University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

Tablinum in the house of Vivia Perpetua.
Enter Felicitas.
FELICITAS.
She's home; but what of all this care within?
Why, such another tarrying without
Of one hath liv'd so close, would raise a question;
And there are spies who use their eyes like cats,
The better in the dark. 'Tis like enough
She hath been watch'd; and sure the man I saw,
While looking out, shrink sham'd away, was one
On no good errand. Comes the fear lest she
Should peril us? 'tis like to check a pride
I had in winning her—her father's jewel.
(Christ wear her in his crown, and pardon me!)
She scarce can keep her secret; 'deed her face
Tells the whole history; let him read it, and
We all were lost; for sure he hates us Christians
Much more than he loves her. 'Twas a strange fancy
To go and tell her mind to stocks and stones!
But she is good—oh, better far than I;
And she was near a Christian in her heart
Or e'er she knew His name. She comes. How pale!

Enter Vivia Perpetua.
VIVIA.
Why—why is this? these grappling human ties!
Whence that sweet aptness for thy rest, my boy?
Thou suck'st it not from me.

FELICITAS.
Madam, no fear;
'Tis I.

VIVIA.
No fear; 'tis weariness alone:
The body is o'ertax'd, and timid made.
My pace was still the goad to wavering strength,
Lest I should miss the hour for Saturus.
Would he were here!

FELICITAS.
Dear lady, as I sat
Watching for your return, a footstep came—
I open'd quick, thinking 'twas his,—as quick
A stranger form slunk off beneath the arch,
Sly as a lizard.

VIVIA.
In the time of shadows,
The eye, half seeing, falls a dupe to fancy;
Or shade or substance, naught is it for fear.
Go, good Felicitas, again thy watch;
'Tis more than time, if measur'd by my need.—
[Exit Felicitas.
Thy rest—thy mother will not guard it long:
But now a mist rose up 'twixt thee and me—
'Twas more than tears,—as though dividing us.
Dear Christ, who bless'd those little ones, thou sure
Wilt care for him, should I—That temple chill'd me.
This is a more than weariness I feel;—
A sense of death, now newly wak'd within.
Peace, peace! And dwell not peace and death together?
His aspect grim now wears an angel's face;
Though all is shadow underneath his wing,
Yet is it shelter—peace, even in death.

Enter Saturus.
SATURUS.
Peace be within this house!

VIVIA.
Now all is well.

SATURUS.
Peace, even in death?—You thought of Him
Whose legacy was “peace,” even in death;
Whose first immortal blessing on the Twelve,
When he had overcome the Conqueror,
Was, “Peace be unto you!”—you thought of Him:
Why are you silent?

VIVIA.
Under thy rebuke,
Which mine own conscience sharpens to rebuke,
Not thy intent; myself and mine own sorrow
Usurp'd the place of Him thou wilt restore.

SATURUS.
Lives there a sorrow that Christ cannot heal?
Nay, sorrow dies; and dying, she bequeaths
A rich endowment for a noble joy;
Dissolves in light, to bid us hold her tears
As precious dews that visit us from heav'n,
To nurture up the soul to richer growth;
Our light afflictions are but for a moment:
Is there a sorrow that Christ cannot heal?

VIVIA.
Oh, question not of mine! But I of thee
Must ask for strength. Oft with a sickly child
The nurse doth wile the time with histories strange:
You are my soul's best minister; and I
Now crave the promis'd history of thy faith.
Thou wert not Christian born?

SATURUS.
The dawn doth come
Before the sun ariseth to the sight.
Man's soul hath many chords; like yonder lyre,
Which, separately struck, yield out a tone,
That is not music, but the help to it;
Or, with more aptness to my thought, say this,—
The natural wind passing athwart the strings
Whispers of what the master's hand alone
Can render into fullest harmony.
So seemeth me a voice hath breath'd in man
Oracular since first he was created:
This bade the rude barbarian of the forest
To lift up longing eyes unto the sky
(The speckled intervals between the leaves)
To read the hope of better life and lands;
This swell'd the burden of old prophecy;
Taught calm philosophy to stretch beyond
Her measur'd track to reach the prophet's strain.
The poet heard it, and did wing his way,
The more divine his song, the nearer heaven;
And in our own old faith it hath enfolded
Some types of the “to come,” which now thou hast;
Art, while she listen'd to the poet's lyre,
Did then create her fairest in those forms,
That thron'd on radiant clouds, high o'er our heads,
The souls of those once here, beatified
Into the deities of Greece or Rome.

VIVIA.
When spake the voice to thee?

