People Use, Things To Approach In Song They List Not Speak. And Song, Thou Knowest, Inwrought With Chiming Strings, Sweetens With Sweet Delay Loving Desire: Also Thine Eyes Will Feed, And Thy Heart Wonder. - Balkis Was In Her Marble Town, And Shadow Over The World Came Down. Whiteness Of Walls, Towers And Piers, That All Day Dazzled Eyes To Tears, Turned From Being White-Golden Flame, And Like The Deep-Sea Blue Became. Balkis Into Her Garden Went; Her Spirit Was In Discontent Like A Torch In Restless Air. Joylessly She Wandered There, And Saw Her City'S Azure White Lying Under The Great Night, Beautiful As The Memory Of A Worshipping World Would Be In The Mind Of A God, In The Hour When He Must Kill His Outward Power; And, Coming To A Pool Where Trees Grew In Double Greeneries, Saw Herself, As She Went By The Water, Walking Beautifully, And Saw The Stars Shine In The Glance Of Her Eyes, And Her Own Fair Countenance Passing, Pale And Wonderful, Across The Night That Filled The Pool. And Cruel Was The Grief That Played With The Queen'S Spirit; And She Said: "What Do I Hear, Reigning Alone? For To Be Unloved Is To Be Alone. There Is No Man In All My Land Dare My Longing Understand; The Whole Folk Like A Peasant Bows Lest Its Look Should Meet My Brows And Be Harmed By This Beauty Of Mine. I Burn Their Brains As I Were Sign Of God'S Beautiful Anger Sent To Master Them With Punishment Of Beauty That Must Pour Distress On Hearts Grown Dark With Ugliness. But It Is I Am The Punisht One. Is There No Man, Is There None, In Whom My Beauty Will But Move The Lust Of A Delighted Love; In Whom Some Spirit Of God So Thrives That We May Wed Our Lonely Lives? Is There No Man, Is There None?" - She Said, "I Will Go To Solomon." Holofernes. I Shall Not Bear It: Dreamed, It Hath Made My Life Fail Almost, Like A Storm Broken In Heaven By Its Internal Fire; And Now I Feel Love Like A Dreadful God Coming To Do His Pleasure On Me, To Tear Me With His Joy And Shred My Flesh-Wove Strength With Merciless Utterance Through Me Of Inhuman Bliss. - I Must Have More Divinity Within Me. - Come To Me, Slave! [Calling Out To His Attendants.] Judith. Thou Callest Someone? Alas! O, Where's My Veil? - Cry Him To Stay Awhile! - Holofernes. Thou Troubled With Such Whimsy! - But 'Tis No One, A Mere Sexless Thing Of Mine. Judith. He Is Coming! I Threw My Veil - Where? - I Must Bow My Face Close To The Ground, Or His Eyes Will Find Me Out; And - O My Lord, Hold Him Back With Thy Voice! [She Has Knelt Down.] Hold Him In Doubt To Enter A Moment, While I Loosen My Hair Into Some Manner Of Safety Against His Prying. Holofernes. Slave, Dost Thou Hear Me? Come! - I Marvel, Room For Such A Paltering Mood Should Be Within Thy Mind, Now So Nearly Deified With The First Sense Of My Love. [A Eunuch Comes In.] Holofernes. Wine! The Mightiest Wine My Sutlers Have; Wine With The Sun'S Own Grandeur In It, And All The Wildness Of The Earth Conceiving Spring From The Sun'S Golden Lust: Wine For Us Twain! And When Thou Hast Brought It, Burn Anear My Bed Storax And Cassia; And Let Wealth Be Found To Cover My Bed With Such Strife Of Colour, Crimson And Tawny And Purple-Inspired Gold, That Eyes Beholding It May Take Therefrom Splendid Imagination Of The Strife Of Love With Love'S Implacable Desire. Judith (Still Kneeling). I Must Lean On Thee Now, My God! A Weight Of Pitiable Weakness Thou Must Bear And Move As It Were Thine Own Strength; Tell My Heart How Not To Sicken In Abomination, Show Me The Way To Loathe This Vile Man'S Rage, Now Close To Seize Me Into The Use Of His Pleasure, With The Loathing That Is Terrible Delight. So That Not Fainting, But Refresht And Astonisht And Strangely Spirited And Divinely Angry My Body May Arise Out Of Its Passion, Out Of Being Enjoyed By This Fiend'S Flesh. Then Man My Arm; Then Let Mine Own Revenge Utter Thy Vengeance, Lord, As Speech Doth Meaning; Yea, With Hate Empower Me To Say Bravely The Glittering Word That Even Now Thy Mind Purposes, God, - The Swift Stroke Of A Falchion! Holofernes. Woman, Beloved, Why Art Thou Fixt So Long Kneeling