Philip James Bailey (Филип Джеймс Бэйли)
Festus – 11
That aëry lodestone, operant still, The love of boundless knowledge, leads us down Deeplier than ever leadline went, to search The central rayless light we have within, And learn, that, touched albeit all mysteries, traced Orb--founding theories sagest, handled fire Deftliest, unfit, as discontent, to abide Longwhile by nature's hearth, 'twere better seek Our proper good in act. Such light to love, To hope for, strive for, live for, as best shows Our Maker, fellow labourer for man's good, Working, within us charitably; and shows, To souls, high aimed, who others claim to serve Supremely, they themselves need, lowliest rule, Life makes most blessed. Even science finds in God Its ultimate form, the unknown; all utmost truth To inmost faith, responds; all heavens externe. Arched, sphere o'er sphere conformably, to soul's Interior lines. It is from research like this, True aspiration riseth. Earth--The Centre. Lucifer and Festus. Lucifer. Behold us in the fire--crypts of the world; Through seas and buried mountains, tomb--like tracts Fit to receive Death's skeleton when he is dead; Through earthquakes and the once proud structured bones Of earthquake--swallowed cities, have we wormed, Down to fire's ever--burning forge, whence breathes That fluent life--heat, penetrative, which clothes Itself in lightnings, scaping hence through air, And pierces to the last and loftiest pore Of earth's snow--mantled mountains. In these vaults Are hidden the archives of the universe. There screened, in awful and omnipotent ease, Nature, the delegate of God, brings forth Her everlasting elements; and here, The reverend ashes of all ages gone See, finally inurned. Festus. All solid now Was fluid once, air, water, fire, or some Vast, permeant, element; communal, all in one; As in this focal, world--evolving heat; Moisture all mothering; or the vacuous power We are based on, I must deem. Lucifer. The original Of all things, all existence being one Derivative whole, is one. The differences Seen, show diverse but to the finite mind. Festus. This marble--walled immensity, overroofed With pendant mountains glittering, awes my soul. Lucifer. Here mayst thou lay thine hand on nature's heart, And feel its thousand yearèd throbbings beat, As through a sea--strait, till to beat, it cease. High overhead, and deep below our feet, The sea's broad thunder booms, scarce heard; bowed round, Yon arches, like to suspended continents Of starry matter burning inwardly, stand: Hard by, earth's gleaming axle sleeps, unmoved, All movement centering. Festus. Age, here, on age Lie heaped like withered leaves. And must it end? Lucifer. All here hath holden fellowship with gods, With eldest time and primal matter, space, Stars, air, and all inherent fire, the abyss Unluminous, chaos, night. These rocks retain Proof of those times, earth's ancient youth, when she With heaven had holy bridals; royal gods, If turbulent, combative, discontent, nathless Their bright, immortal issue; when, too, lived, Prehuman and heroic, the broad--eyed race, Whose science, as these rocks the seas sustain, Hath formed the base of the world's fluctuous lore; When, too, by mountainous travail, human thought Sought to obtain the untouched heavens, by right Of lineal virtue; when the artful powers, Forecounsel and experience, by meet aid Of wisdom, teachers of all social good, With godhead strove; and gloriously they failed; In failure half successful; when even men's Minds were as continents vast, and not, as now, Seed--plots minute, with acres, here and there, Of brains untilled. Festus. Minds still which know by proof What those could but assume, that all these rocks, Hand--wrought of One, these solid fires; the air Nebulous, commixed with starry spore, and earth's Waters, with unborn continents heavy, all The rude original seen of nature, here, Being ordered, now, informed, all procreant mate Of heaven; these crude products of matter, once Like firstlings on the axis, altarwise, Laid, of the globe, earth's testimony still stand To her creative God; who, in the heart Of nethermost darkness, his miraculous name Scores legible, as upon the sun's broad brow, Mid blaze chaotic, and liquescent plains Of ever--seething flame, where sink and rise Alp--blebs of fire, vast, vagrant; name which reads Perfection infinite in all ways; all names Other of gods, obliterates. Lucifer. How but one? Each star, canst tell? may its divinity