University of Virginia Library

THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT

PRELUDE

The action falls immediately before the Incarnation.

PERSONS OF THE PRELUDE

• Raphael
• Uriel
• The Angel of the Pale Horse
• A Shepherd
• A Shepherd Boy
• A Young Man (persona muta)
• A Girl

SCENE I

A meadow and coppice near the sea; beyond low hills the roofs of a town. Dawn.
Raphael.
He sings.

Uriel.
Appearing.
Why tarriest on thine errand, Raphael?

Raphael.
I do no errand here.

Uriel.
Why camest thou then?

Raphael.
Since earth is dear to me. Sometimes it seems—
Treading the prairie's autumn sibilance,
Or when the tongues of summer lightning speak
In the corners of the cloud—I could forget
My station 'mid the deathless hierarchies,
And change into a clot of anxious clay.

Uriel.
Mock not, sweet brother! thou who knowest well—
Better than I or Michael or the rest—
The throes that shake these clots of passionate clay;
Knowest their lewd harsh blood, their shell of sense
So frail, so piteously contrived for pain.

Raphael.
I dare to say how little jest it was.
Oft, as I leave these sliding shafts of dark,
And homeward climb the immaterial cliffs,
My heart makes question which were worthier state
For a free soul to choose,—angelic calm,
Angelic vision, ebbless, increscent,
Or earth-life with its reachings and recoils,
Its lewd harsh blood so swift to change and flower
At the least touch of love, its shell of sense
So subtly made to minister them delight,
So frail, so piteously contrived for pain.

Uriel.
Brother, thou dost not well to wander here.
If thou wilt roam, choose some less troubled star.
The roaring midst of the insatiate sun
Where God has set my watch, is peace to this!
Of all the bitter drops that dewed His brow
In his old agony, this earth-drop fell
Most bitter salt, and ever since hath been
Fuller of travailing than other worlds.

Raphael.
Thy speech is dark. I understand it not.

Uriel.
Of a dark thing I speak a few dark words.
Put from thy gaze the sweet bloom of these hills
And all this gorgeous dapple of the sea,
And let thy memory stand again with me
On Time's untrodden threshold, that first day
Which searched and stung our immemorial peace
With pangs of vernal influence. Heaven rose
As if from sleep, and, lo, through all the void
Clambered and curled creation like a vine,
Hanging the dark with clusters of young bloom.
Then from the viewless ever-folded heart
Of the mystic Rose, stole breath and pulse of change,
Delicious pantings such as seize the breast
Of lovers when the love-tide nears its flood,
Yet touched with endless potency of pain,
As lips of mothers when their anguish ebbs
And leaves the waifling life. Then first the Dove
Began to mourn above the mercy-seat,
And the dear sister spirits of the Lamps
Bent all their shimmering wings one way to screen
Their wicks from the wind-flaw. Large with question turned
Angelic eyes to archangelic eyes,
Archangels laid changed lips to the ears of Thrones,
Thrones gazed at Dominations, Powers made sign
To Principalities; but not one dared,
Voicing the fear that filled him, to cry, “Lord,
What hast Thou brought upon Thy kingdom, Thou
Ancient of Days!” Their silence was right well.

Raphael.
All this the meditative spirits oft
Have pondered. But thy meaning still is dark.

Uriel.
Ourselves who questioned why the world was made
Were born of the same questionable seed,
And we who feared were the first cause of fear.
Of a dark thing I speak a few dark words.
Of old the mind of God, coiled on itself
In contemplation single and eterne,
Felt suddenly a stealing wistfulness
Sully the essence of his old content
With pangs of dim division. Long He strove
Against his bosom's deep necessity,
Then, groping for surcease, put forth the orbs
Of Paradise, with all their imagery,
And the ordered hierarchies where we stand;
Some sharing more in his essential calm,
Some, rebel spirits, banished now or quelled,
The ill-starred sons of his disquietude,—
Disquietude not quenched when fell the pride
Of Lucifer, long bastioned in the North.
Demand of joy, hardly to be gainsaid,
And vast necessity of grief, still worked
Compulsive in his breast: our essence calm,
Those lucid orbs accordant, could not bring
Nepenthe long. His hand He still withheld
Ages of ages, fearing the event,
Till, bathed in brighter urge and wistfulness
He put forth suddenly this vine of Time
And hung the hollow dark with passionate change.

Raphael.
I think for me Heaven seemed not Heaven till then,
When from our seats of peace we could behold
The strife of ripening suns and withering moons,
Marching of ice-floes, and the nameless wars
Of monster races laboring to be man;
When we could hear the wrestle of hoarse sound
Hurl gust on gust obscurely toward the time
Of disinvolvèd music: till at last,
Standing erect amid the giant fern—

Uriel.
At last! At last! O shaken Breast, nowhere
Couldst thou find quiet save in putting forth
This last imagination? Could no form
Of being stanch thee in thy groping thought
Save this of Man? Puny and terrible;
Apt to imagine powers beyond himself
In wind and lightning; cunning to evoke
From mould and flint-stone the surprising fire,
And carve the heavy hills to spiritual shapes
Of town and temple; nursing in his veins
More restlessness than called him from the void,
Perfidies, hungers, dreams, idolatries,
Pain, laughter, wonder, anger, sex, and song!

Raphael.
God had one other thought, more sweet, more dire;
Thy latest words remind thee.

Behind the trees a girl's voice sings.
O daughters of Jerusalem!
What said ye unto her
Who took her love by the garment's hem,
Where the tanned grape-gatherers were?
Did any go down and see
If she led him into her house?
Or was it aloft where the wild harts flee,
Was it high in the hills, 'neath the cedar-tree,
That she kissed him and called him spouse?

A young man and a girl come over the hill from the town.
Uriel.
Unto man
Woman was due. To hearts of fire more fire,
To pride of strength a still subduing strength.

As they pass through the coppice, the girl sings.
O keepers of the city walls!
Have ye taken her veil away,
Whose hasting feet and low love-calls
Ye heard at the drop of day?
Have ye taken her ankle-rings,
Who is fair, who hath eyes like a dove?
Must she seek her lover, her king of kings,
Naked, stripped of her costly things?
Must she have no garment but love?

SCENE II

A mountain glade and forest. Midnight.
Shepherd.
Here stand, if thou wilt see, by this great bole.
This way they passed, and hither should return.
But pray thee, gentle god, when they draw near
Abate the splendor of thy face, fold close
Thine eyed and irised plumage. God thou art,
But thou must needs be mighty to escape
The hill girls when they rage! From these old boughs
The climbing moon will soon pour deeper shade
To screen thee more.

Raphael.
How looked they when they passed?

Shepherd Boy.
Coney, how passed the hailstorm o'er, quotha!
Patter! patter! 't was sung beneath i' the dark.
I lost a birch cup full of whortleberries
Scrambling to cover when I heard their songs.
But when they burst across the glade, I peeped,
And saw their breasts gleam through their angry hair.
Evoë! they had snared the village lad
They hanker for so long. I hear them talk,
Dawdling on well-curbs with their water-skins
Or picking the May-apples.

Shepherd.
'T is the lad
Who sat mute at the merry threshing-stead,
Turned from their orgies in the sacred wood
With large bright eyes unamorous, and sang
In lonesome places piercing lonesome songs
Of other lives and other gods than theirs—
Perchance of thee and thy bright-wingèd mates,
If mates be thine, for god thou surely art.

Shepherd Boy.
To-night they have him limed! Brow of the hawk,
Throat of the hermit-thrush, and ring-dove eyes!

Shepherd.
He came across the moon-drench dragged by three
Whose bodies shone like the peeled willow wand;
The little snakes they knot into their hair
Lipping his neck, where oozed the red of grapes
From his crushed garland; his hands flung aloft
To the symbol of their fierce licentious god.
His eyes were large and fixed, his lips apart,
As I have seen him in the lonesome woods,
But madder than the maddest bacchant there!

Raphael.
Who cometh yonder?

Shepherd.
Where?

