Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1017 page)

We shall have marched for nothing, O!

         Right fol-lol!

[The soldiers draw aside, and the coach passes on.]

SECOND PASSENGER

Is there truth in it that Bonaparte wrote a letter to the King last

month?

FIRST PASSENGER

Yes, sir.  A letter in his own hand, in which he expected the King

to reply to him in the same manner.

SOLDIERS
[continuing, as they are left behind]

We be the King's men, hale and hearty,

Marching to meet one Buonaparty;

Never mind, mates; we'll be merry, though

We may have marched for nothing, O!

       Right fol-lol!

THIRD PASSENGER

And was Boney's letter friendly?

FIRST PASSENGER

Certainly, sir.  He requested peace with the King.

THIRD PASSENGER

And why shouldn't the King reply in the same manner?

FIRST PASSENGER

What!  Encourage this man in an act of shameless presumption, and

give him the pleasure of considering himself the equal of the King

of England—whom he actually calls his brother!

THIRD PASSENGER

He must be taken for what he is, not for what he was; and if he calls

King George his brother it doesn't speak badly for his friendliness.

FIRST PASSENGER

Whether or no, the King, rightly enough, did not reply in person,

but through Lord Mulgrave our Foreign Minister, to the effect that

his Britannic Majesty cannot give a specific answer till he has

communicated with the Continental powers.

THIRD PASSENGER

Both the manner and the matter of the reply are British; but a huge

mistake.

FIRST PASSENGER

Sir, am I to deem you a friend of Bonaparte, a traitor to your

country—-

THIRD PASSENGER

Damn my wig, sir, if I'll be called a traitor by you or any Court

sycophant at all at all!

[He unpacks a case of pistols.]

SECOND PASSENGER

Gentlemen forbear, forbear!  Should such differences be suffered to

arise on a spot where we may, in less than three months, be fighting

for our very existence?  This is foolish, I say.  Heaven alone, who

reads the secrets of this man's heart, can tell what his meaning and

intent may be, and if his letter has been answered wisely or no.

[The coach is stopped to skid the wheel for the descent of the

hill, and before it starts again a dusty horseman overtakes it.]

SEVERAL PASSENGERS

A London messenger! 
[To horseman]
Any news, sir?  We are from

Bristol only.

HORSEMAN

Yes; much.  We have declared war against Spain, an error giving

vast delight to France.  Bonaparte says he will date his next

dispatches from London, and the landing of his army may be daily

expected.

[Exit horseman.]

THIRD PASSENGER

Sir, I apologize.  He's not to be trusted!  War is his name, and

aggression is with him!

[He repacks the pistols.  A silence follows.  The coach and

passengers move downwards and disappear towards the coast.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Ill chanced it that the English monarch George

Did not respond to the said Emperor!

SPIRIT SINISTER

I saw good sport therein, and paean'd the Will

To unimpel so stultifying a move!

Which would have marred the European broil,

And sheathed all swords, and silenced every gun

That riddles human flesh.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

          O say no more;

If aught could gratify the Absolute

'Twould verily be thy censure, not thy praise!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

The ruling was that we should witness things

And not dispute them.  To the drama, then.

Emprizes over-Channel are the key

To this land's stir and ferment.—Thither we.

[Clouds gather over the scene, and slowly open elsewhere.]

SCENE II

PARIS.  OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF MARINE

[ADMIRAL DECRES seated at a table.  A knock without.]

DECRES

Come in!  Good news, I hope!

[An attendant enters.]

ATTENDANT

A courier, sir.

DECRES

Show him in straightway.

[The attendant goes out.]

From the Emperor

As I expected!

COURIER

Sir, for your own hand

And yours alone.

DECRES

Thanks.  Be in waiting near.

[The courier withdraws.]

DECRES reads:

"I am resolved that no wild dream of Ind,

And what we there might win; or of the West,

And bold re-conquest there of Surinam

And other Dutch retreats along those coasts,

Or British islands nigh, shall draw me now

From piercing into England through Boulogne

As lined in my first plan.  If I do strike,

I strike effectively; to forge which feat

There's but one way—planting a mortal wound

In England's heart—the very English land—

Whose insolent and cynical reply

To my well-based complaint on breach of faith

Concerning Malta, as at Amiens pledged,

Has lighted up anew such flames of ire

As may involve the world.—Now to the case:

Our naval forces can be all assembled

Without the foe's foreknowledge or surmise,

By these rules following; to whose text I ask

Your gravest application; and, when conned,

That steadfastly you stand by word and word,

Making no question of one jot therein.

"First, then, let Villeneuve wait a favouring wind

For process westward swift to Martinique,

Coaxing the English after.  Join him there

Gravina, Missiessy, and Ganteaume;

Which junction once effected all our keels—

While the pursuers linger in the West

At hopeless fault.—Having hoodwinked them thus,

Our boats skim over, disembark the army,

And in the twinkling of a patriot's eye

All London will be ours.

"In strictest secrecy carve this to shape—

Let never an admiral or captain scent

Save Villeneuve and Ganteaume; and pen each charge

With your own quill.  The surelier to outwit them

I start for Italy; and there, as 'twere

Engrossed in fetes and Coronation rites,

Abide till, at the need, I reach Boulogne,

And head the enterprize.—NAPOLEON."

