Charles Di Tocca - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
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.