Raphael.
Across the glade.

Shepherd.
I see nought.

Raphael.
There, behind the trailing mist.
The moonlight gathers to a ghostly shape,
Unearthly silver, throbbing like a heart!
It seems a beast and rider.
The shepherds make off.
Ah, I know
That icy influence, and the voice I know,
First heard in Heaven when time began to be,—
A voice above our voices, and a hush
Beneath our hush, freezing the heart with fear,
With fear the heart even of spirit-kind. ...

The Angel of the Pale Horse.
Sings.

Raphael.
What makes thine errand here?

Angel of the Pale Horse.
Still as of old.

Raphael.
I think thou art way-wandered. Here is life.

Angel of the Pale Horse.
My horse's feet err not; they are way-wise.

Raphael.
Stand by me in the shade of these old boughs,
And let no anger fan thy wings alight
Or flake the nostrils of thy horse with fire
When the young bacchants halloo down the steep.

Angel of the Pale Horse.
Thou feedest thy giddy and half-human mind
Still on these little spectacles of change,
Forgetting Heaven's great woes!

Raphael.
What woe can come
Into those courts of old beatitude?

Angel of the Pale Horse.
Hast thou not felt its presence there?

Raphael.
Yes—nay—
I know not ... When I enter Heaven gate,
Fear comes upon me, for I seem to feel
Some subtle waning of accustomed joy,
Some dying off of music—thin, minute,
As the single cricket amid chorusing fields,
Whose ceasing breaks the rapture. Often, too,
Wan faces shun me in the woods of light
And voices of vague dolor die away
Along the living lilies as I come.
But this I held a phantasy of dream,
Bred of too earnest looking on the blight
That falls on mortal things.

Angel of the Pale Horse.
It is no dream;
Though more mysterious, more dark than dream.
Momently fades the splendor, momently
Silence and dissonance like eating moths
Scatter corruption on the choiring orbs.

Raphael.
No one declares the cause?

Angel of the Pale Horse.
The cause is here,
Here in the vagrant courses of the moon,
Who makes her lair and wanders for her love
After her own loose law; in yonder stars,
Gay spendthrifts of their plentitude of fire;
In this most dissolute earth, who decks herself
With gorgeous phantasy, and delicate whim,
And paces forth before the worlds to dance
A maiden measure, modest lids downcast
To hide her harlot's guile; but more than these,
And more than all, unutterably more,
Here in the wild and sinful heart of man,—
Of all the fruits upon creation's vine
The thirstiest one to drain the vital breast
Of God, wherein it grows.

Raphael.
Too fiery sweet
Gushes the liquor from the vine He set,
Man the broad leaf and maid the honeyed flower!

The shepherds creep back, and stand peering from behind the tree at the angels.
Raphael.
Musing.
What if they rendered up their wills to His?
Hushed and subdued their personality?
Became as members of the living tree?

Angel of the Pale Horse.
A whisper grows, various from tongue to tongue,
That so He will attempt. Those who consent
To render up their clamorous wills to Him,
To merge their fretful being in his peace,
He will accept: the rest He will destroy.

The boy whispers to Raphael.
Raphael.
What wilt thou, little friend?

Shepherd Boy.
Hither, sweet god!
But let the ghostly centaur stay behind.

Shepherd.
Lean o'er this rock and look into the gorge.
See how their torches dip from ledge to ledge.
They race beside some shape the torrent bears:
The eddies seize it now, and leaning out
Over the pool they stop to howl their hymns,
And, now it plunges, how they madden down
With laughter keen above the drumming foam.

Raphael.
Is 't not a man's torn trunk?

Shepherd Boy.
See those behind
Grasping the antlers of the lunging stag,
That bellows when their torches bite his flanks!
I know the witch who rides him!

Raphael.
Come away
That is a bleeding head she holds aloft
Above the clutching of her comrades' hands!

Shepherd Boy.
No more thou 'lt shun their orgies in the wood,
Throat of the hermit-thrush and ring-dove eyes!
Throat of the mourning thrush, thy songs are done;
Sad ring-dove eyes, the lids have shut you in!

Shepherd.
That is his harp the dancers bear before,
Mocking his solemn songs of other gods
And other lives than theirs.

Raphael.
Musing.
Those who consent
He will accept: the rest He will destroy!

Shepherd Boy.
Look! look! the ghostly centaur goeth down.

ACT I

Time: as in the Prelude

PERSONS OF THE MASQUE

• Raphael
• Uriel
• Michael
• Azaziel
• The Angel of the Pale Horse
• The Angel of the White Horse
• The Angel of the Red Horse
• Spirits of the Throne-Lamps
• The Lion of the Throne
• The Eagle of the Throne
• The Angel of the Tree of Knowledge
• Spirits of the Saved
• Spirits of the Lost
• Moon-Spirits
• Voices

SCENE I.

A high mountain pass, down which flows a brook, with pools and waterfalls. Early morning.
Raphael.
Climbing, sings.
He climbs higher, and sings.
Still climbing.
The trees grow stunted in this keener air,
And scarce the hardiest blossoms dare to take
Assurance from the sun. Southward the rocks
Boast mosses and a poor increase of flowers,
But all the northern shelters hold their snow.
Such flowers as come, come not quite flower-like,
But smitten from their gracious habitudes
By some alarm, some vast and voiceless cry
That just has ceased to echo ere I came.
These white buds stand unnaturally white,
Breathing no odors till their terror pass;
Those grey souls toss their arms into the wind,
Peer through their locks with bright distracted eyes
And hug the elfin horror to their breasts—
Poor brain-turned gypsy wildings, doomed to birth
In this uneasy region! ... Yonder lift
The outposts of the habitable land.
Ages of looking on the scene beyond
Have worn the granite into shapes of woe
And old disaster.
He climbs higher, to where the ravine debouches into the Valley of the Judgment.
Each time when I stand
Upon the borders of this monstrous place,
I still must question wherefore it was flung
Thus ruinous with toppled peak and scaur,
Sheer from the morning cliffs that hold up Heaven
To nether caverns where no foot of man
Has clambered down, nor eye of angel dared
To spy upon the sluggish denizens,
If any dwell so deep. What giant plow
Harnessed to behemoth and mastodon
Set this slope furrow down the side of the world?
And to what harvest? ... Here the sons of men,
Living and dead and yet unborn, might come
Unto the final judgment; here the lost
Might make one desperate stand. ... What moveth there?
What leonine and wingèd shape is he
Steals up yon gorge all desolate of light
Whence voices of fierce-tongued and desperate streams
Sound faint as throats of nooning doves? Till now
Never have I beheld a living thing
Amid these wastes. What manner beast is he
That he hath power to awe me, though removed
So far the fallen vastness of a cliff
Wherefrom a temple might be quarried, looks
Fit for a shepherd's sling? ... Surely he comes
From nameless battle yonder in the depths;
But whither steals he homeward there aloft?
What lair is his cloud-hidden in the snows,
Whose mates and loves wait 'neath the desert palms
To hear him tell his deed? Huge was the fight
That left that mighty prowess broken so!
For sorely is he broken: now he stops
And lies exhausted by an icy pool,
Now labors up the shale, skirts the bald top,
Drops with fierce caution down the further slope
Eyeing the next hard pass. I wonder ... ? No ...
Strange! 't was a blood-drop fell upon that flower
A-tremble from the brink. Another here
Upon the ground-moss—nay, upon my hand—
It falls all round me! ...
Looking upward.
Ah, an eagle goes
Lame from the battle, mate or duelist
Of him who crept by yonder. Even here
I see the vast wings, shattered and unpenned,
Almost refuse their labor; now he swerves
To rest upon a needled dolomite,
Then upward grievously another stage
Toward some sad eyrie where his heart abides.
I too must seek my eyrie—sad enough,
Since there my heart abides not any more,
Amid the waste infinitudes of light
Missing the flow of day, the refluent dark;
Amid the bliss of unconcerning eyes
Remembering woman's anguish, man's resolve,
Youth's wistful darling guess, kindled and quenched
And quenched and kindled yet a little year
In eyes too frail to hold their meaning long
Where chance and enmity conspire with death.

He flies up the Valley.

SCENE II

Above the peaks that crown the head of the Valley of the Judgment.
Raphael.
Flying.
Soon will the cliffs of Heaven give easier way,
For though my heart grows human, yet my frame
With immaterial things accordance keeps,
And to my feet these spiritual hills
Feel native, and the climate kind to breathe;
Still kindlier for the shredded mist of song
That wanders here at morning and at eve
Whispering witless words and prophecy.

Voices.
Above.

Raphael.
Many an age your song has hovered round
This theme of Heaven's distress. What mean ye now?
Was that the lion-hound of which ye sing
Crept wounded hither, masterless, this hour?

Voices.
As before.
Where had his gadding spirit led?
Beside what peopled water-head
Stooped he, or on what sleeping face
Was he intent the dream to trace?
Had creature love upon him fawned
Or had he drunk of mortal mirth
That he knew not what a morning dawned
Over his darling earth?
Heard not the storm, heard not the cries,
Heard not the talk of the startled skies
Over the guilty earth?

Raphael.
Those dubious voices fade, and in their stead
Succeeds a sound more anxious and perturbed,
Voices and mutterings of supernal wrath
Or whisperings of fear. ... Ah, there aloft
Upon the beetling rosy crag they stand,
The pale horse and the white horse and the red!
What rage vermilions his expanded wing?
Why streams his mane so fiery on the wind
Back from his staring eyeballs? What should make
His brother's steady candor pulse and throb
And falter like the light on cavern walls
Rocked under by the tide? O never yet
Did the pale horse seem terrible as now,
Pawing the margent cliff and snorting down
Pale fire into the Valley! ... Brothers, hail!
I fare from outland. Tell me what befalls.

Angel of the White Horse.
He strays too much abroad. He hath not heard.

Angel of the Pale Horse.
They say that he has lived too much in the sun
And waxes mortal, mortal. We shall see.

Angel of the Red Horse.
Saw'st thou aught stirring in the valley deeps?

Raphael.
Far down below a beast crept wounded hither.
Why gaze ye on each other thus aghast?

Angel of the Red Horse.
Cast ye that way—the passes and defiles!
This way will I.

The Angels of the Horses disappear.
Raphael.
What news has spread concern
Even to these marks and purlieus of God's dream?
Below the sun's pale rim a paleness moves,
Grows larger, blots the disc with deepening light. ...
And now above the Valley treads a shape
Too lordly to be aught but Uriel!
Poised on a peak he halts to gaze behind;
Now wingeth nearer, in the Eagle's track—

Uriel.
Approaching.
Hail, brother.

Raphael.
Hail! Saw'st thou the fight below?

Uriel.
Of what I saw I cannot spell the sense,
Too darkly hid for me!

Raphael.
Share me at least
Thy news, though scant. That winged and brindled bulk,
Whence came it and what quarry did it seek?
And the great eagle, was it mate or foe?

Uriel.
No earthly beast it was, no earthly bird,
Seeking no earthly quarry. More than this
I know not how to say, ere I have mused
Where in the sun's core light and thought are one.

Raphael.
But yet conjecture clamors at thy heart.

Uriel.
Thou knowest what whispers are abroad in Heaven;
How God pines ever for his broken dream,
Broken by vague division, whence who knows!
And pangs of restless love too strong to quench
Save by the putting of creation forth,—
Quenched then but for a moment, since the worlds
He made to soothe Him only vex Him more,
Being compact of passion, violent,
Exceeding quarrelsome, and in their midst
Man the arch-troubler. Fainter whispers say
He ponders how to win his prodigal
By some extremity to render back
The heritage abused, to merge again
Each individual will into his will:
Till when, his pangs increase.

Raphael.
A nine days' tale.
I hold Him no such weakling! Yet ... and yet ...
I have beheld ... I know not ... pallor couched
On brows that wont to beacon; through the orbs
Quivers of twilight, hints and flecks of change. ...
We cannot be, we would not be, I deem,
The same as ere space was, or time began
To trellis there life's wild and various bloom.
—We linger. Let me hear.

Uriel.
Some things He made
Out of his wistfulness, his ecstasy,
And made them lovely fair; yet other some
Out of his loathing, out of his remorse,
Out of chagrin at the antinomy
Cleaving his nature; these are monstrous shapes,
Whereof the most abhorred one dwells below
Within the caves and aged wells of dark
Toward which this Valley plunges. There it waits
Hoarding its ugly strength till time be full.

Raphael.
How nam'st thou him?

Uriel.
The spirits meditative
Darkly name him: The Worm that Dieth not,—
Perhaps the scourge reserved for those who prove
Rebellious in the event, perhaps himself
Scourge of the Scourger, biding but his hour
To 'venge his miscreation. So he lies,
A thing most opposite to spirit-kind,
Most hated by the Four who guard the Throne,
Within the viewless panoply of light
Immediately ministrant. To them,
But to the Lion and the Eagle most,
Is given to gaze in the Eternal eyes
Like hounds about a hunter's knee, that watch
Each passion written on their master's brow,
And having read his trouble, steal away
To taste the troubler's flesh beneath their fangs.
So stole away the Lion of the Throne,
The Eagle for his aid. Beneath the moon
Last night I came upon them stealing down,
Too eager on the scent to mark my flight.
Even to the splintered curb of the last profound
I followed, and thence heard the battle rage
Bellowed above by the loath elements,
Till dawn showed in the east, an ashen dawn
Clotted and drizzled o'er with sullen light.

Raphael.
Their hearts were faithful. They were fain to save
The Master from some sad extremity. ...
But not in yonder depths, alas, doth lie
The arch-foe of his peace. Would it were so!
A monster bred to hatred in the dark.
Would it were so! not rather, as we fear,
Man the uplifted stature, the proud mind,
The laughter!

Uriel.
Speedily our doubt shall end,
For not much more delayeth the event.
—My watch is set within the sun, and thither
My hour constrains me.

Raphael.
Heavenward I. Farewell!

SCENE III

A garden in Heaven. The Eagle sits on the Tree of Knowledge; the Lion and the Angel of the White Horse rest beneath.
Angel of the White Horse.

The Eagle.
Creep softly, softly! Heaven's streets are still,
Each seraph sentry drowseth on his hill,
The winds of song are folded, and as flowers
Folded are all the domes and dreaming towers.
Creep softly, softly; I am with thee, mate!
Softly I soar above the shrouded gate,
And till thou comest past the warding swords
Lone in the outer moonlight I will wait.

The Lion.
Wing swiftly! For the walls of chrysopras
Have melted at my roar to let me pass;
But Heaven is up and peers with mazèd eyes,
And wings are weighed to hinder our emprise.
Wing swiftly, swiftly, down the glooming air,
Past cloud and precipice and mountain stair,
For ere another morning drowns the stars
We must have met the Worm within his lair.

The Eagle.
Drear are the depths, O brother,
Bitter the fight!
Vainly we stand by each other.
Thy might and my might
Are as straw, in the flame and the smother.

Angel of the White Horse.
O ye familiars benedite,
Who, hidden in the eternal glow,
Keep guard about the Throne,
What things were given to your sight
Ere to the hold of such a foe
Ye dared to venture down?

The Lion.
Awaking.

The Eagle.
Wearily thou crep'st back
Sore from the track;
Thy hide was torn and thy tongue was black.
Long thou did'st slumber and deep.

The Lion.
A voice came in my sleep
Saying, “Why wander so far?
Nearhand lieth the earth
Full of rumors of war,
Of passion and pride no dearth.
There in his cavern cold
Lurketh the Dragon old;
He lies and pastures, plain to see,
On God's heart, sluggishly,
As once he sucked of the fruits of gold
Ages ago, on the Eden tree.

