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.
Eliz. O my God!
I had stripped myself of all, but modesty!
Dost Thou claim yet that victim? Be it so.
Now take me home! I have no more to give Thee!
So weak--and yet no pain--why, now naught ails me!
How dim the lights burn! Here--
Where are you, children?
Alas! I had forgotten.
Now I must sleep--for ere the sun shall rise,
I must begone upon a long, long journey
To him I love.
Con. She means her heavenly Bridegroom--
The Spouse of souls.
Eliz. I said, to him I love.
Let me sleep, sleep.
You will not need to wake me--so--good-night.
[Folds herself into an attitude of repose. The scene closes.]
ACT V
SCENE I. A.D. 1235.
A Convent at Marpurg. Cloisters of the infirmary. Two aged monks
sitting.
1st Monk. So they will publish to-day the Landgravine's
canonisation, and translate her to the new church prepared for her.
Alack, now, that all the world should be out sight-seeing and saint-
making, and we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry!
2d Monk. Let be, man--let be. We have seen sights and saints in
our time. And, truly, this insolatio suits my old bones better than
processioning.
1st Monk. 'Tis pleasant enough in the sun, were it not for the
flies. Look--there's a lizard. Come you here, little run-about;
here's game for you.
2d Monk. A tame fool, and a gay one--Munditiae mundanis.
1st Monk. Catch him a fat fly--my hand shaketh.
2d Monk. If one of your new-lights were here, now, he'd pluck him
for a fiend, as Dominic did the live sparrow in chapel.
1st Monk. There will be precious offerings made to-day, of which
our house will get its share.
2d Monk. Not we; she always favoured the Franciscans most.
1st Monk. 'Twas but fair--they were her kith and kin.
She lately put on the habit of their third minors.
2d Monk. So have half the fine gentlemen and ladies in Europe.
There's one of your new inventions, now, for letting grand folks
serve God and mammon at once, and emptying honest monasteries, where
men give up all for the Gospel's sake. And now these Pharisees of
Franciscans will go off with full pockets--
1st Monk. While we poor publicans--
2d Monk. Shall not com
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