Carpophorus (within). 
Seek, O soul! seek Him who died
Solely for the love of thee.

Chrysanthus. 
All that I could have replied
Has been said thus suddenly
By this voice that, sounding near,
Strikes upon my startled ear
Like the summons of my death.

Daria. 
Ah! what frost congeals my breath,
Chilling me with icy fear,
As I hear its sad lament: 
Whence did sound the voice? [Enter Polemius and soldiers.

Polemius. 
                             From here: 
’T is, Chrysanthus, my intent
Thus to place before thy sight—­
Thus to show thee in what light
I regard thy restoration
Back to health, the estimation
In which I regard the wight
Who so skilfully hath cured thee. 
A surprise I have procured thee,
And for him a fit reward: 
Raise the curtain, draw the cord,
See, ’t is death!  If this . . . 
(A curtain is drawn aside, and Carpophorus is seen beheaded, the head
being at some distance from the body.)

Chrysanthus. 
                                 I freeze!—­

Polemius. 
Is the cure of thy disease,
What must that disease have been! 
’T is Carpophorus. . . .

Daria. 
                         Dread scene!

Polemius. 
He who with false science came
Not to give thee life indeed,
But that he himself should bleed:—­
That thy fate be not the same,
Of his mournful end take heed: 
Do not thou that dost survive,
My revenge still further drive,
Since the sentence seems misread—­
The physician to be dead,
And the invalid alive.—­

Chrysanthus. 
It were cruelty extreme,
It were some delirious dream,
That could see in this the cure
Of the ill that I endure.

Polemius. 
It to him did pity seem,
Seemed the sole reward that he
Asked or would receive from me: 
Since when dying, he but cried . .

The head of Carpophorus. 
Seek, O soul! seek Him who died
Solely for the love of thee!—­

Chrysanthus. 
What a portent!

Daria. 
                 What a wonder!

Escarpin. 
Jove! my own head splits asunder!—­

Polemius. 
Even though severed, in it dwells
Still the force of magic spells.

Chrysanthus. 
Sir, it were a fatal blunder
To be blind to this appalling
Tragedy you wrong by calling
The result of spells—­no spells
Are such signs, but miracles
Outside man’s experience falling. 
He came here because he yearned
With his pure and holy breath
To give life, and so found death. 
’T is a lesson that he learned—­
’T is a recompense he earned—­
Seeing what his Lord could do,
Being to his Master true: 
Kill me also:  He had one
Bright example:  shall I shun
Death in turn when I have two?