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SEMICHORUS 2:
For
Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,
The foul cubs like their parents are, 730
Their den is in the guilty mind,
And Conscience feeds them with despair.

[NOTE:
728 For edition 1822, Wms. transcript;
Fear cj. Fleay, Forman, Dowden. See Editor’s Note.]

SEMICHORUS 1:
In sacred Athens, near the fane
Of Wisdom, Pity’s altar stood:
Serve not the unknown God in vain. 735
But pay that broken shrine again,
Love for hate and tears for blood.

[ENTER MAHMUD AND AHASUERUS.]

MAHMUD:
Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we.

AHASUERUS:
No more!

MAHMUD:
But raised above thy fellow-men
By thought, as I by power.

AHASUERUS:
Thou sayest so. 740

MAHMUD:
Thou art an adept in the difficult lore
Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest
The flowers, and thou measurest the stars;
Thou severest element from element;
Thy spirit is present in the Past, and sees 745
The birth of this old world through all its cycles
Of desolation and of loveliness,
And when man was not, and how man became
The monarch and the slave of this low sphere,
And all its narrow circles–it is much– 750
I honour thee, and would be what thou art
Were I not what I am; but the unborn hour,
Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms,
Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor any
Mighty or wise. I apprehended not 755
What thou hast taught me, but I now perceive
That thou art no interpreter of dreams;
Thou dost not own that art, device, or God,
Can make the Future present–let it come!
Moreover thou disdainest us and ours; 760
Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest.

AHASUERUS:
Disdain thee?–not the worm beneath thy feet!
The Fathomless has care for meaner things
Than thou canst dream, and has made pride for those
Who would be what they may not, or would seem 765
That which they are not. Sultan! talk no more
Of thee and me, the Future and the Past;
But look on that which cannot change–the One,
The unborn and the undying. Earth and ocean,
Space, and the isles of life or light that gem 770
The sapphire floods of interstellar air,
This firmament pavilioned upon chaos,
With all its cressets of immortal fire,
Whose outwall, bastioned impregnably
Against the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them 775
As Calpe the Atlantic clouds–this Whole
Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,
With all the silent or tempestuous workings
By which they have been, are, or cease to be,
Is but a vision;–all that it inherits 780
Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams;
Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less
The Future and the Past are idle shadows
Of thought’s eternal flight–they have no being:
Nought is but that which feels itself to be. 785