O, thou fair son of gentle faery,
That art in mighty arms most magnifyde
Above all knights that ever battle tried,
O, turn thy rudder hetherward awhile!
Here may the storm-bett vessel safely ride;
This is the port of ease from troublous toil,
The world’s sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoyle!
Poe. No more—no more!
Vir. Why, cousin?
Poe. I shall have the water about my ears presently. I thought I was drowning on a mermaid’s bosom. Read no more, Virginia. One nibble at a time is enough of Spenser. He ought to be made into a thousand little poems. Then we should have a multitude of gems instead of a great granite mountain that nobody can circuit without weariness.
Vir. You know so much, Edgar. Will you teach me while you are here, if I try very hard to learn?
Poe. (Plucking a flower) My little girl, what lore would you teach this bud? God makes some people so. Be happy that you are a beautiful certainty and not a struggling possibility.
Vir. But the rose has no soul, Edgar—no heart, as I have. It does not sigh to see you look so pale, and read these lines of suffering here, (touching his brow) but I—it kills me, cousin! (He hides his face) Forgive me! O, I am so unkind!
(Mrs. Clemm comes out of cottage and crosses to them. She gently takes Poe’s hand from his face and kisses him)
Mrs. C. My dear boy!
Poe. (Seizing her hand and holding it) Don’t—don’t be so kind to me, aunt! It tells too much of what has never been mine. Curious interest—passing friendship—love born in a flash and dead in an hour—these I have had, while my heart was crying from its depths for the firmly founded love that shakes but with the globe itself.