{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36609/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36609","id":"gutenberg_36609","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36609","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Drama"],"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by David Garcia, David E. Brown and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Kentuckiana Digital Library)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMMORTAL LURE\n\n\n\n\n THE\n IMMORTAL LURE\n\n\n BY\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n AUTHOR OF\n A NIGHT IN AVIGNON, YOLANDA OF CYPRUS, CHARLES DI\n TOCCA, DAVID, MANY GODS, NOWANA DAYS, ETC.\n\n\n GARDEN CITY NEW YORK\n DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY\n MCMXI\n\n ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION\n INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CALE YOUNG RICE\n PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1911\n\n\n THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n ----infinite passion and pain\n Of finite hearts that yearn\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n PAGE\n\n GIORGIONE 1\n\n ARDUIN 27\n\n O-UME'S GODS 51\n\n THE IMMORTAL LURE 73\n\n\n\n\nGIORGIONE\n\n\nCHARACTERS\n\n GIORGIONE _A Young Painter_\n ARETINO _A Dissolute Poet_\n TITIAN _Another Painter_\n BELLINI _The Former Master of Giorgione and Titian_\n GIGIA _An old woman serving Giorgione_\n and\n ISOTTA\n\n\n\n\nGIORGIONE\n\nSCENE: _A work-room of GIORGIONE on the edge of the Lagoon in which\nlie the Campo Santo and Murano. It is littered with brushes, canvases,\ncasts, etc., and its walls are frescoed indiscriminately with saints and\nbacchantes, satyrs and Madonnas, on backgrounds religious or woodland. A\ndoor is on the right back; and foliate Gothic windows, in the rear,\nreveal the magic water with its gliding gondolas. On a support toward\nthe centre of the room is a picture--covered, and not far from it, a\ncouch._\n\n_Late Afternoon._\n\n_GIORGIONE, who has been sitting anguished on the couch, rises with\ndetermined bitterness. As he does so, BELLINI enters anxiously._\n\n\n_Bellini._ Giorgione!\n\n_Giorgione_ (_turning_). It is you?\n\n_Bellini._ Your word came to me,\nIn San Lazzario where I labored late,\nAnd shakes my troubled heart. You will not do this!\n\n_Giorgione._ Yes!\n\n_Bellini._ How my son! her picture! as a wanton's!\n\n_Giorgione._ Tho it has been till now my adoration!\nThe fairest of my dreams and the most holy!\nYes, by the virtue of all honest women,\nIf such there be in Venice,\nI swear it shall be borne by ribald hands\nThro the very streets.\n\n_Bellini._ My son!\n\n_Giorgione._ A public thing!\n\n [_Points to picture._\n\nFit for the most lascivious! who now\nShall gaze on what I had beheld alone,\nOn what was purer to me than the Virgin!\nThe very pimps and panders of the Piazza\nShall if they will whet appetite upon it,\nAnd smack their losel lips.\n\n_Bellini._ And to what end?\n\n_Giorgione._ Her shame!\n\n_Bellini._ The deeds of wounded pride and love\nWork not so, but fall back upon the doer--\nOr on some other.\n\n_Giorgione._ I care not!\n\n_Bellini._ Nor have,\nEver, to heed me! as Aretino,\nWho turns your praise to Titian, has told.\nFor your wild will runs ever without curb,\nAnd I who reared you, as my very own,\nMust pay the fall.\n\n_Giorgione._ No!\n\n_Bellini._ And the piety\nI would have won you to in the past days\nIs wasted. The Madonnas\nI painted with a heart inspired of Heaven\nYou paint with pride.\n\n_Giorgione._ But with all gratitude!\nAh yes, believe me,\nAnd with a rich remembrance!\nFor scarce oblivion could wipe from me\nHow as a wasted lad I came to Venice--\nA miserable, patched and pallid waif,\nWith but an eye to see and hand to shape!\nYou took me from the streets and taught me all\nThe old can teach the young, until my name\nIs high in Venice--\nLinked with that of Beauty--\n\"Giorgione! our Giorgione!\" do they cry\nOn the canals, the very gondoliers.\nAnd in a little while it should have glowed\nImmortal on the breast of Italy,\nAs does Apelles on the page of Greece,\nFor I was half-divine, until----\n\n_Bellini._ Until\nA girl whom you had fixed your heart upon\nWith boundless folly, you who should have lived\nWith but one passion--that of brain and brush--\nUntil she----\n\n_Giorgione._ Say it!\n\n_Bellini._ This Isotta----\n\n_Giorgione._ Ai!\nWhom I had chosen o'er a hundred others\nTo soar with!\nTo soar and then in wedded peace to prize!\nThis false Isotta\nWhom in poverty\nI found, as you found me, and loved to madness.\nThis fair Isotta\nWhom I would have made\nAll Venice to be a halo for--as were\nCities of old for queens of sceptred love:\nUntil she leaves, departs, forsakes me, goes\nAway, worthless away, from my true arms,\nWith Luzzi, a lank boy.\n\n_Bellini._ So. And most strange.\n\n_Giorgione._ No, nothing a woman does is ever strange!\nWill they not cloak a lie in innocence,\nA treachery in veiling soft caresses--\nTho to the Mass unceasingly they fare\nAnd say like her their aves night and noon?\nHave they a want that wantons not with guile,\nA tear that is not turgid with deceit?\nAre not their passions blown by every wind?\nHave they not all the straying heart of Helen?\nThen why must I,\nWho had in me a hope\nThat rivalled Raphael's or Leonardo's,\nKeep, cozened so, that I contemn her shame?\n\n_Bellini._ Because she is a woman--whom you tempted,\nTho with all trust to wed her--and you know not\nWhether her going was of shamelessness.\n\n_Giorgione_ (_laughing bitterly_).\nOr whether she may not yet return, today,\nAnd with a heart that is a nymph's, a soul\nThat is a nun's,\nBeguile me back to doting?\nWhether she may not--\nWith that body God\nMight once, deceived, have moulded angels after--?\nThen flaunt her thralling of me to the world,\nWhose ready lips should laugh where'er we went\nAnd whisper, \"Isotta, there! Giorgione's mistress!\nWho makes a mocking of him?\"\n\n_Bellini._ Never! never!\nOnly your unrelenting brain would think it.\nFor this I know of her, that tho she has\nDeserted you for what must seem to be\nOnly a new-found passion--\nYet is she womanly, and did you give her,\nAs now you mean, to avid lusting eyes,\nLife would be smitten from her.\n\n_Giorgione._ As it should!\n\n_Bellini._ And then from you, repentant of her fate?\nNo, no, my son, I have not seen you rise,\nA planet from the sea, the world's first painter,\nTo set in this:\nYou owe my fathering more.\nAnd listen, I have brought to you a way\nOf laurels for forgetting. I have come\nWith a commission from the Signoria,\n\n [_Takes it from his breast._\n\nWhich names you the chief glory of this city\nAnd votes you proud permission to adorn\nSan Marco's highest altar with perfection.\n\n_Giorgione._ And which I spurn, an insult in its pity!\n\n [_Flings it from him._\n\nAs they shall learn--these silk and velvet Signors,\nWhose condescending ducats buy the dreams\nOf the immortal!\nOr no!... I meant not that--to wound a kindness.\n\n_Bellini._ Your ways have ever been the ways of wounding.\n\n_Giorgione._ And to the end must be. (_Brokenly_) For now my hand\nIs palsied! I can never paint again.\nColour and shaping light turn in my soul\nTo chaos and to blindness--to despair!\nThe brush I lift, to sterile pain more loth!\nI yearn and impotence alone arises.\nThat picture has dried beauty's vein within me\nAnd left me ... Ah!... She shall atone it! (_calls_) Gigia!\nShameless she is and shall be seen it!--Gigia!--\n\n [_Bitterly._\n\nAretino, who is the tongue of lewdness,\nAnd Titian, who trips to it, may gloat,\n\n [_GIGIA hobbles in._\n\nBut they----\n\n_Bellini._ Giorgione! you have sent for them?\n\n_Giorgione (_to GIGIA_). Whoever seeks my door is bidden--all!\n\n_Gigia._ Yes, Messer Giorgio.\n\n_Giorgione_ (_as she delays_). Go.\n\n_Gigia._ Before I speak?\n\n_Giorgione._ Of what?\n\n_Gigia._ How can I tell you, if I may\nNot speak? And you should hear ... (_Crossing herself_) It is the\n plague.\nA whisper is about\nThat it has broken out at last in Venice.\n\n [_GIORGIONE staring at her, trembles and seems slowly\n stricken--while his eyes fill as with some evil irrecoverable\n remembrance._\n\n_Bellini_ (_fearing for him_). Giorgione!\n\n_Giorgione._ Oh!... and yet ... nothing ... a dream\nThat came to me last night--as if from death.\n\n_Bellini._ Then, O my son, it is a premonition,\nA pall against this purpose! that you may\nNot let these ribald two--\nAretino, this poet and depraver,\nAnd Titian snared within his pagan senses,\nEnter and gaze upon.... O boy, you will not!\nDespoil the picture,\nScatter it to the seas,\nAnd vow never again to paint another,\nTho that would break my heart, but promise me----\n\n [_A knocking interrupts, and a voice without calls lustily_:\n\n _Voice_: The gods of paint and passion ever gird us!\n\nWhere's Messer Giorgione? Ho! Ho, ho!\n\n [_GIGIA hurries out._\n\n_Giorgione_ (_after a pause, calling_). Aretino!\n\n_Aretino._ Ai, light of ladies' eyes!\nAnd with him a better! Shall we sing for entrance?