Or did you stand on the shore, Annie Smith, And gaze away to the west? Did you stand where the river becomes a frith, With your hands folded over your breast, And gaze at the golden skyey gate As the sun passed through sublime? Did you get this shadowy light of fate On your face at the sunset time? Or are you an angel, Annie Smith, For a time from your blessedness riven, To guide me over the cold, wan, frith Of death to your happy heaven? Ringan. O, you might precept Mercury's elocution, And teach the Muses and the Sirens singing. Annie. And do you love me, then? Ringan. You know I do. Annie. I love you--and I love you, Ringan Deane. Enter Clown. O, what a curious-looking gentleman! Clown. A pretty pair, indeed!--And who are you? Annie. He is a poet, and I am his sweetheart. Clown. A poet is he, sweetheart! Lack-a-day! Bid him go hang or drown without ado; And in Elysium while you live, he'll pray For showers of blessing to descend on you, Whose high behest despatched him to that clime Of peaceful pleasure and warm purple dusk, Ere rained calamity and mouldering time Could rot his spirit in its carnal husk. Or if you needs must keep him, be prepared For daily infidelity, my dear, For you will find your part in him is shared By every beauty he may see or hear; Whether it be of seas, of flowers, of skies, A wind, a woman, or a music note, His hungry passion hugs it till it dies, Leaving him happy with a new-born thought. Annie. He being a poet, must it be so with him? Clown. It is the poet's health and his disease, His joy, his sorrow, his belief and whim, His bane and blessing, and his itch and ease, His night and day, his pestilence and breath, His summer, winter, heaven, hell, life, and death, This passion, shackled to its own desire, Unchained, unchainable within that range, Sateless, bateless, changing without change, Consuming beauty after beauty, higher To toss its blood-stained, heaven-scaling fire. Enter Edmund.