|
I believe Lucifer is announcing the title of the piece, ‘The Drama of Kings’. The first word is ‘Drama’, and the second, I think, is the genitive plural of Kyrios (Lord). However, my knowledge of Ancient Greek is non-existent, so I welcome corrections.]
11
THE DRAMA OF KINGS.
_____
PROLOGUE.
13
PROLOGUE.
Enter TIME, cloaked and hooded, leaning on a Staff.
I AM that ancient shadow men call Time,
Silent, infirm, frail-footed, snow’d upon
By many winters, faring westward still,
And ever looking backward to the east.
How far these feeble feet must wander yet
I know not. All is dark before my steps;
And oft it seems to my bewilder’d sense,
That I alone of all things do not move,
But like the pale moon plunging on thro’ mist
Make but a fancied motion for the eye,
And stationary with enchanted eyes
Seem still to pass all shapes that swift as clouds
Slide by for ever. Behind me like the sea
Seen amid tempest from a mountain top,
Innumerable years break awfully 14
To foam of living faces and to moan
Of living voices; and upon that waste,
Looming afar off ghost-like in my track,
ONE still moves luminous-footed, stretching hands
To bless the angry waves whereon He walks.
To-night I come as Prologue, to prepare
Your ears for subtle matter. Do ye hear
That wind of human voices anguishing
Afar off, like the wind Euroclydon
Moaning around Mount Ida? Hark again!
“Liberty! Liberty!” the wild voice cries,
“Liberty!” now,—and ever “Liberty!”
But whom they call by that mysterious name
I say not, nor can any angel say,
Nor one thing under God. God knows and hears.
That one word and none other hath been cried
By men from the beginning. I have heard
The sound so long, I smile; but at the same
Kingdoms have fallen like o’er-ripen’d fruit, 15
Realms wither’d, heaven rain’d blood and earth yawn’d graves,
The seasons sicken’d changing their due course,
The stars burnt blue for many awful nights
The corpse-lights of a world that lay as dead.
And now to-night we show on this same stage
How, uttering each that one mysterious word,
Two mighty Nations gather’d up their crests
Against each other, struck and struck again,
Met, mingled, roar’d, fell, rose, fought throat to throat,
Until their hate became the wide world’s scorn;
How dimly, darkly, for the great Idea,
Each smote, and stagger’d on from blow to blow,
While one by one came Leaders veil’d to each,
Phantoms, each cloak’d and hooded and led by me,
Each saying “In the name of Liberty!”
And drew them as the white moon draws the sea; 16
How one by one these threw their cloaks aside
And stood in a red sunset, bloody men
Who juggled with the mystic word of God;—
Yet how from sorrow came mysterious good,
Seeing Man’s wrong’d Soul hoarded its deep strength
In silence, making ready for that day
When God Himself, who knows the secret only,
May bless it with that single truth it seeks.
[A confused noise.
It is begun. Germania overthrown,
Mad, stricken, lies upon her back and glares
At heaven from a bloody battle-field,
And dimly sees in the dark void above her
A dark Shape, a dim-footed Phantasy,
And deemeth ’tis the mighty truth men seek.
Hark, the drums beat! the cannons thunder deep!
Earth shakes! . . Now all is silent, and I go
To walk at dark across the battle-field, 17
And, stooping o’er each stricken bleeding man,
Point with a skeleton finger to the stars,
And whispering my other awful name,
Draw back my hood a moment—thus!
[Unhoods—shows the mask of a Caput Mortuum.
My name
Is also Death; and I am deathless. I
Am Time and most eternal. I am he,
God’s Usher, and my duty it is to lead
The actors one by one upon the scene,
And afterwards to guide them quietly
Through that dark postern when their parts are played.
They come and go, alas! but I abide,
And I am weary of the garish stage.
19
THE DRAMA OF KINGS.
_____
PART I.
BUONAPARTE;
OR, FRANCE AGAINST THE TEUTON.
21
SPEAKERS.
_____
Kings, &c.
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
ALEXANDER I., CZAR OF RUSSIA.
JEROME BUONAPARTE, KING OF WESTPHALIA.
LOUISA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA.
THE KING OF SAXONY.
THE PRINCE PRIMATE, VON DALBERG.
Kings, Princes, and Dukes of the Rhenish Confederation.
Members of the Tugendbund:
THE BARON VON STEIN.
THE PROFESSOR JAHN.
THE POET ARNDT.
CHORUS.
_____
SCENE—Erfurt, in the Duchy of Saxe Coburg Gotha.
