Festus

or lips but those beneath?
Doth love not weigh the world’s vast lie?
Doth life not death? Festus

I ask why man should suffer death?

Lucifer

Answer⁠—what right to life hath he?
God gives and takes away your breath:
What more have ye?
Breath is your life, and life your soul;
Ye have it warm from His kind hands:
Then yield it back to the great Whole
When He demands.
Why, deathling, wilt thou long for Heaven?
Why seek a bright but blinding way?
Go, thank thy God that He hath given
Night upon day:
Go, thank thy God that thou hast lived,
And ask no more: ’tis all He gave:
’Tis all there needs to be believed⁠—
God and the grave.

Festus

For Thee, God, will I save my heart;
For Thee my nature’s honour keep;
Then, soul and body, all or part⁠—
Rest, wake, or sleep!

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.

XVIII

Scene⁠—Heaven.

	Lucifer and Festus, entering.
The Archangels	Infinite God! Thy will is done: The world’s last sand is all but run: The night is feeding on the sun.
Lucifer	All-being God! I come to Thee again, Nor come alone. Mortality is here. Thou bad’st me do my will, and I have dared To do it. I have brought him up to Heaven;
God	Thou canst not do what is not willed to be. Suns are made up of atoms, Heaven of souls; And souls and suns are but the atoms of The body I, God, dwell in. What wilt thou With him who is here with thee?
Lucifer	Show him God.
God	No being, upon part of whom the curse Of death rests⁠—were it only on his shadow, Can look on God and live.
Lucifer	Look, Festus, look!
Festus	Eternal fountain of the Infinite, On whose life-tide the stars seem strown like bubbles, Forgive me that an atomie of being Hath sought to see its Maker face to face. I have seen all Thy works and wonders, passed From star to star, from space to space, and feel That to see all which can be seen is nothing, And not to look on Thee the Invisible. The spirits that I met all seemed to say, As on they sped upon their starward course, And slackened their lightning wings on moment o’er me, I could not look on God whate’er I was. And Thou didst give this spirit at my side Power to make me more than them immortal. So when we had winged through Thy wide world of things, And seen stars made and saved, destroyed and judged, I said⁠—and trembled lest Thou shouldst not hear me, And make Thyself right ready to forgive, I will see God, before I die, in Heaven. Forgive me, Lord!
God	Rise, mortal! look on me.
Festus	Oh! I see nothing but like dazzling darkness.
Lucifer	I knew how it would be. I am away.
Festus	I am Thy creature, God! oh, slay me not, But let some angel take me, or I die.
Genius	Come hither, Festus.
	Who art thou?
Genius	I