Elias: An Epic of the Ages

CANTO SEVEN
The Arcana Of The Infinite[1]

 
Flake upon flake, then slide succeeding slide,
The marvel and the wonder multiplied.
 
 
Garnered in one vast mind[2] the glacial store,
The glittering avalanche of heavenly lore,
Whose living streams shall slake the burning thirst
Of time unborn, of nations yet unnurst;
Torrent of truth, river of prophecy, 1990
Rolling through worlds to find fulfillment's sea.
 
 
He stands, as Moses on the mystic mount,
Where knowledge pours from wisdom's purest fount;
Stands 'neath the droppings of the crystal eaves,
Stands on the loftiest summit man achieves,
Where light eternal—was, is, and to be—
'Lumines the vistas of immensity,
The ultimates of human destiny.
 
 
He walks and talks with God, as friend with friend;
He reads the Book of Time from end to end, 2000
And in the Volume of Eternity
Peruses past and far futurity;
Ranges to realms of wider mystery—
Ne'er-ending hope, ne'er-ending history;
While from all depths that sink, all heights that soar,
Come voices, visions, of the Evermore.
Like unto like, above, beneath, the skies,
Deep calls to deep, and faith to faith replies.
 
 
He hears the solemn dispensations[3] chime,
From morn till eve, from birth to death, of time; 2010
He notes the markings of the horologe,
The set times of the great unerring Judge;
Then sees those dispensations as they run
Their 'lotted course, like hours 'twixt sun and sun.
Wave after wave rolls o'er the shining sand,
Wave after wave breaks higher up the strand,
With all of weal or woe the ages send.
As sundered ocean tides that shoreward tend,
Now past and future o'er the present pend,
Till on the narrow isthmus sea meets sea, 2020
And time no longer parts eternity.
 
 
He hears the soundings of the trumpets seven[4],
Whose angels, stooping from the heights of heaven,
Proclaim, in tones to rend the echoing spheres,
The secrets of the Seven Thousand Years;
The secret of a book with seven seals,
That all of mortal mystery reveals;
Man's course, God's chronicle, life's tale told true,
Nor tinged with favor's tint, with hatred's hue;
Earth's week of history, whose sabbath chime 2030
Summons to rest the weary soul of time.
 
 
The Holy Order[5] that for aye hath reigned,
For loyal faith and lofty deeds ordained;
The all-creating, all-controlling chain,
Whereby the Gods perpetuate their reign,
Whereby the higher, bending, lift the lower;
Wielding the sceptre of Almighty Power,
Ruling by right the nations, ill aware
Whence came the thrones that have been, thrones that
      are; 2040
Which sets up one and puts another down,
Their fate proclaimed as fortune's smile or frown;
The power that reigns not save in righteousness,
Persuades in meekness, chastens but to bless;
The might of heaven, the pure and potent chain
Stainless, save mortal links their lustre stain,
And plunged through fire are purified again,
He sees extending through the storms of time,
Anchor and cable of a ship sublime.
 
 
Pilots of life on death's fierce tempest tossed, 2050
Love's legionaries, saviors of the lost;
A sacred army's solemn pride and boast,
The janissaries of the heavenly host;
The jeweled circlet of the Central Gem,
Jehovah's body-guard—the Gibborim.
 
 
The guileless followers of the guiltless Lamb,
Of Israel ere Earth knew Abraham[6];
Sealed in the forehead with the sacred Name,
Bearing the Ark of God, the Sword of Flame[7];
Behold them coming, coming, as they came 2060
Whene'er was kindled here the beacon blaze
By each Elias of the olden days!
Truth, error, shine and shadow[8], alternate,
As oft as mankind proves degenerate.
 
 
But ever, as the day-beam sinks and dies,
The stars reset their lanterns in the skies;
And unto Moses in the wilderness
Comes greater light, succeeded by the less[9].
Till truth the fulness of its ray restores,
And heaven o'er earth the holy unction pours, 2070
By ministers upon each hemisphere,[10]
Sent to proclaim what every soul must hear.
 
