XVII + 

Scene⁠—Space. + 

Festus and Lucifer. + 

Festus + 

Listen! I hear the harmonies of Heaven, + 

From sphere to sphere and from the boundless round + 

Re-echoing bliss to those serenest heights + 

Where angels sit and strike their emulous harps, + 

Wreathed round with flowers and diamonded with dew; + 

Such dew as gemmed the everduring blooms + 

Of Eden winterless, or as all night + 

The tree of Life wept from its every leaf + 

Unwithering. And now methinks I hear + 

The music of the murmur of the stream + 

Which through the Bridal City of the Lord + 

Floweth all life for ever; and the breath + 

Through the star-shading branches of that Tree + 

Transplanted now to Heaven, but once on earth, + 

Whose fruit is for all Beings⁠—breathed of God. + 

Oh! breathe on me, inspiring spirit-breath! + 

Oh! flow to me, ye heart-reviving waves; + 

Freshen the faded soul that droops and dies. + 

Lucifer + 

The universe is but the gate of Heaven. + 

Lo! from this highest orb, the crown of space + 

And footstool unto Heaven, we can look up + 

And gain a glimpse of glory unconceived. + 

Festus + 

See how yon angels stretch their shining arms, + 

Wave their star-haunting wings which gleam like glass, + 

And locks that look like Morning’s when she comes + 

Triumphant in the East. Is this their joy + 

O’er some world penitent? + 

Lucifer + 

Lo! there it rides; + 

Blest to discharge on Heaven’s all peaceful shores + 

Its long accumulated load of life, + 

Its deathless freight⁠—pilgrims of time and space. + 

Yon guilty orb of hesitating light + 

Slow looming, there, on its dark path, goes up + 

At the forewritten hour, as do all worlds + 

To God, to judgment; and the earthquake groans + 

Which rend its adamantine breast forebode + 

Its agonizing doom. + 

Festus + 

And doth not Heaven + 

Grieve with the lost as gladden with the saved? + 

Lucifer + 

How many immortals mourn at the decree + 

Of righteous wisdom, which alone to them + 

Is bliss sufficient, being infinite? + 

Festus + 

If God hath made all He alone it is + 

Who hath to answer for all. + 

Lucifer + 

He hath made. + 

To secondary natures it seems just + 

That justice should be realised, and there + 

Is one example extant in the skies. + 

Festus + 

But wherefore did it not repent in Time? + 

Lucifer + 

What unto us is Time, stands before God + 

Eternity. Repentance is the grief + 

For and effectual abstinence from sin, + 

Which secondary natures without God + 

Cannot, attain to. + 

Festus + 

Cloudy and dear by turns + 

Thy words as Heaven. I know not what to think + 

Nor how to act. + 

Lucifer + 

It is natural; and none + 

Can aim or hit but as appointed them. + 

There is but one great sinner, Human nature, + 

Predict of every world and predicate: + 

The wicked one, the Enemy of God, + 

To be destroyed in the eternal fire + 

Of His wrath, even thus in Deity⁠— + 

In whom as they begin must all things end. + 

God loveth only His own spirit, so + 

All that is base shall perish. From the first + 

These things were fixed, and are and aye shall be + 

Consummating, and are revealed as writ + 

In words always fulfilled and burning truth + 

Under the buried basements of the skies, + 

Which after overthrown shall reäppear. + 

The unenlightened mind sees Deity + 

In all things, but the spiritual soul + 

All things in God. Now, ere we higher rise, + 

Look downwards from this coping of the world; + 

And know that down to the profoundest depth + 

Of utter space, where not an atom mars + 

The void invisible, it were easier far + 

To cast a line and calculate its rate, + 

Or pierce all space, nor cross the path of light, + 

Than fathom man’s dark heart or sound his soul. + 