CHRISTIANS.

Hallelujah! Lord our God!
Now our earthly path is trod

Pass'd are now our cares and fears,
And we quit this vale of tears.
Hallelujah! King of Kings!

Now our spirits spread their wings,
To the mansion of the blest,
To thy everlasting rest.
Hallelujah! Lord of Lords!
Be our last and dying words,
Glory to our God above,

To our murderers, peace and love.

The Prison.

MARGARITA.

I'm safe at last: the wild and furious cries
That drove me on are dying into silence.
These cold and damp and gloomy prison walls
Are my protection. And few hours ago
My presence would have made a holiday
In Antioch. As I've moved along the streets,
I've heard the mother chide her sportive child
For breaking the admiring stillness round me.
There was no work so precious or so dear
But they deserted it to gaze on me.
And now they bay'd at me, like angry dogs:
And every brow was wrinkled, every hand
Clench'd in fierce menace: from their robes
shook

The dust upon me, even more loathsome scorn
Was cast upon my path. And can it be,
Oh Christ! that I, whose tainted hands so late
Served at the idol's altar; on whose lips
And lyre still ring the idol's votive hymns,
Am chosen to bear thy cross, and wear on high
The martyr's robes enwoven of golden light?
CALLIAS, MARGARITA.

Alas! my father!

MARGARITA.

CALLIAS.

Oh my child! my child! Once more I find thee. Even the savage men, That stand with rods and axes round the gate, Had reverence for grey hairs: they let me pass, And with rude pity bless'd me-Thou alone Art cold and tearless in your father's sorrows. MARGARITA.

Oh say not so!

CALLIAS.

And wilt thou touch me, then, Polluted, as thy jealous sect proclaims, By idols? Oh, ye unrelenting Gods! More unrelenting daughter, not content To make me wretched by depriving me Of my soul's treasure, do ye envy me

The miserable solace of her tears
Mingling with mine? She quits the world, and me,
Rejoicing-

MARGARITA.

No!

CALLIAS.

And I, whose blameless pride
Dwelt on her-even as all the lands, no more.
The sculptor wrought his Goddess by her form,
Her likeness was the stamp of its divinity.
And when I walk'd in Antioch, all men hail'd
The father of the beauteous Margarita,

And now they'll fret me with their cold compassion
Upon the childless, desolate

MARGARITA.

My father,

I could have better borne thy wrath, thy curse.

CALLIAS.

Alas! I am too wretched to feel wrath:
There is no violence in a broken spirit.
Well, I've not long to live: it matters not
Whether the old man go henceforth alone.
And if his limbs should fail him, he may seize
On some cold pillar, or some lintel post,
For that support which human hands refuse him;
Or he must hire some slave, with face and voice
Dissonant and strange; or

MARGARITA.

Gracious Lord, have mercy, For what to this to-morrow's scourge or stake?

CALLIAS.

And he must sit the livelong day alone
In silence, in the Temple Porch. No lyre,
Or one by harsh and jarring fingers touch'd,
they For that which all around distill'd a calm

More sweet than slumber. Unfamiliar hands
Must strew his pillow, and his weary eyes
By unfamiliar hands be closed at length
For their long sleep.

MARGARITA.

Alas! alas! my father, Why do they rend me from thee, for what crime? I am a Christian: will a Christian's hands With tardier zeal perform a daughter's duty? A Christian's heart with colder fondness tend An aged father? What forbids me still To lead thy feeble steps, where the warm sun Quickens thy chill and languid blood; or where Some shadow soothes the noontide's burning heat; To watch thy wants, to steal about thy chamber With foot so light, as to invite the sleep To shed its balm upon thy lids? Dear sir, Our faith commands us even to love our foesCan it forbid to love a father?

MARGARITA.

Who disown their Lord On earth, will he disown in heaven.

CALLIAS

Hard heart! Credulous of all but thy fond father's sorrows, Thou wilt believe each wild and monstrous tale Of this fond faith.

MARGARITA.

