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Dymer · Dymer

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  Dimer by C. S. Lewis, nine Knights. I hung upon the
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  tree, wounded with the spear, as an offering to odin myself, sacrificed
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  to myself, haavemal canto one, you stranger, Long before your glance can
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  light upon these words, time will have washed away the moment when I first
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  took penn to write, with all my road before me. Yet to day
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  here, if at all, we meet the unfashioned clay, ready to both
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  our hands, both hushed to see that which is nowhere. Yet, come
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  forth and be this moment. If you join me, we begin a partnership
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  where both must toil to hold the clew that I caught. First, we
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  lose or win together. If you read, you are enrolled. And first
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  a marvel. Who could have foretold that in the city which men called in
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  Scorn the perfect city Dimer could be born There? You'd have thought the gods
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  were smothered down forever, and the keys were turned on fate. No hour
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  was left unchartered in that town, and love was in a schedule, and
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  the state chose, for eugenic reasons who should mate with whom, And when
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  each idle song and dance was fixed by law, and nothing left to chance,
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  For some of the last Platonists had founded that city of old and mastery.
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  They made an island of what ought to be surrounded by this gross world
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  of easier light and shade. All answering to the master's dream. They laid
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  the strong foundations, torturing into stone each bubble that the academy had blown.
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  This people were so pure, so law abiding, so logical, they made
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  the heavens afraid. They sent the very swallows into hiding by their appalling chastity
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  dismayed more soberly, the lambs in springtime played because of them, and ghosts
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  dissolved in shame before their common sense till Dimer came. At Dimer's birth,
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  no comet scared the nation. The public creche engulfed him with the rest,
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  and twenty separate boards of education closed round him. He was passed through every
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  test, was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed, proctored, inspected,
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  whipped, examined weakly, and for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.
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  For nineteen years they worked upon his soul, refining, chipping, molding,
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  and adorning. Then came the moment that undid the whole. The ripple of
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  rude life. Without a warning. It came in lecture time one April morning.
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  Alas for laws and locks, reproach and praise who ever learned to censor
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  the spring days. A little breeze came, stirring to his cheek. He
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  looked up to the window. A brown bird perched on the sill, bent
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  down to wet his beak with darting head. Poor Damer watched and stirred uneasily.
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  The lecturer's voice he heard, still droning from the dais. The narrow
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  room was drowsy, over solemn, filled with gloom. He yawned, and
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  a voluptuous laziness tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees, slow drawn
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  like an invisible caress, he laughed. The lecturer stopped like one that sees
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  a ghost, then frowned and murmured, silence please. That moment saw the
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  soul of Damer hang in the balance louder than his laughter rang. The whole
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  room watched with unbelieving awe. He rose and staggered. Rising from his lips
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  broke yet again the idiot like guffaw. He felt the spirit in his finger
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  tips, then swinging his right arm a wide ellipse, yet lazily he struck
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  the lecturer's head. The old man tittered, lurched, and dropped down dead,
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  out of the silent room, out of the dark, into the sun
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  stream. Dimer passed, and there the sudden breezes, the high hanging lark,
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  the milk white clouds sailing in polished air, suddenly flashed about him like
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  a blare of trumpets, and no cry was raised. Behind him. His
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  class sat dazed. They dared not go to find him. Yet wonderfully some
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  rumor spread abroad, an inarticulate sense of life renewing in each young heart.
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  He whistled down the road. Men said, there's Dimer. Why what's Dimer
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  doing? I don't know. Look there's Dimer far per suing with troubled eyes.
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  A long, mysterious oh sighed from a hundred throats to see him go
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  down the white street and past the gate, and forth beyond the wall.
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  He came to grassy places. There was a shifting wind to west and north,
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  with clouds and healing squadron running races. The shadows following on the sunlight's
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  traces, crossed the whole field, and each wild flower within it with change
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  of wavering glories every minute. There was a river flushed with rains between the
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  flat fields and a forest's willowy edge, a sauntering pace. He shuffled on
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  the green. He kicked his boots against the cracky sedge, and tore his
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  hands in many a furzy hedge. He saw his feet and ankles gilded round
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  with butter cups that carpeted the ground. He looked back, then the line
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  of a low hill had hid the city's towers and domes from sight. He
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  stopped. He felt a break of sunlight spill around him, sudden waves of
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  searching light. Upon the earth was green and gold and white, smothering his
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  feet. He felt his city dress an insult to that april cheerfulness. He
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  said, I've worn this dust heap long enough. Here goes and forthwith in
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  the open field. He stripped away that prison of sad stuff, socks,
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  jacket, shirt, and breeches off. He peeled and rose up, mother
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  naked with no shield against the sun, then stood awhile to play with bare
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  toes, dabbling in cold river clay, forward again, and sometimes leaping high
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  with arms outspread, as though he would embrace in one act all the circle
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  of the sky. Sometimes he rested in a leafier place and crushed the wet,
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  cool flowers against his face. And once he cried aloud, O world,
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  O day, let let me, and then found no prayer to say.
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  Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop, he marched through woods. He
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  strolled from flower to flower, and over hills, as ointment, drop by
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  drop preciously meted out, so hour by hour the day slipped through his hands,
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  and now the power failed in his feet from walking. He was done,
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  hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun. He lingered. Looking
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  up, he saw a head, the black and bristling frontage of a wood,
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  and over it the large sky, swimming red, freckled with homeward crows.
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  Surprised, he stood to feel that wideness, quenching his hot mood.
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  Then shouted, trembling darkness, trembling green. What do you mean, wild
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  wood? What do you mean? He shouted? But the solimn itude received
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  his noise into her noiselessness, his fire into her calm. Perhaps he half
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  believed some answer yet would come to his desire. The hushed air quivered softly
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  like a wire upon his voice. It echoed. It was gone. The
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  quiet, and the quiet dark went on. He rushed into the wood.
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  He struck and stumbled on hidden roots. He groped and scratched his face.
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  The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled. The stray cat stood paw lifted
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  in mid chase. There is a windless calm in such a place, A
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  sense of being indoors, so crowded stand the living trees watching on every hand,
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  A sense of trespass, such as in the hall of the wrong house
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  one time, to me befell, groping between the hat stand and the wall,
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  A clear voice from above me, like a bell, the sweet voice
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  of a woman, asking, well, no more than this? And as
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  I fled, I wondered into whose aliens story I had blundered. A like
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  thing fell to dimer, bending low, feeling his way, he went.
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  The curtained air sighed into sound above his head, as though stringed instruments and
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  horns were riding there. It passed, and at its passing stirred his hair.
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  He stood, intent to hear. He heard again, and checked his
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  breath, half drawn, as if with pain, that music could have crumbled,
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  proud belief, with doubt or in the bosom of the sage madden the
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  heart that had outmastered grief and fled with tears the eyes of frozen age,
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  and turned the young man's feet to pilgrimage. So sharp it was, so
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  sure a path it found soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sound. It died
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  out on the middle of a note, as though it failed at the urge
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  of it its own meaning. It left him with life quivering at the throat,
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  limbs shaken and wet, cheeks and body, leaning with strain towards the
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  sound and senses, gleaning the last least ebbing ripple of the air, searching
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  the emptied darkness, muttering where then followed such a time as is forgotten with
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  morning light, but in the passing seems unending. Where he grasped the branch
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  was rotten. Where he trod forth in haste, the forest streams laid weight
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  for him, like men in fever dreams. Climbing an endless rope. He
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  labored much and gained no ground. He reached and could not touch, and
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  often out of darkness, like a swell that grows up from no wind upon
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  blue sea, he heard the music unendurable in stealing sweetness wind from tree to
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  tree. Battered and bruised in body and soul was he when first he saw
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  a little lightness growing ahead, and from that light the sound was flowing.
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  The trees were fewer now, and gladly nearing that light he saw the stars,
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  for sky was there, and smoother, grass, white flowered, a
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  forest clearing set in seven miles of forest, secreter than valleys in the tops
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  of clouds, more fair than greenery under snow or desert water, or the
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  white peace descending after slaughter, as some who have been wounded beyond healing wake
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  or half wake once only and so bless far off the lamp light traveling on
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  the ceiling, a disk of pale light, filled with peacefulness, and wonder
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  if this is the c C s or home or heaven or dreams, then
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  sighing when wise ignorant death before the panes begin, So dimer in the wood
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  lawn blessed light, a still light, rosy, clear, and filled with
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  sound. Here was some pile of building, which the night made larger.
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  Spiry shadows rose all round, but through the open door appeared profound recesses of
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  pure light, fire with no flame, and out of that deep light.
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  The music came tiptoes. He slunk towards it, where the grass was twinkling
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  in a lane of light. Before the archway there was neither fence to pass,
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  nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door. But where it's open,
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  open evermore, no knocker and no porter, and no guard. For
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  very strangeness entering in grows hard, breathe not speak, not walk gently.
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  Someone's here? Why have they left their house? With the door so wide?
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  There must be someone? Dimer hung in fear upon the threat, longing
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  and big eyed. At last he squared his shoulders, smote his side,
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  and called, I'm here. Now let the feast begin. I'm coming now,
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  I'm Dimer, and went in end of Canto one, Canto two.
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  More light, another step, and still more light. Opening ahead, it
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  swilled with soft excess, his eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night.
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  And it was nowhere more and nowhere less in it, no shadows were he
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  could not guess its fountain. Wandering round around, he turned still on each
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  side. The level glory burned far in the dome, to where his gaze
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  was lost. The deepening roof shone clear as stones, that lie in shore,
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  beneath pure seas, the aisles that crossed like forests of white stone,
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  their arms on high pasted pillar after pillar dragged his eye in unobscured perspective,
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  till the sight was weary, And there also was the light. Look with
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  my eyes, conceive yourself above and hanging in the dome, and thence through
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  space, looked down, see dimer dwarfed and naked move a white blot on
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  the floor at such a pace as boats that hardly seemed to have changed place
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  once in an hour, when from the cliffs we spy the same ship,
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  always smoking towards the sky. The shouting mood had withered from his heart.
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  The oppression of huge places wrapped him round. A great misgiving sent its fluttering
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  dart deep into him. Some fear of being found, some hope to find,
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  he knew not what. The sound of music, never ceasing, took
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  the roll of silence, and like silence numbed his soul till as he turned
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  a corner his deep awe broke with a sudden start, for straight ahead,
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  far off a wild eyed, naked man he saw that came to meet him,
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  and beyond was spread yet further depth of light. With quickening tread,
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  he leaped towards the shape, then stopped and smiled before a mirror, wondering
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  like a child. Beside the glass, unguarded for the claiming. Like a
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  great patch of flowers upon the wall, hung every kind of clothes, silk
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  feathers, flaming leopard skin, furry mantles, like the fall of deep midwinter
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  snows. Upon them, all hung the faint smell of cedar, and the
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  dyes were bright as blood and clear as morning skies. He turned from the
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  white specter in the glass and looked at these. Remember he had worn through
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  winter slush, through summer flowers and grass, one kind of solemn stuff,
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  since he was born with badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn
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  and cried, here is no law nor I to see, nor leave of
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  entry given. Why should there be have done with that? You threw it
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  all behind. Henceforth I ask no license where I need. It's on on
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  on, though I go mad and blind, though knees ache and lung's labor
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  and feet bleed, or else, it's home again to sleep and feed,
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  and work, and hate them always, and obey and loathe the punctual rise
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  of each new day. He made mad work among them as he dressed,
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  with motley, choice and litter on the floor, and each thing, as
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  he found it seemed the best. He wondered that he had not known before
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  how fare a man he was. I'll creep no more, in secret,
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  Dimer said, but I'll go back and drive them all to freedom. On
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  this track, he turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller behind him.
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  Now himself, in royal guise, filled the whole frame, a nobler
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  shape and taller, till suddenly he started with surprise, catching by chance his
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  own familiar eyes, fevered yet still the same, without their share of bravery,
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  undeceived and watching there. Yet as he turned he cried, the rest
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  remain. If they rebelled, if they should find me here, we'd pluck
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  the whole taut fabric from the strain, hew down the city. Let live
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  earth appear, old men and barren women, whom, through fear we have
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  suffered to be masters in our home. Hide, hide, for we are
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  angry, and we come thus feeding on vain fancy, covering round his hunger,
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  his great loneliness, arraying in facile dreams, until the qualm was drowned.
