both hushed to see that
Speaker 1: which is nowhere. Yet, come forth and be this moment.
Speaker 1: If you join me, we begin a partnership where both
Speaker 1: must toil to hold the clew that I caught. First,
Speaker 1: we lose or win together. If you read, you are enrolled.
Speaker 1: And first a marvel. Who could have foretold that in
Speaker 1: the city which men called in Scorn the perfect city
Speaker 1: Dimer could be born There? You'd have thought the gods
Speaker 1: were smothered down forever, and the keys were turned on fate.
Speaker 1: No hour was left unchartered in that town, and love
Speaker 1: was in a schedule, and the state chose, for eugenic
Speaker 1: reasons who should mate with whom, And when each idle
Speaker 1: song and dance was fixed by law, and nothing left
Speaker 1: to chance, For some of the last Platonists had founded
Speaker 1: that city of old and mastery. They made an island
Speaker 1: of what ought to be surrounded by this gross world
Speaker 1: of easier light and shade. All answering to the master's dream.
Speaker 1: They laid the strong foundations, torturing into stone each bubble
Speaker 1: that the academy had blown. This people were so pure,
Speaker 1: so law abiding, so logical, they made the heavens afraid.
Speaker 1: They sent the very swallows into hiding by their appalling
Speaker 1: chastity dismayed more soberly, the lambs in springtime played because
Speaker 1: of them, and ghosts dissolved in shame before their common
Speaker 1: sense till Dimer came. At Dimer's birth, no comet scared
Speaker 1: the nation. The public creche engulfed him with the rest,
Speaker 1: and twenty separate boards of education closed round him. He
Speaker 1: was passed through every test, was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed, proctored, inspected, whipped,
Speaker 1: examined weakly, and for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.
Speaker 1: For nineteen years they worked upon his soul, refining, chipping, molding,
Speaker 1: and adorning. Then came the moment that undid the whole.
Speaker 1: The ripple of rude life. Without a warning. It came
Speaker 1: in lecture time one April morning. Alas for laws and locks,
Speaker 1: reproach and praise who ever learned to censor the spring days.
Speaker 1: A little breeze came, stirring to his cheek. He looked
Speaker 1: up to the window. A brown bird perched on the sill,
Speaker 1: bent down to wet his beak with darting head. Poor
Speaker 1: Damer watched and stirred uneasily. The lecturer's voice he heard,
Speaker 1: still droning from the dais. The narrow room was drowsy,
Speaker 1: over solemn, filled with gloom. He yawned, and a voluptuous
Speaker 1: laziness tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees,
Speaker 1: slow drawn like an invisible caress, he laughed. The lecturer
Speaker 1: stopped like one that sees a ghost, then frowned and murmured,
Speaker 1: silence please. That moment saw the soul of Damer hang
Speaker 1: in the balance louder than his laughter rang. The whole
Speaker 1: room watched with unbelieving awe. He rose and staggered. Rising
Speaker 1: from his lips broke yet again the idiot like guffaw.
Speaker 1: He felt the spirit in his finger tips, then swinging
Speaker 1: his right arm a wide ellipse, yet lazily he struck
Speaker 1: the lecturer's head. The old man tittered, lurched, and dropped
Speaker 1: down dead, out of the silent room, out of the dark,
Speaker 1: into the sun stream. Dimer passed, and there the sudden breezes,
Speaker 1: the high hanging lark, the milk white clouds sailing in
Speaker 1: polished air, suddenly flashed about him like a blare of trumpets,
Speaker 1: and no cry was raised. Behind him. His class sat dazed.
Speaker 1: They dared not go to find him. Yet wonderfully some
Speaker 1: rumor spread abroad, an inarticulate sense of life renewing in
Speaker 1: each young heart. He whistled down the road. Men said,
Speaker 1: there's Dimer. Why what's Dimer doing? I don't know. Look
Speaker 1: there's Dimer far per suing with troubled eyes. A long,
Speaker 1: mysterious oh sighed from a hundred throats to see him
Speaker 1: go down the white street and past the gate, and
Speaker 1: forth beyond the wall. He came to grassy places. There
Speaker 1: was a shifting wind to west and north, with clouds
Speaker 1: and healing squadron running races. The shadows following on the
Speaker 1: sunlight's traces, crossed the whole field, and each wild flower
Speaker 1: within it with change of wavering glories every minute. There
Speaker 1: was a river flushed with rains between the flat fields
Speaker 1: and a forest's willowy edge, a sauntering pace. He shuffled
Speaker 1: on the green. He kicked his boots against the cracky sedge,
Speaker 1: and tore his hands in many a furzy hedge. He
Speaker 1: saw his feet and ankles gilded round with butter cups
Speaker 1: that carpeted the ground. He looked back, then the line
Speaker 1: of a low hill had hid the city's towers and
Speaker 1: domes from sight. He stopped. He felt a break of
Speaker 1: sunlight spill around him, sudden waves of searching light. Upon
Speaker 1: the earth was green and gold and white, smothering his feet.
Speaker 1: He felt his city dress an insult to that april cheerfulness.
Speaker 1: He said, I've worn this dust heap long enough. Here
Speaker 1: goes and forthwith in the open field. He stripped away
Speaker 1: that prison of sad stuff, socks, jacket, shirt, and breeches off.
Speaker 1: He peeled and rose up, mother naked with no shield
Speaker 1: against the sun, then stood awhile to play with bare toes,
Speaker 1: dabbling in cold river clay, forward again, and sometimes leaping
Speaker 1: high with arms outspread, as though he would embrace in
Speaker 1: one act all the circle of the sky. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: rested in a leafier place and crushed the wet, cool
Speaker 1: flowers against his face. And once he cried aloud, O world,
Speaker 1: O day, let let me, and then found no prayer
Speaker 1: to say. Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop, he
Speaker 1: marched through woods. He strolled from flower to flower, and
Speaker 1: over hills, as ointment, drop by drop preciously meted out,
Speaker 1: so hour by hour the day slipped through his hands,
Speaker 1: and now the power failed in his feet from walking.
Speaker 1: He was done, hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun.
Speaker 1: He lingered. Looking up, he saw a head, the black
Speaker 1: and bristling frontage of a wood, and over it the
Speaker 1: large sky, swimming red, freckled with homeward crows. Surprised, he
Speaker 1: stood to feel that wideness, quenching his hot mood. Then shouted,
Speaker 1: trembling darkness, trembling green. What do you mean, wild wood?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? He shouted? But the solimn itude
Speaker 1: received his noise into her noiselessness, his fire into her calm.
Speaker 1: Perhaps he half believed some answer yet would come to
Speaker 1: his desire. The hushed air quivered softly like a wire
Speaker 1: upon his voice. It echoed. It was gone. The quiet,
Speaker 1: and the quiet dark went on. He rushed into the wood.
Speaker 1: He struck and stumbled on hidden roots. He groped and
Speaker 1: scratched his face. The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled.
Speaker 1: The stray cat stood paw lifted in mid chase. There
Speaker 1: is a windless calm in such a place, A sense
Speaker 1: of being indoors, so crowded stand the living trees watching
Speaker 1: on every hand, A sense of trespass, such as in
Speaker 1: the hall of the wrong house one time, to me befell,
Speaker 1: groping between the hat stand and the wall, A clear
Speaker 1: voice from above me, like a bell, the sweet voice
Speaker 1: of a woman, asking, well, no more than this? And
Speaker 1: as I fled, I wondered into whose aliens story I
Speaker 1: had blundered. A like thing fell to dimer, bending low,
Speaker 1: feeling his way, he went. The curtained air sighed into
Speaker 1: sound above his head, as though stringed instruments and horns
Speaker 1: were riding there. It passed, and at its passing stirred
Speaker 1: his hair. He stood, intent to hear. He heard again,
Speaker 1: and checked his breath, half drawn, as if with pain,
Speaker 1: that music could have crumbled, proud belief, with doubt or
Speaker 1: in the bosom of the sage madden the heart that
Speaker 1: had outmastered grief and fled with tears the eyes of
Speaker 1: frozen age, and turned the young man's feet to pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: So sharp it was, so sure a path it found
Speaker 1: soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sound. It died out
Speaker 1: on the middle of a note, as though it failed
Speaker 1: at the urge of it its own meaning. It left
Speaker 1: him with life quivering at the throat, limbs shaken and wet,
Speaker 1: cheeks and body, leaning with strain towards the sound and senses,
Speaker 1: gleaning the last least ebbing ripple of the air, searching
Speaker 1: the emptied darkness, muttering where then followed such a time
Speaker 1: as is forgotten with morning light, but in the passing
Speaker 1: seems unending. Where he grasped the branch was rotten. Where
Speaker 1: he trod forth in haste, the forest streams laid weight
Speaker 1: for him, like men in fever dreams. Climbing an endless rope.
Speaker 1: He labored much and gained no ground. He reached and
Speaker 1: could not touch, and often out of darkness, like a
Speaker 1: swell that grows up from no wind upon blue sea,
Speaker 1: he heard the music unendurable in stealing sweetness wind from
Speaker 1: tree to tree. Battered and bruised in body and soul
Speaker 1: was he when first he saw a little lightness growing ahead,
Speaker 1: and from that light the sound was flowing. The trees
Speaker 1: were fewer now, and gladly nearing that light he saw
Speaker 1: the stars, for sky was there, and smoother, grass, white flowered,
Speaker 1: a forest clearing set in seven miles of forest, secreter
Speaker 1: than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair than
Speaker 1: greenery under snow or desert water, or the white peace
Speaker 1: descending after slaughter, as some who have been wounded beyond
Speaker 1: healing wake or half wake once only and so bless
Speaker 1: far off the lamp light traveling on the ceiling, a
Speaker 1: disk of pale light, filled with peacefulness, and wonder if
Speaker 1: this is the c C s or home or heaven
Speaker 1: or dreams, then sighing when wise ignorant death before the
Speaker 1: panes begin, So dimer in the wood lawn blessed light,
Speaker 1: a still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sound. Here
Speaker 1: was some pile of building, which the night made larger.
Speaker 1: Spiry shadows rose all round, but through the open door
Speaker 1: appeared profound recesses of pure light, fire with no flame,
Speaker 1: and out of that deep light. The music came tiptoes.
Speaker 1: He slunk towards it, where the grass was twinkling in
Speaker 1: a lane of light. Before the archway there was neither
Speaker 1: fence to pass, nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door.
Speaker 1: But where it's open, open evermore, no knocker and no porter,
Speaker 1: and no guard. For very strangeness entering in grows hard,
Speaker 1: breathe not speak, not walk gently. Someone's here? Why have
Speaker 1: they left their house? With the door so wide? There
Speaker 1: must be someone? Dimer hung in fear upon the threat,
Speaker 1: longing and big eyed. At last he squared his shoulders,
Speaker 1: smote his side, and called, I'm here. Now let the
Speaker 1: feast begin. I'm coming now, I'm Dimer, and went in
Speaker 1: end of Canto one, Canto two. More light, another step,
Speaker 1: and still more light. Opening ahead, it swilled with soft excess,
Speaker 1: his eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night. And
Speaker 1: it was nowhere more and nowhere less in it, no
Speaker 1: shadows were he could not guess its fountain. Wandering round around,
Speaker 1: he turned still on each side. The level glory burned
Speaker 1: far in the dome, to where his gaze was lost.
Speaker 1: The deepening roof shone clear as stones, that lie in shore,
Speaker 1: beneath pure seas, the aisles that crossed like forests of
Speaker 1: white stone, their arms on high pasted pillar after pillar
Speaker 1: dragged his eye in unobscured perspective, till the sight was weary,
Speaker 1: And there also was the light. Look with my eyes,
Speaker 1: conceive yourself above and hanging in the dome, and thence
Speaker 1: through space, looked down, see dimer dwarfed and naked move
Speaker 1: a white blot on the floor at such a pace
Speaker 1: as boats that hardly seemed to have changed place once
Speaker 1: in an hour, when from the cliffs we spy the
Speaker 1: same ship, always smoking towards the sky. The shouting mood
Speaker 1: had withered from his heart. The oppression of huge places
Speaker 1: wrapped him round. A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart
Speaker 1: deep into him. Some fear of being found, some hope
Speaker 1: to find, he knew not what. The sound of music,
Speaker 1: never ceasing, took the roll of silence, and like silence
Speaker 1: numbed his soul till as he turned a corner his
Speaker 1: deep awe broke with a sudden start, for straight ahead,
Speaker 1: far off a wild eyed, naked man he saw that
Speaker 1: came to meet him, and beyond was spread yet further
Speaker 1: depth of light. With quickening tread, he leaped towards the shape,
Speaker 1: then stopped and smiled before a mirror, wondering like a child.
Speaker 1: Beside the glass, unguarded for the claiming. Like a great
Speaker 1: patch of flowers upon the wall, hung every kind of clothes,
Speaker 1: silk feathers, flaming leopard skin, furry mantles, like the fall
Speaker 1: of deep midwinter snows. Upon them, all hung the faint
Speaker 1: smell of cedar, and the dyes were bright as blood
Speaker 1: and clear as morning skies. He turned from the white
Speaker 1: specter in the glass and looked at these. Remember he
Speaker 1: had worn through winter slush, through summer flowers and grass,
Speaker 1: one kind of solemn stuff, since he was born with
Speaker 1: badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn and cried,
Speaker 1: here is no law nor I to see, nor leave
Speaker 1: of entry given. Why should there be have done with that?
