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Dymer - CS Lewis · Timeless Drama - Full Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Dimer by C. S. Lewis, nine Knights. I hung upon
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the tree, wounded with the spear, as an offering to
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  Speaker 1: odin myself, sacrificed to myself, haavemal canto one, you stranger,
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  Speaker 1: Long before your glance can light upon these words, time
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: will have washed away the moment when I first took
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: penn to write, with all my road before me. Yet
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  Speaker 1: to day here, if at all, we meet the unfashioned clay,
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  Speaker 1: ready to both our hands, both hushed to see that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: which is nowhere. Yet, come forth and be this moment.
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  Speaker 1: If you join me, we begin a partnership where both
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  Speaker 1: must toil to hold the clew that I caught. First,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: we lose or win together. If you read, you are enrolled.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And first a marvel. Who could have foretold that in
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  Speaker 1: the city which men called in Scorn the perfect city
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  Speaker 1: Dimer could be born There? You'd have thought the gods
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  Speaker 1: were smothered down forever, and the keys were turned on fate.
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  Speaker 1: No hour was left unchartered in that town, and love
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  Speaker 1: was in a schedule, and the state chose, for eugenic
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  Speaker 1: reasons who should mate with whom, And when each idle
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  Speaker 1: song and dance was fixed by law, and nothing left
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  Speaker 1: to chance, For some of the last Platonists had founded
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  Speaker 1: that city of old and mastery. They made an island
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  Speaker 1: of what ought to be surrounded by this gross world
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  Speaker 1: of easier light and shade. All answering to the master's dream.
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  Speaker 1: They laid the strong foundations, torturing into stone each bubble
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  Speaker 1: that the academy had blown. This people were so pure,
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  Speaker 1: so law abiding, so logical, they made the heavens afraid.
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  Speaker 1: They sent the very swallows into hiding by their appalling
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  Speaker 1: chastity dismayed more soberly, the lambs in springtime played because
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  Speaker 1: of them, and ghosts dissolved in shame before their common
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  Speaker 1: sense till Dimer came. At Dimer's birth, no comet scared
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the nation. The public creche engulfed him with the rest,
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  Speaker 1: and twenty separate boards of education closed round him. He
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  Speaker 1: was passed through every test, was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed, proctored, inspected, whipped,
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  Speaker 1: examined weakly, and for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: For nineteen years they worked upon his soul, refining, chipping, molding,
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  Speaker 1: and adorning. Then came the moment that undid the whole.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The ripple of rude life. Without a warning. It came
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in lecture time one April morning. Alas for laws and locks,
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  Speaker 1: reproach and praise who ever learned to censor the spring days.
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  Speaker 1: A little breeze came, stirring to his cheek. He looked
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  Speaker 1: up to the window. A brown bird perched on the sill,
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  Speaker 1: bent down to wet his beak with darting head. Poor
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Damer watched and stirred uneasily. The lecturer's voice he heard,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: still droning from the dais. The narrow room was drowsy,
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  Speaker 1: over solemn, filled with gloom. He yawned, and a voluptuous
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: laziness tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: slow drawn like an invisible caress, he laughed. The lecturer
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: stopped like one that sees a ghost, then frowned and murmured,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: silence please. That moment saw the soul of Damer hang
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: in the balance louder than his laughter rang. The whole
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: room watched with unbelieving awe. He rose and staggered. Rising
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: from his lips broke yet again the idiot like guffaw.
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  Speaker 1: He felt the spirit in his finger tips, then swinging
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: his right arm a wide ellipse, yet lazily he struck
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  Speaker 1: the lecturer's head. The old man tittered, lurched, and dropped
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  Speaker 1: down dead, out of the silent room, out of the dark,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: into the sun stream. Dimer passed, and there the sudden breezes,
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  Speaker 1: the high hanging lark, the milk white clouds sailing in
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  Speaker 1: polished air, suddenly flashed about him like a blare of trumpets,
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  Speaker 1: and no cry was raised. Behind him. His class sat dazed.
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  Speaker 1: They dared not go to find him. Yet wonderfully some
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: rumor spread abroad, an inarticulate sense of life renewing in
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  Speaker 1: each young heart. He whistled down the road. Men said,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: there's Dimer. Why what's Dimer doing? I don't know. Look
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  Speaker 1: there's Dimer far per suing with troubled eyes. A long,
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  Speaker 1: mysterious oh sighed from a hundred throats to see him
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  Speaker 1: go down the white street and past the gate, and
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  Speaker 1: forth beyond the wall. He came to grassy places. There
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: was a shifting wind to west and north, with clouds
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  Speaker 1: and healing squadron running races. The shadows following on the
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  Speaker 1: sunlight's traces, crossed the whole field, and each wild flower
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  Speaker 1: within it with change of wavering glories every minute. There
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: was a river flushed with rains between the flat fields
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  Speaker 1: and a forest's willowy edge, a sauntering pace. He shuffled
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  Speaker 1: on the green. He kicked his boots against the cracky sedge,
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  Speaker 1: and tore his hands in many a furzy hedge. He
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  Speaker 1: saw his feet and ankles gilded round with butter cups
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  Speaker 1: that carpeted the ground. He looked back, then the line
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  Speaker 1: of a low hill had hid the city's towers and
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  Speaker 1: domes from sight. He stopped. He felt a break of
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  Speaker 1: sunlight spill around him, sudden waves of searching light. Upon
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  Speaker 1: the earth was green and gold and white, smothering his feet.
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  Speaker 1: He felt his city dress an insult to that april cheerfulness.
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  Speaker 1: He said, I've worn this dust heap long enough. Here
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  Speaker 1: goes and forthwith in the open field. He stripped away
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  Speaker 1: that prison of sad stuff, socks, jacket, shirt, and breeches off.
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  Speaker 1: He peeled and rose up, mother naked with no shield
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  Speaker 1: against the sun, then stood awhile to play with bare toes,
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  Speaker 1: dabbling in cold river clay, forward again, and sometimes leaping
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  Speaker 1: high with arms outspread, as though he would embrace in
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  Speaker 1: one act all the circle of the sky. Sometimes he
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  Speaker 1: rested in a leafier place and crushed the wet, cool
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  Speaker 1: flowers against his face. And once he cried aloud, O world,
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  Speaker 1: O day, let let me, and then found no prayer
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  Speaker 1: to say. Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop, he
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  Speaker 1: marched through woods. He strolled from flower to flower, and
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  Speaker 1: over hills, as ointment, drop by drop preciously meted out,
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  Speaker 1: so hour by hour the day slipped through his hands,
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  Speaker 1: and now the power failed in his feet from walking.
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  Speaker 1: He was done, hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun.
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  Speaker 1: He lingered. Looking up, he saw a head, the black
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  Speaker 1: and bristling frontage of a wood, and over it the
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  Speaker 1: large sky, swimming red, freckled with homeward crows. Surprised, he
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  Speaker 1: stood to feel that wideness, quenching his hot mood. Then shouted,
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  Speaker 1: trembling darkness, trembling green. What do you mean, wild wood?
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? He shouted? But the solimn itude
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  Speaker 1: received his noise into her noiselessness, his fire into her calm.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps he half believed some answer yet would come to
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  Speaker 1: his desire. The hushed air quivered softly like a wire
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  Speaker 1: upon his voice. It echoed. It was gone. The quiet,
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  Speaker 1: and the quiet dark went on. He rushed into the wood.
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  Speaker 1: He struck and stumbled on hidden roots. He groped and
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  Speaker 1: scratched his face. The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled.
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  Speaker 1: The stray cat stood paw lifted in mid chase. There
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  Speaker 1: is a windless calm in such a place, A sense
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  Speaker 1: of being indoors, so crowded stand the living trees watching
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  Speaker 1: on every hand, A sense of trespass, such as in
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  Speaker 1: the hall of the wrong house one time, to me befell,
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  Speaker 1: groping between the hat stand and the wall, A clear
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  Speaker 1: voice from above me, like a bell, the sweet voice
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  Speaker 1: of a woman, asking, well, no more than this? And
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: as I fled, I wondered into whose aliens story I
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  Speaker 1: had blundered. A like thing fell to dimer, bending low,
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  Speaker 1: feeling his way, he went. The curtained air sighed into
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  Speaker 1: sound above his head, as though stringed instruments and horns
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  Speaker 1: were riding there. It passed, and at its passing stirred
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  Speaker 1: his hair. He stood, intent to hear. He heard again,
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  Speaker 1: and checked his breath, half drawn, as if with pain,
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  Speaker 1: that music could have crumbled, proud belief, with doubt or
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  Speaker 1: in the bosom of the sage madden the heart that
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  Speaker 1: had outmastered grief and fled with tears the eyes of
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  Speaker 1: frozen age, and turned the young man's feet to pilgrimage.
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  Speaker 1: So sharp it was, so sure a path it found
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  Speaker 1: soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sound. It died out
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  Speaker 1: on the middle of a note, as though it failed
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  Speaker 1: at the urge of it its own meaning. It left
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  Speaker 1: him with life quivering at the throat, limbs shaken and wet,
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  Speaker 1: cheeks and body, leaning with strain towards the sound and senses,
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  Speaker 1: gleaning the last least ebbing ripple of the air, searching
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  Speaker 1: the emptied darkness, muttering where then followed such a time
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  Speaker 1: as is forgotten with morning light, but in the passing
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  Speaker 1: seems unending. Where he grasped the branch was rotten. Where
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  Speaker 1: he trod forth in haste, the forest streams laid weight
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  Speaker 1: for him, like men in fever dreams. Climbing an endless rope.
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  Speaker 1: He labored much and gained no ground. He reached and
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  Speaker 1: could not touch, and often out of darkness, like a
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  Speaker 1: swell that grows up from no wind upon blue sea,
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  Speaker 1: he heard the music unendurable in stealing sweetness wind from
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  Speaker 1: tree to tree. Battered and bruised in body and soul
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  Speaker 1: was he when first he saw a little lightness growing ahead,
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  Speaker 1: and from that light the sound was flowing. The trees
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  Speaker 1: were fewer now, and gladly nearing that light he saw
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  Speaker 1: the stars, for sky was there, and smoother, grass, white flowered,
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  Speaker 1: a forest clearing set in seven miles of forest, secreter
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  Speaker 1: than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair than
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  Speaker 1: greenery under snow or desert water, or the white peace
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  Speaker 1: descending after slaughter, as some who have been wounded beyond
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  Speaker 1: healing wake or half wake once only and so bless
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  Speaker 1: far off the lamp light traveling on the ceiling, a
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  Speaker 1: disk of pale light, filled with peacefulness, and wonder if
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  Speaker 1: this is the c C s or home or heaven
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  Speaker 1: or dreams, then sighing when wise ignorant death before the
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  Speaker 1: panes begin, So dimer in the wood lawn blessed light,
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  Speaker 1: a still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sound. Here
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  Speaker 1: was some pile of building, which the night made larger.
