: Who is it? soldiers come
From Arta?

ANTONIO: Yes.

HELENA: And by this road!--They must
Not see us!

ANTONIO: No. But quick, within this breach!

(_They conceal themselves in the breach. The soldiers pass
across the stage. The last, as all shout "DI TOCCA!"
strikes a column near him. It falls, and HELENA starts
forward shuddering._)

HELENA: Fallen! Ah, fallen! See, Antonio!

ANTONIO: What now!

HELENA (_swaying_): It is as if the earth were wind
Under my feet!

ANTONIO: Are all things thus become
Omen and dread to you?

HELENA: O, but it is
The pillar grieving Venus leant upon
Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote,
When falls this pillar tall and proud
Let surest lovers weave their shroud.

ANTONIO: Mere myth!

HELENA: The shroud! It coldly winds about us--coldly!

ANTONIO: Should a vain hap so desperately move you?

HELENA: The breath and secret soul of all this night
Are burdened with foreboding! And it seems--

ANTONIO: You must not, Helena!

HELENA: My love, my lord--
Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh
In this unnatural awe! (_He takes her to him._)
Ah how thy arms
Warm the cold moan and misery of fear
Out of my veins!

ANTONIO: You rave, but in me stir
Again the attraction of these dim portents.
Nay, quiver not! 'tis but a passing mist,
And this that runs in us is worthless dread!

HELENA: But ah, the shroud! the shroud!

ANTONIO: We'll weave no shroud,
But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry!
And you shall be my Sappho--but through joys
Such as shall legend ecstasy about
Our knitted names when distant lovers dream.

HELENA: I'll fear no more, then----

ANTONIO: Yet?

HELENA: My lord, let us
Unloose this strangling secrecy and be
Open in love. My brother, Haemon, let
Our hearts betrothed exchange and hope be told
Him and thy father!

ANTONIO: This cannot be--now

HELENA: It cannot be, and you a god? I'll bow
Before your eyes no more!--say that it can!

ANTONIO: Not yet--not now. Haemon's suspicious, quick,
And melancholy: must be won with service.
And you are Greek, a name till yesterday
I never knew pass in the