And you told him so? Ione. I did. Ariadne. What wondrous language could you use That he should be so frenzied? Ione. I but spoke The language of my heart. Bacchus. Well answered, girl.-- Our time is brief, for we have far to go Before this side of earth can roll again Out of its shadow. Listen, lovers. Silenus. Peace. Bacchus. Sarmion, you are descended from a race Inhabiting a star above the moon. Spirits they are, and by a subtle thought Spirits are born to them. Those sultry clouds That surge in slumbrous ranks like golden waves, Or on the skyline of the earth build up, Agleam with topaz and with sardonyx, Towards evening, high pavilions and towers, That change to lofty crests and gorges deep The fancy cannot fathom, are more dense, More gross than the ethereal continents Of yonder orb, washed by a sinuous sea Guiltless of storm, thinner and lovelier Than the divided azure. In a dream You had a vision of an earthly maid; And, still asleep, your life, on fire for her, Shaped to itself the body that you have-- The first to be incarnate of your race: And then the secret limbec of your love Distilled the wing'd and airy boat of pearl That bore you to the earth. Here you awoke, The past, forgot--the present, wonder all. Ariadne. But shall we visit soon this star of his? Bacchus. Sometime we shall.--Sarmion, this choice is yours: Either to give Ione up, and be Again a free thought in your natal sphere, Whose whole dimensions, tense and rare, are pierced By dwellers there, and give as easy way As summer air to swallows, as the deep To sporting dolphins; or to have your love And with her the imprisonment of earth, Where spirit must be draped in mortal flesh, Where motion's shackled, and where ways are hewn, Where life is conscious, and where death ends all. Sarmion. I choose Ione. What with her must come I scarcely understand; but there can fall No present woe so bitter as would be Her absence from my life. Ione. O love, think well! Here are disease and care; I shall grow old; And poverty may catch us in its net. Sarmion. Your voice is music, but you speak of things Unknown to me. Ione. Then, though my heart must break, Return, return! This world is not for you! A thousand daily pitfalls mesh the path Of those who here are native: faults in friends, Denials, tarryings, storm, and heat and cold, Things loathsome, incomplete; falsehood, and wrath: O I am ill at saying what I mean! Think; if these pitiful disquietings Have power to kill the joy in us, who come Of blood that never beat in other veins Than those of men and women, still abused By buffetings of chance on every side, What misery, what terror will there be For you, whose life has known no bolts, no bars, No stumbling-blocks, no weariness, no care! And, chief of all, when you begin to find, How weak, how foolish, and how fond I am!