DIES ILLA: A BIRD OF A MASQUE
Being a Collaboration by Percy Mackaye,
Isabel Fiske Conant and Josephine
Preston Peabody.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
The Grackle (who does not appear at all)
The Spirit of the Rejection Slip
The Spirit of Modern Poetry
Chorus of Elderly Ladies Who Appreciate Poetry
Chorus of Correspondence, Kindergarten, Grammar, High-School and College Classes in Verse-Writing
Chorus of Young Men Running Poetry Magazines
Chorus of Poetry Critics
Chorus of Assorted Culture-Hounds
The Person Responsible for the Poetic Renaissance in America
The Non-Poetry Writing Public (Composed of two citizens who have never learned to read or write)
Semi-Choruses of Magazine Editors and Book-Publishers
Até, Goddess of Discord
The Muse
Time: Next year. Place: Everywhere. Scene: A level stretch of monotony.
THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (Entering despairingly)
Alas—in vain! Yet I have barred the way
As best I might, that this great horror fall
Not on the world. Returned with many thanks
And not because of lack of merit, I
Have said to twenty million poets ... nay ...
Profane it not, that word ... to twenty million
Persons who wasted stamps and typewriting
And midnight oil, to add unto the world
More Bunk.... In vain—in vain!
(She sinks down sobbing.)
(From right and left of stage enter Semi-Choruses Magazine Editors and Book Publishers, tearing their hair rhythmically.)
SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS
We have mailed their poems back
To every man and woman-jack
Who weigh the postman down
From country and from town;
But all in vain, in vain,
They mail them in again!
SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS
Though we've sent them flying,
We are nearly dying,
From the books of poetry
Sent by people unto we;
In vain we keep them off our shelves,
They go and publish them themselves!
SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIPS
All, bravely have ye toiled, my masters, aye,
And I've toiled with you.... All in vain, in vain—
(Enter, with a proud consciousness of duty well done, the Chorus of Correspondence, Kindergarten, Grammar, High-School and College Classes for Writing Verse. They sing Joyously)
The Day has come that we adore,
The Day we've all been working for,
Now babies in their bassinets
And military school cadets,
And chambermaids in each hotel
And folks in slums who cannot spell,
Professors, butchers, clergymen,
And every one, have grabbed a pen:
The Day has come—tra la, tra lee—
Everybody writes poetry!
(They do a Symbolic Dance with Typewriters, during which enters the Chorus of Young Men who Run Poetry Magazines. These put on horn-rimmed spectacles and chant earnestly as follows)
CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN WHO RUN POETRY MAGAZINES
We're very careful what we put in;
This magazine is of highest grade;
If it doesn't appeal to our personal taste
There's no use sending it, we're afraid;
We don't like Shelley, we don't like Keats,
We don't like poets who're tactlessly dead;
If you write like us there will be no fuss—
That's the best of verse, when the last word's said.... (Bursting irrepressibly into youthful enthusiasm, and dashing their horn spectacles to the ground)
Yale! Yale! Yale!
Our Poetry!
Fine Poetry!
Nobody Else's Poetry!
Raw! Raw! Raw! Raw!
(Enter, modestly, the Person Responsible for the Poetic Renaissance in America. There are four of him—or her, as the case may be—Miss Monroe, Miss Rittenhouse, Mrs. Stork, Mr. Braithwaite. The Person stands in a row and recites in unison:)
I've made Poetry
What it is today;
Or ... at least ...
That's what people say:
Earnest-minded effort
Never can be hid;
The Others think They did it—
But—I—Did!
SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP, EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS, (faintly:)
You did? (They rush out.)
PERSON RESPONSIBLE (still modestly)
Well, so they say—
But I have to go away.
I'm due at a lecture
I give at three today.
(The Person goes out in single file, looking at its watch. As it does so, there enters a pale and dishevelled girl in Greek robes. It is the Muse.)
MUSE
In Mount Olympus we have heard a noise and crying
As swine that in deep agony are dying,
A voice of tom-cats wailing,
A never failing
A chattering like frogs,
And all this noise, unceasing, thunderous,
Making a horrible fuss,
Cries out upon my name.
Oh, what am I, the Muse and giver of Fame,
So to be mocked and humbled by this use?
I—I, the Muse!
(Enter Spirit of Modern Poetry, a lady with bobbed hair, clad lightly in horn glasses and a sex-complex.)
