University of Virginia Library

[Chapter] V. The Meeting

Scene
—Within the Vale of Pyramids,
Whose labyrinth he untrodden thrids,
Who looks our drama's scene upon,
Or fancies, if not staged anon,
Stands many a monumental pile
Of the same type and age and style,
For various uses yet designed.
Palace or temple, hall or bower,
The dwelling-place of human kind,
Where peace or passion have their hour.
A chamber this, in one of these;
Adorned with antique tapestries.
Zalonia seated.
Zalonia.
Light-wingèd hours! not more halts time himself,
Though old; as if your plumage had been shorn,
For love with you to toy; like prisoned birds
Shut in Elysium:—absent she, meanwhile,
Whose image still its fountains ever weep.
How, then, fare I? by love himself disdained,
Mistress alone of death, raised from the tomb,
To murther whom I love by being loved.
—Such sleep as fell on me may fall on him,
If Irë's heart speak out. And yet I live.
How, were the waking sure for him as me?
If not—O, doubt of terror! Wherefore I,
Ye laggard hours, would keep your wings still shorn,
Which still I wish should grow. O what a dream
Of contraries is life! Enter Xana.

Ha! blessèd maiden!
Earth, sea and air! O nature! thy great heart
Beats in my own. What news teems on thy lips,
Thus ripe with life, thus roseate with fresh love?
Into my tingling ears, those luscious words
Drop, like distillèd sounds, thought in the stars,
And whispered down the air. Why art thou mute?

Xana.
Nothing is silence.

Zalonia.
Silence everything!
His name it speaks not, spoken, were a fiat
Would in the wild make order. Mystery!
You have not heard of him? What, not a river
Bore, while it babbled to the desert's ear
Its legend old, the murmur of his name?
What, not a leaf on those huge forest trunks,
Would sigh it softly to the kissing breeze?
A god among them; they so ignorant
As not to know him? These uncivil shades
Need lessoning by love;—their echoes, then,
Were musical with the breathed ecstasy
Of Irë's sacred appellation.

Xana.
O,
Were musical? I have walked them like a spirit,
All voice, and multitudinous have been
The replications from each cave unseen;
Nothing but Irë, spell of little merit,
Unless intoned by thy far-sweeter lip.
I am weary.

Zalonia.
Ah! then rest thee. Sit thee down.
O, fie, that cloud! Its shadow on thy brow
Swarthens thy fair complexion;—comely, still,
Though it than night were tawnier.

Xana.
Kiss me. There.
Is not all well? Hear, now, what news I have.
Dio has come from Thebes. Arrived at Uxmal,
He found the city up, its princes fled,
And Irë fugitive. Armed with the name
Of his great master, on pursuit resolved,
He threads the desert; and, in fine, is here:
Knows all that we would know; but to my questions
Is dumb as a dead oracle.

Zalonia.
O lead me
To him.

Xana.
Lo, he seeks you.

Zalonia.
Ah, heaven! 'tis he.
Enter Dio, with a scroll.
Dio! thou comest like an ambassador
Dropt from a better world. If thou have language,
And if that language have intelligence,
Intelligence good news, let fall thy words
Like to a rapid's waters—flood my soul
With tidings undelayed!

Dio.
Zalonia!

Zalonia.
Tell me of Irë! Nothing pleases me
That speaks of me, not him. You do me wrong.

Dio.
With such like innocence, as when an infant
Becomes the author in you of sad thoughts.

Zalonia.
Your pardon. Ay, indeed, 'twas senseless in me
To seek an answer ere I questioned you.
We would have news of Irë, noble Dio;
Hast thou won such, oh, let us share the prize,
And Heaven's treasures we will pray upon you,
In dewy showers, so soft in their descent,
And yet so pearly rich.

Dio.
Zalonia!

