Your only fruit

Your only fruit Destruction and the severing steel, the heat Of tears unshed, the ache of day and day Monotonous in want, inevitable, The dry-rot of the soul. Have you no words?

Dorette. He said—he said there were flowers in the forest, White flowers by a blue pool, Our Lady's colours. May I go for them? All white, he said, White as the Virgin's hands. But you have made her Out of red wood with a light of fire upon it. Perhaps the flowers turned red.

Shagonas. There is no fear In the forest shadows now for the fair lady.

Jean. Fear's slain with that it fed on. To your wilds, You wolf that watched the flock. I will wait here with her,— Stay, hearing a certain crying from the ground, The faint innumerable mouthing leaves, The clamour of the grass, the expectant thunder Of a berry's fall. Go you, go you. But first Turn me her head a little to the shoulder So the light takes the cheek, raise the calm hand Clasping the sword, set the door wide, and go. Now, now my Virgin's perfect. Quick, my tools! O Mater Dolorosa! O Dorette!

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae, Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

Will the light hold until they come for me?

(Curtain)