The Descent into Hell :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Descent into Hell

Second Edition, Revised and Re-arranged, with an Analysis and Notes: To which are added, Uriel, a Fragment and Three Odes. By John A. Heraud

Heraud, John A. (1799-1887)

THE DESCENT INTO HELL

URIEL.

ODES.

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iii

“ENTER INTO THE HOLIEST BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS, BY A NEW AND LIVING WAY, WHICH HE HATH CONSECRATED FOR US, THROUGH THE VEIL, THAT IS TO SAY, HIS FLESH.” Heb. x. 19–20.

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D. POET LAUREATE, &c. &c. IN TESTIMONY OF ESTEEM FOR HIS GENIUS, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, THIS POEM IS VERY RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.

vii

ODE.

The Heart may be too proud,
Even a Parent's Heart!
My Boy! thou wert—thou art
My Boast, even in thy shroud!
Death hath come up amongst my little Flock,
And taken One from out my darling Seven,
The loveliest—worthiest—as a special mock,
Or rather marked him as preferred for Heaven.
My Boy! my own broad-browed, precocious Boy!
Thy Body was a Casket, fair but frail—
No helm hadst thou—no warrior's coat of mail—
The golden Chain, that linked it to thy Soul,
Was weak, that it might snap, ere came annoy;
Early the garment dropt, soon won the goal.
Hence as I watched thee, resting midst the strife,
Beauty on thy calm features set her seal,
The Beauty of the Dying;—nay, the Life
Of Hope, to Victory making sure appeal,
Bringing the Distant near,
And of the Future saying—‘It is here.’

viii

A Poet, in his Youth,
Deluded, irked with pain,
Would importune in vain
The gates of Power, the shrines of Truth.
Answered not they to his austere demand:
They knew not Freedom's Angel. Hence he sought
To Winds and Waves,..if they could understand,
And might for him interpret his great Thought.
They told him, they were homeless and unchartered;
The Forests and the Clouds had conscious voice,
And Liberty, she was their playmate ever;
And the proud Sun did vaunt of Light unbartered.
So, from an Ocean-cliff, with wild endeavour,
(Glad to find reason wherefore to rejoice,)
He deemed, by virtue of strong Love, to send
The Spirit of his Being into all
The permeant Elements,—and therewith blend,
As if Creation were redeemed from thrall;
And, Nature! thus, through thee,
Sport with the phantast alien, Liberty.

Yes; thou to her art alien, Liberty!
Maternal Nature knows not thee!
Clouds, Woods and Waves and Winds,
Necessity still binds;
Only the Soul is free!
Only the Soul, self-knowing,
That, by pure Intuition,
Contemplates, rapt and glowing,
The Image and the Vision
Of beatifick Truth,
And feels the wings regrowing
Of her eternal Youth!

Larger than all she sees,
The human soul divine!
She clasps, as in a scrine,
All modes, and all degrees.
How infinite is her capacity,
That can embrace their Beings in her own;
And with herself affirmeth them to be,
Herself uncomprehended, and alone!
Marvellous Powers in her close-folded rest;
Conscience and Will, far deeper and more high,
Than Consciousness, still as Eternity,
Till violated Law to wrath awakes—
And Faculties, acknowledging behest,
Two worlds which limits, due distinction makes;—
Functions—of Reason, generating Forms
Grasping all Time,—of wise Intelligence,
Which maugre Sin and Evil, War and Storms,
Plants Order amid Chaos,—and the Sense;
With all the pregnant changes,
O'er which the excursive mind for ever ranges.

Yet what art thou, my Soul?
Art thou not even I?
I whose wide energy
Contains the mystick whole?
The Comprehending but Uncomprehended!
Yet whence the Law that even thus am I?
And ever by that Law am thus attended?
O'erruling, circling, as the Earth, thou, Sky!
Our God is in the Heavens! his types are they—
And His includes our Spirits, as his hand,
In its deep hollow, holds the seas and hills—

Being of Beings! 'tis his Law alway
All Liberty—all Love—all Life, fulfils.
Our Being is the Word of his Command:
His Being is the Law to what he doth,
Pure Power and Being, Will most absolute!
Whose gracious Word is Law and Being both,
Coeval Image! Oracle ne'er mute!
By Angels seen Thou art,
Heard in the beatings of the human heart!

Weep thou no more, O Mother of my Child!
For who by Grief would be beguiled,
Who knows the Eternal One,
THE FATHER OF THE SON?
On him He aye hath smiled!
—Thine was a touching saying,
That, if thy other Dear Ones
Should far outlive Life's Maying,
Yet, even when we are sere Ones,
Our Boy will alway be,
As when thou sawst him playing,
A very Child to thee.

Eternity on him
The seal of Childhood yet
For ever now hath set—
Impression nought shall dim!
Of such is Heaven's kingdom—there our Child
Is with the Father, and in God self known,
No changing Object, from itself exiled,
No mortal Body, poisoned by its zone—
But, in his Self Identity secure,

No limits apprehends save the Divine,
Whereto he is remanded, at the shrine
Of his Creator, ministering praise,
With the Incarnate, glorified and pure,
Clothed with his brightness, living in his rays.
For there the Spirit maketh of one kind,
And equally illustrious all that is;
Object perceived and the perceiving Mind,
One in the very plenitude of bliss—
Where God in his own Son
Beholds himself—reflected in that One!

Great Mystery of Being!
Which—in expanding—bounds,
Condenses and immounds—
Unseen, and yet all-seeing!
Oft times have I the Revelation wrought,
In act contemplative, absorbing time,
Too deep for Consciousness, too high for Thought,
Profound as Hades, and as Heaven sublime.
It hath o'erwhelmed me as a mighty flood,
And so baptized me with pure element—
It hath upborne me like a fiery car,
Or heavenly ichor fused into my blood,
That gave me mighty power to soar afar,
Not needing wings, by spiritual ascent.
Then felt I, Man was godlike, and his Heart
An Ark of Covenant, a holy Place,
Whence if awhile the Veil were drawn apart,
He might behold his Maker face to face.
O! then the Soul, I knew,
Immortal, Truth's great witness, herself true!

xii

Father of Spirits! on my bended knee,
My Soul in worship, thankfully,
Acknowledgeth that Thou
Herself hast made her know,
And know herself in Thee!
—I thank Thee for the Assurance,
That Thou hast in thy keeping,
Where Grief hath no inurance,
The Child for whom we are weeping!
I thank Thee, who canst save,
For Faith and strong Endurance,
Triumphant o'er the grave!

J. A. H.

14 March, 1835.

xlvii

SONNET.

[Who die, repose in Hope. We live on Earth]

Who die, repose in Hope. We live on Earth
By Faith, in Heaven by Love. Yet bide they not
Apart, Faith, Hope and Charity, I wot—
Consistent faculties of human birth.
But in all times and places find they dearth,
Now less..now more. High hour, and sacred spot,
Hath each..have all—and a peculiar lot
By holy altar, or domestick hearth.
And Hope as well as Faith, (this know I well,)
Supports our conflicts with the world, and Love
Cheers many a toil—Yet distant and above
Their objects be,..felt, yet invisible.
Here, promises:—the things whereof they tell
Death shall disclose, and Paradise approve.

THE DESCENT INTO HELL

“The Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the Heart of the Earth.” Matt. xii. 40.

I. PROLOGUE.

The River murmured by me:..rapt in mind,
Alone within a Bower, while the fresh airs
Played o'er my unconscious temples, I reclined.

I mused upon my boyhood, ere by cares
Of sterner age perplexed; on Faith sublime
That still inspires the soul which nobly dares;

On Emulation mastering Death and Time;
On Hope, like Love, that acts an alien part,
As if Above, or Under, she would climb,

Having no region on the world's wide chart,
In spirit though present alway. Therefore I,
In spirit, sought her in the great Earth's Heart.

Earth's Heart, where Time is not,—capacity
Æonian, whose clear light no shadow flings
On gnomoned dial, from apparent sky:

But Song is of the Sense, and Words have wings;
Their work by motion relative they raise,
Order of sequence, and the sum of things.

—Our days are as a sleep, and, like dreams, chase
Each other, till the morning shall accede;
And, like the moon, our life has many a phase.

To-morrow's for Eternity decreed,
Our yesterdays are in Eternity,
And to-day is Eternity indeed.

Eternity itself, oh, Man! with thee
Inheres; and thou mayst feel, but listen well,
In thine own soul, spiritual harmony,

Deeper by far than the mysterious swell
Of Ocean's diapason, tender made,
Like memory, in his imitative shell—

And finer than sphere-musick, and displayed
Even more divinely in the calm recess
Of simple hearts, hid in the quiet shade,

Who make their own world, and though dead to this,
Live in that Other, and sweet visions see,
Pensive as Thought and grave as earnest Bliss—

Visions of Life and true Felicity,
Of real Light and undeparting Love..
To such will all be present as to me;

Awake to Beauty, Man amid the grove,
As ere deep sleep on Adam fell of old,
Walking as angels walk in heaven above;

Not idle, but still active to unfold
All goodness, ranging over boundless tracts
Of Duty, and fulfilling all untold.

—No Dream-land this, here even all thoughts are acts,
Ideas are realities. For why?
Will here is mind, and its desires are facts.

For Truth and Being are at unity,
And Reason and Religion are the same,
And Faith and Sense are one,..all ear, all eye.

How exquisitely on the naked frame
Of Consciousness breathe odorous ministries!
How fine the taste and touch! how nice their aim!

Intensely alive, quick, motive; hence with ease,
All objects they pervade. Sensation ranges,
Like Light, and turns transparent what it sees;

Making all new, yet finding nought that strange is,
Remaining in itself, it takes its pleasure,
An unchanged spirit through unnumbered changes;

An ever-flowing yet exhaustless treasure
Of fragrant and delicious essences,—
Of melodies in every varied measure,—

Of sweeter, more ethereal relishes,
Than the bee sips from dewy bud at morn,—
And beauty lavish of its loveliness,

Inherent, yet intelligibly worn
Even as a garment on each form, but free
From accident, as what it doth adorn;

As pure, as permanent, in its degree
As perfect, with capacity for more,
And still enlarging its felicity.

—Of earthly things these are the Living Core,
The Light that shews those symbols to the day,
Radiant with Life, else darkling as before.

“Heart of the Earth”—hence doth her life blood ray,
Hither return, by every door of Death,
His private channel and his public way.

Though many be the modes by which the breath
Of Life departs, yet is it still the same—
Or Force, or Nature, or Translation—Death.

Nay, while we live, we die—'tis but a name—
Our Death and Life—they change like day and night—
Alike their origin—alike their aim.

Come from one East the Day spring and the Blight—
Who longest lives 'scapes most contingencies—
Each Hour—each Minute—ready stands to smite.

So many minutes as man lives he dies;
Death has occasions many as our Life,
And a deep interest in longevities.

Life is not lengthened though prolonged—the strife
Only continues—nor can sages tell,
Who lives or dies, nor what is Death or Life.

—But here is Life and Light unquenchable;
And here to me was given an angel's wing,
While by a Voice commanded thus—of Hell—

Hell and Messiah, Heaven's anointed King,
Who left his Glory, and was desolate
On Earth, but triumphed in the Grave—to sing.

—Lift up, O Hell! thy diuturnal gate,
But not eternal? finite,—it began.
On the huge hinge harsh thunders hoarsely grate;

—Chaos afar shook where their echoes ran.
Thy wearied shriek, “a change!”—of lot no change,
If change of suffering, for fiend or man:

Still it may soothe. Some horrour new and strange
May please sad pain monotonous, and make
Variety to charm in this dull grange:

Since Hope, upon the fierce and fiery lake,
Is none of better state,—(and less Desire,)—
Or aught the penal thirst that can aslake,

—Why howl as Sin were ready to expire,
In the strong throes of whelp birth?—“Who art thou,
Demandest entrance? Who hath heard thy lyre?”

—Not thou;—but thou shalt hear, O Hell! and bow
To its rude hest. Not I the Florentine
Who trod thy burning marle,..as I would now,..

Led through the regions dolorous. Nor mine
His name who first saw thy portcullis raised
To let the Arch-Rebel out. Yet shall thy Scrine

Unfold unto mine eyes, though they be dazed
To blindness with its Tables' graphick flame;
Yea, be in visual death suddenly glazed;—

And, as in a mirror, men see in the same;
And like thy molten sea that mirror seem,
Thy molten sea, wherein the monstrous Dame,

Foul Sin, abhorred of gods and the Supreme,
Worships her visage hideous. I defy
Thy power, O Hell! however thou blaspheme,

Lay bare thy depths, and spread thee to the sky.
Ere long, with other verse and earlier theme,
To visit thee again, or soar on high,

And o'er the Old World send a trumpet-gleam,
Unsepulchring from that obscurest deep
The spectres of a superhuman dream,

Won from the waters, whose far roarings sleep
Upon oblivion's shores; where the fat weeds
Acquire wild overgrowth, and man may steep

High Fancies in hoar Mysteries; whence proceeds
Truth, old as earth's foundations. There it lay
With giants, and the records of their deeds,

—(Hid from these latter ages, when a day
Is all thy life, degenerated Man!
And thee a narrow grave admeasure may,)—

With behemoth and great leviathan.
—But not alone for Pain thee God decrees:
Thou wert with Chaos, ere young Earth began—

“The Heart of Earth,” wherein man only sees
Things as they are, whereof the things are made
That but appear, unreal images;—

But Nature's soul is present to pervade,
Albeit unseen save in this pure abode,
With substance permanent each transient shade.

Through the Earth's arteries it ever flowed,
The Life of Earth is but its diastole,
Then by her veins returns, and back through the same road.

The Seed it is that generates the whole,
Informs and actuates in each living thing,
The Sap that animates root, branch and bole:

And from its action strength and vigour spring,
Leviathan in ocean—Man on earth—
In air the Eagle quick of eye and wing;

And their capacities are each the birth,
In elemental visibility,
Of elements unseen,..the growth,..the girth.

—We analyze a Flower,..and what find we?
A fairy workshop and its implements..
But where the Worker? what, and who is he?

—Here are the Souls of plants, and seeds and scents,
The Form of forms, and whatsoever is;
Earth, Air, Fire, Water;—they, and their contents.

Here is the Centre of all gravities;
Hence sleepless Ocean hath his ebb and flow,
And Air and Fire elastick pliancies;

And Earth, from the beginning, hath alsō
In all her changes, and with all her nations,
(Circling the sun, rejoicing or in woe,

A loving Sister with the constellations,)
Clasped with her arms the heavens, in mystick dance,
For days and years and times and generations.

—But though all Motions from this source advance,
Itself at rest immoveable remains,
Exempt from change, necessity, and chance.

Here in pure unity true Sabbath reigns,
Original—eternal—final proof,
Prime archetype of all our orb contains—

An intellectual Paradigme, whereof
The World of Sense is but a Parable;
A Fable wrought in intricatest woof;

A Mystery—not without an Oracle,
But misinterpreted—neglected—scorned—
“Shadowy of truth,” and symbolizing well;

A Theatre,..how gorgeously adorned!
A Stage, of scenes illusive, and of men
Drest in disguises phantast and suborned—

Awhile the Actors play their part—agen
The sovran and the slave are equal both,
Yet nothing changed but the appearance then.

—And Life hath many circles, each the growth
From this mid point, and perfect more or less,
As near or farther from its fount it floweth;

And all Reality diminishes,
By distance from the centre whence it rays,
And Motion varies even to nothingness.

—Ye who by secret and untrodden ways,
Though none of death, led by the Spirit of Light,
Have followed to the land where light displays

Itself..Light sovran and intensely bright,
Authentical and holy, yet wherein
Our Spirits look with unconsumed sight,

Though in death living, yet absolved from sin
For His dear sake who died upon the Cross;..
Though venturous the voyage we begin,

Say soothly so, our toil is gain not loss,
Not void but fulness; that your kind may learn,
Whate'er is not ideal is but dross.

—This is the City John did once discern,
Descend from heaven apocalyptical,
Whereof “his thoughts do breathe, his words do burn.”

Beautiful City! Mother of us all!
Vision of Peace! white Bride of the Most High,
Whose Glory clothes thine apostolick wall!

Angels thy gates encompass lovingly,
Equal in all dimensions as beseems,
And like an Angel's thy capacity.

Death is not in thee, nay—no fierce extremes—
No Temple hast thou, neither Sun nor Moon—
God is thy Temple—and thy Light he beams.

Lo—every Nation brings to thee a boon..
Thy gates shall not be shut at all by day,
Nor night be thine, Land of perpetual Noon..

To thee the Kings of Earth their homage pay..
But no defiled thing shall enter thee,
Loving a lie, or tempting to betray.

—Holy who of thy Charter is born free,
Freely his thirst is at thy Fount allayed,
Water of Life, a River pure as he.

Amidst thy Street, on either bank displayed,
The Tree of Life, whose very leaves are healing,
Shall yield its monthly fruit and never fade..

Happy all they who wait for thy revealing!

In these echo rhimes is attempted a sentimental imitation of Milton—

“I fled and cried out Death—
Hell trembled at the hideous Name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.”

In these echo rhimes is attempted a sentimental imitation of Milton—

“I fled and cried out Death—
Hell trembled at the hideous Name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.”

Dante.

Milton.

I. PART THE FIRST.

THE CAPTIVITY.

“The whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” Romans viii. 22, 23.

II. THE MOUNTAIN OF SETH.

Oh! for the weeping verse of Jeremy,
The Prophet of the Lord!—For Zion mourn,
A childless Widow in captivity!

Death in her palaces hath made sojourn,
For all Creation with her suffering God
Suffered. So Hades from his secret bourn,

And Earth phantasmal from her gross abode,
With Visions of the Crucified, ere long
Transpierced and buried, on the Air forth rode,

Above her Temples, uttering doleful Song
Unto the World of Spirits. There dwelt Fear,
Dwelt in the Land of Hope, the Elect among,

There Darkness dwelt in Light's eternal sphere,
And Hell and Satan, speeding their account,
Over the Holy City, hovered near.

—Westward whereof upon the mystick Mount
Of Seth, the Patriarchs, as before the Flood,
Hold solemn Converse by the living Fount,

That with their numbers of divinest mood
Mingles its liquid murmurs. Lo, with them
Stands Moses, Shepherd meek, and Warrior good.

His hand is on his harp, harmonious gem,
And his voice swells upon the buoyant air
That mantles purple round Jerusalem.

—“Thee, first I sing, ere generations were,
And after; thee, paternal dwelling-place,
Of universal Being. We repair

O Father! to the fountain of thy grace,
And are renewed. Thou art our God for ever,
Pure keystone of Creation—bourn and base!

Arrows are we in thine eternal quiver,
With whom thou conquerest. O tarry not,
Hasten to save thy Saints, oh, hasten to deliver!”

—At once up from that multitudinous spot,
Myriads of voices, as one voice, aloud
Anthem the Song, a choral monoglot.

Glorious they stand, involved like cloud in cloud,
Hovering above the Mountain of the Even,
Gorgeously painting what their shadows shroud,

Themselves lit with the sun, and dyed in heaven!
Midway on Hermon stands the Midianite;
Above, enthroned in orbs of twelve and seven,

The Patriarchal race on Ardis' height
Crown the hill's crest, a lively diadem,
Majestically tall, magnificently bright.

Near him the Founders of Jerusalem,
Earthly Jerusalem, repose serene;
And of her glory many a lesser gem—

Poet and Sage, each interval between,
Who loved and taught the truth, of every land,
Fill up in order, and complete the scene;

A royal priesthood, an heroick band.
—Then Israel's Singer made his Song excel,
He raised his voice, and took his harp in hand.

—“Behold how good it is, that Brethren dwell
In unity together. Sweet it is
As the rich Unguent that o'er Aaron fell

From head to beard, and even deigned to kiss
His garment-skirts. 'Tis precious as the Dew
Distilled on Hermon in fine essences.

Yea, it refreshes Zion's mountains too;
For there the Blessing of Eternal Life
The Lord our God shall evermore renew.”

—The Song of Peace ascends on high, where rife
The living waters well from out the Throne;
The Song of Peace their only arm of strife,

Whereby they conquer now, though like a zone
The Northern Powers their City gates have girt,
And Death hath stricken the Anointed One.—

—“For Peace is of the Soul. Force cannot hurt
Where virtue is.” Thus he, who sang erewhile
Of Fortitude even Jove could not subvert,

Sings present here. “Nor Violence nor Guile
Can awe the Soul well-centred. Lo, He comes
Who shall release Prometheus, and I smile—

The Poet who his soul in Song consumes,
That none will hear—the Sage who pleads in vain
To human conscience of eternal dooms,

The Prophets, and all Martyrs ever slain,
From Abel's blood to that more precious still;—
Their's is the Rock, the Vulture and the Chain.

Yet are they Cities set upon a hill,
Though the tumultuous world assail them sore—
Yet their high destinies shall they fulfil.

If Pain and Sorrow lap their heart's best gore,
By its own living power it is renewed—
And the World's Tyrant can exact no more.

This is the Mystery, the eternal Feud,
The Secret that perplexed the Power of Air;
Wisdom, Art, Patience, Faith and Fortitude.

The God—the God descends into the sphere
Of Darkness, to deliver whom no storm
Might overcome, nor torment make despair!”

—The strain, by him whose infant lips were warm
With Truth, breathed in the murmur of the Bees,
Heaven-visited, and made to gods' conform,

Continued, charms with older verities—
“Not into Darkness went the Friends of Man,
Not into Darkness comes our Hercules!

We spake but as we saw. Clouds o'er the van
Of Life impended, Clouds involved the rear,
If bright the space between, how brief its span!—

How brief its span, yet thronged with Hope and Fear—
Possession never—and if good not great,
If great not good—a parted hemisphere,

Languishing for Completion; where men fret
After their lost integrity, but hate
To find in others what themselves want yet.

So is the soul perplexed by its false state!
Hence when the Perfect and the Just appeared,
Him they pursued to death, inveterate.”

—These words were with a grateful welcome heard
By him, the unskilful Shepherds who reproved
In ancient Greece, and perished though revered:

He interposes now.—“But Heaven-beloved
Are they, and loving Heaven, and what they love
Make to their souls, and are by Heaven commoved,

Who suffer for Truth's sake. They stand above
The clouds of Fate, in the serene pure air
Of Innocence, and hover like the Dove

O'er Chaos, brooding on confusion there
To turn to shape; beholding in all things
Order reflected from the happy seer.

And aspirations have they, and far wings
To bear them on their visionary flight,
And faith in bodiless imaginings.

They look beyond the bounds of Death and Night,
And interpenetrate the loving orbs
Of living and transparent chrysolite.

For Heaven's not bound to place; and Mind absorbs
All modes into its mood; all joy it makes,
And sorrow and pain high Conscience blunts or barbs.”

—This heard the Ascrean sage; and he awakes
His rich old musick, now refined and pure
Even as the muses' own,..for he partakes

Their immortality. With them, besure,
He sings the law of liberty, whereby
The universal heavens for aye endure;

And ever to their hymnings far and high,
The dusky Earth remurmurs musical—
Mysterious echoes, sweet yet shadowy.

Him the Nine taught their secrets great and small,
Of old. How lovely in the stilly night
Their Voice he heard, and grew prophetical—

A shepherd lad, they glanced upon his sight,
And to his hand the laurel-branch conveyed,
And robed his Soul in radiance of their light.

—“We turned our backs upon the Sun, and made
The Shadow that we saw, of light unable—
But now by no delusion are betrayed.

Of Will abysmal—Order firm and stable—
The Generations of the Heavens and Earth
Are born in Light, with Love unfathomable.

Regenerate, we know from whence our birth;
Even of thy Will a glorious emanation,
And with thy Word thy Spirit goeth forth.

From Generation unto Generation,
Thou art our Refuge, Being of our being;
Father of Spirits!—hasten thy Salvation!”

—Now he whom the All-knowing All-decreeing
Named, by his prophet, Zion to rebuild,
Soared to the heaven of song, with heaven agreeing,

Too wonderful for men in wisdom skilled,
Strange, as the eagle's secret way in air,
To ears of earth, and yet on earth fulfilled.

—“What was thy Name of old? thy dwelling where?
When in the Solitude of Being, Thou
Remainedst in thyself. Who saw thee there?

A boundless Ocean without ebb or flow;
There no brave Ship rides buoyant to debel,
Or breasts the billows with a peaceful prow;

No Galley, on its bosom's noiseless swell,
Plies its lithe oars, in that profound abyss,
Lonely—pacifick—vast—unvoyageable!

Great Gulf of Being, hiding all that is;
Thy works obscure thee, as a shadow doth,
And the Sun's glory is a Veil on this.

Thou sleepest not, nor art aweary; loth
Nor idle. Both Eternity and Time
Come forth from thee, of thee irradiate both;

Flung from thy Centre in expanse sublime,
One fixed—one flowing—both coincident,
Making one harmony, one perfect chime.

As the Sun's rays are in the Ether blent,
Unmoved; uncomprehended, in the Floods:
So dwells the Eternal in Time's element.

So bides the First in the Beginning; broods
O'er all the Interspace, and in the End
The Last endures, Supreme of men and gods!

To thee what shall be likened? comprehend
Thee who? Thou workst, and who shall let? All things,
Made for thy glory, to thy glory tend.

Thou madest the Mornings and the Evenings;
As Light and Darkness, Peace and Evil be;
Thy works they are though strange; all Sufferings,

Foreign and banished to afar from thee,
They are thy doing—Author thou of all,
And Hell and Death accomplish thy decree.”

—Hear ye, whose souls no fleshly lusts enthrall;
The eagle Song yet soars its hidden way,
And wantons in the Sun, nor fears a fall;

Though, like the voice of many waters, they
Enlarge the strain, through all the Congregations
Of universal Man, and thus conclude the lay—

—“Thou, even thou, hast called all generations
From the Beginning, and declared the same
Before the Ancient Time, that their creations

May know that thou art God. Thou saidst, I am!
And the Word answered—Father! yea, thou art,
And I in thee. All Creatures of all Name

Their being have in thee, live in thy heart,
And move but in its pulses. Nature yearns
To rid her imperfections,..now apart

Abiding,..and to be with thee; discerns
And feels her wants, and evermore desires
Through all the scales of Being; and returns

By a perpetual process; and aspires
By an eternal strife, and agony
Eternal,—ever baffled; and ne'er tires

Of her great anguish, for delivery
From travail groaning, with the appetence
For Being which alone is found in thee!

Arm of the Lord! awake; and recompense,
And from the Captive take corruption off,
And let the year of Liberty commence.

Arm of the Lord! awake; unweave the woof
Of controversy, make the Truth appear,
And bring the Adversary to the proof;

Come to the Valley of Decision!—hear,
And reconcile the contraries of strife;
Come, Mediator! come, Deliverer!

Bestower and Restorer of all Life!”
—The Son of Sirach thus sums up the Song:
“The Memory of famous men is rife,

And redolent through ages late and long—
The Lord by them hath wrought great glory, through
His power from the beginning, men among.

