University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

Cloisters of St. John's Church, Beverley. A Tomb and recumbent Statue seen within. Moonlight.
Ellisif pacing the Cloisters disturbedly. Bruern bearing after her a sword.
Ellisif.
Follow me still, thou spectre of this gloom!
That shrink'st from light's soft shaft as from a spear;
Follow me still with sliding echoless step
Round these dim alleys!—Demon shadow thou,
Cast by hell's flame gigantic on the wall,
O'er my dark thoughts to fling thy murkier nature
And shape me out dread doings with thy sword:
I understand thy flourishes,—too well!
The devil within us never wants a seconder
Outside, to tarre him on: follow me still!—
[Paces mutely for a time.
Yet whither and for what thus stalk we here
Over the low-roof'd chambers of the dead,
Stepping from grave to grave? Is it to gibber
And play the sad ghost?—fright fools?—and be frighted
Ourselves at cockcrow?—Why, alas! ne'er rest we
Where all are slumbering in heart-still repose?
Yea, even the o'er-watch'd lamp shuts his dim eye,
And gazes feebly on his shrine no more;
The wandering Moon herself sleeps on the battlements;
Nought save the wind is up!—Weary of spirit
And flesh, yet in our eager wills unworn,
We linger, linger still where our hearts lie
Buried with those we love!—Ay, there he moulders,
Look, if thou canst through blood-thick tears, there lies
Thy murder'd lord and mine!

Bruern.
The truth will out,
Oceans upon me could not stifle it!
'Twas Ethelstan, the tiger who now wears
This lion's ravin'd crown, 'twas Ethelstan
Robb'd him of his more precious life besides!

Ellisif.
That's well! that's well! mutter that to me still!
Breathe like an Evil Genius in mine ear
Sharp whispers of revenge!—O Edwin, Edwin,
My princely love, my kingly that shouldst be,
Stoop'st thou indeed thy blooming cheek so low
For vile worms' gluttonous kisses?—is thy beauty
Clasp'd—not in these warm, woman's arms—close!—close!—
But to Death's bosom in a winding-sheet?
O horrible image, dream of my despair,
Less horrible than the truth!—I pr'ythee, soldier,
Lend me this glaymore—

Bruern.
Madam—

Ellisif
(wresting the sword).
Fool! I mean not
That poor-soul'd piece of heroism, self-slaughter:
O no! the miserablest day we live
There's many a better thing to do than die!—
'Tis but to press an oath on it with my lips
That, as the insidious ivy of the tower,
Mantling her deed, amidst embraces brings
His proud head to the dust, I'll weave a net
Of subtleties around this Upstart's throne,
Which strength unseen shall then drag down to earth,
And bury him in the ruins!

Bruern.
Cursed fratricide
Done on the rightful heritor of Wessex,
By one but half-blood kinsman to a king!
What gave he the liege lord of all the land,
Edwin, his true-born elder?—What, forsooth?
A boat!—grown green with tufted rottenness,
(So rank that very toadstools sprouted from it!)
And then—his choice of the sea-rocks! For a crew
My single self!—Thus he, and all thy fortunes
Waiting thee as his Queen, were wreck'd and lost;
The while this wolf's whelp by a shepherd's daughter—
At best, her base-begotten by King Edward—
Jumping on our legitimate Edwin's throne,
Sits now, from Dover Cliff to Dunbar Crags,
Despot o'er Dane-lagh and all Angle-land!

Ellisif.
A potent conqueror he has been; I grant it;
The winged serpent has flown far and wide
Over our Isle,—the Dragon Flag of Wessex.

Bruern.
It was his inward serpent stung him on;
He strove to stun it in the din of arms,—
Drown it amid the bloody waves of fight,—
Outride it on the whirlwind of his rage
'Gainst Pict, Scot, Cumbrian, Welsh-kin,—oftener still,
With semblance sly of patriotism, to gull
His soft-brain'd Saxons,—'gainst our Danish Host,
Us whom they call, in hate superlative,
The ‘Loathed Ones!’—But to his heart it sticks
And will not be flung off, good serpent-leech!
That draws him pale, and for the blood pours in
As much slow poison—

Ellisif.
Psha!—Where sits he now?
I have been long a stranger to this land.

