Why, then,—why have I brought this instrument
Of murder here? What black intent
Clouded my mind with blood?
Out of my hands!—My sister, can it be
That still you soar above my sanguine flood
Of passion, and forgive? Though yet I kill,
Oh, is it true indeed—you love me still?
Ha, put me to the test!
Show me the field that breeds your harvest pest
Of chinch or weevil,
Where all the blossoms wither with strange evil,
Or where, in filmy tents,
The hairy creepers gorge in regiments
Your budding apple boughs;
Show your ancestral elms
Gaunt limbed with leprosy, which overwhelms
Their green old age in death;
Or those swift locust clouds, whose breath
Blasts the ripe loveliness of Spring;
Show these, and more
Than these, and cry on Ornis! She shall bring—
From hill and shore
And plain—her wingèd flocks and warbling broods,
And swinge away their deadly multitudes.—
If service be true love, I love you, brother.
And for her sake, so we will love each other.
[He takes Stark’s right hand.]
[Whispering to the faun.]
I skip,
I gambol, master. Ha!
I have a tale to tell to Tacita!
[As Stark tears off his headdress of plumes.]
For these my heart shall build a fire
Here at this shrine:
[He hangs the headdress on a tree.]
And here, as on a pyre,
I place them, with this pouch, which hides
The victims of my blind desire.
There, at sad cost,
I let them tell my pain—the votive part
Of one long lost,
Who now has found himself in nature’s heart.—
Ornis, my trail divides:
There lie the ashes of the thing I was.
Henceforth, I walk with you—
[Turning to Alwyn and Shy.]
A compact, then, we three: that when we go
Forth from these gracious trees
Into the world, we go as witnesses
Before the men who make our country’s laws,
And by our witness show
In burning words
The meaning of these sylvan mysteries:
Freedom and sanctuary for the birds!
Say, is our compact sworn?
[Enter Quercus and Tacita.]