Festus · Scene 19 (2/2) (2/2)

| Festus | They speak of what is past or coming, less Of present things or actions. Some say most About the future, others of the gone, The dim traditions of Eternity, Or Time’s first golden moments. One there was⁠— From whose sweet lips elapsed as from a well, Continuously, truths which made my soul As they sank in it, fertile with rich thoughts⁠— Spake to me oft of Heaven, and our talk Was of divine things always⁠—angels, Heaven, Salvation, immortality, and God; The different states of spirits and the kinds Of Being in all orbs, or physical, Or intellectual. I never tired Preferring questions, but at each response My soul drew back, sealike, into its depths To urge another charge on him. This spirit Came to me daily for a long, long time, Whene’er I prayed his presence. Many a world He knew right well which man’s eye never yet Hath marked, nor ever may mark while on earth; Yet grew his knowledge every time he came. His thoughts all great and solemn and serene, Like the immensest features of an orb, Whose eyes are blue seas, and whose clear broad brow, Some cultured continent, came ever round From truth to truth⁠—day bringing as they came. He was to me an all-explaining spirit, Teaching divine things by analogy With mortal and material. Thus of God, He showed, as the three primal rays make one Sole beam of Light, so the three Persons make One God; neither without the other is. However bright or beautiful itself The theme he touched, he made it more so by His own light, like a fire-fly on a flower. And one of all I knew the most of, yet The least can say of him; for full oft Our thoughts drown speech, like to a foaming force, Which thunders down the echo it creates. Yet must I somewhat tell of him. He was The spirit evil of the universe, Impersonate. Oh, strange and wild to know! Perdition and destruction dwelt in him, Like to a pair of eagles in one nest. Hollow and wasteful as a whirlwind was His soul; his heart as earthquake, and engulfed World upon world. In him they disappeared As might a morsel in a lion’s maw, The world which met him rolled aside to let him Pass on his piercing path. His eyeballs burned Revolving lightnings like a world on fire; Their very night was fatal as the shade Of Death’s dark valley. And his space-spread wings⁠— Wide as the wings of Darkness when she rose Scowling, and backing upwards, as the sun, Giant of Light, first donned his burning crown, Gladdening all Heaven with bis inaugural smile⁠— Were stained with the blood of many a starry world: Yea, I have seen him seize upon an orb, And cast it careless into worldless space, As I might cast a pebble in the sea. His might upon Ibis earth was wondrous most. He stood a match for mountains. Ocean’s depths He clove unto their rock-bed, as a sword, Through blood and muscle to the central bone, With one swoop of his arm. His brow was pale⁠— Pale as the life-blood of the undying worm Which writhes around its frame of vital fire. His voice blew like the desolating gust Which strips the trees, and strews the earth with death. His words were ever like a wheel of fire, Rolling and burning this way now, now that: Now whirling forth a blinding beam, now soft And deep as Heaven’s own luminous blue⁠—and now Like to a oonqueror’s chariot wheel they came, Sodden with blood and slow, revolving death: And every tone fell on the ear and heart, Heavy and harsh and startling, like the first Handful of mould cast on the coffined dead, As though he claimed them his. | | Lucifer | Entering. Dost recognize The portrait, lady? | | Helen | Festus! who is this? What portrait?⁠— | | Festus | Wherefore comest thou? Did I not Claim privacy one evening? | | Lucifer | Why, indeed⁠— I simply called, as I was on my way To Jupiter⁠—and he’s a mouthful, mind;⁠— To keep the proverbs, too, in countenance. Any commands for our planetary friends? I go. Make my excuses! Goes. | | Festus | A mistake, Dearest; but rectified. Apart. And he is gone! Hell hath its own again. Some sorrow chills Ever the spirit, like a cloudlet nursed In the star-giant’s bosom. | | Helen | Tell me, love, More of these angels! | | Festus | There was one I loved Of those immortals, of a lofty air, Dimly divine and sad, and side by side Him whom I spake of first she oft would stand With her fair form⁠—shadow illuminate⁠— Like to the dark moon in the young one’s arms. She never murmured at the doom which made The sorrow that contained her, as the air Infolds the orb whereon we dwell, but spake Of God’s will alway as most good and wise. She had but little pleasure; but her all, Such as it was, was in devising plans Of bliss to come, or in the tales of Time And the sweet early earth. She was in truth, Our earth’s own angel. Ofttimes would she dwell With long and luminous sweetness on her theme, Unwearying, unpausing, as a world. The sun would rise and set; the soul-like moon, In passive beauty and receptive light⁠— Absorbing inspiration from the sun, As doth from God His prophet ceaselessly⁠— She too would rise and set; and the far stars, The third estate of Light, complete the round Of the divine day;⁠—still our angel spake, And still I listened to the eloquent tongue Which e’en on earth retained the tone of Heaven. The shadow of a cloud upon a lake, O’er which the wind hath all day held his breath, Is not more calm and fair than her dear face⁠— So sweetly sad and so consolingly, When she spake even on the end of earth. Save that her eye grew darker, and her brow Brighter with thought, as with galactic light Mid Heaven when clearest, at such times, not I Had known that earth were dearer unto her Than other of the visitants divine, Which hallow oft mine hours;⁠—save, too, that then, As though to touch but on that topic had, Torpedo-like, numbed thought, she would straight cease All converse suddenly, and kneel and seem Inwardly praying with much power⁠—rise, And vanish into Heaven. My mind is full Of stories she hath told me of our world. No word an angel utters lose I ever. One I will tell thee now. | | Helen | Do! let me hear! Thy talk is the sweet extract of all speech, And holds mine ear in blissful slavery. | | Festus | ’Twas on a lovely summer afternoon, Close by the grassy marge of a deep tarn, Nigh halfway up a mountain, that we stood, I and the angel, when she told me this. Above us rose the grey rocks, by our side Forests of pines, and the bright breaking wavelets Came crowding, dancing to the brink, like thoughts Unto our lips. Before us shone the sun. The angel waved her hand ere she began, As bidding earth be still. The birds ceased singing And the trees breathing, and the lake smoothed down Each shining wrinkle and the wind drew off. Time leant him o’er his scythe and, listening, wept. The circling world reined in her lightning pace A moment; Ocean hushed his snow-maned steeds, And a cloud hid the sun, as does the face A meditative hand: then spake she thus:⁠— Scarce had the sweet song of the morning stars, Which rang through space at the first sign of life Our earth gave, springing from the lap of God On to her orbit, when from Heaven Came down a white-winged host; and in the east, Where Eden’s Pleasance was, first furled their wings, Alighting like to snowflakes. There they built, Out of the riches of the soil around, A house to God. There were the ruby rocks, And there, in blocks, the quarried diamonds lay; Opal and emerald mountain, amethyst, Sapphire and chrysoprase, and jacinth stood With the still action of a star, all light, Like sea-based icebergs, blinding. These, with tools Tempered in Heaven, the band angelic wrought, And raised, and fitted, having first laid down The deep foundations of the holy dome On bright and beaten gold; and all the while A song of glory hovered round the work Like rainbow round a fountain. Day and night Went on the hallowed labor till ’twas done. And yet but thrice the sun set, and but thrice The moon arose; so quick is work divine. Tower, and roof, and pinnacle, without, Were solid diamond. Within, the dome Was eyeblue sapphire, sown with gold-bright stars And clustering constellations; the wide floor All emerald, earthlike, veined with gold and silver, Marble and mineral of every hue And marvellous quality, the meanest thing, Where all things were magnificent, was gold⁠— The plainest. The high altar there was shaped Out of one ruby heartlike. Columned round With alabaster pure was all. And now So high and bright it shone in the midday light, It could be seen from Heaven. Upon their thrones The sun-eyed angels hailed it, and there rose A hurricane of blissfulness in Heaven, Which echoed for a thousand years. One dark, One solitary and foreseeing thought, Passed, like a planet’s transit o’er the sun, Across the brow of God; but soon he smiled Towards earth, and that smile did consecrate The temple to Himself. And they who built Bowed themselves down and worshipped in its walls. High on the front were writ these words⁠—to God! The heavenly built this for the earthly ones, That in his worship both might mix on earth, As afterward they hoped to do in Heaven. Had man stood good in £den this had been: He fell and Eden vanished. The bright place Reared by the angels of all precious things, For the joint worship of the sons of earth And Heaven, fell with him, on the very day He should have met God and His angels there⁠— The very day he disobeyed and joined The host of death blackbannered, Eden fell; The groves and grounds, which God the Lord’s own feet Had hallowed; the all-hued and odorous bowers Where angels wandered, wishing them in Heaven; The trees of life and knowledge⁠—trees of death And madness, as they proved to man⁠—all fell; And that bright fane fell first. No death-doomed eye Gazed on its glory. Earthquakes gulped it down. The Temple of the Angels, vast enough To hold air nations worshipping at once, Lay in its grave; the cherubs’ flaming swords The sole sad torches of its funeral. Till at the flood, when the world’s giant heart Burst like a shell, it scattered east and west, And far and wide, among less noble ruins, The fragments of that angel-builded fane, Which was in Eden, and of which all stones That now are precious, were; and still shall be, Gathered again unto a happier end, In the pure City of the Son of God, And temple yet to be rebuilt in Zion; Which, though once overthrown, and once again Torn down to its foundations, in the quick Of earth, shall soul-like yet re-rise from ruin⁠— High, holy, happy, stainless as a star, Imperishable as eternity. —The angel ended; and the winds, waves, clouds, The sun, the woods, and merry birds went on As theretofore, in brightness, strength and music. One scarce could think that earth at all had fallen, To look upon her beauty. If the brand Of sin were on her brow, it was surely hid In natural art from every eye but God’s. All things seemed innocence and happiness. I was all thanks. And look! the angel said, Take these, and give to one thou lovest best: Mine own hands saved from them the shining ruin Whereof I have late told thee; and she gave What now are greenly glowing on thine arms. Ere I could answer, she was up, star-high! Winging her way through Heaven. | | Helen | How shall I thank thee Enough, or that kind angel who hath made The gift to me dear doubly? I shall be Afraid almost to wear them, but would not Part with them for the treasures of all worlds. How show my thanks? | | Festus | Love me as now, dear beauty! Present or absent always, and ’twill be More than enough of recompense for me. | | Helen | Hast met that angel late-while? | | Festus | I have not. Yet oft methinks I see her, catch a glimpse Of her sun-circling pinions or bright feet Which fitter seem for rainbows than for earth, Or Heaven’s triumphal arch, more firm and pure Than the world’s whitest marble;⁠—see her seated oft On some high snowy cloud-cliff, harp in hand, Singing the sun to sleep as down he lays His head of glory on the rocking deep: And so sing thou to me. | | Helen | There, rest thyself. Sings. Oh! not the diamond starry bright Can so delight my view, As doth the moonstone’s changing light And gleamy glowing hue; Now blue as Heaven, and then anon As golden as the sun, It hath a charm in every change⁠— In brightening, darkening, one. And so with beauty, so with love, And everlasting mind; It takes a tint from Heaven above, And shines as it’s inclined; Or from the sun, or towards the sun, With blind or brilliant eye, And only lights as it reflects The life-light of the sky. He sleeps! The fate of many a gracious moral This, to be stranded on a drowsy ear. |