\n(_Begins_)--A wench I had,\n But where is she--?\n A-ho!\nOld Gigia, is it? Then we come apace,\n\n [_Enters leeringly with TITIAN._\n\nLike satyrs to the piping of Adonis!\n\n [_With irony._\n\nA health to you, O heaven-born of Venice!\n\n [_To BELLINI._\n\nAnd to you, glorious dauber of Madonnas!\nBut, bah! the smell of melancholy! Come,\nWhat is it? The tale is out about the maid?\nAnd therefore tears?\n\n [_Laughs._\n\nWell, by the lids of Venus, Giorgio,\nIt serves you well--or Eve was not a woman!\nThere were too many ripe for your assay.\nWhy, I believe that every damsel's lips\nOn the lagoons were pinched with longing for you!\n\n_Titian._ Or enough, at least, to send spleen, Giorgio,\nInto my eyes.\n\n_Giorgione._ They will no more, Titian.\n\n_Aretino._ In sooth! for since one wench in all the world\nPrefers another, he will play the monk!\nSince she, the amorous sun-kissed Isotta,\nHad charms too fair for _one_ to satisfy!\nAnd yet--to choose this Luzzi,\nThis swaddling acolyte of Innocence,\nFor her new light-o'-love! to choose him out,\nWhen, for a whiff, she might have had my arms----\n\n [_GIORGIONE quivers._\n\nO, Titian, by the gods!\n\n_Bellini._ Aretino!...\n\n_Giorgione._ Stay, let him speak, my master, as he wills.\n\n_Aretino._ I say then, Seraph, of your amorosa,\nThat she deceived me--\nThat I thought her dreams\nWere chaster than the moon, or by my beard,\nWhich is not born, I should have tricked her senses\nAway from you ... if lies and treachery\nAnd tempting honeyed verses could have done it!\nFor an Elysium like her warm round body\nI never looked upon.\n\n_Bellini._ Aretino!\n\n_Giorgione._ Peace! he shall speak! for this is what should be.\n\n_Aretino._ Ai, Messer Bellini, and your age forgets\nThat he is well consoled with the dear thought\nThat her first joy was his.\n\n_Bellini._ Ah!...\n\n_Aretino._ And that vision--!\nWhy, I have peeped upon her face, no farther.\nBut to have seen the beauty he has seen,\nThe Aphrodite-dream of loveliness,\nI would have dared virginity's last door.\n\n_Giorgione._ Then you shall see it.\n\n_Bellini._ My son!\n\n_Giorgione._ Yes, tho I die!\n\n_Aretino._ How, what is this?\n\n_Giorgione_ (_going to picture_). Aretino, Titian--\nYou are here, tho there is less than love between us:\nFor, pardon, if I say that you sometimes\nHave loathed my triumphs.\n\n_Titian._ That is so, Giorgione.\nBut with the brush I yet shall equal them.\n\n_Giorgione._ You shall surpass them. For my last is done.\n\n_Titian._ Come, do you jest?\n\n_Giorgione._ My last, and it is there!\n\n [_Points to picture._\n\nThere that you two whose tongues have been so busy\nAbout the streets with laughing and innuendo,\nFrom ear to ear with jest and utter joy--\nYou, Titian, a sycophant of Fame,\nAnd you, Aretino, who incarnate lust,\nMay know that Giorgione is above you.\nYou coveted Isotta with your eyes,\nNow you shall have her as shall all the world!\n\n [_Flings the curtain back from the picture then sinks to the couch._\n\n _As they gaze on the unclothed form, BELLINI turns away, when he\n sees ISOTTA enter. She is pale and ill, but moves smilingly down\n toward GIORGIONE, till happening to see the picture, she gives a\n deep cry._\n\n _GIORGIONE, springing to his feet, dazedly beholds her._\n\n_Bellini_ (_speechless till he sees ISOTTA'S pallor_).\nIsotta! you are ill!... O would my breath\nHad never lasted to this evil hour--!\nShall I not bring the leech? (_when she does not answer; to GIORGIONE_)\nThis price has pride!\n\n [_He goes: then ARETINO and TITIAN. The curtain falls back._\n\n_Isotta_ (_whose eyes have closed_).\nThe flesh of women is their fate forever!\nMy poor, poor body! all I had to give\nSo desecrated.\n\n_Giorgione_ (_hoarsely_). Why have you come here?\n\n_Isotta._ To see Messer Giorgione--who is brave.\n\n [_Smiles as one shattered._\n\nTo hear Messer Giorgione--who is gentle\nAnd honourable to women who are weak.\nTo--heal Messer Giorgione--then to die!\n\n_Giorgione._ Rather to kill!\n\n_Isotta._ Why, it may be. If love\nStill leads me, it were best that it be slain.\n\n_Giorgione._ The love of a wanton?\n\n_Isotta_ (_slowly_). Who beholds her body\nGiven ... to unabated eyes--yet lives?\nI think it must be so.\n\n_Giorgione._ Alluring lies!\nOut of pale lips of treachery but lies!\nYou have returned to me, whom you have cursed\nWith craving for you,\nWith an immortal love,\nBecause this lisping Luzzi,\nWith whom you fled, weary of falsity,\nHas cast you off.\n\n_Isotta_ (_gently_). Kind Luzzi!\n\n_Giorgione._ Ah! and blind?\nNot knowing that you now are here again,\nWhere you disrobed to my adoring soul,\nBut thinking that you wait him with fair eyes\nOf fond expectancy--as once for me!\nBelieving that your breath is beating only\nWith ecstasy for him!\n\n_Isotta._ He is--but Luzzi!\n\n_Giorgione._ And I but Giorgione, smiling quean!\n\n [_She turns paler._\n\nBut Giorgione, a vassal to your sway?\nBack to your orgies! and may Venus, goddess\nOf black adulteries, but not of love,\nBe with them! May your blood, that I believed\nVestal to all but me, run vile with passions\nAs any nymph's of Bacchus!\nMay your body,\nThat I have painted here, be to all time\nAn image of soul-cheating chastity!\n\n [_His words have struck her down--and overwhelm him._\n\nO, I am lost, lost, lost forevermore.\n\n [_Falls into a seat._\n\n_Isotta_ (_at length, from the couch, gathering strength_).\nNo, I have come for saving, Giorgione.\nNow I can speak--but there is little time,\n(_Strangely_) For Night is coming.\n\n_Giorgione_ (_startled to questioning_). Isotta?\n\n_Isotta._ The still Night,\nWith Death's dark Gondola to waft me o'er.\n\n [_Then as he realizes._\n\nNay, stay, stay! leave me not. There is no help.\nFor it must be.... A voice Beyond has said it.\nAnd ere I drift out on the darkening ebb----\n\n_Giorgione._ Isotta!\n\n_Isotta._ Peace must be Giorgione's too.\n\n_Giorgione._ Speak--yet it cannot be--my heart is dead.\n\n_Isotta._ Then it shall rise again.--O Giorgione,\nMy lover once and lord, could you believe,\nEven tho I went away from you and with\nAnother, that unchastity could touch\nThis body which had been holy to you?\n\n_Giorgione._ Isotta!\n\n_Isotta._ It is true that I deceived you,\n\n [_With mystic fervor._\n\nTrue that I went away from you and wed\nAnother----\n\n_Giorgione._ Ah!\n\n_Isotta._ And yet it was not Luzzi!\n\n [_As he gazes._\n\nDo you not know? you who so oft have told\nOn saintly walls the Magdalen's sad tears?\nSin, sin had seized me!\nSin with you to whom\nI gave my body and soul unboundedly.\nWe revelled in unwedded ecstasy,\nLaughed in our love over the starred lagoons.\nSang till the lute was like a thing that lived,\nDanced happy as the fauns and nereids\nThat oft you told me of--\nAnd clasped and kissed,\nO kissed--until I knew that but one way\nWas left to save my soul, Giorgione, one--\nTo wed me with the vows and veil to Christ.\n\n [_Gazes at a crucifix._\n\n_Giorgione._ Isotta!\n\n_Isotta._ I am His! I fled to Him!\nThe Convent opened its grey arms to take me,\nSanta Cecilia of the Healing Heart,\nAnd Luzzi kindly led me to its door--\nThat you might so be foiled of following.\nAnd with long vigils, fasts and penances\nAnd prayers I sought oblivion of your face.\nUntil this illness strangely fell upon me.\nI could not die until you, shriven too....\n\n_Giorgione._ Isotta! My Isotta!\n\n [_Falls penitent before her, weeping._\n\n_Isotta_ (_her heart eased_). Peace, at last.\n\n_Giorgione_ (_rising_). Ah yes! and I am viler than the vilest!\nFor who remembers not that purity\nIs priceless, ends impoverished of honour.\nAnd yet ... there is no wrong irreparable!\nAnd you must live tho all the angels die--\nLive and be loosed from vows too vainly breathed,\nThat wedded we may win again delight!\nStill I am Giorgione, and the sin\nThat we have sinned shall be painted away\nWith holy pictures ...\n\n_Isotta._ Only the dead are holy,\nOr they who die, tho living, to the world.\n\n [_Sees the picture._\n\nAnd eyes have looked upon me--\nHot eyes that burn my body up with shame.\nFarewell, the tide will cool me, the lone wave\nThat washes in from Lido to my grave.\n\n [_Looks toward the Campo Santo._\n\n_Giorgione._ Isotta!\n\n_Isotta_ (_fainter_). Night, the Night!...\n\n_Giorgione._ O stay!...\n\n_Isotta_ (_in a fixed vision_) It comes,\nThe Gondola! (_as if to an unseen Presence_) Row on, row on.\n\n [_She dies. He sinks beside her stricken and still._\n\n _GIGIA enters._\n\n_Gigia._ Messer Giorgione, one has come to say----\n\n [_Sees them, goes near and lifts ISOTTA'S hand. Then,\n dropping it with terror._\n\nThe plague! the plague! Ah!\n\n_Giorgione_ (_rising_). Woman, is it true?\n\n [_GIGIA flees._\n\n(_Mortally moved_)\nIsotta, this kiss then of all the kisses\nThat I have slain thee with will God who dwells\nIn universal chastity forgive.