University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

Another part of Gethsemane.
(The night of Thursday. Jesus alone).
Jesus.
Yea, love is sweet, and love is pure—God made
Woman for helpmate, not for curse and snare.
I know that Mary loves me; I have saved
Her soul from devilish thraldom worse than death,
Thraldom of fiends, and baser yoke of man:
Her eyes, through which the eyes of devils gleamed,
Have won the royal look of woman now,
The royal look of love my Father set
Within the eyes of woman, whom he made
That through her soul his soul might flash on man
Light lovelier than the light of stars or sun.
Yes, I have saved her: may I not possess
The thing I save, and seal it as mine own?
Must I, alone upon the mountain-side
Seek through the silent portals of the night
My Father's face, when it may be the way
Lies nearer, even the road to heaven and home,
Through woman's love,—when, it may be, her hands
Are readiest to unbar the eternal gates.
—And yet it may be in the years gone by,
Epochs of life now wholly past from sight,
The perfect love of woman was mine own.
It may be then I loved as others love
And won as others win; it may be, then,
Some girl with dark hair darker than the night,
Eyes brighter than the night's whole wealth of stars,
Loved me as men are loved,—that I possessed
As men possess, and when the morning came
Forgot the dawn while gazing in her face,
Yea, wondered that the morning ever came.
So sweet a joy being left within the night.
(Enter Mary, unseen by Jesus. She listens).
This well may be: it may be I have grown
Through lives past number to a higher life
Wherein a nobler love first feels its way
Towards statelier realms of mysteries unseen.
I give up love to win a priceless love,
Love beyond measure, love that shall not die
But mix itself with passion of the years
And mingle with the ages yet to be.
No woman through all time but shall be glad
Through me: I take, as it were, the stars of night
Unnumbered, endless, and with these I crown
The future; never in one most distant land
With evil cities, through whose dismal streets
Still as of old the lost sad women go,
Never in any city of furthest time
Shall any poor lost woman heavenward lifting
Her soul in sorrow fail to feel some throb
Responsive from my soul within the sky:
To even the saddest I will say, “Rejoice!”
For even the humblest I will save a star.

Mary
(advancing towards Jesus).
But, Lord, the common paths of love are sweet:
With weary heart man struggles on alone,
But woman gives him ardour for the fray,
Force for the combat; when the combat's o'er,
Woman can bring him rest unspeakable.
Me thou hast saved from the wild lusts of men,
The passions that destroy—now let me in turn
Save thee from evil men who would destroy:
The path to safety is open still—to-night
If thou wilt fly with me, we can escape—
I know the road—and in the mountains hide
Till all the clamour of pursuit is o'er.
Then I will be thy faithful servitor,
Thy sister, friend, thine handmaid, what thou wilt
—I love thee, Lord—and I will follow thee,
And thou shalt teach me secrets of the stars
And of God's holy heaven beyond the stars
Wherein in spirit thou dwellest, for I know
Thou art the king of whom our prophets spake,
The spotless just Messiah who should come.

Jesus.
Mary, thou lovest, and thy soul is true,
But yet thou understandest not my heart.
The love of earth is sweet, but sweeter love
Than thou hast dreamed of shall one day be thine.
I came from God to hallow earthly love:
Thou sawest this when, nine long years ago,
I blessed the marriage at Cana, giving wine
For water—that is how my Father gives;
Yea, ever he bestows a nobler gift
Than that men crave for—man would ask one star,
But lo! God crowds the heaven with countless stars
—Look up; above us through the purple sky
The golden endless constellations gleam.
And so it is with love: a love more deep
Than man has dreamed of, or than woman dreams,
Shall be the lot of woman and of man.

Mary.
I love thee, Lord.

Jesus.
Thou deemest that thou lovest,
But love is grander than thy loftiest dreams.
Listen:—long ages since in other lands
I lived; my spirit that here on earth to-day
Clothed in this flesh thou seest, in other forms
Hath dwelt: it ne'er began, it hath no end.
Straight from the bosom of the Father-God
My spirit sprang, but in full many a form
On earth 'twas forced to live that I might learn
All lessons needful, conquer lower aims,
Lower desires, until at last I won
The everlasting strength of soul whereby
The world shall be redeemed from sin and death.
Thou, too, hast lived: aye, we have met before.

Mary.
Before, my Master?

Jesus.
We have met before,
And thou hast loved me in far other days.
Yea, Mary, when I drew thy soul to mine
Through very force of love, didst thou not feel
That that strange power which softened and renewed
Was just the sense of former love revived?
Thou art mine, because thou never hast been aught
But mine; thy lips were mine, as virgin-pure
As the first dew-drop drawn up by the sun,
Ages before Jerusalem was built:
Yea even on other stars, diversely wrought
From this small wayward star whereon we stand,
Our spirits in other forms have met and loved.
And now to-day I lift thee and redeem;
I purge away thine intervening guilt,
For thou hast left me, Mary, and hast sinned—
I purge away thy guilt of years, thy strange
Adultery of the ages vast, unknown;
I draw thee back to me for thou art mine.
But not in any earthly fashion of love
Shall now our souls be one: we have reached a point
At which the mist-clad dreams of ages past
May melt in air and vanish—golden-clear
Upon the darkling background of my death
Shines our accomplished love's eternal dawn.
One we have been, and shall be, but the road
Lies through the darkness. Yet believe in me.

Mary.
Lord, I believe—but when thou diest, if this
Indeed must be, let me too follow thee,
Let me die with thee; if, as thou dost say,
Our lives in other lands, in other years,
Have been one life, let not those lives to-day
By any touch of death or touch of man
Be rent apart, dissevered; when the crowd
Of soldiers led by Judas comes for thee
(Aye, even now I fancy through the dark
I see their torches gleam)
Let me die first—let some rough soldier's spear
Thee seeking pierce my bosom, that the blood
Forth-flowing, plenteous from the gaping wound,
May wash me clean from that adultery
Whereof thou speakest, and restore my soul
Maiden in death and spotless to my Lord.

Jesus.
Nay, Mary, as through all the ages past
I, loving thee as no soul else will love,
Have ever led thee along the upward road—
The road that seeks the untrodden mountains first,
Then, when these are surmounted, still aspires
Beyond the trodden mountains to the stars
By foot of man untrodden, unrevealed
To eyes of man—so let it be to-day.
Again I show the road, and though it lead
Far past all mountains, and beyond the stars,
Even through death's darkness, where the Father's hand
That holds the stars may for a moment seem
To cease to uphold and guide me, still I know
My Father even in the darkness rules,
And though the fiends of hell—who will resent
The world's supreme redemption through my death—
May round me gather in a lurid throng,
Or, if death's horror take another form
More dread, more awful, silence of the void
Press with a speechless terror on my brain
And through that silence ring one lonely cry
“There is no God,” then all be still once more,
Though this be so, yet even without the stars
Upon the Father's starlike soul I rest,
Even in the silence wait till he shall speak.

Mary.
They come.

(She flings her arms round Jesus and waits, gazing in the direction of the torches).