When we lie gashed and gory,The holy walls within,Sweet Jesu, think upon our end,And wipe away our sin.

[Boy Crusaders pass.]

The Christ-child sits on high:He looks through the merry blue sky;He holds in His hand a bright lily-band,For the boys who for Him die.

On holy Mary’s arm,Wrapt safe from terror and harm,Lulled by the breeze in the paradise trees,Their souls sleep soft and warm.

Knight David, young and true,The giant Soldan slew,And our arms so light, for the Christ-child’s right,Like noble deeds can do.

[Young Knights pass.]

The rich East blooms fragrant before us;All Fairyland beckons us forth;We must follow the crane in her flight o’er the main,From the frosts and the moors of the North.

Our sires in the youth of the nationsSwept westward through plunder and blood,But a holier quest calls us back to the East,We fight for the kingdom of God.

Then shrink not, and sigh not, fair ladies,The red cross which flames on each arm and each shield,Through philtre and spell, and the black charms of hell,Shall shelter our true love in camp and in field.

[Old Monk, looking after them.]

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!The burying place of God!Why gay and bold, in steel and gold,O’er the paths where Christ hath trod?

[The Scene closes.]

ACT III

SCENE I

A chamber in the Wartburg. Elizabeth sitting in widow’s weeds; Guta and Isentrudis by her.

Isen. What? Always thus, my Princess? Is this wise,By day with fasts and ceaseless coil of labour;About the ungracious poor—hands, eyes, feet, brainO’ertasked alike—’mid sin and filth, which makeEach sense a plague—by night with cruel stripes,And weary watchings on the freezing stone,To double all your griefs, and burn life’s candle,As village gossips say, at either end?The good book bids the heavy-hearted drink,And so forget their woe.

Eliz. ’Tis 

 Prev. P 60/124 next