Philip James Bailey (Филип Джеймс Бэйли)
Festus – 32
God only can heal the bruised spirit, and yield Peace. By the overthrown altar of a fane, Foundation shattered, which from faith to faith Translate, e'er consecrate still stands, we join In mystic worship secretly. Let us trust All, worship, form and offering grateful. Stone Untooled; untouched, unless by nature's hand, By man reared, solitary; mound, pyramid, Tower, temple, obelisk, stony cirque, and spire To one fact witness, that as sun and moon Fill, with their light, space, so twin truths man's mind Through time possess; God's onemostness, and our Immortal life. To soul saved, time's no more An opponent section of duration, summed In separate column from the eternal. All's Eternity, is concentric with our life. A Ruined Temple, surrounded by Sands. Festus and Lucifer. Festus. Here will I worship solely. Lucifer. It is a fane Once sacred to the sun; since consecrate To the Cross; deserted now. Festus. It matters not That false god here may have truly been adored, Nor true God falsely served, nor by what rites Life--hating, or life--nourishing, or with sign Simplest of corn, oil, wine; or fruit and flower. The truly holy soul which hath once received God's unattainable gift, the imparted sense Of unitive life with him can hallow here Whate'er the creed it holds; not less what, late, Of theo--human being, before all time, And all incarnate emanations, priest Or prophet taught these stones, than in times long gone, Of mediatorial light, heaven's orbèd god, Sunning, though feebly, death's black void with ray Too sadly numerable. For me, albeit The general faith sufficeth, and although The worshipping crowd I love, the gorgeous rite, The genuflective wave, the common awe; The scent of incense; hymns and harmonies Of the sanctuary; yet knowing somewhat still More amiable, the secret of the soul, Commune alone with God, me, here behold Seas, deserts crossed, to pour forth in this fane Of old days, my soul's worship; and to God Give witness of earth's eldest, youngest faith; Known always to the wise, if by them hidden; Ere all theophanies; destined all to outlast; With heaven co--ordinate only; base of all From the beginning, of all now sum and crown. Each orb is to itself the heart of heaven; And each belief, wherein man roots his hope, And lives and dies, God's favourite. What if here, Of yore, before this shrine, the sun's pure priest, And all his prostrate worshippers, knew their god Fire--bodied, but grossly; conqueror of the shades, Of earth bright purifier; invoking thee, O sun! as glory of air, and lord of light! Fountain and fane of heaven's immortal fire; Lord of the upper world and lower; judge Strict, incorruptible; giving every land Just wealth of light; due service from each soul Exacting; showing all, high, low, like love; King of the life to come, immortal; soul Treating with purifying penalties; Great wonder--worker; seer of all the skies; The gates of whose house are the east and the west: The ever--coming light, bright mystery; Sense binding, mind attracting, passion taming; Light born, light generating, light all life; Whom God begat on light which first he loved, Encircling in himself; but who in shades Of primal night wast nursed; whom all time's hours Attend; whose travel beneficent round the world Makes one eternal triumph; unto whom All earth is sacred;--Yes! O sun to thee One vast and living garden of the Lord, Watered by light streams, where the vine divine Fruits, inexhaustible, for the wise; and where Shepherd of worlds, and harmonist of heaven, The music of whose golden lyre is light; With pastures varied, thrives thy starry flock, Numbered complete, in spiritual perfectness Inviolable; in multitude of days Deathless, as in thy years thou O nightslayer; Whose car the elements draw; from whom all signs And natural miracles joyously proceed; Whose eloquent fire lights aye their starry heads That, in celestial conclave with thee ruling, Pour down, on darkness' crown, original light; Whose gospels are the seasons, all thy twelve In spheral order and a chain starlinked, Through gods, kings, signs, gems, toils, tribes, messengers, Heroes and peers, the universe uniting To thee in love, thy being's boundless law; Thy Maker's synonym; his symbol thou:-- Whose offspring are the ages, and whose years Links of the everlasting chain of change Thou bindst us with, progenitor of spheres;-- To whom time's azure serpent, starry scaled And noiseless creeping, that its years now sloughs In thy reviving brightness, and now lays Its world--eggs in thine incubant rays, we hold Hallowed, because of thee inspired with life; Whose quickening touch all life, soulless or souled, Draws up towards thee all generative; of pest And death, dispeller; life elicitor; World--navelled oracle, whose sensible beam O'erpatent, oft the strongest eye blinds; oft