Classic Audiobook Collection - Cinnamon and Angelica by John Middleton Murry ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Cinnamon and Angelica by John Middleton Murry audiobook. Genre: drama First published in 1920, John Middleton Murry's Cinnamon and Angelica is a four-act verse play that turns romance into a glittering fable of rival houses and restless desire. In a world where even the names taste of spice, Cinnamon, Prince of the Peppercorns, finds his imagination and his fate pulled toward Angelica, Princess of the Cloves - a meeting that threatens to ignite more than private longing. Around them gather vivid attendants and officers: Vanilla Bean keeps watch over Cinnamon's household, Caraway guards Angelica's confidence, and the martial voices of Mace and Marjoram speak for the duties of rank, loyalty, and war. As the forces of the Peppercorns and the Cloves press against each other, the lovers are asked to choose what kind of people they will be, and what kind of future their realms can survive. Lyrical, symbolic, and deliberately heightened, the play explores love as a transforming power set against pride, tradition, and the claims of public life - asking whether a single voice can change the course of a conflict that has begun to feel inevitable. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:30:53) Chapter 2 (00:50:32) Chapter 3 (01:39:26) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cinnamon and Angelica Prologue Man is a thing of dreams. By dreams he lives, and dreaming dies. Alone, his dreaming gives to life her tremulous beauties which are past swifter than spring's own flower, and overcast with the grey clouds of chill reality. Yet one, a dreamer, muses fitfully on the dim purpose which may light the dream on this, or that existence with a gleam not ours nor alien, but all transfusing into a rareness far beyond our choosing. Beauty we did not follow, yet we are, her elements since birth familiar.

In whose grave light may one, a dreamer, see the paths made straight by sweet necessity, a world where pain is pain, and a child sobbing tears at the stars, and joy lives not by robbing sorrow of her true sting, where laughter rises out of one font with tears, and no surprise is that love should still be sovereign in men's hearts, for love is kind, and to her own imparts grace that is stronger than the destinies which they confront with comprehending eyes. O dream of dreams, O wisdom of the child that hides in us and is not reconciled to what we are, remembering what we were, and what will the word spoken? even here, even now we might be, creatures of truth, knowledge and beauty, simpleness, and ruth,

whom death cannot diminish, who have been? Light for a tremulous instant, this quaint scene, flicker enchantments like a summer's sun through the green mesh of leaves, on every one of these my love's creations, so they leap from shade to light, from wakefulness to sleep. Act 1 Scene Cinnamon's Palace Cinnamon is looking out of the window

A room in the palace in Peppercorn Colonel Mace is standing with a ceremonial rigidity at the correct distance from him. It is Cinnamon's birthday. What's that you say, sir? I. But did I speak?

Of course. How foolish of me. You are a friend? Your Majesty commands my very life. Ah, that's no answer. Did you understand the words you heard? I scarcely heard them, sir. Ah, no, Mace, no.

If I spoke, I spoke aloud. Was it not this? Maybe I've lived too long. I do not take you, sir, but how too long? Since when too long? Since 27 years? It's 27. You give me. Count them now.

The guns begin to boom. Yes, 27. We'll call it 27. And yet each cannon makes a million waves that tremble through the spaces of the vast and gather huddled on the edge of all. Still 27, Mace, when each dissolving year carries my atoms like the tiny airs into the universe, leaving, I know not what, a sceptered thing, a crowned vehicle of cosmic perturbations. Don't shake your head and prove yourself a fool,

the worst of education for a prince. It takes the princedom from him, splinters the crown into a cloud of gold dust, pattering the infinite horizons of old time. and haloing the sunrise of no sun. Why has the glory stuck to me alone? Like one of those old-fashioned hosted stamps that published forth the birth of cinnamon.

How many years ago? Yes, 27. Let us shake hands on that and hold it fast. Swear it upon your knees. Mace is alarmed and uncomprehending. Down, you old dog, and say, I swear that you are 27. So swear. I swear that you are 27, my lord.

Forgive me, Mace. Not royalty has made me call you dog. Now I'll go down, and you shall call me dog. I cannot, sir, though you command. I'll not command. I'll kiss the polish on your boots. You are absolved the words. And those, your best boots?

Two such pairs could not be found in peppercorn. When I kissed, I saw my face. I don't like it at all. The mouth is crooked, and the nose resumes on its advantage. It's the cinnamon nose. Did you not know your honored grandfather was called old Longbeak by his yellow guards? And though I should prefer they should not lack, Ought of due reverence, still it was but love.

Think how they followed him against the clothes. I was an ensign then, and when he fell, with a chance bullet plowed into his eye, I could not hold my company. They spurred, against the royal command, into the cloves, and routed them instanter. Hence you hold, the valley and the uplands of Marai, that this mere girl ascended to the throne,

thinks to Belieger has encompassed, with half a dozen regiments of cloves, and some new fangled tin artillery. It'll come to nothing. Garlic tried to load the patent off on me the year you went, to Tamarin to fetch that painter fellow, to color-wash the palace, and left me regent. He unrolls a map. But look, the clothes have fastened on Marai, the fairest jewel, in the princely diadem of peppercorn, knit ours by conquest and cement of blood by free decision of its parliament. Made on the battlefield whither we dragged them, tied to our stirrup leathers. Sir, Muriel, with Nampurai, its capital once lost,

then ended is the day of peppercorn, and what was built by valor lost in scorn. You really think so, Mace? Oh, sir, forgive me. But when I hear you ask me with that voice, the very voice with which you say to me, I've spent the morning picking out these three, out of the hundred plans for the new fountain at Valembrosa. Tell me which is best.

Something turns cold in me. I thought that princes had points of honor sprinkled in their blood, so that they chafed by instinct when some outrage was done their royalty or their domain. And then they sent their loyal editors to rouse the sluggish temper of the plebs, while they raged inly at an hour's delay. of condign chastisement sir yet once more I feel you have not heard me nor have read today's dispatches yesterday the cloves gathered their armies on the further bank of the volubulus today they've crossed in ten detachments a galloper now brings me news that

by forced marches the cloves are converging anon perrail I came to tell you this but God forgive me your strange behavior has benighted all my resolution and my thoughts confused, for you so smile at me that there are moments when to myself I seem a wanton child, telling a tale of dreams past all belief, to such another. Why do you thus bewitch me? Here is the message. Read. Hand cinnamon to dispatch. I pray you, do not smile. I am not smiling, Mace. I will not smile. I swear it. Why, my very muster.

Auxle's ache, with pursing of my lips, to such a scowl as should afford you satisfaction. It's not your lips that smile. Still, not enough. You'd stand me like a dunce into the corner, and say my back was laughing. I could believe it, for your lips are set, and yet your shining eyes make mock of me, being shot with silent laughter. If I'm stiff, its wounds have ironed me, If my face is pocked, It was gunpowder that seared it, If my eye, droops,

It was got upon the ratapulin, Shielding your father. As I scorned my life, It's just you scorn my body. Oh, Mace, Mace, a little, And you'd rob me of your love. The only jewel I have, The only country,

Where I am prince, Without constraints of love. the only citadel where I rest secure, and rest in very deed, the only gift whose impulse I shall never understand. My only miracle, and only fear. If my eyes laugh, they have no cause for laughter, then they are rebels to my princely will. My heart is sick, sick with the trembling sunshine, That whispers at the world's in holiday, Yet will not speak it that the world may hear, An answer to the summons,

Faints away against the brazen bugle. The bugle sound from the palace yard, Two horse, two arms, and gallop away, laugh in the evening, dead in the morn, for non-pariel, for non-parri-el, a peppercorn, a peppercorn. That's no pain, to you, my mace, for you are smiling now. But I'll not twit you with it. I have no stomach for jesting, though you think me idle, nor yet am I afraid. I have no fear, save one that I have told you of, your love. But there is something in that bugle call,

like to the son's own voice for plangency. So beautiful, so brimming, and so ended, never to be again, richly remembered, only with wealth of anguish for a pass, of dreams we wake and hold not, topping all mortal ascension to eternity. There'll be another sun, another call, another sunshot wind will stream my pennons against the vaulted sky.

But that conjecture of heavenly music and of heavenly weather slides from our sense forever. It has been, and weak sick mortals are. And when we're dead, they'd say, did they not cheat the truth? We were, not we have been. If only it were true, and lives were moments, sudden, leaping flames, burnt out in the splendor of a birth and death, then memory would not take us by the hand, veiling her face, nor her sister, Sister desire.

They hold the other, nor their guidance lead. Men through this veil of half-heard echoings, brushings of unseen wings, uncertain lights, and far-off whispers of beatitudes. The bugle sound again. Women and wine in a city to sack, not two in a hundred ever come back. Their mothers shall wish they had never been born

Who'll take Muriel from peppercorn? But I am talking nonsense for a prince. The army's ready on that leg behind. What are the plans? Mace, smiling, unrolls the map again. No, no, I know the country far better than the barrack yard beyond, each several hill, and each astrifice.

garden, a priestia that lies unto the sea, like a dead maiden with her soft hair floating upon the crystal waves. So do her trees bow to the water, and her rounded breasts are golden with the vines, when I have laying between them in the sunshine, and look down upon the wighted roofs of Don Peral. I closed my eyes, and prayed that she would take her. Make me, a pygmy lover to her breathing heart, and make of me her increase in the vine, the jankuil and the curved an enemy, now we will tread them under. Tell me, Mace, how will the army stand? I do not know whether to give them battle ere they reach the walls of non-parole,

or let them take it and send the armies swiftly to the roads, beyond the city, drive them from the bridges, stake all upon a large encirclement, and both fight face to home. We'd make an end to all alarms forever, no falling back, no undecided issue, no retreat, win or be blotted out. But they will have the city at their mercy?

Mercy, yes, for the princess is with them and will hold her soldier in leash. Vanilla told me, Miss Bean, that is, Your Highness's housekeeper, who was attaché to our embassy, in nectarine hardly a year ago. The princess bore such love to nonpareil. She stayed there as a child when she was ill. She still frequents it in most strange disguises, a lemon woman or a flower-cellar.

And once she sailed down the volubilus on a woodman's raft, she loves the city so. She would not change an awning in the streets, nor stop a single fountain. She believes it's hers by right and tenfold hers by love. It was her mother's dowry, you remember, brought to her father, old Jinjumbris 5, from whom we took it in the 79. I make no doubt that if my news be true, that the princess herself commands the clothes. Cinnamon has been looking out of the open window. What was that?

Dreaming again? I cannot keep my mind from ringing silly chimes. the sun, the birds, the day, the bugles, and those oranges, burning their somber leaves. Angelica, you say, commands the clothes, and laggard I who stand unspured and idle, to the plan, will let her have the city for a space, and love it for her own.

You to the west will take ten. thousand infantry and horse by way of Valembroza. With five thousand, I'll go under Apricia and cut the valley road, while you will hold the ridges. Then, being met, will cogitate a plan, not seek to pin to our pet purposes the frail event, which, like the butterfly. Being caught escapes us, Being watched is ours, in full possession of her comeliness, till then all speed. But this Angelica seems not to mingle love with courtesy, though each is fair for the admixture. Why did she make no declaration of her intent to war? Why sent she not a letter or an embassy to show her cause of quarrel and her rightful?

claim. Love is no claim on nations. She did well, not to propound it and be laughed to scorn, as well as give us warning of her motions. Love is a claim on princes. It's by this that they do recognize the bond of love. Themselves are princely. Blood doth make them free, for all endeavor, and the instrument, for working out their purpose, riches give. Yet these are but the bounds of their great freedom, which they must fill, or their severe judgment is pitiless. Yes, a princely heart must be a harp of many strings, the lightest finger, the softest breathing, and most delicate air. The whisper of a leaf, the faintest voice of any child in pain, must wake to music, subtle as perfume, and like thunder strong, and all appeals that leave the one-stringed law, unmoved and dumb,

must find a princely echo within a princely heart. I'd have the world all princes. Ah, you have strange fancies, sir. Yet you'd not work them. How if she had sent, and told you her great love for non-parail, and asked you of your grace to give it her. Could you have said, I'll give it? You dared not. Cinnamon is silent for a time. The bugles sound again. Bright are our sabers, bright is the noon. Grey is the morning. Grey are the dead. Ninety-five troopers lay under the moon, turf for a pillow, and blood for a bed. Bullie-boys all, with dew for a pall. Sleep a long night when there's glory.

to wed. I talk too much, and we are wasting time. She asked me not. Why, what's the use of thinking what I might dare to answer? She is kind, you say, and loves the city. We might parlay before the morning graze the bully boys and turns their eyes to ashes. With an invader, in peppercorn, no cinnamon can parley. Why are their songs so sad?

No law doth force them to be my soldiers, or does any love. But if they freely choose the uniform, why are they sad? Oh, why am I so sad? There's no more answer to the question, for we are sad because we know not why, nor whereunto we're happy, or are they sad thinking of death. They do not think at all.

They then are wise. It lies too deep within them, for thought to drag it forth. He looks down from the window. How beautiful my soldiers are in the sunlight, and the moon, another beauty, and as rare as this, their pallid faces in the quietness of the still, dropping moon. Oh, that this beauty should cheat us so. and whisper that to be a part of her enchantment might be all our great endeavor and our destiny. And yet our life is precious. It's the firm rock that we tread on.

Grip it in our hands until the blood runs from our weakening fingers. If it's a dream, there's none so real as this, and none that haunts us longer, nor so trips our brave resolve. She is a queenly mistress, whom we do clasp and anguish to be held, close in her arms forever. Yet she turns, thrusting us from her, so we fall and weep, and then she is a gentle child who leans over our sobbing and demented heads. And through our tears she shows us rainbow beauties, till we are comforted. and happy groan. Would be children no more, but very lovers. We clasp her, and she turns away again. I think for leaving her, they should be sad. They're only children.

And the sad are they, for they have known her happiest. For a soldier, it is his duty and his privilege to make surrender on the battlefield, of that he holds most precious in the world. The more the sadness, more the pride. But Mace, if they are children, where is the privilege? They do not understand it. But they feel it.

They give themselves for me, and do not ask if I am worthy, that so great a price should be my ransom. But they pay it not for you, but what they think you, to the country, of which the visible head is cinnamon, and to themselves who entered on a service where there is no huckstering and what they give they'll not receive again this service has its honor that its gift bears no equality of recompense

it is a solemn covenant whose end lies in its own fulfilment there's no force compels their signature they freely given and freely do receive of wounds and pain if they were forced why there's the end of honor a noble craft robbed of its mystery to make a traffic and a servitude. Soldiers are children, but by sacrifice, are children like the holy men of old. You are their priest, whose own unworthiness cannot attach the office that you bear. That is the soldier's credo, though he may not find words to say it in. Why, you do shame me with so much eloquence upon a cause you're certain of. What has come over me? I never made a speech at the mess table.

Of half so many words. You were inspired. Mace looks surprised and almost indignant. It's nothing terrible. The soldier's song is more than they could make it with their thought. Why, you did tell me so, and suddenly you sang your song. That's all. Mace is still suspicious.

Let's say you spoke, but lay within your heart so deep, your mind could not have fathomed it. But you have put a heavy burden on me. I must be what they think me. Fill the office. Oh, but I have so many to command and satisfy this confraternity of covenanted soldiers.

Lead a people along the road of happiness and joy. Mace lifts his eyebrows. Yes, joy, my ma'am. mace, so that they love the sun, not bend their aching backs all day beneath it, and love their country as a land, which gives her bounty and her peace unto the poor, yet were these rival duties reconciled, then there's another office which doth bear hardest upon me, though perchance it's I have made it hardest to be born. I carry somewhere in cinnamon's body, the faint soul of cinnamon. I do not understand it, nor all its voices, yet obedience is not within me

to refuse. I dare not. It cries for the moon, then I must climb the sky and bend her face toward me. If it whisper, that there's some ascent of humanity, I have not tried, a gift I have not given, or some conjecture of myself with men, whereby I'll enter on serenity, then I must wait the occasion, like a horse, a thoroughbred my mace, fretting the bridle, or like a poet who should find all barred, the issues of his soul to the moonlit mountain, sick like end mion of the wondrous story, in converse with peona, till he flings his thought, oh, wearied body on a bed of poppies, in a long, unhoped-for voice,

whispers a magic wisdom in his ear. In such suspense I wait, but with more calm and more despair, for I do scarce believe there's an issue to this life of ours, save its own poignant beauty. The bugle sound very faintly in the distance. Cinnamon listens intently. If I wait upon some other consummation, dream on a less uncertain ecstasy,

with less of longing and fantastic tears, nearer to that more joyful plenitude that filled me on apricia in the sun, nearer to flowers than queer and mortal men, it's not because aught could be lovelier, than those faint silver trumpet notes, those shining tears of the world for transitory things. But something drives me, in despite of knowledge,

to all adventure for an idle dream. If I had only dreamed it, that's the office of body to the soul of cinnamon. Oh, would I were a soldier! So you are. Or so, forgive me, sir. You should be now. You are not like your father. He would never have let his army march out of the city and not ride at the head of the yellow guards. Only a third-part soldier at the best. A third-part prince and holy cinnamon. There's no arithmetic in that, but some's I cheated as a boy. The answers came. Pat from the prompt book. So they'll come again, and cinnamon be equal to a soldier. Quote erat demonstratanum, I shall be.

That which I must be by the answer book. You'll not perceive the difference by a button. Pluses and minuses shall be in order. And if it's meet and right that cinnamon should cancel out into a great round O, why then he'll do it, and perchance he'll find a quicker way to his own Mooney Mountain and his dear mistress than Endymion. Cinnamon sings softly. Bully, boys all.

