A strange and woe-worn wight
Arose beside the battlement,
And stood unmoving there. 70
His inessential figure cast no shade
Upon the golden floor;
His port and mien bore mark of many years,
And chronicles of untold ancientness
Were legible within his beamless eye:  75
Yet his cheek bore the mark of youth;
Freshness and vigour knit his manly frame;
The wisdom of old age was mingled there
With youth’s primaeval dauntlessness;
And inexpressible woe, 80
Chastened by fearless resignation, gave
An awful grace to his all-speaking brow.

SPIRIT: 
‘Is there a God?’

AHASUERUS: 
’Is there a God!—­ay, an almighty God,
And vengeful as almighty!  Once His voice 85
Was heard on earth:  earth shuddered at the sound;
The fiery-visaged firmament expressed
Abhorrence, and the grave of Nature yawned
To swallow all the dauntless and the good
That dared to hurl defiance at His throne, 90
Girt as it was with power.  None but slaves
Survived,—­cold-blooded slaves, who did the work
Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls
No honest indignation ever urged
To elevated daring, to one deed 95
Which gross and sensual self did not pollute. 
These slaves built temples for the omnipotent Fiend,
Gorgeous and vast:  the costly altars smoked
With human blood, and hideous paeans rung
Through all the long-drawn aisles.  A murderer heard 100
His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts
Had raised him to his eminence in power,
Accomplice of omnipotence in crime,
And confidant of the all-knowing one. 
These were Jehovah’s words:—­ 105

’From an eternity of idleness
I, God, awoke; in seven days’ toil made earth
From nothing; rested, and created man: 
I placed him in a Paradise, and there
Planted the tree of evil, so that he 110
Might eat and perish, and My soul procure
Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn,
Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth,
All misery to My fame.  The race of men
Chosen to My honour, with impunity 115
May sate the lusts I planted in their heart. 
Here I command thee hence to lead them on,
Until, with hardened feet, their conquering troops
Wade on the promised soil through woman’s blood,
And make My name be dreaded through the land. 120
Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe
Shall be the doom of their eternal souls,
With every soul on this ungrateful earth,
Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong,—­even all
Shall perish, to fulfil the blind revenge 125
(Which you, to men, call justice) of their God.’