The Dynasts : Parts First And Second

m PART SECOND
Before my obligations to ray people Must stand hSr wish. Go, find her, Metternich, Take her the tidings. She is free with you, Alnd will speak out.
(Looking forth upon the terrace,)
She's here at hand, I see : I'll call her in. Then tell me what's her mind.
He beckons from the window, and goes out in another direction.
METTERNICH
So much for form's sake! Can the river-flower The current drags, direct its face up-stream ? What she must do she will; nought else at all.
Enter through one of the windows MARIA LOUISA in garden-costume, fresh-coloured, girlish, and smiling. METTERNICH bends,
MARIA LOUISA
0 how, dear Chancellor, you startled me! Please pardon my so brusquely bursting in.
1 saw you not.—Those five poor little birds ' That haunt out there beneath the pediment, Snugly defended from the north-east wind, Have lately disappeared. I sought a trace Of scattered feathers, which I dread to find!
METTERNICH
They are gone, I ween, the way of tender flesh At the assaults of winter, want, and foes.
MARIA LOUISA
It is too melancholy thinking, that!
Don't say it.—But I saw the Emperor here ?
Surely he beckoned to me ?
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