EGIL O God! How many waking dawns and desperate nights Have I, in sharp imagination, moaned For this sweet hour, to stand—as now I stand—alone with you, in liberty.
THORDIS And now that time has come.
[She reaches to him her hand; he does not take it.]
EGIL Now it is come, But ah! how sternly different is this truth From all I dreamed. Can this be freedom? See! What hangs upon these arms? They wear no chains. Why, then, do they not catch you breathless up And bear you hence in rapture? In your eyes— Lo! veilless I behold your virgin soul! And yet she does not fly, nor I pursue.
THORDIS What should she fear?
EGIL What should she not?—These eyes Renouncing hers; these hands that dare not press Her vesture’s hem, lest they consume like coals That robèd sanctuary; these desires That burn around her like the hedge of flames Round Brunhild’s bower; this waiting dawn, this hush And solitary wood—What fear? Herself, Herself that, all resolved to beauty, breathes Herself unto these eyes, these hands, this dawn, These leash’d desires!
THORDIS You love me, you would say. Why should you not?
EGIL I have renounced you.
THORDIS Me, But not your love for me. Surely that still Is happiness.
EGIL Why, yes, I must be happy; For this is pain, and pain is very sweet To those who love; and this is bitter sweet To breathe the name of “sister” ’gainst your cheek Where but so late the sigh of “sweetheart” stole Warm from my brother’s lips.—O lure and vision! Do you not see? I have climbed up to you Out of the rank abyss; this is the verge: One word, one look, from you must hurl me back, Or save me.