But hearts can live and love
Though Maximilian falls.

Asef. Can live--and love!
You torture me!

Char. Forgive me. But the share
Must rip the glebe before the corn may spring.

Asef. What do you mean, cold Austrian?

Char. Austrian! No!
Your southern sun has poured into my veins
A life that makes me new! I feel as you
Those throbs that shake the stars until they fall
Into the heart and make it heaven! My lips
Can move toward lips as haste rose-gloried clouds
To swoon into the sun!

Asef. Ah, yes--I know--
You told me that you loved. But why say this
To one who has lost all?

Char. I'd have you learn
That you must live, Aseffa, and life for you
Means love. Your eyes, your lips, your hands, your hair,
Like coiled sweetness of the night, and all
Your swaying, melting body, gather love
As roses gather smiles, as waves draw down
The heart-flood of the moon and hold it deep
And trembling.

Asef. Sir, your roses, waves, and smiles,
Are poet-nothings. You play with them as shells,
Stirring chance colors for an idle eye.
It is your way of saying, is it not,
That I shall love again?

Char. You must! you must!

Asef. Such words are like bright raindrops falling in
Another world. They glitter, but I hear
No sound, grief has so closed my ears. Take back
Your comfort. You would be kind, but noble count,
You talk of what a man can never know,--
A woman's sorrow for a husband loved.
So high no height can reach it, so great and deep
The sea can not embrace it, and yet her heart
Can hold it all. O strangest of all love,
That makes her rather stoop in beggar rags
To kiss the happy dust where his foot pressed
Than from a throne lean down to give her lips
Unto a kneeling king!

Char. Aseffa, grief
Is not for you. You must--you must be happy!
The shy and tender Dawn creeps up in fear
That Night has laid some blight u