Philip James Bailey (Филип Джеймс Бэйли)
Festus – 14
Even while a star Might twinkle twice, or calm, retiring sea, Irresolute yet to leave, his moonlit kiss Shimmering repeat upon the impassive shore, The arch--fiend and youth, bound skyward, soaring hold Darkly, commune, like twilight and midnight, Of being and things to be, 'mid interspace Of worlds. The angelic fall is touched on. Souls-- Imperfect, mixed, not seeing how deity could, Pure spirit, by act of will aught earthy, gross Frame; nor ill's source, end, understand; mistaught By adulterate truth which poisons more than pure Falsehood, hears how, of angels made, not God Who would not with the earthy soil his hand, our orb Had all its parts constituent cast by palms Depute, tale told to mislead perchance. Yet who Heaven granting place and means of penitence, Irrestorable shall name the angelic race? Who fiction blame, mother of fairest hope? The Interstellar Space. Festus and Lucifer. Festus. Where, where am I? Lucifer. We are in space and time, just as we were Some half a second since; where wouldst thou be? Festus. I would be in eternity and heaven; The spirit, and the spirit made blessed, of all Existence. Lucifer. And thou shalt be, and shalt pass All secondary nature; all the rules And the results of time. Upon thy spirit These things shall act no more; their hand shall be Withered upon thee; in thee they shall cease, Like lightnings in the deadening sea. Not now. We have worlds to go through first. But see, just turn Thy face, see earth. Festus. How beauteous, brighter thrice Than e'er our lamp to man; just mean 'twixt sun And moon, its mighty members, sea and land, Shining, in revelry of light. Lucifer. Cleared now, All atmosphere terrene, and meteor zones, Into this darkening azure, deeper aye At every breath, where reigns eternal night, Haste we; thy longings shall be satiate soon. Festus. Ah! many have been my longings, many and deep, To learn the mysteries of creation; things Not published on earth's surface. Lucifer. Such as,--say! Festus. As thou didst promise me to unfold--and now Our time, and this vast progress, seeming smooth, Continuous, e'er unsummed, converse invites. Lucifer. Speak confidently. Festus. Before man's fall I'd know How was't the angels fell? Lucifer. Nor all by one Revolt, nor one decline. Festus. Say how. Lucifer. Time was, When God, one, sole, in ancientry eterne, In essence, inconceivable, all extent A luminous fulness filling, willed to make; Withdrew a portion of his essence; breathed The angels into being; and in that space, Girt by the infinite, the world became; Near to him, spirit, life; matter, last of all, And farthest from him; willed, still. With this rose The evil of life create, all possible sin. The happy angels, to enlarge God's reign Thinking, besought his leave to make a world, From matter's vast residuous mass;--time was, Earth beamed heaven's youngest orb--which granted, they, Armed with imputed deity, began Instant the work orbific; fire and all The elements freed, the land from sea demarked, Rock igneous from aquatic, clay from ooze; The continents made, the isles, the mountains, streams, Lakes, fountains, plains, tree, herb and flower, all life Vegetive, in fine, and brutish; all that wings Air, or swims sea, or treads, four--footed, earth; Or creeps, or glides. These giants made, these elves, Apes, pygmies, such, the tall indignant cranes, Angered by broken treaties, drave and drowned In sea--pools, first of victories hight marine. Those, Œmim and Zamzummim of old writ; And those Hrymthursar called, who norwards held Frore Jotunheim, fleering oft at gods and men; Vain rivals of one heaven--planned shape, of man By God in just majestic medium made. And this, accepted, they with all gifts decked. God taking thought, himself, of sun and star,-- With whom to think indeed is to create,-- He, to the formative angels gave the world They had thus wrought out of chaos, and adorned With every living miracle, and man As head and end of all its dignities, In delegate royalty to rule. Thus earth, Thine earth, embraced of heaven, and core of space, Was plenished, furnished, finished. The angels now Longing to instruct man's mind, a chosen band, Out of their fair fraternity, depute Who