Act the Fifth

He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:14.



~ 5.1 ~

Outside of Mrs Brisby's house

	[Enter Brisby]
Brisby:	I'm performing for a great audience tonight: all of Abram's children, O, what they see! They are an attentive congregation still; they know my entire story from the start; Algol, thou winking demon, thou know'st all of the shrew's exciting tales, thou art very attentive to the wrong and the ill on this globe. There is the herdsman; thou'st an interest in this earthy stuff, I suppose. No king wears a crown with so many jewels, nor can he boast of such adventures as the stars may tell: Pisces, tell me a tale of giants, and Heracles, tell me again how thou didst fight and best the Hydra... what a puny tale have I to tell in return, but perhaps in the poor light and great distance it will be somewhat magnified in the telling. You watch me from an Arthurian theater, and need not vie for seats; you are all groundlings an hour, and guests in the balcony another hour, as you are all great in your stories, and I am not. I need look up to see you, and I, in the theater pit, could not see your rising or setting were it not for the flat moor. Such a grassy curtain have I! And how vast and plain a field it is, and then the lackluster moor. Stars, please forgive me if I meander; I cannot feint iron; it is because I am merely examined, and you the entities as view me, and how many before me, and how many after - I vanish tomorrow, as a perhaps pleasing diversion, but new glories shall hold your eyes captive. Perhaps warring countries? O, the drama, kind stars! - or the heartache of two lovers? O, pity, and a subject that may be wearisome - but, no. Sorrows are not at all the same, but, O, how all tears look alike! A sadness is as personal and unrepeated as a snowflake - comparison is hard drawn between any two - but when it melts through teary eyes, how same it is! What a bond, to cry as everybody has cried since the dawn of creation... an ocean of tears, salty, bitter tears, is our field, and at its end, a waste of a moor, miles long, no features, marshy, cold, hostile ground... a plain and plaintive place. This is a cold land. That is why we die; we were not meant for cold land. If God should place us in primaeval joy, why should we choose to habit frost? O, it hurts to pace on this chilled ground; the ice would cut me, or if it didn't, feel as if it were cutting me; all the difference is a matter of penitence. Shall I be humble in this life? Shall I have a choice? Look at me now, ye stars! You are the windows of the cold world; thou'rt the eyes. See me now! I am humbled, not by thee, but by all I do not know in this world. O, but where is Jonathan's star? Ah, right above; thou'rt at zenith, my dear, thy star sits at the very pip of the celestial sphere. Tell me, how shall I satiate these undimmed eyes? yea, from time past they've sat above, devouring the actions and the actors o'the night - such faithful theater-goers! What say'st thou yet, how is this story? Aye, primally Timmy's sickness, and primarily Timmy's sickness... may night's speckled blanket warm him. And subjugatally me, these rats... thou'lt see their reentrance soon, and in their entrancing, let us weave a tale entrancing... Hail, a wind? 'Tis the wave of the crowd, mayhap. Where is Teresa's star? the gentle thing; I should find it set tonight. But Cynthia's alight, ah! fair Alkaid, thou art the plow handle, omen or no. And what of... Spica shines dimly tonight. Not this night, of any night! O, you rise too soon! You but rise too soon! [Enter Martin]
Martin:	It's a cold night, Mother. Why stand'st thou here alone? Are you waiting for them?
Brisby:	I am waiting for them, and am plagued by poor divination and a mother's brooding persistence. I am afraid of nonsense, I should take a seat with the shrew.
Martin:	Thou'rt stargazing?
Brisby:	O, dear heart, yes, indeed. There is Cynthia's star, above; remember how we would give ourselves stars?
Martin:	When we have little to give, yea, we would give ourselves stars. There is Father's, way up there. He's set on the roof tonight.
Brisby:	I was just there.
Martin:	Where's my star, mother?
Brisby:	Over, just yond that sod clod, not Castor or Pollox, but the shier star behind them, to the right.
Martin:	O, yes. Not Castor or Pollox, but the one next to them. I feel for the shrew, mother. She's had a difficult day. She woke thinking thou wert no more; she'll wake tomorrow thinking thou art no more. I wonder if she shall ever expect thee at breakfast again.
Brisby:	Yea, tomorrow. She saw me tonight.
Martin:	That means nothing. She'll find something even in the inactivity of this night to convince her. She's one of the evinced sightless... you saw yourself this morning this property.
Brisby:	True... I am sleepy.
Martin:	Exceedingly sleepy, I should think. Today has been a day for annaling.
Brisby:	The almanacs speak nothing of thirty-hour days.
Martin:	Come to bed, mother. 'Tis warm... and think, to wake tomorrow safely! Aye, to sleep past any disappointment or worry, whichever comes tonight. It should be a horror to stay here; some mist is rolling in. I should warm me... what am I saying? Life is still to constructed! and I can whittle from work more than I can from a kind word, however encouraging it may be. May I warm myself by saying 'all is warm tomorrow, or not'? I have advised thee ill; I now sleeve my apology to thee. It is of course a certainty that thou shouldst tonight have no sleep, it is a manner of necessity that thou shouldst wait tonight, no matter how cold it is - this mist is but thy distraction; thou must here, to the very punct, stand! Stay thee, mother, waver not either way, here thou art safe, here Timmy is safe; this is written, meant, decided; it shall be this way, no other!
Brisby:	Art thou indecisive, Martin?
Martin:	I shall tell thee the truth, mother: I have feared. Nay, fear is not the word. Fear is a puny, logical thing in itself - when the verification of sight invalidates it, its pangs subside. This is not fear, this is an odd doubt... an unwavering doubt - near as stayed as thee - I know not what has begotten it. I know I do not let easily on, but I am wringing myself inside; I am my worst critic. Yea, here is a flaw, Martin; thou dost find that life is too important to hang on shoelatchets, and at no cost canst thou bring thyself to belief.
Brisby:	Thou wilt find belief tonight, Martin. I understand this, but believe me, thou hast believed before. Here is the fact: belief is at its easiest when thou seest with clarity what life truly is.
Martin:	This is an oddly obscured matter to me. What is life, but a battle?
Brisby:	A battle? It would be a battle if we were fighting it.
Martin:	Then what are we, but casualties?
Brisby:	Casualty means but that which is caused; hear this, Martin, I knew not who I was, and I know now, as I nearly lost what I had; now, myself and my children are preserved, so I am newly discovering the qualities of my substance: pain is not something to fear, Martin, it is an abysmal character fashioned with no suffering. Pain is no pleasure, but joy can coexist with pain, if you know its outlet.
Martin:	Joy in pain, aye! just as the highest power's in love.
Brisby:	Martin, thou hast a few misaccounted flasks of faith!
Martin:	Yea, my internal prosecutor ignores underaccounting, but pulls to task overaccounting... why, if I would chuckle at the machinations lex, I should chuckle at myself! I have doubted due to no reason, and if thou'st a seat with the shrew, dear mother, I am couched in thy lap.
Brisby:	Be happy, Martin! 'tis more than content, content is the holding of what we have; be happy! 'Tis more than pleasure, we may seek it and find it at will; 'tis more than the simple blush at a beautiful day; the glow of today may be ashen tomorrow; the rain may quick sweep all thy comfort away, and all of thy smiles may someday be sorrow. Be happy, dear Martin. Though I tell you to be happy in suffering and pain, happiness is not constitution! That is what it is the least, Martin, if you must keep your smile up with Atlas' shoulders, thou'st an accessory worth setting to better tasks. If thou must be dubious for something, never let granted be the coming day. Why, see! We are a pair of coyish doubters! Tonight, dear Martin, Gideon's fleece shall warm us, and no matter how wet the night condenses, we shall be dry! dry as dead doubts; an odd but conclusive sign to this world. We shall live, and live truly!
Martin:	I am instantly attentive, and my worries calmed; I may now sleep soundly!
Brisby:	My attentive sleepyhead, be off to bed, if thou'rt so.
Martin:	Good night, dear mother, the stars love to be sifted through.
Brisby:	Good night. [Exit Martin] The world is elder me, the stars the world, Yet they are silent, and my soul may sing, They turn about indifferently, while I May in my poor intelligence their course Delineate; the heathens worshiped thee, Why so, for when thou art far less than we, The conscious mind the world doth set to flame, Do we control the stars, or do they we? Are we the function of their witless pace, Their quiet revolutions, their radial place If so, at birth? why then, not at our death? Thou art misunderstood, ye very stars, Do I bow down? Nay, Joseph were a man Thou couldst bow down for him; do I thee plead? Nay, Joshua orders thee, watch'st thou tonight!, Stay in thy seats!, take not the playwright's chair!, All Nature's less the cosmos, children's sums Reveal the tense deficiency, how didst A terse and thoughtless world mother a mind? Thy testimony's of a fluent world Which changes as thou still remain'st the same, How fidgetless thou tak'st terrestrial things! Thou art impotent spectators, no hand Hast thou in doings of this chilly night, Thy part's to march our ordered stage around, Lights of the night, let not thy duty down! [Enter a rat]
Rat:	Are you Mrs. Jonathan Brisby, or am I to seek further tonight?
Brisby:	Is Mr. Ages with you?
Rat:	He is just behind; he directed me here. [Enter Ages]
Ages:	Confound this impish breath, I see only by swimming! Why can you not return? Thou'st left an incumbent in the damp!
Rat:	Ages, can you verify this face? I know her not.
Ages:	I should think any lonely mouse you see standing still in this inclement weather would be she.
Brisby:	I see a lonely mouse before me, standing still in the mist, is't I? O, Mr. Ages, I know thou dost share my concerns, and thou dost still fit the prescript well. Thou'rt like a father to me.
Ages:	Yea, Ages paternal, I am as fatherly as I am asked. Brisby, what art thou doing?
Brisby:	Bantering with Urania, but that's over.
Rat:	We should get to our task, Ages. This mist is but a shard of a cloud.
Brisby:	Where are the other rats?
Ages:	Behind, and shall be here soon. Attendant, am I to lean on grass?
Rat:	Ages, I am here. [He walks to Ages]
Brisby:	Good Ages, thou hast no precedent here But the forgotten past! This doomèd ground Shall be laid open by the driven blades That Earth may be bled of her evil bile, Internal treachery! If we shall die, 'Twill be sufficient medicine. I'd not Stand on this night bestricken's sod afflict, Druidish devils make convention here, Their profane troddings I'd not follow from, Tonight assembles temured evils stark As cannot be contained within the mind; Thou'st seen them and ejected violently What thou didst see; thine erst and painful grounds Thou hast been swift to let pass on ignored; These grounds are cursèd! Make thee swift away, Now, Dian's oracle doth issue forth A mist of mis'ry! - earth opens in fault! - When occult daemons wither at the night, Mortals need fief, or falter, fly, or fight!
Ages:	Thou mean'st...
Brisby:	Yea, NIMH is coming, NIMH arrives tonight, Their company comes to take thee all by force, I was not told what mean they, but - my soul! - I am not curiously pressed.
Ages:	The immane horror of it!
Rat:	NIMH comes tonight? How shall we her move?
Ages:	We shall move her still, but afterwards come out with the Plan.
Rat:	What, against Nicodemus' express hush?
Ages:	If NIMH comes tonight, Nicodemus shall be the first to shout the affected alarm.
Rat:	I say, there are some who will not like this.
Ages:	There are none who will prefer to stay. We must tell him of this, and now... Madame Brisby, thou'rt ever in my unlessening gratitude. Thou'st perhaps saved us from the end of the world.
Brisby:	Ages, we pace the end of the world in our most unthoughtful hours.
Ages:	[to the rat] That's Mrs. Brisby... as fine a Copernican as you shall ever meet. Fleet, now! [Exit Ages and the rat]
Brisby:	The world continues. What think you, stars? Shall you stay for the end? Will you see the new wonders? Cassiope, Andromeda, thou'st a family; shalt thou rest for the final act? Polaris, thou point, thou changeless, distant index, hast thou intimidated to stay? O, the clouds come! I'm not finished yet, my story's not played out, and you're shutting the curtains? 'Tis a dark night, how brightly may my spark glow? To those in secrecy dark kept, in darkness are the rest; The cerise dawn is complemented in the greying west, When light is cut off, it is there the dark is to be staged, And only by the dearth of light may dark be firmly gauged. Noontide doth share her glories with Midnight, I stand here awestruck, taken with the time Which Heaven set astart, these evening lights Are shining with a luminance sublime. The night and day are sisters! much the same, With Time their father, commonly beget, The year's their playtime, equally shared, ordained; They romp o'er all, and merry with the met. The light and dark are different, adjoined things, Prometheus' flame by eagles' wings Is shadowed. For the dark as day grows late Is advantageous in Sol's dead estate, When night assumes its berth, horizons wide, The stellar orbs and darkness sit aside, The brightest lights and darkness are akin, Thou canst not see when thou'rt in either of them. [Exit.]

