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Colombine

Chapter 18: A PATRON OF THE ARTS
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About This Book

Set on a windswept hill that hides ancient Roman traces and fairy rings, the fantasy play blends rustic vernacular and commedia dell'arte figures to stage scenes of memory, folklore, and romantic rivalry. A fairylike maid meets two country labourers, recounts the site's layered past, and foretells a comic, ritualized duel between Harlequin and Pierrot for her affection. Interwoven prologue poems and stage tableaux alternate lyrical reflections on time and place with light comedy, costume spectacle, and debates about love, fate, and the endurance of ritual. The piece balances pastoral atmosphere, nostalgia, and theatricality in brief, episodic scenes voiced in verse and colloquial dialogue.

A PATRON OF THE ARTS

I knew a lady once I did,
Who lived away at Pontypridd;
She liked my verses very much,
And said I had the lyric touch.
She used to ask me round to lunch,
And say I ought to edit “Punch,”
As Owen S. and Francis B.,
Were amateurs compared to me.
Last week I met her in a batch
Of lunatics at Colney Hatch,
And heard she always spoke of me
As far surpassing Calverley.