_Lucifer_--Who never doubted never half believed. Where doubt, there truth is--'tis her shadow. I Declare unto thee that the past is not. I have looked over all life, yet never seen The age that had been. Why then fear or dream About the future? Nothing but what is, is; Else God were not the Maker that he seems, As constant in creating as in being. Embrace the present. Let the future pass. Plague not thyself about a future. That Only which comes direct from God, his spirit, Is deathless. Nature gravitates without Effort; and so all mortal natures fall Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil; But inspiration cometh from above, And is no labor. The earth's inborn strength Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence She fell; nor human soul, by native worth, Claim heaven as birthright, more than man may call Cloudland his home. The soul's inheritance, Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth; Until God maketh earth and soul anew; The one like heaven, the other like himself. So shall the new creation come at once; Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of life Shall be cut off forever; and all souls Concluded in God's boundless amnesty. _Festus_--Thou windest and unwindest faith at will. What am I to believe? _Lucifer_-- Thou mayest believe But that thou art forced to. _Festus_-- Then I feel, perforce, That instinct of immortal life in me, Which prompts me to provide for it. _Lucifer_-- Perhaps. _Festus_--Man hath a knowledge of a time to come-- His most important knowledge: the weight lies Nearest the short end; and the world depends Upon what is to be. I would deny The present, if the future. Oh! there is A life to come, or all's a dream. _Lucifer_--And all May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds, Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then Why may not all this world be but a dream Of God's? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.