University of Virginia Library

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!