The Mortal Gods and Other Plays Part 28

_Hud._ Is that for me, my boy?

_Cha._ As many lives tramped out in hunger's scramble, As many factories where driven wives Forget the altar dream of babes and home.

As many sweating traps where flames may feed On flesh of maidens, leaving still, charred bones Whose only fortune is to ache no more.

As many brazen mills that noise their thrift Above the ceaseless shuttle of small feet, While you, the great arch-master, think none hears That drowned pattering. As many marts Where, in law's shadow, girl-eyed slaves are sold To blows and l.u.s.t. As many cripples thrown Upon the dump-heap of a soulless Peace, Each season piled to moaning wreck more high Than ever War made in its darkest year.

As many holes where life must lie with death For privilege of sleep. Oh, I could give Black instances till yonder sun be set Nor end your loathsome list!

_Hud._ A rare, hot sermon, But I'm not Providence, that from my hand Must pour unfailing bounty.

_Cha._ Humble, sir?

I thought you claimed a power that gave the world The shape you chose.

_Hud._ But I must use the stuff I find here. That I can't remake or change.

So must my world show flaws and ugly spots Due to its substance, not to my good pattern.

_Cha._ That stuff, sir, is the same that lifted us From four feet up to two! The elements That played like death upon it but aroused Their conqueror. In the embrace of winds It made us ships and gave us wings. From dust, The very dust that choked it, grew the dream That lifts it deathless, an eternized G.o.d.

And surely as your grip makes it a slave, You teach it freedom. In your clutch 'twill find Once more the need creative, and upswell With power that shall leave you by the way As heaving seas leave straws upon the sand.

You shall be _nothing_. As a dream that dies With waking--lost so utterly The sleeper knows not that it was--so you Shall be a vanished thing that man born free Can not reclothe in guess!

_Hud._ Peonia's sun Has touched your wits. You still think of revolt?

_Cha._ I think of victory.

_Hud._ Your comedy Is past its hour. Come, Chartrien, give it up.

Confess the war is done.

_Cha._ Bolderez' guns Will make confession of another sort.

_Hud._ O, ho! I see a light. You have not heard The morning news. Bolderez has come in.

_Cha._ Come in? Your couriers flatter you. He holds The heights of Gila with five thousand men.

_Hud._ That's yesterday. To-day those brave five thousand Are soldiers of united Goldusan.

Bolderez is adviser to the State, A tinker in high place, who solders fast The civic split----

_Cha._ You dream! This is not true!

_Her._ Yes, Chartrien, it is true. We've lost Bolderez.

_Cha._ He--has--deserted?

_Hud._ No, he proves him loyal To me, his master.

_Cha._ You?

_Hud._ He served me always.

You fool, this was _my_ revolution.

_Cha._ Yours?

_Hud._ Bolderez led my troops. It was for me You fed his bony beggars. Ha! For me You stuffed their hungry pockets with your gold!

I loosed your fortune when I know 'twould save My own a gouge. But I've not dodged the score.

Those guns and horses for the Gazza scare Cost me some paper----

_Cha._ You? My G.o.d! _Your_ war?

_Hud._ I knew the storm would sweep out Cordiaz, So strode its back that I might hold the bit When came my hour. My boy, you fought for _me_.

I made you do it--I, whom you have said Shall be as nothing. Where's the mighty sea Shall toss me as a straw----

_Her._ O, father, peace!

You see he dies!

_Hud._ Don't waste your tears. He'll live.

I've made good oxen out of wilder bulls.

_Her._ He cannot live! The pain of it, the pain!

When aspirations have returned as wounds, Then even the soul must die!

_Hud._ They all get up.

Stout workers too,--quiet, serviceable, Pestered no more with dreams. Here, give him this. [_Offers a flask_]

_Cha._ [_Rousing, pushing flask aside_] Ay, no more dreams.

[_Springs up_] But action! Keep Bolderez.

We have LeVal, whose undiscouraged heart Bears on its tide the conquering desire Of twenty thousand men!

_Hud._ Humph! Where are these Invisible veterans?

_Cha._ Some gather now About his banner,--some wait in the hills Till they are sure it is his voice that calls,-- Some in your favor wrapped go to and fro In your own camp, feeding a fire your gold Can never light,--some dream till we have oped Their prison doors,--in every part and corner Of Goldusan, there's courage on the leap To reach his side.

_Hud._ What dribble!

_Cha._ Rein this storm?

No human hand, nor Heaven's now, may leash it.

It is the throe when travailing Life is shaken In absolute birth that makes undreamed news Even in the ear of G.o.d.

_Hud._ Fanatic! Fool!

Have I not tried to teach you----

_Cha._ Teach yourself!

_Hud._ Come, come!

_Cha._ I mean the words. The race has learned Its lesson while you've played with sand. At last The dumb, trod way has spoken 'neath man's feet, And by that word uncovered he has learned What he shall _not_ be,--knows what heights of sun Are his, and seeing takes his road,--no more Battering in wild and bruised ignorance A destiny of stone. Ay, consciousness Has wakened in itself the unknown G.o.d That gives the race its eyes. You, you a king?

Who do not know that every man is heir To kingship that must leave such thrones as yours Outcoursed and little recked as the strewn toys Of childhood!

_Hud._ Mud-sill dynasties. You know That I am master.

_Cha._ Master? You believe That man, at top of conquest, who has made Nature his weariless serf, and set the yoke From his own neck on her divinities, Will seal to you--weak, myriadth part of him-- Those wizard captives bending to the dream Of his new world? Gird you with fortune that He wrenched from stony ages?--let you gorge The magic fruit s.n.a.t.c.hed by his perilled being In starward battle up the abysmal steep?