No More Learning

When she finds out I will not let her go--
When she knows that.

DECTORA.

What is it that you are muttering--
That you'll not let me go? I am a queen.

FORGAEL.

Although you are more beautiful than any,
I almost long that it were possible;
But if I were to put you on that ship,
With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge,
It had washed among the stars and put them out,
And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
Until you stood before me on the deck--
As now.

DECTORA.

Does wandering in these desolate seas
And listening to the cry of wind and wave
Bring madness?

FORGAEL.

Queen, I am not mad.

DECTORA.

And yet you say the water and the wind
Would rise against me.

FORGAEL.

No, I am not mad--
If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.

DECTORA.
And did those watchers bid you take me captive?

FORGAEL.

Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouths have promised
I shall have love in their immortal fashion.
They gave me that old harp of the nine spells
That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
That none might take you from me.

DECTORA.

[_First trembling back from the mast where the harp is,
and then laughing. _]

For a moment
Your raving of a message and a harp
More mighty than the stars half troubled me.
But all that's raving. Who is there can compel
The daughter and granddaughter of kings
To be his bedfellow?

FORGAEL.

Until your lips
Have called me their beloved, I'll not kiss them.

DECTORA.

My husband and my king died at my feet,
And yet you talk of love.

FORGAEL.

The movement of time
Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
One moment has no might upon the moment
That follows after.