Chapter 2

"'Behold in me the source and spring of love; I followed with paternal care to Ind, I saw, and I stood guard upon your steps; More than a father's love was in my soul, More than a mother's tenderness inurned. The mountains are the mole-hills of my strength; Yet am I weak in love; I would not send One single child to the eternal world All unprepared; but ye have gone astray; Ye are my flock, and I would turn you back Before the wolves shall fatten of your flesh.

"'Bring offerings from your herds, the choicest bring, (Are they not also mine?) and altars build And offer them thereon, but further bring The contrite heart, and the unsullied hand, Bring, as your fathers told you, Abel brought, And I will meet you on the altar's brink, With fire from Heaven, and consume it all. Ask not again to look upon my face; Ye cannot look, and live; I only speak, As I now speak, through Kohen; he it is, Out from among you I have set apart

"'To be my sponsor; listen to my words: Build up your altars, offer from your best; Am I not better than the best you have? When ye have builded, pray; pour out your hearts As ye pour out the blood; prayer is the key To my most inner soul; the voice of love Is prayer. It is the angel's wing that fell Never yet short of Paradise. The voice That trembles on the lips of infancy, When reaching out to reason, and the last That passes with the shadow of the sun When life's last slope is reached, and never yet Has the repentant spirit left unalmsed.

"'Have ye not heard how "Enoch walked with God, And he was not," because I drew him up? He kept so closely locked in my embrace, That there was nothing left of him to die. So would I have you walk, and learn the way; For I am very near each human soul, And ye may blend your being into mine, And, losing self, be only found of me. Ye all through Adam sinned; but there will come A time when, in the second Adam, will the first Transgression be atoned; your altars then May all be turned to ashes; for I send My best beloved, my ever blessed Son, The Prince of Peace, to save the sin-cursed earth

"'From the first great offense, and to prepare The creature for creation's judgment day; Himself, upon the altar will be placed, A final offering for the sins of men.

"'Thus is our justice smothered o'er with love; The law is satisfied, when Love, made King, Bends down the neck to bear the ills of earth. Therefore return: And I will warm you back to perfect life, If you but follow me. Come in, and rest, I am your husbandman, and all I have Is on my table; feast, and fill yourselves. I am your vintner; here is wine, and here Is honey; satisfy your wants, I am Your garden, Eden is restored in me. O children that are lost! be found again; I am your Shepherd, and my arms shall bear The weak ones of the flock. Do any thirst? I am your Spring, your parched lips to cool; Come and be one with me! and I will be More than your souls could ever frame to ask. Come to my open arms, O sons of men! They are not full without you; in my heart Is loneliness, though from itself it draw Companionship. Had I but called to life The pliant clay of Adam, and not breathed My spirit in his nostrils, then could he

"'Filled out his measure with a lesser life, Without the test of law; but how much more To live as he could lived, divinely great In mastery of earth, and only on The single test, obedience to our will; Yet, he fell short, and I foresaw it all And suffered it, that human eyes might see The glories of redemption, and behold The one Incarnate Son, the Soul of Love, The Second Self of Me.

"'O sons of men, Fall down! behold his coming in a glass; Behold and see him, in the fire I send From Heaven upon your altars, and repent; And when the time is fully ripe, behold He cometh in the flesh! and ye shall see The very Son and Sanction of my heart. Oh! is it not enough? Can even I Do more? Your children shall behold my words Grown to fulfillment, and they all shall see The Son of God become the Son of Man; And ye may see, by faith, if ye implant The tree of your redemption, so its leaves May cover Egypt and the rest of earth.

"'The pestilence that darkens at your door Came as a cry, from Mizraim in bonds;

"'Strike off his chains! and I will lift you up. Love ye your neighbor, as ye love yourselves; His bruises and your pestilence shall pass Together from the land. Live ye pure lives, And all your blackness shall become as snow. Make room for me among you; in the morn Let rise your incense to the throne of grace; Bring me your noon oblation; in your thanks Let evening have its holicaust of love. When spring puts forth her promise, offer up; When summer comes, enladen with its growth, And when the harvest moon, with ripened sheaves, Measures the fullness of my great regard; Yea! when the winter brings the time of rest, Forget-me-not! forget-me-not! but pour Into each crevice, of the well filled year, The overflow of all your thankfulness.

"'Come in the Spring and Summer of your lives, And in the yellow leaves of Autumn come, And in the snow and Winter of your age; Come any time, but come! stay not away! And I will give you rest; and ye shall not Go out again forever; but shall shine Bright as the brightest stars, and ye shall sing, As never angels sang; and every soul Be swallowed up in sunshine evermore."

He ceased; and there arose from out the crowd The murmuring voice of question on the air; Some thought him moved of God, and long and loud Gave acclamation in his favor; "Where," Cried they, "can such authority be found? Whence come those gracious words, if not from God?-- Power, wisdom, love, entripled in the sound A mother's tenderness, a father's rod."

Then spake the unctious King; and through the King, The man; for he was but a tattered rag Of royalty: "What is this wondrous thing, Old Kohen, you propose? Make haste, let lag Your purpose; why is it, we cannot speak Face unto face with your great Deity?-- Our fathers say old Noah did--what leak Has sprung between us, that we cannot see The father as he is? as others did? Am I not greater than all earthly Kings? He spake our fathers, wherefore is he hid That I cannot behold him? Let his wings Be folded for a while, as he comes down, That we may see him as he is; we came To choose a god, whom we, indeed, can see; Or, if his face be burnished with a flame Too great for our uncovered eyes, then we Are satisfied to close them in the smile Of one so radiant; so we feel him near, "But we must know his presence for the while; Speak Kohen! why can ye not bring him here?"

Then answered Kohen: "Urge me not, O King! Ye know not what ye ask, if ye do seek To see him as he is. A nameless thing, A brow-bedabbled man, upon whose cheek, Sheds everyday God's sunshine; shall he ask That a decree be broken, and presume To lift unhallowed voice? Though in a mask Jehovah hides his presence, yet, the bloom Of every flower, is but the blush he brings Upon the face of nature, as he looks Abroad upon his creatures; and she sings From her ten thousand voices in his praise. Wake to his chorus! 'Ancient of the Days,' Wake children! and your faith shall blossom into wings."

"Prate ye to fools," the incensed Monarch cries, "Nor gabble longer of your hidden Lord; Who follows in his wake, this moment dies, And Isis and eternal keep my word. We have a score of hidden deities And yet, they leave us, without aid or thought, And pestilence comes in and blocks our ways And where can our deliverance be bought? Show the bare hand of infinite decree, Show us a present help in each distress, Show us the Master, we will bend the knee, "And we will follow on, in righteousness. Strike! strike the chords! while we invoke the gods, And with the music let our souls be blended, That we may find the one, before whom nods 'All stripling deities, and thus our strife be ended.'" Then rose a blast of sound upon the air And blended with it was the voice of song, The chime of music with the moan of prayer-- A nation's thirst; deep, earnest and impassionately strong:

O God of gods! be with us when we pray, And give us rest; List our entreaty, be not far away, Be near each breast.

The gods of Mizraim, we have sought in vain,-- They answer not; Our prayers are but an empty, aching pain,-- We are forgot.

Though Isis bless our fields and flocks with growth, And Thoth be heard; Upon the tongues of wisemen, yet, is wroth Some mighty lord.

Some hidden power without us; in the dark We grope our way; From thine own glory, lend to us a spark, Be thou our day.

O, make thee to be known, From thy unchanging throne, God of the trusting heart; Come take us by the hand, And be our sole command, And form with us a part.

Give us, to look upon Thy form without a frown, Our doubts and fears displace; God of the universe, Remove from us, thy curse, Give us to see thy face.

"Behold! behold, his face!" A hand is pointed to the sun; "Behold! and be ye not afraid, To-day, be life, once more begun; Look ye upon his face, and learn to live, Look ye upon his face and learn to die; His hand alone deliverance can give, His light, alone, can frame the soul's reply. 'Hear me! ye sons of men'; all eyes were turned; A stranger in their midst, whose dark eye burned With an unearthly gleam, yet black as night. It had no heavenly radiance, yet, was bright With a mysterious blaze, that pierced the soul As with an arrow to its inmost part, His form, in keeping with his face, made whole

"A man well fitted to command; a heart That seemed to throb with some great passion; pent And seething into purpose; his black face Shone like a mirror-hood of his design. His words, and his strange presence in the place Gave him enraptured audience, that no one dared decline.

"Hear me, ye sons of men: I am not come To woe ye to destruction; but, to save; The color of my face betrays my birth, I am Mizraim's race; but of mankind A brother, and I speak in soberness. Because our fathers wandered from the way, And left the shining pathway of the sun, Because they fell to seeking other gods, He suffered them to fall into your hands. I will not speak, as he has feigned to speak, Who claimed before me, sponsorship from God; But I will make it plain that he deceived. Our fathers tell of Noah and the ark, And also tell of Shinar, and the time Of the dispersal. It is not enough To come with empty declamation, come With platitudes of love, and softened terms Of parenthood, and then to dash it all-- The yearning love of children, to the earth, By words that are icicled up from death: 'Ask not to look upon my face again, Ye cannot look and live.'

