_Mous._ (_angrily_). And why choose me alone of all mankind To serve you in your island loneliness? Because my limbs, though crooked, are strongly framed? Bah, there are tall straight men as strong as I. Because my heart goes with my fealty? Why half _my_ wage would buy the heart and soul Of twenty well-proportioned servitors. Because by reason of my face and form I do not count as man? Yes! I’m an ape! A crippled, crumpled, devil-faced baboon, Who claims a place amid this loveliness By title of his sheer deformity! Now, monkey though I be, I am a man In all but face and form--I’ve a man’s heart, A man’s desire to love--and to be loved--(_HILDA seems amused._) Ay, you may laugh--but those who seek to laugh May find, methinks, more fitting merriment In such mad love as deals with sun-dials, Trees, rocks, and fountains, and such baby game. My love at least is human in its aim. It’s well you should know this--be on your guard! [_Exit MOUSTA._ _Hil._ In truth, the love that Mousta laughs at tells How strangely ordered is a woman’s heart! Dost thou remember how, when first we came To this fair isle, I said, in thoughtless jest, “As woman’s heart must love, and we are women, So let us choose our loves”--then, looking round, “This running fountain shall be mine,” I cried, And, kneeling by the brink, then sealed the vow As all such vows are sealed ’twixt men and women-- And thou, poor child, pleased with the jest, replied, “I take this dial to be my love for life!” Vavir, we little thought that in those words We pledged ourselves to an abiding love That rivals in its pure intensity The love that we had banished from our hearts! Yet so it is. We have so dwelt upon This idle fancy--keeping it alive With songs and sighs and vows of constancy, That we have tricked ourselves into a love Akin to that which we had all forsworn. I love this little fountain as my life! _Vav._ To me my dial is more, far more, than life; It is the chronicle of the World’s life, Written by Heaven’s own hand. As, rapt in thought, I watch its silent solemn shadow creep From hour to hour, and so from day to day, True as the Sun itself--an awful record Of Heaven’s most perfect and most glorious order-- My love is lost in reverential awe. Oh I have chosen well in choosing this! It is a holy thing, that bears a warrant, Sent from the Source of Life, to tell the Earth That even Time is hastening to its end! What is mere world-love to such love as this? _Hil._ And yet _thou_ hast no cause to shun world-love. When my great sorrow came and I withdrew To this lone isle with other broken hearts, Thou, heart-whole and untouched by love of Man, Yet gavest up the world and all it holds To bide with me.