Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NUN OF KENT; A HISTORICAL DRAMA, by GRACE DENIO LITCHFIELD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NUN OF KENT; A HISTORICAL DRAMA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A goodly saint, a goodly saint now
Last Line: (curtain falls.)
Subject(s): Clergy; Convents; Kent, England; Monasteries; Nuns; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops; Abbeys


DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

EDWARD BOCKING}Monks of Canterbury Priory
ROBERT DERING}Monks of Canterbury Priory
RICHARD RYSBY}Monks of Canterbury Priory
HUGH RICH}Monks of Canterbury Priory
HENRY GOOLD}Monks of Canterbury Priory
CUTHBERT VANE
THOMAS CRANMER
HUGH LATIMER
THOMAS CROMWELL
ELIZABETH, The Nun of Kent
MISTRESS VANE, Mother of Cuthbert
MISTRESS COBB, Former Mistress of Elizabeth
PRISON ATTENDANT

GUARDS, SOLDIERS, FRIARS MENDICANT, OBSERVANT FRIARS, PEASANTS, ETC.

The scene is laid, first in Canterbury, and afterward in London

(SCENE I—The square outside the Priory chapel of Canterbury. CUTHBERT
standing a little apart. MISTRESS VANE and MISTRESS COBB talking. A
procession of Pilgrims issuing from the chapel doors, and continuing to pass,
brokenly, during the scene. A few peasants leave its ranks to join the two
women.)
OLD PEASANT: A goodly saint,—a goodly saint enow!
SECOND PEASANT (awestruck): Seemed she not wrapt and fearsome?
THIRD PEASANT: Past concept.
FOURTH PEASANT: I am a-tremble yet.
SECOND PEASANT: My knees turn weak
To think on't. Where then was her soul, the while
Her body lay there breathless? Was't in Heaven?
VOICES TOGETHER: Ay! Ay!
THIRD PEASANT: Heard'st thou not Father Bocking tell
Her holy state in paradise, mid sights
And sounds earth scarce may dare to think upon?
MISTRESS COBB: Ay, marry, a right favoured saint is ours.
Give heed to her.
MISTRESS VANE (scornfully): All England heeds but her.
MISTRESS COBB: That doth it. Our sweet Saint Elizabeth,
Our saint of Canterbury, Nun of Kent,
Hath wider fame than any in the land.
OLD PEASANT: Who would ha' thought it five twelvemonths agone
Of orphaned Beth, our little village lass?
Oh, fair enow, but no wise wonderful.
Nay, ower light, and trifling in her speech.
MISTRESS COBB: Tut, tut! A king needs grow through babyhood,
Yet no less king is when he dons the crown
Because he erst was hushed on woman's knee
And fed on pap.
CUTHBERT (turning toward the group): Nor she thereby less saint,
That she hath leapt so sudden to such height?
OLD PEASANT: It was a miracle our Lady wrought.
SECOND PEASANT: A miracle in guerdon for her faith
What time that fever lay so hot on her,
When she did pray our Lady lend her grace.
OLD PEASANT: Wherefore our Lady came, and with a touch
Healed her and made her saint for that her faith.
CUTHBERT: For that her faith in priests—no fairer faith!
'T was the priests sainted her.
MISTRESS COBB: Go to! Go to!
One reasons not with thee. Thou lost thy lass
That day we won our blessed saint of Heaven,
And dost begrudge us her.
MISTRESS VANE (proudly): My son's no one
To grudge a maiden to ye. Keep your saint!
OLD PEASANT: 'T is pity, though. He loved her sin' so long.
CUTHBERT: Prithee, have done. Thy pity runs to waste.
Our Lady, with that selfsame holy touch
That sainted Beth, did heal me of my loss.
I leave thee thy sweet saint. She's none o' mine.
(Exit.)
OLD PEASANT: Brave words make goodly corselets o'er weak hearts.
MISTRESS VANE: Beshrew thee! Cuthbert's none to mourn a lass,
Or make lament for a spoiled kiss or two.
If Heaven proclaims her for a saint, it sure
Counts him no lack of honour that he first
Won her whom Heaven did later thus becrown.
What heart of us, but Cuthbert, guessed her worth?
I've heard thee rate her, Mistress Cobb, full oft
And sore, in saintless days at Aldington
When she o'ermuch did dally at her task,
Or flirt too many of those graces out
That Heaven—and Cuthbert—so approved in her.
MISTRESS COBB: No sign o' saintship was upon her then,
When she was serving wench to me and mine.
That swear I by all saints.
PEASANT: Good Lord! Beware!
Ye speak o'er freely of who is a saint.
MISTRESS COBB: I mean her no disgrace. I bate my breath
And sign the cross when I bespeak her now.
Have I not journeyed sin' cockcrow, to pay
Her dole for prayer I one time paid for wage?
She bears me naught of malice. But to-day
I lost her a good groat to pray for me
And mine.
MISTRESS VANE: I ween she 'd pray thee out o' Heaven,
For half o' that she takes to pray thee in.
PEASANT: Sir Thomas More a double ducat gave
To say an Ave for him.
MISTRESS VANE: That must be
Dire needed grace which cost so mickle gold.
PEASANT: Wot ye that book writ of her oracles?
Archbishop Warham brought it to King Hal.
MISTRESS VANE: The king made merry o 't.
MISTRESS COBB (warmly): Yea! Wot ye why?
Her holy revelations ill do fit
His will. Had she decreed that Catherine
Was well divorced and Anne was lawful queen,
The king with hot haste had put faith in her.
But sin' she doth denounce this lustful bond
The while Queen Catherine lives, therefore, forsooth,
Hating the truth for loving of Queen Anne,
The king makes truth a lie to keep Anne queen,
And disavows God's saint.
MISTRESS VANE (impatiently): This Nun of Kent
Doth lead the English people by the nose—
Priests, prelates, nobles—all, save but the king.
MISTRESS COBB (sneeringly): The king and thee, shrewd Mistress Vane. I
ween
She led once e'en thy Cuthbert in such wise.
OLD PEASANT: Poor little lass! She was a winsome child;
Had a gay laugh, and a light foot to dance,
And a sweet voice to sing.
MISTRESS VANE: A wilful lass,
With never head to learn nor hand to work.
And her the priests have made a saint of—Beth!
PEASANTS: Our Lady's grace! A miracle!
MISTRESS VANE (shortly): Was need.
OLD PEASANT: There 's never night but angels visit her
Within her cell.
SECOND PEASANT: And once the archfiend came
To wrestle against Heaven for right in her.
Hast seen the mark he burnt upon her arm?
MISTRESS VANE (contemptuously): A birthmark, hidden in unsaintly days
With a smart riband!
PEASANT (angrily): Nay, it was himself
Laid his hot hand upon her, and her flesh
Scorched in quick horror of so near approach.
Ask Father Bocking!
MISTRESS VANE (going): Ask the archfiend's self!
(Exit.)
MISTRESS COBB: How she doth hug her sinful disbelief!
She hath an untamed spirit and a strange.
PEASANT: So her son Cuthbert. Holds his head as high
As my Lord Bishop. Wears his vest as proud
As't were an ermine mantle. Hath no word
For peasant folk.
YOUNG GIRL: Nor smile for any maid.
He is an austere man, grave, hard, and cold.
MISTRESS COBB: Cold now, in that he loved so hotly once
He burnt his heart to ashes—so methinks—
Though fires that kindle slowest, smoulder long.
YOUNG GIRL: 'T were sin to love a nun with human love,
And she a saint. Sure now he hath forgot.
MISTRESS COBB: Mayhap. Try thy warm smiles there an thou wilt.
They'll melt the granite sooner.—Well, good folk,
We have long gossiped. I must hence, and home.
(Turns away.)
PEASANTS: And I. And I. The day is wearing late.
(Exeunt.)