Zalonia.
Breathe not my name—breathe his—unless, (dear mercy!)
Thou knowest love has slain him, as once me,
And knowest not if resurrection come
Alike to him as me. Or knowest too well
That it will never come. Then on thy lips
Eternal silence.

Dio.
Irë lives.

Zalonia.
I am patient.
Tis well to live; 'tis better to live well.
My Irë lives?—lives where, and how? What's that?
Your eyes are tearful; tender as the babe's
You spake of now; your look as innocent.
Such in a man is seeming.

Dio.
Would it were!

Zalonia.
Would, like a child's, our labour were but sport!
All a child's work is play; and its choice is
Not the thing's self, but type, which, like itself,
In its imagined toil, plays many parts.
But we are fancy-bound; and love, though young
For ever, wearies with reality,
And grows as 'twere decrepid,—old like Time—
Halting in harness.

Dio.
May I speak my tidings?

Zalonia.
Not with that look, as if I should be pitied!
If that thy news be ill, look like despair,
And ice my blood, freezing me, where I stand,
Into a pillar!

Dio.
Nay, no cause for that.

Zalonia.
All's well, then?

Dio.
Irë lives—is near at hand.

Zalonia.
This makes that well still better.

Dio.
Comes to thee.
Alive or dead, thou art his wanderings' end,
Their object, motive, goal and crown, in one.

Zalonia.
The gods crown thee for that; find thee a realm,
Whereof thou mayst be king.

Dio.
I doubt my worthiness.

Zalonia.
Then so do I. Thy doubt's infectious. Doubt,
Thou art not worthy. Power and merit wait
On faith—which looks, from Heaven, on doubt, in Hell.
O fool! to interrupt thy speech. But, Irë—
He's nigh, thou sayest?

Dio.
Ay, maiden, nigh—in body;
In mind—far off.

Zalonia.
Body and mind! what's this?
Equivocation?

Dio.
Truth—the terrible.

Zalonia.
O, pity!

Dio.
Yes—that noble mind is lost
In wandering passion.

Zalonia.
Phrenesy!
An image of like horror in the act
As shows some human sacrifice devout
Offered to malice, falsely deemed divine.

Dio.
Malign not highest power,

Zalonia.
What power? Is't love? [Throwing herself on her knees.

Beautiful madness! thy idolater
In me implores thy influential shower
That quenches reason. Saturate my brain,
Deluge my heart, and drown me utterly!

Dio.
Rise, maiden! (She resists strongly.)
Rise, lest you provoke, indeed,
Heaven's just revenge.

Zalonia.
(starting to her feet).
On you—its messenger,
Its scourge, its pestilence, its bloody sword,
Its evil angel who but breathes to blast,
Speaks but to slay. Hence, plague incarnated,
In human limbs and gesture horrible!—
Hence!

Dio.
Fiend or not, 'tis but the truth I speak.

Zalonia.
Truth, radiant seraph! Then turn, wrath! on me.
Myself and this joint instrument.

[Drawing out a sacrificial knife.
Dio
(preventing her).
Nay, then,
You're mad, like Irë. I must have thee guarded!
What, ho, there!

Xana.
Pri'thee, let me speak. Zalonia,
Wouldst passion should transport thee to a fury?

Zalonia.
Ay. Love prohibited to anger turns,
And rages like the wrongèd multitudes
In populous streets, about to overthrow
Some ancient tyranny! Come, Dio, here.

Xana.
He will not answer.

Zalonia.
Nay, I will no more
Offend him or his master. Does he note me?

Dio.
I do.

Zalonia.
Then, weigh my words, heed my least look.
I have the inspiration that thou lackest,
Because thou lovest not. Does Irë wander?—
Hath his mind gone a journey? Be it so—
Not with his body. Where else 'tis, you know not.

Dio.
My ignorance I confess.

Zalonia.
Let his mind roam
Up to the furthest planet; let his feet
Tread any spot on earth:—his soul is here,
Within my soul—from me 'tis never absent!
Thou dost not question this?

