ANTONIO: You're calm?
HELENA: Yes, very calm--
Of impotence--as one who in a tomb
Awakes and waits?
ANTONIO: He is but mad.
HELENA: But mad.
ANTONIO: Yet fear you? still?
(_A shout is heard._)
HELENA: Who is it? soldiers come
From Arta?
ANTONIO: Yes.
HELENA: And by this road!--They must
Not see us!
ANTONIO: No. But quick, within this breach!
(_They conceal themselves in the breach. The soldiers pass
across the stage. The last, as all shout "DI TOCCA!"
strikes a column near him. It falls, and HELENA starts
forward shuddering._)
HELENA: Fallen! Ah, fallen! See, Antonio!
ANTONIO: What now!
HELENA (_swaying_): It is as if the earth were wind
Under my feet!
ANTONIO: Are all things thus become
Omen and dread to you?
HELENA: O, but it is
The pillar grieving Venus leant upon
Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote,
When falls this pillar tall and proud
Let surest lovers weave their shroud.
ANTONIO: Mere myth!
HELENA: The shroud! It coldly winds about us--coldly!
ANTONIO: Should a vain hap so desperately move you?
HELENA: The breath and secret soul of all this night
Are burdened with foreboding! And it seems--
ANTONIO: You must not, Helena!
HELENA: My love, my lord--
Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh
In this unnatural awe! (_He takes her to him._)
Ah how thy arms
Warm the cold moan and misery of fear
Out of my veins!
ANTONIO: You rave, but in me stir
Again the attraction of these dim portents.
Nay, quiver not! 'tis but a passing mist,
And this that runs in us is worthless dread!
HELENA: But ah, the shroud! the shroud!
ANTONIO: We'll weave no shroud,
But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry!
And you shall be my Sappho--but through joys
Such as shall legend ecstasy about
Our knitted names when distant lovers dream.