University of Virginia Library

Artemis Dictynna
enters with her Nymphs.
The silver tide, fretted by summer leaves,
Sails past the woodlands, ebbing to the sea:
But soon the joyous current will return
To the last bridge that sucks the ocean-flow;
Soon will the morning swell to noontide, sooner
Than ocean reach the freshets. Time and waves
And light are moving, yet my sylvan bands
Delay their muster and delay their flight
After the prey that flies. Cold sisterhood,
Whose vows are mine, rouse up the hern and rook
With bugle-blast that scales the thin-leaved elms,
Those dainty wands engarlanded and high
Above our Cornish haunt: rouse up the laggard
Among you that are absent, for today
I would not have you idle. You must stablish
Our right to hunt the forest as of yore,
Since now a stranger owns it, one who bought
The country-side as mortals buy, unmindful
Of anything beyond its roods—a lady
Who, though a virgin and beside that grace
Heart-free, inclines in no wise to my worship—
As Christian maids among these holy vales
Where Convents hide their loneliness, incline,
Harming my candid ritual with threnes
Worthy of Hades and of Charon's ear.
She has, I know by that which in my bosom
Is the great virgin art of prophecy,
A nature adverse to solemnities
That are to her as praise of barrenness,
Or summer-time denied. So we must prove
Our freedom to the mystic ownership
Of her new forest-acres. Sound your call,
And bid your sister-huntresses approach.

Chorus of Nymphs

More Nymphs enter
Artemis
They come; the boughs are tossing as with wind,
The spears and hazel-withies intermingle,
Rooks screech, the herons trail along the sky,
And all the copse is glad and terrified—
The mood it takes when hunt-ups challenge it.
All armed and ready? Nay, Lysithoë
Is missing from the troop, Lysithoë
My sturdiest nymph, best trainer of my dogs,
Crowning herself and them with oaken sprays
When she has made wide ravage. We must leave
My doughty vagrant to her solitude,
For the day warms, and through the glade a herd
Of youthful Satyrs range. We will begone
Before their laughter prick us to desire
They wholly were what half they are—such beasts
As we might slay unchallenged: and yet more
To urge us to remove I see a boat
Push up against the tide and toward this creek,
Rowed by a woman, our fair enemy;
And, by Adonis' footprints, she must hear
Beyond her sanction our halloos ring out.

Artemis and her Nymphs retire, while Satyrs enter dancing from the other side.
Satyrs

Philampelos
[making a dash into the thicket, and leading out Cherry]
Found!

Hylichore
The fortune! Cherry's self!
Cherry is the dainty elf
Skims the cream & tends the cow:
Cherry does not keep aloof,
Has no fear of shag or hoof;
She will grace our dance—A round!

They dance: Cherry disappears.
Drymon
Sudden she has slipped away.

Philampelos
Ah, a boat is in the bay.

Hylichore
'Tis the lady Genifer
Come in wrath to look for her.
But we will not lose our sport ...
Through the osmund-fern a snort!
Lo, we unwrap him, crouching from the heat.
Dryaspis, make the dancers' ring complete.
[Dryaspis rising makes no response.]
Bacchus, he scowls, and mark his surly lip.

Dryaspis
I own no more your gamesome fellowship.

Drymon
Why from the gossmoor have you kept aloof?

Philampelos
How is it that you go with dragging hoof?

Hylichore
And never toss the thyrsus? comrade, say—
Too human are you grown for forest-play?

Dryaspis
For anything but death
The mortal's certain end!
I breathe another's breath,
Go where her footsteps wend;
I see alone her eyes,
And lose all other sight:
As wind about the skies
My body feels her flight;
And in my heart a fire
Is the sole life I own,
Yet that is but desire
For her who leaves me lone.

Drymon
Is she god-born who hath this passion wrought?

Dryaspis
She makes me weak & aged in every thought.

Philampelos
How like the winter! From such love defend us!

Dryaspis
Hear them, great Pan!

Hylichore
For it would surely end us.

Drymon
But hearken, Hylichore—mortal feet!

Philampelos
Behind this briony I'll find retreat.

Drymon
I to the oaks!

Dryaspis
And I to wander on,
Lysithoë, wherever thou art gone.

