A hell, for hope of heaven; and after all,
These homeless moors of life toiled through, to wake,
And find blank nothing!  Is that angel-world
A gaudy window, which we paint ourselves
To hide the dead void night beyond?  The present? 
Why here’s the present—­like this arched gloom,
It hems our blind souls in, and roofs them over
With adamantine vault, whose only voice
Is our own wild prayers’ echo:  and our future?—­
It rambles out in endless aisles of mist,
The farther still the darker—­O my Saviour! 
My God! where art Thou?  That’s but a tale about Thee,
That crucifix above—­it does but show Thee
As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now—­
Thy grief, but not Thy glory:  where’s that gone? 
I see it not without me, and within me
Hell reigns, not Thou!

[Dashes herself down on the altar steps.]

[Monks in the distance chanting.]

‘Kings’ daughters were among thine honourable women’—­

Eliz.  Kings’ daughters!  I am one!

Monks.  ’Hearken, O daughter, and consider; incline thine ear: 
Forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house,
So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty: 
For He is thy Lord God, and worship thou Him.’

Eliz. [springing up].  I will forget them! 
They stand between my soul and its allegiance. 
Thou art my God:  what matter if Thou love me? 
I am Thy bond-slave, purchased with Thy life-blood;
I will remember nothing, save that debt. 
Do with me what Thou wilt.  Alas, my babies! 
He loves them—­they’ll not need me.

[Conrad advancing.]

Con.  How now, Madam! 
Have these your prayers unto a nobler will
Won back that wandering heart?

Eliz.  God’s will is spoken! 
The flesh is weak; the spirit’s fixed, and dares,—­
Stay! confess, sir,
Did not yourself set on your brothers here
To sing me to your purpose?

Con.  As I live
I meant it not; yet had I bribed them to it,
Those words were no less God’s.

Eliz.  I know it, I know it;
And I’ll obey them:  come, the victim’s ready.

[Lays her hand on the altar.  Gerard, Abbess, and Monks descend and advance.]

All worldly goods and wealth, which once I loved,
I do now count but dross:  and my beloved,
The children of my womb, I now regard
As if they were another’s.  God is witness
My pride is to despise myself; my joy
All insults, sneers, and slanders of mankind;
No creature now I love, but God alone. 
Oh, to be clear, clear, clear, of all but Him! 
Lo, here I strip me of all earthly helps—­

[Tearing off her clothes.]

Naked and barefoot through the world to follow
My naked Lord—­And for my filthy pelf—­

Con.  Stop, Madam—­

Eliz.  Why so, sir?

Con.  Upon thine oath! 
Thy wealth is God’s, not thine—­How darest renounce
The trust He lays on thee?  I do command thee,
Being, as Aaron, in God’s stead, to keep it
Inviolate, for the Church and thine own needs.