Ger. He raised from off her face the pall, and 'Lo!' He cried, 'that saintly flesh which ye of late With sacrilegious hands, ere yet entombed, Had in your superstitious selfishness Almost torn piecemeal. Fools! Gross-hearted fools! These limbs are God's, not yours: in life for you They spent themselves; now till the judgment-day By virtue of the Spirit embalmed they lie-- Touch them who dare. No! Would you find your Saint, Look up, not down, where even now she prays Beyond that blazing orb for you and me. Why hither bring her corpse? Why hide her clay In jewelled ark beneath God's mercy-seat-- A speck of dust among these boundless aisles, Uprushing pillars, star-bespangled roofs, Whose colours mimic Heaven's unmeasured blue, Save to remind you, how she is not here, But risen with Him that rose, and by His blaze Absorbed, lives in the God for whom she died? Know her no more according to the flesh; Or only so, to brand upon your thoughts How she was once a woman--flesh and blood, Like you--yet how unlike! Hark while I tell ye.' 2d Monk. How liked the mob all this? They hate him sore. Ger. Half awed, half sullen, till his golden lips Entranced all ears with tales so sad and strange, They seemed one life-long miracle: bliss and woe, Honour and shame--her daring--Heaven's stern guidance, Did each the other so outblaze. 1st Monk. Great signs Did wait on her from youth. 2d Monk. There went a tale Of one, a Zingar wizard, who, on her birthnight, He here in Eisenach, she in Presburg lying, Declared her natal moment, and the glory Which should befall her by the grace of God. Ger. He spoke of that, and many a wonder more, Melting all hearts to worship--how a robe Which from her shoulders, at a royal feast, To some importunate as alms she sent, By miracle within her bower was hung again: And how on her own couch the Incarnate Son In likeness of a leprous serf, she laid: And many a wondrous tale till now unheard; Which, from her handmaid's oath and attestation, Siegfried of Maintz to far Perugia sent, And sainted Umbria's labyrinthine hills, Even to the holy Council, where the Patriarchs Of Antioch and Jerusalem, and with them A host of prelates, magnates, knights, and nobles, Decreed and canonised her sainthood's palm. 1st Monk. Mass, they could do no less.