Such as bear rule in realms, and bravely do,
Are wise in council, sure in prophecy;
The eloquent, the active, and the true.

The skilled in musick, and the subtlety
Of numerous verse: rich men and graced with mind,
Abiding in their dwellings peaceably.

The Glory of their times, they leave behind
A honourable name; their righteousness
Shall never be forgotten by their kind.

Their Children shall continue, and possess
A heritage for aye, and dwell in peace;
Dying, they live: so Wisdom flourishes.

For as the herald Star is each of these,
Seen 'midst a cloud in morn's prophetick hour;
And as the Moon at full is his increase;

As the Sun shining from his highest tower
Upon the Temple of his God and King;
And as the Bow between the sun and shower;

And as the Flower of Roses in the Spring,
The Lilies by the Streams; the Branches free
Of Frankincense in summer foliaging;

A Cedar amidst Palms; an Olive-tree
Budding forth fruit; and as a Cypress rare
That groweth to the clouds..Even such is He.

Oh! Truth abideth with him every where;
And lovely is her brow, albeit too bright
For earthly eye, she veil her aspect fair,

—Lest bold vain men be blasted with its light,—
Beneath a diverse visage, now austere
Now lovely, suited to the gazer's sight.

He who upon her naked face might bear
To look, would know her heavenly and divine,
And Deity itself in her revere—

Thy Soul, oh Man! is her especial shrine;
There find her, thou unto thyself shalt wake,
And to thy God; for Heaven is her's and thine:

Seek her in youth, nor yet in age forsake.”

III. ETERNAL GENERATION.

Such was their talk in Paradise. Now wake
A three-fold Chorus their loud harmonies,
And the three Worlds in all their echoes quake.

I.1.

Man breaks Death's prison at his birth, and lies
At mercy of his nurse in infancy,
And in his youth of all propensities,

Of indiscretion in maturity,
Or worse discretion, weakness in his age;
Then to Death's prison straight returneth he—

Or brave or beautiful, or learned or sage—
Then teems with births whose spawn enriches earth,
Whence food for life in each successive stage.

—And so, in progress of decay and birth,
The possibility of life proceeds,
Corruption—Generation—but no Dearth.

—And so revolve the heavens, wherein man reads
Philosophy and Science, written fair,
As in a book, to regulate his deeds.

The Day dies in the west, and Night is there—
'Tis born again—and Night dies in her turn—
And the Stars perish, glorious as they were.

—Appearance all! Men, ye have much to learn!
The stars are stedfast, and the sun endures;
He shineth still—but ye do not discern.

Death is not. Life is all, and what obscures?
Death is Life's shadow, and the Hours its span,
Ye are their measure, and its Maker yours!

I.2.

Thy Generation when and how began,
Who shall declare? Thou Word Omnipotent!
In whom the expression of the Eternal Plan,

Alone, hath effable accomplishment;
Thyself ineffable, thy written Name
Not known on Earth, for Heaven too excellent!

Or ere the Heavens and Earths, or ere the frame
Of the mysterious universe was cast,
Ere Space and Time had measure and an aim,

Thou,..Co-eternal with the Father,..wast,
And art, and aye shall be—when Time and Space,
And Earth and Heaven, shall perish and have past.

II.1.

Only-Begotten, full of Truth and Grace!
Thou saidst—“Let Angels be!”—And Angels were,
And hadst provided them a dwelling-place.

—Awaked to gaze each winged wanderer,
First on the glories of the ethereal sky,
Then on his radiant brethren of the sphere,

And aye had stood transfixed amazedly,
Had not the Spirit divine infused the sense
Into their apprehensions audibly,

Intelligence implied Intelligence,
And Power and Being could proceed alone
From absolute Being and Omnipotence.

The lucid Truth, flashed from the Eternal Throne,
Spread quick, as o'er the steely battle-field
The lightning goeth propagating on,

Glancing from helm to helm, from shield to shield—
They tried their wings, and felt them made to soar,
Then, borne aloft, beheld their God revealed.

His Glory now they worship and adore,
Beatitude receiving from his sight,
And so in song their happy hearts outpour;

Thick as the stars harmoniously bright,
They break forth into singing as they shine,
In radiant ranks, the progeny of light.

II.2.

There Michael shone, conspicuous and divine,
Crowned with pure gold and amaranthine sheen;
His locks a wreath of beams did well entwine.

There Raphael smiled with graceful look serene,
And Gabriel towered in majesty revered,
And Uriel as the Eye of God was seen.

There also among the Blest his front he reared,
Whose name, since blotted from the Books of Life,
In holy heaven is now no longer heard;

But then unfallen, dwelling, free from strife,
In Holiness and Beauty,..types of those
Whose spring is in the Eternal Essence rife.

III.1.

There is the fount of Wisdom! thence it flows;
There the First Good and the First Fair abide,
Unseen by angels, in profound repose.

Yet they in Heaven are manifested wide,
And from Eternity together dwelt,
Triune, blest Sisters, lovingly allied;

And by the Minds of Power on Earth are felt,
And known in Sun, Moon, Stars, and shadowy Bow,
Mountain and Vale, and Ocean's golden belt.

High as the eagle's soar, far as morn's glow;
At all times present, and in every place;
First—Last; One, yet all number, and aye now:

Thou art—before all time, beyond all space,
Above all heights; lower than all depths, in Hell;—
Glorious in Heaven, on Earth how full of grace!

All light and life flow from thee, as a well:
Thou spreadst the curtain of the firmament,
To make thy majesty endurable.

Thou dwellest in the Sky as in a tent;
The beams of thy high chambers in the Deep
Are laid—and under Earth the Floods are bent.

Thou badest them her keystone overleap,
And cover her as with a monstrous weed:
They stood above the hills, a massy heap!

III.2.

At thy rebuke they fled with instant heed,
And hasted, from the thunder of thy voice,
Away. Up by the mountains, lo, they speed;

Down by the valleys; with a rushing noise,
To their appointed region and wide home.
Therein the huge Leviathans rejoice:

And, like to them, there go the Ships; the foam
Yields to their queenly beauty, as they tread
The labouring surge, dividing as they come,

Then straight embracing with the love of dread;
Or homage to Diviner Majesty;
Of Presence puissant admonished.

IV.1.

To Him reply the Lightnings—Here are we;
The Snow, the Hail, the Rain, do call him Sire;
And the Dew saith—Thou hast begotten me.

Frost by his breath is given, and coals of Fire
Are kindled in his wrath. The heavens were bowed,
And he came down, pavilioned in his ire;

“On Cherubim and Seraphim he rode
Most royally, and on the” expanded “wings
Of mighty winds came flying all abroad.”

He touched the Cities and they smoked, like things
Of smouldering conflagration. Ere man's eye
Regained its vision, or his shudderings

Subsided; lo, the flame had rolled from high
Over them like a furnace;—citadels,
And their indwellers. Roared the liquid sky,

Dissolved into a sulphur flood, like hell's,
In stormy undulation, wild and deep;
And o'er th' appalling chasm the void calm dwells;

A smoking desart, and a soldered heap;
An undigested wreck, an ashy waste;
Field of the rank bitumen none may reap,

Plants bearing fruit of cinder none may taste,
And that salt monument of Unbelief,
Stanced on the blasted site, and not misplaced.

IV.2.

Eternal and Almighty—Best and Chief!
Jehovah! the Omnifick! the clouds are
Thy chariot—winds thy steeds. The bounteous Sheaf

Of Harvest is thy gift. Enthroned afar,
Spirits thine Angels, and thy Ministers
Thou makest flames of fire. 'Twas thou didst bar

The sea as if with doors. The universe
Of creatures and of things exists in thee;
And all good gifts are thine—to Man who errs,

The Seraph that adores, the Beast whose knee
Unto the rising of the Sun is bowed:
Pervading yet remote Divinity,

Whose Glory dwells in Column and in Cloud.

Æschylus.

Plato.

Socrates.

Hesiod.

Cyrus.

This Chorus is a regular Ode, consisting of four Strophes and four Epodes, as marked.

II. PART THE SECOND.

HADES.

“I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down, at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.

For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.”

Jeremiah iv. 23—28.

IV. ISAIAH.

So sang the Choir—but now the Darkness glooms
Of Hades throughout all the worlds, and o'er
The Hill descends, and as in wrath consumes.

Dreadful it comes, and prostrate all adore—
In silence—save that on that horrour soars
Isaiah's voice, majestick as of yore.

—“Jehovah! Lord of Hosts! the man implores
Whose lips were touched divinely, to respond,
Lo, here am I, send me! and yet adores

Thy love, though now earth's round lies in the bond
Of Darkness. God! thy voice is raised. Thy hand
Is shaken. Lo, the Mighty, from beyond

The ends of heaven, do haste at thy command,
By thee on-guided o'er their desolate path,
To make destruction in thy chosen land.

We are afraid; and pangs and sorrows scathe
The spirits of the Saints—they are in pain,
As when a woman travaileth, for thy wrath.

The stars of heaven are rayless in their reign—
The sun is darkened as he climbs on high—
The moon is desolate in her domain—

For thou the world for its iniquity
Wilt punish, and wilt make the Man, whom thou
Hast chosen, precious unto every eye;

Whose shadow is as night in noon-day now,
The great One and the Saviour! Lo, the Day
Over the Vale of Vision darkles slow—

The day of trouble, and the fierce array
Of chariots and of horsemen! Earth doth mourn,
Yea, the world languishes and fades away!

Thine indignation smites from bourn to bourn,
Thy fury on all armies rages on,
Who to destroy them utterly hast sworn.

The hosts of heaven shall be dissolved anon,
The heavens are rolled together as a scroll,
Their hosts drop down as vine leaves. It is done!

In heaven is bathed thy Sword, that from the soul
The spirit doth divide—it shall descend
Upon the people of thy curse—controul

The Sacrifice, and on the slaughter tend.
With strong desire, I pant, I thirst to see,
Whom for thy Glory—Glory without end—

Thou hast created, Holy One of thee—
Redeemer from the Grave—That earth might cleave
To the centre, God! and set thy prophets free;..

So might they witness all that they believe!”
—Thus fervent prayed Isaiah. Deeper still
The horrour of great darkness doth upheave,

And Hades utterly absorbs the Hill—
Even such as followed Death, when fearful Power
O'er fourth of earth was given to him to kill

With sword, hunger and plague, and to devour
With furious beasts. Then following, comes before
Him now Hell populous, in this dread hour—

—Hell slowly unfolds her adamantine door;
Hell hath her gates unfolded. Lo! as it were
A Mausoleum wide as Chaos, or

The Ninth of Space, an infinite Sepulchre,
Yet walled about; the Ward of Death and Sin;
Not silent;—Sleep, with Hope, is alien here.

Lo, shadowy Thrones, and Phantoms there-within
Inaugurate, crowned strangely; Spectres vast
As of blue ice compact, and making din

As shadowy, phantom sounds; their voice a blast
Heard o'er the polar wild's vacuity,
That goes unquestioned on, lost and aghast,

Seeking for aught to guide its voyage by,
One barren stump, a solitary stone,
Half shriek—half whistle,—and finds no reply.

Half-raised, expectant, on his icy throne,
Each in his cell; his eyes' impatient glow,
Now glancing on the desert, and now gone,

Like Boreas' light on Hecla's haunted brow,
Glazing his aspect with a ghostly gleam;
Here twinkling now. now there...evanished now

From the void forehead, like a transient dream;
The void cold forehead, and the fitful light
Of massy and monarchal diadem,

Now beamless; and, all dusk as the sad night,
The regal pall hangs the broad shoulder o'er,
Frozen in gorgeous folds, and moveless quite.

—Burns now that starless air intenselier frore...
Heard ye not hoofs on that ice-pavement clang,
In rampant fury or triumph? Hark! once more,

The Voice of Storms through all that region rang;
Near and more near,..the voice of many storms,..
Whom heralding? Gaunt Death! the Heralds sang.

—With Pestilence and Plague, with phantom-forms,
He comes,...pale Rider of the pallid Steed,...
Trampling alike o'er warriors, worlds and worms;

Himself chief Victor. From his mouth proceed
Vaunt and defiance, while his blasting breath
Parcheth with cold the flakier air. “The Deed!”

Thus he exclaims—“'tis done—the deed of Death!”

V. DEATH.

“The crowning Deed, 'tis done! the deed of Death!
Ye Demigods, whose place on earth is blank,
Whose fame and name no poet uttereth;

Ye Desolators of heroick rank;
Own your Outdoer,...shamed and silent be!
—Who ruleth the down-rushing Avalanch?

Loosed by a whisper, or a breath too free,
Descending in its brightness terribly,
With the noise of torrents...it obeyeth me.

—I ride upon the Glacier, and do fly,
Yea I come flying on the winged wind;
And my pavilion of the snow pile I,

And wonne among the mountains, 'till I mind
To come abroad; then I wend on my way
Precipitous in lightning, though not tined

From heaven surcharged, but kindling, as it may,
About my secret place, where royally
Dwelleth the hiding of my power, whose sway,

Felt only, doth abide invisibly,
And is in that it is, like to a god
Which lives but in his proper energy.

—The floods leap under me, and foam aloud,
And bear me onward, gathering as I go,
And armies come unto me from the cloud.

I triumph in my chariot of the snow...
Forth utter I my voice,...the thunder peals:
Forth from my sanctuary I rush, and, lo,

Forests confess me, nor the vale conceals
My presence,...and the village vanisheth;
Ruin to my pleased ear man's shriek reveals,

Silence, Depopulation.—I am Death!
—A home in Air have I. Winds hear my voice,
The four winds answer it with all their breath.—

—Lo! the Tornado doth aloud rejoice
In his ubiquity, and cometh out
With sudden and exaggerated noise;

Scattering his hurtling arrows all about
Amid the sky, the while his iron shoon
Cottage and Palace trample;..with a shout,

Then whirls him in his dusty car aboon,
As with the ruin he would blot out heaven,
And quench the glorious sun,—as I shall soon.

And men are hurled into the clouds, and driven
As in a witch-dance, round, and aye around,
And perish in the flashes of the leven;

I swoop, and strangle them in that dire swound,
For sport;—and thus I gambol merrily.
—My way is on the Waters. Of the Drowned

The last spasm makes the globule, wherewith I
Take innocent delight, and think when this
Strong hand shall, with the same facility,

Confound in one disruption, one abyss,
A bubble and a world. I dance—I dance—
Around the circles of the Vortices,

And see the ship go down in a strong trance,
And hear the shriek,—one, yet how manifold!
There, where the steeds o'the Tempest foam and prance,

Am I;—their wild manes o'er the wild surge rolled,
Like fire-flakes, wreathe the billows, and their neigh
Doth chide the clarion-clang of Ocean old.

—I dash amidst them, eager for the fray;
Doth plunge my Charger with me; he doth swim,
Wild in his fierceness, through the flashing spray;

As if a lightning-stroke had blinded him,
And darted phrenzy to his brain, and he
Were maddened with the torture in each limb,

And sweat' and shrieked in sightless agony,
And made huge havock in his maniack might,
Till his heart burst. Then on the exhausted sea

The waves drop down, and, in the dull twilight,
Lay sluggishly about the riven hulk,
O'er which the day rose sunless as the night,

Or glared potentous on the sail-less bulk
With a red eye and fiery. Lo! I
Chafe Ocean, that he waken from his sulk

Awhile, and blow a gale, though weariedly
And brief;—yet unto me the billows spring,
Wild playmates, and a low-breathed harmony

We utter round the hopeless bark, and sing
A doleful and predestinating dirge.
Then droops again old Ocean, murmuring,

Like to a dreaming giant, whom no scourge
May waken more, basking in watchet weeds
Under the calm blue heaven; while on the verge

Of that doomed ship gaunt Famine sits, and feeds
On flesh of men; with Thirst that drinks their blood;
And Pestilence, glad of their savage deeds,

That, shivering at the helmless stern, doth brood,
Couchant o'er carcases. And I am there!
—The Crater is my cradle. In still mood,

As in the womb the infant, in my lair
Of sulphur I repose, which bubbleth up
So gently, that the traveller well may dare

Descending to the brim of that hot cup;
As if, thus amiable, I might therein
Dissolve, like to a pearl, for lips to sup,

Ay, sweet as Cleopatra's. Now begin
The waters to ferment, and central fire
To howl, and with huge uproar and wild din,

Earth's matrix with prodigious throes heaves dire;
And there, in that capacious cavern, boil
The floods as in a cauldron, and perspire

Through all her pores, making the sea recoil
From the bare shore affrightedly. Anon,
The rocky pillars of the human soil

Shake, and the myriad mountains shiver down,
Vast, subterrane, obscure, with hideous crash,
Hurled by the winds into the abyss unknown;

Then up the billows in fierce anger dash
From chaos, seething like a yeasty wine
Over its bursting vessel; as they clash,

Straight do th' imprisoned vapours fiercely pine
And rage for vent. Earth gapes convulsively,
And vomits the Volcano. It is mine!

—I make the solid ground like to the sea,
And undulate like ocean billowy;
And the columnar smoke,—it chariots me,—

That heaves aloft, a mass, into the sky,
A dun funereal shade, a broad black stain,
Like the pine's branches. In the flame am I

Wherein the mountain melts, and in the rain
Of ashes, and the lava flood. I burn
In the withering air, and on the molten plain.

Men perish as they flee. When I return
With the swoln Neptune—lo, a vacant coast,
Proud City late, but now an open Urn,

Sepulchring her white ashes, or her ghost.
—Strange pangs seize Earth. The sound of rushing wheels,
Whose axles burn with thunder, like a host!

'Tis he of the earth-shaking mace: She reels
Inebriate with the terrour of his coming.
He heard the clang of my pale courser's heels,

And roused him at the summons of Death's dooming.
Ay, Demigods are ye? (Then what am I,
Haught Deicide?) Ye who, with wrath consuming

The World into a pyre, would deify
Yourselves, like Hercules, and climb in flame
Audacious to the stars, and shine on high,

So purified by fire. Vaunt ye? Ye came,
And saw, and conquered—what? Worms—ashes—dust.
I war with Heaven, and Him who rules the same,

The Anointed, the Omnipotent, the Just,
The Good, the Wise, the Holy, and the One!
His hand doth drop the golden chain, or must,

(The Father pierced in the begotten Son,)
By which the pendent and terrestrial Orb
Is ordered and sustained. The deed is done!

—Lo, hungry Chaos yawneth to resorb
Into his void immeasurable womb
The breathing Universe. Ready, my barb!

Perish, Man—Angel! To the monstrous tomb,
Being and Form, Intelligence and Power;
All things create to unsubstantial gloom!

—The engendered Hour—the inevitable Hour,
Born of th' unnumbered Age by thought untrod—
On the Creator his own heavens do lour.

The Sun dies in his sphere, a kneaded clod,
The empyreal canopy doth bow,
Dissolved in darkness o'er the dying God!

—All Hell reverberates with the stricken blow;
Her caves cry to each other, peal for peal,
Yea, all her echoes are rejoicing now;

—(What boots it hence their mysteries to conceal?)—
And, like the voices of the waters, crowd
Together in their rivalry and zeal.

He from the Heaven of heavens of old forthrode,
In the paternal chariot did pursue,
And hurled Rebellion from that high abode—

I heard his last prayer, the last sigh he drew,
And I beheld him bow his holy head,
Whose locks were humid with ambrosial dew.

Chief Warrior, and chief Victor, bravely sped—
I conquer conquerors—all revenges wreak—
Thou, my last Foe, transfixed, suspended, dead!”

—Within that shadowy vault a short shrill shriek,
Like eastern gust in crannies of old tower,
There multiplies itself,...of what to speak?

—Writhed as a woman in her travail hour
Spectral, and yet in pain majestical,
How ghastly in her beauty's fatal dower,

The Phantasm of pale Earth! Amidst the Hall
She weeps,..anon, into a fading wreath,
Dissolved; like mountain-mist that borrows all

Shapes vague and void, and melts upon the heath.
Cold lightning gleams, an ice-bolt rives;—they sweep
That region like a storm—And where is Death?

Even as the pageant of a haunted sleep
Of dreams whence the flesh quakes, that Centaur-Wraith,
With those huge Shapes, and that Sepulchral Deep,

Have vanished from the eye of Fancy and of Faith.

VI. THE DARKNESS.

I.1.

O Spirit of the Universe! whereby
Things have intelligible entity,
And are arrayed in glory to man's eye,

And Nature is, because perceived to be;
O thou, unto sad Earth as soul to sense,
Life-giving Light! her graves even yearn for thee...

Strange echoes in the dreamy gloom commence,
Ancestral ages are unsepulchred,
Old oracles awaken from suspense.

The Life—the Light of men is darkened—
Dark is the lustre of the Seraphim—
The Word is silent,—lo, the heavens are dead.

In mere nihility inane and dim,
This wreck of elements anon subsides;
Man hath slain God,—Creation dies with Him;

Time travels not—and Space no more abides.
Inquire of Night and Chaos. Can ye be,
If God be not? Adore him,—Deicides!

—May man survive his Maker? or, Light! thee?
If thou wert quenched, earth would be formless, void,
And darkness o'er the deep brood silently.

I.2.

Thou art not quenched, where Thought is still enjoyed—
Created Light of uncreated Light!
But even thou wert not, were Mind destroyed;

Thy heavenly radiance thou dost reunite
Unto its origin, in the obscure
Of the Eternal Being hidden quite.

—Let the Almighty only sleep, no more
Motion and Time revolve. Their sweet concents
Both Heaven and Earth suspend; all tasks are o'er:

The Watchers languish in their guardian tents;
Nature's heart pauseth, in whose pulse we live;
And Man doth slumber with the Elements.

Should he wax weary or old; the land would rive,
In arid clefts, and yawning gulphs disclose
Tartarean mysteries for the sky to shrive,

But that th' unconscious stars, in blind repose,
Like some fair scroll's illumined characters,
Wrinkled with eld, were darkling ere they rose.

And lo, the once Almighty Voice deters
Ocean no more, far spooming, huge and wild;
But his dull weeds stagnate our Sepulchres.

—And might He die;..would He die like a child
Of Earth, and perish from his Universe?
Nay, it from him would perish first; exiled.—

I.3.

With the great Sun and Moon and rolling Spheres,
Swifter than a god's thought, precipitate,
Loosed from his Providence, it would disperse

Into the abyss of Chaos, ruinate:
And Chaos'-self be not. Not on the wreck
Of the demolished Earths, the expiring state

Of the Heaven of heavens, as from a courser's neck
Elanced, sheer o'er destruction's brink, shall He,
With his sublime despair, haste on, and deck

The End of All. Time, Space, Eternity,
Shall pass away, Darkness and Death be gone;
They perish from his presence utterly,

They leave him in his solitude alone;
'Till unimaginable doom obscure,
Delete, annihilate, the Essential One.

Thou art, oh man; they are;—He is, be sure.
Great God! for ever and for aye, dost Thou,
Sole Dweller of Eternity, endure.

Thou only dost the Earth and Heavens endow—
From thee her seasons hath the appointed Moon,
And the bright Stars thy handy work avow!

II.1.

Her radiant Brother gains his highest noon,
And, at Thy bidding, hasteneth to his gaol,—
And, like a martyr, hails his fiery boon,

(Wherewith the mountain burneth like a coal,)
And sets in flame; soon to renew his race,
And, like a hero who hath run the whole,

To die again in light, and pride of place,
And glory, as he lived. Darkness God makes;
Yea, this unnatural Night that shades Noon's face,

It is His work—whereat the firm Earth quakes
In dread of dissolution—as light's car
It is to him—'tis He the earth who shakes,

Who watereth from his chambers high and far
The hills; and into the deep vale that sinks
'Twixt them, irriguous and irregular,

Who sendeth springs, whereat the field-beast drinks,
His thirst the wild ass quenches, and whereby,
Among the branches foliaging their brinks,

The fowls of heaven do blend their harmony;
Who makes to soar the vapours, and in might
Brings forth the winds out of his armoury.

II.2.

Hushed are the forest-beasts, in hunger's spite,
Yea, the young lions roar not for their prey;
They seek not food from God, this worse than night,

But couch close in their dens with strange dismay.
In whirlwind, and in earthquake, and in fire,
And in the darkness and the silence, they

Are conscious of Thy presence, and retire,
Nor wait the Sun's bright resurrection, ere
They gather in their caves;..if thy fierce ire

Permit, again he chase them to their lair,
As wont ere this amiss,—O Thou to whom
Vengeance belongs! Yet to thy love repair

All Creatures, for the blessings which relume
Life daily—yet is thy spirit in man express,
—Free Bounty gives not, only to resume—

Though now the thunder of thy mightiness,
Which none can understand, astonish him,
And Judgement, from thy throne in heaven's recess,

Have been heard by the potent Seraphim,
And the earth's echoes answered unto thee:
Hell before thee is bare in every limb:

Destruction hath no covering.—But He,
Who dwelleth in thy secret place, abides,
Under thy shadow, in security.

II.3.

The Pestilence that in the darkness hides,
The Death which wastes at noon day, pass him by;
He treads upon the adder, and derides

The lion's rage. Thou, Helper! now art nigh,
Though he be poured like water, though his heart
Melt forth like wax,—in this extremity.

—Thou didst preserve him, when, with curious art,
Imperfect substance in its energies,
Fearfully wrought in the Earth's lowest part.

Thou numberest every hair, each member lies,
While yet unfashioned, written in thy book,
In its continuance and dependencies.

And thou art he who thence thy Chosen took,
And made him hope upon his mother's breast;
Even from the womb, as to a Sire Sons look,

He looked to thee—Thou wert his God confest.
—To Him, who dying conquereth...all hail!
Son of the Virgin; Hero of the Blest!

Over the gates of Death and Hell prevail:
Warrior! who hast alone the wine press trod.
Reign, Victor-Victim! reign, when Time shall fail,

Reign,—perfect Man—Messiah—Saviour—God!

This Ode is regular, consisting of two Strophes, Antistrophes, and Epodes.

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III. PART THE THIRD.

EARTH.

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“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied: neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:

But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman: for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the House of my Friends.

Awake, O Sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shepherd and the Sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.”

Zechariah xiii. 4—7.

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VII. CALVARY.

Earth's phantasm melted, and the Choir have ended
Their hymn. Lo, gradually, to pass not soon,
Of Calvary the Vision now is blended.—

Day's second dawn on that portentous noon
Brake west of the equator. Tardily
It brake; and like the blank and quenched Moon,

The reappearing Sun on Calvary
Rose fearful-pale. Son of the golden Morn,
Thee once a mortal voice controled on high—

Now by no mortal voice thy beams were shorn!
—Or did some planetary orb, elanced
By the great shock wherewith the worlds were torn

In the Creator's anguish, that entranced
Them all in one astonishment intense,
From its due sphere, a wreck, down rush—advanced

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Before thy broad and bright circumference—
And blot thee from between the Heaven and Earth?
Or wept thy Seraph so for Man's offence,

And for the Passion whereto it gave birth,
The copious flood did quell thy glowing light?
The Heavens are girt as with a swaddling girth,

Gathered the clouds into a pall outright:—
And, out upon thy melancholy weed!
Sackcloth of hair, more black than blackest night.

