Festus

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True;
The worm of the world hath eaten out my heart.

Lucifer

I will renew it in thee. It shall be
The bosom favourite of every beauty,
Even like a rosebud. Thou shalt render happy,
By naming who may love thee. Come with me.

Festus

I have a love on earth, and one in Heaven.

Lucifer

Thou shalt love ten as others love but one!

Festus

Oh! I was glad when something in me said
Come, let us worship beauty! and I bowed;
And went about to find a shrine; but found
None that my soul, when seeing, said enough, to.
Many I met with where I put up prayers,
And had them more than answered; and at such
I worshipped, partly because others did;
Partly because I could not help myself.
But none of these were for me; and away
I went champing and choking in proud pain;
In a burning wrath that not a sea could slake.
So I betook me to the sounding sea;
And overheard its slumberous mutterings
Of a revenge on man; whereat almost
I gladdened, for I felt savage as the sea.
I had only one thing to behold, the sea;
I had only one thing to believe, I loved;
Until that lonesome sameness grew sublime
And darkly beautiful as death, when some
Bright soul regains its star-home, or as Heaven
Just when the stars falter forth, one by one,
Like the first words of love from a maiden’s lips.
There are points from which we can command our life;
When the soul sweeps the future like a glass;
And coming things, full freighted with our fate,
Jut out, dark, on the offing of the mind.
Let them come! Many will go down in sight;
In the billow’s joyous dash of death go down.
At last came love; not whence I sought nor thought it;
As on a ruined and bewildered wight
Rises the roof he meant to have lost for ever.
On came the living vessel of all love;
Terrible in its beauty as a serpent,
Rode down upon me like a ship full sail
And bearing me before it, kept me up
Spite of the drowning speed at which we drave
On, on, until we sank both. Was not this love?

Lucifer

Why, how can I tell? I am not in love;
But I have oft times heard mine angels call
Most piteously on their lost loves in Heaven;
And, as I suffer, I have seen them come;
Seen starlike faces peep between the clouds,
And Hell become a tolerable torment.
Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty;
And by that love they are redeemable;
For in love and beauty they acknowledge good;
And good is God⁠—the great Necessity.
I have not told thee half I will do for thee.
All secrets thou shalt ken⁠—all mysteries construe;
At nothing marvel. All the veins which stretch,
Unsearchable by human eyes, of lore
Most precious, most profound, to thine shall bare
And vulgar lie like dust. The world within,
The world above thee, and the dark domain,
Mine own thou shalt o’er rule; and he alone
Who rightly can esteem such high delights,
He only merits⁠—he alone shall have.

Festus

And if I have shall I be happier?
What is pleasure? What, happiness?

Lucifer

It is that
I vouchsafe to thee.

Festus

Am I tempted thus
Unto my fall?

Lucifer

God wills or lets it be.
How thinkest thou?

Festus

That I will go with thee.

Lucifer

From God I come.

Festus

I do believe thee, spirit.
He will not let thee harm me. Him I love,
And thee I fear not. I Obey Him.

Lucifer

Good.
Both time and case are urgent. Come away!

Festus

Give me a breathing-time to fortify,
Within myself, the promise I have made.

Lucifer

Expect me, then, at midnight, here. Remember,
That thou canst any time repent.

Festus

Ay, true. Goes.

Lucifer

Repentance never yet did aught on earth;
It undoes many good things. Of all men,
Heaven shield me from the wretch who can repent!

III

Scene⁠—Water and wood⁠—Midnight;

	Festus, alone.
Festus	All things are calm, and fair, and passive. Earth Looks as if lulled upon an angel’s lap Into a breathless dewy sleep: so still, That we can only say of things, they be! The lakelet now, no longer vexed with gusts, Replaces on her breast the pictured moon Pearled round with stars. Sweet imaged scene of time To come, perchance, when this vain life o’erspent, Earth may some purer beings’ presence bear; Mayhap even God may walk among His saints, In eminence and brightness like yon moon, Mildly outbeaming all the beads of light Strung o’er night’s proud dark brow. How strangely fair Yon round still star, which looks half suffering from, And half rejoicing in its own strong fire; Making itself a lonelihood of light, Like Deity, where’er in Heaven it dwells. How can the beauty of material things So win the heart and work upon the mind, Unless like-natured with them? Are great things And thoughts of the same blood? They have like effect.
Lucifer	Why doubt on mind? What matter how we call That which all feel to be their noblest part? Even spirits have a better and a worse: For every thing created must have form. Passions they have, somewhat like thine; but less Of grossness and that downwardness of soul Which men have. It is true they have no earth; For what they live on is above themselves.
Festus	There seems a sameness among things; for mind And matter speak, in causes, of one God. The inward and the outward worlds are like; The pure and gross but differ in degree. Tears, feeling’s bright embodied form, are not More pure than dewdrops, Nature’s tears, which she Sheds in her own breast for the fair which die. The sun insists on gladness; but at night, When he is gone, poor Nature loves to weep.
Lucifer	There is less real difference among things Than men imagine. They overlook the mass, But fasten each on so.me particular crumb, Because they feel that they can equal that, Of doctrine, or belief, or party cause.
Festus	That is the madness of the world⁠—and that Would I remove.
Lucifer	It is imbecility, Not madness.
Festus	Oh! the brave and good who serve A worthy cause can only one way fail; By perishing therein. Is it to fail? No; every great or good man’s death is a step Firm set towards their end⁠—the end of being; Which is the good of all and love of God. The world must have great minds, even as