. .
What could lies do?--I lied to her of thee;
I swore I knew not of thy vanishment,
Nor the lost children. But I told her true,
I was a stroller and an outcast man
That hid there, like a famished castaway,
For one more word, without a hope,--a hope;
Helpless to save her.
PIPER
And she told thee then,
She goes to be a nun?
MICHAEL
Youth to the grave!
And I--vile nothing--cannot go to save her,
Only to look my last--
PIPER
Who knows?
MICHAEL
[bitterly]
Ah, thou!--
PIPER
Poor Nightingale!
[Fingers Us pipe, noiselessly.]
MICHAEL
[rapt with grief]
Oh, but the scorn of her!
PIPER
She smiled on thee.
MICHAEL
Until she heard the truth:--
A juggler,--truly,--and no wandering knight!
Oh, and she wept.
[Wildly]
Let us all hang together.
PIPER
Thanks. Kindly spoken.--Not this afternoon!
MICHAEL
Thou knowest they are given up for dead?
PIPER
Truly.
MICHAEL
Bewitched?
PIPER
So are they.
MICHAEL
Sold to the Devil?
PIPER
[Facing softly up and down, with the restless cunning
of a squirrel at watch]
Pfui! But who else? Of course. This same old Devil!
This kind old Devil takes on him all we do!
Who else is such a refuge in this world?
Who could have burned the abbey in this place,
Where holy men did live? Why, 't was the Devil!
And who did guard us one secluded spot
By burying a wizard at this cross-ways?--
So none dare search the haunted, evil place!
The Devil for a landlord!--So say I!
And all we poor, we strollers, for his tenants;
We gypsies and we pipers in the world,
And a few hermits and sword-swallowers,
And all the cast-aways that Holy Church
Must put in cages--cages--to the end!
[To Michael, who is overcome]
Take heart! I swear,--by all the stars that chime!
I'll not have things in Cages!
MICHAEL
Barbara!
So young,--so young and beautiful!
PIPER
And fit
To marry with friend Michael!
MICHAEL
Do not mock.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45