The Satyrs run out diversely as Genifer enters.
Genifer
Hail my sweet forest! I have left the stream
That all can traverse for this blessèd shade
That is my own and lays upon my heart
A weight of pleasure, as its branching tiers
Crowd down on vision. And the bluebells! Noon
Is wooing all the azure out of them;
They deepen, and the shadow of a dove
Passes across. But oh, this apple-tree,
Amid the mossy and decaying trees!—
The bees enjoy, profound in every motion,
In every hum, and petal after petal
Steals down the air. Is it the deep-withdrawn
And underswelling chorus of the bees,
Absorbed in their response to the appeal
Of all its whites and roses and ripe stains
And tremulous shadows, petal after petal
Stealing adown the air, that is too rich
And forces me to tears? I cannot tell!
I sigh for joy, and yet I feel a secret,
A portent, something hidden reaches me
Without confession, and I stand alone.
Ah, what in woman's life should be portentous,
What but the coming of that miracle
Those who have felt call love? I do not know it,
Yet all the balm and light of summer time
Seems woven one with hope.
This little skiff
That followed me a speck so far away,
Has followed to this reach, and if I bend
The tassels of the oak aside I catch
Glimpse of an oarsman nearing rapidly:
And he is young—he gives me but the glint
Of lips, a charming sun-frown and a drift
Of tendrils on the brow.
Oh, in myself
I take for ever as a memory,
And one that will not lie at rest, those lips.

Ervan enters
Ervan
Lysithoë!

Genifer
My name is Genifer.

Ervan
Then help me; you are surely known to her.

Genifer
Where have you seen this lady of delight?

Ervan
Where! Oh, where is she not? In orchard white,
'Mid daisies and the fallen apple-flowers;
And I have watched her unespied, for hours
Dipping in freshet or by plantain stream,
Under the cooling sycamore from beam
Of the hot sun shading her lovely limbs;
Or caught her on the current as she swims
Fearless from leafy river to the sea.
Where is there haunt of hers unknown to me?
But I have angered her, and swift as tides
Course o'er the covered sands from me she hides.
You have her secret; say where she abides!

Genifer
Could I but aid you! Hard to understand
Your quest ... I am the lady of this land,
Of these green forest-shores, of every creature
Within their realm.
So delicate of feature—
Give me her eyes, the colour of her hair.

Ervan
Brown as the streams, her streams. Oh, I despair—
So healthful and so regnant in her health,
A huntress and an Amazon! Your wealth
You dream ordains you lady of this land—
She has its wolves and wild-deer at command;
She cherishes the eaglet from its nest
Rocked by the storm, the leveret loves her breast;
Tho' fierce in slaughter, yet the softest broods
Of April are not softer than her moods
Of piety and ruth; but never yet
On mortal has her gentleness been set.
If, as you boast, you own this holy shade,
You know the powers by whom you are obeyed.

Genifer
The forest-land is tenantless.

Ervan
Ah no!
How blind and deaf! I swear it is not so.
Have you not seen the revellers of Spring,
The fauns and satyrs, at their junketing?
Have you not heard their half-blown horns grow still
Shamed by your presence? On the rock-towered hill
Have you not heard the huntresses awake
An echo that your voice could never shake
Or woo to service with your merchant-gold?
Oh, you are wrapped in dulness manifold;
You cannot help me.

Genifer
Sir, what I have heard,
Whether from voice of tree or haunting bird
Or rivulet, is loved as if my heart
Went with the sound and with the sound took part:
What I have seen is mine as if by gift,
And given, its sweetness has for me no rift.
A faun or huntress I have never seen,
But had I known them, friends we should have been.

Ervan
This is the place! 'Twas thus the hawthorn drooped
Above the water, while my lady stooped
Between the blossoms and the river-brink—

Genifer
The tide was low, for now the hawthorns drink;
One may smell their blossoms.

Ervan
Gone the grace,
For ever gone the genius of the place ...
And the dull flowers monotonously bloom!

Genifer
To me these coverts have no trace of gloom.
The sunshine banks are soft and coy; I find
The creek, this moment, wholly to my mind.
All, all is here I could desire to be,
Morning and springtide's fluttered light, the sea,
That ardent stranger on its way to me,
Soon to be wholly mine. Beneath yon bridge
How the brine presses through the weedy ridge
And takes the orchard shadows to its gleam.
You do not mark the current.

Ervan
Ah, you dream
Of that which is.

Genifer
I have no memory
To spoil the instant.

Ervan
You are passion-free?
O lady of the eyes one must not praise,
So steadfast is their sky, such summer-days
They promise their beloved—you do not know
The perilous sweets of love?

Genifer
I pray you, go!
There is a bugle in my woods, the maid
You love may be at hand.

Ervan
You are obeyed.
But yet I heard no note.
Lysithoë,
How of a sudden you inform these shades
With infinite, quick life!

