Colombine

Chapter 8: MEMORANDA

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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.

MEMORANDA

In your Book of Memory,

Set aside no page for me.

Do not write our friendship there,

But, if you’ve the time to spare,

Scribble just this hurried line:

“He was once a friend of mine.”

Blot it very carefully,

Turn the page that none may see.

Life goes singing down the way

Different ballads every day.

Other pages open fair,

Set new tales of friendship there.

And the day will come maybe,

When that hurried line of me;

Seen by chance a moment’s space,

Will recall a vanished face,

And a memory sweeter than

Many written pages can.