# Three Plays/Cythera

CYTHERA.
CYTHERA.
Personages of the play.
| Colette | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Girls. |
| Sylvie | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Girls. |
| Hou-Ché | Hou-Ché | A Chinese Girl. |
| Ombrage | Ombrage | A Young Poet. |
| Cassandre | Cassandre | An Old Peasant. |
| Sophron | Sophron | A Philosopher. |
| Yves | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Artists. |
| Amis | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Artists. |
| Gaspard | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Artists. |
| Celadon | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Young Artists. |
| Antony | Antony | A Boy. |
| Father Bernadine | Father Bernadine | An Aged Priest. |
| Peregrina | Peregrina | A Stranger Lady. |
| Hermes | Hermes | Her Companion. |
Courtiers, Ladies, Children, and Musicians.
Period.—The early eighteenth century.
The action takes place in a glade of tall old trees just touch'd by Autumn. To the left is a garden—architecture, baluster, and slowly dropping fountain. Thro' a clearing to the right a blue lagoon melts into a background of misty peaks, and the gilded masts and half-furl'd rainbow sails of an otherwise unseen galley appear.
The Farandôle sweeps down and across the glade from right to left.
​THE FARANDÔLE.
We'll to the woods no more, lopp'd is the laurel now, The glory gay despoil'd, and leafless every bough! The fair crowns cut away, that grew so green before, Passionate pilgrims pass, we'll to the woods no more!
We'll to the woods no more, the green glades nymph bereft In order'd columns fall, like swathe by scythesman left. The woodland shrine is fell'd, we lov'd so well of yore, Poor pilgrims dis-possess'd, we'll to the woods no more.
Ah fall'n, fall'n low, the pillars of our fane! Whose leaf-enwoven walls may rise no more again. From high pil'd roof of boughs, from shadow-dappl'd floor, Passionate pilgrims pass! We'll to the woods no more!
Ombrage.—(Looking after the dancers):
Passionate pilgrims, so your passions pass, I deem'd the laurel would outlast your loves, The bay grow greenly yet when you were grey, But they have fall'n and your loves abide, Light loves as little lasting as the leaves Renew'd each spring-tide, aye, and better so, Since fleeting love is like the wayside well You drink of, passing, but enduring love Is bitter and unfathomable, salt as brine, Mysterious as an unsounded sea.
​(Sylvie appears left and listens a moment.)
Sylvie:
What do you murmur, moody wanderer? Watching the dancers with a jaundic'd eye! Is nothing lovely in this gay green world?
Ombrage:
Much that is lovely, little to be lov'd, Friends who are fickle, women who are false And planets unpropitious.
Sylvie:
O, have done, You are the world's eternal malcontent, You nurse a grudge 'gainst all humanity! Your sensibility's so exquisite, The Zephyr seems to you a boreal blast, The Summer sunshine not to be endur'd.
Methinks had you the power, you would call Some all-annihilating ruin down Upon this old earth. When the bearded star Last Autumn seem'd to threat the beechen woods So low it hung, so fiery-menacing, I'd watch you gaze on it as tho' you pray'd Some conflagration hasten on the day Supreme when Earth, dismasted, derelict, Shall roll thro' space her all-dispeopled hull Drifting, abandon'd on the tide of stars To split in shatter'd wrack athwart the prow Of some huge planet's hostile oncoming. What is it that you lack, that you lament, What makes you go so sadly, in the sun?
Ombrage:
I seek a beauty Earth has not to give, And I am tangl'd in as curs'd a web As ever the weaving sisters wrought awry.
​Sylvie:
I wish you clearer vision, and sunnier mind, What seek you fairer than this glade of ours, Where the Court ladies with their gallants dance, And like a butterfly the Eastern girl The Jesuits sent from China for the Queen, Flutters and poises, while the rippl'd lake Glimmers in sunlit silver thro' the green.
Ombrage:
So you perceive it, thus to me appears This—to your vision—so enchanted glade, Trees heavy foliag'd and soon to fall, Too old to stand for many winters more Against the melancholy of a lake Whence fever wakes at starset, and a sward Where ladies over-ripe and listless swains, —These young too long, and these too early old—
Exchange their vows and murmur'd madrigal With lip-devotion from the heart afar, With words of flame that melt not lips that freeze, In faded light of yellow afternoon They drowse their disillusion with a dance, Subduing sorrow to a saraband, Attuning madness to the minuet And passion to the pavane,
(To the dancers.)
