Philip James Bailey (Филип Джеймс Бэйли)
Festus – 29
Traversed the void, Hell's fires, unholy not, not hopeless, reached, The initials even of good in the sad mock Of mortal revelry mark; the quelling truth That all life's sinful follies run to hell; Lies, wrongs, debauches, murders, die not; live In hell for ever; make, are hell; till just Amendment expiate, and the soul's right will, Set heavenward, lead those lost to happier end. Perdition to the impenitent certain; yet, Redemption as creation vast; all soul Of every kind, angelical or humane, Amenable sometime to God's saving truth, And mercifullest forbearance, more than force Convictive; by long suffering conquering all. There, awed, the visitant spirit, in joy endowed With heaven's self justifying message,--less Man's soul to free from dread of pain eterne, Than God's name from the injustice measureless They to his rule, corrective, just, impute Falsely who such affirm,--hell's end foretels. Hell. Lucifer and Festus entering. Lucifer. Behold my world. Man's science counts it not Upon the brightest sky. He never knows How near it comes to him, but swathed in clouds As though in plumed and palled state, it steals Hearselike round the universe, and thieflike; aye Rolling, returning not; robbing all worlds, Of many an angel soul; its light hid deep In its breast which burns with woe concentrate, woe Superfluent, woe self generate and eterne. Nor sun nor moon illume it; and to those Who dwell in it, not live, the starry skies Have told no time since first they entered there. Worlds have been built and to their central base Ruined, nay razed to the last atom; they Of neither know nor care, unconscious save To agony, nought knowing even of God, But his omnipotence so to execute Torture on those he hath in wrath endowed With heaven's own immortality, as to make Them feel what scathe the Almighty can inflict, And the all feeble endure, nor--as they would-- Be annihilated. Be sure that this is hell. The blood which hath embrued earth's breast since first Men met in war may hope to be reformed, yet, And reascend, each individual drop, Its vein; the foam--bubble from sea, sun--drawn Cloudwards, to scale the fall it fell down, erst; Or seek its primal source in earth's hot heart; But for the lost to rise towards heaven, regain, Or hope it, ne'er can be. Guardian Angel. Who are the lost For aye? But here thou shalt behold the truth. How shall the mere immortal unredeemed, Impenitent, with no sense of hating sin, Know God the righteous Maker, Judge? Lucifer. Art here? Guardian Angel. Here am I, as elsewhere. Festus. Protect; instruct. Guardian Angel. Behold me, by heaven missioned, so to clear From all illusion spiritual and wrong Conceit, that tyrant sin as now would teach, Or ignorantly misrule, that thou mayst both, While in soul agonized by that thou seek'st As just reward for wilful wrong, than thine Worse only by the unfrustrate act of dread Betrayal, now too self condemned, take good To thyself; and so instructed here, the world After, forewarn, as hopeless not; and God Prove therefore just in this his judgment hall Of hell. Lucifer. Believe me in mine own domain. Festus. Are all these angels then, or men, or both? Or mortals of all worlds? Lucifer. Immortals all. Festus. Countless as meteorites that strew the breast Of some quenched orb where yet they lie aglow, Panting away their life--fires! Lucifer. Fallen through sin, At various periods of eternity, all, And not by one offence to one same doom, And at one moment did they down from heaven, Like to the rapid droppings of a shower; No; each distinct as thunderpeals they fell. Save those that fell with me. With me began Sin even in heaven, with me but sin remains. Once I alone was hell. Behold my fruits. Festus. What do yon fiends? Some 'mong them look like mortals Whose hearts shine through their frames as living coals Through ashes. These, a torture agonised Express; those madness gone delirious; all By excess of evil and woe, in clinging strife Contort, like nested snakes, that fang each other With wounds that wake to life, and struggling deaths Ceaseless, requickened as if from mortal pangs. Oh horror! let me hence. Lucifer. Nay, hear. Festus. I hear A strain incongruous as a merry dirge, Or sacramental bacchanal. Oh shame! Guardian Angel. Truly, for here is spiritual chaos; deeps Wherein, distraught to their own first rudiments, Souls must reseek their ends, refound themselves; Each worsening other, deepening life's despair; Till sin be from the spirit eliminate clean. Festus. O sad and pitiable ye souls of men, Self--torturing without end; hell's alien fiends. Lucifer. Men are they not, but devils at their best. And I would have thee mark them. Festus. I attend. Lucifer. Behold the cup of demons and their board; Their fellowship, their triumph, their self hate, Who so much loved themselves, their wretched joy. Fiend. Heap high the fires of hell; let woe not languish, Heap up with everlasting flames, heap higher. There, let the man--fiend, consummate in anguish, Howl through the fathomless profound of fire. To tempt and ruin those that once were