TIME—October, 1808, during the great Congress of Powers.
23
SCENE—THE TOWN OF ERFURT, IN THE
DUCHY OF SAXE COBURG GOTHA.
STEIN. An OFFICER.
OFFICER.
HARK how they shout, thronging the busy streets,
While the imperial butcher passes by
To course the hare on Jena’s fatal plain!
STEIN.
Ill-omen’d place and hour! ill-omen’d day!
Friend, I beheld them coming forth! I looked
On Cæsar’s sallow face—I saw it, I—
And found no sunlight there to dazzle me:
Only the insolent frost-bitten cheek
Bloodless and hard like iron, only eyes 24
Snake-like, the snake’s eyes of the Corsican.
On a white charger rolling like a wave,
He rode sunk deep into his saddle thus,
His shoulders rounded, while his bridle hand
Hung at his side as heavily as lead
Tho’ the steed champ’d against the pitiless rein;
And all the while with low soft speech he smiled
To Russia, who, on a black Barbary mare
Riding with stirrups long and easy rein,
Fixing his evil eyes in one fond stare
Of fascination on his royal comrade,
Show’d like a cheated wolf. Behind these twain,
Who riding hung together amorously,
Follow’d the lacqueys,—Prussia’s prince and chief,
Würtemberg, Saxony, Bavaria,
Westphalia leering at the burghers’ wives,
Hesse, Baden, all the princedoms and the powers,
So mingled up with equerries, knights-at-arms, 25
Blackcoats and redcoats, horsemen, footmen, huntsmen,
That all became a shameful garden-show
Wherein no eye could pick the several parts;
Only those two proud Emperors rode supreme,
In their proud sunshine dwarfing all the rest
That follow’d them to less than nothingness;
And yet I swear,—I saw it with mine eyes,—
Not one of those but drew his lacquey’s air
In gaily, not one face but was content
So to be shone upon by those that led,
Not one, not one, but like a very dog
Follow’d behind his masters tame and proud,
Fawning upon their footprints step by step.
OFFICER.
My heart aches, and my tongue fails. All thy words
Are wormwood. Yet the people of the earth
Are helpless, seeing those that lead are blind.
26
STEIN.
O God, God, God! that these things should be known
In the same land, beneath the self-same sky,
That saw the giant Karl arise his height
The head of all the earth at Paderborn,
When dwarf’d beside him great Pope Leo stood,
And the great Caliph of the heathen East
Rain’d gold and gems at the imperial feet!
O God! are the ghosts laid for evermore
That walk’d about the Teuton vales at night
And awed the souls of men, and kept them free?
Is Karl forgotten? Is great Fritz’s spirit
Spell-laid within the shade of Sans Souci?
Is Germany, is every German soul,
Dumb, fetter’d, broken, miserable, dead?
Are this man’s functions supernatural,
Divine above all life, all love, all law,
That he should walk upon the waves of earth
Casting his bloody shade as on a sea, 27
And they should hush themselves around his feet
Lightly as ripples on a summer pond?
Earth, water, air—the clouds, the waves, the winds,—
The stars in their pale courses,—day and night
Forgetful of their natural equipoise,
Shape their mysterious functions to his will;
Kings lick his feet like dogs; he lifts his finger
And epileptic in his chair the Pope
Foams speechless at the mouth;—body and soul
Obey him as an impulse and a law;—
The eyes, the ears, the tongues, of all the world
Are blown one way like all a forest’s leaves
To see, hear, and entreat him;—by his smile
The earth is brighten’d,—and ’tis straight fine weather!
Let him but frown, all darkens and the sun
Uprises bloody as a vulture’s crest!
Like hawks obedient to the falconer 28
The Kings of Europe wait, and at a sign
Soar, while he sits and smiles, in fierce pursuit
Of any wretched quarry he would slay;
But let him whistle, and with bloody beaks
They turn, and preen their plumage, and are fed.
Cry? I will cry to God with all my soul!
Can God keep calm, and look upon these things?
CHORUS.
O Spirits dreaming,
With blue eyes beaming,
With bright locks flowing
And folded wings,
Your lips are parted,
While happy-hearted,
To rapture glowing,
Sweet things each sings—
And the bright song quivers
Like the wash of rivers,
Like west winds blowing,
Like bubbling springs;—
In quiet places 29
Shine your soft faces,
While we are throwing
Our curse at Kings.
