Collected Plays and Stories

The Witch of Ilni

A dream of the woodlands

Characters

CORILLO - prince of Ilni.

VALENTINE - a courtier.

IAMBLICHUS, PALLEAS, MARCION - foresters.

MELANDER - a sylvan poet.

FORESTERS, COURTIERS.

ALACIEL - the witch of Ilni.

GUENDOLEN - her sister.

MYRTIL, DORIS, ERMENILD - forest damsels.

GIRLS OF THE FOREST.

Page 751

Act I

Scene I

The woodlands of Ilni.

Girls and youths dancing.

Song

Under the darkling tree
Who danceth with thee,
        Sister say?
His hair is the sweet sunlight,
His eyes a starry night
        In May.

Under the leaf-wrought screen
Who crowns thee his queen
        Kissing thee?
His lips are a ruby bright,
His cheek the May-bloom's light
        On the tree.

Under the grass-green bough
Whom pillowest thou
        On thy breast?
His voice is a swallow's flight,
His limbs are jonquils white
        Dewy-drest.

IAMBLICHUS
Unwind the linkèd rapture of the dance!

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For in the purple verge and slope of morn
Fast-flowering blooms, fire-robed and honey-haired,
In stainless wastes the daffodil of heaven.
Here till the golden-handed sun upbuilds
The morning's cenotaph blue-domed and vast,
On daisy-dotted bank where sunlight nods
We'll spin a curious weft of lyric tales.

MYRTIL
Be it so. But what occupation stays
Our deftest in the jewelry of rhymes,
Our liberal dispenser of sweet words,
Our laureate with the throstle in his throat?
Sleeps he so long? who saw Melander last,
Melander ashbud-browed with April hair?

ERMENILD
Before the russet-hooded morn gave birth
In Day's embraces to the fire-eyed sun
I spied him nigh a mossy-mantled cave
Which rosy trailers draped, and at his side
The silver-seeming witch Alaciel.

MYRTIL
Pray God, the black-haired witch may do no harm!
She is most potent and her science plucks
The ruby nightshade, Hecate's deadly plum,
Soul-killing meadow-sweet, the hemlock starred
And berries brown crushed in the vats of death,
Her mother's hell-brewed legacy of arts.

MARCION
Were it not wisely done to call him hither?

IAMBLICHUS
'Tis wisely urged, good Marcion. Make good haste

Page 754

And drench thy words in Hybla's golden milk
To lure him thence.

Exit Marcion.

But you with dance and song
Beguile the laggard moments into joy.

Page 755

Scene II

A glade in the woodlands.

ALACIEL
Why wilt thou go? Noon has not budded, sweet.
Fresh-fallen dew stars yet the silvered grass,
The leaves are lyrical with lisp of birds
And piping voices flutter thro' the grove.
Repose thyself where blue-eyed violet
Is married to that bugle of pale gold
We call the cowslip, and I'll chain thee here
With flowery bands of rosebud-linked tales
Or murmur Orphic falls to draw thy soul
Upon the smoother wings of measured song.
Noon has not budded, sweet. Why wilt thou go?

MELANDER
The sylvan youths expect my lyric touch
To gild their leisure: nor am I so bold
To linger by thy snowy side too long
Whom men call perilous. Oh thou art fair!
Dawn reddens in thy vermil-tinted cheeks
And on thy tresses pansy-purple night
Hangs balsam-drenched with dewdrops for her stars.
Thou art a flower with candid petals wide,
Moon-flushed, most innocent-seeming to the eye;
But in thy cup, they say, lurks venomed wine
Which whoso sucks, pale Hades on him lays
Ensnaring arms to drag from the sweet sun.

ALACIEL
Whom will not Envy's livid tooth assail?

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'Tis true my wisdom dwarfs their ignorance;
That is most true: for in my fledgeling days
When callow childhood loved the rushy nest,
My mother drew my steps thro' fretted walks,
Rose-rubied gardens, acorn-pelted glades,
Green seas of pasture, rural sweeps of bloom,
And taught the florid sensuous dialect
Of simple plants. This way I learned to love
The shining sisterhood of rhythmic names,
Roses and lilies, honey-hiding thyme,
Pied gillyflowers, painted wind-blossoms,
Gold crocus, milky bell, sweet marjoram,
Fire-coloured furze and wayside honey-suckle.
Nor these alone, but all the helpful plants
Gave me the liquid essence of their souls
Potent to help or hurt, to cure or kill.
Indeed the milky juice of pungent roots
I poured you in that curious walnut cup
With moderation just, were in excess
More deadly than the hemlock's dooming wine.

