Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO A BIRD MASQUE: PROLOGUE, by PERCY MACKAYE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO A BIRD MASQUE: PROLOGUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Gentles, just now I met an elf
Last Line: Be showered by my players' glad applause.
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Birds; Creative Ability; Poetry & Poets; Robins; Inspiration; Creativity


Enter FANTASY, who speaks:

GENTLES, just now I met an elf
Who crooked mid-air his finger joint
To beckon me, poising himself
Sheer on a shining question-point;
And there he cried: "Who may you be?
Where are you bound, if one may ask?
What are these birds that hold a masque?
What is a masque? What witchery
Can cause my woodland boughs to grace
This walled and crowded shut-in place?
How may divine Aurora rise
Under a roof? That parchment scroll —
What's written there?" — I said: "Replies
To elves like you, who claim their toll
Of answers." So I cast my eyes
Downward, and read this from my roll:

I

Follow me, Gentles! Follow me
By hidden paths, for I am Fantasy: —
Between the ear and what is heard,
Betwixt the eye and what is seen,
Midway the poet and his word
I hold my shadowy demesne.
And there to-night I act a thing —
Nor drama nor lyric but mid-way —
Wrought for my fairy folk to sing
And real folk to play.
Your nature critic does not ask
Robin to nest with wren,
Yet both are birds: Why argue, then,
What drama is, or masque?
My theatre's art is nature's, when
It serves the creator's task.

II

Then, follow me, Gentles, if you will!
To follow means but tarry still
Here in your seats, for I will bring
Horizons for your journeying,
Till soon this many-murmured hall
Shall be for you a silent wood,
Where we may watch, through leafy solitude,
Quercus the faun, and hear his echo call
In sighing surds
The vowel-bubbling birds,
And spy where Dawn steals past with pale footfall.

III

Come, then, for this can only be
If you will follow Fantasy.
No magic is, except through me;
Yet I myself can nothing do
Alone; my radiance 'tis from you.
For if in woods I walk alone
No light will be around me thrown;
And if alone you walk the woods,
Your eyes will blink through darkening hoods.

IV

Come, then, together let us go,
As birds and men together meet
Where boughs are dim and woodlands sweet
With meditation. Meeting so,
My simplest arts
Will serve to please you, and unblind
Your own rapt vision; for kind hearts
Need no compulsion to be kind
To their own natures. So the mind
Amongst you which shall act most feelingly
My simple masque, and find the fewest flaws,
Shall win my best award, and he (or she)
Be showered by my players' glad applause.





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