Sanctuary: A Bird Masque
Date: 2018-03-08T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Birds -- Drama; Fairy plays

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Title: Sanctuary: A Bird Masque

Author: Percy MacKaye

Contributor: Arvia MacKaye Ege

Photographer: Arnold Genthe

Release date: March 8, 2018 [eBook #56704]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Mary Glenn Krause, MFR and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANCTUARY: A BIRD MASQUE ***

Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

SANCTUARY

A BIRD MASQUE

“Herkneth these blisful briddes how they singe;

Ful is mine herte of revel and solas!”

Chaucer

ORNIS

(Miss Eleanor Wilson)

SANCTUARY

A Bird Masque

BY
PERCY MACKAYE
With a Prelude by
ARVIA MACKAYE

Illustrated with Photographs in Color and Monotone by

ARNOLD GENTHE
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1913, 1914, by
Percy MacKaye
All rights reserved

THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS

NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A

TO
ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
‘WILD NATURE’S HUMAN SYMPATHIZER’
IN ADMIRATION OF HIS DAUNTLESS
SERVICE TO THE BIRDS

NOTE
REGARDING PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC READING

Requests for permission to perform or read publicly this Bird Masque having been received from a great many quarters, the following information is here given for those desiring such permission:

The Masque is copyrighted in the United States and countries of the Copyright Union, and all rights are reserved.

The purpose of the Masque is to be of public use, so that all adequate presentations of it are welcome. To this end the special conditions of performance or public reading should in each case be communicated direct to the author, in care of the publisher.

No performances may be given without such direct communication, and permission thus first obtained.

As the publication of this text is designed to serve the definite cause for which it was written, performances must be, in some degree at least, for the benefit of Wild Bird Conservation.

Music for the lyrics “The Hermit Thrush” and the three songs of Quercus has been composed by Frederick S. Converse, and is published by the H. W. Gray Company, 2 West 45th Street, New York.

A bird bath, specially designed for use in bird sanctuaries and gardens, with plastic groupings of characters in the original cast of this Masque, has been executed by Mrs. Louis Saint-Gaudens, Cornish, New Hampshire, post office Windsor, Vermont.

The four photographs in color, as well as those in black and white, which illustrate this volume were taken by Dr. Arnold Genthe of enactors in the Masque, as first performed by members of the Cornish Colony and the Meriden Bird Club at Meriden, New Hampshire, September 12, 1913.

FOREWORD

This Masque was written for the dedication of the bird sanctuary of the Meriden Bird Club of Meriden, New Hampshire, where it was first performed on the night of September twelfth, 1913. The text was composed, the lyrics set to music, the masque rehearsed, costumed and acted, within the brief space of a month. Its production came about by a spontaneous and glad cooperation of artists, neighbors, lovers of nature, imbued with a deep feeling in common—concern for the welfare of wild birds. In this important concern its enactors were happily encouraged by the sympathetic presence of the President of the United States and the participation of his family.

Swift and spontaneous as its production was, however, the masque in its reasons for being was not unpremeditated. It took its origin from two important sources, rarely, if ever, associated—nature study, and the art of the theatre.

The union of these was its raison d’etre.

However tentative its realization, it stands none the less as a pioneering suggestion of real moment to those two potent influences upon our national life. As such it has seemed worth while to present to the public, and to make clear the suggestion which it illustrates, however sketchily.

From a recent volume by the writer on “The Civic Theatre, in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure,” I quote the following paragraphs upon “Nature Symbols,” as they apply directly to this subject:

“The relation of the theatre’s art to the naturalist’s vocation is probably not obvious to the man on the street. That is because the commercial theatre relates itself to so few of the pursuits of science outside of Broadway interests. The civic theatre would do otherwise.

“Aristophanes symbolized the birds for the purposes of Greek satire. The costuming of his play in Athens probably expressed no direct attribution to the science of ornithology. Yet its attribution to the Greek race’s intimate love of Nature was as spontaneous as the symbolizing of flowers in the capitals of their temple columns. The movement to-day for the conservation of our birds and their more intimate study might well take on significant, lovely forms of symbolic expression in pageants, festivals and the drama of the civic theatre.

“By the same art, the fascinating designs, embossings, colorings, of insect forms could be symbolized in spectacles of astonishing beauty, motivated dramatically to the real and tremendous human relation which that ignored but pestiferous race bears to human society and the state; as witness the movement, involving millions in taxes, for exterminating the gypsy moth and the boll weevil.

“Such implications for art may seem, at first, a far cry from actual possibilities of the theatre; yet thus may the civic theatre directly relate its activities not only to the enthusiasms of naturalists in the fields and woods, but to the inspiring studies of scholars in their laboratories: a cooperation which may soon stultify the popular notion that art and science are divorced in their special aims. The same relation of the theatre’s symbolic art to all the sciences—the discoveries of chemistry, the splendid imaginings of engineering—is implied in their common aim: the bringing of greater joy, beauty, understanding, to our fellow men and women, the people.

“Science represents idea, art its expression; theatrical art its expression in forms best adapted to convened numbers of the people. The forms of popular art, therefore, are limited only by the ideas of man.”

It is thus as an illustration of one of the multiform genres of the civic theatre’s potential art that this little masque has its main significance.

Before the actual establishment of the Civic Theatre among us, the opportunities of the working dramatist to make tangible contributions by his art to its repertory are, of course, very scant and at best groping and experimental. One such as the present may serve, however, to suggest certain immediate, practical possibilities.

