Classic Poem

I

On the sea-coast. Three young men, Sylvan, Valentine, and Francis.

VALENTINE . Well, I suppose you're out of your fear at last,
Sylvan. This land's empty enough; naught here
Feminine but the hens, bitches, and cows.
Now we are safe!
FRANCIS . Horribly safe; for here,
If there are wives at all, they are salted so
They have no meaning for the blood, bent things
Philosophy allows not to be women.
VALENTINE . But think of the husbands that must spend their nights
Alongside skin like bark. It is the men
That have the tragedy in these weather'd lands.
FRANCIS . No thought of that! We are monks now. And, indeed,
This is a cloister that a man could like,
This blue-aired space of grassy land, that here,
Just as it touches the sea's bitter mood,
Is troubled into dunes, as it were thrilled,
Like a calm woman trembling against love.
SYLVAN . Woman again! — How, knowing you, I failed
So long to know the truth, I cannot think.
FRANCIS . And what's the truth?
SYLVAN . Woman and love of her
Is as a dragging ivy on the growth
Of that strong tree, man's nature!
VALENTINE . Yes. But now
Tell us a simpler sort of truth. Was she —
SYLVAN . She? Who?
VALENTINE . Katrina, of course: who else, when one
Speaks of a she to you?
SYLVAN . And what about her?
VALENTINE . Was she too cruel to you, or too kind?
SYLVAN . Ah, there's no hope for men like you' you're sunk
Above your consciences in smothering ponds
Of sweet imagination, — drowned in woman!
FRANCIS . Ay? Clarence and the Malmsey over again;
'Twas a delightful death.
VALENTINE . But you forget,
Sylvan, we've come as your disciples here.
SYLVAN . Yes, to a land where not the least desire
Need prey upon your mettle. There are hours
A god might gladly take in these basking dunes, —
Nothing but summer and piping larks, and air
All a warm breath of honey, and a grass
All flowers — sweet thyme and golden heart's-ease here!
And under scent and song of flowers and birds,
Far inland out of the golden bays the air
Is charged with briny savour, and whispered news
Gentle as whitening oats the breezes stroke.
What good is all this health to you? You bring
Your own thoughts with you; and they are vinegar.
Endlessly rusting what should be clear steel.
FRANCIS . I do begin to doubt our enterprise,
The grand Escape from Woman. It lookt brave
And nobly hazardous afar off, to cease
All wenching, whether in deed or word or thought.
And yet I fear pride egged us. We had done
Better to be more humble, and bring here
A girl apiece.
VALENTINE . Yes, Sylvan; you must think
The cloister were a thing more comfortable
With your Katrina in it?
SYLVAN . My Katrina!
And do you think, supposing I would love,
I'ld bank in such a crazy safe as that
Katrina? One of those soft shy-spoken maids,
Who are only maids through fear? Whose life is all
A simpering pretence of modesty?
If it was love I wanted, 'twould not be
A dish of sweet stewed pears, laced with brandy.
But I can do without a woman's kisses.
VALENTINE . Can you? — You know full well, in the truth of your heart,
That there's no man in all the world of men
Whose will woman's beauty cannot divide
Easily as a sword cuts jetting water.
SYLVAN . Have you not heard, that even jetting water
May have such spouting force, that it becomes
A rod of glittering white iron, and swords
Will beat rebounding on its speed in vain? —
Of such a force I mean to have my will.
VALENTINE . Here, Francis! Look you yonder. O but this,
This is the joke of the world!
FRANCIS . Hallo! a girl!
And, by the Lord, Katrina! — But why here?
VALENTINE . She's followed him, of course; she's heard of this
Mad escapade and followed after him.
FRANCIS . She has not seen us yet. Now what to do?
VALENTINE . Quick! Where's your handkerchief? Truss his wrists and ankles,
And pull his coat up over his head and leave him!
He won't get free of her again; she'll lead
His wildness home and keep him tame for ever.
Now!
SYLVAN . What are you doing? Whatever are you doing?
Hell burn you, let me go!
