[The Moon Maiden withdraws: a song is sung from behind: it is full day.]
The Moon Maiden's Song
Sleep! Cast thy canopy
Over this sleeper's brain,
Dim grows his memory,
When he awake again.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her wingèd flight
Back to her starry home.
Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
Love's seal is over thee:
Far though my ways from thine,
Dim though thy memory.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her wingèd flight
Back to her starry home.
[When the song is finished, the curtain falls upon Pierrot sleeping.]
EPILOGUE
[Spoken in the character of Pierrot]
The sun is up, yet ere a body stirs,
A word with you, sweet ladies and dear sirs,
[Although on no account let any say
That Pierrot finished Mr. Dowson's play].
One night not long ago, at Baden Baden,—
The birthday of the Duke,—his pleasure garden
Was lighted gayly with feu d'artifice,
With candles, rockets, and a center-piece
Above the conversation house, on high,
Outlined in living fire against the sky,
A glittering Pierrot, radiant, white,
Whose heart beat fast, who danced with sheer delight,
Whose eyes were blue, whose lips were rosy red,
Whose pompons too were fire, while on his head
He wore a little cap, and I am told
That rockets covered him with showers of gold.
"Take our applause, you well deserve to win it,"
They cried: "Bravo! the Pierrot of the minute!"
What with applause and gold, one must confess
That Pierrot had "arrived," achieved success,
When, as it happened, presently, alas!
A terrible disaster came to pass.
His nose grew dim, the people gave a shout,
His red lips paled, both his blue eyes went out.
There rose a sullen sound of discontent,
The golden shower of rockets was all spent;
He left off dancing with a sudden jerk,
For he was nothing but a firework.
The garden darkened and the people in it
Cried, "He is dead,—the Pierrot of the minute!"
With every artist it is even so;
The artist, after all, is a Pierrot—
A Pierrot of the minute, naïf, clever,
But Art is back of him, She lives for ever!
Then pardon my Moon Maid and me, because
We craved the golden shower of your applause!
Pray shrive us both for having tried to win it,
And cry, "Bravo! The Pierrot of the minute!"