If, for instance, every bird sanctuary were to possess its stage and auditorium for bird masques—if every Natural History Museum had its outdoor theatre, equipped to set forth the multitudinous human meanings of its nature exhibits to the crowds that frequent its doors in their hours of leisure—if the directors of every Zoölogical Park were to provide for it a scenic arena, and seek the civic cooperation of the dramatic poet and theatrical expert, to vivify by their art the tremendous life stories of wild nature to the receptive minds of the human thousands convened to listen and behold—by such means, would not the disciples of nature study not simply adopt for their own ends a means of education and publicity a thousandfold more dynamic, imaginative and popular than any of the static means of exhibits, lectures and published volumes on which they now rely: would they not also thereby splendidly assist in enlarging the civic scope of the theatre’s art, still cramped, as for generations, within the walls of speculation and commercialism?

These suggestions speak for themselves.

If this Bird Masque shall help, in the slightest degree, to illustrate them, it will do its ephemeral service in the only permanent sanctuary of men as of birds—imagination.

Percy MacKaye.

Cornish, New Hampshire,

October, 1913.

PERSONS OF THE MASQUE[1]
in the order of their appearance

QUERCUS, faun

ALWYN, poet

SHY, naturalist

TACITA, dryad

ORNIS, bird spirit

STARK, plume hunter

PARTICIPANTS IN PANTOMIME

Hunter Attendants of Stark

Many species of birds—in human form, garbed symbolically

SCENE

The sylvan glade of a bird sanctuary.

1.  The complete programme of the original production of the masque, as first enacted at Meriden, New Hampshire, by members of the Cornish Colony and the Meriden Bird Club, is printed in the Afterword of this volume.

THE PRELUDE

THE LITTLE GIRL FALLS INTO REVERIE

THE PRELUDE

Wandering in the quiet of the bird sanctuary, a little girl hears the voice of a hermit thrush, and meditates this song:

THE SONG

While walking through a lonely wood

I heard a lovely voice:

A voice so fresh and true and good

It made my heart rejoice.

It sounded like a Sunday bell
Rung softly in a town,
Or like a stream that in a dell
Forever trickles down.

It seemed to be a voice of love
That always had loved me,
So softly it rang out above,
So wild and wanderingly.

O Voice, were you a golden dove,

Or just a plain gray bird?

O Voice, you are my wandering love

Lost, yet forever heard.

Passing on deeper into the wood, the little girl thinks dreamily of all wild birds and the wrongs done to them by their human brothers and sisters.

Out of her reverie grows the Masque which follows.

THE MASQUE

THE MASQUE

I

Dawn.

The woods are silent, save for bird pipings.

In the background, verdure of young pines and ancient boles of oaks form the dim-pillared entrance to a forest shrine.

Artfully placed on tree trunk and bough are nest boxes of bark.

On one side stands a low weathercock food-house; on the other, a tall martin-house pole.

In the shade of a great oak glimmers the shallow pool of a bird bath.

Peeping at this from behind the oak, appears, vanishes and appears again the horned head of Quercus, a faun.

Stealing forth, Quercus approaches the pool, bearing in one hand an enormous pitcher plant.

Peering upward among the boughs, he raises his voice in quaint falsetto, and sings.

QUERCUS

Veery, veery!—vireo!

Waxwing wild!—warbler wary!

Ori-ori-oriole!

Seek our sanctuary!

Robin rath,

Little tail-twitcher,

Drink from my pitcher,

Dip in my bath!

Dew’s in my bath,

Rain’s in my pitcher,

Dawn’s in the greenwood eerie:

Hither, highhole!

Redpoll!

Oriole!

Vireo!—veery!

[From his pitcher plant Quercus pours into the bird bath. Skipping then to a little swinging bird-house, he sprinkles its shelf with seed from a pouch. Here he pauses dreamily; furtively takes out and fingers a pipe; blows a few notes, pauses, starts, puts it quickly away, stoops his ear to the ground, springs away to the oak, and snatches an ivied staff which stands against the trunk. The staff is designed like a martin-house pole in miniature. Placing himself on guard where a foot-path enters the glade, he calls:]

Stand yonder! Hold! who treads beneath my trees?

A VOICE

[Outside.]

A friend.

QUERCUS

A friend to what?

THE VOICE

To Song, and Song’s melodious silences.

QUERCUS

Still enter not.

The race of wings reigns in this solitude.

No foot may here intrude

Without fair passport. Tell me first your name

And cause of coming here.

II

Quercus. Alwyn.

[A Young Man enters, pausing in the path.]

THE MAN

From hence even now a piping filled mine ear

With quaintish memory: familiar,

Yet old, it seemed. Long since, I heard the same

Lulling to paleness the white morning star
Among Sicilian oaks. So here I came
To spy upon the piper. Now, methinks,
I know him, by those horns and merry winks.
—Good morrow, Quercus, the faun!

QUERCUS

Now, by Lord Pan!

The poet’s ear and eye still spy me out.—

Alwyn, maker of songs—hail to you, master!

You!—Can it really be?

ALWYN

It can,

And is—by Pan, our ancient pastor!

But you, slant shanks, what make you here at dawn?

QUERCUS

Newfangleness! The classic gout

Still crooks my knees with the old lyric wine,

But now they run new errands.

[Flourishing his staff.]

Lo, the sign

Of my new office!

ALWYN

New! What may that be?

QUERCUS

Wood warden of the wild birds’ sanctuary:
Janitor of their sylvan temple!—See,
My staff acclaims me. Poor Mercutius!
Old mythologic nature-faker,
He’s out of date with his caduceus.
Behold in me
A modern science-tutored fairy
And practical care-taker—
Grand marshal of the martin-house!

ALWYN

[Pointing at Quercus’ staff.]

Of that?

QUERCUS

Nay, this, my bard, is but the breviat

And little pattern.

[Pointing toward a tall martin-house pole.]

Yonder, you behold
The real palace. Through those portals
We lure the feathered broods to fold

Their wings above the world of thievish mortals.

ALWYN

We—say you? Who are we?

QUERCUS

Myself and my lord master.

ALWYN

And what’s he?

QUERCUS

Nay, if I knew, I should be wiser.
He is the fellow of all friendless things,
Wild nature’s human sympathizer:
In form a man, yet footed so with silence
The deer mistake him for their brother; so

Swift that, meseems, he borrows the birds’ wings;

An eye, that glows and twinks

Through noon like twilight’s vesper star; an ear

That harks a mile hence

The purring of a lynx!

I love him, follow, obey him, yet I know

Naught of him—but his love.

ALWYN

Not even his name?

QUERCUS

Yea, what men call him by;

And he is like the same.

Men call him Master Shy.

ALWYN

Ah, Shy, the naturalist.

Why, he is my good crony. If he wist

To rhyme he’d be a better bard than I.

How do you serve him?

QUERCUS

I’m crew to his Jason!
I multiply myself for rare adventures,
And serve his Ship of Birds as carpenter,
Box-joiner, bath-cementer, mason,
Seed-storer, water-carrier,
Worm-steward, nest-ward, treehouse thatcher,
Man-chaser and mouse-catcher.

ALWYN

Nay, do you please in all?

QUERCUS

I carry to his call,
And never yet have earned his censures
For botch or shirk.

ALWYN

I prithee show me of your handiwork.

What’s here—this little box

With paddle wings?

QUERCUS

One of our weather-cocks.

Look you, it swings:

So when, in winter, the white tempest blows,

Here sit the birds at breakfast ’mid the snows,

With porch turned ever to the cosy side.
In that cold time, my master Shy
Brings more devices to provide
Bird-comfort: Food-bells full of millet
We place in covert nooks, and tie
Our knitted suet bags on many a bough
Of pine and larch. And I must plough

Through many a drift, to crack the frozen rillet

For little beaks to drink.

ALWYN

By Phœbus, now
Is this in sooth mine old Sicilian faun,
That wont of yore to dally
On violet-scented lawn
With lily-crownéd nymphs in lovelorn valley!
What modern change is here? What magic—

QUERCUS

Hush!

[With lowered voice, he looks around warily.]

I am not always quite so modern!
At times—at times—as when just now
You heard me pipe below this bough—
I slip my master’s traces,
And slink by paths untrodden
To lovelorn, lush
Arcadian places,
Where Philomel still lingers,
Plaining her ancient pity,
And there I fetch forth this
With idling fingers,
And, pouting on its lip my kiss,
I pipe some dulcet, old, bucolic ditty.

[Taking out his pipe, he plays again a few languorous strains, but breaks off abruptly.]

Whist! Here he comes.—It grates upon his ear.

“IS THIS IN SOOTH MINE OLD SICILIAN FAUN?”

III

Shy. Quercus. Alwyn.

SHY

[Enters, carrying a nest-box.]

A hermit thrush is pleasanter to hear.

[He greets Alwyn.]

Good morning, friend! How comes it you are caught

Walking so early? Poets, I had thought,

Salute the sunrise only in their song.

ALWYN

[Smiling.]

Fie, then! You do us wrong:

We rhyming slugabeds

Walk with Aurora at our pillows’ heads,

For dreamers can see dawn rise in the dark.

Poets are owls that elegize the lark.

SHY

And now you’ll talk to me of nightingales!

Three birds exhaust your bard’s vocabulary:

Larks, nightingales and owls! High time, you see,

To wean this fellow from your piper’s tales,

And teach him craftily

To build our hungry birds a homelike sanctuary.

ALWYN

[Patting Quercus’ shoulder.]

Good Shy, no schooling could so much relieve
My modern apprehensions: Tutor him,
Hoof, head and limb,
And let me humbly hearken. By your leave,
God shall provide the dawn,
And you the tutelage, and I—the faun.

QUERCUS

Waiting, my masters!

ALWYN

Give your pipe to me!

QUERCUS

[Holding it behind him.]

Must I give up my pipe? The sound is sweet.

ALWYN

Truth is more sweet than melody,
And wisdom than melodious words.
When you have learned to greet
With their own mystic speech all living birds
And minister to their necessity,
This pipe shall be restored, and we will make

Together a new song, more sweet for knowledge’ sake.

[In pantomime, he demands and receives the pipe from Quercus. Shy then addresses Quercus.]

SHY

This nest-box: Nail it on the barest bough
Of that tall maple. Place it well,
Like yonder one.

QUERCUS

Right, master. Now!

SHY

Soft, soft! Not so pell-mell!

You’ll scare that nuthatch at her nesting.

First tell me of your other questing—

Those errands which I sent you yesterday.

QUERCUS

That cowbird, master,—

SHY

Did she lay

Her egg?

QUERCUS

Indeed she did, the pest!
She laid it in a redstart’s nest;
But up I poked my nose in, nabbed it
And cracked it cursory:
Good Mama Redstart now can hatch her nursery

Without a big stepchild to smother her chicks.

SHY

Old Deacon Rathburne’s tom-cat, is he—dead?

QUERCUS

What, Tom, that dabbled in gore the wee goldfinches?

[He nods shrewdly.]

Wild huckleberries are growing at his head!

That almost got you in the fix:

Old Deacon saw me do it, blabbed it,

And Missus sicked her dachshund at my heels.

[Grinning.]

Eh, master, it’s your shoe that pinches!

SHY

When cats invade bird-temples, boy, it feels

Good to be wicked.

But tell me of our forest planting ground:

What shrubs and creepers have you found

And marked, to make our shelter thicket?

QUERCUS

Why, sir, to give it
Birdblithesomeness, I’ve chose
Shad bush, blue cornel, withe rod, privet,
Red osier, raspberry, wild rose,
Black haw, and dangleberry.

SHY

A proper list!

What trees—deciduous?

QUERCUS

Box-elder and bird cherry,

White ash, gray birch and cockspur thorn.

ALWYN

What make you thus?

Some sylvan pound, to stalk an unicorn?

SHY

Good poet, whist!

No more mythology.

Your faun is learning better. Truce!

ALWYN

Most humbly, my apology!

SHY

So, Quercus: and what evergreens?

QUERCUS

White spruce,

Red cedar, balsam fir, and Norway pine.

SHY

Good, fellow! Fine!
In such a shelter-tangle we can hatch
Ten thousand nestlings. Run, now! Catch
That squirrel there, before
He makes his call at your new nest-box door.

QUERCUS

[Skipping to the maple tree.]

Right, master!—Heigh, Sir Alwyn—ho!

Just see now what a jack-o’-trades your Quercus is!

When Master Shy discharges me, I’ll go

And rent nine fairy-rings, and start three circuses!

[Climbing among the branches, he disappears, whistling bird-notes.]

ALWYN

IV

Alwyn. Shy.

ALWYN

Shy—honest friend, your hand once more!

SHY

Heartily! Welcome to this wood.

ALWYN

Do you recall how once we stood
Here, and discoursed of songs I made of yore—
Dryads and poet’s dreams?

SHY

Yes, I recall

I wondered at them all.

ALWYN

First—as to-day—you smiled
Your incredulity of my quaint creed,
Till soon, in further converse, we agreed
In nature’s heart our faiths are reconciled.
For both of us seek nature’s fellowship,
The common language of all living things:
I—more in music of the human lip,
You—in the whirr of beaks and wings.
So both—craving the beautiful—
Still worship the same shrine and oracle:
This temple, and its dryad—Tacita.

SHY

I will confess
Of all the nymphs in your Arcadia
I worship her
Alone.

ALWYN

Because her moods are numberless
I do the same. Between the heart of Man
And Nature’s heart, which I do name God Pan,
She stands and moves—divine interpreter,
Translating with her shy and pagan dances
Our world life and its trances.

SHY

She is, in truth,

The sylvan priestess of this sanctuary.

ALWYN

[Eagerly.]

What if, through her as intermediary,
And after thousand ages of uncouth
Estrangement,—what, I say, if we
Might find through her the key
To comprehend the native speech of birds,

And hold communion with them in our human words!

Would not that be a modern consummation

Nobler than fable?

SHY

Almost, I would have said, we might be able,
If it were not for one who scorns this shrine
And violates the beauty of creation,
Marring all contemplative quietude.

ALWYN

Whom do you speak of?

SHY

One whom the red wine

Of slaughter has made drunk, and the false glister

Of dollars dazzled with blind arrogance.
Close by this wood
He plies a bold, sinister
Traffic in wings and plumage. Not by chance
But calculated orgies, he commits
His venal murders, slits
The bridal plumes from backs of mating birds,
And leaves the nested broods
Unhatched or starveling. So he girds
His loins, and like the Patagonian
Displays his feathered trophies: not a man
Swayed by ecstatic moods,
Nor even to equip
A hardy sportsmanship;

Not so: he slaughters birds for stocks and bonds,

And when we challenge, smiling he responds:

“Mine is a lawful market, where fine ladies pay

For plumes, to wear on Sabbaths and Christ’s Easter day.”

ALWYN

What is this desecrator’s name?

SHY

Stark, the plume-hunter.

ALWYN

Surely he dares not
Track his defenseless game
Here to this hallowed spot!

SHY

No place is holy to unhallowed minds:

He covets gain, and grasps it where he finds.

ALWYN

Still I have faith
That Tacita, in her serenity,
Is mightier than he.

SHY

Ah, nature’s quiet mood is delicate

And crushes like a flower.

ALWYN

Faith without works is vain, the Prophet saith.

So now, while nature muses in the thrush,
Here let us sit this hour,
And meditate
On Tacita, till meditation shall create
Its own shy image.—Hush!

[They sit upon a log and listen.]

V

Tacita. Alwyn. Shy.

[Dreamily, the fluting of birds sounds in
the forest. Dimly from the background
Tacita appears. With steps of reverie,
she approaches, and pauses before
them. Alwyn looks up and, touching
Shy’s arm, speaks low.]

Tacita! It is she!

SHY

Speak to her—you.

Alwyn

Dryad, and spirit of serenity,
Whose steps have fallen timeful as the dew
Upon our pathway, intervene
For us with that still-undiscovered queen—
Ornis, who reigns among your ancient boughs
Spirit of birds and sister of our race,
Man. Stir your spell-enchanted feet,
And by their moods arouse
Her hidden grace

To heed us, and hold speech from realms unseen.

[To mysterious music, Tacita treads a dance of invocation, appealing in pantomime to the unseen spirit of wings, which flits and sings and broods in the boughs above her. Alwyn and Shy watch her, rapt and expectant.

Suddenly a sharp gun-shot sounds, shivering the music, which ceases. Through the boughs, a bird falls fluttering to the earth.]

VI

Ornis. Alwyn. Shy.

[With a gesture of startled wildness, Tacita breaks abruptly from her rhythmic motions, and flees into the wood, while simultaneously from the other side there enters, swift but staggering, Ornis—a maiden, garbed symbolically as a bird. On one of her wing-like sleeves blood shows. With shrill, melodious cry, she flutters forward.]

