Festus · Scene 4 (2/2) (2/2)

| Festus | Air! and thou, Wind! Which art the unseen similitude of God The Spirit, His most meet and mightiest sign; The earth with all her steadfastness and strength, Sustaining all, and bound about with chains Of mountains, as is life with mercies, ranging round With all her sister orbs the whole of Heaven, Is not so like the unlikenable One As thou. Ocean is less divine than thee; For although all but limitless, it is yet Visible, many a land not visiting. But thou art, Lovelike, everywhere; o’er earth, O’er ocean triumphing, and aye with clouds, That like the ghost of ocean’s billows roll, Decking or darkening Heaven. The sun’s light Floweth and ebbeth daily like the tides; The moon’s doth grow or lessen, night by night; The stirless stars shine forth by fits and hide, And our companion planets come and go;⁠— And all are known, their laws and liberties. But no man can foreset thy coming, none Reason against thy going; thou art free, The type impalpable of Spirit, thou. Thunder is but a momentary thing, Like a world’s deathrattle, and is like death; And lightning, like the blaze of sin, can blind Only and slay. But what are these to thee, In thine all-present variousness? Now, So light as not to wake the snowiest down Upon the dove’s breast, winning her bright way Calm and sublime as Grace unto the soul, Towards her far native grove; now, stern and strong As ordnance, overturning tree and tower; Cooling the white brows of the peaks of fire⁠— Turning the sea’s broad furrows like a plough⁠— Fanning the fruitening plains, breathing the sweets Of meadows, wandering o’er blinding snows, And sands like sea-beds and the streets of cities, Where men as garnered grain lie heaped together; Freshening the cheeks, and mingling oft the locks Of youth and beauty ’neath star-speaking eve; Swelling the pride of canvas, or, in wrath, Scattering the fleets of nations like dead leaves: In all, the same o’ermastering sightless force, Bowing the highest things of earth to earth, And lifting up the dust unto the stars; Fatelike, confounding reason, and like God’s Spirit, conferring life upon the world⁠— Midst all corruption incorruptible; Monarch of all the elements! hast thou No soft Eolian sylph, with sightless wing, To spare a mortal for an hour? | | Lucifer | Peace, peace! All nature knows that I am with thee here, And that thou need’st no minor minister. To thee I personate the world⁠—its powers, Beliefs, and doubts and practices. | | Festus | Are all Mine invocations fruitless, then? | | Lucifer | They are. Let us enjoy the world! | | Festus | If ’twas God’s will That thou shouldst visit me He shall not send Temptation to my heart in vain. Sweet world! We all still cling to thee. Though thou thyself Passest away, yet men will hanker about thee, Like mad ones by their moping haunts. Men pass, Cleaving to things themselves which pass away, Like leaves on waves. Thus all things pass for ever, Save mind and the mind’s meed. | | Lucifer | Let us too pass! |