ASTRAEA: But I am free I free to be ever free! My freedom keeps me free! He counselled us? I am not one in a conspiracy. I scheme no discord with my present life. Who does, I cannot look on as my friend. Not free? You know me little. Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty To him who helped me to an hour’s release. But having perfect freedom... ARDEN: No. ASTRAEA: Good sir, You check me? ARDEN: Perfect freedom? ASTRAEA: Perfect! ARDEN: No! ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me? ARDEN: Filaments The slenderest ever woven about a brain From the brain’s mists, by the little sprite called Fancy. A breath would scatter them; but that one breath Must come of animation. When the heart Is as, a frozen sea the brain spins webs. ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular! I understand. You translate cleverly. I hear in verse My uncle Homeware’s prose. He has these notions. Old men presume to read us. ARDEN: Young men may. You gaze on an ideal reflecting you Need I say beautiful? Yet it reflects Less beauty than the lady whom I love Breathes, radiates. Look on yourself in me. What harm in gazing? You are this flower You are that spirit. But the spirit fed With substance of the flower takes all its bloom! And where in spirits is the bloom of the flower? ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular. You have a tone Quite changed. ARDEN: You wished a change. To show you, how I read you... ASTRAEA: Oh! no, no. It means dissection. I never heard of reading character That did not mean dissection. Spare me that. I am wilful, violent, capricious, weak, Wound in a web of my own spinning-wheel, A star-gazer, a riband in the wind... ARDEN: A banner in the wind! and me you lead, And shall! At least, I follow till I win. ASTRAEA: Forbear, I do beseech you. ARDEN: I have had Your hand in mine. ASTRAEA: Once. ARDEN: Once! Once! ‘twas; once, was the heart alive, Leaping to break the ice. Oh! once, was aye That laughed at frosty May like spring’s return. Say you are terrorized: you dare not melt. You like me; you might love me; but to dare, Tasks more than courage. Veneration, friends, Self-worship, which is often self-distrust, Bar the good way to you, and make a dream A fortress and a prison.