And Downward Crookt, And In Thy Hair Darkened? - Ah, Thy Shoulders Urging Shape Of Loveliness Into Thy Hair'S Pouring Gleam! Judith. Needs Must I Pray My Jewish God For Help Against My Bridal Joys. For I Do Fear Them. Holofernes. I Also: These Are The Joys That Fear Doth Own. Iv At The Gate Of Bethulia. On The Walls, On Either Side Of The Gate, Are Citizens Watching The Assyrian Camp; Ozias Also, Standing By Himself. Ozias. When Wilt Thou Cure Thyself, Spirit Of The Earth, When Wilt Thou Cure Thyself Of Thy Long Fever, That So Insanely Doth Ferment In Thee? - 'Tis Not Man Only: The Whole Blood Of Life Is Fever'D With Desire. But As The Brain, Being Lord Of The Body, Is Served By Blood So Well That A Hidden Canker In The Flesh May Send, Continuous As A Usury, Its Breeding Venom Upward, Till In The Brain It Vapour Into Enormity Of Dreaming: So Man Is Lord Of Life Upon The Earth; And Like A Hastening Blood His Nature Wells Up Out Of The Beasts Below Him, They The Flesh And He The Brain, They Serving Him With Blood; And Blood So Loaden With Brute Lust Of Being It Steams The Conscious Leisure Of Man'S Thought With An Immense Phantasma Of Desire, An Unsubduable Dream Of Unknown Pleasure; Which He Sends Hungering Forth Into The World, But Never Satisfied Returns To Him. Who Hath Found Beauty? Who Hath Not Desired It? 'Tis But The Feverish Spirit Of Earthly Life Working Deliriously In Man, A Dream Questing The World That Throngs Upon Man'S Mind To Find Therein An Image Of Herself; And There Is Nothing Answers Her Entreaty. - I Climb Towards Death: It Is Not Falling Down For Me To Die, But Up The Event Of The World As Up A Mighty Ridge I Climb, And Look With Lifted Vision Backward Down On Life. So High Towards Death I Am Gone, Listless I Gaze Where On The Earth Beneath Me, Into The Fires Of That Assyrian Strength, Our Siege Of Fate, Judith, The Dream Of My Desire Of Beauty, Goes Daring Forth, To Shape Herself Therein, Seeking To Fashion In Its Turbulence Some Deed That Will Be Likeness Of Herself. For Now I Know Her Purpose: And I Know She Will Be Murdered There. Against The World The Beauty I Have Lived In, My Loved Dream, Goes, Wild To Master The World; And She Will Therefore Be Murdered. It Is Nothing Now; Wind From The Heights Of Death Is On My Brow. Talk Among The Other Watchers. It Must Be, God Is For Us. Such A Mind As This Of Judith'S Could Not Be, Unless God Had Spoken It Into Her. She Is His Special Voice, To Tell The Assyrians Terrible Matters. Is She God'S? I Think 'Tis Holofernes Hath Her Now. If Not, Upon His Soldiers He Hath Lavisht Her. Not He. Now They Have Known Her, His Filled Senses Never Will Leave Go Our Wonderful Judith. Ay, Wonderful In Jewry. But There Are In Babylon Women So Beautiful, They Make Men'S Spirits Desperate, To Know Flesh Cannot Ever Minister Enough Delight To Ease The Craving They Are Taskt With. Who Talks Of Babylon When God Even Now Is Training Her Fierce Champion, Holofernes, Into The Death A Woman Holds Before Him? A Woman Killing Holofernes! Ay; Be She Abused By Him Or Not, I Know God Means To Give Her Marvellous Hands To-Night. I Know It By My Heart So Strangely Sick With Looking Out For The First Drowsy Stir In That Huge Flaming Quiet Of The Camp. Now Fearfuller Qualm Than Famine Eagerly Handles My Life And Pulls At It, - My Faith'S Hunger For Being Fed With Sounds And Visions: The Firelight Mixt With A Trooping Bustle Of Shadows, The Silence Suddenly Shouting With Surprise, That Tells Of Men Astounded Out Of Sleep To Find That God Hath Dreadfully Been Among Them. We Have Mistaken Judith. Even As Now God Is Mistaken By Your Doubting Hearts. She That Has Dealt With Such A Pride Of Spirit In All Her Ways Of Life, So That She Seemed To Feel Like Shadow, Falling On The Light Her Own Mind Made, The Common Thoughts Of Men; Ay, She That To-Day Came Down Into Our Woe And Stood Among The Griefs That Buzz Upon Us, Like One Who Is Forced Aside From A Bright Journey To Stoop In A Small-Room'D Cottage, Where Loud Flies Pester The Inmates And The Windows Darken; This She, This Judith, Out Of Her