No More Learning

Am I to tear it, then?

_Judith_.
My lord, thou durst not.

_Holofernes_.
Ha, there is spirit here. I have the whim,
Jewess, almost to believe thee: I dare not!
But tell me who thou art.

_Judith_.
That shalt thou know
Before the night has end.

_Holofernes_.
Take off thy veil.

_Judith_.
Alone for Holofernes am I come.

_Holofernes_.
And there is only Holofernes here.
These fellows are but thoughts of mine; my whole
Army, that treads down all the earth and breaks
The banks of fending rivers into marsh,
Is nought but my forth-going imagination.
Where I am, there is no man else: if I
Appeared before thee in a throng of spears,
I'ld stand alone before thee, girt about
By powers of my mind made visible.

_Judith_.
For captured peasants or for captured kings
Such words would have the right big sound. But I
Am woman, and I hear them not: I say
I will not, before any man but thee,
Make known my face; I am only for thee.
When I have thee alone and in thy tent
I will unveil.

_Holofernes (to the Guards)_.
What! Staring? --Hence, you dogs!


III

IN THE TENT OF HOLOFERNES

_Holofernes (alone with Judith)_.
Thou art the woman! Thou hast come to me! --
O not as I thought! not with senses blazing
Far into my deep soul abiding calm
Within their glory of knowledge, as the vast
Of night behind her outward sense of stars.
Now am I but the place thy beauty brightens,
And of myself I have no light of sense
Nor certainty of being: I am made
Empty of all my wont of life before thee,
A vessel where thy splendour may be poured,
After the way the great vessel of air
Accepts the morning power of the sun.