Nay, but, Segismund!

You know not--cannot know--happily wanting The sad experience on which knowledge grows, How the too early consciousness of power Spoils the best blood; nor whether for your long Constrain'd disheritance (which, but for me, Remember, and for my relenting love Bursting the bond of fate, had been eternal) You have not now a full indemnity; Wearing the blossom of your youth unspent In the voluptuous sunshine of a court, That often, by too early blossoming, Too soon deflowers the rose of royalty.

SEG.

Ay, but what some precocious warmth may spill, May not an early frost as surely kill?

KING.

But, Segismund, my son, whose quick discourse Proves I have not extinguish'd and destroy'd The Man you charge me with extinguishing, However it condemn me for the fault Of keeping a good light so long eclipsed, Reflect! This is the moment upon which Those stars, whose eyes, although we see them not, By day as well as night are on us still, Hang watching up in the meridian heaven Which way the balance turns; and if to you-- As by your dealing G.o.d decide it may, To my confusion!--let me answer it Unto yourself alone, who shall at once Approve yourself to be your father's judge, And sovereign of Poland in his stead, By justice, mercy, self-sobriety, And all the reasonable attributes Without which, impotent to rule himself, Others one cannot, and one must not rule; But which if you but show the blossom of-- All that is past we shall but look upon As the first out-fling of a generous nature Rioting in first liberty; and if This blossom do but promise such a flower As promises in turn its kindly fruit: Forthwith upon your brows the royal crown, That now weighs heavy on my aged brows, I will devolve; and while I pa.s.s away Into some cloister, with my Maker there To make my peace in penitence and prayer, Happily settle the disorder'd realm That now cries loudly for a lineal heir.

SEG.

And so-- When the crown falters on your shaking head, And slips the sceptre from your palsied hand, And Poland for her rightful heir cries out; When not only your stol'n monopoly Fails you of earthly power, but 'cross the grave The judgment-trumpet of another world Calls you to count for your abuse of this; Then, oh then, terrified by the double danger, You drag me from my den-- Boast not of giving up at last the power You can no longer hold, and never rightly Held, but in fee for him you robb'd it from; And be a.s.sured your Savage, once let loose, Will not be caged again so quickly; not By threat or adulation to be tamed, Till he have had his quarrel out with those Who made him what he is.

KING.

Beware! Beware!

Subdue the kindled Tiger in your eye, Nor dream that it was sheer necessity Made me thus far relax the bond of fate, And, with far more of terror than of hope Threaten myself, my people, and the State.

Know that, if old, I yet have vigour left To wield the sword as well as wear the crown; And if my more immediate issue fail, Not wanting scions of collateral blood, Whose wholesome growth shall more than compensate For all the loss of a distorted stem.

SEG.

That will I straightway bring to trial--Oh, After a revelation such as this, The Last Day shall have little left to show Of righted wrong and villainy requited!

Nay, Judgment now beginning upon earth, Myself, methinks, in sight of all my wrongs, Appointed heaven's avenging minister, Accuser, judge, and executioner Sword in hand, cite the guilty--First, as worst, The usurper of his son's inheritance; Him and his old accomplice, time and crime Inveterate, and unable to repay The golden years of life they stole away.

What, does he yet maintain his state, and keep The throne he should be judged from? Down with him, That I may trample on the false white head So long has worn my crown! Where are my soldiers?

Of all my subjects and my va.s.sals here Not one to do my bidding? Hark! A trumpet!

The trumpet--

(He pauses as the trumpet sounds as in Act I., and masked Soldiers gradually fill in behind the Throne.)

KING (rising before his throne).

Ay, indeed, the trumpet blows A memorable note, to summon those Who, if forthwith you fall not at the feet Of him whose head you threaten with the dust, Forthwith shall draw the curtain of the Past About you; and this momentary gleam Of glory that you think to hold life-fast, So coming, so shall vanish, as a dream.

SEG.

He prophesies; the old man prophesies; And, at his trumpet's summons, from the tower The leash-bound shadows loosen'd after me My rising glory reach and over-lour-- But, reach not I my height, he shall not hold, But with me back to his own darkness!

(He dashes toward the throne and is enclosed by the soldiers.)

Traitors!

Hold off! Unhand me!--Am not I your king?

And you would strangle him!-- But I am breaking with an inward Fire Shall scorch you off, and wrap me on the wings Of conflagration from a kindled pyre Of lying prophecies and prophet-kings Above the extinguish'd stars--Reach me the sword He flung me--Fill me such a bowl of wine As that you woke the day with--

KING.

And shall close,-- But of the vintage that Clotaldo knows.

(Exeunt.)

ACT III.

SCENE I.--The Tower, etc., as in Act I. Scene I.

Segismund, as at first, and Clotaldo.

CLOTALDO.

Princes and princesses, and counsellors Fl.u.s.ter'd to right and left--my life made at-- But that was nothing Even the white-hair'd, venerable King Seized on--Indeed, you made wild work of it; And so discover'd in your outward action, Flinging your arms about you in your sleep, Grinding your teeth--and, as I now remember, Woke mouthing out judgment and execution, On those about you.

SEG.

Ay, I did indeed.

CLO.

Ev'n now your eyes stare wild; your hair stands up-- Your pulses throb and flutter, reeling still Under the storm of such a dream--

SEG.

A dream!

That seem'd as swearable reality As what I wake in now.

CLO.

Ay--wondrous how Imagination in a sleeping brain Out of the uncontingent senses draws Sensations strong as from the real touch; That we not only laugh aloud, and drench With tears our pillow; but in the agony Of some imaginary conflict, fight And struggle--ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought, Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.

SEG.

And what so very strange too--In that world Where place as well as people all was strange, Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself, You only, you, Clotaldo--you, as much And palpably yourself as now you are, Came in this very garb you ever wore, By such a token of the past, you said, To a.s.sure me of that seeming present.

CLO.

Ay?

SEG.

Ay; and even told me of the very stars You tell me here of--how in spite of them, I was enlarged to all that glory.

CLO.

Ay, By the false spirits' nice contrivance thus A little truth oft leavens all the false, The better to delude us.

SEG.

For you know 'Tis nothing but a dream?

CLO.

Nay, you yourself Know best how lately you awoke from that You know you went to sleep on?-- Why, have you never dreamt the like before?

SEG.

Never, to such reality.

CLO.

Such dreams Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations Of that ambition that lies smouldering Under the ashes of the lowest fortune; By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost The reins of sensible comparison, We fly at something higher than we are-- Scarce ever dive to lower--to be kings, Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold, Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings.

Which, by the way, now that I think of it, May furnish us the key to this high flight That royal Eagle we were watching, and Talking of as you went to sleep last night.

SEG.

Last night? Last night?

CLO.