will be first to tread from this sword-glareInto the outer darkness of the waste, —
And thus I do it.
Adam. Thus I follow thee,
As erewhile in the sin. – What sounds! what sounds!
I feel a music which comes straight from heaven,
As tender as a watering dew.
Eve. I think
That angels – not those guarding Paradise, —
But the love-angels, who came erst to us,
And when we said 'God,' fainted unawares
Back from our mortal presence unto God,
(As if he drew them inward in a breath)
His name being heard of them, – I think that they
With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers,
Invisible but gracious. Hark – how soft!
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.
First Semichorus.
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.
Second Semichorus.
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.
First Semichorus.
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.
Chorus.
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 æther,
Sensible like fiery motes.
Or, whenever twilight drifted
Through the cedar masses,
The globèd 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