Angel of the White Horse.
Hearken! A wind walks in the Tree
Though the lily-heads are still,
From bough to bough inscrutably
It feeleth out its will;
And now the leaves, a-tremble long,
Utter impulsive song.

The Angel of the Tree.
Not in the loosened whirlwinds that invade
The sun's white core with shade,
Not in the wandering tribes of fire that sweep
With rapine through the deep,
Not in the venom of the caverned Worm
That drowseth out his term,
Nay, not in these or aught akin to these
Consisteth of God's groaning and disease
The incorporeal germ.
Though all that He hath made
Rebels and is exceeding turbulent,
Though all his loins' increase
Go after pleasures other than He meant,
And with excessive claims
Drain and defile the founts of his content,—
Yet only one of all the shapes He brought
Out of the gulfs of thought,
One only creature of his quickening hands
Hath from its brow
With reckless laugh and with reiterate vow
Stripped clean away all decencies and shames;
Till with continual strife
And divagant demands
Of separate life,
The searching and the scornful heart of Man
God's inmost being maims.

The Eagle.
For naught have my wings been broken,
Vain are the wounds of thy paws!
Hark what the Tree hath spoken.

Angel of the Pale Horse.
Hush! For a murmur shakes the bloom
That once drank Eden dew,
A shadowed wind like a word of doom
Darkens the branches through.

The Angel of the Tree.

ACT II

Time: during and immediately after the Crucifixion. The outlying plains of Heaven. Storm and darkness.
Raphael.
But now the air was thick with panic shades
Who made no answer when I cried to them
Across the vortices of spiritual dark.
Upon what stricken plain have I been flung,
Whose miscreations blot with leaves like hands
The far horizon light? Some glow-worm ghost
Flees yonder, pauses, turns, and flees again:
A woman spirit, by the anguish sweet
Wakes in me at her anguish. Sister, hear!

The Spirit of the Throne-Lamp.
O Light undimmed, if thou art powerful,
Speak to the wind! For see, my wings are torn
And shelter not my lamp; 't is almost spent.

Raphael.
Me too the wind afflicts. Together thus
Our wings will shield the flame. Already, see,
It climbs and steadies in the crystal bowl,
And purges half the terror from thine eyes,
Thou love-lamp of the Lord! Are these his storms?
By his allowance are we thus distraught?

The Spirit of the Lamp.
His throne is empty and Himself is gone.

Raphael.
Child, fright hath crazed thee. Lean thy shaking breast
On mine: shut out the terrifying dark.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
He died with grieving o'er the world He made.

Raphael.
We live in Him; with Him shall all things die.
Bright burns thy lamp; take heart, and tell me soon
What hath befallen in Heaven.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
I know not well.
My secret lies upon my heart too long....

Raphael.
Nay, tremble not. Rather look out and see
What presence comes; its influence makes cheer;
'T will be some spirit glad and resolute.
Put by thy wings and look; my eyes are blind
Watching the feverous pulsings of thy lamp.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
'T is he whose tent is pitched within the sun,
But hardly glad, no longer resolute.
Even Uriel's lordly light the wind subdues.

Raphael.
Hail, Uriel!

The Spirit of the Lamp.
Hail!

Uriel.
Hail, brother! Sister, hail!

Raphael.
Close, lend thy breadth of wing! Thou art a strength.
Speak, if thou knowest what has come to pass.

Uriel.
Something I know, and hither through the storms
That vex the deeps and on disastrous shores
Fling all frail stars that coast and merchant there,
I come to learn the sequel—if to learn
Be mine, in such a matter.

Raphael.
Speak.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
Oh, speak!

Uriel.
'Neath pleachèd boughs and vines of ancient fire
In the white centre of the sun I lay,
And watched the armies of young seraphim
Naked at play on the candescent plains,
When suddenly the skies of flame were rent
In sunder, and the plain became a sea
Whereon the whirlwind walked through weltering lanes
To the sun's core. With pain I made my way
'Twixt element and angry element.
Vast shapes of gathering and dissolving fire
That seemed as beast and bird, and awful frames
Of shadow, dubious whether bird or beast
Or fish or reptile, hidden until now
In shifting caverns of the photosphere,
Rose up across my path; and in their eyes
Sat fear, and on their limbs astonishment.
At last, long battling and bewildered oft,
I gained the solar coasts. Wide round I saw
Each planet passion-changed, each haggard star
Reeling from flight and swoon, and the great deep
Toiled like a runner's heart who runs with death.
Calm at confusion's centre stood the Earth,
A spiritual nimbus round her brow
Like as a woman angel-visited,
Sightless and deaf to all things save her swoon
And her heart's solemn hallelujah.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
Oh,
What hath He sent upon the joyous Earth?
The Earth that has the blue and little flowers
Thou brought'st me once to wreath my lamp withal,
Earth-lover! But they faded very soon,
And left a nameless hunger in my heart.
Thy Earth was chosen, Raphael! Art thou glad?

Raphael.
Not glad nor sorry, sister, since not yet
I know the meaning of our brother's words.
Earth-wandering, and the shows of restless time,
Have weighed the eyelids of my spirit down.
Speak, Uriel, and speak plain. What followed then?

Uriel.
That rapt and solemn aspect of the Earth
Soon drew me to her through the shuddering air;
And circling swiftly round her as she went
I neared the twilight verge that dipped toward night.
Here on a sunset hill I stayed my wings.
Rabble of people and much soldiery
Poured thence into their city gates; the place
Was steeped in level spendor after storm,
And like to pillars of advancing fire
Three trees of crucifixion loomed, whereon
Three men hung crucified, one beautiful
Beyond the measure of Man's flowering clay,
Conspicuous o'er the world placed for a sign.
Slowly to meet my gaze the dying lids
Were lifted, and the faint eyes swam on mine—

Raphael.
Nay, sister, sink not! We are three: be strong.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
I know whose eyes swam faint on thine! I know
The sorrows that He suffered for his world,
Ere ever He put off eternity
And put on clay, to be by hands of clay
Hung for a sign!

Raphael.
Above the pausing wind
Hearken! a rush of pinions. Who are these
That put an influence in this bitter air
Like Spring when she comes galliard from the south?

Uriel.
The globe of amber light wherein they fly
Goes ashen in the flaws. That ship of souls
Tacks in the wind's teeth and is blown abroad
Nigh Heaven's last confines. Now it veers again,
And groweth larger: they will pass this way.
Brother, lift up thy voice and sing to them.
These be the spirits that within the moon
Wander the lucent forests; shy are they
Amid their wood-thoughts and their shy love-thoughts,
Only by song their minds are quickly swayed.
Wide has the ocean been for their frail wings,
And wild the panic that has driven them forth
From their still lunar isle. Thy song shall be
A kindly net to snare them as they pass.

Raphael.
Sings.

The moon-spirits alight in a circle round the three angels.
The Spirit of the Lamp.
How fair they must have been ere yet their light
Was ruined with the wind and flying spume,
Being so fair, though ruined!

First Moon-Spirit.
Who are ye
That seem so safe when every shaken world
Voideth its tenantry, and even those stars
That keep the marches and strongholds of space
Flee with affrighted eyes down alien deeps,
Or cling to the necks of comets, whispering words
That stop them in their courses, though they be
Violent souls and outlaw.

Uriel.
We are such
As share God's sorrow in his evil time,
And wait the issue of the desperate draught
He drinks this hour to win surcease of pain.

Second Moon-Spirit.
Speak simply to the simple; make thy words
Accordant to our minds; our element
Is the moon's meek, unintellectual day.

Uriel.
You in the moon have felt his pangs more near
Than may the passionate dwellers in quick worlds
Wrapped in their own hot being; for your sphere
Has cooled the angry metal in its veins,
Its spent volcanoes utter now no more
Their proud and hasty meanings; age by age
Your world tends back to silence, rendering up
Its selfhood and control into his hands
Whence it rebelled, like all his prodigals,
To spend the hoard of fire He dowered them with
Too rashly. So it hangs, a doubtful ground:
Now, brooded on by powers of heavenly peace,
It goeth darkling and your hearts are dumb,
Now, caught within the orbits of desire,
It gathers ghostly splendor; in your woods
Old rites are paid, and o'er your crystal peaks,
That burn at the heart like genie-haunted gems,
Sweeps revelry so wild that mortal men,
Shepherds or sailors, gazing half a night,
Wander at dawn brain-crazed.

