Eternal Feminine, Act Two, Scene Four

Noon. The millpond. Lilith and Lucien stand by the edge of the water.

Lucien. Thank your father again for releasing me.

Lilith. Oh, he won’t remember, anyway.

Lucien. He seems an insensitive sort of fellow—
He didn’t even care about how you were tortured,
Only about his discomfort in serving.

Lilith. I did sell his name for a bit of respite.
It’s to be expected.
How did you like Samir, yourself?

Lucien. Experience was interesting
But I am glad to be home again
Under the benevolent sun.
Have you thought about staying, as I asked?

Lilith. I thank you for your invitation—
You are the first person
I’ve ever met who wasn’t old, or a baby…
And you are so interesting!
Is it true you grind up corn and wheat
And eat it?
I would dearly love
To learn to eat bread,
And stay with you.

Lucien. Truly, there is nothing better
Than eternal friendship.

Nixie enters dramatically at the top of the hill, looking wild and disheveled.

Nixie. Lilith, that is foolish!
You forget what it means to be immortal.
You forget that he will die
And you will go on and on, eternal.

Lilith. Nixie, you have come back to your pond!
Father was looking for you all this morning.
He needed your opinion on a new cravat.

Nixie. I have come to stay forever.
What else can I do with my life?
Warn all you meet, human child,
To stay away from this pond.
Down in the depths waits eternal life.
Go inside, foolish girl,
Perhaps you can only learn by experience.
You will only know the pain of eternity
Once love is lost.

Lucien. Nixie, don’t despair—
Eternity awaits not in pain,
But in light!

Nixie. The tragedy of Heaven
Is that it is not
Oblivion.

Lucien. But things there will be different—
You won’t be bored or saddened by the world…

Nixie. You forget, O Son of Earth,
That she and I can never follow you there.

Lilith. Lucien, come—teach me to eat bread!

Lucien. If you will teach me to dance to fairy melodies!

Lilith. I will—and fie on thoughts of future!
Now is all-encompassing!
This you will learn from the Fay!

Lilith and Lucien exit.

Nixie. Winds ignore the world in their forceful play
I taste air that hints of cleanliness
Deceptive warmth grows up from the ground
Into the soles of my feet
It is again Spring
Seasons are so blindingly brilliant
Ever changing—
I love to watch them.
I love to watch them
Change and develop.
Change and develop,
Yet never grow older—
I would that
I could be the same.
To be ever twisting ‘round myself,
To be ever growing up and out,
Yet to be never old and ever new—
Yet to be never tired of life—
Such would be the True Eternal,
The Eternal Truth.
My soul cannot be joyful
Without the Numinous.
Pondering, I remember
Sadly, as I memorize
The histories,
The histories of Earth,
That she is slowly growing older.
She is not static, as she first seemed to me.
She is still young
Yet old, too old—
Her childhood is over and her strength is beginning.
Like me, she has long ages of memories.
Everything is already old to her,
Still she has much farther to go.
Her strength,
Her ambition,
Her ruthless, rushing activity
Mask the sorrow of boredom:
The sorrow of the curse.
Now we can never understand.
We can never be joyful.
We have not the Numinous.
Creating, creating—
As the poet promised us—
Striving, striving—
As the god commanded us—
Never ending.
Salvation comes to us,
But at what cost?
The wait is long,
And we will soon be too old—
Too old to laugh with fresh air tongues,
Too tired to dance intuitively on warm living grass,
Too jaded to gasp with wonder at the ceaseless creation,
And never gone, never gone—
Already we are this way,
The Earth and I.
We are already too old
For the Indescribable Firework Show at the End.
Now we beg only for rest, for cessation.
We watch under our eyelids
With envy, with loathsome desire,
That masculine Fire,
That masculine Fire that burns up the nations,
That burns up the souls of men:
So quickly extinguished
And so much light!
An explosion of energy,
Like an alchemist’s target,
Like the death of a star,
Like Lucifer falling, falling…
Oh, to live
Wrapped in Sublime,
Burning skin and screaming lungs,
Screaming lungs and forceful eyes,
Forceful eyes and tearing nails,
Tearing up the clothes,
Burning up the souls of women,
Forcing out the pain and beauty,
Screaming out the pain and beauty,
Screaming until it is all gone,
Gone out of the body.
And when the body is empty,
To cease:
This is our desire,
O Man of Vivid Death.
Do not worship our creation,
Do not aspire to strive as we strive—
Concern yourself with your cessation,
Concern yourself with your blinding light.
But if you leave your self-absorbed explosion
To think of us at all,
Let it be with a moment of pity.
Spare a drop of your passionate melancholy
For us who are
Eternal.