Festus · Scene 1 (2/2) (1/2)
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! What is the dark abyss of fire, and what The ravenous heights of air, o’er which I reign, In agony of glory, to these seats? The loathsome cavern of the oracle, O’er which ye rise in templed majesty, Filled with the incense of all worshippers, And echoing with the eloquence of God, Which rolls in sunny clouds around the heavens. Yet must I work through world and life my fate; And winding through the wards of human hearts, Steal their incarnate strength. Death does his work In secret and in joy intense, untold, As though an earthquake smacked its mumbling lips O’er some thick peopled city. But for me, Exists nor peace nor pleasure, even here, Where all beside, the very faintest thought, Is rapture. I will speak to God as erst. Father of spirit, as the sun of air! Beginning of all ends, and end of all Beginnings, throughout whole Eternity; From whom Eternity and every power Perfect, and pure cause, is and emanates! Originator without origin! End without end! Creator of all ages, And sabbath of all Being; who hast made All numbers sacred, who art all and one! At whose right hand the wisdom of all worlds Combined, is only fearful foolishness Or inarticulate madness⁠—and Thou, Lord! Maker and Perfecter of all, the one! Being above all Being, God the Life! Who art the way whereon the world proceeds From God, all-making, and whereby returns The ever generated universe!⁠— Who rulest all worlds in the law of light, Thy nature and their own; who art before All ages, angels, blessed, times and worlds! Word that in every world art safe to save All souls, impregned with spirit, God-begot! And Thou eternal spirit-Deity! The sanctifier of the universe! Being, and Life, and spirit, who dost make, Destroyest, recreatest, makest God! God one and Trine! Thou seest me here again; Still, sunlike, though eclipsed, of blinding power And fiery cause, and everness of ill; Behold I bow before Thee; hear Thou me!
God What wouldst thou, Lucifer?
Lucifer There is a youth Among the sons of men I fain would have Given up wholly to me.
God He is thine, To tempt
Lucifer I thank Thee, Lord!
God Upon his soul Thou hast no power. All souls are mine for aye. And I do give thee leave to this that he May know my love is more than all his sin, And prove unto himself that nought but God Can satisfy the soul He maketh great.
Lucifer Thou God art all in one! Thy infinite Bounds Being. Thou hast said the world shall end. The world is perfect, as concerns itself, And all its parts and ends; not as towards Thee. So man is Likest and unlikest God, Of all existence; therefore doth as much Resemble Thee as any act a mind. In him of whom I ask, I seek once more To tempt the living world, and then depart.
The Holy Ghost And I will hallow him to the ends of Heaven, That though he plunge his soul in sin like a sword In water, it shall nowise ding to him. He is of Heaven. All things are known in Heaven, Ere aimed at upon earth. The child is chosen.
Saints Another soul The Holy one Hath chosen out of earth; And there is none Throughout the whole Like worthy of his birth.
Guardian Angel Oh! who hath joy like mine? was I not here When from Thy boundless bosom, as a star Out of the air, that soul was kindled, Lord! And given to me to guard and guide⁠—while both, Mid starry strains out of the depths of Heaven, Fell at Thy feet in worship?⁠—joy of joys! To you, ye saints and angels, let me speak; For ye I see rejoice with me. Ye know What ’tis to triumph o’er temptation, what To fall before it; how the young spirit faints⁠— The virgin tremor, the heart’s ebb and flow, When first some vast temptation calmly comes And states itself before it, like the sun Low looming in the west, above the wave Of wimpling streamlet, ere its waters grow To size aortal. Than the Fiend himself There is no greater evil. Less the shame Of yielding, more the glory of conquering, In him, to whom he goes, this soul elect. From infancy through childhood, up to youth, Have I this soul attended; marked him blest With all the sweet and sacred ties of life;⁠— The prayerful love of parents, pride of friends, Prosperity, and health and ease, the aids Of learning, social converse with the good And gifted, and his heart all-lit with love, Like to the rolling sea with living light;⁠— Hopeful and generous and earnest; rich In commune with high spirits, loving truth And wisdom for their own divinest selves: Tracking the deeds of the world’s glory, or Conning the words of wisdom, Heaven-inspired, As on the soul, in pure effectual ray, The bright, transparent atoms, thought by thought, Fall fixed for evermore. And thus his days, Through sunny noon, or mooned eve, or night Star-armied, shining through the deathless air, All radiantly elapsed, in good or joy. All this, for long, I marked. There grew, at length, A change within his spirit; and I feared A fatal and a final fall from good. God’s love seemed lost upon him. He became Heart-deadened. Watching, warning, vain, I fled Hither to intercede with God our Lord, To bless him with salvation. We may plead Alway for those we love, by leave divine. Nor knew I till this moment, with all Heaven, That, in the righteous providence of God, That soul was saved. Thou knowest, Lord! the mould Of mortals, and the infinite end whereto The souls Thou savest are predestinate; Oh! be Thy mercy mighty to this soul, Fiend-threatened; nor permit him who presides O’er Hell’s eternal holocaust, too far To tempt or tamper with the heart of man!⁠—
God My mercy doth outstretch the universe; Shall it not be sufficient for one soul?
Lucifer I am the wrath of God unto myself, And made by Him to do my part Do thou Thine! they are far enough apart I ween.
Guardian Angel The heaven-strung chords of man’s immortal soul Are not for thee to wither at thy will. Bear witness, all ye blessed, to the word;⁠— Angels, intelligences, sons of God! Ye who know nought but truth, feel nought but love, Will nought but bliss, do nought but righteousness! Whose life was ere the Heavens were conceived, The stars begotten, or the ages born; Ye many ordered hierarchies, which are The love, truth, justice, majesty and might, Dominion, glory, wisdom, bliss of God; Ye through whose ministry of mercy⁠—His Immediate, ever instant, active, all Spirits and worlds are governed⁠—age by age Gazing and gaining glory; ye who stand, Stirless, before the throne, entranced in joy; Or ye, whose life is to present all souls Reborn to their Creator; or to search The golden globed skies for deeds of grace; And ye who move all Heavens, in whose names The name of God is, as in angels’ all; The crown, the wisdom, the intelligence, Kindness, and strength and beauty, splendour, worth, Original and rule; and ye who move Restless around the throne, the burning seven, The virtue, power, salvation, fire and rest, Blessing and praise of God; and ye who rule Regions or kingdoms, states, tribes, families, Ages and times, and seasons, and events; Systems and elements, material powers, Mental and spiritual; or ye who bear Souls from the heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; Ye tenants of the archetypal worlds And spiritual spheres; and you, ye saints! Freed once on earth into the liberty Of the necessity which is of God; Yours are the many multitudes of stars, And bliss and power for ever, ye are gods! And live an endless life, bespoken here; Bear witness, all, that happiness succeeds To godliness; and that, despite of sin, The world may recognise in all time’s scenes, Though belts of clouds bar half its burning disk, The overruling, overthrowing power, Which by our creature purposes works out Its deeds, and by our deeds its purposes.
Lucifer God! for thy glory only can I act, And for thy creatures’ good. When creatures stray Farthest from Thee, then warmest towards them burns Thy love, even as yon sun beams hotliest on The earth when distant most.
God The earth whereon He dwells, this grain selected from the sands Of life, dies with him.
Lucifer God! I go to do Thy will.
God Thou, too, who watchest o’er the world Whose end I fix, prepare to have it judged.
Angel of Earth Let me not then have watched o’er it in vain. From age to age, from hour to hour I still Have hoped it would grow better⁠—hope so now; ’Tis better than it once was, and hath more Of mind and freedom than it ever had. I love it more than ever. Thou didst give It to me as a child. To me earth is Even as the boundless universe to Thee; Nay, more! for Thou couldst make another. It is My world. Take it not from me Lord! Thou, Christ! Mad’st it the altar where thou offeredst up Thyself for the creation. Let it be Immortal as Thy love. And altars are Holy; and sister angels, sister orbs Hail it afar as such. Oh! I have heard World question world and answer; seen them weep Each other if eclipsed for one red hour, And of all worlds most generous was mine, The tenderest and the fairest.
Lucifer Knowest thou not God’s son to be the brother and the friend Of spirit everywhere? Or hath thy soul Been bound for ever to thy foolish world?
