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Henry Brocken, a novel by Walter De la Mare |
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Chapter 12 |
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_ CHAPTER XII The many men, so beautiful! --S.T. Coleridge.
But Reverie, the further we journeyed, the less he said. I almost chafed to see his heedless eyes turned upon some inward dream, while here, like life itself, stood cloud and oak, warbled bird and brook beneath the burning sun. I saw again in memory the silver twilight of the moon, and the crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of shade. Let him but venture into the open, I thought, hear again the distant lowing of the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, see again the flocks upon the hillside! I suppose this was her home my heart had turned to. This was my dust; night's was his. For me the wild rose and the fields of harvest; for him closed petals, the chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes and voices. And, as if he had overheard my thoughts, Reverie turned at the cross-ways. "You will come back again," he said. "They tell me in distant lands men worship Time, set up a shrine to him in every street, and treasure his emblem next their hearts. There, they say, even the lover babbles of hours, and the dreamer measures sleep with a pendulum. Well, my house is secluded, and the world is far; and to me Time is naught. Return, sir, then, when it pleases you. Besides," he added, smiling faintly, "there is always company at the World's End." The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale and delicate horse, its equal-plaited mane, on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delighted face. Here smouldered gold, here flushed crimson, and here the curved damaskening of his bridle glistened and gleamed. He was a strange visitant to the open day, between the green hedges, beneath the enormous branching of the elms. And there I bade him farewell. Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he has foretold, for it is ever easy to find again the house of Reverie--to them who have learned the way. On I journeyed, then, following as I had been directed the main road to Vanity Fair. But whether it is that the Fair is more difficult to arrive at than to depart from, or is really a hard day's journey even from the gay parlour of the World's End, it already began to be evening, and yet no sign of bunting or booth or clamour or smoke. And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, far from all vanity, that I came at sunset--the cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was tired out and desired only rest; so dismounting and leading Rosinante, I turned aside willingly into its peace. It seemed I had entered a new earth. The lane above had wandered on in the gloaming of its hedges and over-arching trees. Here, all the clouds of sunset stood, caught up in burning gold. Even as I paused, dazzled a moment by the sudden radiance, from height to height the wild bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering stone, black, well-nigh shapeless with age, not a green bush, but seemed to dwell unconsumed in its own fire above this desolate ground. The trees that grew around me--willow and yew, thorn and poplar--were but flaming cages for the wild birds that perched in their branches. Above these sound-dulled mansions trod lightly, as if of thought, Rosinante's gilded shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation of mind, filled with a desperate desire ever to remember how flamed this rose between earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of delight. And turning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal of laughter showed me I was not alone. Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing. The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face of roses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But the face of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the dark hair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it were the shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain, had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they were stooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seen me, they as yet paid no heed. I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude's creation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so the branches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw not far distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boys in charge. I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were no mortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she who sat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned with sudden dismay to depart from their presence unobserved as I had entered; but the children had now espied me, and came running, filled with wonder of Rosinante and the stranger beside her. They stayed at a little distance from us with dwelling eyes and parted lips. Then the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of the brothers stooped and plucked a few blades of grass and proffered them, half fearfully, to the beast that amazed him. But the other gave less heed to Rosinante, fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, his wonderful young face veiled with that wisdom which is in all children, and of an immutable gravity. But by this time, she who it seemed had the charge of these children had followed them with her eyes. To her then, leaving Rosinante in an ecstasy of timidity before such god-like boys, I addressed myself. So might a traveller lost beneath strange stars address unanswering Night. She, however, raised a compassionate face to me and listened with happy seriousness as to a child returned in safety at evening from some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed only a deeper youthfulness in her face for all its eternity of brooding on her beauteous children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her chaplet. The darker wine-colours of the sea changed in her eyes. There was no sense of gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. I began to see how the same still breast might bear celestial children so diverse as these, whose names, she told me presently, were Sleep and Death. I looked at the two children at play, "Ah! now," I said, almost involuntarily "the golden boy who has caught my horse's bridle in his hand, is not he Sleep? and he who considers his brother's boldness--that one is Death?" She smiled with lovely vanity, and told me how strange of heart young children are. How they will alter and vary, never the same for long together, but led by indiscoverable caprices and obedient to some further will. She smiled and said how that sometimes, when the birds hush suddenly from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and sadly to her knees, and Death clasp her roguishly, as if in some secret with the beams of morning. So would they change, one to the likeness of the other. But Sleep was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a little obstinate and headstrong; at times, indeed, beyond all cajolery; yet very sweet of impulse and ardent to make amends. But Death's caprices baffled even her. He seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of heart; and now, as if possessed, passionate and swift; and now would break away burning from her arms in an infinite tenderness. But best she loved them when there came a transient peace to both; and looking upon them laid embraced in the shadow-casting moonbeam, not even she could undoubtingly touch the brow of each beneath their likened hair, and say this is the elder, and this the dreamless younger of the boys. Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the undecipherable letters of the tomb by which we sat, she told me how that once, near before dawn, she had awoke in the twilight to find their places empty where the children had lain at her side, and had sought on, at last to find them even here, weeping and quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by little, and with many tears, she had gleaned the cause of their quarrel--how that, like very children, they had run a race at cockcrow, and all these stones and the slender bones and ashes beneath to be the prize; and how that, running, both had come together to the goal set, and both had claimed the victory. "Yet both seem happy now to share it," I said, "or how else were they comforted?" Nor did I consider before she told me that they will run again when they be grown men, Sleep and Death, in just such a thick darkness before dawn; and one called Love will then run with them, who is very vehement and fleet of foot, and never turns aside, nor falters. He who then shall win may ask a different prize. For truth to tell, she said, only children can find delight for long in dust and ruin. At that moment Death himself came hastening to his mother, and, taking her hand, turned to the enormous picture of the skies as if in some faint apprehension. But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full length among the "cool-rooted flowers," while Rosinante grazed beside him. I told her also, in turn, of my journey; and that although transient, or everlasting, solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wild happiness may be found in them, yet men think not often on these divine children. "As for this one," I said, looking down into the pathless beauty of Death's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; some violently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogether dismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, no stranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yet to the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy net to snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold of Sleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame has left the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and it is day; and exhales her breath, and it is night. Let them then play secret and innocent between her breasts, comfort her with silence above the tempest of her heart.... But I!--what am I?--a traveller, footsore and far." And then it was that I became conscious of a warm, sly, youthful hand in mine, and turned, half in dread, to see only happy Sleep laughing under his glistening hair into my eyes. I strove in vain against his sorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, starry face; and then I smelled as it were rain, and heard as it were tempestuous forest-trees--fell asleep among the tombs. _ |
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