usias$

"Sweet Muse, while thus through heaven's too distant vault,
Thy great mind roves--how shall we earn our salt?
Though art is not encouraged as of old,
She is worth a score of nature; I design
To manufacture, from these flowers of thine,
A silver * talent--or perhaps of gold!"

* Lucullus is said to have given two talents for
a mere copy of this picture.

$Glycera$

"Good heavens, how precious is your Worship's time!
Some minds are lowly, others too sublime.
Before thee all my simple flowers I spread;
Long may they live, when Glycera is dead!"

$Pausias$

"The Gods forefend!
Fair omen from fair maid--
Bright tongue, recall the dark thing thou hast said!"

$Glycera$

"Then long live they, with Glycera to aid!"

$Pausias$

"And Pausias crowned by Critics, to non-plus
Euphranor, Cydias, and Antidotus.
But what are they? Below my feet they lie;
Poor sons of pelf. The son of art am I.
Now rest thee, maiden, on this pillowy bed,
With fragrance canopied, with beauty spread;
Above thee hovers eglantine's caress,
Around thee glows entangled loveliness;
Shy primrose smiles, thy gentle smile to woo,
And violets take thy glances for the dew."

&Glycera&

"Then will they pluck themselves, to see me laugh;
Good flowers bring cash; but who will pay for chaff?
But haply thus the true poet intervenes,
To make us wonder what on earth he means."

$Pausias$

"A poet! We do things in a superior way;
A painter is a poet, who makes it pay.
A poet, though deep and mystic as the Sphinx,
Will ne'er earn half of what he eats and drinks,
He dreams of Gods, but of himself he thinks."

[Illustration: 146.]

Scene III.--_A western slope near Sicyon. Pausias
has his easel set, Glycera is dressed in white._

$Pausias$

"Seven times the moon hath filled her silver horn,
And twice a hundred suns awoke the morn,
Since thou and I--for half the praise is thine--
Began this study of the flowers divine."

$Glycera$

"Alas! how swiftly have the months gone by!"

$Pausias$

"Not swift alone, but passing sweet for me."

$Glycera$

"The world, that was so large, is you and I."

$Pausias$

"And shall be larger still, when it is 'We.'"