Festus · Scene 14 (2/2) (1/2)
Festus* and Lucifer*.
Festus What a sweet world! Which is this, Lucifer?
Lucifer This is the star of evening and of beauty.
Festus Otherwise Venus. I will stay here.
Lucifer Nay: It is but a visit
Festus Let us look about us. It is Heaven, it must be; aught so beautiful Must, I am sure, have feeling. Cannot worlds live? Least things have life. Why not the greatest, too? An atom is a world, a world an atom Seen relatively: Death an act of Life.
Lucifer This is a world where every loveliest thing Lasts longest; where decay lifts never head Above the grossest forms, and matter here Is all transparent substance; the flower fades not, The beautiful die never, here: Death lies A dreaming⁠—he has nought to do⁠—the babe Plays with his darts. Nought dies but what should die. Here are no earthquakes, storms, nor plagues; no Hell At heart; no floating flood on high. The soil Is ever fresh and fragrant as a rose⁠— The skies, like one wide rainbow, stand on gold⁠— The clouds are light as rose leaves⁠—and the dew, ’Tis of the tears which stars weep, sweet with joy⁠— The air is softer than a loved one’s sigh⁠— The ground is glowing with all priceless ore, And glistening with gems like a bride’s bosom⁠— The trees have silver stems and emerald leaves⁠— The fountains bubble nectar⁠—and the hills Are half alive with light. Yet it is not Heaven.
Festus Oh, how this world should pity man’s! I love To walk earth’s woods when the storm bends his bow, And volleys all his arrows off at once; And when the dead brown branch comes crashing close To my feet, to tread it down, because I feel Decay my foe: and not to triumph’s worse Than not to win. It is wrong to think on earth; But terror hath a beauty even as mildness; And I have felt more pleasure far on earth; When, like a lion or a day of battle, The storm rose, roared, shook out his shaggy mane, And leaped abroad on the world, and lay down red, Licking himself to sleep as it got light; And in the cataract-like tread of a crowd, And its irresistable rush, flooding the green As though it came to doom, than e’er I can Feel in this faery orb of shade and shine. I love earth!
Lucifer Thou art mad to dote on earth When with this sphere of beauty.
Festus It is the blush Of being; surely, too, a maiden world, Unmarred by thee. Touch it not, Lucifer!
Lucifer It is too bright to tarnish.
Festus Didst thou fail?
Lucifer I cannot fail. With me success is nature. I am the cause, means consequence of ill. Thou canst not yet enjoy a sensuous world⁠— Refined though ne’er so little o’er thine own, And yet wouldst enter Heaven. Valhalla’s halls, And sculls o’erbrimmed with mead, Elysian plains⁠— Eden, where life was toilless, and gave man All things to live with, nothing to live for;⁠— The Muslim’s bowers of love, and streams of wine, And palaces of purest adamant, Where dark-eyed houris, with their young white arms, The ever virgin, woo and welcome ye, The Chaldee’s orbs of gold, where dwells the primal Light, Were all too pure to thee; yet shalt thou be Surely in Heaven, ere Death unlock the heart. I said that I would show thee marvels here; For here dwell many angels⁠—many souls Who have run pure through earth, or been made pure By their salvation since. It is a mart Where all the holy spirits of the world Perform sweet interchange, and purchase truth With truth, and love with love. Hither came He, The Son⁠—the Savior of the universe; Not in the stable-state He went to earth⁠— A servant unto slaves; but as a God, Carrying His kingdom with Him, and His Heaven.
Festus Lo, here are spirits! and all seem to love Each other.
Lucifer He hath only half a heart Who loves not all.
Festus Speak for me to some angel. See, here is one, a very soul of beauty: It is the muse. I know her by the lyre Hung on her arm, and eye like fount of fire.