While you may, O silken shepherd of the gilded crook, And masquerading satin shepherdess —Your single lamb perfum'd with bergamot,— Play your brocaded pastoral! play on Your comedy of mimic love and hate, With trivial interlude of muted strings Or far-off winding of a huntsman's horn. Soon the long-brooding thunderstorm shall break
Crashing athwart your dainty passionless play, As when there peals the solemn organ-blast Sonorous, of the deep Autumnal wind— Dirge of cicala and of butterfly— Drowning the languid songs of Summertide!
STAR-GAZER'S SONG.
Ombrage.—(Sings):
Star-stricken-constellation-cross'd I call to the clear unanswering sky, 'Where lurks my foe, inimical stars? Silver Procyon, ruby Mars? A gem of the glittering galaxy?'
Was it Aldeboran's rusted gold Mis-rul'd my wayward destiny? Whose was the influence malign? Emerald Altair, was't thine? Thine leaden Saturn, heavy and old? Or Opaline Algol's evil eye?
Hou-Ché.—(To Ombrage):
You count yourself star-stricken, what of me? The Weaving Sisters wrought me webs of woe, The Oxen trod me underfoot, the Sieve Sav'd me the sorrow, letting 'scape the joy. The Watery Stars dropp'd rain of tears on me, The northward pointing Dipper never pour'd Me draught of gladness, only wine of myrrh. My Father of a hundred cars was Lord, His sway extending to the four far seas And when he slept in pretious jade in-urn'd
My brother chose his bed in flowers to make And lay him down beneath the willow tree, Till driv'n from rule by a familiar foe He drank of dragon's blood, and ended all. Then was I sold to an Ambassador, And overseas, a slave, in alien court I please your princes with my strange array An exile, in a foreign land, en'slav'd, Sure there are many more ill-starr'd than you.
Father Bernadine:
Surely the Golden Age rolls round again Since this fair summer came to bless our shore, Each day brings a fresh wonder to the birth, Or turns some wonted beauty fairer still, More meekly musical these crooning doves
More iris-hued their neck, more coralline The little feet that follow where she goes, This Stranger-Lady, pilgrim from the sea, Around whose galley, day-long, dolphins play!
Sophron:
Aye, sea-gulls who at starkest winter-tide Still shun the inland neighbourhood of man, Come idly circling all the noonday through, And shake with wings aslant the rose-leaves down Upon their Siren-Mistress!
Father Bernadine:
The lagoon Warmer and bluer growing at every tide Bears from the open ocean to our shore A sand more silver, amber and ambergris. Treasure of rosy-hued or emerald weed, Dyed with intenser colour, fairer shells
Than I had thought our cold sea held in store, But sure some genial influence abroad Breathes from the deep or showers from on high, For on the gray wall of our abbey grange An old vine droops, tho' trebly secular With weight of grapes beyond man's memory, And as gold day turns silver evening We mark, rose-flaming in a violet sky The planet Hesper burn as bright, as clear As wedding torch of epithalamy Lit for this old world's spousal with a star!
(Father Bernadine and Sophron pass out left.)
(Enter Colette, Sylvie, and young men.)
Colette:
Here let us rest, one cannot dance all day! Our farandôle is finish'd, soon the Court Will tread their study'd stately minuet, Pacing and pausing as the cadence falls.
​Sylvie:
Bring me a draught from yonder brimming urn A drowsy river-nymph lets lean, and drip, Just now it were as welcome as a cup Drawn from the faëry people's wishing-well, 'The well in the wood, where the dearest dream comes true' Our grandames, spinning, us'd to sing us of.
Colette:
I had forgotten the strange old spinning song. 'The well in the wood, where the dearest dream comes true, The wood where grows the herb of Heart-content, O'er which the trusting youth or maiden, bent, Finds dream-fulfilment, aye, and Hearts'-ease too!' That's but the burthen, I forget the song!
​Yves:
I fear that well ran dry long years ago, But far in the beechen wood the sources spring Which feed this fountain, think to your content, This is the true well's water, drink and dream And waking have your wish!
All:
The cup, the cup!
