returns to the seat in front.]
Mildred and Mertoun! Mildred, with consent
Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun's bride!
Too late! 'Tis sweet to think of, sweeter still
To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up
The curse of the beginning; but I know
It comes too late: 'twill sweetest be of all
To dream my soul away and die upon.
[A noise without.]
The voice! Oh why, why glided sin the snake
Into the paradise Heaven meant us both?
[The window opens softly. A low voice sings.]

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest;
And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the
surest:
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape
cluster,
Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble:
Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's
warble!

[A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window.]

And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were
moonless,
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak
tuneless,
If you loved me not!" And I who--(ah, for words of flame!) adore
her,
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her--

[He enters, approaches her seat, and bends over her.]

I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!

[The EARL throws off his slouched hat and long cloak.]

My very heart sings, so I sing, Beloved!

MILDRED. Sit, Henry--do not take my hand!

MERTOUN. 'Tis mine.
The meeting that appalled us both so much
Is ended.

MILDRED. What begins now?

MERTOUN. Happiness
Such as the world contains not.

MILDRED. That is it.
Our happiness would, as you say, exceed
The whole world's best of blisses: we--do we
Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine
Long since, Beloved, has grown used to hear,
Like a death-knell, so much regarded once,
And so familiar now; this will not be!

MERTOUN. Oh, Mildred, have I met yo