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SANCTUARY
A BIRD MASQUE
“_Herkneth these blisful briddes how they singe; Ful is mine herte of revel and solas!_” CHAUCER
SANCTUARY
_A Bird Masque_
BY PERCY MACKAYE
_With a Prelude by_ ARVIA MACKAYE
_Illustrated with Photographs in Color and Monotone by_ ARNOLD GENTHE
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1913, 1914, by_ PERCY MACKAYE
_All rights reserved_
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A
TO
ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
‘WILD NATURE’S HUMAN SYMPATHIZER’ IN ADMIRATION OF HIS DAUNTLESS SERVICE TO THE BIRDS
NOTE REGARDING PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC READING
_Requests for permission to perform or read publicly this Bird Masque having been received from a great many quarters, the following information is here given for those desiring such permission:_
_The Masque is copyrighted in the United States and countries of the Copyright Union, and all rights are reserved._
_The purpose of the Masque is to be of public use, so that all adequate presentations of it are welcome. To this end the special conditions of performance or public reading should in each case be communicated direct to the author, in care of the publisher._
_No performances may be given without such direct communication, and permission thus first obtained._
_As the publication of this text is designed to serve the definite cause for which it was written, performances must be, in some degree at least, for the benefit of Wild Bird Conservation._
_Music for the lyrics “The Hermit Thrush” and the three songs of Quercus has been composed by Frederick S. Converse, and is published by the H. W. Gray Company, 2 West 45th Street, New York._
_A bird bath, specially designed for use in bird sanctuaries and gardens, with plastic groupings of characters in the original cast of this Masque, has been executed by Mrs. Louis Saint-Gaudens, Cornish, New Hampshire, post office Windsor, Vermont._
_The four photographs in color, as well as those in black and white, which illustrate this volume were taken by Dr. Arnold Genthe of enactors in the Masque, as first performed by members of the Cornish Colony and the Meriden Bird Club at Meriden, New Hampshire, September 12, 1913._
FOREWORD
This Masque was written for the dedication of the bird sanctuary of the Meriden Bird Club of Meriden, New Hampshire, where it was first performed on the night of September twelfth, 1913. The text was composed, the lyrics set to music, the masque rehearsed, costumed and acted, within the brief space of a month. Its production came about by a spontaneous and glad cooperation of artists, neighbors, lovers of nature, imbued with a deep feeling in common—concern for the welfare of wild birds. In this important concern its enactors were happily encouraged by the sympathetic presence of the President of the United States and the participation of his family.
Swift and spontaneous as its production was, however, the masque in its reasons for being was not unpremeditated. It took its origin from two important sources, rarely, if ever, associated—nature study, and the art of the theatre.
The union of these was its _raison d’etre_.
However tentative its realization, it stands none the less as a pioneering suggestion of real moment to those two potent influences upon our national life. As such it has seemed worth while to present to the public, and to make clear the suggestion which it illustrates, however sketchily.
From a recent volume by the writer on “The Civic Theatre, in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure,” I quote the following paragraphs upon “Nature Symbols,” as they apply directly to this subject:
“The relation of the theatre’s art to the naturalist’s vocation is probably not obvious to the man on the street. That is because the commercial theatre relates itself to so few of the pursuits of science outside of Broadway interests. The civic theatre would do otherwise.
“Aristophanes symbolized the birds for the purposes of Greek satire. The costuming of his play in Athens probably expressed no direct attribution to the science of ornithology. Yet its attribution to the Greek race’s intimate love of Nature was as spontaneous as the symbolizing of flowers in the capitals of their temple columns. The movement to-day for the conservation of our birds and their more intimate study might well take on significant, lovely forms of symbolic expression in pageants, festivals and the drama of the civic theatre.
“By the same art, the fascinating designs, embossings, colorings, of insect forms could be symbolized in spectacles of astonishing beauty, motivated dramatically to the real and tremendous human relation which that ignored but pestiferous race bears to human society and the state; as witness the movement, involving millions in taxes, for exterminating the gypsy moth and the boll weevil.
“Such implications for art may seem, at first, a far cry from actual possibilities of the theatre; yet thus may the civic theatre directly relate its activities not only to the enthusiasms of naturalists in the fields and woods, but to the inspiring studies of scholars in their laboratories: a cooperation which may soon stultify the popular notion that art and science are divorced in their special aims. The same relation of the theatre’s symbolic art to all the sciences—the discoveries of chemistry, the splendid imaginings of engineering—is implied in their common aim: the bringing of greater joy, beauty, understanding, to our fellow men and women, the people.