Amis:
If that be all, drink you at any spring, 'Twill serve your purpose, act but steadfastly, Waste no while wishing, will and dare and do! The dream-sick soul is barren, the virile mind Begets and brings his purpose to the birth, Moulding the plastic forces of his life That way or this as bids a strenuous will. So dare to live your poem and your play Nor keep distinct the deed and the desire, The act's anticipation, and the act!
​Celadon:
If we had found the woodland wishing-well, What would you wish for?
Amis:
What does youth and prime And old age wish for, Very Beauty.
Sophron:
Aye! But what is Very Beauty, seeking which Sculptor, painter, and poet have differing aims, Young Anthony still scribbles in his book Whilst Yves the Sonnet's sequence still pursues, Yet each is longing for and seeking—what? And where to find it, that we all would know.
Gaspard:
Maybe that I can tell you, there are days When Nature seems so near to us, so kind,
So comprehending, you might almost deem All Earth were standing tiptoe, in a hush Breathless, expectant of some spoken word Breath'd from the sky or whisper'd from the sea A spell to heal the hurt of the wounded world, To win discordant stars to tune again. So must we dwell with Nature till the hour When she reveal her secret!
Amis:
Art for me! For art is nature better'd.
Gaspard:
Say you so?
Amis:
Nature is like the ever-flowing spring Running to waste at whiles, and breaking bounds, Art is the wilful water canaliz'd,
Stor'd for refreshment and for pleasure baths Breaking in fountains to delight the eye. Since Beauty dwell alone in mind of man Nature knows not that she is beautiful, And those ideas which all confusédly And all obscurely Nature may present Art orders, varys, harmonizes, clears.
Sophron:
How, then, define your beauty— what it is?
Gaspard:
Diversity reduc'd to unity, The multiple made simple.
Amis:
Nay, for me, A certain consonance of things diverse.
​Celadon:
The outcome of an order'd energy, Contrast and correspondence.
Yves:
Symmetry, Variety, or regularity.
Sophron:
You seem but ill-agreéd, and I affirm That art of Sculptor, Painter, Poet, Bard Is Charm and Pleasure, never Strength and Life. Truth is the only living Beauty. You Who prate of Very Beauty Visible, You seem—at least to us Philosophers— Most like to children playing on the shore To one who has explor'd the middle sea, The sunless depth where groves unearthly wave, Of giant weed and growth unfathomable. Who, safe escap'd the dreadful Remora
And clasping polyp, comes to shore again, Breathing a deep draught of the living air, Shaking the tangled weed from breast and brow, To find his deeds of deep discovery Discounted and disputed, travers'd, weigh'd, As false or true, by forward babbling boys Who guage the dim recesses of the deep By ankle-deep exploring of the bay! Truth is a pearl that lies in the deep sea A snowy peak that towers overhead, Your 'Beauty's' but a mocking mirage!
Ombrage:
Aye, But we who on the desert border dwell Prefer the mirage to the wilderness, The imag'd waters to the barren sands, We know that brackish springs for us must serve, We seek no draught of water from that lake,
Yet love its very unreality, Catching a fancy'd coolness from its blue, A feign'd refreshment from its waving palms, Content, so that it veil the burning sand That rings us round about, inevitably.
Yves.—(To Sophron):
And since you say that unattainable Your Truth, that is the only Beauty dwells Thron'd on a high crag, out of reach, afar, Past waters ferryless, unfordable, Unnavigable lakes and bridgeless streams, How know you but that some delusive mist Colour the sheer peak to a lovely hue, A black rock masquing in a painted veil, Unlovely, barren?
Celadon:
Fairer, better far Than sterile Truth, a fertile Fantasy! A lovely dream than dun reality!
​Father Bernadine:
Let be, let be, to all who love her well Still Beauty speaks a universal tongue Unknowing strife of Babel-jargoning, And Art can make you from your servitude Of task unlovely, uncongenial toil, Free citizens of dear Callipolis The Soul's ideal city! Never deem That Beauty is a thing remote, ensky'd Outside our daily being, think her not A parasite upon the Tree of Life, But that fair bough's supremest blossoming. Essential Beauty mortals never know But Nature's beauty, its reflection, Partaker in it, but by matter marr'd The fair face mirror'd in a metal dim. Still when very Beauty comes to birth Led of a legend, steering by a star, The world's Wise Men set forth on pilgrimage, And if they find it they are bless'd indeed,
And if they seek it still, and never find Yet are they bless'd in seeking, till life's end, When, as we hope, the very Beauty's self May in a distant country smile on each Who thought, who sought, who wrought, who fought for her!
