SCENE VI.—_On a Bridge.

_Di._ ’Tis gone, the fierce inordinate desire, The burning thirst for action—utterly; Gone, like a ship that passes in the night On the high seas: gone, yet will come again: Gone, yet expresses something that exists. Is it a thing ordained, then? is it a clue For my life’s conduct? is it a law for me That opportunity shall breed distrust, Not passing until that pass? Chance and resolve, Like two loose comets wandering wide in space, Crossing each other’s orbits time on time, Meet never. Void indifference and doubt Let through the present boon, which ne’er turns back To await the after sure-arriving wish. How shall I then explain it to myself, That in blank thought my purpose lives? The uncharged cannon mocking still the spark _When_ come, which _ere_ come it had loudly claimed. Am I to let it be so still? For truly The need exists, I know; the wish but sleeps (Sleeps, and anon will wake and cry for food); And to put by these unreturning gifts, Because the feeling is not with me now, Seems folly more than merest babyhood’s. But must I then do violence to myself, And push on nature, force desire (that’s ill), Because of knowledge? which is great, but works By rules of large exception; to tell which Nought is more fallible than mere caprice.

What need for action yet? I am happy now, I feel no lack—what cause is there for haste? Am I not happy? is not that enough? Depart!

_Sp._ O yes! you thought you had escaped, no doubt, This worldly fiend that follows you about, This compound of convention and impiety, This mongrel of uncleanness and propriety. What else were bad enough? but, let me say, I too have my _grandes manières_ in my way; Could speak high sentiment as well as you, And out-blank-verse you without much ado; Have my religion also in my kind, For dreaming unfit, because not designed. What! you know not that I too can be serious, Can speak big words, and use the tone imperious; Can speak, not honiedly, of love and beauty, But sternly of a something much like duty. Oh, do you look surprised? were never told, Perhaps, that all that glitters is not gold. The Devil oft the Holy Scripture uses, But God can act the Devil when He chooses. Farewell! But, _verbum sapienti satis_— I do not make this revelation gratis. Farewell: beware!

_Di._ Ill spirits can quote holy books I knew; What will they _not_ say? what not dare to do?

_Sp._ Beware, beware!

_Di._ What, loitering still? Still, O foul spirit, there? Go hence, I tell thee, go! I _will_ beware. (_Alone._) It must be then. I feel it in my soul; The iron enters, sundering flesh and bone, And sharper than the two-edged sword of God. I come into deep waters—help, O help! The floods run over me.

Therefore, farewell! a long and last farewell, Ye pious sweet simplicities of life, Good books, good friends, and holy moods, and all That lent rough life sweet Sunday seeming rests, Making earth heaven-like. Welcome, wicked world, The hardening heart, the calculating brain Narrowing its doors to thought, the lying lips, The calm-dissembling eyes; the greedy flesh, The world, the Devil—welcome, welcome, welcome!

_Sp._ (_from within._) This stern necessity of things On every side our being rings; Our sallying eager actions fall Vainly against that iron wall. Where once her finger points the way, The wise thinks only to obey; Take life as she has ordered it, And come what may of it, submit, Submit, submit!

Who take implicitly her will, For these her vassal chances still Bring store of joys, successes, pleasures; But whoso ponders, weighs, and measures, She calls her torturers up to goad With spur and scourges on the road; He does at last with pain whate’er He spurned at first. Of such, beware, Beware, beware!

_Di._ O God, O God! The great floods of the soul Flow over me! I come into deep waters Where no ground is!

_Sp._ Don’t be the least afraid; There’s not the slightest reason for alarm; I only meant by a perhaps rough shake To rouse you from a dreamy, unhealthy sleep. Up, then—up, and be going: the large world, The thronged life waits us. Come, my pretty boy, You have been making mows to the blank sky Quite long enough for good. We’ll put you up Into the higher form. ’Tis time you learn The Second Reverence, for things around. Up, then, and go amongst them; don’t be timid; Look at them quietly a bit: by-and-by Respect will come, and healthy appetite. So let us go. How now! not yet awake? Oh, you will sleep yet, will you! Oh, you shirk, You try and slink away! You cannot, eh? Nay now, what folly’s this? Why will you fool yourself? Why will you walk about thus with your eyes shut? Treating for facts the self-made hues that flash On tight-pressed pupils, which you know are not facts. To use the undistorted light of the sun Is not a crime; to look straight out upon The big plain things that stare one in the face Does not contaminate; to see pollutes not What one must feel if one won’t see, what _is_, And will be too, howe’er we blink, and must One way or other make itself observed. Free walking’s better than being led about; and What will the blind man do, I wonder, if Some one should cut the string of his dog? Just think! What could you do, if I should go away? Oh, you have paths of your own before you, have you? What shall it take to? literature, no doubt? Novels, reviews? or poems! if you please! The strong fresh gale of life will feel, no doubt, The influx of your mouthful of soft air. Well, make the most of that small stock of knowledge You’ve condescended to receive from me; That’s your best chance. Oh, you despise that! Oh. Prate then of passions you have known in dreams, Of huge experience gathered by the eye; Be large of aspiration, pure in hope, Sweet in fond longings, but in all things vague; Breathe out your dreamy scepticism, relieved By snatches of old songs. People will like that, doubtless. Or will you write about philosophy? For a waste far-off _maybe_ overlooking The fruitful _is_ close by, live in metaphysic, With transcendental logic fill your stomach, Schematise joy, effigiate meat and drink; Or, let me see, a mighty work, a volume, The Complemental of the inferior Kant, The Critic of Pure Practice, based upon The Antinomies of the Moral Sense: for, look you, We cannot act without assuming _x_, And at the same time _y_, its contradictory; Ergo, to act. People will buy that, doubtless. Or you’ll perhaps teach youth (I do not question Some downward turn you may find, some evasion Of the broad highway’s glaring white ascent); Teach youth, in a small way, that is, always, So as to have much time left you for yourself; This you can’t sacrifice, your leisure’s precious. Heartily you will not take to anything; Whatever happen, don’t I see you still, Living no life at all? Even as now An o’ergrown baby, sucking at the dugs Of instinct, dry long since. Come, come, you are old enough For spoon-meat surely. Will you go on thus Until death end you? if indeed it does. For what it does, none knows. Yet as for you, You’ll hardly have the courage to die outright; You’ll somehow halve even it. Methinks I see you, Through everlasting limbos of void time, Twirling and twiddling ineffectively, And indeterminately swaying for ever. Come, come, spoon-meat at any rate. Well, well, I will not persecute you more, my friend. Only do think, as I observed before, What can you do, if I should go away?

_Di._ Is the hour here, then? Is the minute come— The irreprievable instant of stern time? O for a few, few grains in the running glass, Or for some power to hold them! O for a few Of all that went so wastefully before! It must be then, e’en now.

_Sp._ (_from within._) It must, it must. ’Tis common sense! and human wit Can claim no higher name than it. Submit, submit!

Necessity! and who shall dare Bring to _her_ feet excuse or prayer? Beware, beware! We must, we must. Howe’er we turn, and pause and tremble— Howe’er we shrink, deceive, dissemble— Whate’er our doubting, grief, disgust, The hand is on us, and we must, We must, we must. ’Tis common sense! and human wit Can find no better name than Submit, submit!