Lewis. We see your drift.

Go, sirrah [to a Page]; pray the Princess to illumine Our conclave with her beauties. 'Tis our manner To hear no cause, of gentle or of simple, Unless the accused and the accuser both Meet face to face.

3d Count. Excuse, high-mightiness,-- We bring no accusation; facts, your Highness, Wait for your sentence, not our praejudicium.

Lewis. Give us the facts, then, Sir; in the lady's presence, Her nearness to ourselves--perchance her reasons-- May make them somewhat dazzling.

Abbot. Nay, my Lord; I, as a Churchman, though with these your n.o.bles Both in commission and opinion one, Am yet most loth, my Lord, to set my seal To aught which this harsh world might call complaint Against a princely saint--a chosen vessel-- An argosy celestial--in whom error Is but the young luxuriance of her grace.

The Count of Varila, as bound to neither, For both shall speak, and all which late has pa.s.sed Upon the matter of this famine open.

C. Wal. Why, if I must speak out--then I'll confess To have stood by, and seen the Landgravine Do most strange deeds; and in her generation Show no more wit than other babes of light.

First, she has given away, to starving rascals, The stores of grain she might have sold, good lack!

For any price she asked; has p.a.w.ned your jewels, And mortgaged sundry farms, and all for food.

Has sunk vast sums in fever-hospitals, For rogues whom famine sickened--almshouses For s.l.u.ts whose husbands died--schools for their brats.

Most sad vagaries! but there's worse to come.

The dulness of the Court has ruined trade: The jewellers and clothiers don't come near us; The sempstresses, my lord, and pastrycooks Have quite forgot their craft; she has turned all heads And made the ladies starve, and wear old clothes, And run about with her to nurse the sick, Instead of putting gold in circulation By b.a.l.l.s, sham-fights, and dinners; 'tis most sad, sir, But she has swept your treasury out as clean-- As was the widow's cruse, who fed Elijah.

Lewis. Ruined, no doubt! Lo! here the culprit comes.

[Elizabeth enters.]

Come hither, dearest. These, my knights and n.o.bles, Lament your late unthrift (your conscience speaks The causes of their blame); and wish you warned, As wisdom is the highest charity, No more to interfere, from private feeling, With heaven's stern laws, or maim the sovereign's wealth, To save superfluous villains' worthless lives.

Eliz. Lewis!

Lewis. Not I, fair, but my counsellors, In courtesy, need some reply.

Eliz. My Lords; Doubtless, you speak as your duty bids you: I know you love my husband: do you think My love is less than yours? 'Twas for his honour I dare not lose a single silly sheep Of all the flock which G.o.d had trusted to him.

True, I had hoped by this--No matter what-- Since to your sense it bears a different hue.

I keep no logic. For my gifts, thank G.o.d, They cannot be recalled; for those poor souls, My pensioners--even for my husband's knightly name, Oh! ask not back that slender loan of comfort My folly has procured them: if, my Lords, My public censure, or disgraceful penance May expiate, and yet confirm my waste, I offer this poor body to the buffets Of sternest justice: when I dared not spare My husband's lands, I dare not spare myself.

Lewis. No! no! My n.o.ble sister? What? my Lords!

If her love move you not, her wisdom may.

She knows a deeper statecraft, Sirs, than you: She will not throw away the substance, Abbot, To save the accident; waste living souls To keep, or hope to keep, the means of life.

Our wisdom and our swords may fill our coffers, But will they breed us men, my Lords, or mothers?

G.o.d blesses in the camp a n.o.ble rashness: Then why not in the storehouse? He that lends To Him, need never fear to lose his venture.

Spend on, my Queen. You will not sell my castles?

Nay, you must leave us Neuburg, love, and Wartburg.

Their worn old stones will hardly pay the carriage, And foreign foes may pay untimely visits.

C. Wal. And home foes, too; if these philosophers Put up the curb, my Lord, a half-link tighter, The scythes will be among our horses' legs Before next harvest.