Colette:
Have you then nothing you would say to me? Each day's the same, we wander hand in hand You never tell me that my eyes are blue Nor mark the 'sunshine captive in my hair,' That is what someone tells me—you are dumb, Yet once you used to say you loved me, lost You seem, by daylight, blinking like an owl Who waits for sunset.
​Gilles:
Aye, the Moon for me! For I am of the lunar brotherhood. She gazed upon us in our cradle-sleep And with her whiteness all our cheeks grew pale. Our wild eyes open'd wider, wondering, Are glaucous as the grey moon-glassing sea, Minions we of the fantastick Moon Who sways her wistful wayward votaries, And dowers them with kinship to the tides, With wills that shift like reefs of quaking sand, With fitful calm and fickle energy. Our wits unstable wax and wane with Her!
Colette:
Fantastick truly the Moon's minions, Who leave the world that roars beside their gate To listen in an echo-breathing shell How murmur dreamy memories of the sea. Who mourn the bud when full the blossom blows
The blossom as the fruit succeeds the flower, And, all too late, the fruit when boughs are bare! Who, when they should be doing dream so late They sleep the clock round, wilder'd with false fires, Waking, deem sunset sunrise, dusk the dawn, The star of evening the morning star. Fantastick truly is the moonstruck crew!
Gilles:
But when we leave this uncongenial earth, Then is our guerdon, then our great reward, Departing, happy, the luminous path we take Where melts the mirror'd brightness of our star Reticulate in silver on the sea, And happy, follow the green and silver way Up to the regent of our lunacy, Our Goddess, Mistress, Queen and Mother Moon.
​Colette:
Mock me no more with moonshine promises Go and be happy with a moon-maiden!
Sylvie:
Again I tell you, only for the child And for the sake of Ysabeau, my friend Who left her baby motherless, for them I may consent to marry you, but now We'll talk no more of it, I'll rest me here, They spoke of Beauty but a while ago.
Cassandre:
You think too much of Beauty, 'tis a thing Outside of our existence, which beseems Great churches or the palaces of Kings But has no place within a cottage door,
For poor folks Beauty is utility, And fitness, home-spun habit and grogram gown. Care for the woven web and plenishing gear And healthful labour shall be your concern, With no fantastick care for Beauty.
Sylvie:
Nay, You will not chide me, leaning at the loom, If from the lattice I may gaze at whiles Upon the giant pear-tree at your door, I us'd to dream the fairies lov'd the tree And I would garland it each holyday, At dawn and twilight it would whisper me A message from the fairies.——
Cassandre:
Ah, the pear, With all its bounteous blossom, it fruited ill, I fell'd it lately, grubb'd the root away,
And turn'd its place into the cabbage garth. It may not murmur to you any more Of fairies dancing under the cold blue moon But whisper you of hearth-warm sanctities, And fireside duty, and the cares of home, Gilding our pewter as the log flames high.
Sylvie:
Fell'd the old pear tree, silver in the moon? That shower'd each springtime down its scented snow Which melted not on brow or bosom, nay, You should have ask'd me 'ere you fell'd the tree That was my childhood's glory, and the grace Of that poor cottage; O, I thought to take Your dead wife's place, because I lov'd her child, But now I see you'll never understand One mood of mine, and I should sit and hear A voice that cry'd at midnight by the door, A footfall lingering, loth to leave the place
Where late she rul'd her household, I should feel A sighing presence as the log burn'd low, And mark a gray shade bend a moment's space To bless—if ghost may bless—the cradled babe, The mother left behind her, friend farewell, Seek a bride elsewhere, I am not for you!
Cassandre:
Here is a pretty coil about a tree!
PEREGRINA'S SONG.
Far, very far, steer by my star, Leaving the loud world's 'wildering clamour, In the mid-sea waits you maybe The isle of glamour where Beauty reigns
From coasts of commerce and myriad-marted Towns of traffic by wide seas parted, Past shoals unmapp'd and by reefs uncharted The single-hearted my isle attains!
