William Wilfred Campbell - Mordred: Act I, Scene 2 lyrics

ACT I. SCENE 2. PLACE—Camelot. (ARTHUR crowned King.) Enter MERLIN and MORDRED, a hunchback, the King's illegitimate son. Outside a great clamor of voices is heard of “Arthur! Long live King Arthur!” MER. Now tarry here aside while I prepare The King for this thy filial audience. MOR. O mighty Merlin, I fear me all thine arts That compa** ocean, air and deepest mine, And have command of subtlest sciences, Have never found the power to brew a charm, A sovereign draught of distillation rare, To warm a father's heart toward such as me. MER. Thou much mistakest, Mordred, he is noble. This too-long thought on thine infirmity Hath made thy mind, which is as clear as gla**, Ensickly all things that it looks upon. When Arthur, thy great father, knows his son, His nobleness of heart will plead with him; And when he sees what I have seen in thee, A subtle greatness of the inner spirit, Greater than even I, wise Merlin, have, That prophesies a power for good or ill Such as is rare 'mid men in this our age, He will forget that outward lack of mould In the strong, god-like nobleness within. MOR. Ah, Merlin, would my spirit thou wert right, And I would show him such a son's true love, And consecrate this subtlety within me, To build a fence of safety round his glory. But something tells me, some weird, evil doom, That sits about my heart by day and night, An awful presence that will never flit, That he will never love me; yea, that more, Of all things hateful to him on this earth, My presence the most hateful. O great Mage, I know that thou art skilful in thine age, And subtle in all knowledges of lore, But there lies in recesses of the heart, That hath known bitter sorrow such as mine, A deeper wisdom intuition breeds, That thou hast never sounded in thy lore. MER. Hast seen this presence whereof thou dost speak? MOR. Yea, only as a look that haunteth faces. MER. Faces? MOR. I never saw it in my poor dog's face, When he hath climbed my knees to lick my hand. I never saw in the mirrored peace That brims the beauty of a forest pool, Nor in the wise regard of mighty nature. But in the face of man I oft have seen it. MER. What hast thou seen? This wisdom would I know. MOR. I never saw it in thy look, O Mage, But something sweeter, much akin, called pity, But once I woke a flower-eyed little maid, Who slumbered 'mid the daisies by a stream; She seemed the summer day incarnate there With her sweet, innocent, unconscious face, So like a flower herself amid the flowers; And I so lonely there in all that vast, And thinking ('twas only but a boy's light thought, With some deep other thought beyond mine age) To wake this human summer-morn to life, And know this June-day conscious of its joy; But when I bent and touched her on the arm, I only woke a living terror there Of eyes and limbs that fled from my amaze. I saw it once within the priestman's face The only and the last time I was shriven. I have no need for shriving priestmen since. My spirit tells me if they hold no power To conjure out that devil in themselves, That darting horror that offends mine eyes, They ne'er can cast the devils from this life, And all their vaunts but jugglers' juggling lies. MER. O sad, warped youth, aged before thy time, With that worst, saddest of wisdoms on this earth, The knowledge of thine own deformity! [Trumpets without. Back, Mordred, back! here cometh our lord, the King! Enter ARTHUR in his state robes. AR. And now, wise Merlin, wisest of this earth, Here cometh thine Arthur, decked in his first glory. So great hath been the splendor of this day That all my heart brims with the wine of it. MER. Yea, King, thy horn of glory doth enlarge, Thy sun of splendor toppeth the future's marge, May all bright auspices attend its setting. AR. And now, wise Mage, what hath thy will with me? I am thine Arthur even being King, For thou hast made me, next to that weird fate That sat about the mystery of my getting, And the sweet fostership of Holy Church, Which hath forgiven my great youthful sin And set her seal of favor on my deeds. All present splendors thou hast prophesied, And made the people take me for their King, Hast pointed out my fitness for this office, And lifted Arthur from a cloud of sorrows Unto the golden glories of a throne. To-day the fealty of an hundred Earls Which thou hast garnered to my new-made kingdom Hath honored me and made me thrice a King. Yea, well say, Merlin, that my horn is full To plenty with the blessed hopes of earth, And all of this I owe unto thy favor. My thunder-clouds are past, my future clear As yon blue summer sky. No evil lurks In secret now to strike at this my glory, Unless a bolt fell from yon dazzling blue! [Thunder heard in the distance. ARTHUR staggers back. A portent! A portent! MER. 