\n\n [_He kneels and presses his lips fervently to hers._\n\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nARDUIN\n\nCHARACTERS\n\n ARDUIN (_of Provence_) _An Alchemist_\n ION _His Nephew_\n RHASIS _An Arab, his attendant and assistant_\n MYRRHA _A Greek Girl_\n\n\n\n\nARDUIN\n\nTIME: _The Fifteenth Century._\n\nPLACE: _Egypt._\n\nSCENE: _The laboratory of ARDUIN in a house on Nile opposite Cairo. It\nis a large room on the walls of which mystic figures of the Hermetic\nphilosophy are drawn, together with the zodiac and other astronomical\nsigns; and many strange objects, animal and mineral, are to be seen\nplaced about. In the rear centre is a large sarcophagus. On either side\nbroad window openings reveal the Egyptian night, and one frames the\nmoonlit Sphinx and Pyramids. Toward the right front is a furnace with\nalembics, retorts, etc.; right and left are doors, and on the left and\nback another alcove before which hang curtains. Lamps burn._\n\n_RHASIS, who is busy about the furnace, in a troubled manner, lifts a\nskull and is gazing at it, when ION enters suddenly and stops, pale\nwith purpose._\n\n\n_Ion._ Rhasis----\n\n_Rhasis_ (_starting and looking round_). Young master Ion! what is this?\n\n [_Drops the skull._\n\nWhy have you left the city and come here?\nAre you aware what hour you have chosen?\n\n_Ion._ That of his dreams. I learned today: yet came.\n\n_Rhasis._ And wherefore?\n\n_Ion._ To restrain calamity,\nWhich must await his reasonless belief--\nAnd to regain his love that I have lost.\n\n_Rhasis._ And have not pondered what calamity\nWould fall on you\nWho would not learn his Art,\nBut from its heritage to penury turned,\nIf here and now he saw you\nAt this hour\nWhen he believes that he shall raise the dead?\n\n_Ion._ His curse; for he would think me come to thwart him,\nAnd that I had forgot whatever wrong,\nUnexpiated still, my father did him;\n\n [_Looks at sarcophagus._\n\nAnd yet I will not go, for I have purposed--\nAnd you tonight shall help me--(_pauses_)\n\n_Rhasis._ Unto what?\n\n_Ion._ Forgiveness of my disobedience--\nThat may be won from him with Myrrha's face.\n\n_Rhasis._ Myrrha's!\n\n_Ion._ Which can alone of earthly sights,\nIf what you tell of his dead wife be true:\nAnd well you know it is!--He must behold her--\nAnd hear our pleading.\n\n_Rhasis._ At an hour like this!\n\n_Ion._ Let her be placed yonder within those curtains,\nWhile he is mingling here his mysteries,\nAnd when he----\n\n_Rhasis._ By the Prophet who is Allah's,\nMyrrha! Within this chamber! and tonight!\n\n [_Ion goes to the door and leads Myrrha in._\n\nIs there no heed in youth or hesitation,\nBut only hurrying want! Do you not know\nHe is without there, at this moment, saying\nUnto the seven planets in their spheres,\nThe seven incantations against death?\nAnd that he----\n\n_Ion._ I know only he must see her.\n\n_Rhasis._ And of all nights in the world, only tonight!\n\n_Myrrha._ No, Ion! let us go. I fear this place,\nIts strangeness and that still sarcophagus\nAppal me.\n\n_Ion._ And make you forget our love,\nAnd the long bridal-hope of it deferred?\n\n_Rhasis._ Young master, she does not, in penury too!\nBut pleas tonight would ope no nuptial way.\nBetter than you I know it is not wise.\nFor ten years is it\nI have dwelt with him\nWhile he has sought in vain this great Elixir.\nTen passings of the pilgrims off to Mecca\nHis wife has lain in that sarcophagus,\nEmbalmed and waiting, as he thinks, to rise.\nAnd now, this hour, he hopes that it shall be.\n\n_Ion._ And should it, will he not the more forgive me?\nOr should it not, then seeing Myrrha's face,\nMyrrha whom you have said is so much like her,\nWill he not----\n\n_Myrrha._ Ion, no! but might--I fear!\nSo fond his grief is and unfaceable!\nLet us return again unto the city\nAnd to my kindred who will hold us dear.\n\n [_Starting._\n\nListen, is it not he? (_Rhasis goes to window_) Take me away!\n\n_Ion._ And have him at the breaking of his dream\nWith none near--and our love's desire be lost?\n\n_Myrrha._ It will not: let us wait another time!\n\n_Ion._ Than this when most your face would deeply move him?\nI cannot, and 'twould shame me! for you know\nHow dear to him is his dead wife who lies there,\n\n [_Takes her hand._\n\nAnd know our severed days!\nAnd shall we bend the knee to cowardice,\nWhich ever has a premonition ready,\nWhen you who are so like her might tonight----\n\n [_She starts back, for RHASIS, exclaiming, leaves the window._\n\n_Rhasis._ He comes.\n\n_Ion._ Now?\n\n_Rhasis._ Go: or take this on yourselves.\n\n_Ion._ Upon me be it! For there is no rest\nUntil his pardon weds us--and I pay him.\n\n_Rhasis._ Then but a word remains, young master, more:\nTo tell you--that I fear--lest thro long toil,\nHis mind....\n\n_Myrrha._ Oh! (_recoils_)\n\n_Ion._ It is not true!... No Myrrha! no!\n\n [_Takes her in his arms._\n\nAnd is ingratitude I scorn to heed.\n\n [_Turns away._\n\nCome then and by your beauty's likeness win him.\n\n [_He leads her behind the curtains then goes, door left. A moment,\n which leaves RHASIS distraught, and ARDUIN enters. He pauses, as if\n at some presence; then, gazing on the sarcophagus, shudders with\n hope and comes down._\n\n_Arduin._ The night at last when I again shall clasp her\nAnd banish death to biers beyond the stars!\n\n_Rhasis_ (_kneeling_). Master!\n\n_Arduin._ Rise up and never kneel again!\nFor from henceforth\nI shall be lord of life,\nThe secret of the phoenix in my hand.\n\n [_Lifts an alembic._\n\nGray have I grown in quest of it and old,\nYouthless and as a leper to delight,\nBut it has come at last--at last has come!\n\n [_Sets vessel down._\n\n_Rhasis._ And I rejoice, master, for I have toiled\nWith you these many years--but is it sure?\n\n_Arduin._ As the moon is in heaven! as the skies!\n\n [_In an ecstasy._\n\nFor last night I beheld\nIn dreams deeper than day how it must be.\nI saw a tomb far-hidden in the earth\nAnd Life within it\nMixing salt and sulphur--\nTwin elements\nOf the great trinity.\nI saw her hands pour out quick mercury\nUpon a bat's wing wrought with hieroglyphics,\nAnd then I saw her cast in gold and silver\nThat melted with strange voice and sudden flame,\nThe while she gazed on me most meaningly.\nAnd then ... when all was done....\n\n [_The vision consuming him._\n\nMy wife, my Rhea, lit with loveliness\nAnd as a spirit clad with resurrection,\nRose up within my dream ... fair, young and glad!...\n\n_Rhasis._ But, master ... are dreams true?\n\n_Arduin._ Such dreams as these?\n\n [_Kindling._\n\n_Rhasis._ Pardon! I know not--only that you say\nSome come of Ophiuchus--\nThe demon you have warned me of--who oft\nWith thwarting laugh has struck the secret from you....\nMany before have followed the mirage\nOf dreams--but to more thirst: trust not too much!\n\n_Arduin._ But fear? fear? you are falling from me too?\nLike Ion the son of him who ... you? you too?\nAt the prime moment?\n\n_Rhasis._ No, my master, no!\nBut I would spare you pain unbearable.\n\n_Arduin._ Ha! and believe--you do?--that all wise men\nOf all the world could so have been deceived?\nBelieve--do, do?--that she _cannot_ arise?\nDid not great Hermes say of the Elixir\nIt should be found--\nAnd did not Polydos,\nThe Greek, chancing upon it, raise his friends\nIn battle slain?...\nDid not the Jew of Galilee, the Christ,\nWhom even you name Prophet, likewise win it?\n\n [_Peacelessly._\n\nSpeak!\n\n_Rhasis._ Master, yes!... But O! trust not too much.\nWiser, I know, than all Arabia\nAre you--like to Mahomet--were it not\nThat you have set within your heart a woman.\nBut if, perchance, the Elixir does not prove----\n\n_Arduin._ Availing? Have not all things pointed to it?\nThe day she died\nDid I not hear a voice\nThat breathed into my brain she should arise?\nAnd as I waited did a book of wisdom\nNot chance into my hands to show the way?\nWere the first words I read not, _In ten years\nThe miracle shall come--\nRevealed to you within the land of the Sphinx_?\n\n_Rhasis._ So read it, so! But----\n\n_Arduin._ Is this not that land?\nAre not those stones the pyramids that thro\nThe ages have stood waiting for this hour--\nWhen I shall bring her beauty back, today?\nIs not that face the Sphinx,\nWhose timeless and intemperable meaning\nNo man has read in desert, star, or sea,\nBut which must be the secret I unsphere?\n\n_Rhasis._ O master!\n\n_Arduin._ Fail, fail, fail? now to restore her?\nWho died as you shall know, here ere she rises,\nBecause my brother--aieh! the father of Ion--\nWho bore as well that name--\nDesiring her, vilely accused her----\n\n_Myrrha_ (_involuntarily, behind curtains_). Oh!...\n\n_Arduin_ (_bewildered_). Who spoke? It was her voice?\n\n [_Runs to sarcophagus._\n\n_Rhasis._ No, master, no!...\n\n_Arduin_ (_slowly returning_).\nFail, fail to bring her fairness from the tomb!\nHer face which can alone sow finitude's\nFell desolation with enverdured dreams\nAnd fill the ways of the world again with hope?\nI tell you she eternal must arise--\nTho God die for it!\n\n [_Begins to gird himself._\n\nMust!... and the hour is now!--\nVenus is in the house of ready Taurus,\nThe moon is full, and as I toiled today,\n\n [_Goes to furnace._\n\nFrom the alembic a strange cloud arose,\nAnd once again her face!... Prepare! prepare!\n\n_Rhasis._ I will do all you say. But, master, if----\n\n_Arduin_ (_immitigably_). No death-word more of doubt. It is the power\nWhich holds us futile from omnipotence.\nMete out the sulphur\nInto the alembic\nOf Cleopatra's crystal.--I must see her!\n\n [_Rhasis hastens._\n\nSee her again, my Rhea, as she was,\nWhen plucking first the poppies of Provence!\nAnd hear flow from her\nWords sweeter than Memnon's in the wind of dawn!\nHere's gold and silver (_hands them_). She shall rise and say:\n\"Years pale you, pale your brow, my Arduin,\nAnd touch to gray the treasure of your hair,\nBut not Antinous could be so fair\nTo me--or wonderful:\nFor you have brought me from the cold tomb to life!...\"\nThe bat's wing then! And to the sarcophagus\nTo lift its lid! for I will wait no longer----\n\n [_Takes alembic, as Rhasis obeys, and continues invokingly_:\n\nBut now, vial of immortality!\nBy the presaging of the seven planets,\nAnd by the searchless sources of the Nile,\nAnd by the prayers of Christian and of Heathen,\nAnd by the elements earth, air and fire,\nThat hold within their intermingled veins\nThe secret of illimitable life--\nBy fate and time and God--I here conjure you\nBring forth the Elixir which shall make her rise!\n\n [_He pours the ingredients, and quickly fumes arise. They clear and\n a liquid is seen in the bottom of the glass. With a cry he starts\n toward the sarcophagus, when Myrrha's face--which, excited, has\n parted the curtains--stops him enspelled. Rhasis, unnerved, quits\n the room--leaving them agaze._\n\n_Arduin_ (_at length, as if to a spirit_).\nI do not dream?... you have arisen?... Rhea!\n\n [_Starting toward her._\n\nArisen ere I touched you?--O fear not!\nFor I am Arduin! do you not know me?\n\n [_She trembles speechless._\n\nO wonderful awaking! O ... at last!\nTho yet the memory of the tomb is on you!...\nThis land is Egypt, whither in my grief\nI brought you, my dead bride! Look on me! see!\n\n [_Stops quickly._\n\nBut no, not yet! until my youth comes back,\nAs now it will,\nOver the sea from France!\nAlready passion lifts away the years\nThat weight its wings and I am as I was.\nNow gaze upon me, now! Is it not I?\n\n_Myrrha._ Sir--!\n\n_Arduin._ Sir! O quickly see. For to my breast\nAgain has striving brought you, to my bosom!\nThe bitter nights are ended--the blind pits\nSleepless and infinite. Awake! stare not\nSo strangely! press your lips in praise to mine,\nYour breast upon my breast!... Delay you still?\n\n_Myrrha._ O sir--!\n\n_Arduin._ See, see! the years have been too long.\n\n [_Clasps her, dropping alembic._\n\nMy arms have waited an infinitude.\n\n [_She struggles._\n\nDo you not now remember with my lips\nTo yours, the brimming beauty of our youth?\n\n_Myrrha._ Release me!\n\n_Arduin._ Awake and know me! It is I!\nYour lover Arduin whom once you wooed:\nWhose every word was to you as a wind\nOf God! whose every kiss.... Do you not see?\n\n_Myrrha._ No, no! I'm not your love--\n\n_Arduin._ Not--? You uprisen?\nHas the tomb treachery to change the soul?\nYe skies, must I go mad now at this moment\nWhen I have brought her back from destiny?\nNot mine?... Awake! Oblivion enthralls you.\n\n [_Suddenly starting from her._\n\nOr is it that there in the grave, another--?\n\n_Myrrha._ No, no! but--\n\n_Arduin._ Ha, then! if not--if it be not--\nIs it that here returned you wish another?\nYou who so gaze upon my goaded brow\nAnd face grown old with toil to conquer death?\nO youth ruthless to age! e'en tho its furrows\nWere got for your delight!--Ingratitude!--\nHave I so hungered thro long years to pluck\nA flower of Hell back to the light!... No, No!\nIt cannot be!... You shall be mine!\n\n_Myrrha_ (_in terror_). Sir, sir!\n\n_Arduin._ Mad will I be, as they have thought me, mad\nIn holding that which I have given life.\n\n_Myrrha._ But you mistake!... I am not what you think.\nHear me, for I love one who----\n\n_Arduin._ Is not--I?\n\n [_As to invisible judges._\n\nYou hear her say it?\n\n_Myrrha._ O, I love but Ion,\nYour--\n\n_Arduin._ Ion, my brother! Then, God! it was true,\nAnd being true thy Heaven is but a brothel!\nShe was unfaithful to me, as he said!\nAnd in the other world has met and clasped him!\n\n_Myrrha._ No, let me speak!\n\n_Arduin._ And spurn me more with it?\nShall I abide mockery like a mummy!\nHa-ha! (_A laugh that racks him._)\nYears but to hear her say that she loves him!\nTo see her come back from the grave, where she\nHas still embraced him, still--and to my face,\nOn which the rage of sleepless toil is wrought,\nTell me.... She shall die for it! God, whose stars\nAre vermin, she shall die!\n\n_Myrrha._ O!\n\n_Arduin_ (_frenziedly_). Die, die, die!\nAs trustless women should: until no womb\nOf lies is left in the world! Die, and be shut\nAgain into the curst sarcophagus\nFrom whence I brought her ...\n\n_Myrrha_ (_in his grasp_). Sir!--help!--sir! do not!\nO, I will love you!\n\n_Arduin._ Liar! and turn from him\nWhom you betrayed me for--and swear again\nFalse love to me? Then ... in the tomb do it!\n\n [_Begins to choke her._\n\n_Myrrha._ O!\n\n_Arduin._ Aieh! cry out to him! will he not help you?\n\n_Myrrha._ Ion!\n\n_Arduin._ That word withering in your throat\nShall stale you past all hope of resurrection.\n\n [_Strangles her--and then looks around._\n\nSo, it is done.... And now, back to your tomb,\nWhich I will bury in the desert sands\nSo deep that not eternity can find it.\n\n [_Begins to draw her toward sarcophagus._\n\nAnd yet (_stopping stricken_) all is not well ... I now could weep.\n\n [_With lone anguish._\n\nI know not wherefore--only that my heart\nIs wounded and seems bleeding o'er the hours\nThat I must live!... O Rhea!... O, my love!\n\n [_Strangely kissing her._\n\nDo you not hear the nightingale that sang\nThe song of our betrothal in Provence?\nIt sits upon....\n\n [_Changing again._\n\nAccursed face! accurst! forevermore!\nWithin the tomb lie (_dragging her_) blind, deaf, motionless,\nUntil--\n\n [_Looking into the coffin becomes transfixed, while MYRRHA'S limp\n body slips slowly from his arms. He gazes at her, at his wife, and\n tries to understand. But cannot, and so, standing long troubled,\n moans_:\n\nI am not well; perchance Rhasis will come\nAnd tell me what it is that I desired.\nMen should not toil o'ermuch; there's madness in it.\n\n [_Then seeing MYRRHA'S face and starting from it wildly_:\n\nRhasis! Rhasis! Rhasis!... Oh-oh-oh-oh!\n\n [_Runs madly off right, as ION and RHASIS enter left. They look\n around, see MYRRHA and rush to her--with a cry._\n\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nO-UME'S GODS\n\n\nCHARACTERS\n\n O-UME _A Samurai Girl_\n AMA _Her Servant, an old woman_\n SANKO _A Young Samurai_\n and\n A YOUNG JESUIT PRIEST\n\n\n\n\nO-UME'S GODS\n\nTIME: _The Sixteenth Century._\n\nPLACE: _Japan._\n\nSCENE: _A room in the house of O-Ume in a province near the sea.\nIts_ shoji, _or sliding paper doors, open in the rear upon a\nwistaria arbor over-hanging a river, upon which lighted lanterns,\nsent forth on the night of the Feast of the Dead, are dimly\nfloating; while the moon above gleams upon the pale distant\nsnow-cone of Fujiyama. The room with its deep straw mats and walls\ndelicately portrayed with pine and bamboo has a paper-paned door on\nthe right leading to a garden, and is lighted by_ andon--_one\nbeneath a shrine to Buddha on the left wall, and one to the left\ncentre where O-UME and AMA are sitting on their heels,\nconstrained, foreboding and verging toward inevitable words._\n\n\n_Ama_ (_at length_). Down to the sea! the sea!\nOh the dead!\nDo they not seem\nOn the night air to hover?\nThere by the lights\nAre not their spirits present?\nThe lights lit for them?\n\n [_O-UME is silent._\n\nAll our ancestors are they!\nFathers and mothers\nOf many lives back!\nThey hear us speaking,\nThey hear from the Buddha-shrine\nThere on the wall.\nThey see us thinking.\n\n [_Meaningly._\n\nThey see in our hearts!\n\n_O-Ume_ (_who trembles_). Be silent! silent!\n\n_Ama_ (_bowing but continuing_). They know if we care for them--\nKnow as the wind\nThat visits all shoji,\nKnow as the night\nThat searches all places.\nAlas for the son\nWho does not honor them!\nAnd for the daughter\nWho does not cherish them!\nThey shall----\n\n_O-Ume._ Be silent!\n\n [_A pause._\n\n_Ama._ Alas for the daughter!\n\n_O-Ume_ (_who rises disturbedly_).\nThe lips of the old\nAre like leaves dying--\nLeaves of Autumn\nThat ever flutter!\n\n [_Walks about._\n\n_Ama._ And a girl's mind\nIs like the dawn mist--\nKnowing not whither\nTo rest or wander--\nUntil, perchance,\nIt clings to Fuji,\nTo Fuji mountain,\nLord of the air!\nThe mind of a girl ... straying!\nAnd what is O-Ume's?... whose?\n\n_O-Ume._ It is O-Ume's!\n\n_Ama._ Ai!\nNot Sanko's!...\nBut were I she,\nO-Ume the fair,\nO-Ume the mist\nOf happy karmas,\nSanko should be\nMy Fuji mountain.\nHim would I cling to,\nNor would I hunger\nTo stray far from him\nWith a white priest!\nTo stray far from him\nTo foreign gods\nThat hang on a cross.\n\n [_Again bowing._\n\nIs he not strong?\n\n_O-Ume._ Be silent!\n\n [_To herself, troubled._\n\nThe lips of the old!\nThe lips of the old!\n\n_Ama._ Is he not brave?\n\n_O-Ume._ I care not.\nA samurai is he--\nOne whose sword is his soul.\n\n_Ama._ And should his tongue be\nLike that of the other,\nThe priest of the pain-god?\n\n [_Immovably._\n\nIs he not kind?\n\n_O-Ume._ He is kind.\n\n_Ama._ Kind! as O-Ume is cruel!\n\n_O-Ume._ No, but as men are,\nWanting women:\nYet not once so was he!\nFor as children\nWe caught together\nThe June-night fire-flies\nOut by the shrine of Jiso.\n\n_Ama._ And then he loved you,\nAnd ever has loved you,\nAnd faithful is he!\n\n_O-Ume._ Ai, and terrible!...\n\n_Ama._ Terrible only\nBecause O-Ume\nTurns from her fathers\nAnd from the gods.\nShe sees their soul-ships\nSail to the sea--\nThe lights lit for them,\n\n [_Motions without._\n\nAnd yet she offers\nNo cakes of welcome--\nNone of farewell!\nNo prayer to Buddha,\nLotus-loving,\nAnd none to Kwannon\nWho is all mercy.\nBut inward, inward\nShe turns her eyes\nTo see this stranger,\nPriest of the Christ-god.\nOutward, outward,\nEver she gazes\nAnd ever listens,\nEver, for him!...\nOh false, false one!\nFalse to the dead--\nFalse to Sanko!...\n\n_O-Ume_ (_more distressedly_). The words of the old\nAre like the leaves,\n\n [_Her voice breaks._\n\nLike Autumn leaves\nThat ever flutter.\n\n_Ama._ And those of the young----\n\n_O-Ume_ (_becoming distraught_). Oh will she hush not!...\nWill this servant,\nWhom my mother\nDying left me,\nWaste my heart so?\n\n [_Weeps in her sleeve._\n\nSanko I fear,\nAnd fears of many\nWorlds crowd round me--\nMany karmas\nOf pain and passion,\nBirths and rebirths.\n\n_Ama._ And 'tis because\nThis evil priest\nStands in the door of your heart.\n\n_O-Ume._ Will you revile him?\n\n_Ama._ Cursed be he!\n\n_O-Ume._ Ama!\n\n_Ama._ I pray it!\n\n [_Rises slowly._\n\nAnd curst he shall be.\n\n [_O-Ume stares trembling._\n\nFor, O blind one,\nBy him blinded,\nDo you not know\nThe people have heard\nHow he has bid you\nCast away from you\nThe gods of your house?\nThe blessed Buddha\nAnd all the tablets\nKept, ancestral?\nAi, they have heard\nAnd tonight have risen!\nThis night of the dead\nThey have gone forth,\nWith Sanko to lead them--\nGone to tear down\nThe house of the priest!\nGone to destroy\nThe image he worships!\nGone to----\n\n_O-Ume_ (_stricken_). Ama!\n\n [_Shrinks from her and then speaks wanly._\n\nNever is there\nTrust in any?\nOnly faith that fades?\nThis was known--\nBut kept from me,\nKept in silence,\nKept for Sanko?...\nO lord Buddha,\nThou, or Christ,\nIs there peril?----\n\n [_Turns on her._\n\nYou have done ill!\n\n_Ama._ I have done well.\n\n_O-Ume._ Ill! and ill shall come to you!\nFor do you think\nSo to prevent me\nFrom my fate-way?\nNo, I will find it!\nThe Buddha and all\nThe tablets ancestral\nWill I take down from the wall,\nAnd from me cast them\nInto the river ...\nThey shall float down to the sea.\n\n [_Turns and goes to shrine._\n\n_Ama._ O-Ume! O-Ume!\n\n [_Catching at her kimono._\n\nThe gods forsaken\nWill pardon never!\nThe gods--and the people!\nYou will become\nEta, an outcast,\nFrom them driven away.\nO-Ume!\n\n [_The girl takes the shrine._\n\nRemember your father\nDead, and your mother.\nThey are hovering\nRound your fingers,\nFaint, offended!\nWill you pause not?\n\n [_When O-Ume continues._\n\nAh for Sanko! for Sanko!\n\n [_Runs calling to door._\n\nSanko! Sanko!\n\n [_O-Ume stops motionless._\n\nSanko!...\n\n_O-Ume_ (_after a pause_). He waits then there?\n\n_A Voice_ (_without_). Ama! (_nearer_) Ama!...\n\n [_SANKO enters from the garden, dishevelled and breathless, but\n controlled. As he does so O-UME drops the shrine and the image falls\n out._\n\n_Sanko_. O-Ume! O-Ume!\n\n [_Ama goes quickly out._\n\n_O-Ume_ (_again motionless_). Honourable friend!\n\n [_With polished anger._\n\nYou dwell in my garden?\nAnd is my house\nEven as your house?\n\n_Sanko._ Be pleased to pardon!...\n\n_O-Ume._ And you conspire here\nWith Ama against me?\n\n_Sanko._ O-Ume knows\nThe samurai's honour.\n\n_O-Ume._ O-Ume thought so,\nBut does no longer!\n\n_Sanko._ Ah the plum-blossom!\nThen it too\nHas thorns and poison?\n\n_O-Ume._ Yes, for the hand of Sanko!\nKnowing the deed\nFrom whence he comes.\nKnowing that ...\n\n [_Breaks off, tensely._\n\nWhere is the priest's house?\n\n_Sanko_ (_angrily_). Cast in the river!\n\n_O-Ume._ Ai, for I see\nThe blood on your hand\nFrom the torn rafters!\nRed, red blood\nOf a deed of fury.\nSo I tell you,\nSamurai rude,\nNot for one life,\nEven for one,\nWill I be yours.\nPlease ... to leave me.\n\n [_He looks at his hand and is going._\n\nAnd yet ... (_as he stops_) ... not thus!\n\n [_She struggles._\n\nThe priest would bid me\nBind up your wound.\nAnd you were once\nSanko my friend!--\nPut forth your hand!\n\n [_He does so._\n\nThe blood----\n\n_Sanko_ (_with sudden fierceness_). The blood is his!\n\n [_As she falls back with a cry._\n\nHis! I have slain him!\n\n [_Mockingly._\n\nAnd did his ghost\nNot come here flitting?\nColdly flitting?\nHere with moaning\nDoes it not hang\nUpon the roof-tree\nHungering for you?\nHe lay in the dark--\nOne lay with him--\nOne who escaped to the river.\nBut him I slew\nThat you might never\nTurn from the Buddha\nAnd from your fathers;\nTurn dishonoured\nOf all who greet you.\n\n_O-Ume_ (_speech coming at last_).\nAh! A-hi! Slain!...\nIt cannot be!\n\n_Sanko_ (_drawing a bloody sword_).\nAnd is this wet with dew?\n\n_O-Ume._ O let it pierce\nYour own heart, samurai!\nFor you shall never\nAgain know peace.\nI will pray to\nThe lord of Nippon,\nTo the Shogun--\nWho gave entrance\nHere to the Christ-priest.\nNay, I will die\nMyself that ever\nYou may be hated\nBy your own heart.\n\n [_Starts toward river._\n\nI will cast\nMyself to the soul-world\nAnd bid the dead\nTo bring you evil!\nThen the priest shall ...\n\n [_Breaks off--for standing in the arbour is the priest, pale and\n spectral. He has come up to the steps from the river. At the sight\n SANKO plucks her back, as if from a ghost. A pause, then the priest\n speaks sacrosanctly._\n\n_The Priest._ The Christ looks on you,\n\n [_Lifts a crucifix._\n\nYou, a murderer--\nTho it is not\nI you have murdered.\n\n [_SANKO gazes._\n\nOne slept with me,\nA gentle servant,\nSlept in my cloak ... you have slain him.\n\n [_Steps forward._\n\nThe Christ looks on you.\nHe will forgive you.\n\n [_A pause._\n\n_Sanko_ (_recovering_). Priest!\n\n_The Priest._ Forgive you.\n\n [_Holds crucifix toward him._\n\n_Sanko._ By the eight million\nGods, he mocks me!\n\n [_Dashes it to floor._\n\nAnd shall perish\nOr go from this village!\n\n_The Priest._ Aye ... but only\nWhen goes this maiden\nWhom you would hold\nStill to her idols.\nShe must follow\nThe Cross of Heaven.\n\n_Sanko._ She shall follow\nO priest, but me.\n\n_The Priest._ Murderer, pause!...\nThere is a Hell\nWhere the lost burn\nEven as say your sutras.\n\n [_Sanko lifts his sword._\n\nPause! and strike not!\nThe smitten Christ\nNo longer holds\nMy hands from strife.\n\n [_Towers over him._\n\nO-Ume, I bid you\nNow cast away\nThe gilded gods you have worshipped.\n\n_Sanko._ And I forbid\nO-Ume _to move_.\n\n_O-Ume_ (_heedless of either_). And I, O-Ume,\nO'er whom you quarrel,\nAnd whom you tear\nTwixt Christ and Buddha,\nI, O-Ume, will end it.\n\n [_Lifts the BUDDHA from the floor, and the crucifix, over her head._\n\nBe all the gods forsaken--\nEven as these!\n\n [_Goes to river and casts them in. Then meets their horror with ever\n increasing passion._\n\nBe all!\nAnd be you gone\nForevermore!\nFor if again\nI see your faces,\nIf again\nThey grieve my hours,\nIf again\nWhile Fuji stands there--\nThe river shall gulf me, too.\nI swear it by the dead.\n\n [_They look at her awed, then go slowly, silently out. She sinks on\n her heels, hands folded, and stares before her. The lights on the\n river drift on._\n\n\nCURTAIN\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMMORTAL LURE\n\nCHARACTERS\n\n VISHWAMYA _A Renowned Ascetic_\n RISHYAS _His Son, a Young Saint_\n SUNANDI _An Old Woman of the Court of the Rajah of Anga_\n KOIL _A Young Girl of the Court_\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMMORTAL LURE\n\nTIME: _The antiquity of India._\n\nSCENE: _Before the hermitage of VISHWAMYA and RISHYAS, in a forest near\nthe Ganges. It is an open space spread with kusa-grass and over-hung\nwith trees--the hermitage itself being a cell constructed of earth and\nof hanging roots of the banyan, and having by it an altar before which\nlies a deer-skin. Glimmering lights and running water penetrate the\nshades, whose sacredness is soon disturbed by the appearance of SUNANDI,\nwantonly compelling KOIL, with alternate harshness and wheedling, to\nenter with her._\n\n\n_Sunandi_ (_peering about_). The place, my jewel-bird! the place for it!\nUnder these boughs of peepul and asoka\nThe young saint dwells\nWith his restraining sire,\nSinging the Vedas morning, eve and noon,\nAnd they are gone somewhither now in the wood\nTo gather fruit for sacrifice, and flowers.\n\n [_With a leer._\n\nBut he, the boy, will soon return, my pretty.\n\n_Koil_ (_whom she has released_).\nAnd you have drawn me from the city here\nTo break into his holy breast with passion?\nTo dance and sing and seize him?\nI you have taught the wiles of winning men,\nAs the cobra-charmer teaches,\nMust lure him from his saintly innocence,\nAnd with the beauty I was born unto\nMust tangle him?...\nYou, O Sunandi, are an evil woman,\nTo lead me to it!\n\n_Sunandi._ And you talk as flies talk!\nWho know not that the gods sow food or famine.\n\n [_Harshly._\n\nI tell you that great Indra of the skies\nIs wroth with us\nAnd will not send us rain,\nSo wisest Brahmins vow--\nUntil this boy,\nThis saintly one, is brought unto the Raja!\nAre we to die because not otherwise\nThan with alluring now we can appease them?\n\n [_Leering again._\n\nAnd why are women fair, my cunning Koil,\nBut to tempt men then, when they seek to take us----\n\n_Koil._ Sunandi!\n\n_Sunandi._ It is so, unwitted girl!\nBe silent then\nAnd do what I command.\n\n [_Wheedling again._\n\nBut it will be sweet doing, beamy Koil,\nFor the young saint\nIs fairer than the god-born,\nHis body like warm gold and lotos-lithe--\nMade for the wants that tremble in your heart.\nAnd when your eyes rest on him they will kindle\nLike passion-stars.\n\n_Koil._ And burn away his peace--\nWhich is the pearl\nOf sainthood thro all worlds!\nUnless his father, strange and terrible,\nAnd mighty thro austerities--one whose\nCurse were as heavy as an hundred births--!\nO let us trust it not! So young a saint\nShould be the holy mate of solitude.\nI would not have him gaze upon me so,\nFor he is innocent of love, nor ever\nAs yet has looked upon a woman's face.\n\n_Sunandi._ Then may he loathe you if he does not! for\nOnly in woman's faces is there beauty\nAnd who beholds not beauty is as dead.\n\n [_Starts._\n\nBut ha? 'tis he?\nNo, only parakeets,\nChattering as you chatter, idle girl!\nWho ever were resistant to my teachings!\nI tell you chirp no more these chastities!\nIf you come back to the Raja\nAnd without him,\nKnow you what then will happen?\n\n_Koil._ I know not.\n\n [_Hears a voice._\n\nNor care not. I will return.\n\n_Sunandi._ Stop, girl.\n\n_Koil._ I will not.\nAll others will I tempt, but----\n\n_Sunandi_ (_holding her_). Him will _love_!\n\n [_RISHYAS slowly approaches, chanting._\n\nAnd you were suckled at the breast of fortune\nTo be the first so fair a saint shall look on.\nUse well your charms--and chain him with enchantment.\n\n [_Sees the girl is enthralled by the voice and goes into wood.\n RISHYAS soon enters opposite, laden and singing_:\n\n Spirit of the risen sun!\n Now returns the offering-hour.\n Fruit I bring to you and flower,\n Here receive them, O great--\n\n [_Breaks off, at sight of her, and the offerings fall slowly from\n his arms._\n\n_Koil_ (_as they gaze long and tremblingly_).\nO saint, is it peace with you, and is all well?\nAnd have you roots and fruit enough for food;\nAnd have you joy in singing holy Vedas\nHere in this leafy-hearted hermitage?\n\n_Rishyas._ O radiant one, yes--all is godly well.\nBut whence are you?\nAnd whither do you go?\nI have dwelt only here, and not before\nHave I beheld so fair a vision fall--\nEven from skies where wing the Apsaras.\n\n_Koil._ I am not fair, O son of Vishwamya,\n\n [_Timidly._\n\nBut I have come from very far away.\n\n_Rishyas_ (_quickly_). And I have offered you no laving-water\nFor hands and feet,\nNor any fruit and herbs!\nWill you not sit upon this mat of kusa,\nOr on this skin of the wild antelope,\nAnd let me loose your sandals?--O sweet saint,\nFor saint so bright an one must be!--it will\nBe dear to touch and tend you!\nFor in this place I have beheld no other--\nOnly my father,\nWho is old and mighty\nIn meditations he would have me mind.\nBut you are fair as well. Will you not sit?\n\n_Koil._ No, pious one, it is not meet for me\nTo touch the holy water--yet I thank you.\n\n_Rishyas._ Not meet for you? O, unto one who is\nSo beautiful, are not all things most meet?\nBetter are you, I know, than all the devas.\nAnd tho for but a moment I have seen you,\nI fain would follow\nThe holy vows you follow.\nFor you I would do all things. When I gaze\nUpon you all my body is as fire\nUpon the altar when I sacrifice.\nWill you not eat or drink?\n\n_Koil._ Not at your hands.\nBut see, O holy one, here are rare cakes,\nBrought with me from afar, and here is soma,\nSparkling and ready with divinity\nTo lift whoever drinks of it to joy.\nDrink you with me!\n\n_Rishyas._ O gladly will I; give it.\n\n [_Takes the flask; drinks deeply._\n\nA wine of wonder is it and of wisdom,\nFor now it makes you seem even more fair\nThan first you were.\nO let me tend about you,\nAnd let me wreathe your brow and limbs with flowers.\n\n [_Takes some and entwines them over her._\n\n_Koil_ (_trembling_). And you are beautiful. So I will weave\nFlowers upon you too. And see, and see,\nO, Rishyas, see,\nFor I will dance to you--\nThe dance of all the dreamers in the world!\n\n [_Unbinds her body-cloth and begins to dance--slowly at first then\n more alluringly, as he follows her, marvelling. Then at length she\n stops close up to him and murmurs_:\n\nDoes it not fill your heart, O Rishyas,\nWith longing?\n\n_Rishyas._ Yes, yes, yes. And with desire,\nI know not why, to lay my lips to yours!\nThen life, it seems, would burst all ill that binds it.\n\n [_Instinctively; clasping her._\n\nOh this is sweeter than all other joys\nOf holiness that I have ever known.\nYour voice is like to piping of the koils\nThat play in spring.\n\n_Koil._ And Koil am I named.\n\n_Rishyas._ And what is this I feel for you, O wise one?\nIn skies from whence you come, what is its name?\nSo pure are you that surely you can tell me?\n\n_Koil._ O holy one, the people call it love.\n\n_Rishyas._ Then is love better than all other bliss\nMy father's meditations ever bring.\nAnd I will seek thro all the lapse of lives\nTo hold you thus,\nAnd have your arms about me,\nAs vines about the asoka clingingly.\nHappy am I that you have found me out,\nAnd never shall you leave me.\n\n_Koil._ No--for ever!\n\n [_More passionately._\n\nBut unto the city you shall go with me\nAnd there with Brahmin rites be made my husband.\n\n_Rishyas._ Which is--I know not what--yet will I be\nHusband and more to you. For now it seems\nThat not the tiger in his jungle-might,\nNor any incarnation terrible,\nCould tear you from me.\n\n_Koil._ Then come quickly, now,\nAnd I will be for you a champa-flower,\nSwung sweetly and forever to your breast.\nAnd often will I dance for you and sing\nAnd love you, Rishyas, as a deva-queen!\nCome quickly, one is waiting in the wood\nTo guide us.\n\n_Rishyas._ Yes, O yes! (_remembering_) But stay! my father!\nFirst I will tell him I have won this wisdom.\n\n_Koil._ No, no!\n\n_Rishyas._ Yes! (_calls_) Father! father!\n\n_Koil_ (_in terror_). Rishyas, no!\nBut come, come with me quickly.\n\n_Rishyas_ (_astonished_). Do you fear?\n\n_Koil._ He is so old!... You guess not what you do.\nHaste, or he will forbid.\n\n_Rishyas._ You know him not.\nFor I will tell him you are a holier saint\nTo guide my steps,\nThen will he bid me go.\nHo! father! ho!\n\n_Vishwamya_ (_heard off_). My son, you call? I come.\n\n_Koil._ O, I must flee--\n\n_Rishyas_ (_dazed_). I do not understand.\n\n_Koil._ Sunandi! Speak, Sunandi!--Ah, he comes.\n\n [_VISHWAMYA enters and seeing her stops amazed. SUNANDI enters\n behind unseen. Deep suspense._\n\n_Rishyas_ (_uncomprehendingly_).\nDo you see, father, I have found one here\nHoly, and fairer than the Apsaras.\nAnd I shall follow her, she is some goddess.\nFor I desire only to be with her,\nAnd she has taught me this desire is love.\nO and I love her,\nAnd tho yet I know\nNot well what miracle love is in me,\nYet it is better than this hermitage.\nFor it has made me seem.... But what burns in you?\n\n_Vishwamya._ My son, you are beguiled. Let go her hand\nThat leads you on to ruin. Do you not\nBehold what manner of creature you so clasp?\n\n_Rishyas._ Yes, yes--a deva!\n\n_Vishwamya._ Deva! This is a woman,\nAnd women like the wind are full of wiles,\nAnd tempt saints to abandon Swerga's rest.\nHe who would rule his mind has naught with them.\nLet go her hand and send her away.\n\n_Rishyas_ (_amazed_). Away!\nNever shall she go from me and without me.\nIf women are evil, as you say, she is not,\nTherefore she is no woman.\n\n_Vishwamya._ O vain boy!\nIn passion's jungle! Break from her at once!\n\n_Rishyas._ I will not. Her I worship, holily.\nAnd she has given me a drink of heaven\nThat has diffused deity in my limbs.\n\n_Vishwamya._ And death, and an eternity of births!--\nThese flowers (_on his neck_) and her feigning have bewitched you!\n\n [_Seizes them._\n\nI tear them off and trample them to earth.\n\n_Koil._ Rishyas! Rishyas!\n\n_Rishyas._ Be not afraid, my Koil;\nHe is my father\nAnd he knows you not,\nFor did he, he would clasp you, as I clasp.\nOr it may be that he is little pleased\nBecause I find you holier than he.\nO father, peace. Control your mind. Farewell.