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Title: Sanctuary
       A Bird Masque

Author: Percy MacKaye

Commentator: Arvia MacKaye

Release Date: March 8, 2018 [EBook #56704]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANCTUARY ***




Produced by Richard Tonsing, Mary Glenn Krause, MFR and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)

ORNIS

(Miss Eleanor Wilson)

Requests for permission to perform or read publicly this Bird Masque having been received from a great many quarters, the following information is here given for those desiring such permission:

The Masque is copyrighted in the United States and countries of the Copyright Union, and all rights are reserved.

The purpose of the Masque is to be of public use, so that all adequate presentations of it are welcome. To this end the special conditions of performance or public reading should in each case be communicated direct to the author, in care of the publisher.

No performances may be given without such direct communication, and permission thus first obtained.

As the publication of this text is designed to serve the definite cause for which it was written, performances Imust be, in some degree at least, for the benefit of Wild Bird Conservation.

Music for the lyrics “The Hermit Thrush” and the three songs of Quercus has been composed by Frederick S. Converse, and is published by the H. W. Gray Company, 2 West 45th Street, New York.

A bird bath, specially designed for use in bird sanctuaries and gardens, with plastic groupings of characters in the original cast of this Masque, has been executed by Mrs. Louis Saint-Gaudens, Cornish, New Hampshire, post office Windsor, Vermont.

The four photographs in color, as well as those in black and white, which illustrate this volume were taken by Dr. Arnold Genthe of enactors in the Masque, as first performed by members of the Cornish Colony and the Meriden Bird Club at Meriden, New Hampshire, September 12, 1913.

This Masque was written for the dedication of the bird sanctuary of the Meriden Bird Club of Meriden, New Hampshire, where it was first performed on the night of September twelfth, 1913. The text was composed, the lyrics set to music, the masque rehearsed, costumed and acted, within the brief space of a month. Its production came about by a spontaneous and glad cooperation of artists, neighbors, lovers of nature, imbued with a deep feeling in common—concern for the welfare of wild birds. In this important concern its enactors were happily encouraged by the sympathetic presence of the President of the United States and the participation of his family.

Swift and spontaneous as its production was, however, the masque in its reasons for being was not unpremeditated. It took its origin from two important sources, rarely, if ever, associated—nature study, and the art of the theatre.

The union of these was its raison d’etre.

However tentative its realization, it stands none the less as a pioneering suggestion of real moment xto those two potent influences upon our national life. As such it has seemed worth while to present to the public, and to make clear the suggestion which it illustrates, however sketchily.

From a recent volume by the writer on “The Civic Theatre, in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure,” I quote the following paragraphs upon “Nature Symbols,” as they apply directly to this subject:

“The relation of the theatre’s art to the naturalist’s vocation is probably not obvious to the man on the street. That is because the commercial theatre relates itself to so few of the pursuits of science outside of Broadway interests. The civic theatre would do otherwise.

“Aristophanes symbolized the birds for the purposes of Greek satire. The costuming of his play in Athens probably expressed no direct attribution to the science of ornithology. Yet its attribution to the Greek race’s intimate love of Nature was as spontaneous as the symbolizing of flowers in the capitals of their temple columns. The movement to-day for the conservation of our birds and their more intimate study might well take on significant, lovely forms of symbolic expression in pageants, festivals and the drama of the civic theatre.

“By the same art, the fascinating designs, embossings, xicolorings, of insect forms could be symbolized in spectacles of astonishing beauty, motivated dramatically to the real and tremendous human relation which that ignored but pestiferous race bears to human society and the state; as witness the movement, involving millions in taxes, for exterminating the gypsy moth and the boll weevil.

“Such implications for art may seem, at first, a far cry from actual possibilities of the theatre; yet thus may the civic theatre directly relate its activities not only to the enthusiasms of naturalists in the fields and woods, but to the inspiring studies of scholars in their laboratories: a cooperation which may soon stultify the popular notion that art and science are divorced in their special aims. The same relation of the theatre’s symbolic art to all the sciences—the discoveries of chemistry, the splendid imaginings of engineering—is implied in their common aim: the bringing of greater joy, beauty, understanding, to our fellow men and women, the people.

“Science represents idea, art its expression; theatrical art its expression in forms best adapted to convened numbers of the people. The forms of popular art, therefore, are limited only by the ideas of man.”

