FUL. Nay, then we shall be troubled with your humour.
ANS. As ever thou didst love me, or as ever
Thou didst delight in my society,
By all the rights of friendship and of love,
Let me entreat thy absence but one hour,
And at the hour's end I will come to thee.
FUL. Nay, if you will be foolish, and past reason,
I'll wash my hands, like Pilate, from thy folly,
And suffer thee in these extremities. [Exit.
ANS. Now it is night, and the bright lamps of heaven
Are half-burn'd out: now bright Adelbora
Welcomes the cheerful day-star to the east,
And harmless stillness hath possess'd the world:
This is the church,—this hollow is the vault,
Where the dead body of my saint remains,
And this the coffin that enshrines her body,
For her bright soul is now in paradise.
My coming is with no intent of sin,
Or to defile the body of the dead;
But rather take my last farewell of her,
Or languishing and dying by her side,
My airy soul post after hers to heaven.
[Comes to MRS ARTHUR'S tomb.
First, with this latest kiss I seal my love:
Her lips are warm, and I am much deceiv'd,
If that she stir not. O, this Golgotha,
This place of dead men's bones is terrible,
Presenting fearful apparitions!
It is some spirit that in the coffin lies,
And makes my hair start up on end with fear!
Come to thyself, faint heart—she sits upright!
O, I would hide me, but I know not where.
Tush, if it be a spirit, 'tis a good spirit;
For with her body living ill she knew not;
And with her body dead ill cannot meddle.
MRS ART. Who am I? Or where am I?
ANS. O, she speaks,
And by her language now I know she lives.
MRS ART. O, who can tell me where I am become?
For in this darkness I have lost myself;
I am not dead, for I have sense and life:
How come I then in this coffin buried?
ANS. Anselm, be bold; she lives, and destiny
Hath train'd thee hither to redeem her life.
MRS ART. Lives any 'mongst these dead? none but myself?
ANS. O yes, a man, whose heart till now was dead,
Lives and survives at your return to life:
Nay, start not; I am Anselm, one who long
Hath doted on your fair perfection,
And, loving you more than became me well,
Was hither sent by some strange providence,
To bring you from these hollow vaults below,
To be a liver in the world again.