CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS,

Hear our heavenly promise Through your mortal passion! Love, ye shall have from us, In a pure relation. As a fish or bird Swims or flies, if moving, We unseen are heard To live on by loving. Far above the glances Of your eager eyes, Listen! we are loving. Listen, through man's ignorances — Listen, through God's mysteries — Listen down the heart of things, Ye shall hear our mystic wings Murmurous with loving. Through the opal door Listen evermore How we live by loving!

When your bodies therefore Reach the grave their goal, Softly will we care for Each enfranchised soul. Softly and unlothly Through the door of opal Toward the heavenly people, Floated on a minor fine Into the full chant divine, We will draw you smoothly,— While the human in the minor Makes the harmony diviner. Listen to our loving!

Second Semichorus. There, a sough of glory Shall breathe on you as you come, Ruffling round the doorway All the light of angeldom. From the empyrean centre Heavenly voices shall repeat, “Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter, For the chrism on you is sweet!” And every angel in the place Lowlily shall bow his face, Folded fair on softened sounds, Because upon your hands and feet He images his Master's wounds. Listen to our loving!

First Semichorus. So, in the universe's Consummated undoing, Our seraphs of white mercies Shall hover round the ruin. Their wings shall stream upon the flame As if incorporate of the same In elemental fusion; And calm their faces shall burn out With a pale and mastering thought, And a steadfast looking of desire From out between the clefts of fire,— While they cry, in the Holy's name, To the final Restitution. Listen to our loving!

So, when the day of God is To the thick graves accompted, Awaking the dead bodies, The angel of the trumpet Shall split and shatter the earth To the roots of the grave — Which never before were slackened — And quicken the charnel birth With his blast so clear and brave That the Dead shall start and stand erect, And every face of the burial-place Shall the awful, single look reflect Wherewith he them awakened. Listen to our loving!

But wild is the horse of Death! He will leap up wild at the clamour Above and beneath. And where is his Tamer On that last day, When he crieth Ha, ha! To the trumpet's blare, And paweth the earth's Aceldama? When he tosseth his head, The drear-white steed, And ghastlily champeth the last moon-ray — What angel there Can lead him away, That the living may rule for the Dead?

Yet a TAMER shall be found! One more bright than seraph crowned, And more strong than cherub bold, Elder, too, than angel old, By his grey eternities. He shall master and surprise The steed of Death. For He is strong, and He is fain. He shall quell him with a breath, And shall lead him where He will, With a whisper in the ear, Full of fear, And a hand upon the mane, Grand and still.

Through the flats of Hades where the souls assemble He will guide the Death-steed calm between their ranks, While, like beaten dogs, they a little moan and tremble To see the darkness curdle from the horse's glittering flanks. Through the flats of Hades where the dreary shade is, Up the steep of heaven will the Tamer guide the steed,— Up the spheric circles, circle above circle, We who count the ages shall count the tolling tread — Every hoof-fall striking a blinder blanker sparkle From the stony orbs, which shall show as they were dead.

All the way the Death-steed with tolling hoofs shall travel, Ashen-grey the planets shall be motionless as stones, Loosely shall the systems eject their parts coaeval, Stagnant in the spaces shall float the pallid moons: Suns that touch their apogees, reeling from their level, Shall run back on their axles, in wild low broken tunes.

Up against the arches of the crystal ceiling, From the horse's nostrils shall steam the blurting breath: Up between the angels pale with silent feeling Will the Tamer calmly lead the horse of Death.

Cleaving all that silence, cleaving all that glory, Will the Tamer lead him straightway to the Throne: “Look out, O Jehovah, to this I bring before Thee, With a hand nail-pierced, I who am thy Son.” Then the Eye Divinest, from the Deepest, flaming, On the mystic courser shall look out in fire: Blind the beast shall stagger where It overcame him, Meek as lamb at pasture, bloodless in desire. Down the beast shall shiver,— slain amid the taming,— And, by Life essential, the phantasm Death expire.

Listen, man, through life and death, Through the dust and through the breath, Listen down the heart of things! Ye shall hear our mystic wings Murmurous with loving.

Gabriel, thou Gabriel!

What wouldst thou with me?

I heard thy voice sound in the angels’ song, And I would give thee question.

Question me!

Why have I called thrice to my Morning Star And had no answer? All the stars are out, And answer in their places. Only in vain I cast my voice against the outer rays Of my Star shut in light behind the sun. No more reply than from a breaking string, Breaking when touched. Or is she not my star? Where is my Star — my Star? Have ye cast down Her glory like my glory? Has she waxed Mortal, like Adam? Has she learnt to hate Like any angel?

She is sad for thee. All things grow sadder to thee, one by one.

Live, work on, O Earthy! By the Actual's tension, Speed the arrow worthy Of a pure ascension! From the low earth round you, Reach the heights above you: From the stripes that wound you, Seek the loves that love you! God's divinest burneth plain Through the crystal diaphane Of our loves that love you.

Gabriel, O Gabriel!

What wouldst thou with me?

Is it true, O thou Gabriel, that the crown Of sorrow which I claimed, another claims? That HE claims THAT too?

Lost one, it is true.

That HE will be an exile from his heaven, To lead those exiles homeward?

It is true.

That HE will be an exile by his will, As I by mine election?

It is true.

That I shall stand sole exile finally,— Made desolate for fruition?

It is true.

Gabriel!

I hearken.

Is it true besides — Aright true — that mine orient Star will give Her name of “Bright and Morning-Star” to HIM,— And take the fairness of his virtue back To cover loss and sadness?

It is true.

UNtrue, UNtrue! O Morning Star, O MINE, Who sittest secret in a veil of light Far up the starry spaces, say — Untrue! Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon To Tyrrhene waters. I am Lucifer.

All things grow sadder to me, one by one.

Exiled human creatures, Let your hope grow larger! Larger grows the vision Of the new delight. From this chain of Nature's God is the Discharger, And the Actual's prison Opens to your sight.

Calm the stars and golden In a light exceeding: What their rays have measured Let your feet fulfil! These are stars beholden By your eyes in Eden, Yet, across the desert, See them shining still!