“Science represents idea, art its expression; theatrical art its expression in forms best adapted to convened numbers of the people. The forms of popular art, therefore, are limited only by the ideas of man.”
It is thus as an illustration of one of the multiform _genres_ of the civic theatre’s potential art that this little masque has its main significance.
Before the actual establishment of the Civic Theatre among us, the opportunities of the working dramatist to make tangible contributions by his art to its repertory are, of course, very scant and at best groping and experimental. One such as the present may serve, however, to suggest certain immediate, practical possibilities.
If, for instance, every bird sanctuary were to possess its stage and auditorium for bird masques—if every Natural History Museum had its outdoor theatre, equipped to set forth the multitudinous human meanings of its nature exhibits to the crowds that frequent its doors in their hours of leisure—if the directors of every Zoölogical Park were to provide for it a scenic arena, and seek the civic cooperation of the dramatic poet and theatrical expert, to vivify by their art the tremendous life stories of wild nature to the receptive minds of the human thousands convened to listen and behold—by such means, would not the disciples of nature study not simply adopt for their own ends a means of education and publicity a thousandfold more dynamic, imaginative and popular than any of the static means of exhibits, lectures and published volumes on which they now rely: would they not also thereby splendidly assist in enlarging the civic scope of the theatre’s art, still cramped, as for generations, within the walls of speculation and commercialism?
These suggestions speak for themselves.
If this Bird Masque shall help, in the slightest degree, to illustrate them, it will do its ephemeral service in the only permanent sanctuary of men as of birds—imagination.
PERCY MACKAYE.
CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, October, 1913.
PERSONS OF THE MASQUE[1] _in the order of their appearance_
QUERCUS, _faun_
ALWYN, _poet_
SHY, _naturalist_
TACITA, _dryad_
ORNIS, _bird spirit_
STARK, _plume hunter_
PARTICIPANTS IN PANTOMIME
_Hunter Attendants of Stark_
_Many species of birds—in human form, garbed symbolically_
SCENE
_The sylvan glade of a bird sanctuary._
Footnote 1:
The complete programme of the original production of the masque, as first enacted at Meriden, New Hampshire, by members of the Cornish Colony and the Meriden Bird Club, is printed in the AFTERWORD of this volume.
THE PRELUDE
THE PRELUDE
_Wandering in the quiet of the bird sanctuary, a little girl hears the voice of a hermit thrush, and meditates this song_:
THE SONG
While walking through a lonely wood I heard a lovely voice: A voice so fresh and true and good It made my heart rejoice.
It sounded like a Sunday bell Rung softly in a town, Or like a stream that in a dell Forever trickles down.
It seemed to be a voice of love That always had loved me, So softly it rang out above, So wild and wanderingly.
O Voice, were you a golden dove, Or just a plain gray bird? O Voice, you are my wandering love Lost, yet forever heard.
_Passing on deeper into the wood, the little girl thinks dreamily of all wild birds and the wrongs done to them by their human brothers and sisters._
_Out of her reverie grows the Masque which follows._
THE MASQUE
THE MASQUE
I
_Dawn._
_The woods are silent, save for bird pipings._
_In the background, verdure of young pines and ancient boles of oaks form the dim-pillared entrance to a forest shrine._
_Artfully placed on tree trunk and bough are nest boxes of bark._
_On one side stands a low weathercock food-house; on the other, a tall martin-house pole._
_In the shade of a great oak glimmers the shallow pool of a bird bath._
_Peeping at this from behind the oak, appears, vanishes and appears again the horned head of_ QUERCUS, _a faun_.
_Stealing forth_, QUERCUS _approaches the pool, bearing in one hand an enormous pitcher plant_.
_Peering upward among the boughs, he raises his voice in quaint falsetto, and sings._
QUERCUS
Veery, veery!—vireo! Waxwing wild!—warbler wary! Ori-ori-oriole! Seek our sanctuary! Robin rath, Little tail-twitcher, Drink from my pitcher, Dip in my bath! Dew’s in my bath, Rain’s in my pitcher, Dawn’s in the greenwood eerie: Hither, highhole! Redpoll! Oriole! Vireo!—veery!