Quiet Pride, And Out Of Her Guarded Purity, To Walk Where God Himself From Violent Whoredom Could Scarcely Preserve Her Shuddering Flesh! And All For Our Sake, For The Lives She Hath In Scorn, This Horrible Assyrian Risk She Ventures. There Should Be Prayer For That. Let Us Ask God To Bind The Men, Whose Greed Now Glares Upon Her, In Some Strange Feebleness; Surely He Will; Surely Not With Woman'S Worst Injury Her Noble Obedience He Will Reward! Let Us Ask God To Bind These Men Before Her. They Are Not His To Bind: Else, Were They Here? They Are The Glorying Of Nebuchadnezzar'S Heart Of Fury Against Our God, Sent Here Like Insolent Shouting Into His Holy Quiet. God Could Not Bind These Bragging Noises Up In Nebuchadnezzar'S Heart; It Is Not His, But Made By Babylonian Gods Or Owned By Thrones That Hold The Heavens Over Nineveh. For All These Outland Greatnesses, These Kings Whose War Goes Pealing Through The World, These Towns Infidel And Triumphant, Reaching Forth Armies To Hug The World Close To Their Lust, - What Are They But The Gods Making A Scorn Of Our God On The Earth? Then How Can He Alter These Men From Wicked Delight? Or How Keep Judith All Untoucht Among Their Hands, When His Own Quietness He Could Not Keep Unbroken By The God'S Assyrian Insult? But With A Thunder He Can Shatter This Intruding Noise, And Make His Quiet Again. And In Their Lust He Can Entangle Them, Deceiving Them Far Into Judith'S Beauty, Which Is His Power, And Lop Them From Their Gods. Their Outrage Will Be Ornament Upon Her! Out Of The Hands Of The Goblins She Will Come Not Markt With Shame, But Wearing Their Vile Usage Like One Whom Earthly Reign Covers With Splendour. The Ignominy They Thought Of Shall Be Turned To Shining, Yea, To Announcing Through The World How God Hath Used Her To Beguile The Heathen. It Begins! Now It Begins! Lo, How Dismay Is Fallen On The Camp In A Strange Wind: The Ground, That Seemed As Spread With Yellow Embers, Leaps Into Blazing, And Like Cinders Whirled And Scattered Up Among The Flames, Are Black Bands Of Frantic Men Flickering About! Ozias! Seest Thou How Our Enemies Are Labouring In Amazement? How They Run Flinging Fuel To Light Them Against Fear? Now They Begin To Roar Their Terror: Now They Wave And Beckon Wordless Desperate Things One To Another. Hear The Iron And Brass Ringing Above Their Voices, As They Snatch The Arms That Seem To Fight Among Themselves, Seized By Their Masters' Anguish; Dost Thou Hear The Clumsy Terror In The Camp, The Men Hasting To Arm Themselves Against Our God, Ozias? Ozias. Lions Have Taken A Sentinel. A Citizen. Judith Hath Taken Holofernes. Judith'S Voice Outside, Under The Gate. Yea, And Brought Him Back With Her. Open The Gates. The Citizens. Open The Gates. Bring Torches. Wake, Ye Jews! Hail, Judith, Marvellously Chosen Woman! How Bringst Thou Holofernes? Show Him To Us. Judith. Dare You Indeed Behold Him? A Citizen. Is He Bound? Judith. Drugged Rather, With A Medicine That God Prepared For Him And Gave Into My Hands. Open The Gates! It Is A Harmless Thing, The Holofernes I Have Made Your Show; You May Gaze Blithely Upon Him. I Have Tamed The Man'S Pernicious Brain. Open The Gates! What, Are Your Hands Still Nerveless? But My Hands, The Hands Of A Woman, Have Done Notable Work. The Gates Open. Judith Appears, Standing Against The Night And The Assyrian Fires. Torches And Shouting In The Town. Citizens. Judith! Judith Alone! Where Is Thy Boast Of Holofernes Captured? Judith. I Am Alone, Indeed; And You Are Many; Yet With Me Comes Holofernes, Certainly A Captive. Ozias. What Trifle Is This? Judith. Trifle? It Is The Word. A Trifle, A Thing Of Mere Weight, I Have Brought You From The Assyrian Camp. My Apron Here Is Loaded Now More Heavily, But As Meanly As An Old Witch'S Skirt, When She Comes Home From Seeking Camel'S-Dung For Kindling; Yet My Burden Was, An Hour Ago, The World Where You Were Ground To Tortures; It Was The Brain Inventing Your Destruction. - Look You Now! [Holding Up The Head Of Holofernes.] This Is The Mouth Through Which Commandment Came Of Massacre And Damnation To The Jews; Here Was The Mind The Gods That Hate Our God Used To Empower The Agonies They Devised Against Us; Here Your Dangers Were All Made, Your Horrible Starvation; And The Thirst Those Wicked Gods Supposed Would Murder You, Here A Creature Became, A Ravenous Creature; Yea, Here Those Mighty Vigours Lived Which Took, Like Ocean Water Taking Frost, The Hate Those Gods Have For Jehovah, Shaping It Atrociously Into The War That Clencht Their Fury About You, Frozen Into Iron. Jews, Here Is The Head Of Holofernes: Take It And Let It Grin Upon Our Highest Wall Over Against The Camp Of The Assyrians. [She Throws Them The Head.] Ay, You May Worry It; Now Is The Jackals' Time; Snarl On Your Enemy, Now He Is Dead. Ozias. Judith, Be Not Too Scornful Of Their Noise. There Are No Words May Turn This Deed To Song: Praise Cannot Reach It. Only With Such Din, Unmeasured Yelling Exultation, Can Astonishment Speak Of It. In Me, Just Now, Thought Was The Figure Of A God, Firm Standing, A Dignity Like Carved Egyptian Stone; Thou Like A Blow Of Fire Hast Splinter'D It; It Is Abroad Like Powder In A Wind, Or Like Heapt Shingle In A Furious Tide, Thou Having Roused The Ungovernable Waters My Mind Is Built Amidst, A Dangerous Tower. My Spirit Therein Dwelling, So Overwhelmed In Joy Or Fear, Disturbance Without Name, Out Of The Rivers It Is Fallen In Can Snatch No Substance It May Shape To Words Answerable To Thy Prowess And Thy Praise. We Are All Abasht By Thee, And Only Know To Worship Thee With Shouts And Astounded Passion. Judith. Yes, Now The World Has Got A Voice Against Me: At Last Now It May Howl A Triumph About Me. Ozias. This, Nevertheless, My Thought Can Seize From Out The Wildness That Goes Pouring Past It. God, Wondrously Having Moved Thee To This Deed, Hath Shown The Jews A Wondrous Favouring Love. Thee It Becomes Not, Standing Though Thou Art On This High Action, To Think Scorn Of Men Whom God Thinks Worthy Of Having Thee For Saviour. Judith. This Is A Subtle Flattery. What Know I Of Whom God Loves, Of Whom God Hates? I Know This Only: In My Home, In My Soul'S Chamber, A Filthy Verminous Beast Hath Made His Lair. I Let Him In; I Let This Grim Lust In; Not Only Did Not Bolt My Doors Against His Forcing, But Even Put Them Wide And Watcht Him Coming In, To Make My House His Stable. What Though I Killed Him Afterward? All My Place, And All The Air I Live In, Is Foul With Him. I Killed Him? Truly, I Am Mixt With Him; Death Must Have Me Before It Hath All Him. Ozias. In Thee, Too, Are The Floods, The Wild Rivers, Overrunning Thy Thought, The Nameless Mind? How Else, Indeed? Nay, We Are Dull With Joy: Of Thee We Thought Not, Out Of The Hands Of Outrage Coming Back, Although With Victory Coming. But This Makes Surety Once More Of My Thought, And Gives Again My Reason Its Lost Station; For It May Come Now In My Privilege (A Thing That Could Cure Madness In My Brain) That Thou From Me Persuasion Hast To Endure What Well I Know Thy Soul, Thy Upright Soul, Feels As Abominable Harness On It Fastening Thee Unwillingly To Crime, - The Wickedness That Hath Delighted In Thee. Judith. Ay? Art Thou There Already? Tasting, Art Thou, What The Assyrians May Have Forced On Me, Ere Thou Hast Well Swallowed Thy New Freedom? Indeed, I Know This Is The Wine Of The Feast Which I Have Set For Thee And Thy Bethulia; And 'Tis The Wine Makes Delicate The Banquet. Ozias. Wait: Listen To Me. 'Tis I Now Must Be Wise And Thou The Hearkener. Not Without Wound (So I Make Out, At Least, Thy Hurrying Words) Comest Thou Back To Us From Conquering. And Such A Wound, I Easily Believe, As Eats Into Thy Soul And Rages There; Yea, I That Know Thee, Judith, Know Thy Soul Worse Rankling Hath In It From Heathen Insult Than Flesh Could Take From Steel Bathed In A Venom Art Magic Brewed Over A Charcoal Fire, Blown Into Flame By Hissing Of Whipt Lizards. Yet Is It Likely, By Too Much Regarding, Thy Hurt Is Pamper'D In Its Poisonous Sting. Wounds In The Spirit Need No Surgery But A Mind Strong Not To Insist On Them. See, Then, Thou Hast Not Too Much Horror Of This; Who