THE MOTHER 

 Alas! so did I love. 

 

 THE WIFE 

 Tell me of love. 

 

 THE MOTHER 

 Belovéd, what should I tell That his lips have not taught you? 

 

 THE WIFE 

 Tell of yours; So that I may compare your flowers with mine, Your doubts and times of joy, and how arose The sudden and sweet passion in your heart; Did the world burst forth, like a flower from bud, All suddenly in beauty, when you met? 

 

 THE MOTHER 

 Ah, how your words have wakened memory, And bitter-sweet, like love itself, it is. 

 

 THE WIFE 

 The first time that you met? 

 

 THE MOTHER 

 Ah, that first time! It was a night of gods, a night of love. The earth was still beneath a summer sky So thickly sown with stars, that it appeared A vase of ebon in a silver shroud; No breath there stirred, the hot air seemed to hang In heavy folds, like silken tapestry, Clinging, caressing; all the birds were still, No nightingale with her ecstatic pain Transfixed the silence; earth was dead asleep, Sunk in a scented languor; every flower 

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