University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

—The Castle of Cœlis.
Cœlis, alone.

‘Then life, forgetful of its former stages,
Breaks ever forth anew in endless time;
Now resting mid the waste of ages,
Now jubilant in Nature's paths sublime!
Again hath gaped the cavern of thy jaw,
O tongue that launched first knowledge from the tree;
And issues thence the all-enduring law
That life and death in turn must ever be!’
So the Soul-seeker heard the revelation,
That what is loveliest of creation
Springs only from a world's decay;
That all returns again to clay!
‘Shall not the heavens,’ he asks, ‘escape?’
He looks above and sees the Serpent's shape
Where constellations fill those plains of lustre;
But denser seem the timid stars to cluster
And ask of him their secret meaning,
While on the hidden power like infants leaning.
With hope, exalting once, that now debases,
Late through the midnight hours he paces
His armour-haunted corridor,
And there finds rest not any more.
The moonlight through the window glances
On jointed mail and shivered lances,
Kindling the ruby panes, though 'neath the sheen
The Serpent-shield shines ever-green,
Paling the past. There as he lay
Upon his bed his will dissolved away,
And in its place so soft a whisper crept
He took it to his spirit as he slept.
Nigh to his breast the Serpent seemed
To breathe into him all he dreamed,
A fulsome whisper that dissembled,
But pure, unchallenged truth resembled:
His conscious being, weak and fevered,
Like a stray memory from its soul dissevered.
So, prostrate was he, when the Snake once more
His spirit to the tree of knowledge bore.

Kausis, Cœlis.
KAUSIS.
‘Where, Worm! is the will that its lot would deny?
Where, Worm! is the will that its lord would defy?
Thou hast crawled from the earth in my daylight to die!
Thy people, thy kindred, my worship have spurned;
As I tread upon thee, at my tread who hast turned,
This arm, this one arm of a far-ruling fate,
Shall crush them and thee in the coil of its hate.’