SCENE II

(The Priory Hall. FATHERS DERING, RYSBY, RICH, and GOOLD in the
foreground, drinking and dice-throwing. FATHER BOCKING in the background,
walking slowly up and down.)
DERING: Prithee, pass on the flagon, Father Goold.
(To RICH.)
Bestir thee, Friend. A song to cheer the hour.
RICH (sullenly): Rouse Father Rysby. (To GOOLD.) S'death! the throw
was mine.
GOOLD: By sainted Thomas, never!
DERING: Here. The bowl.
(To RYSBY.)
Now, Father, drench those thirsty lips of thine,
And give us a rare tune, a sumptuous strain,
To drive the echoes of our Matins' plaint
From out these dull old walls.
(He snatches back the flagon.)
Drat thee! Begin.
RYSBY (chanting dolefully): A-ve-Ma—
DERING: Faith, we're deaf with Aves! Blast
Thy tongue!
BOCKING (coming forward): Truce to your guzzlings! Drop those dice!
'T is nigh upon her hour.
GOOLD (continuing to throw): How harms it her?
DERING (drinking): A taste hereof may lend her weakness strength.
Best call her shortly ere the flagon fail.
BOCKING (coming nearer): I said give o'er. Hark ye; give o'er ye must.
DERING (putting down flagon sulkily): I wot not wherefore.
RICH (looking up from dice): Who made thee our lord?
BOCKING (deliberately): Myself, out of mine own pre-eminence.
(He stands looking at them significantly.)
DERING: And we obey thee out of abjectness
Of this our serfhood to thy greatness? Good.
RICH (mockingly): O blest harmoniousness! Behold us one
In lowly-mindedness!
RYSBY (stretching himself at full length): In lethargy,
Say rather. Easier were it to obey
Him who asserts himself, than to contend
Against the assertion. Father Bocking, speak.
I listen acquiescent.
(To GOOLD, motioning toward a cushion.)
Pass it here.
GOOLD (putting it under his own head): Thou'rt fat enow to want none.
Leave it me.
RYSBY (indolently): Truth. Thou art lean with listing ower long
To rosy-lipped confessions of sweet sins.
Thou mayest keep it, Father. Be it soft
As penance dealt to fair-cheeked penitents
By thine indulgence.
BOCKING: Fools! What prate ye of!
Doth naught more urgently compel your thoughts
Than the dull routine of the cloistral day—
The bootless, sapless, dead monotony
Ye call existence?
RYSBY: Why uncharm our peace?
'T is a soft-feathered nest.
DERING (drawing up the flagon): Where wine fails not.
GOOLD: Nor low-voiced penitents to shrive.
RICH (folding his hands across his stomach) And where
The Matin bells ring not too loud a peal
O' frosty mornings, nor brown-roasted ducks
Have too pale sauce at vespers.
BOCKING: Prattle o' babes!
Is there no nursing soul among ye all
Sucketh some saving discontent?
DERING: Yea, then.
I'd brave damnation for a spicier draught—
A redder, rarer, richer, madder wine!
BOCKING (coming close to him): Do as I bid thee. Thou shalt quaff a
wine
Had never peer in Canterbury's best.
DERING: Hey? Thou hast pass-keys to the Bishop's vault?
BOCKING (meaningly): I have a key wherewith I will unlock
A door shall let thee to thy bishoprick.
DERING (rousing): Faith, that were nobly done. 'T would please me well
To don the mitre. What's this magic key
Shall so My-Lord me?
BOCKING: Follow thou my lead.
Myself will robe thee bishop.
ALL (breaking into laughter): Thou!
DERING (shrugging his shoulders): He mouths
His speech as were he my Lord Cardinal!
BOCKING (lifting his right hand solemnly):
Lord Cardinal I shall be.
(The monks look at him startled.)
DERING (impatiently): It appears
Thou'rt not afraid to step high—with thy words.
BOCKING: Feet follow where words climb.
RYSBY (raising himself on his elbow): Thy ladder show.
Be it nor frail, nor steep, nor slack of base,
What is 't shall stay us mounting after thee?
BOCKING (still more solemnly): Do but my bidding, and ere many moons,
Honours ye dream not of shall crown your faith.
(He comes into the midst of the group, slowly scrutinising each in
turn.)
Are ye all one with me?
GOOLD, RICH, AND RYSBY (impressed): Ay.
DERING (after a pause): Ay.
BOCKING: To death?
DERING: An it be death first robes me bishop, nay—
I thank thee, Friend, better becomes me cowl.
BOCKING (raising his clenched hands high with sudden passion): Oh,
miserly life that will not give itself
In payment for its wishes! Hark. My soul
Starves for the cardinalate, and though I reach
To snatch it through the molten doors of hell,
Yet will I not give o'er. What! Live on here
This hemmed-in, miserable, mapped-down life,
Crushed to a level, indistinguishable
In one grey mass of insignificance?
Thrice better death than life's oblivion!
Thrice better death—thrice welcome, if so be
Higher than I stood living, it stand me dead!
DERING: Oh, meek son of our holy Mother-church!
Aptly such speech adorneth thy sworn lips,
Bleached with slow litanies and lowly creeds!
RYSBY (sinking back and clasping his hands under his head): Choose thy
style, Father, Cardinal or Pope,
As pleaseth thee. Who swooneth at no height,
Certes comes farthest.
RICH (going to BOCKING and laying a hand on his arm): Here. I join
with thee.
Ambition is a generous lord to serve.
RYSBY: Rather a monster tyrant, niggardly
Of wage, of service most exorbitant,
Whose bait's a poisoned arrow in the flesh,
Whose guerdon is a keener lash o' the whip.
All they who follow in his glittering ranks
Forfeit content as their enlistment fee.
Natheless, if drum allure, enrol thee, pray.
DERING: Two fools for one.
(BOCKING looks round angrily.)
RYSBY (interceding good-humouredly): Whist. Whist. Let the word pass.
Its savour falleth harmless from thee.
GOOLD (rising): Troth,
By thine own marking we be all fools here,
With cowls for caps.
(He looks down at his monk's dress.)
I sicken of this jest.
(He crosses over to BOCKING.)
Thou 'rt in the right of it. Show the way out!
RYSBY: I drift where strongest currents draw. To float
Is seemlier than to battle with the tide.
(He draws his hands from under his head to count off on his fingers.)
Three of thy mind.
(He rises slowly to his feet.)
The vortex sweeps me in.
How is 't, pray, Father Dering? Hold'st alone?
DERING (to BOCKING): What plottest thou? If but a tournament
Of tongues—words set a-tilt to amuse the world—
I'm naught for 't. But, so be it is of deeds—
Deeds to be done, schemes to be battled out,
Great purposes to grapple with, to twist
Into strong knots or hammer into shape
By sheer out-putting strength—I leap to arms!
BOCKING: Thy hand, Friend!
DERING: First show thine.
BOCKING: So did I. This
The stake I play for. Fame. High office.
DERING: So.
And thy trump ace?
BOCKING: Elizabeth of Kent.
DERING: The Nun?
RICH and GOOLD: Our new-fledged saint?
RYSBY (unwillingly): Methinks e'en now
Hath she o'er served us.
BOCKING: I have measured her
And know her powers.
DERING: Number them us.
GOOLD: Sweet eyes,
A dimpled chin, a mouth that pouts to kiss,
And cheeks a-blush for the mouth's waywardness—
These be great powers!
RYSBY: But win not bishopricks.
DERING: What hath she saving comeliness?—frail prop
To rest a ladder on!
RICH: The maid lacks brains.
An ignorant lass. A very babe for thought.
BOCKING: The better for our needs. Blind faith serves best.
RICH: Docile she is in truth.
DERING (contemptuously): Obedient
As echoes are.
BOCKING: She holds her teachings fast:
Her childish faith yet faster. By the rood,
There 's never tool within the universe
So fitted to our hand!
RICH: She plays the saint
As one inspired of Heaven.
RYSBY (apologetically): She doth deceive
Herself before all others.
BOCKING: 'T is on that
My scheme is builded. When five years agone
I first beheld her in that trance, and heard
Her, senseless, babbling forth strange pulpit lore
Held, parrot-fashion, by her ignorant ear,
Then laid I my mind's finger on her—then—
Guessing an aptitude for mimicking
At will of mine, as by command of God
And for high use, those swoons miraculous
Whereof a timely physic bettered her—
I challenged fate! To this end have I worked;
Thereto have moulded her; thus far alone.
Now must ye work with me. The hour is ripe.
DERING: Good. Show us of thy scheme.
BOCKING: By yonder maid,
The Nun of Kent, to shake a dynasty.
RYSBY: Great Heavens!
DERING: Speak on!
BOCKING: By yonder mindless maid,
The Nun of Kent, to fire all England's blood
To white-heat acts, dethrone a lawless king,
Crown Mary lawful queen, restore the Church,
And bring our country on repentant knees
To the lost jurisdiction of the Pope.
RYSBY: A breathless scheme!
RICH: Impossible!
DERING: Oh, bold!
Oh, daring, mad and perfect! (To BOCKING.) Here! My hand!
GOOLD (anxiously): A mad plan, truly. Mad. And dangerous.
DERING (turning on him): And thou'rt afeard, I'll cut thy tongue out,
knave,
And let thee loose.
RYSBY (conciliatorily): Peace. Peace. Give breathing space
To view this matter in.—Dethrone King Hal,
Sitting so high up with his ill-got queen
And making merry with the heretics
Against the Church? Nay, I've no love for him.
But to conspire against him, take his throne,
Build up another power—'t is a big thought,
That on my stomach sits uneasily.
BOCKING: Strong meats take slow digesting. Bide thy time.
Thou 'lt grow to it. Once Mary on the throne,
The heretics are banished, Pole recalled,
The Catholic Church once more supreme, and we——
GOOLD (uneasily): Ay, we?—sobeit we may not fall amuck
O' the headsman——?
DERING (exultingly): Ha! I scent arch-bishopricks!
BOCKING: We who have built shall have the builders' meed
From her for whom we builded—Catholic Mary.
(A pause.)
Enough. Keep your own counsel, and keep mine.
(He retires into the background and resumes his slow walk.)
RYSBY: What complot this, by all the powers of Heaven,
To drop i' the midst of us! Dethrone the king!
Crown Mary!
GOOLD: And the Nun for instrument!
RICH: Now what a mind the man hath! What a brain,
To snatch at circumstance and fashion fact
To fit his rude intent!
DERING: A master mind!
GOOLD: And we its vassals?
DERING: No shame, though so be.
High serving honours him who serves, and mind,
Like water, finds its own just level. Ay!
I hail him Master!
RYSBY: Whist! Yon comes the Nun.

