MASTER OLIVER

Dear lord, thou wouldst speak of the woe that weighs on thee.

KING PHARAMOND

Wouldst thou bear me aback to the strife and the battle?

Nay, hang up my banner: 'tis all pa.s.sed and over!

MASTER OLIVER

Speak but a little, lord! have I not loved thee?

KING PHARAMOND

Yea,--thou art Oliver: I saw thee a-lying A long time ago with the blood on thy face, When my father wept o'er thee for thy faith and thy valour.

MASTER OLIVER

Years have pa.s.sed over, but my faith hath not failed me; Spent is my might, but my love not departed.

Shall not love help--yea, look long in my eyes!

There is no more to see if thou sawest my heart.

KING PHARAMOND

Yea, thou art Oliver, full of all kindness!

Have patience, for now is the cloud pa.s.sing over-- Have patience and hearken--yet shalt thou be shamed.

MASTER OLIVER

Thou shalt shine through thy shame as the sun through the haze When the world waiteth gladly the warm day a-coming: As great as thou seem'st now, I know thee for greater Than thy deeds done and told of: one day I shall know thee: Lying dead in my tomb I shall hear the world praising.

KING PHARAMOND

Stay thy praise--let me speak, lest all speech depart from me.

--There is a place in the world, a great valley That seems a green plain from the brow of the mountains, But hath knolls and fair dales when adown there thou goest: There are homesteads therein with gardens about them, And fair herds of kine and grey sheep a-feeding, And willow-hung streams wend through deep gra.s.sy meadows, And a highway winds through them from the outer world coming: Girthed about is the vale by a grey wall of mountains, Rent apart in three places and tumbled together In old times of the world when the earth-fires flowed forth: And as you wend up these away from the valley You think of the sea and the great world it washes; But through two you may pa.s.s not, the shattered rocks shut them.

And up through the third there windeth a highway, And its gorge is fulfilled by a black wood of yew-trees.

And I know that beyond, though mine eyes have not seen it, A city of merchants beside the sea lieth.---- I adjure thee, my fosterer, by the hand of my father, By thy faith without stain, by the days unforgotten, When I dwelt in thy house ere the troubles' beginning, By thy fair wife long dead and thy sword-smitten children, By thy life without blame and thy love without blemish, Tell me how, tell me when, that fair land I may come to!

Hide it not for my help, for my honour, but tell me, Lest my time and thy time be lost days and confusion!

MASTER OLIVER

O many such lands!--O my master, what ails thee?

Tell me again, for I may not remember.

--I prayed G.o.d give thee speech, and lo G.o.d hath given it-- May G.o.d give me death! if I dream not this evil.

KING PHARAMOND

Said I not when thou knew'st it, all courage should fail thee?

But me--my heart fails not, I am Pharamond as ever.

I shall seek and shall find--come help me, my fosterer!

--Yet if thou shouldst ask for a sign from that country What have I to show thee--I plucked a blue milk-wort From amidst of the field where she wandered fair-footed-- It was gone when I wakened--and once in my wallet I set some grey stones from the way through the forest-- These were gone when I wakened--and once as I wandered A lock of white wool from a thorn-bush I gathered; It was gone when I wakened--the name of that country-- Nay, how should I know it?--but ever meseemeth 'Twas not in the southlands, for sharp in the sunset And sunrise the air is, and whiles I have seen it Amid white drift of snow--ah, look up, foster-father!

MASTER OLIVER

O woe, woe is me that I may not awaken!

Or else, art thou verily Pharamond my fosterling, The Freed and the Freer, the Wise, the World's Wonder?

KING PHARAMOND

Why fainteth thy great heart? nay, Oliver, hearken, E'en such as I am now these five years I have been.

Through five years of striving this dreamer and dotard Has reaped glory from ruin, drawn peace from destruction.

MASTER OLIVER

Woe's me! wit hath failed me, and all the wise counsel I was treasuring up down the wind is a-drifting-- Yet what wouldst thou have there if ever thou find it?

Are the gates of heaven there? is Death bound there and helpless?

KING PHARAMOND

Nay, thou askest me this not as one without knowledge, For thou know'st that my love in that land is abiding.

MASTER OLIVER

Yea--woe worth the while--and all wisdom hath failed me: Yet if thou wouldst tell me of her, I will hearken Without mocking or mourning, if that may avail thee.

KING PHARAMOND

Lo, thy face is grown kind--Thou rememberest the even When I first wore the crown after sore strife and mourning?

MASTER OLIVER

Who shall ever forget it? the dead face of thy father, And thou in thy fight-battered armour above it, Mid the pa.s.sion of tears long held back by the battle; And thy rent banner o'er thee and the ring of men mail-clad, Victorious to-day, since their ruin but a spear-length Was thrust away from them.--Son, think of thy glory And e'en in such wise break the throng of these devils!