she'll pine and sigh from her lattice high
For the knight that's far away.

Monks. A carnis illectamentis
Domine libera nos.

Min. Blest maid! fresh roses o'er thee
The careless years shall fling;
While days and nights shall new delights
To sense and fancy bring.

Fool. Satins and silks, and feathers and lace,
Will gild life's pill;
In jewels and gold folks cannot grow old,
Fine ladies will never fall ill.

Monks. A vanitatibus saeculi
Domine libera nos.

[Sophia descends from the Dais, leading Elizabeth. Ladies follow.]

Sophia [to the Fool]. Silence, you screech-owl.--
Come strew flowers, fair ladies,
And lead into her bower our fairest bride,
The cynosure of love and beauty here,
Who shrines heaven's graces in earth's richest casket.

Eliz. I come, [aside] Here, Guta, take those monks a fee--
Tell them I thank them--bid them pray for me.
I am half mazed with trembling joy within,
And noisy wassail round. 'Tis well, for else
The spectre of my duties and my dangers
Would whelm my heart with terror. Ah! poor self!
Thou took'st this for the term and bourne of troubles--
And now 'tis here, thou findest it the gate
Of new sin-cursed infinities of labour,
Where thou must do, or die!
[aloud] Lead on. I'll follow. [Exeunt.]

Fool. There, now. No fee for the fool; and yet my prescription was
as good as those old Jeremies'. But in law, physic, and divinity,
folks had sooner be poisoned in Latin, than saved in the mother-
tongue.

ACT II

SCENE I. A.D. 1221-27

Elizabeth's Bower. Night. Lewis sleeping in an Alcove.

Elizabeth lying on the Floor in the Foreground.

Eliz. No streak yet in the blank and eyeless east--
More weary hours to ache, and smart, and shiver
On these bare boards, within a step of bliss.
Why peevish? 'Tis mine own will keeps me here--
And yet I hate myself for that same will:
Fightings within and out! How easy 'twere, now,
Just to be like the rest, and let life run--
To use up to the rind what joys God sends us,
Not thus forestall His rod: What! and so lose
The strength which comes by suffering? Well, if grief
Be gain, mine's double--fleeing thus the snare
Of yon luxurious and unnerving down,
And widowed from mine Eden. And why widowed?
Because they tell me, love is of the flesh,
And that's our house-bred foe, the adder in our bosoms,
Which warmed to life, will sting us. They must know--
I do confess mine ignorance, O Lord!
Mine earnest will t