l^.M UC-NRLF l^iKSiLLL^iliikli B 3 3M5 MTO jMc.cixx/;'^ LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class ^A^^Z BY PERCY MACKAYE The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy. Fenris, the Wolf. A Tragedy. Jeanne U Arc. Sappho and Phaon. The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous. Mater. An American Study in Comedy. The Playhouse and the Play. Essays. Poems. A Garland to Sjflvia. A Dramatic Reverie. Uniform, i2mo. $1.25 net, each. Lincoln: A Centenary Ode. i2mo. 75c. net A GARLAND TO SYLVIA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO A GARLAND TO SYLVIA A Dramatic Reverie WITH A PROLOGUE BY PERCY MACKAYE Of THE UNIVERSITY Of WetD gorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1910 All rights reserved GmHAL Copyright, 1910, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1910. This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain. All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and countries of the Copyright Union, by Percy MacKaye. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this piece must be made to The Macmillan Company. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided by the United States Statutes: — " Sec. 4966. — Any person publicly performing or representing any dramatic or musical composition, for which copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the proprietor of the said dramatic or musical composition, or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable for damages therefor, such damages in all cases to be assessed at such sum, not less than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for every subse- quent performance, as to the Court shall appear to be just. If the unlawful perform- ance and representation be wilful and for profit, such person or persons shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction be imprisoned for a period not exceed- ing one year." U. S. Revised Statutes, Title 60, Chap. 3. Persons desiring to read in public this play, or any other play by the author, are requested first to confer with the author through the publishers. Nortoooti J^vtM J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. Ed ARVIA AND HER MOTHER 205546 PREFACE This play was begun in the autumn of 1896, when its author was a senior in Harvard College. After graduation in 1897, work upon it was postponed for more than a year, but was resumed during the autumn and winter of 1898 and 1899, in Italy, where the larger part was written and the whole completed at the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, near Rome. After a year spent in completing other dramatic work in Ger- many, the tentative dramatist, returning in 1900 to America, secured through " Sylvia" his first profes- sional commission — from E. H. Sothern for ''The Canterbury Pilgrims" — and his first professional criticism: two columns by Norman Hapgood in The New York Commercial Advertiser. So much account of this play is pertinent to place it rightly among those which the writer has already put forth, and to preface a few reasons for its publi- cation at this time. Fourteen years ago, in America, the vocation of dramatist held a backward and unenviable status compared with to-day. To-day, to be sure, it is still sufficiently retrograde, still vastly capable of cultiva- tion, yet at least it has begun to wield a power which X PREFACE is itself awakening public opinion and artistic impulse in behalf of its nobler growth. To glance back into the last century is to be reassured of this. In 1896, leadership in the drama as a native ex- pression or technical craft could hardly be said to have commenced in our country. A young American, planning to adopt the profession of playwriting strictly as an art, must have sought far and probably in vain through theatre, press, university, society in general, for any adequate modern standards critical or crea- tive. To search abroad would avail him little more. Most of the European and English dramatists and critics, who have done so much to leaven the world-thought of the last decade — names such as Hauptmann, Sudermann, Maeterlinck, D'Annunzio, Rostand, Hervieu, Brandes, Archer, Shaw, Phillips, Barrie — would probably be strange in his ears. Even Ibsen, then chiefly notorious for his '' Doll's House," was still a vague rumor, caricatured or belittled. As a result, our apprentice would probably turn — both for technique and creative instigation — to the only perennial master of English dramatic tradition. He would turn to Shakspere, printed or acted, and, whirled into the surging vortex of that inspiration, he would be fortunate if he escaped the misleading attractions of his archaic craftsmanship and Titanic mannerism. He would be doubly fortunate if, by the effort of that mighty emulation, he were not deflected from express- ing his own soul. ' PREFACE xi As the record of an apprentice in American drama, striving sincerely to express himself under conditions of that period, this play may perhaps have its interest for the historical critic. As an expression peculiarly of youth, and the vision of youth, it may also make its appeal to the philosopher of immaturity. Immaturity, being as old as man, needs no man's apology. Yet youth is himself in such haste and hot desire to mature that he has no time to defend his intrenchments against the condescending sallies of maturity. Viewed by his elders as merely a passing phase of human nature, youth rebels, and is ever in the act of claiming permanent human representation when, of his own accord, he yields allegiance to the complacent majority of the mature. Like a radical in the commons, raised unexpectedly to the peer- age, youth is satisfied by the recognition of sov- ereign time and becomes conservative. '' Promising young man!" exclaims the sage, and the world mur- murs approvingly. '^Promising old fellow?" queries the boy, but gets no "rise" out of the world. To be one and twenty is a dubious prerogative granted but once to one and all of us: but not to one at a time. Fortunately the privilege is conferred in phalanxes, so that the immature prophet may always speak his message to a moving phalanx of his peers. It is perhaps chiefly as the technical confession of a dramatic apprentice for the imaginations of dramatic xii PREFACE apprentices that this conception of one-and-twenty may be of some service to-day. For ^'Sylvia" is not merely a youthful Dramatic Reverie; it is a young dramatist's reverie; and in America, to-day is pe- culiarly the day of young dramatists, though their reveries are happily not of as isolated a character as that of Felix in " The Prologue." Indeed, if the date of ''The Prologue" were 1910 instead of 1896, it is safe to say that Felix's initiation would consist in reading his play aloud to an eager and merciless audi- ence of seniors, whose pockets would be bulging with their own dramatic efforts. To-day a new growth of fellowship has sprung up among the younger play-makers and play- critics, and especially in the universities this growth has become an authentic university movement, under the critical leadership, at Harvard, of Professor George Pierce Baker. To him peculiarly the universities and the nation owe a permanent debt of gratitude for his patient and enHghtened championship of an ideal, long ignored, pregnant with vital importance to our civilization — the ideal of cultivating, at the fountain heads of the liberal arts, living standards of excellence in the living drama. In this respect, the Harvard Dramatic Club holds an unique position among college dramatic associations, by intelligently devot- ing its energies not to amateur show-making or archaic revivals, but to technical stagecraft in the acting and writing of modern plays. PREFACE ' xiii Results of this Harvard work on the professional stage are already beginning to be seen, and the acted plays of Edward Sheldon and Hermann Hagedorn promise a larger fulfilment. The most signal expres- sion of it, manifesting the vital significance of a present day university movement in the acted drama, was the performance at Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, on January 24th this year, of William Vaughn Moody's play ''The Faith Healer" by Mr. Henry Miller and his company. On that occasion, for the first time, the dramatic work of a graduate was performed pro- fessionally at a great university, and in that fusion of the ideals for which Mr. Moody, as a modern dramatist, Mr. Miller, as an artist of the theatre, and Professor Baker, as a creative critic in the university, have zeal- ously stood, a precedent of national importance was established. The space of a preface does not permit me to de- scribe specifically important progress in other uni- versities. The influence, however, of this contemporaneous ideal of the drama is happily not limited to Harvard, but is extending, with accelerating vigor, through American universities, colleges and schools, where it is being demonstrated by scores of progressive men and women. Needless to say, the renascent impulse is also active in dramatic and theatrical work having no con- nection with the universities and schools; yet nowhere else is it so fraught with the promise of continuity, XIV PREFACE organization and idealism, correlated with the forces of national leadership. In the universities to-day, then, the dramatic ap- prentice finds himself definitely related to the begin- nings of a renascence in his art, in a way impos- sible to the author of "Sylvia." I refer to him in the third person because, for me, the author of this play is a personality strangely commingled of the first and third persons, with emphasis upon the third. 'T. W. M." (having not yet dropped the 'Wallace' of his name), a student at Harvard, new to his senior gown; again, a first-year graduate, sharp-edged to the struggHng loneHness of life; again a dreamer in Italy, steeped in the old mystic charm of cypressed ruins, the bells of Rome, the hues of Raphael, the moon through falling almond-bloom — that P. W. M., I once knew him well, his joys, his pangs, his doubts, his aspirations. Afterwards I was his critic, his counsellor, his close friend, yet it can hardly be said with truth that we knew each other, for to him I never was; and much that was all in all to him — what was it? — I have forgotten. It is, therefore, with a certain diffidence that I undertake now to edit and preface his play. In doing so, to put it forth as a work of myself, or as of another, is equally disconcerting; personal apology, disinter- ested approval, are alike incongruous. Differing as I do in some respects from P. W. M. in his dramatic confession of faith, agreeing as I do in other respects, . PREFACE XV how can I assume that he would approve me as his prefacer? Happily, from this semi-posthumous di- lemma, I have found a living escape: I have found a Preface, written eleven years ago by P. W. M. himself, at a moment when there appeared to be some danger of the play's publication — a danger deferred to the present hour. That contemporary preface, written in 1899, soon after the play's completion, speaks of ''Sylvia" with more insight and authority than I can now, and having been left by P. W. M. together with his play manu- script in my hands, I have felt responsible to print it here without alteration, as follows: — A FOREWORD TO *'A GARLAND TO SYLVIA" by Percy Wallace MacKaye I remember once sitting in a crowded theatre and being thrilled by the thought that the thousand eyes around me, riveted on the stage, were unconsciously gazing into the innermost recesses of a poet's mind — filling their myriad-soul with the vision of his single imagination. This thought has doubtless moved many others besides myself, though it may not have led them to consider many of the possible inferences to be drawn from its truth. Some of these inferences, as relating xvi PREFACE to the play which follows, I should like to consider here. First, though, it is but natural that the average spectator of a play should not thus view the stage before him as an objectification of the dramatist's mind; for it is the dramatist's first business to annul himself in his play; to draw attention, that is, to his vision, not to his own personality. And yet, in spite of this, his obvious function of impersonahty, the poetic dramatist must always be an unconscious lyrist. ''Unconscious," I say, because, though he does not in his work give direct expression to his personal attri- butes, opinions and longings as the lyric singer does, yet he is impelled by the same motive as all true singers to give expression to his deepest self. For the primal motive of art is the motive of expression — the longing to speak, whether in air, or stone, or tint, or form. The master impulse of every artist, there- fore, is to express himself, and a dramatist is essentially an artist. His means of expression, however, are far more complicated and indirect than those of the simple lyrist. The lyrist sings himself in the expression of his own thoughts, his own emotions, his own character. The dramatist sings himself in the expression of the thoughts of others, the emotions of others, the char- acters of others; yet of others, whom he has first made a portion of himself in imagination. Now it is in this imaginative appropriation of his various play-characters — or we may say as truly, their appropriation of his expanded being — it is in this inward impersonation of the dramatis personcB by the dramatist, or of the dramatist by the dramatis personcBj as well as in the first basic motive of artistic PREFACE xvii expression, that every true dramatist exhibits in his work those essential evidences of uttered personahty which mark him as, in truth, a lyrist. Shakspere is not an exception. He is indeed the most perfect of poets in that he is the most imper- sonal (so called) of dramatists, wherein that term "im- personal" means no more nor less than this: that his personality has expanded in imagination nearer to the universal than any other. And this kind of personality, as opposed to the individuaHty whose attributes are merely ephemeral, is that which every true artist seeks by his sympathy, or imagination, to develop, and that which is developed, to its broadest capacity, by the means of expression of the dramatist. These means of expression, as I have mentioned, are the characters, emotions, thoughts of others, imaginized (if I may use the word — meaning thereby both perceived and embodied, discovered and clothed, by his poetic imagination) : in other words, human nature itself, which followed to its deepest means Nature her- self and mystery. Now if a young dramatist, with his limited but ever expanding personahty, seeks to express himself through characters and traits of human nature, in other words, if he is seeking to write a play, how shall he be most true to that human nature? By studying it through that faculty in him which is most keenly and intel- lectually observant of the myriad reaHstic tricks and traits of human character, as mannerisms, ''dress," differentiation of speech, etc., which make toward the outward individualizing of men? Or through that faculty, which — passively excluding the moral and intellectual — observes mainly what is aesthetic: the grace, that is, of form, tone, color in life, which xviii PREFACE constitute the groupings and the lights and shades in se of human nature? Or through that deepest inclusive beauty in his own nature, which is in- separable alike from what is ethical, aesthetic and intellectual — which is indeed the eye of perfect sympathy — the poetic imagination, love itself? Struggling deeply in his own heart to solve this choice in truth, a young artist, whose faith-inspired ignorance is at once creating and discovering the ideal which is to lead him to what perhaps is the true solu- tion — we first meet Felix. When I first conceived this play, it came to me as a veritable vision, if so humble a work may claim that classification. To show the personal, or lyrical, aspect of the play then — and it hung in my fancy then practically as it stands here in print, save for the greater distinctness of actually worded speeches now, which then were the action or emotion they represent — I transcribe this sonnet, which I wrote soon afterward: Far in a dawn, hid in the dusk of sleep, I woke, with silent Somnus at my side; We lay in a dim wood, where I descried A troop of ghostly lovers, such as keep Upon the stage a parlance strange and deep. I spoke to them: they heard not, nor replied. " Ye phantoms of mine out-thought selves," I cried, " Are ye not perished? Seek ye still to reap The love of Sylvia, holy, fair and wise? Depart! and be no more." And then methought I touched their garments, looked them in the eyes, Beseeching them; but they beheld me not; , For I was ghost, and they — realities. Born of the dark inevitableness of thought. In this sonnet I would seem to refer to myself as Felix. And indeed I am, or rather was, when I wrote PREFACE xix the play; but yet no more Felix than Sylvia, or Babble- brook, or Sandrac, save in as much as one of those may be more deeply true to human nature than another. Thus, as I began to write the play, this somewhat introspective — though I think not morbid — con- templation of my own relation to my characters fascinated, nay I confess, weighed upon me, with some touch of Felix's doubt and Sandrac's bitterness; so that I was soon struck with the unusual chance to vivify to an audience's imagination the thought with which I began this preface, coupled with another of deeper significance. I wished to portray — or rather, I saw portrayed before me mentally — first, a young dramatist, groping in the mists of his imagination, confronted and con- founded by that personality of his own which he had unwittingly but inevitably wrought into the charac- ters of his play; the moral effect — in deeper thought, bitterness, remorse and faith — of the conflict with that inevitability; and thereby the reflex effect of all this upon the audience of my own play, through a clear revelation of the truth that the real stage of the drama is the mind of man. And secondly, I beheld, and tried to portray, a young man, groping in the mystery of our life, where " the Hving are our ghosts," where both fancy and reality mock us, but where the implanted love of ideality within us leads us to put the awed question to the spirit of mystery, though we know it shall not answer: the question whether ''truth itself be but the faith of an aspiring reason," and lastly where to the rational and faithful lover, the beauty of Nature — the daughter of Pan — becomes wedded to his very soul through faith. XX PREFACE This daughter of Pan is Sylvia, though the reader may well rub his eyes twice to discover her classic father in the crotchety Hikrion. It is not my in- tention here to say much about Hikrion: only this — that I conceived him as still exhibiting, in spite of all Felix's conscious efforts (when he wrote H's part in his own play) to disguise him under a totally different type of character, — as exhibiting the elusive, unsup- pressible, spirit of primitive Nature, which underlies all human nature, defying all conscious analysis and characterization. I say this to assist, not to excuse, my impotence to carry out this conception adequately. One word as to the form: Felix's play (which, as he says, was in a state of incompletion at the time of his initiation at college) is, for clearness' sake, entirely written in terza rima,^ corresponding, in sequence of end-rhyme merely, with Dante's verse in "The Divine Comedy," with the exception of Act II, Scene 2, which is written in Shaksperian sonnets. The verse itself is frequently rough and ''run-over" in its phrasings, to conceal the effect of rhyme, since that is used simply to distinguish the more clearly Felix's own play from the main body of the "Reverie," which includes it. Its effect otherwise is bad, as it leads to diffuseness. And now for this " Garland" of mingled meaning and mysticism, with which the poor reader is supposed to bind his pained brows, the discriminating critic has already found a courteous word of damnation; and indeed I am not far disinclined to join him heartily in the damning. The word is "Allegory," and in that gory alley of Oblivion lies many a sproutling mur- ^ The exact terza rima form has been modified in places through- out the play, by revisions and excisions made shortly after the play's completion. PREFACE xxi dered in his first blush. But yet, one word for this one, ere the red ink of righteousness leave its deadly scratch on gentle Sylvia. In birth, at least, "Sylvia" is not of the family Allegory, whatever suspicion and peril her garb and training may now lead her into. I mean that ever in conception throughout the play, the image, or vision, has come first; then after and out of the image — the meaning. Never was it vice versa, which I understand to be the true genus allegoricum. And Sylvia herself, to me as to Felix, was never a starry nebula of theo- retics, but as near and blushing a personality as the ideal which every youth out of a hundred worships in his heart of hearts. Having said so much, dear Sylvia, it is not for me to comment on thy imperfect realization in this play. For thou art Felix's now, and not mine, and he alone can shield thee henceforth. P. W. M. Frascati, Rome, March, 1899. Such, then, is the Preface of P. W. M., apprentice. As the words of one with whom P.M. — still appren- tice, however much he would modify to-day that early confession of faith — has a Hfe-work in common, the writer begs leave to submit them to the pro- verbial gentleness of the reader. Percy MacKaye, Cornish, New HAMPsmRE, March, 1910. CHARACTERS OF THE PROLOGUE \/ii his classmates. FELIX CLOUD SLEY, a Senior in Harvard College, HUGH MERRIMAN, WARTON, OTHER SENIORS. MR. ^'EK^Ci , an old friend of Felix, MR. ^.OX^^Y^Y., a retired actor. A PROCTOR. SYLVIA. OF THE REVERIE FELIX, SOMNUS, THE MIST-MOTHERS, SYLVIA, SANDRAC, an Oxford Student, BABBLEBROOK, a courtier, SOB, a curate, PIERRE, a painter, ALBERTO, a violinist, SYLVIA, HIKRION, her foster-father, FERVIAN, FLURRIEL, ^^^ handmaids, FRESCA, SIX OTHERS of her handmaids, \Non- SPIRITS OF FANCY, j speaking Persons in the World of Reverie. Sylvia's Suitors Persons in Felix's Play SCENE FIRST: ACT I (The Prologue) — A room in Hollis Hally Harvard College, Time^ the Present. SCENE SECOND :i {Act I of'Y\i^ Reverie) — T^ie Forest of Arden, Shakspere's Time, Dawn ; afterwards day. SCENE FIRST: SCENE SECOND: ACT n A Room in Sylvia's Cottage. Day. Sylvia's Garden, surrounded by the For- est. Twilight. Afterwards trans- formed to Sylvia's Palace; Moonlight. ACT m SCENE: The Same. Noon. SCENE EIRST: SCENE SECOND: ACT IV A Cleft in a Mountain. The Forest. Twilight. 