Third Moon-Spirit.
Angel, we wait,
We wait with trembling till thy lips declare
This present hour's disaster. Whose the arm
That broke our steppes in twain, and from the roots
Of cloven hills haled shapes of former men
And frames of monstrous ravin, ages dead?
Whose mouth was set against the moon-children
To blow their sheeny pleasances to dust
And scare them from their world?
What plains are these
Whose spiritual pulse of light and dark
Throbs as if hope and terror struggled there?

Uriel.
These are the plains of Heaven, least create
Of God's creation, nearest to his hand
When He would discreate, as now perchance,
The deeps that teem with rebel energies
Wanton, unteachable, intolerable,
Whereof the soul of man, though meant to be
His dearest pride and joy, is frowardest
And first to vex Him: were Man's will subdued,
The rest beneath his banners soon would swarm.
Long hath He warned and pleaded, but to-day
With a most searching bosom-whisper pleads;
For in their likeness clad He gives Himself
To die that they may live, accepting Him,
Or, still rejecting, and preferring still
Their own unto his pleasure, may be cast
To outer darkness and the second death.
These storms and perturbations are his throes,
And here we wait until He reassume
His attributes and kingdom.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
Will He come?
And will the ancient peace be ours again?
Speak, brother, will it be?

Uriel.
Hope still is ours.
Tremble no more, sweet Flame! Good hope is ours.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
My secret lies upon my heart too long!
Since first the trumpet told of Time begun,
And in the seven bowls the seven flames,
So white before and still, a patient praise,
Leaped up in restless colors, fear hath stood
A whispering eighth among the sisters seven,
A thin small voice singing above our songs,
A hush beneath our hush. Each side the throne
The mystic olive trees began to blow,
And on the candlesticks that burn beneath
Dropped dying bloom and fruitage mortal ripe.
When evening spread upon the holy hill
Its excellence of peace, small restless wings,
To Heaven unnative, fluttered round our lamps,
Forever circling nearer till they threw
Into the flame their lives of longing dust,
And though we plucked the char out hastily
A climbing rust had dulled our torch of praise.
Nay, where the very breast of God should be,
Forever panoplied with viewless light,
Gnawed darkness like a worm, and when this wind
That never came till now, blew wide and thin
The splendor of the Throne-stead—hush, bend close!—
His eyes were old with pain. Then all at once—
O brothers, is it hours or æons since?—
Intolerable lambence lit the air;
The sea of glass whereon the nations stand
At morn to carol, curdled red as blood,
And rolled a moaning billow to the shore;
The Eagle screamed; upon the tabled gem
Where was the footstool of God's feet, lay prone
The Lion's whining muzzle; and the Calf
Bleated beneath his six-times-folded wing.
My sister lamps were quenched, but ere I fled
I crept up past the Lion's awful paws,
Up past the shrouding light, and saw His place
Was empty. ... Is it hours or æons since?
I found the shadowed fields about me, grey
Each hearted amaranth and asphodel,
The living forests with their veins of light
Looped thickly, and the burning flowers between,
The living waters, and the lily souls
Along the waters—all a stricken grey!
Where'er I fled or turned it still pursued—
That Nothingness that sat upon the Throne;
And now it waits to seize me—yonder, here!

Uriel.
Hush, be of better comfort. Through the plain
Auroral pallors wake the asphodels;
The wind at last is still; and eastward far
Beyond the friths and islands of that sea
Which spreads before his dwelling in the Mount,
Behold, beginning glories star the dusk,
As if the clouds rolled burning from the throne,
To show us signs and wonders risen there.
And hark! the happy presage of keen wings
Ingathering from the corners of the winds;
Large light, and silvery calls and far replies,
And deeps of song that call unto the deeps.

Raphael.
His agony is done: a little while
He tarries, but He surely comes again
Even though but for a little.

The Spirit of the Lamp.
Let us join
These hasting companies whose steady flight
Goes tempered to all manner instruments
Borne in their midst by hidden taborists,
Lute-players, and them that pluck the dulcimer—
All sweet musicians! Surely these go in
Unto some holy matter.

Raphael.
Surely. Come!

ACT III.

SCENE I

A peak above the Valley of the Judgment. Between midnight and dawn of the Day of Judgment.
Raphael.

SCENE II

A peak above the Valley of the Judgment. Twilight of the Day of Judgment.
Michael.
God's vengeance is full wrought, unless this form
That labors from the dark mists of the Vale
Be one whose strength has overlived our wrath,
And the last hunger of whose heart shall be
To creep from out that mass of death, and wait
High on these ruined hills for death to come
At nightfall, when the last strong soul must die.
Nay, 't is no mortal creature, though he wears
A fallen unhappy splendor, and his wings,
All eyed and irised like the gladdest ones
That glimmer in the pageantry of Heaven,
Are folded sadly o'er his downcast eyes
As now he sits and dreams. 'T is Raphael.
Michael descends.
Why sitteth Raphael disconsolate
After the manifest glories of this day?

Raphael.
The rest may keep the glory.

Michael.
Wilt thou share
The love-feast of the saved in Heaven to-night
With hidden traitorous thoughts clouding thy heart?

Raphael.
Never again! Never again for me!
Never again the lily souls that live
Along the margent of the streams, shall grow
More candid at my coming. Never more
God's birds above the bearers of the Ark
Shall make a wood of implicated wings,
Swept by the wind of slow ecstatic song.
Thy youths shall hold their summer cenacles;
I am not of their fellowship, it seems.
God's ancient peace shall feed them, as it feeds
These yet uplifted hills. I would I knew
Where bubbled that insistent spring. To drink
Deep, and forget what I have seen to-day!

Michael.
What thou hast seen? The splendor of his power
Sent forth against the wicked; his right arm
Cleaving unbearable glories, lifted high
To hurl his chivalry down slopes of flame
With wheels and tramplings; the wide threshing-floor
Become a furnace; drop by anguished drop
The oozing of the wine-press of his wrath;
The gross pulp cumbering the floor of the world,
The little priceless liquor chaliced up,
Borne back 'mid plaining silver and sweet throats
For the Spirit's earliest house-gift to the Bride!
Thou would'st forget this gladly, Raphael?

Raphael.
Yes, yes; right gladly.

Michael.
Yonder where the fight
Flung its main sea of blood and broken souls
Into the nether dark, I saw a youth
Cling for a moment to a jutting rock
And gaze back at the angel shapes that rode
The neck of the avalanche; between the wings
Of the pale horse and the red his vision pierced,
Between the ranks of spectral charioteers,
Supernal arms and banners prone for speed,
Up to the central menace of the Hand
That launched that bulk of ruin; and I saw
A light of mighty pleasure fill his eyes
At all that harness and dispatch of war
Storming aslope. He laughed defiance back
Ere down cascades of blood and fire was flung
His body indistinguishably damned.
How should this puny valor rise in glee
To greet the power that crushed it, and thy heart,
Angelically dowered, stand listless by?

Raphael.
Perhaps for thinking on another sight.
After thy chivalry passed down and left
The valley-trough cumbered and heaped with death,
A broken girl o'er-lived to find the breast
Her arms had clung to in the awful fall
Strange, alien, not her lover's boyish shape
She deemed she held, but gross with years and sins.
Her changed eyes heavily a moment roamed,
Then settled back on his, the darkened mate
Whom chance had flung her at the hour extreme
In scornful bridals. From his brow she drew
The war-worn locks, and laid her kisses there
Unutterable with life's èxtreme tenderness.
[OMITTED]
Hark! where the last of those redeemed go by,
Companioned of the hasting paranymphs
Who hear afar the Spirit and the Bride
Say “Come,” and see the nuptial torch alight
Ere they have put their saffron vesture on,—
Too eager for their goal to join the song
Those throats redeemèd raise, save that their hearts
Throb rhythmic with it, systole dim
And bright diastole, with wax and wane
Of spirit-splendor pulsing to the tune.