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  The boy went on through endless arches, straying with casual tread. He
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  sauntered manly, playing at manhood. Lest more loss of faith betide him till
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  lo he saw a table set beside him. When Dimer saw this sight,
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  he leaped for mirth. He clapped his hands, his eye lit like a
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  lover's. He had a hunger in him that was worth ten cities. Here
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  was silver glass and covers, cold peacock prawns and aspec eggs of plovers,
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  raised pies that stood like castles, gleaming fishes, and bright fruit, with
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  broad leaves around the dishes. If ever you have passed a cathay door and
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  lingered in the dusk of a June day, fresh from the road, sweat
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  sodden and foot sore, and heard the plates clink and the music play with
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  laughter, with white tables far away with many lights, conceive how Dimer ran
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  to table, looked once round him, and began That table seemed unending.
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  Here and there were broken meats, bread, crept, umbled flowers, defaced,
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  a napkin with white petals on a chair, a glass already tasted still
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  to taste. It seemed that a great host had fed in haste, and
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  gone, yet left a thousand places more untouched, wherein no guest had sat
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  before. There, in the lonely splendor, dimer ate as thieves eat ever
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  watching half in fear, he blamed his evil fortune. I come late.
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  Whose board was this? What company sat here? What women with wise mouths?
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  What comrades deer? Who would have made me welcome as the one free
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  born of all my race? And cried, well done? Remember yet again
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  he had grown up on rations and on scientific food, at common boards,
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  with water in his cup, one mess alike for every day and mood.
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  But here at his right hand a flagon stood. He raised it, paused
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  before he drank, and laughed, I'll drown their perfect city in this draft.
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  He fingered the cold neck. He saw within like a strange sky,
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  some liquor that foamed blue and murmured. Standing now with pointed chin and head
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  thrown back, he tasted rapture flew through every Vein that moment Louder grew the
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  music and swelled forth a trumpet note. He ceased, and put one hand
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  up to his throat. Then heedlessly he let the flagon sink in his right
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  hand, his staring eyes were caught in distance, as of one who tries
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  to think a thought that is still waiting to be thought. There was a
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  riot in his heart that brought the loud blood to the temples. A great
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  voice sprang to his lips, unsummoned, with no choice. Ah, but
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  the eyes are open. The dream is broken to sack the perfect city,
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  A fool's deed for Dimer, folly of follies. I have spoken, I
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  am the wanderer, new born, newly freed. A thousand times. They
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  have warned me of men's greed, for joy, for the good that all
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  desire. But never till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavor.
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  Some day I will come back to break the city. Not now, perhaps
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  when age is white and bleak. Not now I am in haste, Oh
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  God, the pity of all my life till this, groping and weak,
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  the shadow of itself. But now to seek that true, most ancient glory,
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  whose white glance was lost through the whole world by evil chance. I
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  was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning. Dimer, the drudge,
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  the black leg who obeyed desire, shall teach me now if this be sinning
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  good luck to it, Oh splendor, long delayed, beautiful world of mine,
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  O world arrayed for bridal flower and forest, wave and field. I
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  come to be your lover, loveliest yield world. I will prove you,
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  lest it should be said. There was a man who loved the earth.
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  His heart was nothing but that love. With doting tread, he worshiped the
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  loved grass, and every start of every bird from cover the least part of
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  every flower he held in awe. Yet Earth gave him no joy between his
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  death and birth. I know my good is hidden at your breast. There
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  is a sound of great good in my ear like wings. And oh,
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  this moment is the best. I shall not fail. I taste it.
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  It comes near as men from a dark dungeon. See the clear stars shining,
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  and the filled streams. Far away. I hear your promise booming and
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  obey. This forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps beyond where I am come,
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  And farther still the rivers wander seaward with smooth laps, and there is
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  cliff and cottage, tower and hill somewhere before the world's end. I shall
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  fill my spirit at Earth's pap for Earth must hold one rich thing sealed as
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  dimers from of old, one rich thing, Or it may be more than
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  this. Might I not reach the borders of a land that ought to have
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  been mine? And there the bliss of free speech. There the eyes that
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  understand, the men free grown, not modeled by the hand of masters,
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  men that know, or men that seek, They will not gape and murmur
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  when I speak. Then, as he ceased amid the farther wall, he
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  saw a curtained and low lintled door, dark curtains, sweepy fold night purple
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  pall. He thought he had not noticed it before. Sudden desire for darkness
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  overbore his will and drew him towards it. All was blind Within he passed,
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  the curtains closed behind. He entered in a void. Night scented flowers
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  breathed there. But this was darker than the night that is most black with
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  beating thunder showers, a disembodied world where depth and height and distance were unmade.
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  No seam of light showed through. It was a world not made for
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  seeing. One pure one undivided sense of being through darkness, smooth as amber.
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  Warily slowly he moved. The floor was soft beneath his feet. A
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  cool smell that was wholly and unholy, sharp like the very spring, and
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  roughly sweet, blew towards him, and he felt his fingers neat broad leaves
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  and wiry stems that, at his will unclosed before and closed behind him.
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  Still with body intent, he felt the foliage quiver on breast and thighs.
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  With groping arms, he made wide passes in the air, a sacred shiver
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  of joy from the heart center oddly strayed to every nerve, deep sighing,
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  much afraid, much wondering, he went on. Then, stooping, found
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  a knee depth of warm pillows on the ground, and there it was sweet
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  rapture to lie still, eyes open on the dark. A flowing health bathed
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  him from head to foot, and great good will rose springing in his heart
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  and poured its wealth outwards. Then came a hand, as if by stealth,
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  out of the dark, and touched his hand, and after the beating
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  silence, budded into laughter, a low, grave laugh, and rounded like
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  a pearl, mysterious, filled with home. He opened wide his arms.
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  The breathing body of a girl slid into them from the world's end with the
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  stride of seven league boots came passion to his side, then meeting mouths,
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  soft falling hair, a cry, heart, shaken flank, sudden cool,
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  folded thigh. The same night swelled the mushroom in Earth's lap and silvered the
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  wet fields. It drew the bud from hiding, and led on the rhythmic
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  sap, and sent the young wolves thirsting after blood and wheeling. The big
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  seas made ebb and flood along the shores of Earth, and held these two
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  in dead sleep till the time of morning dew end of Canto two Canto three,
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  he woke, and all at once before his eyes the pale spires of
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  the chestnut trees in bloom rose waving, and beyond dove colored skies, But
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  where he lay was dark and out of gloom. He saw them through the
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  doorway of a room full of strange scents and softness, padded deep with growing
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  leaves, heavy with last night's sleep. He rubbed his eyes. He felt
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  that chamber wreathing new sleepiness around him. At his side, he was aware
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  of warmth and quiet breathing. Twice he sank back, loose limbed, and
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  drowsy eyed. But the wind came even there a sparrow cried, and the
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  woods shone without then dimer rose. Just for one glance, he said,
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  and went tiptoes out into crisp, gray air and drenching grass. The whitened
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  cobweb sparkling in its place, clung to his feet. He saw the wagtail
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  pass beside him and the thrush, and from his face felt the thin scented
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  winds divinely chase the flush of sleep. Far off, he saw between the
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  trees long morning shadows of dark green. He stretched his lazy arms to their
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  full height, yawning and sighed, and laughed and sighed anew, then wandered
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  farther, watching with delight how his broad naked footprints stained the dew, pressing
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  his foot to feel the cold come through between the spreading toes, then wheeling
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  round each moment to some new shrill forest sound. The wood, with its
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  cold flowers, had nothing there more beautiful than he new, waked from sleep,
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  new born from joy. His soul lay very bare that moment to life's
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  touch, and pondering deep Now. First he knew that no desire could keep
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  these hours for always, and that men do die. But oh, the
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  present glory of lungs, and I, he thought, at home, they
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  are waking now. The stair is filled with feet. The bells clang far
• 28:40
  from me. Where am I now? I could not point to where the
• 28:44
  city lies from here? Then suddenly, if I were here alone, these
• 28:48
  woods could be a frightful place. But now I have met my friend who
• 28:53
  loves me. We can talk to the road's end. Thus, quickening with
• 28:57
  the sweetness of the tail of his new love, he turned. He saw
• 29:02
  between the young leaves, where the palace walls showed pale with chilly stone.
• 29:07
  But far above the green, springing like cliffs in air, the towers were
• 29:11
  seen making more quiet, yet the quiet dawn. Thither he came. He
• 29:18
  reached the open lawn. No bird was moving here against the wall. Out
• 29:22
  of the unscythed grass, the nettle grew. The doors stood open wide,
• 29:27
  but no footfall rang in the colonnades. Whispering through arches and hollow halls,
• 29:33
  the light wind blew. His awe returned, he whistled, Then no more,
• 29:40
  it's better to plunge in by the first door. But then the vastness
• 29:45
  threw him into doubt. Was this the door that he had found last night
• 29:49
  or that beneath the tower, had he come out this side at all?
• 29:53
  As the first snow falls light with following rain, before the year grows white.
• 30:00
  So the first dim foreboding touched his mind gently as yet and easily thrust
• 30:04
  behind. And with it came the thought, I do not know her name,
• 30:11
  no nor her face. But still his mood ran blithely, as he
• 30:15
  felt the morning blow about him, and the earth smell in the wood seemed
• 30:19
  waking for long hours. That must be good here in the unfettered lands that
• 30:23
  knew no cause for grudging. Out of reach of the old laws, he
• 30:30
  hastened to one entry up the stair beneath the pillared porch. Without delay.
• 30:34
  He ran, then halted suddenly, for there across the quiet threshold something lay,
• 30:41
  a bundle, a dark mass that barred the way. He looked again,
• 30:45
  and low, the formless pile under his eyes was moving all the while,
• 30:52
  and it had hands, pale hands of wrinkled flesh, puckered and gnarled
• 30:56
  with vast antiquity that moved. He eyed the sprawling thing afresh, and bit
• 31:02
  by bit so faces come to be in the red coal. Yet surely he
• 31:07
  could see that the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human, a living thing, the
• 31:12
  likeness of a woman. In the center, a draped hummock marked the head.
• 31:18
  Thence flowed the broader lines with curve and fold, spreading as oak roots
• 31:23
  do. You would have said a man could hide among them and grow old
• 31:27
  in finding a way out. Breasts manifold, as of the Ephesian Artemis,
• 31:33
  might be under that robe. The face he did not see, and all
• 31:37
  his being answered, not that way, never a word. He spoke stealthily.
• 31:42
  Creeping back from the door, he drew quick, no delay, quick,
• 31:48
  quick, but very quiet, backward, peeping till fairly out of sight,
• 31:52
  then shouting, leaping, shaking himself, he ran, as puppies do,
• 31:56
  from bathing till that door was out of year. Another gait, and
• 32:02
  empty in he went and found a courtyard open to the sky. Amidst it
• 32:07
  dripped a fountain, heavy scent of flowers was here the foxglove, standing high,
• 32:14
  sheltered the whining wasp. With hasty eye, he traveled round the walls.
• 32:19
  One doorway, led within, one showed a further court ahead. He
• 32:24
  ran up to the first, a hungry lover and not yet taught to endure,
• 32:29
  not blunted yet, but weary of long waiting to discover that loved one's
• 32:34
  face. Before his foot was set on the first stair, he felt the
• 32:37
  sudden sweat, cold on his sides, that sprawling mass in view, that
• 32:43
  shape, the horror of heaviness. Here too, he fell back from the
• 32:49
  porch. Not yet, not yet, There must be other ways where he
• 32:52
  would meet no watcher in the door. He would not let the fear rise,
• 32:57
  nor hope falter, nor defeat be entered in his thoughts. A sultry
• 33:01
  heat seemed to have filled the day. His breath came short, and he
• 33:07
  passed on into that inner court, and like a dream, the sight he
• 33:12
  feared to find was waiting here. Then, cloister, path and square,
• 33:15
  he hastened through down paths that needed blind traced, and retraced his steps.
• 33:22
  The thing sat there in every door, still watching everywhere, behind, ahead,
• 33:28
  all round. So steady now lest panic comes, He stopped. He
• 33:34
  wiped his brow. But as he strove to rally, came the thought that
• 33:38
  he had dreamed of such a place before, knew how it all would end.
• 33:43
  He must be caught early or late, no good, But all the
• 33:46
  more he raged with passionate will that overbore that knowledge, and cried out and
• 33:52
  beat his head, raving upon the senseless walls, and said, where where,
• 33:57
  dear look once out, give but one sign. It's I iy Dimer.
• 34:02
  Are you chained and hidden? What have they done to her? Loose
• 34:06
  her? She is mine through stone and iron, haunted and hag ridden.
