________________________________________________
_
Service, Organ, and Singing.[MARGERY amidst a crowd of people. EVIL SPIRIT behind MARGERY.]
EVIL SPIRIT.
How different was it with thee, Margy,
When, innocent and artless,
Thou cam'st here to the altar,
From the well-thumbed little prayer-book,
Petitions lisping,
Half full of child's play,
Half full of Heaven!
Margy!
Where are thy thoughts?
What crime is buried
Deep within thy heart?
Prayest thou haply for thy mother, who
Slept over into long, long pain, on thy account?
Whose blood upon thy threshold lies?
--And stirs there not, already
Beneath thy heart a life
Tormenting itself and thee
With bodings of its coming hour?
MARGERY.
Woe! Woe!
Could I rid me of the thoughts,
Still through my brain backward and forward flitting,
Against my will!
CHORUS.
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla.
[Organ plays.]
EVIL SPIRIT.
Wrath smites thee!
Hark! the trumpet sounds!
The graves are trembling!
And thy heart,
Made o'er again
For fiery torments,
Waking from its ashes
Starts up!
MARGERY.
Would I were hence!
I feel as if the organ's peal
My breath were stifling,
The choral chant
My heart were melting.
CHORUS.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet apparebit.
Nil inultum remanebit.
MARGERY.
How cramped it feels!
The walls and pillars
Imprison me!
And the arches
Crush me!--Air!
EVIL SPIRIT.
What! hide thee! sin and shame
Will not be hidden!
Air? Light?
Woe's thee!
CHORUS.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?
Cum vix justus sit securus.
EVIL SPIRIT.
They turn their faces,
The glorified, from thee.
To take thy hand, the pure ones
Shudder with horror.
Woe!
CHORUS.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
MARGERY.
Neighbor! your phial!--
[She swoons.] _
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