And saw him standing at the door Of his Father's mansion, vast and splendid, And beckoning to me from afar. I cannot stay! GOTTLIEB. She speaks almost As if it were the Holy Ghost Spake through her lips, and in her stead! What if this were of God? URSULA. Ah, then Gainsay it dare we not. GOTTLIEB. Elsie! the words that thou hast said Kiss me. URSULA. Good night; and do not weep Ah, what an awful thing is this! I almost shuddered at her kiss, As soon as I see the earliest gray And hear what the good man has to say! A VILLAGE CHURCH. A woman kneeling at the confessional. Go, sin no more! Thy penance o'er, From the dominion of thy sin! The peace that filled thy heart before, The woman goes out. The Priest comes forth, and walks slowly up and down the church. O blessed Lord! how much I need Thy light to guide me on my way! Still touch thy wounds, and make them bleed! But am myself a castaway! A pause. The day is drawing to its close; And what good deeds, since first it rose, Have I presented, Lord, to thee, As offerings of my ministry? What wrong repressed, what right maintained, What struggle passed, what victory gained, What good attempted and attained? Feeble, at best, is my endeavor! I see, but cannot reach, the height And yet for ever and for ever, A pause. Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck? Why keep me pacing to and fro And marking with each step a tomb? The counsel to do this and live; The tempter, though his power is strong, And, inaccessible to wrong, Still like a martyr live and die! A pause. The evening air grows dusk and brown; To visit beds of pain and death, Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes That see, through tears, the sun go down, But never more shall see it rise. The poor in body and estate, The sick and the disconsolate, Must not on man's convenience wait. Goes out. Enter LUCIFER, as a Priest. LUCIFER, with a genuflexion, mocking. This is the Black Pater-noster. God was my foster, He fostered me Under the book of the Palm-tree! St. Michael was my dame. My right food, and shelter too, That I may to yon kirk go, To read upon yon sweet book Which the mighty God of heaven shook. Shut, shut, heaven's gates! All the devils in the air The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer! Looking round the church. What a darksome and dismal place! I wonder that any man has the face To call such a hole the House of the Lord, And the Gate of Heaven, yet such is the word. Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould; Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs! As if a great Bible, bound in lead, Holy-water it may be to many, But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennæ! It smells like a filthy fast-day soup! He puts in money. Underneath this mouldering tomb, With statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass, Slumbers a great lord of the village. All his life was riot and pillage, But at length, to escape the threadened doom He died in the dress of a mendicant friar, And here, in a corner of the wall, Seats himself in the confessional. |