LADY C. Then, good-night!
Get thee to bed, and rest! for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.
JULIET. Farewell!—Heaven knows when we shall meet again—
I have a faint cold fear, thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I'll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
[Takes out the phial.
Come, phial—
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I of force be married to the Count?
No, no;—this shall forbid it!—[Draws a dagger.]—Lie thou there.—
What, if it be a poison which the friar
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is; and yet, methinks it should not;
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
I will not entertain so bad a thought.—
How, if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night
Together with the terror of the place,—
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;—
Oh, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environéd with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers' joints,—
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?—
Oh, look! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo:—Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, I come; this do I drink to thee.—
[Drinks the contents of the phial.
Oh, potent draught, thou hast chilled me to the heart!—
My head turns round;—my senses fail me.—
Oh, Romeo! Romeo!— [Throws herself on the bed.
* * * * *
THE SISTER OF CHARITY.
Oh, is it a phantom? a dream of the night?
A vision which fever hath fashion'd to sight?
The wind, wailing ever, with motion uncertain
Sways sighingly there the drench'd tent's tatter'd curtain,
To and fro, up and down.
But it is not the wind
That is lifting it now; and it is not the mind
That hath moulded that vision.
A pale woman enters,
As wan as the lamp's waning light, which concentres
Its dull glare upon her. With eyes dim and dimmer,
There, all in a slumb'rous and shadowy glimmer,
The sufferer sees that still form floating on,
And feels faintly aware that he is not alone.
She is flitting before him. She pauses She stands
By his bedside all silent. She lays her white hands
On the brow of the boy. A light finger is pressing
Softly, softly, the sore wounds: the hot blood-stained dressing
Slips from them. A comforting quietude steals
Thro' the racked weary frame; and throughout it, he feels
The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighbourhood.
Something smoothes the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray hood
Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,
And thrill thro' and thro' him. The sweet form before him,
It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!
A soft voice says—'Sleep!'
And he sleeps: he is sleeping.
He waked before dawn. Still the vision is there:
Still that pale woman moves not. A minist'ring care
Meanwhile has been silently changing and cheering
The aspect of all things around him.
Revering
Some power unknown and benignant, he bless'd
In silence the sense of salvation. And rest
Having loosen'd the mind's tangled meshes, he faintly
Sigh'd—'Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly
'And minist'ring spirit!
A whisper serene
Slid softer than silence—'The Soeur Seraphine,
'A poor Sister of Charity. Shun to inquire
'Aught further, young soldier. The son of thy sire,
'For the sake of that sire, I reclaim from the grave.
'Thou didst not shun death: shun not life. 'Tis more brave
To live than to die. Sleep!'
He sleeps: he is sleeping.
He waken'd again, when the dawn was just steeping
The skies with chill splendour. And there, never flitting,
Never flitting, that vision of mercy was sitting.
As the dawn to the darkness, so life seem'd returning
Slowly, feebly within him. The night-lamp, yet burning,
Made ghastly the glimmering daybreak.
He said:
'If thou be of the living, and not of the dead,
'Sweet minister, pour out yet further the healing
'Of that balmy voice; if it may be, revealing
'Thy mission of mercy! whence art thou?
'O son
'Of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not! One
'Who is not of the living nor yet of the dead;
'To thee, and to others, alive yet'—she said—
'So long as there liveth the poor gift in me
'Of this ministration; to them, and to thee,
'Dead in all things beside. A French nun, whose vocation
'Is now by this bedside. A nun hath no nation.
'Wherever man suffers, or woman may soothe,
'There her land! there her kindred!'
She bent down to smooth
The hot pillow, and added—'Yet more than another
'Is thy life dear to me. For thy father, thy mother,
'I know them—I know them.'
'Oh can it be? you!
'My dearest, dear father! my mother! you knew,
'You know them?'
She bow'd, half averting her head
In silence.
He brokenly, timidly said,
'Do they know I am thus?'
'Hush!'—she smiled as she drew
From her bosom two letters; and—can it be true?
That beloved and familiar writing!
He burst
Into tears—'My poor mother,—my father! the worst
'Will have reached them!'
'No, no!' she exclaimed with a smile,
'They know you are living; they know that meanwhile
'I am watching beside you. Young soldier, weep not!'
But still on the nun's nursing bosom, the hot
Fever'd brow of the boy weeping wildly is press'd.
There, at last, the young heart sobs itself into rest;
And he hears, as it were between smiling and weeping,
The calm voice say—'Sleep!'
And he sleeps, he is sleeping'
* * * * *
SIM'S LITTLE GIRL.
Come out here, George Burks. Put that glass down—can't wait a minute.
Business particular—concerns the Company.
I don't often meddle in other folks' business, do I? When a tough old fellow like me sets out to warn a body, you may know its because he sees sore need of it. Just takin' drinks for good fellowship? Yes, I know all 'bout that. Been there myself. Sit down on the edge of the platform here.