Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MISER; A MASQUE, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MISER; A MASQUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come in
Last Line: [exeunt maskers singing.
Subject(s): Courtship; Crime & Criminals; Greed; Avarice; Cupidity


A MASQUE

TIME: The Fifteenth Century. Midnight.

Iron boxes. A table strewn with jewels, trinkets, and coin. An
hour-glass.
An old man walks to and fro. (A knock is heard.)

MISER.
Come in. [Covers the jewels with a cloth.

Enter a Woman, who unmasks.

What wouldst thou, wench? Hast aught to sell?

WOMAN.
I've that to sell for which men give their souls

MISER.
Alack! their souls. Go seek yon market-place,
And learn what usury a soul will fetch.
The body of a man may sweat you gold,
Plow, sow, and reap, yet at the end be apt
As other carrion to fatten grapes.
How came you in? They keep slack guard below.

WOMAN.
Good looks, like gold, pass anywhere on earth—
[Sings

A man and a maid
The warder prayed.
Here is gold, said he,
But a look gave she;
Sweet eyes went in,
And the man was stayed.
For this is the way
The world to win,
The world to win.
Honey of kisses,
Honey of sin,—
This is the way
The world to win.

MISER.
Ay. The fool's world, not mine. The hour-glass wastes.

WOMAN.
Forget to turn it, and the hour is thine.
That minds me what the priest said Easter-eve:
The devil owns the minutes, God the years.
What think you that he meant?

MISER. Nay, ask of him.
Age hath its secrets. Time shall sow for thee
Betwixt thy grand-dame wrinkles answers meet.
Thy errand, girl!

WOMAN. Look in my face, and learn.

MISER.
By Venus! I have read that scroll too oft.
Eyes that say, Yes! and lips that murmur, No!
The red cheeks' mock-surrender. All the cheats
That make to-morrow lie to yesterday.

WOMAN.
Like a philosopher lies yesterday,
To-morrow like a poet; but to-day
Is true until to-morrow makes it lie.
What if the minute's coin that buys thee joy
Ring false the morrow morn! How old you look!
Kiss me, and live. A ducat for a kiss!
A ducat each for these two eyes of mine!

MISER.
A ducat! By St. Mercury! not I,—
A thing unchanging for a thing that dies.
I've been the fool of women, wit, and wine;
Have argued much with doctors; had my fill,
Ay that was best, of battle's stormy fate;
Have fooled and have been fooled, been loved and loved.

WOMAN.
Were any like to me?

MISER. The lips I love
Betray me not at each new gallant's suit.
What are thy charms to these?
[Walks across the room, and returns with a casket of gold coins,
while
the Woman hastily looks under the table-cover and replaces it.
See, this and this!
[Shows her gold medals.
Hast thou the eyes of Egypt's haughty queen?
These eager lips that kissed a world away?
Lo, here Zenobia,—wisdom, beauty, grace.
Match me this warrior maid—this huntress lithe
Set in the changeless chastity of gold.

WOMAN.
Their lips are cold. A ducat for a kiss!

MISER.
Nay, get thee gone. Here's something sweeter far
Than wanton vouches of a woman's lips.

WOMAN.
I would not kiss thee for a world of ducats.
[Exit Woman, who whispers, as she goes, to a gentleman who enters,
clad
in a red cloak, hat, and cock's feather.

MISER.
Who let thee in?

GENTLEMAN. A girl, fair sir,—a girl.
Quite often 't is a girl that lets me in!

MISER.
Who art thou?

GENTLEMAN. Many people. Part of all,
For well-bred gentlemen "my Lord Duke Satan," thus
Here somewhat late to thank you. Truly, sir,
To sum the seed of sin you've sown for me
Would puzzle the arithmetic of—Well,
One speaks not lightly of his home. My thanks.
Give me your hand, good friend.

MISER. Art drunk! Begone!

GENTLEMAN.
Alas! How sad, not know me. Gratitude
Is rare in either world. Yet men, I note,
Know not themselves, and therefore know not me.

MISER.
The jest is good.

GENTLEMAN. What, I—I, Satan, jest!
How hard to satisfy! Unhelped by me,
What hadst thou been? Lo, under this frail cloth
[Touches the table-cover.
There lie the pledges of a hundred souls:
That zone of pearls! That ruby coronal!

