Somebody stop his gab.

Merrick (seizing the DOWSER and shaking him):

Is it the truth?

Is it the truth we're in the way of the star?

Sollers:

O let us go home; let us go home and sleep!

[A crowd, of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.]

1. Look out for the star!

2. 'Tis moving, moving.

3. Grows as you stare at it.

4. Bigger than ever.

1. Down it comes with a diving pounce, As though it had lookt for us and at last found us.

2. O so near and coming so quick!

3. And how the burning hairs of its tail Do seem surely to quiver for speed.

4. We saw its great tail twitch behind it.

'Tis come so near, so gleaming near.

1. The tail is wagging!

2. Come out and see!

3. The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us-- 4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird.

Merrick:

Out of my way and let me see for myself.

[They all begin to hustle out: HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.]

Huff:

Ay, now begins the just man's reward; And hatred of the evil thing Now is to be satisfied.

Wrong ventured out against me and braved: And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure Burn as foolishly to naught As a moth in candle flame, If I but have my will to watch over those Who injured me bawling hoa.r.s.e heartless fear.

[They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.]

Shale:

As for you, let you and the women make Your howling scare of this; I'll stand and laugh.

But if it truly were the End of the World, I'ld be the man to face it out, not you: I who have let life go delighted through me, Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life In mumping about being paid for goodness.

[Going.]

Huff (after him):

You wait, you wait!

[He follows the rest.]

Dowser (alone):

Naught but a plague of flies!

I cannot do with noises, and light fools Terrified round me; I must go out and think Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think!

Life that has done such wonders with its thinking, And never daunted in imagining; That has put on the sun and the shining night, The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea, And irresistible rage of fate itself, All these as garments for its spirit's journey-- O now this life, in the brute chance of things, Murder'd, uselessly murder'd! And naught else For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion That cannot glory in itself. O no!

I will not think of that; I'll blind my brain With fancying the splendours of destruction; When like a burr in the star's fiery mane The crackling earth is caught and rusht along, The forests on the mountains blazing so, That from the rocks of ore beneath them come White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring Across the plains to roar into the sea ...

[The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.]

ACT II

[As before, a little while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece.]

Sollers:

The pace it is coming down!--What to do now?-- My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen Out of a window and broke all its cogs.--Where's That old cider, Vine would have us pay Twopence a gla.s.s for? Let's try how it smells: Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is!

(To the pot dog) Hullo, you! What are you grinning at?-- I know!

There'll be no score against me for this drink!

O that score! I've drunk it down for a week With every gulp of cider, and every gulp Was half the beauty it should have been, the score So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink!

And I need never have heeded it!-- Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here; And now, all's done! But do you know this too, That I can break you now, and never called To pay for you?

[Throwing the dog on the floor]

I shall be savage soon!

We're leaving all this!--O, and it was so pleasant Here, in here, of an evening.----Smash!

[He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.]

It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all!

[Picking up a chair and swinging it.]

d.a.m.n me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon 'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered?

[He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.]