Chapter IV: Alwyn. Shy

ALWYN

Shy—honest friend, your hand once more!

SHY

Heartily! Welcome to this wood.

ALWYN

Do you recall how once we stood
Here, and discoursed of songs I made of yore—
Dryads and poet’s dreams?

SHY

Yes, I recall
I wondered at them all.

ALWYN

First—as to-day—you smiled
Your incredulity of my quaint creed,
Till soon, in further converse, we agreed
In nature’s heart our faiths are reconciled.
For both of us seek nature’s fellowship,
The common language of all living things:
I—more in music of the human lip,
You—in the whirr of beaks and wings.
So both—craving the beautiful—
Still worship the same shrine and oracle:
This temple, and its dryad—Tacita.

SHY

I will confess
Of all the nymphs in your Arcadia
I worship her
Alone.

ALWYN

Because her moods are numberless
I do the same. Between the heart of Man
And Nature’s heart, which I do name God Pan,
She stands and moves—divine interpreter,
Translating with her shy and pagan dances
Our world life and its trances.

SHY

She is, in truth,
The sylvan priestess of this sanctuary.

ALWYN

[_Eagerly._]

What if, through her as intermediary,
And after thousand ages of uncouth
Estrangement,—what, I say, if we
Might find through her the key
To comprehend the native speech of birds,
And hold communion with them in our human words!
Would not that be a modern consummation
Nobler than fable?

SHY

Almost, I would have said, we might be able,
If it were not for one who scorns this shrine
And violates the beauty of creation,
Marring all contemplative quietude.

ALWYN

Whom do you speak of?

SHY

One whom the red wine
Of slaughter has made drunk, and the false glister
Of dollars dazzled with blind arrogance.
Close by this wood
He plies a bold, sinister
Traffic in wings and plumage. Not by chance
But calculated orgies, he commits
His venal murders, slits
The bridal plumes from backs of mating birds,
And leaves the nested broods
Unhatched or starveling. So he girds
His loins, and like the Patagonian
Displays his feathered trophies: not a man
Swayed by ecstatic moods,
Nor even to equip
A hardy sportsmanship;
Not so: he slaughters birds for stocks and bonds,
And when we challenge, smiling he responds:
“Mine is a lawful market, where fine ladies pay
For plumes, to wear on Sabbaths and Christ’s Easter day.”

ALWYN

What is this desecrator’s name?

SHY

Stark, the plume-hunter.

ALWYN

Surely he dares not
Track his defenseless game
Here to this hallowed spot!

SHY

No place is holy to unhallowed minds:
He covets gain, and grasps it where he finds.

ALWYN

Still I have faith
That Tacita, in her serenity,
Is mightier than he.

SHY

Ah, nature’s quiet mood is delicate
And crushes like a flower.

ALWYN

Faith without works is vain, the Prophet saith.
So now, while nature muses in the thrush,
Here let us sit this hour,
And meditate
On Tacita, till meditation shall create
Its own shy image.—Hush!

[_They sit upon a log and listen._]