LUCIFER: What am I?
One of a realm, though dimly in your charts
Discern'd, so vast that as from out of it
As from a fountain all the nations flow,
Back they shall ebb again; and sway'd by One
Who, without Oriental over-boast,
Because from him all kings their crowns derive,
Is rightfully saluted King of kings,
Whose reign is as his kingdom infinite,
Whose throne is heaven, and earth his footstool, and
Sun, moon, and stars his diadem and crown.
Who at the first disposal of his kingdom
And distribution into sea and land--
Me, who for splendour of my birth and grand
Capacities above my fellows shone,
Star of the Morning, Lucifer, alone--
Me he made captain of the host who stand
Clad as the morning star about his throne.
Enough for all ambition but my own;
Who discontented with the all but all
Of chiefest subject of Omnipotence
Rebell'd against my Maker; insolence
Avenged as soon as done on me and all
Who bolster'd up rebellion, by a fall
Far as from heaven to Hades. Madness, I know;
But worse than madness whining to repent
Under a rod that never will relent.
Therefore about the land and sea I go
Arm'd with the very instrument of hate
That blasted me: lightnings anticipate
My coming, and the thunder rolls behind;
Thus charter'd to enlarge among mankind,
And to recruit from human discontent
My ranks in spirit, not in number, spent.
Of whom, in spite of this brave gaberdine,
I recognize thee one: thee, by the line
Scarr'd on thy brow, though not so deep as mine;
Thee by the hollow circles of those eyes
Where the volcano smoulders but not dies:
Whose fiery torrent running down has scarr'd
The cheek that time had not so deeply marr'd.
Do not I read thee rightly?
Aye, by the light of my own darkness
Reading yours--how deep!
But not, as mine is, irretrievable:
Who from the fulness of my own perdition
Would, as I may, revenge myself on him
By turning to fruition your despair--
What if I make you master at a blow,
Not only of the easy woman's heart
You now despair of as impregnable,
And waiting but my word to let you in,
But lord of nature's secret, and the lore
That shall not only with the knowledge, but
Possess you with the very power of him
You sought so far and vainly for before?
All that you have heard and witness'd hitherto
But a foretaste to quicken appetite
For that substantial after-feast of power
That I shall set you down to take your fill of:
When not the fleeting elements alone
Of wind, and fire, and water, floating wrack,
But this same solid frame of earth and stone,
Yea, with the mountain loaded on her back,
Reluctantly, shall answer to your spell
From a more adamantine heart stone-cold
Than her's you curse for inaccessible!