_Alessa_ (_staring_). No!... Well, such things There are perchance. And now they say that Venus, The Anadyomene, who once ruled this isle, Is come again.... But you have finished? Soon They bring her body here.
_Hilarion._ Now have I, now! It will not totter again.
_Alessa._ Would that it might Upon the head of----(_catches herself; calmly_) You are awaited There in the sacristy.... The chant begins!
[_The acolytes go. She grows more disquieted._
Begins! and lady Yolanda still awaits Heedless, though Lord Amaury's desperate, As is the Paphian!... They near!... The curtains!
[_Goes to door and draws them back. As she does so the chant swells louder. Then the cortège enters_--MORO, _the acolytes with tapers;_ BERENGERE _on a litter_, AMAURY, RENIER, VITTIA, _the women_, HASSAN, _and last_ YOLANDA. _The litter_, AMAURY _by it, comes to the altar; the chanting ceases._
_Moro_ (_as_ AMAURY _bows, shaken_). No moan or any toil of grief be here Where we have brought her for sainted appeal. But in this holy place until the tomb Let her find rest.
_Moro._ Lone rest! Then bliss Afar for ever!
But unto any, mother, who have brought thee Low to this couch, be never ease again. To any who have put thy life out, never! But in them be the burning that has seemed To shrivel thee--whether with pain or fear! And be appeaseless tears, Salt tears that rust the fountain of the heart.
_Amaury_ (_up again_). To the relentless!
_Moro._ Enough, enough. (_To the rest._) But go and for her soul Freight all of you this tide of night with prayer.
_Amaury._ And I forbid those who Have prized her not! For though nought's in the world but prayer may move, Still but the lips that loved her Should for her any sin beseeching lift.
Yes, though you hold me purgeless of that sin Only the pale archangels may endure Trembling to muse on! Or though yon image of the Magdalen, Whose alabaster broke amid her tears And her torn hair, forbade me with a voice. And you, whose heart is shaken As in a tomb a taper's flame, would know I speak with love.
_Amaury._ Then, by Christ, and the world that craves His blood, I think She, if she would, or you, could point to me, Or you, Vittia Pisani, The reason of this sudden piteous death Hard on the haunted flight before my father, Whose lips refuse.