_Sebald._ Slower, Ottima! Do not lean on me!
_Ottima._ Sebald, as we lay, Who said, "Let death come now! 'Tis right to die! Right to be punished! Naught completes such bliss 200 But woe!" Who said that?
_Sebald._ How did we ever rise? Was't that we slept? Why did it end?
_Ottima._ I felt you Taper into a point the ruffled ends Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. My hair is fallen now: knot it again! 205
_Sebald._ I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now! This way? Will you forgive me--be once more My great queen?
_Ottima._ Bind it thrice about my brow; Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, Magnificent in sin. Say that!
_Sebald._ I crown you 210 My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, Magnificent--
[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA _singing_--
_The year's at the spring_ _And day's at the morn;_ _Morning's at seven;_ 215 _The hillside's dew-pearled;_ _The lark's on the wing;_ _The snail's on the thorn:_ _God's in his heaven--_ _All's right with the world!_ 220
_Sebald._ God's in his heaven! Do you hear that? Who spoke? You, you spoke!
_Ottima._ Oh--that little ragged girl! She must have rested on the step: we give them But this one holiday the whole year round. Did you ever see our silk-mills--their inside? 225 There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. She stoops to pick my double heartsease--Sh! She does not hear: call you out louder!
_Sebald._ Leave me! Go, get your clothes on--dress, those shoulders!
_Sebald._ Wipe off that paint! I hate you. 230
_Sebald._ My God, and she is emptied of it now! Outright now!--how miraculously gone All of the grace--had she not strange grace once? Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes, No purpose holds the features up together, 235 Only the cloven brow and puckered chin Stay in their places; and the very hair, That seemed to have a sort of life in it, Drops, a dead web!
_Sebald._ That round great full-orbed face, where not an 240 angle Broke the delicious indolence--all broken!
_Ottima._ To me--not of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat! A coward, too: but ingrate's worse than all! Beggar--my slave--a fawning, cringing lie! Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift! 245 A lie that walks and eats and drinks!