The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley :: :: University of Virginia Library

A garden of Krung's Palace, screened from the moon with netted glenk-vines and blooming zhoomer-boughs, all glimmeringly lighted with star-flakes. An arbor, near which is a table spread with a repast—two seats, drawn either side. A playing fountain, at marge of which Amphine sits thrumming a trentoraine.
Amphine
[Improvising]

Ah, help me! but her face and brow
Are lovelier than lilies are
Beneath the light of moon and star
That smile as they are smiling now—
White lilies in a pallid swoon
Of sweetest white beneath the moon—
White lilies in a flood of bright
Pure lucidness of liquid light
Cascading down some plenilune
When all the azure overhead

330

Blooms like a dazzling daisy-bed.—
So luminous her face and brow,
The luster of their glory, shed
In memory, even, blinds me now.

[Plaintively addressing instrument]

O warbling strand of silver, where, O where
Hast thou unraveled that sweet voice of thine
And left its silken murmurs quavering
In limp thrills of delight? O golden wire,
Where hast thou spilled thy precious twinkerings?—
What thirsty ear hath drained thy melody,
And left me but a wild, delirious drop
To tincture all my soul with vain desire?

[Improvising]

Her face—her brow—her hair unfurled!—
And O the oval chin below,
Carved, like a cunning cameo,
With one exquisite dimple, swirled
With swimming shine and shade, and whirled
The daintiest vortex poets know—
The sweetest whirlpool ever twirled
By Cupid's finger-tip,—and so,
The deadliest maelstrom in the world.

[Pauses—Enter unperceived, Dwainie, behind, in upper bower]

331

Amphine
[Again addressing instrument]

O Trentoraine! how like an emptièd vase
Thou art—whose clustering blooms of song have drooped
And faded, one by one, and fallen away
And left to me but dry and tuneless stems
And crisp and withered tendrils of a voice
Whose thrilling tone, now like a throttled sound,
Lies stifled, faint, and gasping all in vain
For utterance.

[Again inmprovising]

And O mad wars of blinding blurs
And flashings of lance-blades of light,
Whet glitteringly athwart the sight
That dares confront those eyes of hers!
Let any dewdrop soak the hue
Of any violet through and through,
And then be colorless and dull,
Compared with eyes so beautiful!
I swear ye that her eyes be bright
As noonday, yet as dark as night—
As bright as be the burnished bars
Of rainbows set in sunny skies,
And yet as deep and dark, her eyes,
And lustrous black as blown-out stars.

[Pauses—Dwainie still unperceived, radiantly smiling and wafting kisses down from trellis-window above]

332

Amphine
[Again to instrument]
O empty husk of song!
If deep within my heart the music thou
Hast stored away might find an issuance,
A fount of limpid laughter would leap up
And gurgle from my lips, and all the winds
Would revel with it, riotous with joy;
And Dwainie, in her beauty, would lean o'er
The battlements of night, and, like the moon,
The glory of her face would light the world—
For I would sing of love.

Dwainie
And she would hear,—
And, reaching overhead among the stars,
Would scatter them like daisies at thy feet.

Amphine
O voice, where art thou floating on the air?—
O Seraph-soul, where art thou hovering?

Dwainie
I hover in the zephyr of thy sighs,
And tremble lest thy love for me shall fail
To buoy me thus forever on the breath
Of such a dream as Heaven envies.

333

Amphine

Ah!

[Turning, discovers Dwainie—she still feigning invisibility, while he, with lifted eyes and wistful gaze, preludes with instrument—then sings.]

Linger, my Dwainie! Dwainie, lily-fair,
Stay yet thy step upon the casement-stair—
Poised be thy slipper-tip as is the tine
Of some still star.—Ah, Dwainie—Dwainie mine,
Yet linger—linger there!

Thy face, O Dwainie, lily-pure and fair,
Gleams i' the dusk, as in thy dusky hair
The moony zhoomer glimmers, or the shine
Of thy swift smile.—Ah, Dwainie—Dwainie mine,
Yet linger—linger there!

With lifted wrist, whereround the laughing air
Hath blown a mist of lawn and clasped it there,
Waft finger-thipt adieus that spray the wine
Of thy waste kisses toward me, Dwainie mine—
Yet linger—linger there!

What unloosed splendor is there may compare
With thy hand's unfurled glory, anywhere?
What glint of dazzling dew or jewel fine

334

May mate thine eyes?—Ah, Dwainie—Dwainie mine!
Yet linger—linger there!

My soul confronts thee: On thy brow and hair
It lays its tenderness like palms of prayer—
It touches sacredly those lips of thine
And swoons across thy spirit, Dwainie mine,
The while thou lingerest there.

[Drops trentoraine, and, with open arms, gazes yearningly on Dwainie]
Dwainie
[Raptly]
Thy words do wing my being dovewise!

