The only man who scans and penetrates
My measures and my motives, he is now
The favoured noble of our fickle king;
Loved by the people; even by the court,
The envious court, esteemed and idolized.
Now Athelwold, I win thee for my friend,
Or, as my dangerous rival, tread thee down!
The cause exacts it, and I may not shrink,
That cause which makes of all this mortal world
But one vast engine for its purposes,

And still works on, and pauses not, nor spares,
Though every strained and shrieking cable there
Is spun of human fibre. Here he comes.

Athelwold arraigns him for artfulness and cruelty; for his leniency with the weak and vicious Edgar, and his previous severity to the innocent Edwin for a virtuous marriage. Dunstan defends himself as having acted solely in the interest of the Church, in humoring the weak monarch and crushing the rebellious one.

The cruel zealot

Athelwold. Thus has it ever been!
First frames a duty Heaven never meant,
And in fulfilment of it acts such crimes
As wondering Hell made no provision for.
Dominion! still dominion!

Cannot thy church instruct, control, and guide,
Sharing a sway with all good influences,
But it alone must rule the human mind,
And paralyze to rule making a crime
Of the bare judgment, till our faith is fear,
And in the very best the callous thought
Foregoes, forgets, the finer sense of truth?

The generous hope which bears us to the skies-
Oh, make not this our bondage!

Dunstan.

Mark you not,

My Athelwold, how in the faith of all

Each child of frailty, each poor worldling, finds

The path he treads to Heaven? On the broad base,

By ages strengthened, of a nation's creed,

As on some mole immense and palpable,

Wrought o'er the abyss, fast to the doors of Heaven,
Each solitary foot treads firm; the flock

they fall

Of men pass on — they pause — they fail
But on the road itself, and where it leads,
Or who contrived, they waste no bootless care,
No sad, unequal scrutiny. Therefore
We punish error as we punish crime,
Lest by the perverse freedom of a few
Truth lose her hold on the gross, giddy world.
And - hear me out with patience, my good lord ·
And fortunate, I deem, are men thus ruled,
Who reason not, but in belief obey,
Or with the reason happily confound
A foregone sense of duty; fortunate,
In my esteem, that subject-multitude

The monarch-priest, by his bold government,
Protects from worst of anarchies, from doubt,
And its undying fear: their creed lives in them
Like blood within their veins, and glows or thrills,
As questionless. Know this- that he who towers
Above his kind, nor can be taught of them,

Who trusts his faith to solitary thought,

Who strains his ear for accents from the skies,

Or tasks the wavering oracle within,

Shall feed on heavenly whispers, few and faint,
And dying oft to stillness terrible!

Dunstan then goes on to appeal to Athelwold to ally himself with the power of the Church; but is unsuccessful. Athelwold, left to himself, contrasts his own purpose and attitude with Dunstan's.

This Dunstan deals

In a dissembling policy, in arts
Tortuous and little for a noble mind;
And yet in him there is no littleness,
For all is done as task-work, wise or not,

For greatest purposes. This 't is to be
One of your world-controllers. I'd not stoop
From my own pride of virtue and of truth

To rule the planet.

He visits Olgar, Elfrida's father, concealing his errand. In an interview between Elfrida and her confidante Gilbertha, she is shown divided between attraction toward the stranger knight, and a longing for wider conquests.

Gilbertha.

Oh, 't is more Than woman wants to win one noble heart, And all beyond is danger. I should tremble To have the power that lies in thy sweet face To dizzy human brains my own might turn.

Elfrida. Now would that I were but in Edgar's court To play this fearful part among his thanes !

How glorious in some royal festival

To feel I was the queen of it!

When all this while thou hast this wandering knight,

Like a stray deer, within the mortal toils!

Say, could the ransacked court supply a match
Nobler than Athelwold?

Elf.