Sweet music never,
But something ever
To curse and cry for,
Till death appear;
No dreamy singing,
But scorn and stinging,
Deep shame to sigh for,
Doom drear to fear;
Hunger and sorrow
Both night and morrow,
While all we try for
Grows harsh and sere:—
O’er barren meadows
We drift like shadows,
We dream, we die for
The Golden Year.
O year! O summer!
O promised comer—
Promised to us 30
Since time began—
As in the beginning,
Deep craft and sinning
Swiftly pursue us
And ban each plan;
A thousand rulers
And soul-befoolers
Have perish’d through us
After a span;
But fresh fierce faces
Still take their places,
New Kings subdue us
And trouble Man.
Slay them?—we slay them:—
Our souls gainsay them—
Comes Até bringing
Her fatal boon;
But still fresh creatures,
With the old false features,
Rise up, all singing
The moon-mad tune;—
What comfort to us 31
When these undo us;
To know their stinging
Must cease so soon—
When with fierce laughter
New Kings come after,
As quickly springing
As grass in June?
O Spirits dreaming,
With blue eyes beaming,
Your song, like ours,
Is still the same—
Ye hear in glory
A familiar story,
But it sings of flowers,
Not shame and blame—
And your lips are parted,
Ye smile sweet-hearted,
And ye join in your bowers
With eyes aflame.
To a note as weary,
But dark and dreary,
Our souls, our powers, 32
Lie sick and tame.
O, wherefore ever
Kill Kings, and never
Find earth outlast her
Exceeding pain?
All man o’erthroweth
Again regroweth,
O’er each disaster
We gain, in vain.
Slain Kings each morrow
Bring seed of sorrow.
Doth grass grow faster,
Or golden grain?
After each reaping
We see upcreeping
Another Master!
Another chain!
Like waves of ocean
Is our wild motion,
In sad storm blended,
With winds opprest,
Ever perceiving 33
New cause for grieving:—
From storm defended,
O blest were rest!
Tho’ in its season
We know each treason
Must sink wave-rended
In our great breast;
Tho’ all that win us
Are tomb’d within us,—
Would all were ended!
Yea, rest were best.
O Spirits dreaming
With blue eyes gleaming,
With nought to sigh for
As we sigh here,
Beyond disaster,
With one fix’d Master,
With nought to vie for,
With fear, nor tear—
The soul speeds thither,
Our dreams go with her,
We yearn to fly, for 34
All life seems sere.
By waters dreary,
Moon-wan and weary,
We dream, we die for
The Golden Year!
STEIN. ARNDT. JAHN.
STEIN.
Good morrow, friends. Have ye been feasting sight
On Cæsar’s triumph, that ye walk the earth
With eyes so fevered and with mien so wild?
JAHN.
Why, yes, we did our turn of gape and stare.
’Twas hot, hell-hot—and the heat turned my brain,
So that methought (laugh with me, lest ye weep!)
’Twas very Cæsar whom I look’d upon,
And I as soothsayer was stepping forth 35
To croak my warning threat into his ear,
When Arndt here clutched me fast and held me back,
And I awoke again to the wild day;
So open-mouthed as he went by we stared
All in the sunshine and the festal light,
Like two black ravens on a bridal path
Hopping in omen of a funeral.
STEIN.
O blessed omen for the weary world!
JAHN.
How many hours, and days, and months, and years,
Shall this go on? Deeper and deeper yet
We wallow. Is there any living hope?
STEIN.
Hope lasts with life. Life lasts; so hope thou on.
36
JAHN.
Life lasts? I know not. Oft it seems that all
Is dead, dead—dead and rotten—Liberty
No more a living shape supremely fair,
But a mere ghost unpleasant to the thoughts
Of foolish Kings at bedtime. Every wind
Is tainted by this pestilence from France.
No man may sitting at his private board
Discuss in quietness his own affairs,
Debt, his last illness, private history,
But straight the Skeleton of Law appears,
Pressing its bony finger on the lips.
In every corner twinkle weasels’ ears,
Long noses snuffing treason, sharp white teeth
Hungry for blood; the unclean things of scent
Swarm numerous as locusts, eating up
Our grain, our very substance; ay, and mark!
If thou and I—poor devils that we are—
Would fly from Malebolge, from this Hell, 37
And speed to some far land and colonise,
Straightway upon the frontier rises up
The Skeleton, waving us back again,
In this new Cæsar’s name, to beggary.