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  Speaker 1: Spiry shadows rose all round, but through the open door
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  Speaker 1: appeared profound recesses of pure light, fire with no flame,
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  Speaker 1: and out of that deep light. The music came tiptoes.
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  Speaker 1: He slunk towards it, where the grass was twinkling in
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  Speaker 1: a lane of light. Before the archway there was neither
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  Speaker 1: fence to pass, nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door.
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  Speaker 1: But where it's open, open evermore, no knocker and no porter,
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  Speaker 1: and no guard. For very strangeness entering in grows hard,
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  Speaker 1: breathe not speak, not walk gently. Someone's here? Why have
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  Speaker 1: they left their house? With the door so wide? There
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  Speaker 1: must be someone? Dimer hung in fear upon the threat,
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  Speaker 1: longing and big eyed. At last he squared his shoulders,
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  Speaker 1: smote his side, and called, I'm here. Now let the
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  Speaker 1: feast begin. I'm coming now, I'm Dimer, and went in
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  Speaker 1: end of Canto one, Canto two. More light, another step,
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  Speaker 1: and still more light. Opening ahead, it swilled with soft excess,
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  Speaker 1: his eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night. And
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  Speaker 1: it was nowhere more and nowhere less in it, no
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  Speaker 1: shadows were he could not guess its fountain. Wandering round around,
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  Speaker 1: he turned still on each side. The level glory burned
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  Speaker 1: far in the dome, to where his gaze was lost.
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  Speaker 1: The deepening roof shone clear as stones, that lie in shore,
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  Speaker 1: beneath pure seas, the aisles that crossed like forests of
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  Speaker 1: white stone, their arms on high pasted pillar after pillar
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  Speaker 1: dragged his eye in unobscured perspective, till the sight was weary,
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  Speaker 1: And there also was the light. Look with my eyes,
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  Speaker 1: conceive yourself above and hanging in the dome, and thence
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  Speaker 1: through space, looked down, see dimer dwarfed and naked move
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  Speaker 1: a white blot on the floor at such a pace
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  Speaker 1: as boats that hardly seemed to have changed place once
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  Speaker 1: in an hour, when from the cliffs we spy the
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  Speaker 1: same ship, always smoking towards the sky. The shouting mood
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  Speaker 1: had withered from his heart. The oppression of huge places
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  Speaker 1: wrapped him round. A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart
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  Speaker 1: deep into him. Some fear of being found, some hope
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  Speaker 1: to find, he knew not what. The sound of music,
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  Speaker 1: never ceasing, took the roll of silence, and like silence
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  Speaker 1: numbed his soul till as he turned a corner his
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  Speaker 1: deep awe broke with a sudden start, for straight ahead,
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  Speaker 1: far off a wild eyed, naked man he saw that
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  Speaker 1: came to meet him, and beyond was spread yet further
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  Speaker 1: depth of light. With quickening tread, he leaped towards the shape,
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  Speaker 1: then stopped and smiled before a mirror, wondering like a child.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Beside the glass, unguarded for the claiming. Like a great
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  Speaker 1: patch of flowers upon the wall, hung every kind of clothes,
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  Speaker 1: silk feathers, flaming leopard skin, furry mantles, like the fall
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  Speaker 1: of deep midwinter snows. Upon them, all hung the faint
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  Speaker 1: smell of cedar, and the dyes were bright as blood
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  Speaker 1: and clear as morning skies. He turned from the white
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  Speaker 1: specter in the glass and looked at these. Remember he
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: had worn through winter slush, through summer flowers and grass,
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  Speaker 1: one kind of solemn stuff, since he was born with
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  Speaker 1: badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn and cried,
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  Speaker 1: here is no law nor I to see, nor leave
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  Speaker 1: of entry given. Why should there be have done with that?
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  Speaker 1: You threw it all behind. Henceforth I ask no license
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  Speaker 1: where I need. It's on on on, though I go
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  Speaker 1: mad and blind, though knees ache and lung's labor and
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  Speaker 1: feet bleed, or else, it's home again to sleep and feed,
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  Speaker 1: and work, and hate them always, and obey and loathe
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  Speaker 1: the punctual rise of each new day. He made mad
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  Speaker 1: work among them as he dressed, with motley, choice and
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  Speaker 1: litter on the floor, and each thing, as he found
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  Speaker 1: it seemed the best. He wondered that he had not
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: known before how fare a man he was. I'll creep
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: no more, in secret, Dimer said, but I'll go back
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and drive them all to freedom. On this track, he
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller behind him.
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  Speaker 1: Now himself, in royal guise, filled the whole frame, a
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  Speaker 1: nobler shape and taller, till suddenly he started with surprise,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: catching by chance his own familiar eyes, fevered yet still
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the same, without their share of bravery, undeceived and watching there.
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  Speaker 1: Yet as he turned he cried, the rest remain. If
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: they rebelled, if they should find me here, we'd pluck
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  Speaker 1: the whole taut fabric from the strain, hew down the city.
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  Speaker 1: Let live earth appear, old men and barren women, whom,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: through fear we have suffered to be masters in our home. Hide, hide,
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  Speaker 1: for we are angry, and we come thus feeding on
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  Speaker 1: vain fancy, covering round his hunger, his great loneliness, arraying
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: in facile dreams, until the qualm was drowned. The boy
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: went on through endless arches, straying with casual tread. He
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: sauntered manly, playing at manhood. Lest more loss of faith
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: betide him till lo he saw a table set beside him.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: When Dimer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth. He
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover's. He
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: had a hunger in him that was worth ten cities.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Here was silver glass and covers, cold peacock prawns and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: aspec eggs of plovers, raised pies that stood like castles,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: gleaming fishes, and bright fruit, with broad leaves around the dishes.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: If ever you have passed a cathay door and lingered
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in the dusk of a June day, fresh from the road,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: sweat sodden and foot sore, and heard the plates clink
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and the music play with laughter, with white tables far
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: away with many lights, conceive how Dimer ran to table,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: looked once round him, and began That table seemed unending.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Here and there were broken meats, bread, crept, umbled flowers, defaced,
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  Speaker 1: a napkin with white petals on a chair, a glass
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: already tasted still to taste. It seemed that a great
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: host had fed in haste, and gone, yet left a
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: thousand places more untouched, wherein no guest had sat before. There,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: in the lonely splendor, dimer ate as thieves eat ever
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: watching half in fear, he blamed his evil fortune. I
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: come late. Whose board was this? What company sat here?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: What women with wise mouths? What comrades deer? Who would
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: have made me welcome as the one free born of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: all my race? And cried, well done? Remember yet again
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: he had grown up on rations and on scientific food,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: at common boards, with water in his cup, one mess
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: alike for every day and mood. But here at his
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: right hand a flagon stood. He raised it, paused before
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  Speaker 1: he drank, and laughed, I'll drown their perfect city in
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this draft. He fingered the cold neck. He saw within
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue and murmured.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Standing now with pointed chin and head thrown back, he
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: tasted rapture flew through every Vein that moment Louder grew
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the music and swelled forth a trumpet note. He ceased,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and put one hand up to his throat. Then heedlessly
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: he let the flagon sink in his right hand, his
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: staring eyes were caught in distance, as of one who
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: tries to think a thought that is still waiting to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: be thought. There was a riot in his heart that
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: brought the loud blood to the temples. A great voice
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: sprang to his lips, unsummoned, with no choice. Ah, but
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the eyes are open. The dream is broken to sack
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the perfect city, A fool's deed for Dimer, folly of follies.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I have spoken, I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: A thousand times. They have warned me of men's greed,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: for joy, for the good that all desire. But never
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavor.
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  Speaker 1: Some day I will come back to break the city.
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  Speaker 1: Not now, perhaps when age is white and bleak. Not
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: now I am in haste, Oh God, the pity of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: all my life till this, groping and weak, the shadow
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of itself. But now to seek that true, most ancient glory,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: whose white glance was lost through the whole world by
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: evil chance. I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning. Dimer,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the drudge, the black leg who obeyed desire, shall teach
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: me now if this be sinning good luck to it,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Oh splendor, long delayed, beautiful world of mine, O world
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  Speaker 1: arrayed for bridal flower and forest, wave and field. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: come to be your lover, loveliest yield world. I will
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: prove you, lest it should be said. There was a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: man who loved the earth. His heart was nothing but
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that love. With doting tread, he worshiped the loved grass,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and every start of every bird from cover the least
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: part of every flower he held in awe. Yet Earth
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: gave him no joy between his death and birth. I
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: know my good is hidden at your breast. There is
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a sound of great good in my ear like wings.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And oh, this moment is the best. I shall not fail.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I taste it. It comes near as men from a
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: dark dungeon. See the clear stars shining, and the filled streams.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Far away. I hear your promise booming and obey. This
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps beyond where I am come,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And farther still the rivers wander seaward with smooth laps,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill somewhere
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: before the world's end. I shall fill my spirit at
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Earth's pap for Earth must hold one rich thing sealed
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: as dimers from of old, one rich thing, Or it
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: may be more than this. Might I not reach the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: borders of a land that ought to have been mine?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And there the bliss of free speech. There the eyes
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: that understand, the men free grown, not modeled by the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: hand of masters, men that know, or men that seek,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: They will not gape and murmur when I speak. Then,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: as he ceased amid the farther wall, he saw a
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: curtained and low lintled door, dark curtains, sweepy fold night
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: purple pall. He thought he had not noticed it before.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Sudden desire for darkness overbore his will and drew him
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: towards it. All was blind Within he passed, the curtains
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: closed behind. He entered in a void. Night scented flowers
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: breathed there. But this was darker than the night that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: is most black with beating thunder showers, a disembodied world
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: where depth and height and distance were unmade. No seam
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of light showed through. It was a world not made
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: for seeing. One pure one undivided sense of being through darkness,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: smooth as amber. Warily slowly he moved. The floor was
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: soft beneath his feet. A cool smell that was wholly
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and unholy, sharp like the very spring, and roughly sweet,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: blew towards him, and he felt his fingers neat broad
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: leaves and wiry stems that, at his will unclosed before
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and closed behind him. Still with body intent, he felt
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the foliage quiver on breast and thighs. With groping arms,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: he made wide passes in the air, a sacred shiver
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of joy from the heart center oddly strayed to every nerve,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: deep sighing, much afraid, much wondering, he went on. Then, stooping,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: found a knee depth of warm pillows on the ground,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and there it was sweet rapture to lie still, eyes
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: open on the dark. A flowing health bathed him from
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: head to foot, and great good will rose springing in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: his heart and poured its wealth outwards. Then came a hand,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: as if by stealth, out of the dark, and touched
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: his hand, and after the beating silence, budded into laughter,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a low, grave laugh, and rounded like a pearl, mysterious,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: filled with home. He opened wide his arms. The breathing
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: body of a girl slid into them from the world's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: end with the stride of seven league boots came passion
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to his side, then meeting mouths, soft falling hair, a cry, heart,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: shaken flank, sudden cool, folded thigh. The same night swelled
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the mushroom in Earth's lap and silvered the wet fields.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: It drew the bud from hiding, and led on the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: rhythmic sap, and sent the young wolves thirsting after blood
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and wheeling. The big seas made ebb and flood along
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the shores of Earth, and held these two in dead
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: sleep till the time of morning dew end of Canto
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: two Canto three, he woke, and all at once before
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: his eyes the pale spires of the chestnut trees in
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: bloom rose waving, and beyond dove colored skies, But where
