In company with you,-I have not dared..
Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you
Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood,
Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell-
Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most
Firm-rooted heresy-your suitor's eyes,
He would maintain, were gray instead of blue—
I think I brought him to contrition!-Well,
I have not done such things, (all to deserve
A minute's quiet cousin's-talk with you,)
To be dismissed so coolly!
To throw those testimonies in a heap,
Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities,
With that poor, silly, heartless Guendolen's
Ill-timed, misplaced, attempted smartnesses—
And sift there sense out? now, I come to spare you
Nearly a whole night's labour. Ask and have!
Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes?
Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table
The Conqueror dined on when he landed first,
Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take-
The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed?
Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes!
Did he.. you said that he received him well?
Guen. If I said only "well" I said not muchOh, stay-which brother?
Thorold! who-who else?
Guen. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half,-
Nay, hear me out with us he's even gentler
Than we are with our birds. Of this great House
The least retainer that e'er caught his glance
Would die for him, real dying-no mere talk:
And in the world, the court, if men would cite
The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold's name
Rises of its clear nature to their lips :
But he should take men's homage, trust in it,
And care no more about what drew it down.
He has desert, and that, acknowledgment;
Is he content?
You wrong him, Guendolen.
Guen. He's proud, confess; so proud with brooding o'er The light of his interminable line,
An ancestry with men all paladins,
And women all..
Should rise up from such musings, and receive
One come audaciously to graft himself
Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw,
No slightest spot in such an one ...
I said how gracefully his mantle lay
Beneath the rings of his light hair?
Guen. Brown? why it is brown-how could you
Mil. How? did not you—Oh Austin 'twas, declared His hair was light, not brown-my head!—and, look, The moonbeam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, Good night!
Guen. Forgive me-sleep the soundlier for me! [Going, she turns suddenly.
Perdition! all's discovered.-Thorold finds
-That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers
Was grander daughter still-to that fair dame
Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance. [Goes. Mil. Is she can she be really gone at last?
My heart-I shall not reach the window! Needs
Must I have sinned much, so to suffer!
[She lifts the small lamp which is suspended before the Virgin's image in the window, and places it by the purple pane.]
[She returns to the seat in front.
Mildred and Mertoun! Mildred, with consent
Of all the world and Thorold,-Mertoun's bride!
Too late! 'Tis sweet to think of, sweeter still
To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up
The curse of the beginning; but I know
It comes too late-'twill sweetest be of all
To dream my soul away and die upon!
The voice! Oh, why, why glided sin the snake
Into the Paradise Heaven meant us both?
[The window opens softly.—A low voice sings.
There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest;
And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest:
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster,
Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble:
Then her voice's music. . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble!
[A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window. And this woman says, "My days 'were sunless and my nights were moonless,
"Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless,
"If you loved me not!" And I who-(ah, for words of flame!) adore
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her—
[He enters approaches her seat, and bends over ner.
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me! [The Earl throws off his slouched hat and long cloak.
My very heart sings, so I sing, beloved!
Mil. Sit, Henry-do not take my hand.
Mer.
The meeting that appalled us both so much
Is ended.
Our happiness would, as you say, exceed
The whole world's best of blisses: we-do we
Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine
Long since, beloved, has grown used to hear,
Like a death-knell, so much regarded once,
And so familiar now; this will not be!
Mer. Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother's face,
Compelled myself—if not to speak untruth,
Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside
The truth, as what had e'er prevailed on me
Save you, to venture? Have I gained at last
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams,
And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too?
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break
On the strange unrest of our night, confused
With rain and stormy flaw-and will you see
No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops
On each live spray, no vapour steaming up,
And no expressless glory in the east?
When I am by you, to be ever by you,
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