I dare not disbelieve What the dark grave hath cast the buried forth To utter to whose visible form on earth After the cross expiring men have written Their witness in their blood.

CALLIAS.

CALLIAS.

Would we were there, or anywhere but here,
Where the cold damps are oozing from the walls,
And the thick darkness presses like a weight
Upon the eyelids. Daughter, when thou served'st
Thy father's Gods, thou wert not thus: the sun
Was brightest where thou wert-beneath thy feet
Flowers grew. Thou sat'st like some unclouded star
Insphered in thine own light and joy, and madest
The world around thee beauteous; now, cold earth
Must be thy couch to-night, to-morrow morn-

-What means that music?-Oh, I used to love Those evening harpings once, my child!

MARGARITA.

I hear

Tell me, my child; for sorrow's weariness
Is now so heavy on me, I can listen

Nor rave. Come, sit we down on this coarse straw,
Thy only couch-thine, that wert wont to lie
On the soft plumage of the swan, that shamed not
Thy spotless limbs-Come.

MARGARITA.

Dost thou not remember When Decius was the Emperor, how he came To Antioch, and when holy Babylas Withstood his entrance to the Christian church, Frantic with wrath, he bade them drag him forth To cruel death? Serene the old man walk'd The crowded streets; at every pause the yell Of the mad people made, his voice was heard Blessing God's bounty, or imploring pardon Upon the barbarous hosts that smote him on. Then didst thou hold me up, a laughing child To gaze on that sad spectacle. He pass'd And look'd on me with such a gentle sorrow; The pallid patience of his brow toward me Seem'd softening to a smile of deepest love. When all around me mock'd, and howl'd, and laugh'd, God gave me grace to weep. In after time, That face would on my noontide dreams return; And in the silence of the night I heard The murmur of that voice remote, and touch'd To an aerial sweetness, like soft music Over a tract of waters. My young soul Lay wrapt in wonder, how that meek old man Could suffer with such unrepining calmness, Till late I learnt the faith for which he suffer'd, And wonder'd then no more. Thou 'rt weeping, too— Oh Jesus, hast thou moved his heart?

They call us hence.-Ah me, My gentle child, in vain wouldst thou distract My rapt attention from each well-known note, Once hallow'd to mine ear by thine own voice, Which erst made Antioch vacant, drawing after thee The thronging youth, which cluster'd all around thee Like bees around their queen, the happiest they That were the nearest. Oh, my child! my child! Thou canst not yet be blotted from their memory, And I'll go forth, and kneel at every foot, To the stern Prefect show my hoary hair, And sue for mercy on myself, not thee.

Go not, my father.

MARGARITA.

CALLIAS.

Cling not round me thus; There, there, even there repose upon the straw. Nay, let me go, or I'll—but I've no power: Thou heed'st not now my anger or my love; So, so farewell, then, and our Gods or thine, Or all that have the power to bless, be with thee! [Departs.

EVENING SONGS OF THE MAIDENS

(Heard at a distance).
I.

Come away, with willing feet
Quit the close and breathless street:
Sultry court and chamber leave,
Come and taste the balmy eve,
Where the grass is cool and green,
And the verdant laurels screen
All whose timid footsteps move
With the quickening stealth of love;
Where Orontes' waters hold
Mirrors to your locks of gold,
And the sacred Daphne weaves,
Canopies of trembling leaves.

Come, for when his glories break
Every sleeping maid must wake.
Brief be then our stolen hour
In the fragrant Daphne's bower;
Brief our twilight dance must be
Underneath the cypress tree.
Come away, and make no stay,
Youth and maiden, come away.

Night.

A splendid, illuminated Palace.

MARGARITA.

Am I brought here to die? My prison open'd
Softly as to an angel's touch, and hither
Was I led forth among the breathing lutes
Of our blithe maidens, as to lure me on.
And still where'er I move, as from the earth,
Or floating in the calm embosoming air,
Sweet sounds of music seem to follow me.
I breathe as 't were an atmosphere distill'd
From richest flowers; and, lest the unwonted light
Offend mine eyes, so late released from gloom,
"Tis soothed and cool'd in alabaster lamps.