Amphine
Then,
Thou lovest!—O my homing dove, veer down
And nestle in the warm home of my breast!
So empty are mine arms, so full my heart,
The one must hold thee, or the other burst.

Dwainie
[Throwing herself in his embrace]
Æo's own hand methinks hath flung me here:
O hold me that He may not pluck me back!

Amphine
So closely will I hold thee that not e'en
The hand of death shall separate us.

335

Dwainie
So
May sweet death find us, then, that, woven thus
In the corolla of a ripe caress,
We may drop lightly, like twin plustre-buds,
On Heaven's star-strewn lawn.

Amphine
So do I pray.
But tell me, tender heart, an thou dost love,
Where hast thou loitered for so long?—for thou
Didst promise tryst here with me earlier by
Some several layodemes which I have told
Full chafingly against my finger-tips
Till the full complement, save three, are ranged
Thy pitiless accusers, claiming, each,
So many as their joinèd number be
Shalt thou so many times lift up thy lips
For mine's most lingering forgiveness.
So, save thee, O my Sweet! and rest thee, I
Have ordered merl and viands to be brought
For our refreshment here, where, thus alone,
I may sip words with thee as well as wine.
Why hast thou kept me so athirst?—Why, I
Am jealous of the flattered solitudes
In which thou walkest.

[They sit at table]
Dwainie
Nay, I will not tell,
Since, an I yielded, countless questions, like

336

In idlest worth, would waste our interview
In speculations vain.—Let this suffice:—
I stayed to talk with one whom, long ago,
I met and knew, and grew to love, forsooth,
In dreamy Wunkland.—Talked of mellow nights,
And long, long hours of golden olden times
When girlish happiness locked hands with me
And we went spinning round, with naked feet
In swaths of bruisèd roses ankle-deep;
When laughter rang unsilenced, unrebuked,
And prayers went unremembered, oozing clean
From the drowsed memory, as from the eyes
The pure, sweet mother-face that bent above
Glimmered and wavered, blurred, bent closer still
A timeless instant, like a shadowy flame,
Then flickered tremulously o'er the brow
And went out in a kiss.

Amphine
[Kissing her]
Not like to this!
O blessèd lips whose kiss alone may be
Sweeter than their sweet speech! Speak on, and say
Of what else talked thou and thy friend?

Dwainie
We talked
Of all the past, ah me! and all the friends
That now await my coming. And we talked
Of O so many things—so many things—
That I but blend them all with dreams of when,

337

With thy warm hand clasped close in this of mine,
We cross the floating bridge that soon again
Will span the all-unfathomable gulfs
Of nether air betwixt this isle of strife
And my most glorious realm of changeless peace,
Where summer night reigns ever and the moon
Hangs ever ripe and lush with radiance
Above a land where roses float on wings
And fan their fragrance out so lavishly
That Heaven hath hint of it, and oft therefrom
Sends down to us across the odorous seas
Strange argosies of interchanging bud
And blossom, spice and balm.—Sweet—sweet
Beyond all art and wit of uttering.

Amphine
O Empress of my listening Soul, speak on,
And tell me all of that rare land of thine!—
For even though I reigned a peerless king
Within mine own, methinks I could fling down
My scepter, signet, crown and royal might,
And so fare down the thornèd path of life
If at its dwindling end my feet might touch
Upon the shores of such a land as thou
Dost paint for me—thy realm! Tell on of it—
And tell me if thy sister-woman there
Is like to thee—Yet nay! for an thou didst,
These eyes would lose all speech of sight
And call not back to thine their utter love.
But tell me of thy brothers.—Are they great,

338

And can they grapple Æo's arguments
Beyond our skill? or wrest a purpose from
The pink side of the moon at Darsten-tide?
Or cipher out the problem of blind stars,
That ever still do safely grope their way
Among the thronging constellations?

Dwainie
Ay!
Ay, they have leaped all earthland barriers
In mine own isle of wisdom-working Wunks:—
'Twas Wunkland's son that voyaged round the moon
And moored his bark within the molten bays
Of bubbling silver: And 'twas Wunkland's son
That talked with Mars—unbuckled Saturn's belt
And tightened it in squeezure of such facts
Therefrom as even he dare not disclose
In full till all his followers, as himself,
Have grown them wings, and gat them beaks and claws,
With plumage all bescienced to withstand
All tensest flames—glaze-throated, too, and lung'd
To swallow fiercest-spurted jets and cores
Of embered and unquenchable white heat:
'Twas Wunkland's son that alchemized the dews
And bred all colored grasses that he wist—
Divorced the airs and mists and caught the trick
Of azure-tinting earth as well as sky:

