What matter what I feel, or like, or fear?

Come what G.o.d sends. Within there--Brother Gerard!

[Gerard enters.]

Watch here an hour, and pray.--The fiends are busy.

So--hold my hand. [Crosses himself.] Come on, I fear you not.

[Sleeps.]

[Gerard sings.]

Qui fugiens rnundi gravia Contempsit carnis bravia, Cupidinisque somnia, Lucratur, perdens, omnia.

Hunc gestant ulnis angeli, Ne lapis officiat pedi; Ne luce timor occupet, Aut nocte pestis incubet.

Huic coeli lilia germinant; Arrisus sponsi permanent; Ac nomen in fidelibus Quam filiorum medius. [Sleeps.]

Conrad [awaking]. Stay! Spirits, stay! Art thou a h.e.l.l-born phantasm, Or word too true, sent by the mother of G.o.d?

Oh, tell me, queen of Heaven!

O G.o.d! if she, the city of the Lord, Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soul Of half the earth; wherein all kingdoms, laws, Authority, and faith do culminate, And draw from her their sanction and their use; The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages, Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed; The tree whose rootlets drink of every river, Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles; Christ's seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and hues Of all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish, And crumble into dust!

Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas!

Oh! to have prayed, and toiled--and lied--for this!

For this to have crushed out the heart of youth, And sat by calm, while living bodies burned!

How! Gerard; sleeping!

Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son?

Ger. [awaking]. How! have I slept? Shame on my vaporous brain!

And yet there crept along my hand from thine A leaden languor, and the drowsy air Teemed thick with humming wings--I slept perforce.

Forgive me (while for breach of holy rule Due penance shall seem honour) my neglect.

Con. I should have beat thee for't, an hour agone-- Now I judge no man. What are rules and methods?

I have seen things which make my brain-sphere reel: My magic teraph-bust, full-packed, and labelled, With saws, ideas, dogmas, ends, and theories, Lies shivered into dust. Pah! we do squint Each through his loophole, and then dream, broad heaven Is but the patch we see. But let none know; Be silent, Gerard, wary.

Ger. Nay--I know nought Of that which moves thee: though I fain would ask--

Con. I saw our mighty Mother, Holy Church, Sit like a painted harlot: round her limbs An oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled, And lisped the name of Jesus--I'll not tell thee: I have seen more than man can see, and live: G.o.d, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bans The luckless seer from off the tree of life, Lest he become as G.o.ds, and burst with pride; Or sick at sight of his own nothingness, Lie down, and be a fiend: my time is near: Well--I have neither child, nor kin, nor friend, Save thee, my son; I shall go lightly forth.

Thou knowest we start for Marpurg on the morrow?

Thou wilt go with me?

Ger. Ay, to death, my master; Yet boorish heretics, with grounded throats, Mutter like sullen bulls; the Count of Saym, And many gentlemen, they say, have sworn A fearful oath: there's danger in the wind.

Con. They have their quarrel; I was keen and hasty: Gladio qui ut.i.tur, peribit gladio.

When Heaven is strong, then h.e.l.l is strong: Thou fear'st not?

Ger. No! though their name were legion! 'Tis for thee Alone I quake, lest by some pious boldness Thou quench the light of Israel.

Con. Light? my son!

There shall no light be quenched, when I lie dark.

Our path trends outward: we will forth to-morrow.

Now let's to chapel; matin bells are ringing. [Exeunt.]

SCENE III

A road between Eisenach and Marpurg. Peasants waiting by the roadside. Walter of Varila, the Count of Saym, and other gentlemen entering on horseback.

Gent. Talk not of honour--h.e.l.l's aflame within me: Foul water quenches fire as well as fair; If I do meet him he shall die the death, Come fair, come foul: I tell you, there are wrongs The fumbling piecemeal law can never touch, Which bring of themselves to the injured, right divine, Straight from the fount of right, above all parchments, To be their own avengers: dainty lawyers, If one shall slay the adulterer in the act, Dare not condemn him: girls have stabbed their tyrants, And common sense has crowned them saints; yet what-- What were their wrongs to mine? All gone! All gone!

My n.o.ble boys, whom I had trained, poor fools, To win their spurs, and ride afield with me!

I could have spared them--but my wife! my lady!

Those dainty limbs, which no eyes but mine-- Before that ruffian mob--Too much for man!

Too much, stern Heaven!--Those eyes, those hands, Those tender feet, where I have lain and worshipped-- Food for fierce flames! And on the self-same day-- The day that they were seized--unheard--unargued-- No witness, but one vile convicted thief-- The dog is dead and buried: Well done, henchmen!

They are not buried! Pah! their ashes flit About the common air; we pa.s.s them--breathe them!

The self-same day! If I had had one look!

One word--one single tiny spark of word, Such as two swallows change upon the wing!

She was no heretic: she knelt for ever Before the blessed rood, and prayed for me.

Art sure he comes this road?

C. Saym. My messenger Saw him start forth, and watched him past the crossways.

An hour will bring him here.

C. Wal. How! ambuscading?

I'll not sit by, while helpless priests are butchered.

Shame, gentles!

C. Saym. On my word, I knew not on't Until this hour; my quarrel's not so sharp, But I may let him pa.s.s: my name is righted Before the Emperor, from all his slanders; And what's revenge to me?

Gent. Ay, ay--forgive and forget-- The vermin's trapped--and we'll be gentle-handed, And lift him out, and bid his master speed him, Him and his firebrands. He shall never pa.s.s me.

C. Wal. I will not see it; I'm old, and sick of blood.

She loved him, while she lived; and charged me once, As her sworn liegeman, not to harm the knave.

I'll home: yet, knights, if aught untoward happen, And you should need a shelter, come to me: My walls are strong. Home, knaves! we'll seek our wives, And beat our swords to ploughshares--when folks let us.

[Exeunt Count Walter and suite.]

C. Saym. He's gone, brave heart!--But--sir, you will not dare?

The Pope's own Legate--think--there's danger in't.

Gent. Look, how athwart yon sullen sleeping flats That frowning thunder-cloud sails pregnant hither;-- And black against its sheeted gray, one bird Flags fearful onward--'Tis his cursed soul!

Now thou shalt quake, raven!--The self-same day!-- He cannot 'scape! The storm is close upon him!

There! There! the wreathing spouts have swallowed him!

He's gone! and see, the keen blue spark leaps out From crag to crag, and every vaporous pillar Shouts forth his death-doom! 'Tis a sign, a sign!

[A heretic preacher mounts a stone. Peasants gather round him.]

These are the starved unlettered hinds, forsooth, He hunted down like vermin--for a doctrine.

They have their rights, their wrongs; their lawless laws, Their witless arguings, which unconscious reason Informs to just conclusions. We will hear them.