No More Learning

_Ador. _ Upward, like a well-loved son,
Looketh he, the orphaned one.

_Angel Voices. _ Finished is the mystic pain.

_Voices of Fallen Angels. _ His deathly forehead at the word,
Gleameth like a seraph sword.

_Angel Voices. _ 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.