The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950

  But waiting is long.

  [Enter the FIRST PRIEST with a banner of St. Stephen borne before him. The lines sung are in italics.]

  FIRST PRIEST. Since Christmas a day: and the day of St. Stephen, First

  Martyr.

  Princes moreover did sit, and did witness falsely against me.

  A day that was always most dear to the Archbishop Thomas.

  And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice:

  Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.

  Princes moreover did sit.

  [Introit of St. Stephen is heard]

  [Enter the SECOND PRIEST, with a banner of St. John the Apostle borne before him.]

  SECOND PRIEST. Since St. Stephen a day: and the day of St. John the

  Apostle.

  In the midst of the congregation he opened his mouth.

  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,

  Which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled

  Of the word of life; that which we have seen and heard

  Declare we unto you.

  In the midst of the congregation.

  [Introit of St. John is heard]

  [Enter the THIRD PRIEST, with a banner of the Holy Innocents borne before him.]

  THIRD PRIEST. Since St. John the Apostle a day: and the day of the

  Holy Innocents.

  Out of the mouth of very babes, O God.

  As the voice of many waters, of thunder, of harps,

  They sang as it were a new song.

  The blood of thy saints have they shed like water,

  And there was no man to bury them. Avenge, O Lord,

  The blood of thy saints. In Rama, a voice heard, weeping.

  Out of the mouth of very babes, O God!

  [THE PRIESTS stand together with the banners behind them]

  FIRST PRIEST. Since the Holy Innocents a day: the fourth day from

  Christmas.

  THE THREE PRIESTS. Rejoice we all, keeping holy day.

  FIRST PRIEST. As for the people, so also for himself, he offereth

  for sins.

  He lays down his life for the sheep.

  THE THREE PRIESTS. Rejoice we all, keeping holy day.

  FIRST PRIEST. To-day?

  SECOND PRIEST. To-day, what is to-day? For the day is half gone.

  FIRST PRIEST. To-day, what is to-day? but another day, the dusk of

  the year.

  SECOND PRIEST. To-day, what is to-day? Another night, and another

  dawn.

  THIRD PRIEST. What day is the day that we know that we hope for or

  fear for?

  Every day is the day we should fear from or hope from. One

  moment

  Weighs like another. Only in retrospection, selection,

  We say, that was the day. The critical moment

  That is always now, and here. Even now, in sordid particulars

  The eternal design may appear.

  [Enter the FOUR KNIGHTS. The banners disappear]

  FIRST KNIGHT. Servants of the King.

  FIRST PRIEST. And known to us.

  You are welcome. Have you ridden far?

  FIRST KNIGHT. Not far to-day, but matters urgent

  Have brought us from France. We rode hard,

  Took ship yesterday, landed last night,

  Having business with the Archbishop.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Urgent business.

  THIRD KNIGHT. From the King.

  SECOND KNIGHT. By the King’s order.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Our men are outside.

  FIRST PRIEST. You know the Archbishop’s hospitality.

  We are about to go to dinner.

  The good Archbishop would be vexed

  If we did not offer you entertainment

  Before your business. Please dine with us.

  Your men shall be looked after also.

  Dinner before business. Do you like roast pork?

  FIRST KNIGHT. Business before dinner. We will roast your pork

  First, and dine upon it after.

  SECOND KNIGHT. We must see the Archbishop.

  THIRD KNIGHT. Go, tell the Archbishop

  We have no need of his hospitality.

  We will find our own dinner.

  FIRST PRIEST [to attendant]. Go, tell His Lordship.

  FOURTH KNIGHT. How much longer will you keep us waiting?

  [Enter THOMAS]

  THOMAS [to PRIESTS]. However certain our expectation

  The moment foreseen may be unexpected

  When it arrives. It comes when we are

  Engrossed with matters of other urgency.

  On my table you will find

  The papers in order, and the documents signed.

  [To KNIGHTS]. You are welcome, whatever your business may be.

  You say, from the King?

  FIRST KNIGHT. Most surely from the King.

  We must speak with you alone.

  THOMAS [to PRIESTS] Leave us then alone.

  Now what is the matter?

  FIRST KNIGHT. This is the matter.

