Lest you should grow too full of me—your face
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body!
Ottima. And when I ventured to receive you here,
Made you steal hither in the mornings—
Sebald.⁠When
I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here,
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread
To a yellow haze?
Ottima.⁠Ah—my sign was, the sun
Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree
Nipt by the first frost.
Sebald.⁠You would always laugh
At my wet boots: I had to stride thro' grass
Over my ankles.
Ottima.⁠Then our crowning night!
Sebald. The July night?
Ottima.⁠The day of it too, Sebald!
When the heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat,
Its black-blue canopy seemed let descend
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each,
And smother up all life except our life.
So lay we till the storm came.
Sebald.⁠How it came!
Ottima. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead;
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burnt thro' the pine-tree roof, here burnt and there,
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke
The thunder like a whole sea overhead—
Sebald. Yes!
Ottima.—While I stretched myself upon you, hands
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook