Conrad monologue (Act 5) — The Saint's Tragedy

[awaking] Stay! Spirits, stay! Art thou a hell-born phantasm, Or word too true, sent by the mother of God? Oh, tell me, queen of Heaven! O God! if she, the city of the Lord, Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soul Of half the earth; wherein all kingdoms, laws, Authority, and faith do culminate, And draw from her their sanction and their use; The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages, Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed; The tree whose rootlets drink of every river, Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles; Christ's seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and hues Of all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish, And crumble into dust! Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas! Oh! to have prayed, and toiled--and lied--for this! For this to have crushed out the heart of youth, And sat by calm, while living bodies burned! How! Gerard; sleeping! Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son?