That Fights Well In Battle Comes Home Sound? - Much Less Couldst Thou, Who Must, With Seeming Weakness, Invite The Power Of Holofernes Forth Ere Striking It, Thy Womanhood The Ambush. For Thou Didst Plan, I Guess, To Duel Him In Snares, Weaving His Greed About His Limbs, Drawn Out And Twisted Winding Round His Strength By Ministry Of Thy Enticing Beauty; That When He Thought Himself Spending On Thee Malicious Violence, And Thou Hadst Made Him Languish, Stupid With Boasting And Delight, Thy Hands Might Find Him A Tied Quiet Victim Under Their Anger, Maiming Him Of Life. Now, Thy Device Accomplisht, Wilt Thou Grudge Its Means? Wilt Thou Scruple To Understand Thy Abus'D Sex Will Show Upon Thy Fame A Nobler Colour Of Glory Than A Soldier'S Wounded Bravery Rusting His Habergeon? Nay, Will Not The World Rejoice, Thou Being Found Among Its Women, Ready Such Insolence To Bear As Is Unbearable To Think On, Thereby To Serve And Save God And His People? Judith. The World Rejoice Over Me? Yea, I Am Certain. Ozias. Then Art Thou Too Fastidious. It Is Weak To Make Thyself A Shame Of Being Injured; And Is It Injury Indeed? Nay, Is It Anything But A Mere Opinion Hurt? Not Thou, But Customary Thought Is Here Molested And Annoyed; The Only Nerve Can Carry Anguish From This To Thy Soul, Is That Credulity Which Ties The Mind Firmly To Notional Creature As To Real. Advise Thee, Then; Dark In Thyself Keep Hid This Grief; And Thou Wilt Shortly Find It Dying. A Citizen. Judith, Pardon Our Ecstasy. 'Tis Time Thou Hadst Our Honour. But First Tell Us All The Event, That In Thy Proper Height Thou With Thy Deed May Stand Against Our Worship. Judith. Why Do You Stop Your Shouts, And Glare Upon Me? Have You Need Truly To Hear My Tale? I Think, Not So. Ozias Here, As He Hath Whiled At Ease Upon The Walls My Stay In The Camp Yonder, Hath Fairly Fancied All That I Have Done, And More Exactly, And With A Relishing Gust, All That Was Done To Me. Ask Him, Therefore; If He Hath Not Already Entertained Your Tedious Leisure With My Story Told Pat To Your Liking, Enjoyed, And Glosst With Praise. - And Yet, Why Ask Him? Why Go Even So Far To Hear It? Ask But The Clever Libidinousness Dwelling In Each Of Your Hearts, And It Will Surely Imagine For You How I Trained To My Arms Lewd Holofernes, And Kept Him Plied With Lust, Until His Wild Blood In The End Paused Fainting, And He Lay Twitching, Drained Of All His Wits; - But There Was Wine As Well Working In Him, Feebling His Sinews; 'Twas Not All My Doing, The Snoring Fit That Came Before His Death, The Routing Beastly Slumber That Was My Time. You Know It All! Why Ask Me For The Tale? Ozias. Comfort Her: Praise Her. She Is Strangely Ashamed Of Holofernes Having Evilly Used Her. A Citizen. We Will Contrive The Triumph Of Our Joy Into Some Tune Of Words, And Bring Thee On, Accompanied By Singing, To Thy House. Judith. I Pray You, Rather Let Me Go Alone. You Will Do Better To Be Searching Out All Sharpen'D Steel That May Take Weapon-Use. The Assyrians Are Afraid: It Is Your Time. [They Surround Judith And Go With Her.] Chorus Of Citizens Praising Judith And Leading Her To Her House. Over Us And Past Us Go The Years; Like Wind That Taketh Sound From Jubilee And Aloud Flieth Ringing, Over Us Goeth The Speed Of The Years, Like Loud Noise Eternally Bringing The Greatness Women Have Done. Deborah Was Great; With Her Singing She Hearten'D The Men That The Horses Had Dismayed; Deborah, The Wife Of Lapidoth, Alone Stood Singing Where The Men Were Horribly Afraid, Singing Of God In The Midst Of Fear; When Archers Out Of Hazor Were Eating The Land Like Grasshoppers, And Darkness At Noon Was Plundering The Air Of The Light Of The Sun'S Insulted Fires, Red Darkness Covering Sisera'S Host As Jewry Was Covered By The Canaanite'S Boast: For The Earth Was Broken Into Dust Beneath The Force Of His Chariots' Thundering Tyres, Nine Hundred Chariots Of Iron. Deborah Was Great In Her Prophesying; But, Though Her Anger Moved Through The Israelites, And The Loose Tribes Her Indignant Crying Bound Into Song, Fashion'D To An Army; And Before