John G. Neihardt - The d**h of Agrippina - Part II lyrics

II [The same night. Nero's private chamber in his villa at Baiae. Nero is discovered asleep in his state robes on a couch, where he has evidently thrown himself down, overcome by the stupor incident to the feast of the night. Beside the couch is a writing stand, bearing writing materials. A few lights burn dimly. Nero groans, cries out, and, as though terrified by a nightmare, sits up, trembling and staring upon some projected vision of his sleep. He is yet only half awake.] Nero. Oh - oh - begone, blear thing! - She is not dead! You are not she - my mother! - Ghastly head - Trunkless - and oozing green gore like the sea, Wind-stabbed! Begone! Go - do not look at me - I will not be so tortured! - Eyes burned out With scorious hell-spew! - Locks that grope about To clutch and strangle! [He has got up from the couch and now struggles with something at his throat, still staring at the thing.] Off! Off! [In an outburst of terrified tenderness extends his arms as toward a woman.] Mother - come Into these arms - speak to me - be not dumb! Stare not so wildly - kiss me as of old! Be flesh again - warm flesh! Oh green and cold As the deep grave they gave you! 'Twas not I! Mother, 'twas not my will that you should die - 'Twas hers! - I hate her! Mother, pity me! Oh, is it you? - Sole goddess of the sea I shall proclaim you! Pity! I shall pour The hot blood of your foes on every shore, A huge libation! Hers shall be the first! I swear it! May my waking be accursed, My sleep a-swarm with furies if I err! [He has advanced a short distance toward what he sees, but now shrinks back, burying his face in his robe.] Go! - Spare me! - Guards! Guards! [Three soldiers, who have been standing guard without the chamber, rush in and stand at attention.] Seize and shackle her! There 'tis! - eh? [He stares blankly, rubs his eyes.] It is gone! [Blinks at soldiers, and cries petulantly.] What do you here? First Soldier. Great Caesar summoned us. Nero. [Glancing nervously about.] The night is blear - Make lights! I will not have these shadow things Crawling about me! Poisoners of kings Fatten on shadows! Quick there, dog-eyed scamp, Lean offal-sniffer! Kindle every lamp! [Soldier tremblingly takes a lamp and lights a number of others with its flame. Stage is flooded with light.] By the bronze beard I swear there shall be lights Enough hereafter, though I purge the nights With conflagrating cities, till the crash Of Rome's last tower beat up the smouldering ash Of Rome's last city! So - I breathe again! Some cunning, faneless god who hated men Devised this curse of darkness! What's the hour? Second Soldier. The third watch wanes. Nero. Too late! Too late! The power Of Nero Caesar cannot stay the sun! The stars have marched against me - it is done! And all Rome's legions could not rout this swarm Of venom-footed moments! - She was warm One little lost eternity ago. [With awakening resolution.] 'Twas not my deed! I did not wish it so! Some demon, aping Caesar, gave the word While Lucius Ahenobarbus' eyes were blurred With too much beauty! Oh, it shall be done! Ere these unmothered eyes behold the sun, She shall have vengeance, and that gift is mine! [To First Soldier.] Rouse the Praetorians! Bid a triple line Be flung about the palace! [To Second Soldier.] Send me wine - Strong wine to nerve a resolution! [To Third Soldier.] You - Summon Poppaea! [The Soldiers go out.] This deed I mean to do Unties the snarl, but broken is the thread. Would that the haughty blood these hands will shed Might warm my mother! that the breath I crush - So - [clutching air] from that throat of sorceries, might rush Into the breast that loved and nurtured me! The heart of Nero shivers in the sea, And Rome is lorn of pity! Could the world And all her crawling spawn this night be hurled Into one woman's form, with eyes to shed Rivers of scalding woe, her towering head Jeweled with realms aflare, with locks of smoke, Huge nerves to suffer, and a neck to choke - That woman were Poppaea! I would rear About the timeless sea, my mother's bier, A sky-roofed desolation groined with awe, Where, nightly drifting in the stream of law, The vestal stars should tend their fires, and weep To hear upon the melancholy deep That shipless wind, her ghost, amid the hush! Alas! I have but one white throat to crush With these world-hungry fingers! [From behind Nero, enter Page - a little boy - bearing a goblet of wine on a salver. Nero turns, startled.] Ah!—You!—You! Page. I bring wine, mighty Caesar. [Nero pa**es his hand across his face, and the expression of fright leaves.] Nero. So you do— I saw—the boy Britannicus!—One sees— Things—does one not?—such eerie nights as these? Page. [With eager boyish earnestness.] With woozy heads? Nero. [Irritably.] The wine! [The Page, startled, presents the salver, from which Nero takes the goblet with unsteady hand. Page is in the act of fleeing.] Stay! [Page stops and turns tremblingly.] Never dare Again to look like—anyone! Beware! [Page's head shakes a timid negative. Nero stares into goblet and muses.] Blood's red too. Ah, a woman is the grape Ripe for the vintage, from whose flesh agape Glad feet tonight shall stamp the hated ooze! It boils!—See!—like some witch's pot that brews Venomous ichor!—Nay—some angry ghost Hurls bloody breakers on a bleeding coast!— 'Tis poisoned!—Out, Locusta's brat! [Hurls goblet at Page, who flees precipitately.] 'Twas she! The hand that flung my mother to the sea Now pours me d**h! Alas, great Hercules Too long has plied the distaff at the knees Of Omphale, spinning a thread of woe! Was ever king of story driven so By unrelenting Fate? Lo, round on round The slow coils grip and choke—a mother drowned, Her wrathful spirit rising from the dead— A gentle wife outcast, discredited, With sighs to wake the dread Eumenides! Some thunder-hearted, vaster Sophocles, His aeon-beating blood the stellar stream, Has flung on me the mantle of his dream, And Nero grapples Fate! O wondrous play! With smoking brand aloft, the haggard Day Gropes for the world! Pursued by subtle foes, Superbly tragic 'mid a storm of woes, The fury-hunted Caesar takes the cue! One time-outstaring deed remains to do, Then let the pit howl—Caesar sings no more! Go ask the battered wreckage on the shore Who sought his mother in a sudden sleep, To be with her forever on the deep A twin ship-hating tempest! [Enter Anicetus excitedly.] Anicetus. Lost! We're lost! The Roman ship yaws rockward tempest-tossed And Nero is but Lucius in the wreck! Nero. Croak on! Each croak's a dagger in that neck, You vulture with the hideous dripping beak, The clutching tearing talons that now reek With what dear sacred veins! Anicetus. O Caesar, hear! So keen the news I bear you, that I fear To loose it like the arrow it must be. I know not why such wrath you heap on me; I know what peril deepens 'round my lord; How, riven by the lightning of the sword, The doom-voiced blackness labors round his head! Nero. Say what I know, that my poor mother's dead— So shall your life be briefer! Anicetus. Would 't were so! Nero. [A light coming into his face.] She lives? Anicetus. Yea, lives—and lives to overthrow! Nero. Not perished? Anicetus. —And her living is our d**h! Nero. She moves and breathes? Anicetus. —And potent is her breath To blow rebellion up! Nero. [Rubbing his eyes.] Still do I sleep? Is this a taunting dream that I may weep More bitterly? Or some new foul intrigue? Anicetus. 'Tis bitter fact to her who swam a league, And bitter fact to Nero shall it be! At Bauli now, still dripping from the sea, She crouches snarling! Nero. [In an outburst of joy.] Oh, you shall not die, My best-loved Anicetus! Though you lie, Sweeter these words are than profoundest truth! They breathe the fresh, white morning of my youth Upon the lampless night that smothered me! O more than human Sea That spared my mother that her son might live! What bounty can I give? I—Caesar—falter beggared at this gift Of living words that lift My mother from the regions of the dead! Ah—I shall set a crown upon your head, Snip you a kingdom from Rome's flowing robe! I'll temple you in splendors! Yea, I'll probe Your secret heart to know what wishes pant In wingless yearning there, that I may grant! [Pause, while Anicetus regards Nero with gloomy face.] What sight thus makes your face a pool of gloom? Anicetus. The ghost of Nero crying from his tomb! Nero. [Startled.] Eh?