XII + 

Scene⁠—A metropolis⁠—Public place. + 

Festus and Lucifer. + 

Festus + 

What can be done here? + 

Lucifer + 

Oh! a thousand things, + 

As well as elsewhere. + 

Festus + 

True; it is a place + 

Where passion, occupation, or reflection, + 

May find fit food or field; but suits not me. + 

My burden is the spirit, and my life + 

Is henceforth solely spiritual. + 

Lucifer + 

Well;⁠— + 

At the occurrent season, too, it shall + 

Be satisfied. It might be even now, + 

From things about us. But look, here comes a man + 

Thou knowest well. + 

Festus + 

I do. Stop friend! of late + 

I have not seen thee. Whither goest thou now? + 

Friend + 

I am upon my business, and in haste. + 

Festus + 

Business! I thought thou wast a simple schemer. + 

Friend + 

Mayhap I am. + 

Festus + 

There is a visionary + 

Business, as well as visionary faith. + 

Friend + 

I have been, all life, living in a mine, + 

Lancing the world for gold. I have not yet + 

Fingered the right vein. Oh! I often wish + 

The time would come again, which science prates of, + 

When earth’s bright veins ran ruddy, virgin gold. + 

Festus + 

When the world’s gold melts, all the poorer metals, + 

All things less pure, less precious, all beside, + 

Will vanish; nought be left but gems and gold. + 

If all were rich, gold would be penniless. + 

Lucifer + 

I have a secret I would fain impart + 

To one who would make right use of it. Now, mark! + 

Chemists say there are fifty elements, + 

And more;⁠—wouldst know a ready recipe + 

For riches?⁠— + 

Friend + 

That indeed I would good sir. + 

Lucifer + 

Get then these fifty earths, or elements, + 

Or what not. Mix them up together. Put + 

All to the question. Tease them well with fire, + 

Vapour and trituration⁠—every way; + 

Add the right quantity of lunar rays; + 

Boil them, and let them cool, and watch what comes. + 

Friend + 

Thrice greatest Hermes! but it must be; yes! + 

I’ll go and get them; good day⁠—instantly. Goes. + 

Lucifer + 

He’ll be astonished, probably. + 

Festus + 

He will, + 

In any issue of the experiment. + 

Perhaps the nostrum may explode and blow him + 

Body and soul to atoms and to⁠— + 

Lucifer + 

Nonsense! + 

Festus + 

There needs no satire on men’s rage for gold; + 

Their nature is the best one, and excuse. + 

And now what next? + 

Lucifer + 

Why let us take our ease + 

Beside this feathery fountain. It is cool + 

And pleasant, and the people passing by, + 

Fit subjects for two moralists like us. + 

Here we can speculate on policy, + 

On social manners, fashions, and the news. + 

Now the political aspect of the world, + 

At present, is most cheerful. To begin, + 

Like charity, at home. Out of all wrongs + 

The most atrocious, the most righteous ends + 

Are happiest wrought. + 

Festus + 

It ofttimes chances so. + 

Lucifer + 

Take of the blood of martyrs, tears of slaves, + 

The groans of prisoned patriots, and the sweat + 

Wrung from the bones of Famine, like parts. Add + 

Vapour of orphan’s sigh, and wail of all + 

Whom war hath spoiled, or law first fanged, then gorged;⁠— + 

The stifled breath of man’s free natural thonght⁠— + 

The tyrant’s lies; the curses of the proud; + 

The usurpations of the lawful heir, + 

The treasonous rebellions of the wise, + 

The poor man’s patient prayers; and let all these + 

Simmer, some centuries, o’er the slow red fire + 

Of human wrath; and there results at last, + 

A glorious constitution, and a grand + 

Totality of nothings;⁠—as we see.⁠— + 

Soldiers pass; music, etc. + 

Man is a military animal, + 

Glories in gunpowder, and loves parade; + 

Prefers them to all things. + 

Festus + 

Of recipes, + 

Enough! Life’s but a sword’s length, at the best. + 

Lucifer + 

War, war, still war! from age to age, old Time + 

Hath washed his hands in the heart’s blood of Earth. + 

Festus + 

Yet fields of death! ye are earth’s purest pride; + 

For what is life to freedom? War must be + 

While men are what they are; while they have bad + 

Passions to be roused up; while ruled by men; + 

While all the powers and treasures of a land + 

Are at the beck of the ambitious crowd; + 

While injuries can be inflicted, or + 

Insults be offered; yea, while rights are worth + 

Maintaining, freedom keeping, or life having, + 

So long the sword shall shine; so long shall war + 

Continue, and the need for war remain. + 

Lucifer + 

And yet all war shall cease. + 

Festus + 

It must and shall. + 

Some news seems stirring; what I know not yet. + 

Lucifer + 

Nor I. I heard that one of Saturn’s moons + 

Had flown upon his face and blinded him. + 

’Twas also said, in circles I frequent + 

At times, his outer ring was falling off. + 

If I should find, I’ll keep it. It might fit + 

A little finger such as mine, I think. + 

Poor Saturn! much I doubt he is breaking up. + 

But for these news, I know not what they be. + 

Some one perhaps has lit on a new vein + 