339

'Twas Wunkland's son that bent the rainbow straight
And walked it like a street, and so returned
To tell us it was made of hammered shine,
Inlaid with strips of selvage from the sun
And burnished with the rust of rotten stars:
'Twas Wunkland's son that comprehended first
All grosser things, and took our worlds apart
And oiled their works with theories that clicked
In glib articulation with the pulse
And palpitation of the systemed facts.—
And, circling ever round the farthest reach
Of the remotest welkin of all truths,
We stint not our investigations to
Our worlds only, but query still beyond.—
For now our goolores say, below these isles
A million million miles, are other worlds—
Not like to ours, but round, as bubbles are,
And, like them, ever reeling on through space,
And anchorless through all eternity;—
Not like to ours, for our isles, as they note,
Are living things that fly about at night,
And soar above and cling, throughout the day,
Like bats, beneath the bent sills of the skies:
And I myself have heard, at dawn of moon,
A liquid music filtered through my dreams,
As though 'twere myriads of sweet voices, pent
In some o'erhanging realm, had spilled themselves
In streams of melody that trickled through
The chinks and crannies of a crystal pave,

340

Until the wasted juice of harmony,
Slow-leaking o'er my senses, laved my soul
In ecstacy divine: And afferhaiks,
Who scour our coasts on missions for the King,
Declare our island's shape is like the zhibb's
When lolling in a trance upon the air
With open wings upslant and motionless.
O such a land it is—so all complete
In all wise inhabitants, and knowledge, lore,
Arts, sciences, perfected government
And kingly wisdom, worth and majesty—
And Art—ineffably above all else:—
The art of the Romancer,—fabulous
Beyond the miracles of strangest fact;
The art of Poesy,—the sanest soul
Is made mad with its uttering; the art
Of Music,—words may not e'en whimper what
The jewel-sounds of song yield to the sense;
And, last,—the art of Knowing what to Know,
And how to zoon straight toward it like a bee,
Draining or song or poem as it brims
And overruns with raciest spirit-dew.—
And, after,—chaos all to sense like thine,
Till there, translated, thou shalt know as I. ...
So furnished forth in all things lovable
Is my Land-Wondrous—ay, and thine to be,—
O Amphine, love of mine, it lacks but thy
Sweet presence to make it a paradise!
[Takes up trentoraine]

341

And shall I tell thee of the home that waits
For thy glad coming, Amphine?—Listen, then!

Chant-Recitative

A palace veiled in a glimmering dusk;
Warm breaths of a tropic air,
Drugged with the odorous marzhoo's musk
And the sumptuous cyncotwaire—
Where the trembling hands of the lilwing's leaves
The winds caress and fawn,
While the dreamy starlight idly weaves
Designs for the damask lawn.

Densed in the depths of a dim eclipse
Of palms, in a flowery space,
A fountain leaps from the marble lips
Of a girl, with a golden vase
Held atip on a curving wrist,
Drinking the drops that glance
Laughingly in the glittering mist
Of her crystal utterance.

Archways looped o'er blooming walks
That lead through gleaming halls;
And balconies where the word-bird talks
To the tittering waterfalls:
And casements, gauzed with the filmy sheen
Of a lace that sifts the sight
Through a ghost of bloom on the haunted screen
That drips with the dews of light.

342

Weird, pale shapes of sculptured stone,—
With marble nymphs agaze
Ever in fonts of amber, sown
With seeds of gold and sprays
Of emerald mosses, ever drowned,
Where glimpses of shell and gem
Peer from the depths, as round and round
The nautilus nods at them.

Faces blurred in a mazy dance,
With a music, wild and sweet,
Spinning the threads of the mad romance
That tangles the waltzers' feet:
Twining arms, and warm, swift thrills
That pulse to the melody,
Till the soul of the dancer dips and fills
In the wells of ecstacy.

Eyes that melt in a quivering ore
Of love, and the molten kiss
Jetted forth of the hearts that pour
Their blood in the molds of bliss.—
Till, worn to a languor slumber-deep,
The soul of the dreamer lifts
A silken sail on the gulfs of sleep,
And into the darkness drifts.

[The instrument falls from her hand—Amphine, in stress of passionate delight, embraces her.]

343

Amphine
Thou art not all of earth, O angel one!
Nor do I far miswonder me an thou
Hast peered above the very walls of Heaven!
What hast thou seen there?—Didst on Æo bask
Thine eyes and clothe Him with new splendorings?
And strove He to fling back as bright a smile
As thine, the while He beckoned thee within?
And, tell me, didst thou meet an angel there
A-linger at the gates, nor entering
Till I, her brother, joined her?

Dwainie
Why, hast thou
A sister dead?—Truth, I have heard of one
Long lost to thee—not dead?

Amphine
Of her I speak,—
And dead, although we know not certainly,
We moan us ever it must needs be death
Only could hold her from us such long term
Of changeless yearning for her glad return.
She strayed away from us long, long ago.—
O and our memories!—Her wondering eyes
That seemed as though they ever looked on things
We might not see—as haply so they did,—

344

For she went from us, all so suddenly—
So strangely vanished, leaving never trace
Of her outgoing, that I ofttimes think
Her rapt eyes fell along some certain path
Of special glory paven for her feet,
And fashioned of Æo's supreme desire
That she might bend her steps therein and so
Reach Him again, unseen of our mere eyes.
My sweet, sweet sister!—lost to brother—sire—
And, to her heart, one dearer than all else,—
Her lover—lost indeed!