'Tis nought, O King, but gathering thunderheads About the thick, close heatings of the west, The muttered portent of a summer shower. 'Tis but a blackness that will quickly pa** And leave a blessing on the fields and woods. Fear not such signs as nature's seeming anger. I come to thee upon a graver matter. AR. Yea, Merlin! speak on. MER. Arthur, I speak now to no puling youth, No mere sin-pricked conscience in a human form, But bring a kingly matter to a king, Whereof that he may do the kingliest deed That he may hap on in the unknown lease Of all his kingship. I have kept this matter, The deepest and the dreadest concerning thee And all the workings of thy coming fate, Until the hour when thou didst feel thee King In more than seeming outward human choice, And thou wert at thy greatest, even that I, In all his power, might see the King I made, Not in all the glory of his court, His people's laudings sounding in his ears, Not in all the shout of battle victory; But in that dread and secret solemn hour, When some strange doom uplifts its sombre face And man must show his kingship of himself. AR. Yea, Merlin! Say on, Merlin, say on! MER. For this same reason I have hid till now The secret from thee that thou hast a son. AR. A son! MER. Yea, a son! AR. Oh cruel! Oh cruel! Oh cruel! MER. Yea more, for knowing all the warm desire That thou hast unto things of beauteous shape, And lovest chiefly what is glad and fair To look upon in nature or human form, Which showeth in thy love for Launcelot— AR. Yea, Launcelot! Would a Launcelot were my son! MOR. (aside) Ah, me! MER. But knowing further that a deeper feeling, Which holdeth rule in every human heart That knoweth greatness, would uppermost in thee, At knowledge of the fate of thy poor son, Who madeth not himself, but bore thy sin In outward simile in his whole life's being, As Christ did bear men's sins upon the tree; Who, knowing all the ill that thou hadst done him, Still had sufficient sense of inward greatness To love the father who begat him thus; I feel, if thou art that great Arthur dreamed Of me these many years of toil and care That I have worked to make thee what thou art, That knowing this son of thine, distorted, wry, Diminutive in outward human shape, And void of all those graces thou hast loved To group about thy visions of thy court, Hath such a soul within him, like a j**el In some enchanted casket, that were rare In all the lore and wisdom of this age, That thou wouldst love him only all the more For that poor, wry, misshapen shell of his. AR. Oh cruel! cruel! cruel! MER. Mordred, come forth! Enter MORDRED, who kneels and tries to cover himself with his cloak. AR. (starts) What be this? MER. Mordred, thy son, the heir to thy great realm! AR. O black-angered Heaven! [Falls heavily to the ground. MOR. Father! my father! Merlin, thou hast k**ed him! O Merlin, Merlin, thou wert over-cruel! MER. Better that he were dead a thousand d**hs Than this had happened. He is not a king In more than vulgar fancy. In mine eyes With all thy wry, distorted body there, Thou art a thousand times more kingly now Than he or any like him in this realm. And thou wilt be a king yet ere thou diest. O Arthur, thou great Arthur of my dreams, Why didst thou thus unthrone thee, showing bare A thing of clay, where all seemed whitest marble? MOR. Ha! now he revives. Father! AR. (rises and staggers) Ha! yea, that cloud, that cloud about mine eyes! My crown! my crown! Methought I had a crown! MER. Yea, of a truth thou hadst one. AR. And where be it, good father? MER. Stumbling on sudden to the precipice of a golden opportunity, Thou loosedst thy kingship and straightway it toppled over. AR. And might we not make