Dio.
What if I do?

Zalonia.
Then, I strike here!—
This steel would slay but me. His heart in mine,
As well I know it is, 'twould slay him too;
Should I in folly pierce his covering.
Dost question it, I say?

Dio.
I dare not, if
I would—and would not. I have also loved!

Zalonia.
That's music. Dio! I am comforted.

[She relapses into a delicious reverie.
Dio.
I'm glad to learn it.

Zalonia.
Well, thou mayst be glad.
The ægis of some hovering sylph protects me.

Dio.
I verily believe so.

Zalonia.
In one moment,
I've dreamt a dream of peace.

Dio.
When?

Zalonia.
Even now.

Dio.
A vision was it?

Zalonia.
Yes, of blessedness.
A sleeping babe lay on a downy couch,
Its listless limbs in exquisite repose
Gracefully blended, or partitioned, even
As nature pleased to set them for a picture,
The prettiest ever painted.

Dio.
I rejoice
Such heavenly visitation has been your's;
And now, while thus serene, if you will please
Confirm this quiet by the altar service [Music heard.

Which now we hear beginning; after prayer,
I'll give you better counsel—sage advice,
Which I am charged with by the distant king,
Here, written in this scroll. Say, will you read it?

Zalonia.
I will—I will.

Dio.
Some half hour hence. But first,
To chapel duty. (Music.)
Listen!

Zalonia.
Let us in.

Scene changes.
Once more to Uxmal you return;
Again into the palace borne,
And witness there, as heretofore,
That archèd Arab corridor.
Rea, Lumon and Eremo.
Rea.
Come you from Dio?

Eremo.
Ay, most sacred priestess.
But if you hope for approbation there,
Delusion ne'er was stronger.

Rea.
(to Lumon).
Then, sir sophist,
You've joined the weaker side. But not the less,
Trust in our cause; this missive represents
Strangely his monarch's will. If he be right,
From time's beginning has experience erred,
The royal mind we serve has suffered change,
And the whole course of Providence been turned
From what the world has witnessed.

Lumon.
Learn a secret.
Still 'gainst the distant king my war has been
Whose mystic rule disgusts me. 'Twere my joy
To strive with him directly.

Eremo.
Here comes Surial,
Whom Dio sent with me, to speak his mind
Fully instructed in the solemn task.

Enter Surial.
Rea.
You look offended, Surial?

Surial.
No—not I,
But my great sender's Sender. Our poor anger
Hides what 'twould shew, his wrath ineffable.
Without his warrant, have you thrust yourself
Into his seat of power, and seized upon
Authority not your's. Were Irë wrong,
Or you, he were the judge, and he alone.
'Twas his to read the sinner's heart, not you,
To judge both act and motive; never yours
To judge the latter, which, in what has passed,
Your special censure aimed at.

Rea.
If our zeal
Has overstepped discretion, Dio's caution
Is lukewarm compromise.

Surial.
His honour, priestess,
By all—he saith—were spared but usurpation,
Considering whose ambassador he is.
Whatso wounds him, wounds Thebes.

Rea.
Still usurpation.

Surial.
Now must I ask of your confederate.

Rea.
Whom call you so?

Surial.
This Lumon.

Lumon.
Ask me what?

Surial.
How comes it that the princess, who partook
The guilt or error of your flight, now shuns,
Or is shunned by you—she of whom we heard
Your friends i' th' city boast, she wore a crown
That more than half was yours.

Lumon.
Have I not said,
A warrior of the wilds bereft me of her?

Rea.
Answer no question. See where Mona comes.

Enter Mona and Eremo.
Mona.
Fled! 'Tis not well! Let not the wanton 'scape!
Bring her to trial for her double treason.
'Tis your's in charge. You shall make profit of it,
If you attach her person. The false harlot!
So false are to themselves, who're false to us,
Our order, and our rule.

