Strength to behold Him and not worship Him, Can bear more curse. Gab. O ruined angel! O miserable earth, Well, and if it be! I CHOSE this ruin; I elected it Of my will, not of service. What I do, I do volitient, not obedient. 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 Of the spent hallelujahs. Gab. Spirit of scorn, I might say, of unreason! I might say, Which God made possible; that who lives, obeys Luc. Let it pass. No more, thou Gabriel! What if I stand up 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 The firmamental walls with deity. Therefore with love; His lightnings go abroad, His pity may do so, His angels must, Whene'er He gives them charges. Luc. Verily, I and my demons, who are spirits of scorn, Gab. Thou speakest in the shadow of thy change. Hate but avenges. Luc. As it is, I know Something of pity. When I reeled in Heaven, And my sword grew too heavy for my grasp, Stabbing through matter, which it could not pierce So much as the first shell of,-toward the throne; When I fell back, down, staring up as I fell, The lightnings holding open my scathed lids, And that thought of the infinite of God, Hurled after to precipitate descent; When countless angel faces still and stern Pressed out upon me from the level heavens Adown the abysmal spaces, and I fell VOT. 1.-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. What love is. Yet Gabriel, By the lie in me which I keep myself, 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 A compensative splendour up the vast, Flushing the starry arteries. Luc. With a change! So, let the vacant thrones and gardens too Gab. Aught of those exiles? Dost thou know Ay: I know they have fled Silent all day along the wilderness : Shining against, not for them; and I know As if each were a cherub! Gab. Aught of their future? Dost thou know Only as much as this: That evil will increase and multiply Witnout a benediction. Gab. Nothing more Luc. Why so the angels taunt! What should be more? I charge thee by the solitude He kept Ere he created,-leave the earth to God! Luc. My foot is on the earth, firm as my sin. Ere any sin was done,-leave earth to God! When up against the white shore of our feet, Luc. My woe is on the earth, to curse thereby. 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, When thoughtful men shall bend their spacious brows |