[exit
Genifer
What loneliness
Is on the hillside! When I am removed
From these my groves, my streams, from Mellynheil,
And from the sweet, low stream Trevederas,
I see them thus, continuous in their waving,
Continuous in their flow; but desolate
As the dark woods of Chaos with no song
From branch or bubbling fount. So seems it now;
For I am emptied of my place, left out,
My ownership disproved. I cannot see
The nymphs at revel; if there is enchantment
Under the elder-copse, beyond its dense
And ravishing white honey, as too gross
I am excluded from the spell: if spirits
Call to the hills and catch their speech again,
As in a mirror one receives one's face,
Then it is true I have no ears—and yet
While he was questioning I heard a note
As from a half-blown horn. So much is come
And coming up the stream to me: already
The birds sing deeper, and fresh scent is blown
Across me tho' the honeysuckle's sealed
Tight in its handful buds. But I must weep
To be so ignorant—how he o'erthrew me
And showed me what I am! I have no power,
The earth is locked away from me, except ...
Unless ... O blessedness, I hear an echo
From hidden voices, hear the baying hounds
He loves the bay of: haply in their train
The satyrs follow. This dear wood becomes
The seat of many solemn mysteries.
Purge me, O Love, to vision.
Who is this?

A Voice
is heard.
Neon, Tyras, hasten, leave the rocks!
Leave the spiky ruscus and the broom,
Turn and leave the fleeing beast to flee.
We will ease our limbs upon the moss;
We will watch the ocean sap the woodlands,
Or ye both shall nestle to my bosom,
Ye shall sleep and I will dream awake.

Lysithoe
breaks through the underwood.
In this spot, half-orchard, half the forest,
We will rest until the heat grows gray;
Till the breezes reach us with their fountains.
Sleep!—forget the chase, while I remember,
I who have the power that savours joy
When the joy has sunk into my blood;
And evoke it, pondering my captures,
All my ravage, all your faithful prowess.
Neon, Tyras, from the rocks descend!

She couches herself at a distance with her dogs.
Genifer
How mere a woman's comeliness, no nymph!
As fisher-girl fresh from the tide, she plucks
Her camise from her bosom and flings down
On my rock-seat dishevelled. How her dogs
Fondle about her as she curbs their strife!
If this should be Lysithoë! She dreams
Of what?—her troop of sylvan huntresses,
Of triumphs in the woods, of the barbed spear
Held by a tingling hand, the sudden onslaught,
Grapple, and gory hide. 'Tis to her dogs
She breathes her day-dreams, and her subtle gestures
Give them the chase afresh! But while she muses
On baffled prey or cruel snare to spread,
Her Knight, one urging torment in his bosom,
Calls on her name. (advancing)
Lysithoë—for so,
If I interpret true, you call yourself ...
But first, I do not err?

Lysithoë
How timidly
You put your question! Nymph of Artemis,
Freebooter in the woods of late withdrawn
From our wide ranges: more to trouble you,
So your mild carriage tempts me to extremes,
In wanton moments, truant from my Queen,
Consort in revel to the gamester Pan,
Whose noontide sleep I vex with hazel-wands
Till with a roar he wakes. Lysithoë
Is certainly my name.

Genifer
Then you are sought
And cried for through the forest; one who loves you
Has passed this way.

Lysithoë
The fool!

Genifer
To me his sorrow
Is as the saddest thing my wonder yet
Has found in life. Think for a little while—
And make the dogs lie down—how in yourself
You have a power to heal this misery,
Curing at once the madness and despair
So piteously mingled. O believe me,
Lady, it is not that you touch a spear
Like Artemis, it is because your feet
As hers are finely arched, because your bosom
Is open to the shadow of the leaves
And streaking sunshine that you are pursued
So hotly down the forest. By your beauty
Alone you can be cruel: be content,
For I have seen one suffer for your sake
Even to the mortal limit.

Lysithoë
I am senseless,
Rock at the heart, and cannot waste my time
Trifling with love!

Genifer
What are your joys, your pains?

Lysithoë
Those that befall myself—my pleasure
Is a freedom vast and uncontrolled,
Safe from bond of human sympathy,
Safe from yearning as the Earth is safe.
You can never live with secret nature,
For the noise of love's remorseless claim
Beats between your senses and her stealth;
You can never compass her great passions.
While for me, my ears are but the echo
Of her breezes, of her flashing sounds,
Stir of instant will or soft suspense.
I can reach to wonders that have dwelling
Far beyond the cock-crow, or the chorus
Of the birds before they sleep at eve.
I have followed your own iris-river
Where its earliest reed-beds quiver,
Where it fills the ditches under willows,
Dark as any pool, to where it spreads
In a marsh of marigold, sweet gale,
Crumpled cressy beds, or seems to fail,
Then sudden reappears, sweet Mellynheil,
Sculpturing the sands on the lone beach
Between the sullen headlands, till it reach
The foam profuse of the high-moulded billows.
Would you learn to meditate
You must be content to wait
Empty-hearted on a great, vague shore,
Wind and sunshine pass before;
Would you dream, or would you wonder
At the heavens we live under,
At man's life so quickly run—
When a storm beats on the rocks,
High above the ocean-thunder,
Let your eye rove where in flocks
Sea-birds fly across the sun.