SATURUS.
First in the night
(When silence else was angel of the hour),
While poring o'er those yet illumin'd scrolls,—
The urns that shrine the poet's burning thoughts,—
From whence, the while we glowing contemplate,
New thought springs phœnix-like from out their ashes.
Of him I read, that glorious Titan old,
Stronger than Strength, master of strenuous Force,
Whose spirit urg'd endurance through his frame,
In mightier torrent than the blood his life:
His spirit—was't rebellion? Nay, not then
Such question did I make—the natural wind
But whisper'd in the strings—for while I read,
A pow'r above Jove's pow'r breath'd out of him.
As he his fire, he wil'd my worship down
From huge Olympus to the Caucasus;
With old Oceanus my breast did heave;
With wandering Io did I blessing join
To give to this redeemer of our race;
And when his fate gather'd to wilder fury,
I will'd with him to sink in Tartarus,
So I might worship still, rather than rise
To reign a god, though Jove had given me place
To sit beside him on a tyrant's throne.

VIVIA.
That poet's lyre did prophesy of Christ,
And yet no string did vibrate of our Father.

SATURUS.
Jove's thunder peal'd too loudly in the heavens,
Yet was love's whisper heard above the roar.
I listen'd till it reft me of the god,
Who, throned on clouds, the lightning in his grasp,
Thunder his voice, and vengeance swift his act,
Doom'd my Prometheus! I did refuse
Him utterly. Yet where and whom to seek?
The soul asks more than fable for a worship.
To the realities of earth I turn'd:
Of earth indeed!
Then rose the gloom of doubt; for when I saw
Oppression crush down man with iron foot,
And tyranny make strong iniquity,
And no redeemer for man's misery,
Save in one poet's solitary fable,
Sad eyes, despairing of a deity,
Turn'd vaguely upward to the azure heav'ns
As empty of all governance for man.

VIVIA.
There is a thought—say, would it be a sin
To track a mystery?

SATURUS.
Woe for the truth,
Had every mystery remain'd untrack'd!

VIVIA.
There are some mysteries, I scarce begin
To thread them, but from out them up springs love,
Flies through them like a bird along a grove,
And sings them to forgetfulness, in joy.
But one e'en now doth come to hold her mute:
Oppression yet doth crush with iron foot,
And tyranny makes strong iniquity,
Though a Redeemer hath appear'd for man,
Who bade us look to heaven for a God
Who made us, loves us, bids us love each other;
Our will is happiness for those we love,—
Our power is so much weaker than our will;—
But Love omnipotent?—

SATURUS.
I do believe,
Were love omnipotent within ourselves,
Woe were extinct. I cannot answer thee—
I am but man, while He is God o'er all.
Yet as a man shew manliness in this,
That I will trust the Pow'r hath given me all,
Nor meanly scant my thankfulness with doubt.
The mystery sleeps, while Faith, with arms afold
Over a trusting heart, sits smiling by.
It sleeps, o'ercanopied by starry heavens,
And cradled in earth's beauty. Let it rest:
While sunshine comes to herald in the day;
While flow'rs and breezes intermingle sweets;
While birds still warble gladness out, like light
Athwart the azure heav'ns; while mountains stand—
Those silent, shadowy chroniclers of time—
To wake within our eyes and hearts a worship;
While yon great joy of God, the ocean, heaves
To seek the skies that mate it in his glory;
While stately pageants throng the heav'ns by day,
And multitudinous brightness crowds the night;
While the calm interposing twilight comes,
Tender and gracious, hand in hand with these
Her grander sisters—(see, yon unmatchable star
Now decks her dusky forehead into light!);
While man, the fine epitome of all,
Is master made of all, yea, more than all—
Hath given to him a mind that can create
Worlds endless out of this, with leave of choice
Of what or seemeth good or ill to him;
While love, the crowning gift that comes from heav'n,
A ray that streams direct from forth the Godhead,
Lights up an earthborn man into an angel,
Who wings his way to heav'n upon the track;
While for each sorrow, high and strong soe'er,
There lives a stronger good may ride the wave,
Singing the while its triumph to the skies,—
Oh, can we stay to question pain—why art thou?
Nor take at once the way she points to joy!
Beware of doubt, that gloomiest, coldest cloud,
A shroud of death in life for human hearts.
That cloud doth hover near a land where souls,
Once falling, lose the will to soar again;
Where man, a godless, loveless worm, doth cling
To the earth whereon he crawls, to let proud death
Crush him with bony foot into the dust.

VIVIA.
But are there really those who have no God?
All have some faith, some hope, a lingering wish,
Or a bare possible,—that is one step
Out of the nothingness that else were theirs.

