Part 20 (1/2)

_A Citizen_.

Ozias sware an oath: hast thou not heard?

_Judith_.

No, for I keep my mind away from your tongues Wisely. Who walks in wind-blown dust of streets, That hath a garden where the roses breathe?

_A Citizen_.

I have no garden where the roses breathe; I have a city full of women crying And babies starving and men weak with thirst Who fight each other for a dole of water.

_Another_.

Not only thou hast pleasant garden-hours, Judith, here in Bethulia; the Lord Death Has bought the city for his garden-close, And saunters in it watching the souls bloom Out of their buds of flesh, and with delight Smelling their agony.

_Another_.

But in five days Either our G.o.d will turn his mind to us, Or, if he careth not for us nor his honour, Ozias will let open the main gate And let the a.s.syrians end our dreadful lives.

_Judith_.

O I belong to a nation utterly lost!

G.o.d! thou hast no tribe on the earth; thy folk Are helpless in the living places like The ghosts that grieve in the winds under the earth.

Remember now thy glory among the living, And let the beauty of thy renown endure In a firm people knitted like the stone Of hills, no mischief harms of frost or fire; But now dust in a gale of fear they are.

They have blasphemed thee; but forgive them, G.o.d; And let my life inhabit to its end The spirit of a people built to G.o.d.-- So you have given G.o.d five days to come And help you? You would make your souls as wares Merchants hold up to bidders, and say, ”G.o.d, Pay us our price of comfort, or we sell To death for the same coin”? Five days G.o.d hath To find the cost of Jewry, or death buys you?

_A Citizen_.

Here comes Ozias: ask him.

_Judith_.

Hold him there.

[JUDITH _comes down into the street_.

_Ozias_.

Judith, I came to speak with thee.

_Judith_.

And I Would speak with thee. What tale is this they tell That thou hast sworn to give this people death?

_Ozias_.

In five days those among us who still live Will have no souls but the fierce anguish of thirst.

If G.o.d ere then relieves us, well. If not, We give ourselves away from G.o.d to death.

_Judith_.

Darest thou do this wickedness, and set Conditions to the mercy of our G.o.d?

_Ozias_.

Death hath a mercy equal unto G.o.d's.-- Look at the air above thee; is there sign Of mercy in that naked splendour of fire?

Too G.o.dlike! We are his: he covers us With golden flame of air and firmament Of white-hot gold, marvellous to see.

But whom, what heathen land hated of G.o.d, Do his grey clouds shadow with comfort of rain?

Over our chosen heads his glory glows: And in five days the torment in his city Will be beyond imagining. We will go Through swords into the quiet and cloud of death.

_Judith_.

Ozias, wilt thou be an infamy?