The face of the earth hath madden’d me, and I | |
40 | Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce |
To the abodes of those who govern her – | |
But they can nothing aid me. I have sought | |
From them what they could not bestow, and now | |
I search no further. | |
WITCH | |
45 | Which is not in the power of the most powerful, |
The rulers of the invisible? | |
MANFRED | |
But why should I repeat it? ’twere in vain. | |
WITCH | |
MANFRED | |
50 | My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards |
My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men, | |
Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes; | |
The thirst of their ambition was not mine, | |
The aim of their existence was not mine; | |
55 | My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, |
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, | |
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, | |
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me | |
Was there but one who — but of her anon. | |
60 | I said with men, and with the thoughts of men, |
I held but slight communion; but instead, | |
My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe | |
The difficult air of the iced mountain’s top, | |
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wing | |
65 | Flit o’er the herbless granite; or to plunge |
Into the torrent, and to roll along | |
On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave | |
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow. | |
In these my early strength exulted; or | |
70 | To follow through the night the moving moon, |
The stars and their development; or catch | |
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; | |
Or to look, list’ning, on the scatter’d leaves, | |
While Autumn winds were at their evening song. | |
75 | These were my pastimes, and to be alone; |
For if the beings, of whom I was one, – | |
Hating to be so, – cross’d me in my path, | |
I felt myself degraded back to them, | |
And was all clay again. And then I dived, | |
80 | In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death, |
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew | |
From wither’d bones, and skulls, and heap’d up dust, | |
Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass’d | |
The nights of years in sciences untaught, | |
85 | Save in the old time; and with time and toil, |
And terrible ordeal, and such penance | |
As in itself hath power upon the air, | |
And spirits that do compass air and earth, | |
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made | |
90 | Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, |
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and | |
He who from out their fountain dwellings raised | |
Eros and Anteros, | |
As I do thee; – and with my knowledge grew | |
95 | The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy |
Of this most bright intelligence, until — | |
WITCH | |
MANFRED | |
Boasting these idle attributes, because | |
As I approach the core of my heart’s grief – | |
100 | But to my task. I have not named to thee |
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being, | |
With whom I wore the chain of human ties; | |
If I had such they seem’d not such to me – | |
Yet there was one — | |
WITCH | |
105 | MANFRED |
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone | |
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; | |
But soften’d all, and temper’d into beauty; | |
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, | |
110 | The quest of hidden knowledge and a mind |
To comprehend the universe: nor these | |
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, | |
Pity, and smiles, and tears — which I had not; | |
And tenderness – but that I had for her; | |
115 | Humility – and that I never had. |
Her faults were mine — her virtues were her own – | |
I loved her, and destroy’d her! | |
WITCH | |
MANFRED | |
It gazed on mine, and wither’d. I have shed | |
120 | Blood, but not hers — and yet her blood was shed — |
I saw – and could not stanch it. | |
WITCH: | |
A being of the race thou dost despise, | |
The order which thine own would rise above, | |
Mingling with us and ours, thou dost forego | |
125 | The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink’st back |
To recreant mortality — Away! | |
MANFRED | |
But words are breath – look on me in my sleep, | |
Or watch my watchings — Come and sit by me! | |
130 | My solitude is solitude no more, |
But peopled with the Furies; – I have gnash’d | |
My teeth in darkness till returning morn, | |
Then cursed myself till sunset; – I have pray’d | |
For madness as a blessing – ’tis denied me. | |
135 I have affronted death – but in the war | |
Of elements the waters shrunk from me, | |
And fatal things pass’d harmless – the cold hand | |
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back, | |
Back by a single hair, which would not break. | |
140 | In fantasy, imagination, all |
The affluence of my soul – which one day was | |
A Crœsus in creation – I plunged deep, | |
But, like an ebbing wave, it dash’d me back | |
Into the gulf of my unfathom’d thought. | |
145 | I plunged amidst mankind — Forgetfulness |
I sought in all, save where ’tis to be found, | |
And that I have to learn – my sciences, | |
My long pursued and super-human art, | |
Is mortal here – I dwell in my despair – | |
150 | And live – and live for ever. |
WITCH | |
That I can aid thee. | |
MANFRED | |
Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. | |
Do so – in any shape – in any hour – | |
With any torture – so it be the last. | |
155 | WITCH |
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do | |
My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes. | |
MANFRED | |
Whose presence I command, and be the slave | |
160 | Of those who served me — Never! |
WITCH | |
Hast thou no gentler answer? – Yet bethink thee, | |
And pause ere thou rejectest. | |
MANFRED | |
WITCH | |
MANFRED | |
[ | |
MANFRED | |
We are the fools of time and terror: Days | |
165 | Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live, |
Loathing our life and dreading still to die. | |
In all the days of this detested yoke – | |
This heaving burthen, this accursed breath – | |
This vital weight upon the struggling heart, | |
170 | Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain, |
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness – | |
In all the days of past and future, for | |
In life there is no present, we can number | |
How few – how less than few – wherein the soul | |
175 | Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back |
As from a stream in winter, though the chill | |
Be but a moment’s. I have one resource | |
Still in my science – I can call the dead, | |
And ask them what it is we dread to be: | |
180 | The sternest answer can but be the Grave, |
And that is nothing – if they answer not – | |
The buried Prophet answered to the Hag | |
Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew |