University of Virginia Library

Scene III

(The same apartment in Macdonald's palace at Ormaclade. Flora is seated by a table binding a bouquet of flowers.)
Flora
Ah! he will love me, when I give him this.
A flowery book, whose words of different flowers,
Shall tell him in one volume all my heart.
Ah! how the rose's velvet lips shall speak,
And tell him with mute eloquence my love,
Nature's interpreter of God to man.
Ye are the alphabet by which we read
The poetry of love. An angel's hand
First scattered you on earth that ye might be
A symbol of the heart that cannot speak.
Ye are the perfumed lips by which we speak
A language innocent as pure—as free
From guile as this fond heart which owns you now.
I breathe upon you now, that when he takes
Your fragrance in, he may inhale my sighs.

(Enter Boisdale)
Boisdale
Now she is here alone, could I not save
Her from the king? Oh, how my heart burns in
My heart! Two mighty kings, Love and Despair,
Reign in my heart each subject unto each,
Not knowing which is mightiest! How she smiles!
A loveliness sits on her lofty brow,
Like beauty on an ivory throne. She fills
The atmosphere around with living light,
It clothes the sinuous sweetness of her limbs,
Like that around an angel's form as when
The seasons smiled on Venus when she rose
Up from the sea. I feel new life run through
My heart, as when some flower disported by
The summer south, unfolds its fragrant leaves
To kiss the god of day! How mild she seems!
I have grown jealous of the very air,
Lest it should bear away some smile unseen.
I will not be—no, I will speak to her.
(Approaching her and kneeling)
Most beauteous Flora! Angel of my heart!

Flora
(Rising)
What! Boisdale?

Boisdale
By name but that alone!

Flora
Why do you kneel?

Boisdale
A worshiper should kneel.

Flora
You are too kind.

Boisdale
Why look upon me thus?

Flora
Then I will turn my eyes away.

Boisdale
No, no.
Then it were dark again.

Flora
Why talk you thus?

Boisdale
My love is like eternity. It bends
Above thee like the Heavens. It hovers o'er
My spirit like an Angel's wings! Thou art
My sun, the center of that heaven. Without
Thy light my heaven is dark!

Flora
You are too kind.
Are there not other lights?

Boisdale
There is but one
Bright Cynossure; she gazes on me now,
The queen of my soul's heaven.

Flora
But when that star
Is set, you will forget that it has shone,
To see the real shine bright.

Boisdale
Thou art no star;
Thou art the moon, the satellite of this
Dark earth.

Flora
But when that moon goes down,
The stars will shine again.

Boisdale
But give no light. They will
Not light me through this wilderness of life.
As travelers in this hour of thirst, pant for
The cooling stream, so does my soul for thy
Sweet healing love.

Flora
But there are other streams.

Boisdale
Ah, none shall slake my thirst! The more I drink
The more I want. Thou art my mountain stream,
The purest waters on the face of earth
Are those which rise the highest from the sea.
Look on me, Flora! let me not despair!

Flora
No danger. Grief has its own balm. There are
In nature medicines for all our ills.

Boisdale
There is no medicine can cure this grief.

Flora
What is thy grief?

Boisdale
Are you so skilled in cures,
And yet know not my grief? You should, to know
The remedy, first know the ill; for there
Are ills which have no cure.

Flora
But none time will
Not heal.

Boisdale
But mine grows worse with age, Alas!
The intenseness of our feelings measures life.
And thus our years are measured by our pains.
If we have many, we have fewer years.
And thus, in one, we live through many lives,
Making that life of many lives our age.
Pain is the scythe which lays our harvest low,
The reaper that mows down our better life.
It is the unseen worm within the bud,
Born in our heart's deep core!

Flora
You look upon
The dark side of all things.

Boisdale
All things are dark!

Flora
They are but shadows of the light of life,
Life's picture here unfinished else. Pain is
A necessary thing, else life had been
All joy.

Boisdale
Ah, Flora! did you know my heart!
As autumn's damps make sere the fragile leaf,
As sorrow chills the heart of man! One robs
The leaf of all its springtime gaity;
The other robs the heart of all its youth!
Flora, did you know my heart, you would
Be sorry from your soul.

