University of Virginia Library

And Samiasa stood within the Vale
Of Abel; and, within a little space,
Zateel confronted him.

Then said the King:
‘Knowest thou me not?’

Hereat on him Zateel
Gazed earnestly:

‘Thy features, like a dream,
Tell of the past, but in delusive wise,
Recalling the irrecoverable.’

Again,
The King spake to him thus:—

‘Hear me, Zateel:
My heart, even as the desart where I dwelt,
Was once athirst. The fountain now unsealed,
Its waters overflow. Thy heart is not
Adust with age, nor passionless; but there
Full fancy flourishes, and lifts its head,
Even as my fortune once, a goodly tree,
Until God's Angel cut it down.’

Whereat,
Zateel, convinced, at once exclaimed,

‘My lord—
My king—my father—brother—lover—friend.’

‘No raptures now, my son,’ said Samiasa;
‘Well may it be for thee, and curb thy mind
From the presumption, which high faculty
Builds up, until it madden, if I tell
A tale to thee: a tale, while these sad lips
Stamp truth on what thou hearest.’

Tears Zateel
Wept; but, the gush of feeling finding way,
He answered, ‘King—say on—’

‘'Tis of my Mother.
To whom was more of beauty, more of wisdom,
Given than to Amazarah—or to me?
Zateel; I sought her in the palace-chamber,
To tell her of God's dealings with her son,
And wean her from her wickedness. I found
The sleeping Sorceress as of old. I stood,
And gazed, entranced, upon the majesty
Of her repose. I will not tell thee—then—
What storm of thoughts made me to shudder soon;
But rather how, recovering from such mood,
I did essay to wake the guilty Queen;
And how in vain, with voice and hand, I strove
To rouse her from her somnolency deep.
A Power was on her I might not remove.
Her body was as dead, and well I kenned
Her spirit absent thence;—but 'twas not dead—
I looked on it for hours; till at the last
She spake, still sleeping. Ask me not the words,
What direful oath it was she ratified
With the Infernal powers. How lived I yet,
After I heard them; till, restored to sense,
She gazed upon, and knew me, and fell down?
I could no more, but from the chamber rushed,
Determined the dread purpose to forestall.’

‘What purpose?’
‘Ask me not, I say; nor speak
Of what hath been disclosed. An awe is on me;
Be it on thee, and on thine utterance.’

Aright, and to the west of Armon, they
Stood; by the waters of Dunbadan there,
Which make right beautiful, and musical,
The Vale of Abel's Sacrifice, and Death:
Then on its banks they sate, and talked awhile;
Till Palal was approaching, by Zateel
Known, as by Samiasa, but till now
Shunned, for the doctrine which he spake abroad.
Now Palal joined the twain; and thus, in haste,
Bespake the King:

‘They come, with all their hosts,
Monarchs, and people; ardent, and grown bold,
To compass their design. Now, will they prove
The might of the Invisible.’

At this,
Rose Samiasa, and Zateel; and clomb
A lofty hill o'erlooking the far plain,
That like a continent spread out immense,
Bordering the Land of Streams. The invading hosts
They saw, in number like far-off seen trees,
Of forest, or of wild; whose lofty tops,
Beheld at distance, are so closely massed,
They seem a sea with waves, as in the wind
They bow before the heavens; communion they
Of saints, nor of the Spirit's fellowship
Unvisited; whose voice in gale, and breeze
Reverent they hear, and worship. But not such,
Nor piously engaged, those numbers, there,
That fill the champaign broad: armies of men
Rebellious, unadoring, and profane;
War-chariot, and War-Steed; and Elephant
To conflict trained, and bearing on his back
Turrets of warriours: animals besides,
Which the restorèd world has not yet tamed
To human use, were in the throng. The huge,
And strong Rhinoceros, with solid horn
Outgrowing on the maxillary bone,
Proof-armed—by tiger dreaded, lest it rip
His bowels—bore its lord upon its back
Into the battle throng; though turning oft
War to confusion, hurling friend on foe;
Camel, and Dromedary, and wild Mule;
All these came on: bent to assail the Mount
Of Paradise, and Eden lost regain.
Fools, not to know, that of the soul herself
The real Eden is, and she may make
Such of the barest, rudest spot on earth,
If piety, or charity be there.
Urged by the fiends in human limbs arrayed,
By Hherem, Satan, and Azaziel, came
The mailèd crowds, in military pomp;
Proud of such pomp; vain show, though gorgeous; weak,
Though seeming strong in multitudes; thence weak,
And because weak in multitude arrayed.
—Aggressors, through the Vale of Armon they
Move in defile; and on the pleasant banks
Of its baptizing stream, right arrogant,
Their chivalry dispose, in order meet.
Whoso had seen them then, might deem fair troop
Of prowest men, and steeds so swift, and strong;
With other creatures, savage, fierce, and wild:
With ensigns, and with pioneers expert,
To push obstruction back of hill, or wood;
Or raise opposing mountain, where was vale;
Or bridge o'er lake, and chasm, and river broad;
Were potent greatest emprize to achieve.
Ignorant of fate, as yonder battle Steed,
Who eager snorts, and, with snake subtlety,
Winds his glad way through numbers, and performs,
With supple spring obedient, what his lord,
Throned on his back, designs. O ignorant!—
While to the heaven thou vaultest, in soaring hope;
Or down the hill, with headlong energy,
Precipitatest like a rolling rock;
Then rising, dost as rapidly ascend,
Like a red meteor voyaging on high;
Or skimmest, with birdlike smoothness, level vale,
Tossing thy bright mane, like a torrent's foam,
Moving like air in air, but in thy course
Outstripping the swift whirlwind; or, with rein
Relaxed, glidest onward like a star, or checked,
Turnest like a comet; solid earth, meantime,
Shrinks from thy furious heel. O ignorant,
Brave Steed, art thou, thyself the while but decked,
A sacrifice; for Death's enormous strength
Ere long, with more than sinewy arm, to grasp.
Thee, when the giant seize, shall not avail
Might, or of bone, or limb, . . or effort fierce:
Fixed to the earth, within the monster's gripe,
That heavy head, so graceful now and light,
And that extended neck.

Ah, it is done—
On to that Mountain, Sodi, and his Steed,
Press confident; and to the Ark of God,
That Deluge Ship, arrive. Who there await
His formidable coming? Noah, Shem,
And Japhet, with most old Methuselah.
Patient they wait. Then on the holy thing
The glowing Knight puts his extended hand:
Fire flashes up; stones from a distance flung,
As from a sling, before the guarded hill,
Smote Steed, and Rider both. There lie they now,
O'erthrown; one dead, one dying. From within
Fire, as he writhes, at that Steed's nostrils smokes;
And the blood bubbles, both to ear, and eye,
Through the swoln veins; till, with the agony
Upspringing, his mad hoof deep dints the sod,
With a quick spasm, as of a lightning's stroke,
And then he falls for ever. O soon quenched,
Or vanished, all that vigour fiery,
And terrible, which him so late inspired.

Not sooner yet than cooled the valourous heat,
And insolent, in those invading hosts.
For lo, the Cherubim, apparent all;
In glory blazing high, and wide, and far;
Stood like a pillar of fire; or like a hill,
Or forest burning; but with shapes, and faces
Outlooking from the flames, as from a furnace,
Unharmèd forms, human if not divine,
At least angelic, graced with numerous wings.
And still the flames advanced; still forward came;
Till, in a robe of light, they did invest
The sainted form of old Methuselah.
So venerably old, that age in him
Was verily sublime; and in the soul
That gazed upon his form, even to tears,
Kindled emotion elevate, profound.
—Yet could yon Knight, now fallen, endure his frown,
And rudely push him by, to smite that Ark,
Divinely ordered; Sodi, rebel youth,
Though valiant, yet apostate. Of the tribe
Of old Methuselah, a youngest son,
Of consecrated race, seduced wert thou
Into the ranks of the profane; and mixed
(But one of many) in their ways of life,
And in their modes of thought; and scorn conceived
Of patriarchal rule, and holy rede.
Chief laughedst thou at the awe in which were held
That self-same Ark, those very Cherubim;
Illusion all, as thou right well mightst know,
Who hadst been in the secret, and wert taught
How such were fabricated, and adored,
For government, so that the few, or one,
Might lord it o'er the rest—the myriad minds,
Equal, and independent as their own.
Hence hardiest thou, and foremost in assault;
Filial impiety, but soon avenged;
And crowned with glory bright the insulted Sire,
With glory crowned, in sight of all mankind.

And soon Earth shook beneath those multitudes;
Horribly shook: and in the human heart
Was equal fear; flesh universal quaked,
Lest all the region gape, and swallow all:
But otherwise 'twas fated; One alone
Was doomed. Riven as with a thunderbolt,
The mountain yawned; and deep into his grave
Sank, diademed with light, Methuselah;
Thus buried, that no insult desecrate
A Patriarch's obsequies again, as mocked
With contumely Lamech's sacred bier.

Thus sank Methuselah, by earthquake gulfed,
Received to Hades. But, from out his grave,
A column high, and broad, of water wroth
Upspouted through a chasm, that might not close,
Forced by the impetuous element apart.
On high it towered a Fountain, and came down
A River, circling in the lofty air,
And flowing nether earth, a beauteous thing,
Yet terrible:—that arch of grace, and power,
In fluid motion, living in the light;
In agony, and action manifest
To ear, and eye—a spirit passionate,
Or spirits, in that stormy atmosphere,
Ascending, and descending—raging, wild.

Hereat all stood in stupid gaze. Meanwhile,
The Watchers of the Door of Paradise
Moved rapidly apart; and made a way
For entry, or for egress, to and fro
The holy garden. Soon, between them, stood
The sainted form of Enoch, still in youth;
And still his voice was heard as ere he went:

‘He cometh, with ten thousands of his saints,
Judgement forthwith on all to execute;
And all that are ungodly to convince
Of their ungodly deeds, and their hard speech,
Which against him, Most Holy, they have dared.’

He said; and held aloft, in view of all,
The Tables of the Laws of the Most High;
Each letter made distinct with flames of fire,
And flashing outwards into trails of light.
In at the eye it entered, to the brain
It penetrated deep, and smote with pangs
Guilt where it found. With speed, and awe, away
Fled the invaders, ruinous retreat.