meant for me--my ailments' cure--
Were lessons for some angels far away,
And I the corpus vile for the experiment?
The grinding of the sharp and pitiless wheels
Of some high Providence, which had its mainspring
Ages ago, and ages hence its end?
That were too horrible!--
To have torn up all the roses from my garden,
And planted thorns instead; to have forged my griefs,
And hugged the griefs I dared not forge; made earth
A hell, for hope of heaven; and after all,
These homeless moors of life toiled through, to wake,
And find blank nothing! Is that angel-world
A gaudy window, which we paint ourselves
To hide the dead void night beyond? The present?
Why here's the present--like this arched gloom,
It hems our blind souls in, and roofs them over
With adamantine vault, whose only voice
Is our own wild prayers' echo: and our future?--
It rambles out in endless aisles of mist,
The farther still the darker--O my Saviour!
My God! where art Thou? That's but a tale about Thee,
That crucifix above--it does but show Thee
As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now--
Thy grief, but not Thy glory: where's that gone?
I see it not without me, and within me
Hell reigns, not Thou!

[Dashes herself down on the altar steps.]

[Monks in the distance chanting.]

'Kings' daughters were among thine honourable women'--

Eliz. Kings' daughters! I am one!

Monks. 'Hearken, O daughter, and consider; incline thine ear:
Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house,
So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty:
For He is thy Lord God, and worship thou Him.'

Eliz. [springing up]. I will forget them!
They stand between my soul and its allegiance.
Thou art my God: what matter if Thou love me?
I am Thy bond-slave, purchased with Thy life-blood;
I will remember nothing, save that debt.
Do with me what Thou wilt. Alas, my babies!
He loves them--they'll not need me.

[Conrad advancing.]

Con. How now, Madam!
Have these your prayers unto a nobler will
Won back that wandering heart?

Eliz. God's will is spoken!
The flesh is weak; the spirit's fixed, and dares,--
Stay! confess, sir,
Did not yourself set on your brothers here
To sing me to your purpose?

Con. As I live
I meant it not; yet had I bribed them to it,
Those words were no less God's.

Eliz. I know it, I know it;
And I'll obey them: come, the victim's ready.

[Lays her hand on the altar. Gerard, Abbess, and Monks descend and
advance.]

All world