~ 5.2 ~

Outside of Mrs Brisby's house

	[Enter Justin with Ages, and Jenner on the separate side, and a vast assemblage. Sounds of working.]
Justin:	O, Arthur, bless th'imagination firm Which set these pulleys and these gears to play, To move this house, the mason's atom, a brick; Per what the owl has said, divert the stone From the point compass where the billows of The plow-sails catch the wind, the leeward side! All looks in order, smoothly has this run; Why power's pride should fill me I know not, Although I feel its swellings in this rain. Hark! Hear the shouts, what can we not achieve? Now, Pride, turn thee away! A brick a yard We've moved, it takes five and three score to do't, Our youth's too yearly to be caught in pride; The answered task is simple, 'tis but how That one administers seems that of weight, Have I a sun gi'en fire? gi'en shape to earth? Have I distilled a sea in barren troughs? May I these falling drops to stay subdue, Or scold the wind the other way retreat? How little rats achieve, how little men, How little giants; yea, how little Pride.
Jenner:	Ho, Arthur! Must thou keep the oil's course So generous, as't were a Caesar's wine? The gears need not so much! Yea, staunch the cruse, Let rust encrust the gears! Leave her alone, She has a private session with her tears, Leave her to mourn, her children young to weep, Her house to moulder, them to brave their plow. This scaffold looks too frail! Best risk it not, Thy beds are warm, thou workers! Get thee home! [Enter Brisby, Patrick and Ages by Justin. Patrick and Ages converse with Justin.]
Brisby:	This lot in life is burdensome alone, But to disperse it others isn't done With even spread, I've multiplied my loss By sharing it with others who interest showed, How can I them repay? 'Tis premium To Death imbursed, why keep we souls in Life? We are in forfeit, yea, we pay our due And yet remain in debt to Death, alack! Tonight's the rain, tonight's our saving hand; I'll keep my grounded soul firm on this night, But, yea, the ground is muddy wet, I shall Take vestured cares to be not swept away, The plow shall drive an ocean on th'morrow, She'll turn up swamp to sow unasked-for tares Of seasonal life, 'tis reft with trials and cares!
Jenner:	Reflections of an unsure soul! I shall Her percepts poison, while I may so opt, I may breed great confusion. Whither, now, Doth thy derivates ramble? Canst thou see That I have fewer troubles mine than thee? 'Tis why I've strayed. I seek my constant joy, Unfailing pleasures to be mine, at what Cost others pay, or from my filching purse; I beg of no man, nay, I plea no being, For I shall find them not so free in mind Than would they be, had I them never asked. Take ye the farmer! Should he give us grain Or handfeed us with corn, if we him asked? No currying pickthank ever lived so long To transmute his prostrations, which he ne'er Did mean, one always loves himself the most; Consignment to humility's debase And vulgar lot is far from me, 'tis true I hate that cause - no riches that befit A master of the mind may it me give! In all, I take no pain, and ever can Find greater pleasures than doth honest Man.
Brisby:	But pain's withstandable, joy rarely is. O, how I wish I'd be joy, or within, I'd seek to seize my joy - my joy! Not e'er Can joy be called one's own, not on this earth - I'd clothe myself in it, and therein fold My sorrow, but the joy doth spring away Before I knew its kernel to the full, Its essence doth escape me.
Jenner:	Nay, never known to thee, thou startling fool! It sought salubrious air, or healthful rest Away from thee with fools more onto me; Look! I find comfort in material things, That which I see, or touch, and can observe, Or that which I may reasonably attain, What care I for the vapid stars above?
Brisby:	Thou seek'st thy comfort, or thy pleasure, such Intangibles are ghostly to the touch. 'Tis real because thou seest it? Wherefore, now, May blind men find their worth in visible things? Is't real to them, or only so to thee? 'Tis good because thou touch'st it? How 's it so? Thou art insensitive, is anything good? Or art thou Midas, and may gold compose Instate in any object with thy will? Thou spoke of Reason's touch on counterfeit, Doth Reason tabernacle in thy touch?
Jenner:	Say'st thou that earthly things are little use? Say'st thou that love might feed thy wasting soul? Say'st thou that life's the weight of higher things? Say'st thou that pain doth matter not at all?
Brisby:	A pain of life may instants dwell, but e'er It vanishes, and likewise comforts pass, And pleasures are but standards we doth draw For fattening up our fleshy wants and whims, Though earthly things are useful to the earth, And pain's apparel I'd not don by will, And, yea, I'm flesh, I love those things thou dost, But I can never seek these things, as though They were my providential call in life - We were not meant to linger at earth's inn, We're meant for longer tables far ahin.
Jenner:	I'd pub at filthy shantys as I choose.
Brisby:	Then thou'st no candor as thy state behooves.
Jenner:	I'd cloy my flesh, and glutton it in feast!
Brisby:	Then thou'st no reason, and art but a beast.
Jenner:	I'll seek my wont, and die before be old!
Brisby:	Then thou shalt have it, e'en as thou'st foretold.
Jenner:	Ah, seek'st thou an argument, little one? I shall draw an observer to adjucate this. We shall see who is correct. Elders! Here, we seek you! We need officiation! [Justin, Ages and Patrick come nigh] Fools! Didn't you think to follow her on her most important errand?
Justin:	We came, but only to give her brief instructions, and then set her on her own. She could find her way; the farmhouse is too large to miss.
Jenner:	I had the good sense to follow her, and what did I see? She went to the mill! and there, lost our carefully-prepared confection in the pond, the mill's bathed ewer!
Brisby:	What?
Jenner:	You heard well enough, and don't deny it!
Brisby:	Have you kept not a scrap of your decency, sir?
Jenner:	Nary a sliver of it. If Madame Millet has nothing more to say, let's now be done with her.
Brisby:	It is untrue! You know it to be untrue!
Jenner:	All hear! The cat is prowling, and shall come to eat us all tonight! If you value your lives, or the great trust which has been bestowed upon us, then there is nothing to do but stop the move, return to our thornbush, and be content!
Justin:	This is a trouble.
Ages:	It cannot be so! But, now that Jenner's said it, there's nothing to do.
Patrick:	I have faith in her, to be sure, but also my terror of the cat.
Justin:	Nature, thou impulser, thou imposer, I am divided, divided against my friend, divided against my honour! How does one balance one's mind and instinct?
Jenner:	One doesn't! You may be strong enough to set aside your fears, with your tact and noble quality, but what of the consensus? See? Already they've let off the move!
Brisby:	Let off! They cannot let off the move! The shrew was right, but no demon in the shape of a crow leads the plow this year. What care you for the cat? 'Tis the cat, 'tis asleep! What ill shall it do you? What risk take you tonight? Is not this heavy stone enough a risk to embolden your hearts? Let your answer ne'er be nay! O, murdered! Murdered is my son! Timothy, O, thou sunlight, thou art murdered!
Jenner:	O, canst thou say something worthy of my company?
Brisby:	Thou'st caught me, thou Minotaur, thou'st cornered me in thy maze, and my thread, my string, is cut!
Ages:	No, no, 'tis sensible as she says. NIMH is coming into the field for us sometime this night, or tomorrow morning, and the cat is nothing to that, I say. Indeed, what care we of the cat? I've no fear there.
Jenner:	NIMH? Now, that holds great curiosity for me. There is a successful band who lives deviantly, ne'er letting thy morals or philosophies or sense stagger them. And the ceaseless wonder of something that has always only tinged my memory! Nay, I am not afraid of them, I embrace them, and so should... now a minute, where is he?
Ages:	Who, Jenner?
Jenner:	Nobody, 'tis nobody of weight. Besides, how do you know she isn't telling mistruths? She knows not NIMH, from whom did she hear this? Besides all, I fear the cat may be behind any of these rustling grasses... there is a wind tonight, 'tis enough to make me jump. Better to jump, though, before the cat, I say.
Brisby:	No cat comes tonight!
Justin:	'Tis worse than a cat.
Jenner:	No cat need keep a portion of my thoughts, 'Tis true, for I to ponder was gi'en sense More worthy of the wise man - I may fear No death, for death comes at the end of life; While I'm alive, 'tis better a concern To ask why one should live: no crouching cat, Though e'er how close it may impend, may to This temper give probate; should it me kill, The question stands still o'er my paused inquest, Though ne'er my breath should answer in demise. And, Ages, thou'st a mind of weighty things; 'Tis good for you to settle this for me.
Ages:	What mean'st thou, Jenner? What does this portend?
Jenner:	What means this life? How do we manage breath? Why keep we it? Why are we passionate things? For once, may we apply our drawing-skills Upon a lemma which our children may In innocence problematic find, or else What good's a half of know? Were I once told A plant may poison be, were I content? Am I to stay, and wile on this earth, While knowing any day might be the last? What shall I know? What good's our greated sight When all the future seems to be in night When only half is so, and half a know Is not the answer - say't for yea or nay, How is the future dark, when half is day?
Justin:	Were't now the final night, all'd be in dark.
Ages:	There's questions many there, I'd say, 'tis not The time to evocate the stuff of Fates; What Muse inspired philosophy in the rain? In mud, you come to ask of primal things? You mock the great consortiums of the mind Who meet in sunlight, to disclose the truth, Not in the mud, not even on the earth, No marble's worthy of the thinking mind, No ivory has the purity of humble souls.
Jenner:	Then I'll the treasure take, if you're too meek Or humble to assume that which you're worth Or more.
Ages:	There is thy mind, thy fitful mind! Thou seek'st no meaning in thy greedy breath.
Jenner:	I could not bear th'depression, should I not Find any meaning, had I for it sought.
Ages:	Then thou say'st, to look is to lose?
Jenner:	To seek Is dangerous, and may waste thy fleeting hours. I've sharpened teeth which easily could fray My means, and then my solemn obituary Would be a coward's grave, and there no cross Would mark my rest, except the cross of roads. My epitaph would be sharp punctuated With stakes of iron... my life's my own to keep Or take, and he who'd wrest my prize from me Had better be a desp'rate deprivate Far worse than me. In clines the world is prod To clamber to its peak, unwilling mired, The tour de force of fortune sets it on, We have not Fate nor Doom to fret upon, The cruelty of Earth shall beat us home.
Ages:	Thou cavalier, and unbenign! What purpose Inundates witless sod? What great machine Can set this earth to birth herself, the forms Which etched upon her surface crawl, or set The sky on pillars, and which builds itself?
Jenner:	What need have I explanatory notes With which its credence foreword? I know not. Speak ye with terrible wind, I'll hear you not. I live as I shall live as I shall live, There's further naught to say. I need thee not But to agree, and shouldst thou consent not, I care not.
Ages:	Thou mocker!
Jenner:	Nay, I'm true. I do as I please, I'll please howe'er I do. No answer has the wise and good me gi'en, I shall my course continue, in this e'en The virtuous stay silent, stony still; The vicars of the light may no space fill With reasonable brightness; 'tis thy neglect, And should I die for hate, and doubly perish 'Tis how I'm doomed, look! How can e'er I be, When Life's appoint share little trust with me? When was a question carried first? When was The notion absolute enough to bother one To task, to answer it? Aye, in the rain! I shall now live for death, for but this goal Is easily met, and reckons with life's whole.
Brisby:	But, good Jenner, why should you live so?
Jenner:	Because it allows me measures of independence, a word you'd know not.
Ages:	That is fresh to me. What is a 'measure of independence'? Surely, you are either independent or you are not. Such speech carries along shades of confusion.
Jenner:	Spoken astutely, Lord Lexicon. Such trifles are only worth the attention of ancient, spectacled, desiccated old men. I shall please thee and please me by practicing the punctilios of good speech: Because it allows me independence, truly, to do as I please.
Brisby:	It gives you independence? Then you are forever dependent on it, for without believing it, you were restrained beforehand. Indeed, we are always most dependent to that very thing which takes independence away.
Jenner:	If it's as you say, how are we to be independent?
Brisby:	We never are, Jenner. Does our will give us independence? Tomorrow we are sick and needy. Does a state give us independence? Tomorrow they shall take it away. Look at me: do I go about doing as I please? Nay, I am a mother. My children say, "Go hither, the day needs thee there," and I go. Life is a matter of choosing what we are dependent on.
Jenner:	Then, how are we to be free?
Brisby:	Ah. Independence and freedom are different things. Independence is the wish of godless men; freedom is the wish of every living being. Does the swallow in a snare wish to be independent? No, she wishes to be free!
Jenner:	Let it be as it is, I am free enough a soul to know that the move is let, yea, the move is let off! They cannot be convinced of any freedom outside of the keeping of life: look, thy blessed children are pitilessly left in th'mud. Moving a hollow rock in the rain, in the danger of death! Hah, you'd give us all pneumonia, if not have us eaten by the cat! What help is there for't, Justin? Where is gallantry? They love themselves more than anything else; now we shall all hide together in our bush. Madame Brisby, thou'rt more than welcome to come with we noble cowards, to come out of the rain! Take thy minors, if thou must. Ages, this is not the weather for thee. All admit defeat!
Ages:	Defeat cannot be admitted by all until all have arrived. [Enter Nicodemus]
Jenner:	I'd not speak to him. You may all agree on your weakness, I am away. [He walks aside]
Nicodemus:	What see I? What's the difficulty here? May honour be discouraged in the fear Of Loss, of Death? Should we the move abort Loss shall us oversee, Death's his cohort. Ho, Arthur! Thou'rt a shining tower, call The move's renewal from this evil lull; The night is wasting! Should we now retreat And make nilpotent th' mightily pled entreat, The child dies, at the condemning dawn NIMH takes our lives, and we will follow on. Who shall we beg of on that final day? She may subject to help, who shall we sway? We move the house! Let honour have its due! Should we be brave tonight, then in the blue Of day we'll brave the torments of our past, But, still the work, 'tis loafish we are last. For Jonathan is dead, who helped his wife? There was for her no herald in his life, She knew naught of his sad, untimely death, We are the worse, for who knows of our breath?
Jenner:	[aside] Shall I now be undone by the charisma of our head? I should have a winning gait, I have a cunning mouth.
Nicodemus:	Stay thee no fear of cats or preying birds, You'd work tonight, had that you never heard, And nonetheless you'd die, work thee with skill, Should any come tomorrow, then they will See greatness in thy death, and breathless shall Wonder the wrong which breathlessness did fell.
Jenner:	[aside] I care not how great or ancient the tree is, a cut, a chop! and it shall fall!
Nicodemus:	If we must die, then let us die tonight As we'd be seen forever, in the sight Of after-generations, greatness is In serving unto death, not how one lives, For living's truly done by evil men and stout, How we breathe in is nothing to how we breathe out.
Jenner:	[aside] Yea, one cut, one chop, and Nicodemus' trunk shall fall, and whither shall he go? He is not resigned to stay in his tree, he can fly away should he please. What good shall wisdom do him? Die now, good soul, stay thyself the ignominy of a villain's blade!
Nicodemus:	Once from the plow this earthy home's away, We shall be gone, NIMH on the following day Shall find an empty bush, and wonder then If rats there ever were which thought as men. The Plan's come out tonight! Heed not the threats And formless implications Pride begets; From factions few consideration's brought, Not to consider, but postpone our plot.
Jenner:	[aside] Thou couldst have fled, thou martyr! Thy roots are corrupt, and yet thou stay'st! Art thou too wise to live? Aye, fill our newly-enlightened Athenian youth with revolution and roaming hearts, and thou mayst fly or drink thy death to the dregs!
Nicodemus:	We shall be fled! This field we'll leave behind, Upon the marsh we'll venture, there to find Some unknown corner, someplace we may rest And ne'er let NIMH nigh near our native nest. This world holds little place for creatures new, Where in the plan initial are our few? When were we scheduled in that happy week Which saw inception of our brothers meek? What globe or sphere was meant to be our home? By what signs as-yet unseen do we roam? What stars divest our fortune? In the throng above, Who represents us? Do we petition of Specific saints, or are we odd or prime, A heartbeat hung in space, and out of time? The sun doth shine on us as singly strange: A life of pieces patched, and other lives arranged, We are not new; we're new as ancient rain, But waters old make fresh the earth again.
Jenner:	[aside] Revolution! The wheels turn, the daemons, the planets turn by Sisyphus' shove, the ropes pull! Our lives pull until they snap afray. The house moves! and tomorrow our house shall move! Night! O, thou dark! Death is dark, the vapours of Hades bathe us tonight! Die, Nicodemus! Let me see thee dead, that I may pride myself for outliving thee! [Enter Sullivan] Sullivan, thou'st arrived!
Sullivan:	Yes, Jenner. I am sorry I am come late.
Jenner:	This is the great night, Sullivan!
Sullivan:	Yes, it is indeed, friend. We finally have seen this done.
Nicodemus:	The moon is bright! 'Tis light enough to set This stone insured where ne'er an ill shall let Unoccupance, Luna looks unabashed And in amazement at our turning task, And though the rain pours down in voluminous flow It cannot drown out honour's cause below.
Jenner:	O, ev'ry drop of rain tears through the air And sends forth shudd'ring ripples through the ground Which never end; the world doth swell with them. Let this still brick alone, 'twould move itself; One drop of water may misshape the world! One little drop of rain! but once it falls, The universe is n'er the same. What is This dwelling baked of? Mud, this soupy dirt; What is life's substance? Dust, water and dust; What is our medium? Life crawls on mud And breathes the vessel of rain; she takes the way Of watery pellets, which on the earth do pound Incessantly, and in this fusillade The world is made to mud; what mean our lives To any toad? Hey, Sullivan, stay near, This day of soppy emissaries has For you, a task. Stay near, I'll speak Night's words.
Sullivan:	I am here, Jenner.
Nicodemus:	Look up! For there stands witness to this deed The clouds, and hear! the wind has now decreed How rightly we doth stand; these watery falls Are just expressions of the sky's applause. The right we do! The widow's wealth we seek And mean to prop the posits of the weak, And there's no emperor who'd speak a word Against this plan, no king, not e'en a bird.
Jenner:	Te--wit! Te--wit!
Sullivan:	How, Jenner?
Jenner:	The birds shall make an army for me. Te--wit! Te--wit!
Nicodemus:	This night is but the darkness which precedes Our lives, for soon, the light is born and needs Forth come, for peacefully the dawn is due, And afterward, these lives begin anew, Look eastward! catch a tentative beam of light, A prenatal morning of this motherly night.
Jenner:	Bah! The blessed pox! The magnanimous Pontus Euxinus! The pacific ocean occidents! We ward them off with courting words, and play victim when the dejected wretches accept our advances. A sorry, sorry maiden is the human soul! I was born a rat, and man's path isn't the only to trod, nay, I'll burrow if I must. Sullivan, thou'rt too wicked for all these high ideas, yea, thou'rt too bad. Fending with words - I'd sooner die than defend myself with a weak hope; nay, I'd cross myself with iron.
Sullivan:	Even iron's no strength against a heart aflame.
Jenner:	What are you saying?
Sullivan:	What you know only.
Jenner:	Then thou'rt no use.
Sullivan:	What is the truth.
Jenner:	I'd not live in such a world of truths.
Sullivan:	Then, what is most seeming to the hour.
Jenner:	As you read the clock, poor flatterer!
Sullivan:	Then I said naught! Surely, thou, my fast and bonded friend, couldst forgive a random rumbling. I was merely attaching words, one to the other, with no import, no purpose!
Jenner:	Words mean words, Sullivan. The first you spoke to me led to the next, and that to the next, and that linked in a long-cast survey to what you just have said. Say I that there is meaning in your words? No, lest I become like thee. But you have attached words upon words, and your final chain's conclusion is that I am wrong. Your final period is that the links are brittle, and meaningless. Say I am wrong!
Sullivan:	I, I... ne'er meant such a...
Jenner:	Imperceptible truths! Unseeable mysteries! Such is my trade, Sullivan, I know none who can see! Blind babblers! Harried hopers! Lying, lying links in penetrable ringmail coats, aye, I'll drive my sword straight through their minimal hoops, and receive better than a jouster's prize. Look at them measuring, casting cord and plank about, scaffolding; they are little formic mechanics, swarming about, all to move this consumptive's half-extinguished house; then we - we, Sullivan! - shall be away... off in the moment, to flee from that which interests me the most. If it weren't for our marvel, all would be lost for her; she would be torn apart again. Sullivan, I hate fantasy.
Sullivan:	Thou sound'st resolute.
Jenner:	Look, Sullivan! All is coming into readiness. The mist is concealing. The great leader has his back turned to us, to oversee his folly. This moment is pregnant with possibility, Sullivan, can we grab it?
Sullivan:	I am not sure of our clutch. What mean'st thou?
Jenner:	I mean that the night has come for us, Sullivan, she has come to aid her minions, and the mist shall shroud us! We are the outcome of impalpable forces, Sullivan, we must live up to our generation!
Sullivan:	Jenner, thou art inescapable. What is thy conclusion?
Jenner:	The coneys are a'digging. The table's laid. The table's laid, Sullivan, I've a mind to grasp all I can. [He unsheathes his sword]
Sullivan:	Is this an occasion for momentous ceremony, Jenner?
Jenner:	Yea, Sullivan, it is. I lift this blade high, Sullivan, to sanctify it. Now, take it. Take't! [He thrusts the sword at Sullivan, who takes it]
Sullivan:	'Tis heavy. What brave consecration shall I make with the ornament?
Jenner:	Thou shalt make a present of it to Nicodemus.
Sullivan:	But, 'twere him who gave it to you at the first, Jenner!
Jenner:	Aye, you're right. Best to make it a surprise present, then.
Sullivan:	I think that the mist is obscuring your words. What do you mean?
Jenner:	Good poppet - it is not too late in life to call you that, is it? - I've a distaste for leaders who would send us out in the cold to die.
Sullivan:	Any such leader would die in the cold, as well.
Jenner:	True, any such leader would die. Such a blind old thing! - he would slide dictums under his cuff and assume that he that he trusted to his power could not see at all. The king as would impose his superiority upon me and wave his jus divinum about me tauntingly as a rattle surely must die gruesomely. This glorious sword has a longing to meet my enemy, Sullivan, it is yearning to cut Nicodemus in two. Aye, Nicodemus is th'end of this blade, Sullivan, and you are at the hilt of it. [Sullivan reels back in terror] What are you afraid of? You've my sword, he has only his Aaronic rod; it is a swift operation. This is the time, Sullivan!
Sullivan:	Dear Jenner, isn't there something we could do here? Some construction to work on, some trowl to wield, some compass or pulley to operate?
Jenner:	There is nothing we can do here. Tomorrow we wander, Sullivan.
Sullivan:	Jenner, Jenner, this is evil, not evil as thou wouldst admit to, nay, I never did find earnest wrongdoing in thee!
Jenner:	To kill us all is far worse... Sullivan, we've fought to stay with ardence. You know well enough that the only way to keep Nicodemus here is to pin him down.
Sullivan:	'Tis dreadful!
Jenner:	Only in its greatness, only in its nobility! Sullivan, rampant yourself, take the hero's arms. You're the herald of tomorrow, Sullivan. This is no night of any birth, nay, this is static, a night as before, the uninterrupted crickets will thank you. For chirruping, in itself, is far greater than any of the establishments of men or sage rats, and lasts far longer. Night is death, Sullivan; I know naught otherwise.
Sullivan:	Jenner, should I do it, it is but at thy bequest.
Jenner:	Be quested, knight.
Sullivan:	Then this sword is my only salute.
Jenner:	Go to it.
Sullivan:	Aye, but I must ready myself.
Jenner:	Ready yourself heated, and strike in a wild temper.
Sullivan:	I have never killed anyone, Jenner.
Jenner:	But you have caused your mother and father much pain, and, O, Sullivan, I cannot say how many hours in the night I have worried for your good. The time you've stolen from a thousand souls is a lifetime, and far worse than murder, for it is years of heartache.
Sullivan:	May I recant by taking a life at once?
Jenner:	How can you recant, Sullivan? You've wronged, wrong again!
Sullivan:	I am off, it is too wet to stand still. The rain shall wash me to this act, 'tis the drizzle that causes the ill, not I. I am delirious in the cold. [Sullivan turns to kill Nicodemus]
Jenner:	[aside] I could not trust him to cut lettuce, far less a great delusional demagogue. I'd have him adopt the sword on his own. Delirious in the cold! Such a chilled mein, nothing to kill by. [aloud] Sullivan, if the task doesn't fit you, you needn't bother.
Sullivan:	[returning] Ah! Thou'st sense again! Good friend, thou worried me sorely.