VALENTINE . There's worse to come.
KATRINA . Dear Heaven! Were they robbers? Have they hurt you?
SYLVAN . Katrina!
KATRINA . Sylvan!
SYLVAN . How did you plot this?
I thought I'd put leagues between you and me.
KATRINA . Why have you come here?
SYLVAN . To find you it seen
But what you're doing here, that I'ld like to know.
KATRINA . I came to see my grandmother: she lives
All by herself, poor grannam, and it 's time
She had some help about the house, and care.
SYLVAN . Let's have a better tale: You followed me.
KATRINA . Sylvan, how dare you make me out so vile?
SYLVAN . How dare you mean to make this body of mine
A thing with no thought in it but your beauty?
KATRINA . You shall not speak so wickedly. You've had
The half of my truth only: here's the whole.
It was from you I fled! I hoped to make
My grannam's lonely cottage something safe
From you and what I hated in you.
SYLVAN . Love? —
Ah, so it's all useless.
KATRINA . I feared to know
You wanted me, — horribly I feared it.
And now you've found me out.
SYLVAN . Is this the truth? —
No help for it, then.
KATRINA . O, I'm a liar to you!
SYLVAN . Strange how we grudge to be ruled! rather than be
Divinely driven to happiness, we push back
And fiercely try for wilful misery. —
Dearest, forgive me being cruel to you,
You who are in life like a heavenly dream
In the evil sleep of a sinner.
KATRINA . No, you hate me.
SYLVAN [ kissing her ]. Is this like hatred?
KATRINA [ in his arms ]. Sylvan, I have been
So wrencht and fearfully used. It was as if
This being that I live in had become
A savage endless water, wild with purpose
To tire me out and drown me.
SYLVAN . Yes, I know:
Like swimming against a mighty will, that wears
The cruelty, the race and scolding spray
Of monstrous passionate water.
KATRINA . Hold me, Sylvan:
I'm bruised with my sore wrestling.
SYLVAN . Ah, but now
We are not swimmers in this dangerous life.
It cannot beat upon our limbs with surf
Of water clencht against us, nor can waves
Now wrangle with our breath. Out of it we
Are lifted; and henceforward now we are
Sailors travelling in a lovely ship,
The shining sails of it holding a wind
Immortally pleasant, and the malicious sea
Smoothed by a keel that cannot come to wreck.
KATRINA . Alas, we must not stay together here.
Grannam will come upon us.
SYLVAN . Where is she?
KATRINA . Yonder, gathering driftwood for her fire.
There is a little bay not far from here,
The shingle of it a thronging city of flies,
Feeding on the dead weed that mounds the beach;
And the sea hoards there its vain avarice, —
Old flotsam, and decaying trash of ships.
An arm of reef half locks it in, and holds
The bottom of the bay deep strewn with seaweed,
A barn full of the harvesting of storms;
And at full tide, the little hampered waves
Lift up the litter, so that, against the light,
The yellow kelp and bracken of the sea,
Held up in ridges of green water, show
Like moss in agates. And there is no place
In all the coast for wreckage like this bay;
There often will my grannam be, a sack
Over her shoulders, turning up the crust
Of sun-dried weed to find her winter's warmth.
SYLVAN . Is that she coming?
KATRINA . O Sylvan, has she seen us?
SYLVAN . What matter if she has?
KATRINA . But it would matter!
SYLVAN . Katrina, come with me now! We'll go together
Back to my house.
KATRINA . No, no, not now! I must
Carry my grannam's load for her: 'tis heavy.
SYLVAN . We must not part again.
KATRINA . No, not for long;
For if we do, there will be storms again,
I know; and a fierce reluctance — O, a mad
Tormenting thing! — will shake me.
SYLVAN . Then come now!
KATRINA . Not now, not now! Look how my poor grannam
Shuffles under the weight; she's old for burdens.
I must carry her sack for her.
SYLVAN . Well, to-night!
KATRINA . To-night? — O Sylvan! dare I?
SYLVAN . Yes, you dare!
You will be knowing I'm outside in the darkness,
And you will come down here and give me yourself
Wholly and for ever.
KATRINA . O not to-night!
SYLVAN . I shall be here, Katrina, waiting for you.

