QUEEN: No, I think not.
ZOON: Then how can pure love be elsewhere?
QUEEN: It is true.
ZOON: On this clear peak that just enters Heaven love is and only here. The rest is dreams.
QUEEN: Could we awake from love and find Earth true?
ZOON: No, no, no. Sweet Lady, let not such fancies alarm you.
QUEEN: And yet folks wake from dreams. It would be terrible.
ZOON: No, no, there are things too real for dreams. You cannot waken from love. Dreams are of fantastic things, things fanciful and weak, and things confused and intricate like Earth. When you think of them in your dreams you see their unreality. But if love were not real what could there be to wake to.
QUEEN: True. How wise you are. It was but a fancy that troubled me. (Looking down.) It was one of those dreams at dawn. It is faint and far-off now.
ZOON: Will you love me for ever, Golden Queen?
QUEEN: For ever. Why not? You will love me for ever?
ZOON: For ever. I cannot help it.
QUEEN: Let us look at the dream far off, in the dimness our thoughts have forsaken.
ZOON: Aye, let us look. It was a sad dream somewhat; and yet upon this peak where all is love all that we see seems happy.
QUEEN: See the dream there. Look at those. They seem to walk dreamily as they walk in the dream.
ZOON: It is because they have not love, which is only here.
QUEEN: Look! Look at those dreamers in the dream.
ZOON: They are running.
QUEEN: Oh! Look!
ZOON: They are pursued.
QUEEN: The brown ones are pursuing them with spears.
ZOON: It is Prince Meliflor, Prince Moomoomon, Prince Ximenung that run in the dream. And the Prince of Huz. The brown men are close.
QUEEN: The brown ones are overtaking them.
ZOON: Yes, they are closer.
QUEEN: Look! Prince Ximenung!
ZOON: Yes, he is dead in the dream.
QUEEN: The Prince of Huz?
ZOON: Speared.
QUEEN: Still, still they are killing them.
ZOON: It is all the Hundred Princes.
QUEEN: They are killing them all.
ZOON: A sad sight once.
QUEEN: Once?
ZOON: I should have wept once.
QUEEN: It is so far off now.
ZOON: It is so far, far off. We can only feel joy upon this holy mountain.
QUEEN: Only joy. (He sighs as he looks.) Look! (He sighs again.)
ZOON: There falls the poor Prince Meliflor.
QUEEN: How huge a thrust it was with the great spear.
ZOON: He is dead.
QUEEN: Are you not happy?
ZOON: Yes.
QUEEN: In your voice there seemed to sound some far-off thing. Some strange thing. Was it sorrow?
ZOON: No; we are too high; sorrow cannot come. No grief can touch us here, no woe drift up to us from the woes of Earth.
QUEEN: I thought there was some strange thing in your voice, like sorrows we have dreamed.
ZOON: No, Golden Queen. Those fancied sorrows of dreams cannot touch reality.
QUEEN: You will never be sorry we have woken and left the dream of Earth?
ZOON: No, glorious lady; nothing can bring me trouble ever again.
QUEEN: Not even I?
ZOON: Never you, my Golden Zoomzoomarma, for on this sacred peak where there is only love you cannot.
QUEEN: We will dwell here for ever in endless joy.
ZOON (looking down): All dead now, all the Princes.
QUEEN: Turn, my Prince, from the dream of Earth, lest trouble come up from it.
ZOON: It cannot drift up here; yet we will turn from the dream.
QUEEN: Let us think of endless joy upon the edge of heaven.
ZOON: Yes, Queen; for ever in reality while all else dream away.
QUEEN: It is the years that make them drowsy. They dream to dream the years away. Time cannot reach so high as here, the years are far below us.
ZOON: Far below us, making a dream and troubling it.
QUEEN: They do not know in the dream that only love is real.
ZOON: If time could reach us here we should pass, too. Nothing is real where time is.
QUEEN: How shall we spend the calm that time does not vex, together here for ever?
ZOON: Holding your hand. (She gives it.) And kissing it often in the calm of eternity. Sometimes watching, a moment, the dream go by; then kissing your hand again all in eternity.
QUEEN: And never wearying?
ZOON: Not while eternity lingers here in heaven.
QUEEN: Thus we will live until the dream goes by and Earth has faded under Aether Mountain.
ZOON: And then we shall watch the calm of Eternity.
QUEEN: And you will still kiss my hand at times.
ZOON: Yes, while eternity wiles Heaven away.
QUEEN: The silence is like music on Aether Mountain.
ZOON: It is because all is real. In the dream nothing was real. Music had to be made and then soon passed trembling away. Here all things always are as the desire of Earth, Earth's desire that groped among fantasies finding them false.
QUEEN: Let us forget the dream.
ZOON (kissing her hand): I have forgotten for ever.
QUEEN: Ah!
ZOON: What trouble has drifted up to you from Earth?
QUEEN: An old saying.
ZOON: It was said in the dream.
QUEEN: It was true!
[She snatches her hand away.
Ah, I remember it. It was true.
ZOON: All is unreal but love, my crownéd Zoomzoomarma. Where there was not love it cannot have been true.
[He tries to take her hand again.
QUEEN: Touch not my hand. It was true.
ZOON: What was the saying heard in the dream of Earth that was true?
QUEEN: None is worthy to touch my hand; no, none.
ZOON: By Aether Mountain, I will kiss your hand again! What is this saying out of a dream that dares deny reality?
QUEEN: It is true! Oh, it is true!
ZOON: Out of that hurried, aimless dream, that knows not its own end even, you have brought me a saying and say it against love.
QUEEN: I say it is true!
ZOON: Nothing is true against love. Fate only is greater.
QUEEN: Then it is Fate.
ZOON: Against Fate I will kiss your hand again.
QUEEN: None are worthy. No, none.
[She draws her rapier.
ZOON: I will kiss your hand again.
QUEEN: It must be this (pointing with rapier) for none are worthy.
ZOON: Though it be death I kiss your hand again.
QUEEN: It is certain death.
ZOON: Oh, Zoomzoomarma, forget that troubled dream, and things said by dreamers, while I kiss your hand in heaven if only once again.