Jenner:	Dearest friend, thou'st never failed me, as thou knowest. No one knows how good a friend thou'rt to me.
Sullivan:	And thou'rt such a dear friend to me, too, Jenner.
Jenner:	How long we've known each other! How well we know each other!
Sullivan:	Since we were infants.
Jenner:	And no living soul knows how good a friend thou'rt to me.
Sullivan:	Thou'st said so, Jenner.
Jenner:	No living soul, not Nicodemus... not Justin... not Patrick... why, not even Sullivan knows.
Sullivan:	Eh? What's that? Who is this friend no one knows, Jenner?
Jenner:	Sullivan, put your hand to your heart. [He does so, and Jenner likewise slips his hand over his heart] I should introduce you.
Sullivan:	Glorious, but surely I am to put away this sword? To be introduced at the point of a weapon is to be made instantly foreigners, if not enemies.
Jenner:	Sullivan, you sound hopeful. Do not put away the blade. Best to keep it; I know not what I might do with it tonight. You are about to be inducted, Sullivan, and my friend is a jealous sort. Keep the sword, Sullivan, that he might, when removed from thy company, boast to himself: [He stabs Sullivan in the back with a concealed dagger] 'Let no one say I stuck him unarmed.'
Sullivan:	O, O! Thy words mean actions... and such an intimate friend!
Jenner:	Yea, indeed.
Sullivan:	O, Jenner! Thou know'st that I lived in thy faithfulness.
Jenner:	Then, Sullivan, you need not live anymore.
Sullivan:	Yes, dear Jenner. How right and good it is when friends agree! ...I need not live anymore. [He dies]
Jenner:	Such bloodless clamor! Sullivan, thou couldst Not whet my lust with calamitous throe? I need another winch my soul to lift, Thou wert no hoister baldworthy of my Evil soul, for I feel Night's hand tonight, I need be lifted high above this mist, Above this house, I need another winch, Conspicuous in its measure, in its length, Thou frayed-out cord! Know now thou had no friend, Good soul, why laist thou stupidly in the rain? Good bond, where is the friendship of our youth, Annulled in Earth's ambition? Yea, it is, Good friend, I've killed thee, and doth any see? Not one in all the world has noticed thee, Not one shall see thee now, down to the mists!
Nicodemus:	How great's the strength of urgency, this night 'Fore over, shall see lessened this world's plight; How kept in mercy is this house! and we Are but those who would still this friendly plea. [Jenner retakes his sword]
Jenner:	[aside] Good Sullivan, thou couldst not take Cain's mark, E'en though tomorrow we to death embark, Though I an outcast would elect to be, For there's no presence in this company. [aloud] O, Nicodemus! How's the move to go? Methinks the air is cold, the wind should blow Forth from the ocean, best to turn aside And bear to th'west, this tendency should find Us near the mountains, where there's many a chink Or space to hide in, therewith we should sink Too deeply too be found, Earth's treasures' store Should take us from this unabetting moor Where we are easily snatched; the jealous earth Penuriously steals the stuff of worth.
Nicodemus:	Speak'st thou of moving, Jenner; wherefore so? Thou art the one that never spoke to go.
Jenner:	Indeed, but NIMH knows much, should they we find I should then find myself in different mind.
Nicodemus:	Thou shouldst, indeed, thou hast already before. I thought to make directly through the moor, But th'mood doth find me differently tonight, We should there be too facile to the sight.
Jenner:	Maybe in indirection is this ill Resolved, let fancy drive the animate will: Look! Can you see the Caesars on the waste? Is that ghoul Euripides? They make haste, For they've no need to tarry, centuries Sweep them across the meadows and the seas, On an inscrutable errand, mortals' day Reveals them not on their covert foray.
Nicodemus:	Thou hast a rather discomfiting say - How may dead visions guide us on our way? I see no spectres gliding on the moor, Nor can I venture what thy speech is for.
Jenner:	You see them not? 'Tis good, I cannot, either. That is the very point. We cannot see them hie there, Nor can a cat see! Safely ghosts may tread, Ne'er can the light bring sight unto the dead.
Nicodemus:	'Tis true, the dead pass unheeded in hosts; How may that aid us, when we are not ghosts?
Jenner:	A fatal flaw! My plan is ruinèd.
Nicodemus:	It seemed a jesting object; what's that gleam? I knew thou should'st not think as thou wouldst seem... Yet horror steals my heart, what is thy plan? Hast thou the evil with the know of Man? Aye, trivial ciphers, enigmatic lines! Thou wert so open with thy scheming signs; Thou meant just as thou say'st! Yea, friendly foe, Unveil your purpose, and project your blow.
Jenner:	What mean'st thou? Seest thou here an enemy? My leader, thou'st suspicion where should be An unexclusive, inexempt embrace - Why shouldst thou seek to read my calloused face? My firm devotion's seen in what I fie, The answer to the riddle: 'Who am I?'
Nicodemus:	Thou wouldst me muddle; as if this thick mist Were not obscurant enough. Is Judas' kiss Kin in accustoming, unquestioning allow? Thou'rt foreign, I know not thee as thou appear'st now, For I know Jenner disagreeable, And were he not as I know him, the whole Is acting; though polemic he may be, The genuine Jenner I would seek to see.
Jenner:	You cannot see the ghosts, nor see the wind; Nor can you see the image wraiths may cast - I spoke of necrid souls floating unseen, And I spoke only words that I should mean. Join'st thou their party! Proff the ancient brew Of Death, sip'st thou their poison, feel its flu Polluting all thy humour, 'till thy vital vaunt Is but th'immortal ichor of the hidden haunt Which reaves us; take thou fondly to thy doom, Prepare thyself to recline in thy tomb. Tak'st thou thy toddy, set thy soul to sleep; The foamy tide of Death laps at thy heel, Thou'st lived in this dry desert, fall to thy knees, In grateful scoops imbibe thy toast to Time, And ever revel in his company. The morn, the morrow, the day doth make thee ill; Down yet again a swallow of the swill Which shall deprive thy eyes fore'er of sight And finally thwart the prying shafts of light - The dead need not delight in any dawn; Die, Nicodemus, in this ruthless rain; Thou leader, fashion thee as example, Thou model, set delimiters for me, Thou wouldst have us to die, to satisfy The lust of later ages! Take across The moor, thou fear'st the cat? Fear not the cat, Fear not the weight NIMH carries in thy dreams, Fear thee tonight! Night, dark, I have my quarry! The strength, the blow, the treachery of Night! Dark doth conceal her allies, I'm revealed; Now, leader, mak'st thou ready, thou art dead, My words have been fulfilled... die, faithful fiend! [He staves Nicodemus with his sword] Am I redeemable? Thou foolish lord, Thy serf would not be saved by thee, I need No such obedience, now, demure to me! Thou shalt do as I thee command, now, die!
Nicodemus:	I feel the stab of treason betwixt my blades, And there the pointed truth my hope dissuades And all my happy intents doth dispel: To guide towards Heaven he who's bound for Hell, Though, yea, here's pain, come forth, my mortal yelp: For thou didst love him who disdained thy help, No cravenous stroke, however keen, 's the hurt Of what thou mayst have been, but never wert; I've learned of dabblers as I never should: NIMH did for worse, what I'd have done for good; No dilettante should tamper with the heart, Lest he should end before his cause should start, This wound is ling'ring! Stay, no second thrust Is needed to transform this flesh to dust - Thy sharpened blade now drives me from my shanks, So thou describ'st the extent of thy thanks: To steal the body him whose will's too strong, Who longed to heal, yet could not heal too long; I'm cut! and prove affected mortal life Is fickle at the first, but takes his wife: I leave my former love, with term'nal breath Unlatch from Life, and newly embrace... [He dies]
Jenner:	Dizzy fool! Hast thou no object to embrace?
Brisby:	'Tis all about thy weapon! Help, 'tis death, Our Nicodemus' fallen! Help, alack!
Jenner:	Howl, wind! Howl, night! I'm not without defense, Think'st not that somewhere in this freezing rain There lays not someone worse for heaven's issue? Still, wheezing, choking, drowning in this storm, And ev'ry rain claims dozens of lives; 'tis true That here's a demon I don't associate with And answerable to none; and Time is elder, There're villains abroad which none can apprehend! Think'st me the greatest evil on Time's stage? No, I am wise to know that fendible blows Are just the player's failsafes. Puny part, Call not in horror, thou art friendly to Those greater villains me, hate not my act, Thy owl's far worse than any cat could be, Thy owl's a murderer.
Brisby:	Though, yea, I know he kills my kind, the heart Is true and faithful; and he saved my son.
Jenner:	'Tis good for him, he keeps his cupboard stocked That he might feed well later. Stay'st thou still? If he knew not thy husband, well could he Have met his death between two talons' clutch, And shouldst thou see the cat then for thy son? Thou art the benefactor of great wrongs, Thou art a homicide's hook. Thou'rt party to An evil, thou'rt not good; thou'st fallen to fault; And I admit it, I am honest still.
Brisby:	I've fallen to fault, alas, so have we all; The owl's block-fit? So railed to ruin are we, If all are evil, so I gauge myself; But evils come in shades of sympathy To good; imperfect e'er are Heaven's tokens, Were it not so, they would not be disjoint, But every good would gleam with glorious grace.
Jenner:	Here wrong doth show its splendor. Behold good! The mindful heart lies nuzzled in the mud For want of wicked wiles, breathless, dead!
Brisby:	He's dead for lacking breath, but thou, thou fiend Die wanting heartbeat, for thy criminous ways!
Jenner:	Death is but death; I'm rosier than him.
Brisby:	But your friends are parties to a murderer, themselves!
Jenner:	I have no friends to speak of.
Brisby:	My Jonathan was friendly towards a villain, How is this wrong? Forgiving the quailant's sins Is admirable, the ancient Jonathan Was bound th' heart upon a devious rogue, Was David a murderer? Yea, one day of his year, All souls have guilt; and Jonathan did limp Not for a lack of grace, but for his friend, And Ages limps, to save thee from the cat, My Jonathan limps even worse than he, May I then wobble? Beat, thou heartless fiend! Thy time's not taken, snare thy measured blow! [Enter Martin]
Martin:	I should think this, indeed, a night as should know no sleep. Hey, villainy! O, mother, art thou here? This night knows sleep, in all.
Brisby:	Martin! 'Tis misty and cold, go to bed!
Martin:	I would, for finding my bed.
Brisby:	Brave the mist, follow its shameful recoil! Go to bed!
Martin:	I should, but it wisps all about. I cannot catch a cold; I must be in bed. O, my, I have found something. Good night, fiend!
Jenner:	What is this?
Martin:	Your conscience, puny pipsqueak that he is!
Jenner:	Ah, my pernicious little advisor. For a moment, I did not know thy face. Hast thou come to accuse me? Tell me, hast thou come to curse me?
Martin:	I could curse you from here to the Pleiades and back if I wished.
Jenner:	And in thy starry curses, blind all who see yet what I am. Do thy best.
Martin:	The day grew cloudy on the morn that birthed thee, And Heaven's shining eye did shut her face And hid herself, for sobbing thine arousal, 'Should such a one come,' wept she on that day, 'I thought the earth should break to pebbled shards, And now, no such embarrassment see I, The earth doth welcome him; O, ne'er such shame In th' undying ages, now is sorrily kept This fatal birth.' When you of schoolage came She wept again in form of sorrowing rain And sobbed, 'Ne'er give him knowledge! He'll but will Disastrous conflicts on some innocent field, He'll turn a child's playground to the fields Of stratagem, on his Ulysses' text, To kill the mass of earth.' But you lived still, And though in ignorance, innocent you stayed, You were in knowledge desperately arrayed. 'Now, he's his hour!' Sol cries in despair And in unletting torment tears her hair, Those golden rays fall in the lightening's crash, And Earth herself mourns that she gave her lap A midwife's apron, welcoming your soul - 'Look at him,' cries Europa and the Earth, 'Look at our fiendish son, what have we furthered? O, stars, portend a heavy death for him - Though it may mean fixation's out of place, Bend 'way thy lights, withdraw his glorious fortunes, Make short his life, and painful his life's space, Do so, that Sol and Earth may ever be Amended, that she may shine, and ne'er may we Sow seeds of soiled souls, we now exhume The last, commend these to unending doom!' The stars, who saw miscarriage from the start Delight in this, and take their task to heart, For Nemesis cackles, and thy sentence speaks, Tonight she innovates, and terrors wreaks.
Jenner:	Very harrowing. I should fear my life.
Martin:	Life isn't to be feared for.
Jenner:	I should fear my immediate death, then.
Martin:	If I were you, I'd fear my distant death.
Jenner:	Nature and Earth may condemn me, but how do you?
Martin:	No curse I could lay on you could top the one Nature herself hath inflicted in your face.
Jenner:	An evil face for an evil soul.
Martin:	And a plain face for an truth-telling soul. Elaboration's not one of your faults, I note.
Jenner:	That's one that should stick, methinks.
Martin:	They're all adamant, affixed to your goo.
Jenner:	Vinegar, vinegar!
Martin:	Vinegar for salt - sour words for a salty mind.
Jenner:	'Tis salt enlivens this bland world.
Martin:	And salt undoes the slug.
Jenner:	Ah, I feel my flesh melting away!
Martin:	I should not notice it - I told you, you were ugly.
Jenner:	A mean retort, here's another - a sneer an' a cackle an' a flash of tooth! I could rend thee to pieces - what say'st thou to that?
Martin:	You bear passing semblance to a jack.
Jenner:	Is this Jonathan's child? Such an endearing waif; I may see why your mother's a mess.
Martin:	I believe that you're indeed fated ill.
Jenner:	And can you affirm such a belief? Fate's but myself to me.
Martin:	So seems it to the man as sceptres seized Regardless of the rules directory, Who grappled them, and wrongly supercedes The cod'fied step, the circumventing plea - The straightest way's the seemly one to yearn Although it cannot take precessing sops Or bob-abouts, or foolish cartwheels' turn, Cavorting rakes and those as swing as tops; Thou hypocrite, thou liar, thou hast said So many things truth controverts, thy mouth Is so unfettered, it works upon thy head. The circular shape is taken as a form, Perfection rounds about th' unfolded lands That straighter minds may straighten wordly harm Encountered, as the sorrowful understands The suff'ring of the indisposed, hurt soul; 'Tis taken in the rounds of wordly life, A circle's set and bound, made in the whole Of countless straightened lines, and so the strife Of countless breathers makes our rondo song; Shall crooks, in but themselves, undo these turns? To impose darling wrongs upon the whole, Shall so they commandeer truth for themselves And boast of straightness, where they crooked be? 'Tis Fate been wronged? Ay, justice is usurped, Thy single soul supplants the sacred writ, The rules of order, ordained as they wert Upon the chance of thee, and those like to't. No one may e'er the crown of Fate lay hold, Nor can they excise from Death's files gold.
Jenner:	Pish, posh! You'd say I am again' the order, claiming that fit only for my greaters? I am not the only, rather, I'd say I were in the order, and supply the writ myself. And we majors may take truth for our own; why, shouldn't we, so high in rank, do so? Here, I hold the badge of my order before me, and Sol may bemoan it, if she so wishes. I have taken a vow of resolution, and I am staunch and unmovable, and appropriately so. I alone realize truly our greatness. So, affirm ye such a belief still?
Martin:	You have answered the question for me; yes! I can affirm such a belief.
Jenner:	Such a shame. I had been taking a shine to you.
Martin:	O, that is the most insulting thing you've directed yet. I could hardly outdo such a heinous jibe.
Jenner:	Begone, then, starling! I shall explain to thee later. Off!
Martin:	I leave, then. Perhaps I shall come upon Nero Caesar also in this mist. [Exit]
Brisby:	Did he leave?
Jenner:	Yes.
Brisby:	There is some mercy in the mist.
Jenner:	I thought it odd. But, aye, let's pick things up. Flame in the night, the wansome stars do laugh! Think'st thou there's any remedy to have Beneath their supervision? Hah! They steal Their light from smaller sources, yet, the circuit's cut; Hear! Easier and easier 're the ways To fortune; thou mayst have made thee happier days Without us; look! A spark! I make a spark, I slash the stone, I beat my blade, a spark! This flint may fire a flame as such may take The world ablaze.
Brisby:	Pray, set your weapon down.
Jenner:	I take my force upon the thorns, they're cut; No compromise need I from miserly coils. Thou seek'st thy well, thou'rt pay- and employ-ready, But once you've bought your health, you've spent your life!
Brisby:	Please, I prithee, set it down!
Jenner:	This blade's The path of thy happiness - O, martyrs prim, O, sickly saints, the straight-and-narrow good, How life'd be easier them, had they a sword! 'Tis physic for thine ills.
Brisby:	What cure's in death?
Jenner:	What cures, but cures in death? Thou'rt tougher for't. The dead suffer no ills.
Brisby:	Stay, set it down!
Justin:	Condemnable, condemnable thou art! Thou murderer, far worse than any owl! Play not upon this poor, defenseless soul - Takes she the mist up for a shield? Thou rogue, Condemnable thou art! And thou'rt condemned, Thou'st raised thy sword, thou'st fell thy sword And now thou tak'st thy sword to me, and thou Shalt die upon it - this shield is thy shroud, The evil may no refuge find within The bulkhead of the good. Thy mists conceal, Thy mists conceal thy soul, conceal thy life; Thou'rt doomed to die.
Jenner:	I was to ask thy companion for a dance, that's all.
Justin:	She's not a likely fencing companion for thee, Jenner.
Jenner:	Then I need find another. Envoy Epee, am I so honoured?
Justin:	I could not say no. But may I strike to hurt?
Jenner:	That was my sole intention.
Justin:	Then let it be thy soul's detention, although it would be honourable to let me search for a sword.
Jenner:	Alack! I seem to have lost my honour in the mud. Thou'lt have to fend with thy friend, or a stone, or a glob of muck... en garde! [He begins advances upon Justin]
Justin:	Ho! I've a sour bout to fight tonight. Forgive me, regent, I need take thy staff. [Justin takes Nicodemus' rod and parries with it]
Jenner:	'Tis not a weapon for this feudal Night. 'Tis not a weapon for an even joust, Then, 'tis not a weapon for me, here, have thy death!
Justin:	Ah! Hear the startled caption of the crowd - This were the end we all assured ourselves Would come in jest. Good Jenner, though I'm pleased To take thee in this bout; where hast thou failed? Why couldst thou not thy torments stay - aught else Thou'lt stay - fair, Jenner, fairly thou shalt fall, And I'll be sorry for thy trippings all.
Jenner:	I feel the hardened, merciless stare of Death, His gladiator I shall reign or fall, The blood as surges through my restless lobes Speaks e'er to me in roars o'the sporting crowd, I e'er was meant to live in combat's heat, What good is life, if thou'st no portion in Its endless battle? Peh, when I'm of age Embrittled in the crumbling brace of Time, And finally buckled as one who bears the stone And onus of Responsibilty, I'd skirt it with my year-bound honourage, Leave it for vitaler souls, and take my cane And stave my thirst upon Death's carmine base And in this brew Draconian regain My youth, my strength, to fin'lly murder Time And liason with Death, my faithful love; Though one that cackles, sees through cloudy eyes And barely stills his loosely tarpèd frame To Death remain I beautiful, and young; As to a dry and voiceless platte of sand A brook is gorgeous, and most sing'larly. From thence I'd seek embattling souls; what good Is life, without the chance to meet life's end Or make it? Should I live to see those years, The final thing that e'er should fill my ears Will be the echo of the dying foe Caught in vociferous embroglio.
Justin:	Stop it! I understand you less every minute. If 'tis important I should hear, then say't, If it is dun, then there's no need to light it, If mottled, stripe it with your colourful lash, To frame it to compliance. Vent thy words; Let out! if you've aught left to say before You leave the living. Use your words as speech, Speak plainly, if you've something plain to say, For people speak in foreign tongues each day.
Patrick:	I've witnessed troupes of pantomimes, but I must say, this is the sloppiest sword fight I've ever seen. Such jumping and motioning! They need their rope-training again. [Jenner scowls]
Jenner:	Once I've dispatched our captain, I'll be after you, juggler!
Patrick:	Is it the business of a clown to answer such a portentous riddle?
Jenner:	Fool, what mean'st thou?
Patrick:	I mean'st only, that clown's saw. 'The flightiest bird catches the hunter's eye.'
Jenner:	What semblance of me is in that?
Justin:	Ha! Keep hopping, knave, let no clown keep thee pondering!
Patrick:	Or, to another effect, 'He set in one spot sees the world pass by him, it he waits long enough.'
Jenner:	And how have I strayed from that?
Patrick:	Not at all, dear Jenner... you would never stray to stray. The difference between 'stay' and 'stray' is a common letter, indeed.
Jenner:	Thou art a common letter, buffoon!
Patrick:	Aye, though I would let up. - Justin, you're an honourable lout. - Thou wouldst stay, thou say'st?
Jenner:	I would stand to this spot.
Patrick:	That is a most foolish decision. I wouldn't stay your battle.
Justin:	[aside, to Ages] Friend, fetch my sword while he is detained.
Jenner:	I would stay this very battle, indeed.
Patrick:	Consistence, O, thou mother of all folly! Would you stay solid, on this night of pudding? [Ages gives Justin his sword]
Justin:	I say, even this blade cannot cut this conversation.
Jenner:	Aha! Propounder, set thyself away. - I know what I shall do. [to all] All hear! List well!
Justin:	Yea, Jenner, all already have your attention.
Jenner:	This clown has put me to't. These shackles here, Which I would fain present to every one That they might freely live, and freely please Themselves are turned on me, as Nicodemus Would prove his passion us by his true form. Look! Here I stand, and here this grainy slime Shall suck upon these feet; I shall return Embracingly to that first substance which Gave all us birth, as Earth could never move I say, I shall not move! I stand, I stay, This needle I withal defend myself, And as we fight, this dear and motherly earth Shall hold me here, breech-first. Here, I am dust, And dust shall swallow me. She locks these ankles, For hopes to reclaim me. Now, of the challenge, This is the forfeit: Should I fall in death, Then staying, you shall all result the same And as foul Death, twice satisfied tonight, Should not recur once he's had his three meals, We shall decision make, and by it vow Such that resolve could not e'er arched be Were archons pouncing on its rigid nave. Should I, in my most noble adamance - Taken in truth, and honour for one's faith - Make triumph o'er this scurrying little elf, Then moving means our death, and we should all Make penitence before our country's state And beg forgiveness, and see me as our best, And thus exult, exalt me over all. Should I apostate to take any step, You have a stone, and may this widow's house Crush me to powder, mingled in the mud, For my self-nullifying blasphemies - Consistence is my judge. I take my stand, to death! Is any here So faulty as to match my evil good?
Justin:	I'll not see Goodness sullied, nor so Faith, And Nature shies at your pretentious show. Good Jenner, O, foul Jenner! I may match Your stance on evil with a stance for good!
Jenner:	[aside] Now, I'd say, he's the one galoshing in the muck, and I with a free hand and a free mouth have better leverage than he with a free body. [to all] It is decided. None other being willing to fight one standing still, our Captain of the Guard has volunteered to make an example for his protégé. The challenge is accepted, should I die, we move, should Justin die, we stay, and should no one die, we let it to the Fates. Shall we begin?
Justin:	Yea, but how to begin?
Jenner:	Lunge! Demean sanctity! Discount life! Come, Justin, throw off thy high ethics, be as thou art, thou animal, thou rat!
Justin:	I cannot even say so much.
Jenner:	Come! Bayonet me! Surely, Justin, you're not as bad a sword fighter as this?
Justin:	Your soul, so black and perforate, Lets Night so cattily seep in; Compunction stays, I need not puncture more Nor saturate thee, nay, thou art condemned Should I condemn thee now - say thou art moved!
Jenner:	I may say I am moved, but displacing me requires more force.
Justin:	Good Jenner - shall you answer to that name? - This weather's not hospitable to health, How shall a fev'rish child be moved for life? May you ennoble yourself to mobile be, When Spring herself lies sickly in her bed, And cannot bring herself to take her station; Why, see! The clouds, the evil parties come To rob the live of life. Your models move! How, then, mayst thou still stay? Say thou art moved! If thou wouldst evil be, say thou art moved! Say thou art moved, if thou reformed wouldst be!
Jenner:	O! sob at thy words! They'd make a cockatrice leap, but Justin, my heart is stone - she was widowed from my mind long ago - and Arthur's pulleys can't move her.
Justin:	Then, what? Shall I cut thee in the back, like a brigand?
Jenner:	My, you've a trouble, haven't you? Kill me, and you become me. Live me, and you appease me, and shall live like me fore'er.
Justin:	Only till tomorrow, and then we die.
Jenner:	Ha! My favourite pubbing toast.
Justin:	Or, worse, they shall take us, NIMH shall take us, and we'll move, regardless of your highness. To men, no rat's a lord.
Jenner:	O, they shall take us! This is a fear. No, fear me, now! Stow forbearance! Let me stand condemned, so long as I stand! Let me stay doomed, so long as I stay! I will not give to any other, no part of me's any's but mine, no life's my life but my own, and should I savour Death tonight, it is my death, my death only.
Justin:	Thou'rt consigned to Fate?
Jenner:	I am my Fate. Once I die, I am no longer, and I care not what comes afterwards. I would not live anywhere else, but here, I would not die anywhere but this bush, nor any time but that I should deign fit. I have sealed me with a wound, and this wound on my soul shall never seal.
Justin:	I will not stay, not now, for as you say, The water falls, the earth itself is changed And 'tis no character that rebuffs a pain Which is but meet, the virtues to maintain. The hero must be true to all but him - My task tonight, to save the colony's fate Is but to do what I may sorely hate.
Jenner:	Nay, nay! Thou art thy most precious treasure, do not let thyself alter!
Justin:	You will stay, you know you shall stay the same, I care not what happens after, I must perform The answer to thy grievance. Look, if I Did never enter into any brier, For fear what may within their barbs transpire, Or what might make me to redo myself, Then I should never bravely face my trial, And in complacence fruitless I would wile - In introversion I'd bebusy me - Until I'd studied my changeless self so well My stunted soul I could in one word tell.
Jenner:	Prithee, stay, thou sound'st like a suicide!
Justin:	Nay, I sound like an imperfect wretch, who seeks to better not only himself, but all. Have at you! [Justin runs Jenner smartly through]
Jenner:	A mortal wound! I am murdered!
Brisby:	Dead! All are dead, my heart, my life, my soul, Who took my front yard for their battleground? I've led thee, Death, I've led thee to this field, That thou mightst reave, before the planting's done!
Jenner:	Mrs. Jonathan Brisby, soft! Thy husband once said to me, 'My wife is distraught, yea, my wife is the scrambly sort, Jenner. How poor am I, too poor to cause her worry.' He said then, 'But she is faceless, we all are shades, Jenner. We are not beings until we are seen; we are not beings until we are loved, yea, not 'till we serve, Jenner!'
Brisby:	Jenner, speak soft, thou'rt shortly dead.
Jenner:	If I am shortly dead, I shall be loud alive, my speech will survive me. Thy husband were a low branch on Time's tree, yea, easily taken by bullibrats and used as a mongrel switch; I once braved to think that I was one of those boys, but, nay, those were my dying days... I've given thee gall for gravy, bane for broth! Brisby, hast thou ever hated me?
Brisby:	No, I ne'er have.
Jenner:	I am condemned!
Brisby:	By thy conscience? He's a troublemaker himself.
Jenner:	The very devil! Brisby, love thy children. I could have lived in my one friend's faithfulness... but, yea, words mean words, and they've never spoken of my heart. I long, yea, I wish that I could have been freed. A summons! [He dies]
Brisby:	I know that rogue's death better than my husband's. Indeed, I'd ne'er heard a word of it until today, yesterday his death was something taken in trust - how often the good die without an epitaph! How often do the kind disappear without letting their loves know whither they go... they are snatched up jealously by God. The evil leave behind every wronged person, every mistreated soul to witness their death. When one goes up a mountain, those standing at the base see nothing of him. When one goes down thence to the valley, everybody can see him easily.
Justin:	If any think me wrong for this, then let them follow him.
Patrick:	I cannot but pun at his death. I say, 'twould be to follow a fallow fellow. That is the epitaph he deserves.
Justin:	Let it be written down.
Ages:	'Tis true, when death defeats our enemy, It is the season for our levity.
Justin:	O, mud! Convey this blood-tarnished silver to Sheol, let this unsacred taint begone, gulp it beyond any mortal reprieve, and let your subcutaneous argue with its ill-brandished blade! Let Death have't! [Justin discards his sword]
Patrick:	Here stands an elder and his noble friend, Death gladdened one, one's sorry for the end. Were I not clown-apparent, you would know The young is eager, age is sad to go; As high officiary lets free a rung Upon the death of age, and for the young: But as I jest, we see a novel change: Youth sees advancing stations as too strange, And age, confronted with Death's pearly gate, Laughs at his grin, and trusts on better fate: And though he gloats upon his golden crown Death's smile to him will soon become a frown And all his august power, once deployed Will find itself to be with base alloyed: The shine of earthly honours dazzles men But Death can see, below the gold is tin.
Ages:	I admit it, and am sorry for't.
Justin:	Of every dastard's scheme or hapless mall Which could upon our yearling state befall, These are the worst, these are the worst of all, And ills are stronger when their wrongs combine! NIMH comes tonight, our master's dead, our sire Is pedestaled upon purveyance higher Than fewest angels e'er could hope aspire. Now that the good and righteous have withdrawn The glory-seek's a post to latch upon, And when an opening's made in happenstance The evilest knects prepare to make advance, Not better villains, which should come by will But those of manner fit the space to fill. These evil stars have not occulted yet, Nor have these rushing parties here converged, We're warned, that we may utilize the sense We have still, come, pack up, the house is moved: We leave, and let no heart harbour regret. The palace will collapse o'er any time, But bricks that may be used are left behind. For e'en the smaller perched upon the large, Once their giant has fallen, find themselves No lower than they were before, that so, We have not made our show and sigh for no; We'd let our nation be dissolved before The family. We've done what we were bound; And Nicodemus honourably died. Ho, toss me now his rod, I need it see. [He is thrown Nicodemus' staff] Yea, here's his instrument of foment ill, The carved initial 'J', the name of power, His one success, his one accessor, yea, His one mistake: for, yet, it means two names! Now should I drive this rev'rence in the sod, Should Aaron's rod take blossom in the place Of its proponent? Nay, this stake's too shy; 'Tis good and well. Who shall our leader be?
Ages:	I nominate Justin, for Nicodemus named him first. [All agree]
Justin:	Is there any dissension? [There is none] Good, I'd not have there be any dissension. I shall take thy laurels. But that is but at this time a mean nicety, and courtliness has little use without a court. Ages, the plan may be taken out, and as it may, it should, methinks.
Ages:	I have greatly studied all that is to be said of the common life. I've pored over Plato and Paul for very, very short centuries; I dare say, all may be intelligently directed.
Justin:	Ages, you exhaust me. Of Mrs. Brisby?
Patrick:	She is well.
Ages:	She merits an addition to the widow's list, and whatever benefits should come of that.
Patrick:	She is well, and that at Death's promise.
Brisby:	Patrick, I know no brace is strong enough for thee tonight... though e'en the brace of Death is dissimilated, given the time; aye, though it be all of time.
Justin:	Indeed, all is to change; one day we shall be no more, if indeed we ever were. So is this night to be understood - if e'en a star may plummet, we might fall – e'en though it be weakly. We are all dangerously plumb... but one cannot ascend without having the entire earth beneath.
Ages:	None will be able to say.
Patrick:	An orphan 'm I, though older, I suppose - O, Father! May I straddle on thy knee? I have no father; thou hast no father, son; O, Mother mayst console me in her lap! You have no mother, son, thou'rt not my child, Had I Death's favour, could I my loss recoup? A master of his trade! He commissars While eking out his due - O, violent Death! Could not thy blade be softer? Fatal sting, Couldst not thou sense that him thou entered were Too gentle to be torn apart, thou ravenous Death! Dost thou not feed on carrion enough To ease thy hunger, that thou mightst consume My father with mercy? Nay, thou ruthless Death! No tact have thee, no grace have thee, thou dost Arrange in law, then skirt about its fringe To give th'critical pricks - sadistic Death! Look, Jenner, thine instrument, lays dead at hand, He died for doling Death, for dueling Death, For hopes of living in accord with Death, Now he's at one with Death, breathe not, thy chains are forged! And Death himself is fatherless - who may His doings command? Who mandates him? Who might Alternately, then, mother Death? Not one, For who indulges Death? But those who die - Of those, not all. How were't conceived? In death, And he, that ingenuous soul, of sympathy, That sacristy to which my soul did trust, And open to, to which I did divulge My ev'ry longing, eldless Death - thou fiend! Thou understood, for thou wouldst mold me thee, An orphan 'm I, the bargain's struck, and yet, I've yet to pay - someday, I'll be just as My partnered Death. For now, tak'st thou a good And thou must take a virtueless along, To keep the balance - though, if evil died, How could shy Death continue? Say thee to Thy Jonathan, his wife is faithful, he Would ne'er consent to express love for thee, No matter how's manipulate the law. Eternal souls may love eternal souls, And Death is temporal, rules but for time, Was nothing yesterday, but now removes What yesterday did glow upon, tomorrow Shall keep 't, but, yea, once time doth end Death ends with it... how, then, are there tomorrows? Sad Brisby's but a widow for today, Two months ago no appellation such Could her describe, but once tomorrow's o'er The best of yesterday shall stay alive As it could keep life always, e'en through death. So, Father, rain still wets thy child's face, Tonight, for time, no rain can e'er thee damp, Thou'st rose through time, to see thy dream complete, The Rats need find a home, farewell, house thee - Where mak'st thine eternal nest? Choose as thou wouldst, Thou hast attained a higher knowledge in death, I cannot thee advise - though we've to go In ignorance, thou must take thee alone To find the form of our base, earthly home; Take thee away, and search thee out thy rest In bliss paternal on Elysian shores, And manage thee across the heavenly moors.
Brisby:	He let his life go willingly, Death had a soul determined. He passed life Unto my child, one soul for another, I know no price too costly which I could Not painfully yield to Death - I know him well, The bargain's struck, and Nicodemus' fallen, If Ages kindly images me, this one Bore me to obsolescence.
Patrick:	One thing, our widow. My father was too long in life, I fear; His age were ageless, by befallen Fate, But death cares not for age. He planned too long And saw too far, this field's deceptive, for An endless plain doth flange it, 'tis a stage So broad it may contain the plans of greatest minds, And may be furnished by a bright imagination. Though, scene by scene shall see us scurry through, The boister and the play, however strong, Dissolves before the coming players' throng, Look deeply, and how far I see upon This moor - why, he did call that we should watch The sun upon 't. He thought he had the life To it subtend. Why would he cross this waste? To see some foreign mountains? No, not so, No holiday needs such diplomacy; To visit unknown beaches, or to sip At founts of former myth? No, though these sights May pleasant be, e'er lusty for the end We troubadours will surely make. What end Might Nicodemus see? The rising sun Is too adjunct to satisfy his duty, And is nearby to make his call fulfilled. This is the one thing that might him relieve. He now has traveled further than we e'er Might, on the greatest mission for our world, He died that we might never happy be For soaring on another's way and work And stilled himself far better than we could That stilled we'll never be. O, such a song When good is martyred in an ardent wrong - Though ev'ry brave ambition evil may account, And though it may entail the deepest pow'rs, When once it trounces on a parriless good Its hands fore'er will strike on perilous hours, And though it has a friend in ev'ry burg, Ten thousand phalanges have it circummured And may it strike a light and tenorous chime, Death seals it 'till the timorous end of Time. No sabered dragon shall us now impede, But, O, his fiery fall consumed our reed, And not a wisp of wind from him we hear Though as this worm did fall, his wings did break Such soundings on the wailing air, I thought No airy nymph deserved such punishment; Our reed was brought to writ, his song is done, And all the ills we suffer forge as one, And though my songs to me appear innate To sing them now is singing them too late.
Brisby:	O, life's too short to speak of too late's.
Justin:	Upon this mare derise and sea of mist Which on this night the cloudy heav'ns have kissed, We learned to mourn and glower at the same, For we were caught with love and goodly aim, And though the nation's free, and so's her son We cannot help but wonder how 'twas done. May we have kept the object and our soul? May we have used a portion, not the whole? May we, poor siegements captured in the storm Hence 'way ecome, and let them play their norm? Though whe'er 'tis best that we abide or hide The battle lets no luxury to decide. Dual missives fire upon us, in the warring Elements, the fixèd and the soaring, We now address two parties in reply: To Night with 'pfaigh!,' and to our friend, 'goodbye.' [Exeunt.]