Rea.
You hear, my lord,
The prophetess. She reigns in Uxmal, now.
'Twere best you sought out Dio, ere too late.

Mona.
When Thebes shall hear what we have done, we hope
For better judgment than what Dio utters.
His ear has been abused by false reports.
Our vindication in our consciences
We have fairly entered. When the reckoning comes
We know the way to meet it.

Surial.
Be it so.
The words of Dio I've repeated to you;
And there my duty ends.

Mona.
Return to him;
And, in like manner, these our words repeat.
Come, Lumon. Your conversion serves our cause.

Scene changes.
Lo, a Savanna broad and grand,
An ample space of table land.
In the far distance rocks arise,
And lift their terrors to the skies.
Beware, too, where you step—for know,
Midway yawns deep ravine below—
A pile of stones upon its edge,
Loose structure for a narrow ledge.
There, strangely gathered, greets the sight,
Pyramidal in form and height,
For altar meant, and bears on it
A tablet with strange signs o'erwrit;
A hand, whose gesture doth express
Intention to devote or bless;
A dove, a yewtree, and a heart,
Pierced with an arrow, shorn apart;
And o'er the tablet soars in air
A cross colossal, which doth bear
In monster foldings, branch and stem,
A Serpent huge twined over them.
Adon and Adone.
Adone.
Where, Dama, is the dread ravine you spake of?

Adon.
This was it;—is. But what has man built here?

Adone.
Built where?

Adon.
Here, on its edge.

Adone.
Is that its edge?

Adon.
Here, where this altar stands.

Adone.
Yon heap of stones,
That tablet, and that serpent-folded cross:—
What may this pageant in the desert mean?

Adon.
May one like me interpret? Though we fail,
To dare is virtue.

Adone.
O, most surely.

Adon.
On
The verge of the steep precipice, as in haste,
These uncemented stones are rudely heaped,
But as a warning;—for the slightest touch
Would cause them topple to the gulph below.
—Yet have they other use;—for, altar-like,
They serve that tablet, as it were a shrine
Crowned with yon Titan cross, thus twined about
With a proud crested serpent, of such size
As monsters nature.

Adone.
'Tis the sculptor's license.
—Canst read the tablet?

Adon.
Note the hand. 'Tis closed,
Save the forefingers, which, extended thus,
Do consecrate whate'er they seek to cover.
The dove which hovers by that spiral yew,
Whose flame-like apex ever points to heaven;
And that pierced heart, devoted unto death.

Adone.
Their meaning I half render.

Adon.
Wholly, I.
These symbols do imply that marble's sacred
To love and immortality, and one
Whose cloven heart is destined for the urn.

Adone.
Zalonia?

Adon.
That may be the name, indeed.

Adone.
Ay, very like. Stand by awhile.
Reflect,
Adone! O disgrace and shame! By fraud,
Art thou made traitress to thy lord and throne.
He false to me, while I seem false to both.
Doubtless, this is Zalonia's burial place—
Love's martyr and fame's heroine; I their slave?
Here I designed a sacrifice; and find
The victim found already. If I die,
My clouded honour is a quenchèd sun.
O, what have I to do with dying, who
Have yet to prove me well prepared to die?
Why should I lie beneath the grave, when, on it,
My reputation, like a corse, cast forth,
As by an earthquake, taints the sickening air?
I have a task to do—for that will live.
—Here, Dama!

Adon.
Lo, you where a friend rejoins us.

Adone.
What! Irë's self?

Enter Irë, in changed attire,
Irë.
They say I'm not myself.
Wherefore? These robes disguise me.

Adon
(aside).
I have thought it.
Mine do, I know.

Irë.
Not, like the old, become me.
Naked were I once more as nature made me,
I were the same man still. Those foldings shut
My heart up, which now beats and makes these heave
As life were in them; whence men cry—“A change.”
And say, “He's not himself!” Let them rail on,
While I'm at peace, and better know myself
Than e'er another can—save thou. Thy name?