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he lay was dark and out of gloom. He saw
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: them through the doorway of a room full of strange
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: scents and softness, padded deep with growing leaves, heavy with
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: last night's sleep. He rubbed his eyes. He felt that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: chamber wreathing new sleepiness around him. At his side, he
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: was aware of warmth and quiet breathing. Twice he sank back,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: loose limbed, and drowsy eyed. But the wind came even
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: there a sparrow cried, and the woods shone without then
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: dimer rose. Just for one glance, he said, and went
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: tiptoes out into crisp, gray air and drenching grass. The
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: whitened cobweb sparkling in its place, clung to his feet.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: He saw the wagtail pass beside him and the thrush,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and from his face felt the thin scented winds divinely
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: chase the flush of sleep. Far off, he saw between
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the trees long morning shadows of dark green. He stretched
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: his lazy arms to their full height, yawning and sighed,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and laughed and sighed anew, then wandered farther, watching with
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: delight how his broad naked footprints stained the dew, pressing
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: his foot to feel the cold come through between the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: spreading toes, then wheeling round each moment to some new
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: shrill forest sound. The wood, with its cold flowers, had
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: nothing there more beautiful than he new, waked from sleep,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: new born from joy. His soul lay very bare that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: moment to life's touch, and pondering deep Now. First he
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: knew that no desire could keep these hours for always,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and that men do die. But oh, the present glory
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of lungs, and I, he thought, at home, they are
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: waking now. The stair is filled with feet. The bells
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: clang far from me. Where am I now? I could
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not point to where the city lies from here? Then suddenly,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: if I were here alone, these woods could be a
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: frightful place. But now I have met my friend who
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: loves me. We can talk to the road's end. Thus,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: quickening with the sweetness of the tail of his new love,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: he turned. He saw between the young leaves, where the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: palace walls showed pale with chilly stone. But far above
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the green, springing like cliffs in air, the towers were
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: seen making more quiet, yet the quiet dawn. Thither he came.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: He reached the open lawn. No bird was moving here
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: against the wall. Out of the unscythed grass, the nettle grew.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: The doors stood open wide, but no footfall rang in
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the colonnades. Whispering through arches and hollow halls, the light
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: wind blew. His awe returned, he whistled, Then no more,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: it's better to plunge in by the first door. But
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: then the vastness threw him into doubt. Was this the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: door that he had found last night or that beneath
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the tower, had he come out this side at all?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: As the first snow falls light with following rain, before
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the year grows white. So the first dim foreboding touched
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: his mind gently as yet and easily thrust behind. And
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with it came the thought, I do not know her name,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: no nor her face. But still his mood ran blithely,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: as he felt the morning blow about him, and the
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: earth smell in the wood seemed waking for long hours.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: That must be good here in the unfettered lands that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: knew no cause for grudging. Out of reach of the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: old laws, he hastened to one entry up the stair
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: beneath the pillared porch. Without delay. He ran, then halted suddenly,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: for there across the quiet threshold something lay, a bundle,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a dark mass that barred the way. He looked again,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and low, the formless pile under his eyes was moving
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: all the while, and it had hands, pale hands of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: wrinkled flesh, puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity that moved.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: He eyed the sprawling thing afresh, and bit by bit
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: so faces come to be in the red coal. Yet
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: surely he could see that the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a living thing, the likeness of a woman. In the center,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: a draped hummock marked the head. Thence flowed the broader
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: lines with curve and fold, spreading as oak roots do.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: You would have said a man could hide among them
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and grow old in finding a way out. Breasts manifold,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: as of the Ephesian Artemis, might be under that robe.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: The face he did not see, and all his being answered,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: not that way, never a word. He spoke stealthily. Creeping
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: back from the door, he drew quick, no delay, quick, quick,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: but very quiet, backward, peeping till fairly out of sight,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: then shouting, leaping, shaking himself, he ran, as puppies do,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: from bathing till that door was out of year. Another gait,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and empty in he went and found a courtyard open
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to the sky. Amidst it dripped a fountain, heavy scent
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of flowers was here the foxglove, standing high, sheltered the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: whining wasp. With hasty eye, he traveled round the walls.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: One doorway, led within, one showed a further court ahead.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: He ran up to the first, a hungry lover and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet, but weary
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of long waiting to discover that loved one's face. Before
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: his foot was set on the first stair, he felt
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the sudden sweat, cold on his sides, that sprawling mass
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: in view, that shape, the horror of heaviness. Here too,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: he fell back from the porch. Not yet, not yet,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: There must be other ways where he would meet no
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: watcher in the door. He would not let the fear rise,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: nor hope falter, nor defeat be entered in his thoughts.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: A sultry heat seemed to have filled the day. His
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: breath came short, and he passed on into that inner court,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and like a dream, the sight he feared to find
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was waiting here. Then, cloister, path and square, he hastened
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: through down paths that needed blind traced, and retraced his steps.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: The thing sat there in every door, still watching everywhere, behind, ahead,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: all round. So steady now lest panic comes, He stopped.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: He wiped his brow. But as he strove to rally,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: came the thought that he had dreamed of such a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: place before, knew how it all would end. He must
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: be caught early or late, no good, But all the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: more he raged with passionate will that overbore that knowledge,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and cried out and beat his head, raving upon the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: senseless walls, and said, where where, dear look once out,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: give but one sign. It's I iy Dimer. Are you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: chained and hidden? What have they done to her? Loose her?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: She is mine through stone and iron, haunted and hag ridden.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I'll come to you, no stranger nor unbidden. It's I.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Don't fear them. Shout above them all, can you not hear?
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I'll follow at your call from every arch. The echo
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of his cry returned. Then all was silent, and he
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: knew there was no other way. He must pass by
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that horror, tread her down, force his way through, or
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: die upon the threshold. And this too had all been
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: in a dream. He felt his heart beating, as if
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: his throat would burst apart. There was no other way.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: He stood a space and pondered it. Then, gathering up
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: his will, he went to the next door. The pillared
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: place beneath the porch was dark, the air was still moss.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: On the steps. He felt her presence fill the threshold
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: with dull life. Here too was she. This time he
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: raised his eyes and dared to see Pah only an
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: old woman. But the size, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness, immovable, intolerable,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the eyes hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress, corpse,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: like the weight of the brute that seemed to press
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard his own voice,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: strange and humbled. Take the word, good mother, Let me pass.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I have a friend to look for in this house.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I slept the night and feasted here. It was my
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: journey's end. I found it by the music and the light,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and no one kept the doors, and I did right
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to enter, did I not? Now? Mother? Pray let me
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: pass in, Good mother, give me way. The woman answered nothing,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: but he saw the hands like crabs still wandering on
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: her knee. Mother, if I have broken in any law,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I ask a pardon once, then let it be once
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: is enough, and leave the passage free. I am in haste,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And though it were a sin by all the laws
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you have, I must go in. Courage was rising in
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: him now, he said, out of my path, old woman,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: for this cause, I am new born, new freed, and
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: here new wed, that I might be the breaker of
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: bad laws. The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: wherever my feet fall, I bring to birth under its crust,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the green, ungrudging earth. He had started bowing low, but
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: now he stood stretched to his height. His own voice
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: in his breast made misery pompous, firing all his blood enough,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: he cried, give place. You shall not rest my love
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: from me. I journey on a quest you cannot understand.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Whose strength shall bear me through fire and earth? A
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: bogey will not scare me. I am the sword of spring.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I am the truth, Old knight, Put out your stars.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: The dawn is here, the sleeper's wakening, and the wings
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: of youth. With crumbling veneration and cowed fear, I make
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: no truce. My loved one, live and dear waits for me.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Let me in. I fled the city. Shall I fear you?
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Or mother? Ah for pity for his high mood fell
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: shattered like a man unnerved in bayonet fighting, in the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: thick full of red rum and shears. When he began
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: now in a dream, muttering, I've not the trick. It's
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: no good. I'm no good. They're all too quick there.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Look there, look at that. So Dimer stood, suddenly drained
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of hope. It was no good. He pleaded, Then shame
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: beneath shame, forgive. It may be there are powers I
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: cannot break. If you are of them, speak speak, let
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: me live. I ask so small a thing I beg
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: I make my body a living prayer who's for would
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: shake the mountains. I'll recant, confess my sin, but this
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: once let me pass. I must go in yield, but
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: one inch once only from your law. Set any price.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I will give all, obey all else, but this, hold
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: your least word in AWE give you no cause for
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: anger from this day. Answer the least things living. When
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they pray as I pray, Now bear witness they speak
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: true against God. Answer Mother, let me through. Then, when
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: he heard no answer, mad with fear and with desire,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: too strained with both to know what he desired or feared.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Yet staggering near, he forced himself towards her and bent
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: low for grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow fell
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: on his heart. He thought, there came a blank of
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: all things. As the dead sink down, he sank. The
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: first big drops are rattling on the trees. The sky
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: is coppered, dark, loath, n pealing sea, dimer with drooped
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: head and knocking knees comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly, reeling, blind, beaten,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: broken past desire of healing, pass knowledge of his misery,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: he goes on under the first dark trees, and now
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: is gone. End of Canto three. Canto four. First came
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the peal that split the heavens apart straight overhead. Then silence,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: then the rain. Twelve miles of downward water, like one
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: dart and in one leap, were launched along the plain
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: to break the budding flower and flood the grain, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: keep with dripping sound and under song amid the wheeling
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: thunder all night long. He put his hands before his face.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: He stooped, blind with his hair. The loud drops, grim
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: tattoo beat him to earth like summer grass. He drooped
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: amaze while sheeted lightning large and blue, blinked wide and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: pricked the quivering eyeball through. Then, scrambling to his feet
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: with downward head, he fought into the tempest as chance led.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: The wood was mad, soughing of branch and straining was there,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: drumming of water. Light was none, nor knowledge of himself,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: The trees complaining, and his own throbbing heart seemed mixed
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: in one, one sense of bitter loss and beauty undone.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: All else was blur and chaos and rain, steam and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: noise and the confusion of a dream. Aha, Earth hates
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: a miserable man, against him, even the clouds and winds conspire.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Heaven's voice smote Dimer's ear drum as he ran its
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: red throat, plagued the dark with corded fire, barbed flame,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: coiled flame that ran like living wire, charged with disastrous
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: current left and right about his path, hell blue or
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: staring white, stab, stab, blast, all at once? What's he
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: to fear? Look there that cedar, shriveling in swift blight,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: even where he stood, And there Ah that came near. Oh,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: if some shaft would break his soul out right? What ease?
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: So too, unload and scatter quite on the darkness, This
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: wild beating in his skull, too burning to endure, too
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: tense and full, all lost and driven away, even her
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: name unknown, O fool to have wasted for a kiss
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: time when they could have talked. An angry shame was
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: in him. He had worshiped Earth, and this the venomed clouds,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: fire spitting from the abyss. This was the truth indeed
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the world's intent unmasked and naked, now the thing it meant.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: The storm lay on the forest a great time, wheeled
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: in its thundery circuit, returned still through the dead leaved darkness,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: through the slime of standing pools and slots of clay.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Storm churned went dimer still. The knotty lightning burned along
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: black air. He heard the unbroken sound of water rising
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: in the hollower ground. He cursed it in his madness,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: flung it back, sorrow as wild as young men's sorrows are,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: till after midnight, when the tempest's track drew off between
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: two clouds appeared one star. Then his mood changed, and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: this was heavier far when bit by bit rarer, and
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: still more rare. The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: when leaves began to drip with dying rain, and trees
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: showed black against the glimmering sky. When the night birds
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: flapped out and called again above him, When the silence,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: cool and shy came stealing to its own, and streams
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: ran by, now audible amid the rustling wood. Oh, then
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: came the worst hour for flesh and blood. It was
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: no nightmare now with fiery stream, too horrible to last,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: able to blend itself in all things in one hurrying dream.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: It was the waking world that will not end because
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: hearts break, that is not foe nor friend. Where sane
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and settled knowledge first appears of work day desolation with
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: no tears. He halted, then foot sore, weary to death,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and heard his heart beating in solitude, when suddenly the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: sound of sharpest breath in drawn with pain, and the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: raw smell of blood surprised his sense. Near By to
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: where he stood came a long, whimpering moan, a broken word,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: a rustle of leaves where some live body stirred. He
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: groped towards the sound. What brother, brother, who groaned, I'm his,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I'm finished, let me be. Put out your hand then
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: reach me. No the other, don't touch fool, damn you
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: leave me. I can't see. Where are you? Then more
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: groans they've done for me? I've no hands. Don't come
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: near me, No, but stay, don't leave me? Oh my god?
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Is it near day? Soon? Now? A little longer? Can
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: you sleep? I'll watch for you sleep? Is it that's
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a head? But none till then listen I've bled too
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: deep to last out till the morning. I'll be dead
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: within the hour sleep. Then I've heard it said they
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: don't mind at the last, But this is hell. If
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: i'd the strength, I have such things to tell. All
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: trembling in the dark and sweated over like a man
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: reared in peace, unused to pain, sat dimer near him
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: in the lightless cover, afraid to touch, and shame faced
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to refrain. Then bit by bit, and often checked again
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: with agony. The voice told on the place was dark
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: that neither saw the other's face. There is a city
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: which men call in scorn, the perfect city eastward of
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: this wood. You've heard about the place there I was born.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I'm one of them, their work, their sober mood, the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: ordered life, the laws are in my blood, a life
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: well less than happy, something more than the red greed
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and lusts that went before all. In one day, one man,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and at one blow brought ruin on us all. There
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: was a boy, blue eyes, large limbs, where all he
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: had to show you need no greater profits to destroy.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy had passed
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: him by, the dreamiest, safest man, the most obscure, until
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: this curse began. Then, how or why it was? I
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: cannot say. This dimer, this fool baby pink and white,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: went mad beneath his quiet face. One day, with nothing said,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: he rose and laughed outright before his master. Then in
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: all our sight, even where we sat to watch, he
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: struck him dead, and screamed with lefter once again and fled. Lord,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: how it all comes back, How still the place is,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and he there lying dead, only the sound of a
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: blue bottle buzzing, sharpened faces strained gaping from the benches
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: all around the dead man, hunched and quiet with no wound,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: and minute after minute, terror creeping with dreadful hopes to
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: set the wild heart leaping. Then, one by one, at random,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: no word spoken, we slipped out to the sunlight, and
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: away we felt the empty sense of something broken and
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: comfortless adventure. All that day men loitered at their work
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: and could not say what trembled at their lips or
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: what new light was in girl's eyes. Yet we endured
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: till night. Then I was lying wide awake in bed,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet desire
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of reckless days, with burning head. And then there came
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a clamor from the street came nearer, nearer, nearer, stamping
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: feet and screaming, song and curses, and a shout of
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: who's for Diymer Dimer Up and out We looked out
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: from our window, thronging. There a thousand of our people,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: girls and men, raved and reviled and shouted by the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: glare of torches and of bonfire blaze. And then came
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: tumult from the street. Beyond again Dimer they cried, and
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: farther off there came the sound of gun fire and
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: the gleam of flame. I rush down with the rest o.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: We were mad after this, It's all nightmare. The black
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: sky between the house tops framed was all we had
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: to tell us that the old world could not die,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: and that we were no gods. The flood ran high
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: when first I came, but after was the worse. Ho
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to recall on Dimer rest the curse. Our leader was
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: a hunchback with red hair. Bran was his name. He
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: had that kind of force about him that will hold
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: your eyes fast. There as in ten miles of green,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: one patch of gorse will hold them. Do you know?
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: His lips were coarse, but his eyes like a prophet's
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: seemed to fill the whole face, and his tongue was
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: never still. He cried as Dimer broke, we'll break the chain.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: The world is free. They taught you to be chaste
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and labor and bare orders, and refrain from what all's
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: good enough. We'll taste whatever is life, murmurs from the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: waist beneath the mind who made the reasoning part, the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: jailer of the wild gods. In the heart, we were
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a ragtail crew, wild haired, half dressed, all shouting up
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: for Dimer, up away, yet each one always watching all
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the rest and looking to his back. And some were
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: gay like drunk men. Some were cringing, pinched, and gray,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: with terror dry on the lip. The older ones had
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: had the sense enough to bring their guns. The wave
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: where I was swallowed swelled and broke after long surge
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: into the open square, and here there was more light,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: new clamor woke. Here. First I heard the bullets sting
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the air, and went hot round the heart. Our lords
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: were there in barricade, with all their loyal men. For
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: every one man loyal bran led ten. Then charge in
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: sheer and bubbling sobs of death. We hovered on their front,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: like swarming bees. Their spraying bullets came no time for breath.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I saw men's stomachs fall out on their knees and
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: shouting faces while they shouted freeze into black, bony masks.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Before we knew we're into them. Swine die, then that's
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: for you. The next that I remember was a lull
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and sated pause. I saw an old old man lying
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: before my feet with shattered skull, and both my arms
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: dripped red. And then came bran and at his heels
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: A hundred murderers ran, with prisoners, now clamoring to take
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and try them, and burn them, wedge their nails up,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: crucify them. God once, the lying spirit of a cause,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: with maddening words, dethrones the mind of men. There passed
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the reach of prayer. The eternal laws hate them. Their
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: eyes will not come clean again, But doom and strong
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: delusion drive them. Then without ruth, without rest, the iron
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: laughter of the immortal mouths goes hooting after and we
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: had fire brands too. Tower after tower fell sheathed in
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: thundering flame. The street was like a furnace mouth. We
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: had them in our power. Then was the time to
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: mock them, and to strike to flay men and spit
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: women on the pike, bidding them dance wherever the most
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: shame was done. The doer called on Dimer's name, faces
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: of men in torture from my mind, they will not
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: go away. The east lay still in darkness when we
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: left the town behind, flaming to light the fields we'd
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: had our will, we sang, ho, we will make the
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: frost distill from time's gray forehead into living dew, and
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: break whatever has been and build new. Day found us
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: on the border of this wood, blear, eyed and pale.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Then the most part began to murmur and to lag,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: crying for food and shelter. But we dared not answer.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Bran wherever in the ranks the murmur ran, He'd find it,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: you there whispering up, You sneak reactionary, Eh, come out
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and speak. Then there'd be shrieks, a pistol shot, a cry,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and some one down. I was the third he caught.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: The others pushed me out beneath his eye, saying, he's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: here here, captain. Who'd have thought my old friends? But
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I know now I've been taught. They cut away my
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: two hands and my feet and laughed and left me
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: for the birds to eat. Oh God's name. If I
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: had my hands again and Dimer here, it would not
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: be my blood. I am stronger now than he is,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: old with pain. One grip would make him mine. But
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: it's no good. I'm dying fast. Look, stranger, where the
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: wood grows lighter. It's the morning, stranger, dear, don't leave me.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Talk a little while. Come near. But Daimer, sitting hunched
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: with knee to chin close to the dying man, answered
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: no word. His face was stone. There was no meaning
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: in his wakeful eyes. Sometimes the others stirred and fretted
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: near his death, and Diimer heard, yet sat like one
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that neither hears nor sees. And the cold east whitened
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: beyond the trees end of Canto four, Canto five, through
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: bearded cliffs. A valley has driven thus deep its wedge
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: into the mountain, and no more. The faint track of
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the farthest wandering sheep ends here, and the gray hollows,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: at their core of silence, feel the dulled, continuous roar
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: of higher streams. At every step. The skies grew less,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and in their place black ridges rise hither long afternoon
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: with plodding tread, and eyes on earth grown dogged. Dimer came,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: who all the long day in the woods had fled
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: from the horror of those lips that screamed his name
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: and cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame were driving him,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and little thoughts like bees followed and pricked him on
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: and left no ease. Now, when he looked and saw
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: this emptiness seven times enfolded in the idle hills, there
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: came a chilly pause to his distress, a cloud of
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: the deep world, despair that fills a man's heart like
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the incoming tide, and kills all pains except its own.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: In that broad sea, no hope, no change, and no
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: regret can be He felt the eternal strength of the
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: silly earth, the unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: the business of perpetual death and birth, the meaningless precision.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: All must be the same and still the same in
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: each degree. Who cared now, and he smiled and could forgive,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: believing that for sure he would not live. Then, where
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: he saw a little water run beneath a bush, he slept.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: The chills of may came dropping, and the stars peered
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: one by one out of the deepening blue, while far
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: away the western brightness dulled to bars of gray, half
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: way to midnight. Suddenly, from dreaming he woke wide into
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: present horror, screaming, for he had dreamt of being in
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the arms of his beloved and in quiet places. But
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: all at once it filled with night alarms and wrapping guns,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and men with splintered faces, no eyes, no nose, all red,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: were running races with worms along the floor. And he
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: ran out to find the girl and shouted, And that
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: shout had carried him into the waking world. There stood
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the concave, vast, unfriendly night, and over him the scroll
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: of stars unfurled. Then, wailing like a child, he rose upright,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: heart sick with desolation. The new blight of loss had
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: nipped him sore and sad self pity, thinking of her,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: then thinking of the city, For in each moment's thought
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the deeds of Bran, the burning and the blood, and
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: his own shame, would tease him into madness, till he
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: ran for refuge to the thought of her, whence came
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: utter an endless loss, no not a name, not a word, nothing,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: left himself alone crying amid that valley of old stone.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: How soon it all ran out. And I suppose they
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: they up there, the old contriving powers, They knew it
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: all the time. For some one knows and waits and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: watches till we pluck the flowers, then leaps. So soon
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: my store of happy hours all gone before I knew.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I have expended my whole wealth in a day. It's finished, ended,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and nothing left. Can it be possible that joy flows through?