MELANDER
It fused new blood into my pulsing veins
Raising me twice the stature of a soul.

ALACIEL
'Tis margarite, the rare and pungent root,
That brewed this foamy vintage in his wand.
For twixt the bulb and pithy texture wrapt
You find a pod nut-form with misty skin,
In size no bigger than the early grape
But full and sweet with honey-tempered wine.
Such are my potions, philtres, poisons, drugs,
Distempered brews, and all the juggling arts
Your ignorance rebukes my wisdom with.

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MELANDER
From such sweet lips when poppied utterance falls,
The carping spirit of disdain must sleep;
For subtler logic drops in simple words
From woman's tongue, than phraseful orator
Or fine scholastic wit may offer up.

ALACIEL
Sweet youth, why should I net you with deceit?
Ah yet, in truth you are too beautiful!
Come, you are skilled in phrases, are you not?
You dice with women's hearts—they tell me 'tis
A pastime much in vogue with idle youths.
(The philtre works: his eyelids brim with dew.)
You throw cogged dice with women for their souls,
You barter with them and deny the price,
Is it not so? (O rare, fine margarite!)
Oh you are deft at such deceits: you make
Your beauty lime to cozen linnets with
And bid them sing, if they'd have sustenance.
Oh you will not deceive me, think it not:
You are just such a fowler to my guess.

MELANDER
Dear linnet, did I lime you in my nets,
One fine, sweet Hamadryad note would lift
The tangle from your wild-rose-petal wings.

ALACIEL
Ah but when lurking faces flower the bush
Wild birds mock expectation with wild wings.

MELANDER
Nay, dear, you shall not go: I have you fast.
Come, where's your ransom? the sweet, single note
I bargained for, ere you may climb the winds?
Prune not your fluttering wings: I have you fast.

Page 758

ALACIEL
I pray you, make not earnest of my jest.
You are too quick: you shall not have a stiver,
No, not a coin to bless repentance with.

MELANDER
Then I will pay myself, sweet: from that warm
And flowering bed of kisses, I will pluck
Fresh with the dews of youth one red sweet rose.

(kisses her)

Oh I have sucked out poison from your lips!
Physicians say that certain maladies
Are by their generating causes killed.
Sweet poison, one more drop to cure the last.

(kisses her)

ALACIEL
You shall pluck no more roses from my tree.
Unclasp me now or you will anger me.

MELANDER
Dear, be not angry. I did but accept
The written challenge peeping thro' the lids
Of those delicious eyes: O shy soft eyes,
Hiding with jetty fringes such a world
Of swimming beauty, virgin-sweet desire,
You shine like stars upon the rim of night,
Like dewdrops thro' green leaves, mute orators
Instinct with dropping eloquence to sway
The burning heart of boyhood to your will.
If I look on you long, you will seduce
My acts from virtue; which to anticipate
I'll kill you both with kisses, thus, and thus.
Sweet, do not blush. I claim what is my own,
And with my lips I seal your whole self mine
From dear, dark head to dainty wild-rose feet.
Or, if you will, in sanguine tumult show

Page 759

The throbbing conscience of a lover's touch,
That I may watch a sea of springing rose
Diffuse its gorgeous triumph in your cheeks.

ALACIEL
Oh you have golden pieces on your tongue
To buy your pleasure: yet this single once
I'll be your fool. Come, throw me clinking coin,
The thin flute-music of your flatteries.
You shall have favours if you pay for them.

MELANDER
His lips should dribble honey, who'd make out
The style and inventory of your graces.
His voice should be the fifing of mild winds
To happy song of bees in rose-red June,
His every word a crimson-tasselled rose,
His lightest phrase a strip of cedar-wood,
Each clause a nutmeg-peppered jug of cream;
The very stops should argue aloes fetched
By spicèd winds upon the rocking brine.
What, have I earned my wage? I am athirst
With praising you. Give me your lips to drink.

ALACIEL
You trifle, sweet. Yours is no mint of coin
But scribbled paper-specie large as wind
Which I'll not take. Here comes your paedagogue
To school you into more sobriety.

Alaciel retires. Enter Marcion.

