Plays of Near & Far Part 34

PRATTLE: Yes, you always had papers all over your floor.

DE REVES: Oh, yes----

PRATTLE: And what are these?

DE REVES: All these are poems; and this is my altar to Fame.

PRATTLE: To Fame?

DE REVES: The same that Homer knew.

PRATTLE: Good Lord!

DE REVES: Keats never saw her. Sh.e.l.ley died too young. She came late at the best of times, now scarcely ever.

PRATTLE: But, my dear fellow, you don't mean that you think there really is such a person?

DE REVES: I offer all my songs to her.

PRATTLE: But you don't mean you think you could actually _see_ Fame?

DE REVES: We poets personify abstract things, and not poets only but sculptors[7] and painters too. All the great things of the world are those abstract things.

PRATTLE: But what I mean is, they're not really there, like you or me.

DE REVES: To us these things are more real than men, they outlive generations, they watch the pa.s.sing of kingdoms: we go by them like dust; they are still there, unmoved, unsmiling.

PRATTLE: But, but, you can't think that you could _see_ Fame, you don't expect to _see_ it?

DE REVES: Not to me. Never to me. She of the golden trumpet and Greek dress will never appear to me.... We all have our dreams.

PRATTLE: I say--what have you been doing all day?

DE REVES: I? Oh, only writing a sonnet.

PRATTLE: Is it a long one?

DE REVES: Not very.

PRATTLE: About how long is it?

DE REVES: About fourteen lines.

PRATTLE (_impressively_): I tell you what it is.

DE REVES: Yes?

PRATTLE: I tell you what. You've been overworking yourself. I once got like that on board the Sandhurst, working for the pa.s.sing-out exam. I got so bad that I could have seen anything.

DE REVES: Seen anything?

PRATTLE: Lord, yes; horned pigs, snakes with wings; anything; one of your winged horses even. They gave me some stuff called bromide for it.

You take a rest.

DE REVES: But my dear fellow, you don't understand at all. I merely said that abstract things are to a poet as near and real and visible as one of your bookmakers or barmaids.

PRATTLE: I know. You take a rest.

DE REVES: Well, perhaps I will. I'd come with you to that musical comedy you're going to see, only I'm a bit tired after writing this; it's a tedious job. I'll come another night.

PRATTLE: How do you know I'm going to see a musical comedy?

DE REVES: Well, where would you go? _Hamlet_'s[8] on at the Lord Chamberlain's. You're not going there.

PRATTLE: Do I look like it?

DE REVES: No.

PRATTLE: Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough.

You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like that once myself. So long.

DE REVES: So long.

[_Exit_ PRATTLE. DE REVES _returns to his table and sits down._

Good old d.i.c.k! He's the same as ever. Lord, how time pa.s.ses.

_He takes his pen and his sonnet and makes a few alterations._

Well, that's finished. I can't do any more to it.

[_He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of the altar amongst his other verses._

No, I will not put it there. This one is worthy of the altar.

[_He places the sonnet upon the altar itself._

If that sonnet does not give me fame, nothing that I have done before will give it to me, nothing that I ever will do.

[_He replaces the screen and returns to his chair at the table. Twilight is coming on. He sits with his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, or however the actor pleases._

Well, well. Fancy seeing d.i.c.k again. Well, d.i.c.k enjoys his life, so he's no fool. What was that he said? "There's no money in poetry. You'd better chuck it." Ten years' work and what have I to show for it? The admiration of men who care for poetry, and how many of _them_ are there?

There's a bigger demand for smoked gla.s.ses to look at eclipses of the sun. Why should Fame come to me? Haven't I given up my days for her?

That is enough to keep her away. I am a poet; that is enough reason for her to slight me. Proud and aloof and cold as marble, what does Fame care for us? Yes, d.i.c.k is right. It's a poor game chasing illusions, hunting the intangible, pursuing dreams. Dreams? Why, we are ourselves dreams.

[_He leans back in his chair._

We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.