 
The promise past, fulfillment now is seen,
The Perfect Church[11], resplendent in the sheen
Of risen Righteousness, whose arm once more
Puts forth in power to rescue and restore.
Gray grows to crimson, crimson melts to gold,
And dawns the day by starry night foretold,
Whose lamps prophetic pale their silvery rays,
Lost in the golden light of Latter Days. 2080
A twofold Church, a dual Bride he sees;
Time's the full reflex of Eternity's.
 
 
Visioned the Dispensation of the End,
Where Zions meet, where dispensations blend,
And time's sad rivers cease their mighty moan
In sobbing requiem o'er his sunken throne,
Till death departs, and joy, from zone to zone,
Welcomes the rightful Heir unto his own.
 
 
Visioned the Council of the Ancient One[12],
Where stars make ready for the rising Sun; 2090
Where Adam yields the mortal world he won,
Unto the Sabbath Lord, till sabbath done,
And Sire receives the Kingdom from the Son.
Ere when, award of fulness is there none;
Though great ones gain the far celestial shore,
Shining and perfect as they shone before.
 
 
'Lumed by the Lamp that giveth endless view,
Discerns he spirits false and spirits true;
Unmasking Satan with the keys of light[13],
That blind may see and deaf may hear aright, 2100
A message marvelous to eyes and ears,
The rhythmic message of the songful spheres.
 
 
"Truth is eternal!"—Thus the solemn voice—
"'Twas not her birth made morning stars rejoice,
Nay, but her mission to a new-born sphere,
Whither, as oft, her shining bark would steer
With spirit crew, kin to the kingly race
Peopling the burning orbs of bourneless space.
 
 
"Truth is eternal, endless as its God,
Author and framer of the changeless code, 2110
Ever-returning, oft-repeating plan,
Redeeming from all worlds the race of man.
Life-saving line, far flung from heaven to earth,
To rescue souls—God's wealth, supremest worth—
Rescue the fallen and the penitent,
Who else must bide in hopeless banishment.
Unending were their mortal prisonment,
Did ne'er truth's sunlight gild the gloomy sod,
Gospel of mercy, gift of the gracious God,
Who gave up life to bridge the dark gulf o'er, 2120
And close its cruel jaws forevermore;
Love, striving with belief and unbelief,
Gleaning life's harvest to the latest sheaf.
 
 
"A God whose glory is intelligence,
A God whose knowledge gives omnipotence,
Who makes, maintains, redeems, and glorifies,
Bending to lift the lowliest to the skies,
By triple lever, by the mystic birth,
By Three in heaven, the typed of three on earth:
Water, that signifies obedience, 2130
Sure test of faith, true sign of penitence;
Spirit whereby the flesh is justified,
And blood, whereby the soul is sanctified;—
Lifting by these, but not by these alone,
By every word from Him upon the Throne,
Spirit 'mid spirits, most intelligent[14],
Wherefore their Sovereign Sire benevolent,
Giver of life and light whereby the rest
Press on and on till all things are possessed.
 
 
"Intelligence, eternal[15], uncreate, 2140
Though God-begotten in the spirit state,
Where all creations see maturity,
Ere launched as souls upon the mortal sea,
To prove their worth, make choice 'twixt wrong and right,
And walk by faith as erst they walked by sight;
As free to sound the gulf as soar the height.
 
 
"Man a divinity in embryo,
Who, ere he reign above, must serve below;
His spirit in earth element baptize,
For birth and death are baptism[16] to the wise. 2150
The space that parts the lower from the higher,
Spanned by development of son to Sire,
Of daughter unto Mother's high estate,
Where man and woman are inseparate.
 
 
"Time a probation; earth, through time, a school,
Where justice reigns, though oft the unjust rule.
Pain, trouble, toil, preceptors of the soul;
Death, birth, but portals to and from life's goal—
Life's fount, where all as infant spirits sprang,
And sons of God in countless chorus sang, 2160
Unheeding earthly sorrow[17]—parent pang
Of after joy, o'er which their triumph rang.
 
