University of Virginia Library

Interior of Imperial tent—Constantia on a couch— Julian kneeling beside her.
Enter Eusebia, cautiously.
JULIAN.
Hush! she sleeps. Hush!

EUSEBIA.
Hath she not wakened since?
Taken no nourishment?

JULIAN.
No: since you left us
She hath been thus. She breathes, you see she breathes.

EUSEBIA.
Faintly and much oppressed.

JULIAN.
Yet, yet, she breathes:
She lives, I say, Eusebia, and will live.
Look not thus on me: make me not mad! nay, touch her;
You need not fear disturbing her. This stupor
Portends a crisis. True, the pulse is feeble,
And fluttering—but the pulse is there: her hand
Is cold and damp, but there is motion in it.
She pressed my hand just now as if she knew me;
Nay, stoop down to her lip—kiss, but awake her not.
(Eusebia kisses her.
They 're cold—but have some colour yet! I thought
This moment as I pressed them, a swift hectic
Hurried across her cheek; but now how pale—
How deadly wan it looks!

EUSEBIA.
Indeed
'Twere best if you withdrew.

JULIAN.
Eusebia,
I quit her not while there is breath, pulse, heat!
(He gazes wildly on Constantia.
I like not the look of her eye, beneath the lid—
Is your hand cool, Eusebia? Lay it here
Upon my brow—that burns. My brain is seared,
My mind is numbed—is numbed. Yet in my heart
There is a recklessness. Why, I could laugh now!
Is it not strange?

EUSEBIA.
For mercy's sake be calm!

JULIAN.
Why, so I am. Do you not see me calm?
As cold and passionless as any statue—
Still, as the breathless pause before an earthquake.

EUSEBIA.
She moves—thank God, thank God! Virgilia,
Haste with the cordial: it refreshes her—
Put it again to her lips. Wipe her damp forehead:
She is revived.

CONSTANTIA.
Julian! my husband, Julian!
Oh, Julian, Julian, come to me. Off, off—
You kill me with this weight.

EUSEBIA.
See him, my love.
Your Julian 's at your side; nor hath he quitted it
All this long night.

CONSTANTIA.
Let me look once more on him,
A film is on my sight,
(endeavouring to see him.
Oh, my best love!
Thy lineaments are in my heart, or scarcely
Could I now trace them.

JULIAN.
Blessed woman! tear not
My heart with too much fondness now.

CONSTANTIA
(regarding him fixedly.
Indeed?
Then are my moments numbered!
(pause.
Let me bethink me—
Thoughts come on thoughts, crowding across my mind
Like shadows lengthening in the sunset. God!
Must I be gathered in my youth, and lie
Lonely, forgotten, in a foreign grave?
And shall I leave none after me, to strew
My early tomb with wild flowers, wet with tears?
No little hands, no limbs of mine own mould,
Memorials of my lineage, sweet pledges
Of our affections—living comforters
To him who lives, for her who died! No, no.
Barren—I sink into this barren clay,
My worldly pomp cast to a nameless grave,
My beauty prey to the despoiling worm,
My human love dead in my mortal dust,
My heavenly hopes and my immortal soul
Asleep till the last trumpet! Yet had I hoped—
(Julian, my husband, kiss me once again)
Yet had I hoped—and oft we talked of this—
To have seen my offspring on its father's knee:
So had I left a living portraiture,
Whose instinct of true love had been to thee
A solace and a memory.

JULIAN.
(distractedly.
I cannot bear this.

(He rushes out of the tent.
CONSTANTIA.
Oh, this is worse for him to bear than me,
But he will not stay from me?

EUSEBIA.
Surely not:
He will but weep, as we do now, aside;
And so, being calmed, return.

CONSTANTIA.
My time is short.
Let him not stay—'twould be an agony,
That fruitlessly would haunt his after-thoughts,
That he had 'reft my transitory hour
Of aught that could have soothed a dying pang.

VIRGILIA.
Already he returns—

CONSTANTIA.
Thank God, thank God!
Oh, what a change two years, short years, have made!
That was my bridal time. We had long loved,
But knew it not—in both it was love's spring;
And we were young enthusiasts: we felt,
As our minds mingled, that our souls were wed.
One morn, thus linked in thought, as side by side
We sat, his arm around my waist, my hands
Clasped on his shoulder, and my tearful eye
Looking on his, perchance too lovingly;
He spoke to me of love: and as he spoke
Young roses, born of love and modesty,
Fell on his cheek:—I blushed to see his blushing

EUSEBIA.
My child, you seem revived; a gentle colour
Hath touched your cheek o' th' sudden.

CONSTANTIA.
'Tis the rally
Of the spirit to support its trial: even as
The last light on the mountain top, before
The sun goes down. My maidens, to your tenderness
I yield this mortal form. Regard it as
Th' unsullied tenement of a pure mind,
If not a strong one. Give it decent rites,
And guard it from rude gaze—no more, he comes.
My Julian!

(tenderly.
Enter Julian.
JULIAN.
I could half give way to hope
Thus gazing on thee. (kneels beside her)
Some new animation
Gleams in thy late dim eyes. Speak comfort to me.

CONSTANTIA.
There is no comfort on this earth but one:
Wilt thou reject it? There is no hope else, Julian,
For you and me. I will not now deceive thee:
Even now, all but my mind and love are dead.
The death-chill creeps up gently to my heart
And that will soon be cold—cold as my limbs.
(Julian exhibits passionate grief.
My poor, my desolate love, be calm and hear me.
Death to the righteous is not terrible!
The dust may perish, but the nobler essence
Hath an eternal surety. Oh, let me
Close my poor eyes, in hope to open them
With thee in a better world! Our parting thus
Shall lose its sting—parting to meet again.
Give me this hope, my Julian. It is agony,
Even the suspense: oh, thou wert strong in virtue,
And shalt be yet. As thou hast fallen, repent!
Repent—and God is merciful!
One moment more, sweet Heaven! I cannot see—
I cannot hear thee—give me a sign—a kiss—
In token of—

JULIAN.
Upon thy dying lips,
Thou blessed saint, I pledge my prostrate soul.

CONSTANTIA.
Now I die happy—remember!

(She reclines back, folding her hands as in prayer, her eyes closed.)
EUSEBIA.
Sing her that hymn,
That she once loved, she yet perchance may hear it;
She is not dead, but sleeps.

Chorus of Virgins.