The Serpent Play A Divine Pastoral |
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Scene IV. |
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 | The Serpent Play |  |
57
Scene IV.
Voragine, Volupsa.VOLUPSA.
How long the time has dragged; and yet a year
Is gone!
VORAGINE.
Another comes.
VOLUPSA.
You now will stay,
For slowly fills the gap wherein your absence lay.
VORAGINE.
You are not happy, child.
VOLUPSA.
My loneliness
Still weighs upon me, as on you the stress
And hurry of the war.
VORAGINE.
How well divined:
I spend my nights in battle, though my sword
Hangs idly by my bed. That busy sleep!
While I am couched and feel my head indent
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Of my foregoing self into the fight,
And move with it, recumbent though I be,
Into the thick of battle.
VOLUPSA.
So with me:
Upon my spirit hangs the lonely year!
VORAGINE.
Has it been, then, so sad?
VOLUPSA.
Both sad and smiling:
Hope seasoned by its fruits that ripen not.
But you are here.
VORAGINE.
Even mine is not the love
That Cœlis bears you?
VOLUPSA.
Yes; a brother's love;
Deeper than all: not more.
VORAGINE.
You have my heart.
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You have but half of mine;
The rest is torn to shreds.
VORAGINE.
Is he then cold?
VOLUPSA.
Never; the ways of men are not his ways:
He deems that we should do the same on earth
As if we were in heaven.
VORAGINE.
How could it be?
VOLUPSA.
With him it is so, save that being here,
A mortal, a lone wanderer, he seeks
For the unseen like one who searched the world
For some lost friend.
VORAGINE.
And he encounters nought.
VOLUPSA.
Would it were so; alas! by day and night
The shadowy Serpent lies upon his path;
Its threats almost unseat his faculties,
Till comes the calm, when teems the unwhispering air
With revelations of immortal song.
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Can it be thus? 'Twere supernatural!
VOLUPSA.
So is it to his sense.
VORAGINE.
The mood will change.
When I take Vivia's hand yours must he claim,
Love spreads with such infection; they who fly
Are the first overtaken by its plague.
A single wedding is the fruitful core
Of countless marriage feasts.
VOLUPSA.
'Twill need no veil
To hide my blushes that can never bloom
Before an altar. All my thoughts to his
Prove adverse; my poor love cannot fulfil
The wealth of his affection, though its flame
Will not go out, but, like a servile lamp,
Burn by his side in solitude.
| The Serpent Play | |