Genifer
I cannot bear the beauty: when a storm
Beats on the stormy headland of Trevorse,
My heart is with the fisher-folk, the peril
Keeps me in awe: the environs of death
Are as a holy ground, and Death himself
A King that touches all with majesty
On his great progress. Our poor cottagers
Receive him simply and are blessed. Lelant
Even now is mourning for her distant dead,
Brought to her feet so close by the mere wash
Of waves upon the sand. Lysithoë,
There is behind the storm, within the rose
A mystery that I behold and weep.

Lysithoë
The sun is waning; it is idle longer
To think of noontide sleep. I came to rest,
And found myself a trespasser, forbidden
The unmolested silence of your woods.
Ho, Neon, Tyras, I will seek the shelter
Of the deep ilex-gullies in the cliffs,
Till the hard light grows limpid for the eve.

Genifer
You shall not quit these precincts—Oh, abide!
Here you are sought, here loved, the echoes here
Answer your name: for me, I fly your lips.

[exit.
Lysithoë
Then, Tyras, we will slumber. How yon owl
To cool himself fans with his golden plumes
Above the streaming willows. Pan himself
Is scarcely safer buried in his grot
Than I in this light play of leaves. What colours
Burn through my closing eyelids, what a sense
Of gold and lulling feathers in the air;
What buzz of insects far away: I sleep.

Dryaspis
[crawling from under a yew]
O lady, O my sun that slays,
In grace achieve my death;
Have courage of thy cruel gaze,
Smite with thy cruel breath:
The grandeur of no mercy, queen,
Give as thy satyr's meed;
And let him die as he hath seen
The great sun quench a weed.

Lysithoë
Hence to thy herd, and leave me to my rest.

Dryaspis
You of the haughty eye and naked breast,
You do not know ... ah, will you ever know
The utter loneliness, the wandering woe
Of those that love till day and night are pain,
Consumed by smart that never may attain,
And by an image bolder than their nerve,
Constrained to worship, yet as bondmen serve.
You do not know how youth can fail
With passion, and no friend avail;
How Spring becomes a fell disease,
And nothing flowered or green can please.
A terror at myself has filled
My limbs and to my centre thrilled.
Oh, hear my gentleness appeal!
My hours are severed from their weal—
No more my feet can dance,
No more the pipe is blown,
No more in noontide trance,
On couch of whortle thrown,
I snore, yet hear my sleep,
And close my lids, yet see
In midst of languor deep
The red light muffle me.
I leave the owl unchased,
Nor eat the seed of cones;
My limbs, by health once braced,
Have withered into bones;
I cannot call my goats,
My breath is such a sigh:
The birds with vernal throats
Give to my heart their cry,
While I beneath them stray,
And care not if the briar
Rend my long fleece away;
Care not for dust or mire,
For leaping rain or sun—
Things that were bright are strange,
The loathed no more I shun;
They pass beyond all range
Of any thought or choice:
I have no world but you.
No climate but your voice,
No stroke but your adieu.

Lysithoë
Receive it on the instant and farewell ...
So may I never see you in this dell.
Die, and attest what none has ever shown,
That love is mortal and no passing moan.
My dogs shall hunt you from my presence.

Dryaspis
Then
You summon help that is your doom with men.

Lysithoë
Neon and Tyras, seize him!

Dryaspis
Set them on!
My club is heavy. There! One foe is gone;
The other ... ah, his teeth! ... I am a beast
As well as he, but, Neon, not your feast!
Stunned like your fellow-brute!
[to Lysithoë]
And now no steel
Can save you, huntress, and no pert appeal.
Mine are you—

Lysithoë
Dian! sisters! Help, O Pan,
Help, whosoever from this fastness can!

Dryaspis
I will not go unsatisfied—a rage
Wakes in my blood no censure can assuage,
And only joy extinguish. You are mine,
Your terror and abasement thrill like wine.
Shriek on! I have my minute born of fire,
And it shall die of its complete desire.

Lysithoë
Help, help! O shame!

Ervan springs down the brake.
Ervan
She needs me.
Loose her dress,
You vile abuser of her loveliness;
Down to the earth and crash against the rocks,
You who have dared to handle her gold locks.
[to Lysithoë]
Bliss! you needed me and I was near,
Bliss beyond the bliss that lovers weave—
Though I grasp it, all my soul is drear
With misgiving lest my pride deceive.
Now you pant, as glorious as when dawn
Flashes into light and heat and day,
Through your veil in many flitters torn.
Radiant presence, urge me not away!

Lysithoë
Neon is murdered.

Ervan
Your betrayer slain.

