Women [in a low voice].  Master! sir! look here!

Eliz. [rising].  Have mercy, mercy, Lord!

Con.  What is it, my daughter?  No—­she answers not—­
Her eyeballs through their sealed lids are bursting,
And yet she sleeps:  her body does but mimic
The absent soul’s enfranchised wanderings
In the spirit-world.

Eliz.  Oh! she was but a worldling! 
And think, good Lord, if that this world is hell,
What wonder if poor souls whose lot is fixed here,
Meshed down by custom, wealth, rank, pleasure, ignorance,
Do hellish things in it?  Have mercy, Lord;
Even for my sake, and all my woes, have mercy!

Con.  There! she is laid again—­Some bedlam dream. 
So—­here I sit; am I a guardian angel
Watching by God’s elect? or nightly tiger,
Who waits upon a dainty point of honour
To clutch his prey, till it shall wake and move? 
We’ll waive that question:  there’s eternity
To answer that in. 
How like a marble-carven nun she lies
Who prays with folded palms upon her tomb,
Until the resurrection!  Fair and holy! 
O happy Lewis!  Had I been a knight—­
A man at all—­What’s this?  I must be brutal,
Or I shall love her:  and yet that’s no safeguard;
I have marked it oft:  ay—­with that devilish triumph
Which eyes its victim’s writhings, still will mingle
A sympathetic thrill of lust—­say, pity.

Eliz. [awaking].  I am heard!  She is saved! 
Where am I?  What! have I overslept myself? 
Oh, do not beat me!  I will tell you all—­
I have had awful dreams of the other world.

1st Woman.  Ay! ay! a fine excuse for lazy women, Who cry nightmare with lying on their backs.

Eliz.  I will be heard!  I am a prophetess! 
God hears me, why not ye?

Con.  Quench not the Spirit: 
If He have spoken, daughter, we must listen.

Eliz.  Methought from out the red and heaving earth
My mother rose, whose broad and queenly limbs
A fiery arrow did impale, and round
Pursuing tongues oozed up of nether fire,
And fastened on her:  like a winter-blast
Among the steeples, then she shrieked aloud,
’Pray for me, daughter; save me from this torment,
For thou canst save!’ And then she told a tale;
It was not true—­my mother was not such—­
O God!  The pander to a brother’s sin!

1st Woman.  There now?  The truth is out!  I told you, sister, About that mother—­

Con.  Silence, hags! what then?

Eliz.  She stretched her arms, and sank.  Was it a sin
To love that sinful mother?  There I lay—­
And in the spirit far away I prayed;
What words I spoke, I know not, nor how long;
Until a small still voice sighed, ‘Child, thou art heard:’ 
Then on the pitchy dark a small bright cloud
Shone out, and swelled, and neared, and grew to form,
Till from it blazed my pardoned mother’s face
With nameless glory!  Nearer still she pressed,
And bent her lips to mine—­a mighty spasm
Ran crackling through my limbs, and thousand bells
Rang in my dizzy ears—­And so I woke.