Caliban does not know himself.
When he looks in the water
flowing from the island's springs,
he does not see himself
misshapen as others do,
but as a handsome youth
who stands as straight and tall
as the Tree of Life.
Miranda laughs at his conceit
and plays along. She teaches him
the names for the smaller
and the larger light, and words
like rain and wind and night,
and only now he learns to sing:
"O sun and moon, with you I rise
each day and night, each day
I live to die, yet rise again."
Miranda hears only a stuttered song
and laughs again, but, Hark,
he now sings a lover's song,
his words as clear and charmed
as the mountain stream
to which he owes his life:
"O you who do not love
the night, whose darkness
flowers and brings delight,
Hear me! I sing for you."
Miranda blushes like a rose.