Redeemed Spirits.
Sing, as they fly past below.

Raphael.
Another neareth, chill upon the wind;
Wan fire-flakes stain the clustering spires of cliff,
From ledge to shoulder hapless echo clings
And falters up.

Michael.
The pale one's homing-song!
To-day he makes good harvest, and his voice
Has autumn meanings; jealously and late
His steed foregoes the trampled threshing-stead.

Raphael.
Terrible angel! Never until now
Have I beheld his features through the veil
Of pallor that enwrapped them; now at last
Their terror is distinct, for triumph now
And large appeasement lights them visibly,
As o'er his horse's neck he strains for speed.

Michael.
One flieth with him, rosy-lit within.

Raphael.
Not as the battailous breathing of thy mates
Enrubies them: more vesperine and sad.
'T will be the lordly light of Uriel, dimmed.
Hail, Uriel! Quench thy speed.

The Angel of the Pale Horse.
Flying.
Why tarry now?
God's acts are throughly complished: Heaven stays
Till all her sons be gathered.

Flies past.
Uriel.
Alighting.
Here I wait
To see the swift reprisals Man shall take.

Michael.
Blaspheme not, lest I hurl thee down to swell
The carrion sin that Raphael mourns above!

Raphael.
Uriel's place is there, by those pale heads,
Those sightless eyes with awful question changed,
Those desperate broken hands cheated in death
With poor embraces chance and alien.
Not Uriel's only,—mine, and thine, and theirs
Thy warrior mates, and chiefly his whose breast
Bathed in some dawn's bright urge and wistfulness
Put out this lovely fruitage, this sweet vine
Of man the leaf and maid the honeyed flower
In mystic alternation, and when noon
Spread clamor in the pulses of the vine,
Was pined and plucked it up! Not so shall one
Deal with another's, much less with his own.

Michael.
For sins not to be borne He cut them off.
Murders, adulteries, and acts unclean,
Idolatries, and broken covenants,
Violent hearts and unconsidering tongues.

Uriel.
The violence and the unclean acts were his;
Unto Himself himself brake covenant;
Before the monstrous fancies of his heart
His heart made heathen mummery and song.
Wherefore to-day himself He punishes.

Michael.
Thy mouth uttereth darkness. Is all dream?
Human and heavenly deed unmeaning both?

Raphael.
To Uriel.
Brother, thou art all wisdom, as I know
And still have proved rejoicingly, but now
Thy word indeed is difficult and dark.
Take not away Man's ancient dignity,
The privilege and power to elect his ways,
His kingly self-possession. Level not
The head that lies too low to-day. Snatch not
From brows abased the crown of personal will
Which made them noble, though it brought them down,
Being worn too carelessly, too like a wreath
Of ivy or poppies meant for holiday.
Man's agonies and ecstasies obscure
Were more than shadow-show! Not all in vain
His groping toward some quaint imagined good,
His blood shed for a scruple, his low days
Winged and illumined with long-suffering love!

Uriel.
Nay, not in vain were these, though otherwise
Bound with the sum of things than unto Man
Seemed likely, wearing that glad wreath he wore.
And going after good the headstrong way.

Raphael.
We wait to hear this riddling talk made plain.

Uriel.
Truth is not soon made plain, nor in a breath
Fluently solved while the chance listener waits,
Nor by the elemental wrestling mind
Wrung from the rock with sobs. Myself have held,
Where in the sun's core light and thought are one,
Æons of question, and am darkling still.

Raphael.
Speak, brother, though thy words be hard and scant.
The candle flame goes far a moonless night.

Uriel.
The worlds and all their tenantry are Him,
Even to the utmost archipelagoes
Gazed at by maritime angels ere they veer
Homeward, awestruck by omens and sea-signs
Known to no pilot of them, and far off
Watch the scared islanders beside the straits,—
All these, and whatso lies beyond our hail,
Are effluence of the life that moves in Him,
Thought of his brain, wish of his working blood:
Yet every separate creature of his thought
Hath separate claims and separate potencies.
Oh, not a sparrow falleth to the ground
But He regardeth it! Since ere it fell
A little gladness died away in Him.
And not a creature sinneth but He weeps
His own sin with his creature's—fourfold pain.
Since god and creature, false each to itself,
Was false each to the other. Not a heart
O'ercometh evil and mounts up to good,
But He o'ercometh and is lifted too.
Each life of clay that flowered in fragrant deed,
Each grass-blade that grew willingly, each bird
That through the churlish weather hoarded song.
Not only worked its own salvation out
But helped Him in his old struggle with himself—
Or might have helped—or might have helped, it seemed. ...

Raphael.
Yet did not, thy disconsolate ending says.

Uriel.
Who shall dispute finalities with Him?
Not Uriel. But as far as Uriel sees,
Salvation lies annulled in yonder Vale
And prone are God's true helpers.

Michael.
Clay of clay!
Wassailers, fleshlings, quarrel-mongers, thieves
Of pleasure, plighters of unholy troth,
Mimes, gypsies, idol-breakers, idol-smiths,
Dervishing fantasists—most likely help!

Uriel.
Unlikely: yet the marrow of his bones;
Heat of the breath of his mouth; corpuscles red
Energic in his veins, loud gainsayers
Of death's insinuating whisper, “Peace!” ...
Before the Heavens were spread, or He himself
Rose from his changeless and unpictured dream,
These stirred in Him, demanding to be dowered
With individual shape and destiny,—
Each one a soul, yet each incorporate
With his great soul, which to far happy ends
Should henceforth in a million shapes of will
Immensely groan and travail, not with tears
Alone, but laughter, with singing as with sobs.
Oh, many a golden station on that march
Lie backward of us! when the armèd worlds
Broke leaguer round some conquered capital,
And in the pleasure-places of its kings
Sat down to feast, the unhelmed gleemen chanting
Victory past and victory to come.
Let me not darken thought with imagery!
Still the naked word escapes me, being too vast,
Too simple, for our little pictured speech.
This chiefly I would say: the restless joy
Which called God from his sleep and bade his hand
Depict much life and language on the dark,
Had other aims and meanings than are writ
In yonder Valley for an epilogue.
Man's violence was earnest of his strength,
His sin a heady overflow, dynamic
Unto all lovely uses, to be curbed
And sweetened, never broken with the rod!

Raphael.
Why did He quench their passion? I have walked
The rings of planets where strange-colored moons
Hung thick as dew, in ocean orchards feared
The glaucous tremble of the living boughs
Whose fruit hath eyes and purpose; but nowhere
Found any law but this: Passion is power,
And, kindly tempered, saves. All things declare
Struggle hath deeper peace than sleep can bring:
The restlessness that put creation forth
Impure and violent, held holier calm
Than that Nirvana whence it wakened Him.

Uriel.
This day declares He deemeth otherwise.
The Shining Wrestler, tired of strife, hath slain
The dark antagonist whose enmity
Gave Him rejoicing sinews; but of Him
His foe was flesh of flesh and bone of bone;
With suicidal hand He smote him down:
Soon we shall feel His lethal pangs begin.

Raphael.
Fiercer than those that clove thy burning realms
And sent grey winds to waste the plains of Heaven
When on the Cross He sought to purchase peace
And lure his wayward world back to his hand!

Michael.
His lightning dry thy tongue! Why should our minds
Peer and conjecture of the danger past?
Thou knowest what glory followeth.

Raphael.
Yes, I know.
The clouds at last rolled burning from the Throne
And let us see the risen wonders there.
Again I hear the gathering psalmody
Chant out the clement tale—eternal God
Made clay, by hands of clay unto the Cross
Hung for a sign, that who beholding Him
Should find Him very God, might dwell with us
In endless light and life. Again I hear
The deep consenting chorus mount and merge
The wayward crests of treble into one;
But still between the calling deeps of song
Vague and unacquiescent hung my heart,
Conning the burden wistfully anew
In hopes to find the joy my comrades found
Hid in the dubious notes. Vague hung my heart,
Wistful as morning boughs that watch the moon,
Not strong as now when I have seen all clear
And o'er the ashes of the world declare—
Listen! Are there not voices in the Vale?

Michael.
They talk together. Some die not till dark.

Raphael.
Aye, until dark! 'T will be a starless night.

ACT IV

Time: evening of the Day of Judgment.
A rock in the Valley of the Judgment; about the rock, and filling the whole trough of the valley, lie the bodies of the lost. Twilight.
Raphael.
My lot is cast with these: I watch to-night
Here islanded in death. Say me not nay:
Till from the last lip anguish is unwreathed,
From the last brow the frown of horror fades,
Here I must sit, witness and comforter
If any more conspicuous strengths survive
To mutter or make signal in the dusk.

Michael.
Nay, brother, stay not. Though thy words are calm,
Thy desperate eyes betray thee; thou resolvest
Some sudden irremediable thing.
The past is done, and, whether well or ill,
Necessitously. Put on that robe of song
Woven of youngest light and over-runed
With flickerings of the golden elder speech,
Wherein thou led'st the lily souls along
Choregic o'er the unclouded psalmody
And wert so starry long agone! Arise!
My soul is heavy at thee. Thou art wan;
Thine eyes are dull yet wild, even as these
Who lie involved and heaped along the Vale
Seeming in death to threaten and to rave.
Arise and come away! Why tarry here
To mourn above these outcast, since the fan
Hath winnowed them and left no righteous one?
Rather arise, make glad thy countenance,
And through the courts of day let herald throats
Softly declare thy coming, virgin hands,
From that oraculous tree whose leaves are tongues,
Laurel thee best of Heaven's lutanists
And seat thee at the minstrel-hand of God.

Raphael.
You urge me well. I think my songs to-night
Would cheer their festivals: I have a theme
Of very present gladness, deeply conned.
But if amid the gratulating chant,
If through the dances orbed and interorbed,
Furnished with solemn symbol and device,
Perchance there stole a quite unfurnished shape
Nakedly risen from this company?
Holding up horrible accusing hands
Against the nuptial light? That were scarce well.
I fear my lute would glance and jangle off
To themes as good unsung. Hark!

Michael.
'T was a voice,
Not distant.

Raphael.
Nay, 't is yonder,—he who lies
Half lifted from the jetsam of this sea
Across that ragged reef. Another, hush!
A woman's voice, was 't not? And see, below—
That aged throat would fain articulate. ...
They taste sweet speech ere the long silence comes.

A Youth's Voice.
Do any live but me? Do any wake to hear
A word spoke in the dark before I die?

An Old Man.
An old and wakeful spirit rests thee near.

A Young Woman.
Long had I lain asleep, but wakened at thy cry.

The Youth.
Not all discourteous is the Conqueror's heart,
Since now of that good strength I wore at noon
Ebbs back a little part.

Old Man.
Enough to syllable thy soul's young scorn,
Though all unripe, unwise;
And haply rouse some one of these that lie
Fixing the dark with undivining eyes
Of human wit and seemliness forlorn,
To speak their separate word or unto thine reply.

The Youth.

Second Youth.
Various the reasons why we could not pay
The price exacted from us!
My ear, though fain, I might have turned away
From spring's love-startled promise,
I might have given up the glorious sea
And the majestic mountains might for me
Have ceased to be;
God, with one sudden rinsing of his hand,
Might have wiped bare
The earth-ball of its deeds and pageantries,
Yea, even of light and air,
That on the stark circumference I might stand
And choose deliberately, unvexed of these,
Between my will and his.
Then I had said, with cheerful voice and strong,
Somewhat dismayed, yet with a cheerful voice,
“This many days, Lord, I have thought it long
Till I could put away creation's noise,
The tragic streets, the poignant drip of rains,
But chiefly the loud speaking in my veins
Concerning this and that desirable.
Now you have put me in a quiet place,
Take but away your too expectant face,
And all shall then be well.
Then I can ponder, as I meant to do
And as I singly long since thought was mine,
The mysteries divine;
Make quiet proof of you
If you be verily my lord or no,
And, having found you to be truly so,
Shall understand for sooth,
That down the eternities I may launch my mind
Not as a tame hawk haggard down the wind,
Whom huntsman's cry pursueth,
But as an eagle without bell or jess,
Obedient alone to his soul's lordliness.

Third Youth.

A Confused Voice.
Not very long to-day
Thy arm held back the mischief of the tide!
Thou could'st not check the play
Of scythes, the awful chariots beside!
Thy blood has ebbed a little from its pride.

A Girl's Voice.
I waited patiently and thought to hear
The secret reason dark,
The secret reason dark and dear
Why none of us had heart to mark
The pale evangel whispering from the sphere.
For oft the moon between the garden boughs
Her looks of summer longing would efface,
And come to be a halo round the brows
Of Him who died to give the sinner grace,
Now saddening o'er His purchase from that place.
And oft at dawn I heard the Sons of Morning
Silvered with lovely menace fill the sky,
And heard their solemn lips deliver warning
What time the central singer lifted high,
In the deep hush twixt ode and palinode,
The sangrael of the sun, brimmed with redeeming blood.
But how might I attend the minatory
Voices of many angels breathing doom,
When from the window of the little room
My love's face had not faded, and the story
His wakeful mouth had whispered in the gloom
Spake in my pulses yet? And how at evening turn
To feel those sad eyes down the moonlight yearn,
When mouth to mouth and breast to aching breast
I held my lover close, and by his nest
The nightingale, scarce master of his mood,
Now after faint essay
And amorous dim delay
Suddenly steeped his heart in song's mad plenitude?

A Woman's Voice.
What unripe girl is this who maketh bold
To speak for lovers at the extreme hour,
Yet fancy-paints the flower?
Yet hides with image-gilt the naked gold?
O sisters, brothers, help me to arise!
Of God's two-hornèd throne I will lay hold
And let Him see my eyes;
That He may understand what love can be,
And raise his curse, and set his children free.

Another Woman's Voice.
My life was a rank venomed weed
And hers, I think, a flower;
But my harsh voice shall have a power
Fiercer than hers to plead.
About his knees with curses I will cling,
My veins I will break open, till He see
The barb of the intolerable sting,
The tongues of the immitigable fire
He planted there to fret and fumble through me,
To craze and to undo me,
Till on the cruel altars where He threw me
I slew my heart's desire!

Old Man.

Fourth Youth.

Michael.
I wait no longer on their stammering tongues!
Once more I pray thee rise and come away.
The Valley darkens fast, and Heaven stays
Thy single voice to make its concord full.

Raphael.
These voices we have hearkened lack as well,
To make such concord as I care to hear.

Michael.
Then curse thee for a stubborn heart!—Nay, nay,
I will not curse thee whom I love. ... Take heed
Lest any wing patrolling in the dark,
Mistaking thee for one of these, should smite.

Raphael.
Already from the deeps approacheth one,
Staining the limbs and faces of the dead
With amber as he flies. What clime has blown
Azaziel's radiance to so blear a tinct?

Azaziel.
Flying past.
Woe! Woe! unto the dwellers in this Vale.
Woe unto them who wait the second death!
Prepare to meet the Worm that dieth not!

Raphael.
Azaziel, hear! What meaneth ...?

Michael.
He is past,
Bearing his message further. How it sobs
And falters on the wind!

Raphael.
In the deeps begins
A myriad lamentation. ...

Michael.
Nearer now,
And mixed with keener individual cry. ...

Raphael.
The sea of death sways moaning and recoils,
Bristling with serried surf of forms uplift,
Postures of supplication and despair,
Forlorn attitudes!

