Queen. It is nothing,--nothing!... Why, here! What seek you my children?... What not a word? Have you a favor to be granted, a complaint to make? If you cannot speak, why then you must go away again!
Anna Goldhair. Mistress forgive them. They are of thy train, and they have asked me to plead for them, lest their too eager speech should lose for them the favor they desire.
Queen. Well?
Anna Goldhair. Dear Mistress, there is an old custom that runs thus: when Easter-tide has come into the land, when the thorn bush grows faintly green, when the blue wave shines bluer, when our desire takes wing to sport among the flying things of spring,--that then, upon the coming of the first full moon, the night must be watched out with sport and dance. In a word they would sing.
Queen [smiling]. Ah, yes!... But tell me, dear children, if you knew it, then why did this custom vanish from the land so many years?
Anna Goldhair. We honored thy sorrow, my Queen.
Queen. Well, then, go out and dance and frolic and sing together all night long! Know you the song that you should sing?
[The maidens nod eagerly.]
Queen. Go out and drink the moonlight as it pours down through the branches; I think we little know how blessed we are.
[The maidens courtesy and kiss her hands and garments.]