Three Plays/The Last Day of Daphne

by Anonymous

THE LAST DAY OF DAPHNE.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Libanius	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	Philosophers.
Themistius
Asclepiades		Priest of Apollo.
Callixena		An agéd Priestess of Demeter.
Ion		A devout Child.
Melissa	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	Young Lovers.
Narcissus
Opora		A Flute-Player.
Lysis		Her Lover.
Isias		A Pilgrim from Egypt.
Agläia		A Young Girl of Antioch.
Myrto		Her Maid.
Damis		An Old Man.
Mysta		A Temple Attendant.
Theonöe		The Sibyl of Daphne.
Flavian		A young Roman in love with Theonöe.

Pilgrims, garland sellers, children.

———

Voices of an unseen mob.

Before the Curtain rises, a hymn is sung by Pilgrims within the Temple, who answer the question of Asclepiades.

—————

CHORAL HYMN.

Asclepiades:

Whence come ye, Pilgrims to the speaking spring
Of the unconquer'd comrade, priest and King,
⁠Far-voyaging?

⁠———

Pilgrims:

From the Mother of Mirage, marvellous Asia,
Where elephants processionally rank'd
⁠In far Taprobané,
Like milk white mountains meekly bow the knee,
From immemorial magical Asia,
Whose praise is sung by Brachmans yellow prank'd
Where Holy Ganga dreams through India.

From the Mother who weaves us silk of deftest dye
—Spun in dim depth of secret Serica,—
⁠And cunning broidery.

⁠———

Asclepiades:

And ye whence come ye led of your desire
To the lyric leader of the starry Quire
⁠The Purifier?

⁠———

Pilgrims:

From the mighty Mother of music, Africa,
Where Egypt Nilus' yearly bounty craves
⁠To flood her land of drought.
Where first, long since, the thrilling harp rang out,
'Ere yet the cymbal was, or cithara
From the midnight Mother of ebony, Nubia,
Mart of the ivory tusks, the sable slaves.
Mysterious Mother of marvels, Africa,
Whose voice inviting to venturous voyages,

Calls yet 'twixt Calpe's height, and Abyla
⁠Unto remotest seas.

⁠———

Asclepiades:

And yet, who by the incense altar linger
To praise the unerring, far-darting, bow-stringer
⁠The Sweetest Singer?

⁠———

Pilgrims:

From the odorous Mother of Myrrh, Arabia,
Who bids on every altar incense wreathe
⁠From happy spice-land sweet.
Whose Queens in royal weed, from head to feet
Dyed with thy purple pomp, Phœnicia,—
The fainting potency of perfume breathe.
From cinnamon, cedar, sandal, cassia;
The while the fateful stars doth soothly scan
—Thy spell enforcéd stars, Arabia—
⁠The pale rapt Magian.

SCENE.

The grove of Daphne outside Antioch.

———

Forecourt of Apollo's Temple. Cypress and Cedar trees of the Daphne Wood seen to the left, above the wall. The colonnade and steps of the Temple to the right. A wall surrounds the court with a large grille at the extreme left. About midway in the wall a niche holds a statue of the Ephesian Artemis, before which are flowers and a burning taper. The shadow of the great image of the God Apollo is thrown across the stage from within the Temple and slowly lessens as the scene goes on.

———

Libanius, Themistius, Damis, Lysis, and Opora are seated on the steps of the Temple.

———

As the hymn ends Asclepiades passes slowly between the columns down the steps.

(Curtain rises.)

Opora:

Once more the dawn's recurrent miracle!
Cloudless, save for one little cloud that seems
A rout of rose leaves blown across the sky,
Above the vineyards of Mount Silpius.
The world, dawn-dewy, is a world made new,
And Beauty's self seems rising from the sea,
Born from the Sun's caressing of the wave.
Whilst, as the light strikes thwart across his fane
The shadow of the Golden God withdraws.
Only a fallen blossom testifies
To last night's tempest.

Themistius.—(Raising his hand to the Image of Apollo):

⁠Helios, Radiant King,
Paian, befriend us in that last, worst, wind
That darkest night, that most distracting storm
Which some day blows for all who sail this sea.

Whether it whelm us memory-less and lost
In the abysmal gulf of nothingness,
Or cast us on a shadow-haunted shore
For ultimate purgation by a fire—
As soiled asbestos whitens in the flame—
Or, maybe waft us to the fortunate isles,
Of lost Atlantis, then at last regained.

Damis.—(To Libanius):

What stir unwonted fills the fane to-day?
It has not known such throng of pilgrimage,
These many years. From ancient villages
Sequester'd, and great cities far away
Flock in the faithful of the Elder Gods,
Stirring old echoes that I thought were dead.
On altars long neglected incense fumes,
Whilst wreathéd roses round the image flung—
Riot with more than Egypt's opulence.

Libanius:

Know that to-day the Galilean horde
Bear forth the body of their Babylas,
Expell'd this all too long polluted grove.
And fervent, the devout in Antioch
Pray the great giver of good, Father of light,
Breathing by Sibylline Theonӧe
To grant them answer of his speaking spring,—
Silent so long thro' presence of the dead—
How fares our hope, our stay, our Julian
Upon his Parthian venture.