Speaker 1: You threw it all behind. Henceforth I ask no license
Speaker 1: where I need. It's on on on, though I go
Speaker 1: mad and blind, though knees ache and lung's labor and
Speaker 1: feet bleed, or else, it's home again to sleep and feed,
Speaker 1: and work, and hate them always, and obey and loathe
Speaker 1: the punctual rise of each new day. He made mad
Speaker 1: work among them as he dressed, with motley, choice and
Speaker 1: litter on the floor, and each thing, as he found
Speaker 1: it seemed the best. He wondered that he had not
Speaker 1: known before how fare a man he was. I'll creep
Speaker 1: no more, in secret, Dimer said, but I'll go back
Speaker 1: and drive them all to freedom. On this track, he
Speaker 1: turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller behind him.
Speaker 1: Now himself, in royal guise, filled the whole frame, a
Speaker 1: nobler shape and taller, till suddenly he started with surprise,
Speaker 1: catching by chance his own familiar eyes, fevered yet still
Speaker 1: the same, without their share of bravery, undeceived and watching there.
Speaker 1: Yet as he turned he cried, the rest remain. If
Speaker 1: they rebelled, if they should find me here, we'd pluck
Speaker 1: the whole taut fabric from the strain, hew down the city.
Speaker 1: Let live earth appear, old men and barren women, whom,
Speaker 1: through fear we have suffered to be masters in our home. Hide, hide,
Speaker 1: for we are angry, and we come thus feeding on
Speaker 1: vain fancy, covering round his hunger, his great loneliness, arraying
Speaker 1: in facile dreams, until the qualm was drowned. The boy
Speaker 1: went on through endless arches, straying with casual tread. He
Speaker 1: sauntered manly, playing at manhood. Lest more loss of faith
Speaker 1: betide him till lo he saw a table set beside him.
Speaker 1: When Dimer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth. He
Speaker 1: clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover's. He
Speaker 1: had a hunger in him that was worth ten cities.
Speaker 1: Here was silver glass and covers, cold peacock prawns and
Speaker 1: aspec eggs of plovers, raised pies that stood like castles,
Speaker 1: gleaming fishes, and bright fruit, with broad leaves around the dishes.
Speaker 1: If ever you have passed a cathay door and lingered
Speaker 1: in the dusk of a June day, fresh from the road,
Speaker 1: sweat sodden and foot sore, and heard the plates clink
Speaker 1: and the music play with laughter, with white tables far
Speaker 1: away with many lights, conceive how Dimer ran to table,
Speaker 1: looked once round him, and began That table seemed unending.
Speaker 1: Here and there were broken meats, bread, crept, umbled flowers, defaced,
Speaker 1: a napkin with white petals on a chair, a glass
Speaker 1: already tasted still to taste. It seemed that a great
Speaker 1: host had fed in haste, and gone, yet left a
Speaker 1: thousand places more untouched, wherein no guest had sat before. There,
Speaker 1: in the lonely splendor, dimer ate as thieves eat ever
Speaker 1: watching half in fear, he blamed his evil fortune. I
Speaker 1: come late. Whose board was this? What company sat here?
Speaker 1: What women with wise mouths? What comrades deer? Who would
Speaker 1: have made me welcome as the one free born of
Speaker 1: all my race? And cried, well done? Remember yet again
Speaker 1: he had grown up on rations and on scientific food,
Speaker 1: at common boards, with water in his cup, one mess
Speaker 1: alike for every day and mood. But here at his
Speaker 1: right hand a flagon stood. He raised it, paused before
Speaker 1: he drank, and laughed, I'll drown their perfect city in
Speaker 1: this draft. He fingered the cold neck. He saw within
Speaker 1: like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue and murmured.
Speaker 1: Standing now with pointed chin and head thrown back, he
Speaker 1: tasted rapture flew through every Vein that moment Louder grew
Speaker 1: the music and swelled forth a trumpet note. He ceased,
Speaker 1: and put one hand up to his throat. Then heedlessly
Speaker 1: he let the flagon sink in his right hand, his
Speaker 1: staring eyes were caught in distance, as of one who
Speaker 1: tries to think a thought that is still waiting to
Speaker 1: be thought. There was a riot in his heart that
Speaker 1: brought the loud blood to the temples. A great voice
Speaker 1: sprang to his lips, unsummoned, with no choice. Ah, but
Speaker 1: the eyes are open. The dream is broken to sack
Speaker 1: the perfect city, A fool's deed for Dimer, folly of follies.
Speaker 1: I have spoken, I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed.
Speaker 1: A thousand times. They have warned me of men's greed,
Speaker 1: for joy, for the good that all desire. But never
Speaker 1: till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavor.
Speaker 1: Some day I will come back to break the city.
Speaker 1: Not now, perhaps when age is white and bleak. Not
Speaker 1: now I am in haste, Oh God, the pity of
Speaker 1: all my life till this, groping and weak, the shadow
Speaker 1: of itself. But now to seek that true, most ancient glory,
Speaker 1: whose white glance was lost through the whole world by
Speaker 1: evil chance. I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning. Dimer,
Speaker 1: the drudge, the black leg who obeyed desire, shall teach
Speaker 1: me now if this be sinning good luck to it,
Speaker 1: Oh splendor, long delayed, beautiful world of mine, O world
Speaker 1: arrayed for bridal flower and forest, wave and field. I
Speaker 1: come to be your lover, loveliest yield world. I will
Speaker 1: prove you, lest it should be said. There was a
Speaker 1: man who loved the earth. His heart was nothing but
Speaker 1: that love. With doting tread, he worshiped the loved grass,
Speaker 1: and every start of every bird from cover the least
Speaker 1: part of every flower he held in awe. Yet Earth
Speaker 1: gave him no joy between his death and birth. I
Speaker 1: know my good is hidden at your breast. There is
Speaker 1: a sound of great good in my ear like wings.
Speaker 1: And oh, this moment is the best. I shall not fail.
Speaker 1: I taste it. It comes near as men from a
Speaker 1: dark dungeon. See the clear stars shining, and the filled streams.
Speaker 1: Far away. I hear your promise booming and obey. This
Speaker 1: forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps beyond where I am come,
Speaker 1: And farther still the rivers wander seaward with smooth laps,
Speaker 1: and there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill somewhere
Speaker 1: before the world's end. I shall fill my spirit at
Speaker 1: Earth's pap for Earth must hold one rich thing sealed
Speaker 1: as dimers from of old, one rich thing, Or it
Speaker 1: may be more than this. Might I not reach the
Speaker 1: borders of a land that ought to have been mine?
Speaker 1: And there the bliss of free speech. There the eyes
Speaker 1: that understand, the men free grown, not modeled by the
Speaker 1: hand of masters, men that know, or men that seek,
Speaker 1: They will not gape and murmur when I speak. Then,
Speaker 1: as he ceased amid the farther wall, he saw a
Speaker 1: curtained and low lintled door, dark curtains, sweepy fold night
Speaker 1: purple pall. He thought he had not noticed it before.
Speaker 1: Sudden desire for darkness overbore his will and drew him
Speaker 1: towards it. All was blind Within he passed, the curtains
Speaker 1: closed behind. He entered in a void. Night scented flowers
Speaker 1: breathed there. But this was darker than the night that
Speaker 1: is most black with beating thunder showers, a disembodied world
Speaker 1: where depth and height and distance were unmade. No seam
Speaker 1: of light showed through. It was a world not made
Speaker 1: for seeing. One pure one undivided sense of being through darkness,
Speaker 1: smooth as amber. Warily slowly he moved. The floor was
Speaker 1: soft beneath his feet. A cool smell that was wholly
Speaker 1: and unholy, sharp like the very spring, and roughly sweet,
Speaker 1: blew towards him, and he felt his fingers neat broad
Speaker 1: leaves and wiry stems that, at his will unclosed before
Speaker 1: and closed behind him. Still with body intent, he felt
Speaker 1: the foliage quiver on breast and thighs. With groping arms,
Speaker 1: he made wide passes in the air, a sacred shiver
Speaker 1: of joy from the heart center oddly strayed to every nerve,
Speaker 1: deep sighing, much afraid, much wondering, he went on. Then, stooping,
Speaker 1: found a knee depth of warm pillows on the ground,
Speaker 1: and there it was sweet rapture to lie still, eyes
Speaker 1: open on the dark. A flowing health bathed him from
Speaker 1: head to foot, and great good will rose springing in
Speaker 1: his heart and poured its wealth outwards. Then came a hand,
Speaker 1: as if by stealth, out of the dark, and touched
Speaker 1: his hand, and after the beating silence, budded into laughter,
Speaker 1: a low, grave laugh, and rounded like a pearl, mysterious,
Speaker 1: filled with home. He opened wide his arms. The breathing
Speaker 1: body of a girl slid into them from the world's
Speaker 1: end with the stride of seven league boots came passion
Speaker 1: to his side, then meeting mouths, soft falling hair, a cry, heart,
Speaker 1: shaken flank, sudden cool, folded thigh. The same night swelled
Speaker 1: the mushroom in Earth's lap and silvered the wet fields.
Speaker 1: It drew the bud from hiding, and led on the
Speaker 1: rhythmic sap, and sent the young wolves thirsting after blood
Speaker 1: and wheeling. The big seas made ebb and flood along
Speaker 1: the shores of Earth, and held these two in dead
Speaker 1: sleep till the time of morning dew end of Canto
Speaker 1: two Canto three, he woke, and all at once before
Speaker 1: his eyes the pale spires of the chestnut trees in
Speaker 1: bloom rose waving, and beyond dove colored skies, But where
Speaker 1: he lay was dark and out of gloom. He saw
Speaker 1: them through the doorway of a room full of strange
Speaker 1: scents and softness, padded deep with growing leaves, heavy with
Speaker 1: last night's sleep. He rubbed his eyes. He felt that
Speaker 1: chamber wreathing new sleepiness around him. At his side, he
Speaker 1: was aware of warmth and quiet breathing. Twice he sank back,
Speaker 1: loose limbed, and drowsy eyed. But the wind came even
Speaker 1: there a sparrow cried, and the woods shone without then
Speaker 1: dimer rose. Just for one glance, he said, and went
Speaker 1: tiptoes out into crisp, gray air and drenching grass. The
Speaker 1: whitened cobweb sparkling in its place, clung to his feet.
Speaker 1: He saw the wagtail pass beside him and the thrush,
Speaker 1: and from his face felt the thin scented winds divinely
Speaker 1: chase the flush of sleep. Far off, he saw between
Speaker 1: the trees long morning shadows of dark green. He stretched
Speaker 1: his lazy arms to their full height, yawning and sighed,
Speaker 1: and laughed and sighed anew, then wandered farther, watching with
Speaker 1: delight how his broad naked footprints stained the dew, pressing
Speaker 1: his foot to feel the cold come through between the
Speaker 1: spreading toes, then wheeling round each moment to some new
Speaker 1: shrill forest sound. The wood, with its cold flowers, had
Speaker 1: nothing there more beautiful than he new, waked from sleep,
Speaker 1: new born from joy. His soul lay very bare that
Speaker 1: moment to life's touch, and pondering deep Now. First he
Speaker 1: knew that no desire could keep these hours for always,
Speaker 1: and that men do die. But oh, the present glory
Speaker 1: of lungs, and I, he thought, at home, they are
Speaker 1: waking now. The stair is filled with feet. The bells
Speaker 1: clang far from me. Where am I now? I could
Speaker 1: not point to where the city lies from here? Then suddenly,
Speaker 1: if I were here alone, these woods could be a
Speaker 1: frightful place. But now I have met my friend who
Speaker 1: loves me. We can talk to the road's end. Thus,
Speaker 1: quickening with the sweetness of the tail of his new love,
Speaker 1: he turned. He saw between the young leaves, where the
Speaker 1: palace walls showed pale with chilly stone. But far above
Speaker 1: the green, springing like cliffs in air, the towers were
Speaker 1: seen making more quiet, yet the quiet dawn. Thither he came.
Speaker 1: He reached the open lawn. No bird was moving here
Speaker 1: against the wall. Out of the unscythed grass, the nettle grew.
Speaker 1: The doors stood open wide, but no footfall rang in
Speaker 1: the colonnades. Whispering through arches and hollow halls, the light
Speaker 1: wind blew. His awe returned, he whistled, Then no more,
Speaker 1: it's better to plunge in by the first door. But
Speaker 1: then the vastness threw him into doubt. Was this the
Speaker 1: door that he had found last night or that beneath
Speaker 1: the tower, had he come out this side at all?
Speaker 1: As the first snow falls light with following rain, before
Speaker 1: the year grows white. So the first dim foreboding touched
Speaker 1: his mind gently as yet and easily thrust behind. And
Speaker 1: with it came the thought, I do not know her name,
Speaker 1: no nor her face. But still his mood ran blithely,
Speaker 1: as he felt the morning blow about him, and the
Speaker 1: earth smell in the wood seemed waking for long hours.
