Page:Joseph and His Brethren A Pageant Play.djvu/73

 Joy to this house, whose threshold your feet have crossed.

We come to welcome the bride; we come to deck her bower with the lily and the lotus; with the red pomegranate, and with the purple passion flower.

[Gazing at ] Happy the bride, with such flowers to greet her.

[Laughing roguishly] Yet thou seest them not!

[Eagerly] I see the fairest.

[Demurely] The Shepherd of Dothan is soft of speech.

[Starting back] The Shepherd of Dothan—! Alas! I had forgotten.

[Coming towards him anxiously] What had Joseph forgotten?

I had forgotten I am a bondman to Potiphar; a stranger in Egypt; a slave; a straw, blown by the wind; a leaf floating on the water. Mine eyes are the eyes of a slave, and must see nought; my tongue is a slave's tongue, and must utter no sound [Passionately] though here—here—a man's heart be beating.

[Trying to touch him with her hand—but he avoids her touch] Poor heart! Is it beating for freedom?

It is beating—[With intense eagerness] Asenath, Asenath, they whisper that war is at hand,