The storm, that against your casement drives, And there I heard, with a secret delight, PRINCE HENRY, ironically. For this you came! Ah, how can I ever hope to requite LUCIFER. The honor is mine, or will be when I have cured your disease. PRINCE HENRY. What is your illness? But not till then. LUCIFER. PRINCE HENRY. It has no name. A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame, My heart has become a dull lagoon, LUCIFER. And has Gordonius the Divine, In his famous Lily of Medicine, None whatever! PRINCE HENRY. LUCIFER. The dead are dead, And their oracles dumb, when questioned 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, 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, Of very subtile and magical powers! PRINCE HENRY. Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal LUCIFER. Both of the Old and of the New! Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled; Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered The secret that so long had hovered What! an adept? PRINCE HENRY 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 The portrait of the Deity! And yet, alas! with all my pains, Unseen the grand result remains! LUCIFER, showing a flask. Behold it here! this little flask Contains the wonderful quintessence, PRINCE HENRY. How limpid, pure, and crystalline, LUCIFER. It is! It assuages every pain, Cures all disease, and gives again То age the swift delights of youth. Inhale its fragrance. PRINCE HENRY. A thousand different odors meet 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 For death is better than disease! An ANGEL with an aolian harp hovers in the air. |