Village Feast, A. Evening -
SCENE — A Village Feast. Evening .
F ESTUS , Lucifer , and O THERS .
F ESTUS . It is getting dark. One has to walk quite close,
To see the pretty faces that we meet.
Lucifer . A disagreeable necessity,
Truly.
F ESTUS . We'll rest upon this bridge. I am tired.
Yon tall slim tree! does it not seem as made
For its place there, a kind of natural maypole? —
Beyond, the lighted stalls stored with the good
Things of our childhood's world, and behind them,
The shouting showman and the clashing cymbal;
The open-doored cottages and blazing hearth, —
The little ones running up with naked feet,
And cake in either hand, to their mother's lap, —
Old and young laughing, schoolboys with their playthings,
Clowns cracking jokes, and lasses with sly eyes,
And the smile settling in their sunflecked cheeks,
Like noon upon the mellow apricot; —
Make up a scene I can for once give in to.
It must please all, the social and the selfish.
Are they not happy?
Lucifer . Why, it matters not.
They seem so: that's enough.
F ESTUS . But not the same.
Lucifer . Yet truth and falsehood meet in seeming, like
The falling leaf and shadow on the pool's face.
And these are joys, like beauty, but skin deep.
F ESTUS . Remove all such and what's the joy of earth?
'T is they create the appetite of life —
Give zest and relish to the lot of millions.
And take the taste for them away — what's left?
A dry ungainly skeleton of soul.
Lucifer . Power is aye above the soul and joy
Below it. Pleasure men prefer to power.
( Children at play .)
F ESTUS . Play away, good ones!
A N OLD M AN . Pity the poor blind man!
F ESTUS . Here is substantial pity.
O LD M AN . Heaven reward you!
F ESTUS . Blind as the blue skies after sunset Blind!
And I am tired of looking on what is.
One might as well see beauty never more.
As look upon it with an empty eye.
I would this world were over. I am tired.
Nought happens but what happens to one's self;
And all hath happened I have wished, and more.
Our pleasures all pass from us, one by one,
With that relief which sighing gives the heart,
Though each sigh leaves it lower. It is sad
To think how few our pleasures really are:
And for the which we risk eternal good.
There's nothing that can satisfy one's self,
Except one's self. Well, it is very sad,
And by the time we come of age we have felt,
In one degree or other, all that age
Can offer. We have reaped our field ere noon.
The rest is reproduction; sowing — reaping —
Losing again. Toil and gain tire alike.
We cannot live too slowly to be good
And happy, nor too much by line and square.
But youth is burning to forestall its nature,
And will not wait for time to ferry it
Over the stream, but flings itself into
The flood, and perishes. And yet, why not?
There is no charm in time as time, nor good.
The long days are no happier than the short ones.
'T is some time now since I was here. We leave
Our home in youth — no matter to what end; —
Study — or strife — or pleasure, or what not:
And coming back in few short years, we find
All as we left it, outside; the old elms,
The house, grass, gates, and latchet's selfsame click.
But lift that latchet, — all is changed as doom:
The servants have forgotten our step, and more
Than half of those who knew us know us not.
Adversity, prosperity, the grave,
Play a round game with friends. On some the world
Hath shot its evil eye, and they are passed
From honor and remembrance, and a stare
Is all the mention of their names receives;
And people know no more of them than of
The shapes of clouds at midnight, a year back.
Lucifer . Let us move on to where the dancing is;
We soon shall see how happy they all are.
Here is a loving couple quarrelling.
And there, another. It is quite distressing.
See yonder. Two men fighting!
F ESTUS . What avail
These vile exceptions to the rule of joy?
Lucifer . Behold the happiness of which thou spakest!
The highest hills are miles below the sky,
And so far is the lightest heart below
True happiness.
F ESTUS . This is a snakelike world,
And always hath its tail within its mouth,
As if it ate itself, and moralled time.
The world is like yon children's merry-go-round;
What men admire are carriages and hobbies,
Which the exalted manikins enjoy.
There is a noisy ragged crowd below
Of urchins drives it round, who only get
The excitement for their pains — best gain perhaps:
For it is not they who labor that grow dizzy
Nor sick — that's for the idle, proud above,
Who soon dismount, more weary of enjoying
Than those below of working; and but fair.
It is wretchedness or recklessness alone
Keeps us alive. Were we happy we should die.
Yet what is death? I like to think on death:
It is but the appearance of an apparition.
One ought to tremble; but oughts stand for nothing.
I hate the thought of wrinkling up to rest;
The toothlike aching ruin of the body,
With the heart all out, and nothing left but edge.
Give me the long high bounding feel of life,
Which cries, let me but leap unto my grave,
And I'll not mind the when nor where. We never
Care less for life than when enjoying it.
Oh! I should love to die. What is to die?
I cannot hold the meaning more than can
An oak's arms clasp the blast that blows on it.
I am made up to die; for having been
Every thing, there is nothing left but nothing
To be again.
Lucifer . Hark! here is a ballad-singer.
B ALLAD-SINGER . All of my own composing!
F ESTUS . Yes, Yes — we know.
Singer . My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
I bless and curse the day
I lost the light of life, and caught
The grief which maketh gray.
Would that the light which blinded me
Had saved me on my way!
My night-haired love! so sweet she was,
So fair and blithe was she;
Her smile was brighter than the moon's,
Her eyes the stars might see.
I met her by her lane-spread tent,
Beside a moss-green stone,
And bade her make, not mock, my fate,
My fortune was her own.
Thou art but yet a boy, she said,
And I a woman grown.
I am a man in love, I cried;
My heart was early manned;
She smiled, and only drooped her eyes,
And then let go my hand.
We stood a minute: neither spake
What each must understand.
I told her, so she would be mine
And follow where I went,
She straight should have a bridal bower
Instead of gipsy tent.
Or would she have me wend with her,
The world between should fall;
For her I would fling up faith and friends,
And name, and fame, and all.
Her smile so bright froze while I spake,
And ice was in her eye;
So near, it seemed ere touch her heart
I might have kissed the sky.
I said that if she loved to rule,
Or if she longed to reign,
I would make her Queen of every race
Which tearlike trode the world's sad face,
Or bleed at every vein.
She laid her finger on her lip,
And pointed to the sky;
There is no God to come, she said:
Dost thou not fear to die?
And what is God, I said, to thee?
Thy people worship not.
The good, the happy, and the free,
She said, they need no God.
I looked until I lost mine eyes;
I felt as though I were
In a dark cave, with one weak light —
The light of life — with her;
And that was wasting fast away;
I watched but would not stir.
Again she took my hand in hers,
And read it o'er and o'er;
Ah! eyes so young, so sweet, I said,
Make as they read love's lore.
She held my hand — I trembled whilst —
For sorely soon I felt
She made the love-cross she foretold,
And all the woe she dealt.
Unhappy I should be, she said,
And young to death be given;
I told her I believed in her,
Not in the stars of Heaven.
Hush! we breathe Heaven, she said, and bowed
And the stars speak through me.
Let Heaven, I cried, take care of Heaven!
I only care for thee.
She shrank: I looked, and begged a kiss:
I knew she had one for me;
She would deny me none, she said,
But give me none would she.
My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
'T is three long years like this,
Since there I gave and got from thee
That meeting, parting kiss.
I saw the tears start in her eye,
And trickle down her cheek,
Like falling stars across the sky,
Escaping from their Maker's eye:
I saw, but spared to speak.
Go, and forget! she said, and slid
Below her lowly tent.
I will not, cannot — hear me, girl!
She heard not, and I went.
At eve, by sunset, I was there,
The tent was there no more;
The fire which warmed her flickered still —
The fire she sat before.
I stood by it, till through the dark
I saw not where it lay;
And then like that my heart went out
In ashy grief and gray.
My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
Oh! let me bless this day;
This day it was I met thee first,
And yet it shall be and is cursed,
For thou hast gone away.
Lucifer . Another, please — not quite so gloomy, friend.
G IRL . I wonder if the tale it tells be true.
Singer . I dare say — but you want a merrier.
Every man's life has its apocrypha;
Mine has, at least. I have said more than need be.
It happened, too, when I was very young.
We never meet such gipsies when we are old;
And yet we more complain of youth than age.
Now, make a ring, good people. Let me breathe!
[ Sings.
Oh! the wee green neuk, the sly green neuk,
The wee sly neuk for me!
Whare the wheat is wavin' bright and brown,
And the wind is fresh and free.
Whare I weave wild weeds, and out o' reeds
Kerve whissles as I lay;
And a douce low voice is murmurin' by
Through the lee-lang simmer day.
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
And whare a' things luik as though they lo'ed
To languish in the sun;
And that if they feed the fire they dree,
They wadna ae pang were gone.
Whare the lift aboon is still as death,
And bright as life can be;
While the douce low voice says, na, na, na!
But ye manna luik sae at me.
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
Whare the lang rank bent is saft and cule,
And freshenin' till the feet;
And the spot is sly, and the spinnie high,
Whare my luve and I mak seat:
And I teaze her till she rins, and then
I catch her roun' the tree;
While the poppies shak' their heids and blush
Let 'em blush till they drap, for me!
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
F ESTUS . And all who know such feelings and such scenes
Will, I am sure, reward you. Here — take this.
O THERS . And this, and this — too.
Singer . Thank ye all, good friends!
F ESTUS . There's much that hath no merit but its truth,
And no excuse but nature. Nature does
Never wrong: 't is society which sins.
Look on the bee upon the wing among flowers;
How brave, how bright his life! Then mark him hived,
Cramped, cringing in his self-built, social cell.
Thus is it in the world-hive: most where men
Lie deep in cities as in drifts — death drifts,
Nosing each other like a flock of sheep;
Not knowing and not caring whence nor whither
They come or go, so that they fool together.
Lucifer . It is quite fair to halve these lives and say
This side is nature's, that society's,
When both are side-views only of one thing.
F ARMER . I am glad to see you come among us, sir.
P ARSON . Why, I have but little comfort in these pastimes;
And any heart, turned Godwards, feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised
By all the feasts on earth since their foundation.
But no one will believe us; as if we
Had never known the vain things of the world,
Nor lain and slept in sin's seducing shade,
Listless, until God woke us; made us feel
We should be up and stirring in the sun;
For every thing had to be done ere night.
