“She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times
Over descended from her. I believe
She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin—
Making allowance, making due allowance.”

“You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!”

“See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.”

“Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t.
I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.”

“Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever.
But wait until I give you a hand up.
A bead of silver water more or less

Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks.
I wanted to try something with the noise
That the brook raises in the empty valley.
We have seen visions—now consult the voices.
Something I must have learned riding in trains
When I was young. I used the roar
To set the voices speaking out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.
Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
I’ve never listened in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle.”

“It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:
The meaning of it all is out of you;
The voices give you what you wish to hear.”

“Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.”

“Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough.
I wonder if it’s not your make-believe.
What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?”

“From the sense of our having been together—
But why take time for what I’m like to hear?
I’ll tell you what the voices really say.
You will do very well right where you are
A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried,
Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.”

“Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?”

“You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.”

“I’ll hardly breathe.”

“The voices seem to say———”

“I’m waiting.”

“Don’t! The voices seem to say:

Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”

“I let you say that—on consideration.”

“I don’t see very well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven’t had your name,
Though what a name should matter between us———”

“I shall suspect———”

“Be good. The voices say:

Call her Nausicaa,21 and take a timber
That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it
For a door-sill or other corner piece
In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
The life is not yet all gone out of it.
And come and make your summer dwelling here,
And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
And sit before you in the open door