straight ascending, quit for heaven. So all, Bright and more bright, while starward they progressed, And touched the invisible threshold of the skies, These angels grew; till as they neared the seat Where, close below the throne, bright Nature sits, Perpetual maid, perpetual mother--bride; Sits, gladdening in her splendid offspring, spread Through space, star--spirits of seed divine, blessed heirs Of deity; sits, serene;--they, pondering, paused, Who seemed a constellation, all of suns, Tempting the zenith. Here, their quest resigned To God's sole will, 'twas here, accordant Fate The predetermined boon they asked, conveyed, Due powers of God to perfect, that they loved; And more, he, hearkening to such fervent prayer, Grants; but ere yet dismissed, to them, to all In heaven assembled, speaks thus: `Spirits divine, Immortals, hear; go rule each one his lot, Self--sought, of grace appointed. To all tribes Of men shall prophets speak, and holiest souls Heaven--seeking; heed they be of you truth taught. So teach them, that however with faith and truth Inspired, they serve God only; reverence due Pay you, pay all; but adoration sole To him who all things made and sole, can save.' Angels and spirit--hosts of prehuman strain, Levies of light divine innumerous, rapt All, sate in still assent, until one soul, Interpretant of heaven, and mind create, Tuneful and luminous as a singing star, Stepped into light, and in the immarbled ear Of the convergent infinite, sang to God Larklike, his lone lay, gratulant, worshipful Of him All--Wise. A cherub--choir the same In stateliest revolution, traced, truth--taught, Of power project through all effluxive spheres, Returning fined, exalted, perfected, In a perduring emblem all the heavens Still study, and with their centre--searching eyes. These things, though wholly comprehending not, Things passed, things coming, God the angels showed; Whereat they trembled, and were troubled. Some, In place of proffering lowliest praise to God, And holiest thanks for leave to do his will, In those harmonious lauds the hosts had sung, Pleased with their works, cried, These created we. Sudden, the stars stood silent. Every sphere Ceased its divine accord. The sun paled. All, That proud presumptuous vaunt, shuddered to hear. Divisions reigned. There were, who Godwards kept Due loyalty; and these withdrew to heaven, The Angel of Salvation, Phanuel pure; Sun--ruling Ouriel, Luniel, and the rest, Peers of the fallen, once, and holy seven, Supplanted, round the throne, their brethren. These, For some were more sin--tainted, others less; Earthwards rewinging, in prospective pride Enriched it thousand--fold with all delights. For men they sowed herb, spice, grain; planted flower; Fruits luscious graffed on trees; silver and gold Dight earth with, ore, and marble, and every gem; Gems larger lovelier these, than all now known; And that smaragdine mirror, their chief toy, Which all the angels wrought, each gifting it With some unique perfection, after owned By Israel's wisest, who the tongues of bird, Brute, angel, men, all, knew; and who therein Looking, the wished--for passed, of any age, Beheld apparent, as in the instant fact;-- And when, solicitous of the future, he Had breathed thereon, with the evanishing reek From its talismanic disk, limned clear, he saw, And all the coming, conned. For men they chose The sites of cities, after, seats of power, Wealth, law, religion, learning, freedom; one, The city of the dead, men for themselves Founded in ominous haste, and fast bestrewed With skeleton foliage of the tree of life. God made man free. He fell. His freedom seen, The angels asked allegiance of man's race. And while some mixed with carnal follies drift Hellwards, on storms of passionate covetise; By rank and vile inventions, to man's ill, Earn othersome God's wrath; no few through pride In their first formative privileges; in thought Reigning triumphant, independent gods, O'er men, shared sept and tribe among them; each, Launched on his own wild will; and thus they ceased, Those once most virtuous angels, that pure choice, And grateful excellence they first had, to own; Seeking at first their names, each to his clan To magnify, and so become, by aid Of mean, or monstrous, miracle, their