Eliz. Then I must up—
To matins, and to work—No, my work’s over.
And what is it, what?
One drop of oil on the salt seething ocean!
Thank God, that one was born at this same hour,
Who did our work for us: we’ll talk of Him:
We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves—
We’ll talk of Him, and of that new-made star,
Which, as he stooped into the Virgin’s side,
From off His finger, like a signet-gem,
He dropped in the empyrean for a sign.
But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour,
When He crept weeping forth to see our woe,
Fled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever
Our sins, our works, and that same new-made star.
Woman. Poor soul! she wanders!
Con. Wanders, fool? her madness
Is worth a million of your paters, mumbled
At every station between—
Eliz. Oh! thank God
Our eyes are dim! What should we do, if he,
The sneering fiend, who laughs at all our toil,
Should meet us face to face?
Con. We’d call him fool.
Eliz. There! There! Fly, Satan, fly! ’Tis gone!
Con. The victory’s gained at last!
The fiend is baffled, and her saintship sure!
O people blest of Heaven!
Eliz. O master, master,
You will not let the mob, when I lie dead,
Make me a show—paw over all my limbs—
Pull out my hair—pluck off my finger-nails—
Wear scraps of me for charms and amulets,
As if I were a mummy, or a drug?
As they have done to others—I have seen it—
Nor set me up in ugly naked pictures
In every church, that cold world-hardened wits
May gossip o’er my secret tortures? Promise—
Swear to me! I demand it!
Con. No man lights
A candle, to be hid beneath a bushel:
Thy virtues are the Church’s dower: endure
All which the edification of the faithful
Makes needful to be published.
Eliz. O my God!
I had stripped myself of all, but modesty!
Dost Thou claim yet that victim? Be it so.
Now take me home! I have no more to give Thee!
So weak—and yet no pain—why, now naught ails me!
How dim the lights burn! Here—
Where are you, children?
Alas! I had forgotten.
Now I must sleep—for ere the sun shall rise,
I must begone upon a long, long journey
To him I love.