_F._ Ricardo is in fault, For love being not returned is but half love; In which imperfect state love’s pain or bliss Cannot be known: to love and be beloved Is the required condition. But when two hearts, Encountering in this mortal maze, have knit Their preordained espousals, and together In moonlight meeting and sweet conference, 300 Signed the surrendering treaties of their love; If fate, or circumstance, or other’s will Should then oppose them, and thrust in to sever The new-spun cords with which they are bound; I say This is the hardest pain that love can shew. _D._ Ha! you speak logic; that love’s perfect pain Cannot exist but in love’s perfect state. Laura, ’tis thou to speak. _L._ What shall I say? _D._ Give thy opinion; or, in want of matter, Be critical. A gloss may hit the mark 310 Where the text fails. _L._ If Frederick has said well, That love’s pain is a pain of love returned, The pain of love must come from being loved. _D._ O, most adorable simplicity! Before thy lover, too! St. Nicholas, What wilt thou say? _N._ Beshrew my science now, If Lady Laura have not hit the mark. ’Tis vulgar error that would make distinction ’Twixt pain and joy; which are, as life and death, Inseparables. The shadowed images 320 Cast on the wall of this memorial cave, This earth, wherein we dwell, are things of nought, But serving to mislead our darkling sense: Nay health and strength are but the habitude Of this delusion. Ask your ruddy clown Of love; will he not tell you ’tis a pleasure Which moves the plain heart of the natural man? But to the poet, what is love to him? ’Tis like heaven’s rainbow scarf, woven of all hues Of pain and joy; an eagle and a snake 330 Struggling in the void and crystalline abysm Of life and death. And love’s pain, what is that? I have compared it to a sunbeamed tear, Whose single pearl broiders the marble lids Of some tall Sphinx, that with impassive smile Dreams o’er the desert; whence ’twas gathered up Of earthly dew and the pale sparkle of stars, To fall in silent lightning on the sands; Which, at the touch magnifical, bloom forth In irresistible fecundity. 340 Such is love’s pain, as it hath lit on me; And tinctured by it I would dream my day, Nor count the sailing hour, but when night falls Be closèd up, like a belated bee In the pale lily of death. _D._ Now you all hear! _R._ (_aside_). Heavens! a belated bee! _D._ Thy lover, Laura; What say’st thou? _L._ O beautiful. _D._ And you, Ricardo? _R._ Capital, capital! _D._ Sir Gregory! Sir Gregory! _G._ Eigh. _D._ ’Tis now thy turn to speak.