Dymer - CS Lewis - Classic Drama Audiobooks

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dimer by C. S. Lewis, nine Knights. I hung upon
the tree, wounded with the spear, as an offering to
odin myself, sacrificed to myself, haavemal canto one, you stranger,
Long before your glance can light upon these words, time

(00:23):
will have washed away the moment when I first took
penn to write, with all my road before me. Yet
to day here, if at all, we meet the unfashioned clay,
ready to both our hands, both hushed to see that
which is nowhere. Yet, come forth and be this moment.

(00:44):
If you join me, we begin a partnership where both
must toil to hold the clew that I caught. First,
we lose or win together. If you read, you are enrolled.
And first a marvel. Who could have foretold that in
the city which men called in Scorn the perfect city

(01:04):
Dimer could be born There? You'd have thought the gods
were smothered down forever, and the keys were turned on fate.
No hour was left unchartered in that town, and love
was in a schedule, and the state chose, for eugenic
reasons who should mate with whom, And when each idle

(01:24):
song and dance was fixed by law, and nothing left
to chance, For some of the last Platonists had founded
that city of old and mastery. They made an island
of what ought to be surrounded by this gross world
of easier light and shade. All answering to the master's dream.

(01:45):
They laid the strong foundations, torturing into stone each bubble
that the academy had blown. This people were so pure,
so law abiding, so logical, they made the heavens afraid.
They sent the very swallows into hiding by their appalling
chastity dismayed more soberly, the lambs in springtime played because

(02:09):
of them, and ghosts dissolved in shame before their common
sense till Dimer came. At Dimer's birth, no comet scared
the nation. The public creche engulfed him with the rest,
and twenty separate boards of education closed round him. He
was passed through every test, was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed, proctored, inspected, whipped,

(02:34):
examined weakly, and for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.
For nineteen years they worked upon his soul, refining, chipping, molding,
and adorning. Then came the moment that undid the whole.
The ripple of rude life. Without a warning. It came
in lecture time one April morning. Alas for laws and locks,

(02:58):
reproach and praise who ever learned to censor the spring days.
A little breeze came, stirring to his cheek. He looked
up to the window. A brown bird perched on the sill,
bent down to wet his beak with darting head. Poor
Damer watched and stirred uneasily. The lecturer's voice he heard,

(03:21):
still droning from the dais. The narrow room was drowsy,
over solemn, filled with gloom. He yawned, and a voluptuous
laziness tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees,
slow drawn like an invisible caress, he laughed. The lecturer

(03:42):
stopped like one that sees a ghost, then frowned and murmured,
silence please. That moment saw the soul of Damer hang
in the balance louder than his laughter rang. The whole
room watched with unbelieving awe. He rose and staggered. Rising
from his lips broke yet again the idiot like guffaw.

(04:05):
He felt the spirit in his finger tips, then swinging
his right arm a wide ellipse, yet lazily he struck
the lecturer's head. The old man tittered, lurched, and dropped
down dead, out of the silent room, out of the dark,
into the sun stream. Dimer passed, and there the sudden breezes,

(04:28):
the high hanging lark, the milk white clouds sailing in
polished air, suddenly flashed about him like a blare of trumpets,
and no cry was raised. Behind him. His class sat dazed.
They dared not go to find him. Yet wonderfully some
rumor spread abroad, an inarticulate sense of life renewing in

(04:50):
each young heart. He whistled down the road. Men said,
there's Dimer. Why what's Dimer doing? I don't know. Look
there's Dimer far per suing with troubled eyes. A long,
mysterious oh sighed from a hundred throats to see him
go down the white street and past the gate, and

(05:12):
forth beyond the wall. He came to grassy places. There
was a shifting wind to west and north, with clouds
and healing squadron running races. The shadows following on the
sunlight's traces, crossed the whole field, and each wild flower
within it with change of wavering glories every minute. There

(05:35):
was a river flushed with rains between the flat fields
and a forest's willowy edge, a sauntering pace. He shuffled
on the green. He kicked his boots against the cracky sedge,
and tore his hands in many a furzy hedge. He
saw his feet and ankles gilded round with butter cups
that carpeted the ground. He looked back, then the line

(05:58):
of a low hill had hid the city's towers and
domes from sight. He stopped. He felt a break of
sunlight spill around him, sudden waves of searching light. Upon
the earth was green and gold and white, smothering his feet.
He felt his city dress an insult to that april cheerfulness.

(06:19):
He said, I've worn this dust heap long enough. Here
goes and forthwith in the open field. He stripped away
that prison of sad stuff, socks, jacket, shirt, and breeches off.
He peeled and rose up, mother naked with no shield
against the sun, then stood awhile to play with bare toes,
dabbling in cold river clay, forward again, and sometimes leaping

(06:45):
high with arms outspread, as though he would embrace in
one act all the circle of the sky. Sometimes he
rested in a leafier place and crushed the wet, cool
flowers against his face. And once he cried aloud, O world,
O day, let let me, and then found no prayer

(07:05):
to say. Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop, he
marched through woods. He strolled from flower to flower, and
over hills, as ointment, drop by drop preciously meted out,
so hour by hour the day slipped through his hands,
and now the power failed in his feet from walking.

(07:28):
He was done, hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun.
He lingered. Looking up, he saw a head, the black
and bristling frontage of a wood, and over it the
large sky, swimming red, freckled with homeward crows. Surprised, he
stood to feel that wideness, quenching his hot mood. Then shouted,

(07:52):
trembling darkness, trembling green. What do you mean, wild wood?
What do you mean? He shouted? But the solimn itude
received his noise into her noiselessness, his fire into her calm.
Perhaps he half believed some answer yet would come to
his desire. The hushed air quivered softly like a wire

(08:13):
upon his voice. It echoed. It was gone. The quiet,
and the quiet dark went on. He rushed into the wood.
He struck and stumbled on hidden roots. He groped and
scratched his face. The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled.
The stray cat stood paw lifted in mid chase. There

(08:35):
is a windless calm in such a place, A sense
of being indoors, so crowded stand the living trees watching
on every hand, A sense of trespass, such as in
the hall of the wrong house one time, to me befell,
groping between the hat stand and the wall, A clear
voice from above me, like a bell, the sweet voice

(08:58):
of a woman, asking, well, no more than this? And
as I fled, I wondered into whose aliens story I
had blundered. A like thing fell to dimer, bending low,
feeling his way, he went. The curtained air sighed into
sound above his head, as though stringed instruments and horns

(09:19):
were riding there. It passed, and at its passing stirred
his hair. He stood, intent to hear. He heard again,
and checked his breath, half drawn, as if with pain,
that music could have crumbled, proud belief, with doubt or
in the bosom of the sage madden the heart that

(09:39):
had outmastered grief and fled with tears the eyes of
frozen age, and turned the young man's feet to pilgrimage.
So sharp it was, so sure a path it found
soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sound. It died out
on the middle of a note, as though it failed
at the urge of it its own meaning. It left

(10:02):
him with life quivering at the throat, limbs shaken and wet,
cheeks and body, leaning with strain towards the sound and senses,
gleaning the last least ebbing ripple of the air, searching
the emptied darkness, muttering where then followed such a time

(10:22):
as is forgotten with morning light, but in the passing
seems unending. Where he grasped the branch was rotten. Where
he trod forth in haste, the forest streams laid weight
for him, like men in fever dreams. Climbing an endless rope.
He labored much and gained no ground. He reached and
could not touch, and often out of darkness, like a

(10:45):
swell that grows up from no wind upon blue sea,
he heard the music unendurable in stealing sweetness wind from
tree to tree. Battered and bruised in body and soul
was he when first he saw a little lightness growing ahead,
and from that light the sound was flowing. The trees

(11:07):
were fewer now, and gladly nearing that light he saw
the stars, for sky was there, and smoother, grass, white flowered,
a forest clearing set in seven miles of forest, secreter
than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair than
greenery under snow or desert water, or the white peace

(11:30):
descending after slaughter, as some who have been wounded beyond
healing wake or half wake once only and so bless
far off the lamp light traveling on the ceiling, a
disk of pale light, filled with peacefulness, and wonder if
this is the c C s or home or heaven

(11:51):
or dreams, then sighing when wise ignorant death before the
panes begin, So dimer in the wood lawn blessed light,
a still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sound. Here
was some pile of building, which the night made larger.
Spiry shadows rose all round, but through the open door

(12:13):
appeared profound recesses of pure light, fire with no flame,
and out of that deep light. The music came tiptoes.
He slunk towards it, where the grass was twinkling in
a lane of light. Before the archway there was neither
fence to pass, nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door.