~ 5.3 ~


Outside of Mrs Brisby's house

	[Enter, in an orderly, solemn procession, Justin, Ages, Patrick, and Brisby]
Justin:	Vital children of the hour, bless thy loss! For heroes may fall only for true cause, In right the cozener's sword is bent askew, Its iron scalded with reproach by love, And softened to its shatter. Fright aside, Once trouble's beat and bested in the good, 'Tis obligation to a victory feast! But proud extolling has no virtues here, The hero's vengeance cost his wizened life - How evil hearts are jealous of the good - For relished fancies did the villain fight, And sad, sad victims view the whim-spilt blood. I took this stance not to the evil nod But rightly to its master; that is good Can even devils' dismal doings distract. The emperor Loss is fashioned to Love's court And thence its mischief wrings, but swift recall Shall call it, panting, lackeying to the foot Of Hope and Mercy, courtiers Love, who crush Its rowdy games with sceptres cut of truth. Only in Love's first musings Loss has sway, Love supernal shall deign to win the day.
Patrick:	Our clutch is shortened, and our fledgling race Is gently winnowed, that no pest'lent trace Of evil stains our lucent regal robes; Just as in much disturbance Neptune's wroth And in the trepidation foams the broth, Yet battles fought upon the sea must e'er Have uncontested victors. Mist or no, Or thickened seas, we've faced this prurient foe And now, we're tempered, sharpened for the day When we shall only take our arms in waves, As one meet, and away from instilled harms, In one beat oar our way from NIMH's ill charms.
Justin:	How true! I know the sage's son is wise, And only pith and thrust becomes his eyes; For parried was the thrust against our souls, By hearts a'heavied by our civil wrongs, And e'en in rescue did this hero die. How rightly did he live! How long, to see The story of his birth repeat itself; In tripled ages did this warrior fight, Once rhyme was wreathed in stillness, and the days Our extant knowledge, gotten unawares Was even new to us, now only that Is timely to the world; the epoch third Was coming to the knowledge of yon friend, Her husband was our grateful servant from The recalled outset of our mastery's hour; The inset of our mystery's map, its key, Needs shall and be fore'er our Jonathan. These three and lengthy ages are now read, The opened volumes speak of noble deeds Amongst permuted good, which soared awry And Helios did bid it to the sea! The evils which can spring from vagrant good Are reapplied to vicious wayward deeds Which sadly are directed its forbears. Now, truly, dead's the day of evil lore, No requiem Nicodemus is complete Lacking eager interment of evil days Which e'en but they have age to remember, Though time is stopped for them, they'll age no more Not cumbersomely in NIMH's youthful droughts, But haling health shall boast eternally And reunited shall they blessings sing Their iambs fashion to the heavenly court; Tend supinations heav'nward!
Ages:	Aye, and praise Should ring in death, if e'er in life we raise Our comfort past the rim of stagnant calm, To pain, where action seizes reins; if alms Are made of works stayed unaware the world, Then must the bells of heaven toll; yet if We set another heart condemned, for sith We want no pain, then we've undone ourselves Undoing someone else, the end's the cause. So vile a shadowed being Sullivan was, And yet so innocent.
Brisby:	A pall! a pall! Yea, gentle on my back It's lain, I'd let it know some peace for change.
Justin:	Nugae, it's small to make a head kerchief; Good Brisby, nay, thy colours wear; how long The light doth linger on the setting sun. Let him uncovered lay, a witness to His mourning eulogy. The night's his pall, He'd have it so, he was unwilling snatched From stations low, exalted high; he shone Just as a star, and rightly he did die At hands sim'larly raised, who failed to shine With reason's brightness, he belongs his God, He did not ask to rearrange the stars Nor for a constellation in his image made, But for his dells of innocence, and fields Of warmth and wealth, and blest, untainted love Which were him stolen, as when one is gi'en The knowledge of evil, how swift one is wont To utilize it! Earth's a hateful sphere Of mud to those who love her most, How could she lend the lowly precious things, And yet deny them simple ways? Unfair Are Nature's indiscretions, Earth's withhold; Jenner's her foster child, let us return Him to her care and warm earthen embrace. Thou pair, thou Jenner and thou Sullivan! Earth's children, thou art lost forever in The endless flat of broad unsavory moors. Wert thou a phylactery worthy of Her pious brow, we should thee on a hillside set Tho' we should march for miles, to the right Reverence do, that we and she should both Remember thee, but, nay, that never was; Thy wretched wrongness should we hast'ly drop Where thou first fell! Let earth accept you there, But Nicodemus, O, no mountain, ne'er How mighty, could thy peaceful form env'lop, Nor could the broadest canyon swallow thee, We shall then dig a shallow grave for thee, That thy flame, tho' extinguished, should shine on To ages visibly, a monument here, We'll leave thee just behind a gauzy veil, It shall be just as we were never parted, Though, yea, thin veils are punctured easily, The veil shall parted be, and then we shall Parted be no more. All that lives, know life Is living on - know sure and central hope, It was our Lord who first said Lazarus was dead. Expectant days, when Life speaks word of Death, Are sure to follow. We can live no more Near to our hero, we in rites bequeath These spirits three to God, and then we shall Take out the Plan, and then evaporate Into the morning's mist, we are a myth! We shall be vapourous figments of the night, Of aether wisped and of strange dreams bedight.
Ages:	How life's a dream for us! We never were, It does exasperate, at that, exonerate, Ex, ex, it never were! The mirrored world's A dream to us, as we are naught to it, But sanctuary's raiment coffs its fee; For we are not exceptions Logos' plan - The words we speak were lent Him from the first - Nay, we were never new, yea, altered, then We were here never meant.
Justin:	Not here, perhaps. The witness is this restless death. Silent But never falsified; O, Jonathan! Thy wife! thy children! Jenner, thou auld fool! And Sullivan, thou ewest instrument Which could be simply mewed! now mute, And Nicodemus, tribute ill to speak In glorious words, if thou art presently dead; No breath I give thee in my using breath, The air's a chill!
Ages:	Thou hast spoke well, dear friend; Yet other heartaches need we to attend, Thou'st said thy share, I know that Death is cold, And that thy reverence is matchlessly bold. This small atoll we have well marked to stand Is fine a place to see no distant land, Let his unhindered ghost glide 'cross this sea.
Justin:	We have seen Nicodemus to his death, All here assembled were his instant friends, We shall him mourn, for he had noble love Which sought to save the sword he was for doomed. 'Twere true, he was his house, he was a rose, Too good to cut ere picked, sharp after life. The pink of health! the red of blood and life, The snowy pallor cut from blood by death, Are to be found in petals of a rose, Though Nicodemus had fair many friends To greater recruits was his spirit doomed, He gave the demon bouquets in his love. What was the outcome of his gracious love? 'Twere spurned, and for the bloodied flowers of Life - For loving long, he was a mortal doomed - The demon unrelenting gave him Death, Now sprinkled white his grave is made his friends, His house became too red for any rose. How often can the token of a rose Speak words emotive, and insinuate love! Bedecked with flowers did he make his friends, These followers who trod the ground of Life Are but behind in crossing into Death, 'Tis expulse that all creatures are for doomed. Say I, then, that we lossful souls are doomed? Glance but again my object study, the rose; First any flower meets her common death To then betoken with her peers true love, And as they grew together in their life These blooms die chorally, e'en dry as friends. No life takes worthy breath without good friends, And those who cannot be a friend are doomed To live as one bereft of any life; For if a bud refuses to yield its rose, This jealous flower's but thorns, with no one's love, And irrevocably is sent with Death. Yea, Nicodemus rose to heav'nly grace, Though cut and dead, in life we're far the worse: His friends are doomed to love him until death.
Ages:	The concert's reached a silent measure of pause To mourn its loss: the period of the piece Which Nicodemus played; his bounteous reign Was open-palmed to momently maintain. I speak above his sleeping, lifeless face Which no more may curiously investigate The loves and lives of many a subject soul, His law was lenient to be let control. No more may he speak words in rhyming verse To bind our measures to our given time And to assure the truth throughout the whole, His potency was poetry to rule. But, we are done tonight with bricks and ropes, And we are three in number less, but we Have let the family of a friend remain, Our loss is lessened in these others' gain. Now we shall be away, the trauma's bound, My nostrums ancient have proved wholly sound, Though they were partioned in their implement, They still, in every act, did benefit: A placant drug, the wisdoms of an owl, A court of high accourt and no accord, The revelation of a hurtful doom, And now, I've naught to give but a poor salve, The highest skill is poor when loss is love. No more's to do, we may our limbers lave; If Loss is dead, then let us dig his grave. [Exeunt.]

