Festus · Scene 17

XVII

Scene⁠—Space.
Festus* and Lucifer*.
Festus Listen! I hear the harmonies of Heaven, From sphere to sphere and from the boundless round Re-echoing bliss to those serenest heights Where angels sit and strike their emulous harps, Wreathed round with flowers and diamonded with dew; Such dew as gemmed the everduring blooms Of Eden winterless, or as all night The tree of Life wept from its every leaf Unwithering. And now methinks I hear The music of the murmur of the stream Which through the Bridal City of the Lord Floweth all life for ever; and the breath Through the star-shading branches of that Tree Transplanted now to Heaven, but once on earth, Whose fruit is for all Beings⁠—breathed of God. Oh! breathe on me, inspiring spirit-breath! Oh! flow to me, ye heart-reviving waves; Freshen the faded soul that droops and dies.
Lucifer The universe is but the gate of Heaven. Lo! from this highest orb, the crown of space And footstool unto Heaven, we can look up And gain a glimpse of glory unconceived.
Festus See how yon angels stretch their shining arms, Wave their star-haunting wings which gleam like glass, And locks that look like Morning’s when she comes Triumphant in the East. Is this their joy O’er some world penitent?
Lucifer Lo! there it rides; Blest to discharge on Heaven’s all peaceful shores Its long accumulated load of life, Its deathless freight⁠—pilgrims of time and space. Yon guilty orb of hesitating light Slow looming, there, on its dark path, goes up At the forewritten hour, as do all worlds To God, to judgment; and the earthquake groans Which rend its adamantine breast forebode Its agonizing doom.
Festus And doth not Heaven Grieve with the lost as gladden with the saved?
Lucifer How many immortals mourn at the decree Of righteous wisdom, which alone to them Is bliss sufficient, being infinite?
Festus If God hath made all He alone it is Who hath to answer for all.
Lucifer He hath made. To secondary natures it seems just That justice should be realised, and there Is one example extant in the skies.
Festus But wherefore did it not repent in Time?
Lucifer What unto us is Time, stands before God Eternity. Repentance is the grief For and effectual abstinence from sin, Which secondary natures without God Cannot, attain to.
Festus Cloudy and dear by turns Thy words as Heaven. I know not what to think Nor how to act.
Lucifer It is natural; and none Can aim or hit but as appointed them. There is but one great sinner, Human nature, Predict of every world and predicate: The wicked one, the Enemy of God, To be destroyed in the eternal fire Of His wrath, even thus in Deity⁠— In whom as they begin must all things end. God loveth only His own spirit, so All that is base shall perish. From the first These things were fixed, and are and aye shall be Consummating, and are revealed as writ In words always fulfilled and burning truth Under the buried basements of the skies, Which after overthrown shall reäppear. The unenlightened mind sees Deity In all things, but the spiritual soul All things in God. Now, ere we higher rise, Look downwards from this coping of the world; And know that down to the profoundest depth Of utter space, where not an atom mars The void invisible, it were easier far To cast a line and calculate its rate, Or pierce all space, nor cross the path of light, Than fathom man’s dark heart or sound his soul.