University of Virginia Library

SCENE I

A Part of the Garden near the Fountain
The Grass:
Two will pass here soon.
Through my prescient roots
Already thrills the touch of shadowy feet.

The Rose:
I feel them coming, and the bud I was,
In sweet anticipation of their eyes,
Is grown full-blown. How long now must we wait?—
Why is the Wind so still? Why comes it not?

The Grass:
It hangs on expectation; fears to breathe
Lest it disturb the beauty of the night,
Or interfere with what our hearts perpend.—
I saw the Firefly but a moment since
Swoon into gold and pulse its way of flame
Adown the darkness.—Saw'st thou where it went?

The Rose:
I saw it glimmer towards the dial-stone
Lost in the shadow of the lonely yew,
Where, here and there, it punctuates the dark
With wandering gold, as if it sought for those
Who come not yet.—Listen!—A little flower
Is yawning silkenly here at my feet.
A sleepy-head that nods a velvet night-cap,
A monkey face, half faery and half flower.

Johnny-jump-up:
Odds bodds! What 's that which will not let me sleep?
That keeps a chatter like a windy leaf
On Autumn's topmost bough.—What flower art thou?

The Rose:
Thou little jester of the flowers, keep still!—
Superiors gossip. Keep thy talk for clowns.

Johnny-jump-up:
That 's courtesy. Clowns always are polite,
And you great lords and ladies rarely are.—
I'll talk no more with thy high haughtiness,
But with this lowly flower right near me—green!
I never knew before that flowers were green.
How emerald-green it is!—How strange!—Heigh-ho!
I am just born: tell me what flower thou art.

The Grass:
I am no flower. Better than any flower,
Or any tree am I; and, more than all,
I am the green thought of the Earth, that cools
The Sun's hot gaze: I am what flesh becomes.

Johnny-jump-up:
Grass!—Oh!—That 's next to being nobody.
Thy voice is as the Wind in restless boughs.—
I'll find a lordlier thing to talk to.—Eh!
Who 's this lank giant with a crown of rays,
Head-heavy with his load of sleeping bees?
A Sunflower!—Well, I am too far away
For any talk with him. I'll go to sleep.

Sunflower:
My drowsy bees, that huddle in my hair,
Are shaken by a voice and stir in sleep:
Their frowsy heads plunged deep in pollened bloom,
I hear the beating of their tiny hearts.—
Who called to me?—An insect in the grass?

The Grass:
O lover of the Sun, a flower spoke;
A little impudent flower, that 's gone to sleep;
Impertinent as a child that has its way,
Being spoiled with kindness.—Hearken: from thy height,
Saw'st thou the way the Firefly went?

Sunflower:
I saw.
The Fountain caught its sparkle on its crest;
The dew imprisoned it a moment there
And hung it on a moonflower ere it fell.

The Dew:
I faint with beauty of the night. A star
Went past me and I drank its gleam of gold.
My soul is dazed with loveliness. I die
In dim responses of divinest light,
Reflections of that flame which passed me by.—
I palpitate with silver and with green,
Glimmering the great emotion of my soul.—
I leapt to follow, and I lie amazed
—In whose green arms?—Whose life-restoring arms?

The Grass:
Mine. Lie thou quiet; closer to me now.
I feel the trembling of thy crystal heart,
Lucent with happiness. Thy starry pulse
Wakes a responsive ecstasy in me.—
Lie closer in my arms.—Love comes this way.
Thou too shalt feel his sadness as have I.

The Dew:
A star went past me. I would follow it.
A star of lambent gold, like dreams I dream
Among the heavy ferns where Elfins dance
When the great Moon, in broad astonishment,
Looks on the stream that shakes its wild-flower-bells.

The Grass:
It went, but will return.—Lie still and dream.

The Rose:
I hear the Wind. It whispers to itself
Of things it knows that we can never know.
Haply it speaks of sorrow; those who come;
The two sad Shadows with the pensive brows,
Who on this night bend o'er my shrinking blooms.
All that I know is that two flowers of mine
Lie buried with them.—They could tell a tale.—
I hear the Fountain talking to the Wind.
Listen: what are the words its pale lips sigh?

The Grass:
Dim protestations that avail it not
Of evanescent things that fade away.

The Rose:
A sound that strikes with panic all my blooms
And sets their petals trembling to their fall.

