MARIAN
Ah, but we have not parted all this month
More than a garden's breadth, an arrow's flight:
Time will be dead till you come back again.
Four hours of absence make four centuries!
Do you remember how the song goes, Robin,
That bids true lovers not to grieve at parting
Often? for Nature gently severs them thus,
Training them up with kind and tender art,
For the great day when they must part for ever.
ROBIN
Do you believe it, Marian?
MARIAN
No; for love
Buried beneath the dust of life and death,
Would wait for centuries of centuries,
Ages of ages, until God remembered,
And, through that perishing cloud-wrack, face looked up
Once more to loving face.
ROBIN
Your hope—and mine!
Is not a man's poor memory, indeed,
A daily resurrection? Your hope—and mine!
MARIAN
And all the world's at heart! I do believe it.