SATURUS.
No, there are those who rather would be nothing
Than that another should stand high above them.
He is your atheist, who would make himself
An individual god unto himself—
Will brook no thought of equal with himself;
But, rather than confess a mystery,
Lest it should fix him with an ignorance,
Would coldly stand and watch the birth of worms
Out of the corpses of his wife and children,
Content with this—“You see all elements
Return unto their own.”—Ask thy child's smile—
Thy joy at seeing it—Is't dust? is't worm?
O man, that will not own nor God nor heav'n,
Because thou canst not spare from self a worship!

VIVIA.
And Camus, he the priest of Jupiter,
Once said that Christians all were atheists; sure
He could not think so?

SATURUS.
No; but were all Christians,
What would become of priests? His vaults are fill'd
With golden treasure yielded by his office,
His pride is swell'd by homage paid to it;—
We have no priests, no flamens; all our service
Is freely render'd; neither least nor greatest
Are words amongst us; all are ministers
Unto the good of all. The priest would crush
A power that comes to take away his pow'r—
Camus or Caiaphas, it is the same.
A priest it was who first did point the way
Unto our faith by his unseemly rage.
I never yet did hear a hot abuse
But that some good had been its provocation;
For in itself abuse is so much wrong,
It gives fair aspect to its opposite.
Thus, when I heard the Christian faith beset
With venomous thoughts, and the tongue's sharpest arrows
Levelled the while at acts that spoke to me
Like loving voices, listen'd for, for years,
I turn'd me full to meet it face to face;
And, lo! my soul was stricken with a God!
O, blessed stroke! O lyre, that sounded then
Beneath the Master's hand full harmony!
O love, that shone so bright o'er all the world,
That every man seem'd image of a God!
He dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
The temples of the living Lord are ye;
His kingdom is within you. Thus for me,
From that time forth, did every human form
Stand for a living shrine of Deity.
How dark soe'er, no fire upon the altar,
Still was it man—man capable of God!
Each blacken'd criminal for me became
A hope towards an angel; for I felt
The meanest slave or birth or crime doth own
Is yet a brother unto him was lift,
By promise of the Lord of life and light,
Up to a Paradise from off a Cross!
O grand redemption—true equality—
Beheld in Christian love! Nor least nor greatest;
Master and slave, rich, poor, all come alike,
Blest by redeeming love, into heav'n's kingdom.

VIVIA.
They who would be the greatest are the least;
They who do love the most, they are the best;
But if themselves begin to reckon thus,
While so they reckon, lo! the treasure's gone.

SATURUS.
He who did love the most and was the Best,
When he rebuk'd those who would call him Lord,
Shone out a King in brightness o'er them all,
Rob'd in the majesty of loveliness,
Crown'd with this rich supremacy of love!
His burden that we bear, 'tis Christian love,
No sooner taken up than we are light;
And his the yoke whose pressure is but ease.
With love expands the scope of piety:
While pride doth hold the poor for baser clay,
Religion, weeping fond and thoughtful tears,
Gently dissolves their elements to find
Some vein of native good, by pride unseen,
That shines to prove her God a God in all.
There is no virtue where there is not love:
In those esteem'd the wise, how oft we see
A scorn and bitterness that slacks their wisdom;
They hate the evil more than love the good!
O how refulgent wisdom, love, and pow'r,
Shine forth in Him, our Saviour! Come all ye,
Or kings for greatness, potentates for wisdom,
Lay down your lesser honours at his feet.
And come, ye poets; ye whose winged thoughts
Have borne us oft to empyrean heights,
Where as ye stood, faint rays of purer light
Have shone prophetic of the coming sun;
Ye who were once my worship, bow ye down—
A brighter than Apollo now appears!
Your fabled Castaly no longer charms;
For where the Jordan's hallow'd waters flow,
Remembrance of Christ's image in their breast
Wakes up a sweeter, an immortal song,
The echo of that spirit-voice that broke
Like light upon their wave, when He the Lord
Was crown'd of heav'n as God's beloved Son.
Bow down to him, a mightier one than all,
The immortal Poet of Humanity!
Whose mind, a stylus diamonded with light,
Illumes the while it graves its radiant truths
Upon the fleshly tables of the heart;—
His life a poem, that will yet create
Myriads of poems, deathless souls of men,
Regenerate by his divine example!
Look at those faces that I soon shall meet
In yonder cave of death, all uninstruct
In worldly knowledge, yet His script is there.
O it doth shine for me as though the angel
That watch'd His sleep had been again on earth
To leave a light within the sepulchre!

