Act 3 — CHAPTER V (continued 2)

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And as I said This nonsense, throwing back my head With light complacent laugh, I found Suddenly all the midnight round One fire. The dome of heaven had stood As made up of a multitude Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack Of ripples infinite and black, From sky to sky. Sudden there went, Like horror and astonishment, A fierce vindictive scribble of red Quick flame across, as if one said (The angry scribe of Judgment) "There— Burn it!" And straight I was aware That the whole ribwork round, minute Cloud touching cloud beyond compute, Was tinted, each with its own spot Of burning at the core, till clot Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire As fanned to measure equable,— Just so great conflagrations kill Night overhead, and rise and sink, Reflected. Now the fire would shrink And wither off the blasted face Of heaven, and I distinct might trace The sharp black ridgy outlines left Unburned like network—then, each cleft The fire had been sucked back into, Regorged, and out it surging flew Furiously, and night writhed inflamed, Till, tolerating to be tamed No longer, certain rays world-wide Shot downwardly. On every side Caught past escape, the earth was lit; As if a dragon's nostril split And all his famished ire o'erflowed; Then, as he winced at his lord's goad, Back he inhaled: whereat I found The clouds into vast pillars bound, Based on the corners of the earth, Propping the skies at top: a dearth Of fire i' the violet intervals, Leaving exposed the utmost walls Of time, about to tumble in And end the world.

I felt begin The Judgment-Day: to retrocede Was too late now. "In very deed," (I uttered to myself) "that Day!" The intuition burned away All darkness from my spirit too: There, stood I, found and fixed, I knew, Choosing the world. The choice was made; And naked and disguiseless stayed, And unevadable, the fact. My brain held all the same compact Its senses, nor my heart declined Its office; rather, both combined To help me in this juncture. I Lost not a second,—agony Gave boldness: since my life had end And my choice with it—best defend, Applaud both! I resolved to say, "So was I framed by thee, such way I put to use thy senses here! It was so beautiful, so near, Thy world,—what could I then but choose My part there? Nor did I refuse To look above the transient boon Of time; but it was hard so soon As in a short life, to give up Such beauty: I could put the cup Undrained of half its fulness, by; But, to renounce it utterly, —That was too hard! Nor did the cry Which bade renounce it, touch my brain Authentically deep and plain Enough to make my lips let go. But Thou, who knowest all, dost know Whether I was not, life's brief while, Endeavoring to reconcile Those lips (too tardily, alas!) To letting the dear remnant pass, One day,—some drops of earthly good Untasted! Is it for this mood, That Thou, whose earth delights so well, Hast made its complement a hell?"

A final belch of fire like blood, Overbroke all heaven in one flood Of doom. Then fire was sky, and sky Fire, and both, one brief ecstasy, Then ashes. But I heard no noise (Whatever was) because a voice Beside me spoke thus, "Life is done, Time ends, Eternity's begun, And thou art judged for evermore."

I looked up; all seemed as before; Of that cloud-Tophet overhead No trace was left: I saw instead The common round me, and the sky Above, stretched drear and emptily Of life. 'Twas the last watch of night, Except what brings the morning quite; When the armed angel, conscience-clear, His task nigh done, leans o'er his spear And gazes on the earth he guards, Safe one night more through all its wards, Till God relieve him at his post. "A dream—a waking dream at most!" (I spoke out quick, that I might shake The horrid nightmare off, and wake.) "The world gone, yet the world is here? Are not all things as they appear? Is Judgment past for me alone? —And where had place the great white throne? The rising of the quick and dead? Where stood they, small and great? Who read The sentence from the opened book?" So, by degrees, the blood forsook My heart, and let it beat afresh; I knew I should break through the mesh Of horror, and breathe presently: When, lo, again, the voice by me!

I saw.... Oh brother, 'mid far sands The palm-tree-cinctured city stands, Bright-white beneath, as heaven, bright-blue, Leans o'er it, while the years pursue Their course, unable to abate Its paradisal laugh at fate! One morn,—the Arab staggers blind O'er a new tract of death, calcined To ashes, silence, nothingness,— And strives, with dizzy wits, to guess Whence fell the blow. What if, 'twixt skies And prostrate earth, he should surprise The imaged vapor, head to foot, Surveying, motionless and mute, Its work, ere, in a whirlwind rapt It vanished up again?—So hapt My chance. He stood there. Like the smoke Pillared o'er Sodom, when day broke,— I saw Him. One magnific pall Mantled in massive fold and fall His head, and coiled in snaky swathes About His feet: night's black, that bathes All else, broke, grizzled with despair, Against the soul of blackness there. A gesture told the mood within— That wrapped right hand which based the chin, That intense meditation fixed On His procedure,—pity mixed With the fulfilment of decree. Motionless, thus, He spoke to me, Who fell before His feet, a mass, No man now.

"All is come to pass. Such shows are over for each soul They had respect to. In the roll Of judgment which convinced mankind Of sin, stood many, bold and blind, Terror must burn the truth into: Their fate for them!—thou hadst to do With absolute omnipotence, Able its judgments to dispense To the whole race, as every one Were its sole object. Judgment done, God is, thou art,—the rest is hurled To nothingness for thee. This world, This finite life, thou hast preferred, In disbelief of God's plain word, To heaven and to infinity. Here the probation was for thee, To show thy soul the earthly mixed With heavenly, it must choose betwixt. The earthly joys lay palpable,— A taint, in each, distinct as well; The heavenly flitted, faint and rare, Above them, but as truly were Taintless, so, in their nature, best. Thy choice was earth: thou didst attest 'Twas fitter spirit should subserve The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve Beneath the spirit's play. Advance No claim to their inheritance Who chose the spirit's fugitive Brief gleams, and yearned, 'This were to live Indeed, if rays, completely pure From flesh that dulls them, could endure,— Not shoot in meteor-light athwart Our earth, to show how cold and swart It lies beneath their fire, but stand As stars do, destined to expand, Prove veritable worlds, our home!' Thou saidst,—'Let spirit star the dome Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak, No nook of earth,—I shall not seek Its service further!' Thou art shut Out of the heaven of spirit; glut Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine For ever—take it!"

"How? Is mine, The world?" (I cried, while my soul broke Out in a transport.) "Hast Thou spoke Plainly in that? Earth's exquisite Treasures of wonder and delight, For me?"

The austere voice returned,— "So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned What God accounteth happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be his punishment For those who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still: Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine enmity! And thou, whose heaven self-ordained Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, Do it! Take all the ancient show! The woods shall wave, the rivers flow, And men apparently pursue Their works, as they were wont to do, While living in probation yet. I promise not thou shalt forget The past, now gone to its account; But leave thee with the old amount Of faculties, nor less nor more, Unvisited, as heretofore, By God's free spirit, that makes an end. So, once more, take thy world! Expend Eternity upon its shows, Flung thee as freely as one rose Out of a summer's opulence, Over the Eden-barrier whence Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!"

I sat up. All was still again. I breathed free: to my heart, back fled The warmth. "But, all the world!"—I said. I stooped and picked a leaf of fern, And recollected I might learn From books, how many myriad sorts Of fern exist, to trust reports, Each as distinct and beautiful As this, the very first I cull. Think, from the first leaf to the last! Conceive, then, earth's resources! Vast Exhaustless beauty, endless change Of wonder! And this foot shall range Alps, Andes,—and this eye devour The bee-bird and the aloe-flower?

Then the voice, "Welcome so to rate The arras-folds that variegate The earth, God's antechamber, well! The wise, who waited there, could tell By these, what royalties in store Lay one step past the entrance-door. For whom, was reckoned, not so much, This life's munificence? For such As thou,—a race, whereof scarce one Was able, in a million, To feel that any marvel lay In objects round his feet all day; Scarce one, in many millions more, Willing, if able, to explore The secreter, minuter charm! —Brave souls, a fern-leaf could disarm Of power to cope with God's intent,— Or scared if the south firmament With north-fire did its wings refledge! All partial beauty was a pledge Of beauty in its plenitude: But since the pledge sufficed thy mood, Retain it! plenitude be theirs Who looked above!"

Though sharp despairs Shot through me, I held up, bore on. "What matter though my trust were gone From natural things? Henceforth my part Be less with nature than with art! For art supplants, gives mainly worth To nature; 'tis man stamps the earth— And I will seek his impress, seek The statuary of the Greek, Italy's painting—there my choice Shall fix!"