Lewis. Fear not for our welfare: We have a guardian here, well skilled to keep Peace for our seneschal, while angels, stooping To catch the tears she sheds for us in absence, Will sain us from the roaming adversary With scents of Paradise. Farewell, my Lords.

Eliz. Nay,--I must pray your knighthoods--You must honour Our dais and bower as private guests to-day.

Thanks for your gentle warning; may my weakness To such a sin be never tempted more!

[Exeunt Elizabeth and Lewis.]

C. Wal. Thus, as if virtue were not its own reward, is it paid over and above with beef and ale? Weep not, tender-hearted Count!

Though 'generous hearts,' my Lord, 'and ladies' tenderness, too oft forget'--Truly spoken! Lord Abbot, does not your spiritual eye discern coals of fire on Count Hugo's head?

C. Hugo. Where, and a plague? Where?

C. Wal. Nay, I speak mystically,--there is nought there but what beer will quench before nightfall. Here, peeping rabbit [to a Page at the door], out of your burrow, and show these gentles to their lodgings. We will meet at the gratias. [They go out.]

C. Wal [alone]. Well:--if Hugo is a brute, he at least makes no secret of it. He is an old boar, and honest; he wears his tushes outside, for a warning to all men. But for the rest!--Whited sepulchres! and not one of them but has half persuaded himself of his own benevolence. Of all cruelties, save me from your small pedant,--your closet philosopher, who has just courage enough to bestride his theory, without wit to see whither it will carry him.

In experience, a child: in obstinacy, a woman: in nothing a man, but in logic-chopping: instead of G.o.d's grace, a few schoolboy saws about benevolence, and industry, and independence--there is his metal. If the world will be mended on his principles, well. If not, poor world!--but principles must be carried out, though through blood and famine: for truly, man was made for theories, not theories for man. A doctrine is these men's G.o.d--touch but that shrine, and lo! your simpering philanthropist becomes as ruthless as a Dominican. [Exit.]

SCENE IX

Elizabeth's bower. Elizabeth and Lewis sitting together.

Song

Eliz. Oh that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; Like children with violets playing In the shade of the whispering trees!

Oh that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down Watching the white mist steaming Over river and mead and town!

Oh that we two lay sleeping In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, And our souls at home with G.o.d!

Lewis. Ah, turn away those swarthy diamonds' blaze!

Mine eyes are dizzy, and my faint sense reels In the rich fragrance of those purple tresses.

Oh, to be thus, and thus, day after day!

To sleep, and wake, and find it yet no dream-- My atmosphere, my hourly food, such bliss As to have dreamt of, five short years agone, Had seemed a mad conceit.

Eliz. Five years agone?

Lewis. I know not; for upon our marriage-day I slipped from time into eternity; Where each day teems with centuries of life, And centuries were but one wedding morn.

Eliz. Lewis, I am too happy! floating higher Than e'er my will had dared to soar, though able; But circ.u.mstance, which is the will of G.o.d, Beguiled my cowardice to that, which, darling, I found most natural, when I feared it most.

Love would have had no strangeness in mine eyes, Save from the prejudice which others taught me-- They should know best. Yet now this wedlock seems A second infancy's baptismal robe, A heaven, my spirit's antenatal home, Lost in blind pining girlhood--found now, found!

[Aside] What have I said? Do I blaspheme? Alas!

I neither made these thoughts, nor can unmake them.

Lewis. Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle, The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh; The Eden, where the spirit and the flesh Are one again, and new-born souls walk free, And name in mystic language all things new, Naked, and not ashamed. [Eliz. hides her face.]

Eliz. O G.o.d! were that true!

[Clasps him round the neck.]

There, there, no more-- I love thee, and I love thee, and I love thee-- More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.--Why question further?

[Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!--how? by my own troth-plight?

No, but my thinking that I fall.--'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.-- O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus?

Mercy! My brain will burst: I cannot leave him!

Lewis. Beloved, if I went away to war--