What is all this joy and jollity about?
Grant there may be no sin. What good is it?
F ARMER . I can't defend these feasts, sir, and can't blame.
P ARSON . Good evening, friends! Why, Festus! I rejoice
We meet again. I have a young friend here,
A student — who hath staid with us of late.
You would be glad, I know, to know each other.
Therefore be known so.
F ESTUS . You are a student, sir.
S TUDENT . I profess little; but it is a title
A man may claim perhaps with modesty.
F ESTUS . True. All mankind are students. How to live
And how to die forms the great lesson still.
I know what study is: it is to toil
Hard, through the hours of the sad midnight watch,
At tasks which seem a systematic curse,
And course of bootless penance. Night by night,
To trace one's thought as if on iron leaves;
And sorrowful as though it were the mode
And date of death we wrote on our own tombs:
Wring a slight sleep out of the couch, and
The self-same moon, which lit us to our rest,
Her place scarce changed perceptibly in Heaven.
Now light us to renewal of our toils. —
This, to the young mind, wild and all in leaf,
Which knowledge, grafting, paineth. Fruit soon comes,
And more than all our troubles pays us powers;
So that we joy to have endured so much:
That not for nothing have we slaved and slain
Ourselves almost. And more; it is to strive
To bring the mind up to one's own esteem:
Who but the generous fail? It is to think,
While thought is standing thick upon the brain
As dew upon the brow — for thought is brain-sweat;
And gathering quick and dark, like storms in summer,
Until convulsed, condensed, in lightning sport,
It plays upon the heavens of the mind, —
Opens the hemisphered abysses here,
And we become revealers to ourselves.
S TUDENT . When night hath set her silver lamp on high,
Then is the time for study; when Heaven's light
Pours itself on the page, like prophecy
On time, unglooming all its mighty meanings;
It is then we feel the sweet strength of the stars,
And magic of the moon.
Lucifer . It's a bad habit.
S TUDENT . And wisdom dwells in secret and on high,
As do the stars. The sun's diurnal glare
Is for the daily herd; but for the wise,
The cold pure radiance of the night-born light,
Wherewith is inspiration of the truth.
There was a time when I would never go
To rest before the sun rose; and for that,
Through a like length of time as that now gone,
The world shall speak of me six thousand years hence.
Lucifer . How know you that the world wont end to-morrow?
P ARSON . I now, an early riser, love to hail
The dreamy struggles of the stars with light,
And the recovering breath of earth, sleep-drowned,
Awakening to the wisdom of the sun,
And life of light within the tent of Heaven: —
To kiss the feet of Morning as she walks
In dewy light along the hills, while they,
All odorous as an angel's fresh-culled crown,
Unveil to her their bounteous loveliness.
S TUDENT . I am devote to study. Worthy books
Are not companions — they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
The further back we search the human mind, —
Mean in the mass, but in the instance great —
Which starting first with Deities and stars
And broods of beings earth-born, Heaven-begot,
And all the bright side of the broad world, now
Doats upon dreams and dim atomic truths,
Is all for comfort and no more for glory —
The nobler and more marvellous it shows.
Trifles like these make up the present time;
The Iliad and the Pyramids the past.
F ESTUS . The future will have glory not the less.
I can conceive a time when the world shall be
Much better visibly, and when, as far
As social life and its relations tend,
Men, morals, manners shall be lifted up
To a pure height we know not of nor dream; —
When all men's rights and duties shall be clear,
And charitably exercised and borne;
When education, conscience, and good deeds
Shall have just equal sway, and civil claims; —
Great crimes shall be cast out, as were of old
Devils possessing madmen: — Truth shall reign,
Nature shall be rethroned, and man sublimed.
S TUDENT . Oh! then may Heaven come down again to earth;
And dwell with her, as once, like to a friend.
Lucifer . As like each other as a sword and scythe.
Oh! then shall lions mew and lambkins rear!
F ESTUS . And having studied — what next?
S TUDENT . Much I long
To view the capital city of the world.
The mountains, the great cities, and the sea,
Are each an era in the life of youth.
F ESTUS . There to get worldly ways, and thoughts and schemes;
To learn to detect, distrust, despise mankind —
To ken a false factitious glare amid much
That shines with seeming saintlike purity —
To gloss misdeeds — to trifle with great truths —
To pit the brain against the heart, and plead
Wit before wisdom, — these are the world's ways:
It learns us to lose that in crowds which we
Must after seek alone — our innocence;
And when the crowd is gone.
S TUDENT . Not only that:
There all great things are round one. Interests,
Mighty and mountainous of estimate,
Are daily heaped or scattered 'neath the eye.
Great deeds, great thoughts, great schemes, and crimes, and all
Which is in purpose, or in practice, great
Of human nature — there are common things.
Men make themselves be deathless as in spite;
As if they waged some lineal feud with time;
As though their fathers were immortal, too,
And immortality an every-day
Accomplishment.
F ESTUS . Fie! fie! 't is more for this:
Amid gayer people and more wanton ways,
To give a loose to all the lists of youth —
To train your passion flowers high ahead,
And bind them on your brow as others do.
The mornlit revel and the shameless mate —
The tabled hues of darkness and of blood —
The published bosom and the crowning smile —
The cup excessive; and if aught there be
More vain than these or wanton — that to have —
Have all but always in intent, effect,
Or fact. Nay, nay, deny it not: I know.
Youth hath a strange and strong desire to try
All feelings on the heart: it is very wrong,
And dangerous, and deadly: strive against it
S TUDENT . It might be some old sage was warning us.
F ESTUS . Youth might be wise. We suffer less from pains
Than pleasures.
S TUDENT . I should like to see the world,
And gain that knowledge which is —
F ESTUS . Barrener
Than ice; possessing and producing nought
But means and forms of death or vanity.
The world is just as hollow as an eggshell.
It is a surface, not a solid, mind:
And all this boasted knowledge of the world
To me seems but to mean acquaintance with
Low things, or evil, or indifferent.
F ARMER . Much more is said of knowledge than it's worth.
A man may gain all knowledge here, and yet
Be, after death, as much in the dark as I.
Lucifer . What makes you know of living after death?
F ARMER . Why, nothing that I know; and there it is, —
But something I am told has told me so.
No angel ever came to me to prove it;
And all my friends have died, and left no ghosts.
F ESTUS . All that is good a man may learn from himself;
And much, too, that is bad.
P ARSON . Nay, let me speak!
Aught that is good the soul receives of God
When He hath made it His; and until then
Man cannot know, nor do, nor be, aught good.
Oh! there is nought on earth worth being known
But God and our own souls — the God we have
Within our hearts; for it is not the hope,
Nor faith, nor fear, nor notions others have
Of God can serve us, but the sense and soul
We have of Him within us; and, for men,
God loves us men each individually,
And deals with us in order, soul by soul.
Lucifer . What are your politics?
F ARMER . I have none
Lucifer . Good.
F ARMER . I have my thoughts. I am no party man.
I care for measures more than men, but think
Some little may depend upon the men;
Something in fires depends upon the grate.
F IRST B OY . What are your colors?
S ECOND . Blue as Heaven.
T HIRD . And mine
Are yellow as the sun.
F IRST . Mine, green as grass.
S ECOND . Green's forsaken, and yellow's forsworn,
And blue's the color that shall be worn.
S TUDENT . As to religion, politics, law, and war
But little need be said. All are required,
And all are well enough. Of liberty,
And slavery, and tyranny we hear
Much; but the human mind affects extremes.
The heart is in the middle of the system;
And all affections gather round the truth,
The moderated joys and woes of life.
I love my God, my country, kind and kin,
Nor would I see a dog wronged of his bone.
My country! if a wretch should e'er arise,
Out of thy countless sons, who would curtail
Thy freedom, dim thy glory, — while he lives
May all earth's peoples curse him — for of all
Hast thou secured the blessing; — and if one
Exist who would not arm for liberty,
Be he too cursed living, and when dead,
Let him be buried downwards, with his face
Looking to Hell, and o'er his coward grave
The hare skulk in her form.
Lucifer . Nay, gently, friend.
Curse nothing, not the Devil. He's beside you —
For aught you know.
S TUDENT . I neither know nor care.
( They pass some card-players .)
F ESTUS . Kings, queens, knaves, tens would trick the world away,
And it were not, now and then, for some brave ace.
S TUDENT . You see yon wretched, starved old man; his brow
Grooved out with wrinkles, like the brown dry sand
The tide of life is leaving?
Lucifer . Yes, I see him.
S TUDENT . Last week he thought he was about to die;
So he bade gold be strewn beneath his pillow,
Gold on a chest that he might lie and see,
And gold put in a basin on his bed,
That he might dabble with his fingers in.
He's going now to grope for pence or pins.
He never gave a pin's worth in his life.
What would you do to him?
Lucifer . I would have him wrought
Into a living wire, which, beaten out,
Might make a golden network for the world;
Then melt him inch by inch and hell by hell,
Where is the law of wrath.
S TUDENT . Oh, charity!
It is a thought the Devil might be proud of —
Once and away. Misers and spendthrifts may
Torment each other in the world to come.
F ESTUS . Men look on death as lightning, always far
Off, or in Heaven. They know not it is in
Themselves, a strong and inward tendency,
The soul of every atom, every hair:
That nature's infinite electric life,
Escaping from each isolated frame,
Up out of earth, or down from Heaven, becomes
To each its proper death, and adds itself
Thus to the great reünion of the whole.
There is a man in mourning! What does he here?
S TUDENT . He has just buried the only friend he had,
And now comes hither to enjoy himself.
F ESTUS . Why will we dedicate the dead to God,
And not ourselves, the living? Oft we speak,
With tears of joy and trust, of some dear friend
As surely up in Heaven; while that same soul,
For aught we know, may be shuddering even in Hell
To hear his name named; or there may be no
Soul in the case — and the fat icy worm,
Give him a tongue, can tell us all about him.
S TUDENT . Here is music. Stay. That simple melody
Comes on the heart like infant innocence —
Pure feeling pure; while yet the new-bodied soul
Is swinging to the motion of the heavens,
And scarce hath caught, as yet, earth's backening course.
