I
Speak! but ask us not to be as ye were!
All but God is changing day by day.
He who breathes on man the plastic spirit
Bids us mould ourselves its robe of clay.
II
Old anarchic floods of revolution,
Drowning ill and good alike in night,
Sink, and bare the wrecks of ancient labour,
Fossil-teeming, to the searching light.
III
There will we find laws, which shall interpret,
Through the simpler past, existing life;
Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
Charmed blades, to cut the age’s strife.
IV
What though fogs may stream from draining waters?
We will till the clays to mellow loam;
Wake the graveyard of our fathers’ spirits;
Clothe its crumbling mounds with blade and bloom.
V.
Old decays but foster new creations;
Bones and ashes feed the golden corn;
Fresh elixirs wander every moment,
Down the veins through which the live past feeds its child, the live unborn.
ACT I
SCENE I. A.D. 1220
The Doorway of a closed Chapel in the Wartburg. Elizabeth sitting on the Steps.
Eliz. Baby Jesus, who dost lie Far above that stormy sky, In Thy mother’s pure caress, Stoop and save the motherless.
Happy birds! whom Jesus leaves
Underneath His sheltering eaves;
There they go to play and sleep,
May not I go in to weep?
All without is mean and small,
All within is vast and tall;
All without is harsh and shrill,
All within is hushed and still.
Jesus, let me enter in,
Wrap me safe from noise and sin.
Let me list the angels’ songs,
See the picture of Thy wrongs;
Let me kiss Thy wounded feet,
Drink Thine incense, faint and sweet,
While the clear bells call Thee down
From Thine everlasting throne.
At thy door-step low I bend,
Who have neither kin nor friend;
Let me here a shelter find,
Shield the shorn lamb from the wind.
Jesu, Lord, my heart will break:
Save me for Thy great love’s sake!
[Enter Isentrudis.]
Isen. Aha! I had missed my little bird from the nest, And judged that she was here. What’s this? fie, tears?
Eliz. Go! you despise me like the rest.
Isen. Despise you? What’s here? King Andrew’s child? St. John’s sworn maid? Who dares despise you? Out upon these Saxons! They sang another note when I was younger, When from the rich East came my queenly pearl, Lapt on this fluttering heart, while mighty heroes Rode by her side, and far behind us stretched The barbs and sumpter mules, a royal train, Laden with silks and furs, and priceless gems, Wedges of gold, and furniture of silver, Fit for my princess.
Eliz. Hush now, I’ve heard all, nurse, A thousand times.
Isen. Oh, how their hungry mouths Did water at the booty! Such a prize, Since the three Kings came wandering into Cöln, They ne’er saw, nor their fathers;—well they knew it! Oh, how they fawned on us! ‘Great Isentrudis!’ ‘Sweet babe!’ The Landgravine did thank her saints As if you, or your silks, had fallen from heaven; And now she wears your furs, and calls us gipsies. Come tell your nurse your griefs; we’ll weep together, Strangers in this strange land.
Eliz. I am most friendless. The Landgravine and Agnes—you may see them Begrudge the food I eat, and call me friend Of knaves and serving-maids; the burly knights Freeze me with cold blue eyes: no saucy page But points and whispers, ‘There goes our pet nun; Would but her saintship leave her gold behind, We’d give herself her furlough.’ Save me! save me! All here are ghastly dreams; dead masks of stone, And you and I, and Guta, only live: Your eyes alone have souls. I shall go mad! Oh that they would but leave me all alone To teach poor girls, and work within my chamber, With mine own thoughts, and all the gentle angels Which glance about my dreams at morning-tide! Then I should be as happy as the birds Which sing at my bower window. Once I longed To be beloved—now would they but forget me! Most vile I must be, or they could not hate me!
Isen. They are of this world, thou art not, poor child, Therefore they hate thee, as they did thy betters.
Eliz. But, Lewis, nurse?
Isen. He, child? he is thy knight; Espoused from childhood: thou hast a claim upon him. One that thou’lt need, alas!—though, I remember— ’Tis fifteen years agone—when in one cradle We laid two fair babes for a marriage token; And when your lips met, then you smiled, and twined Your little limbs together.—Pray the Saints That token stand!—He calls thee love and sister, And brings thee gew-gaws from the wars: that’s much! At least he’s thine if thou love him.
Eliz. If I love him? What is this love? Why, is he not my brother And I his sister? Till these weary wars, The one of us without the other never Did weep or laugh: what is’t should change us now? You shake your head and smile.
Isen. Go to; the chafe Comes not by wearing chains, but feeling them.
Eliz. Alas! here comes a knight across the court; Oh, hide me, nurse! What’s here? this door is fast.
Isen. Nay, ’tis a friend: he brought my princess hither, Walter of Varila; I feared him once— He used to mock our state, and say, good wine Should want no bush, and that the cage was gay, But that the bird must sing before he praised it. Yet he’s a kind heart, while his bitter tongue Awes these court popinjays at times to manners. He will smile sadly too, when he meets my maiden; And once he said, he was your liegeman sworn, Since my lost mistress, weeping, to his charge Trusted the babe she saw no more.—God help us!
Eliz. How did my mother die, nurse?
Isen. She died, my child.
Eliz. But how? Why turn away? Too long I’ve guessed at some dread mystery I may not hear: and in my restless dreams, Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands, Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns As to a mother. There’s some fearful tie Between me and that spirit-world, which God Brands with his terrors on my troubled mind. Speak! tell me, nurse! is she in heaven or hell?
Isen. God knows, my child: there are masses for her soul Each day in every Zingar minster sung.