Lie cold and wondrous still, while we are rich
In warmth and throb!

ANTONIO: Yet, hear. The funeral tread
Of the old sea sighs in each strain, and breaks.

HELENA: As I were drowned and heard it over me,
It cometh--cometh!
(_Her head droops back on his arm. A pause._)

ANTONIO (_touching her face_): Cold! cold!--your lips--your brow!
And you are pale as with a prophecy!

HELENA: Oh--oh!

ANTONIO: Your spirit is not in you but
Afar and suffering!

HELENA: A vision sweeps me.

ANTONIO: Awake from it!

HELENA (_recovering_): A waste of waves that beat
Upon a cliff--and beat! Yet thou and I
Had place in it.

ANTONIO: Come to yon arbour, come.
The moon has looked too long on the sad earth,
And can reflect but sorrow.

HELENA: Ah, I fear!
(_They go clinging passionately together._

_Enter CHARLES and CECCO._

CHARLES: And yet it is a little thing to sleep--
Just to lie down and sleep. A child may do it.

CECCO: If my lord would, here's sleep for him wrapped in
A quiet powder.

CHARLES: Sleep is ever mate
Of peace and should go with it. I have slept
In the wild arms of battle when the winds
Of souls departing fearfully shook by,
And on the breast of dizzy danger cradled
Softly been lulled. Potions should be for them
Who wrestle and are thrown by misery.

CECCO: And is my lord at peace?

CHARLES: Strangely.--Yet seem
For sleep too coldly calm.

CECCO: So were you, sir--
I keep your words lest you may need of them--
On the same night young Haemon's father went
The secret way to death.

CHARLES: Of that!--of that?--

CECCO: Pardon, I but----

CHARLES: Smirker!--Yet, was it so?
That night indeed?

CECCO: Sir, surely.

CHARLES: And the moon's
'Scutcheon hung stainless up the purple east?

CECCO: Half, sir; even as now.

CHARLES (_as to himself_): Since that hour's close
To this I have not stood in so much calm.
Still was he not in every vein of him,
And breath, a traitor? A Greek who--I'll not say it,
Since she is Greek I must forget the word
Sounds the diapason of perfidy.

CECCO: My lord thinks of the gentle Helena?

CHARLES: And if I do?

CECCO: Why, sir----