The souls of men that pave their hell-ward path With women's souls lose immortality. What station in our heart's economy-- The hidden household where our naked thoughts Stand at the windows innocent as babes, Or crouch in corners shamefaced and undone, Though none may pass but he whose thoughts they are: What home, or what foul den we keep them in, These complements of us, these plastic things Our fancy fashions to the shape we please-- That is the test of sanity. Behold, Your daughter, being throned within my heart, Has straight become a queen! Graham. What noise is that? Smith. A cry within the wind. Have you ne'er heard Prophetic voices muffled in the blast? Old man, you've done a high thing for your child; But all is naught if you constrain her now. Give me the woman whom my soul has chosen, Give me the woman who has chosen me. Graham. Poor fool! no frantic whim will change my plan. [Graham and Brown lead Magdalen out. Smith attempts to take her from them but the servants interfere. He hurls them both to the ground: they rise and run out. Smith goes out, and re-enters backward with Magdalen on one arm, keeping Graham and Brown off with the other. He stops at the edge of the cliff. Smith. Back, or we plunge together. Graham. Hold! [Aside.] That sound! How could they know? But yet, they saw us go. It is the village coming up the hill! They'll rescue us. Brown, we must seem to yield. This is a madman, no idealist. Brown. Stark, staring mad. Graham. Of course. We might have known. Why, I could laugh. Come on, we'll humour him.-- Conclusions reached with salience, sir, are oft Wiser than those we plod to; for the mind Tires on the dusty round-about; and so I think you have deserved my daughter. Smith. Ha! Then you are but a worldling after all: I know your thought: I've met it face to face A hundred times; and though it owns it not, It means that all it cannot understand Is madness, and that highest God is mad. Is it because the moon is in a cloud You speak this folly now?--a human voice! Some people on the hill! I see your drift.-- Magdalen Graham ... Magdalen. Yours, always, only yours. Brown. I warn you, monstrous rogue, abduction earns A lengthy term of penal servitude. Smith. Inept fool!--Lady, life, the shooting star, Is no more worth than is the miser's gold, The cultured man's impressions, lust's delight; It is a prison innocence may break; A moment mere of immortality. Magdalen. Watch for the moon: she slips her sable shawl, And silver lace. Behold! Smith. The happy night Heaves a deep long-drawn sigh of sweet content. Magdalen. Oh, if the world would look on us like that! Smith. The world for you and me is one blank stare-- A basilisk would shrivel up our souls. Magdalen. O these hoarse shouts and fiendish empty shrieks!