Then suddenly breaks off. But now, delay not. Take Excalibur. Oh, what a foolish, silly prince am I. That will not rhyme with reason. On parral I'll take and take Angelica for mine. He pushes Mace, bewildered before him out of the room. You know the plan. You have considered it.

Mace nods. It stands then. You are ready. Wait for me. In half an hour, I'll have my business done. Look like the yellowest of yellow guards and meet you in the courtyard. then we'll ride with a welcome for whatever may be tied. Exciant, Curtain. End of Act 1 Act 2 of Cinnamon and Angelica by John Middleton Murray.

This is a Librevox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Act 2. Scene The Same Mace is sitting, fully equipped and impatient, on the edge of a gilt chair in the same room in the palace. He is obviously eager to get away without a moment's further delay. Vanilla Bean enters. Mace looks as though the worst had happened. Now, please don't make a scene. There's nothing lies. So cold upon a soldier's heart as tears,

shed over him at parting. So, you're going? Mace does not answer. I have a right to know. Mace nods reluctantly. Vanella looks at him hard. He stares upon the ground. Don't be afraid.

I never was a woman much for weeping. Mace, plucking up courage. There have been times. I want to ask you this. Do you remember that you promised me before you sent me off to nectarine, that you'd give up the service when I came back with a full report of the new princess? If she intended war, you were too old to lead an army on an enemy armed with the garlic gun. You would apprise the prince of what impeded and retire.

If peace were in her mind, then you and yours would also be at peace and free to marry. Those were your very words. You were dear Vanilla. i went to nectarine wasted a year inside the musty fusty embassy saw that angelica had set her mind on non perell which your ambassador would still have blinked at had he lived to ninety I told you this, and faithfully performed all your instructions, though I thought them wicked. And when the darling girl, she is a darling, so shyly asked me whether cinnamon, who had gone whirling off to tamarine just like a boy, had such a princely nature that he would listen to her if she wrote, a privy letter with her own dear hand, expounding her great love for non-Perell, and craving of his grace he would exchange it against some equal part of her domain. I did your bidding, made my eyebrows beetle over my eyes in a forbidding frown, and said, There were such things as princely pride, prestige, a nation's name and reputation. I had it all by heart from your dispatch.

Miriel had been cemented to our country by peppercorn blood upon the battlefield. I dared not bear a message to His Highness of so great progress. provocation, such a challenge to his hot-blooded and fierce meddled heart, a promise of design in future war. And at the word she hid her trembling lips, her brimming crystal eyes within her hands. The while old caraway did glare at me as one who had been traitor, as I was, for I had sought her friendship and received it. Through her I learned Angelica's intent. and her most lovely heart. No, worse than traitor. For as I turned my guilty glance away, I knew I'd hurt a child. Oh God, forgive me. And when Angelica did murmur softly,

but I had thought him gentler. In my throat rose a great wave of tears. I choke them down, and with them choked the surging. Child, it was a little bit of the same. Child, lies, all lies, my heart all lies. My pretty, come, forget them. I am a sinful wicked woman who sin for love. But write your letter now, and I will bear it unto cinnamon, though I should die for it. But no, I did your bidding and was silent. Then she updrew herself to her full height, and with a curling of her tremulous lip, reached with her white, clenched hand, into her bosom. Where would to God our cinnamon had rested his spinning head? Took out a folded letter and read,

My well-beloved cousin. Ah, if only your keen bugles had not called the memory of that voice back to my brain. My well-beloved cousin. I know not why it should haunt me so. Oh, why more lies. I have most certain knowledge why it haunts me. my well-beloved cousin. Have you heard one of your drummer-boys laugh when a sergeant has punished him unjustly? You have heard, but you would not have known. The drill book says volumes about the timber of their drums, but nothing of their boyish, breaking hearts.

She laughed, and I'll remember it forever. A crystal vase rings with a golden music, when strolling. with a loving finger. Suddenly, an unfamiliar and untender hand strikes, and the glittering echo falls dead on the instant like a winged bird, struck to the heart, for some invisible faint fracture has destroyed its singing soul. That's how she laughed, while in a single hand she crushed the letter to a crumpled ball, holding the other out to me to kiss, and said,

forget what went before the lesson that you have taught me now. To be a princess comes not by nature but by breaking it. I thank you for your pains. Come, Karaway. I did your bidding and performed your promise. You think it cost me nothing? Where is yours? I do not know.

Vanilla do not cry. I'll keep my promise. I have sworn to keep it. Vanilla Bean. on the point of tears. Then ask him now for his permission to leave the army. But go now, go now, if you pretend to love me. But, vanilla, the army's on the march.

My loyalty is thrown like ashes on the hungry sea and swallowed up. After how many days will it return to me? When I am old, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Ah, love thou stone. hearted and unpitying God, who binds us to thy service and returns only a desolate heart. So I am bound, in service to the prince. And unto me. Mace, bowing his head.

A loyal soldier and a loyal lover. Two equal bonds, oh, would that one would snap. They grip my heart so hardly. Let them be. A woman's heart will bear the longer strain. I would not have you suffer. Get you gone. Our troth will last another little year.

I could not bear your presence at my side if your dear eyes should glance reproach at me, for that I made you fail of your true duty, as I did fail in mine for love of you. Nay, though I dreamed of quiet happiness within our garden at Ritaphia, for we have loved so long, It will not be, and I'd not have it now. Oh, don't say that.

It shall be ours. It must be. We've deserved it. Don't be so faint of heart. Faint-hearted, I? I have believed too much, been over bold in faith and faithfulness. My sword shall hang, over the chimney. No, we'll make of it a pruning hook, according to the scripture.

Two pruning hooks. There's metal sure enough in this old-fashioned hangar for a pair with which we'll tend our roses. I forget. You're not so fond of roses when I came back from the ratapline with a great armful of reds and whites and purples. You remember. You threw them to the ground. It's you forget. The reds and whites were in your other arm. A pitiful lump of purpled bandages. and round your head another. Oh, I threw your roses down. I saw them not. I saw only the body broken that I love,

and the one weary and oerclouded eye that was not swathed. Could I see roses then? Yet you believe that I did love them not? That night when I had laid you on your bed, the while I watched you tossing in fever, with which we struggled for you 20 days and nights as long as years. I turned away, gathered your roses, and... No, I'll not tell you.

You would not understand my foolishness. No, tell me. No, there's nothing more to tell. I loved you and your roses. Blind, blind, blind. Vanilla deliberately misunderstands him. and strokes his scarred eye with her hand. Ah, no, we saved it.

Only a little droop still whispers to us of the thing we feared. I did not mean it so. My eyes may see, a halted patrol, 20 miles away, yet I am blind. I have tormented you with my untimely memory. You're a soldier, and I a woman. Yet you love me still? Why do you love me still? Ask rather why snails crawl, birds sing, and two and two make four.

Yet you'll not find the answer. I am blind. You would not see the answer? I am blind. All, all are blind. You have no privilege. Was I not blind, who did obey your bidding in nectarine, and turned Angelica from her far-seeing,

heavenly intent? Were you not blind who bade me, and your eyes filmed by the childish black hypocrisy that taints the soldier's valor at the spring, and turns this earthly Eden to a shambles? Was she not blind who did believe my words and could not see my soul? Yet, if she was, I dare not say it. She was but a child, who had not learned that being blind we lie. But you too are a child. Yes, even I. All, all are children who do idly tear at the roots of the great green over-branching tree, whose sun-warm fruit shining above our head, has lured us into climbing her large limbs, whereunto clinging we do eat our fill of mortal knowledge, laughing on those below. Yet sudden, looking up through the myriad threads of woven,

light spun by the glancing leaves, we have a perilous vision what we are. How small, how brief, like summer flies that stir the surface of a water on a day. For in that moment comes an anguish sight of lands beyond our dreaming. And some do stand apart thinking upon them with quiet eyes. And some do softly whisper of what they saw. And some speak not again. And many have not seen, but all forget, for all are children. Some would build a house among the columned roots, and some would know what they are made of, and from whence they came, and some would have one for their very own to carry it away. So do we tear at the roots of our o'erarching happiness, until it falls upon us at our play.

were not my mind so fearful of disaster. It echoes sounds unheard within my ear. I'd say, I hear it cracking on us now. I am afraid. My darling, we have lived. Yes, and have loved through such campaigns before, and counted them for trifles. Let me go, and you shall see me standing on your threshold,

with no new scars save only that of love, which in a moment is thrust deeper far by your strange words. He is suddenly silent, as though he were frightened at his own smooth-running words. Then he bursts out. Oh, I am bewildered. I feel I was a child and am a man who must do childish things. If I have torn at the roots of the tree, then I am paid indeed. Blind fingers tear at my own heart roots now. The world is strange, and I am.