• 34:10
  I'll come to you, no stranger nor unbidden. It's I. Don't fear
• 34:15
  them. Shout above them all, can you not hear? I'll follow at
• 34:19
  your call from every arch. The echo of his cry returned. Then all
• 34:25
  was silent, and he knew there was no other way. He must pass
• 34:30
  by that horror, tread her down, force his way through, or die
• 34:34
  upon the threshold. And this too had all been in a dream. He
• 34:38
  felt his heart beating, as if his throat would burst apart. There was
• 34:45
  no other way. He stood a space and pondered it. Then, gathering
• 34:49
  up his will, he went to the next door. The pillared place beneath
• 34:52
  the porch was dark, the air was still moss. On the steps.
• 34:57
  He felt her presence fill the threshold with dull life. Here too was she.
• 35:02
  This time he raised his eyes and dared to see Pah only an old
• 35:07
  woman. But the size, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness, immovable, intolerable,
• 35:15
  the eyes hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress, corpse,
• 35:20
  like the weight of the brute that seemed to press upon his heart and breathing.
• 35:25
  Then he heard his own voice, strange and humbled. Take the word,
• 35:30
  good mother, Let me pass. I have a friend to look for
• 35:35
  in this house. I slept the night and feasted here. It was my
• 35:38
  journey's end. I found it by the music and the light, and no
• 35:42
  one kept the doors, and I did right to enter, did I not?
• 35:45
  Now? Mother? Pray let me pass in, Good mother, give
• 35:50
  me way. The woman answered nothing, but he saw the hands like crabs
• 35:55
  still wandering on her knee. Mother, if I have broken in any law,
• 36:00
  I ask a pardon once, then let it be once is enough,
• 36:05
  and leave the passage free. I am in haste, And though it were
• 36:08
  a sin by all the laws you have, I must go in. Courage
• 36:14
  was rising in him now, he said, out of my path, old
• 36:16
  woman, for this cause, I am new born, new freed, and
• 36:21
  here new wed, that I might be the breaker of bad laws. The
• 36:24
  frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws wherever my feet fall, I bring to
• 36:30
  birth under its crust, the green, ungrudging earth. He had started bowing
• 36:36
  low, but now he stood stretched to his height. His own voice in
• 36:39
  his breast made misery pompous, firing all his blood enough, he cried,
• 36:45
  give place. You shall not rest my love from me. I journey on
• 36:50
  a quest you cannot understand. Whose strength shall bear me through fire and earth?
• 36:54
  A bogey will not scare me. I am the sword of spring.
• 36:59
  I am the truth, Old knight, Put out your stars. The dawn
• 37:02
  is here, the sleeper's wakening, and the wings of youth. With crumbling
• 37:07
  veneration and cowed fear, I make no truce. My loved one, live
• 37:12
  and dear waits for me. Let me in. I fled the city.
• 37:15
  Shall I fear you? Or mother? Ah for pity for his high mood
• 37:21
  fell shattered like a man unnerved in bayonet fighting, in the thick full of
• 37:25
  red rum and shears. When he began now in a dream, muttering,
• 37:30
  I've not the trick. It's no good. I'm no good. They're all
• 37:34
  too quick there. Look there, look at that. So Dimer stood,
• 37:39
  suddenly drained of hope. It was no good. He pleaded, Then shame
• 37:45
  beneath shame, forgive. It may be there are powers I cannot break.
• 37:51
  If you are of them, speak speak, let me live. I ask
• 37:54
  so small a thing I beg I make my body a living prayer who's for
• 38:00
  would shake the mountains. I'll recant, confess my sin, but this once
• 38:04
  let me pass. I must go in yield, but one inch once only
• 38:09
  from your law. Set any price. I will give all, obey all
• 38:14
  else, but this, hold your least word in AWE give you no cause
• 38:17
  for anger from this day. Answer the least things living. When they pray
• 38:22
  as I pray, Now bear witness they speak true against God. Answer Mother,
• 38:29
  let me through. Then, when he heard no answer, mad with
• 38:32
  fear and with desire, too strained with both to know what he desired or
• 38:37
  feared. Yet staggering near, he forced himself towards her and bent low for
• 38:43
  grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow fell on his heart. He
• 38:46
  thought, there came a blank of all things. As the dead sink down,
• 38:52
  he sank. The first big drops are rattling on the trees. The
• 38:57
  sky is coppered, dark, loath, n n pealing sea, dimer with
• 39:01
  drooped head and knocking knees comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly,
• 39:07
  reeling, blind, beaten, broken past desire of healing, pass knowledge of
• 39:13
  his misery, he goes on under the first dark trees, and now is
• 39:19
  gone. End of Canto three. Canto four. First came the peal that
• 39:27
  split the heavens apart straight overhead. Then silence, then the rain. Twelve
• 39:32
  miles of downward water, like one dart and in one leap, were launched
• 39:37
  along the plain to break the budding flower and flood the grain, and keep
• 39:42
  with dripping sound and under song amid the wheeling thunder all night long. He
• 39:49
  put his hands before his face. He stooped, blind with his hair.
• 39:53
  The loud drops, grim tattoo beat him to earth like summer grass. He
• 39:58
  drooped amaze while sheeted lightning large and blue, blinked wide and pricked the quivering
• 40:04
  eyeball through. Then, scrambling to his feet with downward head, he fought
• 40:09
  into the tempest as chance led. The wood was mad, soughing of branch
• 40:15
  and straining was there, drumming of water. Light was none, nor knowledge
• 40:21
  of himself, The trees complaining, and his own throbbing heart seemed mixed in
• 40:27
  one, one sense of bitter loss and beauty undone. All else was blur
• 40:31
  and chaos and rain, steam and noise and the confusion of a dream.
• 40:38
  Aha, Earth hates a miserable man, against him, even the clouds and
• 40:45
  winds conspire. Heaven's voice smote Dimer's ear drum as he ran its red throat,
• 40:51
  plagued the dark with corded fire, barbed flame, coiled flame that ran
• 40:55
  like living wire, charged with disastrous current left and right about his path,
• 41:01
  hell blue or staring white, stab, stab, blast, all at once?
• 41:07
  What's he to fear? Look there that cedar, shriveling in swift blight,
• 41:13
  even where he stood, And there Ah that came near. Oh,
• 41:16
  if some shaft would break his soul out right? What ease? So too,
• 41:21
  unload and scatter quite on the darkness, This wild beating in his skull,
• 41:25
  too burning to endure, too tense and full, all lost and driven
• 41:31
  away, even her name unknown, O fool to have wasted for a kiss
• 41:37
  time when they could have talked. An angry shame was in him. He
• 41:40
  had worshiped Earth, and this the venomed clouds, fire spitting from the abyss.
• 41:46
  This was the truth indeed the world's intent unmasked and naked, now the
• 41:52
  thing it meant. The storm lay on the forest a great time, wheeled
• 41:58
  in its thundery circuit, returned still through the dead leaved darkness, through the
• 42:04
  slime of standing pools and slots of clay. Storm churned went dimer still.
• 42:09
  The knotty lightning burned along black air. He heard the unbroken sound of water
• 42:15
  rising in the hollower ground. He cursed it in his madness, flung it
• 42:22
  back, sorrow as wild as young men's sorrows are, till after midnight,
• 42:27
  when the tempest's track drew off between two clouds appeared one star. Then his
• 42:32
  mood changed, and this was heavier far when bit by bit rarer, and
• 42:37
  still more rare. The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air, when leaves
• 42:45
  began to drip with dying rain, and trees showed black against the glimmering sky.
• 42:51
  When the night birds flapped out and called again above him, When the
• 42:54
  silence, cool and shy came stealing to its own, and streams ran by,
• 43:00
  now audible amid the rustling wood. Oh, then came the worst hour
• 43:05
  for flesh and blood. It was no nightmare now with fiery stream, too
• 43:10
  horrible to last, able to blend itself in all things in one hurrying dream.
• 43:16
  It was the waking world that will not end because hearts break, that
• 43:21
  is not foe nor friend. Where sane and settled knowledge first appears of work
• 43:25
  day desolation with no tears. He halted, then foot sore, weary to
• 43:32
  death, and heard his heart beating in solitude, when suddenly the sound of
• 43:37
  sharpest breath in drawn with pain, and the raw smell of blood surprised his
• 43:43
  sense. Near By to where he stood came a long, whimpering moan,
• 43:47
  a broken word, a rustle of leaves where some live body stirred. He
• 43:53
  groped towards the sound. What brother, brother, who groaned, I'm his,
• 44:00
  I'm finished, let me be. Put out your hand then reach me.
• 44:05
  No the other, don't touch fool, damn you leave me. I
• 44:08
  can't see. Where are you? Then more groans they've done for me?
• 44:14
  I've no hands. Don't come near me, No, but stay, don't
• 44:17
  leave me? Oh my god? Is it near day? Soon? Now?
• 44:23
  A little longer? Can you sleep? I'll watch for you sleep?
• 44:28
  Is it that's a head? But none till then listen I've bled too deep
• 44:34
  to last out till the morning. I'll be dead within the hour sleep.
• 44:37
  Then I've heard it said they don't mind at the last, But this is
• 44:43
  hell. If i'd the strength, I have such things to tell. All
• 44:49
  trembling in the dark and sweated over like a man reared in peace, unused
• 44:53
  to pain, sat dimer near him in the lightless cover, afraid to touch,
• 44:59
  and shame faced to refrain. Then bit by bit, and often checked
• 45:04
  again with agony. The voice told on the place was dark that neither saw
• 45:09
  the other's face. There is a city which men call in scorn, the
• 45:15
  perfect city eastward of this wood. You've heard about the place there I was
• 45:22
  born. I'm one of them, their work, their sober mood, the
• 45:25
  ordered life, the laws are in my blood, a life well less than
• 45:30
  happy, something more than the red greed and lusts that went before all.
• 45:37
  In one day, one man, and at one blow brought ruin on us
• 45:40
  all. There was a boy, blue eyes, large limbs, where all
• 45:45
  he had to show you need no greater profits to destroy. He seemed a
• 45:51
  man asleep. Sorrow and joy had passed him by, the dreamiest, safest
• 45:57
  man, the most obscure, until this curse began. Then, how or
• 46:02
  why it was? I cannot say. This dimer, this fool baby pink
• 46:08
  and white, went mad beneath his quiet face. One day, with nothing
• 46:14
  said, he rose and laughed outright before his master. Then in all our
• 46:19
  sight, even where we sat to watch, he struck him dead, and
• 46:22
  screamed with lefter once again and fled. Lord, how it all comes back,
• 46:30
  How still the place is, and he there lying dead, only the
• 46:34
  sound of a blue bottle buzzing, sharpened faces strained gaping from the benches all
• 46:40
  around the dead man, hunched and quiet with no wound, and minute after
• 46:45
  minute, terror creeping with dreadful hopes to set the wild heart leaping. Then,
• 46:53
  one by one, at random, no word spoken, we slipped out
• 46:58
  to the sunlight, and away we felt the empty sense of something broken and
• 47:02
  comfortless adventure. All that day men loitered at their work and could not say
• 47:08
  what trembled at their lips or what new light was in girl's eyes. Yet
• 47:13
  we endured till night. Then I was lying wide awake in bed, shot
• 47:21
  through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet desire of reckless days,
• 47:25
  with burning head. And then there came a clamor from the street came nearer,
• 47:30
  nearer, nearer, stamping feet and screaming, song and curses, and
• 47:36
  a shout of who's for Diymer Dimer Up and out We looked out from our
• 47:42
  window, thronging. There a thousand of our people, girls and men,
• 47:46
  raved and reviled and shouted by the glare of torches and of bonfire blaze.
• 47:52
  And then came tumult from the street. Beyond again Dimer they cried, and
• 47:57
  farther off there came the sound of gun fire and the gleam of flame.
• 48:02
  I rush down with the rest o. We were mad after this, It's
• 48:07
  all nightmare. The black sky between the house tops framed was all we had
• 48:12
  to tell us that the old world could not die, and that we were
• 48:15
  no gods. The flood ran high when first I came, but after was
• 48:21
  the worse. Ho to recall on Dimer rest the curse. Our leader was
• 48:28
  a hunchback with red hair. Bran was his name. He had that kind
• 48:32
  of force about him that will hold your eyes fast. There as in ten
• 48:37
  miles of green, one patch of gorse will hold them. Do you know?
