The Goddess of Reason 7

The Goddess of Reason 7

THE MARQUISE

 

There is no fisher nor no herd girl here.

How fair the roses of Morbec, monsieur!

 

DE VARDES

 

Ay, they are lovely queens. They know it too!

I better like the heartsease at your feet.

 

THE MARQUISE

 

It is a peasant flower!—Sieur de Morbec,

Have you never loved?

 

DE VARDES

 

How fair is the day!

For loving how fit! ‘Tis the Eve of Saint John.

 

THE MARQUISE

 

Yes.

 

DE VARDES

 

Last year I loved on this very day.

Take the omen, madame!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

We had not met,

You and I!

 

DE VARDES

 

Ah, ‘tis true! We had not met!—

And so, fair as you are, you were not there,

In Paimpont Wood, on the Eve of Saint John?

 

THE MARQUISE

 

No!

 

DE VARDES

 

I wonder who was!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

In Paimpont Wood!

It is haunted!

 

DE VARDES

 

On the Eve of Saint John

I rode from Morbec here to Chatillon,

And through the wood of Paimpont fared alone.

It is a forest where enchantments thrive,

And a fair dream doth drop from every tree!

The old, old world of bitterness and strife

Is remote as winter, remote as death.

It was high noon in the turbulent town;

But clocks never strike in the elfin wood,

And the sun’s ruddy gold is elsewhere spent.

The light was dim in the depths of Paimpont,

Green, reverend, and dim as the light may be

In a sea king’s palace under the sea.

The wind did not blow; the flowering bough

Was still as the rose on a dead man’s breast.

On velvet hoof the doe and fawn went by;

In other woods the lark and linnet sang;

A stealthy way was taken by the fox;

The badger trod upon the softest moss;

And like a shadow flitted past the hare.

Without a sound the haunted fountain played.

The oak boughs dreamed; the pine was motionless;

Its silver arms the beech in silence spread;

The poplar had forgot its lullaby.

It was as still as cloudland in the wood,

For in a hawthorn brake old Merlin sleeps,

And every leaf is hushed for love of him.

There through the years they sleep and listless dream,

The wood of Paimpont and the wizard old.

They dream of valleys where the lilies blow;

They dream of woodland gods and castles high,

Of faun and Pan and of the Table Round,

Of dryad trees and of a maiden dark—

That Vivien whom old Merlin once did love,

Vivien le Gai whose love was poisonous!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

I’ve heard it said by women spinning flax,

“Who wanders in Paimpont wanders in love;

Let him who loves in Paimpont Wood beware!”

 

DE VARDES

 

Ah, idle word! Oh, many silver bells

Since Vivien’s day have rung, Beware, beware!

And rung in vain, for in every clime

Lies Paimpont Wood, dawns the Eve of Saint John!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

And in the forest there whom did you love?

 

DE VARDES

 

I do not know. I have not seen her since,

Unless—unless I saw her face last night!

 

YVETTE (_behind the base of the statue_)

 

Oh!—

 

DE VARDES

 

Did you not hear a voice?

 

THE MARQUISE

 

‘Tis the wind.—

You’re riding through the wood to Chatillon.

 

DE VARDES

 

It was a lonely forest, deep and vast,

A secret and a soundless trysting-place,

Where one might meet, nor be surprised to meet,

From out his past, or from his life to come,

A veilèd shape, a presence bitter-sweet,

A thing that was, a thing was yet to be!

It seemed a fatal place, a destined day.

Down a long aisle of beechen trees I rode,

And came upon a small and sunny vale,

And there I met a face from out a dream,

An ancient dream, a dark and lovely face.—

Give me your fan of pearl and ivory!

 

[_He takes the fan from_ THE MARQUISE.

 

I’ll turn enchanter, use it for my rod,

And make you see, Marquise, the very place!

 

[_He points with the fan._

 

Here sprang the silver column of a beech;

There, mossy knees of a most ancient oak;

Yonder a wall of thickest foliage rose;

And here a misty streamlet flowed

With a voice more low than the dying fall

Of a trouvère’s lute in Languedoc,

And on its shore the slender flowers grew;

Upon a foxglove bell hung _papillon_;

And all around the grass was long and fine.

Within this sylvan space, ah, ages since!

The white-robed Druids in the cold moonlight

Had reared an altar stone of wondrous height;

The fane was there, the Druids were away.

All fragrant was the air, and sunny still,—

On the Eve of Saint John ‘tis ever so!

Above, the sky was blue without a cloud;

The sun stood sentinel o’er the haunted wood.

And there she lay, the woman of a dream,

Against the Druid Stone, amid the bloom;

Her eyes were on the stream; she leaned her ear;

From far away the trouvère played to her;

In flakes of gold the sunlight blessed her hair;

Her lips were red; she seemed a princess old;

Mid purple bloom she lay and gazed afar,

In the magic wood on a magic day,

Listening to hear the mighty trouvère play.

Was she a princess or a peasant maid?

I do not know, pardie! She may have been

That Vivien who wrought old Merlin wrong.

I cannot tell if she were rich or poor;

I only saw her face; I only know

I loved the dream I met in Paimpont Wood

As I did ride last year to Chatillon

On Saint John’s Eve.—

 

[_He lays the fan upon the table._

 

So I have loved, Marquise!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

What did your pretty dream?

 

DE VARDES

 

As other dreams;

She fled!

 

THE MARQUISE

 

And you pursued?

 

DE VARDES

 

Yes, but in vain!

Trouble no dream that is dreamed in Paimpont!

The wood closed around her; she vanished quite.

It must have been that evil Vivien,

Since you, Marquise, have never trod the wood!