a stranger to it, who lived upon life's lap. I have done wrong, who did my simple duty. I am blind, who saw so clear, and in a little moment I am become a faint, misgiving soul, who was a soldier. Vanilla turns to him and clasps some inner arms. He is again silent for a while. It's late to climb the tree at 57. Ah, no, I often climbed it. For years did eat the fruit, and looked not up. But having started at a sudden voice, I am of those who do not speak again. Being a soldier, but being a lover. No, not a lover. One who leans on love. Elsie must fall. I am of those who whisper. I am afraid. Can you not parley yet? Oh, there is time for that. While there's a clove in peppercorn, no cinnamon can parley. My loyal editors will

see to that. Go, call them now, and tell them we did wrong, and we must ride it. Do you know the breed? Beside them, I do cut myself a child. In innocence, when I had summoned them, to meet me in this room but yesterday, my belly sickened, as it once did faint, when I was riding home from Radipelin and saw the blanched body of a soldier, mouthed in the gutter by a herd of swine. These jackals of the dead, these parasites, that creep their way into the maddened brain of simple men till they two cry, war, war, and are the beasts they rose from, things devoid, of honor and the seed of sympathy. And when I saw a wounded grenadier who died within my arms in my first battle, he was a dark-haired boy who tended me when I was but an ensign, he waved at me, and I ran to him, he was blood,

all blood. Blood and a white-drawn face. His glazing eye did seem to smile at me. He did not smile. He could not smile, since then I have known wounds. In my own body, as I held him up, his face writhed, and two sudden drops of sweat started upon his forehead. I bent my head, knowing that he would speak, and then I saw his teeth were clenched clean through his underlip. And from the corners of his mouth, there came, two little spurts of blood. I could not tell, the word he spoke, but now I have known wounds. I know he said cold, cold. I do thank God that though I did not know, I covered him. Then, as I held him up, I saw him bite, his bloody lip, his nostrils opened wide, and quivered, and his brown and liquid eye froze. He was my brother for the grief, the sudden scalding and

consuming pain that burned into my heart. I laid him down and kissed his frozen eyes. The kiss was salt, for his dead eyes were weeping. This I saw, and then I looked upon the editors. If I should say to them, we have done wrong, which must be righted, they would show their fangs. They'd howl and screech and slaver, call me traitor. Yes, turn my men against me and the prince. I cannot hold them now. Could you not pay them? Better a whole year's revenue were spent than this most wanton murder. Better far, but money will not turn their will aside from its intentioned rage. I do them wrong. They are not beasts but men soul warped by lust, of power who know by instinct that their claw grips hardest in the beast-like part of man. Now they have fleshed their fangs, which they'll not lose,

but tear and worry till the peasantry, Through all this peaceful land of peppercorn, Howl's like a pack of curds for carrion. Are there no men among them? There was one I know who worked for peace and nectarine. And I did thwart him. Oh, what right have I, Who did the sin to judge its ministers?

They are what I have made them, being blind. Now there's no help, the great engine of war, rolls on, and all our keen regrets are vain, to hold it in its course. Cinnamon's voice is heard from the courtyard, calling Mace, Mace. I'm ready, sir. To Vanilla. If only my deep love could ought toone, an undreamed hour has opened my blind eyes, to my own sin and my consuming love.

The sight has dazed me, and I wander on, to all adventure like a crazy friend. fool. How shall they lead an army? You must go. Dear childish heart, my love shall burn for you, bright as the sun, but let God grant the flame may tremble not in anguish over much. If we're afraid, we are afraid together. Speak out your changed mind to cinnamon. He may contrive that happiness be one. They clasp each other. Mayst depart. May they depart. Vanella flings herself down on a couch, and, after a moment, sobs quietly. Oh, breaking heart, I pray you sob no more. Curtain. End of Act 2.

Act 3 of Cinnamon and Angelica by John Middleton Murray. This is a Librevox recording. All Libre Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Act 3. Scene. The Hill Appritsia A remote hollow of the Hill Apprecia. Angelica, Mrs. Carraway, and Captain Mazuram, are standing just outside the mouth of a cave, before which is a little space of fine turf.

On the north side, to the back of the stage, the hill slopes south. steeply away. Marjoram is looking out over the precipice into the moonlight space. Then he turns. The nearest outposts are a mile below. Madam, I pray you, let me order them come further up the hill. A little way, two hundred paces, so they'll hear your call. Listen to Marjoram, I do beseech you. You are too anxious for me, Carraway. And Marjoram, your ever-faithful heart is played upon by fanciful alarms. No, do not shake your heads. But Marjoram, tell me, could you have found the twisted path without my guidance to this hollow? Tell. No, madam, I could not. Brave Marjoram, as true as honest. But the enemy may find another way on yonder side. I have not tried to find an entrance there.

It's steep, it's true, but not more steep than where you found your path. Perhaps a local shepherd, hearing a sheep far bleeding on the height, has climbed the trackless edge to rescue it, and in the village tavern told his mates of his great courage and his perilous climb. Old Mace will call for guides. They'll scratch their heads. and mumble that they mind there was a man. But I have known this hollow since a child,

when Caraway once brought me for a picnic to where your outposts are. The soothing sun coaxed her to sleep, and I wandered away. Madam, I pray you call it not to mind. I was distraught to madness when I woke to find you are not playing by my side. It was I was willful, and not. not you remiss. I found my secret kingdom and my subjects. The furry rabbits and the cheeping birds were patient of my sovereignty benign, while the cicada rubbed his bronze and wings to make me music. Every day I came the summer long to see them. Carraway was sworn to shut her

eyes and count to score before she peeped again, and I was sworn to be back, ere the bell of Phnom Perel had finished tolling Vespers. We kept faith, and every after year I visited my sole kingdom through the long summer days, till I was grown and might no longer come, being a princess, to a neighbor country. But still I came in spite of Caraway, yet never have I seen a fainting trace of any other footsteps save my own upon this velvet grass. And though I stored my treasures in this cleft through all the winter, I found them always with returning spring. And once, to tempt my fortune, and to know whether my sanctuary was my own indeed, shared only with the happy birds and Coney's rich in tenement of sun, I left a purse of gold.

The warm spring came, but not the eye of man. My purse was wreathed in gossamers more silky than the airs that waved them for a greeting to their queen. Yet still I dreamed that an enchanted knight, despising gold and all but courtesy, had climbed my airy, seeing my secret store, and, with a sweet thought for the unknown maid who left it, wandered on his lonely way, sighing, as knights of dreams can only sigh.

For him I left a message in my hand, most honorably writ, bidding him take, if he had need whatever provision might do him service most, the food, the gold, my fairy necklace, or my loyal doll, my viceroy during all the winter gales, and, if it chanced, my true ambassador, with full credentials to a nightly heart. Five years my faded letter from its stick nodded reproach at me when I returned. Five years my viceroy did bow to me, and had me a blank schedule of his charge, in most respectful silence, and five years, a fluttering bird of hope folded her wings within my pulsing and conceited breast. But in the sixth, hardly a twelve

month passed, the spring I sailed down the Volubilis, with sage the forester upon his raft. I found my letter vanished. Carraway, I dare not tell you with what speed I ran to know what he had taken of my treasure. If but the food, then he must be a knight, already sworn to his own fair lady. The purse, twas hazard whether he should be in straits or merely covetous of gold. But if my fairy necklace he had taken, then he had won my favor. If my doll, then he had stolen my very heart away, and with him went my true ambassador to give report of me how I was fair and faithful, dreaming of his gentleness, how I was what I am, Angelica. To call to him, Wayward Angelica has sent me here to guard your heart for her, so set me close beside that I may

hear it singing rightfully, Angelica. So swift I ran to see my treasure cave, but nothing, nothing, none had stolen my heart or gained my favor. The dude Gossamer's sparkled their joy to their returned queen, but all the dancing lights within her eyes were dimmed, and she went sorrowful away. But in the consolation of the sun, she mused. There was not a churl alive would read her letter, and not look within the treasury which she had offered him. The wind had stolen her words, the fickle wind, and cast them in the valley far away, where one might find, but no one could understand. End of that chapter.

Far too long, my dear, says Carraway. Oh, how it was like you, child, and like your precious and unspotted heart. Not you are wayward. Barely I believe the world is wayward and the wind, but you are what God meant by woman. The upshot of it all, good Marjoram, is that for thrice five years,

No single soul has climbed into this place, save only me, until this day. What celebration shall mark your entrance hither? Shall I give the half my kingdom unto Caraway and Marjoram? I cannot, though your love and loyalty demand it. Shall I make you free of this my city, this unsleeping eye that watches dreaming non-parrelle below? Even that I cannot. It is not mine to give, but only to be taken. Bid you sit and banquet with me here?

Is that an honor? The night grass does no good to care away, yet though I'd have her sit the live long day upon my throne and nectarine and be glad, she may not sit upon the only throne in this star-whispering solitary realm. What shall we give her then, good marjoram? And what shall be his boon, dear caraway? that you should let the topmost sentinels come near, only a hundred paces. How tiresome of you both!

How fortunate I did not promise whatsoever you asked! I should have been of Queen's most miserable had I been forced to grant it, and condemned to have my reign molested in my realm, spied on by sentinels who wish me well. Did you not hear my careful argument, proving the vanity of your alarms? I might have spoken to the old ocean there, seeing you answer with the self-same roar, though I have poured out all persuasion.

