Festus - Xliii

Ill, now released, Reckless of late discomfiture, as head Of human strife 'gainst heaven, God's ends world--wide, Inapt to appreciate, as his woeful fiends He erst had promised, makes, an angel tells To earth's dear saints, and how, one last and worst, Attempt to o'erthwart God's just design. But as when Some red volcano, scattering burning death, The aggregated ire of ages lifts Off earth's heart, saved from sphere--disruptive woes, So, evil's ultimate force, hell's following, tends, In way unthought, unreckoned by itself, To goodward, vanquished by almighty good. Paradisal Earth. Angels and Saints--An Angel descending; Festus. Saint. Whence art thou? Angel. I? from heaven, and thither tend;-- One moment here to bid all souls prepare. Our Lord, the prince of peace eternal, comes With his victorious hosts, to judge the world. Saint. What victory hath our Liberator now gained? Angel. One final, over death and hell. Shout, earth! Thy freedom is accomplished, and thy foes Brought down to endless ruin. Saint. Angel, speak! We burn to learn the tidings of this war, Whereof thou tellest and doubtless wast a part. Angel. Hot from the fight I come. This lightning blade Hath holpen well to thin the infernal rout, Which back hath fled to hell, howling like winds. But let me, at your will, ye peaceful saints, Relate what happed to us, from first. The hour Was come in God--home when the Son of Man, Bowing his head before the Omnipotent, Who doubled every blessing infinite Wherewith he had enriched his only One From first, rose from his glorious throne, and stepped Into his sun--bright car, calling aloud His angels to attend him while he went To judge the earth, as foreordained of old; That heaven and earth might view the majesty And mercy of the God of all. We came, Selectest spirits, countless; crowded bright As the great stream of stars which flows through heaven, Fast by the foot of God, each wave a world; Eager to eye this act of glory long Talked of in bliss, and now to be achieved. Forth from the starry towers, and world--wide walls, Of heaven, we set in high and silent joy, And journeyed half our way through space, when lo! A sight which checked the foremost flaming ranks, That halted frontwise, working doubt at first, But triumph after. Shielded and drawn up close, Behind a broken and decaying world, From whence the light had vanished like the light Out of a death--shrunk eye, sat Lucifer-- Midst in the power of darkness, and the hosts Of hell, enthroned sublime; and all were still As ambushed silence round the foe of God. But oh! how changed from him we knew in heaven, Whose brightness nothing made might match nor mar; Who rose and it was morn; who stretched his wing, Or stepped, from star to star; so changed he showed Most like a shadowy meteor, through whose guise The stars dim glint--woe--wasted, pined with pain. And by his side there sate or shrank a shape We angels knew not, but the Son of God Knew him, and called him Death; whom when he saw, Arousing, after, out of sleep intense, That unrealmed tyrant drew his mortal dart, And drave it through himself,--a shade, shade--quelled. Then to that chief of mischief and his fiends, Who, thick as burning stones that from the throat Of mount eruptive foul the benighted sky, Shot up triumphant into air, as they Beheld our ranks move on, thus spake our Lord,-- Now wrathfully, but sternly pitying: Hell's wretched remnant! wherefore crouch ye here? Is it to sue destruction, or to bar My passage? If it be, in both ye err. And will ye trust yourselves again to war With me, God--missioned? Have I not overcome Ye separately both? Speak, brutal Death? Fit follower and fellow to all woes,-- Wherefore this instantaneous haste from hell, And both from Hadëan bondage, thus again So soon to compass mightiest wickedness, And tempt extremest wrath? Speak, head of hell! To him thus Lucifer: Paternal Son! Prince of the face of God, first--born of heaven, Head of all angels, truth--fulfilling Lord, Thy power I defy not; but in peace I war with fate. My life is to destroy. Evil hath more activity, if good More strength: and one must wear the other out. The more august the sin, so much the more Is my necessity. Yon earth hath been The battle plain of heaven and hell. From God, Who knoweth all things, and from thee to whom Like knowledge he imparts, 'twere vain to hide My purpose, which for a thousand years, the years Of bondage, hath grown in me and lived on, Toad--like