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: And when the course is run, it leaves no change,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: no mark on us to tell its passing. And as
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: poor as we've begun, we end the richest day what
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: we have won? Can it all die? Like this? Joy
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: flickers on the razor edge of the present and is gone?
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: What have I done to bear upon my name the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: curse of Bran? I was not of his crew, nor
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: any man's, and Diymer has the blame? What have I done?
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Wronged whom I never knew? What's brand to me? I
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: had my deed to do and ran out by myself
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: alone and free. Why should earth sing with joy and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: not for me? Ah? But the earth never did sing
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: for joy. There is a glamor on the leaf and flower,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and April comes and whistles to a boy over white fields,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and beauty has such power upon us. He believes her
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: in that hour, For who could not believe? Can it
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: be false? All that the blackbird says, and the wind calls?
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: What have I done? No living thing I made nor
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: wished to suffer harm. I sought my good because the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: spring was gloriously arrayed, and the blue eyebright misted it.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: All the wood yet to obey that spring time and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: my blood. This was to be unarmed and off my guard,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and gave God time to hit once and hit hard.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: The men build right, who made that city of ours?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: They knew their world. A man must crouch to face
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: infinite malice, watching at all hours, shut nature out, give
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: her no moment's space for entry. The first needs of
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: all our race are walls, a den, a cover. Trader
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: eye who first ran out beneath the open sky, our
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: fortress and fenced place I made to fall. I slipped
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: the sentries and let in the foe. I have lost
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: my brothers and my love, and all nothing is left
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: but me. Now let me go. I have seen the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: world stripped naked, and I know, Great God, take back
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: your world. I will have none of all your glittering gods,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: but death alone. Meanwhile, the earth swung round in hollow night.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Souls without number in all nations slept snug on her back, safe,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: speeding towards the light. Ours told, And in damp woods
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the night beast crept, and over the long seas the
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: watch was kept in black ships twinkling onward, green and red.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Always the ordered stars moved overhead, and no one knew
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that Dimer, in his scales, had weighed all these and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: found them nothing worth. Indifferently, the dawn that never fails
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: troubled the east of night with gradual birth, whispering a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: change of colors on cold earth, and a bird woke.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Then too, the sunlight ran along the hills, and yellow
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: day began, but stagnant gloom clung in the valley. Yet
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: hills crowded out a third part of the sky, black looking,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and the bowlders dripped with wet No birds sang, Dimer, shivering,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: heaved a sigh and yawned, and said, it's cruel work
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: to die of hunger, And again, with cloudy breath blown
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: between chattering teeth, it's a bad death. He crouched and
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: clasped his hands about his knees and hugged his own limbs,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: for the pitiful sense of homelyiness they had familiar's these,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: this body, at least his own, his last defense. But
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: soon his morning misery drove him, thence eating his heart
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to wonder. As chance led on upward to the narrowing
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: gully's head. The cloud lay on the nearest mountain top,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: as from a giant's chimney, smoking there. But Dimer took
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: no heed. Sometimes he'd stop. Sometimes he hurried faster as
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: despair pricked deeper and cried out. Even now somewhere Bran,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: with his crews at work, they rack, they burn, and
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: there's no help in me. I've served their turn. Meanwhile,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: the furrowed fog rolled down ahead, long tatters of its
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: vanguard smearing round the bases of the crags like cobweb,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: shed down the deep combs, It dulled the tinkling sound
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: of water on the hills. The spongy ground faded three
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: yards ahead, then nearer yet fell the cold wreaths, the
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: white depth gleaming wet. Then, after a long time the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: path he trod led downward, Then all suddenly it dipped
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod. He was
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: half running now, a stone that slipped beneath him, rattled
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: headlong down. He tripped, stumbled and clutched. Then panic and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: no hope to stop himself. Once lost upon that slope,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and faster, ever faster, and his eye caught tree tops
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: far below. The nightmare feeling had gripped him. He was screaming,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and the sky seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, reeling
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: with effort beyond thought, he hung half kneeling, halted, one
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: saving moment with wild will, he clawed into the hill
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: side and lay still, half hanging on both arms. His
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: idle feet dangled and found no hold. The moor lay
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: wet against him, and he sweaded with the heat of terror,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: all alive. His teeth were set by God. I will
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: not die, said he not yet. Then slowly, slowly, with
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: enormous strain, he heaved himself an inch, then heaved again,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: till saved and spent. He lay. He felt indeed it
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: was the big round world beneath his breast, the mother
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: planet proven at his need, the shame of glad surrender
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: stood confessed. He cared not for his boasts. This this
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: was best, this giving up of all He need not strive,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: He panted, he lay still. He was alive, and now
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept lapped in unearthly quiet,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: never knew how. Bit by bit, the FOG's white rearguard
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: crept over the crest and faded, and the blue first
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: brightening at the zenith, trembled through and deepening. Shadows took
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: a sharper form each moment, and the sandy earth grew warm,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: yet dreaming of blue skies. In dream, he heard the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: pure voice of a lark that seemed to send its
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: song from heights beyond all height. That bird sang out
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: of heaven, The world will never end, sang from the
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: gates of Heaven, will never end, sang till it seemed
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: there was no other thing but bright space, and one
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: voice set there to sing. It seemed to be the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: murmur and the voice of beings beyond number, each in
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: all singing. I am, each of itself made choice and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: was whence flows the justice that men call divine. She
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: keeps the great worlds lest they fall from hour to hour,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: and makes the hills renew their ancient youth, and sweetens
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: all things through. It seemed to be the low voice
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: of the world brooding alone beneath the strength of things,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled forever, and
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the unwearied joy that brings out of old fields, the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: flowers of unborn springs, out of old wars, and cities
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: burned with wrong, a splendor in the dark, a tale,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: a song. The dream ran thin towards waking, and he
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: knew it was a bird's piping. With no sense, He
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: rolled round on his back. The sudden blue, quivering with light, hard,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: cloudless and intense, shone over him. The lark still sounded, thence,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought was
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: passing by, too gently to be caught. With that, he
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: thrust the damp hair from his face and sat upright.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: The perilous cliff dropped sheer before him, close at hand,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: and from his place, listening in mountain silence, he could
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: hear birds crying far below. It was not fear that
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: took him, but strange glory. When his eye looked past
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the edge into surrounding sky, he rose and stood, then
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: low the world beneath wide pools that in the sun
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: splashed foothills, lay sheep, dotted downs, soft piled and rolling heath,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: river and shining weir and steeples gray, and the green
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: waves of forest far away distance rose heaped on distance
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: nearer hand, the white roads leading down to a new land.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: End of Canto five, Canto six. The sun was high
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: in heaven, and Dimer stood a bright speck on the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: endless mountain side till blossom after blossom, That rich mood faded,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: and truth rolled homeward like a tide, before whose edge
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the weak soul fled to hide in vain with ostrich
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: head threw many a shape of coward fancy, whimpering for escape,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: but only for a moment. Then his soul took the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: full swell and heaved a dripping prow clear of the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: shattering wave crest. He was whole. No veil should hide
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: the truth, No truth should cow the dear self pitying heart.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I'll babble now no longer, Daimer said, I'm broken in
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Pack up the dreams and let the life begin. With this,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: he turned. I must have food to day, he muttered.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Then among the cloudless hills, by winding tracks, he sought
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the downward way and followed the steep course of tumbling rills,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: came to the glens, the wakening mountain fills in spring time,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: with the echoing splash and shock of water's leaping cold
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: from rock to rock, And still it seemed that lark
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: with its refrain sang in the sky, and wind in
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: his hair, and hope at heart. Then once and once
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: again he heard a gun fired off. It broke the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: air as a stone breaks a pond, and everywhere the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: dry crags echoed clear, and at the sound once a
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: big bird rose, whirring from the ground. In half an hour,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: he reached the level land and followed the field paths
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: and crossed the stiles. Then looked and saw near by
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: on his left hand an old house folded round with
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: billowy piles of dark yew hedge. The moss was on
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the tiles, the pigeons in the yard, and in the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: tower a clock that had no hands and told no hour.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: He hastened in warm waves. The garden scent came stronger
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: at each stride. The mountain breeze was gone. He reached
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the gates. Then in he went and seemed to lose
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: the sky. Such weight of trees hung overhead. He heard
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: the noise of bees, and saw far off in the
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: blue shade, between the windless elms. One walking on the green.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: It was a mighty man, whose beardless face beneath gray hair,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: shone out so large and mild it made a sort
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: of moonlight in the place. A dreamy desperation, wistful wild
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: showed in his glance and gait. Yet like a child,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: an Asian emperor's only child was he, with his grave
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: looks and bright solemnity. And over him there hung the
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: witching air, the wilful courtesy of the days of old,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the graces wherein idleness grows fair and somewhat. In his
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: sauntering walk, he rolled and toyed about his waist with
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: seals of gold, or stood to ponder, often in mid stride,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: tilting his heavy head upon one side. When Damer had
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: called twice, he turned his eye, then, coming out of silence,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: as a star all in one moment, slips into the
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: sky of evening. Yet we feel it comes from far,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: he said, sir, you are welcome. Few there are that
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: come my way. And in huge hands he pressed Damer's
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: cold hand and bade him in to rest. How did
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: you find this place out? Have you heard my gun?