solely God's, and torment them, when with us they dwell, This is our end, and their existence wholly Hid in the doom no demon dares to tell, But is shadowed in the harrowing eternity of hell. Deeper than the bowl the drunkard drained so gladly; Deadlier than the lie which scorched the liar's tongue; Keener than the blade the murderer plied so madly, Eats aye into the essence, the worm that all hath stung; And for that they succumbed to the toils wherewith we bound them, Their bread is burning brimstone, their drink is bubbling fire; For they live upon the nature of the tortures that surround them; And their life is in the death they shall never see expire, Lo! it floweth from the fountains of the ever--seething ire. Festus. Nay, let me quit. Now know I what hell is. Guardian Angel. Be not deceived even here, by the show of things. Lift up this veil of fire and look beneath. Here is nought seen save justice, strict, supreme, By all approvable; by the spirit which bears, Inflicts, or views, remedial, fruiting good; Unworthy not of God to doom, nor man To endure. See midst this basement of all soul, Antipodal to heaven, hate, envy, base Desire, revenge, wrath, inhumanity, pride, All crime engendering vice, by sense of sin, Here forced inevitably upon the spirit, Patience, and slow conviction of God's truth And justice, gradually but surely change To qualities substitute, that time by time Mature, and fit the soul to seek a sphere More congruous with its altered state; in fine Passing to virtue's realm, and joy's. For know, Evil is not an ultimate, even in hell, Either as law of being, or state; but here Elsewhere, allwhere, through Being's avoidless shade, Probational, and convertible by our God To luminous good, restorative of life. See, now, how seeks this soul, in true remorse Gradual, but unrelaxed, to amend; and there, As when some mountain rivulet through black gorge And jagged chasm, hurried, with thunderous plunge Leaps suicidal, down; its bed,--thenceforth Of agony, with the death--foam of its lips Whitening, and rage regretful at its fall;-- So here, the atrocious spirit, self cursed with sin, Writhes in his lengthening torments, till more calm Conviction penitence teach, and peace to soul, Of future ends considerate, bring. Festus. O heaven! Can such things come to pass? Guardian Angel. They may, and do. Festus. What means yon fiendish chant, then? Lucifer. It means this;-- Sin with deep draughts of fiery venom fed, Drains, to the latest dreg of murderous flame, Its own consuming fate, self punitive; thus Constructing its own death, its own defeat Scheming with fatal skill, as I myself The lord of evil, fear I am. Festus. But if God's Good will gave all things being, then his hate,-- What is unholy he detests to death, Cannot do less than, were it even the all, Annihilate. Guardian Angel. What if evil, left to itself, Corrupt itself away? Lucifer. When ends the world, I end. Guardian Angel. A glorious hope. But God's intent Unsearchable, as his will unbattleable, O'errides, o'errules the all, child of his hand. Hence, it means, too, when all's done, and at last, Time's sun, declining down the eternal skies, Leaves his last shining shadow upon the sea, And in the boundless abyss entombs his beams; When final evening folds the universe Heavily round, then hell shall drain the dread Cup of perdition to the last drop. Lucifer. Death Is of all things thou thinkest, most like sleep. The dead think otherwise. But wherefore thus? What mean my words to thee? Festus. In sooth I know not. I am constrained to hear them. Lucifer. They mean this; Words, shapes, like easily are by spirits assumed. Festus. So, then, these palpable torments,-- Guardian Angel. Whatsoe'er Thou seest, see most thou err not. Burning racks Conscience self--agonized bears, corrective griefs, Fires of remorse refining, pains soul--wringing, Whereby the spirit, of evil dispollute, Conscious, its clarity reattains; and strained Through many a mediate check, which fuller sense Of others' rights and God's prerogative gives, Steps upwards towards perfection, though still far, Proofs fiery show of the inward struggles waged In spirits immortal by rebellious will, Proud once of self idolatry; now shame--burned With hot humiliation 'neath God's eye, Sightful of all things to their inmost core, At forfeiture of noblest privileges, By creature owned, once for the world's worst cheats, Life's worthlessest impostures bartered; sin And her false felonry. Contrarious, there High o'er hell's reek and roar of clashing lies, Which now obscure, now deafen, now all affright, By truth's calm utterance gradually subdued, Like foul things perishing simply of the light, See virtue, wisdom, love, peace, righteousness, Harmonious with themselves and her, up soar Towards their all--central source, as satellites Their light, their beauty, to renew; and showing How pitiable the counterfeits men praised, Make to the obdurate infidel hells of shame; To betterward tending soul, an aim right high To aspire to; and a standard of rise gained. Festus. That these poor souls, so self--distort, should e'er By justice