1 The curtain does not fall between Scene First and Scene Second. With Scene Second commences Act I of Felix's Play, of which the action takes place between the dawn of one day and twilight of the next. A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Who is Sylvia ? What is she, That all her swains commend her ? Holy, fair and wise is she : The heaven such grace did lend her That admired she might he. Is she kind as she is fair ? For beauty lives with kindness. To her eyes love doth repair To help him of his blindness, Andy being helped, inhabits there. Then to Sylvia let us sing That Sylvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling. To her garlands let us bring ! Shakspeke. ACT I Scene First. [The Prologue.] [A room in Hollis Holly Harvard College. The room is furnished tastefully. A drop-light descends upon a table in the centre. On the table lies tumbled manuscript. Felix, in his college gown, is walking back and forth. He stops to lift a sheet of the manuscript.] FELIX Act Fourth, and how to end it! This comedy of mine is turning tragic. But, no! He must not win her. Why, he's the villain, not the hero. And yet — to be true to life. I must be true — with splendid realism, as the critics say — to the falsity of human nature. Yet I am human, Mr. Realist, even as you. Then — how say you! — let's be false to our own falsity, and true to something — better, we will call it. I'll do it. [Scratches a line across the manuscript.] There, Sandrac! There's a sword- thrust for you, even in the middle of your wedding scene. [Throws away the pen.] That's done, thank God! But now — how to end it all with truth? Dear Sylvia, only you can help me now. 3 4 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [He starts and listens. Outside, loud noises — singing and stamping — draw near.] Fate and the fellows! [Quickly gathering up his manuscript, he writes on a piece of paper, and lays it on the table; then, turning down the gas, he slips, noiselessly, into his bedroom, closing the door.] STUDENTS [Outside.] Cloudsley! Cloudsley! Cloudsley! Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Cloudsley! Punch! We — want — punch ! A HIGH VOICE Who wants punch? STUDENTS We do! — Halloa, Cloudsley! [Confused clamor of voices.] Turn up the gas. Come out of your nightcap! Lend us a megaphone. Where are you at? Oh, I say! ANOTHER VOICE (HUGH'S) Hush, duffers. Here, give me a Hft. [A murmur outside, and kicks against the door; then Hughes head appears through the transom.] THE PROLOGUE 5 HUGH Higher! Boost me, mon. Hold on to my hoof, there. Warty. Easy now. Reach me the cane — the cane, I say — damn it, the cane. That's it. [From outside, a cane is thrust to Hugh through the transom. With it, he reaches down and pushes the catch-lock within. At the same time, the handle is turned from outside and the door is thrown open. In rushes a crowd of students, in caps and gowns, who turn up the gas and scatter about the room, helping themselves to drink and tobacco.] STUDENTS [As they enter.] Hurray! WARTON [Shouts.] What — ho ! mine host! HUGH \Who is left stuck in the transom, his legs dangling, midair, in the open doorway.] Hold on, fellows! Take me out of this. [The students jeer at him.] WARTON \Who ajffects a light air of badinage and conscious super- culture.] Ah! Merriman, Merriman, such is the snare for him who cometh as a thief by night. 6 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA HUGH Hang your soul, Warty! I'd drop down myself, I tell you, if this cursed rag of mine wasn't caught. WARTON Verily, 'tis easier for a camel to pass through the eye — HUGH Will any one give me a lift-down, by God? FIRST STUDENT Go it, man! make it a touch-down; only one yard to gain. To Hell with Yale! The beers are up. [Several students pop bottles and hold them enticingly under Hughes nose.] HUGH Oh, all right, I can hang here, till the Proctor comes. STUDENTS Cheese it. The Proctor. WARTON [Approaching Hugh, warily.] Honest Hugh, hadst thou read thy Shakspere with diHgence, pardee, thou wouldst have taken profit from thy Grandsire Falstaff, and not have fallen amongst us merry wives. However, for the Proctor's sake — \With his pocket-knife, he cuts the strings that hold Hugh, whose gown tears as he falls on his feet to the floor. The rest of the gown remains hanging from the transom.] THE PROLOGUE 7 HUGH [Examining his curtailed gown\ Gad, fellows, I call this humiliating. SECOND STUDENT [Offering his beer.] Here, Merry, don't you care. We came here to initiate Cloudsley; not you. FIRST STUDENT Yes; but where is Cloudsley? WARTON [Picking up Felix's note.] Behold! He hath penned a pronouncement! [Reading.] " Back in a few minutes. Make yourselves at home. Cloudsley." [Warton looks round at the fellows, who are stowing them- selves in comfortable chairs and divans, helping them- selves to cigars and beer, or making punch.] Why hesitate, gentlemen? Make yourselves at home. SECOND STUDENT Cert; and as to this initiation? HUGH Wait; I'd go slow. WARTON And why, prithee? 8 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FIRST STUDENT Yes, what^s struck you, Merriman? Cloudsley has had a cinch all the year — never took his initiation. We other fellows had to stand it. Why shouldn't he? He's different. Rot! WeU — Well, what? HUGH WARTON HUGH WARTON HUGH Fellows, I've bunked with Cloudsley. When I was sick at midyears, he took me in here and fairly coddled me. WARTON Ergo, we must coddle him now, eh? HUGH Well, I saw him days, and I heard him talk in his sleep nights, and I tell you, fellows, Cloudsley's in love. [The room bursts into roars of laughter.] WARTON In love ! Oho ! Cupid, hast thou shot Plato through the Idea! FIRST STUDENT What's the girl's name? (urn OF THE \ c^ XffE PROLOGUE HUGH Sylvia; and I tell you, Cloudsley's got it bad. Why, he writes verses to her, I guess. Anyway, he'll walk up and down in a mighty eloquent silence, muttering like Hamlet. And then, by Gad, for all like Hamlet, you'd think he saw a ghost, for he'll call out '^Sylvia!" to the empty air, and swear by his soul, he'll save her from her lover. SECOND STUDENT The poor duff must have been jilted. HUGH Damme, I think that's it. I spoke to him about it once, but he smiled and tried to stuff me. "Sylvia? " says he, ''why, man, she's just a character in a play I'm writing." And then he laughed at me, but he walked away mighty sober. WARTON A character in a play? So Cloudsley writes plays, does he? HUGH Lordy, yes; all sorts o' queers. But say, as for Sylvia — well! You know, I may be a good grab-bag for taffy, but he couldn't shove that down me. A fellow don't stay awake nights, nor forget to go to dinner, nor talk moonshine at noon, just because he's interested in a character of a play he's writing. It 10 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA takes more than that, I can tell you, by experience. It takes a bloomin' fine girl! WARTON Dare say! But what has Cloudsley's being in love got to do with this initiation? [Reenter Felix, unobserved,] HUGH Why, just this: there isn't going to be any initiation. WARTON Who's going to prevent it? HUGH Me. I tell you, damn it, I'm dead stuck on Felix, and for the short and long of it, if any man wants to initiate him now, he's got to settle with me first. FELIX {Stepping forward.] And what will you do to the initiator, Hugh? HUGH Halloa, FeUx, you here? WARTON Hail, Signore Felice Nuvoloso! Make yourself at home. FELIX With a mock bow.] Grazie, Eccelenzal But first, I believe, I must ''settle" with Hugh here. THE PROLOGUE ii HUGH Damn it, these fellows — FELIX Are about to confer upon me the honor of an initia- tion. Am I right? FIRST STUDENT That's the size of it. HUGH But I say — FELIX That nothing can exceed my boundless gratitude. *Tis a privilege, believe me, I have long sighed for. THIRD STUDENT Hear! Hear! HUGH Come off! — You mean you want to be initiated? — straight? FELDC With all the gravity of the grave. What, Hugh! Would you have me exempted from an honor con- ferred upon all the rest of you? — \With a flourish.] Classmates, I am your grateful servant. Your quest with me this night has affected my feeKngs deeply. Believe me, to bestride the goat of our fraternity would stir my heart-pulse with a more perspiring ardor than to mount the pommel of Pegasus. Nothing, in short, to-night would more fire my soul than this initiation, if alas! — 12 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [He smiles.] — I were not otherwise engaged. [Stamping, jeering and groaning.] FIRST STUDENT Say, fellows, catch on to the " engaged." THIRD STUDENT Hear! Hear! STUDENTS What's her name ? — Sylma ? FELIX Why, yes, Sylvia was the lady with whom — WARTON Oho! Is she here? [PTi^/j a slurring smile.] Gad, fellows, we'd best be out of this. [Bows away.] Cloudsley, a thousand pardons for intruding. FELIX [Looking Warton in the eye.] Hold on, Warton. Not for the intrusion, but for the inference — I'll take your thousand pardons. Are they mine? WARTON [Cringingly.] Oh, your humble servant! THE PROLOGUE 13 FELIX Hugh, show these Bacchantes how to mix punch. HUGH I'm their man. {To a student.] Hand me the mint and mandarin there. But say, Felix, I'm glad youVe owned up: tell us about her. Who is Sylvia, anyhow, and what's her last name? FELIX Why, the name of the last happy thought in your heart. HUGH [Aside to Warton.] Told you so. Warty. Clean off. [To the others.] Well, every man to his taste. A fig, say I, for these girls in the thought; give me one in the flesh. [Raising his glass.] Fellows, here's to our sweethearts, and to every honest girl that can weigh down a buggy spring. FELIX [Drinking with the others.] To the belle of the buggy spring! SECOND STUDENT Here's a bumper to her! THIRD STUDENT Song! Song! 14 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FIRST STUDENT "Johnny Harvard!" — Join in, boys! [A knock sounds on the door, hut is not heard by them. All sing vociferously. Hugh stirs the howl in time to the musicj and Felix thrums the guitar.] ALL "Oh! here's to Johnny Harvard, Fill him up a full glass, Fill him up a glass to his name and fame. And at the same time Don't forget his true love, Fill her up a bumper to the brim; Drink, drink, drink, FiU her up a bumper to the brim." {Amid the shouts and self -applause that immediately follow y enter Mr. Berry and. Mr. Rourke.] STUDENTS [In confused cry.] Come in! Come in! A rouser for the old bucks! Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Old Bucks! FELIX [Remonstrating.] Fellows! — Come in, Mr. Berry, come in. TEE PROLOGUE ' 15 MR. BERRY The door being ajar, Felix, and our knockings un- heard, we — MR. ROURKE [Stepping to the punch-bowl, speaks with a slight brogue.] We walked in, sir, to join your wake. BERRY [Buttonholing Felix.] Old friend of mine — actor — brought him roimd to hear your play. STUDENTS ; [Surrounding Rourke with raised glasses.] A toast to Irish ! Speech — speech ! ROURKE Gentlemen, I drink with ye to the health and spirits o' the fond departed. [Laughter J with shouts of — " Who ? — the Proctor ? "] FELIX Fellows, a word with you. STUDENTS Hear! Hear! FELIX In remembering the Proctor, remember your degrees this week. HUGH Gad, yes; let up, boys. i6 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FIRST STUDENT [Mounting a chair.] Here's to the Proctor — three cheers and a Tiger. STUDENTS Hish! Hish! Pull him down. FIRST STUDENT Down front! BERRY Rourke, this is my boy, Felix Cloudsley. FELIX Mr. Rourke -^ ROURKE Mr. Cloudsley, it gives me real pleasure to drink to your good health. FELIX I hope, Mr. Rourke, you will pardon — ROURKE [Smiling.] Pardon! Why, bless ye, sir, you could double the price of admission and make your fortune. [Helping himself to punch again.] By your leave, Mr. Cloudsley — FELDC Please. [To Berry.] This is mighty good of you to come. I have a great deal to ask you — TEE PROLOGUE 17 WARTON \Who has beckoned the students aside mysteriously] You understand, the masks and togs are in my room, at the end of the corridor. [Loidly.] — Come on! FELDC Drop in again, fellows. FIRST STUDENT Never you fear. [Stealthily pushing hack the door catch, speaks to Warton.] The catch-lock is open. THIRD STUDENT [Singing.] ''Sweet Marie, come to me! Come to me. Sweet Marie." WARTON [To Felix.] Till the witching hour! [Then stealing tiptoe toward Rourke and making a mystical gesture, he murmurs with a very broad brogue.] '' Soft you now! — the fair Ophelia!" ROURKE [Turns quickly, seizes Warton by the nape of the neck with one hand, and makes a theatrical gesture of supplication with the other.] c i8 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA "Nymph! In thy orisons be all my sins re- membered!'* [Then seizing him also by the seat of his trousers, he runs Warton out of the room. Felix and Berry applaud, with laughter.] FELIX I see youVe not forgotten your cues, Mr. Rourke. ROURKE No, sir; I once performed the noble Dane myself, and I'll hear no aspersions cast on his American accent. FELIX You fit new business to the old lines. ROURKE And that, sir, is the actor's prerogative. The actor is the soul and substance of the lines. Without his body's breath, what would they be? Why, words, sir; as the immortal Prince hath it: ^' words, words, words." BERRY Slowly, Rourke! Are we to understand you that the soul and substance of Shakspere are in stage production? ROURKE [Taking a pipe and seating himself] Is it Shakspere's plays ye mean, or his poems? FELIX Aren't they one and the same? THE PROLOGUE 19 ROURKE Me boy! Me boy! Ye're young yet. [Reaching his pipe across to Berry's cigar.] Give us a light, Berry, man. BERRY Give us a light on your argument. ROURKE Yourself, too? Well! Poems is poems; plays is plays. Don't mix 'em. That's all. FELIX But which do you consider the truer to life? ROURKE The truer, is it? Well, now you've got me. For the difference between a play and a poem, so to speak, is the difference between a white lie and a whopper. FELIX [Laughing.] How's that? ROURKE Faith, I'm not joking at all. A dramatist is a liar by necessity; but a poet is a liar by choice. Sure, at least, a dramatist tries to speak the truth, and it's no fault of his if his play, by its nature as an imitation of real life, is but a make-believe after all. His object anyhow is to stick close to that real Hfe, like a man. But a poet — on my heart, he's a deal worse of a duffer, 20 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA for he'll lie like a Frenchman by the hour, and the devil-a-bit he cares, except to make the one lie prettier than t'other. FELIX But, Mr. Rourke, what if a play should contain poetry? ROURKE 'Twould be a sad contamination. I can think of no other cure but to draw the bad blood out, or to amputate the poetic part. But, Mr. Cloudsley, 'tis yourself are the student; and as to being a meta- physical professor — alas for the profession! I neg- lected it in my boyhood. If I might suggest, then, mightn't we hear a bit of this play of your own, sir, which my friend Berry has spoken to me about, as being, he said, a promising piece, sir? [Tapping his head.] We could then discuss these matters less in the nebular hypothesis. BERRY That's right, Felix, — your play. FELIX Excuse me a minute. I will get it. [Exit to his bedroom.] BERRY Well, what do you think of him? ROURKE A nice boy, and his punch is out of sight. THE PROLOGUE 21 BERRY I knew his parents intimately. Since they died, I have kept a kind of wing over him. He hasn't been at all well lately, and I'm anxious. ROURKE Bless his heart! He should take a week's run of one night stands, and brush off the cobwebs o' classicism. BERRY I hardly think that would serve. His malady appears to be mental. This play of his — a piece of some talent, though extravagantly youthful — seems to absorb his mind, and set him off in the wildest of speculations as to the relation of life to his imagination. The imagination, he believes, is a faculty of perception and creation. So, on the one hand, his imagination can perceive truths beyond mere eyesight; and on the other, it can create, from these truths, beings beyond mere flesh and blood — creatures which are henceforth indestructible, immortal; for whose ex- istence he himself is responsible, as the good Lord for him. Why, man, he believes it; but what's worse, it's making him ill. ROURKE The boy has overstudied. He should see a doctor. BERRY I think he should. And yet, Rourke, I'm not so certain that our doctors, or we other practical old 22 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA fellows of experience, can determine always where higher sensibility ends and aberration begins. Any- way, the doctors themselves would agree that we must meet Felix on his own ground. ROURKE Leave him to me, — bless him! If I don't rub the common sense into his sensibility, call me an Irishman. BERRY I will, Rourke. Blarney the boy and I'll bless you! Yet not too Irish with him. I haven't told you the worst yet. ROURKE Eh? What's got him worse than Imagination? BERRY Love! ROURKE In the heart, is it? or the hat? BERRY Rourke, be sober. You may guess how far gone he is, when I tell you that he has actually fallen in love with one of the characters in his own play. ROURKE [Staring.] No, by St. Patrick! Poor boy! Poor boy! And him too living in such jolly apartments as this. Well, here's a health to's sweetheart — the Virgin save her! THE PROLOGUE 23 {Ladling more punch and humming.] ''Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass." {Reenter Felix, with a manuscript. At the same moment, through a tapestry which hangs on the wall opposite him, appears, in faint light, the figure of a girl. She makes toward Felix a gesture of pathetic appeal, seeming to beseech him for his manuscript; then disappears.] FELIX {Starting forward.] Stay! — Sylvia! {He pauses in the middle of the room, moved, oblivious of the others.] BERRY {Hurrying to him.] What is it? FELIX There! — Gone again. ROURKE In God's name, man, what ails ye? BERRY Bring some wine. ROURKE {Patting Felix on the shoulder, offers him his glass of punch.] There, there, my boy; a bit of a swallow will fix ye up. 24 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX Thanks, no. You saw nothing? But of course not. BERRY You're not well, Felix. Take my word; these are hallucinations. FELIX Hallucinations! Why, yes; that's the name psy- chologists give them, and study them in laboratories. But is not love an hallucination? Are not beauty, truth, ideality, hallucinations too? Do they not take ' on forms at midday and mock us — for they die? BERRY [Gently.] Felix— FELIX My kind friend — BERRY I beg of you — FELIX [Quickly.] Do you believe in fairies? BERRY Fairies? FELIX Do you believe in water-nymphs and fauns, in sylvan creatures, such as the Greeks worshipped, before ever Empedocles put clockwork in the world? BERRY What — supernatural beings? THE PROLOGUE 25 FELIX No, natural. BERRY {Smiling.\ Fairies of flesh and blood? FELIX No, for so they would not be fairies. BERRY Why, what do you mean, then? I believe such creatures exist merely in fancy. FELIX Exactly — where we all exist. Thank you. ROURKE Faith, you^re welcome, my boy. And now take a smack of the punch, just to warm up your superior apperceptions. FELIX [Smiles faintly, then laughs^ Forgive me. Isn't it pitiful — what a fool a little laughter can make of a man? The tragic heart has perfect key; but screw it a bit in the ribs, and crack! It's sharp or flat — part of the common discord. [Drinks the profered punch.] ROURKE And that's right. A man's head is the balloon of his fancy, and in it he makes many heavenly excur- sions. But, boy, he must stow sufficient ballast in 26 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA the stomach, or else — good-by to the earth! He'll sail away up, clean through the gate o' St. Peter. FELDC What a calamity that would be! ROURKE It would indeed, sir. To intrude upon the propriety of the angels is not decent in a modest man. Your health, sir. BERRY [Touching his glass to Rourke^s.] And success to ''Sylvia!'' [They sit.] ROURKE "Sylvia?" — The name of his play, is it? FELIX Partly; the play is called — ''A Garland to Sylvia." ROURKE A poor name altogether; it's not catchy. Call the girl Peggy and drop the Garland. BERRY Rourke, you're incorrigible. [Rourke gives a solemn sign to Berry and then a wink.] FELIX Shall I begin? BERRY Do. By the way, when did you finish it? THE PROLOGUE . 