ORNIS

Ee-ó-lee! O-rée-o! Sanctuary!

[Swaying, she falls to the ground. Alwyn and Shy spring toward her.]

ALWYN

Help, Shy! She falls!

SHY

[At Ornis’ side.]

Wing-struck! Here’s blood.

ALWYN

That shot?

SHY

The gun of Stark.

[Seeking to lift her.]

Up, birdling! Here is Shy.

ORNIS

[Droops, moaning.]

O-rée-o!

SHY

Quick! Bring Quercus.

ALWYN

[Hastening off.]

In a jot.

SHY

[Soothingly strokes Ornis’ arm and shoulder.]

So—so! Dew water soon makes well. So—so!

ORNIS

[Moans dazedly.]

Ir-re-o! P’tee!

QUERCUS

[Reëntering with Alwyn.]

Here, master!

SHY

[Pointing.]

Water!—There!

ALWYN

The bird bath!

QUERCUS

[Dipping his plant pitcher, hastens with it to Shy.]

Coming!

SHY

Sprinkle.

QUERCUS

[Sprinkling water upon Ornis, sings gaily.]

Ó-ree-o!
When shawes ben sheen and shraddes full fair,
And leaves both large and long,
’Tis merry walking in the fair forést
To hear the small birds’ song!

[Ornis revives.]

SHY

[Assisting her.]

Now, gently!

ALWYN

[Bending over her, calls low.]

Ornis!—Sister!

ORNIS

Who calls? Where

Am I?

ALWYN

In sanctuary. Have no fear.

ORNIS

[Looking from one to the other.]

Ah, me! But what are these?

SHY

Your brothers, dear.

ORNIS

My brothers—they are birds. But you are Man.

ALWYN

Through Tacita you know us now; we can

Speak to each other. Ornis!—Hark.

ORNIS

[Rising in glad wonder.]

At last!—

At last!

ALWYN

A thousand ages—they are past,
And dumbness, like a dream,
Sinks with them into sleep. We are awake,
And each to each
Can bid good-morning in our common speech.

ORNIS

How sweet and strange! Are we indeed awaking
From callous slumber and old wrong?
So sorrowfully long

The hand of Man has wrought my birds’ heartbreaking!—

Was it a savage dream?

Methought I sat on Morning’s golden beam

And sang of God’s wild gladness: High and higher

I showered His temple woods with ecstasy;

When suddenly

The earth screamed thunder, and a singeing fire

Shattered my wing. I fell.—
Groping in flight, my feet stuck fast
In smear of lime; swift from below
A tangling net was cast
Where, panting upward, a black hell
Of bloody mouths barked under me;
And there beside them—oh,
There watched, with eyes of wanton cruelty,
A man—bright clothed in many-colored plumes

Of my dead sisters. “Save me from their dooms,”

I cried, “O Sanctuary!”

ALWYN

And you woke

With us, your brothers—healed.

ORNIS

[With wonder.]

Oh, have you heard

What now I spoke?

And can we answer truly, word for word?

[Curiously.]

Alwyn!

ALWYN

You know my name?

ORNIS

[Turning eagerly from one to the other.]

Shy!

SHY

[Smiling.]

No mistake!

ORNIS

Quercus!

QUERCUS

[Skipping with a bow.]

Your birdship’s faun!

ORNIS

[Laughing joyously.]

Good-morning, brothers!

ALWYN

When have you known us?

ORNIS

Many an age and long!

No syllable has bubbled in your song

But I have blown it first from yonder trees:

[To Shy.]

No brooding-place of yours—but I was in the breeze;

[To Quercus.]

And ever to your whistle

I pipe the last note from the nearest thistle.

[Tacita appears remotely.]

O beautiful my brothers!
O dryad dear, I thank you! In your dawn,
How brave it is to speak with Man and Faun

As mates and fellows. Quick! Fetch me still others.

[A crashing resounds in the thicket. Tacita disappears.]

Who’s coming now?

SHY

Still others—our fellow man.

ORNIS

I hear a breaking bough.

ALWYN

Kind hearts and cruel are one clan.

ORNIS

Hark! Surely ’tis some strange distress.

Come, brothers, let us look:

It may be one who needs our friendliness.

Come with me!

ALWYN

[Calling off scene.]

Stand there! Stay beyond the brook.

QUERCUS

[With excited gestures.]

Back, ho!

ORNIS

[Suddenly recoiling with a cry.]

Ah, save me!

[She flies to their protection. Quercus also scampers back fearfully, and hides.]

VII

Stark. Ornis. Alwyn. Shy.

[Enter Stark, in garb of a hunter. He
wears a tawny leopard’s skin, and his
head is gorgeously plumed. Behind
him, two panting dogs are held in leash
by attendants. Stark rushes toward
Ornis, passes her oblivious, and seizes
up the fallen bird.]

STARK

Bagged!—Hold off the dogs!

[The Attendants withdraw with the hounds.]

ORNIS

[As Stark grasps the bird, clutches her own side in pain.]

Ee-ó-lo!

STARK

A rare beauty!—Bah, one wing

Shot-torn! Well, well, we’ll patch the thing.

“Sir—Here is No Hunting”

Madame La Mode’s a tricksy milliner.

[He thrusts the bird into his game pouch. Turning to leave, he sees Alwyn and Shy, and greets them gaily.]

Halloa! Fine hunting weather!

SHY

[Quietly.]

Sir,

Here is No Hunting.

STARK

[With a laugh.]

Pipe that to the frogs!

SHY

This ground is sanctuary.

STARK

And what’s that?

