DEM. Yet what is outward easy is to tell. PER. Something is possible. This cavern lies In very midmost of deep-hollow'd hell. O'er its torn mouth the black Plutonic rock Is split in sharp disorder'd pinnacles And broken ledges, whereon sit, like apes Upon a wither'd tree, the hideous sins Of all the world: once having seen within 980 The magnetism is heavy on them, and they crawl Palsied with filthy thought upon the peaks; Or, squatting thro' long ages, have become Rooted like plants into the griping clefts: And there they pullulate, and moan, and strew The rock with fragments of their mildew'd growth. DEM. Cora, my child! and hast thou seen these things! PER. Nay but the outward aspect, figur'd thus In mere material loathsomeness, is nought Beside the mystery that is hid within. 990 DEM. Search thou for words, I pray, somewhat to tell. PER. Are there not matters past the thought of men Or gods to know? DEM. Thou meanest wherefore things Should be at all? Or, if they be, why thus, As hot, cold, hard and soft: and wherefore Zeus Had but two brothers; why the stars of heaven Are so innumerable, constellated Just as they are; or why this Sicily Should be three-corner'd? Yes, thou sayest well, Why things are as they are, nor gods nor men 1000 Can know. We say that Fate appointed thus, And are content.-- PER. Suppose, dear Mother, there wer' a temple in heaven, Which, dedicated to the unknown Cause And worship of the unseen, had power to draw All that was worthy and good within its gate: And that the spirits who enter'd there became Not only purified and comforted, But that the mysteries of the shrine were such, That the initiated bathed in light 1010 Of infinite intelligence, and saw The meaning and the reason of all things, All at a glance distinctly, and perceived The origin of all things to be good, And the énd good, and that what appears as evil Is as a film of dust, that faln thereon, May,--at one stroke of the hand,-- Be brush'd away, and show the good beneath, Solid and fair and shining: If moreover This blessëd vision were of so great power 1020 That none coud e'er forget it or relapse To doubtful ignorance:--I say, dear Mother, Suppose that there were such a temple in heaven.