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: It was but now I killed a lark, What sir said,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Damer shoot the singing bird, Sir, said the man. They
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: sing from dawn till dark and interrupt my dreams too long,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: But hark another. Did you hear no singing? No, it
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: was my fancy. Then pray let it go from here?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: You see my garden's only flaw. Stand here, sir, at
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the dial Daimer stood. The master pointed. Then he looked
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: and saw how hedges and the funeral quietude of black
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: trees fringe the garden like a wood, and only in
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: one place, one gap that showed the blue side of
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: the hills, the White Hill Road. I have planted fir
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: and larch to fill the gap, he said, because this
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: too makes war upon the art of dream. But by
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: some great mishap nothing I plant will grow there. We
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: pass on. The sunshine of the afternoon is gone. Let
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: us go in. It draws near time to sup I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: hate the garden till the moon is up. They passed
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: from the hot lawn into the gloom and coolness of
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the porch, then passed a door that opened with no
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: noise into a room where green leaves choked the window
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and the floor sank lower than the ground. A tattered
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: store of brown books met the eye a crystal ball,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: and masks with empty eyes along the wall. Then Dimer sat,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: but knew not how nor where, and supper was set
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: out before these two he saw not how, with silver
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: old and rare, but tarnished, and he ate, and never
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: knew what meats they were. At every bite he grew
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: more drowsy, and let slide his crumbling will. The master
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: at his side was talking still, and all his talk
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: was tales of magic words, and of the nations in
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: the clouds above astral and Airish tribes who fish for
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: birds with angles, And by history he could prove how
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: chosen spirits from Earth had won their love as arthur
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: or ushine, and to their isle went Helen for the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: sake of a Greek smile. And ever in his talk
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: he mustered well his texts and strewed old authors round
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: the way. Thus Wyrus writes, and thus the hermetics tell
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: this was Agrippa's view, and others say with Cardon till
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: he had stolen quite away Dimer's dull wits, and softly
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: drawn apart the ivory gates of hope that change the heart.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Dymer was talking Now Now, Damer told of his own
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: love and losing drowsily. The Master leaned towards him. Was
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: it cold, this spirit to the touch? No, sir, not,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: she said Dymer and his host, why this must be
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: ethereal not aeriel o my soul be still? But wait,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: tell an, sir, tell the whole. Then Damer told him
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of the Beldam too, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness over
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the Master's face. A shadow drew. He shifted in his chair,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: And yes, and yes, he murmured twice, I never looked
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: for less. Always the same, that frightful woman's shape besets
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the dream way and the soul's escape. But now, when
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Dymer made to talk of Bran, a huge indifference fell
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: upon his host. Patient and wondering eyed. Then he began,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: forgive me, you are young. What helps us most is
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: to find out again that heavenly ghost who loves you.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: For she was a ghost, and you in that place
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: where you met, were ghostly too. Listen, for I can
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: launch you on the stream, will roll you to the
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: shores of her own land. I could be sworn you
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: never learned to dream, But every night you take with
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: careless hand what chance may bring. I'll teach you to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: command the comings and the goings of your spirit through
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: all that borderland which dreams inherit. You shall have hauntings
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: suddenly and often when you forget, when least you think
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: of her. For so you shall forget, A light will
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: soften over the evening woods, and in the stir of
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: morning dreams. Oh, I will teach you, sir, there'll come
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: a sound of wings, or you shall be waked in
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the midnight, murmuring it was she. No, No, said Daimer,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: not that way. I seem to have slept for twenty
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: years now while I shake out of my eyes that
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: dust of burdening dream. Now when the long clouds tremble,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: ripe to break, and the far hills appear, when first
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: I wake, still blinking, struggling towards the world of men,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: and longing, would you turn me back again, dreams? I
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: have had my dream too long. I thought the sun
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: rose for my sake. I ran down, blind and dancing
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: to the abyss. Oh, sir, I brought boy laughter for
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: a gift to God's who find the martyr's soul too soft.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: But that's behind I'm waking now. They broke me all
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: ends thus always, and we are for them, not they
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: for us. And she she was no dream, It would
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: be waste to seek her there the living, in that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: den of lies. The Master smiled. You are in haste
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: for broken dreams. The cure is dream again and deeper.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: If the waking world and men and nature marred your
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: dream so much, the worse for or crude world beneath
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: its primal curse. Ah, but you do not know. Can
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: dreams do this? Pluck out blood guiltiness upon the shore
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: of memory, and undo what's amiss, and bid the thing
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: that has been be no more? Sir, it is only dreams.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Unlock that door, he answered with a shrug. What would
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: you have in dreams? The thrice proved coward can feel
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: brave in dreams. The fool is free from scorning voices,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: gray headed wars are virgin. There again, out of the past,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: dream brings long buried choices, all in a moment snaps
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the tenfold chain that life took years in forging. There
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: the stain of oldest sins. How do the good words go?
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow? Then
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: drawing near, when Daimer did not speak, my little son
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: said he You're wrong and right. Are also dreams fetters
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: to bind the weak faster to phantom Earth, and blear
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: the sight, wake into dreams, into the larger light that
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: quenches these rail stars. They will not know Earth's by laws.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: In the land to which you go, I must undo
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: my sins, unearthly law, and even in earth, the child
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: of yesterday. Throw down your human pity, cast your awe
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: behind you, put repentance all away home to the elder depths.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: For never they supped with the stars, who dared not
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: slough behind the last shred of Earth's holies from their mind.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Sir answered Dymer, I would be content to drudge in Earth,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: easing my heart's disgrace, counting a year's long service lightly spent.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: If once, at the year's end, I saw her face somewhere,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: being then most weary in some place. I looked not
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: for that joy, or heard her near whispering. Yet courage friend,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: for one more year, Pish, said the master. Will you
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: have the truth? You think that virtue saves her people?
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Care for the high heart and idle hours of youth.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: For these they will descend our lower air. Not virtue.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: You would nerve your arm and bear your burden among men.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: Look to it. Child, by virtue's self, vision can be defiled.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: You will grow full of pity and the love of men,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: and toil until the morning moisture dries out of your heart.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Then once or once again, it may be, you will
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: find her, But your eyes soon will be grown too dim.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: The task that lies next to your hand will hide her.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: You shall be the child of Earth and God's. You
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: shall not see here. Suddenly he ceased, tip toes he went.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: A bolt clicked, Then the window creaked ajar, and out
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: of the wet world the hedgerow scent came floating, and
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the dark, without one star, nor shape of trees, nor
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: scents of near and far, the undimensioned night and formless
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: skies were there, and were the Master's great allies. I
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: am very old, he said, But if the time we
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: suffered in our dreams were counting age, I have outlived
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: the ocean, and my prime is with me to this day.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Years cannot gage the dream life. In the turning of
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: a page, dozing above my book, I have lived through
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: more ages than the lost la Muria knew I am
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: not mortal, were I doomed to die this hour, In
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: this half hour, I interpose a thousand years of dream
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: and those gone by as many more, And in the
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: last of those ten thousand, ever journeying towards a close
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: that I shall never reach for. Time shall flow wheel
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: within wheel, interminably slow, and you will drink my cup
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and go your way into the valley of dreams. You
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: have heard the call, come hither and escape? Why should
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: you stay? Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: wall is tottering while you sweep. The roof will fall
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: before the work is done. You cannot mend it, patch
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: as you will. At last the rot must end it.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Then Dimer lifted up his heavy head, like Atlas on
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: broad shoulders, bearing up the insufferable globe. I had not said,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: he mumbled, never said I'd taste the cup. What is
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: it this you give me? Must I sup o lies?
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: All lies? Why did you kill the lark? Guide me
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: the cup to lip? It is so dark? End of
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Canto six, Canto seven. The host had trimmed his lamp.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: The downy moth came from the garden, where the lamp
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: light shed its circle of smooth white upon the cloth.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread. Upon
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: his sprawling arms lay Dimer's head, and often as he
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: dreamed he shifted place, muttering and showing half his drunken face.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: The beating stillness of the dead of night flooded the room.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: The dark and sleepy powers settled upon the house and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: filled it quite far from the roads it lay from
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: belfry towers and hen roosts, in a world of folded
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: flowers buried in loneliest fields, where beasts that love the
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: silence through the unrustled hedgerows move. Now from the master's lips.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: There breathed a sigh, as of a man released from
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: some control that wronged him. Without aim, his wandering eye,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: unsteadied and un fixed, began to roll, his lower lip
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: dropped loose, The informing soul seemed fading from his face.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: He laughed out loud once, only then looked round him,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: hushed and cowed. Then, summoning all himself with tightened lip,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: with desperate coolness and attentive air, he touched between his
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: thumb and finger tip, each in its turn, the four
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: legs of his chair, then back again in haste. There
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: that when there had been forgotten once more safer. Now
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: that's better, and he smiled and cleared his brow. Yet
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: this was but a moment's ease. Once more, he glanced
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: about him like a startled hair. His big eyes bulged
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: with horror as before, quick to the touch that saves him.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: But despair is nearer by one step, And in his chair, huddling,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: he waits. He knows that they'll come strong again, and
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: yet again, and all night long, and after this night
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: comes another night, night after night, until the worst of all,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: and now too, even the noonday and the light let
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: through the horrors. Oh, could he recall the deep sleep
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: and the dreams that used to fall around him for
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: the asking, But somehow something's amiss. Sleep comes so rarely
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: now Then, like the dog returning to its vomit, he
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: staggered to the bookcase to renew, yet once again the
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: taint he had taken from it, and shuddered as he went.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: But horror drew his feet as joy draws others. There
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: in view was his strange heaven and his far stranger hell,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: his secret lust, his soul's dark citadel, old Theogmagia, demonology,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Kabbala chemic magic, book of the Dead, damning hermetic rolls
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: that none may see save thee already damned. Such gruels
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: are bred from minds that lose the spirit and seek
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: instead for spirits in the dust of dead men's error,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror. This lost
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: soul looked them over one and all, now sickened at
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: the heart's root, For he knew this night was one
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: of those when he would fall and scream alone. Such
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: things they made him do, and roll upon the floor.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: The madness grew wild at his breast. But still his
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: brain was clear that he could watch the moment coming near.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: But ere it came. He heard a sound, half groan,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: half muttering from the table, like a child caught unawares
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: that thought it was alone. He started as in guilt.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: His gaze was wild, yet pitiably with all his will.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: He smiled so strong as shame even then, and Amer stirred,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: now waking, and looked up and spoke one word. Water,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: he said. He was too dazed to see what hell
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: wrung face looked down, what shaking hand poured out the draft?