It is thus as an illustration of one of the multiform xiigenres of the civic theatre’s potential art that this little masque has its main significance.

Before the actual establishment of the Civic Theatre among us, the opportunities of the working dramatist to make tangible contributions by his art to its repertory are, of course, very scant and at best groping and experimental. One such as the present may serve, however, to suggest certain immediate, practical possibilities.

If, for instance, every bird sanctuary were to possess its stage and auditorium for bird masques—if every Natural History Museum had its outdoor theatre, equipped to set forth the multitudinous human meanings of its nature exhibits to the crowds that frequent its doors in their hours of leisure—if the directors of every Zoölogical Park were to provide for it a scenic arena, and seek the civic cooperation of the dramatic poet and theatrical expert, to vivify by their art the tremendous life stories of wild nature to the receptive minds of the human thousands convened to listen and behold—by such means, would not the disciples of nature study not simply adopt for their own ends a means of education and publicity a thousandfold more dynamic, imaginative and popular than any of the static means of exhibits, lectures and published volumes on which they xiiinow rely: would they not also thereby splendidly assist in enlarging the civic scope of the theatre’s art, still cramped, as for generations, within the walls of speculation and commercialism?

These suggestions speak for themselves.

If this Bird Masque shall help, in the slightest degree, to illustrate them, it will do its ephemeral service in the only permanent sanctuary of men as of birds—imagination.

PARTICIPANTS IN PANTOMIME

SCENE

xviii

THE LITTLE GIRL FALLS INTO REVERIE

3

I

THE MAN

From hence even now a piping filled mine ear

With quaintish memory: familiar,

Yet old, it seemed. Long since, I heard the same

Lulling to paleness the white morning star

Among Sicilian oaks. So here I came

To spy upon the piper. Now, methinks,

I know him, by those horns and merry winks.

—Good morrow, Quercus, the faun!

QUERCUS

Now, by Lord Pan!

The poet’s ear and eye still spy me out.—

8Alwyn, maker of songs—hail to you, master!

You!—Can it really be?

ALWYN

It can,

And is—by Pan, our ancient pastor!

But you, slant shanks, what make you here at dawn?

QUERCUS

Newfangleness! The classic gout

Still crooks my knees with the old lyric wine,

But now they run new errands.

[Flourishing his staff.]

Lo, the sign

Of my new office!

ALWYN

New! What may that be?

QUERCUS

Wood warden of the wild birds’ sanctuary:

Janitor of their sylvan temple!—See,

My staff acclaims me. Poor Mercutius!

Old mythologic nature-faker,

He’s out of date with his caduceus.

Behold in me

A modern science-tutored fairy

9And practical care-taker—

Grand marshal of the martin-house!

ALWYN

[Pointing at Quercus’ staff.]

Of that?

QUERCUS

Nay, this, my bard, is but the breviat

And little pattern.

[Pointing toward a tall martin-house pole.]

Yonder, you behold

The real palace. Through those portals

We lure the feathered broods to fold

Their wings above the world of thievish mortals.

ALWYN

We—say you? Who are we?

QUERCUS

Myself and my lord master.

ALWYN

And what’s he?

QUERCUS

Nay, if I knew, I should be wiser.

He is the fellow of all friendless things,

10Wild nature’s human sympathizer:

In form a man, yet footed so with silence

The deer mistake him for their brother; so

Swift that, meseems, he borrows the birds’ wings;

An eye, that glows and twinks

Through noon like twilight’s vesper star; an ear

That harks a mile hence

The purring of a lynx!

I love him, follow, obey him, yet I know

Naught of him—but his love.

ALWYN

Not even his name?

QUERCUS

Yea, what men call him by;

And he is like the same.

Men call him Master Shy.

ALWYN

Ah, Shy, the naturalist.

Why, he is my good crony. If he wist

11To rhyme he’d be a better bard than I.

How do you serve him?

QUERCUS

I’m crew to his Jason!

I multiply myself for rare adventures,

And serve his Ship of Birds as carpenter,

Box-joiner, bath-cementer, mason,

Seed-storer, water-carrier,

Worm-steward, nest-ward, treehouse thatcher,

Man-chaser and mouse-catcher.

ALWYN

Nay, do you please in all?

