THE 
 
 WORKS OF CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 VOLUME 1. 
 
 POEMS, 
 
Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree. 
 
 [The following ballad was written by Charles Kings- 
 ley while on his visit to the United States. It was the last 
 thing that Mr. Kingsley wrote, and is not usually to be 
 f-jiinu in the published editions of his works.] 
 
 ' 'Ar? you ready tVr yn'ir steeple chase, Lorraine* 
 
 Lorraine, Lori 
 Barum, Baruna, Barum, Barum, Barum,* Baram, 
 
 Laree. 
 Vou're hacked to ride your capping race today at 
 
 Coulterl -. 
 ! Von're booked to ride Vindictive, for all the- world 
 
 . 
 To keep him straight and keep him first, and win the 
 
 run for ine. 
 
 Baruui, Baruui, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, ' 
 Barce. 
 
 " ." ; hc > clapped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, 
 
 Lorraine, Lorree, 
 
 Barum. Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, 
 Bareo. 
 
 'I cannot ride Vindictive, ns any man might see, 
 And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on 
 
 my knee; 
 
 He's killed a boy. he's killed a man, and why must 
 he kill mt?' 
 
 "'Unless you rule Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine. 
 
 Lorree. 
 
 Unless you ride Vindictive, to-day at Coulterlee, 
 And land him safe across the brook, and win the 
 
 blank for me. 
 It's you may keep your baby, for you'll get no help 
 
 from me.' 
 
 "'That husbands could be cruel.' said Lorraine, 
 
 Lorraine, Lorreo, 
 'That husband? could ba cruel, I have known for sea- 
 
 scns three; 
 
 B.'.t <>h! to ride Vindictive while a baby cries for me, 
 And be killc-d across a fence at la^t, for all the 
 
 world to see!' 
 
 mastered young Vindictive. Ch! the gallant 
 la-- wti.< she, 
 
 And kept him straight and won th? race as near as 
 near could be ; 
 
 Bat he-killed her at the brook against a pollard wil- 
 low tre?, 
 
 Oli! he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the 
 wti.ld to see, 
 
 And no one b:it the baby cried for poor Lorraine. 
 Loi 
 
THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 L I B R A U. Y 
 
 UN I V KKSITY < 
 
 CALIFOR? 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1879. 
 
POEMS. 
 
POEMS; 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 THE SAINTS TRAGEDY, ANDROMEDA, 
 SONGS, BALLADS, &c. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 '/> '< 
 
 COLLECTED EDITION. 
 
 OA 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 1879 
 
 Right qf Translation and Reproduction is Reset ved 
 
93 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R CLAY, SONS. AND TAYLOR, 
 BREAD STREET HILL, E.G. 
 
 f r fro 
 
Wait. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY 3 
 
 ANDROMEDA . , . , , . . . . . 181 
 
 SONGS, BALLADS, ETC. 
 
 I/The Sands of Dee 211 
 
 The Three Fishers 212 
 
 TheOubit 213 
 
 The Tide Rock 214 
 
 The Starlings 214 
 
 Sonnet 215 
 
 A March 215 
 
 Airly Beacon 216 
 
 A Farewell 216 
 
 Elegiacs 217 
 
 Dartside. 1849 218 
 
 A Lament 219 < 
 
 Margaret to Dolcino . 219 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 SONGS, BALLADS, ETC. (continued}. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dolcino to Margaret 220 
 
 The Ugly Princess 221 
 
 Sonnet 222 
 
 The Longbeards' Saga. A.D. 400. 223 
 
 Song 228 
 
 Frank Leigh's Song. A.D. 1586 229 
 
 The Last Buccanier 230 
 
 Sappho 232 
 
 ? Ode to the North-East Wind 233 
 
 To G * * * 236 
 
 Saint Maura. A.D. 304. . 237 
 
 POEMS CONNECTED WITH 1848-9. 
 
 The Night Bird . . . 247 
 
 The Watchman 248 
 
 The World's Age 249 
 
 A Christmas Carol 250 
 
 ^ The Dead Church 251 
 
 A Parable from Liebig 251 
 
 My Hunting Song 252 
 
 ^> Alton Locke's Song. 1848 253 
 
 The Bad Squire . 254 
 
 On the Death of a certain Journal 257 
 
 A Thought from the Rhine 258 
 
 The Day of the Lord , . . . 259 
 
Contents. ix 
 EARLY POEMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In an Illuminated Missal 263 
 
 The Weird Lady 264 
 
 Palinodia. 1841 266 
 
 A Hope 267 
 
 A New Forest Ballad 268 
 
 The Red King 270 
 
 The Outlaw 273 
 
 Sing Heigh-ho ! 276 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Ode 279 
 
 Songs from " The Water Babies " 284 
 
 The Knight's Leap 287 
 
 Easter Week 289 
 
 Christmas Day. 1868 290 
 
 The Song of the Little Baltung 294 
 
 To the Authoress of " Our Village " 300 
 
 September 2ist, 1870 300 
 
 The Mango-Tree 301 
 
 The Priest's Heart 303 
 
 Valentine's Day. 1873 304 
 
POEMS. 
 
B K A R 
 
 UNI VKK.siTY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 
 THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE story which I have here put into a dramatic form 
 is one familiar to Romanists, and perfectly and circum- 
 stantially authenticated. Abridged versions of it, care- 
 fully softened and sentimentalized, may be read in any 
 Romish collection of Lives of the Saints. An enlarged 
 edition has been published in France, I believe by Count 
 Montalembert, and translated, with illustrations, by an 
 English gentleman, which admits certain miracutous 
 legends, of later date, and, like other prodigies, worthless 
 to the student of human character. From consulting this 
 work I have hitherto abstained, in order that I might draw 
 my facts and opinions, entire and unbiassed, from the 
 original Biography of Elizabeth, by Dietrich of Appold, 
 her contemporary, as given entire by Canisius. 
 
 Dietrich was born in Thuringia, near the scene of 
 Elizabeth's labours, a few years before her death; had 
 conversed with those who had seen her, and calls to 
 witness " God and the elect angels," that he had inserted 
 nothing but what he had either understood from religious 
 and veracious persons, or read in approved writings, viz., 
 " The Book of the Sayings of Elizabeths Four Ladies 
 (Guta, Isentrudis, and two others} n j " The Letter which 
 Conrad of Marpurg, her Director, wrote to Pope Gregory 
 the Ninth" (these two documents still exist) ; " The 
 Sermon of Otto" (de Or dine Prcedic), which begins thus: 
 " Mu Herein for tern" 
 
 B 2 
 
4 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 " Not satisfied with these," he " visited monasteries, 
 castles, and towns, interrogated the most aged and vera- 
 cious persons, and wrote letters, seeking for completeness 
 and truth in all things ;" and thus composed his biography, 
 from which that in Surius (Acta Sanctoruin), Jacobus de 
 Voragine, Alban Butler, and all others which I have seen, 
 are copied with a very few additions and many prudent 
 omissions. 
 
 Wishing to adhere strictly to historical truth, I have 
 followed the received account, not only in the incidents, 
 but often in the language which it attributes to its various 
 characters ; and have given in the Notes all necessary 
 references to the biography in Canisius's collection. My 
 part has therefore been merely to show how the conduct 
 of my heroine was not only possible, but to a certain 
 degree necessary, for a character of earnestness and 
 piety such as hers, working under the influences of the 
 Middle Age. 
 
 In deducing fairly, from the phenomena of her life, the 
 character of Elizabeth, she necessarily became a type of 
 two great mental struggles of the Middle Age ; first, of 
 that between Scriptural or unconscious, and Popish or 
 conscious, purity: in a word, between innocence and 
 prudery ; next, of the struggle between healthy human 
 affection, and the Manichean contempt with which a 
 celibate clergy would have all men regard the names of 
 husband, wife, and parent. To exhibit this latter falsehood 
 in its miserable consequences, when received into a heart 
 of insight and determination sufficient to follow out all 
 belief to its ultimate practice, is the main object of my 
 Poem. That a most degrading and agonizing contradic- 
 tion on these points must have existed in the mind of 
 Elizabeth, and of all who with similar characters shall 
 have found themselves under similar influences, is a 
 necessity that must be evident to all who know anything 
 of the deeper affections of men. In the idea of a married 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 Romish saint, these miseries should follow logically from 
 the Romish view of human relations. In Elizabeth's case 
 their existence is proved equally logically from the 
 acknowledged facts of her conduct. 
 
 I may here observe, that if I have in no case made her 
 allude to the Virgin Mary, and exhibited the sense of 
 infinite duty and loyalty to Christ alone, as the mainspring 
 of all her noblest deeds, it is merely in accordance with 
 Dietrich's biography. The omission of all Mariolatry is 
 remarkable. My business is to copy that omission, as I 
 should in the opposite case have copied the introduction 
 of Virgin-worship into the original tale. The business 
 of those who make Mary, to women especially, the com- 
 plete substitute for the Saviour I had almost said, for 
 all Three Persons of the Trinity, is to explain, if they 
 can, her non-appearance in this case. 
 
 Lewis, again, I have drawn as I found him, possessed 
 of all virtues but those of action ; in knowledge, in moral 
 courage, in spiritual attainment, infinitely inferior to his 
 wife, and depending on her to be taught to pray ; giving 
 her higher faculties nothing to rest on in himself, and 
 leaving the noblest offices of a husband to be supplied 
 by a spiritual director. He thus becomes a type of the 
 husbands of the Middle Age, and of the woman-worship 
 of chivalry. Woman-worship, " the honour due to the 
 weaker vessel," is indeed of God, and woe to the nation 
 and to the man in whom it dies. But in the Middle Age, 
 this feeling had no religious root, by which it could connect 
 itself rationally, either with actual wedlock or with the 
 noble yearnings of men's spirits, and it therefore could 
 not but die down into a semi-sensual dream of female- 
 saint-worship, or fantastic idolatry of mere physical 
 beauty, leaving the women themselves an easy prey to the 
 intellectual allurements of the more educated and subtle 
 priesthood. 
 
 In Conrad's case, again, I have fancied that I discover 
 
6 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 in the various notices of his life, a noble nature warped 
 and blinded by its unnatural exclusions from those family 
 ties through which we first discern or describe God and 
 our relations to Him, and forced to concentrate his whole 
 faculties in the service, not so much of a God of Truth 
 as of a Catholic system. In his character will be found, 
 I hope, some implicit apology for the failings of such truly 
 great men as Dunstan, Becket, and Dominic, and of many 
 more whom, if we hate, we shall never understand, while 
 we shall be but too likely, in our own way, to copy them. 
 
 Walter of Varila, a more fictitious character, represents 
 the "healthy animalism" of the Teutonic mind, with its 
 mixture of deep earnestness and hearty merriment. His 
 dislike of priestly sentimentalities is no anachronism. 
 Even in his day, a noble lay-religion, founded on faith in 
 the divine and universal symbolism of humanity and 
 nature, was gradually arising, and venting itself, from time 
 to time, as I conceive, through many most unsuspected 
 channels, through chivalry, through the minne-singers, 
 through the lay inventors, or rather importers, of pointed 
 architecture, through the German school of painting, 
 through the politics of the free towns, till it attained com- 
 plete freedom in Luther and his associate reformers. 
 
 For my fantastic quotations of Scripture, if they shall 
 be deemed irreverent, I can only say, that they were the 
 fashion of the time, from prince to peasant that there is 
 scarcely 'one of them with which I have not actually met 
 in the writings of the period that those writings abound 
 with misuse of Scripture, far more coarse, arbitraiy, and 
 ridiculous, than any which I have dared to insert that I 
 had no right to omit so radical a characteristic of the 
 Middle Age. 
 
 For the more coarse and homely passages with which 
 the drama is interspersed, I must make the same apology. 
 I put them there because they were there because the 
 Middle Age was, in the gross, a coarse barbarous, and 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 profligate age because it was necessary, in order to bring 
 out fairly the beauty of the central character, to show " the 
 crooked and perverse generation," in which she was " a 
 child of God without rebuke." It was, in fact, the very 
 ferocity and foulness of the time which, by a natural 
 revulsion, called forth at the same time, the Apostolic 
 holiness and the Manichean asceticism of the Mediaeval 
 Saints. The world was so bad, that, to be Saints at all, 
 they were compelled to go out of the world. It was 
 necessary, moreover, in depicting the poor man's patro- 
 ness, to show the material on which she worked ; and 
 those who know the poor, know also that we can no more 
 judge truly of their characters in the presence of their 
 benefactors, than we can tell by seeing clay in the potter's 
 hands what it was in its native pit These scenes have, 
 therefore, been laid principally in Elizabeth's absence, in 
 order to preserve their only use and meaning. 
 
 So rough and commoi* a life-picture of the Middle Age, 
 will, I am afraid, whether faithful or not, be far from 
 acceptable to whose who take their notions of that period 
 principally from such exquisite dreams as the fictions of 
 Fouque", and of certain moderns whose graceful minds, like 
 some enchanted well, 
 
 In whose calm depths the pure and beautiful 
 Alone are mirrored, 
 
 are, on account of their very sweetness and simplicity, 
 singularly unfitted to convey any true likeness of the 
 coarse and stormy Middle Age. I have been already 
 accused, by others than Romanists, of profaning this 
 whole subject i.e. of telling the whole truth, pleasant or 
 not, about it. But really, time enough has been lost in 
 ignorant abuse of that period, and time enough also, 
 lately, in blind adoration of it. When shall we learn to 
 see it as it was ? the dawning manhood of Europe rich 
 with all the tenderness, the simplicity, the enthusiasm of 
 
3 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 youth but also darkened, alas ! with its full share of 
 youth's precipitance and extravagance, fierce passions, 
 and blind self-will its virtues and its vices colossal, and, 
 for that very reason, always haunted by the twin-imp of 
 the colossal the caricatured. 
 
 Lastly, the many miraculous stories which the biographer 
 of Elizabeth relates of her, I had no right, for the sake of 
 truth, to interweave in the plot, while it was necessary to 
 indicate, at least, their existence. I have, therefore, put 
 such of them as seemed least absurd into the mouth of 
 Conrad, to whom, in fact, they owe their original publica- 
 tion, and have done so, as I hope, not without a just 
 ethical purpose. 
 
 Such was my idea : of the inconsistencies and short- 
 comings of this its realization, no one can ever be so 
 painfully sensible as I am already myself. If, however } 
 this book shall cause one Englishman honestly to ask 
 himself, " I, as a Protestant, have been accustomed to 
 assert the purity and dignity of the offices of husband, 
 wife, and parent. Have I ever examined the grounds of 
 my own assertion ? Do I believe them to be as callings 
 from God, spiritual, sacramental, divine, eternal ? Or am 
 I at heart regarding and using them, like the Papist, 
 merely as heaven's indulgences to the infirmities of fallen 
 man ?" then will my book have done its work 
 
 If, again, it shall deter one young man from the 
 example of those miserable dilettanti, who in books and 
 sermons are whimpering meagre second-hand praises of 
 celibacy depreciating as carnal and degrading those 
 tamily ties to which they owe their own existence, and in 
 the enjoyment of which they themselves all the while 
 unblushingly indulge insulting thus their own wives and 
 mothers nibbling ignorantly at the very root of that 
 household purity which constitutes the distinctive supe- 
 riority of Protestant over Popish nations again my 
 book will have done its work. 
 
Introduction. 9 
 
 If, lastly, it shall awaken one pious Protestant to recog- 
 nise, in some, at least, of the Saints of the Middle Age, 
 beings not only of the same passions, but of the same 
 Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, as themselves, 
 Protestants, not the less deep and true, because utterly 
 unconscious and practical mighty witnesses against 
 the two antichrists of their age the tyranny of feudal 
 caste, and the phantoms which Popery substitutes for the 
 living Christ then also will my little book indeed have 
 done its work. 
 
 C 1C 
 
 1848. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 VN iv KI;.<IT v 
 (MA {<' 
 
CHARACTERS. 
 
 ELIZABETH, daughter of the King of Hungary. 
 
 LEWIS, Landgrave of Thuringia, betrothed to her in 
 
 childhood. 
 
 HENRY, brother of Lewis. 
 WALTER of Varila, 
 RUDOLF the Cupbearer, 
 LEUTOLF of Erlstetten, . T; 
 HARTWIG of Erba, } Vassah J Lewis ' 
 
 COUNT HUGO, 
 COUNT OF SAYM, &c. 
 CONRAD of Marpurg, a Monk, the Pope's Commissioner 
 
 for tJie suppression of heresy. 
 GERARD, his Chaplain. 
 
 BISHOP OF BAMBERG, uncle of Elizabeth, &c. &*c. 
 SOPHIA, Dowager Landgravine. 
 AGNES, lier daughter, sister of Lewis. 
 ISENTRUDIS, Elizabeth's nurse. 
 GUTA, her favourite maiden. 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 The Scene lies principally in Eisenach, and the Wart- 
 burg ; changing afterwards to Bamberg, and finally to 
 Marpurg. 
 
PROEM. 
 
 (EPIMETHEUS.) 
 
 WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages, 
 
 Speak again, beloved primaeval creeds ; 
 Flash ancestral spirit from your pages, 
 
 Wake the greedy age to noble deeds. 
 
 i 
 
 II. 
 
 Tell us, how of old our saintly mothers 
 Schooled themselves by vigil, fast, and prayer ; 
 
 Learnt to love as Jesus loved before them, 
 While they bore the cross which poor men bear. 
 
 ill. 
 
 Tell us how our stout crusading fathers 
 
 Fought and died for God, and not for gold ; 
 
 Let their love, their faith, their boyish daring, 
 Distance-mellowed, gild the days of old. 
 
 Tell us how the sexless workers, thronging, 
 Angel-tended, round the convent doors, 
 
 Wrought to Christian faith and holy order 
 Savage hearts alike and barren moors. 
 
 v. 
 
 Ye who built the churches where we worship, 
 Ye who framed the laws by which we move, 
 
 Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken, 
 Oh ! forgive the children of your love ! 
 
12 Proem. 
 
 (PROMETHEUS.) 
 i. 
 
 Speak ! but ask us not to be as ye were i 
 All but God is changing day by day. 
 
 He who breathes on man the plastic spirit, 
 Bids us mould ourselves its robe of clay. 
 
 II. 
 
 Old anarchic floods of revolution, 
 Drowning ill and good alike in night, 
 
 Sink, and bare the wrecks of ancient labour, 
 Fossil-teeming, to the searching light. 
 
 in. 
 
 There will we find laws, which shall interpret, 
 Through the simpler past, existing life ; 
 
 Delving up from mines and fairy caverns 
 Charmed blades, to cut the age's strife. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What though fogs may stream from draining waters ? 
 
 We will till the clays to mellow loam ; 
 Wake the graveyard of our fathers' spirits ; 
 
 Clothe its crumbling mounds with blade and bloom. 
 
 v. 
 
 Old decays but foster new creations ; 
 
 Bones and ashes feed the golden corn ; 
 Fresh elixirs wander every moment, 
 
 Down the veins through which the live past feeds 
 its child, the live unborn. 
 

 I.IW" 
 
 ,x,v *"' 
 
 sss^cs 
 
 THE SAINTS TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT L 
 SCENE I. A.D. 1220. 
 
 The Doorway of a closed Chapel in the Wartbitrg. 
 ELIZABETH sitting on the Steps. 
 
 ELIZ. Baby Jesus, who dost lie 
 Far above that stormy sky, 
 In Thy mother's pure caress, 
 Stoop and save the motherless. 
 
 Happy birds ! whom Jesus leaves 
 Underneath his sheltering eaves ; 
 There they go to play and sleep, 
 May not I go in to weep ? 
 
 All without is mean and small, 
 All within is vast and tall ; 
 All without is harsh and shrill, 
 All within is hushed and still. 
 
 Jesus, let me enter in, 
 Wrap me safe from noise and sin. 
 Let me list the angels' songs, 
 See the picture of Thy wrongs ; 
 
 Let me kiss Thy wounded feet, 
 Drink Thine incense, faint and sweet, 
 While the clear bells call Thee down 
 From Thine everlasting throne. 
 
14 77^ Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 At Thy door-step low I bend, 
 Who have neither kin nor friend ; 
 Let me here a shelter find, 
 Shield the shorn lamb from the wind. 
 
 Jesu, Lord, my heart will break : 
 Save me for Thy great love's sake ! 
 
 Enter ISENTRUDIS. 
 
 ISEN. Aha ! I had missed my little bird from the nest, 
 And judged that she was here. What's this ? fie, tears ? 
 
 ELIZ. Go ! you despise me like the rest. 
 
 ISEN. Despise you? 
 
 What's here ? King Andrew's child ? St. John's sworn 
 
 maid ? 
 
 Who dares despise you ? Out upon these Saxons ! 
 They sang another note when I was younger, 
 When from the rich East came my queenly pearl, 
 Lapt on this fluttering heart, while mighty heroes 
 Rode by her side, and far behind us stretched 
 The barbs and sumpter mules, a royal train, 
 Laden with silks and furs, and priceless gems, 
 Wedges of gold, and furniture of silver, 
 Fit for my princess. 
 
 ELIZ. Hush now, I've heard all, nurse, 
 
 A thousand times. 
 
 ISEN. Oh, how their hungry mouths 
 
 Did water at the booty ! Such a prize, 
 Since the three Kings came wandering into Coin, 
 They ne'er saw, nor their fathers ; well they knew it ! 
 Oh, how they fawned on us ! " Great Isentrudis !" 
 " Sweet babe !" The Landgravine did thank her saints 
 As if you, or your silks, had fallen from heaven ; 
 And now she wears your furs, and calls us gipsies. 
 Come tell your nurse your griefs ; we'll weep together, 
 Strangers in this strange land. 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 1 5 
 
 ELIZ. I am most friendless. 
 
 The Landgravine and Agnes you may see them 
 Begrudge the food I eat, and call me friend 
 Of knaves and serving-maids ; the burly knights 
 Freeze me with cold blue eyes : no saucy page 
 But points and whispers, " There goes our pet nun ; 
 Would but her saintship leave her gold behind, 
 We'd give herself her furlough." Save me ! save me ! 
 All here are ghastly dreams ; dead masks of stone, 
 And you and I, and Guta, only live : 
 Your eyes alone have souls. I shall go mad ! 
 Oh ! that they would but leave me all alone, 
 To teach poor girls, and work within my chamber, 
 With mine own thoughts, and all the gentle angels 
 Which glance about my dreams at morning-tide ; 
 Then I should be as happy as the birds 
 Which sing at my bower window. Once I longed 
 To be beloved, now would they but forget me ! 
 Most vile I must be, or they could not hate me ! 
 
 I SEN. They are of this world, thou art not, poor child, 
 Therefore they hate thee, as they did thy betters. 
 
 ELIZ. But, Lewis, nurse ? 
 
 I SEN. He, child ? he is thy knight ; 
 
 Espoused from childhood : thou hast a claim upon him. 
 One that thou'lt need, alas ! though, I remember 
 ; Tis fifteen years agone when in one cradle 
 We laid two fair babes for a marriage token ; 
 And when your lips met, then you smiled, and twined 
 Your little limbs together. Pray the Saints 
 That token stand! He calls thee love and sister, 
 And brings thee gew-gaws from the wars : that's much ! 
 At least he's thine if thou love him. 
 
 ELIZ. If I love him? 
 
 What is this love ? Why, is he not my brother 
 And I his sister ? Till these weary wars, 
 The one of us without the other never 
 
1 6 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Did weep or laugh : what is't should change us now ? 
 You shake your head and smile. 
 
 I SEN. Go to ; the chafe 
 
 Comes not by wearing chains, but feeling them. 
 
 ELIZ. Alas ! here comes a knight across the court ; 
 O, hide me, nurse ! What's here ? this door is fast. 
 
 ISEN. Nay, 'tis a friend : he brought my princess hither, 
 Walter of Varila ; I feared him once 
 He used to mock our state, and say, good wine 
 Should want no bush, and that the cage was gay, 
 But that the bird must sing before he praised it. 
 Yet he's a kind heart, while his bitter tongue 
 Awes these court popinjays at times to manners. 
 He will smile sadly too, when he meets my maiden ; 
 And once he said, he was your liegeman sworn, 
 Since my lost mistress, weeping, to his charge 
 Trusted the babe she saw no more. God help us ! 
 
 ELIZ. How did my mother die, nurse? 
 
 ISEN. She died, my child. 
 
 ELIZ. But how? Why turn away? 
 
 Too long I've guessed at some dread mystery 
 I may not hear : and in my restless dreams, 
 Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout 
 Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands, 
 Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns 
 As to a mother. There's some fearful tie 
 Between me and that spirit-world, which God 
 Brands with his terrors on my troubled mind. 
 Speak ! tell me, nurse ! is she in heaven or hell ? 
 
 ISEN. God knows, my child : there are masses for her 
 
 soul, 
 Each day in every Zingar minster sung. 
 
 ELIZ. But was she holy ? Died she in the Lord ? 
 
 ISEN. (weeps.} Oh, God ! my child ! And if I told 
 
 thee all, 
 How couldst thou mend it? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 17 
 
 El.iz. Mend it ? Oh, my Saviour ! 
 
 Pd die a saint ! 
 
 Win heaven for her by prayers, and build great minsters, 
 Chantries, and hospitals for her ; wipe out 
 By mighty deeds our race's guilt and shame 
 But thus, poor witless orphan ! ( Weeps]. 
 
 COUNT WALTER enters. 
 
 WAL. Ah ! my princess ! accept your liegeman's knee ; 
 Down, down, rheumatic flesh ! 
 
 ELIZ. Ah ! Count Walter ! you are too tall to kneel to 
 little girls. 
 
 WAL. What ? shall two hundred weight of hypocrisy 
 bow down to his four-inch wooden saint, and the same 
 weight of honesty not worship his four-foot live one? 
 And I have a jest for you, shall make my small queen 
 merry and wise. 
 
 I SEN. You shall jest long before she's merry. 
 
 WAL. Ah ! dowers and dowagers again ! The money 
 root of all evil. 
 
 What comes here ? [A Page enters. 
 
 A long- winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze ? 
 How these young pea-chicks must needs ape the grown 
 peacock's frippery ! Prithee, now, how many such butter- 
 flies as you suck here together on the thistle-head of 
 royalty ? 
 
 PAGE. Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir apostles of 
 the blind archer, Love owning no divinity but almighty 
 beauty no faith, no hope, no charity, but those which 
 are kindled at her eyes. 
 
 WAL. Saints ! what's all this ? 
 
 PAGE. Ah, Sir ! none but countrymen swear by the 
 saints now-a-days : no oaths but allegorical ones, Sir, at 
 the high table ; as thus," By the sleeve of beauty, 
 Madam ;" or again, " By Love his martyrdoms, Sir Count ;" 
 or to a potentate, " As Jove's imperial mercy shall hear 
 my vows, High Mightiness." 
 C 
 
1 3 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 WAL. Where did the evil one set you on finding 
 heathenry ? 
 
 PAGE. Oh ! we are all barristers of Love's court, Sir ; 
 we have Ovid's gay science conned, Sir, ad unguentum, 
 as they say, out of the French book. 
 
 WAL. So ? There are those come from Rome then will 
 whip you and Ovid out with the same rod which the 
 dandies of Provence felt lately to their sorrow. Oh ! what 
 blinkards are we gentlemen, to train any dumb beasts 
 more carefully than we do Christians ; that a man shall 
 keep his dog-breakers, and his horse-breakers, and his 
 hawk-breakers, and never hire him a boy-breaker or two ! 
 that we should live without a qualm at dangling such a flock 
 of mimicking parroquets at our heels a while, and then, 
 when they are well infected, well perfumed with the wind 
 of our vices, dropping them off, as tadpoles do their tails, 
 joint by joint into the mud ! to strain at such gnats as an 
 ill-mouthed colt or a riotous puppy, and swallow that 
 camel of camels, a page ! 
 
 PAGE. Do you call me a camel, Sir ? 
 
 WAL. What's your business ? 
 
 PAGE. My errand is to the princess here. 
 
 ELIZ. To me ? 
 
 PAGE. Yes ; the Landgravine expects you at high mass ; 
 so go in, and mind you clean yourself; for every one is 
 not as fond as you of beggars' brats, and what their clothes 
 leave behind them. 
 
 ISEN. (Strikes hint]. Monkey ! To whom are you 
 speaking ? 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, peace, peace, peace ! I'll go with him. 
 
 PAGE. Then be quick, my music-master's waiting. 
 Corpo di Bacco ! as if our elders did not teach us to whom 
 we ought to be rude ! \Ex. ELIZ. and PAGE. 
 
 ISEN. See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price 
 Is faring in your hands ! The peerless image, 
 To whom this court is but the tawdry frame, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 19 
 
 The speck of light amid its murky baseness, 
 The salt which keeps it all from rotting, cast 
 To be the common fool, the laughing stock 
 For every beardless knave to whet his wit on ! 
 Tar-blooded Germans ! Here's another of them. 
 
 \_A young Knight enters. 
 
 KNIGHT. Heigh ! Count ! What ? learning to sing 
 
 psalms ? They are waiting 
 
 For you in the manage-school, to give your judgment 
 On that new Norman mare. 
 
 WAL. Tell them I'm busy. 
 
 KNIGHT. Busy ? St. Martin ! Knitting stockings, eh ? 
 To clothe the poor withal ? Is that your business ? 
 I passed that canting baby on the stairs ; 
 Would heaven that she had tripped, and broke her goose- 
 neck, 
 \nd left us heirs de facto. So, farewell. [Exit. 
 
 WAL. A very pretty quarrel ! matter enough 
 To spoil a waggon load of ash-staves on, 
 And break a dozen fools' backs across their cantlets. 
 What's Lewis doing? 
 
 ISEN. Oh Befooled, 
 
 Bewitched with dogs and horses, like an idiot 
 Clutching his bauble, while a priceless jewel 
 Sticks at his miry heels. 
 
 WAL. The boy's no fool, 
 
 As good a heart as hers, but somewhat given 
 To hunt the nearest butterfly, and light 
 The fire of fancy without hanging o'er it 
 The porridge-pot of practice. He shall hear on't. 
 
 ISEN. And quickly, for there's treason in the wind. 
 They'll keep her dower, and send her home with shame 
 Before the year's out. 
 
 WAL. Humph ! Some are rogues enough for't. As 
 it falls out, I ride with him to-day. 
 
 ISEN. Upon what business ? 
 c 2 
 
2O The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 WAL. Some shaveling has been telling him that there 
 are heretics on his land : Stadings, worshippers of black 
 cats, baby-eaters, and such like. He consulted me ; I 
 told him it would be time enough to see to the heretics, 
 when all the good Christians had been well looked after. 
 I suppose the novelty of the thing smit him, for now 
 nothing will serve but I must ride with him round half a 
 dozen hamlets, where, with God's help, I will show him a 
 mansty or two, that shall astonish his delicate chivalry. 
 
 ISEN. Oh, here's your time ! Speak to him, noble 
 
 Walter. 
 
 Stun his dull ears with praises of her grace ; 
 Prick his dull heart with shame at his own coldness. 
 Oh, right us, Count. 
 
 WAL. I will, I will : go in 
 
 And dry your eyes. {Exeunt separately. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 A Landscape in Thuringia. LEWIS and WALTER riding, 
 
 LEW. So all these lands are mine ; these yellow meads 
 These village greens, and forest-fretted hills, 
 With dizzy castles crowned. Mine ! Why that word 
 Is rich in promise, in the action bankrupt. 
 What faculty of mine, save dream-fed pride, 
 Can these things fatten ? Mass ! I had forgot : 
 I have a right to bark at trespassers. 
 Rare privilege ! While every fowl and bush, 
 According to its destiny and nature, 
 (Which were they truly mine, my power could alter) 
 Will live, and grow, and take no thought of me. 
 Those firs, before whose stealthy-marching ranks 
 The world-old oaks still dwindle and retreat, 
 If I could stay their poisoned frown, which cows 
 The pale shrunk underwood, and nestled seeds 
 Into an age of sleep, 'twere something: and those men 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 2 r 
 
 O'er whom that one word " ownership" uprears me 
 
 If I could make them lift a ringer up 
 
 But of their own free will, I'd own my seizin. 
 
 But now when if I sold them, life and limb, 
 
 There's not a sow would litter one pig less 
 
 Than when men called her mine. Possession's naught ; 
 
 A parchment ghost ; a word I am ashamed 
 
 To claim even here, lest all the forest spirits, 
 
 And bees who drain unasked the free-born flowers, 
 
 Should mock, and cry, " Vain man, not thine, but ours." 
 
 WAL. Possession's naught? Possession's beef and ale 
 Soft bed, fair wife, gay horse, good steel. Are they 
 
 naught ? 
 
 Possession means to sit astride of the world, 
 Instead of having it astride of you ; 
 Is that naught ? J Tis the easiest trade of all too ; 
 For he that's fit for nothing else, is fit 
 To own good land, and on the slowest dolt 
 His state sits easiest, while his serfs thrive best. 
 
 LEW. How now? What need then of long discipline, 
 Not to mere feats of arms, but feats of soul ; 
 To courtesies and high self-sacrifice, 
 To order and obedience, and the grace 
 Which makes commands, requests, and service, favour ? 
 To faith and prayer, and pure thoughts, ever turned 
 To that Valhalla, where the virgin saints 
 And stainless heroes tend the Queen of heaven ? 
 Why these, if I but need, like stalled ox 
 To chew the grass cut for me ? 
 
 WAL. Why? Because 
 
 I have trained thee for a knight, boy, not a ruler. 
 All callings want their proper 'prentice timt 
 But this of ruling ; it comes by mother-wit ; 
 And if the wk be not exceeding great, 
 'Tis best the wit be most exceeding small ; 
 And he that holds the reins should let the horse 
 
22 Ttie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Range on, feed where he will, live and let live. 
 Custom and selfishness will keep all steady 
 For half a life. Six months before you die 
 You may begin to think of interfering. 
 
 LEW. Alas ! while each day blackens with fresh 
 
 clouds, 
 
 Complaints of ague, fever, crumbling huts, 
 Of land thrown out to the forest, game and keepers, 
 Bailiffs and barons, plundering all alike ; 
 Need, greed, stupidity : To clear such ruin 
 Would task the rich prime of some noble hero 
 But can I nothing do ? 
 
 WAL. Oh ! plenty, Sir ; 
 
 Which no man yet has done or e'er will do. 
 It rest with you, whether the priest be honoured ; 
 It rests with you, whether the knight be knightly ; 
 It rests with you, whether those fields grow corn ; 
 It rests with you, whether those toiling peasants 
 Lift to their masters free and loyal eyes, 
 Or crawl, like jaded hacks, to welcome graves. 
 It rests with you and will rest. 
 
 LEW. Fll crowd my court and dais with men of God, 
 As doth my peerless namesake, King of France. 
 
 WAL. Priests, Sir? The Frenchman keeps two coun- 
 sellors 
 Worth any drove of priests. 
 
 LEW. And who are they ? 
 
 WAL. God and his lady-love. (Aside}. He'll open at 
 that 
 
 LEW. I could be that man's squire. 
 
 WAL. (Aside). Again run riot 
 
 Now for another cast. (Aloud]. If you'd sleep sound. 
 
 Sir, 
 You'll let priests pray for you, but' school you never. 
 
 LEW. Mass ' who more fitted ? 
 
 WAL. None, if you could trust them ; 
 
'</,. 
 
 f '%! 
 
 The Saint's Tragedy. -^l'/ 
 
 () l k 
 
 But they are the people's creatures ; poor men give 
 
 them 
 
 Their power at the church, and take it back at the ale- 
 house : 
 
 Then what's the friar to the starving peasant ? 
 Just what the abbot is to the greedy noble 
 A scarecrow to lear wolves. Go ask the churchplate, 
 Safe in knight's cellars, how these priests are feared. 
 Bruised reeds when you most need them. No, my Lord ; 
 Copy them, trust them never. 
 
 LEW. Copy ? wherein ? 
 
 WAL. In letting every man 
 
 Do what he likes, and only seeing he does it 
 As you do you work well. That's the Church secret 
 For breeding towns, as fast as you breed roe-deer ; 
 Example, but not meddling. See that hollow 
 I knew it once all heath, and deep peat-bog 
 I drowned a black mare in that self-same spot 
 Hunting with your good father : Well, he gave 
 One jovial night, to six poor Erfurt monks 
 Six picked-visaged, wan, bird-fingered wights- 
 All in their rough hair shirts, like hedgehogs starved 
 I told them, six weeks' work would break their hearts : 
 They answered, Christ would help, and Christ's great 
 
 mother, 
 
 And make them strong when weakest : So they settled : 
 And starved and froze. 
 
 LEW. And dug and built, it seems. 
 
 WAL. Faith, that's true. See as garden walls draw 
 
 snails, 
 
 They have drawn a hamlet round ; the slopes are blue 
 Knee-deep with flax, the orchard boughs are breaking 
 With strange outlandish fruits. See those young rogues 
 Marching to school ; no poachers here, Lord Landgrave, 
 Too much to be done at home ; there's not a village 
 Of yours, now, thrives like this. By God's good help 
 
24 The Saint 's Tragedy. 
 
 These men have made their ownership worth something. 
 Here comes one of them. 
 
 LEW. I would speak to him 
 
 And learn his secret We'll await him here. 
 
 Enter CONRAD. 
 
 CON. Peace to you, reverend and war-worn knight, 
 And you, fair youth, upon whose swarthy lip 
 Blooms the rich promise of a noble manhood. 
 Methinks, if simple monks may read your thoughts, 
 That with no envious or distasteful eyes 
 Ye watch the labours of God's poor elect. 
 
 WAL. Why we were saying, how you cunning rooks 
 Pitch as by instinct on the fattest fallows. 
 
 CON. For He who feeds the ravens, promiseth 
 Our bread and water sure, and leads us on 
 By peaceful streams in pastures green to lie, 
 Beneath our Shepherd's eye. 
 
 LEW. In such a nook, now, 
 
 To nestle from this noisy world 
 
 CON. And drop 
 
 The burden of thyself upon the threshold. 
 
 LEW. Think what rich dreams may haunt those lowly 
 roofs ! 
 
 CON. Rich dreams, and more ; their dreams will find 
 
 fulfilment 
 
 Their discipline breeds strength 'Tis we alone 
 Can join the patience of the labouring ox 
 Unto the eagle's foresight, not a fancy 
 Of ours, but grows in time to mighty deeds ; 
 Victories in heavenly warfare : but yours, yours, Sir, 
 Oh choke them, choke the panting hopes of youth, 
 Ere they be born, and wither in slow pains, 
 Cast by for the next bauble ! 
 
 LEW. 'Tis too true ! 
 
 I dread no toil : toil is the true knight's pastime 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 25 
 
 Faith fails, the will intense and fixed, so easy 
 To thee, cut off from life and love, whose powers 
 In one close channel must condense their stream : 
 But I, to whom this life blooms rich and busy, 
 Whose heart goes out a-Maying all the year 
 In this new Eden in my fitful thought 
 What skill is there, to turn my faith to sight 
 To pierce blank Heaven, like some trained falconer 
 After his game, beyond all human ken ? 
 
 WAL. And wajk into the bog beneath your feet. 
 
 CON. And change it to firm land by magic step ! 
 Build there cloud-cleaving spires, beneath whose shade 
 Great cities rise for vassals ; to call forth 
 From plough and loom the rank unlettered hinds, 
 And make them saints and heroes send them forth 
 To sway with heavenly craft the spirit of princes ; 
 Change nations' destinies, and conquer worlds 
 With love, more mighty than the sword ; what, Count ? 
 Art thou ambitious ? practical ? we monks 
 Can teach you somewhat there too. 
 
 LEW. Be it so ; 
 
 But love you have forsworn ; and what were life 
 Without that chivalry, which bends man's knees 
 Before God's image and his glory, best 
 Revealed in woman's beauty ? 
 
 CON. Ah ! poor worldlings ! 
 
 Little you dream what maddening ecstacies, 
 What rich ideals haunt, by day and night, 
 Alone, and in the crowd, even to the death, 
 The servitors of that celestial court 
 Where peerless Mary, sun-enthroned, reigns, 
 In whom all Eden dreams of womanhood, 
 All grace of form, hue, sound, all beauty strewn 
 Like pearls unstrung, about this ruined world, 
 Have their fulfilment and their archetype. 
 Why hath the rose its scent, the lily grace ? 
 
26 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 To mirror forth her loveliness, from whom, 
 Primeval fount of grace, their livery came : 
 Pattern of Seraphs ! only worthy ark 
 To bear her God athwart the floods of time ! 
 
 LEW. Who dare aspire to her ? Alas, not I ! 
 To me she is a doctrine, and a picture : 
 I cannot live on dreams. 
 
 CON. She hath her train : 
 
 There thou may'st choose thy love : If world-wide lore 
 Shall please thee, and the Cherub's glance of fire, 
 Let Catharine lift thy soul, and rapt with her 
 Question the mighty dead, until thou float 
 Tranced on the ethereal ocean of her spirit 
 If pity father passion in thee, hang 
 Above Eulalia's tortured loveliness ; 
 And for her sake, and in her strength, go forth 
 To do and suffer greatly. Dost thou long 
 For some rich heart, as deep in love as weakness, 
 Whose wild simplicity sweet heaven-born instincts 
 Alone keep sane ? 
 
 LEW. I do, I do. I'd live 
 
 And die for each and all the three. 
 
 CON. Then go 
 
 Entangled in the Magdalen's tresses lie ; 
 Dream hours before her picture, till thy lips 
 Dare to approach her feet, and thou shalt start 
 To find the canvas warm with life, and matter 
 A moment transubstantiate to heaven. 
 
 WAL. Ay, catch his fever, Sir, and learn to take 
 An indigestion for a troop of angels. 
 Come tell him, monk, about your magic gardens, 
 Where not a stringy head of kale is cut 
 But breeds a vision or a revelation. 
 
 LEW, Hush, hush, Count ! Speak, strange monk 
 
 strange words, and waken 
 Longings more strange than either. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 CON. Then, if proved, 
 
 As I dare vouch thee, loyal in thy love, 
 Even to the Queen herself thy saintlier soul 
 At length may soar : perchance Oh, bliss too great 
 For thought yet possible ! 
 Receive some token smile or hallowing touch 
 Of that white hand, beneath whose soft caress 
 The raging world is smoothed, and runs its course 
 To shadow forth her glory. 
 
 LEW. Thou dost tempt me 
 
 That were a knightly quest. 
 
 CON. Ay, here's true love. 
 
 Love's heaven, without its hell ; the golden fruit 
 Without the foul husk, which at Adam's fall 
 Did crust it o'er with filth and selfishness. 
 I tempt thee heavenward from yon azure vjalls 
 Unearthly beauties beckon God's own mother 
 Waits longing for thy choice 
 
 LEW. Is this a dream ? 
 
 WAL. Ay, by the Living Lord, who died for you ! 
 Will you be cozened, Sir, by these air-blown fanciesj 
 These male hysterics, by starvation bred 
 And huge conceit ? Cast off God's gift of manhood, 
 And like the dog in the adage, drop the true bone 
 With snapping at the sham one in the water ? 
 What were you born a man for ? 
 
 LEW. Ay, I know it : 
 
 I cannot live on dreams. Oh, for one friend, 
 Myself, yet not myself; one not so high 
 But she could love me, not too pure to pardon 
 My sloth and meanness ! Oh ! for flesh and blood, 
 Before whose feet I could adore, yet love ! 
 How easy then were duty ! From her lips 
 To learn my daily task ; in her pure eyes 
 To see the living type of those heaven-glories 
 I dare not look on ; let her work her will 
 
28 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Of love and wisdom on these straining hinds ; 
 
 To squire a saint around her labour field, 
 
 And she and it both mine : That were possession ! 
 
 CON. The flesh, fair youth 
 
 WAL. Avaunt, bald snake, avaunt ! 
 
 We are past your burrow now. Come, come, Lord 
 
 Landgrave, 
 Look round, and find your saint. 
 
 LEW. Alas ! one such 
 
 One such, I know, who upward from one cradle 
 Beside me like a sister No, thank God ! no sister ! 
 Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shade 
 Has blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue, 
 And even now is budding into blossom, 
 Which never shall bear fruit, but inward still 
 Resorb its vital nectar, self-contained, 
 And leave no living copies of its beauty 
 To after ages. Ah ! be less, sweet maid, 
 Less than thyself ! Yet no my wife thou might'st be, 
 If less than thus but not the saint thou art. 
 What ! shall my selfish longings drag thee down 
 From maid to wife ? degrade the soul I worship ? 
 That were a caitiff deed ! Oh, misery ! 
 Is wedlock treason to that purity, 
 Which is the jewel and the soul of wedlock ? 
 Elizabeth ! my saint ! \Exit CONRAD. 
 
 WAL. What, Sir ? the Princess ? 
 
 Ye saints in heaven, I thank you ! 
 
 LEW. Oh, who else, 
 
 Who else the minutest lineament fulfils 
 Of this my cherished portrait ? 
 
 WAL. So 'tis well. 
 
 Hear me, my Lord. You think this dainty princess 
 Too perfect for you, eh ? That's well again ; 
 For that whose price after fruition falls 
 May well too high be rated ere enjoyed 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 29 
 
 In plain words, if she looks an angel now, you will be 
 better mated than you expected, when you find her a 
 woman. For flesh and blood she is, and that young 
 blood, whom her childish misusage and your brotherly 
 love ; her loneliness and your protection ; her springing 
 fancy and (for I may speak to you as a son) your beauty 
 and knightly grace, have so bewitched, and as some say, 
 degraded, that briefly, she loves you, and briefly, better, 
 her few friends fear, than you love her. 
 
 LEW. Loves me ! My Count, that word is quickly 
 
 spoken ; 
 
 And yet, if it be true, it thrusts me forth 
 Upon a shoreless sea of untried passion, 
 From whence is no return. 
 
 WAL. By Siegfried's sword, 
 
 My words are true, and I came here to say them, 
 To thee, my son in all but blood. 
 Mass, I'm no gossip. Why ? What ails the boy ? 
 
 LEW. Loves me ! Henceforth let no man, peering down 
 Through the dim glittering mine of future years, 
 Say to himself " Too much ! this cannot be ! " 
 To-day, and custom, wall up our horizon : 
 Before the hourly miracle of life 
 
 Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not 
 I have wandered in the mountains, mist-bewildered, 
 And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted, 
 And priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding, 
 Gleam ready for my grasp. She loves me then ! 
 She who to me was as a nightingale 
 That sings in magic gardens, rock-beleaguered, 
 To passing angels melancholy music 
 Whose dark eyes hung, like far-off evening stars, 
 Through rosy-cushioned windows coldly shining 
 Down from the cloudworld of her unknown fancy 
 She, for whom holiest touch of holiest knight 
 Seemed all to gross who might have been a saint 
 
3O The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 And companied with angels thus to pluck 
 The spotless rose of her own maidenhood 
 To give it unto me ! 
 
 WAL. You love her then ? 
 
 LEW. Look ! If yon solid mountain were all gold, 
 And each particular tree a band of jewels, 
 And from its womb the Niebelungen hoard 
 With elfin wardens called me, "Leave thy love 
 And be our Master" I would turn away 
 And know no wealth but her. 
 
 WAL. Shall I say this to her ? 
 
 I am no carrier pigeon, Sir, by breed, 
 But now, between her friends and persecutors, 
 My life's a burden. 
 
 LEW. Persecutors ! Who ? 
 
 Alas ! I guess it I had known my mother 
 Too light for that fair saint, but who else dare wink 
 When she is by ? My knights ? 
 
 WAL. To a man, my Lord. 
 
 LEW. Here's chivalry! Well, that's soon brought to 
 
 bar. 
 The quarrel's mine ; my lance shall clear that stain. 
 
 WAL. Quarrel with your knights ? Cut your own chair- 
 legs off ! 
 
 They do but sail with the stream. Her passion, Sir, 
 Broke shell and ran out twittering before yours did, 
 And unrequited love is mortal sin 
 With this chaste world. My boy, my boy, I tell you, 
 The fault lies nearer home. 
 
 LEW. I have played the coward 
 
 And in the sloth of false humility, 
 Cast by the pearl I dared not to deserve. 
 How laggard I must seem to her, though she love me ; 
 Playing with hawks and hounds, while she sits weeping ! 
 ; Tis not too late. 
 
 WAL. Too late, my royal eyas ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 31 
 
 You shall strike this deer yourself at gaze ere long 
 She has no mind to slip to cover. 
 
 LEW. Come 
 
 We'll back we'll back ; and you shall bear the message ; 
 I am ashamed to speak. Tell her I love her 
 That I should need to tell her ! Say, my coyness 
 Was bred of worship, not of coldness. 
 
 WAL. Then the serfs 
 
 Must wait ? 
 
 LEW. Why not ? This day to them, too, blessing brings, 
 
 Which clears from envious webs their guardian angel's 
 
 wings. {Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 * 
 
 A Chamber in the Castle. SOPHIA, ELIZABETH, AGNES, 
 ISENTRUDE, c., re-entering. 
 
 SOPH. What! you will not? You hear, Dame Isen- 
 
 trude, 
 
 She will not wear her coronet in the church, . 
 Because, forsooth, the crucifix within 
 Is crowned with thorns. You hear her. 
 
 ELIZ. Noble mother 
 
 How could I flaunt this bauble in His face 
 Who hung there, naked, bleeding, all for me- 
 I felt it shamelessness to go so gay. 
 
 SOPH. Felt ? What then ? Every foolish wench has 
 
 feelings 
 
 In these religious days, and thinks it carnal 
 To wash her dishes, and obey her parents 
 No wonder they ape you, if you ape them 
 Go to ! I hate this humble-minded pride, 
 Self-willed submission to your own pert fancies ; 
 This fog-bred mushroom-spawn of brain-sick wits, 
 Who make their oddities their test for grace, 
 And peer about to catch the general eye ; 
 
32 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Ah ! I have watched you throw your playmates down 
 
 To have the pleasure of kneeling for their pardon. 
 
 Here's sanctity to shame your cousin and me 
 
 Spurn rank and proper pride, and decency; 
 
 If God has made you noble, use your rank, 
 
 If you but know how. You Landgravine ? You mated 
 
 With gentle Lewis ? Why, belike you'll cowl him, 
 
 As that stern prude, your aunt, cowled her poor spouse : 
 
 No one Hedwiga at a time's enough, 
 
 My son shall die no monk. 
 
 ISEN. Beseech you, Madam, 
 
 Weep not, my darling. 
 
 SOPH. Tut I'll speak my mind. 
 
 Well have no saints. Thank heaven, my saintliness 
 Ne'er troubled my good man, by day or night. 
 We'll have no saints, I say ; far better for you, 
 And no doubt pleasanter You know your place 
 At least you know your place, to take to cloisters, 
 And there sit carding wool, and mumbling Latin, 
 With sour old maids, and maundering Magdalens, 
 Proud of your frost-kibed feet, and dirty serge. 
 There's nothing noble in you, but your blood ; 
 And that one almost doubts. Who art thou, child ? 
 
 ISEN. The daughter, please your highness, 
 Of Andreas, king of Hungary, your better ; 
 And your son's spouse. 
 
 SOPH. I had forgotten, truly 
 
 And you, Dame Isentrudis, are her servant, 
 And mine : come, Agnes, leave the gipsy ladies 
 To say their prayers, and set the Saints the fashion. 
 
 [SOPHIA and AGNES go out. 
 
 ISEN. Proud hussy ! Thou shalt set thy foot on her 
 
 neck yet, darling, 
 W T hen thou art Landgravine. 
 
 ELIZ. And when will that be ? 
 
 No, she speaks truth ! I should have been a nun. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy 
 
 These are the wages of my cowardice,- 
 
 Too weak to face the world, too weak to leave it ! 
 
 GUTA. I'll take the veil with you. 
 
 ELIZ. ' Twere but a moment's work, 
 
 To slip into the convent there below, 
 And be at peace for ever. And you, my nurse ? 
 
 I SEN. I will go with thee, child, where'er thou goest. 
 But Lewis ? 
 
 ELIZ. Ah ! my brother ! No, I dare not 
 I dare not turn for ever from this hope, 
 Though it be dwindled to a thread of mist. 
 Oh ! that we two could flee and leave this Babel ! 
 Oh ! if he were but some poor chapel-priest, 
 In lonely mountain valleys far away ; 
 And I his serving maid, to work his vestments, 
 And dress his scrap of food, and see him. stand 
 Before the altar like a rainbowed saint ; 
 To take the blessed wafer from his hand, 
 Confess my heart to him, and all night long 
 Pray for him while he slept, or through the lattice 
 Watch while he read, and see the holy thoughts 
 Swell in his big deep eyes. Alas ! that dream 
 Is wilder than the one that's fading even now ! 
 Who's here ? [A Page enters. 
 
 PAGE. The Count of Varila, madam, begs permission 
 to speak with you. 
 
 ELIZ. With me ? What's this new terror ? 
 
 Tell him I wait him. 
 
 ISEN. (aside}. Ah ! my old heart sinks 
 God send us rescue ! Here the champion comes. 
 
 COUNT WALTER enters. 
 
 WAL. Most learned, fair, and sanctimonious princess- 
 Plague, what comes next ? ' I had something orthodox 
 
 ready ; 
 'Tis dropped out by the way. Mass ! here's the pith on't. 
 
34 The Saint 's Tragedy. 
 
 Madam, I come a wooing ; and for one 
 
 Who is as only worthy of your love, 
 
 As you of his ; he bids me claim the spousals 
 
 Made long ago between you, and yet leaves 
 
 Your fancy free, to grant or pass that claim ; 
 
 And being that Mercury is not my planet, 
 
 He hath advised himself to set herein, 
 
 With pen and ink, what seemed good to him, 
 
 As passport to this jewelled mirror, pledge 
 
 Unworthy of his worship. {Gives a letter and jewel 
 
 ISEN. Nunc Domine dimittis servam tuam ! 
 
 ELIZABETH looks over the letter and casket, claps her 
 
 hands, and bursts into childish laughter, 
 Why here's my Christmas tree come after Lent 
 Espousals ? pledges ? by our childish love ? 
 Pretty words for folks to think of at the wars, 
 And pretty presents come of them ! Look, Guta! 
 A crystal clear, and carven on the reverse, 
 The blessed rood. He told me once one night, 
 When we did sit in the garden What was I saying? 
 
 WAL. My fairest princess, as ambassador, 
 
 What shall I answer ? 
 
 ELIZ. Tell him tell him God ! 
 
 Have I grown mad, or a child, within the moment ? 
 The earth has lost her grey sad hue, and blazes 
 With her old life-light ; hark! yon wind's a song 
 Those clouds are angels' robes. That fiery west 
 Is paved with smiling faces. I am a woman, 
 And all things bid me love ! my dignity 
 Is thus to cast my virgin pride away. 
 And find my strength in weakness. Busy brain ! 
 Thou keep'st pace with my heart ; old lore, old fancies, 
 Buried for years, leap from their tombs, and proffer 
 Their magic service to my new-born spirit. 
 I'll go I am not mistress of myself 
 Send for him bring him to me he is mine ! \Eocit. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 35 
 
 ISEN. Ah ! blessed Saints ! how changed upon the 
 
 moment ! 
 
 She is grown taller, trust me, and her eye 
 Flames like a fresh-caught hind's. She that was 
 
 christened 
 
 A brown mouse for her stillness ! Good my Lord ! 
 Now shall mine old bones see the grave in peace ! 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Bridal Feast. ELIZABETH, LEWIS, SOPHIA, and 
 Company seated at the Dais table. Court Minstrel and 
 Court Fool sitting on the Dais steps. 
 
 MlN. How gaily smile the heavens, 
 
 The light winds whisper gay ; 
 
 For royal birth and knightly worth 
 
 Are knit to one to-day. 
 FOOL (drowning his voice). 
 
 So we'll flatter them up, and we'll cocker 
 them up 
 
 Till we turn young brains ; 
 
 And pamper the brach till we make her a 
 wolf, 
 
 And get bit by the legs for our pains. 
 MONKS (chanting without). 
 
 A fastu et superbia 
 
 Domine libera nos. 
 MlN. 'Neath sandal red and samite", 
 
 Are knights and ladies set ; 
 
 The henchmen tall stride through the hall, 
 
 The board with wine is wet. 
 FOOL. Oh ! merrily growls the starving hind, 
 
 At my full skin ; 
 
 And merrily howl wolf, wind, and owl. 
 
 While I lie warm within. 
 D 2 
 
36 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 MONKS. A luxu et avaritia 
 
 Domine libera nos. 
 MlN. Hark ! from the bridal bower, 
 
 Rings out the bridesmaid's song ; 
 " Tis the mystic hour of an untried power, 
 The bride she tarries long." 
 FOOL. She's schooling herself and she's steeling 
 
 herself, 
 
 Against the dreary day, 
 When she'll pine and sigh from her lattice high 
 For the knight that's far away. 
 MONKS. A carnis illectamentis 
 
 Domine libera nos. 
 
 MlN. Blest maid ! fresh roses o'er thee 
 The careless years shall fling ; 
 While days and nights shall new delights 
 To sense and fancy bring. 
 
 FOOL. Satins and silks, and feathers and lace, 
 Will gild life's pill ; 
 
 In jewels and gold folks cannot grow old, 
 Fine ladies will never fall ill. 
 MONKS. A vanitatibus sasculi 
 
 Domine libera nos. 
 [SOPHIA descends from the Dais, leading ELIZABETH, 
 
 Ladies follow.] 
 SOPHIA (to the FOOL). Silence, you screech-owl. 
 
 Come strew flowers, fair ladies, 
 And lead unto her bower our fairest bride, 
 The cynosure of love and beauty here, 
 Who shrines heaven's graces in earth's richest casket. 
 ELIZ. I come (Aside}. Here, Guta, take those monks a 
 
 fee- 
 Tell them I thank them bid them pray for me. 
 I am half mazed with trembling joy within, 
 And noisy wassail round. J Tis well, for else 
 The spectre of my duties and my dangers 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 37 
 
 Would whelm my heart with terror. Ah ! poor self ! 
 Thou took'st this for the term and bourne of troubles 
 And now 'tis here, thou findest it the gate 
 Of new sin-cursed infinities of labour, 
 Where thou must do, or die ! 
 
 (Aloud}. Lead on. Til follow. [Exeunt. 
 
 FOOL. There, now. No fee for the fool ; and yet my 
 prescription was as good as those old Jeremies'. But in 
 law, physic, and divinity folks had sooner be poisoned in 
 Latin, than saved in the mother-tongue. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. A.D. 12217. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S Bower. Night. LEWIS sleeping in an 
 Alcove. ELIZABETH lying on the Floor in the Fore- 
 ground. 
 
 ELIZ. No streak yet in the blank and eyeless east 
 More weary hours to ache, and smart, and shiver 
 On these bare boards, within a step of bliss. 
 Why peevish ? 'Tis mine own will keeps me here 
 And yet I hate myself for that same will : 
 Fightings within and out ! How easy 'twere, now, 
 Just to be like the rest, and let life run 
 To use up to the rind what joys God sends us, 
 Not thus forestall His rod : What ! and so lose 
 The strength which comes by suffering ? Well, if grief 
 Be gain, mine's double fleeing thus the snare 
 Of yon luxurious and unnerving down, 
 And widowed from mine Eden. And why widowed ? 
 Because they tell me, love is of the flesh, 
 And that's our house-bred foe, the adder in our bosoms, 
 
38 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Which warmed to life, will sting us. They must know 
 I do confess mine ignorance, Oh Lord ! 
 Mine earnest will these painful limbs may prove. 
 * * * * * 
 
 And yet I swore to love him. So I do 
 No more than I have sworn. Am I to blame 
 If God makes wedlock that, which if it be not, 
 It were a shame for modest lips to speak it, 
 And silly doves are better mates than we ? 
 And yet our love is Jesus' due, and all things 
 Which share with Him divided empery 
 Are snares and idols " To love, to cherish, and to obe> ! 
 ***** 
 
 Oh ! deadly riddle ! Rent and twofold life ! 
 Oh ! cruel troth ! To keep thee or to break thee 
 Alike seems sin ! Oh ! thou beloved tempter. 
 
 [Turning toward the bed. 
 Who first didst teach me love, why on thyself 
 From God divert thy lesson ? Wilt provoke Him? 
 What if mine heavenly Spouse in jealous ire 
 Should smite mine earthly spouse ? Have I two husbands ? 
 The words are horror yet they are orthodox ! 
 
 [Rises and goes to the window. 
 ***** 
 
 How many many brows of happy lovers 
 
 The fragrant lips of night even now are kissing ! 
 
 Some wandering hand in hand through arched lanes ; 
 
 Some listening for loved voices at the lattice ; 
 
 Some steeped in dainty dreams of untried bliss ; 
 
 Some nestling soft and deep in well-known arms, 
 
 Whose touch makes sleep rich life. The very birds 
 
 Within their nests are wooing ! So much love ! 
 
 All seek their mates, or finding, rest in peace ; 
 
 The earth seems one vast bride-bed. Doth God tempt 
 
 us? 
 Is't all a veil to blind our eyes from Him ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 39 
 
 A fire-fly at the candle ! 'Tis love leads him : 
 
 Love's light, and light is love : Oh, Eden ! Eden ! 
 
 Eve was a virgin there, they say ; God knows. 
 
 Must all this be as it had never been ? 
 
 Is it all a fleeting type of higher love ? 
 
 Why, if the lesson's pure, is not the teacher 
 
 Pure also ? Is it my shame to feel no shame ? 
 
 Am I more clean, the more I scent uncleanness ? 
 
 Shall base emotions picture Christ's embrace ? 
 
 Rest, rest, torn heart ! Yet where ? in earth or heaven ? 
 
 Still, from out the bright abysses, gleams our Lady's silver 
 
 footstool, 
 
 Still the light-world sleeps beyond her, though the night- 
 clouds fleet below. 
 Oh ! that I were walking, far above, upon that dappled 
 
 pavement, 
 Heaven's floor, which is the ceiling of the dungeon where 
 
 we lie. 
 Ah, what blessed Saints might meet me, on that platform, 
 
 sliding silent, 
 
 Past us in its airy travels, angel-wafted, mystical ! 
 They perhaps might tell me all things, opening up the 
 
 secret fountains 
 Which now struggle, dark and turbid, through their 
 
 dreary prison clay. 
 Love ! art thou an earth-born streamlet, that thou seek'st 
 
 the lowest hollows ? 
 Sure some vapours float up from thee, mingling with the 
 
 highest blue. 
 
 Spirit-love in spirit-bodies, melted into one existence 
 Joining praises through the ages Is it all a minstrel's 
 
 dream ? 
 
 Alas ! he wakes. [LEWIS rises. 
 
 LEWIS. Ah I faithless beauty, 
 
 Is this your promise, that whene'er you prayed 
 I should be still the partner of your vigils, 
 
4O The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 And learn from you to pray ? Last night I lay dissem- 
 bling 
 
 When she who woke you, took my feet for yours : 
 Now I shall seize my lawful prize perforce. 
 Alas ! what's this ? These shoulders' cushioned ice, 
 And thin soft flanks, with purple lashes all, 
 And weeping furrows traced ! Ah ! precious life-blood ! 
 Who has done this ? 
 
 ELIZ. Forgive ! 'twas I my maidens 
 
 LEWIS. O ruthless hags ! 
 
 ELIZ. Not so, not so They wept 
 
 When I did bid them, as I bid thee now 
 To think of nought but love. 
 
 LEWIS. Elizabeth ! 
 
 Speak ! I will know the meaning of this madness ! 
 
 ELIZ. Beloved, thou hast heard how godly souls, 
 In every age, have tamed the rebel flesh 
 By such sharp lessons. I must tread their paths, 
 If I would climb the mountains where they rest. 
 Grief is the gate of bliss why wedlock knighthood 
 A mother's joy a hard-earned field of glory 
 By tribulation come so doth God's kingdom. 
 
 LEWIS. But doleful nights, and self-inflicted tortures 
 Are these the love of God ? Is he well pleased 
 With this stern holocaust of health and joy ? 
 
 ELIZ. What ! Am I not as gay a lady-love 
 As ever dipt in arms a noble knight ? 
 Am I not blithe as bird the live-long day ? 
 It pleases me to bear what you call pain, 
 Therefore to me 'tis pleasure : joy and grief 
 Are the will's creatures ; martyrs kiss the stake 
 The moorland colt enjoys the thorny furze 
 The dullest boor will seek a fight, and count 
 His pleasure by his wounds ; you must forget, love, 
 Eve's curse lays suffering, as their natural lot, 
 On woman-kind, till custom makes it light. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 41 
 
 I know the use of pain ; bar not the leech 
 
 Because his cure is bitter 'Tis such medicine 
 
 Which breeds that paltry strength, that weak devotion, 
 
 For which you say you love me. Ay, which brings 
 
 Even when most sharp, a stern and awful joy 
 
 As its attendant angel I'll say no more 
 
 Not even to thee command, and I'll obey thee. 
 
 LEWIS. Thou casket of all graces ! fourfold wonder 
 Of wit and beauty, love and wisdom ! Canst thou 
 Beatify the ascetic's savagery 
 To heavenly prudence ? Horror melts to pity, 
 And pity kindles to adoring shower 
 Of radiant tears ! Thou tender cruelty ! 
 Gay smiling martyrdom ! Shall I forbid thee ? 
 Limit thy depth by mine own shallowness ? 
 Thy courage by my weakness ? Where thou darest, 
 I'll shudder and submit. I kneel here spell-bound 
 Before my bleeding Saviour's living likeness 
 To worship, not to cavil : I had dreamt of such things, 
 Dim heard in legends, while my pitiful blood 
 Tingled through every vein, and wept, and swore 
 'Twas beautiful, 'twas Christ-likehad I thought 
 That thou wert such : 
 
 ELIZ. You would have loved me still ? 
 
 LEWIS. I have gone mad, I think, at every parting 
 At mine own terrors for thee. No ; I'll learn to glory 
 In that which makes thee glorious ! Noble stains ! 
 I'll call them rose leaves out of paradise 
 Strewn on the wreathed snows, or rubies dropped 
 From martyrs' diadems, prints of Jesus' cross 
 Too truly borne, alas ! 
 
 ELIZ. I think, mine own, 
 
 I am forgiven at last ? 
 
 LEWIS. To-night, my sister 
 
 Henceforth I'll clasp thee to my heart so fast 
 Thou shalt not 'scape unnoticed. 
 
42 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. (laughing}. We shall see 
 
 Now I must stop those wise lips with a kiss, 
 And lead thee back to scenes of simpler bliss. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Chamber in the Castle. ELIZABETH the FOOL 
 ISENTRUDIS GUTA singing. 
 
 Far among the lonely hills, 
 As I lay beside my sheep, 
 Rest came down upon my soul, 
 From the everlasting deep. 
 
 Changeless march the stars above, 
 Changeless morn succeeds to even ; 
 And the everlasting hills, 
 Changeless watch the changeless heaven. 
 
 See the rivers, how they run, 
 Changeless to the changeless sea ; 
 All around is forethought sure, 
 Fixed will and stern decree. 
 
 Can the sailor move the main ? 
 Will the potter heed the clay ? 
 Mortal ! where the spirit drives, 
 Thither must the wheels obey. 
 
 Neither ask, nor fret, nor strive : 
 Where thy path is, thou shalt go. 
 He who made the streams of time 
 Wafts thee down to weal or woe. 
 ELIZ. That's a sweet song, and yet it does not chime 
 With my heart's inner voice. Where had you it, Guta ? 
 
 GUTA. From a nun who was a shepherdess in her 
 youth sadly plagued she was by a cruel stepmother, till 
 she fled to a convent and found rest to her soul. 
 
A/v >'/;.s, 
 
 The Saint's Tragedy. (] \ > 
 
 FOOL. No doubt ; nothing so pleasant as giving up 
 one's will in one's own way. But she might have learnt 
 all that without taking cold on the hill-tops. 
 
 ELIZ. Where then, fool ? 
 
 FOOL. At any market-cross where two or three rogues 
 are together, who have neither grace to mend, nor courage 
 to say " I did it." Now you shall see the shepherdess's 
 baby dressed in my cap and bells. {Sings. 
 
 When I was a greenhorn and young, 
 And wanted to be and to do, 
 I puzzled my brains about choosing my line, 
 Till I found out the way that things go. 
 
 The same piece of clay makes a tile, 
 
 A pitcher, a taw, or a brick : 
 
 Dan Horace knew life ; you may cut out a saint, 
 
 Or a bench, from the self-same stick. 
 
 The urchin who squalls in a gaol, 
 By circumstance turns out a rogue ; 
 While the castle-born brat is a senator born, 
 Or a saint, if religion's in vogue. 
 
 We fall on our legs in this world, 
 
 Blind kittens, tossed in neck and heels : 
 
 'Tis dame Circumstance lick's Nature's cubs into 
 
 shape, 
 She's the mill-head, if we are the wheels. 
 
 Then why puzzle and fret, plot and dream ? 
 He that's wise will just follow his nose ; 
 Contentedly fish, while he swims with the stream ; 
 'Tis no business of his where it goes. 
 
 ELIZ. Far too well sung for such a saucy song. 
 So go. 
 
 FOOL. Ay, I'll go. Whip the dog out of church, and 
 then rate him for being no Christian. \Exit m FOOL. 
 
44 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. Guta, there is sense in that knave's ribaldry : 
 We must not thus baptize our idleness, 
 And call it resignation : Which is love ? 
 To do God's will, or merely suffer it ? 
 I do not love that contemplative life : 
 No ! I must headlong into seas of toil, 
 Leap forth from self, and spend my soul on others. 
 Oh ! contemplation palls upon the spirit, 
 Like the chill silence of an autumn sun : 
 While action, like the roaring south-west wind, 
 Sweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts 
 Quickening the wombed earth. 
 
 GUTA. And yet what bliss, 
 
 When dying in the darkness of God's light, 
 The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature, 
 And float up to The Nothing, which is all things 
 The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence 
 Is emptiness, emptiness fulness, fulness God, 
 Till we touch Him, and like a snow-flake, melt 
 Upon His light-sphere's keen circumference ! 
 
 ELIZ. Hast thou felt this ? 
 
 GUTA. In part. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, happy Guta ! 
 
 Mine eyes are dim and what if I mistook 
 For God's own self, the phantoms of my brain ? 
 And who am I, that my own will's intent 
 Should put me face to face with the living God ? 
 I, thus thrust down from the still lakes of thought 
 Upon a boiling crater-field of labour. 
 No ! He must come to me, not I to Him ; 
 If I see God, beloved, I must see Him 
 In mine own self : 
 
 GUTA. Thyself ? 
 
 ELIZ. Why start, my sister ? 
 
 God is revealed in the crucified : 
 The crucified must be revealed in me : 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 45 
 
 I must put on His righteousness ; show forth 
 His sorrow's glory ; hunger, weep with Him ; 
 Writhe with His stripes, and let this aching flesh 
 Sink through His fiery baptism into death, 
 That I may rise with Him, and in His likeness 
 May ceaseless heal the sick, and soothe the sad, 
 And give away like Him this flesh and blood 
 To feed His lambs ay we must die with Him 
 To sense and love 
 
 GUTA. To love ? What then becomes 
 
 Of marriage vows ? 
 
 ELIZ. I know it so speak not of them. 
 
 Oh ! that's the flow, the chasm in all my longings, 
 Which I have spanned with cobweb arguments, 
 Yet yawns before me still, where'er I turn, 
 To bar me from perfection ; had I given 
 My virgin all to Christ ! I was not worthy ! 
 I could not stand alone ! 
 
 GUTA. Here comes your husband. 
 
 ELIZ. He comes ! my sun ! and every thrilling vein 
 Proclaims my weakness. [LEWIS enters 
 
 LEWIS. Good news, my princess ; in the street below 
 Conrad, the man of God from Marpurg, stands, 
 And from a bourne-stone to the simple folk 
 Does thunder doctrine, preaching faith, repentance, 
 And dread of all foul heresies ; his eyes 
 On heaven still set, save when with searching frown 
 He lours upon the crowd, who round him cower 
 Like quails beneath the hawk, and gape, and tremble, 
 Now raised to heaven, now down again to hell. 
 I stood beside and heard ; like any doe's 
 My heart did rise and fall. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, let us hear him ! 
 
 We too need warning ; shame, if we let pass 
 Unentertained, God's angels on their way. 
 Send for him, brother. 
 
46 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 LEWIS. Let a knight go down 
 
 And say to the holy man, the Landgrave Lewis 
 With humble greetings prays his blessedness 
 To make these secular walls the spirit's temple 
 At least to-night. 
 
 ELIZ. Now go, my ladies, both 
 
 Prepare fit lodgings, let your courtesies 
 Retain in our poor courts the man of God. 
 
 {Exeunt. LEWIS and ELIZABETH are left alone. 
 Now hear me, best beloved : I have marked this man : 
 And that which hath scared others, draws me towards him : 
 He has the graces which I want ; his sternness 
 I envy for its strength ; his fiery boldness 
 I call the earnestness which dares not trifle 
 With life's huge stake ; his coldness but the calm 
 Of one who long hath found, and keeps unwavering, 
 Clear purpose still ; he hath the gift which speaks 
 The deepest things most simply ; in his eye 
 I dare be happy weak I dare not be. 
 With such a guide, to save this little heart 
 The burden of self-rule Oh half my work 
 Were eased, and I could live for thee and thine, 
 And take no thought of self. Oh, be not jealous, 
 Mine own, mine idol ! For thy sake I ask it 
 I would but be a mate and help more meet 
 For all thy knightly virtues. 
 
 LEWIS. 'Tis too true ! 
 
 I have felt it long j we stand, two weakling children, 
 Under too huge a burden, while temptations 
 Like adders swarm up round : I must be led 
 But thou alone shalt lead me. 
 
 ELIZ. I ? beloved ! 
 
 This load more ? Strengthen, Lord, the feeble knees ! 
 
 LEWIS. Yes ! thou, my queen, who making thyself once 
 
 mine, 
 Hast made me sevenfold thine ; I own thee guide 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 47 
 
 Of my devotions, mine ambition's loadstar, 
 
 The Saint whose shrine I serve with lance and lute ; 
 
 If thou wilt have a ruler, let him be 
 
 Through thee, the ruler of thy slave. [Kneels to her. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, kneel not 
 
 But grant my prayer If we shall find this man, 
 As well I know him, worthy, let him be 
 Director of my conscience and my actions 
 With all but thee Within love's inner shrine 
 We shall be still alone But joy ! here comes 
 Our embassy, successful. 
 
 Enter CONRAD, with COUNT WALTER, Monks, 
 Ladies, &>c. 
 
 CONRAD. Peace to this house. 
 
 ELIZ. Hail to your holiness, 
 
 LEWIS. The odour of your sanctity and might, 
 With balmy steam and gales of Paradise, 
 Forestalls you hither. 
 
 ELIZ. Bless us doubly, master, 
 
 With holy doctrine, and with holy prayers. 
 
 CON. Children, I am the servant of Christ's servants 
 And needs must yield to those who may command 
 By right of creed ; I do accept your bounty 
 Not for myself, but for that priceless name, 
 Whose dread authority and due commission, 
 Attested by the seal of His vicegerent, 
 I bear unworthy here ; through my vile lips 
 Christ and His vicar thank you ; on myself 
 And these, my brethren, Christ's adopted poor 
 A menial's crust, and some waste nook, or dog-hutch. 
 Wherein the worthless flesh may nightly hide, 
 Are best bestowed. 
 
 ELIZ. You shall be where you will 
 
 Do what you will ; unquestioned, unobserved, 
 Enjoy, refrain ; silence and solitude, 
 
48 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 The better part which such like spirits choose, 
 We will provide ; only be you our master, 
 And we your servants, for a few short days : 
 Oh, blessed days ! 
 
 CON. Ah, be not hasty, madam ; 
 
 Think whom you welcome ; one who has no skill 
 To wink and speak smooth things ; whom fear of God 
 Constrains to daily wrath ; who brings, alas ! 
 A sword, not peace : within whose bones the word 
 Burns like a pent-up fire, and makes him bold 
 If aught in you or yours shall seem amiss, 
 To cry aloud and spare not ; let me go 
 To pray for you as I have done long time, 
 Is sweeter than to chide you. 
 
 ELIZ. Then your prayers 
 
 Shall drive home your rebukes ; for both we need you 
 Our snares are many, and our sins are more. 
 So say not nay I'll speak with you apart. 
 
 [ELIZABETH and CONRAD retire. 
 
 LEWIS (aside}. Well, Walter mine, how like you the 
 good legate ? 
 
 WAL. Walter has seen nought of him but his eye ; 
 And that don't please him. 
 
 LEWIS. How so, sir ! that face 
 
 Is pure and meek a calm and thoughtful eye. 
 
 WAL. A shallow, stony, steadfast eye ; that looks at 
 neither man nor beast in the face, but at something 
 invisible a yard before him, through you and past you, 
 at a fascination, a ghost of fixed purposes that haunts 
 him, from which neither reason nor pity will turn him. I 
 have seen such an eye in men possessed with devils, or 
 with self : sleek, passionless men, who are too refined to 
 be manly, and measure their grace by their effeminacy ; 
 crooked vermin, who swarm up in pious times, being 
 drowned out of their earthy haunts by the spring-tide of 
 religion ; and so making a gain of godliness, swim upon 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 49 
 
 the first of the flood, till it cast them ashore on the firm 
 beach of wealth and station. I always mistrust those 
 wall-eyed saints. 
 
 LEWIS. Beware, Sir Count ; your keen and worldly wit 
 Is good for worldly uses, not to tilt 
 Withal at holy men and holy things. 
 He pleases well the spiritual sense 
 Of my most peerless lady, whose discernment 
 Is still the touchstone of my grosser fancy : 
 He is her friend, and mine ; and you must love him 
 Even for our sakes alone. (To a bystander). A word 
 . with you, sir. 
 
 \In the mean time ELIZABETH and CONRAD are talking 
 together^ 
 
 ELIZ. I would be taught 
 
 CON. It seems you claim some knowledge, 
 
 By choosing thus your teacher. 
 
 ELIZ. I would know more 
 
 CON. Go then to the schools and be no wiser, madam ; 
 And let God's charge here run to waste, to seek 
 The bitter fruit of knowledge hunt the rainbow 
 O'er hill and dale, while wisdom rusts at home. 
 
 ELIZ. I would be holy, master 
 
 CON. Be so, then. 
 
 God's will stands fair : 'tis thine which fails, if any. 
 
 ELIZ. I would know how to rule 
 
 CON. Then must thou learn 
 
 The needs of subjects, and be ruled thyself. 
 Sink, if thou longest to rise ; become most small 
 The strength which comes by weakness makes thee great. 
 
 ELIZ. I will. 
 
 LEWIS. What, still at lessons ? Come, my fairest sister, 
 Usher the holy man unto his lodgings. [Exeunt. 
 
 WAL. (alone). So, so, the birds are limed : Heaven 
 grant that we do not soon see them stowed in separate 
 
50 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 cages. Well, here my prophesying ends. I shall go tc 
 my lands, and see how much the gentlemen my neigh- 
 bours have stolen off them the last week, Priests ? Frogs 
 in the king's bedchamber ! What say's the song ? 
 
 I once had a hound, a right good hound, 
 A hound both fleet and strong : 
 He ate at my board, and he slept by my bed, 
 And ran with me all the day long. 
 
 But my wife took a priest, a shaveling priest, 
 
 And " such friendships are carnal," quoth he. 
 
 So my wife and her priest they drugged the poor beast, 
 
 And the rat's-bane is waiting for me. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The Gateway of a Convent. Night. 
 Enter CONRAD. 
 
 CON. This night she swears obedience to me ! Wondrous 
 
 Lord! 
 
 How hast Thou opened a path, where my young dreams 
 May find fulfilment : there are prophecies 
 Upon her, make me bold. Why comes she not ? 
 She should be here by now. Strange, how I shrink 
 I, who ne'er yet felt fear of man or fiend. 
 Obedience to my will ! An awful charge ! 
 But yet, to have the training of her sainthood ; 
 To watch her rise above this wild world's waves 
 Like floating water-lily, towards heaven's light 
 Opening its virgin snows, with golden eye 
 Mirroring the golden sun ; to be her champion, 
 And war with fiends for her ; that were a " quest ; n 
 That were true chivalry ; to bring my Judge 
 This jewel for His crown ; this noble soul, 
 Worth thousand prudish clods of barren clay, 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 5 1 
 
 Who mope for heaven because earth's grapes are sour 
 
 Her, full of youth, flushed with the heart's rich first-fruits, 
 
 Tangled in earthly pomp and earthly love. 
 
 Wife ? Saint by her face she should be : with such looks 
 
 The queen of heaven, perchance, slow pacing came 
 
 Adown our sleeping wards, when Dominic 
 
 Sank fainting, drunk with beauty : she is most fair ! 
 
 Pooh ! I know nought of fairness this I know, 
 
 She calls herself my slave, with such an air 
 
 As speaks her queen, not slave ; that shall be looked to 
 
 She must be pinioned, or she will range abroad 
 
 Upon too bold a wing ; ; t will cost her pain 
 
 But what of that ? there are worse things than pain 
 
 What ! not yet here ? I'll in, and there await her 
 
 In prayer before the altar ; I have need on't : 
 
 And shall have more before this harvest's ripe. 
 
 As CONRAD goes out, ELIZABETH, ISENTRUDIS, and 
 GUTA enter. 
 
 ELIZ. I saw him just before us : let us onwaid ; 
 We must not seem to loiter. 
 
 ISEN. Then you promise 
 
 Exact obedience to his sole direction 
 Henceforth in every scruple ? 
 
 ELIZ. In all I can, 
 
 And be a wife. 
 
 GUTA. Is it not a double bondage ? 
 
 A husband's will is clog enough. Be sure, 
 Though free, I crave more freedom. 
 
 ELIZ. So do I 
 
 This servitude shall free me from myself. 
 Therefore I'll swear. 
 
 ISEN. To what ? 
 
 ELIZ. I know not wholly : 
 
 But this I know, that I shall swear to-night 
 To yield my will unto a wiser will ; 
 E 2 
 
52 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 To see God's truth through eyes which, like the eagle's, 
 From higher Alps undazzled eye the sun. 
 Compelled to discipline from which my sloth 
 Would shrink, unbidden, to deep devious paths 
 Which my dull sight would miss, I now can plunge, 
 And dare life's eddies fearless. 
 
 ISEN. You will repent it. 
 
 ELIZ. I do repent, even now. Therefore I'll swear. 
 And hind myself to that, which once being right, 
 Will not be less right, when I shrink from it. 
 No ; if the end be gained if I be raised 
 To freer, nobler use, I'll dare, I'll welcome 
 Him and his means, though they were racks and flames. 
 Come, ladies, let us in, and to the chapel. \Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 A Chamber. GUTA, ISENTRUDIS, and a Lady. 
 
 LADY. Doubtless she is most holy but for wisdom 
 Say if 'tis wise to spurn all rules, all censures, 
 And mountebank it in the public ways 
 Till she becomes a jest ? 
 
 I SEX. How's this ? 
 
 LADY. For one thing- 
 
 Yestreen I passed her in the open street, 
 Following the vocal line of chanting priests, 
 Clad in rough serge, and with her bare soft feet 
 \Vooing the ruthless flints ; the gaping crowd 
 Unknowing whom they held, did thrust and jostle 
 Her tender limbs ; she saw me as she passed 
 And blushed and veiled her face, and smiled withal. 
 
 ISEN. Oh, think, she's not seventeen yet 
 
 GUTA. Why expect 
 
 Wisdom with love in all ? Each has his gift 
 Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 53 
 
 Ajid various pitch ; each with its proper notes 
 Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God. 
 Though poor alone, yet joined, they're harmony. 
 Besides these higher spirits must not bend 
 To common methods ; in their inner world 
 They move by broader laws, at whose expression 
 We must adore, not cavil : here she comes 
 The ministering Saint, fresh from the poor of Christ. 
 
 ELIZABETH enters without cloak or shoes, carrying an 
 empty basket. 
 
 I SEN. What's here, my princess ? Guta, fetch her 
 
 robes ! 
 Rest, rest, my child ! 
 
 ELIZ. (throwing herself on a seat}. Oh ! I have seen 
 
 such things ! 
 
 I shudder still ; your bright looks dazzle me ; 
 As those who long in hideous darkness pent 
 Blink at the daily light ; this room's too gay ! 
 We sit in a cloud, and sing, like pictured angels, 
 And say, the world runs smooth while right below 
 Welters the black fermenting heap of life 
 On which our state is built : I saw this day 
 What we might be, and still be Christian women : 
 And mothers too I saw one, laid in childbed 
 These three cold weeks upon the black damp straw ; 
 No nurses, cordials, or that nice parade 
 With which we try to balk the curse of Eve 
 And yet she laughed, and showed her buxom boy, 
 And said, Another week, so please the Saints, 
 She'd be at work a-field. Look here and here 
 
 [Pointing round the room. 
 I saw no such things there ; and yet they lived. 
 Our wanton accidents take root, and grow 
 To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, 
 Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters 
 
54 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Become ourselves, and we would fain forget 
 
 There live who need them not [GUTA offers to robe her. 
 
 Let be, beloved 
 
 I will taste somewhat this same poverty 
 Try these temptations, grudges, gnawing shames. 
 For which 'tis blamed ; how probe an unfelt evil ? 
 Would'st be the poor man's friend? Must freeze with 
 
 him 
 
 Test sleepless hunger let thy crippled back 
 Ache o'er the endless furrow ; how was He, 
 The blessed One, made perfect ? Why, by grief 
 The fellowship of voluntary grief 
 He read the tear-stained book of poor "men's souls, 
 As I must learn to read it. Lady ! lady ! 
 Wear but one robe the less forego one meal 
 And thou shalt taste the core of many tales 
 Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs, 
 The sweeter for their sadness. 
 
 LADY. Heavenly wisdom ! 
 
 Forgive me ! 
 
 ELIZ. How ? What wrong is mine, fair dame ? 
 
 LADY. I thought you, to my shame less wise than holy. 
 But you have conquered : I will test these sorrows 
 On mine own person ; 1 have toyed too long 
 In painted pinnace down the stream of life, 
 Witched with the landscape, while the weary rowers 
 Faint at the groaning oar : I'll be thy pupil. 
 Farewell. Heaven bless thy labours and thy lesson. 
 
 {Exit. 
 
 I SEN. We are alone. Now tell me, dearest lady, 
 How came you in this plight? 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! chide not, nurse 
 
 My heart is full and yet I went not far 
 Even here, close by, where my own bower looks down 
 Upon that unknown sea of wavy roofs, 
 I turned into an alley 'neath the wall 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 55 
 
 And stepped from earth to hell. The light of heaven, 
 
 The common air, was narrow, gross, and dun ; 
 
 The tiles did drop from the eaves ; the unhinged doors 
 
 Tottered o'er inky pools, where reeked and curdled 
 
 The offal of a life ; the gaunt-haunched swine 
 
 Growled at their christened playmates o'er the scraps. 
 
 Shrill mothers cursed ; wan children wailed ; sharp coughs 
 
 Rang through the crazy chambers ; hungry eyes 
 
 Glared dumb reproach, and old perplexity, 
 
 Too stale for words ; o'er still and webless looms 
 
 The listless craftsmen through their elf-locks scowled ; 
 
 These were my people ! all I had, I gave 
 
 They snatched it thankless ; (was it not their own ? 
 
 Wrung from their veins, returning all too late ?) 
 
 Or in the new delight of rare possession, 
 
 Forgot the giver ; one did sit apart, 
 
 And shivered on a stone ; beneath her rags 
 
 Nestled two impish, fleshless, leering boys, 
 
 Grown old before their youth ; they cried for bread 
 
 She chid them down, and hid her face and wept ; 
 
 I had given all I took my cloak, my shoes, 
 
 (What could I else ? 'Twas but a moment's want 
 
 Which she had borne, and borne, day after day\ 
 
 And clothed her bare gaunt arms and purpled feet, 
 
 Then slunk ashamed away to wealth and honour. 
 
 CONRAD enters. 
 
 What ! Conrad ? unannounced ! This is too bold ! 
 Peace ! I have lent myself and I must take 
 The usury of that loan : your pleasure, master ? 
 
 CON. Madam, but yesterday, I bade your presence, 
 To hear the preached word of God ; I preached 
 And yet you came not. Where is now your oath ? 
 Where is the right to bid, you gave to me ? 
 Am I your ghostly guide ? I asked it not. 
 Of your own will you tendered that, which, given, 
 
56 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Became not choice, but duty. What is here ? 
 
 Think not that alms, or lowly-seeming garments, 
 
 Self-willed humilities, pride's decent mummers, 
 
 Can raise above obedience ; she from God 
 
 Her sanction draws, while these we forge ourselves, 
 
 Mere tools to clear her necessary path. 
 
 Go free thou art no slave : God doth not own 
 
 Unwilling service, and His ministers 
 
 Must lure, not drag in leash ; henceforth I leave thee : 
 
 Riot in thy self-willed fancies ; pick thy steps 
 
 By thine own will-o'-the wisp toward the pit ; 
 
 Farewell, proud girl. {Exit CONRAD. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh God ! What have I done ? 
 
 I have cast off the clue of this world's maze, 
 And, like an idiot, let my boat adrift 
 Above the water-fall ! I had no message 
 How's this ? 
 
 I SEN. We passed it by, as matter of no moment 
 Upon the sudden coming of your guests. 
 
 ELIZ. No moment ! 'Tis enough to have driven him 
 
 forth 
 
 And that's enough to damn me : I'll not chide you 
 I can see nothing but my loss ; I'll to him 
 I'll go in sackcloth, bathe his feet with tears 
 And know nor sleep nor food till I am forgiven 
 And you must with me, ladies. Come and find him. 
 
 \Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 A Hall in the Castle. In the background a Group of 
 diseased and deformed Beggars j CONRAD entering, 
 ELIZABETH comes forward to meet him, 
 
 CON. What dost thou, daughter ? 
 ELIZ. Ah, my honoured master ! 
 
 Thr.t name speaks pardon, sure. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 57 
 
 CON. What dost thou, daughter ? 
 
 ELIZ. I have been washing these poor people's feet. 
 
 CON. A wise humiliation. 
 
 ELIZ. So I meant it 
 
 And use it as a penance for my pride ; 
 And yet, alas, through my own vulgar likings 
 Or stubborn self-conceit, 'tis none to me. 
 I marvel how the Saints thus tamed their spirits : 
 Sure to be humbled by such toil, but proves, 
 Not cures, our lofty mind. 
 
 CON. Thou speakest well 
 
 The knave who serves unto another's needs 
 Knows himself abler than the man who needs him ; 
 And she who stoops, will not forget, that stooping 
 Implies a height to stoop from. 
 
 ELIZ. Could I see 
 
 My Saviour in His poor ! 
 
 CON. Thou shalt hereafter : 
 
 But now to wash Christ's feet were dangerous honour 
 For weakling grace ; would you be humble, daughter, 
 You must look up, not down, and see yourself 
 A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein 
 Of Christ's vast vine ; the prettiest joint and member 
 Of His great body; own no strength, no will, 
 Save that which from the ruling head's command 
 Through me, as nerve, derives ; let thyself die 
 And dying, rise again to fuller life. 
 To be a whole is to be small and weak 
 To be a part is to be great and mighty 
 In the one spirit of the mighty whole 
 The spirit of the martyrs and the saints 
 The spirit of the queen, on whose towered neck 
 We hang, blest ringlets ! 
 
 ELIZ. Why ! thine eyes flash fire ! 
 
 CON. But hush ! such words are not for courts and 
 halls 
 
58 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Alone with God and me, thou shalt hear more. 
 
 {Exit CONRAD 
 
 ELIZ. As when rich chanting ceases suddenly 
 And the rapt sense collapses ! Oh, that Lewis 
 Could feed my soul thus ! But to work to work 
 What wilt thou, little maid ? Ah, I forgot the? 
 Thy mother lies in childbed Say, in time 
 I'll bring the baby to the font myself. 
 It knits them unto me, and me to them, 
 That bond of sponsorship How now, good dme- 
 Whence then so sad ? 
 
 WOMAN. An't please your nobleness, 
 
 My neighbour Gretl is with her husband laid 
 In burning fever. 
 
 ELIZ. I will come to them. 
 
 WOMAN. Alack, the place is foul for such as you ; 
 And fear of plague has cleared the lane of lodgers ; 
 If you could send 
 
 ELIZ. What ? where I am afraid 
 
 To go myself, send others ? That's strange doctrine. 
 I'll be with you anon. {Goes up into the Hall, 
 
 ISENTRUDIS enters with a basket. 
 
 I SEN. Why, here's a weight these cordials now, and 
 
 simples, 
 
 Want a stout page to bear them ; yet her fancy 
 Is still to go alone, to help herself. 
 Where will 't all end ? In madness, or the grave ? 
 No limbs can stand these drudgeries : no spirit 
 The fretting harrow which this ruffian priest 
 Calls education 
 Ah ! here comes our Count. 
 
 [COUNT WALTER enters as from a journey '.] 
 Too late, sir, and too seldom Where have you been 
 These four months past, while we are sold for bond- 
 slaves 
 Unto a peevish friar ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 59 
 
 WAL. Why, my fair rose-bud 
 
 A trifle over-blown, but not less sweet 
 I have been pining for you, till my hair 
 Is as grey as any badger's. 
 
 I SEN. I'll not jest. 
 
 WAL. What ? has my wall-eyed Saint shown you his 
 temper ? 
 
 I SEN. The first of his peevish fancies was, that she 
 should eat nothing which was not honestly and peaceably 
 come by. 
 
 WAL. Why, I heard that you too had joined that sect. 
 
 I SEN. And more fool I. But ladies are bound to set 
 an example while they are not bound to ask where 
 everything comes from : with her, poor child, scruples and 
 starvation were her daily diet ; meal after meal she rose 
 from table empty, unless the Landgrave nodded and 
 winked her to some lawful eatable ; till she that used to 
 take her food like an angel, without knowing it, was 
 thinking from morning to night whether she might eat 
 this, that, or the other. 
 
 WAL. Poor Eves ! if the world leaves you innocent, the 
 Church will not. Between the devil and the director, you 
 are sure to get your share of the apples of knowledge. 
 
 ISEN. True enough. She complained to Conrad of her 
 scruples, and he told her, that by the law was the know- 
 ledge of sin. 
 
 WAL. But what said Lewis ? 
 
 ISEN. As much bewitched as she, sir. He has told 
 her, and more than her, that were it not for the laughter 
 and ill-will of his barons, he would join her in the same 
 abstinence. But all this is child's play to the friar's last 
 outbreak. 
 
 WAL, Ah ! the sermon which you all forgot, when the 
 Marchioness of Misnia came suddenly ? I heard that war 
 had been proclaimed on that score; but what terms of 
 peace were concluded ? 
 
60 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ISEN. Terms of peace ! Do you call it peace to be 
 delivered over to his nuns' tender mercies, myself and 
 Guta, as well as our lady, as if we had been bond-slaves 
 and blackamoors ? 
 
 WAL. You need not have submitted. 
 
 ISEN. What ! could I bear to see my poor child wan- 
 dering up and down, wringing her hands like a mad 
 woman I who have lived for no one else this sixteen 
 years ? Guta talked sentiment called it a glorious cross, 
 and so forth. I took it as it came. 
 
 WAL. And got no quarter, I'll warrant. 
 
 ISEN. Don't talk of it my poor back tingles at the 
 thought ! 
 
 WAL. The sweet Saints think every woman of the world 
 no better than she should be ; and without meaning to be 
 envious, owe you all a grudge for past flirtations. As I 
 am a knight, now it's over, I like you all the better for it. 
 
 ISEN. What? 
 
 WAL. When I see a woman who will stand by her word, 
 and two who will stand by their mistress. And the monk, 
 too there's mettle in him. I took him for a canting 
 carpet-haunter ; but be sure, the man who will bully his 
 own patrons, has an honest purpose in him, though it 
 bears strange fruit on this wicked hither-side of the grave. 
 Now, my fair nymph of the birchen-tree, use your interest 
 to find me supper and lodging ; for your elegant squires 
 of the trencher look surly on me here : I am the prophet 
 who has no honour in his own country. 
 
 {Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 Vaunt. A rocky path leading to a mountain Chapel. A 
 Peasant sitting on a stone with dog and cross-bow. 
 
 PEASANT (singing]. 
 
 Over the wild moor, in reddest dawn of morning, 
 
 Gaily the huntsman down green droves must roam : 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 6 1 
 
 Over tTie wild moor, in greyest wane of evening, 
 Weary the huntsman comes wandering home ; 
 
 Home, home, 
 If he has one. Who comes here ? 
 
 [A Woodcutter enters with a laden ass.] 
 What art going about ? 
 WOODCUTTER. To warm other folks' backs. 
 PEAS. Thou art in the common lot Jack earns and 
 Gill spends therein lies the true division of -labour, 
 What's thy name ? 
 
 WOODC. Be'est a keeper, man, or a charmer, that dost 
 so catechize me ? 
 
 PEAS. Both I am a keeper, for I keep all I catch ; and 
 a charmer, for I drive bad spirits out of honest men's 
 turnips. 
 
 WOODC. Mary sain us, what be they like ? 
 PEAS. Four-legged kitchens of leather, cooking farmers' 
 crops into butcher's meat by night, without leave or 
 licence. 
 
 WOODC. By token, thou'rt a deer stealer ? 
 PEAS. Stealer, quoth he ? I have dominion. I do what 
 I like with mine own. 
 WOODC. Thine own ? 
 
 PEAS. Yea, marry for, saith the priest, man has do- 
 minion over the beast of the field and the fowl of the air : 
 so I, being as I am a man, as men go, have dominion 
 over the deer in my trade, as you have in yours over sleep- 
 mice and woodpeckers. 
 
 WOODC. Then every man has a right to be a poacher. 
 PEAS. Every man has his gift, and the tools go to him 
 that can use them. Some are born workmen ; some have 
 souls above work. I'm one of that metal I was meant 
 to own land, and do nothing ; but the angel that deals 
 out babies' souls, mistook the cradles, and spoilt a gallant 
 gentleman ! Well I forgive him ! there were many born 
 the same night and work wears the wits. 
 
62 The Saint's 'Tragedy. 
 
 WOODC. I had sooner draw in a yoke than hunt in a 
 halter. Hadst best repent and mend thy ways. 
 
 PEAS. The way-warden may do that : I wear out no 
 ways, I go across country. Mend ! saith he ? Why I can 
 but starve at worst, or groan with the rheumatism, 
 which you do already. And who would reek and wallow 
 o' nights in the same straw, like a stalled cow, when he 
 may have his choice of all the clean holly bushes in the 
 forest ? Who would grub out his life in the same croft, 
 when he has free-warren of all fields between this and 
 Rhine ? Not I. I have dirtied my share of spades myself; 
 but I slipped my leash and went self-hunting. 
 
 WOODC. But what if thou be caught and brought up 
 before the prince ? 
 
 PEAS. He don't care for game. He has put down his 
 kennel, and keeps a tame saint instead : and when I am 
 driven in, I shall ask my pardon of her in St. John's 
 name. They say that for his sake she'll give away the 
 shoes off her feet. 
 
 WOODC. I would not stand in your shoes for all the top 
 and lop in the forest. Murder ! Here comes a ghost ! 
 Run up the bank shove the jackass into the ditch. 
 
 [A white figure comes up the path with lights^\ 
 
 PEAS. A ghost or a watchman, and one's as bad as the 
 other so we may take to cover for the time. 
 
 ELIZABETH enters, meanly dad, carrying her new-born 
 infant; ISENTRUDIS following with a taper and gold 
 pieces on a salver. ELIZABETH passes, singing. 
 
 Deep in the warm vale the village is sleeping, 
 Sleeping the firs on the bleak rock above ; 
 Nought wakes, save grateful hearts, silently creeping 
 Up to the Lord in the might of their love. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here 1 bring Thfejf / 
 Odour, and light, and the magic of gold ; 
 Feet which must follow Thee, lips which must sing Thee, 
 Limbs which must ache for Thee ere they grow old. 
 
 What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I tender, 
 Life of mine own life, the fruit of my love ; 
 Take him, yet leave him me, till I shall render 
 Count of the precious charge, kneeling above. 
 
 {They pass up the path. The peasants come out.'] 
 
 PEAS. No ghost, but a mighty pretty wench, with a 
 mighty sweet voice. 
 
 WOODC. Wench, indeed? Where be thy manners? 
 'Tis her Ladyship the Princess. 
 
 PEAS. The Princess ! Ay, I thought those little white 
 feet were but lately out of broadcloth still, I say, a 
 mighty sweet voice I wish she had not sung so sweetly 
 it makes things to arise in a body's head, does that 
 singing : a wonderful handsome lady ! a royal lady ! 
 
 WOODC. But a most unwise one. Did ye mind the 
 gold ? If I had such a trencher full, it should sleep warm 
 in a stocking, instead of being made a brother to owls 
 here, for every rogue to snatch at. 
 
 PEAS. Why, then ? who dare harm such as her, man ? 
 
 WOODC. Nay, nay, none of us ; we are poor folks, we 
 fear God and the king. But if she had met a gentleman 
 now heaven help her ! Ah ! thou hast lost a chance 
 thou might'st have run out promiscuously, and down on 
 thy knees, and begged thy pardon for the new comer's 
 sake. There was a chance, indeed. 
 
 PEAS. Pooh, man, I have done nothing but lose chances 
 all my days. I fell into the fire the day I was christened, 
 and ever since I am like a fresh-trimmed fir-tree ; every 
 foul feather sticks to me. 
 
 WOODC. Go, shrive thyself and the priest will scrub 
 
64 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 off thy turpentine with a new hair-cloth ; and now. good 
 day, the maids are a-waiting for their firewood. 
 
 PEAS. A word before you go Take warning by 
 me avoid that same serpent, wisdom Pray lo the 
 Saints to make you a blockhead Never send youi boys to 
 school For Heaven knows, a poor man that will live 
 honest, and die in his bed, ought to have no more 
 scholarship than a parson, and no more brains than youi 
 jackass. 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 
 The Gateway of a Castle. ELIZABETH and her suite 
 standing at the top of a flight of steps. Mob below. 
 
 PEAS. Bread ! Bread ! Bread ! give us bread ; we 
 perish. 
 
 IST VOICE. Ay, give, give, give ! God knows, we're 
 long past earning. 
 
 2ND VOICE. Our skeleton children lie along hi the 
 roads 
 
 3RD VOICE. Our sheep drop dead about the frozen 
 leas 
 
 4TH VOICE. Our harness and our shoes are boiled for 
 food 
 
 OLD MAN'S VOICE. Starved, withered, autumn hay that 
 
 thanks the scythe ! 
 
 Send out your swordsmen, mow the dry bents down. 
 And make this long death short we'll never struggle. 
 
 ALL. Bread ! Bread ! 
 
 ELIZ. Ay, bread Where is it, knights and servants ? 
 Why butler, seneschal, this food forthcomes not ! 
 
 BUTLER. Alas, we've eaten all ourselves : heaven knows 
 The pages broke the buttery hatches down 
 The boys were starved almost. 
 
 VOICE BELOW. Ay, she can find enough to least her 
 minions. 
 
TJie Saint's Tragedy. 65 
 
 WOMAN'S VOICE. How can she know what 'tis, for 
 
 months and months 
 
 To stoop and straddle in the clogging fallows, 
 Bearing about a living babe within you ? 
 And then at night to fat yourself and it 
 On fir-bark, madam, and water. 
 
 ELIZ. My good dame 
 
 That which you bear, I bear : for food, God knows, 
 I have not tasted food this live-long day 
 Nor will, till you are served. I sent for wheat 
 From Koln and from the Rhine-land, days ago : 
 
 God ! why comes it not ? 
 
 Enter from below, COUNT WALTER, with a Merchant. 
 
 WAL. Stand back ; you'll choke me, rascals : 
 Archers, bring up those mules. Here comes the corn 
 Here comes your guardian angel, plenty-laden, 
 With no white wings, but good white wheat, my boys, 
 Quarters on quarters if you'll pay for it. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! give him all he asks. 
 
 WAL. The scoundrel wants 
 
 Three times its value. 
 
 MERCHANT. Not a penny less 
 
 1 bought it on speculation I must live 
 
 I get my bread by buying corn that's cheap, 
 
 And selling where 'tis dearest. Mass, you need it, 
 
 And you must pay according to your need. 
 
 MOB. Hang him ! hang all regraters hang the fore- 
 stalling dog ! 
 
 WAL. Driver, lend here the halter off that muie. 
 
 ELIZ. Nay, Count ; the corn is his, and his the right 
 To fix conditions for his own. 
 
 MER. Well spoken! 
 
 A wise and royal lady ! She will see 
 The trade protected. Why, I kept the corn 
 F 
 
66 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Three months on venture. Now, so help me Saints, 
 I am a loser by it, quite a loser 
 So help me Saints, I am. 
 
 ELIZ. You will not sell it 
 
 Save at a price which, by the bill you tender, 
 Is far beyond our means. Heaven knows, I grudge not 
 I have sold my plate, have pawned my robes and jewels. 
 Mortgaged broad lands and castles to buy food 
 And now I have no more. Abate, or trust 
 Our honour for the difference. 
 
 MER. Not a penny 
 
 I trust no nobles. I must make my profit 
 I'll have my price, or take it back again. 
 
 ELIZ. Most miserable, cold, short-sighted man, 
 Who for thy selfish gains dost welcome make 
 God's wrath, and battenest on thy fellows' woes, 
 What ? wilt thou turn from heaven's gate, open to thee. 
 Through which thy charity may passport be, 
 And win thy long greed's pardon ? Oh, for onct 
 Dare to be great ; show mercy to thyself ! 
 See how that boiling sea of human heads 
 Waits open-mouthed to bless thee : speak the word, 
 And their triumphant quire of jubilation 
 Shall pierce God's cloudy floor with praise and prayers, 
 And drown the accuser's count in angels' ears. 
 
 [/ the meantime WALTER, 6-v., have been throwing 
 down the wheat to the Mobl\ 
 
 MOB. God bless the good Count ! Bless the holy 
 
 princess 
 Hurrah for wheat Hurrah for one full stomach. 
 
 MER. Ah ! that's my wheat ! treason, my wheat, my 
 
 money ! 
 
 ELIZ. Where is the wretch's wheat ? 
 WAL. Below, my lady ; 
 
 We counted on the charm of your sweet words, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. '6; 
 
 And so did for him what, your sermon ended, 
 He would have done himself. 
 
 KNIGHT. 'Twere rude to doubt it. 
 
 MER. Ye rascal barons ! 
 
 What ! Are we burghers monkeys for your pastime ? 
 We'll clear the odds. {Seizes WALTER. 
 
 WAL. Soft, friend a worm will turn. 
 
 VOICES BELOW. Throw him down ! 
 
 WAL. Dost hear that, friend ? 
 
 Those pups are keen-toothed ; they have eat of late 
 Worse bacon to their bread than thee. Come, come, 
 Put up thy knife ; we'll give thee market-price 
 And if thou must have more why, take it out 
 I n board and lodging in the castle dungeon. 
 
 [WALTER leads him out; the Mob, &>c. disperse. 
 
 ELIZ. Now then there's many a one lies faint at 
 
 home 
 I'll go to them myself. 
 
 ISEN. What now ? start forth 
 
 In this most bitter frost, so thinly clad ? 
 
 ELIZ. Tut, tut, I wear my working dress to-day, 
 And those who work, robe lightly 
 
 ISEN. Nay, my child, 
 
 For once keep up your rank. 
 
 ELIZ. Then I had best 
 
 Roll to their door in lacqueyed equipage, 
 And dole my halfpence from my satin purse 
 I am their sister I must look like one. 
 I am their queen I'll prove myself the greatest 
 By being the minister of all. So come 
 Now to my pastime. (Aside). And in happy toil 
 Forget this whirl of doubt We are weak, we are weak, 
 Only when still : put thou thine hand to the plough, 
 The spirit drives thee on. 
 
 ISEN. You live too fast ! 
 
 F 2 
 
68 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. Too fast ? We live too slow our gummy blood 
 Without fresh purging airs from heaven, would choke 
 Slower and slower, till it stopped and froze. 
 God ! fight we not within a cursed world, 
 Whose very air teems thick with leagued fiends 
 Each word we speak has infinite effects 
 Each soul we pass must go to heaven or hell 
 And this our one chance through eternity 
 To drop and die, like dead leaves in the brake, 
 Or like the meteor stone, though whelmed itself, 
 Kindle the dry moors into fruitful blaze 
 And yet we live too fast ! 
 
 Be earnest, earnest, earnest ; mad, if thou wilt : 
 Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, 
 And that thy last deed ere the judgment-day. 
 When all's done, nothing's done. There's rest above 
 Below let work be death, if work be love ! {Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE VIII. 
 
 A Chamber in the Castle. Counts WALTER, HUGO, 
 Abbot, and Knights. 
 
 COUNT HUGO. I can't forget it, as I am a Christian man. 
 To ask for a stoup of beer at breakfast, and be told there 
 was no beer allowed in the house her Ladyship had 
 given all the malt to the poor. 
 
 ABBOT. To give away the staff of life, eh ? 
 
 C. HUGO. The life itself, sir, the life itself. All that 
 barley, that would have warmed many an honest fellow's 
 coppers, wasted in filthy cakes. 
 
 ABBOT. The parent of seraphic ale degraded into 
 plebeian dough ! Indeed, sir, we have no right to lessen 
 wantonly the amount of human enjoyment ! 
 
 C. WAL. In heaven's name, what would you have her 
 do, while the people were eating grass ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 69 
 
 C. HUGO. Nobody asked them to eat it ; nobody asked 
 them to be there to eat it ; if they will breed like rabbits, 
 let them feed like rabbits, say I I never married till I 
 could keep a wife. 
 
 ABBOT. Ah, Count Walter ! How sad to see a man of 
 your sense so led away by his feelings ! Had but this 
 dispensation been left to work itself out, and evolve the 
 blessing implicit in all heaven's chastenings ! Had but the 
 stern benevolences of providence remained undisturbed 
 by her ladyship's carnal tenderness what a boon had 
 chis famine been ! 
 
 C. WAL. How then, man ? 
 
 ABBOT. How many a poor soul would be lying Ah, 
 blessed thought ! in Abraham's bosom ; who must now 
 toil on still in this vale of tears ! Pardon this pathetic 
 dew I cannot but feel as a Churchman. 
 
 3RD COUNT. Look at it in this way, sir. There are too 
 many of us too many Where you have one job you 
 have three workmen. Why, I threw three hundred acres 
 into pasture myself this year it saves money, and risk, 
 and trouble, and tithes. 
 
 C. WAL. What would you say to the Princess, who 
 talks of breaking up all her parks to wheat next year ? 
 
 3RD COUNT. Ask her to take on the thirty families, who 
 were just going to tramp off those three hundred acres 
 into the Rhine-land, if she had not kept them in both 
 senses this winter, and left them on my hands once 
 beggars, always beggars. 
 
 C. HUGO. Well, I'm a practical man, and I say, the 
 sharper the famine, the higher are prices, and the higher 
 I sell, the more I can spend ; so the money circulates, sir, 
 that's the word like water sure to run downwards again ; 
 and so it's as broad as it's long ; and here's a health if 
 there was any beer to the farmers' friends, "A bloody 
 war and a wet harvest." 
 
 ABBOT. Strongly put, though correctly. For the self- 
 
70 The Saint *s Tragedy. 
 
 interest of each it is which produces in the aggregate 
 the happy equilibrium of all. 
 
 C. WAL. Well the world is ngnt well made, that's 
 certain ; and He who made the Jews' sin our salvation 
 may bring plenty out of famine, and comfort out of 
 covetousness. But look you, sirs, private selfishness may 
 be public weal, and yet private selfishness be just as surely 
 damned, for all that. 
 
 3RD COUNT. I hold, sir, that every alms is a fresh 
 badge of slavery. 
 
 C. WAL. I don't deny it. 
 
 3RD COUNT. Then teach them independence. 
 
 C. WAL. How ? By tempting them to turn thieves, 
 when begging fails ? By keeping their stomachs just at 
 desperation-point ? By starving them out here, to march 
 off, starving all the way, to some town, in search of em- 
 ployment, of which, if they find it, they know no more 
 than my horse ? Likely ! No, sir, to make men of them, 
 put them not out of the reach, but out of the need, of 
 charity. 
 
 3RD COUNT. And how, prithee ? By teaching them, 
 like our fair Landgravine, to open their mouth for all that 
 drops ? Thuringia is become a kennel of beggars in her 
 hands. 
 
 C. WAL. In hers ? In ours, sir ! 
 
 ABBOT. Idleness, sir, deceit, and immorality, are the 
 three children of this same barbarous self-indulgence 
 in almsgiving. Leave the poor alone. Let want teach 
 them the need of self-exertion, and misery prove the 
 foolishness of crime. 
 
 C. WAL. How ? Teach them to become men by 
 leaving them brutes ? 
 
 ABBOT. Oh, sir, there we step in, with the consolations 
 and instructions of the faith. 
 
 C. WAL. Ay, but while the grass is growing the steed 
 is starving ; and in the meantime, how will the callow 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 7 1 
 
 chick Grace, stand against the tough old game-cock 
 Hunger ? 
 
 3RD COUNT. Then how, in the name of patience, would 
 you have us alter things ? 
 
 C. WAL. We cannot alter them, sir but they will be 
 altered, never fear. 
 
 OMNES. How? How? 
 
 C. WAL. Do you see this hourglass ? Here's the state : 
 This air stands for the idlers j this sand for the workers. 
 When all the sand has run to the bottom, God in heaven 
 just turns the hourglass, and then 
 
 C. HUGO. The world's upside down. 
 
 C. WAL. And the Lord have mercy upon us ! 
 
 OMNES. On us ? Do you call us the idlers ? 
 
 C. WAL. Some dare to do so But fear not In the 
 fulness of time, all that's lightest is sure to come to the 
 top again. 
 
 C. HUGO. But what rascal calls us idlers ? 
 
 OMNES. Name, name. 
 
 C. WAL. Why, if you ask me I heard a shrewd 
 sermon the other day on that same idleness and im- 
 morality text of the Abbot's. 'Twas Conrad, the Princess's 
 director, preached it. And a fashionable cap it is, though 
 it will fit more than will like to wear it. Shall I give it 
 you ? Shall I preach ? 
 
 C. HUGO. A tub for Varila ! Stand on the table, now, 
 toss back thy hood like any Franciscan, and preach away. 
 
 C. WAL. Idleness, quoth he (Conrad, mind you), 
 idleness and immorality ? Where have they learnt them, 
 but from you nobles ? There was a saucy monk, for you. 
 But there's worse coming. Religion? said he, how can 
 they respect it, when they see you, " their betters," fattening 
 on church lands, neglecting sacraments, defying excom- 
 munications, trading in benefices, hiring the clergy for 
 your puppets and flatterers, making the ministry, the 
 episcopate itself, a lumber-room wherein to stow away 
 
72 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 the idiots and spendthrifts of your families, the confidants 
 of your mistresses, the cast-off pedagogues of your boys ? 
 
 OMNES. The scoundrel ! 
 
 C. WAL. Was he not ? But hear again Immorality ? 
 roars he ; and who has corrupted them but you ? Have 
 not you made every castle a weed-bed, from which the 
 newest corruptions of the Court stick like thistle-down, 
 about the empty heads of stable-boys and serving-maids ? 
 Have you not kept the poor worse housed than your dogs 
 and your horses, worse fed than your pigs and your sheep f 
 Is there an ancient house among you, again, of which 
 village gossips do not whisper some dark story of lust and 
 oppression, of decrepit debauchery, of hereditary doom ? 
 
 OMNES. We'll hang this monk. 
 
 C. WAL. Hear me out, and you'll burn him. His sermon 
 was like a hailstorm, the tail of the shower the sharpest, 
 Idleness ? he asked next of us all : how will they work, 
 when they see you landlords sitting idle above them, in a 
 fool's paradise of luxury and riot, never looking down but 
 to squeeze from them an extra drop of honey like sheep- 
 boys stuffing themselves with blackberries while the sheep 
 are licking up flukes in every ditch ? And now you wish 
 to leave the poor man in the slough, whither your neglect 
 and your example have betrayed him, and made his too 
 apt scholarship the excuse for your own remorseless 
 greed ! As a Christian, I am ashamed of you all ; as a 
 Churchman, doubly ashamed of those prelates, hired 
 stalking-horses of the rich, who would fain gloss over 
 their own sloth and cowardice with the wisdom which 
 cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish ; 
 aping the artless cant of an aristocracy who made them 
 use them and despise them. That was his sermon. 
 
 ABBOT. Paul and Barnabas ! What an outpouring of 
 the spirit ! Were not his hoodship the Pope's legate, now 
 accidents might happen to him, going home at night ; 
 eh, Sir Hugo ? 
 

 The Saint's Tragedy. - < ^ f j^ 
 
 ( i 
 
 C. HUGO. If he would but come my way ! 
 
 For " the mule it was slow, and the lane it was dark, 
 When out of the copse leapt a gallant young spark. 
 Says, Tis not for nought you've been begging all day : 
 So remember your toll, since you travel our way." 
 
 ABBOT. Hush ! Here comes the Landgrave. 
 
 LEWIS enters. 
 
 LEWIS. Good morrow, gentles. Why so warm, Count 
 
 Walter? 
 
 Your blessing, Father Abbot : what deep matters 
 Have called our worships to this conference ? 
 
 C. HUGO (aside]. Up, Count ; you are spokesman. 
 
 3RD COUNT. Most exalted Prince, 
 
 Whose peerless knighthood, like the remeant sun, 
 After too long a night, regilds our clay, 
 Late silvered by the reflex lunar beams 
 Of your celestial lady's matron graces 
 
 ABBOT (aside}. Ut vinum optimum amati mei 
 Dulciter descendens ! 
 
 3RD COUNT. Think not we mean to praise or dis- 
 
 approve 
 
 The acts of saintly souls must only plead 
 In foro conscientiae : grosser minds, 
 Whose humbler aim is but the public weal, 
 Know of no mesh which holds them : yet, great prince, 
 Some dare not see their sovereign's strength postponed 
 To private grace, and sigh, that generous hearts, 
 And ladies' tenderness, too oft forgetting 
 That wisdom is the highest charity, 
 Will interfere, in pardonable haste, 
 With heaven's stern providence. 
 
 LEWIS. We see your drift. 
 
 Go, sirrah (to a PAGE) ; pray the Princess to illumine 
 Our conclave with her beauties. 'Tis our manner 
 To hear no cause, of gentle or of simple, 
 
74 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Unless the accused and the accuser both 
 Meet face to face. 
 
 3RD COUNT. Excuse, high-mightiness, 
 We bring no accusation ; facts, your Highness, 
 Wait for your sentence, not our prasjudicium. 
 
 LEW. Give us the facts, then, sir ; in the lady's presence, 
 Her nearness to ourselves perchance her reasons 
 May make them somewhat dazzling. 
 
 ABBOT. Nay, my Lord ; 
 
 I, as a Churchman, though with these your nobles 
 Both in commission and opinion one, 
 Am yet most loth, my Lord, to set my seal 
 To aught which this harsh world might call complaint 
 Against a princely saint a chosen vessel 
 An argosy celestial in whom error 
 Is but the young luxuriance of her grace. 
 The Count of Varila, as bound to neither, 
 For both shall speak, and all which late has passed 
 Upon the matter of this famine open. 
 
 C. WAL. Why, if I must speak out then I'll confess 
 To have stood by, and seen the Landgravine 
 Do most strange deeds ; and in her generation 
 Show no more wit than other babes of light. 
 First, she has given away, to starving rascals, 
 The stores of grain, she might have sold, good lack ! 
 For any price she asked ; has pawned your jewels, 
 And mortgaged sundry farms, and all for food. 
 Has sunk vast sums in fever-hospitals, 
 For rogues whom famine sickened almshouses 
 For sluts whose husbands died schools for their brats. 
 Most sad vagaries ! but there's worse to come. 
 The dulness of the Court has ruined trade : 
 The jewellers and clothiers don't come near us ; 
 The sempstresses, my lord, and pastrycooks 
 Have quite forgot their craft ; she has turned all heads, 
 And made the ladies starve, and wear old clothes, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 75 
 
 And run about with her to nurse the sick, 
 
 Instead of putting gold in circulation 
 
 By balls, sham-fights, and dinners ; 'tis most sad, sir, 
 
 But she has swept your treasury out as clean 
 
 As was the widow's cruse, who fed Elijah. 
 
 LEW. Ruined, no doubt ! Lo ! here the culprit comes. 
 
 [ELIZABETH enters. 
 
 Come hither, dearest. These, my knights and nobles, 
 Lament your late unthrift ; (your conscience speaks 
 The causes of their blame ;) and wish you warned, 
 As wisdom is the highest charity, 
 No more to interfere, from private feeling, 
 With heaven's stern laws, or maim the sovereign's wealth, 
 To save superfluous villains' worthless lives. 
 
 ELIZ. Lewis ! 
 
 LEW. Not I, fair, but my counsellors, 
 
 In courtesy, need some reply. 
 
 ELIZ. My Lords ; 
 
 Doubtless, you speak as your duty bids you : 
 I know you love my husband : do you think 
 My love is less than yours ? 'Twas for his honour 
 I dared not lose a single silly sheep 
 Of all the flock which God had trusted to him. 
 True, I had hoped by this No matter what 
 Since to your sense it bears a different hue. 
 I keep no logic. For my gifts, thank God, 
 They cannot be recalled ; for those poor souls, 
 My pensioners even for my husband's knightly name, 
 Oh ! ask not back that slender loan of comfort 
 My folly has procured them : if, my Lords, 
 My public censure, or disgraceful penance 
 May expiate, and yet confirm my waste, 
 I offer this poor body to the buffets 
 Of sternest justice : when I dared not spare 
 My husband's lands, I dare not spare myself. 
 . LEW. No ! no ! My noble sister? What ? my Lords ! 
 
76 The Saint 'j Tragedy. 
 
 If her love move you not, her wisdom may. 
 
 She knows a deeper statecraft, sirs, than you ; 
 
 She will not throw away the substance, Abbot, 
 
 To save the accident ; waste living souls 
 
 To keep, or hope to keep, the means of life. 
 
 Our wisdom and our swords may fill our coffers, 
 
 But will they breed us men, my Lords, or mothers ? 
 
 God blesses in the camp a noble rashness : 
 
 Then why not in the storehouse ? He that lends 
 
 To Him, need never fear to lose his venture. 
 
 Spend on, my Queen. You will not sell my castles ? 
 
 Nay, you must leave us Neuburg, love, and Wartburg. 
 
 Their worn old stones will hardly pay the carriage, 
 
 And foreign foes may pay untimely visits. 
 
 C. WAL. And home foes, too : if these philosophers 
 Put up the curb, my Lord, a half-link tighter, 
 The scythes will be among our horses' legs 
 Before next harvest. 
 
 LEW. Fear not for our welfare : 
 
 We have a guardian here, well skilled to keep 
 Peace for our seneschal, while angels, stooping 
 To catch the tears she sheds for us in absence, 
 Will sain us from the roaming adversary 
 With scents of Paradise. Farewell, my Lords. 
 
 ELIZ. Nay, I must pray your knighthoods You 
 
 must honour 
 
 Our dais and bower as private guests to-day. 
 Thanks for your gentle warning ; may my weakness 
 To such a sin be never tempted more ! 
 
 [Exeunt ELIZABETH and LEWIS. 
 
 C. WAL. Thus, as if virtue were not its own reward, is 
 it paid over and above with beef and ale ? Weep not, 
 tender-hearted Count ! Though " generous hearts/' my 
 Lord, "and ladies' tenderness, too oft forget" Truly 
 spoken ! Lord Abbot, does not your spiritual eye discern 
 coals of fire on Count Hugo's head ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 77 
 
 C. HUGO. Where, and a plague ? Where ? 
 
 C, WAL. Nay, I speak mystically, there is nought 
 there but what beer will quench before nightfall. Here, 
 peeping rabbit (to a PAGE at the door], out of your burrow, 
 and show these gentles to their lodgings. We will meet 
 at the gratias. [ They go out. 
 
 C. WAL. (alone). Well : if Hugo is a brute, he at least 
 makes no secret of it. He is an old boar, and honest ; 
 he wears his tushes outside, for a warning to all men. But 
 for the rest ! Whited sepulchres ! and not one of them 
 but has half persuaded himself of his own benevolence. 
 Of all cruelties, save me from your small pedant, your 
 closet philosopher, who has just courage enough to bestride 
 his theory, without wit to see whither it will carry him. In 
 experience a child : in obstinacy, a woman : in nothing 
 a man, but in logic-chopping : instead of God's grace, a 
 few schoolboy saws about benevolence, and industry, and 
 independence there is his metal. If the world will be 
 mended on his principles, well. If not, poor world ! but 
 principles must be carried out, though through blood and 
 famine : for truly, man was made for theories, not theories 
 for man. A doctrine is these men's God touch but that 
 shrine, and lo ! your simpering philanthropist becomes as 
 ruthless as a Dominican. [Exit. 
 
 SCENE IX. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S Bower. ELIZABETH and LEWIS sitting 
 together. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! that we two were Maying 
 
 Down the stream of the soft spring breeze ; 
 Like children with violets playing . 
 In the shade of the whispering trees. 
 
78 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Oh ! that we two sat dreaming 
 
 On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down 
 
 Watching the white mist steaming 
 
 Over river and mead and town. 
 
 Oh ! that we two lay sleeping 
 
 In our nest in the churchyard sod, 
 
 With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, 
 
 And our souls at home with God ! 
 
 LEW. Ah, turn away those swarthy diamonds' blaze ! 
 Mine eyes are dizzy, and my faint sense reels 
 In the rich fragrance of those purple tresses. 
 Oh, to be thus, and thus, day after day ! 
 To sleep, and wake, and find it yet no dream 
 My atmosphere, my hourly food, such bliss 
 As to have dreamt of, five short years agone, 
 Had seemed a mad conceit. 
 
 ELIZ. Five years agone ? 
 
 LEW. I know not ; for upon our marriage-day 
 I slipped from time into eternity ; 
 Where each day teems with centuries of life, 
 And centuries were but one wedding morn. 
 
 ELIZ. Lewis, I am too happy ! floating higher 
 Then e'er my will had dared to soar, though able ; 
 But circumstance, which is the will of God, 
 Beguiled my cowardice to that, which, darling, 
 I found most natural, when I feared it most. 
 Love would have had no strangeness in mine eyes, 
 Save from the prejudice which others taught me- - 
 They should know best. Yet now this wedlock seems 
 A second infancy's baptismal robe, 
 A heaven, my spirit's antenatal home, 
 Lost in blind pining girlhood found now, found ! 
 (Aside}. What have I said ? Do I' blaspheme ? Alas 1 
 I neither made these thoughts, nor can unmake them. 
 
 LEW. Ay. marriage is the life-long miracle, 
 The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh ; 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. yq 
 
 The Eden, where the spirit and the flesh 
 
 Are one again, and new-born souls walk free, 
 
 And name in mystic language all things new, 
 
 Naked, and not ashamed. [ELiz. hides her face. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! God ! were that true ! 
 
 \Clasps him round the neck. 
 There, there, no more 
 I love thee, and I love thee, and I love thee 
 More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak ; 
 But how, or why, whether with soul or body, 
 I will not know. Thou art mine. Why question further? 
 (Aside}. Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, 
 And be degraded ! how ? by my own troth-plight ? 
 No, but my thinking that I fall. 'Tis written 
 That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin. 
 Oh! Jesu Lord ! Hast Thou not made me thus ? 
 Mercy ! My brain will burst : I cannot leave him ! 
 
 LEW. Beloved, if I went away to war 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, God ! More wars ? More partings? 
 
 LEW. Nay, my sister 
 
 My trust but longs to glory in its surety : 
 What would'st thou do ? 
 
 ELIZ. What I have done already. 
 
 Have I not followed thee, through drought and frost, 
 Through flooded swamps, rough glens, and wasted lands, 
 Even while I panted most with thy dear loan 
 Of double life? 
 
 LEW. My saint ! but what if I bid thee 
 
 To be my seneschal, and here with prayers, 
 With sober thrift, and noble bounty shine, 
 Alone and peerless ? And suppose nay, start not- 
 I only said suppose the war was long, 
 Our camps far off, and that some winter, love, 
 Or two, pent back this Eden stream, where now 
 Joys upon joys like sunlit ripples pass, 
 Alike, yet ever new. What would'st thou do, love ? 
 
8o The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. A year? A year ! A cold, blank, widowed year ! 
 Strange, that mere words should chill my heart with fear 
 
 This is no hall of doom, 
 No impious Soldan's feast of old, 
 Where o'er the madness of the foaming gold, 
 A fleshless hand its woe on tainted walls enrolled. 
 Yet by thy wild words raised, 
 In Love's most careless revel, 
 Looms through the future's fog a shade of evil, 
 And all my heart is glazed. 
 Alas? What would I do? 
 I would lie down and weep, and weep, 
 Till the salt current of my tears should sweep 
 My soul, like floating weed, adown a fitful sleep, 
 
 A lingering half-night through. 
 Then when the mocking bells did wake 
 My hollow eyes to twilight gray, 
 1 would address my spiritless limbs to pray, 
 And nerve myself with stripes to meet the weary day, 
 
 And labour for thy sake. 
 Until by vigils, fasts, and tears, 
 The flesh was grown so spare and light, 
 That I could slip its mesh, and flit by night 
 O'er sleeping sea and land to thee or Christ till morning 
 light. 
 
 Peace ! Why these fears ? 
 Life is too short for mean anxieties : 
 Soul! thou must work, though blindfold. 
 
 Come, beloved, 
 
 I must turn robber. I have begged of late 
 So soft, I fear to ask Give me thy purse. 
 
 LEW. No, not my purse : stay Where is all that gold 
 I gave you, when the Jews came here from Koln? 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, those few coins ? I spent them all next day 
 On a new chapel on the Eisenthal ; 
 There were no choristers but nightingales 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 8 1 
 
 No teachers there save bees : how long is this ? 
 Have you turned niggard? 
 
 LEW. Nay ; go ask my steward 
 
 Take what you will this purse I want myself. 
 
 ELIZ. Ah ! now I guess. You have some trinket for 
 
 me 
 
 You promised late to buy no more such baubles 
 And now you are ashamed. Nay, I must see 
 
 \Snatches his purse. LEWIS hides his face. 
 
 Ah, God ! what's here ? A new crusader's cross ? 
 Whose ? Nay, nay turn not from me ; I guess all 
 You need not tell me ; it is very well 
 According to the meed of my deserts : 
 Yes very well. 
 
 LEW. Ah ! love look not so calm 
 
 ELIZ. Fear not I shall weep soon. 
 
 How long is it since you vowed? 
 
 LEW. A week or more. 
 
 ELIZ. Brave heart ! And all that time your terlderness 
 Kept silence, knowing my weak foolish soul. [ Weeps. 
 Oh, love ! Oh, life ! Late found, and soon, soon lost ! 
 A bleak sunrise, a treacherous morning gleam, 
 And now, ere mid-day, all my sky is black 
 With whirling drifts once more ! The march is fixed 
 For this day month, is't not ? 
 
 LEW. Alas, too true ! 
 
 ELIZ. O break not, heart ! 
 
 [CONRAD enters. 
 Ah ! here my master comes. 
 No weeping before him. 
 
 LEW. Speak to the holy man : 
 
 He can give strength and comfort, which poor I 
 Need even more than you. Here, saintly master, 
 i leave her to your holy eloquence. Farewell ! 
 God help us both ! {Exit LEWIS. 
 
 G 
 
82 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. (rising). You know, Sir, that my husband has 
 taken the cross ? 
 
 CON. I do ; all praise to God ! 
 
 ELIZ. But none to you : 
 
 Hard-hearted ! Am I not enough your slave? 
 Can I obey you more when he is gone 
 Than now I do ? Wherein, pray, has he hindered 
 This holiness of mine, for which you make me 
 Old ere my womanhood ! [CONRAD offers to go. 
 
 Stay, Sir, and tell me 
 
 Is this the out-come of your "father's care?" 
 Was it not enough to poison all my joys 
 With foulest scruples ? show me nameless sins, 
 Where I, unconscious babe, blessed God for all things, 
 But you must thus intrigue away my knight 
 And plunge me down this gulf of widowhood ! 
 And I not twenty yet a girl an orphan 
 That cannot stand alone ! Was I too happy ? 
 Oh, God ! what lawful bliss do I not buy 
 And balance with the smart of some sharp penance ? 
 Hast thou no pity ? None ? Thou drivest me 
 To fiendish doubts : Thou, Jesus' messenger ? 
 
 CON. This to your master ! 
 
 ELIZ. This to any one 
 
 Who dares to part me from my love. 
 
 CON 'Tis well- 
 
 In pity to your weakness I must deign 
 To do what ne'er I did excuse myself. 
 I say, I knew not of your husband's purpose ; 
 God's spirit, not I, moved him : perhaps I sinned 
 In that I did not urge it myself. 
 
 ELIZ. Thou traitor ! 
 
 So thou would'st part us ? 
 
 CON. Aught that makes thee greater 
 
 I'll dare. This very outburst proves in thee 
 Passions unsanctified, and carnal leanings 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 83 
 
 Upon the creatures thou would'st fain transcend. 
 
 Thou badest me cure thy weakness. Lo, God brings thee 
 
 The tonic cup I feared to mix : be brave 
 
 Drink it to the lees, and thou shalt find within 
 
 A pearl of price. 
 
 ELIZ. ; Tis bitter ! 
 
 CON. Bitter, truly : 
 
 Even I, to whom the storm of earthly love 
 Is but a dim remembrance Courage ! Courage ! 
 There's glory in't ; fulfil thy sacrifice ; 
 Give up thy noblest on the noblest service 
 God's sun has looked on, since the chosen twelve 
 Went conquering, and to conquer, forth. If he fall 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, spare mine ears ! 
 
 CON. He falls a blessed martyr, 
 
 To bid thee welcome through the gates of pearl ; 
 And next to his shall thine own guerdon be 
 If thou devote him willing to thy God. 
 Wilt thou? 
 
 ELIZ. Have mercy ! 
 
 CON. Wilt thou ? Sit not thus 
 
 Watching the sightless air : no angel in it 
 But asks thee what I ask : the fiend alone 
 Delays thy coward flesh. Wilt thou devote him ? 
 
 ELIZ. I will devote him ; a crusader's wife ! 
 I'll glory in it. Thou speakest words from God 
 And God shall have him ! Go now good, my master ; 
 My poor brain swims. \Exit CONRAD. 
 
 Yes a crusader's wife ! 
 And a crusader's widow ! 
 
 {Bursts into tears, and dashes herself on the floor. 
 
 G 2 
 
$4 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 SCENE X. 
 
 A Street in the Town of Schmalcald. Bodies of Crusading 
 Troops defiling past. LEWIS and ELIZABETH with 
 their Suite in the foreground. 
 
 LEW. Alas ! the time is near ; I must be gone 
 There are our liegemen ; how you'll welcome us, 
 Returned in triumph, bowed with paynim spoils, 
 Beneath the victor cross, to part no more ! 
 
 ELIZ. Yes we shall part no more, where next we meet. 
 Enough to have stood here once on such an errand ! 
 
 LEW. The bugle calls. Farewell, my love, my lady, 
 Queen, sister, saint ! One last long kiss Farewell ! 
 
 ELIZ. One kiss and then another and another 
 Till 'tis too late to go and so return 
 Oh God ! forgive that craven thought ! There, take him 
 Since Thou dost need him. I have kept him ever 
 Thine, when most mine ; and shall I now deny Thee ? 
 Oh ! go yes, go Thou'lt not forget to pray, 
 
 [LEWIS goes. 
 
 With me, at our old hour ? Alas ! he's gone 
 And lost thank God he hears me not for ever. 
 Why look'st thou so, poor girl ? I say, for ever. 
 The day I found the bitter blessed cross, 
 Something did strike my heart like keen cold steel, 
 Which quarries daily there with dead dull pains 
 Whereby I know that we shall meet no more. 
 Come ! Home, maids, home ! Prepare me widow's weeds 
 For he is dead to me, and I must soon 
 Die too to him, and many things ; and mark me 
 Breathe not his name, lest this love-pampered heart 
 Should sicken to vain yearnings Lost ! lost ! lost ! 
 
 LADY. Oh stay, and watch this pomp. 
 
 ELIZ. Well said we'll stay ; so this bright enterprise 
 Shall blanch our private clouds, and steep our soul 
 Drunk with the spirit of great Christendom. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 85 
 
 CRUSADER CHORUS. 
 [Men at Arms pass, singing.'] 
 
 The tomb of God before us, 
 
 Our fatherland behind, 
 
 Our ships shall leap o'er billows steep, 
 
 Before a charmed wind. 
 
 Above our van great angels 
 
 Shall fight along the sky ; 
 
 While martyrs pure and crowned saints 
 
 To God for rescue cry, 
 
 The red-cross knights and yoemen 
 Throughout the holy town, 
 In faith and might, on left and right, 
 Shall tread the paynim down. 
 
 Till on the Mount Moriah 
 The Pope of Rome shall stand ; 
 The Kaiser and the King of France 
 Shall guard him on each hand. 
 
 There shall he rule all nations, 
 With crozier and with sword ; 
 And pour on all the heathen, 
 The wrath of Christ the Lord. 
 
 [ Women bystanders.} 
 
 Christ is a rock in the bare salt land, 
 
 To shelter qur knights from the sun and sand : 
 
 Christ the Lord is a summer sun, 
 
 To ripen the grain while they are gone. 
 
 Then you who fight in the bare salt land, 
 And you who work at home, 
 Fight and work for Christ the Lord, 
 Until His kingdom come. 
 
S6 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 [Old Knights pass.] 
 
 Our stormy sun is sinking ; 
 Our sands are running low ; 
 In one fair fight, before the night, 
 Our hard-worn hearts shall glow. 
 
 We cannot pine in cloister ; 
 
 We cannot fast and pray ; 
 
 The sword which built our load of guilt 
 
 Must wipe that guilt away. 
 
 We know the doom before us ; 
 The dangers of the road ; 
 Have mercy, mercy, Jesu blest, 
 When we lie low in blood. 
 
 When we lie gashed and gory, 
 The holy walls within, 
 Sweet Jesu, think upon our end, 
 And wipe away our sin. 
 
 \Boy Crusaders pass .] 
 
 The Christ-child sits on high : 
 He looks through the merry blue sky ; 
 He holds in His hand a bright lily-band, 
 For the boys who for Him die. 
 
 On holy Mary's arm, 
 Wrapt safe from terror and harm, 
 Lulled by the breeze in the paradise trees, 
 Their souls sleep soft and warm. 
 
 Knight David, young and true, 
 
 The giant Soldan slew, 
 
 And our arms so light, for the Christ-child's right, 
 
 Like noble deeds can do. 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 87 
 
 [ Young Knights pass .] 
 
 The rich East blooms fragrant before us ; 
 
 All Fairy-land beckons us forth ; 
 
 We must follow the crane in her flight o'er the main. 
 
 From the frosts and the moors of the North. 
 
 Our sires in the youth of the nations 
 Swept westward through plunder and blood, 
 But a holier quest calls us back to the East, 
 We fight for the kingdom of God. 
 
 Then shrink not, and sigh not, fair ladies, 
 The red cross which flames on each arm and each shield, 
 Through philtre and spell, and the black charms of hell, 
 Shall shelter our true love in camp and in field. 
 
 [Old Monk, looking after them.] 
 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! 
 
 The burying place of God ! 
 
 Why gay and bold, in steel and gold, 
 
 O'er the paths where Christ hath trod ? 
 
 [The Scene closes. 
 
 ACT III. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A Chamber in the Wartburg. ELIZABETH sitting in 
 Widow's weeds ; GUTA and ISENTRUDIS by her. 
 
 * 
 
 ISEN. What ? Always thus, my princess ? Is this 
 
 wise, 
 
 By day with fasts and ceaseless coil of labour ; 
 About the ungracious poor hands, eyes, feet, brain, 
 
83 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 O'ertasked alike 'mid sin and filth, which make 
 Each sense a plague by night with cruel stripes, 
 And weary watchings on the freezing stone, 
 To double all your griefs, and burn life's candle, 
 As village gossips say, at either end ? 
 The good book bids the heavy-hearted drink, 
 And so forget their woe. 
 
 ELIZ. 'Tis written too 
 
 In that same book, nurse, that the days shall come 
 When the bridegroom shall be taken away and then 
 Then shall they mourn and fast : I needed weaning 
 From sense and earthly joys ; by this way only 
 May I win God to leave in mine own hands 
 My luxury's cure : oh ! I may bring him back, 
 By working out to its full depth the chastening 
 The need of which his loss proves : I but barter 
 Less grief for greater pain for widowhood. 
 
 I SEN. And death for life your cheeks are wan and 
 
 sharp 
 
 As any three-days' moon you are shifting always 
 Uneasily and stiff, now, on your seat, 
 As from some secret pain. 
 
 ELIZ. Why watch me thus ? 
 
 You cannot know and yet you know too much 
 I tell you, nurse, pain's comfort, when the flesh 
 Aches with the aching soul in harmony, 
 And even in woe, we are one : the heart must speak. 
 Its passion's strangeness in strange symbols out, 
 Or boil, till it bursts inly. 
 
 GUTA. Yet, methinks, 
 
 You might have made this widowed solitude 
 A holy rest a spell of soft grey weather, 
 Beneath whose fragrant dews all tender thoughts 
 Might bud and burgeon. 
 
 ELIZ. That's a gentle dream ; 
 
 But nature shows nought like it : every winter, 
 
( ' A* f 
 
 The Saint 's Tragedy. ' i / , 89 S 7 7 ' j _ 
 
 When the great sun has turned his face away, 
 
 The earth goes down into the vale of grief, 
 
 And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, 
 
 Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay 
 
 Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses 
 
 As I may yet ! 
 
 I SEN. There, now my foolish child ! 
 
 You faint : come come to your chamber 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, forgive me ! 
 
 But hope at times throngs in so rich and full, 
 It mads the brain like wine : come with me, nurse, 
 Sit by me, lull me calm with gentle tales 
 Of noble ladies wandering in the wild wood, 
 Fed on chance earth-nuts, and wild strawberries, 
 Or milk of silly sheep, and woodland doe. 
 Or how fair Magdalen 'mid desert sands 
 Wore out in prayer her lonely blissful years, 
 Watched by bright angels, till her modest tresses 
 Wove to her pearled feet their golden shroud. 
 Come, open all your lore. 
 
 [SOPHIA and AGUES enter.} 
 
 My mother-in-law ! 
 (Aside}. Shame on thee, heart ! why sink, whene'er we 
 
 meet ? 
 
 SOPH. Daughter, we know of old thy strength, of metal 
 Beyond us worldlings : shrink not, if the time 
 Be come which needs its use 
 
 ELIZ. What means this preface ? Ah ! your looks are 
 
 big 
 With sudden woes speak out. 
 
 SOPH. Be calm, and heai 
 
 The will of God toward my son, thy husband. 
 
 ELIZ. What ? is he captive ? Why then what of that ? 
 There are friends will rescue him there's gold for 
 ransom 
 
QO The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 We'll sell our castles live in bowers of rushes 
 Oh God ! that I were with him in the dungeon ! 
 
 SOPH. He is not taken. 
 
 ELIZ. No ! he would have fought to the death ! 
 There's treachery ! What paynim dog dare face 
 His lance, who naked braved yon lion's rage, 
 And eyed the cowering monster to his den ? 
 Speak ! Has he fled ? or worse ? 
 
 SOPH. Child, he is dead. 
 
 ELIZ. (clasping her hands on her knees). The world is 
 dead to me, and all its smiles ! 
 
 I SEN. Oh, woe ! my prince ! and doubly woe, my 
 daughter ! 
 
 [ELIZABETH springs up and rushes out. 
 Oh, stop her stop my child ! She will go mad 
 Dash herself down Fly Fly She is not made 
 Of hard, light stuff, like you. 
 
 [ISENTRUDIS and GUTA run out. 
 
 SOPH. I had expected some such passionate outbreak 
 At the first news : you see now, Lady Agnes, 
 These saints, who fain would "wean themselves from 
 
 earth," 
 
 Still yield to the affections they despise 
 When the game's earnest Now ere they return 
 Your brother, child, is dead 
 
 AGNES. I know it too well. 
 
 So young so brave so blest! And she she loved 
 
 him 
 
 Oh ! I repent of all the foolish scoffs 
 With which I crossed her. 
 
 SOPH. Yes the Landgrave's dead 
 
 Attend to me Alas ! my son ! my son ! 
 He was my first-born ! But he has a brother 
 Agnes ! we must not let this foreign gipsy, 
 Who, as you see, is scarce her own wits' mistress, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 91 
 
 Flaunt sovereign over us, and our broad lands, 
 To my son's prejudice There are barons, child, 
 Who will obey a knight, but not a saint : 
 I must at once to them. 
 
 AGNES. Oh, let me stay ! 
 
 SOPH. As you shall please Your brother's landgravate 
 Is somewhat to you, surely and your smiles 
 Are worth gold pieces in a court intrigue. 
 For her, on her own principles, a downfall 
 Is a chastening mercy and a likely one. 
 
 AGNES. Oh ! let me stay, and comfort her ! 
 
 SOPH. Romance ! 
 
 You girls adore a scene as lookers on. 
 
 {Exit SOPHIA. 
 
 AGNES, (alone). Well spoke the old monks, peaceful 
 
 watching life's turmoil, 
 
 '' Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see : 
 God's love with keen flame purges, like the lightning 
 
 flash, 
 Gold which is purest, purer still must be." 
 
 [GUTA enters.] 
 
 Alas ! Returned alone ! Where has my sister been ? 
 GUTA. Thank heaven you hear alone, for such sad 
 
 sight would haunt 
 Henceforth your young hopes crush your shuddering 
 
 fancy down 
 
 With dread of like fierce anguish. 
 GUTA. You saw her bound forth : we towards her bower 
 
 in haste 
 
 Ran trembling : spell-bound there, before her bridal-bed 
 She stood, while wan smiles flickered, like the northern 
 
 dawn, 
 
 Across her worn cheeks' ice-field ; keenest memories then 
 Rushed with strong shudderings through her as the 
 
 winged shaft 
 
92 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Springs from the tense nerve, so her passion hurled her 
 
 forth 
 
 Sweeping, like fierce ghost, on through hall and corridor, 
 Tearless, with wide eyes staring, while a ghastly wind 
 Moaned on through roof and rafter, and the empty helms 
 Along the walls rang clattering, and above her waved 
 Dead heroes' banners : swift and yet more swift she drove 
 Still seeking aimless ; sheer against the opposing wall 
 At last dashed reckless there with frantic fingers clutched 
 Blindly the ribbed oak, till that frost of rage 
 Dissolved itself in tears, and like a babe, 
 With inarticulate moans, and folded hands, 
 She followed those who led her, as if the sun 
 On her life's dial had gone back seven years, 
 And she were once again the dumb sad child 
 We knew her ere she married. 
 
 I SEN. (entering}. As after wolf wolf presses, leaping 
 
 through the snow-glades, 
 So woe on woe throngs surging up. 
 
 GUTA. What? treason? 
 
 I SEN. Treason, and of the foulest. From her state 
 
 she' s rudely thrust ; 
 
 Her keys are seized ; her weeping babies pent from her : 
 The wenches stop their sobs to sneer askance, 
 And greet their fallen censor's new mischance. 
 
 AGNES. Alas ! Who dared to do this wrong ? 
 
 I SEN. Your mother and your mother's son 
 Judge you, if it was knightly done. 
 
 GUTA. See ! see ! she comes, with heaving breast, 
 With bursting eyes, and purpled brow : 
 Oh that the traitors saw her now ! 
 They know not, sightless fools, the heart they break. 
 
 ELIZABETH enters slowly. 
 
 ELIZ. He is in purgatory now ! Alas ! 
 Angels ! be pitiful ! deal gently with him ! 
 
7/ >V 
 
 u '"*"> 
 
 The Saint's Tragedy. 93 
 
 His sins were gentle ! That's one cause left for living 
 To pray, and pray for him : why all these months 
 I prayed, and here's my answer : Dead of a fever ! 
 Why thus ? so soon ! Only six years for love ! 
 While any formal, heartless matrimony, 
 Patched up by Court intrigues, and threats of cloisters, 
 Drags on for six times six, and peasant slaves 
 Grow old on the same straw, and hand in hand 
 Slip from life's oozy bank, to float at ease. 
 
 \A knocking at the door. 
 That's some petitioner. 
 
 Go to I will not hear them : why should I work, 
 When he is dead ? Alas ! was that my sin ? 
 Was he, not Christ, my lode- star ? Why not warn me ? 
 Too late ! What's this foul dream ? Dead at Otranto 
 Parched by Italian suns no woman by him 
 He was too chaste ! Nought but rude men to nurse ! 
 If I had been there, I should have watched by him 
 Guessed every fandy God ! I might have saved him ! 
 
 [A servant-man bursts in. 
 SERVANT. Madam, the Landgrave gave me strict 
 
 commands 
 
 I SEN. The Landgrave, dolt ? 
 
 ELIZ. I might have saved him ! 
 
 SERVANT (to I SEN.) Ay, saucy madam I- 
 The Landgrave Henry, lord and master, 
 Freer than the last, and yet no waster, 
 Who will not stint a poor knave's beer, 
 Or spin out Lent through half the year 
 Why I see double ! 
 ELIZ. Who spoke there of the Landgrave ? , What's 
 
 this drunkard ? 
 Give him his answer 'Tis no time for mumming 
 
 SERV, The Landgrave Henry bade me see you out 
 Safe through his gates, and that at once, my Lady. 
 Come ! 
 
94 TJie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. Why that's hasty I must take my children 
 Ah ! I forgot they would not let me see them. 
 I must pack up my jewels 
 
 SERV. You'll not need it 
 
 His Lordship has the keys. 
 
 ELIZ. He has indeed. 
 
 Why, man ! I am thy children's godmother 
 I nursed thy wife myself in the black sickness 
 Art thou a bird, that when the old tree falls, 
 Flits off, and sings in the sapling ? 
 
 [The man seizes her arm. 
 
 Keep thine hands off- 
 Ill not be shamed Lead on. Farewell, my Ladies. 
 Follow not ! There's want to spare on earth already ; 
 And mine own woe is weight enough for me. 
 Go back, and say, Elizabeth has yet 
 Eternal homes, built deep in poor men's hearts ; 
 And, in the alleys underneath the wall, 
 Has bought with sinful mammon heavenly treasure, 
 More sure than adamant, purer than white whales' bone, 
 Which now she claims. Lead on : a people's love shall 
 right me. \_Exit 'with Servant. 
 
 GUTA. Where now, dame ? 
 
 I SEN. \Vhere, but after her ? 
 
 GUTA. True heart ! 
 I'll follow to the death. {Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Street. ELIZABETH and GUTA at the door of a 
 Convent. Monks in the. Porch. 
 
 ELIZ. You are afraid to shelter me afraid. 
 And so you thrust me forth, to starve and freeze. 
 Soon said. Why palter o'er these mean excuses, 
 Which tempt me to despise you ? 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 95 
 
 MONKS. Ah ! my lady, 
 
 We know your kindness but we poor religious 
 Are bound to obey God's ordinance, and submit 
 Unto the powers that be, who have forbidden 
 All men, alas ! to give you food or shelter. 
 
 ELIZ. Silence ! I'll go. Better in God's hand than 
 
 man's. 
 
 He shall kill us, if we die. This bitter blast 
 Warping the leafless willows, yon white snow-storms, 
 Whose wings, like vengeful angels, cope the vault, 
 They are God's, We'll trust to them. 
 
 \_Monks go in. 
 
 GUTA. Mean-spirited ! 
 
 Fair frocks hide foul hearts. Why, their altar now 
 Is blazing with your gifts. 
 
 ELIZ. How long their altar ? 
 
 To God I gave and God shall pay me back. 
 Fool ! to have put my trust in living man, 
 And fancied that I bought God's love, by buying 
 The greedy thanks of these His earthly tools ! 
 Well here's one lesson learnt ! I thank thee, Lord ! 
 Henceforth I'll straight to Thee, and to Thy poor. 
 What ? Isentrudis not returned ? Alas ! 
 Where are those children ? 
 
 They will not have the heart to keep them from me- - 
 Oh ! have the traitors harmed them ? 
 
 GUTA. Do not think it. 
 
 The dowager has a woman's heart. 
 
 ELIZ. Ay, ay 
 
 But she's a mother and mothers will dare all things 
 Oh ! Love can make us fiends, as well as angels. 
 My babies ! Weeping ? Oh, have mercy, Lord ! 
 On me heap all thy wrath I understand it : 
 What can blind senseless terror do for them ? 
 
 GUTA. Plead, plead your penances ! Great God, 
 consider 
 
g6 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 All she has done and suffered, and forbear 
 To smite her like a worldling ! 
 
 ELIZ. Silence, girl ! 
 
 I'd plead my deeds, if mine own character, 
 My strength of will had fathered them : but no 
 They are His, who worked them in me, in despite 
 Of mine own selfish and luxurious will 
 Shall I bribe Him with His own ? For pain, I tell thee 
 I need more pain than mine own will inflicts, 
 Pain which shall break that will. Yet spare them, Lord ! 
 Go to I am a fool to wish them life 
 And greater fool to miscall life, this headache 
 This nightmare of our gross and crude digestion 
 This fog which steams up from our freezing clay 
 While waking heaven's beyond. No ! slay them, traitors ! 
 Cut through the channels of those innocent breaths 
 Whose music charmed my lone nights, ere they learn 
 To love the world, and hate the wretch who bore them ! 
 
 [Weeps. 
 
 GUTA. This storm will blind us both : come here, and 
 
 shield you 
 Behind this buttress. 
 
 ELIZ. What's a wind to me ? 
 
 I. can see up the street here, if they come 
 They do not come ! Oh ! my poor weanling lambs 
 Struck dead by carrion ravens ! 
 What then, I have borne worse. But yesterday 
 I thought I had a husband and now now ! 
 Guta ! He called a holy man before he died ? 
 
 GUTA. The Bishop of Jerusalem, 'tis said, 
 With holy oil, and with the blessed body 
 Of Him for whom he died, did speed him duly 
 Upon his heavenward flight. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh happy bishop ! 
 
 Where are those children ? If I had but seen him I 
 I could have borne all then. One word one kiss ! 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 07 
 
 Hark ! What's that rushing ! White doves one two 
 
 three 
 
 Fleeing before the gale. My children's spirits ! 
 Stay, babies stay for me ! What ! Not a moment ? 
 And I so nearly ready to be gone ? 
 
 GUTA. Still on your children ? 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! this grief is light 
 
 And floats a-top well, well ; it hides a while 
 That gulf too black for speech My husband's dead ! 
 I dare not think on't. 
 
 A small bird dead in the snow ! Alas ! poor minstrel ! 
 A week ago, before this very window, 
 He warbled, may be, to the slanting sunlight ; 
 And housewives blest him for a merry singer : 
 And now he freezes at their doors, like me. 
 Poor foolish brother ! didst thou look for payment ? 
 
 GUTA. But thou hast light in darkness : he has none 
 The bird's the sport of time, while our life's floor 
 Is laid upon eternity ; no -crack in it 
 But shows the underlying heaven. 
 
 ELIZ. Art sure ? 
 
 Does this look like it, girl ! No I'll trust yet 
 Some have gone mad for less ; but why should I ? 
 Who live in time, and not eternity. 
 'Twill end, girl, end ; no cloud across the sun 
 But passes at the last, and gives us back 
 The face of God once more. 
 
 GUTA. See here they come, 
 
 Dame Isentrudis and your children, all 
 Safe down the cliff path, through the whirling snowdrifts. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh Lord, my Lord ! I thank Thee ! 
 Loving, and merciful, and tenderhearted, 
 And even in fiercest wrath remembering mercy. 
 Lo ! here's my ancient foe. What want you, Sir ? 
 
 [HUGO enters. 
 
 HUGO. Want ? Faith, 'tis you who want, not I, my Lady 
 H 
 
g8 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 1 hear, you are gone a begging through the town ; 
 So, for your husband's sake, I'll take you in ; 
 For though I can't forget your scurvy usage, 
 He was a very honest sort of fellow, 
 Though mad as a March hare ; so come you in. 
 
 ELIZ. But know you, Sir, that all my husband's vassals 
 Are bidden bar their doors to me ? 
 
 HUGO. I know it : 
 
 And therefore comeyou in : my house is mine : 
 No upstarts shall lay down the law to me ; 
 Not they, mass : but mind you, no canting here 
 No psalm-singing ; all candles out at eight : 
 Beggars must not be choosers. Come along ! 
 
 ELIZ. I thank you, Sir ; and for my children's sake 
 I do accept your bounty. (Aside). Down, proud heart- 
 Bend lower lower ever : thus God deals with thee. 
 Go, Guta, send the children after me. 
 
 \Exeunt severally. 
 
 Two Peasants enter. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Here's Father January taken a lease of March 
 month, and put in Jack Frost for bailiff. What be I to 
 do for spring-feed if the weather holds, and my ryelands 
 as bare as the back of my hand ? 
 
 2ND PEAS. That's your luck. Freeze on, say I, and 
 may Mary Mother send us snow a yard deep. I have ten 
 ton of hay yet to sell ten ton, man there's my luck : 
 every man for himself, and Why here comes that hand- 
 some canting girl, used to be about the Princess. 
 
 GUTA enters. 
 
 GUTA. Well met, fair sirs ! I know you kind and loyal, 
 And bound by many a favour to my mistress : 
 Say, will you bear this letter for her sake 
 Unto her aunt, the rich and holy lady 
 Who rules the nuns of Kitzingen ? 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 99 
 
 2ND PEAS. If I do, pickle me in a barrel among 
 
 cabbage. 
 
 She told me once, God's curse would overtake me, 
 For grinding of the poor : her turn's come now. 
 
 GUTA. Will you, then, help her? She will pay you 
 richly. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Ay ? How dame ? How ? Where will the 
 money come from ? 
 
 GUTA. God knows 
 
 1ST PEAS. And you do not. 
 
 GUTA. Why, but last winter, 
 
 When all your stacks were fired, she lent you gold. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Well I'll be generous : as the times are 
 
 hard, 
 
 Say, if I take your letter, will you promise 
 To marry me yourself ? 
 
 GUTA. Ay, marry you, 
 
 Or anything, if you'll but go to-day : 
 At once, mind. [Giving him the letter. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Ay, I'll go. Now, you'll remember? 
 
 GUTA. Straight to her ladyship at Kitzingen. 
 God and his saints deal with you, as you deal 
 With us this day. {Exit. 
 
 2ND PEAS. What ! art thou fallen in love pro- 
 miscuously ? 
 
 1ST PEAS. Why, see, now, man ; she has her mistress*' 
 
 ear; 
 
 And if I marry her, no doubt they'll make me 
 Bailiff, or land-steward ; and there's noble pickings 
 la that same line. 
 
 2ND PEAS. Thou hast bought a pig in a poke : 
 Her priest will shrive her off from such a bargain. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Dost think? Well I'll not fret myself 
 
 about it. 
 
 See, now, before I start, I must get home 
 Those pigs from off the forest ; chop some furze ; 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 And then to get my supper, and my horse's : 
 
 And then a man will need to sit a while, 
 
 And take his snack of brandy for digestion ; 
 
 And then to fettle up my sword and buckler ; 
 
 And then, bid 'em all good bye : and by that time 
 
 'Twill be 'most nightfall I'll just go to-morrow. 
 
 Off here she comes again. [Exeunt. 
 
 ISENTRUDIS and GUTA enter, with the Children. 
 
 GUTA. I warned you of it ; I knew she would not stay 
 An hour, thus treated like a slave an idiot. 
 
 ISEN. Well, 'twas past bearing : so we are thrust forth 
 To starve again. Are all your jewels gone ? 
 
 GUTA. All pawned and eaten and for her, you know, 
 She never bore the worth of one day's meal 
 About her dress. We can but die No foe 
 Can ban us from that rest 
 
 ISEN. Ay, but these children ! Well if it must be. 
 Here, Guta, pull off this old withered hand 
 My wedding-ring ; the man who gave it me 
 Should be in heaven and there he'll know my heart. 
 Take it, girl, take it. Where's the Princess now ? 
 She stopped before a crucifix to pray ; 
 But why so long ? 
 
 GUTA. Oh ! prayer, to her rapt soul, 
 
 Is like the drunkenness of the autumn bee, 
 Who, scent-enchanted, on the latest flower, 
 Heedless of cold, will linger listless on, 
 And freeze in odorous dreams. 
 
 ISEN. Ah ! here she comes. 
 
 GUTA. Dripping from head to foot with wet and mire ! 
 How's this? 
 
 ELIZABETH entering. 
 
 ELIZ. How ? Oh, my fortune rises to full flood : 
 I met a friend just now, who told me truths 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. roi 
 
 Wholesome and stern, of my deceitful heart 
 Would God I had known them earlier ! and enforced 
 Her lesson so, as I shall ne'er forget it 
 In body or in mind. 
 
 I SEN. What means all this ? 
 
 ELIZ. You know the stepping-stones across the ford. 
 There as I passed, a certain aged crone, 
 Whom I had fed, and nursed, year after year, 
 Met me mid-stream thrust past me stoutly on 
 And rolled me headlong in the freezing mire. 
 There as I lay and weltered, " Take that, madam, 
 For all your selfish hypocritic pride 
 Which thought it such a vast humility 
 To wash us poor folk's feet, and use our bodies 
 For staves tq build withal your Jacob's-ladder. 
 What ! you would mount to heaven upon our backs ? 
 The ass has thrown his rider." She crept on 
 I washed my garments in the brook hard by 
 And came here, all the wiser. 
 
 GUTA. Miscreant hag ! 
 
 I SEN. Alas, you'll freeze. 
 
 GUTA. Who could have dreamt the witch 
 
 Could harbour such a spite ? 
 
 ELIZ. Nay, who could dream 
 
 She would have guessed my heart so well ? Dull boors 
 See deeper than we think, and hide within 
 Those leathern hulls unfathomable truths, 
 Which we amid thought's glittering mazes lose. 
 They grind among the iron facts of life, 
 And have no time for self-deception. 
 
 ISEN. Gome- 
 
 Put on my cloak stand here, behind the wall. 
 Oh ! is it come to this ? She'll die of cold. 
 
 GUTA. Ungrateful fiend ! 
 
 ELIZ. Let be we must not think on't 
 
 The scoff was true I thank her I thank God 
 
IO2 The Saint's Tragedy 
 
 This too I needed. I had built myself 
 A Babel-tower, whose top should reach to heaven, 
 Of poor men's praise and prayers, and subtle pride 
 At mine own alms. 'Tis crumbled into dust ! 
 Oh ! I have leant upon an arm of flesh 
 And here's its strength ! I'll walk by faith by faith 
 And rest my weary heart on Christ alone 
 On him, the all-sufficient ! 
 Shame on me ! dreaming thus about myself. 
 While you stand shivering here. \To her little Son 
 
 Art cold, young knight ? 
 
 Knights must not cry Go slide, and warm thyself. 
 Where shall we lodge to-night ? 
 
 ISEN. There's no place open, 
 
 But that foul tavern, where we lay last night. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S SON (clinging to her}. Oh, mother, mother ! 
 
 go not to that house 
 
 Among those fierce lank men, who laughed, and scowled, 
 And showed their knives, and sang strange ugly songs 
 Of you and us. Oh mother ! let us be ! 
 
 ELIZ. Hark ! look ! His father's voice ! his very eye 
 Opening so slow and sad, then sinking down 
 In luscious rest again ! 
 
 ISEN. Bethink you, child 
 
 ELIZ. Oh yes I'll think we'll to our tavern friends ; 
 If they be brutes, 'twas my sin left them so. 
 
 GUTA. 'Tis but for a night or two : three days will bring 
 The Abbess hither. 
 
 I-SEN. And then to Bamberg straight 
 
 For knights and men at arms ! Your uncle's wrath 
 
 GUTA (aside). Hush ! hush ! you'll fret her, if you 
 talk of vengeance. 
 
 ISEN. Come to our shelter. 
 
 CHILDREN. Oh stay here, stay here ! 
 
 Behind these walls. 
 
 ELIZ. Ay stay a while in peace. The stonns are still. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 103 
 
 Beneath her eider robe the patient earth 
 Watches in silence for the sun : we'll sit 
 And gaze up with her at the changeless heaven, 
 Until this tyranny be overpast. 
 Come. (Aside}. Lost! Lost! Lost! 
 
 \They enter a neighboiiring Ruin. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 A Chamber in the Bishops Palace at Bamberg. 
 ELIZABETH and GUTA. 
 
 GUTA. You have determined ? 
 
 ELIZ. Yes to go with him. 
 
 I have kept my oath too long to break it now. 
 I will to Marpurg, and there waste away 
 In meditation and in pious deeds, 
 Till God shall set me free. 
 
 GUTA. How if your uncle 
 
 Will have you marry ? Day and night, they say, 
 He talks of nothing else. 
 
 ELIZ. Never, girl, never ! 
 
 Save me from that at least, oh, God ! 
 
 GUTA. He spoke 
 
 Of giving us, your maidens, to his knights 
 In carnal wedlock : but I fear him not : 
 For God's own word is pledged to keep me pure 
 I am a maid. 
 
 ELIZ. And I, alas ! am none ! 
 
 Oh, Guta ! dost thou mock my widowed love ? 
 I was a wife 'tis true : I was not worthy 
 But there was meaning in that first wild fancy ; 
 'Twas but the innocent springing of the sap 
 The witless yearning of an homeless heart 
 Do I not know that God has pardoned me ? 
 
IO4 T lie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 But now to rouse and turn of mine own will, 
 
 In cool and full foreknowledge, this worn soul 
 
 Again to that, which, when God thrust it on me, 
 
 Bred but one shame of ever-gnawing doubt, 
 
 Were No, my burning cheeks ! We'll say no more. 
 
 Ah ! loved and lost ! Though God's chaste grace should 
 
 fail me, 
 
 My weak idolatry of thee would give 
 Strength that should keep me true : with mine own hands 
 I'd mar this tear-worn face, till petulant man 
 Should loathe its scarred and shapeless ugliness. 
 
 GUTA. But your poor children? What becomes of 
 them? 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! she who was not worthy of a husband 
 Does not deserve his children. What are they, darlings, 
 But snares to keep me from my heavenly spouse 
 By picturing the spouse I must forget ? 
 Well 'tis blank horror. Yet if grief's good for me, 
 Let me down into grief's blackest pit, 
 And follow out God's cure by mine own deed. 
 
 GUTA. What will your kinsfolk think ? 
 
 ELIZ. What will they think ! 
 
 What pleases them. That argument's a staff 
 Which breaks whene'er you lean on't. Trust me, girl, 
 That fear of man sucks out love's soaring ether, 
 Baffles faith's heavenward eyes, and drops us down. 
 To float, like plumeless birds, on any stream. 
 Have I not proved it ? 
 There was a time with me, when every eye 
 Did scorch like flame : if one looked cold on me, 
 I straight accused myself of mortal sins : 
 Each fopling was my master : I have lied 
 
 From very fear of mine own serving-maids. 
 
 That's past, thank God's good grace ! 
 
 GUTA. And now you leap 
 
 To the other end of the line. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. In self-defence. 
 
 I am too weak to live by half my conscience ; 
 I have no wit to weigh and choose the mean ; 
 Life is too short for logic ; what I do 
 I must do simply ; God alone must judge 
 For God alone shall guide, and God's elect 
 I shrink from earth's chill frosts too much to crawl 
 I have snapped opinion's chains, and now I'll soar 
 Up to the blazing sunlight, and be free. 
 
 The BISHOP <?/~BAMBERG enters. CONRAD following. 
 
 BISHOP. The Devil plagued St. Antony in the likeness 
 of a lean friar ! Between mad monks and mad women, 
 bedlam's broke loose, I think. 
 
 CON. When the spirit first descended on the elect, 
 seculars then, too, said mocking, " These men are full of 
 new wine." 
 
 BISHOP. Seculars, truly ! If I had not in my secularity 
 picked up a spice of chivalry to the ladies, I should long 
 ago have turned out you and your regulars, to cant else- 
 where, Piague on this gout I must sit. 
 
 ELIZ. Let me settle your cushion, uncle. 
 
 BISHOP. So ! girl ! I sent for you from Botenstain. I 
 had a mind, now, to have kept you there until your wits 
 returned, and you would say Yes to some young noble 
 suitor. As if I had not had trouble enough about your 
 dower ! If I had had to fight for it, I should not have 
 minded : but these palavers and conferences have fretted 
 me into the gout : and now you would throw all away 
 again, tired with your toy, I suppose. What shall I say to 
 the Counts, Varila, and the Cupbearer, and all the noble 
 knights who will hazard their lands and lives, in trying to 
 right you with that traitor ? I am ashamed to look them 
 in the face ! , To give all up to the villain ! To pay him 
 for his treason ! 
 
 ELIZ. Uncle, I give but what to me is worthless. He 
 
io6 T lie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 loves these baubles let him keep them, then : I have my 
 dower. 
 
 BISHOP. To squander on nuns and beggars, at this 
 rogue's bidding? Why not marry some honest man? 
 You may have your choice of kings and princes ; and if 
 you have been happy with one gentleman, Mass ! say I, 
 why can't you be happy with another? What saith 
 the Scripture ? "I will that the younger widows marry, 
 bear children," not run after monks, and what not 
 What's good for the filly, is good for the mare, say I. 
 
 ELIZ. Uncle, I soar now at a higher pitch 
 To be henceforth the bride of Christ alone. 
 
 BISHOP. Ahem ! a pious notion in moderation. We 
 must be moderate, my child, ^moderate : I hate overdoing 
 anything especially religion. 
 
 CON. Madam, between your uncle and myself 
 This question in your absence were best mooted. 
 
 {Exit ELIZABETH. 
 
 BISHOP. How, priest ? do you order her about like a 
 servant-maid ? 
 
 CON. The saints forbid ! Now ere I lose a moment 
 
 \Kiueling. 
 
 (Aside}. All things to all men be and so save some 
 (Aloud). Forgive, your grace, forgive me, 
 If mine unmannered speech in aught have clashed 
 With your more tempered and melodious judgment : 
 Your courage will forgive an honest warmth. 
 God knows, I serve no private interests. 
 
 BISHOP. Your order's, hey? to wit? 
 
 CON. My lord, my lord, 
 
 There may be higher aims : but what I said, 
 I said but for our Church, and our cloth's honour. 
 Ladies' religion, like their love, we know, 
 Requires a gloss of verbal exaltation, 
 Lest the sweet souls should understand themselves ; 
 And clergymen must talk up to the mark. 
 
TJie Saint's Tragedy. 107 
 
 BISHOP. We all know, Gospel preached in the mother- 
 tongue 
 Sounds too like common sense. 
 
 CON. Or too unlike it : 
 
 You know the world, your grace ; you know the sex 
 
 BISHOP. Ahem ! As a spectator. 
 
 CON. Philosophic^ 
 
 Just so You know their rage for shaven crowns 
 How they'll deny their God but not their priest 
 Flirts scandal-mongers in default of both come 
 Platonic love worship of art and genius 
 Idols which make them dream of heaven, as girls 
 Dream of their sweethearts, when they sleep on bride- 
 cake. 
 It saves from worse we are not all Abelards. 
 
 BISHOP (aside). Some of us have his tongue, if not 
 his face. 
 
 CON. There lies her fancy ; do but balk her of it 
 She'll bolt to cloisters, like a rabbit scared. 
 Head her from that she'll wed some pink-faced boy 
 The more low-bred and penniless, the likelier. 
 Send her to Marpurg, and her brain will cool. 
 Tug at the kite, 'twill only soar the higher : 
 Give it but line, my lord, 'twill drop like slate. 
 Use but that eagle's glance, whose daring foresight 
 In chapter, camp, and council, wins the wonder 
 Of timid trucklers Scan results and outcomes 
 The scale is heavy in your grace's favour. 
 
 BISHOP. Bah ! priest ! What can this Marpurg-madness 
 do for me ? 
 
 CON. Leave you the tutelage of all her children. 
 
 BISHOP. Thank you to play the dry-nurse to three 
 starving brats. 
 
 CON. The minor's guardian guards the minor's lands. 
 
 BISHOP. Unless they are pitched away in building 
 hospitals. 
 
IOS The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 CON. Instead of fattening in your wisdom's keeping. 
 
 BISHOP. Well, well, but what gross scandal to the 
 family ! 
 
 CON. The family, my lord, would gain a saint. 
 
 BISHOP. Ah ! monk, that canonization costs a frightful 
 sum. 
 
 CON. These fees, just now, would gladly be remitted. 
 
 BISHOP. These are the last days, faith, when Rome's 
 too rich to take ! 
 
 CON. The Saints forbid, my lord, the fisher's see 
 Were so o'ercursed by Mammon ! But you grieve, 
 I know, to see foul weeds of heresy 
 Of late o'errun your diocese. 
 
 BISHOP. Ay, curse them ! 
 
 I've hanged some dozens. 
 
 CON. Worthy of yourself ! 
 
 But yet the faith needs here some mighty triumph 
 Some bright example, whose resplendent blaze 
 May tempt that fluttering tribe within the pale 
 Of Holy Church again 
 
 BISHOP. To singe their wings ? 
 
 CON. They'll not come near enough. Again there are 
 Who dare arraign your prowess, and assert 
 A churchman's energies were better spent 
 In pulpits, than the tented field. Now mark 
 Mark, what a door is opened. Give but scope 
 To this her huge capacity for sainthood- 
 Set her, a burning and a shining light 
 To all your people Such a sacrifice, 
 Such loan to God of your own flesh and blood, 
 Will silence envious tongues, and prove you wise 
 For the next world as for this ; will clear your name 
 From calumnies which argue worldliness ; 
 Buy of itself the joys of paradise ; 
 And clench your lordship's interest with the pontiff 
 
 BISHOP. Well, well, we'll think on't. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 109 
 
 CON. Sir, I doubt you not. 
 
 Re-enter ELIZABETH. 
 
 ELIZ. Uncle, I am determined. 
 
 BISHOP. So am I. 
 
 You shall to Marpurg with this holy man. 
 
 ELIZ. Ah, there you speak again like my own uncle. 
 I'll go to rest (aside} and die. I only wait 
 To see the bones of my beloved laid 
 In some fit resting-place. A messenger 
 Proclaims them near. Oh God ! 
 
 BISHOP. We'll go, my child, 
 
 And meeting them with all due honour, show 
 In our own worship, honourable minds. 
 
 {Exit ELIZABETH. 
 
 BISHOP. A messenger ! How far off are they, then ? 
 
 SERV. Some two days' journey, sir. 
 
 BISHOP. Two days' journey, and nought prepared ? 
 Here, chaplain Brother Hippodamas ! Chaplain, I say ! 
 (HIPPODAMAS enters). Call the apparitor ride off with 
 him, right and left Don't wait even to take your hawk 
 Tell my knights to be with me, with all their men-at-arms, 
 at noon on the second day. Let all be of the best, say 
 the brightest of arms and the newest of garments. Mass ! 
 we must show our smartest before these crusaders they'll 
 be full of new fashions, I warrant 'em the monkeys that 
 have seen the world. And here, boy (to a PAGE), set 
 me a stoup of wine in the oriel-room, and another for this 
 good monk. 
 
 CON. Pardon me, blessedness but holy rule 
 
 BISHOP. Oh ! I forgot. A pail of water and a peck of 
 beans for the holy man ! Order up my equerry, and bid 
 my armourer vestryman, I mean look out my newest 
 robes. Plague on this gout. 
 
 \Exeunt, following the Bishop. 
 
no The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Nave of Bamberg Cathedral. A procession entering 
 the West Door, headed by ELIZABETH and the Bishop, 
 Nobles, &c. Religious bearing the Coffin which incloses 
 LEWIS'S Bones. 
 
 1ST LADY. See! the procession comes the mob 
 
 streams in 
 
 At every door. Hark ! how the steeples thunder 
 Their solemn bass above the wailing choir. 
 
 2ND LADY. They will stop at the screen. 
 
 KNTGHT. And there, as I hear, open the coffin. Push 
 forward, ladies, to that pillar : thence you will see all. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Oh dear ! oh dear ! If any man had told 
 me that I should ride forty miles on this errand, to see 
 him that went out flesh come home grass, like the flower 
 of the field ! 
 
 2ND PEAS. We have changed him, but not mended him, 
 say I, friend. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Never we. He knew where a yeoman's 
 heart lay ! One that would clap a man on the back when 
 his cow died, and behave like a gentleman to him that 
 never met you after a hailstorm without lightening himself 
 of a few pocket-burners. 
 
 2ND PEAS. Ay, that's your poor-man's plaster : that's 
 your right grease for this world's creaking wheels. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Nay, that's your rich man's plaster too, and 
 covers the multitude of sins. That's your big pike's swim- 
 ming-bladder, that keeps him atop and feeding : that's 
 his calling and election, his oil of anointing, his salvum 
 fac regent, his yeoman of the wardrobe, who keeps the 
 velvet-piled side of this world uppermost, lest his deli- 
 cate eyes should see the warp that holds it. 
 
 2ND PEAS. Who's the warp, then ? 
 
 1ST PEAS. We, man, the friezes and fustians, that rub 
 on till we get frayed through with ovenvork, and then all's 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 1 1 T 
 
 abroad, and the nakedness of Babylon is discovered, and 
 catch who catch can. 
 
 OLD WOMAN. Pity they only brought his bones home ! 
 He would have made a lovely corpse, surely. He was 
 a proper man ! 
 
 1ST LADY. Oh the mincing step he had with him ! and 
 the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins as St 
 Cicely does the organ-keys ! 
 
 2ND LADY. And for hunting, another Siegfried. 
 
 KNIGHT. If he was Siegfried the gay, she was Chriemhild 
 the grim ; and as likely to prove a firebrand as the girl in 
 the ballad. 
 
 1ST LADY. Gay, indeed ! His smiles were like plum- 
 cake, the sweeter the deeper iced. I never saw him speak 
 civil word to woman, but to her. 
 
 2ND LADY. Oh, ye Saints ! There was honey spilt on 
 the ground ! If I had such a knight, I'd never freeze 
 alone on the chamber-floor, like some that never knew 
 when they were well off. I'd never elbow him off to 
 crusades with my pruderies. 
 
 " Pluck your apples while they're ripe, 
 And pull your flowers in May, O ! " 
 Eh! Mother? 
 
 OLD WOMAN. " Till when she grew wizened, and he 
 
 grew cold, 
 The balance lay even 'twixt young and old." 
 
 MONK. Thus Satan bears witness perforce against the 
 vanities of Venus ! But what's this babbling ? Carola- 
 tiones in the holy place ? Tace, vetula ! taceas, taceto 
 also, and that forthwith. 
 
 OLD WOMAN. Tace in your teeth, and taceas also, 
 begging-box ! Who put the halter round his waist to 
 keep it off his neck, who ? Get behind your screen, 
 sirrah ! Am I not a burgher's wife ? Am I not in the 
 nave ? Am I hot on my own ground ? Have I brought 
 up eleven children, without nurse wet or dry, to be taced 
 
1 1 2 The Saint 's Tragedy. 
 
 now-a-days by friars in the nave ? Help ! good folks ! 
 Where be these rooks a going ? 
 
 KNIGHT. The monk has vanished. 
 
 1ST PEAS. It's ill letting out waters, he finds. Who is 
 that old gentleman, sir, holds the Princess so tight by 
 the hand ? 
 
 KNIGHT. Her uncle, knave, the Bishop. 
 
 1ST PEAS. Very right, he : for she's almost a born 
 natural, poor soul. It was a temptation to deal with her. 
 
 2ND TEAS. Thou didst cheat her shockingly, Frank, 
 time o' the famine, on those nine sacks of maslin meal. 
 
 KNIGHT. Go tell her of it, rascal, and she'll thank you 
 for it, and give you a shilling for helping her to a "cross." 
 
 OLD WOMAN. Taceing free women in the nave ! This 
 comes of your princesses, that turn the world upside down, 
 and demean themselves to hob and nob with these black 
 baldicoots ! 
 
 ELIZ. (in a low voice). I saw all Israel scattered on the 
 
 hills 
 
 As sheep that have no shepherd ! Oh, my people ! 
 Who crowd with greedy eyes round this my jewel, 
 Poor ivory, token of his outward beauty 
 Oh ! had ye known his spirit !- -Let his wisdom 
 Inform your light hearts with that Saviour's likeness 
 For whom he died ! So had ye kept him with you ; 
 And from the coming evils gentle Heaven 
 Had not withdrawn the righteous : 'tis too late ! 
 
 1ST LADY. There now, she smiles ; do you think she 
 ever loved him ? 
 
 KNIGHT. Never creature, but mealy-mouthed inquisi- 
 tors, and shaven singing birds. She looks now as glad to 
 be rid of him as any colt broke loose. 
 
 1ST LADY. What will she do now, when this farce is 
 over ? 
 
 2ND LADY. Found an abbey, that's the fashion, and 
 elect herself abbess set up the first week for queen-of-all- 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 113 
 
 souls tyrannize over hysterical girls, who are forced to 
 thank her for making them miserable, and so die a 
 saint. 
 
 KNIGHT. Will you pray to her, my fair queen ? 
 
 2ND LADY. Not I, sir ; the old Saints send me lovers 
 enough, and to spare yourself for one. 
 
 1ST LADY. There is the giant-killer slain, But see 
 they have stopped : who is that raising the coffin lid ? 
 
 2ND LADY. Her familiar spirit, Conrad the heretic- 
 catcher. 
 
 KNIGHT. I do defy him ! Thou art my only goddess ; 
 My saint, my idol, my ahem ! 
 
 IST LADY. That well's run dry. 
 
 Look, how she trembles Now she sinks, all shivering, 
 Upon the pavement Why, you'll see nought there 
 Flirting behind the pillar Now she rises 
 And choking down that proud heart, turns to the altar 
 Her hand upon the coffin. 
 
 ELIZ. I thank thee, gracious Lord, who hast fulfilled 
 Thine handmaid's mighty longings, with the sight 
 Of my beloved's bones, and dost vouchsafe 
 This consolation to the desolate. 
 I grudge not, Lord, the victim which we gave Thee, 
 Both he and I, of his most precious life, 
 To aid Thine holy city : though Thou knowest 
 His sweetest presence was to this world's joy 
 As sunlight to the taper Oh ! hadst Thou spared 
 Had Thy great mercy let us, hand in hand, 
 Have toiled through houseless shame, on beggar's dole, 
 I had been blest : Thou hast him, Lord, Thou hast him 
 Do with us what Thou wilt ! If at the price 
 Of this one silly hair, in spite of Thee, 
 1 could reclothe these wan bones with his manhood, 
 And clasp to my shrunk heart my hero's self 
 I would not give it ! 
 
 I will weep no more 
 I 
 
1 14 The Sainfs Tragedy. 
 
 Lead on, most holy ; on the sepulchre 
 Which stands beside the choir, lay down your burden. 
 
 \To the people. 
 
 Now, gentle hosts, within the close hard by, 
 Will we our court, as queen of sorrows, hold 
 The green graves underneath us, and above 
 The all-seeing vault, which is the eye of God, 
 Judge of the widow and the fatherless. 
 There will I plead my children's wrongs, and there, 
 If as I think, there boil within your veins 
 The deep sure currents of your race's manhood, 
 Ye'll nail the orphans' badge upon your shields, 
 And own their cause for God's. We name our cham- 
 pions 
 
 Rudolf, the Cupbearer, Leutolf of Erlstetten, 
 Hartwig of Erba, and our loved Count Walter, 
 Our knights and vassals, sojourners among you. 
 Follow us. 
 
 {Exit ELIZABETH, &c.; the crowd following. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Night. The Church of a Convent. ELIZABETH, CONRAD, 
 GERARD, MONKS, an ABBESS, NUNS, &>c., in the 
 distance. 
 
 CONRAD. What's this new weakness? At your own 
 request 
 
 We come to hear your self-imposed vows 
 
 And now you shrink : where are the high-flown fancies 
 Which but last week, beside your husband's bier, 
 You vapoured forth ? Will you become a jest 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 1 1 5 
 
 You might have counted this tower's cost, before 
 You blazoned thus your plans abroad. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! spare me ! 
 
 CON. Spare? Spare yourself; and spare big easy 
 
 words, 
 Which prove your knowledge greater than your grace. 
 
 ELIZ. Is there no middle path ? No way to keep 
 My love for them, and God, at once unstained ? 
 
 CON. If this were God's world, madam, and not the 
 
 devil's, 
 It might be done. 
 
 ELIZ. God's world, man ! Why, God made it 
 The faith asserts it God's. 
 
 CON. Potentially 
 
 As every christened rogue's a child of God, 
 Or those old hags, Christ's brides Think of your horn- 
 book 
 
 The world, the flesh, and the devil a goodly leash ! 
 And yet God made all three. I know the fiend ; 
 And you should know the world : be sure, be sure, 
 The flesh is not a stork among the cranes. 
 Our nature, even in Eden gross and vile, 
 And by miraculous grace alone upheld, 
 Is now itself, and foul, and damned, must die 
 Ere we can live ; let halting worldlings, madam, 
 Maunder against earth's ties, yet clutch them still. 
 
 ELIZ. And yet God gave them to me 
 
 CON. In the world ; 
 
 Your babes are yours according to the flesh ; 
 How can you hate the flesh, and love its fruit ? 
 
 ELIZ. The Scripture bids me love them. 
 
 CON. Truly so, 
 
 While you are forced to keep them ; when God's mercy 
 Doth from the flesh and world deliverance offer, 
 Letting you bestow them elsewhere, then your love 
 May cease with its own usefulness, and the spirit 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Range in free battle lists ; 111 not waste reasons 
 We'll leave you, madam, to the Spirit's voice. 
 
 [CONRAD and GERARD withdraw. 
 ELIZ. (alone]. Give up his children ! Why, I'd not 
 
 give up 
 
 A lock of hair, a glove his hand had hallowed : 
 And they are his gift ; his pledge ; his flesh and blood ; 
 Tossed off for my ambition ! Ah ! my husband ! 
 His ghost's sad eyes upbraid me ! Spare me, spare me ! 
 I'd love thee still, if I dared ; but I fear God. 
 And shall I never more see loving eyes 
 Look into mine, until my dying day ? 
 That's this world's bondage : Christ would have me free, 
 And 'twere a pious deed to cut myself 
 The last, last strand, and fly : but whither ? whither ? 
 What if I cast away the bird i' the hand 
 And found none in the bush ? 'Tis possible 
 What right have I to arrogate Christ's bride-bed ? 
 Crushed, widowed, sold to traitors ? I, o'er whom 
 His billows and His storms are sweeping? God's not 
 
 angry: 
 
 No, not so much as we with buzzing fly ; 
 Or in the moment of His wrath's awakening 
 We should be nothing. No there's worse than that 
 What if He but sat still, and let be be ? 
 And these deep sorrows, which my vain conceit 
 Calls chastenings meant for me my ailments' cure 
 Were lessons for some angels far away, 
 And I the corpus vile for the experiment ? 
 The grinding of the sharp and pitiless wheels 
 Of some high Providence, which had its mainspring 
 Ages ago, and ages hence its end ? 
 That were too horrible ! 
 To have torn up all the roses from my garden, 
 And planted thorns instead ; to have forged my griefs, 
 And hugged the griefs I dared not forge ; made earth 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 117 
 
 A hell, for hope of heaven ; and after all, 
 
 These homeless moors of life toiled through, to wake, 
 
 And find blank nothing ! Is that angel-world 
 
 A gaudy window, which we paint ourselves 
 
 To hide the dead void night beyond ? The present ? 
 
 Why here's the present like this arched gloom, 
 
 It hems our blind souls in, and roofs them over 
 
 With adamantine vault, whose only voice 
 
 Is our own wild prayers' echo : and our future ? 
 
 It rambles out in endless aisles of mist, 
 
 The further still the darker Oh, my Saviour ! 
 
 My God! where art Thou? That's but a tale about Thee, 
 
 That crucifix above it does but show Thee 
 
 As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now 
 
 Thy grief, but not Thy glory : where's that gone ? 
 
 I see it not without me, and within me 
 
 Hell reigns, not Thou! 
 
 [Dashes herself down on the altar steps. 
 *###*#*. 
 
 MONKS in the distance chanting. 
 
 " Kings' daughters were among thine honourable women" 
 ELIZ. Kings' daughters ! I am one ! 
 
 % * * * % * * 
 
 MONKS. " Hearken, oh daughter, and consider ; incline 
 
 thine ear : 
 
 Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house, 
 So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty : 
 For He is Thy Lord God, and worship thou Him." 
 
 ELIZ. (springing up}. I will forget them ! 
 The^ stand between my soul and its allegiance. 
 Thou art my God : what matter if Thou love me ( 
 I am Thy bond- slave, purchased with Thy life-blood ; 
 I will remember nothing, save that debt. 
 Do with me what thou wilt. Alas, my babies ! 
 He loves them they'll not need me. 
 
n8 TJie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 CONRAD advancing. 
 
 CON. How now, madam : 
 
 Have these your prayers unto a nobler will 
 Won back that wandering heart ? 
 
 ELIZ. God's will is spoken ! 
 
 The flesh is weak ; the spirit's fixed, and dares, 
 Stay ! confess, sir, 
 
 Did not yourself set on your brothers here 
 To sing me to your purpose ? 
 
 CON. As I live 
 
 I meant it not ; yet had I bribed them to it, 
 Those words were no less God's. 
 
 ELIZ. I know it, I know it ; 
 
 And I'll obey them : come, the victim's ready. 
 
 [Lays her hand on the altar. GERARD, ABBESS, and 
 MONKS descend and advance^ 
 
 All worldly goods and wealth, which once I loved, 
 I do now count but dross : and my beloved, 
 The children of my womb, I now regard 
 As if they were another's. God is witness. 
 My pride is to despise myself ; my joy 
 All insults, sneers, and slanders of mankind ; 
 No creature now I love, but God alone. 
 Oh to be clear, clear, clear, of all but Him ! 
 Lo, here I strip me of all earthly helps 
 
 {Tearing' off her clothes. 
 
 Naked and barefoot through the world to follow 
 My naked Lord And for my filthy pelf 
 
 CON. Stop, madam 
 
 ELIZ. Why so, sir ? 
 
 CON. Upon thine, oath ! 
 
 Thy wealth is God's, not thine How darest renounce 
 The trust He lays on thee ? I do command thee, 
 Being, as Aaron, in God's stead, to keep it 
 Inviolate, for the Church and thine own needs. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 119 
 
 ELIZ. Be it so I have no part nor lot in't 
 There I have spoken. 
 
 ABBESS. Oh, noble soul ! which neither gold, nor love, 
 Nor scorn can bend ! 
 
 GERARD. And think what pure devotions, 
 
 What holy prayers must they have been, whose guerdon 
 Is such a flood of grace ! 
 
 NUNS. What love again ! 
 
 What flame of charity, which thus prevails 
 In virtue's guest ! 
 
 ELIZ. Is self-contempt learnt thus ? 
 
 I'll home. 
 
 ABBESS. And yet how blest, in these cool shades 
 To rest with us, as in a land-locked pool, 
 Touched last and lightest by the ruffling breeze. 
 
 ELIZ. No ! no ! no ! no ! I will not die in the dark : 
 I'll breathe the free fresh air until the last, 
 Were it but a month I have such things to do 
 Great schemes brave schemes and such a little time ! 
 Though now I am harnessed light as any foot-page. 
 Come, come, my ladies. \Exeunt ELIZABETH, &>c. 
 
 GER. Alas, poor lady ! 
 
 CON. Why alas, my son ? 
 
 She longs to die a saint, and here's the way to it. 
 
 GER. Yet why so harsh ? why with remorseless knife 
 Home to the stem prune back each bough and bud ? 
 I thought the task of education was 
 To strengthen, not to crush ; to train and feed 
 Each subject toward fulfilment of its nature, 
 According to the mind of God, revealed 
 In laws, congenital with every kind 
 And character of man. 
 
 CON. A heathen dream ! 
 
 Young souls but see the gay and warm outside, 
 And work but in the shallow upper soil. 
 Mine deeper, and the sour and barren rock 
 
I2O The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Will stop you soon enough. Who trains God's Saints, 
 He must transform, not pet Nature's corrupt through- 
 out 
 
 A gaudy snake, which must be crushed, not tamed, 
 A cage of unclean birds, deceitful ever ; 
 Born in the likeness of the fiend, which Adam 
 Did at the Fall, the Scripture saith, put on. 
 Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook, 
 To make him sport for thy maidens ? Scripture saith 
 Who is the prince of this world so forget not. 
 
 GER. Forgive, if my more weak and carnal judgment 
 Be startled by your doctrines, and doubt trembling 
 The path whereon you force yourself and her. 
 
 CON. Startled ? Belike belike let doctrines be ; 
 Thou shalt be judged by thy works ; so see to them, 
 And let divines split hairs : dare all thou canst ; 
 Be all thou darest ; that will keep thy brains full. 
 Have thy tools ready, God will find thee work 
 Then up, and play the man. Fix well thy purpose 
 Let one idea, like an orbed sun, 
 Rise radiant in thine heaven ; and then round it 
 All doctrines, forms, and disciplines will range 
 As dim parhelia, or as needful clouds, 
 Needful, but mist-begotten, to be dashed 
 Aside, when fresh shall serve thy purpose better. 
 GER. How? dashed aside? 
 
 CON. Yea, dashed aside why not ? 
 
 The truths, my son, are safe in God's abysses 
 While we patch up the doctrines to look like them. 
 The best are tarnished mirrors clumsy bridges, 
 Whereon, as on firm soil, the mob may walk 
 Across the gulf of doubt, and know no danger. 
 We, who see heaven, may see the hell which girds it. 
 Blind trust for them. When I came here from Rome, 
 Among the Alps, all through one frost-bound dawn, 
 Waiting with sealed lips the noisy day, 
 
The Saint' 's Tragedy. ( - . idi.^ . 
 
 v i/ / 7 
 
 I walked upon a marble mead of snow **'( ) 
 
 An angel's spotless plume, laid there for me : / \ 
 
 Then from the hill-side, in the melting noon, 
 
 Looked down the gorge, and lo ! no bridge, no snow 
 
 But seas of writhing glacier, gashed and scored 
 
 With splintered gulfs, and fathomless crevasses, 
 
 Blue lips of hell, which sucked down roaring rivers 
 
 The fiends who fled the sun. The path of Saints 
 
 Is such ; so shall she look from heaven, and see 
 
 The road which led her thither. Now we'll go, 
 
 And find some lonely cottage for her lodging ; 
 
 Her shelter now is but a crumbling ruin 
 
 Roofed in with pine boughs discipline more healthy 
 
 For soul, than body : She's not ripe for death. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Open space in a S^lb^lrb of Marpurg, near ELIZABETH'S 
 Hut. COUNT WALTER and COUNT PAMA OF HUNGARY 
 entering. 
 
 C. PAMA. I have prepared my nerves for a shock. 
 
 C. WAL. You are wise, for the world's upside down 
 here. The last gateway brought us out of Christendom 
 into the New Jerusalem, the Fifth Monarchy, where the 
 Saints possess the earth. Not a beggar here but has his 
 pockets full of fair ladies' tokens : not a barefooted friar 
 but rules a princess. 
 
 C. PAMA. Creeping, I opine, into widows' houses, and 
 for a pretence making long prayers. 
 
 C. WAL, Don't quote Scripture here, sir, especially in 
 that gross literal way ! The new lights here have taught 
 us that Scripture's saying one thing, is a certain proof that 
 it means another. Except, by the bye, in one text. 
 
 C. PAMA. What's that ? 
 
 C. WAL. " Ask, and it shall be given you." 
 
122 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 C. PAMA. Ah ! So we are to take nothing literally, 
 that they may take literally everything themselves ? 
 
 C. WAL. Humph ! As for your text, see if they do not 
 saddle it on us before the day is out, as glibly as ever you 
 laid it on them. Here comes the lady's tyrant, of whom 
 I told you. 
 
 CONRAD advances from the Hut. 
 
 CON. And what may Count Walter's valour want here ? 
 [COUNT WALTER turns his back. 
 
 C. PAMA. I come, Sir Priest, from Andreas, king 
 
 renowned 
 
 Of Hungary, ambassador unworthy 
 Unto the Landgravine, his saintly daughter ; 
 And fain would be directed to her presence. 
 
 CON. That is as I shall choose. But I'll not stop you. 
 I do not build with straw. I'll trust my pupils 
 To worldlings' honeyed tongues, who make long prayers, 
 And enter widows' houses for pretence. 
 There dwells the lady, who has chosen too long 
 The better part, to have it taken from her. 
 Besides that with strange dreams and revelations 
 She has of late been edified. 
 
 C. WAL. Bah ! but they will serve your turn and hers. 
 
 CON. What do you mean ? 
 
 C. WAL. When you have cut her off from child and 
 friend, and even Isentrudis and Guta, as I hear, are thrust 
 out by you to starve, and she sits there, shut up like a 
 bear in a hole, to feed on her own substance ; if she has 
 not some of these visions to look at, how is she, or any 
 other of your poor self-gorged prisoners, to help fancying 
 herself the only creature on earth ? 
 
 CON. How now ? Who more than she, in faith and 
 practice, a living member of the Communion of Saints ? 
 Did she not lately publicly dispense in charity in a single 
 day five hundred marks and more ? Is it not my continual 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 123 
 
 labour to keep her from utter penury through her extrava- 
 gance in almsgiving ? For whom does she take thought 
 but for the poor, on whom, day and night, she spends her 
 strength ? Does she not tend them from the cradle, nurse 
 them, kiss their sores, feed them, bathe them, with her 
 own hands, clothe them, living and dead, with garments, 
 the produce of her own labour ? Did she not of late take 
 into her own house a paralytic boy, whose loathsomeness 
 had driven away every one else ? And now that we have 
 removed that charge, has she not with her a leprous boy, 
 to whose necessities she ministers hourly, by day and 
 night ? What valley but blesses her for some school, some 
 chapel, some convent, built by her munificence ? Are 
 not the hospices, which she has founded in divers towns, 
 the wonder of Germany? wherein she daily feeds and 
 houses a multitude of the infirm poor of Christ? Is she 
 not followed at every step by the blessings of the poor ? 
 Are not her hourly intercessions for the souls and bodies 
 of all around incessant, world-famous, mighty to save ? 
 While she lives only for the Church of Christ, will you 
 accuse her of selfish isolation ? 
 
 C. WAL. I tell you, monk, if she were not healthier by 
 God's making than ever she will be by yours, her charity 
 would be by this time double-distilled selfishness ; the 
 mouths she fed, cupboards to store good works in ; the 
 backs she warmed, clothes'-horses to hang out her wares 
 before God ; her alms not given, but fairly paid, a half- 
 penny for every halfpenny- worth of eternal life ; earth her 
 chess-board, and the men and women on it merely pawns 
 for her to play a winning game puppets and horn-books 
 to teach her unit holiness a private workshop in which 
 to work out her own salvation. Out upon such charity ! 
 
 CON. God hath appointed that our virtuous deeds 
 Each merit their rewards. 
 
 C. WAL. Go to go to. I have watched you and your 
 crew, how you preach up selfish ambition for divine charity 
 
124 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 and call prurient longings celestial {ove, while you blas- 
 pheme that very marriage from whose mysteries you 
 borrow all your cant. The day will come when every 
 husband and father will hunt you down like vermin ; and 
 may I live to see it. 
 
 CON. Out on thee, heretic ! 
 
 C. WAL. (drawing). Liar ! At last ? 
 
 C. PAMA. In God's name, sir, what if the Princess find 
 us? 
 
 C. WAL. Ay for her sake. But put that name on me 
 again, as you do on every good Catholic who will not be 
 your slave and puppet, and if thou goest home with ears 
 and nose, there is no hot blood in Germany. 
 
 [They move towards the Cottage. 
 
 CON. (alone}. Were I as once I was, I could revenge : 
 But now all private grudges wane like mist 
 In the keen sunlight of my full intent ; 
 And this man counts but for some sullen bull 
 Who paws and mutters at unheeding pilgrims 
 His empty wrath : yet let him bar my path, 
 Or stay me but one hour in my life-purpose, 
 And I will fell him as a savage beast, 
 God's foe, not mine. Beware thyself, Sir Count ! 
 
 [Exit. The Counts return from the Cottage. 
 
 C. PAMA. Shortly she will return ; here to expect her 
 Is duty both, and honour. Pardon me 
 Her humours are well known here ? Passers by 
 Will guess who 'tis we visit ? 
 
 C. WAL. Very likely. 
 
 C. PAMA. Well, travellers see strange things and do 
 
 them too. 
 
 Hem ! this turf- smoke affects my breath : we might 
 Draw back a space. 
 
 C. WAL. Certie, we were in luck, 
 
 Or both our noses would have been snapped off 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 125 
 
 By those two she-dragons ; how their sainthoods squealed 
 To see a brace of beards peep in ! Poor child ! 
 Two sweet companions for her loneliness ! 
 
 C. PAMA. But ah ! what lodging ! ; Tis at that my 
 
 heart bleeds ! 
 
 That hut, whose rough and smoke-embrowned spars 
 Dip to the cold clay floor on either side ! 
 Her seats bare deal ! her only furniture 
 Some earthen crock or two ! Why, sir, a dungeon 
 Were scarce more frightful : such a choice must argue 
 Aberrant senses, or degenerate blood ! 
 
 C. WAL. What ? Were things foul ? 
 
 C. PAMA. I marked not, sir. 
 
 C. WAL. I did. 
 
 You might have eat your dinner off the floor. 
 
 C. PAMA. Off any spot, sir, which a princess's foot 
 Had hallowed by its touch. 
 
 C. WAL. Most courtierly. 
 
 Keep, keep, those sweet saws for the lady's self. 
 (Aside). Unless that shock of the nerves shall send them 
 flying. 
 
 C. PAMA. Yet whence this depth of poverty? I thought 
 You and her champions had recovered for her 
 Her lands and titles. 
 
 C. WAL. Ay ; that coward Henry 
 
 Gave them all back as lightly as he took them : 
 Certie, we were four gentle applicants 
 And Rudolph told him some unwelcome truths 
 Would God that all of us might hear our sins, 
 As Henry heard that day ! 
 
 C. PAMA. Then she refused them ? 
 
 C. WAL. " It ill befits," quoth she, "my royal blood, 
 To take extorted gifts ; I tender back 
 By you to him, for this his mortal life, 
 That which he thinks by treason cheaply bought ; 
 To which my son shall, in his father's right, 
 
126 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 By God's good will, succeed. For that dread height 
 May Christ by many woes prepare his youth !" 
 C. PAMA. Humph! 
 
 C. Wai. Why here no, \ cannot be 
 
 C. PAMA. What hither comes 
 
 Forth from the hospital, where, as they told us, 
 The Princess labours in her holy duties ? 
 A parti-coloured ghost that stalks for penance ? 
 Ah ! a good head of hair, if she had kept it 
 A thought less lank ; a handsome face too, trust me, 
 But worn4o fiddle-strings ; well, we'll be knightly 
 
 [As ELIZABETH meets him.} 
 
 Stop, my fair queen of rags and patches, turn 
 Those solemn eyes a moment from your distaff, 
 And say, what tidings your magnificence 
 Can bring us of the Princess ? 
 
 ELIZ. I am she. 
 
 [COUNT PAMA crosses himself and falls on his knees.} 
 
 C. PAMA. Oh blessed saints and martyrs ! Open, 
 
 earth ! 
 
 And hide my recreant knighthood in thy gulf ! 
 Yet, mercy, madam ! for till this strange day 
 Who e'er saw spinning wool, like village-maid, 
 A royal scion ? 
 
 C. WAL. (kneeling). My beloved mistress ! 
 
 ELIZ. Ah ! faithful friend ! Rise, gentles, rise, foi 
 
 shame ; 
 
 Nay, blush not, gallant sir. You have seen, ere now, 
 Kings' daughters do worse things than spinning wool. 
 Yet never reddened. Speak your errand out. 
 
 C. PAMA. I from your father, madam 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! I divine ; 
 
 And grieve that you so far have journeyed, sir, 
 Upon a bootless quest. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 127 
 
 C. PAMA. But hear me, madam 
 
 If you return with me (overwhelming honour ! 
 For such mean body-guard too precious treasure) 
 Your father offers to you half his wealth ; 
 And countless hosts, whose swift and loyal blades 
 From traitorous grasp shall vindicate your crown . 
 
 ELIZ. Wealth ? I have proved it, and have tossed it 
 
 from me : 
 
 I will not stoop again to load with clay. 
 War ? I have proved that too : should I turn loose 
 On these poor sheep the wolf whose fangs have gored me, 
 God's bolt would smite me dead. 
 
 C. PAMA. Madam, by his gray hairs he doth entreat 
 you. 
 
 ELIZ. Alas ! small comfort would they find in me ! 
 I am a stricken and most luckless deer, 
 Whose bleeding track but draws the hounds of wrath 
 Where'er I pause a moment. He has children 
 Bred at his side, to nurse him in his age 
 While I am but an alien and a changeling, 
 Whom, ere my plastic sense could impress take 
 Either of his feature or his voice, he lost. 
 
 C. PAMA. Is it so ? Then pardon, madam, but your 
 
 father 
 Must by a father's right command 
 
 ELIZ. Command ! Ay, that's the phrase of the world : 
 
 well tell him, 
 
 But tell him gently too that child and father 
 Are names, whose earthly sense I have foresworn, 
 And know no more : I have a heavenly spouse, 
 Whose service doth all other claims annul. 
 
 C. WAL. Ah, lady, dearest lady, be but ruled ! 
 Your Saviour will be there as near as here. 
 
 ELIZ. What ? Thou too, friend ? Dost thou not know 
 
 me better ? 
 Wouldst have me leave undone what I begin ? 
 
128 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 (To COUNT PAMA). My father took the cross, sir: so 
 
 did I : 
 
 As he would die at his post, so will I die : 
 He is a warrior : ask him, should I leave 
 This my safe fort, and well-proved vantage-ground, 
 To roam on this world's flat and fenceless steppes r 
 
 C. PAMA. Pardon me, madam, if my grosser wit 
 Fail to conceive your sense. 
 
 ELIZ. It is not needed. 
 
 Be but the mouthpiece to my father, sir ; 
 And tell him for I would not anger him 
 Tell him, I am content say, happy tell him 
 I prove my kin by prayers for him, and masses 
 For her who bore me. We shall meet on high. 
 And say, his daughter is a mighty tree, 
 From whose wide roots a thousand sapling suckers 
 Drink half their life ; she dare not snap the threads, 
 And let her offshoots wither. So farewell. 
 Within the convent there, as mine own guests, 
 You shall be fitly lodged. Come here no more. 
 
 C. WAL. C. PAMA. Farewell, sweet saint ! 
 
 \Exeunt. 
 
 ELIZ. May God go with you both. 
 
 No ! I will win for him a nobler name, 
 Than captive crescents, piles of turbaned heads, 
 Or towns retaken from the Tartar, give. 
 In me he shall be greatest ; my report 
 Shall through the ages win the quires of heaven 
 To love and honour him ; and hinds, who bless 
 The poor man's patron saint, shall not forget 
 How she was fathered with a worthy sire. 
 
 [Exit. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 129 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Night. Interior of ELIZABETH'S Hut. A leprous Boy 
 sleeping on a Mattrass. ELIZABETH 'watching by him. 
 
 ELIZ. My shrunk limbs, stiff from many a blow, 
 
 Are crazed with pain. 
 
 A long dim formless fog-bank, creeping low. 
 Dulls all my brain. 
 
 I remember two young lovers, 
 
 In a golden gleam. 
 Across the brooding darkness shrieking hovers 
 
 That fair, foul dream. 
 
 My little children call to me, 
 
 " Mother ! so soon forgot ? " 
 From out dark nooks their yearning faces startle me, 
 
 Go, babes ! I know you not ! 
 
 Pray ! pray ! or thou'lt go mad. 
 
 * * * # * 
 
 The past's our own : 
 
 No fiend can take that from us ! Ah, poor boy ! 
 Had I, like thee, been bred from my black birth-hour 
 In filth and shame, counting the soulless months 
 Only by some fresh ulcer ! I'll be patient 
 Here's something yet more wretched than myself. 
 Sleep thou on still, poor charge though I'll not grudge 
 One moment of my sickening toil about thee, 
 Best counsellor dumb preacher, who dost warn me 
 How much I have enjoyed, how much have left, 
 Which thou hast never known. How am I wretched ? 
 The happiness thou hast from me, is mine, 
 And makes me happy. Ay, there lies the secret 
 Could we but crush that ever-craving lust 
 For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose our life, 
 
 K 
 
130 T/te Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Our barren unit life, to find again 
 
 A thousand lives in those for whom we die. 
 
 So were we men and women, and should hold 
 
 Our rightful rank in God's great universe, 
 
 Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will or nature, 
 
 Nought lives for self All, aU from crown to footstool 
 
 The Lamb, before the world's foundations slain 
 
 The angels, ministers to God's elect 
 
 The sun, who only shines to light a world 
 
 The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers 
 
 The fleeting streams, who in their ocean-graves 
 
 Flee the decay of stagnant self-content 
 
 The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe 
 
 The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower 
 
 The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms, 
 
 Born only to be prey for every bird 
 
 All spend themselves for others : and shall man, 
 
 Earth's rosy blossom image of his God 
 
 Whose twofold being is the mystic knot 
 
 Which couples earth and heaven doubly bound 
 
 As being both worm and angel, to that service 
 
 By which both worms and angels hold their life 
 
 Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, 
 
 Refuse, without some hope of further wage 
 
 Which he calls Heaven, to be what God has made him ? 
 
 No ! let him show himself the creature's lord 
 
 By freewill gift of that self-sacrifice 
 
 Which they perforce by nature's law must suffer. 
 
 This too I had to learn (I thank thee, Lord !), 
 
 To lie crushed down in darkness and the pit 
 
 To lose all heart and hope and yet to work. 
 
 What lesson could I draw from all my own woes 
 
 Ingratitude, oppression, widowhood 
 
 While I could hug myself in vain conceits 
 
 Of self- contented sainthood inward raptures 
 
 Celestial palms and let ambition's gorge 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 1 3 1 
 
 Taint heaven, as well as earth ? Is selfishness 
 
 For time, a sin spun out to eternity 
 
 Celestial prudence ? Shame ! Oh, thrust me forth, 
 
 Forth, Lord, from self, until I toil and die 
 
 No more for Heaven and bliss, but duty, Lord, 
 
 Duty to Thee, although my meed should be 
 
 The hell which I deserve ! {Sleeps. 
 
 Two Women enter. 
 
 1ST. WOMAN. What! snoring still? 7 Tis nearly time 
 
 to wake her 
 To do her penance. 
 
 2ND. WOMAN. Wait a while, for love : 
 
 Indeed, I am almost ashamed to punish 
 A bag of skin and bones. 
 
 1ST WOMAN. 'Tis for her good : 
 
 She has had her share of pleasure in this life 
 With her gay husband ; she must have her pain. 
 We bear it as a thing of course ; we know 
 What mortifications are, although I say it 
 That should not. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. Why, since my old tyrant died, 
 Fasting I've sought the Lord, like any Anna, 
 And never tasted fish, nor flesh, nor fowl, 
 And little stronger than water. 
 
 i ST. WOMAN. Plague on this watching ! 
 
 What work, to make a saint of a fine lady ! 
 See now, if she had been some labourer's daughter, 
 She might have saved herself, for aught he cared : 
 But now 
 
 2ND WOMAN. Hush ! here the master comes : 
 I hear him. 
 
 CONRAD enters. 
 
 CON. My peace, most holy, wise, and watchful wardens ! 
 She sleeps ? Well, what complaints have you to bring 
 K 2 
 
132 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Since last we met ? How ? blowing up the fire ? 
 Cold is the true Saint's element he thrives 
 Like Alpine gentians, where the frost is keenest 
 For there Heaven's nearest and the ether purest 
 (Aside}. And he most bitter. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. Ah ! sweet master, 
 
 We are not yet as perfect as yourself. 
 
 CON. But how has she behaved ? 
 
 IST WOMAN. Just like herself 
 
 Now ruffling up like any tourney queen ; 
 Now weeping in dark corners ; then next minute 
 Begging for penance on her knees. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. One trick's cured ; 
 
 That lust of giving ; Isentrude and Guta, 
 The hussies, came here begging but yestreen, 
 Vowed they were starving. 
 
 CON. Did she give to them ? 
 
 2ND WOMAN. She told them that she dared not. 
 
 CON. Good. For them, 
 
 I will take measures that they shall not want : 
 But see you tell her not : she must be perfect. 
 
 1ST WOMAN. Indeed, there's not much chance of that 
 
 a while. 
 
 There's others, might be saints, if they were young, 
 And handsome, and had titles to their names, 
 If they were helped toward heaven, now 
 
 CON. Silence, horse-skull 1 
 
 Thank God, that you are allowed to use a finger 
 Towards building up His chosen tabernacle. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. I consider that she blasphemes the 
 means of grace. 
 
 CON. Eh ? that's a point, indeed. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. Why, yesterday, 
 
 Within the church, before a mighty crowd, 
 She mocked at all the lovely images, 
 And said, " the money had been better spent 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 133 
 
 On food and clothes, instead of paint and gilding : 
 They were but pictures, whose reality 
 We ought to bear within us." 
 
 CON. Awful doctrine ! 
 
 1ST WOMAN. Look at her carelessness, again the 
 
 distaff 
 
 Or woolcomb in her hands, even on her bed. 
 Then, when the work is done, she lets those nuns 
 Cheat her of half the price. 
 
 2ND WOMAN. The Aldenburgers. 
 
 CON. Well, well, what more misdoings ? 
 
 (Aside}. Pah ! I am sick on't. 
 (Aloud}. Go sit, and pray by her until she wakes. 
 
 The Women, retire. CONRAD sits down by the fire. 
 
 I am dwindling to a peddling chamber-chaplain, 
 Who hunts for crabs and ballads in maids' sleeves, 
 I, who have shuffled kingdoms. Oh ! 'tis easy 
 To beget great deeds ; but in the rearing of them 
 The threading in cold blood each mean detail, 
 And furzebrake of half-pertinent circumstance 
 There lies the self-denial. 
 
 WOMEN (in a low voice). Master ! sir ! look here ! 
 
 ELIZ. (rising). Have mercy, mercy, Lord ! 
 
 CON. What is it, my daughter ? No She answers not 
 Her eyeballs through their sealed lids are bursting, 
 And yet she sleeps : her body does but mimic 
 The absent soul's enfranchised wanderings 
 In the spirit- world. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh ! She was but a worldling ! 
 
 And think, good Lord, if that this world is hell, 
 What wonder if poor souls whose lot is fixed here, 
 Meshed down by custom, wealth, rank, pleasure, igno- 
 rance, 
 
 Do hellish things in it ? Have mercy, Lord ; 
 Even for my sake, and all my woes, have mercy ! 
 
134 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 CON. There ! she is laid again Some bedlam dream. 
 So here I sit ; am I a guardian angel 
 Watching by God's elect ? or nightly tiger, 
 Who waits upon a dainty point of honour 
 To clutch his prey, till it shall wake and move ? 
 We'll waive that question : there's eternity 
 To answer that in. 
 
 How like a marble-carven nun she lies 
 Who prays with folded palms upon her tomb, 
 Until the resurrection ! Fair and holy ! 
 Oh, happy Lewis ! Had I been a knight 
 A man at all What's this ? I must be brutal, 
 Or I shall love her : and yet that's no safeguard ; 
 I have marked it oft : ay with that devilish triumph 
 Which eyes its victim's writhings, still will mingle 
 A sympathetic thrill of lust say, pity. 
 
 ELIZ. (awaking). I am heard ! She is saved ! 
 Where am I ? What ! have I overslept myself? 
 Oh, do not beat me ! I will tell you all 
 I have had awful dreams of the other world. 
 
 1ST WOMAN. Ay ! ay ! a fine excuse for lazy women, 
 Who cry night-mare with lying on their backs. 
 
 ELIZ. I will be heard ! I am a prophetess ! 
 God hears me, why not ye ? 
 
 CON. Quench not the spirit : 
 
 If He have spoken, daughter, we must listen. 
 
 ELIZ. Methought from out the red and heaving eartL 
 My mother rose, whose broad and queenly limbs 
 A fiery arrow did impale, and round 
 Pursuing tongues oozed up of nether fire, 
 And fastened on her : like a winter-blast 
 Among the steeples, then she shrieked aloud, 
 " Pray for me, daughter ; save me from this torment, 
 For thou canst save ! " And then she told a tale ; 
 It was not true my mother was not such 
 Oh God ! The pander to a brother's sin 1 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 135 
 
 IST WOMAN. There now ? The truth is out ! I told 
 
 you, sister, 
 About that mother 
 
 CON. Silence, hags ! what then ? 
 
 ELIZ. She stretched her arms, and sank. Was it a sin 
 To love that sinful mother ? There I lay 
 And in the spirit far away I prayed ; 
 What words I spoke, I know not, nor how long ; 
 Until a small still voice sighed, " Child, thou art heard : " 
 Then on the pitchy dark a small bright cloud 
 Shone out, and swelled, and neared, and grew to form, 
 Till from it blazed my pardoned mother's face 
 With nameless glory ! Nearer still she pressed, 
 And bent her lips to mine a mighty spasm 
 Ran crackling through my limbs, and thousand bells 
 Rang in my dizzy ears And so I woke. 
 
 CON. 'Twas but a dream. 
 
 ELIZ. 'Twas more ! 'twas more ! I've tests : 
 
 From youth I have lived in two alternate worlds, 
 And night is live like day. This was no goblin ! 
 1 Twas a true vision, and my mother's soul 
 Is freed by my poor prayers from penal fires, 
 And waits for me in bliss. 
 . CON. Well be it so then. 
 
 Thou seest herein what prize obedience merits. 
 Now to press forwards : I require your presence 
 Within the square, at noon, to witness there 
 The fiery doom most just and righteous doom 
 Of two convicted and malignant heretics, 
 Who at the stake shall expiate their crime, 
 And pacify God's wrath against this land. 
 
 ELIZ. No ! no ! I will not go ! 
 
 CON. What's here ? Thou wilt not ? 
 
 I'll drive thee there with blows. 
 
 ELIZ. Then I will bear them, 
 
 Even as I bore the last, with thankful thoughts 
 
1 36 The Saint 's Tragedy. 
 
 Upon those stripes my Lord endured for me. 
 Oh spare them, sir ! poor blindfold sons of men ! 
 No saint but daily errs, and must they burn, 
 Ah God ! for an opinion ? 
 
 CON. Fool ! opinions ? 
 
 Who cares for their opinions ? J Tis rebellion 
 Against the system which upholds the world 
 For which they die : so, lest the infection spread, 
 We must cut off the members, whose disease 
 We'd pardon, could they keep it to themselves. 
 
 [ELIZABETH weej-s. 
 
 Well, I'll not urge it, Thou hast other work- 
 But for thy petulant words do thou this penance : 
 I do forbid thee here, to give henceforth 
 Food, coin, or clothes, to any living soul. 
 Thy thriftless waste doth scandalize the elect, 
 And maim thine usefulness : thou dost elude 
 My wise restrictions still : 'Tis great, to live 
 Poor, among riches ; when thy wealth is spent, 
 Want is not merit, but necessity. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, let me give ! 
 
 That only pleasure have I left on earth ! 
 
 CON. And for that very cause thou must forego it, 
 And so be perfect. She who lives in pleasure 
 Is dead, while yet she lives ; grace brings no merit 
 When 'tis the express of our own self-will. 
 To shrink from what we practise ; do God's work 
 In spite of loathings \ that's the path of saints. 
 I have said. {Exit with the Women. 
 
 ELIZ. Well ! I am freezing fast I have grown of late 
 Too weak to nurse my sick ; and now this outlet, 
 This one last thawing spring of fellow-feeling, 
 Is choked with ice Come, Lord, and set me free. 
 Think me not hasty ! measure not mine age, 
 Oh Lord, by these my four-and-twenty winters. 
 I have lived three lives three lives. 
 

 Tke Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 For fourteen years I was an idiot girl : 
 Then I was born again ; and for five years, 
 I lived ! I lived ! and then I died once more : 
 One day when many knights came marching by, 
 And stole away we'll talk no more of that. 
 And so these four years since, I have been dead, 
 And all my life is hid with Christ in God. 
 Nunc igitur dimittas, Domine, servam tuam. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The same. ELIZABETH lying on Straw in a corner. 
 A crowd of Women round her. CONRAD entering. 
 
 CON. As I expected 
 
 A sermon-mongering herd about her death-bed, 
 Stifling her with fusty sighs, as flocks of rooks 
 Despatch, with pious pecks, a wounded brother. 
 Cant, howl, and whimper ! Not an old fool in the town 
 Who thinks herself religious, but must see 
 The last of the show, and mob the deer to death. 
 (Advancing). Hail ! holy ones ! How fares your charge 
 to-day ? 
 
 ABBESS. After the blessed sacrament received, 
 As surfeited with those celestial viands, 
 And with the blood of life intoxicate, 
 She lay entranced : and only stirred at times 
 To eructate sweet edifying doctrine 
 Culled from your darling sermons. 
 
 WOMAN. Heavenly grace 
 
 Imbues her so throughout, that even when pricked 
 She feels no pain. 
 
 CON. A miracle, no doubt. 
 
 Heaven's work is ripe, and like some more I know, 
 Having begun in the spirit, in the flesh 
 She's now made perfect : she hath had warnirgs, too. 
 
138 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 Of her decease ; and prophesied to me, 
 Three weeks ago, when I lay like to die, 
 That I should see her in her coffin yet. 
 
 ABBESS. 'Tis said, she heard in dreams her Saviour 
 
 call her 
 To mansions built for her from everlasting. 
 
 CON. Ay, so she said. 
 
 ABBESS. But tell me, in her confession 
 
 Was there no holy shame no self-abhorrence 
 For the vile pleasures of her carnal wedlock ? 
 
 CON. She said no word thereon : as for her shrift, 
 No Chrisom child could show a chart of thoughts 
 More spotless than were hers. 
 
 NUN. Strange, she said nought ; 
 
 I had hoped she had grown more pure. 
 
 CON. When, next, I asked her, 
 
 How she would be interred ; "In the vilest weeds," 
 Quoth she, "my poor hut holds ; I will not pamper 
 When dead, that flesh, which living I despised. 
 And for my wealth, see it to the last doit 
 Bestowed upon the poor of Christ." 
 
 2ND WOMAN. Oh grace ! 
 
 3RD WOMAN. Oh soul to this world poor, but rich 
 toward God ! 
 
 ELIZ. (awaking}. Hark ! how they cry for bread ! 
 Poor souls ! be patient ! 
 I have spent all 
 
 I'll sell myself for a slave feed them with the price. 
 Come, Guta ! Nurse ! We must be up and doing ! 
 Alas ! they are gone, and begging 1 
 Go ! go ! They'll beat me, if I give you aught : 
 HI pray for you, and so you'll go to Heaven. 
 I am a saint God grants me all I ask. 
 But I must love no creature. Why, Christ loved 
 Mary he loved, and Martha, and their brother 
 Three friends ! and I have none ! 
 
The Saints Tragedy. 139 
 
 When Lazaras lay dead, He groaned in spirit, 
 
 And wept like any widow Jesus wept ! 
 
 I'll weep, weep, weep ! pray for that " gift of tears." 
 
 They took my friends away, but not my eyes, 
 
 Oh, husband, babes, friends, nurse ! To die alone ! 
 
 Crack, frozen brain ! Melt, icicle within ! 
 
 WOMEN. Alas ! sweet saint ! By bitter pangs she wins 
 Her crown of endless glory ! 
 
 CON. But she wins it ! 
 
 Stop that vile sobbing ; she's unmanned enough 
 Without your maudlin sympathy. 
 
 ELIZ. What ? weeping ? 
 
 Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me 
 Weep for yourselves. 
 
 WOMEN. We do, alas ! we do ! 
 
 What are we without you ? \A pause* 
 
 WOMAN. Oh listen, listen ! 
 
 What sweet sounds from her fast-closed lips are welling, 
 As from the caverned shaft, deep miners' songs ? 
 
 ELIZ. (in a low voice). Through the stifling room 
 Floats strange perfume ; 
 Through the crumbling thatch 
 The angels watch, 
 Over the rotting roof-tree. 
 They warble, and flutter, and hover and glide, 
 Wafting old sounds to my dreary bedside, 
 Snatches of songs which I used to know 
 When I slept by my nurse, and the swallows 
 Called me at day-dawn from under the eaves. 
 
 Hark to them ! Hark to them now 
 Fluting like woodlarks, tender and low 
 Cool rustling leaves tinkling waters 
 Sheepbells over the lea 
 In their silver plumes Eden-gales whisper 
 In their hands Eden-lilies not for me not for me 
 No crown for the poor fond bride ! 
 
140 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 The song told me so, 
 
 Long, long ago, 
 How the maid chose the white lily ; 
 
 But the bride she chose 
 
 The red red rose, 
 And by its thorn died she. 
 
 Well in my Father's house are many mansions 
 
 I have trodden the waste howling ocean-foam, 
 Till I stand upon Canaan's shore, 
 
 Where Crusaders from Zion's towers call me home, 
 To the saints who are gone before, 
 
 CON. Still on Crusaders ? \Asidc. 
 
 ABBESS. What was that sweet song, which just now, my 
 
 Princess, 
 You murmured to yourself? 
 
 ELIZ. Did you not hear 
 
 A little bird between me and the wall, 
 That sang and sang ? 
 
 ABBESS. We heard him not, fair saint. 
 
 ELIZ. I heard him, and his merry carol revelled 
 Through all my brain, and woke my parched throat 
 To join his song : then angel melodies 
 Burst through the dull dark, and the mad air quivered 
 Unutterable music. Nay, you heard him. 
 
 ABBESS. Nought save yourself. 
 
 ELIZ. Slow hours ! Was that the cock-crow ? 
 
 WOMAN. St. Peter's bird did call. 
 
 ELIZ. Then I must up 
 
 To matins, and to work No, my work's over. 
 And what is it, what ? 
 
 One drop of oil on the salt seething ocean ! 
 Thank God, that one was born at this same hour. 
 Who did our work for us : we'll talk of Him : 
 We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves 
 We'll talk of Him, and of that new-made star. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 14.1 
 
 Which, as He stooped into the Virgin's side, 
 
 From off His finger, like a signet-gem, 
 
 He dropped in the empyrean for a sign. 
 
 But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour, 
 
 When He crept weeping forth to see our woe, 
 
 Fled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever 
 
 Our sins, our works, and that same new-made star. 
 
 WOMAN. Poor soul ! she wanders ! 
 
 CON. Wanders, fool ? her madness 
 
 Is worth a million of your paters, mumbled 
 At every station between 
 
 El.iz. Oh ! thank God 
 
 Our eyes are dim ! What should we do, if he, 
 The sneering fiend, who laughs at all our toil, 
 Should meet us face to face ? 
 
 CON. We'd call him fool. 
 
 ELIZ. There ! There ! Fly, Satan, fly ! 'Tis gone ! 
 
 CON. The victory's gained at last ! 
 The fiend is baffled, and her saintship sure ! 
 Oh people blest of heaven ! 
 
 ELIZ. Oh, master, master ! 
 
 You will not let the mob, when I lie dead, 
 Make me a show paw over all my limbs 
 Pull out my hair pluck off my finger-nails 
 Wear scraps of me for charms and amulets, 
 As if I were a mummy, or a drug ? 
 As they have done to others I have seen it 
 Nor set me up in ugly naked pictures 
 1 n every church, that cold world-hardened wits 
 May gossip o'er my secret tortures ? Promise 
 Swear to me ! I demand it ! 
 
 CON. No man lights 
 
 A candle, to be hid beneath a bushel : 
 Thy virtues are the Church's dower : endure 
 All which the edification of the faithful 
 Makes needful to be published. 
 
142 The Saint' s Tragedy. 
 
 ELIZ. Oh my God ! 
 
 I had stripped myself of all, but modesty ! 
 Dost thou claim yet that victim ? Be it so. 
 Now take me home ! I have no more to give thee ! 
 So weak and yet no pain why, now nought ails me ! 
 How dim the lights burn ! Here 
 Where are you, children ? 
 Alas ! I had forgotten. 
 
 Now I must sleep for ere the sun shall rise, 
 I must begone upon a long, long journey 
 To him I love. 
 
 CON. She means her heavenly bridegroom 
 
 The spouse of souls. 
 
 ELIZ. I said, to him I love. 
 
 Let me sleep, sleep. 
 You will not need to wake me so good night. 
 
 \Folds herself into an attitude of repose. The scene closes 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. A.D. 1235. 
 
 A convent at Marpurg. Cloisters of the Infirmary. Two 
 aged MONKS sitting. 
 
 1ST MONK. So they will publish to-day the Land- 
 gravine's canonization, and translate her to the new 
 church prepared for her. Alack, now, that all the world 
 should be out sight-seeing and saint-making, and we laid 
 up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry ! 
 
 2ND MONK. Let be, man let ' be. We have seen 
 sights and saints in our time. And, truly, this insolatio 
 suits my old bones better than processioning. 
 
 1ST MONK. 'Tis pleasant enough in the sun, were it 
 not for the flies. Look there's a lizard. Come you 
 here, little run-about \ here's game for you. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 143 
 
 2ND MONK. A tame fool, and a gay one Munditise 
 mundanis. 
 
 1ST MONK. Catch him a fat fly my hand shaketh. 
 
 2ND MONK. If one of your new-lights were here, 
 now, he'd pluck him for a fiend, as Dominic did the live 
 sparrow in chapel. 
 
 1ST MONK. There will be precious offerings made to- 
 day, of which our house will get its share. 
 
 2ND MONK. Not we ; she always favoured the Fran- 
 ciscans most. 
 
 1ST MONK. 'Twas but fair they were her kith and 
 kin. She lately put on the habit of their third minors. 
 
 2ND MONK. So have half the fine gentlemen and 
 ladies in Europe. There's one of your new inventions, 
 now, for letting grand folks serve God and mammon at 
 once, and-emptying honest monasteries, where men give 
 up all for the Gospel's sake. And now these Pharisees of 
 Franciscans will go off with full pockets 
 
 1ST MONK. While we poor publicans 
 
 2ND MONK. Shall not come home all of us justified, I 
 think. 
 
 1ST MONK. How? Is there scandal among us ? 
 
 2ND MONK. Ask not ask not. Even a fool, when he 
 holds his peace, is counted wise. Of all sins, avoid that 
 same gossiping. 
 
 1ST MONK. Nay, tell me now. Are we not like David 
 and Jonathan ? Have we not worked together, prayed to- 
 gether, journeyed together, and been soundly flogged to- 
 gether, more by token, any time this forty years ? And now is 
 news so plenty, that thou darest to defraud me of a morsel ? 
 
 2ND MONK. I'll tell thee but be secret. I knew a 
 man hard by the convent (names are dangerous, and a 
 bird of the air shall carry the matter), one that hath a 
 mighty eye for a heretic, if thou knowest him. 
 
 1ST MONK. Who carries his poll screwed on overtight, 
 and sits with his eyes shut in chapel ? 
 
144 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 2ND MONK. The same. Such a one to be in evil savour 
 to have the splendour of the pontifical countenance 
 turned from him, as though he had taken Christians for 
 Amalekites, and slain the people of the Lord. 
 
 IST MONK. How now? 
 
 2ND MONK. I only speak as I hear : for my sister's 
 son is chaplain, for the time being, to a certain Archisa- 
 cerdos, a foreigner, now lodging where thou knowest. 
 The young man being hid, after some knavery, behind 
 the arras, in come our quidam and that prelate. The 
 quidam, surly and Saxon the guest, smooth and Italian ; 
 his words softer than butter, yet very swords : that this 
 quidam had " exceeded the bounds of his commission 
 launched out into wanton and lawless cruelty burnt 
 noble ladies unheard, of whose innocence the Holy See 
 had proof defiled the Catholic faith in the eyes of the 
 weaker sort and alienated the minds of many nobles and 
 gentlemen " and finally, that he who thinketh he standeth, 
 were wise to take heed lest he fall. 
 
 1ST MONK. And what said Conrad? 
 
 2ND MONK. Out upon a man that cannot keep his 
 lips ! Who spake of Conrad ? That quidam, however, 
 answered nought, but how " to his own master he stood 
 or fell" how "he laboured not for the Pope but for 
 the Papacy ; " and so forth. 
 
 1ST MONK. Here is awful doctrine ! Behold the fruit 
 of your reformers ! This comes of their realized ideas, 
 and centralizations, and organizations, till a monk cannot 
 wink in chapel without being blinded with the lantern, or 
 fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the rod. Have I not 
 testified ? Have I not foretold ? 
 
 2ND MONK. Thou hast indeed. Thou knowest that 
 the old paths are best, and livest in most pious abhor- 
 rence of all amendment. 
 
 IST MONK. Do you hear that shout? There is the 
 procession returning from the tomb. 
 
The Saint 's Tragedy. 145 
 
 2ND MONK. Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs ! 
 A gallant show, I'll warrant ! 
 
 1ST MONK. Time was, now, when we were young 
 bloods together in the world, such a roll as that would 
 have set our hearts beating against their cages ! 
 
 2ND MONK. Ay, ay. We have seen sport in our day ; 
 we have paraded and curvetted, eh ? and heard scabbards 
 jingle ? We know the sly touch of the heel, that set him 
 on his hind legs before the right window. Vanitas vani- 
 tatum omnia vanitas ! Here comes Gerard, Conrad's 
 chaplain, with our dinner. 
 
 GERARD enters across the Court. 
 
 1ST MONK. A kindly youth and a godly, but refor- 
 mation-bitten, like the rest. 
 
 2ND MONK. Never care. Boys must take the reigning 
 madness in religion, as they do the measles once for all. 
 
 1ST MONK. Once too often for him. His face is too, 
 too like Abel's in the chapel-window. Ut sis vitalis metuo, 
 puer ! 
 
 GER. Hail, fathers. I have asked permission of the 
 prior to minister your refection, and bring you thereby the 
 first news of the pageant. 
 
 IST MONK. Blessings on thee for a good boy. Give us 
 the trenchers, and open thy mouth while we open ours. 
 
 2ND MONK. Most splendid all, no doubt ? 
 
 GER. A garden, sir, 
 
 Wherein all rainbowed flowers were heaped together ; 
 A sea of silk and gold, of blazoned banners, 
 And chargers housed ; such glorious press, be sure, 
 Thuringen-land ne'er saw. 
 
 2ND MONK. Just hear the boy ! 
 
 Who rode beside the bier ? 
 
 GER. Frederic the Kaiser, 
 
 Henry the Landgrave, brother of her husband j 
 The Princesses, too, Agnes, and her mother ; 
 And every noble name, sir, at whose war-cry 
 
 I, 
 
146 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 The Saxon heart leaps up ; with them the prelates 
 Of Treves, of Coin, and Maintz why name them all ? 
 When all were there, whom this our father-land 
 Counts worthy of its love. 
 
 1ST MONK. 'Twas but her right. 
 
 Who spoke the oration ? 
 
 GER. Who but Conrad ? 
 
 2ND MONK. Well 
 
 That's honour to our house. 
 
 1ST MONK. Come, tell us all. 
 
 2ND MONK. In order, boy : thou hast a ready tongue. 
 
 GER. He raised from off her face the pall, and " Lo !" 
 He cried, "That saintly flesh which ye of late 
 With sacrilegious hands, ere yet entombed, 
 Had in your superstitious selfishness 
 Almost torn piecemeal. Fools ! Gross-hearted fools ! 
 These limbs are God's, not yours : in life for you 
 They spent themselves ; now till the judgment-day 
 By virtue of the Spirit embalmed they lie 
 Touch them who dare. No ! Would you find your saint, 
 Look up, not down, where even now she prays 
 Beyond that blazing orb for you and me. 
 Why hither bring her corpse ? Why hide her clay 
 In jewelled ark beneath God's mercy-seat 
 A speck of dust among these boundless aisles, 
 Uprushing pillars, star-bespangled roofs, 
 Whose colours mimic Heaven's unmeasured blue, 
 Save to remind you, how she is not here, 
 But risen with Him that rose, and by his blaze 
 Absorbed, lives in the God for whom she died ? 
 Know her no more according to the flesh ; 
 Or only so, to brand upon your thoughts 
 How she was once a woman flesh and blood, 
 Like you yet how unlike ! Hark while I tell ye." 
 
 2ND MONK. How liked the mob all this ? They hate 
 him sore. 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 147 
 
 GER. Half awed, half sullen, till his golden lips 
 Entranced all ears with tales so sad and strange, 
 They seemed one life-long miracle : bliss and woe, 
 Honour and shame her daring Heaven's stern guid- 
 ance, 
 Did each the other so outblaze. 
 
 1ST MONK. Great signs 
 
 Did wait on her from youth. 
 
 2ND MONK. There went a tale 
 
 Of one, a Zingar wizard, who, on her birthnight, 
 He here in Eisenach, she in Presburg lying, 
 Declared her natal moment, and the glory 
 Which should befal her by the grace of God. 
 
 GER. He spoke of that, and many a wonder more, 
 Melting all hearts to worship how a robe 
 Which from her shoulders, at a royal feast, 
 To some importunate as alms she sent, 
 By miracle within her bower was hung again : 
 And how on her own couch the Incarnate Son 
 In likeness of a leprous serf, she laid : 
 And many a wondrous tale, till now unheard ; 
 Which, from her handmaid's oath and attestation, 
 Siegfried of Maintz to far Perugia sent, 
 And sainted Umbria's labyrinthine hills, 
 Even to the holy Council, where the Patriarchs 
 Of Antioch and Jerusalem, and with them 
 A host of prelates, magnates, knights and nobles, 
 Decreed and canonized her sainthood's palm. 
 
 IST MONK. Mass, they could do no less. 
 
 GER. So thought my master 
 
 For, " Thus," quoth he, " the primates of the Faith 
 Have, in the bull which late was read to you, 
 Most wisely ratified the will of God 
 Revealed in hej life's splendour : for the next count 
 These miracles wherewith since death she shines 
 Since ye must have your signs, ere ye believe, 
 L 2 
 
148 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 And since without such tests the Roman Father 
 
 Allows no saints to take their seats in heaven, 
 
 Why, there ye have them ; not a friar, I find, 
 
 Or old wife in the streets, but counts some dozens 
 
 Of blind, deaf, halt, dumb, palsied, and hysterical, 
 
 Made whole at this her tomb. A corpse or two 
 
 Was raised, they say, last week : Will that content you ? 
 
 Will that content her ? Earthworms ! Would ye please 
 
 the dead, 
 
 Bring sinful souls, not limping carcases 
 To test her power on ; which of you hath done that ? 
 Has any glutton learnt from her to fast ? 
 Or oily burgher dealt away his pelf? 
 Has any painted Jezebel in sackcloth 
 Repented of her vanities ? Your patron ? 
 Think ye, that spell and flame of intercession, 
 Melting God's iron will, which for your sakes 
 She purchased by long agonies, was but meant 
 To save your doctors' bills ? If any soul 
 Hath been by her made holier, let it speak \ " 
 
 2ND MONK. Well spoken, Legate ! Easier asked than 
 answered. 
 
 GER. Not so, for on the moment, from the crowd 
 Sprang out a gay and gallant gentleman 
 Well known in fight and tourney, and aloud 
 With sobs and blushes told, how he long time 
 Had wallowed deep in mire of fleshly sin, 
 And loathed, and fell again, and loathed in vain ; 
 Until the story of her saintly grace 
 Drew him unto her tomb ; there long prostrate 
 With bitter cries he sought her, till at length 
 The image of her perfect loveliness 
 Transfigured all his soul, and from his knees 
 He rose new-born, and, since that blessed day, 
 In chastest chivalry, a spotless knight, 
 Maintains the widow's and the orphan's cause, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 149 
 
 1ST MONK. Well done ! and what said Conrad? 
 
 GER. Oh, he smiled, 
 
 As who should say, " 'Twas but the news I looked for." 
 Then, pointing to the banners borne on high, 
 Where the sad story of her nightly penance 
 Was all too truly painted" Look ! " he cried, 
 " 'Twas thus she schooled her soft and shuddering flesh 
 To dare and suffer for you ! " Gay ladies sighed, 
 And stern knights wept, and growled, and wept again. 
 And then he told her alms, her mighty labours, 
 Among God's poor, the schools wherein she taught ; 
 The babes she brought to the font, the hospitals 
 Founded from her own penury, where she tended 
 The leper and the fever-stricken serf 
 With meanest office ; how a dying slave 
 Who craved in vain for milk she stooped to feed 
 From her own bosom. At that crowning tale 
 Of utter love, the dullest hearts caught fire 
 Contagious from his lips the Spirit's breath 
 Low to the earth, like dewy-laden corn, 
 Bowed the ripe harvest of that mighty host ; 
 Knees bent, all heads were bare ; rich dames aloud 
 Bewailed their cushioned sloth ; old foes held out 
 Long parted hands ; low murmured vows and prayers 
 Gained courage, till a shout proclaimed her saint, 
 And jubilant thunders shook the ringing air, 
 Till birds dropped stunned, and passing clouds bewept 
 With crystal drops, like sympathizing angels, 
 Those wasted limbs, whose sainted ivory round 
 Shed Eden-odours : from his royal head 
 The Kaiser took his crown, and on the bier 
 Laid the rich offering ; dames tore off their jewels 
 Proud nobles heaped with gold and gems her corse 
 
 Whom living they despised : I saw no more 
 
 Mine eyes were blinded with a radiant mist 
 And I ran here to tell you. 
 
150 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 1ST MONK. Oh, fair olive, 
 
 Rich with the Spirit's unction, how thy boughs 
 Rain balsams on us ! 
 
 2ND MONK. Thou didst sell thine all 
 And bought'st the priceless pearl ! 
 
 IST MONK. Thou holocaust of Abel 
 
 By Cain in vain despised ! 
 
 2ND MONK. Thou angels' playmate 
 Of yore, but now their judge ! 
 
 GER. Thou alabaster, 
 
 Broken at last, to fill the house of God 
 With rich celestial fragrance ! 
 
 &"> &>. ad libitum. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 A Room in a Convent at Mayence. CONRAD alone. 
 
 CON. The work is done ! Diva Elizabeth ! 
 And I have trained one saint before I die ! 
 Yet now 'tis done, is't well done ? On my lips 
 Is triumph : but what echo in my heart ? 
 Alas ! the inner voice is sad and dull, 
 Even at the crown and shout of victory. 
 Oh ! I had hugged this purpose to my heart, 
 Cast by for it all ruth, all pride, all scruples ; 
 Yet now its face, that seemed as pure as crystal, 
 Shows fleshly, foul, and stained with tears and gore ! 
 We make, and moil, like children in their gardens, 
 And spoil with dabbled hands, our flowers i' the planting. 
 And yet a saint is made ! Alas, those children ! 
 Was there no gentler way ? I know not any : 
 I plucked the gay moth from the spider's web ; 
 What if my hasty hand have smirched its feathers ? 
 Sure, if the whole be good, each several part 
 May for its private blots forgiveness gain, 
 
The Saini ''s Tragedy. \ 5 I 
 
 As in man's tabernacle, vile elements 
 
 Unite to one fair stature. Who'll gainsay it ? 
 
 The whole is good ; another saint in heaven ; 
 
 Another bride within the Bridegroom's arms ; 
 
 And she will pray for me ! And yet what matter ? 
 
 Better that I, this paltry sinful unit, 
 
 Fall fighting, crushed into the nether pit, 
 
 If my dead corpse may bridge the path to Heaven, 
 
 And damn itself, to save the souls of others. 
 
 A noble ruin : yet small comfort in it ; 
 
 In it, or in aught else - 
 
 A blank dim cloud before mine inward sense 
 
 Dulls all the past : she spoke of such a cloud - 
 
 I struck her fort, and said it was a fiend - 
 
 She's happy now, before the throne of God - 
 
 I should be merry ; yet my heart's floor sinks 
 
 As on a fast day ; sure some evil bodes. 
 
 Would it were here, that I might see its eyes ! 
 
 The future only is Unbearable ! 
 
 We quail before the rising thunderstorm 
 
 Which thrills and whispers in the stifled air, 
 
 Yet blench not, when it falls. Would it were here ! 
 
 I fain would sleep, yet dare not : all the air 
 
 Throngs thick upon me with the pregnant terror 
 
 Of life unseen, yet near. I dare not meet them, 
 
 As if I sleep I shall do - 1 again ? 
 
 What matter what I feel, or like, or fear ? 
 
 Come what God sends. Within there Brother Gerard ! 
 
 GERARD enters. 
 
 Watch here an hour, and pray. The fiends are busy. 
 So hold my hand. ( Crosses himself}. Come on I feai 
 you not. [Sleeps* 
 
152 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 GERARD sings. 
 
 Qui fugiens mundi gravia, 
 Contempsit carnis bravia, 
 Cupidinisque somnia, 
 Lucratur, perdens, omnia. 
 
 Hunc gestant ulnis angeli, 
 Ne lapis official pedi ; 
 Ne luce timor occupet, 
 Aut nocte pestis incubet. 
 
 Huic coeli lilia genninant ; 
 Arrisus sponsi permanent ; 
 Ac nomen in fidelibus 
 Quam filiorum medius. [Sleeps. 
 
 ****** 
 
 CONRAD (awaking). Stay ! Spirits, stay ! Art thou 
 
 a hell-born phantasm, 
 
 Or word too true, sent by the mother of God ? 
 Oh tell me, queen of Heaven ! 
 Oh God ! if she, the city of the Lord, 
 Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soul 
 Of half the earth ; wherein all kingdoms, laws, 
 Authority, and faith do culminate, 
 And draw from her their sanction and their use ; 
 The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages, 
 Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed ; 
 The tree whose rootlets drink of every river, 
 Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles ; 
 Christ's seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and hues 
 Of all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish, 
 And crumble into dust ! 
 Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas ! 
 Oh ! to have prayed, and toiled and lied for this ! 
 For this to have crushed out the heart of youth, 
 
The S ami's Tragedy. V\ , /p ^ f . > > 
 
 And sat by calm, while living bodies burned ! 
 
 How ! Gerard ; sleeping ! 
 
 Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son ? 
 
 GER. (awaking). How ! have I slept ? Shame on mv 
 
 vaporous brain ! 
 
 And yet there crept along my hand from thine 
 A leaden languor, and the drowsy air 
 Teemed thick with humming wings I slept perforce, 
 Forgive me (while for breach of holy rule 
 Due penance shall seem honour) my neglect. 
 
 CON. I should have beat thee fort, an hour agone 
 Now I judge no man. What are rules and methods ? 
 I have seen things which make my brain-sphere reel : 
 My magic teraph-bust, full packed, and labelled, 
 With saws, ideas, dogmas, ends, and theories, 
 Lies shivered into dust. Pah ! we do squint 
 Each through his loop-hole, and then dream, broad 
 
 heaven 
 
 Is but the patch we see. But let none know ; 
 Be silent, Gerard, wary. 
 
 GER. Nay I know nought 
 Of that which moves thee : though I fain .would ask 
 
 CON. I saw our mighty Mother, Holy Church, 
 Sit like a painted harlot ; round her limbs 
 An oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled, 
 And lisped the name of Jesus I'll not tell thee : 
 I have seen more than man can see, and live : 
 God, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bans 
 The luckless seer from off the tree of life, 
 Lest he become as gods, and burst with pride ; 
 Or sick at sight of his own nothingness, 
 Lie down, and be a fiend : my time is near : 
 Well I have neither child, nor kin, nor friend, 
 Save thee, my son ; I shall go lightly forth. 
 Thou knowest we start for Marpurg on the* morrow ? 
 Thou wilt go with me ? 
 
154 TJie Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 GER. Ay, to death, my master ; 
 
 Yet boorish heretics, with grounded throats, 
 Mutter like sullen bulls ; the Count of Saym, 
 And many gentlemen, they say, have sworn 
 A fearful oath : there's danger in the wind. 
 
 CON. They have their quarrel ; I was keen and hasty : 
 Gladio qui utitur, peribit gladio. 
 
 When Heaven is strong, then Hell is strong : Thou 
 fear'st not ? 
 
 GER. No ! though their name were legion ! J Tis for 
 
 thee 
 
 Alone I quake, lest by some pious boldness 
 Thou quench the light of Israel. 
 
 CON. Light ? my son ! 
 
 There shall no light be quenched, when I lie dark. 
 Our path trends outward : we will forth to-morrow. 
 Now let's to chapel ; matin bells are ringing. {Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 A road between Eisenach and Marpurg. Peasants wait- 
 ing by the road-side. WALTER OF VARILA, the COUNT 
 OF SAYM, and other Gentlemen entering on horseback. 
 
 GENT. Talk not of honour Hell's a flame within me : 
 Foul water quenches fire as well as fair ; 
 If I do meet him, he shall die the death, 
 Come fair, come foul : I tell you, there are wrongs 
 The fumbling piecemeal law can never touch, 
 Which bring of themselves to the injured, right divine, 
 Straight from the fount of right, above all parchments, 
 To be their own avengers : dainty lawyers, 
 If one shall slay the adulterer in the act, 
 Dare not condemn him : girls have stabbed their tyrants, 
 And common sense has crowned them saints ; yet what 
 What were their wrongs to mine ? All gone ! All gone ! 
 My noble boys, whom I had trained, poor fools, 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 155 
 
 To win their spurs, and ride afield with me ! 
 
 I could have spared theni but my wife ! my lady ! 
 
 Those dainty limbs, which no eyes but mine 
 
 Before that ruffian mob Too much for man ! 
 
 Too much, stern Heaven ! Those eyes, those hands, 
 
 Those tender feet, where I have lain and worshipped - 
 
 Food for fierce flames ! And on the self-same day 
 
 The day that they were seized unheard unargued- - 
 
 No witness, but one vile convicted thief 
 
 The dog is dead and buried : Well done, henchmen ! 
 
 They are not buried ! Pah ! their ashes flit 
 
 About the common air ; we pass them breathe them ' 
 
 The self-same day ! If I had had one look ! 
 
 One word one single tiny spark of word, 
 
 Such as two swallows change upon the wing ! 
 
 She was no heretic : she knelt for ever 
 
 Before the blessed rood, and prayed for me. 
 
 Art sure he comes this road ? 
 
 C. SAYM. My messenger 
 
 Saw him start forth, and watched him past the crossways 
 An hour will bring him here. 
 
 C. WAL. How ! ambuscading ? 
 
 I'll not sit by, while helpless priests are butchered. 
 Shame, gentles ! 
 
 C. SAYM. On my word, I knew not on't 
 
 Until this hour : my quarrel's not so sharp, 
 But I may let him pass : my name is righted 
 Before the Emperor, from all his slanders ; 
 And what's revenge to me ? 
 
 GENT. Ay, ay forgive and forget 
 The vermin's trapped and we'll be gentle-handed, 
 And lift him out, and bid his master speed him, 
 Him and his firebrands. He shall never pass me. 
 
 C. WAL. I will not see it ; I'm old, and sick of blood 
 She loved him, while she lived ; and charged me once, 
 As her sworn liegeman;, not to harm the knave. 
 
156 The Saints Tragedy. 
 
 I'll home : yet, knights, if aught untoward happen, 
 
 And you should need a shelter, come to me : 
 
 My walls are strong, Home, knaves ! we'll seek our 
 
 wives, 
 And beat our swords to ploughshares when folks let us. 
 
 [Exeunt COUNT WALTER and Suite 
 
 C. SAYM. He's gone, brave heart ! But sir, you will 
 
 not dare ? 
 The Pope's own Legate think there's danger in't. 
 
 GENT. Look, how athwart yon sullen sleeping flats 
 That frowning thunder-cloud sails pregnant hither j 
 And black against its sheeted gray, one bird 
 Flags fearful onward 'Tis his cursed soul ! 
 Now thou shalt quake, raven ! The self-same day ! 
 He cannot 'scape ! The storm is close upon him ! 
 There ! There ! the wreathing spouts have swallowed him 1 
 He's gone ! and see, the keen blue spark leaps out 
 From crag to crag, and every vaporous pillar 
 Shouts forth his death-doom ! 'Tis a sign, a sign ! 
 
 [A heretic Preacher mounts a stone. Peasants gather 
 round him.'] 
 
 These are the starved unlettered hinds, forsooth, 
 
 He hunted down like vermin for a doctrine. 
 
 They have their rights, their wrongs ; their lawless laws, 
 
 Their witless arguings, which unconscious reason 
 
 Informs to just conclusions. We will hear thera. 
 
 PREACHER. My brethren, I have a message to you : 
 therefore hearken with all your ears for now is the day 
 of salvation. It is written, that the children of this world 
 are in their generation wiser than the children of light 
 and truly : for the children of this world, when they are 
 troubled with vermin, catch them and hear no more of 
 them. But you, the children of light, the elect saints, the 
 poor of this world rich in faith, let the vermin eat your 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 157 
 
 lives out, and then fall down and worship them afterwards. 
 You are all besotted hag-ridden drunkards sitting in 
 the stocks, and bowing down to the said stocks, and 
 making a god thereof. Of part, said the prophet, ye 
 make a god, and part serveth to roast to roast the flesh of 
 your sons and of your daughters ; and then ye cry, "Aha, 
 I am warm, I have seen the fire ;" and a special fire ye 
 have seen ! The ashes of your wives and of your brothers 
 cleave to your clothes. Cast them up to Heaven, cry 
 aloud, and quit yourselves like men ! 
 
 GENT. He speaks God's truth ! We are Heaven's 
 
 justicers ! 
 Our woes anoint us kings ! Peace Hark again ! 
 
 PREACHER. Therefore, as said before in the next place 
 It is written, that there shall be a two-edged sword in 
 the hand of the saints. But the saints have but two 
 swords Was there a sword or shield found among ten 
 thousand in Israel? Then let Israel use his fists, say I, 
 the preacher ! For this man hath shed blood, and by 
 man shall his blood be shed. Now behold an argument. 
 This man hath shed blood, even Conrad; ergo, as he 
 saith himself, ye, if ye are men, shall shed his blood. Doth 
 he not himself say ergo ? Hath he not said ergo to the 
 poor saints, to your sons and your daughters, whom he 
 hath burned in the fire to Moloch ? " Ergo, thou art a 
 heretic" "Ergo, thou shalt burn." Is he not therefore 
 convicted out of his own mouth ? Arise, therefore, be 
 valiant for this day he is delivered into your hand ! 
 
 \Chanting heard in the distance^ 
 PEASANT. Hush ! here the psalm-singers come ! 
 
 CONRAD enters on a mule, chanting the psalter, GERARD 
 
 following. 
 
 CON. My peace with you, my children ! 
 1ST VOICE. Psalm us no psalms; bless us no devil's 
 blessings : 
 
1 5 3 The Saint 's Tragedy. 
 
 Your balms will break our heads. [A murmur rises, 
 
 2ND VOICE. You are welcome, sir ; we are a-waiting 
 
 for you. 
 
 3RD VOICE. Has he been shriven to-day ? 
 4TH VOICE. Where is your ergo, Master Conrad ? 
 
 Faugh ! 
 
 How both the fellows smell of smoke ! 
 5TH VOICE. A strange leech he, to suck, and suck, and 
 
 suck, 
 And look no fatter fort ! 
 
 OLD WOMAN. Give me back my sons ! 
 OLD MAN. Give me back the light of mine eyes, 
 Mine only daughter ! 
 
 My only one ! He hurled her over the cliffs ! 
 Avenge me, lads ; you are young ! 
 4TH VOICE. We will, we will : why smifst him not, 
 
 thou with the pole-axe ? 
 3RD VOICE. Nay, now, the first blow costs most, and 
 
 heals last : 
 Besides, the dog's a priest, at worst. 
 
 C. SAYM. Mass ! How the shaveling rascal stands at 
 
 bay! 
 
 There's not a rogue of them dare face his eye ! 
 True Domini canis ! 'Ware the bloodhound's teeth, curs ! 
 PREACHER. What ! Are ye afraid ? The huntsman's 
 
 here at last 
 
 Without his whip ! Down with him, craven hounds ! 
 I'll help ye to't. \Springsfrom the stone. 
 
 GENT. Ay, down with him ! Mass, have these yelping 
 
 boors. 
 
 More heart than I ? [Spurs his horse forward. 
 
 MOB. A knight ! a champion ! 
 VOICE. He's not mortal man ! 
 
 See how his eyes shine ! 'Tis the archangel ! 
 St. Michael come to the rescue ! Ho ! St. Michael ! 
 
The Saint's Tragedy. 159 
 
 [Fie lunges at CONRAD. GERARD turns the lance aside, 
 and throws his arms round CONRAD.] 
 
 GER. My master ! my master ! The chariot of 
 Israel and the horses thereof! 
 Oh call down^fire from Heaven ! 
 
 \A Peasant strikes down GERARD. CONRAD, over the 
 body.] 
 
 Alas ! my son ! This blood shall cry for vengeance 
 Before the throne of God ! 
 
 GENT. And cry in vain ! 
 
 Follow thy minion ! Join Folquet in hell ! 
 
 {Bears CONRAD down on his lance-point. 
 
 CON. I am the vicar of the Vicar of Christ : 
 Who touches me doth touch the Son of God. 
 
 \The mob close over him.'] 
 Oh God ! A martyr's crown ! Elizabeth ! [Dies. 
 
NOTES TO ACT I. 
 
 THE references, unless it be otherwise specified, are to 
 the Eight Books concerning Saint Elizabeth, by 
 Dietrich the Thuringianj in BASN AGE'S Canisius* 
 Vol. IV. p. 113 (Antwerp, 1725). 
 
 Page 13. Cf. Lib. I. 3. Dietrich is eloquent about her 
 youthful inclination for holy places, and church doors, even when 
 shut, and gives many real proofs of her "sanctse indolis," from 
 the very cradle. 
 
 P. 14. "St. John's sworn maid." Cf. Lib. I. 4. "She 
 chose by lot for her patron, St. John the protector of virginity." 
 
 Ibid. "Fit for my princess." Cf. Lib. I. 2. "He .sent 
 with his daughter vessels of gold, silver baths, jewels, pillows all 
 of silk. No such things, so precious or so many, were ever seen 
 in Thuringen land." 
 
 P. 15. "Most friendless." Cf. Lib. I. 5, 6. " The courtiers 
 used bitterly to insult her, &c. Her mother and sister-in-law, 
 given to wordly pomp, differed from her exceedingly;" and much 
 more concerning "the persecutions which she endured patiently 
 in youth." 
 
 Ibid. "In one cradle." Cf. Lib. I. 2. "The princess was 
 laid in the cradle of her boy-spouse," and, says another, "the 
 infants embraced with smiles, from whence the bystanders drew 
 a joyful omen of their future happiness." 
 
 Ibid. "If thou love him." Cf. Lib. I. 6. "The Lord 
 by His hidden inspiration so inclined towards her the heart of 
 the prince, that in the solitude of secret and mutual love he used 
 to speak sweetly to her heart, with kindness and consolation; 
 and was always wont, on returning home, to honour her with 
 presents, and soothe her with embraces." It was their custom, 
 says Dietrich, to the last to call each other in common conver- 
 sation, "Brother," and "Sister." 
 
Notes. 161 
 
 P. 16. "To his charge." Cf. Lib. I. 7. "Walter of 
 Varila, a good man, who, having been sent by the prince's father 
 into Hungary, had brought the blessed Elizabeth into Thuringen- 
 land." 
 
 P. 17. "The blind archer, Love." For information about 
 the pagan orientalism of the Troubadours, the blasphemous 
 bombast by which they provoked their persecution in Provence, 
 and their influence on the Courts of Europe, see SlSMONDl, Lit. 
 Southern Europe, Cap. III. VI. 
 
 P. 20. "Stadings." The Stadings, according to Fleury, in 
 A.D. 1233, were certain unruly fen-men, who refused to pay 
 tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both sexes, 
 worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, &c. , considered 
 the devil as a very ill-used personage, and the rightful lord of 
 themselves and the world, and were of the most profligate morals. 
 An impartial and philosophic investigation of this and other early 
 continental heresies, is much wanted. 
 
 P. 30. " All gold." Cf. Lib. I. 7, for Walter's interference 
 and Lewis's answer, which I have paraphrased. 
 
 P. 31. "Is crowned with thorns." Cf. Lib. I. 5, for this 
 anecdote and her defence, which I have in like manner para- 
 phrased. 
 
 P. 32. "Their pardon." Cf. Lib. I. 3, for this quaint 
 method of self-humiliation. 
 
 Ibid. "You know your place." Cf. Lib. I. 6. "The 
 vassals and relations of her betrothed persecuted her openly, and 
 
 plotted to send her back to her father divorced 
 
 Sophia also did all she could to place her in a convent 
 
 She delighted in the company of maids and servants, so that 
 Sophia used to say sneeringly to her, 'You should have been 
 counted among the slaves who drudge, and not among the princes 
 who rule.'" 
 
 P. 34. "Childish laughter." Cf. Lib. I. 7. "The holy 
 maiden, receiving the mirror, showed her joy by delighted 
 laughter:" and again, II. 8, "They loved each other in the 
 charity of the Lord, to a degree beyond all belief." 
 
 Ibid. "A crystal clear." Cf. Lib. I. 7. 
 
 P. 36. " Our fairest bride." Cf. Lib. I. 8. "No one hence- 
 forth dared oppose the marriage by word or plot, ... and 
 all mouths were stopped." 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Notes. 
 
 NOTES TO ACT II. 
 
 p - 37; P- 3 8 ; P- 395 P- 4- cf - Lib - H- J 5> " 
 
 Hitherto my notes have been a careful selection of the few 
 grains of characteristic fact which I could find among Dietrich's 
 lengthy professional reflections; but the chapter on which this 
 scene is founded is remarkable enough to be given whole, and as 
 I have a long-standing friendship for the good old monk, who is 
 full of honest naivete and deep-hearted sympathy, and have no 
 wish to disgust all my readers with him, I shall give it for the 
 most part untranslated. In the meantime, those who may be 
 shocked at certain expressions in this poem, borrowed from the 
 Romish devotional school, may verify my language at the Romish 
 booksellers', who find just now a rapidly increasing sale for such 
 ware. And is it not, after all, a hopeful sign for the age, that 
 even the most questionable literary tastes must now-a-days ally 
 themselves with religion that the hot-bed imaginations which 
 used to batten on Rousseau and Byron, have now risen at least as 
 high as the Vies des Saints, and St. Fra^ois de Sales' Philothea? 
 The truth is, that in such a time as this, in the dawn of an age 
 of faith, whose future magnificence we may surely prognosticate 
 from the slowness and complexity of its self-developing process, 
 spiritual " Werterism, " among other strange prolusions, must have 
 its place. The emotions and the imaginations will assert their 
 just right to be fed by foul means if not by fair; and even self- 
 torture will have charms, after the utter dryness and life-in-death 
 of mere ecclesiastical pedantry. It is good, mournful though it 
 be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with poison, should 
 indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger if we do but take their 
 fate as a warning to provide wholesome food before the new 
 craving has extended itself to the many. It is good that religion 
 should have its Werterism, in order that hereafter Werterism may 
 have its religion. But to my quotations wherein the reader wiU 
 judge how difficult it has been for me to satisfy at once the 
 delicacy of the English mind, and that historic truth which the 
 highest art demands. 
 
 "Erat inter eos honorabile connubium, et thorus immaculatus, 
 non in ardore libidinis, sed in conjugalis sanctimoniae castitate. 
 For the holy maiden, as soon as she was married, began to 
 macerate her flesh with many watchings, rising every night to 
 pray; her husband sometimes sleeping, sometimes conniving at 
 her, often begging her in compassion to her delicacy, not to 
 
Notes. 
 
 163 
 
 afflict herself indiscreetly, often supporting hei with his hand, 
 when she prayed." ("And," says another of her biographers, 
 "being taught by her to pray with her.") " Great, truly was the 
 devotion of this young girl, who, rising from the bed orf her 
 carnal husband, sought Christ, whom she loved as the true 
 husband of her soul. 
 
 "Nor certainly was there less faith in the husband who did 
 not oppose such and so great a wife, but rather favoured her, and 
 tempered her fervour with over-kind prudence. Affected^ there- 
 fore, by the sweetness of this modest love, and mutual society, 
 they could not bear to be separated for any length of time or 
 distance. The lady therefore frequently followed her husband 
 through rough roads, and no small distances, and severe wind and 
 weather, led rather by emotions of sincerity than of carnality : for 
 the chaste presence of a modest husband offered no obstacle to that 
 devout spouse in the way of praying, watching, or otherwise doing 
 good." 
 
 Then follows the story of her nurse waking Lewis instead of 
 her, and Lewis's easy good-nature about this, as about every 
 other event of life. "And so, after these unwearied watchings, 
 it often happened that praying for an excessive length of time, 
 she fell asleep on a mat beside her husband's bed, and being 
 reproved for it by her maidens, answered : 'Though I cannot 
 always pray, yet I can do violence to my own flesh by tearing 
 myself in the meantime from my couch.' " 
 
 "Fugiebat oblectamenta carnalia, et ide6 stratum molliorem, 
 et viri contubernium secretissimum, quantum licuit, declinavit. 
 Quern quamvis prcecordialis amoris affectu deligeret, querulabatur 
 tainen dolens, quod virginalis decorem fioris non meruit conservare. 
 Castigabat etiam plagis multis, et lacerabat diris verberibus 
 carnem puella innocens et pudica. 
 
 "In principio quidem diebus quadragesimse, sextisque feriis 
 aliis occultas solebat accipere disciplinas, Isetam coram hominibus 
 se ostentans. Post verb convalescens et projiciens in gratia, deserto 
 dilecti thoro surgens, fecit se in secreto cubiculo per ancillarum 
 manus graviter ssepissime verberari, ad lectumque mariti reversa 
 hilarem se exhibuit et jocundam. 
 
 "Vere felices conjuges, in quorum consortio tanta munditia, 
 in colloquio pudicitia reperta est. In quibus amor Christi con- 
 cupiscentiam extinxit, devotio refrenavit petulantiam, fervor spi- 
 ritus excussit somnolentiam, oratio tutavit conscientiam, charitas 
 benefaciendi facjiltatem tribuit et laetitiam !" 
 
 P. 51. "In every scruple." Cf. Lib. III. 9, how Lewis 
 "consented that Elizabeth his wife should make a vow of 
 M 2 
 
[64 Notes. 
 
 obedience and continence at the will of the said Conrad, sah'A 
 jure inatrimonii." 
 
 P. 52. "The open street." Cf. Lib. II. n. "On the 
 Rogation days, when certain persons doing contrary to trie 
 decrees of the saints are decorated with precious and luxurious 
 garments, the Princess, dressed in serge and barefooted, used to 
 follow most devoutly the Procession of the Cross and the relics 
 of the Saints, and place herself always at sermon among the 
 poorest women ; knowing (says Dietrich) that seeds cast into 
 the valleys spring up into the richest crop of corn." 
 
 P. 53. "The poor of Christ." Cf. Lib. II. 6, n, d 
 passim. Elizabeth's labours among the poor are too well known 
 throughout one-half at least of Christendom, where she is, par 
 excellence, the patron of the poor, to need quotations. 
 
 P. 54. "I'll be thy pupil." Cf. Lib. II. 4. "She used 
 also, by words and examples, to oblige the worldly ladies who 
 came to her to give up the vanity of the world, at least in some 
 one particular." 
 
 P. 55. "Coiirad enters." Cf. Lib. III. 9, where this strry 
 of the disobeyed message and the punishment inflicted by Conrad 
 for it, is told word for word. 
 
 P. 59. "Peaceably come by." Cf. Lib. II. 6. 
 P. 60. "Bondslaves." Cf. Note n. 
 
 P. 62. "Elizabeth passes." Cf. Lib. II. 5. "This most 
 Christian mother, impletis purgationis suce diebus, used to dress 
 herself in serge, and taking in her arms her new-bom child, used 
 to go forth secretly, barefooted by the difficult descent from the 
 castle, by a rough and rocky road to a remote church, carrying 
 her infant in her own arms, after the example of the Virgin 
 Mother, and offering him upon the altar to the Lord with a 
 taper" (and with gold, says another biographer). 
 
 P. 64. "Give us bread." Cf. Lib. III. 6. "A.D. 1225, 
 while the Landgrave was gone to Italy to the Emperor, a severe 
 famine arose throughout all Almaine ; and lasting for nearly two 
 years, destroyed many with hunger. Then Elizabeth, moved 
 with compassion for the miserable, collected all the corn from her 
 granaries, and distributed it as alms for the poor. She also 
 built a hospital at the foot of the Wartburg, wherein she placed 
 all those who could not wait for the general distribution. . . 
 She sold her own ornaments to feed the members of Christ. 
 . Cuidam misero lac desideranti, ad mulgendum se 
 prsebuit '" See p. 149. 
 
Notes. 1 65 
 
 P. 73. "Ladies' tenderness." Cf. Lib. III. 8. "When 
 the CDurtiers and stewards complained on his return of the Lady 
 Elizabeth's too great extravagance in almsgiving, 'Let her alone,' 
 quoth he, ' to do good, and to give whatever she will for God's 
 sake, only keep Wartburg and Neuenburg in my hands.' " 
 
 P. 81. "A crusader's cross." Cf. Lib. IV. r. "In the 
 year 1227 there was a general ' Passagium ' to the Holy Land, in 
 which Frederick the Emperor also crossed the seas," (or rather did 
 not cross the seas, says Heinrich Stero, in his annals, but having 
 got as far as Sicily, came back again miserably disappointing 
 and breaking up the expedition, whereof the greater part died at 
 the various ports and was excommunicated for so doing) ; "and 
 Lewis, landgrave of the Thuringians, took the cross likewise in 
 the name of Jesus Christ, and . . . did not immediately fix 
 the badge which he had received to his garment, as the matter is, 
 lest his wife, who loved him with the most tender affection, 
 seeing this, should be anxious and disturbed, . . . but she 
 found it while turning over his purse, and fainted, struck down 
 with a wonderful consternation." 
 
 P. 84. "I must be gone." Cf. Lib. IV. 2. A chapter 
 in which Dietrich rises into a truly noble and pathetic strain. 
 "Coming to Schmalcald," he says, "Lewis found his dearest 
 friends, whom he had ordered to meet him there, not wishing to 
 depart without taking leave of them." 
 
 Then follows Dietrich's only poetic attempt, which Basnage 
 calls a " carmen ineptum, foolish ballad," and most unfairly, as 
 all readers should say, if I had any hope of doing justice in a 
 translation to this genial fragment of an old dramatic ballad, and 
 its simple objectivity, as of a writer so impressed (like all true 
 Teutonic poets in those earnest days), with the pathos and 
 greatness of his subject, that he never tries to "improve" it by 
 reflections, and preaching at his readers, but thinks it enough 
 just to tell his story, sure that it will speak for itself to all 
 Jiearts. 
 
 Quibus valefaciens cum mcerore 
 Commisit suis fratribus natos cum uxore : 
 Matremque deosculatos filiali more, 
 Vix earn alloquitur cordis prce dolors, 
 Illis mota viscera, corda tremuerunt, 
 Dum alter in alter ius colla irruerunt, 
 Expetentes oscula, qtttz vix receperunt 
 Propter multitudines, qucs eos compress&'unt. 
 
1 66 Notes. 
 
 Mater tenens filiuin, uxorque marifutn, 
 Jn diversa pertrahunt, et tenent invitum, 
 Fratres cum militibus velut compeditum 
 Stringunt, nee discedere sinunt expeditum. 
 Erat in exercitu maximus tumultus, 
 Cum caroruin cernerent altcrnari vulttts. 
 Flebant omnes pariter, sen ex et adultus, 
 Tuvbce cum militibus, cultus et incultus. 
 Eja ! Quis non plangeret, cum viderct flentes 
 Tot hmestos Mobiles, tarn diversas gentes, 
 Cum Thuringis Saxones illuc venientes, 
 Ut viderent socios suos abscedentes. 
 Amico luctamine cuncti certavere, 
 Quis eum diutius posset retinere ; 
 Quidam collo brachiis, quidam inhasere 
 Vestibus, ncc poterat cuiquam respondere. 
 Tandem se de manibus exunens siiontm 
 Magnatorum socius et peregrinorum, 
 Admixtus tandem catui cruce signatorum 
 Non visurus amplius terrain Thuringorum ! 
 
 Surely there is a heart of flesh in the old monk which, when 
 wanned by a really healthy subject, can toss aside Scripture 
 parodies and professional Stoic sentiment, and describe 'with 
 such life and pathos, like any eye-witness, a scene which occurred, 
 in fact, two years before his birth. 
 
 "And thus this Prince of Peace," he continues, "mounting 
 
 his horse with many knights, &c about the end of 
 
 the month of June, set forth in the name of the Lord, praising 
 him in heart and voice, and weeping and singing were heard 
 side by side. And close by followed, with saddest heart, 
 that most faithful lady after her sweetest prince, her most loving 
 spouse, never, alas ! to behold him more. And when she was 
 going to return, the force of love and the agony of separation 
 forced her on with him one day's journey : and yet that did not 
 suffice. She went on, still unable to bear the parting, another 
 full day's journey At last they part, at the exhor- 
 tations of Rudolph the Cupbearer. What groans, think you, 
 what sobs, what struggles, and yearnings of the heart must thei'e 
 have been ? Yet they part, and go on their way. . . . The 
 lord went forth exulting, as a giant to run his course ; the lady 
 returned lamenting, as a widow, and tears were on her cheeks. 
 Then putting off the garments of joy, she took the dress of 
 widowhood. The mistress of nations, sitting alone, she turned 
 herself utterly to God to her former good works, adding 
 better ones," 
 
Notes. 167 
 
 Their children were, "Hermann, who became Landgraf; a 
 daughter, who married the Duke of Brabant ; another, who, 
 remaining in virginity, became a nun of Aldenburg, of which 
 place she is Lady Abbess until this day." 
 
 NOTES TO ACT III. 
 
 P. 88. "On the freezing stone." Cf. Lib. II. 5. "In 
 the absence of her husband she used to lay aside her gay gar- 
 ments, conducted herself devoutly as a widow, and waited for 
 the return of her beloved, passing her nights in watchings, 
 genuflexions, prayers, and disciplines." And again, Lib. IV. 
 3> just quoted. 
 
 P. 89. "The will of God." Cf. Lib. IV. 6. "The 
 mother-in-law said to her daughter-in-law, ' Be brave, my 
 beloved daughter ; nor be disturbed at that which hath happened 
 by divine ordinance to thy husband, my son.' Whereto she 
 answered boldly. * If my brother is captive, he can be freed by 
 the help of God and our friends.' 'He is dead,' quoth the 
 other. Then she, clasping her hands upon her knees, 'The 
 world is dead to me, and all that is pleasant in the world.' 
 Having said this, suddenly springing up with tears, she rushed 
 swiftly through the whole length of the palace, and being entirely 
 beside herself, would have run on to the world's end, usque 
 qufique, if a wall had not stopped her; and others coming up, 
 led her away from the wall to which she had clung." 
 
 P. 90. "Yon lion's rage." Cf. Lib. III. 2. "There was 
 a certain lion in the court of the Prince ; and it came to pass on 
 a time, that rising from his bed in the morning, and crossing the 
 court dressed only in his gown and slippers, he met this lion 
 loose and raging against him. He thereon threatened the beast 
 with his raised fist, and rated it manfully, till laying aside its 
 fierceness, it lay down at the knight's feet, and fawned on him, 
 wagging its tail." So Dietrich. 
 
 Pp- 93, 94 ; -97, 98. Cf. Lib. IV. 7. 
 
 " Now shortly after the news of Lewis's death, certain vassals 
 of her late husband (with Henry, her brother-in-law) cast her 
 
1 68 Notes. 
 
 out of the castle and of all her possessions. . . . She took 
 refuge that night in a certain tavern, .... and went at 
 midnight to the matins of the 'Minor Brothers.' .... 
 And when no one dare give her lodging, took refuge in the 
 
 church And when her little ones were brought to 
 
 her from the castle, amid most bitter frost, she knew not where 
 
 to lay their heads She entered a priest's house, and 
 
 fed her family miserably enough, by pawning what she had. 
 There was hi that town an enemy of hers, having a roomy 
 
 house Whither she entered at his bidding, and 
 
 was forced to dwell with her whole family in a very narrow 
 space, .... her host and hostess heaped her with annoy 
 ances and spite. She therefore bade them farewell, saying, 
 * I would willingly thank mankind, if they would give me any 
 reason for so doing.' So she returned to her former filthy cell." 
 
 P. 94. "White as whales' bone" (i.e. the tooth of the 
 narwhal) ; a common simile in the older poets. 
 
 P. 98. "The nuns of Kitzingen." Cf. Lib. V. I. 
 " After this, the noble Lady the Abbess of Kitzingen, Elizabeth's 
 aunt according to the flesh, brought her away honourably to 
 Eckembert, Lord Bishop of Bamberg." 
 
 P. 101. "Aged crone." Cf. Lib. IV. 8, where this whole 
 story is related word for word. 
 
 P. 104. "I'd mar this face." Cf. Lib. V. I. "If I could 
 not," said she, "escape by any other means, I would with my 
 own hands cut off my nose, that so every man might loath me 
 when so foully disfigured. " 
 
 P. 105. "Botenstain." Cf. ibid. " The bishop commanded 
 that she should be taken to Botenstain with her maids, until he 
 should give her away in marriage." 
 
 P. 106. "Bear children." Ibid. "The venerable man, 
 knowing that the Apostle says, 'I will that the younger 
 widows marry, and bear children,' thought of giving her in 
 marriage to some one an intention which she perceived, 
 end protested on the strength of her 'votum continentise.'" 
 
 P. 108. "The tented field." All records of the worthy 
 Bishop on which I have fallen, describe him as "virum militia 
 strenuissimum, " a mighty man of war. We read of him, in 
 Stero of Altaich's Chronicle, A.D. 1232, making war on the 
 Duke of Carinthia, destroying many of his castles, and laying 
 waste a great part of his land; and next year, being seized by 
 
Notes. ' \ / 169 
 
 some bailiff of the Duke's, and keeping that Lent in durance vile. 
 In A.D. 1237, he was left by the Emperor as "vir magnanimus 
 et bellicosus," in charge of Austria, during the troubles with 
 Duke Frederick ; and died in 1240. 
 
 P. no. " Lewis's bones." Cf. Lib. V. 3. 
 
 P. 113. "I thank thee." Cf. Lib. V. 4. "What agony 
 and love there was then in her heart, He alone can tell who 
 knows the hearts of all the sons of men. I believe that her grief 
 was renewed, and all her bones trembled, when she saw the 
 bones of her beloved separated one from another (the corpse had 
 been dug up at Otranto, and boiled}. But though absorbed in so 
 great a woe, at last she remembered God, and recovering her 
 spirit said " (Her words I have paraphrased as closely as 
 possible). 
 
 P. 114. "The close hard by." Cf. Lib. V. 4. 
 
 NOTES TO ACT IV. 
 
 P. 114. " Your self-imposed vows. " Cf. Lib. IV. i. "On 
 Good Friday, when the altars were exhibited bare in remem- 
 brance of the Saviour who hung bare on the cross for us, she 
 went into a certain chapel, and in the presence of Master Conrad, 
 and certain Franciscan brothers, laying her holy hands on the 
 bare altar, renounced her own will, her parents, children, rela- 
 tions, ' et omnibus hujus modi pompis,' all pomps of this kind 
 (a misprint, one hopes, for mundi), in imitation of Christ ; and 
 ' omnino se exuit et nudavit,' stripped herself utterly naked, to 
 follow Him naked, in the steps of poverty," 
 
 P. 118. "All worldly goods." A paraphrase of her own 
 words. 
 
 Ibid. "Thine own needs." "But when she was going to 
 renounce her possessions also, the prudent Conrad stopped her." 
 The reflections which follow are Dietrich's own. 
 
 P. 120. "The likeness of the fiend," &c. I have put this 
 daring expression into Conrad's mouth, as the ideal outcome of 
 the teaching of Conrad's age on this point and of much teaching 
 
170 Notes. 
 
 also which miscalls itself Protestant, in our own age. The 
 doctrine is not, of course, to be found totidem verbis in the 
 formularies of any sect yet almost all sects preach it, and quote 
 Scripture for it as boldly as Conrad the Romish saint alone 
 carries it honestly out into practice. 
 
 P. 121. " With pine boughs." Cf. Lib. VI. 2. "Entering 
 a certain desolate court, she betook herself, 'sub gradu cujusdara 
 caminatas,' to the projection of a certain furnace, where she 
 
 roofed herself in with boughs In the meantime, in 
 
 the town of Marpurg, was built for her a humble cottage of clay 
 and timber." 
 
 Ibid. " Count Pama." Cf. Lib. VI. 6. 
 
 P. 122. "Isentrudis and Guta." Cf. Lib. VII. 4- "Now 
 Conrad, as a prudent man, perceiving that this disciple of Christ 
 wished to arrive at the highest pitch of perfection, studied to 
 remove all which he thought would retard her, .... and 
 therefore drove from her all those of her former household in 
 whom she used to solace or delight herself. Thus the holy priest 
 deprived this servant of God of all society, that so the constancy 
 of her obedience might become known, and occasion might be 
 given to her for clinging to God alone. " 
 
 P. 123. "A leprous boy." Cf. Lib. VI. 8. 
 
 She had several of these protege's, successively, whose diseases 
 are too disgusting to be specified, on whom she lavished the most 
 menial cares. All the other stories of her benevolence which 
 occur in these two pages are related by Dietrich. 
 
 Ibid. "Mighty to save." Cf. Lib. VII. 7. Where we 
 read, amongst other matters, how the objects of her prayers used 
 to become while she was speaking so intensely hot, that they not 
 only smoked, and nearly melted, but burnt the fingers of those 
 who touched them : from whence Dietrich bids us "learn with 
 what an ardour of charity she used to burn, who would dry up 
 with her heat the flow of worldly desire, and inflame to the love 
 of eternity." 
 
 P. 125. "Lands and titles." Cf. Lib. V. 7, 8. 
 
 P. 126. "Spinning wool." Cf. Lib. VI. 6. "And cross- 
 ing himself for wonder, the Count Pama cried out and said, 
 * Was it ever seen to this day that a king's daughter should spin 
 wool?' All his messages from her father (says Dietrich) were 
 of no avail." 
 
Notes. 1 7 1 
 
 P. 131. "To do her penance." Cf. Lib. VII. 4. "Now, 
 he had placed with her certain austere women, from whom she 
 endured much oppression patiently for Christ's sake, who, 
 watching her rigidly, frequently reported her to her master for 
 having transgressed her obedience, in giving something to the 
 poor, or begging others to give. And when thus accused, she 
 often received many blows from her master, insomuch that he 
 used to strike her in the face, which she earnestly desired to 
 endure patiently in memory of the stripes of the Lord." 
 
 P. 132. "That she dared not." Cf. Lib. VII. 4. "When 
 her most intimate friends, Isentrudis and Guta" (whom another 
 account describes as in great poverty), "came to see her, she 
 dared not give them anything, even for food, nor, without special 
 licence, salute them." 
 
 P. 133. "To bear within us." "Seeing in the church of 
 certain monks who 'professed poverty,' images sumptuously gilt, 
 she said to about twenty-four of them, ' You had better to have 
 spent this money on your own food and clothes, for we ought to 
 have the reality of these images written in our hearts.' And if 
 any one mentioned a beautiful image before her, she used to say, 
 ' I have no need of such an image. I carry the thing itself in 
 my bosom.'" 
 
 Ibid. "Even on her bed." Cf. Lib. VI. 5, 6. 
 
 P. 134. "My mother rose." Cf. Lib. VI. 8. "Her 
 mother, who had been long ago" (when Elizabeth was nine 
 years old) "miserably slain by the Hungarians, appeared to her 
 in her dreams upon her knees, and said, ' My beloved child ! 
 pray for the agonies which I suffer; for thou canst.' Elizabeth 
 waking, prayed earnestly, and falling asleep again, her mother 
 appeared to her and told her that she was freed, and that 
 Elizabeth's prayers would hereafter benefit all who invoked her. " 
 Of the causes of her mother's murder, the less that is said, the 
 better but the prudent letter which the Bishop of Gran sent back 
 when asked to join in the conspiracy against her, is worthy 
 notice. ** Reginam occidere nolite timers bomini esf. Si onincs 
 consentiunt ego non contradico. " To be read as a full consent, or 
 as a flat refusal, according to the success of the plot. 
 
 P. 136. "Any living soul." Dietrich has much on this point, 
 headed, "How Master Conrad exercised Saint Elizabeth in the 
 
 breaking of her own will And at last forbad her 
 
 entirely to give alms; whereon she employed herself in washing 
 lepers and other infirm folk. In the meantime she was languish- 
 ing, and inwardly tortured with emotions of compassion," 
 
172 Notes. 
 
 I may here say, that in representing Elizabeth's early death as 
 accelerated by a "broken heart," I have, I believe, told the 
 truth, though I find no hint of anything of the kind in Dietrich. 
 The religious public of a petty town in the 1 3th century round 
 the death-bed of a royal saint would of course treasure up most 
 carefully all incidents connected with her latter days ; but they 
 would hardly record sentiments or expressions which might seem 
 to their notions to derogate in any way from her saintship. 
 Dietrich, too, looking at the subject as a monk and not as a man, 
 would consider it just as much his duty to make her death-scene 
 rapturous, as to make both her life and her tomb miraculous. I 
 have composed these last scenes in the belief that Elizabeth and 
 all her compeers will be recognised as real saints, in proportion 
 as they are felt to have been real men and women. 
 
 P. 137. "Eructate sweet doctrine." The expressions are 
 Dietrich's own. 
 
 P. 138. "In her coffin yet." Cf. Lib. VIII. I. 
 Ibid. "So she said." Cf. ibid. 
 
 Ibid. "The poor of Christ." "She begged her master to 
 distribute all to the poor, except a worthless tunic in which she 
 wished to be buried. She made no will : she would have no heir 
 beside Christ" (i.e. the poor.) 
 
 Ibid. " Martha and their brother," &c. 
 
 I have compressed the events of several days into one in this 
 scene. I give Dietrich's own account, omitting his reflections. 
 
 " When she had been ill twelve days and more, one of her 
 maids sitting by her bed, heard in her throat a very sv/eet sound, 
 
 . . . . and saying, ' Oh, my mistress, how sweetly thou 
 didst sing!' she answered, 'I tell thee, I heard a little bird 
 between me and the wall sing merrily ; who with his sweet song 
 so stirred me up, that I could not but sing myself.'" 
 
 Again, 3. "The last day she remained till evening most 
 devout, having been made partaker of the celestial table, and 
 inebriated with that most pure blood of life, which is Christ. 
 The word of truth was continually on her lips, and opening her 
 mouth of wisdom, she spake of the best things, which she had 
 heard in sermons ; eructating from her heart good words, and the 
 law of clemency was heard on her tongue. She told from the 
 abundance of her heart how the Lord Jesus condescended to 
 console Mary and Martha, at the raising again of their brotliei 
 
Notes. 173 
 
 Lazarus, and then, speaking of His weeping with them over the 
 .lead, she eructated the memory of the abundance of the Lord's 
 sweetness, affectu et effectu (in feeling and expression?) Certain 
 reKgious persons who were present, hearing these words, fired 
 with devotion, by the grace which filled her lips, melted into 
 tears. To whom the saint of God, now dying, recalled the sweet 
 words of her Lord as he went to death, saying, ' Daughters of 
 Jerusalem,' &c. Having said this she was silent. A wonderful 
 thing. Then most sweet voices were heard in her throat, with- 
 out any motion of her lips ; and she asked of those round, ' Did 
 ye not hear some singing with me?' 'Whereon none of the 
 faithful are allowed to doubt,' says Dietrich, ' when she herself 
 heard the harmony of the heavenly hoses, &c. &c.' .... 
 From that time to twilight she lay, as if exultant and jubilant, 
 showing signs of remarkable devotion, till the crowing of the 
 cock. Then, as if secure in the Lord, she said to the bystanders, 
 ' What should we do, if the fiend showed himself to us?' And 
 shortly afterwards, with a loud and clear voice, ' Fly ! fly !' as if 
 repelling the daemon. " 
 
 "At the cock-crow she said, 'Here is the hour, in which 
 the Virgin brought forth her child Jesus and laid him in a 
 
 manger Let us talk of Him, and of that new 
 
 star which He created by His omnipotence, which never before 
 was seen.' 'For these' (says Montanus in her name) 'are the 
 venerable mysteries of our faith, our richest blessings, our fairest 
 ornaments : in these all the reason of our hope flourishes, faith 
 grows, charity burns. ' " 
 
 The novelty of the style and matter will, I hope, excuse its 
 prolixity with most readers. If not, I have still my reasons for 
 inserting the greater part of this chapter. 
 
 P. 141. "I demand it." How far I am justified in putting 
 such fears into her mouth, the reader my judge. Cf. Lib. VIII. 
 5. "The devotion of the people demanding it, her body was 
 left unburied till the fourth day in the midst of a multi- 
 tude." .... 
 
 "The flesh," says Dietrich, "had the tenderness of a living 
 body, and was easily moved hither and thither, at the will of 
 
 those who handled it And many, sublime in the 
 
 valour of their faith, tore off the hair of her head, and the nails 
 of her fingers ('even the tips of her ears, et mamillarum 
 papillas,' says untranslateably Montanus of Spire), and kept them 
 as relics." The reference relating to the pictures of her disciplines, 
 and the effect which they produced on the crowd, I have unfor- 
 tunately lost. 
 
174 Notes. 
 
 P. 142. "And yet no pain." Cf. Lib. VIII. 4. " She 
 said, 'Though I am weak, I feel no disease or pain,' and so 
 through that whole day and night, as hath been said, having 
 been elevated with most holy affections of mind towards God, 
 and inflamed in spirit with most divine utterances and conversa- 
 tions, at length she rested from jubilating, and inclining her head 
 as if falling into a sweet sleep, expired. " 
 
 NOTES TO ACT V. 
 
 P. 142. "Canonization." Cf. Lib. VIII. 10. If I have 
 in the last scene been guilty of a small anachronism, I have in 
 this been guilty of a great one. Conrad was of course a prime 
 means of Elizabeth's canonization, and, as Dietrich and his 
 own "Letter to Pope Gregory the Ninth" show, collected, and 
 pressed on the notice of the Archbishop of Maintz, the miraculous 
 statements necessary for that honour. But he died two years 
 before the actual publication of her canonization. It appeared 
 to me, that by following the exact facts, I must either lose sight 
 of the final triumph, which connects my heroine for ever with 
 Germany and all Romish Christendom, and is the very culmina- 
 tion of the whole story; or relinquish my only opportunity of 
 doing Conrad justice, by exhibiting the remaining side of his 
 character. 
 
 I am afraid that I have erred, and that the most strict historic 
 truth would have coincided, as usual, with the highest artistic 
 effect, while it would only have corroborated the moral of my 
 poem, supposing that there is one. But I was fettered by the 
 poverty of my own imagination, and "do manus lectoribus." 
 
 P. 143. "Third Minors." The order of the Third Minors 
 of St. Francis of Assisi was an invention of the comprehensive 
 mind of that truly great man, by which " worldlings" were 
 enabled to participate in the spiritual advantages of the Francis- 
 can rule and discipline, without neglect or suspension of their 
 civic and family duties. But it was an institution too enlightened 
 for its age ; and family and civic ties were destined for a far 
 nobler consecration. The order was persecuted, and all but 
 exterminated, by the jealousy of the Regular Monks, not, it 
 seems, without papal connivance. Within a few years after its 
 
Notes. 175 
 
 foundation it numbered amongst its members the noblest knights 
 and ladies of Christendom, St. Louis of France among the 
 number. 
 
 P. 144. "Lest he fall." Cf. Fleury, Eccl. Annals, in Anno 
 1233. "Doctor Conrad of Marpurg, the King Henry, son of 
 the Emperor Frederick, &c., called an assembly at Mayence to 
 examine persons accused as heretics. Among whom the Count 
 of Saym demanded a delay to justify himself. As for the others 
 who did not appear, Conrad gave the cross to those who would 
 take up arms against them. At which these supposed heretics 
 were so irritated, that on his return they lay in wait for him near 
 Marpurg, and killed him, with brother Gerard, of the order of 
 Minors, a holy man. Conrad was accused of precipitation in his 
 judgments, and of having burned trap legerement under pretext of 
 heresy, many noble and not noble, monks, nuns, burghers, and 
 peasants. For he had them executed the same day that they 
 were accused, without allowing any appeal." 
 
 P. 145. " The Kaiser." Cf. Lib. VIII. 12, for a list of 
 the worthies present. 
 
 P. 147. "A Zingar wizard." Cf. Lib. I. I. The 
 Magician's name was Klingsohr. He has been introduced by 
 Novalis into his novel of " Heinrich Von Ofterdingen, " as present 
 at the famous contest of the Minnesingers on the Wartburg. 
 Here is Dietrich's account : 
 
 " There were in those days in the Landgrave's court six knights, 
 nobles, &c. &c., ' cantilenarum confectores summi,' song-wrights 
 of the highest excellence" (either one of them or Klingsohr 
 himself was the author of the Nibelungen-lied, and the Helden- 
 buch). 
 
 " Now there dwelt then in the parts of Hungary, in the land 
 which is called the 'Seven Castles,' a certain rich nobleman, 
 worth 3,000 marks a year, a philosopher, practised from his youth 
 in secular literature, but nevertheless learned in the sciences of 
 Necromancy and Astronomy. This master Klingsohr was sent 
 for by the Prince to judge between the songs of these knights 
 aforesaid. Who, before he was introduced to the Landgrave, 
 sitting one night in Eisenach, in the court of his lodging, looked 
 very earnestly upon the stars ; and being asked if he had perceived 
 any secrets, 'Know, that this night is born a daughter to the 
 King of Hungary, who shall be called Elizabeth, and shall be 
 a saint, and shall be given to wife to the son of this prince ; 
 in the .tame of whose sanctity all the earth shall exult and be 
 exalted. ' 
 
176 Notes. 
 
 " See ! He who by Balaam the wizard foretold the mystery 
 of his own incarnation, himself foretold by this wizard the name 
 and birth of his foi'e-chosen handmaid Elizabeth." (A com- 
 parison, of which Basnage says, that he cannot deny it to be 
 intolerable). I am not bound to explain all strange stories, but 
 considering who and whence Klingsohr was, and the fact that 
 the treaty of espousals took place two months afterwards, " adhuc 
 sugens ubera desponsata est," it is not impossible that. King 
 Andrew and his sage vassal may have had some previous con- 
 ve v sation on the destination of the unborn princess. 
 
 P. 147. "A robe." Cf. Lib. II. 9, for this story, on which 
 Dietrich observes, "Thus did her Heavenly Father clothe his lily 
 Elizabeth, as Solomon in all his glory could not do. " 
 
 Ibid. "The Incarnate Son." This story is told, I think, by 
 Surias, and has been introduced, with an illustration by a German 
 artist of the highest note, into a modern prose biography of this 
 saint. (I have omitted much more of the same kind. ) 
 
 Ibid. "Sainthood's palm." Cf. Lib. VIII. 7, 8, 9. 
 "While to declare the merits of his handmaid Elizabeth, in the 
 place where her body rested, Almighty God was thus multiplying 
 the badges of her virtues, (i.e. miracles), two altars were built 
 in her praise in that chapel, which while Siegfried, Archbishop 
 of Mayence, was consecrating, as he had evidently been com- 
 manded in a vision, at the prayers of that devout man master 
 Conrad, preacher of the word of God ; the said preacher com- 
 manded all who had received any grace of healing from the 
 merits of Elizabeth, to appear next day before the Archbishop 
 
 and faithfully prove their assertions by witnesses Then 
 
 the Most Holy Father, Pope Gregory the Ninth, having made 
 diligent examination of the miracles transmitted to him, trusting 
 at the same time to mature and prudent counsels, and the Holy 
 Spirit's providence, above all, so ordaining, his clemency disposing, 
 and his grace admonishing, decreed that the Blessed Elizabeth 
 was to be written among the catalogue of the saints on earth, 
 since in heaven she rejoices as written in the Book of Life." . . . 
 
 Then follow four chapters, headed severally 
 
 9. "Of the solemn canonization of the Blessed Elizabeth." 
 
 10. " Of the translation of the Blessed Elizabeth (and how 
 the corpse when exposed diffused round a miraculous fragrance)." 
 
Notes. 1 77 
 
 ii. "Of the desire of the people to see, embrace, and kiss 
 (says Dietrich) those sacred bones, the organs of the Holy Spirit, 
 from which flowed so many graces of sanctities." 
 
 12. "Of .the sublime persons who were present, and their 
 oblations." 
 
 13. "A consideration of the divine mercy about this 
 matter." 
 
 " Behold! she who despised the glory of the world, and refused 
 the company of magnates, is magnificently honoured by the 
 dignity of the Pontifical office, and the reverent care of Imperial 
 Majesty. And she who, seeking the lowest place in this life, sat 
 on the ground, slept in the dust, is now raised on high, by the 
 hands of Kings and Princes. ... It transcends all heights 
 of temporal glory, to have been made like the saints in glory. 
 For all the rich among the people 'vultum ejus deprecantur' 
 (pray for the light of her countenance), and kings and princes 
 offer gifts, magnates adore her, and all nations serve her. Nor 
 without reason, for 'she sold all and gave to the poor,' and 
 counting all her substance for nothing, bought for herself this 
 priceless pearl of eternity.' " One would be sorry to believe that 
 such utterly mean considerations of selfish vanity, expressing as 
 they do an extreme respect for the very pomps and vanities which 
 they praise the saints for despising, really went to the making of 
 any saint, Romish or other. 
 
 14. "Of the sacred oil which flowed from the bones of 
 Elizabeth." I subjoin the "Epilogus." 
 
 "Moreover, even as the elect handmaid of God, the most 
 blessed Elizabeth, had shone during her life with wonderful signs 
 of her virtues, so since the day of her blessed departure up to the 
 present time, she is resplendent through the various quarters of 
 the world with illustrious prodigies of miracles, the Divine power 
 glorifying her. For to the blind, dumb, deaf, and lame, dropsical, 
 possessed, and leprous, shipwrecked, and captives, 'ipsius 
 meritis,' as a reward for her holy deeds, remedies are conferred. 
 Also, to all diseases, necessities, and dangers, assistance is given. 
 And, moreover, by the many corpses, ' puta sedecimj say sixteen, 
 wonderfully raised to life by herself, becomes known to the 
 faithful the magnificence of the virtues of the Most High glorify- 
 ing His saint. To that Most High be glory and honour for ever. 
 Amen." 
 
178 Notes. 
 
 So ends Dietrich's story. The reader has by this time, I 
 hope, read enough to justify, in every sense, Conrad's "A corpse 
 or two was raised, they say, last week," and much more of the 
 funeral oration which I have put into his mouth. 
 
 P. 148. "Gallant gentleman." Cf. Lib. VIII. 6. 
 P. 149. "Took the crown." Cf. Lib. VIII. 12. 
 
 P. 1 50. The " olive " and the "pearl " are Dietrich's own figures. 
 The others follow the method of scriptural interpretation, usual 
 in the writers of that age. 
 
 P. 158. "Domini canes," "The Lord's hounds," a punning 
 sobriquet of the Dominican inquisitors, in allusion to their 
 profession. 
 
 P. 159. "Folquet," Bishop of Toulouse, who had been in 
 early life a Troubadour, distinguished himself by his ferocity and 
 perfidy in the crusade against the Albigenses and Troubadours, 
 especially at the surrender of Toulouse, in company with his 
 chief abettor, the infamous Simon de Montfort. He died A.D. 
 1231. See SISMONDI, Lit. of Southern Europe, Cap. VI. 
 
ANDROMEDA. 
 
 N 2 
 
ANDROMEDA. 
 
 OVER the sea, past Crete, on the Syrian shore to the 
 
 southward, 
 Dwells in the well-tilled lowland a dark-haired ^Ethiop 
 
 people, 
 Skilful with needle and loom, and the arts of the dyer 
 
 / and carver, / 
 
 Skilful, but feeble of heart ; for they know not the lords 
 
 of Olympus, / 
 
 Lovers of men ; neither broad-browed Zeus, nor Pallas 
 
 Athene', 
 Teacher of wisdom to heroes, bestower of might in the 
 
 battle ; 
 Share not the cunning of Hermes, nor list to the songs of 
 
 Apollo. 
 Fearing the stars of the sky, and the roll of the blue salt 
 
 ( water, 
 Fearing all things that have life in the womb of the seas 
 
 and the rivers, 
 Eating no fish to this day, nor ploughing the main, like 
 
 the Phcenics, 
 Manful with black-beaked ships, they abide in a sorrowful 
 
 / region, / / t 
 
 Vexed with the earthquake, and flame, and the sea-floods. 
 
 scourge of Poseidon. 
 Whelming the dwellings of men, and the toils of the 
 
 slow-footed oxen, 
 Drowning the barley and flax, and the hard-earned gold 
 
 of the harvest, 
 
1 8 2 A ndromeda. 
 
 Up to the hillside vines, and the pastures skirting the 
 
 woodland, 
 Inland the floods came yearly ; and after the waters a 
 
 monster, 
 Bred of the slime, like the worms which are bred from 
 
 the muds of the Nile-bank, 
 
 Shapeless, a terror to see ; and by night it swam out to 
 
 , ^ the seaward, j v ^ t / _ 
 
 Daily returning to feed with the dawn, ami devoured of 
 
 the fairest, 
 Cattle, and children, and maids, till the terrified people 
 
 fled inland. 
 Fasting in sackcloth and ashes they came, both the 
 
 king and his people, 
 
 Came to the mountain of oaks, to the house of the ter- 
 rible sea-gods, 
 
 Hard by the gulf in the rocks, where of old the world- 
 wide deluge 
 Sank to the inner abyss ; and the lake where the fish of 
 
 the goddess, 
 Holy, undying, abide ; whom the priests feed daily with 
 
 dainties. 
 There to the mystical fish, high-throned in her chamber 
 
 of cedar, 
 Burnt they the fat of the flock ; till the flame shone far 
 
 to the seaward. 
 Three days fasting they prayed : but the fourth day the 
 
 priests of the goddess, 
 Cunning in spells, cast lots, to discover the crime of the 
 
 people. 
 All day long they cast, till the house of the monarch was 
 
 taken, 
 Cepheus, king of the land ; and the faces of all gathered 
 
 blackness. 
 
 Then once more they cast ; and Cassiopceia was taken, 
 Deep-bosomed wife of the king, whom oft far-seeing Apollo 
 
Andromeda. 183 
 
 Watched well-pleased from the welkin, the fairest of 
 
 ^Ethiop women : 
 Fairest, save only her daughter ; for down to the ankle 
 
 her tresses 
 
 Rolled, blue-black as the night, ambrosial, joy to be- 
 holders. 
 
 Awful and fair she arose, most like in her coming to Hebe, 
 Queen before whom the Immortals arise, as she comes on 
 
 Olympus, 
 Out of the chamber of gold, which her son Hephaestos 
 
 has wrought her. 
 Such in her stature and eyes, and the broad white light 
 
 of her forehead. 
 Stately she came from her place, and she spoke in the 
 
 midst of the people. 
 (l Pure are my hands from blood : most pure this heart 
 
 in my bosom. 
 Yet one fault I remember this day; one word have I 
 
 spoken ; 
 Rashly I spoke on the shore, and I dread lest the sea 
 
 should have heard it. 
 Watching my child at her bath, as she plunged in the joy 
 
 of her girlhood, 
 Fairer I called her in pride than Atergati, queen of the 
 
 ocean. 
 Judge ye if this be my sin, for I know none other." 
 
 She ended ; 
 Wrapping her head in her mantle she stood, and the 
 
 people were silent. 
 Answered the dark-browed priests, "No word, once 
 
 spoken, returneth, 
 
 Even if uttered unwitting. Shall gods excuse our rashness ? 
 That which is done, that abides ; and the wrath of the sea 
 
 is against us ; 
 Hers, and the wrath of her brother, the Sun-god, lord of 
 
 the sheepfolds. 
 
1 84 A ndromeda. 
 
 Fairer than her hast thou boasted thy daughter? Ah 
 
 folly ! for hateful, 
 Hateful are they to the gods, whoso, impious, liken a 
 
 mortal, 
 Fair though he be, to their glory; and hateful is that 
 
 which is likened, 
 Grieving the eyes of their pride, and abominate, doomed 
 
 to their anger. 
 What shall be likened to gods ? The unknown, who deep 
 
 in the darkness 
 
 Ever abide, twyformed, many-handed, terrible, shapeless. 
 Woe to the queen ; for the land is defiled, and the people 
 
 accursed. 
 Take thou her therefore by night, thou ill-starred Cas- 
 
 siopceia, 
 Take her with us in the night, when the moon sinks low 
 
 to the westward ; 
 Bind her aloft for a victim, a prey for the gorge of the 
 
 monster, 
 Far on the sea-girt rock, which is washed by the surges 
 
 for ever ; 
 So may the goddess accept her, and so may the land 
 
 make atonement, 
 Purged by her blood from its sin : so obey thou the doom 
 
 of the rulers." 
 
 Bitter in soul they went out, Cepheus and Cassiopceia, 
 Bitter in soul ; and their hearts whirled round, as the 
 
 leaves in the eddy. 
 Weak was the queen, and rebelled : but the king, like a 
 
 shepherd of people, 
 Willed not the land should waste ; so he yielded the life 
 
 of his daughter. 
 Deep in the wane of the night, as the moon sank low to 
 
 the westward, 
 
 They by the shade of the cliffs, with the horror of dark- 
 ness around them, 
 
Andromeda, > 
 
 Stole, as ashamed, to a deed which became not the light 
 
 of the sunshine, 
 Slowly, the priests, and the queen, and the virgin bound 
 
 in the galley. 
 Slowly they rowed to the rocks : but Cepheus far in the 
 
 palace 
 
 Sate in the midst of the hall, on his throne, like a shep- 
 herd of people, 
 Choking his woe, dry-eyed, while the slaves wailed loudly 
 
 around him. 
 They on the sea-girt rock, which is washed by the surges 
 
 for ever, 
 Set her in silence, the guiltless, aloft with her face to the 
 
 eastward. 
 Under a crag of the stone, where a ledge sloped down to 
 
 the water ; 
 There they set Andromeden, most beautiful, shaped like a 
 
 goddess, 
 Lifting her long white arms wide-spread to the walls of 
 
 the basalt, 
 Chaining them, ruthless, with brass ; and they called on 
 
 the might of the Rulers. 
 " Mystical fish of the seas, dread Queen whom ^Ethiops 
 
 honour, 
 Whelming the land in thy wrath, unavoidable, sharp as 
 
 the sting-ray, 
 Thou, and thy brother the Sun, brain-smiting, lord of 
 
 the sheepfold, 
 Scorching the earth all day, and then resting at night in 
 
 thy bosom, 
 Take ye this one life for many, appeased by the blood of 
 
 a maiden, 
 Fairest, and born of the fairest, a queen, most priceless of 
 
 victims." 
 Thrice they spat as they went by the maid : but her 
 
 mother delaying 
 
1 86 Andromeda. 
 
 Fondled her child to the last, heart-crushed ; and the 
 
 warmth of her weeping 
 Fell on the breast of the maid, as her woe broke forth 
 
 into wailing. 
 " Daughter ! my daughter ! forgive me ! O curse not 
 
 the murderess ! Curse not ! 
 How have I sinned, but in love ? Do the gods grudge 
 
 glory to mothers ? 
 Loving I bore thee in vain in the fate-cursed bride-bed of 
 
 Cepheus, 
 Loving I fed thee and tended, and loving rejoiced in thy 
 
 beauty, 
 Blessing thy limbs as I bathed them, and blessing thy 
 
 locks as I combed them ; 
 Decking thee, ripening to woman, I blest thee : yet 
 
 blessing I slew thee ! 
 How have I sinned, but in love ? O swear to me, swear 
 
 to thy mother, 
 Never to haunt me with curse, as I go to the grave in 
 
 my sorrow, 
 Childless and lone : may the gods never send me another, 
 
 to slay it ! 
 See, I embrace thy knees soft knees, where no babe 
 
 will be fondled 
 Swear to me never to curse me, the hapless one, not in 
 
 the death pang." 
 Weeping she clung to the knees of the maid ; and the 
 
 ma-id low answered 
 Curse thee ! Not in the death-pang !" The heart of 
 
 the lady was lightened. 
 Slowly she went by the ledge ; and the maid was alone in 
 
 the darkness. 
 Watching the pulse of the oars die down, as her own 
 
 died with them, 
 Tearless, dumb with amaze she stood, as a storm-stunned 
 
 nestling 
 
Andromeda. 187 
 
 Fallen from bough or from eave lies dumb, which the 
 
 home-going herdsman 
 Fancies a stone, till he catches the light of its terrified 
 
 eyeball. 
 So through the long long hours the maid stood helpless 
 
 and hopeless, 
 Wide-eyed, downward gazing in vain at the black blank 
 
 darkness. 
 Feebly at last she began, while wild thoughts bubbled 
 
 within her 
 " Guiltless I am : why thus, then ? Are gods more 
 
 ruthless than mortals ? 
 Have they no mercy for youth ? no love for the souls who 
 
 have loved them ? 
 Even as I loved thee, dread sea, as I played by thy 
 
 margin, 
 Blessing thy wave as it cooled me, thy wind as it breathed 
 
 on my forehead, 
 Bowing my head to thy tempest, and opening my heart to 
 
 thy children, 
 Silvery fish, wreathed shell, and the strange lithe things of 
 
 the water, 
 Tenderly casting them back, as they gasped on the beach 
 
 in the sunshine, 
 Home to their mother in vain ! for mine sits childless in 
 
 anguish ! 
 Oh dread sea ! false sea ! I dreamed what I dreamed of 
 
 thy goodness ; 
 Dreamed of a smile in thy gleam, of a laugh in the plash 
 
 of thy ripple : 
 False and devouring thou art, and the great world dark 
 
 and despiteful." 
 Awed by her own rash words she was still : and her 
 
 eyes to the seaward 
 Looked for an answer of wrath : far off, in the heart of the 
 
 darkness, 
 
1 88 Andromeda. 
 
 Bright white mists rose slowly ; beneath them the wander- 
 ing ocean 
 
 Glimmered and glowed to the deepest abyss ; and the 
 knees of the maiden 
 
 Trembled and sank in her fear, as afar, like a dawn in the 
 midnight, 
 
 Rose from their seaweed chamber the choir of the 
 mystical sea-maids. 
 
 Onward toward her they came, and her heart beat loud at 
 their coming, 
 
 Watching the bliss of the gods, as they wakened the cliffs 
 with their laughter. 
 
 Onward they came in their joy, and before them the roll 
 of the surges 
 
 Sank, as the breeze sank dead, into smooth green foam- 
 flecked marble, 
 
 Awed ; and the crags of the cliff, and the pines of the 
 
 mountain were silent. 
 
 Onward they came in their joy, and around them the 
 lamps of the sea-nymphs, 
 
 Myriad fiery globes, swam panting and heaving ; and 
 rainbows 
 
 Crimson and azure and emerald, were broken in star- 
 showers, lighting 
 
 Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the 
 gardens of Nereus, 
 
 Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms 
 
 of the ocean. 
 
 Onward they came in their joy, more white than the 
 foam which they scattered, 
 
 Laughing and singing, and 'tossing and twining, while 
 eager, the Tritons 
 
 Blinded with kisses their eyes, unreproved, and above 
 them in worship 
 
 Hovered the terns, and the seagulls swept past them on 
 silvery pinions 
 
Andromeda. 189 
 
 Echoing softly their laughter ; around them the wan- 
 toning dolphins 
 
 Sighed as they plunged, full of love ; and the great sea- 
 horses which bore them 
 Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms 
 
 of the maidens, 
 Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, un- 
 
 harming, 
 Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the nymphs, and 
 
 the coils of the mermen. 
 Onward they went in their joy, bathed round with the 
 
 fiery coolness, 
 Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal : but 
 
 others, 
 Pitiful, floated in silence apart ; in their bosoms the 
 
 sea-boys, 
 Slain by the wrath of the seas, swept down by the anger 
 
 of Nereus ; 
 Hapless, whom never again on strand or on quay shall 
 
 their mothers 
 Welcome with garlands and vows to the temple, but 
 
 wearily pining 
 Gaze over island and bay for the sails of the sunken ; 
 
 they heedless 
 Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and 
 
 the sea-maids. 
 Onward they past in their joy j on their brows neither 
 
 sorrow nor anger ; 
 Self-sufficing, as gods, never heeding the woe of the 
 
 maiden. 
 She would have shrieked for their mercy: but shame 
 
 made her dumb ; and their eyeballs 
 Stared on her careless and still, like the eyes in the 
 
 house of the idols. 
 Seeing they saw not, and passed, like a dream, on the 
 
 murmuring ripple. 
 
190 Andromeda. 
 
 Stunned by the wonder she gazed, wide-eyed, as the 
 
 glory departed. 
 
 " Oh fair shapes ! far fairer than I ! Too fair to be ruth- 
 less ! 
 Gladden mine eyes once more with your splendour, 
 
 unlike to my fancies ; 
 You, then, smiled in the sea-gleam, and laughed in the 
 
 plash of the ripple. 
 Awful I deemed you and formless ; inhuman, monstrous 
 
 as idols ; 
 Lo, when ye came, ye were women, more loving and 
 
 lovelier, only ; 
 Like in all else ; and I blest you : why blest ye not me 
 
 for my worship ? 
 Had you no mercy for me, the guiltless ? Ye pitied the 
 
 sea-boys : 
 Why not me, then, more hapless by far ? Does your sight 
 
 and your knowledge 
 End with the marge of the waves ? Is the world which ye 
 
 dwell in not our world?" 
 
 Over the mountain aloft ran a rush and a roll and a 
 
 roaring ; 
 Downward the breeze came indignant, and leapt with a 
 
 howl to the water, 
 Roaring in cranny and crag, till the pillars and clefts 
 
 of the basalt 
 Rang like a god-swept lyre, and her brain grew mad 
 
 with the noises ; 
 Crashing and lapping of waters, and sighing and tossing 
 
 of weed-beds, 
 
 Gurgle and whisper and hiss of the foam, while thun- 
 dering surges 
 Boomed in the wave-worn halls, as they champed at the 
 
 roots of the mountain. 
 
Andromeda. 191 
 
 Hour after hour in the darkness the wind rushed fierce 
 
 to the landward, 
 Drenching the maiden with spray j she shivering, weary 
 
 and drooping, 
 
 Stood with her heart full of thoughts, till the foam- 
 crests gleamed in the twilight, 
 Leaping and laughing around, and the east grew red 
 
 with the dawning. 
 Then on the ridge of the hills rose the broad bright 
 
 sun in his glory, 
 Hurling his arrows abroad on the glittering crests of 
 
 the surges, 
 Gilding the soft round bosoms of wood, and the downs 
 
 of the coastland ; 
 Gilding the weeds at her feet, and the foam-laced teeth 
 
 of the ledges ; 
 Showing the maiden her home through the veil of her 
 
 locks, as they floated 
 Glistening, damp with the spray, in a long black cloud 
 
 to the landward. 
 High in the far-off glens rose thin blue curls from the 
 
 homesteads ; 
 Softly the low of the herds, and the pipe of the out-going 
 
 herdsman, 
 Slid to her ear on the water, and melted her heart into 
 
 weeping. 
 Shuddering, she tried to forget them ; and straining her 
 
 eyes to the seaward, 
 Watched for her doom, as she wailed, but in vain, to the 
 
 terrible Sun-god. 
 " Dost thou not pity me, Sun, though thy wild dark 
 
 sister be ruthless ; 
 Dost thou not pity me here, as thou seest me desolate, 
 
 weary, 
 Sickened with shame and despair, like a kid torn young 
 
 from its mother ? 
 \ 
 
192 Andromeda. 
 
 What if my beauty insult thee, then blight it : but me 
 
 Oh spare me ! 
 Spare me yet, ere he be here, fierce, tearing, unbearable ! 
 
 See me, 
 See me, how tender and soft, and thus helpless ! See 
 
 how I shudder, 
 Fancying only my doom. Wilt thou shine thus bright, 
 
 when it takes me ? 
 Are there no deaths save this, great Sim? No fiery 
 
 arrow, 
 Lightning, or deep-mouthed wave ? Why thus ? What 
 
 music in shrieking, 
 Pleasure in warm live limbs torn slowly? And dar'st 
 
 thou behold them ! 
 Oh, thou hast watched worse deeds ! All sights are alike 
 
 to thy brightness ! 
 What if thou waken the birds to their song, dost thou 
 
 waken no sorrow ; 
 Waken no sick to their pain ; no captive to wrench at his 
 
 fetters ? 
 Smile on the garden and fold, and on maidens who sing 
 
 at the milking ; 
 Flash into tapestried chambers, and peep in the eyelids 
 
 of lovers, 
 Showing the blissful their bliss Dost love, then, the place 
 
 where thou smilest ? 
 Lovest thou cities aflame, fierce blows, and the shrieks of 
 
 the widow ? 
 Lovest thou corpse-strewn fields, as thou lightest the 
 
 path of the vulture ? 
 Lovest thou these, that thou gazest so gay on 'my tears, 
 
 and my mother's, 
 Laughing alike at the horror of one, and the blfss of 
 
 another ? 
 What dost thou care, in thy sky, foi the joys and sorrows 
 
 of mortals? 
 
Andromeda. 193 
 
 Colder art thou than the nymphs : in thy broad bright eye 
 
 is no seeing. 
 Hadst thou a soul as much soul as the slaves in the 
 
 house of my father, 
 Wouldst thou not save ? Poor thralls ! they pitied me, 
 
 clung to me weeping, 
 Kissing my hands and my feet What are gods, more 
 
 ruthless than mortals ? 
 Worse than the souls which they rule ? Let me die : 
 
 they war not with ashes ! " 
 Sudden she ceased, with a shriek : in the spray, like a 
 
 hovering foam-bow, 
 Hung, more fair than the foam-bow, a boy in the bloom 
 
 of his manhood, 
 
 Golden-haired, ivory-limbed, ambrosial ; over his shoulder 
 Hung for a veil of his beauty the gold-fringed folds of the 
 
 goat-skin, 
 Bearing the brass of his shield, as the sun flashed clear 
 
 on its clearness. 
 Curved on his thigh lay a falchion, and under the gleam 
 
 of his helmet 
 Eyes more blue than the main shone awful - f around him 
 
 Athene* 
 Shed in her love such grace, such state, and terrible 
 
 daring. 
 
 Hovering over the water he came, upon glittering pinions, 
 Living, a wonder, outgrown from the tight -laced gold of 
 
 his sandals ; 
 Bounding from billow to billow, and sweeping the crests 
 
 like a sea-gull ; 
 Leaping the gulfs of the surge, as he laughed in the joy 
 
 of his leaping. 
 Fair and majestic he sprang to the rock ; and the maiden 
 
 in wonder 
 Gazed for a while, and then hid in the dark-rolling wave 
 
 of her tresses, 
 
 o 
 
194 Andromeda. 
 
 Fearful, the light of her eyes ; while the boy (for her 
 
 sorrow had awed him) 
 Blushed at her blushes, and vanished, like mist on the 
 
 cliffs at the sunrise. 
 Fearful at length she looked forth : he was gone : she, 
 
 wild with amazement, 
 Wailed for her mother aloud : but the wail of the wind 
 
 only answered. 
 Sudden he flashed into sight, by her side ; in his pity and 
 
 anger 
 Moist were his eyes ; and his breath like a rose-bed, as 
 
 bolder and bolder, 
 Hovering under her brows, like a swallow that haunts by 
 
 the house-eaves, 
 Delicate-handed, he lilted the veil of her hair ; while the 
 
 maiden 
 
 Motionless, frozen with fear, wept loud ; till his lips un- 
 closing 
 Poured from their pearl-strung portal the musical wave of 
 
 his wonder. 
 "Ah," well spoke she, the wise one, the grey-eyed 
 
 Pallas Athene', 
 " Known to Immortals alone are the prizes which lie for 
 
 the heroes 
 Ready prepared at their feet ; for requiring a little, the 
 
 rulers 
 Pay back the loan tenfold to the man who, careless of 
 
 pleasure, 
 Thirsting for honour and toil, fares forth on a perilous 
 
 errand 
 Led by the guiding of gods, and strong in the strength 
 
 of Immortals. 
 Thus have they led me to thee : from afar, UL knowing, 
 
 I marked thee, 
 Shining, a snow-white cross on the dark-green walls of 
 
 the sea- cliff ; 
 
Andromeda. 195 
 
 Carven in marble I deemed thee, a perfect work of the 
 
 craftsman. 
 
 Likeness of Amphitrite, or far-famed Queen Cythereia. 
 Curious I came, till I saw how thy tresses streamed in the 
 
 sea-wind, 
 Glistening, black as the night, and thy lips moved slow in 
 
 thy wailing. 
 Speak again now Oh speak ! For my soul is stirred to 
 
 avenge thee ; 
 Tell me what barbarous horde, without law, unrighteous 
 
 and heartless, 
 Hateful to gods and to men, thus have bound thee, a 
 
 shame to the sunlight, 
 Scorn and prize to the sailor : but my prize now ; for a 
 
 coward, 
 Coward and shameless were he, who so finding a glorious 
 
 jewel 
 Cast on the wayside by fools, would not win it and keep 
 
 it and wear it, 
 Even as I will thee ; for I swear by the head of my 
 
 father, 
 Bearing thee over the sea-wave, to wed thee in Argos the 
 
 fruitful, 
 Beautiful, meed of my toil no less than this head which 
 
 I carry, 
 Hidden here fearful Oh speak !" 
 
 But the maid, still dumb with amazement, 
 
 Watered her bosom with weeping, and longed for her 
 home and her mother. 
 
 Beautiful, eager, he wooed Ker, and kissed off her tears 
 as he hovered, 
 
 Roving at will, as a bee, on the brows of a rock nymph- 
 haunted, 
 
 Garlanded over with vine, and acanthus, and clambering 
 roses, 
 
 O 2 
 
Andromeda. 
 
 Cool in the fierce still noon, where streams glance clear 
 
 in the mossbeds, 
 Hums on from blossom to blossom, and mingles the 
 
 sweets as he tastes them. 
 Beautiful, eager, he kissed her, and clasped her yet closer 
 
 and closer, 
 Praying her still to speak 
 
 " Not cruel nor rough did my mother 
 Bear me to broad-browed Zeus in the depths of the brass- 
 covered dungeon ; 
 Neither in vain, as I think, have I talked with the cunning 
 
 of Hermes, 
 Face unto face, as a friend; or from grey-eyed Pallas 
 
 Athene" 
 Learnt what is fit, and respecting myself, to respect in my 
 
 dealings 
 Those whom the gods should love ; so fear not ; to chaste 
 
 espousals 
 Only I woo thee, and swear, that a queen, and alone 
 
 without rival 
 By me thou sittest in Argos of Hellas, throne of my 
 
 fathers, 
 Worshipped by fair-haired kings : why callest thou still on 
 
 thy mother ? 
 Why did she leave thee thus here ? For no foeman has 
 
 bound thee ; no foeman 
 Winning with strokes of the sword such a prize, would so 
 
 leave it behind him." 
 Just as at first some colt, wild-eyed, with quivering 
 
 nostril, 
 Plunges in fear of the curb, and the fluttering robes of the 
 
 rider ; 
 Soon, grown bold by despair, submits to the will of his 
 
 master, 
 
 Tamer and tamer each hour, and at last, in the pride of 
 obedience, 
 
Andromeda. 197 
 
 Answers the heel with a curvet, and arches his neck to be 
 
 fondled, 
 Cowed by the need that maid grew tame ; while the hero 
 
 indignant 
 
 Tore at the fetters which held her : the brass, too cun- 
 ningly tempered, 
 Held to the rock by the nails, deep wedged : till the boy, 
 
 red with anger, 
 Drew from his ivory thigh, keen flashing, a falchion of 
 
 diamond 
 "Now let the work of the smith try strength with the 
 
 arms of Immortals ! " 
 Dazzling it fell ; and the blade, as the vine-hook shears 
 
 off the vine-bough, 
 Carved through the strength of the brass, till her arms 
 
 fell soft on his shoulder. 
 Once she essayed to escape : but the ring of the water 
 
 was round her, 
 Round her the ring of his arms ; and despairing she sank 
 
 on his bosom. 
 Then, like a fawn when startled, she looked with a shriek 
 
 to the seaward. 
 " Touch me not, wretch that I am ! For accursed, a 
 
 shame and a hissing, 
 Guiltless, accurst no less, I await the revenge of the 
 
 sea-gods. 
 Yonder it comes ! Ah go ! Let me perish unseen, if I 
 
 perish ! 
 Spare me the shame of thine eyes, when merciless fangs 
 
 must tear me 
 Piecemeal ! Enough to endure by myself in the light of 
 
 the sunshine 
 Guiltless, the death of a kid ! " 
 
 But the boy still lingered around he*, 
 Loth, like a boy, to forego her, and. waken the cliffs with 
 
 his laughter. 
 
1 98 Andromeda. 
 
 " Yon is the foe, then ? A beast of the sea ? I had 
 
 deemed him immortal ; 
 
 Titan, or Proteus' self, or Nereus, foeman of sailors : 
 Yet would I fight with them all, but Poseidon, shaker of 
 
 mountains, 
 Uncle of mine, whom I fear, as is fit ; for he haunts on 
 
 Olympus, 
 Holding the third of the world ; and the gods all rise at 
 
 his coming. 
 Unto none else will I yield, god-helped : how then to a 
 
 monster ? 
 Child 'of the earth and of night, unreasoning, shapeless, 
 
 accursed ? " 
 " Art thou, too, then a god?" 
 
 "No god I," smiling he answered ; 
 " Mortal as thou, yet divine : but mortal the herds of the 
 
 ocean, 
 Equal to men in that only, and less in all else ; for they 
 
 nourish 
 Blindly the life of the lips, untaught by the gods, without 
 
 wisdom : 
 Shame if I fled before such ! " 
 
 In her heart new life was enkindled, 
 Worship and trust, fair parents of love : but she answered 
 
 him sighing. 
 " Beautiful, why wilt thou die ? Is the light of the sun, 
 
 then, so worthless, 
 Worthless to sport with thy fellows in flowery glades of 
 
 the forest, 
 Under the broad green oaks, where never again shall I 
 
 wander, 
 Tossing the ball with my maidens, or wreathing the altar 
 
 in garlands, 
 Careless, with dances and songs, till the glens rang loud 
 
 to our laughter. 
 
Andromeda. 199 
 
 Too full of death the sad earth is already ; the halls full 
 
 of weepers, 
 Quarried by tombs all cliffs, and the bones gleam white 
 
 on the sea-floor 
 Numberless, gnawn by the herds who attend on the 
 
 pitiless sea-gods, 
 Even as mine will be soon : and yet noble it seems to me, 
 
 dying, 
 Giving my life for the many, to save to the arms of their 
 
 lovers 
 Maidens and youths for a while : thee, fairest of all, shall 
 
 I slay thee ? 
 Add not thy bones to the many, thus angering idly the 
 
 dread ones ! 
 Either the monster will crush, or the sea-queen's self 
 
 overwhelm thee, 
 Vengeful, in tempest and foam, and the thundering walls 
 
 of the surges. 
 Why wilt thou follow me down ? can we love in the black 
 
 blank darkness ? 
 Love in the realms of the dead, in the land where all is 
 
 forgotten ? 
 Why wilt thou follow me down ? is it joy, on the desolate 
 
 oozes, 
 Meagre to flit, grey ghosts in the depths of the grey salt 
 
 water ? 
 Beautiful ! why wilt thou die, and defraud fair girls of thy 
 
 manhood ? 
 Surely one waits for thee longing, afar in the isles of the 
 
 ocean. 
 Go thy way ; I mine ; for the gods grudge pleasure to 
 
 mortals." 
 
 Sobbing she ended her moan, as her neck, like a storm- 
 bent lily, 
 Drooped with the weight of her woe, and her limbs sank, 
 
 weary with watching, 
 
2oo Andromeda. 
 
 Soft on the hard-ledged rock : but the boy, with his eye 
 
 on the monster, 
 Clasped her, and stood, like a god ; and his lips curved 
 
 proud as he answered 
 " Great are the pitiless sea-gods : but greater the Lord 
 
 of Olympus ; 
 Greater the ^gis-wielder, and greater is she who attends 
 
 him. 
 Clear-eyed Justice her name is, the counsellor, loved of 
 
 Athene* ; 
 Helper of heroes, who dare, in the god-given might of 
 
 their manhood, 
 Greatly to do and to suffer, and far in the fens and the 
 
 forests 
 Smite the devourers of men, Heaven-hated, brood of the 
 
 giants, 
 Twyformed, strange, without like, who obey not the 
 
 golden-haired Rulers. 
 Vainly rebelling they rage, till they die by the swords of 
 
 the heroes, 
 Even as this must die ; for I burn with the wrath of my 
 
 father, 
 Wandering, led by Athene* ; and dare whatsoever betides 
 
 me. 
 Led by Athene* I won from the grey-haired terrible 
 
 sisters 
 Secrets hidden from men, when I found them asleep on 
 
 the sand-hills, 
 Keeping their eye and their tooth, till they showed me the 
 
 perilous pathway 
 Over the waterless ocean, the valley that led to the 
 
 Gorgon. 
 Her too I slew in my craft, Medusa, the beautiful 
 
 horror ; 
 Taught by Athene* I slew her, and saw not herself, but 
 
 her image, 
 
(> \, Y/ -/', 
 
 A ndromeda. * / , ^fcta , 
 
 Oy > ^ 
 
 Watching the mirror of bras^, in the shield which a 
 
 goddess had lent me ; 
 Cleaving her brass-scaled throat, as she lay with her 
 
 adders around her, 
 Fearless I bore off her head, in the folds of the mystical 
 
 goat-skin, 
 
 Hide of Amaltheie, fair nurse of the ^Egis-wielder. 
 Hither I bear it, a gift to the gods, and a death to my 
 
 foemen, 
 Freezing the seer to stone ; to hide thine eyes from the 
 
 horror. 
 Kiss me but once, and I go." 
 
 Then lifting her neck, like a sea-bird 
 Peering up over the wave, from the foam-white swells of 
 
 her bosom, 
 Blushing she kissed him : afar on the topmost Idalian 
 
 summit 
 Laughed in the joy of her heart, far-seeing, the queen 
 
 Aphrodite'. 
 Loosing his arms from her waist he flew upward, 
 
 awaiting the sea-beast. 
 Onward it came from the southward, as bulky and black 
 
 as a galley, 
 
 Lazily coasting along, as the fish fled leaping before it ; 
 Lazily breasting the ripple, and watching by sandbar and 
 
 headland, 
 Listening for laughter of maidens at bleaching, or song of 
 
 the fisher, 
 Children at play on the pebbles, or cattle that pawed on 
 
 the sandhills. 
 Rolling and dripping it came, where bedded in glistening 
 
 purple 
 Cold on the cold sea- weeds lay the long white sides of the 
 
 maiden, 
 Trembling, her face in her hands, and her tresses afloat 
 
 on the water. 
 
2O2 Andromeda. 
 
 As when an osprey aloft, dark-eyebrowed, royally 
 
 crested, 
 Flags on by creek and by cove, and in scorn of the anger 
 
 of Nereus 
 Ranges, the king of the shore ; if he see on a glittering 
 
 shallow, 
 Chasing the bass and the mullet, the fin of a -wallowing 
 
 dolphin, 
 Halting, he wheels round slowly, in doubt at the weight of 
 
 his quarry, 
 Whether to clutch it alive, or to fall on the wretch like a 
 
 plummet, 
 Stunning with terrible talon the life of the brain in the 
 
 hindhead : 
 Then rushes up with a scream, and stooping the wrath of 
 
 his eyebrows 
 Falls from the sky like a star, while the wind rattles hoarse 
 
 in his pinions. 
 Over him closes the foam for a moment ; then from the 
 
 sand-bed 
 Rolls up the great fish, dead, and his side gleams white in 
 
 the sunshine. 
 Thus fell the boy on the beast, unveiling the face of the 
 
 Gorgon ; 
 Thus fell the boy on the beast ; thus rolled up the beast in 
 
 his horror, 
 Once, as the dead eyes glared into his ; then his sides, 
 
 death-sharpened, 
 Stiffened and stood, brown rock, in the wash of the 
 
 wandering water. 
 Beautiful, eager, triumphant, he leapt back again to his 
 
 treasure ; 
 Leapt back again, full blest, toward arms spread wide to 
 
 receive him. 
 Brimful of honour he clasped her, and brimful of love she 
 
 caressed him, 
 
Andromeda. 203 
 
 Answering lip with lip ; while above them the queen 
 
 Aphroditd 
 Poured on their foreheads and limbs, unseen, ambrosial 
 
 odours, 
 Givers of longing, and rapture, and chaste content in 
 
 espousals. 
 Happy whom ere they be wedded anoints she, the Queen 
 
 Aphrodit^ ! 
 Laughing she called to her sister, the chaste Tritonid 
 
 Athene*, 
 * { Seest thou yonder thy pupil, thou maid of the ^Egis- 
 
 wielder ? 
 How he has turned himself wholly to love, and caresses a 
 
 damsel, 
 Dreaming no longer of honour, or danger, or Pallas 
 
 Athend ? 
 Sweeter, it seems, to the young my gifts are ; so yield me 
 
 the stripling ; 
 Yield him me now, lest he die in his prime, like hapless 
 
 Adonis." 
 Smiling she answered in turn, that chaste Tritonid 
 
 Athene* : 
 " Dear unto me, no less than to thee, is the wedlock of 
 
 heroes ; 
 Dear, who can worthily win him a wife not unworthy ; 
 
 and noble, 
 Pure with the pure to beget brave children, the like of 
 
 their father. 
 Happy, who thus stands linked to the heroes who were, 
 
 and who shall be ; 
 Girdled with holiest awe, not sparing of self; for his 
 
 mother 
 Watches his steps with the eyes of the gods ; and his wife 
 
 and his children 
 Move him to plan and to do in the farm and the camp and 
 
 the council. 
 
2O4 Andromeda. 
 
 Thence comes weal to a nation : but woe upon woe, when 
 
 the people 
 Mingle in love at their will, like the brutes, not heeding 
 
 the future." 
 Then from her gold-strung loom, where she wrought in 
 
 her chamber of cedar, 
 Awful and fair she arose ; and she went by the glens of 
 
 Olympus ; 
 Went by the isles of the sea, and the wind never ruffled 
 
 her mantle ; 
 Went by the water of Crete, and the black-beaked fleets 
 
 of the Phcenics ; 
 Came to the sea-girt rock which is washed by the surges 
 
 for ever, 
 Bearing the wealth of the gods, for a gift to the bride of a 
 
 hero. 
 There she met Andromeden and Persea, shaped like 
 
 Immortals ; 
 Solemn and sweet was her smile, while their hearts beat 
 
 loud at her coming ; 
 Solemn and sweet was her smile, as she spoke to the pair 
 
 in her wisdom. 
 " Three things hold we, the Rulers, who sit by the founts 
 
 of Olympus, 
 Wisdom, and prowess, and beauty; and freely we pour 
 
 them on mortals ; 
 Pleased at our image in man, as a father at his in his 
 
 children. 
 
 One thing only we grudge to mankind : when a hero, un- 
 thankful, 
 Boasts of our gifts as his own, stiffnecked, and dishonours 
 
 the givers, 
 Turning our weapons against us. Him Ate* follows 
 
 avenging ; 
 Slowly she tracks him and sure, as a lyme-hound ; sudden 
 
 she grips him, 
 
Andromeda. 205 
 
 Crushing him, blind in his pride, for a sign and a terror 
 
 to folly. 
 This we avenge, as is fit ; in all else never weary of 
 
 giving. 
 Come, then, damsel, and know if the gods grudge pleasure 
 
 to mortals." 
 Loving and gentle she spoke : but the maid stood in 
 
 awe, as the goddess 
 Plaited with soft swift finger her tresses, and decked her 
 
 in jewels, 
 Armlet and anklet and earbell ; and over her shoulders a 
 
 necklace, 
 Heavy, enamelled, the flower of the gold and the brass of 
 
 the mountain. 
 Trembling with joy she gazed, so well Haephaistos had 
 
 made it, 
 Deep in the forges of ^Etna, while Charis his lady beside 
 
 him, 
 Mingled her grace in his craft, as he wrought for his sister 
 
 Athene*. 
 Then on the brows of the maiden a veil bound Pallas 
 
 Athene* ; 
 Ample it fell to her feet, deep-fringed, a wonder of 
 
 weaving. 
 Ages and ages agone it was wrought on the heights of 
 
 Olympus, 
 Wrought in the gold-strung loom, by the finger of cunning 
 
 Athene*. 
 In it she wove all creatures that teem in the womb of the 
 
 ocean ; 
 Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy 
 
 fishes 
 Glittering round, many-hued, on the flame-red folds of the 
 
 mantle. 
 In it she wove, too, a town where grey-haired kings sat 
 
 in judgment ; 
 
2o6 Andromeda. 
 
 Sceptre in hand in the market they sat, doing right by the 
 
 people, 
 Wise : while above watched J ustice, and near, far-seeing 
 
 Apollo. 
 Round it she wove for a fringe all herbs of the earth and 
 
 the water, 
 
 Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and lilies, 
 Coral and sea-fan, and tangle, the blooms and the palms 
 
 of the ocean : 
 Now from Olympus she bore it, a dower to the bride of a 
 
 hero. 
 Over the limbs of the damsel she wrapt it : the maid still 
 
 trembled, 
 Shading her face with her hands ; for the eyes of the 
 
 goddess were awful. 
 Then, as a pine upon Ida when southwest winds blow 
 
 landward, 
 Stately she bent to the damsel, and breathed on her : 
 
 under her breathing 
 Taller and fairer she grew ; and the goddess spoke in her 
 
 wisdom. 
 " Courage I give thee ; the heart of a queen, and the 
 
 mind of Immortals ; 
 Godlike to talk with the gods, and to look on their eyes 
 
 unshrinking ; 
 Fearing the sun and the stars no more, and the blue salt 
 
 water ; 
 Fearing us only, the lords of Olympus, friends of the 
 
 heroes ; 
 Chastely and wisely to govern thyself and thy house and 
 
 thy people, 
 Bearing a god-like race to thy spouse, till dying I 
 
 set thee 
 
 High for a star in the heavens, a sign and a hope to the 
 seamen, 
 
Andromeda, 207 
 
 Spreading thy long white arms all night in the heights of 
 
 the aether, 
 Hard by thy sire and the hero thy spouse, while near thee 
 
 thy mother 
 
 Sits in her ivory chair, as she plaits ambrosial tresses. 
 All night long thou wilt shine ; all day thou wilt feast on 
 
 Olympus, 
 
 Happy, the guest of the gods, by thy husband, the god- 
 begotten." 
 Blissful, they turned them to go : but the fair-tressed 
 
 Pallas Athene' 
 Rose, like a pillar of tall white cloud, toward silver 
 
 Olympus ; 
 Far above ocean and shore, and the peaks of the isles 
 
 and the mainland ; 
 Where no frost nor storm is, in clear blue windless 
 
 abysses, 
 High in the home of the summer, the seats of the happy 
 
 Immortals, 
 Shrouded in keen deep blaze, unapproachable ; there ever 
 
 youthful 
 
 Hebe*, Harmonic*, and the daughter of Jove, Aphro- 
 dite*, 
 Whirled in the white-linked dance with the gold-crowned 
 
 Hours and the Graces, 
 Hand within hand, while clear piped Phcebe, queen of the 
 
 woodlands. 
 All day long they rejoiced : but Athene* still in her 
 
 chamber 
 Bent herself over her loom, as the stars rang loud to her 
 
 singing, 
 Chanting of order and right, and of foresight, warden of 
 
 nations ; 
 Chanting of labour and craft, and of wealth in the port 
 
 and the garner ; 
 
-2O8 A ndromeda. 
 
 Chanting of valour and fame, and the man who can fall 
 
 with the foremost, 
 Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his 
 
 father bequeathed him. 
 Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned new lessons 
 
 for mortals : 
 Happy, who hearing obey her, the wise unsullied Athene. 
 
SONGS, BALLADS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
SONGS, BALLADS, 
 
 THE SANDS OF DEE. 
 
 O MARY, go and call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle nome 
 Across the sands of Dee ; ;; 
 
 The western wind was wild and dank with fqam, fv 
 And all alone went she. 
 
 The western tide crept up along the sand, 
 And o'er and p'er the sand, 
 And round and round the sand, 
 As far as eye could see. 
 
 rThe rolling mist came down and hid the land : 
 And never home came she. 
 
 " Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair 
 A tress of golden hair, 
 A drowned maiden's hair 
 Above the nets at sea ? 
 as never salmon yet that shone so fair 
 Among the stakes on Dee." 
 
 They rowed her in across the rolling, foam, 
 The cqiel crawling foam, 
 The cruel hungry foam, 
 To her grave beside the sea : 
 But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home 
 Across the sands of Dee. 
 
212 
 
 THE THREE FISHERS. 
 
 THREE fishers went sailing away to the West. 
 
 Away to the West as the sun went down ; 
 Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, 
 
 And the children stood watching them out of the town ; 
 
 For men must work, and women must weep, 
 
 And there's little to earn, and many to keep, 
 
 Though the harbour bar be moaning. 
 
 Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 
 And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down ; 
 
 They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower 
 And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. 
 But men must work, and women must weep, 
 Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, 
 And the harbour bar be moaning. 
 
 Three corpses.lay out on the shining sands 
 In the morning gleam as the tide went down, 
 
 And the women are weeping and wringing their nands 
 For those who will never come home to the town ; 
 For men must work, and women must weep, 
 And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep ; 
 
 And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. 
 
213 
 
 THE OUBIT. 
 
 IT was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang ; 
 A feckless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang 
 " My Minnie bad me bide at hame until I won my wings ; 
 I shew her soon my soul's aboon the warks o' creeping 
 things." 
 
 This feckless hairy oubit cam' hirpling by the linn, 
 A swirl o' wind cam' doun the glen, and blew that oubit in : 
 O when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose, 
 And tigg'd him a' to pieces sma', by head and tail and toes. 
 
 Tak' warning then, young poets a', by this poor oubit's 
 
 shame ; 
 
 Though 'Pegasus may nicher loud, keep Pegasus at hame. 
 O haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a' the Muses 
 
 woo ; 
 For critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak' their meals o' you. 
 
214 
 
 THE TIDE ROCK. 
 
 How sleeps yon rock, whose half-day's bath is done. 
 With broad bright side beneath the broad bright sun, 
 Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. 
 Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses 
 From drooping brows we find her slowly weeping. 
 So many a wife for cruel man's caresses 
 Must inly pine and pine, yet outward bear 
 A gallant front to this world's gaudy glare. 
 
 THE STARLINGS. 
 
 EARLY in spring time, on raw and windy mornings, 
 Beneath the freezing house-eaves I heard the starlings 
 
 sing 
 " Ah dreary March month, is this then a time for building 
 
 wearily ? 
 Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun." 
 
 Late in the autumn, on still and cloudless evenings, 
 Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing 
 " Ah that sweet March month, when we and our mates 
 
 were courting merrily ; 
 Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done." 
 
215 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Oil, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare's self ! 
 No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest 
 Above the treasures of that perfect breast ; 
 Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars 
 Through which thy soul awes ours : yet thou art bound- 
 On waste of nature ! to a craven hound ; 
 To shameless lust, and childish greed of pelf ; 
 Athene' to a Satyr : was that link 
 Forged by The Father's hand ? Man's reason bars 
 The bans which God allowed. Ay, so we think : 
 Forgetting, thou hadst weaker been, full blest, 
 Than thus made strong by suffering ; and more great 
 In martyrdom, than throned as Caesar's mate. 
 
 A MARCH. 
 
 DREARY East winds howling o'er us , 
 
 Clay-lands knee-deep spread before us ; 
 
 Mire and ice and snow and sleet ; 
 
 Aching backs and frozen feet ; 
 
 Knees which reel as marches quicken, 
 
 Ranks which thin as corpses thicken ; 
 
 While with carrion birds we eat, 
 
 Calling puddle-water sweet, 
 As we pledge the health of our general, who fares as rough 
 
 as we : 
 
 What can daunt us, what can turn us, led to death by 
 such as he ? 
 
216 
 
 AIRLY BEACON. 
 
 AIRLY Beacon, Airly Beacon ; 
 
 Oh the pleasant sight to see 
 Shires and towns from Airly Beacon, 
 
 While my love climbed up to me ! 
 
 Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon ; 
 
 Oh the happy hours we lay 
 Deep in fern on Airly Beacon, 
 
 Courting through the summer's day ! 
 
 Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon ; 
 
 Oh the weary haunt for me, 
 All alone on Airly Beacon, 
 
 With his baby on my knee ! 
 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 MY fairest child, I have no song to give you ; 
 
 No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey : 
 Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave vou 
 For every day. 
 
 Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; 
 Do noble things, not dream them, all day long 
 And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever 
 One grand, sweet song. 
 

 ELEGIACS. 
 
 WEARILY stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge 
 
 to the cloudland; 
 
 Wearily onward I ride, watching the water alone. 
 Not as of old, like Homeric Achilles, Kvde'i yaiav, 
 Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife ; 
 No more on magical steed borne free through the regions 
 
 of ether, 
 
 But, like the hack which I ride, selling my sinew for gold. 
 Fruit-bearing autumn is gone; let the sad quiet winter 
 
 hang o'er me 
 What were the spring to a soul laden with sorrow and 
 
 shame ? 
 Blossoms would fret me with beauty; my heart has no 
 
 time to bepraise them ; 
 
 Grey rock, bough, surge, cloud, waken no yearning within. 
 Sing not, thou sky-lark above ! even angels pass hushed 
 
 by the weeper. 
 Scream on, ye sea-fowl ! my heart echoes your desolate 
 
 cry. 
 Sweep the dry sand on, thou wild wind, to drift o'er the 
 
 shell and the sea-weed ; 
 Sea-weed and shell, like my dreams, swept down the 
 
 pitiless tide. 
 Just is the wave which uptore us ; 'tis Nature's own law 
 
 which condemns us ; 
 Woe to the weak who, in pride, build on the faith of the 
 
 sand! 
 Joy to the oak of the mountain : he trusts to the- might of 
 
 the rock-clefts ; 
 Deeply he mines, and in peace feeds on the wealth of the 
 
 stone. 
 
218 
 
 ^ v > 
 
 DARTS IDE. 1849. 
 
 I CANNOT tell what you say, green leaves, 
 
 I cannot tell what you say : 
 But I know that there is a spirit in you, 
 
 And a word in you this day. 
 
 I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks, 
 
 I cannot tell what you say : 
 But I know that there is a spirit in you, 
 
 And a word in you this day. 
 
 I cannot tell what you say, brown streams, 
 
 I cannot tell what you say : 
 But I know that in you too a spirit doth live, 
 
 And a word doth speak this day. 
 
 " Oh green is the colour of faith and truth, 
 And rose the colour of love and youth, 
 
 And brown of the fruitful clay. 
 Sweet Earth is faithful, and fruitful, and young, 
 And her bridal day shall come ere long, 
 And you shall know what the rocks and the streams 
 
 And the whispering woodlands say." 
 
219 
 
 A LAMENT. 
 
 THE merry merry lark was up and singing, 
 And the hare was out and feeding on the lea ; 
 
 And the merry merry bells below were ringing, 
 When my child's laugh rang through me. 
 
 Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow-yard, 
 And the lark beside the dreary winter sea ; 
 
 And the baby in his cradle in the churchyard 
 Sleeps sound till the bell brings me. 
 
 MARGARET TO DOLCINO. 
 
 ASK if I love thee ? Oh, smiles cannot tell 
 Plainer what tears are now showing too well. 
 Had I not loved thee, my sky had been clear : 
 Had I not loved thee, I had not been here, 
 Weeping by thee. 
 
 Ask if I love thee ? How else could I borrow 
 Pride from man's slander, and strength from my sorrow ? 
 Laugh when they sneer at the fanatic's bride, 
 Knowing no bliss, save to toil and abide 
 Weeping by thee. 
 
220 
 
 DOLCINO TO MARGARET. 
 
 THE world goes up and the world goes down, 
 And the sunshine follows the rain ; 
 
 And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown 
 Can never come over again, 
 
 Sweet wife . 
 No, never come over again. 
 
 For woman is warm though man be cold, 
 And the night will hallow the day ; 
 
 Till the heart which at even was weary and old 
 Can rise in the morning gay, 
 
 Sweet wife ; 
 To its work in the morning gay. 
 
221 
 
 THE UGLY PRINCESS. 
 
 MY parents bow, and lead them forth, 
 
 For all the crowd to see 
 Ah well ! the people might not care 
 
 To cheer a dwarf like me. 
 
 They little know how I could love, 
 
 How I could plan and toil, 
 To swell those drudges' scanty gains, 
 
 Their mites of rye and oil. 
 
 They little know what dreams have been 
 My playmates, night and day ; 
 
 Of equal kindness, helpful care, 
 A mother's perfect sway. 
 
 Now earth to earth in convent walls, 
 
 To earth in churchyard sod : 
 I was not good enough for man, 
 And so am given to God, 
 
222 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 THE baby sings not on its mothers breast , 
 
 Nor nightingales who nestle side by side ; 
 
 Nor I by thine : but let us only part, 
 
 Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still, 
 
 As having uttered all, must speak again 
 
 Oh stunted thoughts ! Oh chill and fettered rhyme ! 
 
 Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest, 
 
 Losing its proper home, can find no rest : 
 
 So, like a child who whiles away the time 
 With dance and carol till the eventide, 
 Watching its mother homeward through the glen ; 
 Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart, 
 Tells to his listening mate within the nest 
 The wonder of his star-entranced heart 
 Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill 
 
 Forth all my being bubbles into song ; 
 
 And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong. 
 
223 
 
 THE LONGBEARDS' SAGA. A.D 400. 
 
 OVER the camp-fires 
 
 Drank I with heroes, 
 
 Under the Donau bank, 
 
 Warm in the snow trench 
 
 Sagamen heard I there, 
 
 Men of the Longbeards, 
 
 Cunning and ancient, 
 
 Honey-s weet-voiced . 
 
 Scaring the wolf cub, 
 
 Scaring the horn-owl, 
 
 Shaking the snow-wreaths 
 
 Down from the pine-boughs, 
 
 Up to the star roof 
 
 Rang out their song. 
 
 Singing how Winil men, 
 
 Over the ice-floes 
 
 Sledging from Scanland 
 
 Came unto Scoring ; 
 
 Singing of Gambara, 
 
 Freya's beloved, 
 
 Mother of Ayo, 
 
 Mother of Ibor. 
 
 Singing of Wendel men. 
 
 Ambri and Assi ; 
 
 How to the Winilfolk 
 
 Went they with war-words, 
 
 " Few are ye, strangers, 
 
 And many are we : 
 
 Pay us now toll and fee, 
 
 Cloth-yarn, and rings, and beeves ; 
 
 Else at the raven's meal 
 
 Bide the sharp bill's doom." 
 
224 The Longb cards Saga. 
 
 Clutching the dwarf's work then 
 Clutching the bullock's shell, 
 Girding gray iron on, 
 Forth fared the Winils all, 
 Fared the Alruna's sons. 
 Ayo and Ibor. 
 Mad at heart stalked they . 
 Loud wept the women all, 
 Loud the Alruna wife ; 
 Sore was their need. 
 
 Out of the morning land, 
 
 Over the snow-drifts, 
 
 Beautiful Freya came, 
 
 Tripping to Scoring. 
 
 White were the moorlands, 
 
 And frozen before her : 
 
 Green were the moorlands, 
 
 And blooming behind her. 
 
 Out of her gold locks 
 
 Shaking the spring flowers, 
 
 Out of her garments 
 
 Shaking the south wind, 
 
 Around in the birches 
 
 Awaking the throstles, 
 
 And making chaste housewives all 
 
 Long for their heroes home, 
 
 Loving and love-giving, 
 
 Came she to Scoring. 
 
 Came unto Gambara, 
 
 Wisest of Valas, 
 
 " Vala, why weepest thou ? 
 
 Far in the wide-blue, 
 
 High up in the Elfin-home, 
 
 Heard I thy weeping" 
 
The Longbeards Saga. 225 
 
 " Stop not my weeping, 
 Till one can fight seven. 
 Sons have I, heroes tall, 
 First in the sword-play ; 
 This day at the Wendels hands 
 Eagles must tear them. 
 Their mother, thrall-weary, 
 Must grind for the Wendels." 
 Wept the Alruna wife ; 
 Kissed her fair Freya : 
 " Far off in the morning land, 
 High in Valhalla, 
 A window stands open ; 
 Its sill is the snow-peaks, 
 Its posts are the water-spouts, 
 Storm-rack its lintel ; 
 Gold cloud-flakes above 
 Are piled for the roofing, 
 Far up to the Elfin-home, 
 High in the wide-blue. 
 Smiles out each morning thence 
 Odin Allfather ; 
 From under the cloud-eaves 
 Smiles out on the heroes, 
 Smiles on chaste housewives all, 
 Smiles on the brood-mares, 
 Smiles on the smiths' work : 
 And theirs is ths sword-luck, 
 With them is the glory, 
 So Odin hath sworn it, 
 Who first in the morning 
 Shall meet him and greet him." 
 Still the Alruna wept : 
 " Who then shall greet him ? 
 Women alone are here : 
 Far on the moorlands 
 Behind the war-lindens, 
 o 
 
226 The Long-beards Saga. 
 
 In vain for the bill's doom 
 
 Watch Wmil heroes all, 
 
 One against seven." 
 
 Sweetly the Queen laughed : 
 
 " Hear thou my counsel now ; 
 
 Take to thee cunning, 
 
 Beloved of Freya. 
 
 Take thou thy women-folk, 
 
 Maidens and wives : 
 
 Over your ankles 
 
 Lace on the white war-hose ; 
 
 Over your bosoms 
 
 Link up the hard mail-nets ; 
 
 Over your lips 
 
 Plait long tresses with cunning ;- 
 
 So war-beasts full-bearded 
 
 King Odin shall deem you, 
 
 When off the gray sea-beach 
 
 At sunrise ye greet him." 
 
 Night's son was driving 
 His golden-haired horses up ; 
 Over the eastern firths 
 . High flashed their manes. 
 
 Smiled from the cloud-eaves out 
 
 Allfather Odin, 
 
 Waiting the battle-sport : 
 
 Freya stood by him. 
 
 'Who are these heroes tall, 
 
 Lusty-limbed Longbeards ? 
 
 Over the swans' bath 
 
 Why cry they to me ? 
 
 Bones should be crashing fast, 
 
 Wolves should be full-fed, 
 
 Where such, mad-hearted, 
 
 Swing hands in the sword-play." 
 
The Longbcards Saga. 227 
 
 Sweetly laughed Freya : 
 
 " A name thou hast given them, 
 
 Shames neither thee nor them, 
 
 Well can they wear it. 
 
 Give them the victory, 
 
 First have they greeted thee ; 
 
 Give them the victory. 
 
 Yokefellow mine ! 
 
 Maidens and wives are these, 
 
 Wives of the Winils ; 
 
 Few are their heroes 
 
 And far on the war-road, 
 
 So over the swans' bath 
 
 They cry unto thee." 
 
 Royally laughed he then ; 
 Dear was that craft to him, 
 Odin Allfather, 
 Shaking the clouds. 
 " Cunning are women all, 
 Bold and importunate ! 
 Longbeards their name shall be 
 Ravens shall thank them : 
 Where women are heroes, 
 What must the men be ? 
 Theirs is the victory ; 
 No need of me ! " 
 
228 
 SONG. 
 
 IT was Earl Haldan's daughter, 
 
 She looked across the sea ; 
 She looked across the water ; 
 
 And long and loud laughed she : 
 " The locks of six princesses 
 
 Must be my marriage fee, 
 So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 
 Who comes a wooing me ? " 
 
 It was Earl Haldan's daughter, 
 
 She walked along the sand ; 
 When she was aware of a knight so fair, 
 
 Came sailing to the land. 
 His sails were all of velvet, 
 
 His mast of beaten gold, 
 And " Hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 
 Who saileth here so bold?" 
 
 " The locks of five princesses 
 
 I won beyond the sea ; 
 I dipt their golden tresses, 
 
 To fringe a cloak for thee. 
 One handful yet is wanting, 
 
 But one of all the tale ; 
 So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 
 Furl up thy velvet sail ! " 
 
 He leapt into the water, 
 
 That rover young and bold ; 
 He gript Earl Haldan's daughter. 
 
 He dipt her locks of gold : 
 " Go weep, go weep, proud maiden. 
 
 The tale is full to-day. 
 Now hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat 
 
 Sail westward ho away ! " 
 
229 
 
 LEIGH'S SONG. A.D. 1586, 
 
 AH tyrant Love, Megasra's serpents bearing-, 
 Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart ? 
 
 Ah ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing, 
 Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart ? 
 
 In this my meed ? Must dragons' teeth alone 
 
 In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown ? 
 
 Nay, gentlest Cupid ; 'twas my pride undid me ; 
 
 Nay, guiltless dove ; by mine own wound I felL 
 To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me : 
 
 I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell ; 
 For ever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel 
 On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel. 
 
THE LAST BUCCANIER. 
 
 OH England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and 
 
 high, 
 
 But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I ; 
 And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see again 
 As the pleasant Isle of Aves, beside the Spanish main. 
 
 There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and 
 
 stout, 
 All furnished well with small arms and cannons round 
 
 about ; 
 
 And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free 
 To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. 
 
 Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of 
 
 plate and gold, 
 Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of 
 
 old; 
 Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as 
 
 stone, 
 Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the 
 
 bone. 
 
 Oh the palms grew high in Aves, and fruits that shone 
 
 like gold. 
 
 And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold ; 
 And the negro maids to Aves from bondage fast did flee, 
 To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea. 
 
 Oh sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze 
 A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees, 
 
The Last Buccanier. 231 
 
 With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the 
 
 roar 
 Of the breakers on the reef outside, that never touched 
 
 the shore. 
 
 But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be ; 
 So the King's ships sailed on Aves, and quite put down 
 
 were we. 
 All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst the booms 
 
 at night ; 
 And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the fight. 
 
 Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside, 
 Till for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young thing she 
 
 died; 
 
 But as I lay a gasping, a Bristol sail came by, 
 And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die. 
 
 And now I'm old and going I'm sure I can't tell where ; 
 One comfort is, this world's so hard. I can't be worse off 
 
 there : 
 
 If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main, 
 To the pleasant Isle of Aves, to look at it once again. 
 
SAPPHO. 
 
 SHE lay among the myrtles on the cliff ; 
 Above her glared the noon ; beneath, the sea. 
 Upon the white horizon Atho's peak 
 Weltered in burning haze ; all airs were dead ; 
 The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair ; 
 The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below 
 The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun ; 
 The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings ; 
 The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge, 
 And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest ; 
 And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept, 
 And hushed her myriad children for a while. 
 She lay among the myrtles on the cliff ; 
 And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear, 
 But left her tossing still ; for night and day 
 A mighty hunger yearned within her heart, 
 Till all her veins ran fever ; and her cheek, 
 Her long thin hands, and ivory-channelled feet, 
 Were wasted with the wasting of her souL 
 Then peevishly she flung her on her face, 
 And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare, 
 And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool 
 Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward : 
 And then she raised her head, and upward cast 
 Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light 
 Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair, 
 As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks 
 Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon. 
 Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched the shell, 
 And waked wild music from its silver strings ; 
 Then tossed it sadly by. "Ah, hush ! " she cries . 
 
' o /. 
 
 ' 
 
 SappJw. 
 
 " Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine ! 
 Why mock my discords with thine harmonies ? 
 Although a thrice- Olympian lot be thine, 
 Only to echo back in every tone 
 fhe moods of nobler natures than thine own." 
 
 UDE TO THE NORTH-FAST WIND 
 
 WELCOME, wild North-easter ! 
 
 Shame it is to see 
 Odes to every zephyr ; 
 
 Ne'er a verse to thee. 
 Welcome, black North-easter ! 
 
 O'er the German foam ; 
 O'er the Danish moorlands. 
 
 From thy frozen home. 
 Tired we are of summer, 
 
 Tired of gaudy glare, 
 Showers soft and steaming, 
 
 Hot and breathless air. 
 Tired of listless dreaming, 
 
 Through the lazy day : 
 Jovial wind of winter 
 
 Turns us out to play ! 
 Sweep the golden reed-beds ; 
 
 Crisp the lazy dyke ; 
 Hunger into madness 
 
 Every plunging pike. 
 
2 34 Od* to tf ie North-east Wind, 
 
 Fill the lake with wild-fowl ; 
 Fill the marsh with snipe ; 
 While on dreary moorlands 
 
 Lonely curlew pipe. 
 Through the black fir-forest 
 
 Thunder harsh and dry, 
 Shattering down the snow-flakes 
 
 Off the curdled sky. 
 Hark ! The brave North-easter ! 
 
 Breast-high lies the scent, 
 On by holt and headland, 
 
 Over heath and bent. 
 Chime, ye dappled darlings, 
 
 Through the sleet and snow. 
 Who can over-ride you ? 
 
 Let the horses go ! 
 Chime, ye dappled darlings, 
 
 Down the roaring blast ; 
 You shall see a fox die 
 Ere an hour be past. 
 Go ! and rest to-morrow, 
 
 Hunting in your dreams, 
 While our skates are ringing 
 
 O'er the frozen streams. 
 Let the luscious South-wind 
 
 Breathe in lovers' sighs, 
 While the lazy gallants 
 Bask in ladies' eyes. 
 What does he but soften 
 Heart alike and pen ? 
 Tis the hard grey weather 
 
 Breeds hard English men. 
 What's the soft South-wester ? 
 
 'Tis the ladies' breeze, 
 Bringing home their true-loves 
 Out of all the seas 
 
Ode to tl it North-east Wina, 235 
 
 But the black North-easter, 
 
 Through the snowstorm hurled, 
 Drives our English hearts of oak 
 
 Seaward round the world. 
 Come, as came our fathers, 
 
 Heralded by thee, 
 Conquering from the eastward. 
 
 Lords by land and sea. 
 Come ; and strong within us 
 
 Stir the Vikings' blood ; 
 Bracing brain and sinew : 
 
 Blow, thou wind of God ! 
 
236 
 
 TO G * 
 
 A HASTY jest I once let fall 
 As jests are wont to be, untrue 
 As if the sum of joy to you 
 
 Were hunt and picnic, rout and ball. 
 
 Your eyes met mine : I did not blame ; 
 You saw it : but I touched too near 
 Some noble nerve ; a silent tear 
 
 Spoke soft reproach, and lofty shame. 
 
 I do not wish those words unsaid. 
 Unspoilt by praise and pleasure, you 
 In that one look to woman grew, 
 
 While with a child, I thought, I played. 
 
 Next to mine own beloved so long ! 
 
 I have not spent my heart in vain. 
 
 I watched the blade ; I see the grain ; 
 A woman's soul, most soft, yet strong. 
 
237 
 
 SAINT MAURA. A.D. 304. 
 
 THANK God ! Those gazers' eyes are gone at last ! 
 The guards are crouching underneath the rock ; 
 The lights are fading in the town below, 
 Around the cottage which this morn was ours. 
 Kind sun, to set, and leave us here alone ; 
 Alone upon our crosses with our God ; 
 While all the angels watch us from the stars. 
 Kind moon, to shine so clear and full on him, 
 And bache his lirnbs in glory, for a sign 
 Of what awaits him ! Oh look on him, Lord ! 
 Look, and remember how he saved thy lamb ! 
 
 Oh listen to me, teacher, husband, love, 
 Never till now loved utterly ! Oh say, 
 Say you forgive me ? No you must not speak : 
 You said it to me hours ago long hours ! 
 Now you must rest, and when to-morrow comes 
 Speak to the people, call them home to God, 
 A deacon on the Cross, as in the Church ; 
 And plead from off the tree with outspread arms, 
 To show them that the Son of God endured 
 For them and me. Hush ! I alone will speak, 
 And wile away the hours till dawn for you. 
 I know you have forgiven me ; as I lay 
 Beneath your feet, while they were binding me, 
 I knew I was forgiven then ! When I cried 
 " Here am I, husband ! The lost lamb returned, 
 All re-baptized in blood ! " and you said, " Come ! 
 Come to thy bride-bed, martyr, wife once more ! " 
 From that same moment all my pain was gone ; 
 And ever since those sightless eyes have smiled 
 Love love ! Alas, those eyes ! They made me fall 
 
238 Saint Maura. 
 
 I could not bear to see them bleeding, dark, 
 
 Never, no never to look into mine ; 
 
 Never to watch me round the little room 
 
 Singing about my work, or flash on me 
 
 Looks bright with counsel. Then they drove me mad 
 
 With talk of nameless tortures waiting you 
 
 And I could save you ! You would hear your love 
 
 They knew you ioved me, cruel men ! And then 
 
 Then came a dream ; to say one little word, 
 
 One easy wicked word, we both might say, 
 
 And no one hear us, but the lictors round ; 
 
 One tiny sprinkle of the incense grains, 
 
 And both, both free ! And life had just begun 
 
 Only three months short months your wedded wife! 
 
 Only three months within the cottage there 
 
 Hoping I bore your child. . . . 
 
 Ah ! husband ! Saviour ! God ! think gently of me ! 
 
 I am forgiven ! . . . 
 
 And then another dream ; 
 A flash so quick, I could not bear the blaze ; 
 I could not see the smoke among the light 
 To wander out through unknown lands, and lead 
 You by the hand through hamlet, port, and town, 
 On, on, until we died : and stand each day 
 To glory in you, as you preached and prayed 
 From rock and bourne-stone, with that voice, those 
 
 words, 
 
 Mingled with fire and honey you would wake, 
 Bend, save whole nations ! would not that atone 
 For one short word ? ay, make it right, to save 
 You, you, to fight the battles of the Lord ? 
 And so and so alas ! you knew the rest ! 
 
 You answered me 
 
 Ah cruel words ! No ! Blessed, godlike words ! 
 You had done nobly had you struck me dead, 
 Instead of striking me to life ! the temptress ! . , 
 
Saint Maura. 239 
 
 " Traitress ! apostate ! dead to God and me ! " 
 " The smell of death upon me ?" so it was ! 
 True ! true ! well spoken, hero ! Oh they snapped, 
 Those words, my madness, like the angel's voice 
 Thrilling the graves to birth-pangs. All was clear. 
 There was but one right thing in the world to do ; 
 And I must do it. . . Lord, have mercy ! Christ ! 
 Help through my womanhood : or I shall fail 
 Yet, as I failed before ! . . I could not speak 
 I could not speak for shame and misery, 
 And terror of my sin, and of the things 
 I knew were coming : but in heaven, in heaven ! 
 There we should meet, perhaps and by that time 
 1 might be worthy of you once again 
 Of you, and of my God. . . So I went out. 
 ****** 
 
 Will you hear more, and so forget the pain ? 
 And yet I dread to tell you what comes next ; 
 Your love will feel it all again for me. 
 No ! it is over; and the woe that's dead 
 Rises next hour a glorious angel. Love. ! 
 Say, shall I tell you ? Ah ! your lips are dry ! 
 To-morrow, when they come, we must entreat, 
 And they will give you water. One to-day, 
 A soldier, gave me water in a sponge 
 Upon a reed, and said, " Too fair ! too young ! 
 She might have been a gallant soldier wife ! " 
 And then I cried, " I am a soldier's wife ! 
 A hero's ! " And he smiled, but let me drink. 
 God bless him for it ! 
 
 So they led me back : 
 And as I went, a voice was in my ears 
 Which rang through all the sunlight, and the breath 
 And blaze of all the garden slopes below, 
 And through the harvest-voices, and the moan 
 Of cedar-forests on the cliffs above, 
 
24O 
 
 Saint Maura. 
 
 And round the shining rivers, and the peaks 
 
 Which hung beyond the cloud-bed of the west, 
 
 And round the ancient stones about my feet. 
 
 Out of all heaven and earth it rang, and cried, 
 
 " My hand hath made all these. Am I too weak 
 
 To give thee strength to say so ?" Then my soul 
 
 Spread like a clear blue sky within my breast, 
 
 While all the people made a ring around, 
 
 And in the midst the judge spoke smilingly 
 
 " Well ! hast thou brought him to a better mind ? f 
 
 " No ! He has brought me to a better mind ! "- 
 
 I cried, and said beside I know not what 
 
 Words which I learnt from thee I trust in God 
 
 Nought fierce or rude for was I not a girl 
 
 Three months ago beneath my mother's roof ? 
 
 I thought of that. She might be there ! I looked 
 
 She was not there ! I hid my face and wept 
 
 And when I looked again, the judge's eye 
 
 Was on me, cold and steady, deep in thought 
 
 " She knows what shame is still ; so strip her." " Ah ! " 
 
 I shrieked, " Not that, Sir ! Any pain ! So young 
 
 I am a wife too I am not my own, 
 
 But his my husband's ! " But they took my shawl, 
 
 And tore my tunic off, and there I stood 
 
 Before them all ... Husband ! you love me still ? 
 
 Indeed I pleaded ! Oh, shine out, kind moon, 
 
 Audi let me see him smile ! Oh ! how I prayed, 
 
 While some cried " Shame ! " and some, " She is toe 
 
 young ! " 
 
 And some mocked ugly words : God shut my ears. 
 And yet no earthquake came to swallow me. 
 While all the court around, and walls, and roofs. 
 And all the earth and air were full of eyes, 
 Eyes, eyes, which scorched my limbs like burning flame, 
 Until my brain seemed bursting from my brow : 
 And yet no earthquake came ! And then I knew 
 
Saint Maura. 241 
 
 This body was not yours alone, but God's 
 His loan He needed it : and after that 
 The worst was come, and any torture more 
 A change a lightening ; and I did not shriek- 
 Once only once, when first I felt the whip 
 It coiled so keen around my side, and sent 
 A fire-flash through my heart which choked me 
 
 then 
 
 I shrieked that once. The foolish echo rang 
 So far and long I prayed you might not hear. 
 And then a mist, which hid the ring of eyes, 
 Swam by me, and a murmur in my ears 
 Of humming bees around the limes at home ; 
 And I was all alone with you and God. 
 And what they did to me I hardly know ; 
 I felt, and did not feel. Now I look back, 
 It was not after all so very sharp : 
 So do not pity me. It made me pray ; 
 Forget my shame in pain, and pain in you, 
 And you in God : and once, when I looked down, 
 And saw an ugly sight so many wounds ! 
 " What matter ?" thought I. " His dear eyes are dark ; 
 For them alone I kept these limbs so white 
 A foolish pride ! As God wills now. 'Tis just." 
 
 But then the judge spoke out in haste : " She is 
 
 mad, 
 
 Or fenced by magic arts ! She feels no pain ! " 
 He did not know I was on fire within : 
 Better he should not ; so his sin was less. 
 Then he cried fiercely, " Take the slave away, 
 And crucify her by her husband's side ! " 
 And at those words a film came on my face- - 
 A sickening rush of joy was that the end? 
 That my reward ? I rose, and tried to go 
 But all the eyes had vanished, and the judge ; 
 And all the buildings melted into mist : 
 
 R 
 
242 Saint Maura. 
 
 So how they brought me here I cannot tell 
 
 Here, here, by you, until the judgment-day, 
 
 And after that for ever and for ever ! 
 
 Ah ! If I could but reach that hand ! One touch ! 
 
 One ringer tip, to send the thrill through me 
 
 I felt but yesterday ! No ! I can wait : -- 
 
 Another body ! Oh, new li mbs are ready, 
 
 Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve, 
 
 Kept for us in the treasuries of God. 
 
 They will not mar the love they try to speak, 
 
 They will not fail my soul, as these have done ! 
 
 ****** 
 Will you hear more ? Nay you know all the rest : 
 Yet those poor eyes alas ! they could not see 
 My waking, when you hung above me there 
 With hands outstretched to bless the penitent 
 Your penitent even like The Lord Himself 
 I gloried in you ! like The Lord Himself ! 
 Sharing His very sufferings, to the crown 
 Of thorns which they had put on that dear brow 
 To make you like Him show you as you were ! 
 I told them so ! I bid them look on you, 
 And see there what was the highest throne on 
 
 earth 
 
 The throne of suffering, where the Son of God 
 Endured and triumphed for them. But they laughed ; 
 All but one soldier, grey, with many scars ; 
 And he stood silent. Then I crawled to you, 
 And kissed your bleeding feet, and called aloud 
 You heard me ! You know all ! I am at peace. 
 Peace, peace, as still and bright as is the moon 
 Upon your limbs, came on me at your smile, 
 And kept me happy, when they dragged me back 
 From that last kiss, and spread me on the cross, 
 And bound my wrists and ankles Do not sigh : 
 I prayed, and bore it : and since they raised me up 
 
Saint Maura. 243 
 
 My eyes have never left your face, my own, my own, 
 Nor will, till death comes ! . . . 
 
 Do I feel much pain ? 
 
 Not much. Not maddening. None I cannot bear. 
 It has become like part of my own life, 
 Or part of God's life in me honour bliss ! 
 1 dreaded madness, and instead comes rest ; 
 Rest deep and smiling, like a summer's night. 
 I should be easy, now, if I could move .... 
 1 cannot stir. Ah God ! these shoots of fire 
 Through all my limbs! Hush, selfish girl! He hears 
 
 you! 
 
 Who ever found the cross a pleasant bed ? 
 Yes ; I can bear it, love. Pain is no evil 
 Unless it conquers us. These little wrists. now- 
 You said, one blessed night, they were too slender, 
 Too soft and slender for a deacon's wife 
 Perhaps a martyr's : You forgot the strength 
 Which God can give. The cord has cut them through ; 
 And yet my voice has never faltered yet. 
 Oh ! do not groan, or I shall long and pray 
 That you may die : and you must not die yet. 
 Not yet they told us we might live three days . . . 
 Two days for you to preach ! Two days to speak 
 Words which may wake the dead ! 
 ******* 
 
 Hush ! is he sleeping ? 
 
 They say that men have slept upon the cross ; 
 So why not he ? . . . Thanks, Lord ! I hear him breathe : 
 And he will preach Thy word to-morrow ! save 
 Souls, crowds, for Thee ! And they will know his worth 
 Years hence poor things, they know not what they 
 
 do! 
 
 And crown him martyr ; and his name will ring 
 Through all the shores of earth, and all the stars 
 Whose eves are sparkling through their tears to see 
 R 2 
 
244 Saint Maura. 
 
 His triumph Preacher ! Martyr ! Ah and me ? 
 If they must couple my poor name with his, 
 Let them tell all the truth say how I loved him, 
 And tried to damn him by that love ! Oh Lord J 
 Returning good for evil ! and was this 
 The payment I deserved for such a sin ? 
 To hang here on my cross, and look at him 
 Until we kneel before Thy throne in heaven ! 
 
POEMS 
 
 CONNECTED WITH 1848-9. 
 
POEMS 
 CONNECTED WITH 1848-9. 
 
 THE NIGHT BIRD. 
 
 A FLOATING, a floating 
 Across the sleeping sea, 
 All night I heard a singing bird 
 Upon the topmast tree. 
 
 " Oh came you off the isles of Greece, 
 Or off the banks of Seine ; 
 Or off some tree in forests free, 
 Which fringe the western main?" 
 
 " I came not off the old world 
 Nor yet from off the new 
 But I am one of the birds of God 
 Which sing the whole night through." 
 
 " Oh sing, and wake the dawning 
 Oh whistle for the wind ; 
 The night is long, the current strong, 
 My boat it lags behind." 
 
 " The current sweeps the old world, 
 The current sweeps the new ; 
 The wind will blow, the dawn will glow, 
 Ere thou hast sailed them through." 
 
248 
 
 THE WATCHMAN. 
 
 41 WATCHMAN, what of the night?" 
 
 "The stars are out in the sky? 
 And the merry round moon will be rising soon. 
 
 For us to go sailing by." 
 
 "Watchman, what of the night?" 
 " The tide flows in from the sea ; 
 
 There's water to float a little cockboa 
 Will carry such fishers as we." 
 
 ' Watchman, what of the night ?" 
 
 " The night is a fruitful time ; 
 When to many a pair are born children fair, 
 
 To be christened at morning chime." 
 
249 
 
 THE WORLD'S AGE. 
 
 WHO will say the world is dying ? 
 
 Who will say our prime is past ? 
 Sparks from Heaven, within us lying, 
 
 Flash, and will flash till the last. 
 Fools ! who fancy Christ mistaken ; 
 
 Man a tool to buy and sell ; 
 Earth a failure, God-forsaken, 
 
 Anteroom of Hell. 
 
 Still the race of Hero-spirits 
 
 Pass the lamp from hand to hand ; 
 Age from age the Words inherits 
 
 " Wife, and Child, and Fatherland." 
 Still the youthful hunter gathers 
 
 Fiery joy from wold and wood ; 
 He will dare as dared his fathers 
 
 Give him cause as good. 
 
 While a slave bewails his fetters ; 
 
 While an orphan pleads in vain : 
 While an infant lisps his letters, 
 
 Heir of all the age's gain ; 
 While a lip grows ripe for kissing ; 
 
 While a moan from man is wrung j 
 Know, by every want and blessing, 
 
 That the world is young. 
 
250 
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 IT chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve, 
 
 I went sighing past the church across the moorland 
 
 dreary 
 
 '' Oh ! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, 
 And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing 
 
 so cheery. 
 How long, O Lord ! how long before Thou come again ? 
 
 Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary 
 The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil 
 
 in vain, 
 
 Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas 
 bells be cheery." 
 
 Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild fowl on the 
 
 mere, 
 Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells 
 
 ringing, 
 And a voice within cried " Listen ! Christmas carols 
 
 even here ! 
 Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and 
 
 snows are singing. 
 
 Blind ! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through 
 With the thunder of my judgments even now are 
 
 ringing ; 
 
 Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, 
 Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it 
 angels singing." 
 
251 
 
 THE DEAD CHURCH. 
 
 WILD wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing ? 
 
 Dark dark night, wilt thou never wear away ? 
 Cold cold church, in thy death sleep lying, 
 
 The Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine 
 Easter-day. 
 
 Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing ; 
 
 Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain. 
 Weep, dear Lord, above thy bride low lying ; 
 
 Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health 
 again. 
 
 A PARABLE FROM LIEBIG. 
 
 THE church bells were ringing, the devil sat singing 
 
 On the stump of a rotting old tree ; 
 " Oh faith it grows cold, and the creeds they grow old, 
 
 And the world is nigh ready for me." 
 
 The bells went on ringing, a spirit came singing, 
 
 And smiled as he crumbled the tree ; 
 u Yon wood does not perish new seedlings to cherish, 
 
 And the world is too live yet for thee." 
 
25: 
 
 MY HUNTING SONG. 
 
 FORWARD ! Hark forward's the cry ! 
 One more fence and we're out on the open, 
 So to us at once, if you want to live near us 1 
 Hark to them, ride to them, beauties ! as on they go, 
 Leaping and sweeping away in the vale below ! 
 Cowards and bunglers, whose heart or whose eye is slow, 
 Find themselves staring alone. 
 
 So the great cause flashes by ; 
 Nearer and clearer its purposes open, 
 While louder and prouder the world-echoes cheer us : 
 Gentlemen sportsmen, you ought to live up to us, 
 Lead us, and lift us, and hallo our game to us 
 We cannot call the hounds off, and no shame to us 
 Don't be left staring alone ! 
 
/ //v 
 
 253 
 
 ALTON LOCKE'S SONG. 1848. 
 
 WEEP, weep, weep and weep, 
 For pauper, dolt, and slave ! 
 Hark ! from wasted moor and fen 
 Feverous alley, stifling den, 
 Swells the wail of Saxon men 
 Work ! or the grave ! 
 
 Down, down, down and down 
 With idler, knave, and tyrant ! 
 
 Why for sluggards cark and moil ? 
 
 He that will not live by toil 
 
 Has no right on English soil ! 
 God's word's our warrant ! 
 
 Up, up, up and up ! 
 
 Face your game and play it ! 
 The night is past, behold the sun I 
 The idols fall, the lie is done ! 
 The Judge is set, the doom begun ! 
 
 Who shall stay it? 
 
254 
 
 THE BAD SQUIRE. 
 
 THE merry brown hares came leaping 
 
 Over the crest of the hill, 
 Where the clover and corn lay sleeping 
 
 Under the moonlight still. 
 
 Leaping late and early, 
 
 Till under their bite and their tread 
 The swedes and the wheat and the barley 
 
 Lay cankered and trampled and dead. 
 
 A poacher's widow sat sighing 
 
 On the side of the white chalk bank, 
 
 Where under the gloomy fir- woods 
 One spot in the ley throve rank. 
 
 She watched a long tuft of clover, 
 Where rabbit or hare never ran ; 
 
 For its black sour haulm covered over 
 The blood of a murdered man. 
 
 She thought of the dark plantation, 
 
 And the hares, and her husband's blood, 
 
 And the voice of her indignation 
 Rose up to the throne of God. 
 
 " I am long past wailing and whining 
 I have wept too much in my life : 
 
 I've had twenty years of pining 
 As an English labourer's wife. 
 
The Bad Squire. 255 
 
 %i A labourer in Christian England, 
 Where they cant of a Saviour's name, 
 
 And yet waste men's lives like the vermin'c 
 For a few more brace of game. 
 
 " There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire, 
 There's blood on your pointer's feet ; 
 
 There's blood on the game you sell, squire, 
 And there's blood on the game you eat. 
 
 " You have sold the labouring-man, squire, 
 
 Body and soul to shame, 
 To pay for your seat in the House, squire, 
 
 And to pay for the feed of your game. 
 
 " You made him a poacher yourself, squire, 
 When you'd give neither work nor meat, 
 
 And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden 
 At our starving children's feet ; 
 
 " When, packed in one reeking chamber, 
 Man, maid, mother, and little ones lay ; 
 
 While the rain pattered in on the rotting bride-bed, 
 And the walls let in the day. 
 
 " When we lay in the burning fever 
 
 On the mud of the cold clay floor, 
 Till you parted us all for three months, squire, 
 
 At the dreary workhouse door. 
 
 tf We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders ? 
 
 What self-respect could we keep, 
 Worse housed than your hacks and your pointers, 
 
 Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep ? 
 
 " Our daughters with base-born babies 
 Have wandered away in their shame , 
 
 If your misses had slept, squire, where they did, 
 Your misses might do the same. 
 
256 The Bad Squire. 
 
 " Can your lady patch hearts that are bieaking 
 
 With handfuls of coals and rice, 
 Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting 
 
 A little below cost price ? 
 
 " You may tire of the jail and the workhouse, 
 And take to allotments and schools, 
 
 But you've run up a debt that will never 
 Be paid us by penny-club rules. 
 
 " In the season of shame and sadness, 
 
 In the dark and dreary day, 
 When scrofula, gout, and madness 
 
 Are eating your race away ; 
 
 " When to kennels and liveried varlets 
 You have cast your daughter's bread, 
 
 And, worn out with liquor and harlots, 
 Your heir at your feet lies dead ; 
 
 " When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector, 
 Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave, 
 
 You will find in your God the protector 
 Of the freeman you fancied your slave." 
 
 She looked at the tuft of clover, 
 And wept till her heart grew light ; 
 
 And at last, when her passion was over, 
 Went wandering into the night. 
 
 But the merry brown hares came leaping 
 
 Over the uplands still, 
 Where the clover and corn lay sleeping 
 
 On the side of the white chalk hill. 
 
25; 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A CERTAIN JOURNAL 
 
 So die, thou child of stormy dawn, 
 Thou winter flower, forlorn 5f nurse ; 
 Chilled early by the bigot's curse, 
 The pedant's frown, the worldling's yawn. 
 
 Fair death, to fall in teeming June, 
 When every seed which drops to earth 
 Takes root, and wins a second birth 
 From steaming shower and gleaming moon. 
 
 Fall warm, fall fast, thou mellow rain ; 
 Thou rain of God, make fat the land ; 
 That roots which parch in burning sand 
 May bud to flower and fruit again. 
 
 To grace, perchance, a fairer morn 
 In mightier lands beyond the sea, 
 While honour falls to such as we 
 From hearts of heroes yet unborn. 
 
 Who in the light of fuller day, 
 Of purer science, holier laws, 
 Bless us, faint heralds of their cause, 
 Dim beacons of their glorious way. 
 
 Failure ? While tide-floods rise and boil 
 Round cape and isle, in port and cove, 
 Resistless, star-led from above : 
 What though our tiny wave recoil ? 
 
2 5 8 
 
 A THOUGHT FROM THE RHINE. 
 
 I HEARD an Eagle crying all alone 
 
 Above the vineyards through the summer night, 
 
 Among the skeletons of robber towers : 
 
 Because the ancient eyrie of his race 
 
 Was trenched and walled by busy-handed men ; 
 
 And all his forest-chace and woodland wild, 
 
 Wherefrom he fed his young with hare and roe, 
 
 Were trim with grapes which swelled from hour to hour, 
 
 And tossed their golden tendrils to the sun 
 
 For joy at their own riches : So, I thought, 
 
 The great devourers of the earth shall sit, 
 
 Idle and impotent, they know not why, 
 
 Down-staring from their barren height of state 
 
 On nations grown too wise to slay and slave, 
 
 The puppets of the few, while peaceful lore 
 
 And fellow-help make glad the heart of earth, 
 
 With wonders which they fear and hate, as he, 
 
 The Eagle, hates the vineyard slopes below. 
 
259 
 
 THE DAY OF THE LORD. 
 
 THE Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand : 
 
 Its storms roll up the sky : 
 The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold ; 
 
 All dreamers toss and sigh ; 
 The night is darkest before the morn ; 
 When the pain is sorest the child is born, 
 And the Day of the Lord at hand. 
 
 Gather you, gather you, angels of God 
 Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth ; 
 
 Come ! for the Earth is grown coward and old, 
 Come down, and renew us her youth. 
 
 Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love, 
 
 Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above, 
 To the Day of the Lord at hand. 
 
 Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell 
 
 Famine, and Plague, and War ; 
 Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule, 
 
 Gather, and fall in the snare ! 
 Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave, 
 Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave, 
 In the Day of the Lord at hand. 
 S 2 
 
260 The Day of the Lord. 
 
 Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold, 
 
 While the Lord of all ages is here ? 
 True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God. 
 
 And those who can suffer, can dare. 
 Each old age of gold was an iron age too, 
 And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do. 
 In the Day of the Lord at hand. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 
 
EARLY POEMS. 
 
 IN AN ILLUMINATED MISSAL. 
 
 I WOULD have loved : there are no mates in heaven 
 I would be great : there is no pride in heaven ; 
 I would have sung, as doth the nightingale 
 The summer's night beneath the moone pale : 
 But Saintes hymnes alone in heaven prevail. 
 My love, my song, my skill, my high intent, 
 Have I within this seely book y-pent : 
 And all that beauty which from every part 
 I treasured still alway within mine heart, 
 Whether of form or face angelical, 
 Or herb or flower, or lofty cathedral, 
 Upon these sheets below doth lie y-spred, 
 In quaint devices deftly blazoned. 
 
 Lord, in this tome to thee I sanctify 
 
 The sinful fruits of worldly fantasy. 
 
264 
 
 THE WEIRD LADY. 
 
 THE swevens came up round Harold the Earl, 
 
 Like motes in the sunnes beam ; 
 And over him stood the Weird Lady, 
 In her charmed castle over the sea, 
 
 Sang " Lie thou still and dream." 
 
 " Thy steed is dead in his stall, Earl Harold, 
 
 Since thou hast been with me ; 
 The rust has eaten thy harness bright, 
 And the rats have eaten thy greyhound lighi, 
 
 That was so fair and free." 
 
 Mary Mother she stooped from heaven ; 
 She wakened Earl Harold out of his sweven, 
 
 To don his harness on ; 
 And over the land and over the sea 
 He wended abroad to his own countrie, 
 
 A weary way to gon. 
 
 O but his beard was white with eld, 
 
 O but his hair was gray ; 
 He stumbled on by stock and stone, 
 And as he journeyed he made his moan 
 
 Along that weary way. 
 
The Weird Lady. 265 
 
 Earl Harold came to his castle wall ; 
 
 The gate was burnt with fire ; 
 Roof and rafter were fallen down, 
 The folk were strangers all in the town, 
 
 And strangers all in the shire. 
 
 Earl Harold came to a house of nuns, 
 
 And he heard the dead-bell toll ; 
 He saw the sexton stand by a grave ; 
 " Now Christ have mercy, who did us save, 
 
 Upon yon fair nun's soul." 
 
 The nuns they came from the convent gate 
 
 By one, by two, by three ; 
 They sang for the soul of a lady bright 
 Who died for the love of a traitor knight : 
 
 It was his own lady. 
 
 He stayed the corpse beside the grave ; 
 
 " A sign, a sign ! " quod he. 
 " Mary Mother who rulest heaven, 
 Send me a sign if I be forgiven 
 
 By the woman who so loved me." 
 
 A white dove out of the coffin flew ; 
 
 Earl Harold's mouth it kist ; 
 He fell on his face, wherever he stood ; 
 And the white dove carried his soul to God 
 
 Or ever the bearers wist. 
 
266 
 
 PALINODIA. 1841. 
 
 YE mountains, on whose torrent-furrowed slopes, 
 And bare and silent brows uplift to heaven, 
 I envied oft the soul which fills your wastes 
 Of pure and stern sublime, and still expanse 
 Unbroken by the petty incidents 
 Of noisy life : Oh hear me once again ! 
 
 Winds, upon whose racked eddies, far aloft, 
 Above the murmur of the uneasy world, 
 My thoughts in exultation held their way : 
 Whose tremulous whispers through the rustling glade 
 Were once to me unearthly tones of love, 
 Joy without object, wordless music, stealing 
 Through all my soul, until my pulse beat fast 
 With aimless hope, and unexpressed desire 
 
 Thou sea, who wast to me a prophet deep 
 
 Through all thy restless waves, and wasting shores, 
 
 Of silent labour, and eternal change ; 
 
 First teacher of the dense immensity 
 
 Of ever-stirring life, in thy strange forms 
 
 Of fish, and shell, and worm, and oozy weed : 
 
 To me alike thy frenzy and thy sleep 
 
 Have been a deep and breathless joy : Oh hear ! 
 
 Mountains, and winds, and waves, take back your child ! 
 Upon thy balmy bosom, Mother Nature, 
 Where my young spirit dreamt its years away, 
 Give me once more to nestle : I have strayed 
 Far through another world, which is not thine. 
 
Palinodia. 267 
 
 Through sunless cities, and the weary haunts 
 
 Of smoke-grimed labour, and foul revelry 
 
 My flagging wing has swept. A mateless bird's 
 
 My pilgrimage has been ; through sin, and doubt, 
 
 And darkness, seeking love. Oh hear me, Nature ! 
 
 Receive me once again : but not alone j 
 
 No more alone, Great Mother ! I have brought 
 
 One who has wandered, yet not sinned, like me. 
 
 Upon thy lap, twin children, let us lie ; 
 
 And in the light of thine immortal eyes 
 
 Let our souls mingle, till The Father calls 
 
 To some eternal home the charge He gives. 
 
 A HOPE. 
 
 TWIN stars, aloft in ether clear, 
 Around each other roll alway, 
 
 Within one common atmosphere 
 Of their own mutual light and day 
 
 And myriad happy eyes are bent 
 Upon their changeless love alway ; 
 
 As, strengthened by their one intent, 
 They pour the flood of life and day. 
 
 So we through this world's waning night 
 May, hand in hand, pursue our way ; 
 
 Shed round us order, love, and light, 
 And shine unto the perfect day. 
 
268 
 
 A NEW FOREST BALLAD. 
 
 OH she tripped over Ocknell plain, 
 
 And down by Bradley Water ; 
 And the fairest maid on the forest side 
 
 Was Jane, the keeper's daughter. 
 
 She went and went through the broad grey lawns 
 
 As down the red sun sank, 
 And chill as the scent of a new-made grave 
 
 The mist smelt cold and dank. 
 
 " A token, a token ! " that fair maid cried, 
 
 " A token that bodes me sorrow ; 
 For they that smell the grave by night 
 
 Will see the corpse to-morrow. 
 
 " My own true love in Burley "Walk 
 
 Does hunt to-night, I fear ; 
 And if he meet my father stern, 
 
 His game may cost him dear. 
 
 " Ah, here's a curse on hare' and grouse, 
 
 A curse on hart and hind ; 
 And a health to the squire in all England, 
 
 Leaves never a 'head behind." 
 
 Her true love shot a mighty hart 
 
 Among the standing rye, 
 When on him leapt that keeper old 
 
 From the fern where he did lie. 
 
 The forest laws were sharp and stern, 
 
 The forest blood was keen ; 
 They lashed together for life and death 
 
 Beneath the hollies green. 
 
A New Forest Ballad. 269 
 
 The metal good and the walnut wood 
 
 Did soon in flinders flee ; 
 They tost the orts to south and north, 
 
 And grappled knee to knee. 
 
 They wrestled up, they wrestled down, 
 
 They wrestled still and sore ; 
 Beneath their feet the myrtle sweet 
 
 Was stamped to mud and gore. 
 
 Ah cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon, 
 
 That starest with never a frown 
 On all the grim and the ghastly things 
 
 That are wrought in thorpe and town : 
 
 And yet, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon, 
 
 That night hadst never the grace 
 To lighten two dying Christian men 
 
 To see one another's face. 
 
 They wrestled up, they wrestled down, 
 
 They wrestled sore and still 
 The fiend who blinds the eyes of men 
 
 That night he had his will. 
 
 Like stags full spent, among the bent 
 
 They dropped a while to rest ; 
 When the young man drove his saying knife 
 
 Deep in the old man's breast. 
 
 The old man drove his gunstock down 
 
 Upon the young man's head ; 
 And side by side, by the water brown, 
 
 Those yeomen twain lay dead. 
 
 They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard ; 
 
 They dug them side by side ; 
 Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair, 
 
 A widow and never a bride. 
 
270 
 
 THE RED KING. 
 
 THE King was drinking in Mai wood Hall, 
 
 There came in a monk before them all : 
 
 He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight, 
 
 Stood over against the dais aright ; 
 
 And, " The word of the Lord, thou cruel Red King, 
 
 The word of the Lord to thee I bring. 
 
 A grimly sweven I dreamt yestreen ; 
 
 I saw thee lie under the hollins green, 
 
 And through thine heart an arrow keen ; 
 
 And out of thy body a smoke did rise, 
 
 Which smirched the sunshine out of the skies : 
 
 So if thou God's anointed be 
 
 I rede thee unto thy soul thou see. 
 
 For mitre and pall thou hast y-sold, 
 
 False knight to Christ, for gain and gold ; 
 
 And for this thy forest were digged down all, 
 
 Steading and hamlet and churches tall ; 
 
 And Christe's poor were ousten forth, 
 
 To beg their bread from south to north. 
 
 So tarry at home, and fast and pray, 
 
 Lest fiends hunt thee in the judgment-day/' 
 
 The monk he vanished where he stood ; 
 King William sterte up wroth and wood ; 
 Quod he, " Fools' wits will jump together ; 
 The Hampshire ale and the thunder weather 
 Have turned the brains for us both, I think ; 
 And monks are curst when they fall to drink. 
 A lothly sweven I dreamt last night, 
 Kow there hoved anigh me a griesly knight, 
 
The Red King. 27 r 
 
 Did smite me down to the pit of hell ; 
 I shrieked and woke, so fast I fell. 
 There's Tyrrel as sour as I, perdie, 
 So he of you all shall hunt with me ; 
 A grimly brace for a hart to see." 
 
 The Red King down from Malwood came ; 
 His heart with wine was all a-flame, 
 His eyne were shotten, red as blood, 
 He rated and swore, wherever he rode. 
 
 They roused a hart, that grimly brace, 
 A hart of ten, a heart of grease, 
 Fled over against the kinge's place. 
 The sun it blinded the kinge's ee, 
 A fathom behind his hocks shot he : 
 
 " Shoot thou," quod he, " in the fiende's name, 
 To lose such a quarry were seven years' shame." 
 And he hove up his hand to mark the game. 
 Tyrrel he shot full light, God wot ; 
 For whether the saints they swerved the shot, 
 Or whether by treason, men knowen not, 
 But under the arm, in a secret part, 
 The iron fled through the kinge's heart. 
 The turf it squelched where the Red King fell , 
 And the fiends they carried his soul to hell, 
 Quod " His master's name it hath sped him well." 
 
 Tyrrel he smited full grim that day, 
 Quod " Shooting of kings is no bairns' play ; " 
 And he smote in the spurs, and fled fast away. 
 As he pricked along by Fritham plain, 
 The green tufts flew behind like rain ; 
 The waters were out, and over the sward : 
 He swam his horse like a stalwart lord ; 
 Men clepen that water TyrrePs ford. 
 
272 The Red King. 
 
 By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh, 
 
 Through glade and furze brake fast drove he, 
 
 Until he heard the roaring sea ; 
 
 Quod he, " Those gay waves they call me." 
 
 By Mary's grace a seely boat 
 
 On Christchurch bar did lie afloat ; 
 
 He gave the shipmen mark and groat, 
 
 To ferry him over to Normandie, 
 
 And there he fell to sanctuarie ; 
 
 God send his soul all bliss to see. 
 
 And fend our princes every one, 
 From foul mishap and trahison ; 
 But kings that harrow Christian men, 
 Shall England never bide again. 
 
273 
 
 THE OUTLAW. 
 
 OH, I wadna be a yeoman, mither, to follow my father's 
 
 trade, 
 To bow my back in miry banks, at pleugh and hoe and 
 
 spade. 
 Stinting wife, and bairns, and kye, to fat some courtier 
 
 lord, 
 Let them die o' rent wha like, mither, and I'll die by 
 
 sword. 
 
 Nor I wadna be a clerk, mither, to bide aye ben, 
 Scrabbling ower the sheets o' parchment with a weary 
 
 weary pen ; 
 Looking through the lang stane windows at a narrow 
 
 strip o' sky, 
 Like a laverock in a withy cage, until I pine away and 
 
 die. 
 
 Nor I wadna be a merchant, mither, in his lang furred 
 
 gown, 
 Trailing strings o' footsore horses through the noisy 
 
 dusty town ; 
 Louting low to knights and ladies, fumbling o'er his 
 
 wares, 
 Telling lies, and scraping siller, heaping cares on cares. 
 
 Nor I wadna be a soldier, mither, to dice wi' ruffian 
 
 bands, 
 Pining weary months in castles, looking over wasted 
 
 lands. 
 
 T 
 
274 The Outlaw. 
 
 Smoking byres, and shrieking women, and the grewsome 
 
 sights o' war 
 There's blood on my hand eneugh, mither ; it's ill to 
 
 make it mair. 
 
 If I had married a wife, mither, I might ha' been douce 
 
 and still, 
 And sat at hame by the ingle side to crack and laugh 
 
 my fill ; 
 Sat at hame wi' the woman I looed, and wi' bairnies at 
 
 my knee : 
 But death is bauld, and age is cauld, and luve's no 
 
 for me. 
 
 For when first I stirred in your side, mither, ye ken full 
 
 well 
 How you lay all night up among the deer out on the 
 
 open fell ; 
 And so it was that I won the heart to wander far and 
 
 near, 
 Caring neither for land nor lassie, but the bonny dun 
 
 deer. 
 
 Yet I am not a losel and idle, mither, nor a thief that 
 
 steals ; 
 
 I do but hunt God's cattle, upon God's ain hills ; 
 For no man buys and sells the deer, and the bonnie 
 
 fells are free 
 To a belted knight with hawk on hand, and a gangrel 
 
 loon like me. 
 
 So I'm aff and away to the muirs, mither, to hunt the 
 
 deer, 
 Ranging far frae frowning faces, and the douce folk 
 
 here ; 
 
The Outlaw. 275 
 
 Crawling up through burn and bracken, louping down 
 
 the screes, 
 Looking out frae craig and headland, drinking up the 
 
 simmer breeze. 
 
 Oh, the wafts o' heather honey, and the music o' the 
 
 brae, 
 As I watch the great harts feeding, nearer, nearer a' the 
 
 day. 
 Oh, to hark the eagle screaming, sweeping, ringing 
 
 round the sky 
 That's a bonnier life than stumbling ower the muck to 
 
 colt and kye. 
 
 And when I'm taen and hangit, mither, a brittling o' my 
 
 deer, 
 Ye'll no leave your bairn to the corbie craws, to dangle 
 
 in the air ; 
 But yell send up my twa douce brethren, and ye'll steal 
 
 me frae the tree, 
 And bury me up on the brown brown muirs, where I 
 
 aye looed to be. 
 
 Yell bury me 'twixt the brae and the burn, in a glen far 
 
 away, 
 Where I may hear the heathcock craw, and the great 
 
 harts bray ; 
 And gin my ghaist can walk, mither, I'll go glowering 
 
 at the sky, 
 The livelong night on the black hill sides where the dun 
 
 deer lie. 
 
2 7 6 
 
 SING HEIGH-HO ! 
 
 THERE sits a bird on every tree ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho ! 
 
 There sits a bird on every tree, 
 And courts his love, as I do thee ; 
 Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho ! 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 There grows a flower on every bough ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho ! 
 
 There grows a flower on every bough, 
 Its petals kiss I'll show you how : 
 Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho ! 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho ! 
 
 From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 
 Each finds a mate, and leads her home 
 
 Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho ! 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 The sun's a bridegroom, earth a bride ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho ! 
 
 They court from morn till eventide : 
 The earth shall pass, but love abide. 
 
 Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho ! 
 Young maids must many. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 (Composed for the Installation of the Duke of Devon shir e^ 
 Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, 1862.) 
 
 HENCE a while, severer Muses ; 
 Spare your slaves till drear October. 
 Hence ; for Alma Mater chooses 
 Not to be for ever sober : 
 But, like stately matron gray, 
 Calling child and grandchild round her, 
 Will for them at least be gay ; 
 Share for once their holiday ; 
 And, knowing she will sleep the sounder, 
 Cheerier-hearted on the morrow 
 Rise to grapple care and sorrow, 
 Grandly leads the dance adown, and joins the 
 children's play. 
 
 So go, for in your places 
 
 Already, as you see, 
 
 (Her tears for some deep sorrow scarcely dried), 
 Venus holds court among her sinless graces, 
 With many a nymph from many a park and lea. 
 She, pensive, waits the merrier faces 
 Of those your wittier sisters three, 
 
280 Ode. 
 
 O'er jest and dance and song who still preside, 
 To cheer her in this merry-mournful tide ; 
 And bids us, as she smiles or sighs, 
 Tune our fancies by her eyes. 
 
 Then let the young be glad, 
 
 Fair girl and gallant lad, 
 
 And sun themselves to-day 
 
 By lawn and garden gay ; 
 
 'Tis play befits the noon 
 
 Of rosy-girdled June ; 
 
 Who dare frown if heaven shall smile ? 
 
 Blest, who can forget a while ; 
 
 The world before them, and above 
 
 The light of universal love. 
 Go, then, let the young be gay ; 
 From their heart as from their dress 
 Let darkness and let mourning pass away, 
 While we the staid and worn look on and bless. 
 
 Health to courage firm and high ! 
 Health to Granta's chivalry ! 
 Wisely finding, day by day, 
 Play in toil, and toil in play. 
 Granta greets them, gliding down 
 On by park and spire and town ; 
 Humming mills and golden meadows, 
 Barred with elm and poplar shadows ; 
 Giant groves, and learned halls ; 
 Holy fanes and pictured walls. 
 Yet she bides not here ; around 
 Lies the Muses' sacred ground. 
 Most she lingers, where below 
 Gliding wherries come and go ; 
 Stalwart footsteps shake the shores ; 
 
Ode. 281 
 
 Rolls the pulse of stalwart oars ; 
 
 Rings aloft the exultant cry 
 
 For the bloodless victory. 
 
 There she greets the sports, which breed 
 
 Valiant lads for England's need ; 
 
 Wisely finding, day by day, 
 
 Play in toil, and toil in play. 
 
 Health to courage, firm and high ! 
 
 Health to Granta's chivalry ! 
 
 Yet stay a while, severer Muses, stay, 
 
 For you, too, have your rightful parts to-day. 
 
 Known long to you, and known through you to fame, 
 
 Are Chatsworth's halls, and Cavendish's name. 
 
 You too, then, Alma Mater calls to greet 
 
 A worthy patron for your ancient seat ; 
 
 And bid her sons from him example take, 
 
 Of learning purely sought for learning's sake, 
 
 Of worth unboastful, power in duty spent : 
 
 And see, fulfilled in him, her high intent. 
 
 Come, Euterpe, wake thy choir ; 
 
 Fit thy notes to our desire. 
 
 Long may he sit the chiefest here, 
 
 Meet us and greet us, year by year. 
 
 Long inherit, sire and son, 
 
 All that their race has wrought and won, 
 
 Since that great Cavendish came again, 
 
 Round the world and over the main, 
 
 Breasting the Thames with his mariners bold, 
 
 Past good Queen Bess' palace of old. 
 
 With jewel and ingot packed in his hold, 
 
 And sails of damask and cloth of gold ; 
 
 While never a sailor-boy on board 
 
 But was decked as brave as a Spanish lord, 
 
2?2 Ode. 
 
 With the spoils he had won 
 
 In the Isles of the Sun, 
 
 And the shores of Fairy-land, 
 And yet held for the crown of the goodly show, 
 That queenly smile from the Palace window, 
 
 And that wave of a queenly hand. 
 
 Yes, let the young be gay, 
 
 And sun themselves to-day ; 
 And from their hearts, as from their dress, 
 
 Let mourning pass away. 
 
 But not from us, who watch our years fast fleeing, 
 And snatching as they flee, fresh fragments of our being. 
 
 Can we forget one friend, 
 
 Can we forget one face, 
 
 Which cheered us toward our end, 
 
 Which nerved us for our race ? 
 Oh sad to toil, and yet forego 
 One presence which has made us know 
 To God-like souls how deep our debt ! 
 We would not, if we could, forget. 
 
 Severer Muses, linger yet ; 
 Speak out for us one pure and rich regret. 
 Thou, Clio, who, with awful pen, 
 Gravest great names upon the hearts of men, 
 Speak of a fate beyond our ken ; 
 A gem late found and lost too soon ; 
 A sun gone down at highest noon ; 
 A tree from Odin's ancient root, 
 Which bore for men the ancient fruit, 
 Counsel, and faith and scorn of wrong, 
 And cunning lore, and soothing song, 
 Snap in mid-growth, and leaving unaware 
 The flock unsheltered and the pasture bare. 
 
Ode. 283 
 
 Nay, let us take what God shall send, 
 Trusting bounty without end. 
 God ever lives ; and Nature, 
 Beneath his high dictature, 
 Hale and teeming, can replace 
 Strength by strength, and grace by grace, 
 Hope by hope, and friend by friend : 
 Trust ; and take what God shall send. 
 
 So shall Alma Mater see 
 
 Daughters fair and wise 
 Train new lands of liberty 
 
 Under stranger skies ; 
 Spreading round the teeming earth 
 English science, manhood, worth. 
 
284 
 
 SONGS FROM "THE WATER BABIES.' 
 
 I. 
 
 CLEAR and cool, clear and cool, 
 By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool ; 
 
 Cool and clear, cool and clear, 
 By shining shingle, and foaming wear ; 
 Under the crag where the ouzel sings, 
 And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, 
 Undefiled, for the undefiled ; 
 
 Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 
 
 Dank and foul, dank and foul, 
 By the smoky town in its murky cowl ; 
 
 Foul and dank, foul and dank, 
 By wharf and sewer and slimy bank ; 
 Darker and darker the further I go, 
 Baser and baser the richer I grow ; 
 
 Who dare sport with the sin-defiled ? 
 Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. 
 
 Strong and free, strong and free ; 
 The floodgates are open, away to the sea. 
 
 Free and strong, free and strong, 
 Cleansing my streams as I hurry along 
 To the golden sands, and the leaping bar, 
 And the taintless tide that awaits me afar, 
 As I lose myself in the infinite main, 
 Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
 
 Undefiled, for the undefiled ; 
 Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 
 
Songs from " 77*? Water Babies" 285 
 
 II. 
 
 WHEN all the world is young, lad, 
 And all the trees are green ; 
 
 And every goose a swan, lad, 
 And every lass a queen ; 
 
 Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 
 And round the world away ; 
 
 Young blood must have its course, lad, 
 And every dog his day. 
 
 When all the world is old, lad, 
 
 And all the trees are brown ; 
 And all the sport is stale, lad, 
 
 And all the wheels run down ; 
 Creep home, and take your place there, 
 
 The spent and maimed among : 
 God grant you find one face there, 
 
 You loved when all was young. 
 
 III. 
 
 SOFT soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding, 
 Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea ; 
 
 Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining 
 Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me. 
 
 Deep deep Love, within thy own abyss abiding, 
 Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea ; 
 
 Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding. 
 Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe 
 and me. 
 
286 Songs from " The Water Babies" 
 IV. 
 
 I ONCE had a sweet little doll, dears, 
 
 The prettiest doll in the world ; 
 Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears, 
 
 And her hair was so charmingly curled. 
 But I lost my poor little doll, dears, 
 
 As I played in the heath one day ; 
 And I cried for her more than a week, dears ; 
 
 But I never could find where she lay. 
 
 I found my poor little doll, dears, 
 
 As I played in the heath one day ; 
 Folks say she is terribly changed, dears, 
 
 For her paint is all washed away, 
 And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears, 
 
 And her hair not the least bit curled : 
 Yet for old sakes' sake she is still, dears, 
 
 The prettiest doll in the world. 
 
287 
 
 THE KNIGHT'S LEAP. 
 
 A LEGEND OF ALTENAHR. 
 
 So the foemen have fired the gate, men of mine ; 
 
 And the water is spent and gone ? 
 Then bring me a cup of the red Ahr-wine : 
 
 I never shall drink but this one. 
 
 And reach me my harness, and saddle my horse, 
 
 And lead him me round to the door : 
 He must take such a leap to-night perforce, 
 
 As horse never took before. 
 
 I have fought my fight, I have lived my life, 
 
 I have drunk my share of wine ; 
 From Trier to Coin there was never a knight 
 
 Led a merrier life than mine. 
 
 I have lived by the saddle for years two score ; 
 
 And if I must die on tree, 
 Then the old saddle tree, which has borne me of yore. 
 
 Is the properest timber for me. 
 
 So now to show bishop, and burgher, and priest, 
 
 How the Altenahr hawk can die : 
 If they smoke the old falcon out of his nest, 
 
 He must take to his wings and fly. 
 
 He harnessed himself by the clear moonshine, 
 And he mounted his horse at the door ; 
 
 And he drained such a cup of the red Ahr-wine, 
 As man never drained before. 
 
288 The Knight's Leap. 
 
 He spurred the old horse, and he held him tight, 
 And he leapt him out over the wall ; 
 
 Out over the cliff, out into the night, 
 Three hundred feet of fall. 
 
 They found him next morning below in the glen, 
 With never a bone in him whole 
 
 A mass or a prayer, now, good gentlemen, 
 For such a bold rider's soul 
 
EASTER WEEK. 
 
 (Written for music for a Parish Industrial Exhibition.} 
 
 SEE the land, her Easter keeping, 
 
 Rises as her Maker rose. 
 Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, 
 
 Burst at last from winter snows. 
 Earth with heaven above rejoices ; 
 
 Fields and gardens hail the spring ; 
 Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, 
 
 While the wild birds build and sing. 
 
 You, to whom your Maker granted 
 
 Powers to those sweet birds unknown, 
 Use the craft by God implanted ; 
 
 Use the reason not your own. 
 Here, while heaven and earth rejoices, 
 
 Each his Easter tribute bring 
 Work of fingers, chant of voices, 
 
 Like the birds who build and sing. 
 
 IT 
 
290 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 1868. 
 
 How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day ? 
 A northern Christmas, such as painters love, 
 And kinsfolk, shaking hands but once a year, 
 And dames who tell old legends by the fire ? 
 Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice, 
 Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on fire, 
 And makes the old man merry with the young, 
 Through the short sunshine, through the longer night i 
 
 Or southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist, 
 And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, 
 And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch ; 
 One twilight, without rise or set of sun, 
 Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, 
 And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats 
 Hawk the pale moths of winter ? Welcome then 
 At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower, 
 The rain-pools glittering on the long white roads, 
 And shadows sweeping on from down to down 
 Before the salt Atlantic gale : yet come 
 In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad, 
 Come fair, come foul, 'twill still be Christmas Day. 
 
 How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day ? 
 To sailors lounging on the lonely deck 
 Beneath the rushing trade- wind ? Or to him, 
 Who by some noisome harbour of the East, 
 Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales, 
 
Christmas Day. \, 
 
 Spoils of the tropic forests ; year by year 
 
 Amid the din of heathen voices, groaning 
 
 Himself half heathen? How to those brave heans ! 
 
 Who toil with laden loins and sinking stride 
 
 Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands 
 
 Toward the peaks which flood the ancient Nile, 
 
 To free a tyrant's captives ? How to those 
 
 New patriarchs of the new-found underworld 
 
 Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns, 
 
 And count their flocks' increase ? To them that day 
 
 Shall dawn in glory, and solstitial blaze 
 
 Of full midsummer sun : to them that morn, 
 
 Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft, 
 
 Shall tell of nought but summer : but to them, 
 
 F.re yet, unwarned by carol or by chime, 
 
 They spring into the saddle, thrills may come 
 
 From that great heart of Christendom which beats 
 
 Round, all the worlds ; and gracious thoughts of youth 
 
 Of steadfast folk, who worship God at home ; 
 
 Of wise words, learnt beside their mothers' knee ; 
 
 Of innocent faces upturned once again 
 
 In awe and joy to listen to the tale 
 
 Of God made man, and in a manger laid : 
 
 May soften, purify, and raise the soul 
 
 From selfish cares, and growing lust of gain, 
 
 And phantoms of this dream which some call life, 
 
 Toward the eternal facts ; for here or there, 
 
 Summer or winter, 'twill be Christmas Day. 
 
 Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year, 
 What 'tis to be a man : to curb and spurn 
 The tyrant in us ; that ignobler self 
 Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, 
 And owns no, good save ease, no ill save pain, 
 No purpose, save its share in that wild war 
 In which, through countless ages, living things 
 U 2 
 
292 Christmas Day. 
 
 Compete in internecine greed. Ah God ! 
 Are we as creeping things, which have no Lord ? 
 That we are brutes, great God, we know too well . 
 Apes daintier-featured ; silly birds who flaunt 
 Their plumes unheeding of the fowler's step ; 
 Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs ; 
 Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel, 
 Instead of teeth and claws ; all these we are. 
 Are we no more than these, save in degree ? 
 No more than these ; and born but to compete 
 To envy and devour, like beast or herb ; 
 Mere fools of nature ; puppets of strong lusts, 
 Taking the sword, to perish with the sword 
 Upon the universal battle-field, 
 Even as the things upon the moor outside ? 
 
 The heath eats up green grass and delicate flowers. 
 The pine eats up the heath, the grub the pine, 
 The finch the grub, the hawk the silly finch ; 
 And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey, 
 Eats what he lists ; the strong eat up the weak, 
 The many eat the few ; great nations, small ; 
 And he who cometh in the name of all 
 He, greediest, triumphs by the greed of all ; 
 And, armed by his own victims, eats up all : 
 While ever out of the eternal heavens 
 Looks patient down the great magnanimous God, 
 Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice 
 All to himself ? Nay, but himself to one ; 
 Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day, 
 What 'twas to be a man ; to give, not take ; 
 To serve, not rule ; to nourish, not devour ; 
 To help, not crush ; if need, to die, not live. 
 
 Oh blessed day, which givest the eternal lie 
 To self, and sense, and all the brute within ; 
 Oh, come to us, amid this war of life ; 
 To hall and hovel, come ; to all who toil 
 
Christmas Day 293 
 
 In senate, shop, or study ; and to those 
 Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world, 
 Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face 
 Nature's brute powers, and men unmanned to brutes. 
 Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day. 
 Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem ; 
 The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine : 
 And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day. 
 
THE SONG OF THE LITTLE BALTUNG. 
 A.D. 395. 
 
 A HARPER came over the Danube so wide, 
 
 And he came into Alaric's hall, 
 And he sang the song of the little Baltung 
 
 To him and his heroes all. 
 
 How the old old Bait and the young young Bait 
 
 Rode out of Caucaland, 
 With the royal elephant's trunk on helm 
 
 And the royal lance in hand. 
 
 Thuringer heroes, counts and knights, 
 
 Pricked proud in their meinie ; 
 For they were away to the great Kaiser, 
 
 In Byzant beside the sea. 
 
 And when they came to the Danube so wide 
 They shouted from off the shore, 
 
 " Come over, come over, ye Roman slaves, 
 And ferry your masters o'er." 
 
 And when they came to Adrian's burgh, 
 With its towers so smooth and high, 
 
 " Come out, come out, ye Roman knaves, 
 And see your lords ride by.* 
 
 But when they came to the long long walls 
 
 That stretch from sea to sea, 
 That old old Bait let down his chin, 
 
 And a thoughtful man grew he. 
 
The Song of the Little Baltung 29 5 
 
 " Oh oft have I scoffed at brave Fridigern, 
 
 But never will I scoff more, 
 If these be the walls which kept him out 
 
 From the Micklegard there on the shore." 
 
 Then out there came the great Kaiser, 
 
 With twice ten thousand men ; 
 But never a Thuring was coward enough 
 
 To wish himself home again. 
 
 " Bow down, thou rebel, old Athanarich. 
 
 And beg thy life this day ; 
 The Kaiser is lord of all the world, 
 
 And who dare say him nay ? " 
 
 " I never came out of Caucaland 
 
 To beg for less nor more ; 
 But to see the pride of the great Kaiser 
 
 In his Micklegard here by the shore. 
 
 " I never came out of Caucaland 
 
 To bow to mortal wight, 
 But to shake the hand of the great Kaiser, 
 
 And God defend rny right." 
 
 He shook his hand, that cunning Kaiser, 
 
 And he kissed him courteouslie, 
 And he has ridden with Athanarich 
 
 That wonder-town to see. 
 
 He showed him his walls of marble white 
 
 A mile o'erhead they shone ; 
 Quoth the Bait, "Who would leap into that garden, 
 
 King Siegfried's boots must own." 
 
 He showed him his engines of arsmetrick 
 
 And his wells of quenchless flame, 
 And his flying rocks, that guarded his walls 
 
 From all that against him came. 
 
296 The Song of the L ittle Battling. 
 
 He showed him his temples and pillared halls, 
 
 And his streets of houses high ; 
 And his watch-towers tall, where his star-gazers 
 
 Sit reading the signs of the sky. 
 
 He showed him his ships with their hundred oars, 
 
 And their sides like a castle wall, 
 That fetch home the plunder of all the world, 
 
 At the Kaiser's beck and call. 
 
 He showed him all nations of every tongue 
 
 That are bred beneath the sun, 
 How they flowed together in Micklegard street 
 
 As the brooks flow all into one. 
 
 He showed him the shops of the china ware, 
 
 And of silk and sendal also, 
 And he showed him the baths and the waterpipes 
 
 On arches aloft that go. 
 
 He showed him ostrich and unicorn, 
 
 Ape, lion, and tiger keen ; 
 And elephants wise roared " Hail Kaiser ! " 
 
 As though they had Christians been. 
 
 He showed him the hoards of the dragons and trolls, 
 Rare jewels and heaps of gold 
 
 " Hast thou seen, in all thy hundred years, 
 Such as these, thou king so old ? " 
 
 Now that cunning Kaiser was a scholar wise, 
 
 And could of gramarye, 
 And he cast a spell on that old old Bait, 
 
 Till lowly and meek spake he. 
 
 " Oh oft have I heard of the Micklegard, 
 
 What I held for chapmen's lies ; 
 But now do I know of the Micklegard, 
 
 By the sight of mine own eyes. 
 
The Song of the Little Battling. 297 
 
 u Woden in Valhalla, 
 
 But thou on earth art God ; 
 And he that dare withstand thee, Kaiser, 
 
 On his own head lies his blood." 
 
 Then out and spake that little Baltung, 
 
 Rode at the king's right knee, 
 Quoth " Fridigern slew false Kaiser Valens, 
 
 And he died like you or me." 
 
 " And who art thou, thou pretty bold boy, 
 
 Rides at the king's right knee ? " 
 " Oh I am the Baltung, boy Alaric, 
 
 And as good a man as thee." 
 
 " As good as me, thou pretty bold boy, 
 
 With down upon thy chin ?" 
 " Oh a spae-wife laid a doom on me. 
 
 The best of thy realm to win." 
 
 "If thou be so fierce, thou little wolf cub, 
 
 Or ever thy teeth be grown ; 
 Then I must guard my two young sons 
 
 Lest they should lose their own." 
 
 " Oh, it's I will guard your two lither lads, 
 
 In their burgh beside the sea, 
 And it's I will prove true man to them 
 
 If they will prove true to me. 
 
 " But it's you must warn your two lither lads. 
 
 And warn them bitterly, 
 That if I shall find them two false Kaisers, 
 
 High hanged they both shall be." 
 
 Now they are gone into the Kaiser's palace 
 
 To eat the peacock fine, 
 And they are gone into the Kaiser's palace 
 
 To drink the good Greek wine. 
 
29 S The Song of the Little Baltung. 
 
 The Kaiser alone, and the old old Bait, 
 
 They sat at the cedar board ; 
 And round them served on the bended knee 
 
 Full many a Roman lord. 
 
 " What ails thee, what ails thee, friend Athanarich, 
 
 What makes thee look so pale ? " 
 " I fear I am poisoned, thou cunning Kaiser, 
 
 For I feel my heart-strings fail. 
 
 ' : Oh would I had kept that great great oath 
 
 I swore by the horse's head, 
 I would never set foot on Roman ground 
 
 Till the day that I lay dead. 
 
 " Oh would I were home in Caucaland, 
 
 To hear my harpers play, 
 And to drink my last of the nut-brown ale, 
 
 While I gave the gold rings away. 
 
 " Oh would I were home in Caucaland, 
 
 To hear the Gothmen's horn, 
 And watch the waggons, and brown brood marcs 
 
 And the tents where I was born. 
 
 " But now I must die between four stone walls 
 
 In Byzant beside the sea : 
 And as thou shalt deal with my little Baltung, 
 
 So God shall deal with thee." 
 
 The Kaiser he purged himself with oaths, 
 
 And he buried him royally, 
 And he set on his barrow an idol of gold, 
 
 Where all Romans must bow the knee. 
 
 And now the Goths are the Kaiser's men, 
 And guard him with lance and sword, 
 
 And the little Baltung is his sworn son-at-arms, 
 And eats at the Kaiser's board. 
 
'1 'he Song of the L it tie Baltung. 299 
 
 And the Kaiser's two sons are two false white lads 
 
 That a clerk may beat with cane. 
 The clerk that should beat that little Baltung 
 
 Would never sing mass again. 
 
 Oh the gates of Rome they are steel without, 
 
 And beaten gold within : 
 But they shall fly wide to the little Baltung 
 
 With the down upon his chin. 
 
 Oh the fairest flower in the Kaiser's garden 
 
 Is Rome and Italian land : 
 But it all shall fall to the little Baltung 
 
 When he shall take lance in hand. 
 
 And when he is parting the plunder of Rome, 
 
 He shall pay for this song of mine, 
 Neither maiden nor land, neither jewel nor gold, 
 
 But one cup of Italian wine. 
 
300 
 
 TO THE AUTHORESS OF "OUR VILLAGE.' 
 
 THE single eye, the daughter of the light ; 
 Well pleased to recognize in lowliest shade 
 Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made 
 By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright. 
 The taste severe, yet graceful, trained aright 
 In classic depth and clearness, and repaid 
 By thanks and honour from the wise and staid, 
 By pleasant skill to blame, and yet delight, 
 And high communion with the eloquent throng 
 Of those who purified our speech and song 
 All these are yours. The same examples lure, 
 You in each woodland, me on breezy moor 
 With kindred aim the same sweet path along, 
 To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 2ist, 1870. 
 
 SPEAK low, speak little : who may sing 
 While yonder cannon-thunders boom ? 
 
 Watch, shuddering, what each day may bring 
 Nor " pipe amid the crack of doom." 
 
 And yet the pines sing overhead, 
 
 The robins by the alder-pool, 
 The bees about the garden-bed, 
 
 The children dancing home from school 
 
September 2ist, 1870. 301 
 
 And ever at the loom of Birth 
 The mighty Mother weaves and sings : 
 
 She weaves fresh robes for mangled earth ; 
 She sings fresh hopes for desperate things. 
 
 And thou, too : if through Nature's calm 
 Some strain of music touch thine ears, 
 
 Accept and share that soothing balm, 
 
 And sing, though choked with pitying tears. 
 
 THE MANGO-TREE. 
 
 HE wiled me through the furzy croft ; 
 
 He wiled me down the sandy lane. 
 He told his boy's love, soft and oft, 
 
 Until I told him mine again. 
 
 We mawied, and we sailed the main ; 
 
 A soldier, and a soldier's wife. 
 We marched through many a burning plain ; 
 
 We sighed for many a gallant life. 
 
 But his God keep it safe from harm. 
 
 He toiled, and dared, and earned command ; 
 And those three stripes upon his arm 
 
 Were more to me than gold or land. 
 
 Sure he would win some great renown : 
 
 Our lives were strong, our hearts were high. 
 
 One night the fever struck him down. 
 I sat, and stared, and saw him die. 
 
yj* 
 
 The Mango-Tree. 
 
 I had his children one, two, three. 
 
 One week I had them, blithe and sound. 
 The next beneath this mango-tree, 
 
 By him in barrack burying-ground. 
 
 I sit beneath the mango-shade j 
 I live my five years' life all o'er 
 
 Round yonder stems his children played ; 
 He mounted guard at yonder door. 
 
 ; Tis I, not they, am gone and dead. 
 
 They live ; they know ; they feel ; they see. 
 Their spirits light the golden shade 
 
 Beneath the giant mango-tree. 
 
 All things, save I, are full of life : 
 The minas, pluming velvet breasts ; 
 
 The monkeys, in their foolish strife ; 
 
 The swooping hawks, the swinging nests. 
 
 The lizards basking on the soil, 
 
 The butterflies who sun their wings ; 
 
 The bees about their household toil, 
 They live, they love, the blissful things 
 
 Each tender purple mango-shoot, 
 
 That folds and droops so bashful down ; 
 
 It lives ; it sucks some hidden root ; 
 It rears at last a broad green crown. 
 
 It blossoms ; and the children cry 
 " Watch when the mango-apples fall." 
 
 It lives : but rootless, fruitless, I 
 I breathe and dream ; and that is all. 
 
The Priest's Heart. 303 
 
 Thus am I dead : yet cannot die : 
 
 But still within my foolish brain 
 There hangs a pale blue evening sky ; 
 
 A furzy croft ; a sandy lane. 
 
 THE PRIEST'S HEART. 
 
 IT was Sir John, the fair young Priest, 
 
 He strode up off the strand ; 
 But seven fisher maidens he left behind 
 
 All dancing hand in hand. 
 
 He came unto the wise wife's house : 
 " Now, Mother, to prove your art ; 
 
 To charm May Carleton's merry blue eyes 
 Out of a young man's heart." 
 
 " My son, you went for a holy man, 
 
 Whose heart was set on high ; 
 Go sing in your psalter, and read in your books ; 
 
 Man's love fleets lightly by." 
 
 " I had liever to talk with May Carleton, 
 Than with all the saints in Heaven ; 
 
 I had liever to sit by May Carleton 
 Than climb the spheres seven. 
 
 " I have watched and fasted, early and late, 
 
 I have prayed to all above ; 
 But I find no cure save churchyard mould, 
 
 For the pain which men call love." 
 
 " Now Heaven forefend that ill grow worse : 
 
 Enough that ill be ill. 
 I know of a spell to draw May Carleton, 
 
 And bend her to your will." 
 
304 Valentine's Day. 
 
 " If thou didst that which thou canst not do, 
 
 Wise woman though thou be, 
 I would run and run till I buriea^ myself 
 
 In the surge of yonder sea. 
 
 " Scathless for me are maid and wife, 
 
 And scathless shall they bide. 
 Yet charm me May Carleton's eyes from the heart 
 
 That aches in my left side." 
 
 She charmed him with the white witchcraft, 
 
 She charmed him with the black, 
 But he turned his fair young face to the wall, 
 
 Till she heard his heart-strings crack. 
 
 VALENTINE'S DAY. 
 
 1873- 
 
 OH ! I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south, 
 Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the 
 stream ; 
 
 I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth, 
 And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream. 
 
 I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and 
 
 the sky, 
 
 And the tiny wife I mean to have in such a cosy nest ; 
 And if some one came and shot me dead, why then I 
 
 could but die, 
 With my tiny life and tiny song just ended at their best. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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