At a gap in the hedge the young Brabanter paused. His singing ended,
gulped. These two, who stood heart hammering against heart, saw for an
instant Jehan Kuypelant's lean face silvered by the moonlight, his
mouth a tiny abyss. Followed the beat of lessening footfalls, while
the nightingale improvised an envoi.
But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though in rivalry with
the bird.
Sang Jehan Kuypelant:
"Hearken and heed, Melaenis!
For all that the litany ceased
When Time had pilfered the victim,
And flouted thy pale-lipped priest,
And set astir in the temple
Where burned the fires of thy shrine
The owls and wolves of the desert--
Yet hearken, (the issue is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!
"For I have followed, nor faltered--
Adrift in a land of dreams
Where laughter and pity and terror
Commingle as confluent streams,
I have seen and adored the Sidonian,
Implacable, fair and divine--
And bending low, have implored thee
To hearken, (the issue is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!"
It is time, however, that we quit this subject and speak of other
matters.
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