The Saint's Tragedy

Longings more strange than either.

Con.  Then, if proved,As I dare vouch thee, loyal in thy love,Even to the Queen herself thy saintlier soulAt length may soar: perchance—Oh, bliss too greatFor thought—yet possible!Receive some token—smile—or hallowing touchOf that white hand, beneath whose soft caressThe raging world is smoothed, and runs its courseTo shadow forth her glory.Lewis.  Thou dost tempt me—That were a knightly quest.Con.  Ay, here’s true love.Love’s heaven, without its hell; the golden fruitWithout the foul husk, which at Adam’s fallDid crust it o’er with filth and selfishness.I tempt thee heavenward—from yon azure wallsUnearthly beauties beckon—God’s own motherWaits longing for thy choice—Lewis.  Is this a dream?Wal.  Ay, by the Living Lord, who died for you!Will you be cozened, Sir, by these air-blown fancies,These male hysterics, by starvation bredAnd huge conceit?  Cast off God’s gift of manhood,And, like the dog in the adage, drop the true boneWith snapping at the sham one in the water?What were you born a man for?Lewis.  Ay, I know it:—I cannot live on dreams.  Oh for one friend,Myself, yet not myself; one not so highBut she could love me, not too pure to pardonMy sloth and meanness!  Oh for flesh and blood,Before whose feet I could adore, yet love!How easy then were duty!  From her lipsTo learn my daily task;—in her pure eyesTo see the living type of those heaven-gloriesI dare not look on;—let her work her willOf 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.Lewis.  Alas! one such—One such, I know, who upward from one cradleBeside me like a sister—No, thank God! no sister!—Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shadeHas blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue,And even now is budding into blossom,Which never shall bear fruit, but inward stillResorb its vital nectar, self-contained,And leave no living copies of its beautyTo 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 downFrom 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!Lewis.  Oh, who else,Who else the minutest lineament fulfilsOf 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—

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.

Lewis.  Loves me!  My Count, that word is quickly spoken;And yet, if it be true, it thrusts me forthUpon 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?Lewis.  Loves me!  Henceforth let no man, peering downThrough 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 lifeBlindfold 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 nightingaleThat 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 shiningDown from the cloud-world of her unknown fancy—She, for whom holiest touch of holiest knightSeemed all too gross—who might have been a saintAnd companied with angels—thus to pluckThe spotless rose of her own maidenhoodTo give it unto me!Wal.  You love her then?Lewis.  Look! if yon solid mountain were all gold,And each particular tree a band of jewels,And from its womb the Niebelungen hoardWith elfin wardens called me, ‘Leave thy loveAnd 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.Lewis.  Persecutors!  Who?Alas!  I guess it—I had known my motherToo light for that fair saint,—but who else dare winkWhen she is by?  My knights?Wal.  To a man, my Lord.Lewis.  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 sinWith this chaste world.  My boy, my boy, I tell you,The fault lies nearer home.Lewis.  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?You shall strike this deer yourself at gaze ere long—She has no mind to slip to cover.Lewis.  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 coynessWas bred of worship, not of coldness.Wal.  Then the serfsMust wait?Lewis.  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, etc., re-entering.

Soph.  What! you will not?  You hear, Dame Isentrude,She will not wear her coronet in the church,Because, forsooth, the crucifix withinIs crowned with thorns.  You hear her.Eliz.  Noble mother!How could I flaunt this bauble in His faceWho hung there, naked, bleeding, all for me—I felt it shamelessness to go so gay.Soph.  Felt?  What then?  Every foolish wench has feelingsIn these religious days, and thinks it carnalTo 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;Ah!  I have watched you throw your playmates downTo 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 matedWith 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.We’ll have no saints.  Thank heaven, my saintlinessNe’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 ladiesTo 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,

When thou art Landgravine.

Eliz.  And when will that be?No, she speaks truth!  I should have been a nun.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?Isen.  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 standBefore the altar like a rainbowed saint;To take the blessed wafer from his hand,Confess my heart to him, and all night longPray for him while he slept, or through the latticeWatch while he read, and see the holy thoughtsSwell in his big deep eyes!—Alas! that dreamIs 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.—Madam, I come a-wooing; and for oneWho is as only worthy of your love,As you of his; he bids me claim the spousalsMade long ago between you,—and yet leavesYour 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, pledgeUnworthy 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 reverseThe 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 gray sad hue, and blazesWith her old life-light; hark! yon wind’s a song—Those clouds are angels’ robes.—That fiery westIs paved with smiling faces.—I am a woman,And all things bid me love! my dignityIs 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 profferTheir 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!  [Exit.]Isen.  Ah! blessed Saints! how changed upon the moment!She is grown taller, trust me, and her eyeFlames like a fresh-caught hind’s.  She that was christenedA 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.

