Chapter XX: Cathedral

SERVICE, ORGAN _and_ ANTHEM.

(MARGARET _among much people: the_ EVIL SPIRIT _behind_ MARGARET.)

EVIL SPIRIT

HOW 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?

MARGARET

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

CHORUS

_Diesira, dies illa,
Solvet soeclum in favilla_!
_(Sound of the organ_.)

EVIL SPIRIT

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

MARGARET

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

CHORUS

_Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet, ad parebit,
Nil inultum remanebit_.
MARGARET

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

EVIL SPIRIT

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

CHORUS

_Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quem patronem rogaturus,
Cum vix Justus sit securus_?

EVIL SPIRIT

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

CHORUS

_Quid sum miser tune dicturus_?

MARGARET

Neighbor! your cordial! (_She falls in a swoon_.)