F ESTUS . The heart is formed as earth was — its first age
Formless and void, and fit but for itself;
Then feelings half alive, just organized,
Come next, — then creeping sports and purposes, —
Then animal desires, delights, and loves —
For love is the first and granite-like effect
Of things — the longest and the highest; next
The wild and winged desires, youth's saurian schemes,
Which creep and fly by turns; which kill, and eat,
And do disgorge each other: comes at length
The mould of perfect matchless manhood — then
Woman divides the heart, and multiplies it.
The insipldity of innocence
Palls: it is guilty, happy, and undone.
A death is laid upon it, and it goes —
Quits its green Eden for the sandy world,
Where it works out its nature, as it may,
In sweat, smiles, blood, tears, cursings, and what not.
And giant sins possess it; and it worships
Works of the hand, head, heart — its own or others —
A creature worship, which excludeth God's:
The less thrusts out the greater. Warning comes,
But the heart fears not — feels not; till at last
Down comes the flood from Heaven; and that heart,
Broken inwards, earthlike, to its central hell;
Or like the bright and burning eye we see
Inly, when pressed hard backwards on the brain,
Ends and begins again — destroyed, is saved.
Every man is the first man to himself,
And Eves are just as plentiful as apples;
Nor do we fall, nor are we saved by proxy.
The Eden we live in is our own heart;
And the first thing we do, of our free choice,
Is sure and necessary to be sin.
Lucifer . The only right men have is to be damned.
What is the good of music, or the beauty?
Music tells no truths.
F ESTUS . Oh! there is nought so sweet
As lying and listening music from the hands,
And singing from the lips, of one we love —
Lips that all others should be turned to. Then
The world would all be love and song; Heaven's harps
And orbs join in: the whole be harmony —
Distinct, yet blended — blending all in one
Long and delicious tremble like a chord.
But to Thee, God! all being is a harp,
Whereon Thou makest mightiest melody.
Hast ever been in love?
S TUDENT . I never was.
F ESTUS . 'T is love which mostly destinates our life.
What makes the world in after life I know not,
For our horizon alters as we age:
Power can only make up for the lack of love —
Power of some sort. The mind at one time grows
So fast, it fails; and then its stretch is more
Than its strength; but, as it opes, love fills it up,
Like to the stamen in the flower of life,
Till for the time we well-nigh grow all love;
And soon we feel the want of one kind heart
To love what's well, and to forgive what's ill,
In us, — that heart we play for at all risks.
S TUDENT . How can the heart which lies embodied deep,
In blood and bone, set like a ruby eye
Into the breast, be made a toy for beauty,
And, vane-like, blown about by every wanton sigh?
How can the soul, the rich star-travelled stranger,
Who here sojourneth only for a purchase,
Risk all the riches of his years of toil,
And his God-vouched inheritance of Heaven,
For one light momentary taste of love?
F ESTUS . It is so; and when once you know the sport —
The crowded pack of passions in full cry —
The sweet deceits, the tempting obstacles —
The smile, the sigh, the tear, and the embrace —
All the delights of love at last in one,
With kisses close as stars in the milky way,
In at the death you cry, though 't were your own!
S TUDENT . Upon my soul, most sound morality!
Nothing is thought of virtue, then, nor judgment?
F ESTUS . Oh! every thing is thought of — but not then,
And — judgment — no! it is nowhere in the field.
S TUDENT . Slow-paced and late arriving, still it comes.
I cannot understand this love; I hear
Of its idolatry, not its respect.
F ESTUS . Respect is what we owe; love what we give.
And men would mostly rather give than pay.
Morality's the right rule for the world,
Nor could society cohere without
Virtue; and there are those whose spirits walk
Abreast of angels and the future, here.
Respect and love thou such.
Lucifer . Of course you wish
Women to love you rather than love them.
It is better. Now, you say you are a student.
All things take study; what more than the face —
Whether your own, or hers you look and long at?
There are many ways to one end: here is one: —
You are good-looking; but that matters little:
It only pleases them. To please yourself
Your face may be as ugly as the — . Well, well;
But you must cultivate yourself: it will pay you.
Study a dimple; work hard at a smile:
The things most delicate require most pains.
Practise the upward — now the sidelong glance —
Now the long passionful unwinking gaze,
Which beats itself at last, and sees air only.
Be restless, and distress yourself for her.
Take up her hand — press it, and pore on it —
Let it drop — snatch it again as though you had
Let slip so much of honor or of Heaven.
Swear — vow by all means — never miss an oath:
If broken, why it only spoils itself;
It is a broken oath and not an whole one.
Frown — toss about — let her lips be for a time:
But steal a kiss at last like fire from Heaven.
Weep if you can, and call the tears heat-drops.
Droop your head — sigh deep — play the fool, in short,
One hour, and she will play the fool for ever.
Mind! it is folly to tell women truth;
They would rather live on lies so they be sweet.
Never be long in one mind to one love.
You change your practice with your subject. All
Differ. But yet, who knows one woman well
By heart, knows all. It is my experience;
And I advise on good authority.
So thank me for my lecture on delusion.
F ESTUS . Time laughs at love. It is a hateful sight,
That bald old gray-beard jeering the boy, Love.
But as to women: that game has two sides.
Passion is from affection; and there is nought
So maddening and so lowering as to have
The worse in passion. Think, when one by one,
Pride, love, and jealousy, and fifty more
Great feelings column up to force a heart.
And all are beaten back — all fail — all fall:
The tower intact: but risk it: we must learn.
To know the world, be wise and be a fool.
The heart will have its swing — the world its way:
Who seeks to stop them, only throws himself down.
We must take as we find: go as they go,
Or stand aside. Let the world have the wall.
How do you think, pray, to get through the world?
S TUDENT . I mean not to get through the world at all,
But over it.
F ESTUS . Aspiring! You will find
The world is all up-hill when we would do;
All down-hill when we suffer. Nay, it will part
Like the Red Sea, so that the poor may pass.
We make our compliments to wretchedness,
And hope the poor want nothing, and are well.
But I mean, what profession will you choose?
Surely you will do something for a name.
S TUDENT . Names are of much more consequence than things.
F ESTUS . Well; here's our honest, all-exhorting friend
The parson — here the doctor. I am sure
The Devil may act as moderator there,
And do mankind some service.
Lucifer . In his way.
S TUDENT . But I care neither for men's souls nor bodies.
F ESTUS . What say you to the law? are you ambitions?
S TUDENT . Nor do I mind for other people's business.
I have no heart for their predicaments:
I am for myself. I measure every thing
By, what is it to me? from which I find
I have but little in common with the mass,
Except my meals and so forth; dress and sleep.
I have that within me I can live upon:
Spider-like, spin my place out anywhere.
F ESTUS . To none of all the arts and sciences, —
Astronomy nor entomology,
Nor gunnery, for instance, then you feel
Attracted heartily and mentally?
S TUDENT . Why no; there are so many rise and fall,
One knows not which to choose. As for the stars,
I never look on them without dismay.
Earth has outrun them in our modern mind,
By worlds of odds. Enough for us, it seems,
And our cold calculators to jot down
Their revolutions, distances, and squares; —
And the bright laws which stars and spirits rule,
Are all laid out and buried grave on grave.
The fourfold worlds and elemental spheres,
Which in concentric circles, like the ring
That the magician stands in, from on high
Give spiritual calling to our earth,
And lord it over her, yet in such wise,
That still by them we may conjoin our souls
Unto the starry spirits of all worlds;
Beyond the changeful mansions of the moon,
Beyond the burning heart of heaven, where dwell
The governors of nature and the blest,
All knowing spirits and celestial,
And divine demons; are all gone — extinct.
There is no danger now of knowing aught
Which ought not to be known. No more of that! —
And you, ye planetary sons of light!
From him who hovereth, moth-like, round the sun
To six-mooned Uranus, Light's loftiest round.
Your aspects, dignities, ascendancies,
Your partile quartiles, and your plastic trines,
And all your Heavenly houses and effects,
Shall meet no more devout expounders here.
You too, ye juried signs, earth's sunny path
Upon her wheeling orbit, all farewell!
Your exaltations and triplicities,
Fiery, airy, and the rest; your falls,
And detriments, and governments, and gifts,
Are all abolished. Henceforth ye shall shine
In vain to man. Diurnal, cardinal,
Nocturnal, equinoctial, hot or dry,
Earthy, or moist, or feminine, or fixed,
Luxurious, violent, bicorporate,
Masculine, barren, and commanding, cold,
Fruitful or watery, or what not, now
It matters nothing. The joy of Jupiter,
The exaltation of the Dragon's head,
The sun's triplicity and glorious
Day house on high, the moon's dim detriment,
And all the starry inclusions of all signs —
Shall rise, and rule, and pass, and no one know
That there are spirit-rulers of all worlds,
Which fraternize with earth, and, though unknown,
Hold in the shining voices of the stars
Communion on high, ever and everywhere. —
The mystic charm of numbers, and the sole
Oneness which is in all, of nature's great
Triadic principle, in all things seen;
In man thus, as composed of thrice three forms
sic first, corporeally, blood,
Body, and bones; next, intellectively,
Imagination, judgment, memory;
And thirdly, spiritually, mind and soul,
And spirit, which unites with God the whole
Being, and comes from and returns to Him, —
Allures no more man's mind debased. Thus, too,
Of alchemy; the golden starry stone,
Invisible, the principle of life,
The quintessence of all the elements,
Is still unbought; — still flows the stream of pearl
Beueath the magic mountain; still the scent
As of a thousand amaranthine wreaths, which lures
All life unto its sweetness, floats around
Mistlike, the shining bath where Luna laves,
Or Sol, bright brother of that mooned maid,
Triumphs in light; — the spiritual sun,
The Heavenly Earth smaragdine, and the fire
Spirit of life, the live land still exist,
Immortally, internally unseen. —
Still breathes the Paradisal air around
The universal whole; the watery fire,
Destructive, yet impalpable to sense,
The initial and conclusion of the world,
Yea, the beginning and the end of Death,
The secret which is shared 'tween God and man,
And which is nature only, wholly, still
In Heavenly gloom incomprehensible
Wait the Deific will; yea, still the light
Whereto all elements contribute, burns
About us and within us, world and soul; —
The primal sperm and matter of the world,
Whose centre is the limit of all things, —
The snowy gold, the star and spirit seed
Which is to render rich and deathless all, —
The self-begot, self-wedded, and self-born,
Which the wind carries in its womb, all have,
And few receive; the spirit of the earth,
The water of immortal life still lives: —
The universal solvent of disease
Still bounds through nature's veins; and still, in fine,
The secrets only to be told by fire
Starry or beamless, central and extreme,
Burn to be born. And other natures may
Use them, and do. In Demogorgon's hall
Still sits the universal mystery
Throned in itself and ministered unto
By its own members: — Man, alas! alone,
The recreant spirit of the universe,
Contemns the operations of the light;
Loves surface-knowledge; calls the crimes of crowds
Virtue: adores the useful vices; licks
The gory dust from off the feet of war,
And swears it food for gods, though fit for fiends
Only: — reversing just the Devil's state
When first he entered on this orb of man's, —
A fallen angel's form, a reptile's soul.
Lucifer . Oh! this is libellous to man and fiend
And brute together.
S TUDENT . All are art and part
Of the same mystic treason. But enough; —
The most material, immaterial
Departments of pure wisdom are despised.
For well we know that, properly prepared,
Souls self-adapted knowledge to receive
Are by the truth desired, illumined; man's
Spirit, extolled, dilated, clarified,
By holy meditation and divine
Lore, fits him to convene with purer powers
Which do unseen surround us aye and gladden
In human good and exaltation; thus
The face of Heaven is not more clear to one,
Than to another outwardly; but one
By strong intention of his soul perceives,
Attracts, unites himself to essences
And elemental spirits of wider range
And more beneficent nature, by whose aid
Occasion, circumstance, futurity
Impress on him their image, and impart
Their secrets to his soul; thus chance and ot
Are sacred things; thus dreams are verities.
But oh! alas for all earth's loftier lore,
And spiritual sympathy of worlds! —
There shall be no more magic nor cabala,
Nor Rosicrucian nor Alchymic lore,
Nor fairy fantasies; no more hobgoblins,
Nor ghosts, nor imps, nor demons. Conjurors,
Enchanters, witches, wizards, shall all die
Hopeless and heirless; their divining arts
Supernal or infernal — dead with them.
And so 't will doubtless be with other things
In time; therefore I will commit my brain
To none of them.
F ESTUS . Perchance 't were wiser not.
Man's heart hath not half uttered itself yet,
And much remains to do as well as say.
The heart is some time ere it finds its focus.
And when it does, with the whole light of nature
Strained through it to a hair's breadth, it but burns
The things beneath it, which it lights to death.
Well, farewell, Mr. Student. May you never
Regret those hours which make the mind, if they
Unmake the body; for the sooner we
Are fit to be all mind, the better. Blest
Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead,
And their great thoughts. Who can mistake great thoughts?
They seize upon the mind — arrest, and search,
And shake it — bow the tall soul as by wind —
Rush over it like rivers over reeds,
Which quaver in the current — turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing, — glorious
But momentary, madness might it last,
And close the soul with Heaven as with a seal!
In lieu of all these things whose lose thou mournest,
If earnestly or not I know not, use
The great and good and true which ever live,
And are all common to pure eyes and true.
Upon the summit of each mountain-thought
Worship thou God; for Deity is seen
From every elevation of the soul.
Study the Light; attempt the high; seek out
The soul's bright path; and since the soul is fire
Of heat intelligential, turn it aye
To the all-Fatherly source of light and life;
Piety purifies the soul to see
Perpetual apparitions of all grace
And power, which to the sight of those who dwell
In ignorant sin are never known. Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw to thy soul,
And centralize the rays which are around
Of the Divinity. Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint by the repellant strength
Of virtue. Think on noble thoughts and deeds,
Ever. Count o'er the rosary of truth;
And practice precepts which are proven wise.
It matters not then what thou fearest. Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast; —
There is a hand above will help thee on.
I am an omnist, and believe in all
Religions, — fragments of one golden world
Yet to be relit in its place in Heaven —
For all are relatively true and false,
As evidence and earnest of the heart
To those who practice, or have faith in them.
The absolutely true religion is
In Heaven only, yea in Deity.
But foremost of all studies, let me not
Forget to bid thee learn Christ's faith by heart.
Study its truths, and practice its behests:
They are the purest, sweetest, peacefullest,
Of all immortal reasons or records:
They will be with thee when all else have gone.
Mind, body, passion, all wear out — not faith,
Nor truth. Keep thy heart cool, or rule its heat
To fixed ends: waste it not upon itself.
Not all the agony of all the damned,
Fused in one pang, vies with that earthquake throb
Which wakens it from waste to let us see
The world rolled by for aye; and that we must
Wait an eternity for our next chance,
Whether it be in Heaven or elsewhere.
S TUDENT . Sir,
I will remember this most grave advice,
And think of you with all respect.
F ESTUS . Well, mind!
The worst men often give the best advice.
Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts
Commend me, friend, to every one you meet:
I am an universal favorite.
Old men admire me deeply for my beauty,
Young women for my genius and strict virtue,
And young men for my modesty and wisdom.
All turn to me, whenever I speak, full-faced,
As planets to the sun, or owls to a rushlight.
Farewell!
S TUDENT . I hope to meet again.
F ESTUS . And I. —
Yonder's a woman singing. Let us hear her.
Singer . In the gray church tower
Were the clear bells ringing
When a maiden sat in her lonely bower
Sadly and lowly singing,
And thus she sang, that maiden fair,
Of the soft blue eyes and the long light hair
This hand hath oft been held by one
Who now is far away;
And here I sit and sigh alone
Through all the weary day.
Oh, when will he I love return!
Oh, when shall I forget to mourn!
Along the dark and dizzy path
Ambition madly runs,
'T is there they say his course he hath,
And therefore love he shuns.
Oh, fame and honor bind his brow,
For so he would be with me now!
In the gray church tower
Were the clear bells ringing,
When a bounding step in that lonely bower
Broke on the maiden singing;
She turned, she saw; oh, happy fair!
For her love who loved her so well was there
Lucifer . And we might trust these youths and maidens fair,
The world was made for nothing but love, love!
Now I think it was made but to be burned.
F ESTUS . And if I love not now, while woman is
All bosom to the young, when shall I love?
Who ever paused on passion's fiery wheel?
Or trembling by the side of her he loved
Whose lightest touch brings all but madness, ever
Stopped coldly short to reckon up his pulse?
The car comes — and we lie — and let it come;
It crushes — kills — what then? It is joy to die.
Enough shall not fool me. I fling the foil
Away. Let me but look on aught which casts
The shadow of a pleasure, and here I bare
A breast which would embrace a bride of fire.
Pleasure — we part not! No! It were easier
To wring God's lightnings from the grasp of God.
I must be mad; but so is all the world.
Folly. It matters not. What is the world
To me? Nought. I am all things to myself.
If my heart thundered, would the world rock?
Well —
Then let the mad world fight its shadow down;
There soon will be nor sun, nor world, nor shadow.
Thou, my blood, my bright red running soul —
Rejoice thou, like a river, in thy rapids!
Rejoice — thou wilt never pale with age, nor thin
But in thy full dark beauty, vein by vein,
Fold by fold, serpent-like, encircling me
Like a stag, sunstruck, top thy bounds and die.
Throb, bubble, sparkle, laugh and leap along!
Make merry while the holidays shall last.
Heart! I could tear thee out, thou fool! thou fool!
And strip thee into shreds upon the wind:
What have I done that thou shouldst serve me thus?
Lucifer . Let us away. We have had enough of this.
F ESTUS . The night is glooming on us. It is the hour
When lovers will speak lowly, for the sake
Of being nigh each other; and when love
Shoots up the eye like morning on the east,
Making amends for the long northern night
They passed ere either knew the other loved.
It is the hour of hearts, when all hearts feel
As they could love to mad death, finding aught
To give back fire; for love, like nature, is
War — sweet war! Arms! To arms! so they be thine,
Woman! Old people may say what they please —
The heart of age is like an emptied wine-cup,
Its life lies in a heel-tap — how can they judge?
'T were a waste of time to ask how they wasted theirs.
But while the blood is bright, breath sweet, skin smooth,
And limbs all made to minister delight —
Ere yet we have shed our locks like trees their leaves,
And we stand staring bare into the air —
He is a fool who is not for love and beauty.
I speak unto the young, for I am of them,
And alway shall be. What are years to me?
Traitors! that vice-like fang the hand ye lick:
Ye fall like small birds beaten by a storm
Against a dead wall, dead. I pity ye.
Oh! that such mean things should raise hope or fear;
Those Titans of the heart, that fight at Heaven
And sleep by fits on fire; whose slightest stir's
An earthquake. I am bound and blest to youth!
Oh! give me to the young — the fair — the free —
The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world
Which came between them and their heart's delight.
None but the brave and beautiful can love.
Oh, for the young heart like a fountain playing!
Flinging its bright, fresh feelings up to the skies
It loves and strives to reach — strives, loves in vain;
It is of earth, and never meant for Heaven.
Let us love both, and die. The sphinx-like heart,
Consistent in its inconsistency,
Loathes life the moment that life's riddle is read:
The knot of our existence is untied,
And we lie loose and useless. Life is had;
And then we sigh, and say, can this be all?
It is not what we thought — it is very well —
But we want something more — there is but death.
And when we have said, and seen, and done, and had,
Enjoyed and suffered, all we have wished and feared —
From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing —
There can come but one more change — try it — death.
Oh! it is great to feel we care for nothing —
That hope, nor love, nor fear, nor aught of earth
Can check the royal lavishment of life;
But like a streamer strown upon the wind,
We fling our souls to fate and to the future.
And to die young is youth's divinest gift, —
To pass from one world fresh into another,
Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret,
And feel the immortal impulse from within
Which makes the coming, life — cry, alway, on!
And follow it while strong — is Heaven's last mercy.
There is a fire-fly in the southern clime
Which shineth only when upon the wing;
So is it with the mind: when once we rest,
We darken. On! said God unto the soul
As to the earth, for ever. On it goes,
A rejoicing native of the infinite —
As a bird of air — an orb of heaven.
F ESTUS , Lucifer , and O THERS .
F ESTUS . It is getting dark. One has to walk quite close,
To see the pretty faces that we meet.
Lucifer . A disagreeable necessity,
Truly.
F ESTUS . We'll rest upon this bridge. I am tired.
Yon tall slim tree! does it not seem as made
For its place there, a kind of natural maypole? —
Beyond, the lighted stalls stored with the good
Things of our childhood's world, and behind them,
The shouting showman and the clashing cymbal;
The open-doored cottages and blazing hearth, —
The little ones running up with naked feet,
And cake in either hand, to their mother's lap, —
Old and young laughing, schoolboys with their playthings,
Clowns cracking jokes, and lasses with sly eyes,
And the smile settling in their sunflecked cheeks,
Like noon upon the mellow apricot; —
Make up a scene I can for once give in to.
It must please all, the social and the selfish.
Are they not happy?
Lucifer . Why, it matters not.
They seem so: that's enough.
F ESTUS . But not the same.
Lucifer . Yet truth and falsehood meet in seeming, like
The falling leaf and shadow on the pool's face.
And these are joys, like beauty, but skin deep.
F ESTUS . Remove all such and what's the joy of earth?
'T is they create the appetite of life —
Give zest and relish to the lot of millions.
And take the taste for them away — what's left?
A dry ungainly skeleton of soul.
Lucifer . Power is aye above the soul and joy
Below it. Pleasure men prefer to power.
( Children at play .)
F ESTUS . Play away, good ones!
A N OLD M AN . Pity the poor blind man!
F ESTUS . Here is substantial pity.
O LD M AN . Heaven reward you!
F ESTUS . Blind as the blue skies after sunset Blind!
And I am tired of looking on what is.
One might as well see beauty never more.
As look upon it with an empty eye.
I would this world were over. I am tired.
Nought happens but what happens to one's self;
And all hath happened I have wished, and more.
Our pleasures all pass from us, one by one,
With that relief which sighing gives the heart,
Though each sigh leaves it lower. It is sad
To think how few our pleasures really are:
And for the which we risk eternal good.
There's nothing that can satisfy one's self,
Except one's self. Well, it is very sad,
And by the time we come of age we have felt,
In one degree or other, all that age
Can offer. We have reaped our field ere noon.
The rest is reproduction; sowing — reaping —
Losing again. Toil and gain tire alike.
We cannot live too slowly to be good
And happy, nor too much by line and square.
But youth is burning to forestall its nature,
And will not wait for time to ferry it
Over the stream, but flings itself into
The flood, and perishes. And yet, why not?
There is no charm in time as time, nor good.
The long days are no happier than the short ones.
'T is some time now since I was here. We leave
Our home in youth — no matter to what end; —
Study — or strife — or pleasure, or what not:
And coming back in few short years, we find
All as we left it, outside; the old elms,
The house, grass, gates, and latchet's selfsame click.
But lift that latchet, — all is changed as doom:
The servants have forgotten our step, and more
Than half of those who knew us know us not.
Adversity, prosperity, the grave,
Play a round game with friends. On some the world
Hath shot its evil eye, and they are passed
From honor and remembrance, and a stare
Is all the mention of their names receives;
And people know no more of them than of
The shapes of clouds at midnight, a year back.
Lucifer . Let us move on to where the dancing is;
We soon shall see how happy they all are.
Here is a loving couple quarrelling.
And there, another. It is quite distressing.
See yonder. Two men fighting!
F ESTUS . What avail
These vile exceptions to the rule of joy?
Lucifer . Behold the happiness of which thou spakest!
The highest hills are miles below the sky,
And so far is the lightest heart below
True happiness.
F ESTUS . This is a snakelike world,
And always hath its tail within its mouth,
As if it ate itself, and moralled time.
The world is like yon children's merry-go-round;
What men admire are carriages and hobbies,
Which the exalted manikins enjoy.
There is a noisy ragged crowd below
Of urchins drives it round, who only get
The excitement for their pains — best gain perhaps:
For it is not they who labor that grow dizzy
Nor sick — that's for the idle, proud above,
Who soon dismount, more weary of enjoying
Than those below of working; and but fair.
It is wretchedness or recklessness alone
Keeps us alive. Were we happy we should die.
Yet what is death? I like to think on death:
It is but the appearance of an apparition.
One ought to tremble; but oughts stand for nothing.
I hate the thought of wrinkling up to rest;
The toothlike aching ruin of the body,
With the heart all out, and nothing left but edge.
Give me the long high bounding feel of life,
Which cries, let me but leap unto my grave,
And I'll not mind the when nor where. We never
Care less for life than when enjoying it.
Oh! I should love to die. What is to die?
I cannot hold the meaning more than can
An oak's arms clasp the blast that blows on it.
I am made up to die; for having been
Every thing, there is nothing left but nothing
To be again.
Lucifer . Hark! here is a ballad-singer.
B ALLAD-SINGER . All of my own composing!
F ESTUS . Yes, Yes — we know.
Singer . My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
I bless and curse the day
I lost the light of life, and caught
The grief which maketh gray.
Would that the light which blinded me
Had saved me on my way!
My night-haired love! so sweet she was,
So fair and blithe was she;
Her smile was brighter than the moon's,
Her eyes the stars might see.
I met her by her lane-spread tent,
Beside a moss-green stone,
And bade her make, not mock, my fate,
My fortune was her own.
Thou art but yet a boy, she said,
And I a woman grown.
I am a man in love, I cried;
My heart was early manned;
She smiled, and only drooped her eyes,
And then let go my hand.
We stood a minute: neither spake
What each must understand.
I told her, so she would be mine
And follow where I went,
She straight should have a bridal bower
Instead of gipsy tent.
Or would she have me wend with her,
The world between should fall;
For her I would fling up faith and friends,
And name, and fame, and all.
Her smile so bright froze while I spake,
And ice was in her eye;
So near, it seemed ere touch her heart
I might have kissed the sky.
I said that if she loved to rule,
Or if she longed to reign,
I would make her Queen of every race
Which tearlike trode the world's sad face,
Or bleed at every vein.
She laid her finger on her lip,
And pointed to the sky;
There is no God to come, she said:
Dost thou not fear to die?
And what is God, I said, to thee?
Thy people worship not.
The good, the happy, and the free,
She said, they need no God.
I looked until I lost mine eyes;
I felt as though I were
In a dark cave, with one weak light —
The light of life — with her;
And that was wasting fast away;
I watched but would not stir.
Again she took my hand in hers,
And read it o'er and o'er;
Ah! eyes so young, so sweet, I said,
Make as they read love's lore.
She held my hand — I trembled whilst —
For sorely soon I felt
She made the love-cross she foretold,
And all the woe she dealt.
Unhappy I should be, she said,
And young to death be given;
I told her I believed in her,
Not in the stars of Heaven.
Hush! we breathe Heaven, she said, and bowed
And the stars speak through me.
Let Heaven, I cried, take care of Heaven!
I only care for thee.
She shrank: I looked, and begged a kiss:
I knew she had one for me;
She would deny me none, she said,
But give me none would she.
My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
'T is three long years like this,
Since there I gave and got from thee
That meeting, parting kiss.
I saw the tears start in her eye,
And trickle down her cheek,
Like falling stars across the sky,
Escaping from their Maker's eye:
I saw, but spared to speak.
Go, and forget! she said, and slid
Below her lowly tent.
I will not, cannot — hear me, girl!
She heard not, and I went.
At eve, by sunset, I was there,
The tent was there no more;
The fire which warmed her flickered still —
The fire she sat before.
I stood by it, till through the dark
I saw not where it lay;
And then like that my heart went out
In ashy grief and gray.
My gipsy maid! my gipsy maid!
Oh! let me bless this day;
This day it was I met thee first,
And yet it shall be and is cursed,
For thou hast gone away.
Lucifer . Another, please — not quite so gloomy, friend.
G IRL . I wonder if the tale it tells be true.
Singer . I dare say — but you want a merrier.
Every man's life has its apocrypha;
Mine has, at least. I have said more than need be.
It happened, too, when I was very young.
We never meet such gipsies when we are old;
And yet we more complain of youth than age.
Now, make a ring, good people. Let me breathe!
[ Sings.
Oh! the wee green neuk, the sly green neuk,
The wee sly neuk for me!
Whare the wheat is wavin' bright and brown,
And the wind is fresh and free.
Whare I weave wild weeds, and out o' reeds
Kerve whissles as I lay;
And a douce low voice is murmurin' by
Through the lee-lang simmer day.
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
And whare a' things luik as though they lo'ed
To languish in the sun;
And that if they feed the fire they dree,
They wadna ae pang were gone.
Whare the lift aboon is still as death,
And bright as life can be;
While the douce low voice says, na, na, na!
But ye manna luik sae at me.
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
Whare the lang rank bent is saft and cule,
And freshenin' till the feet;
And the spot is sly, and the spinnie high,
Whare my luve and I mak seat:
And I teaze her till she rins, and then
I catch her roun' the tree;
While the poppies shak' their heids and blush
Let 'em blush till they drap, for me!
Oh! the wee green neuk, etc.
F ESTUS . And all who know such feelings and such scenes
Will, I am sure, reward you. Here — take this.
O THERS . And this, and this — too.
Singer . Thank ye all, good friends!
F ESTUS . There's much that hath no merit but its truth,
And no excuse but nature. Nature does
Never wrong: 't is society which sins.
Look on the bee upon the wing among flowers;
How brave, how bright his life! Then mark him hived,
Cramped, cringing in his self-built, social cell.
Thus is it in the world-hive: most where men
Lie deep in cities as in drifts — death drifts,
Nosing each other like a flock of sheep;
Not knowing and not caring whence nor whither
They come or go, so that they fool together.
Lucifer . It is quite fair to halve these lives and say
This side is nature's, that society's,
When both are side-views only of one thing.
F ARMER . I am glad to see you come among us, sir.
P ARSON . Why, I have but little comfort in these pastimes;
And any heart, turned Godwards, feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised
By all the feasts on earth since their foundation.
But no one will believe us; as if we
Had never known the vain things of the world,
Nor lain and slept in sin's seducing shade,
Listless, until God woke us; made us feel
We should be up and stirring in the sun;
For every thing had to be done ere night.
What is all this joy and jollity about?
Grant there may be no sin. What good is it?
F ARMER . I can't defend these feasts, sir, and can't blame.
P ARSON . Good evening, friends! Why, Festus! I rejoice
We meet again. I have a young friend here,
A student — who hath staid with us of late.
You would be glad, I know, to know each other.
Therefore be known so.
F ESTUS . You are a student, sir.
S TUDENT . I profess little; but it is a title
A man may claim perhaps with modesty.
F ESTUS . True. All mankind are students. How to live
And how to die forms the great lesson still.
I know what study is: it is to toil
Hard, through the hours of the sad midnight watch,
At tasks which seem a systematic curse,
And course of bootless penance. Night by night,
To trace one's thought as if on iron leaves;
And sorrowful as though it were the mode
And date of death we wrote on our own tombs:
Wring a slight sleep out of the couch, and
The self-same moon, which lit us to our rest,
Her place scarce changed perceptibly in Heaven.
Now light us to renewal of our toils. —
This, to the young mind, wild and all in leaf,
Which knowledge, grafting, paineth. Fruit soon comes,
And more than all our troubles pays us powers;
So that we joy to have endured so much:
That not for nothing have we slaved and slain
Ourselves almost. And more; it is to strive
To bring the mind up to one's own esteem:
Who but the generous fail? It is to think,
While thought is standing thick upon the brain
As dew upon the brow — for thought is brain-sweat;
And gathering quick and dark, like storms in summer,
Until convulsed, condensed, in lightning sport,
It plays upon the heavens of the mind, —
Opens the hemisphered abysses here,
And we become revealers to ourselves.
S TUDENT . When night hath set her silver lamp on high,
Then is the time for study; when Heaven's light
Pours itself on the page, like prophecy
On time, unglooming all its mighty meanings;
It is then we feel the sweet strength of the stars,
And magic of the moon.
Lucifer . It's a bad habit.
S TUDENT . And wisdom dwells in secret and on high,
As do the stars. The sun's diurnal glare
Is for the daily herd; but for the wise,
The cold pure radiance of the night-born light,
Wherewith is inspiration of the truth.
There was a time when I would never go
To rest before the sun rose; and for that,
Through a like length of time as that now gone,
The world shall speak of me six thousand years hence.
Lucifer . How know you that the world wont end to-morrow?
P ARSON . I now, an early riser, love to hail
The dreamy struggles of the stars with light,
And the recovering breath of earth, sleep-drowned,
Awakening to the wisdom of the sun,
And life of light within the tent of Heaven: —
To kiss the feet of Morning as she walks
In dewy light along the hills, while they,
All odorous as an angel's fresh-culled crown,
Unveil to her their bounteous loveliness.
S TUDENT . I am devote to study. Worthy books
Are not companions — they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
The further back we search the human mind, —
Mean in the mass, but in the instance great —
Which starting first with Deities and stars
And broods of beings earth-born, Heaven-begot,
And all the bright side of the broad world, now
Doats upon dreams and dim atomic truths,
Is all for comfort and no more for glory —
The nobler and more marvellous it shows.
Trifles like these make up the present time;
The Iliad and the Pyramids the past.
F ESTUS . The future will have glory not the less.
I can conceive a time when the world shall be
Much better visibly, and when, as far
As social life and its relations tend,
Men, morals, manners shall be lifted up
To a pure height we know not of nor dream; —
When all men's rights and duties shall be clear,
And charitably exercised and borne;
When education, conscience, and good deeds
Shall have just equal sway, and civil claims; —
Great crimes shall be cast out, as were of old
Devils possessing madmen: — Truth shall reign,
Nature shall be rethroned, and man sublimed.
S TUDENT . Oh! then may Heaven come down again to earth;
And dwell with her, as once, like to a friend.
Lucifer . As like each other as a sword and scythe.
Oh! then shall lions mew and lambkins rear!
F ESTUS . And having studied — what next?
S TUDENT . Much I long
To view the capital city of the world.
The mountains, the great cities, and the sea,
Are each an era in the life of youth.
F ESTUS . There to get worldly ways, and thoughts and schemes;
To learn to detect, distrust, despise mankind —
To ken a false factitious glare amid much
That shines with seeming saintlike purity —
To gloss misdeeds — to trifle with great truths —
To pit the brain against the heart, and plead
Wit before wisdom, — these are the world's ways:
It learns us to lose that in crowds which we
Must after seek alone — our innocence;
And when the crowd is gone.
S TUDENT . Not only that:
There all great things are round one. Interests,
Mighty and mountainous of estimate,
Are daily heaped or scattered 'neath the eye.
Great deeds, great thoughts, great schemes, and crimes, and all
Which is in purpose, or in practice, great
Of human nature — there are common things.
Men make themselves be deathless as in spite;
As if they waged some lineal feud with time;
As though their fathers were immortal, too,
And immortality an every-day
Accomplishment.
F ESTUS . Fie! fie! 't is more for this:
Amid gayer people and more wanton ways,
To give a loose to all the lists of youth —
To train your passion flowers high ahead,
And bind them on your brow as others do.
The mornlit revel and the shameless mate —
The tabled hues of darkness and of blood —
The published bosom and the crowning smile —
The cup excessive; and if aught there be
More vain than these or wanton — that to have —
Have all but always in intent, effect,
Or fact. Nay, nay, deny it not: I know.
Youth hath a strange and strong desire to try
All feelings on the heart: it is very wrong,
And dangerous, and deadly: strive against it
S TUDENT . It might be some old sage was warning us.
F ESTUS . Youth might be wise. We suffer less from pains
Than pleasures.
S TUDENT . I should like to see the world,
And gain that knowledge which is —
F ESTUS . Barrener
Than ice; possessing and producing nought
But means and forms of death or vanity.
The world is just as hollow as an eggshell.
It is a surface, not a solid, mind:
And all this boasted knowledge of the world
To me seems but to mean acquaintance with
Low things, or evil, or indifferent.
F ARMER . Much more is said of knowledge than it's worth.
A man may gain all knowledge here, and yet
Be, after death, as much in the dark as I.
Lucifer . What makes you know of living after death?
F ARMER . Why, nothing that I know; and there it is, —
But something I am told has told me so.
No angel ever came to me to prove it;
And all my friends have died, and left no ghosts.
F ESTUS . All that is good a man may learn from himself;
And much, too, that is bad.
P ARSON . Nay, let me speak!
Aught that is good the soul receives of God
When He hath made it His; and until then
Man cannot know, nor do, nor be, aught good.
Oh! there is nought on earth worth being known
But God and our own souls — the God we have
Within our hearts; for it is not the hope,
Nor faith, nor fear, nor notions others have
Of God can serve us, but the sense and soul
We have of Him within us; and, for men,
God loves us men each individually,
And deals with us in order, soul by soul.
Lucifer . What are your politics?
F ARMER . I have none
Lucifer . Good.
F ARMER . I have my thoughts. I am no party man.
I care for measures more than men, but think
Some little may depend upon the men;
Something in fires depends upon the grate.
F IRST B OY . What are your colors?
S ECOND . Blue as Heaven.
T HIRD . And mine
Are yellow as the sun.
F IRST . Mine, green as grass.
S ECOND . Green's forsaken, and yellow's forsworn,
And blue's the color that shall be worn.
S TUDENT . As to religion, politics, law, and war
But little need be said. All are required,
And all are well enough. Of liberty,
And slavery, and tyranny we hear
Much; but the human mind affects extremes.
The heart is in the middle of the system;
And all affections gather round the truth,
The moderated joys and woes of life.
I love my God, my country, kind and kin,
Nor would I see a dog wronged of his bone.
My country! if a wretch should e'er arise,
Out of thy countless sons, who would curtail
Thy freedom, dim thy glory, — while he lives
May all earth's peoples curse him — for of all
Hast thou secured the blessing; — and if one
Exist who would not arm for liberty,
Be he too cursed living, and when dead,
Let him be buried downwards, with his face
Looking to Hell, and o'er his coward grave
The hare skulk in her form.
Lucifer . Nay, gently, friend.
Curse nothing, not the Devil. He's beside you —
For aught you know.
S TUDENT . I neither know nor care.
( They pass some card-players .)
F ESTUS . Kings, queens, knaves, tens would trick the world away,
And it were not, now and then, for some brave ace.
S TUDENT . You see yon wretched, starved old man; his brow
Grooved out with wrinkles, like the brown dry sand
The tide of life is leaving?
Lucifer . Yes, I see him.
S TUDENT . Last week he thought he was about to die;
So he bade gold be strewn beneath his pillow,
Gold on a chest that he might lie and see,
And gold put in a basin on his bed,
That he might dabble with his fingers in.
He's going now to grope for pence or pins.
He never gave a pin's worth in his life.
What would you do to him?
Lucifer . I would have him wrought
Into a living wire, which, beaten out,
Might make a golden network for the world;
Then melt him inch by inch and hell by hell,
Where is the law of wrath.
S TUDENT . Oh, charity!
It is a thought the Devil might be proud of —
Once and away. Misers and spendthrifts may
Torment each other in the world to come.
F ESTUS . Men look on death as lightning, always far
Off, or in Heaven. They know not it is in
Themselves, a strong and inward tendency,
The soul of every atom, every hair:
That nature's infinite electric life,
Escaping from each isolated frame,
Up out of earth, or down from Heaven, becomes
To each its proper death, and adds itself
Thus to the great reünion of the whole.
There is a man in mourning! What does he here?
S TUDENT . He has just buried the only friend he had,
And now comes hither to enjoy himself.
F ESTUS . Why will we dedicate the dead to God,
And not ourselves, the living? Oft we speak,
With tears of joy and trust, of some dear friend
As surely up in Heaven; while that same soul,
For aught we know, may be shuddering even in Hell
To hear his name named; or there may be no
Soul in the case — and the fat icy worm,
Give him a tongue, can tell us all about him.
S TUDENT . Here is music. Stay. That simple melody
Comes on the heart like infant innocence —
Pure feeling pure; while yet the new-bodied soul
Is swinging to the motion of the heavens,
And scarce hath caught, as yet, earth's backening course.
F ESTUS . The heart is formed as earth was — its first age
Formless and void, and fit but for itself;
Then feelings half alive, just organized,
Come next, — then creeping sports and purposes, —
Then animal desires, delights, and loves —
For love is the first and granite-like effect
Of things — the longest and the highest; next
The wild and winged desires, youth's saurian schemes,
Which creep and fly by turns; which kill, and eat,
And do disgorge each other: comes at length
The mould of perfect matchless manhood — then
Woman divides the heart, and multiplies it.
The insipldity of innocence
Palls: it is guilty, happy, and undone.
A death is laid upon it, and it goes —
Quits its green Eden for the sandy world,
Where it works out its nature, as it may,
In sweat, smiles, blood, tears, cursings, and what not.
And giant sins possess it; and it worships
Works of the hand, head, heart — its own or others —
A creature worship, which excludeth God's:
The less thrusts out the greater. Warning comes,
But the heart fears not — feels not; till at last
Down comes the flood from Heaven; and that heart,
Broken inwards, earthlike, to its central hell;
Or like the bright and burning eye we see
Inly, when pressed hard backwards on the brain,
Ends and begins again — destroyed, is saved.
Every man is the first man to himself,
And Eves are just as plentiful as apples;
Nor do we fall, nor are we saved by proxy.
The Eden we live in is our own heart;
And the first thing we do, of our free choice,
Is sure and necessary to be sin.
Lucifer . The only right men have is to be damned.
What is the good of music, or the beauty?
Music tells no truths.
F ESTUS . Oh! there is nought so sweet
As lying and listening music from the hands,
And singing from the lips, of one we love —
Lips that all others should be turned to. Then
The world would all be love and song; Heaven's harps
And orbs join in: the whole be harmony —
Distinct, yet blended — blending all in one
Long and delicious tremble like a chord.
But to Thee, God! all being is a harp,
Whereon Thou makest mightiest melody.
Hast ever been in love?
S TUDENT . I never was.
F ESTUS . 'T is love which mostly destinates our life.
What makes the world in after life I know not,
For our horizon alters as we age:
Power can only make up for the lack of love —
Power of some sort. The mind at one time grows
So fast, it fails; and then its stretch is more
Than its strength; but, as it opes, love fills it up,
Like to the stamen in the flower of life,
Till for the time we well-nigh grow all love;
And soon we feel the want of one kind heart
To love what's well, and to forgive what's ill,
In us, — that heart we play for at all risks.
S TUDENT . How can the heart which lies embodied deep,
In blood and bone, set like a ruby eye
Into the breast, be made a toy for beauty,
And, vane-like, blown about by every wanton sigh?
How can the soul, the rich star-travelled stranger,
Who here sojourneth only for a purchase,
Risk all the riches of his years of toil,
And his God-vouched inheritance of Heaven,
For one light momentary taste of love?
F ESTUS . It is so; and when once you know the sport —
The crowded pack of passions in full cry —
The sweet deceits, the tempting obstacles —
The smile, the sigh, the tear, and the embrace —
All the delights of love at last in one,
With kisses close as stars in the milky way,
In at the death you cry, though 't were your own!
S TUDENT . Upon my soul, most sound morality!
Nothing is thought of virtue, then, nor judgment?
F ESTUS . Oh! every thing is thought of — but not then,
And — judgment — no! it is nowhere in the field.
S TUDENT . Slow-paced and late arriving, still it comes.
I cannot understand this love; I hear
Of its idolatry, not its respect.
F ESTUS . Respect is what we owe; love what we give.
And men would mostly rather give than pay.
Morality's the right rule for the world,
Nor could society cohere without
Virtue; and there are those whose spirits walk
Abreast of angels and the future, here.
Respect and love thou such.
Lucifer . Of course you wish
Women to love you rather than love them.
It is better. Now, you say you are a student.
All things take study; what more than the face —
Whether your own, or hers you look and long at?
There are many ways to one end: here is one: —
You are good-looking; but that matters little:
It only pleases them. To please yourself
Your face may be as ugly as the — . Well, well;
But you must cultivate yourself: it will pay you.
Study a dimple; work hard at a smile:
The things most delicate require most pains.
Practise the upward — now the sidelong glance —
Now the long passionful unwinking gaze,
Which beats itself at last, and sees air only.
Be restless, and distress yourself for her.
Take up her hand — press it, and pore on it —
Let it drop — snatch it again as though you had
Let slip so much of honor or of Heaven.
Swear — vow by all means — never miss an oath:
If broken, why it only spoils itself;
It is a broken oath and not an whole one.
Frown — toss about — let her lips be for a time:
But steal a kiss at last like fire from Heaven.
Weep if you can, and call the tears heat-drops.
Droop your head — sigh deep — play the fool, in short,
One hour, and she will play the fool for ever.
Mind! it is folly to tell women truth;
They would rather live on lies so they be sweet.
Never be long in one mind to one love.
You change your practice with your subject. All
Differ. But yet, who knows one woman well
By heart, knows all. It is my experience;
And I advise on good authority.
So thank me for my lecture on delusion.
F ESTUS . Time laughs at love. It is a hateful sight,
That bald old gray-beard jeering the boy, Love.
But as to women: that game has two sides.
Passion is from affection; and there is nought
So maddening and so lowering as to have
The worse in passion. Think, when one by one,
Pride, love, and jealousy, and fifty more
Great feelings column up to force a heart.
And all are beaten back — all fail — all fall:
The tower intact: but risk it: we must learn.
To know the world, be wise and be a fool.
The heart will have its swing — the world its way:
Who seeks to stop them, only throws himself down.
We must take as we find: go as they go,
Or stand aside. Let the world have the wall.
How do you think, pray, to get through the world?
S TUDENT . I mean not to get through the world at all,
But over it.
F ESTUS . Aspiring! You will find
The world is all up-hill when we would do;
All down-hill when we suffer. Nay, it will part
Like the Red Sea, so that the poor may pass.
We make our compliments to wretchedness,
And hope the poor want nothing, and are well.
But I mean, what profession will you choose?
Surely you will do something for a name.
S TUDENT . Names are of much more consequence than things.
F ESTUS . Well; here's our honest, all-exhorting friend
The parson — here the doctor. I am sure
The Devil may act as moderator there,
And do mankind some service.
Lucifer . In his way.
S TUDENT . But I care neither for men's souls nor bodies.
F ESTUS . What say you to the law? are you ambitions?
S TUDENT . Nor do I mind for other people's business.
I have no heart for their predicaments:
I am for myself. I measure every thing
By, what is it to me? from which I find
I have but little in common with the mass,
Except my meals and so forth; dress and sleep.
I have that within me I can live upon:
Spider-like, spin my place out anywhere.
F ESTUS . To none of all the arts and sciences, —
Astronomy nor entomology,
Nor gunnery, for instance, then you feel
Attracted heartily and mentally?
S TUDENT . Why no; there are so many rise and fall,
One knows not which to choose. As for the stars,
I never look on them without dismay.
Earth has outrun them in our modern mind,
By worlds of odds. Enough for us, it seems,
And our cold calculators to jot down
Their revolutions, distances, and squares; —
And the bright laws which stars and spirits rule,
Are all laid out and buried grave on grave.
The fourfold worlds and elemental spheres,
Which in concentric circles, like the ring
That the magician stands in, from on high
Give spiritual calling to our earth,
And lord it over her, yet in such wise,
That still by them we may conjoin our souls
Unto the starry spirits of all worlds;
Beyond the changeful mansions of the moon,
Beyond the burning heart of heaven, where dwell
The governors of nature and the blest,
All knowing spirits and celestial,
And divine demons; are all gone — extinct.
There is no danger now of knowing aught
Which ought not to be known. No more of that! —
And you, ye planetary sons of light!
From him who hovereth, moth-like, round the sun
To six-mooned Uranus, Light's loftiest round.
Your aspects, dignities, ascendancies,
Your partile quartiles, and your plastic trines,
And all your Heavenly houses and effects,
Shall meet no more devout expounders here.
You too, ye juried signs, earth's sunny path
Upon her wheeling orbit, all farewell!
Your exaltations and triplicities,
Fiery, airy, and the rest; your falls,
And detriments, and governments, and gifts,
Are all abolished. Henceforth ye shall shine
In vain to man. Diurnal, cardinal,
Nocturnal, equinoctial, hot or dry,
Earthy, or moist, or feminine, or fixed,
Luxurious, violent, bicorporate,
Masculine, barren, and commanding, cold,
Fruitful or watery, or what not, now
It matters nothing. The joy of Jupiter,
The exaltation of the Dragon's head,
The sun's triplicity and glorious
Day house on high, the moon's dim detriment,
And all the starry inclusions of all signs —
Shall rise, and rule, and pass, and no one know
That there are spirit-rulers of all worlds,
Which fraternize with earth, and, though unknown,
Hold in the shining voices of the stars
Communion on high, ever and everywhere. —
The mystic charm of numbers, and the sole
Oneness which is in all, of nature's great
Triadic principle, in all things seen;
In man thus, as composed of thrice three forms
sic first, corporeally, blood,
Body, and bones; next, intellectively,
Imagination, judgment, memory;
And thirdly, spiritually, mind and soul,
And spirit, which unites with God the whole
Being, and comes from and returns to Him, —
Allures no more man's mind debased. Thus, too,
Of alchemy; the golden starry stone,
Invisible, the principle of life,
The quintessence of all the elements,
Is still unbought; — still flows the stream of pearl
Beueath the magic mountain; still the scent
As of a thousand amaranthine wreaths, which lures
All life unto its sweetness, floats around
Mistlike, the shining bath where Luna laves,
Or Sol, bright brother of that mooned maid,
Triumphs in light; — the spiritual sun,
The Heavenly Earth smaragdine, and the fire
Spirit of life, the live land still exist,
Immortally, internally unseen. —
Still breathes the Paradisal air around
The universal whole; the watery fire,
Destructive, yet impalpable to sense,
The initial and conclusion of the world,
Yea, the beginning and the end of Death,
The secret which is shared 'tween God and man,
And which is nature only, wholly, still
In Heavenly gloom incomprehensible
Wait the Deific will; yea, still the light
Whereto all elements contribute, burns
About us and within us, world and soul; —
The primal sperm and matter of the world,
Whose centre is the limit of all things, —
The snowy gold, the star and spirit seed
Which is to render rich and deathless all, —
The self-begot, self-wedded, and self-born,
Which the wind carries in its womb, all have,
And few receive; the spirit of the earth,
The water of immortal life still lives: —
The universal solvent of disease
Still bounds through nature's veins; and still, in fine,
The secrets only to be told by fire
Starry or beamless, central and extreme,
Burn to be born. And other natures may
Use them, and do. In Demogorgon's hall
Still sits the universal mystery
Throned in itself and ministered unto
By its own members: — Man, alas! alone,
The recreant spirit of the universe,
Contemns the operations of the light;
Loves surface-knowledge; calls the crimes of crowds
Virtue: adores the useful vices; licks
The gory dust from off the feet of war,
And swears it food for gods, though fit for fiends
Only: — reversing just the Devil's state
When first he entered on this orb of man's, —
A fallen angel's form, a reptile's soul.