Adon.
Dama.

Irë.
'Tis so. I well remember. Thus,
By linking past and present, I approve
The identity they doubt.

Adone.
Know you not me, too?

Irë.
O, well—though there be change in thee. Thou wert
A princess, art a woman. Thou hast gained
In dignity by that. I, too, have risen
From priest into a man. What liars are we
When we confer with power. Ah! never truth
Reached thee, or me. They told us, station might
Dispense with all beside, and nature could,
Thereby sustained, despise the elements
That make and feed it. What may it despise?
Love? Say, the whirlwind has no force, when raging,
Or jealousy! Call hell, dissolved in fire,
Iced water to cool wine for revellers!
We'll witness both, unchallenged.

Adone.
Out, alas!

Irë.
Wailst, as thy grief were greater? Think on mine.
Thy petty grief weeps but enjoyment lost;
Mine, baffled nature—bitter destiny!
O, thine inheritance hath been enjoyed;
Mine, ne'er possessed,—but leaguered round with fire,
To bar my way, and banish me for ever!
Who was the felon kindled first the flame
That made the entrance death? I'd look on him,
Who put the yoke on manhood, and dammed up
Life's river, that, when fell heaven's shower, it needs
Must overflow, and choke the shrieking heart!
The tyrant felon:—See I now the fiend?
Good. Crown him, king of hell!

Adone.
Henceforth, my grief
Shall worship thine in silence.

Irë
(solemnly).
Worship Heaven's!
Mine's but a mockery. There's the agony,
That makes the planets suffer.

Adon.
This is more,
Not less, than reason. Knowst thou what thou sayst?

Irë.
Ay, verily. I fable. Trifle thou
With truth, and it shall fondle thee into
A little child again. 'Tis now my mood,
To prattle like a nurse. Thou understandest?

Adone.
Wert thou a god, I need interpreter.

Adon
(aside).
My mind is on the stretch. I had not deemed else
Riddle for me too hard.

Irë.
Thou hearst my words.
Heed them.

Adone.
The outward ear suffices not.

Irë.
What! eh? Even so. No inward eye to see,
No tongue without to teach; no wonder you
Are wanderers yet—while I have found the bourn
Of all my travail's travel.

Adone.
What bourn?

Irë.
This.
Zalonia's resting-place. Here I repose,
For this I threaded forest wilderness,
Footed unwearingly the pathless plains,
Savannas bounded only by the skies;
Or paced, erect, the ever silent banks
Of solitary streams, while, in my heart,
Were sounding mighty oracles, like voices
Sent from the deep, below me or above,
Both near and distant, each the other's echo,
Until I could not fail to understand
That, in the wilds, for me great nature had
Caused her cathedral service to peal forth
Its glorious anthems, as I softly trod
Her temple's nave, and aisle, and chapelets,
To its chief shrine. Creation's altar, this.—
Erected unto love, in the great act
Creative imaged thus. What else could I,
But prostrate worship here? having first plucked
Those lying robes from off my burning limbs,
That made my being hell! How long I lay
Absorbed in adoration, wondering time
Neglected to take compt. But when I waked
No less than Dio's self was watching by me,
Who, in these princely garments freshly clad,
Scarce knew myself for Irë. You're amazed!

Adone.
A story so particular and strange
May plead for admiration.

Adon.
What are these?

Dio and Lori enter.
Dio.
We have sought you, sir.

Irë.
So—so! You've tracked the deer, then,
Even to his secret haunts. He fled, and fled:
But bore the shaft within his aching side;
So here lay down, to conquer pain by death.

Dio
What shaft?

Irë.
Even that which pierced her heart. One stroke,
One arrow clove our spirits in the midst;
Both bore the same intolerable wound—
Both would be buried in one sepulchre.

Dio.
The shaft you censure is love's quickening fire;
That, where it wounds, enflames a nest for life,
An active little angel of the hearth
That blesses its producers. Come with me.