SCENE III

(The same. Enter ELIZABETH. BOCKING advances to meet her.)
BOCKING: Daughter, o'er long I wait.
ELIZABETH (penitently): Father, forgive!
I was a-weary.
BOCKING: Faints thy soul so soon?
Gird thee with resolution and toil on.
The children of the world may tire; not thou.
ELIZABETH: Must I do penance therefor? Woe is me!
This honourable saintship is a cross
To soul not born to it.
BOCKING: Daughter, beware!
Thy feet have far to travel on high roads;
And they to whom vouchsafed so holy goal,
May own no self to draw their purpose back
With importune complainings.
ELIZABETH (humbly): Father, nay.
BOCKING: They live but in so far as they achieve.
Themselves are nothing; their identity
Blotted from sight in their accomplishment.
ELIZABETH: Shall I account myself so little use?
BOCKING: Count thyself little? Heavens! Pray, what art thou?—
An atom in a universe of mites.
The merest naught, in an immensity
Of moving cyphers. Nowhere canst thou find
A narrower bound of insignificance
Than thine own narrow soul.
ELIZABETH (piqued): And yet, methinks,
So great a task allotted me, concedes
Somewhat of worth in e'en so small a thing.
BOCKING: Oh, vanity of creature! Is the vase
By virtue of its contents brass or gold?
Thou, thou art nothing. But thy task is—all!
ELIZABETH: And if I fail? Will God be very wroth?
BOCKING: None fails whom God appoints to service. Strength
Matches the need; hands shape themselves to fit
The given tool; backs bend to bear the load.
DERING (coming to her side): Do but his bidding—that, thy
talisman!
ELIZABETH: Yea, Father, yea! For ever, and in all.
BOCKING: The test is nigh. There is accorded thee
A marvellous mission. Daughter, thou art called
To be thy country's saviour.
ELIZABETH (recoiling): Saviour?—I?
Nay, Father, nay! It is enough of grace
But to be Saint Elizabeth of Kent,
And fast long hours, and lead a separate life,
And wear a bit of sackcloth next my heart.
(She draws nearer, and pushing back the nun's coif, lifts the hair from her
forehead.)
Father, my flesh is very tender. See!
I doubt me could it brook a crown of thorns.
And must I, too, be crucified? (In sudden terror.) Nay! nay!
Saint though I be, yet mortal am I still—
Pain-fearing and joy-loving. Let me from't!
I could not brave the shame—the agony—
Not e'en to be a Saviour!
RYSBY: Hush, poor lamb!
Thine ignorance is blasphemy. A cross
For thee! a crown of thorns!—dear Lord, forgive!
RICH (sneeringly): Thy conscience doth wax newly tender, sure!
BOCKING (to ELIZABETH): Poor foolish heart, that sets its own weak
throbs—
Its small fleet pangs—against a future fame!
But dread nor cross nor crown, Elizabeth,
Sainthood too high, nor too great martyrdom;
Thou art not formed thereto.
ELIZABETH (eagerly): I crave it not.
To be a saint, and so feel sure of Heaven,
Yet not so much a saint but that I may
Retain somewhat of earth, sufficeth me.
RYSBY: To be content with what one hath, is Heaven.
BOCKING (impatiently): This earth hath no contentment! That we call
By so poor name is but surrendering
Our slavish necks to whatever yoke there be—
A dull acceptance of the inevitable,
A lifeless bearing of some dragging cross
Our cowardice dares not free us from. Nay! Nay!
Ambition, aspiration, hope, are naught
But discontent endowed with angel wings.
'T is better starve for the divine, than feast
Upon unworthy meats!—Elizabeth,
What wert thou when I found thee? Simple; poor;
Untaught; despised of all.
ELIZABETH (softly): Nay, not of all.
There was one loved me.
BOCKING: Now, contrast thy state.
Commissioned prophetess of Heaven's decree—
The faith, the pride of multitudes. And lo,
Thine award is but half granted. Thou shalt on
To fame immortal as high Heaven.
ELIZABETH (sorrowfully): Ah me!
Hath God some revelation newly sent?
BOCKING: To thee; not yet to all.
ELIZABETH (sighing): Ay, Father.
BOCKING (solemnly): Kneel.
(ELIZABETH kneels.)
Hast thou confest to-day?
ELIZABETH: My every sin.
BOCKING: Hast thou had absolution?
ELIZABETH: Father, yea.
BOCKING (peremptorily to the monks): Kneel!
GOOLD (muttering): Is't for long?
RYSBY (pushing down RICH): Let me assist thee, Friend,
To the unaccustomed rite.
BOCKING: My Daughter, hark.
There have this day in deep ecstatic dreams,
Been shown me mighty things. All I have seen,
All I have heard, may I no man declare.
This only was I bid reveal to thee.
ELIZABETH (crossing herself): I listen.
BOCKING (slowly and forcibly): Henry, who now England rules,
Rules not himself. Henry, whom God made king,
Obeys not God. Henry, whom Heaven did crown,
Defieth Heaven. And lo! his hour is come.
This England, that he rules, shall out-rule him.
God, who did crown him, shall strike off that crown,
And Heaven, that was his aid, abandon him.
ELIZABETH: Oh, poor King Henry! poor King Hal!
BOCKING: Put by
Thy puny pity! Know but scorn for him
Who calling himself monarch, is yet slave
Chained to his smallest, weakest, vilest lust!
Who, sitting on a throne, conceives he shows
Vice regal, so he lift it to his side!
Who thinks he makes crime lawful by high sins
In consecrated places! Spare thy grief,
And lend thee to the speedy furtherance
Of Heaven's great purposes. Dethrone the king,
And crown his daughter queen!
DERING: Oh, royal scheme!
ELIZABETH (aghast): Nay, what can I in so grave matter?
BOCKING: All.
GOOLD (aside, rising): My knees wax lame.
RYSBY: Methinks it were no lack
Of reverence to edge a cushion in.
(He pulls up a pillow and gradually slips into recumbent position.)
DERING (absorbed in BOCKING'S words):
Whence got yon man his power!
RICH (scowling): From Heaven—or hell—
It matters not.
DERING: Wondrous concept!
BOCKING: Arise,
Elizabeth of Kent! Stand forth! (To the monks.) Behold!
Do ye here one and all engage yourselves
True followers of this our saint?
DERING, RICH, and GOOLD (heartily): We do!
BOCKING (to RYSBY): Thou, Father, answer.
RYSBY (reluctantly): The crowd sweeps me on.
Perforce I follow.
BOCKING (to ELIZABETH): Here be five of us
Sworn to command in this most righteous cause.
Without waits all of England that we come
To mete out justice in the name of Heaven,
Whilst thou, here, there, and yonder, as I bid
Thee speak, shalt lend in secrecy thy voice
To syllable God's will.
ELIZABETH: In secrecy?
BOCKING: So great a truth thrown open on the world,
Would blind with its immensity of light.
Through thee it shall fall softly on veiled eyes.
ELIZABETH: And thou wilt train my tongue to speech?
BOCKING: The same
As Heaven hath deigned teach me.
ELIZABETH: And is it bid
I still avow the revelation mine?
BOCKING: Thine is the revelation, I its voice,—
Thus Heaven doth shield its frailer souls,—lest thou,
Sudden admitted to such mysteries,
Should'st perish, blasted with their ecstasy.
But thine the revelation—thine, not mine.
RYSBY: Truth. Thine, not his.—Blest Mary and dear Christ,
'T is a droll world we live in!
ELIZABETH: A strange world,
And I, methinks, the strangest figure in 't.
I no more know myself. I am unlike
All that was me. First was I little Beth,
With a rare lover, and no thought or care
More than the singing bird that seeks the sun.
Then came that sickness on me, and so thou
Didst call me in God's name to be a saint.
And I did put my youth and lover by.
Then was I St. Elizabeth of Kent,
And did long penances and made great prayers,
And taught the folk all thou hadst taught to me
Of law, and of God's anger with the king;
And so grew famous, and less happy far.
And now what am I? What must grow to be?
More than I am, yet oh! less than I was;—
My country's Saviour—and unhappier.
Can one be made great with a little soul?
This greatness lies upon me like a pall,
Covering my dead youth with a sombre state
That bids me weep.
BOCKING: There speaks the village lass—
No more the saint.
ELIZABETH: Father, forgive the maid,
Who in her sainthood misses her lost self.
Death, consecrator of all things, makes even
Our dead selves not unworthy of our tears.
It is a passing tribute. I have done.
BOCKING: Hail, St. Elizabeth of Kent, our chief,
Our guide to truth, to victory, to power!
ALL: Hail, hail, thrice hail to St. Elizabeth!
ELIZABETH (falling on her knees): God help me! I am wondrous frail and
weak.
BOCKING (inciting the others): Hail! Hail!
ALL: Hail, St. Elizabeth!
ELIZABETH (weeping): Ah me!

(The curtain falls.)

(SCENE I—The square outside the Priory. The chapel on one side. The
convent of St. Sepulchre on the other behind high walls. A brilliant moon floods
the scene. CUTHBERT seated on a bench in the foreground. MISTRESS VANE
standing near. The chapel bells chime, followed by twelve slow strokes.)
CUTHBERT: Midnight. How lag the hours!
MISTRESS VANE: Son, Son, come home!
CUTHBERT: The moon makes night forget her errand. Hark!
Was that a gate jarred yonder?
MISTRESS VANE: Cuthbert!
CUTHBERT: Peace.
Hark! (Listens anxiously.)
MISTRESS VANE: Nay, 't was nothing, nothing.
CUTHBERT: 'T was a hope
Stirred low within me.
MISTRESS VANE: Wherefore watch so long?
What good can it betide thee though she come?
CUTHBERT: What good? Ay, none. 'T is slaking my mad thirst
With salted water. Yet the parching tongue Still drinks.
MISTRESS VANE: Out on thee! Shall love bind thee aye
In serfdom to such folly? Be again
A man. Shake off this despicable thrall
It shames thee to remember.
CUTHBERT: Folly? Shame?
A despicable weakness? These be names
For woman's love—not man's.
MISTRESS VANE: Or man's or maid's
As liketh thee, but leave off loving!
CUTHBERT: Ay.
When I shall leave off living.
MISTRESS VANE: Fool! Pluck love
From out thy bosom! Rouse thee! Be at heart
The cold proud man thou puttest on by day.
CUTHBERT: I weary waiting. Send her forth to me.
MISTRESS VANE: Others there be a plenty at thy call.
Get thee another love.
CUTHBERT: Go send her forth.
MISTRESS VANE: Now that I will not!
CUTHBERT: Pass through yonder gate,
Unbarred—by miracle!—that she be free
At will o' the chapel road, when prayer constrains.
The way is open to her cell. Knock soft,
And bid her come to me.
MISTRESS VANE: I go not hence.
CUTHBERT: Bid her make speed. I wait her coming long.
MISTRESS VANE: She sleeps by this.
CUTHBERT: She doth not sleep. She wakes.
Am I not waking?
MISTRESS VANE (tries the convent gate, finds it unlocked, hesitates, and
turns back to CUTHBERT): Prithee, list; give o'er
A love that doth unman thee. Yon frail lass
Was aye unworthy thee.
CUTHBERT (turning upon her fiercely): Be still!—And go.
MISTRESS VANE: Was ever love like this!
(Exit reluctantly through convent gate.)

SCENE II

(CUTHBERT alone.)

CUTHBERT: Was ever love
Unlike my love? Then never was that love.
A love that metes itself out thus and so
According to the measure that it gets—
A love that yields itself to reason's check
And may unmake or make itself at will—
A love that prates of worthiness in one
It loves—counts out the virtues—sums them up
As thus and whys for loving ere it loves—
That is no love at all, nor needs a name.
But love as I know love, a madness is
Saner than reason; oh, a weakness is
Stronger than strength, a folly above wit.
Not for the love she bore me loved I her,
Nor for my joy in her, nor for the need
I had. I loved her because Love, one noon,
Descending out of space, chanced where we were,
Wrapped us in its huge shadow, blinded us,
Took her and me in its titanic grasp,
And shook our souls together.
(He relapses into silence, then springs up and stands listening intently.)