Speaker 1: That must be good here in the unfettered lands that
Speaker 1: knew no cause for grudging. Out of reach of the
Speaker 1: old laws, he hastened to one entry up the stair
Speaker 1: beneath the pillared porch. Without delay. He ran, then halted suddenly,
Speaker 1: for there across the quiet threshold something lay, a bundle,
Speaker 1: a dark mass that barred the way. He looked again,
Speaker 1: and low, the formless pile under his eyes was moving
Speaker 1: all the while, and it had hands, pale hands of
Speaker 1: wrinkled flesh, puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity that moved.
Speaker 1: He eyed the sprawling thing afresh, and bit by bit
Speaker 1: so faces come to be in the red coal. Yet
Speaker 1: surely he could see that the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,
Speaker 1: a living thing, the likeness of a woman. In the center,
Speaker 1: a draped hummock marked the head. Thence flowed the broader
Speaker 1: lines with curve and fold, spreading as oak roots do.
Speaker 1: You would have said a man could hide among them
Speaker 1: and grow old in finding a way out. Breasts manifold,
Speaker 1: as of the Ephesian Artemis, might be under that robe.
Speaker 1: The face he did not see, and all his being answered,
Speaker 1: not that way, never a word. He spoke stealthily. Creeping
Speaker 1: back from the door, he drew quick, no delay, quick, quick,
Speaker 1: but very quiet, backward, peeping till fairly out of sight,
Speaker 1: then shouting, leaping, shaking himself, he ran, as puppies do,
Speaker 1: from bathing till that door was out of year. Another gait,
Speaker 1: and empty in he went and found a courtyard open
Speaker 1: to the sky. Amidst it dripped a fountain, heavy scent
Speaker 1: of flowers was here the foxglove, standing high, sheltered the
Speaker 1: whining wasp. With hasty eye, he traveled round the walls.
Speaker 1: One doorway, led within, one showed a further court ahead.
Speaker 1: He ran up to the first, a hungry lover and
Speaker 1: not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet, but weary
Speaker 1: of long waiting to discover that loved one's face. Before
Speaker 1: his foot was set on the first stair, he felt
Speaker 1: the sudden sweat, cold on his sides, that sprawling mass
Speaker 1: in view, that shape, the horror of heaviness. Here too,
Speaker 1: he fell back from the porch. Not yet, not yet,
Speaker 1: There must be other ways where he would meet no
Speaker 1: watcher in the door. He would not let the fear rise,
Speaker 1: nor hope falter, nor defeat be entered in his thoughts.
Speaker 1: A sultry heat seemed to have filled the day. His
Speaker 1: breath came short, and he passed on into that inner court,
Speaker 1: and like a dream, the sight he feared to find
Speaker 1: was waiting here. Then, cloister, path and square, he hastened
Speaker 1: through down paths that needed blind traced, and retraced his steps.
Speaker 1: The thing sat there in every door, still watching everywhere, behind, ahead,
Speaker 1: all round. So steady now lest panic comes, He stopped.
Speaker 1: He wiped his brow. But as he strove to rally,
Speaker 1: came the thought that he had dreamed of such a
Speaker 1: place before, knew how it all would end. He must
Speaker 1: be caught early or late, no good, But all the
Speaker 1: more he raged with passionate will that overbore that knowledge,
Speaker 1: and cried out and beat his head, raving upon the
Speaker 1: senseless walls, and said, where where, dear look once out,
Speaker 1: give but one sign. It's I iy Dimer. Are you
Speaker 1: chained and hidden? What have they done to her? Loose her?
Speaker 1: She is mine through stone and iron, haunted and hag ridden.
Speaker 1: I'll come to you, no stranger nor unbidden. It's I.
Speaker 1: Don't fear them. Shout above them all, can you not hear?
Speaker 1: I'll follow at your call from every arch. The echo
Speaker 1: of his cry returned. Then all was silent, and he
Speaker 1: knew there was no other way. He must pass by
Speaker 1: that horror, tread her down, force his way through, or
Speaker 1: die upon the threshold. And this too had all been
Speaker 1: in a dream. He felt his heart beating, as if
Speaker 1: his throat would burst apart. There was no other way.
Speaker 1: He stood a space and pondered it. Then, gathering up
Speaker 1: his will, he went to the next door. The pillared
Speaker 1: place beneath the porch was dark, the air was still moss.
Speaker 1: On the steps. He felt her presence fill the threshold
Speaker 1: with dull life. Here too was she. This time he
Speaker 1: raised his eyes and dared to see Pah only an
Speaker 1: old woman. But the size, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness, immovable, intolerable,
Speaker 1: the eyes hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress, corpse,
Speaker 1: like the weight of the brute that seemed to press
Speaker 1: upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard his own voice,
Speaker 1: strange and humbled. Take the word, good mother, Let me pass.
Speaker 1: I have a friend to look for in this house.
Speaker 1: I slept the night and feasted here. It was my
Speaker 1: journey's end. I found it by the music and the light,
Speaker 1: and no one kept the doors, and I did right
Speaker 1: to enter, did I not? Now? Mother? Pray let me
Speaker 1: pass in, Good mother, give me way. The woman answered nothing,
Speaker 1: but he saw the hands like crabs still wandering on
Speaker 1: her knee. Mother, if I have broken in any law,
Speaker 1: I ask a pardon once, then let it be once
Speaker 1: is enough, and leave the passage free. I am in haste,
Speaker 1: And though it were a sin by all the laws
Speaker 1: you have, I must go in. Courage was rising in
Speaker 1: him now, he said, out of my path, old woman,
Speaker 1: for this cause, I am new born, new freed, and
Speaker 1: here new wed, that I might be the breaker of
Speaker 1: bad laws. The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws
Speaker 1: wherever my feet fall, I bring to birth under its crust,
Speaker 1: the green, ungrudging earth. He had started bowing low, but
Speaker 1: now he stood stretched to his height. His own voice
Speaker 1: in his breast made misery pompous, firing all his blood enough,
Speaker 1: he cried, give place. You shall not rest my love
Speaker 1: from me. I journey on a quest you cannot understand.
Speaker 1: Whose strength shall bear me through fire and earth? A
Speaker 1: bogey will not scare me. I am the sword of spring.
Speaker 1: I am the truth, Old knight, Put out your stars.
Speaker 1: The dawn is here, the sleeper's wakening, and the wings
Speaker 1: of youth. With crumbling veneration and cowed fear, I make
Speaker 1: no truce. My loved one, live and dear waits for me.
Speaker 1: Let me in. I fled the city. Shall I fear you?
Speaker 1: Or mother? Ah for pity for his high mood fell
Speaker 1: shattered like a man unnerved in bayonet fighting, in the
Speaker 1: thick full of red rum and shears. When he began
Speaker 1: now in a dream, muttering, I've not the trick. It's
Speaker 1: no good. I'm no good. They're all too quick there.
Speaker 1: Look there, look at that. So Dimer stood, suddenly drained
Speaker 1: of hope. It was no good. He pleaded, Then shame
Speaker 1: beneath shame, forgive. It may be there are powers I
Speaker 1: cannot break. If you are of them, speak speak, let
Speaker 1: me live. I ask so small a thing I beg
Speaker 1: I make my body a living prayer who's for would
Speaker 1: shake the mountains. I'll recant, confess my sin, but this
Speaker 1: once let me pass. I must go in yield, but
Speaker 1: one inch once only from your law. Set any price.
Speaker 1: I will give all, obey all else, but this, hold
Speaker 1: your least word in AWE give you no cause for
Speaker 1: anger from this day. Answer the least things living. When
Speaker 1: they pray as I pray, Now bear witness they speak
Speaker 1: true against God. Answer Mother, let me through. Then, when
Speaker 1: he heard no answer, mad with fear and with desire,
Speaker 1: too strained with both to know what he desired or feared.
Speaker 1: Yet staggering near, he forced himself towards her and bent
Speaker 1: low for grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow fell
Speaker 1: on his heart. He thought, there came a blank of
Speaker 1: all things. As the dead sink down, he sank. The
Speaker 1: first big drops are rattling on the trees. The sky
Speaker 1: is coppered, dark, loath, n pealing sea, dimer with drooped
Speaker 1: head and knocking knees comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly, reeling, blind, beaten,
Speaker 1: broken past desire of healing, pass knowledge of his misery,
Speaker 1: he goes on under the first dark trees, and now
Speaker 1: is gone. End of Canto three. Canto four. First came
Speaker 1: the peal that split the heavens apart straight overhead. Then silence,
Speaker 1: then the rain. Twelve miles of downward water, like one
Speaker 1: dart and in one leap, were launched along the plain
Speaker 1: to break the budding flower and flood the grain, and
Speaker 1: keep with dripping sound and under song amid the wheeling
Speaker 1: thunder all night long. He put his hands before his face.
Speaker 1: He stooped, blind with his hair. The loud drops, grim
Speaker 1: tattoo beat him to earth like summer grass. He drooped
Speaker 1: amaze while sheeted lightning large and blue, blinked wide and
Speaker 1: pricked the quivering eyeball through. Then, scrambling to his feet
Speaker 1: with downward head, he fought into the tempest as chance led.
Speaker 1: The wood was mad, soughing of branch and straining was there,
Speaker 1: drumming of water. Light was none, nor knowledge of himself,
Speaker 1: The trees complaining, and his own throbbing heart seemed mixed
Speaker 1: in one, one sense of bitter loss and beauty undone.
Speaker 1: All else was blur and chaos and rain, steam and
Speaker 1: noise and the confusion of a dream. Aha, Earth hates
Speaker 1: a miserable man, against him, even the clouds and winds conspire.
Speaker 1: Heaven's voice smote Dimer's ear drum as he ran its
Speaker 1: red throat, plagued the dark with corded fire, barbed flame,
Speaker 1: coiled flame that ran like living wire, charged with disastrous
Speaker 1: current left and right about his path, hell blue or
Speaker 1: staring white, stab, stab, blast, all at once? What's he
Speaker 1: to fear? Look there that cedar, shriveling in swift blight,
Speaker 1: even where he stood, And there Ah that came near. Oh,
Speaker 1: if some shaft would break his soul out right? What ease?
Speaker 1: So too, unload and scatter quite on the darkness, This
Speaker 1: wild beating in his skull, too burning to endure, too
Speaker 1: tense and full, all lost and driven away, even her
Speaker 1: name unknown, O fool to have wasted for a kiss
Speaker 1: time when they could have talked. An angry shame was
Speaker 1: in him. He had worshiped Earth, and this the venomed clouds,
Speaker 1: fire spitting from the abyss. This was the truth indeed
Speaker 1: the world's intent unmasked and naked, now the thing it meant.
Speaker 1: The storm lay on the forest a great time, wheeled
Speaker 1: in its thundery circuit, returned still through the dead leaved darkness,
Speaker 1: through the slime of standing pools and slots of clay.
Speaker 1: Storm churned went dimer still. The knotty lightning burned along
Speaker 1: black air. He heard the unbroken sound of water rising
Speaker 1: in the hollower ground. He cursed it in his madness,
Speaker 1: flung it back, sorrow as wild as young men's sorrows are,
Speaker 1: till after midnight, when the tempest's track drew off between
Speaker 1: two clouds appeared one star. Then his mood changed, and
Speaker 1: this was heavier far when bit by bit rarer, and
Speaker 1: still more rare. The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air,
Speaker 1: when leaves began to drip with dying rain, and trees
Speaker 1: showed black against the glimmering sky. When the night birds
Speaker 1: flapped out and called again above him, When the silence,
Speaker 1: cool and shy came stealing to its own, and streams
Speaker 1: ran by, now audible amid the rustling wood. Oh, then
Speaker 1: came the worst hour for flesh and blood. It was
Speaker 1: no nightmare now with fiery stream, too horrible to last,
Speaker 1: able to blend itself in all things in one hurrying dream.
Speaker 1: It was the waking world that will not end because
Speaker 1: hearts break, that is not foe nor friend. Where sane
Speaker 1: and settled knowledge first appears of work day desolation with
Speaker 1: no tears. He halted, then foot sore, weary to death,
Speaker 1: and heard his heart beating in solitude, when suddenly the
Speaker 1: sound of sharpest breath in drawn with pain, and the
Speaker 1: raw smell of blood surprised his sense. Near By to
Speaker 1: where he stood came a long, whimpering moan, a broken word,
Speaker 1: a rustle of leaves where some live body stirred. He
Speaker 1: groped towards the sound. What brother, brother, who groaned, I'm his,
Speaker 1: I'm finished, let me be. Put out your hand then
Speaker 1: reach me. No the other, don't touch fool, damn you
Speaker 1: leave me. I can't see. Where are you? Then more
Speaker 1: groans they've done for me? I've no hands. Don't come
Speaker 1: near me, No, but stay, don't leave me? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Is it near day? Soon? Now? A little longer? Can
Speaker 1: you sleep? I'll watch for you sleep? Is it that's
Speaker 1: a head? But none till then listen I've bled too
Speaker 1: deep to last out till the morning. I'll be dead
Speaker 1: within the hour sleep. Then I've heard it said they
Speaker 1: don't mind at the last, But this is hell. If
Speaker 1: i'd the strength, I have such things to tell. All
Speaker 1: trembling in the dark and sweated over like a man
Speaker 1: reared in peace, unused to pain, sat dimer near him
Speaker 1: in the lightless cover, afraid to touch, and shame faced
Speaker 1: to refrain. Then bit by bit, and often checked again
Speaker 1: with agony. The voice told on the place was dark
Speaker 1: that neither saw the other's face. There is a city
Speaker 1: which men call in scorn, the perfect city eastward of
Speaker 1: this wood. You've heard about the place there I was born.
