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.
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