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Page 4
_Brys_.
These are mine too,
But as great rivers own the brook's young speed.
For in my soul, the women do not dwell
A torch going through darkness, with a troop
Of shadows gesturing after; but as the sun
Upon his height of golden blaze at noon,
With all the size of the blue air about him.
Fear that in women the unseen is seen
And the unknown power sits beside us known,--
This fear is good, but better is than this
Their beauty, and the wells of joy in women.
I speak dumb words to thee; but know thou, Gast,
My soul is looking at the time to come,
And seeing it not as a cavern lit
With smoky burning brandons of thy fear,
But as a day shining with my new joy.
Thou canst not fight with me for the coming heart
Of man,--fear cannot fight with joy. And I
Am setting such a war of joy against thee,
It shall be as man's heart became a god
Murdering thy mind of weakling darkness.
All the hot happiness of being wroth
And seeing a stroke leave behind it wound,
The pleasures of wily hunting, and a feast
After long famine, and the dancing stored
Within the must of berries,--these, and all
Gladdenings that make thrill the being of man
Shall pour, mixt with an unknown rage of glee,
Into the meaning men shall find in women.
And if we have at all a fear of them,
It shall not be the old ignorant dismay,
But of their very potency to delight,
The way their looks make Will an enemy
Hating itself, shall men become afraid.
Women shall cause men know for why they have
Being in the earth;--not to be quailing slack
As if the whole world were a threat, but tuned
Ready for joy as harp-strings for the player.
And great desire of beauty and to be glad
Shall prompt our courages. Ha, what are those
Breaking from out the thickets?
_Gast_.
Wolves! They come!
Brothers, the fiends are on us: have good hearts!
Ho for the women and their sacred wombs!
_Brys_.
Ho for the women, their beauty and my pleasure!
VASHTI
I
AHASUERUS AND VASHTI
_Vashti_.
My lord requires me here.
_Ahasuerus_.
Does Heaven see this?
Dare I have this one humble unto me?
Was it not enough, Stars, to have given me
This marriage? but you must persuade your God
To have me as well the greatest king beneath you!
Look you now if men grow not insolent
Because of me, a man so throned, so wived.
Yea, and in me insolent groweth my love;
For if the wheels of the careering world
Brake, felley and spoke, that, pitching on the road,
It spilt the driving godhead from his seat,
And the unreined team of hours riskily dragg'd
Their crippled duty,--if in that lurching world
Like jarred glass my power shattered about me,
And I were a head unking'd, 'twere but a game,
So I were left possessing thee, and that
Escape from Heaven, the beauty that goes with thee.
Here is an insolence! Hast thou not wonder'd,
Vashti, what gave thee into such a love,
That in the brain of me, the chosen king,
It is so loud, so insolent, thy love?
O this shrill sweet heart-mastering love!
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