SCENE III

CUTHBERT (standing. Enter THE NUN. MISTRESS VANE comes out from the
convent with her, and disappears behind the chapel.)
ELIZABETH (softly, from the distance): Cuthbert!
CUTHBERT (holding out his arms, without moving from the spot): Thou!
ELIZABETH (coming nearer): Cuthbert!
CUTHBERT (springing suddenly toward her): Beth—Beth—my little
Beth!
ELIZABETH (motioning him back): Nay, soft.
Come not anear. Not little Beth I am,
But St. Elizabeth—the Nun—the Saint—
And thine no more. Thou may'st not come so nigh.
I have outgrown thy love.
CUTHBERT: Nay, little Beth,
Thou hast outgrown thine own love. Mine thou hast
Not yet reached up to—nay, nor ever canst.
ELIZABETH: Thy loving must be very great indeed,
To stand so high above me—I a saint,
And pinnacled anear to Heaven!
CUTHBERT: Thou!
Thou art no saint, Beth. Thou art only Beth,
Grown thus much older, tricked out as a nun,
And taught a longer, sadder way to pray;—
Only my little lass, priest-caught, and dragged
From out her world to one she fits not.
ELIZABETH: Truth.
I was not fitted to it, heart nor soul.
I would have given all my sainthood up,
But to be left with thee and be thy wife,
And live my little humble glad life out
In unambitious quiet by thy side,
If but it could have been!
CUTHBERT: Prove these thy words!
Give up the falsehood now! Come forth with me,
And be my very wife! Oh, better far
Be true man's wife than false priests' fraud! Come Beth,
Thou heart and soul of me! Thou dearer self!
(He springs toward her. She retreats.)
ELIZABETH: Stand back! Away from me! No profane hand
May dare approach me!
CUTHBERT (drawing back): Hath the hand of love
Aught in 't of desecration? Mistaught child,
What can thy priests reveal to thee more pure,
More holy than love is?—Fear not. Fear not,
Thou little mimic saint—thou sweetest lie
That ever stole Truth's garb— thou fairest fraud
That ever fooled men's sense! I'll touch thee not.
What boots it? We are cleft too far apart
For any bridging of the difference.
Thou 'rt fallen from me, Beth, not grown from me,
Else had I borne it.
ELIZABETH: Thou art bitter! Thou!
Thou, once so tender with me, thou alone
Holding me high when others held me low,
Now thou alone of all disclaimest me.
Cuthbert, take back thy words. They stab me here.
(She puts her hands to her breast.)
Rather I would the whole world thought me false,
And thou hadst faith in me. Seest thou not
Thy doubt professeth so a doubt of God?
CUTHBERT: Thou dost deceive thyself, Beth, and the world.
Me thou canst not deceive. I love too true.
ELIZABETH: I do prefer thine old ways, the old names
That rang so softly—the old blind dear love
That owned no fault in me when I had most.
Oh, I have not forgotten! I recall
Through all the dignity of my high state
Those days when I was nothing save to thee,
And owned naught, save thy love. And oft—oh, oft!—
My soul is sick with longing—sick to pain—
With yearning for those days, and thee. Chide not.
I know such speech is sin—know I must make
To-morrow penance therefor. But to-night—
To-night I cannot put this sweetness by.
I knew thou cam'st to-night. I felt thee near,
As April feels the bourgeoning in her blood
Before the bloom unsheathes. And in my heart
The old love burst its bonds and leaped to thine,
As breaks the torrent through its frozen shroud
At call of summer sun. Oh, dear my love,
Let me remember but this one night more,
And be thy Beth again! See, 'neath my cloak
(she divides its long folds)
I have put on the gown I used to wear,
And on mine arm the riband—on my neck
The chain that thou didst give me.
(She throws off the Nun's cloak and hood, and stands dressed in a peasant's
costume.)
Cuthbert, see.
Am I not fair to-night as then I was?
CUTHBERT (covering his eyes): Beth—Beth—
ELIZABETH (slipping the chain through her fingers as if it were a
rosary): I have such pretty trinkets now,—
Such jewels, Cuthbert! Thou should'st only see.
Good Father Bocking holds them for the poor,
For saints may love no vanities, he saith.
The people bring them to me for my prayers;
And gold, too; but the baubles please me best.
'T is pity nuns forswear them. They show bright
Across the black, and do become me well.
Sometimes at dusk when I have done my beads,
I deck me out in them, breast, arms, and hair,
And stand back—thus—and lift my head up high,
And fancy I'm a queen,—and long for thee!
Tell me—thou art so still—am I less fair?
CUTHBERT: Would Heaven thou wert, or that I thought thee so.
ELIZABETH: Then am I grown less dear? What merit lacks?
Hast thou no little pretty word to say
For but this night, dear Cuthbert—but this night?
CUTHBERT (hotly): Why only for to-night? Is love a gem
To put on or fling off as folly bids?
Not only for to-night, but for alway
List to me, Beth!
ELIZABETH (wistfully, drawing nearer): I am not grown less fair,
Less dear to thee?
CUTHBERT (passionately): By Heaven, thou art more vain,
And foolisher, less worthy and more weak,
Yet—O God!—dearer—dearer—dearer!
ELIZABETH (wounded, and drawing back): Nay!
Not vainer! Nay, more humble am I grown,
Being more worthy than I was of old.
How else were I made saint? Thou dost not dream
The life I live—all penance, study, prayer.
CUTHBERT: Leave off such lessoning! The priests blind thee
With the allurements of their serpent wiles.
Have done with this long mummery. Come back
To thine old childlike truth and loyalty.
ELIZABETH: Time was there when it vext me sore to know
I might not leave this new life for the old—
Give up all else and keep but thee. But now—
O Cuthbert, God hath called me to great things—
Greater than love of thine could e'er devise.
I may not give the great up for the less.
One may not choose one's life out—wife or saint.
One is what God ordains. See. I do wrong
In meeting thee to-night. Ay, I do wrong
In loving thee. The saintliest of all hearts
Are those that love not, Father Bocking saith.
Yet I, though singly honoured thus of Heaven,
Find it so hard to unlearn love—find love
So lovely still.—Hush, Cuthbert! This to-night
Is my farewell. I will not see thee more,
Nor love thee—from to-morrow. These black folds (she resumes her nun's
cloak)
Shall be the graveclothes of my love. Thy Beth,
Thy little Beth is dead. Here. Take.
(She unfastens the chain and holds it out to him.)
Take back
Thy chain; it binds too closely to thee yet;
I may not keep it. I have work to do,
And thought of thee unnerves me for the task,
And must not creep between.
(The chain falls from her outstretched hands to the ground. He grinds it under
his heel where it lies.)
CUTHBERT: Would God I stood
For ever betwixt thee and all mischance!
ELIZABETH: Thy hurt hath warped thy brain. Didst thou know more,
Thy love itself would not withhold me now.
A revelation hath been granted me
Through Father Bocking. Mock not, Cuthbert! Hear
How God hath chosen this same witless lass
Whom thou so scornest athwart all thy love—
Do the words prick thee?—to work out His will,
Her, and those selfsame priests thou dared'st defame.
All hath been ordered. But a little space
And Henry who is king, is king no more,
And Mary is our queen!
CUTHBERT: Thy morrow's screed
Gotten by rote. Well conned. Yet here is none
To gape at thee. Thy scholars sleep.
ELIZABETH (gently): Forbear
Thy mockery. The truth still wears truth's face,
Unaltered by thy sneer.
CUTHBERT: Or by thy boast.
Words shall not make King Henry less a king,
Or Mary sooner queen.
ELIZABETH (significantly): Wait, scoffer, wait!
Look close! Words may go first, but armoured deeds
Shall follow with loud footsteps!
CUTHBERT (sharply): Deeds? What deeds?
ELIZABETH (impressively): Deeds that shall make King Henry no more
king,
And crown his daughter queen.
CUTHBERT: Great God, what plot
Is this!
ELIZABETH (pleased to have roused him): The plot that foreordains the
fact.
CUTHBERT: Fact?—Treason! Treason!
ELIZABETH (shocked): Nay, dear Cuthbert, nay!
Treason is wrought of men. This is an act
Decreed of Heaven. The king hath angered God,
For Henry hath done ill, and God commands
We shall dethrone him. We do but effect
God's will.
CUTHBERT: O gracious Heaven, what black abyss
Of crime is this! what direst wickedness!
ELIZABETH (very gravely): Now Heaven forgive thee! Doth God counsel
crime?
CUTHBERT: God? This is Devil's counsel! Child! These priests
Decoy thee into lurid hell! Beth—Beth—
When have I ever lied to thee? I swear
By that white love that binds our souls in one,
This thing they plot is treason black and vile!
ELIZABETH (moving off): How dar'st thou so to judge God's holy law?
'T is blasphemy!
CUTHBERT (following her): Nay, listen, listen, Beth!
I yet must save thee!
ELIZABETH (retreating): What would'st save me from?
From serving God and serving this my land
As never maid but one hath served before?
Now were I weak indeed, now truly frail
For wrath of thine to stay so high resolve.
(She passes quickly through the convent gate and bars it. He presses after
her, flinging his weight vainly against it.)
CUTHBERT: Beth! Beth!
(She moves back to the convent door, and throwing it open turns and faces him
from the threshold, the darkness behind her, and the moon full upon her face.)
ELIZABETH: Thou dost mistake me. Beth is dead.
I am Elizabeth, the Nun of Kent,
Saviour of England, and God's servitor.
(She disappears through the convent door, and closes it behind her.)

SCENE IV

CUTHBERT (alone. He slowly withdraws from the gate, and stands still in the
centre of the stage.)
CUTHBERT: Is there a Power above that looks on this
And suffers it to be so?—sees a soul
Out of its very guilelessness and trust
Dragged down to hell, nor lifts a staying hand?
Is it or God or Devil rules us? Speak!
Proclaim Thee, God, by burst of holy wrath
Shall sweep Earth clean of its iniquities!
Art Thou all-perfect and canst brook such wrong,
Rewarding greed with gain, and crime with chance,
And sin with stainless tools? O God! O God!
Or is there no God and no Devil—naught
Save a vast superstition we call fate?—
Naught higher, stronger, holier than himself,
For man to reach to in a desperate need?—
Oh, agony—oh, hell of helplessness!

SCENE V

(CUTHBERT and MISTRESS VANE.)