(12:35):
But where it's open, open evermore, no knocker and no porter,
and no guard. For very strangeness entering in grows hard,
breathe not speak, not walk gently. Someone's here? Why have
they left their house? With the door so wide? There

(12:55):
must be someone? Dimer hung in fear upon the threat,
longing and big eyed. At last he squared his shoulders,
smote his side, and called, I'm here. Now let the
feast begin. I'm coming now, I'm Dimer, and went in
end of Canto one, Canto two. More light, another step,

(13:21):
and still more light. Opening ahead, it swilled with soft excess,
his eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night. And
it was nowhere more and nowhere less in it, no
shadows were he could not guess its fountain. Wandering round around,
he turned still on each side. The level glory burned

(13:44):
far in the dome, to where his gaze was lost.
The deepening roof shone clear as stones, that lie in shore,
beneath pure seas, the aisles that crossed like forests of
white stone, their arms on high pasted pillar after pillar
dragged his eye in unobscured perspective, till the sight was weary,

(14:04):
And there also was the light. Look with my eyes,
conceive yourself above and hanging in the dome, and thence
through space, looked down, see dimer dwarfed and naked move
a white blot on the floor at such a pace
as boats that hardly seemed to have changed place once

(14:25):
in an hour, when from the cliffs we spy the
same ship, always smoking towards the sky. The shouting mood
had withered from his heart. The oppression of huge places
wrapped him round. A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart
deep into him. Some fear of being found, some hope

(14:45):
to find, he knew not what. The sound of music,
never ceasing, took the roll of silence, and like silence
numbed his soul till as he turned a corner his
deep awe broke with a sudden start, for straight ahead,
far off a wild eyed, naked man he saw that

(15:07):
came to meet him, and beyond was spread yet further
depth of light. With quickening tread, he leaped towards the shape,
then stopped and smiled before a mirror, wondering like a child.
Beside the glass, unguarded for the claiming. Like a great
patch of flowers upon the wall, hung every kind of clothes,

(15:29):
silk feathers, flaming leopard skin, furry mantles, like the fall
of deep midwinter snows. Upon them, all hung the faint
smell of cedar, and the dyes were bright as blood
and clear as morning skies. He turned from the white
specter in the glass and looked at these. Remember he

(15:50):
had worn through winter slush, through summer flowers and grass,
one kind of solemn stuff, since he was born with
badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn and cried,
here is no law nor I to see, nor leave
of entry given. Why should there be have done with that?

(16:10):
You threw it all behind. Henceforth I ask no license
where I need. It's on on on, though I go
mad and blind, though knees ache and lung's labor and
feet bleed, or else, it's home again to sleep and feed,
and work, and hate them always, and obey and loathe
the punctual rise of each new day. He made mad

(16:35):
work among them as he dressed, with motley, choice and
litter on the floor, and each thing, as he found
it seemed the best. He wondered that he had not
known before how fare a man he was. I'll creep
no more, in secret, Dimer said, but I'll go back
and drive them all to freedom. On this track, he

(16:56):
turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller behind him.
Now himself, in royal guise, filled the whole frame, a
nobler shape and taller, till suddenly he started with surprise,
catching by chance his own familiar eyes, fevered yet still
the same, without their share of bravery, undeceived and watching there.

(17:20):
Yet as he turned he cried, the rest remain. If
they rebelled, if they should find me here, we'd pluck
the whole taut fabric from the strain, hew down the city.
Let live earth appear, old men and barren women, whom,
through fear we have suffered to be masters in our home. Hide, hide,

(17:40):
for we are angry, and we come thus feeding on
vain fancy, covering round his hunger, his great loneliness, arraying
in facile dreams, until the qualm was drowned. The boy
went on through endless arches, straying with casual tread. He
sauntered manly, playing at manhood. Lest more loss of faith

(18:02):
betide him till lo he saw a table set beside him.
When Dimer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth. He
clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover's. He
had a hunger in him that was worth ten cities.
Here was silver glass and covers, cold peacock prawns and
aspec eggs of plovers, raised pies that stood like castles,

(18:27):
gleaming fishes, and bright fruit, with broad leaves around the dishes.
If ever you have passed a cathay door and lingered
in the dusk of a June day, fresh from the road,
sweat sodden and foot sore, and heard the plates clink
and the music play with laughter, with white tables far
away with many lights, conceive how Dimer ran to table,

(18:51):
looked once round him, and began That table seemed unending.
Here and there were broken meats, bread, crept, umbled flowers, defaced,
a napkin with white petals on a chair, a glass
already tasted still to taste. It seemed that a great
host had fed in haste, and gone, yet left a

(19:12):
thousand places more untouched, wherein no guest had sat before. There,
in the lonely splendor, dimer ate as thieves eat ever
watching half in fear, he blamed his evil fortune. I
come late. Whose board was this? What company sat here?
What women with wise mouths? What comrades deer? Who would

(19:34):
have made me welcome as the one free born of
all my race? And cried, well done? Remember yet again
he had grown up on rations and on scientific food,
at common boards, with water in his cup, one mess
alike for every day and mood. But here at his
right hand a flagon stood. He raised it, paused before

(19:56):
he drank, and laughed, I'll drown their perfect city in
this draft. He fingered the cold neck. He saw within
like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue and murmured.
Standing now with pointed chin and head thrown back, he
tasted rapture flew through every Vein that moment Louder grew

(20:19):
the music and swelled forth a trumpet note. He ceased,
and put one hand up to his throat. Then heedlessly
he let the flagon sink in his right hand, his
staring eyes were caught in distance, as of one who
tries to think a thought that is still waiting to
be thought. There was a riot in his heart that

(20:40):
brought the loud blood to the temples. A great voice
sprang to his lips, unsummoned, with no choice. Ah, but
the eyes are open. The dream is broken to sack
the perfect city, A fool's deed for Dimer, folly of follies.
I have spoken, I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed.

(21:01):
A thousand times. They have warned me of men's greed,
for joy, for the good that all desire. But never
till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavor.
Some day I will come back to break the city.
Not now, perhaps when age is white and bleak. Not
now I am in haste, Oh God, the pity of

(21:23):
all my life till this, groping and weak, the shadow
of itself. But now to seek that true, most ancient glory,
whose white glance was lost through the whole world by
evil chance. I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning. Dimer,
the drudge, the black leg who obeyed desire, shall teach

(21:44):
me now if this be sinning good luck to it,
Oh splendor, long delayed, beautiful world of mine, O world
arrayed for bridal flower and forest, wave and field. I
come to be your lover, loveliest yield world. I will
prove you, lest it should be said. There was a

(22:05):
man who loved the earth. His heart was nothing but
that love. With doting tread, he worshiped the loved grass,
and every start of every bird from cover the least
part of every flower he held in awe. Yet Earth
gave him no joy between his death and birth. I
know my good is hidden at your breast. There is

(22:26):
a sound of great good in my ear like wings.
And oh, this moment is the best. I shall not fail.
I taste it. It comes near as men from a
dark dungeon. See the clear stars shining, and the filled streams.
Far away. I hear your promise booming and obey. This

(22:47):
forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps beyond where I am come,
And farther still the rivers wander seaward with smooth laps,
and there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill somewhere
before the world's end. I shall fill my spirit at
Earth's pap for Earth must hold one rich thing sealed

(23:08):
as dimers from of old, one rich thing, Or it
may be more than this. Might I not reach the
borders of a land that ought to have been mine?
And there the bliss of free speech. There the eyes
that understand, the men free grown, not modeled by the
hand of masters, men that know, or men that seek,

(23:30):
They will not gape and murmur when I speak. Then,
as he ceased amid the farther wall, he saw a
curtained and low lintled door, dark curtains, sweepy fold night
purple pall. He thought he had not noticed it before.
Sudden desire for darkness overbore his will and drew him

(23:51):
towards it. All was blind Within he passed, the curtains
closed behind. He entered in a void. Night scented flowers
breathed there. But this was darker than the night that
is most black with beating thunder showers, a disembodied world
where depth and height and distance were unmade. No seam

(24:13):
of light showed through. It was a world not made
for seeing. One pure one undivided sense of being through darkness,
smooth as amber. Warily slowly he moved. The floor was
soft beneath his feet. A cool smell that was wholly
and unholy, sharp like the very spring, and roughly sweet,

(24:35):
blew towards him, and he felt his fingers neat broad
leaves and wiry stems that, at his will unclosed before
and closed behind him. Still with body intent, he felt
the foliage quiver on breast and thighs. With groping arms,
he made wide passes in the air, a sacred shiver

(24:55):
of joy from the heart center oddly strayed to every nerve,
deep sighing, much afraid, much wondering, he went on. Then, stooping,
found a knee depth of warm pillows on the ground,
and there it was sweet rapture to lie still, eyes
open on the dark. A flowing health bathed him from

(25:18):
head to foot, and great good will rose springing in
his heart and poured its wealth outwards. Then came a hand,
as if by stealth, out of the dark, and touched
his hand, and after the beating silence, budded into laughter,
a low, grave laugh, and rounded like a pearl, mysterious,

(25:39):
filled with home. He opened wide his arms. The breathing
body of a girl slid into them from the world's
end with the stride of seven league boots came passion
to his side, then meeting mouths, soft falling hair, a cry, heart,
shaken flank, sudden cool, folded thigh. The same night swelled

(26:02):
the mushroom in Earth's lap and silvered the wet fields.
It drew the bud from hiding, and led on the
rhythmic sap, and sent the young wolves thirsting after blood
and wheeling. The big seas made ebb and flood along
the shores of Earth, and held these two in dead
sleep till the time of morning dew end of Canto

(26:26):
two Canto three, he woke, and all at once before
his eyes the pale spires of the chestnut trees in
bloom rose waving, and beyond dove colored skies, But where
he lay was dark and out of gloom. He saw
them through the doorway of a room full of strange

(26:46):
scents and softness, padded deep with growing leaves, heavy with
last night's sleep. He rubbed his eyes. He felt that
chamber wreathing new sleepiness around him. At his side, he
was aware of warmth and quiet breathing. Twice he sank back,
loose limbed, and drowsy eyed. But the wind came even