• 48:43
  His lips were coarse, but his eyes like a prophet's seemed to fill
• 48:46
  the whole face, and his tongue was never still. He cried as Dimer
• 48:52
  broke, we'll break the chain. The world is free. They taught you
• 48:57
  to be chaste and labor and bare orders, and refrain from what all's good
• 49:02
  enough. We'll taste whatever is life, murmurs from the waist beneath the mind
• 49:08
  who made the reasoning part, the jailer of the wild gods. In the
• 49:13
  heart, we were a ragtail crew, wild haired, half dressed, all
• 49:19
  shouting up for Dimer, up away, yet each one always watching all the
• 49:24
  rest and looking to his back. And some were gay like drunk men.
• 49:29
  Some were cringing, pinched, and gray, with terror dry on the lip.
• 49:34
  The older ones had had the sense enough to bring their guns. The
• 49:39
  wave where I was swallowed swelled and broke after long surge into the open square,
• 49:45
  and here there was more light, new clamor woke. Here. First
• 49:51
  I heard the bullets sting the air, and went hot round the heart.
• 49:54
  Our lords were there in barricade, with all their loyal men. For every
• 49:59
  one man loyal bran led ten. Then charge in sheer and bubbling sobs of
• 50:06
  death. We hovered on their front, like swarming bees. Their spraying bullets
• 50:09
  came no time for breath. I saw men's stomachs fall out on their knees
• 50:15
  and shouting faces while they shouted freeze into black, bony masks. Before we
• 50:21
  knew we're into them. Swine die, then that's for you. The next
• 50:27
  that I remember was a lull and sated pause. I saw an old old
• 50:31
  man lying before my feet with shattered skull, and both my arms dripped red.
• 50:37
  And then came bran and at his heels A hundred murderers ran, with
• 50:43
  prisoners, now clamoring to take and try them, and burn them, wedge
• 50:46
  their nails up, crucify them. God once, the lying spirit of a
• 50:53
  cause, with maddening words, dethrones the mind of men. There passed the
• 50:58
  reach of prayer. The eternal laws hate them. Their eyes will not come
• 51:02
  clean again, But doom and strong delusion drive them. Then without ruth,
• 51:07
  without rest, the iron laughter of the immortal mouths goes hooting after and we
• 51:15
  had fire brands too. Tower after tower fell sheathed in thundering flame. The
• 51:21
  street was like a furnace mouth. We had them in our power. Then
• 51:25
  was the time to mock them, and to strike to flay men and spit
• 51:30
  women on the pike, bidding them dance wherever the most shame was done.
• 51:36
  The doer called on Dimer's name, faces of men in torture from my mind,
• 51:42
  they will not go away. The east lay still in darkness when we
• 51:46
  left the town behind, flaming to light the fields we'd had our will,
• 51:51
  we sang, ho, we will make the frost distill from time's gray forehead
• 51:55
  into living dew, and break whatever has been and build new. Day found
• 52:04
  us on the border of this wood, blear, eyed and pale. Then
• 52:07
  the most part began to murmur and to lag, crying for food and shelter.
• 52:13
  But we dared not answer. Bran wherever in the ranks the murmur ran,
• 52:17
  He'd find it, you there whispering up, You sneak reactionary, Eh,
• 52:22
  come out and speak. Then there'd be shrieks, a pistol shot,
• 52:27
  a cry, and some one down. I was the third he caught.
• 52:31
  The others pushed me out beneath his eye, saying, he's here here,
• 52:37
  captain. Who'd have thought my old friends? But I know now I've been
• 52:42
  taught. They cut away my two hands and my feet and laughed and left
• 52:46
  me for the birds to eat. Oh God's name. If I had my
• 52:53
  hands again and Dimer here, it would not be my blood. I am
• 52:59
  stronger now than he is, old with pain. One grip would make him
• 53:02
  mine. But it's no good. I'm dying fast. Look, stranger,
• 53:08
  where the wood grows lighter. It's the morning, stranger, dear, don't
• 53:14
  leave me. Talk a little while. Come near. But Daimer, sitting
• 53:21
  hunched with knee to chin close to the dying man, answered no word.
• 53:25
  His face was stone. There was no meaning in his wakeful eyes. Sometimes
• 53:30
  the others stirred and fretted near his death, and Diimer heard, yet sat
• 53:37
  like one that neither hears nor sees. And the cold east whitened beyond the
• 53:43
  trees end of Canto four, Canto five, through bearded cliffs. A valley
• 53:52
  has driven thus deep its wedge into the mountain, and no more. The
• 53:57
  faint track of the farthest wandering sheep ends here, and the gray hollows,
• 54:01
  at their core of silence, feel the dulled, continuous roar of higher streams.
• 54:08
  At every step. The skies grew less, and in their place black
• 54:13
  ridges rise hither long afternoon with plodding tread, and eyes on earth grown dogged.
• 54:21
  Dimer came, who all the long day in the woods had fled from
• 54:25
  the horror of those lips that screamed his name and cursed him. Busy wonder
• 54:30
  and keen shame were driving him, and little thoughts like bees followed and pricked
• 54:36
  him on and left no ease. Now, when he looked and saw this
• 54:42
  emptiness seven times enfolded in the idle hills, there came a chilly pause to
• 54:47
  his distress, a cloud of the deep world, despair that fills a man's
• 54:52
  heart like the incoming tide, and kills all pains except its own. In
• 54:58
  that broad sea, no hope, no change, and no regret can be
• 55:04
  He felt the eternal strength of the silly earth, the unhastening circuit of the
• 55:08
  stars and sea, the business of perpetual death and birth, the meaningless precision.
• 55:15
  All must be the same and still the same in each degree. Who
• 55:20
  cared now, and he smiled and could forgive, believing that for sure he
• 55:24
  would not live. Then, where he saw a little water run beneath a
• 55:30
  bush, he slept. The chills of may came dropping, and the stars
• 55:34
  peered one by one out of the deepening blue, while far away the western
• 55:39
  brightness dulled to bars of gray, half way to midnight. Suddenly, from
• 55:45
  dreaming he woke wide into present horror, screaming, for he had dreamt of
• 55:51
  being in the arms of his beloved and in quiet places. But all at
• 55:55
  once it filled with night alarms and wrapping guns, and men with splintered faces,
• 56:01
  no eyes, no nose, all red, were running races with worms
• 56:06
  along the floor. And he ran out to find the girl and shouted,
• 56:09
  And that shout had carried him into the waking world. There stood the concave,
• 56:15
  vast, unfriendly night, and over him the scroll of stars unfurled.
• 56:22
  Then, wailing like a child, he rose upright, heart sick with desolation.
• 56:27
  The new blight of loss had nipped him sore and sad self pity,
• 56:31
  thinking of her, then thinking of the city, For in each moment's thought
• 56:37
  the deeds of Bran, the burning and the blood, and his own shame,
• 56:42
  would tease him into madness, till he ran for refuge to the thought
• 56:45
  of her, whence came utter an endless loss, no not a name,
• 56:52
  not a word, nothing, left himself alone crying amid that valley of old
• 56:58
  stone. How soon it all ran out. And I suppose they they up
• 57:04
  there, the old contriving powers, They knew it all the time. For
• 57:07
  some one knows and waits and watches till we pluck the flowers, then leaps.
• 57:13
  So soon my store of happy hours all gone before I knew. I
• 57:17
  have expended my whole wealth in a day. It's finished, ended, and
• 57:24
  nothing left. Can it be possible that joy flows through? And when the
• 57:30
  course is run, it leaves no change, no mark on us to tell
• 57:34
  its passing. And as poor as we've begun, we end the richest day
• 57:38
  what we have won? Can it all die? Like this? Joy flickers
• 57:43
  on the razor edge of the present and is gone? What have I done
• 57:47
  to bear upon my name the curse of Bran? I was not of his
• 57:52
  crew, nor any man's, and Diymer has the blame? What have I
• 57:57
  done? Wronged whom I never knew? What's brand to me? I had
• 58:00
  my deed to do and ran out by myself alone and free. Why should
• 58:06
  earth sing with joy and not for me? Ah? But the earth never
• 58:10
  did sing for joy. There is a glamor on the leaf and flower,
• 58:15
  and April comes and whistles to a boy over white fields, and beauty has
• 58:20
  such power upon us. He believes her in that hour, For who could
• 58:24
  not believe? Can it be false? All that the blackbird says, and
• 58:29
  the wind calls? What have I done? No living thing I made nor
• 58:34
  wished to suffer harm. I sought my good because the spring was gloriously arrayed,
• 58:39
  and the blue eyebright misted it. All the wood yet to obey that
• 58:44
  spring time and my blood. This was to be unarmed and off my guard,
• 58:49
  and gave God time to hit once and hit hard. The men build
• 58:52
  right, who made that city of ours? They knew their world. A
• 58:57
  man must crouch to face infinite malice, watching at all hours, shut nature
• 59:02
  out, give her no moment's space for entry. The first needs of all
• 59:07
  our race are walls, a den, a cover. Trader eye who first
• 59:12
  ran out beneath the open sky, our fortress and fenced place I made to
• 59:17
  fall. I slipped the sentries and let in the foe. I have lost
• 59:22
  my brothers and my love, and all nothing is left but me. Now
• 59:25
  let me go. I have seen the world stripped naked, and I know,
• 59:30
  Great God, take back your world. I will have none of all
• 59:35
  your glittering gods, but death alone. Meanwhile, the earth swung round in
• 59:40
  hollow night. Souls without number in all nations slept snug on her back,
• 59:46
  safe, speeding towards the light. Ours told, And in damp woods the
• 59:52
  night beast crept, and over the long seas the watch was kept in black
• 59:57
  ships twinkling onward, green and red. Always the ordered stars moved overhead,
• 1:00:05
  and no one knew that Dimer, in his scales, had weighed all these
• 1:00:08
  and found them nothing worth. Indifferently, the dawn that never fails troubled the
• 1:00:15
  east of night with gradual birth, whispering a change of colors on cold earth,
• 1:00:20
  and a bird woke. Then too, the sunlight ran along the hills,
• 1:00:24
  and yellow day began, but stagnant gloom clung in the valley. Yet
• 1:00:30
  hills crowded out a third part of the sky, black looking, and the
• 1:00:36
  bowlders dripped with wet No birds sang, Dimer, shivering, heaved a sigh
• 1:00:42
  and yawned, and said, it's cruel work to die of hunger, And
• 1:00:45
  again, with cloudy breath blown between chattering teeth, it's a bad death.
• 1:00:52
  He crouched and clasped his hands about his knees and hugged his own limbs,
• 1:00:58
  for the pitiful sense of homelyiness they had familiar's these, this body, at
• 1:01:04
  least his own, his last defense. But soon his morning misery drove him,
• 1:01:08
  thence eating his heart to wonder. As chance led on upward to the
• 1:01:15
  narrowing gully's head. The cloud lay on the nearest mountain top, as from
• 1:01:21
  a giant's chimney, smoking there. But Dimer took no heed. Sometimes he'd
• 1:01:25
  stop. Sometimes he hurried faster as despair pricked deeper and cried out. Even
• 1:01:31
  now somewhere Bran, with his crews at work, they rack, they burn,
• 1:01:37
  and there's no help in me. I've served their turn. Meanwhile,
• 1:01:43
  the furrowed fog rolled down ahead, long tatters of its vanguard smearing round the
• 1:01:47
  bases of the crags like cobweb, shed down the deep combs, It dulled
• 1:01:52
  the tinkling sound of water on the hills. The spongy ground faded three yards
• 1:01:59
  ahead, then nearer yet fell the cold wreaths, the white depth gleaming wet.
• 1:02:06
  Then, after a long time the path he trod led downward, Then
• 1:02:09
  all suddenly it dipped far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod.
• 1:02:15
  He was half running now, a stone that slipped beneath him, rattled headlong
• 1:02:20
  down. He tripped, stumbled and clutched. Then panic and no hope to
• 1:02:24
  stop himself. Once lost upon that slope, and faster, ever faster,
• 1:02:30
  and his eye caught tree tops far below. The nightmare feeling had gripped him.
• 1:02:36
  He was screaming, and the sky seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling,
• 1:02:40
  reeling with effort beyond thought, he hung half kneeling, halted, one
• 1:02:45
  saving moment with wild will, he clawed into the hill side and lay still,
• 1:02:52
  half hanging on both arms. His idle feet dangled and found no hold.
• 1:02:57
  The moor lay wet against him, and he sweaded with the heat of
• 1:03:00
  terror, all alive. His teeth were set by God. I will not
• 1:03:06
  die, said he not yet. Then slowly, slowly, with enormous strain,
• 1:03:13
  he heaved himself an inch, then heaved again, till saved and spent.
