University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Amanda's Bower.
Enter Amanda leading Hermadon.
Aman.
Here sit and rest. Forget that evil dream,

Hermadon is sore tempted and disarmed by Earthly Love.

And tell me of thy doughty deeds of arms.
I'll bring thee water in a golden ewer
Mixed with the rose-bud's thrice-distillèd juice,
And in a silver basin lave thy hands.
Bid me ungird thy glaive; uncase thy breast
Of all this rigid gold. About thy neck
I'll hang a chain of pearls, and clothe thy limbs
In a brave silken camis, and thine head
With samite chaperon. These rustling weeds
Shall better fit than baldric and cuirass,
Gorget and burganet of burnished gold,
For Love's dear warfare. Set thy warrior feet
In these fair slippers, sewn with small seedpearls
And stitched with finest twire of silken floss:
Unbind those jarring cuishes: put aside
Thy breastplate: sit down in thine hacqueton:
Undo this jewelled belt, and let it go
After the cruel sword, its bosom friend;
It is too heavy. Arm thee with the lute,
And lift its delicate strings to strains of love.

Herm.
O lady! I was noursled in mine arms,
And cannot breathe in silk.

Aman.
I have heard say
That warriors practise fight with weightier blades,
And handsel first the lighter in the fray;
So then, being bred in steel, you cannot swoon
Under this gauzy cassock.

Herm.
Nay, I know not.
My limbs feel molt, as it were venomous flame
And clung to them, eating away the flesh.

Aman.
Here is but cloth and sleeves purfled with gold,
No fire.

Herm.
Ay, fire that thrids my marrow through
With piercing pangs of love.

Aman.
Repeat that word.
It falls more sweetly from thy lips than dew
Out of the rose's heart.

Herm.
It is indeed
A heart-drop of distillèd agony,
Squeezed out by sorrow.

Aman.
Nay, be merry, love.

Herm.
Merry I might be, but for some vague sense,
Some haunting dream. Ah, God! across my eyes
It lies like bars of iron, weights of lead,
Telling me I was born for higher things.

Aman.
Thus let me wipe it off with one sweet kiss.

Herm.
I felt your lips like the cold kiss of Death,
Or as his bony finger on my brow,
Death of my higher soaring spirit of life,
That leaves this sepulchre for evermore.

Song of Spirits without.

Aman.
How sweet the night-wind playing on the leaves
A harp-like melody! How sweet a scent
Comes in with it of fainting marjoram
And balsamed calamint!

Herm.
Heard you no voice?

Aman.
'Tis but the wind, the chantress of the night,
That makes wild lute-strings of the ivy-stems,
And pours all round the turret her high voice,
Mixed with the groanful music of the pines
And chiming bells among the silver stars
Uprisen from the cloister.

Herm.
And no voice?
No tuneful warning voice, sublimely glad
Yet gently chiding? Hark! they sing again.

Chorus of Spirits
without.

Aman.
You seem not well. Here is a beaker drenched
With frory wine cold as the crystal beads
That drop from rocks on mountain-pinnacles,
But with a sense of fire under the snow.
See how the concave of the golden cup
Reddens across the rose-blush of the wine
A carmine redder than carbuncle stones.
Drink it all down and live again.

Herm.
Nay, love;
The fit is past. It launched me through the side,
That voice, e'en like a dagger. I am well.

Aman.
Then kiss me and forget.

Herm.
I will forget.
I swear it. Kiss me.

Spirits.
Kisses thrown in air
Wear sweet love away
Little by little,
Till it grow despair,
Losing day by day
Some jot or tittle;
For though lovers swear,
Lasting loves are rare;
Loving faiths decay,
Loving oaths grow brittle,
Fading year by year,
Broken day by day,
Little by little.

Herm.
Nay, thou wilt alter; hers is deathless love.

Love passeth; Art abideth.

Here I am but a pilgrim and a shadow,
Flitting phantasmal through a shifting dream,
Groping among delusions. There I live,
A real being, in communion high
With her, and, brooded by her outstretched wings,
Made one with her forever. Let me go.
Give me mine arms.

Aman.
Nay, gentle prisoner!
Look where they stood! You are my captive knight.
But I will keep thee as some tender maid
Prisons a starling in a wicker cage,
To let it peck upon her rosy nails
And bite her cherry lips with angry love,
With spiteful tenderness. Nay, frown not so.
Your heart is glamoured: you are all mine own:

Hermadon bewitched and enslaved.

You have drunk magic wine, a love-philtre,
More potent never brewed in crucible
By witch from herbs enchanted at full moon.
You are my slave.

Herm.
It flashes in on me.
I know all now. Save me, my Queen Elzir.

Chorus of Spirits
without.
Forever safe, whate'er betide,
Who once hath kist the heavenly bride.