VII
Scene—A country town—Marketplace—Noon.
Lucifer and Festus.
Lucifer
These be the toils and cares of mighty men!
Earth’s vermin are as fit to fill her thrones
As these high Heaven’s bright seats.
Festus
Men’s callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!
Lucifer
What men call accident is God’s own part.
He lets ye work your will—it is His own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, He doth.
Festus
What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely, and the poetry
And sacredness of things? for all things are
Sacred—the eye of God is on them all.
And hallows all unto it. It is fine
To stand upon some lofty mountain-thought
And feel the spirit stretch into a view;
To joy in what might be if will and power
For good would work together but one hour.
Yet millions never think a noble thought:
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that’s the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to such minds
Blinded by dust? What can they do in Heaven,
A state of spiritual means and ends?
Thus must I doubt—perpetually doubt.
Lucifer
Who never doubted never half believed.
Where doubt there truth is—’tis her shadow. I
Declare unto thee that the past is not.
I have looked over all life, yet never seen
The age that had been. Why then fear or dream
About the future? Nothing but what is, is;
Else God were not the Maker that He seems,
As constant in creating as in being.
Embrace the present! Let the future pass.
Plague not thyself about a future. That
Only which comes direct from God, His spirit,
Is deathless. Nature gravitates without
Effort; and so all mortal natures fall
Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil;
But inspiration cometh from above,
And is no labour. The earth’s inborn strength
Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence
She fell; nor human soul, by native worth,
Claim Heaven as birthright, more than man may call
Cloudland his home. The soul’s inheritance,
Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth,
Until God maketh earth and soul anew;
The one like Heaven, the other like Himself.
So shall the new Creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of Life,
Shall be cut off for ever; and all souls
Concluded in God’s boundless amnesty.
Festus
Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe?
Lucifer
Thou mayst believe
But that which thou art forced to.
Festus
Then I feel
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.
Lucifer
Perhaps.
Festus
Man hath a knowledge of a time to come—
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be. I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all’s a dream.
Lucifer
And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God’s? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
Festus
I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most?
Life’s more than breath and the quick round of blood
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling—one great thought—one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days—
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best
Life’s but a means unto an end—that end,
Beginning, mean and end to all things—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth’s empires up, nears death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no? the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country’s arms for more—their country’s heart.
Give then the dead their due; it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep—the fall, the gulf
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lambs upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that’s left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth—or Heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become, like scrolls, unreadable
Throught dust and mould. Can they be cleaned and read?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons!
Lucifer
The eye dims and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limb stiffens, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither;—still
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
In ever rising radiance, shining like
The sun upon the thousand lands of earth.
Look at the medley, motley throng we meet!
Some smiling—frowing some; their cares and joys
Alike not worth a thought—some sauntering slowly
As if destruction never could o’ertake them;
Some hurrying on as fearing judgment swift
Should trip the heels of Death and seize them living.
Festus
Grief hallows hearts even while it ages
And much hot grief, in youth, forces up life
With power which too soon ripens and which drops. A funeral passes.
Whose funeral is this ye follow, friends?
Lucifer
Would ye have grief, let me come! I am woe.
Mourner
We want no grief: Festus! she died of grief.
Festus
Did ye say she died? oh! I knew her then.
Set down the body; let toe look upon her!
Now, Son of God! what dost Thou now in heaven
While one so beautiful lies earthening here?
I will give up the future for the past;
The winged spirit and the starry home
If Thou wilt let her live, and make me love.
Mourner
She was a lock of Heaven which Heaven gave earth,
And took again, because unworthy of her.
Festus
Her air was an immortal’s; I have seen
Stars look on it with feeling; and her eye,
Wherever she went, it won her way like wine.
Men bowed to it as to the lifted Host.
How could I be so cruel? Who but I?
And now, corruption, come; sit; feast thyself!
This is the choicest banquet thou hast been at.
Thou art my happier, only rival: thou
Who takest love from the living—life from beauty—
Beauty from death—whole robber of the world!
Mourner
The moment after thou desertedst her
A cloud came over the prospect of her life;
And I foresaw how evening would set in,
Early and dark and deadly. She was true.
Festus
Did I not love thee too? pure! perfect thing!
This is a soul I see and not a body.
Go, beauty, Test for aye; go, starry eyes,
And lips like rosebuds peeping out of snow;
Go, breast love-filled as a boat’s sail with wind,
Leaping from wave to wave as leaps a child
Thoughtless o’er grassy graves; go, locks, which have
The golden embrownment of a lion’s eye!
Yet one more look; farewell, thou well and fair!
All who but loved thee shall be deathless. Nought
Named but with thee can perish. Thou and Death
Have made each other purer, lovelier, seem,
Like snow and moonlight. Never more for thee
Let eyes be swollen like streams with latter rains!
To die were rapture having lived with thee.
Thy soul hath passed out of a bodily Heaven
Into a spiritual. Rest for aye!—
Pure as the dead, in life; the dead are holy.
I would I were among them. Let us pass!
Living is but a habit; and I mean
To break myself of it soon.
Lucifer
Too soon thou canst not.
Men heed not of the day, how nigh none knows,
Which brings the consummation of the world.
But in my ear the old machine already
Begins to grate. They would not credit warning,
Or I would up and cry, Repent! I will.
Here is a fair gathering and I feel moved.
Mortals, Repent! the world is nigh to its end;
On its last legs and desperately sick.
See ye not how it reels round all day long?
Boys
Oh! here’s a ranter. Come, here’s fun. Amen!
I know the church service by heart.
Bystander
Be off!
You’ll serve the church by keeping out of it.
Lucifer
I am a preacher come to tell ye truth.
I tell ye too there is no time to be lost;
So fold your souls up neatly, while ye may;
Direct to God in Heaven; or some one else
May seize them, seal them, send them—you know where.
The world must end. I weep to think of it.
But you, you laugh! I knew ye would. I know
Men never will be wise till they are fools
For ever. Laugh away! The time will come,
When tears of fire are trickling from your eyes,
Ye will blame yourselves for having laughed at me.
I warn ye, men: prepare! repent! be saved!
I warn ye, not because I love, but know ye.
God will dissolve the world, as she of old
Her pearl, within His cup and swallow ye
In wrath: although to taste ye would be poison,
And death and suicide to aught but God.
Again I warn ye. Save himself who can!
Do ye not oft begin to seek salvation?
You? you? and fail, as oft, to find? Sink? Cease?
And shall I tell ye, brethren, why ye fail
Once and for ever? why, there is no past;
And the future is the fiction of a fiction;
The present moment is eternity;
It is that ye have sucked corruption from the world
Like milk from your own mothers: it is in
Your soul-blood and your soul-bones. Earth does not
Wean one out of a thousand sons to Heaven.
Beginnings are alike: it is ends which differ.
One drop falls, lasts, and dries up—but a drop;
Another begins a river: and one thought
Settles a life, an immortality:
And that one thought ye will not take to good.
Now I will tell ye just one other truth:
Ye hate the truth as snails salt—it dissolves ye,
Body and soul—but I don’t mind. So, now:
Up to this moment ye are all, each, damned.
What are ye now? still damned! It will be the same
To-morrow—and the next day—and the next:
Till some fine morning ye will wake in fire.
Ye see I do not mince the truth for ye.
Belike ye think your lives will dribble out
As brooks in summer dry up. Let us see!
Try: dike them up: they stagnate—thicken—scum.
That would make life worse than death. Well, let go!
Where are ye then? for life, like water, will
Find its last level: what level? The grave.
It is but a fall of five feet after all;
That cannot hurt ye; it is but just enough
To work the wheel of life; so work away!
Ye may think that I do not know the terms
And treasures whereupon ye live so high.
But I know more than most men, modestly
Speaking. I know I am lost, and ye too. God
Could only save me by destroying me;
So that I have no advantage over you.
And therefore think ye will the rather bear
One of your own state to advise for ye
Now don’t you envy me, good folks, I pray—
Envy’s a coal comes hissing hot from hell.
’Twill be such coals will burn ye by the way.
Your other preachers first think they are safe.
Now I say, broadly, I am the worst among ye;
And God knows I have no need to wrong myself,
Nor you. I boast not of it, but as truth:
It is little to be proud of, credit me.
What is salvation? What is safety? Think!
Who wants to know? Does any?
The Crowd
All of us.
Lucifer
Then I will not tell ye. You shall wait until
Some angel come and stir your stagnant souls:
Then plunge into yourselves and rise redeemed.
Come, I’ll unroll your hearts and read them to ye.
To say ye live is but to say ye have souls,
That ye have paid for them and mean to play them,
Till some brave pleasure wins the golden stake,
And rakes it up to death as to a bank.
Ye live and die on what your souls will fetch;
And all are of different prices: therefore Hell
Cannot well bargain for mankind in gross;
But each soul must be purchased, one by one.
This it is makes men rate themselves so high:
While truly ye are worth little: but to God
Ye are worth more than to yourselves. By sin
Ye wreak your spite against God—that ye know:
And knowing, will it. But I pray, I beg,
Act with some smack of justice to your Maker,
If not unto yourselves. Do! It is enough
To make the very Devil chide mankind—
Such baseness, such unthankfulness! Why he
Thanks God he is no worse. You don’t do that.
I say be just to God. Leave off these airs
Know your place—speak to God—and say, for once,
Go first, Lord! Take your finger off your eye!
It blocks the universe and God from sight.
Think ye your souls are worth nothing to God?
Are they so small? What can be great with God?
What will ye weigh against the Lord? Yourselves?
Bring out your balance: get in, man by man:
Add earth, heaven, hell, the universe; that’s all.
God puts his finger in the other scale,
And up we bounce, a bubble. Nought is great
Nor small with God—for none but He can make
The atom indivisible, and none
But He can make a world: He counts the orbs,
He counts the atoms of the universe,
And makes both equal—both are infinite.
Giving God honor, never underrate
Yourselves: after Him ye are everything
But mind! God’s more than everything; He is God.
And what of me? No, us? no! I mean the Devil?
Why see ye not he goes before both you
And God? Men say—as proud as Lucifer—
Pray who would not be proud with such a train?
Hath he not all the honor of the earth?
Why Mammon sits before a million hearths
Where God is bolted out from every house.
Well might He say He cometh as a thief;
For He will break your bars and burst your doors
Which slammed against Him once, and turn ye out
Roofless and shivering, ’neath the doom-storm; Heaven
Shall crack above ye like a bell in fire,
And bury all beneath its shining shards.
He calls: ye hear not. Lo! he comes—ye see not.
No; ye are deaf as a dead adder’s ear:
No; ye are blind as never bat was blind,
With a burning bloodshot blindness of the heart;
A swimming, swollen senselessness of soul.
Listen! Whom love ye most? Why him to whom
Ye in your turn are dearest. Need I name?
Oh no! But all are devils to themselves;
And every man his own great foe. Hell gets
Only the gleanings; earth hath the full wain;
And hell is merry at its harvest home.
But ye are generous to sin and grudge
The gleaners nothing; ask them, push them in.
Let not an ear, a grain of sin be lost;
Gather it, grind it up; it is our bread:
We should be ashamed to waste the gifts of God.
Why is the world so mad? Why runs it thus
Having and howling round the universe?
Because the Devil bit it from the birth!
The fault is all with him. Fear nothing, friends!
It is fear which beds the far to-come with fire
As the sun does the west: but the sun sets;
Well; still ye tremble—tremble, first at light,
Then darkness. Tremble! ye dare not believe.
No, cowards! sooner than believe ye would die;
Die with the black lie flapping on your lips
Like the soot-flake upon a burning bar.
Be merry, happy if ye can: think never
Of him who slays your souls, nor Him who saves.
There is, time enough for that when ye are a-dying.
Keep your old ways! It matters not this once.
Be brave! Ye are not men whom meat and wine
Serve to remind but of the sacrament;
To whom sweet shapes, and tantalizing smiles
Bring up the Devil and the ten commandments—
And so on—but I said the world must end.