Damis:

⁠Well ye do,
Seeking enlightenment of Helios,
Truth's self, the Sun all-seeing. Not for me
Serapis' screed delivered in a dream,
Or chance-caught word in temple Memphian,
I sue not at such seats of sooth-saying
As where, by torch-light, men at Megara,

With lore of Chthonian mysteries, compel
An oracle obscure of age-old Night;
Winning a dubious light from darkness' self.
Nor, impious, seek from deaf inarticulate Earth
To wring ambiguous answer in the cave
Trophonian.

Themistius:

⁠The true Philosopher
At every fane should be a neophyte,
Initiate of every mystery,
Enquirer at every oracle.
From Delos' conscious antre to Deplhi's cave,
From the Trophonian chasm to the height
Where Carmel tends an ever-burning fire,
Or Aphrodité by a falling star
Answers her worshippers on Lebanon,
To misty Mona with her Druid rites,
Culling the best of many an alien faith
To bind it in the nose-gay of his own,

A link the more in the gold unending chain
From Hermes Trismegist thro' Orpheus down
To us late guardians of the mysteries.

⁠(Isias passes up towards the Temple.)

But here is Isias just from Thebes returned.
What learned you of the priests Egyptian,
What wisdom found you in the desert sands,
Under that clear Ætherial canopy
Where most one seems to commune with the Gods?

Isias:

I gazed upon the unregarding Sphynx
Who heeds not Time's insidious injuries,
Or slow-corroding outrage of the years,
But gazes, blind, across the desert sand
The drifted dust her world that overwhelm'd
As long as Nilus lapse to meet the sea
Still subtly smiling thro' her stony sleep!
I sought, I found, I worshipp'd Destiny.

⁠THE PILGRIM OF FATE.

To Destiny I pilgrim went
For whom alone no altars rise,
No incense fumes, no spikenard drips.
She gazes down the centuries
On all eternity intent.
A smile upon her marble lips.

⁠———

I mute before her Idol bowed
Whose peace nor praise nor prayer stirs,
Whom Gods revere and Dæmons dread,
Who still, by myriad ministers
The passive leads but drag the proud
The way predestin'd each must tread.

⁠———

How should she heed—that stony sphynx—
The tiny flame which lights our years?
Our puny heart that throbs and bleeds?

She counts the throbbing of the spheres,—
The fount of fire that springs and sinks
From worlds aflame—not us—she heeds.

⁠———

Ah! seek no longer with Fate to war!
Lay passion by, since strife is vain;
Who dares his destiny to brave
Has such reward for all his pain
As his, who slings against a star,
Or aims an arrow to wound the wave.

⁠—————

(Isias passes up the Temple steps as Narcissus and Melissa come down them.)

Narcissus:

Melissa, rightly are you honey-named
For honey-coloured is your amber hair
And heather-honey-hued your eyes of brown,
And white as garden honeycomb your arms
And honey-breathing bosom.

Melissa:

⁠Ah forbear
Your sugar'd words, lest like a foolish fly,
You drown in honey.

Narcissus:

⁠'Tis the death I crave,
My honey-bee! These flowers are consecrate
To Artemis, but there are blooms enough
Within the groves of Daphne for us two,
For you to gather honey, for me to sip,
Away to Daphne then.

Melissa:

⁠Away, Away!

⁠(They pass out left.)

Opora.—(Looking after them):

Fair fortune 'fal you, happy youth and maid,
Opora ever was a lover of love!

Pass in a good hour under a lucky star,
How happy were I but for one short day,
To be again the girl Melissa is!

Sysis:

She is but promise, you fulfilment are.

Opora:

She is the blossom'd branch, and I the tree
Full-fruited, Autumn sets his seal upon.

Lysis:

Aye, the sweet fruit of prime maturity
The Summer sun made perfect.

Opora:

⁠Nay, our life
Unlike the tree's, one only Autumn knows,
Instant on which the dreary Winter waits

That breaks no more to spring-time. Darling Youth
So little lasting, and so lightly lost
And all too late lamented. Brief, so brief,
A Childhood seeking, and a Youth that finds,
Then Age that still remembers, and regrets.
Theonöe holds for direst tragedy
That Chrestos stands where late Apollo stood
But what the pathos of a passing God,—
Since Gods have pass'd, and Gods may come again—
Match'd with the tragedy intolerable
Of Woman's fading beauty and of Youth
That passes un-returning.

Lysis:

⁠None may probe
The pitiful puzzle of our day that hastes
To ambush'd Death who lours and lies in wait,
In vain we strive the problem to forget

Since ever thro' the laughter and the song,
Through mornings quiet and hush of evening,
We hear the barking of the insistent Sphynx,
Inveterate asker, challenging us to guess
Her irreducible riddle, unanswer'd still.

Opora:

It is not Death I fear but hateful Age.