I am persuaded, madam. But if heaven should lighten, and a thunder-cloud let drop a stony table, as it did for Moses, bearing all certainty engraven on it, that there's no assent hither save the path whose key we hold, still would I fear for you. The book says perfect love doth cast it out.

I'll not deny it, being ignorant whether my love unto my perfect queen is perfect. But it fills the whole of me, and I, who guard your safety, and be set by fears my mind would mock at. Marjoram, be careful of your heart beleaguering speeches. That will not let me Sally when I will. Or I will make you major.

Madam, I... How can the captain of your halberdiers be aught but captain? Marjoram. I could not bear my own derision. I jested, captain of my halberdairs, for you came near to turn my firm-set mind from its most fixed intention. To remain alone this night with my companions, the sleepy rabbits and the slumbering birds.

How could the walls of my purpose stand firm, and not be breached by your affection's siege? I did, but make a sally of despair, while time remained. I'll clinch my respite now. Thus, the sole captain of my halberdairs. A point for life, and herein after called, good, loyal, brave, or simply marjoram, coveteth with me, Angelica, called by her name here. hereafter, also known as Princess of the Clothes, and rightful queen of a most secret and divine domain topping Aprecia, that he'll not advance, save in the case of manifest attack, or her own signal, any sentinels nearer to her domain than they now stand. In due return for which

concession Angelica allows that Carraway, the mistress of her robes and bedchamber, shall be her bodyguard throughout the night, with privilege of signaling without the agreement of the said Angelica. In the second place, Angelica confirms the office, title, and emolument of captain of her princely halberdiers to marjoram in perpetuity, or so much of it as the jealous gods vouchsave his service to Angelica. Whereon to witness sleepy rabbits, birds, the kids, the curious stars, the whirring cock chaffers, cicada styled by poets, creeping things innumerable, and all night-scented flowers, who will not go to sleep because of me. My true ambassador within his cave, and lastly, my dear Caraway herself, whose signature is lawful

to the bond, seeing the only advantage she derives from its contracture, is a rheumatism, Not serious, I hope. Come now, shake hands, perpetual captain of my Halberdairs, upon our sealed covenant, And take, knowing alas, that it no longer carries its ancient benefits, this purse of gold, And you, my fairy necklace, care away. You are too gracious, lady, yet my boldness shall outrun the large limits of your grace. and I most humbly crave that you will grant me, instead of the goal, your true ambassador, to guard forever and the humility of patient affection, knowing well he has no more the

unbelieved virtue he bore until this day of entry rude. I would, I could. I cannot, Marjoram. Something would go with him more like a curse than virtue. He must stay. But why should you be fobbed off with a purse while Carraway has my own necklace? Oh, what misery! Your equal love doth claim equal reward. Stay, here are equal rings on equal hands. Holding them out.

I have no others. Yours, the amethyst, and yours, the opal. When my eye shall fall upon my barren hands, I shall be warm, knowing how greatly richer their bestowal made me this night. Now, Captain Marjoram, you must away. Here ends the armistice. Begins the treaty. Fortune attend you. She walks with him a little way as he goes.

Do you not think, now we have non-parrelle by bloodless entry, that his mind might change and be attuned to our own desire? Might we not send a herald with the morning to offer parley? and ratafia to cinnamon, acre for acre, wood set against wood, and stream for equal stream. Let me sleep on it. Though indeed, I fear we are too far adventured. Cinnamon I know not, save by rumor. Mace, I know, the chivalrous old fire-eater of old. The lubellus bombardon, Rataplan, from Aspedestra to Tamarand, and bloody Ortalano. He has made twenty campaigns and more, and one in all the same repute, cool-headed and device, fierce an attack, yet sparing of his men

who love him, for old Ramrod is the plume of valor and the soul of chivalry, but he's a fighter-born. I'd swear his dreams have shown him nothing sweeter than a charge of horse to horse when to all eyes but his the reckoning's desperate. In truth, I have a soft spot for old ramrod in my heart. So I observe? Yes, lady, I'd be glad if there were some engagement not of battle. I do believe I lack the hardness in me. which I must have, to loose that devilish gun upon the unsuspecting peppercorns.

Let me sleep on it, madam. If I sleep and think not too much on the massacre that's coiled within our limbers. May your sleep be gentle, as your words are balm to me. Come before dawn, I charge you, and farewell. Marjoram descends the path. Angelica returns. Surely you must be sleepy caraway. Such a long journey on a jolting mule,

so little quiet and such great alarms. Then why not sleep? I am your bodyguard set in the bond. Therefore I may not sleep. What nonsense? Were you not my bodyguard those 15 years ago? Did you not sleep? It is the use and function of a guard,

often to sleep and soundly, so his charge may have the blessing and escape the fears of solitude. What nonsense! Lay you down. Why you are brimmed with sleep. It's softer so. Karaway falls asleep immediately.

Angelica lies down with her head leaning on her hand and is silent for a while. Then she speaks slowly. This is the hour fixed for Sullivan. liloquy, to whisper pitiful, heart-devouring things, to the other trembling child, whose hand in mine is clasped and warm, who with me is afraid. Yet, O my brother, tell me what thou fearest. Look not on me with wise, sad smiling eyes. I am as old as thou. Oh, tell me, brother, what is it awaits us on our lonely hill? From thy stee,

Still wisdom, whisper unto me. O, turn not from me. Let me see thy lips. Brush back from thy cold forehead the curled hair. And listen to thy breathing. Soft, soft, soft. My gentle brother, let us weep no more. Lovely and lonely thou and I with thee. Oh, let my aching bosom be cool bathed in the flooding silver of the unfretful moon.

My eyes be drooped with quiet from the stars. My hair be wafted till each somber thread Sways to his rippling wind. My heart so still it may endure the very voice of heaven. So let it be. Let me be borne away on this unruffled pinion of the night Beyond that shining ocean. On whose shore the farthest writing breakers of our dreams sink into silence

and our plummet thoughts drop, weary of their voyaging forlorn, to seek the respite of the incant sea. There is a music and great weariness whose crystal melody unravels all, the fervored clue of our much-hoping brain, makes nothing ring with so divine a cadence, a lullaby to our o'er fretted ear, makes disappointment kinder than the height of heaped fulfillment, and the fall of tears, sweeter than rain is to the droughted earth. Kins us with the great majesty of power, whose sword of flame hath strongly driven us forth to wander the vast continent of years

till we two sink, unknowing and unknown, barren and big with dreams into the earth. Yes, this is wonderful. My creature heart doth praise the fearful handiwork of God, who made me weary, so that I might hear the music of his stars and be at rest. Angelica, weary Angelica.

A faint sound of slow rhythmic singing is heard. Angelica is half asleep. She does not stir even when the singing grows loud enough for the words to be heard. During the first two verses, the song grows louder, for Cinnamon's guards are passing right under the hill. Then, as they skirt it, the song, dies away. Cinnamon's guards, singing.

Oh, sweet was his laugh for to hear it, and tender his lips to be kissed. We made him a name for to bear it, Corporal love in a mist. Light hands must lower him. None was so brave. God's eyes look o'er him, down in his grave. He loved and he asked for a maiden

Whose eyes were as sad as the stars She trembled with longing or laden And dreamed of the wars Light hands must tend to her None was so fair Now death must send to her Unbind her hair She wandered for years past a hundred

over the hills and the plain, till the bats and the tawny owls wandered, at her great pain. Dormice came all to her, from harm to save. Grey owls must call to her, here is his grave. They showed her his grave, and she found it,

under the moon at midnight pale where the pansies grew round it the prim rose is white dead leaves embower them squirrels do keep sharp-eyed watch o'er them now they're asleep carrowe'er waking dear child can you not hear a sound of song Only our dreams did chime, dear Carraway, for I too thought to hear a sound of song and woke to this full silence of the night. Hark to it, Carraway. If there's a sound, it's but the breathing of the quiet earth. Oh, madam, are you sure it's only that? That and the poised spinning of the wheel of destiny. The low dirge of the moon, laving the body unto burial of her night-bombed lover, the solemn speech of conclaved oaks to their tall sister pines, the waters murmuring at the cool caress of day-dispelling stars,

the soft ascension of sweetly climbing odors, rosemary, the sleeping jonquil, and the hyacinth, the tremulous beating of the wings of love shut out from his creation. Carraway, I swear it is no more, for I have listened in a suspense as quixenance, quiet as your sleep for any sound of more. Therefore, sleep well. Child, what parables you speak of nights?

As when you were indeed a child and woke to tell me what you saw, strange terrors and yet stranger ecstasies. That passed my comprehension then, and now they are no less beyond my groping mind. I know, because you love me, you would tell your caraway of anything ill but fell? I would, but silence is no evil thing. It's what we furtherest outposts of the cloves must pray for,

and our prayer is answered. And if I speak in parables, perhaps, though you must think me to a princess groan, I've not changed my vision since a child, and they possess me still. My memory doth tell me only of your comforting, as that abideth, may not dreams abide? Another riddle, and the answer to it,

is simple as the doubt-dissolving day. This is the hour of sleep for care away. We'll try the virtue of your own old song. Of all living things of earth, babies have their fortunes best, for their mother gives them birth and gives them rest. All the day long, they are creeping closer to her bosom and sleeping at her breast. Happy too are wedded brides, who are rightly married.