I am sorry; it is such a pleasant world:
With all it faults it is perfect—to a fault:
And you, of course, end with it. Now how long
Will the world take to die? I know ye place
Great faith upon death-bed repentances;
The saddener the better. I know ye often
Begin to think of praying and repenting;
But second thoughts come and ye are worse than ever;
As over new white snow a filthy thaw.
Ye do amaze me verily. How long
Will ye take heart on your own wickedness,
And God’s forbearance? Have ye cast it up?
Come now; the year and month, day, hour and minute,
Sin’s golden cycle. Do ye know how long
Exactly Heaven will grant ye? how long God—
Who when he had slain the world and wasted it,
Hung up His bow in Heaven, as in his hall
A warrior after battle—will yet bear
Tour contumely and scorn of His best gifts—
Man’s mockery of man? But never mind!
Some of us are magnificently good,
And hold the head up high like a giraffe;
You, in particular, and you—and you.
Good men are here and there, I know; but then—
You must excuse me if I mention this—
My duty is to tell it you—the world,
Like a black block of marble, jagged with white,
As with a vein of lightning petrified,
Looks blacker than without such; looks in truth,
So gross the heathen, gross the Christian too—
Like the original darkness of void space,
Hardened. Instead of justice, love and grace,
Each worth to man the mission of a God,
Injustice, hate, uncharitableness,
Triequal reign round earth, a Trinity of Hell.
Ye think ye never can be bad enough:
And as ye sink in sin, ye rise in hope.
And let the worst come to the worst, you say,
There always will be time to turn ourselves,
And cry for half an hour or so to God:
Salvation, sure, is not so very hard—
It need not take one long; and half an hour
Is quite as much as we can spare for it.
We have no time for pleasures. Business! business!
No! ye she perish sudden and unsaved.
The priest shall, dipping, die. Can man save man?
Is water God? The counsellor, wise fool!
Drop down amid his quirks and sacred lies—
The judge, while dooming unto death some wretch,
Shall meet at once his own death, doom, and judge.
The doctor, watch in hand, and patient’s pulse,
Shall feel his own heart cease its beats—and fall:
Professors shall spin out, and students strain
Their brains no more; art, science, toil shall cease.
The world shall stand still with a rending jar,
As though it struck at sea. The halls where sit
The heads of nations shall be dumb with death.
The ship shall after her own plummet sink,
And sound the sea herself and depths, of death.
At the first turn Death shall cut off the thief,
And dash the gold bag in his yellow brain.
The gambler, reckoning gains, shall drop a piece;
Stoop down and there see death;—look up, there God.
The wanton, temporizing with decay,
And qualifying every line which vice
Writes bluntly on the brow, inviting scorn,
Shall pale through plastered red: and the loose, low sot
See clear, for once, through his misty, o’erbrimmed eye.
The just, if there be any, die in prayer.
Death shall be every where among your marts,
And giving bills which no man may decline—
Drafts upon Hell one moment after date.
Then shall your outcries tremble amid the stars:
Terrors shall be about ye like a wind:
And fears come down upon ye like a house.
Festus
Yon man looks frightened.
Lucifer
Then it is time to stop.
I hope I have done no good. He will soon forget
His soul. Flesh soaks it up as sponge does water.
Now wait! I will rub them backwards like a cat;
And you shall see them spit and sparkle up.
Let us suppose a case, friends! You are men;
And there is God! and I will be the Devil.
Very well. I am the Devil.
One
Says.
I think you are.
You look as if you lived on buttered thunder.
Lucifer
Nay, be not wroth. Ye would crucify the Devil,
I do believe, if he a moment vexed you.
I know well which ye choose: but choose again!
Time or eternity? Speak, Hell or Heaven?
The Crowd
He’s a mad ranter: down with him!—
Festus
Let him be!
Lucifer
Stand by me, Festus, and I will by thee.
Why, God and man! this is the second time
That I have run for my life.
Festus
Nay, nay, come back!
They will not harm thee: they would chair thee round
The market-place, knew they but whom thou art.
Peace, there my friends! one minute; let us pray!
Grant us, oh God! that in thy holy love
The universal people of the world
May grow more great and happy every day;
Mightier, wiser, humbler, too, towards Thee.
And that all ranks, all classes, callings, states
Of life, so far as such seem right to Thee,
May mingle into one, like sister trees,
And so in one stem flourish:—that all laws
And powers of government be based and used
In good and for the people’s sake;—that each
May feel himself of consequence to all,
And act as though all saw him;—that the whole,
The mass of every nation may so do
As is most worthy of the next to God;
For a whole people’s souls, each one worth more
Than a mere world of matter, make combined,
A something godlike—something like to Thee.
We pray thee for the welfare of all men.
Let monarchs who love truth and freedom feel
The happiness of safety and respect
From those they rule, and guardianship from Thee.
Let them remember they are set on thrones
As representatives, not substitutes
Of nations, to implead with God and man.
Let tyrants who hate truth, or fear the free,
Know that to rule in slavery and error,
For the mere ends of personal pomp and power,
Is such a sin as doth deserve a hell
To itself sole. Let both remember, Lord!
They are but things like-natured with all nations;
That mountains issue out of plains, and not
Plains out of mountains, and so likewise kings
Are of the people, not the people of kings.
And let all feel, the rulers and the ruled,
All classes and all countries, that the world
Is Thy great halidom; that Thou art King,
Lord! only owner and possessor. Grant
That nations may now see, it is not kings,
Nor priests they need fear so much as themselves;
That if they keep but true to themselves, and free,
Sober, enlightened, godly—mortal men
Become impassible as air, one great
And indestructible substance as the sea.
Let all on thrones and judgment-seats reflect
How dreadful Thy revenge through nations is
On those who wrong them; but do Thou grant, Lord!
That when wrongs are to be redressed, such may
Be done with mildness, speed, and firmness, not
With violence or hate, whereby one wrong
Translates another—both to Thee abhorrent.
The bells of time are ringing changes fast.
Grant, Lord! that each fresh peal may usher in
An era of advancement, that each change
Prove an effectual, lasting, happy gain.
And we beseech Thee, overrule, oh God!
All civil contests to the good of all;
All party and religious difference
To honourable ends, whether secured
Or lost; and let all strife, political
Or social, spring from conscientious aims,
And have a generous self-ennobling end,
Man’s good and Thine own glory in view always!
The best may then fail and the worst succeed
Alike with honour. We beseech Thee, Lord!
For bodily strength, but more especially
For the soul’s health and safety. We entreat Thee
In thy great mercy to decrease our wants,
And add autumnal increase to the comforts
Which tend to keep men innocent, and load
Their hearts with thanks to Thee as trees in bearing:—
The blessings of friends, families, and homes,
And kindnesses of kindred. And we pray
That men may rule themselves in faith in God,
In charity to each other, and in hope
Of their own souls’ salvation:—that the mass,
The millions in all nations may be trained,
From their youth upwards, in a nobler mode,
To loftier and more liberal ends. We pray
Above all things, Lord! that all men be free
From bondage, whether of the mind or body;—
The bondage of religious bigotry,
And bald antiquity, servility
Of thought or speech to rank and power; be all
Free as they ought to be in mind and soul
As well as by state-birthright;—and that Mind,
Time’s giant pupil, may right soon attain
Majority, and speak and act for himself!
Incline Thou to our prayers, and grant, oh Lord!
That all may have enough, and some safe mean
Of worldly goods and honours, by degrees,
Take place, if practicable, in the fitness
And fullness of Thy time. And we beseech Thee,
That Truth no more be gagged, nor conscience dungeoned,
Nor science be impeached of godlessness,
Nor faith be circumscribed, which as to Thee,
And the soul’s self affairs is infinite;
But that all men may have due liberty
To speak an honest mind, in every land,
Encouragement to study, leave to act
As conscience orders. We entreat Thee, Lord!
For Thy Son’s sake to take away reproach
Of all kinds from Thy church, and all temptation
Of pomp or power political, that none
May err in the end for which they were appointed
To any of its orders, low or high;
And no ambition, of a worldly cast,
Leaven the love of souls unto whose care
They feel propelled by Thy most holy spirit.
Be every church established, Lord! in truth.
Let all who preach the word, live by the word,
In moderate estate; and in Thy church—
One, universal, and invisible
World-wards, yet manifest unto itself,
May it seem good, dear Saviour, in Thy sight,
That orders be distinguished, not by wealth,
But piety and power of teaching souls.
Equalise labour, Lord! and recompence.
Let not a hundred humble pastors starve,
In this or any land of Christendom,
While one or two, impalaced, mitred, throned
And banqueted, burlesque if not blaspheme
The holy penury of the Son of God;
The fastings, the footwanderings, and the preachings
Of Christ and His first followers. Oh that the Son
Might come again! There should be no more war,
No more want, no more sickness; with a touch,
He should cure all disease, and with a word,
All sin; and with a look to Heaven, a prayer,
Provide bread for a million at a time.
But till that perfect advent grant us, Lord!
That all good institutions, orders, claims,
Charitably proposed, or in the aid
Of Thy divine foundation, may much prosper,
And more of them be raised and nobly filled;—
That Thy word may be taught throughout all lands,
And save souls daily to the thrones of Heaven!—
And we entreat Thee, that all men whom Thou
Hast gifted with great minds may love Thee well,
And praise Thee for their powers, and use them most
Humbly and holily, and, lever-like,
Act but in lifting up the mass of mind
About them; knowing well that they shall be
Questioned by Thee of deeds the pen hath done,
Or caused, or glozed; inspire them with delight
And power to treat of noble themes and things,
Worthily, and to leave the low and mean—
Things born of vice or day-lived fashion, in
Their naked native folly:—make them know
Fine thoughts are wealth, for the right use of which
Men are and ought to be accountable—
If not to Thee, to those they influence:
Grant this we pray Thee, and that all who read,
Or utter noble thoughts, may make them theirs,
And thank God for them, to the betterment
Of their succeeding life;—that all who lead
The general sense and taste, too apt, perchance,
To be led, keep in mind the mighty good
They may achieve, and are in conscience, bound,
And duty, to attempt unceasingly
To compass. Grant us, All-maintaining Sire!
That all the great mechanic aids to toil
Man’s skill hath formed, found, rendered—whether used
In multiplying works of mind, or aught
To obviate the thousand wants of life,
May much avail to human welfare now
And in all ages, henceforth and for ever!
Let their effect be, Lord! to lighten labour,
And give more room to mind, and leave the poor
Some time for self-improvement. Let them not
Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms
For bread, but have some space to think and feel
Like moral and immortal creatures. God!
Have mercy on them till such time shall come;
Look Thou with pity on all lesser crimes,
Thrust on men almost when devoured by want,
Wretchedness, ignorance and outcast life!
Have mercy on the rich, too, who pass by
The means they have at hand to fill their minds
With serviceable knowledge for themselves,
And fellows, and support not the good cause
Of the world’s better future! Oh, reward
All such who do, with peace of heart and power
For greater good. Have mercy, Lord! on each
And all, for all men need it equally.
May peace and industry and commerce weld
Into one land all nations of the world,
Rewedding those the Deluge once divorced.
Oh! may all help each other in good things,
Mentally, morally, and bodily!
Vouchsafe, kind God! Thy blessing to this isle,
Specially! May our country ever lead
The world, for she is worthiest; and may all
Profit by her example, and adopt
Her course, wherever great, or free, or just.
May all her subject colonies and powers
Have of her freedom freely, as a child
Receiveth of its parents. Let not rights
Be wrested from us to our own reproach,
But granted. We may make the whole world free,
And be as free ourselves as ever, more!
If policy or self-defence call forth
Our forces to the field, let us in Thee
Place, first, our trust, and in Thy name we shall
O’ercome, for we will only wage the right.
Let us not conquer nations for ourselves,
But for Thee, Lord! who hast predestined us
To fight the battles of the future now,
And so have done with war before Thou comest.
Till then, Lord God of armies, let our foes
Have their swords broken and their cannon burst,
And their strong cities levelled; and while we
War faithfully and righteously, improve,
Civilize, christianize the lands we win
From savage or from nature, Thou, oh God!