Muse Mortal, approach! I am the holy Muse, Whom all the great and bright of spirit choose⁠— ’Tis I who breathe my soul into the lips Of those great lights whom death nor time eclipse; ’Tis I who wing the loving heart with song, And set its sighs to music on the tongue: It is I who watch, and, with sweet dreams, reward The starry slumbers of the youthful bard; For I love every thing that is sweet and bright. And but this morn, with the first wink of light A sunbeam left the sun, and, as it sped, I followed, watched, and listened what it said: Wherefore, with all this brightness am I given From sun to earth? Am I not fit for Heaven? From God I came once; and, though worlds have passed, Ages, and dooms, yet I am light to the last. Whatever God hath once bent to His will Is sacred; so the world’s to be loved still. What of this swift, this bright, but downward being, Too burning to be borne⁠—too brief for seeing? What is mine aim⁠—mine end? I would not die In dust, or water, or an idiots eye: I would not cease in blood, nor end in fire, Nor light the loveless to their low desire: No; let me perish on the poet’s page, Where he kisses from his beauty’s brow all age; Spelling it fair for aye, and wrinkle scorning, As when first that brow brake on him like a morning. But yet I cannot quit this line I tread, Though it lead and leave me to the eyeless dead: It is mine errand: ’tis for this I come, And live, and die, and go down to my doom. This is my fate⁠—right and bright to speed on. God is His own God: fate and fall are one. Straight from the sun I go, like life from God, Which hits, now on a heaven, now on a clod. But, spite of all, the world’s air warps our way, And crops the roses off the cheek of day; As some false friend, who holds our fall in trust, Oils our decline, and hands us to the dust. Where are the sunbeams gone of the young green earth? Search dust and night: our death makes dear our birth⁠— It said⁠—and saw earth; and one moment more Fell bright beside a vine-shadowed cottage door: In it came⁠—glanced upon a glowing page, Where, youth forestalling and foreshortening age⁠— Weak with the work of thought, a boyish bard, Sat suing night and stars for his reward. The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim, For the first time, as it lit and looked on him: His forehead faded⁠—pale his lip and dry⁠— Hollow his cheek⁠—and fever fed his eye. Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill, Quick with the thunder thought, and lightning will. His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp, Till his pen fluttered like a winged asp, Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips: ’Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse; Nor would he shade one atom of another, To have a sun his slave, a god his brother. The young moon laid her down as one who dies, Knowing that death can be no sacrifice, For that the sun, her god, through nature’s night Shall make her bosom to grow great with light. Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strained His eyes to work the nightness which remained. Vain pain! he could not make the light he wanted, And soon thought’s wizard ring gets disenchanted. When earth was dayed⁠—was morrowed⁠—the first ray Perched on his pen, and diamonded its way;⁠— The sunray that I watched; which, proud to mark The line it loved as deathless, there died dark⁠— Died in the only path it would have trod, Were there as many ways as worlds to God⁠— There, in the eye of God again to burn, As all man’s glory unto God’s must turn. And so may sunbeams ever guide his pen, And God his heart, who lights the morn of men; For this life is but Being’s first faint ray; And sun on sun, and heaven on heaven, make up God’s day. And were there suns in day as stars in night, They would show but like one ray from out His full-sphered light; As but one momentary gleam would fly; Or, as years, the arrows of eternity.
Festus Poets are all who love⁠—who feel great thruths⁠— And tell them; and the truth of truths is love. There was a time⁠—oh, I remember well! When, like a sea-shell with its seaborn strain, My soul aye rang with music of the lyre; And my heart shed its lore as leaves their dew⁠— A honey dew, and throve on what it shed. All things I loved; but song I loved in chief. Imagination is the air of mind; Judgment its earth, and memory its main; Passion its fire. I was at home in Heaven; Swiftlike I lived above: once touching earth, The meanest thing might master me: long wings But baffled. Still and still I harped on song. Oh! to create within the mind is bliss; And, shaping forth the lofty thought, or lovely, We seek not, need not Heaven: and when the thought⁠— Cloudy and shapeless, first forms on the mind, Slow darkening into, some gigantic make, How the heart shakes with pride and fear, as heaven Quakes under its own thunder: or as might, Of old, the mortal mother of a god, When first she saw him lessening up the skies. And I began the toil divine of verse, Which like a burning-bush, doth guest a god. But this was only wing-flapping⁠—not flight; The pawing of the courser ere he win; Till, by degrees, from wrestling with my soul, I gathered strength to keep the fleet thoughts fast, And made them bless me. Yes, there was a time When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart⁠— Were the sole lore I recked of: the great bards Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land, And they who in the holy book are deathless⁠— Men who have vulgarized sublimity, And bought up truth for the nations; parted it, As soldiers lotted once the garb of God⁠— Men who have forged gods⁠—uttered⁠—made them pass: In whose words, to be read with many a heaving Of the heart, is a power, like wind in rain⁠— Sons of the sons of God, who, in olden days, Did leave their passionless Heaven for earth and woman, Brought an immortal to a mortal breast; And, like a rainbow clasping the sweet earth, And melting in the covenant of love, Left here a bright precipitate of soul, Which lives for ever through the lines of men, Flashing, by fits, like fire from an enemy’s front⁠— Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms, Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light⁠— Who make their very follies like their souls; And, like the young moon with a ragged edge, Still, in their imperfection, beautiful⁠— Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths. Like the white nebulous matter between stars, Which, if not lights at least is likest light⁠— Men whom we build our love round like an arch Of triumph, as they pass us on their way To glory and to immortality; Men whose great thoughts possess us like a passion Through every limb and the whole heart; whose words Haunt us as eagles haunt the mountain air; Thoughts which command all coming times and minds, As from a tower a warden⁠—fix themselves Deep in the heart as meteor stones in earth, Dropped from some higher sphere; the words of gods, And fragments of the undeemed tongues of Heaven. Men who walk up to fame as to a friend Or their own house, which from the wrongful heir They have wrested, from the world’s hard hand and gripe⁠— Men who, like Death, all bone, but all unarmed, Have ta’en the giant world by the throat, and thrown him; And made him swear to maintain their name and fame At peril of his life⁠—who shed great thoughts As easily as an oak looseneth its golden leaves In a kindly largess to the soil it grew on⁠— Whose rich dark ivy thoughts, sunned o’er with love, Flourish around the deathless stems of their names⁠— Whose names are ever on the world’s broad tongue, Like sound upon the falling of a force⁠— Whose words, if winged, are with angels’ wings⁠— Who play upon the heart as on a harp, And make our eyes bright as we speak of them⁠— Whose hearts have a look southwards, and are open To the whole noon of nature⁠—these I have waked And wept o’er, night by night; oft pondering thus: Homer is gone; and where is Jove? and where The rival cities seven? His song outlives Time, tower, and god⁠—all that then was save Heaven.
Muse Yea, but the poor perfections of thine earth Shall be as little as nothing to thee here.
Festus God must be happy, who aye makes; and since Mind’s first of things, who makes from mind is blest O’er men. Thus saith the bard to his work:⁠—I am Thy god, and bid thee live as my God me: I live or die with thee, soul of my soul! Thou camest and went’st, sunlike, from morn to eve: And smiledst fire upon my heaving heart, Like the sun in the sea, tall it arose And dashed about its house all might and mirth, Like ocean’s tongue in Staffa’s stormy cave. Thou art a weakly reed to lean upon; But, like that reed the false one filched from Heaven, Full of immortal fire⁠—immortal as The breath of God’s lips⁠—every breath a soul.
Muse Mortal! the muse is with thee: leave her not.
Festus Once my ambition to another end Stirred, stretched itself, but slept again. I rose And dashed on earth the harp, mine other heart, Which, ringing, brake; its discord ruinous Harmony still; and coldly I rejoiced No other joy I had, wormlike, to feed Upon my ripe resolve. It might not be; The more I strove against, the more I loved it.
Lucifer Come, let as walk along. So say farewell.
Festus I will not.
Muse No; my greeting is forever.
Lucifer Well, well, come on!
Festus Oh! show me that sweet soul Thou brought’st to me the first night that we met. She must be here, where all are good and fair: And thou didst promise me.
Lucifer Is that not she Walking alone, up-looking to thine earth? For, lo! it shineth through the mid-day air.
Festus It is! it is!
Lucifer Well, I will come again. Goes.
Festus Knowest thou me, mine own immortal love? How shall I call thee? Say, what mayest thou be!
Angela I am a spirit, Festus; and I love Thy spirit, and shall love, when once like mine, More than we ever did or can even now. Pure spirits are of Heaven all heavenly. Yet marvel not to meet me in this guise, All radiant like a diamond as it is. We wander in what way we will through all Or any of these worlds, and wheresoe’er We are, there Heaven is, here, and there too, God.
Festus Thou dost remember me.
Angela Ay, every thought And look of love which thou hast lent to me, Comes daily through my memory as stars Wear through the dark.
Festus And thou art happy, love?
Angela Yes: I am happy when I can do good.
Festus To be good is to do good. Who dwell here? Are they all deathless⁠—happy?