Under a sky cloudless and high, The blue sea's pearl and the green world's wonder Dreams thro' her day by that fair bay Where no waves thunder, where no winds veer, No friends forgetful, for hearts remember When no change mars and no years dismember, Where the flame sinks never to ashen ember Where no December deflowers the year.
Each soul may find faith to her mind, Seek you the peace of the groves Elysian, Or the ivy twine and the wands of vine, The Dionysian, Orphic rite?
To share the joy of the Mænad's leaping In frenzy'd train thro' the dusk glen sweeping The dew-drench'd dance, and the star-watch'd sleeping, Or temple-keeping, in Vestal white?
Ye who regret suns that have set Lo, each God of the ages golden Here is enshrin'd, ageless and kind, Unbeholden the dark years through. Their faithful oracles yet bestowing By laurel's whisper and clear stream's flowing Or the leafy stir of the Gods own going In oak-trees blowing may answer you!
In my fair land perfected stand What artist's dreaming and poet's leisure Only in thought fashion'd and wrought For very pleasure, for Beauty's sake.
The bronze cast fair to the heart's desire, The sweet song fashion'd of tears and fire No languid string and no jarring wire, Where no hands tire, no voices break!
Yves:
Thank you, sweet Lady, for your silver song. We at the noon of this sweet Summer's day Told of our aspirations and desires, And you have wound them in a melody And show'd us there the Beauty that we crav'd And fairer than we deem'd it.
Peregrina:
So young sir, Men still love Beauty?
Yves:
Ease and wealth and power Men for the most part follow, but a few,
And those few young men very Beauty seek. That seems the tragedy of growing old, To lose the dear ideal you saw and sought With happy fever all your April days, Renounce your dream and sit contented down To beef and broth, ambrosia all forgot!
Peregrina:
Yet here is a happy boy who dreams awake, What is your name, who lean upon your book, And so intently scan the festal scene, Drawing the dancers in their shadowy glade?
Antony:
My name is Antony.
Peregrina:
Ah, once I knew An Antony who lost the world for love, As you for Beauty you shall still pursue,
A Beauty subtler, more evasive yet, A vision fainter, fairer, farther still Than ever your eye may mark, your hand translate! That fleeting vision seeking, you shall know The soul of Sorrow in the guise of Joy, The sob that breaks thro' all the lilt of lutes, Madness of Mirth that turns to tears so soon, And still the shadowy sighing in the song! Not the green rapture of the riotous Spring Shall sway your brooding fancy, not the noon, But Autumn's tenderer, more regretful tone, The strange sea-green of skys crepuscular, The bitter even-scent of box and bay, The glimmering whiteness of the garden gods, Thro' earlier falling dusk of the yellowing year, These most shall match your mood, when sunset brings The violet sky holding one hopeless star, The tragic dusk that deepens to dispair!
​Father Bernadine:
He is a strange child, for he will not play With other urchins, racing, or at ball. His pencil never absent from his hand As tho' he fear'd that night would fall too soon, He'll watch the fountains all an Autumn day, Mount and descend against the sky serene, Until the gloaming deepen thro' the glade.
Peregrina:
His hand shall falter and his purpose fail Attainment, as the sky-aspiring jets Of frustrate fountains falling back in spray Sink sighing to their marble bason's pen, Missing the goal they strove for, with a sob To find the stars so unattainable. Still seeking very Beauty, as a moth Flitting across a hall of festal lights May feverishly beat a little hour
Against an alabaster-guarded lamp, Craving the flame, in passionate impotence, Vainly, and passing leave for only trace The delicate dusk that deck'd a downy wing, —So evanescent, so ephemeral— Out of the dark emerging, into the dark Returning.
Father Bernadine:
Let him only love the light, And seek it earnestly, all will be well!
Peregrina:
Who is this gentle, placid, kind old man Whose long white locks frame so serene a face?
Ombrage:
He is our good priest, Father Bernardine.
​Peregrina:
So there are priests yet, servants of what Gods? Is this a priestess this so rainbow-hued, Like some bright Eastern bird?
Hou-Ché:
No Lady, no! Incense I burn no more to any Gods, Mine own forsook me, and the new are strange, But you, O mistress, I would choose to serve Likest a lady on a lotus set Out Goddess of all Beauty and all Love Who smil'd on me 'neath favourabler skys. And I believe you come from far away From some more happy to this sadder star!
