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Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays
1891 1915 The Witch of Ilni
A dream of the woodlands
Characters
CORILLO, prince of Ilni. VALENTINE, a courtier.
MELANDER, a sylvan poet. FORESTERS, COURTIERS.
ALACIEL, the witch of Ilni. GUENDOLEN, her sister.
GIRLS OF THE FOREST. Act I
The woodlands of Ilni. Girls and youths dancing.
Song
Under the darkling tree Who danceth with thee, Sister say? His hair is the sweet sunlight, His eyes a starry night In May.
Under the leaf-wrought screen Who crowns thee his queen Kissing thee? His lips are a ruby bright, His cheek the May-bloom’s light On the tree.
Under the grass-green bough Whom pillowest thou On thy breast? His voice is a swallow’s flight, His limbs are jonquils white Dewy-drest.
IAMBLICHUS Unwind the linked rapture of the dance!
Page – 753 For in the purple verge and slope of morn Fast-flowering blooms, fire-robed and honey-haired, In stainless wastes the daffodil of heaven. Here till the golden-handed sun upbuilds The morning’s cenotaph blue-domed and vast, On daisy-dotted bank where sunlight nods We’ll spin a curious weft of lyric tales.
MYRTIL Be it so. But what occupation stays Our deftest in the jewelry of rhymes, Our liberal dispenser of sweet words, Our laureate with the throstle in his throat? Sleeps he so long? who saw Melander last, Melander ashbud-browed with April hair?
ERMENILD Before the russet-hooded morn gave birth In Day’s embraces to the fire-eyed sun I spied him nigh a mossy-mantled cave Which rosy trailers draped, and at his side The silver-seeming witch Alaciel.
MYRTIL Pray God, the black-haired witch may do no harm! She is most potent and her science plucks The ruby nightshade, Hecate’s deadly plum, Soul-killing meadow-sweet, the hemlock starred And berries brown crushed in the vats of death, Her mother’s hell-brewed legacy of arts.
MARCION Were it not wisely done to call him hither?
IAMBLICHUS ‘Tis wisely urged, good Marcion. Make good haste
Page – 754 And drench thy words in Hybla’s golden milk To lure him thence. Exit Marcion. But you with dance and song Beguile the laggard moments into joy. Page – 755
A glade in the woodlands.
ALACIEL Why wilt thou go? Noon has not budded, sweet. Fresh-fallen dew stars yet the silvered grass, The leaves are lyrical with lisp of birds And piping voices flutter thro’ the grove. Repose thyself where blue-eyed violet Is married to that bugle of pale gold We call the cowslip, and I’ll chain thee here With flowery bands of rosebud-linked tales Or murmur Orphic falls to draw thy soul Upon the smoother wings of measured song. Noon has not budded, sweet. Why wilt thou go?
MELANDER The sylvan youths expect my lyric touch To gild their leisure: nor am I so bold To linger by thy snowy side too long Whom men call perilous. Oh thou art fair! Dawn reddens in thy vermil-tinted cheeks And on thy tresses pansy-purple night Hangs balsam-drenched with dewdrops for her stars. Thou art a flower with candid petals wide, Moon-flushed, most innocent-seeming to the eye; But in thy cup, they say, lurks venomed wine Which whoso sucks, pale Hades on him lays Ensnaring arms to drag from the sweet sun.
ALACIEL Whom will not Envy’s livid tooth assail? Page – 756 ‘Tis true my wisdom dwarfs their ignorance; That is most true: for in my fledgeling days When callow childhood loved the rushy nest, My mother drew my steps thro’ fretted walks, Rose-rubied gardens, acorn-pelted glades, Green seas of pasture, rural sweeps of bloom, And taught the florid sensuous dialect Of simple plants. This way I learned to love The shining sisterhood of rhythmic names, Roses and lilies, honey-hiding thyme, Pied gillyflowers, painted wind-blossoms, Gold crocus, milky bell, sweet marjoram, Fire-coloured furze and wayside honey-suckle. Nor these alone, but all the helpful plants Gave me the liquid essence of their souls Potent to help or hurt, to cure or kill. Indeed the milky juice of pungent roots I poured you in that curious walnut cup With moderation just, were in excess More deadly than the hemlock’s dooming wine.
