The Saint's Tragedy Part 16

[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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s, singing.]

The tomb of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s.]

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 pa.s.s.]

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 n.o.ble deeds can do.

[Young Knights pa.s.s.]

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 G.o.d.

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 h.e.l.l, Shall shelter our true love in camp and in field.

[Old Monk, looking after them.]

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

The burying place of G.o.d!

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 G.o.d 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.