Lysithoë
Am I beloved of my great queen in vain?
O Artemis, O Hecate, dear Titan
Whose rule is ever honoured, child of hell,
Infernal sorceress, who sit'st by tombs,
And let'st the murdered dead make plaint to thee,
Giving to pestilential winds their warrant
To rave, to nightly dews to drop as blood—
Hear me: my life is torn across. This hound,
My nurseling, has been with me through the moods
Of many years; we have been glad together,
And he has never once been sorrowful
Except when I was hurt: by all the forces
Thou keep'st in leash to loose on infamous,
Obscure and unregarded crime, avenge
This creature's death! There is no other bond
Like this deep, silent knitting with his kind;
No other wound that pierces in this sort.
O Hecate!

Ervan
That fondness—dole and crying
Are lavished on her hound that lies a-dying ...
In this daze of hate I cannot woo,
I can only ravish and undo:
But that cry, that fondness!
I am mute;
Give me what you gave that senseless brute,
Pour on me that voice if you would move,
Pour that godlike lavishness of love.
You are mad th'affection to deny
Made the long, unsorrowed years slip by
As a dream to those that loved of old.
You are mad, with grief so uncontrolled
Fatal blow of a rough hand to rue,
Pouring your hot wrath on him that slew,
Yonder churl, your ravisher.

Lysithoë
And you—
Clenched in your hand why do you hold my veil?

Ervan
As a man, your lord, I would prevail.
If the cry within me could be told,
You are all my blood has power to hold;
In your beauty, in your arms my youth
Fain would merge as its completing truth.
All my flesh is mad for you—refuse!
And the curse you strike me with subdues
Speech and hope and faculty and name;
All I was swells up in me as blame,
All I am burns an unguarded flame.
Anguish! And I need you with each sense,
Gaze and touch and hearing so intense
Spirits when they shudder in God's sight
Scarce can know excess as infinite.
Lysithoe lifts her arms to heaven.
Ah, you so would arm yourself. I feel
Prayer upon your lips—to me appeal;
The god in me alone can save you
Th'exasperated lusts that brave you,
That cry out for your blood.

Lysithoë
O Artemis,
Kindle the mortal hatred, let me fall
A sacrifice to thee, as the lone stranger
Fallen on a hostile coast, or gather me
Safe into flower or stream. I have no fear,
So that thou keep me holy for thy use,
A maiden, unpolluted. Let me die
And hide me deeper in thy mountain caves,
In the blue darkness where the light is bred;
And in a silence as of drifted snow
Let me receive thy piercing benison.
O Artemis, as thou didst half recover
A maiden, Hades-lost, be pitiful;
I love thee, guard in me thy attributes,
Guard thou thy godhead.

Ervan
Dumb the stone;
Idol for man's breaking—I alone,
Mortal folly that you cannot see,
I alone can save you: give to me
But an instant's worship with your face,
Let me feel its influencing grace—
Music of your being on its way
Singing its own dreams, and I obey
Every movement of its instinct clear:
You are safe as if with veil and spear.
So you can overcome.

Lysithoë
O Light, O Star,
O secret Heaven folded in thyself,
Hear not the blasphemy; but since this mortal
Speaks of pure love, O guardian of the mountains,
In name of thy Endymion, I appeal—
Guard me for sake of him whom thou didst love
As in a vision, whom thou didst behold,
And infinitely linger—virgin love
So penetrates its bliss.
Goddess, this man
Deems he can look into our mysteries,
Who spurns not Aphrodite. Let thy dews,
Thy deserts, the frore glitter of thy nights
Arm me and shield.
[enter Artemis.
The veil drops from his hand;
Mother, thou fold'st thine round me; not in flight
We leave him; but with liberal, free steps.
Thou hast thy Nymph, Lysithoë—

Artemis
My child!

[exeunt.
Ervan
What pressure in the air, what influence
As if of angered stars, and then a music
Sweet as Hesperia's apple-guarding song,
Remote, and travelling as if to islands
Hidden beyond the verge ...
[turning back to Dryaspis]
Her conjured hate
Stifles my bosom. [Dryaspis stirs.]

Then you are not dead!

Dryaspis
Where is Lysithoë? If you have slain her,
I can turn back to sleep.

Ervan
[flinging Lysithoë's veil over Dryaspis]
There! cover you!
For I myself will bring you back this spear
Dyed in her blood. Lysithoë is slain.
Lysithoë shall not vex us.
You may sleep.

[exit.
Dryaspis

Philampelos comes from the wood.
Philampelos
Satyrs, run from dripping rill,
From the holt and from the hill,
From the ivy's long cascade
Over rock and wall and roots,
From the beeches' green-grass shade
And the ring of elder-shoots ...
For Dryaspis I have found
Looking strange upon the ground,
Crying like an owl, then still ...

Drymon, Hylicmore and other Satyrs run in.
Satyrs
All together let us go
And discover what his woe:
All together—only so!

Drymon
Dare you question, dare you come?
If I look it strikes me dumb;
I must cover up my eyes.