Wilt aid and hallow conquest, as of old,
Thine own immediate nation’s. But we pray
That all mankind may make one brotherhood,
And love and serve each other; that all wars
And feuds die out of nations, whether those
Whom the sun’s hot light darkens, or ourselves
Whom he treats fairly, or the northern tribes
Whom ceaseless snows and starry winters blench,
Savage or civilized—let every race,
Bed, black or white, olive, or tawny-skinned,
Settle in peace and swell the gathering hosts
Of the great Prince of Peace! Oh! may the hour
Soon come when all false gods, false creeds, false prophets—
Allowed in Thy good purpose for a time—
Demolished, the great world shall be at last,
The mercy-seat of God, the heritage
Of Christ, and the possession of the Spirit,
The comforter, the wisdom! shall all be
One land, one home, one friend, one faith, one law,
Its ruler God, its practice righteousness,
Its life peace! For the one true faith we pray
There is but one in Heaven and there shall be
But one on earth, the same which is in Heaven.
Prophecy is more true than history.
Grant us our prayers, we pray, Lord! in the name
And for the sake of Thy Son Jesus Christ,
Our Saviour and Redeemer, who with Thee,
And with the Holy Spirit, reigneth God
Over all worlds, one blessed Trinity!⸺
The Crowd
Amen!
Lucifer
Well, friends, we’ll sing a hymn; then part.
I give it out, and you sing—all of you.
Oh! Earth is cheating Earth
From age to age for ever;
She laughs at faith and worth,
And dreams she shall die never;
Never, never, never!
And dreams she shall die never.
And Hell is cursing Hell
From age to age for ever;
Its groans ring out the knell
Of souls that may die never;
Never, never, never!
Of souls that may die never.
But Heaven is blessing Heaven
From age to age for ever;
And its thanks to Qod are given
For bliss that can die never;
Never, never, never!
For bliss that can die never.
My blessing be upon ye all; now go!
Festus
I wonder what these people make of thee.
Lucifer
Ay, manner’s a great matter.
Festus
They deserve
All the rebuke thou gavest them and more.
What mountains of delusion men have reared!
How every age hath bustled on to build
Its shadowy mole—its monumental dream!
How faith and faney, in the mind of man,
Have spuriously mingled, and how much
Shall pass away for aye, as pass before
Yon son, the Lord of steadfastness and change,
The visionary landscapes of the skies;—
The golden capes far stretching into Heaven,
The snow-piled cloud-crags, the bright winged isles
Which dot the deep, impassive, ocean air
Like a disbanded rainbow, of all hues,
Fit for translated fairy’s Paradise;—
Or as before the eye of musing child,
The faces Fancy forms in clouds and fire
Of glowing angel or of darkening fiend.
Arts, superstition, arms, philosophy,
Have each in turn possessed, betrayed, and mocked us,
Yes, vain philosophy, thine hour is come!
Thy lips were lined with the immortal lie,
And dyed with all the look of truth. Men saw,
Believed, embraced, detested, cast thee off.
Those lights, the morn of Truth’s immortal day,
As thou didst falsely swear them, have they not
Vanished, the mere auroras of the mind?
And thou didst vow to gather clear again
The fallen waters of humanity;
To smooth the flaw from out an eye; to piece
A pounded pearl. Thank God! I am a man;
Not a philosopher! Rivers may rot,
Never revive the root of oak firebolted.
Come, let us to the hills! where none but God
Can overlook us; for I hate to breathe
The breaths and think the thoughts of other men,
In close and clouded cities, where the sky
Frowns like an angry Father mournfully.
I love the hills and I love loneliness.
And oh! I love the woods, those natural fanes
Whose very air is holy; and we breathe
Of God; for He doth come in special place,
And, while we worship, He is there for us!
Lucifer
It is time that something should be done for the poor.
The sole equality on earth is death;
Now, rich and poor are both dissatisfied.
I am for judgment: that will settle both.
Nothing is to be done without destruction.
Death is the universal salt of states;
Blood is tbe base of all things—law and war,
I could tame this lion age to follow me.
I should like to macadamize the world;
The road to Hell wants mending.
Festus
Come away!