SCENE.--_A ravine amid the slopes of Mount Carmel. On one side a
hermitage, on the other a rustic cross. The sun is about to set in the
sea, which fills the background_.
HERMIT. Thou who wast tempted in the wilderness,
Guard me this night, for there are snares in sleep
That baffle watching. O poisoned, bitter life
Of doubt and longing! Were death possible,
Who would not choose it? But that dim estate
Might plunge my witless ghost in grosser matter
And in still closer meshes choke my life.
Yet thus to live is grievous agony,
When sleep and thirst, hunger and weariness,
And the sharp goads of thought-awakened lust
Torture the flesh, and inward doubt of all
Embitters with its lurking mockery
Virtue's sad victories. This wilderness
Whither I fly from the approach of men
Keeps not the devil out. The treacherous glens
Are full of imps, and ghosts in moonlit vesture
Startle the watches of the lidless night.
The giant forest, in my youth so fair,
Is now a den of demons; the hoarse sea
Is foul with monsters hungry for my soul;
The dark and pregnant soil, once innocent
Mother of flowers, reeks with venomous worms,
And sore temptation is in all the world.
But hist! A sound, as if of clanking hoofs.
Saint Anthony protect me from the fiend,
Whether he come in guise of horned beast
Or of pernicious man! If I must die
Be it upon this hallowed ground, O Lord!
[_Hides in the hut._
_Enter a young_ KNIGHT.
KNIGHT [_reining in his horse_].
Rest, Albus, rest.--Doth the sun sink in glory
Because he sinks to rise?--
Breathe here a space; here bends the promontory,
There Acra's haven lies.
Those specks are galleys waiting for the gale
To make for Christian shores.
To-morrow they will fly with bellying sail
And plash of swinging oars,
Bearing us both to where the freeman tills
The plot where he was born,
And belfry answers belfry from the hills
Above the fields of corn.
Thence one less sea to traverse ere we come
Where all our hopes abide,
One truant journey less to end in home,
Thy mistress, and my bride. [_He dismounts._
Good Albus, 't is enough for one day's riding.
Here shall our bivouac be.
Surely by that green sward some brook is hiding
To welcome thee and me.
Yes, hark! Its laugh betrays it. Graze thou there,
Nor fear the camp's alarms.
[_Lets the horse go and turns_, _perceiving the cross
on the hillside._
See where a cross, inviting me to prayer,
Outspreads its sacred arms.
O first of many that mine eyes shall see
On altar, tomb, and tower,
Art thou the last of crosses come to me
Before my guerdon's hour?
Or first or last, and by whatever hands
Here planted in the wild,
Hail to thee, cross, that blessest in far lands
Thy champion and thy child.
[_Goes up to the cross and kneels before it. The
angel of the Lord appeared to Mary And she conceived
of the Holy Ghost._
[_Continues silently._