MISTRESS VANE: Yet here? Hold'st thou the ground she trod so dear
Thou canst not leave it?
CUTHBERT (passionately): I hold nothing dear
In the wide earth,—nor herself, nor myself,
Nor thyself, who did'st bear me for this hour!
MISTRESS VANE: Was it such joy to bear thee, dost thou think,
Thy hate compensates for the birth throes? How
Am I despoiler of thy destiny
Giving thee life? Hate first my mother, save
For whom I had not been to bear thee.
CUTHBERT: Nay.
Earth hath not room enough for all the hate
Should fill it, did men hate where hate were due.
MISTRESS VANE (her voice changing): Nor space hath only for the love
that fills
A single mother-heart.
(She comes up to him tenderly.)
O Cuthbert! Son!
Would God thou wert again the little child
Upon my knee, to whom the mother-love
Was all sufficient for the moment's need;
Now outgrown hast thou the sufficiency,
Yet not the need.
CUTHBERT: Forgive! The poisoned heart
Drops gall on whom stands nighest.
MISTRESS VANE: To forgive
Were to concede offence. Sweet son, come home.
CUTHBERT: Home? What is home? A garden space, where hopes
Set i' the sun grow tall like tended flowers—
An Eden, where glad hearts contented wait
Their dreams' complete fulfillings. Wherefore those
For ever done with joy and hope, for them
No home is.
MISTRESS VANE: Faith, thou 'rt wrong. Home is a shrine
For spent sick souls to creep to and be healed
By miracle of love. Come thou with me.
CUTHBERT: There is no succour for me in God's world—
Nay even not in thy matchless mother-love.
A task is on me of such magnitude
All my unequal flesh revolts. Hark! Hark!
(He turns to her, speaking low and fast and with intense bitterness.)
If there were one more dear to thee than life,
Who, sleeping, walked, thou vainly following,
One pure from sin as is the driven snow—
Who in that blinded trance—thou vainly by—
Leapt to a rotting branch that bridged a chasm,
And stood so, sleeping, dreaming, smiling, death
And hell agape beneath her naked feet—
One dearer than thy life—whiter than snow—
What bitterer torture could thy heart endure?
MISTRESS VANE: Sure, none!
CUTHBERT: Sure, none. Yet say, if she, sleep-locked,
Stood smiling there, and thou—awake—aware—
For conscience' sake—for country's sake— O God!—
Must strike that quivering bough with thy live foot,—
Thyself must thrust it down to fiery hell
With her upon it,—her more dear than life,
More pure than snow, more helpless than a flower,
More innocent than ever babe that breathed—
O God, hath hell a horror beyond this?
MISTRESS VANE: I cannot follow! Hath thy speech import?
What craze is on thee?
CUTHBERT: Would to heedless Heaven
It were the illusion of a frenzied brain!
Why must I do this thing? Why must it be
The one who loves her—out of all that live—
Now must betray her? I! O Mother—I!
(He staggers away, and drops his face on his raised arms.)

MISTRESS VANE: His love hath maddened him!
CUTHBERT (recovering himself and forcing himself to speak with calm):
Nay, nay, not love,
But pity. Pity for such innocence
Yoked with such sin.
MISTRESS VANE (incredulously): Who sins? The Nun of Kent?
CUTHBERT (bitterly): Ay, this high saint. She most unsaintly sins.
MISTRESS VANE: What frantic words are these! How should Beth sin?
CUTHBERT (rapidly): Mother; those monks,—those hell-begotten
fiends—
Plot treason! They are banded 'gens the king,
By what fell scheme or craft hell only sees,
With Beth to countenance it as God's will!
MISTRESS VANE: Monstrous! most monstrous! Canst not save her, thou?
CUTHBERT (lifting both hands to Heaven, with a groan): I can betray
her. Ay. Betray, I can.
MISTRESS VANE (thunderstruck): Betray her?—Beth?
CUTHBERT (fiercely, though with an effort at self-control): What else?
Am I a knave,
To leave these knaves unpublished?
MISTRESS VANE: But—the maid?
CUTHBERT: I must.
MISTRESS VANE: Thou canst not.
CUTHBERT (hopelessly): Must doth override
Life's cannots.
MISTRESS VANE (wringing her hands): Son—the doom is death!
CUTHBERT (in agony): O God!
(He steels himself to quiet.)
Then dies she, too, with those her fellows.
MISTRESS VANE: Dies!
CUTHBERT (fiercely): Whom am I sworn to serve? Henry or Beth?
Henry is England.
MISTRESS VANE (weeping): Beth is thine own self.
CUTHBERT: To save mine England, thus I slay myself.
(More gently.)
Tempt me no more. Would'st lure me to the wrong
With thy divine compassion?
MISTRESS VANE: Were it crime
To bide thy peace, and leave the event to God?—
Only to bide thy peace?—Is it a sin
To close the lips on speech heard out of place
By ears untimely open? Leave it God.
Why must thou speak?
CUTHBERT (bitterly): How should I hold my peace,
Knowing the evil? Can I wink at it,
And be as knew I not? This God of thine
Is slow of justice, else were many a sin
Strangled at birth, that stalks forth now full-grown.
At need men do God's work.
MISTRESS VANE (overcome and dropping to her knees): O God! help! help!
CUTHBERT: If prayer can find out Heaven, pray God help Beth.
(He turns away.)
MISTRESS VANE: Thou goest?—Now?—So instant?
CUTHBERT (gently): Mother, farewell.
(He stoops and kisses her.)
MISTRESS VANE: Thou goest?
CUTHBERT: Canst thou ask me if I bide,
My king in peril, and I English born?
I go. If so be thou canst find God, pray!
(Exit.)
(Curtain falls.)

(SCENE I—A cell in the Priory. FATHER BOCKING writing. Enter
FATHERS DERING and RYSBY. The latter flings himself down on the pallet.)
RYSBY: Divinest rest! No greater good hath Heaven!
BOCKING (pushing back papers and looking up expectantly): Ye only?
Father Goold——?
DERING: He follows soon.
RYSBY (absently): How may feet follow shortly so long road?
BOCKING: And Father Rich—where bide they?
DERING: For the nonce
With Masters.
BOCKING (sharply): Wherefore?
DERING (shrugging his shoulders): A new brand this morn
Uncasked.
BOCKING: Sots! They would travel twenty leagues
To taste a wine, who care not go a rod
To win a mitre!—Masters—what his word?
DERING: He waits our summons.
BOCKING: Ere long shall he hear
The trumpet call. Archbishop Warham——?
DERING: Sends
His holiest greetings to our sister-saint:
Commends her boldness in the Lord; approves
Her revelation as God's righteous word,
And lends his prayers to speed her on her way.
BOCKING: His gold were better.—Salisbury—what from her?
DERING: The Countess standeth to us, and the same
The Marchioness of Exeter, with all
Their chaplains, households, servitors, and squires—
A goodly number.
BOCKING: And Sir George Carew?
Lord Rochester? Sir William?—How with these?
DERING: The same.
BOCKING: Good. Good. What more of Rochester?
DERING: My Lord petitions Heaven for its sweet grace,
And meanwhile dons his armour.
BOCKING: That's the prayer
Shall speed us farthest. And from Abel (to RYSBY)—Thou,
Father, what message? (To DERING.) Pluck that pillow out.
He sleeps a'ready.
RYSBY (snatching at pillow): Hold there! Peace! Good Lord! (Sinks
back.)
BOCKING (sternly): What word?
RYSBY (sighing): Alas, sweet sleep! (Rises.) Well, Father Goold,
Ogling a lass or two along the way,
And dining off fat soups and goodly wines
To strengthen his weak apostolic soul,
Thy matter unto Father Abel brought.
BOCKING: And he——?
RYSBY: Did bring it to Queen Catherine
Through the confessional. So holy road
Perforce must sanctify it, Father—eh?
BOCKING: Speak but thine errand. Leave thy fantasies
To curl around the slimness of thy prayers.
RYSBY: Well thought. They do lack somewhat of past grace
Since I to prattle treason tuned my tongue.
BOCKING (impatiently): Father, I pray, thine errand! What hast more?
RYSBY: Her Majesty that was, Queen Catherine,
And Princess Mary—Majesty to be—
Did lend two royal ears most worshipful
To the blest message from our holy Nun.—
(Muttering): Faith, it may stain them somewhat!
DERING: By the mass,
The hour is come to strike!
BOCKING (exultantly): The tide is full!
RYSBY (reluctantly): And bears me on its bosom. All too far
The appealing quiet of receding shores!
BOCKING: Ay, all too late to hark back to the long
Relentless level of the pallid strand—
Too late to sink upon the sands and sleep.
High runs the flood of my ambition! Strong,
Indubious, swift, the current of my will,
Compelling onward toward a consummate sea!
RYSBY: There must I swim—or sink. So be it, then.
At worst an easy death.
BOCKING: Nay! nay! a prize
Worth having lived and died for. Power! Power!

SCENE II

(The cell of the Nun of Kent. Early morning. ELIZABETH, in a boy's suit of
mail, buckling on a light sword, etc.)
ELIZABETH: I wonder was she fairer than I am,
This maid they tell me of—this Joan of Arc?
She was a peasant, Father Bocking saith,
Scarce more than child. So I. And she was good.
Yet Heaven did make me saint, and not so her,
Though she saved Spain—or France? Ay, France it was—
Such courage had she. She led men to war.
Now that I could not. I could stride a steed,
Or bear a banner, but I fail of strength
To look on blood and carnage. I turn sick
At thought of pain. How bore the soldier maid
The awful memory through after nights?
What reaped her valour? I must ask anon.
Perchance, for award, God let her just be glad
In her own way, alone with one she loved.
Joan. Joan. A solemn name. But Beth, breathed low
And lingeringly, as though his lips were loath
To part with so dear sound—I like it best.
Ay, sweeter 't is than St. Elizabeth.
Ah, Love, could'st see me now!
(She looks at herself in delight.)
I look so tall,
And show so shapely in my silver mail!
(She turns her helmet admiringly in her hands.)
And this white plume hath droop more maidenly
Than sombre veil of Nun. I am that Joan
Come back to do a nobler deed than hers.
For England is the greatest of all lands,
And I save England, where she saved but France.
I must fast well to do so holy work,
And make a many prayers to compass it.
I must be very saintly. It was sin—
That thought of Cuthbert. O dear Lord, give grace!
I am not fain to love him, but the love
Is older than my sainthood, and more strong.
I wonder did this Joan a lover have,
And did to leave him drain her heart of blood?
Would not she, too, had choice been granted her,
Have foregone all Fame's laurels but for this—
To make home fair for him and win his smile?
Shame! Shame! I must not think unholy thoughts.
Yet why was love created if 't is sin?
Why given so lovely aspect? Get thee hence,
Deceiver! leave me passionless and calm.
The day of trial dawns. I must to prayer;
Must purge my heart of its minutest fault,
Must cleanse each thought, and fit my feeble soul
To meet the mighty moment.
(She kneels, wringing her hands.)
O dear Lord,
I asked no fearsome honours of Thee. Why
Didst set me on these perilous heights, nor give
With saintship somewhat too of bravery
To bear its penalties?—Dear God, I fear!

