Read Ebook: Dymer by Lewis C S Clive Staples

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Ebook has 207 lines and 17681 words, and 5 pages

felt her presence fill The threshold with dull life. Here too was she. This time he raised his eyes and dared to see.

Pah! Only an old woman!... but the size, The old, old matriarchal dreadfulness, Immoveable, intolerable ... the eyes Hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress Corpselike.... The weight of the brute that seemed to press Upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard His own voice, strange and humbled, take the word.

"Good Mother, let me pass. I have a friend To look for in this house. I slept the night And feasted here--it was my journey's end, --I found it by the music and the light, And no one kept the doors, and I did right To enter--did I not? Now, Mother, pray, Let me pass in ... good Mother, give me way."

Courage was rising in him now. He said, "Out of my path, old woman. For this cause I am new born, new freed, and here new wed, That I might be the breaker of bad laws. The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws Wherever my feet fall. I bring to birth Under its crust the green, ungrudging earth."

He had started, bowing low: but now he stood Stretched to his height. His own voice in his breast Made misery pompous, firing all his blood. "Enough," he cried. "Give place. You shall not wrest My love from me. I journey on a quest You cannot understand, whose strength shall bear me Through fire and earth. A bogy will not scare me.

"I am the sword of spring; I am the truth. Old night put out your stars, the dawn is here, The sleeper's wakening, and the wings of youth. With crumbling veneration and cowed fear I make no truce. My loved one, live and dear, Waits for me. Let me in! I fled the City, Shall I fear you or ... Mother, ah, for pity."

For his high mood fell shattered. Like a man Unnerved, in bayonet-fighting, in the thick, --Full of red rum and cheers when he began, Now, in a dream, muttering: "I've not the trick. It's no good. I'm no good. They're all too quick. There! Look there! Look at that!" So Dymer stood, Suddenly drained of hope. It was no good.

He pleaded then. Shame beneath shame. "Forgive. It may be there are powers I cannot break. If you are of them, speak. Speak. Let me live. I ask so small a thing. I beg. I make My body a living prayer whose force would shake The mountains. I'll recant--confess my sin-- But this once let me pass. I must go in.

"Yield but one inch, once only from your law Set any price--I will give all, obey All else but this, hold your least word in awe, Give you no cause for anger from this day. Answer! The least things living when they pray As I pray now bear witness. They speak true Against God. Answer! Mother, let me through."

Then when he heard no answer, mad with fear And with desire, too strained with both to know What he desired or feared, yet staggering near, He forced himself towards her and bent low For grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow Fell on his heart, he thought. There came a blank Of all things. As the dead sink, down he sank.

The first big drops are rattling on the trees, The sky is copper dark, low thunder pealing. See Dymer with drooped head and knocking knees Comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly reeling, Blind, beaten, broken, past desire of healing, Past knowledge of his misery, he goes on Under the first dark trees and now is gone.

CANTO IV

First came the peal that split the heavens apart Straight overhead. Then silence. Then the rain; Twelve miles of downward water like one dart, And in one leap were launched along the plain, To break the budding flower and flood the grain, And keep with dripping sound an undersong Amid the wheeling thunder all night long.

He put his hands before his face. He stooped Blind with his hair. The loud drops' grim tattoo Beat him to earth. Like summer grass he drooped, Amazed, while sheeted lightning large and blue Blinked wide and pricked the quivering eyeball through. Then, scrambling to his feet, with downward head He fought into the tempest as chance led.

The wood was mad. Soughing of branch and straining Was there: drumming of water. Light was none Nor knowledge of himself. The trees' complaining And his own throbbing heart seemed mixed in one, One sense of bitter loss and beauty undone; All else was blur and chaos and rain-steam And noise and the confusion of a dream.

Aha!... Earth hates a miserable man: Against him even the clouds and winds conspire. Heaven's voice smote Dymer's ear-drum as he ran, Its red throat plagued the dark with corded fire --Barbed flame, coiled flame that ran like living wire Charged with disastrous current, left and right About his path, hell-blue or staring white.

Stab! Stab! Blast all at once. What's he to fear? Look there--that cedar shrivelling in swift blight Even where he stood! And there--ah, that came near! Oh, if some shaft would break his soul outright, What ease so to unload and scatter quite On the darkness this wild beating in his skull, Too burning to endure, too tense and full.

