No More Learning

Or are we lost? Hath not the ill we did
Been heretofore our good?
Is it not ill that one, all sinless, should
Hang heavy with all curses on a cross?
Nathless, that cry! With huddled faces hid
Within the empty graves which men did scoop
To hold more damned dead, we shudder through
What shall exalt us or undo,
Our triumph, or our loss.

_Voice from the Cross. _ IT IS FINISHED.

_Zerah. _ Hark, again!
Like a victor, speaks the slain.

_Angel Voices. _ Finished be the trembling vain!

_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!