The Measure Of Her Song Went Flying, Like Leaves And Breakage Of The Woods Fallen Into Pouring Floods, The Iron And The Men Of Sisera And Jabin; Not By Her Alone God'S Punishment Was Done On Canaan Intending A Monstrous Crime, On The Foaming And Poison Of The Serpent In Hazor; Two Women Were The Power Of God That Time. Yea, And Sullenly Down Into Its Hiding Town, Even Though The Lightning Were Still In Its Heart, The Broken Dragon, Drawing In Its Fury, Had Croucht To Mend Its Shatter'D Malice, Had Lifted Its Head Again And Spat Against God. But God Its Endlessly Devising Brain, Its Braving Spirit, Its Captain Sisera, Into The Hands Of Another Woman Brought: In Nets Of Her Persuasion She That Wild Spirit Caught, She Fasten'D Up That Uncontrollable Thought. Sisera Spake, And The Crops Were Flames; Sisera Lookt, And Blood Ran Down The Door-Sills. But Weary, Trusting His Entertainment, He Came To Jael, The Kenite Woman; A Woman Who Gave Him Death For A Bed, And With Base Tools Nailed Down His Murderous Head Fast To The Earth His Rage Had Fed With Men Unreckonably Slain. But Than These Wonderfully Greater, Judith, Art Thou; The Praise Of Both Shall Follow Like A Shadow After Thy Glory Now, Who Alone The Measureless Striding, The High Ungovern'D Brow, Of Assur Upon The Hills Of The World Hast Tript And Sent Him Hugely Sliding, Like A Shot Beast, Down From His Towering, By His Own Lamed Mightiness Hurl'D To Lie A Filth In Disaster. Deborah And Jael, Famously Named, Like Rich Lands Enriching The City Their Master, Bring Thee Now Their Most Golden Honour. For The Beauty Of Thy Limbs Was Found By A Dreadfuller Enemy Dreadful As The Sound Of Deborah'S Singing, Though Hers Was A Song That Had For Its Words Thousands Of Men. But Thou Thyself, Looking Upon Them, Didst Weaken The Assyrians Mortally. They Thought It Terrible To See Thee Coming; They Falter'D In Their Impiousness, Their Hearts Gave In To Thee; They Went Backward Before Thee And Shewed Thee The Tent Where Holofernes Would Have Thee In To Him, Yea, For His Slayer Waiting, Waiting Thee To Entertain, Desiring Thee, His Death, To Enjoy, As Jael Waited For Sisera Her Slain. Judith. Have Done! Do You Think I Know Not Why Your Souls Are So Delighted Round Me? Do You Think I See Not What It Is You Praise? - Not Me, But You Yourselves Triumphing In Me And Over Me. A Citizen. Did We Kill Holofernes? Judith. No: Nor I. That Corpse Was Not His Death. He Is Alive, And Will Be Till There Is No More A World Filled With His Hidden Hunger, Waiting For Souls That Ford The Monstrous Waters Of The World. Alive In You Is Holofernes Now, But Fed And Rejoicing; I Have Filled Your Hunger. Yea, And Alive In Me: My Spirit Hath Been Enjoyed By The Lust Of The World, And I Am Changed Vilely By The Vile Thing That Clutcht On Me, Like Sulphurous Smoke Eating Into Silver. Your Song Is All Of This, This Your Rejoicing; You Have Good Right To Circle Me With Song! You Are The World, And You Have Fed On Me. A Citizen. We Are The World; Yes, But The World For Ever Honouring Thee. Judith. How Am I Honoured So, If I No Honour Have For The World, But Rather Hold It An Odious And Traitorous Thing, That Means No Honour But To Those Whose Spirits Have Yielded To Its Ancient Lechery? - Defiled, Defiled! A Citizen. Thou Wert Moved By Our Grief: Was That A Vile Thing? Judith. That Was The Cunning World. It Moved Me By Your Grief To Give Myself Into The Pleasure Of Its Ravenous Love. A Citizen. Judith, If Thy Hot Spirit Beareth Still Indignant Suffering Of Villainy, Think, That Thou Hast No Wrong From It. Such Things Are In Themselves Dead, And Have Only Life From What Lives Round Them. And Around Thee Glory Lives And Will Force Its Splendour On The Harm Thy Purity Endured, Making It Shine Like Diamond In Sunlight, As Before Unviolated It Could Not. Judith. Ay, To You I Doubt Not I Seem Admirable Now, Worthy Of Being Sung In Loudest Praise; But To Myself How Seem I? A Citizen. Surely As One Whose Charity Went Down The Stairs Of Hell, And Barter'D With The Fiends Thy Sacredest For Our Deliverance. Judith. And That