Plays and Lyrics — Key Ideas to Explore

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In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: American poetry; American drama Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 44,867

Reading time 196 min

Text sections 13

Plays and Lyrics — Key Ideas to Explore can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 44,867 words, 3 hr 16 min estimated reading time, and 13 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 11.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “American poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #45760

Cale Young Rice's 1906 collection blends a verse drama set in Venetian-ruled Cyprus with lyrics that oscillate between dramatic monologues and nature meditations, marked by a recurring tension between pagan vitality and Christian melancholy.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg45760

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They were not as their wont is.

_Camarin._ To your eyes, My Berengere, that apprehension haunts. They were as ever. Then be done with fear!

_Berengere._ I cannot.

_Camarin._ To the abyss with it. To-night Is ours--Renier tarries at Famagouste-- Is ours for love and for a long delight!

_Berengere._ Whose end may be--

_Camarin._ Dawn and the dewy lark! And passing of all presage from you.

_Berengere_ (_sits_). No: For think, Yolanda's look when by the cypress We read the verses! And my dream that I Should with a cross--inscrutable is sleep!-- Bring her deep bitterness.

_Camarin._ Dreams are a brood Born of the night and not of destiny. She guesses not our guilt, and Renier Clasps to his breast ambition as a bride-- Ambition for Amaury.

_Berengere._ None can say. He's much with this Venetian, our guest. Though Venice gyves us more with tyranny Than would the Saracen.

_Camarin._ But through this lady Of the Pisani, powerful in Venice, He hopes to lift again his dynasty Up from decay; and to restore this island, This venture-dream of the seas, unto his house. 'Tis clear, my Berengere!

_Berengere._ Then, _her_ design? And what the requital that entices her?

Evil will come of it, to us some evil, Or to Yolanda and Amaury's love. But, there; the women.

_Camarin._ And too brief their stay. What signal for to-night?

_Berengere._ Be in the garden. Over the threshold yonder I will wave The candle-sign, when all are passed to sleep.

_Camarin._ And with the beam I shall mount up to you Quicker than ecstasy.

_Berengere._ I am as a leaf Before the wind and raging of your love. Go--go.

_Camarin._ But to return unto your breast!

(_He leaves her by the divan._)

(_The women re-enter with silver lighted lamps; behind them are_ HASSAN _and the slave_ SMARDA. _They wait for_ BERENGERE, _who has stood silent, to speak._)

_Berengere_ (_looking up_). Ah, you are come; I had forgotten. And it is time for sleep.--Hassan, the gates: Close them.

_Hassan._ And chain them, lady?

_Berengere._ Wait no longer. Lord Renier will not come.

_Hassan._ No word of him?

_Berengere._ None, though he yesterday left Nicosie With the priest Moro.

_Berengere._ Wait no longer. Come, women, with your lamps and light the way.

(_The women go by the steps._ BERENGERE _follows._)

_Hassan_ (_staring after her_). The reason of this mood in her? The reason? Something is vile. Lady Yolanda weeps In secret; all for what?--unless because Of the Paphian--or this Venetian. (_Seeing_ SMARDA.) Now, Slave! Scythian! You linger?

_Smarda._ I am bidden-- My mistress.

_Hassan._ Spa! Thy mistress hath, I think, Something of hell in her and has unpacked A portion in this castle. Is it so?

_Smarda._ My lady is of Venice.

_Hassan._ Strike her, God. Her smirk admits it.

_Smarda._ Touch me not!

_Hassan._ I'll wring Thy tongue out sudden, if it now has lies. What of thy lady and Lord Renier?

(RENIER _enters behind, with_ MORO.)

_Hassan._ Thy lady and Lord Renier, I say! What do they purpose?

_Smarda._ Fool-born! look around.

_Hassan._ Not till----

_Smarda._ Lord Renier, help.

_Hassan._ What do you say?

(_Turns, and stares amazed._)

_Renier._ Where is my wife?

_Hassan._ Why, she.... This slave stung me to pry.

_Renier._ Where is my wife?

_Hassan._ A moment since, was here--the women with her. She asked for your return.

_Renier._ And wherefore did?

_Hassan._ You jeer me.

_Hassan._ Have you not been gone?

_Renier._ Not--overfar. Where is Yolanda?--Well? No matter; find my chamber till I come. Of my arrival, too, no word to any.