Meantime the once blest frame of Germany
Sickens: disease and famine gnaw her breasts,
Sorrow and shame destroy her. All appeal
To law is fatal, since this tyrant France
Is law, fate, death; and each man’s flesh and soul
Are fruit his myrmidons may pluck at will.
All men of noble birth must flock perforce
To spend three months of every year at court,
There to be taught to play this mad French tune
Upon the one-string’d fiddle of despair.
All the fresh streams of trade are choked and stuff’d
With antique carrion and new garbage. Nought
Goes out or in our poor Germania’s mouth
But the great thief clutches his lion’s share; 38
And even the poor peasants,—Hans who chops
Wood in the cold, Fritz who grows rheumatic
Leech-hunting in the marshes,—even these,
Are robb’d, poor slaves, of their mere mite of salt,—
While every pipe they smoke beside the fire
To warm their agued limbs in wretched age,
And every pinch of snuff they feebly take
To clear their purblind eyes of rheum and mist,
Is interdicted till they first have given
Due pinch and pipeful to the Emperor!
STEIN.
Still courage! Evil days have been ere this,
Social disease as deep, civic disease
As dreadful. It shall end. Have we not sworn
By Christ that it shall end? Sow thy fierce words 39
Abroad, my Jahn,—they shall be wingëd seed—
Prepare, my Arndt, thy passionate sweet songs,
Sing them at night by the Babylonian river,
They shall create a new and Teuton soul.
ARNDT.
And yet I scarce can speak for bitterness.
O Stein, while I prepare an eager cry
To move the stagnant hearts of simple men,
Voices more strong and more intense than mine,
Souls gifted and accredited from God,
Cry to the monster, “Hail,” sing in his ear
Pindaric hymn and pæan, fan his glory
Like light winds full of scent from beds of flowers.
STEIN.
Voices of parasites and summer bards—
For such have ever sung to conquerors.
40
ARNDT.
But yestermorn the old man Wieland stood
Enlarging his weak vision for an hour
Upon the demigod, who of Greece and Rome
Talk’d like a petulant schoolboy; and this day
I beheld Goethe with a doubtful face,
Part dubious and part eager, proof of thoughts
Half running on ahead, half lingering,
Enter the quarters of the Emperor;—
But when he issued forth his features wore
Their pitiless smile of perfect self-delight,
His lips already quiver’d with a pæan,
His stately march was quicken’d eagerly,
And all his face and all his gait alive
With glory that the sun of Corsica
Had shone upon him to his heart’s content.
Which of our singers is not garrulous
In praise of Europe’s curse and Prussia’s shame?
JAHN.
I trust no poets. They are moonshine men,
And like the folk in Persia fall abash’d
At sunlight. There is mightier matter here,— 41
Short, sharp, and like himself,—a word of hope
From Marshal Vorwärts, our old fire-eater,
The old one with the bright heart of a boy,
Who jingles his sharp spurs and curses France
Morn, noon, and night in Pomerania—
(Reads) “Thieves!” “cowards!” “windbags!” “men of straw!” “geese!” “swine!”
(The strength of Blücher lies in expletives
And sword-thrusts) with such words hurl’d out like blows,
He cries, concluding with a trooper’s curse,
A round “God-damn-his-soul-to-hell-fire” oath
On the French Satan. As for your singing-men,
Your lute-players, your festal Matthissons,
They buzz in their own fashion, in the old
Blue-bottle fashion. While the blue-flies hum,
The curs yelp gladly. I have heard they eat
Dog-pie in China as a delicacy:— 42
O to be cook to Cæsar for a day!
To mince John Müller and dish Zschokke up,
As dainties set before the Emperor!
STEIN.
The life of every man is as a wave,
And having risen its appointed height
It must descend; and I believe this day
Our eyes have look’d upon Napoleon
Crested to his full glory, and in act
Of over-fall. The power of tyranny
Can go no higher; henceforth its fierce strength
Shall be expended downwards, be assured.
JAHN.
I could have roar’d for joy like any bull
To see him fondling Russia. To be tamed,
Bears must be taken in their infancy;
But I beheld the old bloodthirsty look
Deep in the eyes of this one, tho’ they blink’d
So tamely. Why, his paws are scarcely clean 43
From Austerlitz! Have patience! this last pet
Was caught too old, and it will hug him yet!
STEIN.
Honour to Austria, that he holds aloof—
JAHN.
O there is life and soul in Austria still:
The poor old Bird hath struck and struck and struck,
Till he is shredded to a scarecrow, worn
To a thin shadow. In the undaunted one
1 honour what I hated, and yet fear!
