II.

Progressing still, the bright-faced Seraph rose

From Goodness to Perfection, till she stood

The fairest and the best of all that waked

The tuneful echoes of that lofty world,

Where Lucifer, then the stateliest of the throng

Of Angels, walked majestical, arrayed

In robes of brightness worthy of his place.

And all the intermediate spheres were homes

Of the existences

Of spiritual life.

Love, the divine arcanum, was the bond

That linked them to each other — heart to heart,

And angel world to world, and soul to soul.

Thus the first ages passed,

Cycles of perfect bliss,

God the acknowledged sovereign of all.

Sphere spake with sphere, and love conversed with love,

From the far centre to sublimest height,

And down the deep, unfathomable space,

To the remotest homes of angel-life,

A viewless chain of being circling all,

And linking every spirit to its God.

Spirits that never falter,

Before God's altar

Rehearse their paeans of unceasing praise;

Their theme the boundless love

By which God rules above,

Mysteriously engrafted

On grace divine, and wafted

Into every soul of man that disobeys.

Not till the wondrous being

Of the All-Seeing

Is manifested to finite man,

Can ye understand the love

By which God rules above,

Evermore extending,

In circles never-ending,

To every atom in the universal plan.

Oh, the love beyond computing

Of the high and holy place!

The unseen bond

Circling beyond

The limits of time and space.

Through earth and her world of beauty

The heavenly links extend,

Man feels its presence,

Imbibes its essence,

But cannot yet comprehend.

But the days are fast approaching,

When the Father of Love will send

His interpreter

From the highest sphere,

That man fully may comprehend.