University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

The Hut in the Woods. Night, near morning.
Eliduke alone with the body of Estreldis on the bed.
Eli.
Hang on my weary soul, black-fronted night!
Oh, be eternal, and perplex the day
With an unbroken dark! Dim-shafted trees
And solemn woods, hold in your whispering breath!
Close up thy crescent, pale inconstant fire;
And you, the girdling torches of the blue,
Stand in your occidental passages!
Put out the sun, and undisturbed rest
Hang his broad hand over the busy world!
Let Silence stride the deep. Only grim Death,
On muffled wing, steal to his purposes,
Since none may cope with him;—grim Death, that is
The king of quiet and sole emperor.
O most mysterious Death! close consort thou
And co-mate of the very soul of change,
Art thou divorced from this thine olden bride,
That she remains uninjured lying here,
Most terrible in her unfading bloom?
Art thou, O Death, that monster men present thee,
That grizzled terror and lean spectacle;
Or rather not some young voluptuous king,
Fair as Endymion and more amorous,
That pluck'st with so distinguishing a hand
The youngest and the fairest? Look, she smiles!
Hither have I come many a secret night
To bury her; but while she smiles so brightly
No earth shall lie upon her angel face;
But here I'll sit, watching my handiwork,
Till daylight spreads the east. Already, look,
The sickly dawn puts up. Oh, come away!
I dare not see her by the light of day!

[Exit.
Enter Castabel and Page.
Page.
This way, my lady; here he comes o' nights.

Cast..
Here will I wait his coming. Stand without,
And if he comes, go home.

Page.
I will, my lady;
But much I doubt he will not come again,
For mostly with the morning he goes home.

[Exit.
[Castabel comes forward, and sees Estreldis stretched on the bed.
Cast..
Oh, now I do perceive it! now indeed!
O Eliduke, thou soul of my soul's soul!
How hast thou left me hopeless! O my God!
I am blind with tears, and know not what to do.
What have I done, O God, what monstrous crime,
That I should live to see so sad a sight?
Patience, give me some patience, thou good Heaven!
I would not now forget my fortitude,
Or task thy will. Give me a little time.
Look what a tearful face I do uplift
Into thy court, O God! Look down upon me!
Methinks the kindly gates of heaven are shut,
And I alone am only miserable.

[She swoons.
Enter Page hastily.
Page.
My lady! What, two ladies! She is senseless.
Oh, for some water! Hold! I'll try the flower.

[He touches the lips of Castabel with a scarlet flower in his hand.
Cast..
What place is this? Where am I? All's not well.

Page.
My lady, here's the strangest thing alive.

Cast..
Nay, here's a stranger thing to match it, boy.

Page.
My lady, as I stood without i' th' wood,
Over the greensward came two weazels running,
Gambolling in and out among the trees,
Close to my very feet. I with my staff
Struck one, and killed it.

Cast..
Eliduke that was't—
Nay, I'll be patient.

Page.
Do but hear me, lady.
The other, seeing him dead, stood over him
As if in grief, and smelled and snuffed him round,
To see if any life yet hung in him;
Then slipped into the wood, and in an instant
Came back, bearing this flower here in his mouth,
Wherewith he touched his fellow-weazel's lips,
Who straight revived from death;—as dead as stone
He lay before. I killed him with my staff.

Cast..
What's this thou tell'st?

Page.
And when I now came in,
And found you swooned, this flower, touching your lips,
Straight summoned back your sense, and you awoke.

Cast..
Give me the flower. I'll touch her lips with it.
Perchance she is not dead; as I have heard
Of ice-cold swoons wherein men lie as dead,
And in that thought are buried,—when they wake
In silent graves, and die again of horror.
Let's see this face. Oh, wondrous beautiful!
Surely she sleeps. No; cold. O Eliduke,
Your kiss when you came back to me was cold,—
These lips had stolen its warmth. This was the face
Whose brighter properties have ousted me
From the fair heaven of my lord's affections.
I am desolate. Now only unto Thee,
Only to Thee, my God, I turn myself,—
My sole last refuge. Oh, uphold me now,
And teach me so to act in this as may
Show worthiest and noblest! Eliduke,
I scarce can blame thee, if thy love to her
Be measured by the love I bear to thee;
And yet methinks, being so long his wife,
And having served him with so true a zeal,
He should have borne with me,—shouldst thou not, love?
How long I stand, and dare not touch her lips.
[She touches Estreldis' lips with the flower.
The colour comes! Death takes his finger off!
Her eyes! O heavenly orbs! Can you not speak?
She lies, and lets her eyes drink in the light.

Page.
Yonder my lord comes hither through the wood.

Cast..
Oh, fly!

Page.
Look, here's a door. In here!

Cast..
Quick! quick!

[Exeunt into an inner room.
Enter Eliduke; he pauses near the door.
Eli.
Should this be true, that the immortal soul,
Being dispossessed, unthreads not all at once
Its mortal wrappings, but here lingering
On the half-visible skirts of the Eternal,
Is caged in some fine links of earthly stain,
Making it to our grosser sense perceptible
(As men have seen their friends' departed ghosts
At the same moment that they died elsewhere),—
Why, then, perhaps her spirit here inhabits—

Est.
My lord!

