Evening—A Room in a Manor—Mr. Wilmott, Arthur, Edward—Walter seated a little apart.
WALTER.
She grows on me like moonrise on the night—
My life is shaped in spite of me, the same
As ocean by his shores. Why am I here?
The weary sun was lolling in the west,
Edward and I were sauntering on the shore
Yawning with idleness; and so we came
To kill the tedium of slow-creeping days.
On such slight hinges an existence turns!
How frequent in the very thick of life
We rub clothes with a fate that hurries past!
A tiresome friend detains us in the street,
We part, and turning, meet fate in the teeth.
A moment more or less had 'voided it.
Yet through the subtle texture of our souls,
From circumstance each draws a different hue.
The sunlight falls upon a bed of flowers,
From the same sunlight one draws crimson deep,
Another azure pale. Edward and I
See Violet each day, her silks brush both,
She smiles on both alike—My heart! she comes.
[Violet enters and crosses the room.
O God! I'd be the very floor that bears
Such a majestic thing! Now feed, my eyes,
On beauteous poison, Nightshade, honey sweet.
[A silence.
VIOLET.
There is a ghastly chasm in the talk,
As if a fate hung in the midst of us,
Its shadow on each heart. Why, this should be
A dark and lustrous night of wit and wine,
Rich with quick bouts of merry argument,
And witty sallies quenched in laughter sweet,
Yet my voice trembles in a solitude,
Like a lone man in a great wilderness.
MR. WILMOTT.
Arthur, you once could sing a roaring song,
That to the chorus drew our voices out;
'Twere no bad plan to sing us one to-night.
Come, wash the roughness from your throat with wine.
ARTHUR.
What sort of song, Sirs, shall I sing to you—
Dame Venus panting on her bed of flowers,
Or Bacchus purple-mouthed astride his tun?
Now for a headlong song of blooded youth,
Give 't such a welcome as shall lift the roof off—
Sweet friends, be ready with a hip hurrah!
Arthur sings.