QUERCUS

I carry to his call,

And never yet have earned his censures

For botch or shirk.

ALWYN

I prithee show me of your handiwork.

What’s here—this little box

With paddle wings?

12QUERCUS

One of our weather-cocks.

Look you, it swings:

So when, in winter, the white tempest blows,

Here sit the birds at breakfast ’mid the snows,

With porch turned ever to the cosy side.

In that cold time, my master Shy

Brings more devices to provide

Bird-comfort: Food-bells full of millet

We place in covert nooks, and tie

Our knitted suet bags on many a bough

Of pine and larch. And I must plough

Through many a drift, to crack the frozen rillet

For little beaks to drink.

ALWYN

By Phœbus, now

Is this in sooth mine old Sicilian faun,

That wont of yore to dally

On violet-scented lawn

With lily-crownéd nymphs in lovelorn valley!

What modern change is here? What magic—

13QUERCUS

Hush!

[With lowered voice, he looks around warily.]

I am not always quite so modern!

At times—at times—as when just now

You heard me pipe below this bough—

I slip my master’s traces,

And slink by paths untrodden

To lovelorn, lush

Arcadian places,

Where Philomel still lingers,

Plaining her ancient pity,

And there I fetch forth this

With idling fingers,

And, pouting on its lip my kiss,

I pipe some dulcet, old, bucolic ditty.

[Taking out his pipe, he plays again a few languorous strains, but breaks off abruptly.]

Whist! Here he comes.—It grates upon his ear.

14

“IS THIS IN SOOTH MINE OLD SICILIAN FAUN?”

SHY

[Enters, carrying a nest-box.]

A hermit thrush is pleasanter to hear.

[He greets Alwyn.]

Good morning, friend! How comes it you are caught

Walking so early? Poets, I had thought,

Salute the sunrise only in their song.

ALWYN

[Smiling.]

Fie, then! You do us wrong:

We rhyming slugabeds

Walk with Aurora at our pillows’ heads,

For dreamers can see dawn rise in the dark.

Poets are owls that elegize the lark.

SHY

And now you’ll talk to me of nightingales!

16Three birds exhaust your bard’s vocabulary:

Larks, nightingales and owls! High time, you see,

To wean this fellow from your piper’s tales,

And teach him craftily

To build our hungry birds a homelike sanctuary.

ALWYN

[Patting Quercus’ shoulder.]

Good Shy, no schooling could so much relieve

My modern apprehensions: Tutor him,

Hoof, head and limb,

And let me humbly hearken. By your leave,

God shall provide the dawn,

And you the tutelage, and I—the faun.

QUERCUS

Waiting, my masters!

ALWYN

Give your pipe to me!

QUERCUS

[Holding it behind him.]

Must I give up my pipe? The sound is sweet.

17ALWYN

Truth is more sweet than melody,

And wisdom than melodious words.

When you have learned to greet

With their own mystic speech all living birds

And minister to their necessity,

This pipe shall be restored, and we will make

Together a new song, more sweet for knowledge’ sake.

[In pantomime, he demands and receives the pipe from Quercus. Shy then addresses Quercus.]

SHY

This nest-box: Nail it on the barest bough

Of that tall maple. Place it well,

Like yonder one.

QUERCUS

Right, master. Now!

SHY

Soft, soft! Not so pell-mell!

You’ll scare that nuthatch at her nesting.

First tell me of your other questing—

Those errands which I sent you yesterday.

18QUERCUS

That cowbird, master,—

SHY

Did she lay

Her egg?

QUERCUS

Indeed she did, the pest!

She laid it in a redstart’s nest;

But up I poked my nose in, nabbed it

And cracked it cursory:

Good Mama Redstart now can hatch her nursery

Without a big stepchild to smother her chicks.

SHY

Old Deacon Rathburne’s tom-cat, is he—dead?

QUERCUS

What, Tom, that dabbled in gore the wee goldfinches?

[He nods shrewdly.]

Wild huckleberries are growing at his head!

That almost got you in the fix:

Old Deacon saw me do it, blabbed it,

19And Missus sicked her dachshund at my heels.

[Grinning.]

Eh, master, it’s your shoe that pinches!

SHY

When cats invade bird-temples, boy, it feels

Good to be wicked.

