Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars, Pale-passioned for my loss. Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! Mine orbed heats drop cold Down from thee, down from thee, As fell thy grace of old Down from me, down from me. Oh my light-bearer, Is another fairer Won to thee, won to thee? Ah, ah, Heosphoros, Great love preceded loss, Known to thee, known to thee. Thou, breathing thy communicable grace Mine astral faces, from thine angel face, And flooded me with radiance overmuch From thy pure height. Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread, Erect, irradiated, Didst sting my wheel of glory On, on before thee Along the Godlight by a quickening touch! Around, around the firmamental ocean Ha, ha! Until, the motion flinging out the motion Around, around, I wound and interwound, While all the cyclic heavens about me spun. And as they wound I wound,—around, around, Thine angel glory sinks Down from me, down from me My beauty falls, methinks, Down from thee, down from thee! O my light-bearer, O my path-preparer, Gone from me, gone from me! I cannot kindle underneath the brow Of this new angel here, who is not Thou. Ah, ah, Heosphoros ! Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be When, having wept all night, at break of day And gazing on me, such shall comprehend, SCENE.-Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching night. Adam. How doth the wide and melancholy earth Gather her hills around us, grey and ghast, And stare with blank significance of loss Right in our faces! Is the wind up? Eve. Nay. Adam. And yet the cedars and the junipers O life Eve. Which is not man's nor angels! What is this? Adam. No cause for fear. The circle of God's life Contains all life beside. Eve. I think the earth Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense Of those first laws affixed to form and space Or ever she knew sin. Adam. We were brave sinning. We will not fear: Eve. Yea, I plucked the fruit With eyes upturned to heaven and seeing there Our god-thrones, as the tempter said,—not GOD. My heart, which beat then, sinks. The sun hath sunk Out of sight with our Eden. Adam. Night is near. Eve. And God's curse, nearest. Let us travel back And stand within the sword-glare till we die, Believing it is better to meet death Than suffer desolation. Adam. Nay, beloved! We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand, Eve. Ah, ah! dost thou discern what I behold? Adam. I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes From their dilated orbits bound before To meet the spectral Dread! Eve. I am afraid Ah, ah! the twilight bristles wild with shapes And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth, move Treading upon the darkness without feet, And fluttering on the darkness without wings! Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock like trees; Some glide like a fallen leaf: and some flow on Copious as rivers. Ah, ah! dost thou pause to say Like what?-coil like the serpent, when he fell Or what we name such through the precedence To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls, Which are the more distraught and full of pain Adam. Courage, Sweet! The mystic shapes ebb back from us, and drop With slow concentric movement, each on each,Expressing wider spaces,--and collapsed In lines more definite for imagery And clearer for relation, till the throng |