Dwainie
Nay, do not grieve
Thee thus, O loving heart! Thy sister yet
May come to thee in some glad way the Fates
Are fashioning the while thy tear-drops fall!
So calm thee, while I speak of thine own self.—
For I have listened to a whistling bird
That pipes of waiting danger. Didst thou note
No strange behavior of thy sire of late?

Amphine
Ay, he is silent, and he walks as one
In some fixed melancholy, or as one
Half waking.—Even his worshiped books seem now
But things on shelves.

345

Dwainie
And doth he counsel not
With thee in any wise pertaining to
His ailings, or of matters looking toward
His future purposes or his intents
Regarding thine own future fortunings
And his desires and interests therein?
What bearing hath he shown of late toward thee
By which thou might'st beframe some estimate
Of his mind's placid flow or turbulent?
And hath he not so spoken thee at times
Thou hast been 'wildered of his words, or grieved
Of his strange manner?

Amphine
Once he stayed me on
The palace-stair and whispered, “Lo, my son,
Thy young reign draweth nigh—prepare!”—So passed
And vanished as a wraith, so wan he was!

Dwainie
And didst thou ever reason on this thing,
Nor ask thyself what dims thy father's eye
And makes a brooding shadow of his form?

Amphine
Why, there's a household rumor that he dreams
Death fareth ever at his side, and soon

346

Shall signal him away.—But Jucklet saith
Crestillomeem hath said the leeches say
There is no cause for serious concern;
And thus am I assured 'tis nothing more
Than childish fancy of mine aging sire,—
And so, as now, I laugh, full reverently,
And marvel, as I mark his shuffling gait,
And his bestrangered air and murmurous lips,
As by he glideth to and fro, ha! ha!
Ho! ho!—I laugh me many, many times—
Mind, thou, 'tis reverently I laugh—ha! ha!—
And wonder, as he glideth ghostly-wise,
If ever I shall waver as I walk,
And stumble o'er my beard, and knit my brows,
And o'er the dull mosaics of the pave
Play chequers with mine eyes! Ha! ha!

Dwainie
[Aside]
How dare—
How dare I tell him? Yet I must—I must!

Amphine
Why, art thou, too, grown childish, that thou canst
Find thee waste pleasure talking to thyself
And staring frowningly with eyes whose smiles
I need so much?

Dwainie
Nay, rather say, their tears,
Poor thoughtless Prince! [Aside]
(My magic even now

347

Forecasts his kingly sire's near happening
Of nameless hurt and ache and awful stress
Of agony supreme, when he shall stare
The stark truth in the face!)

Amphine
What meanest thou?

Dwainie
What mean I but thy welfare? Why, I mean,
One hour agone, the Queen, thy mother—

Amphine
Nay,
Say only “Queen”!

Dwainie
—The Queen, one hour agone—
As so I learned from source I need not say—
Sent message craving audience with the King
At noon to-night, within the Tower of Stars.—
Thou knowest, only brief space following
The time of her pent session thereso set
In secret with the King alone, the Throne
Is set, too, to convene; and that the King
Hath lent his seal unto a mandate that,
Should he withhold his presence there, the Queen
Shall be empowered to preside—to reign—

348

Solely endowed to work the royal will
In lieu of the good King. Now, therefore, I
Have been advised that she, the Queen, by craft
Connives to hold him absent purposely,
That she may claim the vacancy—for what
Covert design I know not, but I know
It augurs peril to you both, as to
The Throne's own perpetuity. [Aside]
(Again
My magic gives me vision terrible:—
The Sorceress' legions balk mine own.—The King
Still hers, yet wavering. O save the King,
Thou Æo—Render him to us!)

Amphine
I feel
Thou speakest truth: and yet how know'st thou this?

Dwainie
Ask me not that; my lips are welded close.—
And, more,—since I have dared to speak, and thou
To listen,—Jucklet is accessory,
And even now is plotting for thy fall.
But, Passion of my Soul! think not of me,—
For nothing but sheer magic may avail
To work me harm;—but look thou to thyself!
For thou art blameless cause of all the hate
That rankleth in the bosom of the Queen.
So have thine eyes unslumbered ever, that
No step may steal behind thee—for in this

349

Unlooked-of way thine enemy will come:
This much I know, but for what fell intent
Dare not surmise.—So look thou, night and day,
That none may skulk upon thee in this wise
Of dastardly attack. [Aside]
(Ha! Sorceress!
Thou palest, tossing wild and wantonly
The smothering golden tempest of thy hair.—
What! lying eyes! ye dare to utter tears?
Help! help! Yield us the King!)

