I go, and I am humbled.
But thou shalt have thy asking: the gate is thine.
[_He goes_.
_Judith_.
How can it harm me more, to feel my beauty
Read by man's eyes to mean his lust set forth?
Yea, Holofernes now can bring no shame
Upon me that Ozias hath not brought.
But this is chief: what balance can there be
In my own hurt against a nation's pining?
God hath given me beauty, and I may
Snare with it him whose trap now bites my folk.
There is naught else to think of. Let me go
And set those robes in order which best pleased
Manasses' living eyes; and let me fill
My gown with jewels, such as kindle sight,
And have some stinging sweetness in my hair.--
Manasses, my Manasses, lost to me,
Gone where my love can nothing search, and hidden
Behind the vapours of these worldly years,
The many years between me and thy death;
Thine ears are sealed with immortal blessedness
Against our miserable din of living;
Through thy pure sense goeth no soil of grief.
Forgive me! for thou hast left me here to be hurt
And moved to pity by the dolour of men.
The garment of my soul is splasht with sorrow,
Sorrowful noise and sight; and like to fires
Of venom spat on me, the sorrow eats
Through the thin robe of sense into my soul.
And it is cried against me, this keen anguish,
By my own people and my God's;--and thou
Didst love them.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124