27 FELDC I haven't finished it. BERRY Haven't? What troubles you? FELIX [Smiling.] The ending. BERRY I hope you're not still worrying over your moral right to make your characters what you please. FELIX Maybe I am, for I want them to be true. BERRY But, dear boy, what has truth to do with art? FELIX Or art with moral right, you would say! BERRY Precisely: the best morality may be the worst of art. FELDC Yes, and the worst morality — may it be the best of art? ROURKE Faith, tis the only kind, sir! Fine art is like fine cheese: 'tis not in good taste till it smells. [Winking across at Berry.] I see you're no connyshur, sir. 28 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX [Musing.] So you think that in my play — ROURKE Your play, is it! Ah, now, that's not a matter of good taste, but good business. Serve your public a fine moral, of course. But the main thing is — has your play got action? Keep your actors hustling; acting, sir, acting; what else are they for? Keep your audience staring. Startle 'em, sir. Make the men forget their bank accounts, and the women their dress- makers. That's the test of a play, sir. FELIX I agree with you heartily. But may I ask a ques- tion? We may forget our money troubles, you know, by gazing at a sunset, or we may forget them by having our corns trod on. Now just which means of oblivion, may I ask, do you intend here? ROURKE Sunsets, sir, don't divert a man's thoughts from his troubles. I never saw one yet, but I wondered whether 'twould rain or not for the evening's performance. But the play, sir: show us your play. FELIX [Handing it.] This is the manuscript. THE PROLOGUE 29 BERRY Read it yourself, Felix. Your Dramatis Personae. FELIX [Reads.] A Garland to Sylvia. Characters — Men: Sandrac, an Oxford Student of Astrology and Magic. ROURKE Of what, sir? FELIX Magic. ROURKE What sort of a plot are you giving us? FELEX A fairy tale. ROURKE Pish! [Berry makes a sign of moderation to Rourke, who relights his pipe and twinkles at him.] FELIX [Reads.] Sandrac — ROURKE The hero, is he? FELIX Yes. [Reads] Babblebrook, a courtier; Ishmael Sob, a curate; Pierre, a painter; Alberto, a violinist. ROURKE Pish, sir, pish! 30 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX [Reads.] Hikrion, a woodcutter, foster-father of Sylvia. Women: — ROURKE Stop a bit. Which is your villain? FELIX I read his name, I think: Sandrac. ROURKE But you said he's the hero. FELEX So he is. ROURKE [Chtickling.] Ay, then, Berry, look sharp. Read on, read on. FELEX [Reads.] Women characters: Sylvia — ROURKE The star, I presume. FELEX As you wish. [Reads.] Fervian, Flurriel, Fresca, her handmaids; six others of her handmaids; wooers; spirits — ROURKE What's that? — spirits? No, no, m' boy. That's too heavy on the property man. Ghost skirts and THE PROLOGUE 31 moonKght come high. Turn 'em off; they'll lose you twenty per cent. FELIX Thanks; I'll note that also. {Reads^ Act First, Scene: The Forest of Arden. ROURKE Arden! Ha! Poaching in Willie's woods! FELIX Willie himself was a poacher. [Reads] Act I. I must explain to you that, as the curtain rises, it is early dawn in the forest. For the first moment or two nothing is heard but the echoing strokes of a woodcutter; then, from different directions, are heard two voices calHng behind the scene. [Reads] FIRST VOICE Woodchopper, hoi SECOND VOICE Woodchopper, ho! [Enter Babblebrook; his courtier's dress is tattered with thorns: he walks limply and looks worn and sleepy.] 32 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA ROURKE He's alone on the stage? FELIX Yes, the curate hasn't entered yet. [Reads.] BABBLEBROOK So this is The wood of Arden — would I were home! [Shouts,] Which way, Good Master Woodchopper? THE SECOND VOICE [Calling.] Which way? BABBLEBROOK [Shivering,] Snakes' hisses! Voices! Enchantment! Did it answer, eh? How! Did it mock? The wood is voluble With kisses as an unlit alcove. I Shall be enzoned with nymphs, and made a gull, A rape of. [Driving off a swarm of mosquitoes.] Shee! They cluster now. Fie! Fie! As thick as grapes on Bacchus. Oh, their stings, Their pepper-pinchings and their back-bites, sly As ladies' tongues. Hence! Hush your pipey wings. Ye gnats and knaves! [Babblebrook kneels.] THE PROLOGUE 33 You understand, Mr. Rourke, to the audience the scene is still half dark. ROURKE To me, it's dark entirely. FELIX [Reads.] O courteous, kingly Sun, If ever thou didst smile on mortal things Oh, smile on 'em nowl If ever thou wert known To rise in the morning, get up nowl This day Break not thy golden rule. Thy will be done! [He rises. Enter Sob; neither sees the other.] BOTH [Calling together.] Who's there? SOB A voice! BABBLEBROOK A njrmph! SOB O Lord, which way? BABBLEBROOK I will not be seduced; no, though it be Circe herself. [-He steps on a stick, which cracks; alarmed, he draws his sword.] BOTH [Calling together.] Ho, woodchopper! [A loud knock at Felixes door.] 34 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA ROURKE Faith, there he comes now — chopping the door down! FELIX [Calls.] Come in! [Enter the Proctor^ THE PROCTOR Lights out, Mr. Cloudsley. FELIX Lights out! — at this hour? PROCTOR It's near midnight. FELIX Isn't this stretching a rule? PROCTOR I have reason for suspecting disorderly conduct here to-night. You will have the goodness to make all dark and quiet at once. Good night. [Exit.] ROURKE [Jumping up.] The Proctor, is it? FELIX Yes. ROURKE Faith, then, we'll have him in. [Slips to the door, and calls into the corridor.] Your honor! THE PROLOGUE 35 PROCTOR [Outside.] What's wanted? ROURKE The ecstasy of your society by the flowing bowl of Hollis. PROCTOR Lights out, I said! ROURKE [Returning.] Bedad, then, Mr. Cloudsley, we must even be quit- ting your hospitaUty. FELIX I am truly sorry, though it gives you, sir, a fortunate chance of escape. ROURKE Not a bit, m' boy! The punch might have been worse; but I'll grant ye the play might 'a' been better. And with that take my humble advice: don't rim a stage ''elevator." Stick to the ground-floor and catch the customers. BERRY Don't let this disturb you, Felix. It's just as well, for you need the sleep. ROURKE [Shaking Felixes hand.] Good night, lad. May ye keep as lively as your punch. God bless ye! 36 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX Good night, sir. Can you see the way? [To Berry, pressing his hand.] Good night. [Closing the door, he turns out the gas, and stands in the fire- light.] People are kind, yet, except for kindness, so far sundered! My dearest friend stands on the far horizon of my soul, whose brim ever widens before me, as I run to reach it. Ah, I'm heart-weary and perplexed. To finish the act — the play — to end all truly! Put this Sandrac in my Sylvia's arms? God curse him, no! What to do, then? But first, what's true! What's true? [He takes up his guitar and thrums it faintly y with pauses.] Could Sylvia love him? Take him to her heart? Could such a union be and heaven allow it? No! Yet he alone has won her; for only he of all has guessed her secret worth, and she has promised her heart to him who shall guess it. Yet how could she have thought — have fancied even — that such a heart as his could construe her beauty, and still cherish its own ugliness; could seek her love, only for selfish rapture; could emulate her truth, only for self- laudation? Yet Sandrac does so, and wins. Or, seems to win? Which? Which? I'm soul-sick with the thought. THE PROLOGUE 37 [Sitting in front of the dying fire, he sings to his guitar*] Who is Sylvia? What is she, That all her swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she: The heaven such grace did lend her That admired she might be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty Hves with kindness. To her eyes love doth repair, To help him of his blindness. And being helped, inhabits there. While he sings the second verse, Sylvia enters, as before, through the wall tapestry. Noiselessly she crosses to Felix, and is about to touch his manuscript, when he turns dreamily and looks at her.] Sylvia! [She glides to the wall; he follows, supplicating.] Do not leave me! Speak to me — one word that I may believe I am not mad. Tell me he is not true — Sandrac. Tell me he is not true. Oh, if you love me, speak! SYLVIA [Pointing to the manuscript^ Destroy him. [She disappears.] FELIX Gone! But she loves me. Still Sylvia loves me! Sandrac, you hear ? ** Destroy him." Ah, now it's * The music to the song is that of Schumann. 38 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA plain as day. My world is overturned. My play — the fire — my manuscript! They're false, these lovers, and Sandrac falsest of all. In the fire! [Snatching his manuscript from the table, he tears it and throws it in the fire; then blows the flame with the bellows.] Hearth — be my heart! Heat, be hell itself! Flames, you are love, love, love! It burns, it burns! There you go, Babblebrook, Alberto, Sob — and you, you, Sandrac, my changeling soul, all — all in the fire! At last, they die — now they have passed from me utterly. "Destroy him!" Now it is done! Sandrac dead — and Sylvia loves me — [Burying his face in his arms, he sobs.] Dear God! Joy is such sweet grief! [Enter at back, the Students, in masks and long gowns of white and crimson. Each figure carries a lighted candle. They enter, single file, and surround Felix, who — buried in his own feelings — does not see them.] WARTON [Nudges Hugh, who is the leader of the pageant; all speak in whispers.] Now, Merriman! HUGH Curse it, man, I haven't the heart to. WARTON Twaddle! — he said he sighed for the privilege. [Hugh coughs to attract Felix's attention. The Second Student pokes Hugh in the ribs, whereat the others give sound to stifled giggling.] THE PROLOGUE 39 SECOND STUDENT Go it, Grand Mogul! HUGH \Whispers,\ Quit, will you? [He coughs again. Felix raises his head, and looks at the masked figures, all of whom raise their candles in their right hands, and, stooping, stare at him.] FELIX [Murmurs.] The initiation! Now? [They beckon with their candles. Felix rises, smiling.] Mysterious gentlemen, you are welcome. [He makes a mock reverence, and they bow in return.] I hope you enjoyed a pleasant passage on the Styx? WARTON [At Hugh's ear.] Speech now, Sir Pluto. HUGH [In a loud whisper.] Shut up. Warty. [Hugh waves with his candle, Felix follows him to the chair in front of the fire.] FELIX That way, your reverence? I await your com- mands. What, must I sit? — Nay, gentlemen, after you. You are my guests. 40 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [The maskers nudge one another^ tittering; then — all to- gether — repeat Hughes gesture to be seated.] You insist? Why, then, if that's the fashion in Hades, [Sitting, he addresses Hugh, and points to the fire.] won't you sit opposite there, and be comfortable? [The students snicker again. Hugh signs to two maskers, who come forward, hind 'Felixes eyes with a handkerchief, and tie him to the chair. This done, the whole crowd of students gather round Felix in a hubbub of whispers. Hugh motions silence and commences in a deep bass voice.] HUGH Felix, felicissime hominum, tibi ferimus — FIRST STUDENT [Nudging Hugh.] Sst! What's that? [Hugh pauses. The students listen. Hugh resumes^ HUGH — tibi ferimus et gloriam et — [The door opens suddenly; the Proctor enters.] PROCTOR Gentlemen! STUDENTS [Scrambling.] Lights out! Lights out! [They blow out their candles.] THE PROLOGUE 41 PROCTOR What is the meaning of this? STUDENTS The Proctor! WARTON Mum, there! HUGH Hist, Warty; this way! [The studentSy jostling the Proctor, scurry of through the corridor.] PROCTOR Gentlemen, this is disgraceful. This shall be re- ported. [Exit.] [The sound of their receding footsteps grows faint and ceases, Felix struggles to rise.] FELIX Tied — blindfold — tied! How silent — and how black! What does it matter! Now behind these bands, Imagination, which was Milton's lamp. Shall be my candle, and light my muse to build A strong, illustrious theatre in the dark — This dark, which is the dawn of reverie. The building-place is cleared; the refuse past Is swept away; nothing obstructs me now. Sandrac is dead and Sylvia loves me. — Now! [The fire flickers out into Darkness.^] ^ The curtain does not fall. OF -ri. 42 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Scene Second. Act I of ''The Reverie.** [Out of the darkness sounds the echoing stroke of an axe; dimly in gradual dawn the outlines of a forest scene grow visible. Felix is then discernible. His chair has turned to the gnarled root of a great tree, beneath which he sits pensive, motionless as an image. His gown has turned gray and his whole appearance misty. Beside him stands an Aged Figure, majestic, cloaked, and still. Where the hearth-fire shone before, now shimmers a nest of glow-worms. Outside, the strokes of the axe sound more loud; then, echoing through the wood — two voices, calling.] FIRST VOICE Woodchopper, ho! SECOND VOICE Woodchopper, hoi [Enter Babblebrook ; his courtier's dress is tattered with thorns, he walks limply and he looks worn and sleepy.'} BABBLEBROOK So this is The wood of Arden — would I were home I [Shouts,] Good Master Woodchopper? Which way, SECOND VOICE [Calling.] Which way? BABBLEBROOK [Shivering.] Snakes* hisses! Voices! Enchantment! Did it answer, eh? THE REVERIE 43 How? Did it mock? The wood is voluble With kisses as an unUt alcove. I Shall be enzoned with nymphs, and made a gull, A rape of. [Driving off a swarm of mosquitoes.'] Sheel They cluster now. Fie I fie! As thick as grapes on Bacchus. O their stings. Their pepper-pinchings and their back-bites, sly As ladies* tongues! Hence! Hush your pipey wings, Ye gnats and knaves! [Babblebrook kneels.] O courteous, kingly Sun, If ever thou didst smile on mortal things, smile on *em now! If ever thou wert known To rise in the morning, get up now! This day Break not thy golden rule. Thy will be done! {_He rises. Enter Sob ; neither sees the other. ] BOTH [Calling together.] Who's there? SOB A voice! BABBLEBROOK A nymph! SOB O Lord, which way? BABBLEBROOK 1 will not be seduced ; no, though it be Circe herself. [He steps on a stick, which cracks; alarmed, he draws his sword.] 44 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA BOTH ^Calling together, 2 Ho, woodchopperl. iBoth recoil and pray. Outside, the axe resounds again, and in the intervals of its strokes, a strange voice, ranging from basso to falsetto, sings. 2 THE VOICE A hard hand and a hove hand, hoi Maketh the big oak bend. The monarch that sitteth so grand, hoi Leans to a lowly end. With high and low of every kind, Old Death he hath an axe to grind. God give us grace to mend I BABBLEBROOK It fades. Where is the voice? [Outside the axe-stroke ceases; a shrill warning cry is heard; then a loud crack and whirr of foliage, as a tall tree falls thundering in the background. Babblebrook and Sob, rush- ing wildly to escape its fall, run accidentally into each other's arms.] BABBLEBROOK HelpI^ SOB HelpI [Sob clings convulsively to Babblebrook, who, in a frenzy of fear, extricates himself] BABBLEBROOK Ofif, Echo-nymph! — Sham I THE REVERIE 45 Back! I'm no innocent; I*m a devil of blades. I know the skirt-tribe to their shoe-lacings. Begone; I'm old in the art; you cannot cram Me. SOB Gentle woodman, are you he that sings In the forest? BABBLEBROOK " Woodman? " " Woodman! " Sylph, 'tis true That I have supped with princes, dined with kings. Yet now am " woodman." Nut-brown is my hue! I am thy faun, Diana. [^Attacking Sob fiercely. '\ Drink the dregs Of love and death, which — [Pausing wonderstruck,] Lady Alicia! who Are you? SOB No njrmph; a modest man, who begs Your grace: a curate, sir, in misery. BABBLEBROOK Thank God! SOB How, sir? BABBLEBROOK Those skirts about your legs Played false; but Heaven be praised you are a he, [Embraces Sob."] Yotir name, palpable modest man! 46 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SOB Sob, sir; Ishmael Sob. BABBLEBROOK \^With a sweeping bow.'] And mine's Sir Balliol Babblebrook — by the sex sumamed " Sanscoeur." And now, friend Ishmael, let us end our stroll In peace; 'tis time I sought my destination; I am a lover. SOB So am I, my lord. BABBLEBROOK " My lord: " lip-loving, luscious deliquationi Speak it again. SOB My lord — BABBLEBROOK O sugar 'd word I It melts. SOB My lord, I love — BABBLEBROOK Peace, fool! You'll smother All the nine Muses with your ignorance. You are too fleshly. I am quite another Sort. I am kiss-accoutred. I'm Romance Anthropomorphized! Your miasmic moons And midnight are my forte, I like this dance In the underbrush — rather. For the starry boons Of a lady's eyes, I plunge into the briers. And range the wood for lions; read the runes THE REVERIE 47 Of rotted stumps for mushrooms (Romance requires A stomach, and the stomach seeks base earth), And thus, by knightly quests, I fan the fires Of my fierce love for Sylvia, and her worth. SOB [^Sighing.'\ And so do II BABBLEBROOK Thou liestl SOB Sheathe thy blade, My lord I Heaven witness that I ne'er spoke mirth I* my life. This Sylvia whom I seek*s a maid Who makes her rustic dwelling in this wood With her old foster-father. Yet, 'tis said. Though she is shy, she comes of as gentle blood As any lady rides in London. BABBLEBROOK Zounds I 'Tis she. Speak: is she rich? SOB She must have treasure; Vast treasure, too, my lord, for there's good grounds To guess she's royalty, whom high displeasure Has hid in this far forest. BABBLEBROOK And you think, Miscreant curate, she would have thee? SOB Please your Lordship, 'tis like she does not know the link 48 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA To her birth, being found a babe; but after all, Even if she does, from me she should not shrink, For man is man — a noble animal. BABBLEBROOK True, hag; but not in shameless petticoats Like thine. I'U show thee man. [Plunges at him with his sword, striking far off the mark, but terrifying Sob.] Base curate, fall I Fight! Flee I Fade! This is man. Man slives the throats That speak profane praise of his mistress' face ; Exhale, then! — Soft! If you be dead and gone, I'll be alone in this nymph-haunted place. [Extending his arms, with a smile.'] Ishmael! SOB [As they embrace.] 'Save you, sir. BABBLEBROOK Love's not a bone To squabble over. Love should cofraternize. Come! SOB Where? BABBLEBROOK To Sylvia: for hark, mine ownl There lives a man to damn our enterprise: A base astrologer, a youth profound In Alchemy and black art. He's named Sandrac. He has two acid eyes that peer around And smile at you, like culprits in the hand-rack. TEE REVERIE 49 SOB Heaven shield us, sir I What of him ? BABBLEBROOE This: he has come On foot, over dale and down, through wood and sand track, To find out Sylvia and to take her home With him. SOB What I have you seen him? BABBLEBROOK Yes, I crossed His path last eve. So hasten I For if we Be last to Sylvia, Sylvia will be lost To us, — or what's more apropos, to me. Hal Here's our woodman. [Enter Hikrion, with an axe, singing.'] HIKRION What is strong. And lasts long. Sing it a song — Cheerily O! Time, time. That sits in the slime. Ring him your rhyme — Wearily OI [At Eikrion^s song, the Aged Figure beside Felix stirs and touches him on the brow. Felix lifts his head, and wakens slowly to conscious attention.] 50 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA BABBLEBROOK Good day, old good fellow. You pipe up early. HIKRION Ah I Good day to ye, My pretty masters. Be you two the mellow Night-birds I heerd coo up the larks o' late? BABBLEBROOK How mean you? Birds 1 HIKRION Their note was " Hello I Hello I " A sweet wood-wooing. BABBLEBROOK ManI HIKRION A singular trait; {^Jerking his thumb at Soft.] Ye*ll tell the hen-bird by her feathers. BABBLEBROOK Peasant, Beware I This worthy gentleman's my pious Friend. So, beware the birch-stick. HIKRION Dear, it*s pleasant, To meet with modesty, aren't it? BABBLEBROOK Zacharias And Judas! Upstart, I will teach thee whether TEE REVERIE 51 The modest mode be taught by swine, or by us Of better breed. \He draws his sword and makes a lunge at Hikrion, who, with a twinkle, catches it away from him; then examines it, whistling softly.] HIKRION A mighty smart tail feather! I guess I'll fetch it home to Sylvia. BABBLEBROOK \^Gasping.^ Who? HIKRION I've got a daughter kep* to home. — Fine weather, Aren't it? Good morning. BABBLEBROOK Hold! Hold! Take us, too, Good Hikrion. Art thou not Hikrion, Her noble father? Stay! SOB Wait, sir! we woo Your heavenly daughter — BABBLEBROOK [Thrusting Sob aside.'] Peace, thou jackass' son! — O Hikrion, great hermit of the grove! Far-famed forester! know, I am one Who come, uplift like Diomede to Jove, To sue from thee thy daughter. I admire, Nay, worship, nay, adore, nay, like, nay, love — Thy daughter. But I first address her sire. 52 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA As doth become Sir Balliol Babblebrook. Speak! I*m your servant, sir: behold my squire; Use him for what you will. SOB Nay, by the Book — BABBLEBROOK [To Sob.} Hush I Shall we two be rivals? HIKRION My queer daughter Catched many a queer fish on her beauty's hook. But none with such a gill as this. She's caught a Bull-head here. [To Babblebrook.] So, Sir Diomede, you think To win my Sylvia? SOB ^Intervening.'] Aye, sir. BABBLEBROOK iPushing Sob away. ] I, by sueing Her noble sire. HIKRION [ With a sly, knowing glance. ] Then let the blind horse wink, The cat steal cheese, the mice do all the mewing. [With a skip and a merry scowl, he peers close in the faces of Babblebrook and Sob.] THE REVERIE 53 Come, masters I By my curls, that look like horns, Come on I I'll show ye the woodland way o' wooing. [Exit, skipping to his song.