• 1:03:17
  He lay. He felt indeed it was the big round world beneath his
• 1:03:22
  breast, the mother planet proven at his need, the shame of glad surrender
• 1:03:28
  stood confessed. He cared not for his boasts. This this was best,
• 1:03:34
  this giving up of all He need not strive, He panted, he lay
• 1:03:38
  still. He was alive, and now his eyes were closed. Perhaps he
• 1:03:45
  slept lapped in unearthly quiet, never knew how. Bit by bit, the
• 1:03:51
  FOG's white rearguard crept over the crest and faded, and the blue first brightening
• 1:03:57
  at the zenith, trembled through and deepening. Shadows took a sharper form each
• 1:04:01
  moment, and the sandy earth grew warm, yet dreaming of blue skies.
• 1:04:09
  In dream, he heard the pure voice of a lark that seemed to send
• 1:04:14
  its song from heights beyond all height. That bird sang out of heaven,
• 1:04:18
  The world will never end, sang from the gates of Heaven, will never
• 1:04:24
  end, sang till it seemed there was no other thing but bright space,
• 1:04:29
  and one voice set there to sing. It seemed to be the murmur and
• 1:04:33
  the voice of beings beyond number, each in all singing. I am,
• 1:04:40
  each of itself made choice and was whence flows the justice that men call divine.
• 1:04:46
  She keeps the great worlds lest they fall from hour to hour, and
• 1:04:50
  makes the hills renew their ancient youth, and sweetens all things through. It
• 1:04:57
  seemed to be the low voice of the world brooding alone beneath the strength of
• 1:05:01
  things, murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled forever, and the unwearied
• 1:05:08
  joy that brings out of old fields, the flowers of unborn springs, out
• 1:05:13
  of old wars, and cities burned with wrong, a splendor in the dark,
• 1:05:17
  a tale, a song. The dream ran thin towards waking, and
• 1:05:23
  he knew it was a bird's piping. With no sense, He rolled round
• 1:05:28
  on his back. The sudden blue, quivering with light, hard, cloudless
• 1:05:32
  and intense, shone over him. The lark still sounded, thence, and
• 1:05:38
  stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought was passing by, too gently
• 1:05:43
  to be caught. With that, he thrust the damp hair from his face
• 1:05:47
  and sat upright. The perilous cliff dropped sheer before him, close at hand,
• 1:05:53
  and from his place, listening in mountain silence, he could hear birds
• 1:05:58
  crying far below. It was not fear that took him, but strange glory.
• 1:06:02
  When his eye looked past the edge into surrounding sky, he rose and
• 1:06:09
  stood, then low the world beneath wide pools that in the sun splashed foothills,
• 1:06:15
  lay sheep, dotted downs, soft piled and rolling heath, river and
• 1:06:21
  shining weir and steeples gray, and the green waves of forest far away distance
• 1:06:29
  rose heaped on distance nearer hand, the white roads leading down to a new
• 1:06:34
  land. End of Canto five, Canto six. The sun was high in
• 1:06:44
  heaven, and Dimer stood a bright speck on the endless mountain side till blossom
• 1:06:49
  after blossom, That rich mood faded, and truth rolled homeward like a tide,
• 1:06:55
  before whose edge the weak soul fled to hide in vain with ostrich head
• 1:07:00
  threw many a shape of coward fancy, whimpering for escape, but only for
• 1:07:08
  a moment. Then his soul took the full swell and heaved a dripping prow
• 1:07:13
  clear of the shattering wave crest. He was whole. No veil should hide
• 1:07:17
  the truth, No truth should cow the dear self pitying heart. I'll babble
• 1:07:24
  now no longer, Daimer said, I'm broken in Pack up the dreams and
• 1:07:29
  let the life begin. With this, he turned. I must have food
• 1:07:34
  to day, he muttered. Then among the cloudless hills, by winding tracks,
• 1:07:40
  he sought the downward way and followed the steep course of tumbling rills,
• 1:07:44
  came to the glens, the wakening mountain fills in spring time, with the
• 1:07:47
  echoing splash and shock of water's leaping cold from rock to rock, And still
• 1:07:55
  it seemed that lark with its refrain sang in the sky, and wind in
• 1:08:00
  his hair, and hope at heart. Then once and once again he heard
• 1:08:04
  a gun fired off. It broke the air as a stone breaks a pond,
• 1:08:10
  and everywhere the dry crags echoed clear, and at the sound once a
• 1:08:15
  big bird rose, whirring from the ground. In half an hour, he
• 1:08:20
  reached the level land and followed the field paths and crossed the stiles. Then
• 1:08:26
  looked and saw near by on his left hand an old house folded round with
• 1:08:30
  billowy piles of dark yew hedge. The moss was on the tiles, the
• 1:08:35
  pigeons in the yard, and in the tower a clock that had no hands
• 1:08:40
  and told no hour. He hastened in warm waves. The garden scent came
• 1:08:46
  stronger at each stride. The mountain breeze was gone. He reached the gates.
• 1:08:51
  Then in he went and seemed to lose the sky. Such weight of
• 1:08:56
  trees hung overhead. He heard the noise of bees, and saw far off
• 1:09:01
  in the blue shade, between the windless elms. One walking on the green.
• 1:09:08
  It was a mighty man, whose beardless face beneath gray hair, shone
• 1:09:12
  out so large and mild it made a sort of moonlight in the place.
• 1:09:16
  A dreamy desperation, wistful wild showed in his glance and gait. Yet like
• 1:09:21
  a child, an Asian emperor's only child was he, with his grave looks
• 1:09:27
  and bright solemnity. And over him there hung the witching air, the wilful
• 1:09:33
  courtesy of the days of old, the graces wherein idleness grows fair and somewhat.
• 1:09:40
  In his sauntering walk, he rolled and toyed about his waist with seals
• 1:09:44
  of gold, or stood to ponder, often in mid stride, tilting his
• 1:09:48
  heavy head upon one side. When Damer had called twice, he turned his
• 1:09:55
  eye, then, coming out of silence, as a star all in one
• 1:09:59
  moment, slips into the sky of evening. Yet we feel it comes from
• 1:10:03
  far, he said, sir, you are welcome. Few there are that
• 1:10:08
  come my way. And in huge hands he pressed Damer's cold hand and bade
• 1:10:14
  him in to rest. How did you find this place out? Have you
• 1:10:18
  heard my gun? It was but now I killed a lark, What sir
• 1:10:23
  said, Damer shoot the singing bird, Sir, said the man. They
• 1:10:28
  sing from dawn till dark and interrupt my dreams too long, But hark another.
• 1:10:33
  Did you hear no singing? No, it was my fancy. Then
• 1:10:38
  pray let it go from here? You see my garden's only flaw. Stand
• 1:10:44
  here, sir, at the dial Daimer stood. The master pointed. Then
• 1:10:48
  he looked and saw how hedges and the funeral quietude of black trees fringe the
• 1:10:55
  garden like a wood, and only in one place, one gap that showed
• 1:11:00
  the blue side of the hills, the White Hill Road. I have planted
• 1:11:04
  fir and larch to fill the gap, he said, because this too makes
• 1:11:10
  war upon the art of dream. But by some great mishap nothing I plant
• 1:11:15
  will grow there. We pass on. The sunshine of the afternoon is gone.
• 1:11:19
  Let us go in. It draws near time to sup I hate the
• 1:11:24
  garden till the moon is up. They passed from the hot lawn into the
• 1:11:30
  gloom and coolness of the porch, then passed a door that opened with no
• 1:11:33
  noise into a room where green leaves choked the window and the floor sank lower
• 1:11:40
  than the ground. A tattered store of brown books met the eye a crystal
• 1:11:45
  ball, and masks with empty eyes along the wall. Then Dimer sat,
• 1:11:51
  but knew not how nor where, and supper was set out before these two
• 1:11:56
  he saw not how, with silver old and rare, but tarnished, and
• 1:12:00
  he ate, and never knew what meats they were. At every bite he
• 1:12:04
  grew more drowsy, and let slide his crumbling will. The master at his
• 1:12:11
  side was talking still, and all his talk was tales of magic words,
• 1:12:16
  and of the nations in the clouds above astral and Airish tribes who fish for
• 1:12:21
  birds with angles, And by history he could prove how chosen spirits from Earth
• 1:12:27
  had won their love as arthur or ushine, and to their isle went Helen
• 1:12:32
  for the sake of a Greek smile. And ever in his talk he mustered
• 1:12:38
  well his texts and strewed old authors round the way. Thus Wyrus writes,
• 1:12:44
  and thus the hermetics tell this was Agrippa's view, and others say with Cardon
• 1:12:49
  till he had stolen quite away Dimer's dull wits, and softly drawn apart the
• 1:12:56
  ivory gates of hope that change the heart. Dymer was talking Now Now,
• 1:13:01
  Damer told of his own love and losing drowsily. The Master leaned towards him.
• 1:13:08
  Was it cold, this spirit to the touch? No, sir,
• 1:13:11
  not, she said Dymer and his host, why this must be ethereal not
• 1:13:16
  aeriel o my soul be still? But wait, tell an, sir,
• 1:13:21
  tell the whole. Then Damer told him of the Beldam too, the old
• 1:13:28
  old matriarchal dreadfulness over the Master's face. A shadow drew. He shifted in
• 1:13:33
  his chair, And yes, and yes, he murmured twice, I never
• 1:13:39
  looked for less. Always the same, that frightful woman's shape besets the dream
• 1:13:45
  way and the soul's escape. But now, when Dymer made to talk of
• 1:13:49
  Bran, a huge indifference fell upon his host. Patient and wondering eyed.
• 1:13:55
  Then he began, forgive me, you are young. What helps us most
• 1:14:00
  is to find out again that heavenly ghost who loves you. For she was
• 1:14:03
  a ghost, and you in that place where you met, were ghostly too.
• 1:14:09
  Listen, for I can launch you on the stream, will roll you
• 1:14:13
  to the shores of her own land. I could be sworn you never learned
• 1:14:16
  to dream, But every night you take with careless hand what chance may bring.
• 1:14:21
  I'll teach you to command the comings and the goings of your spirit through
• 1:14:26
  all that borderland which dreams inherit. You shall have hauntings suddenly and often when
• 1:14:32
  you forget, when least you think of her. For so you shall forget,
• 1:14:38
  A light will soften over the evening woods, and in the stir of
• 1:14:42
  morning dreams. Oh, I will teach you, sir, there'll come a
• 1:14:45
  sound of wings, or you shall be waked in the midnight, murmuring it
• 1:14:49
  was she. No, No, said Daimer, not that way. I
• 1:14:55
  seem to have slept for twenty years now while I shake out of my eyes
• 1:15:00
  that dust of burdening dream. Now when the long clouds tremble, ripe to
• 1:15:04
  break, and the far hills appear, when first I wake, still blinking,
• 1:15:10
  struggling towards the world of men, and longing, would you turn me
• 1:15:13
  back again, dreams? I have had my dream too long. I thought
• 1:15:18
  the sun rose for my sake. I ran down, blind and dancing to
• 1:15:23
  the abyss. Oh, sir, I brought boy laughter for a gift to
• 1:15:27
  God's who find the martyr's soul too soft. But that's behind I'm waking now.
• 1:15:31
  They broke me all ends thus always, and we are for them,
• 1:15:35
  not they for us. And she she was no dream, It would be
• 1:15:42
  waste to seek her there the living, in that den of lies. The
• 1:15:45
  Master smiled. You are in haste for broken dreams. The cure is dream
• 1:15:51
  again and deeper. If the waking world and men and nature marred your dream
• 1:15:58
  so much, the worse for or crude world beneath its primal curse. Ah,
• 1:16:03
  but you do not know. Can dreams do this? Pluck out blood
• 1:16:06
  guiltiness upon the shore of memory, and undo what's amiss, and bid the
• 1:16:12
  thing that has been be no more? Sir, it is only dreams.
