University of Virginia Library

Forgetteth not Omniscience; faileth not
Omnipotence: the Omnipresent still
There present is; though, to even angel's ken,
Invisible, as, to weaker eye of man,
Earth's centre.

In the depth of ages past,
Over heaven's brightness,—nay, within the courts
Nighest the Throne, a shadow had there come:
Sin, like a foul mist charged with pestilence,
Had risen portentous; and in Beings pure
And happy, entered; gendering envy, wrath,
Discord, and mad revolt against the Power
By Whom alone they lived. A little while,
Frenzied they thus had stood; as gods with God
Hoping to rule; and, on the spirits true,
Words of contempt, and looks of high disdain,
Proudly outpouring: but, no sign of wrath
Forewarning; no dread voice, doom-speaking, heard,—
Throughout his whole Essential, suddenly,
Felt every tainted angel that, for him,
No longer were God's mansions fit abode!
As by dark lightning-blast, so, by a Power
Unseen, resistless, sheer o'er face of heaven,
Like clouds of dust before the hurricane,
Deep down into the void were they borne off,
All terror-struck, strengthless, dumb. Away—away—
Swifter than speed of light-beam flew they on:
Stars gleamed before them,—swelled to suns—died out
As stars again behind them, and were lost;—
Yet still on—on—by the invisible Might
Urged through the infinite—on still they shot:
Mid constellations vast and numberless,
Above—below—before—to right, and left,—
All seeming, in the speed of that dread flight,
Like fire-sparks on the wind, to stream the sky:
Strange forms, unknown to man,—far, far past ken
Of telescopic eye, though myriad-fold
Space-piercing more than his of the emerald isle,
The astronomer's glory;—yet still on,—on,—on,—
Through regions darkening,—darker,—darker still,—
As though the confines of the universe
They had approached; where few, and fewer yet,
Dimmer, and more remote the shining points,—
Till, far beyond even glimpse of living orb,
Deep in the ocean of eternal night,
On that huge sun-anatomy, at length,
Scattered like sand-grains flung upon the wind,
Down fell they,—and their perilous flight was done.