Elsie. How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses Grow on these rocks. Prince Henry. Yet are they not forgotten; Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them. Elsie. See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels! Prince Henry. Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels Bear thee across these chasms and precipices, Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone ! Elsie. Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was, Upon angelic shoulders! Even now I seem uplifted by them, light as air! Prince Henry. The tumbling avalanches! Elsie. How awful, yet how beautiful! Prince Henry. These are The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope Elsie. What land is this that spreads itself beneath us? Prince Henry. Italy! Italy! Elsie. How beautiful it is! Of Paradise! Land of the Madonna ! It seems a garden Prince Henry. Nay, of Gethsemane Encircles with a ring of purple light Guide. O friends! The days are short, the way before us long; They pass on. At the foot of the Alps. A halt under the trees at noon. Prince Henry. Here let us pause a moment in the trembling Shadow and sunshine of the road-side trees, Fill the warm noon with music sad and sweet? Sion David, urbs tranquilla, Cujus faber auctor lucis, Cujus custos Rex festivus ! Lucifer (as a Friar in the procession). Here am I, too, in the pious band, In the garb of a barefooted Carmelite dressed! And chant with a most particular zest And at night such lodging in barns and sheds, Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads, For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime, Prince Henry. If from the outward man we judge the inner, And cleanliness is godliness, I fear A hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner, Must be that Carmelite now passing near. Lucifer. There is my German Prince again, Thus far on his journey to Salern, And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain; But, first, I must act to my heart's content And, to make up for not understanding the song, In hâc urbe, lux solennis, Prince Henry. Do you observe that monk among the train, Who pours from his great throat the roaring bass As a cathedral spout pours out the rain, And this way turns his rubicund, round face? Elsie. It is the same who, on the Strasburg square, Preached to the people in the open air. Prince Henry. And he has crossed o'er mountain field, and fell, On that good steed, that seems to bear him well, |