[Leads Irë out in a state of abstraction.
Adone.
A stranger.

Enter Eremo.
Adon.
No. Eremo.

Eremo.
Too well known,
Perchance, to thee, once Uxmal's princess—now
Merely Adone.

Adone.
Insolent!

Eremo
(showing a scroll).
I bear
The authority you have lost. You must with me.
Better with peace and dignified reserve,
Than force provoke, which, at my call, is ready.

Adone.
You bear the mandate of the Powers that Be.
I piously submit, as to myself
I should have claimed submission.

Adon.
Thank the sun
That quickens earth, my mother! Dama owes not
Obedience unto man. Hence! Dama is
The shield of woman. Ere you touch her freedom
You first must slay his honour. Off! away!

[Eremo is pressed at the point of Adon's lance towards the temporary altar.
Eremo.
Who art thou?

Adon.
Thy preserver! Man! avoid
That cairn, whereto thou now retreatst, or, with it,
Plunge down the precipice. A touch, it topples.

Eremo.
Ha! is it so? Then it shall down. It is
An altar built to the new heresy.
What, ho! a rescue!—Ho! Sirani! Sirani, and two others, enter with javelins.

Look!
See here another of those shrines accursed,
Which, in the valley of the pyramids,
Have still insulted us. It stands on edge,
Of a ravine. Down with it to the gulf!

[They attack the pile, altar and shrine, which almost immediately give way, and disappear below.
Adon.
Have care, ye down not with it.
Wonderous Heaven!

[The removal of the pile displays on the other side of the ravine an elevated point of rock, on which are seen standing, Xana, and, veiled and seated, Zalonia.
Lori.
This must bring Irë back. Ho! Dio—Irë!

[Rushes out, calling.
Eremo.
What forms are those? They look divine!
I fear me,
The worshipt Powers whose types we desecrate.
Shun we their wrath!

[Exit, in haste, followed by Sirani and his companions.
Re-enter Irë, Dio and Lori, followed by Oneret.
Lori.
Lo! the Divinities,
The pile that fell so thunderously now
Veiled from our mortal view.

[Goes out.
Irë.
O, miracle!

Dio.
It works right well; and shall by gradual steps,
Lead to an issue which, wrought suddenly,
Might startle to distraction.

Irë.
See! they rise! [Xana and Zalonia, still veiled, rise up from their seat, and cautiously wind along the edges of the ravine, until, at length, they advance to the front.

They walk the narrow ledges of the rock,
They follow where they wind, conducting them,
As it would seem, even hither where we stand.

Dio.
Even to this self-same spot.

Irë.
And so it is.
Why should their presence touch me thus? Who's she,
Whose countenance is veiled, as if too bright
For mortal eyes to gaze on?

Xana.
Listen Irë.

Irë.
My name! Speak on.
Xana Pity, in heavenly bosoms,
Lives but a finer rapture:—subtilly
Works with the universal ecstasy
That keeps creation pure;—with thy heart's throbbing,
Has numbered beat for beat;—for thy lost love
Wept tears unnumbered; and, to smile with thee,
Howbeit sadly, sends with me this virgin
To fill the place of thy Zalonia.

Irë.
The place?—My heart?

Xana.
Thy heart. So was I bid
To say.

Irë.
There is no room. Zalonia left
No void there, since itself she never left;
Proves here an altar indestructible,
Sacred to love and immortality!

Xana.
To love and death.

Irë.
No! Life! whereto, from death,
Love soars transformed, all spirit! My dull heart
Is lit, as with an angel.

Xana.
Widowed art thou,
And still persistent in thy solitude?

Irë.
No solitude—for she is present ever.
Nor widowed I, since while I live, she lives.

Xana.
Ay, in this maid;—not otherwise, I trow.

Irë.
To do what thou wouldst have me were remorse.

Xana.
At least, you will look on her—touch her hand.