MISER.
Thou liest, fool!

GENTLEMAN. The ring,—the sapphire ring.

MISER.
The thing is strange.

GENTLEMAN. Nay, gentle partner, nay.
Behold, I come to thee in sore distress,
A bankrupt devil. Why? It matters not.
Perhaps I gambled for the morning star,
Gambled with Lucifer; in want, perchance,
For reason good, of some less sin-worn world.
Brothers are we. No need for us to pray
Deliverance from temptation—to do good.
Not equals quite. A trifle thou dost lack
Thy master's joy in evil for itself.
Only the crack-brained sin for love of sin,
And crime is wretchedly alloyed with good.
Ho! for one honest sinner!

MISER. Out, foul fiend!

GENTLEMAN.
To waste your hours were but to squander mine.
Ha! Shall I take my own?
[Pulls off the table-cover.

MISER. Without there! Help!
Help—help—a thief!

GENTLEMAN. Nay. Let me choose my coins,
Let me confess them. They have tales to tell.
I am a devil-poet, and can see
Beneath the skin of things.
[Takes coins in turn.] On this is writ
A maiden's honor gone. And here is one
Helped the black barter of a traitor's soul.
This 'gainst a priestly conscience turned the scale.
And this is red with murder. See, gray hairs
Stick to it yet. Alas for charity!
Not one,—not one. The devil has no friend
[A knock is heard.
Save him that enters.
[Opens the door to the cowled figure, DEATH.
Pray thee, sir, come in.
Lo, my best friend! the scavenger of time,
Who picks from off this dust-heap called a world
The scared and hurried ants that come and go
Without a whence or whither worth a thought.
Be easy with this partner of my cares.
This greedy dotard drunk with guzzling gold
Spare me a little. Take thou hence the good,
The fair, the young, the chaste, the innocent.
[To the MISER.
Good-night, my friend. I leave you one who owns
The only truth this stupid planet holds.
[Exit Gentleman.

MISER.
What feast of folly hath broke loose to-night?
Who art thou?

DEATH. Death!

MISER. The devil and then Death!
Thou hast the play the wrong end first, my friend.
[Laughs.

DEATH.
Then laugh again. Full many a year has fled
Since sound of laughter crackled in mine ears.
There are who face me smiling. Men like thee,
Who gather ducats as I reap the years,
To add them to the gathered hoard of time;
Yea, men like thee, who poison souls for gain,
And love life for its baseness, mock not me.
Only the noble and the wretched smile
When these lean fingers summon to the grave.
Thy day is near; even now the clogging blood
Chills stagnant at my touch, and soon for thee
Shall come the yellow hags to stretch thy limbs,
And put the coins upon thy staring eyes.
[MISER falls into a chair.

MISER.
What cruel jest is this? I pray thee go.
My heart beats riotous, my legs grow weak.

DEATH.
Give me a hundred ducats.

MISER. I! Not one.

DEATH.
A hundred ducats for a year of greed.

MISER.
Not one, I say.

DEATH. Then, to that nether world.
Two days I grant thee, till upon the stair
Thy coffined weight shall creak, and other hands
Shall count thy ducats.

MISER. Take thou ten, and go.

DEATH.
Ten ducats for a journey round the world!

MISER.
Nay, nay, not one. Thou surely art not Death.

DEATH.
Already on thy sallow cheek I see
The set grim smile which hardens on the face
When death unriddles life; thy jaw hangs slack;
The sweat wherewith man labors unto death
Drops from thy brow.

MISER. Take what thou wilt, and go.
Hast said a hundred ducats. Take but that.
Take them and leave me. Not a ducat more.
[Death takes a bag.

DEATH.
For this I give thee many a lingering year.
Without there, gentlemen! Come in, come in!
[Enter PRINCE masked, the Court Fool as Mephistopheles, women and
courtiers in fancy dress. The MISER leaps up.

MISER.
What robber-band is this?

PRINCE. A jest, my friend.

GENTLEMAN.
The Prince has lost his wager. Death has won.

DEATH.
To supper, gentlemen. Here's that shall pay.

MISER.
My gold! Alas, my gold!

DEATH. But yet you live.
[Exeunt maskers singing.






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