_Ara._ O, sir, Your thoughts are flowers and your words their fragrance; I do not hear but breathe them. Pray you, stay! [_He slowly resumes his seat. She looks silently at the sky. He writes on tablet_] _Ara._ Aristocles, thou wilt be god of gods When thou 'rt among those stars; but now, O friend, Come nearer earth. Be mortal for my sake. I'm fearful when you're gone, or when your soul Keeps court so far above me. _Aris._ I'll read to you. _Ara._ What you have written there? _Aris._ No--no--'tis nothing. _Ara._ Ah, do not read to-night. I am so lonely That even with a book I would not share thee, Though it should tempt with the most wondrous hap Of bard or lover caught in liquid line. You've travelled much; tell me an Egypt tale. I'm weary of nymphs, and piping shepherd songs, And the ever-wrangling gods of blue Olympus. _Aris._ Then hear the tale of Isis as 'tis told By the prophet-cradling Nile when Lotus buds Upbreathing blow new seasons of old dreams. Not e'en our Venus, dove-led, invisible, More softly moves to Paphos wood than she O'er sleeping earth. Her wings lead on the light, And when she lifts them dawn awakes. _Ara._ Fair Isis! _Aris._ She seeks her brother, self-created, slain By his own pride, for he was God of All. Her tears, like weeping music, sweeten earth, Nor rests she till she finds him. _Ara._ Sister Isis! _Aris._ And then--none knows how hid in solitude She suckles death with life till he new rises The God of All, too great for pride, too just For death; the sire of Beauty, breathing Life Through Love,--soul of the nurturing sun-- The mother-breast of fields--the parent thrill Of birds, of trees, of flowers--of all that makes Most sweet the fair world's mortal pageantry,-- Yea of the eternal, vital glow that throbs Within humanity's deep-rubied heart. So runs the myth, dear Aratea. _Ara._ Ah! How runs the rubric of thy thought that sets The symbol plain? Read that to me, I pray thee. _Aris._ The lonely mind may not uprafter stars, And vain, adventurous man who of himself Createth Heaven must see it fall. Then doth The woman spirit, girdle of the worlds, Above the ruins cry,--his mate forgot Who from his flesh by love's divinity Calls forth the beauteous eternities To star the globe of life. _Oc._ [_Rising_] Which is to say, As simple people speak in Sicily, A man must wed! _Ara._ Ocrastes, talk not so! Like stars that may not range below the zenith, His meaning keeps the orbit of high thought, And will not dwell in gross and simple words.