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Read Ebook: The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon by Hardy Thomas
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Ebook has 5784 lines and 157440 words, and 116 pages
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS. THE ARCHDUKE FERDINAND. Prince John of Lichtenstien. PRINCE SCHWARZENBERG. MACK, AUSTRIAN GENERAL. JELLACHICH. RIESC. WEIROTHER. ANOTHER AUSTRIAN GENERAL. TWO AUSTRIAN OFFICERS.
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The Emperor Alexander. PRINCE KUTUZOF, RUSSIAN FIELD-MARSHAL. COUNT LANGERON. COUNT BUXHOVDEN. COUNT MILORADOVICH. DOKHTOROF.
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Giulay, Gottesheim, Klenau, and Prschebiszewsky. Regiments of the Austrian Army. Regiments of the Russian Army.
WOMEN
Queen Charlotte. English Princesses. Ladies of the English Court. LADY HESTER STANHOPE. A LADY. Lady Caroline Lamb, Mrs. Damer, and other English Ladies.
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THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. Princesses and Ladies of Josephine's Court. Seven Milanese Young Ladies.
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City- and Towns-women. Country-women. A MILITIAMAN'S WIFE. A STREET-WOMAN. Ship-women. Servants.
FORE SCENE
THE OVERWORLD
SHADE OF THE EARTH
What of the Immanent Will and Its designs?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
It works unconsciously, as heretofore, Eternal artistries in Circumstance, Whose patterns, wrought by rapt aesthetic rote, Seem in themselves Its single listless aim, And not their consequence.
CHORUS OF THE PITIES
Still thus? Still thus? Ever unconscious! An automatic sense Unweeting why or whence? Be, then, the inevitable, as of old, Although that SO it be we dare not hold!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Hold what ye list, fond believing Sprites, You cannot swerve the pulsion of the Byss, Which thinking on, yet weighing not Its thought, Unchecks Its clock-like laws.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Good, as before. My little engines, then, will still have play.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Why doth It so and so, and ever so, This viewless, voiceless Turner of the Wheel?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Meet is it, none the less, To bear in thought that though Its consciousness May be estranged, engrossed afar, or sealed, Sublunar shocks may wake Its watch anon?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay. In the Foretime, even to the germ of Being, Nothing appears of shape to indicate That cognizance has marshalled things terrene, Or will in my span. Rather they show that, like a knitter drowsed, Whose fingers play in skilled unmindfulness, The Will has woven with an absent heed Since life first was; and ever will so weave.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Hence we've rare dramas going--more so since It wove Its web in the Ajaccian womb!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
On things terrene, then, I would say that though The human news wherewith the Rumours stirred us May please thy temper, Years, 'twere better far Such deeds were nulled, and this strange man's career Wound up, as making inharmonious jars In her creation whose meek wraith we know. The more that he, turned man of mere traditions, Now profits naught. For the large potencies Instilled into his idiosyncrasy-- To throne fair Liberty in Privilege' room-- Are taking taint, and sink to common plots For his own gain.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
And who, then, Cordial One, Wouldst substitute for this Intractable?
CHORUS OF THE EARTH
We would establish those of kindlier build, In fair Compassions skilled, Men of deep art in life-development; Watchers and warders of thy varied lands, Men surfeited of laying heavy hands, Upon the innocent, The mild, the fragile, the obscure content Among the myriads of thy family. Those, too, who love the true, the excellent, And make their daily moves a melody.
SHADE OF THE EARTH
They may come, will they. I am not averse. Yet know I am but the ineffectual Shade Of her the Travailler, herself a thrall To It; in all her labourings curbed and kinged!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Shall such be mooted now? Already change Hath played strange pranks since first I brooded here. But old Laws operate yet; and phase and phase Of men's dynastic and imperial moils Shape on accustomed lines. Though, as for me, I care not thy shape, or what they be.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
You seem to have small sense of mercy, Sire?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Mercy I view, not urge;--nor more than mark What designate your titles Good and Ill. 'Tis not in me to feel with, or against, These flesh-hinged mannikins Its hand upwinds To click-clack off Its preadjusted laws; But only through my centuries to behold Their aspects, and their movements, and their mould.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
They are shapes that bleed, mere mannikins or no, And each has parcel in the total Will.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Which overrides them as a whole its parts In other entities.
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