SCENE--The Wood on the edge of the Moor.

MARMADUKE (alone)

MARMADUKE Deep, deep and vast, vast beyond human thought, Yet calm.--I could believe, that there was here The only quiet heart on earth. In terror, Remembered terror, there is peace and rest.

[Enter OSWALD]

OSWALD Ha! my dear Captain.

MARMADUKE A later meeting, Oswald, Would have been better timed.

OSWALD Alone, I see; You have done your duty. I had hopes, which now I feel that you will justify.

MARMADUKE I had fears, From which I have freed myself--but 'tis my wish To be alone, and therefore we must part.

OSWALD Nay, then--I am mistaken. There's a weakness About you still; you talk of solitude-- I am your friend.

MARMADUKE What need of this a.s.surance At any time? and why given now?

OSWALD Because You are now in truth my Master; you have taught me What there is not another living man Had strength to teach;--and therefore grat.i.tude Is bold, and would relieve itself by praise.

MARMADUKE Wherefore press this on me?

OSWALD Because I feel That you have shown, and by a signal instance, How they who would be just must seek the rule By diving for it into their own bosoms.

To-day you have thrown off a tyranny That lives but in the torpid acquiescence Of our emasculated souls, the tyranny Of the world's masters, with the musty rules By which they uphold their craft from age to age: You have obeyed the only law that sense Submits to recognise; the immediate law, From the clear light of circ.u.mstances, flashed Upon an independent Intellect.

Henceforth new prospects open on your path; Your faculties should grow with the demand; I still will be your friend, will cleave to you Through good and evil, obloquy and scorn, Oft as they dare to follow on your steps.

MARMADUKE I would be left alone.

OSWALD (exultingly) I know your motives!

I am not of the world's presumptuous judges, Who d.a.m.n where they can neither see nor feel, With a hard-hearted ignorance; your struggles I witness'd, and now hail your victory.

MARMADUKE Spare me awhile that greeting.

OSWALD It may be, That some there are, squeamish half-thinking cowards, Who will turn pale upon you, call you murderer, And you will walk in solitude among them.

A mighty evil for a strong-built mind!-- Join twenty tapers of unequal height And light them joined, and you will see the less How 'twill burn down the taller; and they all Shall prey upon the tallest. Solitude!-- The Eagle lives in Solitude!

MARMADUKE Even so, The Sparrow so on the house-top, and I, The weakest of G.o.d's creatures, stand resolved To abide the issue of my act, alone.

OSWALD _Now_ would you? and for ever?--My young Friend, As time advances either we become The prey or masters of our own past deeds.

Fellowship we _must_ have, willing or no; And if good Angels fail, slack in their duty, Subst.i.tutes, turn our faces where we may, Are still forthcoming; some which, though they bear Ill names, can render no ill services, In recompense for what themselves required.

So meet extremes in this mysterious world, And opposites thus melt into each other.

MARMADUKE Time, since Man first drew breath, has never moved With such a weight upon his wings as now; But they will soon be lightened.

OSWALD Ay, look up-- Cast round you your mind's eye, and you will learn Fort.i.tude is the child of Enterprise: Great actions move our admiration, chiefly Because they carry in themselves an earnest That we can suffer greatly.

MARMADUKE Very true.

OSWALD Action is transitory--a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle--this way or that-- 'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed: Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.

MARMADUKE Truth--and I feel it.

OSWALD What! if you had bid Eternal farewell to unmingled joy And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart; It is the toy of fools, and little fit For such a world as this. The wise abjure All thoughts whose idle composition lives In the entire forgetfulness of pain.

--I see I have disturbed you.

MARMADUKE By no means.

OSWALD Compa.s.sion!--pity!--pride can do without them; And what if you should never know them more!-- He is a puny soul who, feeling pain, Finds ease because another feels it too.

If e'er I open out this heart of mine It shall be for a n.o.bler end--to teach And not to purchase puling sympathy.

--Nay, you are pale.

MARMADUKE It may be so.

OSWALD Remorse-- It cannot live with thought; think on, think on, And it will die. What! in this universe, Where the least things control the greatest, where The faintest breath that breathes can move a world; What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed, A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been Whose very shadow gnaws us to the vitals.

MARMADUKE Now, whither are you wandering? That a man So used to suit his language to the time, Should thus so widely differ from himself-- It is most strange.