Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 6,432 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works.

Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 6,432 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works.

The cow horn.  Stay with me, Seelchen!

The wine horn.  Come with me, Seelchen!

The cow horn.  I give thee certainty!

The wine horn.  I give you chance!

The cow horn.  I give thee peace.

The wine horn.  I give you change.

The cow horn.  I give thee stillness.

The wine horn.  I give you voice.

The cow horn.  I give thee one love.

The wine horn.  I give you many.

Seelchen. [As if the words were torn from her heart] Both, both—­I will love!

     And suddenly the Peak of the great horn speaks.

The great horn.  And both thou shalt love, little soul!  Thou shalt lie on the hills with Silence; and dance in the cities with Knowledge.  Both shall possess thee!  The sun and the moon on the mountains shall burn thee; the lamps of the town singe thy wings. small Moth!  Each shall seem all the world to thee, each shall seem as thy grave!  Thy heart is a feather blown from one mouth to the other.  But be not afraid!  For the life of a man is for all loves in turn.  ’Tis a little raft moored, then sailing out into the blue; a tune caught in a hush, then whispering on; a new-born babe, half courage and half sleep.  There is a hidden rhythm.  Change.  Quietude.  Chance.  Certainty.  The One.  The Many.  Burn on—­thou pretty flame, trying to eat the world!  Thou shaft come to me at last, my little soul!

     The voices and the flower-bells peal out.

     Seelchen, enraptured, stretches her arms to embrace the sight
     and sound, but all fades slowly into dark sleep.

SCENE III

The dark scene again becomes glamorous.  Seelchen is seen with her hand stretched out towards the Piazza of a little town, with a plane tree on one side, a wall on the other, and from the open doorway of an Inn a pale path of light.  Over the Inn hangs a full golden moon.  Against the wall, under the glimmer of a lamp, leans a youth with the face of the wine horn, in a crimson dock, thrumming a mandolin, and singing: 

         “Little star soul
          Through the frost fields of night
          Roaming alone, disconsolate—­
          From out the cold
          I call thee in
          Striking my dark mandolin
          Beneath this moon of gold.”

From the Inn comes a burst of laughter, and the sound of
dancing.

Seelchen:  [Whispering] It is the big world!

The Youth of the wine horn sings On: 

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Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.