Classic Poem

SCENE — A Metropolis — Public Place .

F ESTUS and Lucifer .

F ESTUS . What can be done here?
Lucifer . Oh! a thousand things,
As well as elsewhere.
F ESTUS . True; it is a place
Where passion, occupation, or reflection,
May find fit food or field; but suits not me.
My burden is the spirit, and my life
Is henceforth solely spiritual.
Lucifer . Well; —
At the occurrent season, too, it shall
Be satisfied. It might be even now,
From things about us. But look, here comes a man
Thou knowest well.
F ESTUS . I do. Stop, friend! of late
I have not seen thee. Whither goest thou now?
F RIEND . I am upon my business, and in haste.
F ESTUS . Business' I thought thou wast a simple schemer.
F RIEND . Mayhap I am.
F ESTUS . There is a visionary
Business, as well as visionary faith.
F RIEND . I have been, all life, living in a mine,
Lancing the world for gold. I have not yet
Fingered the right vein. Oh! I often wish
The time would come again, which science prates of,
When earth's bright veins ran ruddy, virgin gold.
F ESTUS . When the world's gold melts, all the poorer metals,
All things less pure, less precious, all beside,
Will vanish; nought be left but gems and gold.
If all were rich, gold would be penniless.
Lucifer . I have a secret I would fain impart
To one who would make right use of it. Now, mark!
Chemists say there are fifty elements,
And more; — wouldst know a ready recipe
For riches? —
F RIEND . That indeed I would, good sir.
Lucifer . Get then these fifty earths, or elements,
Or what not. Mix them up together. Put
All to the question. Tease them well with fire,
Vapor and trituration — every way;
Add the right quantity of lunar rays;
Boil them, and let them cool, and watch what comes.
F RIEND . Thrice greatest Hermes! but it must be; yes!
I'll go and get them; good day, — instantly.[ Goes .
Lucifer . He 'll be astonished, probably.
F ESTUS . He will,
In any issue of the experiment.
Perhaps the nostrum may explode and blow him
Body and soul to atoms and to —
Lucifer . Nonsense!
F ESTUS . There needs no satire on men's rage for gold;
Their nature is the best one, and excuse.
And now what next?
Lucifer . Why let us take our ease
Beside this feathery fountain. It is cool
And pleasant, and the people passing by,
Fit subjects for two moralists like us.
Here we can speculate on policy,
On social manners, fashions, and the news.
Now the political aspect of the world,
At present, is most cheerful. To begin,
Like charity, at home. Out of all wrongs
The most atrocious, the most righteous ends
Are happiest wrought.
F ESTUS . It ofttimes chances so.
Lucifer . Take of the blood of martyrs, tears of slaves,
The groans of prisoned patriots, and the sweat
Wrung from the bones of Famine, like parts. Add
Vapor of orphan's sigh, and wail of all
Whom war hath spoiled, or law first fanged, then gorged; —
The stifled breath of man's free natural thought, —
The tyrant's lies; the curses of the proud:
The usurpations of the lawful heir,
The treasonous rebellions of the wise,
The poor man's patient prayers; and let all these
Simmer, some centuries, o'er the slow red fire
Of human wrath; and there results, at last,
A glorious constitution, and a grand
Totality of nothings; — as we see. —
[ Soldiers pass; Music, etc.
Man is a military animal,
Glories in gunpowder, and loves parade;
Prefers them to all things.
F ESTUS . Of recipes,
Enough! Life's but a sword's length, at the best.
Lucifer . War, war, still war! from age to age, old Time
Hath washed his hands in the heart's blood of Earth.
F ESTUS . Yet fields of death! ye are earth's purest pride;
For what is life to freedom? War must be
While men are what they are; while they have bad
Passions to be roused up; while ruled by men;
While all the powers and treasures of a land
Are at the beck of the ambitious crowd;
While injuries can be inflicted, or
Insults be offered; yea, while rights are worth
Maintaining, freedom keeping, or life having,
So long the sword shall shine; so long shall war
Continue, and the need for war remain.
Lucifer . And yet all war shall cease.
F ESTUS . It must and shall.
Some news seems stirring; what, I know not yet.
Lucifer . Nor I. I heard that one of Saturn's moons
Had flown upon his face and blinded him.
'T was also said, in circles I frequent
At times, his outer ring was falling off.
If I should find, I'll keep it. It might fit
A little finger such as mine, I think.
Poor Saturn! much I doubt he is breaking up.
But for these news, I know not what they be.
