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As after storm longwhelm'd and worthless weed,
Or waifs of spar from drown'd and ruin'd ships
Rise from the underseas, I fain would sleep,
Sleep till the Perfect Rose be come to bloom,
That turns an old man to his youth again!
(Sylvester sinks into sleep. The fire burns low and duskily red. The wall left grows transparent and the 'Dumb Supper' table is display'd with three mask'd figures standing about it.)
Mask'd Lady:
Well met Sylvester! On my festa day
I smell'd a nosegay by my husband sent,
Believing it my gallant's offering,
And swoon'd to death, so potent was the sweet
Of those fair-seeming flowery hypocrites.
Yet should I have been 'ware of poisons, I,
Bred of the Borgias, and to Popes akin,
