Loss and vicissitude cannot appal me,
Not even death can dismay or amaze me
Fixed in the certainty of love unchanging.
I feel utterly secure
In you; I am a part of you. Now take me to my father.
CURTAIN
The Cast of the First Production
at the
Edinburgh Festival
August 25–August 30 1958
Monica Claverton-Ferry ANNA MASSEY
Charles Hemington RICHARD GALE
Lambert GEOFFREY KERR
Lord Claverton PAUL ROGERS
Federico Gomez WILLIAM SQUIRE
Mrs. Piggott DOROTHEA PHILLIPS
Mrs. Carghill EILEEN PEEL
Michael Claverton-Ferry ALEC MCCOWEN
Presented by HENRY SHEREK
Directed by E. MARTIN BROWNE
Settings designed by HUTCHINSON SCOTT
POEMS WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH
A Fable for Feasters
In England, long before that royal Mormon
King Henry VIII found out that monks were quacks,
And took their lands and money from the poor men,
And brought their abbeys tumbling at their backs,
There was a village founded by some Norman
Who levied on all travelers his tax;
Nearby this hamlet was a monastery
Inhabited by a band of friars merry.
They were possessors of rich lands and wide,
An orchard, and a vineyard, and a dairy;
Whenever some old villainous baron died,
He added to their hoards — a deed which ne’er he
Had done before — their fortune multiplied,
As if they had been kept by a kind fairy.
Alas! no fairy visited their host,
Oh, no; much worse than that, they had a ghost.
Some wicked and heretical old sinner
Perhaps, who had been walled up for his crimes;
At any rate, he sometimes came to dinner,
Whene’er the monks were having merry times.
He stole the fatter cows and left the thinner
To furnish all the milk — upset the chimes,
And once he sat the prior on the steeple,
To the astonishment of all the people.
When Christmas time was near the Abbot vowed
They’d eat their meal from ghosts and phantoms free,
The fiend must stay at home — no ghosts allowed
At this exclusive feast. From over sea
He purchased at his own expense a crowd
Of relics from a Spanish saint — said he:
‘If ghosts come uninvited, then, of course,
I’ll be compelled to keep them off by force.’
He drencht the gown he wore with holy water,
The turkeys, capons, boars, they were to eat,
He even soakt the uncomplaining porter
Who stood outside the door from head to feet.
To make a rather lengthy story shorter,
He left no wise precaution incomplete;
He doused the room in which they were to dine,
And watered everything except the wine.
So when all preparations had been made,
The jovial epicures sat down to table.
The menus of that time I am afraid
I don’t know much about — as well’s I’m able
I’ll go through the account: They made a raid
On every bird and beast in Æsop’s fable
To fill out their repast, and pies and puddings,
And jellies, pasties, cakes among the good things.
With difficulty kept from toppling over,
Next came a viand made of turtle eggs,
And after that a great pie made of plover,
And flagons which perhaps held several kegs
Of ale, and cheese which they kept under cover.
Last, a boar’s head, which to bring in took four pages,
His mouth an apple held, his skull held sausages.
Over their Christmas wassail the monks dozed,
A fine old drink, though now gone out of use —
His feet upon the table superposed
Each wisht he had not eaten so much goose.
The Abbot with proposing every toast
Had drank more than he ought t’ have of grape juice.
The lights began to burn distinctly blue,
As in ghost stories lights most always do.
The doors, though barred and bolted most securely,
Gave way — my statement nobody can doubt,
Who knows the well known fact, as you do surely —
That ghosts are fellows whom you can’t keep out;
It is a thing to be lamented sorely
Such slippery folk should be allowed about.
For often they drop in at awkward moments,
As everybody’ll know who reads this romance.
The Abbot sat as pasted to his chair,
His eye became the size of any dollar,
The ghost then took him roughly by the hair
And bade him come with him, in accents hollow.
The friars could do nought but gape and stare,
The spirit pulled him rudely by the collar,
And before any one could say ‘O jiminy!’
The pair had vanisht swiftly up the chimney.
Naturally every one searcht everywhere,
But not a shred of Bishop could be found,
The monks, when anyone questioned, would declare
St. Peter’d snatcht to heaven their lord renowned,
Though the wicked said (such rascals are not rare)
That the Abbot’s course lay nearer underground;
But the church straightway put to his name the handle
Of Saint, thereby rebuking all such scandal.
But after this the monks grew most devout,
And lived on milk and breakfast food entirely;
Each morn from four to five one took a knout
And flogged his mates ’till they grew good and friarly.
Spirits from that time forth they did without,
And lived the admiration of the shire. We
Got the veracious record of these doings
From an old manuscript found in the ruins.
