PAUL. If I
Saw that ghost, upon my honour,
I could never say I saw it;
For more dead than that dead body
I had fallen on the other side
At the moment.
LUIS. And no wonder;
For my voice was mute, my breath
Choked, my heart's warm beat forgotten,
Clothed with ice were all my senses,
Shod with lead my feet, my forehead
Cold with sweat, I saw suspended
Heaven's two mighty poles upon me,
The brief Atlases sustaining
Such a burden being my shoulders.
It appeared as if there started
Rocks from every tender blossom,
Giants from each opening rose;
For the earth's disrupted hollows
Wished from out their graves to cast
Forth the dead who lay there rotten;
Ah, among them I beheld
Luis Enius! Heaven be softened!
Hide me, hide me, from myself!
Bury me in some deep corner
Of earth's centre! Let me never
See myself, since no self-knowledge
Have I had! But now I have it;
Now I know I am that monster
Of rebellion, who defied,
In my madness, pride, and folly,
God Himself; the same, whose crimes
Are so numerous and so horrid,
That it were slight punishment,
If the whole wrath of the Godhead
Was outpoured on me, and whilst
God was God, eternal torments
I should have to bear in hell.
But I have this further knowledge,
They were done against a God
So divine, that He has promised
To grant pardon, if my sins
I with penitent tears acknowledge.
Such I shed; and, Lord, to prove
That to-day to be another
I begin, being born anew,
To Thy hands my soul I offer.
Not as a strict judge then judge me,
For the attributes of the Godhead
Are His justice and His mercy;
With the latter, not the former,
Judge me, then, and fix what penance
I shall do to gain that object.
What will be the satisfaction
Of my life?
[Music (within). The Purgatory.
LUIS. Bless me, heaven! what's this I hear?
A sweet strain divine and solemn;
It appears a revelation
From on high, since heaven doth often
Help mysteriously the sinner.
And since I herein acknowledge
A divine interposition,
I will go into the Purgatory,
Called, of Patrick, and fulfil,
Humbly, faithfully, the promise
Which I gave him long ago,
If it is my happy fortune
To see Patrick. If the attempt
Is, as rumour hath informed me,
Most terrific, since no human
Strength avails against the horrors
Of the place, or resolution
To endure the demons' torments,
Still my sins I must remember
Were as dreadful. Skilful doctors
Give for dangerous diseases
Dangerous remedies to stop them.—
Come, then, with me, Paul, and see
How here penitent and prostrate
At the bishop's feet I'll kneel,
And confess, for greater wonder,
All my awful sins aloud.
PAUL. Go alone, then, for that project,
Since so brave a man as you are
Has no need of an accomplice;
And there's no one I have heard of
Who e'er went to hell escorted
By his servant. I'll go home,
And live pleasantly in my cottage
Without care. If ghosts there be,
I'm content with matrimony.
[Exit.
LUIS. Public were my sins, and so
Public penance I will offer
In atonement. Like one crazed,
Crying in the crowded cross-ways,
I'll confess aloud my crimes.
Men, wild beasts, rude mountains, forests,
Globes celestial, flinty rocks,
Tender plants, dry elms, thick coppice,
Know that I am Luis Enius,
Tremble at my name, that monster
Once of pride, as now I am
Of humility the wonder.
I have faith and certain hope
Of great happiness before me,
If in God's great name shall Patrick
Aid me in the Purgatory.
[Exit.
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