Festus

love.
Every believer is God’s miracle.
Nothing will stand whose staple is not love;
The love of God, or man, or lovely woman;
The first is scarely touched, the next scarce felt,
The third is desecrated; lift it up;
Redeem it, hallow it, blend the three in one
Great holy work. It shall be read in Heaven
By all the saved of sinners of all time;
Preachers shall point to it, and tell their wards
It is a handful off eternal truth;
Make ye a heartful of it: men shall will
That it be buried with them in their hands:
The young, the gay, the innocent, the brave,
The fair, with soul and body both all love,
Shall run to it with joy; and the old man,
Still hearty in decline, whose happy life
Hath blossomed downwards, like the purple bell-flower,
Closing the book, shall utter lowlily⁠—
Death, thou art infinite, it is life is little.
Believe thou art inspired, and thou art.
Look at the bard and others; never heed
The petty hints of envy. If a fault
It be in bard to deem himself inspired,
’Tis one which hath had many followers
Before him. He is wont to make, unite,
Believe; the world to part, and doubt, and narrow.
That he believes, he utters. What the world
Utters, it trusts not. But the time may come
When all, along with those who seek to raise
Men’s minds, and have enough of pain, without
Suffering from envy, may be God-inspired
To utter truth, and feel like love for men.
Poets are henceforth the world’s teachers. Still
The world is all in sects, which makes one loathe it. Student

The men of mind are mountains, and their heads
Are sunned long ere the rest of earth. I would
Be one such.

Festus

It is well. Burn to be great.
Pay not thy praise to lofty things alone.
The plains are everlasting as the hills.
The bard cannot have two pursuits: aught else
Comes on the mind with the like shock as though
Two worlds had gone to war and met in air.
And now that thou hast heard thus much from one
Not wont to seek, nor give, nor take advice,
Remember, whatsoe’er thou art as man,
Suffer the world, entreat it and forgive.
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
Dear Helen, I will tell the what I love
Next to thee⁠—poesie.

Helen

Can any thing
Be even second to me in thy love?
Doth it not distance all things?

Festus

To say sooth,
I once loved many things ere I met with thee,
My one blue break of beauty in the clouds;
Bending thyself to me as Heaven to earth.

Helen

My love is like the moon, seems now to grow,
And now to lessen; but it is only so
Because thou canst not see it all at once
It knows nor day, nor morrow, like the sun;
Unchangeable as space it shall still be
When yon bright suns, which are themselves but sands
In the great glass of Time, shall be run out.

Festus

Man is but half man without woman; and
As do idolaters their heavenless gods,
We deify the things which we adore.

Helen

Our life is comely as a whole; nay, more,
Like rich brown ringlets, with odd hairs all gold.
We women have four seasons, like the year,
Our spring is in our lightsome girlish days,
When the heart laughs within us for sheer joy;
Ere yet we know what love is or the ill
Of being loved by those whom we love not.
Summer is when we love and are beloved,
And seems short; from its very splendour seems
To pass the quickest; crowned with flowers it flies.
Autumn, when some young thing with tiny hands,
And rosy cheeks, and flossy tendrilled locks,
Is wantoning about us day and night.
And winter is when these we love have perished;
For the heart ices then. And the next spring
Is in another world, if one there be.
Some miss one season, some another; this
Shall have them early, and that late; and yet
The year wear round with all as best it may.
There is no rule for it; but in the main
It is as I have said.

Festus

My life with thee
Is like a song, and the sweet music thou,
Which doth accompany it.

Student

Say, did thy friend
Write aught beside the work thou tell’st of?

Festus

Nothing.
After that, like the burning peak, he fell
Into himself, and was missing ever after.

Student

If not a secret, pray who was he?

Festus

I.

XXI

Scene⁠—Garden and bower by the sea.

	Lucifer and Elissa.
Lucifer	Night comes, world-jewelled, as my bride should be. The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage War with the lines of Darkness; and the moon, Pale ghost of Night, comes haunting the cold earth After the sun’s red sea-death⁠—quietless. Immortal Night! I love thee. Thou and I Are of one seed⁠—the eldest blood of God. He makes; we mar together all things⁠—all But our own selves. Love makes thee cold and tremble, And me all fire. Do off that starry robe; Catch me up to thee. Let us love, and die, And weld our souls together, Night! But here Cometh mine earthly. My Elissa! welcome.
Elissa	Is’t not a lovely, nay, a heavenly eve?
Lucifer	Thy presence only makes it so to me. The moments thou art with me are like stars Peering through my dark life.
Elissa	Nay, speak not so, Or I shall weep, and thou wilt turn away From woman’s tears: yet are they woman’s wealth.
Lucifer	Then keep thy treasures, lady! I would not have The world, if prized at one sad tear of thine. One tear of beauty can outweigh a world Even of sin and sorrow, heavy as this; But beauty cannot sin and should not weep, For she is mortal. Oh! let deathless things Alone weep. Why should aught that dies be sad?
Elissa	The noble mind is oft too generous, And, by protecting, weakens lesser ones; And tears must come of feeling though they quench As oft the light which love lit in the eye.
Lucifer	And thy love ever hangs about my heart Like the pure pearl-wreath which enrings thy brow. I meant not to be mournful. Tel me, now, How thou hast passed the hours since last we met?
Elissa	I have, stayed the livelong day within this bower; It was here that thou did promise me to come⁠— Watching from wanton morn to repentant eve, The self-same roses ope and close;