written tooIn that same book, nurse, that the days shall comeWhen the bridegroom shall be taken away—and then—Then shall they mourn and fast: I needed weaningFrom sense and earthly joys; by this way onlyMay I win God to leave in mine own handsMy luxury’s cure: oh! I may bring him back,By working out to its full depth the chasteningThe need of which his loss proves: I but barterLess grief for greater—pain for widowhood.

Isen. And death for life—your cheeks are wan and sharpAs any three-days’ moon—you are shifting alwaysUneasily and stiff, now, on your seat,As from some secret pain.

Eliz. Why watch me thus?You cannot know—and yet you know too much—I tell you, nurse, pain’s comfort, when the fleshAches with the aching soul in harmony,And even in woe, we are one: the heart must speakIts passion’s strangeness in strange symbols out,Or boil, till it bursts inly.

Guta. Yet, methinks,You might have made this widowed solitudeA holy rest—a spell of soft gray weather,Beneath whose fragrant dews all tender thoughtsMight bud and burgeon.

Eliz. That’s a gentle dream;But nature shows nought like it: every winter,When the great sun has turned his face away,The earth goes down into the vale of grief,And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay—Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses—As I may yet!—

Isen. There, now—my foolish child!You faint: come—come to your chamber—

Eliz. Oh, forgive me!But hope at times throngs in so rich and full,It mads the brain like wine: come with me, nurse,Sit by me, lull me calm with gentle talesOf noble ladies wandering in the wild wood,Fed on chance earth-nuts, and wild strawberries,Or milk of silly sheep, and woodland doe.Or how fair Magdalen ’mid desert sandsWore out in prayer her lonely blissful years,Watched by bright angels, till her modest tressesWove to her pearled feet their golden shroud.Come, open all your lore.

[Sophia and Agnes enter.]

My mother-in-law!

[Aside] Shame on thee, heart! why sink, whene’er we meet?

Soph. Daughter, we know of old thy strength, of metalBeyond us worldlings: shrink not, if the timeBe come which needs its use—

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