Of stars in Heaven: or cracked one with his teeth, + 

To look inside it, or made out at last + 

The circulation of the light; or what + 

Think’st thou? + 

Festus + 

I know not. Ask! + 

Lucifer + 

Sir, what’s the news? + 

Passerby + 

The news are good news, being none at all. + 

Lucifer + 

Your goodness, Sir, I deem of like extent. + 

We heard the great Bear was confined of twins. + 

Stranger + 

’Tis not unlikely stars do propagate. + 

Festus + 

And so much for civility and news. + 

This city is one of the world’s social poles, + 

Round which events revolve: here, dial-like, + 

Time makes no movement but is registered. + 

Lucifer + 

You gaudy equipage! hast ever seen + 

A drowning dragon-fly floating down a brook, + 

Topping the sunny ripples as they rise, + 

Till in some ambushed eddy it is sucked down + 

By something underneath. Thus with the rich;⁠— + 

Their gilding makes their death conspicuous. + 

Festus + 

Some men are nobly rich, some nobly poor, + 

Some the reverse. Rank makes no difference. + 

Lucifer + 

The poor may die in swarms unheeded. They + 

But swell the mass of columned ciphers. Oh, + 

Ye poor, ye wretched, ye bowed down by woe! + 

Thank God for something, though it were but this, + 

He fire, ye ashes! + 

Festus + 

Thou art surely mad. + 

Lucifer + 

I meant to moralize. I cannot see + 

A crowd, and not think on the fate of man⁠— + 

Clinging to error as a dormant bat + 

To a dead bough. Well, ’tis his own affair. + 

Festus + 

All homilies on the sorts and lot of men + 

Are vain and wearisome. I want to know + 

No more of human nature. As it is, + 

I honour it and hate it. Let that do. + 

Lucifer + 

Here is a statue to some mighty man + 

Who beat his name on the drum of the world’s ear + 

Till it was stupified, and, I suppose, + 

Not knowing what it was about, reared up + 

This marble mockery of mortality, + 

Which shall outlive the memory of the man + 

And all like him who water earth with blood, + 

And sow with bones, or any good he did, + 

As eagles outlive gnats. But never mind! + 

Why carp at insect sins, or crumb-like crimes? + 

The world, the great imposture, still succeeds; + 

Still, in Titanic immortality, + 

Writhes ’neath the burning mountain of its sins. + 

Festus + 

There’s an old adage about sin and some one. + 

The world is not exactly what I thought it, + 

But pretty nearly so; and after all, + 

’Tis not so bad as good men make it out, + 

Nor such a hopeless wretch. + 

Lucifer + 

For all the world + 

Not I would slander it. Dear world, thou art + 

Of all things under Heaven by me most loved, + 

The most consistent, the least fallible. + 

Believe me ever thine affectionate + 

Lucifer. P.S. Sweet, remember me! + 

Festus + 

Wilt go to the Cathedral? + 

Lucifer + 

No, indeed; + 

I have just confessed. + 

Festus + 

Well, to the concert, then? + 

Lucifer + 

Some fifteen hundred thousand million years + 

Have passed since last I heard a chorus. + 

Festus + 

Good! + 

Lucifer + 

In sooth, I cannot calculate the time. + 

There are no eras in Eternity, + 

No ages. Time is as the body, and + 

Eternity the spirit of existence. + 

Festus + 

That would I learn and prove. + 

Lucifer + 

The finite soul + 

Can never learn the Infinite, nor be + 

Informed by it, unaided. + 

Festus + 

Be it so. + 

What shall we do? + 

Lucifer + 

I put myself in your hands. + 

Festus + 

Wilt go on ’Change? + 

Lucifer + 

I rarely speculate. + 

Steady receipts are mostly to my taste. + 

Besides, I spurn the system. Take my aim. + 

Festus + 

But something must be done to pass the time. + 

Lucifer + 

True; let us pass, then, all time. + 

Festus + 

I shall be + 

Most happy; only show me how. + 

Lucifer + 

Why, thus. + 

I have the power to make thy spirit free + 

Of its poor frame of flesh, yet not by death⁠— + 

And reünite them afterwards! Wilt thou + 

Entrust thyself to me? + 

Festus + 

In God I trust, + 

And in His word of safety. Have thy will. + 

Where shall it be effected? + 

Lucifer + 

Here and now. + 

Recline thou calmly on yon marble slab, + 

As though asleep. The world will miss thee not; + 

Its complement it perfect. I will mind + 

That no impertinent meddler troubles there + 

That tranced frame. The brain shall cease its life⁠— + 

Engrossing business, and the living blood, + 

The wine of life which maketh drunk the soul, + 

Sleep in the sacred vessels of the heart. + 

Three steps the sun hath taken from his throne, + 

Already, downwards, and ere he hath gone, + 

Who calmeth tempests with his mighty light, + 

We will return; and till then the bright rain + 

Of yonder fountain fails not. + 

Festus + 

Thus be it! + 

Come! we are wasting moments here that now + 

Belong, of right, to immortality, + 

And to another world + 

Lucifer + 

Prepare!⁠— + 

Festus + 

And thou? + 

Lucifer + 

I vanish altogether. + 

Festus + 

Excellent! + 

Lucifer + 

Body and spirit part!⁠— + 