straightened, hope to again see God! Guardian Angel. Not unreturnless are the paths of hell, More than inevitable: whence now the soul, Sifted through outraged conscience' scapeless bars, Given up to retribution just, weighed, proved, May issue purified, and through cleansing rounds Of nature, self--wise chastened, happiest life Win; and the heart's ill lusts exorcised, seek Sin--freed, and humble, acceptance of its God. End only worthy, this, of God; who,--all Things aptliest planned,--to finite reason gave Virtue, as test of heavenliness, and hell Reserved as his displeasure souls must feel Who, erring wilfully, impenitent end Their day on earth; his laws world--wise who scorn, His provident control, his just commands, They answerable, and his retributive rule. Festus. How changed in this heaven--justifying truth, Show all things now! no sin of man, by man Not duly expiable; all life to come, And passed, like witness of his righteousness. Hell terminable makes heaven an actual joy. Guardian Angel. Behold these nations of iniquitous soul, Which, mixed in misery here, all orderless lie; Who God forgat on earth, or wronged; false priests Whose lips the prayers they made for peace, defiled; Blessing ambition's bloody--bannered war; The apostate hypocrites of every faith; Death--ravening demagogues worshippers of the axe; Murderous inquisitors of contending creeds; Remorseless mobs who urged to death the pure, The patriot, benefactor of his race; Peoples, not less than tyrannous kings unjust, See called on here to pay their righteous dues; Nor less than soul of craftiest statesman, proud Erst of iniquitous war for trivial end, Heroes whose spirits adhere to forceful fight, Still as a sword blood--rusted cleaves to its sheath; Blasphemers; perjurers; stirrers up of strife; Impure, the innocent ravishing with their eyes; Torturers of humbler lives, idolaters; Of sinners chief the impenitent, and those Who in life were most severe on others' sins; Ignoble souls, who quench in sensual ends Reason's divine light, given as guide. Nor these, Doomed justly, deem, through purgatorial pains. Their way to upper spheres, pure and serene, May lightlier win. Who have long time outraged man, Have God to appease at last; and his great heart Long suffering, oh unwearyable, aye beats For justice, mercy crowned. So then let once, Repentance, reason's first deflective step From sin's dark ways, ascendant, mark the soul's Path, and the atonement's virtually achieved. The essential fires they burn in, patient fires Which leprous soul unscurf from sin, contract Grossly and wilfully, eat in time the curse Would else consume them, and to childlike state Of innocence, not ineligible, restore. Here, all the guilty passions cleansed from self's False pleadings, and the indulgence of the sense, Show monstrous, shame judicial reason's eye. Remorse, repentance, follows; all things thus Work, worldlike round to their due end; and hell's orb Hath its proper place in heaven as thine, and all. For that earth--life not sufficeth to God's ends, And man's immortal destinies, hell, here As timely chastisement affirms, yon heaven, As prize eternal; that a mildened doom, A doubled bliss this; and, equivalent deemed Of earth's iniquities and her virtues, shows O infinite universe, thou hast no like to man, The conscious breath of the world's deity, No second favourite of our God's. Not hell, Not sin, destroys the soul. Can falsest creed The innocence unmake of sinless babe? Can lewd idolaters who adore the world, Gold, or as savages, the stars and heaven, And elements of earth, obstruct, defraud God of his worship true? None worship him, But with, and in, his spirit; nought attains His love, but that proceedeth from it first. His praise is ever vastening in all worlds, Through all the ages. Nought eternal is But that's of God; all pain and woe, finite Are, therefore. Can thief steal from heaven the soul? Can liar make God to lie? Can poisoner drug Soul's immortality? Great the sin, flesh--born, But expiable by this, by that forgiven, It may be, shall the dead slay e'er the living? Shall God, all love, here, ages afterwards, Reserving these misdeeds, himself, reverse? And because man a moment sinned, all crime Crown in unending scourgings for the wrong? Shall such be justice called? 'Twere more than vengeance. Said One, five hundred times, forgive! Shall God Act by less perfect law than he bids men heed? Yet such the deity men will fable; such The hell whereto they doom themselves. Festus. No more! Not I will so misjudge life's gracious lord. As in earth's skies, whate'er the mutable day Of rosy or lurid hue brings, high o'er all, Beams at last heaven's eternal azure, firm Unfathomable; so here and allwhere, see, Rule wrath or justice whiles they may, the whole In his ever--enduring mercy wrapped. Guardian Angel. How else Could earth's and heaven's Creator glory find In hell, or creature good, if God be just, Or man a being salvable? Festus. See now, Yon spirit whose brow seems calmer than the wont Of most, as though suffused with trustful hope. What doth he here? Guardian Angel. If, spirit, it grieve thee not, And thou mayst speak, alleviate for the time From woe, say why here; and when hope,--for hope I judge, is thine,--may lead thee hence; that so This man, by God permit, may on return Earthwards, to his relate thy tale of truth. Festus. 