SCENE III

(ELIZABETH and BOCKING.)
BOCKING: Daughter!
ELIZABETH (rising in frightened haste): Here, Father.
BOCKING: Art thou yet equipped?
ELIZABETH: All, save my prayers.
BOCKING: 'T is well. (Points to helmet.) Cap thee and come.
Yonder an armèd throng awaits thee. See
Thou speak to them alone the appointed words.
(She tremblingly puts on helmet, then shrinks back.)
ELIZABETH: But yet a moment, Father. I would say
An Ave.
BOCKING: Thou may'st say thy fill the morn.
This day hast thou to act—not meditate.
The instant presses.
ELIZABETH: Nay, a moment more!
I have not asked God's blessing on me.
BOCKING: Come.
Thou shalt have all the night to pray in. Deeds
Are day's best prayers.
ELIZABETH (sinking to her knees): Father, I am afraid!
BOCKING (roughly): Out on thee! What hath come to thee? Afraid?
Thou—England's Saviour—is it thine to quail?
What fearest thou?
ELIZABETH: Alas, I know not what!
An agony of terror rends my soul.
Is it an angel that would warn me back
From tasks too great for my endurance? Oh!
I fear! I fear!
BOCKING: It is thy country's call!
(He comes nearer and catches her by the arm, pointing eagerly outward.)
It is the voice of England—the great voice
Of a great stricken land—entreating thee.
Thou tremblest? Ay, what soul stood not aghast
Fronting the spectre of King Henry's doom!
Thou art afraid? Yea. Yea. So vast the affront,
So slight the hand to avenge it, so divine
The guerdon! Joan, too, thus a brief space shrank
Before the glory of her mission. Thus
She, too, first feared, then dared to conquer. Know,
There is a fear braver than courage is.
That fear be thine.
ELIZABETH: Father, thy speech lends strength.
Where wait those I must hearten? Bring me yon.
I will breathe out thy spirit into theirs—
Will flash thy soul upon them—make them brave!
Haste, Father! Hasten while thy spell yet holds,
And fire lights my tongue!
BOCKING: Come, Daughter, come!
(Exeunt.)

SCENE IV

(A large hall in the Priory. Mendicant and Observant Friars. FATHERS DERING,
RICH, GOOLD, and RYSBY moving among them incitingly.)
FRIARS: The Nun! The Nun! Fetch us the Nun!
RYSBY: Betimes.
GOOLD: She cometh, comrades.
DERING: Bide her holy will.
She waits upon the Lord.
A FRIAR: She prays so long
Our swords rot in the sheath.
RICH: Down with King Hal!
DERING: Is no King Hal! Hath not our blessed saint
Diskinged him and uncrowned him in God's name?
FRIARS: Ay! Ay! We have no king!
DERING: But have a queen!
RYSBY: Or shall have, in God's season.
FRIARS: Ay! Our queen!
God save Queen Mary!

SCENE V

(The same. BOCKING ushers in ELIZABETH. Later soldiers enter.)
DERING (in a loud voice): Heaven's Ambassadress!
ALL: The Nun! The Nun!
BOCKING: Children, behold God's saint!
So found I her, apparelled as for war,
Lost in her visions.
DERING: Listen! Mark her words!
RYSBY: Sobeit she speak to you.
A FRIAR: God bless our saint!
Earth never saw as fair.
FRIARS: God bless our saint!
DERING: Give ear to her.
BOCKING (to ELIZABETH): Speak, St. Elizabeth!
Hast thou no word of import for these souls
That wait on Heaven's high will?
ELIZABETH (coming forward modestly): Yea, God so bids,
Else held I now my peace. What words beseem
A maiden's lips in so great hour as this?
But Heaven commands. I speak that God ordains.
GOOLD: O hearken, hearken, Brothers!
RICH: Hark to her!
DERING: Her words are God's words!
ELIZABETH (solemnly and slowly): In the awful night
God spoke, with words that struck across the dark
Like thunderous lightning, blasting where they fell,
Stripping proud Sin of its concealing grace,
And laying it all hideous and bare
Along the land—a scar to fright the world.
God spoke. My chastened soul stood still to hear,
And quailed in hearing.
BOCKING: Who should hear God speak,
Nor falter? Oh, thou highest, nearest, best,
Avow thy mission. Speak to us deaf-mutes,
Who hear alone through thee.
FRIARS (kneeling): Declare it us!
Show us God's will!
RYSBY (remorsefully): Have mercy Thou, good Lord!
(ELIZABETH suddenly draws her sword and raises it high above her head, both
arms lifted.)
ELIZABETH: God's will is war! War agens sin!
BOCKING (hastily prompting her): The king!
ELIZABETH (excitedly): Ay! War! War! War 'gens sin and 'gens the king!
(As all are watching ELIZABETH, soldiers noiselessly enter the hall from
rear.)
DERING: War 'gens King Henry!
FRIARS: Henry is king no more.
BOCKING: Long live Queen Mary!
FRIARS (more and more wildly): Mary! Mary! Queen!
We have no king, and Mary is our queen!
DERING (low to ELIZABETH): Continue. Fair begun!
RICH (low to ELIZABETH): Speak! Speak!
ELIZABETH (bewildered): What more?
I have forgot.
BOCKING (aloud, prompting her): Through thee the Spirit speaks.
ELIZABETH (remembering): Oh, hark! Through me God's spirit speaks!
Hark! Hark!
I am the unworthy mouthpiece of the Lord,
But His these words I utter! Unto you
His holy message! Arm! And in His name
Dethrone that recreant monarch, falsely king,
With her whose love unkings him! Arms! To arms!
(She rushes with lifted sword into the crowd, then stops suddenly and turns
to BOCKING, pointing to the soldiers, who during the above have gathered
increasingly in the hall.)
See, Father, who are these?
BOCKING (with a terrible cry): Betrayed! Betrayed!
(Great commotion. More and more troops file in till they fill the hall.)
OFFICIAL (calling in loud voice above the tumult): In names of Cranmer,
Cromwell, Latimer,
The persons of these traitors now here found
In very act of treason, I arrest—
Elizabeth, the so-styled Nun of Kent,
With Bocking, Dering, Rysby, Rich, and Goold.
(A panic ensues. The friars flee on all sides while the guards seize and bind
the five monks in spite of violent resistance. ELIZABETH stands
bewildered. RYSBY turns to her as the guards approach.)
RYSBY: Child! Child! fly! save thyself!
ELIZABETH (dropping her sword and clasping her hands together): What
mean these cries—?
This frightful rout—? God save us, is this war?
RYSBY: Fly, fly, poor innocent!
GUARD (seizing her): Or innocent
Or guilty, she must hence to London.
ELIZABETH: Off!
Loose me! How dar'st thou touch me!
GUARD (tightening his hold): By the rood,
But yesterday I had not dared it!
ELIZABETH (to BOCKING, who stands white and still, paralysed with the
shock of the sudden defeat): Help!
O Father, help me! Bid them let me go!
They know me not. Tell thou them who I am.
(BOCKING pays no heed and is borne away unresisting).
GUARD (picking up her sword contemptuously):
Ay, ay, we know thee. Thou who yestere'en
Wert holiest saint, a traitor art the morn!
ELIZABETH: That I was yestere'en I am this hour—
A saint—God's saint. Take your rude hands away
Ere Heaven avenge the insult! Let me free,
Or I cry out to God to free me!—God!
God! Hear me! Help me! Dear God, save thy saint!
God—God—save—
(She is overpowered and borne off.)
RYSBY: Dies iræ. All is done.
God hath avenged Himself.
GUARDS: To London! Hence!

(Curtain falls.)