 
"The fall, whereby the worlds are put in pawn,
And held in durance till redemption dawn,
A plan divine that changeth part to whole,
Immortal spirit to immortal soul.
 
 
"Second estate[18] here interlinked with first,
For godliness where spirit life was nurst,
And Satan's rebel host, heaven's third, were sent
To unentabernacled banishment; 2170
Tempters, beguilers, triers of the true,
Who now reap greater gain, or sadly rue
The loss of all, surrendering to him
Who warreth endlessly 'gainst Elohim,
And, shorn of glory, would all light bedim;
Where many, wrecked, to awful depths go down,
While few return to wear the waiting crown,
Reigning where others serve.
 
 
                "Each woe, each bliss,
In after worlds, the yield of life in this; 2180
Here garnered are the fruits from fields of yore,
And sown the harvest of the evermore.
 
 
"The called are not the chosen past mischance;
The sanctified to glorified advance,
And stewardship becomes inheritance.
Redemption free, for God hath paid the price;
All else man wins by toil and sacrifice.
 
 
"As sun, or moon, or varying star[19], appears
Each heir of glory in those endless spheres:
Sun-like the souls that live celestial laws, 2190
And moon-like they who at terrestrial pause—
Who honor not the Saviour in the flesh,
But after, in the spirit realm, refresh
Their fainting, fettered lives at mercy's fount,
And, far as merit buoys them, upward mount;
Saved, glorified, by faith and penitence,
Made valid, through vicarious ordinance[20],
For all who Him believe, who Him obey,
And own in other worlds His sovereign sway.
Nor lost forever souls unsaved today: 2200
Telestial they who taste the pangs of hell,
And pay guilt's debt ere they in glory dwell,
Twinkling as stars whose numbers none can tell.
 
 
"Souls that to high celestial realms have won,
Dwell with the gods, beholding Sire and Son;
While bounds are set that bar terrestrial heirs
(With whom the Gracious One his presence shares),
And dwellers in the far telestial spheres,
To whom the Holy Spirit ministers.
God's servants these, but to His glorious home— 2210
The loftiest heights of heaven—they cannot come.
 
 
"Justice and Mercy each shall have its own,
Nor one thrust other from the dual throne;
Each shoal and deep a final fullness see,
And like clasp like through all eternity.
 
 
"But who shall sound the bottomless despair
Of one condemned the second death to share?
If, re-ensnared in Satan's subtle mesh,
A soul redeemed its Saviour pierce afresh,
Spurning the Spirit, scorning proffered ruth, 2220
A traitor utterly to light and truth,
Then flames perdition's gulf, death's last abyss,
The lake of fire, all life's antithesis.
All power then powerless to change its plight;
For what avails the burnt-out lamp to light?
Justice can lay no blame on blameless shelves,
Nor mercy save when souls will damn themselves.
 
 
"Twofold is death, but life has threefold sway;
What ne'er created was, endures alway.
The organized disorganized may be, 2230
But not the life that lives undyingly.
Nothing bides nothing: that which is shall be;
Though form, not essence, change unceasingly.
Space, spirit, matter, all eternal are,
And death but on creation wages war.
Whate'er beginning had may have an end,
But life eternal doth itself defend.
 
 
"Man's inmost spark, his being's primal fire,
As birthless and as deathless as its Sire,—
No more the maker of that unmade germ 2240
Than man the framer of the spirit form,
Born and begotten in the first estate,
God's creature, whom God's power can uncreate.
Spirit to spirit, dust to dust returns,
But bright intelligence forever burns,
Though banished from the presence of the light,
Exiled and wandering in the outer night,
Remembering past, and mourning present blight,
The end whereof, a mystery to man,
Unsolved while bending 'neath the mortal ban, 2250
None but the doomed partaker e'er shall scan.
 
 
"Higher than heaven, deeper than hell, profound,
His course wherein no crookedness is found—
An onward, upward, never-ending round.
"Comes forth all life at resurrection's call,
When soul immortal sheds its mortal thrall;
The just first rising, who with Christ shall reign,
While sinners tarry till He sounds again,
Late issuing, in shame and self contempt,
When Lucifer, unbound, shall newly tempt, 2260
Still striving for a glory not his own,
Till by the Arm Almighty overthrown.
 
