SCENE 1. _Near the cottage in Greenot woods. Henry, with lute,

singing._

Ope, throw ope thy bower door, And come thou forth, my sweet! 'Tis morn, the watch of love is o'er, And mating hearts should meet. The stars have fled and left their grace In every blossom's lifted face, And gentle shadows fleck the light With tender memories of the night. Sweet, there's a door to every shrine; Wilt thou, as morning, open thine? Hark! now the lark has met the clouds, And rains his sheer melodious flood; The green earth casts her mystic shrouds To meet the flaming god! Alas, for me there is no dawn If Glaia come not with the sun.

[_Enter Glaia_. _The king kneels as she approaches_]

_Gla._ 'Tis you!

_Hen._ [_Leaping up_] Pardoned! Queen of this bowerland, Your glad eyes tell me that I have not sinned.

_Gla._ How cam'st thou here? Now who plays Hubert false? Nay, I'm too glad thou 'rt come to question so. 'Tis easy to forgive the treachery That opes our gates to angels.

_Hen._ O, I'm loved?

_Gla._ Yes, Henry. All the morn I've thought of you, And I rose early, for I love to say Good-by to my dear stars; they seem so wan And loath to go away, as though they know The fickle world is thinking of the sun, And all their gentle service of the night Is quite forgot.

_Hen._ And what didst think of me?

_Gla._ That could you come and see this beauteous wood, Fair with Spring's love and morning's kiss of grace, You'd be content to live awhile with me, Leave war's red step to follow living May Passing to pour her veins' immortal flood To each decaying root; and rest by springs Where waters run to sounds less rude than song, And hiding sibyls stir sweet prophecies.

_Hen._ The only springs I seek are in your eyes That nourish all the desert of myself. Drop here, O, Glaia, thy transforming dews, And start fair summer in this waste of me!

_Gla._ Poor Henry! What dost know of me to love?

_Hen._ See yon light cloud half-kirtled with faint rose? What do I know of it but that 'tis fair? And yet I dream 'twas born of flower dews And goes to some sweet country of the sky. So cloud-like dost thou move before my love, From beauty coming that I may not see, To beauty going that I can but dream. O, love me, Glaia! Give to me this hand, This miracle of warm, unmelting snow, This lily bit of thee that in my clasp Lies like a dove in all too rude a cote-- Wee heaven-cloud to drop on monarch brows And smooth the ridgy traces of a crown! Rich me with this, and I'll not fear to dare The darkest shadow of defeat that broods O'er sceptres and unfriended kings.

_Gla._ Why talk Of crowns and kings? This is our home, dear Henry. For if you love me you will stay with me.

_Hen._ Ah, blest to be here, and from morning's top Review the sunny graces of the world, Plucking the smilingest to dearer love, Until the heart becomes the root and spring Of hopes as natural and as simply sweet As these bright children of the wedded sun And dewy earth!

_Gla._ I knew you'd stay, my brother! You'll live with me!

_Hen._ But there's a world not this, O'er-roofed and fretted by ambition's arch, Whose sun is power and whose rains are blood, Whose iris bow is the small golden hoop That rims the forehead of a king,--a world Where trampling armies and sedition's march Cut off the flowers of descanting love Ere they may sing their perfect word to man, And the rank weeds of envies, jealousies, Push up each night from day's hot-beaten paths----

_Gla._ O, do not tell me, do not think of it!

_Hen._ I must. There is my world, and there my life Must grow to gracious end, if so it can. If thou wouldst come, my living periapt, With virtue's gentle legend overwrit, I should not fail, nor would this flower cheek, Pure lily cloister of a praying rose, E'er know the stain of one despoiling tear Shed for me graceless. Will you come, my Glaia?

_Gla._ Into that world? No, thou shall stay with me. Here you shall be a king, not serve one. Ah, The whispering winds do never counsel false, And senatorial trees droop not their state To tribe and treachery. Nature's self shall be Your minister, the seasons your envoys And high ambassadors, bearing from His court The mortal olive of immortal love.

_Hen._ To man my life belongs. Hope not, dear Glaia, To bind me here; and if you love me true, You will not ask me where I go or stay, But that your feet may stay or go with mine. Let not a nay unsweet those tender lips That all their life have ripened for this kiss. [_Kisses her_] O ruby purities! I would not give Their chaste extravagance for fruits Iran Stored with the honey of a thousand suns Through the slow measure of as many years!

_Gla._ Do brothers talk like that?

_Hen._ I think not, sweet.

_Gla._ But you will be my brother?

_Hen._ We shall see.

_Gla._ And you will stay with me? No? Ah, I fear All that you love in me is born of these Wild innocences that I live among, And far from here, all such sweet value lost, I'll be as others are in your mad world, Or wither mortally, even as the sprig A moment gone so pertly trimmed this bough. Let us stay here, my Henry. We shall be Dear playmates ever, never growing old,-- Or if we do 'twill be at such a pace Time will grow weary chiding, leaving us To come at will.

_Hen._ No, Glaia. Even now I must be gone. I came for this--to say I'd come again, and bid you watch for me. A tear? O, love! One moment, then away!

[_Exeunt. Curtain_]