MARCION
Well met, Melander. Long thro' mossy paths
Have I with patient footing peered thee out,
Thro' shadow-sundered slopes of racing light,
In ferny pales with blots of colour pricked
And by the rushy marge of spuming streams

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Till lucky hazard made the Venus throw.
Why art thou here? On leafy-sheltered sward
Where daubs of sunlight intersperse the shade,
The rubious posies thrill to mazy feet
Like stars danced over by an angel's tread
And strive with glimmering corollaries
To make a twinkling heaven of the green.
Moist blow the breezes with the myrrhy tears
Of pining night, and ruffle every blade
That keeps his pearls from clutch of dewy thieves
Until their indignation murmur past.
From airy flute, from seraph-stringed harp,
A daedal rain of music drop on drop
Wells fast to rule the waft of dove-like feet.
The clustered edges of close-heapèd thyme,
A murmurous haven sailed by merchant bees,
Are crumbling into fragrance and young flowers
Make fat by their decay the greedy earth,
While golden youths and silver feet of girls
Pass fluttering as with glimpse of gorgeous hues
A fleet of moths on emigrating winds.
There you shall see upon the pearled grass
The forest antelope, brown Ermenild,
Iamblichus the honey-hearted boy,
Rose-cheeked Iamblichus with roses wreathed,
And Myrtil honey-haired, our woodland moon,
Myrtil the white, a silver loveliness,
But tipped with gold. Thou only lingerest;
Only thy voice, the pilot of our moods,
Only thy thrushlips welling facile rhymes
Mar the sweet harmonies of holiday
With one chord missing from the clamorous harp.

MELANDER
I thank you, Marcion, for your careful pain
But cannot guerdon you with more than thanks.
I am not well: the fumes of midnight thought

Page 761

Unfit me for a holiday attire.

MARCION
Fie, fie, Melander! When have you before
Denied the riches of your tongue to eke
Our poorness with? The forest waits for you
Dew-drenched with tears because you will not come.

MELANDER
Well, I will go with you, but not for long.
I'll join you where deep-cushioned in soft grass
The stream turns inward like a scimitar.
Go on before, I pray you. I will come.

Exit Marcion.

ALACIEL
There, there, I said so! you are docile, sir.
Indeed I did not spy the leading-strings,
But they must be there. 'Twas your paedagogue,
Was it not, come to fetch the truant back?

MELANDER
Dear, be not vexed with me. I will return
Ere noon has dotted with her golden ball
The eminence of heaven. It seems not well,
When judgment has decreed the award of merit,
To disappoint Persuasion of her prize.
In sweetly-cultured minds civility
Breathes music to the touch of wooing words.

ALACIEL
Oh words and words enough! but what's the gist,
The run, the purport? Tush, a chattering pie,
A pie that steals and chatters, would not deign
To jeer this flaunting daw. What, did he deem
His gaudy colony of phrases roofed
The meaning from my eyes? The prosing fool

Page 762

Fibs very vilely: why, he has not conned
The rudiments and letters of his craft.

MELANDER
You do miscall sincerest courtesy,
Sweet courtesy that solders our conditions
Into the builded structure of a state.

ALACIEL
Yes, till the winds unbuild it for worse ruin.
But go your way. I'll know you as a man
That honeys leisure with a lovely face
And coins sweet perjuries to make the hearts
Of women bankrupt. No defence, I pray you.
I'll have no slices of your company.

MELANDER
Leave wrangling, sweet, and tell me soft and kind,
Where shall I see you next? I may not tarry.

ALACIEL
Why nowhere: for I'll not receive you, sir.
But if you love a door shut in your face
Come to my cottage on the forest's hem
Where rarer thickets melt into the plain.

MELANDER
Thither I will outstrip the climbing noon.
For this one tedious hour, dear love, farewell.

ALACIEL
I pray you, sweet, do not break promise with me,
For that will kill me. I will think of you
And comfort solitude with sighs and tears
Until you dawn afresh, a noontide star.

Exeunt.

Page 763

Act II

Scene I

The woodlands as at first.

Foresters and girls.

Melander leans against a tree absorbed in thought: in one group Marcion and Ermenild are talking: in another Iamblichus and Myrtil: Myrtil comes forward.