search, father? Might we not take lights, lights, and go find it? MER. Not all the lights that light this glowing world Might light thee to it. AR. And who art thou that mocketh at me thus? MER. A shadow. AR. And what be I? MER. In truth a shadow. AR. And that—that blackness? [Pointing at MORDRED. MER. A shadow, also; yea, we all be shadows. AR. And is there nothing real, nothing tangible in all this mist? MER. Nay, nothing, save the visions we have lost, The autumn mornings with their frosty prime, The dreams of youth like bells at eventime Ringing their golden longings down the mist. AR. And be we dead, father? MER. Yea, I am dead to one great hope I had, And thou art dead to what thou mightst have been, And he is dead to what is best of all, The holiest blossom on life's golden tree. AR. And what be that, father? MER. Love! Love! AR. Then he be greatest? MER. Yea, greater far, though we completed greatness, Than either thou or I could ever be. AR. Then what be he? MER. He is that rare, great blossom of this life Which mortals call a man. AR. A man! MER. Yea, a man. AR. Why, he is wry, distorted, short of shape, Like some poor twisted root in human form. And I am tall and fair, placed like a king, And yet you make him greater, how be that? MER. Didst thou but own Goliath's mighty shape, And wert a Balder in thy face and form, With all of heaven's lightnings in thy gaze, Still would his greatness dwarf thee. AR. Then what be I? MER. The wreck of my poor hopes. AR. The what? MER. The shadow of a king. AR. And where may be the king, if I be but the shadow? MER. Gone! Gone! He went out in his glory one bright morn, In all the summer splendors long ago, And there, by well-heads of my youth's bright dreams, Be-like he's walking yet. MOR. O Merlin, wake him! Thou art over-cruel To play thus on his fancy with thine arts. MER. And dost thou love him still? MOR. Yea, love is not a thing so lightly placed That it may perish easy. Thou mayst k** The king in him, thou canst not k** the father. Though thou mightst make me bitter to conspire And topple his great kingdom round his head, Yet I would ever love him 'neath it all. The Arthur of thine ambitions may be dead, But not the Arthur of my childhood's longing, Though this poor King who hunteth his lost crown Be but the walking shape of all those dreams. And temptest thou me, Merlin, thus to hate? MER. Yea, Mordred, I am cruel, I am fate. I tempt thee but to live, and dost thou live, Enalienate from all this love of earth, And they but crumble this phantom round their heads. Thou art the key by which I may unlock The lock that I have made with mine own hands. And if thou ever want'st an instrument, A dagger wherewith to stab this paltry realm, Use Vivien. MOR. Vivien! MER. Yea, Vivien. There is naught on all this earth That cuts so sharp the thews of love and hate And those poor brittle thongs that bind men up In that strange bundle called society, Like the sharp acids nature hath distilled From out the foiled hates of an evil woman. (to the King) Ho! ho! Arthur! Great King Arthur! Knowest thou me, Merlin? AR. Yea, Merlin, it is thou, and I the King, Waking, it seemeth, from an evil dream. MER. Yea, King, we have all awakened. AR. Ha! where is my crown? MOR. You dropped it when you fainted, sire. [Kneels and presents it. Here is thy crown, father. AR. Father! I know all now. It cometh back. And this my son? O Merlin, had I known That thou didst hate me and would use me thus! MER. I hate thee not, O King, nor do I love. I loved an Arthur once, a phantom king, Whom I did build on pinnacles of glory. But he hath now long vanished, and I go, Like many another who hath wrecked his hopes On some false shore of human delusiveness, To bury my pinchbeck j**els in that pit That men call black oblivion. No, proud Arthur, I am much over-old for loves or hates, My days are past, my mission done on earth; I leave thee one here, though, whose love or hate Is more to thee than mine could ever be. 'Twixt thee and him there are such subtle webs Of destiny, it needeth no magician To prophesy the running of those threads That weave the warp of your two destinies. Farewell Arthur! Mordred, fare thee well! AR. Stay, stay, Merlin! I have need of thee. [Exit MERLIN. CURTAIN.