All lost: and driven away: even her name Unknown. O fool, to have wasted for a kiss Time when they could have talked! An angry shame Was in him. He had worshipt earth, and this --The venomed clouds fire spitting from the abyss, This was the truth indeed, the world's intent Unmasked and naked now, the thing it meant.

The storm lay on the forest a great time --Wheeled in its thundery circuit, turned, returned. Still through the dead-leaved darkness, through the slime Of standing pools and slots of clay storm-churned Went Dymer. Still the knotty lightning burned Along black air. He heard the unbroken sound Of water rising in the hollower ground.

He cursed it in his madness, flung it back, Sorrow as wild as young men's sorrows are, Till, after midnight, when the tempest's track Drew off, between two clouds appeared one star. Then his mood changed. And this was heavier far, When bit by bit, rarer and still more rare, The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air;

When leaves began to drip with dying rain And trees showed black against the glimmering sky, When the night-birds flapped out and called again Above him: when the silence cool and shy Came stealing to its own, and streams ran by Now audible amid the rustling wood --Oh, then came the worst hour for flesh and blood.

It was no nightmare now with fiery stream Too horrible to last, able to blend Itself and all things in one hurrying dream; It was the waking world that will not end Because hearts break, that is not foe nor friend, Where sane and settled knowledge first appears Of workday desolation, with no tears.

He halted then, foot-sore, weary to death And heard his heart beating in solitude, When suddenly the sound of sharpest breath Indrawn with pain and the raw smell of blood Surprised his sense. Near by to where he stood Came a long whimpering moan--a broken word, A rustle of leaves where some live body stirred.

He groped towards the sound. "What, brother, brother, Who groaned?"--"I'm hit. I'm finished. Let me be." --"Put out your hand, then. Reach me. No, the other." --"Don't touch. Fool! Damn you. Leave me."--"I can't see. Where are you?" Then more groans. "They've done for me. I've no hands. Don't come near me. No, but stay, Don't leave me ... oh my God! Is it near day?"

--"Soon now, a little longer. Can you sleep? I'll watch for you."--"Sleep, is it? That's ahead, But none till then. Listen, I've bled too deep To last out till the morning. I'll be dead Within the hour--sleep then. I've heard it said They don't mind at the last, but this is Hell. If I'd the strength--I have such things to tell."

All trembling in the dark and sweated over Like a man reared in peace, unused to pain, Sat Dymer near him in the lightless cover, Afraid to touch and shamefaced to refrain. Then bit by bit and often checked again With agony the voice told on.

"There is a City which men call in scorn The Perfect City--eastward of this wood-- You've heard about the place. There I was born. I'm one of them, their work. Their sober mood, The ordered life, the laws, are in my blood --A life ... well, less than happy, something more Than the red greed and lusts that went before.

"All in one day one man and at one blow Brought ruin on us all. There was a boy --Blue eyes, large limbs, were all he had to show, You need no greater prophets to destroy. He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy Had passed him by--the dreamiest, safest man, The most obscure, until this curse began.

"Then--how or why it was, I cannot say, This Dymer, this fool baby pink-and-white, Went mad beneath his quiet face. One day, With nothing said, he rose and laughed outright Before his master: then, in all our sight, Even where we sat to watch, he struck him dead And screamed with laughter once again and fled.

"Lord! how it all comes back. How still the place is, And he there lying dead ... only the sound Of a bluebottle buzzing ... sharpened faces Strained, gaping from the benches all around... The dead man hunched and quiet with no wound, And minute after minute terror creeping With dreadful hopes to set the wild heart leaping.

"Then one by one at random , We slipt out to the sunlight and away. We felt the empty sense of something broken And comfortless adventure all that day. Men loitered at their work and could not say What trembled at their lips or what new light Was in girls' eyes. Yet we endured till night.

"Then ... I was lying wide awake in bed, Shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet Desire of reckless days--with burning head. And then there came a clamour from the street, Came nearer, nearer, nearer--stamping feet And screaming song and curses and a shout Of 'Who's for Dymer, Dymer?--Up and out!'

"We looked out from our window. Thronging there A thousand of our people, girls and men, Raved and reviled and shouted by the glare Of torches and of bonfire blaze. And then Came tumult from the street beyond: again 'Dymer' they cried. And farther off there came The sound of gun-fire and the gleam of flame.

"I rushed down with the rest. Oh, we were mad! After this, it's all nightmare. The black sky Between the housetops framed was all we had To tell us that the old world could not die And that we were no gods. The flood ran high When first I came, but after was the worse, Oh, to recall...! On Dymer rest the curse!

