"Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; And ever and anon some bright white shaft Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, Feeling for guilty thee and me; then broke The thunder like a whole sea overhead . . ." --while she, in a frenzy of passion-- ". . . stretched myself upon you, hands To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook All my locks loose, and covered you with them-- You, Sebald, the same you!" But the flame of her is scorching the feeble lover; feebly he pleads, resists, begs pardon for the harsh words he has given her, yields, struggles . . . yields again at last, for hers is all the force of body and of soul: it is his part to be consumed in her-- "I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now! This way? Will you forgive me--be once more My great queen?" Glorious in her victory, she demands that the hair which she had loosed in the moment of recalling their wild joys he now shall bind thrice about her brow-- "Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, Magnificent in sin. Say that!" So she bids him; so he crowns her-- "My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, Magnificent . . ." --but ere the exacted phrase is said, there sounds without the voice of a girl singing. "The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side'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!" (_Pippa passes._) * * * * * Like her own lark on the wing, she has dropped this song to earth, unknowing and unheeding where its beauty shall alight; it is the impulse of her glad sweet heart to carol out its joy--no more. She is passing the great house of the First Happy One, so soon rejected in her game of make-believe! If now she could know what part the dream-Pippa might have taken on herself. . . . But she does not know, and, lingering for a moment by the step, she bends to pick a pansy-blossom. The pair in the shrub-house have been arrested in full tide of passion by her song. It strikes on Sebald with the force of a warning from above-- "God's in his heaven! Do you hear that? Who spoke? You, you spoke!"-- but she, contemptuously-- ". . . 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? _There are ten silk-mills now belong to you!_" Enervated by the interruption, she calls sharply to the singer to be quiet--but Pippa does not hear, and Ottima then orders Sebald to call, for _his_ voice will be sure to carry.