Читать книгу The Saxons - Edwin Davies Schoonmaker - Страница 7

(He looks about upon the trees.)

You, Hartzel, have lived longer than we have

And you have seen more seasons, and you know

In father Woden's forests how the trees

Grow as they will, acknowledging no lord

But him who made them to be lordless, and

Obeying no law save that law that bids

Each be itself and bring forth its own fruit.

In all the populous forests of this world

There is no tyrant tree that lifts its head

Above the rest and says, "Obey my law."

For each tree hath its own law in itself,

And no tree hears another, but each hears

The voice of father Woden in the loam

Laying the law of selfhood on each seed.

The seed bursts and the law starts toward the sky.

The acorn lays it softly on the oak,

The chestnut on the chestnut, and the pine

Upon the loftiest mountain hears its cone

Whispering with father Woden in the air,

Learning the law it taketh to the ground.

Thus by that law that each tree be itself,

This forest hath become a stalwart state,

A nation governed by one law, a vast

Green kingdom of ten thousand happy trees

With father Woden monarch in the boughs.

The law of selfhood is the law of trees;

Who says the law of sameness governs man?

Because the South has not the girth of trunk

To bear Val-father's weight upon its boughs,

Must he climb down from ours and let the South

Climb up and with its law bind leaf and limb?

Did he, who made these oaks to grow and spread

Their branches, make our branching minds to be

Pinched to a point and put inside a ring?

Hartzel—But they say that they got that ring from some

God that once came down—

Canzler— From their southern skies?

Who gave the southern cypress mouth to speak

Val-father's law unto the northern pine?

God, do you say, come down to bind men? God? A God that binds? (Looking up at the trees.) I see no ring on these.

Fritz—Loki is a smith. He made their ring.

Canzler—Where in our northern sagas will you find

A track of any shackle-bearing god?

In all the past has any such a god

Come down the northern sky? All round the walls

Of Midgard stand the Asas guarding man

Against whatever brings bonds.

(Selma comes from the cottage with a bucket.)

Fritz— Sons of Lok.

Canzler—The southern gods may bring down shackles, but

The northern hammer breaks the shackles off.

Selma— (From back among the trees.) I'm going after water, Father.

Canzler—And one shall come to take that hammer up.

Max—The Asas walk the walls of Midgard still.

(Selma goes out left.)

Rudolph —Val-father made the mountain rocks to be

The bastions of the oppressed.

Fritz— He made the grave.

(He sits down on the log and takes his head between his hands.)

Canzler—"In him shall be the strength of all your dead."

No, Hartzel; as Fritz says, their ring was wrought

Far in the south at that old fire that burns

Eternal mid the hills. Of old they forged

Law for our fathers, and, with iron hands,

Welded it on them. For five hundred years

The noise of that old furnace filled the world,

And from her red mouth link on link her hands

Drew one continuous shackle, and the North

Walked heavily, until Val-father's spear

Flashed southward. Then the noise stopped. The great beast,

That wore for head and neck those seven hills,

Roused her and saw her whelps come bleeding back

And heard wild Tyr holloing the tribes for dogs

Round her on every side, and rose at bay

And clawed through bloody foam and ceased and saw

Her hills go round and round and with a crash

Stretched her vast skeleton over all the south.

Hartzel—Then she is dead.

Canzler— Rome dead?

Hartzel— If she is bones.

Canzler—-Bones, Hartzel, are not dead. The life returns.

The ghastly thing moves in the silent night

When swords are sleeping and the ear hears not.

Old hands scratch round old battle-fields and there

The skulls that wore the helmet don the hood,

And when the morning breaks no man will say.

"The thing that stands there is the thing that fell."

Our father found it so. For after that

Great hunt down in the south, the tribes lay down

And slept and woke and saw—they knew not what.

It wore a sword, but had no hauberk on.

'Twas robed in black and on each shoulder sat

What seemed an eagle in a vulture's plumes.

They, too, thought bones were dead, and seeing no

Mark of their swords upon it nor anywhere

The indenture of those old hills in the south,

They showed it all the paths among the tribes.

Fritz—Welcomed it to their homes.

Max— And took its ring.

Rudolph—And then lay down and slept and never woke.