Flora
I'm glad I do
Not know it then.

Boisdale
But you should know my heart.
Do you not recollect the hours we spent
In youth?

Flora
I do,

Boisdale
Were they not joyful hours?

Flora
I think they were.

Boisdale
Do you not know then, ever?

Flora
Why ask me this?

Boisdale
Then we were friends.

Flora
Are now!

Boisdale
Then, on the whirlwinds of my passionate soul,
Were all thy blessed words borne up to Heaven!
The dew drop, trembling in the morning's ray,
By Phoebus from the mountain flowret kist,
Was not more vestal than thy virgin heart!

Flora
Not less so now.

Boisdale
Then let me kiss thy hand!

Flora
Nay, that is wrong.

Boisdale
You did not think so then.
Once you were happy in my love.

Flora
You jest.
Nay, Boisdale, you wish to anger me.

Boisdale
I would not harm you for the world.

Flora
Then hush
Talk not of youth nor love.

Boisdale
Once you were glad
To prattle of those innocent days.

Flora
Then we
Were children, talked as such.

Boisdale
Ah, we have talked
Like children since.

Flora
I think you talk so now.

Boisdale
Would you could feel as you did then, that we
Could talk as we did then.

Flora
We have no need
Of children's talk.

Boisdale
We have much need of it.
Thy smiles were then to me as heaven to him,
Who on the threshold of the skies, first gets
A glimpse of immortality. Then—then—
I cut thy name upon a tree; mine was
Above, thine all below; it stands there now,
A living witness of our love. Thy tracks
I used to follow in the sand, as if
They were some book I loved to read. But now,
Where is that childhood now?

Flora
'Tis gone, and think
No more of it.

Boisdale
Then I must cease to live.
Ah, Flora! let me kiss thy hand.

Flora
Well then,
You may.

Boisdale
Not that, the left one, next thy heart.
Whose flowers are these?

Flora
Why ask me that?

Boisdale
The kings?
Thus do I crush them to the earth!

(Snatching them from her and trampling on them.)
Flora
Frail man!
Think not to win me from the king this way!
As you have bruised these flowers, so shall he bruise
Thy heart.

Boisdale
Not all the powers on earth could add
One atom to its grief. I am king-proof.
I stand amid the saplings of the woods,
A mighty oak! I lift my thousand arms
To heaven, forgetful of the lightning's blast,
Time-racking hail, or thunder! Why should I
Then, fear thy king? The hour is nigh, at hand,
The thunder-clap of his dark fall shall drown
The breakage of a hundred wrecks at sea.

Flora
No, Boisdale, you shall not harm the king.
He is above thy flight.

Boisdale
My soul soars high,
Higher than Eagle ever flew!

Flora
Then Sir,
Disdain the flight of meaner birds.

Boisdale
I do
Therefore, I hate thy hawk.

Flora
My hawk?

Boisdale
Thy hawk,
Or crow, or vulture, which you please.

Flora
The king
Shall hear of this.

Boisdale
Would he were here to hear
It now.

Flora
You would not dare to look at him.
He is the sun!

Boisdale
Take care of thine eyes

Flora
They have been tempered to his heavenly beams.

Boisdale
(Aside)
A Pythagoras Prometheus has inspired.

Flora
They have drunk glory from his heavenly smiles.
Away!

Boisdale
You have grown sensitive of late,
The fate of queens.

Flora
You are offensive, Sir!

Boisdale
Who saw thy bud of love unfold itself
To heaven? This will be prison to the king.
You loved me then.

Flora
I loved you not.

Boisdale
You said
You did.

Flora
No, had I loved you then, this last
Rash act had swept it all away, even as
The ocean, in his angry mood, sweeps off
The name once written on his shore! Farewell!

(Exit.)
Boisdale
Oh, God! if ever there was Hell on earth,
If ever there was Hell beyond the grave,
No, all the Hells in Hell were heaven to this.
A calculating coldness fills my heart.
With awful coldness. Yes, the king shall die!
And down descend plague-spotted into Hell,
With everlasting curses on his soul.

(Exit.)