Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays

by Unknown

Poet.

Marquise, a poet's love has led you astray.

Marquise.

Oh, don't be vain and fanciful. I swear
That in my placid life, happiness brings no joy.
What I longed for was a love, profound and mature,
The profound love of a poet come to being,
And not the incongruities of adolescence in verse....
The radiant synthesis of a pungent existence
And not the disloyalties of a dispersed dream.
What woman has not dreamed of loving a poet
Who would be conqueror and conquered all in one?
What woman has not wished to be humble and forgiving
With the man who sings the great passions he has known?
We need you poets.... We are tormented by the desire
Of a harmonious life, filled with deep sound,
With the vigor and strength of wine poured out
Into bowls of truths, deep with the depth of death.
We crave no water, lymphatic, pure,
In glasses of wind, frail as life.
Better the vintage of the rich
Served in vile glasses of gold. And if the mind be coarse,
Perchance the hands will glitter with many stones.
And if I may not have a fragrant and well-ordered nest
Filled with clear rhythm and little blond heads,
Then let me have my palace where luxurious pleasure
Lends to love of earth, grief and deep dismay.
Why do you not love living, poets? Why is it,
The dullard who nor loves nor lives poaches your kisses?

Poet.

I do not comprehend, marquise. Why love living,
If that is to live loving? We know that life and love
Are wings forever fledging out
In a bird neither swan nor hawk.
I am resigned to my unequal destiny, for I know
That my two eyes cannot perceive the same color.
For even when there is calm, anxiety arises
And then, I am not master, not even of my pain.
I would be your friend, but there are obstacles,
Captious dynamics, that put a check upon my words.
I yield to the dumb pride of my huge torment,
The song without words, the sonorous silence,
And I do not desire any one to penetrate
The garden wherein flowers the mystery I adore.

Marquise.

Conserve your mysteries, poet; they will have no heirs.

Poet.

Death is the heir of everything impenetrable.