Eli.
I heard it speak.

Est.
My lord!

Eli.
Again.
O unsubstantial spirit, dost thou hang
In the invisible air? Stoop to my lips,
And let me feel thee there. I do but dream,
And Fancy tunes the silence to a sound.
Yet I'll believe she stays here, which makes plain
Decay's forbearance; for her white-robed ghost
Sits watching her dead head, and drives away
The reverence-stricken beast, ill-eyed Corruption.
I'll look upon her. Shape of betrayed Estreldis!

Est.
Eliduke!

Eli.
All's unreal; and the dead
Rise to upbraid me. I have found it now.
Some angel has usurped the place of her soul,
As angry that so unsurpassed a form
Should waste untenanted. Oh, if thou be'st Estreldis,
New wakened from the dead—

Est.
Oh, lift me up!

Eli.
Thy kiss is warm.

Est.
Upon thy lips I live.

Eli.
This is so great and unapproached a joy,
It will not last until the hand of Time
Can pen it in his records. Let us die
Before the grasp of a revolving chance
Shake out a change. Dear love, this cannot last.

Est.
Let last what will, only I fold you here.
I thought we were at sea, and dreamed strange dreams.
Where am I now?

Eli.
Locked in my arms, sweet soul.—
Who moves within there? God! it is my wife!

Enter Castabel.
Est.
Thy wife! Alas! I do remember me.
O wretched me!

Cast..
Lady, be not afraid;
And you, dear husband, for the latest time
That I must use that title, lift your eyes.
I do not come to say I loved you much,
And blame you that you threw away my heart;
I cannot chide, I only come to say
I will not stand between your joy and you.
I give you up my rights, and set you free
From the solemnity of outward ties
That only made you mine. Why should these last,
When you have cracked those more essential strings
Once tied our souls? I'll to a nunnery;
Which temporal death shall set you free again,
And there in prayer and heavenward meditation
Strive to forget how rich a joy I owned once.
Give me your hand, my lord—husband no more.
Give me your hand, sweet lady; thus I join them,
And happiness wait on you evermore!

Eli.
Kneel down, Estreldis. We are earthly mould,
And this divine. Look, at thy feet I kneel,
And dare not lift my guilty countenance
Up to your eyes. O angel Castabel,
How much unworthy am I of thy love!

Cast..
Oh, speak not thus, or you will shake away
My new-lodged soul from heaven. Fare you well!
You shall not look upon my face again
Till I have doffed these weeds, and put upon me
Some clean religious garb. Heaven favour you!

[Exit.
Eli.
Do I stand here? Was this my wife was here?
Is this your hand I hold? Do we not dream?

Est.
You will become the spectacle of men
To let her leave you thus. Was this your wife?
Having so excellent a heart at home,
Why did you lure me from my father's house,
And in my young ear whisper treachery?

Eli.
I am wrapt in double shames. Do not look on me.

Est.
I am beyond expression miserable,
Having no home, no friend, no any thing;
And he that was my rock falser than water.

Eli.
Not false to thee, though false to all the world,
And false to heaven above,—not false to thee.
Thou art the very centre of my soul,
My poise of being and my breath of life;
And stript of thee, the gorgeous-mantled earth
Is but a clod;—not false to thee, my soul!

Est.
What shall I do? Why did you make me love you?

Eli.
We will be wedded; Castabel herself
Joined here our hands, and gave her sanction to it.

Est.
Oh, never, never! Shall I so wrong your wife?
O false, false Eliduke!

Eli.
Will you not wed me?
It was your eye that drew me into ruin;
It was your beauty heaped this shame upon me,
And sucked my truth away. Only for you
Did I desert my wife. And will you now
Build up the copestone of my ignominy,
And make my name a proverb of contempt,
That men may say, “As vile as Eliduke,
Who left a fair wife and a noble fame
To gain a proud girl's scorn”?

Est.
I am not scornful,
Only most miserable.

Eli.
O Estreldis,
Wilt thou desert me now, that have for thee
Exchanged all other hopes in earth and heaven?
Rob me of this, I'm beggared then indeed.

Est.
We may not wed!

Eli.
Do you not love me, then?

Est.
O Eliduke!

Eli.
You do not love me, or you would not now
Put by our union. Look, our law allows it;
All circumstance points thither; your redemption
Out of Death's hand;—Castabel takes the veil;—
Do not thou turn sole bar. Evil once acted
Admits no remedy. Thy share in this
Is but an angel's, that unstained and taintless
May comfort the most guilty.

Est.
Into what sweet perdition do you drag me!

Eli.
Thee not, for thou art guiltless. Come with me,
When I'll bestow thee in some secret place
For these few days, till my wife turn a nun,
And then we'll top delight with marriage joys.

Est.
I am not easy.

Eli.
Thou art innocent.
Me only fits a sad and changing brow;
For joy sin-mixed relishes bitter-sweet.

[Exeunt.