The Dynasts. Томас Харди

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ And now he's going.

       [They wait. NELSON dies.]

      CHAPLAIN

       Yes.... He has homed to where

       There's no more sea.

      BEATTY

       We'll let the Captain know,

       Who will confer with Collingwood at once.

       I must now turn to these.

       [He goes to another part of the cockpit, a midshipman ascends to

       the deck, and the scene overclouds.]

      CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

       His thread was cut too slowly! When he fell.

       And bade his fame farewell,

       He might have passed, and shunned his long-drawn pain,

       Endured in vain, in vain!

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Young Spirits, be not critical of That

       Which was before, and shall be after you!

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       But out of tune the Mode and meritless

       That quickens sense in shapes whom, thou hast said,

       Necessitation sways! A life there was

       Among these self-same frail ones—Sophocles—

       Who visioned it too clearly, even while

       He dubbed the Will “the gods.” Truly said he,

       “Such gross injustice to their own creation

       Burdens the time with mournfulness for us,

       And for themselves with shame."9—Things mechanized By coils and pivots set to foreframed codes Would, in a thorough-sphered melodic rule, And governance of sweet consistency, Be cessed no pain, whose burnings would abide With That Which holds responsibility, Or inexist.

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Yea, yea, yea!

       Thus would the Mover pay

       The score each puppet owes,

       The Reaper reap what his contrivance sows!

       Why make Life debtor when it did not buy?

       Why wound so keenly Right that it would die?

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Nay, blame not! For what judgment can ye blame?—

       In that immense unweeting Mind is shown

       One far above forethinking; processive,

       Yet superconscious; a Clairvoyancy

       That knows not what It knows, yet works therewith.—

       The cognizance ye mourn, Life's doom to feel,

       If I report it meetly, came unmeant,

       Emerging with blind gropes from impercipience

       By listless sequence—luckless, tragic Chance,

       In your more human tongue.

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       And hence unneeded

       In the economy of Vitality,

       Which might have ever kept a sealed cognition

       As doth the Will Itself.

      CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

       Nay, nay, nay;

       Your hasty judgments stay,

       Until the topmost cyme

       Have crowned the last entablature of Time.

       O heap not blame on that in-brooding Will;

       O pause, till all things all their days fulfil!

      SCENE V

       LONDON. THE GUILDHALL

       [A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages

       as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor's

       banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A

       cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives

       at the door.

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted

       to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!

      SECOND CITIZEN

       Will they bring his poor splintered body home?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Yes. They say he's to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul's or

       Westminster. We shall see him if he lays in state. It will

       make a patriotic spectacle for a fine day.

      BOY

       How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       They'll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian

       admirals.

      BOY

       His lady will be handy for that, won't she?

      FIRST CITIZEN

       Don't ye ask awkward questions.

      SECOND CITIZEN

       Here's another coming!

      FIRST CITIZEN

       That's my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he'll say, and wot he'll look!

       Mr. Pitt will be here soon.

      BOY

       I don't like Billy. He killed Uncle John's parrot.

      SECOND CITIZEN

       How may ye make that out, youngster?

      BOY

       СКАЧАТЬ