MYRTIL
What passion, dear Melander, numbs thy voice?
Why wilt thou cherish humorous peevishness,
The nursling of a moment and a mood?
Now kernelled in the golden husk of day
Pale night with all her pomp of sorrow sleeps,
And stinted of soft-clinging melancholy
The elegiac nightingale is hushed.

MELANDER
Sweet friend, my spirit is too deeply hued
With sombre-sweet Imagination's brush
To dress the nimble spirit of the dance
In lilt of phrase and honey-packing rhyme.
I pray you, urge it not. I am not well.

IAMBLICHUS
Urge him no more. The rash and humorous spirit
That governs him at times, will not be schooled.
But since the sweetest tongue of all is mute,
Some harsher voice prick on the creeping hour.

Page 764

MYRTIL
Ah no, Iamblichus! when winds are hushed
Fall then the clapping cymbals of the sea,
And every green-haired dancing-girl down-drop
Her foam-tipped sinuous wand to kiss her feet!
The loss of sweetest palls what is but sweet,
For should the honey-throated mavis die,
Who in the laughing linnet takes delight
Or lends ear to the rhyming hedge-priest wren?
Let us not challenge passion-pale regret,
But hand-in-hand down ruby-tinted walks
Gather the poppies of sweet speech, to press
For opiates when dank autumn looms and Life
Is empty of her rose. Were not this well?

IAMBLICHUS
Thy words are sweet as joy, more wise than sorrow.
Come, friends, let us steal honey from the hours
For memory to suck when winter comes.

Exeunt all but Melander.

MELANDER
Ah me, what drug Circean wakes in me?
My blood steals from my heart like pulsing fire
And the fresh sap exudes upon my brow.
O faster, faster urge thy golden wheels,
Thou sun that like a fiery lizard creepst
Glib-footed to the parapet of heaven!
Oh that my hand might clutch thy saffron curls
And thrust thee in the loud Atlantic! So
The violet mares of Evening may drink up
The sweet, damp wind, so dawn the ivory moon
And lurk shy-peeping in my darling's eyes.
For my desire is like the passionate sea
That calls unto her paramour the wind
And only hears a strangled murmur pant,
Mute, muffled by the hollow-breasted hills.

Enter Iamblichus with Myrtil in his arms.

Page 765

MYRTIL
No farther drag my steps, Iamblichus!
I am not fond to bow my doating neck
Under your feet, like other woodland girls
Who image beauty's model in your shape,
Heaven in your eyes and nectar in your kiss.
Fie, fie, be modest, sir. Let go your grasp.

[Here a page of the notebook was torn out.]

[MELANDER]
Ah me, again a sea of subtle fire
Clamours about the ruby gates of Life!
My soul expanding like a Pythian seer
Thrives upon torture, and the insurgent blood,
Swollen as with wine, menaces mutiny.
How slowly buildst thou up the spacious noon
To dome thy house, O architect of day!
Not from the bubbling smithy where Love works
Smooth He be fetched thy world-revealing fires;
Nor to the foam-bound bride-bed of the sea
Thou sailest, but like one with doom foreseen
Whose bourne and culmination lapses down
To sunless hell. Hope thou not to set out
My seasons in the golden ink of day:
My heart anticipates the pilot moon
Who steers the cloudy-wimpled night. Pale orb,
Thou art no symbol for my burning soul:
Lag thou behind or lag not, I will lead.

He is going out.

Reenter foresters with Palleas.

MARCION
What's this, Melander? Noon not yet has sealed
His titles with the signet of the sun.
'Tis early yet to leave. Why will you go?

Page 766

MELANDER
I am bound down by iron promises,
The hour named. Would I not linger else?
Even now the promise has outstript the act.

MYRTIL
Melander, do not go.

MELANDER
Dear child, I must.

IAMBLICHUS
Come, come, you shall not go. 'Tis most unkind,
Let me not say uncourteous, to withdraw
The sunshine of your presence from this day,
Our little day of unmixed joy. Be ruled.

PALLEAS
Boy, let me counsel you. This eager fit
And hot eruption does much detriment
To youth and bodes no good to waning years.
When I was young, I ruled my dancing blood,
Abstained from brabbles, women, verses, wine,
And now you see me bask in hale old age,
Mid Autumn's gilded ruin one green leaf.
Life's palate dulls with much intemperance,
And whoso breaks the law, the law shall break.
Love is a specious angler—

MELANDER
Dotard, off!
Confide thy heavy rumours to the grave
Where thou shouldst now be rotting.