Then what ill the day betides is pillowed on their true man's faithful shoulder, and the day doth find them bolder, who are truly wed. Babies grow to weary men, maids and wives to Beldom's creep, birth and love come not again from the deep. What of all past joys remaineth, Age and sorrow ne'er disdaineth. Only gentle sleep. During the song, Carraway sleeps.

I too would sleep, though cold the arms of silence, I fear my mother's breast were colder still, that once was warm to me, The vanished odor of a dream haunting scent I might recapture, if non-Parrell, her darling home, were mine. So Baron Hope stands at the tear-sprint door of memory and beckons us within. No, I'll not enter. Silence. Take thy bride softly within thy loving arms. So gentle, gentle as sleep thy brother, whose closed eyes see not.

thy sealed lips. Angelica sleeps. After a little while, Cinnamon enters from the back of the stage, having climbed up the steep side. He stands watching Angelica, who sees him in a waking dream. Too late. Thou art come too late. I am the bride of silence. I, the groom of destiny, well wedded both. How came I then too late? Angelica, waking. You are my knight. That verily am I. You had my letter.

Yet how you came hither, how knew you which of all the thousand hills was mine? I found you sleeping on its top. Or did you read my letter in this place? Then was it not a churlish thing to spurn my treasures? Lady, I did spurn them not, looking upon them with a reverent eye. I dared not touch them.

Why did you not speak? Why left you not the word of courtesy for which I did beseech you? Could I write who had no pen? A true knight cuts a reed, dips in his own warm blood. If the blood's red, but mine has so much water,

it would not stain a parchment, white as snow. You jest with me who jested not. show me your hand. It's pale, but not by so much paler than my own as would acquit you. Let's put it to the proof. Here is my saber. So. You shall not do it to please the fancy of a willful girl, who though she queen it in this little realm, has royalty enough to use her power more lightly. Longed you not to see my face? Am I as fair as you have dreamed of me?

No, fair or far than any dream of mine. When they were fairest and your golden speech tunes me to expectation of such things, my mind will not believe on. Yes, too late. My heart is so deep laden with despair that it will sink into the calm sea. Though all the storms are lulled and the high vault

thrills to the benediction of the sun, though my eyes see the beauty of the land. I sailed to win how many years ago. The fringed trees do brush my weary prow. The birds of flame are in my rigging perched. The island queen herself has signed to me. My logget heart sinks into the crystal sea. So you are full of fancies. And of fears. I have known many. One or master's all. I knew it not till now. A man hath found after long searching in a barren land.

A jewel rare storied in dim legend that moved his doubting heart unto a venture. His mind despaired on. Is he not afraid of those mischances which in his despair did smile on him as fortune? Doubtful death Whose shrouded face Has ever turned away And what she sees

We know not And the weight of grim experience In illusion old Whose pressure at his step Was like a friend's who whispered Be not lavish over much with hope Hold back the bird within thy breast Eager for flight

Lest he returned to thee Sink at thy feet with a deep gaping wound. Bear not thy heart. Arrows will enter in. Speak not thy love. It will be spurned ever. Sing not thy song. The winds will scatter it. Dream not on bliss, for life has none for thee. Yet has he found his jewel in a cave, wherein he crept to die. It glimmers there with trancing lights, so softly interwoven, the garish splendor his unquiet mind, bowed so often is dissolved quite, into a silent loveliness of calm. His baited soul is sick with old alarms. A vision doth cheat him, death may come, air beauty has transfused him utterly. Such are my fears, you are the jewel rare.

You are my knight. I give the jewel to you. Speak not of fears to one who has her own. Call not on death, lest she may come too soon. Be not cast down who has so great a boon. What boon have I? Angelica looks at him. O tender, wondrous love, bear me thy heart that I may enter in. Speak out thy love, for I will answer. ever. Sing me thy song, that it may melt my soul. I'll dream on bliss, for life is full for me. Why lovest thou me? It's not that thou art fair. Aw, me, I cannot tell. Why lovest thou me? It's not thy wondrous beauty. They arched brows, in curving thy wild, woodland gleaming eyes, and guiding them to me.

Thy wind-swept hair whose every thread could bind a lover's heart faster than chains of iron. Thy lips that will not shape the speech of men unto the ear, but whisper miracles unto the soul. Aye, that's the answer. Soul leaps to soul,

and there's the end of all. You speak as though you heard the crack of doom, the last trump blaring to the silent world. Is love then, woe be gone within the womb and born to tears? It's but a trick of speech. There's been so much sad in my happiness, that I've come to think the end of all the bright beginning. You have been sad indeed that even your lover's speech is so imbued with bitter melancholy. When I was sad, it was my speech betrayed my constant hoping heart. It would smile and dance, like a tumbling river sweep away that which would damn it up. But you speak glooms being happy.

Do you feign your happiness and cheat me with the semblance of a love that I undoubting have believed upon it? I do not think you do. I dare not think it, for I am yours henceforward and forever. have given, I cannot take again, not though you cast him from you. He will wander, his sad eyes covered by his drooping wings, and he will be forever at your heels in stony places, till one day you turn to bind his bleeding feet, and will remember he was the first born of a mountain maid whom you once met in darkness on a hill. Who has the sadder speech of these lovers, whose star is at its zenith? Our firstborn shall rest forever here between our hearts.

So must he needs be small and never fledged for such a lonely journey. If the dawn shall part us, he will warmly dwell with thee. Resting where I would rest in the soft veil of thy dearer, Here rests embozomed, knowing well, that where he entered in my aching heart, there are the gates flung wide till my return. May all the loves that ever yet were born tug backwards at the jealous wheels of day. Let him be moved by pity for a maid who once adored his coming, but now dreads the first faint flush of the Envermealed clouds.

More than the tramp of death, death would be kind, knowing us what we are, and gather both under one sable pinion. But the day sunders two hearts that one brief night has laced, so close that all their blood will be outpoured to sanguine the grey dawn. Oh, go not thou, my love, but truly be my night, and stay, since thou hast sworn my service. Let the day blink idly for us hidden in the cave, where all my treasures are as nothing worth beside the thing I'll hold, break not my heart. It will be more surely broken if I stay. Oh, love that lovest me so, love me yet more, and render courage to my fainting mind,

which, if it gather not command again, will suffer me commit so great a sin, as would unfit me unto 70 times to be your knight. Yes, if this thing were done, one day you'd know me for a renegade and tear your heart out by the painful roots, rather than bear the thought you suffered it to house my love an instant. I am a soldier, you who live remote,

no, not a war is suddenly burst forth, upon Apricia's peace, and I know not, nor why, nor how, but only there is war. I am a captain of the peppercorns, leading a troop of horsemen. Without me they're lost, and I am lost to honor. Honor be cursed. I'd be a murderer, if I should leave them to tomorrow's battle like sheep. Oh, I'll not tell you more. My mind is torn by nightmares and by bloody dreams. I dare not think upon them.

Lend so much virtue to my halting words. They may bring to you such persuasion. You'll think my going at the streak of dawn. Only the fiery ordeal I must pass. To be your true knight, and you'll pray for me. Pray that my prince, the troubled cinnamon, may find the way to peace. Let's think no more on this disaster foaming round the rock of love. Here is our island. Here our lips. Here will my soul inhabit unto death. And when I turn from you,

I'll not be I, but only a numb carcass uninformed. By its once tenent soul, which sweetly chained to lovely and love inhabits here, and I'll not feel the battle. If a thrust aim truly at my heart, it will blunt its edge, striking unled, for all the sentient part will be in exile. Let this jesting be. It chills my heart. Does not my lover know, has he so little of true understanding as to forget that in his body lives my soul, so tender sense it that a breath out of due order taken, a chance slid step will cut it to the agonized quick. He knows not that, then he knows not love. Learn it, I pray you, quickly. A moment since, before that traitor fancy tripped your tongue. You spoke of war. I am not so unfriended, but that I hear its rumors and approve your

constancy in service to your lord, Prince Cinnamon, of whom you spoke as one who knew his temper and his purposes. Are you indeed acquainted? Acquainted, yes. I know him not as well as once I did, but as one man and other, I do know him, set close to him in service, as a guard, wearing his yellow facings. Tell me, then, since you have urged me pray that he may find the way to peace, has he a true desire of peace? My prayers have oft been answered, but pray I cannot, for a man whose will stands counter to my prayer.

Dear love, he has, of my own knowledge, greatly longed for peace. If only he'd been mindful of the affairs of peppercorn, with but the hundredth part of his own zeal to find salvation. There would be no armies on this hill tonight, that I will swear. But something in the blood, some canker in his composition, did make him careless, and the army stand to battle with the dawn. We'll speak no more of cinnamon, for verily I believe, our faintest chiding word would reach his ear and prick his soul with pain.