~\ See! the oak Turns to smoke In chimney choke, Drearily OI But peat o' the mire Flames in the fire. And flies higher — Airily OI [During the song, Felix rises and listens as it dies away in the forest.] [Babblebrook and Sob stand staring after Hikrion.] BABBLEBROOK Sob — Sob! SOB My lord I BABBLEBROOK Lead on I SOB The highest bom's The first, my lord. BABBLEBROOK Slave! dost thou fear the thorns? SOB [Touching his head."] The horns, my lord. 54 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA BABBLEBROOK [Trembling.] The horns? SOB He is not made, Methinks, like common men. He walks uncanny, And then — [Makes the sign again.'] BABBLEBROOK [Drawing close to Sob.] What! did you note 'em? {They whisper, with timid gestures. Meantime, Felix — leav- ing the Aged Figure standing by the tree — approaches them, looks them in the eyes, touches their garments. Seeing, however, that they pay no attention to him, he turns pensively away, as if trying to remember.] FELIX What dream is this, Where thoughts I have written rise up in palpable flesh And make a ghost of me? BABBLEBROOK But he said That they were curls, not horns. SOB Sir I put not any Trust in his guile. [They whisper again. Felix draws nearer.] BABBLEBROOK What, what! His knees? His knees I TEE REVERIE 55 SOB Did not you mark their crook? \They whisper again.'] FELIX Those words — those words: ''His knees? Did not you niark their crook?" — What wind, Moaned from what muffled cavern of my mind, Sighs in my ears these sounds? — " His knees ! — Did not You mark their crook? " — Ha, Babblebrook and Sob! Now, now I know them! BABBLEBROOK A satyr of yore? FELIX Right; that's right; those are The very words! He took his cue. Now comes — ^'For shame! Such monsters haunt mythologies." BABBLEBROOK For shame I Such monsters haunt mythologies. Thou slave of superstition, go before! SOB But if — Stay! BABBLEBROOK I'll have thee hanged for heresies! [Soh precedes Babblebrook, and they go.] FELIX [Following them.] 56 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Stand, elusive shadows! Stop, I say! 'Tis I command you — your creator, Felix. — [The§ disappear in the wood.] Gone — gone! Could I not even hold their hems Between this waterish thumb and forefinger? What! Is my frame dissolved, like a salt-pillar In the humid air? Am I a water-wraith That I should blow through unsubstantial lips These pale, prismatic bubbles of no sound? And this intangible wood, where now I walk Numb-footed, like a friar in the frost, — What tenebrous dream is this? — Ahnost I seem A bodied breeze, for when my pulses beat. Shrill zephyrs whistle through my reedy veins And puff my ribs with foam of their own essence. Yet I am Felix still, and this is Arden, Where I have wandered many a pensive hour, Tending my flocks of fancies; ah! but then — Then — they were made of mist as I am now. Where's Sylvia? She will make me real again As her own cheek of rose. [He crosses toward the right, where Sandrac enters. The two gowned figures, Sandrac in black, Felix now in misty gray, walk toward each other, till — almost meeting — Felix sees Sandrac, and recoils,] Sandrac! O (k)d! THE REVERIE 57 SANDRACi This is the verdurous and virgin shore Where the wan night-wave heaves its tide of lovers On odorous dunes, with violets sprinkled o*er; And here land I, with Sylvia's amorous drovers, Who are, in love, such umpires of her worth As cows, in art, are connoisseurs in clovers. Then well for me, and for the Muses* mirth, That such they are, for I'll the sooner win And wed this Sylvia's heaven to my earth. FELEX Sandrac, the sophist! He it is, and lives, Breathes, walks again ! I rent him limb from loin, Tore out his festered heart, dripping with speech, And cast him headlong all into the fire; Yet wizard now, like Satan's salamander, He slips again into the voluble air And prates of sin, as Socrates of virtue. Ah God, / made him! [SANDRAC] A secret Sylvia has: there let's begin. Sylvia shall keep her secret safe, unless Some suitor, to her maidenly chagrin. Shall answer three set questions. If he guess These right (of which the chief is: " What is she? ") The lover wins the stakes of loveliness And Sylvia's treasure's his. Now, let us see: What is this treasure? ^ Like Babblebrook and Sob, Sandrac remains totally oblivious of Felix. 58 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX 'Tis as far from your Just heritage as heaven from hell's. [SANDRAC] Is it procurable By such as I? FELIX Yes — God Forgive me in my ignorance ! — for I Have placed in your apostate hands the key That imlocks all her shrines. [SANDRACl Men think that alchemy Is my black art, but men are wondrous dull. For poesie is all my secret power Which says: Win golden Beauty I Then, never fear it, The beauteous gold of fame shall be her dower j Nay more! which tells me Sylvia is — FELIX Forbear! [SANDRAC] A spirit. FELIX Curst be Your knowledge! Curst be I, that taught it you [SANDRAC] A fairy princess, whom blockheads in bliss Suppose a princess royal; for they judge That fairies are but fictions; so they miss The wealth would give them royal power. But fudge I I am not of these fools. THE REVERIE 59 FELIX Would God you were! So you had never aspired To wrest from Sylvia her throne, and reign Nero of Arcady. But no! you shall not. What! In your hand, her sceptre — which is now A benison of beauty — would become An engine for all ugliness. Turn back! Go; I rescind you! [SANDRAC] Ah I here's my woodman Pan, in disguise. FELIX Sandrac! — Deaf as the dead! [^Enter Hikrion, with a willow-switch driving before him Sob and Babblebrook; the latter is laden down by a ponderous weight of logs and brushwood, the former is groaning under the weight of two pails of water, which hang from a yoke on his shoulders.^ HIKRION Come, pretty masters, budge! Sir Diomede, this is the Olympic mood, man; Your uncle Phoebus woo*d i' the wood way: mark iti KsukI Ksuk! BABBLEBROOK [Groaning.^ O London I HIKRION Budge; we're late; budge. SANDRAC [Calling.^ GoodmanI [Hikrion, who is whistling, pays no heed.'] 6o A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SOB Grace, Lord I HIKRION Who taps the maple first must bark it; The sap is Sylvia. SANDRAC Goodman, leads this path To Sylvia's. HIKRION [^Tuming.^ Yea, I drive these to her market. [Touching up Sob with his switch and clucking with his cheek.'] Ksuk, Dobbin! SOB Grace! HIKRION The sinner feels his wrath: Spare not the rod. [To Sandrac.'] Join you this circus, sir? — A privilege every suitor of Sylvia hath. BABBLEBROOK # [^Seeing Sandrac for the first time,"] Nay, by my lady Alicia, 1*11 not stir An inch, if he goes — Satan give him riddance! I know him for a vile astrologer. An alchemist. — Kind woodman, give me credence! First come, first serve. THE REVERIE 6l SANDRAC [Bowing, with a sarcastic smile,'] I pray you, give precedence To Sylvia's London suitors. I will follow. HIKRION So be it. Quoth the donkey to the ass: Come bear a burden! Trol-lee — trollo — troUoI Nay, quoth the ass, your burden is too bass: A lighter one is: Hollo — hollo — hollo! [Exeunt Hikrion, Sob and Babblebrook. Sandrac pauses a moment, smiling to himself. Felix stands guard over him and, at his first motion to follow the others, steps in his path.] FELIX You shall not pass. For this way Sylvia lies. — [Pointing.] That way, return! SANDRAC How pleasantly a poet's fancies pass I FELIX [Attempting to thrust him back.] Stand back! By heaven, no farther! You think to browbeat me too? [Sandrac passes on through Felixes arms, as through a mist, and exit in the wood.] Ah! Tm naught. — No, no ! Stay your inevitable feet, Sandrac! — Return! — God help me, I^m weak, weak. 62 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [He sinks back for support against the gnarled tree. Here the Aged Figure, turning y takes him in his arms. Felix looks in his face with awe.] What are you? THE FIGURE Somnus I am called. This wood And you are mine. FELIX Then hide me in your breast, For I am faint at heart. [Somnus folds Felix in his cloak.] [CURTAIN.] ACT n ACT II Scene I: A room in Sylvia's cottage; at back, a great fire- place, within which, on either side, are two stone chimney- seats. Sylvia and her nine handmaids discovered; Sylvia is playing battledoor and shuttlecock with Flurriel; the others look on, clapping and laughing, except Fervian, who stands aside, watching them pensively. SYLVIA Fasterl FRESCA Brave battledoor! SYLVIA Now serve it over Their heads. There! A saucy boy. FLURRIEL [Striking.} SYLVIA Hoi you box it sidewise, like FLURRIEL Now, like a naughty lover: First bandy him, then jilt him; so! SYLVIA Fair strike! F 6s 66 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FERVIAW This game, I thought, was shuttlecock, not punning. SYLVIA Thy wisdom, girl, like a gray, greedy pike, Gulps all the twinkling minnows of our funning. Hahal Well hit I iFervian turns away, hurt,^ FLURRIEL [^Panting,'] Enough I SYLVIA Why, Flurriell What is the matter? FLURRIEL Breath! — My heart is running Like Daphne, with Apollo at her heel. SYLVIA iLaughs.^ The fashion of your flesh is too tight-fitting. FLURRIEL Would I could let a tuck out! SYLVIA So you will To-night, when we shall all disrobe us, quitting This mortal millinery. Yet, o* my heart! I like this garb of Mother Nature's knitting; 'Tis very pretty — mine is — and its art Is exquisite. Look! THE REVERIE 67 [Holds out her hand.'\ Saw you ever a glove To fit like this? — at once the counterpart And covering of the spirit! Or know you of A jewel in the jetted lace of a queen As bright as Fervian*s dark eye, whose love Darts its own loveliness? FERVIAN What can it mean? You call me " greedy pike," and then relent — Praise my dark eyes I SYLVIA [Laughs.'] Poor sober-sides! — Why, I'm A votress at the shrine of merriment, Where you, a kneeler in this temple of time, Are scandalized to see my altar scrolled With little winged jests for cherubim, Cupids for saints, in chasubles of gold High chanting shrilly hymns of laughter. Yet, Sad pilgrim, know, that in this temple old Are countless shrines; where countless stay their feet To tell their beads with Aves manifold. Whilst to one theme both sighs and jests are set — That's Faith, dear. FERVIAN [Embracing her.] Sylvia! FLURRIEL [At the window, laughing.] Rtm, mistress! RunI 68 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA THE OTHER HANDMAIDS What is it? Look! FLURRIEL HANDMAIDS iLaughing,^ OPanI FLURRIEL [To Sylvia.} Run quickly I Hide I SYLVIA What's coming? — Why, *tis only Hikrion. He's bringing firewood home with his pack-asses. FLURRIEL , Aye, but the hose-and-doublet fashion O' the beasts! — the two-legg'd species: — the jack-asses! FLURRIEL Nay? Are they mortals? Poor dears! I've a bone To pick with Hikrion. [Enter Hikrion.] HIKRION Here I am back, lasses. Old Father Early- Worm has catched some birds. HANDMAIDS [Clinging about him.] What have you brought us, Pater? Tell, tell, tell! HIKRION Peace, pretties; Patience gets the cream o' the curds, But Fidgets licks the cold spoon. Sour daughter? THE REVERIE 69 SYLVIA Sweet dad, — HIKRION WeU, [^Bowing.~\ Craving your grace! — Queen Sylvia. SYLVIA What have you brought us? HIKRION Sweets for an epicure: A blackberry, a raspberry and a Gooseberry; or, to swap the literature, A shark, a gold-fish and a porpoise; or A rook, a parrot and a fatted hen. SYLVIA Tut! tut! We know whom youVe been beating. Pater. [Hikrion hangs his head.'] Your brush-wood could not hide 'em. — They are men, HIKRION And you can smile? You make me a maid-hater. " Ah me," said they, " 'tis all for Sylvia! " Dear! Dear! how my heart ached; so I bid 'em wait a Bit before jogging; but they wouldn't hear On't. No, 'twas ever: " Commend us to thy daughter, The gentle Sylvia! — the tender maiden! For her our backs are broke; give us more water, More logs, sweet Hikrion; we are not laden Enough for gentle Sylvia.'* 70 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [TT/M a twinkle and a sudden skip.^ To be shorter, Have I 'scaped scolding this time? SYLVIA When you're arrayed in Such wool, old wolf, you'd win Titania. [She embraces him with a laugh; he kisses her with a tender humorousness. Flurriel at the door-crack beckons to Fervian.'] FLURRIEL Sister, Let's peek. FERVIAN [Approaching curiously. ~\ Fiel FLURRIEL Thou'rt afraid? FERVIAN Dost think we can — [They peep through the door -chink,'] SYLVIA When jestings smart, let love go heal the blister. [Spying Fervian and Flurriel.'] Oh, Doctor Venus! Flurry and Fervian Have lost their hearts already. So, then! — Sol Reap penance I Each shall have the other's man: [To Fervian.] The courtier's thine; [Pointing at Flurriel.] the curate — hers. THE REVERIE 71 To make wit of. FLURRIEL [Aside,} PERVIAN Poor swains I Here's woe — SYLVIA Her whom they scan First, they will take for Sylvia. Therefore show Them queenly courtesy. But give me Pan To pipe me wood-songs till the pink o' day. 1*11 have no other swain. Come, Hikrion, — [Pulling him by the beard,'} Come, Mossy-beard, let's cry alack-a-day To love, and while we dance, sing every one. [Sylvia, dancing with Hikrion, who has a blithe skip in his step, and the others dancing with them, sing the following song.} SYLVIA If a maiden say thee nay, Cry to love, Alack-a-day I She will alter never Never I But will still pers^ver Everl In her wilful, wilful way. HIKRION Therefore, lover, hie thee back; All thy hopes must go to wrack. Cry alack, alack, alack! Oh, love, alack-a-dayl 72 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA ALL Cry, alack-a! lack-al lack-al Lack-al lack-a-dayl SYLVIA If a maiden say thee nay, Lover, cry, alack-a-dayl She will never, never falter: — Not unless her mind should alter In a wondrous, wondrous way I HIKRION Therefore, maidens, come away I Crjdng; Never 1 nay, nay, nay! Sighing; Lack a lover ay? Love, O lack-a-dayl ALL Sighing: Love, I lack a lover; Love, O lack-a-day! lAt the end, Sylvia with her arm about Hikrion dances out, right, with graceful, gay abandon, followed by the others, dancing. Flurriel and Fervian, the last, pause on the edge of the scene.'] FERVIAN I the courtier — thou the curate I Sister, how shall we endure it? FLURRIEL Only spirit- craft can cure it. Dost thou hear? [ Whispers.'] Tell me, dear. THE REVERIE 73 FERVIAN FLURRIEL Sober taciturnity, Staid religion, pleases thee; Wagging tongue and wit for me I [Taking out a small gold wa/.] Use then this^ and thou shalt see Merry wonders. At its zest. Each shall have what suits her best; For, by means of this sly nurture, A knight shall don a monk's deporture, And a curate change to courtier. [Knocking at the outer door, Flurriel, in hurried whispers, shows Fervian how to smear liquid from the vial upon her left hand. This she does. The knockings grow louder. Exit Flurriel in laughter, 2 FERVIAN Saints 1 what dint Come in — come in! [Enter Babblebrook, bowed under a great pack of firewood^ strapped to his shoulders.^ BABBLEBROOK Art thou the bell which struck that heavenly tone, That silvery mandate? FERVIAN What, good sir? BABBLEBROOK " Come in." It fell upon my heart like wedding bells. 74 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Or like the sweet, premonitory din That preludes dinner-time. FERVIAN Sir, what impels — BABBLEBROOK Bid me not be a sandalled Capuchin To nurse chilblains, and fast on mackerels In a monastery; yet such, beauteous maid, Must be my fate if thou disdain me. Lol Fair Sylvia, I kneel! [Kneeling, he loses his balance; the load of fire-logs is precipi- tated, with a crash, upon the hearth; thus prostrate, he addresses her.^ I love you. FERVIAN [Aside,] Aid Me now, quick magic I [As if to assist him, she extends her left hand; he seizes lY.] BABBLEBROOK Queenly maid, I know This matchless hand without more introduction. A subtle influence makes me aware Thou art the sylvan njntnph of my seduction. Time flies, and wooers flock. To arms I I swear [^Kisses her hand.^ Even by this kiss - FERVIAN [Aside.'] The magic works! THE REVERIE 75 BABBLEBROOK [Glowering, starts from her gloomily.'] Abduction I [He stalks away.] O woman 1 — sounding brass and tinkling cymbal! [Exit, at back.] FERVIAN man I poor patch-quilt, stitched by Clotho's thimble! [Exit, right.] [Enter Flurriel, dragging Sob after her through the outer door. Running to a chair, she places opposite it another; in these they sit.] FLURRIEL [As she enters.] Come, merry Master Sob, come in! This is The game. Here, sit, so! SOB As my rule applies, 1 do not play games. Madam Sylvia. FLURRIEL Oh, But this one's wise; it treats of cooking. — Eyes This way! Hands flat! [Here Flurriel teaches Sob the hand pantomime, which consti- tutes the familiar nursery-game of ''Pease-porridge hot,'* wherein Sob manifests the extremity of awkward confusion. Enter Sylvia, who looks on unobserved.] SOB So? 76 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FLURRIEL lNods.2 Good. Now, out! — No, no! Then upl SOB But what — ? FLURRIEL Now! lAside."] In a wink or two. The honey's magic on my mouth shall turn The spirits of my bumble-bee. [ With increasing rapidity, Flurriel alone, then Flurriel and Sob together, repeat the following ;] Pease-porridge hot, Pease-porridge cold, Pease-porridge in the pot Nine days old. Some like *em hot. Some like *em cold. Some Uke 'em in the pot Nine days old. [Breaking into peals of laughter, Flurriel kisses Sob on the lips, and, taking both his hands, dances twice round; then, pushing him toward the outer door, turns and runs the other way; there, seeing Sylvia, she stifles her laughter and exit. Sob, at the instant of the kiss, is transformed; in the doorway, reeling and hilarious, he bawls out to Sylvia,'] SOB Some like *em hot. Some like *em cold, THE REVERIE ' 77 Some like *em in the pot Nine days old. We'lldol 'Odd's porridge-pots I we'll do I lExit,'\ SYLVIA Can lovers yearn For lunacy! — for honey'd lips, that skew The garb of nature inside out, and sear Even with the senses' first satiety? How otherwise is love! [Enter, from without, Felix and Somnus; the latter, after pointing out Sylvia to Felix, immediately retires outside. Felix goes swiftly to Sylvia, who is standing in a brown study, and addresses her.] FELIX Sylvia, at last I find you. Sylvia! Mute? Love, even you? Are you too held from me Like a white goddess in the unhewn marble Whom only Fancy sees? Are you, too, walled Incarcerate within this reverie. This crystalline, cold castle of conceit? And through its adamant of moated silence Is all incursion, all egress, denied? [SYLVIA] True love makes clear Man's natural aptitudes, lifts them to be His eternal goads to service. 78 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX My words! — still mine. I am hung round with them As with wove, pictured tapestries, through which My muffled heart cries out in vain, O Sylvia! SYLVIA [Sfming as from a trance.] Felix! [She holds out her hands to him; he Udies them passionaUiy and kisses them.] FELIX Thank God! I am alone no more. SYLVIA I have much needed you. How did you come? FELIX I know not how, beloved; but I know That this is you, and where you are joy is. SYLVIA Who brought you here? FEUX An old, strange man; his name He said, is Somnus. SYLVL\ He! \With pitying scrtitiny.] Poor FeKx! THE REVERIE 79 FELIX Tears? Cjod! I had forgot my errand. You Must leave this place — and now! Near by, there lurks A troop of suitors, seeking out your hand: Two are poor numbskulls, harmless; but the third — Ah me! — how shall I name him? He is base, Yet beautiful in quick perceptions. He, By lancing with his eye the breast of heaven To drink cold Nature's milk of starHght; by Probing the hearts of roses for their fragrance; By chemistry of logic, his black-art; But, most, by that rare, subtle sense of beauty, Whose seed, sown in the reason, blooms to a poet, — He, by these means, dear love, has guessed your secret, And comes even now, brooding ambitious rape Of your dominions and your precious self. SYLVIA Sandrac, you mean. FELIX You know him, then? Ah, true; This living dream has steeped my memory In mist. — Fly from him, Sylvia! SYLVIA Fly? You bid The baited fawn, when the big hounds bark near, To fly ! — WiU she not plead to fly? FEUX You mean — So A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SYLVIA I mean that you have plighted me to Sandrac And shackled us with inevitability. You bid me fly, yet force me still to stay To tread the mazes of your comedy. FELIX How could I guess — Ah! hear, love, my defence I SYLVIA The mightiest defence is penitence. Recall your lofty promise, when you sought Me first; retrace its fall — your fall; then, will Its resurrection — which is yours. FELIX I will! If only I could wear your fetters now Even as a red-hot mail of brass, how I Would smile to do it! Recall how first I sought And foimd you? Always! — Dreaming after tasks In college, on a snowy twihght, when The bells had ceased — my Plato laid aside — I pored upon your song young Shakspere sang, TiU ''Who is Sylvia?" pealed through all the hush Miraculous chimes; and there, a sudden genius, You stood — above your forehead, the first star! SYLVIA Your star! FELIX You then, a spirit free as air, I sunk in clay. You — ardent for my earth, THE REVERIE 8i I — for your heaven. There, rapt in wonder, I Besought you come and dwell in my world; you, Besought me how. Do you remember? SYLVIA [Smiling tenderly.] Felix! FELIX So then I told you of a middle land, That borders half on Fancy, half on Reason — A magic bourne where spirits and mortals meet, Named in the inner world Imagination, In the outer, called the Stage. There, if you'd come, I'd give you vesture of fair flesh and blood, Not such as mortals ache and languish in, Nor such as saints and goddesses take on In mural tints and marble; but live speech That vaults like rapture through immortal veins. And pours sweet influence in the ears of men. SYLVIA 'Twas beautiful! And even as Spring gives thanks To every flower that breathes her to the world, I blessed each teeming thought of yours, that gave My yearning heart expression. FELIX So you did. And those your blessings fell like fragrant showers. But there was more. Within that middle land, I said, we two should meet. I should cut out G 82 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA My airy likeness from the stuff of fancy To clothe my own true being. Thus we'd be Eternal lovers in our play of time. SYLVIA Why could it not have been! FELIX Pondering upon, Your spirit powers, the realm you promised me. And the homage men would pay me, in the throne Of strong success, 'twas then that in my brain, Self-bred, with sudden rupture and sick pang, Sandrac was bom. SYLVIA Ah, horrible! FELIX At first, I thought him beautiful as he seemed wise. For he was versed in such Socratic art As made me deem — heaven help me! — that you loved him; That he, not I, deserved your sovereign joy. And therefore, with a mawkish self-deceit, I inveigled you for him into my play And plighted you as lovers. — Ah! but hear me! SYLVIA [Changing.] Good bye! FELIX Where are you going? Sylvia! THE REVERIE 83 SYLVIA Back Into the play. FELIX But you are free! SYLVIA No, no; You chose a happy moment, when my part Was in soliloquy, which for a little Left me my freedom : Now — ah, now I feel The irresistible wires compel me. FELIX Oh, That I should make of you a dial-puppet To obey the petty clockwork of my mind! SYLVIA Farewell, my Felix! Keep your faith. Though I Be lost — a silvery dove, in your soul's fog-bank. Still, while you grope and call for me, your mate, Know that I, too, will seek you as the sunlight. FELIX You shall not need. My will shall be a wind To rend those mists. SYLVIA [Struggling against the change^ which begins to overwhelm her.] Alas! It whirls me on To utter your irrevocable lines. 84 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX Say not irrevocable ! Sandrac — he Will come' SYLVIA It must be. [Oblivious f and transformed in manner, she turns to Flurriel, who enters.'] FELIX Never ! Sylvia! Dissolved! — dissolved like foam in the black current; The stream flows on; and I alone on the bank! [SYLVIA] What now, dear? FLURRIEL Another wooer, mistress — the Oxford scholar Is coming up the wood-path. SYLVIA Then you'll please Me, Flurry, by receiving this new caller. Nay, cozen him with any coquetries You will. He'll think you're Sylvia, I dare say. FLURRIEL That's it; he must, if he should see me first. I warn you, then; he'll think you witless. SYLVIA Mercy! I hope he will, my dear! I have no thirst For lovers, or their praises; for, from hearsay, THE REVERIE 85 They are a fickle species. Better burst With laughter than with love, say I. Adieu I [Exit,'] FLURRIEL Strange! when I saw this wooer through the casement, It set me all ashiver. I feel blue. Yet why? [^She stands pondering,'] FELIX I'll tell you, Flurriel. [FLURRIEL] I wonder what his smiling face meant? The smile was more a scowl than — FELIX Do not trust him. [FLURRIEL] [Looking through the casement, gives a startled cry,~\ I'll hide too. [Exit.] FELIX [Shouts.] Flurriel Flurriel! — So, still doomed to the dumb failure! When I still swayed these beings with my pen, And felt them stirring in my ink, like fish, ' Nibbling the bait of fancy — ah! when I Paced my book'd study with a beating heart And gazed them in the face with my soul's eye. Then — then, I lorded over them. I saw S6 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Them plain, yes, plainer than I see them now I made them speak, laugh, scheme — my puppet show, Fingered them like a god, in short, yet now The waxworks I devised walk away from me. By heaven! it shall not be. They're mine; they're mine; I made them; 'twas my will. — Ah, me! my will! — Too true — my will! O Sylvia, was that I, Who bodied him — him, gave him clay of thought, Where, like a hermit-wasp, in his mud nest. He might secrete and cherish his foul sting. And then, bid him sting — youl No, no, he shall not! He's mine, I say! He must not, shall not, live! iSaTidrac, knocking softly, enters. Somnus follows him in.] SANDRAC May I come in? FELIX And still he lives, and talks with a dead tongue. [SANDRAC] None here? 'Tis quick erasement; I saw a pretty profile on the pane A moment since. [Felix approaches Sandrac with a look of scorn; Somnus steps calmly between them. Enter FlurrieW] Ah, here I — Is this the home Of Hikrion and his daughters? FLURRIEL [Assuming a dignity.'] 'Tis, sirl % THE REVERIE 87 SANDRAC Then Send Sylvia here. FLURRIEL [Between fear and amazement.'] Su-? — Sylvia? SANDRAC Bid her come To meet a stranger. FLURRIEL [Aside, withdrawing slowly,] Does he jest, or feign? Takes he not me for Sylvia? SANDRAC [Knitting his brows,] Well? [Flurriel frightened, curtsies and exit, Sandrac looks round him, smiling.] Her room I FELIX What will he do? My mind is spinning round. I have forgot the sequence of this scene. [During the rest of the sceney Felix watches all with a tense and painful curiosity.] [Reenter Flurriel, bringing Fervian,] FLURRIEL [Aside to Fervian.] He saw through me at once. I tried in vain To cozen him. SS A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FERVIAN [With quiet dignity, to Sandrac.^ Good-day, sir. I am called To meet a stranger? SANDRAC Yes, a jewel-seeker, Whose eye can sift green glass from emerald. FERVIAN Why, so this maid has told me; you were quicker To spy her paste out than the amateur. SANDRAC Quite so; and still less shall I cry " Eurekal '^ Now on beholding you. Where's Sylvia? Her I sent for. FERVIAN WeU, sir? SANDRAC Tush! I know you two; I seek your mistress, not her maids. FLURRIEL lAside to Fervian.'] He's bent On finding her. Alas! what shall we do? FERVIAN [Proudly to Sandrac,~\ I know not by what right of high descent. Or worth, you lord it here. You came to woo, Methinks, and not to wield the sceptre of Supremacy. THE REVERIE 89 SANDRAC What matters that to you Why I came here? FERVIAN My life, sir; for I love My — my — [^Stops confused J\ SANDRAC Your mistress, Sylvia; — say it I FERVIAN Yes, Since by the theft of some bright power above, You have unlocked her secret, I confess That we are Sylvia's handmaids. But I adore My mistress; ere my lips shall syllable Her secrets, I'll be dumb for evermore. FLURRIEL {^Clinching her teeth.'] Our hearts are locked with ivory chains. SANDRAC Well, welll You will unfasten them if you are wise. What, never? Why, then, they may need a spell To ope them, like the Sleepmg Beauty's eyes. FELIX What's that? SANDRAC WhistI Listen! [He brings his face close to FlurrieVs.] Gentle spirit! [Whispers to her,] go A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FLURRIEL FervianI Save Me, save I SANDRAC [To Fervian.'] How fares thy fairy princess, she Who frolics as a maid by day? FERVIAN You ravel SANDRAC Nay, she to whom, by moonlight minstrelsy. Thou singest: "Who is Sylvia?" — Dost thou speak? Art thou not " dumb for evermore? " FELIX That I could silence him! [Somnus restrains Felix.] FERVIAN AND FLURRIEL \_KneeUng.^ Great master I FERVIAN Pity for Sylvia I SANDRAC Nay, though she is weak And I am strong, such knowledge need not blast her. I know her secret; therefore by her vow She needs must wed me; yet I'll haste no faster To bind her spirit-crown upon my brow Than is in keeping with a maid's convention And my own convenience. Till to-night I allow, When I'll make formal shrift of my intention Before her Fairy Court. There I have sworn its Accomplishment. THE REVERIE 91 FERVIAN But — SANDRAC If you give detention To my desires, I'll have you stung with hornets And smeared with vinegar. FELIX O baser than all beasts! [SAKDRAC] I'll keep my eye on You both. — When shall we meet? FERVIAN When through the torn nets Of silken eve, bursts the sun's glaring lion, And shakes his golden mane, with bloodshot eye, Then blinks and lays him couchant 'neath Orion, Come forth and meet us in the wood near by. We'll show you Sylvia. SANDRAC \_SmiUngf takes up his cloak.'\ I shall be there. FLURRIEL [On Fervian's shoulder, sobbing.^ And I. FERVIAN [Faintly,] And I. FELIX [As Somnus beckons him away — looks back at Sandrac.] And I. [curtain.] 92 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SCENE II: Twilight; the edge of the wood, with Sylvia's ivy-grown cottage against a golden wing of the sunset A path leads to the cottage, through a stile in the garden- hedge. Near by, a jet of gleaming water is pouring into a quiet fountain. Enter, left, Alberto, playing improvisations on his violin. He wanders back and forth, pausing at times with his ear bent lovingly over his instrument, lost in the rapture of his own strains. He is followed by Pierre, who pays slight attention to the music. In a bustling manner, he seeks to find the right position for his easel, which — after shifting about and scrutinizing the sunset between his hands, and with slanted cheek — he unfolds, and sets up in front of the cottage. Here he sits, looking off right to the set- ting sun, and commencing a sketch. From the opposite side enter Felix and Somnus. They stop and listen to the touching cadences of Alberto^ s violin.] FELIX Hark ! 'Tis the love-sigh of a sad immortal Breathed to a mortal maiden! — How the sound Yearns through the solemn wood, and emulates The silver diapason of a thrush. [They draw nearer.] O hark again, and still! His instrument Is strung with rushes of a naiad's lute. And modulated with an angePs wand. SOMNUS His is the mightiest voice in my dominions. THE REVERIE 93 [Alberto sits at the foot of a tree, seeming to follow a bird's flight with his eyes. Felix approaches him. FELIX Strange boy, I love you dearly; yet I envy, For you are the bard of that blind eloquence Which rages in my soul when words fall wingless; And robed in your melodious imagery. My longing speaks colossal metaphor. Oh! is it not stinging, Somnus, that this lad May, with a subtle finger-touch, unhinge Heaven's gate, and scatter tumultuous angels over The world. Yet I, who made him, I, who'd bleed My soul out to infuse my instrument, My play (of which these men are stops and strings) With thoughts that loom in me divine and vast, I cannot wake in him one chord — but silence. SOMNUS He and his instrument are one, this bow Is but another member of his body; This violin his outward heart. But you Are all at odds and angles, in rank discord, With a fair instrument xmstrung. FELDC Tis so. [Taking up the violin j which Alberto hcLS momentarily laid down.] How I could love this carven creature! Tell me. 94 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Sweet viol, where now is all thy rapture flown? Is it sipp'd up by those pied forest-birds Thy master's eyes are following? Is it carried Off in their throats to the cedary faun, thy father, Who quaffs the eternal sap of wordless song From his rough bark-vats? Or still does it linger Here, like remember'd music of the waves Lodged in the smooth ear of a pink sea-shell? [Lays the violin down, and crossing to Pierre, looks over his shoulder while he paints.] Gods! how this fellow daubs his thumbs, to cram His sated palette with sick greens and yellows, With never a thought of the heaven he means to paint! SOMNUS He is industrious. Look, he will give you A yellow for a yellow, when all's done. [Alberto begins to play again.] FELIX But not a symbol for a symbol. See Where Twilight, like a sable-cowled monk, By one white taper, plies his solemn task: , With crimson scroll and golden hieroglyph To emblazon on the sombre nave of night The annals of the day that has just died. Let him translate that gorgeous epitaph Truthfully here, not copy it like Sanskrit; So only may he hope to fill the souls Of men with his own immortality. THE REVERIE 95 SOMNUS You find the heavens, then, full of human meanings? FELIX I find a heavenly meaning still in man. SOMNUS Nature, for you, has thoughts ? FELIX Far more! For me, This world's the self-communing mind of Nature, Who, like Athene, yet unborn of Jove, Imagines all that is, and earth and heaven Are but the content of her helm. Even so The night-domed zenith, crystalline with worlds, Is the awful arc of her imponderous skull; The roseate east and west her pulsing temples. Flushing her thoughts in sunsets and in mornings; The coruscating stars and meteors Are flashes of her cerebration, struck — Like sparks that crackle through the cable's coil — From magic fluid. Thus earth, air and all Convolving forms of cloud and whirling rain And scattered sunlight are the neural stuff Of Infinite Reverie, and we ourselves. That burrow in the beehive of God's brain. We men, — are but imaginations, thoughts That crawl, or fly, in Nature's mind; and some Are true, and others are but fancies. 96 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SOMNUS So; What, then, is he? — a fancy? [Enter Sandrac, reading a book. Being dusk, he holds the print close to his eyes.] FELIX [Clutching Somnus^ robe and turning away.] God have pity! [Eoceunt.] SANDRAC [Looking up from his book, listens to Alberto.] This boy's a master; he has ecstasy. [Alberto, at Sandrac's approach, in the midst of a note of infinite longing, throws away his violin, flings himself on the ground, and sobs hysterically.] ALBERTO O, Take her away! Take her away! [Pierre stops painting, looks over his shoulder at Alberto, but seeing Sandrac approach him, resumes his work. Sandrac stands over Alberto.] SANDRAC Here, here, Boy, do not cry. ALBERTO [Sobbing to himself.] Ah, dio, dio, diol THE REVERIE 97 SANDRAC Come, would you make this violet bed your bier? ALBERTO I hate her! [Taking up the violin.] ■— Boy! ALBERTO [Leaps to his feet, and snatching his violin from Sandrac's hands, holds it tight to his breast.] Let go! What man are you? SANDRAC One who may teach you something. ALBERTO [Imperiously.] Leave me; leave. SANDRAC Not till I tell you why your love's untrue. ALBERTO She's not; she's not! [Kisses his violin.] SANDRAC Then, why, pray, do you grieve? ALBERTO You're not my priest; farewell! [Turns away.] 98 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SANDRAC Stay, lad; I like Your manners, and I know your mind. You're sad Because your violin here will not strike A chord as sweet as your soul does. You're mad To dream it can. ALBERTO I am not mad; you liel SANDRAC [Harshly.] Then fiddle on, and fail until you die. [Alberto, with heaving breast, lifts his violin to his chin, and commences playing, at first with moving inspiration, but then with sudden fall into a cheerless commonplace. He stops, utterly disheartened.] ALBERTO She's false; but oh, I loved her I Listen, sir; This thing that you call " it " — this wood — I named Bella, and as a sweetheart, worshipped her Near half my life. SANDRAC Still dreaming to be famed Through her, still failing. Yes, I know. I too Am but a convalescent fool even now. ALBERTO Famed? No, I didn't think of that — To imbue Her heart with my own joy, that was my vow; And now, 'tis broken. Ah, /am the traitor I THE REVERIE 99 SANDRAC No, my young friend, you're puzzled; half right, but Half wrong. You thought, forsooth, since you could mate a Live spirit of Art to this dry, mummied gut. Their offspring would be Joy; whereas, 'tis Yearning. But I will cure you with a little learning. ALBERTO [Throws himself on a bank, plucking up violets and anemones, which he strews about,^ I wish I were well shovelled in the earth That wild flowers then might spring from me I SANDRAC That would Be planting woe for others to pluck mirth. Nay, boy, there's no good in another's good. Unless it be invested for our own. ALBERTO Then give me no more of your good advice. \Tums away, still lying on the bank.'] SANDRAC Well answered, by Minerva! with a tone That's imambiguous. Your heart is thrice More keen-eyed than your brain. Therefore I will Advise you something further for your profit: — [Points to Hikrion's cottage.'] There dwells an heiress. By your master skill In art, you'd win her fortune. Come! think of it, And let this cast-off love [Indicating the violin.] lOO A GARLAND TO SYLVIA go catch a new. Sylvia's her name. PIERRE [Turning about] That might be hard to do. SANDRAC [To Pierre,] Ah, friend, how's that? PIERRE Perchance he comes too late. SANDRAC So, so? — Ah, that's because you seek her hand, Perhaps? PIERRE Why, now you've hit it. SANDRAC Here's a state Of woe for all the rest o' the worid. — Good I and Who, friend, may you be? PIERRE [Still painting.] Pierre, the Painter. SANDRAC He Who has not heard of Raphael, be chid; But he who knows not Pierre, the Painter, be Damned ignoramus. — What, sir! have you hid Your fame in this far forest? THE REVERIE lOi PIERRE A short space Till I shall take this Sylvia home. SANDRAC To Paris? PIERRE Of course; where else? That is the only place. SANDRAC [Signifying with a gesture his desire to look at the painting.] May I — ? PIERRE [Stopping his work and showing the picture with condescension.] Yes, yes, look; to all Dicks and Harrys I do not show my works; but you appear To have some eye and temperament; look here! [Pierre holds up the painting. Sandrac looks at it long.] SANDRAC striking! PIERRE N^est ce pas? What think you of me? SANDRAC Eh? I think that if some kind friend tweaked your nose You'd deem he stroked you on the cheek, to say You are the first of fellows. But God knows, There's been enough of this. If I may advise, To-morrow Sylvia here will hold a test Of all her suitors, she herself the prize Of him who her three questions answers best — 102 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Best meaning rightly. Sirs, to lovers, hints Are good as hatchets to build houses. So Good night! PIERRE [Who has gathered up his things in hot fury.] Which path go you, pray, Monsieur Squints! SANDRAC This way. PIERRE [Taking the opposite direction,] Then I go this. [Exit, fuming.] SANDRAC [Calls after him.] To Sylvia, ho! [He laughs a hard, keen laugh. Alberto, who has laid his violin on Sylvia's door-sill, is just leaving it in despair. Sandrac detains him.] Stay! — Where now, boy? ALBERTO [Tearing himself away.] I'll come alone to-morrow. [Exit.] SANDRAC Meantime to-night my joy shall be their sorrow. But now to find my lady's handmaids. iHe goes to the edge of the wood, peering off, and slowly exit.] THE REVERIE 103 [Enter Felix and Somnus.] FELIX The dusk grows darker now and darkness brighter, For slowly now the soft, round moon grows keen. SOMNUS The appointed time is almost here. FELIX O Night, Thou Afric skull for Attic contemplation, How many worlds the teeming mind of man Has, like a sun, given off to sate your chaos, And never regathered with centripetal hand! Where shall he track their orbits yon, their systems, — • He that would weave a garland of the stars And wear it lightly like a shepherd's crown? Thicker than sparks that glut the smithy's chimney Thou hast devoured them. I wonder, Night, Are those eternal torches there aloft Borne by the pallid hands of mortal thinkers Searching the vaults of heaven for their lost dreams? If so, no marvel that their name is legion. SOMNUS Is not this place your rendezvous? FELIX What then? Now is the autumn season of the day 104 ^ GARLAND TO SYLVIA The sunset hour of sere musings. Let Me dream. SOMNUS And set your dreams in action — when? [Exeunt.] [After a brief pause, enter, left, Fervian and FlurrieU From the right, reenters Sandrac] SANDRAC Met At last I You're late come. Is not this the hour When Sylvia holds her fairy court? FERVIAN Not yet, For yet but three lamps hang in Twilight's tower, And we must wait until Night signals nine, One for each handmaid of the perfect moon That reigns in heaven for Sylvia. SANDRAC When those shine — What then? FERVIAN When breaks the ninth star, thou shalt soon Behold the rest. Meantime, and during all Of awe thou mayst behold, secrete thee near Behind this holly-bush, through whose scant wall, Thou mayst discover all unseen. SANDRAC And hear The song of Sylvia? THE REVERIE 105 PERVIAN Yes. SANDRAC The enchanted key Of music that unlocks her destmyl Here on this parchment I will write it down To-night; then, at to-morrow's trial, read It forth to Sylvia and claim her crown. FLURRIEL [To Fervian,'] A tyrant's hateful deed, What have we done? Not ours! \To Sandrac.l Stay, sir; it will be futile there On parchment to inscribe her song, unless You know its inmost meaning. Therefore, pray, Inscribe it not. SANDRAC And so fail of my guess To-morrow? — Fools, had I no other way To riddle out your mistress' heart, think ye I'd walk so proud a pace, and ye so quailing? This method is succinct and pleases me — To net her with her song. But as for failing In the end, why, gawks I my power has myriad ways: Fetch me yon glow-worm. [Flurriel, stooping, picks up a faint phosphorescent light and gives it to Sandrac] io6 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FLURRIEL Here. [Sandrac holds it on his palm, and blows it; immediately it leaps into a white, electric flame, which glorifies the wood with an intense brilliance, revealing in the distance the approaching figures of Felix and Somnus; then relapsing to its former dimness in the moonlight. Fervian and Flurriel recoil and hide their faces in fear, 1 SANDRAC So can I blaze The palest spark of beauty for my ends, Till it shall fathom time with fulguration And weave a nimbus for the world. — Night wends; Enough; begone! FERVIAN But, master — SANDRAC Know your station. Begonel FERVIAN We must. \Theypass into the house^l SANDRAC Yonder's the sixth star. I'll Couch me and wait. \He retires behind the holly-bush, where he is dimly seen, poring over a book by the light of the glow-worm, which fiames duskily in the hollow of a stump. Reenter Felix and Somnus.] THE REVERIE 107 FELIX Inexorable jailer! Show her mercy! Open some door of liberation. SOMNUS Only He sets her free, whose strong, expanded spirit Can wrench my bars and win her. FELIX ; Pitiless, Relentless ghost! You know I cannot do it, And so you plague me. SOMNUS Nay, I know it not. FELIX Come, then; you know we found a subterfuge Before to speak with her. SOMNUS WeU? FELIX If I find Another, will you guide me? — Answer! SOMNUS Yes; If in this wall of mortised words and will Which you have builded, I can prod some flaw, Or secret breach, to slip you through to her, I'll do so. io8 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX I can show you one. For I Remember, in this very act and scene Where now we tread, I left a void of thought, Thinking to fill it up, in the manuscript, When I should grow more wise. It is the place Where Sylvia's handmaids, having gone their ways On mortal errands, leave her quite alone. Dreading the approach of Sandrac. There the scene Is left unsolved — chaotic. Through that gap, Then, let me pass to speak with her. SOMNUS So be it. Yet do not think that such a subterfuge Shall set her free. What has been willed is willed Until it be revok'd. Thou shalt be duped. And her once more your creatures shall enthrall. FELIX Yet she shall hear -— shall speak to me once more? SOMNUS She shall. FELIX God help me, then: I'm willing. SOMNUS Look! SANDRAC [Starting up.] The ninth star shines. THE REVERIE 109 [The cottage of Sylvia changes to an ample palace, of which the trees form pillars, supporting a roof of glowing vaults, which increase in radiance and thicker -thronging stars as the scene advances. Sylvia, as a spirit, is discovered seated upon a single throne, surrounded by her nine hand- maidens, each of whom is leader of a throng of lesser spirits; these, as the scene opens, are grouped about the throne, singing. While they sing, Sandrac, crouching again by the stump, listens and writes on his parchment.] THE SPIRITS Who is Sylvia? What is she That all her swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her That admired she might be. Is she kind as she is fair. For beauty lives with kindness. To her eyes love doth repair To help him of his blindness. And being helped inhabits there. SYLVIA [Standing, bids them, by a gesture, cease their song.] Spirits of Fancy, Pan's immortal Elves, I thank you. Yet, since praises are but pride Unless they sing deeds sweeter than themselves, We will to our to-night's affairs, nor bide One instant of obsequious court. Come, then I And from our hands take missions unto men. no A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [They come to her. She whispers. They depart. Sandrac, who has been alert, watching all, now — dropping his parchment — sinks into a stupor.] FELIX Quick, Somnus! 