Amphine
And thou, O sweet!
How art thou guarded and what shield is thine
Of safety?

Dwainie
Fear not thou for me at all.—
Possessed am I of wondrous sorcery—
The gift of Holy Magi at my birth:—
Mine enemy must front me in assault
And must with mummery of speech assail,
And I will know him in first utterance—
And so may thus disarm him, though he be
A giant thrice in vasty form and force.
[Singing heard]
But, list! what wandering minstrel cometh here
In the young night?

Voice
[In distance—singing]

350

The drowsy eyes of the stars grow dim;
The wamboo roosts on the rainbow's rim,
And the moon is a ghost of shine:
The soothing song of the crule is done,
But the song of love is a soother one,
And the song of love is mine.
Then, wake! O wake!
For the sweet song's sake,
Nor let my heart
With the morning break!

Amphine
Some serenader! Hist!
What meaneth he so early, and what thus
Within the palace garden-close? Quick; here!
He neareth! Soh! Let us conceal ourselves
And mark his action, wholly unobserved.

[Amphine and Dwainie enter bower]
Voice
[Drawing nearer]
The mist of the morning, chill and gray,
Wraps the night in a shroud of spray;
The sun is a crimson blot:
The moon fades fast, and the stars take wing;
The comet's tail is a fleeting thing—
But the tale of love is not.

351

Then, wake! O wake!
For the sweet song's sake,
Nor let my heart
With the morning break!

[Enter Jucklet]
Jucklet
Eex! what a sumptuous darkness is the Night—
How rich and deep and suave and velvety
Its lovely blackness to a soul like mine!
Ah, Night! thou densest of all mysteries—
Thou eeriest of unfathomable delights,
Whose soundless sheer inscrutability
Is fascination's own ethereal self,
Unseen, and yet embodied—palpable,—
An essence, yet a form of stableness
That stays me—weighs me, as a giant palm
Were laid on either shoulder.—Peace! I cease
Even to strive to grope one further pace,
But stand uncovered and with lifted face.
O but a glamour of inward light
Hath smitten the eyes of my soul to-night!
Groping here in the garden-land,
I feel my fancy's outheld hand
Touch the rim of a realm that seems
Like an isle of bloom in a sea of dreams:
I stand mazed, dazed and alone—alone!—
My heart beats on in an undertone,
And I lean and listen long, and long,

352

And I hold my breath as I hear again
The chords of a long-dead trentoraine
And the wraith of an old love-song.
Low to myself am I whispering:—
Glad am I, and the Night knows why—
Glad am I that the dream came by
And found me here as of old when I
Was a ruler and a king.

Dwainie
[To Amphine]
What gentle little monster is this dwarf—
Surely not Jucklet of the court?

Amphine
[Ironically]
Ay, ay!
But he'll ungentle an thy woman's-heart
Yield him but space. Listen: he mouths again.

Jucklet

It was an age ago—an age
Turned down in life like a folded page.—
See where the volume falls apart,
And the faded book-mark—'tis my heart,—
Nor mine alone, but another knit
So cunningly in the love of it
That you must look, with a shaking head,
Nor know the quick one from the dead.
Ah! what a broad and sea-like lawn

353

Is the field of love they bloom upon!—
Waves of its violet-velvet grass
Billowing, with the winds that pass,
And breaking in a snow-white foam
Of lily-crests on the shores of home.
Low to myself am I whispering:—
Glad am I, and the Night knows why—
Glad am I that the dream came by
And found me here as of old when I
Was a ruler and a king.

[Abruptly breaking into impassioned vocal burst]
Song

Fold me away in your arms, O Night—
Night, my Night, with your rich black hair!—
Tumble it down till my yearning sight
And my unkissed lips are hidden quite
And my heart is havened there,—
Under that mystical dark despair—
Under your rich black hair.

Oft have I looked in your eyes, O Night—
Night, my Night, with your rich black hair!—
Looked in your eyes till my face waned white
And my heart laid hold of a mad delight
That moaned as I held it there
Under the deeps of that dark despair—
Under your rich black hair.

354

Just for a kiss of your mouth, O Night—
Night, my Night, with your rich black hair!—
Lo! will I wait as a dead man might
Wait for the Judgment's dawning light,
With my lips in a frozen prayer—
Under this lovable dark despair—
Under your rich black hair.

[With swift change to mood of utter gaiety]

Ho! ho! what will my dainty mistress say
When I shall stand knee-deep in the wet grass
Beneath her lattice, and with upturned eyes
And tongue out-lolling like the clapper of
A bell, outpour her that? I wonder now
If she will not put up her finger thus,
And say, “Hist! heart of mine! the angels call
To thee!” Ho! ho! Or will her blushing face
Light up her dim boudoir and, from her glass,
Flare back to her a flame upsprouting from
The hot-cored socket of a soul whose light
She thought long since had guttered out?—Ho! ho!
Or, haply, will she chastely bend above—
A Parian phantomette, with head atip
And twinkling fingers dusting down the dews
That glitter on the tarapyzma-vines
That riot round her casement—gathering
Lush blooms to pelt me with while I below
All winkingly await the fragrant shower?
Ho! ho! how jolly is this thing of love!

