This Earthly Paradise lies across the western main before you come to the sunset. It is seen imperfectly, like a thought not fully realized, and shimmers as if through a rainbow. It is thus described by one who has been there:
_“Fair is that land to all eternity beneath the snowfall of blossoms. The gleaming walls are bright with many colours, the plains are vocal with joyous cries, mirth and song are at home on the plain, the silver-clouded one. No wailing there for judgment, naught but sweet song to be heard. No pain, no grief, no death, no discord, no sin, no decay, but ever we feast and need none to serve us, ever we love and no strife ensues. Such is the land.”_
_In this place the Big Young Hero, the most attractive person ever imagined, is seen vaguely as if through a radiant light. He is seated alone on the grass watching the flowers in the midst of great beauty. Far off across the sea the outline of the Hebrides is faintly seen, and presently a brown-sailed fishing-boat appears on the edge of the horizon and approaches the shore. As it nears, the figure of a girl is discerned kneeling up in the bows, shading her eyes with her hand, and gazing earnestly towards the shore. She carries a coil of rope over her shoulder. As she draws near her voice is heard saying:_
CLIMBER
My anchorage was not as beautiful as I thought
And I have weighed anchor and sailed away.
I trust that my boat will be brought
Into haven before the end of the day.
I do not wish to voyage till sunset
In this yeasty fret.
Captain! there is no harbour that is beautiful save Thine.
Why dost thou reserve it for the evening mariners?
Their eyes are old and full of brine,
They cannot see the stars.
But mine are young, and I can count them all,
I praise Thee, for they are full of light,
Therefore bring me into Thy harbour before the shadows fall,
That I may praise Thee louder—in the young night.
[_As the boat nears the isle it comes into calm water. The big Young Hero goes down to meet it and helps the girl ashore, drawing up the boat._]
HERO
The end of all thought is peace,
And you have found ere night the day’s increase.
The bright and radiant day is loath to die,
Even yet there are hardly any stars in the sky,
Only a soft dim radiance under the moon,
And dark trees on the brightness. Very soon
You will be gathered in a thoughtful rest,
And fall asleep like a bird up there in its nest.
Are you not glad at last to realize
Your insubstantial dream that never dies?
CLIMBER
Yes, but I’m wearied. I’ve had rather a fight
To get here all right,
The sea’s so deep.
HERO
Take your sleep.
[_He sits down as before and draws her on to his knee, and she falls asleep at once with her head on his shoulder, like a tired child. He also appears to sleep. Presently the shadow of a man carrying a rainbow falls across his face, and a dream is heard singing._]
DREAM
The gates of Heaven are pearls, and stand four-square,
And people enter in from everywhere.
But when the heather’s on the ben
And the wind races down the glen
And in the wake of Highland ships
The creaking sea-gull wheels and dips,
And on the bogs, the hills below,
The cotton-grass and myrtle blow—
Bog-myrtle, with the spicy breath
Of bitter-sweet and life and death—
I’m glad to think that God has heard
The meaning of the unspoken word,
The stammering whisper of a tongue
That learned no speech the hills among,
The supplication of a hand
Too fierce for men to understand,
And that for such as me He’ll wait
In silence by His northern gate.
[_The shadow falls across the girl’s face, and she stirs and smiles in her sleep, and a dream-shadow goes from her also, singing. The two shadows meet, and passing into each other, become one._]
GIRL’S DREAM
I love to think that, high in Heaven,
Above the stars, the planets seven,
Daybreak and darkness—if I’m there!—
I’ll feel the wind stir in my hair,
And Heaven’s steadfast floor will float
Like water underneath a boat,
And, looking down across the gold
I’ll see the sunset, fold on fold,
Go tumbling down the sky’s wild screes
Beyond the Outer Hebrides.
Then something in my heart will stir
Like earth when spring remembers her,
And I’ll ask, firm but quite polite,
If God will set my compass right,
And if He’ll aiblins help to bail
My old boat with the tattered sail,
And lend a hand to launch her clear
Of Heaven, unless there’s sea like here.
[_The blended shadow falls across the face of the Big Young Hero, and he looks up._]
SHADOW
[Stirring restlessly.]
I need something.
HERO
Who touches me?
SHADOW
The shadow of a desire.
HERO
What do you require?
SHADOW
I don’t know.
HERO
I have sent you a dream.
SHADOW
I will no longer go
After a dream.
I do not want to be a bore,
But I seem
Nowadays to need something more;
I feel
That I have need of something real.
[The girl stirs, and gives a little sigh.]
HERO
Hush! if you talk so loud you’ll waken her
Before she’s ready.
She needs her rest just now. She mustn’t stir;
She’s got to steady
Her head a bit, for she’s spent hours
Filling her mind with things like flowers,
Till she had sucked out of earth’s genial root
My name like a tender shoot
That was bound to put her in mind
Of something unconfined.
SHADOW
Oh, do be quick!
I’m sick
Of standing still.
HERO
There’s no use getting ill
About it. I am with you now;
The very first step to Heaven’s inside your brow.
Look there, and tell me your most dear desire,
For it is surely something you require.
[The shadow shifts to that of a carpenter.]
CARPENTER
I want something to do.
HERO
Who are you?
CARPENTER
I am a good carpenter.
HERO
How good are you?
CARPENTER
I had a sense of something due
To someone, though I scarce kent who
(It might have been myself or maybe you),
And so, just at my own expense,
I fashioned out of common sense
A ship that’s bound to carry me
From earth to Heaven, and as far’s I see,
Ought to bring God again to me.
HERO
I have need of you. Show me your ship.
[The shadow of a large fine ship falls across the sea.]
She is a very beautiful wide ship. Can you manage her alone?
CARPENTER
I would be the better of another, to do my bidding in her.
HERO
Send me your brother.
[The shadow shifts to that of a tracker.]
HERO
Who are you?
TRACKER
I am a good tracker.
HERO
How good are you?
TRACKER
I do what I am told,
I wait and look,
Silent, ready to hold.
It is not true
That I am idle. I am waiting for you.
I hook
Strange fish upon my individual line.
No other hand could take them, they were mine
From all eternity, and in the eternal sea
They would be lost for ever but for me.
HERO
You are good enough to take his telling.
TRACKER
Yes, but the clouds are swelling,
You might maybe lend us another man forby
To hold the tiller, in case that he and I
Are called to the sheets together
By a sudden change in the weather.
HERO
Send me a man off the heather.
[The shadow shifts to that of a gripper.]
HERO
Who are you?
SHADOW
I am a good gripper.
HERO
How good are you?
GRIPPER
You call me insistently,
Yet when I run blithely to the place
Where your voice deaves be, you bar the door in my face.
What for do you treat me thus and hide?
For still I hear you calling me from the other side.
I am going to hold on to the sneck and wait.
I ken there is something behind the door; early and late
You cry on me still.
If it be your will
Never to open, yet is it meet
That I come
For under the door I can keek at the shadow of your feet
Moving in a larger room.
HERO
You are good enough then
To hold the tiller for these men,
In case they are called to the sheets together
By a sudden change in the weather.
GRIPPER
No earthly blast can overwhelm
The ship of which I hold the helm
If I have just a kenning more to grip,
Something that will not give me the slip
Like the rudder he has fashioned.
I need something more impassioned,
Something to which a mind can hold
For a body’s apt to grow cold.
[The sleeping girl stirs and smiles.]
HERO
This is a shade sublimer.
GRIPPER
Who are you?
CLIMBER
[Talking in her sleep.]
I am a good climber.
GRIPPER
How good are you?
CLIMBER
I have climbed from the mind of man to the mind of God on a nervous stair.
GRIPPER
[Astonished.]
Lassie, that’s no canny! Were you no feared to fall?
CLIMBER
[In her sleep.]
Some day I’ll die, but how, or when, or where
I do not greatly care,
Because I know that with the flowers and weeds
My life proceeds,
If so I will, inside a gracious law.
No flaw
My death will be, nor mischievous accident,
Howe’er besprent
My blood upon the highway or the turf,
Or in the surf
Of thunderous combers on the ungathered sea
But it will be
An obvious hint of a Supreme design,
A little clew of mine
Left huddled by the beach or cliff to tell—
“Pass, friend, all’s well!”
HERO
Let him hold fast
The substance of your mind,
So that he’ll find
The evidence of unseen things that last,
And that he’ll still behold
Although his hand grows cold
And cannot any longer feel
The thing he thought was real.
CLIMBER
[Still in her sleep.]
I said I climbed upon a nervous stair
Into the mind of God,
Yet all the way I trod
On air
Because great Love upheld me there.
I leaned and she resisted, gathering strength
To toss me all that length
Like some tall fountain-shower,
And I have power
To return again and water all the earth,
Giving her second birth,
Weaving her flesh,
Meseems,
Out of the mesh
Of mind,
After the fashion of immediate dreams,
If I can find
And force
All Love into her proper course.
With such support it is quite true
There’s nothing that I cannot do.
HERO
Send me something I can see through.
