[Weeps.]
O love! O life! Late found, and soon, soon lost!
A bleak sunrise,--a treacherous morning gleam,--
And now, ere mid-day, all my sky is black
With whirling drifts once more! The march is fixed
For this day month, is't not?
Lewis. Alas, too true!
Eliz. Oh break not, heart!
[Conrad enters.]
Ah! here my master comes.
No weeping before him.
Lewis. Speak to the holy man:
He can give strength and comfort, which poor I
Need even more than you. Here, saintly master,
I leave her to your holy eloquence. Farewell!
God help us both! [Exit Lewis.]
Eliz [rising]. You know, Sir, that my husband has taken the cross!
Con. I do; all praise to God!
Eliz. But none to you:
Hard-hearted! Am I not enough your slave?
Can I obey you more when he is gone
Than now I do? Wherein, pray, has he hindered
This holiness of mine, for which you make me
Old ere my womanhood? [Conrad offers to go.]
Stay, Sir, and tell me
Is this the outcome of your 'father's care'?
Was it not enough to poison all my joys
With foulest scruples?--show me nameless sins,
Where I, unconscious babe, blessed God for all things,
But you must thus intrigue away my knight
And plunge me down this gulf of widowhood!
And I not twenty yet--a girl--an orphan--
That cannot stand alone! Was I too happy?
O God! what lawful bliss do I not buy
And balance with the smart of some sharp penance?
Hast thou no pity? None? Thou drivest me
To fiendish doubts: Thou, Jesus' messenger?
Con.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121