Part 7 (2/2)
Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly, How a priest can sit here so sedately, Reading, the whole year out and in, Naught but the catalogue of sin, And still keep any faith whatever In human virtue! Never! never!
I cannot repeat a thousandth part Of the horrors and crimes and sins and woes That arise, when with palpitating throes The graveyard in the human heart Gives up its dead, at the voice of the priest, As if he were an archangel, at least.
It makes a peculiar atmosphere, This odor of earthly pa.s.sions and crimes, Such as I like to breathe, at times, And such as often brings me here In the hottest and most pestilential season.
To-day, I come for another reason; To foster and ripen an evil thought In a heart that is almost to madness wrought, And to make a murderer out of a prince, A sleight of hand I learned long since!
He comes In the twilight he will not see the difference between his priest and me!
In the same net was the mother caught!
(_Prince Henry entering and kneeling at the confessional._)
Remorseful, penitent, and lowly, I come to crave, O Father holy, Thy benediction on my head.
_Lucifer_. The benediction shall be said After confession, not before!
'T is a G.o.d speed to the parting guest, Who stands already at the door, Sandalled with holiness, and dressed In garments pure from earthly stain.
Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?
Does the same madness fill thy brain?
Or have thy pa.s.sion and unrest Vanished forever from thy mind?
_Prince Henry_. By the same madness still made blind, By the same pa.s.sion still possessed, I come again to the house of prayer, A man afflicted and distressed!
As in a cloudy atmosphere, Through unseen sluices of the air, A sudden and impetuous wind Strikes the great forest white with fear, And every branch, and bough, and spray Points all its quivering leaves one way, And meadows of gra.s.s, and fields of grain, And the clouds above, and the slanting rain, And smoke from chimneys of the town, Yield themselves to it, and bow down, So does this dreadful purpose press Onward, with irresistible stress, And all my thoughts and faculties, Struck level by the strength of this, From their true inclination turn, And all stream forward to Salem!
_Lucifer_. Alas! we are but eddies of dust, Uplifted by the blast, and whirled Along the highway of the world A moment only, then to fall Back to a common level all, At the subsiding of the gust!
_Prince Henry_. O holy Father! pardon in me The oscillation of a mind Unsteadfast, and that cannot find Its centre of rest and harmony!
For evermore before mine eyes This ghastly phantom flits and flies, And as a madman through a crowd, With frantic gestures and wild cries, It hurries onward, and aloud Repeats its awful prophecies!
Weakness is wretchedness! To be strong Is to be happy! I am weak, And cannot find the good I seek, Because I feel and fear the wrong!
_Lucifer_. Be not alarmed! The Church is kind-- And in her mercy and her meekness She meets half-way her children's weakness, Writes their transgressions in the dust!
Though in the Decalogue we find The mandate written, ”Thou shalt not kill!”
Yet there are cases when we must.
In war, for instance, or from scathe To guard and keep the one true Faith!
We must look at the Decalogue in the light Of an ancient statute, that was meant For a mild and general application, To be understood with the reservation, That, in certain instances, the Right Must yield to the Expedient!
Thou art a Prince. If thou shouldst die, What hearts and hopes would prostrate he!
What n.o.ble deeds, what fair renown, Into the grave with thee go down!
What acts of valor and courtesy Remain undone, and die with thee!
Thou art the last of all thy race!
With thee a n.o.ble name expires, And vanishes from the earth's face The glorious memory of thy sires!
She is a peasant. In her veins Flows common and plebeian blood; It is such as daily and hourly stains The dust and the turf of battle plains, By va.s.sals shed, in a crimson flood, Without reserve, and without reward, At the slightest summons of their lord!
But thine is precious, the fore-appointed Blood of kings, of G.o.d's anointed!
Moreover, what has the world in store For one like her, but tears and toil?
Daughter of sorrow, serf of the soil, A peasant's child and a peasant's wife, And her soul within her sick and sore With the roughness and barrenness of life!
I marvel not at the heart's recoil From a fate like this, in one so tender, Nor at its eagerness to surrender All the wretchedness, want, and woe That await it in this world below, For the unutterable splendor Of the world of rest beyond the skies.
So the Church sanctions the sacrifice: Therefore inhale this healing balm, And breathe this fresh life into thine; Accept the comfort and the calm She offers, as a gift divine, Let her fall down and anoint thy feet With the ointment costly and most sweet Of her young blood, and thou shall live.
_Prince Henry._ And will the righteous Heaven forgive?
No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it, till at length The wrongs of ages are redressed, And the justice of G.o.d made manifest!
_Lucifer_ In ancient records it is stated That, whenever an evil deed is done, Another devil is created To scourge and torment the offending one!
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