Bruern.
Two rivers' length off, at King's Town on Thames:
So prate our monks, boasting how he, great buzzard!
Airs him upon the monarch-making Rock
Of Coronation call'd, most eagle-like,
Which none, except of the right golden brood,
Should come shot-near, unslain, were I at hand!

Ellisif.
And my bird-royal stretch'd beneath yon stone!—
Come on, come on, tell me that tale again,
His death's sad story; I would have my heart
Swim ever in the gall of bitterest tears:
Come with thy drowning-voice, as when his waves
Humber roll'd o'er thee, and thy struggling throat
Disgorged the flood with deep groans, sobs, and sighs,
Faint mockery of the horrid gurgle round thee:
Again I say, murmur it to mine ear,
Ring me his watery knell!

Bruern.
Hark!—

Ellisif.
What?

Bruern.
Heard'st nothing?—

Ellisif.
Nought but the wind-swept grass upon the green
Mix its soft waves in sighs.

Bruern.
Fear hath fine ears:
I must to sanctuary!

[Exit into the church.
Ellisif.
Get thee gone.
Ha?—No!—Yea, 'tis the regal trump that sounds,
Baffling the night breeze with its stronger breath,
And now bursts clear above it.
[A clarion without.
Ethelstan!
What brings the flickering bat by night to nestle
Amidst these hooded crows of the monastery?
Near our white dove-cote too?—His Abbess-Sister!
Whom the frail bond of a common bastardy
Holds close unto his heart! Is there none else
Who draws him hither with a silkener tie,
Yet far more strong?—Yea, strong enough to shackle him,
If she can wind it round him cunningly,—
Insensibly!—for the cables he feels on him
Are cobwebs to his strength, they burst about him
As frozen spray doth off the whale aroused,
While with a lash he looses him!—Let me think:
Hum—to work safe, the how, the who, the when?—
That gaol-bird in the Choir has but one tune,
Murder, still Murder; every churl's redress
For every wrong,—plain knocking on the head,—
Last reason of your clowns as well as kings.
No! death is but fit fate for beasts and boors
Who harm us; Ethelstan despises that;
He must pay bitterer penalties,—the bitterest,
To serve the inflicter!—I'm no dagger'd ruffianess,
Blind-staring at one visionary breast,
Nor glancing at the Avenger who, as fell,
Strides after her with an axe!—He shall obtain
His death—when he hath earn'd it; then perchance
My lord's bluff vassal may strike in!—I need
Forwarders now far nobler than this man
Of but one virtue—blind fidelity!
I've sounded the smooth Prior—there's some depth;—
Thane Alger too, my father's secret friend,
Ethelstan's closer foe;—perchance young Edmund?
A good soft clay!—This king hath one besides,
Whose white arm o'er him pours his rainbow wine,
And on her harp, the golden loom of song,
Weaves him the tissewy rhyme: will she be with us?
If still herself, his Bond-Maiden scarce loves him:
No! no! there is an inner ball of fire
Gleams from the darkness of her eye, by times
When she looks on him, that has lightning in it!
Yet is she wilful, and wild temperatures
Are warm in gratitude for good bestow'd,
(He's kind to Song!) as in their ire for ill:
Let it be so—'tis somewhat at the worst:
And then the Dane beside, and wily Scot—
Ay, it will do—it must!—But here's a stumble—
No matter!—My brain too is at the loom,
And crossing webs grow ravell'd—I'll to cell,
And there dispose them right: dark thoughts are seen
Best in the dark!—Sweet Lady Moon, I pray,
Whose brightness now walks down the chapel'd aisle,
Kiss my lord's tomb for me!—Edwin, my mission!

[Exit.