—Now the mysterious Hour, with tender heed,
That sombre swathe moves from thy radiant brow:
Heaven dares again to look upon that deed:

The Seraph's angel-aspect brightens now:
The Stars assert their courses and their orders;
And reinvested with thy beams art thou.

—O Calvary! how blessed are thy borders,
More holy than God's sanctuary mount,
Of whose high praise be Angels the recorders;

But grateful Man thy praises shall recount,
There Jesus is adored, but here He died!
O Calvary! that Rood is as a fount

Whence with a sanguine stream thou art supplied,
Yet healing as Bethesda. Calvary!
The Earthquake that did rock thee doth subside;

Thy sacred Rood, and they who stand thereby,
Dim and less dim in the returning light,
Appear, and on thy summit paint the sky.

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—There stood the Virgin-Mother, by the might
Of grief subdued, yet not despairing. Her
His words supported in her piteous plight,

With Faith and Hope and Memory, that did stir
The settling sorrow at her heart, and keep
Her spirit buoyant; while the Comforter

Brooded with halcyon wing o'er the calmed deep
Of her bereaved soul. In after-time,
Shall erring man, in superstition's sleep,

And dream and vision, her exalt sublime
Above the circle of the eternal sky,
Mother of God, and Empress of heaven's clime,

Enthroned in most divine regality,
The Moon beneath her feet, and on her head
A starry crown:—oh, fond Idolatry!

So among the nations shall her name be spread,
Because of him, the Crucified, her Son,
The Son of God, the First-fruit of the Dead,

The Self-Existent and Eternal One.
Now on that sacrificial Altar there,
He dies! And she, sustained on faithful John,

Dissolves, all tears. A mournful group is near.
Mary her Sister, and the Magdalene,
In anguish, on the hill recumbent here,

Pour out their souls. Salome stands serene,
And rolls her pale eyes toward pale heaven, as they,
In their fine phrensy rapt above, have seen

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The ready vengeance winged upon its way,
And watched it in an attitude sublime
Of concentrate impatience at delay,

That looked like patience waiting for the time
That should seem good to God, resigned and still,
To punish signally that signal crime.

—Afar, the soldier band about the hill
Hover in silence; so the ghostly gloom
And earthquake them had quailed, they had no will,

As wont, for boisterous mirth, to quell the doom
Had else too much depressed the present mind.
The very Steeds whereon they rest assume

A supernatural hush: the stirless wind
Moves not their flowing manes; neither toss they
Their arched necks, nor, in their haughty kind,

Champ into foam the bit, nor snort, nor neigh,
Nor paw nor overturn the troubled earth;
Subdued by sacred horrour or dismay.

—Nor that Centurion from his saddle girth
Had lifted his adoring brow, which there
He bent, when Jesus, in the depth and dearth

Of that mysterious hour, into the ear
Of his great Father in the heaven above
Pealed out his mighty voice, beyond the sphere,

And into the hands of the Paternal Love
His spirit did commend. Thereat the breast
The people smite, and one by one slow move,

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Pensive, on their returning way, opprest
With fear and grief, mystery and miracle.
But that Centurion felt his soul possest,

And his heart pregnant with a holy spell,
Stiffening his sinews, boiling in his blood,
And spake inspired as from an oracle—

“This was a righteous man, the Son of God!”
—From that amazement scarce recovered, lo,
A Man,—in vesture white as snow untrod,

And whose pale forehead did with glory glow,—
Inquired of whom he spake, and why such style
Divine attributed to mortal?—“Know,

I am a stranger here, and long erewhile,
From a far land where Joy and Peace abide,
And Love and Beauty and Perfection smile,

I travelled forth, and, many a region wide
O'erpast, entered at length your fertile clime.
—Proceeding through your City deified,

I paused before the Temple's front sublime,
Till, wearied with its grandeur, and the way,
I stretched me in the porch, and slept a time;

Aroused anon by sounds of some dismay,
And shaking of the ground. When lo, thick night,
At noon day, had o'erspread the earth, and lay

Like chains on man and beast. Fear and affright
Seize all; and, terribly, noise as of floods
Appals them; and the imaginative might

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Of the creative Eye on blackness broods:
Sad visions of majestick mien pass by,
With heavy countenance, and chill men's bloods;

And where they fall in terrour there they lie,
Shut up in prison without iron bars,
Bound in one chain of gloom and jeopardy.

And now a universal shriek, the stars
Might hear, assails the darkness dumb; and forth
The priesthood rush in horrour from their prayers,

And to the East and West and South and North,
Cry out aloud in phrenzy—It is rent,
The Veil that veiled the Holiest! Hear, O Earth!

Answer, thou Heaven! This heard, like horrour went
Through all the multitude. I felt my way
In gloom, and found, as cleared the element,

And the slow light redawned, my passage lay
Toward this defended hill. Now tell me, ye,
The meaning of these things, if that ye may,

And why these wonders in this Country be,
And at this time? And who is He ye call
The Son of God? and what his History?”

—Whom the Centurion answered thus—“Sir, all
That thou wouldst know thou'lt better learn of her
Who worships by yon centre Cross. A thrall

To duty, not uncourteous, I transfer
A question I in truth am little skilled
To satisfy, who in conjecture err.”

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—The Mother-Maid had heard him, and she stilled
Her beating heart, pleased with his lofty port,
Her frame with venerative awe that thrilled.

Straight she arose, and, without further court,
With amiable readiness, thus she
Meekly addressed the stranger, in such sort

As moved him with its magnanimity.
—“Behold him there—of whom ye speak—my Son,
But of no earthly Sire. Look, Sir, where he,

Between transgressors, who transgression none
E'er knew, whose mouth had never uttered guile,
Whose thoughts were only fixed on God alone,

Hath died the accursed death.”—A glorious smile
Illumed that stranger's visage, broad and bright;
It broadened and it brightened all the while

She spake. His visage did enlarge, his height
Dilate, and of his robe the bosom folding
Heaved with strange ecstasy, and a wild light

Played in his eye, and made him radiant. Holding
That transport in, he courteously desired,
(His attitude to humbler manner moulding,)

The History at large. “Thou hast required,”
She answered, “a task difficult to me
Whom grief scarce suffers speech, whereof inspired

And God-imparted eloquence may be
Capable only. But it doth behove,
That, at all times and in all places, we

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Should testify of Him, and of the love,
Even to the death, he bare for us—for all—
For whom he left the adoring heavens above,

His Father's glory, to become a thrall,
And die a victim, an accursed death.
'Twere sweet, methinks, that I should now recall

His gracious acts—even here—the Cross beneath
Whereon his blessed body doth depend.
Stranger, believe my Witness. Let my breath

Be lavish in his praises. Thou attend:
And, wheresoever thou mayst travel hence,
Report my words, to save and to defend

The people of thy sojourn, and dispense
The bread of life I give among all lands.”
—She paused to gather heart; then did commence

Her tale in gentleness. Her quiet hands
Clasped on her bosom, and her aspect bent;
In meekness and in modesty she stands:

The while the Stranger listens all attent.

VIII. THE VIRGIN'S NARRATIVE.

“A Maid of regal David's sacred line,
Whom God appointed to be Israel's King,
Psalmist and prophet, of whose seed divine

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Messiah was to come—the holy Thing—
The blessed Branch of Jesse's hallowed Stem—
Who should redemption to all nations bring—

I, little weening, O Jerusalem!
That of my womb the Saviour of mankind,
Of bard and seer the Promise and the Theme,

Should be conceived and born,—with humble mind,
Espoused a righteous, just and aged man
By pure affection piously inclined—

His state though lowly, Joseph's lineage ran
Direct from David's royal house. As yet
Our festal rite of marriage unbegan;

Lo, from high heaven where his throne is set,
Even in Jehovah's presence, sent by God,
Me Gabriel with salutation met.

Down came the Angel from his bright abode
To me, and cried, “Hail, highly-favoured, hail!
The Lord upon thee hath his grace bestowed,—

Blessed of women thou. Let Faith prevail:
Fear not, O Mary. Favour hast thou won
With the Most High; nor shall his promise fail.

Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a Son;
Jesus his name, and mighty shall he be,
The sole-begotten of the Highest One.

The Power of the Highest o'ershadowed me.—
It came—Messiah! of thy blessed birth
The timeous marvel and old mystery—

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Incarnate, uncreate, divine; of Earth,
And all that it inherits, Maker great;
An Infant at a mortal breast, with dearth

Of mere accommodation all unmeet!
—In swaddling clothes I swathed the heavenly Child;
A Stable was his chamber incomplete,

A Manger all his couch. 'Twas winter wild;
The Shepherds in the field kept watch by night,
Their flocks beneath the moon slept reconciled,

Themselves like moonbeams, all so pearly white,
And shining in the silver sheen. Anon,
The Angel of the Lord, in stronger light,

Glowed rainbowlike about them and upon,
And, as they trembled, thus their timid fear
Admonished, while abroad his glory shone:

“Fear not; for, lo, good tidings I do bear,
Great joy that shall to every people be,
For on this day, the whitest in the year,

In David's City, is born unto ye
A Saviour who is Christ the Lord.” Then nigh
The heavenly host 'gan singing suddenly

Their choral hymn—“Glory to God on high,
Peace upon Earth, and Goodwill toward Men.”
—So vanished that celestial company.

The wondering Shepherds rose with haste, and, when
They found the Babe rejoiced and praised the Lord,
And spread abroad the fame thereof. And then,

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Came Sages from the Orient to accord
Homage and tribute to the Child divine,
For they had studied in the written Word,

And in the East beheld his Star,..a sign
Miraculous that travelled in mid-air,
And still continued on their path to shine,

A glorious guide, until it came to where
The incarnate God was lodged, the holy Child.
Him worshipped they, and gifts presented there—

Gold, frankincense and myrrh.—Calm and not wild,
Yet lofty were my inmost thoughts of him
Who slept, divine with human reconciled,

On my poor knee. Methought, the Seraphim
Above him unseen ministry did keep,
And he was guarded by the Cherubim;

His Omnipresence, on his human sleep
Shed overshadowing circling energy—
For very joy it was my wont to weep!

—And then I thought upon the prophecy
Of Simeon, aged priest. Devout, sincere,
For Israel's consolation waited he.

To him it was revealed that he should ne'er
See death, 'till he had seen the very Christ.
Led by the Spirit to the Temple, where

Our pious offering we had sacrificed,
And were the Child presenting to the Lord,
He took the holy Babe, so dearly prized;

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He raised his eyes to heaven, and did accord
Praise unto God, and blessings upon us;
Yet said, that through my soul should pierce a sword.

—Lo, it hath pierced, and I am smitten thus!
But in my Son rejoiced I—yet rejoice—
Fragrant his life, his death was odorous,

Though suffering; but to suffer was his choice;
And, like a pleasant spice, though crushed and bruised,
Stern Sorrow, that not seldom but destroys,

The sweetness of his soul but more effused.
—The grace of Heaven was on the Child, like dew;
In stature, and in wisdom self-educed,

Mighty in spirit he increased, and grew
With God and Man in favour and esteem.
—And when twelve springs have graced his youth anew,

We go together to Jerusalem,
And solemnize the Passover's great days
Of Festival, and there accomplish them;

Then toward home we journey; he delays.
Him did his own high purposes detain!
Thrice, eve and morn, we sought in all the ways,

With sorrow him we loved we sought in vain;
Then in the Temple found him, sitting there
Amidst the Doctors, in debate of pain

And elevated argument severe.
He searched their hearts with questions far above
His years, and charmed them with his answers clear,

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Apt as the serpent, gentle as the dove.
Thus wore his wonderous youth. His words and deeds
I treasured in my heart with more than love.

—Now from the Wilderness a Voice proceeds,
Aloud the Herald of Messiah cried,
“Repent. Prepare the way.” All Judah heeds,

Jerusalem and Jordan. And they hied
To be baptized, their sins acknowledging.
With water he baptized by Jordan's side;

And all the while bare record, witnessing
Of One far mightier, after him arriving,
Who with the Spirit and with fire should bring

A holier baptism—life and glory giving.
—Behold, the Mightier came;—From human hand
Requires the lymphid rite the Ever-Living.

The sempiternal gates of heaven expand;
The clouds are rolled apart, and from on high,
In vision like a dove serene and bland,

The Spirit of the Lord descendeth nigh,
And lighteth on the Christ;—the while a Voice
Doth call from midst the region of the sky,

“Behold my Son, in whom I well-rejoice!”
—And now, the Tempter, who in Paradise
Beguiled the Woman to a fatal choice,

Suggestions in the Desart did devise,
To crush the Seed foredoomed his head to bruise;
Defeated soon in all his subtleties.—

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—Forth went the Victor, skilful what to choose,
And what reject, upon his ministry,
Preaching Repentance, and the glorious news

Of Pardon and Redemption full and free,
Of Faith, Light, Life and Love, and Hope and Truth,
Enduring Joy and Immortality.

—Power went with Him. The Word he spake could soothe
The wounded soul, and cure the sick of heart;
And heal the bite of sorrow's rabid tooth.

Power went with Him:..high Power to impart
Ears to the deaf and Eyes unto the blind.
Pale Malady obeyed his potent art,

And ceased at his rebuke. Fever resigned
Its sway, and Palsy and the Aches and Pains,
The heritage of flesh. From the unclean Mind

The exorcised Demon loosed his chains,
And fled the captive. Elements! All ye
Confess your Maker, you his might constrains—

Thou, Water, in his presence blushed; and thee,
With all thy multitude of waves; thee, Wind,
With all thy brotherhood of tempests;—He

Commanded, and the surge to him inclined
His tumult, and the storm his roaring stilled,
And all was tranquil as a pious mind.

Yea, while the midnight Sea was raging wild,
He walked the foaming billows with calm tread;
He to the Father gave the dying Child,

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And to the widowed Mother from the Dead
Restored her only Son. The insatiate Grave
Her victim did surrender at his dread

And awful bidding, who came down to save.
—My soul is joyous,..a mysterious joy
Broods on my sorrowing soul, as on the wave

The placid halcyon. Him shall Death destroy
Who vanquished Death? Corruption shall He see
Who from the Sepulchre, whose gorge to cloy

All flesh shall not suffice, its thrall did free
And ravished its due prey? His Triumph blends
With mine, and rushes on my memory,

And like a heavenly vision it descends.
—Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem..behold
Thy King. Salvation on his way attends,

As promised to thee in the days of old.
He cometh to thee riding on an Ass,
Whose natural back man never yet controled,

A palfrey unprofaned. Let ye him pass
In meekness, O ye people; ye who throng
About him, little do ye deem, alas,

What doom awaits your King. On him along;
In an innumerable multitude,
As in procession, ye attend with song,

And praises and hosannahs, and have strewed
Your garments in his way, and branches green,
As in a princely Conqueror's ye would.

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He on whose eyes sweet light revealed hath been,
He on whose ears the mysteries of sound,
The lame who now can walk, he who hath seen

The gate of death, and he whom death hath bound,
Rejoice aloud—a choral Company.
And had they not, the stones, from out the ground,

Witness of Him whom Patriarchs longed to see
Had borne; such was the inspiration then,
The rapture and possession. And lo, He

Went like a warrior on his way, while men
Cowered as before a god, and from the Fane,
The Temple of his Father, made a den

Of thieves by them, cast out with high disdain
The barterers in gold, and overthrew
The seats of them who made a mart for gain

The House of hallowed Prayer. And with the dew
Of his celestial tears,—Jerusalem!
Jerusalem! whose sanguinary hue

Is with the blood of Prophets, and all them
Sent to thee from thy loving God, to save
Or to restore thy sacred diadem,—

Even like the widowed o'er a lover's grave,
Thy desolation he bewept. Yea, thine,
Whose children, under his broad wing's wide wave,

He willingly had gathered, with divine
Affection, as a hen her tender brood;
But thou wouldst not! O thou incarnadine!

119

—Thou who hast slain the Servants of thy God!
Wo to thy children! But thrice wo to ye,
Ye Husbandmen—for with an iron rod,

Ye shall be broken,..nay, destroyed shall be,
Who of his vineyard have the fruit denied
Unto the Planter, and thus utterly

Despised his Messengers,..nay, have defied
His Son beloved, and slain the proper Heir,
That the inheritance ye might divide!

Wo to ye, Hypocrites! ye insincere—
Who shut the gates of heaven against mankind,
And yet yourselves will never enter there—

Wo to ye, Hypocrites! Your hearts are blind;
The houses of the widows ye devour,
And make long prayers, devotion ill-designed.

The matters of the Law of gravest power
Omit ye;—Judgement—Mercy—Faith: and dole
The petty tithe of your external dower:

Not those omit,—nor these; but pay the whole!
As righteous men ye do without appear,
Within iniquity usurps the soul:

Ye are even like a whited Sepulchre,
Beautiful outward, hiding dead men's bones,
Uncleanness and corruption, every where.

Ye build the tombs of prophets, ye the Sons
Of Sires who slew the prophets and the seers,
And deem disclaimer of the deed atones

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For the hereditary shame. Ye heirs
Of the unhallowed, fill their measure up!
Ye garnishers of Martyrs' Sepulchres!

O! ye have filled even to the brim the cup—
And Vengeance is on you for all the blood
By Earth absorbed, and He in heaven shall stoop,

And pour the phial of his wrath withstood,
On you, and on your land, and generation!
—I speak his words who suffereth on the Rood.

Thus for themselves their children and their nation
They have filled the measure of their Fathers' guilt!
They bought his blood..'twas shed for man's salvation!

Contemptuously his sacred blood they split,
They crowned him with the diadem of thorn,
Who is the Monarch of the World he built.

They clad him with the purple robe of scorn.
They smote him, they blindfolded him; and straight
They burthened him, forsaken and forlorn.

Distended—oh! immitigable hate!—
Raised like the Serpent in the desart wide,
His human limbs divine by their own weight

Thus agonized—behold the Crucified!”

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IX. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.

Rapt by the ardent strain that did conclude
The Narrative of Mary, there, as stilled
By some informing god, the stranger stood.

Then came from him a voice—“It is fulfilled!”
But he was not; none saw which way he went,
Evanished utterly: then all were thrilled.

Deep awe and trembling were with wonder blent,
And silence; but not long endured that pause,
Else ancient song had lacked accomplishment.

—It is the hallowed eve, when man withdraws
To preparation for the holier morrow.
High Day of Sabbath, thy thrice-sacred laws

Were violated,—oh, the sin and sorrow!—
If crucifixion had with death profaned
The dawn, that wont from life its life to borrow.

O' th' two the legs they brake; but were restrained
When him they found already dead: yet one
Pierced with a spear his side, as preordained,

Whence water flowed with blood. So all was done,
As it is written.—Now in her shadowy stole,
The solemn Eve scarfed the declining Sun;

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His second setting on this day of dole;
And from the Cross died his departing ray,
Whereon his Maker yielded up his soul.

—Whose tardy visit wends this upward way?
No tardy visit his. His heart was here,
His ardent heart, that panted for the day

Of God's dominion and salvation dear;
A good man and a just, but rich and high,
Arimathean Joseph, a sincere

Disciple of the Christ, though secretly,
From terrour of the Jews. With leave procured
From Pilate, he approaches to apply

Due honours to the dead, who shame endured,
And for the wicked with the wicked died,
And with the rich his sepulchre assured.

With him was Nicodemus, at his side
Meekly attendant; he who came by night
Of Jesus to enquire, and was supplied

With wisdom, taught from God, and by the might
Of spirit of diviner excellence
Eke only apprehensible aright.

—Mysterious lore! that thou must recommence
Life and existence, and be born anew;
Born both of water and of spirit, whence

Spirit comes only, as flesh must flesh ensue:
And where it lists the wind shall blow, whose sound
Thou hearest, but knowst not—none ever knew—

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Whence cometh it, or whither it is bound:
And no man hath ascended into heaven,
But he who thence came down, and bore the wound,

And perished, that the World might be forgiven,
The Son of Man in heaven who dwells for aye!
—These, in the awe of that most sacred Even,

Like brothers on one mournful embassy,
Came carrying each his tribute to the Dead,
Linen and spice, devout and lovingly.

—Now from the Rood, with melancholy dread,
The sacred temple of his body they
Remove, from which the God had vanished.

With filial care, solicitude, and yea,
With trembling veneration, from that height
They bore it down, all lifeless as it lay.

Then wept the Virgin at the woful rite,
Her heart was broken as with a fresh blow,
The floods o'erflowed, and overwhelmed her quite.

She looked up in his holy aspect, lo,
As men in shipwreck unto heaven uplook,
And spread abroad her hands, and watched him so;

The while the Magdalen, without rebuke,
Knelt and received the Saviour's wounded feet,
And veiled them with the vest;—the while John took

His master on his bosom, with complete
Affection, bore the burthen of his corse
As it descended in its winding-sheet.

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Such her excess of sorrow, and its force,
In sorrow like her's if there may be excess,
And more than madness might beget remorse.

Oh, mother-maid! who may thy loss express?
What mother ever had a son like thine?
Than common mothers, oh, canst thou mourn less?

—Lo, they have now his human limbs supine,
Wrapt in the linen mingled with the balm,
And gazed their last upon the most divine.

How beautiful in death is he! how calm
That cold chaste countenance, that seems to smile
Even yet! that frame that flourished like the palm,

In stature and in stateliness, a pile
Of exquisite proportion, symmetry,
And grace, how lovely! Those bland lips, whence guile

Was alien, yet are parted lovelily,
As eloquence still lingered mutely there;
And still that forehead is of dignity!

The brave are beautiful in death,..and here
Lies on his field of fame the Victor-Chief—
And here shall also be his sepulchre.

Bright—everlasting—be thy fame; though brief
Thy glorious life, thou Warrior of our Faith,
Hero of Peace, and Champion of Belief!

—There was a garden on that hill of death,
Where, in a rock, was newly hewn a tomb,
Whose concave never man had slept beneath.

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There, shrouded and embalmed in tender gloom,
Shall rest the long Desire of every land,
The Hope of nations, and the Lord of doom.

Sadly and slowly, from their fatal stand,
(Their pupil arms the Rabbi's faithful bier,)
Thither they bore him, and with gentle hand,

Composed his perfect limbs, and laid him there,
In most magnificent simplicity—
—All silent—save the toning of a tear,

The silver cadence of a veiled sigh.

X. ŒLINA.

Halcyon and hallowed be the haunt, oh Son
Of Man; hallowed and halcyon be the haunt
Of thy repose serene, heroick One!

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—Above the grotto in the garden, chaunt,
Oh Peace! thy pleasant song—a plaintive lay,
Of tone so fine it silence may not daunt.

A perfect man, he walked in thy pure way,
In Wisdom's pensive paths he took delight,
And his Benevolence was like the day.

—And who art thou who pinest in the blight
Of highest hope, and at the iniquity
Of Fortune, murmurest to the silent night?

Art thou more pious or more just than he?
More skilful to instruct or to acquire?
More beautiful and brave? more fair and free?

Holier of soul, and purer of desire?
Ampler in fancy, reason more complete,
To touch the human chords of the heart's lyre?

—If thou art good and great, most good and great
Was he who lieth here within the rock,
A perfect man;—and art thou perfect yet?

Hence! with thy monstrous vanity..nor shock
The modesty of death. He, without stain,
Was hated, hunted; made a mark and mock;

Tempted, despised, beset, insulted, slain;
Born to privation, and in suffering bred,
In ignominy lived, and died in pain.

—Homeless and fatherless, and ill-bested;
Nests have the birds of air, and foxes holes,
He had not where to lay his weary head.

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He had no comeliness to charm men's souls,
In him they saw no beauty to desire,
No grace that wins, no virtue that controls.

Scorned and rejected;..in affliction's fire,
Proved meritorious, greatest, bravest, best;
A man of sorrows, manifold and dire.

He opened not his mouth when most opprest,
From prison and from judgement, like a lamb
Led to the slaughter guiltless, yet distrest.

—What is thy petty sorrow or thy shame?
Thy merit spurned? thy passion or thy pain?
That thou shouldst wring thy hands, lament, exclaim.

What is thy woe to his?—did he complain?
Dumb as a sheep before her shearers he!
Why murmurest thou? be patient, thou profane!

—Wouldst thou have length of days, that thou mayst be
Wiser and better? Older far are some
In mind than most in years:—Go, wed to thee

Wisdom and goodness in thy youth and bloom,
And give the green leaf on the tree to God,
The yellow and the withered to the tomb.

—In his sweet prime and vigour, on the road
Of life he was surprised, and rapt away:
Few were the days the Son of Man abode.

He did his work, he never lost a day;
His life is measured by his glory now,
And that shall never perish nor decay.

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—Virtue in him was deified, which thou
Canst only raise to manlier energy,
And make humanity a grander show.

For thou of earth art earthly, clings to thee
Change and corruption; thou art of the flesh
Fleshly, and born of an humanity

Whose manhood once declined into the mesh,
Nor from its fatal lapse recovered yet,
Hath to its proper stature grown afresh.

In him the Eternal hath his Image set.
As an ensample unto human kind,
Of the Idea, thus impersonate,

Wherein, when he creation's work designed
In archetypal vision, lordly Man
Was preconceived by his all-plastick mind.

—God said—“Let there be Light!” And Light began
His being; and glad Wisdom from on high,
Down-wafted with celestial airs, swift ran,

And o'er the dædal Orb, with ecstasy,
Of Beauty, her twin-sister, cast the zone,
Full of attractions, love and harmony;

To make the dwelling place of Man a throne,
A palace of the Soul, a glorious shrine;
But for the Sons of Nature built alone,

Who, taught by Wisdom, make all things divine;
Charmed by the symbol and the semblance, here,
Of that consummate Beauty, who is thine;

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That primal Pulchritude, that perfect Fair,
Who in high Heaven delights thee, Mind Supreme?
They bask in her bright presence every-where.

—Within the walks of Eden, by the stream
Of living waters, and within the bower
Of love in Paradise, Man saw the gleam

Of glory in the grass and in the flower,
The azure Heaven, and Woman's heavenly eye,
And fused the day into a happy hour.

—Sad from that temple of felicity,
Sad was thy parting, slow and wandering,
Alien and out-cast Man, new-doomed to die!

Sadder than aught since known of sorrowing
Saddest on earth! pomp for dead monarch hoary,
Sad pomp funereal for a father-king.

—But sadder far than all renowned in story,
Messiah's going-forth in nakedness,
From the bright palace of paternal glory.

Then sorrow was in Heaven. Bright essences
Angelick burning in their sighs, and spirits
Of fire dissolved in liquid tears; by stress

Of wonder, and the pity it inherits,
Their mould seraphick melted into dew;
At the Atonement meant for Man's demerits.

