Festus

blest spirits for whom I died, for whom,
Forefated, fore-atoned for from the first,
All heaven reserves the fullness of its bliss;
Creator and created! witness, both,
How I have loved ye, as God-natured life
Alone can love and suffer! Let the earth
And every orb, the offspring of all air,
Perish; but all I die for, live for me. God

The earth shall not be when her sabbath ends,
In the high close of order.

Lucifer

Heaven, farewell!
Hell is more bearable than nothingness.

Thrones

Thou, God, art Lord of mercy! and Thy thoughts
Are high above the star-dust of the world!

Dominations

Yet o’er the meanest atom reignest Thou
Omnipotent, as o’er the universe!

Powers

Thy might is self-creative, and Thy works,
Immortal, temporal, destructible,
Are ever in Thy sight and blessed there!
The heavens are Thy bosom, and Thine eye
Is high o’er all existence; yea the worlds
Are but Thy shining foot-prints upon space!

Princedoms

Eternal Lord! Thy strength compels the worlds,
And bows the heads of ages; at Thy voice
Their unsubstantial essence wears away.

Virtues

All-favouring God! we glory but in Thee.
Ye Heavens exalt, expand yourselves! they come,
The infinite generations, all Divine,
Of Deity, our brethren and our friends!

Archangels

Thou who hast thousand names, as night hath stars,
Which light Thee up to eye create, yet not
One thousandth part illumine Thy boundlessness,
Nor that abyss of Being ’midst of which
Thy countless wonders constellate themselves;
Thy light, the light we dwell in shall at last
Fulfil the universe, and all be bliss;
The consummation of all ages come.
We praise Thee for Thy mercies, and for this,
The first, and last, and greatest of all boons.

Angels

Thee God! we praise
Through our ne’er sunsetting days,
And Thy just ways,
Divine:
In Thy hand is every spirit,
And the meed the same may merit;
All which all the worlds inherit
Are Thine!
It is not unto creatures given
To scale the purposes of Heaven,
Alway just and kind;
But before Thy mighty breath,
Life and spirit, dust and death,
The boundless All is driven,
Like clouds by wind.

Angel of Earth

Woe! woe at last in Heaven!
Earth to death is given;
The ends of things hang still
Over them as a sky;
Do what we will,
All’s for eternity!

II

Scene⁠—Wood and water⁠—Sunset.

	Festus, alone.
Festus	This is to be a mortal and immortal! To live within a circle⁠—and to be That dark point where the shades of all things around Meet, mix and deepen. All things unto me Show their dark sides! somewhere there must be light. Oh! I feel like a seed in the cold earth; Quickening at heart, and pining for the air! Passion is destiny. The heart is its own Fate. It is well youth’s gold rubs off so soon. The heart gets dizzy with its drunken dance, And the voluptuous vanities of life Enchain, enchant, and cheat my soul no more. My spirit is on edge. I can enjoy Nought which has not the honied sting of sin; That soothing fret which makes the young untried, Longing to be beforehand with their nature, In dreams and loneness cry, they die to live; That wanton whetting of the soul, which while It gives a finer, keener edge for pleasure, Wastes more and dulls the sooner. Rouse thee, heart; Bow of my life thou yet art full of spring! My quiver still hath many purposes. Yet what is worth a thought of all things here? How mean, how miserable every care! How doubtful, too, the system of the mind! And then the ceaseless, changeless, hopeless round Of weariness and heartlessness and woe And vice and vanity! Yet these make life; The life at least I witness if not feel. No matter! we are immortal. How I wish I could love men! for amid all life’s quests There seems but worthy one⁠—to do men good. It matters not how long we live but how. For as the parts of one manhood while here We live in every age: we think and feel And feed upon the coming and the gone As much as on the now time. Man is one: And he hath one great heart. It is thus we feel, With a gigantic throb athwart the sea, Each others’ rights and wrongs; thus are we men. Let us think less of men and more of God! Sometimes the thought comes swiftening over us, Like a small bird winging the still blue air; And then again, at other times, it rises Slow, like a cloud which scales the skies all breathless, And just over head lets itself down on us. Sometimes we feel the wish across the mind Rush, like a rocket tearing up the sky, That we should join with God and give the world The slip: but while we wish, the world turns round, And peeps us in the face⁠—the wanton world; We feel it gently pressing down our arm⁠— The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders; We feel it softly bearing on our side⁠— We feel it touch and thrill us through the body⁠— And we are fools and there’s an end of us. ’Tis a fine thought that sometime end we must. There sets the sun of suns! dies in all fire, Like Asher’s death-great monarch. God of might! We love and live on power. It is spirit’s end. Mind must subdue. To conquer is its life. Why mad’st Thou not one spirit, like the sun, To king the world? And oh! might I have been That sun-mind, how I would have warmed the world To love and worship and bright life!
Lucifer	Suddenly appearing. Not thou! Hadst thou more power die more wouldst thou misuse.
Festus	Who art thou, pray? I saw thee not before. It seems as thou hadst grown out of the air.
Lucifer	Thou knowest me well. Though stranger to thine eye, I am not to thy heart.
Festus	I know thee not.
Lucifer	Come nearer! Look on me! I am above thee; Beneath thee, and around thee, and before thee.
Festus	Why, art thou all things, or dost go through all? A spirit, or embodied blast of air? I feel thou art a spirit.
Lucifer	Yea I am.
Festus	I knew it! I am glad, yet tremble so. What hours upon hours have I longed for this, And hoped that thought or prayer might produce! I have besought the stars, with tears, to send A power unto me; and have set the clouds Until I thought I saw one coming: but The shadowy giant alway thinned away, And I was fated unimmortalized. What shall I