Canzler—If Rome is dead, whence all these harried lands,

Wigmodia and the Phalias, East and West?

Rudolph—There, even to this day, the clay is red.

Canzler—If Rome is dead, what is this thing that now

On hands and knees creeps on us toward the north

Gathering flesh for its bones as it comes?

Hartzel—Most of them have gone over to their Faith.

Canzler—Most of them? Most of them lie, as Wiglaf says,

Piled on the dark shore where the ships come not.

Fritz—Between the ring and sword they chose the sword.

Canzler—What is this thing that says, "Accept this Faith,"

But the same thing that to our fathers said,

"Accept this Law"? It is the same old Rome.

The snake hath cast her skin but not her fangs.

Witness the rivers red. Witness the charred

Track of the dragon and these silent lands.

Has she not gathered flesh? Has she not clothed

Her limbs and filled her bowels with the North?

Climb to the clouds and call the Saxon race

And who will answer? Silence.

Rudolph— And the streams

Moaning and hurrying red waves to the sea.

Canzler—There is a day that would but cannot die.

That day—

Max and Rudolph—At Verden.

Canzler— When our fathers died

Unarmed, defenceless, butchered, Hartzel.

Ah, that day hides her face among the years

But cannot hide her hand. Val-father has— (Closing his fingers.) Her wrist in his grasp and holds that hand aloft To drip and rouse the North, and it shall drip Till Ragnarok shall swallow it up at last And vomit it out to bleed forevermore. Four thousand and five hundred in one day! Till set of sun, all day the axes swang, And when night fell the Aller's waters slipped Thick through the headless bodies in her bed. Oh, for once more a day like Dachtelfeld! (He turns away.)

Rudolph—Val-father's spear shall flash again, Canzler.

There shall a horn wind that shall rouse the tribes

And strew those bones again.

Fritz— Let's wind it now.

Hartzel (To Canzler.)—Do you think we should leave here?

Rudolph— Yes.

Fritz— No.

Max— No.

Our Wittikind shall come and—

Canzler— They shall hear

The North's great hammer ringing round the world.

Max, you tell Conrad that we meet to-night.

Have Herman come. (Max goes out left.) And, Rudolph, you go down—

Hartzel— (Touching, him with his staff.) Canzler, you said just now the point was not What they have done.

Canzler— Nor is it.

Hartzel— Then why this

Summoning of the men? Are we to have war?

(Fritz and Rudolph, talking together, walk back among the trees.)

Canzler—Hartzel, the past and present are two limbs

On one tree. Though the one bears withered leaves

And these on this around us here are green,

The trunk is the same; the sap is the same;

The new fruit is the old fruit. What to-day

Is Wiglaf fleeing to the ocean isles

But the whole Saxon race? What is his harp

In ashes but our homes and all this land?

Are those graves yonder old? Were these, our scars, (Opening his bosom.) Handed down from our fathers? When we start Alarmed in the night, is it the past we fear? There is no past to things that have been dead. It is a scabbard empty of its sword. What shall we do? Accept their Faith?

Hartzel— No, no.

Canzler—Without it, we must steal the air we breath

And thank Val-father if we get it then.

Their blades are out; shall we not lift our shields?

Wolves are we? Wolves are not hunted so.

Bears have the caves; must our cave be the grave?

There is no room there. How then can we die?

After his great meal, Death hath lain him down.

Famine, the gleaner, has the field. There is

No plot unreaped, no sheaf unflailed. The barns

Are stuffed to breaking with the dead. And we,

In this great carnage, in this harvest-home,

The last few straws whisked from the threshing-floor,

Hunted by that old Hunger of the south

From field to wood, from wood to darker wood,

Far up strange rivers and—down under them—

Hartzel, remember; when we fall, there goes

Down the whole North. We alone stand. Of all

Val-father's oaks, there's but one acorn left

That can re-forest and make green the North.

Rudolph and you and I and the rest, save one,

Are, as it were, its protecting shell. Off there,

A sword is coming toward us, and shall we

With hands down take the point and hear the unborn

Wail of that child that should have filled the north

With shouts and wound his horn upon its hills?

Behind him, in array, the dead tribes come

On fire for the south; their umbered shields

Upon the gunwales lour; and shall the snake

Swallow the haven where that host must land?