"Shame! shame on the pretender thus to bring Your expectations to the pitch of pain, The summit of your hope, where, to move on Is only to descent and sorrow; thus To multiply his attributes of good, And to describe a god so like the true, The ever shining Sun, and then deny The precious boon of sight; what mockery! When there he stands, (eternity, as young,) The broad, full shining orb, to look upon; The ever radiant Arbiter of earth, The great 'I am' of love; the very soul Of tenderness; rising every morn To kiss his sleeping children from their beds, Enwrapping them, with all his piercing warmth; Wooing the fragrant flowers from the earth, And warming all existences to life.

"How can the soul be blind, when such a pledge Stands in eternal witness of its love? The very rocks would break their raptured trance, If man find not his voice in fervent praise. How do the waters mirror up his face! And tremble into waves at his advance. The universe goes laughing into life Each morn at his approach, and all the world Forgets its wakefulness, when the tired wing Of day is folded, and himself withdraws

"To teach us faith in him till he return; Thus every night his promise, and each morn His gracious fulfillment, filling the year With ripened sheaves of his remembrances.

"We measure power by our necessities; Let him forget the dawning of one day, Or leave us through the circle of one moon, (Which were the same to him but for his love,) By what conception would we feel our loss? While yet the year is young, we scatter seed, And wait his fervid rays to fructify. The trees put forth their bloom, that his embrace May ripen into fruit; and not a growth But climbs his rays to full development. When Nature points with her ten thousand hands To him, the almighty framer of it all, Shall man forget his duty and fly off On the unnumbered tangents of the brain? Rather let break our voices in his praise, And let each human soul, be safely borne, Back to his many-chambered paradise.

"Down on his rays man rode into the world, And if we wander not, the same broad path Is open for our exit; there is room In his broad campus for the royal race. Our bodies are of dust, and will return; Only the vital spark, the shining way

"Ere traversed; and that alone goes back To join the maker in the increate, The golden chambers of eternal light. Look on these eyes! have they not more than Earth In their deep glance? I know whereof I speak; For I was led, in trancehood to the sun, And in his very chambers have I walked, And at his very throne have I bent down To praise him; multitudes were there, who knelt As I did kneel, in rapturehood and prayer.

"High in the midst, sole source of life and light, The glowing center of the shining orb Sat the unchanging god; his face was that Of manhood magnified; upon his cheek Was more than woman's beauty deified. O! once to look and live, is all the soul, Though it be triply strengthened, can endure, Till it do pass from this clay tenement Into the morrow of the upper world; But we may now and always climb the rays That spring from his own countenance, and see The reflex of his face; but of his form, But little can be printed on our sight. Enough, to know he lives, and is our life, And every morning he doth search us out, And lift the burden from our heavy lids, That we may rise with him and to our tasks!

"Shall we be hushed, when every bird and flower Doth herald his approach? Convolvulus Waits for his coming with its lips apart, And Philomela will not close his note, Till he do answer with his smiling face; Thus the whole earth resolvent into song Waits for his footsteps--how can we be dumb!

"There was a song Which flowed, untutored, from the lips of love, The ransomed ones that knelt before his throne, No earthly tongues its echo could repeat, So much there was of love, so much of joy, So much of tenderness and innocence; For they were without guile, and not a word But breathed of faith, dependency and peace. It praised him for his sufference of earth, That he did bear its sin, yet did not smite; And only once, in anger, hid his face, And oped the heavens, to wash out its filth; Yet, with his fervent rays, drank up the flood, And set his bow a witness that again Never should earth be flooded, while the years Melt into centuries, till the whole race, With aching hearts and scalding eyes shall come Back to his all-embracing fatherhood.

"They thanked him for his witness-watch of man, That time and time, his face was partly hid, "To show the hazard of our wandering steps, That in the early, and the latter rain, He wept for our refreshment, till his tears Shut out his fervent glances from our eyes; And though he mourned our strangerhood of him, Yet would he teach us that in smiles and tears Are we begotten, and our lives are lost If we find not the blessings that are hid Beneath the rainbow tints of sorrowing.

"Thus much, and more, that I will not essay; But I was led through fields and garden walks, And ornate grandeur, which the earth affords Nor pattern nor approach; and though the mind Be forced to utmost tension, it cannot Encompass the bewilderment of sight. Since my return, I cannot cast it off, It lingers with me like some raptured dream, And in my eyes and on my face is drawn The print of its unspeakable surmount; And I would call it dream, if I had not A talisman, that tells me of its truth. An angel led me to the central throne, An angel led me back to consciousness; But ere he passed the confines of the sun, He handed me a clear, transparent gem, And called me: 'Uri, thus it shall be said: The very god commands that it be done;

"'Uri, my light, my fire upon the earth, Shall build again my altars and restore With his own hand, the priesthood of the sun. I will a hundredfold return the scorn Of Mizraim on himself, for his neglect; And from the sons of Lud I will raise up A kingdom that shall shine in righteousness.'

"This said, he handed me the talisman; Which, when our altars shall have been prepared, And laden with the choicest of our flock, Shall claim the pledge of the eternal one, With fire from his own courts to burn it up.

"I can not say how long, or short a time, I lingered thus entranced; I only know I waked to find it real. The precious gem Is proof of disenchantment; it is here. I lay no claim on priesthood, but have told The plain, uncumbered truth; when I did fall, Prone to the earth in trance, I had no thought, Of what would come of it; you have it all. I have the stone, and we will test its power. If yonder priest, with his enshrouded myth, Desires to measure lances with the sun, Then we will each build altars to our gods, And he that first draws fire from any source, Not of the earth, shall claim the forfeiture Of all the other's tenantry to teach.

"I may have said too much; I can not more Than leave the rest with god, the changeless one, The bright, all-shining universe of love, The unfailing source, the broad, unvarying stream, The very oceanhood of deity."

He ceased; and Kohen, rising to his feet, Gave back the challenge eagerly; as might The athlete spring his ready foe to meet; His, was the conscious power of fearless right: "Let him lift up his altars to the sun, And I will call upon the Uncreate, The hand, that shaped it from chaotic void, The face, whose look first taught it how to smile. He may call first, that it may vantage him; But other than the earth can no man bring, Fire from the distant realms, except it be From God, Creator of the sun, the moon and stars. I am content that he do cry his god, Till he be hoarse with hardihood of prayer, This day shall judge between us and the right, And ye shall see the bare arm of the Lord."

The crowd, impatient of his words, did shout In Uri's acclamation; as the sun, Full-faced and warm, gave back his witnesshood; His ready conquest had been well begun. How few there be, who see beyond their sight! Even in our day of peculence and power, The horizon of man has been his might, Beyond his ready reach he passes into night; The world is bounded by its present hour. No marvel that old Uri swept the field; His snare was baited for their ready sense, No effort theirs, a pleasure but to yield; Theirs but the open book, to them unsealed; They felt no weight of future recompense; And so they shouted, high and loud, his praise, 'Till he recalled them, with his magic voice: "Old Kohen seems in earnest; let us raise Our altars quickly, that we may rejoice This day, in our great father's warm embrace, That we may look unblushing in his face And call his fervent rays to their full test Ere he shall draw the curtain in the west."

So said, so done; two altars were soon reared, Both prophets, in full confidence appeared; The offerings have been brought; and now they wait Only the word; the King must give command. Against gray Kohen, was the leveled fate Of his unsolaced anger; yet, his hand Was stayed by counsel, and he only said, "Uri calls first, let every breath Be hushed upon his calling. Let the dead From out their cerements beneath Bear witness with our spirits that we seek "A true solution to the psalm of life. Slay thou the offering, Uri, and then speak, Speak the charmed word, and close the strife."

Uri comes forth and in one hand he brings The talisman with leathern circlet stayed, Enclosing surfaces convex; to this he clings As though the whole earth in the balance laid, Were mean in weight compared to such a gem. The other holds a knife, and with a stroke The offering is prepared; he looked at them, The thirsting, hungry eyes that watch, then broke The silence, turning full upon the sun: "Thy will, most radiant god! thy will be done. O shining face! of the unchanging one, Look, in the pity thou alone canst feel And lead us back to life, we claim thy pledge. A nation, lifts to thee their centered prayer; They see thy smile, they know thy heart of hearts. They hush them here, upon their altar's brink, For they can go no nearer; meet, thou, them, And, as we look upon thy face, may we Behold thy very presence in our midst; Come as a flame, to lick this offering up, And all our hearts shall melt into thy smile."