355

But how much richer, rarer, jollier
Than all the loves is this rare love of mine!
Why, my sweet Princess doth not even dream
I am her lover,—for, to here confess,
I have a way of wooing all mine own,
And waste scant speech in creamy compliment
And courtesies all gaumed with winy words.—
In sooth, I do not woo at all—I win!
How is it now the old duet doth glide
Itself full ripplingly adown the grooves
Of its quaint melody?—And whoso, by
The bye, or by the way, or for the nonce,
Or, eke ye, peradventure, ever durst
Render a duet singly but myself?

[Singing—with grotesque mimicry of two voices]
Jucklet's Ostensible Duet

How is it you woo?—and now answer me true,—
How is it you woo and you win?
Why, to answer you true,—the first thing that you do
Is to simply, my dearest—begin.

But how can I begin to woo or to win
When I don't know a Win from a Woo?
Why, cover your chin with your fan or your fin,
And I'll introduce them to you.

356

But what if it drew from my parents a view
With my own in no manner akin?
No matter!—your view shall be first of the two,—
So I hasten to usher them in.

Nay, stay! Shall I grin at the Woo or the Win?
And what will he do if I do?
Why, the Woo will begin with “How pleasant it's been!”
And the Win with “Delighted with you!”

Then supposing he grew very dear to my view—
I'm speaking, you know, of the Win?
Why, then, you should do what he wanted you to,—
And now is the time to begin.

The time to begin? O then usher him in—
Let him say what he wants me to do.
He is here.—He's a twin of yourself,—I am “Win,”
And you are, my darling, my “Woo”!

[Capering and courtesying to feigned audience]

That song I call most sensible nonsense;
And if the fair and peerless Dwainie were
But here, with that sweet voice of hers, to take
The part of “Woo,” I'd be the happiest “Win”
On this side of futurity! Ho! ho!

Dwainie
[Aside to Amphine]
What means he?

357

Amphine
Why, he means that throatless head
Of his needs further chucking down betwixt
His cloven shoulders!

[Starting forward—Dwainie detaining him]
Dwainie
Nay, thou shalt not stir!
See! now the monster hath discovered our
Repast. Hold! Let us mark him further.

Jucklet
[Archly eying viands]

What!
A roasted wheffle and a toc-spiced whum,
Tricked with a larvey and a gherghgling's tail!—
And, sprit me! wine enough to swim them in!
Now I should like to put a question to
The guests; but as there are none, I direct
Mine interrogatory to the host. [Bowing to vacancy]

Am I behind time?—Then I can but trust
My tardy coming may be overlooked
In my most active effort to regain
A gracious tolerance by service now:—
Directing rapt attention to the fact
That I have brought mine appetite along,

358

I can but feel, ho! ho! that further words
Would be a waste of speech.

[Sits at table—pours out wine, drinks and eats voraciously]
There was a time
When I was rather backward in my ways
In courtly company (as though, forsooth,
I felt not, from my very birth, the swish
Of royal blood along my veins, though bred
Amongst the treacled scullions and the thralls
I shot from, like a cork, in youthful years,
Into court favor by my wit's sheer stress
Of fomentation.—Pah! the stench o' toil!)
Ay, somehow, as I think, I've all outgrown
That coarse, nice age, wherein one makes a meal
Of two estardles and a fork of soup.
Hey! sanaloo! Lest my starved stomach stand
Awe-stricken and aghast, with mouth agape
Before the rich profusion of this feast,
I lubricate it with a glass of merl
And coax it on to more familiar terms
Of fellowship with those delectables.
[Pours wine and holds up goblet with mock courtliness]
Mine host!—Thou of the viewless presence and
Hush-haunted lip:—Thy most imperial,
Ethereal, and immaterial health!
Live till the sun dries up, and comb thy cares

359

With star-prongs till the comets fizzle out
And fade away and fail and are no more!
[Drains and refills goblet]
And, if thou wilt permit me to observe,—
The gleaming shaft of spirit in this wine
Goes whistling to its mark, and full and fair
Zipps to the target-center of my soul!
Why, now am I the veriest gentleman
That ever buttered woman with a smile,
And let her melt and run and drip and ooze
All over and around a wanton heart!
And if my mistress bent above me now,
In all my hideous deformity,
I think she would look over, as it were,
The hump upon my back, and so forget
The kinks and knuckles of my crooked legs,
In this enchanting smile, she needs must leap,
Love-dazzled, and fall faint and fluttering
Within these yawning, all-devouring arms
Of mine! Ho! ho! And yet Crestillomeem
Would have me blight my dainty Dwainie with
This feather from the Devil's wing!—But I
Am far too full of craft to spoil the eyes
That yet shall pour their love like nectar out
Into mine own,—and I am far too deep
For royal wit to wade my purposes.