• 1:16:16
  Unlock that door, he answered with a shrug. What would you have in
• 1:16:21
  dreams? The thrice proved coward can feel brave in dreams. The fool is
• 1:16:28
  free from scorning voices, gray headed wars are virgin. There again, out
• 1:16:33
  of the past, dream brings long buried choices, all in a moment snaps
• 1:16:39
  the tenfold chain that life took years in forging. There the stain of oldest
• 1:16:45
  sins. How do the good words go? Though they were scarlet, shall
• 1:16:49
  be white as snow? Then drawing near, when Daimer did not speak,
• 1:16:56
  my little son said he You're wrong and right. Are also dreams fetters to
• 1:17:01
  bind the weak faster to phantom Earth, and blear the sight, wake into
• 1:17:06
  dreams, into the larger light that quenches these rail stars. They will not
• 1:17:13
  know Earth's by laws. In the land to which you go, I must
• 1:17:17
  undo my sins, unearthly law, and even in earth, the child of
• 1:17:23
  yesterday. Throw down your human pity, cast your awe behind you, put
• 1:17:29
  repentance all away home to the elder depths. For never they supped with the
• 1:17:33
  stars, who dared not slough behind the last shred of Earth's holies from their
• 1:17:39
  mind. Sir answered Dymer, I would be content to drudge in Earth,
• 1:17:46
  easing my heart's disgrace, counting a year's long service lightly spent. If once,
• 1:17:51
  at the year's end, I saw her face somewhere, being then most
• 1:17:56
  weary in some place. I looked not for that joy, or heard her
• 1:18:00
  near whispering. Yet courage friend, for one more year, Pish, said
• 1:18:06
  the master. Will you have the truth? You think that virtue saves her
• 1:18:12
  people? Care for the high heart and idle hours of youth. For these
• 1:18:15
  they will descend our lower air. Not virtue. You would nerve your arm
• 1:18:20
  and bear your burden among men. Look to it. Child, by virtue's
• 1:18:26
  self, vision can be defiled. You will grow full of pity and the
• 1:18:30
  love of men, and toil until the morning moisture dries out of your heart.
• 1:18:35
  Then once or once again, it may be, you will find her,
• 1:18:40
  But your eyes soon will be grown too dim. The task that lies
• 1:18:44
  next to your hand will hide her. You shall be the child of Earth
• 1:18:48
  and God's. You shall not see here. Suddenly he ceased, tip toes
• 1:18:55
  he went. A bolt clicked, Then the window creaked ajar, and out
• 1:19:00
  of the wet world the hedgerow scent came floating, and the dark, without
• 1:19:03
  one star, nor shape of trees, nor scents of near and far,
• 1:19:09
  the undimensioned night and formless skies were there, and were the Master's great allies.
• 1:19:15
  I am very old, he said, But if the time we suffered
• 1:19:19
  in our dreams were counting age, I have outlived the ocean, and my
• 1:19:25
  prime is with me to this day. Years cannot gage the dream life.
• 1:19:30
  In the turning of a page, dozing above my book, I have lived
• 1:19:33
  through more ages than the lost la Muria knew I am not mortal, were
• 1:19:41
  I doomed to die this hour, In this half hour, I interpose a
• 1:19:45
  thousand years of dream and those gone by as many more, And in the
• 1:19:49
  last of those ten thousand, ever journeying towards a close that I shall never
• 1:19:56
  reach for. Time shall flow wheel within wheel, interminably slow, and you
• 1:20:02
  will drink my cup and go your way into the valley of dreams. You
• 1:20:08
  have heard the call, come hither and escape? Why should you stay?
• 1:20:13
  Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose wall is tottering while you sweep.
• 1:20:17
  The roof will fall before the work is done. You cannot mend it,
• 1:20:23
  patch as you will. At last the rot must end it. Then
• 1:20:29
  Dimer lifted up his heavy head, like Atlas on broad shoulders, bearing up
• 1:20:33
  the insufferable globe. I had not said, he mumbled, never said I'd
• 1:20:39
  taste the cup. What is it this you give me? Must I sup
• 1:20:44
  o lies? All lies? Why did you kill the lark? Guide me
• 1:20:49
  the cup to lip? It is so dark? End of Canto six,
• 1:20:58
  Canto seven. The host had trimmed his lamp. The downy moth came from
• 1:21:03
  the garden, where the lamp light shed its circle of smooth white upon the
• 1:21:08
  cloth. Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread. Upon his sprawling
• 1:21:14
  arms lay Dimer's head, and often as he dreamed he shifted place, muttering
• 1:21:19
  and showing half his drunken face. The beating stillness of the dead of night
• 1:21:26
  flooded the room. The dark and sleepy powers settled upon the house and filled
• 1:21:31
  it quite far from the roads it lay from belfry towers and hen roosts,
• 1:21:38
  in a world of folded flowers buried in loneliest fields, where beasts that love
• 1:21:44
  the silence through the unrustled hedgerows move. Now from the master's lips. There
• 1:21:49
  breathed a sigh, as of a man released from some control that wronged him.
• 1:21:56
  Without aim, his wandering eye, unsteadied and un fixed, began to
• 1:22:00
  roll, his lower lip dropped loose, The informing soul seemed fading from his
• 1:22:06
  face. He laughed out loud once, only then looked round him, hushed
• 1:22:13
  and cowed. Then, summoning all himself with tightened lip, with desperate coolness
• 1:22:19
  and attentive air, he touched between his thumb and finger tip, each in
• 1:22:25
  its turn, the four legs of his chair, then back again in haste.
• 1:22:29
  There that when there had been forgotten once more safer. Now that's better,
• 1:22:35
  and he smiled and cleared his brow. Yet this was but a moment's
• 1:22:41
  ease. Once more, he glanced about him like a startled hair. His
• 1:22:45
  big eyes bulged with horror as before, quick to the touch that saves him.
• 1:22:50
  But despair is nearer by one step, And in his chair, huddling,
• 1:22:56
  he waits. He knows that they'll come strong again, and yet again,
• 1:23:00
  and all night long, and after this night comes another night, night
• 1:23:08
  after night, until the worst of all, and now too, even the
• 1:23:12
  noonday and the light let through the horrors. Oh, could he recall the
• 1:23:16
  deep sleep and the dreams that used to fall around him for the asking,
• 1:23:21
  But somehow something's amiss. Sleep comes so rarely now Then, like the dog
• 1:23:30
  returning to its vomit, he staggered to the bookcase to renew, yet once
• 1:23:34
  again the taint he had taken from it, and shuddered as he went.
• 1:23:39
  But horror drew his feet as joy draws others. There in view was his
• 1:23:45
  strange heaven and his far stranger hell, his secret lust, his soul's dark
• 1:23:50
  citadel, old Theogmagia, demonology, Kabbala chemic magic, book of the Dead,
• 1:24:00
  damning hermetic rolls that none may see save thee already damned. Such gruels
• 1:24:04
  are bred from minds that lose the spirit and seek instead for spirits in the
• 1:24:11
  dust of dead men's error, buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror.
• 1:24:17
  This lost soul looked them over one and all, now sickened at the heart's
• 1:24:21
  root, For he knew this night was one of those when he would fall
• 1:24:27
  and scream alone. Such things they made him do, and roll upon the
• 1:24:30
  floor. The madness grew wild at his breast. But still his brain was
• 1:24:35
  clear that he could watch the moment coming near. But ere it came.
• 1:24:42
  He heard a sound, half groan, half muttering from the table, like
• 1:24:45
  a child caught unawares that thought it was alone. He started as in guilt.
• 1:24:51
  His gaze was wild, yet pitiably with all his will. He smiled
• 1:24:57
  so strong as shame even then, and Amer stirred, now waking, and
• 1:25:01
  looked up and spoke one word. Water, he said. He was too
• 1:25:08
  dazed to see what hell wrung face looked down, what shaking hand poured out
• 1:25:13
  the draft? He drank it thirstily and held the glass for more, your
• 1:25:17
  land, your land of dreams, he said, All lies I understand more
• 1:25:24
  than I did. Yes, water, I've the thirst of hell itself.
• 1:25:28
  Your magic's all accursed. When he had drunk again, he rose and stood
• 1:25:34
  pallid and cold with sleep. By God, he said, you did me
• 1:25:39
  wrong to send me to that wood. I sought a living spirit and found
• 1:25:43
  instead bogies and wraiths. The Master raised his head, calm as a sage,
• 1:25:48
  and answered, are you mad? Come, sit you down. Tell
• 1:25:53
  me what dream you had. I dreamed about a wood, an autumn red
• 1:25:59
  of beech trees, big as mountains. Down between the first thing that I
• 1:26:02
  saw, a clearing spread deep down, oh very deep, like some ravine
• 1:26:09
  or like a well. It sank that forest green under its weight of forest,
• 1:26:13
  more remote than one ship in a landlocked sea afloat. Then through the
• 1:26:18
  narrowed sky, some heavy bird would flap its way, a stillness more profound
• 1:26:25
  following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard, far off in the long woods,
• 1:26:29
  with quiet sound, the sudden chestnut thumping to the ground, or the
• 1:26:33
  dry leaf that drifted past upon its endless loiter earthward and was gone. Then
• 1:26:41
  next I heard twigs splintering on my right, and rustling in the thickets,
• 1:26:45
  turning there I watched out of the foliage, came in sight the head and
• 1:26:49
  blundering shoulders of a bear glistening in sable black, with beady stare of eyes
• 1:26:56
  towards me, and no room to fly, but patting so often slow.
• 1:27:00
  The beast came by, and mark there flattery, stood and rubbed his flank
• 1:27:06
  against me. On my shaken legs. I felt his heart beat, and
• 1:27:12
  my hand that stroked him sank wrist deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt.
• 1:27:17
  Yes, and across my spirit. As I smelt the wild things scent,
• 1:27:23
  a new sweet wildness ran, whispering of eden fields long lost by man.
• 1:27:30
  So far was well, But then came emerald birds, singing about my head.
• 1:27:35
  I took my way, sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds,
• 1:27:41
  the roebuck, and the fallow deer at play, trooping to nose my
• 1:27:45
  hand. All this, you say, was sweet? Oh sweet? Do
• 1:27:48
  you think I could not see that beasts and wood were nothing else but me?
• 1:27:56
  That I was making everything I saw too sweet, far too well fitted
• 1:28:00
  to desire to be a living thing. Those forests draw no sap from the
• 1:28:05
  kind earth, The solar fire and soft rain feed them, not that fairy
• 1:28:11
  briar pricks. Not the birds sing sweetly in that break, not for their
• 1:28:15
  own delight, but for my sake. It is a world of sad,
• 1:28:20
  cold, heartless stuff, like a bought smile, no joy in it.
• 1:28:26
  But stay, did you not find your lady? Sure enough? I still
• 1:28:30
  had hopes till then the autumn day was westering, The long shadows crossed my
• 1:28:35
  way, When over daisies folded for the night, beneath rope gathering elms,
• 1:28:41
  she came in sight. Was she not fair? So beautiful? She seemed
• 1:28:46
  almost a living soul. But every part was what I made it all that
• 1:28:51
  I had dreamed, no more, no less the mirror of my heart,
• 1:28:56
  such things as boyhood feigns beneath the smart of solitude in spring. I was
• 1:29:01
  deceived almost in that first moment. I believed for a big, brooding rapture,
• 1:29:10
  tenses, fire and calm, as a first sleep had soaked me through
• 1:29:14
  without thought, without word, without desire. Meanwhile, above our heads,
• 1:29:19
  the deepening blue burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew a veil before my
• 1:29:25
  eyes. The minutes passed heavy like loaded vines. She spoke at last,
• 1:29:33
  she said, for this land only did men love the shadow lands of earth.
• 1:29:39
  All our disease of longing, all the hopes we fabled of fortunate islands
• 1:29:44
  or hesperian seas, or woods beyond the west, were but the breeze that
• 1:29:48
  blew from off those shores, one far spent breath that reached even to the
• 1:29:54
  world of change and death. She told me I had journeyed home at last,
• 1:30:00
  into the golden age and the good country that had been always there.
• 1:30:04
  She bade me cast my cares behind forever. On her knee, worshiped me
• 1:30:10
  Lord and love. Oh, I can see her red lips even now.
• 1:30:15
  Is it not wrong that men's delusions should be made so strong? For listen,
• 1:30:21
  I was so besotted now. She made me think that I was somehow
• 1:30:26
  seeing the very core of truth. I felt, somehow beyond all veils.
• 1:30:31
  The inward pulse of being thought was enslaved. But oh, it felt like
• 1:30:36
  freeing and drafts of larger air. It is too much who can come through
• 1:30:43
  untainted? From that touch there I was nearly wrecked, But mark the rest.
• 1:30:50
  She went too fast. Soft to my arms she came. The robe
• 1:30:55
  slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast was bare against my own. She
• 1:31:00
  shone like flame before me in the dusk, all love, all shame,
• 1:31:04
  faugh, and it was myself. But all was well, for at the
• 1:31:10
  least that moment snapped the spell. As when you light a candle, the
• 1:31:16
  great gloom, which was the unbounded knight, sinks down, compressed to four
• 1:31:21
  white walls in one familiar room. So the vague joy shrank, wilted in
• 1:31:27
  my breast and narrowed to one point, unmasked, confessed fool's paradise was gone.
