CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS,

Hear our heavenly promise

Through your mortal passion!

Love, ye shall have from us,

In a pure relation.

As a fish or bird

Swims or flies, if moving,

We unseen are heard

To live on by loving.

Far above the glances

Of your eager eyes,

Listen! we are loving.

Listen, through man's ignorances —

Listen, through God's mysteries —

Listen down the heart of things,

Ye shall hear our mystic wings

Murmurous with loving.

Through the opal door

Listen evermore

How we live by loving!

When your bodies therefore

Reach the grave their goal,

Softly will we care for

Each enfranchised soul.

Softly and unlothly

Through the door of opal

Toward the heavenly people,

Floated on a minor fine

Into the full chant divine,

We will draw you smoothly,—

While the human in the minor

Makes the harmony diviner.

Listen to our loving!

Second Semichorus.

There, a sough of glory

Shall breathe on you as you come,

Ruffling round the doorway

All the light of angeldom.

From the empyrean centre

Heavenly voices shall repeat,

“Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter,

For the chrism on you is sweet!”

And every angel in the place

Lowlily shall bow his face,

Folded fair on softened sounds,

Because upon your hands and feet

He images his Master's wounds.

Listen to our loving!

First Semichorus.

So, in the universe's

Consummated undoing,

Our seraphs of white mercies

Shall hover round the ruin.

Their wings shall stream upon the flame

As if incorporate of the same

In elemental fusion;

And calm their faces shall burn out

With a pale and mastering thought,

And a steadfast looking of desire

From out between the clefts of fire,—

While they cry, in the Holy's name,

To the final Restitution.

Listen to our loving!

So, when the day of God is

To the thick graves accompted,

Awaking the dead bodies,

The angel of the trumpet

Shall split and shatter the earth

To the roots of the grave —

Which never before were slackened —

And quicken the charnel birth

With his blast so clear and brave

That the Dead shall start and stand erect,

And every face of the burial-place

Shall the awful, single look reflect

Wherewith he them awakened.

Listen to our loving!

But wild is the horse of Death!

He will leap up wild at the clamour

Above and beneath.

And where is his Tamer

On that last day,

When he crieth Ha, ha!

To the trumpet's blare,

And paweth the earth's Aceldama?

When he tosseth his head,

The drear-white steed,

And ghastlily champeth the last moon-ray —

What angel there

Can lead him away,

That the living may rule for the Dead?

Yet a TAMER shall be found!

One more bright than seraph crowned,

And more strong than cherub bold,

Elder, too, than angel old,

By his grey eternities.

He shall master and surprise

The steed of Death.

For He is strong, and He is fain.

He shall quell him with a breath,

And shall lead him where He will,

With a whisper in the ear,

Full of fear,

And a hand upon the mane,

Grand and still.

Through the flats of Hades where the souls assemble

He will guide the Death-steed calm between their ranks,

While, like beaten dogs, they a little moan and tremble

To see the darkness curdle from the horse's glittering flanks.

Through the flats of Hades where the dreary shade is,

Up the steep of heaven will the Tamer guide the steed,—

Up the spheric circles, circle above circle,

We who count the ages shall count the tolling tread —

Every hoof-fall striking a blinder blanker sparkle

From the stony orbs, which shall show as they were dead.

All the way the Death-steed with tolling hoofs shall travel,

Ashen-grey the planets shall be motionless as stones,

Loosely shall the systems eject their parts coaeval,

Stagnant in the spaces shall float the pallid moons:

Suns that touch their apogees, reeling from their level,

Shall run back on their axles, in wild low broken tunes.

Up against the arches of the crystal ceiling,

From the horse's nostrils shall steam the blurting breath:

Up between the angels pale with silent feeling

Will the Tamer calmly lead the horse of Death.

Cleaving all that silence, cleaving all that glory,

Will the Tamer lead him straightway to the Throne:

“Look out, O Jehovah, to this I bring before Thee,

With a hand nail-pierced, I who am thy Son.”

Then the Eye Divinest, from the Deepest, flaming,

On the mystic courser shall look out in fire:

Blind the beast shall stagger where It overcame him,

Meek as lamb at pasture, bloodless in desire.

Down the beast shall shiver,— slain amid the taming,—

And, by Life essential, the phantasm Death expire.

Listen, man, through life and death,

Through the dust and through the breath,

Listen down the heart of things!

Ye shall hear our mystic wings

Murmurous with loving.

Gabriel, thou Gabriel!

What wouldst thou with me?

I heard thy voice sound in the angels’ song,

And I would give thee question.

Question me!

Why have I called thrice to my Morning Star

And had no answer? All the stars are out,

And answer in their places. Only in vain

I cast my voice against the outer rays

Of my Star shut in light behind the sun.

No more reply than from a breaking string,

Breaking when touched. Or is she not my star?

Where is my Star — my Star? Have ye cast down

Her glory like my glory? Has she waxed

Mortal, like Adam? Has she learnt to hate

Like any angel?

She is sad for thee.

All things grow sadder to thee, one by one.

Live, work on, O Earthy!

By the Actual's tension,

Speed the arrow worthy

Of a pure ascension!

From the low earth round you,

Reach the heights above you:

From the stripes that wound you,

Seek the loves that love you!

God's divinest burneth plain

Through the crystal diaphane

Of our loves that love you.

Gabriel, O Gabriel!

What wouldst thou with me?

Is it true, O thou Gabriel, that the crown

Of sorrow which I claimed, another claims?

That HE claims THAT too?

Lost one, it is true.

That HE will be an exile from his heaven,

To lead those exiles homeward?

It is true.

That HE will be an exile by his will,

As I by mine election?

It is true.

That I shall stand sole exile finally,—

Made desolate for fruition?

It is true.

Gabriel!

I hearken.

Is it true besides —

Aright true — that mine orient Star will give

Her name of “Bright and Morning-Star” to HIM,—

And take the fairness of his virtue back

To cover loss and sadness?

It is true.

UNtrue, UNtrue! O Morning Star, O MINE,

Who sittest secret in a veil of light

Far up the starry spaces, say — Untrue!

Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon

To Tyrrhene waters. I am Lucifer.

All things grow sadder to me, one by one.

Exiled human creatures,

Let your hope grow larger!

Larger grows the vision

Of the new delight.

From this chain of Nature's

God is the Discharger,

And the Actual's prison

Opens to your sight.

Calm the stars and golden

In a light exceeding:

What their rays have measured

Let your feet fulfil!

These are stars beholden

By your eyes in Eden,

Yet, across the desert,

See them shining still!