HELENA: I would not sink from it, the simple sun--
Fade to a tomb! What dirging hast thou heard
To mind thee of it?
ANTONIO: Love is a bliss too bright
To rest on earth. With it God should give us
Ever to soar above mortality.
But you must know----!
HELENA: Not yet, tell me not yet!
Dimly I see the burden in your eyes,
But dare not take it yet into my own.
Let us a little look upon the moon,
Forgetting. (_They seat themselves._)
ANTONIO (_musingly_): These hands--this hair--
(_Caressing them._)
HELENA: Like a farewell
Your touch falls on them.
ANTONIO (_moved_): To a father yield them?
HELENA: Antonio?
ANTONIO (_still caressing_): No, no! It cannot be!
HELENA: This dread--and shrinking--let me have it!--speak!
You mean--look on me!--mean, your father?--
ANTONIO: Ah!
It must not! must not!
HELENA: Do you mean--he--No!
Let him not touch me even in thy thought,
To me come nearer than a father may!
ANTONIO: He's swept by the sweet contagion of you, wrapt
In a fierce spell by your effulgent youth.
HELENA: Say, say it not! To him I but smiled up--
But smiled!
ANTONIO: He knew not that such smiles could dawn
In a bare world. And now is flame; would take
Your tenderness into his arms and hear
Seized to him the warm music of your heart.
O, I could be for him--he is my father--
Prometheus stormed and gnawed on Caucasus,
Tantalus ever near the slipping wave,
Or torn and tossed to burning martyrdom--
But not--not this!
HELENA: Then, flight! In it we may
Find haven and new nurture for our bliss.
ANTONIO: Snap from his hunger this one hope, so he
Must starve? Push him who has but learned there's light
Back into yawning blindness? Ah, not flight!
HELENA: I know he is your father, and my days
Have been all fatherless, tho' I have made
Me child to every wind that had caress
And to each lonely tree of the deep wood--
Oft envious of those who touch gray hairs,
Or spend desire on filial grief and pang.
And most have you a softness in him kept,
Been to him more than empire's tyranny--
But baffled none can measure him nor trust!
ANTONIO: Yet must we wait.
HELENA: When waiting shall but goad
The speed of peril?
ANTONIO: Still: and strain to win
Him from this brink.--If vainly, then birth, pity,
And memory shall fall from me!--all, all,
But fierceness for thy peace!
HELENA: My Antony!
ANTONIO: And fierceness without falter!
HELENA: I am thine,
Thine more than immortality is God's!
Hear, does the nightingale not tell it thee?
The stars do they not tremble it, the moon
Murmur it argently into thine eyes?
ANTONIO: Ah, sorceress! You need but breathe to put
Abysm from us; but build words to float us
On infinite ecstasy. (_Kisses her._)
HELENA: How, how thy kisses
Sing in me!
ANTONIO: From my heart they do but send
Echoes born of thy beauty mid its strings!
HELENA: Then would I lean forever at thy lips,
Lose no reverberance, no ring, no waft,
Hear nothing everlastingly but them!
(_A mournful chant is borne from the Convent. They slowly
unclasp, awed._)
ANTONIO: Weary with vigil does it swell and sink,
Moaning the dead.
HELENA: Ah, no! There are no dead
To-night in all the world. Could God see them
Lie cold and wondrous still, while we are rich
In warmth and throb!
ANTONIO: Yet, hear. The funeral tread
Of the old sea sighs in each strain, and breaks.
HELENA: As I were drowned and heard it over me,
It cometh--cometh!
(_Her head droops back on his arm. A pause._)
ANTONIO (_touching her face_): Cold! cold!--your lips--your brow!
And you are pale as with a prophecy!
HELENA: Oh--oh!
ANTONIO: Your spirit is not in you but
Afar and suffering!
HELENA: A vision sweeps me.
ANTONIO: Awake from it!
HELENA (_recovering_): A waste of waves that beat
Upon a cliff--and beat! Yet thou and I
Had place in it.
ANTONIO: Come to yon arbour, come.
The moon has looked too long on the sad earth,
And can reflect but sorrow.
HELENA: Ah, I fear!
(_They go clinging passionately together._
_Enter CHARLES and CECCO._
CHARLES: And yet it is a little thing to sleep--
Just to lie down and sleep. A child may do it.
CECCO: If my lord would, here's sleep for him wrapped in
A quiet powder.
CHARLES: Sleep is ever mate
Of peace and should go with it. I have slept
In the wild arms of battle when the winds
Of souls departing fearfully shook by,
And on the breast of dizzy danger cradled
Softly been lulled. Potions should be for them
Who wrestle and are thrown by misery.
CECCO: And is my lord at peace?
CHARLES: Strangely.--Yet seem
For sleep too coldly calm.
CECCO: So were you, sir--
I keep your words lest you may need of them--
On the same night young Haemon's father went
The secret way to death.