Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FACE OF THE NIGHT; A PASTORAL, by FORD MADOX FORD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FACE OF THE NIGHT; A PASTORAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have seen the night with her hair gemm'd with stars
Last Line: It continues through the night.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Faces; Legends; Night; Plays & Playwrights ; Bedtime; Dramatists


The men of Gnossos have a legend that a man lying all night in the marshes
near that town may see a face looking down upon him out of the sky. Such a man
shall ever after be consumed with a longing to see again that face. In pursuit
of it he shall abandon his home, his flocks and his duty to the State. And such
men are accounted blasphemers because they infect others with this fever and are
harmful to the republic.
[A wide, stony plain, the bed of a river, but dry and brown because it is
the heart of summer. Towards sunset. In the distance against the sky there rise
the columns of a deserted temple and of poplar trees with, at their bases, a
tangle of rosebushes and of underwood among fallen stones. To the right, far
off, is a rocky bluff, purple against the evening: at its foot, very clear and
small, are large fallen rocks round a green pool and spreading and shadowy
trees. Small fires glimmer here. To the left the plain opens out towards the
horizon, wide, suave and level; at the verge is a shimmer of the broad curve of
the river.
In the foreground a young man lies upon two fleeces. A fillet has fallen
from his hair, his limbs are a golden brown, he has a leopard skin about his
loins. His hands are clasped behind his head, he looks up into the western sky,
his eye searching for the first planet to shine. Over the plain from the sunset
and from the sheepfolds in the shadow of the bluff, young girls and shepherds
come towards him in knots. Some play upon pipes, others cry out from band to
band, a horn sounds faintly with a guttural intonation. A dog's bark winds
sharply from a distance, and there is a continual drone of gnats in the still
air.
THE YOUNG MAN (listlessly).
I HAVE seen the Night with her hair gemm'd with stars,
With her smile the Milky Way, and her locks the darker bars
Of the heavens. ...
THE SHEPHERDS AND THE YOUNG GIRLS,
Oh, come away,
For Lalagé is thine.

HE.
With her pale face of stars
I have seen her.

THEY.
Rise! The shine
Of the owl-light's on the pools,
And the hinds bring skins of wine,
And the hot day cools
To its close.
[The drone of the pipes and the quivering of strings still sound as
others come across the plain. They come closer, and, standing round, obscure the
sky from him.

HE (rising on one elbow).
Ah! still your pipes, still the cyther string that jars,
For I have seen the Night with her face of stars.

THE MEN.
Rise up and quit these places, for in shadows Lalagé
Awaits thee.

THE GIRLS.
Quit your fleeces, for in the shadows we
In the light of nuptial torches where the poplars bar the sky,
Thro' the rocks around the pool, thro' the hyacinths shall...

HE.
I,
I have seen, have seen. ...

AN OLD MAN (hastening upon them).
Why never,
Quit these places full of fever.

HE.
I saw a face look downwards
Thro' the stars.

OLD MAN.
No, never, never.

HE.
I did see...
OLD MAN (seeking to drown his voice).
Mists from the river.

A YOUNG GIRL'S VOICE (she sings as she comes along).
When he comes from seawards,
When he comes from townwards,
My love sings to me words
That my heart likes well.

THE MEN (to him).
We will bear thee on our shoulders
Through the covert-sides and boulders
With thy fleeces for a litter.

THE GIRLS.
Unto where the watch-fires glitter
On our shoulders we will bear thee
To where Lalagé shall rear thee
'Twixt her breasts.

HE.
A face looked downwards,
And I thirst, I thirst, am thirsting.

THE OLD MAN (in a threatening whisper).
Close thy lips on this for ever.
This is blasphemy. 'Twould sever
Life and love and earth from gladness.
Close thy lips. I know this madness.
I am ancient.

HE.
I am thirsting.

A YOUNG MAN.
Thy Lalagé's eyes are pools of rest,
Thy Lalagé's lips are sweet warm grapes
I would it were mine to taste and taste.

A YOUNG GIRL.
And thy Lalagé's heart is bursting.

THE YOUNG MAN.
I would it were mine to sink and sink
Between her breasts like hills of wine.
I would it were mine
To taste her lips,
And to clasp her hips and to clasp her waist,
And to drink her breath and to be the first
To ...

HE.
Thirst. I thirst.

TWO GIRLS (with horns slung from their shoulders).
Here is milk. Here wine.

HE.
Begone and send me that wind to drink
That cools its flood on the glacier's brink,
Send me that wind.

THE OLD MAN (persuasively).
Thy Lalagé is grown kind:
Sighs fill the air near her, and from her eyes,
Where low she lies upon the filmy fleeces,
Bright tears down fall into the milk-white creases,
And warm, dark valleys of her snowy kirtle.
And loosely tied her girdle. ...

A HIND (running in on them).
Thy white ewe hath burst her hurdle,
Thy grey bitch hath tree'd a leopard,
Shepherd, shepherd,
Thy black heifer's milk doth curdle.

HE (with a weary and passionate gesture of disgust).
I am sick of sheep and shepherds.