 
"Spirit and body, blending, make the soul,
As halves, uniting, form the perfect whole.
Spirit and element, commingled, one,
Inheriting the Glory of the Sun,
Symbol a greater union yet to be,
When heaven and earth shall wed eternally,
And restitution's edict seal and bind
Eternal matter to eternal mind, 2270
Like unto like, for night weds not with day,
And order's mandate e'en the gods obey.
 
 
"The sealing of the sexes, mate to mate,
Earnest of exaltation's lofty state,
Where evermore they reign as queens and kings,
And endless union endless increase brings;
While serve as angels the unwedded ones,
Abandoning their right to royal thrones.
 
 
"One are the human twain, as sheath and sword—
Woman and man, the lady and the lord; 2280
Each pair the Eve and Adam of some world,
Perchance unborn, or into space unhurled.
 
 
"From endless spirit, endless element,
The worlds that glow in glory's firmament.
Created all and governed all by law,
Perfect they shine, or show sin's fatal flaw;
Their Maker's will obey or disobey,
And felons found a felon's debt[21] must pay;
While wiser orbs, obedient at school,
Are robed in radiance, and have learned to rule— 2290
Are lords of light, resplendent and supreme,
E'en as great Kolob 'mid the kokaubeam.
 
 
"Earth a celestial law hath magnified[22],
And by that law shall she be sanctified,
And by the same shall she be glorified;
By fire refined, the gold from dross set free,
Shining forever as a crystal sea,
Celestial seer-stone[23], making manifest
All things below to souls upon her breast—
Chosen, omniscient, children of the Sun, 2300
Offspring of Adam, Michael, Ancient One,
Who comes anon his fiery throne to rear,
His council summoning from far and near.
Ten thousand times ten thousand bow the knee,
And "Father" hail him, "King," eternally.
 
 
"For so are governed all those worlds of fire,
That chorus in a universal choir
The glory of the Lord Omnipotent,
Whose power hath framed through infinite extent
The splendors of the flashing firmament; 2310
Sire of the universe, and King of Kings,
O'er countless realms; each dusty dot that springs
To blazing being, empire of a god,
Who equals Him, yet owns His sovereign rod,
The Central Scepter of Omnipotence,
The God of Gods, Supreme Magnificence,
Regnant o'er all that is or e'er shall be,
Throned on the summit of eternity.
 
 
"Souls there above who once below all things,
All things inherit, and are priests and kings, 2320
Pillars immovable, princes unto God,
No more outgoing from that high abode,
Where past and future present are alway,
And years a thousand even as a day".
 
 
Who here have lived, or would have lived, the law[24],
Exalted, numbered with the gods, he saw,
One with the wisdom of Omniscience,
And glorious with All Intelligence.
So thorough and so just the perfect plan,
Weighing the motive with the work of man! 2330
 
 
Nor this the tithe of what those tongues unfold,
Nor tithe of tithe of what can ne'er be told.
As unto Judah's one and Joseph's three[25],
Who tasted of translation's ecstacy;
Or him who, spared from Babel's doom, beheld
Messiah's unclothed spirit[26], faith-compelled;
Or him of Tarsus, tranced, the triple seer[27]
Of things unlawful to be uttered here;—
As unto souls like these was given to see
The marvel past, the mystery to be, 2340
So upon him, their peer of modern days,
The Source of all-revealing sends its rays.
 
 
Broken the fountains of the upper deep;
Opened the sepulchres where ages sleep;
The past, the future, now the present leaven;
With truth from earth blends righteousness from heaven,
Welding the parted links of being's chain,
Old making new, the dead live again.
 
 
O message marvelous to eyes and ears!
Voices and visions of the mystic spheres! 2350
Voices of noonday, visions of the night,
Whisperings of angels, and their presence bright!
Voice of the Architect of Life's vast Plan,
Speaking as God to God, as man to man!
 

