Chapter 6

Scene: ASHDOWN FOREST IN MAY

Persons: H.--A POET; C.--HIS DAUGHTER

H. Here then, if you insist, my daughter: still, I must confess that I preferred the hill. The warm scent of the pinewood seemed to me The first true breath of summer; did you see The waxen hurt-bells with their promised fruit Already purple at the blossom's root, And thick among the rusty bracken strown Sunburnt anemones long overblown? Summer is come at last!

C. And that is why Mine is a better place than yours to lie. This dark old yew tree casts a fuller shade Than any pine; the stream is simply made For keeping bottles cool; and when we've dined I could just wade a bit while you . . . reclined.

H. Empty the basket then, without more words . . . But I still wish we had not left the birds.

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C. Father! you are perverse! Since when, I beg, Have forest birds been tethered by the leg? They're everywhere! What more can you desire? The cuckoo shouts as though he'd never tire, The nuthatch, knowing that of noise you're fond, Keeps chucking stones along a frozen pond, And busy gold-crest, somewhere out of sight, Works at his saw with all his tiny might. I do not count the ring-doves or the rooks, We hear so much about them in the books They're hardly real; but from where I sit I see two chaffinches, a long-tailed tit, A missel-thrush, a yaffle----

H. That will do: I may have overlooked a bird or two. Where are the biscuits? Are you getting cramp Down by the water there--it must be damp?

C. I'm only watching till your bottle's cool: It lies so snug beneath this glassy pool, Like a sunk battleship; and overhead The water-boatmen get their daily bread By rowing all day long, and far below Two little eels go winding, winding slow . . . Oh! there's a shark!

H. A what?

C. A miller's thumb. Don't move, I'll tempt him with a tiny crumb.

H. Be quick about it, please, and don't forget I am at least as dry as he is wet.

C. Oh, very well then, here's your drink.

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H. That's good! I feel much better now.

C. I thought you would (_exit quietly_).

H. How beautiful the world is when it breathes The news of summer!--when the bronzy sheathes Still hang about the beech-leaf, and the oaks Are wearing still their dainty tasselled cloaks, While on the hillside every hawthorn pale Has taken now her balmy bridal veil, And, down below, the drowsy murmuring stream Lulls the warm noonday in an endless dream. O little brook, far more thou art to me Than all the pageantry of field and tree: _Es singen wohl die Nixen_--ah! 'tis truth-- _Tief unten ihren Reih'n_--but only Youth Can hear them joyfully, as once I lay And heard them singing of the world's highway, Of wandering ended, and the maiden found, And golden bread by magic mill-wheel ground. Lost is the magic now, the wheel is still, And long ago the maiden left the mill: Yet once a year, one day, when summer dawns, The old, old murmur haunts the river-lawns, The fairies wake, the fairy song is sung, And for an hour the wanderer's feet are young (_he dozes_).

C. (returning) Father! I called you twice.

H. I did not know: Where have you been?

C. Oh, down the stream.

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H. Just so: Well, I went _up_.

C. I wish you'd been with me.

H. When East is West, my daughter, that may be.

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_Dream-Market_

A MASQUE PRESENTED AT WILTON HOUSE,

JULY 28, 1909

_Scene_. A LAWN IN THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA

_Enter FLORA, Lady of Summer, with her maidens, PHYLLIS and AMARYLLIS. She takes her seat upon a bank, playing with a basket of freshly gathered flowers, one of which she presently holds up in her hand._

FLORA. Ah! how I love a rose! But come, my girls, Here's for your task: to-day you, Amaryllis, Shall take the white, and, Phyllis, you the red. Hold out your kirtles for them. White, red, white, Red, red, and white again. . . . Wonder you not How the same sun can breed such different beauties? [_She divides all her roses between them._ Well, take them all, and go--scatter them wide In gardens where men love me, and be sure

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Where even one flower falls, or one soft petal, Next year shall see a hundred. [_As they turn to go, enter LUCIA in hunting dress, with bow in hand and a hound by her side. FLORA rises to meet her, and recalls her maidens._] Stay! attend me.

LUCIA. Greeting, fair ladies; you, I think, must be Daughters of this green Earth, and one of you The sweet Dame Flora.

FLORA. Your true servant, madam. But if my memory be not newly withered I have not known the pleasure. . . .

LUCIA. Yes, you have seen me-- At least, you might have seen me; I am Lucia, Lady of Moonlight, and I often hunt These downs of yours with all my nightly pack Of questing beams and velvet-footed shadows.

FLORA. I fear at night. . . .

LUCIA. Oh, yes! at night you are sleeping! And I by day am always rather faint; So we don't meet; but sometimes your good folk Have torn my nets by raking in the water; And though their neighbours laughed, there are worse ways Of spending time, and far worse things to rake for Than silver lights upon a crystal stream. But come! My royal Sire, the Man in the Moon-- _He_ has been here?

