Part 7

_Zerah._ Thy look Is fixed on earth, as mine upon thy face. Where shall I seek His? I have thrown One look upon earth, but one, Over the blue mountain-lines, Over the forests of palms and pines, Over the harvest-lands golden, Over the valleys that fold in The gardens and vines-- He is not there. All these are unworthy Those footsteps to bear, Before which, bowing down I would fain quench the stars of my crown In the dark of the earthy. Where shall I seek him? No reply? Hath language left thy lips, to place Its vocal in thine eye? Ador, Ador! are we come To a double portent, that Dumb matter grows articulate And songful seraphs dumb? Ador, Ador!

_Ador._ I constrain The passion of my silence. None Of those places gazed upon Are gloomy enow to fit his pain. Unto Him, whose forming word Gave to Nature flower and sward. She hath given back again, For the myrtle--the thorn, For the sylvan calm--the human scorn. Still, still, reluctant seraph, gaze beneath! There is a city----

_Zerah._ Temple and tower, Palace and purple would droop like a flower, (Or a cloud at our breath) If He neared in his state The outermost gate.

_Ador._ Ah me, not so In the state of a king did the victim go! And THOU who hangest mute of speech 'Twixt heaven and earth, with forehead yet Stainèd by the bloody sweat, God! man! Thou hast forgone thy throne in each.

_Zerah._ Thine eyes behold him?

_Ador._ Yea, below. Track the gazing of mine eyes, Naming God within thine heart That its weakness may depart And the vision rise! Seest thou yet, beloved?

_Zerah._ I see Beyond the city, crosses three And mortals three that hang thereon 'Ghast and silent to the sun. Round them blacken and welter and press Staring multitudes whose father Adam was, whose brows are dark With his Cain's corroded mark,-- Who curse with looks. Nay--let me rather Turn unto the wilderness!

_Ador._ Turn not! God dwells with men.

_Zerah._ Above He dwells with angels, and they love. Can these love? With the living's pride They stare at those who die, who hang In their sight and die. They bear the streak Of the crosses' shadow, black not wide, To fall on their heads, as it swerves aside When the victims' pang Makes the dry wood creak.

_Ador._ The cross--the cross!

_Zerah._ A woman kneels The mid cross under, With white lips asunder, And motion on each. They throb, as she feels, With a spasm, not a speech; And her lids, close as sleep, Are less calm, for the eyes Have made room there to weep Drop on drop--

_Ador._ Weep? Weep blood, All women, all men! He sweated it, He, For your pale womanhood And base manhood. Agree That these water-tears, then, Are vain, mocking like laughter: Weep blood! Shall the flood Of salt curses, whose foam is the darkness, on roll Forward, on from the strand of the storm-beaten years, And back from the rocks of the horrid hereafter, And up, in a coil, from the present's wrath-spring, Yea, down from the windows of heaven opening, Deep calling to deep as they meet on His soul-- And men weep only tears?

_Zerah._ Little drops in the lapse! And yet, Ador, perhaps It is all that they can. Tears! the lovingest man Has no better bestowed Upon man.

_Ador._ Nor on God.

_Zerah._ Do all-givers need gifts? If the Giver said "Give," the first motion would slay Our Immortals, the echo would ruin away The same worlds which he made. Why, what angel uplifts Such a music, so clear, It may seem in God's ear Worth more than a woman's hoarse weeping? And thus, Pity tender as tears, I above thee would speak, Thou woman that weepest! weep unscorned of us! I, the tearless and pure, am but loving and weak.

_Ador._ Speak low, my brother, low,--and not of love Or human or angelic! Rather stand Before the throne of that Supreme above, In whose infinitude the secrecies Of thine own being lie hid, and lift thine hand Exultant, saying, "Lord God, I am wise!"-- Than utter _here_, "I love."

_Zerah._ And yet thine eyes Do utter it. They melt in tender light, The tears of heaven.

_Ador._ Of heaven. Ah me!

_Zerah._ Ador!

_Ador._ Say on!

_Zerah._ The crucified are three. Beloved, they are unlike.

_Ador._ Unlike.

_Zerah._ For one Is as a man who has sinned and still Doth wear the wicked will, The hard malign life-energy, Tossed outward, in the parting soul's disdain, On brow and lip that cannot change again.

_Ador._ And one--

_Zerah._ Has also sinned. And yet (O marvel!) doth the Spirit-wind Blow white those waters? Death upon his face Is rather shine than shade, A tender shine by looks beloved made: He seemeth dying in a quiet place, And less by iron wounds in hands and feet Than heart-broke by new joy too sudden and sweet.

_Ador._ And ONE!--

_Zerah._ And ONE!--

_Ador._ Why dost thou pause?

_Zerah._ God! God! Spirit of my spirit! who movest Through seraph veins in burning deity To light the quenchless pulses!--

_Ador._ But hast trod The depths of love in thy peculiar nature, And not in any thou hast made and lovest In narrow seraph hearts!--

_Zerah._ Above, Creator! Within, Upholder!

_Ador._ And below, below, The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice!

_Zerah._ Why do I pause?--

_Ador._ There is a silentness That answers thee enow, That, like a brazen sound Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round,-- Hear it. It is not from the visible skies Though they are still, Unconscious that their own dropped dews express The light of heaven on every earthly hill. It is not from the hills, though calm and bare They, since their first creation, Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace, And whence again shall come The word that uncreates, Have lift their brows in voiceless expectation. It is not from the places that entomb Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates Her soul to grand proportions, worthily To fill life's vacant room. Not there: not there. Not yet within those chambers lieth He, A dead one in his living world; his south And west winds blowing over earth and sea, And not a breath on that creating mouth. But now,--a silence keeps (Not death's, nor sleep's) The lips whose whispered word Might roll the thunders round reverberated. Silent art thou, O my Lord, Bowing down thy stricken head! Fearest thou, a groan of thine Would make the pulse of thy creation fail As thine own pulse?--would rend the veil Of visible things and let the flood Of the unseen Light, the essential God, Rush in to whelm the undivine? Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread.

_Zerah._ O silence!

_Ador._ Doth it say to thee--the NAME, Slow-learning seraph?

_Zerah._ I have learnt.

_Ador._ The flame Perishes in thine eyes.

_Zerah._ He opened his, And looked. I cannot bear--

_Ador._ Their agony?

_Zerah._ Their love. God's depth is in them. From his brows White, terrible in meekness, didst thou see The lifted eyes unclose? He is God, seraph! Look no more on me, O God--I am not God.

_Ador._ The loving is Sublimed within them by the sorrowful. In heaven we could sustain them.

_Zerah._ Heaven is dull, Mine Ador, to man's earth. The light that burns In fluent, refluent motion Along the crystal ocean; The springing of the golden harps between The bowery wings, in fountains of sweet sound, The winding, wandering music that returns Upon itself, exultingly self-bound In the great spheric round Of everlasting praises; The God-thoughts in our midst that intervene, Visibly flashing from the supreme throne Full in seraphic faces Till each astonishes the other, grown More beautiful with worship and delight-- My heaven! my home of heaven! my infinite Heaven-choirs! what are ye to this dust and death, This cloud, this cold, these tears, this failing breath, Where God's immortal love now issueth In this MAN'S woe?

_Ador._ His eyes are very deep yet calm.

_Zerah._ No more On _me_, Jehovah-man--

_Ador._ Calm-deep. They show A passion which is tranquil. They are seeing No earth, no heaven, no men that slay and curse, No seraphs that adore; Their gaze is on the invisible, the dread, The things we cannot view or think or speak, Because we are too happy, or too weak,-- The sea of ill, for which the universe, With all its pilèd space, can find no shore, With all its life, no living foot to tread. But he, accomplished in Jehovah-being, Sustains the gaze adown, Conceives the vast despair, And feels the billowy griefs come up to drown, Nor fears, nor faints, nor fails, till all be finished.

_Zerah._ Thus, do I find Thee thus? My undiminished And undiminishable God!--my God! The echoes are still tremulous along The heavenly mountains, of the latest song Thy manifested glory swept abroad In rushing past our lips: they echo aye "Creator, thou art strong! Creator, thou art blessed over all." By what new utterance shall I now recall, Unteaching the heaven-echoes? Dare I say, "Creator, thou art feebler than thy work! Creator, thou art sadder than thy creature! A worm, and not a man, Yea, no worm, but a curse?" I dare not so mine heavenly phrase reverse. Albeit the piercing thorn and thistle-fork (Whose seed disordered ran From Eve's hand trembling when the curse did reach her) Be garnered darklier in thy soul, the rod That smites thee never blossoming, and thou Grief-bearer for thy world, with unkinged brow-- I leave to men their song of Ichabod: I have an angel-tongue--I know but praise.

_Ador._ Hereafter shall the blood-bought captives raise The passion-song of blood.

_Zerah._ And _we_, extend Our holy vacant hands towards the Throne, Crying "We have no music."

_Ador._ Rather, blend Both musics into one. The sanctities and sanctified above Shall each to each, with lifted looks serene, Their shining faces lean, And mix the adoring breath And breathe the full thanksgiving.

_Zerah._ But the love-- The love, mine Ador!

_Ador._ Do we love not?

_Zerah._ Yea, But not as man shall! not with life for death, New-throbbing through the startled being; not With strange astonished smiles, that ever may Gush passionate like tears and fill their place: Nor yet with speechless memories of what Earth's winters were, enverduring the green Of every heavenly palm Whose windless, shadeless calm Moves only at the breath of the Unseen. Oh, not with this blood on us--and this face,-- Still, haply, pale with sorrow that it bore In our behalf, and tender evermore With nature all our own, upon us gazing-- Nor yet with these forgiving hands upraising Their unreproachful wounds, alone to bless! Alas, Creator! shall we love thee less Than mortals shall?

_Ador._ Amen! so let it be. We love in our proportion, to the bound Thine infinite our finite set around, And that is finitely,--thou, infinite And worthy infinite love! And our delight Is, watching the dear love poured out to thee From ever fuller chalice. Blessed they, Who love thee more than we do: blessed we, Viewing that love which shall exceed even this, And winning in the sight a double bliss For all so lost in love's supremacy. The bliss is better. Only on the sad Cold earth there are who say It seemeth better to be great than glad. The bliss is better. Love him more, O man, Than sinless seraphs can!

_Zerah._ Yea, love him more!

_Voices of the Angelic Multitude._ Yea, more!

_Ador._ The loving word Is caught by those from whom we stand apart. For silence hath no deepness in her heart Where love's low name low breathed would not be heard By angels, clear as thunder.

_Angelic Voices._ Love him more!

_Ador._ Sweet voices, swooning o'er The music which ye make! Albeit to love there were not ever given A mournful sound when uttered out of heaven, That angel-sadness ye would fitly take. Of love be silent now! we gaze adown Upon the incarnate Love who wears no crown. _Zerah._ No crown! the woe instead Is heavy on his head, Pressing inward on his brain With a hot and clinging pain Till all tears are prest away, And clear and calm his vision may Peruse the black abyss. No rod, no sceptre is Holden in his fingers pale; They close instead upon the nail, Concealing the sharp dole, Never stirring to put by The fair hair peaked with blood, Drooping forward from the rood Helplessly, heavily On the cheek that waxeth colder, Whiter ever, and the shoulder Where the government was laid. His glory made the heavens afraid; Will he not unearth this cross from its hole? His pity makes his piteous state; Will he be uncompassionate Alone to his proper soul? Yea, will he not lift up His lips from the bitter cup, His brows from the dreary weight, His hand from the clenching cross, Crying, "My Father, give to me Again the joy I had with thee Or ere this earth was made for loss? No stir no sound. The love and woe being interwound He cleaveth to the woe; And putteth forth heaven's strength below, To bear.

_Ador._ And that creates his anguish now, Which made his glory there.

_Zerah._ Shall it need be so? Awake, thou Earth! behold. Thou, uttered forth of old In all thy life-emotion, In all thy vernal noises, In the rollings of thine ocean, Leaping founts, and rivers running,-- In thy woods' prophetic heaving Ere the rains a stroke have given, In thy winds' exultant voices When they feel the hills anear,-- In the firmamental sunning, And the tempest which rejoices Thy full heart with an awful cheer. Thou, uttered forth of old And with all thy music rolled In a breath abroad By the breathing God,-- Awake! He is here! behold! Even _thou_-- beseems it good To thy vacant vision dim, That the deadly ruin should, For thy sake, encompass him? That the Master-word should lie A mere silence, while his own Processive harmony, The faintest echo of his lightest tone, Is sweeping in a choral triumph by? Awake! emit a cry! And say, albeit used From Adam's ancient years To falls of acrid tears, To frequent sighs unloosed, Caught back to press again On bosoms zoned with pain-- To corses still and sullen The shine and music dulling With closèd eyes and ears That nothing sweet can enter, Commoving thee no less With that forced quietness Than the earthquake in thy centre-- Thou hast not learnt to bear This new divine despair! These tears that sink into thee, These dying eyes that view thee, This dropping blood from lifted rood, They darken and undo thee. Thou canst not presently sustain this corse-- Cry, cry, thou hast not force! Cry, thou wouldst fainer keep Thy hopeless charnels deep, Thyself a general tomb Where the first and the second Death Sit gazing face to face And mar each other's breath, While silent bones through all the place 'Neath sun and moon do faintly glisten And seem to lie and listen For the tramp of the coming Doom. Is it not meet That they who erst the Eden fruit did eat, Should champ the ashes? That they who wrap them in the thunder-cloud Should wear it as a shroud, Perishing by its flashes? That they who vexed the lion should be rent? Cry, cry "I will sustain my punishment, The sin being mine; but take away from me This visioned Dread--this man--this Deity!"

_The Earth._ I have groaned; I have travailed: I am weary. I am blind with my own grief, and cannot see, As clear-eyed angels can, his agony, And what I see I also can sustain, Because his power protects me from his pain. I have groaned; I have travailed: I am dreary, Hearkening the thick sobs of my children's heart: How can I say "Depart" To that Atoner making calm and free? Am I a God as he, To lay down peace and power as willingly?

_Ador._ He looked for some to pity. There is none. All pity is within him and not for him. His earth is iron under him, and o'er him His skies are brass. His seraphs cry "Alas!" With hallelujah voice that cannot weep. And man, for whom the dreadful work is done ...

_Scornful Voices from the Earth_. If verily this _be_ the Eternal's son--

_Ador._ Thou hearest. Man is grateful.

_Zerah._ Can I hear Nor darken into man and cease for ever My seraph-smile to wear? Was it for such, It pleased him to overleap His glory with his love and sever From the God-light and the throne And all angels bowing down, For whom his every look did touch New notes of joy on the unworn string Of an eternal worshipping? For such, he left his heaven? There, though never bought by blood And tears, we gave him gratitude: We loved him there, though unforgiven.

_Ador._ The light is riven Above, around, And down in lurid fragments flung, That catch the mountain-peak and stream With momentary gleam, Then perish in the water and the ground. River and waterfall, Forest and wilderness, Mountain and city, are together wrung Into one shape, and that is shapelessness; The darkness stands for all.

_Zerah._ The pathos hath the day undone: The death-look of His eyes Hath overcome the sun And made it sicken in its narrow skies.

_Ador._ Is it to death? He dieth.

_Zerah._ Through the dark He still, he only, is discernible-- The naked hands and feet transfixèd stark, The countenance of patient anguish white, Do make themselves a light More dreadful than the glooms which round them dwell, And therein do they shine.

_Ador._ God! Father-God! Perpetual Radiance on the radiant throne! Uplift the lids of inward deity, Flashing abroad Thy burning Infinite! Light up this dark where there is nought to see Except the unimagined agony Upon the sinless forehead of the Son!

_Zerah._ God, tarry not! Behold, enow Hath he wandered as a stranger, Sorrowed as a victim. Thou Appear for him, O Father! Appear for him, Avenger! Appear for him, just One and holy One, For he is holy and just! At once the darkness and dishonour rather To the ragged jaws of hungry chaos rake, And hurl aback to ancient dust These mortals that make blasphemies With their made breath, this earth and skies That only grow a little dim, Seeing their curse on him. But him, of all forsaken, Of creature and of brother, Never wilt thou forsake! Thy living and thy loving cannot slacken Their firm essential hold upon each other, And well thou dost remember how his part Was still to lie upon thy breast and be Partaker of the light that dwelt in thee Ere sun or seraph shone; And how while silence trembled round the throne Thou countedst by the beatings of his heart The moments of thine own eternity. Awaken, O right hand with the lightnings! Again gather His glory to thy glory! What estranger, What ill supreme in evil, can be thrust Between the faithful Father and the Son? Appear for him, O Father! Appear for him, Avenger! Appear for him, just One and holy One, For he is holy and just!

_Ador._ Thy face upturned toward the throne is dark; Thou hast no answer, Zerah.

_Zerah._ No reply, O unforsaking Father?

_Ador._ Hark! Instead of downward voice, a cry Is uttered from beneath.

_Zerah._ And by a sharper sound than death, Mine immortality is riven. The heavy darkness which doth tent the sky Floats backward as by a sudden wind: But I see no light behind, But I feel the farthest stars are all Stricken and shaken, And I know a shadow sad and broad Doth fall--doth fall On our vacant thrones in heaven.

_Voice from the Cross._ MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU ME FORSAKEN?

_The Earth._ Ah me, ah me, ah me! the dreadful Why! My sin is on thee, sinless one! Thou art God-orphaned, for my burden on thy head. Dark sin, white innocence, endurance dread! Be still, within your shrouds, my buried dead; Nor work with this quick horror round mine heart.

_Zerah._ _He_ hath forsaken _him_. I perish.

_Ador._ Hold Upon his name! we perish not. Of old His will--

_Zerah._ I seek his will. Seek, seraphim! My God, my God! where is it? Doth that curse Reverberate spare us, seraph or universe? _He_ hath forsaken _him_.

_Ador._ He cannot fail.

_Angel Voices._ We faint, we droop, Our love doth tremble like fear.