Exit.

Page 767

Act III

Scene I

Before Alaciel's house.

GUENDOLEN
But what you tell me is not credible.
Could Love at the prime vision slip your fence
And his red bees wing humming to your heart?
What, at the premier interchange of eyes
Seed bulged into the bud, the bud to flower,
Bloom waxing into fruit? can passion sink
Thus deep embedded in a maiden soil?
Masks not your love in an unwonted guise?

ALACIEL
Sweet girl, you are a casket yet unused,
A fair, unprinted page. These mysteries
Are alien to your grasp, until Love pen
His novel lithograph and write in you
Songs bubbling with the music of a name.
Oh, I am faster tangled in his eyes
Than, in the net smoke-blasted Vulcan threw,
Foam-bosomed Cytherea to her Mars.

GUENDOLEN
But will he push his fancy to your bent?

ALACIEL
How else? for in the coy glance of a girl
A subtle sorcery lies that draws men on

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As with a thread, nor snaps not ere it should.
Love's palate is with acid flavours edged
When what the lips repel, the eyes invite.

GUENDOLEN
Have you forgotten then, my sister, how
Since war's ensanguined dice have thrown a cast
So fatal to our peace, the sweet confines
Of Ilni and her primitive content
Are hedged and meted by the savage Law?

ALACIEL
Child, I have not forgotten; but first love
Poseidon-like submerges with his sea
All barriers, and the checks that men oppose
But make him fret and spume against the sky.
Who shall withstand him? not the gnawing flame
Nor toothed rocks nor gorgon-fronted piles
Nor metal bars; thro' all he walks unharmed.
But lo where on the forest's lip there dawns
My noonstar in the garish paths of day.
He should not see you, sweet. Prithee, go in.

Enter Melander.

How now? was this your compact? Lift your glance
Where yet the primrose-pale Hyperion clings
Upon the purple arches of the air
Nor on the cornice prints his golden seal.
You are too soon. Why with this fire-eyed haste
Have you o'ershot the target of your vows?

MELANDER
Ah, cruel child! what hast thou done to me?
What expiation in the balance pends
Against thy fault? Not the low sweets of sound
Fetched by thy piping tongue from ruby stops,
Nor fluttering glances under velvet lids,
Nor the rich tell-tale blush that sweetly steals

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As if a scarlet pencil would indite
A love-song in thy cheeks. These candid brows,
The hushed seraglio to thy veiled thoughts,
These light wind-kissing feet, these milky paps
That peep twixt edge and loosely-married edge,
Thy slumber-swollen purple-fringed orbs,
Thy hands, cinque-petalled rose-buds just apart
Beneath the wheedling kiss of spring, thy sides,
Those continents of warm, unmelting snow,
All in the balance are but precious air.
Nay, with thy whole dear sum of beauties fill
The scale, it will not tremble to the dust
Save hooped upon thy breast my weight helps thine.
If you deny me my just claim, I'll snatch
You from yourself and torture with the whips
Of Love, till you disclose your hoardings. Oh
To seize this loaded honeycomb of bliss
And make a rich repast! Oh turn from me
The serious wonder of those orbed fires!
Their lustre stabs my heart with agony.
Hide in thy hair those passion-moulded lips!
Veil up those milky glimpses from my sight!
Oh I will drag thy soul out in a kiss!
Wilt thou add fire to fire? Torture not
My longing with reluctance; forge not now
The pouted simulation of disdain.
Leap quick into my arms! there lose thyself.

She embraces him.

Pardon me, sweet: thy beauties in my soul
Blow high the leaping billows of desire
And temperance is a wreck merged in his sea.

ALACIEL
Loveliest Melander, if I have offended,
Here like a Roman debtor yield I up
My body to thy mercy or thy doom.
Take my soul too! and in thy princely pomp

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Let this rebellious heart that needs will fret
To be thy slave, be dragged to thraldom. See,
I hang, a lustrous jewel, on thy neck:
Break me or keep me! I am thine to keep
Or break: fear not to do thy utmost will.

MELANDER
Hang there till thou hast grown a part of me!
Ah yet, if passion be Love's natural priest
Let not his fire-lipped homage scare thy soul.
Thy ripe, unspotted girlhood give to me,
For which the whole world yearns. A gift is sweet,
And thou, O subtle thief, hast stolen my calm
Who was before not indigent of bliss.
Oh closer yet! Let's glue our lips together,
That all eternity may be a kiss.

