Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 4

I'm having a break from my blog for the Easter holidays, and so here is something I prepared earlier. It is the final of four parts of a transcript of an Easter play by John Masefield (best known for "The Box of Delights"), published in 1929.  Like his Christmas play, this is quite non-traditional and imaginative.

Parts 1-3 here:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-1.html
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-2.html
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-3.html





Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 4

(MARY MAGDAGLEN enters)

MARY MAGDALEN

I, who am Mary Magdalen, am here

To deck my dead Lord's body for his rest,

To take farewell of Him who was most dear

And give the sepulchre her sacred guest.

One week ago I saw Him crowned with flowers,

Hailed as a King, in triumph ; and to-day

Death has abashed that glory that was ours,

The ruined house lies broken, to decay.

How shall I roll away the heavy stone

That blocks the entry to the chamber ?  Look I

It has been tugged aside and overthrown,

Ev'n as the Temple that the earthquake shook.

I thank Thee, God, that I may see the dead .. .

O God, my strength, what miracle is here ?

Someone is sitting by my Master's head,

Someone most bright, I cannot go for fear.

Can it be He ?  But no, I saw Him killed,

I saw Him broken, taken from the tree .. .

It is an Angel, lightning-faced and filled

With fiery purpose that God brings to be.

(Tbe YOUNG MAN appears)

THE YOUNG MAN

Be not affrighted.

Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.

He is not here, He is risen, as He said ;

Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

But go your way, tell His disciples (and Peter)

That He is risen from the dead

And goeth before you into Galilee ;

There ye shall see Him, as He said unto you.

Lo, I have told you.

MARY MAGDALEN

They have removed his body out of dread

Lest we should steal him hence.  Beloved Lord,

Reft from me, living, taken from me dead,

O for one glimpse of You, one little word l

THE YOUNG MAN

Woman, why weepest thou ?

MARY MAGDALEN

Because they have taken away my Lord

And I know not where they have laid Him.

(She turns to go)

ANIMA CHRISTI

Woman, why weepest thou ?  Whom seekest thou ?

MARY MAGDALEN

Sir, if you be the keeper of this garden,

And you have borne Him hence,

Tell me where you have laid Him

And I will take Him away.

ANIMA  CHRISTI

Mary !

MARY MAGDALEN

Dear Master !

ANIMA CHRISTI

Touch me not ;

For I am not yet ascended to my Father :

But go to my brethren, and say unto them

I ascend unto my Father, and your Father,

And to my God, and your God.

MARY MAGDALEN

I have beheld my Master face to face

And heard His voice and looked into His eyes,

He whom myself saw buried in this place.

He said that on the third day He would rise.

Now has His quickened spirit that was set

Upon eternal life, pierced through the veil,

His loveliness is living with us yet,

Imagination and the Will avail.

And with Him, lo, the shining strengths that dwell

Within His Father's Kingdom, gleam on gleam,

Come to defend Man's spirit against hell

And make God's Kingdom here, and not a dream.

And lo, the morning and the April flowers,

The light of heaven and the birds of Spring,

And Paradise above with all her towers,

Sweet with the chimes of all the bells that ring.

THE ANGELS

Within the wastes of space,

Beyond all track or trace,

Where no Sun shows his face

On suns grown sightless,

At last a comet shrieks

Its zest for what it seeks

And on the frozen peaks

There comes a brightness.

After the winter days,

With mud upon the ways,

And no leaves on the sprays

And no birds singing,

There comes the lambling's bleat,

There comes the greenling wheat,

The cuckoo tolling sweet

And swallows winging.

After the midnight dark,

Unlit by star or spark,

All blackness, without mark

Or beacon gleaming,

Suddenly Night has ceast

And, like a bright-robed priest,

Alive out of the East

The Dawn comes streaming.

Sing, men and angels, sing,

For God our Life and King

Has given us Light and Spring

And morning breaking.

Now may Man's Soul arise

As kinsman to the skies,

And God unseals his eyes

To an awaking.

Sing, creatures, sing ; the dust

That lives by lure and lust,

Is kindled by the thrust

Of life undying ;

This Hope our Master bare

Has made all fortunes fair

And Man can on and dare,

His death defying.

