Woman. Poor soul! she wanders!
Con. Wanders, fool? her madness
Is worth a million of your paters, mumbled
At every station between--
Eliz. Oh! thank God
Our eyes are dim! What should we do, if he,
The sneering fiend, who laughs at all our toil,
Should meet us face to face?
Con. We'd call him fool.
Eliz. There! There! Fly, Satan, fly! 'Tis gone!
Con. The victory's gained at last!
The fiend is baffled, and her saintship sure!
O people blest of Heaven!
Eliz. O master, master,
You will not let the mob, when I lie dead,
Make me a show--paw over all my limbs--
Pull out my hair--pluck off my finger-nails--
Wear scraps of me for charms and amulets,
As if I were a mummy, or a drug?
As they have done to others--I have seen it--
Nor set me up in ugly naked pictures
In every church, that cold world-hardened wits
May gossip o'er my secret tortures? Promise--
Swear to me! I demand it!
Con. No man lights
A candle, to be hid beneath a bushel:
Thy virtues are the Church's dower: endure
All which the edification of the faithful
Makes needful to be published.
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