Con monologue (Act 4) — The Saint's Tragedy

Yea, dashed aside--why not? The truths, my son, are safe in God's abysses-- While we patch up the doctrines to look like them. The best are tarnished mirrors--clumsy bridges, Whereon, as on firm soil, the mob may walk Across the gulf of doubt, and know no danger. We, who see heaven, may see the hell which girds it. Blind trust for them. When I came here from Rome, Among the Alps, all through one frost-bound dawn, Waiting with sealed lips the noisy day, I walked upon a marble mead of snow-- An angel's spotless plume, laid there for me: Then from the hillside, in the melting noon, Looked down the gorge, and lo! no bridge, no snow-- But seas of writhing glacier, gashed and scored With splintered gulfs, and fathomless crevasses, Blue lips of hell, which sucked down roaring rivers The fiends who fled the sun. The path of Saints Is such; so shall she look from heaven, and see The road which led her thither. Now we'll go, And find some lonely cottage for her lodging; Her shelter now is but a crumbling ruin Roofed in with pine boughs--discipline more healthy For soul, than body: She's not ripe for death.