THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN LOTUS

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A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY, sitting alone, ill and restless. Prince Henry. I cannot sleep! my fervid brain

Calls up the vanished Past again,

And throws its misty splendors deep

Into the pallid realms of sleep!

A breath from that far-distant shore

Comes freshening ever more and more,

And wafts o'er intervening seas

Sweet odors from the Hesperides!

A wind, that through the corridor

Just stirs the curtain, and no more,

And, touching the aeolian strings,

Faints with the burden that it brings!

Come back! ye friendships long departed!

That like o'erflowing streamlets started,

And now are dwindled, one by one,

To stony channels in the sun!

Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!

Come back, with all that light attended,

Which seemed to darken and decay

When ye arose and went away!

They come, the shapes of joy and woe,

The airy crowds of long-ago,

The dreams and fancies known of yore,

That have been, and shall be no more.

They change the cloisters of the night

Into a garden of delight;

They make the dark and dreary hours

Open and blossom into flowers!

I would not sleep! I love to be

Again in their fair company;

But ere my lips can bid them stay,

They pass and vanish quite away!Alas! our memories may retrace

Each circumstance of time and place,

Season and scene come back again,

And outward things unchanged remain;

The rest we cannot reinstate;

Ourselves we cannot re-create,

Nor set our souls to the same key

Of the remembered harmony!Rest! rest! O, give me rest and peace!

The thought of life that ne'er shall cease

Has something in it like despair,

A weight I am too weak to bear!

Sweeter to this afflicted breast

The thought of never-ending rest!

Sweeter the undisturbed and deep

Tranquillity of endless sleep!

(A flash of lightning, out of which LUCIFER appears, in the garb of a travelling Physician.) Lucifer. All hail Prince Henry!

Prince Henry (starting). Who is it speaks?

Who and what are you? Lucifer. One who seeks

A moment's audience with the Prince. Prince Henry. When came you in?

Lucifer. A moment since.

I found your study door unlocked,

And thought you answered when I knocked. Prince Henry. I did not hear you.

Lucifer. You heard the thunder;

It was loud enough to waken the dead.

And it is not a matter of special wonder

That, when God is walking overhead,

You should not have heard my feeble tread. Prince Henry. What may your wish or purpose be?

Lucifer. Nothing or everything, as it pleases

Your Highness. You behold in me

Only a traveling Physician;

One of the few who have a mission

To cure incurable diseases,

Or those that are called so. Prince Henry. Can you bring

The dead to life? Lucifer. Yes; very nearly.

And, what is a wiser and better thing,

Can keep the living from ever needing

Such an unnatural, strange proceeding,

By showing conclusively and clearly

That death is a stupid blunder merely,

And not a necessity of our lives.

My being here is accidental;

The storm, that against your casement drives,

In the little village below waylaid me.

And there I heard, with a secret delight,

Of your maladies physical and mental,

Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.

And I hastened hither, though late in the night,

To proffer my aid! Prince Henry (ironically) For this you came!

Ah, how can I ever hope to requite

This honor from one so erudite? Lucifer. The honor is mine, or will be when

I have cured your disease. Prince Henry. But not till then.

Lucifer. What is your illness?

Prince Henry. It has no name.

A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,

As in a kiln, burns in my veins,

Sending up vapors to the head,

My heart has become a dull lagoon,

Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;

I am accounted as one who is dead,

And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon. Lucifer And has Gordonius the Divine,

In his famous Lily of Medicine,--

I see the book lies open before you,--

No remedy potent enough to restore you? Prince Henry. None whatever!

Lucifer The dead are dead,

And their oracles dumb, when questioned

Of the new diseases that human life

Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.

Consult the dead upon things that were,

But the living only on things that are.

Have you done this, by the appliance

And aid of doctors? Prince Henry. Ay, whole schools

Of doctors, with their learned rules,

But the case is quite beyond their science.

Even the doctors of Salern

Send me back word they can discern

No cure for a malady like this,

Save one which in its nature is

Impossible, and cannot be! Lucifer That sounds oracular!

Prince Henry Unendurable!

Lucifer What is their remedy?

Prince Henry You shall see;

Writ in this scroll is the mystery. Lucifer (reading). "Not to be cured, yet not incurable!

The only remedy that remains

Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,

Who of her own free will shall die,

And give her life as the price of yours!"

That is the strangest of all cures,

And one, I think, you will never try;

The prescription you may well put by,

As something impossible to find

Before the world itself shall end!

And yet who knows? One cannot say

That into some maiden's brain that kind

Of madness will not find its way.

Meanwhile permit me to recommend,

As the matter admits of no delay,

My wonderful Catholicon,

Of very subtile and magical powers! Prince Henry. Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal

The spouts and gargoyles of these towers,

Not me! My faith is utterly gone

In every power but the Power Supernal!

Pray tell me, of what school are you? Lucifer. Both of the Old and of the New!

The school of Hermes Trismegistus,

Who uttered his oracles sublime

Before the Olympiads, in the dew

Of the early dawn and dusk of Time,

The reign of dateless old Hephaestus!

As northward, from its Nubian springs,

The Nile, forever new and old,

Among the living and the dead,

Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled;

So, starting from its fountain-head

Under the lotus-leaves of Isis,

From the dead demigods of eld,

Through long, unbroken lines of kings

Its course the sacred art has held,

Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices.

This art the Arabian Geber taught,

And in alembics, finely wrought,

Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered

The secret that so long had hovered

Upon the misty verge of Truth,

The Elixir of Perpetual Youth,

Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!

Like him, this wondrous lore I teach! Prince Henry. What! an adept?

Lucifer. Nor less, nor more!

Prince Henry. I am a reader of such books,

A lover of that mystic lore!

With such a piercing glance it looks

Into great Nature's open eye,

And sees within it trembling lie

The portrait of the Deity!

And yet, alas! with all my pains,

The secret and the mystery

Have baffled and eluded me,

Unseen the grand result remains! Lucifer (showing a flask). Behold it here! this little flask

Contains the wonderful quintessence,

The perfect flower and efflorescence,

Of all the knowledge man can ask!

Hold it up thus against the light! Prince Henry. How limpid, pure, and crystalline,

How quick, and tremulous, and bright

The little wavelets dance and shine,

As were it the Water of Life in sooth! Lucifer. It is! It assuages every pain,

Cures all disease, and gives again

To age the swift delights of youth.

Inhale its fragrance. Prince Henry. It is sweet.

A thousand different odors meet

And mingle in its rare perfume,

Such as the winds of summer waft

At open windows through a room! Lucifer. Will you not taste it?

Prince Henry. Will one draught Suffice?

Lucifer. If not, you can drink more.

Prince Henry. Into this crystal goblet pour

So much as safely I may drink. Lucifer (pouring). Let not the quantity alarm you:

You may drink all; it will not harm you. Prince Henry. I am as one who on the brink

Of a dark river stands and sees

The waters flow, the landscape dim

Around him waver, wheel, and swim,

And, ere he plunges, stops to think

Into what whirlpools he may sink;

One moment pauses, and no more,

Then madly plunges from the shore!

Headlong into the dark mysteries

Of life and death I boldly leap,

Nor fear the fateful current's sweep,

Nor what in ambush lurks below!

For death is better than disease! (An ANGEL with an aeolian harp hovers in the air.)

Angel. Woe! woe! eternal woe!

Not only the whispered prayer

Of love,

But the imprecations of hate,

Reverberate

Forever and ever through the air

Above!

This fearful curse

Shakes the great universe! Lucifer (disappearing). Drink! drink!

And thy soul shall sink

Down into the dark abyss,