The Saint's Tragedy

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.]

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
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.
 
 
Isen.  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 gray 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,
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 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 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 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 hear
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—
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 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!
 
 
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 made
Of hard, light stuff, like you.
 
 
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,
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.
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
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 ran 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.
 
 
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 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 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 out
Safe through his gates, and that at once, my Lady.
Come!
 
 
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—
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 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?
 
 
Isen.  Where, but after her?
 
 
Guta.  True heart!
I’ll follow to the death.  [Exeunt.]