[The shadow shifts to that of a bent old woman.]
HERO
Who are you?
SHADOW
I was old and perfect at the heart
Ere human life could start.
Before the mind conceived of life
I was a wife.
HERO
[Joyfully.]
What are you good at?
SHADOW
I am a good thief.
HERO
How good are you?
THIEF
Joy in my heart grew strong and very bright,
Luxuriantly fed in the light of stars,
Planets, and suns, the speed of motor-cars,
Fire’s untamed energy, the wireless might
Of telepathy, that burns between the bars.
I recognized her in the lofty spars
Of the rigging, hailing land far out of sight,
And as she leaned and peered entranced, I crept
Into God’s mind, the while He slept,
And stole it bit by bit away,
And packed it in a brain of clay;
But unaccustomed ripples broke
On that calm surface. He awoke,
And I, all trembling to depart,
Was caught a prisoner in His heart.
HERO
You are good enough,
If that’s the stuff
Your mind is made on.
Help her to climb higher,
Otherwise she’ll tire,
For she must be stayed on
Such substantial matter
If she’s to get fatter.
THIEF
Yes, but I need one to hold the rope
At the other end, to give us both more scope.
I need something full of joy.
HERO
Send me a boy.
[_The shadow shifts to that of a boy, and leaps lightly about._]
HERO
Who are you?
SHADOW
[Sings.]
I am something always true.
I don’t care twopence what they think;
I know the sky is always blue,
And the rest of life rose-pink.
HERO
[Affectionately.]
Stand still! Stand still! What are you good at besides singing, eh?
SHADOW
[Standing still suddenly.]
I am a good listener.
HERO
How good are you?
LISTENER
[With his hand cupped to his ear.]
Oh, well, by now I really think I’m able
To hear folk talking at the other end of the cable
When I lay my ear to the ground.
There’s certainly some sort of sound
Like the noise I hear
In the early part of the year,
When underground the lilies
Whisper: “Hark! There still is
Life in us; don’t look so blue.
To-morrow we’ll be getting through,
If on your side you’ll scrape away
As much earth as you dare to-day.”
HERO
You are strong enough to hold the rope
At the other end, since they require more scope.
LISTENER
I know I am, quite well;
But they think I’m just a sell.
Can’t you show them that I’m true?
Hullo! Why, who are you?
[_The Big Young Hero has suddenly lifted his right hand, and lets fall from it the shadow of a man carrying a bow and arrows._]
MARKSMAN
[Placidly.]
I am one too simple to be understood.
HERO
At what are you good?
MARKSMAN
I am a good marksman.
HERO
How good are you?
MARKSMAN
From childhood I have had a single aim.
I did not deviate,
I just went straight
Ahead, till, in the place
Where I was standing, I beheld your face,
And found I had transfixed your name.
LISTENER
[With delight.]
Then I should think he’s good enough
To show them that I’m not mere bluff.
HERO
[Quietly.]
He is good enough.
[_The shadows fade, and the girl stirs restlessly in her sleep._]
CLIMBER
I have need of something more than dream.
HERO
I have given you something more:
Your dream was real.
[The Climber laughs suddenly in her sleep, and wakens up.]
CLIMBER
[Rubbing her eyes, and looking round with delight.]
I feel
Very happy, everything looks so bright.
I knew it would clear up before to-night,
Because I saw a rainbow very high
Up in the sky.
HERO
I am going out fishing before the sun sets.
Will you lend me your boat to gather
In my nets?
CLIMBER
[Eagerly.]
Rather!
Will you be long away?
HERO
I will be back with the first screich of day.
I pray you, if it does not trouble you,
Have breakfast ready in my house for two.
[_They go down to the beach and launch the boat together, and the Big Young Hero sails slowly away in her towards the Hebrides, seen far off in the sunset. Soft twilight falls on the island, but a phosphorescence shines about the boat, outlining the figure of the Big Young Hero at the prow, who is leaning down towards the water setting the nets. Stars begin to come out in the sky, and on the distant shore a light suddenly twinkles out every few seconds on a buoy. The girl’s voice is heard singing as the boat drifts away._]
CLIMBER’S SONG
To-night I saw a rainbow;
It hung my way before,
As if the hills were gate-posts
And it was the arch of a door.
The moor stretched all about me,
The heather and the bee;
I longed to trap that rainbow
For all the world to see.
Perhaps in distant cities,
Perhaps down in the glen,
The rainbow was the signal
Of rain for other men.
But high upon the hilltops
The clouds blow far and free,
And leave behind the rainbow
Blue sky for you and me.
