Enter Lucifer

Lucifer:

Ye speedy spirits, stay our chariot now,

God’s Morning-star in its full zenith stands;

Its height is reached; and lo! the moment comes

When Lucifer must set before this star,

This double star that rises from below

And seeks the way above, to tarnish Heaven with earthy glow.

No more should ye adorn

Proud Lucifer’s apparel with glittering crowns,

Nor gild his forehead with the glorious dawn

Of morning-star, to which archangels kneel.

Another splendor sweeps into the light of god,

Whose radiance drowns our vaunted glory.

As to the eyes of man, below, the sun,

By day, puts out the stars.

The shades of night

Bedim the Angels and the suns of Heaven

For man has won the heart of the Most High,

Within his new-created Paradise.

He is the friend of Heaven.

Our slavery even mow begins.

Go hence, rejoice and serve

And honor this new race like servile slaves.

For god was man created;

We, for him.

Let then the Angels bend their necks beneath his feet.

Let each one now upon him wait

And bear him even onto the highest thrones on hands or wings:

For our inheritance shall pass to him,

The chosen son of god.

We, the first-born, shall suffer in this Realm.

The son born on that sixth day, and made

In the image of the Father, shall attain

The crown. And rightly unto him was given

The mighty scepter, which shall cause even us,

The once first born, to tremble and to shake

Here holds no contradiction now: ye heard

What Gabriel’s trump spake at the golden port?

Beelzebub:

O! Stadholder of god’s superior powers,

Alas! We hear too well, amid the praise

Of choristers, a discord that makes sad

The feast eterne. The charge of Gabriel is clear

It needs no tongue of Cherubim to unfold its sense.

Nor was there need to send Apollion below, a nearer view

To gain of Adam’s realm beneath the moon.

The massive gate of Heaven stands ajar for Adam’s seed.

An earth-worm that has crawled out of the dust

Out of a clod of clay defies thy power

Thou shalt yet man behold o’er thee exalted

So that thou shalt fall

Lucifer:

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

Beelzebub:

Who is their center and circumference

What clearer proof need we to see that God

Shall glorify mankind, and us degrade

For we are born to serve, and man, to rule

Lucifer:

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be

That shall I thwart, if in my power it be