THE SERAPHIM. I look for Angels' songs, and hear Him cry. GILES FLETCHER. PART THE FIRST. [It is the time of the Crucifixion; and the angels of heaven have departed towards the earth, except the two seraphim, ADOR the Strong and ZERAH the Bright One. The place is the outer side of the shut heavenly gate.] Ador. O SERAPH, pause no more. Beside this gate of heaven we stand alone. Ador. Our brother hosts are gone Zerah. Are gone before. Ador. And the golden harps the angels bore Still burning from their hands of fire. Upon the glass-sea shore. Zerah. Silent upon the glass-sea shore! Formless with infinity Hovers o'er the chrystal sea; Awfuller than light derived, Zerah. Our visible God, our heavenly seats! Cherub and seraph, powers and virtues, all,— To a still sound, as thunder into rain. What a fall And eddy of wings innumerous, crossed From high instinct of worshipping, Throbbing with a fiery beat, Some divine and plastic word, And trembling at its new-found being, Ador. Zerah, do not wait for seeing. Thee! Ador. I stood the nearest to the throne In hierarchical degree, What time the Voice said Go. Which swept through heaven the alien name of woe, Through my strong and shielding wings, Incapacious of their presence, Infinite imaginings, None knoweth save the Throned who spoke; And heard the God-Breath move Shaping the words that lightened, 'Be there light.' Nor trembled but with love, Now fell down shudderingly, My face upon the pavement whence I had towered, Zerah. Let me wait!-let me wait!— Ador. Nay, gaze not backward through the gate. God fills our heaven with God's own solitude Till all the pavements glow. His Godhead being no more subdued By itself, to glories low Which seraphs can sustain, What if thou, in gazing so, Attribute, the veil undone Even that to which we dare to press Ay, His love! How the deep ecstatic pain |