• 1:31:34
  Instead was there King Lust, with his black sudden serious stare. That
• 1:31:42
  moment in a cloud among the trees, wild music and the glare of torches
• 1:31:45
  came on sweated faces on the prancing knees of shaggy satyrs, fell the smoky
• 1:31:51
  flame on ape and goat, and crawlers without name on rolling breast, black
• 1:31:57
  eyes and tossing hair on old bald headed witches, lean and bare. They
• 1:32:03
  beat the devilish tom Tom rub a dub, lunging, leaping in unwieldy romp,
• 1:32:10
  singing cootito and Beelzebub with devil dancers, mask and phallic pomp, torn
• 1:32:15
  raw with briars and caked from many a swamp. They came among the wild
• 1:32:19
  flowers, dripping blood and churning the green mosses into mud. They sang,
• 1:32:26
  return, Return, We are the lust that was before the world, and
• 1:32:30
  still shall be when your last law is trampled into dust. We are the
• 1:32:34
  mothers swamp, the primal sea. Whence the dry land appeared old old are
• 1:32:41
  we? It is but a return. It's nothing new, easy as slipping
• 1:32:45
  on a well worn shoe. And then there came warm mouths and finger tips
• 1:32:51
  preying upon me. Whence I could not see. Then a huge face,
• 1:32:57
  low browed, with swollen lips, crooning, I am not beautiful as she,
• 1:33:01
  but I'm the older love. You shall love me far more than beauty's
• 1:33:06
  self. You have been ours always. We are the world's most ancient powers.
• 1:33:14
  First flatterer and then bogey like a dream, Sir, are you listening?
• 1:33:18
  Do you also know how close to the soft laughter comes the scream down
• 1:33:24
  yonder? But his host cried sharply, no, leave me alone. Why
• 1:33:29
  will you plague me? Go out of my house? Begone with all my
• 1:33:32
  heart, said Dmer. But one word before we part, he paused,
• 1:33:40
  and in his cheek the anger burned. Then Turning to the table, he
• 1:33:44
  poured out more water, but before he drank, he turned then leaped back
• 1:33:48
  to the window with a shout, For there it was no dream. Beyond
• 1:33:53
  all doubt, he saw the master crouch with leveled gun, cackling in maniac
• 1:33:58
  voice. Rund run. He ducked and sprang far out the starless night on
• 1:34:04
  the wet lawn closed round him every way. Then came the guncrack, and
• 1:34:09
  the splash of light vanished as soon as seen cool garden clay slid from his
• 1:34:15
  feet. He had fallen, and he lay face downward among leaves, then
• 1:34:19
  up and on through branch and leaf, till sense and breath were gone.
• 1:34:26
  End of Canto's seven Canto eight. When next he found himself, no house,
• 1:34:33
  was there, no garden, and great trees Beside a lane in grass
• 1:34:39
  he lay. Now first he was aware that all one side his body glowed
• 1:34:44
  with pain, And the next moment and the next again was neither less nor
• 1:34:48
  more. Without a pause, it clung like a great beast with fastened claws,
• 1:34:56
  that for a time he could not frame a thought, nor know him
• 1:35:00
  self for self, nor pain for pain, till moment added on to moment
• 1:35:04
  taut the new, strange art of living. On that plain taught how the
• 1:35:10
  grappled soul must still remain, still, choose and think and understand. Beneath
• 1:35:15
  the very grinding of the ogre's teeth, he heard the wind along the hedges
• 1:35:21
  sweep. The quarter striking from a neighboring tower. About him was the weight
• 1:35:27
  of the world's sleep. Within the thundering pane that quiet hour. Heeded it
• 1:35:32
  not, it throbbed, it raged with power fit to convulse the heavens.
• 1:35:38
  And at his side the soft peace drenched the meadows far and wide. The
• 1:35:45
  air was cold, the earth was cold with dew, the hedge behind him
• 1:35:49
  dark as ink. But now the clouds broke, and a paler heaven showed
• 1:35:55
  through, spacious, with sudden stars breathing somehow the sense of change to slumbering
• 1:36:01
  lands. A cow coughed in the fields behind the puddles showed like pools of
• 1:36:08
  sky amid the darker road, and he could see his own limbs faintly white,
• 1:36:14
  and the blood black upon them. Then, by chance he turned,
• 1:36:18
  and it was strange. There at his right he saw a woman standing,
• 1:36:24
  and her glance met his, and at the meeting his deep trance changed not,
• 1:36:30
  and while he looked, the knowledge grew. She was not of the
• 1:36:32
  old life, but the new. Who is it, he said, the
• 1:36:39
  loved one, the long lost? He stared upon her, truly, truly,
• 1:36:44
  indeed, o lady, you come late. I am tempest, tossed,
• 1:36:48
  broken and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed. Why
• 1:36:54
  have you left me thus and given no heed to all my prayers? Left
• 1:36:58
  me to be the game of all decens seats. You should have asked my
• 1:37:01
  name? What are you then? But to his sudden cry, she did
• 1:37:06
  not answer. When he had thought, awhile, he said, how can
• 1:37:12
  I tell? It is no lie? It may be one more phantom to
• 1:37:15
  beguile, the brainsick dreamer with its harlot smile. I have not smiled,
• 1:37:20
  she said. The neighboring bell told out another quarter. Silence fell, and
• 1:37:29
  after a long pause he spoke again, Leave me, he said, why
• 1:37:33
  do you watch with me? You do not love me? Human tears and
• 1:37:38
  pain and hoping for the things that cannot be, and blundering in the night
• 1:37:42
  where none can see, and courage with cold back against the wall. You
• 1:37:45
  do not understand. I know them, all the gods themselves. No pain
• 1:37:51
  the eternal forms in realms, beyond the reach of cloud and skies, near
• 1:37:57
  as the ends of air, where come no storm nor sound of earth.
• 1:38:00
  I have looked into their eyes, peaceful and filled with pain, beyond surmise,
• 1:38:06
  filled with an ancient woe. Man cannot reach one moment though in fire.
• 1:38:11
  Yet calm their speech. Then, these, said Daimer, where the
• 1:38:16
  world I wooed. These were the holiness of flowers and grass, and desolate
• 1:38:20
  dews. These the eternal mood, blowing the eternal theme through men that pass.
• 1:38:27
  I called myself their lover. Ay that was less fit for that long
• 1:38:31
  service than the least dull work day drudge of men or faithful beast. Why
• 1:38:38
  do they lure to them such spirits as mine, the weak, the passionate,
• 1:38:42
  and the fool of dreams, When better men go safe and never pine
• 1:38:46
  with whisperings at the heart, soul, sickening gleams of infinite desire and joy
• 1:38:51
  that seems the promise of full power. For it was they, the Gods
• 1:38:56
  themselves, that led me on this way. Give me the truth. I
• 1:39:00
  ask not now for pity. When God's call can the following them be sin?
• 1:39:06
  Was it false light that lured me from the city. Where was the
• 1:39:10
  path without it? Or within? Must it be one blind throw to lose
• 1:39:15
  or win? Has heaven no voice to help? Must things of dust guess
• 1:39:18
  their own way in the dark? She said, They must another's silence.
• 1:39:26
  Then he cried in wrath. You came in human shape, in sweet disguise,
• 1:39:30
  wooing me, lurking for me in my path, hid your eternal cold
• 1:39:34
  with woman's eyes, snared me with shows of love, And all was lies.
• 1:39:41
  She answered, For our kind must come to all if bidden, But
• 1:39:45
  in the shape for which they call? What, answered, Dymer, Do
• 1:39:50
  you change and sway to serve us? As the obedient planets spin about the
• 1:39:55
  sun? Are you but Potter's clay for us to mold? Unholy to our
• 1:40:00
  sin and wholly to the holiness within? She said? Waves fall on many
• 1:40:05
  an unclean shore, Yet the salt seas are wholly as before. Our nature
• 1:40:13
  is no purer for the saint that worships, nor from him that uses ill
• 1:40:17
  our beauty? Can we suffer any taint? As from the first we were?
• 1:40:23
  So are we still with incorruptibles. The mortal will corrupts itself, and
• 1:40:28
  clouded eyes will make darkness within from beams they cannot take well. It is
• 1:40:34
  well, said Damer. If I have used the and breathing spirit, amiss,
• 1:40:40
  what would have been the strength of all my days? I have refused
• 1:40:44
  and plucked the stalk, too hasty in the green, trusted the good for
• 1:40:47
  best, and having seen half beauty or beauty's fringe, the lowest stare the
• 1:40:53
  common incantation worshiped there. But presently he cried in his grave pain. If
• 1:41:00
  I had loved a beast, it would repay. But I have loved the
• 1:41:03
  spirit, and loved in vain. Now let me die. Ah, But
• 1:41:09
  before the way is ended, quite in the last hour of day, is
• 1:41:14
  there no word of comfort, no one kiss of human love? Does it
• 1:41:18
  all end in this? She answered? Never ask of life and death?
• 1:41:25
  Uttering these names, you dream of warmy clay, or of surviving ghosts.
• 1:41:30
  This withering breath of words is the beginning of decay in truth. When truth
• 1:41:35
  grows cold and pines away among the ancestral images, your eyes first see her
• 1:41:42
  dead, and more the more she dies, you are still dreaming dreams you
• 1:41:48
  shall forget. When you have cast your fetters far from here, go forth.
• 1:41:54
  The journey is not ended yet, you have seen dyme Er dead and
• 1:41:58
  on the bier. More then you dream and dropped no tear. You have
• 1:42:02
  slain him. Every hour, think not at all of death, lest into
• 1:42:08
  death by thought you fall. He turned to question her, then looked again,
• 1:42:15
  and lo, the shape was gone. The darkness lay heavy as yet,
• 1:42:18
  and a cold, shifting rain fell with the breeze that springs before the
• 1:42:24
  day. It was an hour death loves across the way. The clock struck
• 1:42:30
  once again. He saw near by the black shape of the tower against the
• 1:42:34
  sky. Meanwhile, above the torture and the riot of leaping pulse and nerve
• 1:42:41
  that shot with pain, somewhere aloof and poised in spectral quiet, His soul
• 1:42:46
  was thinking on the dizzied brain, scarce seemed her organ. Link by link,
• 1:42:54
  the chain that bound him to the flesh was loosening fast, and the
• 1:42:58
  new life breathed in, unmoved and vast. It was like this, he
• 1:43:04
  thought, Like this or worse for him that I found bleeding in the wood.
• 1:43:10
  Blessings upon him. There I learned the curse that rests on Diymer's name,
• 1:43:15
  And truth was good. He has forgotten now the fire and blood.
• 1:43:19
  He has forgotten that there was a man called Dimer. He knows not himself
• 1:43:25
  nor Bran. How long have I been moved at heart in vain about this
• 1:43:30
  Dimer, thinking this was I Why did I follow close? His joy and
• 1:43:35
  pain more than another man's. For he will die, the little cloud will
• 1:43:41
  vanish, and the sky reigns as before the stars remain, and earth and
• 1:43:45
  man as in the years before my birth. There was a Dimer once who
• 1:43:51
  worked and played about the city. I slept him off and ran. There
• 1:43:57
  was a Dimer in the forest glade, ranting alone, skulking the fates of
• 1:44:00
  man. I cast him also, and a third began, and he too
• 1:44:04
  died. But I am none of those. Is there another still to die?
• 1:44:10
  Who knows? Then, in his pain, half wondering what he did,
• 1:44:15
  he made to struggle towards that belfried place, and groaning down the sodden
• 1:44:20
  bank, he slid and groaning in the lane. He felt his trace of
• 1:44:25
  bloodied mire, then halted with his face upwards towards the gateway, breathing hard,
• 1:44:30
  an old lych gate before a burial yard. He looked within, between
• 1:44:36
  the huddling crosses, over the slanted tombs and sunken slate spread the deep,
• 1:44:43
  quiet grass and humble mosses, a green and growing darkness, drenched of late,
• 1:44:48
  smelling of earth and damp. He reached the gate with failing hand.
