Alone and free. 
Since first in flowery meads a child I ran,
My one long thirst—­to be alone and free. 
Free of all laws, creeds, codes, and common tests, Shameless, anarchic, infinite. 
Why, then,
I might have done in that dark liberty—­
If I should say ‘a good deed,’ men would laugh, But here are none to laugh. 
The godless world
Be thanked there is no God to spy on me,
Catch me and crown me with a vulgar crown
For what I do:  if I should once believe
The horror of that ancient Eavesdropper
Behind the starry arras of the skies,
I should—­well, well, enough of menaces—­
should not do the thing I come to do. 
What do I come to do?  Let me but try
To spell it to my soul. 
Suppose a man
Perfectly free and utterly alone,
Free of all love of law, equally free
Of all the love of mutiny it breeds,
Free of the love of heaven, and also free
Of all the love of hell it drives us to; Not merely void of rules, unconscious of them; So strong that naught alive could do him hurt, So wise that he knew all things, and so great That none knew what he was or what he did—­ A lawless giant.

[A pause:  then in a low voice.]

Would he not be good? 
Hate is the weakness of a thwarted thing,
Pride is the weakness of a thing unpraised. 
But he, this man.... 
He would be like a child
Girt with the tomes of some vast library,
Who reads romance after romance, and smiles
When every tale ends well:  impersonal
As God he grows—­melted in suns and stars;
So would this boundless man, whom none could spy,
Taunt him with virtue, censure him with vice,
Rejoice in all men’s joys; with golden pen
Write all the live romances of the earth
To a triumphant close.... 
            Alone and free—­
In this grey, cool, clean garden, washed with winds,
What do I come to do among the grass,
The daisies, and the dews?  An awful thing,
To prove I am that man. 
            That while these saints
Taunt me with trembling, dare me to revenge,
I breathe an upper air of ancient good
And strong eternal laughter; send my sun
And rain upon the evil and the just,
Turn my left cheek unto the smiter.  He
That told me, sword in hand, that I had fallen
Lower than anger, knew not I had risen
Higher than pride.... 
            Enough, the deeds are mine.

[Takes out the title-deeds.]

I come to write the end of a romance. 
A good romance:  the characters—­Lord Orm. 
Type of the starved heart and stored brain,
Who strives to hate and cannot; fronting him—­
Redfeather, rake in process of reform,
At root a poet:  I have hopes of him: 
He can love virtue, for he still loves vice. 
He is not all burnt out.  He beats me there
(How I beat him in owning it!); in love
He is still young, and has the joy of shame. 
And for the Lady Olive—­who shall speak?