[_After the 4th verse enter DANCE, who dances through the remaining verses._]
SERVICE. How now, what noise is this? Thou knowest, Song, thy voice may not be heard at all, and ye children too, ye will get sent away. Sure, that ye will. Here am I sent packing off to seek for the Wise Woman Poetry. The heralds too are up and down the land with proclamations. Go in, go in; Douce-coeur is wandering with the Gray Stranger in the garden, and when she comes, may want your company.
POETRY. I am the mouthpiece of the Eternal Gods, And in my voice, that down the ages rings, Men hear the ceaseless heart-beats of the world. Without me all that has been would have died And lain forgotten in a silent grave. The present echoes what I once have sung, The future holds the secrets I have read.
SERVICE. Hail, and well met! I was but starting forth to seek thee. Thou who hast the wisdom of all time mayst help us in our hour of need; an evil spell has been cast about the Princess, and how it is to be broken, none of us know.
POETRY. Good Service, tell me all; for I presume, Despite the tender care which through her life Has shielded Douce-coeur like a ring of steel, That to her side some foe has won his way And dimmed the peaceful mirror of her soul.
SERVICE. Yea, truly, one evening as the sun was setting a woman clad in long gray robes entered the Palace gates and meeting the Princess on the terrace walk led her down among the cypresses. They sat long together in the twilight and ever since Douce-coeur is changed. No smile curves her lips, the sunlight is gone from her face, and she goes always with veiled head, and sad unseeing eyes. I heard but now her companions are to be sent away. Joy, Laughter, Song and Dance, all to be banished. This is the Gray Woman's doing, but why, no man can say.
POETRY. The stranger in gray robes of whom ye speak Is Sorrow's self, whose other name is Pain. She comes, and when she comes none may resist. Against her none have power to bar their gates. Ye who have always cherishèd Douce-coeur And guarded her from knowledge of the World, Have left her ignorance a prey to pain. Thus night has fallen on a tender heart That never saw the shadows for the sun. Queen Sorrow, who can hide the stars of heaven, Has torn the golden veil from top to hem, And in the outer darkness Douce-coeur stands, Seeing no rift to tell of light eclipsed, Knowing no key to all the mystery.