Min.  How gaily smile the heavens,The light winds whisper gay;For royal birth and knightly worthAre 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 superbiâDomine libera nos.Min.  ’Neath sandal red and samité,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.Monks.  A luxu et avaritiâDomine libera nos.Min.  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 highFor the knight that’s far away.Monks.  A carnis illectamentisDomine libera nos.Min.  Blest maid! fresh roses o’er theeThe careless years shall fling;While days and nights shall new delightsTo 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 sæculiDomine 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 into 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.  ’Tis well, for elseThe spectre of my duties and my dangersWould 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 gateOf new sin-cursed infinities of labour,Where thou must do, or die!

[aloud] Lead on.  I’ll 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. 1221-27

Elizabeth’s Bower.  Night.  Lewis sleeping in an Alcove.

Elizabeth lying on the Floor in the Foreground.

Eliz.  No streak yet in the blank and eyeless east—More weary hours to ache, and smart, and shiverOn 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 loseThe strength which comes by suffering?  Well, if griefBe gain, mine’s double—fleeing thus the snareOf 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,Which warmed to life, will sting us.  They must know—I do confess mine ignorance, O Lord!Mine earnest will these painful limbs may prove.. . . . .And yet I swore to love him.—So I doNo more than I have sworn.  Am I to blameIf 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 thingsWhich share with Him divided emperyAre snares and idols—‘To love, to cherish, and to obey!’. . . . .O deadly riddle!  Rent and twofold life!O cruel troth!  To keep thee or to break theeAlike seems sin!  O thou beloved tempter,

[Turning toward the bed.]

Who first didst teach me love, why on thyselfFrom God divert thy lesson?  Wilt provoke Him?What if mine heavenly Spouse in jealous ireShould 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 loversThe 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 birdsWithin 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?A fire-fly at the candle.  ’Tis love leads him;Love’s light, and light is love: O 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 teacherPure 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 fountainsWhich 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! faithless beauty,Is this your promise, that whene’er you prayedI should be still the partner of your vigils,And learn from you to pray?  Last night I lay dissemblingWhen 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 weptWhen I did bid them, as I bid thee nowTo 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 fleshBy 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 pleasedWith this stern holocaust of health and joy?Eliz.  What!  Am I not as gay a lady-loveAs ever clipt 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 griefAre the will’s creatures; martyrs kiss the stake—The moorland colt enjoys the thorny furze—The dullest boor will seek a fight, and countHis pleasure by his wounds; you must forget, love,Eve’s curse lays suffering, as their natural lot,On womankind, till custom makes it light.I know the use of pain: bar not the leechBecause his cure is bitter—’Tis such medicineWhich breeds that paltry strength, that weak devotion,For which you say you love me.—Ay, which bringsEven when most sharp, a stern and awful joyAs 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 wonderOf wit and beauty, love and wisdom!  Canst thouBeatify the ascetic’s savageryTo heavenly prudence?  Horror melts to pity,And pity kindles to adoring showerOf 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-boundBefore my bleeding Saviour’s living likenessTo worship, not to cavil: I had dreamt of such things,Dim heard in legends, while my pitiful bloodTingled through every vein, and wept, and swore’Twas beautiful, ’twas Christ-like—had I thoughtThat thou wert such:—Eliz.  You would have loved me still?Lewis.  I have gone mad, I think, at every partingAt mine own terrors for thee.  No; I’ll learn to gloryIn that which makes thee glorious!  Noble stains!I’ll call them rose leaves out of paradiseStrewn on the wreathed snows, or rubies droppedFrom martyrs’ diadems, prints of Jesus’ crossToo 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 fastThou shalt not ’scape unnoticed.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.

High among the lonely hills,While I lay beside my sheep,Rest came down and filled my soul,From the everlasting deep.Changeless march the stars above,Changeless morn succeeds to even;Still the everlasting hills,Changeless watch the changeless heaven.See the rivers, how they run,Changeless toward 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 shall go.He who made the streams of timeWafts thee down to weal or woe.Eliz.  That’s a sweet song, and yet it does not chimeWith 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.

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’ 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-bred 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 licks 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 Fool.]

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 draughtsQuickening 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 silenceIs emptiness,—emptiness fulness,—fulness God,—Till we touch Him, and like a snow-flake, meltUpon 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 mistookFor God’s own self, the phantoms of my brain?And who am I, that my own will’s intentShould put me face to face with the living God?I, thus thrust down from the still lakes of thoughtUpon a boiling crater-field of labour.No!  He must come to me, not I to Him;If I see God, beloved, I must see HimIn mine own self:—Guta.  Thyself?Eliz.  Why start, my sister?God is revealed in the crucified:The crucified must be revealed in me:—I must put on His righteousness; show forthHis sorrow’s glory; hunger, weep with Him;Writhe with His stripes, and let this aching fleshSink through His fiery baptism into death,That I may rise with Him, and in His likenessMay ceaseless heal the sick, and soothe the sad,And give away like Him this flesh and bloodTo feed His lambs—ay—we must die with HimTo sense—and love—Guta.  To love?  What then becomesOf 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 givenMy 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 veinProclaims my weakness.

[Lewis enters.]