The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 79

MARMADUKE No, not by stroke of arm. But learn the process: Proof after proof was pressed upon me; guilt Made evident, as seemed, by blacker guilt, Whose impious folds enwrapped even thee; and truth And innocence, embodied in his looks, His words and tones and gestures, did but serve With me to aggravate his crimes, and heaped Ruin upon the cause for which they pleaded.

Then pity crossed the path of my resolve: Confounded, I looked up to Heaven, and cast, Idonea! thy blind Father, on the Ordeal Of the bleak Waste--left him--and so he died!--

[IDONEA sinks senseless; Beggar, ELEANOR, etc., crowd round, and bear her off.]

Why may we speak these things, and do no more; Why should a thrust of the arm have such a power, And words that tell these things be heard in vain?

_She_ is not dead. Why!--if I loved this Woman, I would take care she never woke again; But she WILL wake, and she will weep for me, And say, no blame was mine--and so, poor fool, Will waste her curses on another name.

[He walks about distractedly.]

[Enter OSWALD.]

OSWALD (to himself) Strong to o'erturn, strong also to build up.

[To MARMADUKE.]

The starts and sallies of our last encounter Were natural enough; but that, I trust, Is all gone by. You have cast off the chains That fettered your n.o.bility of mind-- Delivered heart and head!

Let us to Palestine; This is a paltry field for enterprise.

MARMADUKE Ay, what shall we encounter next? This issue-- 'Twas nothing more than darkness deepening darkness, And weakness crowned with the impotence of death!-- Your pupil is, you see, an apt proficient.

(ironically) Start not!--Here is another face hard by; Come, let us take a peep at both together, And, with a voice at which the dead will quake, Resound the praise of your morality-- Of this too much.

[Drawing OSWALD towards the Cottage--stops short at the door.]

Men are there, millions, Oswald, Who with bare hands would have plucked out thy heart And flung it to the dogs: but I am raised Above, or sunk below, all further sense Of provocation. Leave me, with the weight Of that old Man's forgiveness on thy heart, Pressing as heavily as it doth on mine.

Coward I have been; know, there lies not now Within the compa.s.s of a mortal thought, A deed that I would shrink from;--but to endure, That is my destiny. May it be thine: Thy office, thy ambition, be henceforth To feed remorse, to welcome every sting Of penitential anguish, yea with tears.

When seas and continents shall lie between us-- The wider s.p.a.ce the better--we may find In such a course fit links of sympathy, An incommunicable rivalship Maintained, for peaceful ends beyond our view.

[Confused voices--several of the Band enter--rush upon OSWALD and seize him.]

ONE OF THEM I would have dogged him to the jaws of h.e.l.l--

OSWALD Ha! is it so!--That vagrant Hag!--this comes Of having left a thing like her alive! [Aside.]

SEVERAL VOICES Despatch him!

OSWALD If I pa.s.s beneath a rock And shout, and, with the echo of my voice, Bring down a heap of rubbish, and it crush me, I die without dishonour. Famished, starved, A Fool and Coward blended to my wish!

[Smiles scornfully and exultingly at MARMADUKE.]

WALLACE 'Tis done! (Stabs him.)

ANOTHER OF THE BAND The ruthless traitor!

MARMADUKE A rash deed!-- With that reproof I do resign a station Of which I have been proud.

WILFRED (approaching MARMADUKE) O my poor Master!

MARMADUKE Discerning Monitor, my faithful Wilfred, Why art thou here?

[Turning to WALLACE.]

Wallace, upon these Borders, Many there be whose eyes will not want cause To weep that I am gone. Brothers in arms!

Raise on that dreary Waste a monument That may record my story: nor let words-- Few must they be, and delicate in their touch As light itself--be there withheld from Her Who, through most wicked arts, was made an orphan By One who would have died a thousand times, To shield her from a moment's harm. To you, Wallace and Wilfred, I commend the Lady, By lowly nature reared, as if to make her In all things worthier of that n.o.ble birth, Whose long-suspended rights are now on the eve Of restoration: with your tenderest care Watch over her, I pray--sustain her--

SEVERAL OF THE BAND (eagerly) Captain!

MARMADUKE No more of that; in silence hear my doom: A hermitage has furnished fit relief To some offenders; other penitents, Less patient in their wretchedness, have fallen, Like the old Roman, on their own sword's point.

They had their choice: a wanderer _must I_ go, The Spectre of that innocent Man, my guide.

No human ear shall ever hear me speak; No human dwelling ever give me food, Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild, In search of nothing, that this earth can give, But expiation, will I wander on-- A Man by pain and thought compelled to live, Yet loathing life--till anger is appeased In Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die.

In June 1797 Coleridge wrote to his friend Cottle:

"W. has written a tragedy himself. I speak with heart-felt sincerity, and, I think, unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man by his side, and yet I do not think myself a less man than I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely wonderful. You know I do not commonly speak in such abrupt and unmingled phrases, and therefore will the more readily believe me. There are in the piece those profound touches of the human heart which I find three or four times in the 'Robbers' of Schiller, and often in Shakspeare; but in W.

there are no inequalities."

On August 6, 1800, Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge:

"I would pay five-and-forty thousand carriages to read W.'s tragedy, of which I have heard so much and seen so little." Shortly afterwards, August 26, he wrote to Coleridge: "I have a sort of a recollection that somebody, I think _you_, promised me a sight of Wordsworth's tragedy. I shall be very glad of it just now, for I have got Manning with me, and should like to read it _with him_. But this, I confess, is a refinement. Under any circ.u.mstances, alone, in Cold-Bath Prison, or in the desert island, just when Prospero and his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, to Milan, it would be a treat to me to read that play. Manning has read it, so has Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family; but I could not get him to betray his trust by giving me a sight of it. Lloyd is sadly deficient in some of those virtuous vices."--Ed.

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1845.

... female ... 1842.]