The Sea-Change

[Act 1]² Scene i.

The time is spring and summer of the year 1822. The scene is the sala on the first floor of Casa Magni, at Lerici. Door on L. five french windows on the back wall. These are now closed with slatted shutters. The walls have a faded decoration of frescoed garlands. The furniture is scanty, a makeshift of shabby 18^th cent. magnificence, and rough wooden stools. The ceiling is cracked and stained with damp, the whole room looks disused and out of condition.

Enter MARY, CLAIRE, and TRELAWNY, in travelling dress. MARY and TRELAWNY are preoccupied with some interior anxiety, which they conceal from CLAIRE.

with a gesture of displaying the room.

Here, is your sala, Mary. How does it please you?

If I were a lady in a poem, it would do well.

Penelope might sit here, weaving and grieving,

Or Hero trim her lamp for a drowned Leander.

But I am a poet’s wife.

Then it should please you;

For this is the very room for a poet,

Full of stains and shadows

With lyres and laurels on the walls.

Oh, it is certainly the room for Shelley!

But that’s not all. Laurels and shadows are not all.

Laurels and shadows are everywhere in Italy;

But when I open this window, everything changes: The house turns to a ship, we are at sea,

We suffer a sea-change.

(Goes towards window.)

Not yet, Trelawny. Do not open the window.

No, Trelawny! Do not let in the daylight yet!

My eyes are tired with the journey!

Let us wait till Shelley and the others come. We will be changed together. Let the sea wait!

Trelawny wants us to be turned to coral.

Trelawny wants to set the sea-nymphs tolling.

(Singing)

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,

Hark, now I hear it! Sing, Trelawny!³

Ding dong bell! Ding dong bell!

Listen!

Hark, now I hear it! Ding dong, ding dong.

Listen! (They are silent.)

Only the sea.

Only the sea.

I thought… No, I thought nothing. My nerves trouble me.

I am tired with travelling.

Why did we travel here so fast, so suddenly[?]

It was Shelley’s wish. You know how impetuous he is.

It seemed to me that we were running away.

And that I had left something behind.

Was it a letter, telling me of my child?

My sweet lost child. (Turning to TRELAWNY.)

You have not seen my Allegra.

Byron sent her to be brought up among nuns –

A mother were better.

(TRELAWNY approaches her with a look of intense compassion, then turns away.)

What shall we do to make this room less awkward Before the others arrive?

(She begins to move chairs about. CLAIRE and TRELAWNY help her. Enter, in travelling dress, SHELLEY, EDWARD and JANE WILLIAMS. JANE glances enquiringly at MARY. MARY shakes her head.)

(Wildly) What is your secret? What is it you know

And do not tell me? O Shelley, dearest Shelley,

You are a poet but compassionate.

You have lost children. Is my child dead?

(He looks at her in silence. She leans on a chair, weeping.)

Across the threshold of the spring.

Brief as the shadow of a linnet’s wing,

A shadow falls.

Light as a blossom shaken loose,

And wept by April dews,

A child is dead.

Why did you bring me to this desolate place To tell me I am desolate?

(SHELLEY leads her to the centre window, which he opens. It gives on to a flat roof, overlooking the sea. The afterglow of the sunset fills the room.)

Look out! Look round us! In what quietude

The mountains stand, and gaze upon the sea!

Cloaked in their woods, do they not seem like travellers, Spell-bound, lost in arrival?

They hear the assenting murmur of the wave,

The salt sweet air fingers their stoic brows;

Here is their journey’s end, here is the sea,

Hither their brooks, their cataracts, their rivers,

Have run, like children, before them.

Weep, weep, dear Claire, weep on this solemn strand! Weep, while the yearning wave clings to the rock, Sighing, and falls back, sighing. Weep, while the light Mutely relinquishes the mountain.

Here, in this innocent desolation, unlearn

Hate and remorse and sophistries of comfort,

And as the mountains gaze upon the sea

Gaze on death’s patient face till it grows beautiful.

