University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI

[The Terrace of Castle Tourbillon.]
EVE.
How slow along the dial creep the hands!
Think you they soon will come?

LUCIFER.
They should be here.
Shall I go meet them, urging speedier speed?

EVE.
Leave me not, love! I would not be alone.
Tell me again: are they renowned for skill?

LUCIFER.
More skilful could not be. No greater names
Practise the healing or the saving art.

EVE.
And they will save it?

LUCIFER.
Be convinced of that.
Another hour at most, your fears will fade,
As fades yon sunset light.

EVE.
I am so grieved
For Father Gabriel. But it was not we
Who marred his pilgrimage? I cannot put
The recollection from me.

LUCIFER.
If we strove
To prove, as he doth, Heaven is on our side,
How aptly Nature's careless sacrilege
Would serve for such a sermon!

EVE.
Might he not
Plead, as he used to plead, that Heaven is wroth?

LUCIFER.
With whom? With what it smites? With what it spares?
If thunderstorms are angry, mostly, dear,
They vex themselves in vain. Grant them a mind,
Their conscious fury should have winged a bolt
Straight at the towers of Castle Tourbillon,
Not at that blameless Shrine.

EVE.
Perhaps they wait,
Looking their thought before they utter it.
Who knows?

LUCIFER.
Then let us deem not that we know,
Fooling the very question that we ask.
Gods that could angered be were scarcely gods.
If they exist, or Many or One, our ways
Are but the darker shadows of their will,
If will they have, or only, like ourselves,
Follow some Past, which, though we call it gone,
Acts as a dragging force upon the Present.

EVE.
If they exist? And if they have a will?
This May-be or May-not-be makes my heart
Ask questions of my head it does not answer.
I can remember Father Gabriel say,
Who doubt in life believe before they die,
Because within the sky light lingereth still,
Though Earth be darkened. . . . See! If you should die,
How could I ever then submit to death,
And own him as my lord? Love would not take
The final answer from his surly lips,
But shape its own reply.

LUCIFER.
I am alive;
And while I live, concern you not with death.

EVE.
But if you died? Or if my babe should die?
This life, that you have made a palace to me,
Were but a—

LUCIFER.
Hark!

EVE.
Yes! yes! they come! they come!
Was I impatient? Then forgive me; for
You run before my wishes.

LUCIFER.
One kiss more!
O, you are sweet as is the honeysuckle,
Fragrant and clinging! Clasp me closer still,
Nor ever let me know the woe 'twould be
To want such sweetness!