The poetical works of George MacDonald - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
_Julian_.
I have fought, my Lilia.
I have been down among the horses' feet; But strange to tell, and harder to believe, Arose all sound, unmarked with bruise, or blood Save what I lifted from the gory ground.
[_Sighing_.]
My wounds are not of such.
[LILIA, _loosening her arms, and drawing back a little with a kind of shrinking, looks a frightened interrogation_.]
No. Penance, Lilia; Such penance as the saints of old inflicted Upon their quivering flesh. Folly, I know; As a lord would exalt himself, by making His willing servants into trembling slaves!
Yet I have borne it.
_Lilia_ (_laying her hand on his arm_).
Ah, alas, my Julian, You have been guilty!
_Julian_.
Not what men call guilty, Save it be now; now you will think I sin.
Alas, I have sinned! but not in this I sin.-- Lilia, I have been a monk.
_Lilia_.
A monk?
[_Turningpale_.]
I thought--
[_Faltering_.]
Julian,--I thought you said.... did you not say...?
[_Very pale, brokenly_.]
I thought you said ...
[_With an effort_.]
I was to be your wife!
[_Covering her face with her hands, and bursting into tears_.]
_Julian_ (_speaking low and in pain_).
And so I did.
_Lilia_ (_hopefully, and looking up_).
Then you've had dispensation?
_Julian_.
G.o.d has absolved me, though the Church will not.
He knows it was in ignorance I did it.
Rather would he have men to do his will, Than keep a weight of words upon their souls, Which they laid there, not graven by his finger.
The vow was made to him--to him I break it.
_Lilia_ (_weeping bitterly_).
I would ... your words were true ... but I do know ...
It never can ... be right to break a vow; If so, men might be liars every day; You'd do the same by me, if we were married.
_Julian_ (_in anguish_).
'Tis ever so. Words are the living things!
There is no spirit--save what's born of words!
Words are the bonds that of two souls make one!
Words the security of heart to heart!
G.o.d, make me patient! G.o.d, I pray thee, G.o.d!
_Lilia_ (_not heeding him_).
Besides, we dare not; you would find the dungeon Gave late repentance; I should weep away My life within a convent.
_Julian_.
Come to England, To England, Lilia.
_Lilia_.
Men would point, and say: _There go the monk and his wife_; if they, in truth, Called me not by a harder name than that.
_Julian_.
There are no monks in England.
_Lilia_.
But will that Make right what's wrong?
_Julian_.
Did I say so, my Lilia?
I answered but your last objections thus; I had a different answer for the first.
_Lilia_.
No, no; I cannot, cannot, dare not do it.
_Julian_.
Lilia, you will not doubt my love; you cannot.
--I would have told you all before, but thought, Foolishly, you would feel the same as I;-- I have lived longer, thought more, seen much more; I would not hurt your body, less your soul, For all the blessedness your love can give: For love's sake weigh the weight of what I say.
Think not that _must_ be right which you have heard From infancy--it may----
[_Enter the_ Steward _in haste, pale, breathless, and bleeding_.]
_Steward_.
My lord, there's such an uproar in the town!
They call you murderer and heretic.
The officers of justice, with a monk, And the new Count Nembroni, accompanied By a fierce mob with torches, howling out For justice on you, madly cursing you!
They caught a glimpse of me as I returned, And stones and sticks flew round me like a storm; But I escaped them, old man as I am, And was in time to bar the castle-gates.-- Would heaven we had not cast those mounds, and shut The river from the moat!
[_Distant yells and cries_.]