gods; In lieu of teaching men, the One Supreme To worship, God. Fell many an angel thus. The fall is universal in all spheres. For finite spirit, wherever tasked to keep The counsels of divine perfection fails. The starry story of one primal pair, Twin pillars to the portals of life's fane, Or free--born deities, free as stars are fixed, And the celestial serpent, sun--conceived, Invader of heaven's annual paradise, Wants not, where'er is life; but graved in rocks, Rude missals of millennial patriarchs, Incised in arrowy Zend, on tabled clay-- On palm foil penned, or purple pulp of flowers Illumed with every literal grace, or writ On virgin vellum rose--gilded and perfumed, Shrined in the bosom of some cloistered saint, The same sad tale perpetually commands The astral annals of the universe. A separate interest 'twixt themselves and God Insinuate once, like conflicts 'mong themselves, And schemes of empire basely politic, sprang. One name of God each took, or masculine Or feminine, deity having justly both Who Father is, and bringer--forth of all; Some title of divinity, none save God Could equitably assume, that so they, vain, Might, as lords substitute, the rights receive Due to the alone Eternal, and his name Blot from the hearts and memories of mankind. Such were Baal Semim, Lord of heaven, whom old Phoenicia worshipped; such too, league--invoked In Syria as the lord of waters, he Whose covenant witness was the e'erlasting well; He, such, by Nile, Hephaistos, father of fire; Aurmazd or Ilus, such; who when he had bade The Persian bow before his so--called throne, The sun, and claimed, phantastic, to have made Espendermad, earth's fair tutelar, bright Khourdad, And all the seven great angels, lit the stars, Father himself of light; his strength reserved, So feigned he to his prophet, for that strife Final and all composing, 'gainst his power I name not, lord of evil, but in Yezd Prudentially still worshipped, from the world Routed, to be, with three--fold thunder fires, As chiselled glorious on the Assyrian slab; Vain boasters all these mock divinities; such Whom Asian tribes hailed, dove--born, mother of heaven, And 'mong their mingled gods the Nasairÿ claimed, Lady of light; those who in sequent years In the holy and lovely island of the west, As lords of light, of fate, of wealth, of power, Gifts, glories were adored; such, latelier known, Mid deeps Pacific, isled, Möooi, stretched Full length, gigantic shorer--up of earth; High title his, Sustainer of the world. But soon in angel breasts, ill passions bred, And multiplied to wrongs; developed ill Evolved more perfect sin, till, frantic stricken, Men cursed their benefactors, cursed and scorned. These, fabling of the future, bade their seers Read signs in moving spheres, coin chanted lies Which, doubly feigned, deceivers self--deceived, From tripod trolled, or maundered from dim shrines, And brazen idols, inwardly excavate, Whereby false faith, or rich voluptuous fraud, Might in the murk of night be satiate. Thus, Contentious 'mong themselves who most should reap From man's credulity, all where triumphed wrong. Oppression followed rivalry; full soon Symbols and signs of terror were, in place Of love, God's own and holiest title, ta'en; And the divine to finite passion changed. Then first the primal lamb whom spring's warm breeze, Its pearly flowers and brooklets bubbling clear, Welcome, newborn, 'neath sign connate in heaven; Next, human victims bled; and passed the babe Through baptistry of blood or fire, to peace. Such offerings, loathed by heaven; while stormiest wars,-- Each striving most to widen his domain, Propelling his adorers to invade, Root out, and ruin all of faith opposed,-- Angel with angel waged, and god 'gainst god. The heavens were rent with lightnings, and the fields Of interjacent space, as the high powers, Now heated to malignity, oft closed In thunderous conflict, till the fire breath'd hills Grew iced with fear; and quaking earth beneath Reeked with the gore of brethren, brethren slain. So, while 'gainst heathen, heathen, kin 'gainst kin Streamed foe--wise in embattled war--waves; mowed, With scythed cars, earth's man--eared crops; of wealth, Peace, culture, states despoiled; while every land Red