(27:09):
there a sparrow cried, and the woods shone without then
dimer rose. Just for one glance, he said, and went
tiptoes out into crisp, gray air and drenching grass. The
whitened cobweb sparkling in its place, clung to his feet.
He saw the wagtail pass beside him and the thrush,

(27:32):
and from his face felt the thin scented winds divinely
chase the flush of sleep. Far off, he saw between
the trees long morning shadows of dark green. He stretched
his lazy arms to their full height, yawning and sighed,
and laughed and sighed anew, then wandered farther, watching with

(27:54):
delight how his broad naked footprints stained the dew, pressing
his foot to feel the cold come through between the
spreading toes, then wheeling round each moment to some new
shrill forest sound. The wood, with its cold flowers, had
nothing there more beautiful than he new, waked from sleep,

(28:15):
new born from joy. His soul lay very bare that
moment to life's touch, and pondering deep Now. First he
knew that no desire could keep these hours for always,
and that men do die. But oh, the present glory
of lungs, and I, he thought, at home, they are
waking now. The stair is filled with feet. The bells

(28:39):
clang far from me. Where am I now? I could
not point to where the city lies from here? Then suddenly,
if I were here alone, these woods could be a
frightful place. But now I have met my friend who
loves me. We can talk to the road's end. Thus,
quickening with the sweetness of the tail of his new love,

(29:01):
he turned. He saw between the young leaves, where the
palace walls showed pale with chilly stone. But far above
the green, springing like cliffs in air, the towers were
seen making more quiet, yet the quiet dawn. Thither he came.
He reached the open lawn. No bird was moving here

(29:22):
against the wall. Out of the unscythed grass, the nettle grew.
The doors stood open wide, but no footfall rang in
the colonnades. Whispering through arches and hollow halls, the light
wind blew. His awe returned, he whistled, Then no more,
it's better to plunge in by the first door. But

(29:44):
then the vastness threw him into doubt. Was this the
door that he had found last night or that beneath
the tower, had he come out this side at all?
As the first snow falls light with following rain, before
the year grows white. So the first dim foreboding touched
his mind gently as yet and easily thrust behind. And

(30:07):
with it came the thought, I do not know her name,
no nor her face. But still his mood ran blithely,
as he felt the morning blow about him, and the
earth smell in the wood seemed waking for long hours.
That must be good here in the unfettered lands that
knew no cause for grudging. Out of reach of the

(30:27):
old laws, he hastened to one entry up the stair
beneath the pillared porch. Without delay. He ran, then halted suddenly,
for there across the quiet threshold something lay, a bundle,
a dark mass that barred the way. He looked again,
and low, the formless pile under his eyes was moving

(30:49):
all the while, and it had hands, pale hands of
wrinkled flesh, puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity that moved.
He eyed the sprawling thing afresh, and bit by bit
so faces come to be in the red coal. Yet
surely he could see that the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,

(31:11):
a living thing, the likeness of a woman. In the center,
a draped hummock marked the head. Thence flowed the broader
lines with curve and fold, spreading as oak roots do.
You would have said a man could hide among them
and grow old in finding a way out. Breasts manifold,
as of the Ephesian Artemis, might be under that robe.

(31:35):
The face he did not see, and all his being answered,
not that way, never a word. He spoke stealthily. Creeping
back from the door, he drew quick, no delay, quick, quick,
but very quiet, backward, peeping till fairly out of sight,
then shouting, leaping, shaking himself, he ran, as puppies do,

(31:57):
from bathing till that door was out of year. Another gait,
and empty in he went and found a courtyard open
to the sky. Amidst it dripped a fountain, heavy scent
of flowers was here the foxglove, standing high, sheltered the
whining wasp. With hasty eye, he traveled round the walls.

(32:19):
One doorway, led within, one showed a further court ahead.
He ran up to the first, a hungry lover and
not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet, but weary
of long waiting to discover that loved one's face. Before
his foot was set on the first stair, he felt
the sudden sweat, cold on his sides, that sprawling mass

(32:42):
in view, that shape, the horror of heaviness. Here too,
he fell back from the porch. Not yet, not yet,
There must be other ways where he would meet no
watcher in the door. He would not let the fear rise,
nor hope falter, nor defeat be entered in his thoughts.
A sultry heat seemed to have filled the day. His

(33:05):
breath came short, and he passed on into that inner court,
and like a dream, the sight he feared to find
was waiting here. Then, cloister, path and square, he hastened
through down paths that needed blind traced, and retraced his steps.
The thing sat there in every door, still watching everywhere, behind, ahead,

(33:28):
all round. So steady now lest panic comes, He stopped.
He wiped his brow. But as he strove to rally,
came the thought that he had dreamed of such a
place before, knew how it all would end. He must
be caught early or late, no good, But all the
more he raged with passionate will that overbore that knowledge,

(33:51):
and cried out and beat his head, raving upon the
senseless walls, and said, where where, dear look once out,
give but one sign. It's I iy Dimer. Are you
chained and hidden? What have they done to her? Loose her?
She is mine through stone and iron, haunted and hag ridden.
I'll come to you, no stranger nor unbidden. It's I.

(34:15):
Don't fear them. Shout above them all, can you not hear?
I'll follow at your call from every arch. The echo
of his cry returned. Then all was silent, and he
knew there was no other way. He must pass by
that horror, tread her down, force his way through, or
die upon the threshold. And this too had all been

(34:38):
in a dream. He felt his heart beating, as if
his throat would burst apart. There was no other way.
He stood a space and pondered it. Then, gathering up
his will, he went to the next door. The pillared
place beneath the porch was dark, the air was still moss.
On the steps. He felt her presence fill the threshold

(34:59):
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, immovable, intolerable,
the eyes hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress, corpse,

(35:20):
like 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,

(35:42):
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. The woman answered nothing,
but he saw the hands like crabs still wandering on
her knee. Mother, if I have broken in any law,
I ask a pardon once, then let it be once

(36:04):
is enough, and leave the passage free. I am in haste,
And though it were a sin by all the laws
you have, I must go in. 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

(36:27):
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 rest my love

(36:49):
from me. I journey on a quest you cannot understand.
Whose strength shall bear me through fire and earth? A
bogey will not scare me. I am the sword of spring.
I am the truth, Old knight, 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

(37:09):
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 shears. When he began
now in a dream, muttering, I've not the trick. It's

(37:32):
no good. I'm no good. They're all too quick there.
Look there, look at that. So Dimer 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

(37:54):
me live. I ask so small a thing I beg
I make my body a living prayer who's for 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

(38:15):
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.

(38:38):
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 coppered, dark, loath, n pealing sea, dimer with drooped

(39:02):
head and knocking knees comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly, reeling, blind, beaten,
broken past desire of healing, pass knowledge of his misery,
he goes on under the first dark trees, and now
is gone. End of Canto three. Canto four. First came

(39:26):
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 and under song amid the wheeling
thunder all night long. He put his hands before his face.

(39:51):
He stooped, blind with his hair. The loud drops, grim
tattoo beat him to earth like summer grass. He drooped
amaze 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.

(40:13):
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

(40:35):
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 Dimer'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

(40:59):
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, shriveling in swift blight,
even where he stood, And there Ah that came near. Oh,
if some shaft would break his soul out right? What ease?

(41:21):
So too, 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 worshiped Earth, and this the venomed clouds,

(41:45):
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, returned still through the dead leaved darkness,
through the slime of standing pools and slots of clay.

(42:07):
Storm churned went dimer 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

(42:30):
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

(42:52):
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,

(43:13):
able to blend itself in 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 work day desolation with
no tears. He halted, then foot sore, weary to death,

(43:34):
and heard his heart beating in solitude, when suddenly the
sound of sharpest breath in drawn 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

(43:54):
groped towards the sound. What brother, brother, who groaned, I'm his,
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

(44:15):
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
a head? But none till then listen I've bled too
deep to last out till the morning. I'll be dead

(44:37):
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 dimer near him
in the lightless cover, afraid to touch, and shame faced

(45:00):
to refrain. Then bit by bit, and often checked again
with agony. The voice told on the place was dark
that neither saw the other's face. 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.

(45:23):
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, where all he

(45:46):
had to show you need no greater profits 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 dimer, this fool baby pink and white,

(46:10):
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 lefter once again and fled. Lord,
how it all comes back, How still the place is,

(46:32):
and he there lying dead, only the sound of a
blue bottle 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,

(46:55):
no word spoken, we slipped 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 girl's eyes. Yet we endured
till night. Then I was lying wide awake in bed,

(47:20):
shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet desire
of reckless days, with burning head. And then there came
a clamor from the street came nearer, nearer, nearer, stamping
feet and screaming, song and curses, and a shout of
who's for Diymer Dimer Up and out We looked out

(47:42):
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 Dimer they cried, and
farther off there came the sound of gun fire and
the gleam of flame. I rush down with the rest o.