(Close.)

Scene ii

Morning. Brilliant light. The centre window is open, JANE sits by it with her guitar, trying to pick up the tune sung by the fishermen on the strand.

Nicholas sailed to Jerusalem (Pray for us, Nicholas!)

When the storm came down an angel took the helm. Sail with us today, O good Saint Nicholas!

Sail with us today, O good Saint Nicholas!

(Enter EDWARD. While chorus continues he goes affectionately to JANE.)

My morning love! You sit there like a flower.

What are they doing, the fishermen down there[?]

They rig the boat, And make it ready for sea.

And sing of storms, do they not?

Sail with us today, O good Saint Nicholas!

If I were Nicholas, I would go with them.

One would quit heaven to sail

On such a sea, under so blue a sky.

Look, how the ripples fold, one into another,

Like feathers on the breast of a dove.

So blue, so fair, so folded, our summer lies before us,

O my love

What happiness!

When the storm came down… Not all are happy.

Claire, sorrowing for her child, has gone away, To visit graves and lawyers.

Shelley grieves for Claire;

And Mary – grieves for Mary.

Why does she grieve?

Shelley loves her no more.

Why must all poets be inconsistent in love?

Where is the rainbow’s wandering foot?

(JANE looks at him, puzzled.)

Have you never run,

To find the rainbow’s foot? Now, it is in the meadow, Now in the orchard. Now, it has crossed the brook

And is planted on the hillside. Track it as you will

It is always some other-where.

And still the rainbow arches overhead.

That is how Shelley loves, being a poet.

Poor Mary!

And now the rainbow’s foot is on the sea.

Why do they sing no more? Have they set sail?

I wanted to go with them; for while I sat

Looking in my empty heart for rhymes and jingles

I heard their song, rolling suddenly as Acheron

And the midge counterpoint of Jane’s guitar, till

I thought

These fishermen learn their music from their lives,

Savage, suppliant, and inexorable.

Why should I wait for my smart new pleasure-boat?

I will go with them

Till I discover the true note of the sea.

(He goes to the edge of the platform and looks down.)

There is the boat,

Abandoned, as though the waves had cast her up.

And the fishermen are standing by her, idle.

Here it comes, here it comes!

Look, to the northward. Make the boat fast!

What do you see?

A storm, out over the bay.

That little darkness to the northward. A storm.

A storm? A storm, out of this blue sky?

A storm, a storm, travelling this way!

(SHELLEY, EDWARD, JANE, stand on the platform looking out to sea. The lighting changes to a leaden grey.)

Faster than a dream it travels hither.

Our little world darkens and dwindles as the clouds

gather.

The wind has whirled the blue out of the sky.

The sea is shaken with a cold fever.

Arrowy sleet and leaping spray struggle together.

The rooks answer with an iron cry.

Out of the abyss the storm boils up and over.

Waves toss and winds blow me hither and thither. Like music from the stricken lyre I fly.

(They move out of sight along the platform. The room is now almost dark. Enter MARY.)

Shelley! Shelley! Where are you. Merciless God,

Where is he? Oh, he is merciless as you.

There is no mercy in God, no mercy in Shelley,

Why should I cry to either when neither hears me?

I will sit here like a patient wife and listen to the wind.

(She sits down. She remembers:)⁴

off-stage Listen, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine…

But that was four years ago, when he loved me.

O Mary dear, that thou wert here,

With thy brown eyes, bright and clear,

And thy sweet voice like a bird

Singing love to its lone mate.

Ah, my lone mate, my phoenix, I love you still.

But I can only croak like a raven! Where is he?

Shelley, where are you? Why do you leave me?

(SHELLEY, entering through a window.)

Mary!

(She throws herself on his breast, then starts back, affectedly.)

Cold, so wringing-wet and cold,

It is a drowned sailor I hold.

Then warm me at your breast.

Cold without and within,

I feel your cold heart under your cold skin.

