(Ah, rare her shoulders drawing back!)

One moment, then the plunderer slips

Between the purple flower-lips.

Love passes out with a crash of cymbals. There is a momentary pause and the music falls into its calm, wave-like rhythm.

A band of boys passes before the curtain. They pass from side to side, crossing and re-crossing; but their figures never confuse one another, the outlines are never blurred. They stand out against the curtain with symbolic gesture, stooping as if to gather up the wreaths, or swaying with long stiff branch as if to sweep the fallen petals from the floor.[14]

[14]

There is no marked melody from the instruments, but the boys' voices, humming lightly as they enter, gradually evolve a little dance song. There are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' tenor voices.

Then, as if they had finished the task of gathering up the wreaths and sweeping the petals, they stand in groups of two before the pillars where the torches have been placed. They lift the torches from the brackets. They hold them aloft between them, one torch to each two boys. Their figures are cut against the curtain like the simple, triangular design on the base of a vase or frieze—the boys' heads on a level, the torches above them.

They sing in clear, half-subdued voices.

Where love is king,

Ah, there is little need

To dance and sing,

With bridal-torch to flare

Amber and scatter light

Across the purple air,

To sing and dance

To flute-note and to reed.

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