Or life may be all suffering, and decease

A flower-like sleep ;-or both be full of woe,
Or each comparatively painless. Blame
Not God for inequalities like these!

They may be justified. How canst thou know?
They may be only seeming. Canst thou judge?
They may be done away with utterly

By loving, fearing, knowing God the Truth.
In all distress of spirit, grief of heart,
Bodily agony, or mental woe,

Rebuffs and vain assumptions of the world,
Or the poor spite of weak and wicked souls,
Think thou on God! Think what He underwent
And did for us as man. Weigh thou thy cross
With Christ's, and judge which were the heavier.
Joy even in thine anguish !—such was His,
But measurelessly more. Thy suffering
Assimilateth thee to Him. Rejoice!

Think upon what thou shalt be! Think on God!
Then ask thyself, what is the world, and all
Its mountainous inequalities? Ah, what!
Are not all equal as dust-atomies ?-

FESTUS. My Soul's orb darkens as a sudden star,
Which having for a time exhausted earth
And half the Heavens of wonder, mortally
Passes for ever, not eclipsed, consumed ;-
All but a cloudy vapour darkening there,
The very spot in space it once illumed.
Once to myself I seemed a mount of light;
But now, a pit of night.-No more of this!
Here have I lain all day in this green nook,
Shaded by larch and hornbeam, ash and yew;
A living well and runnel at my feet,
And wild flowers dancing to some delicate air;
An urn-topped column and its ivy wreath

Skirting my sight as thus I lie and look
Upon the blue, unchanging, sacred skies:
And thou, too, gentle Clara, by my side,
With lightsome brow and beaming eye, and bright
Long glorious locks, which drop upon thy cheek
Like goldhued cloudflakes on the rosy morn.
Oh! when the heart is full of sweets to o'erflowing,
And ringing to the music of its love,
Who but an angel or an hypocrite

Could speak or think of happier states?

CLARA. Farewell! Remember what thou saidst about the stars. [Goes. FESTUS. Oh! why was woman made so fair? or

man

So weak as to see that more than one had beauty? It is impossible to love but one.

And yet I dare not love thee as I could;

For all that the heart most longs for and deserves, Passes the soonest and most utterly.

The moral of the world's great fable, life.

All we enjoy seems given to deceive

Or may be, undeceive us; who cares which?
And when the sum is done, and we have proved it,
Why work it over and over still again?

I am not what I would be. Hear me, God!
And speak to me in thine invisible likeness
The wind, as once of yore. Let me be pure!
Oh! I wish I was a pure
child again,
As ere the clear could trouble me: when life
Was sweet and calm as is a sister's kiss;

And not the wild and whirlwind touch of passion,
Which though it hardly light upon the lip,
With breathless swiftness sucks the soul out of sight,
So that we lose it, and all thought of it.

What is this life wherein Thou hast founded me,

But a bright wheel which burns itself away,
Benighting even night with its grim limbs,
When it hath done and fainted into darkness?
Flesh is but fiction, and it flies away;

The gaunt and ghastly thing we bear about us,
And which we hate and fear to look upon
Is truth; in death's dark likeness limned-no more.

SCENE-Anywhere.

FESTUS and LUCIFER meeting.

FESTUS. God hath refused me: wilt thou do it Or shall I end with both? remake myself? [for me? LUCIFER. Now that is the one thing which I cannot do.

Am I not open with thee? why choose that? FESTUS. Because I will it. Thou art bound to obey.

LUCIFER. The world bears marks of my obedience. FESTUS. Off! I am torn to pieces. Let me try And gather up myself into a man,

As once I was. I have done with thee! Dost hear? LUCIFER. Thou canst not mean this.

FESTUS.

Once for all-I do.

LUCIFER. It is men who are deceivers-not the

Devil.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat

Oneself. All sin is easy after that.

[never;

FESTUS. I feel that we must part: part now or And I had rather of the two it were now.

LUCIFER. This is my last walk through my favourite world:

And I had hoped to have enjoyed it with thee.
For thee I quitted Hell; for thee I warped

And shrivelled up my soul into a man:
For thee I shed my shining wings; for thee
Put on this mask of flesh, this mockery
Of motion, and this seeming shape like thine.
And by my woe, I swear that were I now,
For thy false heart, to give my spirit spring,
I would scatter soul and body both to Hell,
And let one burn the other.

If thou darest!

FESTUS.
Lift but the finger of a thought of ill
Against me, and-thou durst not.
LUCIFER. Well; as thou wilt.
thy heart

Mark, we part. Remember that

Will shed its pleasures as thine eye
And both leave loathsome furrows.

FESTUS.

its tears;

Thinkest thou

That I will have no pleasures without thee,
Who marrest all thou makest and even more?
LUCIFER. Thou canst not: save indeed some
poor trite thing

Called moderation, every one can have;
And modesty, God knows, is suffering.

FESTUS. Now will I prove thee liar for that word.
And that the very vastest out of Hell.
With perfect condemnation I abjure
My soul; my nature doth abhor itself;
I have a soul to spare!

LUCIFER.

[Goes.

A hundred, I.
I have him yet: for he is mine to tempt.
Gold hath the hue of hell flames: but for him
I will lay some brilliant and delicious lure
Which shall be worth perdition to a seraph.
Most men glide quietly and deeply down:
Some seek the bottom like a cataract.
Now he shall find it, seek it how he will.

None ever went without once taking breath.
It is passion plunges men into mine arms;
But it matters not; Hell burns before them all.
It is by Hell-light they do their chiefest deeds;
And by Hell-light they shine unto each other;
And Hell through life's thick fog glares red and
round;

And but for Hell they would grope in utter dark.

SCENE-A Country Town-Market-place-Noon. LUCIFER and FESTUS.

LUCIFER. These be the toils and cares of mighty Earth's vermin are as fit to fill her thrones [men! As these high Heaven's bright seats.

FESTUS.

Men's callings all

Are mean and vain; their wishes more so oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!

LUCIFER. What men call accident is God's own He lets ye work your will-it is His own: [part. But that ye mean not, know not, do not, He doth. FESTUS. What is life worth without a heart to The great and lovely, and the poetry

[feel And sacredness of things? for all things are Sacred,-the eye of God is on them all, And hallows all unto it. It is fine To stand upon some lofty mountain-thought And feel the spirit stretch into a view; To joy in what might be if will and power For good would work together but one hour. Yet millions never think a noble thought: But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.