I came to see you, captain and good friend. When do you sail? Sebastian. When we have made an end Of lading, and have shipped a proper crew; Perhaps two days hence. How may this touch you? Cinthio. Now you impeach my friendship to speak so; For I would come, and this full well you know, To clasp my loved Sebastian on the strand, And drop a tear upon his parting hand, And fill his sails with breath of heart-felt prayer To waft him back, outspeeding swiftest air, Even while his barque degrades into eclipse Behind the bulging world, as Phoebe slips, Slackly and slow, over the ocean's rim, When stars grow bright, and seas and hills grow dim. But hark, Sebastian, give me careful heed: Your often-proffered help I sorely need To aid me in an enterprise of note. Sebastian. They all are yours--myself, my men, my boat. Cinthio. Is there, far distant from the sea's highway, Unwatched by any eye save that of day-- Or if perfection lights unreasoning eyes, By gentle beasts, and birds of paradise-- A coral isle, old nature's best-loved child And latest offspring, nursed by waters wild-- Tamed in that nurture--to rare loveliness, Whose witchery creates a sweet distress; An islet Venus might have made her home, Even as, love-mad, she blossomed from the foam; Where lovers may beneath a bread-fruit tree Repose on bedded flowers, by harmony Of birds and waters lulled to slumber deep; And by like sounds be roused to waking sleep, To feed upon their couch's canopy, And watch what may appear with dreamy eye, Stirring no limb, save for their gentler ease, For ministry of love, or what they please? Methinks you told me once of such a gem, Descried unsought; or is it my own dream? Sebastian. In stress of storm I found it: tempest-driven I took the first port, and I lit on heaven. Cinthio. This isle's felicitous, Edenic state Lacks of perfection, eyes to appreciate; These are within your office to supply: What better watchers than Faustine and I? O, there's the direst need of flying far! That envious, and most inveterate star Whose wanton spite is spent in thwarting love Has chosen us for signal harm; we strove Against disaster, but are hemmed to this, Either to fly, or die upon a kiss. Sebastian. To die upon a kiss? Cinthio. Or kiss and die; For Faustine is a maid of lineage high; A foundling, and a vulgar shepherd, I. Her sire's a lordly wight of sternest mould, Who guides his life and hers by precepts old. He trains his child in crude simplicity, That ignorance may foster modesty; Gives her free scope--in gardens and parterres, With dowagers and hoary aunts for feres; So jealous of his name, so mean his measure Of all feminity, her honour's treasure He will not trust to any common guard, But in the night, before her door is barred, He hides--unchristened trick!--that cloudy dress Wherein by day her sun-bright nakedness She mercifully veils from mortal eyes, To hinder, as he trusts, all enterprise,