'Twill much content me. Say what brought thee hither? Spirit. God's angel was I once, ages agone; But though doing good, not glorifying God Who me empowered, he sent me here to fire The proud spot from my heart. Festus. And when wilt thou Do this, and own thou hast wronged God? Spirit. Even now, I do repent me, and confess it here. I do not beseech God now to let me be What once I was; but might I only sit A footstool for some other worthier far Who owneth now my throne, I should be happy: Happier than ever I was in my proud prayers, That God would give me worlds on worlds to govern; Happier than in receiving prayers and blessings From prostrate priests of old and crowded fanes. O God remember me, O save me! Festus. See! I do believe there is an angel coming This way, from heaven. Spirit. He comes to me, to me. Angel. Hail, sufferer; sinner now no more. God bids me Bring thee on high. Thy throne is kept for thee; And all the hosts of heaven are on the wing, To welcome thee again. Spirit. I dare not come. I am not worthy heaven. Angel. But God will make thee. Festus. Spirit, adieu! May we meet again in place Better and happier time. Spirit. Glory to God! Mortal, I go. Farewell. Say thou to all On earth, Repent; be humble, and despair not. Lucifer. Here one may go, and there, one. Thousands come. I have seen and have contemned. Sometimes I hear Of ominous defections, such as, late, Of Samiaza, Azazyel and the sires To foreworld giants, Molech, Bel, and those World moulding spirits depute, I named, who each His rites idolatrous claimed, pretended gods, The several nations once who ruled, but since, Ill expiative, have here, and for long transferred Their hopes to Hades; and--so angels feign,-- Commenced, conceptive of Saturnian times, Their long return. I miss them not o'ermuch. But think, when all are judged, what hosts of souls Will then be mine at last; what wings of fire. Hell is the wrath of God; his hate of sin. God hates man's nature; be it said of his, As of all beings. Festus. How hates he that he hath made? Lucifer. The infinite opposite of perfection To imperfection leaves nor choice nor mean. Thus the demeanour of thy world grieved God, Till its destruction pleased him, and its name Was struck out of the starry scroll; thus all Creation worketh infinite grief in time. When human nature is most perfect, then, Its fall is nearest, as of ripest fruit. Guardian Angel. To hate is not to approve. All signs God hates Of imperfection as unworthy of him To mark, and as from him leading far away Selfwards; but every proof of progress towards Perfection, towards his own pure mind and ends, He loves, aids, seals. Such ween God's hate and love. Lucifer. Thinkst thou as mortals think yet? Festus. This is not As thou didst speak of hell, nor as I judged. Guardian Angel. Deem as thou seest: these hells eternal be Only in endurance, not in pains applied To the individual spirit, which, taught of God Whose universal aim is to redeem All he hath made, as part--wise of himself, So long as good, or goodwards tending, learns Its mountain of demerit, grain by grain To wash away with penitent tears. But look! Who hither cometh. Lucifer. It is the Son of God; For He, in his humanity's also here, All gracious being, against whose world--great throne These now all strengthless, hopeless, godless, here, Rose once in tide of war, and ebbed for ever, These, in their fieriest abyss of woe, Unbent, unbettered will again rush forth In all the might of mad despair, to prove Of thee, and of his love their hatred. Know Salvation is the scorn of angels fallen. Son of God. I know it; it is divine humanity Shall rescue all from ruin. The Father makes And orders every instant what is best. Festus. This is God's truth. Hell feels a moment cool. Son of God. Hell is his justice; heaven is his love; Earth his long suffering: nought create but shows A quality of God; therefore come I By him sent, these to announce as tempered; peace To accord to strife, to give to justice mercy, Even to long suffering longer; everywhere God's justice shall to his humanity yield. He hath made that lord of all things; of all worlds And all the souls therein; yea world by world, And soul by soul he hath all redeemed, or given The means of their salvation; why not, then, Hell? Festus. Every spirit is to be redeemed. Son of God. Mortal, it hath: the best and worse need one And same salvation. Final in his world Nought is, but God; therefore these souls to be seen And pitied much for their woes, for their evil more, Need not, shall not, cannot be inhelled for aye. For albeit on earth or here they have put God from them, Disowned his prophets, mocked his angels, stormed His threatenings back to him; yet God is such He can still pity, suffer for them still And save them. Heavenly father! mercy fears not But by thy love hell can be saved from hell. See, here be they which fell