ores?
Or in what wood she shelters, or what grove
Sees her profane our sacrament of love?

ALICIA.
I saw her follow
The stream in the hollow
Where never Apollo
Abides.
So thick are the trees
That never the breeze
Stirs them, or sees
What satyr inhabits the glen, what nymph in the
pools of it hides.

Lighter of foot
Than a sylph or a fairy,
Sinuous, wary,
I passed from the airy
Lawns, where the flute
Of the winds made tremulous music for man.

I followed the ripple
Of the stream; I crept
Where the waters wept -
The floss in the foss
Gurgling across
The bosses of moss,
Like a dryad's nipple
In the mouth of Pan!

CRASSUS.
O pearl of the house! you came to the end?

ALICIA.
The dusk of the slave, the dawn of a friend?

CRASSUS.
Freedom is thine for the skill and the will.

ALICIA.
The skill is mine - but the will lies still,
Still as the earth that dare not stir
Till the kiss of the sun awaken her!

CRASSUS.
Yet at these secrets and riddles? Behold!
I can fill thy lap with a harvest of gold.

ALICIA.
Yet all the gold you could give to me
Would fall at my feet when I rose to be free.

CRASSUS.
What will you then?

ALICIA.
No gift from men.
Of my own free will I give you wit,
(O man so sorely in need of it!)
And happiness; and the flame that hath dwindled
On this dull hearth shall be rekindled.
But this you must swear:
To will, and to dare,
To seek the spirit and slay the sense;
And for this hour
To give me power
To lead you in silent obedience,
Though I bade you fall on your sword....

CRASSUS.
Enough!
I give my life as I gave my love.

ALICIA.
O! love you have not understood.
You have not guessed its secret food.
You have not seen its single eye;
But fear and doubt and jealousy
Have risen, and now your love is trembling
Like a mountebank dissembling
When his trick's detected. Come!
To find home we must leave home.

CRASSUS.
Starless and moonless, hidden in cloud,
The night's one flame of pearl.

ALICIA.
The bat flaps; the owl hoots aloud.

CRASSUS.
Lead on; I trust you, girl.

ALICIA.
You are bold to trust me; or, have you divined
My secret?

CRASSUS.
No; the crystal of your mind
Shows only faint disturbing images,
Things passing strange, as if enchanted seas
Kept their great swell upon it, and strange fish
Played in its oily depths. Some monstrous wish,
The shadow of some unspeakable desire,