PIPER
So, so, lad.
MICHAEL
But to save her—
PIPER
There's a way,—
Trust me! I save her, or we swing together
Merrily, in a row.—How did you see her?
MICHAEL
By stealth: two days ago, at evening,
Hard by the vine-hid wall of her own garden,
I made a warbling like a nightingale;
And she came out to hear.
PIPER
A serenade!
Under the halter!
MICHAEL
Hush.—A death-black night,
Until she came.—Oh, how to tell thee, lad!
She came,—she came, not for the nightingale,
But even dreaming that it would be I!
PIPER
She knew you?—We are trapped, then.
MICHAEL
No, not so!
She smiled on me.—Dost thou remember how
She smiled on me that day? Alas, poor maid,
She took me for some noble in disguise!
And all these days,—she told me,—she had dreamed
That I would come to save her!
PIPER
Said she this?
MICHAEL
All this—all this, and more! . . .
What could lies do?—I lied to her of thee;
I swore I knew not of thy vanishment,
Nor the lost children. But I told her true,
I was a stroller and an outcast man
That hid there, like a famished castaway,
For one more word, without a hope,—a hope;
Helpless to save her.