of old, through pride. Created mind could ne'er the thought conceive Of equalness with God, unless by first Debasing the idea. They err who feign The devil by vain ambition fell from heaven. He in the God state first with all his hosts, By fate inhered; by fate, as cloud to cloud On the hill side succeeds, with all his host, They darkened and declined and passed away. Through pride in what they were they fell, and not Ambition to be highest. These while yet The dew lay of creation's morn; and now Glistens the dew of evening o'er the world. Mixed in one stormy ruin with the rest, Lo! mortal those, who lost by mortal love Their lot in the eternal. Festus. Save them, Lord! Son of God. Salvation is the will supreme of God, And final cause of all things. But to some He grants, as proof and earnest of the truth Ere yet fate take the tangled skein of time, And weave it into one surpassing web, Fit for the glorious garment of our God, Bliss precedent o'er all else: the angels' such; While he the Maker, sole omniscient, knows The boundless sum of being, and its end. Fiends hear ye me; wash, bathe ye in truth's fount; Your sins confess; your judgment justly earned; Implunge in life's pure well, the spring of peace. Revere God's righteousness; to his just will Assentient, peace shall then your souls o'erflood. I who am God's humanity, his all Of mercy, his equity, subjecting law, Bid ye immortal fallen, rise again: There is a resurrection for the dead, And for the second dead. And though ye died, And fell, and fell again, and again died, There's life to come, a rise for all, a life For ever, a rise aye as the spring's i' the year. A Fiend. Son, thou, of God, what wilt with us? Is ours Not hell enough, remorse, strife always, hate Mutual of all? Why double with thy mild eyes? Son of God. Spirit I come to show thee how remorse For God offended, violated law, Iniquity done, may save thee. Fiend. How save fiends? Son of God. How any save, save by the spirit of truth, And love, of him whose mercy so outdures All things, it must at last all things persuade? Repentant, God forgives thee, and the truth Enlightening, the all--holy Spirit shall hallow With sense of justly inflicted chastisement, And of an equity, lenient more than law, Wiser. Repent still; judgment is at hand; But these means, times, for repentance given, o'erslurred, Tremble; this hell is nought to that which comes. Believest thou God can save thee? Fiend. I believe, And I adore. Son of God. Faith sanctifies the soul, See all ye fallen, even in the heart of woe. Come to me; lo! faith hath but touched thy brow, And thou art bright as morning is in heaven. Spirit. Angel of light, ye lost, am I again; See, this is to be saved. Lucifer. I like it not. Son of God. Hear ye immortals, dead in evil and sin Yet unrepented of, oh repent, and be All angels. Spirit. Oh, repent. He comes to show How penitence yet available all may save. A Lost Soul. I, too, who while on earth believed not God Nor death's result; nor, partly by defect Of nature, teaching, and self--will, heaven, nor hell, Nor deathless spirit; who, faithless, trusted not God's universal fatherhood, nor man's Eternal sonship, nor that e'er the All--good Still heaven indwelling self--incarnate came To man, and 'bode in him; but myself believed, And mine own fleshly being only;--I, Repentant sore, that disbelief condemn, And glory now in a worthier faith. Shall hope Me visit here? Son of God. Though in hell's deepest hell, Thy soul shall she salute, and God redeem. Arise! Soul. Divine one! all the world of life To thee is debtor; thy supreme command Thou betterest by exampling; all forgiven. Another Soul. I, too, 'mid scenes of violence, sins of soul, And crimes of head and hand, justly cut off,-- In fullest fruitage of iniquity, My fellow men to save from basest wrongs, Then plotting in my brain, by God all good,-- Repent me of my wickedness; and still Acknowledging the mercy of the pains So grievously imposed, so long endured, Dare hope his pardon, who me power hath dealt His justice to confess. Thou couldst not be True to divinity, were not sin condemned, Nor to humanity were it pardoned not; Thou, Lord, whose faithfulness from heaven to earth Reacheth, and hell's hot roots. Death on my soul Darted. I died, red--handed in my guilt. Through woeful ages hath my spirit burned With expiative remorse, and longing sore Sometime to serve those I upon earth had wronged; Desire that God's divine compassionateness Would grant me leave, for them to sacrifice This self I am, this whole essential pang, Nor elsewise seek I not release from woe. Son of God. Be of good heart, poor soul. Thou art not lost Assure thyself, for aye. Time puts no term To God's divinest attributes; to love Compassion, mercy, truth; or time, and time's Events would dominate his, the eternal mind. Lo now these human with the angelic mixed In process of purgation; angels these Retributive, who by God ordained, their own Misdeeds to expiate in judicial acts, Self--punitive, while towards others penal, thus The united betterment work out of both. Mark, too, who 'twixt due penitence and