(48:05):
We were mad after this, It's all nightmare. The black
sky between the house tops 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. Ho
to recall on Dimer rest the curse. Our leader was

(48:28):
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

(48:49):
never still. He cried as Dimer broke, we'll break the chain.
The world is free. They taught you to be chaste
and labor and bare orders, and refrain from what all's
good enough. We'll taste whatever is life, murmurs from the
waist beneath the mind who made the reasoning part, the

(49:11):
jailer of the wild gods. In the heart, we were
a ragtail crew, wild haired, half dressed, all shouting up
for Dimer, 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 gray,

(49:32):
with terror dry on the lip. The older ones had
had the sense enough to bring their guns. The wave
where I was swallowed swelled and broke after long surge
into the open square, and here there was more light,
new clamor woke. Here. First I heard the bullets sting
the air, and went hot round the heart. Our lords

(49:55):
were there in barricade, with all their loyal men. For
every one man loyal bran led ten. Then charge in
sheer 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

(50:16):
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

(50:37):
dripped red. And then came bran and at his heels
A hundred murderers ran, with prisoners, now clamoring 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. There passed

(50:58):
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 fire brands too. Tower after tower fell sheathed in

(51:20):
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 Dimer's name, faces

(51:40):
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, ho, we will make the
frost distill from time's gray forehead into living dew, and
break whatever has been and build new. Day found us

(52:04):
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,

(52:28):
and some one 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

(52:53):
had my hands again and Dimer 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.

(53:15):
Talk a little while. Come near. But Daimer, 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 others stirred and fretted
near his death, and Diimer heard, yet sat like one

(53:38):
that neither hears nor sees. And the cold east whitened
beyond the trees end of Canto four, Canto five, through
bearded cliffs. A valley has driven thus deep its wedge
into the mountain, and no more. The faint track of

(53:58):
the farthest wandering sheep ends here, and the gray hollows,
at their core of silence, feel the dulled, continuous roar
of higher streams. At every step. The skies grew less,
and in their place black ridges rise hither long afternoon
with plodding tread, and eyes on earth grown dogged. Dimer came,

(54:22):
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

(54:47):
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 He felt the eternal strength of the
silly earth, the unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,

(55:11):
the business of perpetual death and birth, the meaningless precision.
All must be the same and still the same in
each degree. Who cared now, and he smiled and could forgive,
believing that for sure he would not live. Then, where
he saw a little water run beneath a bush, he slept.

(55:31):
The chills of may came dropping, and the stars peered
one by one out of the deepening blue, while far
away the western brightness dulled to bars of gray, half
way to midnight. Suddenly, from dreaming he woke wide into
present horror, screaming, for he had dreamt of being in

(55:52):
the arms of his beloved and in quiet places. But
all at once it filled with night alarms and wrapping guns,
and men with splintered faces, no eyes, no nose, all red,
were running races with worms along the floor. And he
ran out to find the girl and shouted, And that
shout had carried him into the waking world. There stood

(56:15):
the concave, vast, unfriendly night, and over him the scroll
of stars unfurled. Then, wailing like a child, he rose upright,
heart sick with desolation. The new blight of loss had
nipped him sore and sad self pity, thinking of her,
then thinking of the city, For in each moment's thought

(56:38):
the deeds of Bran, the burning and the blood, and
his own shame, would tease him into madness, till he
ran for refuge to the thought of her, whence came
utter an endless loss, no not a name, not a word, nothing,
left himself alone crying amid that valley of old stone.

(56:59):
How soon it all ran out. And I suppose they
they up there, the old contriving powers, They knew it
all the time. For some one knows and waits and
watches till we pluck the flowers, then leaps. So soon
my store of happy hours all gone before I knew.
I have expended my whole wealth in a day. It's finished, ended,

(57:25):
and nothing left. Can it be possible that joy flows through?
And when the course is run, it leaves no change,
no mark on us to tell its passing. And as
poor as we've begun, we end the richest day what
we have won? Can it all die? Like this? Joy
flickers on the razor edge of the present and is gone?

(57:47):
What have I done to bear upon my name the
curse of Bran? I was not of his crew, nor
any man's, and Diymer has the blame? What have I done?
Wronged whom I never knew? What's brand to me? I
had my deed to do and ran out by myself
alone and free. Why should earth sing with joy and
not for me? Ah? But the earth never did sing

(58:11):
for joy. There is a glamor on the leaf and flower,
and April comes and whistles to a boy over white fields,
and beauty has such power upon us. He believes her
in that hour, For who could not believe? Can it
be false? All that the blackbird says, and the wind calls?
What have I done? No living thing I made nor

(58:34):
wished to suffer harm. I sought my good because the
spring was gloriously arrayed, and the blue eyebright misted it.
All the wood yet to obey that spring time and
my blood. This was to be unarmed and off my guard,
and gave God time to hit once and hit hard.
The men build right, who made that city of ours?

(58:56):
They knew their world. A man must crouch to face
infinite malice, watching at all hours, shut nature out, give
her no moment's space for entry. The first needs of
all our race are walls, a den, a cover. Trader
eye who first ran out beneath the open sky, our

(59:16):
fortress and fenced place I made to fall. I slipped
the sentries and let in the foe. I have lost
my brothers and my love, and all nothing is left
but me. Now let me go. I have seen the
world stripped naked, and I know, Great God, take back
your world. I will have none of all your glittering gods,
but death alone. Meanwhile, the earth swung round in hollow night.

(59:42):
Souls without number in all nations slept snug on her back, safe,
speeding towards the light. Ours told, And in damp woods
the night beast crept, and over the long seas the
watch was kept in black ships twinkling onward, green and red.
Always the ordered stars moved overhead, and no one knew

(01:00:06):
that Dimer, in his scales, had weighed all these and
found them nothing worth. Indifferently, the dawn that never fails
troubled the east of night with gradual birth, whispering a
change of colors on cold earth, and a bird woke.
Then too, the sunlight ran along the hills, and yellow
day began, but stagnant gloom clung in the valley. Yet

(01:00:31):
hills crowded out a third part of the sky, black looking,
and the bowlders dripped with wet No birds sang, Dimer, shivering,
heaved a sigh and yawned, and said, it's cruel work
to die of hunger, And again, with cloudy breath blown
between chattering teeth, it's a bad death. He crouched and

(01:00:54):
clasped his hands about his knees and hugged his own limbs,
for the pitiful sense of homelyiness they had familiar's these,
this body, at least his own, his last defense. But
soon his morning misery drove him, thence eating his heart
to wonder. As chance led on upward to the narrowing

(01:01:15):
gully's head. The cloud lay on the nearest mountain top,
as from a giant's chimney, smoking there. But Dimer took
no heed. Sometimes he'd stop. Sometimes he hurried faster as
despair pricked deeper and cried out. Even now somewhere Bran,
with his crews at work, they rack, they burn, and

(01:01:38):
there's no help in me. I've served their turn. Meanwhile,
the furrowed fog rolled down ahead, long tatters of its
vanguard smearing round the bases of the crags like cobweb,
shed down the deep combs, It dulled the tinkling sound
of water on the hills. The spongy ground faded three

(01:01:58):
yards ahead, then nearer yet fell the cold wreaths, the
white depth gleaming wet. Then, after a long time the
path he trod led downward, Then all suddenly it dipped
far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod. He was
half running now, a stone that slipped beneath him, rattled

(01:02:19):
headlong down. He tripped, stumbled and clutched. Then panic and
no hope to stop himself. Once lost upon that slope,
and faster, ever faster, and his eye caught tree tops
far below. The nightmare feeling had gripped him. He was screaming,
and the sky seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, reeling

(01:02:42):
with effort beyond thought, he hung half kneeling, halted, one
saving moment with wild will, he clawed into the hill
side and lay still, half hanging on both arms. His
idle feet dangled and found no hold. The moor lay
wet against him, and he sweaded with the heat of terror,
all alive. His teeth were set by God. I will

(01:03:06):
not die, said he not yet. Then slowly, slowly, with
enormous strain, he heaved himself an inch, then heaved again,
till saved and spent. He lay. He felt indeed it
was the big round world beneath his breast, the mother
planet proven at his need, the shame of glad surrender

(01:03:28):
stood confessed. He cared not for his boasts. This this
was best, this giving up of all He need not strive,
He panted, he lay still. He was alive, and now
his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept lapped in unearthly quiet,

(01:03:49):
never knew how. Bit by bit, the FOG's white rearguard
crept over the crest and faded, and the blue first
brightening at the zenith, trembled through and deepening. Shadows took
a sharper form each moment, and the sandy earth grew warm,
yet dreaming of blue skies. In dream, he heard the

(01:04:11):
pure voice of a lark that seemed to send its
song from heights beyond all height. That bird sang out
of heaven, The world will never end, sang from the
gates of Heaven, will never end, sang till it seemed
there was no other thing but bright space, and one
voice set there to sing. It seemed to be the

(01:04:34):
murmur and the voice of beings beyond number, each in
all singing. I am, each of itself made choice and
was whence flows the justice that men call divine. She
keeps the great worlds lest they fall from hour to hour,
and makes the hills renew their ancient youth, and sweetens

(01:04:54):
all things through. It seemed to be the low voice
of the world brooding alone beneath the strength of things,
murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled forever, and
the unwearied joy that brings out of old fields, the
flowers of unborn springs, out of old wars, and cities

(01:05:14):
burned with wrong, a splendor in the dark, a tale,
a song. The dream ran thin towards waking, and he
knew it was a bird's piping. With no sense, He
rolled round on his back. The sudden blue, quivering with light, hard,
cloudless and intense, shone over him. The lark still sounded, thence,

(01:05:38):
and stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought was
passing by, too gently to be caught. With that, he
thrust the damp hair from his face and sat upright.
The perilous cliff dropped sheer before him, close at hand,
and from his place, listening in mountain silence, he could
hear birds crying far below. It was not fear that

