Charles Kingsley - The Saint's Tragedy

Lewis . Ay, I know it:—
I cannot live on dreams. Oh for one friend,
Myself, yet not myself; one not so high
But she could love me, not too pure to pardon
My sloth and meanness! Oh for flesh and blood,
Before whose feet I could adore, yet love!
How easy then were duty! From her lips
To learn my daily task;—in her pure eyes
To see the living type of those heaven-glories
I dare not look on;—let her work her will
Of love and wisdom on these straining hinds;—
To squire a saint around her labour field,
And she and it both mine:—That were possession!

Con . The flesh, fair youth—

Wal . Avaunt, bald snake, avaunt!
We are past your burrow now. Come, come, Lord Landgrave,
Look round, and find your saint.

Lewis . Alas! one such—
One such, I know, who upward from one cradle
Beside me like a sister—No, thank God! no sister!—
Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shade
Has blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue,
And even now is budding into blossom,
Which never shall bear fruit, but inward still
Resorb its vital nectar, self-contained,
And leave no living copies of its beauty
To after ages. Ah! be less, sweet maid,
Less than thyself! Yet no—my wife thou might’st be,
If less than thus—but not the saint thou art.
What! shall my selfish longings drag thee down
From maid to wife? degrade the soul I worship?
That were a caitiff deed! Oh, misery!
Is wedlock treason to that purity,
Which is the jewel and the soul of wedlock?
Elizabeth! my saint! [Exit Conrad.]

Wal . What, Sir? the Princess?
Ye saints in heaven, I thank you!

Lewis . Oh, who else,
Who else the minutest lineament fulfils
Of this my cherished portrait?

Lewis . Loves me! My Count, that word is quickly spoken;
And yet, if it be true, it thrusts me forth
Upon a shoreless sea of untried passion,
From whence is no return.

Wal . By Siegfried’s sword,
My words are true, and I came here to say them,
To thee, my son in all but blood.
Mass, I’m no gossip. Why? What ails the boy?

Lewis . Loves me! Henceforth let no man, peering down
Through the dim glittering mine of future years,
Say to himself ‘Too much! this cannot be!’
To-day, and custom, wall up our horizon:
Before the hourly miracle of life
Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not.
I have wandered in the mountains, mist-bewildered,
And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted,
And priceless flowers, o’er which I trod unheeding,
Gleam ready for my grasp. She loves me then!
She who to me was as a nightingale
That sings in magic gardens, rock-beleaguered,
To passing angels melancholy music—
Whose dark eyes hung, like far-off evening stars,
Through rosy-cushioned windows coldly shining
Down from the cloud-world of her unknown fancy—
She, for whom holiest touch of holiest knight
Seemed all too gross—who might have been a saint
And companied with angels—thus to pluck
The spotless rose of her own maidenhood
To give it unto me!

Wal . You love her then?

Lewis . Look! if yon solid mountain were all gold,
And each particular tree a band of jewels,
And from its womb the Niebelungen hoard
With elfin wardens called me, ‘Leave thy love
And be our Master’—I would turn away—
And know no wealth but her.

Wal . Shall I say this to her?
I am no carrier pigeon, Sir, by breed,
But now, between her friends and persecutors,
My life’s a burden.

Lewis . Persecutors! Who?
Alas! I guess it—I had known my mother
Too light for that fair saint,—but who else dare wink
When she is by? My knights?

Wal . To a man, my Lord.

Lewis . Here’s chivalry! Well, that’s soon brought to bar.
The quarrel’s mine; my lance shall clear that stain.

Wal . Quarrel with your knights? Cut your own chair-legs off!
They do but sail with the stream. Her passion, Sir,
Broke shell and ran out twittering before yours did,
And unrequited love is mortal sin
With this chaste world. My boy, my boy, I tell you,
The fault lies nearer home.

Lewis . I have played the coward—
And in the sloth of false humility,
Cast by the pearl I dared not to deserve.
How laggard I must seem to her, though she love me;
Playing with hawks and hounds, while she sits weeping!
’Tis not too late.

Wal . Too late, my royal eyas?
You shall strike this deer yourself at gaze ere long—
She has no mind to slip to cover.

Lewis . Come—
We’ll back—we’ll back; and you shall bear the message;
I am ashamed to speak. Tell her I love her—
That I should need to tell her! Say, my coyness
Was bred of worship, not of coldness.

Wal . Then the serfs
Must wait?

Lewis . Why not? This day to them, too, blessing brings,
Which clears from envious webs their guardian angel’s wings. [Exeunt.]

Soph . What! you will not? You hear, Dame Isentrude,
She will not wear her coronet in the church,
Because, forsooth, the crucifix within
Is crowned with thorns. You hear her.

Eliz . Noble mother!
How could I flaunt this bauble in His face
Who hung there, naked, bleeding, all for me—
I felt it shamelessness to go so gay.

Soph . Felt? What then? Every foolish wench has feelings
In these religious days, and thinks it carnal
To wash her dishes, and obey her parents—
No wonder they ape you, if you ape them—
Go to! I hate this humble-minded pride,
Self-willed submission—to your own pert fancies;
This fog-bred mushroom-spawn of brain-sick wits,
Who make their oddities their test for grace,
And peer about to catch the general eye;
Ah! I have watched you throw your playmates down
To have the pleasure of kneeling for their pardon.
Here’s sanctity—to shame your cousin and me—
Spurn rank and proper pride, and decency;—
If God has made you noble, use your rank,
If you but know how. You Landgravine? You mated
With gentle Lewis? Why, belike you’ll cowl him,
As that stern prude, your aunt, cowled her poor spouse;
No—one Hedwiga at a time’s enough,—
My son shall die no monk.