University of Virginia Library

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.