Chapter IX: Stark. Ornis. (alwyn. Quercus. Shy.)

STARK

What _are_ you?

ORNIS

[_Appealing with half-fearful affection._]

Brother!—brother!

STARK

[_With sudden cry and gesture._]

Ha, my net!
The shy bird shall be captured ’live!

[_From his shoulder he looses the net, and flings it over_ ORNIS,
_seizing the meshes_.]

Now, Joy,
I hold you fast!

ORNIS

[_Struggling._]

Ee-ó-lee-o!

SHY

[_Extricating her._]

Not yet!

ALWYN

[_Seizing_ STARK.]

Untamed, and still unshamed! Will you destroy
The wings that raise you? Sister, speak to him!

ORNIS

My brothers—all of you! Oh, wage not war
Because of me. I fear not. Stark, you dim
The brightness of our union, greeting so
Your sister.

STARK

[_Dropping his net._]

Sister?

ORNIS

Hunt no more
With lime and net: Your love shall hold me faster;
For I am Ornis.

STARK

[_Fascinated._]

Ornis!

ORNIS

Dear my master!
Do you not know me? I am she
Whom first, beneath the dark, ancestral tree,
You rose upon your feet to hearken to.
By me you grew
To song and freedom. Round your olden feasts
You watched my circling flights, whereby your priests
Proclaimed their omens and their oracles;
My cranes announced your victories, my storks
Fed your hearth-fires, my silver-throated gulls
And golden hawks
Saved many your sea-towns from sore pestilence;
And my sweet night bird tuned your poets’ shells
To lull sad lovers in languorous asphodels;
Yet all my influence
Shone dimmer than my beauty: my bright plumes
Lured you to squander them, till, in the fumes
Of greed, your heart forgot to cherish me,
And sold me unto death and slavery.—
Yet, master, as you will:
Lo, I am Ornis, and I love you still!

STARK

[_With altered tone of yearning._]

Yet—yet it seems I never heard your voice
Till now; nor ever understood
Till now; nor paused, as now in this still wood,
To tremble and rejoice
At greeting you, my sister. I am stunned,
And wait to comprehend this wonder.

ORNIS

Ah,
You never prayed before to Tacita!
Your feet have shunned
Her gracious paths, yet only she
Can lead and show my brother Man to me.

“Lo, I am Ornis, and I love you still!”
]

STARK

[_Glancing at his gun._]

Why, then,—why have I brought this instrument
Of murder here? What black intent
Clouded my mind with blood?

[_Flinging it from him._]

Out of my hands!—My sister, can it be
That still you soar above my sanguine flood
Of passion, and forgive? Though yet I kill,
Oh, is it true indeed—you love me still?

ORNIS

Ha, put me to the test!
Show me the field that breeds your harvest pest
Of chinch or weevil,
Where all the blossoms wither with strange evil,
Or where, in filmy tents,
The hairy creepers gorge in regiments
Your budding apple boughs;
Show your ancestral elms
Gaunt limbed with leprosy, which overwhelms
Their green old age in death;
Or those swift locust clouds, whose breath
Blasts the ripe loveliness of Spring;
Show these, and more
Than these, and cry on _Ornis_! She shall bring—
From hill and shore
And plain—her wingèd flocks and warbling broods,
And swinge away their deadly multitudes.—
If _service_ be true love, I love you, brother.

ALWYN

[_Drawing near._]

And for her sake, so _we_ will love each other.

[_He takes_ STARK’S _right hand_.]

SHY

[_Taking his left._]

A greenwood partnership!

STARK

[_Pressing their hands._]

Thanks!

SHY

[_Whispering to the faun._]

Quercus, run!

QUERCUS

I skip,
I gambol, master. Ha!
I have a tale to tell to Tacita!

[_He leaps away._]

ORNIS

[_As_ STARK _tears off his headdress of plumes_.]

And those—?

STARK

For these my heart shall build a fire
Here at this shrine:

[_He hangs the headdress on a tree._]

And here, as on a pyre,
I place them, with this pouch, which hides
The victims of my blind desire.
There, at sad cost,
I let them tell my pain—the votive part
Of one long lost,
Who now has found himself in nature’s heart.—
Ornis, my trail divides:
There lie the ashes of the thing I was.
Henceforth, I walk with you—

[_Turning to_ ALWYN _and_ SHY.]

and these.

ALWYN

A compact, then, we three: that when we go
Forth from these gracious trees
Into the world, we go as witnesses
Before the men who make our country’s laws,
And by our witness show
In burning words
The meaning of these sylvan mysteries:
_Freedom and sanctuary for the birds!_
Say, is our compact sworn?

STARK

I swear.

SHY

And I.

[_Enter_ QUERCUS _and_ TACITA.]