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: He drank it thirstily and held the glass for more,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: your land, your land of dreams, he said, All lies
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: I understand more than I did. Yes, water, I've the
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: thirst of hell itself. Your magic's all accursed. When he
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: had drunk again, he rose and stood pallid and cold
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: with sleep. By God, he said, you did me wrong
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: to send me to that wood. I sought a living
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: spirit and found instead bogies and wraiths. The Master raised
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: his head, calm as a sage, and answered, are you mad? Come,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: sit you down. Tell me what dream you had. I
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: dreamed about a wood, an autumn red of beech trees,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: big as mountains. Down between the first thing that I saw,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: a clearing spread deep down, oh very deep, like some
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: ravine or like a well. It sank that forest green
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: under its weight of forest, more remote than one ship
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: in a landlocked sea afloat. Then through the narrowed sky,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: some heavy bird would flap its way, a stillness more
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: profound following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard, far off
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: in the long woods, with quiet sound, the sudden chestnut
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: thumping to the ground, or the dry leaf that drifted
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: past upon its endless loiter earthward and was gone. Then
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: next I heard twigs splintering on my right, and rustling
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: in the thickets, turning there I watched out of the foliage,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: came in sight the head and blundering shoulders of a
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: bear glistening in sable black, with beady stare of eyes
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: towards me, and no room to fly, but patting so
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: often slow. The beast came by, and mark there flattery,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: stood and rubbed his flank against me. On my shaken legs.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: I felt his heart beat, and my hand that stroked
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: him sank wrist deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt. Yes,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: and across my spirit. As I smelt the wild things scent,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: a new sweet wildness ran, whispering of eden fields long
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: lost by man. So far was well, But then came
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: emerald birds, singing about my head. I took my way,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds, the roebuck,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: and the fallow deer at play, trooping to nose my hand.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: All this, you say, was sweet? Oh sweet? Do you
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: think I could not see that beasts and wood were
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: nothing else but me? That I was making everything I
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: saw too sweet, far too well fitted to desire to
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: be a living thing. Those forests draw no sap from
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: the kind earth, The solar fire and soft rain feed them,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: not that fairy briar pricks. Not the birds sing sweetly
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: in that break, not for their own delight, but for
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: my sake. It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: like a bought smile, no joy in it. But stay,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: did you not find your lady? Sure enough? I still
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: had hopes till then the autumn day was westering, The
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: long shadows crossed my way, When over daisies folded for
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: the night, beneath rope gathering elms, she came in sight.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: Was she not fair? So beautiful? She seemed almost a
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: living soul. But every part was what I made it
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: all that I had dreamed, no more, no less the
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: mirror of my heart, such things as boyhood feigns beneath
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: the smart of solitude in spring. I was deceived almost
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: in that first moment. I believed for a big, brooding rapture, tenses,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: fire and calm, as a first sleep had soaked me
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: through without thought, without word, without desire. Meanwhile, above our heads,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: the deepening blue burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: a veil before my eyes. The minutes passed heavy like
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: loaded vines. She spoke at last, she said, for this
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: land only did men love the shadow lands of earth.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: All our disease of longing, all the hopes we fabled
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: of fortunate islands or hesperian seas, or woods beyond the west,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: were but the breeze that blew from off those shores,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: one far spent breath that reached even to the world
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: of change and death. She told me I had journeyed
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: home at last, into the golden age and the good
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: country that had been always there. She bade me cast
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: my cares behind forever. On her knee, worshiped me Lord
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: and love. Oh, I can see her red lips even now.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Is it not wrong that men's delusions should be made
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: so strong? For listen, I was so besotted now. She
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: made me think that I was somehow seeing the very
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: core of truth. I felt, somehow beyond all veils. The
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: inward pulse of being thought was enslaved. But oh, it
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: felt like freeing and drafts of larger air. It is
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: too much who can come through untainted? From that touch
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: there I was nearly wrecked, But mark the rest. She
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: went too fast. Soft to my arms she came. The
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast was bare
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: against my own. She shone like flame before me in
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: the dusk, all love, all shame, faugh, and it was myself.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: But all was well, for at the least that moment
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: snapped the spell. As when you light a candle, the
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: great gloom, which was the unbounded knight, sinks down, compressed
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: to four white walls in one familiar room. So the
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: vague joy shrank, wilted in my breast and narrowed to
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: one point, unmasked, confessed fool's paradise was gone. Instead was
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: there King Lust, with his black sudden serious stare. That
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: moment in a cloud among the trees, wild music and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: the glare of torches came on sweated faces on the
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: prancing knees of shaggy satyrs, fell the smoky flame on
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: ape and goat, and crawlers without name on rolling breast,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: black eyes and tossing hair on old bald headed witches,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: lean and bare. They beat the devilish tom Tom rub
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: a dub, lunging, leaping in unwieldy romp, singing cootito and
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: Beelzebub with devil dancers, mask and phallic pomp, torn raw
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: with briars and caked from many a swamp. They came
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: among the wild flowers, dripping blood and churning the green
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: mosses into mud. They sang, return, Return, We are the
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: lust that was before the world, and still shall be
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: when your last law is trampled into dust. We are
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: the mothers swamp, the primal sea. Whence the dry land
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: appeared old old are we? It is but a return.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: It's nothing new, easy as slipping on a well worn shoe.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: And then there came warm mouths and finger tips preying
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: upon me. Whence I could not see. Then a huge face,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: low browed, with swollen lips, crooning, I am not beautiful
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: as she, but I'm the older love. You shall love
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: me far more than beauty's self. You have been ours always.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: We are the world's most ancient powers. First flatterer and
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: then bogey like a dream, Sir, are you listening? Do
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: you also know how close to the soft laughter comes
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: the scream down yonder? But his host cried sharply, no,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go out
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: of my house? Begone with all my heart, said Dmer.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: But one word before we part, he paused, and in
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: his cheek the anger burned. Then Turning to the table,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: he poured out more water, but before he drank, he
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: turned then leaped back to the window with a shout,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: For there it was no dream. Beyond all doubt, he
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: saw the master crouch with leveled gun, cackling in maniac voice.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: Rund run. He ducked and sprang far out the starless
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: night on the wet lawn closed round him every way.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: Then came the guncrack, and the splash of light vanished
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: as soon as seen cool garden clay slid from his feet.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: He had fallen, and he lay face downward among leaves,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: then up and on through branch and leaf, till sense
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: and breath were gone. End of Canto's seven Canto eight.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: When next he found himself, no house, was there, no garden,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: and great trees Beside a lane in grass he lay.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: Now first he was aware that all one side his
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: body glowed with pain, And the next moment and the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: next again was neither less nor more. Without a pause,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: it clung like a great beast with fastened claws, that
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: for a time he could not frame a thought, nor
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: know him self for self, nor pain for pain, till
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: moment added on to moment taut the new, strange art
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: of living. On that plain taught how the grappled soul
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: must still remain, still, choose and think and understand. Beneath
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: the very grinding of the ogre's teeth, he heard the
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: wind along the hedges sweep. The quarter striking from a
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: neighboring tower. About him was the weight of the world's sleep.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: Within the thundering pane that quiet hour. Heeded it not,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: it throbbed, it raged with power fit to convulse the heavens.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: And at his side the soft peace drenched the meadows
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: far and wide. The air was cold, the earth was
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: cold with dew, the hedge behind him dark as ink.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: But now the clouds broke, and a paler heaven showed through, spacious,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: with sudden stars breathing somehow the sense of change to
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: slumbering lands. A cow coughed in the fields behind the
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: puddles showed like pools of sky amid the darker road,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: and he could see his own limbs faintly white, and
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: the blood black upon them. Then, by chance he turned,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: and it was strange. There at his right he saw
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: a woman standing, and her glance met his, and at
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: the meeting his deep trance changed not, and while he looked,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: the knowledge grew. She was not of the old life,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: but the new. Who is it, he said, the loved one,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: the long lost? He stared upon her, truly, truly, indeed,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: o lady, you come late. I am tempest, tossed, broken
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed. Why have
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: you left me thus and given no heed to all
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: my prayers? Left me to be the game of all
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: decens seats. You should have asked my name? What are
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: you then? But to his sudden cry, she did not answer.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: When he had thought, awhile, he said, how can I tell?
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: It is no lie? It may be one more phantom
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: to beguile, the brainsick dreamer with its harlot smile. I
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: have not smiled, she said. The neighboring bell told out
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: another quarter. Silence fell, and after a long pause he
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: spoke again, Leave me, he said, why do you watch
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: with me? You do not love me? Human tears and
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: pain and hoping for the things that cannot be, and
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: blundering in the night where none can see, and courage
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: with cold back against the wall. You do not understand.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: I know them, all the gods themselves. No pain the
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: eternal forms in realms, beyond the reach of cloud and skies,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: near as the ends of air, where come no storm
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: nor sound of earth. I have looked into their eyes,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: peaceful and filled with pain, beyond surmise, filled with an
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: ancient woe. Man cannot reach one moment though in fire.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Yet calm their speech. Then, these, said Daimer, where the
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: world I wooed. These were the holiness of flowers and grass,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: and desolate dews. These the eternal mood, blowing the eternal
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: theme through men that pass. I called myself their lover.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: Ay that was less fit for that long service than
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: the least dull work day drudge of men or faithful beast.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: Why do they lure to them such spirits as mine,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: the weak, the passionate, and the fool of dreams, When
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: better men go safe and never pine with whisperings at
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: the heart, soul, sickening gleams of infinite desire and joy
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: that seems the promise of full power. For it was they,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: the Gods themselves, that led me on this way. Give
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: me the truth. I ask not now for pity. When
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: God's call can the following them be sin? Was it
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: false light that lured me from the city. Where was
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: the path without it? Or within? Must it be one
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: blind throw to lose or win? Has heaven no voice
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: to help? Must things of dust guess their own way
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: in the dark? She said, They must another's silence. Then
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: he cried in wrath. You came in human shape, in
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: sweet disguise, wooing me, lurking for me in my path,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: hid your eternal cold with woman's eyes, snared me with
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: shows of love, And all was lies. She answered, For
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: our kind must come to all if bidden, But in
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: the shape for which they call? What, answered, Dymer, Do
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: you change and sway to serve us? As the obedient
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: planets spin about the sun? Are you but Potter's clay
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: for us to mold? Unholy to our sin and wholly
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: to the holiness within? She said? Waves fall on many
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: an unclean shore, Yet the salt seas are wholly as before.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: Our nature is no purer for the saint that worships,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: nor from him that uses ill our beauty? Can we
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: suffer any taint? As from the first we were? So
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: are we still with incorruptibles. The mortal will corrupts itself,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: and clouded eyes will make darkness within from beams they
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: cannot take well. It is well, said Damer. If I
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: have used the and breathing spirit, amiss, what would have
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: been the strength of all my days? I have refused
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: and plucked the stalk, too hasty in the green, trusted
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: the good for best, and having seen half beauty or
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: beauty's fringe, the lowest stare the common incantation worshiped there.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: But presently he cried in his grave pain. If I
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: had loved a beast, it would repay. But I have
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: loved the spirit, and loved in vain. Now let me die. Ah,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: But before the way is ended, quite in the last
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: hour of day, is there no word of comfort, no
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: one kiss of human love? Does it all end in this?
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: She answered? Never ask of life and death? Uttering these names,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: you dream of warmy clay, or of surviving ghosts. This
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: withering breath of words is the beginning of decay in truth.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: When truth grows cold and pines away among the ancestral images,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: your eyes first see her dead, and more the more
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: she dies, you are still dreaming dreams you shall forget.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: When you have cast your fetters far from here, go forth.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: The journey is not ended yet, you have seen dyme
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: Er dead and on the bier. More then you dream
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: and dropped no tear. You have slain him. Every hour,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: think not at all of death, lest into death by
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: thought you fall. He turned to question her, then looked again,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: and lo, the shape was gone. The darkness lay heavy
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: as yet, and a cold, shifting rain fell with the
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: breeze that springs before the day. It was an hour
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: death loves across the way. The clock struck once again.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: He saw near by the black shape of the tower
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: against the sky. Meanwhile, above the torture and the riot
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: of leaping pulse and nerve that shot with pain, somewhere
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: aloof and poised in spectral quiet, His soul was thinking
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: on the dizzied brain, scarce seemed her organ. Link by link,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: the chain that bound him to the flesh was loosening fast,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: and the new life breathed in, unmoved and vast. It
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: was like this, he thought, Like this or worse for
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: him that I found bleeding in the wood. Blessings upon him.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: There I learned the curse that rests on Diymer's name,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: And truth was good. He has forgotten now the fire
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: and blood. He has forgotten that there was a man
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: called Dimer. He knows not himself nor Bran. How long
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: have I been moved at heart in vain about this Dimer,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: thinking this was I Why did I follow close? His
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: joy and pain more than another man's. For he will die,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: the little cloud will vanish, and the sky reigns as
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: before the stars remain, and earth and man as in
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: the years before my birth. There was a Dimer once
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: who worked and played about the city. I slept him
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: off and ran. There was a Dimer in the forest glade,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: ranting alone, skulking the fates of man. I cast him also,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: and a third began, and he too died. But I
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: am none of those. Is there another still to die?