CANTO EIGHT
The Lifted Ensign[1]

 
Armed now with knowledge, panoplied with power,
With two-edged sword of God's authority,
Girded by heavenly hands on shepherds twain[2],
The first and second of a gathering flock,
Transcribers of the buried book of gold,
Whose mystic page, unsealed by gift divine, 2360
Save part withheld of mightier mystery,
Now challenges the wise and wondering world;—
Armed and equipt, with staff, and stone in sling,
Strong in the Lord, the God of Israel,
The dauntless David of a later day
Fares forth to meet the Giant of Untruth[3].
 
 
Thenceforth a warrior and a wanderer,
A victor hated for his victories;
Targe for the javelin of jealousy;
Hunted and hounded through the wilderness; 2370
Outlawed by all, all save a loyal few,
The patient sharers of his painful lot,
Companions of his mortal pilgrimage,
Recalled with him, their earthly errand o'er,
To grace the courts of High Jerusalem.
 
 
But ere a day for that departure dawns,
Unveiled once more the face of mystery.
Speaks from the musty tomb of buried time,
The all-remembering Spirit of the Past:
 
 
"Time yet was young[4], but old iniquity, 2380
Outcast of worlds redeemed, on earth was rife,
And, self-enchained, a fallen race lay prone
At feet of Lucifer. And demons laughed,
And hell rejoiced, and all that ribald host
Clapt hand, and danced and jeered derisively;
While gods and angels wept, their pitying tears
Whitening the spectral mountains cold and lone,
Wakening to virile springs a spirit waste.
 
 
"And there the sainted commonweal[5] arose,
Haven divine, hill of the sanctified, 2390
Oasis-like 'mid burning sands of sin;
God's people, pure in heart, and one in all,
No poor among them, pride and greed unknown;
Saved by the tidings first to Adam taught,
And next to Enoch's generation told.
 
 
"Righteous, they dreamt no evil, feared no ill,
And death, the universal doom, defied.
Earth not their pillow; they shall one day pass
From mortal to immortal painlessly.
 
 
"Self's chain was sundered[6]; devils glared aghast, 2400
And gnashed their teeth with disappointed rage,
Trembling in terror lest perdition's pit
Engulf them ere the time. Then gathering power,
As if for Armageddon's conflict[7] dire,
When triumphs Michael o'er the foe unchained,
Hell's molten belch of burning hatred hurled
Upon those hapless sons of earth who scorned
The refuge of the righteous; her bright towers,
Far-beaming with terrestrial radiance[8]—
The promise fair of full celestial change,– 2410
Bidding the vile beware, nor venture near
The awful mountain of God's holiness.
 
 
"Waxed foul the world in wickedness, piled high
A hideous monument of shame and crime,
Which, toppling with its own weight, crashing fell,
Whelming in ruin the guilty race of man,
Whose spirits, as fierce seas their dust devoured,
By fiercer fiends to dungeon deeps were driven.
Nor thence redeemed till He who died for all
Soared from the cross to set the captive free[9]. 2420
 
 
"The while, on fearless wings of purity,
Cleaving as bird or ransomed soul the air,
The sainted city entered into rest,
Envied of Babel, climbing robber-like[10];
Bride of the Highest, midway hovering,
Till folded in the bosom of the Gods,
Where Zions from unnumbered worlds have fled.
Type temporal of spirit antitype,
A future moral height foreshadowing.
 
 
"Foreseen the fatal deluge. Ere the doom 2430
Of all save faithful Noah and his seven,—
Tri-branching tree[11] of race regenerate,
Yielding anew life's fruit and foliage,—
Earth mourned as Rachel, Rizpah, o'er the slain,
The slain of men unborn, who yet must die
Degenerate in the days that were to be.
 