No, do not chide him. He's something gentle, something child, a prince, most miserable. You love him. Nay, I know him. Might it not be that he assumed a face to win your love? I think that something gentle, that something child. child would win you more than all the blandishment of office. It would whisper like a brother in your ear as it has in mine. Therefore, I love you. Then you would love him. No, that I cannot.

I will tell you why. Until tonight I had but one dear friend who sleeps beside me here. She was the maid since childhood of Princess Angelica. and she has told me how, a year ago. The princess, sore enamored of Muriel, which was her mother's birthplace and her own child home, wrote to your something gentle prince, a privy letter of much courtesy, praying him to consider the exchange of his Muriel, against her ratafia, or any equal part of her domain. As she was bound, she made inquiry among his embassy in Nectarine, and learned his I would read a challenge where she meant cousinly kindness, and in her request, intent to take Miriel by force of arms. Therefore, since all she had to love was her dear mother's memory,

she determined to enter on her rightful heritage, trusting to justice. And a garlic gun? Nay, be not so unkind. She, too, is gentle. It was she who sought in kindness to compose a cause of quarrel. Is this story true? True is my love. But you may be deceived by her who told you. Oh, I pray you, tell

me whether she too spoke truth. No, no, you cannot. I'll wake her now. You must not. If she wake, I am undone. And if I wake her not, and question her and prove her story false, then I,

I also am undone? Undone? No, murderer proved and utterly cast out from happiness. How can that be? The fault falls on the prince, not his ministers. Upon the prince unto a hundred times, but on the man a thousand. She, you say, is body servant to Angelica. Then she could surely find her. Let her guide me to her mistress now. But wake her. now. Dear heart, be calm. What can you? If she bring you to the princess, what credentials will you present? No, first to cinnamon. Now, now, return with his consent to Parley, or bring himself, and by our love, I swear to set you in the presence of Angelica. I swear it, doubt me not. Oh, is my love so weak? The lives of men wait on your speech.

feed. Go! Go! He hesitates still. I am Angelica. And I am cinnamon. O tender, wondrous love, the full cup of my heart will overflow and drown my eyes in tears. And am I not the maid a moment gone, but some weak things set on the dizzy pinnacle of joy? Thou, cinnamon! And thou, Angelica, this is that true conspiracy of heaven

That leagues with love When the infinite stars submit the attraction and the empery Of the sweet impulse which did order them And us with them ordained that we should meet Twin stars of love Under the precedence of our far-shining brothers of the sky. I thought I heard the spinning of the wheel of destiny, and this is what she span. Such close-knit inner textures of two hearts, diapered oar with dreams,

and so in wove with fulfilled aspirations thread of gold, that even the hungry fates must hold their shears from so divine a pattern. Love, look down on non-parall, the quiet, shining jewel of our engaged love. I know not whether I love it still. I have been lifted up, and this Angelica is strange to me, whose love has left its channels, made one sea, nay, one great ocean, and about one rock, one cinnamon has heaped his jealous tides. And yet, this same newborn Angelica looks down as she was used on non-Parel, but does she love it still? Surely it's bells. should of their unpersuaded motion chime out to the night the triumph of their queen.

Yet they are silent. How the city sleeps beneath the still lake of the silent moon. See how the great cool fishes poise their fins within the shadows of the silver rocks of the night-drawn houses and the coral trees. For love has made her lovelier, and I do love her still, for still I am the sea. same, only more true, more constant, and more woman. Now shall our parting be the happiest that ever lover from his mistress took, for we shall bear the only gift that love, since he was born, as ever worthy found, of his bestowal on the ruck of men, whom he is not elected for his own.

The largesse of our marriage is peace. And though we cannot give the influence That has been poured on our souls tonight Will scatter virtue That a drop like rain In coolness and in softness like the leaves Upon all hearts throughout our wedded lands Our word shall scatter to oblivion

The carrion crows of anguish and of pain That flock together at the whisper, War on the sound of peeling bells, smiles, maypoles, feastings holiday, so they'll remember to eternity how length they left the banquet when with them there sat Angelica and cinnamon. Was ever love like this? If verily there was, why was it not set down in story or in song? Or were they dumb on whom it did descend? Or has it been that lover's speech

As like the Nightingales? Heard but forever lost to mortal ear Till yet another angel voice uplifts The earth into the sky. Or are we twain that last conjecture of the human soul? The patient world has waited since the dawn First rose on chaos and the creeping things began their slow ascension through time to this appointed end, Angelica.

And cinnamon has not a mystery entered our linked names. Truly it has, and truly we were weighted by the world, the stars, the rivers, and all humankind, and these await us still. Oh, let us go quickly, for not even what we bring can make the chasm of time that we must part, seem what it is, a little mortal hour. For love has his own measurement. His hand creeps an eternity upon the dial within a parted second. I must charm it back to its proper true condition and whisper, Tis Angelica is loved by cinnamon, who in his turn is loved. I fear me lest I whisper it so often that I forget the blessed word of peace. Let us go quickly.

There has never been such love as ours. Oh, darling heart. Goodbye. Exit Cinnamon. Curtain. End of Act 3. Act 4 of Cinnamon and Angelica. By John Middleton Murray.

This is a Librevox recording. All Lieber Fox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Act 4. Seen, the same. The same time, immediately following Act 3. Day is just beginning to break. Marjoram enters.

Oh, Marjoram, haste, I pray you. You are late. Did you forget the trist? Forget? Why, lady? I came so early that I thought to offend you. It's not yet dawn. Forgive me, Marjoram.

It must be as you say. Yet I have seen grey in the sky for years. Too little sleep has tricked my eyes. There's peace. How mean you, lady? Peace, peace is signed and sworn. Go tell your men, my men, my happy clothes, that there is peace. Let all the bugles sound it. Tell the men they may return this instant.

No, they shall not. They shall make holiday upon my hill, each spend the golden ducet that I give him. Go tell them, Marjoram, or shall I go and take the honor from you? You have heard? Why stand you, Moonface there? Do my command. Lady, it shall be done. But I am. But I. am guardian of your most precious life. I dare not go till you have told me of this promised peace. Wince came it in the night. If you alone have struck a peace. Obey me, Marjoram. I dare not. Oh, why do you thus torment me? Then I must go. I dare not leave this place until he comes again. I tell you there is peace. But what if old ramrod will not have your peace. What if our men are making holiday and the peppercorns fall on us?

Once the word is spoken, all our discipline is gone. Oh, Carraway, do make him understand that there is certain peace. Carroway rubs her eyes and stares. Oh, why am I plagued with two such owls? Angelica throws herself on the ground. Marjoram, kneeling beside her, Dear lady, Madam, I beseech you. Listen. Do you believe me now, or must I prove peace with more tears?

Prince Cinnamon and I have sealed a pact tonight. What dream is this? My child? My lady. How could Cinnamon... Prince Cinnamon is my cousin, Carraway, and I was born, Princess Angelica. Well, may you ask what dream, for you have slept like a true guardian,

but it is time to wake and time to do my bidding, marjoram. I do assure you, I this night, have seen Prince Cinnamon, and spoke with him, and made my peace. Go now, as he is gone to bid the bugles blow a parley, or what call your careful mind approves. Only mark this. If from our side a single shot is fired, you are concerned. condemned. Marjoram departs. Now leave me, Carraway. Oh, I am hard. The burden of your love is sometimes heavy, and I am afraid for every loss second. If blood were spilled upon this spotless, unbelieved day, the stain would eat my heart. Come, Carraway, tell me a story of Prince

Cinnamon. Did you not see him once? The report of a single shot is heard. Angelica listens. Thank God there was no answer. Marjoram has done my bidding bravely. Blessed am I in such a captain. I would give them all, and all were little, an acknowledgement of love so loyal as theirs. Oh, what perfection of love is mine. I dare not think upon it, less thinking should dissolve it to a dream, a dream in the blood, singing within my ears, smiling upon my lips, playing upon me, that plucks at a thousand unknown strings within. Makes me not me, a being musical, a thing I love who never loved myself. We shall go hand in hand. My thoughts be his. His shall be mine. Put off Angelica.

Alas, I have forgotten her already. And how should I remember? My heart, my mind, These govern me no longer. I am chained to that which is beyond me. I am guided by a new power created out of me, and him I love. So does our happiness lie in our own submission, to ourselves. Did I not choose him? Did he not choose me? No, no, love chose us both and made us one, suddenly shaped our elements anew into, this thing of which we're not choose us. I am a part, a most impatient part. Is it not hours since last, and first we met? I'll think no more. It does no good. That is Prince Cinnamon, and this must be Princess Angelica. Why do the bugles wait to sound the parley? Why did I not go with him? Re-enter Marjoram, shaking his head. Madam, I wrote along our forward line from in to end, questioned each sentinel. Yet none had heard a parlay from the foe, nor any sound but one. A single shot fired but a moment since. Myself, I heard it. And I? I heard no answer, Marjoram.