Godlike, death--darting, life reclaims through the aye Revolving universe and evolving. This, The faith of honest ignorance, yet with sense Of thanks for good received, and things create Misprising for their Maker, in a rude Shallow belief which gladdened not the soul, Raised not, sustained, nor inly enlightened, passed; To a nobler creed transformed, that thenceforth hailed In the material heavens but shadowy types Of spiritual truths more solid; and in shapes Of hero and saint, light's natural qualities, Truth, power and purity moralled; in the sun The source of all things through vast mysteries sought, Their meaning and their end; from thee, O sun! Child of the infinite firmament, conceived A filial god, laborious for man's good; Unwearyable on earth as in the skies; Hero and victor of the universe; thou, Who at thy birth didst slay sin's serpent brood; And through the foul stalled stable of this world's life, The sourceless, circular, river of thy love Didst turn; redeem the soul of man thy friend From death and hell; destroy the dragon fiend With the seven deadly heads, devouring life; Regain thy golden apples, paradise; And, to complete the mystic cycle, rise Well proven, and approved of God, to heaven:-- Of whose divine end emulous, we, too, tried By choice of virtue over pleasurous vice, Though now by passionate sins distraught, and now Soul--soiled by waste subservience to mean aims, From God estranged, yet longing to return, And brighten again the spirit by strict contact With heaven's original ray, might sometime find, Having here lived beneficently 'mong men, Merited acceptance. Not sufficing this, Man's soul which speculatively had erst conceived The light unlimited, whose most ancient sheen Beamed forth man spiritual, angelic mind, Intelligent life, life sentient, and, less pure, Still from God emanant, matter, form and all This universe in its oval orbit holds,-- The light intelligible conceived on earth Incarnate; light, before whose orient ray The gods all vanished like night's ghosts; light sole, Sun spiritual; source not only of life and light Worldly, but soul--regenerative; whom all The lives of all the elements, lamb, fish, dove; Earth all productive; life requickening air; The purifying wave, perfective fire; Whom all earth's faiths and creeds, rites, gods of old, Foreshadowed personate as a child of man, In precognition of eternal truth Made deathless; whom and his, the world foretyped, One all--comprising prophecy; the moon, Virgin of heaven, who nightly bringeth forth The light, thine own, O sun! in heaven to earth; Morn's herald star, imbathing earth in dew, And the sun leading into the desert sea, To his eternal baptism, ere with light He floods the world, and cleaves the breathing skies With inspirative fire; earth, weeping set, Sin--shamed, self--humbled, like the penitent one Below his cross, the darkness of whose death Eclipsed all day; these, and light's whole bright flock, Before thy crucial exaltation fled, But born of light, predestined yet to range In bliss the spirit--pasturing skies; to quaff Serene, the waters of the sun; and yet Catch his vivific secret, as he beams Resurgent, from the entombing wave; that grave Thou, daily dying, dost, night by night, o'erpass Into the invisible halls men dread; but whence, O Hadëan god, death--hidden in dark and chill, Eastering, again thou comest with joy;--foretyped, All signs, all seasons, records but of thee, And of thy deeds divine and dignities, Soul--embleming: twin being, God with man, Whose doubled nature indicates in heaven Natural and spiritual; who holdst unmoved The balance of the all--just One o'er the world, Well weighing work and faith; with scorpion sting Treating the carnal conscience self--condemned; Who bendst the heavens before thee like a bow And earth thine orbèd arrow shoot'st through air Who from celestial fountains pourest floods Of grace regenerative; who to thyself, Produced by thee, earth's twin chief boons of life Dost sanctify for sustenance and for joy, Symbols of soul and body, that both be known In him thou too but symbollest, God. But these, Enthusiasts of a composite creed who sought The impossible with too easy to imblend, And difficulty soul--bracing scape, but failed With speculative conceits to unreason faith, Learned liberally at last the simpler truth Whereby we recognize as one of heaven's Star peers the sphere we dwell in, and yon sun Know, too, as not above us; we are upon The same proud level; by the same laws constrained; Of the like roots compact. Who therefore knows Soul--freed, all stars but steps in heaven's great scale, Up to God's throne from time's last orb which eyes The inner and the utter infinite round To that highest deepest midmost site where heaven's Star--music ends, for ever quelled in the sun's Silence supreme; knows happily too, that through All spheral forms, the centre searching