SHY

A place held sacred from the hunter’s trail.

STARK

Why, man, I am no hunter, and that’s flat.

I only plume myself—to trim a hat.

Besides, I shot outside your pale;

And now

[Touching his pouch, he winks.]

the game is bagged.

SHY

You bag the spangle
And lose the spirit.—Sir, here is no place
To preach or wrangle
Our creeds. I am a student, not a teacher.
So I would only learn of you: what joy
Urges you to destroy
So gracious, fair
And innocent a fellow-creature
As yonder?

[He points at Ornis.]

STARK

[Looking.]

Where?

ALWYN

Our sister, who stands there
And dumbly pleads for all her race—
And ours.

STARK

By Christ in Hades,
My eyes see nothing but a brace
Of popinjays, who pipe to me of ladies
And show me—no one.

ALWYN

Look more near.

Speak to him, Ornis!—Listen, now!

ORNIS

[Drawing back in dread.]

O-rée-o!

STARK

I am listening.

ALWYN

Did you hear

No voice?

STARK

I heard a bird call from that bough.

QUERCUS

[Peeping toward Shy from the bushes.]

Have at him, master!

SHY

[To Stark.]

Did you spy
That fellow’s horns there, when he drew back
Into the bush?

STARK

I saw
A stirring in that staghorn sumach,
And caught a rabbit’s eye.—
What are these crazy quizzings? Pshaw!
Good day to you!

ALWYN

Stay yet!

Once more look yonder, where my comrade stands,

Turning to take the gentle, outreached hands
Of our shy sister: Can you see
No timid form beside him?

STARK

Perfectly
My eyes discern
A man, who peers within the morning mist,
And murmurs to the air,

And smiles, as if he held sweet converse there.

In short, I see a sentimentalist.

I am not of that ilk.

[Calling]—Ho, there!—Holá!

Wait with my dogs: I’m coming.

ALWYN

Stay, and learn

What we ourselves have only learned through quiet

Listening. So long, in rampant haste,

Your dizzy soul has chased

The spinning dollar sign which stars your zodiac,

That you have lost the track

Of paths serene, and pace God’s world in riot

Of blinding gold. Pause, for this little space!

Put off that blood-emblazed regalia
Gorgeous with death,
And draw with me one meditative breath
Here in the temple of cool Tacita.

STARK

[Who has listened with half-amused curiosity.]

Ah—Tacita? And who may that be, friend?

ALWYN

One lovelier than you have yet set eyes on.

SHY

Go, Quercus: Pray our mistress to attend.

[Quercus goes out.]

STARK

Mistress! Is she a maid?—and lovely, too?

And may this wonder dawn on my horizon

If I remain?

ALWYN

Remain—to meditate!

STARK

Why, now, you stir my fancies.
In truth, ’tis early still, and little to do
This hour. Come, I will wait

And watch with you. But mind! The nymph must be

More lovely than my eyes did ever see!

ALWYN

With loveliness more deep than eyes discover.

STARK

So, ’tis a bargain, then?

ALWYN

Sit by me here;
And if your musings cause no fear,
You shall behold her in her secret dances.

STARK

By Hercules! I’m half prepared to love her!

[He sits on the log beside Alwyn. Ornis still stands apart, under Shy’s protection. Quercus enters, beckoning backward into the wood.]

VIII

Tacita. Alwyn. Ornis. Stark. (Shy. Quercus.)

ALWYN

Now, Tacita, shy pagan nymph, appear!

[Tacita enters from her shrine of greenery, and pauses before them.]

Spirit, unblind this man! Delusions blur
Inward his sight. He is a murderer,
Yet knows not he is such. Unseal
The fountains of his vision, and reveal
Yonder the sister spirit, whom so long
His blind heart strove to wrong—
Ornis: Reveal, and let him speak with her!

[Soft music sounds, various and elusive in its rhythmic themes. Tacita approaches Stark, and weaves about him a dance of revelation, lulling, charming, luring him by the appeal of numberless wing-swayings and bird-dartings, for which the music suggests the song-notes. During her dance, Stark rises, bewildered, and is gradually lured and led by her toward Ornis, before whom—at the consummation of the dance—he stands, staring.]

STARK

[Rising, speaks to the music.]

O twilight—holy dusk—dawn twitterings!

How far, how dim and hollow

You darkle over me:

Wings, wings! swift wings, shy wings, eternal wings!

Where shall I follow?

Ah, joy—jubilant melody—

And morning! Joy—I follow!

I dream, and drink from your immortal springs!

[Tacita disappears. Stark beholds Ornis.]

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.]

X

Tacita. Quercus. Stark. Ornis. Shy. Alwyn.

STARK

[To Ornis.]

Look, sister: friends are coming.

Now lead us to their shrine close by.

ORNIS

Oh, first let all make joy of this our union!

For now my glad heart, like a partridge drumming,

Calls for my mates to join us, all together,

In frolicsome communion.

Ho, Quercus, Quercus, call them!—Tacita,

Summon them with your fairy feet!

QUERCUS

[Bounding forward.]

Holá!

ALWYN

[Taking from his pouch Quercus’ pipe.]

Call loud and long!

Here’s our old pipe, to carry a new song.

[Alwyn puts the pipe to his lips, while Quercus sings to it, calling to the birds. At the end, Quercus begs in pantomime for the pipe which Alwyn, smiling, restores to him.]

QUERCUS

Come here, come here, you little comrades coy,

From hill and swamp and heather:
Make joy, make joy
Together!—
Tawny beak and scarlet vest,
Slant wing and sleek feather,
Bulging bill and cocking crest,
Hither!
Tumble out of nest,
Topple out of windy weather
Here, holá!
With preenings quaint,
Purple dyes and crimson paint,
Here, holá, in merry state!
Up from dew-grass, down from aerie,
Tacita—Tacita
Summons you to dedicate
Here her sanctuary!