SCENE I—(London. The Star Chamber. CRANMER, LATIMER, and CROMWELL.
THE NUN, FATHERS BOCKING, DERING, RYSBY, RICH, and GOOLD arraigned before
them. Guards in the background.)
CROMWELL: What boots it further parley with these knaves?
Deeds prove themselves, nor need expositors.
CRANMER: Truth, truth, good Cromwell. Yet so foul a blot
Should not unevidenced besmirch these souls.
Were it but false!
LATIMER: Might all things false prove true!
Thou, Bocking, speak. Art thou unjustly judged?
CRANMER: Speak thou for all. With these thou standest here
Adjudged a traitor; with these art condemned.
An aught thou canst advance may temper justice
To some poor show of mercy, speak.
BOCKING: My Lords,
I speak nor for these others nor myself.
I own no kinship with these coward souls
That have confest their guilt for fear of it,
And myself stands acquitted to myself.
CRANMER: God judge thee, Friend, as lightly!
DERING (furiously to BOCKING): Now, by God,
Thy pride, my fellow, needs a wrench or two,
Ere thy neck seemly fit the traitor's block!
Braver than shameful silence are stout words,
And we, by bold admission of our sin,
Less cowards than thyself. (To Cranmer.) Why then, my Lord,
An it do please thee, we be traitors all,
Yet till thine axe untongue me, I 'll maintain
Ours was a mighty scheme, and that it failed,
Its chiefest fault.
RICH (to BOCKING): Curse thee, I say! 'T was thou
Brought us to this!
GOOLD: Ay, curse him! But for him
The safety of the cloister held us still.
'T was his ambition wrecked us, choosing out
Our souls as steps to climb on. Living—dead—
I curse him!
RYSBY: Brother, peace! How may thy curse
Harm him or better thee? We trod one way,
Tempter and tempted. One mud soils the foot
Of him who beckons and of who pursues.
We all have sinned, nor he there more than all.
He sinned for strength, where we for weakness fell
That truckled to his will. Our doom is just.
ELIZABETH (who has listened in increasing amazement): Just? Heavens!
Who spoke? What crime is this of ours?
What sin lies on our souls? Who dares condemn—
Who dares to stay us on our way?—My Lords,
Sure some strange error hath you. Ye know not
Our persons. I am St. Elizabeth,
The Nun of Kent, chosen of Heaven's good grace
To free this stricken land from Henry's rule
And crown our Mary queen;—and me, ye charge,
And these my followers, with some grave sin
Whereof we do reck nothing. Let us go,
My Lords. Command the doors be opened us.
The good cause suffers while ye hold us here.
RYSBY (remonstrating): My little lass! My little lass!
CROMWELL: Her words
Condemn herself.
CRANMER (pityingly): So fair fanatic! And
So innocently guilty before Heaven!
LATIMER: May that her innocence right her poor soul
I' the Judgment hour. Here dies she with the rest.
ELIZABETH: I die? I die? Good God!—and these?—These too?
Wherefore our death?—Oh, Father Bocking, speak!
What crime illusory have these confest?
Why art thou silent? Help me to fit words.
Dear Father, speak! How can I show to these
The sacrilege they purpose? Of myself,
How can I frame rebuke?
DERING: Peace, chattering fool!
He will not heed thee more.
ELIZABETH: This—this to me!
How dar'st thou thus address me? Whence so swift
This graceless speech, this look contemptuous?
Wherefore forgot the honour due me? (To BOCKING.) Thou!
Speak for me this once more. Tell these great Lords—
These monks so metamorphosed—who I am!
Thy word they must believe!
BOCKING (turning upon her): Truce to thy cries,
Thou miserable wench! No saint art thou,
Thou pride-stuffed puppet, vaunting thy glass gems,
But a vain woman, tricked to fit the rôle—
A poor weak lass,—an empty, brainless thing
I chose among all for thy foolishness,
Thine ignorance, thy vainest vanity,
To fool this England with. And thee—and thee
I passed off on thy fellows as a saint!
ELIZABETH: Great God, are these ears mine that hear?—this I
Of whom he speaks? Father—my Lord—my Lord—
Dear Father Rysby! (She appeals from one to the other.) Wherefore turn away?
Why wilt not look at me?—thou, Father—thou—
(A pause. All move back from her. She recoils in sudden conviction.)
Nay, is it so? Am I that thing he said?—
That awful thing?—a lie to mine own self?
A falsehood, flung out living on the world
And dressed in saintship?—O my God, my God,
What am I? Who this I?—I am not I?—
I am some monster, stranger to myself
Than to the world that spurns me?—God forgive!
My brain reels. (She staggers.)
CRANMER: Help there! Look! The maiden falls.
ELIZABETH (repulsing them): Touch me not! Take your cruel hands away!
Can ye give back the self he robbed me of?
God judge betwixt us twain! Mine ignorance,
My folly, and my vainest vanity,
Be they confest; but how then has he sinned
Who thus undid me! God betwixt us judge!
RYSBY (remorsefully): God judge betwixt us. Yea, may God so do.
CROMWELL (to guards): Bear hence.
(The guards lead away the prisoners.)
RICH (to BOCKING): Our blood be on thy head!
GOOLD: Curse him!
BOCKING: The stakes are lost. But thus much still is mine.
I palmed thee on thy fellows for a saint!
ELIZABETH (as BOCKING is led off): Nay, hold! Hold only till I
curse him, too,
Him I accounted as a second God
And followed on my knees! Hold, for my curse!
CRANMER: Hush—hush!
ELIZABETH (passionately): Hush? Nay! Who prayed him he abstain
When he first thought to kill my soul with lies?
Who had compassion on my ignorance,
And cried him mercy for my foolishness?
None. None. Earth hath no pity for the weak.
Wiser who sins, than dares be sinned agens!
LATIMER (to guards): Bring her away. She waxeth over loud.
ELIZABETH (resisting): Stand off! Where bring ye me? The crime I did
Was done myself, none else. Oh, pity! spare!
Let me go free! Bring me to no foul gaol!
Am I not shamed enough? Let me go hence!
Let me go find one tender heart to die on—
One tender arm to shield me from disgrace!
LATIMER: The law thou hast transgressed adjudges thee
The traitor's doom.
CRANMER: Alas! A very child!
ELIZABETH: Traitor? I? I? Now by our stainless God,
My soul is lily-pure of ill intent!
How have I sinned? How should I know the law?
For me was but one law—obedience—
And that I followed straightly.
LATIMER: To thy death.
Bear the lass hence.
ELIZABETH (flinging herself upon the floor at his feet): Oh, once more,
pity! Hear!
Not life I ask. Life were not worth the prayer.
But give me only to see Cuthbert once,
To clear my soul before him ere I die!
We twain were lovers in the old dear days—
The sweet glad days. He will not hold at fault
Though the whole world contemn me. He will know
I sinned not in my soul albeit I die.
Let me but send for Cuthbert! For one hour—
One moment—speak him!
CROMWELL: Cuthbert? Nay! Not him!
CRANMER: Poor maid!
LATIMER (softened): There—take thy hands from round my feet.
I may not grant thee this.
ELIZABETH (despairingly): Oh, dear my Lords,
Have mercy on me! Through earth's length and breadth
There 's never one that loves me save but him.
Grant me my dying prayer! I have no gold;
How shall I bribe ye? Have ye hearts of stone?
See. I will lay this hand upon the block,
That ye may cleave it, living, from mine arm—
This, too (she extends both arms), so you but only bring him me
This single once before I come to die!
LATIMER: Rude truths are wholesomer than kind deceits.
Elizabeth, art strong to suffer?
ELIZABETH (joyfully, baring her arms): Yea!
Oh, strike, strike quickly! I do need no hands
To hold his heart!
LATIMER: Elizabeth, 't was he
Denounced thee, with thy followers.
ELIZABETH (dazed): 'T was he——?
LATIMER: Ay; Cuthbert.
ELIZABETH (after a pause, putting hand to forehead):
Cuthbert?—Cuthbert?—It was he
Denounced me?—For what crime?
LATIMER: High treason.
ELIZABETH (after still longer pause): Could
He know my fate?
LATIMER: He knew the doom was death.
ELIZABETH (wildly, to the guards, throwing up her arms): Enough.
Enough. Bear me away. I am
Already judged. I have already died.
[The guards carry her off.

SCENE II

(CRANMER, LATIMER, and CROMWELL. Guards. There is a struggle at one of the
doors, and CUTHBERT, followed by his mother, forces his way in.)
CUTHBERT: My Lords!
MISTRESS VANE: O gracious Lords, pray heed him not!
He is beside himself.
LATIMER (to the other Lords): Let us begone.
Our business is done.
CUTHBERT: A hearing! Pray!
CRANMER: Ay, when the dead speak.
CUTHBERT: Hear me!
LATIMER: Good my Lords,
Will it please you go?
CUTHBERT (desperately, placing himself in their way): My Lords, if you
be good,
It shall please you stay and hearken. I am come
To yield me up to justice, in the stead
Of one Elizabeth, the Nun of Kent,
Whom ye here hold for treason.
MISTRESS VANE (wringing her hands): He is mad!
I do entreat you, hear him not!
LATIMER (coldly): The law
Demands Elizabeth of Kent—not thee.
CUTHBERT: Guilty of over loyalty am I
As she of too great innocence. Take me,
And set her free. More traitor I to her
Than e'er she to the king.
MISTRESS VANE: My Lords—my Lords—
He is mine only son!
LATIMER: We do waste breath.
Justice retains its own.
CUTHBERT: Hold me for her—
Were not that justice? She is innocent
Of will. Let me atone her guilty deed.
So is the law avenged, and she yet lives!
CRANMER: My son, thy prayers are idle. (To the others.) Let us hence.
CUTHBERT: My Lords, I ask but justice—naught beside.
I sue you for no favour. Take my life
In ransom for her life. The sin she sinned
Unwittingly, let my death expiate
In what extremity of torturous shame
Men can devise. Let her but live!
CROMWELL: Peace. Peace.
CUTHBERT: Hear me!
LATIMER: No more. Her sentence hath been read.
Elizabeth, the Nun of Kent, accused
Of treason, is found guilty and condemned.
(Exeunt Lords.)
CRANMER (passing out): May Heaven now comfort thee, and her.
(Exit.)

SCENE III

(CUTHBERT and MISTRESS VANE.)
CUTHBERT: She dies!
She dies! O justice, what abhorrent crime
Of mercilessness in thy name condoned!
Blind, blind thy judgments! False thy scales that weigh
Bare deeds, unbalanced by the soul's intent!
She dies for innocency—dies for lack
Of knowing it was guilt that touched her—dies
For others' sin, although to me denied
The right to die for hers!
MISTRESS VANE: Would God thou hadst
But closed thy lips!—but held thy peace!
CUTHBERT (fiercely): Be still!
Wake not the struggle in my maddened soul!
'Twixt her and honour was there choice? Ah, God!
MISTRESS VANE (slowly, after a pause): Cuthbert, she shall not die!
CUTHBERT: Not die?
MISTRESS VANE (putting finger to lips): Speak soft!
CUTHBERT (coming closer): Speak quick! What hath thy woman-wit devised?
Canst save her? Oh, speak quick! Show thou it me.
Then shall I know there is a God in Heaven!
MISTRESS VANE: Shame thee, blasphemer! Is a maiden worth
Thy faith in God? Hark. This my thought—to gain
Speech with the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower.
CUTHBERT: Sir Frederick? How may he help our strait?
MISTRESS VANE: Long days ago thy father—blest his soul!—
Did him brave service in a heavy hour
Should now bear timely fruit, if gratitude
Be not a seedless flower in his breast.
I will but beg our access to her room.
So small a mercy should not irk him grant;—
Nay rather, it should please him that he come
So light off in our weighing of accounts.
CUTHBERT: And how bring Beth away?
MISTRESS VANE: Her person is
One height with mine. If in the dusk thou come—
I being within and way made clear for thee—
Who, in the uncertain light, shall see to mark
If she or I, wearing this cloak of mine
With hood drawn close, return again with thee?
And for the rest—I 'll e'en contrive a way
To follow.
CUTHBERT (falling on his knees): Now, our God be gracious! Look!
Thy thought is life! Mother, I pray again!
(Curtain falls.)

(SCENE I—A prison cell. ELIZABETH, in peasant's dress, seated with
folded hands and bent head, oblivious of surroundings. A 'ray of the setting
sun, slanting through one of the barred windows, is creeping toward her along
the floor. A young woman, the prison attendant, is seated at some distance at
another window, busy with needlework and humming softly to herself. The
approaching ray at last catches ELIZABETH'S eye.)
ELIZABETH: O lovely light! Dost thou not fear to soil
So fair a foot, treading a prison floor?
Here all is sin and dolour; yet thou dar'st,
Thou holy thing, to chase the dark away?
Thou dear light, linger! Must thou soon be gone?
This day is all I have. To-night I die.
Make my time longer, thou compassionate light!
Borrow a moment from the night that comes,
To add it to this day that is my all.
Keep back night's shadows. Lay thy silver hand
Across the stars, and bar them from their places.
(Rises and goes to the window.)
Stand off, thou horrid night! Along the west
The scarlet palpitates for fear of thee.
The giant clouds, marshalled as sentinels
Around day's open gates, have sighted thee
And broken from their post, and flee dismayed.
The whole earth is aghast at thee, O night.
And I? Can I endure thee? I have sinned,
And sin dreads shadows. And to-night I die,
And death is uttermost of darkness. Night,
Or sin, or death—which is most terrible?
(She moves slowly away from the window, and stands awhile with clasped hands;
then reseats herself, and falls again into a deep revery.)