Hylichore
I will ask him why he cries,
For he cannot hurt us. See!
Round his forehead booms a bee,
Booming Yes or No or Yes?
With unshaken easefulness.
Let us to our guest repair,
Run along and cease to stare ...
Stop! we will not go too close,
For Dryaspis looks morose.
Tell us, moon-calf creature, tell
What has chanced or is not well?

Drymon
My very heart turns and I will not stay.

Philampelos
Ah, the truant he would play!
Hylichore, hold him firm!
He forsooth to pull and squirm!
Drag him close—Dryaspis speaks:
No, no, he whistles; and how pale his cheeks.

Hylichore
I hear a word—

Drymon
Softly! He fights for breath.

Hylichore
Listen! I caught the sound and it was death.

Philampelos
Oh, then draw back, dear playmates, and no longer
Importune: Chiron says that death is stronger
Than anything we see or touch or hear;
He says it makes a world beneath us drear,
And is the icy winter of our year,
The ruin of our bowers and every leaf.
We must not come too close to such a grief
Now it has touched Dryaspis—no, we may not;
Hence, and if coldness fall upon you, stay not!

Hylichore
Let us sit upon the rim
Of the wood and keep our faith with him;
For he is a Satyr and 'tis due
To his forest-race we should be true:
Yet if any breast should grow too chill
We can fly among the brakes from ill.

Drymon
I can never sit so grave and still!
Here are summer apples; with our feet
Kick the little balls that are not sweet,
Kick them through the grass—
So the time will pass.

Hylichore
All the birds are busy at their food,
At their love or play;
We are nothing to them in the mood
We must keep to-day,
Nothing more than roots or stones upstanding.

Drymon
See that golden mother-squirrel landing
Six bright young ones from the stream—
How their eyes look out and round and gleam!
If Dryaspis had not spoken,
If our vigil could be broken,
With the squirrel we would be
In an instant up the tree.
Oh, 'tis solemn still to die!
I must fly!

Philampelos
Hush! There is no time for flight:
For the lady from whose sight
We have hidden is returning
Swift as if her steps were burning:
Yet she cannot have more wit
Than the squirrel or the bird;
Therefore sit
Motionless, without a word.

[enter Genifer.
Genifer
Sweet inlet,
Dear beach of fern and sea-weed where he trod,
Though there are other footprints, I must come
To trace his footprints; if I can, recover
His voice, not as he raised it to the hills,
But softened to the wood-dove in its note
Of wonder and appeal. I live for him,
And since he flees me I must take possession,
Fast as he quits it, of each vacant place.
Ah me, will he return? This sycamine
He set his tawny head against, these bushes
He shredded so impatiently, this mirror
That I looked down into, and learnt how black
The lustre of his sorrowful, gray eyes!
I saw him for an instant up the rocks
Still in pursuit, I saw—
[perceiving Satyrs]
But what is this?
My glade is peopled, or my eyes deceive!
Shapes watch it round, and here among the drift
From flowery apple-studs a quivering bulk
Half-man, half-beast, is couched. A little dread
Slips through me: 'tis so novel and suspicious
To see these statue-beings from the grass
Reach to the low-swung branches, blink their eyes,
And make no sound ... I know them! These must be
The Satyrs, smug of nose, with tilted lids,
Fur like the juniper and leafy smile.
I know them!
Woodland people, do not keep
Such awe of me lest I grow terrible
To my familiar self ... A sob! Alas,
Your King is hurt.

Drymon
She stoops! Behold her,
With Dryaspis propped against her shoulder:
What a wail he gave and bit her hands;
Now he looks at her and understands.
But she ...

Hylichore
O lady, put him back again;
In your arms he must no more remain—
He is ill,
And your youth and beauty he will kill,
If you lay him thus upon your heart.
We, who love your voice, beseech you
Lay him where he cannot reach you,
In a shady place apart.

Genifer
Good folk, you misconceive: those who are dying
Need all the love that we can give—so sadly
Their eyes and hands take leave, and they themselves
Each moment miss some dearness of our life:
They will not harm or curse, for in their smile
Is the bare light of blessing! I would win you
To help me tend your fellow. Brim this cup,
Loosed from my chain, with water, fetch me branches
Of streaming leaves to fan with, and large blades
To lay across the hurt; fetch tormentil,
Plantain, or sickleworth or Aaron's rod—
But waste no time.

All
Our god's own goddess, no!
At your gentle word we go
Leaping, running to and fro.

Philampelos
I for leaves and tormentil.
Drymon, you the cup shall fill.

Hylichore
I alone! I have no fear,
Now she holds him, to draw near!
[to Genifer]
Let me have your sacred bowl;
I can dip it in a hole
Where the waters must be chill.

