_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 l.u.s.t, 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 a.s.syrians 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 G.o.d in the midst of fear; When archers out of Hazor were Eating the land like gra.s.shoppers, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

But G.o.d 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 a.s.sur 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 a.s.syrians 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 l.u.s.t 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 h.e.l.l, 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_.

G.o.d 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 l.u.s.t 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 cas.e.m.e.nt.

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 l.u.s.t of the world, The infinite wrong the spirit, the virgin spirit, Must fasten against, or be for ever vile.