Well--thus perplex'd, I have resolved at last To bring the thing to trial: whereunto Here have I summon'd you, my Peers, and you Whom I more dearly look to, failing him, As witnesses to that which I propose; And thus propose the doing it. Clotaldo, Who guards my son with old fidelity, Shall bring him hither from his tower by night Lockt in a sleep so fast as by my art I rivet to within a link of death, But yet from death so far, that next day's dawn Shall wake him up upon the royal bed, Complete in consciousness and faculty, When with all princely pomp and retinue My loyal Peers with due obeisance Shall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland.

Then if with any show of human kindness He fling discredit, not upon the stars, But upon me, their misinterpreter, With all apology mistaken age Can make to youth it never meant to harm, To my son's forehead will I shift the crown I long have wish'd upon a younger brow; And in religious humiliation, For what of worn-out age remains to me, Entreat my pardon both of Heaven and him For tempting destinies beyond my reach.

But if, as I mis...o...b.., at his first step The hoof of the predicted savage shows; Before predicted mischief can be done, The self-same sleep that loosed him from the chain Shall re-consign him, not to loose again.

Then shall I, having lost that heir direct, Look solely to my sisters' children twain Each of a claim so equal as divides The voice of Poland to their several sides, But, as I trust, to be entwined ere long Into one single wreath so fair and strong As shall at once all difference atone, And cease the realm's division with their own.

Cousins and Princes, Peers and Councillors, Such is the purport of this invitation, And such is my design. Whose furtherance If not as Sovereign, if not as Seer, Yet one whom these white locks, if nothing else, to patient acquiescence consecrate, I now demand and even supplicate.

AST.

Such news, and from such lips, may well suspend The tongue to loyal answer most attuned; But if to me as spokesman of my faction Your Highness looks for answer; I reply For one and all--Let Segismund, whom now We first hear tell of as your living heir, Appear, and but in your sufficient eye Approve himself worthy to be your son, Then we will hail him Poland's rightful heir.

What says my cousin?

EST.

Ay, with all my heart.

But if my youth and s.e.x upbraid me not That I should dare ask of so wise a king--

KING.

Ask, ask, fair cousin! Nothing, I am sure, Not well consider'd; nay, if 'twere, yet nothing But pardonable from such lips as those.

EST.

Then, with your pardon, Sir--if Segismund, My cousin, whom I shall rejoice to hail As Prince of Poland too, as you propose, Be to a trial coming upon which More, as I think, than life itself depends, Why, Sir, with sleep-disorder'd senses brought To this uncertain contest with his stars?

KING.

Well ask'd indeed! As wisely be it answer'd!

_Because_ it is uncertain, see you not?

For as I think I can discern between The sudden flaws of a sleep-startled man, And of the savage thing we have to dread; If but bewilder'd, dazzled, and uncouth, As might the sanest and the civilest In circ.u.mstance so strange--nay, more than that, If moved to any out-break short of blood, All shall be well with him; and how much more, If 'mid the magic turmoil of the change, He shall so calm a resolution show As scarce to reel beneath so great a blow!

But if with savage pa.s.sion uncontroll'd He lay about him like the brute foretold, And must as suddenly be caged again; Then what redoubled anguish and despair, From that brief flash of blissful liberty Remitted--and for ever--to his chain!

Which so much less, if on the stage of glory Enter'd and exited through such a door Of sleep as makes a dream of all between.

EST.

Oh kindly answer, Sir, to question that To charitable courtesy less wise Might call for pardon rather! I shall now Gladly, what, uninstructed, loyally I should have waited.

AST.

Your Highness doubts not me, Nor how my heart follows my cousin's lips, Whatever way the doubtful balance fall, Still loyal to your bidding.

OMNES.

So say all.

KING.

I hoped, and did expect, of all no less-- And sure no sovereign ever needed more From all who owe him love or loyalty.

For what a strait of time I stand upon, When to this issue not alone I bring My son your Prince, but e'en myself your King: And, whichsoever way for him it turn, Of less than little honour to myself.

For if this coming trial justify My thus withholding from my son his right, Is not the judge himself justified in The father's shame? And if the judge proved wrong, My son withholding from his right thus long, Shame and remorse to judge and father both: Unless remorse and shame together drown'd In having what I flung for worthless found.

