Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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4 The Augusta Seminary Annual. betli draws l ack, fearful of the future wlien the deed is done, and to his wife ' s questions, answers only : I dare do all may become a man. She scorns to wear a heart so white, and taunts hini with his cowardice — Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Letting I dare not wait upon I would ? From this time sucli will she account his love, and he who dares do all else dares not hear tlie word ' ' coward fall from his wife ' s lips. How still and sweet the breezes blow around Macbeth ' s castle, when Duncan enters it to come forth no more I The martlets coo pleasantly beneatli the eaves and speak only of peace and happi- ness to the innocent hearts of Duncan and Banquo. But how soon, alas ! the black shades of night fall upon it, foreshadowing darkly the gloom even now descending on the souls of Macbeth and his wife. She has sworn to do tliis and she will not draw back. No airy daggers mock at her, and she arranges, with un- faltering skill, all the details of the plot. For a while she has succeeded in suspending her woman ' s nature, and she thinks of nothing but how to accomplish the deed. Yet, try as she will, she cannot stifle the memories of the Past as they come thronging back to her : Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done it. Did the sight of the venerable old king, sleeping in peace his last earthly sleep, remind her of her white-haired father, whom she Md loved so well in the old, glad days of her girlhood ? We can imagine that she turned away witli a sob, her res(jlution not weak- ened, but her heart softened and touched. At last, Macbeth ' s courage is screwed to the sticking place, and the deed of dreadful note is done. Then comes the reaction. Be- fore the accomplishment of her design she had paid no heed to the terrors of the night, but now every sound frightens her, and she hears voices calling through the darkness — Sleep, sleep no more ; Macbeth doth murder sleep —

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' Hie Augusta Seminary Annual. 3 •jiizini; toi-tli into tlic (lai ' kii( ' s . Who is it the Kiuly (iriioch ex- l)eets this iii , ' ht ' . No uX vv than Macbeth, Thane of (Tlaiiiis, and the son (»f licr father ' s friiMid. Stay ; even now the elear notes of the elai ' ion come echuiiii ; ii] the i;Ien. Ah I he is come; and the plaided, tartaned strange)-, witli the ea le feather in his bonnet, starts at tlie si ht of the iiirli h form in tlie doorway. He had not lioped to find so fair a Hower blooming in s j wihl a place. As for her, tlie brave blood of a long line of noble ancestors surges hotly throngh her veins as, at the sui)])er-l)oard that night, he tells of feats of arms and deeds of valor. The days tly by on golden wings, and still the young Thane stays, and (iruoch learns to find pleasure only when he is with her. Together they seek out the sweetest flowers of the wind- sheltered glens or ride to hunt at early dawn. The old Thane watches the pair well pleased, and wlien Macbeth at length asks the maiden ' s hand in marriage he gladly gives consent. Nfacbeth, rejoicing, carries the fair Ijride off to his own castle. But her woof of fate is woven ; she has reached the turning of the roads — the middle point — where the sunbeams of one path in- termingle with the shadows of the other. She has left the tur- rets and ivy-mantled battlements of her home, and her fate is tied to that of her husband for weal or for woe. To him she confides her earthly happiness, her life, her soul, her all, and to help him attain the golden round she hesitates not to sear her conscience and break her heart. Before long she is to prove the strength of that love she has declared for him. For him she tramples under foot all her natural tenderness and womanly weakness — outrages her very nature and finally dies. The powers of evil seem to have leagued together to destroy Macbeth ' s soul, and in the gray duskiness of the lonely heath the Weird Sistei ' s have already struck the evil chord in him which answers responsive to their touch. Glamis he is, and Cawdor and the other— he will attain. And so his wife through love for him and to gain for all his days and nights, Solely sovereign sway and masterdom, calls on the murdering ministers that wait on nature ' s mischief, to stop u]) the access and ])assage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shaixj her fell purpose. Yet, even then Mac-

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The Augusta Seminary A inval. 5 until ;it last slic can stand im more, and tinds rest f(ir a while in nnconseionsiiest;. It is lucbeth now who takes the lead. He ueedH no 5uiding hand upon the downward road. Conseienee no lontrer sheds lior dim lii ht in the twili«;]it of his soul. Henceforth He sliall spurn f ' ati , scorn ileatli, And bear his liopes ' bove wisdom, love and fear. Slie can go no further. Her marvelous self-possession never fails her before her husband, but when alone tliiek-ooming fancies throw tlieir shadows over her, and she realizes that he has reached a point in his career when her sympatliy and sustaining hand can do no more for him. From tliis time he must work out liis fate, even to tlie crack of doom, ' alone ; and it is with a fearful sick- ening at lieart and hopeless despair, after the baiKpiet scene, that she answers his questions, How goes the night V with the words, Almost at odds with morning, which is which. Her whole after life is one long ex])iation for her crime. Amid the sleep of nature her conscience cannot sleep, and the will, wdiicli, when waking, no human power could bend, asleep, refuses to obey her. In the dim moonlight of memory she reviews each moment of that awful night and tries in vain to wash the blood off her little hand. Duncan is in his grave : After life ' s fitful fever, he sleeps well ; but she, who to gain her peace, sent Duncan to peace, can find no peace. Hers is a mind diseased, The memory of a rooted sorrow, and she dies ; all the sunny dreams of her youth buried forever in the darkness and horror of her death. Margaret Laxe.