THE MEN.
Thou hast led us in the wars!

THE GIRLS.
And the fairest of us maidens opens out to you her arms.
Round her feet the grasses whisper, round her head the firefly swarms
Form a beacon, you shall harbour in her soft, warm arms.

HE.
I did see a face with for hair the darker bars
Of the heavens. ...

THE GIRLS (seeking to drown his voice).
We'll go dancing where the torchlights meet
With the lances of the starlight and the grove is shadowiest,
Showing here a foam-white shoulder, white-waved arm and red lit breast,
As the harebells brush our ankles till our loves caress our feet,
Burnt-out torches, rustling silence, and the night wind's faint and fleet.

HE (turning upon his elbow towards the men).
I shall lead you with your lances when you face the men of Hather?
I must voice you in the counsels of the aged king, my father?
I shall lead the ships to seawards, I must guard the flocks from townwards?

(To the girls.)
I must bed your fairest maidens that the rest may dance in cadence?
So that wine may flow in plenty, so your loves and you content ye,
Whilst with chitons loose on shoulders in the twilight of the boulders.
And in secret dells. ...
Ye wantons! I have seen a face look downwards,
Pure and passionless and distant where with stars the pure sky teemeth.

THE OLD MAN.
He blasphemeth, he blasphemeth.

HE.
I am sick of vine-wreathed barrels,
Sick of lances, arrows, quarrels,
Sick of tracking in the dew,
Of their limbs, and breasts, and you. ...
I have seen that face of faces,
I have thought the utter thought.
[He rises to his feet.
I go to seek in desert places.
[Whilst he speaks the men heave up stones to throw at him. The girls
shake their hands and cry out. He silences them, shaking his fist. The OLD MAN
runs about behind whispering to one and another.

(To the Girls.)
All your sun-tanned arms are nought,
All their lances and your dances,
Nought and nought. ... And I must wander
Past the mountains of Iskander,
Past the salt-glazed lakes of Meinë,
Past Pahán mist-veiled and rainy,
Whither? Whither? Ah, my Fortune?
Seeking her, I must importune
All the icy ghosts of souls
That died of frost, and all the ghouls
That feed in battle-clouds,
The fiery spirits in the shrouds
Above volcanoes and the spirits of the dawn
That sing in choirs. And where the caverns yawn
Which let out sleep, and death, and shame, and leprosy
Upon this earth, you may find trace of me
But here no more.

THE OLD MAN.
Blasphemy! Blasphemy!
He doth contemn this godlike life of ours.

THE GIRLS.
Blasphemy! Blasphemy!
He doth condemn our warm, sweet midnight hours.

HE (moving away from the plain).
I must go seek her on the icy rocks,
Frost in my blood or flame about my head,
Calling and calling where the echo mocks,
Crying in the midnights where the ocean moans
White in the darkness. ...
[A man casts a great stone that strikes him on the shoulder. He falls on to
one knee.
Fool, though I be dead
All here is nothing, but in her fair places
My shade shall find her wisdom.

THE GIRLS.
Stones! Cast stones!
[A shower of stones strikes him down. He cries from the ground.
All here is nothing. Whilst each mountain traces
Shadows half-circling from every worthless dawn,
My shade shall trace her to her twilit portal,
Then, on a hill-top, on a shadowy lawn,
Plain in the dew her footsteps!

THE OLD MAN (striking a lance through his side),
Dead!
HE (gasping).
Immortal
Goddess! Wisdom! Face o' Night! Beyond the twilight bars. ...
[He dies.

THE OLD MAN (striking the spear through him again).
Cast stones!

THE GIRLS (to the men).
Cast stones!

[They gather stones in their skirts and drop them in great number on to
the body, until it has the resemblance of a cairn. Whilst they hurry about the
OLD MAN speaks to any that will listen to him.

For that this was a Prince raise him a tomb,
Casting your stones on it. In sun nor gloom
Come never here again. ... Here shall be moans
And whisperings of blasphemy to hear were doom. ...
Cast there, stones there, above his lips that lied.
So be his name forgotten. ... Never a word
From henceforth of his dying. This true lance
That slew him shall be burnt. ... Never a word,
Never a word of him again. ... But dance,
Choose a new mate for Lalagé's soft side
This night. Yes there, above his lips that lied.
[They begin to disperse.

A YOUNG GIRL.
I would he had kissed me ere he died.

THE OLD MAN (shaking his head misgivingly, to another old man).

You heard?
[They all go away over the plain in groups of two and three; the poplars
and the ruined temple have disappeared into the last light: the white garments
have blue and purple shadows and the evening star shakes out brilliant rays in
the dusky sky.

THE VOICE OF A YOUNG GIRL (singing in the distance).

When he comes from seawards,
When he comes from townwards,
My love sings to me words
That my heart likes well.

[The night wind sweeps down; the watch-fires at the foot of the hills
spring up as if they had been replenished and waver along the wind. It reaches
the cairn of stones and runs with a sifting sound among the dry grasses around.
It continues through the night.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net