rapine reaped, and idiot famine fed; While maid and mother, eld and childhood, ate Grief's heart, and drank the tears of woe, hell, know, Agape for pitiless spirits, and o'er men's wrongs Retaliative, content, groaned deep delight. The angel of the ocean--flowing Nile, And he who Hermon's heights and Lebanon held; These, who the honours of the plains, and those Who river, sea, or several planet claimed; And he who, where Hiddekel gulphward darts, Ruled with an absolute crown, for ages, strove, With changeablest success, but changeless woe. So, too, the Median angel and the Greek, Contending, fanes and altars were o'erthrown, Defiled; and myriads, militant devotees, Through vain ambition of immortals, slain. One thing was common to all nations, woe. Sin, vice and luxury, with their flower--wreathed rods, Ruled and chastised the nations; race by race, Slaughtered, made, like that cruel tower Shirauz Once held, of bodies breathful, limed with blood, Time's generations, layers of death. Festus. Not all:-- Or vainly read I earth's recorded passed, Was surely bale, nor with life blight; to man One sweet exemption, by God's grace, pertained; One gift diviner than the angels gave, Or took away, by them o'erlooked, but given From heaven's own treasury, all their mutual ire Could ruin not, nor pervert; love, nought but love; Parental, filial, conjugal, and divine. Life's armies were recruited still by love; Fond hearts still grew affection, as fields grain; Still bloomed and fruited with an inward life, And vintage of delight; still youthful breasts, Reciprocally fired, imparted joy, Imported rapture; tenderest converse, still, Sweet as the whisperings of imblossomed trees, Or the low lispings of night's silvery main, Lived on the lips of lovers, then as now, By fount or mead, or wandering, moon beguiled, 'Neath tall white cliffs, along the unshadowed shore. Lucifer. In sooth not all was sorrow, nor all sin; Many too reckless lived to grieve; who died Early, died guiltless of much crime; not all Was ill, then. Not the less, priest, bard, nor mage, From oracles, nor from mystic orgies; none From secret source, nor patent; ghostliest runes, Nor rolls of birchen bark, with mighty lay Of divination, graven in branchèd signs, Ere dim tradition; not from tablets rich With Auscan god--lore, and augurial rites Of volant fowl; from cane, nor palm--leaf, drenched With sacred scents, in gilded Pali penned, Could whisper to the world one saving spell; One sacred secret snatched from jealous heaven; That might the house of death illume; nor aught From oracles Sibylline, or of Klarian fane, Delphic, of holiest ambiguity, sought; Not Rabbin versed in Kabalistic lore, Nor echoing daughter of the spirit voice; Nor spheral talismans, nor star--graved seals, Whose influences, worlds, elements, all pervade Could raise in life one soul to peaceful hope, Death--passed, of ultimate union with the Light Intelligible, of being. Nought hence could save. Retrack their steps the angels scorned; nor deigned, From holiest truths eliminating all false, To help reharmonize with God, man's mind; But, as misplaced of purpose, blent their rites, That so from mystery mystery still might come, And no solution, no salvation, soul Sufficing, issue. Virtue, without end Was preached of, taught, discussed, belauded, sung; But as in theories of best life, men grew More skilled and perfect, so in practice worse. Nor all philosophies, nor their devotees, 'Vailed aught; not his, who held the all was God; Not his who first from heaven to earth deduced Philosophy, and then from earth to heaven Retraced the soul's path by immortality; Nor his, the sometime slave's, surnamed divine, Rich in Egyptian wisdom, and all lore Hellenic, who in Academe taught, well pleased, The teacher of earth's conqueror, and the hearts Of tyrant kings softened by gratitude; Not they who, in the Porch, oft dreamed aloud Their passionless figment of humanity; Nor he who, in the Garden, vainly taught Pure pleasure as man's truest mark and end; The pleasure of just virtue, one with God's; Whose words the hearts corrupt corrupted they Aimed but to purify; not he who scorned All things, nor he, all doubting; not even they, Manly and moderate, honest friends of truth, Who all the