EPILOGUE.

My song is done.

My voice that long hath faltered shall be still.

The mystic darkness drops from Calvary's hill

Into the common light of this day's sun.

I see no more thy cross, O holy Slain!

I hear no more the horror and the coil

Of the great world's turmoil

Feeling thy countenance too still,— nor yell

Of demons sweeping past it to their prison.

The skies that turned to darkness with thy pain

Make now a summer's day;

And on my changed ear that sabbath bell

Records how CHRIST IS RISEN.

And I — ah! what am I

To counterfeit, with faculty earth-darkened,

Seraphic brows of light

And seraph language never used nor hearkened?

Ah me! what word that seraphs say, could come

From mouth so used to sighs, so soon to lie

Sighless, because then breathless, in the tomb?

Bright ministers of God and grace — of grace

Because of God! whether ye bow adown

In your own heaven, before the living face

Of him who died and deathless wears the crown,

Or whether at this hour ye haply are

Anear, around me, hiding in the night

Of this permitted ignorance your light,

This feebleness to spare,—

Forgive me, that mine earthly heart should dare

Shape images of unincarnate spirits

And lay upon their burning lips a thought

Cold with the weeping which mine earth inherits.

And though ye find in such hoarse music, wrought

To copy yours, a cadence all the while

Of sin and sorrow — only pitying smile!

Ye know to pity, well.

I too may haply smile another day

At the far recollection of this lay,

When God may call me in your midst to dwell,

To hear your most sweet music's miracle

And see your wondrous faces. May it be!

For his remembered sake, the Slain on rood,

Who rolled his earthly garment red in blood

( Treading the wine-press ) that the weak, like me,

Before his heavenly throne should walk in white.