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Page 1 of 21910 · PDF PAGE 180
THE GREY NIGHT. I27 AGRIPPA But fear persuades. — This deathly light, these foul grey shades ! PUBLIUS Portending little enough of good To Rome, that beats with our heart’s blood. See how dejected on their spears The guard lean ! AGRIPPA Rather a thousand years Of strife than this black peace. Accurst I know this night shall be. ISSA I thirst. AGRIPPA Give him to drink ! PUBLIUS How strange a fate ! Those noble eyes irradiate This leprous luster.
1910 · PDF PAGE 168
V THE GREY NIGHT
1910 · PDF PAGE 108
…gotten in pre-natal glooms When all was — what ? with infinite ambergris The excellent kiss Of Pan enshrouds me and invades. See how the night-borne shades Darken the grove ! There is no moon to-night The foul red star blots out the stars. So, Pan, thy love That brooks not any light Shall brand its shameful scars Even on this flesh — this royal flesh shall serve For the brute lust whose nerve Shall eat up blindness in me, and discover The mind of Pan, maker of all, In all — his lover.
1910 · PDF PAGE 56
…erful chased silver, figured with the loves of the gods, are cups of beaded wine, and fruits, and honey, and cates of divers sort. It is night, but the moon is exceeding bright ; and the stars shine in the self-luminous blue of the vault. Around the glade are many trees ; the ground is a mass of flowers, and gathe- red roses cover the white limbs of many of the players. One girl is standing, and a full nightingale song trills from her ivory throst. Upon a tall tree of massy foliage sits, hidden from the players, a vulture vast and vague in his …
1910 · PDF PAGE 182
THE GREY NIGHT. I29 AGRIPPA What was that cry ? IST SOLDIER I hardly heard it. 2ND SOLDIER I heard, sir, but I could not word it. MAGDA I understood, my lord. AGRIPPA Well, slattern ? MAGDA He called for a prophet. PUBLIUS A Priest of Saturn That is, I fancy. These barbarians Are really like our Unitarians.
1910 · PDF PAGE 184
THE GREY NIGHT. I3I AGRIPPA She must have An order from the prefect. MIRIAM, to a bystander. Knave Wilt earn a penny ? Beg this grace, For the death-dews stand on the bloodless face. IST BYSTANDER What is the name of the criminal ? A GREEK DISCIPLE FROM ALEXANDRIA Say, Logos, or Homoiousios ! JOHN Nay, Fool! Homoousios — lippis et nota ! THE GREEK Homoiousios, with the iota !
1910 · PDF PAGE 188
THE GREY NIGHT. I35 PUBLIUS How very surprising, For the sun shews devil a sign of rising ! AGRIPPA The guard should have come an hour ago To relieve us. IST SOLDIER By Zeus ! ’twas a foul throw ! 2ND SOLDIER Throw again ! 3RD SOLDIER It’s Venus ! The coat is mine. Silky-soft and rainbow-fine ! Would the world were never duller Than this cool cascade of colour ! AGRIPPA Something serious is occurring. All the town is lighted, stirring. We had best bring reinforcement.
1910 · PDF PAGE 181
…ver his head. PUBLIUS What now ? Beshrew Me, but its face is like a Jew ! YAUGH WAUGH Butch ! The game is fairly started. I will back to night and chaos. — Ha ! Hoo ! Formlessly presiding Over the ruined earth. Ga ! Ga ! Ab — ab — ab — ab — ab — He flies off. ISSA Behold ! He hath forsaken me. The doom is fixed, but my spirit is free From his loathsome company.