  THE THREE KNIGHTS. You are the Archbishop in revolt against the

  King; in rebellion to the King and the law of the land;

  You are the Archbishop who was made by the King; whom he set

  in your place to carry out his command.

  You are his servant, his tool, and his jack,

  You wore his favours on your back,

  You had your honours all from his hand; from him you had the

  power, the seal and the ring.

  This is the man who was the tradesman’s son: the backstairs brat

  who was born in Cheapside;

  This is the creature that crawled upon the King; swollen with

  blood and swollen with pride.

  Creeping out of the London dirt,

  Crawling up like a louse on your shirt,

  The man who cheated, swindled, lied; broke his oath and betrayed

  his King.

  THOMAS. This is not true.

  Both before and after I received the ring

  I have been a loyal subject to the King.

  Saving my order, I am at his command,

  As his most faithful vassal in the land.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Saving your order! let your order save you —

  As I do not think it is like to do.

  Saving your ambition is what you mean,

  Saving your pride, envy and spleen.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Saving your insolence and greed.

  Won’t you ask us to pray to God for you, in your need?

  THIRD KNIGHT. Yes, we’ll pray for you!

  FIRST KNIGHT. Yes, we’ll pray for you!

  THE THREE KNIGHTS. Yes, we’ll pray that God may help you!

  THOMAS. But, gentlemen, your business

  Which you said so urgent, is it only

  Scolding and blaspheming?

  FIRST KNIGHT. That was only

  Our indignation, as loyal subjects.

  THOMAS. Loyal? to whom?

  FIRST KNIGHT. To the King!

  SECOND KNIGHT. The King!

  THIRD KNIGHT. The King!

  THE THREE KNIGHTS. God bless him!

  THOMAS. Then let your new coat of loyalty be worn

  Carefully, so it get not soiled or torn.

  Have you something to say?

  FIRST KNIGHT. By the King’s command.

  Shall we say it now?

  SECOND KNIGHT. Without delay,

  Before the old fox is off and away.

  THOMAS. What you have to say

  By the King’s command — if it be the King’s command —

  Should be said in public. If you make charges,

  Then in public I will refute them.

  FIRST KNIGHT. No! here and now!

  [They make to attack him, but the priests and attendants return and quietly interpose themselves.]

  THOMAS. Now and here!

  FIRST KNIGHT. Of your ear
lier misdeeds I shall make no mention.

  They are too well known. But after dissension

  Had ended, in France, and you were endued

  With your former privilege, how did you show your gratitude?

  You had fled from England, not exiled

  Or threatened, mind you; but in the hope

  Of stirring up trouble in the French dominions.

  You sowed strife abroad, you reviled

  The King to the King of France, to the Pope,

  Raising up against him false opinions.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Yet the King, out of his charity.

  And urged by your friends, offered clemency.

  Made a pact of peace, and all dispute ended

  Sent you back to your See as you demanded.

  THIRD KNIGHT. And burying the memory of your transgressions

  Restored your honours and your possessions.

  All was granted for which you sued:

  Yet how, I repeat, did you show your gratitude?

  FIRST KNIGHT. Suspending those who had crowned the young prince,

  Denying the legality of his coronation.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Binding with the chains of anathema.

  THIRD KNIGHT. Using every means in your power to evince

  The King’s faithful servants, every one who transacts

  His business in his absence, the business of the nation.

  FIRST KNIGHT. These are the facts.

  Say therefore if you will be content

  To answer in the King’s presence. Therefore were we sent.

  THOMAS. Never was it my wish

  To uncrown the King’s son, or to diminish

  His honour and power. Why should he wish

  To deprive my people of me and keep me from my own

  And bid me sit in Canterbury, alone?

  I would wish him three crowns rather than one,

  And as for the bishops, it is not my yoke

  That is laid upon them, or mine to revoke.

  Let them go to the Pope. It was he who condemned them.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Through you they were suspended.

  SECOND KNIGHT. By you be this amended.

  THIRD KNIGHT. Absolve them.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Absolve them.

  THOMAS. I do not deny

  That this was done through me. But it is not I

  Who can loose whom the Pope has bound.

  Let them go to him, upon whom redounds

  Their contempt towards me, their contempt towards the Church

  shown.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Be that as it may, here is the King’s command:

  That you and your servants depart from this land.

