Scene
II
A ruined palace in the forest. Away in the depth of the shadow of the pillars a motionless Figure.
Enter the Old Knight.
Knight
Behold I bend before thee to the ground
Until my beard is in the twisted leaves
That with their fiery ruin fill the hall,
As words of thine through fourscore years have filled
My echoing heart. Now raise thy voice and speak!
Even from boyhood, in my father’s house,
That was beside the waterfall, thy words
Abode as banded adders in my breast.
Thou knowest this, and how from mid the dance
Thou called’st me forth,
And how thou madest me
A coward in the field; and all men cried:
Behold the Knight of the Waterfall, whose heart
The spirits stole, and gave him in its stead
A peering hare’s; and yet I murmured not,
Knowing that thou hadst singled me with word
Of love from out a dreamless race for strife,
Through miseries unhuman ever on
To joys unhuman, and to thee—Speak! Speak
He draws nearer to the Figure. A pause.
Behold I bend before thee to the ground;
Thou wilt not speak, and I with age am near
To Death. His lips are glued, with quivering touch,
To mine, and he is slowly sucking forth
My soul. His darkness and his chill I feel.
Were all my wandering days of no avail
Untouched of human joy or human love?
Then let me see thy face before I die.
Behold I bow before thee to the ground!
Behold I bow! Around my beard in drifts
Lie strewn the clotted leaves—the dead old leaves.
He gathers up the leaves and presses them to his breast.
Thou wilt not speak, Oh cruel art thou yet!
Mine heart-strings are all broken saving one,
That trembles and resounds with hymns to thee,
That fill the blazing hollows of my heart.
I’m dying! Oh forgive me if I touch
Thy garment’s hem, thou visionary one!
He approaches close to the Figure. A sudden light bursts over it.
Knight
A bearded witch, her sluggish head low bent
On her broad breast! beneath her withered brows
Shine dull unmoving eyes. What thing art thou?
I sought thee not.
Figure
Men call me Infamy.
I know not what I am.
Knight
I sought thee not.
Figure
Lover, the voice that summoned thee was mine.
Knight
For all I gave the voice, for all my youth,
For all my joy.—Ah woe!
The Figure raises a mirror in which the face and the form of the Knight are shadowed. He falls forward.
The Figure
Bending over him and speaking in his ear.
What! Lover, die before our lips have met?
Knight
Again, the voice! the voice!
Dies.