University of Virginia Library

SCENE IX.

A Cathedral.
Mass, Organ, and Song.
Margaret amid a crowd of people, Evil-Spirit behind her.
EVIL-SPIRIT.
How different, Margaret, was thy case,
When, guiltless yet of trespass, thou didst kneel
Before the altar,
And, from the well-worn book,
Didst lisp thy prayers,
Half childish play,
Half God in thy heart!
Margaret!
Where is thy head?
Within thy heart
What dire misdeed!
Prayest thou for thy mother's soul, whom thou
Didst make to sleep a sleep of long, long woe?
Whose blood is on thy threshold?
—And, underneath thy heart,
Moves not the swelling germ of life already,
And, with its boding presence,
Thee tortures, and itself?

MARGARET.
Woe, woe!
That I might shake away the thoughts,
That hither flit and thither,
Against me!

QUIRE.
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla.

(The organ sounds.)
EVIL-SPIRIT.
Terror doth seize thee!
The trumpet sounds!
The graves do quake!
And thy heart,
From its rest of ashes,
To fiery pain
Created again,
Quivers to life!

MARGARET.
Would I were hence!
I feel as if the organ stopped
My breath of life,
And, at the song,
My inmost heart
Melted away.

QUIRE.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet adparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.

MARGARET.
I feel so straiten'd!
The pillar-shafts
Enclasp me round!
The vault above
Closes upon me!—Air!

EVIL-SPIRIT.
Conceal thee!—Sin and shame
Are not concealed.
Air! Light!
Woe on thee! woe!

QUIRE.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?
Cum vix justus sit securus.

EVIL-SPIRIT.
Their looks from thee bend
The blessed away,
And the pure shudder
To reach thee the hand.
Woe!

MARGARET.
Neighbour, your smelling-bottle!

(She falls down in a swoon.)