cross,Something did strike my heart like keen cold steel,Which quarries daily there with dead dull pains—Whereby I know that we shall meet no more.Come! Home, maids, home! Prepare me widow’s weeds—For he is dead to me, and I must soonDie too to him, and many things; and mark me—Breathe not his name, lest this love-pampered heartShould sicken to vain yearnings—Lost! lost! lost!

Lady. Oh stay, and watch this pomp.

Eliz. Well said—we’ll stay; so this bright enterpriseShall blanch our private clouds, and steep our soulDrunk with the spirit of great Christendom.

CRUSADER CHORUS.

[Men-at-Arms pass, singing.]

The tomb of God before us,Our fatherland behind,Our ships shall leap o’er billows steep,Before a charmed wind.

Above our van great angelsShall fight along the sky;While martyrs pure and crowned saintsTo God for rescue cry.

The red-cross knights and yeomenThroughout the holy town,In faith and might, on left and right,Shall tread the paynim down.

Till on the Mount MoriahThe Pope of Rome shall stand;The Kaiser and the King of FranceShall guard him on each hand.

There shall he rule all nations,With crozier and with sword;And pour on all the heathenThe wrath of Christ the Lord.

[Women—bystanders.]

Christ is a rock in the bare salt land,To shelter our knights from the sun and sand:Christ the Lord is a summer sun,To ripen the grain while they are gone.

Then you who fight in the bare salt land,And you who work at home,Fight and work for Christ the Lord,Until His kingdom come.

[Old Knights pass.]

Our stormy sun is sinking;Our sands are running low;In one fair fight, before the night,Our hard-worn hearts shall glow.

We cannot pine in cloister;We cannot fast and pray;The sword which built our load of guiltMust wipe that guilt away.

We know the doom before us;The dangers of the road;Have mercy, mercy, Jesu blest,When we lie low in blood.

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