Were I a poet (I am none, thank God)
Why I would sing a pæan in his praise.
STEIN.
For something fairer far and more divine
Poets shall sing and prophets cry full soon.
O friends, we shall become a people yet— 44
Tho’ the first bond was like a wisp of straw
Torn by this Ape asunder, tho’ no more
Under the banner left by Karl the Great
We fight against oppression, still, thank God,
We are a people yet, and I believe
Not wholly blind and helpless, tho’ we reach
Our hands out darkly, waiting on for light.
Austria is torn from her imperial seat,
Prussia lies healing of her last wide wound,
The lesser Kingdoms walk in flowery chains;
Germania, the name, the word, the race,
Still lives, and by Germania soon or late
Shall Buonaparté die. At Austerlitz
Fell Austria, here the Prussian eagle fell.
On both those memorable battlefields,
Rose like a Spirit from a murder’d man
The white truth, hovering for a moment there
An Iris on the Death-cloud. Out of the proud
Imperial Austrian ruin shall emerge
The TEUTON: not a temple such as that
Napoleon overthrew—not a mere name
Descending thro’ a line of shadowy Kings—
Not a delusion and patrician lie, 45
A pasteboard Crown and an unholy Sword—
Not these, but more than these, a life, a soul,
A living man, the Teuton, lord of all
He from his fathers first inherited,—
The heart of Europe water’d by the Rhine.
For ours too long hath been a mighty house
Divided in itself against itself,
Too eager to be dragged by peevish Kings
Out of itself to wander in the world:
And we indeed are stricken at this day
Because we follow’d in an evil hour
Blind rulers who affrighted for their crowns
Led us against the house republican
Built by our brethren in the fields of France.
For, mark me, they who follow and fight for crowns
Fight for a figment merely and a sign,
And should the dwellers in a nation say
Within our chambers there shall sit no Kings,
They err who blindly for the sake of Kings
Would carry thither sword and flaming fire.
A people is a law unto itself,
The law of God will shape that lesser law,
And if there come a time when Kings are doom’d, 46
Why let them like a feast-day pageant pass
And be forgotten, or like some old tale
Become a goodly theme for the fireside.
O if the Teuton soul we all inherit
Would rise supreme, and for the one white truth
Strike blow on blow half as persistently
As Austria hath, because she fear’d to lose
The jewels in her crown, the world were free
Of this accredited and crownëd Shape,
That walketh at his will, and when he will,
Into the porches of the great Abodes
Of nations: knocks like Death at every door,
And enters every kingly bed-chamber
As sleep doth, bringing there instead of sleep
Sleepless Despair and haunting shapes of Fear!
What, shall this Robber sit with folded arms
Upon the hearth of our fair dwelling-place,
And shall the foolish people of the house
Do courtesies and kill the fatted calf? 47
Nay, rather let him reckon up his days,
For he was doom’d (and so all Kings are doom’d)
Whene’er he ceased to wield the righteous sword
Upon the threshold of his threaten’d land,
And wander’d out into the open world
To plunder in the name of Liberty.
CHORUS.
’Twas the height of the world’s night, there was neither warmth nor light, [note]
And the heart of Earth was heavy as a stone;
Yet the nations sick with loss saw the surge of heaven toss
Round the meteor of the Cross; and with a moan
All the people desolate gazed thereon and question’d fate,
And the wind went by and bit them to the bone.
Hope was fled and Faith was dead, and the black pall overhead 48
Hung like Death’s, for doom was heavy everywhere,—
When there rose a sudden gleam, then a thunder, then a scream,
Then a lightning, stream on stream upon the air! [l.iv]
And a dreadful ray was shed around the Cross, and it grew red,
And the pallid people leapt to see the glare.
Fire on the heights of France! Fire on the heights of France!
Fire flaming up to heaven, streak on streak!
How on France Kings look’t askance! how the nations join’d in dance!
To see the glory glance from peak to peak!
How the chain’d lands curst their chance, as they bent their eyes on France!
Earth answer’d, and her tongues began to speak.
Now hark!—who lit the spark in the miserable dark? 49
O Washington, men miss thee and forget.
Where did the light arise, in answer to man’s cries?
In the West; in those far skies it rose and set.
Who brought it in his breast from the liberated West?
Speak his name, and kneel and bless him: Lafayette.
O Sire, that madest Fire! How with passionate desire
Leapt the nations while it gather’d and up-streamed;
Then they fed it, to earth’s groans, with Man’s flesh and blood and bones,
And with Altars and with Thrones; and still it screamed.