MARY MAGDALEN

After the winter snows

A wind of healing blows

And thorns put forth a rose

And lilies cheer us ;

Life's everlasting Spring

Hath robbed Death of his sting,

Henceforth a cry can bring

Our Master near us

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 3

I'm having a break from my blog for the Easter holidays, and so here is something I prepared earlier. It is the third of four parts of a transcript of an Easter play by John Masefield (best known for "The Box of Delights"), published in 1929. Other parts will follow in the week. Like his Christmas play, this is quite non-traditional and imaginative.

Parts 1-2 here:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-1.html
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-2.html

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 3

(The stone is rolled back, the ANIMA CHRISTI appears)

ANIMA CHRISTI

O God, my Peace, on whom my hope was fixt,

To Whom, in agony, my thought did strive

The while I drank the cup my coming mixt,

Thou hast maintained me out of hell alive,

Out of the strangling bonds that suffered so,

This flesh I brother still, for all its scars,

I step to Life unspeakable and know

The primrose and the night-wind and the stars.

The cock that crowed for Peter ends the night,

O benediction of the morning's change,

Out of the eastern darkness light on light,

Mountain on mountain gleaming, range on range.

O Brother Men, who suffered at my side,

Come with me to this freedom, to befriend

The friendless, the abhorred, the crucified,

And make their spirits steadfast to the end.

GESTAS

I will come with you, but I am not used

To this same happiness that thrills me through,

I am all lapped in dying and bemused,

Yet I shall conquer this and follow you.

DISMAS

I will not follow you, for I belong

First to my tribe that ride the desert sand,

Counting the townsman's right a cruel wrong

And righting what we suffer spear in hand.

And I shall go to where my people are,

There in their tents beside the picket pins

Whereat the tethered stallions squeal and jar

And the drowsed camels cud the thorny whins.

GESTAS

I, whom my body thwarted, now behold

New wonders ; for new powers enter me

As rain that fills a channel, and the old

Is like Time's dust that spots eternity.

THE ANGELS sing

Sing, for the thing that was

Is withered like the grass,

Death's dominations pass

And life increases.

Sing, because Man receives

This April of green leaves

Whose living impulse cleaves

The rocks in pieces.

Sing, because Man receives

This Mercy that reprieves,

That blesses and relieves

And lifts and lightens.

Sing, because Man is given

This Peace of sins forgiven,

This gateway into Heaven

That burns and brightens.

THE ANIMA CHRISTI

Wherever hearts grow faint,

Where sinner stands, or saint,

Confounded by constraint

With courage reeling,

To such Myself will come

To stay their martyrdom,

Strength to the failing some,

To the sick, healing.

I hold the gates ajar :

O Man, the things that are

Are wondrous, star on star,

Glory on glory,

Mind on triumphant mind,

A new-made human kind,

Follow and you shall find

I go before ye.

(During and after this singing the ANIMA CHRISTI and DISMAS and

GESTAS pass back into the Quire.)

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 2

I'm having a break from my blog for the Easter holidays, and so here is something I prepared earlier. It is the second of four parts of a transcript I have made of an Easter play by John Masefield (best known for "The Box of Delights"), published in 1929. Other parts will follow in the week. Like his Christmas play, this is quite non-traditional and imaginative.

Part 1 here:

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/easter-day-by-john-masefield-part-1.html

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 2

THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

This is the habitation of the dead,

Here they are shut, until the wraith is free

From the bone prison of the ribs and head.

Listen : my shrouded shadows speak to me.

A DEAD MAN

I am bound within these rocks to my dead bones.

Dying, I prayed for Death with many groans,

Thinking that Death would end my agonies.

But Death began a Now that never dies.

THE WIND ABOVE

I am going on, going on ; why speak to me?

ANOTHER DEAD MAN

Slow dissolutions cell by cell decline

Atom by atom, all these bones of mine,

These dear familiar bones, that alone save

My sweet self from the nothing of the grave.

THE WIND ABOVE

I am going on, going on ; why speak to me?

THE FIRST DEAD MAN

Would that some Night of Nothing might descend

To give this nothingness of night an end.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

You are dust, you are dust ; lie still and sleep.

THE OTHER DEAD MAN

Would that this sweet self might but have again

Even Life's opportunity of pain.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

You are dust, you are dust ; lie still and sleep.

You are dust, you are dust ; lie still and sleep.