Some one perhaps has lit on a new vein
Of stars in Heaven: or cracked one with his teeth,
To look inside it, or made out at last
The circulation of the light; or what
Think'st thou?
F ESTUS . I know not. Ask!
Lucifer . Sir, what's the news?
P ASSER-BY . The news are good news, being none at all.
Lucifer . Your goodness, Sir, I deem of like extent.
We heard the great Bear was confined of twins.
S TRANGER . 'T is not unlikely stars do propagate.
F ESTUS . And so much for civility and news.
This city is one of the world's social poles,
Round which events revolve: here, dial-like,
Time makes no movement but is registered.
Lucifer . Yon gaudy equipage! hast ever seen
A drowning dragon-fly floating down a brook,
Topping the sunny ripples as they rise,
Till in some ambushed eddy it is sucked down
By something underneath. Thus with the rich; —
Their gilding makes their death conspicuous.
F ESTUS . Some men are nobly rich, some nobly poor,
Some the reverse. Rank makes no difference.
Lucifer . The poor may die in swarms unheeded. They
But swell the mass of columned ciphers. Oh,
Ye poor, yo wretched, ye bowed down by woe!
Thank God for something, though it were but this.
He fire, ye ashes!
F ESTUS . Thou art surely mad.
Lucifer . I meant to moralize. I cannot see
A crowd, and not think on the fate of man —
Clinging to error as a dormant bat
To a dead bough. Well, 'tis his own affair.
F ESTUS . All homilies on the sorts and lot of men
Are vain and wearisome. I want to know
No more of human nature. As it is,
I honor it and hate it. Let that do.
Lucifer . Here is a statue to some mighty man
Who beat his name on the drum of the world's ear
Till it was stupefied, and, I suppose,
Not knowing what it was about, reared up
This marble mockery of mortality,
Which shall outlive the memory of the man
And all like him who water earth with blood,
And sow with bones, or any good he did,
As eagles outlive gnats. But never mind!
Why carp at insect sins, or crumb-like crimes?
The world, the great imposture, still succeeds;
Still, in Titanic immortality,
Writhes 'neath the burning mountain of its sins.
F ESTUS . There's an old adage about sin and some one.
The world is not exactly what I thought it,
But pretty nearly so; and after all,
'Tis not so bad as good men make it out,
Nor such a hopeless wretch.
Lucifer . For all the world
Not I would slander it. Dear world, thou art
Of all things under Heaven by me most loved,
The most consistent, the least fallible.
Believe me ever thine affectionate
Lucifer. P. S. Sweet, remember me!
F ESTUS . Wilt go to the cathedral?
Lucifer . No, indeed;
I have just confessed.
F ESTUS . Well, to the concert, then?
Lucifer . Some fifteen hundred thousand million years
Have passed since last I heard a chorus.
F ESTUS . Good!
Lucifer . In sooth, I cannot calculate the time
There are no eras in Eternity.
No ages. Time is as the body, and
Eternity the spirit of existence.
F ESTUS . That would I learn and prove.
Lucifer . The finite soul
Can never learn the Infinite, nor be
Informed by it, unaided.
F ESTUS . Be it so.
What shall we do?
Lucifer . I put myself in your hands.
F ESTUS . Wilt go on 'Change?
Lucifer . I rarely speculate.
Steady receipts are mostly to my taste.
Besides, I spurn the system. Take my arm.
F ESTUS . But something must be done to pass the time.
Lucifer . True; let us pass, then, all time.
F ESTUS . I shall be
Most happy; only show me how.
Lucifer . Why, thus.
I have the power to make thy spirit free
Of its poor frame of flesh, yet not by death, —
And reunite them afterwards! Wilt thou
Intrust thyself to me?
F ESTUS . In God I trust,
And in His word of safety. Have thy will.
Where shall it be effected?
Lucifer . Here and now.
Recline thou calmly on yon marble slab,
As though asleep. The world will miss thee not;
Its complement is perfect. I will mind
That no impertinent meddler troubles there
Thy tranced frame. The brain shall cease its life
Engrossing business, and the living blood,
The wine of life which maketh drunk the soul,
Sleep in the sacred vessels of the heart.
Three steps the sun hath taken from his throne,
Already, downwards, and ere he hath gone,
Who calmeth tempests with his mighty light,
We will return; and till then the bright rain
Of yonder fountain fails not.
F ESTUS . Thus be it!
Come! we are wasting moments here that now
Belong, of right, to immortality,
And to another world.
Lucifer . Prepare! —
F ESTUS . And thou?
Lucifer . I vanish altogether.
F ESTUS . Excellent!
Lucifer . Body and spirit part! —