"Poets with whom I learned my trade, Companions of the Cheshire Cheese."]
_The Pierrot of the Minute_, Ernest Dowson"s only dramatic attempt, is touched like the preceding play with the glamour of the old regime.
Its charming artificiality suggests the pastoral games to which the ladies and gentlemen of Louis XV"s circle may have turned for relief after the formalities and extravagances of their life at court.
Dowson"s play, written in 1892, is mentioned in one of his letters, dated October twenty-fourth of that year: "I have been frightfully busy," he wrote, "having rashly undertaken to make a little Pierrot play in verse ... which is to be played at Aldershot and afterwards at the Chelsea Town Hall: the article to be delivered in a fortnight. So until this period of mental agony is past, I can go nowhere." Anyone who has ever had to write something that had to be ready on a certain date will understand the quality of Dowson"s emotion in this letter.
A recent critic who has studied the literary fashions of the group to which Dowson belonged and found that the members were addicted to the frequent use of the adjective, white, says: "Ernest Dowson was dominated by a sense of whiteness.... _The Pierrot of the Minute_ is a veritable symphony in white. He calls for "white music" and the Moon Maiden rides through the skies "drawn by a team of milk-white b.u.t.terflies," and farther on in the same poem we have a palace of many rooms:
""Within the fairest, clad in purity, Our mother dwelt immemorially: Moon-calm, moon-pale, with moon-stones on her gown, The floor she treads with little pearls is sown....""
When the play was given in this country at the McCallum Theatre at Northampton, Ma.s.sachusetts, it was "staged in black and white, the garden set having black walls on which fantastic white forms were stenciled. The bench, the statue, and Pierrot and his lady love were in white. To have tried to depict a real garden would have crowded the small stage, so a garden was suggested, and by suggestion caught the spirit of the piece."[27]
[Footnote 27: Constance D"Arcy Mackay, _The Little Theatre in the United States_, New York, 1917, p. 97.]
Granville Bantock, the English musician, composed _The Pierrot of the Minute_. _A Comedy Overture to a Dramatic Phantasy by Ernest Dowson_, which he conducted at the Worcester Festival in 1908. This music in whole or part may be used in connection with a production of Dowson"s play.
THE PIERROT OF THE MINUTE
CHARACTERS
A MOON MAIDEN.
PIERROT.
_SCENE._--_A glade in the Parc du Pet.i.t Trianon. In the center a Doric temple with steps coming down the stage. On the left a little Cupid on a pedestal. Twilight._
_Enter PIERROT with his hands full of lilies. He is burdened with a little basket. He stands gazing at the Temple and the Statue._
PIERROT.
My journey"s end! This surely is the glade Which I was promised: I have well obeyed!
A clue of lilies was I bid to find, Where the green alleys most obscurely wind; Where tall oaks darkliest canopy o"erhead, And moss and violet make the softest bed; Where the path ends, and leagues behind me lie The gleaming courts and gardens of Versailles; The lilies streamed before me, green and white; I gathered, following: they led me right, To the bright temple and the sacred grove: This is, in truth, the very shrine of Love!
[_He gathers together his flowers and lays them at the foot of Cupid"s statue; then he goes timidly up the first steps of the temple and stops._]
It is so solitary, I grow afraid.
Is there no priest here, no devoted maid?
Is there no oracle, no voice to speak, Interpreting to me the word I seek?
[_A very gentle music of lutes floats out from the temple. PIERROT starts back; he shows extreme surprise; then he returns to the foreground, and crouches down in rapt attention until the music ceases. His face grows puzzled and petulant._]
Too soon! too soon! in that enchanting strain, Days yet unlived, I almost lived again: It almost taught me that I most would know-- Why am I here, and why am I Pierrot?
[_Absently he picks up a lily which has fallen to the ground, and repeats._]
Why came I here, and why am I Pierrot?
That music and this silence both affright; Pierrot can never be a friend of night.
I never felt my solitude before-- Once safe at home, I will return no more.
Yet the commandment of the scroll was plain; While the light lingers let me read again.
[_He takes a scroll from his bosom and reads._]
"_He loves to-night who never loved before; Who ever loved, to-night shall love once more._"
_I_ never loved! I know not what love is.
I am so ignorant--but what is this?
[_Reads._]
"_Who would adventure to encounter Love Must rest one night within this hallowed grove.
Cast down thy lilies, which have led thee on, Before the tender feet of Cupidon._"
Thus much is done, the night remains to me.
Well, Cupidon, be my security!
Here is more writing, but too faint to read.
[_He puzzles for a moment, then casts the scroll down._]
Hence, vain old parchment. I have learnt thy rede!
[_He looks round uneasily, starts at his shadow; then discovers his basket with glee. He takes out a flask of wine, pours it into a gla.s.s, and drinks._]
_Courage, mon Ami!_ I shall never miss Society with such a friend as this.
How merrily the rosy bubbles pa.s.s, Across the amber crystal of the gla.s.s.
I had forgotten you. Methinks this quest Can wake no sweeter echo in my breast.
[_Looks round at the statue, and starts._]
Nay, little G.o.d! forgive. I did but jest.
[_He fills another gla.s.s, and pours it upon the statue._]
This libation, Cupid, take, With the lilies at thy feet; Cherish Pierrot for their sake, Send him visions strange and sweet, While he slumbers at thy feet.
Only love kiss him awake!
_Only love kiss him awake!_
[_Slowly falls the darkness, soft music plays, while PIERROT gathers together fern and foliage into a rough couch at the foot of the steps which lead to the Temple d"Amour. Then he lies down upon it, having made his prayer. It is night. He speaks softly._]
Music, more music, far away and faint: It is an echo of mine heart"s complaint.
Why should I be so musical and sad?
I wonder why I used to be so glad?
In single glee I chased blue b.u.t.terflies, Half b.u.t.terfly myself, but not so wise, For they were twain, and I was only one.
Ah me! how pitiful to be alone.
My brown birds told me much, but in mine ear They never whispered this--I learned it here: The soft wood sounds, the rustlings in the breeze, Are but the stealthy kisses of the trees.
Each flower and fern in this enchanted wood Leans to her fellow, and is understood; The eglantine, in loftier station set, Stoops down to woo the maidly violet.
In gracile pairs the very lilies grow: None is companionless except Pierrot.