—Nero's ghost—mine? Anicetus. Even so I said. The doomed to perish are already dead Who woo not Fate with swift unerring deeds! That breathless moment when the tigress bleeds Is ours to strike in, ere the tigress spring! What could it boot your servant to be king While any moment may the trumpets cry, Hailing the certain hour when we shall die— Caesar, the deaf, and his untrusted slave? Peer deep, peer deep into this yawning grave And tell me who shall fill it!—Wind and fire, Harnessed with thrice the ghost of her dead sire, Your mother is tonight! She knows, she knows How galleys founder when no tempest blows And moonlight slumbers on a gla**y deep! The beast our wound has wakened shall not sleep Till it be gorged with slaughter, or be slain! Lull not your heart, O Caesar! It is vain To dream this cub-lorn tigress will not turn. Lo, flaring through the dawn I see her burn, A torch of revolution! Hear her raise The legions with a voice of other days, Worded with pangs to fret their ancient scars! And every sword-wound of her father's wars Will shriek aloud with pity! Nero. [During Anicetus' speech he has shown growing fear.] Listen!—There! You heard it?—Did you hear a trumpet blare? Anicetus. 'Tis but the shadow of a sound to be One rushing hour away! Nero. [In panic.] Where shall I flee?— I, the sad poet whom she made a king! At last we flesh the ghost of what we sing— We bards!—I sang Orestes. [His face softens with a gentler thought.] Ah—I'll go To my poor heartsick mother. Tears shall flow, The tears of Lucius, not imperial tears. I'll heap on her the vast, too vast arrears Of filial love. The Senate shall proclaim My mother regnant with me—write her name Beside Augustus with the demigods! Yea, lictors shall attend her with the rods, And ma**ed Praetorians tramp the rabble down Whene'er her chariot flashes through the town! One should be kind to mothers. Anicetus. Yea, and be Kind to the senseless fury of the sea, Fondle the tempest in a rotten boat! Nero. What would you, Anicetus? Anicetus. Cut her throat! [Nero gasps and shrinks from Anicetus.] Nero. No; no!—her ghost!—one can not stab so deep— One can not k** these tortures spawned of sleep! No, no—one can not k** them with a sword! Anicetus. Faugh! One good thrust—the rest is air, my lord! [Enter Page timorously. Nero turns upon him.] Page. [Frightened.] Spare me, good Caesar!—Agerinus— Nero. Go! Bid Agerinus enter! [Page flees. Nero to Anicetus menacingly.] We shall know What breath from what damned throat tonight shall hiss! [Enter Agerinus, bowing low.] Agerinus. My mistress sends fond greetings and a kiss To her most noble son, and bids me say, She rests and would not see him until day. The royal galley, through unhappy chance, Struck rock and foundered; but no circumstance So meagre might deprive a son so dear Of his beloved mother! Have no fear, The long swim leaves her weary, but quite well. She knows what tender love her son would tell And yearns for dawn to bring him to her side. Nero. [To Anicetus.] So! Spell your doom from that! You lied! You lied! I'll lance that hateful fester in your throat! Yea, we shall prove who rides the rotten boat And supplicates the tempest! [With a rapid motion, Nero draws Agerinus' sword from its sheath. Anicetus shrinks back. Nero cries to Agerinus.] Wait to see The loving message you bear back from me! [Nero, brandishing the sword, makes at Anicetus. As he is about to deliver the stroke, enter Poppaea from behind. She has evidently been quite leisurely about her toilet, being dressed gorgeously, and wearing her accustomed half-veil. Her manner is stately and composed. She approaches slowly. Nero stops suddenly in the act to strike Anicetus, and stares upon the beautiful apparition. Anger leaves his face, which changes as though he had seen a great light.] Poppaea. [Languidly.] My Nero longed for me? [Nero with his free hand brushes his eyes in perplexity.] Nero. I—can not—tell— What—'twas—I wished—I wished— Poppaea. [Haughtily.] Ah, very well. [She walks slowly on across the stage. Nero stares blankly after her. The sword drops from his hand. As Poppaea disappears, he rouses suddenly as from a stupor.] Nero. Ho! Guards! [Three soldiers enter. Nero points to Agerinus.] There—seize that wretch who came to k** Imperial Caesar! [Agerinus is seized. Nero turns to Anicetus.] Hasten! Do your will! [Nero turns, and with an eager expression on his face, goes doddering after Poppaea.]