y hold their heads high in the sky,
Because they are variously useful._

Please, gentlemen, don't laugh. Have patience while I explain.
The meaning is----

The meaning?

What? Must the infantry charge of meaning follow the cannonading
of your quatrains, to complete the rout?

_Dada_

Just one word to make you understand. It means, that if the
bamboos were no better than those noisy instruments----

No, Dada, we must not understand.

I defy you to make us understand.

Dada, if you use force to make us understand we shall use force
to force ourselves not to understand.

_Dada_

The gist of the quatrain is this, that if we do no good to the
world, then----

Then the world will be very greatly relieved.

_Dada_

There is another verse that makes it clearer:

_There are numerous stars in the midnight sky,
Which hang in the air for no purpose;
If they would only come down to earth,
For the street lighting they might be useful._

I see we must make clearer our meaning. Catch him. Let's raise
him up, shoulder high, and take him back to his den.

_Dada_

Why are you so excited to-day? Have you any particular business
to do?

Yes, we have very urgent business,--very urgent indeed.

_Dada_

What is your business about?

We are out to seek a play for our Spring festival.

_Dada_

Play! Day and night, play!

(_They sing._)

_We are free, my friends, from the fear of work,
For we know that work is play,--the play of life.
It is Play, to fight and toss, between life and death;
It is Play that flashes in the laughter of light in the infinite
heart;
It roars in the wind, and surges in the sea._

Oh, here comes our Leader. Brothers--our Leader, our Leader.

_Leader_

Hallo! What a noise you make!

Was it that which made you come out of doors?

_Leader_

Yes.

Well, we did it for that very purpose.

_Leader_

You don't want me to remain indoors?

Why remain indoors? This outer world has been made with a lavish
expenditure of sun and moon and stars. Let us enjoy it, and then
we can save God's face for indulging in such extravagance.

_Leader_

What were you discussing?

This:

(_They sing_.)

_Play blooms in flower and ripens in fruit
In the sunshine of eternal youth.
Play bursts up in the blood-red fire, and licks into ashes the
decaying and the dead._

Our Dada's objection was about this play.

_Dada_