soul, Circling in bright expansive progress, fit To match the march of angels in time's van, By--passing all night's constellated chart Where God hath set his burning seal the sun, And all delights of merely intelligent life, In spirit conquests self--purifying skilled, Reseeks thee, lone and universal light, Spiritual, divine, deific; even as at first Creative, all conclusive; with dread hope Persistent, individually, to acquire Clear glory, and midst the all--involving heavens Share preapportioned rule. Now dawns the day When natural faiths and typical both outworn Man's spirit sight by eyebright of the stars, And rue celestial cleared, one deity sole, One spirit throughout the globe shall name; one Power Beyond all being; of all worlds sire and heir; Sole Saviour of the world of life he hath made; Whose breath from servile matter framed at first The fading frostwork of created things. Earth's tale is told in heaven; heaven's told in earth. Since either 'gan, though thousand tribes have chosen A thousand types, one sole true faith hath been, The faith of all in God. Let earth, henceforth, To its right creed re--oriented, the faith Which, world--comprising, soul--sufficing, wise Spirits are taught of rational light,--confess Things all may symbols, each of other, be, Nothing of God. To this joyed eye, the hour Already, hawklike, preens its wing for flight, When all shall be remassed in one great creed, All spirit shall yet be rebegotten; all Worship rededicate, time's degenerate lapse Twice having fused the symbol with the truth; All dark things brightened; all contrariants blent; And truth and love, perradiating all life Be the new poles of nature; earth, at last Joining the great procession of the skies. Now, therefore to the sole true God, in man, In nature timely manifested, these walls Shall echo praise, if never yet. Attend. Bring me a morsel of the fire without. For I a sacred offering unto God Will make, as high priest of the world. He lacks not At best hands, consecration, whom thou, Lord! By choice hast hallowed; and these elements I offer, thou hast holy made, by making. Lucifer. Lo, fire! I wait thee in the air. Festus. Withdraw. Eternal, infinite Spirit, hear thou, heaven--throned, While one, by thy divine salvation graced, A servant of thy boundless law of love, This temple redevotes to a purer end Than they who built or who abandoned knew. Thine Lord are all the elements, all the worlds; The sun thy bounteous servant, and the moon Thy servant's servant; the round rushing earth; This lifeful air; these thousand wingèd winds: Fire, heaven--kinned; continental clouds; the sea Broad--breasted, trancèd lake; and rivers rich, Arterial; sky--crowned, shadow--haunted hills, Their woody tresses waving on the breeze, Grateful, in sign of worship; all are thine. Thine are the snow robed mountains girdling earth As the white spirits God our Saviour's throne; Thine the bright secrets central in all orbs, And rudimental mysteries of sphere life, Fire misted, nebulous. The sun starred night, Day all prevailing, ever maiden morn, Consummate eve, earth's varying seasons aye Confess them thine, through the life gladdening world. All art hath wrought from earth, or science lured From truth, like flame out of the firecloud; all Man's thought, man's toil, man's deeds, his best of thee Inspired, of thee foreplanned all nature, are Thine; thine the glory; all of thee conceived, Things finite, infinite, to thee belong, As mountains to a world, as worlds to heaven. City high domed and pompous; populous town, Toilful, and early hamlet; all that live Or die: decay or flourish; change, or stand Unchanged, before thy face, heaven's starry hosts Thy ministry of light, for thee exist, Or, at thy bidding, are not. Thine, all cause Evil, or best, of every orb; all ends Forebalanced, yet preponderate so towards good As all events to adjust: thine Lord! all souls; Thought, atom, world, the universe thine; thou yet Thine eye, all hallowing, canst as easily turn From comprehending the bright infinite, To this crushed temple, where the wild flower decks Its earthquake rifted walls, and birdlets build In leafage of its columned capitals, And to this crumbling heart I offer here, As trust thine own eternity. Behold! Accept, I pray thee Lord! this sacrifice; These elemental offerings, simple, pure,-- A branch, a flowery turf, a burning coal, A cup of water and an empty bowl,-- I, in man's name, make filially to thee, Formless, save kneeling heart, save prostrate soul, In token of thine all perfect monarchy And world comprising mercy, of us confessed. This air--filled bowl, of the world typical, thou With thy good spirit replenishest, and the soul Receptive of thy life conferring truth; This, the symbolic element, whence, reborn, Made pure, thy chosen are first regenerate Out of men's mighty multitudes, yet all As of one nature be redeemed; this