Then they cast a King thereon—but a flash, and he was gone.
Then they brought a Queen to feed it:—how it gleam’d!
Then it came to pass, Earth’s frame seem’d dissolving in the flame, 50
Then it seem’d the Soul was shaken on its seat,
And the pale Kings with thin cries look’d in one another’s eyes,
Saying, “Hither now it flies, and O how fleet!
Sound loud the battle-cry, we must trample France or die,
Strike the Altar, cast it down beneath our feet.”
Forth they fared. The red fire flared on the heights of France, and glared
On the faces of the free who kept it fed;
Came the Kings with blinded eyes, but with baffled prayers and cries
They beheld it grow and rise, still bloody-red;
When lo! the Fire’s great heart, like a red rose cloven apart,
Open’d swiftly, to deep thunder overhead.
And lo, amid the glow, while the pale Kings watched in woe, 51
Rose a single Shape, and stood upon the pyre.
Its eyes were deeply bright, and its face, in their sad sight,
Was pallid in a white-heat of desire,
And the cheek was ashen hued; and with folded arms it stood
And smiled bareheaded, fawn’d on by the Fire.
Forehead bare, the Shape stood there, in the centre of the glare,
And cried, “Away ye Kings, or ye shall die.”
And it drove them back with flame, o’er the paths by which they came,
And they wrung their hands in shame as they did fly.
As they fled it came behind fleeter-footed than the wind,
And it scatter’d them, and smote them hip and thigh.
All amazed, they stood and gazed, while their crying kingdoms blazed, 52
With their fascinated eyes upon the Thing;—
When lo, as clouds dilate, it grew greater and more great,
And beneath it waited Fate with triple sting;
All colossus-like and grand, it bestrode the sea and land,
And behold,—the crownëd likeness of a KING!
Then the light upon the height that had burned in all men’s sight
Was absorb’d into the creature where he smiled.
O his face was wild and wan—but the burning current ran
In the red veins of the Man who was its child:—
To the sob of the world’s heart did the meteor-light depart,
Earth darken, and the Altar fall defiled.
Then aloud the Phantom vow’d, “Look upon me, O ye proud! 53
Kiss my footprints! I am reaper, ye are wheat!
Ye shall tremble at my name, ye shall eat my bread in shame,
I will make ye gather tame beneath my seat.”
And the gold that had been bright on the hair of Kings at night,
Ere dawn was shining dust about his feet.
At this hour behold him tower, in the darkness of his power,
Look upon him, search his features, O ye free!
Is there hope for living things in this fiery King of Kings,
Doth the song that Freedom sings fit such as he?
Is it night or is it day, while ye bleed beneath his sway?
It is night, deep night on earth and air and sea.
Still the height of the world’s night. There is neither warmth nor light, 54
And the heart of Earth is heavy as a stone;
And within the night’s dark core where the sad Cross gleam’d before
Sits the Shape that Kings adore, upon a Throne;
And the nations desolate crawl beneath and curse their fate,
And the wind goes by and bites them to the bone.
O Sire that mad’st the Fire, and the Shape that dread and dire
Came from thence, the first and last born of the same,
To Thee we praying throng, for Thou alone art strong,
To right our daily wrong and bitter shame:
From the aching breast of earth, lift the red Fire and its birth!
Consume them—let them vanish in one flame!
[Notes:
Page 47: The revision of The Drama of Kings first published in the third volume of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan (Henry S. King, 1874) as ‘Political Mystics’ (and subsequently reprinted by Chatto & Windus in The Poetical Works of 1884 and 1901), begins with the following introductory verse:
Political Mystics.
Shades of the living Time,
Phantoms men deem real,
Rise to a runic rhyme,
Cloak’d from head to heel!
One by one ye pass
As in a magician’s glass,
One by one displace
The hood which veils the face;
And ever we recognise,
With terrible deep-drawn breath,
Christ’s inscrutable eyes,
And the bloodless cheeks of Death!
This is followed by a section entitled ‘TITAN AND AVATAR. A Choral Mystic’ which is in four parts:
1. Ode of Nations
2. The Avatar’s Dream
3. The Elemental Quest
4. The Elemental Doom
The Chorus section on Page 47 of The Drama of Kings provides the first part, ‘Ode of Nations’.
Alterations in the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
Page 48, l. iv: Then a lightning, stream on stream aslant the air! ]
_____
The Drama of Kings continued
or back to The Drama of Kings - Contents
|