tenable points of others chose, And in one system starred. Nor better fared The dubious mind, elsewhere, intent on truth. To some, in every land, of soul reborn, The gifts pertained of wisdom, life and peace; But who the multitudinous mass should teach; What truths unfold, and what more shrewd reserve, The wisest men were doubtfullest, and believed The ultimate indifference of all deeds, All thoughts, all motives, all intents; the best Were erring guides; to most man's life but showed A bridge of groans across a stream of tears. Again the giant world--sphinx, winged with air, Sun--faced, star--maned, tailed with the rolling sea, And breasted as beseems the dam of all; Who nourisheth men and beasts; her riddle reads. And this time, she the knot divine propounds, Of how may man with God be reconciled? Who solves, earns well the purple; and thenceforth, With ominous and curse--worthiest glory, wears His gold--spiked crown. But ah! his end is woe. He to his fate uneyes himself in vain; His tomb is in Time's chasm; and all along, Oracular thunders further quest forefend. In every generation of his kind, Hero, or priest, or bard, or sage, or king, There lives but one can solve. Festus. And all were dumb! Lucifer. But now that times, of old foretold, drew nigh, God, the most highest, compassionating the plight Of wretched mortals, thus with reason blessed But with material nature cursed, devoid Of guide infallible, or of standard pure, And ground beneath the crushing rivalries Of disobedient angels, sent on earth His spirit--anointed prophet, soul heaven--born, To preach true knowledge of heaven's Lord, that faith In him alone supreme, he might retrieve To earth's bewildered nations, and the reign O'erthrow of angel--kings who thralled the world With their most false misrule; and, in their front, The haughty and presumptuous spirit--chief, Who, one stern family of Semitic seed Choosing, inhibiting brotherhood from the hour When out of Nembrod's wrath, and Assur's land, The idolatrous Chaldees' demoniac fires, And city, itself a realm, of Nin--Evech, He brought the father of the faithful; ruled His wayward chosen in all their wanderings, Rebellions, servitudes; and, by him led forth Lateliest from Goschen, in K'naan now 'bode: He, boasting God to teach, the sole, most high, But elsewhere with the unequal angels linked, Confused of doctrine:--tremble not, but hear. Men cried aloud to God, God, pitying man, Eyes, in sublime compassion, man below; And mercy, unto the semi--angel, man, Flows from the vision. God, long--suffering, acts. Festus. At length we touch the hem of history's robe. Lucifer. This chosen, and all the gentile tribes, like gusts Blew rivalrous from their lips of prophecy. What, then was so predicted, could but come. Comes now the liberator of soul, the saint Of saints; the preacher of forgiven sin; The great Pacificator. Festus. Went not wild The world with joy? Lucifer. Indeed not. Festus. Was no clash Of sword on shield, hence useless but for hive Of swarmful bees? No bruit of brazen trump, Pealing its joyous requiem o'er dead war? No world--wide murmurs of expectant joy, Too mighty to be uttered, or repressed, From myriads heard? No arch triumphal reared? Earth's cities showed no revelry? No domes, Nor Parian pillars chapiter'd with flame Of flower--wreathed lamps, respiring odorous oils? No festal halls with floral rainbows spanned, And bannered silks with silvery ciphers wrought? No gilded car? No team of creamwhite steeds, In housings pranked of purple and pearl? Came forth No mitred priest, his path of peace to charm With benedictions, pouring at his feet Long--templed treasures, ransom of a race? Their trenchant trade nor smith, nor armourer, ceased? Seemed there no universal pause from pain; War; now of heaven discountenanced, and God's truce Of promise, made perpetual? Lucifer. Since that day The world hath made more war than e'en before; And this man's followers, mad to prove him prince Of peace, have soaked, and still steep, earth in blood. Festus. In grace of such high advent, figured forth, By sagest seer, in sacred dance and game, Showed not the sphered skies their mysteries, then, In honour of God's fatherhood first preached Of all men, and man's brotherhood? Lucifer. Nay, thou