Lysis:

But even Age may happy be, a mind
At ease and purg'd of passion,——

Opora.—(Interrupting him):

⁠——Aye to men,
But woman's life with her last lover ends.
Conceive a may-fly, with a life prolong'd
Beyond the splendid setting of its sun,
So late to linger were not, sure, to live?
The dark, the dew, for radiant light and heat

That call'd it unto being—Even so,
Love is a woman's life, a woman's sun,
And mine slants fast to westward, why to-day
One only yellowing garland decks my gate,
Where once there rain'd such blossom, you had deem'd
The Spring astray,—of all the treasur'd sweets
She bore to deck the world with weary grown—
Had dropp'd her fragrant burthen at my door.

(Dreamily.)

Ah Youth, Youth, Youth, the delicate days went by,
Sweet and ephemeral as the year's new wine,
Falling as soft as drifted petals dropp'd
From o'er-blown garlands to the lilt o' flutes,
But now, in this uneasy time of change,
The hour grows late, the faltering harp-string fails,
The wine runs down to latest, muddy lees.
As when in dawn-chill'd hall the sleepy slaves
Expiring lamps extinguish, one by one.

Lysis:

How one remembers.

Opora:

⁠How can one forget
The days when Love and Life were bourgeoning,
Breaking so soon to fragile flower. One day,
Winter no longer, but the Spring not yet,
Then thro' a grey night laced with silver showers
Gliding by green gradations, Spring was here,
Whelming the world with fragrance, as the guests
At flowery feasts of the Imperial Fool
Were drowned in roses by their fitful host.

Lysis:

(Theonöe enters during first words of speech, right.)

Aye, youth was pleasant, though we lived too late
Who never knew the noontide day of Rome.

Our afternoon was bright and warm the hour
Lit by the westering sun, now soon to set.
Winter is hard upon us, and a night
Heavy with cloud, and ominous of storm.
Theonöe, I knew you not so near—

Theonöe:

I listen'd, for I heard you speak of Rome.
Ah, what a passion of insanity,
Furies more fell than those of Atreus
Beset this poor Tithonus of a world
Which has outliv'd the glory of its prime.
Immortal, Immemorial, Mother Rome,
How can I help but hate your gloomy foes
Who set their little nook of Galilee
Above the Mistress City of the World.
Poor brambles, jealous of the cedar tree,
Beneath whose shade their puny briar sprung.
These weeds wind-borne within our marble fane,
Will work insidious their destructive way

Forcing the fair well-jointed blocks apart,
Rejoicing in the ruin they have wrought
As Colonnade and cornice nod and fall.

Themistius.—(Looks up from a scroll he is reading):

May we not pity their insanity?
Whom factious Jews despise, deride, for us
Were worthy pity.

Theonöe.—(Scornfully):

⁠Nay, such pity is pityless!
Pity's for women, not for Gods or men.
Pity had never piled the pyramid
Or flung the Colosseon arch so high!
The great strong wise old world knew not of it,
Till dawn'd the day of this, her decadence.
Pity is baleful, like a noxious weed,
Springing where e'er the Galilean trode,
Stealthily spreading in the minds of men

To choke the springs of action, bind in turn
The restless tidal surge of human thought
And turn it to a fell Sargossa Sea,
Leaving for clean, clear depth of wave that was,
—Struck by the sun to living emerald—
A sickly breathing marsh malarial
Lit with fantasmal fires of the fen.

Libanius:

And that faint flickering fire they dare oppose
—These Galileans—to our Helios!
What say the priests of other mysteries?
'Come Clean of heart, and hand, Discreet of tongue.
Draw nigh Devout, with happy holy awe
And raise yourself to fellowship with God.
He stoops not us-ward, we must rise to Him.'
But their God comes in likeness of a man
To Sinner sent and witless, not to the Sage
Of stainless life and purpose.

Theonöe:

⁠Pardon and truth
Denied to them that soar and seek the Sun,
Granted to those that in congenial dark
Batten and creep, a conquest piteous,
To lose the eagle and to win the worm!
Ah, Galilean, that were a victory
More bitter than your vigil of despair,
Of God forsaken, and by man betray'd,
The night where blaz'd for sole sinister star
The traitor's torch of a familiar foe.

Libanius:

How might a God men pity be a God?
A God that suffer'd were a God that sinn'd
Letting the World's ways mire his marble feet,
The World's dust mar the whiteness of his brow.
Who fram'd th' undying world, himself to die,
Were past conceiving.

Asclepiades:

⁠Wreathe our God with thorns
That crown that blossom'd roses on his hair,
The cup of torment turned to honey wine.
But leave contending of an alien God,
And self-tormenting, sad, cadaverous creed,
Since noontide bids us greet the Father of Light,
With murmured litany and chanted hymn.

⁠(All enter the Temple.)

⁠—————

⁠THE HYMN.

O sure-aim'd stringer of the golden bow!
Laying the marsh-bred mist-born Python low.
⁠Archer!

⁠———

O Priest, interpreting by secret ways
The ringing tripod's sense, and shaken bays.
⁠Prophet!

⁠———

O Liberator from degrading pain!
Faller of the white soul's earth-contracted stain.
⁠Helios!

⁠———

O Golden God whose shadow is the Sun!
Chanting the triumph-song, the Victory won.
⁠Paian!