Genifer
Small forester, my thanks.
The Satyrs run away to serve her.
Ah me, I doubt—
For death has put the severance of its cold
Between me and these fingers I would chafe,
This face I would relume. He looked at me
With the full look that only beasts can give,
And then lay quiet. Did I catch his name?
Dryaspis, do not tremble! How his curls
Twine bushy round his horns, how strong the strength
He owned to-day ... Even now he lifts his hand
As if to ward a blow.
I hold you close.
The lady of your woodland loves you.
The Satyrs return.
Hush!

Drymon
A leaf!

Philampelos
A branch!

Hylichore
The pearly cup
Filled from yonder streamlet up.

Genifer
Keep your first vigil. With a perfect choice
You bring me all I need: but some of you
Still wander—call them; they disturb their fellow
With noise of steps across the winter-leaves.

Ervan breaks through the trees behind Genifer.
Dryaspis
[opening his eyes]
'Tis he! Oh, hide me in your silver dress.
He wounded me.

Genifer
A knight all gentleness.
You misconceive. But there! Lay down your head;
He can not see you now.

Ervan
She has outsped
My feet, my spear! Ah, would that she were dead.

Genifer
What sighs!

Ervan
Lysithoë!

Dryaspis
[softly to Genifer]
My fear is fled.
Let him draw up, close, for I am sure
I have learnt a secret that will cure
Those harsh sighs. Lysithoë—

Ervan
Her name!
Who echoes it?

Dryaspis
You have been much to blame
Seeking to kill her, if you hate her so:
That will never stop your sighing;
You must die as I am dying;
And it is so soft to die.
All seems happened long ago
In a picture, like the lake
Of the flitting wood doth make—
I shall see it far below,
I shall see it by and bye,
When the current does not shake ...
Ah, how dizzy is the sky!
Hold my hand—

He stretches out his hand to Genifer and dies.
Ervan
I am reproved;
Even this poor fool sees clear
What's to do, being unbeloved.
I take his counsel!

Genifer
Ervan, drop your spear—
And for my sake.
There is no need of speech,
When life's great music thrills us as a wind,
We listen to by breathing. Do not weep!

Ervan
You cannot know. I took from him his breath.

Genifer
What, will you leave me in the woods with death?

Ervan
A murderer flees.

Genifer
I loved this boy ... the rest—
Give me that spear—shall not be twice confessed.
Be comforted: not of his hurts he died,
They were not mortal. See how from the forest
His shaggy people troop to bury him.
They would be private; scarcely may one see
Even in sharpest winter on the moss
A starved bird perish: we must suffer them
To pass in silence to their rites.

Ervan
How firm
Her hands close on the spear-head.
Genifer.

The Satyrs troop round Dryaspis, a little bashfully at first; then they lift him up & bear him away.
Satyrs
We who loved him so,
We would kiss and sunder;
But Dryaspis will not go,
That is just the wonder.
What is come and gone
Seems to linger on,
As if yesterday
Burst into our play.
Look! The creature is grown gray and cold;
We must carry it away
To our ancient treasure-hold,
The great cave we dare not name—
Then it will be all the same.

Genifer
[to Hylichore, who is last.]
Then you will come back into my copses.
Drymon, Hylichore—you have taught me
Each your name, and I will guard your secrets,
Or will quite forget them at your pleasure.
Do not fade away.

Hylichore
joins the troop who sing with him.
We must: farewell.

Drymon & Philampelos

[exeunt.
Ervan
But, Genifer, if you will say to me
What you have said to these impassive churls,
Guarding my secrets or forgetting them ...
But hear my oath: by me they are forgotten
Abhorred, dismissed. I hate Lysithoë,
I hate the hills
Her feet have traversed, hate the wolfish hounds
That bay about her, hate her huntress-dress,
Her stubborn solitude, her blind recoil
From man's most solemn worship. If these woods
Are dear, it is—at last I understand—
It is that you, sole lady of this land
Within the precincts of this shadowed creek,
Have drawn me to your heart. You shall not speak—
O gracious to have spoken! Take my prayer,
And hear it, would you save me from despair.

Genifer
I cannot speak of love—Love is too close,
And it would vex me even that a god
Should ever hear the terrible, low cries
Charging my heart. You found my woods so full,
And they are emptied now of everything,
Satyr and nymph, and what of human breath
Is breathing with the leaves. There is no want
That Love and Death can fail to satisfy,
And these desert us never. O my magic,
Enchanter of my womanhood, so dull
You found me! Now there are in me such moods,
The jealous royalties, the patient awe
Alike of serf and queen. You will not weary,
You never will have rest.

Ervan
O darkened eyes,
Worshipped through every splendour of their storms,
Give me your light again.

He starts, arrested by the distant sound of music.
Genifer
You turn aside,
Your ears are still attentive: elfin-horn
No more will quick the air.

Ervan
Its notes I scorn.
But listen!

