After All

Scene
A pathway in hell. On the right snowdrifts, on the left the lake of fire. A few spirits are half visible.

Chorus of Spirits.

See them coming —
Flakes that drift,
Ashen mists
That shift and lift.
Shaken off,
Ghosts of pain,
Down from earth
They fall like rain.

Room for the lost! —
There's room in hell.
Damned and tossed
With curse and knell,
Spewed from earth,
Refused in heaven,
Hail to the lost,
By torments driven!

Lo! who cometh? —
Wise was he.
The last fine secret
He would see.
Alone, aloof
From life and care,
He spun his cobwebs
In the air.

Hush and wonder!
One hath risen
To greet this wisp,
So blanched and wizen:
She who tore
Her soul in two,
Who dared the utmost
Life may do.

[The spirits of a man and a woman meet.]

She.
Ah — you!

He.
Yea, I.

She.
How did you come?

He.
I slipped like sleet adown the wind.

She.
You from your heights.

He.
The dry years thinned
My soul. It grew too cold and numb
For earth.

She.
So high and still you were
I used to think you need not stir
To enter paradise.

He.
And now
The dry snow sifts me, and my brow
Chills the dark wind.

She.
And I in flame
Bathe my hot wounds away.

He.
At last
We who have lost may know the game.

She.
Yea, we who missed the fateful cast,
Faltering when the angel passed,
May count his footsteps one by one
Down to our earth, back to his sun.

He.
And we who never spake before
May utter pallid words.

She.
And we
Whose wind-drawn senses feel no more,
May tell the ruinous heart-throbs o'er
That beat us down this bitter path.

He.
We — pale inheritors of wrath,
Who might be treading, hand in hand,
Spaces afoam with wings.

She.
If you,
That day when God was with us two,
Had given me the supreme command.

He.
If you had stood less proudly there
Against the sun, had seemed aware
Of the desire that did not dare.

She.
I who dared all!

He.
If the red lips,
That smiled, had trembled once. If even
One quiver of the finger-tips
Had proved you woman —

She.
If like a man
You had torn the veil —

He.
We blurred God's plan —
Rust on the shining rim of heaven.
Chorus of Spirits. Come and see them
Cringe and cower —
Fools who missed
The perfect hour!
Dumb and blind,
To them was given
Light, love, joy,
A glimpse of heaven.
In the full day
They lost the way.
Spurn them, laugh at them —
Saints astray!

She.
I saw the open gates that morning,
Heard seraph songs.

He.
I felt the warning —
From heaven to hell measured the fall.

She.
We looked in the archangel's eyes
And dared not follow.

He.
We are here.

She.
How swiftly fell that black surprise!
I saw you not, and over all
A thick doubt grew, a foggy fear.

He.
I turned and made me over-wise
With learning, called the loss of you
By the fond name of sacrifice;
And in my solitudes again
Dreamed I might find the truth for men.

She.
And I wandered the dark world through,
Driven by that reckless need of love
Which maddens women.

He.
While above
All need I urged my flattered soul.

She.
I drank the cup of drunkenness,
And lo, it cursed that could not bless —
Another woman's joy I stole.

He.
Yea, when the uproar came to me,
I marveled that such fire could be
In one who seemed so cold.

She.
You lit
The fire.

He.
If I had nourished it,
Out of my cold philosophy
It would have driven the chill.

She.
Ah me!
Then the great fame you made —

He.
Will die.
My truth was but another lie.
I had not lived, I could not know.

She.
My bliss was but another woe.
Strained to my heart it turned to stone;
And when God bade me let it go
I would not, though it dragged me prone
Down to these fires that melt it not
Where on my breast heavy and hot
It lies.

He.
Hush! do you hear the cries
Hurled from the wrath that never dies?

Chorus of Spirits.

In winds of fire and sleet
Whirl on forever!
Never to part nor meet,
Forgetting never.
When the great ghosts wheel down
Cringe ye and cower!
Who chose the fiery crown
Shall wield the power.
Make way! make way! —
Intruders gray!
Slip through the drear shades
As ye may!
Flee in fear!
Come not near!
Slaves! eternally
Shift and veer!

He.
Warped and twisted and bent are we —
Dried hopes blown down the vales of pain.

She.
Hush! do you hear that sound like rain
Of falling souls? Look, do you see?

He.
And one with lightning armed?

She.
Ah me!
I know him, he has passed me by.

He.
Flee from the whirlwind! Dive and fly!

She.
Down! down! I hear you not. The gale
Blackens around me.

He.
Lo, I fail!

Chorus of Spirits (approaching).

Somewhere or other
The mad world is spinning.
Our game now another
Gay crowd is beginning.
Ha, ha! they will botch it,
For God has control.
We nip it and notch it —
He plays for the whole.

He rumbled and grumbled —-
We would not give ear.
Our power he has humbled
By pitching us here.
Since heaven is not for us
And earth's but a fool —
Since either would bore us
In hell let us rule!