he vile pleasures of her carnal wedlock?

Con. She said no word thereon: as for her shrift,
No Chrisom child could show a chart of thoughts
More spotless than were hers.

Nun. Strange, she said nought;
I had hoped she had grown more pure.

Con. When, next, I asked her,
How she would be interred; 'In the vilest weeds,'
Quoth she, 'my poor hut holds; I will not pamper
When dead, that flesh, which living I despised.
And for my wealth, see it to the last doit
Bestowed upon the poor of Christ.'

2d Woman. O grace!

3d Woman. O soul to this world poor, but rich toward God!

Eliz. [awaking]. Hark! how they cry for bread!
Poor souls! be patient!
I have spent all--
I'll sell myself for a slave--feed them with the price.
Come, Guta! Nurse! We must be up and doing!
Alas! they are gone, and begging!
Go! go! They'll beat me, if I give you aught:
I'll pray for you, and so you'll go to Heaven.
I am a saint--God grants me all I ask.
But I must love no creature. Why, Christ loved--
Mary he loved, and Martha, and their brother--
Three friends! and I have none!
When Lazarus lay dead, He groaned in spirit,
And wept--like any widow--Jesus wept!
I'll weep, weep, weep! pray for that 'gift of tears.'
They took my friends away, but not my eyes,
Oh, husband, babes, friends, nurse! To die alone!
Crack, frozen brain! Melt, icicle within!

Women. Alas! sweet saint! By bitter pangs she wins
Her crown of endless glory!

Con. But she wins it!
Stop that vile sobbing! she's unmanned enough
Without your maudlin sympathy.

Eliz. What? weeping?
Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me--
Weep for yourselves.

Women. We do, alas! we do!
What are we without you? [A pause.]

Woman. Oh, listen, listen!
What sweet sounds from her fast-closed lips are welling,
As from the caverned shaft, deep miners' songs?

Eliz. [in a low voice]. Through the stifling room
Floats strange perfume;
Through the crumbling thatch
The angels watch,
Over the rotting roof-tree.
They warble, and flutter, and hover, and glide,
Wafting old sounds to my dreary bedside,
Snatches of songs which I used to know
When I slept by my nurse, and the swallows
Called me at day-dawn from under the eaves.
Hark to them! Hark to them now--
Fluting like woodlarks, tender and low--
Cool rustling leaves--tinkling waters--
Sheepbells over the lea--
In their silver plumes Eden-gales whisper--
In their hands Eden-lilies--not for me--not for me--
No crown