They, in that last look, surveyed
The love they lost in losing heaven,
And passionately flee
With a desolate cry that cleaves
The natural storms--though _they_ are lifting
God's strong cedar-roots like leaves,
And the earthquake and the thunder,
Neither keeping either under,
Roar and hurtle through the glooms--
And a few pale stars are drifting
Past the dark, to disappear,
What time, from the splitting tombs Gleamingly
the dead arise,
Viewing with their death-calmed eyes
The elemental strategies,
To witness, victory is the Lord's.
Elizabeth Browning
_ Finished is the demon reign.
_Ador._ His breath, as living God, createth,
His breath, as dying man, completeth.
_Angel Voices._ Finished work his hands sustain.
_The Earth._ In mine ancient sepulchres
Where my kings and prophets freeze,
Adam dead four thousand years,
Unwakened by the universe's
Everlasting moan,
Aye his ghastly silence mocking--
Unwakened by his children's knocking
At his old sepulchral stone,
"Adam, Adam, all this curse is
Thine and on us yet!"--
Unwakened by the ceaseless tears
Wherewith they made his cerement wet,
"Adam, must thy curse remain?"--
Starts with sudden life and hears
Through the slow dripping of the caverned caves,--
_Angel Voices._ Finished is his bane.
_Voice from the Cross._ FATHER! MY SPIRIT TO THINE HANDS IS GIVEN.
_Ador._ Hear the wailing winds that be
By wings of unclean spirits made!
They, in that last look, surveyed
The love they lost in losing heaven,
And passionately flee
With a desolate cry that cleaves
The natural storms--though _they_ are lifting
God's strong cedar-roots like leaves,
And the earthquake and the thunder,
Neither keeping either under,
Roar and hurtle through the glooms--
And a few pale stars are drifting
Past the dark, to disappear,
What time, from the splitting tombs Gleamingly
the dead arise,
Viewing with their death-calmed eyes
The elemental strategies,
To witness, victory is the Lord's.
Hear the wail o' the spirits! hear!
_Zerah._ I hear alone the memory of his words.
EPILOGUE.
I.
My song is done.
My voice that long hath faltered shall be still.
The mystic darkness drops from Calvary's hill
Into the common light of this day's sun.
II.
I see no more thy cross, O holy Slain!
I hear no more the horror and the coil
Of the great world's turmoil
Feeling thy countenance _too still_,--nor yell
Of demons sweeping past it to their prison.
The skies that turned to darkness with thy pain
Make now a summer's day;
And on my changed ear that sabbath bell
Records how CHRIST IS RISEN.