'Tis the instant. All is still. This is the gap I left in the scene. Release me! SOMNUS Does Sandrac speak no more? FELIX I think, no more: No more that I remember. — Lead me to her! See, she awakes. SOMNUS Wait here. SYLVIA {Reaching her arms upward in joy^ Ah, free again! SOMNUS {Approaching Sylvia.] Immortal Maid, and Empress of Delight, Out of the mist-keep of mortality • I come to beg my sovereign a boon. SYLVIA Speak, Somnus: what dark tale of mortal madness, Or sad irresolution, do you bring From out your dungeon? THE REVERIE iii SOMNUS I bring no story, But one who brings a story. SYLVIA What, a mortal? Lives there indeed on earth a modern Samson, That can disjoint the impalpable pillars of His prison house, and through his blindness' wreck See heaven? SOMNUS If such there be, I bring him not. This one has sought a subterfuge. His name Is Felix. SYLVIA O, where is he? [Somnus beckons, Felix springs passionately from his covert.] FELIX Here, love! {Somnus withdraws and stands over Sandrac.] SYLVIA Welcome! FELIX Am I, then, welcome still, though still my love Is impotent? SYLVIA Can love be impotent? Why, I should be a futile, heart-broke thing Without your warm, live, human heart to love me. 112 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX [Embracing her,] Though it be weak, it beats an enduring song Like a goldsmith in bright silver. Can you hear it? SYLVIA How true it rings! FELEX That is because it hammers Your name, love. Listen : Sylvia — Sylvia — Sylvia — Tis forging an inner shrine to worship you. SYLVIA My subtle poet! FELIX No, your steadfast lover. Too oft from you my probing mind is errant — Never my heart! That's poised, a centred pole, Round which my vague-eyed, sheering fancies whirl Like Cassiopeia and the Pleiades Around the north. O Sylvia, bear with me Though still the poet speaks! For I have come To beg this night our boon of union: not Such meeting as of mortal earth with earth. But blending of that earth with mystery, As when, in March, from out the starved sod, springs Beauty! SYLVIA Why do you ask this? Do you crave Me, or my crown? Ah, dear, forgive the doubt! THE REVERIE 113 I would make sure. — Alas! there has been need Ere now. FELIX There has been need, but now no more, I swear! SYLVIA Consider: he who wins my crown Shall earn an immortality of praise, Become an epithet in the ear of time. And stun the coming ages with his name. Are none of these your motives? FELIX None, I swear! SYLVIA. By what sufficient goddess do you swear? FELIX [Looking upward.] There! In that open locket of white pearl Which Cynthia wears, a night-charm, on her breast — There shines the virgin-mistress of my vows, Whose image of ideality men name The Lady in the Moon. Look, Sylvia! The lineaments of that shadow luminous Are yours. Long ere the first, sad dreamer kneeled, Her smile bent o'er the clouds of earth, benign — A blessing and a lure to aspiration. Hers is that brow which he of Melos Isle Wrought in long-buried marble; gazing on her, Young Raphael learned to mure adoring ardor 114 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA In The Transfiguration. Hers and yours And Beauty's are one profile. — Therefore, there By your perennial portrait in the heaven, Your deathless image in Night's darkling eye — By her — the Lady in the Moon — I swear. [Smiling wistfully^ Sylvia holds out her arms toward Felix. Simultaneously Sandrac {at a touch from Somnus), starting from his stupor, leaps to his feet.] SANDRAC Am I, then, dreaming? What I She calls me. Ahl She welcomes me to her arms now — FELIX [Starting forward cries aloud simultaneously with Sandrac.] Sylvia I | Sylvia!) [The palace and Sylvia disappear in instant darkness. Crop- ing, the three figures draw together.] SOMNUS [To Felix.] You had forgot; but I remembered. FELIX [Bitterly J at Sandrac' s ear.] Fool! [curtain.] ACT III ACT III Scene: Exterior of Sylvia* s cottage; the same scene as the opening of Act II, Scene IL Noon. Near the fountain, Eikrion is seated; on one of his great knees, the slender figure of Alberto is perched, scanning his shrewd face, HIKRION [Chanting deeply.'] In the bottom, in the bottom, of a pond a nix was wed I ALBERTO Where, did you say? HIKRION Ah, who was her bridegroom there? A drowned man, a drowned mant ALBERTO Not deadi HIKRION [Sepulchrally.'] Who gave her away? gave her away? ALBERTO So, dadi Don't stare HIKRION [Smiling merrily.] A pretty pout; her eyes were blue And 'r fins were frill'd. 117 Il8 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [Darkly.] But tell! who was best mani The silvery, slippery water-snake : he knew The service. ALBERTO [struggling to get off Hikrion*s knee, is held tight by him.] Let me go I HIKRION Nay, tell if ye can I Who was the choir! — I know! The mud-frogs; they Were choir, were choir — IStentorianly.] for the drowned, drowned man. ALBERTO Quick! Let me go. HIKRION What, are ye uneasy, eh? How old are ye, lad! ALBERTO I am past seventeen; I'm not a youngster to be knee-danced. HIKRION [Pushing him off and rising.] Nay, Then, off with ye, fair gentleman; ye're clean Too growed up for a lad like me. ALBERTO [Returning to Hikrion and hugging him.] No, no. I love to listen. — Please! THE REVERIE 119 HIKRION \Tuming away roughly. 1 Nay, get along. Ye're like the rest o' them that come to woo My daughter: so ingenious ye go wrong When a simple hand would wind ye. ALBERTO [Burying his face in his arms against a tree.] Fooll Fooll I'll Go drown and wed the niz. HIKRION [Returning with a kind smile.] Phol boy, a song WiU cheer ye. I was joking. ALBERTO [Looking up.] Honest? HIKRION [Puts his arm over Alberto's shoulder.] Smile, That's it. Come here and sun ye! [They sit on the stile together.] Now we'll be Such like 0' lovers as two greenish collies That wag their tails at each other, when they see One t'other's ears perk up. Age puts off 's follies O' puppyhood, folks say; yet the old dog romps I20 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Wi' the young un in the sunshine. Be as jolly as Nature, says II ALBERTO Yes, Papa Hikrion, dumps Are devils I HIKRION Play this pipe, then — it will ease Ye. Do ye mind the old song " Huswif's Joy " ? ALBERTO I know it. HIKRION Pipe, tiien. [Alberto pipes and Hikrion sings to his piping.] Three gray housewives plied their stitches For to make a goodman a pair of breeches And the jerkin of 'eml And the jerkin of 'em I But when he put 'em on, The goodman he was gone. Such was the workin' of 'em. Lack-a-dayl Cried the three, Which is they? Which is he? Which is the goodman? Which is? [Enter Sob and Babblebrook in the background. They have exchanged their outer garments, Sob assuming a plump swagger in his courtier's dress ; Babblebrook in the curate's gown, gravely reading a book of Psalms.'] THE REVERIE I2I ALBERTO Look I Why, what are these That come this way? SOB \At the top of his voiceJl Woodman, woodman, ahoyi HIKRION These are a kind o' fowl called golden geese That quawk in the wood o' mornings. Ay, but what! They've moulted and changed feathers. SOB Woodman! BABBLEBROOK [Glancing up from his book,] Peace, Brother, you mar devotion. SOB What of that? Odds clapper bones and skulls! That peasant rogue Shall answer me. [To Hikrion.] You, fellow; look to your hat; We're gentry. HIKRION Be ye? SOB Yea, and I'm in vogue Now, rascal. I will bear no more of your water- Pails: nor your wood packs; nay, nor heed your brogue Neither. I'll soon relieve you of your daughter — Your foster-child. — She kissed me yesterday. In short, I am approved. Hut — tut! 122 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA HIKRION I'd ought ter Be proud o* such a son-in-law, and say, I really are. There wa'n't another like Him in the ark, that's certing. SOB [Tugging at his sword.] Sirrah I — Nay, Thou art the epitome of naught. To strike Thee, were to eliminate a cipher. Loon, Tell me, what hour will Sylvia, belike, Make trial of her suitors? HIKRION Here at noon. SOB [Taking out his purse.] Draw near, Chawbacon: this is for your pains. [Hands a coin.] HIKRION [Takes it.] A ha'penny I Lor! Sir, you rob your purse! Yet sith you are so princely, for this gains [Holding up the coin.] I'll swap ye a pig. SOB Apigl HIKRION Come; that aren't worse For you; a pig for ha'penny. THE REVERIE 123 SOB Fooll HIKRION Got One here I'll sell ye cheap, eh, laddie? [Whispers to Alberto.'] SOB Curse These dolts! HIKRION [Jumping down from the stile, mounts Alberto on his back and shoulders.] Up, boy I pig-back. He must be bought, My masters. [Runs after Sob and Babblebrook, who begin to retire, scared.] BABBLEBROOK [Closing his book.] Gracious I SOB Stand offi HIKRION Buy a pig? ALBERTO Gee, Dobbin! SOB Base clown — knave — what means this? HIKRION Naught; The epitome of naught: a nursery jig For babes. Buy a pig? Buy a pig? Buy a pig? 124 ^ GARLAND TO SYLVIA ALBERTO Hah-geel Gee up! — Whoa, Dobbin! \Hikrion, carrying Alberto on his shoulders, pursues Sob and Babblebrook between the trees, and charges them off the scene. Exeunt omnes. Enter FeliXj laughing bitterly; with him Somnus.] FELIX This discourse is the odorous extract of absurdity. SOMNUS Whose? FELIX Why, ours. What does it come to but star-gazing and ditch-stumbling. But look at this fellow Sandrac; he's no god-gossip. He walks off in my shoes, whistling, while barefoot I stand mooning. SOMNUS Ay, so he does. FELIX "Ay, so he does!" Old dotard! Yours is the fault of this. You follow me always with your sad assentings, your so-so^s, and your too-true^s, or else your crooked question-marks that set me off in laby- rinthian descants. What are you, anyway? And why do you dog and nag me, as if I were poor Tom, the cat, that slinks in the dark? SOMNUS You know that I am Somnus, the keeper of this wood. THE REVERIE 125 FELIX Why, yes — my valet-confidant in this drama that's acting. By God! I would you'd let me act. SOMNUS Do I prevent you? FELIX Do you not? You keep me for a soliloquizing mag- pie. SOMNUS I keep you no longer than you will. FELIX But I am weary of muttering these asides to you; of playing a most despicable, croaking chorus of one. For look! If this were indeed a theatre, whose boards I tread, — as God knows what it is that's going on here, — why, what a ludicrous guy would I be for a good-natured spectator! Am I the villain? Bah! My blood's too chalk-and- water. Am I the hero? Do I look it? A cuss that skulks and miawls about the side scenes! — Ha! What am I written down as, in the Dramatis Personae? — Nothing. And what, then, am I? Why, I'm the author: an interruptive, prative, stuttering coxcomb, that puts a make-up on, and issues from the wings to straddle the footlights, neither in nor out of the audience: a walking margin, a superfluous compendium, an insufferable cicerone, that stands like a biograph lecturer, with a long pole, and cries you: ''Ladies and Gentlemen, mark this moving figure; this is Babblebrook, this is Sandrac. 126 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA I pray you pardon me; I cannot show you that picture again, for the fellow who works the machine is out of hearing." Ahaha! If this indeed were a drama, I say, there's a hero for you! SOMNUS It seems you have left me out. FELIX Oh no; you are the prompter, popped out of his box, in a wig and long-cloak. You kill two birds: first, you're the latest novelty in Hamlet's ghost, which, secondly, gives you the invisible prerogative of whispering the players their lines. Oh! we're a pair of us; we should win an encore from the gods. SOMNUS Why, as you say, if this same wood were only a patch of canvas, and we things up for show; if we, who act our parts in life, were indeed the made-up semblances we seem to be; if the world itself were but a stage, and the stage itself were all mere mockery, — yes, then, we should appear such as you say. But all this is not so. It seems so to your laughter. FELIX And is not laughter the subtlest of our critics? SOMNUS Perhaps. All laughter comes from seeing things awry. Who know this, they laugh well; who know THE REVERIE 127 it not, and deem they laugh at truth itself — they laugh in hell. FELIX Ah, Somnus! you who can teach so thorough the theory of human harmony, why cannot you set my flatted mind in tune? SOMNUS Why, if you catch my argument, apply it. FELIX Apply it? No, no, I must laugh, to scratch the itching pox of grief within me. SOMNUS Of hate, you mean. FELIX Well, hate! What else? I hate him. Should I not? After sick climbing, when I was touching heaven, Sylvia smiHng on me, then with a word, a breath, he wraps me in a cloud, and by the heels drags me down, down, to the devil again. Yes, by God^s light, I hate him! — deathly, I hate him. SOMNUS Will you hate your own offspring? FELIX What! Did he not dissipate hope, joy, faith, all, even in my very arms? and has left me now — even as you see me here — a hollow fool of satire? And why not? when Ideality is such a god that, like an 128 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA urchin's snowman, it melts even in the embraces of its worshipper. IdeaKty! I'd rather carry hods For hire, than be a fellow of the gods. Ah! But this shall not last. — Come, Somnus. We will shake this off. SOMNUS You must do that. [Exeunt both.] [Enter, from the cottage, Sylvia, dressed in a white sunbonnet and the costume of a peasant girl She brings an old- fashioned chum and sets it down near the door,] SYLVIA In this milk-maid's rig, I might escape the De'il himself, if he Came wooing princesses. So farewell terror Of Sandrac, and his dark conspiracy To win my hand — ^What say you, pretty mirror? [Bending over the fountain,] You make a pretty answer: — jeopardy To Polly Pinkcheeks' lovers! — Sylvia! bestir, or Polly will steal thy suitors. — Polly, Polly, Run fetch thy churning cream, lest thou be chid By Lady Sylvia. Heigh! sing trolly-lolly Lo! Heigh! sing trolly-lolly-lee! [Exit into the cottage. Enter Sob and Babblebrook,] SOB She did But jest, for she's a runnel of bright wit, That's ever plashing over. TEE REVERIE 129 BABBLEBROOK Nay, she's hid In a sober coif of sadness. She'd permit No jest to pass her lips. SOB Tut! She is ever Tripping it like Terpsychore in a fit, And warbling like an orange-girl. BABBLEBROOK Deliver Us, heaven I Why, man, her step of pensive grace, That marches like a still and stately river. Is set in rhythm to a psalm-tune's pace — An anapest of motion. SOB " Pease-porridge hot! " A pensive hymn indeed! I pray you, trace " Pease-porridge " in the Psalmody. BABBLEBROOK God wot 'Tis there, if Sylvia sung it. [Reenter Sylvia with a pail of cream, which she pours into the chum ; after which she sits down and begins busily to ply the wooden vertical handle, humming to herself and glancing at the two wooers,] SOB All thou hast said Gives proof thou hast not even met her. I30 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA BABBLEBROOK Pin Some arbiter to such a proof. SOB This maid I [Peeping under Sylvia^s bonnet.] Odds saints and relics! Girl, chuck up thy chin. SYLVIA Too busy; Ask the missy; Says she, says she. [Goes on churning and humming,] SOB Wench, thou wert by, a-yesterday, when I made Advances to thy mistress — Wench I wilt stop A minute? Thou canst bear me witness to Thy mistress' gay behavior. SYLVIA Bear not false witness For master or mistress. Hey, bonny Johnny I [Chums,] SOB Wench! SYLVIA My name's Polly. — O lassie, be jolly For your laddie's twenty-four, And if he's too old, there's plenty more. THE REVERIE 131 SOB Pray drop Thy stick a moment, Polly. BABBLEBROOK Tell us true, Thou foolish girl, has not thy gentle lady Sylvia a sober, taciturn, dull hue Of mind? Does she not chide thee as unsteady For singing such crude snatches? SYLVIA Nay, she's fond o' butter As a milk-maid ought 'er. [CAi/nw.] SOB But, thou sphinx, Sylvia's no milkmaid. SYLVIA O, ay, fond gentlemen; To prove: — She is a milk-white maiden, My love, my love. SOB [To Babblebrook,] Well, sir, I am ready To uphold it with my sword, that this same minx Was standing by when Sylvia kissed me; yea. She smiled when Sylvia smiled; I know the pinks O' her cheeks, there, underneath her bonnet. 132 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA BABBLEBROOK Then she will tell us so. — Good Polly — Nay, SYLVIA Well, kind Sir, What of her? Chum, chum, Youth will yearn. Johnny said he'd love me ay; But his love was thin as whey, When I whipped his words away. Chum, chum, Live and learn. BABBLEBROOK Fie upon these females! Take 'em at the core. They're all alike — a lovesick galaxy. Sylvia's the only sensible exception In the sex. SOB Odds crucifixes! Let's not ply This hussy with more questions. 'Twere direption Of time. We shall retum at noon. Farewell! SYLVIA Fare thee well, my true love. My blue love. [Still chums,] BABBLEBROOK [Opening his book,] What psalm did I leave off at? TEE REVERIE 133 SOB [With his hands over his ears,'] Damnl [Exeunt Sob and Babblebrook, Sylvia leaps up, laughing,] SYLVIA Deception, Thy name is — Polly 1 Pretty Polly, well Done! Thou shalt have a cracker and cookie If thou canst play the parrot with such skill To Milord Sandrac, for I've been told, look'ee. That he has such an eye as the eagle master Who spies, in his bench, a bad boy that's played hookie. [Suddenly stands on tiptoe and peers.] Hist! ** Still pond, no fair moving! " Poetaster, I spy you. [She runs again to the chum, plies the wooden handle, and hums. Enter Sandrac] Chum, chum. Hearts will bum: Every Tommy takes his turn. SANDRAC What! — a lass? SYLVIA Ye may cry alas I Indeed, poor bonny lass! SANDRAC [To himself.] She, as I live! A cap to hoodwink me! I'll make believe. 