Char. I ’d have you learn
That you must live, Aseffa, and life for you
Means love. Your eyes, your lips, your hands, your hair,
Like coiléd sweetness of the night, and all
Your swaying, melting body, gather love
As roses gather smiles, as waves draw down
The heart-flood of the moon and hold it deep
And trembling.
Asef. Sir, your roses, waves, and smiles,
Are poet-nothings. You play with them as shells,
Stirring chance colors for an idle eye.
It is your way of saying, is it not,
That I shall love again?
Char. You must! you must!
Asef. Such words are like bright raindrops falling in
Another world. They glitter, but I hear
No sound, grief has so closed my ears. Take back
Your comfort. You would be kind, but noble count,
You talk of what a man can never know,—
A woman’s sorrow for a husband loved.
So high no height can reach it, so great and deep
The sea can not embrace it, and yet her heart
Can hold it all. O strangest of all love,
That makes her rather stoop in beggar rags
To kiss the happy dust where his foot pressed
Than from a throne lean down to give her lips
Unto a kneeling king!
Char. Aseffa, grief
Is not for you. You must—you must be happy!
The shy and tender Dawn creeps up in fear
That Night has laid some blight upon the world,
But finding all is well, steps forth, and lo!
Out of her courage the great sun is born.
So doth the heart look outward after grief
To find the world all dark, but nay, the light
Is more of heaven than it was before,
Because a face is shining from the clouds.
You dim your loved one’s eyes in paradise
With your earth-tears. He mourns your splendor paled,—
Though ’t must be beautiful to the last tint,
As sunset clouds that bear the heart of day
Into the night.
Asef. You but offend my grief.
Sir, keep your flattery for her you love!
Char. I flatter thee? It is not possible!
Who dares to add fire to the sun, or bring
The Spring a flower? Be angry if you will.
The morning’s eye is not more glorious
Rising above a storm! I flatter thee!
When but to praise thee as thou art would put
A blush on Poesy that ne’er has rhymed
As I would speak! E’en thy defects would make
Another fair, and were they merchantable
Women would buy thy faults to adorn themselves!
O, sweet—
Asef. (Shrinking in horror) What do you mean?
Char. (Seizing her hands) You know!
O, all my life has been but dreams of you,
And when I saw you first, my love!—my love!—
As lightning makes the midnight landscape speak
The language of the day, your beauty flashed
O’er all my years and made their meaning clear!
’T was you made sweet the song of every bird,
’T was you I found in every book I loved,
’T was you that gave a soul to every star!
I can not speak it! Kiss me once—but once—
And you will understand!
Asef. What thing is this?
It is not man, for man respecteth sorrow,
Nor brute, for it doth speak!