but for belated birds.
Oh, with what tenderness the gloaming fades!
The trees--

MARIA LOUISA.

What, you! Can you feel nature's beauty?

THE DUKE.

Perhaps.

MARIA LOUISA.

Perhaps you will explain--

THE DUKE.

Oh, mother,
Inhale the perfume. All the forest floats
Into the chamber on its breath!

MARIA LOUISA.

Explain!

THE DUKE.

With every gust a branch is wafted in!
A fairer miracle than that which scared
Macbeth; the forest is not walking only,
Not like a mad thing walking; lo! on wings
The scented evening sets the forest flying!

MARIA LOUISA.

What! You can be poetical!

THE DUKE.

At times.

[_Distant music is heard._]

Listen! A waltz. An ordinary waltz;
Yet distance gives it dignity. Who knows?
Journeying through the woods the master haunted.
Under the cyclamen, among the bracken,
It may have chanced upon Beethoven's soul!

MARIA LOUISA.

What! Musical as well!

THE DUKE.

Yes; when I choose.
I do not choose! I hate the mystery
Of sounds! And in a lovely sunset, feel
With dread some fair thing growing soft within me!

MARIA LOUISA.

That fair thing in your heart, my son, is I!

THE DUKE.

You said it.

MARIA LOUISA.

Do you hate it?

THE DUKE.

I love _you_.

MARIA LOUISA.

Then think a little ere you do me harm.
My father and Prince Metternich are so good!
When the decree, for instance, made you Count,
I said, Not Count; Duke at the least; for Duke
Is something. And you're Duke of Reichstadt.

THE DUKE.

Lord of Gross-Bohen, Buchtiehrad, Tirnowan,
Schwaden, Kron-Porsitschan--

MARIA LOUISA.

And then, the tact!
Your father's name was never mentioned once!

THE DUKE.

Why not have called me "Son of unknown Father"?

MARIA LOUISA.

With your estates and revenues you can be
The pleasantest and richest Prince of Austria.

THE DUKE.

The richest Prince?

MARIA LOUISA.

And pleasantest--

THE DUKE.

Of--Austria!

MARIA LOUISA.

Enjoy your happiness.

THE DUKE.

I drain its lees.

MARIA LOUISA.

First in precedence after the Archdukes,
Some day you'll marry with a fair Princess,
Or an Archduchess, or perhaps a--

THE DU