coal, From the earth torn flaming, which thy mercy, sin Consuming, as of earth proclaims; and these Pale flamelets, starwards tending, emblem just Of spirit aspiring Godwards; this mere turf As the earthy nature and abode we would Subject to thee, here lying, though type obscure, Yet representative of heaven's every star, And world extended matter; all these in one Sole, simple oblation proffered;--last, this branch, High flourishing over all, let this, Lord! sign Thine own eternal son Humanity On earth though dying, immortalized in heaven, Redemptive of all being; the golden branch-- Rootless in self, graffed only in deity,-- Of life's eternal tree, seer's, sibyl's, word Inspired of old, full of dark central thought And mystic truth, foretold should overspread The spirit world, death's every wound, with its fruit Healing:--all, offering, offerer, Lord! accept. Nor these of natural birth as 'neath thine hand Pure and munificent framed, hold thou to thee Sole acceptable; but these, corn, olive, grape, By sumptuous man manipulate into food, Whereby we strengthen ourselves to endure for thee This bodily life, and use as best we may, Deign thou to look upon, and so sanctify With thine all hallowing glance; for, taught by seer, Priest, hierophant of old, thou, walking earth, Shrinking thyself to shape create, calf, lamb Or kid, with angels and god--messengers Partaking, drinking wine and breaking bread, So tokening man's divinity humane, And thy divine humanity, we know Didst, in all forms of being, the force convey Of holiest goodness; thine essential life Pervading all the elements of the world; Thine actual all--presence in every heart, Lift choicefully to thee. So now and here, By usance of like signs communion whole Of bodily powers and spiritual, God! with thee Maker, regenerator, we ask:--ask, too, This gift, Lord! that if men can nought but sin, Forgive the creature crime,--fruit this of soul Imperfect, but by thee create, which takes From thee its whole capacity,--and bring back To thy breast world--parent! who madest the whole, And wilt remould all, purified, to thee. Wherefore, in spirit of this kind faith, baptized, Faith, world embracing, soul sufficing, faith, Wherein the vortices of all variant creeds As eddies in the sea are lost, let me, Let both Lord! gladden within ourselves; thou, God! Who joyest to view the living world, endowed As with thine own vitality, although Insentient of its mighty source, because Reflective of thine attributes; but man Most, as the living mirror, which conceives From thy vivific beam the rational ray Conscious, whereby we, cognizant of thee, Light of thy light, our crowning glory gain; Thou, thy chief joy. Exchanging therefore sense Of life undying, and sureness of the truth, Thine infinite unity, which doth underlie The world's wide walls, the truth which, uttered, opes All--where a paradise, to man colleagued In brotherly worship of the invisible one, Father of all immortal spirits, 'twixt whom And him, love mutual mediateth alone; We joy, as those of old, who, in mysteries Initiate, ranked as gods. For now, of ours Taught trueliest, and thou, sun, the innocent cause Of faith's first error, from celestial things Deposed, and made to man subservient, we, Time's childish ignorance passed, and earth's vain lore Symbolic, mythical, shadowy, put away As holy aenigmas merely, do yet confess That though word written, or sign, be born no more, The spirit's revelation still proceeds, Evolving all perfection; and that while We bless thee, Saviour! knowing that whoso are In thee are saved, man, nature one and twin In God triune: we know too, fruit of love Divine, soul perfecting, the infinite spirit And antiformal, needs no word, nor lacks Whereby to mark its union with the soul; For, kindled like a sacrifice of old, By heaven's spontaneous fire, the soul achieves, In aspiration, being's highest end; Save that accomplished in death's final cause, With God reunion. Hope whereof, thou Lord! Instilling into men's minds of eld as now, Man's richest heritage, and, so, providing 'Gainst mortal things, that must and ought to be, Thou, who dost all things rightly, all are best, Joy, sorrow, suffering, power, since ruled by thee, This heart which finally I to thee devote, And here, this spirit enlightened with all love Godwards, let cease from prayer, these lips from praise, Save that which life shall offer pauselessly. Be with me, Lord now, all--where and for aye. Now go I forth again, refreshed, consoled, Upon my time enduring pilgrimage. Ho, Lucifer! Lucifer. I wait thee. Festus. Whither next? Lucifer. As thou wilt; apposite spots or opposite; It is light translateth night; it is inspiration Expounds experience; it is the west explains The east; it is time unfolds eternity. Festus. Enough. It is time then that I homewards tend.
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