[_From his pitcher plant_ QUERCUS _pours into the bird bath. Skipping then to a little swinging bird-house, he sprinkles its shelf with seed from a pouch. Here he pauses dreamily; furtively takes out and fingers a pipe; blows a few notes, pauses, starts, puts it quickly away, stoops his ear to the ground, springs away to the oak, and snatches an ivied staff which stands against the trunk. The staff is designed like a martin-house pole in miniature. Placing himself on guard where a foot-path enters the glade, he calls_:]
Stand yonder! Hold! who treads beneath my trees?
A VOICE
[_Outside._]
A friend.
QUERCUS
A friend to what?
THE VOICE
To Song, and Song’s melodious silences.
QUERCUS
Still enter not. The race of wings reigns in this solitude. No foot may here intrude Without fair passport. Tell me first your name And cause of coming here.
II
QUERCUS. ALWYN.
[A YOUNG MAN _enters, pausing in the path_.]
THE MAN
From hence even now a piping filled mine ear With quaintish memory: familiar, Yet old, it seemed. Long since, I heard the same Lulling to paleness the white morning star Among Sicilian oaks. So here I came To spy upon the piper. Now, methinks, I know him, by those horns and merry winks. —Good morrow, Quercus, the faun!
QUERCUS
Now, by Lord Pan! The poet’s ear and eye still spy me out.— Alwyn, maker of songs—hail to you, master! You!—Can it really be?
ALWYN
It can, And _is_—by Pan, our ancient pastor! But you, slant shanks, what make _you_ here at dawn?
QUERCUS
Newfangleness! The classic gout Still crooks my knees with the old lyric wine, But now they run new errands.
[_Flourishing his staff._]
Lo, the sign Of my new office!
ALWYN
New! What may that be?
QUERCUS
Wood warden of the wild birds’ sanctuary: Janitor of their sylvan temple!—See, My staff acclaims me. Poor Mercutius! Old mythologic nature-faker, He’s out of date with his caduceus. Behold in me A modern science-tutored fairy And practical care-taker— Grand marshal of the martin-house!
ALWYN
[_Pointing at_ QUERCUS’ _staff_.]
Of that?
QUERCUS
Nay, this, my bard, is but the breviat And little pattern.
[_Pointing toward a tall martin-house pole._]
Yonder, you behold The real palace. Through those portals We lure the feathered broods to fold Their wings above the world of thievish mortals.
ALWYN
_We_—say you? Who are _we_?
QUERCUS
Myself and my lord master.
ALWYN
And what’s he?
QUERCUS
Nay, if I knew, I should be wiser. He is the fellow of all friendless things, Wild nature’s human sympathizer: In form a man, yet footed so with silence The deer mistake him for their brother; so Swift that, meseems, he borrows the birds’ wings; An eye, that glows and twinks Through noon like twilight’s vesper star; an ear That harks a mile hence The purring of a lynx! I love him, follow, obey him, yet I know Naught of him—but his love.
ALWYN
Not even his name?
QUERCUS
Yea, what men call him by; And he is like the same. Men call him Master Shy.
ALWYN
Ah, Shy, the naturalist. Why, he is my good crony. If he wist To rhyme he’d be a better bard than I. How do you serve him?
QUERCUS
I’m crew to his Jason! I multiply myself for rare adventures, And serve his Ship of Birds as carpenter, Box-joiner, bath-cementer, mason, Seed-storer, water-carrier, Worm-steward, nest-ward, treehouse thatcher, Man-chaser and mouse-catcher.
ALWYN
Nay, do you please in all?
QUERCUS
I carry to his call, And never yet have earned his censures For botch or shirk.
ALWYN
I prithee show me of your handiwork. What’s here—this little box With paddle wings?
QUERCUS
One of our weather-cocks. Look you, it swings: So when, in winter, the white tempest blows, Here sit the birds at breakfast ’mid the snows, With porch turned ever to the cosy side. In that cold time, my master Shy Brings more devices to provide Bird-comfort: Food-bells full of millet We place in covert nooks, and tie Our knitted suet bags on many a bough Of pine and larch. And I must plough Through many a drift, to crack the frozen rillet For little beaks to drink.
ALWYN
By Phœbus, now Is this in sooth mine old Sicilian faun, That wont of yore to dally On violet-scented lawn With lily-crownéd nymphs in lovelorn valley! What modern change is here? What magic—
QUERCUS
Hush!
[_With lowered voice, he looks around warily._]
I am not always quite so modern! At times—at times—as when just now You heard me pipe below this bough— I slip my master’s traces, And slink by paths untrodden To lovelorn, lush Arcadian places, Where Philomel still lingers, Plaining her ancient pity, And there I fetch forth this With idling fingers, And, pouting on its lip my kiss, I pipe some dulcet, old, bucolic ditty.
[_Taking out his pipe, he plays again a few languorous strains, but breaks off abruptly._]
Whist! Here he comes.—It grates upon his ear.
III
SHY. QUERCUS. ALWYN.
SHY
[_Enters, carrying a nest-box._]
A hermit thrush is pleasanter to hear.
[_He greets_ ALWYN.]
Good morning, friend! How comes it _you_ are caught Walking so early? Poets, I had thought, Salute the sunrise only in their song.
ALWYN
[_Smiling._]
Fie, then! You do us wrong: We rhyming slugabeds Walk with Aurora at our pillows’ heads, For dreamers can see dawn rise in the dark. Poets are owls that elegize the lark.
SHY
And now you’ll talk to me of nightingales! Three birds exhaust your bard’s vocabulary: Larks, nightingales and owls! High time, you see, To wean this fellow from your piper’s tales, And teach him craftily To build our hungry birds a homelike sanctuary.
ALWYN
[_Patting_ QUERCUS’ _shoulder_.]
Good Shy, no schooling could so much relieve My modern apprehensions: Tutor him, Hoof, head and limb, And let me humbly hearken. By your leave, God shall provide the dawn, And you the tutelage, and I—the faun.
QUERCUS
Waiting, my masters!
ALWYN
Give your pipe to me!
QUERCUS
[_Holding it behind him._]
Must I give up my pipe? The sound is sweet.
ALWYN
Truth is more sweet than melody, And wisdom than melodious words. When you have learned to greet With their own mystic speech all living birds And minister to their necessity, This pipe shall be restored, and we will make Together a new song, more sweet for knowledge’ sake.
[_In pantomime, he demands and receives the pipe from_ QUERCUS. SHY _then addresses_ QUERCUS.]
SHY
This nest-box: Nail it on the barest bough Of that tall maple. Place it well, Like yonder one.
QUERCUS
Right, master. Now!
SHY
Soft, soft! Not so pell-mell! You’ll scare that nuthatch at her nesting. First tell me of your other questing— Those errands which I sent you yesterday.
QUERCUS
That cowbird, master,—
SHY
Did she lay Her egg?
QUERCUS
Indeed she did, the pest! She laid it in a redstart’s nest; But up I poked my nose in, nabbed it And cracked it cursory: Good Mama Redstart now can hatch her nursery Without a big stepchild to smother her chicks.
SHY
Old Deacon Rathburne’s tom-cat, is he—dead?
QUERCUS
What, Tom, that dabbled in gore the wee goldfinches?
[_He nods shrewdly._]
Wild huckleberries are growing at his head! That almost got _you_ in the fix: Old Deacon saw me do it, blabbed it, And Missus sicked her dachshund at my heels.
[_Grinning._]
Eh, master, it’s _your_ shoe that pinches!
SHY
When cats invade bird-temples, boy, it feels Good to be wicked. But tell me of our forest planting ground: What shrubs and creepers have you found And marked, to make our shelter thicket?
QUERCUS
Why, sir, to give it Birdblithesomeness, I’ve chose Shad bush, blue cornel, withe rod, privet, Red osier, raspberry, wild rose, Black haw, and dangleberry.
SHY
A proper list! What trees—deciduous?
QUERCUS
Box-elder and bird cherry, White ash, gray birch and cockspur thorn.
ALWYN
What make you thus? Some sylvan pound, to stalk an unicorn?
SHY
Good poet, whist! No more mythology. Your faun is learning better. Truce!
ALWYN
Most humbly, my apology!
SHY
So, Quercus: and what evergreens?
QUERCUS
White spruce, Red cedar, balsam fir, and Norway pine.
SHY
Good, fellow! Fine! In such a shelter-tangle we can hatch Ten thousand nestlings. Run, now! Catch That squirrel there, before He makes his call at your new nest-box door.
QUERCUS
[_Skipping to the maple tree._]
Right, master!—Heigh, Sir Alwyn—ho! Just see now what a jack-o’-trades your Quercus is! When Master Shy discharges me, I’ll go And rent nine fairy-rings, and start three circuses!
[_Climbing among the branches, he disappears, whistling bird-notes._]
IV
ALWYN. SHY.
ALWYN
Shy—honest friend, your hand once more!
SHY
Heartily! Welcome to this wood.
ALWYN
Do you recall how once we stood Here, and discoursed of songs I made of yore— Dryads and poet’s dreams?
SHY
Yes, I recall I wondered at them all.
ALWYN
First—as to-day—you smiled Your incredulity of my quaint creed, Till soon, in further converse, we agreed In nature’s heart our faiths are reconciled. For both of us seek nature’s fellowship, The common language of all living things: I—more in music of the human lip, You—in the whirr of beaks and wings. So both—craving the beautiful— Still worship the same shrine and oracle: This temple, and its dryad—Tacita.
SHY
I will confess Of all the nymphs in your Arcadia I worship her Alone.
ALWYN
Because her moods are numberless I do the same. Between the heart of Man And Nature’s heart, which I do name God Pan, She stands and moves—divine interpreter, Translating with her shy and pagan dances Our world life and its trances.
SHY
She is, in truth, The sylvan priestess of this sanctuary.
ALWYN
[_Eagerly._]
What if, through her as intermediary, And after thousand ages of uncouth Estrangement,—what, I say, if we Might find through her the key To comprehend the native speech of birds, And hold communion with them in our human words! Would not that be a modern consummation Nobler than fable?
SHY
Almost, I would have said, we might be able, If it were not for one who scorns this shrine And violates the beauty of creation, Marring all contemplative quietude.
ALWYN
Whom do you speak of?
SHY
One whom the red wine Of slaughter has made drunk, and the false glister Of dollars dazzled with blind arrogance. Close by this wood He plies a bold, sinister Traffic in wings and plumage. Not by chance But calculated orgies, he commits His venal murders, slits The bridal plumes from backs of mating birds, And leaves the nested broods Unhatched or starveling. So he girds His loins, and like the Patagonian Displays his feathered trophies: not a man Swayed by ecstatic moods, Nor even to equip A hardy sportsmanship; Not so: he slaughters birds for stocks and bonds, And when we challenge, smiling he responds: “Mine is a lawful market, where fine ladies pay For plumes, to wear on Sabbaths and Christ’s Easter day.”
ALWYN
What is this desecrator’s name?
SHY
Stark, the plume-hunter.
ALWYN
Surely he dares not Track his defenseless game Here to this hallowed spot!
SHY
No place is holy to unhallowed minds: He covets gain, and grasps it where he finds.
ALWYN
Still I have faith That Tacita, in her serenity, Is mightier than he.
SHY
Ah, nature’s quiet mood is delicate And crushes like a flower.
ALWYN
Faith without works is vain, the Prophet saith. So now, while nature muses in the thrush, Here let us sit this hour, And meditate On Tacita, till meditation shall create Its own shy image.—Hush!
[_They sit upon a log and listen._]
V
TACITA. ALWYN. SHY.
[_Dreamily, the fluting of birds sounds in the forest. Dimly from the background_ TACITA _appears. With steps of reverie, she approaches, and pauses before them_. ALWYN _looks up and, touching_ SHY’S _arm, speaks low_.]
Tacita! It is she!
SHY
Speak to her—you.
Alwyn
Dryad, and spirit of serenity, Whose steps have fallen timeful as the dew Upon our pathway, intervene For us with that still-undiscovered queen— Ornis, who reigns among your ancient boughs Spirit of birds and sister of our race, Man. Stir your spell-enchanted feet, And by their moods arouse Her hidden grace To heed us, and hold speech from realms unseen.
[_To mysterious music_, TACITA _treads a dance of invocation, appealing in pantomime to the unseen spirit of wings, which flits and sings and broods in the boughs above her_. ALWYN _and_ SHY _watch her, rapt and expectant_.
_Suddenly a sharp gun-shot sounds, shivering the music, which ceases. Through the boughs, a bird falls fluttering to the earth._]
VI
ORNIS. ALWYN. SHY.