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

NOTE: 
762 thy edition 1822; my editions 1839.

MAHMUD: 
What meanest thou?  Thy words stream like a tempest
Of dazzling mist within my brain—­they shake
The earth on which I stand, and hang like night
On Heaven above me.  What can they avail? 
They cast on all things surest, brightest, best, 790
Doubt, insecurity, astonishment.

AHASUERUS: 
Mistake me not!  All is contained in each. 
Dodona’s forest to an acorn’s cup
Is that which has been, or will be, to that
Which is—­the absent to the present.  Thought 795
Alone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion,
Reason, Imagination, cannot die;
They are, what that which they regard appears,
The stuff whence mutability can weave
All that it hath dominion o’er, worlds, worms, 800
Empires, and superstitions.  What has thought
To do with time, or place, or circumstance? 
Wouldst thou behold the Future?—­ask and have! 
Knock and it shall be opened—­look, and lo! 
The coming age is shadowed on the Past 805
As on a glass.

MAHMUD: 
Wild, wilder thoughts convulse
My spirit—­Did not Mahomet the Second
Win Stamboul?

AHASUERUS: 
Thou wouldst ask that giant spirit
The written fortunes of thy house and faith. 
Thou wouldst cite one out of the grave to tell 810
How what was born in blood must die.

MAHMUD: 
Thy words
Have power on me!  I see—­

AHASUERUS: 
What hearest thou?