Pauline!

     PAUL. 
     That word broke from thee like a knell;
     Who seeks my doom to-day?  Thou—­or my sire? 
     Who fires the brand?  Who lights the funeral pyre? 
     My father should, by nature, be my friend,
     And lover’s heart to love an ear should lend. 
     Who here is mine ally, and who my foe? 
     Who has a heart to feel?—­this would I know.

     FELIX. 
     Nay, to thy lord appeal.

     (Pauline turns to Polyeucte)

     POLY. 
     Severus wed!

     PAUL. 
     Ah, this is outrage!  Rather strike me dead!

     POLY. 
     Oh, dearer than myself to me thy weal! 
     My love would never wound, it seeks to heal. 
     I see thee wrestle with thy deep distress
     Alone—­unless Severus bring redress;
     His merit, that once gained thy maiden heart,
     Hath still that worth when I from thee must part,
     Once loved—­and loving still—­his honour grows.

     PAUL. 
     Thy wife’s true heart another treatment owes: 
     O base reproach!  For this I crushed for thee
     My former love:  that I disdained might be? 
     This my reward for dearest victory won,—­
     I did that love undo—­to be myself undone! 
     Resolve, faith, abnegation, all were vain,
     For thy return is outrage heaped on pain. 
     Oh, sunk in tomb of shame, most vile, most mean,
     Come back to life—­to honour—­to Pauline! 
     (Holds out her arms.)
     To learn from her that loyalty and faith
     Religion are:—­and all beside but death! 
     Once more Alcestis wrestles with the tomb,
     Arise, arise from thy enthralling doom! 
     And if my invocation feeble be,
     Regard the tears—­the sighs,—­shed—­breathed for thee! 
     Love is too weak a word—­I thee adore!

     POLY. 
     Once have I said—­yet now I say once more—­
     ‘Live with Severus, or—­with Polyeucte die!’
     Thy tears are mine, and thy pure constancy
     I share:  But—­I am soldier of the Cross! 
     Take up thine own, and count all gain but loss! 
     Pauline—­no more! 
     (To FELIX.)
     Thy slumbering wrath rewake! 
     Thy fates and furies wait!  Their vengeance slake!

     PAUL. 
     His life is saved!  These fetters all undo!—­
     For justice never yet a madman slew;
     And he is mad,—­but, father, thou art sane,
     And thou, his father, must his friend remain. 
     A father cannot less than father be,
     Oh, be to him what thou hast been to me! 
     But cast upon thy child a kinder eye,—­
     Slay him?—­Then know that I am doomed to die! 
     But even if justly done to death were he,
     The sentence wrong that, with him, slayeth me. 
     For double death would double wrong present,
     And slay the guilty