University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

A Cell.
Ellisif.
Ellisif.
He was much shaken; but stands firmly yet,
Like a half-ruin'd tower: my enginery
Hath struck him once, and on the crossbow groove
Another crag sits waiting to be hurl'd,
Another and another still at hand:
O! he should boast, if rocks could bury him
Heap'd at my bidding, a gigantic cairn!
My wrath sublime would raise such monument
To both, as should out-dure and over-peer
The sky-aspiring hills.—Guilt and Avengement
Should rest entomb'd together; prostrate he
Beneath, she tiptoe on the pinnacle,
Like Victory that crowns herself!—Fool Ethelstan
Would have them kiss, and couch together, alive;—
Sooner I'd couch me in a sulphurous bed
And couple with the dragon.—But my suitor
Must now be seen—I am prepared!—I've sown
A whirlwind for his reaping; Edmund hath caught
The white plague—fear!—that's ever a sore sting,
Suspicion undeserved from those we love.
Then I have wrought with my young Bower-Maiden;
Which will prove bitter too; let the fond rhapsodist
Rave of the clouded ills which beetle o'er us,
'Tis but the wildwood lyre by zephyrs rung,
Wailing perplexedly its airy woes,
Smiled at though pitied!—She was lured at once;
Trivial confidings win great confidence,
When with vague whispers swoln, they seem too big
For the awe-shrunken ear—
My summoner!

Enter a Nun.
Nun.
Our sovran-abbess in the speaking room
Attendeth Maiden Ellisif.

Ellisif.
She comes—
[Exit Nun.
“Our sovran-abbess,” who, as simple as faith,
As credulous as hope, as blind as love,
Thinks what is done with a fair front is fair!
A good face that, froze into one still smile,
For greeting all the world!—a good set face!
Grief hath not graven mine yet deep enough,
But opening back my braids thus,—and 'tis smoothable:
No better mask than chill unchangingness;
Ethelstan, wise, judicial Ethelstan,
He shall my centred soul guess from my surface
As gaping sages do the moon's true nature
From her snow-bright apparency!—Than depth
Surface much more unfathomable is,
Whene'er impenetrable! Am not I
Woman? And was not art her nature ever?

[Exit.