⁠—————

(At the end of the hymn some pass out by grille, left. Others assemble about Damis and Libanius, who sit on the Temple steps.)

Damis:

How wild was last night's intempestive storm,
The fabrick of the world grows crazy and old,
Strange stars blaze forth portentous characters
Drawn on the tablets of the midnight sky
Threatening menace indecipherable

Beyond Chaldæa's science, or the lore
Of flame-adoring Zoroastrian.
Spring is distracted with untimely heats
And Summer knows unseasonable blight,
Whilst Earth herself, our nursing mother old
Grown weary of her swarming progeny
Quakes town and temple in one ruin down,
As Ocean quits his wonted bed, to sweep
Enormous death on Asia's crowded coast.
Either the Gods are weary of the world
Or angry with their children.

Libanius:

⁠Pray you, leave
To Jew and Galilean jealous Gods.
No angry God may ever work man ill,
Anger is contrary to the mind Divine,
But man's misunderstanding of the Gods
Himself may injure. Souls in fear of God
Are souls from Him by their own default estrang'd,

Thereby enduring worst of punishment,
The God is not in need of any man.
The wise man is in need of God alone.

Voices:

Fain would I find the God, but He is far.

Damis:

Veil'd is the vision that in youth was clear.

Aglaïa:

Where may we seek, how find Him?

Libanius:

⁠Look within.
For who would single-hearted seek for God
Fairest and first, may find within himself
The revelation, where unsoil'd, unvex'd
By mire of matter, or the storms of time

Sleeps in the still recesses of our soul
A crystal pool of God's own provenance.
Gazing therein,—as stare the sooth-sayers
Within their speaking crystal—first dispel
Discordant voices from the world of sense
Outside, and listen for the inward voice.
Disperse the shadow'd clouds that brood above,—
The shadow of your own imagining—
And wait with half-clos'd eyes the day-spring true.
So, seeking God's illumination, muse
Waiting the vision of beatitude
In brooding silence and a holy calm,
Your spirit steep'd in peace.

(During the speech Asclepiades descends steps behind speaker.)

Asclepiades:

⁠Far more avails
The sage's silence with the Mind Divine

Than praise and sacrifices of the fool,
Whose hecatomb, whose golden offering
Is food for flame or Sacrilegious spoil
For temple robbers.

Libanius:

⁠God is first and last
Who leads the chorick dancing of the stars
The planet's progress, as the solar stay,
And God is Very Beauty, would you win
To that Diviner essence—count it not
As Earthly Beauty is to man of earth
The brief liv'd promise of immediate joy,
The panting halt before possession prove
Prelude again to dull satiety.
The Very Beauty passes not, nor palls,
But since God's face is mirror'd in His world,
The best of earthly beauty you may know
Deep in your soul's shrine reverently set,
Imperfect image, in a little space,

But still reduction of the master-work
An emanation of the infinite,
And glassing still his great perfection.
Cherish and worship Beauty, till the shrine
Shall grow too frail for the in-dwelling God;
No longer shall infrequent ecstacy—
More fleet than fancy, swifter than a star
In rapture of its falling self-consum'd—
Like sudden lightning break athwart your night
With baffling brightness, but a Sun Serene
Shall flood your life with radiance. Having stood
With Beauty face to face a moment's span,
Now rapt to heaven and your sister souls,
Granted no more to this less lovely earth,
Bless'd by the brightness of His face serene
Stand you within the light ineffable
Of very Beauty, one and absolute.

(The listeners melt away one by one, leaving only Theonöe, Callixena, and Libanius.)

Theonöe:

May then a Soul, grown sick at heart for home
Languishing here in prison, unloose the chain,
Draw back the bolt and win to her father-land
By the low door of Death?

Libanius:

⁠It may not be.
You know that Soul and Body dwelt apart
One in the gulf beneath, and one ensky'd,
Till quicken'd by the universal soul
What was mere matter takes a body on,
Since God has bound the Body to the Soul,
With Time the Soul has learn'd to suffer it,
As men may suffer a poor hovel's shade,
Unknowing of a palace waiting them.
Though Death shall loose the Body from the Soul,
The Soul from Matter must herself release,
Yet not precipitately. Travellers,

Too quickly stripping off a tatter'd cloak,
May leave a treasure hidden in their rags,
And thus a Soul, too swiftly separate
From earthly things, missing her starry road,
Seeks her late lodging in a wild regret—
Free of the Earth, yet all unfit for Heaven—
And vainly strives to enter it again.
Such Spirits haunt the world with wandering lights,
Or cryings from a solitary place.
But the True Soul, when called, will pass serene,
Calmly, augustly, from her late abode,
And, like a dew-drop, upward to the Sun,
Exhale, aspire to Him who bade it fall.

