How say ye then, Beloved?  Ye have known
The blossom of the seed these hands have sown;
Shall this man starve in sorrow’s thorny brake? 
Shall Love the faithful of his heart forsake?

In the King’s Garden.  KING PHARAMOND, MASTER OLIVER.

MASTER OLIVER

In this quiet place canst thou speak, O my King,
Where nought but the lilies may hearken our counsel?

KING PHARAMOND

What wouldst thou have of me? why came we hither?

MASTER OLIVER

Dear lord, thou wouldst speak of the woe that weighs on thee.

KING PHARAMOND

Wouldst thou bear me aback to the strife and the battle? 
Nay, hang up my banner:  ’tis all passed and over!

MASTER OLIVER

Speak but a little, lord! have I not loved thee?

KING PHARAMOND

Yea,—­thou art Oliver:  I saw thee a-lying
A long time ago with the blood on thy face,
When my father wept o’er thee for thy faith and thy valour.

MASTER OLIVER

Years have passed over, but my faith hath not failed me;
Spent is my might, but my love not departed. 
Shall not love help—­yea, look long in my eyes! 
There is no more to see if thou sawest my heart.

KING PHARAMOND

Yea, thou art Oliver, full of all kindness! 
Have patience, for now is the cloud passing over—­
Have patience and hearken—­yet shalt thou be shamed.

MASTER OLIVER

Thou shalt shine through thy shame as the sun through the haze
When the world waiteth gladly the warm day a-coming: 
As great as thou seem’st now, I know thee for greater
Than thy deeds done and told of:  one day I shall know thee: 
Lying dead in my tomb I shall hear the world praising.

KING PHARAMOND

Stay thy praise—­let me speak, lest all speech depart from me. 
—­There is a place in the world, a great valley
That seems a green plain from the brow of the mountains,
But hath knolls and fair dales when adown there thou goest: 
There are homesteads therein with gardens about them,
And fair herds of kine and grey sheep a-feeding,
And willow-hung streams wend through deep grassy meadows,
And a highway winds through them from the outer world coming: 
Girthed about is the vale by a grey wall of mountains,
Rent apart in three places and tumbled together
In old times of the world when the earth-fires flowed forth: