Festus · Scene 14 (2/2) (2/2)

| Angela | All are not: Some err, though rarely⁠—slightly. Spirits sin Only in thought; and they are of a race Higher than thine⁠—have fewer wants and less Temptations⁠—many more joys⁠—greater powers. They need no civil sway: each rules himself⁠— Obeys himself: all live, too, as they choose, And they choose nought but good. They who have come From earth, or other orb, use the same powers, Passions, and purposes, they had e’er death; Although enlarged and freed, to nobler ends, With better means. Here the hard warrior whets The sword of truth, and steels his soul against sin. The fierce and lawless wills which trooped it over His breast⁠—the speared desires that overran The fairest fields of virtue, sleep and lie Like a slain host ’neath snow; he dyes his hands Deep in the blood of evil passions. Mind! There is no passion evil in itself; In Heaven we shall enjoy all to right ends. There sit the perfect women, perfect men;⁠— Minds which control themselves, hearts which indulge Designs of wondrous goodness, but so far Only, as soul extolled to bliss and power Most high, sees fit for each, divinely. Here, The statesman makes new laws for growing worlds, Through their forefated ages. Here, the sage Masters all mysteries, more and more, from day To day, watching the thoughts of men and angels Through moral microscopes; or hails afar, By some vast intellectual instrument, The mighty spirits, good or bad, which range The space of mind; some spreading death and woe On far off worlds⁠—some great with good and life. And here the poet, like that wall of fire In ancient song, surrounds the universe; Lighting himself, where’er he soars or dives, With his own bright brain⁠—this is the poet’s heaven. Here he may realize each form or scene He e’er on earth imagined; or bid dreams Stand fast, and faery palaces appear. Here he has Heaven to hear him; to the which He sings, with manlike voice and song, the love Which lent him his whole strength, as is the wont Of all great spirits and good throughout the world. Oh! happiest of the happy is the bard! Here, too, some pluck the branch of peace wherewith To greet a suffering saint, and show his flood Of woe hath sunken: this I love to do. My love, we shall be happy here. | | Festus | Shall I Ever come here? | | Angela | Thou mayest. I will pray for thee, And watch thee. | | Festus | Thou wilt have, then, need to weep. This heart must run its orbit. Pardon thou Its many sad deflections. It will return To thee and to the primal goal of Heaven. | | Angela | Practice thy spirit to great thoughts and things, That thou mayst start, when here, from vantage ground, We can foretell the future of ourselves, And fateful only to himself is each. | | Festus | I do not fear to die; for, though I change The mode of being, I shall ever be. World after world will fall at my right hand; The glorious future be the past despised: All now that seemeth bright will soon seem dim, And darker grow, like earth, as we approach it; While I still stand upon yon heaven which now Hangs over me. If aught can make me seek Other to be than that lost soul I fear me, It is, that thou lovest me. Heaven were not Heaven Without thee. | | Lucifer | I am here now. Art thou ready? Let us go. | | Angela | Well⁠—farewell. It makes me grieve To bid a loved one back to yon false world⁠— To give up even a mortal unto death. Thou wilt forget me soon, or seek to do. | | Festus | When I forget that the stars shine in air⁠— When I forget that beauty is in stars⁠— When I forget that love with beauty is⁠— Will I forget thee: till then, all things else. Thy love to me was perfect from the first, Even as the rainbow in its native skies: It did not grow: let meaner things mature. | | Angela | The rainbow dies in heaven, and not on earth; But love can never die; from world to world, Up the high wheel of heaven, it lives for aye. Remember that I wait thee, hoping, here. Life is the brief disunion of that nature Which hath been one and same in Heaven ere now, And shall be yet again, renewed by Death. Come to me when thou diest! | | Festus | I will, I will. | | Angela | Then, in each other’s arms, we will waft through space, Spirit in spirit, one! or we will dwell Among these immortal groves; or watch new worlds, As, like the great thoughts of a Maker-mind, They are rounded out of chaos: and we will Be oft on earth with those we love, and help them; For God hath made it lawful for good souls To make souls good; and saints to help the saintly. That thou right soon mayst fold unto thy heart The blissful consciousness of separate Oneness with God, in Him in whom alone The saved are deathless, shall become, for thee, My earliest, earnest, and most constant prayer. Oh! what is dear to creatures of the earth? Life, love, fight, liberty! But dearer far Than all⁠—and oh! an universe more divine⁠— The gift, which God endows his chosen with, Of His own uncreated glory⁠—His Before all worlds, all ages, and reserved Till after all for those He loves and saves. As when the eye first views some Andean chain Of shadowy rolling mountains, based on air, Height upon height, aspiring to the last, Even to Heaven, in sunny snow sheen, up Stretching the angel’s pinions, nor can tell Which be the loftiest nor the loveliest; As when an army, wakening with the sun, Starts to its feet all hope, spear after spear And line on line reundulating light, While night’s dull watchfires reek themselves away, So feels the spirit when it first receives The bright and mountainous mysteries of God, Containing Heaven, moving themselves towards us, In their free greatness, as by ships at sea Come icebergs, pure and pointed as a star Afar off glittering, of invisible Depth, and dissolving in the light above. | | Festus | My prayer shall be that thy prayer be fulfilled. I must to earth again. Farewell, sweet soul! | | Angela | Farewell! I love thee, and will oft be with thee. | | Lucifer | I like earth more than this: I rather love A splendid failing than a petty good; Even as the thunderbolt, whose course is downwards, Is nobler far than any fire which soars. | | Festus | I am determined to be good again⁠— Again? When was I otherwise than ill? Does not sin pour from my soul like dew from earth, And, vapouring up before the face of God, Congregate there in clouds between Heaven and me? What wonder that I lack delight of life? For it is thus⁠—when amid the world’s delights, How warm so’er we feel a moment among them⁠— We find ourselves, when the hot blast hath blown, Prostrate, and weak, and wretched, even as I am. I wish that I could leap from off this star, And dash my soul to atoms like a glass. | | Lucifer | I have done nothing for thee yet. Thou shalt See Heaven, and Hell, and all the sights of space, When’er thou choosest. | | Festus | Not then now. | | Lucifer | Up! rise! | | Festus | No; I’ll be good: and will see none of them. Earth draws us like a loadstone. We are coming. |