\nI go with her.\n\n_Vishwamya._ Beguiled boy! you shall not.\nThro all these years I have not, from its lair,\nUnloosed black anger.\nBut this evil one\nAnd your desire to follow ways of flesh\nCompel me. Come, come from her!\n\n_Rishyas._ I will never.\n\n_Vishwamya._ Then must I drag you--and drive her away.\n\n [_Strikes KOIL._\n\nAway, lust-thing! away!\n\n_Rishyas._ Oh, oh! Oh, oh!\n\n [_In horror._\n\nA demon enters into you and dupes you\nTo strike her thus, a holy one. Restrain!\n\n_Vishwamya._ No, tho I slay her!\n\n_Rishyas._ Slay? O wickedness!\n\n [_Seizes up wood of sacrifice._\n\nMust I beat off your hands?--Touch her no more.\n\n_Vishwamya._ Wild-vaunting boy! the drink and this vile girl\nHave maddened you. (_To Koil_) Away!\n\n_Rishyas._ Call her not vile!\n\n_Vishwamya._ Viler is she than sin!\n\n [_Again strikes her._\n\n_Rishyas_ (_uncontrollably_). You do a death-deed.\n\n [_Falls on him with the weapon and fells him quickly to the\n ground--then recoils with a cry. The old man strives vainly to\n rise._\n\n_Koil._ Oh, oh!--what have you done!\n\n_Vishwamya_ (_mortally hurt_). Slain ... slain his father!\nAnd lost enlightenment ... and peace ... forever!\n\n [_After a struggle, terribly._\n\nBut not to gorge upon the fruit of sin!\n\n [_Turning on KOIL._\n\nThe curse of bitter karmas be upon you!\nMay you be born a worm and crawl in slime,\nA serpent thro ten score of lives, and slough\nYour skin in hideousness and hate and horror!\n\n_Koil._ Oh, oh!\n\n_Vishwamya._ At every death may you despair\nOf ever acquiring merit!\n\n_Rishyas_ (_terrified_). Father!\n\n_Vishwamya_ (_to him_). Aye!\n\n [_His strength failing._\n\nFor love, blood guilty boy, the love which she\nHas slipped into your heart, is the curse of the world,\nThe immortal lure of all the generations!\nYour arms have ached with it about her body,\nBut know that in the city whence she came\nAll evil men feel in their hearts this ache.\nAnd that you may escape from it, know this:\nNot your arms, yours alone, have been entwined\nAbout this poison-flower--but, perchance,\n\n [_Sinking back._\n\nThe arms of many.\n\n_Rishyas_ (_starting painedly_). What is it he means?\n\n [_With emotions he does not understand._\n\nKoil, what has he said?\n\n_Koil._ O let me go!\n\n_Rishyas._ The arms of many? that can not be true?\n\n [_Tortured by half-born thoughts._\n\nO, have I fallen into demon-snares?\nIs beauty not the bloom of piety?\nSpeak.\n\n_Koil._ I would go!\n\n_Rishyas._ Pain only darker pain!\n\n_Koil_ (_at length overwhelmed_). I am not holy--nor am I pollution!\nBut only one sent hither--O, the gods\nBid us to sin, then fell us with calamity!\n\n [_Hurries weeping off with SUNANDI, who has stood in terror.\n RISHYAS stands dazed, then comprehension dawns upon him and he\n falls by his father's body in a storm of anguish._\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n MANY GODS\n By\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n \"These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the East.... What I\n am sure of in Mr. Rice is that here we have an American poet whom we\n may claim as ours.\" _The North American Review_ (_William Dean\n Howells_).\n\n \"Mr. Rice has the gift of leadership, and he is a force with whom we\n must reckon.\" _The Boston Transcript._\n\n ... \"We find here a poet who strives to reach the goal which marks\n the best that can be done in poetry.\" _The Book News Monthly_ (_A.\n S. Henry_).\n\n \"When you hear the pessimists bewailing the good old time when real\n poets were abroad in the land ... do not fail to quote them almost\n anything by Cale Young Rice, a real poet writing to-day.... He has\n done so much splendid work one can scarcely praise him too highly.\"\n _The San Francisco Call._\n\n \"In 'Many Gods' the scenes are those of the East, and while it is\n not the East of Loti, Arnold or Hearn, it is still a place of\n brooding, majesty, mystery and subtle fascination. There is a\n temptation to quote such verses for their melody, dignity of form,\n beauty of imagery and height of inspiration.\" _The Chicago Journal._\n\n \"'Love's Cynic' (a long poem in the volume) might be by Browning at\n his best.\" _Pittsburg Gazette-Times._\n\n \"This is a serious, and from any standpoint, a successful piece of\n work ... in it are poems that will become classic.\" _Passaic_ (_New\n Jersey_) _News._\n\n \"Mr. Rice must be hailed as one among living masters of his art, one\n to whom we may look for yet greater things.\" _Presbyterian Advance._\n\n \"This book is in many respects a remarkable work. The poems are\n indeed poems.\" _The Nashville Banner._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's poetical plays reach a high level of achievement.... But\n these poems show a higher vision and surer mastery of expression\n than ever before.\" _The London Bookman._\n\n _Net, $1.25_ (_postage 12c._)\n\n\n\n\n A NIGHT IN AVIGNON\n By\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n _Successfully produced by Donald Robertson_\n\n\n \"It is as vivid as a page from Browning. Mr. Rice has the dramatic\n pulse.\" _James Huneker._\n\n \"It embraces in small compass all the essentials of the drama.\" _New\n York Saturday Times Review_ (_Jessie B. Rittenhouse_).\n\n \"It presents one of the most striking situations in dramatic\n literature and its climax could not be improved.\" _The San Francisco\n Call._\n\n \"It has undeniable power, and is a very decided poetic achievement.\"\n _The Boston Transcript._\n\n \"It leaves an enduring impression of a soul tragedy.\" _The\n Churchman._\n\n \"Since the publication of his 'Charles di Tocca' and other dramas,\n Cale Young Rice has justly been regarded as a leading American\n master of that difficult form, and many critics have ranked him\n above Stephen Phillips, at least on the dramatic side of his art.\n And this judgment is further confirmed by 'A Night in Avignon.' It\n is almost incredible that in less than 500 lines Mr. Rice should\n have been able to create so perfect a play with so powerful a\n dramatic effect.\" _The Chicago Record-Herald_ (_Edwin S. Shuman_).\n\n \"There is poetic richness in this brilliant composition; a beauty of\n sentiment and grace in every line. It is impressive, metrically\n pleasing and dramatically powerful.\" _The Philadelphia Record._\n\n \"It offers one of the most striking situations in dramatic\n literature.\" _The Louisville Courier-Journal._\n\n \"The publication of a poetic drama of the quality of Mr. Rice's is\n an important event in the present tendency of American literature.\n He is a leader in this most significant movement, and 'A Night in\n Avignon' is marked, like his other plays, by dramatic directness,\n high poetic fervor, clarity of poetic diction, and felicity of\n phrasing.\" _The Chicago Journal._\n\n \"It is a dramatically told episode, and the metre is most\n effectively handled, making a welcome change for blank verse, and\n greatly enhancing the interest.\" _Sydney Lee._\n\n \"Many critics, on hearing Mr. Bryce's prediction that America will\n one day have a poet, would be tempted to remind him of Mr. Rice.\"\n _The Hartford_ (_Conn._) _Courant._\n\n _Net 50c._ (_postage 5c._)\n\n\n\n\n YOLANDA OF CYPRUS\n A Poetic Drama by\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n Minnie Maddern Fisk says: \"No one can doubt that it is superior\n poetically and dramatically to Stephen Phillips' work,\" and that Mr.\n Rice ranks with Mr. Phillips at his best has often been reaffirmed.\n\n \"It is encouraging to the hope of a native drama to know that an\n American has written a play which is at the same time of decided\n poetic merit and of decided dramatic power.\" _The New York Times_\n (_Charles M. Hathaway, Jr._).\n\n \"The most remarkable quality of the play is its sustained dramatic\n strength. Poetically it is frequently of great beauty. It is also\n lofty in conception, lucid and felicitous in style, and the dramatic\n pulse throbs in every line.\" _The Chicago Record-Herald._\n\n _The Springfield Republican_ says: \"The characters are drawn with\n force and the play is dignified and powerful,\" and adds that if it\n does not succeed on the stage it will be \"because of its\n excellence.\"\n\n \"Mr. Rice is one of the few present-day poets who have the\n steadiness and weight for a well-sustained drama.\" _The Louisville\n Post_ (_Margaret Anderson_).\n\n \"It has equal command of imagination, dramatic utterance,\n picturesque effectiveness and metrical harmony.\" _The London_\n (_England_) _Bookman._\n\n _T. P.'s Weekly_ says: \"It might well stand the difficult test of\n production and will be welcomed by all who care for serious verse.\"\n\n _The Glasgow_ (_Scotland_) _Herald_ says: \"Yolanda of Cyprus is\n finely constructed; the irregular blank verse admirably adapted for\n the exigencies of intense emotion; the characters firmly drawn; and\n the climax serves the purpose of good stagecraft and poetic\n justice.\"\n\n \"It is well constructed and instinct with dramatic power.\" _Sydney\n Lee._\n\n \"It is as readable as a novel.