; enters.
Norbert.
Well? we have but one minute and one word—
Constance.
I am yours, Norbert!
Norbert.
Yes, mine.
Constance.
Not till now! You were mine. Now I give myself to you.
Norbert.
Constance?
Constance.
Your own! I know the thriftier way
Of giving—haply, 'tis the wiser way. Meaning to give a treasure, I might dole Coin after coin out (each, as that were all, With a new largess still at each despair) And force you keep in sight the deed, preserve Exhaustless till the end my part and yours, My giving and your taking; both our joys Dying together. Is it the wiser way? I choose the simpler; I give all at once. Know what you have to trust to, trade upon! Use it, abuse it,—anything but think Hereafter, "Had I known she loved me so, And what my means, I might have thriven with it." This is your means. I give you all myself.
Norbert.
I take you and thank God.
Constance.
Look on through years! We cannot kiss, a second day like this; Else were this earth no earth.
Norbert.
With this day's heat
We shall go on through years of cold.
Constance.
So, best! —I try to see those years—I think I see. You walk quick and new warmth comes; you look back And lay all to the first glow—not sit down For ever brooding on a day like this While seeing embers whiten and love die. Yes, love lives best in its effect; and mine, Full in its own life, yearns to live in yours.
Norbert.
Just so. I take and know you all at once. Your soul is disengaged so easily, Your face is there, I know you; give me time, Let me be proud and think you shall know me. My soul is slower: in a life I roll The minute out whereto you condense yours— The whole slow circle round you I must move, To be just you. I look to a long life To decompose this minute, prove its worth. 'Tis the sparks' long succession one by one Shall show you, in the end, what fire was crammed In that mere stone you struck: how could you know, If it lay ever unproved in your sight, As now my heart lies? your own warmth would hide Its coldness, were it cold.
Constance.
But how prove, how?
Norbert.
Prove in my life, you ask?
Constance.
Quick, Norbert—how?
Norbert.
That's easy told. I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve. As with the body—he who hurls a lance Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike: So must I seize and task all means to prove And show this soul of mine, you crown as yours, And justify us both.
Constance.
Could you write books, Paint pictures! One sits down in poverty And writes or paints, with pity for the rich.
Norbert.
And loves one's painting and one's writing, then, And not one's mistress! All is best, believe, And we best as no other than we are. We live, and they experiment on life— Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof To overlook the farther. Let us be The thing they look at! I might take your face And write of it and paint it—to what end? For whom? what pale dictatress in the air Feeds, smiling sadly, her fine ghost-like form With earth's real blood and breath, the beauteous life She makes despised for ever? You are mine, Made for me, not for others in the world, Nor yet for that which I should call my art, That cold calm power to see how fair you look. I come to you; I leave you not, to write Or paint. You are, I am: let Rubens there Paint us!
Constance.
So, best!
Norbert.