(01:06:01):
took him, but strange glory. When his eye looked past
the edge into surrounding sky, he rose and stood, then
low the world beneath wide pools that in the sun
splashed foothills, lay sheep, dotted downs, soft piled and rolling heath,
river and shining weir and steeples gray, and the green

(01:06:25):
waves of forest far away distance rose heaped on distance
nearer hand, the white roads leading down to a new land.
End of Canto five, Canto six. The sun was high
in heaven, and Dimer stood a bright speck on the

(01:06:47):
endless mountain side till blossom after blossom, That rich mood faded,
and truth rolled homeward like a tide, before whose edge
the weak soul fled to hide in vain with ostrich
head threw many a shape of coward fancy, whimpering for escape,

(01:07:08):
but only for a moment. Then his soul took the
full swell and heaved a dripping prow clear of the
shattering wave crest. He was whole. No veil should hide
the truth, No truth should cow the dear self pitying heart.
I'll babble now no longer, Daimer said, I'm broken in

(01:07:28):
Pack up the dreams and let the life begin. With this,
he turned. I must have food to day, he muttered.
Then among the cloudless hills, by winding tracks, he sought
the downward way and followed the steep course of tumbling rills,
came to the glens, the wakening mountain fills in spring time,

(01:07:48):
with the echoing splash and shock of water's leaping cold
from rock to rock, And still it seemed that lark
with its refrain sang in the sky, and wind in
his hair, and hope at heart. Then once and once
again he heard a gun fired off. It broke the
air as a stone breaks a pond, and everywhere the

(01:08:11):
dry crags echoed clear, and at the sound once a
big bird rose, whirring from the ground. In half an hour,
he reached the level land and followed the field paths
and crossed the stiles. Then looked and saw near by
on his left hand an old house folded round with
billowy piles of dark yew hedge. The moss was on

(01:08:34):
the tiles, the pigeons in the yard, and in the
tower a clock that had no hands and told no hour.
He hastened in warm waves. The garden scent came stronger
at each stride. The mountain breeze was gone. He reached
the gates. Then in he went and seemed to lose
the sky. Such weight of trees hung overhead. He heard

(01:08:58):
the noise of bees, and saw far off in the
blue shade, between the windless elms. One walking on the green.
It was a mighty man, whose beardless face beneath gray hair,
shone out so large and mild it made a sort
of moonlight in the place. A dreamy desperation, wistful wild

(01:09:20):
showed in his glance and gait. Yet like a child,
an Asian emperor's only child was he, with his grave
looks and bright solemnity. And over him there hung the
witching air, the wilful courtesy of the days of old,
the graces wherein idleness grows fair and somewhat. In his

(01:09:40):
sauntering walk, he rolled and toyed about his waist with
seals of gold, or stood to ponder, often in mid stride,
tilting his heavy head upon one side. When Damer had
called twice, he turned his eye, then, coming out of silence,
as a star all in one moment, slips into the

(01:10:01):
sky of evening. Yet we feel it comes from far,
he said, sir, you are welcome. Few there are that
come my way. And in huge hands he pressed Damer's
cold hand and bade him in to rest. How did
you find this place out? Have you heard my gun?
It was but now I killed a lark, What sir said,

(01:10:23):
Damer shoot the singing bird, Sir, said the man. They
sing from dawn till dark and interrupt my dreams too long,
But hark another. Did you hear no singing? No, it
was my fancy. Then pray let it go from here?
You see my garden's only flaw. Stand here, sir, at

(01:10:45):
the dial Daimer stood. The master pointed. Then he looked
and saw how hedges and the funeral quietude of black
trees fringe the garden like a wood, and only in
one place, one gap that showed the blue side of
the hills, the White Hill Road. I have planted fir

(01:11:06):
and larch to fill the gap, he said, because this
too makes war upon the art of dream. But by
some great mishap nothing I plant will grow there. We
pass on. The sunshine of the afternoon is gone. Let
us go in. It draws near time to sup I
hate the garden till the moon is up. They passed

(01:11:29):
from the hot lawn into the gloom and coolness of
the porch, then passed a door that opened with no
noise into a room where green leaves choked the window
and the floor sank lower than the ground. A tattered
store of brown books met the eye a crystal ball,
and masks with empty eyes along the wall. Then Dimer sat,

(01:11:52):
but knew not how nor where, and supper was set
out before these two he saw not how, with silver
old and rare, but tarnished, and he ate, and never
knew what meats they were. At every bite he grew
more drowsy, and let slide his crumbling will. The master
at his side was talking still, and all his talk

(01:12:15):
was tales of magic words, and of the nations in
the clouds above astral and Airish tribes who fish for
birds with angles, And by history he could prove how
chosen spirits from Earth had won their love as arthur
or ushine, and to their isle went Helen for the
sake of a Greek smile. And ever in his talk

(01:12:38):
he mustered well his texts and strewed old authors round
the way. Thus Wyrus writes, and thus the hermetics tell
this was Agrippa's view, and others say with Cardon till
he had stolen quite away Dimer's dull wits, and softly
drawn apart the ivory gates of hope that change the heart.

(01:13:00):
Dymer was talking Now Now, Damer told of his own
love and losing drowsily. The Master leaned towards him. Was
it cold, this spirit to the touch? No, sir, not,
she said Dymer and his host, why this must be
ethereal not aeriel o my soul be still? But wait,

(01:13:21):
tell an, sir, tell the whole. Then Damer told him
of the Beldam too, the old old matriarchal dreadfulness over
the Master's face. A shadow drew. He shifted in his chair,
And yes, and yes, he murmured twice, I never looked
for less. Always the same, that frightful woman's shape besets

(01:13:44):
the dream way and the soul's escape. But now, when
Dymer made to talk of Bran, a huge indifference fell
upon his host. Patient and wondering eyed. Then he began,
forgive me, you are young. What helps us most is
to find out again that heavenly ghost who loves you.
For she was a ghost, and you in that place

(01:14:06):
where you met, were ghostly too. Listen, for I can
launch you on the stream, will roll you to the
shores of her own land. I could be sworn you
never learned to dream, But every night you take with
careless hand what chance may bring. I'll teach you to
command the comings and the goings of your spirit through

(01:14:26):
all that borderland which dreams inherit. You shall have hauntings
suddenly and often when you forget, when least you think
of her. For so you shall forget, A light will
soften over the evening woods, and in the stir of
morning dreams. Oh, I will teach you, sir, there'll come
a sound of wings, or you shall be waked in

(01:14:49):
the midnight, murmuring it was she. No, No, said Daimer,
not that way. I seem to have slept for twenty
years now while I shake out of my eyes that
dust of burdening dream. Now when the long clouds tremble,
ripe to break, and the far hills appear, when first
I wake, still blinking, struggling towards the world of men,

(01:15:11):
and longing, would you turn me back again, dreams? I
have had my dream too long. I thought the sun
rose for my sake. I ran down, blind and dancing
to the abyss. Oh, sir, I brought boy laughter for
a gift to God's who find the martyr's soul too soft.
But that's behind I'm waking now. They broke me all

(01:15:34):
ends thus always, and we are for them, not they
for us. And she she was no dream, It would
be waste to seek her there the living, in that
den of lies. The Master smiled. You are in haste
for broken dreams. The cure is dream again and deeper.

(01:15:54):
If the waking world and men and nature marred your
dream so much, the worse for or crude world beneath
its primal curse. Ah, but you do not know. Can
dreams do this? Pluck out blood guiltiness upon the shore
of memory, and undo what's amiss, and bid the thing
that has been be no more? Sir, it is only dreams.

(01:16:17):
Unlock that door, he answered with a shrug. What would
you have in dreams? The thrice proved coward can feel
brave in dreams. The fool is free from scorning voices,
gray headed wars are virgin. There again, out of the past,
dream brings long buried choices, all in a moment snaps

(01:16:39):
the tenfold chain that life took years in forging. There
the stain of oldest sins. How do the good words go?
Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow? Then
drawing near, when Daimer did not speak, my little son
said he You're wrong and right. Are also dreams fetters

(01:17:02):
to bind the weak faster to phantom Earth, and blear
the sight, wake into dreams, into the larger light that
quenches these rail stars. They will not know Earth's by laws.
In the land to which you go, I must undo
my sins, unearthly law, and even in earth, the child

(01:17:23):
of yesterday. Throw down your human pity, cast your awe
behind you, put repentance all away home to the elder depths.
For never they supped with the stars, who dared not
slough behind the last shred of Earth's holies from their mind.
Sir answered Dymer, I would be content to drudge in Earth,

(01:17:47):
easing my heart's disgrace, counting a year's long service lightly spent.
If once, at the year's end, I saw her face somewhere,
being then most weary in some place. I looked not
for that joy, or heard her near whispering. Yet courage friend,
for one more year, Pish, said the master. Will you

(01:18:08):
have the truth? You think that virtue saves her people?
Care for the high heart and idle hours of youth.
For these they will descend our lower air. Not virtue.
You would nerve your arm and bear your burden among men.
Look to it. Child, by virtue's self, vision can be defiled.