But tell me of our forest planting ground:

What shrubs and creepers have you found

And marked, to make our shelter thicket?

QUERCUS

Why, sir, to give it

Birdblithesomeness, I’ve chose

Shad bush, blue cornel, withe rod, privet,

Red osier, raspberry, wild rose,

Black haw, and dangleberry.

SHY

A proper list!

What trees—deciduous?

QUERCUS

Box-elder and bird cherry,

White ash, gray birch and cockspur thorn.

20ALWYN

What make you thus?

Some sylvan pound, to stalk an unicorn?

SHY

Good poet, whist!

No more mythology.

Your faun is learning better. Truce!

ALWYN

Most humbly, my apology!

SHY

So, Quercus: and what evergreens?

QUERCUS

White spruce,

Red cedar, balsam fir, and Norway pine.

SHY

Good, fellow! Fine!

In such a shelter-tangle we can hatch

Ten thousand nestlings. Run, now! Catch

That squirrel there, before

He makes his call at your new nest-box door.

21QUERCUS

[Skipping to the maple tree.]

Right, master!—Heigh, Sir Alwyn—ho!

Just see now what a jack-o’-trades your Quercus is!

When Master Shy discharges me, I’ll go

And rent nine fairy-rings, and start three circuses!

[Climbing among the branches, he disappears, whistling bird-notes.]

22

ALWYN

ALWYN

Shy—honest friend, your hand once more!

SHY

Heartily! Welcome to this wood.

ALWYN

Do you recall how once we stood

Here, and discoursed of songs I made of yore—

Dryads and poet’s dreams?

SHY

Yes, I recall

I wondered at them all.

ALWYN

First—as to-day—you smiled

Your incredulity of my quaint creed,

Till soon, in further converse, we agreed

24In nature’s heart our faiths are reconciled.

For both of us seek nature’s fellowship,

The common language of all living things:

I—more in music of the human lip,

You—in the whirr of beaks and wings.

So both—craving the beautiful—

Still worship the same shrine and oracle:

This temple, and its dryad—Tacita.

SHY

I will confess

Of all the nymphs in your Arcadia

I worship her

Alone.

ALWYN

Because her moods are numberless

I do the same. Between the heart of Man

And Nature’s heart, which I do name God Pan,

She stands and moves—divine interpreter,

Translating with her shy and pagan dances

Our world life and its trances.

SHY

She is, in truth,

The sylvan priestess of this sanctuary.

25ALWYN

[Eagerly.]

What if, through her as intermediary,

And after thousand ages of uncouth

Estrangement,—what, I say, if we

Might find through her the key

To comprehend the native speech of birds,

And hold communion with them in our human words!

Would not that be a modern consummation

Nobler than fable?

SHY

Almost, I would have said, we might be able,

If it were not for one who scorns this shrine

And violates the beauty of creation,

Marring all contemplative quietude.

ALWYN

Whom do you speak of?

SHY

One whom the red wine

Of slaughter has made drunk, and the false glister

Of dollars dazzled with blind arrogance.

26Close by this wood

He plies a bold, sinister

Traffic in wings and plumage. Not by chance

But calculated orgies, he commits

His venal murders, slits

The bridal plumes from backs of mating birds,

And leaves the nested broods

Unhatched or starveling. So he girds

His loins, and like the Patagonian

Displays his feathered trophies: not a man

Swayed by ecstatic moods,

Nor even to equip

A hardy sportsmanship;

Not so: he slaughters birds for stocks and bonds,

And when we challenge, smiling he responds:

“Mine is a lawful market, where fine ladies pay

For plumes, to wear on Sabbaths and Christ’s Easter day.”

ALWYN

What is this desecrator’s name?

27SHY

Stark, the plume-hunter.

ALWYN

Surely he dares not

Track his defenseless game

Here to this hallowed spot!

SHY

No place is holy to unhallowed minds:

He covets gain, and grasps it where he finds.

ALWYN

Still I have faith

That Tacita, in her serenity,

Is mightier than he.

SHY

Ah, nature’s quiet mood is delicate

And crushes like a flower.

ALWYN

Faith without works is vain, the Prophet saith.

So now, while nature muses in the thrush,

Here let us sit this hour,

28And meditate

On Tacita, till meditation shall create

Its own shy image.—Hush!

[They sit upon a log and listen.]