—For Man he from the Courts of Heaven withdrew,
Emptied of deity, become a child;
But, from the humiliation of that view,

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Celestial hearts a sudden joy beguiled,
Transcending what they then beheld, and bent
On the far end which all things reconciled.

Instead of wailing and a loud lament,
They clothed their joy with song and harmony,
Good-will to Man, by great Messiah sent.

—Over thy Mausoleum thus do we
Hover in grave delight and melancholy,
Oh Son of Man! in pious sympathy—

Pensive, yet not unhappy. Parting slowly,
We linger here; but Faith, serene and pure,
Looks unto Thee, Eternal and most Holy!

Thy Holy One corruption to endure
Thou wilt not suffer, nor his Soul in Hell
To perish, but wilt lead him thence,..secure.

Sleep sweetly in thy unprofaned cell,
Oh, Son of Man! and hallowed be thy slumbers,
And calm..for wisely thou hast done, and well!

—Such was the Song of the Angelick Numbers;
The Hierarchs of Heaven, far in the sky,
And they whom, though on Earth, no Earth incumbers,

And they who have the heroick custody
Of Hell and Chaos; with according chime,
Each in his scale of solemn harmony;

Fit chorus for a theme so sacred and sublime.

“The invention of Epitaphs proceeded from the presage or forefeeling of Immortality, implanted in all men naturally, and is referred to the scholars of Linus, the Theban poet, who flourished about the year of the world two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus, their master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, then called of him Œlina, afterwards Epitaphia, for that they were first sung at burials, afterwards engraved upon the sepulchres.” Weever's Discourse of Funeral Monuments.

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IV. PART THE FOURTH.

CHAOS.

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“The land of darkness and the shadow of death. A land of darkness as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.” Job x. 21, 22.

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XI. THE WAY TO HELL.

Not in the silent grave the Almighty Word
Reposed; but, like a strong and armed man,
With that loud voice in Empyreum heard,

Leapt forth impetuous. Strong convulsions ran
Throughout Earth's womb, and rent her sepulchres,
Travailling with Death,—and Life again began.

His Presence in the Holiest Place appears,
And rends the veil that wont its rites debar
From eyes profane, unconsecrated ears:

Nor stays. Hell feels His coming from afar,
And conscious Chaos, with a huge recoil,
Hushes her waves and stills her stormy war.

—Star of my Soul! there where the billows boil
About Night's throne, direct my downward way—
How perilous the path! untried the toil!

—Lo! HE who, when the darkness loosed the day,
The Virgin's story heard; then vanished—
—As now he vanishes!—

—Through this pure space his passage lay.

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—They feign who tell of rocks abrupt and dread,
Of precipice, and waste outrageous deep
Of waters, in an agonizing bed,

That sweat with torture while they madly sweep
With sounds of human voice! Still vacancy,
Void o'er whose formless face doth darkness sleep,

Is all the way, beyond the boundary
Of temporal space, which leads to that far bourne,
In the calm regions of Eternity,

To which the grave is but the gate—unworn
With tread corporeal, a pure element,
Of aught material as of sound forlorn.

Nor Moments are, nor Atoms have extent,
There; yet Duration is, and Substance dwells,
And Being absolute and permanent.

And Silence her eternal Oracles
Utters to empty forms and shapeless shades,
Who deafly list unutterable spells.

A quiet voyage, whence whoso dissuades,
With tales of tumult or detours of pain,
With Fancy peoples and with Sense pervades.

—Yet err they not, who of that dark domain
Report adventure strange and voyage hard;
The Mind sees in the wreck itself again.

For, of the Mind, 'tis as the Mind; and bard
Or sage that mystic region generates
In his own likeness, for his own reward,

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Or purpose of the theme he illustrates;
Sinner and Saint their spirits in different guise
Reflect, as each his doom anticipates.

—Each tells the truth, yet each in telling lies,
Of that far region, which no region is,
All mystery, yet hath no mysteries—

Far region, ever yet at hand, I wis,
Within us and about us every-where—
It clothes the bed of death with ecstasies,

Anguish and agonies of Hope and Fear;
The worst wild pass, in sorest, saddest dream,
Of the lost soul, bewildering less, less drear;—

The sweetest vision that e'er cast its gleam
On blessed sleep, less dulcet and divine:—
Than that strange transit, ever in extreme!

—Rude way to some, where spirits lost repine
Wandering reluctant far from Paradise,
Millions of years no measure can define,

Past in an instant, as the lightning is
And was—all alp, all desart, all ravine;
Horrour of Darkness girdling Hell's abyss.

—So real yet unreal is the scene,
The darkness is its own, yet not of it;
For we are it: what veils it, is the screen

That hides us from ourselves; the path—the pit—
They are within us, and we dwell in them;
Yet are they not on Earth, in Heaven, nor yet

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In Hell, and far from us. Me not condemn;
For these are truths, and every truth's a spell,
Wisdom must value, Wit may not contemn;

Not dark to me, who, at the sacred well
Of prophecy, have cleansed my vision so,
That I can look on things invisible.

Hence, ye profane! Rapt in the Spirit, lo,
My mind dwells in its own eternity,
Beholds life's source and aim, its ebb and flow;

I am become a Seër, and am free
To speak. Now listen. Know, that Mind it is,
Creates the light whereby the Eye doth see,

And the night cometh, be the mind remiss
Or absent; nor is then its orb the Eye,
More than its ruins are Persepolis.

No Sun is here to measure o'er the sky
Day; Moon nor Stars, to rule the night, or tell
Of seasons: here is no variety

Of Time, nor Time himself. But, from the well
Of my own being, a pure sphere of light
I can project, and shape and syllable

With Form and Name; or on the darkness drear,
Even as the eye of Childhood doth, create
Pictures and friezes indistinct or clear.

These may poetick fancy aggregate
In her own time and space, eath as the sense
Of Euclid could construct and demonstrate

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Ideas, as his own intelligence
Perfect and pure, by power of his own mind,
Shaped by its prescript, and proceeding thence.

What I behold, no poet hath combined,
Nor skill of cunning painter could pourtray—
Path the Soul travels to her place assigned.

—Adown that unimaginable way,
Him I perceived of whom I spake erewhile,
Present and vanished ere that I could say,

“Behold!” The dying Saint, with a calm smile,
So, the same instant, leaves this world beneath,
And reaches th' other, passing no defile,

Of toil or travel; with his farewell breath,
Smoothly transported to a blessed goal:
Of Past or Future no account with Death.

All indivisible as his own Soul,
Eternity broods o'er the Infinite,
Time has no lapse and Space is one and whole.

Therefore it was, his transit on my sight
Glanced and was gone, returning through the void
To his far home, a disembodied sprite.

Upon what errand came he? Self-employed?
Or sent; revisiting the quaking earth,
Then trembling as about to be destroyed?

What name of old bare he? where was his birth?
Who knows not Amoz' son? The Prophet wept
Of Israel's doom the darkness and the dearth,

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And saw, (i'th' year that King Uzziah slept,)
The Lord upon his Throne, and with his train
The temple filled, where his high state he kept.

The six-winged Seraphim o'ercrowned the fane,
With twain they clad their face, with twain their feet,
And flew, a volant canopy, with twain.

His lips with live coal from the Altar's seat
Were touched, and he foretold the Virgin's seed,
What keystone should Creation's arch complete.

—And now in Paradise, with holy heed,
Rumour of that event was heard; for there
John, as on earth, Messiah did precede,

And the glad Prisoners of Hope prepare
For his great coming, to lead captive thence
Captivity in triumph through the air.

—And now Hell quakes with the intelligence
Of what was done on Earth; and all the Saints
And Seërs old thrilled with desire intense,

Wherewith inspired, and quit from all restraints
By grace divine, with eagerness upborne,
Love that fears not, and Faith that never faints,

Isaiah, swifter than the wings of morn,
Bare confirmation of the glorious news,
To comfort all who dwell in that sojourn

—Place visited yet never by the Muse,
Profane or sacred, in her voyages;
Nor wonder, though adventurous, she refuse,

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A chasm so deep, a gulf so bottomless,
To plunge down hither; or discern it not,
So well-concealed in such remote recess;

An obscure and unfathomable spot,
There where the spirits of men repose apart,
In expectation of their final lot;

The Womb of Nature, and of Earth the Heart,

XII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

1.

Say, have the Gates of Death been oped to thee?
The portals of his Shadow hast thou seen
Within the Valley of his Mystery?

Beyond that boundless gulph they stand between
The bottomless chasm, the abyss ineffable,
And those far gardens of perpetual green;

Gardens of hope where happy spirits dwell,
And that dark bourn of terrour where the bad
Pine in their prison, expectant of worse hell.

—Lo, there the Gate of Paradise makes glad
The mighty desart with its golden face;
Thereat a shadow, pensive but not sad,

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Keeps guard; fair form and lovely in the grace
Of undecaying beauty, shedding day
And light immortal in that obscure place.

A stole, white as the snows, and pure as they,
Her perfects limbs enfolds, yet hides them not,
But in more chaste proportion doth display:—

A silver stole it is, and without spot,
An amaranthine crown is on her head,
And in her hand a sceptre she hath got.

Beautiful Angel! solemn though not dread
Of countenance, and lovely though severe—
Who may she be?..the Living in the Dead.

—Thou seest Death. Not such as thou while-ere
Beheldst him, vaunting on his paly steed;
For spirits can in either sex appear:

And Death is multiform, and comes with speed
Or slackness, and in terrours or in smiles,
As men with fear or faith his coming heed.

They call her death whom still the flesh beguiles,
But they do name her Immortality
Who placid dwell within those pleasant isles.

She to the Saint brings tidings from the sky,
And sheds the halo o'er his dying brow,
Type of the Crown that he shall wear on high;

She broods upon his soul which, quickened so,
Soars like a dove away, and is at peace,
Far in the mountains where she dwelleth.—Lo!

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Hither the enfranchised spirit joyous flees,
Beyond the Abyss of Space, and free from Time,
Heir of the realm of pure realities.

2.

Happy that region of eternal Prime,
Happy the Dwellers of its palaces,
Where thoughts are things, how beauteous, how sublime,

How musical! transpicuously express
In truth and spirit to pure Intelligence,
As words and objects, in material dress,

To fleshly organs of external sense;
Forms of the mind, yet dwelling far apart,
Substantial beings, their own evidence,

And witnesses to thee, O Faith! who art
The evidence of things invisible,
Yet real as the pantings of the heart.

—O Faith! thou dost constrain us like a spell;
We pass the gulph that parts that world from ours,
Heaven dwells in us, and we in heaven do dwell.

So we imparadise our souls in bowers
Of asphodel beneath Elysian skies,
And hold high converse with celestial Powers!

—There shadows are not, no appearance lies;
But Being and eternal Truth and Good,
Pure Freedom and developed Energies;

No great, no little, there is understood;
The pure, the perfect, and the permanent,
Only are there, with peace and plentitude.

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—How blest, freed from each empty element,
When the religious soul finds entrance there,
For whom yon gate is opened, with consent

Of the Eternal and Unearthly, where
Unearthly spirits, in no temporal clime,
Await the growth of Heaven's consummate year.

—How curst, whose wings are only purged from slime
Of mortal coil, and earthly circumstance
Of pain and peril, evil care and crime,

Urged by the will and the strong governance
Of coinherent impulse, to prefer
That Other Gate, which glows as they advance,

Eager as death, and as the sepulchre
Insatiate, to embrace and then immure,
In darkness, and the fire shut up in her.

—And there are found who love that vale obscure,
Even for its gloom, the flame even for its ire;
Dark spirits of wrath such sympathies allure;

And, verily, they have but their desire,
For all their ends are madness. And, lo, She
Them to her adamantine gate of fire

Attracts. There Madness in mock majesty,
Hell's Porteress, sits, all in her sable stole,
As she of the realm were queen, who keeps the key.

3.

Her boundless eye expatiates sans control,
And limits to its wanderings are none;
Nought sees she as it is, as part or whole.

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Yet she creates a Beauty of her own,
Though both dishonest and irrational,
And amiable to herself alone;

Her Avarice, Ambition, Lust, enthrall;
These she misnames the graceful—noble—free—
Pious, ascetick, and heroical.

—Then first known when th' Angelick Hierarchy
Turned from the bright and beatifick Vision
Their willing Love, and sought Felicity

Each in the centre of Self-Intuition,
Or in the Foreign Infinite beyond,
Illimitable as desires elysian—

Then she leapt up from Chaos, free from bond,
And cried aloud in phrenzy—“I have being!”
Alien of heaven, incapable as fond.

—She ranged amidst the Hosts, till the All-Seeing
Sent forth celestial Wisdom ever-blest,
From midst his Glory, where, with Love agreeing,

Before his works of old, he her possest.
She went forth from his bosom, and displayed
His Judgements, and his Power made manifest.

—His Will is wise, by Wisdom is obeyed—
And all his Creatures only in its sphere
Are what they are, and in his gifts arrayed.

Lo! Wisdom dwells with Prudence, and the Fear
Of God is her beginning; and to know
The Holy One is understanding clear.

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In reason and in righteousness also,
Subsists the Universe; and from his Will
Life, Light and Motion, as their fountain, flow.

The Lord by Wisdom founded every hill,
By Understanding he established heaven,
Brake up the depths by Knowledge and by Skill.

And o'er the Gate of Hell hath Wisdom graven
The hidden Counsel of the Eternal Three—
This legend lettered in perpetual leven;

—“Order and Love and Possibility,
Eternal Possibility, and Will
For ever active, Bounty ever free,

Perfect to purpose, powerful to fulfil.”

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V. PART THE FIFTH.

THE RESTORATION.

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“And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as the dream of a night-vision.

It shall be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.”

Isaiah xxix. 7—8.

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XIII. ADAM.

Now from Seth's Mountain had the visions past;
—Of Hades, and Earth's phantasm, and the train
On Calvary, together with that last

Sad rite paid to the Son of Man, thus slain,
That he redemption might on man bestow—
And Ardis shone in glory forth again.

—As from a Throne, on the Hill's crested brow,
Sublime, the Father of Mankind addrest
His Children, to his voice attentive now.

“God made not Death;..but what he made he blest,
And, that they might have being, did decree
Undying Health, and unrevolving Rest.

Nor is Death's kingdom on the Earth, for me
God made immortal as his righteousness.
An image of his own eternity,

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Whose generations die not nor increase,
But are for ever; hence, in every place
And time, apparent, thorough all degrees.

—Paternal Love! of old I loved thy face,
When dwelt thy Word with Man, and was the Law
Of Wisdom to the Soul. In thine embrace

I blessedly reposed, and Vision saw
Of Excellence whereunto I uplooked,
And Beauty that attracted with its awe.

Author of Beauty! free and unrebuked,
I communed with thy glory, and my heart
Rejoiced in thee;..and thou its homage brooked.

For thou as merciful as mighty art!
Before thee the huge World is as a grain
Of sand beside the ocean—yea, its chart

Of vale and mountain, firmament and main,
Is as a globule of the morning dew
That drops upon the earth its tiny rain.

And who shall question thee, or judge thee who?
For thou art God alone, and on thy Power
All righteousness and Justice must ensue,

But, mastering thine omnipotence, broods o'er
All thy Creation Mercy uncreate,
For thou createdst all, and shalt restore.

Father! Thy love to men shall not abate—
Thou willst, they are; thou speakst, and they endure—
Lover of Souls! so they reciprocate.

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—How lovely in thy Beauty, bright and pure!
In Thee my being had its Home and Heaven,
A habitation suitable and sure,

Thou madest my heart thy temple, morn and even,
And I with thine eternal Wisdom dwelt
In thy capacious bosom..I was graven

Upon thy holy palms, and ever felt
Thy Spirit incorruptible pervade
My Spirit, and into mine essence melt,

Blending in one emotion, interplayed,
The human and divine; one Love, one Will,
Uniting both, and without Law obeyed.

And all my finite substance Thou didst fill
And circumscribe with thine Infinitude,
Eternally incomprehensible.

Ever in thine eternal bosom wooed
To full felicity, and there enjoying
Love, without fear, and without evil, Good.

Ever thy love excelling, and destroying
Human perfection with its mere excess,
Though inexhaustible yet never cloying,

Until the Creature be consumed by stress
Of that absorbing fire, lost in the God,
And to itself be very nothingness.

—Included as the waves within the flood,
Kept in its centre, neighboured yet alone;
My Spirit, by thy holy Will withstood,

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Most graciously concurring with my own,
Maintained its outbirth, though embraced in thee,
The Generator,..dwelt apart, self-known.

—So my Soul travelled through the mystery
Of her existence, fondly measuring
Its depths and heights and its capacity;

Mazed in herself, a solitary thing,
Stirred into action by its plastick Will,
And warmed to life by Love's awakening.

For Love is Life's deep essence, quicker still
Than Life to quicken, wont with Life to teem;
And my heart ached with its mysterious thrill.

—I was alone, and over all supreme,
Yet feeling in my spirit such desire,
As kept me waking, but as in a dream,

To look upon mine Image. So the Fire
Wrought in me, I was as a God, and felt
Heroick scorn of earth and her attire.

Amidst the Works which are thy words, I dwelt
Unsatisfied. The Glory of the Sun;
The Pride of th' Height, whereto men since have knelt;

The Clearness of the Firmament; the One
Ethereal Arch; the Majesty of the Noon;
Clouds with their changes, and the Sky with none;

The Starry Dance, the Beauty of the Moon;
The marvellous works of the Omnipotent,
Spake to my soul in a despised tune:

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She to herself a nobler monument,
A personal Marvel and a Mystery,
Conscious of power divinely excellent,

And of dominion given unto me
Over all Elements. Had I not seen
Thee, their Creator, and conversed with thee?

Greater, more glorious, lovelier, more serene,—
More terrible in majesty and might,—
Than these—than all. When hath thine Equal been?

Subtler than Motion—swifter than the Light—
Stronger than Fire—above thy Works thou art,
And who can magnify thy name aright?

For thou art All—yet these of thee no part—
And there are hid yet greater things than these—
Thou givest Wisdom to the godly heart!

—The Symbol of my Thought that might appease
My longing was not in them. Not in them
My Image, though of God the images.

I called the Fowls of Air,..'twas not in them!
I questioned of the Beasts of Earth,..in vain;
They were not to my mind, nor of my stem.

I ruled them as a God in my domain;
I knew their natures, and prescribed their names,
But shared not in their joys and did disdain.

—And so I was companionless..and flames
Of fire stirred in my Soul. Eternal Father!
Who of thyself didst generate the frames

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Of various Life—if that thou hearst not rather
One Life, one Form of thy coeval Love,
And in thy Word that all Creation gather—

How teemed my heart thou sawst, and how it strove
To be delivered of its lovely freight.
Then formless, void and darkling;..from above

No light vouchsafed; not understood 'till late,
And unrevealed to sense; nor knew I how
Their objects our affections do create.—

—O Saviour! by thine Agony, which now
Welled from thee in the Garden, ere thou slept,
And from thy side a broader stream might flow!

Thou knowst my Passion, and what tears it wept,
Sanguine of Hope! 'till, sick with Love denied,
The dews of Slumber o'er my Spirit crept.

And, in that trance, from out my wounded side,
The Birth I travailled with, by Power Divine,
Emerged all-beauteous,..Daughter, Sister, Bride!

Made of my substance, as thy Church of thine,
Redeemer! who with thine own flesh and blood
Repairst the breach which then I made in mine.

—Thus, Woman! hast thou ever since been wooed,
By Man, with this disruption of the heart,
This bloody Passion in his Solitude,

This Martyrdom whereof thou feelst but part;
Thy Maker and thy Husband bears the whole,
Death's Sacrament;..and yet his Life thou art!

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—For unto thee I gave my living Soul:
Deep was the sleep I slept that thou mightst live,
And its baptizing floods had strong control,

A living death, then quickest to conceive
The Form of mine Idea. Anon, awaken,
I saw the Woman, and I called her Eve.

—Life of my Life! how sweet with her partaken,
A Paradise within a Paradise,
A Fountain sealed, a City unforsaken—

Lovely though weak, and winning if not wise,
She having her perfection but in me,
And I in turn lived only in her eyes;

Imperfect both, but more imperfect she;
Naked, though unashamed; and, under Law,
Guiltless of Sin, yet not from Nature free;

Nature, whose incomplete Creations awe,
Speaking like Woman, of a Life by-gone,
And one commenced—and one that Faith foresaw,

Teeming with Life completed in a Son,
Whom the Revealer, in the days that are,
Hath manifested in the Eternal One.

—Almighty Lord! the Universal Heir!
Thy Church hath wandered from thee: dwelt apart,
And of her habitation passing fair

Made to herself a temple, where her heart
Idolatrous adored and deified
The vanities of Lust,—the lies of Art,

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Whose swift degrees the poles of Sense divide,
The Good and Evil that with Knowledge came,
Labour and pain, and peril—taught and tried,

And cleansed with Blood. The sacrificial Flame,
From Heaven, accepted the devoted Life,
Whose Shedding clothed Humanity from Shame,

Forth sent to hold with Nature stubborn strife,
Debarred from touching, by Cherubick fire,
The Tree whose fruitage now is ripe and rife,

That whoso plucks may live. Eternal Sire,
Thy potent Word, out of thy royal Throne,
Leapt down from heaven amidst a land of Ire,

Sworded with thine unfeigned Decree alone,—
And standing up, Avenger unadored,
Filled all the region of that populous zone

With death;—it swept o'er earth, to heaven it soared.
It swooped to hell, and smote her land with fear.
—By Suffering perfect made, by death restored,

Anon, behold, the Blameless Man appear—
Her wrecks are levelled, and her ruin healed.
Each Son of mine is the first Labourer's heir—

He speaks—Winds listen and the billows yield—
He prays—and Angels minister his need,—
His Blessing fattens the renewed field;

Heir of all things—the Woman's only Seed!
—Oh Eve! Strong was my Love as Death, to share
With thee the Curse of that ambitious deed,

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Which did our human nakedness declare—
Stronger his Love who hath atonement made,
And died, that he a body may prepare

Of Glory; so the Bride shall be arrayed,
And for the senselessness of shame she lost,
Be in the marriage garment well displayed.

—Thus triumphs Love, but in the End the most,
The First and Last of Beings. Hence began
The Ages; and his Words, the countless Host

Of Generation: hence the Worlds: hence Man:
Hence Woman; and with woman man partook
Her doom; and great Messiah's grace outran

Transgression, and withstood the Law's rebuke,
And shall redeem, with energy divine,
All to himself, wherefore he all forsook,

And thence into his Father's hand resign.

XIV. THE PATRIARCHS.

While Adam spake, reposed upon his heart
Beloved Abel, who, in the World's prime,
Watched the devoted Flock—thus set apart

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For Sacrifice, when God, from Heaven sublime
Descending, in the cool of day, appointed,
For Sin, Atonement from the birth of Time.

—Then Adam first saw Death, hailed and arointed;
Both Curse and Cure, a refuge for the Soul,
And to redeem the flesh it kills anointed.

In sign whereof, a sapless barkless bole,
Man's body, for whose food all perisheth,
Attired through the mutation of the whole.

—Who would be clothed with Heaven must live by Faith,
As, by the organons of touch, the Mind
Discourses with the World whose life is death—

They, in all elements' corruption, find
Life still regenerated bodily,
Still mortal, every moment recombined.

Thou who for man plantedst the mystick Tree,
Even in the heart of his peculiar sphere,
Hast drunk Death's Vintage thus outpoured for thee!

—So while the Shepherd fed his flock, in fear
Unto the Mystery of Blood he bowed,
Shed for the World ere her foundations were,

Witness of Truth;..and thus his own blood flowed.
For Labour, the great Curse, made Cain as stern
As Earth, fat with his sweat; hence he bestowed

His haughty offering as the meet return
Of one who had well-done, expecting straight
The guerdon of his toil. No man may earn

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The free gift, Life eternal.—Better fate
Was thine, O Seth! who now on that same hill
Reposest, where of old, in placid state,

The Sons of God inhabited, and still
Call on Jehovah's Name, and evermore
Worship the Highest and Invisible—

The while the Children of the Vale adore
The Forms of Life, so lovely, ever new,
And of their passions make them idols store.

—Still shall the Sense the Understanding woo,
Enamoured of its coil, divorced from Reason;
Or Reason, pitying, grow imbruted too,

Eating of the same Tree, though proper treason
To his supremacy, right-absolute,
Without respect to sanctuary or season,

That makes all laws, serves none, nor hears dispute
Before or after; naked, yet unshamed,
Until he tasteth that sciential fruit,

His wants unfelt, and his desires unclaimed.
So by the Law Sin reigned, that Grace might be,
And God's high Will o'er all be known and named.

—But Man unto himself was Deity,
And manifold inventions vainly sought,
To entrench his weakness, and to make him free;

His eyes were opened to his naked lot;
Thanks to the shame which made him feel his need,
The sorrow that could hide and heal it not,

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Until arrived to justify the deed,
To endure the Sorrow, to despise the Shame,
The Virgin's Son, the Woman's only Seed.

—A God unto himself, Man read his Name
In all things, and his Nature multiplied
Among heaven's hosts, and idolized the same,

In sensual selfishness, and wilful pride
But carnal. Hence Rapacity and Lust;
And civil Violence was deified—

Moods of the fleshly mind, for aye-unjust
And cruel, seeking its own good alone,
Unsocial, and unfaithful to its trust;

Yet understanding not aright its own,
Soon sorrowing, if repenting not, in sorrow
That hath repentance none,—and none atone.

—Children of Seth! from whom these mountains borrow
Their patriarchal name—Man's Yesterday
Of rest was your's—and wherefore came the Morrow?

Leisure divine! sweet peace beyond display!
And Man conversed with heaven in vision pure,
And silence, till the flesh dissolved away,

And God was all-in-all. How sweetly sure
Faith aimed at heaven, and Reason walked the skies,
Hope pierced the clouds, and Love abode secure!

Perpetual Sabbath made the Spirit wise,
And Thought o'er Thought piled up, from heaven to heaven
Soared unto God, and solved all mysteries—

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O happy ye—who, of the Curse forgiven,
Held not the plough, nor gloried in the goad,
Nor in the furrows quenched the spirit's leven!

Happy, appointed Ones!—free from the load
Of labour, upon whom the Sabbath-Rest,
Redeemed by God descending, is bestowed!

—Not so the Fratricidal Race, unblest,
Like the wild Ass unclean, untaught, untamed,
Rude Nature's vigour working in their breast,

God's Judgement in their Destiny proclaimed,
Living to labour,—labouring to live,
Hopeless in Death—of Hell and Darkness named.

Inventive Labour! cunning to deceive
Thyself, and skilful to no end but this,
Still to be doing, never to achieve—

What profitest?—though all, to such excess,
Man cannot utter it, be full of thee—
The Eye unsatisfied, the Ear no less—

Sore travail, and the vainest vanity
Ordained to exercise the Sons of Men—
Who getteth Wisdom, where thy trials be?

