THE PIPER
A monologue from the
play by Josephine Preston Peabody
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Piper: A Play in Four Acts. Josephine Preston
Peabody. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909. |
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- PIPER: Who was my mother, then?
- Nay, I do not know. For when I saw her,
- She was a thing so trodden, lost and sad,
- I cannot think that she was ever young,
- Save in the cherishing voice. -- She was a stroller.
- She was a stroller. -- And she starved and sang;
- And like the wind, she wandered, and was cold,
- Outside your lighted windows, and fled by,
- Storm-hunted, trying to outstrip the snow,
- South, south, and homeless as a broken bird,--
- Limping and hiding!--And she fled, and laughed,
- And kept me warm; and died! To you, a Nothing;
- Nothing, forever, oh, you well-housed mothers!
- As always, always for the lighted windows
- Of all the world, the Dark outside is nothing;
- And all that limps and hides there in the dark;
- Famishing,--broken,--lost! And I have sworn
- For her sake and for all, that I will have
- Some justice, all so late, for wretched men,
- Out of these same smug towns that drive us forth
- After the show!--Or scheme to cage us up
- Out of the sunlight; like a squirrel's heart
- Torn out and drying in the market-place.
- My mother! Do you know what mothers are?--
- Your children! Do you know them? Ah, not you!
- There's not one here but it would follow me,
- For all your bleating!
MORE MONOLOGUES BY JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY |
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