[Dreamily, the fluting of birds sounds in

the forest. Dimly from the background

Tacita appears. With steps of reverie,

she approaches, and pauses before

them. Alwyn looks up and, touching

Shy’s arm, speaks low.]

Tacita! It is she!

SHY

Speak to her—you.

Alwyn

Dryad, and spirit of serenity,

Whose steps have fallen timeful as the dew

Upon our pathway, intervene

For us with that still-undiscovered queen—

Ornis, who reigns among your ancient boughs

30Spirit of birds and sister of our race,

Man. Stir your spell-enchanted feet,

And by their moods arouse

Her hidden grace

To heed us, and hold speech from realms unseen.

[To mysterious music, Tacita treads a dance of invocation, appealing in pantomime to the unseen spirit of wings, which flits and sings and broods in the boughs above her. Alwyn and Shy watch her, rapt and expectant.

Suddenly a sharp gun-shot sounds, shivering the music, which ceases. Through the boughs, a bird falls fluttering to the earth.]

[With a gesture of startled wildness, Tacita breaks abruptly from her rhythmic motions, and flees into the wood, while simultaneously from the other side there enters, swift but staggering, Ornis—a maiden, garbed symbolically as a bird. On one of her wing-like sleeves blood shows. With shrill, melodious cry, she flutters forward.]

ORNIS

Ee-ó-lee! O-rée-o! Sanctuary!

[Swaying, she falls to the ground. Alwyn and Shy spring toward her.]

ALWYN

Help, Shy! She falls!

SHY

[At Ornis’ side.]

Wing-struck! Here’s blood.

32ALWYN

That shot?

SHY

The gun of Stark.

[Seeking to lift her.]

Up, birdling! Here is Shy.

ORNIS

[Droops, moaning.]

O-rée-o!

SHY

Quick! Bring Quercus.

ALWYN

[Hastening off.]

In a jot.

SHY

[Soothingly strokes Ornis’ arm and shoulder.]

So—so! Dew water soon makes well. So—so!

ORNIS

[Moans dazedly.]

Ir-re-o! P’tee!

33QUERCUS

[Reëntering with Alwyn.]

Here, master!

SHY

[Pointing.]

Water!—There!

ALWYN

The bird bath!

QUERCUS

[Dipping his plant pitcher, hastens with it to Shy.]

Coming!

SHY

Sprinkle.

QUERCUS

[Sprinkling water upon Ornis, sings gaily.]

Ó-ree-o!

When shawes ben sheen and shraddes full fair,

And leaves both large and long,

’Tis merry walking in the fair forést

To hear the small birds’ song!

[Ornis revives.]

34SHY

[Assisting her.]

Now, gently!

ALWYN

[Bending over her, calls low.]

Ornis!—Sister!

ORNIS

Who calls? Where

Am I?

ALWYN

In sanctuary. Have no fear.

ORNIS

[Looking from one to the other.]

Ah, me! But what are these?

SHY

Your brothers, dear.

ORNIS

My brothers—they are birds. But you are Man.

ALWYN

Through Tacita you know us now; we can

Speak to each other. Ornis!—Hark.

35ORNIS

[Rising in glad wonder.]

At last!—

At last!

ALWYN

A thousand ages—they are past,

And dumbness, like a dream,

Sinks with them into sleep. We are awake,

And each to each

Can bid good-morning in our common speech.

ORNIS

How sweet and strange! Are we indeed awaking

From callous slumber and old wrong?

So sorrowfully long

The hand of Man has wrought my birds’ heartbreaking!—

Was it a savage dream?

Methought I sat on Morning’s golden beam

And sang of God’s wild gladness: High and higher

I showered His temple woods with ecstasy;

When suddenly

36The earth screamed thunder, and a singeing fire

Shattered my wing. I fell.—

Groping in flight, my feet stuck fast

In smear of lime; swift from below

A tangling net was cast

Where, panting upward, a black hell

Of bloody mouths barked under me;

And there beside them—oh,

There watched, with eyes of wanton cruelty,

A man—bright clothed in many-colored plumes

Of my dead sisters. “Save me from their dooms,”

I cried, “O Sanctuary!”

ALWYN

And you woke

With us, your brothers—healed.

ORNIS

[With wonder.]

Oh, have you heard

What now I spoke?

