THORDIS You speak In sadness.

ARFI Nay, in awe. The thought grows vast And awful.

THORDIS So? I do not feel it, I! I feel as elemental as the air, That holds secure within its crystal veins As many thousand summers and their blooms As the earth may yearn for.

ARFI ’Tis because you are Bounteous as the air, that from your presence all Take breath and power. Since you elected me Beside the altar stone, even I, that was A warped and ailing mannikin of woe, Prickling with sensibilities and pangs, Have felt myself exalted and at peace With this poor twisted mask of torse and limb, So simple it seems, so sane, so actual, That what I am was your immortal friend Elsewhere.

THORDIS And have you felt the same? We two Have walked eternal mountains hand in hand, And watched the morning of our little lives Break over our birth-hour, and we shall stand Together at the sundown, and behold The passion clouds of death grow pale.

ARFI And then We shall pass on together.

[In his sleep, Egil moans.]

THORDIS We forget; We must not leave him as we found him, love.

ARFI The wolf torments him still in sleep.

THORDIS Poor dreamer! And have you told him yet we are to wed To-morrow?