University of Virginia Library

CLXXIV.THE FOUR GOSPELS.

I was in vision in a drear old place,
Where bodied and unbodied voices ranged,
And where the outward semblance hourly changed
From a huge vacant minster, to the face
Of a lone valley mid the rock-strewn hills;
And now it was the wind within the nave
Which spoke to me, and now the murmuring wave,
Catching the boughs that drooped upon the rills:
Yet, whether it were mountain-vale, or shrine
By cheerful ordinance untenanted,
The vision was but single, and outspread
In various unity like things divine.
And though its pictured forms and mystic tongue
Were strange to me, and though my barren sense
Was all unwrought to such intelligence
By stern ascetic life, yet while it sung,
Pouring forth strains of sweetness too profound
To be an earth-born song, my spirit drunk
Deep of the fertile waters till they sunk
Within my heart, and for a season drowned
The world and sin! Ah me! I feel them now,
Waking with strength refreshed from that short sleep:
So will I strive once more my soul to steep
In that wild song, and with the prophet go,
Not unalarmed, by Chobar's radiant banks,
And, kneeling far aloof in reverent fear,
In spirit bid the holy man go near,
And softly sing what of cherubic ranks
He haply may behold, where o'er his head—
O Lord, that I had faith that sight to see,
Which o'er my head this hour I know to be!—
The inner Heavens are visibly outspread.
But hark! the song begins, while to the north
The priestly bard, o'er dim Chaldean plains
And misty brooks, his eye of rapture strains,
And lo! a cloudy whirlwind driving forth!
He sings! he sings! how by the river side
From out the self-infolding Cloud there came
An amber brightness, wings and wheels of flame,
And Four mysterious creatures, many-eyed,
With lamps that ran forth from them and returned;
As when the clouds are every moment riven,
Then seem to catch their flashes back to heaven,
Even so the lightnings of that vision burned;
And underneath their wings, but half concealed,
A human hand was resting, which might seem
To give sweet right to draw that waking dream
Unto ourselves, as though there were revealed
Therein the fortunes of our fallen race,
And what great things might haply yet be ours,
More than retrieving Eden's perished bowers,
With Four fresh streams of more than Eden's grace.