And can we answer truly, word for word?

[Curiously.]

Alwyn!

37ALWYN

You know my name?

ORNIS

[Turning eagerly from one to the other.]

Shy!

SHY

[Smiling.]

No mistake!

ORNIS

Quercus!

QUERCUS

[Skipping with a bow.]

Your birdship’s faun!

ORNIS

[Laughing joyously.]

Good-morning, brothers!

ALWYN

When have you known us?

ORNIS

Many an age and long!

No syllable has bubbled in your song

But I have blown it first from yonder trees:

38[To Shy.]

No brooding-place of yours—but I was in the breeze;

[To Quercus.]

And ever to your whistle

I pipe the last note from the nearest thistle.

[Tacita appears remotely.]

O beautiful my brothers!

O dryad dear, I thank you! In your dawn,

How brave it is to speak with Man and Faun

As mates and fellows. Quick! Fetch me still others.

[A crashing resounds in the thicket. Tacita disappears.]

Who’s coming now?

SHY

Still others—our fellow man.

ORNIS

I hear a breaking bough.

ALWYN

Kind hearts and cruel are one clan.

39ORNIS

Hark! Surely ’tis some strange distress.

Come, brothers, let us look:

It may be one who needs our friendliness.

Come with me!

ALWYN

[Calling off scene.]

Stand there! Stay beyond the brook.

QUERCUS

[With excited gestures.]

Back, ho!

ORNIS

[Suddenly recoiling with a cry.]

Ah, save me!

[She flies to their protection. Quercus also scampers back fearfully, and hides.]

Stark. Ornis. Alwyn. Shy.

[Enter Stark, in garb of a hunter. He

wears a tawny leopard’s skin, and his

head is gorgeously plumed. Behind

him, two panting dogs are held in leash

by attendants. Stark rushes toward

Ornis, passes her oblivious, and seizes

up the fallen bird.]

STARK

Bagged!—Hold off the dogs!

[The Attendants withdraw with the hounds.]

ORNIS

[As Stark grasps the bird, clutches her own side in pain.]

Ee-ó-lo!

STARK

A rare beauty!—Bah, one wing

Shot-torn! Well, well, we’ll patch the thing.

41

“Sir—Here is No Hunting”

51

VIII

STARK

What are you?

ORNIS

[Appealing with half-fearful affection.]

Brother!—brother!

STARK

[With sudden cry and gesture.]

Ha, my net!

The shy bird shall be captured ’live!

[From his shoulder he looses the net, and flings it over Ornis, seizing the meshes.]

Now, Joy,

I hold you fast!

ORNIS

[Struggling.]

Ee-ó-lee-o!

54SHY

[Extricating her.]

Not yet!

ALWYN

[Seizing Stark.]

Untamed, and still unshamed! Will you destroy

The wings that raise you? Sister, speak to him!

ORNIS

My brothers—all of you! Oh, wage not war

Because of me. I fear not. Stark, you dim

The brightness of our union, greeting so

Your sister.

STARK

[Dropping his net.]

Sister?

ORNIS

Hunt no more

With lime and net: Your love shall hold me faster;

For I am Ornis.

55STARK

[Fascinated.]

Ornis!

ORNIS

Dear my master!

Do you not know me? I am she

Whom first, beneath the dark, ancestral tree,

You rose upon your feet to hearken to.

By me you grew

To song and freedom. Round your olden feasts

You watched my circling flights, whereby your priests

Proclaimed their omens and their oracles;

My cranes announced your victories, my storks

Fed your hearth-fires, my silver-throated gulls

And golden hawks

Saved many your sea-towns from sore pestilence;

And my sweet night bird tuned your poets’ shells

To lull sad lovers in languorous asphodels;

56Yet all my influence

Shone dimmer than my beauty: my bright plumes

Lured you to squander them, till, in the fumes

Of greed, your heart forgot to cherish me,

And sold me unto death and slavery.—

Yet, master, as you will:

Lo, I am Ornis, and I love you still!

STARK

[With altered tone of yearning.]

Yet—yet it seems I never heard your voice

Till now; nor ever understood

Till now; nor paused, as now in this still wood,

To tremble and rejoice

At greeting you, my sister. I am stunned,

And wait to comprehend this wonder.

