Strikes my heart cold, and sets my brain on fire.

ALICIA.
Learn this, as we pass through the portico:
Fear nothing; there is nothing you can know!
And by these terraces and steps that gleam
Wintry, although the summer night is hot,
This - what we seek is never what we find!

Life is a dream, like love; and from the dream
If we may wake, we never find it what
We would; for the wisdom of a mightier mind
Leads us in its own ways
To a perfected praise.

CRASSUS.
Why are these shadows thrown across the lawn
From the elms and yews? They were not wont to reach
Beyond the branches of that copper-beech.

ALICIA.
Attend the dawn
Of an unknown comet, that shall come
From the unfathomable wells of space
Into its halidom.

CRASSUS.
I know it not. Last night I walked alone
Here, and saw nothing.

ALICIA.
I was not with you!
There is no God upon the eternal throne
Of stars begemming the bewildering blue
Unless one has the eyes to see him. Think
How we two stand upon the brink
Of nothing! Here's a globe, whereto we trust,
No larger than the smallest speck of dust
Or mote in the sunbeam is to that sun's self,
And we are like dead leaves in autumn's whil
Of wind upon it.

CRASSUS.
Mystify me, girl!
It is the right of an elf.
Surely your flickering fire
Will draw me to some mire!

ALICIA.
Here the stream dips its mouth into the wood.
So does youth's calm and chaste beatitude
Touch the black mouth of Love, the ancient whore.

CRASSUS.
Girl! what a scorpion leaping from your lips!

ALICIA.
My mouth stings as no scorpion ever stang.
in this round impudent smiling face of mine
There is a poison fiercer than all wine;
And from these eyes more subtle sorrows pour
Than you can dream. These teeth have been at grips
With gods; I have sung what no girl ever sang.
These ears have heard
An insufferable word!

CRASSUS.
What do you mean?

ALICIA.
The secret's in a kiss.
Here are no kisses. Here great Artemis
Rules; only in the woodland may a man
Hide his eyes from her, pledge himself to Pan.
Come! through the tangled arches
Of cypresses and larches,
Stoop; under Artemis we walked upright;
But this is Pan's home, and the House of Night.
[They enter the wood.]

CRASSUS.
So when I stoop, my cheek comes close to yours.
Give me a kiss.

ALICIA.
The poisonous apple lures
Thus the boy's mouth. Beware!

CRASSUS.