Far, far away, I know not where, I know not how, The skies are grey, the boughs are bare, bare boughs in flower: Long lilac silk is softly drawn from bough to bough, With flowers of milk and buds of fawn, a broidered shower. Beneath that tent an Empress sits, with slanted eyes, And wafts of scent from censers flit, a lilac flood; Around her throne bloom peach and plum in lacquered dyes, And many a blown chrysanthemum, and many a bud. She sits and dreams, while bonzes twain strike some rich bell, Whose music seems a metal rain of radiant dye; In this strange birth of various blooms, I cannot tell Which spring from earth, which slipped from looms, which sank from sky. Beneath her wings of lilac dim, in robes of blue, The Empress sings a wordless hymn that thrills her bower; My trance unweaves, and winds, and shreds, and forms anew Dark bronze, bright leaves, pure silken threads, in triple flower. Portrait of Mrs. Patrick Campbell By Aubrey Beardsley _Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ [Illustration: Portrait of Mrs. Patrick Campbell] The Dedication By Fred M. Simpson PERSONS REPRESENTED Lucy Rimmerton. Harold Sekbourne Scene I--The period is 1863 _The sitting-room in_ Lucy Rimmerton's _lodgings. She is seated in front of the fire making some toast._ _Lucy._ There! I think that will do, although it isn't anything very great. [_Rises._] What a colour I must have! Harold says I always manage to toast myself very much better than I do the bread. [_Lights the gas, and begins arranging some flowers on the table._] His favourite flowers; I know he will be pleased when he sees them. How strange it is that he should really care for me!--I, who am so commonplace and ordinary, hardly pretty either, although he says I am. I always tell him he might have done so much better than propose to a poor governess without a penny.--Oh, if only his book proves a success!--a really great success!--how glorious it will be! Why doesn't the wretched publisher make haste and bring it out? I believe he is keeping it back on purpose. What dreadful creatures they are! At first--squabble, squabble, squabble; squabble about terms, squabble about this, another squabble about that, and then, when everything is finally arranged, delay, delay, delay. "You must wait for the publishing season." As though a book were a young lady whose future might be seriously jeopardised if it made its _début_ at an unfashionable time. [_The door opens, and_ Harold _bursts into the room_.] _Harold._ It's out, it's out; out at last. _Lucy._ What, the book! Really! Where is it? Do show it to me. _Harold._ Do you think you deserve it! _Lucy._ Oh! don't tantalise me. Have you seen it? What is it like! _Harold._ It is printed, and very much like other books.