[A Lyric]
If Time and Space, as Sages say‚
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.
The flowers I gave thee when the dew
Was trembling on the vine,
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
To suck the eglantine.
So let us haste to pluck anew
Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though our days of love be few
Yet let them be divine.
Song
If space and time, as sages say,
Are things that cannot be,
The fly that lives a single day
Has lived as long as we.
But let us live while yet we may,
For time is time, and runs away,
Though sages disagree.
The flowers I sent thee when the dew
Was trembling on the vine
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
To suck the eglantine.
But let us haste to pluck anew
Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though the flowers of life be few
Yet let them be divine.
[At Graduation 1905]
I
Standing upon the shore of all we know
We linger for a moment doubtfully,
Then with a song upon our lips, sail we
Across the harbor bar — no chart to show
No light to warn of rocks which lie below,
But let us yet put forth courageously.
II
As colonists embarking from the strand
To seek their fortunes on some foreign shore
Well know they lose what time shall not restore,
And when they leave they fully understand
That though again they see their fatherland
They there shall be as citizens no more.
III
We go; as lightning-winged clouds that fly
After a summer tempest, when some haste
North, South, and Eastward o’er the water’s waste‚
Some to the western limits of the sky
Which the sun stains with many a splendid dye,
Until their passing may no more be traced.
IV
Although the path be tortuous and slow,
Although it bristle with a thousand fears,
To hopeful eye of youth it still appears
A lane by which the rose and hawthorn grow.
We hope it may be; would that we might know!
Would we might look into the future years.
V
Great duties call — the twentieth century
More grandly dowered than those which came before,
Summons — who knows what time may hold in store‚
Or what great deeds the distant years may see,
What conquest over pain and misery‚
What heroes greater than were e’er of yore!
VI
But if this century is to be more great
Than those before, her sons must make her so,
And we are of her sons, and we must go
With eager hearts to help mold well her fate,
And see that she shall gain such proud estate
As shall on future centuries bestow
VII
A legacy of benefits — may we
In future years be found with those who try
To labor for the good until they die,
And ask no other guerdon than to know
That they have helpt the cause to victory,
That with their aid the flag is raised on high.
VIII
Sometime in distant years when we are grown
Gray-haired and old, whatever be our lot‚
We shall desire to see again the spot
Which, whatsoever we have been or done
Or to what distant lands we may have gone,
Through all the years will ne’er have been forgot.
IX
For in the sanctuaries of the soul
Incense of altar-smoke shall rise to thee
From spotless fanes of lucid purity,
O school of ours! The passing years that roll
Between, as we press onward to the goal,
Shall not have power to quench the memory.
X
We shall return; and it will be to find
A different school from that which now we know;
But only in appearance t’will be so.
That which has made it great, not left behind,
The same school in the future shall we find
As this from which as pupils now we go.
XI
We go; like flitting faces in a dream;
Out of thy care and tutelage we pass
Into the unknown world — class after class,
O queen of schools — a momentary gleam,
A bubble on the surface of the stream,
A drop of dew upon the morning grass;
XII
Thou dost not die — for each succeeding year
Thy honor and thy fame shall but increase
Forever, and may stronger words than these
Proclaim the glory so that all may hear;
May worthier sons be thine, from far and near
To spread thy name o’er distant lands and seas!
XIII
As thou to thy departing sons hast been
To those that follow may’st thou be no less;
A guide to warn them, and a friend to bless
Before they leave thy care for lands unseen;
And let thy motto be, proud and serene‚
Still as the years pass by, the word ‘Progress!’
XIV
So we are done; we may no more delay;
Thus is the end of every tale: ‘Farewell’,
A word that echoes like a funeral bell
And one that we are ever loth to say.
But ’tis a call we cannot disobey,
Exeunt omnes‚ with a last ‘farewell’.
Song
When we came home across the hill
No leaves were fallen from the trees;
The gentle fingers of the breeze
Had torn no quivering cobweb down.
The hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,
No withered petals lay beneath;
But the wild roses in your wreath
Were faded, and the leaves were brown.
Before Morning
While all the East was weaving red with gray,
The flowers at the window turned toward dawn,
Petal on petal, waiting for the day,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
This morning’s flowers and flowers of yesterday
Their fragrance drifts across the room at dawn,
Fragrance of bloom and fragrance of decay,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
Circe’s Palace
Around her fountain which flows
With the voice of men in pain‚
Are flowers that no man knows.
Their petals are fanged and red
With hideous streak and stain;
They sprang from the limbs of the dead. —
We shall not come here again.
Panthers rise from their lairs
In the forest which thickens below,
Along the garden stairs