[Xana places Zalonia's hand in Irë's.
Irë.
Her form is like Zalonia's! May her face
No such resemblance bear!

Xana.
Be judge thyself!

[Withdrawing the veil.
Irë.
Art thou a sorceress? A spectre, she?
—I must not be beguiled. The spirit-land
Is surely not a prison, and the shadows
May leave its groves in pity, and haunt earth,
When one they would make happy lingers on it.
Immortal! mock me not!

Zalonia.
Feelst thou not, Irë,
My hand thus placed in thine? Its trembling tokens
Too much, 'tis mortal flesh.

Irë.
I know not that;
It thrills me—to the heart. Methought, 'twas cold;
But I, in sooth, am fevered; and the world
To me hath long seemed winter. She I name not,
Yet whose name's letters in my heart are veined,
The channels through which circulates my blood,
Was like to thee, though not so pale, as fair;
Eyes soft as thine, and piercing; brow as ample;
A lip as intellectual; voice as gentle;
Stature as stately, with a grace of motion,
Was never swan might rival. The rare resemblance
Would make me think me mad.

Zalonia.
Your passion cannot
So wildly speak; but that it strikes upon
The harp-like reason, music from its chords
Awaking like a lyrist.

Irë.
Were it so!
—Speak what thou wilt, for if my soul hear rightly,
Tones such as thine must be veridical!
And if it rightly see, truth's form itself
Diviner were not. Whiles I list and look,
To doubt were to profane thee; hence, sayst thou,
Thou art Zalonia, I must needs believe thee,
Without an oath.

Zalonia.
I am Zalonia.

Irë.
Hast thou not died?

Zalonia.
I thought I had, indeed.

Irë.
You thought so? Stranger still! But thought in thee
In me 'tmay be no more! I'll prove it, now.
This palm is warm. Pri'thee, on those sweet lips
I'd print my first of kisses. O, true life,
Thou lookst like mercy stooping over sorrow,
Breathing vitality into the corse
Of the self-slayer. Were it possible
Thou couldst deceive me, reason were adrift;
But, since that cannot be, the helmsman guides
Even passion's bark in safety.

Zalonia.
That is well.

Irë.
Yet tell me more. Where hast thou been?

Zalonia.
Ah, there!
The desolate region of the dead, indeed;
This maiden watched my waking, as I lay
A sleeper in the sacred pyramid,
Wherein they made my couch.

Irë.
Thy couch?—But not
Thy everlasting one?

Zalonia.
It seems so. Such
His mercy whom we sinned against; the sin
Itself permitted, as I've since been taught,
To work his sovran will and providence.
—You muse still, doubting wherefore I came hither.
Why there sat veiled? That, and what else I did,
Was by direction, Irë, not of will.

Irë.
Ha! this is as I dreamed. Ho, Dio! wake me.
If thou canst do such things, why, bid it thunder,
That I may have assurance. Dream I still?
Let me hear voices;—other than our own—
Mine and Zalonia's. Dio, live we? Speak!

Dio.
Most certain, Irë; in my master's name,
I vouch the truth of all.

Irë.
Zalonia!

Zalonia.
Irë!

[Embracing.
Irë.
Why, our tears mingle! there is grief in joy!

Dio.
Ay, so, there is—for peril yet impends,
Of which your pupil, Juva, testifies.

Irë.
For further witness that all this be real,
Let him speak too.

Oneret.
I will, but with regret,
That I must speak of terror. Not alone,
Eremo to us ventured. Know, misled
By Lumon, who has joined your enemies,
The usurping Rea, and the lying Mona,
The ignorant populace with them have sided;
Whence they conduct as 'twere an army hither.
Wherefore, I pray you, speed to some defence.

Dio.
For that I've taken order. Come with me;
All—all. Where's Lori? Gone! What took him hence?
Come, you. This valley of the pyramids,
Has yet more wonders. If, at last, we perish,
Love will have made this moment rich as years.