Manfred (With Byron's Biography). Lord Byron
I see the peril—yet do not recede; And my brain reels—and yet my foot is firm: There is a power upon me which withholds, And makes it my fatality to live,— If it be life to wear within myself This barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself— The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,30 An Eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.—Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world!120 How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit40 To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates, And men are—what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. The natural music of the mountain reed— For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable—pipes in the liberal air,50 Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;121 My soul would drink those echoes. Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment122—born and dying With the blest tone which made me!
Enter from below a Chamois Hunter.
Chamois Hunter. Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.—What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance: I will approach him nearer.
Man. (not perceiving the other). To be thus— Grey-haired with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,123 A blighted trunk upon a curséd root, Which but supplies a feeling to Decay— And to be thus, eternally but thus,70 Having been otherwise! Now furrowed o'er With wrinkles, ploughed by moments, not by years And hours, all tortured into ages—hours Which I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye Avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict;124 but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut80 And hamlet of the harmless villager.
C. Hun. The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together.
Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,aw Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.—I am giddy.125
C. Hun. I must approach him cautiously; if near,90 A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already.
Man. Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up The ripe green valleys with Destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crushed the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel—thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg—126 Why stood I not beneath it?
C. Hun. Friend! have a care,100 Your next step may be fatal!—for the love Of Him who made you, stand not on that brink!
Man. (not hearing him). Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; My bones had then been quiet in their depth; They had not then been strewn upon the rocks For the wind's pastime—as thus—thus they shall be— In this one plunge.—Farewell, ye opening Heavens! Look not upon me thus reproachfully— You were not meant for me—Earth! take these atoms!
As Manfred is in act to spring from the cliff, the Chamois Hunter seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.
C. Hun. Hold, madman!—though aweary of thy life,110 Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood: Away with me——I will not quit my hold.
Man. I am most sick at heart—nay, grasp me not— I am all feebleness—the mountains whirl Spinning around me——I grow blind——What art thou?
C. Hun. I'll answer that anon.—Away with me—— The clouds grow thicker——there—now lean on me— Place your foot here—here, take this staff, and cling A moment to that shrub—now give me your hand, And hold fast by my girdle—softly—well—120 The Chalet will be gained within an hour: Come on, we'll quickly find a surer footing, And something like a pathway, which the torrent Hath washed since winter.—Come,'tis bravely done— You should have been a hunter.—Follow me.
As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.
ACT II.
Scene I.—A Cottage among the Bernese Alps.—Manfred and the Chamois Hunter.
C. Hun. No—no—yet pause—thou must not yet go forth; Thy mind and body are alike unfit To trust each other, for some hours, at least; When thou art better, I will be thy guide— But whither?
Man. It imports not: I do know My route full well, and need no further guidance.
C. Hun. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage— One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags Look o'er the lower valleys—which of these May call thee lord? I only know their portals;10 My way of life leads me but rarely down To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, Carousing with the vassals; but the paths, Which step from out our mountains to their doors, I know from childhood—which of these is thine?
Man. No matter.
C. Hun. Well, Sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine—Come, pledge me fairly!20
Man. Away, away! there's blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?
C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.
Man. I say 'tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love,127 And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from Heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be.30
C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,ax Which makes thee people vacancy, whate'er Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet— The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience——
Man. Patience—and patience! Hence—that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey! Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,— I am not of thine order.
C. Hun. Thanks to Heaven! I would not be of thine for the free fame Of William Tell; but whatsoe'er thine ill,40 It must be borne, and these