Angel Star unto star speaks light, and world to world Repeats the password of the universe To God; the name of Chrifet⁠—the one great word Well worth all languages in earth or Heaven.
Son of God Think not I lived and died for thine alone, And that no other sphere hath hailed me Christ. My life is ever suffering for love. In judging and redeeming worlds is spent Mine everlasting being.
Lucifer Earth he next Will judge; for so saith God.
Angel of Earth Be it not, Lord! Thou art a God of goodness and of love; He is the evil of the universe, And loveth not the earth, Thy Son, nor Thee. Thou knowest best.
Lucifer Behold now all yon worlds! The space each fills shall be its successor. Accept the consolation!
Angel of Earth Earth! oh, Earth!
Lucifer ’Tis earth shall lead destruction; she shall end. The stars shall wonder why she comes no more On her accustomed orbit, and the sun Miss one of his eleven of light; the moon, An orphan orb, shall seek for earth for aye, Through time’s untrodden depths and find her not; No more shall morn, out of the holy east, Stream o’er the amber air her level light; Nor evening, with the spectral fingers, draw Her tar-sprent curtain round the head of earth; Her footsteps never thence again shall grace The blue sublime of heaven. Her grave is dug. I see the stars, night-clad, all gathering In long and dark procession. Death’s at work. And, one by one, shall all yon wandering worlds, Whether in orbed path they roll, or trail, In an inestimable length of light, Their golden train of tresses after them, Cease; and the sun, centre and sire of light, The keystone of the world-built arch of heaven Be left in burning solitude. The stars, Which stand as thick as dewdrops on the fields Of heaven, and all they comprehend, shall pass. The spirits of all worlds shall all depart To their great destinies; and thou and I, Greater in grief than worlds, shall live as now. In hell’s dark annals there is something writ, Which shall amaze man yet There! to thy earth!
Angel of Earth There is a blind world, yet unlit by God, Rolling around the extremest edge of light; Where all things are disaster and decay, The outcast of all being; no one thing Fitting another: that is fit for thee. Be that thy world I but not the living earth. Stretch forth Thy shining shield, oh God! the heavens, Over the prostrate earth, an armed friend, And save her from the swift and violent hell Her beauty hath enchanted! from the wrath Of love like his, oh save her, though by death!
God Destruction and salvation are the hands Upon the face of time. When both unite, The day of death dawns. Every orb exists Unto its preappointed end: and earth, My creature, the elect of worlds, ere all Is saved. The world shall perish as a worm Upon destruction’s path; the universe Evanish like a ghost before the sun, Yea like a doubt before the truth of God, Yet nothing more than death shall perish. Then, Rejoice ye souls of God, regenerate, Ye indwellers divine of Deity; In Him ye are immortal as Himself!
Son of God O’er all things are eternity and change, And special predilection of our God. Thou who createst souls, as the sun clouds, Out of the sea of spirit, sire of both The first and second natures of Thy Son, In whom the maker and the made make one, Deific spirit! who in every world Payeth creation’s penalties; in all, Is heir of God and nature, and in Thee, And in self-worship, Deifies himself! And you blest spirits for whom I died, for whom, Forefated, fore-atoned for from the first, All heaven reserves the fullness of its bliss; Creator and created! witness, both, How I have loved ye, as God-natured life Alone can love and suffer! Let the earth And every orb, the offspring of all air, Perish; but all I die for, live for me.
God The earth shall not be when her sabbath ends, In the high close of order.
Lucifer Heaven, farewell! Hell is more bearable than nothingness.
Thrones Thou, God, art Lord of mercy! and Thy thoughts Are high above the star-dust of the world!
Dominations Yet o’er the meanest atom reignest Thou Omnipotent, as o’er the universe!
Powers Thy might is self-creative, and Thy works, Immortal, temporal, destructible, Are ever in Thy sight and blessed there! The heavens are Thy bosom, and Thine eye Is high o’er all existence; yea the worlds Are but Thy shining foot-prints upon space!
Princedoms Eternal Lord! Thy strength compels the worlds, And bows the heads of ages; at Thy voice Their unsubstantial essence wears away.
Virtues All-favouring God! we glory but in Thee. Ye Heavens exalt, expand yourselves! they come, The infinite generations, all Divine, Of Deity, our brethren and our friends!