\" _The Pittsburg Post._\n\n \"Here and there an almost Shakespearean note is struck. In makeup,\n arrangement, and poetic intensity it ranks with Stephen Phillips'\n work.\" _The Book News Monthly._\n\n _Net, $1.25_ (_postage 10c._)\n\n\n\n\n CHARLES DI TOCCA\n By\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n \"I take off my hat to Mr. Rice. His play is full of poetry, and the\n pitch and dignity of the whole are remarkable.\" _James Lane Allen._\n\n \"It is a dramatic poem one reads with a heightened sense of its fine\n quality throughout. It is sincere, strong, finished and noble, and\n sustains its distinction of manner to the end.... The character of\n Helena is not unworthy of any of the great masters of dramatic\n utterance.\" _The Chicago Tribune._\n\n \"The drama is one of the best of the kind ever written by an\n American author. Its whole tone is masterful, and it must be classed\n as one of the really literary works of the season.\" (1903). _The\n Milwaukee Sentinel._\n\n \"It shows a remarkable sense of dramatic construction as well as\n poetic power and strong characterization.\" _James MacArthur, in\n Harper's Weekly._\n\n \"This play has many elements of perfection. Its plot is developed\n with ease and with a large dramatic force; its characters are drawn\n with sympathy and decision; and its thoughts rise to a very real\n beauty. By reason of it the writer has gained an assured place among\n playwrights who seek to give literary as well as dramatic worth to\n their plays.\" _The Richmond_ (_Va._) _News-Leader._\n\n \"The action of the play is admirably compact and coherent, and it\n contains tragic situations which will afford pleasure not only to\n the student, but to the technical reader.\" _The Nation._\n\n \"It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical drama written by\n an American for some years. There is genuine pathos, mighty yet\n never repellent passion, great sincerity and penetration, and great\n elevation and beauty of language.\" _The Chicago Post._\n\n \"Mr. Rice ranks among America's choicest poets on account of his\n power to turn music into words, his virility, and of the fact that\n he has something of his own to say.\" _The Boston Globe._\n\n \"The whole play breathes forth the indefinable spirit of the Italian\n renaissance. In poetic style and dramatic treatment it is a work of\n art.\" _The Baltimore Sun._\n\n _Paper boards. Net, $1.25_ (_postage, 9c._)\n\n\n\n\n NIRVANA DAYS\n Poems by\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n \"Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up almost the entire\n equipment of many poets nowadays, but human nature is more to him\n always ... and he has the feeling and imaginative sympathy without\n which all poetry is but an empty and vain thing.\" _The London\n Bookman._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's note is a clarion call, and of his two poems, 'The\n Strong Man to His Sires' and 'The Young to the Old,' the former will\n send a thrill to the heart of every man who has the instinct of race\n in his blood, while the latter should be printed above the desk of\n every minor poet and pessimist.... The sonnets of the sequence,\n 'Quest and Requital,' have the elements of great poetry in them.\"\n _The Glasgow_ (_Scotland_) _Herald._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's poems are singularly free from affectation, and he seems\n to have written because of the sincere need of expressing something\n that had to take art form.\" _The Sun_ (_New York_).\n\n \"The ability to write verse that scans is quite common.... But the\n inspired thought behind the lines is a different thing; and it is\n this thought untrammeled--the clear vision searching into the deeps\n of human emotion--which gives the verse of Mr. Rice weight and\n potency.... In the range of his metrical skill he easily stands with\n the best of living craftsmen ... and we have in him ... a poet whose\n dramas and lyrics will endure.\" _The Book News Monthly_ (_A. S.\n Henry_).\n\n \"These poems are marked by a breadth of outlook, individuality and\n beauty of thought. The author reveals deep, sincere feeling on\n topics which do not readily lend themselves to artistic expression\n and which he makes eminently worth while.\" _The Buffalo_ (_N. Y._)\n _Courier._\n\n \"We get throughout the idea of a vast universe and of the soul\n merging itself in the infinite.... The great poem of the volume,\n however, is 'The Strong Man to His Sires.'\" _The Louisville Post_\n (_Margaret S. Anderson_).\n\n \"The poems possess much music ... and even in the height of\n intensified feeling the clearness of Mr. Rice's ideas is not dimmed\n by the obscure haze that too often goes with the divine fire.\" _The\n Boston Globe._\n\n _Paper boards. Net, $1.25_ (_postage 12c._)\n\n\n\n\n DAVID\n A Poetic Drama by\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n \"I was greatly impressed with it and derived a sense of personal\n encouragement from the evidence of so fine and lofty a product for\n the stage.\" _Richard Mansfield._\n\n \"It is a powerful piece of dramatic portraiture in which Cale Young\n Rice has again demonstrated his insight and power. What he did\n before in 'Charles di Tocca' he has repeated and improved upon....\n Not a few instances of his strength might be cited as of almost\n Shakespearean force. Indeed the strictly literary merit of the\n tragedy is altogether extraordinary. It is a contribution to the\n drama full of charm and power.\" _The Chicago Tribune._\n\n \"From the standpoint of poetry, dignity of conception, spiritual\n elevation and finish and beauty of line, Mr. Rice's 'David' is,\n perhaps, superior to his 'Yolanda of Cyprus,' but the two can\n scarcely be compared.\" _The New York Times_ (_Jessie B.\n Rittenhouse_).\n\n \"Never before has the theme received treatment in a manner so worthy\n of it.\" The _St. Louis Globe-Democrat._\n\n \"It needs but a word, for it has been passed upon and approved by\n critics all over the country.\" _Book News Monthly._ And again: \"But\n few recent writers seem to have found the secret of dramatic blank\n verse; and of that small number, Mr. Rice is, if not first, at least\n without superior.\"\n\n \"With instinctive dramatic and poetic power, Mr. Rice combines a\n knowledge of the exigencies of the stage.\" _Harper's Weekly._\n\n \"It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an Englishman or a Frenchman,\n his reputation as his country's most distinguished poetic dramatist\n would have been assured by a more universal sign of recognition.\"\n _The Baltimore News_ (_writing of all Mr. Rice's plays_).\n\n\n _Net, $1.25_ (_postage 12c._)\n\n\n\n\n SONG-SURF\n (Being the Lyrics of Plays and Lyrics) by\n CALE YOUNG RICE\n\n\n \"Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with nature and life, and a\n welcome originality of sentiment and metrical harmony.\" _Sydney\n Lee._\n\n \"In his lyrics Mr. Rice's imagination works most successfully. He is\n an optimist--and in these days an optimist is irresistible--and he\n can touch delicately things too holy for a rough or violent pathos.\"\n _The London Star_ (_James Douglas_).\n\n \"Mr. Rice's highest gift is essentially lyrical. His lyrics have a\n charm and grace of melody distinctively their own.\" _The London\n Bookman._\n\n \"Mr. Rice is keenly responsive to the loveliness of the outside\n world, and he reveals this beauty in words that sing themselves.\"\n _The Boston Transcript._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's work is everywhere marked by true imaginative power and\n elevation of feeling.\" _The Scotsman._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's work would seem to rank with the best of our American\n poets of to-day.\" _The Atlanta Constitution._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's poems are touched with the magic of the muse. They have\n inspiration, grace and true lyric quality.\" _The Book News Monthly._\n\n \"Mr. Rice's poetry as a whole is both strongly and delicately\n spiritual. Many of these lyrics have the true romantic mystery and\n charm.... To write thus is no indifferent matter. It indicates not\n only long work but long brooding on the beauty and mystery of life.\"\n _The Louisville Post._\n\n \"Mr. Rice is indisputably one of the greatest poets who have lived\n in America.... And some of these (earlier) poems are truly\n beautiful.\" _The Times-Union_ (_Albany, N. Y._)\n\n\n _Net, $1.25_ (_postage 12c._)\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:\n\n\n Text in italics is indicated by underscores: _italics_.\n\n Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from\n the original.\n\n Punctuation has been corrected without note.\n\n Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows:\n Page 4: The changed to Tho\n Advertisement for Song-Surf: PRICE changed to RICE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
","title":"The Immortal Lure","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":11935}