ARIEL Yea, so I have felt After the equinox—November coming on.
MIRANDA [Starting, as she gazes at one of the Muses.] Euterpe dear! What lock of gray is this In thy bright hair?—Quick, Ariel: fetch my father, For sudden my heart aches, and I wish him near.
ARIEL Straight I will bring him, and my Spirits, too. Be merry, mistress: they shall soon restore us.
[Ariel hastens off, left. As he does so, the Muses, with downcast looks, file off right into the shrine.]
MIRANDA Nay, darling Muses! do not leave me, too. What, must you all go hence? Still I must tarry To greet my father. Friends, good-bye! [They depart.] Ah me! What voices make their dirge within my heart?
[While she has spoken, the mouth of Caliban’s cell, emitting a ghastly glow, fills with dim Shapes, which pour outward, and swarm slowly upward over the steps, covering the stage with a moving, huddled grayness, out of which two cloaked Figures rise distinct in the dusk. As they come forth and hover nearer to Miranda, a cold dirge issues with them from below.]
THE DIRGE [As before.] Gray—gray—gray: Joy be unholy and hidden; Wan be the rainbow of wonder, frozen the tide! Blind—blind—blind: Passion be pale and forbidden; Dumb be the lips of the soul to Beauty denied!
[Slowly the gray hosts surround Miranda, who stares at them, only half believing their presence, till the dusk, growing lighter, reveals their long Puritan cloaks and peaked hats, and the two muffled Ones in Gray towering before her. Then faintly she speaks to them:]
MIRANDA What are you? Why are you come? Ah, you—’tis you: Priest of Setebos!—Caliban! [She sways and falls.]
CALIBAN Ha, she swooneth.— O Death, unfasten thy spell!