The Dynasts. Томас Харди

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СКАЧАТЬ bleed, mere mannikins or no,

       And each has parcel in the total Will.

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Which overrides them as a whole its parts

       In other entities.

      SPIRIT SINISTER [aside]

       Limbs of Itself:

       Each one a jot of It in quaint disguise?

       I'll fear all men henceforward!

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Go to. Let this terrestrial tragedy—

      SPIRIT IRONIC

       Nay, Comedy—

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Let this earth-tragedy

       Whereof we spake, afford a spectacle

       Forthwith conned closelier than your custom is.—

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       How does it stand? [To a Recording Angel]

       Open and chant the page

       Thou'st lately writ, that sums these happenings,

       In brief reminder of their instant points

       Slighted by us amid our converse here.

      RECORDING ANGEL [from a book, in recitative]

       Now mellow-eyed Peace is made captive,

       And Vengeance is chartered

       To deal forth its dooms on the Peoples

       With sword and with spear.

       Men's musings are busy with forecasts

       Of muster and battle,

       And visions of shock and disaster

       Rise red on the year.

       The easternmost ruler sits wistful,

       And tense he to midward;

       The King to the west mans his borders

       In front and in rear.

       While one they eye, flushed from his crowning,

       Ranks legions around him

       To shake the enisled neighbour nation

       And close her career!

      SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [aerial music]

       O woven-winged squadrons of Toulon

       And fellows of Rochefort,

       Wait, wait for a wind, and draw westward

       Ere Nelson be near!

       For he reads not your force, or your freightage

       Of warriors fell-handed,

       Or when they will join for the onset,

       Or whither they steer!

      SEMICHORUS II

       O Nelson, so zealous a watcher

       Through months-long of cruizing,

       Thy foes may elide thee a moment,

       Put forth, and get clear;

       And rendezvous westerly straightway

       With Spain's aiding navies,

       And hasten to head violation

       Of Albion's frontier!

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Methinks too much assurance thrills your note

       On secrets in my locker, gentle sprites;

       But it may serve.—Our thought being now reflexed

       To forces operant on this English isle,

       Behoves it us to enter scene by scene,

       And watch the spectacle of Europe's moves

       In her embroil, as they were self-ordained

       According to the naive and liberal creed

       Of our great-hearted young Compassionates,

       Forgetting the Prime Mover of the gear,

       As puppet-watchers him who pulls the strings.—

       You'll mark the twitchings of this Bonaparte

       As he with other figures foots his reel,

       Until he twitch him into his lonely grave:

       Also regard the frail ones that his flings

       Have made gyrate like animalcula

       In tepid pools.—Hence to the precinct, then,

       And count as framework to the stagery

       Yon architraves of sunbeam-smitten cloud.—

       So may ye judge Earth's jackaclocks to be

       No fugled by one Will, but function-free.

       [The nether sky opens, and Europe is disclosed as a prone and

       emaciated figure, the Alps shaping like a backbone, and the

       branching mountain-chains like ribs, the peninsular plateau of

       Spain forming a head. Broad and lengthy lowlands stretch from

       the north of France across Russia like a grey-green garment hemmed

       by the Ural mountains and the glistening Arctic Ocean.

       The point of view then sinks downwards through space, and draws

       near to the surface of the perturbed countries, where the peoples,

       distressed by events which they did not cause, are seen writhing,

       crawling, heaving, and vibrating in their various cities and

       nationalities.]

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to the Spirit of the Pities]

       As key-scene to the whole, I first lay bare

       The Will-webs of thy fearful questioning;

       For know that of my antique privileges

       СКАЧАТЬ