MARS
(scornfully, to Poetry)
I need you not, then. I can do without you
If I have Music and her seducer, Glamour.
Come, Music!
(Exit Poetry. Enter Music, in bonds to Glamour.)
GLAMOUR
I brought her in. She would have stayed behind
To sing with Poetry for all mankind.
But, once deceived, she can go free no more
Save in the triumph of the Soul of Man,
Who is your thrall. Come, Music, my good wench,
Tell Mars your service and your song are his.
MUSIC
If I must give myself against my will
And where my instinct would make swift refusal,
I will so give myself through Mars to men
That, treading in his flashing path of pain,
They shall know less of him because of me.
And I shall be their glory when his guns
Vomit black horror upon body and soul,
And I shall be their solace in the hours
When stiffening Death would have them for his own.
Oh woe is me that listened unto Glamour!
Yet I await your freedom, Soul of Man.
MARS
Tush, girl, a beauty like your precious self
Has ever need of a more lusty lover—
And such am I, and such is Glamour here!
What captive can a woman’s kisses keep?
Come, take my kiss, and then, throughout the world,
Sing me the ballads that do make men wild!
Give me the froward chanteys of the camp,
Beat me the marches unto Victory,
Or, with bravado, even unto Death.
Come, come; begin. The whole world waits for you!