• 1:44:54
  I will rest here, he said, and the long grass will cool my
• 1:44:58
  burning head. End of Canto eight, Canto nine. Even as he heard
• 1:45:06
  the wicket clash behind, came a great wind beneath that seemed to tear the
• 1:45:12
  solid graves apart and deaf and blind, whirled him upright like smoke, through
• 1:45:16
  towering air whose levels were as steps of a sky stare. The parching cold
• 1:45:23
  roughened his throat with thirst and pricked him at the heart. This was the
• 1:45:28
  first, and as he soared into the next degree, suddenly all around him
• 1:45:33
  he could hear sad strings that fretted inconsolably, and ominous horns that blew both
• 1:45:41
  far and near. There broke his human heart, and his last tear froze
• 1:45:45
  scalding on his chin. But while he heard, he shot like a sped
• 1:45:50
  dart into the third, and its first stroke of silence could destroy the spring
• 1:45:58
  of tears forever, and compress from off his lips the curved bow of the
• 1:46:01
  boy forever the sidereal loneliness received him. Where no journeying leaves the less still
• 1:46:09
  to be journeyed through. But everywhere, fast though you fly, the center
• 1:46:14
  still is there. And here the well worn fabric of our life fell from
• 1:46:19
  him. Hope and purpose were cut short, even the blind trust that reaches
• 1:46:25
  in mid strife towards some heart of things. Here blew the mort for the
• 1:46:30
  world spirit herself. The last support was fallen away himself. One spark of
• 1:46:36
  soul swam an unbroken void. He was the whole, and wailing, why
• 1:46:44
  hast thou forsaken me? Was there no world at all but only I,
• 1:46:48
  dreaming of gods and men? Then suddenly he felt the wind no more.
• 1:46:54
  He seemed to fly faster than light, but free, and scaled the sky
• 1:46:59
  in his own so strength, as if a falling stone should wake to find
• 1:47:02
  the world's will was its own. And on the instant, straight before his
• 1:47:09
  eyes, he looked and saw a sentry shape that stood leaning upon its spear,
• 1:47:14
  with hurrying skies behind it, and a moon set red as blood.
• 1:47:19
  Upon its head. Were helmet and mailed, hood and shield upon its arm,
• 1:47:24
  and sword at thigh, all black and pointed sharp against the sky.
• 1:47:30
  Then came the clink of metal, the dry sound of steel on rock,
• 1:47:34
  and challenge who comes here? And as he heard it, dimer at one
• 1:47:40
  bound stood in the stranger's shadow, with the spear between them, and his
• 1:47:45
  human face came near that larger face. What watches this you keep? Said
• 1:47:50
  Daimer, on the edge of such a deep and answer came. I watched
• 1:47:57
  both night and day this frontier. There are beasts of the upper air,
• 1:48:00
  as beasts of the deep sea. One walks this way night after night,
• 1:48:06
  far scouring from his lair, chewing the cut of lusts, which are despair
• 1:48:11
  and fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss that never was.
• 1:48:16
  What kind of beast is this? A kind of things escaped that have no
• 1:48:21
  home? Hunters of men. They love the spring uncurled, the will worn
• 1:48:27
  down, the wearied hour. They come at night time, when the mask
• 1:48:31
  is off the world and the soul's gait ill locked and the flag furled.
• 1:48:36
  Then softly, a pale swarm, and in disguise flit past the drowsy watchman,
• 1:48:43
  small as flies. I'll see this airish beast whereof you speak, I'll
• 1:48:48
  share the watch with you. Nay, little one be gone, you are
• 1:48:54
  of earth the flesh is weak. What is the flesh? To me?
• 1:48:58
  My courses run all, but some deed still waiting to be done. Some
• 1:49:02
  moment I may rise on as the boat lifts with the lifting tide and steals
• 1:49:06
  afloat. You are a spirit, and it is well with you. But
• 1:49:12
  I am come out of great folly and shame, the sack of cities wrongs
• 1:49:16
  I must undo. But tell me of the beast, and whence it came?
• 1:49:20
  Who were it? Sire? And dam? What is its name?
• 1:49:25
  It is my kin? All monsters are the brood of heaven and earth,
• 1:49:29
  and mixed with holy blood? How can this be? My son? Sit
• 1:49:34
  here awhile there is a lady in that primal place where I was born,
• 1:49:40
  who, with her ancient smile made glad the sons of heaven. She loved
• 1:49:44
  to chase the springtime round the world to all your race. She was a
• 1:49:48
  sudden quivering in the wood, or a new thought springing in solitude, till
• 1:49:55
  in prodigious hour, one swollen with youth, blind from new broken prisons,
• 1:50:00
  knowing not himself nor her nor how to mate with truth, lay with her
• 1:50:04
  in a strange and secret spot, mortal with her, immortal and begot this
• 1:50:10
  walker in the night. But did you know this mortal's name? Why?
• 1:50:15
  It was long ago, and yet I think I bear the name in mind.
• 1:50:20
  It was some famished boy whom tampering men had crippled in their chains and
• 1:50:26
  made him blind till their weak hour discovered them, and then he broke that
• 1:50:30
  prison. Softly, it comes again, I have it. It was Dymer,
• 1:50:34
  little one. Dymer's the name. This specter is his son. Then
• 1:50:42
  after silence came an answering shout from Daymer, glad and full break off.
• 1:50:46
  Dismiss. Your watch is ended, and your lamp is out, unarm,
• 1:50:50
  unarm, return into your bliss. You are relieved, sir. I must
• 1:50:55
  deal with this as in my right, for either I must slay this beast,
• 1:51:00
  or else be slain before the day. So mortal and so brave,
• 1:51:05
  that other said, smiling, and turned and looked in Dimer's eyes, scanning
• 1:51:11
  him over twice from heel to head, like an old sergeant's glance, grown
• 1:51:15
  battle wise to know the points of men. At last, arise, he
• 1:51:20
  said, and wear my arms. I can withhold nothing, for such an
• 1:51:25
  hour has been foretold. Thereat with lips as cold as the sea surge he
• 1:51:31
  kissed the youth, and, bending on one knee, put all his armor
• 1:51:34
  off, and let emerge angelic shoulders marbled gloriously, and feet like frozen speed,
• 1:51:42
  and plain to sea. On his wide breast, dark wounds and ancient
• 1:51:45
  scars, the battle honors of celestial wars. Then, like a squire or
• 1:51:53
  brother born, he dressed the young man in those plates that dripped with cold
• 1:51:58
  upon the inside, trick over breast and shoulder, but without the figured gold
• 1:52:03
  gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold, and the icy spear froze fast
• 1:52:09
  to Dymer's hand. But where the other had stood, he took his stand
• 1:52:15
  and searched the cloudy landscape. He could see dim shapes like hills appearing,
• 1:52:20
  but the moon had sunk behind their backs. When will it be, said
• 1:52:26
  Daimer and the other soon? Now soon, for either he comes past us
• 1:52:31
  at night's noon, or else between the night and the full day, and
• 1:52:35
  down there on your left will be his way. Swear that you will not
• 1:52:41
  come between us too, nor help me by a hair's weight if I bow.
• 1:52:45
  If you are he if prophecies speak true, not Heaven and all the
• 1:52:50
  gods can help you. Now this much I have been told, but know
• 1:52:55
  not how the fight will end. Who knows? I cannot tell, Sir,
• 1:53:00
  be content, said Damer, I know well. Thus Dymer stood to
• 1:53:05
  arms, with eyes that ranged through aching darkness, stared upon it, so
• 1:53:12
  that all things as he looked upon them, changed and were not as at
• 1:53:15
  first, but grave and slow. The larger shade went sauntering to and fro,
• 1:53:21
  humming at first the snatches of some tune that soldiers sing, but falling
• 1:53:27
  silent. Soon then came steps of dawn. And though they heard no milking
• 1:53:32
  cry in the fields, and no cock crew, and out of empty air,
• 1:53:36
  no twittering bird sounded from neighboring hedges, yet they knew. Eastward,
• 1:53:43
  the hollow blackness paled to blue, then blew to white, and in the
• 1:53:46
  west the rare surviving stars blinked feebler in cold air. Far beneath Dimer's feet,
• 1:53:56
  the sad half light, discovering the new landscape, oddly came and forms
• 1:54:00
  grown half familiar in the night, looked strange again. No distance seemed the
• 1:54:05
  same, and now he could see clear and call by name valleys and hills
• 1:54:12
  and woods. The phantoms all took shape and made a world at morning's call.
• 1:54:18
  It was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps of broken trees rose out
• 1:54:23
  of endless clay, naked of flower and grass, the slobberd humps dividing the
• 1:54:29
  dead pools against the gray. A shattered village gaped. But now the day
• 1:54:33
  was very near them, and the night was past, and Dimer understood and
• 1:54:39
  spoke at last. Now I have wooed and won you. Bridal earth,
• 1:54:45
  beautiful world that lives, desire of men, All that the Spirit intended at
• 1:54:49
  my birth this day shall be borne into deed. And then the hard day's
• 1:54:56
  labor comes no more again, forever the pain dies, the longing cease,
• 1:55:00
  the ship glides under the green arch of peace. Now drink me as the
• 1:55:06
  sun drinks up the mist. This is the hour to ceasein at full flood
• 1:55:12
  that asks no gift from following years. But hissed, Look yonder, at
• 1:55:16
  the corner of that wood. Look look there where he comes. It shocks
• 1:55:21
  the blood the first sight. Eh, Now, sentinel, stand clear and
• 1:55:27
  save yourself for God's sake. Come not near. His full grown spirit had
• 1:55:32
  moved without command or spur of the will. Before he knew he found that
• 1:55:38
  he was leaping forward, spear in hand, to where that ash and brute
• 1:55:42
  wheeled slowly round, nosing, and set its ears towards the sound. The
• 1:55:46
  pale and heavy brute rough ridged behind and full of eyes clinking in scaly rind,
• 1:55:55
  And now ten paces parted them, and here he halted. He thrust
• 1:56:00
  forward his left foot, poising his straightened arms, and launched the spear,
• 1:56:03
  and gloriously it sang. But now the brute lurched forward, and he saw
• 1:56:09
  the weapon's shoot beyond it, and fall quivering on the field. Dymer drew
• 1:56:14
  out his sword and raised the shield. What now, my friends, you
• 1:56:19
  get no more from me? Of Dymer, he goes from us what he
• 1:56:25
  felt or saw. From henceforth, no man knows, but he who has
• 1:56:29
  himself gone through the jungle belt of dying into peace. That angel knelt far
• 1:56:34
  off and watched them close, but could not see their battle. All was
• 1:56:40
  ended suddenly a leap, a cry, flurry of steel and claw, then
• 1:56:46
  silence as before the morning light, and the same brute crouched yonder, and
• 1:56:51
  he saw under its feet broken and bent and white, the ruined limbs of
• 1:56:57
  Dymer killed outright all in a moment. All his story done. But that
• 1:57:03
  same moment came the rising sun, and thirty miles to westward, the gray
• 1:57:10
  cloud flushed into answering pink. Long shadows streamed from every hill, and the
• 1:57:16
  low hanging shroud of mist along the valleys broke and steamed. Gold flecked to
• 1:57:21
  heaven. Far off. The armor gleamed like glass upon the dead man's back.
• 1:57:28
  But now the sentinel ran forward, hand to brow and staring for between
• 1:57:34
  him and the sun, he saw that country clothed with dancing flowers where flower
• 1:57:41
  had never grown, and one by one the splintered woods, as if from
• 1:57:45
  april, showers were softening into green. In the leafy towers rose the cool,
• 1:57:51
  sudden chattering on the tongues of happy birds with mourning in their lungs.
• 1:57:59
  The wave of flowers came breaking round his feet, crocus and bluebell, primrose,
• 1:58:03
  daffodil, shivering with moisture, and the air grew sweet within his nostrils,
• 1:58:10
  changing heart and will, making him laugh. He looked, and Dimer
• 1:58:15
  still lay dead among the flowers, and pinned beneath the brute. But as
• 1:58:20
  he looked, he held his breath, For when he had gazed hard with
• 1:58:26
  steady eyes upon the brute. Behold, no brute was there, but some
• 1:58:30
  one, towering large against the skies, a winged and swordid shape, through
• 1:58:35
  whom the air poured as through glass, and its foam tumbled hair lay white
• 1:58:42
  about the shoulders, and the whole pure body brimmed with life as a full
• 1:58:46
  boll. And from the distant corner of Day's birth he heard clear trumpets blowing,
• 1:58:54
  and bell's ring, a noise of great good coming in to earth,
• 1:58:59
  and such a music as the dumb would sing if Balder had led back the
• 1:59:02
  blameless spring with victory, with the voice of charging spears, and in white
• 1:59:09
  lands long lost Saturnian years. End of Canton nine, End of Dimer by
• 1:59:18
  C. S. Lewis