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Festus and Helen. |
| Helen |
Come to the light, love! Let me look on thee!
Let me make sure I have thee. Is it thou?
Is this thy hand? Are these thy velvet lips—
Thy lips so lovable? Nay, speak not yet!
For oft as I have dreamed of thee, it was
Thy speaking woke me. I will dream no more.
Am I alive? And do I really look
Upon these soft and sea-blue eyes of thine,
Wherein I half believe I can espy
The riches of the sea? These dark rolled looks!
Oh God! art Thou not glad, too, he is here!—
Where hast thou been so long? Never to hear,
Never to see, nor see one who had seen thee—
Come now, confess it was not kind to treat
Me in this manner.
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| Festus |
I confess, my love,
But I have been where neither tongue, nor pen,
Nor hand could give thee token where I was;
And seen, but ’tis enough! I see thee now.
I would rather look upon thy shadow there,
Than Heaven’s bright thrones for ever.
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| Helen |
Where hast been?
|
| Festus |
Say, am I altered?
|
| Helen |
Nowise.
|
| Festus |
It is well.
Then in the resurrection we may know
Each other. I have been among the worlds,
Angels and spirits bodiless.
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| Helen |
Great God!
Can it be so?
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| Festus |
It is:—and that both here
And elsewhere. When the stars come, thou shalt see
The track I travelled through the light of night;
Where I have been, and whence my visitors.
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| Helen |
And thou hast been with angels all the while,
And still dost love me?
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| Festus |
Constantly as now.
But for the time I did devote my soul
To their divine society, I knew
Thou wouldst forgive, yet dared not trust myself
To see thee, or to pen one word, for fear
Thy love should overpower the plan conceived,
And acting, in my mind, of visiting
The spirits in their space-embosomed homes.
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| Helen |
Forgive thee! ’tis a deed which merits love.
And should I not be proud, too, who can say,
For me he left all angels?
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| Festus |
I forethought
So thou wouldst say; but with an offering
Came I provided, even with a trophy
Of love angelic, given me for thee;
For angel bosoms know no jealousy.
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| Helen |
Show me.
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| Festus |
It is of jewels I received
From one who snatched them from the richest wreck
Of matter ever made, the holiest
And most resplendent.
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| Helen |
Why, what could it be?
Jewels are baubles only; whether pearls
From the sea’s lightless depths, or diamonds
Culled from the mountain’s crown, or chrysolith,
Cat’s eye or moonstone, toys are they at best.
Jewels are not of all things in my sight
Most precious.
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| Festus |
Nor in mine. It is in the use
Of which they may be made their value lies;
In the pure thoughts of beauty they call up,
And qualities they emblem. So in that
Thou wearest there, thy cross;—to me it is
Suggestive of bright thoughts and hopes in Him
Whose one great sacrifice availeth all,
Living and dead, through all Eternity.
Not to the wanderer over southern seas
Rises the constellation of the Cross
More lovelily o’er sky and calm blue wave,
Than does to me that bright one on thy breast.
As diamonds are purest of all things,
And but embodied light which fire consumes
And renders back to air, that nought remains—
And as the cross is symbol of our creed,
So let that ornament signify to thee
The faith of Christ, all purity, all light,
Through fervency resolving into Heaven.
Each hath his cross, fair lady, on his heart.
Never may thine be heavier or darker
Than that now on thy breast, so light and bright,
Rising and falling with its bosom-swell.
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| Helen |
I thank thee for that wish, and for the love
Which prompts it—the immeasurable love
I know is mine, and I with none would share.
Forgive me; I have not yet felt my wings.
Now have I not been patient? Let me see
My promised present.
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| Festus |
Look, then—they are here;
Bracelets of chrysoprase.
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| Helen |
Most beautiful!
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| Festus |
Come, let me clasp them, dearest, on thine arms;
For these of those are worthy, and are named
In the foundation stones of the bright city,
Which is to be for the immortal saved,
Their last and blest abode; and such their hue,
The golden green of Paradisal plains
Which lie about it boundlessly, and more
Intensely tinted with the burning beauty
Of God’s eye, which alone doth light that land,
Than our earth’s cold grass garment with the sun;
Though even in the bright, hot, blue-skied East,
Where he doth live the life of light and Heaven;
Where, o’er the mountains, at midday is seen
The morning star, and the moon tans at night
The cheek of careless sleeper. Take them, love.
There are no nobler earthly ornaments
Than jewels of the city of the saved.
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| Helen |
But how are these of that bright city? I
Am eager for their history.
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| Festus |
They are
Thereof prophetically, and have been—
What I will show thee presently, when I
Relate the story of the angel who
Gave them to me.
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| Helen |
Well; I will wait till then,
Or any time thou choosest: ’tis enough
That I believe thee always;—but would know,
If not in me too curious to ask,
How came about these miracles? Hast thou raised
The fiend of fiends, and made a compact dark,
Sealed with thy blood, symbolic of the soul,
Whereby all power is given thee for a time,
All means, all knowledge, to make more secure
Thy spirit’s dread perdition at the end?
I of such awful stories oft have heard,
And the unlawful lore which ruins
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