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 honour from one so erudite?

Lucifer. The honour is mine, or will be when

I have cured your disease.

Prince Henry.

Lucifer. What is your illness?

Prince Henry.

But not till then.

It has no name.

A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,
As in a kiln, burns in my veins,
Sending up vapours 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.

Lucifer. What is their remedy?

Prince Henry.

Unendurable!

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, for ever 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 your 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 odours 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.

Suffice?

Will one draught

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 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 eolian harp hovers in the air.)

Angel. Woe! woe! eternal woe!

Not only the whispered prayer

Of love,

But the imprecations of hate,
Reverberate

For ever 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,

Into the infinite abyss,

From which no plummet nor rope

Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!

Prince Henry (drinking). It is like a draught of fire!
Through every vein

I feel again

The fever of youth, the soft desire;
A rapture that is almost pain

Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!
O joy! O joy! I feel

The band of steel

That so long and heavily has pressed

Upon my breast

Uplifted, and the malediction

Of my affliction

Is taken from me, and my weary breast

At length finds rest.

The Angel. It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air

has been taken!

It is but the rest of the sand, when the hourglass is not

shaken!

It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!

It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!
With fiendish laughter,

Hereafter,

This false physician

Will mock thee in thy perdition.

Prince Henry. Speak! speak!

Who says that I am ill?

I am not ill! I am not weak!

The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er !

I feel the chill of death no more!

At length

I stand renewed in all my strength!

Beneath me I can feel

The great earth stagger and reel,

As if the feet of a descending God

Upon its surface trod,

And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!

This, O brave physician! this

Is thy great Palingenesis!

(Drinks again.)

The Angel. Touch the goblet no more!

It will make thy heart sore
To its very core!

Its perfume is the breath

Of the Angel of Death,

And the light that within it lies
Is the flash of his evil eyes.

Beware! Oh, beware!

For sickness, sorrow, and care

All are there!

Prince Henry (sinking back). O thou voice within my breast!

Why entreat me, why upbraid me,

When the steadfast tongues of truth

And the flattering hopes of youth

Have all deceived me and betrayed me?

Give me, give me rest, O rest!

Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming !
I am like a happy lover

Who illumines life with dreaming!
Brave physician! Rare physician!
Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission!
(His head falls on his book.)

The Angel (receding). Alas! alas!

Like a vapour the golden vision

Shall fade and pass,

And thou wilt find in thy heart again

Only the blight of pain,

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!

(Courtyard of the Castle. HUBERT standing by the gateway.)

Hubert. How sad the grand old castle looks!

O'erhead, the unmolested rooks

Upon the turret's windy top

Sit, talking of the farmer's crop,

Here in the courtyard springs the grass,
So few are now the feet that pass;
The stately peacocks, bolder grown,
Come hopping down the steps of stone,
As if the castle were their own;
And I, the poor old seneschal,
Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.
Alas! the merry guests no more
Crowd through the hospitable door;
No eyes with youth and passion shine,
No cheeks grow redder than the wine;
No song, no laugh, no jovial din
Of drinking wassail to the pin;