VIVIA.
Let me go with thee to this Christian service.
You look on me, and speak not. Is it doubt?

SATURUS.
Not of thy truth, not of thy will to be
A servant of the Lord;—nor I nor thou
Can tell what is thy pow'r to aid thy will,
Should the fate fall that ever hangs above us.
Once stepp'd into the assembly of the faith,
Thou'rt pledged unto that Christ who died for thee,
To be the bright exemplar of his truth.
Thou'rt pledg'd to me, (whose only joy in life
Is to win souls to worship him) that thou
Bring not a weakness where we need a strength.
I have known those who promis'd fair as thou
As glories for the faith, to prove its shame;
And those of stronger seeming mould, and us'd
To the commonness of life, as thou art not;—
For fortune hath caress'd thee from thy birth;
The world's opinion suns thee from without;
The fond affections glow for thee within;
The natural ills that in a humbler lot
Are custom, Art for thee hath shielded off,
Pouring the while her treasures at thy feet,
Encircling thee with all her graciousness.
And what art thou thyself, apart from this?
Timidity is native in thy form,
And gentleness that shrinks before a tone
Without like gentleness to mate with it.
I would not have thee venture on a way
Begirt with dangers, and thou knew'st them not;
Fear ne'er won courage yet from ignorance.
Think whither thou wouldst go—from what a home!

VIVIA.
Under the stars, no roof 'twixt me and heav'n,
There—there is now my home! This is a prison,
Where old remembrance like a gaoler sits,
And every voice is like an iron chain,
To bind me into dumbness. And when comes
My father, restless conscience wakens up,
To never cease the while her stinging whisper,
So that I cannot look him in the face
For list'ning unto her. The world I fear not,—
Its thought of me did never have a thought;
Things in themselves for their own sake I seek,
And not regard of others in them, or
I ne'er had follow'd in the Christian track.
You do not know how often I have turn'd
Unto these silent marbles, there to try
And gaze away a weariness of soul,
Forgetting in their graciousness awhile
Others' forgetfulness of what they owe
Unto their nobler natures. Never yet
Found I true dignity in any one
Who let the world's opinion cripple thought,
Sure of revenge upon the outward form,
Whose finer graces only wait on freedom.
The world's opinion! O what were it? What
The entire that wealth could give? I would give all—
How joyfully!—for one approving smile
Like that which once did bless a little child.

SATURUS.
Think of thy child!

VIVIA.
I now could go and fold him to my heart,
Bequeath my love in one long kiss, and then
Lie down on earth, and listen for my death
Quietly as his sleep, ere I could live
To have him question of his mother's eyes,
And they did shame to look on him.

SATURUS.
This shews
Like strength.

VIVIA.
Say it of those poor tears,
That look'd like weakness, while they gush'd to prove
What 'tis to bear at once the dread to grieve,
And the reproach of silence. Let me go
Where I can look—can speak that which I feel.
There will be rest in this self-dedication;
So much of act to pacify the thought.

SATURUS.
And for thy father? Pause ere you make answer.

VIVIA.
No pause!—the answer's in the argument
My soul doth credit, as my sight the sun,—
That he that loveth father more than me,
He is not worthy of me!—I would strive.
Help me! thou canst; 'tis here my weakness lies—
Still nourish'd by fond custom; let me go
Where all will lift me upward into strength.
To-day within the temple have I made—
Calling on God, Christ, Heaven, to witness it,—
A solemn vow to enter it no more!
What day so fit to seek my worship's home?

SATURUS.
That home—think well!—a cavern lone and dim,
With earth above thee for thy chosen heav'n,
Surrounded by the dead,—amongst such living
As have but newly wak'd from deeper death.
If now the while I speak one shadow comes
To dim the perfect brightness of thy wish,
Take counsel of it; it may be the first
Of a dread host of fears may come upon thee.

VIVIA.
What should I fear, while truth doth lead me on,
The vestal of an everlasting lamp?

SATURUS.
Seek we no other guide!

VIVIA.
At twilight, then?

SATURUS.
Be it unto thy wish.
I will wait for thee at the cavern's mouth;
Felicitas will guide thee. Now to rest.

VIVIA.
I rest e'en now—a deeper rest than sleep.
I will release Felicitas, to meet thee
At the entrance; then dismiss her to her couch.

SATURUS.
Farewell! and may Christ's peace remain with thee!

VIVIA.
Did not his blessing when you came to-night
Impart it to me? Let this be my surety.
Farewell!—I never say the word in fear,
As once I did.—Farewell! may Heaven's blessing,
The dearest Christ can give his own, be thine!

[Exeunt.