Collected Plays and Stories

 

CONTENTS

 

Pre-content

 

PLAYS

THE VIZIERS OF BASSORA

 

Rodogune

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II  

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

 

 

Perseus the Deliverer

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

Eric

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

 

Vasavadutta

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays

The Witch of Ilni

Act One

 

Act Two

 

Act Three

SCENE I

SCENE II

 

SCENE I

 

 SCENE I

SCENE II

 

The House of Brut

Act  twO

 

SCENE I

 

The Maid in the Mill

Act One

 

 

 

Act Two

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE Iii

SCENE Iv

SCENE v

 

 

 

SCENE I

 

The Prince of Edur

The Prince of Mathura

Act  One

SCENE I

 

The Birth of Sin

Act ONE

 

Fragment of a Play

Act  One

SCENE I

 

STORIES

Occult Idylls

The Phantom Hour

 The Door at Abelard

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories

Fictional Jottings

Fragment of a Story

The Devil's Mastiff

The Golden Bird

 

 

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

 

Scene 1

 

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!

 

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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

 

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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.

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Scene 2

 

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.

 

Page – 600