Scene IV
(The interior of the Cave. Ianthe and the Virgin
Ten are discovered kneeling before the flower-strewn
body of Endea. Enter Count Julian).
Ianthe
(rising and embracing Julian)
Oh! Julian! Julian! never wonder more!
In reverential awe bow down before
This faired image of the Lamb of God!
For, oh! the change! the change! the wondrous change!
Count Julian
Have you embalmed her faired form?
Ianthe
We have—
And strewn her corse with flowers—but, oh, the change!
Her form has changed from perishable flesh
To rich, immortal marble—Parian-pure!
Count Julian
Does she retain the outlines of her form?
Ianthe
In all its pure Angelic loveliness—
The oval contour of her lily limbs—
Her Angel-fore, just as we laid her out—
Her fingers perfect, clasped upon her breast—
Her every part, still virgin, all entire—
Fixed to the marble slab on which she lies,
As fresh as if just sculptured from the rock—
A perfect Proxitelian Dream of all
That is most meek, most gentle, most Divine
The rich embodiment of all your Dreams
Of Infinite Perfection, when most rapt,
Of Beauty sleeping in the Arms of Peace!
Come, gaze upon her with your own pure eyes,
And lay your hand upon her brow
And judge then for yourself!
Count Julian
It is most true!
And not less wonderful than true! This is
The Climax of all wonders ever known!
So perfect is the transmutation here—
Done by the Alchemy of God in Heaven—
The integration of her flesh by stone—
By which the molecules have places changed.
This model sculpture—modeled out the stone
That we could not fashion it with our eyes
Did we not lay our hands upon her form
And by two lofty senses prove its time!
Now, so hither it was Grief that did all this,
Or the intenseness of her deathless love,
That so could send her spirits up to God
And stamp Eternity upon her form—
As Niobe was changed to living stone
By her great grief for her dear children's loss—
Smitten by Great Apollo's golden bow—
Pouring his arrows on their heads from Heaven.
While from her eyes eddy everlasting tears—
T' is never than I, or any man, can tell
For what we hear about her being changed
To stone by her unending grief for Thebes—
Is not all fable—but eternal fact!
Suffice it that she lies eternal here—
Coeternal with her beauty is the bloom
Her soul now wears beside God's throne in Heaven
There to perpetuate her virtues here.
And begins the living the reward,
That God was always apt to store for those who love,
And loving dies by love, rather than sin
For here she lies in her immortal state,
As living sculpture written in pure stone,
Revealing in meetest wonder, of the Good,
The Innocent, the Beautiful, the Pure—
For her terrestrial was celestial Life;
Everlastingly filled with too much light from Heaven—
That when she died, she died as Christians die,
Full of the radiant hope of endless rest.
Curtain Falls