(01:18:29):
You will grow full of pity and the love of men,
and toil until the morning moisture dries out of your heart.
Then once or once again, it may be, you will
find her, But your eyes soon will be grown too dim.
The task that lies next to your hand will hide her.
You shall be the child of Earth and God's. You

(01:18:49):
shall not see here. Suddenly he ceased, tip toes he went.
A bolt clicked, Then the window creaked ajar, and out
of the wet world the hedgerow scent came floating, and
the dark, without one star, nor shape of trees, nor
scents of near and far, the undimensioned night and formless

(01:19:11):
skies were there, and were the Master's great allies. I
am very old, he said, But if the time we
suffered in our dreams were counting age, I have outlived
the ocean, and my prime is with me to this day.
Years cannot gage the dream life. In the turning of
a page, dozing above my book, I have lived through

(01:19:34):
more ages than the lost la Muria knew I am
not mortal, were I doomed to die this hour, In
this half hour, I interpose a thousand years of dream
and those gone by as many more, And in the
last of those ten thousand, ever journeying towards a close

(01:19:55):
that I shall never reach for. Time shall flow wheel
within wheel, interminably slow, and you will drink my cup
and go your way into the valley of dreams. You
have heard the call, come hither and escape? Why should
you stay? Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose

(01:20:16):
wall is tottering while you sweep. The roof will fall
before the work is done. You cannot mend it, patch
as you will. At last the rot must end it.
Then Dimer lifted up his heavy head, like Atlas on
broad shoulders, bearing up the insufferable globe. I had not said,

(01:20:37):
he mumbled, never said I'd taste the cup. What is
it this you give me? Must I sup o lies?
All lies? Why did you kill the lark? Guide me
the cup to lip? It is so dark? End of
Canto six, Canto seven. The host had trimmed his lamp.

(01:21:02):
The downy moth came from the garden, where the lamp
light shed its circle of smooth white upon the cloth.
Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread. Upon
his sprawling arms lay Dimer's head, and often as he
dreamed he shifted place, muttering and showing half his drunken face.

(01:21:24):
The beating stillness of the dead of night flooded the room.
The dark and sleepy powers settled upon the house and
filled it quite far from the roads it lay from
belfry towers and hen roosts, in a world of folded
flowers buried in loneliest fields, where beasts that love the
silence through the unrustled hedgerows move. Now from the master's lips.

(01:21:50):
There breathed a sigh, as of a man released from
some control that wronged him. Without aim, his wandering eye,
unsteadied and un fixed, began to roll, his lower lip
dropped loose, The informing soul seemed fading from his face.
He laughed out loud once, only then looked round him,

(01:22:12):
hushed and cowed. Then, summoning all himself with tightened lip,
with desperate coolness and attentive air, he touched between his
thumb and finger tip, each in its turn, the four
legs of his chair, then back again in haste. There
that when there had been forgotten once more safer. Now

(01:22:35):
that's better, and he smiled and cleared his brow. Yet
this was but a moment's ease. Once more, he glanced
about him like a startled hair. His big eyes bulged
with horror as before, quick to the touch that saves him.
But despair is nearer by one step, And in his chair, huddling,

(01:22:56):
he waits. He knows that they'll come strong again, and
yet again, and all night long, and after this night
comes another night, night after night, until the worst of all,
and now too, even the noonday and the light let
through the horrors. Oh, could he recall the deep sleep

(01:23:18):
and the dreams that used to fall around him for
the asking, But somehow something's amiss. Sleep comes so rarely
now Then, like the dog returning to its vomit, he
staggered to the bookcase to renew, yet once again the
taint he had taken from it, and shuddered as he went.

(01:23:39):
But horror drew his feet as joy draws others. There
in view was his strange heaven and his far stranger hell,
his secret lust, his soul's dark citadel, old Theogmagia, demonology,
Kabbala chemic magic, book of the Dead, damning hermetic rolls

(01:24:01):
that none may see save thee already damned. Such gruels
are bred from minds that lose the spirit and seek
instead for spirits in the dust of dead men's error,
buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror. This lost
soul looked them over one and all, now sickened at

(01:24:22):
the heart's root, For he knew this night was one
of those when he would fall and scream alone. Such
things they made him do, and roll upon the floor.
The madness grew wild at his breast. But still his
brain was clear that he could watch the moment coming near.
But ere it came. He heard a sound, half groan,

(01:24:44):
half muttering from the table, like a child caught unawares
that thought it was alone. He started as in guilt.
His gaze was wild, yet pitiably with all his will.
He smiled so strong as shame even then, and Amer stirred,
now waking, and looked up and spoke one word. Water,

(01:25:06):
he said. He was too dazed to see what hell
wrung face looked down, what shaking hand poured out the draft?
He drank it thirstily and held the glass for more,
your land, your land of dreams, he said, All lies
I understand more than I did. Yes, water, I've the

(01:25:26):
thirst of hell itself. Your magic's all accursed. When he
had drunk again, he rose and stood pallid and cold
with sleep. By God, he said, you did me wrong
to send me to that wood. I sought a living
spirit and found instead bogies and wraiths. The Master raised

(01:25:47):
his head, calm as a sage, and answered, are you mad? Come,
sit you down. Tell me what dream you had. I
dreamed about a wood, an autumn red of beech trees,
big as mountains. Down between the first thing that I saw,
a clearing spread deep down, oh very deep, like some

(01:26:08):
ravine or like a well. It sank that forest green
under its weight of forest, more remote than one ship
in a landlocked sea afloat. Then through the narrowed sky,
some heavy bird would flap its way, a stillness more
profound following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard, far off

(01:26:29):
in the long woods, with quiet sound, the sudden chestnut
thumping to the ground, or the dry leaf that drifted
past upon its endless loiter earthward and was gone. Then
next I heard twigs splintering on my right, and rustling
in the thickets, turning there I watched out of the foliage,
came in sight the head and blundering shoulders of a

(01:26:52):
bear glistening in sable black, with beady stare of eyes
towards me, and no room to fly, but patting so
often slow. The beast came by, and mark there flattery,
stood and rubbed his flank against me. On my shaken legs.
I felt his heart beat, and my hand that stroked

(01:27:13):
him sank wrist deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt. Yes,
and across my spirit. As I smelt the wild things scent,
a new sweet wildness ran, whispering of eden fields long
lost by man. So far was well, But then came

(01:27:33):
emerald birds, singing about my head. I took my way,
sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds, the roebuck,
and the fallow deer at play, trooping to nose my hand.
All this, you say, was sweet? Oh sweet? Do you
think I could not see that beasts and wood were
nothing else but me? That I was making everything I

(01:27:58):
saw too sweet, far too well fitted to desire to
be a living thing. Those forests draw no sap from
the kind earth, The solar fire and soft rain feed them,
not that fairy briar pricks. Not the birds sing sweetly
in that break, not for their own delight, but for
my sake. It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,

(01:28:23):
like a bought smile, no joy in it. But stay,
did you not find your lady? Sure enough? I still
had hopes till then the autumn day was westering, The
long shadows crossed my way, When over daisies folded for
the night, beneath rope gathering elms, she came in sight.

(01:28:44):
Was she not fair? So beautiful? She seemed almost a
living soul. But every part was what I made it
all that I had dreamed, no more, no less the
mirror of my heart, such things as boyhood feigns beneath
the smart of solitude in spring. I was deceived almost
in that first moment. I believed for a big, brooding rapture, tenses,

(01:29:10):
fire and calm, as a first sleep had soaked me
through without thought, without word, without desire. Meanwhile, above our heads,
the deepening blue burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew
a veil before my eyes. The minutes passed heavy like
loaded vines. She spoke at last, she said, for this

(01:29:35):
land only did men love the shadow lands of earth.
All our disease of longing, all the hopes we fabled
of fortunate islands or hesperian seas, or woods beyond the west,
were but the breeze that blew from off those shores,
one far spent breath that reached even to the world
of change and death. She told me I had journeyed

(01:29:59):
home at last, into the golden age and the good
country that had been always there. She bade me cast
my cares behind forever. On her knee, worshiped me Lord
and love. Oh, I can see her red lips even now.
Is it not wrong that men's delusions should be made
so strong? For listen, I was so besotted now. She

(01:30:24):
made me think that I was somehow seeing the very
core of truth. I felt, somehow beyond all veils. The
inward pulse of being thought was enslaved. But oh, it
felt like freeing and drafts of larger air. It is
too much who can come through untainted? From that touch

(01:30:47):
there I was nearly wrecked, But mark the rest. She
went too fast. Soft to my arms she came. The
robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast was bare
against my own. She shone like flame before me in
the dusk, all love, all shame, faugh, and it was myself.

