University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE

‘Donec totum impleat orbem.’

Saint-Vallier. A May evening: the chestnuts are in flower, and below them the thorns, still whiter; the grass is patterned over with daisies. A great stag passes among the boughs, through which his head alone is visible. A quarter of the moon now shows at the edge of a chestnut-tree. Then a lovely child, dressed in green and white, comes out of the boscage, stands and listens.
Diane.
No, no! She is not here! Should the old woman
Creep from Saint-Vallier, nor have kept her word,
She is not worth a shout nor an old song
This woody month of May . . .
A-ha! The smell—
Warm—of a little shrine! Madonna-month,
And all its incense here.
A slip of moon,
And white flowers clouding round me and green grass,
And dew beneath the daisies—we all waiting,
Not as with any hope . . . it is more fresh!

An old crone steals out from the under-darkness of the chestnuts
Gipsy.
My lucky lady,
My saviour. . . . Ah, my lady, that I live,
That your sweet voice over your father's harshness
Has kept old Jeanne upon the earth to bless you!
Ah, lady, lady! . . .
You saved a head of snow, sweet head of gold!
See, see, my head of snow!
But you, child, shall be young, year in, year out;
Till all your years fall you shall yet be young.

Diane.
Dame Jeanne, but I would be
A woman, like my mother, Jeanne de Poytiers.
It seems a rude, cold thing still to be young.

Gipsy.
The child! My beauty,
Those gifts that come to bless are never known,
Because the stars that are of night confer them,
Or gods that are not of the night nor day!
Stretch out your hand!
By the pale Moon, your fingers
Have crescent-points! Let mine play round these fingers . . .
And hear old Jeanne. If you would guard your youth—
And youth is fugitive as yonder doe
After the leading stag—then guard my counsel:
Plunge in the beautiful water of the dawn,
Or in the fountain's pressing core of ice;
Let the Moon shine upon an unsalved visage,
Dim with the very warmth of sleep: forsake not
The lustrous power of forests and of wealds,
Their clear and eager sanctitude, the chase,
The falcon balanced in the sky,
All bold, fresh things, all rustle of clean life,
The running of the hunted stag, the ardour
Of the hounds' cry . . . pursue it to the depths
Of echoes that have lost their depth, pursue it
On to the rim of beauty, the recess
Of beauty. Hunt,
Hunt on in dream and slack not!

Diane.
In the pools
I bathe, nor touch my skin with balm or unguent
To make its freshness sting me less at night;
I haunt the woods all day: and there is little,
It seems, I yet must learn of gipsy lore,
Except to cherish youth if time should come
I long not to be older.

Gipsy.
Now, farewell,
Diane, Diane!

Diane.
Why speak so lingeringly
My name?

Gipsy.
The Moon sails forth above the trees:
Full she has filled the world—
Diane, my kiss!

[The Gipsy embraces the child and goes out.
Diane.
Is she some mighty witch,
This old Egyptian? How I am left lone,
My name upon me as if newly named.

[The great stag lifts his head close to her; she embraces his neck. There is plenitude of still moonlight. The hounds chime from the kennels.