~ 5.4 ~

Outside of Mrs Brisby's house, on the morning

	[Enter Brisby]
Brisby:	Foregone's the chill! Time, there's halt for thy means! I thought today another day, a life Now new, but nay, by Time the selfsame gov'rned, By Time subdued. Halt for thy means! Reared up, To there the lengthy past survey, and pluck The tract of land we judged the wealthiest; But tho' 'tis stopped, tho' Time's ill means are stayed, And as a punished child he retreats, Time can't undo the wrongs he's done before, And's subject to the state of th' presidor, One only rules, to change the world's affairs, One power takes, to shape Life for themselves. One modest stays, to share it with another, And when one parents, powerless are we, But grasped in power's vice, and gi'en a charge With virtue and importance such the world Seems petty. Time can't undo what he does, Loss has no counterpart, for were Loss void, Loss loses then himself, and to regain What one has lost, is then and there to find 'Twas never lost at all. [Enter Teresa, Martin and Cynthia, together]
Teresa:	Coming down from the mountain?
Brisby:	Coming down from thereabouts.
Cynthia:	'Tis beautiful out, mother.
Martin:	The fog has settled, and I see the mist retracted; the ocean lets forth her secrets. Were such a day a sunken continent? The seas cover more mystery than we could read into a dozen dreams. A fine day! A fine time to live.
Teresa:	Not such a quiet day, but not a day as would lose us.
Brisby:	The farmer's tasking day's at hand.
Martin:	Indeed, it is. Up comes the hardened ground, Mother. Off comes the crust of a long winter, off comes the accretion of many weathered months. Below 'tis fresh and new, below it all, it is spring again! though, in a way, this is a winter scarring; we do not reclaim last autumn, but spring new.
Brisby:	So is the goal of every life, it seems. What one desires, one wants but cannot get, When one may get, one wants allowance more, Contentment seems a foreign word to we, Where is the end-all of the longing life? Show me unto some savory meal, or whey, It matters not, if it my longing quells, Though wanting so grants temper of its own.
Cynthia:	The seeds are planted, then; the ocean is evaporated; I see only clouds too sorry for the heavens taking it up. And the waters as fed this ocean... where are they? Drawn into the solitary deeps again, I suppose.
Brisby:	I should not ever cross that raging stream So straightly, did I not take it off-kilt Or arrow-straight, and orient myself Towards other targets - why, this rushing melt, Made mainly of my sorrow - how it drained Our ocean field - 'twas not so swift at all, But conjured was the brave illusion by Our mobile passing. How if I did stay? How if I should stay, and I silent should Decide the sickness were a passing thing, And not buttress against it, and if I, Upon this lazed and idle resolve, did decide That moving thee alone was how to stay? When Selfishness doth clothe herself in Love, Her baubles speak of serving, but her friends May tell you that her jeweled finery May not be spent to help them in their need, But rather did they purchase them as gifts And Selfishness her misnomer attired. But Love, I say, 's the chasiest game there is, And when thou'rt railed against the quiet side Where some might find relief, give them it there, But should thy playmates heckle from the field, My children, pray, be all things to all men. My children, take ye care when you're in love, 'Tis Love tears down what is, sets up what's not, And makes uncertain that you were sure of And drives to folly all that you were taught. May rich men die in squalor? Nay, you say; But rich men die in squalor every day, Yet poor men die for Love, this final fire Perfumes the province of their peasant's pyre. Collate, collect, my children, all thy charm, For life and living shield no one from harm, Though scores of heartaches wreak thee, make thee well - As body waxes, so shall wax the heart - And Love, once finished, sets you forth to tell How changed thou wert to better fit thy part.
Jeremy:	[off-stage] O, this third time has me clapped for sure!
Brisby:	Is that what my toothache portends? Aye, should that be Jeremy as says 't, I should be taken ill today.
Teresa:	No, no, he comes on his own feet!
Cynthia:	Although he swaggers strangely. [Enter Jeremy]
Jeremy:	Seven by seventy! O, seven by seventy times!
Martin:	Four hundred ninety, why, then?
Jeremy:	Seven by seventy times I've passed her unnoticing, now she refuses the forgiveness any longer, and I'm legally bound to her indignation!
Brisby:	Thou'rt in love? And, thou'st a love?
Jeremy:	O, is that what I shall call it? O, bound am I! and this time, I am clapped a'sure. Be mournful not, I am a wretch as should deserve this punishment, I am a fool as feels for this fate kindly. Ah, I am locked by the cords of law, pity me not... and never set me free again! O, never set me free again! [Exit]
Teresa:	The shrew's confused, and so am I; what's love?
Brisby:	Kind children, I would tell you something - something I only now have learned, and something which is better learned only once.
Cynthia:	We're here.
Brisby:	'Today's secure, but never is tomorrow' - When present gain-safe met uncertainty I worried muchly, even as a child: For what could happen? Should deficiency Be thrown uncovered in me, what am I? The very thought did tantalize my soul, And did my youthful heart in bond consign: Not valuable bonds, but chains of slavery, The slavery of obsession. When I enjoyed The warmth of life, this chill did seize my heart; How if tomorrow did a cause upbring To master me, prevent my furtherance And seize my joy and life, as also passion? For southerlies give way to arctic winds When once their bellows let, therefore each joy That dances lightly on a soul may bring A tramping villain in the pace it trod, And my heart's pace did race upon the sorrow, still: But not the sorrow's self, its prospect, 'til The visitor struck me, did I make the house For his arrival prepared: first, children, Love Becomes disclaimer; this, now, know at first She is ye borrowed with but one guarantee: And that the certainty that you'll be changed Though always for the better. If you love Yourself too much to be transformed, then you Did never love, to love one's self is base And may be managed by the lowest beast; If you're in Love, she'll give you greater joys And beyond greater joys, but ev'ry one Doth leave thee vulnerable, open for The poisoned shafts of Cupid's demon foe; When any joy is lost, then momently You shall bewail the loss, and notice then That Love is but a stranger in Loss' lands. But though in company Love racks your heart, And though each joy doth bring immeasurable ache Traject not off Love's path, part not thy ways To seek asylum, once a foreigner found, If you're estranged, think what you're wrested from By Love: the option's vassalage to Loss. A citizen in Loss is poorer than A refugee in Love. Why dressed in rags Do lovers peddle through Loss' domain? Why stay they with this curious friend, this Love Who slapped of joy and pain her articles makes, And difficultly makes articles terse For her forever-courtiers to obey? The road they march's a main, through kingdom bleak And at its end there stands a high-wicked gate Which marks the boundaries of Loss' reign. That road is Life, my children dear, and at The gate a sentry stands, who's Death himself, And beyond that are realms, where Loss is found E'er powerless, these lands are ruled by Love, And here are countless servants found of Love Which Loss discovered, seeing them unfit To slave for him, he exported them in wrath Saying, 'These are your servants, they were mine But idle wert, and seemed to hate my ways, They ne'er did bring themselves to stem a friend Nor did they comfit killing, nor did they Derive great pleasure from the copping games; No lust did fill their eyes, but lust for you: Nor did they covet riches, gold nor gems Nor comfort, pleasure, power, nor good food, Nor dress, nor mind, nor body, nor estate; Here, punish as you may, no craft's severe, These useless targets, take ye for your aim, And use them as you may - adopt your sons.' Dispatch, dispatch, Love, thy vaunt-courier To Death negotiate our crossing terms And ope his toothsome gate, to us disclaim, Decry, deny, in disassociation, And then we shall denounce our love for him And then, the more important: disavow our fear. 'Tis Fear's a villain, think ye on his ways! And ponder now on his exemplaries: The soul who is afraid of growing old Dies young. The soul who is afraid to have belief Discovers not. The soul who is afraid to change himself Finds repose in eternal changelessness, And callouses himself to Love and change. But shall I fear what I did fear before? The past secure's tomorrow is the present's Secure today. And is there to be found deficiency In me, in Love? What can't I do? To those In love, the world becomes a fashioned toy And all of life is sung where there resides No end to certitude, no end to wealth, No end to possible, no end to search, No end to find; it does with ease what Pride Would ne'er attempt. Can I the earth upon her course o'erturn? Can I the sun send spinning as a top? Why would I desire 't? Then, Love's no place For fear, and upon these delined regards And recommendations, never employ fear. 'Today's secure, but never is tomorrow' - But Love, the master of the insecure And timid hope, who does not guarantee A wealth of unbound joy, or even pleasure, In claiming not to vow, she promises With strength beyond the mortal's highest oath, For God is love, and His creative joys Do conquer in the end. - What of the rats? What of these friends? They make across the mead, Why do they it? Because they love themselves? Not so - to die, for them, might be release, For they are strangers, not only to Loss But also to this very earth, to life And so can bear their breath as we bear ill, And name each day with new, original curses, And greet each friend as but another trial Unheard. They move because they love each one, And for the whole, they do it for the duty, And also that they may live morally Because they honour the farmer's day and due. Are they not like our caravan in Love? Why, see them! On the flat, they stay along Someday shall Love lead them where they belong For ne'er such stable creatures she'd ignore, For Death can never hinder life in Love As Death's a spectre as holds little sway. When large may see the smaller eye to eye, They both will glean some truth they ne'er could scry: The glass as shows the tiny to the tall Doth oppositely make the larger small; The wonderous see what they would never know, And motier sorts condense the high to low. But so, what is the addend of this tale? Were I a history of these days conflate, What should I say, how may I sum the words, And how I may these mysteries relate? As I am Loss and Fear's expatriate, I shall it tell, tho' not as one turn'd green, Nor as one first green, but one as knows truth, And one as holds no whit of jealousy, Though, truthfully, lack at what Loss expunged, It is a story of life, but more, of faith; A curious multiweb, spun from the lathe; And to perplexities woven: hear this truth: The oldest wisdoms e'er are sought in youth; Those things too small to thresh, those things of size And things too large for intake may comprise; The brilliant lights which luminate the night Consigns their captors, steals away their sight; 'Tis often sickness cuts away a wrong, And often health that may the ill prolong; 'Tis oft the wise too prideful to be poor And oft a fool who prides his wisdom more; A quate and stilly day's a day of death, A rushed and forceful day is full of breath; To rest's to die, to move's to live, to stall What you might say today's said not at all; The dead whisper more intently than the living cry out. That which is painful in the memory's set Is often that too glorious to forget. Adventures go unnoticed every day. So meek and unimportant is my lot, I'm small a purse of breath, of no import, The world's abustle, trade and truth go on, Yea, life and laughter take no note of me, The tasks of men have little care for me, We sleep, we struggle, still no pace was missed, The ancient world we stand upon has blinked, No more. But there's an anchored truth to this: One must be truly great to take upon One's self the trials of the small and weak. For if God were not God, why should He pay Attention to the prayers of penniless souls? Though, now when thee the heather doth traverse, Be thou acute and keen-eyed in thy walk, Look'st thou upon the smallest thing thy path, There may be epic fortunes in its train. Ask thee from now the waters why they laugh, Did they some happy resolution see To some long mortal struggle near their banks? Adventures go unnoticed, but I've lived As Love directed me - Love doth give sight To see the plight of others, and for them care - Love doth derive the splendor from the rote, From ordinary shows exceptional things, And if I've truly lived as I was meant, I can grow old now with no great regret. The rats have moved us to another world, What models make Man, that Nature can't undo? They build an empire, with feet fashioned in clay, The Golem falls, no piece is on another!, Babylon's idolatrous caryatid Doth tremble over time. Should Man grasp life? Nay, e'en in his success he fails, for his Innovations sponsored fall to dust, And soon no soul can arguably tell The crumbled remnants natural from of man; Have they intelligence? Aye, so do I; But they, ablaze, their fire is ablate, The strongest futile mind is worth its price. Have they a power? Aye, and so do I; Their hidden flame may but illume their souls, That they might suffer, and deny their acts, Mourn, grieve upon the loss of doing good! And, yea, these words, my children fair, one day Will but in hardened ears be occupied, Arraign for witness but the silent earth, And be then borne by only mischief's Muse As whispers on the coy and giftless wind Which shall these wisdoms weather wittingly 'Til travelers passing don't discern which patch My tiny insights e'er were cooped upon, But, then, my children, Earth takes back her prize. Was I some knowledge leased? It shall return, Was I a talent loaned? May't interest bear, We till the earth, to finger at its till, We ply the earth, we gently, meekly, plea That she might let our past return again, And all we have is substance to stay on As if she hates her swains, but then she lets A pension for them, that they may suits keep In persistence and diligence. What sight Is given Man, but sight to persevere? And what reward's in life, this world to flirt? When Man steps forward, Nature's bar steps back. Swift, off! Thou hast the turning earth beneath, And no vainglorious, sensual detour seek, Swift, to thy post! Thou'rt taken on a mare Who masters thee, thou'st set thy strokes, take care: When traveling legs doth falter thee and fail, When terns may find no way upon a swale, When faithful carriage cannot carry more, When thou'st forgotten what reposition's for, Sit down, dismount! When dizzied by thy head, When members tingle, screaming for their bed, When weak ye fall, when thou'st let in at last, Then Time, yea, Time, thy mount, turns toward thy past. Then in thy labour, revel - though stand ye can't, When thy course finds its running's end, ye shan't. Look long, and there thy traveling length survey, And to another rider, life relay. I've learned that love's a life as knows no death, Nor does it let the subjects in its rule Retreat in queasy greys and misty fogs Of forgetfulness, which can blur the strength Of its fiats and rule. What of life, then? What cadence have I? Chords for all my life, Conduction as I've never had before, What music as I gracefully should sound I'm not inculpate for - it is a round And what I sing is but what I repeat. The mournful strains we strained to sing before Are lost upon the empty, endless moor And we are left, a grateful pulse to beat, And may not worry for that behind these feet, It is the past, and past shall ever be, An act now passed, a thing already done And now our chorus echoes what the One Did say at first, as one we sing again: These are the ways of marlins, mice, and men. Befriended, loved, bewildered and betrayed! I'm now a life as has been multily stayed, A station as a love, friend, envoy, wife, No curtains e'er can close on such a life. Though change makes, change comes swiftly to the stage, I've not a tenant in the fantasies I sometimes pleased myself upon an afternoon - Why, is it not his trump upon the door? Why, has he come again upon his step - One hour, one balmy hour in the spring, Would then release him, in that afternoon, The hour dies, e'en if the hour came, That hour dies, but, aye, I know the truth. Stern, cold, keen, shivery, tempered, fire-iced sharp May be the truth, ungiving, hard, without An answer, bleak, unswervingly at post, And unaccomadating in itself; Life stays, and still goes on; a tiny thing It is, too small to hold our largest loves; This life's a child's plaything, and it tricks Our minds, if we can not the outcome see: It doth concern us little, but in love There's answers many. Think that we would live Except by Love, and thou deceiv'st thyself, As children toy we on the name of Love, It fascinates us, as the knowledge of Adulthood makes us wonder, want and long; Our life is nat'ral childhood, here we know Love but as play, a hard, ungiving study; We make it names, we paint it forms But Love may always something to these add, Some amendation make, some firm annote, Some reason answer, or new insight give; We then return the lesson in our play, And learn we know no more of Love than before, And in so knowing, find the lesson true. My children, educated! Find this sage No more or less in wisdom than you are; Love is our childhood plaything in this life Though afterwards we know it fullerly, And 't always stays a true compatriot, A playmate never lost, though better played, A lesson never learned, though better known, A unioned soul never in us a'twained, And never one, but always all in all. How can I love contain? I've told you all, I've told you naught, I've told you as I've known, But Love, dear children, speaks these things to you, Would know you, love you, merrymake with you, And fill Life's day with many diverse games; Love is today a bauble, thing, a thread To use unknowingly, unwittingly; Nay, what speak we? 'Tis Love as tells it better, My tale I let to Love, mark ye my speech, If you do not well take it, whoso shall? What when the kind do noxious things? What when The nations move, and mutable ones stay? How do we bear to lack our fondest loves? What when the trees are tired, and birds are flown To seek to warmth of other ambience? How do we carry on, when living's drawn Or evil overcomes the wisest good? Is it not brutal, as the cynic saith? We bear by love, continue in this faith, By it we live, by it we stay, for all, And when I love, it makes me feel so small. [Exeunt omnes.]

^~ * ^~

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