FLORA. So many kings come here, I can't be sure; I've heard the Man in the Moon

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Did once come down and ask his way to Norwich. But that was years agone--hundreds of years-- It may not be the same--I do not know You royal father's age. . . .

LUCIA. His age? Oh surely! He never _can_ be more than one month old.

FLORA. Yet he's your father!

LUCIA. Well, he is and is not; [_Proudly_] I am the daughter of a million moons. They month by month and year by circling year, From their celestial palace looking down On your day-wearied Earth, have soothed her sleep, And rocked her tides, and made a magic world For all her lovers and her nightingales. You owe them much, my ancestors. No doubt, At times they suffered under clouds; at times They were eclipsed; yet in their brighter hours They were illustrious!

FLORA. And may I hope Your present Sire, his present Serene Highness, Is in his brighter hours to-day?

LUCIA. Ah! no. Be sure he is not--else I had not left My cool, sweet garden of unfading stars For the rank meadows of this sun-worn mould.

FLORA. What _is_ your trouble, then?

LUCIA. Although my father Has been but ten days reigning, he is sad With all the sadness of a phantom realm, And all the sorrows of ten thousand years.

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We in our Moonland have no life like yours, No birth, no death: we live but in our dreams: And when they are grown old--these mortal visions Of an immortal sleep--we seem to lose them. They are too strong for us, too self-sufficient To live for us; they go their ways and leave us, Like shadows grown substantial.

FLORA. I have heard Something on earth not unlike this complaint, But can I help you?

LUCIA. Lady, if you cannot, No one can help. In Moonland there is famine, We are losing all our dreams, and I come hither To buy a new one for my father's house.

FLORA. To buy a dream?

LUCIA. Some little darling dream That will be always with us, night and day, Loving and teasing, sailing light of heart Over our darkest deeps, reminding us Of our lost childhood, playing our old games, Singing our old songs, asking our old riddles, Building our old hopes, and with our old gusto Rehearsing for us in one endless act The world past and the world to be.

FLORA. Oh! now I see your meaning. Yes, I have indeed Plenty of such sweet dreams: _we_ call them children. They are _our_ dreams too, and though they are born of us, Truly in them we live. But, dearest lady, We do not sell them.

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LUCIA. Do you mean you will not? Not one? Could you not _lend_ me one--just one?

FLORA. Ah! but to lend what cannot be returned Is merely giving--who can bring again Into the empty nest those wingèd years? Still, there are children here well worth your hopes, And you shall venture: if there be among them One that your heart desires, and she consent, Take her and welcome--for the will of Love Is the wind's will, and none may guess his going.

LUCIA. O dearest Lady Flora!

FLORA. Stay! they are here, Mad as a dance of May-flies.

[_The children run in dancing and singing._

Shall we sit And watch these children? Phyllis, bid them play, And let them heed us no more than the trees That girdle this green lawn with whispering beauty. [_The children play and sing at their games, till at a convenient moment the LADY FLORA holds up her hand._]

FLORA. Now, Amaryllis, stay the rushing stream, The meadows for this time have drunk enough. [_To LUCIA._] And you, what think you, lady, of these maids? Has their sweet foolish singing moved your heart To choose among them?

LUCIA. I have heard them gladly, And if I could, would turn them all to elves, That if they cannot live with me, at least

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I might look down when our great galleon sails Close over earth, and see them always here Dancing upon the moonlit shores of night. But how to choose!--and though they are young and fair Their every grace foretells the fatal change, The swift short bloom of girlhood, like a flower Passing away, for ever passing away. Have you not one with petals tenderer yet, More deeply folded, further from the hour When the bud dies into the mortal rose?

FLORA [_pointing._] _There_ is my youngest blossom and my fairest, But my most wilful too--you'll pluck her not Without some aid of magic.

LUCIA. Time has been When I have known even your forest trees Sway to a song of moonland. I will try it.

[_She sings and dances a witching measure._]

SONG

(_To an air by HENRY LAWES, published in 1652_)

The flowers that in thy garden rise, Fade and are gone when Summer flies, And as their sweets by time decay, So shall thy hopes be cast away.

The Sun that gilds the creeping moss Stayeth not Earth's eternal loss: He is the lord of all that live, Yet there is life he cannot give.

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The stir of Morning's eager breath-- Beautiful Eve's impassioned death-- Thou lovest these, thou lovest well, Yet of the Night thou canst not tell.

In every land thy feet may tread, Time like a veil is round thy head: Only the land thou seek'st with me Never hath been nor yet shall be.

It is not far, it is not near, Name it hath none that Earth can hear; But there thy Soul shall build again Memories long destroyed of men, And Joy thereby shall like a river Wander from deep to deep for ever.

