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.