Nor none there was from us. I gave your order, and even without it, none would have replied. Our vanguard knows its business To give away for the mere satisfaction of an echo Our whereabouts to Ramrod We're not children Did I not bid you make our bugle sound? Madam, the gunshot put it out of mind I pondered it too much

Quickly revolving whether it were a ruse to tempt reply Or aimed against our skirmishers below Or someone stumbled as he climbed the hill. And I, I am no child. You disobey my orders, and dare to tell me that the dim report Have one chance shot more than a mile away to drown their echo in your careless mind. No, no, I am your princess. There are tales that even a princess gives no credit to.

Either you lie or you are no true soldier. If even the youngest of your halberdairs being given an order to perform, returned, saying a drumtap put it out of his mind, he pondered it too much, quickly revolving whether it meant that breakfast had been served, or changing guard, or bedtime, would you believe him? Or, if believing, would you not punish him to make him fit to be a halberdair, who must obey his orders or depart? Depart? He'd hang for it. No, he would not, for I would pardon him. Nor shall you hang, for I will pardon you. But were this not the day that outshines all in happiness and kindness and love? We'll speak no more, for you have wronged me much, wronged that in me you know not, for no shot, no power and no compulsion can you dream, had made you wrong, me thus if you had known.

Madam, I love but you, and my rough love as there offended where it most would shield. Pardon me not, I pray you. Let me go. Let me resign my proud commission, and let me be a soldier. The peppercorn bugles sound a parley.

I need no soldiers. Oh, Marjoram, if it had been a dream. I was afraid. I have been harsh with you. You heard the bugle then? I did, my lady. And I am glad that I am proved at fault, and glad a thousand times that there is peace, though I am a soldier. I little thought a parley could sound so sweet to me, but I am sick with thinking on that hideous garlic gun. Do we not answer? Madam, let me go. Still captain of your royal halberdiers, to give this final order. Quickly, Captain, and all shall be forgotten.

Marjoram hurries away. Caraway, do you believe me now? I pray you lady dismiss me not. Though age and aged love have made me foolish, foolish has my dream that one day I should nurse my darling's child as I nursed her. Why foolish, Carraway? What if I dreamed the same? Am I a fool? If you let him wander while you sleep, the charge is yours.

But you will never marry. How can you? There is not in all the world a royalty like your own. What if a lover? Dream children need no wedlocked care away. Dream children need no nurses. Still, it may be. The clove bugles sound a parlay.

Strange things are being done. Is it not strange to hear the sound of peace where we feared war? Is it not strange that Cinnamon and I should seal a compact while our army slept? Strange that we met in darkness on this hill. Strange that we knew each other not at all. Strange that we learned, and strange we kissed and strange we love, we love. Was that writ in your dreams? My dreams are tangled, child, and overscored.

Yes, that was in the months. But is it true? Have you no eyes? I never looked in yours, but I found love there, child. Such love is this. I do not know. But you are happy, child? Then I'll be happy, too.

This was my dream. I do not dream that I must lose you to him. You were both mine. Enter an orderly. I come from Captain Marjoram, my lady, to say a truce has entered our front line, bearing a message from old ramrod, mace, I mean, the colonel in command of the Peppercorns. He wishes to be conducted to your presence, without a previous parley, and to salute you as future princess of the Peppercorns.

And Captain Marjoram commanded me to say he did not understand the message, though he had not mistaken it. The truce, said Colonel Mace, was most particular about those very words, and to salute her as future princess of the peppercorns. My captain waits for your instructions. He does not look upon it as a ruse, knowing old ramrod, Colonel Mace, I mean, would hold a formal truce inviolable, and yet he is perplexed by the demand of instant access to your majesty. I understand the message. Let him come instantly to me. Let Captain Marjoram conduct him to this place where I remain. Exit orderly. You understand the message, Carraway? Oh, think, who is the future Prince of Cloves? Does everything I tell you tumble down into a bottomless well? Oh, Caraway.

Ah, it begins to dawn upon my darling. What should I do without you? And yet I wonder why cinnamon should not have come himself. It's not the thing I know, but on occasions princes make precedence. The only thing they do make, and I think this might be one. But he knows best, and yet it would be sweeter if he had told none but himself and come, and clasped me in his arms, saluting me, Princess of peppercorn, with a lover's kiss. I wonder. But there are so many ways of being perfect when you're cinnamon. And then, did I not tell the news to you? You are my mace, and mace his care away. Of course, he goes by doubles. You must marry the colonel in command of the peppercorns. How stupid of me to be so blind. You'll like him, I'm sure. Perhaps you know him well already.

Yes, madam, and I know he's been engaged for thirty years or more to Miss Vanilla. The ambassadress? How tiresome! But I like her more than her message. Oh, how strange it is remembering those intolerable days. But what a long engagement. It's a nightmare. What put it in their heads? It never was in hers. It was the colonel's own idea. But then, who can you marry Carraway? Must I, ma'am? No, Mace is the only one could. make it properly symmetrical. How long they are! If Cinnamon had known it, he would have come himself in spite of all. Go, look if you can see them on the way. Exit Carolay. Angelica, after a little silence, speaks to herself. Oh, love, if you and I were ever old, we should be lover still.

Your arms would fold me to your heart, and my dim eyes would light, with the unfading spark of the dear smile that wrestled with the tears within your eyes. We should be children, children, children ever, each give to each immortal love as now that age cannot diminish. We shall die as we were being born into our love, like sleeping beauties locked in each other's arms, babes in the wood whom only babes shall wake. The babes that are our children,

when they love and loving bring us into life again. Re-enter Carraway. They've turned the thicket, madam, but they come so very slowly because it's a great occasion. Carraway, I must be gracious, queenly to Old Mace. I'm sure he will suspect me, for he was the right-hand man of Uncle Peppercorn, who had the strictest notions how princesses should bear themselves in ceremonial.

My mother told me what she had to do at his petite laver, and this is worse, far worse than even the grandest grand laverre. But here he comes. Be good, Angelica. I think they might have had some drums or music. Enter Mace, accompanied by Marjoram and Herald's. I am the Colonel Mace, Your Majesty, Prince Cinnamon's Vice Regent. You are welcome. I do most humbly thank, Your Majesty. My mission on behalf of Peppercorn Is to do homage to our new princess

Angelica, Princess of Peppercorn The High Saldana of Ortollino, Queen, of Aspedestra, and of Radipelin. Soul Lady Warden of Volubilis, Duchess of Rataphia. I thank you. So, Prince Cinnamon has told you of our contracted marriage. I proclaim him,

Prince of the Clove's, defender of the faith, Duke of bombardum, praetor of Nectarine, legate of pomegranda, and the king of my own heart, and least and yet the rarest of all the kingdoms wherewith I invest him. When comes my cousin, waits he on your return? I understand your sadness. It is hard for a great soldier to forego a battle, yet it is sweet for his small soldiery to forego death. Were you as great a courtier as you are man of arms, you would be kind to your new queen and half-conceal your sadness. And yet I cannot blame you,

though in this equal contracture of two royalties can lie no derogation. Sir, be happy as you are welcome, honored, and renowned. Where is my cousin? Madam, he is without. Oh, why did you not tell me? Ceremony! I hate your ceremony! Go Marjoram and bid my cousin enter. I pray you, madam, forgive me.

Angelica, seeing more than sadness in his face. Speak? What is this, Caraway? Your Majesty, Prince Cinnamon is dead. Dead at the dawn of peace, the dawn of day, the dawn of happiness, the dawn of love, struck by a chance sped bullet as he came down from the hill unknown. Ah, I am old, but all the little flame that burned in me was love of him. Speak not to me of love.

You found him dead? Had he no life? No word? Speak loud and quick. Madam, he muttered something. I could not hear, and then he smiled at me. into my eyes and whispered, War, Mace, war.

And then he tried to rise up from the ground and said in pain, My darling, and his lip, drooped, and then I knew he drooped and died. I thank you, sir. But you yourself are wounded. You must be tended. Long past tending, madam.

It bleeds in the heart. Yes. Bring my husband in and leave his wife. to comfort him alone. The bearers bring in cinnamon's body upon a beer. Angelica goes to him and kneels down, with her head pillowed upon Cinnamon's breast. Caraway, Marjoram, and Mace are frightened for her, and hesitate to go out, while she is silent

over Cinnamon's body. After a little while, she lifts up her head. Alone, I say, alone! carroway marjoram and mace leave the stage and the curtain falls on angelica alone end of act four epilogue so died my prince and so the bleeding hard of his sweet princess into stone was turned and not vanell's love could re-impart fire to the ashes which so bright had burned of mace's late-found love and Marjoram Pined for the mistress he had served Too True

While Carraway Gazed silent in the flame Of the palace fire And watched it leap from blue To red, to white to gold, Then sink to embers grey And woke from listening To the words dream children

Say, The End End of Cinnamon and Angelica By John Morrow Middleton Murray.