134 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [To Sylvia.] So bonny face? Why alas? » SYLVIA 'Tis such a passi There's no lad to be had. SANDRAC What will you give For a lad full grown? SYLVIA I'll give him tit for tat: A Roland for an Oliver. SANDRAC [stooping over quickly and trying to kiss her,] Then this is Roland. [Sylvia, striking his cheek, escapes with a laugh,] SYLVIA And that's his brother, Oliver! You counterfeit! — Hearts are true coin for kisses. SANDRAC [Bowing,] You've said it prettily. SYLVIA [To herself.] Dear Jupiter! Teach me the mother-tongue of milkmaids. [To Sandrac] O, sir! You're most prodigious kind. But I prefer THE REVERIE 135 To hear you. You talk prettier 'n our green-grocer, And he was bom in Banbury. I learned My gentry-talk from him; though you'd suppose a Plain wench like me, perhaps, had sat and churned Her wits away. But you, by your fine gown, Sir, I suppose you are a scholar! — Earned Much by it? Is 't a good trade? SANDRAC OhI in town, It is accounted good for threadbare coats. Lean looks, and penny loaves, and 'tis, I'll own, A sterile patch for fools to sow wild oats; Yet for a scholar with an artist's eye Learning's a pleasant trade. For with the same He grinds a golden meal called Poesie, Which then he barters out for fame, and fame Hoards interest in praise; and so we ply A pajring trade. SYLVIA Do you, sir, call a poet, One who lends genius out for fame. SANDRAC I state Plain business: he who sows a field may mow it; Who buys is wise to sell at higher rate. SYLVIA Your bard's a broker in the Muses* mart; But minCy — a will, whose pregnant powers create Another Eden in the void of Art, Where to his creatures he's responsible That they shall side on God's, not Satan's part. 136 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SANDRAC What lyric eloquence! SYLVIA Me miserable I I have forgot myself again. [To Sandrac] 'Tis time I took the butter in. My speech — I'll tell You, sir, my knack of speech; I learnt it all — From Sylvia: know her, maybe? — She is — well — She, sir, 's my mistress! — talks like that — things tall In sentiment; — and so, of course, we learn — We maids — from her. SANDRAC Ahl SYLVIA Sir? [Going to the cottage door.] Was that a call? Sir, Sylvia wants me in the house. My chum! [She hurries in, carrying the chum^ SANDRAC Allow me, pray, to help; accept of my — [Exit Sylvia.] By Venus! never did my pulse so bum For starry prizes of astrology. Nor for the fool's gold-stone, whose secret glitters In clay, as for this Sylvia. But I THE REVERIE 137 Must drink, one endless instant more, the bitters Of balked desire. [A pipe plays outside.] What's there? The suitors? [lA>oks at the sun-dial] Noon; Nay, lacks a hair yet. Love and I be sitters I' the sun till then. [He sits on the edge of the sun-dial and waits. Outside is heard the sound of a pipe and voices, singing.] THE VOICES A lad he longed for a lass: Sing wooing and warm weather! When flocks roamed drowsy on the grass, And kine in the tinkly heather. " Thou bonny thing. Why dost thou wring Thy hands in sad beshrewing? " Sing wooing I Sing wooing and warm weather. A lass she longed for a lad: Sing wooing and warm weather! When first the hill-rose might be had And lovers come together. " When skies be blue And sweethearts few, What should a lass be doing? " Sing wooing! Sing wooing and warm weather! 138 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA [The singers enter. First comes Hikrion, with his arm about the shoulder of Alberto, who plays the pipe ; then follow, in grouped pairs, Babblebrook and Fervian, Sob and Flur- riel, Pierre and Fresca,] Love ripens the longest day; Sing wooing and warm weatherl For pining heart will have his pay, And climbing lark his feather. " Ere snow shall blow, My true love, 01 There shall be rice a-strewing," Sing wooing I Sing wooing and warm weatherl HIKRION A bonny tune; Well piped, lad! What's the time? — Come, Master Clerk, I'll thank ye to take your shadow ofif the dial. The crow should perch o' nights. SANDRAC [Moving aside.] I pray you, mark: 'Tis noon precise. HIKRION Time, lasses, time for the trial! Now, lords and masters, slick up your five wits For a conundrum match. It looks like nigh all On us be here. [Calls into the house.] Come, Polly 1 Come, ye kits! Dame Puss is in the comer: she'll be catched THE REVERIE I39 That don't peep sharp. Polly, fetch out the bits O' the gentlemen's visiting-cards. [Looks at the whispering pairs.'] I see ye're matched Already, sirs. Not II Lad. ALBERTO HIERION Nay, I'm thy chum, \Sylvia and the handmaids come out of the house, Sylvia carries a rustic tray on which lie a violin, a sword, a psalm-book, a paint-brush and a piece of parchment. These she pre- sents before Hikrion with a courtesy. Hikrion holds the things up one after another and appears puzzled.] Ha! These be the cards. I would ye'd scratched Your initials in 'em, lordings, for I'm mum If I can read your coats-of-arms. Here, lass, I'll ask ye just to hand this round to some O' the gentry-folk, and, masters, when they pass, Choose your own billets, sith ye were kind enough To leave 'em. [Sylvia passes round the tray ; Sandrac, withdrawn from the others, follows her constantly with his eyes.] SYLVIA [Holding the tray before Sob and courtesying.] Yours, sir? 140 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SOB iTaking the sword magnificently,] Mine's the sword; it has A savor of my spirit. SYLVIA iTo BdbhkhrookJ] Yours? BABBLEBROOK This volume of Remorse; " The Book of Psahns." [Takes it,] SYLVIA [Before Pierre.] The brush, sir? PIERRE [Taking it.] Yes: With this I imprison mountain peaks. [^Sylvia passes to Alberto, who seizes his violin eagerly.] ALBERTO Dear love, I will not leave you any more. [Sylvia now hesitates to approach Sandrac, whose eyes regard her piercingly,] HIKRION Well, Miss Polly? SYLVIA Here is a card uncalled for. THE REVERIE 141 HIKRION Nay, Perhaps his Ravenship — SANDRAC [Steps forward, and, taking the parchment, peers under Sylvia's bonnet.] 'Tis mine. [He steps back to his side of the scene, while Sylvia retires shyly among the unclaimed handmaids.] HIKRION The guess Comes now, sirs. Hark! As any ass could bray, I have a daughter, hereamid this lot, Called Sylvia, as I am pledged to give away, And she is pledged to bide your choice. She's thought A handsome prize by many folks, and kings They've axed her for her hand. But for to be short. And not to dawdle over loverish things. This daughter must be found, and they as don't Guess who she is, must quit their hankerings And pack off home. But if they guess, this count, I have a couple of other doubts to speer At them! So, first, — though 't looks now like ye won't Take long to pick — choose which ye take for her. Say: — Who is Sylvia? BABBLEBROOK, SOB AND PIERRE [Kneeling respectively to Fervian, Flurriel and Fresca,] This is she! 142 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA HIKRION Sir Crow, What say you? [Sandrac extends his hand toward Sylvia, who draws back, shuddering.] SANDRAC This is she. HIKRION How! Think ye, sir, That Polly Milkmaid — choose again. SANDRAC Not so; I will abide this choice. SOB Pooh, pooh, he'll take A serving-maid. PIERRE An artless wench I Pff! SYLVIA Oh, That I were never bom I HIKRION ^Scowling,] I cannot break My word: [To the others.] Pack up your hearts! [Points to Sandrac] He's guessed right. THE REVERIE 143 SANDRAC [With triumph.] SOB [Rising with the others.] Odds deathi The chuming-wenchl PIERRE Viable I BABBLEBROOK Alack 1 SANDRAC [With a movement toward Sylvia.] Lady — HIKRION [Interposing.] Hight tight! Sure hit aims slow. Ye can Answer, mayhap, a second guess. There's three In all, my hasty master. SANDRAC I'm your man For second and for third. HIKRION Hark, then! There be A treasure of my daughter's. You must tell Her where it lies; and if ye cannot, ye Must go your ways. SYLVIA Dear spirits, guard met SANDRAC Well: [fle speaks slowly, never ceasing to look at Sylvia.] Sol 144 ^ GARLAND TO SYLVIA Sylvia Queen, Your treasure lies In the inward eyes Of the hearts of men. FELIX [Outside.] Stand from my path; this time you shall not hold me. HIKRION [To Sylvia.'] Take heart, my lass. SYLVIA I have yet hope, sweet Pater. HIKRION [To Sandrac] Ye have a sharp knack at the guessing. Still The third guess is the gold key. Maybe later — SANDRAC Nay, ask it now I [Hikrion hesitates.'] SYLVIA Now. i HIKRION I [Hoarsely.] Speak then — right or wrong — Say: What is Sylvia? SANDRAC I cannot state a j More magic answer than her own charm'd song: THE REVERIE 145 [He draws the parchment from his gown, opens it and reads : in the first two lines seeming to question Hikrion, toward whom he turns; in the last three lines, addressing Sylvia, and ending with a slight, stately bow, he half reveals, under show of deference to her, the reserved exultation of success.^ " Who is Sylvia? — What is she That all her swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That admired she might be. '* Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty Uves with kindness. [Enter Felix; passionate^ he is restrained by the cold, majestic form of Somnus.] FELIX Unloose your icy hands ! Hind, if you are A serf of Sylvia's, let me save her now. [SANDRACl " To her eyes love doth repair To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there." FELIX \To Somnus.] Off! I will free her. — Sylvia! Love! 'tis I. You've won. SYLVIA [To Sandrac,'] 146 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA HIKRION My lassie! [Turns away and hides his face against Alberto.'] SANDRAC [Taking Sylvia*s hand."] Till to-night — 'tis longi FELIX Sylvia! [To Somnus.] Let go. [SomnuSy with imperturbable clutch, still holds him. Felix turns and wrestles with him.] My will against your will. We'll match. [While Sandrac, in the sunlight of the middle background, kisses the outstretched hand of Sylvia, who turns her face away; while Fervian, Flurriel, Fresca and the suitors on the left, and the six other handmaidens, on the right, gaze at Sandrac in awe and dread, — Felix and Somnus, in the foreground, contrast with these their ghostly figures, wrestling. Felix struggles with an agony of power; Somnus resists with silent, terrible placidity. Presently, while the curtain is slowly descending, Somnus throws Felix, and puts his foot upon him.] SOMNUS Down! [curtain.] ACT IV OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ACT IV Scene I: A cleft in a mountain, at the bend of a torrent. At the back, a steep wall of the mountain, overgrown with stunted cypresses, rises to a jutting clijff of rock, which overtops the bed of the stream; above this the sky. The stream itself emerges precipitately from a cavern on the left, whence, in a deep, rock-strewn gulley, it rushes out, first , straight, and then — at the back of scene — bending to the right and downward, disappears behind the steep back wall aforesaid. At the right front, a mountain path — visible for some distance — enters the scene and leads, by its right fork, to the rough foreground, which forms the front bank of the stream and the larger part of the stage; by its left fork, turning downward into the rocky bed of the stream. At left, near the front, a gigantic, lightning-withered oak tosses its sere limbs upward and outward over the torrent, near its egress from the cavern. All these scenic features, however, are but dimly or tran- siently discernable, for dusk masses of mist roll through the scene and down the torrent, shifting, closing and dis- parting at the whim of intermittent and passionate gusts of wind. As the scene opens, enter, right, along the pasSj Felix. FELIX What rush of streams precipitant Makes in my ears mill- noises? Why 149 I50 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Must I outface this blinding gale Of mountain surf? — Still none to answer! Come, then, I'll find an airy alcove, And pedestal myself in patience Here on the stair of this gusty castle Of fog, till Sylvia comes, to guide Me up and on. [He gropes his way to a log, green with moss, which has fallen across the stream. On the front end of this he sits. Here he is suddenly roused from his reverie by a wild gust and a voice, seeming to come from the branches of the tree.] A VOICE Felix! FELIX Who speaks? THE VOICE She will not come; thou art alone. FELIX Whom speak you of? THE VOICE Of Sylvia. FELIX She Will come. THE REVERIE 151 THE VOICE A merry trysting-place! {The wind howls in the ravine and through the branches of the oak.] FELIX [Rising,] Strange! Such incorporal discourse As this is elvish: more elusive Even than my own. [Peers up, from beneath the tree.] Is there a creature In the branches? I can see but faintly For fog. — I must have fancied it. And yet I know the voice of fancy Is often the just premonitor Of truth. Not, though, when it is phantasm, Faint, blurred and undefined like this, Without distinguishable image For reason to seize on. For fancy Is pied and vivid; this is phantasm. A SECOND VOICE Felix! FELIX What now? — another voice? SECOND VOICE Go back; return to Arden. 152 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA FELIX No; She bade me to await her here. SECOND VOICE But why? FELIX For nothing ill, that^s sure. SECOND VOICE Is not this an ill pass? FELIX Not if She come. SECOND VOICE But where is she? Where? FELIX She comes. FIRST AND SECOND VOICES FELIX In my heart's assurance. SECOND VOICE Ho. His heart's assurance! [A wild cataract of laughter leaps from the boughs and dies away down the ravine. Felix peers again into the tree.] FELIX Stranger still! Are those eyes there that, like two embers, THE REVERIE 153 Pry at me through this smoke of mist? I'll test it with this oak-gall. {Felix picks up a gall and throws it into the tree. A dim cat- like form hounds from a branch and disappears in the JogA Ah! This voice has limbs — it leaps — a lynx! [Pursuing it, he lifts a rock, which he hurls after it down the ravine.] Now caterwaul! — The flood shall drown Your pitch. [Returning slowly.] In this gray land of cypress, The elements and dumb creatures Wag tongues in mockery of men. [A loud uproar of applause and hand-clapping hursts from the branches.] A THIRD VOICE Felix! FELIX Once more? — What ogre-oak Is this, which has a hundred heads? THIRD VOICE A himdred heads! [A reecho of applause and of clappings^ We are tongue- waggers; We will not wag of you — not you! We will not clap for you — not you! 154 ^ GARLAND TO SYLVIA We will not cry your name — nay, nay! From you forever we fly away. \The sun breaks for an instant through the fogy as a silvery flock of pigeons fly from amid the dead branches and, with a great flutter of wings, vanish in the mist of the ravine. Felix watches them as they disappear. \ FELIX Your wings are beautiful, and yet Your voices sound as hoarse as ravens' Now in my ears, that are inured To Sylvia's soft chidings, more Precious to me than all your praises. {He has hardly ceased, when there resounds a chorus of pierc- ing hisses; while from the chasm, where the pigeons dis- appeared, a flock of crows, winging through the obscure air, settles hissing upon the branches of the oak, which again is involved in mist.] THE FIRST VOICE Felix! FELIX What! Are you back again? SECOND VOICE We're come again to change our tune: To sing to you like this, this, this! We'll leave no more — we're come to stay; We'll stick by you for ay and — ay. [Hisses again.] THE REVERIE 155 FELIX Why, now your feathers fit your throats. I thank you for your chorus; it Is helpful to my purposes. For virtues are invulnerable; And as for my shortcomings, if You'll hiss them only half as harsh As I do, you and I together Shall put them soon to shame; and so I thank you for your comradeship. THIRD VOICE Why, then we will not stay. THE OTHER VOICES Nay! Nay! {The crows fly away again down the ravine ^ hissing fainter and fainter.] FELIX Now what a twinge would vice my sides To crow with laughter, at the rout Of such hypocrisy, had I Not read long since — writ large in tears Of gay philosophers — this warning To fools: ''Laugh, fool; but laugh not a/." [Starting, he peers down the mountain pass.] Ah! see: the ''silvery dove" returns. Sylvia! [Enter Sylvia^ as a spirit.] 156 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SYLVIA You have waited long, And I came not. FELIX I could have waited My latest breath, so to have carried This vision of you with me to darkness. Sylvia! SYLVIA To save us both 1 am come here to guide you. Do You know this stream? FELIX I do not know, Nor where I am, but that I walk With you. SYLVIA This is a shoulder of That fabled mount Parnassus, which At the world's dawning flung afar Its shadow over men. — This torrent Springs from its heart of olden marble Deep-hid in the dim labyrinths Of yonder cavern, whence it pours Here headlong; farther, at that bend. It plunges downward, ever discoursing In its own throat, till at the base It feeds the stagnant marsh of Lethe. THE REVERIE 157 FELIX So this is Lethe stream? SYLVIA 'Tis near The bright head waters of that stream, Whose springing fountain has a virtue Which lower it loses in the marsh; For where it bubbles up, its waters May be transported without losing Their tinctiire of obUvion. But they who seek forgetfulness From Lethe marsh, go browsing there Gregarious, like herded cattle To pasture, and when they have drunk, They rot into the swamp like stumps. FELIX But what of them who drink its source Transported from the secret spring In yonder cavern? SYLVIA They are dealt Instant annihilation, like Eagles midair, whom the fiery blade Of Ughtning severs. For Felix, know, Oblivion of evil may Be compassed in either of two ways: — By Time, a fat, relapsing sluggard. That sits with Death on the bog of Lethe, 158 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Oft at whose summons Oblivion lags To take part in our funerals; Or else, by man's own Will, in his Self-mastered fortress, on the heights Of this same mountain: there, his will, By a mandate instantaneous Hurls down the giddied evil in The shadow of forgetfulness, Where, falling, it dies apoplex'd By its own impotence. FELIX Oh, then, Guide me to clamber to that source Where I may fill my spirit's flask To bear to Sandrac and to all My creatures that constrain you. Fain Would I forget them with my will. And drug them with a ghttering draught From Lethe's suprem^ fount. SYLVIA So only, Our love may be redeemed; for soon At sundown, Sandrac I must wed, Unless, by then, from your own hand. He drinks the obliterating drug. FELIX He shall! — Is this the path? Oh, come! I wait like powder to be flashed. The torrent beckons me. — Your hand! THE REVERIE 159 [He starts to cross the torrent on the log,] SYLVIA Wait! — Hearts can never clamber there Unshrived. FELIX What shame still have not I Confessed? SYLVIA But now, as I came here, A wounded lynx sprang in my path And, fawning helpless, died there. FELIX Him I killed, for on this bough he sat And laughed a hellish laugh at me. SYLVIA And you would kill a f ooKsh creature For your own ignorance? FELDC Not so; It gibed my sins. SYLVIA How could it gibe, Your sins — and not your ignorance? FELIX [Moved^ I hate my thought and act. i6o A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SYLVIA [Gently.] My friend FELIX And yet it spoke, and so did flocks Of birds that perched in these same boughs. SYLVL\ It was not they who spoke. You heard The inmates of this oak; the trimk Is hollow, and within it dwell The three mist-mothers. It is they Who ravel the Norns' weavings. See, Here in the tree bole is a door. — I'll knock, for we have business here. [Sylvia knocks; voices answer from within.] FIRST VOICE Who raps? SECOND VOICE 'Tis the woodpecker. THIRD VOICE Shut her out — shut her out! She hunts for worms. FELIX These voices are the same I heard. THE REVERIE i6l THE THREE VOICES {Singing within the oak,] Lithe and nimble, blithe and nimble, Spinner's loom, and stitcher's thimble. Ply the thread for time's untwisting. Block the shuttle! Break the spindle! Dream shall wane and deed shall dwindle. Where the mist-mothers hold their trysting. What Noma knit Pluck, bit by bit! Piecemeal, tatter and scatter it! All of triumph — all of travail, Ravel, mother, ravel! FELIX What song is this? SYLVIA 'Tis one they sing At work, as they wind the grand designs And intricate thought of patient years Back on their ball of primal mist. I'll knock again more loud. [She knocks again.] THE FIRST VOICE [Within.] Who raps? SYLVIA Sylvia! FIRST VOICE 'Tis the dove! M i62 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SECOND VOICE She hunts for seeds. THIRD VOICE Fetch her in! Fetch her in! [The door in the hark opens, and forth leap three female figures j whose wraith-like garments, mingling with the mists, sway on the winds, and vaguely define the forms of an old, white-haired woman, a matron in the prime of life, and a light-footed damsel. They greet Sylvia and courtesy round and round her.] THE WHITE-HAIRED Welcome, white dove ! Welcome to Letheland. THE THREE Welcome! Welcome! THE WHITE-HAIRED [Stops suddenly, points at Felix and addresses the Matron,] Mother, who is it? THE MATRON [Doing the same and addressing the Damsel.] Mother, what is it? THE DAMSEL [Addressing the White-Haired and running away.] Mother, 'tis a man! THE THREE [Rush into the tree, closing the bark again.] A man! THE REVERIE 163 FELIX Are these the wives of Somnus? SYLVIA Yes. FELIX But why did each say "mother" to Her neighbor? SYLVIA 'Tis because, from damsel To granny, they are their own offspring. For they are barren to create New fruitful forms, to populate The nebulous ether; yet they are Wondrous prolific of themselves. Thus, ever when these fogs grow big ^ With lusty winds, even as a bubble Distends and, coalescing with Its in-blown substance, bursts to beget Its twin — so each gives birth to the other, With most unprofitable anguish Tormenting their void wombs. FELIX How strange! An infinite monotony Of metamorphosis! SYLVIA [Raps again.] Open, mother! i64 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA THE FIRST VOICE SECOND VOICE Nay, nay! A man! THIRD VOICE He'll rob us of our ravellings! SYLVIA Nay, he is bodiless, save as We too are bodied. Have no fear, But fetch me forth the woof of a snarl Was woven by a youth called Felix And named '' A Garland to Sylvia." FIRST VOICE Is he without there harmless? SECOND VOICE Ay, is he harmless? THIRD VOICE Who'll be his voucher? SYLVIA Harmless he is. Fear not. — Come forth. [They come forth again, more timidly, bringing a crooked piece of tapestry, woven loosely of silver, gray, green and gold threads, depicting a wood, with grouped figures among the trees. The whole, save for one form in a black gown, dull and opaque, glisters with a phosphorescent light, which