Volume I Part 26 (2/2)

These poets faced (and many more) The lighted altar looming o'er The clouds of incense dim and h.o.a.r:

And all their faces, in the lull Of natural things, looked wonderful With life and death and deathless rule.

All, still as stone and yet intense; As if by spirit's vehemence That stone were carved and not by sense.

But where the heart of each should beat, There seemed a wound instead of it, From whence the blood dropped to their feet

Drop after drop--dropped heavily As century follows century Into the deep eternity.

Then said the lady--and her word Came distant, as wide waves were stirred Between her and the ear that heard,--

”_World's use_ is cold, _world's love_ is vain, _World's cruelty_ is bitter bane, But pain is not the fruit of pain.

”Hearken, O poet, whom I led From the dark wood: dismissing dread, Now hear this angel in my stead.

”His organ's clavier strikes along These poets' hearts, sonorous, strong, They gave him without count of wrong,--

”A diapason whence to guide Up to G.o.d's feet, from these who died, An anthem fully glorified--

”Whereat G.o.d's blessing, IBARAK (=yivarech=) Breathes back this music, folds it back About the earth in vapoury rack,

”And men walk in it, crying 'Lo The world is wider, and we know The very heavens look brighter so:

”'The stars move statelier round the edge Of the silver spheres, and give in pledge Their light for n.o.bler privilege:

”'No little flower but joys or grieves, Full life is rustling in the sheaves, Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.'

”So works this music on the earth, G.o.d so admits it, sends it forth To add another worth to worth--

”A new creation-bloom that rounds The old creation and expounds His Beautiful in tuneful sounds.

”Now hearken!” Then the poet gazed Upon the angel glorious-faced Whose hand, majestically raised,

Floated across the organ-keys, Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas, With no touch but with influences:

Then rose and fell (with swell and swound Of shapeless noises wandering round A concord which at last they found)

Those mystic keys: the tones were mixed, Dim, faint, and thrilled and throbbed betwixt The incomplete and the unfixed:

And therein mighty minds were heard In mighty musings, inly stirred, And struggling outward for a word:

Until these surges, having run This way and that, gave out as one An Aphrodite of sweet tune,

A Harmony that, finding vent, Upward in grand ascension went, Winged to a heavenly argument,

Up, upward like a saint who strips The shroud back from his eyes and lips, And rises in apocalypse:

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