CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

MEN AND WOMEN
LXXV
IN A BALCONY
CONSTANCE and NORBERT
Norberl. Now.
Consiance. Not now.
Norbert. Give me them again, those hands-
Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs I
Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through.
You cruellest, you dearest in the world,
Let me I The Queen must grant whate'er I ask­
How can I gain you and not ask the Queen?
There she stays waiting for me, here stand you.
Some time or other this was to be asked,
Now is t he one time-what I ask, I gain-
Let me ask now, Love 1
Cons lance. Do, and ruin us.
Norbert. Let it be now, Love r All my soul breaks forth.
How I do love you I give my love its way I
A man can have but one life and one death,
One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate-
Grant me my heaven now. Let me know you mine,
Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow,
Hold you and have you, and then die away
If God please, with completion in my soul.
Constance. I am not yours then? How content this
man?
I am not his, who change into himself,
Have passed into his heart and beat its beats,
Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair,
Give all that was of me away to him
So well, that now, my spirit turned his own,
Takes part with him against the woman here,
Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw
As caring that the world be cognisant
How he loves her and how she worships him.
You have this woman, not as yet that world.
Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me
By saving what I cease to care about,
The courtly name and pride of circumstance­
The name you'll pick up and be cumbered with
Just for the poor parade's sake, nothing more j
Just that the world may slip from under you­
Just that the world may cry " So much for him-
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