Volume I Part 25 (1/2)

And spiritual thunders, born of soul Not cloud, did leap from mystic pole And o'er him roll and counter-roll,

Crus.h.i.+ng their echoes reboant With their own wheels. Did Heaven so grant His spirit a sign of covenant?

At last came silence. A slow kiss Did crown his forehead after this; His eyelids flew back for the bliss--

The lady stood beside his head, Smiling a thought, with hair dispread; The moons.h.i.+ne seemed dishevelled

In her sleek tresses manifold Like Danae's in the rain of old That dripped with melancholy gold:

But SHE was holy, pale and high As one who saw an ecstasy Beyond a foretold agony.

”Rise up!” said she with voice where song Eddied through speech, ”rise up; be strong: And learn how right avenges wrong.”

The poet rose up on his feet: He stood before an altar set For sacrament with vessels meet

And mystic altar-lights which s.h.i.+ne As if their flames were crystalline Carved flames that would not shrink or pine.

The altar filled the central place Of a great church, and toward its face Long aisles did shoot and interlace,

And from it a continuous mist Of incense (round the edges kissed By a yellow light of amethyst)

Wound upward slowly and throbbingly, Cloud within cloud, right silverly, Cloud above cloud, victoriously,--

Broke full against the arched roof And thence refracting eddied off And floated through the marble woof

Of many a fine-wrought architrave, Then, poising its white ma.s.ses brave, Swept solemnly down aisle and nave

Where, now in dark and now in light, The countless columns, glimmering white, Seemed leading out to the Infinite:

Plunged halfway up the shaft, they showed In that pale s.h.i.+fting incense-cloud Which flowed them by and overflowed

Till mist and marble seemed to blend And the whole temple, at the end, With its own incense to distend,--

The arches like a giant's bow To bend and slacken,--and below, The niched saints to come and go:

Alone amid the s.h.i.+fting scene That central altar stood serene In its clear steadfast taper-sheen.

Then first, the poet was aware Of a chief angel standing there Before that altar, in the glare.

His eyes were dreadful, for you saw That _they_ saw G.o.d; his lips and jaw Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's law

They could enunciate and refrain From vibratory after-pain, And his brow's height was sovereign:

On the vast background of his wings Rises his image, and he flings From each plumed arc pale glitterings

And fiery flakes (as beateth, more Or less, the angel-heart) before And round him upon roof and floor,

Edging with fire the s.h.i.+fting fumes, While at his side 'twixt lights and glooms The phantasm of an organ booms.

Extending from which instrument And angel, right and left-way bent, The poet's sight grew sentient