18
PIPPA PASSES.
Do lovers in romances sin that way?
Why, I was starving when I used to call
And teach you music, starving while you plucked me
These flowers to smell!
These flowers to smell!Ottima. My poor lost friend!
These flowers to smell! My poor lost friend!Sebald. He gave me
Life, nothing less: what if he did reproach
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more—
Had he no right? What was to wonder at?
He sat by us at table quietly:
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched?
Could he do less than make pretence to strike?
’T is not the crime’s sake—I ’d commit ten crimes
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone!
And you—O how feel you? Feel you for me?
Ottima. Well then, I love you better now than ever,
And best (look at me while I speak to you)—
Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth,
This mask, this simulated ignorance,
This affectation of simplicity,
Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours
May not now be looked over: look it down!
Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought,
Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it!
Speak not! The past, would you give up the past
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you?
The garden’s silence: even the single bee
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped,
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula chalice set a-swing.
Who stammered—“Yes, I love you?”
Who stammered—“Yes, I love you?”Sebald. And I drew
Back; put far back your face with both my hands
Why, I was starving when I used to call
And teach you music, starving while you plucked me
These flowers to smell!
These flowers to smell!Ottima. My poor lost friend!
These flowers to smell! My poor lost friend!Sebald. He gave me
Life, nothing less: what if he did reproach
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more—
Had he no right? What was to wonder at?
He sat by us at table quietly:
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched?
Could he do less than make pretence to strike?
’T is not the crime’s sake—I ’d commit ten crimes
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone!
And you—O how feel you? Feel you for me?
Ottima. Well then, I love you better now than ever,
And best (look at me while I speak to you)—
Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth,
This mask, this simulated ignorance,
This affectation of simplicity,
Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours
May not now be looked over: look it down!
Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought,
Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it!
Speak not! The past, would you give up the past
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you?
The garden’s silence: even the single bee
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped,
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula chalice set a-swing.
Who stammered—“Yes, I love you?”
Who stammered—“Yes, I love you?”Sebald. And I drew
Back; put far back your face with both my hands