Peregrina:
To me as unto you their Gods are strange, For, in the temples I was us'd to know, Inscrutable and immemorial,
Clad in their strict and all-encincturing Close-pleated vesture hieratical The old Gods sate and watch'd the world go by. Their writhen mouth and long-drawn dreaming eyes Frozen to smiling immobility, Their calm brows set in vague unearthly gaze Contemplative of unimagin'd space, Looking beyond the incense and the lights, Impassive of the pains, the pray'rs of men!
Hou-Ché:
Sought or unsought still the old Gods endure! Near to my home, the other side the world, A God awaits his vanish'd worshippers, Deep in the still recesses of a wood Where once a mighty city teem'd with men A myriad fires smok'd, a thousand bells Called from the temples years and years along! Temple and town have pass'd to nothingness,
But still among the cedars secular, Deep in the dim wood still the sun salutes The musing golden God who agelessly, —Breathing no incense but the pillar'd pines— Deathlessly dreams the lagging years away.
Peregrina:
Alas, no more thro' dewy underwoods Do Dionysos' frenzy'd worshippers— Dight in the dappl'd vesture of a fawn, These rosy-hued thro' Coan garment seen, These frankly white but for their ivy-crown, These wreathing verdant clusters of the vine, Purple and amber twined with trailing green,— With clash of cymbal and with sobbing flute Divide the darkness with opposing song Of rousing rapture, or a low lament; But now you serve some stern ascetic God, You seem to count it shame that a form be fair, And muffle you like vestals!
​Hermes:
Nakedness In the palaistra or among the vines Bathed of the dew, and sunshine-sanctified, Was God-like once that Beast-like is to-day! All innocent joys and frank are turned morose And harmful made, albeit more sweet by you Who spice each joy with savour of a sin! Yet tho' the vile impute his villainy To Beauty, still the marble Goddess stands A statue scribbled by the lounger's coal With trivial inscription, or unclean, Calm and impassive, heedless of the stain, Since one night's dew shall wash her white once more.
Colette.—(To Peregrina):
Lady, fair stranger, like a soothsayer You prophesied for little Antony, I have a——friend, you mark him yonder, Gilles, Have you no cure for his moon-madness?
​Peregrina:
Aye! He is of those who fear, too much, the sun, The gold great sun who all our lives should light, Too much you minister to the maddening moon, Mother of all Thessalian Sorcery, Strange spells and enigmatic oracles, Come forth into the sunlight from the dusk, And find how fair are flowers of the earth!
(Peregrina, smiling, joins hands of Gilles and Colette.)
Ombrage.—(To Peregrina):
Lady, or Goddess, for you seem to me Fairer than mortal, come from very far, Those glens and glades where Mænads dance and dwell You told us lately of. Are those your home? 'Ere you shall pass as strangely as you came,
Leave us some message for our comfort. Tell Us Beauty-seekers how we may attain, How we may hope to hale our Goddess down From coursing on the high star-haunted hills, She only breathes that thin transcendant air, Drinking the clear spring at its icy source, And we who fain would climb, grow faint and fall, Since Very Beauty, true Philosophy Dwell far, so far!
Peregrina:
O single-hearted, seek! What though the quest should seem as vain as his, Who strives to trace the sources of the Nile, Yet sometime it has chanc'd clear vision'd men Have almost found the very Beauty's fount, As Spring-diviners with their speaking staves, Threading the forest light on hidden wells. Sculptor, musician, painter, poet, aye— The poet chiefly maybe, as he leans
To catch the echo of Her flying feet, To mark the flutter of Her waving veil, Still seeking Beauty as a blind man light, A babe the breast, seaman the pilot star. If but Her shadow fall across his book His verse is ageless attar, in a vase Close-seal'd against the tyranny of Time. You take it from it's shelf, and lift the lid, Scent of a long dead Summer breathes again Subtle and sweet as this last June's, that pass'd With all her thronging roses!
Hermes:
Carve or sing, Model or paint, but ever in your work Set what is best in Beauty's honour, grave Your golden sentence with a golden pen, For Style is the expression fair and feat Of exquisite impression. So the die The minter presses on the molten gold
Gives out the perfect medal to the world. Each face of guardian God or hero-head, Their clear-cut brows bound with the victor's palm, With towers crown'd or bays, or ears of corn, As power or plenty, wealth or glory will, And Genius that God-engraven die We call.
