University of Virginia Library

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!