—Lo, by his Anvil sits the Smith, and when
Pondering his work, the vapours of the fire
Waste his swart flesh—he sighs in his hot den,

Noise in his ears, his eyes, nay—his desire,
Watchful to fashion, polish and complete,
The thing he makes for others to admire.

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Not in the Council shall he have a seat,
Nor such as he—who know not to declare
Justice or Judgement, rude and indiscreet.

—Behold, the Student labours in his sphere
To work out knowledge, yet doth Wisdom miss,
Who comes unforced, or is already there,

Encradled with his infant energies
Whom she makes sacred. Subtle she and pure,
Yet permeating all complicities—

But shall be found in none of these, besure;
Self-resident, or in the Eternal Mind
Her dwelling doth invisibly endure.

—Ask of the Abyss, where ye her place may find?
It crieth, not in me! 'Tis not in me,
Old Ocean saith; as empty is the Wind—

Hid from the Living is her sanctuary,
Hid from the Eyes of Heaven. Yet seek again—
Inquire of Hell and Death—they answer—We

Heard thereof from afar, a rumour vain!
—God set her region, when He weighed the winds,
The lightning winged, and meted land and main.

Seek it of Him, who is the Mind of minds—
Fear God, be wise; shun evil, would ye know:
This Rede who loves, he Understanding finds!

—Why from that heaven-conversing Hill's calm brow,
Oh Sons of God!—permitted, were ye brought,
To look on other Beauty than what now

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Enchants the pure of Soul, thus spirit-caught
To contemplate its Source—whence mixture strange,
Daughters of Labour with the Sons of Thought?

—Wherefore but that the Eternal, in the change
And chance of place and season, may attain
Its perfect time, and universal range;

And, like a Seed, expand itself, and gain
All elements its ministers, and make
Life's food, Life's self,..the sunshine and the rain—

Or like a Spring, subdued awhile, awake
In many rivers from its hidden cell,
And bear back tribute to its parent Lake—

Waters of Life—Fruit incorruptible—
Who eateth of that Tree shall hunger not,
He thirsts no more who drinketh of that Well!

—Seth—Enos—Cainan—Mahalaleel devout,
Jared and Enoch and Methuselah,
Lamech and Noah, crown the Crest about

Of that pure Hill, from Cain to Naamah,—
Who ministered at fountains, firm in faith,
Bitter as Marah, shut as Meribah!

—Ye Patriarchs of a people, who, in the death
Of fear, and fear of Death, with wrath were rife,
And heeded all the heart imagineth—

Yet heavenly visions pierced the veil of life,
And opened up Eternity, and showed
Superior Wisdom reconciling strife,

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And all complete in Him, and re-endowed
With majesty of manhood most divine,
Fulness of Godhead bodily bestowed—

Oh! then the floods might fall, the yeasty brine
Boil o'er, the fountains of the abyss upleap,
Broken, and in mid-air with heaven combine

Ruin,—'till boundless Ocean had the sweep
Of the huge World, save the Ark divine that bore
Her Remnant o'er the universal Deep!

And, when at length that Sea had found a shore,
The Bow of Promise arched appeased heaven,
And earth baptized rose lovelier than before,

From Deluge rescued, and with Man forgiven,
Who worshipped on her bosom; while supreme
God smiled on him whom he had lately riven,

Buried in baptism, dying to redeem.—
And so the Universe itself careers,
Invisibly directed, o'er the stream

Of Time, mysterious Fabrick, with its spheres
Of various Being, Orbits and Degrees,
In storm and calm, hopes manifold and fears

As infinite, winged by thy blast or breeze,
Eternity—surrounding like a sky
Its unintelligible voyages!

Yet, ever as it moves, doth audibly
The hovering spirit o'er thy Deep proclaim,
Will, Action, Law, Order, and Deity!

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—And thou, thou After-World, whose birth outcame
From the tumultuous Waters, canst thou not,
In all thy progresses, attest the same?

—Hear, who hath ears to hear; and Fortune's knot,
Fate's Mystery, unravel and unseal,
Of Man and Men the Destiny and Lot.

The Work and Travail and the strong Appeal
Of Indigence on Industry for aid,
Evoke heroick Power, prophetick Zeal,

Divine Emprise, Endeavour undismayed;
Until the Sum of Generation be
Complete, and the great recompence appaid.

—Meantime on high Resolve, Activity,
And Will judicious, still Success awaits;
Nothing too high, nothing too low for thee,

Suiting thy station, who wouldst govern states,
Win royal greatness, or endiadem
Thy brow with laurel-wreath that antedates

Man's Immortality, or win the gem
Of Independence for thy household hearth,
And 'mong the Citizens be chief of them.

The Work thou workest is a germ whose birth
Is as thyself for others, theirs for thee,
For future time, not this; for heaven, not earth—

Communion stronger than Necessity,
Love 'midst Contention reconciling all,
Not surer Fate, not Providence more free.

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—For thee waked Adam into life. Recall
The great and wise into remembrance; they
Wrought for their race—for thee; the unnamed and small

Wrought for their race—for thee. Thou hailest the day
Of their wished harvest, on the level field
Treadst in the steps where first they ploughed the way.

They have well-done. So to thy Brother yield
Wisdom and Bliss, and for thy seed complete
The noble dome where they surceased to build!

And then died they? die thou, and death defeat;
Perfect the task thou burnedst to fulfil,
In a happier state—thou art eternal yet—

Death ends it not,—it is eternal still.
O'er Nature's wreck and Death's subdued ire,
Hovers at ease th' emancipated Will!

—Who of this Converse,..through the Angelick Quire,
And Spirits made perfect, mingling, as it may,
In three-fold union, the thrice-heavenly fire

With the infernal, and the paler ray
Of earth's more shadowy speech,..the interwoof
Sudden disparts?—how welcome?—Let them say

Whose hymn thus hails the Visitant in proof.

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XV. THE PROPHETS.

“How beautiful upon the Mountains are
The feet of him, who with good tidings comes,
To publish Peace, Salvation to declare;

Who saith to Zion, that her God resumes
His throne, and in the holy City reigns
Almighty! Lo, his Coming far illumes

The Hills, like the young Dawn, that, ere the plains,
Tinges the heights, when, out of deepest night,
The Morning Star the coldest Air constrains

With his peculiar lustre, herald bright,
Lone harbinger of Day, that spreads anon,
In universal majesty of light,

In radiance around heaven and earth upon.
He comes, second Elias sanctified,
With holy hand, to consecrate the One

Who only might endure such rite, and died
Of that redeeming Ordinance, decreed
Ere the Worlds were. By Patience to decide

The Strife of Old,..to suffer and to bleed;..
His Cup who else might drink? His Baptism none
Could be baptized withal; of human seed

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Or of angelick;—sole-begotten Son—
Us for His Advent comest thou to prepare,
Whom in this Orb of Hope thou hast fore-run?”

—Thus spake the Prophet who, in the mid-air,
By whirlwind was translated into heaven,
And dropt his mantle on his pupil heir,—

Who knew therewith his master's spirit given,
And gazed aloft in faith, the while he soared,
Borne with the steeds of fire and car of leven,

To those far gates his eyes in vain explored.
—Whom thus the Baptist answered: “Seers, I stood
Beneath the Towers of Salem, which the horde

Of Darkness covered, silent and subdued,
Until I heard the Watcher on the Wall,
Asked of the Night, return an answer good;—

‘Chariot and Horsemen hasten, and they call
Aloud, and sing a song of Victory
O'er Babylon, and Salem freed from thrall.’

Again they asked—‘What of the Night?’ And he
Replied—‘The Morning cometh—and the Night
Will tarry not.’ Then I arose, and me

The Archangel greeted, with returning light,
The Guardian of the City, Michaël,
With words of comfort equable and right—

‘Say thou, Isaiah, done his mission well,
Here hastes. Soon eye to eye the Lord again
Shall Zion bring—this to the captive tell—

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Let her awake in joy; for o'er the Slain
He hath made bare his righteous arm, in sight
Of all the worlds, and hath redeemed the main!’”

Joy, of these words conceived, dispelled the night,
And in the Patriarchs' souls unveiled the morn;
But chief the Prophets glowed with full delight,

Strong as a god, mature as soon as born
To scotch the serpent's coil. Oh, happy lands,
Where Hope ne'er hopes in vain, and Love is ne'er lovelorn!

And lo, Isaiah now amidst them stands,
Majestically eminent o'er all,
And blesses them with his thanksgiving hands.

Though they so great, he towers heroical,
Though humblest of that holiest company,
Sweet as sublime—So once looked royal Saul;

So looked, but was not what he seemed to be,
Amidst the Children of his Father's land,
The goodliest, loftier than the rest was he.

But fairer Jesse's Son, whom Samuel's hand
King midst his Brethren hallowed and proclaimed.
So Samuel stood above the prophet band,

When the insane Tyrant at the Youth's life aimed,
But, smit at Naioth by the Spirit there,
Quelled at his feet lay naked and ashamed.

Now, as a pupil in his own School here,
Vaileth his reverential forehead low,
Unto the Prophet, the time-hallowed Seer—

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A larger College is endowed now:
A true prophetick University;
The Jewels are made up, or nearly so;

One only they await, to whose broad eye
Shall be disclosed the Vision, that will fill
The Casket up, and seal it sacredly.

—Who through a tear, like dew on Hermon's hill
Pearling a sunbeam, smiles his welcome soft?
A man of woes, and victim of all ill,

On earth—perfected now by suffering—oft
Most blessed of the Blest, wont on the tide
Of tenderness, to exalt the Soul aloft,

Tearful, though nothing sad. Thus ever glide,
On such a stream, pathetick Spirits, swollen
With sympathy, and lovingly allied

To heaven. From its hid sources first was stolen
The flood, which swelled its volume that now blends
With the descending deluge, where-mid rollen,

Met half, assisted half, the Mind transcends
The ocean-chariot that convoyed it high,
And passes,—how none wholly apprehends,—

Into a region of sublimity.
So Jeremiah on a Sea of Grief
Floated his Ark of pensive melody.

—With bolder mien, and shown in strong relief,
Ezekiel, with a brother's strict embrace,
Greeted the grasp of that returned Chief;

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Yet sighing bitterly before his face,
Because the furbished Sword contemned the Rod,
And, for a trial, glowed with its disgrace,

Sanguine with slaughter. Let it rage! For God
Will smite his hands together, and refrain
From fury—but the Vintage must be trod.

To men on earth his was a lovely strain,
Of one who sweetly sang, and deftly played,
But in a foreign land discoursed in vain.

—Oh, Daniel well-beloved! who plainly said
In no strange tongue the things that were to be,
Simple of manners, and of mind unswayed.

Dear is the welcome of simplicity!
How dear is thine, to whom for this was given
The Hope of Nations over all to see!—

—Come forth, ye sacred Band inspired of heaven,
Surround the Prophet silently controled,
And hear how well his embassy has thriven—

Hosea, the zealous; Amos, herdsman bold;
Jonas, type of our theme, and Obadiah,
And Nahum who of Nineveh foretold—

Micah and Habakkuk, and Zephaniah,
Joel, Haggai, and Malachi, who saves
But with a curse; and lofty Zechariah—

Noble your duty—noble he who braves
The stormy World, and guides the Ark devout
In safety o'er the battle-banded waves,

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A glorious Company! which anthem out
Their ministrant service. God; thou biddest now
The stormy wind to clip their whereabout—

They who descend the Sea in Ships avow
Thy wonders in the vasty Deep. 'Tis thine,—
The watery Universe; There standest Thou,

Invisible, omnipotent, divine,
Mirrored in tempest. Foam is lift on high,
And Men ascend to heaven upon the brine,

And sink again into the immensity
Profound; because of fear their troubled souls
Melt and reel drunken in their agony—

And then they cry to thee—thy Power controls
The storm into a calm, and glad are they,
And to their bay desired pleased Ocean rolls.

Him from the womb, and ere he had a way,
Who swathed in cloud? who made the darkness be
His swaddling band? who taught him where to stay?

His destined habitation, Thy decree—
His haughty billows bound—his line allowed—
His limits—even his wrath—defined by Thee!

—Swift would the Prophets know what doth forebode
The Charge they loved?—this, swift as their desire,
Isaiah hath affectionately showed;

—A tale of Awe.—“Earth shakes as scathed with fire,
And three-fold Darkness deep and terrible,
The Universe pervadeth, loosed in ire

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From its strange centre in the hidden Hell—
Still, strong in faith, I persevere and pass
The guarded gates, the captive citadel,—

The Temple reach—the Holiest Place. Alas,
Alas! for Speech is not, and Thought is vain,
And yet the Unimaginable was!

The Veil—the mystick Veil—'tis rent in twain!
And there amidst, amidst the Darkness there,
A bloody Cross of fire, a fiery rain

Of blood, seen but by its own light; elsewhere
Night only, Night at Noon-day; Night foretold
Of every oracle; the Day of Fear,

And of Salvation, waited for of old,
Whose glory dims the Sun, and with excess
Of Light shall blind the Nations. But, behold,

I'th' Evening shall be Light, Light re-express
From East to West, from North to South, and show
The Throne of Heaven, and pierce the Grave's recess.

So high extends that Cross, so far below—
Downward I look, but can not trace its root,
Upward, it soars beyond my ken: and, lo!

On one side, its dread rays obscurely shoot
Into the darkness, and, in the dim light,
Shadows of Slain outglimmer, moveless, mute;

There lies the Mighty,.. but in vain his might,..
And his Companions' graves are multiplied
About him, fallen, fallen, fallen to nether night;

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Weapons of war beneath them and beside,
Chariot and Steed in huge confusion rolled,
Armies of Hell;.. they perished in their pride..

And over them enormous Death, controled
By mightier Power, stands with uplifted hand,
Ghastily dead!—On the other, I behold

The Vision of a half-emerging land,
With Michael, Leader of the Hosts of Heaven,
And the great Chiefs of that heroick band,

Sad,..even to death,..as rooted there and riven,
Like Victors, o'er a falling Universe,
Waiting the wreck where lately they had striven.

Hereat I pray to God, and he who hears
The prayer of faith, upholds my spirit now,
Dispels my doubts, and dissipates my fears;

I plunge undaunted to the Depths below,
I soar to Earth, there hangs the Crucified,
And from his wounds the healing fountains flow;

I soar to Heaven, there hath the Incarnate died—
Behold, his infinite Arms embrace the Skies,
And with his Blood the Stars are purified:

Above the Heavens I rise and rise, and rise,
Led by the Spirit to the Eternal Throne,
Entranced there and slain with mysteries,

Unutterable save by God alone,
Adoring, and absorbed in Deity,
Humbled, consumed, transformed, and not self-known.

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—Eternal Ages might have past o'er me!
At length, awaked..on Earth, beneath the Cross,
And praying 'midst the Darkness veiling thee,

Redeemer! Darkness palpable and gross..
Anon, I saw thy human face divine—
O miracle of Grace! O mighty Loss,

Thus mightily redeemed..but mightier thine!
How great the Gain for Sacrifice so choice,
The Holiest on the most accursed Shrine!

And, from the gloom released, I heard the Voice
Of Man and Woman;..her's whose virgin womb
Conceived the Son!”—Hereat one cried, “Rejoice!”—

And ere the Prophet could his speech resume,
By all that Multitude was sung—“Behold!”
And Numbers without number, who the gloom

Of Death had passed, from ages new and old,
Of every land—all in one voice combine:
—“Behold the holy City doth unfold

In majesty. She doth arise and shine,
As if her Light were come! Behold the Cloud
Of Glory over her, from line to line,

Terrace and Temple, doth descend and shroud!
From the sublime o'ercanopying sky
To her foundations, gloriously endowed

With beauty as a Bride,..of Deity
The Bride. How beautiful in her array
The City of our God, who from on high

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Sheds o'er her walls his everlasting day!
Her golden Streets we shall revisit still,
And in her Temple Sacrifices pay.

—Who shall, oh God! ascend thy holy hill?
Even he whose hands are clean, whose heart is pure,
Faithful of Word, and dutiful of Will.

—Lift up your heads, ye Gates that long endure!
The King of Glory comes victoriously!
Who is the King of Glory? He, besure,

The Lord renowned in battle! This is he!
Lift up your heads, ye Gates! He stands before ye.
Oh, ye æonian Gates! uplifted be,

And make to him wide entrance whom adore ye—
Who is the King ye herald? Who but he
The Lord of Hosts? Who else is King of Glory?”

—Now, by one Spirit moved, that Company
Doth from the mountains to the plain descend;
Multitudes, multitudes, successively,

Successively, increase, and still extend,
All people, and all tongues, along the plain,
Huge continent, yet thronged. As friend with friend,

They walk in order, and degree maintain,
Throughout incalculable multitudes,
Still onward—onward—a majestick train—

'Till they, on either bank of the four floods,
Whose pleasant rivers through the mighty meads,
Flow on, and fertilize far fields and woods,

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Divide in companies, and each proceeds
Along a musical and winding shore,
And follows pensively where'er it leads;

But at the confluence of the Streams, before
The City, where they enter, in one sea,
The Paradise of God, unite once more.

—There, met on either marge, right joyfully
They hail the sacred ramparts, and behold
The Hosts of Heaven again watch over thee,

Celestial City! and thy gates unfold
For ever, yet nought enters to defile,
And Michael hovers o'er thee, as of old.

—So wend they on, not without Song the while.

XVI. THE SOMETIME DISOBEDIENT.

I.1.

The Good die young, yet have not lived in vain;
For Wisdom is the grey hair unto men,
A spotless Life old age: how great their gain!

Beloved of God, oh, most beloved then;
Translated from amidst a sinful race,
Soon perfect, why should they be proved agen?

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So Enoch walked with God, and saw his face,
For God esteems his Chosen, and his Saints
Shall seek and find his mercy and his grace.

The People saw, but held in base restraints,
They understood not, how he will reward
Love that fears not, and Faith that never faints.

I.2.

Ye understood not, or did not regard,
Who from yon Hill of Speculation came,
Patriarch and Sage, with Prophet, Priest and Bard,

Old men and young, by Beauty set-aflame,
From the voluptuous Daughters of the Plain,
Each heart devote on its selected Dame,

Though Lady of the Line of cursed Cain.
Musick and Song delight the Ear..the Eye
Is ravished with the Dance though graceful, vain—

Vain, idle, tempting Lust with Melody
And Motion exquisite, lures for the sense,
Nor fraught with ill if tempered holily.

But oft with these the Hours of Sin commence,
And from her Mount of Vision drag the Soul,
To waste her strength in wanton feculence.

I.3.

Sin grows gigantick; Force, without control,
Usurps the Seat of Justice. Evil thrives
From length of years, and reaches its far goal.

Oh! heaven-born Science! what of thee survives?
Ill only, all the Good is purged away—
Knowledge but from the Visible derives

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The intellectual elements, that may
Inflate, but cannot fatten, whom they feed;
And demon-pride pervades the night and day,

The mystick rite of a corrupted Creed,
Strange divination of strange gods begot,
The accursed Art, the unutterable Deed!

II.1.

Let Age have honour, and a quiet lot,
The hoary head is as a silver crown,
That he is cold of heart who worships not—

Antient of Days! Methuselah is known
To Thee with honour, whom for ten long ages
Wisdom had hallowed, knowledge and renown.

Seers of God, ye half-immortal Sages.
Time, the Truth-utterer, to your patient view,
Of his huge tome expanded all the pages;

Nature her every secret showed to you,
And Heaven had eke revealed its mysteries,
But that Man's heart made evil what it knew.

II.2.

Oh! his Imaginings have fraught the skies,
With lusts abominable; and the Earth
Groans with his guilt, and teems with agonies.

Long Centuries between his death and birth,
Teem with heroick purpose, and rejoice
In its completion with no transient mirth.

Ambition dreams of empire, and the Voice
Of millions, at the end of many times,
Doth hail the Tyrant of their fatal choice

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Pride, Power and Passion, each its zenith climbs,
And rages like the dog-star in the days
Of madness. Love itself, itself sublimes

In the undying heart on which it preys,
And Hate becomes immortal, and fell Ire
With ages grows, and Grief;—yet Death delays.

II.3.

But Age hath no authority. The Sire,
Made feebler with the weight of Centuries,
Shrinks from unfilial vigour. Thou wilt require,

Great Father! the paternal blood that cries
Now from the ground. Yet mercy reigns supreme;
Lo, in yon Ark a ready refuge lies,

For who will seek it. Let the Prophet dream;
They reck not of his warning that foretells
The penal Deluge, weary of the theme.

Yet there the Preacher stands, where Man rebels,
His eloquent arms upraised unto his God,
Who hears in heaven and answers, and impels.

III.1

Heaven! ope thy windows! send the Flood abroad!
Thou Earth, break up thy fountains,..and spurn hence
The proud Oppressor, son of force and fraud!

—The starting Horse, hit by the hail intense
Though small, intensely small, erects his ears,
His mane erects, and smarts in every sense.

With martial pride his arched neck he rears,
His veins with courage tremble while they madden,
His eye returns the lightning while it sears,

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Till the surrounding storms his spirit sadden,
And reeling in the rain and wind and thunder,
He yields the life the hills no longer gladden.

III.2.

Fear, Madness, Blasphemy and wanton Wonder,
A Band of revellers, in open air,
Invoking Hymen, when the rock asunder

Rent, and the Fountain of the Abyss rose there,
'Mid the cleft Cliff upboiling—on one ridge,
Rage perishing, and curses breathe for prayer!

Lo, on the other torn and riven ledge,
Despair, amid his sullen family,
Sits fixed, remediless, though the peak's edge

Might tempt him, if awaked to sense were he,
Plunging into the flood that fulmines near,
To brave his dread and prove his destiny.

But now, exanimate of all but fear,
Fear worse than Death, them howl the Wolves about
Unfeared, for worse than Famine clings them there.

III.3

Long Days and Nights, on that high station, out
Amidst the Ocean, they have sate and watched
Destruction's goings-on, since first the shout

Rose from all people, and all eyes attached
Looked through the gloom up to the sky, wherein
Orb met with orb. How fearfully they clashed,

And rent the heavens! Then Death gat hold of Sin,
And strangled her amidst the waves,..but kills
Her not. Behold no refuge! Earth hath been!

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With multitudes yon ample cavern fills,
Who, from the bursting waters rushing thence,
Meet myriads scaping from the falling Hills!

IV.1

Yea, Earth hath been! and the magnificence
Of Cities was! Of all that they contained,
(After it in the distance aches the sense,)

Yon little Speck is all that hath remained;
God's Angel guides the Ark, and guards it well,
Blessed, albeit on every side constrained—

In its capacious womb a World doth dwell
In safety, creatures of the Earth and Air,
And Man their lord, and Woman, first who fell,

Yet fairest of all things when all were fair;
Them guides God's Angel to their Ararat,
And renovated Earth awaits them there.

IV.2.

Hope cheered them on their way, God's Presence that
Faith quickens in the souls of faithful men,
That moral Courage which the World spurns at,

But which shall conquer in the Trial, when
The Heroes of Earth's vulgar Victories,
Worse Flood shall whelm than rolled o'er giants then.

The living billows, beneath living skies,
Leap o'er their Carcasses, and nothing lives
Between, save that saved Ark, and he who flies,

Yon Raven, in the search of land, that gives
No footing to the Dove who straight returns:
And whom the Ark which sent her forth receives.

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Again go forth, oh Dove! To him who yearns
The Olive-branch she brings! Go forth again!
She comes not back. Lo! Earth! and Man discerns.

IV.3.

Ye by the flood baptized, by Deluge slain—
Come ye to Judgement! lo, the Judge appears!
Where'er ye bide, on mountain or in plain,

Come in your multitudes! foretold by Seers,
Concurrent Prophecy of Paradise,
Dated co-eval with the Eternal Years,

Older than Earth, more ancient than the Skies—
Come Myriads! the Messiah to behold,
The Preacher like to Noah—Rise—arise!

He cometh with his Saints redeemed of old,
The Deeds of the Ungodly to confound,
And everlasting Judgement to unfold!

Hushed be the strain—the ground is holy ground.

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VI. PART THE SIXTH.

THE PREACHING.

184

“In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”

Isaiah liv. 8—10.

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XVII. THE HOLY OF HOLIES.

Moriah! holy hill! ascend by thee
The pure of heart, the clean of hand—before
Thy “Beautiful Gate,” a sainted Company.

Michael the sacred ramparts hovers o'er,
The Angel of God's presence. Thus he cries,
Thus hails the Myriads, friends of God of yore;

—“Zion! that comes with tidings good, arise!
Now get thee up into the mountain high;
Jerusalem! lift up thy voice, thine eyes;

Lift up thy voice with strength, and fearlessly—
‘Behold your God!’—say to the Isles around.”
—Thus from above those Hosts are welcomed by

God's Angel; and beneath perceive, as bound
For distant bourn, four Cherub heralds wait,
And question of them, what? and whence? propound.

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—They, of whom thus was asked, before the gate
Of the blest City stood. Four Chariots they,
Vision whereof doth Iddo's Son relate,

With Steeds, red, black and white, grisled and bay;
The Angel of God's presence spake again;
—“These are the Spirits four who stand alway

Before the Lord, and from between the twain
Of brazen mountains, firm as his decrees,
(Swift Powers of Heaven,) like rushing Winds, amain,

Go forth to do His pleasure. Such are these.
Behold! yon two wend toward the South, and call
Her people forth; that seeks the North to appease

His Spirit there, constrained in wonderous thrall:
But to the Earth these Bay have sought to go;
Get hence, pervade the Earth.” So vanish all.

—And now the assembled Hosts advance, and glow
Into a hymn as they ascend the Hill,
In numbers without number, singing so.

“Glad was I when they said to me, We will
Go up into the Temple of the Lord;
Lo, we shall dwell in Salem.”—Thus, until

They reached the sacred gates, did they record
Their raptures in no mortal verse; then strain
Of higher mood they raised and bolder word—

—“Attired with majesty, the Lord doth reign,
And girt with strength. The World immoveably
Is stablished, and His Throne shall aye remain!

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Thou art for ever! The Floods have lifted high,
O Lord! the Floods have lifted high their voice,
The Floods lift up their billows mightily—

The Lord on high is mightier than the noise
Of many waters, stronger than the seas—
Thy Word is sure—let all the Earth rejoice!”

—Now those innumerable Companies
Of the Diluvian and the After-time,
According to their orders and degrees,

Enter the cloistered space. Men of each clime,
Of every creed, the righteous and the good,
Have entered now the nine-fold Gates sublime.

There in one Court that great Assembly stood,
Inner as outer, for the Wall was not,
That made distinction of belief and blood,

Partition obsolete—a catholick spot!
Advancing thence, they pass the Portico,
A priestly band, and by one spirit taught,

Wherewith inspired and guided on they go,
Nor pause 'till they the Halidom have hailed—
And lo! the Glory of the Holiest! Lo!

The Glory of the Holiest is unveiled!
The Veil, the Veil, by earthquake rent and riven,
To publick view the Holiest is detailed!

Holiest of Sanctuaries, Shadow of Heaven,
Where God is seen in beatifick Vision;
And that on earth of this, whereof was given

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To Moses in the Mount sweet intuition,
Entrancing there the meekest of mankind,
In colloquy divine and dream elysian.

—The Glory! oh, the Glory! All the Mind
Of all the Earth in vain thereon would gaze,
Wherein Messiah is in Mercy shrined,

But that his Mercy tempers the full blaze
Of godlike Majesty, from whose far stream
Recoil the Nations, with immense amaze,

And prostrate fall, adoring the Supreme.
There sate the God-like on his sapphire Throne,
Exalted o'er the sky-crowned Cherubim,

And there-within the ambient Amber shone,
And gloriously the Bow of Promise wove,
About the Son of Man, its blended zone,

Arching the Filial Deity of Love;
Upon the obedient firmanent he trod,
Stretched forth crystalline o'er the heads above

Of fulminating Cherubim, and awed
The People with his Power, whenas they viewed
The perfect Man, the Coeternal God.

Beneath his Coming were the Heavens subdued,
Borne on the wings of Angels, folded now;
The Chariot of their Maker. So they stood.

So also stood the involved Wheels below,
Great fourfold orbs irradiate all with eyes,
And elevated high, terrifick show,

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Up to the dreadful cope that canopies
The Almighty, populous and hovered o'er,
With Seraphim, on flaming ministries.

—But, on the footstool of his Throne before,
With humble heart a contrite Sinner lay,
Adoring him whose blood he witnessed pour,

And from his cross, upon this selfsame day,
His fellow Sufferer for his Saviour owned,
And in that blood washed all his sins away,

And his unrighteousness with faith atoned.
Swathed in the penal robes of sunken shame,
Silent he prayed to Him who sate enthroned—

He pleaded nothing, nor could plead; no claim
Had he for pardon; and the Arch-Enemy
Summed his transgressions and denounced the same.

There, in the Presence of the Lord Most High,
The Adversary stood, and urged his plea,
Disputing yet for Death 'gainst Victory.

—“The Soul that sinneth, it shall die,”—said he—
Thus glozcd the Tempter and Accuser, lies
Founding on Truth, pronounced maliciously.

His tongue was cunning mischief to devise,
And keen of edge for guile's infernal deed,
Satanick craft of vain logomachies.

—“He stood on Sinai, and the chosen seed
Admonished of his Law, in thunder spoken,
And the loud trumpet bade His people heed;

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And Him the lightning-terrours girt, in token
Both Curse and Death should swift pursue and smite
The Man by whom their prescript should be broken.

Is not the Sentence just; and mine, by right,
The power of Death? What hindereth then that I
Resume my own? if Reason rule, not Might.

The violated Laws for Vengeance cry!
If one—then all. Adoring what he stole,
He sacrificed, in fond idolatry,

Thereto his sacred and immortal soul,
Dishonouring his Father in the act,
Slaying the Tree that bore him, branch and bole,

Remorseless Matricide, and with the fact
Charging her cold remains—false witness, worse
Than he who from his Neighbour would detract,

His Mother's teaching who did thus rehearse!
What need of more? all these his crime includes—
His Maker's name who doubts he oft would curse,

His Sabbaths break, and have his lustful moods?
Bring me the Thief who can these faults forego—
'Tis clear he coveted another's goods—

What! was the smoking Mountain but a show?
I stand for Moses, and his written law,
And plead it to the letter. Judge thou so!”

—While Satan pled, in penitential awe,
The Thief breathed fervently his silent prayer,
Heard by his ear whose eye his spirit saw.

191

—“Satan”—replied the Judge—“Why art thou here?
What Sinai claimed did Golgotha fulfil,
And Death even died with the Incarnate there.

For Moses' body why disputest still?
God's word hath double edge, destroys to save,
And makes alive even while it seems to kill.”

Whereat th' Archfiend exclaimed—“Laws then but rave:
But by the Form can we the Spirit know,
But by the Letter they expression have—

If that uncertain be, must be even so
The truth it represents;..for who can see,
The Spirit formless, wordless?..who can show?”

—“Yet,” said the Word eternal, “Truth shall be
Known by the Spirit only, although read
By the dishonest most dishonestly—

The Spirit of the thing interpreted
Is that which doth interpret, they accord—
If that be faithful, error none need dread—

Get thee behind me, Satan! Thus the Lord
Rebukes thee!”—At these words, the Accuser fell,
As lightning flashed from heaven; the Heaven abhorred,

From God's right hand, evanished into Hell.

The penitent thief.

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XVIII. NOAH.

Then to that Brand thus plucked from out the fire,
The Lord spake—“Stand upon thy feet!”—and lo,
The entering Spirit did with life inspire,

And set him on his feet, and, standing so,
The penal swathings of his shame fell down
From off his limbs, which now with glory glow,

Invested with new raiment and a crown,
A mitre fair, on his anointed head;
Angelick garb, and he an angel grown.

—Nor heard they not, those Armies of the Dead,
Who vailed o'erpowered, before that glorious Throne,
Their prostrate brows with reverential dread;

Nor, by the Spirit reanimate, alone
He rose, but the same spirit pervaded wide,
The adoring Nations; thus they arose, as one,

As one man they arose, and magnified
The triumph of redemption. There might be
Patriarch and Prophet, King and Priest descried—

And thee, who saw a World expire, even thee,
Oh Noah, I beheld—encouraged so,
With thine innumerable Company,

193

To hope, though great their wickedness and wo,
Aiming at heaven by means forbid to men,
Odious to Order, whence did deluge flow.

—His lips the Merciful unsealed, and then
He spake and said: “Oh, Lord my God! I kneel
Beneath the Seat of Judgement, now, as when

Of ancient time I prayed, with fervent zeal,
That thou wouldst spare the World, and pretermit
The penal Deluge. Behold, I appeal

To Thee, O Judge of Earth! Have mercy yet
Upon the Sinners whose imaginings
Were evil, and their hearts on evil set.

A World implores—Men tried by Sufferings,
Lured by Temptation into errour's maze,
By length of years, by angel-ministrings.

Oh, speak unto thy Servant! Are the days
Of old forgotten by thee? Shall the Past
Call thee its Saviour, worship thee and praise?”

—Whereto Messiah—“Noah, this thou hast
Spoken for others. For thyself,..I bear
Thee witness, that thy Faith withstood the blast

Of Tempest, and Death's sorrow, and Hell's fear.
Then came thy cry, when the Floods compast thee,
Within his Temple into the Almighty's ear.

—Prisoners of Hope! Heirs of Eternity!
Waiting for the consummate Day when Time
Shall be no more—Why on the past dwell ye?

194

Prisoners of Hope! Look to the goal sublime
Of the expanded Future, and behold
The Flesh redeemed to its immortal prime.

—I am ere the Beginning. Manifold
Creation, of the Father's will, by me
Expressed, in its begotten Order rolled—

Image express of Him whom none may see,
My glory veils and shadows, for behoof
Of all his Creatures, his great Deity:

Whereof ye are partakers, though aloof
It dwell from you, ye in its light do dwell,
Sun of the Soul—a pattern and a proof.

—The Father sitteth inaccessible,
To eye or ear. In me his plentitude
Abides—his only Son from whom ye well,

Rays of that Radiance wherein may be viewed
His Glory only. I his Brightness am,
His Word in whom he sole is understood.

I am th' Eternal, ye of me forth came,
The Second Adam, ere the First am I,
Saviour of every Age and Clime the same.

God of the Dead and Living,..born to die,
Dying to live, and rising to redeem,
Suffering..rejoicing, with Humanity,

Made of my Substance, with its quickening stream
Nourished, replenished with the Blood devote
For aye upon the Shrine of the Supreme—

195

Perpetual Sacrifice. For not without
Expense of Godhead may Creation be,
Much less Redemption of the Creature wrought.

Such His great Will, the inscrutable Decree,
Which I delight to do; Obedience pure,
Free to submit, when most submiss most free.

—Ye live but in my Life, with me endure,
But die not in my Death, who, once for all,
Died, and your Sufferings are mine, besure!

Members are ye of mine Incarnate Thrall,
I feel the pains of your Mortality,
Temptation, and infirmity, and fall;

Each feels its own. I sympathize, even I,
With all—all human Suffering, of mine
A partial echo, meant to purify

And perfect Souls till they become divine.
Earth's Griefs touch me in Heaven. My Spirit pleads
With groans unutterable, Man, for thine.

—Art born to trouble and to travail?..bleeds
Thy heart with the affliction of the strife,
That good and evil in thine embryo breeds,

And makes contention of thy future life,
Between the Flesh and Spirit, whose great war
In childhood and in age alike is rife,

Strongest in the most powerful, whom the star
Of their nativity directs to rule,
In arts or arms, the nations from afar?

196

Do Climes and Times, the madness of the Fool,
The wrath of the Unskilful—the Proud's scorn,
The wisdom of the World, the Porch, the School,

Oppose the purpose wherefore thou art born,
And with thy Blood compel thee to baptize
The teeming age in its prophetick morn?

—So Suffered I, in all thine agonies
Partaker; for it so behoved that I
Should feel the sense of thine infirmities;

So it became the filial Deity,
Creation's God, and yet Creation's heir,
The Ways of God to Men to justify.

My Father chastens whom He loves most dear,
Not for His pleasure, but to exercise
The Chastened for his profit, in severe

Affliction, teaching patience, making wise,
And bringing peace to the obedient Soul,
Whom out of suffering He glorifies.

Albeit a Son, me only such control
Obedience taught unto His perfect will,
And my reward awaits me at the goal.

A regal fortune fitted to fulfil,
A little lower than the Angels made,
Yet crowned with honour and with glory still—

For, by the Power of my Word, were laid
The bases of the Universe, wherein
I, as in me the Father, am pourtrayed.

197

The Mountains as my righteousness have been,
But not so stedfast; and the great Abyss
As my decree, whose depth may not be seen,

My Judgement more unfathomable is:
Ere my Voice thunders, lo, the Lightning flies,
My Fiat swifter executes than this.

Thus, Adam, thou beheldst in Paradise
The present God, and felt him in all things;
But most in thine inherent energies,

The heart's expansion and the spirit's wings,
The plastick power of Thought and of Desire,
Delight and Sorrow, Sin and Sufferings,

Knowledge and Death, whose supernatural fire
Kindled and killed, that ye might be redeemed,
And after a far better life aspire.

—Therefore Law was, Earth might be less esteemed,
And Imperfection become manifest,
And Nature checked, however good it seemed,

Not wholly good, and Will evolved, when best
Man's Freedom might be chartered, tried and proved,
And Life revealed, and Charity possest.

For dear to God, as I his Son beloved,
The Freedom of the Soul, the Will, supreme
O'er Law, and Love fulfilling what behoved—

This is the Mystery whereof all misdeem
On Earth, but ye are taught by Death and Time
The Truth and Meaning of the immortal Theme.

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Through Faith on earth Man holds a Life sublime,
And in the Past and Future, as he lists,
Expatiates and confers with every clime—

Through Faith he knows whereby the frame subsists
Of the expanded Universe, by whom
Created, and whereto it yet exists,

A Stranger and a Pilgrim,..till the tomb
Open the way to the celestial land
Where God prepares a City, as a womb—

So hopeful o'er the Grave the Faithful stand,
Wherein their Brethren in the dust repose,
Grasped in the Father's Omnipresent hand—

The Grave the Gate of Hope, whereof none knows
Save he who passes inward. There with earth
Earth mingles, changes and more perfect grows,

Sown as a seed, that dieth to have birth
More glorious, meet for spirit to indwell,
Perfect in Love, and consummate in worth—

A spiritual body,..capable
Of large performance, destined to aspire,
All will and purpose to accomplish well.

Witness the Body, which the Eternal Sire
Prepared for me, who came to do his Will,
Left in the tomb. But thence shall I require

It back, won from corruption, and fulfil
Redemption, captive lead Captivity,
And gifts receive for you..for all—until

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The Kingdom cometh. So in hope wait ye.
—Lo, I am with you ever; and to you
The Gospel now is preached, that ye may be

Adjudged in righteousness, according to
Men in the flesh, but in the spirit live
According unto God. This hear, and do.

—What I receive, that unto you I give.”

XIX. THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.

Thus spake Messiah from his skiey throne
To that innumerable Company,
I'th' presence of the Angels, who thereon

Divinely ministered. Down from on high,
Within the circle of the Rainbow, they
Rejoiced, and clapped their wings triumphantly.

Joy was in all their motions; their array
Was glorious; to and fro, with gladsome speed,
They did their messages of love convey.

Like Transports kindled all. Now hear and heed,
What next I saw. Behold, Melchizedek!
And he who for himself and for his seed

Paid tithes to him, and he who thus bespake
His pious Father: “But where is the Lamb
For sacrifice?”—his dignity partake.

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Humbly with Isaac and with Abraham,
The eternal Priest bowed down in silent prayer.
Messiah thus—“Ere Abraham was, I am!

And thou, thou Priest of Salem, who while-ere
Greeted the Faithful from his Victory
With sacramental blessing;..thou wert heir

Of th' everlasting Order and Decree,
Whence Bread from heaven,..angelick food for man,..
And Life divine outpoured in Blood. With thee

That sacramental Ordinance began,
Accomplished now. Be thou a Priest for ever;
I swear, nor shall repent. I will—I can—

After thine Order rule, and it shall never,
In righteousness and peace, surcease to hold
Sway and dominion when and wheresoever.

So sware I unto Abraham of old,
Sware by myself, that from his barren eld
Should issue generations manifold;

Heirs of his faith, the promise that it held,
The City truly based, divinely built,
Whereof unto his seed was oracled—

I will have mercy on unrighteous guilt,
And not remember Sin,—but multiply
Thy Seed, O Abraham! For whom thou wilt,

I will inscribe upon their hearts, even I,
My Laws, and write them in their minds, and they
Shall be my people everlastingly,

201

And I will be their God for ever and for aye.”
—Then Abraham rose, and by the Spirit moved,
Thus reverently answered.—“Lord, alway,

That thou art gracious I have well approved!
To my dead body thou didst raise an heir,
And from the dead restore my Son beloved—

And, lo, not of my flesh, thou dost uprear
Children to me, and of my bosom name
The Paradise whereto thou dost appear.

More numerous than the stars, which do proclaim
The glory of thy power unto all lands,
Behold, the peoples that of me became,

Hebrew and Greek, the Bond and Free. My hands
Present their acceptable offerings.
Whoe'er loves mercy, whoe'er understands

Thee present in all time and place, and brings
His heart a holocaust, or unto thee
Doth sacrifice a tear;..oh, for these things,

Receive the Penitent, and let him be
Adopted, and from Sin and Death redeemed!
But chief for him pray I—who barbarously

Wanders the Wild untutored, yet hath dreamed
Of mightier power than Nature, when he sought
To read her volume, that with marvels teemed,

But, uninterpreted and he untaught,
Astonished and o'erwhelmed the excited Soul
With Fear, and unintelligible Thought!

202

Unseal for him the Mystery, control
The Chaos of his mind, and on his heart
Of thy great Love and Bounty pour the whole—

Unto his Spirit all thy Grace impart!
Was not all Earth baptized on which Man trod?
Oh! is not thine its universal Chart?

What, though blind Ignorance, misdeem of God,
Or poisonous Nurture misdirect the Mind—
Be thou not wroth, nor, with an iron rod,

Take Vengeance—but have mercy on mankind!
Thou laugh'st in heaven—thou laughest in thy love,
And thou for Man hast righteously designed,

Thy tender Mercies all thy Works above!”—
—He spake and there was silence. Every eye
Was on Messiah fixed—if he approve,

Then all is well. Divine Benignity
Made radiant his celestial Countenance,
So shone abroad that Frequence gloriously.

“My way is in the Darkness. I advance
Upon the wings of Tempest, and in Cloud
Descend, with Terrours compast, and entrance

The souls of men with Awe. My voice aloud
Walks in the Thunder, but its dreadful tone
Hath Blessing to the Universe avowed.

Health and Fecundity from out my Throne
Go forth to Earth; and Peace to Man—I bruise
To heal again—and break to reatone.

203

I judge among the Mighty, who refuse
Justice unto the needy; I preside
Over the Gods, the nations who abuse;

And they shall mine inheritance abide—
Behold, they do my work—prepare my way—
But they shall perish—Man be justified.

For ever, since Creation's primal day,
My Spirit hath been present every where,
Brooding o'er Chaos with Omnifick Sway—

Educing Order, luculent and clear,
From the imperfect growth of human Mind,
Whose manhood shall like deity appear,

Image of God, and righteously defined—
Then shall my head its golden Crown assume,
Then shall I reap the Harvest of Mankind—

Earth shall be fully ripe, her Vineyard bloom
Maturely beautiful. But He shall thrust
His Sickle in her Vine, and gather from

Its clusters the dissolving grapes; which must
Be trodden in the Winepress, and with blood
Appease the Wrath of the divinely Just.

Then shall by you my Voice be understood,
Prisoners, go forth!—and ye shall reign with me,
(Earth rebaptized, but with a fiery flood,)

In Judgement o'er the angels.—Verily,
The Grave shall throughly heave like to a womb,
And, from her Chambers, hasten to set free

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Her captive Spirits, when her hour be come!”
—Thus spake Messiah, seated royally
Between the Cherubim, who now assume

His praise in Song, resounding like the Sea,
Saying, “Holy—holy—holy—Omnipotent,
Worthy, who wast, and art, and art to be!”—

—And now, upon their wings, that Firmament
Is lifted up, and, with the mighty motion,
Is heard a noise of musical concent,

As of great waters in the myriad ocean,
As of the winds that strive upon the wave—
The voice of speech, in praise and in devotion,

Majestick as his Word—a choral stave;
Hymned to the Lord of Hosts upon his throne,
From universal Being, solemn, grave.

—The Son of Man, they sing—who sought his own,
The King..whose throne is Heaven, whose footstool Earth,
The Priest..who shed the blood that shall atone,

The God..that was made flesh—the blessed birth,
The happy bridal of the earth and sky!
—And, ever as they sang their holy mirth,

Their wings were spread for flight, and now on high
They bear the enthroned One, and, as they go,
Behold, the fourfold wheels which stood thereby,

Orb within orb, in harmony also,
By the same Mind inspired, remove forth right
Rapt on a whirlwind's wing. The Temple,—lo!

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Expands in its dimensions, as the sight
Conceives its majesty, increasing still,
Interminably opened. Sheeted Light

Reveals Infinitude, and Thunders fill
The space, with Voices multitudinous,
Proceeding from that Throne ineffable,

Which now, from off the Seat of Mercy thus,
Borne on the wings of hymning Cherubim,
Afar, into the Void diaphanous,

Careers, o'ercanopied with Seraphim,
Charioting their Creator, who forth goes
With thousands and ten thousands tending him,

Numberless numbers,..sainted ones. There flows
Still inward—inward still—that following Tide
Of peoples, where Messiah leads,..and glows

With hallelujahs and with multiplied
Hosannas:—Inward, in the distance, they
Host after and around the Deified,

Afar..afar..until they stretch away
Beyond my ken; for to the Precipice
Do they arrive, in orderly array,

Which hangs o'er Hell. Down, down, into the Abyss,
Sustained by power supernal, they descend,
The Co-Assessors, and the Witnesses,

Of Judgement whereon Angel-dooms suspend.

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XX. THE GODS.

I.1.

He rides upon the Cherubim, among
The Gods, supreme; in orbs concentrick roll
The Worlds beneath his feet, not without song.

One Law, one Spirit, one pervading Soul,
Guides, rules, and animates, in each and all,
And the same God is present to the whole,

Infinite and Eternal. He shall call,
And Time shall answer, and the unflying hours
Rest, like the stars in their ethereal hall,

In fellowship together; and all Powers,
All Energies, of Nature and of Man,
To him yield their dominion..heavenly dowers.

I.2.

Sun of all Souls! of whom reflection wan,
Thy universal Church shines like the Moon,
Irradiate with thy Glory. Whence began

Truth but in thee? And thou shalt clothe her soon,
She who in the beginning of thy way
Thou didst possess, with everlasting noon—

She who rejoiced before thee, ere the day
Of thy Earth's founding, and took after-joy
Within its habitable parts to play

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Delightedly with Men—Oh! Wisdom coy,
Whose Tree of Life the Cherubim ensphered
From touch profane, commissioned to destroy.

Thou wert the Daughter of his Voice, prepared
Before the depths, or ere the fountains flowed;
Thou wert his Sister, and his pleasures shared,

When he the heavens gloriously endowed,
And set a compass on the darkling face
Of the Profound, and its due limits showed;

Thou wert his Bride, enthroned in pride of place,
On Earth; Thou art his mother, seated high
Above the Moon, star-crowned, in virgin grace;

Oh, Wisdom—one in all, unchangeably,
And one with him, whose glory covers thee,
As with a garment, sun-clad, in the sky.

II.1.

Hosanna! Sun of Righteousness!..for she
Is radiant with thy glory, in all ages,
Among all people. Mutability

Rolls underneath her feet; to Seers and Sages,
Hast thou appeared in vision and in dream,
Whereof bear record their prophetick pages,

Who in all Forms and Symbols told the theme,
To those whose hearts within them, like their own,
Glowed and expanded, with the truth supreme.

Truth dwells sublime, immutable, alone;—
One..manifold..entire: but Souls embrute
Bow to the Image meant to make her known.

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II.2.

Earth hath of thee had glimpses, shaped to suit
The contemplative Spirit, suffering
From occultation of the Absolute,

The shadow of the spiritual thing
That, passing, veils the Truth. Let it pass on!
Shine forth, O Sun! the universal King,

Intelligible God. Thy stedfast Throne
For ever is, immovable, and Earth
Light from thine aspect borrows, and, anon,

In constant revolution, giveth birth
To darkness, not forsaken; for the Moon
And Stars reflect thy glory faintly forth,

In Night, most holy Night, in whose high Noon
Majestick Heaven itself alone reveals
To Faith,..a starry spell,..a visible tune,..

Until thy Reappearing opes the seals
Of the mysterious Tome, and supersedes
Their borrowed Lights,..their spirit-motived wheels.

Yet are they Gods!—how happy he who reads
Their office rightly;—Oracles Earth hears
In visionary slumber, hears and heeds;

The Deities of Darkness, on the spheres
Enthroned; Angels of Night, whose choral gleams
Echo the Word unto the Worlds He cheers.

III.1.

He judges 'mong the Gods of whom misdeems
Idolatrous Earth, reposing on the lap
Of Nature, lost in maze of errant dreams,

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Threading in vain the universal map,
The Archetypal Image to discern,
And finding none to stand within the gap.

First-born of Creatures, Fountain from whose urn
The floods of Being flow. Unformed, unseen,
Unchanged, art thou; Creator sempitern,

The Mediator God and Man between—
Around a greater than Apollo throng
The Lights of Life, immortal and serene!

III.2.

Bel boweth down and Nebo stoopeth; Song
Is silent, Art is shamed, and Nature hushed,
Before thy coming, Lord of Lords! Along

The Shores of Nile, upon his throne hath blushed
The Demiurgick Mind through the obscure
Of his dark aspect, Emeph. He hath crushed

The sceptre in his girdled hand impure,
And vailed the princely plume upon his head;
Nor vaunts his word a world. No more,..besure—

Mythras maintains long Conflict, while his dread
And everlasting Sire reposes, 'till
The times of strife are all accomplished.

Jupiter, in his winged Chariot, still
Stands, and adores a greater Guide than he;
And Neptune, Son of Sorrow, wise of will,

Whence Seas have motions and sweet harmony,
Yields his dominion to a greater power:
And Pluto hails aloud the Deity

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Who shall from Hell deliver and restore
The Souls detained by Love and by Desire,
Prepared for perfect Bliss. Let Mars adore,

Behold a greater Victor. God of Fire!
Who fell like Lucifer from heaven, behold
The Gatherer of the Just; Son of the Sire!

IV.1.

Hosannas, hallelujahs manifold
To the Messiah! Let all Gods bow down
Before him. Lo! he cometh, all-extolled;

Hosanna, the Creator cometh! Crown
Him King,..him God! The King of kings,..the God
Of Gods—the knowing-all, the all-unknown—

The Warrior, and the Victor—whose abode
Is in the Heaven, whose sway is on the Sea,
Whose judgements are in Hell for ever showed—

His heel is bruised. Who bruised it, where is he?
Deeper into the Abyss of Darkness driven,
The Adversary flees from dread of Thee!

IV.2.

Hail, Realms of Darkness! for to you is given
Death, and the Power of Death! Hail, Darkness, hail!
Hail, central Darkness! utter and unriven,

Serried, compact, intense; beyond the pale
Of Life. The Lord of Life—the Lord of Light,
Even in thy deepest pit of saddest bale,

Is present aye, invisible in night,
In non-existence all impalpable,
Shining in darkness, breathing in despite.

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But thou shalt see and feel, Abyss of Hell!
His coming whom we herald. Hast thou hied
Into thy Centre inaccessible?—

But not to him who made thee, deep and wide
Thy firm foundations cast, and, based on thee,
His Universe of Mercy edified.

Thou broodest o'er the Formless Void. But He
Calls Light into existence, from the womb
Of hidden being. Earth appears—and she,

The indefatigable Mother, from the gloom
Emerged irradiate, rolls amidst the Day,
A solitary Orb, till Night resume

Dominion. She revolves—alternate they.
Darkness retires, above, beneath, around,
(Its immaterial Centre,) far away—

Then forth reissues, from its chains unbound.

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VII. PART THE SEVENTH.

THE JUDGEMENT.

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“Tophet is ordained of old: yea, for the King it is prepared: he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.” Isaiah xxx. 33.

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XXI. SATAN.

The Depth of Hell! the immaterial Centre
Of Darkness! Borne on wings cherubick, see,
Leading the Hosts of Heaven, Messiah enter!

—A Universe of Darkness! horribly
Built like a wall, profound, sublime, immense—
Chaotick verge, Creation's boundary—

Real as Life..as very Death intense..
And here they dwell together. Life in Death,
And Light in Darkness, but without the sense

To comprehend Light's radiance or Life's breath.
No Eye, no Ear, no Mind. But Silence sits
Gibbering to Night what Desolation saith.

Unutterable mysteries, if fits
No tongue of Angel or of Man to tell,
Too high for great, too mean for little wits.

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—Will without Power, the Element of Hell,
Abortive all its acts returning still
Upon itself;..oh! anguish terrible!

Meet guerdon of Self-Love, its proper ill!
Malice would scowl upon the foe he fears,
And he with lip of scorn would seek to kill;

But neither sees the other, neither hears—
For Darkness each in his own Dungeon bars,
Lust pines for dearth, and Grief drinks its own tears—

Each in his Solitude apart. Hate wars
Against himself, and feeds upon his chain,
Whose iron penetrates the Soul it scars.

A dreadful solitude each mind insane,
Each its own place, its prison all alone,
And finds no sympathy to soften pain.

—Within..within the Abyss, the Eternal Son,
High in his living Chariot, with his Hosts
Of Earth and Heaven, royally rides on—

Rides royally amidst the Land of Ghosts,
Amidst the Land of Ghosts rides royally,
And with his Armies overflows Hell's coasts.

The Light of Life pervades the obscurity
Of Death, and Darkness from before his face
Recedes, and Hell reveals her mystery.

There in her deepest Centre, cursed place,
The Throne of Hell, the vacant Throne of Hell;
And, at its footstool, prostrate in disgrace,

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That Centaur-Wraith, there lying where he fell,
Vaunting of Victory o'er his Vanquisher,
Death and his Horse lie conquered. There, as well,

Lies Sin, conceived of Lust; (Death born of her:)
The Mother by her Son, while listening,
With gratulation, to the Triumpher—

Smitten as he was smitten.—Where their King?
Where he whose seat is vacant, who from hence
Sublime, ruled Earth by demon ministring?

Oh! he has found a centre more intense,
In his own being a far deeper hell;
Whereof this Hell's but the Circumference,

In terrour hidden, inaccessible.
But, lo, the Omnipresent Word, that spake
Him into being, from his being's well

Evoked him now,—“Satan, come forth!”—and brake
The charm in which he trusted: and, behold,
He rose majestick from the fiery lake,

Which did beneath that Throne itself unfold,
Unfathomable depth; and, upward borne,
Within a cloudy chariot inter-rolled,

Appeared. That quenched Star! the Star of Morn,
Fallen from its place in heaven, yet still the Star
Of Morning, beauteous, though of glory shorn;

Beautiful, but not lovely. Not the Scar,
'Twas not the Scar of Thunder on his brow,
That made him loveless, but the Pride of War.

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Indomitable pride, no overthrow
Could quell, no might subdue, no right convince,
Revenge and Hate's insatiable glow.

These are of Hell, befitting Hell's high prince,
Not loveable nor lovely. But, from Heaven
Derived, his beauty springs, unalien since,

Whence strength and vigour to his guilt are given,
Greatness of soul, and energy of will,
Resolve majestick, column yet unriven,

With valorous virtue, calm, sedate and still;
Royal investments, worthy of Man's foe,
And God's Arch-angel though depraved to ill.

—Unhumbled, though abashed, he stood; and, lo,
Before the Judge upreared his crest erect,
Undaunted, and addressed Messiah so—

—“Hell's Majesty obeys the Son elect
Of the Eternal Universal Sire—
Then wherefore thine alone? or of thy sect?

Lo, I appeal from thee to Him, whose fire
Consumes and purifies..(and why not me?)..
And my reward for services require,

Demand my guerdon of his equity!
Where is Sin's strength, but in the Law? Death's sting
But in Sin's being? And am I not he

Who am of Death the Power and the King?
For whose sake wreak I vengeance? for mine own?
They wrong not me..I want no worshipping!

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I do His work..a rebel to His throne,
For why? because I deign not to confess
An Equal my superior. God alone

Who made me what I am, nor more nor less,
Him I adore the Invisible,..not thee,
The visible Intelligence express,

The Mediator to the Creatures. He,
When hath he spoken? Him would I believe;
But Laws by thee repeated, I am free

To obey or disobey, reject, receive,
Even as it likes me. Faith is for the slave!
Free souls will know, endeavour and achieve.

Was I created? Then, He made me brave,
He made me amorous of liberty,
Ambitious, independent, wise and grave;

Not easily subdued, a spirit free,
Having dominion and a throne ungiven..
Then why to aught begotten bow the knee?

Erred I in this? and hence hath Evil thriven?
What fault is mine? He made me what I am,
And can unmake—if yet He reign in heaven!

I plead my nature, godlike; and my name,
Glorious: His fiat made it such, His hand
Wrought all its springs, and predisposed its frame.

Then wherefore should I suffer? His command
Impressed upon my being I obey,
Edicts I feel, decrees I understand.

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Thy yoke is foreign, tyrannous the sway
Whereto our nature is repugnant. Force
May conquer, but subdue it never may.

Then why my suffering? and what its source?
What crime to be like God, if he be good?
And that sought I by reason, and discourse,

By might asserted, and in battle wooed..
If God be Love, would not his Love attract
All creatures to himself, well understood?

Oh! my desires were lofty as mine act,
Supernal, still ascending to attain
The highest point of glory: to transact

With the Invisible, above the train
Of Seraph and Archangel, ministries
Sublime and great; vain aspiration, vain!

Father of Spirits! mine angelick eyes
Pined to behold thee, and mine ears to hear,
Impatient of eternal mysteries—

I rushed into the Holiest! What found there?
No God of Love, but a consuming fire,
Wrath terrible, and Vengeance most severe!

No witness of his Love, but of his Ire,
I look in vain the evidence to find
Of the far-bruited mercy of thy Sire.

His Justice may have proof—yet the stung Mind
Doubts of the Justice, that gave being to
Creatures, for Death and Misery designed,

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Transitive or enduring—made to do,
And suffer wrong, the populace of hell,
Who sought but to become as one of you—

Demons and men; and fell..even as I fell!”

XXII. MESSIAH.

He spake. Right royally, serenely bright,
High in his winged Chariot, paved with love,
Life its foundation, and its pillars light,

Peace for its canopy o'er arched above,
Messiah patient heard the insensate plea,
Wherewith the Arch-apostate wrathful strove.

—“Satan,”—thus spake the Judge,—“ere asked of thee,
On the thick bosses of my buckler thou
Hurlst thy defence of ire, impetuously.

Thou knowest not the Father, but I know.
Thou hast not been his Counsellor. To thee,
Say, when to thee did he his secrets show?

Where wert thou when he spake, begetting me,
His Word, and breathed his Spirit infinite
Through the far echoes of Eternity?

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Life, from his Love derived, rejoiced in Light,
Unfathomable Love, exceeding Grace,
Eternal, equitable, just and right.

Heardst thou, when, in our everlasting place,
We sware we would in covenant combine,
That Heaven and Earth should be, and Time and Space?—

Sawst thou the being that gave birth to thine,
Heardst thou the voice that called thee, ere thou wert,
And thou becamest..a God! with power divine?

Thou wert decreed to be..for thy desert?
Ere thou hadst being merit could be none;
Only the Father's Bounty, ne'er inert,

Willed thine existence. Arch-angelick One,
Thou stoodst before us, image of our mind,
How beautiful, an uneclipsed Sun;

Rejoicing in thy being, well-combined
Of glorious energies, to love, to will;
Action and Thought, for blessedness designed.

Then saidst thou, that thou wert created ill?
Made out of hate, wrath's subject, and God's foe?
Nay, but his law exultedst to fulfil—

Only perceived, not heard nor seen. For lo,
Within the bosom of the Father, I
Remained invisible, and thou wert so

The Son of Morn, Image of Deity,
Prime of Heaven's commonwealth, yet unrevealed
Her monarchy, and His supremacy—

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Only the Spirit each celestial field
Pervaded yet, a moving presence, felt
Throughout all being,..homage wont to yield,—

That your wide range of freedom nought might belt
Within Eternity, and each might rear
The individual Being, freely dealt.

Thus ordered the Paternal Love, for ne'er
Might one have seen his Glory, and remained
With Life within himself, but mingled there,

In his perfection lost, absorbed, constrained.
Such was his Will, that Will might grow in you
To perfect growth, and Difference be maintained.

And ye were gods, capacious spirits, who
Waxed strong in excellence, and stood alone,
And your desires in independence grew,

Creative of a beauty of their own,
And loving what they made and well-beloved—
Till to the height of Self-perfection grown.

Gods were ye, each one to himself approved,
Divinest, swayed by no intelligence
Superior, wisest, mightiest, self-emoved.

Each rested in his own magnificence
Incapable of brighter, till the Sire
Made manifest a higher excellence—

Whose Glory had outblazed resistless fire,
That had extinguished arch-angelick Thrones,
And Love Almighty more consumed than Ire,

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But that His Goodness veiled it with His Son's,
In visible dominion, suddenly
Revealed, in presence of the heavenly Ones.

I will declare again the true decree—
‘To me hath said Jehovah; Lo—thou art
My Son—this day have I begotten thee’—

Heaven gazed upon the Glory; its great heart
Burst forth in hallellujahs; and, with song
Vocal, each harp in jubilee bore part.

And virtuous Spirits, with admiration strong,
Adored, and, in devout humility,
The Eternal Father blest, who, them among,

Had graciously his Glory set on high
Before his Creatures; that they might improve
Their natures to the standard, endlessly,

Of infinite perfection, throned above—
And such their aim, within whose spirit Law
Discovered no repugnance. Such his Love.

Thou standest self-condemned whom no awe
Checked, but Ambition prompted to aspire
Beyond all glory that all Creatures saw;

Whom imperfection stung with envious ire
Of that perfection which deserved esteem;
(Of glory without goodness vain desire:

Pride self-sufficient, Vanity extreme!)
Law proved thy Love defective—Faith, unsound—
Will, rebel to the voice of the Supreme.

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Thou hast set God's Word at nought, and Vengeance found
And Wrath, not in the Father but in thee,
Consumed of thine own Fury. Look around!

Thy Place is of thy Spirit!”—“Let it be!”
Impatient of reproof, thus Satan said—
“It is as I—but who created me?

His is the Wrath and Fury, who hath made
The Vessel for them. So he loves not me—
Nor these who dwell with me in this thick shade—

He is not love to all—if love to thee!”
—To whom replied Messiah.—”Even in this
The Father's Love is proved, though terribly—

His Love—how very terrible it is—
Even to the righteous, to the Sinner more!
Thy wrath is imperfection. Not so His.

Thou hatest the height whereto thou canst not soar—
He pities improgression, and descent,
And would by pain admonish and restore.

Love has no fears—no motive to repent—
Thou tremblest if persuaded to believe—
And vain remorse is thy void element.

He in the depths of hell doth thee perceive,
And contemplates with Love, as, in the height
Of Heaven, the Archangels, whom no lapse makes grieve,

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And who in unfallen blessedness delight.”
—Then Satan—“Why not I unfallen? but He
Made me defectible—a Son of Spite!”

Whereto Messiah—“Nay—He made thee free!
Else thou wert not a Spirit, nor He were
Of such the Father. He created thee

Able to stand and free to fall. Severe
The Truth I speak, but wholesome to the soul.
Both thou and Man were free, each in his sphere

Perfect, but capable of higher goal
Through your obedience. Other bond have I
None with the Father, but Obedience whole.

The Son returns through all Eternity
Entire obedience to the Father's will
Inscrutable, devout and filially—

Relying on his Love, that shall fulfil
All gracious purposes—and so became
The Mediator to all creatures, till

God shall be all-in-all. Man chose his aim,
Warned of the peril, and through death and doubt,
Labour, and strife, and sin, pursued the same,

And works with trembling his salvation out,
That God may willingly be served, when he
Becomes as God in knowledge wise, devout.

Son of the Morn; Man was well taught of thee
Knowledge of evil for his greater good,
To manifest God's love supernally—

227

Taught what thyself but little understood,
A bitter lesson for his after gain—
Experience hard, and Sin redeemed with blood.

—My heel thou woundedst. Men cried out in pain,
The Sons of Labour murmured as they toiled,
Like Captives galled with an ignoble chain.

But on thy head the Vengeance hath recoiled—
For Law was given but to this end, that they
Should conquer in my right, and be assoiled

Of thy temptation, and, from day to day,
Advance from dawn to noon, from Law to Love;
Itself a Law unto itself alway;

And in its light, in earth and heaven above,
And hell beneath, and over the wide seas,
Behold that Love reflected, and approve

The Wisdom of obedience. Lo, in these
Thy power shall be broken, and without
Creation be cast forth its Carcases,

Whereon my Saints shall look, and, with a shout
Triumphant, o'er the mighty Slain rejoice.
—Who God reproves must answer! Who shall doubt?

Behold my Deed is witness to my Voice.”

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XXIII. THE MIRACLE.

Within his Soul the Adversary felt
The Fiat of Omnipotence, and shrank
Into himself with fear. Fain would he melt

Into original Nothing. Down he sank,
He fell; and with him fell, with hideous crash,
His throne tyrannick, which Oblivion drank.

Wide Hell yawned as a grave, and did forth flash
Horrible lightning thunderously outrolled,
And took them in, closed with a sudden clash.

Over them passed the hymning Orbs. Behold!
The Chariot of his Love past o'er them there,
The living Chariot of Cherubick mould—

And where it moved, demolished. Disappear
Hell's waste dominions, and an Eden blooms—
The Flowers of Paradise their blossoms bear

In that ungenial clime; wreaths on the tombs
Of myriads. Still the Omnifick Word careers,
The Light of Life through those ancestral glooms

Chaotick penetrates, to other spheres
Darkness dispels. Sin, and the Centaur Death
Went down with Satan; lo, his Hosts and Peers

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Fall prostrate conquered by Messiah's breath,
Slain by the Sword proceeding from his mouth—
Deep-buried in the Abyss, Hell perisheth.

—Meanwhile was sung—“First-born of Egypt's Youth!
How are ye fallen! From th' unapproached Throne,
Down-swooped; from East to West, from North to South,

Smiting her gods with Judgement; all alone,
Her rebel land, with desolating arm,
The Omnipotent Destroyer did enzone!

The Heavens and Earth with quiet silence charm
Night in the midst of her swift course. Amain,
Girt with Jehovah's fiat, by Alarm

Unheard, unseen, the Avenger! He hath slain
The First-born. Princes in your Palaces,
Captives in dungeons, cattle on the plain,

Ye died, ye died, first-born of Egypt! yes,
The Avenger smote ye, and delivered us,
God's Israel, from their hands who would oppress!”

—Here ceased the hymning Hosts. Messiah thus—
“So let his head be bruised; for God is Love,
And wills not strife eternal, ruinous.

So saved are ye. So triumph ye above
The Powers of Darkness. Heirs of the Most High,
Beloved of God—his Love ye shall approve.

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Of old I loved you, when, with Wisdom, I
Had my delights among the Sons of Men,
Ere Pain was known, or Man was doomed to die.

Of old I loved you, Sons of Labour, when
Stark Evil made Sin grievous, and aslaked
Its wrath with Sorrow, Earth baptizing then.

In birth, in life, in death,...whether awaked
To Joy or Grief, beneath whatever sky,
Where'er Man was, where'er endeavour ached,

There, with the Nurseling of Experience, I
Wrought out Redemption, rearing up the Soul
By Faith, from Childhood to Antiquity.

I am the Truth..the Life. Of me the whole
Of Knowledge is forthradiate; and, in me,
The Universe submits to high control.

Law holds from Him, lives in His unity,
Sustained, suspended, for the weal of man,
And Providence and Miracle agree.

For Wisdom is from everlasting, can
O'errule and change all elements by power
Of harmony, wherein they all began—

Yea—all things must be changed. It comes, the hour
When ye shall hear the Trump, and from the grave
Redeem the body which it would devour,

Raised incorruptible. My Saints shall have
A glorious Kingdom and a beauteous Crown—
My hand shall cover them, my arm shall save.

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Then Jealousy for armour I will don,
And make my sword the Creature for revenge—
And Righteousness and Judgement I'll put on

For breast-plate and for helmet. Then shall range
The rightly-aiming thunderbolts abroad,
Winged from the bow of heaven, in that great Change.

My shield shall be the Holiness of God!
For Death is swallowed up in victory—
Quenched and exhausted in my quickening blood,

Who tasted Death for all. Ye live in me.
God's Throne is based on Justice,—so I died,
That Mercy might have life eternally.

O Father! God of Love! to whom I cried,
If possible, the bitter cup away
Might pass from me—to thee the Crucified

Lifts his ordained hands. I kneel and pray
For him, create Intelligence, whom now
The stormy-footed wrath hath swept from day.

Unto thy Will inscrutable I bow,
And to its unrevealed decree resign
Thy Creature—All thy Love thou wilt avow,

Then, into thy resistless hand divine,
What Thou beneath my feet wilt subject, when
I shall deliver—for the kingdom's Thine,

The power, the glory, evermore! Amen!”—

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XXIV. THE CELEBRATION.

Thus prayed Messiah and arose. Divine
Benignity and beauty from his eyes,
How dovelike, with celestial softness shine.

The Eternal Father hears him, and replies—
Whose Spirit circumscribes Infinitude,
There present where, above the starry skies,

The Seraph soars, there where the sail-wings brood
Of Darkness o'er the outer Deep, there where
They couch in Hell;..lore little understood.

—Nor is the Son of Man not present there,
Where on his hidden throne his awful Sire
Sits inaccessible in Love severe.

But in his golden censer, with the fire
From the great Altar of Atonement, blends
The acceptable incense; while the Quire

Of Cherubim and Seraphim suspends
Its wonted hymnings. They in Silence muse
The Mystery that all mysteries transcends.

But now the holy fire is spread diffuse,
O'er heaven, o'er earth, o'er hell; and Voices rise,
With thunderings and with lightnings, tremulous;

233

Yea, the Worlds quake with choral harmonies.
—“Ascribe, ye Mighty, to Jehovah might
And glory, victor o'er his enemies—

Give to Jehovah glory in the height,
The glory due unto his Name! Adore
Him in the Beauty of Holiness aright!

—Thy Voice, Jehovah! on the Waters hoar
Careers; the God of Glory thundereth;
Jehovah speaks where many waters roar—

Thy Voice, Jehovah! is more strong than Death—
Thy powerful Voice is full of majesty;
Thy Voice o'erthrows the Cedar with its breath.

And Lebanon and Sirion before thee
Skip like a Calf, and like a Unicorn,
In youth transilient, and by nature free—

Thy Voice, Jehovah! shakes the desart lorn;
Jehovah shakes the Wilderness; his Voice
Maketh the Hinds to calve, the forest-born.

—Within his Temple shall his Sons rejoice,
And all declare his Glory. On the Sea
He sitteth—hushed is its tempestuous noise—

Behold Jehovah sitteth royally
Upon the calmed flood, eternal Lord;
And strength unto his people giveth He,

And them with Peace and Blessing hath restored.”

234

XXV. THE RETURN.

Thus with hosanna, and with choral song,
Accompanied, Messiah from the plain
Of Victory returned; with him along

The thousand thousands of his sainted train,
Attendant on his Chariot. Greater he
Than that God-guide, renowned in antique strain

Of philosophick Sage,..the Deity,
Himself his Chariot animating, who
Traversed the heavens with the heavenly,

Or o'er the heavenliest ascended, to
The gorgeous banquet of the Gods, on high,
Whereof no bard hath told in numbers true.

With loftier state, more glorious majesty,
Messiah, on the wings of Cherubim,
Was charioted aloft, triumphantly—

And hallelujahs sang they unto him,
As with the sound of waters, variable
In harmony; above, the Seraphim

Their volant canopy inwove as well—
And hymns were harped by that redeemed throng.
—One Sabbath dawned in heaven, on earth, in hell;

How solemnized,..is theme for other song.

235

URIEL.

(THE FRAGMENT OF) A MYSTERY.

“HE MUST REIGN TILL HE HATH PUT ALL HIS ENEMIES UNDER HIS FEET.” 1 Cor. xv. 25.

236

I waked one morning dreaming, Thus I dreamed.
Methought of Uriel I had writ or read
A mystery—the Doom of Quick and Dead.
'Twas the Last Day, and Satan came, it seemed,
To tempt the Sun's bright Angel, misesteemed,
For that his World for Wreck was destined—
And Uriel's Faith was proved. Then Judgement sped:...
Wo! to the Tempter!—Hail! to the Redeemed!

O'er night I had mused of Manfred, Faust, and Cain,
And the soul everthinking thought in sleep;
And forged a drama in a poet's brain—
Anon, conceived Ambition made me weep:
The Tempted is inferior in their strain,
In mine, even as the Tempter, high and deep.

15th Oct. 1831.

238

Time..The Last Day. Place..The Solar Orb.

I. THE ARK OF HADES.

Uriel.

The tale is told; the Hours are numbered now;
Earth, the great Mother, Children bears no more;
And Man knows all that he can ever know.

Being not Knowing, on the further shore
Of the Pacifick Deep, where Hades sails,
The Ship of Souls, awaits him, as of yore;

Lost Eden, but regained; he feels the gales,
Of this more blessed Araby, salute
The populous Bark, and their delight inhales,

With pleasure motionless, with pleasure mute.
—Billowless Gulf, upon thy bosom moves
Nor ship, nor galley, Ocean absolute!

Nought save yon Ark, which every Angel loves,
May hover o'er that Ocean of Repose,
With those bright Spirits, those descending Doves,

240

Ocean profound, that neither ebbs nor flows;
O glorious JAH! wilt thou to her not be
Broad world of streams and rivers, where none goes

Save thy Beloved in her Majesty.

HYMN OF THE FLOOD From the Ark.

The world of waters is about us,
The voices of the storm are high,
All is wrath and wreck without us—
All within, security.

Hark! to that shriek our vessel swerveth—
Some desperate wretch clings to it!—vain!
None but us her keel preserveth—
Silence—on she speeds again;

Bounds o'er the billows proud and lonely,
A thing of life, she stems the flood—
Nought the peril bides, save only
The Ark of Almighty God.

Hark! to the surges heaving, dashing—
We rise, and reel, and rock—and, lo!
All above the window flashing,
Lightnings ever come and go!

Behold! the gleaming spray is o'er us,
It rushes in a tide of doom—
Heaven is ravished from before us,
Earth is universal gloom!

241

When will the face of heaven brighten,
And the dread Curse of God depart,
And the field and forest lighten,
And the aspect and the heart

Of man and beast, and all things living,
With renovation, love and joy;
Jubilant in God forgiving,
Who would prosper not destroy?

Uriel.
Being! mysterious Word! Eternal Son!
Oh, Life of Light!—The Sea of the Abyss
Covers the sands, and Time can gather none!
The Shadow breaks that pageant Glass of his,
Still gazing on the Vessel while she soars,
And, as on Voyage to the Isle of Bliss,
Like a sea-bird, her noiseless way explores.

Satan,
(Having risen unperceived by Uriel, now exclaims behind him)
His Bow was bent! Thou Great and Most Glorious!
Was thine ire 'gainst the Rivers wild?
Was thine anger against the Sea?
The Mountains confest Thee victorious—
The waters o'erflowing and tempest-piled
Passed by, and the Deep raised his voice unto Thee,
And lifted his hands to thy Deity!

242

The Sun and the Moon in their dwellings stood still,
At the flash of thine arrows and glittering spear,
They shrunk from the sky they were chartered to fill
With the flood of their light,—for the Ocean's was there!

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

What! is His smile for ever vanished,
And is His anger without end,
Ever from His presence banished
All that Earth could comprehend?

And in this floating cradle crowded,
Shut out from all that lived before,
As within the grave dark shrouded,
Must we visit her no more?

Never within the pure blue ether,
The fields of heaven, the golden sun,
Never seek a glimpse to gather
Of that purest, brightest One!

Never again on Ocean's margin
Note the broad waves sublimely swell,
And the billowy West enlarging
With the setting day's farewell,

Whose hues are heaven's, of heaven a token,
As, mid the light of other sphere,
Spirits, though unheard, had spoken
Into life the glory there,

243

To kindle Hope in human bosom,
The nurse of Faith, and Peace, and Love,
Which without her may not blossom—
They exist not—but above!

Uriel.
Thou spakest like a Seraph, and thou art
Such in thy form and spirit. Whence camest thou?

Satan.
From going to and fro through Earth and Hades
And Heaven.

Uriel.
Thy mission?—

Satan.
It is written on the Tables
Of Prophecy, which shine above the Altar
Of Vengeance and Redemption, that “there shall be
Nor sun, nor moon, since He becomes henceforth
The Light himself, for in His holy eyes
Even Angels are not pure, but charged with folly.”

Uriel.
The Father's Will be done!

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

Far happier ye, who have contended
With God's fierce might, and vengeance too,
Every doubt with being ended,
Death hath no more dread for you!

244

When shall we rest? where find a haven?
Submerged is every mountain's height!
Lo, the flood arrests the raven,
And the loftier eagle's flight!

Satan.
His Will be done!
And Uriel be no more of Light the Angel,
Than Lucifer is now the Son of Morn!

Uriel.
Ha! Tempter? thou art he!

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

Swathed in the clouds, by darkness swaddled,
Flung on the waters waste and wide,
In the wind and tempest cradled,
On the neck of fear we ride,

Guideless and shoreless! Impious terrours!
Avaunt, begone! ye warp the heart,
Smiting man with gloomy errours—
Faith admits ye not—depart!

Hope looks to Thee, thou Great and Powerful,
And when in trouble triumphs most;
Not alone when fields are flowerful,
But in winter and in frost.

And though the summer fig no blossom,
And though the tree no fruit should bear,
She shall flourish in the bosom,
If the heart be faithful there.

245

Satan.
What! if I be—
The die is thrown 'twixt Satan now and God—
Beneath his feet must all things be subdued
Ere the Son yields the Kingdom to the Father—
Must Satan then not bow?

Uriel.
Seraph, once bright,
And now not shorn of glory utterly,
Still beautiful, though fearful in thy beauty,
Of form majestick, if erect of soul;
Comest thou to make submission?

Satan.
Wherefore not?
Shall Uriel's brightness, perfect, yet expire?
Then what of mine remains may well be merged!

Uriel.
We are but for his glory.

Satan.
So are all.
His boundless glory is from everlasting
To everlasting—circling all, uncircled—
Incomprehensible—omnipotent—
What can exist without it? Man or Angel?
It crushes all—engulphs—devours—absorbs—
Into its infinite capacity.
Earth cannot hold it, Heaven is even too little,
And Hell is compassed with it round about.

246

Uriel.
Thy words are of the truth.

Satan.
They are the truth.
And Truth is very Being, and he is,
Who utters, Truth.

Uriel.
That is, the Son of God.

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

But the Old World which is departed
Turned from thy truth its rebel eye,
Every bosom, evil hearted,
Teemed with all iniquity.

Creation groaned, and Life did languish,
Thy holy Spirit was aggrieved
With unutterable anguish,
Deep, mysterious, unconceived!

Thou spakest, and Earth and Heaven trembled;
“I have repented of my work,
Man, whose heart hath still dissembled,
Still my spirit sought to irk.”

Oh, gracious God! who of my being
Wert mindful then—and shall I now
Doubt thine help, oh, thou All Seeing,
Thou, my God—my Saviour, thou!

247

Satan.
We all are Sons of God—nay, we are gods,
For Scripture is inviolate—then, why
Should not his glory shine in us, as in
The Son himself, but sole-begotten named
For excellence of merit, not of essence?

Uriel.
True, they are gods to whom God's Word hath come—
He is the Word.

Satan.
More words than one proceed
From God's prolifick mouth. His Words are Things;
And all things that exist, they are his words.
Words and Works differ in a letter only,
In meaning nought.

Uriel.
Creation is the Book
Of the Almighty—

Satan.
An Incarnation of
The Deity in mythick wise expressed.
Heaven, and the Glory of the Stars, declare,
As in Apocalypse, that all his works
Are in his words, and every word incarnate.

Uriel.
Oh! all things speak of Him, all his works praise Him!

248

Satan.
How glorious is the Sun! that doth embody
The Light thou art; magnifick Work, wherein
Is tabernacled Word magnificent
Of Him, who said, Be Light! and Uriel was.
What wonder men the Sun should have adored,
In Thrace, as god Apollo, or in the isle
Of Erytheia, where the bright red herds,...
Betwixt your territory, Atintanes,
And the Ceraunian mountains, northward of
Epirus, on the borders of famed Greece,
Nigh to the Dorian land, there, on the banks
Of Aous, running from the Lacmon mount,...
Grazed, sacred to the sun, guarded through day
At large, and in a mountain cave through night,
By holy shepherds? In learned Corinth too
The sun was worshipped. Nor need wonder be,
Symbol so glorious was identified
With him, who reigned of Art and Eloquence
Divine Inventor. But, O Uriel, thou
Wert not as element a deity,
But far removed from Nature, Essence pure!

Uriel.
Get thee behind me, Satan! Thus, of old,
Changed from thy proper shape, a stripling Cherub,
With habit fit for speed succinct, and held
Before thy decent steps a silver wand,
Didst thou with flatteries accost me once,
Answer to win which might direct thy way
To that one of these shining Orbs, where Man
Held fixed seat, while yet in Paradise,
Whence, duped by thy temptation, he was driven.

249

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

He rose in wrath—the Eternal Father,
The Mighty and the Glorious One!
Storms and shadows round him gather,
Brightness that subdues the Sun—

He stood—and, in his great displeasure,
Cast o'er the world his eye of wrath,
Did the vast circumference measure,
Doomed to universal scathe!

The pride of Art, the pomp of Nature,
Were hidden by the swelling surge,
Every vestige of the creature
Trembled on Destruction's verge.

He spake! the windows of the heaven
Oped, and Earth's springs were broken up;
Thunder went abroad, and leven—
Poured the flood from wrath's full cup!

He drave the nations all asunder—
He scattered the everlasting mountains—
He bowed the perpetual hills to his thunder,
He clave the earth with her rivers and fountains!

Satan.
List to the lay! 'tis of that broken Orb,
Now once more to be broken; nay, Creation
Thoroughly purged, that He may make anew,
Or rather, making that he may destroy.

250

Uriel.
Blasphemer! Well should I that time remember—
Then didst thou, 'midst the Sons of God, denounce
Me, as once Job, for one who would resign
Integrity, if trial came severe;
And hadst permission so to attempt my faith,
As if that Baptism were of Fire not Flood,
As now it is indeed:—ay, haply, now,
In this extreme, thou, at thy like request,
Permission hast again. But I defy
Thine arts, even now as then, and from my Orb
Thee hurl, with weapon of ethereal temper, down
Into the dark abyss.

[Elances his Spear at Satan—it recoils.
Satan.
Behold, O Seraph!
Thou art forsaken of thy vaunted God;
Or, wiselier, know thy god in me. Fall down,
And worship. In my name, shall yet the Father
Receive his creatures, as the victor in
Strife long and sore, by perseverance gained—
Acknowledge thy Messiah; of his names
Once Lucifer was one.

Uriel.
Thou hast no power
But what the Highest lends. With this keen trial
I must comply, but He will make a way,
For my escape. His holy Will be done!

251

Satan.
He doth abandon thee, he hath abandoned—
Nor thee alone, but all. Thy rule and realm
He takes from thee, thine Orb he will abolish,
Thy glory will dissolve, for sake of One.
But all things first must lie beneath his feet;
Submit not to prostration. Up! delay
The time's accomplishment, and still preserve
Thy proper glory, thine unforfeit state.

Uriel.
Light was before Light-bearers, may be after—
Though the foundations of the Universe
Subvert and be supplanted, yet will I
In faith adore the Mercy of the Lord.

HYMN OF THE FLOOD

Hail! to the Ark by God commanded,
Prime Architect, and Lord of All,
Built by Man,—securely stranded,
Waiting the prophetick call,

To ride the universal Ocean—
Hail! Mother of the future World!
Travailling in wild commotion,
On the billowy desert hurled!

Charmed by no seraph song which blended
The first World into light and life,
Lo! the next unseen, untended,
Embryo of the womb of strife—

252

Its musick the storm's thousand voices,
The shriek, the groan, the dash, the cry—
Ruin that aloud rejoices—
And its guard the louring sky!

In their war-chariots they confided;
They boasted of their steeds of strife;
Ships above the water guided,
Things of motion and of life—

But we in Him, the God who sitteth
O'er the earth's circle, and to whom,
As the grasshopper that twitteth
Vainly in its own green home,

Are her proud giants—him who spreadeth
Heaven as a curtain and a tent—
Whom the might of demons dreadeth—
Holy and Omnipotent;

Alone, who poured abroad the Ocean,
And poised the Orb of Earth—alone!
Lord of Life, Death, Rest, and Motion—
Earth his footstool, heaven his throne—

Who spake, and the wild flood descended—
And launched thee o'er the stormy waste!
Fear not...By his presence tended,
Haven shalt thou have at last!

The future world wherewith thou travaillest,
To thee shall look in peril, pain—
And the riddle thou unravellest
Hope shall bless, and joy attain.

253

Affliction's heart, and sorrow's spirit,
In Him shall trust who thee preserves,
And the Faith that doth inherit
What it seeks, but sees not, nerves.

And to the heart and to the spirit
Shall it create an unseen Ark,
Wrought of Love, and Mind and Merit,
To oppose the deep and dark;

The tide of peril bravely riding,
Till joyful they arrive at length
To their haven's rest, confiding
In their Saviour and their Strength!

Uriel.
Tempt me no more, Deceiver—hence—begone.

Satan.
Weak Slave! Had I not power on Him ye worship,
To hold him in the Wilderness? to take him
Up into mountain high, and show him thence
The kingdoms of the world? Him set I not
On loftiest pinnacle of that proud pile,
The glorious Temple, soon by Titus razed?
My power is more on thee. Here stay I, seraph,
Here by thy side; and hence behold with thee
The Universe, to swift destruction doomed!
Hence make thee see such Visions, not unreal,
As shall convince thee of misconfidence.
Behold!

254

II. THE HOST OF HEAVEN.

Uriel.

Beautiful Moon! on—on thy vessel rolls—
Vision of Salem, Mother of us all—
How lovelily thou sailest, Ship of Souls!

Oft from man's eye clouds veil thee, as with pall,
Yet from the Sun thou life-light e'er receivest,
And still thy way pursuest, free from thrall.

And many a phase hast thou—rejoicest—grievest—
An Orb and now a Crescent—waxest—wanest—
But art not as thou seemest—never leavest,

Nor art thou left of Him by whom thou reignest!
—The Planets come, in filial confidence,
Whose dance harmonious in thy wake thou trainest,

To draw the liquid light, which I dispense,
In their auriferous urns, o'er all degrees
And constellations, shedding influence.

Thine Orb, Orion!—yours, ye Pleiades,
Ye thousand thousands, borne on radiant cars!
Light from the Fount of Light, replenishes;
Watchers of Night! the Angels of the Stars!

255

CHORUS OF STARS.

Offspring of God, who lovingly
Our ordered course combine,
The Cherubim of Light are we,
Recipient of divine.

While Earth was formless yet, and void,
Or ere was Heat or Cold—
God's Voice we heard, and, overjoyed,
Cried, “Light is born—behold!”

Thrice Day and Night, Time now had been,
Yet by no sign exprest,
Division land and main between,
And heaven manifest;

On high our chariots then were set,
For seasons and for years,
Whose mystick progress echoes yet
The musick of the spheres.

Satan.
Hosting, ye come, ye Armies of Heaven!
What are now the Planets Seven?
What are the fables that were forged in thy brain,
Thou Son of old Adam? or art thou a Cain,
Or art thou an Abel, the vain of the vain?
Seven days had a week, seven steps had the throne
Of the wisest of kings, seven Spirits made One:
Seven was the chance, Seven the main,
When shall man look on such Seven again?

256

Uriel.
Who sits in Scorner's Chair, ne'er he
Shall utter Truth, or know, or be—
But let this even be gravely said,
The unarmed eye is limited.
If all it seeth All it deemeth,
'Tis Sign of That whereof it dreameth;
But when as Reason bares the sky
To the far-reaching scient eye,
Bursts...spreads, on intellectual sight,
What Image of the Infinite!

Satan.
Much owe the Students of the Stars
To him, once doomed to dungeon bars,
The Tuscan Artist, who would see
The Moon from top of Fesolé.
Nor less owes Man to him whose glass
Shows myriad worlds in tiniest mass:
Dwarfed, with his Earth, by other Orbs,
Specks which the vast of space absorbs;
He gains again gigantick height,
And she partakes of Infinite;
Above—beyond—the atom races,
Worlds couched in worms, life's dwelling-places.

Uriel.
Of worlds innumerable in the presence,
Man it behoves an humble mind to bear;
In contemplation of the Eternal Essence,
Let him feel pride he can, in his dim sphere.
Little is he compared with Power divine,

257

Great that God's Image in his heart may shine.
There, in his moral being, lies the source
Of intellectual life and mental force;
All Speculation on his Will depends,
And “Know Thyself” all Wisdom comprehends—
But, though man's Will be as the central sun,
Round which the Universe, since it begun,
Hath rolled in choral orbed sisterhood,
Wheel within wheel, if spiritually understood,
Let him acknowledge that the all-homaged Sun
Owns the same Centre as each starry one,
And yield (then freest) his Will submiss to thine,
Thou centreless all-central Will Divine;
And while he learns to know himself, like me,
Know then himself best known, when known in Thee!

CHORUS OF STARS.

Around the Seraph of the Sun,
Our living chariots glow,
And the same Spirit that begun
Still guides them as they go.

So duly to his Temple we
Will voyage the Profound,
And of surpassing Glory be,
Like him, with Glory crowned.

Uriel.
Wisdom presides above yon Crescent still—

258

Satan.
Death sits within her shadow—

Uriel.
And her head
Is star-crowned, she sun-clad—

Satan.
Yet has she been
Chased from her state into the Wilderness—

Uriel.
But then the Angel of the Heaven stooped down,
And from the Angel of the Earth received
The Man-Child she had borne from Dragon-power.

Satan.
Hosting they come! Not only now they be
Earth, Venus, Vesta, Juno, Jupiter,
Mars, Ceres, Saturn, Pallas, Mercury,
And Ouranus, but all the Names that e'er
Bore God or Demigod, Hero or Sage;
So numerous the populous worlds appear
To common vision in a scient age—
Look—hath a Comet filled them with affright
Dashing amongst them in his fiery rage?
'Tis the Death-Demon on his Steed of White!

CHORUS OF STARS.
Wo! wo! wo!
What art thou, Centaur-Wraith?

259

Death.
Ask Him who saith,
And it is so!

Uriel.
Death is among the Planets on his steed
Of paly hue, a Warrior in his pride,
Trampling the children, while the parents bleed
With unseen ichor, the unnoticed tide
Which the soul sweats, the spirit's living rain.
Before him, and behind, and on each side,
Father and Mother agonize—in vain!

Satan.
Why, Death's a Hero, and each Hero must
Have his Aceldama, though Grief and Pain
Lie writhing on the field, and feed on dust!
—But let me quit this measure,...theme sublime
Is best discussed in right-heroick rhime.
Nature and Spirit have a double sense:
Death, in the days of old intelligence,
Was as Apollo named, because both might
Destroy or heal, and Pæan each was hight.
They chanted pæans, when from plague relieved.
Battle began, or victory was achieved;
And when Apollo with the Python strove,
The Delphick Virgins' Io Pæans clove
Through the wild noise of conflict, and, undrowned,
Loud and harmonious rose above the sound.

260

CHORUS OF STARS.
Hence—gaunt King! dread Death—begone!

Death.
Song and Dance with you alone
Bide not. I am the Merry One!

Chorus.
Terrible! the Terrible!
Hence from Heaven! hie back to Hell!

Death.
Nay, my way has been as well
On the bosom of the Earth,
And the Sea that is her girth—
And my song has murmured near
Bower and hall, and field and meer,
Bed and billow, passing sweet,
And to Dance attuned the feet.
Shall my work not be complete?

Chorus.
What then hast thou now to do?

Death.
To tread all the Planets through,
Clean way making for worlds new—
New heavens, new earths—Ye must vanish,
I remain, whom ye would banish.

261

Chorus.
Do not curse us as we go—

Death.
Io Pæan!

Chorus.
Wo! wo! wo!

Satan.
Yon dark half of the Crescent lingers—

Uriel.
Life
Not Death, is there—the Church invisible.

Satan.
Her side which looks on earth is oft times dark

Uriel.
What hither looks the Orb I rule enlightens,
As she moves eastward, earth with light she gladdens.

Satan.
Anon, earth rolls between thine Orb and hers,
And lo, her phase converted toward the earth,
Cheered by thy lineal rays, shines out in radiance,
And then what upward looks seems veiled in gloom.

Uriel.
O! what is dark to earth is brightest then
In heaven's eye, and what to earth is brightest,
Is black as night to the pure eye of God!

262

Satan.
But when right obvious to thy Glory, hers
Is perfect and complete—for what is it
But thine reflected? And these stars, that wait
On her majestick goings-forth, like her
Express thy Glory, and, haply though obscurely,
Memorial bear of thee. Hence Night is holy,
For it preserves remembrances of Holier.

Uriel.
And of the Holiest—Fountain of mine!
The Heavens declare the Glory of the Lord,
The Firmament doth show his handy work.

Satan.
Thou art their god; 'tis of thy light they mind,
In their relations each revealing it.
And shall yon Death their altars thus destroy,
Their temples raze? The Power of Death have I—
Look, he my eye acknowledges, obeys
The mandate of my frown.

Uriel.
God has to thee
Given power, whereto I yield, in patient faith.

Satan.
Lo! with his planetary train he comes,
In homage to my feet. Fall down and worship.

Uriel.
Thee?

263

Satan.
Thee! thou art the god of all these worlds;
Thou rulest, and Death lives—if not, Death dies.

Death.
Father! all hail!

Satan.
All hail! my Son beloved—
Loved for thy Mother's sake and for thy own.
Why art thou rampant?

Death.
For the worlds are doomed.

Satan.
And Uriel's too?

Death.
Yea.

Satan.
Hearst thou not?

Uriel.
But grudge not.

Satan.
Thy world shall yet be saved—

Death.
It may not be—

264

Satan.
It must be. Know, your destinies are twined.
The Consummation of the Filial Age
Must be delayed, or hideous wreck cling both—
“All things,” 'tis written, “need submit to Him;”
Light first to be shall be the last to cease,
Save Death.

Death.
And what of me?

Satan.
Then comes thy end.
For on the Tables it is prophesied,
“The last Foe that shall be destroyed is Death.”
Therefore to thee be Uriel as a god;
Lift not thine hand against him, but adore;
Live thou his votary, or die his victor.

Uriel.
Why rage ye? and imagine a vain thing?
And wherefore envy him who seeketh not
His own but the Paternal glory? Is not
Excepted HE who put all things beneath him?
And when all things to him shall be subdued,
Shall not the Son himself be subject to
Him who put all things under him, that God
Be all in all?

Satan.
Ay—so he saith. But who
Hath seen the Father?

265

Uriel.
I reject your worship!

Death.
Turn, oh, turn not in thy wrath,
Sun-god! from thy worshippers;
Prostrate in thy sacred path,
Heed my supplicating verse.
I to whom the race of man,
And all things since Time began,
Have been subject;—I to thee
Bow, benignant Deity.
By the Light which is thy Being;
By thine Eye which is all-seeing;
By thy far and fervid Throne;
By thy State aloft—alone—
By thy Sway from East to West;
By thy blessing Beams and blest;
By thine everlasting Rest;
And the Rising and the Setting
Of the earths of thy begetting;
By thy Rays whose echoes are
Such of planet and of star;
By the Life which thou dost give
Unto each and all that live;
By thy Strength and thy Rejoicing,
And the Plenty thou art voicing
With an ever potent Word,
Not unfelt, albeit unheard;
By the Hymns that are sung to thee,
By the Rites with which worlds woo thee,

266

By thy Merit, worthy more
Than all worship—I adore!
Save, oh, save—the gods aver,
Thou canst save thy worshipper!

Satan.
Ye myriads of bright Planets, who, unto
The peoples of each other's Orbs, appear
So beautiful, and fitting regions for
Beings far happier than abide in each;
Fair in the depths of Azure as ye sail,
So placidly and patiently, self-moved,
Self-ordered, by inherent power informed,
And with intelligence divine endued;—
Ye know the spirit whence your spirit is,
How generated, and to Uriel pay
High honour duly. So sublime ye are,
Ye seem immortal, yet but seem; for Death
Hath the commission that ye tremble at.
But ye know also where Salvation lies,
Having of our discourse been audient,
Therefore your choral supplication raise,
And with your worship move to pity him,
Whom such high worship well may deify.

267

ODES.

KLOPSTOCK'S “DER FRÜHLINGSFEYER;”

OR, THE SOLEMNIZATION OF SPRING.

Not into the World-Ocean would I soar,
Nor hover where the First-Create adore,
The Sons of Light, a Choir of Jubilee,
And, as they worship, sink in ecstasy—
But round the Drop upon the Bucket's brim,
Only round Earth, I hover worshipping—
Sing, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! sing!
The Drop upon the Bucket, (praise to Him!)
Did also flow, at his command,
Out of the hollow of the Almighty's hand!

When from his hand of Power Infinite
The greater Earths outwelled,
When rushed the Streams of Light,
And the Planets Seven compelled —
Then flowedst thou, Drop! at his command,
Out of the hollow of the Almighty's hand!

268

When rushed a Stream of Light, and grew our Sun,
When dashed, like storm-cloud down a rock,
Of lustrous waves a billowy shock,
And girt Orion, belted One—
Then flowedst thou, Drop! at his command,
Out of the hollow of the Almighty's hand!

The thousand-thousands, myriads—what are they,
The Drop who people or have peopled?—nay,
What even am I? To the Creator's praise
Loud Hallelujahs raise!—
More than all Earths that from his hand outwelled,
More than the Starry Seven that were from rays compelled.

But thou, O greenly golden Worm of Spring!
That flutterest nigh with playful glance—
Thou livest—thou—and art, perchance,
Ah! no immortal thing!—
Forth went to worship I—
Weep I instead? Forgive—forgive—
This tear to poor mortality,
Thou who for aye dost live!
Thou wilt all doubts to me unveil, even Thou,
Who through Death's valley dark and dern
Wilt guide my path! I then shall learn,
Whether the golden Worm a Soul endow—
Art thou but shaped Dust alone?
Offspring of May—thus then,
Dispersant dust become again
Or what else wills the Eternal One.

Shed thou anew, my Eye!
The tears of gladness—

269

My Harp! rise thou from sadness,
And praise the Lord on High.
Wreathed again, with palms—with palms
Wreathed is my harp, my lips are glad with psalms—
Here stand I, while around my raptured sense
All teems with Wonder, with Omnipotence.
Creation I behold with awe of heart—
For Thou!
O Nameless! Thou!
Its Author art!

Airs! that about me blow,
And breathe soft coolness on my fervid brow—
Marvellous Airs! his Word of might
Sent you—the Lord, the Infinite!
But now they hush—they scarcely breathe—
The morning-sun glows sultrily—
Above, clouds stream and wreathe—
He comes—the Eternal!—visibly.
They swoop—they rush—the Winds whirl now!
How bows the Wood—the Stream swells how!
Visible, as to mortals thou mayst be,
Thou comest, Infinite! ay, visibly!
The Forest bends—the Stream recedes apace—
And fall I not upon my face?
Lord! Lord! God! merciful! and full of grace!
Have mercy, thou who art so nigh, on me!

Lord! wroth art thou,
That Night is thus thy garment now?
This Night to Earth is Blessing rather—
Thou art not wroth, O Father!

270

Before Thee all is still; Approaching Power!
All round about is in deep stillness lying!
The gold-clad Worm looks upward in this hour—
Not soul-less then, perhaps? perhaps, undying?
O were my power to praise Thee as my will!
Ever more glorious thou thyself revealest—
Darker the night becomes where thou concealest,
But heavier grows with Blessing—fuller still!

Sign of him nigh, see ye the quivering beam?
Jehovah's thunder hear ye?
Hear ye it, how near ye?
The shattering thunder of the Lord Supreme!
Lord! Lord! God!
The merciful! the full of grace!
Be worship and high laud
Unto thy glorious Name!—
—And the storm-winds? They bear the Thunder!
How they rush!
O how, in their impetuous mood,
They stream with loud waves through the wood!
And now they hush—
And slowly, in its place,
The swart cloud wanders whence they came.

New token now, see ye the flashing beam?
Hear ye on high his thunder, Lord Supreme?
He calls: Jehovah!—Jehovah!—Alas!
Smokes the smit forest—but—
Oh! not our Hut!
Our Father gave command,
His dread Destroyer's brand
Our Hut should overpass!

271

Ah! pours already—ah! already pours
Heaven, and Earth flows with the prolifick Showers!
Now is the Earth refreshed (how thirsted she!)
And Heaven of his full Blessing is set free—
No more Jehovah comes in storm and dread,
But in still murmurs sweet,
He comes; and underneath his feet,
Behold the Bow of Peace, an arch of beauty, spread.

December, 1833 .

A Latinism—compellere gregem—

“In one troop compelled.”

Dryden.

272

THE AUTUMNAL BENEDICTION;

In Emulation of KLOPSTOCK's “DER FRÜHLINGSFEYER.”

[17th August, 1831]

Man's Soul is worthier than the Universe;
Even Heaven doth pale before her holier gaze,
And thee, dim Earth! with power she can transpierce,
And consecrate thee to thy Maker's praise.
Who died on Calvary, made that Earth-Hill
More sacred than Celestial Mount of Vision—
And Men who, Liberty! thy Law fulfil,
May build on each an Altar to Decision,

Fair art thou, Mother! to the Soul
That meditates on thy creation hour,
When the Omnifick Word set either pole,
To be the columns of thy house,
And bade thee rise, Heaven's fruitful Spouse,
And gave thee marriage dower:
While yet but Chaos' Daughter. As the spheres
Anthemed thy nuptial welcome, Seraphim,
And Cherubim,
Baptized thee with their fiery tears,
And a holy hymn,
Amidst the Stars,
Rang out in glory from their mystick cars.

273

Thou hearest yet that Word,
When Winter's Snows thy womb with warmth invest,
When Spring awakens first the lyrick bird,
Or Summer peoples with new tribes the faery nest.

Autumn! thy plains are glorious; there the Corn
Waves at even, noon, and morn;
And the round Moon, broad as old warrior's shield,
With conquest red, walks jovial o'er the field.
The Heavens are drunk with victory—
Earth! thou art drunk with plenty. Harvest teems;
And thy strong Children, Nature! see:—
The sickle and the sheaf—them either well beseems.

Oh Nature! Toil and Skill of thee are born—
Stern Labourers; their Mother thou; their Sire
Thou art, O Mind! The thistle and the thorn
Depart, as from the soil high Thoughts aspire—
High Thoughts! ye soar aloft and pass the sky,
And seek your Father, where he secret dwells,
The Eternal in his own Eternity,
Fount, whence all Seasons flow, and Time outwells:—

The God of Harvest! Kneel,
Children of Nature born;
From His full horn
The Bounty which ye reap—confess his Love, who feel!
Feel ye not Him in the soft airs, that now
Fan, in the noon tide heat, the sweating brow?
Him in these gentle drops that, big and few,
Fall on the weary, like refreshing dew?
Your eyes are raised, as if to Him, on high—
The clouds a little dim the sky—

274

No breeze is stirring, and a sudden calm
Quiets the sense, subdued as if with balm.
—All still—how still! Children of Nature! she
Awaits in silence what shall be—
The All-Present makes his Presence known,
Not only (as felt) by the deep Heart alone—
But to the Ear, and to the Eye,
Audibly and visibly.
How glows the air!—what if with ire?
For God is a consuming Fire!

Fears Earth His coming that she crouches so,
While the storm blackens in her Lord's swart frown?
While Heaven collects his armies, to come down,
What if in wrath? and dreads she wreck and wo?
—He comes! in darkness comes! God! verily,
Thou hidest thy perfections! Who shall see
The Almighty, and survive?
He comes in mercy then, who wills that Man shall live!

Merciful Father! in the Spring heard we
Thy thunder, and saw thee
In the dark teeming clouds. Then poured the rain,
To feed the budding grape, to swell the springing grain—
—Therefore we will not fear,
Because thou comest now in majesty,
Though the Sun hide himself, ere thou appear:
Not deathless he—but the Soul cannot die!
—The Corn has ripened with the Sun and Dew,
The Showers have swelled the ears—we watched it while it grew—
Now the ripe Shocks stand in the field uppiled,
And Man rejoices—God is reconciled.

275

—Yes! though the arrowy Lightning, from his bow
Elanced, flash through the excited atmosphere—
Look! Saw ye not the Shaft pass now?
Hark! heard ye not? do ye not hear?
Holy! Holy! Holy!
On Earth have Mercy, Lord!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
To Man his Prayer accord!—

That peal was loud and long—
The Thunder of His Power—
The Lord our God is strong—
His Voice makes Flesh to cower.
His bolt hath smitten yonder Oak,
Hills trembled at the flash,
Rivers leaped up beneath the stroke,
And echoed with the crash—
Holy! Holy! Holy!
On Earth have Mercy, Lord!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
To Man his Prayer accord!

The Clouds have burst—the torrent shower
Descends. It is a fearful hour!
While as the Deluge swoops, the Lightnings fly,
And the proud Thunder neighs about the Sky.
Holy! Holy! Holy!
The Lord our God is strong—
Holy! Holy! Holy!
His Wrath endures not long.

Mingle together Heaven and Earth—
Ah! the great truth is now revealed—

276

Love stoops from his high seat to bless the Birth,
Wherewith the mighty Mother hath appealed
To him whom, at the time
Of Nature's prime,
She wedded; and, in his embrace, she hears,
Well-pleased, of his delight sublime
In her prolifick years.

Therefore with mighty tumult, and great noise,
He doth rejoice,
And scattereth noxious vapours from the air,
And fertilizeth every-where.
—Anon, the Clouds disperse, and Eve serene
Breathes fragrance, while the softened Sun
Spreads peaceful o'er the smiling scene;
That Benediction done!

THE END.