Speaker 1: I'm one of them, their work, their sober mood, the
Speaker 1: ordered life, the laws are in my blood, a life
Speaker 1: well less than happy, something more than the red greed
Speaker 1: and lusts that went before all. In one day, one man,
Speaker 1: and at one blow brought ruin on us all. There
Speaker 1: was a boy, blue eyes, large limbs, where all he
Speaker 1: had to show you need no greater profits to destroy.
Speaker 1: He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy had passed
Speaker 1: him by, the dreamiest, safest man, the most obscure, until
Speaker 1: this curse began. Then, how or why it was? I
Speaker 1: cannot say. This dimer, this fool baby pink and white,
Speaker 1: went mad beneath his quiet face. One day, with nothing said,
Speaker 1: he rose and laughed outright before his master. Then in
Speaker 1: all our sight, even where we sat to watch, he
Speaker 1: struck him dead, and screamed with lefter once again and fled. Lord,
Speaker 1: how it all comes back, How still the place is,
Speaker 1: and he there lying dead, only the sound of a
Speaker 1: blue bottle buzzing, sharpened faces strained gaping from the benches
Speaker 1: all around the dead man, hunched and quiet with no wound,
Speaker 1: and minute after minute, terror creeping with dreadful hopes to
Speaker 1: set the wild heart leaping. Then, one by one, at random,
Speaker 1: no word spoken, we slipped out to the sunlight, and
Speaker 1: away we felt the empty sense of something broken and
Speaker 1: comfortless adventure. All that day men loitered at their work
Speaker 1: and could not say what trembled at their lips or
Speaker 1: what new light was in girl's eyes. Yet we endured
Speaker 1: till night. Then I was lying wide awake in bed,
Speaker 1: shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet desire
Speaker 1: of reckless days, with burning head. And then there came
Speaker 1: a clamor from the street came nearer, nearer, nearer, stamping
Speaker 1: feet and screaming, song and curses, and a shout of
Speaker 1: who's for Diymer Dimer Up and out We looked out
Speaker 1: from our window, thronging. There a thousand of our people,
Speaker 1: girls and men, raved and reviled and shouted by the
Speaker 1: glare of torches and of bonfire blaze. And then came
Speaker 1: tumult from the street. Beyond again Dimer they cried, and
Speaker 1: farther off there came the sound of gun fire and
Speaker 1: the gleam of flame. I rush down with the rest o.
Speaker 1: We were mad after this, It's all nightmare. The black
Speaker 1: sky between the house tops framed was all we had
Speaker 1: to tell us that the old world could not die,
Speaker 1: and that we were no gods. The flood ran high
Speaker 1: when first I came, but after was the worse. Ho
Speaker 1: to recall on Dimer rest the curse. Our leader was
Speaker 1: a hunchback with red hair. Bran was his name. He
Speaker 1: had that kind of force about him that will hold
Speaker 1: your eyes fast. There as in ten miles of green,
Speaker 1: one patch of gorse will hold them. Do you know?
Speaker 1: His lips were coarse, but his eyes like a prophet's
Speaker 1: seemed to fill the whole face, and his tongue was
Speaker 1: never still. He cried as Dimer broke, we'll break the chain.
Speaker 1: The world is free. They taught you to be chaste
Speaker 1: and labor and bare orders, and refrain from what all's
Speaker 1: good enough. We'll taste whatever is life, murmurs from the
Speaker 1: waist beneath the mind who made the reasoning part, the
Speaker 1: jailer of the wild gods. In the heart, we were
Speaker 1: a ragtail crew, wild haired, half dressed, all shouting up
Speaker 1: for Dimer, up away, yet each one always watching all
Speaker 1: the rest and looking to his back. And some were
Speaker 1: gay like drunk men. Some were cringing, pinched, and gray,
Speaker 1: with terror dry on the lip. The older ones had
Speaker 1: had the sense enough to bring their guns. The wave
Speaker 1: where I was swallowed swelled and broke after long surge
Speaker 1: into the open square, and here there was more light,
Speaker 1: new clamor woke. Here. First I heard the bullets sting
Speaker 1: the air, and went hot round the heart. Our lords
Speaker 1: were there in barricade, with all their loyal men. For
Speaker 1: every one man loyal bran led ten. Then charge in
Speaker 1: sheer and bubbling sobs of death. We hovered on their front,
Speaker 1: like swarming bees. Their spraying bullets came no time for breath.
Speaker 1: I saw men's stomachs fall out on their knees and
Speaker 1: shouting faces while they shouted freeze into black, bony masks.
Speaker 1: Before we knew we're into them. Swine die, then that's
Speaker 1: for you. The next that I remember was a lull
Speaker 1: and sated pause. I saw an old old man lying
Speaker 1: before my feet with shattered skull, and both my arms
Speaker 1: dripped red. And then came bran and at his heels
Speaker 1: A hundred murderers ran, with prisoners, now clamoring to take
Speaker 1: and try them, and burn them, wedge their nails up,
Speaker 1: crucify them. God once, the lying spirit of a cause,
Speaker 1: with maddening words, dethrones the mind of men. There passed
Speaker 1: the reach of prayer. The eternal laws hate them. Their
Speaker 1: eyes will not come clean again, But doom and strong
Speaker 1: delusion drive them. Then without ruth, without rest, the iron
Speaker 1: laughter of the immortal mouths goes hooting after and we
Speaker 1: had fire brands too. Tower after tower fell sheathed in
Speaker 1: thundering flame. The street was like a furnace mouth. We
Speaker 1: had them in our power. Then was the time to
Speaker 1: mock them, and to strike to flay men and spit
Speaker 1: women on the pike, bidding them dance wherever the most
Speaker 1: shame was done. The doer called on Dimer's name, faces
Speaker 1: of men in torture from my mind, they will not
Speaker 1: go away. The east lay still in darkness when we
Speaker 1: left the town behind, flaming to light the fields we'd
Speaker 1: had our will, we sang, ho, we will make the
Speaker 1: frost distill from time's gray forehead into living dew, and
Speaker 1: break whatever has been and build new. Day found us
Speaker 1: on the border of this wood, blear, eyed and pale.
Speaker 1: Then the most part began to murmur and to lag,
Speaker 1: crying for food and shelter. But we dared not answer.
Speaker 1: Bran wherever in the ranks the murmur ran, He'd find it,
Speaker 1: you there whispering up, You sneak reactionary, Eh, come out
Speaker 1: and speak. Then there'd be shrieks, a pistol shot, a cry,
Speaker 1: and some one down. I was the third he caught.
Speaker 1: The others pushed me out beneath his eye, saying, he's
Speaker 1: here here, captain. Who'd have thought my old friends? But
Speaker 1: I know now I've been taught. They cut away my
Speaker 1: two hands and my feet and laughed and left me
Speaker 1: for the birds to eat. Oh God's name. If I
Speaker 1: had my hands again and Dimer here, it would not
Speaker 1: be my blood. I am stronger now than he is,
Speaker 1: old with pain. One grip would make him mine. But
Speaker 1: it's no good. I'm dying fast. Look, stranger, where the
Speaker 1: wood grows lighter. It's the morning, stranger, dear, don't leave me.
Speaker 1: Talk a little while. Come near. But Daimer, sitting hunched
Speaker 1: with knee to chin close to the dying man, answered
Speaker 1: no word. His face was stone. There was no meaning
Speaker 1: in his wakeful eyes. Sometimes the others stirred and fretted
Speaker 1: near his death, and Diimer heard, yet sat like one
Speaker 1: that neither hears nor sees. And the cold east whitened
Speaker 1: beyond the trees end of Canto four, Canto five, through
Speaker 1: bearded cliffs. A valley has driven thus deep its wedge
Speaker 1: into the mountain, and no more. The faint track of
Speaker 1: the farthest wandering sheep ends here, and the gray hollows,
Speaker 1: at their core of silence, feel the dulled, continuous roar
Speaker 1: of higher streams. At every step. The skies grew less,
Speaker 1: and in their place black ridges rise hither long afternoon
Speaker 1: with plodding tread, and eyes on earth grown dogged. Dimer came,
Speaker 1: who all the long day in the woods had fled
Speaker 1: from the horror of those lips that screamed his name
Speaker 1: and cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame were driving him,
Speaker 1: and little thoughts like bees followed and pricked him on
Speaker 1: and left no ease. Now, when he looked and saw
Speaker 1: this emptiness seven times enfolded in the idle hills, there
Speaker 1: came a chilly pause to his distress, a cloud of
Speaker 1: the deep world, despair that fills a man's heart like
Speaker 1: the incoming tide, and kills all pains except its own.
Speaker 1: In that broad sea, no hope, no change, and no
Speaker 1: regret can be He felt the eternal strength of the
Speaker 1: silly earth, the unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,
Speaker 1: the business of perpetual death and birth, the meaningless precision.
Speaker 1: All must be the same and still the same in
Speaker 1: each degree. Who cared now, and he smiled and could forgive,
Speaker 1: believing that for sure he would not live. Then, where
Speaker 1: he saw a little water run beneath a bush, he slept.
Speaker 1: The chills of may came dropping, and the stars peered
Speaker 1: one by one out of the deepening blue, while far
Speaker 1: away the western brightness dulled to bars of gray, half
Speaker 1: way to midnight. Suddenly, from dreaming he woke wide into
Speaker 1: present horror, screaming, for he had dreamt of being in
Speaker 1: the arms of his beloved and in quiet places. But
Speaker 1: all at once it filled with night alarms and wrapping guns,
Speaker 1: and men with splintered faces, no eyes, no nose, all red,
Speaker 1: were running races with worms along the floor. And he
Speaker 1: ran out to find the girl and shouted, And that
Speaker 1: shout had carried him into the waking world. There stood
Speaker 1: the concave, vast, unfriendly night, and over him the scroll
Speaker 1: of stars unfurled. Then, wailing like a child, he rose upright,
Speaker 1: heart sick with desolation. The new blight of loss had
Speaker 1: nipped him sore and sad self pity, thinking of her,
Speaker 1: then thinking of the city, For in each moment's thought
Speaker 1: the deeds of Bran, the burning and the blood, and
Speaker 1: his own shame, would tease him into madness, till he
Speaker 1: ran for refuge to the thought of her, whence came
Speaker 1: utter an endless loss, no not a name, not a word, nothing,
Speaker 1: left himself alone crying amid that valley of old stone.
Speaker 1: How soon it all ran out. And I suppose they
Speaker 1: they up there, the old contriving powers, They knew it
Speaker 1: all the time. For some one knows and waits and
Speaker 1: watches till we pluck the flowers, then leaps. So soon
Speaker 1: my store of happy hours all gone before I knew.
Speaker 1: I have expended my whole wealth in a day. It's finished, ended,
Speaker 1: and nothing left. Can it be possible that joy flows through?
Speaker 1: And when the course is run, it leaves no change,
Speaker 1: no mark on us to tell its passing. And as
Speaker 1: poor as we've begun, we end the richest day what
Speaker 1: we have won? Can it all die? Like this? Joy
Speaker 1: flickers on the razor edge of the present and is gone?
Speaker 1: What have I done to bear upon my name the
Speaker 1: curse of Bran? I was not of his crew, nor
Speaker 1: any man's, and Diymer has the blame? What have I done?
Speaker 1: Wronged whom I never knew? What's brand to me? I
Speaker 1: had my deed to do and ran out by myself
Speaker 1: alone and free. Why should earth sing with joy and
Speaker 1: not for me? Ah? But the earth never did sing
Speaker 1: for joy. There is a glamor on the leaf and flower,
Speaker 1: and April comes and whistles to a boy over white fields,
Speaker 1: and beauty has such power upon us. He believes her
Speaker 1: in that hour, For who could not believe? Can it
Speaker 1: be false? All that the blackbird says, and the wind calls?
Speaker 1: What have I done? No living thing I made nor
Speaker 1: wished to suffer harm. I sought my good because the
Speaker 1: spring was gloriously arrayed, and the blue eyebright misted it.
Speaker 1: All the wood yet to obey that spring time and
Speaker 1: my blood. This was to be unarmed and off my guard,
Speaker 1: and gave God time to hit once and hit hard.
Speaker 1: The men build right, who made that city of ours?
Speaker 1: They knew their world. A man must crouch to face
Speaker 1: infinite malice, watching at all hours, shut nature out, give
Speaker 1: her no moment's space for entry. The first needs of
Speaker 1: all our race are walls, a den, a cover. Trader
Speaker 1: eye who first ran out beneath the open sky, our
Speaker 1: fortress and fenced place I made to fall. I slipped
Speaker 1: the sentries and let in the foe. I have lost
Speaker 1: my brothers and my love, and all nothing is left
Speaker 1: but me. Now let me go. I have seen the
Speaker 1: world stripped naked, and I know, Great God, take back
Speaker 1: your world. I will have none of all your glittering gods,
Speaker 1: but death alone. Meanwhile, the earth swung round in hollow night.
