Hath given thee of it. She's within, I think,
Or else wert thou a truant.
Acquaint her then that I attend her leisure.
[Exit WAITING-WOMAN.
There is but one thing that still clogs me here.
To bring a cloud upon the summer day
Of one so happy and so beautiful, ·
It is a hard condition. For myself
I know that the circumstance of life
In all its changes can so far afflict me
As makes anticipation much worth while.
But she is younger, of a sex beside
Whose spirits are to our's as flame to fire,
More sudden and more perishable too;
So that the gust wherewith the one is kindled
Extinguishes the other. Oh she is fair!
As fair as Heaven to look upon! as fair
As ever vision of the Virgin blest
That weary pilgrim, resting by the fount,
Beneath the palm, and dreaming to the tune
Of flowing waters, duped his soul withal.
It was permitted in my pilgrimage,
To rest beside the fount beneath the tree,
Beholding there no vision, but a maid
Whose form was light and graceful as the palm,
Whose heart was pure and jocund as the fount,
And spread a freshness and a verdure round.
This was permitted in my pilgrimage,
And loth am I to take my staff again.
Say that I fall not in this enterprise-
Still must my life be full of hazardous turns,
And they that house with me must ever live
In imminent peril of some evil fate.
-Make fast the doors; heap wood upon the fire;
Draw in your stools and pass the goblet round,
And be the prattling voice of children heard.
Now let us make good cheer - but what is this?
Do I not see, or do I dream I see
A form that midmost in the circle sits
Half visible, his face deformed with scars,
Sits DANGER with his feet upon the hearth.
(Pauses for some time, and then resumes in a livelier tone.)
Still for myself, I fear not, but that I,
Taking what comes, leaving what leave I must,
Could make a sturdy struggle through the world.
But for the maid, the choice were better far
To win her dear heart back again if lost,
And stake it upon some less dangerous cast.
(Re-enter WAITING-WOMAN.)
My mistress, Sir, so please you, takes her walk
Along the garden terrace, and desires
Had done its best to single out a soul
Most formed for peaceful virtues
I have some little overstayed my time.
First let me plead for pardon of that trespass.
I said to Clara when the sun went down,
Now if though truly 't is impossible
He come not ere yon blushing cloud grows grey,
His promises are no more worth than bubbles.
And look how grey it is!
ARTEVELDE.
A hectic change.
The smiling dawn, the laughing blue-eyed day,
The grey-beard eve incessantly pass on,
Fast fleeting generations born of time,
And buried in eternity- they pass
And not a day resigns its little life
And enters into darkness, that can say
'Lo! I was fair, and such as I have been
My issue shall be. Lo! I cast abroad
Such affluence of glory over earth,
That what had been but goodly to the sight,
Was made magnificent, what had been bare
Showed forth a naked beauty—in all this
Was I thus rich, and that which I possessed
To-morrow shall inherit.' False as hope!
To-morrow's heritage is cloud and storm.
Oh what a moody moralist you grow!
Yet in the even-down letter you are right;
For Ursel, who is weather-wise, says always
That when the sun sets red with the wind south,
The morrow shall be stormy. What of that?
Oh! now I know; the fish won't take the bait.
I wonder what delight you take in fishing!
Were I to hang upon a river's marge
So tediously, angling, angling still,
The fiend that watches our impatient fits
Would some time tempt me to jump headlong in. you cannot quit it for a day!
Have I not read your sadness?
Oh! you are cunning to divine men's thoughts.
But come what may to-morrow, we have now
A tranquil hour, which let us entertain
As though it were the latest of its kind.
Why should we think it so?
ARTEVELDE.
Sweet Adriana,
I trust that many such may come to you;
But for myself, I feel as if life's stream
Were shooting o'er some verge, to make a short,
An angry and precipitate descent,
Thenceforward much tormented on its way.
What can have filled you with such sad surmises? You were not wont to speak despondently.
Nor do I now despond. All my life long
I have beheld with most respect the man
Who knew himself and knew the ways before him,
And from amongst them chose considerately,
With a clear foresight, not a blindfold courage;
And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind
Pursued his purposes. I trained myself
To take my place in high or low estate
As one of that small order of mankind.
Wherefore, though I indulge no more the dream
Of living as I hoped I might have lived,
A life of temperate and thoughtful joy,
Yet I repine not, and from this time forth
Will cast no look behind.
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