ALACIEL
What, will you bury me with kisses? Dear,
Be modest. Tell me why by a full hour
You outran expectation's reaching eye?

MELANDER
Inquire the glowing moon why she has dared
Forestal the set nor wait the ushering star;
Inquire the amorous wind, why he has plucked,
Ere Autumn's breath have tampered with her hair,
Petal on crimson petal the red rose:
Nay, catechise the loud rebombing sea
Who in a thundrous summer dim with rain
Conspired with hoarse rebellious winds to merge
The lonely life of ocean-wading ships;
Then ask fire-footed passion why his rage
Has shipwrecked me upon thy silver breasts.
Ah love, thyself the culprit, thine the fault.
Alaciel, thou,—O sweet unconscious sin!—
Hast in my members kindled such a fire

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As only sorcery knows: which to atone
Thy virgin hours must sweetly swoon to death
While in the snowy summer of thy lap
Kind Night shall cool these passion-melted limbs.
When thou dost imitate the blushing rose,
I swear thy tint is truer than the life,
Than loveliness more lovely. Dearest one,
Let naked Love abash the curtained prude.
Shame was not made to burn thy field of roses
Nor in this married excellence of hues
Unfurl disorder's ruby-tinted flag.

ALACIEL
Dear, if I blush, 'tis modesty, not shame.
I can refuse you nothing. When 'tis night
And like a smile upon a virgin's lips
Young moonlight dallies with a sleepy rose,
Then come and call me gently twice and thrice,
And I will answer you. Observe this well
In that the harsh and beldam Law excludes
Nature's sweet rites and Paphian marriage
Unless her bleared eyes be privy too.

MELANDER
O love, have you forgot the long elapse
And weary pomp of hours ere the sun
That follows now a path sincere of foam
Make sanguine shipwreck in the lurid west?
Scarce now his golden eye drops vertical
Upon the belt and midline of our scope.
Shorten your sentence by a term of hours
When I shall ease my pain. Turn caution out
To graze in nunneries: his sober feint
Of prudence suits not with a lover's tryst.

ALACIEL
Content you, sweet: let patience feed on hope

Page 772

Until night's purple awning bar from view
The hidden thefts of love. Nay, go not yet.
Sit here awhile until yon sloping disk
Swings prone above the poplar. Sweet, come in.

Exeunt.

Page 773

Scene II

Before Alaciel's house.

Melander alone.

MELANDER
Now, for her widowed state is wooed by night,
The sable-vested air puts on her stars
And in her bosom pins for brooch the moon.
She from her diamond chalice soon will pour
Her flowing glories on a rose's hair,
In pity of my love. Sweet crimson rose,
Alaciel's lamp, the beacon of my bliss,
O kindle quickly at the moon thy rays.
How happy art thou being near my love!
For thou who hast the perfume of her breath,
Why shouldest thou the spice-lipped Zephyr want?
Her dove's-feet whispering in the happy grass
Are surely lovelier to thee than the dawn;
Or wilt thou woo the world-embracing orb,
Who hast the splendour of her eyes to soothe
Thy slumber into waking? O red rose,
Might I but merge in thee, how would her touch
Thrill all my petals with delicious pain!
O could I pawn my beauty for a kiss,
How happy were I to waste all myself
In shreds of scarlet ruin at her feet!
It is my hour! for see, the cowslip-curled
Night-wandering patroness of lovers throws
Her lantern's orange-coloured beams, where sleeps
A bright, blown rose. Hail, empress of the stars!
Be thou tonight my hymeneal torch.
Alaciel! Echo, hush thy babbling tongue!

Page 774

'Tis not Narcissus calls. I am a thief
Who steal from beauty's garden one sweet bud
Nor need like visitants thy tinkling bell.
Alaciel! O with thy opiate wand,
Thought-killing Mercury, seal every eye
On whom the drowsy Morpheus has not breathed.
Yet once again the charm. Alaciel!
Now at thy window dawn, thou lovelier moon
Than sojourns in the sky! look out on me,
An ivory face thro' rippling clouds of hair.

Enter Alaciel above.

Marcion and Doris behind.

ALACIEL
Who calls?

[The next sixteen pages of the notebook were torn out.]

Page 775