Take pity on the ghost.

So cold and bitter as the brine.

Cold as your love are your cold lips on mine.

Yet I came at your call,

And came from further than you know.

And in a moment you will go,

And that will be all.

Cold, cold as a stone.

Reasonable as a skeleton.

Cold as the forsaken nest.

Cold and witty as an adder’s tongue,

Tedious as an old song,

That is the worst, that is the worst.

Scene closes.

Scene iii.

Evening. The room in candlelight. Three windows stand open, showing moonlight on the sea. EDWARD and JANE are playing chess, MARY lies on the sofa embroidering, SHELLEY leans against the window frame, reading.

I take your bishop. Check to your king.

Shelley should smile at the downfall of a bishop.

But he is drowned past news of the world in a book.

I have been reading of the remora.

It is a little thing, no larger than a child’s hand,

That fastens on the hull of a ship.

A barnacle and hatches into a goose.

I know. It is a sailor’s story.

It hatches into nothing with wings, dear Jane.

Oars, sail, tide, nothing can move that ship:

It lies becalmed, and rots upon the water.

And men have their remoras too:

Some insubstantial care, no larger than a child’s hand, That holds us back from joy and freedom of the mind.

No larger than a child’s hand…

We know what grieves you, Shelley: the dead Allegra.

She died of fever, in a cold nunnery;

A little fire dying on a cold stone.

Claire’s daughter and Byron’s daughter. Take your guitar, Jane, and sing her elegy.

I set my child to sleep and sail

Far over the blue sea.

The waves shall rock her easily

As though she lay on a mother’s knee. The sky shall watch over her

With the long look of a mother.

The loom of land shall thin and fail,

Far out in the blue sea.

The barren rock, the leafless tree,

The shore of human misery,

Transmuted, shall only show

Like a calm violet shadow.

Sail on! Fare-well! The moon shall

companion her

With a white foot on the water.

(SHELLEY goes out slowly by the door, L. Mary half-rises as though to follow him, then sinks back. JANE and EDWARD slowly resume their chess match. Enter TRELAWNY.)

Trelawny!

Trelawny!

The Pirate! what wind blows you here?

A rising off-shore breeze, my ladies. One that will blow

Your husbands out to sea, and leave you bird-alone.

I have ridden from Genoa, where the boat is building

And ready to set sail. Where is Shelley?

Not far. I heard his footstep on the beach.

Only a minute ago.

Oh, call him in.

He is in one of his melancholy moods.

This news will revive him.

He will come when he pleases. Time enough.

There will be all the summer for sailing!

For steering, tacking, heave-ho, and ship-ahoy!

Time enough, too, to grow tired of his summer

plaything.

No plaything, Mary, but a lively schooner:

Fast, strongly built, and Torbay-rigged. (Turning to Edward)                  It needed

Two tons of iron ballast to sober her

And make her manageable.

So much the better. I can feel her under me already Impassioned,

Nobly obedient to the helm,

Proud as a stag and limber as an eel.

Aye, but no ship to dream in, or rhyme on.

Shelley must brush the visions out of his eyes

And heave his books and papers overboard.

He cannot put to sea with Plato.

(SHELLEY re-enters, pale and exalted. He walks about the room while the others watch him with growing concern.)

I have seen… Oh, I have seen…

The moon had made a pathway on the water,

The night was intensely calm.

I saw the surf whiten and fade at my feet.

I heard the mile-long crash of the wave. And my own

heart beating.

I saw a naked child rise up out of the sea,

And clasp her hands upon her breast as though with joy

And smile at me!

Oh, it was she! Allegra! Allegra!

He saw the moonlight on the water.

Can such things be?

I saw the surf whiten and fade at my feet,

He saw the surf whiten and fade at his feet.

I heard the mile-long crash of the wave,

And my own heart beating.

He saw the moonlight and the fleeting spray.

How can a dead child rise up out of the grave?

I saw a naked child rise up out of the sea.

