_Otti._ Well then, I love you better now than ever, And best (look at me while I speak to you)-- Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth, This mask, this simulated ignorance, This affectation of simplicity, Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours May not now be looked over: look it down! Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought, Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it! Speak not! The past, would you give up the past Such as it is, pleasure and crime together? Give up that noon I owned my love for you? The garden's silence: even the single bee Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped, And where he hid you only could surmise By some campanula chalice set a-swing. Who stammered--"Yes, I love you?" _Seb._ And I drew Back; put far back your face with both my hands Lest you should grow too full of me--your face So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body! _Otti._ And when I ventured to receive you here, Made you steal hither in the mornings-- _Seb._ When I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread To a yellow haze? _Otti._ Ah--my sign was, the sun Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree Nipped by the first frost. _Seb._ You would always laugh At my wet boots: I had to stride through grass Over my ankles. _Otti._ Then our crowning night! _Seb._ The July night? _Otti._ The day of it too, Sebald! When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat, Its black-blue canopy suffered descend Close on us both, to weigh down each to each, And smother up all life except our life. So lay we till the storm came. _Seb._ How it came! _Otti._ Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; And ever and anon some bright white shaft Burned through the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, As if God's messenger through the close wood screen Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke The thunder like a whole sea overhead-- _Seb._ Yes! _Otti._--While I stretched myself upon you, hands To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook All my locks loose, and covered you with them-- You, Sebald, the same you! _Seb._ Slower, Ottima! _Otti._ And as we lay-- _Seb._ Less vehemently! Love me! Forgive me! Take not words, mere words, to heart! Your breath is worse than wine. Breathe slow, speak slow! Do not lean on me!