University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—Private Chapel in the Vatican.
Gregory, kneeling before a lighted Shrine.
Gre.
And to behold
A shadowy portion of Thy Countenance
Reflected o'er the insufficient sea!
Let the great hopes of ages concentrate
In all their depth and splendour of device;
Best thoughts of men, and changeless essence fine,
Be mingled now in one eternal flame
To spring from this one altar! Oh, my God!
Thou send'st us time, even as a little rain;
Thou send'st us death, as potentates of earth
Their signet send; but send'st us prayer, to reach
The steep stars and the thrones of the Remote,
On palpitating and refulgent wings!
Now do I watch the triune Diadem,
Like a new planet, dawn o'er the world's shrine!
Its guiding spirit—central in my heart—
With solemn exhortation lighting up,
And vividly detaching from their shadows,
Broad continents of life, and tracks of splendour,
Ne'er seen by mortal eyes before; but wrapped
I' the smouldering bosom of eternity,
Waiting Thy procreant hand of light, through me,
O God, the Giver!
[He rises, and stands awhile in silence.
There was a carpenter of Tuscany,
Whose son, from a cowled monk, made himself Pontiff.
High-fronted saints and martyrs, men sublime
In aspiration and security,—
Trusting to virtue, wisdom, justice, peace,
The elements of nature in their souls,—
Have, by thus trusting, left their tasks undone,
Staked midst the roar of flames, or nailed and left
In silence on the lonely night-black cross.
So I, who know what blood I have within,
Do act, believing all mankind the same;
And, being now in thunder throned above them,
Shall melt them with my fiery bolts, and pour
These tremblers in the moulds of my fixed will.
One Altar—one High Pontiff—and some kings,
Holding in fief their sceptres,—
[Signal at a secret door.
Lo, I come!
These small events do yet advance the whole.
Enter two Guards.
Godfrey is dead, then—no!—ye have poorly failed!

1st Gua.
He has taken sanctuary.

Gre.
Ha!—in my very hands!
Go now at once, with full authority—

Enter Damianus.
Dami.
Thou wilt not have him at the altar slain!

Gre.
What didst thou say?

Dami.
Oh, pause!

Gre.
Repeat your words!

Dami.
That he—had taken sanctuary.

Gre.
I thank thee:
The news is old. (To the Guards.)
Finish it instantly!

1st Gua.
If our souls—

Gre.
Full—full pardon from the church
In her own cause!
[Exeunt Guards.
Well said, self-sacrifice!
Think'st thou I'd be the victim?

Dami.
Oh, my lord!
Most high-dispensing Gregory! forgive me!
But I am thoroughly shaken by these things.
Since Alexander's death I've never prayed
Audibly; but in whispers, with closed eyes.
Horrors chase through my brain in dreams by night,
And, screaming, act the dreadful scene again!
Their monstrous variations seem all ours—
The madness ours! Oh, let there be no more!

Gre.
No more deaths, except mine! would you say that?
For that 's the alternative—and I've made my choice.
He raised his steel o'er me, and shall draw down
Electric answers!

Dami.
Doth this clear the conscience?

Gre.
Ay, like the air!

Dami.
Oh, my liege, make 't not so light,
For conscience holds the balance of the world.

Gre.
I have a conscience higher than the world,
And its opinion's narrow measurement;
Its timorous grasp and terrors of the will
At every magnitudinal desire,
With all the ruinous weakness of remorse,
Who lets the heaved-up stone roll down again,
A self-doomed Sysiphus.

Dami.
I trembling pray
For all my sins, and for frail human nature.

Gre.
Frail what?

Dami.
Frail nature—I do humbly own
All my unworthiness to be thus placed
Near one so lofty; I would fain retire:
My health sinks daily.

Gre.
You shall never leave me!
You followed me out of the cloister's shade,
Believing me a great Artificer!—
A throne-builder for God!—a putter-down
Of militant kings!—now you turn pale, beholding
My hands in actual work; but you shall stay:
We 've known each other's thoughts too well to part.
To your couch!—and in your dreams remember this,
In answer to your indigestion's fancies,—
Conquerors for space of earth their thousands kill;
Lasting dominion o'er the soul—for which
A century full of life were cheaply given—
Needs but few offerings of this dust we wear.

[Exeunt.