But not till then.
LUCIFER.
What is your illness?
PRINCE HENRY.
It has no name.
A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame, As in a kiln, burns in my veins, Sending up vapors to the head;My heart has become a dull lagoon, Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;I am accounted as one who is dead, And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.
LUCIFER.
And has Gordonius the Divine, In his famous Lily of Medicine,--I see the book lies open before you,--
No remedy potent enough to restore you?
PRINCE HENRY.
None whatever!
LUCIFER.
The dead are dead, And their oracles dumb, when questioned Of the new diseases that human life Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.
Consult the dead upon things that were, But the living only on things that are.
Have you done this, by the appliance And aid of doctors?
PRINCE HENRY.
Ay, whole schools Of doctors, with their learned rules;But the case is quite beyond their science.
Even the doctors of Salern Send me back word they can discern No cure for a malady like this, Save one which in its nature is Impossible and cannot be!
LUCIFER.
That sounds oracular!
PRINCE HENRY.
Unendurable!
LUCIFER.
What is their remedy?
PRINCE HENRY.
You shall see;
Writ in this scroll is the mystery.
LUCIFER, reading.
"Not to be cured, yet not incurable!
The only remedy that remains Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins, Who of her own free will shall die, And give her life as the price of yours!"That is the strangest of all cures, And one, I think, you will never try;The prescription you may well put by, As something impossible to find Before the world itself shall end!
And yet who knows? One cannot say That into some maiden's brain that kind Of madness will not find its way.
Meanwhile permit me to recommend, As the matter admits of no delay, My wonderful Catholicon, Of very subtile and magical powers!
PRINCE HENRY.
Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal The spouts and gargoyles of these towers, Not me! My faith is utterly gone In every power but the Power Supernal!
Pray tell ne, of what school are you?
LUCIFER.
Both of the Old and of the New!
The school of Hermes Trismegistus, Who uttered his oracles sublime Before the Olympiads, in the dew Of the early dusk and dawn of time, The reign of dateless old Hephaestus!
As northward, from its Nubian springs, The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty mystic stream has rolled;So, starting from its fountain-head Under the lotus-leaves of Isis, From the dead demigods of eld, Through long unbroken lines of kings Its course the sacred art has held, Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices.
This art the Arabian Geber taught, And in alembics, finely wrought, Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered The secret that so long had hovered Upon the misty verge of Truth, The Elixir of Perpetual Youth, Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!
Like him, this wondrous lore I teach!
PRINCE HENRY.
What! an adept?
LUCIFFR.
Nor less, nor more!
PRINCE HENRY.
I am a reader of your books, A lover of that mystic lore!
With such a piercing glance it looks Into great Nature's open eye, And sees within it trembling lie The portrait of the Deity!
And yet, alas! with all my pains, The secret and the mystery Have baffled and eluded me, Unseen the grand result remains!
LUCIFER, showing a flask.
Behold it here! this little flask Contains the wonderful quintessence, The perfect flower and efflorescence, Of all the knowledge man can ask!
Hold it up thus against the light!
PRINCE HENRY.
How limpid, pure, and crystalline, How quick, and tremulous, and bright The little wavelets dance and shine, As were it the Water of Life in sooth!
LUCIFER.
It is! It assuages every pain, Cures all disease, and gives again To age the swift delights of youth.
Inhale its fragrance.
PRINCE HENRY.
It is sweet.
A thousand different odors meet And mingle in its rare perfume, Such as the winds of summer waft At open windows through a room!
LUCIFER.
Will you not taste it?
PRINCE HENRY.
Will one draught Suffice?
LUCIFER.
If not, you can drink more.
PRINCE HENRY.
Into this crystal goblet pour So much as safely I may drink,LUCIFER, pouring.
Let not the quantity alarm you;
You may drink all; it will not harm you.
PRINCE HENRY.
I am as one who on the brink Of a dark river stands and sees The waters flow, the landscape dim Around him waver, wheel, and swim, And, ere he plunges, stops to think Into what whirlpools he may sink;One moment pauses, and no more, Then madly plunges from the shore!
Headlong into the mysteries Of life and death I boldly leap, Nor fear the fateful current's sweep, Nor what in ambush lurks below!
For death is better than disease!
An ANGEL with an aeolian harp hovers in the air.
ANGEL.
Woe! woe! eternal woe!
Not only the whispered prayer Of love, But the imprecations of hate, Reverberate For ever and ever through the air Above!
This fearful curse Shakes the great universe!
LUCIFER, disappearing.
Drink! drink!
And thy soul shall sink Down into the dark abyss, Into the infinite abyss, From which no plummet nor rope Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!
PRINCE HENRY, drinking.
It is like a draught of fire!
Through every vein I feel again The fever of youth, the soft desire;A rapture that is almost pain Throbs in my heart and fills my brain O joy! O joy! I feel The band of steel That so long and heavily has pressed Upon my breast Uplifted, and the malediction Of my affliction Is taken from me, and my weary breast At length finds rest.
THE ANGEL.
It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air has been taken!
It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is not shaken!
It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!
It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!
With fiendish laughter, Hereafter, This false physician Will mock thee in thy perdition.
PRINCE HENRY.
Speak! speak!
Who says that I am ill?
I am not ill! I am not weak!
The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er!
I feel the chill of death no more!
