HELENA: Who is it? soldiers come From Arta?
ANTONIO: Yes.
HELENA: And by this road!--They must Not see us!
ANTONIO: No. But quick, within this breach!
(_They conceal themselves in the breach. The soldiers pa.s.s across the stage. The last, as all shout "DI TOCCA!"
strikes a column near him. It falls, and HELENA starts forward shuddering._)
HELENA: Fallen! Ah, fallen! See, Antonio!
ANTONIO: What now!
HELENA (_swaying_): It is as if the earth were wind Under my feet!
ANTONIO: Are all things thus become Omen and dread to you?
HELENA: O, but it is The pillar grieving Venus leant upon Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote, When falls this pillar tall and proud Let surest lovers weave their shroud.
ANTONIO: Mere myth!
HELENA: The shroud! It coldly winds about us--coldly!
ANTONIO: Should a vain hap so desperately move you?
HELENA: The breath and secret soul of all this night Are burdened with foreboding! And it seems--
ANTONIO: You must not, Helena!
HELENA: My love, my lord-- Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh In this unnatural awe! (_He takes her to him._) Ah how thy arms Warm the cold moan and misery of fear Out of my veins!
ANTONIO: You rave, but in me stir Again the attraction of these dim portents.
Nay, quiver not! "tis but a pa.s.sing mist, And this that runs in us is worthless dread!
HELENA: But ah, the shroud! the shroud!
ANTONIO: We"ll weave no shroud, But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry!
And you shall be my Sappho--but through joys Such as shall legend ecstasy about Our knitted names when distant lovers dream.
HELENA: I"ll fear no more, then----
ANTONIO: Yet?
HELENA: My lord, let us Unloose this strangling secrecy and be Open in love. My brother, Haemon, let Our hearts betrothed exchange and hope be told Him and thy father!
ANTONIO: This cannot be--now
HELENA: It cannot be, and you a G.o.d? I"ll bow Before your eyes no more!--say that it can!
ANTONIO: Not yet--not now. Haemon"s suspicious, quick, And melancholy: must be won with service.
And you are Greek, a name till yesterday I never knew pa.s.s in the portal to My father"s ear, but it came out his mouth Headlong and dark with curses.
HELENA: Yet of late He oft has smiled upon me as he pa.s.sed.
ANTONIO: On you--my father? O, he only dreamt, And saw you not.
HELENA: Then have you also dreamt!
He looked as you, when, moonlight in my hair, You call me----
ANTONIO: Stay: I"ll call you so no more.
HELENA: You"ll call me so no more?
ANTONIO: No more.
HELENA: Why do You say so--is it kind?
ANTONIO: Why?--why? Because Words were they miracles of beauty could As little reveal you as a taper"s ray The lone profundity and s.p.a.ce of night!
HELENA: And yet----
ANTONIO: And yet?
HELENA: I"ll hold you not too false If sometimes they trip out upon your lips.
ANTONIO: Or to my father"s eye?
HELENA: If he but look Upon me for thy sake.
ANTONIO: He smiled, you say?
HELENA: Gently, as one might in forgetting pain.
ANTONIO: Perhaps: for some unwonted softness seems Near him. But yesterday he called for song, Dancing and wine.
HELENA: Then tell him! These are years So dyed in crime that secrecy must seem Yoke-mate of guilt.
ANTONIO: Fear has bewitched you--shame!
HELENA: Antonio, love"s wave has cast us high I would do all lest now it turn to fate Under our feet and draw us out----
ANTONIO: "Twill not!
_Enter PAULA._
PAULA: My lady, some one comes.