"Our leader was a hunchback with red hair --Bran was his name. He had that kind of force About him that will hold your eyes fast there As in ten miles of green one patch of gorse Will hold them--do you know? His lips were coarse But his eyes like a prophet's--seemed to fill The whole face. And his tongue was never still.

"He cried: 'As Dymer broke, we'll break the chain. The world is free. They taught you to be chaste And labour and bear orders and refrain. Refrain? From what? All's good enough. We'll taste Whatever is. Life murmurs from the waste Beneath the mind ... who made the reasoning part The jailer of the wild gods in the heart?'

"We were a ragtail crew--wild-haired, half dressed, All shouting, 'Up, for Dymer! Up away!' Yet each one always watching all the rest And looking to his back. And some were gay Like drunk men, some were cringing, pinched and grey With terror dry on the lip.

"The wave where I was swallowed swelled and broke, After long surge, into the open square. And here there was more light: new clamour woke. Here first I heard the bullets sting the air And went hot round the heart. Our lords were there In barricade with all their loyal men. For every one man loyal Bran led ten.

"Then charge and cheer and bubbling sobs of death, We hovered on their front. Like swarming bees Their spraying bullets came--no time for breath. I saw men's stomachs fall out on their knees; And shouting faces, while they shouted, freeze Into black, bony masks. Before we knew We're into them.... 'Swine!'--'Die, then'--'That's for you.'

"The next that I remember was a lull And sated pause. I saw an old, old man Lying before my feet with shattered skull And both my arms dripped red. And then came Bran And at his heels a hundred murderers ran, With prisoners now, clamouring to take and try them And burn them, wedge their nails up, crucify them.

"God!... Once the lying spirit of a cause With maddening words dethrones the mind of men, They're past the reach of prayer. The eternal laws Hate them. Their eyes will not come clean again, But doom and strong delusion drive them then Without ruth, without rest ... the iron laughter Of the immortal mouths goes hooting after.

"And we had firebrands too. Tower after tower Fell sheathed in thundering flame. The street was like A furnace mouth. We had them in our power! Then was the time to mock them and to strike, To flay men and spit women on the pike, Bidding them dance. Wherever the most shame Was done the doer called on Dymer's name.

"Faces of men in torture ... from my mind They will not go away. The East lay still In darkness when we left the town behind Flaming to light the fields. We'd had our will: We sang, 'Oh, we will make the frost distil From Time's grey forehead into living dew And break whatever has been and build new.'

"Day found us on the border of this wood, Blear-eyed and pale. Then the most part began To murmur and to lag, crying for food And shelter. But we dared not answer Bran. Wherever in the ranks the murmur ran He'd find it--'You, there, whispering. Up, you sneak, Reactionary, eh? Come out and speak.'

"Then there'd be shrieks, a pistol shot, a cry, And someone down. I was the third he caught. The others pushed me out beneath his eye, Saying, 'He's here; here, Captain.' Who'd have thought, My old friends? But I know now. I've been taught ... They cut away my two hands and my feet And laughed and left me for the birds to eat.

"Oh, God's name! If I had my hands again And Dymer here ... it would not be my blood I am stronger now than he is, old with pain, One grip would make him mine. But it's no good, I'm dying fast. Look, Stranger, where the wood Grows lighter. It's the morning. Stranger dear, Don't leave me. Talk a little while. Come near."

But Dymer, sitting hunched with knee to chin, Close to the dying man, answered no word. His face was stone. There was no meaning in His wakeful eyes. Sometimes the other stirred And fretted, near his death; and Dymer heard, Yet sat like one that neither hears nor sees. And the cold east whitened beyond the trees.

CANTO V

Through bearded cliffs a valley has driven thus deep Its wedge into the mountain and no more. The faint track of the farthest-wandering sheep Ends here, and the grey hollows at their core Of silence feel the dulled continuous roar Of higher streams. At every step the skies Grow less and in their place black ridges rise.

Hither, long after noon, with plodding tread And eyes on earth, grown dogged, Dymer came, Who all the long day in the woods had fled From the horror of those lips that screamed his name And cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame Were driving him, and little thoughts like bees Followed and pricked him on and left no ease.

Now, when he looked and saw this emptiness Seven times enfolded in the idle hills, There came a chilly pause to his distress, A cloud of the deep world despair that fills A man's heart like the incoming tide and kills All pains except its own. In that broad sea No hope, no change, and no regret can be.

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