 
"Then Enoch wept, and sued in sympathy,
And God gave answer thus:
 
 
                 'Earth yet shall rest,
And, sanctified, shall see her Saviour reign, 2440
Monarch of worlds, His realms as ocean sands.
But it shall be within the latter days,
The days of vengeance and of wickedness,
When men the Sole-begotten crucify,
And He shall go again to judge the world,
Proclaimed by truth, forerun by righteousness,
Gathering the pure-in-heart unto a place—
A holy place my people shall prepare,
There to await my coming, mine and thine.
Then shown the resurrection's shadowing: 2450
Zion above, from all creations past,
Shall meet and blend with Zion from below;
Spirits and bodies of the just shall join,
And in the midst my tabernacle be.
Yea, as I live, so will I forth again,
My oath to thee, my covenant, to fulfill;
And earth shall garb in glory of her God,
And Noah's righteous seed in Me rejoice.'"
 
 
These things spake God to Moses, from the mount
Whose name is veiled to ken of humankind; 2460
And thus that prophet, but through unbelief
And cunning craftiness, at war with Light,
The fulness of his message sleeps till now,
When one like unto him[12] and Him he typed,
Brings forth the buried meaning from its grave.
 
 
On twain of ocean-parted hemispheres,
Saw noon of time a twofold type[13] of peace,
A pledge, a token, of millennial rest,
An earnest of the Commonweal to come;
But no fulfillment of the promise old, 2470
No ripe fruition of the ancient oath,
To Enoch sworn, through Moses re-affirmed,
By Ephraim's prophet made to live again.
 
 
—-
 
 
Promise now sought fulfillment[14],—it was time;
For weary earth lay groaning 'neath her load.
"Unclean, unclean," her cry, as leprous sin
With foul intent clasped close her shrinking form,
And baned with foetid breathing all her soul.
 
 
Long she had mourned and wept o'er life's decay;
Her waning strength, from age and weariness, 2480
Her mother powers, unholy passion's prey,
Bringing, in lieu of giants, pygmies forth,
To fall untimely on her withered breast.
Dwindling and dwarfed in all save wickedness,
And knowledge, oft made pander unto ill,
With learning gorged, for wisdom famishing,
Man both a glutton and a starveling seemed.
 
 
For Self, the sordid, sat once more enthroned,
Binding in servile chains a universe,
Where mightily men strove for place and fame, 2490
Greedy for power, as gluttonous for gold.
And who sought neighbor's weal, save kith and kin
Or petted friendling prest a favored claim?
 
 
Disorder reigned, and satire laughed to scorn
Grotesque, invidious inconsistency:
Talent on title waiting, brain on birth!
Genius at oars, and dullards at the helm!
The prancing war-steed fastened to the plow,
The ass unto the chariot—oft with rein,
Curbing the mettled courser's noble rage, 2500
Or goading him with needless cruelty!
 
 
Matter was monarch; Spirit stood apart,
Unknown, unseen, or spurned and thrust aside
By thronging myriads, bending supple knee,
And basking in the proud usurper's smile.
 
 
Men bowed not down to sun and moon and stars,
To bird, nor beast, nor reptile, as of yore;
But worshipt still at other creature shrines,
Ignoring the Creator's primal claim.
 
 
Pride sneered at poverty—if poor of purse, 2510
But gave its hand to beggared intellect,
To bankrupt soul, and greeted them as peers.
Learning, if lowly pillowing its head,
A pauper deemed, and pitied or condemned.
And many, stung by adder glance of scorn,
Shunning a life of noble toil and care,
To Mammon, e'en in marriage, sold themselves,
Offering a lawless fire at passion's shrine,
Or staining hands and heart with sabler sins.
 
 
Shameful the serfdom of the earth-bound soul, 2520
Base passion's basest slave and prisoner;
Charmed by no music but the clink of coin;
Cankered and crusted o'er with avarice;
Dupe, dreaming shadow real, and substance show.
 
 
Where party more than principle was prized,
Where private gain was labeled "public good,"
And "patriotism" masked hypocrisy,
Science, when sordid, or subservient
To worldly ends, to aims material,
Stood pedestaled and robed in honors rare: 2530
While art fell fainting at the patron's door,
Or starved and froze in cheerless attic den.
 
 
For aye the flesh must first be comforted,
And e'en the body's luxuries abound,
Ere mind of man may clothe its nakedness,
Or hungering heart and spirit have their own.
 
 
Music, the drama, all art, still divine,
Though oft to ends ignoble basely bent,
In atmospheres miasmic, fever-fraught,
To folly pandering and to lechery; 2540
Or using gifts God-lent for good of all,
Gain's maw to glut, fame's lust to gratify.
Forgot the Giver, and adored the gift,
As in the pagan days of olden time.
 
 
And thou, where thou, O sage philosophy,
Heir to a hundred shadows of thy name!
Where thy spent waves on speculation's strand?
Still striving, finite for the infinite,
Man groping for the mystery of God,
A river that would fain engulf the sea! 2550
 
 
Religion dead, and poesy so deemed,
Because unwedded to a carnal age,
Unprostituted to its paltry aims,
Or hid beneath vast verbal rubbish heaps,
The dust and debris of the former fires.
Religion dead, but bigotry alive,
And ne'er more active upon earth than now,
When sect 'gainst sect in battle order stood,
And schisms and dissensions multiplied.
Some worshipt nothing, naming it a god; 2560
Some deemed the mortal dust a thing divine;
Religious, irreligious, bigotry,
Each counted victims by the hecatomb.
 
 
What wonder, when truth's meanings tortured were,
The living God dethroned, and in His stead,
A monster crouching on the Mercy Seat,
Whose mere caprice, naught else, did save or damn?
Wafting the blood-stained criminal to bliss,
If he but gasped, half hung, the holy Name?
Thrusting the spotless infant into hell, 2570
If un-elect, or unbaptized for sin!
To endless woe or weal forefating all.
What wonder justice, reason, stood aghast,
While faith, revolting, rushed to doubt's extreme?
 
 
Critics, high-soaring, sought to clip the wings
Of arrogance in all creeds save their own.
Half-fledged conclusion, findings premature,
Grounded on tale of rock or ruin old,
More credence had, more reverence, from men,
Than sacred lore of heaven-lit centuries. 2580
All miracle was myth, nor aught worth while,
Save, leaded down with learned theories,
It crawled, an earth-worm, wanting will to climb
Above the level of the commonplace.
 
 
Fanatics in the state as in the church,
Their prejudices palmed for principle,
Vain vagaries and dreams for doctrine sound;
And woe to him who lisped of liberty,
Or thought aloud one thought unthought before!
Freedom to think and breathe—God-granted boons, 2590
Alike, to savage, serf, and citizen—
Was all that freedom signified to some,
Who, as they doled a gift already given,
Boasted themselves magnanimous and wise.
Freedom to speak and act as conscience bade,
As God commanded, crushed or captive bound,
E'en where men vaunted most of liberty.
 
 
And peace was yet a dream unrealized,
For war still sowed and reaped his harvests red;
And Christian guns were mightiest and slew most. 2600
 
 
Nor yet stood toil 'gainst capital arrayed,
The starving masses 'gainst the Midases,
As erst arose, 'gainst moss-grown old regimes,
The trampled Terror[15], scrawling with fierce hand
On history's flaming scroll his red revenge,
With that blood-reeking pen, the guillotine;
Nor yet faced frowning mass contemning class[16],
Jeering, oblivious of the lurking doom,
The glooming clouds where groaned the gathering storm.
But murderous craft and oath-bound anarchy, 2610
With secret deeds of darkness, had begun
To sap the life of human government,
And plot against the safety of mankind;
While greeds and lusts and passions manifold,
Preying on frailty and on innocence,
Ran riot 'mid the fairest, brightest, best.
 
 
Where, promise, thy fulfillment, pledged of yore?
'Twas time—full time—the far-seen ensign waved,
Hailing the morn on heights of holiness,
Proclaiming peace and freedom to the world. 2620
'Twas time disorder fled, time justice reigned,
And rightfully were held dominion's keys;
Time pure religion's sceptre should return,
By poesy extolled, by art adorned,
With science and with reason reconciled;
Time feeble earth her panacea found,
Time health gave life its old longevity,
Time pride should bend, time lust to love should yield,
And self confess the joy of sacrifice.
'Twas time an Enoch came[17], a Zion rose. 2630
 