But come--already weary with your travel, And ill refresh'd by this strange history, Until the hours that draw the sun from heaven Unite us at the customary board, Each to his several chamber: you to rest; I to contrive with old Clotaldo best The method of a stranger thing than old Time has a yet among his records told.

Exeunt.

ACT II

SCENE I--A Throne-room in the Palace. Music within.

(Enter King and Clotaldo, meeting a Lord in waiting)

KING.

You, for a moment beckon'd from your office, Tell me thus far how goes it. In due time The potion left him?

LORD.

At the very hour To which your Highness temper'd it. Yet not So wholly but some lingering mist still hung About his dawning senses--which to clear, We fill'd and handed him a morning drink With sleep's specific antidote suffused; And while with princely raiment we invested What nature surely modell'd for a Prince-- All but the sword--as you directed--

KING.

Ay--

LORD.

If not too loudly, yet emphatically Still with the t.i.tle of a Prince address'd him.

KING.

How bore he that?

LORD.

With all the rest, my liege, I will not say so like one in a dream As one himself mis...o...b..ing that he dream'd.

KING.

So far so well, Clotaldo, either way, And best of all if tow'rd the worse I dread.

But yet no violence?

LORD.

At most, impatience; Wearied perhaps with importunities We yet were bound to offer.

KING.

Oh, Clotaldo!

Though thus far well, yet would myself had drunk The potion he revives from! such suspense Crowds all the pulses of life's residue Into the present moment; and, I think, Whichever way the trembling scale may turn, Will leave the crown of Poland for some one To wait no longer than the setting sun!

CLO.

Courage, my liege! The curtain is undrawn, And each must play his part out manfully, Leaving the rest to heaven.

KING.

Whose written words If I should misinterpret or transgress!

But as you say-- (To the Lord, who exit.) You, back to him at once; Clotaldo, you, when he is somewhat used To the new world of which they call him Prince, Where place and face, and all, is strange to him, With your known features and familiar garb Shall then, as chorus to the scene, accost him, And by such earnest of that old and too Familiar world, a.s.sure him of the new.

Last in the strange procession, I myself Will by one full and last development Complete the plot for that catastrophe That he must put to all; G.o.d grant it be The crown of Poland on his brows!--Hark! hark!-- Was that his voice within!--Now louder--Oh, Clotaldo, what! so soon begun to roar!-- Again! above the music--But betide What may, until the moment, we must hide.

(Exeunt King and Clotaldo.)

SEGISMUND (within).

Forbear! I stifle with your perfume! Cease Your crazy salutations! peace, I say Begone, or let me go, ere I go mad With all this babble, mummery, and glare, For I am growing dangerous--Air! room! air!-- (He rushes in. Music ceases.) Oh but to save the reeling brain from wreck With its bewilder'd senses!

(He covers his eyes for a while.) What! E'en now That Babel left behind me, but my eyes Pursued by the same glamour, that--unless Alike bewitch'd too--the confederate sense Vouches for palpable: bright-shining floors That ring hard answer back to the stamp'd heel, And shoot up airy columns marble-cold, That, as they climb, break into golden leaf And capital, till they embrace aloft In cl.u.s.tering flower and fruitage over walls Hung with such purple curtain as the West Fringes with such a gold; or over-laid With sanguine-glowing semblances of men, Each in his all but living action busied, Or from the wall they look from, with fix'd eyes Pursuing me; and one most strange of all That, as I pa.s.s'd the crystal on the wall, Look'd from it--left it--and as I return, Returns, and looks me face to face again-- Unless some false reflection of my brain, The outward semblance of myself--Myself?

How know that tawdry shadow for myself, But that it moves as I move; lifts his hand With mine; each motion echoing so close The immediate suggestion of the will In which myself I recognize--Myself!-- What, this fantastic Segismund the same Who last night, as for all his nights before, Lay down to sleep in wolf-skin on the ground In a black turret which the wolf howl'd round, And woke again upon a golden bed, Round which as clouds about a rising sun, In scarce less glittering caparison, Gather'd gay shapes that, underneath a breeze Of music, handed him upon their knees The wine of heaven in a cup of gold, And still in soft melodious under-song Hailing me Prince of Poland!--'Segismund,'