  THOMAS. If that is the King’s command, I will be bold

  To say: seven years were my people without

  My presence; seven years of misery and pain.

  Seven years a mendicant on foreign charity

  I lingered abroad: seven years is no brevity.

  I shall not get those seven years back again.

  Never again, you must make no doubt,

  Shall the sea run between the shepherd and his fold.

  FIRST KNIGHT. The King’s justice, the King’s majesty,

  You insult with gross indignity;

  Insolent madman, whom nothing deters

  From attainting his servants and ministers.

  THOMAS. It is not I who insult the King,

  And there is higher than I or the King.

  It is not I, Becket from Cheapside,

  It is not against me, Becket, that you strive.

  It is not Becket who pronounces doom,

  But the Law of Christ’s Church, the judgement of Rome.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Priest, you have spoken in peril of your life.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Priest, you have spoken in danger of the knife.

  THIRD KNIGHT. Priest, you have spoken treachery and treason.

  THE THREE KNIGHTS. Priest! traitor, confirmed in malfeasance.

  THOMAS. I submit my cause to the judgement of Rome.

  But if you kill me, I shall rise from my tomb

  To submit my cause before God’s throne.

  [Exit]

  FOURTH KNIGHT. Priest! monk! and servant! take, hold, detain,

  Restrain this man, in the King’s name.

  FIRST KNIGHT. Or answer with your bodies.

  SECOND KNIGHT. Enough of words.

  THE FOUR KNIGHTS. We come for the King’s justice, we come with

  swords.

  [Exeunt]

  CHORUS. I have smelt them, the death-bringers, senses are quickened

  By subtile forebodings; I have heard

  Fluting in the night-time, fluting and owls, have seen at noon

  Scaly wings slanting over, huge and ridiculous. I have tasted

  The savour of putrid flesh in the spoon. I have felt

  The heaving of earth at nightfall, restless, absurd. I have heard

  Laughter in the noises of beasts that make strange noises: jackal,

  jackass, jackdaw; the scurrying noise of mouse and jerboa; the

  laugh of the loon, the lunatic bird. I have seen

  Grey necks twisting, rat tails twining, in the thick light of dawn. I

  have eaten

  Smooth creatures still living, with the strong salt taste of living

  things under the sea; I have tasted

  The living lobster, the crab, the oyster, the whelk and the prawn;

  and they live and spawn in my bowels, and my bowels dissolve

  in the light of dawn. I have smelt

  Death in the rose, death in the hollyhock, sweet pea, hyacinth,

  primrose and cowslip. I have seen

  Trunk and horn, tusk and hoof, in odd places;

  I have lain on the floor of the sea and breathed with the breathing

  of the sea-anemone, swallowed with ingurgitation of the

  sponge. I have lain in the soil and criticised the worm. In the

  air

  Flirted with the passage of the kite, I have plunged with the kite

  and cowered with the wren. I have felt

  The horn of the beetle, the scale of the viper, the mobile hard

  insensitive skin of the elephant, the evasive flank of the fish.

  I have smelt

  Corruption in the dish, incense in the latrine, the sewer in the

  incense, the smell of sweet soap in the woodpath, a hellish

  sweet scent in the woodpath, while the ground heaved. I have

  seen

  Rings of light coiling downwards, descending

  To the horror of the ape. Have I not known, not known

  What was coming to be? It was here, in the kitchen, in the passage,

  In the mews in the barn in the byre in the market-place

  In our veins our bowels our skulls as well

  As well as in the plottings of potentates

  As well as in the consultations of powers.

  What is woven on the loom of fate

  What is woven in the councils of princes

  Is woven also in our veins, our brains,

  Is woven like a pattern of living worms

  In the guts of the women of Canterbury.

  I have smelt them, the death-bringers; now is too late

  For action, too soon for contrition.

  Nothing is possible but the shamed swoon

  Of those consenting to the last humiliation.

  I have consented, Lord Archbishop, have consented.

  Am torn away, subdued, violated,

  United to the spiritual flesh of nature,

  Mastered by the animal powers of spirit,

  Dominated by the lust of self-demolition,

  By the final utter uttermost death of spirit,

  By the final ecstasy of waste and shame,

  O Lord Archbishop, O Thomas Archbishop, forgive us, forgive us,

  pray for us that we may pray for you, out of our shame.