Michael.
From the starless sky
A star shoots screaming, hushes in mid-flight,
And stands at gaze above the vasty caves,
The cañons and the agèd wells of dark
Toward which this Valley plunges.

Raphael.
Far below
Disastrous splendor glares above the abyss,
And in the midst a bulk of sinuous shade
That lifts and swings a snaky head aloft
Surveying where to strike. ...

Michael.
Away! Away!
Even now his pendulous neck doth sweep the Vale
From wall to wall, incredibly advanced
Leagues hither, though his lewder folds are still
Hid backward in the abyss. Away! Away!
From yonder peak we may behold all safe:
To linger here even spirits dare not.

Raphael.
Go;
I tarry. Let me take thy mighty sword.
A minstrel's hand can swing a blade at need.

Michael.
Not so. Forgive me this my violence!
Thy soul is all distraught and desperate,
And I must save thee in thine own despite.

He overpowers Raphael, and bears him aloft just as the enormous swinging head of the Serpent blots out the scene.

ACT V.

SCENE I

Time: as in Act IV.
An exposed upland: one side looks down into the Valley of the Judgment, on the others the snow-peaks fade into the visionary cliffs and slopes crowned by the battlements of Heaven. Sunset glow still lingers on the heights: the moon is rising.
Raphael.
Awaking.
Where are we, brother? I remember naught.

Michael.
Safe lifted o'er the Vale, and none too soon.

Raphael.
Help me to rise.

Michael.
Nay, rest thee yet a while.

Raphael.
Something of portent passes in the Vale—
I cannot well recall, but know 't is so
By thy wild looking. Can thy vision pierce
So downward through the mists? Mine eyes are weak
And blink at the mild moon.

Michael.
Spare thou to look.
Even me it grieveth, thee it will destroy
With present heart-break.

Raphael.
O remembrance now
Creeps moaning through the sea-halls of my mind,—
A sluggish neap, with loss and wreckage strewn!

Michael.
The Serpent enters now that last defile
High lifted toward the spiritual hills.
Behind him as he came has silence fallen
And gesture ceased: final ineloquence.
These hither people are the lesser thewed
But more inspirited, who held the fight
Vanward against us, and who fell the first
Before the whirlwind of our going down.

Raphael.
Is it too late to save this remnant few
For seed of a new world, planted afar
Beyond this trouble? Come, thy might and mine!
He lifts a questioning head and seems to stand
Hesitant at the mouth of the defile:
There give him battle....

Michael.
Nay.

Raphael.
Then I alone.

Michael.
Too late; and even if sooner, much too late!
He brings the second death; his fangs have power,
'T is whispered, on the flaming seraphim
To tarnish or to quench; one venom fleck
Flung from his jaws, how might it lame and scar
Our substance archangelical.

Raphael.
Yes, yes,
You give me reasons to it. Lovelier
Such scars upon the breast, though mortal proven,
Than that fair sigil set upon thy brow
The morn of thy first victory. Why live,
Why live, when all these wills that searched the earth—
Until they found their one and inward love,
Refusing to be still—have ceased to search,
Though quite unsatisfied? To feel the night
Unvexed of longing, and the day purged blank
Of laughter and of sorrow and of brawl;
No pride of life to glory in the sun,
No ecstasy to mate the moon's increase,
No heart interpreting the twilight thrush—
All the heart's business done! Nay, not for me!
Mine ear hath lain too long on Nature's pulse,
I cannot miss that music. Let me go.

Michael.
Still detaining him.

Raphael.
All is done:
The great refusal made. The wayward heats
That might have moved God's blood to sweetest ends
In dreams and deed, have bled themselves away,
And peace is his, though profitless.

Michael.
Hush! Look!
The Worm goes on!

Raphael.
What say'st thou? Speak!
Mine eyes are still too dim, I see not well
What passes 'neath the drifting fogs.

Michael.
He mounts!
He lays his length upward the visioned hills,
The inviolable fundaments of Heaven!
There where he climbs the kindled slopes grow pale,
Ashen the amethystine dells, and dim
The starry reaches. ... Now he coils his bull
About a foreland, and the nacrous light
It beetled with turns cinder. High he piles
His folds, and seems to note the upward way.
Hark, the trump sings to battle! I am called.

He flies upward toward the walls of Heaven.
Raphael.
Alone.

He flies after Michael.

SCENE II

Raphael stands on a promontory of the cloudy slope up which the Serpent has passed. The Valley of the Judgment lies far below.
Raphael.

First Lamp.
O then art thou too fled?
Haste, let us flee together! We had thought
All but the timid spirits still abode
The battle's outcome. Timid thou art not,
Though woman-gentle; is the battle lost?
Or won? Oh, surely won, since thou art here.

Raphael.
I come from earthward. Mortal weariness
Beat down my wing, and I was forced to stay.
How goes the struggle?

First Lamp.
In and in it stormed
From ring to lessening ring, until we fled,
I and the sister Lamps, save only one,
Our meekest and most patient flame of praise,
Whom naught could make afraid. Now by the wind
Distract, we wander on these withered hills.

Second Lamp.
How withered from the day thou brought'st us hence
Flowers for our lampads!—tiny troublous things
That living pierced us with a faint unrest
And dying left a nameless woe behind.

Raphael.

Uriel.
Approaching.
The dream is done! Petal by petal falls
The coronal of creatured bloom God wove
To deck his brows at dawn.

Raphael.
No hope remains?

Uriel.
To save Him from himself not cherubim
Nor seraphim avail. Who loves not life
Receiveth not life's gifts at any hand.

Raphael.
And life He loved not, though it sprang from Him?

Uriel.
He loved it not entirely, good and ill.

Raphael.
For what end should we love an evil thing?

Uriel.
Better than I thou knowest, truant soul!
Who all the summer hours didst love to stoop
O'er insect feuds, herb-whisperings, and watch
The prurient-fingered sap startle the trees
To sudden laughter of bloom. Better than I
Thou knowest what lewd rebellion stings the core
Of nature, bidding every seed awake
To sacramental life after its kind;
Better than I thou knowest what cruelties
Rage round about each starry heroism,
Out of what murky stuff the lover builds
His soul's white habitation. 'T is not mine
To lesson thee how height and depth are bound
So straitly that when evil dies, as soon
Good languishes, nor how the flesh and soul
Quicken with striving, and when strife is done
Decline from what they were.

Raphael.
Would He had dared
To nerve each member of his mighty frame—
Man, beast, and tree, and all the shapes of will
That dream their darling ends in clod and star—
To everlasting conflict, wringing peace
From struggle, and from struggle peace again,
Higher and sweeter and more passionate
With every danger passed! Would He had spared
That dark Antagonist whose enmity
Gave Him rejoicing sinews, for of Him
His foe was flesh of flesh and bone of bone,
With suicidal hand He smote him down,
And now indeed His lethal pangs begin.

First Lamp.
To Uriel.
Brother, what lies beyond this trouble? Death?

Uriel.
All live in Him, with Him shall all things die.

Second Lamp.
And the snake reign, coiled on the holy hill?

Uriel.
Sorrow dies with the heart it feeds upon.

Raphael.
Look, where the red volcano of the fight
Hath burst, and down the violated hills
Pours ruin and repulse, a thousand streams
Choked with the pomp and furniture of Heaven.
In vain the Lion ramps against the tide,
In vain from slope to slope the giant Wraths
Rally but to be broken. Dwindling dim
Across the blackened pampas of the wind
The routed Horses flee with hoof and wing,
Till their trine light is one, and now is quenched.

Uriel.
The spirits fugitive from Heaven's brink
Put off their substance of ethereal fire
And mourn phantasmal on the phantom alps.

Fourth Lamp.
Mourn, sisters! For our light is fading too.
Thou of the topaz heart, thou of the jade,
And thou sweet trembling opal—ye are grown
Grey things, and aged as God's sorrowing eyes.

First Lamp.
My wick burns blue and dim.

Second Lamp.
My oil is spent.

Raphael.
The moon smoulders; and naked from their seats
The stars arise with lifted hands, and wait.