Con.  Ah! poor worldlings! 
Little you dream what maddening ecstasies,
What rich ideals haunt, by day and night,
Alone, and in the crowd, even to the death,
The servitors of that celestial court
Where peerless Mary, sun-enthroned, reigns,
In whom all Eden dreams of womanhood,
All grace of form, hue, sound, all beauty strewn
Like pearls unstrung, about this ruined world,
Have their fulfilment and their archetype. 
Why hath the rose its scent, the lily grace? 
To mirror forth her loveliness, from whom,
Primeval fount of grace, their livery came: 
Pattern of Seraphs! only worthy ark
To bear her God athwart the floods of time!

Lewis.  Who dare aspire to her?  Alas, not I! 
To me she is a doctrine, and a picture:—­
I cannot live on dreams.

Con.  She hath her train:—­
There thou may’st choose thy love:  If world-wide lore
Shall please thee, and the Cherub’s glance of fire,
Let Catharine lift thy soul, and rapt with her
Question the mighty dead, until thou float
Tranced on the ethereal ocean of her spirit. 
If pity father passion in thee, hang
Above Eulalia’s tortured loveliness;
And for her sake, and in her strength, go forth
To do and suffer greatly.  Dost thou long
For some rich heart, as deep in love as weakness,
Whose wild simplicity sweet heaven-born instincts
Alone keep sane?

Lewis.  I do, I do.  I’d live
And die for each and all the three.

Con.  Then go—­
Entangled in the Magdalen’s tresses lie;
Dream hours before her picture, till thy lips
Dare to approach her feet, and thou shalt start
To find the canvas warm with life, and matter
A moment transubstantiate to heaven.

Wal.  Ay, catch his fever, Sir, and learn to take
An indigestion for a troop of angels. 
Come, tell him, monk, about your magic gardens,
Where not a stringy head of kale is cut
But breeds a vision or a revelation.

Lewis.  Hush, hush, Count!  Speak, strange monk, strange words, and waken Longings more strange than either.

Con.  Then, if proved,
As I dare vouch thee, loyal in thy love,
Even to the Queen herself thy saintlier soul
At length may soar:  perchance—­Oh, bliss too great
For thought—­yet possible! 
Receive some token—­smile—­or hallowing touch
Of that white hand, beneath whose soft caress
The raging world is smoothed, and runs its course
To shadow forth her glory.

Lewis.  Thou dost tempt me—­
That were a knightly quest.

Con.  Ay, here’s true love. 
Love’s heaven, without its hell; the golden fruit
Without the foul husk, which at Adam’s fall
Did crust it o’er with filth and selfishness. 
I tempt thee heavenward—­from yon azure walls
Unearthly beauties beckon—­God’s own mother
Waits longing for thy choice—­

Lewis.  Is this a dream?