The old woman comes in burdened with her sack.

GRANDMOTHER . Katrina, that was a young man with you.
KATRINA . O grannam, you've had luck to-day; but now
It's I must be the porter.
GRANDMOTHER [ giving up the sack ]. Ay, you take it.
It's sore upon my back. You should have care
Of these young fellows; there's a devil in them.
Never you talk with a man on the seashore
Or on hill-tops or in woods and suchlike places,
Especially if he's one you think of marrying.
KATRINA . Marrying? I shall never be married!
GRANDMOTHER . Pooh!
That's nonsense.
KATRINA . I should think 'twas horrible
Even to be in love and wanting to give
Yourself to another; but to be married too,
A man holding the very heart of you, —
GRANDMOTHER . He never does, honey, he never does. —
We're late; come along home.

II

In Sylvan's house. Sylvan and Katrina talking to each other and betweenwhiles talking to themselves.

SYLVAN . How pleasant and beautiful it is to be
At last obedient to love! ( To know
Also, I've sold myself, — is that so pleasant?)
KATRINA . I cannot think, why such a glorious wealth
As this of love on our hearts should be spent.
What have we done, that all this gain be ours?
(Nor can I think why my life should be mixt,
Even its dearest secrecy, with another.)
SYLVAN . Ay, there's the marvel! If to enter life
Needed some courage, 'twere a kind of wages,
As they let sacking soldiers take home loot:
But we are shuffled into life like puppets
Emptied out of a showman's bag; and then
Made spenders of the joys current in heaven!
(Not such a marvel neither, if this love
Be but the price I'm paid for my free soul.
Who's the old trader that has lent this girl
The glittering cash of pleasure to pay me with?
Who is it, — the world, or the devil, or God — that wants
To buy me from myself?)
KATRINA . And then how vain
To think we can hold back from being enricht!
It is not only offered — —
SYLVAN . No, 'tis a need
As irresistible within our hearts
As body's need of breathing. ( That I should be
So avaricious of his gleaming price!)
KATRINA . And the instant force it has upon us, when
We think to use love as a privilege!
We are like bees that, having fed all day
On mountain-heather, go to a tumbling stream
To please their little honey-heated thirsts;
And soon as they have toucht the singing relief,
The swiftness of the water seizes them.
SYLVAN . And onward, sprawling and spinning, they are carried
Down to a drowning pool.
KATRINA . O Sylvan, drowning?
(Deeper than drowning! Why should it not be
Our hearts need wish only what they delight in?)
SYLVAN . Well, altogether gript by the being of love.
(Yes, now the bargain's done; and I may wear,
Like a cheated savage, scarlet dyes and strings
Of beaded glass, all the pleasure of love!)
KATRINA . It is a wonderful tyranny, that life
Has no choice but to be delighted love!
(I know what I must do: I am to abase
My heart utterly, and have nothing in me
That dare take pleasure beyond serving love.
Thus only shall I bear it: and perhaps —
Might I even of my abasement make
A passion, fearfully enjoying it?)
SYLVAN . You are full of thoughts, sweetheart?
KATRINA . And so are you:
A long while since you kist me! ( What have I said?
O fool so to remind him! I shall scarce
Help crying out or shuddering this time! —
Ah no; I am again a fool! Not thus
I am to do, but in my heart to break
All the reluctance; it must have on me
No pleasure; else I am endlessly tortured.)
Then I must kiss you, Sylvan!
SYLVAN . Ah, my darling!
(God! it went through my flesh as thrilling sound
Must shake a fiddle when the strings are snatcht!
Will she make the life in me all a slave
Of my kist body, — a trembling, eager slave?
It ran like a terror to my heart, the sense,
The shivering delight upon my skin,
Of her lips touching me .) My beloved, —
It may be it were wise, that we took care
Our pleasant love come never in the risk
Of being too much known.
KATRINA . O what a risk
To think of here! Love is not common life,
But always fresh and sweet. Can this grow stale?
SYLVAN . O never! I meant not so. — Yes, always sweet!
(She must not kiss me! Ah, it leaves my heart
Aghast, and stopt with pain of the joy of her;
And her loved body is like an agony
Clinging upon me. O she must not kiss me!
I will not be a thing excruciated.
To please her passion, an anguish of delight!)