Strength to behold Him and not worship Him, The potter's mark upon his work, to show Can bear more curse. Gab. O ruined angel! Luc. I and the earth O miserable earth, Well, and if it be! I CHOSE this ruin; I elected it Of my will, not of service. I do volitient, not obedient. What I do, And overtop thy crown with my despair. My sorrow crowns me. Get thee back to Heaven. And leave me to the earth which is mine own In virtue of her ruin, as I hers In virtue of my revolt! turn thou from both Gab. Spirit of scorn, I might say, of unreason! I might say, That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives With God's relations set in time and space; That who elects, assumes a something good Luc. My stature is too high for me to stand,- Gab. I kneel. Luc. A heavenly answer. Get thee to thy Heaven, And leave my earth to me. Gab. Through heaven and earth God's will moves freely, and I follow, As colour follows light. He overflows Therefore with love; His lightnings go abroad, Luc. Verily, I and my demons, who are spirits of scorn, Gab. Thou speakest in the shadow of thy change. If thou hadst gazed upon the face of God This morning for a moment, thou hadst known Hate but avenges. Luc. As it is, I know Something of pity. When I reeled in Heaven, VOI. I.-2 Trampled down by your stillness, and struck blind By the sight within your eyes,-'twas then I knew How ye could pity, my kind angelhood! Gab. Alas, discrowned one, by the truth in me Which God keeps in me, I would give away All-save that truth and His love keeping it,— To lead thee home again into the light And hear thy voice chant with the morning stars, When their rays tremble round them with much song Sung in more gladness! Luc. Sing, my Morning Star! Last beautiful, last heavenly, that I loved! If I could drench thy golden locks with tears, What were it to this angel? Gab. And now I have named God. Luc. What love is. Yet Gabriel, By the lie in me which I keep myself, Thou'rt a false swearer. Were it otherwise, With beauty and music waving in his trees Gab. Angel, there are no vacant thrones in Heaven To suit thy empty words. Glory and life Fulfil their own depletions; and if God Sighed you far from him, His next breath drew in Luc. With a change! So, let the vacant thrones and gardens too In two kinds, both being flawed. Why, what is this? Gab. Aught of those exiles? Luc. Dost thou know Ay: I know they have fled Silent all day along the wilderness: I know they wear, for burden on their backs, Gab. Aught of their future? Luc. Dost thou know That evil will increase and multiply Witnout a benediction. Gab. Only as much as this: Nothing more Luc. Why so the angels taunt! What should be I charge thee by the solitude He kept Luc. My foot is on the earth, firm as my sin. Luc. My sin is on the earth, to reign thereon. Gab. I charge thee by the choral song we sang, When up against the white shore of our feet, The depths of the creation swelled and brake,— And the new worlds, the beaded foam and flower Of all that coil, roared outward into space On thunder-edges,-leave the earth to God! Luc. My woe is on the earth, to curse thereby. Gab. I charge thee by that mournful Morning Star Which trembles Luc. Enough spoken. As the pine In norland forest, drops its weight of snows By a night's growth, so, growing toward my ends, I drop thy counsels. Farewell, Gabriel! Watch out thy service; I achieve my will. And peradventure in the after years, When thoughtful men shall bend their spacious brows Upon the storm and strife seen everywhere To ruffle their smooth manhood and break up With lurid lights of intermittent hope Their human fear and wrong,-they may discern The heart of a lost angel in the earth. |