Ideal [aside].
I’ll learn if she beheld my robbery this morn.
[Aloud.] Didst thou awake?
Didst thou awake?
That hour when moonbeams glide away
’Neath limpid tints of twinkling day,
When from the wires of its cage,
That string between from bar to bar,
Thy prisoned bird, in tuneful rage,
Awoke unto the morning star,
And sang unto the woodland wild
That hides the sun beyond the hills,
And hides, in wavy foliage isled,
The breezy nest of cooing bills?
Didst thou awake?
Didst thou awake?
Violet.
Why, that sounds like a morning serenade. Now indeed do I know thee for a spirit of light-tripping gayety; but I’ll answer no questions. I was wakened by a robber who from my chamber-window plucked my favorite flower. Spirits should know all things, and not be so inquisitive for ladies’ secrets.
Ideal.
Give me the wings of yonder lark,
Soaring into the perfumed dawn,
Beyond the chimney’s beckoning spark
That, blackening, strews the beaten lawn.
For I, within this tree immured,
With fervent glances scan the ships
That sail and sail until, obscured,
The ivory fleet the ocean dips;
While swarms of white-winged memories,
Like missive-bearing doves, arise
From out the pure pellucid seas,
And float above these orchard skies.
Violet.