1910 · PDF PAGE 24
…— in my ears (I seem to remember even now that her name was Mabel — thank you, Mabel !) and then I gazed upon the moon and vowed myself knight of Artemis, to bring the truth into this England of hypocrisy, light in its superstition of rationa- lism, love in its prudery, chastity into its whoredom ! So I swore, and rose up and kissed Mabel and went home in the might of the holy vision — for the god Pan appeared to me, and abode in me and I in him — and wrote for four nights night by night, until the World’s Tragedy lay finished and perfect befor…
1910 · PDF PAGE 114
… A crazy hovel on the edge of the squalid village. The clamour of Syrian dogs. A young girl stealing through the shadows of the moonless night, craftily. THE GIRL They have not stirred. I am unseen, unheard. Now for some honey of note Plucked from the black lion’s throat ! There is no moon : earth is too still. A heat, yet bitter chill, Is in the air, the windless air. O for a breath of snow-wind on The crest of Lebanon ! I would that boy that laughed
1910 · PDF PAGE 186
THE GREY NIGHT. I33 THE GREEK Demented ! JOHN Here is the argument Ehud invented ! (He thrusts a dagger into the belly of the Greek disciple from Alexandria. The dirt comes out. To the Bystander, Say Homoousios ! PUBLIUS Surely they will While his logic is backed with such surgical skill. TWO BYSTANDERS We fly to do as you desire us. JOHN And bring me up a clean papyrus ! These chapters will make of no account The ridiculous sermon on the mount. Where was I ? With twelve aeon-chains Somewhere revolving in these brains; Synoches, teletarchs, iyn…
1910 · PDF PAGE 122
…69 THE CENTURION The brazenest whore in Syria, I dare swear ! PUBLIUS Look at the blood ! A very Hymen flare ! THE CENTURION New meat to-night. She hath acquired the taste. Come, friends, enjoy her. Have we time to waste ? I heard the cock crow. He embraces her rudely. PUBLIUS Let it crow for her ! One by one they defile her. MIRIAM Scarce forty ! Yet the dawn begins to stir : The Wolf’s tail blots my star. At last I strain Some strength that strains my body back again. THE CENTURION Enough, lads ! If she breed not, at my peril I shall uphold i…
1910 · PDF PAGE 98
…IST SATYR O the rich red blood that swims on Over all the malachite ! 2ND SATYR Ah ! the banquet gold and crimson Like the sun afeast at night ! ALEXANDER Out of the fume of the blood arise Two lithe nymphs with amethyst eyes, Sparkling with the wanton pleasure That their small and laughing scarlet Mouths betrayed, as overmeasure Bubbled out the dancing harlot Music of them, snaky slim, Panther-smooth and light of limb Wreathed with wealth of mystic berry, As they leap, divinely drunken On the very blood that gat them, Insolent and lewd and mer…
1910 · PDF PAGE 92
… sheer In one deliberate sweep Of startling light All that man holdeth dear. From the sun’s high steep to the great deep Of unimaginable night To dive — I dive. Lord, now ! Pan ! Pan ! Accept the supreme vow ! The man Shall be no more a man — Stay ! who are these ?
1910 · PDF PAGE 170
V THE GREY NIGHT SCENE. — The thick darkness of the Emptiness of Things. Yet in the midst appears a certain glory veiling the figure of a tall stern man, the king Alexander. In his hand is a black rod clothed with twin glittering snakes, the royal Uraeus serpents of ancient Khem ; at its point gleams faint and blue A star of six rays, whose light now illumines the pale and tortured features of a man, with outstret- ched arms, who is hanging (apparently) in space. It is Issa, but the weariness is gone ; and noble-strong is the scarred brow of hi…
1910 · PDF PAGE 158
THE BLUE DWARF. I05 ISSA Undone me quite, Nagged me with sordid greediness all night, Greed for my gold, my person — all I have. Saith not the prophet : “ Cruel as the grave ” ? That grinning mask, that musk-rat, hath enriched Her rags by every inch of me that itched ; And for one itch hath planted me another, The “ friend that sticketh closer than a brother ”. Ten groans of mine for every grin of hers ! What saith the prophet ? — “ Whited sepulchres ! ” JOHN Nay, Lord, the phrase unique is all thine own. ISSA Then write it down, an nothing les…
1910 · PDF PAGE 118
…there no flood to drip Some icy liquor on this hell-scarred brow ? See ! The red star glows fainter now. All is a velvet heat of horror. Night Holds me in torture. Hark ! the lake Stirs in its sleep ; the ripples shake. — Oh for the wind ! Here naked will I lie And let its coolness bite into my blood.
1910 · PDF PAGE 190
THE GREY NIGHT. I37 PUBLIUS It sweeps out valour, duty, will. Sordid luxury shall tame The grand old Roman fame. Let us go ! The filthy spate Washes out all good within me. Fear and softness, hurry and hate Seem to stab me, storm me, win me. Virtue reels inebriate : Rome is flung upon her fate. (He wheels with the rest, as they march down the hill. Above, a faintly luminous Shadow, appears Alexander the king, or as it were an image of his image.) ALEXANDER The flood sweeps on From horizon to horizon. Beauty, strength, virtue, all are gone. (the…
1910 · PDF PAGE 176
THE GREY NIGHT. I23 In the stinking stye bemerded With the putrid excrement Of the marriage sacrament. Every scourge and sore and shame Blest in mine accursed name ! Love and beauty under ban ! Wit and wisdom barred to man ! Nature smirched by hideous lies ! Meanness lauded to the skies ! Pain and ruin and disease Praised, as if they made mine ease. Dead be dance and dream and revel ! Thought and courage, things of evil ! Corn and milk, wine and oil, The guerdon of degrading toil ! Life’s bright draught of honied leisure Soured to sick and tast…
1910 · PDF PAGE 123
…Faugh, wench ! is there no shame ? He kicks her brutally. The guard moves off. MIRIAM The dawn ! oh, curses on the dawn that breaks This night of joy. God ! my whole being wakes Into a world of rapture. I am I At last — the little fool that wondered why ! I am abreast of God’s whole tide of thought. Like gold into fine linen, I am wrought Into the royal vesture of the globe. I am the Empress of the City of Sin, Wrapped in its purple robe Stained with mine own maid’s blood. Yea ! for all glorious within Am I, most like the daughter of a king, Vo…