(01:31:08):
But all was well, for at the least that moment
snapped the spell. As when you light a candle, the
great gloom, which was the unbounded knight, sinks down, compressed
to four white walls in one familiar room. So the
vague joy shrank, wilted in my breast and narrowed to

(01:31:29):
one point, unmasked, confessed fool's paradise was gone. Instead was
there King Lust, with his black sudden serious stare. That
moment in a cloud among the trees, wild music and
the glare of torches came on sweated faces on the
prancing knees of shaggy satyrs, fell the smoky flame on

(01:31:53):
ape and goat, and crawlers without name on rolling breast,
black eyes and tossing hair on old bald headed witches,
lean and bare. They beat the devilish tom Tom rub
a dub, lunging, leaping in unwieldy romp, singing cootito and
Beelzebub with devil dancers, mask and phallic pomp, torn raw

(01:32:16):
with briars and caked from many a swamp. They came
among the wild flowers, dripping blood and churning the green
mosses into mud. They sang, return, Return, We are the
lust that was before the world, and still shall be
when your last law is trampled into dust. We are
the mothers swamp, the primal sea. Whence the dry land

(01:32:38):
appeared old old are we? It is but a return.
It's nothing new, easy as slipping on a well worn shoe.
And then there came warm mouths and finger tips preying
upon me. Whence I could not see. Then a huge face,
low browed, with swollen lips, crooning, I am not beautiful

(01:33:01):
as she, but I'm the older love. You shall love
me far more than beauty's self. You have been ours always.
We are the world's most ancient powers. First flatterer and
then bogey like a dream, Sir, are you listening? Do
you also know how close to the soft laughter comes

(01:33:23):
the scream down yonder? But his host cried sharply, no,
leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go out
of my house? Begone with all my heart, said Dmer.
But one word before we part, he paused, and in
his cheek the anger burned. Then Turning to the table,

(01:33:43):
he poured out more water, but before he drank, he
turned then leaped back to the window with a shout,
For there it was no dream. Beyond all doubt, he
saw the master crouch with leveled gun, cackling in maniac voice.
Rund run. He ducked and sprang far out the starless

(01:34:05):
night on the wet lawn closed round him every way.
Then came the guncrack, and the splash of light vanished
as soon as seen cool garden clay slid from his feet.
He had fallen, and he lay face downward among leaves,
then up and on through branch and leaf, till sense
and breath were gone. End of Canto's seven Canto eight.

(01:34:31):
When next he found himself, no house, was there, no garden,
and great trees Beside a lane in grass he lay.
Now first he was aware that all one side his
body glowed with pain, And the next moment and the
next again was neither less nor more. Without a pause,

(01:34:52):
it clung like a great beast with fastened claws, that
for a time he could not frame a thought, nor
know him self for self, nor pain for pain, till
moment added on to moment taut the new, strange art
of living. On that plain taught how the grappled soul
must still remain, still, choose and think and understand. Beneath

(01:35:16):
the very grinding of the ogre's teeth, he heard the
wind along the hedges sweep. The quarter striking from a
neighboring tower. About him was the weight of the world's sleep.
Within the thundering pane that quiet hour. Heeded it not,
it throbbed, it raged with power fit to convulse the heavens.

(01:35:38):
And at his side the soft peace drenched the meadows
far and wide. The air was cold, the earth was
cold with dew, the hedge behind him dark as ink.
But now the clouds broke, and a paler heaven showed through, spacious,
with sudden stars breathing somehow the sense of change to

(01:36:01):
slumbering lands. A cow coughed in the fields behind the
puddles showed like pools of sky amid the darker road,
and he could see his own limbs faintly white, and
the blood black upon them. Then, by chance he turned,
and it was strange. There at his right he saw

(01:36:22):
a woman standing, and her glance met his, and at
the meeting his deep trance changed not, and while he looked,
the knowledge grew. She was not of the old life,
but the new. Who is it, he said, the loved one,
the long lost? He stared upon her, truly, truly, indeed,

(01:36:46):
o lady, you come late. I am tempest, tossed, broken
and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed. Why have
you left me thus and given no heed to all
my prayers? Left me to be the game of all
decens seats. You should have asked my name? What are
you then? But to his sudden cry, she did not answer.

(01:37:09):
When he had thought, awhile, he said, how can I tell?
It is no lie? It may be one more phantom
to beguile, the brainsick dreamer with its harlot smile. I
have not smiled, she said. The neighboring bell told out
another quarter. Silence fell, and after a long pause he

(01:37:30):
spoke again, Leave me, he said, why do you watch
with me? You do not love me? Human tears and
pain and hoping for the things that cannot be, and
blundering in the night where none can see, and courage
with cold back against the wall. You do not understand.
I know them, all the gods themselves. No pain the

(01:37:52):
eternal forms in realms, beyond the reach of cloud and skies,
near as the ends of air, where come no storm
nor sound of earth. I have looked into their eyes,
peaceful and filled with pain, beyond surmise, filled with an
ancient woe. Man cannot reach one moment though in fire.
Yet calm their speech. Then, these, said Daimer, where the

(01:38:17):
world I wooed. These were the holiness of flowers and grass,
and desolate dews. These the eternal mood, blowing the eternal
theme through men that pass. I called myself their lover.
Ay that was less fit for that long service than
the least dull work day drudge of men or faithful beast.

(01:38:38):
Why do they lure to them such spirits as mine,
the weak, the passionate, and the fool of dreams, When
better men go safe and never pine with whisperings at
the heart, soul, sickening gleams of infinite desire and joy
that seems the promise of full power. For it was they,
the Gods themselves, that led me on this way. Give

(01:39:00):
me the truth. I ask not now for pity. When
God's call can the following them be sin? Was it
false light that lured me from the city. Where was
the path without it? Or within? Must it be one
blind throw to lose or win? Has heaven no voice
to help? Must things of dust guess their own way
in the dark? She said, They must another's silence. Then

(01:39:26):
he cried in wrath. You came in human shape, in
sweet disguise, wooing me, lurking for me in my path,
hid your eternal cold with woman's eyes, snared me with
shows of love, And all was lies. She answered, For
our kind must come to all if bidden, But in
the shape for which they call? What, answered, Dymer, Do

(01:39:51):
you change and sway to serve us? As the obedient
planets spin about the sun? Are you but Potter's clay
for us to mold? Unholy to our sin and wholly
to the holiness within? She said? Waves fall on many
an unclean shore, Yet the salt seas are wholly as before.

(01:40:13):
Our nature is no purer for the saint that worships,
nor from him that uses ill our beauty? Can we
suffer any taint? As from the first we were? So
are we still with incorruptibles. The mortal will corrupts itself,
and clouded eyes will make darkness within from beams they
cannot take well. It is well, said Damer. If I

(01:40:37):
have used the and breathing spirit, amiss, what would have
been the strength of all my days? I have refused
and plucked the stalk, too hasty in the green, trusted
the good for best, and having seen half beauty or
beauty's fringe, the lowest stare the common incantation worshiped there.

(01:40:58):
But presently he cried in his grave pain. If I
had loved a beast, it would repay. But I have
loved the spirit, and loved in vain. Now let me die. Ah,
But before the way is ended, quite in the last
hour of day, is there no word of comfort, no
one kiss of human love? Does it all end in this?

(01:41:21):
She answered? Never ask of life and death? Uttering these names,
you dream of warmy clay, or of surviving ghosts. This
withering breath of words is the beginning of decay in truth.
When truth grows cold and pines away among the ancestral images,
your eyes first see her dead, and more the more

(01:41:44):
she dies, you are still dreaming dreams you shall forget.
When you have cast your fetters far from here, go forth.
The journey is not ended yet, you have seen dyme
Er dead and on the bier. More then you dream
and dropped no tear. You have slain him. Every hour,

(01:42:05):
think not at all of death, lest into death by
thought you fall. He turned to question her, then looked again,
and lo, the shape was gone. The darkness lay heavy
as yet, and a cold, shifting rain fell with the
breeze that springs before the day. It was an hour

(01:42:26):
death loves across the way. The clock struck once again.
He saw near by the black shape of the tower
against the sky. Meanwhile, above the torture and the riot
of leaping pulse and nerve that shot with pain, somewhere
aloof and poised in spectral quiet, His soul was thinking

(01:42:48):
on the dizzied brain, scarce seemed her organ. Link by link,
the chain that bound him to the flesh was loosening fast,
and the new life breathed in, unmoved and vast. It
was like this, he thought, Like this or worse for
him that I found bleeding in the wood. Blessings upon him.

(01:43:12):
There I learned the curse that rests on Diymer's name,
And truth was good. He has forgotten now the fire
and blood. He has forgotten that there was a man
called Dimer. He knows not himself nor Bran. How long
have I been moved at heart in vain about this Dimer,
thinking this was I Why did I follow close? His

(01:43:35):
joy and pain more than another man's. For he will die,
the little cloud will vanish, and the sky reigns as
before the stars remain, and earth and man as in
the years before my birth. There was a Dimer once
who worked and played about the city. I slept him
off and ran. There was a Dimer in the forest glade,

(01:43:59):
ranting alone, skulking the fates of man. I cast him also,
and a third began, and he too died. But I
am none of those. Is there another still to die?
Who knows? Then, in his pain, half wondering what he did,
he made to struggle towards that belfried place, and groaning

(01:44:20):
down the sodden bank, he slid and groaning in the lane.
He felt his trace of bloodied mire, then halted with
his face upwards towards the gateway, breathing hard, an old
lych gate before a burial yard. He looked within, between
the huddling crosses, over the slanted tombs and sunken slate

(01:44:42):
spread the deep, quiet grass and humble mosses, a green
and growing darkness, drenched of late, smelling of earth and damp.
He reached the gate with failing hand. I will rest here,
he said, and the long grass will cool my burning head.
End of Canto eight, Canto nine. Even as he heard

(01:45:07):
the wicket clash behind, came a great wind beneath that
seemed to tear the solid graves apart and deaf and blind,
whirled him upright like smoke, through towering air whose levels
were as steps of a sky stare. The parching cold
roughened his throat with thirst and pricked him at the heart.

(01:45:27):
This was the first, and as he soared into the
next degree, suddenly all around him he could hear sad
strings that fretted inconsolably, and ominous horns that blew both
far and near. There broke his human heart, and his
last tear froze scalding on his chin. But while he heard,

(01:45:50):
he shot like a sped dart into the third, and
its first stroke of silence could destroy the spring of
tears forever, and compress from off his lips the curved
bow of the boy forever the sidereal loneliness received him.
Where no journeying leaves the less still to be journeyed through.