SCENE II

(The same. Enter MISTRESS VANE, closely cloaked. ATTENDANT springs
up.)
ATTENDANT: Who art thou?—No one enters here.
MISTRESS VANE (beckoning her aside): Whist! Whist!
Thy gallant waits without the postern door.
ATTENDANT: My Robin? Hola!
(She starts eagerly off, then bethinks herself and returns.)
Name thee. Who art thou?
Who charged thee with thine errand?
MISTRESS VANE (showing written paper): Go in peace.
See. This my passport; this (giving riband) thy Robin's sign.
ATTENDANT (glancing at paper): The Lord Lieutenant's seal! 'T is
well.—Hi! Hi!
The broidered band! (Going, pauses again.)
How pass the Keeper?
MISTRESS VANE: Pish!
He 'll stay thee not. A new-brewed ale he had
In gift to sup on. Thou 'It come safely through.
Leave thou the latch unset, that my son mount
To fetch me forth. Anon, when we twain pass,
My son and I, returning, slip within,
And so take up thy task again
ATTENDANT: Ay. Ay.
Wilt guard her close?
MISTRESS VANE: Closer than thou. Fear naught.
May'st bide thy pleasure.
ATTENDANT (joyously): Look thou weary not!
(Exit.)

SCENE III

(ELIZABETH and MISTRESS VANE.)
MISTRESS VANE (muttering): Thy Robin tend thee well. The time is ours!
(Approaches the window.)
Will yon slow sun ne'er make an end of day?
(She seats herself far off from ELIZABETH by the window, whence she keeps
anxious watch. ELIZABETH, lost in revery, has paid no heed to the dialogue,
nor to the change of companion.)
ELIZABETH (rousing after a pause): Is't night?
MISTRESS VANE (keeping her face averted): 'T is nigh on vespers.
ELIZABETH: Tell thy beads.
It may be God will hear thee for me too.
I am afraid to pray. I wronged God so
I fear the angels would rise up in wrath
And beat my prayers back, did I kneel to pray.
MISTRESS VANE: Nay, God hears every prayer. (Aside.) The pink pales
fast.
The night adjusts her robes.
ELIZABETH: Nay, not all prayers,
Else were there many we would fain unpray.
And there was one—Oh, years agone it was—
That He did never hear. Dear Lord, it ran,
Make us twain one, and make Beth very good.
Yet I, who prayed for goodness, alas! I
Have sinned beyond all others. I, who prayed
I might be Cuthbert's wife, by Cuthbert's self
Am given to death. Oh, that was sorry prayer
That had such sorry answer. And to-night
I pray no more, my prayers go so awry;
And yet my soul is heavy with desires
That crowd for utterance. Pray thou for me.
Pray fast; pray long; for I am nigh to death,
And God is very just.
MISTRESS VANE: God is all love.
(Aside):
Now comes the slow-stepped dusk on languid feet!
ELIZABETH: I do need mercy. I have sinned a sin
Exceeding any other. Hast thou heard?
I was so ignorant, so monstrous vain,
I did believe them when they called me saint.
Yea. Yea. So vain. As were I shaped thereto!
It shames me to remember. Yea, so vain,
I thought myself elect of God to speak
His wrath against the king. I might have known
That had God spoken, the whole world had heard—
Not only we in Canterbury town.
Yea, I have sinned; have sinned; and what hell holds
Deeper damnation than sin's consciousness?
MISTRESS VANE: Thy thoughts turn too far inward. Woo them back
To healthier daylight.
ELIZABETH: Who is near to death
Consorts with shadows, and explores the dark
To try if his poor faith have power to pierce
To a beyond. What recks he more of sun,
Or midday skies, or small sweet earthly things,
On whose stunned sense, vast, vague, and terrible,
Beat the far soundings of eternity,
Wave after wave?
MISTRESS VANE (to herself): Yon shines night's signet star,
Sealing day dead!
ELIZABETH: Oh, tell me, what is death?
Is it all darkness, silence, and a pang?
The dark hath ever led my soul in clogs,
And from a child I am afraid of pain.
A finger's touch jars every quickening nerve.
And silence—Ah, the weirdest 't is of all.
One hears the heart beat in it like a voice
Entombed, struggling to make its terrors reach
Out to the living.
MISTRESS VANE (at the window): Fast the dear night drops
Her tender shadows! Fast the world grows dim!
ELIZABETH: Oh, tell me, what is death? I am afraid.
My warm young flesh shudders at thought of it.
How can I die?—how can I cease to be?
Although all others die, can I?—Nay, death
Comes only to the weary or the old,
Not to the young!—not to the bounding veins,
Instinct with life!—oh, not to me, to me!
MISTRESS VANE (absently): All men needs die in time.
ELIZABETH (quickly, turning toward her): Yea, yea, in time.
But I die out of time, before my heart
Hath ripened to its possibilities.
I am but a beginning—but a sketch
Blurred in designing—but a might-have-been
Spoiled for eternity. I die with all
My future like a dead bud in my hand.
To what good have I lived? This tiny span
Of years, what hath it brought me? Alas, what!
To be thrust forth, unshriven and undone,
From sin, because of sin, and in my sin,
To meet a sinless God!
MISTRESS VANE (springing up excitedly:) Hark! Hark! At last
He comes!
ELIZABETH (alarmed): Who seeks me here? Who climbs my stair?
Prithee, bar close the door!
MISTRESS VANE: Hast thou forgot
So soon his step?—so soon forgotten me?
(She throws off the concealing cloak and hood.)
ELIZABETH (recognising her): Thou, Mistress Vane! Thou here! and
Cuthbert—Ah!
Let him not in!
MISTRESS VANE (moving toward door): Cuthbert!
ELIZABETH (detaining her): Nay. Never more.
Who was my lover is become my judge.
My sin stands, flame-like, 'twixt my heart and his.
MISTRESS VANE (calling): Cuthbert! Come quickly! quickly!

SCENE IV

(The same. CUTHBERT hurries in. ELIZABETH gives a low heartbroken cry.
They stand looking at each other.)
MISTRESS VANE: Haste! Oh, haste!
A life hangs in the balance of this hour!
Follow ye me. I go to watch the way.
(Exit.)

SCENE V

(ELIZABETH and CUTHBERT. He advances, beckoning with outstretched arms.)
CUTHBERT: Come! Come!
ELIZABETH (retreating): Nay, whither?
CUTHBERT (joyously): Forth with me—to life!
ELIZABETH (gravely:) I may but forth to death.
CUTHBERT: Life hath tricked death!
Life claims thee! Come, oh, come! Veil thee in this.
(He draws her to him and folds MISTRESS VANE'S cloak about her.)
Love calls, and thou art free!
ELIZABETH (throwing off cloak): How am I free,
Whom sin holds fettered?
CUTHBERT (trying to force her forward): O my God! the hour
Wanes fast, each beat a drop of thy heart's blood!
ELIZABETH (holding back): Would it might bleed to death here 'neath
thine arm.
So were it sweet to die.
CUTHBERT: So sweeter life,
We two aye soul to soul, and free! Oh, haste!
Delay is death!
ELIZABETH: I scarce may credit it.
Am I yet dear to thee—I who so sinned?
CUTHBERT: Dearer than all things earthly or divine.
Why wilt thou torture me? Come with me! Come!
ELIZABETH: Hast thou forgot thou gavest me to die?—
Forgot I here await sin's recompense?
CUTHBERT: Mock me not thus!
ELIZABETH: I mock not. Who dares mock
Upon the threshold of death's gravity?
I may not go with thee.
CUTHBERT (attempting to seize her in his arms): Thou shalt go, Beth,
Now Heaven itself hath lent us furtherance.
Safety awaits thee yonder.
ELIZABETH (springing from him to the window): Back! One step,
And hence I summon aid!
CUTHBERT: Beth—Beth—not thus
Avenge thyself! Give not thy life to prove
Me unforgiven!
ELIZABETH (very gently): Dear, I love thee so,
To gainsay wish of thine itself is death.
Oh, tempt me not! Life in thine arms were Heaven.
Yet death wins closer, cleansing me from sin.
CUTHBERT: Thou hast not sinned, Beth! God knows—oh, God knows
Thou art unjustly judged, unjustly doomed.
The priests misled thee; theirs alone the sin.
'T is for their sin thou diest.
ELIZABETH (still more gently): Dear my love,
Accuse not those who wronged me. I have wronged
A country, where they wronged but me. Sin lies
Between us; Heaven will fair apportion it;
But me my soul convicts. 'T is just I die.
'T is of God's goodness—of His pitying grace
He sent thee here to bless this crowning hour
With the dear benediction of thy love.
Urge me no more. Not e'en for that love's sake
May I go hence. Thus, dying, I undo
My sin. Keep thou my memory as one
Who living was unworthy, but who, dead,
Grew to thy height, and merited thy love.
CUTHBERT: Beth!
ELIZABETH (coming to him): Beth again at last—nor saint, nor nun;
Only thy little Beth who loves thee so,
Come back to rest this last once on thy heart.
(CUTHBERT folds her to him in agony. Outside there is the tramp of approaching
feet and the sound of slow drums.)

SCENE VI

(The same. Enter MISTRESS VANE wildly, followed by guards.)
MISTRESS VANE: O God, it is too late! They come! They come!
CUTHBERT: The guards!
ELIZABETH (disengaging herself from him): Mine hour hath come; the one
great hour
That rounds each life, bearing the trembling soul
Back to its birthplace, naked and alone,
Save for its sins. (Kneels.) O God, I did fear death,
Yet fear not Thee, so hath love vanquished fear.
I go to Thee as goes a child to rest,
Sure of Thy mercy.
(The guards surround her. Behind open doors stand others guarding the five
monks. Muffled drums beat continuously.)
CUTHBERT (fiercely to the guards): God's curse fall on you!
Ye bring a saint to shame!
ELIZABETH: Alas! Not so.
They bring a traitor to the traitor's end
And an impostor to the world's disdain.
They do but justice. Mother, fare thee well.
Cuthbert—my love—my love—(She is led away.)
CUTHBERT (passionately): I die with thee!
One fate shall yet be ours! Oh, let me hence!
(He rushes madly after her, but is repulsed by the guards.)
Let me die with her—I, the guiltier!
Have not I murdered her for Henry's sake?
Shall murderers go free?
(The guards thrust him back and close the doors. The slow drums beat without,
the sounds gradually receding.)
CUTHBERT (wildly): I may not die?
Mercy stops short of justice? I live on—
I, who have given her lovely soul to death—
Nor pay the price with mine own piteous life?
Now God, forgive!
(He draws a dagger. His mother leaps to wrest it from him.)
MISTRESS VANE: Cuthbert!—Son!—Son!—
CUTHBERT: Forgive!
(He stabs himself to the heart and falls dead. The drums beat faintly in the
distance.)

(Curtain falls.)





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