ORNIS

Ah,

You never prayed before to Tacita!

Your feet have shunned

Her gracious paths, yet only she

Can lead and show my brother Man to me.

57

“Lo, I am Ornis, and I love you still!”

STARK

[To Ornis.]

Look, sister: friends are coming.

Now lead us to their shrine close by.

ORNIS

Oh, first let all make joy of this our union!

For now my glad heart, like a partridge drumming,

Calls for my mates to join us, all together,

In frolicsome communion.

Ho, Quercus, Quercus, call them!—Tacita,

Summon them with your fairy feet!

QUERCUS

[Bounding forward.]

Holá!

64ALWYN

[Taking from his pouch Quercus’ pipe.]

Call loud and long!

Here’s our old pipe, to carry a new song.

[Alwyn puts the pipe to his lips, while Quercus sings to it, calling to the birds. At the end, Quercus begs in pantomime for the pipe which Alwyn, smiling, restores to him.]

QUERCUS

Come here, come here, you little comrades coy,

From hill and swamp and heather:

Make joy, make joy

Together!—

Tawny beak and scarlet vest,

Slant wing and sleek feather,

Bulging bill and cocking crest,

Hither!

Tumble out of nest,

Topple out of windy weather

Here, holá!

With preenings quaint,

Purple dyes and crimson paint,

Here, holá, in merry state!

65Up from dew-grass, down from aerie,

Tacita—Tacita

Summons you to dedicate

Here her sanctuary!

[While Quercus calls, from all sides Birds of many species and colors—like Ornis human in form—gather, and peer from the edges of the scene. To these Tacita now beckons, and by her gesture summons to her dance, while Quercus plays joyously on his pipe.]

ORNIS

Bird and faun and man and fairy,

Gather now to sanctuary!

[Tacita first dances alone, then with Quercus; then, inviting and leading them all in pied procession, she marshals all away into her woodland shrine.]

In the original production of this masque, referred to in the Foreword, the sanctuary stage was devised by Mr. Joseph Lindon Smith in two planes—the natural and the supernatural, harmoniously blended.

The natural plane, in the foreground, was a leaf-strewn plot of earth; the supernatural, in the background, was a constructed stage some eighteen inches higher, sloping slightly upward toward the back, covered with smooth canvas, practical for dancing, so painted as to suggest a weathered outcropping of rock, overgrown in places by moss and greensward.

This constructed stage was divided from the foreground earth by the trunk of a felled maple tree, straight in line and inconspicuous in color.

In front of this dividing line, SHY and Alwyn remained always in the natural plane; behind it, Ornis and Tacita remained always in the supernatural. Their scenes 70together were enacted near or beside the fallen tree trunk.

In the scene of his conversion, Stark was lured into the higher plane by Tacita; while Quercus alone among the characters skipped back and forth from one plane to the other.

As audience, the non-participating spectators sat in dominoes of brown, flanked on either side by the bird-participants in their pied bird costumes. These latter watched the performance until, at the finale, they were summoned by Quercus upon the constructed stage.

There, when all had been marshalled, entered the Cardinal Bird [enacted by Mr. Herbert Adams, the sculptor], accompanied by two small scarlet-tanager acolytes [boys], bearing great candles, to light a crimson cushion held by the Cardinal. On the cushion lay an open scroll.

This scroll, itself a sheet of parchment-like paper from the original press of Benjamin Franklin, had been inscribed by Mr. Stephen Parrish with a Sonnet-Epilogue,

71

Cardinal Bird and Hummingbird

73composed by the author of the masque and signed by all of its participants, with their real names opposite the species of birds they severally impersonated.

Moving slowly forward to music till he stood before President and Mrs. Wilson, where they sat near the centre of the first row of the audience, the Cardinal Bird, with simple dignity, read from the scroll this

EPILOGUE

And sign ourselves

Having thus presented the scroll, the Cardinal Bird with his Acolytes retired to the stage, where the final dance and procession of the bird-participants then took place.

The Programme of the performance [omitting that part of the Prelude already printed on pages xix and xx] was as follows:

MEMBERS OF THE MERIDEN BIRD CLUB JOIN WITH RESIDENTS OF CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND THEIR FRIENDS, TO PRESENT A MASQUE IN THE INTEREST OF AMERICAN WILD BIRD PROTECTION

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