Here Apollo's temple rests

Its weight upon its snow-white columns. There The massy shades of Daphne, with its streams, That with their babbling sounds allure the sight,

The coolness of their silver-dashing fountains,
As nature's self strove in fond rivalry
With art to pamper every sense. Behold

Yon throne, whereon the Asiarch holds his state,
Circled with kings and more than kingly Romans;
There by his side shall Margarita sit,
Olybius' bride; with all the adoring city,
And every province of the sumptuous East,
Casting its lavish homage at her feet;

Her life one luxury of love, her state

One scene of peerless pomp and pride; her will
More glorious for the beauty of his bride
The law of spacious kingdoms, and her lord

Than for three triumphs. Now, my soul's beloved!
Make thou thy choice.

MARGARITA.

"T is made-the funeral pyre.

OLYBIUS.

Dearest, what say'st thou? Wouldst thou have me

Woo thee

A dim and narrow court

I see, where shadows as of hurrying men
Pass and repass; and now and then their lights
Wander on shapeless heaps, like funeral piles.
And there are things of strange distorted shape,
On which the torches cast a colder hue,
As though on iron instruments of torture.
A little farther, there are moving lamps
In the black amphitheatre, that glance,
And as they glance, each narrow aperture
Is feebly gilded with their slanted light.
It is the quick and busy preparation
For the dark sacrifice of to-morrow.

OLYBIUS.

There,

If thou canst add the scorn, and shame, and pain,
The infuriate joy of the fierce multitude,
The flowing blood, and limbs that writhe in flame,
Thou seest what thou preparest for thyself.
Now what Olybius' love prepares for thee,
Fairest, behold!-This high irradiate roof
Fretted with lamps; these gorgeous chambers, each
As it recedes of costlier splendour, strew'd
With all the barbarous Indian's loom hath wrought,
Or all the enslaved ocean wafts to Tyre.
Arabia's weeping groves are odourless,
Her balmy wealth exhausted o'er our couches
Of banquet, where the revelling Syria spreads
Her fruits and wines in vases cool with snow
From Libanus. Around are summer gardens
Of sunny lawn and sweet secluded shade,
Which waft into the gilded casement airs
Loaded with dewy fragrance, and send up

MARGARITA.

Oh! hear me,

Olybius-should we look to-morrow eve

On that sad court of death, the winds that bore
The groans of anguish will have died in silence;
The untainted earth have drunk the blood, nor trace
Remain of all those Christian multitudes,
Save some small urns of dust. A few years pass'd,
Could we look round where stands this spacious

palace,

Yon throne of gold, these high and arching roofs,
Even on thine own majestic shape, Olybius,
Will the distinguish'd dust of these proud chambers,
Or even thine own embalmed ashes, wear
The stamp and impress of their kingly lord?
With the same scorn will the coarse peasant's foot
Tread all beneath it. But the soul-the soul,
What then will be its separate doom? What seats
Of light and bliss will hold to-morrow's victims ?
On what dark beds shall those recline, who have
shone

A little longer in this cloudy sphere,

And bask'd within the blaze of human glory,
Ere yet the eternal night hath gather'd them
In darkness!-Oh! were this world all, Olybius
With joy would I become thy cupbearer,
And minister the richest wine of life,
Long as thy mortal lips could quaff of bliss.
But now a nobler service doth become me;
I'll use thy fabling poets' phrase, and be
Thy Hebe, with officious hand to reach thee
The ambrosial cup of everlasting gladness.

OLYBIUS.

How doth the rapture of her speech enkindle The brightness of her beauty! never yet Look'd she so lovely, when her loosen'd locks Flow'd in the frantic grace of inspiration From the burst fillet down her snowy neck.

MARGARITA.

Roman, I know thy spirit pants for glory; There is a thirst within thine inmost soul,