FullReads

LORD ORM [picks up the flagon].

Empty, I see.

REDFEATHER.

Oh sir, you never drink.
You dread to lose yourself before the stars–
Do you not dread to sleep?

LORD ORM [violently].

What would you here?

REDFEATHER.

Receive from you the title-deeds you hold.

LORD ORM.

You entertain me.

REDFEATHER.

With a bout at foils?

LORD ORM.

I will not fight.

REDFEATHER.

I know you better, then.
I have seen men grow mangier than the beasts,
Eat bread with blood upon their fingers, grin
While women burned: but one last law they served.
When I say ‘Coward,’ is the law awake?

LORD ORM.

Hear me, then, too: I have seen robbers rule,
And thieves go clad in gold–age after age–
Because, though sordid, ragged, rude, and mean,
They saw, like gods, no law above their heads.
But when they fell–then for this cause they fell,
This last mean cobweb of the fairy tales
Of good and ill: that they must stand and fight
When a man bade, though they had chose to stand
And fight not. I am stronger than the world.

[Folds his arms.]

REDFEATHER [lifts his hand].

If in your body be the blood of man,

[Strikes him.]

Now let it rush to the face–
God! Have you sunk
Lower than anger?

LORD ORM.

How I triumph now.

REDFEATHER [stamps wildly].

Damned, whimpering dog! vile, snivelling, sick poltroon!
Are you alive?

LORD ORM.

Evil, be thou my good;
Let the sun blacken and the moon be blood:
I have said the words.

REDFEATHER [studying him].

And if I struck you dead,
You would turn to daisies!

LORD ORM.

And you do not strike.

REDFEATHER [dreamily].

Indeed, poor soul, such magic would be kind
And full of pity as a fairy-tale:
One touch of this bright wand [Lifts his sword]
and down would drop
The dark abortive blunder that is you.
And you would change, forgiven, into flowers.

LORD ORM.

And yet–and yet you do not strike me dead.
I do not draw: the sword is in your hand–
Drive the blade through me where I stand.

REDFEATHER.

Lord Orm,
You asked the Lady Olive (I can speak
As to a toad to you, my lord)–you asked
Olive to be your paramour: and she–

LORD ORM.

Refused.

REDFEATHER.

And yet her father was at stake,
And she is soft and kind. Now look at me,
Ragged and ruined, soaked in bestial sins:
My lord, I too have my virginity–
Turn the thing round, my lord, and topside down,
You cannot spell it. Be the fact enough,
I use no sword upon a swordless man.

LORD ORM.

For her?

REDFEATHER.

I too have my virginity.

LORD ORM.

Now look on me: I am the lord of earth,
For I have broken the last bond of man.
I stand erect, crowned with the stars–and why?
Because I stand a coward–because you
Have mercy–on a coward. Do I win?

REDFEATHER.

Though there you stand with moving mouth and eyes,
I think, my lord, you are not possible–
God keep you from my dreams.

[Goes out.]

LORD ORM.

Alone and free.
Since first in flowery meads a child I ran,
My one long thirst–to be alone and free.
Free of all laws, creeds, codes, and common tests,
Shameless, anarchic, infinite.
Why, then,
I might have done in that dark liberty–
If I should say ‘a good deed,’ men would laugh,
But here are none to laugh.
The godless world
Be thanked there is no God to spy on me,
Catch me and crown me with a vulgar crown
For what I do: if I should once believe
The horror of that ancient Eavesdropper
Behind the starry arras of the skies,
I should–well, well, enough of menaces–
should not do the thing I come to do.
What do I come to do? Let me but try
To spell it to my soul.
Suppose a man
Perfectly free and utterly alone,
Free of all love of law, equally free
Of all the love of mutiny it breeds,
Free of the love of heaven, and also free
Of all the love of hell it drives us to;
Not merely void of rules, unconscious of them;
So strong that naught alive could do him hurt,
So wise that he knew all things, and so great
That none knew what he was or what he did–
A lawless giant.