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: Who knows? Then, in his pain, half wondering what he did,
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: he made to struggle towards that belfried place, and groaning
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: down the sodden bank, he slid and groaning in the lane.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: He felt his trace of bloodied mire, then halted with
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: his face upwards towards the gateway, breathing hard, an old
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: lych gate before a burial yard. He looked within, between
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: the huddling crosses, over the slanted tombs and sunken slate
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: spread the deep, quiet grass and humble mosses, a green
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: and growing darkness, drenched of late, smelling of earth and damp.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: He reached the gate with failing hand. I will rest here,
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: he said, and the long grass will cool my burning head.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: End of Canto eight, Canto nine. Even as he heard
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: the wicket clash behind, came a great wind beneath that
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: seemed to tear the solid graves apart and deaf and blind,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: whirled him upright like smoke, through towering air whose levels
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: were as steps of a sky stare. The parching cold
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: roughened his throat with thirst and pricked him at the heart.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: This was the first, and as he soared into the
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: next degree, suddenly all around him he could hear sad
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: strings that fretted inconsolably, and ominous horns that blew both
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: far and near. There broke his human heart, and his
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: last tear froze scalding on his chin. But while he heard,
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: he shot like a sped dart into the third, and
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: its first stroke of silence could destroy the spring of
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: tears forever, and compress from off his lips the curved
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: bow of the boy forever the sidereal loneliness received him.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: Where no journeying leaves the less still to be journeyed through.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: But everywhere, fast though you fly, the center still is there.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: And here the well worn fabric of our life fell
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: from him. Hope and purpose were cut short, even the
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: blind trust that reaches in mid strife towards some heart
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: of things. Here blew the mort for the world spirit herself.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: The last support was fallen away himself. One spark of
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: soul swam an unbroken void. He was the whole, and wailing,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: why hast thou forsaken me? Was there no world at
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: all but only I, dreaming of gods and men? Then
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: suddenly he felt the wind no more. He seemed to
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: fly faster than light, but free, and scaled the sky
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: in his own so strength, as if a falling stone
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: should wake to find the world's will was its own.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: And on the instant, straight before his eyes, he looked
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: and saw a sentry shape that stood leaning upon its spear,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: with hurrying skies behind it, and a moon set red
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: as blood. Upon its head. Were helmet and mailed, hood
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: and shield upon its arm, and sword at thigh, all
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: black and pointed sharp against the sky. Then came the
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: clink of metal, the dry sound of steel on rock,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: and challenge who comes here? And as he heard it,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: dimer at one bound stood in the stranger's shadow, with
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: the spear between them, and his human face came near
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: that larger face. What watches this you keep? Said Daimer,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: on the edge of such a deep and answer came.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: I watched both night and day this frontier. There are
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: beasts of the upper air, as beasts of the deep sea.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: One walks this way night after night, far scouring from
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: his lair, chewing the cut of lusts, which are despair
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: and fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: that never was. What kind of beast is this? A
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: kind of things escaped that have no home? Hunters of men.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: They love the spring uncurled, the will worn down, the
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: wearied hour. They come at night time, when the mask
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: is off the world and the soul's gait ill locked
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: and the flag furled. Then softly, a pale swarm, and
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: in disguise flit past the drowsy watchman, small as flies.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: I'll see this airish beast whereof you speak, I'll share
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: the watch with you. Nay, little one be gone, you
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: are of earth the flesh is weak. What is the flesh?
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: To me? My courses run all, but some deed still
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: waiting to be done. Some moment I may rise on
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: as the boat lifts with the lifting tide and steals afloat.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: You are a spirit, and it is well with you.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: But I am come out of great folly and shame,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: the sack of cities wrongs I must undo. But tell
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: me of the beast, and whence it came? Who were it? Sire?
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: And dam? What is its name? It is my kin?
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: All monsters are the brood of heaven and earth, and
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: mixed with holy blood? How can this be? My son?
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: Sit here awhile there is a lady in that primal
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: place where I was born, who, with her ancient smile
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: made glad the sons of heaven. She loved to chase
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: the springtime round the world to all your race. She
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: was a sudden quivering in the wood, or a new
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: thought springing in solitude, till in prodigious hour, one swollen
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: with youth, blind from new broken prisons, knowing not himself
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: nor her nor how to mate with truth, lay with
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: her in a strange and secret spot, mortal with her,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: immortal and begot this walker in the night. But did
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: you know this mortal's name? Why? It was long ago,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: and yet I think I bear the name in mind.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: It was some famished boy whom tampering men had crippled
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: in their chains and made him blind till their weak
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: hour discovered them, and then he broke that prison. Softly,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: it comes again, I have it. It was Dymer, little one.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: Dymer's the name. This specter is his son. Then after
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: silence came an answering shout from Daymer, glad and full
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: break off. Dismiss. Your watch is ended, and your lamp
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: is out, unarm, unarm, return into your bliss. You are relieved, sir.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: I must deal with this as in my right, for
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: either I must slay this beast, or else be slain
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: before the day. So mortal and so brave, that other said, smiling,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: and turned and looked in Dimer's eyes, scanning him over
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: twice from heel to head, like an old sergeant's glance,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: grown battle wise to know the points of men. At last, arise,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: he said, and wear my arms. I can withhold nothing,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: for such an hour has been foretold. Thereat with lips
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: as cold as the sea surge he kissed the youth, and,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: bending on one knee, put all his armor off, and
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: let emerge angelic shoulders marbled gloriously, and feet like frozen speed,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: and plain to sea. On his wide breast, dark wounds
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: and ancient scars, the battle honors of celestial wars. Then,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: like a squire or brother born, he dressed the young
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: man in those plates that dripped with cold upon the inside,
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: trick over breast and shoulder, but without the figured gold
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold, and the
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: icy spear froze fast to Dymer's hand. But where the
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: other had stood, he took his stand and searched the
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: cloudy landscape. He could see dim shapes like hills appearing,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: but the moon had sunk behind their backs. When will
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: it be, said Daimer and the other soon? Now soon,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: for either he comes past us at night's noon, or
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: else between the night and the full day, and down
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: there on your left will be his way. Swear that
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: you will not come between us too, nor help me
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: by a hair's weight if I bow. If you are
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: he if prophecies speak true, not Heaven and all the
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: gods can help you. Now this much I have been told,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: but know not how the fight will end. Who knows?
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell, Sir, be content, said Damer, I know well.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: Thus Dymer stood to arms, with eyes that ranged through
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: aching darkness, stared upon it, so that all things as
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: he looked upon them, changed and were not as at first,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: but grave and slow. The larger shade went sauntering to
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: and fro, humming at first the snatches of some tune
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: that soldiers sing, but falling silent. Soon then came steps
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: of dawn. And though they heard no milking cry in
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: the fields, and no cock crew, and out of empty air,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: no twittering bird sounded from neighboring hedges, yet they knew. Eastward,
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: the hollow blackness paled to blue, then blew to white,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: and in the west the rare surviving stars blinked feebler
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: in cold air. Far beneath Dimer's feet, the sad half light,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: discovering the new landscape, oddly came and forms grown half
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: familiar in the night, looked strange again. No distance seemed
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: the same, and now he could see clear and call
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: by name valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: took shape and made a world at morning's call. It
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps of broken trees
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: rose out of endless clay, naked of flower and grass,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: the slobberd humps dividing the dead pools against the gray.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: A shattered village gaped. But now the day was very
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: near them, and the night was past, and Dimer understood
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: and spoke at last. Now I have wooed and won you.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: Bridal earth, beautiful world that lives, desire of men, All
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: that the Spirit intended at my birth this day shall
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: be borne into deed. And then the hard day's labor
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: comes no more again, forever the pain dies, the longing cease,
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: the ship glides under the green arch of peace. Now
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: drink me as the sun drinks up the mist. This
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: is the hour to ceasein at full flood that asks
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: no gift from following years. But hissed, Look yonder, at
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: the corner of that wood. Look look there where he comes.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: It shocks the blood the first sight. Eh, Now, sentinel,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: stand clear and save yourself for God's sake. Come not near.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: His full grown spirit had moved without command or spur
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: of the will. Before he knew he found that he
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: was leaping forward, spear in hand, to where that ash
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: and brute wheeled slowly round, nosing, and set its ears
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: towards the sound. The pale and heavy brute rough ridged
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: behind and full of eyes clinking in scaly rind, And
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: now ten paces parted them, and here he halted. He
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: thrust forward his left foot, poising his straightened arms, and
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: launched the spear, and gloriously it sang. But now the
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: brute lurched forward, and he saw the weapon's shoot beyond it,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: and fall quivering on the field. Dymer drew out his
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: sword and raised the shield. What now, my friends, you
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: get no more from me? Of Dymer, he goes from
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: us what he felt or saw. From henceforth, no man knows,
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: but he who has himself gone through the jungle belt
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: of dying into peace. That angel knelt far off and
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: watched them close, but could not see their battle. All
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: was ended suddenly a leap, a cry, flurry of steel
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: and claw, then silence as before the morning light, and
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: the same brute crouched yonder, and he saw under its
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: feet broken and bent and white, the ruined limbs of
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: Dymer killed outright all in a moment. All his story done.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: But that same moment came the rising sun, and thirty
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: miles to westward, the gray cloud flushed into answering pink.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: Long shadows streamed from every hill, and the low hanging
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: shroud of mist along the valleys broke and steamed. Gold
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: flecked to heaven. Far off. The armor gleamed like glass
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: upon the dead man's back. But now the sentinel ran forward,
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: hand to brow and staring for between him and the sun,
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: he saw that country clothed with dancing flowers where flower
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: had never grown, and one by one the splintered woods,
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: as if from april, showers were softening into green. In
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: the leafy towers rose the cool, sudden chattering on the
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: tongues of happy birds with mourning in their lungs. The
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: wave of flowers came breaking round his feet, crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil,
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: shivering with moisture, and the air grew sweet within his nostrils,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: changing heart and will, making him laugh. He looked, and
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: Dimer still lay dead among the flowers, and pinned beneath
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: the brute. But as he looked, he held his breath,
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: For when he had gazed hard with steady eyes upon
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: the brute. Behold, no brute was there, but some one,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: towering large against the skies, a winged and swordid shape,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: through whom the air poured as through glass, and its
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: foam tumbled hair lay white about the shoulders, and the
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: whole pure body brimmed with life as a full boll.
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: And from the distant corner of Day's birth he heard
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: clear trumpets blowing, and bell's ring, a noise of great
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: good coming in to earth, and such a music as
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: the dumb would sing if Balder had led back the
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: blameless spring with victory, with the voice of charging spears,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: and in white lands long lost Saturnian years. End of
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: Canton nine, End of Dimer by C. S. Lewis