The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 34

HARDY Now I'll leave, See if your order's gone, and then return.

NELSON [symptoms of death beginning to change his face]

Yes, Hardy; yes; I know it. You must go.-- Here we shall meet no more; since Heaven forfend That care for me should keep you idle now, When all the ship demands you. Beatty, too.

Go to the others who lie bleeding there; Them can you aid. Me you can render none!

My time here is the briefest.--If I live But long enough I'll anchor.... But--too late-- My anchoring's elsewhere ordered!... Kiss me, Hardy:

[HARDY bends over him.]

I'm satisfied. Thank G.o.d, I have done my duty!

[HARDY brushes his eyes with his hand, and withdraws to go above, pausing to look back before he finally disappears.]

BEATTY [watching Nelson]

Ah!--Hush around!...

He's sinking. It is but a trifle now Of minutes with him. Stand you, please, aside, And give him air.

[BEATTY, the Chaplain, MAGRATH, the Steward, and attendants continue to regard NELSON. BEATTY looks at his watch.]

BEATTY

Two hours and fifty minutes since he fell, And now he's going.

[They wait. NELSON dies.]

CHAPLAIN

Yes.... He has homed to where There's no more sea.

BEATTY

We'll let the Captain know, Who will confer with Collingwood at once.

I must now turn to these.

[He goes to another part of the c.o.c.kpit, a midshipman ascends to the deck, and the scene overclouds.]

CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

His thread was cut too slowly! When he fell.

And bade his fame farewell, He might have pa.s.sed, and shunned his long-drawn pain, Endured in vain, in vain!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Young Spirits, be not critical of That Which was before, and shall be after you!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

But out of tune the Mode and meritless That quickens sense in shapes whom, thou hast said, Necessitation sways! A life there was Among these self-same frail ones--Sophocles-- Who visioned it too clearly, even while He dubbed the Will "the G.o.ds." Truly said he, "Such gross injustice to their own creation Burdens the time with mournfulness for us, And for themselves with shame."[9]--Things mechanized By coils and pivots set to foreframed codes Would, in a thorough-sphered melodic rule, And governance of sweet consistency, Be cessed no pain, whose burnings would abide With That Which holds responsibility, Or inexist.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Yea, yea, yea!

Thus would the Mover pay The score each puppet owes, The Reaper reap what his contrivance sows!

Why make Life debtor when it did not buy?

Why wound so keenly Right that it would die?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Nay, blame not! For what judgment can ye blame?-- In that immense unweeting Mind is shown One far above forethinking; processive, Yet superconscious; a Clairvoyancy That knows not what It knows, yet works therewith.-- The cognizance ye mourn, Life's doom to feel, If I report it meetly, came unmeant, Emerging with blind gropes from impercipience By listless sequence--luckless, tragic Chance, In your more human tongue.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

And hence unneeded In the economy of Vitality, Which might have ever kept a sealed cognition As doth the Will Itself.

CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

Nay, nay, nay; Your hasty judgments stay, Until the topmost cyme Have crowned the last entablature of Time.

O heap not blame on that in-brooding Will; O pause, till all things all their days fulfil!

SCENE V

LONDON. THE GUILDHALL

[A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor's banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives at the door.

FIRST CITIZEN

Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!

SECOND CITIZEN