1822. ] 
Macer. What, then, is wanting 2 
Second Priest. What, but the crown and palm- 
like grace of all, 
The sacred virgin, on whose footsteps beauty 
Waits likea handmaid; whose most peerless form, 
Light as embodied air, and pure as ivory 
Thrice polished by the skilful statuary, 
Moves in the priestess’ long and flowing robes, 
W hile our scarce-erring worship doth adore 
The servant rather than the God. 
Twrd Priest. The maid 
W hose living lyre so eloquently speaks, 
From the deserted grove the siient birds 
Hang hovering o’er her; and we buman hearers 
Stand breathless as the marbles on the walls, 
That even themselves seein touch’d to listening 
ife 
All animate with the inspiring eestacy. 
First Roman. Thou mean’st the daughter of the 
holy Catlias ; 
I once beheld her when the thronging people 
Prest round, yet parted still to give her way, 
Hiven as the blue enamour’d waves, when first 
The sea-born Goddess in her rosy shell 
Sail’d the calm ocean. 
Second Prizst. Margarita, come, 
Come in thy zoneless grace and flowing locks, 
Crown’d with the laurel of the God; the lyre 
Accordant to thy slow and musical steps, 
As grateful ’twould return the harmony, 
That from thy touch it wins. 
Margarita, notwithstanding these in- 
vocations, dees not appear; and, on 
searching the sanctuary, it is found in 
a state of profane confusion, aud the 
priestess is sought for in vain, The 
alarmed father upbraids the Prefect 
with the abduction of his daughter, and 
in the midst of their alarm, Vopiscus 
enters with the Emperor’s mandate, 
commanding Olybius to institute new 
severities against the Christians. Mar- 
garita now, rather unaccountabiy, en- 
ters, and hearing these orders, without 
yet divulging her faith, cannot repress 
her emotions: 
Olybius. Priests! 
We mourn that we must leave th’ imperfect rites, 
Deeply we mourn it, when bright Margarita 
Vouchsafes her late and much-desired presence. 
So on to-morrow for our Judgment-hall— 
Let all the fires be kindled, and bring forth 
The long-disused racks, and fatal engines. 
Their rust must be wash’d offin blood. Proclaim 
That every guilty worshipper of Christ 
Be dragg’d before ns. Ha! 
Macer. W hat frantic ery 
With insolent interruption breaks upon 
Rome’s Prefect ? : 
Many voices. Lo the priestess! Lo the priestess! 
See. /riest. She hath fallen down upon her knees ; 
her hair 
Is scattered like a cloud of gold; her hands 
Are clasp’d across her swelling breast; her eyes 
Do bolda sad communion with the heavens, 
And her lips move, yet make no sound. 
Third Priest. Haste—haste— 
The laurel erown—the laurel of the God— 
She’s rapt—possess'd !— 
Margarita. The erown—the crown of glory— 
God give me grace upon my bleeding brows 
To wear it, 
See. Priest. She is distracted by our gaze— 
She shrinks and trembles. Lead her in, the trance 
ill pass anon, and her unsealed lips 
Pour forth the mystic numbers, that men hear, 
And feel the inspiring Deity. 
We next find Margaret passing se- 
eretly in the evening through the grove 
of Daphne, to warn her assembled 
Mr. Milman’s Martyr of Antioch. 
213 
brethren of their approaching danger, 
and pausing to apostrophize the scene 
of her former idolatry. 
Oh, thou polluted, yet most lovely grove ! 
Hath the Almighty breath’d o’er all thy bowers 
An everlasting spring, and paved thy walks 
With amaranthine flowers—are but the winds, 
W hose breath is gentle, suffered to entangle 
Their light wings, not unwilling prisoners, 
In thy thick branches, there to make sweet mur- 
murs 
With the bee’s bum, and melody of birds, 
And all the voices of the hundred fountains, 
That drop translucent from the mountain's side, 
And lull themselves along their level course, 
To slumber with their own soft-sliding sounds ; 
And all for foul idolatry, or worse, 
To make itself a home and sauctuary ? 
Oh, second Eden, like the first, defiled 
Withsin ! even like thy human *habitants, 
Thy winds, and flowers, and waters, have forgot 
The gracious hand that made them, ministers 
Voluptuous to man’s transgressions—all, 
Save thou, sweet nightingale! that, like myself, 
Pourest alone thy melancholy song ' 
To silence and to God. 
She is here overtaken by the Prefect, 
whose jealousy has been roused by her 
recent coldness, and from whom she 
still conceals the real cause of her 
apparent change. Nothing results from 
the meeting, and the martyr passes 
ou to the congregation at the burial- 
place of the Christians. They have 
just interred a brother, over whom they 
chant an anthem, which is more dis- 
tinguished by its piety than by poetical 
spirit. They are warned by the Neo- 
phyte, and flee timely away. Margaret 
returns to the temple, and the expiana- 
tory scene with her father ensues : 
Callas. How ?—what ?—imine ears 
Ring with a wild confusion of strange sounds 
That have no meaning: Thou’rt not wont to mock 
Thine aged father, but I think that now 
Thon dost, my child. 
Margarita. By Jesus Christ—by Him 
In whom my soul hath hope of immortality, 
Father! I mock not. 
Cullias. Lightnings blast—not thee, 
But those that by their subtle incantations 
Have wrought upon thy innocent suul! 
Margarila. Look there ! 
Father, [’1l follow thee where’er thon wilt; 
Thou dost not mean this ernel violence 
With which thou drage’st me on. 
Callias. Dost not behold him, 
Tay God! thy father’s God! the God of Antioch! 
And feel’st thou not the cold and silent awe, 
That emanates from his immortal presence 
O’er all the breathless temple? Dar’st thou see 
The terrible brightness of the wrath that burns 
On his arch‘d brow? Lo! how the indignation 
Swells in each strong dilated lim)! His stature 
Grows loftier ; and the roof, the quaking pavement, 
The shadowy pillars, all the temple feels 
The offended God! I dare not look again, 
Dar’st thou ? 
Margarita. T sce a silent shape of stone, 
In w hich the majesty of human passion 
Is to the life express’d. A noble image, 
But wrought by mortal hands, upon a model 
As mortalas themselves. 
Callias. Ha! look again, then, 
There in the East. Mark how the purple clouds 
Throng to pavilion him: th’ officious winds 
Pant forth to purify his azure path d , 
From night’s dun vapours and fast-seattering mists. 
The glad earth wakes in adoration 3 all 
The voices of all animate things lift up 
Tumultvous 