[_When she has finished the child runs into her arms._]

FLORA. Your spell has won her, and I marvel not: She was but half our own. [_To the Child_] Farewell, dear child, 'Tis time to part, you with this lovely lady To dance in silver halls, and gather stars And be the dream you are: while we return To the old toil and harvest of the Earth. Farewell! and farewell all!

ALL. Farewell! farewell!

[_Exeunt omnes._

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_The Cicalas: An Idyll_

_Scene_: AN ENGLISH GARDEN BY STARLIGHT

_Persons_: A LADY AND A POET

THE POET

Dimly I see your face: I hear your breath Sigh faintly, as a flower might sigh in death And when you whisper, you but stir the air With a soft hush like summer's own despair.

THE LADY (_aloud_)

O Night divine, O Darkness ever blest, Give to our old sad Earth eternal rest. Since from her heart all beauty ebbs away, Let her no more endure the shame of day.

THE POET

A thousand ages have not made less bright The stars that in this fountain shine to-night: Your eyes in shadow still betray the gleam That every son of man desires in dream.

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THE LADY

Yes, hearts will burn when all the stars are cold; And Beauty lingers--but her tale is told: Mankind has left her for a game of toys, And fleets the golden hour with speed and noise.

THE POET

Think you the human heart no longer feels Because it loves the swift delight of wheels? And is not Change our one true guide on earth, The surest hand that leads us from our birth?

THE LADY

Change were not always loss, if we could keep Beneath all change a clear and windless deep: But more and more the tides that through us roll Disturb the very sea-bed of the soul.

THE POET

The foam of transient passions cannot fret The sea-bed of the race, profounder yet: And there, where Greece and her foundations are, Lies Beauty, built below the tide of war.

THE LADY

So--to the desert, once in fifty years-- Some poor mad poet sings, and no one hears: But what belated race, in what far clime, Keeps even a legend of Arcadian time?

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THE POET

Not ours perhaps: a nation still so young, So late in Rome's deserted orchard sprung, Bears not as yet, but strikes a hopeful root Till the soil yield its old Hesperian fruit.

THE LADY

Is not the hour gone by? The mystic strain, Degenerate once, may never spring again. What long-forsaken gods shall we invoke To grant such increase to our common oak?

THE POET

Yet may the ilex, of more ancient birth, More deeply planted in that genial earth, From her Italian wildwood even now Revert, and bear once more the golden bough.

THE LADY

A poet's dream was never yet less great Because it issued through the ivory gate! Show me one leaf from that old wood divine, And all your ardour, all your hopes are mine.

THE POET

May Venus bend me to no harder task! For--Pan be praised!--I hold the gift you ask. The leaf, the legend, that your wish fulfils, To-day he brought me from the Umbrian hills.

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THE LADY

Your young Italian--yes! I saw you stand And point his path across our well-walled land: A sculptor's model, but alas! no god: These narrow fields the goat-foot never trod!

THE POET

Yet from his eyes the mirth a moment glanced To which the streams of old Arcadia danced; And on his tongue still lay the childish lore Of that lost world for which you hope no more.

THE LADY

Tell me!--from where I watched I saw his face, And his hands moving with a rustic grace, Caught too the alien sweetness of his speech, But sound alone, not sense, my ears could reach.

THE POET

He asked if we in England ever heard The tiny beasts, half insect and half bird, That neither eat nor sleep, but die content When they in endless song their strength have spent.

THE LADY

Cicalas! how the name enchants me back To the grey olives and the dust-white track! Was there a story then?--I have forgot, Or else by chance my Umbrians told it not.

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THE POET

Lover of music, you at least should know That these were men in ages long ago,-- Ere music was,--and then the Muses came, And love of song took hold on them like flame.

THE LADY

Yes, I remember now the voice that speaks-- Most living still of all the deathless Greeks-- Yet tell me--how they died divinely mad, And of the Muses what reward they had.

THE POET

They are reborn on earth, and from the first They know not sleep, they hunger not nor thirst Summer with glad Cicala's song they fill, Then die, and go to haunt the Muses' Hill.

THE LADY

They are reborn indeed! and rightly you The far-heard echo of their music knew! Pray now to Pan, since you too, it would seem, Were there with Phaedrus, by Ilissus' stream.

THE POET

Beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose grace For ever haunts our short life's resting-place, Outward and inward make me one true whole, And grant me beauty in the inmost soul!

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THE LADY

And thou, O Night, O starry Queen of Air, Remember not my blind and faithless prayer! Let me too live, let me too sing again, Since Beauty wanders still the ways of men.