And clasp her hands upon her breast as though for joy.

Was it the moonlight or the fleeting spray?

And not the dead at rest?

And smile at me.

Woe is me! Woe is me!

It is Claire’s child, not mine, that he would see!

Oh, it was she, Allegra! Allegra!

I saw Allegra rise up out of the sea!

A dead child, rising joyful from the sea.

Is it a shadow of things past? Is it an omen of things

yet to be?

Scene closes.

ACT II Scene iv.

Mid-day. All five windows stand open. MARY and JANE on the platform. SHELLEY, EDWARD, TRELAWNY are grouped round a table, on which are maps and charts, which they are studying.

So, rounding the northernmost point of Corsica, we

anchor here

Then homeward, through the straits of Bonifacio.

Then onward to the Balearic Islands, onward to Spain!

Why should we not sail into the Atlantic itself

On a wind blowing from Africa? But when will she

come?

When will our boat come?

Here, from Cap Testa, there is a strong current.

Or shall we sail to Greece?

Here, one would need to stand well off from shore.

She has come!

She has come?

(MARY and JANE enter the room as the three men hurry to platform and stare about.)

You look for her in the wrong place.

(CLAIRE comes in by door L. taking off her bonnet and shawl. The three women form an embracing group, as the men re-enter.)

Welcome, dear Claire!

Welcome as snow in the heat of midsummer,

Welcome as a spar to a drowning mariner.

Why, who is fainting, and who is drowning?

Who but we?

Drowning in charts, in talks of currents and soundings,

Who but we?

Stormbound in wedlock, here we must toss and

flounder,

Longing for sympathy.

There, there!

Women are always vexed when husbands go to sea.

(SHELLEY turns to window.)

A sail!

(He hurries to the platform, and presently returns, dejectedly.)

How strange it is

To find Shelley longing for something not impossible…

Not moon, not unicorn, not even the regeneration of mankind,

But a boat, an ordinary wooden boat!

That is the sea-change I promised you.

The sea-change!

Yet no boat Shelley sailed in could be an ordinary boat:

He can work changes, too.

(SHELLEY, EDWARD, MARY, and JANE, who have [been] disputing in the background, now come forward.)

Pity us Claire!

Perched on these rocks in this crazy dwelling!

With a smokey chimney and a cracked ceiling.

Pity us Claire!

Teased by our wives from day’s end to day’s end…

While our faithless vessel coquets with our patience.

Why, who are the craziest, the lords or the ladies?

Here we must stay,

Combing our love-lorn hair,

Weeping like mermaids,

While they go jaunting away.

Away! Away!

Scolding like sea-mews, they flutter round us upbraiding.

Why does our boat delay?

Chafing, disputing, contending,

They only quarrel to make it up in the end.

I cannot endure it! Everything in this house

Is changed into fantasy, into sea-mews and mermaids.

Only my blood remains human; heavy with care,

Rocking my heart with wave on wave of foreboding,

I, alone, listen to the sea.

(As she turns from the others, SHELLEY and JANE come forward.)

I know you do not love the thought of our boat

Yet every day you watch the boats go to and fro,

Lightly, safely, as butterflies over a meadow.

Why should you be afraid?

I have all the songs and ballads On my side,

Where bright ladies grow dim, Waiting for a ship

That never comes again.

Not all the songs are written.

I will bring back songs for you, far lovelier,

More strange, more flowing…

Lovelier, stranger, more magical…

Ahoy!

Ahoy! Ahoy!

Is this the Englishman’s house?

Joy! Joy!

(They hasten to the platform.)

Here! Here! Steer this way. So. Now clear

The reef.

Easy! Easy! Now let her go!

nearer. Let her go!

Look, how she comes about. How she finds her way.

How smoothly she comes on!

Proud, painted, and new

Like the Virgin going in procession.

Going above the heads of the crowd.

How she comes in!

Easily riding like the rising moon.