Theonöe.—(Musingly):

And, yet, there have been noble suicides!
The lotus crown'd divine Antinoüs,
That last-born lamb in the starry flocks of Heaven.
Did he not well? Vicarious sufferer,

Drinking the waters of the tawny Nile,
Self-immolated victim, to avert
Impending peril from a darling head.
So would I gladly give for Julian
The unavailing, ineffectual,
And unregarded remnant of my life,
Could but my shorten'd day his day prolong.
But what's a woman's life—a woman's death?
Libanius, that I had dwelt in Rome!
That beating heart of our Imperial State—
Not here, in lazy, lukewarm Antioch,
Which sets her Chrestus and her Constantine
Above our philosophic Emperor.
Our Hero Julian, yet here I bide,
Heart-sick that I must linger, like a weed,
Not wafted at the wind and water's will,
In trackless tideways of the middle deep,
But where sick waters, neither fresh nor salt,
Churn at the harbour's mouth, among the piles,
Limbo of all unprofitable things.

Still the stream offers, still the waves repel,
The shores off-scouring, scouted of the Sea.

(Libanius enters the Temple right, leaving Theonöe sunk in thought. Flavian enters from left.)

Flavian:

Dreaming your day-dreams yet, Theonöe,
With not one passing thought for Flavian,
Whose long day loiters heavy with dreams of you,
Of you, the Delian's priestess Sibylline!
Yet, sad you seem for one who serves the Sun,
And apter for the pale Moon's ministry;
'Twas she that dower'd you with magian spell,
And kissed to paleness all that perfect face,
Wan as the Moon is on a windless night;
You bear with you a breath from astral space,
As though you fared the wind-swept ways of Heaven,

Entangl'd in a mazy web of dream,
Familiar with secrets of the sky.

Theonöe:

Enough for me the earth's strange secrets be,
Perplexing and insoluble, and sad.

Flavian:

The moon's attraction of the strenuous sea
Looks from your eyes, swaying my heart to you
My heart unquiet as the surging tide.

Theonöe:

I would not sway your heart, rather your mind.

Flavian:

It is my body then that you despise,
My arms too vigorous, my brain too dull?
Then will I sail for Athens even now,

Assume the cloak, the wallet and the staff,
To haunt the Painted Porch and Academe
So I may make me worthier of you.

Theonöe:

Brother, your body is a living joy,
I love you for your stainless sanity,
And so that ages hence the world may know
What was a gallant Roman at his prime,
I pray some Myron come to earth again
With bronze or marble immortality
To brace your muscles in a strenuous game,
Wrestling, running, heaving high the disk,
Binding the parsley fillet on your brow,
Shedding your smile through centuries to come.

Flavian.—(Takes her hand):

May still you hold me for a froward boy
As you would have me, only bid me be
And love shall teach me likeness to the type.

Theonöe.—(Holding both hands to him):

Ah! Flavian, I love you sisterly,
But I am Hesper to your Phosphoros
You lead on joyous dawning, I the night.
Your mind is like a wide, a wind swept heath,
Fragrant with thyme, athrill with skylark song,
But mine most like this sombre Daphne wood,
Here blow pale flowers in the shadow'd glades.
Jonquil and violet, fair narcissus white,
And swooning, heavy headed hyacinth,—
The flower that crys Alas! for beauty slain,
Under the bays and cypress secular
Where living springs that murmur to the moss
Fed from a fountain flowing from afar
Eternal tears for Daphne dead distil.
And this I have against you that you live
Not for Apollo all, not all for Christ.
Strewing your incense with indifferent hand
To God of Galilean or Hellene.

You do not well, for in these evil days,
At the decisive parting of the paths,
The old unswerving as the Appian way
With firm foundation fixed unfathomably,
The new a devious track thro' bog and fen—
The destinies of our Eternal Rome
Demand a constancy in all we do.

Flavian:

O leave the jargon of conflicting creed,
And hear me when I tell you of my love.
I cannot woo like a philosopher
Weaving you fine-spun specious sophistries,
I only seek to fold you in my arms
And love you as a man. My father's faith
Is nothing to me, all the good I have
I dedicate to you that did inspire
As men may pour to Dionysos wine,

⁠(Kneels to her.)

Or offer roses to the Queen of flowers.
You are the radiant Goddess of my dreams,
And I your darkling, desperate devotee
Kneel in the dark, yet pray towards the light.
Do you approve my worship? O my Queen,
Come you to Athens from these troublous times
And dwell in peace under the budded bays
With him whose life were aimless lacking you,
Rearing fair children maybe, that may serve
The God with gracious worship, when we twain
Are dust within one urn.

Theonöe:

⁠O I rejoice
To find that Helios with golden bow
Has chased the gloomy shadow from your brain.
I joy to think you sail for Athens soon,
To find the dear, the dread Divinities
Their fair white fanes full-fronting to the dawn.
Where manly Gods are served by men divine,—

The priest almost the peer of Deity—
With worship reasonable, temperate,
But I must wait as you must wander.

Flavian:

⁠Nay,
O anchor of my life's unstable ship,
You cannot love me if you let me go.

⁠(Kisses the hem of her robe.)

Theonöe.—(Lays her hand on his head):

I love you well enough to leave you, Dear.
Your sun be high in Heaven when mine is set.
What would you do in the eternal night
For whom no day has ever been too long,
Who have the Summer sunshine in your hair,
The morning freshness in your clear blue eyes,
Who blythely to the banquet of your life
Address you, with so keen a zest of it.

