The doctrine of mutual responsibility for error, and of mutual respect between individuals, sexes, classes, groups, and nations, a higher conception than the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth doctrine of Jehovah, is Lucifer’s. This ideal anarchy is the aspect of God momentarily seen, I thought, by Jesus Christ, before him prophesied by Isaiah and before him by Melchizedek; but since fallen even among Christians under the renewed tyranny of Jehovah. The story of Lucifer’s fall is clearly written in the Acts of the Apostles; where the violence of Moses towards the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath Day is worthily imitated by Peter when he strikes dead Ananias and Sapphira for a partial witholding of a voluntary gift; where the low cunning of Jacob with Esau is matched by Paul’s stirring up the partizanship of Saducee against Pharisee while preaching the doctrine of tolerance. This Light-Bringer Lucifer has been persistently misidentified by the priests of Jehovah with the spirit of Evil, their God’s arch-enemy. But I would have it put like this: if John Milton had paused to enquire why Jesus Christ promised his followers the Morning Star as a reward for virtue, Milton would have been spared the compunction which certainly was besetting him in Paradise Lost for having conceived of his Prince of Darkness as so much of a gentleman. One day I must give you the full history of the famous encounter between the archangel Michael and Lucifer (outlined in the Epistle of Jude) when Lucifer asked the riddle still current in English speaking nurseries and Michael dared not answer or even curse him, because an open discussion of this particular point might prove dangerous to the fortunes of Jehovah. In the _Revelations_ chapter which provides the familiar lesson for All Saints’ Day we hear that Michael had to admit the implied charge by resorting to violence. But guess the riddle and you shall have the answer given you; this is the proper course communication should take between poets. And so yours in all good will, ROBERT GRAVES. _Islip, Oxon. August, 1922._ _THE FEATHER BED_ THE FEATHER BED PROLOGUE In sudden cloud that blotting distance out Confused the compass of the traveller’s mind, Biassed his course, three times from the hill’s crest Trying to descend but with no track to follow, Nor visible landmark—three times he had struck The same sedged pool of steaming desolation, The same black monolith rearing up before it. This third time then he paused to recognize The _Witches’ Cauldron_ only known before By hearsay, fly-like on whose rim he had crawled Three times and three times dipped to climb again Its uncouth sides, so to go crawling on.