Part 23

ANOTHER FIGURE I was a sun-dew’s leaf, but now What is this longing?—

ANOTHER FIGURE Earth below I was a seedling magnet-tipped Drawn down earth—

ANOTHER FIGURE And I was gripped Electrons in a granite stone, Now I think.

ANOTHER FIGURE Oh, how alone!

ANOTHER FIGURE My lips to thine. Through thee I find Something alone by love divined!

BEELZEBUB Begone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends; Let s give a play.

(He waves his trumpet.)

To yonder green rooms go.

(The figures disappear.)

YOGARINDRA Oh, yes, a play! That’s very well, I think, But who will be the audience? I must throw Illusion over all.

LOKI And I must shift The scenery, and tangle up the plot.

BEELZEBUB Well, so you shall! Our audience shall come From yonder graves.

(He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights. BEELZEBUB stands before the curtain.)

BEELZEBUB (A terrific blast of the trumpet.) Who-o-o-o-o-o!

(Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.)

A VOICE Gabriel! Gabriel!

MANY VOICES The Judgment day!

BEELZEBUB Be quiet, if you please At least until the stars fall and the moon.

MANY VOICES Save us! Save us!

(Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and restores order.)

BEELZEBUB Ladies and gentlemen, your kind attention To my interpretation of the scene. I rise to give your fancy comprehension, And analyze the parts of the machine. My mood is such that I would not deceive you, Though still a liar and the father of it, From judgment’s frailty I would retrieve you, Though falsehood is my art and though I love it. Down in the habitations whence I rise, The roots of human sorrow boundless spread. Long have I watched them draw the strength that lies In clay made richer by the rotting dead. Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk, Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime; And here a growth that sprawls across the walk, Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime. The ruddy apple with a core of cork Springs from a root which in a hollow dangles, Not skillful husbandry nor laborious work Can save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles. Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flower But that those insects multiply and grow, Which make it food, and in the very hour In which the veined leaves and blossoms blow? Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing, Turn crooked branches covered o’er with scale? Why does the tree whose youth was not assuring Prosper and bear while all its fellows fail? I under earth see much. I know the soil. I know where mold is heavy and where thin. I see the stones that thwart the plowman’s toil, The crooked roots of what the priests call sin. I know all secrets, even to the core, What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel; It cannot change howe’er the field’s worked o’er. Man’s what he is and that’s the devil’s moral. So with the souls of the ensuing drama They sprang from certain seed in certain earth. Behold them in the devil’s cyclorama, Shown in their proper light for all they’re worth. Now to my task: I’ll give an exhibition Of mixing the ingredients of spirit.

(He waves his hand.)

Come, crucible, perform your magic mission, Come, recreative fire, and hover near it! I’ll make a soul, or show how one is made.

(He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.)

This is the woman you shall see anon!

(A red flame appears.)

This hectic flame makes all the world afraid: It was a soldier’s scourge which ate the bone. His daughter bore the lady of the action. And died at thirty-nine of scrofula. She was a creature of a sweet attraction, Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw.

(A purple flame appears.)