SPIRIT OF MODERN POETRY
You're behind the times; quite narrow,
Don't you want
Culture for the masses?
MUSE
No; I am Greek; we never did.
Besides, it isn't culture.
CHORUS OF ELDERLY LADIES WHO APPRECIATE POETRY, (trotting by two by two on their way to a lecture, pause.)
Oh, how narrow! Oh, how shocking!
She's no Muse! She must be mocking!
MUSE (sternly, having lost her temper by this time)
I am a goddess. Trifle not with me.
ELDERLY LADIES (with resolute tolerance)
She looks like a pupil of Isadora Duncan,
But she says she's a goddess; what folly we'd be sunk in
To believe a word she says; she needs broad'ning, we conjecture—
My dear, come with us to Miss Rittenhouse's lecture!
MUSE (lifting her arms angrily)
Até, my sister!
ATÉ, (behind the scenes) I come!
(Enter from one side, Band of Poets—very large—with lyres and wreaths put on over their regular clothes. From the other side, a chorus of Poetry Critics. At their end steals Até, Goddess of Discord, disguised as a Critic by means of horn glasses and a Cane. The Poets do not see her—or anything but themselves, indeed. They sing obliviously)
My maiden aunt in Keokuk
She writes free verse like anything;
My great-grandmother is in luck,
She's sold her three-piece work on Spring;
My mother does Poetic Plays,
My dad does rhymes while signing checks,
And my flapper sister—we wouldn't have missed her—
She's writing an epic on Sin and Sex—
The world's as perfect as it can be,
Everybody writes Poetry!
CHORUS OF CRITICS, (chanting yet more loudly:)
The world's not quite as perfect as it yet might be,
Excepting for our brother-critics' poetry!
(The Spirit of Discord now creeps softly out from among the Critics.)
SPIRIT OF DISCORD
Rash poets, think what you would do—
There's nobody left you can read it to!
POETS (aghast)
We never thought of that!
An audience, 'tis flat,
To listen to our screed;
(Each turns to his neighbor)
Base scribbler, get thee hence
Or be my audience!
Semi-chorus:
We want to write ourselves! We'll not!
Semi-chorus:
But what you write is merely rot!
Hush up and let me read
My great, eternal screed!
ATÉ (stealthily) Ha, ha!
(Each Poet now draws a Fountain Pen with a bayonet attached, and kills the Poet next him, dying himself immediately from the wound of the Poet on the other side. They fall in neat windrows. There are no Poets left. Meanwhile the Non-Poetry-Writing Public, two in number, who have been shooting crap in a corner, rise up at the sound of the fall, take three paces to the front, and speak:)
What's the use o' poetry, anyhow? I always say, 'if you wanta say anything you can say it a lot easier in prose.' I never wrote no poetry, and I get along fine in the hardware business.
CHORUS OF CRITICS AND CULTURE-HOUNDS, (thrilled:)
Ah, a new Gospel!
Let us write Reviews
About it!
THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (entering, and addressing the Editors and Publishers who follow her.)
Now I shall pass from you. My task comes to a close.
I wing my hallowed way
To the Fool-Killer's Paradise, and there for aye Repose.
EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS
Nay, our great helper, nay!
Leave us not yet, our only comforter!
We'll need thee still;
Folks who write poetry
There's naught on earth can kill!
(During this the CULTURE-HOUNDS, CRITICS, etc., have clustered round the NON-POETRY-WRITING PUBLIC, whispering, urging, and pushing. It rises and scratches its head in a flattered way, and finally says:)
B'gosh, I do believe,
Now that you speak of it, I could do just as good
As any of those there fool dead fellers could!
(The late Non-Poetry-Writing Public are both immediately invested with lyres, and wreaths which they put on over their derby hats.)
SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS (to Spirit of Rejection Slip)
You see? Too late!
SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS
Who shall escape o'ermastering tragic fate?
(They go off and sob in two rows in the corners, while the rest of the Masque, except ATÉ, who looks at them as if she weren't through yet, and the MUSE, form up to do a dance symbolic of One Being Born Every Minute. They sing:)
The Day has come that we adore,
The Day we've all been working for;
The Day has come, tra la, tra lee!
Everybody writes Poetry!
THE MUSE (unnoticed in the background)
Farewell.
Arthur Guiterman
(He recites with appropriate gestures.)