See the North die? Never. (He turns as if to call Rudolph.)

Hartzel—Accept their Faith,

We need not.

Canzler—Die?

Hartzel—We need not. (A pause.) We might flee.

Canzler— (Emphatically.) Canzler will never vote to flee.

Fritz— Hear that?

Canzler will never vote to flee. (Coming forward.) Nor Fritz, chief.

Canzler—Where could we flee?

Fritz— We have already fled.

Canzler—No.

(Hartzel turns and, with his face to the ground, walks slowly left.)

Rudolph—Canzler, listen to me.

(Unnoticed, Conrad appears coming through the trees on the right. Several young squirrels hang from the belt about his waist and in his right hand is a cross-bow. Upon his left shoulder he carries the crucifix which he has pulled up, post and all.)

Canzler— The red ax

They swung at Verden swings clear round the North

And her great head falls.

(With a jolt Conrad sets the crucifix down and leans it against one of the large trees.)

Where did that come from?

Conrad—Over on the road; by the bridge.

(Canzler goes toward it. Fritz quickly says something to Rudolph. The latter walks lack in the rear.)

Rudolph— (As if to draw him away.) Canzler, here.

Conrad—There was a sheep's pelt lying in the bank—

(With a motion.)

Down here where we could kneel to it.

Hartzel— (Coming back.) What is it?

Conrad—It is the Christians' Irminsul. They chop

Ours down to put theirs up.

Rudolph— Canzler.

Fritz— The men

That followed Wiglaf must have put it up.

Conrad—They're closing round us, Canzler, every day.

If you say stay and fight through, for my part—

(Suddenly Canzler turns and looks Conrad full in the face.)

I know I did, but if the rest say stay—

(After looking tip at the crucifix again, Canzler turns slowly and walks away left.)

What is the matter?

(When near the stump, Canzler again glances back; then drops his head and walks on among the trees. Conrad turns to Fritz.)

What is the matter?

Hartzel— (Apologetically, following him.) Canzler, I hope I have said nothing. I— I did not mean flee—in that sense. (Canzler goes out.) I meant Leave.

(He goes out. The men stand looking after them. Rudolph comes forward.)

Fritz—This will break Canzler's heart.

Conrad— What?

Rudolph— (Pointing to the crucifix.) Oswald.

Fritz—We tried to keep it from him.

Rudolph— Selma, too.

Fritz—Canzler must never tell her.

Conrad— Where is he?

Rudolph—No one has seen him since last night when Fritz—

Fritz—I saw him with the pelt—

Rudolph— (Quickly.) Here comes Canzler.

(The men assume an expression of unconcern.)

Conrad— (Aloud.) Whatever Canzler says. If he says stay—

(Canzler appears among the trees. He stops and looks off through the forest to the right, and his brow darkens.)

Fritz—And brought it out from town and put it up.

(Rudolph lifts up the squirrels at Conrad's belt.)

Conrad—There were not many in the woods to-day.

Canzler— (Coming forward and giving his orders hastily.) Rudolph, you and Fritz go summon the men. Go with them, Conrad.

(Fritz glances off through the forest, right.)

Rudolph— That we meet to-night?

Canzler—This afternoon. Be quick. (The men start back left.)

Fritz—(Huskily.) Oswald. (Conrad glances right.) Oswald.

(Rudolph glances right, and the three go out in silence. Canzler, who has stepped left, stands in the shadow of one of the trees. A little later Oswald appears coming through the trees to the right. He is looking about as if in search of something.)

Canzler— (Firmly, but without passion.) There, there it is. Take it, take it and go.

Oswald—(Downcast, stammering.) I—

Canzler—(Lifting his hand.) No word.

(Oswald moves slowly to the tree, takes the crucifix upon his shoulder, and, with bowed head, goes off right.)

Selma—(Calling from the left.) Oswald!

(The girl enters with her water. She stops, looks after Oswald until he has disappeared, then turns with a questioning look to her father.) O father!

Canzler— As for me,

Let a man be a man. Outside of that,

There is no power on earth that dares ask more;

No power in heaven that will.

(He turns and goes back toward the cottage.)

Selma—(With a sigh, looking right.) Oswald, Oswald.