Festus

Scene⁠—Heaven.

God

Eternity hath snowed its years upon them; And the white winter of their age is come, The World and all its worlds; and all shall end.

Seraphim

God! God! God! As flames in skies We burn and rise And lose ourselves in Thee! Years on years! And nought appears Save God to be. God! God! God! To us no thought Hath Being brought Toward Thee that doth not move! Years on years! And what appears Save God to love? God! God! God! All Thou dost make Lies like a lake Below Thine infinite eye: Years on years! And all appears Save God to die.

Cherubim

As sun and star, How high or far, Show but a boundless sky; So creature mind Is all confined To show Thee, God, most High! The sun still burns, The sun still turns Bound, round himself and round; So creature mind To self’s confined, But Thou God hast no bound! Systems arise. Or a world dies, Each constant hour in air; But creature mind, In Heaven confined, Lives on like Thee, God! there.

Seraphim Cherubim

God! God! God! Thou fill’st our eyes A were the skies One burning, boundless sun! While creature mind, In path confined, Passeth a spot thereon. God! God! God!

Lucifer

Ye thrones of Heaven, how bright, how pure ye are! How have ye brightened since I saw ye first! How have I darkened since ye saw me last!

This is to be a mortal and immortal! To live within a circle⁠—and to be That dark point where the shades of all things around Meet, mix and deepen. All things unto me Show their dark sides! somewhere there must be light. Oh! I feel like a seed in the cold earth; Quickening at heart, and pining for the air! Passion is destiny. The heart is its own Fate. It is well youth’s gold rubs off so soon. The heart gets dizzy with its drunken dance, And the voluptuous vanities of life Enchain, enchant, and cheat my soul no more. My spirit is on edge. I can enjoy Nought which has not the honied sting of sin; That soothing fret which makes the young untried, Longing to be beforehand with their nature, In dreams and loneness cry, they die to live; That wanton whetting of the soul, which while It gives a finer, keener edge for pleasure, Wastes more and dulls the sooner. Rouse thee, heart; Bow of my life thou yet art full of spring! My quiver still hath many purposes. Yet what is worth a thought of all things here? How mean, how miserable every care! How doubtful, too, the system of the mind! And then the ceaseless, changeless, hopeless round Of weariness and heartlessness and woe And vice and vanity! Yet these make life; The life at least I witness if not feel. No matter! we are immortal. How I wish I could love men! for amid all life’s quests There seems but worthy one⁠—to do men good. It matters not how long we live but how.

I heard thy prayer at sunset. I was here. I saw, thy secret longings, unsaid thoughts, Which prey upon the breast like night-fires on A heath. I know thy heart by heart. I read The tongue when still as well as when it moves. And thou didst pray to God. Did He attend? Or turn His eye from the great glass of things, Wherein He worshippeth eternally Himself, to thee one moment? He did not. I tell thee nought He cares for men. I came And come to proffer thee the earth; to set Thee on a throne⁠—the throne of will unbound⁠— To crown thy life with liberty and joy, And make thee free and mighty even as I am!

Festus

I would not be as thou art for Hell’s throne; Add Earth’s⁠—add Heaven’s!

Lucifer

I knew thy proud high heart. To test its worth and mark I held it brave, In shape and being thus myself I came; Not in disguise of opportunity⁠— Not as some silly toy which serves for most⁠— Not in the mask of lucre, lust nor power⁠— Not in a goblin size nor cherub form⁠— But as the soul of Hell and evil came I With leave to give the kingdom of the world⁠— Hie freedom of thyself.

Boys

Oh! here’s a ranter. Come, here’s fun. Amen! I know the church service by heart.

Bystander

Be off! You’ll serve the church by keeping out of it.

Lucifer

I am a preacher come to tell ye truth. I tell ye too there is no time to be lost; So fold your souls up neatly, while ye may; Direct to God in Heaven; or some one else May seize them, seal them, send them⁠—you know where. The world must end. I weep to think of it. But you, you laugh! I knew ye would. I know Men never will be wise till they are fools For ever. Laugh away! The time will come, When tears of fire are trickling from your eyes, Ye will blame yourselves for having laughed at me. I warn ye, men: prepare! repent! be saved! I warn ye, not because I love, but know ye. God will dissolve the world, as she of old Her pearl, within His cup and swallow ye In wrath: although to taste ye would be poison, And death and suicide to aught but God. Again I warn ye. Save himself who can! Do ye not oft begin to seek salvation? You? you? and fail, as oft, to find? Sink? Cease? And shall I tell ye, brethren, why ye fail Once and for ever? why, there is no past; And the future is the fiction of a fiction; The present moment is eternity; It is that ye have sucked corruption from the world Like milk from your own mothers: it is in Your soul-blood and your soul-bones. Earth does not Wean one out of a thousand sons to Heaven.

Behold my world! Man’s science counts it not Upon the brightest sky. He never knows How near it comes to him; but, swathed in clouds, As though in plumed and palled state, it steals Hearselike and thieflike round the universe, For ever rolling and returning not⁠— Robbing all worlds of many an angel soul⁠— With its light hidden in its breast, which burns With all concentrate and superfluent woe. Nor sun nor moon illume it, and to those Which dwell in it, not live, the starry skies Have told no time since first they entered there. Worlds have been built, and to their central base Ruined and rased to the last atom; they Of neither know nor can⁠—unconscious save To agony⁠—nought knowing even of God But His omnipotence to execute Torture on those He hath in wrath endowed With Heaven’s own immortality, to make Them feel what woe the Almighty can inflict, And the all-feeble suffer, and not be Annihilated as they would. Be sure That this is Hell. The blood which hath embrued Earth’s breast, since first men met in war, may hope Yet to be formed again and reascend, Each drop its individual vein; the foam-bubble, Sun-drawn out of the sea into the clouds, To scale the cataract down which it fell, Or seek its primal source in earth’s hot heart; But for the lost to rise to or regain Heaven, or to hope it, is impossible.

Festus

Are all these angels then, or men, or both? Or mortals of all worlds?

Lucifer

Immortals all.

Festus

What numbers!

Lucifer