[DECRES reflects, and turns to write.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

He buckles to the work.  First to Villeneuve,

His onetime companion and his boyhood's friend,

Now lingering at Toulon, he jots swift lines,

The duly to Ganteaume.—They are sealed forthwith,

And superscribed: "Break not till on the main."

[Boisterous singing is heard in the street.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I hear confused and simmering sounds without,

Like those which thrill the hives at evenfall

When swarming pends.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          They but proclaim the crowd,

Which sings and shouts its hot enthusiasms

For this dead-ripe design on England's shore,

Till the persuasion of its own plump words,

Acting upon mercurial temperaments,

Makes hope as prophecy.  "Our Emperor

Will show himself
[say they]
in this exploit

Unwavering, keen, and irresistible

As is the lightning prong.  Our vast flotillas

Have been embodied as by sorcery;

Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformed

To rocking cities casemented with guns.

Against these valiants balance England's means:

Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house,

Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for arms

Clumsy untempered pikes forged hurriedly,

And cry them full-equipt.  Their batteries,

Their flying carriages, their catamarans,

Shall profit not, and in one summer night

We'll find us there!"

RECORDING ANGEL

      And is this prophecy true?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Occasion will reveal.

SHADE OF EARTH

          What boots it, Sire,

To down this dynasty, set that one up,

Goad panting peoples to the throes thereof,

Make wither here my fruit, maintain it there,

And hold me travailling through fineless years

In vain and objectless monotony,

When all such tedious conjuring could be shunned

By uncreation?  Howsoever wise

The governance of these massed mortalities,

A juster wisdom his who should have ruled

They had not been.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Nay, something hidden urged

The giving matter motion; and these coils

Are, maybe, good as any.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

But why any?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Sprite of Compassions, ask the Immanent!

I am but an accessory of Its works,

Whom the Ages render conscious; and at most

Figure as bounden witness of Its laws.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

How ask the aim of unrelaxing Will?

Tranced in Its purpose to unknowingness?

[If thy words, Ancient Phantom, token true.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thou answerest well.  But cease to ask of me.

Meanwhile the mime proceeds.—We turn herefrom,

Change our homuncules, and observe forthwith

How the High Influence sways the English realm,

And how the jacks lip out their reasonings there.

[The Cloud-curtain draws.]

SCENE III

LONDON.  THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS

[A long chamber with a gallery on each side supported by thin

columns having gilt Ionic capitals.  Three round-headed windows

are at the further end, above the Speaker's chair, which is backed

by a huge pedimented structure in white and gilt, surmounted by the

lion and the unicorn.  The windows are uncurtained, one being open,

through which some boughs are seen waving in the midnight gloom

without.  Wax candles, burnt low, wave and gutter in a brass

chandelier which hangs from the middle of the ceiling, and in

branches projecting from the galleries.

The House is sitting, the benches, which extend round to the

Speaker's elbows, being closely packed, and the galleries

likewise full.  Among the members present on the Government

side are PITT and other ministers with their supporters,

including CANNING, CASTLEREAGH, LORD C. SOMERSET, ERSKINE,

W. DUNDAS, HUSKISSON, ROSE, BEST, ELLIOT, DALLAS, and the

general body of the party.  On the opposite side are noticeable

FOX, SHERIDAN, WINDHAM, WHITBREAD, GREY, T. GRENVILLE, TIERNEY,

EARL TEMPLE, PONSONBY, G. AND H. WALPOLE, DUDLEY NORTH, and

TIMOTHY SHELLEY.  Speaker ABBOT occupies the Chair.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

As prelude to the scene, as means to aid

Our younger comrades in its construing,

Pray spread your scripture, and rehearse in brief

The reasonings here of late—to whose effects

Words of to-night form sequence.

[The Recording Angels chant from their books, antiphonally, in a

minor recitative.]

ANGEL I
[aerial music]

Feeble-framed dull unresolve, unresourcefulness,

Sat in the halls of the Kingdom's high Councillors,

Whence the grey glooms of a ghost-eyed despondency

Wanned as with winter the national mind.

ANGEL II

England stands forth to the sword of Napoleon

Nakedly—not an ally in support of her;

Men and munitions dispersed inexpediently;

Projects of range and scope poorly defined.

ANGEL I

Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him.—

Frail though and spent, and an-hungered for restfulness

Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize,

Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind.

ANGEL II

Ere the first fruit thereof grow audible,

Holding as hapless his dream of good guardianship,

Jestingly, earnestly, shouting it serviceless,

Tardy, inept, and uncouthly designed.

ANGELS I AND II

So now, to-night, in slashing old sentences,

Hear them speak,—gravely these, those with gay-heartedness,—

Midst their admonishments little conceiving how

Scarlet the scroll that the years will unwind!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
[to the Spirit of the Years]

Let us put on and suffer for the nonce

The feverish fleshings of Humanity,

And join the pale debaters here convened.

So may thy soul be won to sympathy

By donning their poor mould.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          I'll humour thee,

Though my unpassioned essence could not change

Did I incarn in moulds of all mankind!

SPIRIT IRONIC

'Tis enough to make every little dog in England run to mixen to

hear this Pitt sung so strenuously!  I'll be the third of the

incarnate, on the chance of hearing the tune played the other way.

SPIRIT SINISTER