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_The Faun_

Yesterday I thought to roam Idly through the fields of home, And I came at morning's end To our brook's familiar bend. There I raised my eyes, and there, Shining through an ampler air, Folded in by hills of blue Such as Wessex never knew, Changed as in a waking dream Flowed the well-remembered stream.

Now a line of wattled pale Fenced the downland from the vale, Now the sedge was set with reeds Fitter for Arcadian meads, And where I was wont to find Only things of timid kind, Now the Genius of the pool Mocked me from his corner cool. Eyes he had with malice quick, Tufted hair and ears a-prick, And, above a tiny chin, Lips with laughter wide a-grin.

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Therewithal a shaggy flank In the crystal clear he sank, And beneath the unruffled tide A little pair of hooves I spied.

Yet though plainly there he stood, Creature of the wave and wood, Under his satyric grace Something manlike I could trace, And the eyes that mocked me there Like a gleam of memory were.

"So," said I at last to him, Frowning from the river's brim, "This is where you come to play, Heedless of the time of day."

"Nay," replied the youthful god, Leaning on the flowery sod, "Here there are no clocks, and so Time can neither come nor go."

"Little goat," said I, "you're late, And your dinner will not wait: If to-day you wish to eat, Trust me, you must find your feet."

"Father," said the little goat, "Do you know that I can float?

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Do you know that I can dive As deep as any duck alive? Would you like to see me drop Out of yonder willow's top?"

Sternly I replied again, "You may spare your boasting vain; All that you can do I did When I was myself a kid." Laughter followed such as pealed Through the first unfurrowed field. "Then what mother says is true, And your hoof is cloven too!"

Ah!--but that irreverent mirth, Learnt of the primeval earth, Surely was with magic fraught That upon my pulses wrought: I too felt the air of June Humming with a merry tune, I too reckoned, like a boy, Less of Time and more of Joy: Till, as homeward I was wending, I perceived my back unbending, And before the mile was done Ran beside my truant son.

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_Fidele's Grassy Tomb_

The Squire sat propped in a pillowed chair, His eyes were alive and clear of care, But well he knew that the hour was come To bid good-bye to his ancient home.

He looked on garden, wood, and hill, He looked on the lake, sunny and still: The last of earth that his eyes could see Was the island church of Orchardleigh.

The last that his heart could understand Was the touch of the tongue that licked his hand "Bury the dog at my feet," he said, And his voice dropped, and the Squire was dead.

Now the dog was a hound of the Danish breed, Staunch to love and strong at need: He had dragged his master safe to shore When the tide was ebbing at Elsinore.

From that day forth, as reason would, He was named "Fidele," and made it good: When the last of the mourners left the door Fidele was dead on the chantry floor.

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They buried him there at his master's feet, And all that heard of it deemed it meet: The story went the round for years, Till it came at last to the Bishop's ears.

Bishop of Bath and Wells was he, Lord of the lords of Orchardleigh; And he wrote to the Parson the strongest screed That Bishop may write or Parson read.

The sum of it was that a soulless hound Was known to be buried in hallowed ground: From scandal sore the Church to save They must take the dog from his master's grave.

The heir was far in a foreign land, The Parson was wax to my Lord's command: He sent for the Sexton and bade him make A lonely grave by the shore of the lake.

The Sexton sat by the water's brink Where he used to sit when he used to think: He reasoned slow, but he reasoned it out, And his argument left him free from doubt.

"A Bishop," he said, "is the top of his trade; But there's others can give him a start with the spade: Yon dog, he carried the Squire ashore, And a Christian couldn't ha' done no more."

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The grave was dug; the mason came And carved on stone Fidele's name; But the dog that the Sexton laid inside Was a dog that never had lived or died.

So the Parson was praised, and the scandal stayed, Till, a long time after, the church decayed, And, laying the floor anew, they found In the tomb of the Squire the bones of a hound.

As for the Bishop of Bath and Wells No more of him the story tells; Doubtless he lived as a Prelate and Prince, And died and was buried a century since.

And whether his view was right or wrong Has little to do with this my song; Something we owe him, you must allow; And perhaps he has changed his mind by now.

The Squire in the family chantry sleeps, The marble still his memory keeps: Remember, when the name you spell, There rest Fidele's bones as well.

For the Sexton's grave you need not search, 'Tis a nameless mound by the island church: An ignorant fellow, of humble lot-- But he knew one thing that a Bishop did not.

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_Moonset_

Past seven o'clock: time to be gone; Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up: A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup, Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.

Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye; But John it appears has none of your grins and winks; Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks: Words come once in a mile, and always dry.

Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soon We turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right, Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night, Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon.

Strangely near she seems, and terribly great: The world is dead: why are we travelling still? Nightmare silence grips my struggling will; We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate.

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"When you come to consider the moon," says John at last, And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand; "And then there's some will say there's never a hand That made the world!" A flick, and the gates are passed.