Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-15
MAUDE ADAMS ART
SHO- IN IN READING

N her current play, "The TESTERS"
Miss Maud Adams, in the role of
Chicot, is called upon to extern
porize a poem on "The Breeze" Other
verses have preceded. Finally 1t be-
comes Chicot's turn. The jester steps
to the center of the stage and begins.
Eastern critics have declared this
reading the most artistic thing Miss
Adams has ever done. Their praise has
been extravagant. both of NJ Zamacois
lines and of the manner of their de-
livery. The poem, which requires sew
eral minutes for it's delivery, follows:
THE BREEZE
The gentle breeze which stirs the leaves of
yonder vine
Recalls to me tale, favorite of mine,
story which one day in old book 1 found,
An ancient tome gaunt. grim, black-lettered,
Which time, looking as though 'twer filled
with tales of sin
Promised too little of the charm I found
within.
Twas in this book 1 read the tale which. II
you please
I will repeat tonight-"The Story of the
Breeze"
breeze one day, abroad on fun or mischief
bent
Enters castle grim traversed the battlement
And on the terrace found. sitting and spinning
there,
maiden of sixteen, blue-eyed. with golden
hair.
Blue her eyes and soft as the young sky
at dawn,
Or the waves of the lake the breeze had
crossed that morn.
And as TIL intruder loosed a strand of golden
hair
The maid looked up and laughed SO sweet. so
chaste, fair,
That the breeze, who till then had kissed and
Whirled
over the trees and far. tickle until today,
Knew that this time his heart bound and
tethered there
Tc that child of sixteen, blue-eyed, with gold
en- hair
For the fair maid had won. won all uncon-
sciousy
A lover without name and whom she could
not see,
While the breeze loved to love. and for
| royal throne
Would have exchanged his right to love her
thus unknown.
Then, as he could not bring her flowers all
abloom,
The butterflies he'd watt in shoals into ner
From forest glades and fields, from near and
far, and they,
| Blue. yellow, red and green, a quivering bou-
quet,
He blew into her hair bejeweled it, and then
When he grew jealous, swiftly blew them out
again.
The scent of new-mown hay he brought in
from the fields
From ev'r,' bush and flower what each Of
sweetest yields,
MarJoram, meadowsweet and sage he carried
there
For the maid of sixteen. blue-eyed. with gold
hair.
Sometimes he'd wander off, down into far
| Provence,
And from the fairest lands of the fair land
| of France
Fe would come laden back with orange BIOS
som's BREATH
Which he had stolen ere men crushed the
blooms to death.
| For all that allied the maid he found ready
| cure;
Were the day stormy. he would fetch her air
| pure
| From snowy mountain tops, and, If she were
His own love blew warm he warmed her
easily.
Where she was reading in works OF poet or
The breeze was waiting there to help her turn
the page;
And when at night she slept in her white
| curtained bed,
He'd venture till he touched his darling's gold
| head;
And, drunken with the JOY forbidden, dare to
| sip
A kiss that maddened him from the child's
! smiling lip
One day, alas there came lord from Aqui-
| taine
To WOO and win the maid. He came and
| came again,
And the unhappy breeze howled in his mad
| despair.
Gone. the maid of sixteen, blue-eyed, with
| golden hair.
| Handsome the swain, and rich, young IN ms
manhoods spring!
Bushes, a whispered word, the chaplain, and
| a ring!
What, when a wooer's young, rich and has all
| to please,
What. against such man, can the most per-
| fumed breeze?
| OF went the breeze, and rushed heart-broken,
| desire-torn
Into the desert where. anguished, alone, for
| iorn, 80,
He gathered strength to rush back with un-
| wonted might
Battered the castles walls, howled, the un-
happy wight
| AS though his storm-tossed soul couiu III the
| noise find peace.
Or. with whirl OF rage, could his poor heart
| release.
And when the sexton old rang out the mar
| rage bell, -,
So fercely blew that he tolled the funeral knell
| q, that no flowers should deck the couples
| bridal way,
Every rosebush swept into SAD dlsarray'
| Numbering all the blooms he had caressed OF
old, -,
hair Of gold.