SCENE VI
Dawn. 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:
Over the wild moor, in grayest 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 catechise 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 dominion 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.
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 clad, 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.
What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I bring Thee,
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 trencherful, 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 newcomer’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 off thy turpentine with a new haircloth; 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 to the Saints to make you a blockhead—Never send your 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 your 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.
1st Voice. Ay, give, give, give! God knows, we’re long past earning.
2d Voice. Our skeleton children lie along in the roads—
3d 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 feast her minions.
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
Köln and from the Rhine-land, days ago:
O 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—
I 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 forestalling dog!
Wal. Driver, lend here the halter off that mule.
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
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
once
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.
[In the meantime Walter, etc., have been throwing down the wheat to the mob.]
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,
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
In board and lodging
in the castle dungeon.
[Walter leads him out; the Mob, etc., 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!
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, etc., 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?
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 this 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.
3d 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?
3d 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-interest of each it is which produces in the aggregate the happy equilibrium of all.
C. Wal. Well—the world is right 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.
3d Count. I hold, Sir, that every alms is a fresh badge of slavery.
C. Wal. I don’t deny it.
3d 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 employment, 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.
3d 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 chick Grace stand against the tough old game-cock Hunger?
3d 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 hour-glass?—Here’s
the state:
This air stands for the idlers;—this sand for
the workers.
When all the sand has run to the bottom, God in heaven
just turns the hour-glass, 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 immorality 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 your 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 excommunications, trading in benefices, hiring the clergy for your puppets and flatterers, making the ministry, the episcopate itself, a lumber-room wherein to stow away 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 you not 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? 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?
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.
3d Count. 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!
3 Count. Think not we mean to praise or disapprove—
The
acts of saintly souls must only plead
In foro conscientiæ:
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,
Unless
the accused and the accuser both
Meet face to face.
3d Count. Excuse, high-mightiness,—
We
bring no accusation; facts, your Highness,
Wait for your sentence,
not our præjudicium.
Lewis. 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,
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.
Lewis. 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!
Lewis. 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 dare 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.
Lewis. No! no! My noble sister? What? my
Lords!
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.
Lewis. 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?
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!
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!
Lewis. 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?
Lewis. 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
Than
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!
I neither made these thoughts, nor
can unmake them.
Lewis. Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle,
The
self-begetting wonder, daily fresh;
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. O 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.—
O
Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus?
Mercy! My brain
will burst: I cannot leave him!
Lewis. Beloved, if I went away to war—
Eliz. O God! More wars? More partings?
Lewis. 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?
Lewis. 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?
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,
I
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.
Lewis. No, not my purse:—stay—Where is all
that gold
I gave you, when the Jews came here from Köln?
Eliz. Oh, those few coins? I spent them all next
day
On a new chapel on the Eisenthal;
There were no choristers
but nightingales—
No teachers there save bees: how long is
this?
Have you turned niggard?
Lewis. 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.
Lewis. Ah, love!—look not so calm—
Eliz. Fear not—I shall weep soon.
How long
is it since you vowed?
Lewis. A week or more.
Eliz. Brave heart! And all that time your tenderness
Kept
silence, knowing my weak foolish soul. [Weeps.]
O love!
O 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?
Lewis. Alas, too true!
Eliz. Oh break not, heart!
[Conrad enters.]
Ah! here my master comes.
No weeping before him.
Lewis. 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.]
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 outcome
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?
O 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
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.]
SCENE X
A street in the town of Schmalcald. Bodies of Crusading troops defiling past. Lewis and Elizabeth with their suite in the foreground.
Lewis. 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!
Lewis. 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—
O 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.
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 yeomen
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 our 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.
[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.
[Young Knights pass.]
The rich East blooms fragrant before us;
All Fairyland 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.]