CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS.

Mortal man and woman,

Go upon your travel!

Heaven assist the human

Smoothly to unravel

All that web of pain

Wherein ye are holden.

Do ye know our voices

Chanting down the Golden?

Do ye guess our choice is,

Being unbeholden,

To be hearkened by you yet again?

This pure door of opal

God hath shut between us,—

Us, his shining people,

You, who once have seen us

And are blinded new!

Yet, across the doorway,

Past the silence reaching,

Farewells evermore may,

Blessing in the teaching,

Glide from us to you.

Think how erst your Eden,

Day on day succeeding,

With our presence glowed.

We came as if the Heavens were bowed

To a milder music rare.

Ye saw us in our solemn treading,

Treading down the steps of cloud,

While our wings, outspreading

Double calms of whiteness,

Dropped superfluous brightness

Down from stair to stair.

Or oft, abrupt though tender,

While ye gazed on space,

We flashed our angel-splendour

In either human face.

With mystic lilies in our hands,

From the atmospheric bands

Breaking with a sudden grace,

We took you unaware!

While our feet struck glories

Outward, smooth and fair,

Which we stood on floorwise,

Platformed in mid-air.

Or oft, when Heaven-descended,

Stood we in our wondering sight

In a mute apocalypse

With dumb vibrations on our lips

From hosannas ended,

And grand half-vanishings

Of the empyreal things

Within our eyes belated,

Till the heavenly Infinite

Falling off from the Created,

Left our inward contemplation

Opened into ministration.

Then upon our axle turning

Of great joy to sympathy,

We sang out the morning

Broadening up the sky,

Or we drew

Our music through

The noontide's hush and heat and shine,

Informed with our intense Divine:

Interrupted vital notes

Palpitating hither, thither,

Burning out into the aether,

Sensible like fiery motes.

Or, whenever twilight drifted

Through the cedar masses,

The globed sun we lifted,

Trailing purple, trailing gold

Out between the passes

Of the mountains manifold,

To anthems slowly sung:

While he,— aweary, half in swoon

For joy to hear our climbing tune

Transpierce the stars’ concentric rings,—

The burden of his glory flung

In broken lights upon our wings.

Lucifer. Now may all fruits be pleasant to thy lips,

Beautiful Eve! The times have somewhat changed

Since thou and I had talk beneath a tree,

Albeit ye are not gods yet.

Eve. Adam! hold

My right hand strongly! It is Lucifer —

And we have love to lose.

Adam. I’ the name of God,

Go apart from us, O thou Lucifer!

And leave us to the desert thou hast made

Out of thy treason. Bring no serpent-slime

Athwart this path kept holy to our tears!

Or we may curse thee with their bitterness.

Lucifer. Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve

Who thought me once part worthy of her ear

And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,—

Drawing together her large globes of eyes,

The light of which is throbbing in and out

Their steadfast continuity of gaze,—

Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot,

And down from her white heights of womanhood

Looks on me so amazed,— I scarce should fear

To wager such an apple as she plucked

Against one riper from the tree of life,

That she could curse too — as a woman may —

Smooth in the vowels.

Eve. So — speak wickedly!

I like it best so. Let thy words be wounds,—

For, so, I shall not fear thy power to hurt.

Trench on the forms of good by open ill —

For, so, I shall wax strong and grand with scorn,

Scorning myself for ever trusting thee

As far as thinking, ere a snake ate dust,

He could speak wisdom.

Lucifer. Our new gods, it seems,

Deal more in thunders than in courtesies.

And, sooth, mine own Olympus, which anon

I shall build up to loud-voiced imagery

From all the wandering visions of the world,

May show worse railing than our lady Eve

Pours o'er the rounding of her argent arm.

But why should this be? Adam pardoned Eve.

Adam. Adam loved Eve. Jehovah pardon both!

Eve. Adam forgave Eve — because loving Eve.

Lucifer. So, well. Yet Adam was undone of Eve,

As both were by the snake. Therefore forgive,

In like wise, fellow-temptress, the poor snake —

Who stung there, not so poorly!

Eve. Hold thy wrath,

Beloved Adam! let me answer him;

For this time he speaks truth, which we should hear,

And asks for mercy, which I most should grant,

In like wise, as he tells us — in like wise!

And therefore I thee pardon, Lucifer,

As freely as the streams of Eden flowed

When we were happy by them. So, depart;

Leave us to walk the remnant of our time

Out mildly in the desert. Do not seek

To harm us any more or scoff at us,

Or ere the dust be laid upon our face,

To find there the communion of the dust

And issue of the dust,— Go!

Adam. At once, go!

Lucifer. Forgive! and go! Ye images of clay,

Shrunk somewhat in the mould,— what jest is this?

What words are these to use? By what a thought

Conceive ye of me? Yesterday — a snake!

To-day — what?

Adam. A strong spirit.

Eve. A sad spirit.

Adam. Perhaps a fallen angel.— Who shall say!

Lucifer. Who told thee, Adam?

Adam. Thou! The prodigy

Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes

Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.

I think that thou hast one day worn a crown

Under the eyes of God.

Lucifer. And why of God?

Adam. It were no crown else. Verily, I think

Thou'rt fallen far. I had not yesterday

Said it so surely, but I know to-day

Grief by grief, sin by sin.

Lucifer. A crown, by a crown.

Adam. Ay, mock me! now I know more than I knew:

Now I know that thou art fallen below hope

Of final re-ascent.

Lucifer. Because?

Adam. Because

A spirit who expected to see God

Though at the last point of a million years,

Could dare no mockery of a ruined man

Such as this Adam.

Lucifer. Who is high and bold —

Be it said passing!— of a good red clay

Discovered on some top of Lebanon,

Or haply of Aornus, beyond sweep

Of the black eagle's wing! A furlong lower

Had made a meeker king for Eden. Soh!

Is it not possible, by sin and grief

( To give the things your names ) that spirits should rise

Instead of falling?

Adam. Most impossible.

The Highest being the Holy and the Glad,

Whoever rises must approach delight

And sanctity in the act.

Lucifer. Ha, my clay-king!

Thou wilt not rule by wisdom very long

The after generations. Earth, methinks,

Will disinherit thy philosophy

For a new doctrine suited to thine heirs,

And class these present dogmas with the rest

Of the old-world traditions, Eden fruits

And Saurian fossils.

Eve. Speak no more with him,

Beloved! it is not good to speak with him.

Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more!

We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn,

Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting,

Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft,

We would be alone.— Go!

Lucifer. Ah! ye talk the same,

All of you — spirits and clay — go, and depart!

In Heaven they said so, and at Eden's gate,

And here, reiterant, in the wilderness.

None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair!

None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet!

And yet I was not fashioned out of clay.

Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?

Eve. Thou hast a glorious darkness.

Lucifer. Nothing more?

Eve. I think, no more.

Lucifer. False Heart — thou thinkest more!

Thou canst not choose but think, as I praise God,

Unwillingly but fully, that I stand

Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves

Were fashioned very good at best, so we

Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word

Which thrilled behind us, God himself being moved

When that august work of a perfect shape,

His dignities of sovran angel-hood,

Swept out into the universe,— divine

With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods,

And silver-solemn clash of cymbal wings.

Whereof was I, in motion and in form,

A part not poorest. And yet,— yet, perhaps,

This beauty which I speak of, is not here,

As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown —

I do not know. What is this thought or thing

Which I call beauty? Is it thought, or thing?

Is it a thought accepted for a thing?

Or both? or neither?— a pretext — a word?

Its meaning flutters in me like a flame

Under my own breath, my perceptions reel

For evermore around it, and fall off,

As if it too were holy.

Eve. Which it is.

Adam. The essence of all beauty, I call love.

The attribute, the evidence, and end,

The consummation to the inward sense,

Of beauty apprehended from without,

I still call love. As form, when colourless,

Is nothing to the eye,— that pine-tree there,

Without its black and green, being all a blank,—

So, without love, is beauty undiscerned

In man or angel. Angel! rather ask

What love is in thee, what love moves to thee,

And what collateral love moves on with thee;

Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.

Lucifer. Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love

I darken to the image. Beauty — love!

Adam. Thou art pale, Eve.

Eve. The precipice of ill

Down this colossal nature, dizzies me:

And, hark! the starry harmony remote

Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell.

Adam. Think that we have not fallen so! By the hope

And aspiration, by the love and faith,

We do exceed the stature of this angel.

Eve. Happier we are than he is, by the death.

Adam. Or rather, by the life of the Lord God!

How dim the angel grows, as if that blast

Of music swept him back into the dark.

Eve. It throbs in on us like a plaintive heart,

Pressing, with slow pulsations, vibrative,

Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air,

To such expression as the stars may use,

Most starry-sweet and strange! With every note

That grows more loud, the angel grows more dim,

Receding in proportion to approach,

Until he stand afar,— a shade.

Adam. Now, words.