[While Quercus calls, from all sides Birds of many species and colors—like Ornis human in form—gather, and peer from the edges of the scene. To these Tacita now beckons, and by her gesture summons to her dance, while Quercus plays joyously on his pipe.]

ORNIS

Bird and faun and man and fairy,

Gather now to sanctuary!

[Tacita first dances alone, then with Quercus; then, inviting and leading them all in pied procession, she marshals all away into her woodland shrine.]

FINIS

AFTERWORD

In the original production of this masque, referred to in the Foreword, the sanctuary stage was devised by Mr. Joseph Lindon Smith in two planes—the natural and the supernatural, harmoniously blended.

The natural plane, in the foreground, was a leaf-strewn plot of earth; the supernatural, in the background, was a constructed stage some eighteen inches higher, sloping slightly upward toward the back, covered with smooth canvas, practical for dancing, so painted as to suggest a weathered outcropping of rock, overgrown in places by moss and greensward.

This constructed stage was divided from the foreground earth by the trunk of a felled maple tree, straight in line and inconspicuous in color.

In front of this dividing line, SHY and Alwyn remained always in the natural plane; behind it, Ornis and Tacita remained always in the supernatural. Their scenes together were enacted near or beside the fallen tree trunk.

In the scene of his conversion, Stark was lured into the higher plane by Tacita; while Quercus alone among the characters skipped back and forth from one plane to the other.

As audience, the non-participating spectators sat in dominoes of brown, flanked on either side by the bird-participants in their pied bird costumes. These latter watched the performance until, at the finale, they were summoned by Quercus upon the constructed stage.

There, when all had been marshalled, entered the Cardinal Bird [enacted by Mr. Herbert Adams, the sculptor], accompanied by two small scarlet-tanager acolytes [boys], bearing great candles, to light a crimson cushion held by the Cardinal. On the cushion lay an open scroll.

This scroll, itself a sheet of parchment-like paper from the original press of Benjamin Franklin, had been inscribed by Mr. Stephen Parrish with a Sonnet-Epilogue,

Cardinal Bird and Hummingbird

composed by the author of the masque and signed by all of its participants, with their real names opposite the species of birds they severally impersonated.

Moving slowly forward to music till he stood before President and Mrs. Wilson, where they sat near the centre of the first row of the audience, the Cardinal Bird, with simple dignity, read from the scroll this

EPILOGUE

Addressed to Mrs. Woodrow Wilson:

Lady, WHEREAS your gentle patronage
And presence have to-night so favored us
In this our ritual, that you have thus
Lent to our earnest cause a double gage:
One gracious daughter to make glad our stage
And one to make its theme harmonious
With song—whose sire now makes illustrious
The larger theatre of our living age:

Therefore, ere yet the privilege be spent

Which grants our thoughts the spell of human words,

We vow by you, here in this tranquil wood,

Our loyal love to him—the President,

Whose heart has heard the call of the wild birds,

And sign ourselves

Your Servants, with gratitude.

Having thus presented the scroll, the Cardinal Bird with his Acolytes retired to the stage, where the final dance and procession of the bird-participants then took place.

The Programme of the performance [omitting that part of the Prelude already printed on pages xix and xx] was as follows:

UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF
MRS. WOODROW WILSON
AND THE FOLLOWING COMMITTEE

MRS. HERBERT ADAMS
MRS. C. C. BEAMAN
ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
KENYON COX
PERCY MACKAYE
MAXFIELD PARRISH
CHARLES A. PLATT
MRS. GEORGE RUBLEE
LOUIS EVAN SHIPMAN
JOSEPH LINDON SMITH
MRS. AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS

MEMBERS OF THE MERIDEN BIRD CLUB JOIN WITH RESIDENTS OF CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND THEIR FRIENDS, TO PRESENT A MASQUE IN THE INTEREST OF AMERICAN WILD BIRD PROTECTION

PRELUDE
SONG “THE HERMIT THRUSH”
SUNG BY MISS MARGARET WILSON

THE SONG COMPOSED BY FREDERICK S. CONVERSE TO WORDS BY ARVIA MACKAYE, WHO ENACTS THE PART OF THE LITTLE GIRL

MERIDEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE:
SEPTEMBER 12, 1913
SANCTUARY
A BIRD MASQUE
BY PERCY MACKAYE
PERFORMED UNDER THE FOLLOWING DIRECTION

STAGE PRODUCTION BY JOSEPH LINDON SMITH
DANCING BY JULIET BARRETT RUBLEE
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY FREDERICK S. CONVERSE
PROPERTIES BY WILLIAM HOWARD HART
PROGRAMME DESIGN BY KENYON COX

PERSONS IN THE MASQUE

IN THE ORDER OF THEIR APPEARANCE

QUERCUS | FAUN | JOSEPH LINDON SMITH
ALWYN | POET | PERCY MACKAYE
SHY | NATURALIST | ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
TACITA | DRYAD | JULIET BARRETT RUBLEE
ORNIS | BIRD SPIRIT | ELEANOR WILSON
STARK | PLUME HUNTER | WITTER BYNNER
| ATTENDANT | LEONARD COX