"Obtain it!" said the voice, "—The one form with its single act, Which sculptors labored to abstract, The one face, painters tried to draw, With its one look, from throngs they saw. And that perfection in their soul, These only hinted at? The whole, They were but parts of? What each laid His claim to glory on?—afraid His fellow-men should give him rank By mere tentatives which he shrank Smitten at heart from, all the more, That gazers pressed in to adore! 'Shall I be judged by only these?' If such his soul's capacities, Even while he trod the earth,—think, now, What pomp in Buonarroti's brow, With its new palace-brain where dwells Superb the soul, unvexed by cells That crumbled with the transient clay! What visions will his right hand's sway Still turn to forms, as still they burst Upon him? How will he quench thirst, Titanically infantine, Laid at the breast of the Divine? Does it confound thee,—this first page Emblazoning man's heritage?— Can this alone absorb thy sight, As pages were not infinite,— Like the omnipotence which tasks Itself to furnish all that asks The soul it means to satiate? What was the world, the starry state Of the broad skies,—what, all displays Of power and beauty intermixed, Which now thy soul is chained betwixt,— What else than needful furniture For life's first stage? God's work, be sure, No more spreads wasted, than falls scant! He filled, did not exceed, man's want Of beauty in this life. But through Life pierce,—and what has earth to do, Its utmost beauty's appanage, With the requirement of next stage? Did God pronounce earth 'very good'? Needs must it be, while understood For man's preparatory state; Nought here to heighten nor abate; Transfer the same completeness here, To serve a new state's use,—and drear Deficiency gapes every side! The good, tried once, were bad, retried. See the enwrapping rocky niche, Sufficient for the sleep in which The lizard breathes for ages safe: Split the mould—and as light would chafe The creature's new world-widened sense, Dazzled to death at evidence Of all the sounds and sights that broke Innumerous at the chisel's stroke,— So, in God's eye, the earth's first stuff Was, neither more nor less, enough To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. Man reckoned it immeasurable? So thinks the lizard of his vault! Could God be taken in default, Short of contrivances, by you,— Or reached, ere ready to pursue His progress through eternity? That chambered rock, the lizard's world, Your easy mallet's blow has hurled To nothingness for ever; so, Has God abolished at a blow This world, wherein his saints were pent,— Who, though found grateful and content, With the provision there, as thou, Yet knew he would not disallow Their spirit's hunger, felt as well,— Unsated,—not unsatable, As paradise gives proof. Deride Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside!"

I cried in anguish, "Mind, the mind, So miserably cast behind, To gain what had been wisely lost! Oh, let me strive to make the most Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped Of budding wings, else now equipped For voyage from summer isle to isle! And though she needs must reconcile Ambition to the life on ground, Still, I can profit by late found But precious knowledge. Mind is best— I will seize mind, forego the rest, And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length. Let me, since I can fly no more, At least spin dervish-like about (Till giddy rapture almost doubt I fly) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain! Not joyless, though more favored feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth's bond is broke!"

Then, (sickening even while I spoke) "Let me alone! No answer, pray, To this! I know what Thou wilt say! All still is earth's,—to know, as much As feel its truths, which if we touch With sense, or apprehend in soul, What matter? I have reached the goal— 'Whereto does knowledge serve!' will burn My eyes, too sure, at every turn! I cannot look back now, nor stake Bliss on the race, for running's sake. The goal's a ruin like the rest!— And so much worse thy latter quest," (Added the voice) "that even on earth— Whenever, in man's soul, had birth Those intuitions, grasps of guess, Which pull the more into the less, Making the finite comprehend Infinity,—the bard would spend Such praise alone, upon his craft, As, when wind-lyres obey the waft, Goes to the craftsman who arranged The seven strings, changed them and rechanged— Knowing it was the South that harped. He felt his song, in singing, warped; Distinguished his and God's part: whence A world of spirit as of sense Was plain to him, yet not too plain, Which he could traverse, not remain A guest in:—else were permanent Heaven on the earth its gleams were meant To sting with hunger for full light,— Made visible in verse, despite The veiling weakness,—truth by means Of fable, showing while it screens,— Since highest truth, man e'er supplied, Was ever fable on outside. Such gleams made bright the earth an age; Now the whole sun's his heritage! Take up thy world, it is allowed, Thou who hast entered in the cloud!"

Then I—"Behold, my spirit bleeds, Catches no more at broken reeds,— But lilies flower those reeds above: I let the world go, and take love! Love survives in me, albeit those I love be henceforth masks and shows, Not living men and women: still I mind how love repaired all ill, Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends With parents, brothers, children, friends! Some semblance of a woman yet With eyes to help me to forget, Shall look on me; and I will match Departed love with love, attach Old memories to new dreams, nor scorn The poorest of the grains of corn I save from shipwreck on this isle, Trusting its barrenness may smile With happy foodful green one day, More precious for the pains. I pray,— Leave to love, only!"

At the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love was curled Inextricably round about. Love lay within it and without, To clasp thee,—but in vain! Thy soul Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, Still set deliberate aside His love!—Now take love! Well betide Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take The show of love for the name's sake, Remembering every moment Who, Beside creating thee unto These ends, and these for thee, was said To undergo death in thy stead In flesh like thine: so ran the tale. What doubt in thee could countervail Belief in it? Upon the ground 'That in the story had been found Too much love! How could God love so?' He who in all his works below Adapted to the needs of man, Made love the basis of the plan,— Did love, as was demonstrated: While man, who was so fit instead To hate, as every day gave proof,— Man thought man, for his kind's behoof, Both could and did invent that scheme Of perfect love: 'twould well beseem Cain's nature thou wast wont to praise, Not tally with God's usual ways!"

And I cowered deprecatingly— "Thou Love of God! Or let me die, Or grant what shall seem heaven almost! Let me not know that all is lost, Though lost it be—leave me not tied To this despair, this corpse-like bride! Let that old life seem mine—no more— With limitation as before, With darkness, hunger, toil, distress: Be all the earth a wilderness! Only let me go on, go on, Still hoping ever and anon To reach one eve the Better Land!"

Then did the form expand, expand— I knew Him through the dread disguise As the whole God within His eyes Embraced me.

When I lived again, The day was breaking,—the grey plain I rose from, silvered thick with dew. Was this a vision? False or true? Since then, three varied years are spent, And commonly my mind is bent To think it was a dream—be sure A mere dream and distemperature— The last day's watching: then the night,— The shock of that strange Northern Light Set my head swimming, bred in me A dream. And so I live, you see, Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, still struggling to effect My warfare; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in God's contempt apart, With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. Thank God, she still each method tries To catch me, who may yet escape, She knows,—the fiend in angel's shape! Thank God, no paradise stands barred To entry, and I find it hard To be a Christian, as I said! Still every now and then my head Raised glad, sinks mournful—all grows drear Spite of the sunshine, while I fear And think, "How dreadful to be grudged No ease henceforth, as one that's judged. Condemned to earth for ever, shut From heaven!" But Easter-Day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,—and who can say?

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Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark, Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the Sun Above the conscious earth, and one by one Her heights and depths absorbed to the last spark His fluid glory, from the far fine ridge Of mountain-granite which, transformed to gold, Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk fold On fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridge Shattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wist Her work done and betook herself in mist To marsh and hollow there to bide her time Blindly in acquiescence. Everywhere Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew, No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew Glad through the inrush—glad nor more nor less Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness, Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread, The universal world of creatures bred By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise— All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze, Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can— Protests against the innumerous praises? Man, Sullen and silent. Stand thou forth then, state Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate— While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!

Man speaks now:—"What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant— They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until Each favored object pays life's ministrant By pressing, in obedience to his will, Up to completion of the task prescribed, So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed Such influence also, stood and stand complete— The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet, True to the pattern: but does that suffice? How of my superadded mind which needs —Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads For—more than knowledge that by some device Sun quickens matter: mind is nobly fain To realize the marvel, make—for sense As mind—the unseen visible, condense —Myself—Sun's all-pervading influence So as to serve the needs of mind, explain What now perplexes. Let the oak increase His corrugated strength on strength, the palm Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,— Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,— The eagle, like some skyey derelict, Drift in the blue, suspended glorying,— The lion lord it by the desert-spring,— What know or care they of the power which pricked Nothingness to perfection? I, instead, When all-developed still am found a thing All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force Transcending theirs—hands able to unring The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could outcourse The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see, Touch, understand, by mind inside of me, The outside mind—whose quickening I attain To recognize—I only. All in vain Would mind address itself to render plain The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks Behind the operation—that which works Latently everywhere by outward proof— Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof I solely crave that one of all the beams Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will Should operate—myself for once have skill To realize the energy which streams Flooding the universe. Above, around, Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus found Simply of service, when the world grows dark, To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood, I might demonstrate him supplying food, Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence If just one spark I drew, full evidence Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned— Sun's self made palpable to Man!"

Thus moaned Man till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,— Offered an artifice whereby he drew Sun's rays into a focus,—plain and true, The very Sun in little: made fire burn And henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobed Though to a pin-point circle—all the same Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed Of that else-unconceived essential flame Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive Achingly to companion as it may The supersubtle effluence, and contrive To follow beam and beam upon their way Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessed Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed Infinitude of action? Idle quest! Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry The spectrum—mind, infer immensity! Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed— Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still Trustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!

"In a beginning God Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed Knowledge: from star to clod Man knew things: doubt abashed Closed its long period. Knowledge obtained Power praise. Had Good been manifest, Broke out in cloudless blaze, Unchequered as unrepressed, In all things Good at best— Then praise—all praise, no blame— Had hailed the perfection. No! As Power's display, the same Be Good's—praise forth shall flow Unisonous in acclaim! Even as the world its life, So have I lived my own— Power seen with Love at strife, That sure, this dimly shown, —Good rare and evil rife. Whereof the effect be—faith That, some far day, were found Ripeness in things now rathe, Wrong righted, each chain unbound, Renewal born out of scathe. Why faith—but to lift the load, To leaven the lump, where lies Mind prostrate through knowledge owed To the loveless Power it tries To withstand, how vain! In flowed Ever resistless fact: No more than the passive clay Disputes the potter's act, Could the whelmed mind disobey Knowledge the cataract. But, perfect in every part, Has the potter's moulded shape, Leap of man's quickened heart, Throe of his thought's escape, Stings of his soul which dart Through the barrier of flesh, till keen She climbs from the calm and clear, Through turbidity all between, From the known to the unknown here, Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"? Then life is—to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep, Where, amid what strifes and storms May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love—transports, transforms Who aspired from worst to best, Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'. I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was—I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. When see? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play.