Eliz. That's a sweet song, and yet it does not chime With my heart's inner voice. Where had you it,

Guta?

Guta. From a nun who was a shepherdess in her youth-sadly plagued she was by a cruel step-mother, till she fled to a convent and found rest to her soul.

Fool. No doubt; nothing so pleasant as giving up one's own will in one's own way. But she might have learnt all that without taking cold on the hill-tops.

Eliz. Where then, fool?

Fool. At any market-cross where two or three rogues are together, who have

age to say "I did it."

neither grace to mend, nor cour

Now you shall see the shep- .

herdess's baby, dressed in my cap and bells.

When I was a greenhorn and young,
And wanted to be and to do,

I puzzled my brains about choosing my line,

[Sings.

Till I found out the

way

that things go.

The same piece of clay makes a tile,

A pitcher, a taw, or a brick:

Dan Horace knew life; you may cut out a saint,

Or a bench from the self-same stick.

The urchin who squalls in a jail,

By circumstance turns out a rogue;

While the castle-born brat is a senator born,

Or a saint, if religion's in vogue.

We fall on our legs in this world,

Blind kittens, tossed in neck and heels:

"Tis dame Circumstance licks Nature's cubs into

shape,

She's the mill-head, if we are the wheels.

Then why puzzle and fret, plot and dream?

He that's wise will just follow his nose; Contentedly fish, while he swims with the stream; "Tis no business of his where it goes.

Eliz. Far too well sung for such a saucy song.

So go.

Fool. Ay, I'll go. Whip the dog out of church, and then rate him for being no Christian.

[Exit FOOL.

Eliz. Guta, there is sense in that knave's ribaldry :

We must not thus baptize our idleness,

And call it resignation: Which is love?

To do God's will, or merely suffer it?
I do not love that contemplative life:
No! I must headlong into seas of toil,

Leap forth from self, and spend my soul on others.
Oh! contemplation palls upon the spirit,

Like the chill silence of an autumn sun:

While action, like the roaring southwest wind,
Sweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts
Quickening the wombed earth.

Guta.

And yet what bliss,

When, dying in the darkness of God's light,

The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature,
And float up to The Nothing, which is all things—
The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence
Is emptiness,-emptiness fulness,-fulness God,-
Till we touch Him, and like a snow-flake, melt
Upon His light-sphere's keen circumference!
Eliz. Hast thou felt this?

Guta.

In part.

Eliz.

Oh, happy Guta!

Mine eyes are dim-and what if I mistook
For God's own self, the phantoms of my brain?
And who am I, that my own will's intent

Should put me face to face with the living God?
I, thus thrust down from the still lakes of thought
Upon a boiling crater-field of labour.

No! He must come to me, not I to Him;

If I see God, beloved, I must see Him

In mine own self ;

Guta.

Eliz.

Thyself?

Why start, my sister?

God is revealed in the crucified :

The crucified must be revealed in me :—
I must put on His righteousness; show forth
His sorrow's glory; hunger, weep with Him;
Writhe with His stripes, and let this aching flesh
Sink through His fiery baptism into death,
That I may rise with Him, and in his likeness
May ceaseless heal the sick, and soothe the sad,
And give away like Him this flesh and blood

To feed His lambs-ay-we must die with Him

To sense-and love

Guta.

Of marriage vows?

Eliz.

To love? What, then, becomes

I know it so speak not of them.
Oh! that's the flow, the chasm in all my longings,
Which I have spanned with cobweb arguments,
Yet yawns before me still, where'er I turn,
To bar me from perfection; had I given

My virgin all to Christ! I was not worthy!
I could not stand alone!

Guta.

Here comes your

husband.

Eliz. He comes! my sun! and every thrilling vein Proclaims my weakness.

[LEWIS enters.

Lew. Good news, my princess; in the street below
Conrad, the man of God from Marpurg, stands,'
And from a bourne-stone to the simple folk
Does thunder doctrine, preaching faith, repentance,
And dread of all foul heresies; his eyes

On heaven still set, save when with searching frown
He lours upon the crowd, who round him cower
Like quails beneath the hawk, and gape, and tremble,
Now raised to heaven, now down again to hell.
I stood beside and heard; like any doe's

My heart did rise and fall.

Eliz.

Oh, let us hear him!

We too need warning; shame, if we let pass
Unentertained, God's angels on their way.
Send for him, brother.

Lew.

Let a knight go down

And say to the holy man, the Landgrave Lewis
With humble greetings prays his blessedness
To make these secular walls the spirit's temple
At least to-night.

Eliz.

Now go, my ladies, both

Prepare fit lodgings,-let your courtesies

Retain in our poor courts the man of God.

[Exeunt. LEWIS and ELIZABETH are left alone.

Now hear me, best-beloved: I have marked this man :

And that which hath scared others, draws me towards

him:

He has the graces which I want; his sternness

I envy for its strength; his fiery boldness

I call the earnestness which dares not trifle

With life's huge stake; his coldness but the calm
Of one who long hath found, and keeps unwavering,
Clear purpose still; he hath the gift which speaks
The deepest things most simply; in his eye
I dare be happy-weak I dare not be.
With such a guide,—to save this little heart-
The burden of self-rule-Oh-half my work
Were eased, and I could live for thee and thine,
And take no thought of self. Oh, be not jealous,
Mine own, mine idol! For thy sake I ask it—
I would but be a mate and help more meet
For all thy knightly virtues.

Lew.

"Tis too true!

I have felt it long; we stand, two weakling children,