EPILOGUE

THE CARDINAL BIRD | HERBERT ADAMS
FIRST ACOLYTE | ROBIN MACKAYE
SECOND ACOLYTE | PAUL SAINT-GAUDENS

BIRD PARTICIPANTS IN PANTOMIME

BLUEBIRD | MRS. HERBERT ADAMS
CARDINAL GROSBEAK | MR. HERBERT ADAMS
OWL | MISS CHARLOTTE ARNOLD
BALTIMORE ORIOLE | MISS FRANCES ARNOLD
OWL | MISS GRACE ARNOLD
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD | MR. LEROY BARNETT
GOLDFINCH | MISS BIGELOW
DOWNY WOODPECKER | MRS. ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
DOWNY WOODPECKER | MRS. EDSON BEMIS
DOWNY WOODPECKER | MR. EDSON BEMIS
GOLDFINCH | MR. JOHN FARNUM CANN
BLUE JAY | MISS LOUISE CONVERSE
BLUE JAY | MISS VIRGINIA CONVERSE
KINGBIRD | MRS. KENYON COX
CROW | MR. KENYON COX
FLICKER | MISS CAROLINE COX
SCARLET TANAGER | MR. ALLYN COX
BLUEBIRD | MISS ANNIE H. DUNCAN
HOUSE WREN | MISS ELIZABETH EVARTS
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET | MR. PRESCOTT EVARTS
OWL | MR. ELWIN FEY
SCARLET TANAGER | MR. CHARLES FULLER
GOLDFINCH | MRS. CONGER GOODYEAR
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET | MISS LENA HARDY
WOOD THRUSH | MISS RUTH HALL
EVENING GROSBEAK | MR. WILLIAM HOWARD HART
HAWK | MR. GRISWOLD HAYWOOD
KINGBIRD | MISS KING
KINGBIRD | MISS CLARA KING
BLUEBIRD | MRS. HERBERT LAKIN
YELLOW WARBLER | MISS ELEANOR LAKIN
YELLOW WARBLER | MISS HETTY LAKIN
BLUEBIRD | MISS BELLE LAVERACK
SNOW BUNTING | MRS. PERCY MACKAYE
SWALLOW | MISS HAZEL MACKAYE
HUMMINGBIRD | MISS ARVIA MACKAYE
SCARLET TANAGER | MASTER ROBIN MACKAYE
GOLDFINCH | MISS ALICE MCCLARY
BLUEBIRD | MISS ANNE PARRISH
CARDINAL BIRD | MR. STEPHEN PARRISH
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD | MISS MARIE PARKER
HERMIT THRUSH | MRS. MAXWELL PERKINS
GOLDFINCH | MR. ROGER PLATT
SCARLET TANAGER | MR. WILLIAM PLATT
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD | MISS EDNA RAPALLO
GOLDFINCH | MISS HADLEY RICHARDSON
BLUE HERON | MR. GEORGE RUBLEE
LOVE BIRD | MRS. LOUIS SAINT-GAUDENS
SCARLET TANAGER | MR. PAUL SAINT-GAUDENS
WOOD THRUSH | MISS SCUDDER
BLUEBIRD | MISS ELLEN SHIPMAN
INDIGO BUNTING | MASTER EVAN SHIPMAN
WOODPECKER | MISS FRANCES SMITH
WOODPECKER | MISS REBECCA SMITH
BALTIMORE ORIOLE | MISS CORDELIA TOWNSEND

OFFICERS OF THE MERIDEN BIRD CLUB
PRESIDENT, DR. ERNEST L. HUSE
VICE PRESIDENTS

MRS. E. E. WHEELER
MR. NEIL CRONIN
PROF. FRANK M. HOWE
PROF. CHESTER H. SEARS

SECRETARY, MR. JOHN FARNUM CANN

TREASURER, MR. ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES

GENERAL MANAGER, MISS MARY L. CHELLIS

MASQUE COMMITTEE FOR THE MERIDEN BIRD CLUB

MR. ROBERT BARRETT
MRS. ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES
MR. JOHN FARNUM CANN
MISS ANNIE H. DUNCAN
MISS MARY A. FREEMAN
MR. ALBION E. LANG
MR. CHARLES ALDEN TRACY
MRS. E. E. WHEELER

COSTUMES
MRS. HERBERT ADAMS
MISS ELLEN SHIPMAN
MR. JOSEPH LINDON SMITH
PHOTOGRAPHS, DR. ARNOLD GENTHE
BIRD-NOTES, MISS KATHERINE MINAHAN
INVITATIONS, MISS ANNIE H. DUNCAN
AUTOMOBILES, MR. GRISWOLD HAYWOOD
STAGING AND SEATS
MR. WILLIAM HOWARD HART
MR. JOHN FARNUM CANN

BY PERCY MACKAYE

The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy.

Jeanne d’Arc. A Tragedy.

Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy.

Fenris the Wolf. A Tragedy.

A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic Reverie.

The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous.

Yankee Fantasies. Five One-Act Plays.

Mater. An American Study in Comedy.

Anti-Matrimony. A Satirical Comedy.

To-morrow. A Play in Three Acts.

Sanctuary. A Bird Masque.

A Thousand Years Ago. A Romance of the Orient.

Poems.

Uriel, and Other Poems.

Lincoln: A Centenary Ode.

The Playhouse and the Play. Essays.

The Civic Theatre. Essays.

At all booksellers

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. moved page 2 to end.

2. Silently corrected typographical errors.

3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANCTUARY: A BIRD MASQUE ***

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Table of Contents

- SANCTUARY A Bird Masque

- NOTE REGARDING PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC READING

- FOREWORD

- PERSONS OF THE MASQUE[1] in the order of their appearance

- PARTICIPANTS IN PANTOMIME

- SCENE

- THE PRELUDE

- THE MASQUE

- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- X

- AFTERWORD

- EPILOGUE

- TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE