The Saint's Tragedy

[Exit.]

SCENE IX

Elizabeth’s bower.  Elizabeth and Lewis sitting together.

Song

Eliz.  Oh that we two were MayingDown the stream of the soft spring breeze;Like children with violets playingIn the shade of the whispering trees!Oh that we two sat dreamingOn the sward of some sheep-trimmed downWatching the white mist steamingOver river and mead and town!Oh that we two lay sleepingIn 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 reelsIn 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 blissAs 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-dayI 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 higherThan 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 seemsA 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 fleshAre 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 writtenThat 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 loanOf double life?Lewis.  My saint! but what if I bid theeTo 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 nowJoys 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 sweepMy soul, like floating weed, adown a fitful sleep,A lingering half-night through.Then when the mocking bells did wakeMy 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 nightO’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 lateSo soft, I fear to ask.—Give me thy purse.Lewis.  No, not my purse:—stay—Where is all that goldI gave you, when the Jews came here from Köln?Eliz.  Oh, those few coins?  I spent them all next dayOn 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 tendernessKept 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 blackWith whirling drifts once more!  The march is fixedFor 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 INeed 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 goneThan now I do?  Wherein, pray, has he hinderedThis holiness of mine, for which you make meOld ere my womanhood?  [Conrad offers to go.]Stay, Sir, and tell meIs this the outcome of your ‘father’s care’?Was it not enough to poison all my joysWith foulest scruples?—show me nameless sins,Where I, unconscious babe, blessed God for all things,But you must thus intrigue away my knightAnd 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 buyAnd balance with the smart of some sharp penance?Hast thou no pity?  None?  Thou drivest meTo fiendish doubts: Thou, Jesus’ messenger?Con.  This to your master!Eliz.  This to any oneWho dares to part me from my love.Con.  ’Tis well—In pity to your weakness I must deignTo 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 sinnedIn that I did not urge it myself.Eliz.  Thou traitor!So thou would’st part us?Con.  Aught that makes thee greaterI’ll dare.  This very outburst proves in theePassions unsanctified, and carnal leaningsUpon the creatures thou would’st fain transcend.Thou badest me cure thy weakness.  Lo, God brings theeThe tonic cup I feared to mix:—be brave—Drink it to the lees, and thou shalt find withinA pearl of price.Eliz.  ’Tis bitter!Con.  Bitter, truly:Even I, to whom the storm of earthly loveIs but a dim remembrance—Courage!  Courage!There’s glory in’t; fulfil thy sacrifice;Give up thy noblest on the noblest serviceGod’s sun has looked on, since the chosen twelveWent 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 beIf thou devote him willing to thy God.Wilt thou?Eliz.  Have mercy!Con.  Wilt thou?  Sit not thusWatching the sightless air: no angel in itBut asks thee what I ask: the fiend aloneDelays 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 himSince Thou dost need him.  I have kept him everThine, 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 goneAnd 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 soonDie too to him, and many things; and mark me—Breathe not his name, lest this love-pampered heartShould sicken to vain yearnings—Lost! lost! lost!Lady.  Oh stay, and watch this pomp.Eliz.  Well said—we’ll stay; so this bright enterpriseShall blanch our private clouds, and steep our soulDrunk 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 angelsShall fight along the sky;While martyrs pure and crowned saintsTo God for rescue cry.The red-cross knights and yeomenThroughout the holy town,In faith and might, on left and right,Shall tread the paynim down.Till on the Mount MoriahThe Pope of Rome shall stand;The Kaiser and the King of FranceShall guard him on each hand.There shall he rule all nations,With crozier and with sword;And pour on all the heathenThe 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 guiltMust 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 nationsSwept 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, brainO’ertasked alike—’mid sin and filth, which makeEach 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 tooIn that same book, nurse, that the days shall comeWhen the bridegroom shall be taken away—and then—Then shall they mourn and fast: I needed weaningFrom sense and earthly joys; by this way onlyMay I win God to leave in mine own handsMy luxury’s cure: oh!  I may bring him back,By working out to its full depth the chasteningThe need of which his loss proves: I but barterLess grief for greater—pain for widowhood.Isen.  And death for life—your cheeks are wan and sharpAs any three-days’ moon—you are shifting alwaysUneasily 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 fleshAches with the aching soul in harmony,And even in woe, we are one: the heart must speakIts passion’s strangeness in strange symbols out,Or boil, till it bursts inly.Guta.  Yet, methinks,You might have made this widowed solitudeA holy rest—a spell of soft gray weather,Beneath whose fragrant dews all tender thoughtsMight bud and burgeon.Eliz.  That’s a gentle dream;But nature shows nought like it: every winter,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!—Isen.  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 talesOf 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 sandsWore out in prayer her lonely blissful years,Watched by bright angels, till her modest tressesWove to her pearled feet their golden shroud.Come, open all your lore.

[Sophia and Agnes 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 metalBeyond us worldlings: shrink not, if the timeBe come which needs its use—Eliz.  What means this preface?  Ah! your looks are bigWith sudden woes—speak out.Soph.  Be calm, and hearThe 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—We’ll sell our castles—live in bowers of rushes—O 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 faceHis 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!Isen.  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 madeOf hard, light stuff, like you.Soph.  I had expected some such passionate outbreakAt the first news: you see now, Lady Agnes,These saints, who fain would ‘wean themselves from earth,’Still yield to the affections they despiseWhen 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 scoffsWith 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,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 landgravateIs somewhat to you, surely—and your smilesAre worth gold pieces in a court intrigue.For her, on her own principles, a downfallIs 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 hauntHenceforth your young hopes—crush your shuddering fancy downWith dread of like fierce anguish.You saw her bound forth: we towards her bower in hasteRan trembling: spell-bound there, before her bridal-bedShe stood, while wan smiles flickered, like the northern dawn,Across her worn cheeks’ ice-field; keenest memories thenRushed with strong shudderings through her—as the winged shaftSprings from the tense nerve, so her passion hurled her forthSweeping, like fierce ghost, on through hall and corridor,Tearless, with wide eyes staring, while a ghastly windMoaned on through roof and rafter, and the empty helmsAlong the walls ran clattering, and above her wavedDead heroes’ banners; swift and yet more swift she droveStill seeking aimless; sheer against the opposing wallAt last dashed reckless—there with frantic fingers clutchedBlindly the ribbed oak, till that frost of rageDissolved itself in tears, and like a babe,With inarticulate moans, and folded hands,She followed those who led her, as if the sunOn her life’s dial had gone back seven years,And she were once again the dumb sad childWe knew her ere she married.Isen [entering].  As after wolf wolf presses, leaping through the snow-glades,So woe on woe throngs surging up.Guta.  What? treason?Isen.  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?Isen.  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!His sins were gentle!  That’s one cause left for living—To pray, and pray for him: why all these monthsI 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 slavesGrow old on the same straw, and hand in handSlip 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 lodestar?  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 fancy—God!  I might have saved him!

[A servant-man bursts in.]

Servant.  Madam, the Landgrave gave me strict commands—Isen.  The Landgrave, dolt?Eliz.  I might have saved him!Servant [to Isen.]  Ay, saucy madam!—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 outSafe through his gates, and that at once, my Lady.Come!Eliz.  Why—that’s hasty—I must take my childrenAh!  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—I’ll 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 yetEternal 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?Isen.  Where, 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?Monks.  Ah! my lady,We know your kindness—but we poor religiousAre bound to obey God’s ordinance, and submitUnto the powers that be, who have forbiddenAll 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 blastWarping 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 nowIs 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 buyingThe 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, considerAll she has done and suffered, and forbearTo 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 despiteOf mine own selfish and luxurious will—Shall I bribe Him with His own?  For pain, I tell theeI 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 breathsWhose music charmed my lone nights, ere they learnTo love the world, and hate the wretch who bore them!

[Weeps.]