Dwainie
[To Amphine]
What can he mean?

360

Amphine
[Chafing in suppressed frenzy]
Ha! to rush forward and
Tear out his tongue and slap it in his face!

Dwainie
[To Amphine]
Nay, nay! Hist what he saith!

Jucklet
How big a fool—
How all magnificent an idiot
Would I be to blight her—(my peerless one!—
My very soul's soul!) as Crestillomeem
Doth instigate me to, for her hate's sake—
And inward jealousy, as well, belike!—
Wouldst have my Dwainie blinded to my charms—
For charms, good sooth, were every several flaw
Of my malformèd outer-self, compared
With that his Handsomeness the Prince Amphine
Shalt change to at a breath of my puff'd cheek,
E'en were it weedy-bearded at the time
With such a stubble as a huntsman well
Might lose his spaniel in! Ho! ho! Ho! ho!
I fear me, O my coy Crestillomeem,
Thine ancient coquetry doth challenge still
Thine own vain admiration overmuch!
I to crush her?—when thou, as certainly,
Hast armed me to smite down the only bar
That lies betwixt her love and mine? Ho! ho!

361

Hey! but the revel I shall riot in
Above the beauteous Prince, instantuously
Made all abhorrent as a reptiled bulk!
Ho! ho! my princely wooer of the fair
Rare lady of mine own superior choice!
Pah! but my very 'maginings of him
Refinèd to that shamèd, sickening shape,
Do so beloathe me of him there be qualms
Expostulating in my forum now!
Ho! what unprincifying properties
Of medication hath her Majesty
Put in my tender charge! Ho! ho! Ho! ho!
Ah, Dwainie! sweetest sweet! what shock to thee?—
I wonder when she sees the human toad
Squat at her feet and cock his filmy eyes
Upon her and croak love, if she will not
Call me to tweezer him with two long sticks
And toss him from her path.—O ho! Ho! ho!
Hell bend him o'er some blossom quick, that I
May have one brother in the flesh!

[Nods drowsily]
Dwainie
[To Amphine]
Ha! See!
He groweth drunken.—Soh! Bide yet a spell
And I will vex him with my sorcery:
Then shall we hence,—for lo, the node when all
Our sublest arts and strategies must needs

362

Be quickened into acts and swift results.
Now bide thou here, and in mute silence mark
The righteous penalty that hath accrued
Upon that dwarfèd monster.

[She stands, still in concealment from the dwarf, her tense gaze fixed upon him as though in mute and painful act of incantation.—Jucklet affected drowsily—yawns and mumbles incoherently —stretches, and gradually sinks at full length on the sward.—Dwainie moves forward —Amphine, following, is about to set foot contemptuously on sleeper's breast, but is caught and held away by Dwainie, who imperiously waves him back, and still, in pantomime, commanding, bids him turn and hide his face —Amphine obeying as though unable to do otherwise. Dwainie then unbinds her hair, and throwing it all forward covering her face and bending till it trails the ground, she lifts to the knee her dress, and so walks backward in a circle round the sleeping Jucklet, crooning to herself an incoherent song. Then pausing, letting fall her gown, and rising to full stature, waves her hands above the sleeper's face, and runs to Amphine, who turns about and gazes on her with new wonderment.]
Dwainie
[To Amphine]
Now shalt thou
Look on such scaith as thou hath never dreamed.

363

[As she speaks, half averting her face as with melancholy apprehension, chorus of lugubrious voices heard chanting discordantly]
Voices
When the fat moon smiles,
And the comets kiss,
And the elves of Spirkland flit
The Whanghoo twunkers
A tune like this,
And the Nightmares champ the bit.

[As chorus dies away, a comet, freighted with weird shapes, dips from the night and trails near Jucklet's sleeping figure, while with attendant goblin-forms, two Nightmares, Creech and Gritchfang, alight.—The comet kisses, switches its tail and disappears, while the two goblins hover buzzingly over Jucklet, who starts wide-eyed and stares fixedly at them, with horribly contorted features.]
Creech
[To Gritchfang]
Buzz!
Buzz!
Buzz!
Buzz!
Flutter your wings like your grandmother does!
Tuck in your chin and wheel over and whir-r-r

364

Like a dickerbug fast in the web of the wuhrr!
Reel out your tongue, and untangle your toes
And rattle your claws o'er the bridge of his nose;
Tickle his ears with your feathers and fuzz,
And keep up a hum like your grandmother does!

[Jucklet moans and clutches at air convulsively]
Amphine
[Shuddering]
Most gruesome sight! See how the poor worm writhes!
How must he suffer!

Dwainie
Ay, but good is meant—
A far voice sings it so.