dreamest. Festus. Glared not the hills with joy--fires? Made the kings No feast imperial? Bled not fountains wine, With gush luxurious into marble meres? Nor prince nor kingling largesse gave to churl, Nor freedom to those bond? No? Loosed not heaven, When, masked in manhood, earth he dignified By touching with his feet, as once the wave While he to faith a golden pathway showed,-- Self--interested, from out its depths, some noon Eclipsing orb, that missioned thus of God Man's spirit to purify, and exalt with proof Of immortality, all earth's souls might learn His entrance into life? Lucifer. Thou knowst the tale. So it was not. Festus. No; thus. Like that lone star Which on the thronèd lady's lap, fresh coined Of God, leapt forth for later worlds, one pure Pale starlet, marked of none but three, through air Glode slowly, and towards a newborn babe that night Of wintry snows, by her who bare, cave--cribbed, 'Mid lowing oxen, and adoring herds, Pointed with rayonnant finger, and retired. Lucifer. Foretold or not by stars, or wingèd suns, This seer of seers who humbliest lived, his words Well--like profoundly clear, and, deeplier drawn, The purer showing, his entire life one long Perpetual miracle, who to preach the truth And men buy back to true faith in one God, Lived solely, was by treachery base,--inspired Of th' apostate angels colleagued--seized and slain. Thousands revered and loved him; one betrayed. For this, for man's own sake, and for the ills Strife rivalrous 'mong these celestial powers, Caused, God deposed the angels; and, their seals Of sovereignty annulled, they cast, as bidden, All, into black oblivion; even as since In mountain tarn volcanic, throne and crown, Sceptre, and all regalia, golden gauds, The imperial pagan of the west,--though he Justly, to baulk his conquerors base,--implunged; In time to come, some needy fisherman, At close of day, with his last throw, perchance, Shall joyful net, a mass,--if weed--webbed, foul, And once a despot's diadem,--may yet Burnish to brightness fit for holiest shrines. Festus. Thus, too, may it be with the angels, once consigned To purifying penance, loth henceforth Even in thought, God's unity, like intense, Like infinite with this onemost heaven, to break. Is there for such no hope? None? Nay, I see Hope's dawn in far--off skies. Lucifer. Keen--eyed one, cease. When spirit that springs from Being's eternal fount Led down through all life's elements, lapse of time And tact of sense concurring, hath at last Its earthlier dross precipitated, and again Bound lightwards, in its course self--clarified, Reflecting God, as ocean in his breast, Booklike, the starry transcript of the skies, Holds, so all virtuous and celestial powers May look for like communion; but so long As separateness of self, and turbid touch Of world--love or of passion, dim the soul, Never; be it theirs or thine. But thine, even now, Bears the design of earthliest discontent, Not sacred satisfaction. Now to him Whose soul is saved all things are clear as stars, And to the chosen is sense of safety: this None else, nor cold insurgent heart, nor mind Menial, can compass. It is the way of God, The starry path none tread but spirits heaven--high, Who were of him before all worlds, and are Beloved and saved for ever, while they live. Thou of the world art yet, with motives, means, And ends, as others. Festus. I will no more of it. Lucifer. Oh dream not that. Thou knowest not the depth Of nature's dark abyss, thyself, nor God. Thou mayst yet rise and fall oft as the sea. Festus. And those thou tell'st of? Lucifer. Darkness overlong With them, as light with thee o'er strong, may blind Alike the eye. Festus. But I foresee. Lucifer. Forejudge. Festus. How comes it then, being spirit, I see not all As spirit should? Lucifer. Thou lackest both life and death; Earth's death, heaven's life. Then wouldst thou see with God, And know creation's strife in harmony With him, and 'mong its separate parts, how raised, And ordered why. Festus. Death alters not the spirit. Lucifer. Death must be undergone ere understood. Festus. One world is as another. Rest we here. Lucifer. See, thus men compt of destiny. All is chance.
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