Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE MOTHER’S TRAGEDY MADELINE. [MADELINE zs wzcertain what to do during this scene: so fidgets about and does nothing. It is not illness that hath made them mad. I cannot guess what storm has lashed itself Thus in one hour from peace and happiness To such a fury that the very room Seems to my fancy to be tossed about, Rocking and whirling on some dizzy sea. There is a horrible feeling in the air. [She shudders SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY. [During this speech sighs, crtes, voices Jrom without indicate the action, The keystone of this arch of misery Is set by the unfaltering hands Of Fate. How desperate the anarchy Wrought in one hour ! The fickle sands Run through the glass, and all the light is gone. Abysses without name the mighty power Spans with spread fingers; on the horizon Blood stains the setting sun, The shattered sun ; it shall not rise again ! No resurrection to the trampled flower, No hope to angels watching as in vain Love—lies—slain ! Madness and Terror and the deadly mood of Fortitude, A misbegotten brood Of all things shameful—O the desolate eyes Of the cold Christ enthroned! The weep- ing heaven Answers for angels: the oppressive skies See them dislink from bodily form and shape, Unloved and unforgiven, Unwept, unpenitent, unshriven! Their hell of horror knows no gate of any escape. This tragedy is terrible to me. Even I, its spirit, shudder as I see ; I, passionless, the moulder of men’s hope, The slayer of them, cast no horoscope Divining what befell. And I am moved: Both love, and both are worthy to be loved. Ah Fate ! if thou hadst cast the dies Whence no appeal, in any other wise! I am the soul of the grim face of things : Mine are the Sphinx’s wings; Mine own life lives with this event ! Yet even I, its very self, lament The execrable tyranny, The rayless misery Of this wild whirlpool sea of circumstance. Mine old eyes look askance : It is my punishment to dwell In mine own self-created hell. [Cora rushes tn. MADELINE. What curse of God hath smitten you? ‘I see Exceeding horror in abiding shape Blasting the countenance of peace and love With some distortion. O your mouth’s awry ! CORA (272 a hoarse, horrible voice). You cannot tell! I cannot tell myself. Some vital mist of blood is shrouding sight From al] but my corruption’s self. Come here And look within mine eyes, if you can see Remembrance that there was a God! I say I see the whole bright universe a tomb, With creeping spectres moving in the mist, Some suffocating poison that was air. O Phaedra !! lend me of thy wickedness, Lest I go mad to contemplate myself! I choke—I grope—I fall ! What name is this That strikes my spirit as a broken bell Struck by some devilish hammer? In my brain Reverberates some word impossible. O I am broken on the wheel of death ; My bones are ground in some infernal mill ; My blood is as the venom of a snake, Striking each vessel with unwonted pangs, Killing all good within me. I am—Ah! l Wife of Theseus, in love with his son. Hippolytus, by whom she was repulsed,