You Praise! - I Was A Virgin Spirit. Whence I Come I Know Not, And I Care Not Whither I Go. One Fearful Knowledge Holds Me: That I Am A Spirit Walking Dangerously Here. For The World Covets Me. I Am Alone, And Made Of Something Which The World Has Not, Unless Its Substance Can Devour My Spirit. And It Hath Devoured Me! In Holofernes It Seized Me, Fed On Me; And Then Gibed On Me, With Show Of His Death Scoffing At My Rage, - His Death! - He Lay There, Drunken, Glutted With Me, And His Bare Falchion Hung Beside The Bed, - Look On It, And Look On The Blood I Made Go Pouring Thunder Of Pleasure Through His Brain! - And Like A Mad Thing Hitting At The Madness Thronging Upon It In A Grinning Rout, I My Defilement Smote, That Holofernes. But Does A Maniac Kill The Frenzy In Him, When With His Fists He Beats The Clambering Fiends That Swarm Against His Limbs? No More Did I Kill My Defilement; It Was Fast Within Me; And Like A Frenzy Can Go Out Of Me And Dress Its Hideous Motions In My World. For When I Come Back Here, Behold The Thing I Murdered In The Camp Leaps Up And Yells! The Carrion Holofernes, My Defilement, Dances A Triumph Round Me, Roars And Rejoices, Quickened To Hundreds Of Exulting Lives. A Citizen. God Help Thee In This Wildness! Are We Then As Holofernes To Thee? Judith. You Are Naught But The Defilement That Is In Me Now, Rejoicing To Be Lodged Safely Within Me. You Are The Lust I Entertained, Rejoicing To Wreak Itself Upon My Purity. The Stratagems Of My Ravishment You Are, Rejoicing That The Will You Serve Has Dealt Its Power On Me. O, I Hate You Not. You And Your Crying Grief Should Have Blown Past My Heart Like Wind Shaking A Fasten'D Casement. But I Must Have You In. Myself I Loathe For Opening To You, And Thereby Opening To The Demon Which Had Set You On To Whine Pitiably In The Porches Of My Spirit. You Are But Noise; But He Is The Lust Of The World, The Infinite Wrong The Spirit, The Virgin Spirit, Must Fasten Against, Or Be For Ever Vile. A Citizen. But Is It Naught That We, The Folk Of God, Are Safe By Thee? Judith. God Hath His Own Devices. But I Would Be God'S Helper! I Would Be Known As The Woman Whom His Strength Had Chosen To Ruin The Assyrians! - O My God, How Dreadfully Thou Punishest Small Sins! If It Is Thou Who Punishest; But Rather It Is That, When We Slacken In Perceiving The World'S Intent Towards Us, And Fatally, Enticed Out Of Suspicion By Fair Signs, Go From Ignoring Its Proposals, Down To Parley, - Thou Our Weakness Dost Permit. In All My Days I From The Greed Of The World Virginal Have Kept My Spirit'S Dwelling, - Till Now; Yea, All My Being I Have Maintained Sacredly My Own Possession; For Love But Made More Beautiful And More Divine My Spirit'S Ownership. And Yet No Warning, When I Infatuate Went Down To Be Procuress Of Myself To The World'S Desire, Did God Blaze On My Blindness, No Rebuke. Therefore I Am No More My Virgin Own, But Hatefully, Unspeakably, The World'S. To These Now I Belong; They Took Me And Used Me. I Have No Pride To Live For; And Why Else Should One Stay Living, If Not Joyfully Proud? For I Have Yielded Now; Mercilessly What Is Makes Foolish Nothing Of What Was. To Know The World, For All Its Grasping Hands, For All Its Heat To Utter Its Pent Nature Into The Souls That Must Go Faring Through It, Availing Nothing Against Purity, Made Always Like Rebellion Trodden Under, - By This Was Life A Noble Labour. Now I Have Been Persuaded Into The World'S Pleasure: And Now At Last I Will All Certainly Contrive For Myself The Death Of Holofernes. [Ozias Comes Behind Her And Catches The Lifted Falchion.] Judith. It Was Well Done, Ozias. Ozias. I Have Watcht Thy Anguish Growing, And I Lookt For This. Judith. Thou Knowest Me Better Than I Know Myself. What Moves In Me Is Strange And Uncontrolled, That Once I Thought Was Ruled: Thou Knew'St Me Better. - Indeed Thou Must Forgive Me; What Was I To Take So Bitterly Thy Suit? What Right Had I To Give Thee Anger, When Thou Wouldst Brighten Thy Hopeless Death With Me Enjoyed, I, Even From That Anger, Going To Be Holofernes' Pleasure? - Thou