within a rock--vital where all Beside was death--to seize the nascent souls Of men as they rerose from death to life, And sweep them off in midst of all these hosts Assembled for that cause here as thou seest, To hell;--the universal race of man. But if ordained that not on them, but thee And thine, old hate shall satisfy itself, Approach no nearer: for we live by death;-- Or turn the tide of fate, thou sole who canst! Ceasing thereat, his host upraised a shout Which shook the stars revibrant. Then to him Our Lord spake tolerantly: It is well God rules. Lo! to what base extremes infernal pride Can push a princely spirit once in heaven. Thee we will not destroy now, for thine hour Hath yet to come--when least thou thinkest it. God's wrath thou hast endured in punishment, Not yet his power. Away! I warn ye hence, Ere wrath ride forth again. To him the Fiend Answered: God rules not us the unordered damned, Nor recks of hell. For ages past belief, Unless by those who like ourselves denied Thine own eternity--by creature mind, However lofty, hardly compassed--we Our pain have borne without remorse, or sign Of pity from our Maker. Shall we now Believe, while thus confronting him again, He means us better? Never worse than now. Therefore I say to ye, On! mightiest fiends, On! Let us reap companions for our woes, Or earn annihilation! As when of old, By bard, or soothsayer--but in vain--averred, The swiftening shadow of some baleful god, Himself impalpable, swept through air, and lo! A high towered city tottered to its foot, Rock--arched; or many breasted fleet, lay strewn, Straggling, like leaflets torn from out a book, Upon the tide intempested; so bent To involve all soul in ruin, flew the fiend Towards his marked prey. At the mere word, to bar His way depute, whose ways are over all His works, hell's fiery phalanx instant rushed. A million spears blazed forth their challenge bright, As of as many tongues. Serene our ranks Stood like the stars o'er thunder. God the Son Sate in his orbèd car, and breathed on them; And they were rolled up like the desert sands Before the burning wind,--throne wrecked on throne, All ruined and fordone. Pursue! he cried, Nor let them near the earth I go to judge. And we pursued, as many as he chose, And chased from sphere to sphere that wretched wreck Of falsest fiends:--and I, it seems, am first Of all my victor brethren, to declare The triumph passed and coming; and your hearts With tidings cheer of him to whom be due Lauds for his so efficient breath. Saint. Behold Another warrior angel from on high, Like angels, singly always or in hosts. Angel. It is the most dread Azrael, unto whom, Exterminative, Death's sword is given as boon. Saint. What sayst thou heavenly one? Azrael. To the extreme bound Of light's domain we chased the flying foe, Who on the confines of the lower air Once rallied at their leader's stern command, Whom more they fear, or seem to fear, than God. They halted, formed, and faced us. I and mine As on we came in order, full career, Exalted by success, hoped ardently One more convincing contest: but in spite Of future woe, or the tempestuous threats Of the great fiend who marshalled them, each eyed His neighbour pale; their trembling shook all air; And each one lift his arm, but no one struck. Awhile in deadthroelike suspense they stood; Or like the irresolution of the sea At turn of tide;--then, wheeled, and fled amain; And in one mass immense broke down from heaven, Cliff--like; there, let them lie. Such fate have fiends; Such self--accumulate loss, such home, such hell. Festus. And saw'st thou hell, the abode of fiends? Azrael. We saw; Nor unsurprised; for round the mountain walls Chasmy, that prop hell's nebulous domelet, dun And dim as a star quenched, that regropes its way To chaos, and to nothing, gleamed in light Untarnishable these just words; God is love; Corrective, perfective: hope, spirits never To quit, save by due penitence, and consent With law divine: thence hope; thence liberty; Thence heaven. Be these yours now and ever. Hope! So angels fallen may yet to upper spheres Gradually evade, or elsewise as fate rules; But there now, flouting fate, the recreant rests Of that huge host, once world--compact, astound At their own ruinous failure; forceless now Their caitiff force for ever, as 'twould seem, Self--blamed, all troubled, each other chiding, groan. And we returned, hoping to meet, as charge To all was given, the Lord our glory here.