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._) Lo! this denotes aristocratic strains Back in the centuries of France’s glory. (_A blue flame appears._)