Genifer
Do you deem you will not hear
Within my forest any sound except
The flutter of the leaves because we laid
Its demon-maskers? At the name of love
They shrivelled as at outbreak of the day
Night's conjured spirits flee. Yet none the less
Will you be visited, at unawares,
By ravishing music: sometimes it will spring
Within, or you will catch it indistinct
As the sea's burthen when it gathers up
The waters for the pressure of the tides.
The senses are not blank or unattended
That feed where silence is. See, from yon covert
Below the ivied chapel on the steep,
How gay a crowd disperses, and how white
The thread of the procession in its midst:
These are the country maidens met to praise
Our Lady of the Summer—See, they wend
On toward the city: we may catch their voices
Now nearing us, now far. Come, let us sit
Together, and together mark the chaunt,
That I may know I have you for my own,
And stay the heart-break of the ecstasy
Awed by the softer strain.

Ervan
Ay, Genifer!
(aside)
And while from Heaven's approach sweet peace she wins,
I must confess how murder-black my sins.

Procession of boys & girls singing.
AVE , most fair,
Queen of our bowers,
Queen of the woodlands, and the white-thorn air,
Of furzy reaches,
Wave-breaking, solitary beaches,
And the lone farmstead in its shaded nook:
Thou who dost look
On moorland lamb forsook,
Who in time of drought
Join'st us, praying on our knees
For the barley and the pease,
And dost not weary of thy prayer, until
The ears with corn do fill,
The fallow breathes, the tender blossoms sprout:
To thee we shout
As children shouted on thy Son's highway,
And round his ass did throng,
With mimic praise, with snatch of angel-song,
And sallow-flowers,
On a far holiday.

Procession of maidens.
Ave , most meek!
Before the last
Deep star into the dawn had passed,
We, or by lane or ferry,
Had stolen, trembling, to this forest creek
To deck thy shrine,
Emptying our river-wood
Of all we could,
Of honeysuckle, blooms of dropping cherry;
Melampyre, vetches, purple columbine.
Nor did we quite forget,
Mingling in posies wet,
Woodruff and alkanet,
Thy hues of robe and veil.
O spotless virgin, hail!
We bear with eager feet,
Through tainted city-street,
The fragrance of thy purity,
We give our voices unto thee,
Nor shall our chaunt, or our procession fail
Through the blue noontide heat:
But we, by moor and vale,
Though our bright garlands flag, on thee will call,
Beseeching thee to give us good
Of thy pure maidenhood,
Till evenfall.

The mothers stand at the chapel-gate, watching the proccssion of maidens and children out of sight: then they turn slowly towards their homes, chaunting.
Dear Mother, hail!
Nor flowers in bloom,
Nor chaunt we offer thee;
O Lady of the tempest and the sea,
To thee, long since, we have confided
The children of our womb:
And, by thy breast, divided
Sevenfold in sorrow, by the loneliness,
When, thy Belovéd being gone,
Even from thy rest, His tomb,
Thou did'st live on,
We, tempered by the patience of thy heart,
Have learned to part ...
We bless
Our sons, we watch them forth,
Not to return; and from the little path
Hasting to thy green altar in the vale,
Where we can see
The Babe for ever on thy breast,
We say the prayers of thy sweet rosary,
Turn to our homes and rest.

[exeunt.
Genifer
She prays for you.

Ervan
If she would pray! O Genifer, the wrong
That I have wrought, that piteous funeral,
And all the gaiety put out of gear—

Genifer
But death must come.

Ervan
It is not that intrusion!
Death is a simple thing to these that die
Simply as Nature bids them; just a failure
To feel what others feel, a shy dislike,
A loneliness, a lying in the shade,
And then the sudden nightfall: but his death,
And all this sylvan folk without a god—
If She would pray for them!

Genifer
Be comforted—
When Christ went down to Limbo, He descried
How many plagued and sorrowful, how many
Shut up in ignorance, from instinct missing
What they had never known! He drew them forth
Through the still vaults, and brought them secretly
At dawn to threshold of his Mother's door,
Who, first embracing Him, took, for his sake,
These strangers to her heart: so we will put
Dryaspis in our prayers.
But jealously,
Most jealously guard an undying hatred
For the cold nymph that tempted him, your spear
Had justly sped.

Ervan
Yet of our Lady's grace,
O Genifer, I look into your face,
Clean of blood-guiltiness. Lysithoë—

Genifer
Be prey to her own dogs. You are with me.

Ervan
My fiery sapphire, yes;

Genifer
But quick! the tide
Is ebbing fast; you must not tarry here,
Lest I should hold you bond.

Ervan
You are with me,
And if I draw you now down to the boat,
It is that I may cross to yonder chapel
Where the good priest still lingers, wed you fast,
And by all hard, inextricable ties
Knit you my own. It is too perilous
To guard the treasure of so great a love
Till by your vows you have confirmed it mine,
O Genifer, for ever. You are dumb!

Genifer
We travel where speech has no power: I come.