The Fountain:
Oh, clasp me not so wildly! making stream
The pale foam of my hair against thy face.
Pass on, wild-footed one, and let me sleep.
The grass and flowers await thee.—Once again
Kiss me and go. Unloose thee from my hair;
And when the night is old come thou again
And sleep beside me. Go thy restless way.
The Grass and Flowers are calling. What detains?—

The Wind:
I see two faces in thy shadowy glass;
Two faces of two lovers who are dead.
Thou dost contain them. Paler far are they
Than the disk'd lily on thy marble marge.
Now a slim ripple trembles them. They pass,
But come again. Th' obliterating wave
Erases them once more.—Didst thou not feel
The sadness and the beauty of the two?—
Beautiful art thou, but far more beautiful
The Shadows that thou showest me; that make
My soul more sad than Winter when it grieves.

The Fountain:
I felt them in my breast but could not see:
My long hair blinded me. They'll come again
When night is old. Long years ago they came,
Two mortals then, and sat upon my marge,
Dropping the ruined roses in my stream
With many a tear, the epilogue of their sighs.
How long ago it is I can not say:
But yon great yew was but a sapling then.
And I remember when they came no more,
And through the Garden how a murmur went
Of death and sorrow which these two concerned.—
Two graves lie yonder deep among the weeds;
And from the weeds at times two Shadows steal:
A Firefly lamps them. See; e'en now its flame
Glimmers along the grass. Go; follow it.

The Wind:
I follow the Firefly: soon I will return.
Thy beauty draws me ever; but the dreams,
Reflected of thy face, lead to despair.—
Have done with dreams, and turn to Love and me,
O weaver of wild veils of spray and foam.
Farewell.

The Fountain:
Farewell. Despair is not for me.
Thou followest Shadows: they lead to despair.

The Wind:
Soon I return. A Soul I'll bring to thee.

The Cricket:
Who is it trembles by the rose and makes
A small thin rustle as of dying grass?

The Beetle:
Who passed me, dimmer than the gossamer
That trails its white way 'thwart the waning moon?
Who touched my shards to silence with a sigh?

The Moth:
Who woke me in the bosom of the rose
With the pale passage of inaudible feet?

The Firefly
(appearing):
I lamp the way of Grief.—Look not on me;
But on these two whom my green lanthorn lights.

[The Shadows of a Man and a Woman appear.
The Rose:
They pause beside me.—Shadows of the night,
What would you here?—Wither me not with grief!

Shadow of the Man:
This is the rose-tree. Hast thou still a rose?

The Rose:
Many a rose has died since you were here,
And many a rose been born. The crimson beats
Still in my veins and manifests itself
In blossoms still, symbols of love and life.

Shadow of the Woman:
Grief hath changed all things. This is too hath changed.
My rose is ashes. What availeth it?

Shadow of the Man:
Thy rose and mine are withered. Let them hang
Upon this bough whence Love once gathered them. ...
Perhaps the force that evermore renews
The beauty of the Earth, old sorceries
Of resurrection rehabilitating
Ruin with life, will make them as they were.
—But no. The bough is dead where once they grew
And a great spider webs it round and round.

Shadow of the Woman:
But here 's a living bough without a thorn;
It may revive them, touching buds just born.

[They place two withered roses upon the blossoming branch.
The Rose:
Pain! pain!—Through crimson of my petalled pulse
I feel the torture of forgotten years,
When Winter smote me into iron and gnashed
His fangs of ice against me, bit me bare.
Again I feel the agony, that takes
The form of thorns, bristling my thornless boughs.—
What memories are these?—O death and dreams!—
Ashes and dust of roses!—Take thy dead
From off the living! Lay them on your hearts.—
Pain! Pain!—O thorns and roses that were mine!

The Grass:
My breast is wet with unaccustomed dew
Salt drops that burn; the bitterness of brine.

The Dew:
My life is mixed with darkness. I am changed.—
Farewell, belovéd: lo, I swoon and die.

The Rose:
My stem is thorny. Let the Wind come now
And strew my blossoms on the sleeping grass.

The Grass:
I sleep not; never. Let thy blossoms fall.

The Wind:
Who called me?

The Grass:
'T was the Rose. It fain would fall
Upon my bosom. Bring thou her to me.

The Wind:
Dead roses, not the living, do I bring.

Shadow of the Man:
All dreams must die, as died our roses here.
Not one sweet dream remains to us—not one.
Ashes of roses and the dust of dreams.—
Haply were we more innocent we, too,
Might resurrect our dream, that died with these,
As wizardry evokes the living form
From dust of beauty. For in these persist,
These ruins of roses, ineradicable things,
Old essences of fragrant dew and fire,
Some moment, unforgetable, recalls,
Building a world of memories that are real
As is the perfume nothing can destroy.—
Crumble thy rose with mine.—Now let the Wind
Sow their dead scent around us.

The Wind:
Be it so.