Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,
The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes
Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.
No fault the microscope could have revealed,
Though magnifying many million times.
So great my wonder, that I could not move,
But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;
Till wearied with my long delay, he raised
His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,
As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh
Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang
Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”
A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,
That made me cling in terror, and we swept
From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams
Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged
Straight to the frowning cloud.
My very brain
Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,
And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,
Except the steady beat of fanning wings,
That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.
The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met
Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across
My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;
They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,
And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;
But swerving not to right or left, we pressed
Straight onward to the goal.
At last I reined
My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,
And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,
Up to the very summit. Then I paused.
Behind me lay the world with all its hum
Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,
The village gleaming white amid the trees;
The very orchard I had left, now seemed
A downy nest of green, and far away
I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,
With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.
Behind all was serene, before me seethed
The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.
Thick clouds,
Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside
We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,
And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast
Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,
As if the fiends of Hell concocted there
The scalding beverage of the damned.
My horse
Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,
That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,
And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,
Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck
Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,
Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain
Was bursting with the fervid weight.
He stopped
Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,
As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,
And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,
The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed
Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped
Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls
Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides
“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form
Of every object there,--a trembling wretch,
With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,
Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,
I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made
Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,
With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;
While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,
At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,
The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,
With every breath and every slightest sound.
And in the center of the glowing room,
Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,
Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.
He gazed upon me with such pitying look,
And yet withal so stern, that all my pride
Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,
I ran with trembling haste and near the throne
Kneeled down.
“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared
To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”
And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,
And out before me lay Immensity.
The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,
Dissolved away close to my very feet,
The walls contracted their three sides in one,
And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,
Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,
That clicked its thousand little globes of air,
With every motion of my feet.
Far down
Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,
So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,
The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,
And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade
Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought
’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath
The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds
Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.
And long I looked into the vast black throat,
To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,
Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;
No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,
No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,
No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;
As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,
Defying light, the empty hall of Space,
Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.--
A grand eternal night!
I shuddering turned,
With freezing blood to think of falling there,
And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.
The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved
Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.
The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,
Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam
That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.
With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;
The moveless wings were not extended straight,
But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,
As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed
Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne
Out level, like another wing; his feet
With slow ellipses moving alternate,
As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand
To see his graceful form, more snowy white
Against the black relief, sublimely float
Across the dark profound, and down its depths,
Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars
Beyond our vision in the azure sky,
We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,
So I stood wondering if he would return,
And what his destination down th’ abyss.
Above, around, all was infinitude
Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,
In mazy multitude, without a jar,
Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns
In systems, farther yet and farther still,
Till multiplying millions mingled formed
A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond
The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,
That flamed with brightness so ineffable
The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,
Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed
A radiance that illumed the Universe,
And down across the chasm of Chaos flung
A wavering band of purple and of gold.
And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes
Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,
Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,
Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.--
I felt too insignificant to pray,
But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.
He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,
And left a narrow opening in front.
Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,
Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.
A seed that would have slain me with its haste,
Had not the Angel been so near.
As on the cars,
We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,
Or shudder at an engine rattling by;
So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,
In clustering systems, chained by gravity,
Flash by an endless course. A second’s time
Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,
That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit
The very Universe. Then systems came,
Round which our system moves, and these
Round others, till the series grew so vast
I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,
Our telescopic giantess, a babe
Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,
The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,
Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!
And after all that we have known or named
On Earth were far behind, the millions came
In endless multitude; and on we swept,
Till worlds became a dull monotony,
And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.
A planet wheels its huge proportions past,
Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,
That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;
A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,
Roars out a moment at our narrow door
As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,
Casting a weird and momentary gleam
Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;
A meteor tears its whizzing way along,
All showering off the scintillating sparks
That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs
Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail
Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,
That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.
And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,
A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,
And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand
On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.
Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed
Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.
No world, no sun, no object passed the door;
The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,
Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,
Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,
And I had near forgotten Earth and home.
And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared
That we approached a sun, so infinite
In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.
We came to rest, the curtains fell away,
And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.