Gritchfang
[To Creech]
Let me dive deep in his nostriline caves
And keep an eye out as to how he behaves:
Fasten him down while I put him to rack—
And don't let him flop from the flat of his back!
[Shrinks to minute size, while goblin attendants pluck from shrubbery a great lily-shaped flower which they invert funnel-wise, with small end at sleeper's nostrils, hoisting Gritchfang in at top and jostling shape downward gradually
365

from sight, and—removing flower,—voice of Gritchfang continues gleefully from within sleeper's head]
Ho! I have bored through the floor of his brains,
And set them all writhing with torturous pains;
And I shriek out the prayer, as I whistle and whiz,
I may be the nightmare that my grandmother is!

[Reappears, through reversal of flower method, assuming former shape, crosses to Creech, and, joining, the twain dance on sleeper's stomach in broken time to duo]
Duo
Whing!
Whang!
So our ancestors sang!
And they guzzled hot blood and blew up with a bang!—
But they ever tenaciously clung to the rule
To only blow up in the hull of a fool—
To fizz and explode like a cast-iron toad
In the cavernous depths where his victuals were stowed—
When chances were ripest and thickest and best
To burst every buttonhole out of his vest!

[They pause, float high above, and fusing together into a great square iron weight drop heavily on chest of sleeper, who moans piteously.]

366

Amphine
[Hiding his face]
Ah! take me hence!

[Dwainie leads him off, looking backward as she goes and waving her hands imploringly to Creech and Gritchfang, reassuming former shapes, in ecstasies of insane delight]
Creech
[To Gritchfang]
Zipp!
Zipp!
Zipp!
Zipp!
Sting his tongue raw and unravel his lip!
Grope, on the right, down his windpipe, and squeeze
His liver as dry as a petrified wheeze!
[Gritchfang—as before—shrinks and disappears at sleeper's mouth]
Throttle his heart till he's black in the face,
And bury it down in some desolate place
Where only remorse in pent agony lives
To dread the advice that your grandmother gives!

[The sleeper struggles contortedly, while voice of Gritchfang calls from within]
Gritchfang
Ho-ho! I have clambered the rungs of his ribs
And beriddled his lungs into tatters and dribs;

367

And I turn up the tube of his heart like a hose
And squirt all the blood to the end of his nose!
I stamp on his stomach and caper and prance,
With my tail tossing round like a boomerang-lance!
And thus may success ever crown my intent
To wander the ways that my grandmother went!

[Reappears, falls hysterically in Creech's outstretched arms.—Then dance and duo.]
Duo
Whing!
Whung!
So our ancestors sung!
And they snorted and pawed, and they hissed and they stung,—
Taking special terrific delight in their work
On the fools that they found in the lands of the Spirk.—
And each little grain of their powders of pain
They scraped up and pestled again and again—
Mixed in quadruple doses for gluttons and sots,
Till they strangled their dreams with gung-jibbrous knots!

[The comet again trails past, upon which the Nightmares leap and disappear. Jucklet staggers to his feet and glares frenziedly around—then starts for opposite exit of comet—is there suddenly confronted with fiend-faces in the air, bewhiskered with ragged purplish flames that
368

flare audibly and huskily in abrupt alternating chill gasps and hot welterings of wind. He starts back from them, reels and falls prostrate, groveling terrifiedly in the dust, and chattering, with eerie music accompanying his broken utterance.]
Jucklet

Æo! Æo! Æo!
Thou dost all things know—
Waving all claims of mine to dare to pray,
Save that I needs must:—Lo,
What may I pray for? Yea,
I have not any way,
An Thou gainsayest me a tolerance so.—
I dare not pray
Forgiveness—too great
My vast o'ertoppling weight
Of sinning; nor can I
Pray my
Poor soul unscourged to go.—
Frame Thou my prayer, Æo!

What may I pray for? Dare
I shape a prayer,
In sooth,
For any canceled joy
Of my mad youth,
Or any bliss my sin's stress did destroy?
What may I pray for—What?—

369

That the wild clusters of forget-me-not
And mignonette
And violet
Be out of childhood brought,
And in mine hard heart set
A-blooming now as then?—
With all their petals yet
Bediamonded with dews—
Their sweet, sweet scent let loose
Full sumptuously again!

What may I pray, Æo!
For the poor hutchèd cot
Where death sate squat
Midst my first memories?—Lo!
My mother's face—(they, whispering, told me so)—
That face!—so pinchedly
It blanched up, as they lifted me—
Its frozen eyelids would
Not part, nor could
Be ever wetted open with warm tears.
... Who hears
The prayers for all dead-mother-sakes, Æo!

Leastwise one mercy:—May
I not have leave to pray
All self to pass away—
Forgetful of all needs mine own—
Neglectful of all creeds;—alone,

370

Stand fronting Thy high throne and say:
To Thee,
O Infinite, I pray
Shield Thou mine enemy!

[Music throughout supplication gradually softens and sweetens into utter gentleness, with scene slow-fading into densest night.]