THE WIND ABOVE

I am going on, going on, from the hot lands ;

Under my swift feet's warmth the flowers quicken.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

The flowers quicken as the April stirs,

And here an April quickens in the grave ;

Those who find Death a blessing or a curse

Alike expect a coming that will save.

A  DEAD MAN

O Hope that thrills me, are you rest, sweet rest ?

ANOTHER

O Life that fills me, are you given again ?

A DEAD MAN

Someone is here who shatters our arrest.

ANOTHER

Friend, it is Life : what matter tears and pain ?

A DEAD MAN

The cocks are crowing for a night that ends,

ANOTHER

The dawn is breaking on another day.

A DEAD MAN

This granite grave is rent asunder, friends ;

ANOTHER

O Morning Star, O shining Eastern ray I

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 1

I'm having a break from my blog for the Easter holidays, and so here is something I prepared earlier. It is the first of four parts of a transcript of an Easter play by John Masefield (best known for "The Box of Delights"), published in 1929. Other parts will follow in the week. Like his Christmas play, this is quite non-traditional and imaginative.

Easter Day by John Masefield - Part 1

Easter: A  Play For   Singers

John  Masefield

London

William  Heinemann  Ltd.

Persons And Spirits

The Way Of The World

First Soldier

Second Soldier

The Spirit Of The Place

A Dead Man

Another Dead Man

The Wind Above

Anima Christi

Gestas

Dismas

Mary Magdalen

The Young Man

A Quire Of Angels

EASTER

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

(appears and sings)

I am the welter of life, and the glory of power,

I am the winner in battle, I carry the day,

I am the word of the time and the strength of the hour ;

Those who are mine I devour,

Those who oppose me I slay.

What though men gabble of Truth and the Beauty of

Trying

Paths that lead Godward ?  I know them, these rebels

unhung.

Ay, and the World knows them, too, and rewards

them with dying,

Death checks their knack of replying,

Death puts the bit on their tongue.

Now I have compasst the death of the healer and preacher

Jesus, the Bringer of Tidings, I brought him his end ;

Scourging at Pilate's, and lastly the cross for the creature ;

Here lies the corpse of the teacher,

Dead without ever a friend.

What though through all of the city a rumour be spreading

That Jesus is sleeping, not dead ?  That He will arise ?

Bah I he is speared, he is dead, and the stones are his

bedding ;

Yonder my sentries are treading ;

Where the tree falls, there it lies.

FIRST SOLDIER

Come, rouse, the night is passing, or has past.

SECOND SOLDIER

Even the weariest watching ends at last.

FIRST SOLDIER

You have not watcht, but slept the whole night through.

SECOND SOLDIER

I'm shivering to the marrow, are not you ?

FIRST SOLDIER

Truly ; but there is dawn, in those pale streaks.

SECOND SOLDIER

I wish that limbs could toughen like our cheeks.

FIRST SOLDIER

Let's see the seals : bear witness to me here

These seals are fast upon the sepulchre.

SECOND SOLDIER

I bear you witness, the red wax is whole.

FIRST SOLDIER

Nothing can burrow granite, man or mole.

The Teacher lies secure : no friends will take

His body now for their devotion's sake,

As Pilate feared they might before the feast.

These teachers are a product of the East :

They rise, and stir up trouble, then they come

Atilt against the majesty of Rome

And end as he did ; then, for some short space

The man's disciples wrangle in the place

About his meaning, till they're dead or sane,

Then some new seer begins it all again.

I've seen it often in these few short years.

SECOND SOLDIER

It's sad to see their women all in tears

As His were, when we rolled the lintel stone.

FIRST SOLDIER

Ay, it's no mirth to leave the dead alone

Shut up forever, and the less like this,

A young man killed because of words of his.

But words that work disturbance are not sweet

To men in Pontius Pilate's troublous seat.

Order, of sorts, is here and must be kept.

The man is dead, and when the tears are wept,

The women will go on as others do.

This man stirred up a hell to struggle through

And died in struggling, to what earthly end ?

A felon's tomb, and not one single friend

Who dares to give him better : let him lie ;

He had not any future, but to die

And give us both cold watches by his grave.

There are the red seals fixed above the cave

And here is dawn and we are free to go.

SECOND SOLDIER

We'll be abed before the trumpets blow,

They'll let us sleep till noon ; brush off your gear.

FIRST SOLDIER
Come on, then ; back to barrack : shoulder spear.
(They go off)