and wide
Taught men the Way....

THE HOLY ONE

Aye, verily.... Some mood
Of evil in my heart has closed my mouth
And darkened thus my eyesight. But 'tis gone....
Brethren, have comfort on my frugal stones.
Ask me all ye desire.

SATAN

Most Holy One,
These are my friends; I bring them in sore need
Unto your wisdom. For methinks they stand
Now at the cross-roads where the choice is made
Of truth or vanity. I beg you, tell
Unto their ears how, in your day, you came
To that dark crossing.

THE HOLY ONE

I would do your will
In this, and in all other services,
My brethren.

You must know that in my youth
I was a lusty noble of the realm
Of Jeypore; and the falcon and the sword
And the nautch-dancers and the palace-girls
Were mine to love and master like a lord.
Lordlike I lived; the caskets of the day
And of the night I crowded with bright jewels
Of love and joy and laughter. No desire
Panted unslaked an instant at my doors--
Nay, feasts were spread for it. And poor men gazed
On me with envy, muttering from their dust:
"Behold, the Heavens' darling."...

OLDHAM

Other lands
Know the same tale.

THE HOLY ONE

Aye, aye, all lands. And then
One night, alone in mine own garden walls,
Beneath the piercing stars, I gathered my life
Into my hands, and looked at it, and far
Beyond it at all other mortal lives;
And dust fell from mine eyelids....

For I saw
Birth and desire, satiety and pain,
Recurrent yearning that is never stilled,
Agony, death, rebirth in other forms,
And agony, and desire, and agony.
But nowhere saw I happiness or peace
Or rest from cravings that like vultures tear
The fibres of the heart.

Then wandered I
Forth from my palaces in utter pain,
Seeing the world as dust and vanity,
A desert of despair, a raging sea
Of torment....

SATAN

Now why stops the Holy One?

THE HOLY ONE

It wearies me to speak, and to recall
Those perished years.... Give me to drink.

OLDHAM

He speaks
Out of familiar deeps. Seas sunder us,
But the same stars have cast their ghostly rays
Into our bosoms.

FAUST

And those cloudless eyes
Have seen what we have seen!

THE HOLY ONE

I am refre