Speaker 1: Souls without number in all nations slept snug on her back, safe,
Speaker 1: speeding towards the light. Ours told, And in damp woods
Speaker 1: the night beast crept, and over the long seas the
Speaker 1: watch was kept in black ships twinkling onward, green and red.
Speaker 1: Always the ordered stars moved overhead, and no one knew
Speaker 1: that Dimer, in his scales, had weighed all these and
Speaker 1: found them nothing worth. Indifferently, the dawn that never fails
Speaker 1: troubled the east of night with gradual birth, whispering a
Speaker 1: change of colors on cold earth, and a bird woke.
Speaker 1: Then too, the sunlight ran along the hills, and yellow
Speaker 1: day began, but stagnant gloom clung in the valley. Yet
Speaker 1: hills crowded out a third part of the sky, black looking,
Speaker 1: and the bowlders dripped with wet No birds sang, Dimer, shivering,
Speaker 1: heaved a sigh and yawned, and said, it's cruel work
Speaker 1: to die of hunger, And again, with cloudy breath blown
Speaker 1: between chattering teeth, it's a bad death. He crouched and
Speaker 1: clasped his hands about his knees and hugged his own limbs,
Speaker 1: for the pitiful sense of homelyiness they had familiar's these,
Speaker 1: this body, at least his own, his last defense. But
Speaker 1: soon his morning misery drove him, thence eating his heart
Speaker 1: to wonder. As chance led on upward to the narrowing
Speaker 1: gully's head. The cloud lay on the nearest mountain top,
Speaker 1: as from a giant's chimney, smoking there. But Dimer took
Speaker 1: no heed. Sometimes he'd stop. Sometimes he hurried faster as
Speaker 1: despair pricked deeper and cried out. Even now somewhere Bran,
Speaker 1: with his crews at work, they rack, they burn, and
Speaker 1: there's no help in me. I've served their turn. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the furrowed fog rolled down ahead, long tatters of its
Speaker 1: vanguard smearing round the bases of the crags like cobweb,
Speaker 1: shed down the deep combs, It dulled the tinkling sound
Speaker 1: of water on the hills. The spongy ground faded three
Speaker 1: yards ahead, then nearer yet fell the cold wreaths, the
Speaker 1: white depth gleaming wet. Then, after a long time the
Speaker 1: path he trod led downward, Then all suddenly it dipped
Speaker 1: far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod. He was
Speaker 1: half running now, a stone that slipped beneath him, rattled
Speaker 1: headlong down. He tripped, stumbled and clutched. Then panic and
Speaker 1: no hope to stop himself. Once lost upon that slope,
Speaker 1: and faster, ever faster, and his eye caught tree tops
Speaker 1: far below. The nightmare feeling had gripped him. He was screaming,
Speaker 1: and the sky seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, reeling
Speaker 1: with effort beyond thought, he hung half kneeling, halted, one
Speaker 1: saving moment with wild will, he clawed into the hill
Speaker 1: side and lay still, half hanging on both arms. His
Speaker 1: idle feet dangled and found no hold. The moor lay
Speaker 1: wet against him, and he sweaded with the heat of terror,
Speaker 1: all alive. His teeth were set by God. I will
Speaker 1: not die, said he not yet. Then slowly, slowly, with
Speaker 1: enormous strain, he heaved himself an inch, then heaved again,
Speaker 1: till saved and spent. He lay. He felt indeed it
Speaker 1: was the big round world beneath his breast, the mother
Speaker 1: planet proven at his need, the shame of glad surrender
Speaker 1: stood confessed. He cared not for his boasts. This this
Speaker 1: was best, this giving up of all He need not strive,
Speaker 1: He panted, he lay still. He was alive, and now
Speaker 1: his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept lapped in unearthly quiet,
Speaker 1: never knew how. Bit by bit, the FOG's white rearguard
Speaker 1: crept over the crest and faded, and the blue first
Speaker 1: brightening at the zenith, trembled through and deepening. Shadows took
Speaker 1: a sharper form each moment, and the sandy earth grew warm,
Speaker 1: yet dreaming of blue skies. In dream, he heard the
Speaker 1: pure voice of a lark that seemed to send its
Speaker 1: song from heights beyond all height. That bird sang out
Speaker 1: of heaven, The world will never end, sang from the
Speaker 1: gates of Heaven, will never end, sang till it seemed
Speaker 1: there was no other thing but bright space, and one
Speaker 1: voice set there to sing. It seemed to be the
Speaker 1: murmur and the voice of beings beyond number, each in
Speaker 1: all singing. I am, each of itself made choice and
Speaker 1: was whence flows the justice that men call divine. She
Speaker 1: keeps the great worlds lest they fall from hour to hour,
Speaker 1: and makes the hills renew their ancient youth, and sweetens
Speaker 1: all things through. It seemed to be the low voice
Speaker 1: of the world brooding alone beneath the strength of things,
Speaker 1: murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled forever, and
Speaker 1: the unwearied joy that brings out of old fields, the
Speaker 1: flowers of unborn springs, out of old wars, and cities
Speaker 1: burned with wrong, a splendor in the dark, a tale,
Speaker 1: a song. The dream ran thin towards waking, and he
Speaker 1: knew it was a bird's piping. With no sense, He
Speaker 1: rolled round on his back. The sudden blue, quivering with light, hard,
Speaker 1: cloudless and intense, shone over him. The lark still sounded, thence,
Speaker 1: and stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought was
Speaker 1: passing by, too gently to be caught. With that, he
Speaker 1: thrust the damp hair from his face and sat upright.
Speaker 1: The perilous cliff dropped sheer before him, close at hand,
Speaker 1: and from his place, listening in mountain silence, he could
Speaker 1: hear birds crying far below. It was not fear that
Speaker 1: took him, but strange glory. When his eye looked past
Speaker 1: the edge into surrounding sky, he rose and stood, then
Speaker 1: low the world beneath wide pools that in the sun
Speaker 1: splashed foothills, lay sheep, dotted downs, soft piled and rolling heath,
Speaker 1: river and shining weir and steeples gray, and the green
Speaker 1: waves of forest far away distance rose heaped on distance
Speaker 1: nearer hand, the white roads leading down to a new land.
Speaker 1: End of Canto five, Canto six. The sun was high
Speaker 1: in heaven, and Dimer stood a bright speck on the
Speaker 1: endless mountain side till blossom after blossom, That rich mood faded,
Speaker 1: and truth rolled homeward like a tide, before whose edge
Speaker 1: the weak soul fled to hide in vain with ostrich
Speaker 1: head threw many a shape of coward fancy, whimpering for escape,
Speaker 1: but only for a moment. Then his soul took the
Speaker 1: full swell and heaved a dripping prow clear of the
Speaker 1: shattering wave crest. He was whole. No veil should hide
Speaker 1: the truth, No truth should cow the dear self pitying heart.
Speaker 1: I'll babble now no longer, Daimer said, I'm broken in
Speaker 1: Pack up the dreams and let the life begin. With this,
Speaker 1: he turned. I must have food to day, he muttered.
Speaker 1: Then among the cloudless hills, by winding tracks, he sought
Speaker 1: the downward way and followed the steep course of tumbling rills,
Speaker 1: came to the glens, the wakening mountain fills in spring time,
Speaker 1: with the echoing splash and shock of water's leaping cold
Speaker 1: from rock to rock, And still it seemed that lark
Speaker 1: with its refrain sang in the sky, and wind in
Speaker 1: his hair, and hope at heart. Then once and once
Speaker 1: again he heard a gun fired off. It broke the
Speaker 1: air as a stone breaks a pond, and everywhere the
Speaker 1: dry crags echoed clear, and at the sound once a
Speaker 1: big bird rose, whirring from the ground. In half an hour,
Speaker 1: he reached the level land and followed the field paths
Speaker 1: and crossed the stiles. Then looked and saw near by
Speaker 1: on his left hand an old house folded round with
Speaker 1: billowy piles of dark yew hedge. The moss was on
Speaker 1: the tiles, the pigeons in the yard, and in the
Speaker 1: tower a clock that had no hands and told no hour.
Speaker 1: He hastened in warm waves. The garden scent came stronger
Speaker 1: at each stride. The mountain breeze was gone. He reached
Speaker 1: the gates. Then in he went and seemed to lose
Speaker 1: the sky. Such weight of trees hung overhead. He heard
Speaker 1: the noise of bees, and saw far off in the
Speaker 1: blue shade, between the windless elms. One walking on the green.
Speaker 1: It was a mighty man, whose beardless face beneath gray hair,
Speaker 1: shone out so large and mild it made a sort
Speaker 1: of moonlight in the place. A dreamy desperation, wistful wild
Speaker 1: showed in his glance and gait. Yet like a child,
Speaker 1: an Asian emperor's only child was he, with his grave
Speaker 1: looks and bright solemnity. And over him there hung the
Speaker 1: witching air, the wilful courtesy of the days of old,
Speaker 1: the graces wherein idleness grows fair and somewhat. In his
Speaker 1: sauntering walk, he rolled and toyed about his waist with
Speaker 1: seals of gold, or stood to ponder, often in mid stride,
Speaker 1: tilting his heavy head upon one side. When Damer had
Speaker 1: called twice, he turned his eye, then, coming out of silence,
Speaker 1: as a star all in one moment, slips into the
Speaker 1: sky of evening. Yet we feel it comes from far,
Speaker 1: he said, sir, you are welcome. Few there are that
Speaker 1: come my way. And in huge hands he pressed Damer's
Speaker 1: cold hand and bade him in to rest. How did
Speaker 1: you find this place out? Have you heard my gun?
Speaker 1: It was but now I killed a lark, What sir said,
Speaker 1: Damer shoot the singing bird, Sir, said the man. They
Speaker 1: sing from dawn till dark and interrupt my dreams too long,
Speaker 1: But hark another. Did you hear no singing? No, it
Speaker 1: was my fancy. Then pray let it go from here?
Speaker 1: You see my garden's only flaw. Stand here, sir, at
Speaker 1: the dial Daimer stood. The master pointed. Then he looked
Speaker 1: and saw how hedges and the funeral quietude of black
Speaker 1: trees fringe the garden like a wood, and only in
Speaker 1: one place, one gap that showed the blue side of
Speaker 1: the hills, the White Hill Road. I have planted fir
Speaker 1: and larch to fill the gap, he said, because this
Speaker 1: too makes war upon the art of dream. But by
Speaker 1: some great mishap nothing I plant will grow there. We
Speaker 1: pass on. The sunshine of the afternoon is gone. Let
Speaker 1: us go in. It draws near time to sup I
Speaker 1: hate the garden till the moon is up. They passed
Speaker 1: from the hot lawn into the gloom and coolness of
Speaker 1: the porch, then passed a door that opened with no
Speaker 1: noise into a room where green leaves choked the window
Speaker 1: and the floor sank lower than the ground. A tattered
Speaker 1: store of brown books met the eye a crystal ball,
Speaker 1: and masks with empty eyes along the wall. Then Dimer sat,
Speaker 1: but knew not how nor where, and supper was set
Speaker 1: out before these two he saw not how, with silver
Speaker 1: old and rare, but tarnished, and he ate, and never
Speaker 1: knew what meats they were. At every bite he grew
Speaker 1: more drowsy, and let slide his crumbling will. The master
Speaker 1: at his side was talking still, and all his talk
Speaker 1: was tales of magic words, and of the nations in
Speaker 1: the clouds above astral and Airish tribes who fish for
Speaker 1: birds with angles, And by history he could prove how
Speaker 1: chosen spirits from Earth had won their love as arthur
Speaker 1: or ushine, and to their isle went Helen for the
Speaker 1: sake of a Greek smile. And ever in his talk
Speaker 1: he mustered well his texts and strewed old authors round
Speaker 1: the way. Thus Wyrus writes, and thus the hermetics tell
Speaker 1: this was Agrippa's view, and others say with Cardon till
Speaker 1: he had stolen quite away Dimer's dull wits, and softly
Speaker 1: drawn apart the ivory gates of hope that change the heart.
Speaker 1: Dymer was talking Now Now, Damer told of his own
Speaker 1: love and losing drowsily. The Master leaned towards him. Was
Speaker 1: it cold, this spirit to the touch? No, sir, not,
Speaker 1: she said Dymer and his host, why this must be
Speaker 1: ethereal not aeriel o my soul be still? But wait,
Speaker 1: tell an, sir, tell the whole. Then Damer told him
Speaker 1: of the Beldam too, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness over
Speaker 1: the Master's face. A shadow drew. He shifted in his chair,
Speaker 1: And yes, and yes, he murmured twice, I never looked
Speaker 1: for less. Always the same, that frightful woman's shape besets
Speaker 1: the dream way and the soul's escape. But now, when
Speaker 1: Dymer made to talk of Bran, a huge indifference fell
Speaker 1: upon his host. Patient and wondering eyed. Then he began,
Speaker 1: forgive me, you are young. What helps us most is
Speaker 1: to find out again that heavenly ghost who loves you.