Oh, he's an emperor,

A very demi-god! Let me say it"T is only to thy ear - say it aloud

Though burning blushes rush, against my will,
To my hot cheek - that I do love this thane !
Mark, my Gilbertha, what a brow he has !

How proud! how thoughtful! Peace and war at once
With all their several virtues, rally there.
Sometimes his full black eye, taking no note
Of present object, with its thought dilates,
And seems to drink in knowledge from the air;
Anon it flashes like an energy,

That seems to scorn dependence for the deed
Even on his noble arm. Oh, be sure

His is a spirit that profoundly thinks,

And can as boldly dare!

Whole troops of lovers and of prostrate knights,

That I might sacrifice them all to him.

I hate to be thus caught, like a tame thing,

Cooped in this place. He'll think me nothing worth,

Finding me here alone, unsought, unprized,

So cheap a victory. But out alas !

We know not all this while if the thane cares

To make the conquest we are grudging him.

Athelwold, meanwhile, finds himself perilously fascinated by Elfrida's beauty.

If on the eye the light of beauty falls,

The eye must see; if on the ear there steals
Soft speech of woman, the unsheltered nerve
Cannot refuse the melody; if thought
Of that embrace which blissful lovers win
Enters the heart, I cannot make it stone,
And it must fill with the fast rising tide
Of tremulous desire - I cannot help

Its pausing pulse or the faint breath it draws;
But whilst I feel, I yield not. Love with me
Is but a pain, an exquisite endurance,
Where reason listening to the throbbing heart,
And hanging o'er its sorrow, gazes down
Like sage physician on the sick man's couch.
I taste love's sweetness but in love's despair.

A bride
Grant it a good

the chiefest good — the sole
Notorious happiness for which we live —
Why, in the name of reason, why alone
This woman's beauty? Why her love alone?
Could sweet affection from no eyes but hers
Look out upon me? could no hand but hers
Give that soft pressure felt upon the heart?
Are there no smiles, no beauty, none but hers
In this wide world? Is all that's dear in woman
Summed in Elfrida, that I must pursue

Her only at the hazard of my life,

And certain loss of honour? Gracious Heaven!
This madness

even as I drag it forth

For utter scorn and mockery

lo, my heart

Claims as her own! - I'm blotted from the list

Of reasonable beings ! lost! lost! lost!

As far as tongue can speak it, and then fly

Forever these deserted shores. - Soft, she comes.

He discerns in Elfrida's bearing that he might win her

love, but masters himself, and is hastily departing when he meets Olgar, who frankly offers him his daughter's hand and fortune. For answer he tells him that she is

destined for the king.

Olgar.

What say you? What!

My daughter wed this royal libertine ?
I'd rather give her to the basest hind
That tills my land. Hold, Athelwold!
If I have been a courteous host to thee
If thou hast feeling for a father's love
Name not to Edgar that I have a daughter
Who is, I know it, passing beautiful.
Do you esteem Elfrida, there she is,

With half a province for her dowry — take her,
You cannot take more gladly than I give —
But if you heed her not, oh, pray forget
You ever saw my child! Play not the spy
To point that treasure to lascivious theft
Which to your honorable custody

Has been with friendly confidence proposed.

Athelwold. She is mine, Olgar! mine! Were all the kings On earth my rivals, she is mine!

He returns to the court, and tells the king that Elfrida's beauty has been overpraised, but that for himself she is by birth and fortune a suitable match; and the king unsuspectingly relinquishes her to him. Dunstan learns the truth, and arranges for its disclosure to the king. He then retires to a hermit's retreat, where he is beset by terrible doubts as to the very foundations of his faith.

Dunstan (alone.) I stand on the bare earth, beneath this vault, Alone with God and nature. Nature, yes,

But where the God? Oh, terrible

Is this unseen Omnipotence! Come back!

Ye shapes that sat with me erewhile, come back!
Come back, ye devils! for your hostile rage
Were comfort in this blank immensity

That spreads around me, wider, wider spreads,
One silent, void, and infinite abyss,