Knewest Me Better, And Therefore Shalt Forgive Me. Ay, No Doubt My Spirit Answered Thee So Fiercely Then Because It Felt Thee Reading Me Aright, How A Mere Bragging Was My Purity. But Now To Pardon Askt, I Must Add Thanks. - I Had Forgot Manasses! Even Love Was Driven Forth Of Me By These Loud Mouths! Whether In Death He Waits For Me, I Know Not; But It Had Been An Unforgivable Thing To Have Made This The End; Not To Have Gone To Death As Unto Spousals, Leaving Life As One Sets Down A Work Faithfully Done, And Knows Oneself By Service Justified, Worthy Of Love, Whether Love Be Or Not. But, Soiled With Detestation, To Have Thrown Fiercely Aside The Garment Of This Light; Proved At The Last Impatient, Death Desiring Like A Mere Doffing Of Foul Drench?D Clothes; Release From The Wicked Hindering Mire Of Sorrow; A Comfortable Darkness Hiding Me Out Of The Glowing World Myself Have Made An Insult, Domineering Me With Splendour; - O Such A Death Had Turned, Past All Forgiving, My Insult To Manasses, And Searcht Him Out, Even Where He Is Quiet, With The Blaze, Ranging Like Din, Of This Contempt, This Triumph. Not Crying Out Such Hateful News Should I Flee Hunted Into Death, Unto My Love. From This, Ozias, Thou Hast Saved Me. Now I Am To Learn My Shame, That Not Amazed, But Practised In My Burden, I At Last, When My Time Comes, May All In Gladness Fare The Road Made Sacred By Manasses' Feet. [Judith Goes Into Her House.] Ozias (Addressing The Citizens). You Do Well To Be Stricken Silent Here. Terrible Holofernes Slain By A Woman Was Something Wonderful, To Be Noised Aloud; But This Is A Wonder Past Applauding Thought, This Grief Darkening Judith, In The Midst Of The New Shining Glory She Herself Has Brought To Conquer In Our Skies The Storm. You Do Well To Be Dumb: For You Have Seen Virginity. That Spirit You Have Seen, Seen Made Wrathfully Plain That Secret Spirit, Whereby Is Man'S Frail Scabbard Filled With Steel. This, Cumbered In The Earthen Kind Of Man, Which Ceaseless Waters Would Be Wearing Down, Alone Giveth Him Stubborn Substance, Holds Him Upright And Hard Against Impious Fate. All Things Within It Would The World Possess, And Have Them In The Tide Of Its Desire: Man Hath His Nature Of The Vehement World; He Is A Torrent Like The Stars And Beasts Flowing To Answer The Fierce World'S Desire. But Like A Giant Wading In The Sea Stands In The Rapture, And Refusing It, And Looking Upward Out Of It To Find Who Knows What Sign? - Spirit, Virginity; A Power Caught By The Power Of The World; The Spirit In Whose Unknown Hope Doth Man Deny The Mastery Of His Fortune Here; Virginity, Whose Pride, Impassion'D Only To Be As She Herself Would Be, Nor Thence To Loosen For The World'S Endeavouring, And, Though All Give The Rash Obedience, Stand Her Own Possession, - This Virginity, This Pride Of The Spirit, Asking No Reward But To Be Pride Unthrown, This Is The Force Whereby Man Hath His Courage In The Strange Fearful Turmoil Of Being Conscious Man. Yea, Worshipping This Spirit, He Will At Last Grow Into High Divine Imagination, Wherein The Envious Wildness Of The World Yieldeth Its Striving Up To Him, And Takes His Mind, Building The Endless Stars Like Stone To House His Towering Joy Of Self-Possessing. This Made You Dumb; Ignorant Knowledge Of This, Blind Vision Of Virginity'S Mightiness, Did Chide The Exclamation In Your Hearts. And Think Not You Have Seen, In Judith'S Grief, Virginity Drown'D In The Pouring World. For What Is Done Is Naught; What Is, Is All: And Judith Is Virginity'S Appointed. Even By Her Injury She Showeth Us, As Fire By Violence May Be Revealed, How Sovereign Is Virginity. - But Let Us Now Consult What Way Her Grief, Which Is Not To Be Understood By Us, May Spend Itself, With Naught To Urge Its Power. Let Us Within Our Walls Keep Close This Tale, Close As The Famine And The Thirst Were Kept Devouring Us By The Assyrians. Let There Be No News Going Through The Land Out Of Bethulia But This: That We At Judith'S Hands Had Our Deliverance, But She From Holofernes And His Crew Unwilling And Astonisht Reveren