Sylvie:
Must Beauty ever be richly hous'd In splendid palace roof'd of fretted gold With pretious marble colonnades arow?
Peregrina:
Nay, often with the simplest, Beauty dwells If flaw'd your agate, your cornelian, Your oriental alabaster be, Still may a fragment fashion'd to a cup Sweeten the homely draught of every day.
Even a beechen bowl is beautiful, A cedar, fallen, makes a fragrant press, Or breathes it's sweetness out in glowing fire. Nothing so grand that it awake not joy, Nothing so slight but you may joy in it, Fragrance of flowers, cool of water-spring, A Gothic Fane's capricious fantasy As in an Attic Temple's line and law, Savour of fruit as warmth of winter fire The silver stars, the splendour of the sun, The placid and the vex'd complaining sea!
Ombrage:
Lady, have you no oracle for me, What of my future?
Peregrina:
Like the wandering bird That builds no nest, that has no resting-place, That never furls a travel-weary wing,
But evermore, reposeless voyager Drifting in tempest, floating in the calm, Oars with untiring flight the deep of heav'n, You'll wander the wide world thro', preferring still To calm of Summertide the Winter's storm, Leaning to hear, in Autumn, by the sea The myriad voices of the deep's despair, Lamenting some irreparable wrong, Some incommunicable agony, Or listen thro' the sunny Autumn noon To sky and ocean's speechful silences. Still leaving the order'd hearth, the guarded flame, To follow a glimmering lure of wandering lights, The faltering fires of some failing star, You'll know the insistent summons of the dusk, The unquiet prompting of the wooing woods, That stirs the ageless sylvan in his sleep, That calls the slumb'ring woodman to wake.
The Faun, the Centaur harbours in you yet, Thrilling responsive to the night-fall's spell, As passing to the wizard woods you find A philtre in the drenching of the dew; And ever waking or sleeping you shall hear A soft wind blowing from behind the moon, From past the sunset, from beyond the stars, Whispering you remembrance and regret, —A sweet regret, a poignant memory— That once you met with Beauty face to face, And that She pass'd from you upon Her way! But what blows hither as the night-wind wakes?
Ombrage:
The first sun-wither'd leaves come rustling down, Approaching Autumn's avant-couriers Clad in the russet of his liveries, Heralding in tumultuous Equinox.
Soon shall the flail o' the wind, the threshing rains Winnow the wet woods with the vans of storm.
Peregrina:
Already Autumn, I must seek my ship And steer a far course to my Island Home, The lost Atlantis.
Ombrage:
Not Cythera, then?
Peregrina:
Not to the old Cythera, ruin'd now By generations of barbaric men, An arid rock where all the groves are dead, The Lover's roses as the Sybil's bay And Poet's laurel, only now remain For wine and honey spill'd and spoil'd and sped, Cliffs amber yellow like dun honeycomb
Rising at evening from the wine-hued sea Violet.
Ombrage:
Mourning, for a present past That rose from those fair waters long ago. Yet stlll that presence broods upon the sea, And I shall go the gladder all my days Nursing the memory, the sweet regret For that I once have seen the living light, A flame late litten at that sacred fire An emanation of the Essential Beauty, Which burns for ever in the Absolute Immutable, immortal, immanent, Many and diverse be the lamps that hold From age to age the ever-burning flame, But one the light that shines within them still!
Peregrina:
Impending Autumn threatens, I must pass Before the swallow, soon to greet again
The denizens of the dear elder world, Oread, Centaur, Nereid, and Faun, Who wait for me in my far island home.
Hermes:
Yet even here they are not wholly dead, In gallant horseman and a perfect horse The once-dissever'd Centaur lives again, For heart-whole heady rapture of the chase, The forest-haunting lad is half a Faun, Spoiling the vineyard, harrying the hive, The wine-warm'd peasant a Silenus seems. The girl who meets her lover in the woods, Who bathes at noontide in the forest pool Is almost Nymph.
Peregrina:
Aye, still Eternal Youth As Dionysos cries upon the hills Holloaing up the hunt, each April-tide
As young Adonis wakes again from sleep, With the divine renascence of the year. So long as the native gladness of the world, The pure primæval passion of the Spring Breathe in the soft wind, pulse in the sea wave, Stir in the blood and beacon from the eye, Reigns, and shall reign the Universal Pan, Who is not dead, who never died at all, Nor ever can die whilst the world endure!