Lucifer . Oh! this is libellous to man and fiend
And brute together.
S TUDENT . All are art and part
Of the same mystic treason. But enough; —
The most material, immaterial
Departments of pure wisdom are despised.
For well we know that, properly prepared,
Souls self-adapted knowledge to receive
Are by the truth desired, illumined; man's
Spirit, extolled, dilated, clarified,
By holy meditation and divine
Lore, fits him to convene with purer powers
Which do unseen surround us aye and gladden
In human good and exaltation; thus
The face of Heaven is not more clear to one,
Than to another outwardly; but one
By strong intention of his soul perceives,
Attracts, unites himself to essences
And elemental spirits of wider range
And more beneficent nature, by whose aid
Occasion, circumstance, futurity
Impress on him their image, and impart
Their secrets to his soul; thus chance and ot
Are sacred things; thus dreams are verities.
But oh! alas for all earth's loftier lore,
And spiritual sympathy of worlds! —
There shall be no more magic nor cabala,
Nor Rosicrucian nor Alchymic lore,
Nor fairy fantasies; no more hobgoblins,
Nor ghosts, nor imps, nor demons. Conjurors,
Enchanters, witches, wizards, shall all die
Hopeless and heirless; their divining arts
Supernal or infernal — dead with them.
And so 't will doubtless be with other things
In time; therefore I will commit my brain
To none of them.
F ESTUS . Perchance 't were wiser not.
Man's heart hath not half uttered itself yet,
And much remains to do as well as say.
The heart is some time ere it finds its focus.
And when it does, with the whole light of nature
Strained through it to a hair's breadth, it but burns
The things beneath it, which it lights to death.
Well, farewell, Mr. Student. May you never
Regret those hours which make the mind, if they
Unmake the body; for the sooner we
Are fit to be all mind, the better. Blest
Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead,
And their great thoughts. Who can mistake great thoughts?
They seize upon the mind — arrest, and search,
And shake it — bow the tall soul as by wind —
Rush over it like rivers over reeds,
Which quaver in the current — turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing, — glorious
But momentary, madness might it last,
And close the soul with Heaven as with a seal!
In lieu of all these things whose lose thou mournest,
If earnestly or not I know not, use
The great and good and true which ever live,
And are all common to pure eyes and true.
Upon the summit of each mountain-thought
Worship thou God; for Deity is seen
From every elevation of the soul.
Study the Light; attempt the high; seek out
The soul's bright path; and since the soul is fire
Of heat intelligential, turn it aye
To the all-Fatherly source of light and life;
Piety purifies the soul to see
Perpetual apparitions of all grace
And power, which to the sight of those who dwell
In ignorant sin are never known. Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw to thy soul,
And centralize the rays which are around
Of the Divinity. Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint by the repellant strength
Of virtue. Think on noble thoughts and deeds,
Ever. Count o'er the rosary of truth;
And practice precepts which are proven wise.
It matters not then what thou fearest. Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast; —
There is a hand above will help thee on.
I am an omnist, and believe in all
Religions, — fragments of one golden world
Yet to be relit in its place in Heaven —
For all are relatively true and false,
As evidence and earnest of the heart
To those who practice, or have faith in them.
The absolutely true religion is
In Heaven only, yea in Deity.
But foremost of all studies, let me not
Forget to bid thee learn Christ's faith by heart.
Study its truths, and practice its behests:
They are the purest, sweetest, peacefullest,
Of all immortal reasons or records:
They will be with thee when all else have gone.
Mind, body, passion, all wear out — not faith,
Nor truth. Keep thy heart cool, or rule its heat
To fixed ends: waste it not upon itself.
Not all the agony of all the damned,
Fused in one pang, vies with that earthquake throb
Which wakens it from waste to let us see
The world rolled by for aye; and that we must
Wait an eternity for our next chance,
Whether it be in Heaven or elsewhere.
S TUDENT . Sir,
I will remember this most grave advice,
And think of you with all respect.
F ESTUS . Well, mind!
The worst men often give the best advice.
Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts
Commend me, friend, to every one you meet:
I am an universal favorite.
Old men admire me deeply for my beauty,
Young women for my genius and strict virtue,
And young men for my modesty and wisdom.
All turn to me, whenever I speak, full-faced,
As planets to the sun, or owls to a rushlight.
Farewell!
S TUDENT . I hope to meet again.
F ESTUS . And I. —
Yonder's a woman singing. Let us hear her.
Singer . In the gray church tower
Were the clear bells ringing
When a maiden sat in her lonely bower
Sadly and lowly singing,
And thus she sang, that maiden fair,
Of the soft blue eyes and the long light hair
This hand hath oft been held by one
Who now is far away;
And here I sit and sigh alone
Through all the weary day.
Oh, when will he I love return!
Oh, when shall I forget to mourn!
Along the dark and dizzy path
Ambition madly runs,
'T is there they say his course he hath,
And therefore love he shuns.
Oh, fame and honor bind his brow,
For so he would be with me now!
In the gray church tower
Were the clear bells ringing,
When a bounding step in that lonely bower
Broke on the maiden singing;
She turned, she saw; oh, happy fair!
For her love who loved her so well was there
Lucifer . And we might trust these youths and maidens fair,
The world was made for nothing but love, love!
Now I think it was made but to be burned.
F ESTUS . And if I love not now, while woman is
All bosom to the young, when shall I love?
Who ever paused on passion's fiery wheel?
Or trembling by the side of her he loved
Whose lightest touch brings all but madness, ever
Stopped coldly short to reckon up his pulse?
The car comes — and we lie — and let it come;
It crushes — kills — what then? It is joy to die.
Enough shall not fool me. I fling the foil
Away. Let me but look on aught which casts
The shadow of a pleasure, and here I bare
A breast which would embrace a bride of fire.
Pleasure — we part not! No! It were easier
To wring God's lightnings from the grasp of God.
I must be mad; but so is all the world.
Folly. It matters not. What is the world
To me? Nought. I am all things to myself.
If my heart thundered, would the world rock?
Well —
Then let the mad world fight its shadow down;
There soon will be nor sun, nor world, nor shadow.
Thou, my blood, my bright red running soul —
Rejoice thou, like a river, in thy rapids!
Rejoice — thou wilt never pale with age, nor thin
But in thy full dark beauty, vein by vein,
Fold by fold, serpent-like, encircling me
Like a stag, sunstruck, top thy bounds and die.
Throb, bubble, sparkle, laugh and leap along!
Make merry while the holidays shall last.
Heart! I could tear thee out, thou fool! thou fool!
And strip thee into shreds upon the wind:
What have I done that thou shouldst serve me thus?
Lucifer . Let us away. We have had enough of this.
F ESTUS . The night is glooming on us. It is the hour
When lovers will speak lowly, for the sake
Of being nigh each other; and when love
Shoots up the eye like morning on the east,
Making amends for the long northern night
They passed ere either knew the other loved.
It is the hour of hearts, when all hearts feel
As they could love to mad death, finding aught
To give back fire; for love, like nature, is
War — sweet war! Arms! To arms! so they be thine,
Woman! Old people may say what they please —
The heart of age is like an emptied wine-cup,
Its life lies in a heel-tap — how can they judge?
'T were a waste of time to ask how they wasted theirs.
But while the blood is bright, breath sweet, skin smooth,
And limbs all made to minister delight —
Ere yet we have shed our locks like trees their leaves,
And we stand staring bare into the air —
He is a fool who is not for love and beauty.
I speak unto the young, for I am of them,
And alway shall be. What are years to me?
Traitors! that vice-like fang the hand ye lick:
Ye fall like small birds beaten by a storm
Against a dead wall, dead. I pity ye.
Oh! that such mean things should raise hope or fear;
Those Titans of the heart, that fight at Heaven
And sleep by fits on fire; whose slightest stir's
An earthquake. I am bound and blest to youth!
Oh! give me to the young — the fair — the free —
The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world
Which came between them and their heart's delight.
None but the brave and beautiful can love.
Oh, for the young heart like a fountain playing!
Flinging its bright, fresh feelings up to the skies
It loves and strives to reach — strives, loves in vain;
It is of earth, and never meant for Heaven.
Let us love both, and die. The sphinx-like heart,
Consistent in its inconsistency,
Loathes life the moment that life's riddle is read:
The knot of our existence is untied,
And we lie loose and useless. Life is had;
And then we sigh, and say, can this be all?
It is not what we thought — it is very well —
But we want something more — there is but death.
And when we have said, and seen, and done, and had,
Enjoyed and suffered, all we have wished and feared —
From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing —
There can come but one more change — try it — death.
Oh! it is great to feel we care for nothing —
That hope, nor love, nor fear, nor aught of earth
Can check the royal lavishment of life;
But like a streamer strown upon the wind,
We fling our souls to fate and to the future.
And to die young is youth's divinest gift, —
To pass from one world fresh into another,
Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret,
And feel the immortal impulse from within
Which makes the coming, life — cry, alway, on!
And follow it while strong — is Heaven's last mercy.
There is a fire-fly in the southern clime
Which shineth only when upon the wing;
So is it with the mind: when once we rest,
We darken. On! said God unto the soul
As to the earth, for ever. On it goes,
A rejoicing native of the infinite —
As a bird of air — an orb of heaven.
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