remorse, Contrition's upper stone and nethermost, grind The spirit self--convict, self--condemned, as through A mill of fire, to pure repentance; whence Reframed, revivified, the heart again Warms with new love towards God and man. Be sure, Mortal, through all our God's intelligent world, Through all its infinite multitudes of soul, Its testing earths, its proof fraught spheres, its orbs Of purifying progress, near or far, Central, or clustering round some parent globe, Not man alone aspires to himwards; not Man only worships wholly. Spirits elect, Through all mind's conscious orders, fraught with gifts Of reason, and answerable for act and choice, Made just, made holy, glorified, e'er seek With him essential union. Nay, even here, Through all hell's haunts of burning anguish, woe Unslaked, for follies voidable once, closed now, With seal judicial of the passed; regrets Unstifleable, for secret sins, to the world Since patent; for applauded lies life--long; The wail of self--deception undeceived; The gnawing curse of conscience tricked in vain; The torturing memories of life's every grace, Each innocent joy, each natural pleasure fouled, Degraded, desecrated by sin; through all The guilty spirit, still purifiable, keeps Deep in its inmost essence consciousness Of divine origin, nor misdoubts its own Capacity of redemption. Change may be That moment quickening in them, not in vain. Though here be weepings of repentant tears, Enough to quench hell's sinlit fires; though here Be wailings like the moan of dying worlds, Over impossible restitutions; wrongs Ne'er to be righted, now: o'er virtue's last Resolves for future amendment lost; not less Believe the world's God's field of culture; sin's Tares into ashes burned, more fertile making Creation; and his heavenly garner helping With time's more glorious harvestage to fill. Festus. O saviour spirit, first--born of deity, mould And ideal of the mental world of man And angels both, divine humanity, tell, Man fallen his final doom, and angels lost; Exceptions, or examples, these? Son of God. This know; All things are intermediate; God, his name For aye be praised and magnified; alone Is first and last, creation circling midst. The pre--existent life of spirit spheres, Is that of preparation; on the earth's Probation; after death, purgation. All Begins, all ends, all mediates sole in God! It is just that sin should suffer. It is unjust, Alike to made and maker, to believe The Eternal should a creatural soul invest With deathlessness to suffer pain alone; No possible betterment to the sufferer, Resultant, proof 'twere of pure tyrant rule; Birth but a penalty; and mortal life One cruel and continuous curse of God. Lucifer. But here annihilation is their hope, Who be not hopeless. How shall aught create Sustain the onslaught of him, the Almighty God? Or how, if hell be but his justice, bear The wrath of the Omnipotent? Who despair, And proud to suffer being, deem nought ends, Live on, in untamed energy of ill. If matter indestructible, why not mind? Son of God. Yea, who the depths of deity can conceive, That only see its surface creature--wards? Their punishment is partly to believe Hell's pain perpetual; but it ends. Lucifer. Ends? Son of God. Ends. Fires these Æonian, not eternal; thoughts Distinguishable. Eternal's nought, save God. In like sense, and the spirit with him made one. As purgatory 'tis everlasting, this; The fires eternal, not the punishment On individual soul, or man's, or fiend's; Age lasting and life lasting such alone. For just so much as a man hath lived in sin, In wilful wickedness or contempt of good; Corrupt, corrupting others; unrepentant: So much the spirit suffers for wrong of sense; So much for worst offence he pays, soul--racked; Who tempts or wrongs another mulcts himself In misery he not reckons, nor conceives. So long remorse, as with a burning rasp, In venom steeped, shall bite his quivering heart; Till, blanched and purified, sin's pantherine spots Vanish in whiteness as the wool of lambs. For the foundations of the intelligent world Are laid in imperfection; and all soul The purifying pain of fire divine Must pass through, in its holy reascent, To the supreme perfection of pure cause. But 'gainst unending woe, the love of God Towards every soul avails, all covering, aye. Festus. O thou who art the humanity of God, Impersonate and our nature's type foreplanned By the Eternal in himself, ere time, Holy and kindly are thy words; wise, true; Befitting one who like communion holds With deity and with creature. In thy breast The weakness of all worlds dwells; on thy brow The glory of their Maker and thine. All life's Most holiest sympathies, all mind's virtues meet Heavenwards preponderating, in thee, and last, Even in God's bosom centre. And thus love, The heart's deep gulph--stream, that with warmer wave Sun--gilded, soothes the abysses of our life, And tempers, with its mild divinity, The universal breath all part--wise breathe, Its end celestial hasting with serene Progress to compass, makes us transient feel In loving God the soul reseeks its source; Being to being answering, name to name. While every evil passion, which man's soul With flesh engendering, fostered while in life, Becomes, in death, a living fiend to scourge With patricidal and Briarean hand, Its guilty parent, shrinking, shrieking, lost; But vanquished, grows an angel pure, transformed, Attracting to salvation in the heavens. Son of God. Oh vainly never from the contrite soul, Stabbed with the golden dagger of remorse, For sin, pours forth the penitential prayer. The enlightened conscience quickened by blessed grief, Man's self--condemning judgment torturing him, Death were too cheap a pain, man's life a fine Too trivial to appease God's proud revenge, But that with reason faith ones; the less ill Men do, less will they suffer; the more good On earth men do to men, the more will God Do unto them in heaven, for he repays Always a hundred, ofttimes thousand--fold. Guardian Angel. Wherefore should all men purge the soul of sin Conscience of criminal desire; self--love; Concupiscence, ire, envy, hatred, sloth; The mind, of all perturbing passion; heart, Of all propensity not made clear to bear Heaven's fullest, holiest light; whereof by love, Divine and human, wisdom, charity, Immortal mediators of the world and soul, Man may become the blessed recipient; And heaven be filled with spirit, as air with motes Prismatic, the vivacious seed of worlds. Spirit Redeemed. Who knoweth this and sinneth, great his sin. Spirit Saved. But greater towards the sinner is God's love. Son of God. One grain of good whose sheafings shall at last Choke out perdition, and with glorious death All evil ruin, see mortal! here insown. Lucifer. It is not that I cannot credit truth But that I rather fear as once of old, God hath inspired false prophets with a lie, To wreak me further wretchedness. But now Stand thou--while this great reaper reaps his ear Elsewhere; beside me. I will speak to mine; Or they will sure believe him. Hell, O hell; Powers of perdition, thrones of darkness, hear! Wrath, ruin, torment hear ye me. It is I. Thanks, fiends, I know ye hate me well, and may. I tempted, ruined all. But wherefore, now, So ominously supine? Earth's fate, and all Her many--kingdomed tribes, now, know ye not, Is oscillating in air? List, then, to me. Be still, ye thunderblasts and hills of fire; Hell doth out--din itself. Weak hearted slaves, What are ye that I thus should toil for you? Power I have proffered, kingdoms I've prepared. Nothing is for ye, but your fiery fate. Slaves, slaves, ye are too much at ease. Ye leave Me single in evil's work of woe. I, sole, Go forth to sow destruction. I, alone, Reap ruin. But had ye been as I, ere now The universe had been, doubt not, all hell; And for a pit each fiend had had a world To rule. But rise! To strive 'gainst God is life; Evil to spread is more than joy, its shade Dims all that yet may happen. Up, hell, and act! Who knows but from its central chair we, good May yet dis--seat; and, hurling, each his orb, Scatter it in fine as sand? To reign is nought Like to dethrone; each greater then than God; Or, is it ye dream of peace--like theirs late lost-- Submiss, and pity, of power restorative? And if dethrone we may not, that we can We will, withdraw from spirits, even, one by one The allegiance owed the Lord of life in heaven, Or elsewhere; leave him lonely in the skies Desert; and grieving on his liegeless throne: While we o'er all the populous spheres hold rule, And spite of right and good, ill deify. With these, or those, new ranks of spirit sublime, Succeed we may, nor fail one perfect soul. If elsewise, us it irks not; for at last, Time perfected, if ever, and all souls freed As promised, from the tomb--like clay they boast, Rise, ere the threshold of eternity, one Crosseth, a deed of note I have in mind May yet be achieved; whereof more news anon. Methinks I see ye captives, suppliants, bound. But will ye, fiends, give up your hopes of heaven And entrance as young conquerors fresh from spoil, And choice of thrones, won by your death--red hands, For pitiful penitence, like yon angel there, Garbed though in sheeny white, star--tiar'd, lyre armed? Forbid it, all sin's pride, sin's prowess; all Hell's pains we have borne, unblenched. Be it not. Meanwhile Know ye, man's world's adjudged not long to endure. And though time's orb so waneth, fields there are Twain to be foughten as yet, with man, with God. Be glad; be glad; earth's sons may soon be here; And here, as earnest of my word, behold This visitant earthling, standing by my side. Speak to them, Festus. Festus. Nay, I dread them. Lucifer. Speak. Great spirits he scarce is worthy to address ye, In that I cannot say he is yet, like you-- Festus. But I am here. What matters how? God's will, And his who sets me here, for all suffice; I, saved or lost. It is enough 'tis fate; Fate that I come, fate that I quit; and though Soul--racked to view such woe, yet mercy approves The means remedial of God's righteousness, And justice satisfied; for wrath which not Ends, nor appeaseable is, is brute revenge, Not divine equity. Souls, doubt I not, Are, which be better, some, some worse than mine, More illy qualified these than I to brook Hell's restorative stripes and chastening storms, Fiery; but though none less, and would 'twere so! Yet have I never mocked the word of God, Nor torn it into fuel for my scorn; Nor doubted saving tremblingly, his being; His love to man, his right to be adored; Never have hated, never wronged my race, Deluded nor rejoiced in their delusion; Never have beckoned off the good from good; Never have mocked nor scattered hopes; nor e'er Have wasted hearts nor desolated hearths; And if I have, once, twice, as who hath not, Toyed with temptation, yet even he will say, Who there stands, I have never yielded up To his burning dalliance, this my soul. And though God's everlasting hate were sin, sin's not In the spirit of man, not even in yours eterne; As I from lips divinely inspired have learned Here, and now haste, confirmed of love, to impart To man. Yet he's my friend, the evil one. And why is wondrous; judge ye wherefore, too. I have no malice, envy, nor revenge; None of those petty passions which bad hearts Scourge red into themselves, for passions are Sufferings,--and which to nourish is his wont, Wherein's his power; and save enjoying earth Have nought done he could share in. But he came From God he said, to give, and I believed, Great spirits lie not, nor doubt. Lucifer. Hear! He says truth. He knows not; nor is't his nor yours to know The reason of all my doings. It is that unfeared, Unforethought, tempts, betrays; and that I who bait, Who teaze the world to do its will, most use. Proceed we therefore to the future. Though Racked with undying pain, all pain must end, As born of life create, though life must cease. Eternal nought is, nought can be; save God. But how Creator's glory reconcile With all creation's sin, save those his grace Sustains perforce, in heaven, 'twere wise to leave In his hands; since nor ye nor I can say. As to this mortal, what I have done is all Sanctioned of heaven, all I may do, to the end. God, go on making; I will go on marring: Go on believing man; I will go on tempting; Saint, angel, cherub, seraph and archangel, Good genius, guardian of the soul o' the world, Go all on blessing! My being it is to curse. Now back to earth to work out what remains Of this man's fate, and wait his world's destruction. What next may hap I reck not. Festus. Let us hence. Lucifer. Where now is he whose advent wheresoe'er O'er evil triumphing, makes heavenly good Persistent? Nought I fear save him, and him Successful. Festus. There; see, many do believe. Lucifer. It likes me not. Though what seemed fated aye A happier fate annuls, yet who shall hope Fall such as mine redeemable? Away The vain, impossible thought. Festus. Impossible not. For hell remedial proves God's love. The world Devoutly sworn to error deems the spirit Create, tormented aye: but finite soul Bears not, nor can, pain ever. Hell's itself God's everlasting ordinance. Nought he does But is with his own eternity impressed And divine wisdom. Hell, therefore, the force Corrective and ameliorative of ill Done wilfully 'gainst conscience, reason, seems Rightliest prepared for temporal wrongs; itself Of terminable appliance to finite Transgressor, as were just; and just God is: Not punishing minor sins with major pains, But penalty appropriating to offence With nicest equity. Greater need in truth Were that the base or ignorant soul should rise Through grades of penitence and amendment, sought Freely, and be made noble, wise and blessed With final pardon of God, than slave in hell, Through burning ages endlessly, to adjust The balance sin on earth left wronged; for sin To human soul inevitable, to God Irreconcileable, and wherefore he hath made His own hands answerable, shall yet become The contrary of all things, and not be. Lucifer. This is to me a mystery. How can hell Dwindle, betimes, thus; God being just? Festus. I see Truly in this God's wisdom; yea, foresee A time when creatural opposition ceased All temporal misconception ended, soul Though limited, so instructed, shall confess God's justice and benevolence in all things. All spirits then one with might divine, this hell Shall in the fiery lake, of old ordained Annihilative of all ill, cease for ever. Orb of perdition, thou too shalt die out, And thy red sheeted flames shall fail for aye. Thy palpitating piles of ruin, hot With ever active agony, and quick With soul immortal, down whose midnight heights The wrath of God, in cataracts of fire, Precipitates itself unceasingly, Shall rush into destruction as a steed Rushes into the battle, there to die. Thy quivering hills of black and bloody hue, Death--breathing, shall collapse like lifeless lungs, And end in air and ashes. Thou shalt be Dashed from creation sparklike from a hand Scarless; pass like a rollèd syllable Of midnight thunder from the coming day. The river of all life which flows through heaven, Shall yet reach thee and overflood thy flames. Thou shalt no more vex God, nor man, nor all The seekings of the soul shall hunt thee out. Thy day is sometime over. Be it soon; And thou the lost world which the world hath lost.
Philip James Bailey’s other poems:
