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.

He still, He only, is discernible

Through the dark,

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 towards the throne, is

dark

Thou hast no answer, Zerah.

Zerah.

O unforsaking Father?—

No reply,

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.

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

Zerah. I seek His will. Seek, seraphim!

Hold

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.

Voices of Fallen Angels from the earth. Do we

prevail?

Or are we lost?-Hath not the ill we did

Been heretofore our good?

Is it not ill that One, all sinless, should
Hang heavy with all curses on a cross?
Nathless, that cry!--With huddled faces hid
Within the empty graves which men did scoop
To hold more damned dead, we shudder through
What shall exalt us or undo,-

Our triumph, or—our loss.

Voice from the Cross. IT IS FINISHED.

Zerah.

Like a victor, speaks the Slain.

Hark, again!

Angel Voices. Finished be the trembling vain!
Ador. Upward, like a well-beloved Son,

Looketh He, the orphaned One.

Angel Voices. Finished is the mystic pain Voices of Fallen Angels. His deathly forehead at word,

Gleameth like a seraph sword.

Angel Voices. Finished is the demon reign!
Ador. His breath, as living God, createth,
His breath, as dying man, completeth.

Angel Voices. Finished work His hands sustain !
The Earth. In mine ancient sepulchres

Where my kings and prophets freeze,
Adam dead four thousand years,
Unwakened by the universe's
Everlasting moan,

Aye his ghastly silence, mocking—
Unwakened by his children's knocking
At his old sepulchral stone,

'Adam, Adam, all this curse is

Thine and on us yet!'

Unwakened by the ceaseless tears

Wherewith they made his cerement wet,
'Adam, must thy curse remain ?—
Starts with sudden life, and hears

Through the slow dripping of the caverned eaves,— Angel Voices. Finished is his bane!

Voice from the Cross. FATHER! MY SPIRIT TO THINE

HANDS IS GIVEN !

Ador. Hear the wailing winds that be
By wings of unclean spirits made!
They, in that last look, surveyed
The love they lost in losing heaven,
And passionately flee,-

With a desolate cry that cleaves

The natural storms-though they are lifting
God's strong cedar-roots like leaves,
And the earthquake and the thunder,
Neither keeping neither under,

Roar and hurtle through the glooms!-
And a few pale stars are drifting
Past the Dark, to disappear,

What time, from the splitting tombs,
Gleamingly the Dead arise,

Viewing with their death-calmed eyes
The elemental strategies,

To witness, Victory is the Lord's.
Hear the wail o' the spirits! hear.

Zerah. I hear alone the memory of His words.