Ah, wrestler mine, wherefore, unconquer'd yet,
Should Death defeat you with a felon fall?
Live long and happy, train'd to such true health
That all excess seem alien as disease.
In generous emulation of your peers
Using the good things Gods have given to men
And winning women worthier of love
Than I, poor leaf upon the winds of fate.

Flavian.—(Rising, rushes off left):

A laurel leaf for garland of the God,
Too proud to wreathe a merely mortal brow!

⁠(Callixena enters from Temple right.)

Callixena.—(To Theonöe):

Sibyl, reclaim'd by service of your king
Assume the choric robe, the crown of bays,
The wand of budded laurel in your hand
Sprinkl'd with lustral water of His Spring.

Unfaltering, unflinching pass beyond
The veil'd prophetic portal, whence the voice
Of very Truth shall breathe to us by you.

Theonöe.—(Folding her hands on her breast):

Behold I am the handmaid of the God,
So may I echo His Divine decree
Unfaltering, unflinching.

Callixena.—(Leads her away right as Ion comes on drawing Agläia by the hand. Myrto follows):

⁠Fortunate
And happy-omen'd may His answer be——

Agläia:

This way.

Ion.—(Pointing to the Image of Artemis):

⁠No, this way, you reclaim a grace,

Here is the Goddess that shall grant your wish,
Our Lady Artemis.

Agläia:

⁠The boy is craz'd
Poor child, with over much devotion.
I will indulge him.

Ion.—(Dreamily to himself):

⁠She commun'd with me,
Last night in vision that was not a dream.
Bending she kissed me, calling me her child,
Promising me that I should be with her
Before her crescent waxed to full of moon.

Agläia.—(Tenderly):

Ah, gentle Boy, I'll pray a grace of her.
I would my dove would wing again to me,
My coral-footed snowy-throated dove,
Whose ruby eyes would mark my home-coming,
Whose croon relieved my labour at the loom.

Myrto.—(Agläia looks appealingly at her):

The boy is craz'd, I care for none of such,
I like a limber lad who loves the games
And did I dwell in pagan darkness still
'Twere Aphrodite and not Artemis
From whom I'd beg a favour—very well,
I would my sea-captain from Ascalon
No more regarding the Iberian mime
Who danced the Danæ last new year's tide,
Would shower his golden rain once more on me.

Agläia:

Mock not the gentle boy, if he be craz'd
The moon may well his mistress be. Farewell,
Be happy in your dream, fond nympholept.

⁠(They go out left.)

Ion.—(Kneels to the Image):

Farewell, and now, O Patroness Divine,

As crown of glory for my dreamy days
And lonely nights of rapture at your shrine
From my life's ending, let me wake a star!
Not in the throng of undistinguish'd lights
Crowding the stair of that triumphal way,
Which sweeps straight on to your serene abodes.
My planet spin through else unlighted space,
That as I lived on earth, so still in Heaven,
Your taper-tending watchful minister
May yet, a little lamp in leagues of light
Shine to your glory.

(Asclepiades leads on Theonöe half-fainting from the Temple.)

Asclepiades:

⁠So Theonöe,
Breathe deeply of the fresh free air of Heaven,
From your distracted dream awakening,
Shudder you back to anguish'd life again.

Theonöe (faintly at first):

Ah, well, I know that some disastrous doom
Impends on us, falling or yet to fall,
Since duly rob'd and on the tripod thron'd
The influence awaiting, still there lay
A fear like stone so heavy at my heart
Almost it chok'd the springs of being, until
The trance began to fold me, then came sleep,
Not the old sleep, serene and anodyne,
No blesséd influence me seemed, but ambush'd foe
Warily watch'd my weakening, as I swoon'd
Plung'd in the gulf abysmal, memoryless
Save for a haunting horror—I return'd
Flung back to life and sunlight, from the void
Up sweeping, dizzy. Bending over me
I found you, weeping, with Callixena.
What then the sorrowful message that I brought
Returning from my ill-starred embassy,
What answer murmur'd in the merciful sleep,

—Merciful no, else I had never wak'd—
To hear what you must tell me?

Asclepiades:

⁠Thus, the God.

⁠(Reads from a scroll.)

⁠ANSWER OF THE ORACLE.

Faithful, to-day upon the Parthian plain
His mightiest victory doth Julian gain.
This day he doth to Helios restore
The torch which bright, on high thro' life he bore,
Hermes takes back the staff that once he gave,
Athene claims the buckler and the glaive,
The Dust the dust reclaims, Fire, the fire,
See skyward like a flame that soul aspire
Granted awhile to earth, His mission done,
Now rapt to presence of the Sovereign Sun,
Who, blest by radiance of Light supreme,
Knows now fulfilment of his life-long dream.

Theonöe.—(Wildly):

O Julian, your life was like a cup
For worship or libation master-chas'd,
Brimming with wine, held upward to the sky
Golden, and goldener gilded of the sun,
That now dips down to darkness and the deep,
Slipp'd from the hold of an uncareful hand
Lost to this light, and sunken in the sea.

(Asclepiades tries to silence her; failing, he retires into the Temple right.)

⁠(Addresses the Image of Apollo.)

And this you suffer, O Effeminate God,
In chorick garment woman-like arrayed!
By your own music's beauty rapt and whelm'd,
Your lips half-parted, softly in a sigh,
Tranc'd by the passion of your lonely lyre,
Sole with your song within a world of dream
Where wakes alone your melody, and you!

(The confused noise and tramping of the mob is heard outside.)

Voices Outside:

God shall put down the mighty from his seat,
Exalting humble men, and meek of heart.

Theonöe.—(Closes the grille and speaks through it):

Humble and meek of heart, O hypocrites,
Cowardice, rancour, your humility,
Who by your slanders blacken what was clear
With inky venom, as the sepia fish
To take a prey, to shelter from a foe,
Darkens the water. So you pride condemn?
The noble pride that draws man up to God
Raising himself since God stoops not to him,
Nay then, arraign the lion for his strength,
The hawk, bold pirate of the upper blue
For swiftness, and the tortoise for his sloth.

Indict the emmett for her industry,
Impugn the cricket's gay improvidence,
The fox's craft, the lamb's simplicity,
But leave to man the passion of that pride
Which sets him, sole among Creation's Sons
Feet in the dust, and forehead in the stars
To stand erect, and gaze upon the sky.

(Theonöe stands speaking thro' the grille, her back to the audience.)

Voices Outside:

Curséd be they that worship graven Gods
Who boast themselves in Idols.
⁠Babylas,
Purge them with fire, Blessed Babylas,
Death to the Pagans, burn them out like rats
Which scurried from Serapis' image late
When his great idol to our axes fell.
Ah, soon shall a last supreme burn'd offering—

A huger hecatomb than Julian's
Insensate sacrifice of snow white bulls—
From his last altar to Apollo flame,
Soon shall Himself, his temple, and his grove
Go up in fire.

(Callixena hurries down steps right with Ion clinging to her mantle.)

⁠Torches, torches, lights.

Callixena:

Ion, the troopers tarry still to come.
These Galileans, factious and turbulent,
Sudden and fierce as Phyrminos in flood,
Threaten the shrine of Helios himself,

(Ion climbs over wall centre.)

So gliding by the hidden postern door
Fleet under shadow of the cedar trees
Along the line of Trajan's aqueduct,
And give the alarm in Antioch.

Voices Outside:

⁠Torches, fire!
But stay that devil's brat who slips away
To call the soldiers from the guard-house up.
He doubles like a hare, stones, stones and staves.
A hit, a hit!
⁠Ah, would you?
⁠Head him off.

Theonöe:

Shame on you, spare him, he is but a child.

Voices:

A wolf cub can but grow into a wolf,
Better to take him ere his fangs be grown.
—He bleeds, he bleeds—trample him underfoot,—
—There, there, take that from blesséd Babylas
To Artemis, your demon patroness,—
Enough, enough, a fine day's work is here,
There boy, get up.——

Theonöe:

⁠How white and still he lies,
Beyond the outrage of ill words and deeds.

Voices:

Bind you your kerchief round about his brow,
Lay him upon the steps and come away,
Make our report unto the Governor.

(Asclepiades, Libanius and Callixena, with pilgrims, open the grille. Callixena carries Ion to mid stage, and lays him at the feet of Artemis' image.)

Callixena.—(Holding up her hand to the Image):

Thou Regent of the darkness and the light.
Queen of the Earth and Swayer of the Sea,
Sovereign of the full four-season'd year,
Sister and spouse of the all-governing Sun.
Goddess and guardian of Incarnate Truth,

We lay thy little servant at thy feet,
Knowing him safe with thee.

Ion.—(In a low voice):

⁠...To be with her
Before her crescent wax to full of moon,
She promis'd it, and she her promise keeps.
Goddess, my Lady, all the pain is past,
I never knew my mother, but you lean
Over me, motherly, hushing me to sleep.
Good-night, good rest, good fortune.

⁠(Dies.)

Callixena.—(Covers his face):

⁠Gentle boy,
Your life, all service, all devotion,
You liv'd so near the Gods, but little space
You need to travel 'ere you be with them.

Mysta.—(Touches his hand):

Folding his frail hands for the workless night,
Lo, he has breath'd his life out, with a smile.

Theonöe.—(Throwing herself on to the body of Ion):

Ah, tarry, tarry, Ion, wait for me,
Who weary of this strange bewild'ring world;
You have escap'd from prison and shall I stay.

⁠(Rises.)

Ion is dead, and Julian is dead,
Ion has flitted, moth-like, from the world,
And Julian, disdainful of the dust
That men call Empire, gold, or power here,
Wings in a strong flight up the burning blue,
A Roman eagle hungry for the sky
To gaze for ever on the Sovereign Sun.
Their goal the Sun and Moon, but what were mine?

The pale penumbra of some twilight star,
Where a nepenthes Earth has never grown
May give me solace of a lasting sleep.
For them the door has open'd, now for me!

(Stands erect on steps right with arms extended.)

Ah, weep not faithful as for funeral
But rather raise a rapturous nuptial song.
Robe me companions, robe me as a bride,
Wreathe me with myrtle, for the bridegroom waits.
Let all Sabæa in the censer smoke
And myriad roses strew the path for me!
As from this world of Beauty dispossess'd
—My last of song's my sweetest,—I shall pass,
The Swan's way, like the lyric Lesbian
Who could not mate her dream and her desire.
Though every song and sacrifice shall cease
A victim self-devoted shall not fail
To-day, upon thy Altar, Helios,
So let me cease in passionate extasy!

⁠(Stabs herself.)

(The women close round supporting her and lay her on steps right.)

Mysta:

Silent the Sibyl, seal'd the speaking spring.

Theonöe (faintly):

Sibyl no longer, but a woman now,
I drink no more the spring Oracular,
Engarlanded with the prophetic bay,

(Flavian enters during speech from left with a sword in his hand. He moves as if stunned towards Theonöe.)

No more a slave constrainéd of my King,
Death manumits me from my monarch now,
Who held my soul in thrall, but not my heart.
For careless am I that to-morrow's Sun

Shall find in Daphne, the last sibyl dead

⁠(Theonöe holds out her hand to Flavian.)

And dried the sources of the silenc'd spring
Since all my sorrow is to part with you.

Flavian.—(Bends over her):

You are a woman then, I deem'd divine!

Theonöe:

I am a mortal, to mortality
Vowed and devoted.

Flavian:

⁠Nay, you must not die.
The God must save his virgin votaress.

Theonöe:

The God will work no miracle for me.
He knows that flame which on his altar burn'd,

Pales in the fire of your warm human love,
And did I live,—but it is best to die
Since Life has grown too fair, the God too far.

Flavian.—(Kneels on one knee beside her):

Halcyon fleeing from the imminent storm
Linger a little to conjure the sea,
And either bless me with thy love, and live,
Or, if thou must die, rather hating me
Than loving, leave me, else thou dost bequeathe
Undying, soul-dissolving vain regret.
Since still there lies less poignant break-of-heart,
In 'never could be' than in 'might have been'!

Theonöe:

I laid aside my lamp to seek a star
That burns estrangéd, out of my poor reach,
And now, too late, I would my lamp relume—
The lamp I scorn'd of happy human love,
Which best can light our darkness.

Mysta.—(To the women):

⁠Of her life
The torch burns thin and shaken, like a flame
Toss'd in the winds of adverse destiny.

Theonöe.—(Softly, but clearly):

I dream'd my life away. I live but now.
One instant waking, as eternal night
Is closing in upon me, soft as sleep.

⁠(Passionately to Flavian.)

Come, mouth of mortal, consecrate my lips
Anew, to Aphrodite, from my brow
Lay by the laurel, crown me with a kiss,
And set a withering rose upon my hair,
A rose that should have flower'd a brief day thro'
Whose bloom was shed or ever the noontide came,
Who dies as I die, victim to the Sun.

Flavian:

Burn out, false Sun, extinguishing the day!

Or blaze so brightly that you light the world
As pyre for her, your priestess and my bride,
Who gave you service, aye, who leaves me love!

Daphne.—(To Flavian):

Dear, had we only known one perfect hour!
Better than long year of the barren bay,
Or bitter laurel's bloomless death-in-life
To have lain one hour a rose upon your breast!
A white rose on my love's heart withering
Render you up my sweets, then droop and die
Content that I had grac'd your life one hour!

Asclepiades.—(To the people):

Not yet departing that white bird her soul,
—The cage confining her but just unclos'd,
The sky still strange to her, so late enlarg'd,—
Flutters a moment in the open door,

Pausing a space 'ere she take wing for heaven.

Theonöe.—(With a little laugh):

Ion hath hid himself so safe away
I cannot find him, he would frighten me
Thinking him lost, but well I know at home
The first return'd he waits to welcome me.

Libanius.—(Standing over her):

Lay by your body, like a faltering flute
That marr'd the fuller music of your song.
More fortunate than other mortals, you!
Their voice still breaks upon a soaring note,
Rapture of triumph, passion of despair.
Your sweet life, swooning to a perfect pause
Sweeps on a mode serene and gradual
To the propos'd inevitable chord
Closing the full, completed symphony.

Theonöe.—(Very softly):

The Sun sets early, it is very dark.

⁠(Dies.)

Flavian.—(Prostrate, with face hidden in her robe):

How, dark for you? What then for those you leave?
A shadowing sorrow that obscures the Sun,
A night that never shall break to dawn again.

Asclepiades.—(Stands on the highest step, above the body of Theonöe, which he touches with a branch of laurel):

Fleet you, sweet Spirit, on your star-ward way!
Pass to the presence of King Helios
Leaving your lovely body, myrrhine vase,
Whence has escap'd the essence volatile,
The attar of your world-perfuming days,
Exhaled from the crystal continent,

Too frail for service in this wastrel world
Where Time and Chance are careless servitors.

(All raise their hands in prayer. The women strew flowers on Theonöe.)

Voices Outside:

He hath put down the mighty from his seat.
Julian is fallen and the old Gods dead.