Speaker 1: For she was a ghost, and you in that place
Speaker 1: where you met, were ghostly too. Listen, for I can
Speaker 1: launch you on the stream, will roll you to the
Speaker 1: shores of her own land. I could be sworn you
Speaker 1: never learned to dream, But every night you take with
Speaker 1: careless hand what chance may bring. I'll teach you to
Speaker 1: command the comings and the goings of your spirit through
Speaker 1: all that borderland which dreams inherit. You shall have hauntings
Speaker 1: suddenly and often when you forget, when least you think
Speaker 1: of her. For so you shall forget, A light will
Speaker 1: soften over the evening woods, and in the stir of
Speaker 1: morning dreams. Oh, I will teach you, sir, there'll come
Speaker 1: a sound of wings, or you shall be waked in
Speaker 1: the midnight, murmuring it was she. No, No, said Daimer,
Speaker 1: not that way. I seem to have slept for twenty
Speaker 1: years now while I shake out of my eyes that
Speaker 1: dust of burdening dream. Now when the long clouds tremble,
Speaker 1: ripe to break, and the far hills appear, when first
Speaker 1: I wake, still blinking, struggling towards the world of men,
Speaker 1: and longing, would you turn me back again, dreams? I
Speaker 1: have had my dream too long. I thought the sun
Speaker 1: rose for my sake. I ran down, blind and dancing
Speaker 1: to the abyss. Oh, sir, I brought boy laughter for
Speaker 1: a gift to God's who find the martyr's soul too soft.
Speaker 1: But that's behind I'm waking now. They broke me all
Speaker 1: ends thus always, and we are for them, not they
Speaker 1: for us. And she she was no dream, It would
Speaker 1: be waste to seek her there the living, in that
Speaker 1: den of lies. The Master smiled. You are in haste
Speaker 1: for broken dreams. The cure is dream again and deeper.
Speaker 1: If the waking world and men and nature marred your
Speaker 1: dream so much, the worse for or crude world beneath
Speaker 1: its primal curse. Ah, but you do not know. Can
Speaker 1: dreams do this? Pluck out blood guiltiness upon the shore
Speaker 1: of memory, and undo what's amiss, and bid the thing
Speaker 1: that has been be no more? Sir, it is only dreams.
Speaker 1: Unlock that door, he answered with a shrug. What would
Speaker 1: you have in dreams? The thrice proved coward can feel
Speaker 1: brave in dreams. The fool is free from scorning voices,
Speaker 1: gray headed wars are virgin. There again, out of the past,
Speaker 1: dream brings long buried choices, all in a moment snaps
Speaker 1: the tenfold chain that life took years in forging. There
Speaker 1: the stain of oldest sins. How do the good words go?
Speaker 1: Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow? Then
Speaker 1: drawing near, when Daimer did not speak, my little son
Speaker 1: said he You're wrong and right. Are also dreams fetters
Speaker 1: to bind the weak faster to phantom Earth, and blear
Speaker 1: the sight, wake into dreams, into the larger light that
Speaker 1: quenches these rail stars. They will not know Earth's by laws.
Speaker 1: In the land to which you go, I must undo
Speaker 1: my sins, unearthly law, and even in earth, the child
Speaker 1: of yesterday. Throw down your human pity, cast your awe
Speaker 1: behind you, put repentance all away home to the elder depths.
Speaker 1: For never they supped with the stars, who dared not
Speaker 1: slough behind the last shred of Earth's holies from their mind.
Speaker 1: Sir answered Dymer, I would be content to drudge in Earth,
Speaker 1: easing my heart's disgrace, counting a year's long service lightly spent.
Speaker 1: If once, at the year's end, I saw her face somewhere,
Speaker 1: being then most weary in some place. I looked not
Speaker 1: for that joy, or heard her near whispering. Yet courage friend,
Speaker 1: for one more year, Pish, said the master. Will you
Speaker 1: have the truth? You think that virtue saves her people?
Speaker 1: Care for the high heart and idle hours of youth.
Speaker 1: For these they will descend our lower air. Not virtue.
Speaker 1: You would nerve your arm and bear your burden among men.
Speaker 1: Look to it. Child, by virtue's self, vision can be defiled.
Speaker 1: You will grow full of pity and the love of men,
Speaker 1: and toil until the morning moisture dries out of your heart.
Speaker 1: Then once or once again, it may be, you will
Speaker 1: find her, But your eyes soon will be grown too dim.
Speaker 1: The task that lies next to your hand will hide her.
Speaker 1: You shall be the child of Earth and God's. You
Speaker 1: shall not see here. Suddenly he ceased, tip toes he went.
Speaker 1: A bolt clicked, Then the window creaked ajar, and out
Speaker 1: of the wet world the hedgerow scent came floating, and
Speaker 1: the dark, without one star, nor shape of trees, nor
Speaker 1: scents of near and far, the undimensioned night and formless
Speaker 1: skies were there, and were the Master's great allies. I
Speaker 1: am very old, he said, But if the time we
Speaker 1: suffered in our dreams were counting age, I have outlived
Speaker 1: the ocean, and my prime is with me to this day.
Speaker 1: Years cannot gage the dream life. In the turning of
Speaker 1: a page, dozing above my book, I have lived through
Speaker 1: more ages than the lost la Muria knew I am
Speaker 1: not mortal, were I doomed to die this hour, In
Speaker 1: this half hour, I interpose a thousand years of dream
Speaker 1: and those gone by as many more, And in the
Speaker 1: last of those ten thousand, ever journeying towards a close
Speaker 1: that I shall never reach for. Time shall flow wheel
Speaker 1: within wheel, interminably slow, and you will drink my cup
Speaker 1: and go your way into the valley of dreams. You
Speaker 1: have heard the call, come hither and escape? Why should
Speaker 1: you stay? Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose
Speaker 1: wall is tottering while you sweep. The roof will fall
Speaker 1: before the work is done. You cannot mend it, patch
Speaker 1: as you will. At last the rot must end it.
Speaker 1: Then Dimer lifted up his heavy head, like Atlas on
Speaker 1: broad shoulders, bearing up the insufferable globe. I had not said,
Speaker 1: he mumbled, never said I'd taste the cup. What is
Speaker 1: it this you give me? Must I sup o lies?
Speaker 1: All lies? Why did you kill the lark? Guide me
Speaker 1: the cup to lip? It is so dark? End of
Speaker 1: Canto six, Canto seven. The host had trimmed his lamp.
Speaker 1: The downy moth came from the garden, where the lamp
Speaker 1: light shed its circle of smooth white upon the cloth.
Speaker 1: Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread. Upon
Speaker 1: his sprawling arms lay Dimer's head, and often as he
Speaker 1: dreamed he shifted place, muttering and showing half his drunken face.
Speaker 1: The beating stillness of the dead of night flooded the room.
Speaker 1: The dark and sleepy powers settled upon the house and
Speaker 1: filled it quite far from the roads it lay from
Speaker 1: belfry towers and hen roosts, in a world of folded
Speaker 1: flowers buried in loneliest fields, where beasts that love the
Speaker 1: silence through the unrustled hedgerows move. Now from the master's lips.
Speaker 1: There breathed a sigh, as of a man released from
Speaker 1: some control that wronged him. Without aim, his wandering eye,
Speaker 1: unsteadied and un fixed, began to roll, his lower lip
Speaker 1: dropped loose, The informing soul seemed fading from his face.
Speaker 1: He laughed out loud once, only then looked round him,
Speaker 1: hushed and cowed. Then, summoning all himself with tightened lip,
Speaker 1: with desperate coolness and attentive air, he touched between his
Speaker 1: thumb and finger tip, each in its turn, the four
Speaker 1: legs of his chair, then back again in haste. There
Speaker 1: that when there had been forgotten once more safer. Now
Speaker 1: that's better, and he smiled and cleared his brow. Yet
Speaker 1: this was but a moment's ease. Once more, he glanced
Speaker 1: about him like a startled hair. His big eyes bulged
Speaker 1: with horror as before, quick to the touch that saves him.
Speaker 1: But despair is nearer by one step, And in his chair, huddling,
Speaker 1: he waits. He knows that they'll come strong again, and
Speaker 1: yet again, and all night long, and after this night
Speaker 1: comes another night, night after night, until the worst of all,
Speaker 1: and now too, even the noonday and the light let
Speaker 1: through the horrors. Oh, could he recall the deep sleep
Speaker 1: and the dreams that used to fall around him for
Speaker 1: the asking, But somehow something's amiss. Sleep comes so rarely
Speaker 1: now Then, like the dog returning to its vomit, he
Speaker 1: staggered to the bookcase to renew, yet once again the
Speaker 1: taint he had taken from it, and shuddered as he went.
Speaker 1: But horror drew his feet as joy draws others. There
Speaker 1: in view was his strange heaven and his far stranger hell,
Speaker 1: his secret lust, his soul's dark citadel, old Theogmagia, demonology,
Speaker 1: Kabbala chemic magic, book of the Dead, damning hermetic rolls
Speaker 1: that none may see save thee already damned. Such gruels
Speaker 1: are bred from minds that lose the spirit and seek
Speaker 1: instead for spirits in the dust of dead men's error,
Speaker 1: buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror. This lost
Speaker 1: soul looked them over one and all, now sickened at
Speaker 1: the heart's root, For he knew this night was one
Speaker 1: of those when he would fall and scream alone. Such
Speaker 1: things they made him do, and roll upon the floor.
Speaker 1: The madness grew wild at his breast. But still his
Speaker 1: brain was clear that he could watch the moment coming near.
Speaker 1: But ere it came. He heard a sound, half groan,
Speaker 1: half muttering from the table, like a child caught unawares
Speaker 1: that thought it was alone. He started as in guilt.
Speaker 1: His gaze was wild, yet pitiably with all his will.
Speaker 1: He smiled so strong as shame even then, and Amer stirred,
Speaker 1: now waking, and looked up and spoke one word. Water,
Speaker 1: he said. He was too dazed to see what hell
Speaker 1: wrung face looked down, what shaking hand poured out the draft?
Speaker 1: He drank it thirstily and held the glass for more,
Speaker 1: your land, your land of dreams, he said, All lies
Speaker 1: I understand more than I did. Yes, water, I've the
Speaker 1: thirst of hell itself. Your magic's all accursed. When he
Speaker 1: had drunk again, he rose and stood pallid and cold
Speaker 1: with sleep. By God, he said, you did me wrong
Speaker 1: to send me to that wood. I sought a living
Speaker 1: spirit and found instead bogies and wraiths. The Master raised
Speaker 1: his head, calm as a sage, and answered, are you mad? Come,
Speaker 1: sit you down. Tell me what dream you had. I
Speaker 1: dreamed about a wood, an autumn red of beech trees,
Speaker 1: big as mountains. Down between the first thing that I saw,
Speaker 1: a clearing spread deep down, oh very deep, like some
Speaker 1: ravine or like a well. It sank that forest green
Speaker 1: under its weight of forest, more remote than one ship
Speaker 1: in a landlocked sea afloat. Then through the narrowed sky,
Speaker 1: some heavy bird would flap its way, a stillness more
Speaker 1: profound following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard, far off
Speaker 1: in the long woods, with quiet sound, the sudden chestnut
Speaker 1: thumping to the ground, or the dry leaf that drifted
Speaker 1: past upon its endless loiter earthward and was gone. Then
Speaker 1: next I heard twigs splintering on my right, and rustling
Speaker 1: in the thickets, turning there I watched out of the foliage,
Speaker 1: came in sight the head and blundering shoulders of a
Speaker 1: bear glistening in sable black, with beady stare of eyes
Speaker 1: towards me, and no room to fly, but patting so
Speaker 1: often slow. The beast came by, and mark there flattery,
Speaker 1: stood and rubbed his flank against me. On my shaken legs.
Speaker 1: I felt his heart beat, and my hand that stroked
Speaker 1: him sank wrist deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt. Yes,
Speaker 1: and across my spirit. As I smelt the wild things scent,
Speaker 1: a new sweet wildness ran, whispering of eden fields long
Speaker 1: lost by man. So far was well, But then came
Speaker 1: emerald birds, singing about my head. I took my way,
Speaker 1: sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds, the roebuck,
Speaker 1: and the fallow deer at play, trooping to nose my hand.
Speaker 1: All this, you say, was sweet? Oh sweet? Do you
Speaker 1: think I could not see that beasts and wood were
Speaker 1: nothing else but me? That I was making everything I
Speaker 1: saw too sweet, far too well fitted to desire to
Speaker 1: be a living thing. Those forests draw no sap from
Speaker 1: the kind earth, The solar fire and soft rain feed them,
Speaker 1: not that fairy briar pricks. Not the birds sing sweetly
Speaker 1: in that break, not for their own delight, but for
Speaker 1: my sake. It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,
Speaker 1: like a bought smile, no joy in it. But stay,
Speaker 1: did you not find your lady? Sure enough? I still
Speaker 1: had hopes till then the autumn day was westering, The
Speaker 1: long shadows crossed my way, When over daisies folded for
Speaker 1: the night, beneath rope gathering elms, she came in sight.
Speaker 1: Was she not fair? So beautiful? She seemed almost a
Speaker 1: living soul. But every part was what I made it
Speaker 1: all that I had dreamed, no more, no less the
Speaker 1: mirror of my heart, such things as boyhood feigns beneath
Speaker 1: the smart of solitude in spring. I was deceived almost
Speaker 1: in that first moment. I believed for a big, brooding rapture, tenses,
Speaker 1: fire and calm, as a first sleep had soaked me
Speaker 1: through without thought, without word, without desire. Meanwhile, above our heads,
Speaker 1: the deepening blue burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew
Speaker 1: a veil before my eyes. The minutes passed heavy like
Speaker 1: loaded vines. She spoke at last, she said, for this
Speaker 1: land only did men love the shadow lands of earth.
