Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

“I!”
Love answer'd; and sprang forth with such a cry
As paled, beneath their golden porches, all
The rosy lords of that Ambrosial Hall.
Olympus groan'd aghast beneath the sound,
Whereto the throbbing universe all round
Responded with a million echoes wild
Of awful joy.

II.

For lo! the glorious child,
By one transcendent moment's mighty throe,
Full-statured sprang into the new-born glow
Of his superlative godhead. His right hand
Wrench'd from his lustrous orbs the blinding band
That had for ages held their lordly light
From flooding heaven and earth with infinite
And all-transforming splendour. Faint and wan
Wax'd all the lesser lights Olympian
In the sunrise of that surpassing gaze:
Like their own orbs. Mars, with diminisht rays,

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Reddening receded to what seem'd at last
A single spot of angry fire in fast
Increasing distance. Like a happy tear
About to fall, Venus, a trembling sphere
All pale in rosy air, descended slow.
Of Phœbus rested nothing but a glow
Of solemn gladness on heaven's serene face.
Even Jove himself, in that expanding space
Love's ever-greatening glory lit, became
No brighter than his own broad star, whose flame
Burns lone on night's far frontier.

III.

In amaze,
Beneath the Face whereon he dared not gaze
The man, prostrated, fell. In whose thrill'd ears
A voice rang, musical as moving spheres:
“The sound of Human Sorrow heard in Heaven
Immortal love to mortal life hath given:
Whereby in grief of life is growth of love.
Arise! On Earth below, in Heaven above,
Part of all creeds, and every creed surviving,
The Ever-loving is the Ever-living.
Heavenly and Human both: which, thro' man's eyes
Forever gazing upward, to Heaven cries,
‘Behold me, Father!’ and from Heaven anon
Down gazing cries to Earth ‘Behold me, Son!’
Arise, and follow where Love leads.”

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IV.

The man
Arose: and, guided by the Voice, began
To ascend that solemn mountain. Changed was all
Its aspect. Gone the Olympain Festival!
Gone all the rosy revellers! Rough the road
With raunce and bramble, where once breathed and glow'd
The clear-cupp'd cistus and bright asphodel.
And lo, where last each golden goblet fell,
A grinning scull! On the sharp summit seem'd,
Where late Olympian Jove's bright throne had beam'd,
Some dim stupendous image, looming thro'
Red morn's dull mist, and lurid in the dew,
Till at its foot the god-led mortal stood:
Then on his brow fell drops of human blood
From a great Cross, wide-arm'd, that o'er him spread.

V.

He shrank, indignant.
Music o'er his head,
Like a light bird, came fluttering. And again,
To that light music lured, in mistlike train,
From rosiest air's remotest inmost deep,
Troop'd—dim and beautiful, as dreams that creep
Under the sweet lids of a sleeping child,
On whose wet lashes tears, tho' reconciled
With trouble soon dismiss'd, are trembling new—
The old Olympians. Wreaths of every hue,

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Fresh-pluckt from bowers of never-fading Thought
In Memory's dewiest meadow-deeps, they brought;
Wherewith to deck that darkling Cross. Whereon
The Past's pale blossom-bearers every one,
Each as he came, fresh garlands hung. Till, lo!
The Cross in flowers—the flowers themselves—the flow
Of flower-bearers—all, began to fade
In ever deepening light.

VI.

Love, only, staid.
Yet Love's self changed. Whose form, expanding, seem'd,
To him on whose awed gaze its glory beam'd,
To absorb into itself all things that were.
Heaven's farthest stars were glittering in His hair:
All winds of heaven His breathing loosed or bound:
His voice became an ever-murmuring sound,
The sound of generations of mankind:
Shut in His hand, the nations humm'd: Time twined
About His feet its creeping growths; which took
From Him the life-sap of the leaves that shook
Light shadows from His glory.

VII.

Mute with awe,
And lost in light, Licinius mused. He saw
His own life, suddenly, as when, thro' rain

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And streaming tempest, on a blasted plain
An instantaneous sunbeam strikes.

VIII.

Even then,
Even while the vision broaden'd on his ken,
A sudden trumpet sounded as in scorn
From the dark camps.
It was the battle morn.