boast. Festus. God's hand hath scooped the hollow of this world; His, sole, who all doth, and remembereth all! Or aim, or deed; nor, like an atomie dropped Of meteoric light, some star, in's lightning rush, Hath brushed off, which is quenched in last night's dew; Nor as, when fiery monarch, ireful, starts In jewelled arms war--wards, a sudden gem Falls, and, 'neath tramp of shouting hosts, is lost Am I, even I, forgotten. Ere blended, here, As in a bowl, the spheral rudiments lay; Whence all elaborated in turn, and raised From shining star--seed into embryon orbs And germs gigantic of the universe; Each mighty change a thought of God, each thought An act substantial of perfective power, Leaving at last prolific earth life--stored With light impregned, I know right well 'twas planned For me, for man, his favourite. Even here, These blasts that tear tempestuous from the deep; These throes that rack the centre, nature's wail For her directing lord, this many an age Missed from her midst, these elemental hells, Conflictive, earth's upheavals, founts of fire, And island vomitings, fail the sense to quench Of divine wardship; nought permitting he, Though for a time self--hidden, and changeless laws, In mutable types, through ever--varying forms, Dispensing, proof of one continuous end, To happen his beloved of harm; and this As holiest truth I hold. Didst bring me hither, Trusting to lose God's track? Lucifer. Nay, but to show How things begin to end. Why, then, e'er made? This ball so rolled and rounded, melts away Even now, to its constituent atoms. See, This weary axis wavers in its end; It will sometime snap. Festus. Though here were posited All secrets of existence, natural those, These supernatural, dwell not here would I, Not science' founts profoundest even, to drain. I long to know again the fresh green earth, Breeze life--breath'd; sea, and sacred stars; and feel In active comity with the world's wide powers. These recollections crowd upon my mind, Like constellations on the evening skies, And will not be forbidden. Oh! let us leave. Lucifer. Aught that reminds an exile of his home Is surely pleasant. I, friend, am content. Festus. I cannot be content with less than heaven; Living, and comprehensive of all life. Thee, universal heaven, celestial all; Thee, sacred seat of intellective time; Field of the soul's best wisdom: home of truth, Star--throned; by whom, and old oracular night, Our spirit compeers in every orb are taught; Who can but love? To me, by night, by day, Thou art, thou must be reverend, world--whole sphere! Whether the sun all light thee, or the moon, In clouds embayed, mid astral islets, air With beauty inundate; or some god--star, sole, As a great drop of light, shed tremulously Out of her full flowing urn; yea, tearlike, fallen From her, Night's eye, o'er nature's tome, as she Reads, softening so our present fates; or when In radiant thousands, each star reigns, unshared His royalty, and leaderless, uncontrast With the light their light is lost in, sons of fire, Arch element of the heavens; thee, even, when storm And rack, our vision from thy threshold bar, More love I, thinking upon the splendid calm Which bounds the deadly fever of these days, The higher, holier, spiritual heaven wherein Soul, predisposed to expatiate, shall start forth On joy's relapseless course; and such progress As counts the infinite only in its midst, Felicitously partake. Come, let us rise; Nay, quit this world, within whose heartstrings still I know me encoiled. The deeplier I descend, The higher rise, the nearer seem I God. Lucifer. It is knowledge only makes thee near to aught, Whence ignorance most eloigns. These rocks, which hold Time's cavernous footsteps printed in raw fire Detain thee, then, no more? Festus. I would be gone. The world hath made such comet--like advance, Lately on science, men may almost hope Before it die of sheer decay, to learn Something about their infancy, as this day I have taught me of earth's original. Lucifer. True; but me This troubles not. Festus. Were all earth's mountain chains To utter fire at once, what a grand show Of fireworks for our neighbour moon. Lucifer. The passed Hath seen such sights; and I; seen grander. Rise! Let us ascend. Festus But not through the charred throat Of an extinct volcano. Lucifer. This way; down; So thread we at once the world--bead. Festus. Haste, away. Life is too brittle, time too brief to waste.
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