Speaker 1: All our disease of longing, all the hopes we fabled
Speaker 1: of fortunate islands or hesperian seas, or woods beyond the west,
Speaker 1: were but the breeze that blew from off those shores,
Speaker 1: one far spent breath that reached even to the world
Speaker 1: of change and death. She told me I had journeyed
Speaker 1: home at last, into the golden age and the good
Speaker 1: country that had been always there. She bade me cast
Speaker 1: my cares behind forever. On her knee, worshiped me Lord
Speaker 1: and love. Oh, I can see her red lips even now.
Speaker 1: Is it not wrong that men's delusions should be made
Speaker 1: so strong? For listen, I was so besotted now. She
Speaker 1: made me think that I was somehow seeing the very
Speaker 1: core of truth. I felt, somehow beyond all veils. The
Speaker 1: inward pulse of being thought was enslaved. But oh, it
Speaker 1: felt like freeing and drafts of larger air. It is
Speaker 1: too much who can come through untainted? From that touch
Speaker 1: there I was nearly wrecked, But mark the rest. She
Speaker 1: went too fast. Soft to my arms she came. The
Speaker 1: robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast was bare
Speaker 1: against my own. She shone like flame before me in
Speaker 1: the dusk, all love, all shame, faugh, and it was myself.
Speaker 1: But all was well, for at the least that moment
Speaker 1: snapped the spell. As when you light a candle, the
Speaker 1: great gloom, which was the unbounded knight, sinks down, compressed
Speaker 1: to four white walls in one familiar room. So the
Speaker 1: vague joy shrank, wilted in my breast and narrowed to
Speaker 1: one point, unmasked, confessed fool's paradise was gone. Instead was
Speaker 1: there King Lust, with his black sudden serious stare. That
Speaker 1: moment in a cloud among the trees, wild music and
Speaker 1: the glare of torches came on sweated faces on the
Speaker 1: prancing knees of shaggy satyrs, fell the smoky flame on
Speaker 1: ape and goat, and crawlers without name on rolling breast,
Speaker 1: black eyes and tossing hair on old bald headed witches,
Speaker 1: lean and bare. They beat the devilish tom Tom rub
Speaker 1: a dub, lunging, leaping in unwieldy romp, singing cootito and
Speaker 1: Beelzebub with devil dancers, mask and phallic pomp, torn raw
Speaker 1: with briars and caked from many a swamp. They came
Speaker 1: among the wild flowers, dripping blood and churning the green
Speaker 1: mosses into mud. They sang, return, Return, We are the
Speaker 1: lust that was before the world, and still shall be
Speaker 1: when your last law is trampled into dust. We are
Speaker 1: the mothers swamp, the primal sea. Whence the dry land
Speaker 1: appeared old old are we? It is but a return.
Speaker 1: It's nothing new, easy as slipping on a well worn shoe.
Speaker 1: And then there came warm mouths and finger tips preying
Speaker 1: upon me. Whence I could not see. Then a huge face,
Speaker 1: low browed, with swollen lips, crooning, I am not beautiful
Speaker 1: as she, but I'm the older love. You shall love
Speaker 1: me far more than beauty's self. You have been ours always.
Speaker 1: We are the world's most ancient powers. First flatterer and
Speaker 1: then bogey like a dream, Sir, are you listening? Do
Speaker 1: you also know how close to the soft laughter comes
Speaker 1: the scream down yonder? But his host cried sharply, no,
Speaker 1: leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go out
Speaker 1: of my house? Begone with all my heart, said Dmer.
Speaker 1: But one word before we part, he paused, and in
Speaker 1: his cheek the anger burned. Then Turning to the table,
Speaker 1: he poured out more water, but before he drank, he
Speaker 1: turned then leaped back to the window with a shout,
Speaker 1: For there it was no dream. Beyond all doubt, he
Speaker 1: saw the master crouch with leveled gun, cackling in maniac voice.
Speaker 1: Rund run. He ducked and sprang far out the starless
Speaker 1: night on the wet lawn closed round him every way.
Speaker 1: Then came the guncrack, and the splash of light vanished
Speaker 1: as soon as seen cool garden clay slid from his feet.
Speaker 1: He had fallen, and he lay face downward among leaves,
Speaker 1: then up and on through branch and leaf, till sense
Speaker 1: and breath were gone. End of Canto's seven Canto eight.
Speaker 1: When next he found himself, no house, was there, no garden,
Speaker 1: and great trees Beside a lane in grass he lay.
Speaker 1: Now first he was aware that all one side his
Speaker 1: body glowed with pain, And the next moment and the
Speaker 1: next again was neither less nor more. Without a pause,
Speaker 1: it clung like a great beast with fastened claws, that
Speaker 1: for a time he could not frame a thought, nor
Speaker 1: know him self for self, nor pain for pain, till
Speaker 1: moment added on to moment taut the new, strange art
Speaker 1: of living. On that plain taught how the grappled soul
Speaker 1: must still remain, still, choose and think and understand. Beneath
Speaker 1: the very grinding of the ogre's teeth, he heard the
Speaker 1: wind along the hedges sweep. The quarter striking from a
Speaker 1: neighboring tower. About him was the weight of the world's sleep.
Speaker 1: Within the thundering pane that quiet hour. Heeded it not,
Speaker 1: it throbbed, it raged with power fit to convulse the heavens.
Speaker 1: And at his side the soft peace drenched the meadows
Speaker 1: far and wide. The air was cold, the earth was
Speaker 1: cold with dew, the hedge behind him dark as ink.
Speaker 1: But now the clouds broke, and a paler heaven showed through, spacious,
Speaker 1: with sudden stars breathing somehow the sense of change to
Speaker 1: slumbering lands. A cow coughed in the fields behind the
Speaker 1: puddles showed like pools of sky amid the darker road,
Speaker 1: and he could see his own limbs faintly white, and
Speaker 1: the blood black upon them. Then, by chance he turned,
Speaker 1: and it was strange. There at his right he saw
Speaker 1: a woman standing, and her glance met his, and at
Speaker 1: the meeting his deep trance changed not, and while he looked,
Speaker 1: the knowledge grew. She was not of the old life,
Speaker 1: but the new. Who is it, he said, the loved one,
Speaker 1: the long lost? He stared upon her, truly, truly, indeed,
Speaker 1: o lady, you come late. I am tempest, tossed, broken
Speaker 1: and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed. Why have
Speaker 1: you left me thus and given no heed to all
Speaker 1: my prayers? Left me to be the game of all
Speaker 1: decens seats. You should have asked my name? What are
Speaker 1: you then? But to his sudden cry, she did not answer.
Speaker 1: When he had thought, awhile, he said, how can I tell?
Speaker 1: It is no lie? It may be one more phantom
Speaker 1: to beguile, the brainsick dreamer with its harlot smile. I
Speaker 1: have not smiled, she said. The neighboring bell told out
Speaker 1: another quarter. Silence fell, and after a long pause he
Speaker 1: spoke again, Leave me, he said, why do you watch
Speaker 1: with me? You do not love me? Human tears and
Speaker 1: pain and hoping for the things that cannot be, and
Speaker 1: blundering in the night where none can see, and courage
Speaker 1: with cold back against the wall. You do not understand.
Speaker 1: I know them, all the gods themselves. No pain the
Speaker 1: eternal forms in realms, beyond the reach of cloud and skies,
Speaker 1: near as the ends of air, where come no storm
Speaker 1: nor sound of earth. I have looked into their eyes,
Speaker 1: peaceful and filled with pain, beyond surmise, filled with an
Speaker 1: ancient woe. Man cannot reach one moment though in fire.
Speaker 1: Yet calm their speech. Then, these, said Daimer, where the
Speaker 1: world I wooed. These were the holiness of flowers and grass,
Speaker 1: and desolate dews. These the eternal mood, blowing the eternal
Speaker 1: theme through men that pass. I called myself their lover.
Speaker 1: Ay that was less fit for that long service than
Speaker 1: the least dull work day drudge of men or faithful beast.
Speaker 1: Why do they lure to them such spirits as mine,
Speaker 1: the weak, the passionate, and the fool of dreams, When
Speaker 1: better men go safe and never pine with whisperings at
Speaker 1: the heart, soul, sickening gleams of infinite desire and joy
Speaker 1: that seems the promise of full power. For it was they,
Speaker 1: the Gods themselves, that led me on this way. Give
Speaker 1: me the truth. I ask not now for pity. When
Speaker 1: God's call can the following them be sin? Was it
Speaker 1: false light that lured me from the city. Where was
Speaker 1: the path without it? Or within? Must it be one
Speaker 1: blind throw to lose or win? Has heaven no voice
Speaker 1: to help? Must things of dust guess their own way
Speaker 1: in the dark? She said, They must another's silence. Then
Speaker 1: he cried in wrath. You came in human shape, in
Speaker 1: sweet disguise, wooing me, lurking for me in my path,
Speaker 1: hid your eternal cold with woman's eyes, snared me with
Speaker 1: shows of love, And all was lies. She answered, For
Speaker 1: our kind must come to all if bidden, But in
Speaker 1: the shape for which they call? What, answered, Dymer, Do
Speaker 1: you change and sway to serve us? As the obedient
Speaker 1: planets spin about the sun? Are you but Potter's clay
Speaker 1: for us to mold? Unholy to our sin and wholly
Speaker 1: to the holiness within? She said? Waves fall on many
Speaker 1: an unclean shore, Yet the salt seas are wholly as before.
Speaker 1: Our nature is no purer for the saint that worships,
Speaker 1: nor from him that uses ill our beauty? Can we
Speaker 1: suffer any taint? As from the first we were? So
Speaker 1: are we still with incorruptibles. The mortal will corrupts itself,
Speaker 1: and clouded eyes will make darkness within from beams they
Speaker 1: cannot take well. It is well, said Damer. If I
Speaker 1: have used the and breathing spirit, amiss, what would have
Speaker 1: been the strength of all my days? I have refused
Speaker 1: and plucked the stalk, too hasty in the green, trusted
Speaker 1: the good for best, and having seen half beauty or
Speaker 1: beauty's fringe, the lowest stare the common incantation worshiped there.
Speaker 1: But presently he cried in his grave pain. If I
Speaker 1: had loved a beast, it would repay. But I have
Speaker 1: loved the spirit, and loved in vain. Now let me die. Ah,
Speaker 1: But before the way is ended, quite in the last
Speaker 1: hour of day, is there no word of comfort, no
Speaker 1: one kiss of human love? Does it all end in this?
Speaker 1: She answered? Never ask of life and death? Uttering these names,
Speaker 1: you dream of warmy clay, or of surviving ghosts. This
Speaker 1: withering breath of words is the beginning of decay in truth.
Speaker 1: When truth grows cold and pines away among the ancestral images,
Speaker 1: your eyes first see her dead, and more the more
Speaker 1: she dies, you are still dreaming dreams you shall forget.
Speaker 1: When you have cast your fetters far from here, go forth.
Speaker 1: The journey is not ended yet, you have seen dyme
Speaker 1: Er dead and on the bier. More then you dream
Speaker 1: and dropped no tear. You have slain him. Every hour,
Speaker 1: think not at all of death, lest into death by
Speaker 1: thought you fall. He turned to question her, then looked again,
Speaker 1: and lo, the shape was gone. The darkness lay heavy
Speaker 1: as yet, and a cold, shifting rain fell with the
Speaker 1: breeze that springs before the day. It was an hour
Speaker 1: death loves across the way. The clock struck once again.
Speaker 1: He saw near by the black shape of the tower
Speaker 1: against the sky. Meanwhile, above the torture and the riot
Speaker 1: of leaping pulse and nerve that shot with pain, somewhere
Speaker 1: aloof and poised in spectral quiet, His soul was thinking
Speaker 1: on the dizzied brain, scarce seemed her organ. Link by link,
Speaker 1: the chain that bound him to the flesh was loosening fast,
Speaker 1: and the new life breathed in, unmoved and vast. It
Speaker 1: was like this, he thought, Like this or worse for
Speaker 1: him that I found bleeding in the wood. Blessings upon him.
Speaker 1: There I learned the curse that rests on Diymer's name,
Speaker 1: And truth was good. He has forgotten now the fire
Speaker 1: and blood. He has forgotten that there was a man
Speaker 1: called Dimer. He knows not himself nor Bran. How long
Speaker 1: have I been moved at heart in vain about this Dimer,
Speaker 1: thinking this was I Why did I follow close? His
Speaker 1: joy and pain more than another man's. For he will die,
Speaker 1: the little cloud will vanish, and the sky reigns as
Speaker 1: before the stars remain, and earth and man as in
Speaker 1: the years before my birth. There was a Dimer once
Speaker 1: who worked and played about the city. I slept him
Speaker 1: off and ran. There was a Dimer in the forest glade,
Speaker 1: ranting alone, skulking the fates of man. I cast him also,
Speaker 1: and a third began, and he too died. But I
Speaker 1: am none of those. Is there another still to die?
Speaker 1: Who knows? Then, in his pain, half wondering what he did,
Speaker 1: he made to struggle towards that belfried place, and groaning
Speaker 1: down the sodden bank, he slid and groaning in the lane.