 
Sound, trump of God! as when old Jordan's wave
Shook with the thunder-tread of Joshua's host,
Shook with the shouting and the trumpet blasts,
Heard the loud roar of crumbling Jericho,
And in mad haste ran shuddering to the sea!
Speak now the doom foreshadowed by that fall—
The mightier doom of Modern Babylon:
 
 
Bow down thy head, proud mistress of the world!
Humble thy haughty crest, degenerate queen!
Lift but thine eyes to where God's finger glows 2640
In fiery warning on thy festal wall,
Drowning in dread the voice of revelry,
Thy saturnalia's ribald shout and song.
Ended thine empire, Weighed-and-Wanting-Found!
Down to the dust in all thy worldliness,
Thou thing of brass, of iron, and of clay!
Sound, trumpet, sound! The looked-for signal looms!
The fateful stone upon the image rolls!
 
 
"On you, my fellow servants, I confer
The priestly power of Aaron, with the keys 2650
Of angel ministries, of penitence,
Of water-birth that washes free from sin.
And greater things than these shall yet be given—
The holier powers of high Melchizedek,
Which Mightier by three shall minister."
 
 
And on each head was laid a holy hand[18];
Time making good the promise plighted there,
Welding another link in wonder's chain,
Writing new chapters of a story strange,
Confounding human learning, fools and wise. 2660
 
 
—-
 
 
So came once more the panoply of power[19].
So rose the ensign o'er a waiting world.
 
 
Armed thus with knowledge and authority,
Armed and equipt, with staff, and stone in sling,
Fares forth a champion for Israel,
To grapple with Philistia and prevail.
 
 
Guide unto God, repointer of the path,
Untrodden through a thousand years nigh twained,
The while men roamed, as once o'er trackless wild,
The savage, by the untaught trapper trained; 2670
Blind leading blind through thick and thorny wold.
 
 
Light 'mid the darkness, beam from heaven's full blaze,
Driving the mists, that comprehended not
His brightness nor their own obscurity;
Holding him blind who saw as few have seen.
He, blind, forsooth, who more than all beheld!
 
 
Sinking deep shafts to mines of mystery,
Shallow and empty to the worldly wise;
Soaring to heights by human lore undreamt,
Yet deemed an earth-mole, groping, groveling. 2680
 
 
Aloft, alone, an exile among men,
A wanderer in a solitary way,
Pariah of prejudice and unbelief,
Whose lowering features fiercely on him frowned.
Thought's prisoner and truth's, that maketh free
The spirit, though the body pine in chains,
Albeit the tongue, the pen, in durance be,
Consigned to silence, captive unto light,
And crucified betwixt ideal and real.
 
 
But who art thou that lookest forth sublime, 2690
A soul upsoaring as from sepulture,
Body and spirit pure and free from stain,
As gold and silver tried by seven-timed fire?
 
 
Speak! Art not thou the Woman Wonderful[20],
Summoned from out the silent wilderness,
Arisen from the grave of centuries,
No more to be despoiled or trodden down?
A symbol of exalted sanctity,
The consecration of the contrite heart;
Of ancient types the modern complement, 2700
Chief splendor of time's sparkling firmament,
Whose silver stars bespoke this sun of gold.
 
 
But when did darkness comprehend the day?
When welcomed pleasure thorn-crowned sacrifice,
Whose higher, holier joys than sin can know,
As dust and ashes to the sensual soul?
Jewels to swine, that, turning, rent the hand,
And fain 'neath foot had torn and trampled all.
Such was Truth's fate, alas! in modern time,
'Mid Christian men;—but not her final fate. 2710
 
 
For who can stay the sun-like march of Truth?
Who dim with bloody hand her beam divine?
First shall he halt the progress of the stars,
The bright procession of the infinite;
Blot out the day-beam, dull the scythe of time,
Shear morning's wings, roll back eternal night,
Or shake the moveless throne of destiny.
 
 
Lifted an ensign never to be furled,
Unsheathed a falchion evermore to flame,
Till earth-born realms, in one wide empire rolled, 2720
Hail conquering Christ as life and light of all.