Agnes.
Give me a watchword.
Brand.
Stern?
Agnes.
No, mild.
Brand.
[Clasping her.]
The blameless shall not taste the grave.
Agnes.
[Looking brightly up at him.]
Then <g>one</g> is ours God may not crave!
[Goes into the house.
Brand.
[Looking fixedly before him.]
But if he <g>might</g>? What "Isaac's Fear"
Once ventured, He may venture here.
[Shakes off the thought.]
No, no, my sacrifice is made,
The calling of my life gainsaid—
Like the Lord's thunder to go forth
And rouse the sleepers of the earth.
Sacrifice! Liar! there was none!
I miss'd it when my Dream was done,
When Agnes woke me—and follow'd free
To labour in the gloom with me.
[Looks along the road.]
Why tarries still the dying call,
Her word, that she will offer all,
That she has won that which uproots
Sin's deepest fibres, rankest shoots!
See there ! No, it is but the Mayor,
Well-meaning, brisk, and debonnaire,