Speaker 1: He felt his trace of bloodied mire, then halted with
Speaker 1: his face upwards towards the gateway, breathing hard, an old
Speaker 1: lych gate before a burial yard. He looked within, between
Speaker 1: the huddling crosses, over the slanted tombs and sunken slate
Speaker 1: spread the deep, quiet grass and humble mosses, a green
Speaker 1: and growing darkness, drenched of late, smelling of earth and damp.
Speaker 1: He reached the gate with failing hand. I will rest here,
Speaker 1: he said, and the long grass will cool my burning head.
Speaker 1: End of Canto eight, Canto nine. Even as he heard
Speaker 1: the wicket clash behind, came a great wind beneath that
Speaker 1: seemed to tear the solid graves apart and deaf and blind,
Speaker 1: whirled him upright like smoke, through towering air whose levels
Speaker 1: were as steps of a sky stare. The parching cold
Speaker 1: roughened his throat with thirst and pricked him at the heart.
Speaker 1: This was the first, and as he soared into the
Speaker 1: next degree, suddenly all around him he could hear sad
Speaker 1: strings that fretted inconsolably, and ominous horns that blew both
Speaker 1: far and near. There broke his human heart, and his
Speaker 1: last tear froze scalding on his chin. But while he heard,
Speaker 1: he shot like a sped dart into the third, and
Speaker 1: its first stroke of silence could destroy the spring of
Speaker 1: tears forever, and compress from off his lips the curved
Speaker 1: bow of the boy forever the sidereal loneliness received him.
Speaker 1: Where no journeying leaves the less still to be journeyed through.
Speaker 1: But everywhere, fast though you fly, the center still is there.
Speaker 1: And here the well worn fabric of our life fell
Speaker 1: from him. Hope and purpose were cut short, even the
Speaker 1: blind trust that reaches in mid strife towards some heart
Speaker 1: of things. Here blew the mort for the world spirit herself.
Speaker 1: The last support was fallen away himself. One spark of
Speaker 1: soul swam an unbroken void. He was the whole, and wailing,
Speaker 1: why hast thou forsaken me? Was there no world at
Speaker 1: all but only I, dreaming of gods and men? Then
Speaker 1: suddenly he felt the wind no more. He seemed to
Speaker 1: fly faster than light, but free, and scaled the sky
Speaker 1: in his own so strength, as if a falling stone
Speaker 1: should wake to find the world's will was its own.
Speaker 1: And on the instant, straight before his eyes, he looked
Speaker 1: and saw a sentry shape that stood leaning upon its spear,
Speaker 1: with hurrying skies behind it, and a moon set red
Speaker 1: as blood. Upon its head. Were helmet and mailed, hood
Speaker 1: and shield upon its arm, and sword at thigh, all
Speaker 1: black and pointed sharp against the sky. Then came the
Speaker 1: clink of metal, the dry sound of steel on rock,
Speaker 1: and challenge who comes here? And as he heard it,
Speaker 1: dimer at one bound stood in the stranger's shadow, with
Speaker 1: the spear between them, and his human face came near
Speaker 1: that larger face. What watches this you keep? Said Daimer,
Speaker 1: on the edge of such a deep and answer came.
Speaker 1: I watched both night and day this frontier. There are
Speaker 1: beasts of the upper air, as beasts of the deep sea.
Speaker 1: One walks this way night after night, far scouring from
Speaker 1: his lair, chewing the cut of lusts, which are despair
Speaker 1: and fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss
Speaker 1: that never was. What kind of beast is this? A
Speaker 1: kind of things escaped that have no home? Hunters of men.
Speaker 1: They love the spring uncurled, the will worn down, the
Speaker 1: wearied hour. They come at night time, when the mask
Speaker 1: is off the world and the soul's gait ill locked
Speaker 1: and the flag furled. Then softly, a pale swarm, and
Speaker 1: in disguise flit past the drowsy watchman, small as flies.
Speaker 1: I'll see this airish beast whereof you speak, I'll share
Speaker 1: the watch with you. Nay, little one be gone, you
Speaker 1: are of earth the flesh is weak. What is the flesh?
Speaker 1: To me? My courses run all, but some deed still
Speaker 1: waiting to be done. Some moment I may rise on
Speaker 1: as the boat lifts with the lifting tide and steals afloat.
Speaker 1: You are a spirit, and it is well with you.
Speaker 1: But I am come out of great folly and shame,
Speaker 1: the sack of cities wrongs I must undo. But tell
Speaker 1: me of the beast, and whence it came? Who were it? Sire?
Speaker 1: And dam? What is its name? It is my kin?
Speaker 1: All monsters are the brood of heaven and earth, and
Speaker 1: mixed with holy blood? How can this be? My son?
Speaker 1: Sit here awhile there is a lady in that primal
Speaker 1: place where I was born, who, with her ancient smile
Speaker 1: made glad the sons of heaven. She loved to chase
Speaker 1: the springtime round the world to all your race. She
Speaker 1: was a sudden quivering in the wood, or a new
Speaker 1: thought springing in solitude, till in prodigious hour, one swollen
Speaker 1: with youth, blind from new broken prisons, knowing not himself
Speaker 1: nor her nor how to mate with truth, lay with
Speaker 1: her in a strange and secret spot, mortal with her,
Speaker 1: immortal and begot this walker in the night. But did
Speaker 1: you know this mortal's name? Why? It was long ago,
Speaker 1: and yet I think I bear the name in mind.
Speaker 1: It was some famished boy whom tampering men had crippled
Speaker 1: in their chains and made him blind till their weak
Speaker 1: hour discovered them, and then he broke that prison. Softly,
Speaker 1: it comes again, I have it. It was Dymer, little one.
Speaker 1: Dymer's the name. This specter is his son. Then after
Speaker 1: silence came an answering shout from Daymer, glad and full
Speaker 1: break off. Dismiss. Your watch is ended, and your lamp
Speaker 1: is out, unarm, unarm, return into your bliss. You are relieved, sir.
Speaker 1: I must deal with this as in my right, for
Speaker 1: either I must slay this beast, or else be slain
Speaker 1: before the day. So mortal and so brave, that other said, smiling,
Speaker 1: and turned and looked in Dimer's eyes, scanning him over
Speaker 1: twice from heel to head, like an old sergeant's glance,
Speaker 1: grown battle wise to know the points of men. At last, arise,
Speaker 1: he said, and wear my arms. I can withhold nothing,
Speaker 1: for such an hour has been foretold. Thereat with lips
Speaker 1: as cold as the sea surge he kissed the youth, and,
Speaker 1: bending on one knee, put all his armor off, and
Speaker 1: let emerge angelic shoulders marbled gloriously, and feet like frozen speed,
Speaker 1: and plain to sea. On his wide breast, dark wounds
Speaker 1: and ancient scars, the battle honors of celestial wars. Then,
Speaker 1: like a squire or brother born, he dressed the young
Speaker 1: man in those plates that dripped with cold upon the inside,
Speaker 1: trick over breast and shoulder, but without the figured gold
Speaker 1: gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold, and the
Speaker 1: icy spear froze fast to Dymer's hand. But where the
Speaker 1: other had stood, he took his stand and searched the
Speaker 1: cloudy landscape. He could see dim shapes like hills appearing,
Speaker 1: but the moon had sunk behind their backs. When will
Speaker 1: it be, said Daimer and the other soon? Now soon,
Speaker 1: for either he comes past us at night's noon, or
Speaker 1: else between the night and the full day, and down
Speaker 1: there on your left will be his way. Swear that
Speaker 1: you will not come between us too, nor help me
Speaker 1: by a hair's weight if I bow. If you are
Speaker 1: he if prophecies speak true, not Heaven and all the
Speaker 1: gods can help you. Now this much I have been told,
Speaker 1: but know not how the fight will end. Who knows?
Speaker 1: I cannot tell, Sir, be content, said Damer, I know well.
Speaker 1: Thus Dymer stood to arms, with eyes that ranged through
Speaker 1: aching darkness, stared upon it, so that all things as
Speaker 1: he looked upon them, changed and were not as at first,
Speaker 1: but grave and slow. The larger shade went sauntering to
Speaker 1: and fro, humming at first the snatches of some tune
Speaker 1: that soldiers sing, but falling silent. Soon then came steps
Speaker 1: of dawn. And though they heard no milking cry in
Speaker 1: the fields, and no cock crew, and out of empty air,
Speaker 1: no twittering bird sounded from neighboring hedges, yet they knew. Eastward,
Speaker 1: the hollow blackness paled to blue, then blew to white,
Speaker 1: and in the west the rare surviving stars blinked feebler
Speaker 1: in cold air. Far beneath Dimer's feet, the sad half light,
Speaker 1: discovering the new landscape, oddly came and forms grown half
Speaker 1: familiar in the night, looked strange again. No distance seemed
Speaker 1: the same, and now he could see clear and call
Speaker 1: by name valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all
Speaker 1: took shape and made a world at morning's call. It
Speaker 1: was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps of broken trees
Speaker 1: rose out of endless clay, naked of flower and grass,
Speaker 1: the slobberd humps dividing the dead pools against the gray.
Speaker 1: A shattered village gaped. But now the day was very
Speaker 1: near them, and the night was past, and Dimer understood
Speaker 1: and spoke at last. Now I have wooed and won you.
Speaker 1: Bridal earth, beautiful world that lives, desire of men, All
Speaker 1: that the Spirit intended at my birth this day shall
Speaker 1: be borne into deed. And then the hard day's labor
Speaker 1: comes no more again, forever the pain dies, the longing cease,
Speaker 1: the ship glides under the green arch of peace. Now
Speaker 1: drink me as the sun drinks up the mist. This
Speaker 1: is the hour to ceasein at full flood that asks
Speaker 1: no gift from following years. But hissed, Look yonder, at
Speaker 1: the corner of that wood. Look look there where he comes.
Speaker 1: It shocks the blood the first sight. Eh, Now, sentinel,
Speaker 1: stand clear and save yourself for God's sake. Come not near.
Speaker 1: His full grown spirit had moved without command or spur
Speaker 1: of the will. Before he knew he found that he
Speaker 1: was leaping forward, spear in hand, to where that ash
Speaker 1: and brute wheeled slowly round, nosing, and set its ears
Speaker 1: towards the sound. The pale and heavy brute rough ridged
Speaker 1: behind and full of eyes clinking in scaly rind, And
Speaker 1: now ten paces parted them, and here he halted. He
Speaker 1: thrust forward his left foot, poising his straightened arms, and
Speaker 1: launched the spear, and gloriously it sang. But now the
Speaker 1: brute lurched forward, and he saw the weapon's shoot beyond it,
Speaker 1: and fall quivering on the field. Dymer drew out his
Speaker 1: sword and raised the shield. What now, my friends, you
Speaker 1: get no more from me? Of Dymer, he goes from
Speaker 1: us what he felt or saw. From henceforth, no man knows,
Speaker 1: but he who has himself gone through the jungle belt
Speaker 1: of dying into peace. That angel knelt far off and
Speaker 1: watched them close, but could not see their battle. All
Speaker 1: was ended suddenly a leap, a cry, flurry of steel
Speaker 1: and claw, then silence as before the morning light, and
Speaker 1: the same brute crouched yonder, and he saw under its
Speaker 1: feet broken and bent and white, the ruined limbs of
Speaker 1: Dymer killed outright all in a moment. All his story done.
Speaker 1: But that same moment came the rising sun, and thirty
Speaker 1: miles to westward, the gray cloud flushed into answering pink.
Speaker 1: Long shadows streamed from every hill, and the low hanging
Speaker 1: shroud of mist along the valleys broke and steamed. Gold
Speaker 1: flecked to heaven. Far off. The armor gleamed like glass
Speaker 1: upon the dead man's back. But now the sentinel ran forward,
Speaker 1: hand to brow and staring for between him and the sun,
Speaker 1: he saw that country clothed with dancing flowers where flower
Speaker 1: had never grown, and one by one the splintered woods,
Speaker 1: as if from april, showers were softening into green. In
Speaker 1: the leafy towers rose the cool, sudden chattering on the
Speaker 1: tongues of happy birds with mourning in their lungs. The
Speaker 1: wave of flowers came breaking round his feet, crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil,
Speaker 1: shivering with moisture, and the air grew sweet within his nostrils,
Speaker 1: changing heart and will, making him laugh. He looked, and
Speaker 1: Dimer still lay dead among the flowers, and pinned beneath
Speaker 1: the brute. But as he looked, he held his breath,
Speaker 1: For when he had gazed hard with steady eyes upon
Speaker 1: the brute. Behold, no brute was there, but some one,
Speaker 1: towering large against the skies, a winged and swordid shape,
Speaker 1: through whom the air poured as through glass, and its
Speaker 1: foam tumbled hair lay white about the shoulders, and the
Speaker 1: whole pure body brimmed with life as a full boll.
Speaker 1: And from the distant corner of Day's birth he heard
Speaker 1: clear trumpets blowing, and bell's ring, a noise of great
Speaker 1: good coming in to earth, and such a music as
Speaker 1: the dumb would sing if Balder had led back the
Speaker 1: blameless spring with victory, with the voice of charging spears,
Speaker 1: and in white lands long lost Saturnian years. End of
Speaker 1: Canton nine, End of Dimer by C. S. Lewis