makes the figures appear to move, enter and depart y so as incessantly to form new scenes and groupings.] THE REVERIE 165 THE WHITE-HAIRED Greeting, white dove! greeting from Letheland! THE THREE [Courtesying.] Greeting! SYLVIA [Taking the tapestry from the Three^ she hands it to Felix,] Look there! FELIX [Fascinated.] My play! THE THREE Nay, nay, nay, 'tis ours! [Snatching it from Felix, they guard it jealously.] SYLVIA Peace! Give it me. THE WHITE-HAIRED Not I, he will steal it. THE OTHER TWO Not we, he will steal it. SYLVIA Why, keep it then, and hold it, while I take the end of the ravelling thread. THE WHITE-HAIRED Mother, didst hear? i66 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA THE MATRON Mother, she'll ravel it. THE DAMSEL Mother, we'll make merry. THE THREE [Laughing, reach to Sylvia a fine luminous thread.] Here it is. Here it is! [Sylvia takes it and starts toward the log,\ FELIX [Interposing.] What will you do? Destroy it? SYLVL\ Nay, You must do that. I can but lead If you consent. Hold here the thread With me, and I will guide you, by Its slender Hght, to Lethe's source. Now! — Do you will it? [Felix, hesitating, gazes on the fabric of his play, which one of the mist-women holds, while the other two, with dex- terous fingerings, prepare to unravel it.] FELIX Oh, how fair A tapestry I dreamed of weaving. When first I started fancy's shuttle: So fair, that, in its golden lights THE REVERIE 167 And green, the marvelling eyes of men Should own that heaven and earth were blended; That in this web of sylvan half-light Nature and man had found a symbol Of their essential truth of beauty. SYLVIA But was it so? FELIX No, for a shadow Inwove its night in my brightest noon-day: A phantasm, cast by my self-love. That barred my vision, and marred the clear And fair design. SYLVL\ Then why do you Stand dubious, my Felix? FELIX Oh, It is not doubt, but bitter love. Heart-yearning for a strange miscarriage, Which, had it come to birth, perchance Had awed the world with beauty. Ah! But this no more! for out of failure Comes faith. Now to the great solution! Ravel out, you mothers of the mist! This fabric of my buzzing brain Whirl into filaments as fine As gossamer, and let the winds i68 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA Dissolve them. I myself will pull The ravelling thread. — Now, Sylvia, lead! SYLVIA Hold fast the thread, and here the flask To fill at Lethe's fountain. Follow! FELIX Before me, you: Behind — the play! [Crossing the log, they skirt the torrent by a narrow ridge-path on its left bank, and, ascending into the dim cavern, lighted only by the luminous guiding-thread, are visible as far as an abrupt bend, where they disappear. From within the cavern, however, their voices are still heard above the torrent — ever more faintly,] Sylvia! SYLVIA Felix! FELIX Sylvia! SYLVIA Higher! [Meantime, in the foreground, beneath the oak, the dwindling play-tapestry, held by the White-Haired, is being ravelled by the two other mist-wives. These, with whirling arms, whip away the thread in luminous skeins; in doing so, their swaying limbs keep time to the cadence of their song, till, at its close, as the tapestry wholly disappears, a great gust of fog envelops them in the act of returning to the hollow oak.\ THE REVERIE 169 THE THREE MOTHERS Out of smother and darkness, mother, Tell us, who shall shape another Woof like the one that we're unweaving? Many and many a nobler weaver Shall toil anew, but none can ever Recapture the soul's conceiving. Whirl a skein Of joy and pain — Then wind it on the world again! All of triumph, all of travail Ravel, mother, ravel! See this tangle, wrought in wrangle, Like an ill-hung chime a-jangle — Better its fabric fell to ground! Better or worse, worse or better, The misty fingers brook no fetter. And leave not a thread, not a sound. Thought in its rune, Love at its noon, Like beauty's bubble, is burst — is gone! [Just as they disappear in the oak, a flood of sunlight slants through the upper mists, revealing above the obscured tor- rent, the jutting bluff of the mountain, and above that a rift of the blue sky. Against this rift, Sylvia and Felix ^ emerging from underground, come forward upon the bluff.] FELIX The sunlight! I70 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA SYLVIA Is the flask filled full? FELIX Behold it glittering to the brim With bright oblivion. SYLVIA Brave heart! So shall you bring it back to Arden. There, when your creatures all have drunk, Behold what shall result — look down! [Sylvia points from the bluff to where, in the bed of the torrent, a varied group of figures have emerged from the moun- tain-pass, and are being driven down the rocky stream by Somnus. The first two are the forms of Babblebrook and Sob, disputing dumbly; then follows Pierre, with easel under his arm, talking to himself; behind him, Sandrac, with his proud smile and pace of meditation.] FELDC What is the portent of this pageant? SYLVIA A vision and a prophecy Of what shall come to pass, when you Shall keep your vow to me. FELIX AU, aU, To Lethe? THE REVERIE 171 SYLVIA Do you weep? FELIX In thanks And joy, that they shall menace you No more. SYLVIA Then is there none you would Reclaim? Look down. FELIX Even him? [Behind Somnus, and apart from the other descending figures, passes downward the lithe figure of Alberto. Stepping from rock to rock with unconscious agility, he seems to pour his soul forth to the ravine through his violin. Yet no sound is heard from the swaying instrument, and Alberto, with the others, disappears at the downward bend of the stream. From the verge of the cliff Felix makes an imploring gesture.] Alberto! [curtain.] 172 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA ACT IV: Scene II i An opening in the wood near Hikrion's cottage, A rough semicircle of trees festooned with ropes of flowers, in- terwoven with blossoming vines, forms as it were a solid garland for the scene. Through this are only two narrow openings : one on the left, overlapt by the circlet in the fore ground, is not visible; through the other, on the right, the last horizontal rays of the sun illumine the flowery back- ground. In the centre of the scene is raised a double, rustic throne. Standing beside this is discovered Hikrion, clad in a robe and cowl of golden green. HIKRION First, I must do the priestly offices For this upstart, who prigs away my lass — My darlingest Sylvia; then, may I please! The other three, seeing the sorry pass They've brought their mistress to — Fervian and Flurry And Fresca with 'em — they've sworn also, as A kind o' penance-game to cheer the worry, To wed these wooing crittem — Sob and Pierre And Babblebrook, rather'n see Sylvia sorry Alone. And me this crow-groom Sandrac there — Me being a kind o' parson to the peasant Folks, swapping lies and preaching 'em to pair — Says to me: " Papa Hikrion, come, be pleasant And be our priest; a woodland service makes Two one, as well as Westminster." So I, For Sylvia's sake, agree on't, though it breaks The pipe o* mirth within me. But now's nigh Their time of coming. — 'Tis a bonny scene, THE REVERIE 173 Though I be praiser of the work that's mine: I've tidied out a chapel here in the green And hollowed wood-cups for the wedding-wine. — Hark: now they come. [Alberto's violin is heard outside.'] The boy plays sad as a pine When winter's coming in. [Enter, left, the wedding procession, walking slowly to the accompaniment of Alberto's violin, which renders a minor va- riation of the melody *'Who is Sylvia?" Enter first — two by two — six Handmaids, carrying each a garland of flowers. With these they form an arbor, the garlands being held aloft and touching, to form the arch. Beneath this, in pairs, pass, in sequence. Sob and Flurriel, Babble- brook and Fervian, Pierre and Fresca. The couples, as they issue forth, join garlands to form an extension of the bower, so that Sandrac and Sylvia — the former still dressed in his black gown, the latter as a bride — enter the scene through a living bower of maidens, suitors and flowers, and pass to where Hikrion awaits them, in front of the double throne. Here Sandrac takes his stand by the right throne, Sylvia by the left, while the others break the bower and group themselves on either side. After Sandrac and Sylvia, Alberto enters alone. Last of all, enter Felix and Sam- nuSf who do not pass through the bower. As Alberto ceases to play^ Sandrac speaks.] SANDRAC Now, Sylvia, Apollo plays my Cupid And shoots you with his dying shaft of gold; And now, ere these fresh day-flowers here be drooped, And you and your bright bevy change your mould 174 ^ GARLAND TO SYLVIA To moonlit spirits, we will wed. What you bid Shall be my law. I wish you joys star-fold. SYLVIA Wishes unwilled are like unplanted seeds: They dry in the brain, like wheat-ears in a bam, That, kept too long, lose power to get their breeds. SANDRAC What have I left tmsown, that I should earn Such sad reproof? SYLVIA - Live wishes sprout in deeds; — But shall we to the service? SANDRAC That we will. But first, that all may hail the joy that's mine Let every bridegroom here his beaker fill And drink "A Health to Sylvia!" Come, wine, wine, Good Pater Hikrion. HIKRION [Muttering, as he pours out wine from a leathern vat.] By Selenus, I'll Not be dubbed Pater by that beak o' thine. [While Hikrion pours the wine, into five wooden cups, Felix reaches over his shoidder, and pours into each cup liquid from his own flask.] FELIX Drop, Lethe, drop! Your bane emancipates My love, and makes this murder innocent. TEE REVERIE 175 [HIKRION] [Passing a cup to Sandrac] Here, Master Groom, ye'll find this a true rill From Pan's own vineyard. FELIX Yes, Sandrac, you will find it heady. Try it. SANDRAC [Taking the cup.] So? Pass round, then, pass Still round, old fellow. [Hikrion passes cups to Sob, Babblebrook and Pierre ; lastly to Alberto.] HIKRION Drink too, ladl ALBERTO No, no, I am not thirsty. HIKRION Pho! this here's prime class; 'Twill make the music mount in thee. Come! ALBERTO [Taking the cup.] Oh, Well! FELIX Could he not spare that one! Alberto mine! SANDRAC Drink! A health to Sylvia! Now, each cup On high! Long life to Sylvia! Sylvia ho! 176 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA THE SUITORS Long life to Sylvia I SANDRAC [Pointing to the west.] See! My star is up, And the world's day-god sets. Drink this with me, Sylvia! [He extends the cup to her. Instantly Felix steps forward and empties his flask into it.] FELIX The dregs — here, have it all! [Flinging his flask away.] So, Sandrac, drink: Drink deep as your own joy — and Lethe. SANDRAC [As Sylvia draws hack.'] Still you hesitate to sup? Then first will I: and then — your lips! [He drinks. Simultaneously, as the other Suitors drink also, the twilight deepens into blackness. Out of the dark sounds the voice of Somnus.] SOMNUS Felix, Farewell! THE VOICE OF FELIX Farewell, Somnus! [Swiftly, a dawning moonlight illumines the garland, and reveals Felix, clad in his black gown of the Prologue, standing where Sandrac had stood beside Sylvia. To- THE REVERIE , 177 gether they mount the rustic throne. Sandrac and the Suitors have disappeared. Hikrion's green robe and cowl have altered to a garb of hides and wreath of grape leaves, clothing a shrewd-eyed Satyr. With lifted pipe, he leads an entering throng of sylvan Spirits. These, en- circling in their dance the double throne, shower garlands at the feet of Felix and Sylvia.] THE SPIRITS Then to Sylvia let us sing That Sylvia is excelling! She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling; To her garlands let us bring! [curtain.] FINIS ^ THE UNIVEKSfTY Of POEMS By PERCY MACKAYE Decorated cloth ^ gilt top igo pages Index $1.2^ net A delightful volume of poems by Percy MacKaye revealing in their varied forms and metres and subjects his wonderful lyric gift and versatility. The book is divided into two groups, Poems Chiefly Occasional and Poems Lyrical and Descriptive. In the first of these are included " Ticonderoga," a ballad read at the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of Lake Champlain ; " Tennyson " ; " The Air Voyage up the Hudson," stanzas written on witnessing from Battery Park the first flight made by Wilbur Wright in his aeroplane from Governor's Island to Grant's Tomb on the morning of October 4, 1909 ; " Choral Song for the New Theatre," sung by the members of the Metropolitan Opera Company at the ceremony of the laying of the corner stone of the New Theatre, New York, December 15, 1908, and also at the opening ceremony, November 6, 1909 ; "An Ode to the American Universities " ; " The Sistine Eve," fragments of an Oratorio written for the beginning of the twentieth cen- tury, and several others. The second group contains charming lyrics on a great variety of subjects, and virile sonnets to eminent men such as Charles Eliot Norton, Francis James Child, George Pierce Baker, William Vaughn Moody, George Grey Barnard, and others. Mr. MacKaye has already been recognized by the critics as one of the lead- ing poets of to-day. The present volume demonstrates his ability to a still greater degree, proving conclusively that those who forecasted for him a bril- liant future were right. ODE ON THE CENTENARY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Price^ $.75 net; by mail, %.8$ The centennial of Lincoln's birth is an occasion to inspire a great patriolic effort ; and the poet has not been wanting. The dignity, sincerity, and noble simplicity of Percy MacKaye's poem make it a fitting Memorial of the great President, and no one who cares for Lincoln's fame will wish to miss this tribute to his character. Hitherto Mr. MacKaye has been considered the most brilliant of the younger dramatists of the day and one of the most promising of American poets. The publication of this Ode, in the opinion of critics who have read it, places his name among the great ones in American literature. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF PERCY MACKAYE JEANNE D'ARC Decorated cloth,gilt top, i2mo, 216 pages, illustrated, $T.2§net; by mail, $/.j^. First produced in Philadelphia, October 15, 1906, by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, and since, by the same actors, in New York, Boston, Lon- don, and other large cities. Everywhere it has been praised, TAe Nation pronounced it " a drama which is likely to find a place in the permanent literature of the American theatre." " It is not too much to say that his treatment of the Maid of Orleans is at once the most convincing and sympathetic yet accorded her by poet or dramatist," is the confident assertion of the Philadelphia Inquirer. " Every line is strong and purposeful, and though not lacking in the higher tones, all are couched in common language," is the opinion of the Dra- matic Mirror. "The author seems to have discovered a mean between prose drama and so-called dramatic poems." SAPPHO AND PHAON. A Tragedy Set forth with a Prologue, Induction, Prelude, Interludes, and Epilogue Decorated cloth, gilt top, 240 pages, $i.2t; net ; by mail, $1.35 New York Times : " Nor has any dramatist bound us in a spell like that which Percy MacKaye has woven into his poetic drama entitled ' Sappho and Phaon.' " Boston Daily Advertiser: "The fire and vigor and beautiful imagery of Mr. MacKaye's happy experiment in classic form are evident. ... If, being suitably staged and acted, it fails to find favor with the theatre-going public, we shall be surprised. . . . This play is highwater mark in Ameri- can dramatic verse." Boston Evening Transcript : " In fact we remember no drama by any mod- ern writer that at once seems so readable and so actable, and no play that is so excellent in stage technique, so clear in characterization, and so com- pletely filled with the atmosphere of romance and poetry." THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. A Comedy Decorated cloth, gilt top, i2mo, 210 pages, $r.2£ net; by mail, $r.JS The principal characters are Geoffrey Chaucer ; Alisoun, the wife of Bath ; Madame Eglantine, the prioress, and Johanna, Marchioness of Kent. The time of the action is in April, 1387, and the scenes are the Tabard Inn, Southwark, another tavern on the road, and the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral. The story, which is entertaining from first to last, has to do with Chaucer's adventure with the wife of Bath and his love for the prioress. " Every line of ' The Canterbury Pilgrims ' seems to have been wrought with infinite pains. The play possesses splendid literary qualities — and it is actable." — Dramatic Mirror. " Throughout the play the characters of these two most innocent lovers [Chaucer and the prioress] are maintained with exquisite humor and feel- ing for life. Outside of the covers of Shakespeare it would be hard to find anything of the kind at once more original and more nearly on Shake- speare's level." — New York Times. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York DRAMATIC WORKS OF PERCY MACKAYE-Continaed THE SCARECROW. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous Decorated cloth, gilt top, ijg pages, $1.23 net; by mail, $1^4 This was the first prose drama published by Mr. MacKaye. It is an imagi- native study of New England temperament as a local phase of broader human psychology. The scene is laid in a town of Massachusetts during the early witchcraft days of the seventeenth century, and the idea under- lying the comic theme is the " sense of human sympathy which is, it would seem, a more searching critic, of human frailty than satire." The dialogue is crisp, and the scenes are full of picturesque opportunity for an actor de- picting Ravensbane, " a thing of shreds and patches," trying to play the part of a real man ; or for one attempting to portray to the life the physical and mental nobility of Goody Rickby, FENRIS THE WOLF. A Tragedy Cloth, gilt top, i2mo, 150 pages, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.32 " In Mr. Percy MacKaye's tragedy, ' Fenris the Wolf,' " says The Nation, "we have a play which is an uncommonly bold piece of imagination. In setting and atmosphere the play is highly poetic. The action passes before rune-stones in the northern forest at daybreak or twilight, in prison cham- bers, and by deep forest pools. Though it closely skirts the borders of the fantastic, it never becomes quite fantastic." MATER. A Comedy Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.33 " A keener or finer play of wit is not often offered in the theatre, and the characters are delightfully contrasted." — New York Times. " In a delicately framed comedy called ' Mater,' Mr. MacKaye gave his friends reason to be proud of him, and the public about the most whole- some play that has been presented on any stage this season. ' Mater ' ought to be successful because it is a good comedy, and unlike many of the straight comedies, it is substantial. It ought to be successful because it gives promise of something enduring. It is the product of a level head and a healthy brain." — New York Tribune. THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PLAY and Other Addresses concerning the Theatre and Democracy in America $1.25 net ; by mail, $1.35 This volume includes addresses delivered by the author before Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other American Universities. Of its five leading chapters, the first concerns itself with the conditioning influences of the theatre upon the drama; the second, with a possible goal for our native drama; the third, with the civic status of the dramatist's profession; the fourth, with the need of leadership ; the fifth, with art as public service. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York DORIAN DAYS — POEMS By WENDELL PHILLIPS STAFFORD Decorated cloth covers^ gilt top^ 112 pages, %i^S net ; by mail, $1.32 This Tolome of ver»c derives its title from the fact that its author has returned to the dassic beauty of ancient Greece for a large part of his nateriaL Such a return in this so-called age of commercialism by a man who has played so prominent a part in the afllairs of to-day as has Justice Stafford of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, is a noteworthy event in itself^ and it is rendered doubly so by the quality of the rerse he has produced. Graceful in diction, deli^tful m metre and charming in sdbject, his little book is a valuable addition to the fiteratnre of to^y and of all days. POEMS Br G, £, WOODBERRY Cloth, i2mo, $i.so net; by mail, %tJ>o ** It is impofsible to open the volume %wf^\^ttt at random, without at once observii^ as its prime characteristics, a purity of line, a sweet- ness of melody, a fineness of sentiment not to be found present in such porfect and unbroken harmony in the work of any other among con* tcapooMry poets,'' — Atlantic Monthly, WILD EDEN BY THE SAME AtfTHOE A Poea. Inchided in Poems, Cloth, J2mo, $fjfj net; by mail, $i,jj THE FIRST WARDENS Br WILLIAM J, NEIDIG Cloth, i6mo, $1,00 net **Gnct of exprcMkm and cteamcsi of thought, Uent with careful, dean, voeikai worksAtatOttp, ate tbe ehM»eUn§tia of diis Httk voU nme of foetrj,** — Chicago TrUntne. "In rhytini, in SetwUf in imagination tnd beaniy of though Mf« Neidtf has seemed to as to have been deddedly soccessfuL" — /Cich- m»naTim€S'Deipatch, THE PILGRIM AND OTHER POEMS Br SOPHIE JEWETT Cloth, /2mo, $/^j net There me mamf who will t rra i fc dMse rerMs ahnoit as a personal ftoM one wlwfe interpfetatfons of Itfe were fintiularly poetie, deaf-iiilrted, and beantiM in iin9lidtr« ruBLUHWD tr THE MACMILLAN COMPANY M-M Wittk Arene, Veir Tofk UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW *«Mrt^4 ^ e 1. « V j: