THE EMPRESS

Shall I lament it, love, since thou and I
By all the seeming pride are drawn more nigh? 
Lo, love, our toil-girthed garden of desire,
How of its changeless sweetness may we tire,
While round about the storm is in the boughs
And careless change amid the turmoil ploughs
The rugged fields we needs must stumble o’er,
Till the grain ripens that shall change no more.

THE EMPEROR

Yea, and an omen fair we well may deem
This dreamy shadowing of ancient dream,
Of what our own hearts long for on the day
When the first furrow cleaves the fallow grey.

THE EMPRESS

O fair it is! let us go forth, my sweet,
And be alone amid the babbling street;
Yea, so alone that scarce the hush of night
May add one joy unto our proved delight.

GILES

Fair lovers were they:  I am fain
To see them both ere long again;
Yea, nigher too, if it might be.

JOAN

Too wide and dim, love, lies the sea,
That we should look on face to face
This Pharamond and Azalais. 
Those only from the dead come back
Who left behind them what they lack.

GILES

Nay, I was asking nought so strange,
Since long ago their life did change: 
The seeming King and Queen I meant. 
And e’en now ’twas my full intent
To bid them home to us straightway,
And crown the joyance of to-day. 
He may be glad to see my face,
He first saw mid that waggon race
When the last barley-sheaf came home.

JOAN

A great joy were it, should they come. 
They are dear lovers, sure enough. 
He deems the summer air too rough
To touch her kissed cheek, howsoe’er
Through winter mountains they must fare,
He would bid spring new flowers to make
Before her feet, that oft must ache
With flinty driftings of the waste. 
And sure is she no more abased
Before the face of king and lord,
Than if the very Pharamond’s sword
Her love amid the hosts did wield
Above the dinted lilied shield: 
O bid them home with us, and we
Their scholars for a while will be
In many a lesson of sweet lore
To learn love’s meaning more and more.

GILES

And yet this night of all the year
Happier alone perchance they were,
And better so belike would seem
The glorious lovers of the dream: 
So let them dream on lip to lip: 
Yet will I gain his fellowship
Ere many days be o’er my head,
And they shall rest them in our stead;