Is your life still renewed, and spring comes back for ever
From that forge of all glory that brought forth my blessing. 
O welcome, Love’s darling:  Shall this day ever darken,
Whose dawn I have dight for thy longing triumphant?
          [Exit LOVE.  Enter AZALAIS.

AZALAIS

A song in my mouth, then? my heart full of gladness? 
My feet firm on the earth, as when youth was beginning? 
And the rest of my early days come back to bless me?—­
Who hath brought me these gifts in the midst of the May-tide? 
What!—­three days agone to the city I wandered,
And watched the ships warped to the Quay of the Merchants;
And wondered why folk should be busy and anxious;
For bitter my heart was, and life seemed a-waning,
With no story told, with sweet longing turned torment,
Love turned to abasement, and rest gone for ever. 
And last night I awoke with a pain piercing through me,
And a cry in my ears, and Death passed on before,
As one pointing the way, and I rose up sore trembling,
And by cloud and by night went before the sun’s coming,
As one goeth to death,—­and lo here the dawning! 
And a dawning therewith of a dear joy I know not. 
I have given back the day the glad greeting it gave me;
And the gladness it gave me, that too would I give
Were hands held out to crave it——­Fair valley, I greet thee,
And the new-wakened voices of all things familiar. 
—­Behold, how the mist-bow lies bright on the mountain,
Bidding hope as of old since no prison endureth. 
Full busy has May been these days I have missed her,
And the milkwort is blooming, and blue falls the speedwell. 
—­Lo, here have been footsteps in the first of the morning,
Since the moon sank all red in the mist now departed. 
—­Ah! what lieth there by the side of the highway? 
Is it death stains the sunlight, or sorrow or sickness?

          [Going up to PHARAMOND.

—­Not death, for he sleepeth; but beauty sore blemished
By sorrow and sickness, and for all that the sweeter. 
I will wait till he wakens and gaze on his beauty,
Lest I never again in the world should behold him. 
—­Maybe I may help him; he is sick and needs tending,
He is poor, and shall scorn not our simpleness surely. 
Whence came he to us-ward—­what like has his life been—­
Who spoke to him last—­for what is he longing? 
—­As one hearkening a story I wonder what cometh,
And in what wise my voice to our homestead shall bid him. 
O heart, how thou faintest with hope of the gladness
I may have for a little if there he abide. 
Soft there shalt thou sleep, love, and sweet shall thy dreams be,
And sweet thy awaking amidst of the wonder
Where thou art, who is nigh thee—­and then, when thou seest
How the rose-boughs hang in o’er the little loft window,
And the blue bowl with roses is close to thine hand,