And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,
Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,
But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,
No object near, on which it could reflect,
It formed the very atmosphere itself,
An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,
And ever live without its fleshly food.
No object near, for on the farthest bounds
Of space immense as mortal can conceive,
Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,
Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,
And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.
No object near, for farther than the motes,
The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,
Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.
How grand!
From infinite to infinite extent
The glittering battlements were spread, the height
Above conception, built of purest gold,
Yet gold transparent, for I could discern
Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,
And all the wondrous workmanship divine,
That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues
In perfect union; and bright happy fields,
That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst
The crystal river ran. And through the scenes
Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,
From million varied, purified desires.
Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,
And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;
But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.
Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,
So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,
That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,
And in each arch was fixed a giant bell
Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,
A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,
That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,
And as a clapper swung within its circ,
Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly
Against the rigid side. And as the saved
Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,
Before the gates, the bells began their swing;
And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,
Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,
And then it fell against the bounding side.
And loud and long their booming thunder
Rends the golden air asunder,
While the ransomed, passing under,
Fall in praise beneath the bells,
Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;
And the Angels hush their harps in wonder--
Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!
Gentler now, the silver’s shiver
Purls the rippling waves that quiver
Through the ether’s tide forever,
Mellow as they left the bells,
Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;
And the quavers play adown the river--
Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!
Then the dreamy cadence dying,
Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;
Faintest echoes cease replying
To the murmur of the bells,
Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,
Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying--
Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!
And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed
A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.
From one came forth a band of choristers,
With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,
Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.
Although so far away, that purest air
Brought every note exquisite to my ear.
’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar
Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give
My pitiful existence, once again
To hear the strains that floated to me then,
So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;
Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,
They almost died away, then louder rose,
And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,
That trembled with the diapason grand;
Until eternal echoes caught the strain,
And glory in the highest swelled sublime.
Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,
Till from another gate, another host
Marched forth, the armies of the living God.
Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,
And at their head the tall Archangel strode.
How grandly terrible his mien! His face
Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;
The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown
The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,
The depths of distance piercing with their glance;
The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,
Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,
That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke
Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,
That as he paused a moment in the gate
His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.
He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword
Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright
As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue--
A sword, that falling flatly on the host
Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush
A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth
Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.
Unfolding wings would shake a continent,
He floated down the depths. Behind him came
A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,
Save presence of command.
I wondered not
That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,
And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.
And from Creation’s little corner came
The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms
Their charges during life. As laden bees,
They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by
So closely I their burdens could discern;
And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,
The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.
Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,
As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,
Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face
Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some
The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,
And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed
A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;
Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,
Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;
Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,
And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;
Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,
And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,
So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,
To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;
And some the maiden form bore lovingly,
So fair, they seemed twin sisters.
And I saw,
That, passing through the amber air, they caught
Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,
The livid to the radiant. Then as they
Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,
And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.
And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,
The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.
He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,
And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes
Were opened, and they lived!
And then I knew
What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,
With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;
The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,
And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,
That like the sword of Damocles impends,
And none may tell its fall.
And worse than flesh,
The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;
Its chafings at its puling impotence,
Its longing after things beyond its reach,
Its craving after knowledge never given,
Its constant discontent with present time,
Its looking towards a future, that but breaks
To light alone in distance, never near;
Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,
And loss of golden opportunities;
Its consciousness of merit none admit,
Its sense of gross injustice from the world;
The forced reflections on the sway of self,
And consequent contempt for all mankind,
Or shameful servitude to their regard;
The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;
The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,
The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,
The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,
That whispers all our labor here is vain,
That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!
To leave all these, and find a perfect life,
To know that Heaven is sure eternally,
That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,
That death shall never come again. The mind
In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden
Spread out before its ken; a sweet content
Pervading every thought, because “just now”
Yields happiness as great as future years;
Because Life’s highest end is now attained.
The consciousness of merit, with reward
Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home
Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate
Within its sacred walls, but all pure love
Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,
A gratitude that all Eternal life
Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough
To lie before the Throne, and ever cry
Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!
The vast tranquillity of those who feel
That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!
The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,
And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light
We moved towards the City. On the steps,
In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,
Lest all the panorama should dissolve.
I cared not that I was unfit to go,
I cared not that I must return to Earth;
I felt one moment in the Golden walls
Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”
The glory of its music, and its light,
Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.
Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,
Familiar faces of the telescope,
We sped, while on the last confines of space,
The City lay with golden halo girt.
The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;
And far enough to take a hemisphere
At single glance, we paused. The little globe
Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,
With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;
Thus trundling on its journey round the sun
While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.
As rustic lad, who visits some great town,
Returns ashamed of humble country home,
So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought
Was once so great.
The Angel pointed down,
And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!
Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls
Himself the measure of the Universe!
Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools
His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots
The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms
The largest white one, see, is laboring now
Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;
What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom
That drifts along the ripples of a brook!
Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;
The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.
See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!
Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,
But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps
Across the landscape like a score of ants
Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.
’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch
Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!
Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;
Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,
Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,
And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe
On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,
Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes--
One little gap of Earth, and not a spire
Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust
Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.
And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,
They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;
He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!
The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,
While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”
How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags
Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,
And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;
When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!
“He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;
His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,
That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.
What different views above and underneath!
From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,
And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,
And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;
The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,
Beneath the level of the hills around,
The captive still of watchful gravity.
Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms
Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;
These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread
The very Earth doth tremble, now they join
In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks
Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,
Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;
The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,
The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword
Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,
The bayonets like ripples on a lake.
How palsied every arm, how still each heart!
If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared
Above their heads--not that faint mutter thou
Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,
But when a meteor curves immensity,
And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash
Thy world an atom from their path. But God
Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere
Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar
Of pealing salvos, that reverberate
Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.
Yet thou,
The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared
To question God’s designs. Know then that He
Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.
The coral architect beneath the wave
Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun
That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs
The mechanism of a Universe,
Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,
And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge
Falls not without His notice. Magnitude
Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;
The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,
In adaptation to its end displays
God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony
Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.
A tendency towards perfection’s end
Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,
The polity Divine is leading Earth.
Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;
And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,
Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.
The order of this sequence, Man doth learn
In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;
And thus is formed a general harmony.
Although the individual may oppose,
His forseen freedom, acting in a net
Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.
The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,
Invasive floods rouse national energies,
Or, mingling, form a greater people still;
Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,
And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,
Who build its walls far stronger than before.
Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,
You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts
About God’s providence are based on gold.
The wicked have it, and the righteous not.
What you assert is oftenest reversed,
And in a census of the world, you’d find
The good, in every land, the wealthiest.
But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;
But only where free-will and circumstance
May join in general progress. Gold is good!
Then good depends on use of circumstance,
And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!
For were the righteous only blessed, all men
Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,--
The most devout, who love their money best;
And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,
That they be done for good, within itself,
And not for benefit to be conferred.
Then for your doubts about the righteous poor;
A certain law is fixed for general good,--
Some actions yield a gain and some a loss.
A wicked man may use the first, and gain,
A righteous man may use the last, and lose;
The wicked does not gain by wickedness,
But by compliance with this natural law.
The righteous, still as righteous, might have gained
By different course of conduct, had he known;
But his condition now, can but be changed
By special miracle; but miracles,
In favor of the righteous, would destroy
All strife for good as good.
Their compensation in another world;
The poor may find
And even here, in consciousness of right,
In surety of Heav’n, and peace of mind.
And in the case you’ve stated, like all those
Who talk as you have done, you overdraw,
And color more with Fancy than with Truth.
You’ll find no widow, perfect in her trust,
As you’ve described, who is so destitute.
Go search the lanes and alleys; where you find
The greatest squalor, there is greatest crime;
For poverty is oftenest but a name
For reckless vice, and vile depravity.
Your case is but exception to the rule,
And not the rule, of Providence. To give
The righteous, only, wealth and worldly store
Would take away Man’s freedom, and all good.