Complete Poems and Plays (29 page)

But time past is time forgotten.

We expect the rise of a new constellation.

T
HOMAS
.
And if the Archbishop cannot trust the King,

How can he trust those who work for King’s undoing?

T
EMPTER.
Kings will allow no power but their own;

Church and people have good cause against the throne.

T
HOMAS
.
If the Archbishop cannot trust the Throne,

He has good cause to trust none but God alone.

I ruled once as Chancellor

And men like you were glad to wait at my door.

Not only in the court, but in the field

And in the tilt-yard I made many yield.

Shall I who ruled like an eagle over doves

Now take the shape of a wolf among wolves?

Pursue your treacheries as you have done before:

No one shall say that I betrayed a king.

T
EMPTER
.
Then, my Lord, I shall not wait at your door.

And I well hope, before another spring

The King will show his regard for your loyalty.

T
HOMAS
.
To make, then break, this thought has come before,

The desperate exercise of failing power.

Samson in Gaza did no more.

But if I break, I must break myself alone.

[
Enter
F
OURTH
T
EMPTER
]

F
OURTH
T
EMPTER
.
Well done, Thomas, your will is hard to bend.

And with me beside you, you shall not lack a friend.

T
HOMAS
.
Who are you? I expected

Three visitors, not four.

T
EMPTER
.
Do not be surprised to receive one more.

Had I been expected, I had been here before.

I always precede expectation.

T
HOMAS
.
                                     Who are you?

T
EMPTER
.
As you do not know me, I do not need a name.

And, as you know me, that is why I come.

You know me, but have never seen my face.

To meet before was never time or place.

T
HOMAS
.
Say what you come to say.

T
EMPTER
.
                                             It shall be said at last.

Hooks have been baited with morsels of the past.

Wantonness is weakness. As for the King,

His hardened hatred shall have no end.

You know truly, the King will never trust

Twice, the man who has been his friend.

Borrow use cautiously, employ

Your services as long as you have to lend.

You would wait for trap to snap

Having served your turn, broken and crushed.

As for barons, envy of lesser men

Is still more stubborn than king’s anger.

Kings have public policy, barons private profit,

Jealousy raging possession of the fiend.

Barons are employable against each other;

Greater enemies must kings destroy.

T
HOMAS
.
What is your counsel?

T
EMPTER
.
                                     Fare forward to the end.

All other ways are closed to you

Except the way already chosen.

But what is pleasure, kingly rule.

Or rule of men beneath a king,

With craft in corners, stealthy stratagem,

To general grasp of spiritual power?

Man oppressed by sin, since Adam fell —

You hold the keys of heaven and hell.

Power to bind and loose: bind, Thomas, bind,

King and bishop under your heel.

King, emperor, bishop, baron, king:

Uncertain mastery of melting armies,

War, plague, and revolution,

New conspiracies, broken pacts;

To be master or servant within an hour,

This is the course of temporal power.

The Old King shall know it, when at last breath,

No sons, no empire, he bites broken teeth.

You hold the skein: wind, Thomas, wind

The thread of eternal life and death.

You hold this power, hold it.

T
HOMAS
.
                                     Supreme, in this land?

T
EMPTER
.
Supreme, but for one.

T
HOMAS
.
                                       That I do not understand.

T
EMPTER
.
It is not for me to tell you how this may be so;

I am only here, Thomas, to tell you what you know.

T
HOMAS
.
How long shall this be?

T
EMPTER
.
Save what you know already, ask nothing of me.

But think, Thomas, think of glory after death.

When king is dead, there’s another king,

And one more king is another reign.

King is forgotten, when another shall come:

Saint and Martyr rule from the tomb.

Think, Thomas, think of enemies dismayed,

Creeping in penance, frightened of a shade;

Think of pilgrims, standing in line

Before the glittering jewelled shrine,

From generation to generation

Bending the knee in supplication,

Think of the miracles, by God’s grace,

And think of your enemies, in another place.

T
HOMAS
.
I have thought of these things.

T
EMPTER
.
                                                  That is why I tell you.

Your thoughts have more power than kings to compel you.

You have also thought, sometimes at your prayers,

Sometimes hesitating at the angles of stairs,

And between sleep and waking, early in the morning,

When the bird cries, have thought of further scorning.

That nothing lasts, but the wheel turns,

The nest is rifled, and the bird mourns;

That the shrine shall be pillaged, and the gold spent,

The jewels gone for light ladies’ ornament,

The sanctuary broken, and its stores

Swept into the laps of parasites and whores.

When miracles cease, and the faithful desert you.

And men shall only do their best to forget you.

And later is worse, when men will not hate you

Enough to defame or to execrate you,

But pondering the qualities that you lacked

Will only try to find the historical fact.

When men shall declare that there was no mystery

About this man who played a certain part in history.

T
HOMAS
.
But what is there to do? what is left to be done?

Is there no enduring crown to be won?

T
EMPTER
.
Yes, Thomas, yes; you have thought of that too.

What can compare with glory of Saints

Dwelling forever in presence of God?

What earthly glory, of king or emperor,

What earthly pride, that is not poverty

Compared with richness of heavenly grandeur?

Seek the way of martyrdom, make yourself the lowest

On earth, to be high in heaven.

And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed,

Your persecutors, in timeless torment,

Parched passion, beyond expiation.

T
HOMAS
.
                                              No!

Who are you, tempting with my own desires?

Others have come, temporal tempters,

With pleasure and power at palpable price.

What do you offer? what do you ask?

T
EMPTER
.
I offer what you desire. I ask

What you have to give. Is it too much

For such a vision of eternal grandeur?

T
HOMAS
.
Others offered real goods, worthless

But real. You only offer

Dreams to damnation.

T
EMPTER
.
                         You have often dreamt them.

T
HOMAS
.
Is there no way, in my soul’s sickness,

Does not lead to damnation in pride?

I well know that these temptations

Mean present vanity and future torment.

Can sinful pride be driven out

Only by more sinful? Can I neither act nor suffer

Without perdition?

T
EMPTER
.
You know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.

You know and do not know, that action is suffering,

And suffering action. Neither does the agent suffer

Nor the patient act. But both are fixed

In an eternal action, an eternal patience

To which all must consent that it may be willed

And which all must suffer that they may will it,

That the pattern may subsist, that the wheel may turn and still

Be forever still.

C
HORUS
.
There is no rest in the house. There is no rest in the street.

I hear restless movement of feet. And the air is heavy and thick.

Thick and heavy the sky. And the earth presses up against our feet.

What is the sickly smell, the vapour? the dark green light from a

cloud on a withered tree? The earth is heaving to parturition

of issue of hell. What is the sticky dew that forms on the back

of my hand?

T
HE
F
OUR
T
EMPTERS
.
Man’s life is a cheat and a disappointment;

All things are unreal,

Unreal or disappointing:

The Catherine wheel, the pantomime cat,

The prizes given at the children’s party,