Peregrina:
(To the group in foreground.)
Farewell good people, dwell you here secure, And lead you still your comfortable lives Thrill'd by no passion, stung by no despair, Your dense peace vex'd by no fraternal strife, Of mind and soul and body's enmity, Of earthly influence warring with the sky's.
​Ombrage:
Yet who shall say they are not happiest, these, Whose dull soul never quickens with a pang, Who never know the dear divine unrest, The stirring of a worthy discontent, Fretted by no such fever as attends The sprouting of the vans celestial Which wither'd from us when to earth we fell! The clods' indifference to a wooing star, Is theirs, and crass contentment of the clod.
(To the By-standers.)
But shun you Beauty as a very bane Which like the sea in equinoctial might May break the dyke that guards your sluggish lives, Sweeping unwonted currents on your calm, Ruinous, overwhelming——
​Peregrina:
So farewell, For I withdraw me to my island home.
Ombrage:
You pass, you leave us?
Peregrina:
Yonder lies my barque, Twinning herself upon the crystal tide, So clear so sharp her mere reflection. You wonder which is shadow, and which is ship, If both be real or both a fantasy Moulded of magic this mid-August eve, And I must pass upon that galley of dream To my fair island of unfading May Set in a sea of sempiternal Spring. Follow me, find me, thro' the ivory gate Lies the way thither, to the happy land, The fortunate isle where the dearest dream comes true!
​Gilles:
The Moon is far, here's for the moon-flower!
ISLAND FORTUNATE.
Fare fortunately mariners! who steer neath Summer skys To nearer ports, for surer gain, full freighted argosies. Your trafficking unhinder'd be by harms the Fates inflict The blind oncoming of the berg, or galley derelict. Better ye deem to tempt the deep than moulder at the quay, Sure, what the heedful merchant dare, we—how much rather—may.
All ocean patent to our quest, who seek with hearts elate The shining happy palaces of Island Fortunate.
We pass'd a convoy guarded fleet in sunset waters rock'd The careful coasters cried to us, the men of battle mock'd As half regretfully we gazed where floating fair and free The pennons of the fighting ships dipp'd silken to the sea. We know not how their traffic throve, nor how the battle sped But these we left to count their pelf, and these to tell their dead. As vain their dream of petty gain, as theirs of martial state To us who sought the wide world through for Island Fortunate.
What waits us, once our goal attain'd? For each one as I deem The utter realising of his every dearest dream. I think that as our wave-worn ship drops anchor in that bay A honey-colour'd harvest-moon will mock the paler day Lighting the league-long gardens up, whose hidden hollows hold The ruddy glow of oranges, the citron's paler gold, Whilst,—sunder'd half a life-time long by some untoward fate Lost lovers wait to welcome us to Island Fortunate.
Our company grows still the less, for certain of our train A seeming Eldorado once gleam'd golden from the main, I think that on that barren reef some specious magic burn'd,
Never our comrades came again, never their boat return'd. And some one long long Winter slept and waked no more in Spring, And some were lost who rowed at night to hear the mermaid sing. More witching music they had heard had they but heart to wait Melody passing sirens' song, in Island Fortunate.
Young-hearted as at setting forth—grey-headed, say the churls? 'Tis that the sea-spray dusts with white our salt-encumber'd curls. Still in a wild and wintry waste we fare upon our quest Not elsewhere can we find a home, nor otherwhere a rest. To catch what wind of Heaven may blow, our sails are still unfurl'd,
We sail the vast uncharted deep, the wondrous water-world Somewhere to find, somewhere to see, somehow to win, though late The fair far haven in the sea of Island Fortunate.
Cradled by some consoling dream he who should vigil keep An hour before a shameful death, sinks smiling into sleep. And Mirage-mock'd, the cast-away, scanning a sail-less sea Leaps headlong down the glassy deep in meadow green to be; It turns the wasted wilderness to water'd paradise Last vision, as the sandstorm blinds the dying pilgrim's eyes. Our life is ruled by Mirages, and just beyond the gate Whether of Horn or Ivory lies Island Fortunate.