(The sails of a ship come in sight at back of stage.)

My soul flies into her sails. I am gone. I am gone.

Scene closes.

Scene v.

Curtain down. All voices off.

On the eighth day of July, I watched them sail from the port of Livorno on their homeward voyage.

They start too late. They should have sailed two hours ago.

Soon, they will have the land-breeze.

They will have more than a land-breeze.

Look at those ragged clouds hanging in the south-west.

Look at smoke on the water.

There is a storm brewing.

The sea-fog gathers round the boat.

She carries too much sail.

I can see her no more.

(Curtain rises. Stage in semi-darkness, all windows open, faint light beyond. The three women are grouped before the centre window, in silhouette. Lighting diminishing by degrees.)

It had grown dark as night. The sea was leaden colour, solid and smooth as lead. Gusts of wind swept over it without ruffling it. Large drops of rain fell on it, rebounding as though they could not pierce its oily swell. There was a commotion in the air, a hubbub of threat and danger coming upon us from the sea.

Down with the topsails! Haul away! Make for the harbour!

Fishing craft under bare poles come crowding, jostling into port, running before the squall.

Ahoy there! Make way, make way!

(The storm breaks with a crash of thunder. The stage is in darkness, except for distant lightning across back scene. Storm music dies down, stage slowly lightens.)

When the horizon cleared I looked to seaward…

(Stage has lightened enough to reveal the bare shine of the sea.)

I looked to seaward… I looked to seaward…

Scene closes.

Scene vi.

Candlelight. All windows are shuttered, and the room is back as in scene i, except for some bales and boxes on the floor, ready for departure. MARY, in widow’s dress, sits at the table, writing: Enter TRELAWNY, who approaches her in silence.

Do you remember how you came,

And stood, as you do now, saying no word,

Until at last I said, Is there no hope? And you were

silent.

(Noise of the sea, as in scene i.)

Do you remember our arrival,

And how I said, Listen! – and you said, Only the sea?

(She glances at what she was writing, and crumples it impatiently.)

You tire yourself with writing. Do not do so.

I must write down my recollection of Shelley.

I must; and yet I cannot. Tears come, and they are

true,

But my words betray him. What shall I write?

Write, above all, that he was never-failing.

(She looks up, momentarily disconcerted by this unexpected word.)

Do you remember, remembering our arrival,

How we stood here, huddled in fear and falsehood,

Being afraid of a dead child?

And how, when Shelley came, we were suddenly

ransomed,

Our cautious fetters struck off, our hearts recalled.

To the truth of living, and the truth of dying?

(MARY’S attitude and expression gradually animated by passionate attention.)

Do you remember how he would flash and frolic

His spirit of delight through our dull vapours,

And how his twilight enfolded our garish day?

How he was wings to every joy, and glamour

To every hope; and a cold clay

Sepulchre darker than our utmost melancholy?

Being a poet, a poet!

A poet!…

How, from our mortal remembrance

He is wafted;

He rises to that untrammelled region

Where poets as poems survive.

Dying, he has reversed the sea-change.

The sea enriched by him,

And the wave lovelier

His winding-sheet forever after.

A poet. But not as the timid world would belie him:

One dwelling in a dream’s enclosure

Whose blood dropped from a painless wound

Whose imagination complied with a whim’s disposal;

No! But like his own Prometheus Unbound

To extremity suffering, forgiving, and defying.

‘To love, and bear, to hope

Till hope creates from its own wreck

The thing it contemplates…

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:

This, like thy glory’⁵ …like thy glory

…thy glory…

(The curtain falls slowly.)

To love, and bear, and hope.

Now from our mortal remembrance he is wafted

Till hope creates

From its own wreck the thing it contemplates

He rises untrammelled to that region

Where the poets as poems survive

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:

Dying, he has reversed the sea-change:

This, like thy glory…like thy glory…

The sea enriched by him, and the wave

Lovelier his winding sheet forever after

Thy glory!

Scene closes.