MELANDER It fused new blood into my pulsing veins Raising me twice the stature of a soul.
ALACIEL ‘Tis margarite, the rare and pungent root, That brewed this foamy vintage in his wand. For twixt the bulb and pithy texture wrapt You find a pod nut-form with misty skin, In size no bigger than the early grape But full and sweet with honey-tempered wine. Such are my potions, philtres, poisons, drugs, Distempered brews, and all the juggling arts Your ignorance rebukes my wisdom with.
Page – 757 MELANDER From such sweet lips when poppied utterance falls, The carping spirit of disdain must sleep; For subtler logic drops in simple words From woman’s tongue, than phraseful orator Or fine scholastic wit may offer up.
ALACIEL Sweet youth, why should I net you with deceit? Ah yet, in truth you are too beautiful! Come, you are skilled in phrases, are you not? You dice with women’s hearts — they tell me ’tis A pastime much in vogue with idle youths. (The philtre works: his eyelids brim with dew.) You throw cogged dice with women for their souls, You barter with them and deny the price, Is it not so? (O rare, fine margarite!) Oh you are deft at such deceits: you make Your beauty lime to cozen linnets with And bid them sing, if they’d have sustenance. Oh you will not deceive me, think it not: You are just such a fowler to my guess.
MELANDER Dear linnet, did I lime you in my nets, One fine, sweet Hamadryad note would lift The tangle from your wild-rose-petal wings.
ALACIEL Ah but when lurking faces flower the bush Wild birds mock expectation with wild wings.
MELANDER Nay, dear, you shall not go: I have you fast. Come, where’s your ransom? the sweet, single note I bargained for, ere you may climb the winds? Prune not your fluttering wings: I have you fast.
Page – 758 ALACIEL I pray you, make not earnest of my jest. You are too quick: you shall not have a stiver, No, not a coin to bless repentance with.
MELANDER Then I will pay myself, sweet: from that warm And flowering bed of kisses, I will pluck Fresh with the dews of youth one red sweet rose. (kisses her) Oh I have sucked out poison from your lips! Physicians say that certain maladies Are by their generating causes killed. Sweet poison, one more drop to cure the last. (kisses her)
ALACIEL You shall pluck no more roses from my tree. Unclasp me now or you will anger me.
MELANDER Dear, be not angry. I did but accept The written challenge peeping thro’ the lids Of those delicious eyes: O shy soft eyes, Hiding with jetty fringes such a world Of swimming beauty, virgin-sweet desire, You shine like stars upon the rim of night, Like dewdrops thro’ green leaves, mute orators Instinct with dropping eloquence to sway The burning heart of boyhood to your will. If I look on you long, you will seduce My acts from virtue; which to anticipate I’ll kill you both with kisses, thus, and thus. Sweet, do not blush. I claim what is my own, And with my lips I seal your whole self mine From dear, dark head to dainty wild-rose feet. Or, if you will, in sanguine tumult show
Page – 759 The throbbing conscience of a lover’s touch, That I may watch a sea of springing rose Diffuse its gorgeous triumph in your cheeks.
ALACIEL Oh you have golden pieces on your tongue To buy your pleasure: yet this single once I’ll be your fool. Come, throw me clinking coin, The thin flute-music of your flatteries. You shall have favours if you pay for them.
MELANDER His lips should dribble honey, who’d make out The style and inventory of your graces. His voice should be the fifing of mild winds To happy song of bees in rose-red June, His every word a crimson-tasselled rose, His lightest phrase a strip of cedar-wood, Each clause a nutmeg-peppered jug of cream; The very stops should argue aloes fetched By spiced winds upon the rocking brine. What, have I earned my wage? I am athirst With praising you. Give me your lips to drink.
ALACIEL You trifle, sweet. Yours is no mint of coin But scribbled paper-specie large as wind Which I’ll not take. Here comes your paedagogue To school you into more sobriety. Alaciel retires. Enter Marcion. MARCION Well met, Melander. Long thro’ mossy paths Have I with patient footing peered thee out, Thro’ shadow-sundered slopes of racing light, In ferny pales with blots of colour pricked And by the rushy marge of spuming streams
Page – 760 Till lucky hazard made the Venus throw. Why art thou here? On leafy-sheltered sward Where daubs of sunlight intersperse the shade, The rubious posies thrill to mazy feet Like stars danced over by an angel’s tread And strive with glimmering corollaries To make a twinkling heaven of the green. Moist blow the breezes with the myrrhy tears Of pining night, and ruffle every blade That keeps his pearls from clutch of dewy thieves Until their indignation murmur past. From airy flute, from seraph-stringed harp, A daedal rain of music drop on drop Wells fast to rule the waft of dove-like feet. The clustered edges of close-heaped thyme, A murmurous haven sailed by merchant bees, Are crumbling into fragrance and young flowers Make fat by their decay the greedy earth, While golden youths and silver feet of girls Pass fluttering as with glimpse of gorgeous hues A fleet of moths on emigrating winds. There you shall see upon the pearled grass The forest antelope, brown Ermenild, Iamblichus the honey-hearted boy, Rose-cheeked Iamblichus with roses wreathed, And Myrtil honey-haired, our woodland moon, Myrtil the white, a silver loveliness, But tipped with gold. Thou only lingerest; Only thy voice, the pilot of our moods, Only thy thrushlips welling facile rhymes Mar the sweet harmonies of holiday With one chord missing from the clamorous harp.
MELANDER I thank you, Marcion, for your careful pain But cannot guerdon you with more than thanks. I am not well: the fumes of midnight thought
Page – 761 Unfit me for a holiday attire.
MARCION Fie, fie, Melander! When have you before Denied the riches of your tongue to eke Our poorness with? The forest waits for you Dew-drenched with tears because you will not come.
MELANDER Well, I will go with you, but not for long. I’ll join you where deep-cushioned in soft grass The stream turns inward like a scimitar. Go on before, I pray you. I will come. Exit Marcion. ALACIEL There, there, I said so! you are docile, sir. Indeed I did not spy the leading-strings, But they must be there. ‘Twas your paedagogue, Was it not, come to fetch the truant back?
MELANDER Dear, be not vexed with me. I will return Ere noon has dotted with her golden ball The eminence of heaven. It seems not well, When judgment has decreed the award of merit, To disappoint Persuasion of her prize. In sweetly-cultured minds civility Breathes music to the touch of wooing words.
ALACIEL Oh words and words enough! but what’s the gist, The run, the purport? Tush, a chattering pie, A pie that steals and chatters, would not deign To jeer this flaunting daw. What, did he deem His gaudy colony of phrases roofed The meaning from my eyes? The prosing fool
Page – 762 Fibs very vilely: why, he has not conned The rudiments and letters of his craft.
MELANDER You do miscall sincerest courtesy, Sweet courtesy that solders our conditions Into the builded structure of a state.
ALACIEL Yes, till the winds unbuild it for worse ruin. But go your way. I’ll know you as a man That honeys leisure with a lovely face And coins sweet perjuries to make the hearts Of women bankrupt. No defence, I pray you. I’ll have no slices of your company.
MELANDER Leave wrangling, sweet, and tell me soft and kind, Where shall I see you next? I may not tarry.
ALACIEL Why nowhere: for I’ll not receive you, sir. But if you love a door shut in your face Come to my cottage on the forest’s hem Where rarer thickets melt into the plain.
MELANDER Thither I will outstrip the climbing noon. For this one tedious hour, dear love, farewell.
ALACIEL I pray you, sweet, do not break promise with me, For that will kill me. I will think of you And comfort solitude with sighs and tears Until you dawn afresh, a noontide star. Exeunt.
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