d the marshes golden,
Where shall the lost lights fade away?
And where, my love, shall we dream to-day?

Dawn is fled to the marshy hollows
Where ghosts of stars in the dimness stray,
And the water is streaked with the flash of
swallows
And all through summer the iris sway.
But where, my love, shall we dream to-day?

When night is black in the iris marshes.

ACT III

SCENE 1

Six and a half years later.
Al Shaldomir.
A room in the palace.

MIRALDA reclines on a heap of cushions,
JOHN beside her.

Bazzalol and Thoothoobaba fan them.

OMAR [declaiming to a zither]

Al Shaldomir, Al Shaldomir,
The nightingales that guard thy ways
Cease not to give thee, after God
And after Paradise, all praise.
Thou art the theme of all their lays.
Al Shaldomir, Al Shaldomir....

MIRALDA

Go now, Omar.

OMAR

O lady, I depart.
[Exit.]

MIRALDA [languidly]

John, John. I wish you'd marry me.

JOHN

Miralda, you're thinking of those old
customs again that we left behind us seven years
ago. What's the good of it?

MIRALDA

I had a fancy that I wished you would.

JOHN

What's the good of it? You know you are
my beloved. There are none of those
clergymen within hundreds of miles. What's the
good of it?

MIRALDA

We could find one, John.

JOHN

O, yes, I suppose we could, but...

MIRALDA

Why won't you?

JOHN

I told you why.

MIRALDA

O, yes, that instinct that you must not
marry. That's not your reason, John.

JOHN

Yes, it is.

MIRALDA

It's a silly reason. It's a crazy reason.
It's no reason at all. There's some other
reason.

JOHN

No, there isn't. But I feel that in my
bones. I don't know why. You know that
I love none else but you. Besides, we're
never going back, and it doesn't matter.
This isn't Blackheath.

MIRALDA

So I must live as your slave.

JOHN

No, no, Miralda. My dear, you are not my
slave. Did not the singer compare our love
to the desire of the nightingale for the
evening star? All know that you are my queen.

MIRALDA

They do not know at home.

JOHN

Home? Home? How could they know?
What have we in common with home? Rows
and rows of little houses; and if they hear a
nightingale there they write to the papers.
And--and if they saw this they'd think they
were drunk. Miralda, don't be absurd.
What has set you thinking of home?

MIRALDA

I want to be crowned queen.

JOHN

But I am not a king. I am only Shereef.

MIRA