(HASSAN _goes, confused._)

You, Moro, have deferred me; now, no more. Whether it is suspicion eats in me, Mistrust and fret and doubt--of whom I say not, Or whether desire and unsubduable To see Amaury sceptred--I care not.

Slave, to your lady who awaits me, say I'm here and now have chosen.

None can be great who will not hush his heart To hold a sceptre, and Amaury must. He is Lusignan and his lineage Will drown in him Yolanda's loveliness.

_Renier._ Then at least I shall uncover What this Venetian hints.

_Renier._ I must know.

_Moro._ 'Tis of your wife?--Yolanda?

_Renier._ Name them not. They've shut from me their souls.

_Moro._ My lord, not so; But you repulse them.

_Renier._ When they pity. No, Something has gone from me or never was Within my breast. I love not--am unlovable. Amaury is not so, And this Venetian Vittia Pisani----

_Moro._ Distrust her!

_Renier._ She has power.

_Moro._ But not truth. And yesterday a holy relic scorned.

_Renier._ She loves Amaury. Wed to her he will Be the elected Governor of Cyprus. The throne, then, but a step.

Continue Reading →

The volume opens with Yolanda of Cyprus, a five-act play set in a dim hall of blended Gothic and Saracenic styles, immediately establishing a cultural and architectural hybridity that permeates the collection. The characters—Renier Lusignan, a descendant of the island's former kings, his wife Berengere, their son Amaury, and his betrothed Yolanda—are introduced amid a web of Venetian political control and personal intrigue. Rice's stage directions emphasize atmosphere over action, using the setting to mirror the characters' internal conflicts.

Dramatic Monologues and Biblical Voices

The lyric section titled “Dramatic” includes poems spoken by figures such as Jael, Mary at Nazareth, and a blind speaker. These pieces adopt a first-person voice that is often defiant or sorrowful. In “Jael,” the speaker recounts driving a tent-pin through Sisera's temple with a tone of grim satisfaction, while “Mary at Nazareth” presents a mother's quiet bewilderment at her son's destiny. “From One Blind” uses sensory deprivation to explore inner vision: the speaker claims to “see” through touch and memory, a motif that recurs in later nature poems. Rice avoids sentimentalizing these figures; instead, he emphasizes their psychological isolation and moral ambiguity.

Nature as Cosmic Agitation

Several non-dramatic lyrics personify natural forces as turbulent, almost vengeful entities. In “To the Sea,” the ocean is described as “enraged” and “labouring with the drifting bones of countless dead,” an alchemist grinding rocks into sand. The speaker admits loving the sea “above all fear,” trusting that its “runes” might reveal immortality. Similarly, “The Day-Moon” portrays the moon as a “Circe” diminished in daylight, yet still exerting a mysterious pull on tides and human hearts. These poems share a vocabulary of “seething,” “tempestuous,” and “unfathomed moan,” suggesting a universe indifferent to human scale.

Recurring Contrasts: Pagan Vitality vs. Christian Melancholy

Throughout the collection, Rice juxtaposes pagan imagery with Christian symbolism. In “The Dead Gods,” the speaker imagines lying in Oblivion for ten thousand years, hearing a god whisper that they are “king and queen of Tartarus no more.” The poem ends with a vision of withered scepters and faded thrones. Conversely, “The Empty Cross” and “The Atoner” invoke Christian redemption but often in a tone of doubt or exhaustion. This tension is most explicit in “To a Singing Warbler,” where the bird's carefree song of “Beauty! all—all—is beauty!” is met with the poet's warning: “Wait till the winter comes!” The lyric refuses to resolve the conflict, leaving the reader suspended between celebration and foreboding.

Readers approaching Plays and Lyrics should attend to the way Rice uses verse form to modulate tone: the play's blank verse gives way to varied lyric meters, from sonnets to irregular stanzas. The collection rewards those who trace its recurring motifs—blindness, the sea, dead gods—across different genres. The 1906 edition, dedicated to Ida M. Tarbell, gathers work from earlier volumes and new compositions, making it a useful entry point into Rice's early twentieth-century poetic sensibility.

Reading Plays and Lyrics, I found myself back on my grandmother’s porch, sun-warm pages smelling of dust and sea. That same ache lives in Lords and Lovers, and Other Dramas — Key Ideas to Explore, which once made me pause mid-sentence, feeling the pagan light fade into something quieter and older—like dusk settling, not ending, over a familiar shore.