still waiting? Why are they
Circling and circling over the masthead?
Ah! now they all look down—they’ll speak of me
What the ever-living put into their minds,
And of that shadowless unearthly woman
At the world’s end. I hear the message now.
But it’s all mystery. There’s one that cries,
‘From love and hate.’ Before the sentence ends
Another breaks upon it with a cry,
‘From love and death and out of sleep and waking.’
And with the cry another cry is mixed,
‘What can we do, being shadows?’ All mystery,
And I am drunken with a dizzy light.
But why do they still hover overhead?
Why are you circling there? Why do you linger?
Why do you not run to your desire?
Now that you have happy winged bodies.
Being too busy in the air, and the high air,
They cannot hear my voice. But why that circling?
[The Sailors have returned, DECTORA is with them. She is dressed in pale green, with copper ornaments on her dress, and has a copper crown upon her head. Her hair is dull red.
Forgael [turning and seeing her]. Why are you standing with your eyes upon me?
You are not the world’s core. O no, no, no!
That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
But have not bitten yet.
Dectora. I am a queen,
And ask for satisfaction upon these
Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.
Forgael. I’d set my hopes on one that had no shadow—
Where do you come from? who brought you to this place?
Why do you cast a shadow? Answer me that.
Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
I ask a fitting punishment for all
That raised their hands against him.
Forgael. There are some
That weigh and measure all in these waste seas—
They that have all the wisdom that’s in life,
And all that prophesying images
Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
They have it that the plans of kings and queens
Are dust on the moth’s wing; that nothing matters
But laughter and tears—laughter, laughter, and tears—
That every man should carry his own soul
Upon his shoulders.
Dectora. You’ve nothing but wild words,
And I would know if you would give me vengeance.
Forgael. When she finds out that I’ll not let her go—
When she knows that.
Dectora. What is it that you are muttering—
That you’ll not let me go? I am a queen.
Forgael. Although you are more beautiful than any,
I almost long that it were possible;
But if I were to put you on that ship,
With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge,
It had washed among the stars and put them out,
And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
Until you stood before me on the deck—
As now.
Dectora. Does wandering in these desolate seas
And listening to the cry of wind and wave
Bring madness?
Forgael.Queen, I am not mad.
Dectora. And yet you say the water and the wind
Would rise against me.
Forgael.No, I am not mad—
If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers that outlive the moon
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.
Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me captive?
Forgael. Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouths have promised
I shall have love in their immortal fashion.
They gave me that old harp of the nine spells
That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
That none might take you from me.
Dectora [first trembling back from the mast where the harp is, and then laughing]. For a moment
Your raving of a message and a harp
More mighty than the stars half troubled me.
But
