Scene XX. Cathedral

CATHEDRAL

SERVICE, ORGAN and ANTHEM. (MARGARET among much people: the EVIL SPIRIT behind MARGARET.)

EVIL SPIRITHOW otherwise was it, Margaret, When thou, still innocent, Here to the altar cam'st, And from the worn and fingered book Thy prayers didst prattle, Half sport of childhood, Half God within thee! Margaret! Where tends thy thought? Within thy bosom What hidden crime? Pray'st thou for mercy on thy mother's soul, That fell asleep to long, long torment, and through thee? Upon thy threshold whose the blood? And stirreth not and quickens Something beneath thy heart, Thy life disquieting With most foreboding presence?

MARGARETWoe! woe! Would I were free from the thoughts That cross me, drawing hither and thither Despite me!

EVIL SPIRITWrath takes thee! The trumpet peals! The graves tremble! And thy heart From ashy rest To fiery torments Now again requickened, Throbs to life!

MARGARETWould I were forth! I feel as if the organ here My breath takes from me, My very heart Dissolved by the anthem!

MARGARETI cannot breathe! The massy pillars Imprison me! The vaulted arches Crush me!—Air!

EVIL SPIRITHide thyself! Sin and shame Stay never hidden. Air? Light? Woe to thee!

EVIL SPIRITThey turn their faces, The glorified, from thee: The pure, their hands to offer, Shuddering, refuse thee! Woe!

CHORUSQuid sum miser tune dicturus?

MARGARETNeighbor! your cordial! (She falls in a swoon.)