(01:46:11):
But everywhere, fast though you fly, the center still is there.
And here the well worn fabric of our life fell
from him. Hope and purpose were cut short, even the
blind trust that reaches in mid strife towards some heart
of things. Here blew the mort for the world spirit herself.

(01:46:32):
The last support was fallen away himself. One spark of
soul swam an unbroken void. He was the whole, and wailing,
why hast thou forsaken me? Was there no world at
all but only I, dreaming of gods and men? Then
suddenly he felt the wind no more. He seemed to

(01:46:54):
fly faster than light, but free, and scaled the sky
in his own so strength, as if a falling stone
should wake to find the world's will was its own.
And on the instant, straight before his eyes, he looked
and saw a sentry shape that stood leaning upon its spear,

(01:47:14):
with hurrying skies behind it, and a moon set red
as blood. Upon its head. Were helmet and mailed, hood
and shield upon its arm, and sword at thigh, all
black and pointed sharp against the sky. Then came the
clink of metal, the dry sound of steel on rock,

(01:47:35):
and challenge who comes here? And as he heard it,
dimer at one bound stood in the stranger's shadow, with
the spear between them, and his human face came near
that larger face. What watches this you keep? Said Daimer,
on the edge of such a deep and answer came.

(01:47:56):
I watched both night and day this frontier. There are
beasts of the upper air, as beasts of the deep sea.
One walks this way night after night, far scouring from
his lair, chewing the cut of lusts, which are despair
and fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss
that never was. What kind of beast is this? A

(01:48:20):
kind of things escaped that have no home? Hunters of men.
They love the spring uncurled, the will worn down, the
wearied hour. They come at night time, when the mask
is off the world and the soul's gait ill locked
and the flag furled. Then softly, a pale swarm, and
in disguise flit past the drowsy watchman, small as flies.

(01:48:46):
I'll see this airish beast whereof you speak, I'll share
the watch with you. Nay, little one be gone, you
are of earth the flesh is weak. What is the flesh?
To me? My courses run all, but some deed still
waiting to be done. Some moment I may rise on
as the boat lifts with the lifting tide and steals afloat.

(01:49:09):
You are a spirit, and it is well with you.
But I am come out of great folly and shame,
the sack of cities wrongs I must undo. But tell
me of the beast, and whence it came? Who were it? Sire?
And dam? What is its name? It is my kin?
All monsters are the brood of heaven and earth, and
mixed with holy blood? How can this be? My son?

(01:49:34):
Sit here awhile there is a lady in that primal
place where I was born, who, with her ancient smile
made glad the sons of heaven. She loved to chase
the springtime round the world to all your race. She
was a sudden quivering in the wood, or a new
thought springing in solitude, till in prodigious hour, one swollen

(01:49:57):
with youth, blind from new broken prisons, knowing not himself
nor her nor how to mate with truth, lay with
her in a strange and secret spot, mortal with her,
immortal and begot this walker in the night. But did
you know this mortal's name? Why? It was long ago,

(01:50:18):
and yet I think I bear the name in mind.
It was some famished boy whom tampering men had crippled
in their chains and made him blind till their weak
hour discovered them, and then he broke that prison. Softly,
it comes again, I have it. It was Dymer, little one.
Dymer's the name. This specter is his son. Then after

(01:50:42):
silence came an answering shout from Daymer, glad and full
break off. Dismiss. Your watch is ended, and your lamp
is out, unarm, unarm, return into your bliss. You are relieved, sir.
I must deal with this as in my right, for
either I must slay this beast, or else be slain
before the day. So mortal and so brave, that other said, smiling,

(01:51:08):
and turned and looked in Dimer's eyes, scanning him over
twice from heel to head, like an old sergeant's glance,
grown battle wise to know the points of men. At last, arise,
he said, and wear my arms. I can withhold nothing,
for such an hour has been foretold. Thereat with lips

(01:51:30):
as cold as the sea surge he kissed the youth, and,
bending on one knee, put all his armor off, and
let emerge angelic shoulders marbled gloriously, and feet like frozen speed,
and plain to sea. On his wide breast, dark wounds
and ancient scars, the battle honors of celestial wars. Then,

(01:51:52):
like a squire or brother born, he dressed the young
man in those plates that dripped with cold upon the inside,
trick over breast and shoulder, but without the figured gold
gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold, and the
icy spear froze fast to Dymer's hand. But where the
other had stood, he took his stand and searched the

(01:52:16):
cloudy landscape. He could see dim shapes like hills appearing,
but the moon had sunk behind their backs. When will
it be, said Daimer and the other soon? Now soon,
for either he comes past us at night's noon, or
else between the night and the full day, and down

(01:52:36):
there on your left will be his way. Swear that
you will not come between us too, nor help me
by a hair's weight if I bow. If you are
he if prophecies speak true, not Heaven and all the
gods can help you. Now this much I have been told,
but know not how the fight will end. Who knows?

(01:52:58):
I cannot tell, Sir, be content, said Damer, I know well.
Thus Dymer stood to arms, with eyes that ranged through
aching darkness, stared upon it, so that all things as
he looked upon them, changed and were not as at first,
but grave and slow. The larger shade went sauntering to

(01:53:21):
and fro, humming at first the snatches of some tune
that soldiers sing, but falling silent. Soon then came steps
of dawn. And though they heard no milking cry in
the fields, and no cock crew, and out of empty air,
no twittering bird sounded from neighboring hedges, yet they knew. Eastward,

(01:53:43):
the hollow blackness paled to blue, then blew to white,
and in the west the rare surviving stars blinked feebler
in cold air. Far beneath Dimer's feet, the sad half light,
discovering the new landscape, oddly came and forms grown half
familiar in the night, looked strange again. No distance seemed

(01:54:05):
the same, and now he could see clear and call
by name valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all
took shape and made a world at morning's call. It
was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps of broken trees
rose out of endless clay, naked of flower and grass,

(01:54:27):
the slobberd humps dividing the dead pools against the gray.
A shattered village gaped. But now the day was very
near them, and the night was past, and Dimer understood
and spoke at last. Now I have wooed and won you.
Bridal earth, beautiful world that lives, desire of men, All

(01:54:49):
that the Spirit intended at my birth this day shall
be borne into deed. And then the hard day's labor
comes no more again, forever the pain dies, the longing cease,
the ship glides under the green arch of peace. Now
drink me as the sun drinks up the mist. This

(01:55:09):
is the hour to ceasein at full flood that asks
no gift from following years. But hissed, Look yonder, at
the corner of that wood. Look look there where he comes.
It shocks the blood the first sight. Eh, Now, sentinel,
stand clear and save yourself for God's sake. Come not near.

(01:55:32):
His full grown spirit had moved without command or spur
of the will. Before he knew he found that he
was leaping forward, spear in hand, to where that ash
and brute wheeled slowly round, nosing, and set its ears
towards the sound. The pale and heavy brute rough ridged
behind and full of eyes clinking in scaly rind, And

(01:55:55):
now ten paces parted them, and here he halted. He
thrust forward his left foot, poising his straightened arms, and
launched the spear, and gloriously it sang. But now the
brute lurched forward, and he saw the weapon's shoot beyond it,
and fall quivering on the field. Dymer drew out his
sword and raised the shield. What now, my friends, you

(01:56:20):
get no more from me? Of Dymer, he goes from
us what he felt or saw. From henceforth, no man knows,
but he who has himself gone through the jungle belt
of dying into peace. That angel knelt far off and
watched them close, but could not see their battle. All
was ended suddenly a leap, a cry, flurry of steel

(01:56:45):
and claw, then silence as before the morning light, and
the same brute crouched yonder, and he saw under its
feet broken and bent and white, the ruined limbs of
Dymer killed outright all in a moment. All his story done.
But that same moment came the rising sun, and thirty

(01:57:08):
miles to westward, the gray cloud flushed into answering pink.
Long shadows streamed from every hill, and the low hanging
shroud of mist along the valleys broke and steamed. Gold
flecked to heaven. Far off. The armor gleamed like glass
upon the dead man's back. But now the sentinel ran forward,

(01:57:31):
hand to brow and staring for between him and the sun,
he saw that country clothed with dancing flowers where flower
had never grown, and one by one the splintered woods,
as if from april, showers were softening into green. In
the leafy towers rose the cool, sudden chattering on the

(01:57:53):
tongues of happy birds with mourning in their lungs. The
wave of flowers came breaking round his feet, crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil,
shivering with moisture, and the air grew sweet within his nostrils,
changing heart and will, making him laugh. He looked, and

(01:58:15):
Dimer still lay dead among the flowers, and pinned beneath
the brute. But as he looked, he held his breath,
For when he had gazed hard with steady eyes upon
the brute. Behold, no brute was there, but some one,
towering large against the skies, a winged and swordid shape,

(01:58:36):
through whom the air poured as through glass, and its
foam tumbled hair lay white about the shoulders, and the
whole pure body brimmed with life as a full boll.
And from the distant corner of Day's birth he heard
clear trumpets blowing, and bell's ring, a noise of great

(01:58:56):
good coming in to earth, and such a music as
the dumb would sing if Balder had led back the
blameless spring with victory, with the voice of charging spears,
and in white lands long lost Saturnian years. End of
Canton nine, End of Dimer by C. S. Lewis

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Dymer - CS Lewis

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