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
         her,
       Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her—

          [He enters, approaches her seat, and bends over her.]

       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!

     MILDRED.  Sit, Henry—do not take my hand!

     MERTOUN.                                    'Tis mine.
     The meeting that appalled us both so much
     Is ended.

     MILDRED.   What begins now?

     MERTOUN.                     Happiness
     Such as the world contains not.

     MILDRED.                         That is it.
     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!

     MERTOUN.  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,
     When I have won you and may worship you,
     Oh, Mildred, can you say "this will not be"?

     MILDRED.  Sin has surprised us, so will punishment.

     MERTOUN.  No—me alone, who sinned alone!

     MILDRED.                                   The night
     You likened our past life to—was it storm
     Throughout to you then, Henry?

     MERTOUN.                        Of your life
     I spoke—what am I, what my life, to waste
     A thought about when you are by me?—you
     It was, I said my folly called the storm
     And pulled the night upon.  'Twas day with me—
     Perpetual dawn with me.

     MILDRED.                 Come what, come will,
     You have been happy:  take my hand!

     MERTOUN [after a pause].             How good
     Your brother is!  I figured him a cold—
     Shall I say, haughty man?

     MILDRED.                   They told me all.
     I know all.

     MERTOUN.     It will soon be over.

     MILDRED.                            Over?
     Oh, what is over? what must I live through
     And say, "'tis over"?  Is our meeting over?
     Have I received in presence of them all
     The partner of my guilty love—with brow
     Trying to seem a maiden's brow—with lips
     Which make believe that when they strive to form
     Replies to you and tremble as they strive,
     It is the nearest ever they approached
     A stranger's... Henry, yours that stranger's... lip—
     With cheek that looks a virgin's, and that is...
     Ah God, some prodigy of thine will stop
     This planned piece of deliberate wickedness
     In its birth even! some fierce leprous spot
     Will mar the brow's dissimulating!  I
     Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart,
     But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story,
     The love, the shame, and the despair—with them
     Round me aghast as round some cursed fount
     That should spirt water, and spouts blood.  I'll not
    ...Henry, you do not wish that I should draw
     This vengeance down?  I'll not affect a grace
     That's gone from me—gone once, and gone for ever!

     MERTOUN.  Mildred, my honour is your own.  I'll share
     Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself.
     A word informs your brother I retract
     This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth
     Some better way of saving both of us.

     MILDRED.  I'll meet their faces, Henry!

     MERTOUN.                                 When? to-morrow!
     Get done with it!

     MILDRED.           Oh, Henry, not to-morrow!
     Next day!  I never shall prepare my words
     And looks and gestures sooner.—How you must
     Despise me!

     MERTOUN.     Mildred, break it if you choose,
     A heart the love of you uplifted—still
     Uplifts, thro' this protracted agony,
     To heaven! but Mildred, answer me,—first pace
     The chamber with me—once again—now, say
     Calmly the part, the... what it is of me
     You see contempt (for you did say contempt)
     —Contempt for you in!  I would pluck it off
     And cast it from me!—but no—no, you'll not
     Repeat that?—will you, Mildred, repeat that?

     MILDRED.  Dear Henry!

     MERTOUN.               I was scarce a boy—e'en now
     What am I more?  And you were infantine
     When first I met you; why, your hair fell loose
     On either side!  My fool's-cheek reddens now
     Only in the recalling how it burned
     That morn to see the shape of many a dream
     —You know we boys are prodigal of charms
     To her we dream of—I had heard of one,
     Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her,
     Might speak to her, might live and die her own,
     Who knew?  I spoke.  Oh, Mildred, feel you not
     That now, while I remember every glance
     Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test
     And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride,
     Resolved the treasure of a first and last
     Heart's love shall have been bartered at its worth,
     —That now I think upon your purity
     And utter ignorance of guilt—your own
     Or other's guilt—the girlish undisguised
     Delight at a strange novel prize—(I talk
     A silly language, but interpret, you!)
     If I, with fancy at its full, and reason
     Scarce in its germ, enjoined you secrecy,
     If you had pity on my passion, pity
     On my protested sickness of the soul
     To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch
     Your eyelids and the eyes beneath—if you
     Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts—
     If I grew mad at last with enterprise
     And must behold my